 This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. The Bushfire. From the collection of Children of the Bush by Henry Lawson. Chapter 1. Squatter and Selector Wool was a squatter and a hard man. There had been long years of drought and loss. And then came the rabbit pests. The rabbit swarmed like flies over his run. And cropped the ground bare where even the poor grass might have saved thousands of sheep. And the rabbit cost the squatter hundreds of pounds in rabbit-proof fences. Trappers, wages, etc. Just to keep them down. Then came arrangements with the bank. And then Wool's wife died. Wool started to breed over other days. And the days that had gone between and developed a temper. Which drove his children from home, one by one. Tiloni Mary was left. She managed the lonely home with the help of the half-cast. Then in good seasons came the selectors. Men remembered Wool as a grand boss and a good fellow. But that was in the days before rabbits and banks. And syndicates. And pastoralists. Or pastoral companies instead of good squatters. Runs were mostly pastoral leases. For which the squatter paid the government so much per square mile. Almost a nominal rank. Selections were small holdings taken up by farmers under residential and other conditions and paid for by instalments. If you were not ruined by the drought and paid up long enough, the land became free-hold. The writer is heir to a dusty patch of 300 acres or so in the scrub. Which was taken up 30 years ago and isn't free-hold yet. Selectors were allowed to take up land on runs or pastoral leases as well as on unoccupied crown lands. And as they secured the best bits of land and on water frontages if they could. And as, of course, selections reduced the area of the run. The squatters loved selectors like elder brothers. One man is allowed to select only a certain amount of land. And required by law to live on it. So the squatters bought as much free-hold about the homestead as they could afford. Selected as much as they are allowed to by law. And sometimes employed dummy selectors to take up choice bits about the runs and hold them for them. They fought selectors in many various ways. And, in some cases, annoyed and persecuted them with devilish ingenuity. Ross was a selector and a very hard man physically. He was a short, nuggety man with black hair and a frill beard, a little dusty. Bushy black eyebrows, piercing black eyes, horny knotted hands and the obstinacy or pluck of a dozen men in fight. Drought and the squatter. Ross selected on walls run in a bend of Sandy Creek, a nice bit of land with a black soil. Flat and red soil, sidings from the ridges which no one had noticed before. And with the help of his boys he got the land cleared and fenced in a year or two. Taking Bush contracts about the district between Wiles to make Tucker for the family until he got his first crop off. Wool was never accused of employing dummies or underhanded methods in dealing with selectors. But he had been through so much and had brooded so long that he had grown very hard and bitter and suspicious. And the reverse of generous as many men do who start out in life too. Soft and good-hearted and with too much faith in human nature. He was a tall, dark man. He ordered Ross's boys off the run. Impounded Ross's stock before Ross had got his fencing finished. Summoned Ross for trespass and Ross retaliated as well as he could. Until at last that might not have been safe for one of those men to have met the other with a gun. The impounding of the selectors' cattle led to the last bad quarrel between Wool and his son Billy. Who was the tall, good-natured corn store? And who reckoned that Australia was big enough for all of us? One day in the drought and in an extra-bitter mood, Wool heard that some of his sheep had been dogged in the vicinity of Ross's selection. And he ordered Billy to take a station hand and watch Ross's place all night. And if Ross's cattle put their noses over the boundary to drive them to the pound 15 miles away. Also to lay poison baits for the dogs all round the selection, and Billy flatly refused. I know Ross and the boys, he said, and I don't believe they dogged the sheep. Why? They've only got a newfound land pup and an old lamb, one-eyed sheepdog that couldn't hurt a flea. Now, Father, this sort of thing has been going on long enough. What difference does a few poultry acres make to us? The country is big enough, God knows. Ross is a straight man and, for God's sake, give the man a chance to get his ground fenced in. He's doing it as fast as he can, and he can't watch his cattle day and night. Are you going to do as I tell you, or are you not, shouted Wool? Well, if it comes to that, I'm not, said Billy. I'm not going to sneak round a place all night and watch for a chance to pound a poor man's cows. It was an awful row down behind the Wool shed, and things looked so bad that old Peter, the station hand, who was a witness, took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, ready, as he said afterwards, to roll into either the father or the son if one raised a hand against the other. Father, said Billy, though rather sobered by the sight of his father's trembling, choking passion. Do you call yourself an Englishman? Yes, yell Wool, furiously. What the hell do you call yourself? If it comes to that, I'm an Australian, said Billy. And he turned away and went to catch his horse. He went up country and knocked about in the northwest for a year or two. End of chapter one. Chapter two, Romeo and Juliet. Mary Wool was 25. She was an Australian bush girl, every inch of her five foot nine. She had a pink and white complexion, dark blue eyes, blue black hair, and the finest figure in the district, on horseback or a foot. She was the best girl rider, too, saddle or bareback. And they say that when she was a tomboy, she used to tuck her petticoats under her and gallop man fashion through the scrub. After horses or cattle, she said she was going to be an old maid. There came a Jackaroo on a visit to the station. He was related to the bank, with which Wool had relations. He was a dude with an expensive education and no brains. He was very vain of his education and prospects. He regarded Mary with undisguised admiration. And her father had secret hopes. One evening, the Jackaroo was down by the homestead gate when Mary came cantering home on her tall chestnut. The gate was six feet or more, and the Jackaroo raised his hat and hastened to open it. But Mary rained her horse back a few yards, and the dude had barely time to jump aside when there was a scuffle of hoofs on the road, a ha ha ha in mid-air, a landing thud. And the girl was away up the home track in a cloud of dust. A few days later, the Jackaroo happened to be at Kelly's, a wayside shanty, watching a fight between two bushmen when Mary rode up. She knew the men. She whipped her horse in between them and struck at first one and then the other with a riding whip. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, she said. And both married men too. It evidently struck them that way. For after a bit, they shook hands and went home. And I wouldn't have married that girl for a thousand pounds, said the Jackaroo, relating the incidents to some friends in Sydney. Mary said she wanted a man if she could get one. There was no life at home nowadays, so Mary went to all the bush dances in the district. She thought nothing of riding 20 or 30 miles to a dance, dancing all night and riding home again the next morning. At one of these dances, she met young Robert Ross, a clean, limbed, good-looking young fella, about her own age. She danced with him and liked him, and danced with him again. And he rode part of the way home with her. The subject of the quarrel between the two homes came up gradually. The boss, said Robert, meaning his father. The boss is always ready to let bygones be bygones. It's a pity it couldn't be fixed up. Yes, said Mary, looking at him. Bob looked very well on horseback. It is a pity. They met several times. A next Prince of Wales birthday, they rode home from the races together. Both had good horses, and they happened to be far ahead of the others on the wide, straight, clear road that ran between the walls of the scrub. Along about dusk, they became very confidential indeed. Mary had remarked what a sad and beautiful sunset it was. The horses got confidential, too, and shouldered together and touched noses and after a long interval in the conversation, during which Robert, for one, began to breathe quickly, he suddenly leaned over, put his arm round her waist and made to kiss her. She jerked her body away, threw up her whip hand, and Robert ducked instinctively. But she brought her whip down on her horse's flanking stand and raced ahead. Robert followed, or rather, his horse did. He thought it was a race and took the bit in his teeth. Robert kept calling, appealing. Wait a while, Mary. I want to explain. I want to apologise. For God's sake, listen to me, Mary. But Mary didn't hear him. Perhaps she misunderstood the reason of the chase and gave him credit for a spice of the devil in his nature. But Robert grew really desperate. He felt that the thing must be fixed up now or never and gave his horse a free reign. Her horse was the fastest and Robert galloped in the dust from his heels for about a mile and a half. Then, at the foot of her eyes, Mary's horse stumbled and nearly threw her over his head. Then he stopped like the good horse he was. Robert got down, feeling instinctively that he might best make his piece on foot and approached Mary with a face of misery. She had dropped her whip. Oh, Bob, she said, I'm knocked out and she slipped down into his arms and stayed there a while. They sat on a log and rested while their horses made inquiries of each other's noses and compared notes. And after a good while, Mary said, No, Bob, it's no use talking and marrying just yet. I like you, Bob. But I could never marry you while things are as they are between your father and mine. Now, that'll do. Let me get on my horse, Bob. I'll be safer there. Why, asked Bob. Come on, Bob. And don't be stupid. She met him often and liked him. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3. A trance match and what it did. This Christmas Eve at Walsh, but there was no school or sewer buggies and horses and dozens of strange dogs round the place as a vole. The glasses and the decanters were dusty on the heavy old-fashioned sideboard in the dining room. And there was only a sullen, brooding man leaning over the hurdles and looking at his reins in the yard. And a sullen, brooding half-cast at work in the kitchen. And he had ridden away that morning to visit a girl chum. It was towards the end of a long drought and the country was like tinder for hundreds of miles round. The ground for miles and miles in the broiling scrubs has various your hand or covered with coarse dry tufts. There was feed grass in places but you had to look close to see it. Shearing had finished the day before but there was a black boy and a station hand with two about the yards and six or eight shearers and roustabouts and a teamster camped in the men's huts. They were staying over the holidays to shear stragglers and clean up generally. Old Peter and a jackaroo were out on the run watching a bushfire across Sandy Creek. A swagman had happened to call at the station that morning. He asked for work and then for tucker. He irritated war but it was the first time that a swagman had been turned away from the station without tucker. Swaggy went along the track some miles brooding over his wrongs and crossed Sandy Creek. He struck a match and dropped it into a convenient tuft of grass in a likely patch of tufts with dead grass running from it up into the scrubbery ridges. Then he hurried on. Did you ever see a bushfire not sheets of flame sweeping and roaring from treetop to treetop but the snaggy hissing grassfire of hardwood country. The whole country covered with thin blue smoke so that you never know in what direction the fire is travelling. At night you see it like the lighted streets of cities in the distant ranges. It roars up the hollows of dead trees and gives them the appearance of factory chimneys in the dusk. It climbs by shreds of bark the trunks of old dead white box and blue gums solid and hard as cast iron and cuts off the limbs. And where there's a piece of recently ring barked country with the dead leaves still on the trees the fire will roar from bow to bow a fair imitation of a softwood forest fire. The bushfire travels through the scrubs for hundreds of miles taking the grass to the roots scorching the living bush but leaving it alive. For gumbush it's hardest of any to kill. Where there is no undergrowth and the country seems bare as a road for miles the fire will cross licking up invisible straws of grass, dusty leaves twigs and shreds of bark on the hard ground running in the drought. You hear of a fire miles away and next day riding across the head of a gully you hear a hissing and crackling and there is the fire running over the ground in lines and curves a thin blue smoke snake like with all vlogs blazing on the blackened ground behind. Did you ever hear a fire where a fire should not be there is something hellish in the sound of it when the breeze is say from the east the fire runs round western spurs up sheltered gullies helped by an eddy in the wind perhaps and appears along the top of the ridge ready with a change in the wind to come down on the farms and fields of right wheat with the front miles long a selector might be protected by a wide sandy creek in front and wide cleared roads behind and any hour in the day or night a shout from the father end of the wheat paddock and oh my god the wheat wall didn't mind this fire much most of his sheep were on their way out back to a back run where there was young grass and the dry ridges along the creek would be better for a burning off only he had to watch his fences but about dusk Mary came galloping home in her usual drape neck fashion father she cried turn out the men and send them at once the fire is all down by Ross's farm and he has ten acres of wheat standing and no one at home but him and Bob how do you know ground wall then suddenly and suspiciously have you been there I came home that way well let Ross look after his own snow of the father but he can't father they're fighting the fire now and they'll be burnt out before morning if they don't get help for God's sake father act like a Christian and send them in remember it is Christmas time father you're surely not going to see a neighbour burnt out yes I am shout at wall I'd like to see every selector in the country burnt out hut and all get off that horse and go inside if a man leaves the station tonight he'd needn't come back just last for the benefit of the men's hut but father get off that horse and go inside road wall I won't what he darted forward as though to drag her from the saddle but she swung her horse away stop where are you going to help Ross said Mary he had no one to send for help then go the same way as your brother or her father and if you show your nose back again I'll horse whip you off the run I'll go father said Mary and she was away end of chapter 3 chapter 4 the fire at Ross's farm Ross's farm was in a corner between the ridges and the creek the fire had come down from the creek but the siding on that side was fairly clear and they had stopped the fire there it went the ridge and ran up and over the ridge was covered thickly with scrub and dead grass the wheat field went well up the siding and along the top was a bush face with only a narrow bridle track between it and the long dead grass everything depended on the wind Mary saw Ross and Mrs Ross go to Jenny well up the siding above the fence working desperately running to and fro and beating out the fire with green bows Mary left the horse ran into the hut and looked hurriedly round for something to wear in place of her riding skirt she only saw a couple of light print dresses she stepped into a skillion room which happened to be Bob's room and there caught sight of the houses and a coat hanging on the wall Bob Ross beating desperately along a line a fire that curved downhill to his right and half choked and blinded with the smoke almost stumbled against a figure which was too tall to be his father why? who's that? he gasped it's only me Bob said Mary and she lifted her bow again Bob's dead the fire and the wheat Bob was not thin but don't look at me Bob said Mary hurriedly we're going to be married so it doesn't matter let us save the wheat there was no time to waste there was a breeze now from over the ridges light but enough to bear the fire down on them once when they had breathing space Mary ran to the creek for a billy of water they beat out the fire all along the siding to where a rip of granite came down over the ridge to the fence and then they thought the wheat was safe they came together here and Ross had time to look and see who the strange man was then he stared at Mary from under his black bushy eyebrows Mary choking and getting her breath after her exertion suddenly became aware said oh and fled round the track beyond the point she felt a gust of wind and looked up the ridge the bush fence ended here in a corner where it was met by a new wire fence running up from the creek it was a blind gully full of tall dead grass and glancing up Mary saw the flames coming down fast she ran back come on she cried come on the fires the other side of the rocks back at the station looked up and down till he cool he went inside and sat down but it was no use he lifted his head and saw his dead wife's portrait on the wall perhaps his whole life ran before him in detail but this is not a psychological study there were only two tracks open to him now either to give in or go on as he was going to shut himself out from the human nature and become known as mean wall hungry wall or mad wall the squatter he was a tall dark man of strong imaginations and more than ordinary intelligence and it was the great crisis of his ruin life he walked to the top of a knoll near the homestead and saw the fire on the ridges above Ross's farm as he turned back he saw a horseman ride up and dismount by the yard is that you Peter Ross the fences is all right then near Ross's no he's burnt out by this time wall walked to and fro for a few minutes longer then he suddenly stopped and called Peter hey hey from the direction of the huts turn out the men and wall went into a shed and came out with his saddle on his arm the fire rushed down the blind gully showers as sparks fell on the bush fence it caught twice and they put it out but the third time it blazed and roared and a fire engine could not have stopped it the wheat must go said Ross we've done our best and he threw down the blackened bough and leaned against a tree and covered his eyes with a grimy hand the wheat was patchy in that corner there were many old stumps of trees and there were bare strips out of them Mary saw a chance and climbed the fence come on Bob she cried we might say but yeah Mr Ross pulled out the fence along there and she indicated a point beyond the fire they tramped down and tore up the wheat where it ran between the stumps the fire was hissing and crackling round and threw it and just as it ran past them in one place there was a shout a clutter of horses hooves on the stones and Mary saw her father riding up the track with a dozen men behind him she gave a shriek and ran straight down through the middle of the week towards the hut Wall and his men jumped to the ground wrench green boughs from the saplings and after 20 minutes hard fighting the crop was saved saved for a patchy acre or so when it was all over Ross sat down on a log and rested his head on his hands and his shoulders shook presently he held a hand on his shoulder looked up and saw a wall shake hands Ross he said and it was Christmas day but in after years they used to nearly chafe the life out of Mary you were in a great hurry to put on the britches weren't you Mary Bob's best Sunday go meetings too wasn't they Mary rather tight fit wasn't they Mary couldn't get them on now could you Mary but reflected old Peter apart to some cronies it ain't every young chap as gets an idea of the shape of his wife before he marries her is it and that's saying something an old Peter was set down as being an innocent sort of old cove end of the bush car by Henry Wilson this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org cannibalism in the cars a short story by Mark Twain read by Matthew McGraw I visited St. Louis lately and on my way west after changing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana a mild benevolent looking gentleman of about 45 or maybe 50 came in at one of the way stations and sat down beside me we talked together pleasantly on various subjects for an hour perhaps and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining when he learned that I was from Washington he immediately began to ask questions about various public men and about congressional affairs and I saw very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the ins and outs of political life at the capitol even to the ways and manners and customs of procedure of senators and representatives in the chambers of the national legislature presently two men halted nearest for a single moment and one said to the other Paris, if you'll do that for me my new comrades I lighted pleasantly the words had touched upon a happy memory I thought then his face settled into thoughtfulness almost into gloom he turned to me and said let me tell you a story let me give you a secret chapter of my life a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its events transpired listen patiently and promise not interrupt me I said I would not and he related the following strange adventure speaking sometimes with animation sometimes with melancholy but always with feeling and earnestness on the 19th of December 1853 I started from St. Louis on the evening train bound for Chicago there were only 24 passengers all told there were no ladies and no children we were in excellent spirits our relationships were soon formed the journey bade fair to be a happy one and no individual in the party I think had even the vaguest pre-sentiment of the horrors we were soon to undergo at 11 p.m. it began to snow hard shortly after leaving the small village of Weldon we entered upon that tremendous prairie solitude that stretches its leagues on leagues of houseless juriness far away toward the Jubilee settlements the winds unstructed by trees or hills or even vagrant rocks whistled fiercely across the level desert driving the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves of a stormy sea the snow was deepening fast and we knew by the diminished speed of the train that the engine was plowing through it with steadily increasing difficulty indeed it almost came to a dead halt sometimes in the midst of great drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the track conversation began to flag cheerfulness gave place to grave concern the possibility of being imprisoned in the snow on the bleak prairie 50 miles from any house presented itself to every mind and extended its depressing influence over every spirit at 2 o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber by the ceasing of all motion about me the appalling truth flashed upon me instantly we were captives in the snow drift all hands to the rescue every man sprang to obey out into the wild night the pitchy darkness the billowy snow, the driving storm every soul leaped with the consciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all shovels, hands, boards, anything everything that could displace snow was brought into instant requisition it was a weird picture that small company of frantic men fighting the banking snows half in the blackest shadow and half in the angry light of the locomotives reflector one short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts the storm barricaded the track with a dozen drifts we dug one away and worse than this it was discovered that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the enemy had broken the fore and aft shaft of the driving wheel with a free track before us we should still have been helpless we entered the car wearied with labor and very sorrowful we gathered about the stoves and gravely canvassed our situation we had no provisions whatever in this lay our chief distress we could not freeze for there was a good supply of wood in the tender this was our only comfort the discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening decision of the conductor that it would be death for any man to attempt to travel 50 miles on foot through snow like that we could not send for help and even if we could it would not come we must submit and await as patiently as we might sucker or starvation I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary chill when those words were uttered within the hour conversations subsided to a low murmur here and there about the car caught fitfully between the rising and falling of the blast the lamps grew dim and the majority of the castaways settled themselves among the flickering shadows to think they were present if they could to sleep if they might the eternal night it surely seemed eternal to us wore its lagging hours away at last and the cold grey dawn broke in the east as the light grew stronger the passengers began to stir and give signs of life one after another and each in turn pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead stretched his stiffened limbs and glanced out of the windows upon the cheerless prospect it was cheerless indeed not a living thing visible anywhere not a human habitation nothing but a vast white desert uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before the wind a world of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above all day we moped about the cars thinking little, thinking much another lingering dreary night and hunger another dawning another day of silence, sadness wasting hunger hopeless watching for sucker that would not come a night of restless slumber filled with dreams of feasting waking distressed with the knowings of hunger the fourth day came and went and the fifth days of dreadful imprisonment a savage hunger looked out at every eye there was in it a sign of awful import the foreshadowing of a something that was vaguely shaping itself in every heart a something which no tongue dared yet to frame into words the sixth day passed the seventh dawned upon as gaunt and haggard and hopeless a company of men as ever stood out of death it must out now that thing which had been growing up in every heart was ready to leap from every lip at last nature had been taxed to the utmost she must yield Richard H. Gaston of Minnesota tall, cadaverous and pale rose up all knew what was coming all prepared every emotion every semblance of excitement was smothered only a calm thoughtful seriousness appeared in the eyes that were lately so wild gentlemen it cannot be delayed longer the time is at hand we must determine which of us shall die to furnish food for the rest Mr. John J. Williams of Illinois rose and said gentlemen I nominate the reverend James Sawyer of Tennessee Mr. William R. Adams of Indiana said I nominate Mr. Daniel Slote of New York Mr. Charles J. Langdon I nominate Mr. Samuel A. Brown of St. Louis Mr. Slote gentlemen I desire to decline in favor of Mr. John A. Venostrin Jr. of New Jersey Mr. Gaston if there be no objection the gentleman's desire will be acceded to rejecting the resignation of Mr. Slote was rejected the resignation of Messrs. Sawyer and Bowen were also offered and refused upon the same grounds Mr. A. L. Baskham of Ohio I move that the nominations now close and that the house proceed to an election by ballot Mr. Sawyer gentlemen I protest earnestly against these proceedings they are in every way irregular and unbecoming I must beg to move that they be dropped at once and that we elect the chairman of the meeting and proper officers to assist him and then we can go on with the business before us understandingly Mr. Bell of Iowa gentlemen I object this is no time to stand upon forms and ceremonious observances for more than 7 days we have been without food every moment we lose an idle discussion increases our distress I am satisfied with the nominations that have been made every gentleman present is I believe and I for one do not see why we should not proceed at once to elect one or more of them I wish to offer a resolution Mr. Gaston it would be objective too and have to lie over one day under the rules thus bringing about the very delay you wish to avoid the gentleman from New Jersey to have an Austrian gentlemen I am a stranger among you I have not sought the distinction that has been conferred upon me and I feel a delicacy Mr. Morgan of Alabama interrupting I move the previous question the motion was carried and further debate shut off of course the motion to elect officers was passed and under it Mr. Gaston was chosen chairman Mr. Blake secretary chairman Dyer and Baldwin a committee on nominations and Mr. R. M. Howland purveyor to assist the committee in making selections a recess of half an hour was then taken and some little caucusing followed at the sound of the gavel the meeting reassembled and the committee reported in favor of Mr. George Ferguson of Kentucky Lucian Herman of Louisiana and W. Messick of Colorado the report was accepted Mr. Rogers of Missouri Mr. President the report being properly before the house now I move to amend it by substituting for the name of Mr. Herman that of Mr. Lucius Harris of St. Louis who is well and honorably known to us all I do not wish to be understood as casting the least reflection upon the high character in standing of the gentleman from Louisiana far front respect and esteem him as much as any gentleman here present possibly can but none of us can be blind to the fact that he had lost more flesh during the week that we have lain here than any among us none of us can be blind to the fact that the committee has been derelict in its duty either through negligence or a grave fault in thus offering for our suffrages a gentleman who however pure his motives may be has really less nutriment in him the chair the gentleman from Missouri will take his seat the chair cannot allow the integrity of the committee to be questioned saved by the regular course under the rules what action will the house take upon the gentleman's motion Mr. Halliday of Virginia I move to further amend the report by substituting Mr. Harvey Davis of Oregon for Mr. Messick it may be urged by gentlemen that the hardships and privations of a frontier life have rendered Mr. Davis tough but gentlemen is this the time to cavill at toughness is this a time to be fastidious concerning trifles is this a time to dispute about matters of paltry significance no gentlemen bulk is what we desire substance, weight, bulk these are the supreme requisites now not talent not genius, not education I insist upon my motion Mr. Morgan excitedly Mr. Chairman I do most strenuously object to this amendment the gentleman from Oregon is old and furthermore is bulky only in bone not in flesh I ask the gentleman for Virginia if it is soup we want instead of solid sustenance if he would delude us with shadows if he would mock our suffering with an Oregonian specter I ask him if he can look upon the anxious faces around him if he can gaze into our sad eyes if he can listen to the beating of our expectant hearts and still thrust this famine stricken fraud upon us I ask him if he can think of our desolate state our past sorrows our future and still unpityingly foist upon us this wreck this ruin this tottering swindle this gnarled and blighted and sapless vagabond from Oregon's inhospitable shores never applause the amendment was put to vote after a fiery debate and lost Mr. Harris was substituted the balloting then began five ballots were held without a choice on the sixth Mr. Harris was elected all voting for him but himself it was then moved that his election should be ratified by acclamation which was lost in consequence of his again voting against himself Mr. Radway moved that the house now take up the remaining candidates and go into an election for breakfast this was carried on the first ballot there was a tie half the members favoring one candidate on account of his youth and half favoring the other on account of his superior size the president gave the casting vote for the latter Mr. Messick this decision created considerable dissatisfaction among the friends of Mr. Ferguson the defeated candidate and there was some talk of demanding a new ballot next to it a motion to adjourn was carried and the meeting broke up at once the preparations for supper diverted the attention of the Ferguson faction from the discussion of their grievance for a long time and then when they would have taken it up again the happy announcement that Mr. Harris was ready drove all thought of it to the wins we improvised tables by propping up the backs of car seats and sat down with hearts full of gratitude to the finest supper that blessed our vision for seven torturing days how changed we were from what we had been just a few short hours before hopeless sad-eyed misery hunger feverish anxiety desperation then thankfulness serenity joy too deep for utterance now that I know was the cheriest hour of my eventful life the winds howled and blew the snow wildly about our prison house but they were powerless to distress us anymore I liked Harris he might have been better done perhaps but I am free to say that no man ever agreed with me better than Harris or afforded me so large a degree of satisfaction Messick was very well though rather high-flavored but for genuine nutritiousness and delicacy of fiber give me Harris Messick had his good points I will not attempt to deny it nor do I wish to do it but he was no more fitted for breakfast than a mummy would be sir not a bit Flean? Why bless me and tough ah he was very tough you could not imagine it you could never imagine anything like it do you mean to tell me that do not interrupt me please after breakfast we elected a man by the name Walker from Detroit for supper he was very good I wrote his wife so afterward he was worthy of all praise I shall always remember Walker he was a little rare but very good and then the next morning we had Morgan of Alabama for breakfast he was one of the finest men I ever sat down to handsome educated refined spoke several languages fluently a perfect gentleman he was a perfect gentleman and singularly juicy for supper we had that Oregon patriarch and he was a fraud there is no question about it old scraggie tough nobody can picture the reality I finally said gentlemen you can do as you like but I will wait for another election and Grimes of Illinois said gentlemen I will wait also when you elect a man that has something to recommend him I should be glad to join you again it soon became evident that there was general dissatisfaction with Davis of Oregon and so to preserve the good will that had prevailed so pleasantly since we had had Harris an election was called and the result of it was that Baker of Georgia was chosen he was splendid well after that we had do little and Hawkins and McElroy there was a complaint about McElroy because he was uncommonly short and thin and Penrod and two Smiths and Bailey Bailey had a wooden leg which was clear loss but he was good otherwise and an Indian boy and an organ grinder and a gentleman by the name of Buckminster a poor stick of a vagabond that wasn't any good for company and no account for breakfast we were glad we got him elected and the relief came and so the blessed relief did come at last yes it came one bright sunny morning just after election John Murphy was the choice and there never was a better I am willing to testify but John Murphy came home with us in the train that came to sucker us and lived to marry the widow Harris we looked of we looked of our first choice he married her and is happy and respected yet ah it was like a novel sir it was like a romance this is my stopping place sir I must bid you goodbye any time that you can make it convenient to tarry a day or two with me I shall be glad to have you I like you sir I have conceived an affection for you I could like you as well as I like Harris himself sir good day sir and a pleasant journey he was gone so stunned so distressed so bewildered in my life but in my soul I was glad he was gone with all his gentleness of manner and his soft voice I shuddered whenever he turned his hungry eye upon me and when I heard that I had achieved his perilous affection and that I stood almost with the late Harris in his esteem my heart fairly stood still I was bewildered beyond description I did not doubt his word I could not question a single item in a statement so stamped with the earnestness of truth as his but its dreadful details overpowered me and threw my thoughts into hopeless confusion I saw the conductor looking at me I said who is that man he was a member of Congress once and a good one but he got caught in a snow drift like to have been starved to death he got so frostbitten and frozen up generally and used up for one of something to eat that he was sick and out of his head two or three months afterwards he is alright now only he is a monomaniac and when he gets on that old subject he never stops till he has eat up that whole carload of people he talks about he would have finished the crowd by this time only he had to get out here his name is pat as ABC when he gets them all eat up but himself he always says then the hour for the usual election for breakfast having arrived and there being no opposition I was duly elected after which there being no objections offered I resigned thus I am here I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been listening to the harmless vagaries of a madman the genuine experiences of a bloodthirsty cannibal this has been cannibalism in the cars a short story by Mark Twain read by Matthew McGraw this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org clocks by Jerome K. Jerome there are two kinds of clocks there is the clock that is always wrong and that knows it is wrong and glories in it and there is the clock that is always right except when you rely upon it and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country I remember a clock of this latter type that we had in the house when I was a boy at three o'clock one winter's morning we had finished breakfast at ten minutes to four and I got to school a little after five and sat down on the step outside and cried because I thought the world had come to an end everything was so death-like the man who can live in the same house with one of these clocks and not endanger his chance of heaven about once a month by standing up and telling it what he thinks of it is either a dangerous rival Job or else he does not know enough bad language to make it worth his while to start saying anything at all the great dream of its life is to lure you on into trying to catch a train by it for weeks and weeks it will keep the most perfect time if there were any difference in time between that clock and the sun you would be convinced it was the sun not the clock that one had seen too you feel that if that clock happened to get a quarter of a second fast or the eighth of an instant slow it would break its heart and die it is in this spirit of child-like faith in its integrity that one morning you gather your family around you in the passage kiss your children and afterward wipe your jammy mouth poke your finger in the baby's eye promise not to forget to order the coals wave at last fond a dew with the umbrella and depart for the railway station I have never been quite able to decide myself which is the more irritating to run two miles at the top of your speed and then to find when you reach the station that you are three-quarters of an hour too early or to stroll along leisurely the whole way and dawdle about outside the booking office talking to some local idiot and then to swagger carelessly onto the platform just in time to see the train go out as for the other class of clocks the common or always wrong clocks they are harmless enough you wind them up at the proper intervals and once or twice a week you put them right and regulate them as you call it and you might just as well try to regulate a London Tomcat but you do all this not from any selfish motives but from a sense of duty to the clock itself you want to feel that whatever may happen you have done the right thing by it and that no blame can attach to you so far as looking to it for any return is concerned that you never dream of doing and consequently you are not disappointed you ask what the time is and the girl replies well the clock in the dining room says a quarter past two but you are not deceived by this you know that as a matter of fact it must be somewhere between 9 and 10 in the evening and remembering that you noticed as a curious circumstance that the clock was only 40 minutes past four hours ago you mildly admire its energies and resources and wonder how it does it I myself possess a clock that for complicated unconventionality and lighthearted independence could I should think give points to anything yet discovered in the chronometrical line as a mere timepiece it leaves much to be desired but considered as a self acting conundrum full of interest and variety I heard of a man once who had a clock that he used to say was of no good to anyone except himself because he was the only man who understood it he said it was an excellent clock and one that you could thoroughly depend upon but you wanted to know it to have studied its system an outsider might easily be misled by it for instance he would say when it strikes 15 and the hands point in its past 11 I know it is a quarter to eight his acquaintance ship with that clock must certainly have given him an advantage over the cursory observer but the great charm about my clock is its reliable uncertainty it works on no method whatever it is a pure emotionalist one day it will be quite frolicsome and gain three hours in the course of the morning and think nothing of it in the next day it will wish it were dead and be hardly able to drag itself along and lose two hours out of every four and stop all together in the afternoon too miserable to do anything and then getting cheerful once more toward evening will start off again of its own accord I do not care to talk much about this clock because when I tell the simple truth concerning it people think I am exaggerating it is very discouraging to find when you are straining every nerve to tell the truth that people do not believe you and fancy that you are exaggerating it makes you feel inclined to go on and exaggerate on purpose just to show them the difference I know I often feel tempted to do so myself it is my early training that saves me we should always be very careful never to give way to exaggeration it is a habit that grows upon one and it is such a vulgar habit too in the old times when poets and dry good salesmen were the only people who exaggerated there was something clever and distongue about a reputation for a tendency to over rather than to underestimate the mere bald facts but everybody exaggerates nowadays the art of exaggeration is no longer regarded as an extra in the modern bill of education it is an essential requirement held to be most needful for the battle of life the whole world exaggerates it exaggerates everything from the yearly number of bicycle sold to the yearly number of heathens converted into the hope of salvation and more whiskey exaggeration is the basis of our trade the fallow field of our art and literature the groundwork of our social life the foundation of our political existence as school boys we exaggerate our fights and our marks and our fathers' debts as men we exaggerate our wares we exaggerate our feelings we exaggerate our incomes accept the tax collector and to him we exaggerate our outgoings we exaggerate our virtues we even exaggerate our vices and being in reality the mildest of men pretend we are daredevil scamps we have sunk so low now that we try to act our exaggerations and to live up to our lies we call it keeping up appearances and no more bitter phrase could perhaps have been invented to describe our childish folly if we possess a hundred pounds a year do we not call it two our larder may be low and our greats be chill but we are happy if the world six acquaintances and a prying neighbor gives us credit for one hundred and fifty and when we have five hundred we talk of a thousand and the all important and beloved world sixteen friends now and two of them carriage folks agree that we really must be spending seven hundred or at all events running into debt up to that figure but the butcher and baker who have gone into the matter with the housemaid know better after a while having learned the trick we launch out boldly and spend like indian princes or rather seem to spend before we know by this time how to purchase the seeming with the seeming how to buy the appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash and the dear old world Beelzebub blessed for it is his own child sure enough there is no mistaking the likeness it has all his funny little ways gathers round applauding and laughing at the lie and sharing in the cheat and gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows must sooner or later call on us from the Thor like hammer of truth and all goes merry as a witch's frolic until the grey morning dawns truth and fact are old fashioned and out of date my friends fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by appearance not reality is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days we spurn the dull brown solid earth we build our lives and homes in the fair seeming rainbow land of shadow and chimera to ourselves sleeping and waking there behind the rainbow there is no beauty in the house only a chill damp mist in every room and overall a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt away and let us fall somewhat heavily no doubt upon the hard world underneath but there of what matter is our misery, our terror to the stranger our home appears fair and bright the workers in the fields below look up and envious our abode of glory and delight if they think it pleasant surely we should be content have we not been taught to live for others and not for ourselves and are we not acting up bravely to the teaching in this most curious method ah yes we are sacrificing enough and loyal enough in our devotion to this new crowned king the child of prince imposter and princess pretence never before was desperate so blindly worshipped never had earthly sovereign yet such worldwide sway man if he would live must worship he looks around and what to him within the vision of his life is the greatest that he falls down to and does reverence to to him whose eyes have opened on the 19th century what nobler image can the universe produce than the figure of falsehood in stolen robes it is cunning and brazen and hollow-hearted and it realizes his soul's ideal and he falls and kisses its feet and clings to its skinny knees swearing fealty to it forever more ah he is a mighty monarch bladder-bodied king humbug come let us build up temples of hewn shadows wherein we may adore him safe from the light let us raise him aloft upon our brumagem shields long live our coward false-hearted chief fit leader for such soldiers as we long live the lord of lies anointed long live poor king appearances to whom all mankind bows the knee but we must hold him aloft very carefully oh my brother warriors he needs much keeping up he has no bones and sinews of his own the poor old flimsy fellow if we take our hands from him he will fall a heap of worn-out rags and the angry wind will whirl him away and leave us forlorn oh let us spend our lives keeping him up and serving him and making him great that is evermore puffed out with air and nothingness until he burst and we along with him burst one day he must as it is in the nature of bubbles to burst especially when they grow big and meanwhile he still reigns over us and the world grows more and more a world of pretense and exaggeration and lies and he who pretends and exaggerates and lies the most successfully is the greatest of us all the world is a gingerbread fear and we all stand outside our booths and point to the gorgeous colored pictures and beat the big drum and brag brag life is one great game of brag buy my soap oh ye and ye will never look old and the hair will grow again on your bald places and ye will never be poor or unhappy again and mine is the only true soap oh beware of spurious imitations buy my lotion all ye that suffer from pains in the head or the stomach or the feet or that have broken arms or broken hearts or objectionable mothers-in-law and drink one bottle a day and all your troubles will be ended come to my church all ye that want to go to heaven and buy my penny weekly guide and pay my pew rates and pray ye have nothing to do with my misguided brother over the road this is the only safe way oh vote for me my noble and intelligent electors and send our party into power and the world shall be a new place and there shall be no sin or sorrow any more and each free and independent voter shall have a brand new utopia made on purpose for him according to his own ideas with a good-sized extra unpleasant purgatory attached to which he can send everybody he does not like oh do not miss this chance oh listen to my philosophy it is the best and deepest oh hear my songs they are the sweetest oh buy my pictures they alone are true art oh read my books they are the finest oh I am the greatest cheese monger I am the greatest soldier I am the greatest statesman I am the greatest poet I am the greatest showman I am the greatest mount a bank I am the greatest editor and I am the greatest patriot we are the greatest nation we are the only good people ours is the only true religion bah how we all yell how we all brag and bounce and beat the drum and shout and nobody believes a word we utter and the people ask one another saying how can we tell who is the greatest and the cleverest among these streaking braggarts and they answer there is none great or clever the great and clever men are not here there is no place for them in this pandemonium of charlatans and quacks the men you see here are crowing cocks we suppose the greatest and the best of them are they who crow the loudest and the longest that is the only test of their merits therefore what is left for us is not to do but to crow and the best and the greatest of all of us is he who crows the loudest and the longest on this little dung hill that we call our world well I was going to tell you about our clock it was my wife's idea getting it in the first instance we had been to dinner at the bugles and the bugles had just bought a clock picked it up in Essex was the way he described the transaction bugles is always going about picking up things he will stand before an old carved bedstead weighing about three tons and say yes pretty little thing I picked it up in Holland as though he had found it up by the roadside and slipped it into his umbrella when nobody was looking bugles was rather full of this clock it was of the good old fashioned grandfather type it stood eight feet high in an oaked case and had a deep sonorous solemn tick that made a pleasant accompaniment to the after dinner chat and seemed to fill the room with an air of homely dignity we discussed the clock and bugles said how he loved the sound of its slow grave tick and how when all the house was still and he and it were sitting up all alone together it seemed like some wise old friend talking to him and telling him about the old days and the old ways of thought and the old life and the old people the clock impressed my wife very much she was very thoughtful all the way home and as we went upstairs to our flat she said why could not we have a clock like that she said it would seem like having someone in the house to take care of us all she should fancy it was looking after baby I have a man in Northamptonshire from whom I buy old furniture now and then and to him I applied he answered by return to say that he had got exactly the very thing I wanted he always has I am very lucky in this respect it was the quaintest and most old fashioned clock he had come across for a long while and he enclosed a photograph in full particulars should he send it up from the photograph in the particulars it seemed as he said the very thing and I told him yes send it up at once three days afterward there came a knock at the door there had been other knocks at the door before this of course but I am dealing merely with the history of the clock the girl said a couple of men were outside and wanted to see me and I went to them I found they were Pickford's carriers and glancing at the way bill I saw that it was my clock and they had brought and I said eerily oh yes it's quite right bring it up they said they were very sorry but that was just the difficulty they could not get it up I went down with them and wedged securely across the second landing of the staircase I found a box which I should have judged to be the original case in which Cleopatra's needle came over they said that was my clock I brought down a chopper and we sent out and collected in two extra hired ruffians and the five of us worked away for half an hour and got the clock out after which the traffic up and down the staircase was resumed much to the satisfaction of the other tenants we then got the clock upstairs and put it together and I fixed it in the corner of the dining room at first it exhibited a strong desire to topple over and fall on people but by the liberal use of nails and bits of firewood I made life in the same room with it possible and then, being exhausted I had my wounds dressed and went to bed in the middle of the night my wife woke me in a state of great alarm to say that the clock had just struck 13 and who did I think was going to die I said I did not know but hoped it might be the next door dog my wife said she had a presentiment it meant baby she was comforting her she cried herself to sleep again during the course of the morning I succeeded in persuading her that she must have made a mistake and she consented to smile once more in the afternoon the clock struck 13 again this renewed all her fears she was convinced now that both baby and I were doomed and that she would be left a childless widow I tried to treat the matter as a joke and she made her more wretched she said that she could see I really felt as she did and was only pretending to be light-hearted for her sake and she said she would try and bear it bravely the person she chiefly blamed was Buggles in the night the clock gave us another warning and my wife accepted it for her Aunt Maria and seemed resigned she wished, however, that I had never had the clock and wondered when, if ever I should get cured of my absurd craze for filling the house with tomfoolery the next day the clock struck 13 four times and this cheered her up she said that if we were all going to die it did not so much matter most likely there was a fever or a plague coming and we should all be taken together she was quite light-hearted over it after that the clock went on and killed every friend in relation we had and then it started on the neighbors it struck 13 all day long for months until we were sick of slaughter and there could not have been a human being left alive for miles around then it turned over a new leaf and gave up murdering folks and took to striking mere harmless 39s and 41s its favorite number now is 32 but once a day it strikes 49 it never strikes more than 49 I don't know why I've never been able to understand why but it doesn't it does strike at regular intervals but when it feels it wants to and would be better for it sometimes it strikes three or four times within the same hour and at other times it will go for half a day without striking at all he is an odd fellow I have thought now and then of having him seen to and made to keep regular hours and be respectable but somehow I seem to have grown to love him as he is with his daring mockery of time he certainly has not much respect for it he seems to go out of his way almost to openly insult it he calls half past two thirty eight o'clock and in twenty minutes from then he says it is one is it that he really has grown to feel contempt for his master and wishes to show it again as a hero to his valet may it be that even stony face time himself is but a short lived puny mortal a little greater than some others that is all to the dim eyes of this old servant of his has he ticking ticking all these years come at last to see into the littleness of that time that looms so great to our odd human eyes is he sane as he grimly laughs and strikes his thirty-fives and forties I know you time godlike and dread though you seem what are you but a phantom a dream like the rest of us here I less for you will pass away and be no more fear him not immortal men time is but the shadow of the world upon the background of eternity the end of clocks by Jerome K. Jerome this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information and to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read and recorded by Betsy Bush Marquette, Michigan November 2006 the cost of kindness by Jerome K. Jerome kindness argued little Mrs. Pennycoop costs nothing and speaking generally my dear is valued precisely at cost price retorted Mr. Pennycoop who as an auctioneer of twenty years experience had enjoyed much opportunity of testing the attitude of the public towards sentiment I don't care what you say George persisted his wife he may be a disagreeable contankerous old brute I don't say he isn't all the same the man is going away and we may never see him again if I thought there was any fear of our doing so observed Mr. Pennycoop I'd turn my back on the church of England tomorrow and become a Methodist don't talk like that George his wife admonished him reprovingly the Lord might be listening to you if the Lord had to listen to old cracklethorpe he'd sympathize with me was the opinion of Mr. Pennycoop the Lord sends us our trials and they are meant for our good explained his wife they are meant to teach us patience you are not church warden retorted her husband you can get away from him you hear him when he is in the pulpit where to a certain extent he is bound to keep his temper you forget the rummage sale George Mrs. Pennycoop reminded him to say nothing of the church decorations the rummage sale Mr. Pennycoop pointed out to her occurs only once a year and at that time your own temper I have noticed I always try to remember I am a Christian interrupted little Mrs. Pennycoop do not pretend to be a saint but whatever I say I am always sorry for it afterwards you know I am George it's what I am saying explained her husband a vicar who has contrived in three years to make every member of his congregation hate the very sight of a church well there's something wrong about it somewhere Mrs. Pennycoop gentlest of little women laid her plump and still pretty hands upon her husband's shoulder don't think dear I haven't sympathized with you you have born it nobly I have marveled sometimes that you have been able to control yourself as you have done most times the things that he has said to you Mr. Pennycoop had slid unconsciously into an attitude suggestive of petrified virtue lately discovered one's own poor self observed Mr. Pennycoop in accents of proud humility insults that are merely personal one can put up with though even there added the senior church warden with momentary descent towards the plane of human nature nobody cares to have it hinted publicly across the vestry table that one has chosen to collect from the left side for the expense purpose of artfully passing over one's own family the children have always had their three penny bits ready waiting in their hands explained Mrs. Pennycoop indignantly it's the sort of thing he says merely for the sake of making a disturbance continued the senior church warden it's the things he does I draw the line at you mean dear laughed at the little woman with the accent on the haze it is all over now and we are going to be rid of him I expect dear if we only knew we should find it was his liver you know George I remarked to you the first day that he came how pasty he looked and what a singularly unpleasant mouth he had people can't help these things one should look upon them in the light of afflictions and be sorry for them I could forgive him doing what he does if he didn't seem to enjoy it said the senior church warden but as you say dear he is going and all I hope and pray is that we never see his like again and you'll come with me to call upon him George urged little kind he has been our vicar for three years and he must be feeling it poor man whatever he may pretend going away like this knowing that everybody is glad to see the back of him well I shan't say anything I don't really feel stipulated Mr. Pennycoop that will be all right dear laughed his wife so long as you don't say what you do feel remember further suggested the little woman whatever happens remember it will be for the last time little Mrs. Pennycoop's intention was kind and Christian like the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe would be quitting Winchwood on the Heath the following Monday never to set foot so the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe himself and every single member of his congregation hoped sincerely in the neighborhood again hitherto no pains had been taken on either side to disguise the mutual joy with which the parting was looked forward to the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe might possibly have been of service to his church in say some east end parish of unsavory reputation some mission station far advanced amid the hordes of heathendom inborn instinct of antagonism to everybody and everything surrounding him his unconquerable disregard for other people's views and feelings his inspired conviction that everybody but himself was bound to be always wrong about everything combined with determination to act and speak fearlessly in such belief might have found their uses in picturesque little Winchwood on the Heath among the Kentish Hills retreat beloved of the retired tradesmen the spinster of moderate means the reformed Bohemian developing latent instincts towards respectability these qualities made only for scandal and disunion for the past two years the Reverend Cracklethorpe's parishioners assisted by such other of the inhabitants of Winchwood on the Heath as had happened to come into personal contact with the Reverend gentlemen not to impress upon him by hints and innuendos difficult to misunderstand their cordial and daily increasing dislike of him both as a parson and a man matters had come to a head by the determination officially announced to him that failing other alternatives a deputation of his leading parishioners would wait upon his bishop this it was that had brought it home Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe that as the spiritual guard and comforter of Winchwood on the Heath he had proved a failure the Reverend Augustus had to sought and secured the care of other souls the following Sunday morning he had arranged to preach his farewell sermon and the occasion promised to be a success from every point of view churchgoers who had not visited St. Jude's for months had promised themselves the luxury of feeling they were listening to the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe for the last time the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe had prepared a sermon that for plain speaking and directness was likely to leave an impression the parishioners of St. Jude's Winchwood on the Heath had their failings as we all have the Reverend Augustus flattered himself that he had not missed a single one and was looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to the sensation that his remarks from his firstly to his sixthly and lastly were likely to create what marred the entire business was the impulsiveness of little Mrs. Penicoup the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe informed in his study on the Wednesday afternoon that Mr. and Mrs. Penicoup had called entered the drawing room a quarter of an hour later cold and severe and without offering to shake hands requested to be informed as shortly as possible for what purpose he had been disturbed Mrs. Penicoup had had her speech ready to her tongue it was just what it should have been and no more it referred casually without insisting on the point to the duty incumbent upon all of us to remember on occasion we were Christians that our privilege would forgive and forget that generally speaking there are faults on both sides that partings should never take place in anger in short that little Mrs. Penicoup and George her husband as he was waiting to say for himself were sorry for everything and anything they may have said or done in the past to hurt the feelings of the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe and would like to shake hands with him and wish him every happiness for the future the chilling attitude of the Reverend Augustus scattered that carefully rehearsed speech to the winds it left Mrs. Penicoup nothing but to retire in choking silence or to fling herself upon the inspiration of the moment and make up something new she chose the latter alternative at first the words came halting her husband, manlike had deserted her in her hour of utmost need she was struggling with the doorknob the steely stare with which the Reverend Cracklethorpe regarded her instead of chilling her acted upon her as a spur it put her on her metal he should listen to her she would make him understand her kindly feeling toward him if she had to take him by the shoulders and shake it into him at the end of five minutes the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe without knowing it at the end of another five Mrs. Penicoup stopped not for want of words but for want of breath the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe replied in a voice that, to his own surprise was trembling with emotion Mrs. Penicoup had made his task harder for him he had thought to leave Winchwood on the Heath without a regret the knowledge he now possessed that at all events one member of his congregation understood him as Mrs. Penicoup had proved to him she understood him sympathized with him the knowledge that at least one heart and that heart Mrs. Penicoup's had warmed to him would transform what he had looked forward to as a blessed relief into a lasting grief Mr. Penicoup carried away by his wife's eloquence added a few halting words of his own it appeared from Mr. Penicoup's remarks he had always regarded the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe as the vicar of his dreams but misunderstandings in some unaccountable way will arise the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe it appeared had always secretly respected Mr. Penicoup if at any time his spoken words might have conveyed the contrary impression that must have arisen from the poverty of our language which does not lend itself to subtle meanings then following the suggestion of tea Miss Cracklethorpe sister to the Reverend Augustus a lady whose likeness to her brother in all respects was startling the only difference between them being that while he was clean-shaven she wore a slight mustache was called down to grace the board the visit was ended by Mrs. Penicoup's remembrance that it was Wilhelmine's night for a hot bath I said more than I intended to admitted Mrs. Penicoup to George her husband on the way home but he irritated me Rumor of the Penicoup's visit flew through the parish other ladies felt it their duty to show to Mrs. Penicoup that she was not the only Christian in Winchwood on the Heath Mrs. Penicoup it was feared might be getting a swelled head over this matter the Reverend Augustus with pardonable pride repeated some of the things that Mrs. Penicoup had said to him Mrs. Penicoup was not to imagine herself the only person in Winchwood on the Heath capable of generosity that cost nothing other ladies could say graceful nothings could say them even better husbands dressed in their best clothes and carefully rehearsed were brought in to grace the almost endless procession of disconsolate parishioners hammering at the door of St. Jude's Church between Thursday morning and Saturday night the Reverend Augustus much to his own astonishment had been forced to the conclusion that five-six of his parishioners had loved him from the first without hitherto having had opportunity of expressing their real feelings the eventful Sunday arrived the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe had been kept so busy listening to regrets at his departure assurances of an esteem hitherto disguised from him explanations of seeming discurdices that had been intended as tokens of affectionate regard that no time had been left to him to think of other matters not till he entered the vestry at five minutes to eleven did recollection of his farewell sermon come to him it haunted him throughout the service to deliver it after the revelations of the last three days would be impossible it was the sermon that Moses might have preached to Pharaoh the Sunday prior to the Exodus to crush with it this congregation of broken-hearted adores sorrowing for his departure would be inhuman the Reverend Augustus tried to think of passages that might be selected altered there were none from beginning to end it contained not a single sentence capable of being made to sound pleasant by any ingenuity whatsoever the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe climbed slowly up the pulpit steps without an idea in his head of what he was going to say the sunlight fell upon the upturned faces of a crowd that filled every corner of the church so happy so buoyant a congregation the eyes of the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe had never till that day looked down upon the feeling came to him that he believed them that they did not wish him to go could he doubt only by regarding them as a collection of the most shameless hypocrites ever gathered together under one roof the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe dismissed the passing suspicion as a suggestion of the evil one folded the neatly written manuscript that lay before him on the desk and put it aside he had no need of a farewell sermon the arrangements made could easily be altered the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe spoke from his pulpit for the first time and impromptu the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe wished to acknowledge himself in the wrong foolishly founding his judgment upon the evidence of a few men whose names there would be no need to mention members of the congregation who he hoped would one day be sorry for the misunderstandings they had caused brethren whom it was his duty to forgive he had assumed the parishioners of St. Jude's winchwood on the heath to have taken a personal dislike to him he wished to publicly apologize for the injustice he had unwittingly done to their heads and to their hearts he now had it from their own lips that a libel had been put upon them so far from their wishing him departure it was self-evident that his going would inflict upon them a great sorrow with the knowledge he now possessed of the respect one might almost say the veneration with which the majority of that congregation regarded him knowledge he admitted acquired somewhat late it was clear to him he could still be of help to them in their spiritual need to leave a flock so devoted would stamp him as an unworthy shepherd the ceaseless stream of regrets at his departure had been poured into his ear during the last four days he had decided at the last moment to pay heed to he would remain with them on one condition there quivered across the sea of humanity below him a movement that might have suggested to a more observant watcher the convulsive clutchings of some drowning man at some chance straw but the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe was thinking of himself the parish was large and he was no longer a young man let them provide him with a conscientious and energetic curate he had such a one in his mind's eye a near relation of his own who for a small stipend that was hardly worth mentioning would he knew it for a fact except the post the pulpit was not the place in which to discuss these matters but in the vestry afterwards he would be pleased to meet such members of the congregation as might choose to stay the question agitating the majority of the congregation during the singing of the hymn was the time it would take them to get outside the church there still remained a faint hope that the Reverend Augustus Cracklethorpe not obtaining his curate might consider it due to his own dignity to shake from his feet the dust of a parish generous in sentiment most fisted when it came to putting its hands into its pockets but for the parishioners of St. Jude's that Sunday was a day of misfortune before there could be any thought of moving the Reverend Augustus raised his surplus hand and begged leave to acquaint them with the contents of a short note that had just been handed up to him it would send them all home he felt sure with joy and thankfulness in their hearts that the presence of Christian benevolence was among them that did honour to the church here a retired wholesale clothier from the east end of London a short tubby gentleman who had recently taken the manor house was observed to turn scarlet a gentleman hitherto unknown to them had signalled his advent among them by an act of munificence that should prove a shining example to all rich men Mr. Horatio Cooper the Reverend gentlemen found some difficulty apparently in deciphering the name Coopersmith sir with a hyphen came in a thin whisper the voice of the still scarlet faced clothier Mr. Horatio Coopersmith Mr. Horatio Coopersmith taking the Reverend Augustus felt confident a not unworthy means of grappling to himself thus early the hearts had expressed his desire to pay for the expense of a curate entirely out of his own pocket under these circumstances there would be no further talk of a farewell between the Reverend Augustus Creckelthorpe and his parishioners it would be the hope of the Reverend Augustus Creckelthorpe to live and die the pastor of St. Jude's a more solemn looking sober congregation than the congregation that emerged that Sunday morning from St. Jude's in Winchwood on the Heath had never, perhaps, passed out of a church door he'll have more time on his hands said Mr. Biles retired wholesale ironmonger and junior church warden to Mrs. Biles turning the corner of Acacia Avenue he'll have more time to make himself a curse and a stumbling block and if this near relation of his is anything like him which you may depend upon it is the case or he'd never have thought of him was the opinion of Mr. Biles I shall give that Mrs. Pennycoop said Mrs. Biles a piece of my mind when I meet her but of what use was that end of The Cost of Kindness by Jerome K. Jerome this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libervox.org Country Life in Canada in the 30s by Kenneth Height adapted from the Ontario readers Country Life in Western Canada in the 30s was very simple and uneventful there are no lines of social divisions such as now exist all alike had to toil to win and maintain a home and if as was natural some were more successful in the rough battle of pioneer life than others they did not feel on that account disposed to treat their neighbours as their inferiors neighbours they well knew were too few and too desirable to be coldly and hotly treated had not all the members of each community hewn their way side by side to the fastnesses of the Canadian bush and what could a little additional wealth do for them when the remoteness of the centres which might supply luxuries enforced simplicity and made superfluities almost impossible the furnishings of their houses were plain and the chief articles of dress if substantial and comfortable were of course home-spun the product of their own labour the sources of amusement were limited the day of the harmonium or piano had not come music except in its simplest vocal form was not cultivated only the occasional presence of some fiddler afforded rare seasons of merriment to the delight both of old and young the motto of early to bed and early to rise was even in winter the strict rule of family life in the morning all were up and breakfast was over usually before seven as soon as the grey light of dawn appeared men and boys were off to the barns not merely to feed the cattle but to engage in the needful and tedious labour of threshing by hand in the evenings the family gathered together for lighter tasks and pleasant talk around a glowing fire in firewood at least there was in those days no need for economy we scarcely realise how largely little things may contribute to convenience and comfort there were no Lucifer matches at that date it was needful to cover up carefully the live coals on the hearth before going to bed so that there might be the means of starting the fire in the morning this precaution was rarely unsuccessful but sometimes a member of the family had to set out for a supply of fire from a neighbours in order that breakfast might be prepared I remember well having to crawl out of my warm nest after the keen frosty air for half a mile or more to fetch live coals from a neighbours it was however my father's practice to keep bundles of finely split pine sticks tipped with brimstone with the aid of these the mere spark served to start the fire in the spring tasks of various kinds crowded rapidly upon us the hams and beefs that had been salted down in casks during the preceding autumn the brine washed off and hung in the smoke-house on the earthen floor beech or maple was burned the oily smoke given off by the combustion of these woods in a confined space not only acted as a preservative but also lent a special flavour to the meat then plowing, fencing, sewing and planting followed in quick succession no hands could be spared the children must drive the cows to the pasture they must also take a hand at churning it was a weary task I remember well to stand perhaps for an hour and drive the dasher up and down through the thick cream how often did we examine the handle for evidence that the butter was forming and what was the relief when the monotonous task was at an end as soon as my legs were long enough I had to follow a team indeed I drove the horses mounted on the back of one of them my nether limbs were scarcely sufficiently grown to give me a grip the instruments for the agricultural operations were few and rough iron plows with cast iron mould boards and shares were commonly employed compared with our modern plows they were clumsy things but a vast improvement on the earlier wooden plows which even at that date had not wholly gone out of use for drags tree tops were frequently used in June came sheepwashing the sheep were driven to the bay shore and secured in a pen one by one they were taken out and the fleeces carefully washed within a day or two shearing followed in the barn the wool was sorted some was reserved to be carted by hand the remainder was sent to the mills to be turned into rolls then day after day for weeks the noise of the spinning wheel was heard accompanied by the steady beat of the wheel's feet as they walked forward and backward drawing out and twisting the thread and running it on the spindle this was work that required some skill for on the fineness and evenness of the thread the character of the fabric largely depended finally the yarn was carried to the weavers to be converted into cloth the women of the family found their hands very full in the thirties besides the daily round of housewifely cares and special duties there were wild strawberries and raspberries to be picked and prepared for daily consumption or to be preserved for winter use besides milking there was the making both of butter and cheese there was no nurse to take care of the children no cook to prepare the dinner to be sure in households when the work was beyond the powers of the family the daughter of some neighbor might come as a helper though hired she was treated in all respects as one of the family and in return was likely to take the same sort of interest in the work as if the tie that bound her to the family was closer than wages in truth such help was regarded as a favor and not as any way affecting the girl's social position the girls in those days were more at home in a kitchen than in a drawing room they did better execution at a tub than at a spinnet and could handle a rolling pin more satisfactorily than a stretch book at a pinch they could even use a rake or fork to good purpose in field or barn their finishing education was received at the country school along with their brothers of fashion books and maligners few of them had any experience country life in Canada was plotting in the thirties and there was no varied outlook the girls trained for future life was mainly at the hands of their mothers the boys followed in the footsteps of their fathers neither sex felt that life was cramped or burdensome on that account they were content to live as their parents had done and though we can see that as compared with later conditions there may be something wanting in such an existence this at least we know that in such a school and by such masters the foundations of Canadian character and prosperity were laid by the people of country life in Canada in the thirties by Kenneth Haight this is a LibriVox recording and all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne Enter Mitchell by Henry Lawson the western train had just arrived at Red Fern Railway Station with three ordinary passengers and one swagman he was short and stout and bow-legged and freckled and sandy he had red hair and small twinkling grey eyes and what often was such things the expression of a born comedian he was dressed in a ragged well-washed print shirt an old black waistcoat with a calico back and held up by a plattered green hide belt buckled loosely around his hips a pair of well-worn fuzzy bluecheboots and a soft felt hat green with age and with no brim worth mentioning and no crown to speak of he swung a swag onto the platform shouldered it pulled out a billy and a water bag then went to a dog box in the break van five minutes later he appeared on the edge of the cab platform with an anxious looking cattle dog crouching against his legs and one end of the chain in his hand he eased down the swag against a post turned his face to the city tilted his hat forward and scratched the well-developed back of his head with a little finger he seemed undecided what track to take cab sir, the swagman turned slowly and regarded cabby with a quiet grin now do I look as if I want a cab well why not no harm anyway I thought you might want a cab swaggy scratched his head reflectively well he said you're the first man that has thought so these ten years what do I want with a cab to go where you're going of course do I look knocked up I didn't say you did you said I did now I've been on the track this five years I've tramped two thousand miles since last Christmas and I don't see why I can't tramp that last mile do you think my old dog wants a cab the dog shivered and wimpered he seemed to want to get away from the crowd but then you see you ain't going to carry that swag through the streets are you, asked the cabman why not he'll stop me there's no law again I believe but then you see it don't look well you know ah I thought we'd get to it at last the traveller up ended his bluey against his knee gave it an affectionate pat then straightened himself up and looked fixedly at the cabman now look here he said sternly and impressively can you see anything wrong with that old swag of mine it was a stout dumpy swag a blanket outside patched with blue and the edge of a blue blanket showing in the inner rings at the end the swag might have been newer it might have been cleaner it might have been hooped with decent straps instead of bits of clothesline and green hide but otherwise there was nothing the matter with it as swags go I've humped that old swag for years continued the bushman I've carried that old swag as that old dog knows and no one ever bothered about the look of it or of me or of my old dog neither and do you think I'm going to be ashamed of that old swag for a cabbie or anyone else do you think I'm going to study anybody's feelings no one ever studied mine I'm in two minds to summon you for using insulting language towards me he lifted the swag by the twisted tail so for a shoulder strap swung it into the cab got in himself and hauled the dog after him you can drive me somewhere where I can leave my swag and dog while I get some decent clothes to see a tailor in he said to the cabman my old dog ain't used to cabs you see then he added reflectively I drove the cab myself once for five years in Sydney End of Intermichael by Henry Lawson