The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Iii Part 6

"Wilt thou do me one favor, n.o.ble youth?" says he, with much emotion.

I placed a hand upon my heart.

"Then," says he, "just ask Mr. Seward not to write so many letters to me every week; because when my mail is so large, I don't have any time to attend to my family."

I promised to do so, and then went out to get some oysters. The candles had made me quite light-headed.

From this, my boy, you will perceive that Russia "may be counted upon in an emergency;" as the man said of the bear-skin upon which he was reckoning his small change.

On Thursday, bright and early, I mounted my gothic steed Pegasus, and started for Duck Lake.

Upon reaching the Mackerel camp, I found all the spectacled warriors under arms for a fray, the unaccommodating Confederacies on the other side of Paris having urged some rifled objections to the construction of a pontoon bridge across Duck Lake. The chap who was building the bridge had only just untied his second paper of nails, when a potato from some Confederate marksman, in the second-story of Paris, hit him violently in the stomach. Simultaneously the cover of a dinner-pot cracked his knuckles, and, as he fell back in good order, a brick-bat tapped him on the head. Believing that hostilities had commenced, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade hastily put on all his dirty clothes, and ordered the Orange County Howitzers to commit incendiarism with Paris, simultaneously directing Rear Admiral Head to moor the "Secretary Welles" abreast of the nearest Confederacy and sh.e.l.l him with great slaughter.

Under command of Captain Samyule Sa-mith, the Howitzers were opened upon Paris, and commenced such a tornado of round shot and grape that the surrounding landscape was very much defaced. There was much noise, my boy,--there was much noise.

But the great sight of the hour was the manoeuvring of the iron-plated Mackerel squadron on the tempestuous waters of Duck Lake. After hastily making a fire in the stove on the quarter-deck, and placing a tumbler where it could warm, the stern old Rear Admiral ordered the Mackerel crew to report how much water there was in the hold. The crew repaired to the stern-sheets and reported "One pitcherful and two lemons;"

whereupon the hardy old sea-dog swore in his iron-plated manner, and ordered the swivel-gun amids.h.i.+ps to be trained upon the bas.e.m.e.nt windows of Paris. Everything being in readiness, the word was given to fire!

Bang! went the horrid instrument of carnage, and the hideous missile went cras.h.i.+ng through the back bas.e.m.e.nt windows, cutting a bow from the cap of a venerable Florence Nightingale, who was at that moment making a sponge-cake for some sick Confederacies, and driving the stove-pipe clear through the wall. The aged Nightingale thought that something had happened, and says she: "Well, I never did!"

Rear Admiral Head smiled; but it was the horrid smile of naval bloodthirstiness. "Revolve my turret!" says he, grimly, "I fight not against women; but the other window must be broken."

The venerable Neptune leaned over his columbiad to make sure of this shot, unconsciously pressing his stomach against the but-end of his gun. There was a report, my boy; the swivel-gun kicked, and the Rear Admiral fell upon the deck with a promiscuous violence.

Meanwhile, Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, had waded across Duck Lake in as many divisions as there were Mackerels, and immediately commenced a tremendous fire of musketry at the upper windows of Paris, wounding a Confederacy who kept a shoe-store up there, and reducing two flower-pots to fragments.

Whilst I was witnessing this bombardment, my boy, and admiring the courage with which Villiam was slas.h.i.+ng around with his sword, I noticed that the squadron had suddenly ceased firing.

It had ceased firing, because Rear Admiral Head had unexpectedly discovered that his Mackerel crew was a Black Republican; and had therefore engaged him in single combat, greatly to the detriment of the regular engagement.

Scarcely had I turned to view this new phase of war, when the firing of howitzers and musketry behind me instantly ceased, and I heard a low murmur of wonder arising from the whole brigade.

Quickly turning about again, I was hastening to where Captain Bob Shorty strode with the Conic Section, when I beheld General Wobert Wobinson, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, cantering along the sh.o.r.e of Duck Lake on his trained charger, and exhibiting a form to petrify the whole world with admiration.

"Ah! _there's_ shape!" was the low cry of the spectacled veterans, as they gazed breathlessly at the picture.

Captain Bob Shorty cleaned his gla.s.ses to make sure that it was no illusion, and says he: "By all that's Federal, it appears to me that I never saw so much Shape!"

A Confederacy, who had just appeared on the roof of Paris with a horse-pistol in his hand and slaughter in his thoughts, caught sight of the equestrian vision, and instantly dropped his merciless weapon of destruction as though paralyzed.

"Oh!" says he, panting, "what Shape!"

Rear Admiral Head heard the sound in the midst of his single combat, and paused to ascertain what it was. His spectacles scanned the horizon round and round, until they finally rested upon the figure of the new General of the Mackerel Brigade.

"Fracture my armor!" says he, ecstatically, "did I ever survey so much Shape!"

The battle was over for that day.

Shape, my boy, is a great thing in a General; for when Heaven's Great Printer commenced to set human type in the "galley" of earth, He must have needed considerable General matter to fully make up His "forms;"

and when a General has a form fully up to His make, we may consider him well set up.

Yours, typographically,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER Lx.x.xV.

HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT STRICTLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE OCCURRENCE OF A RECENT "MILITARY NECESSITY;" RECOUNTING THE AFFECTING EPISODE OF THE MACKEREL DRUMMER-BOY; AND DEPICTING THE NEW MACKEREL GENERAL'S FIRST GREAT BATTLE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., Feb. 9th, 1863.

I am no longer on speaking terms, my boy, with the Government of our distracted country, and beg leave most respectfully to inform it that the imbecile cold weather of the past few days may disgust, but can never discourage me. Being of respectable though Democratic parentage, I scorn to a.s.sociate with an Executive and Cabinet so lost to all sense of national comfort, that it permits the weather to become a constant outrage on our Const.i.tutions, frequently freezing loyal Democrats for no other offence than that of protecting defenceless lampposts after nightfall. I am very cold, my boy,--I am very cold, and my hatred of the present Cabinet is intense.

But what shall I say about the agency of this same Government in producing a Military Necessity at the late great battle of Paris? Let me put on my overcoat and express my cold in a pa.s.sionate cough, as I remark that its agency in this matter forcibly reminds me of a chap I once knew in the sixth ward.

He was an aged chap of much red nose, my boy, and lived with his youngest broadcloth son in the same house with his Wayward Sister. The Wayward Sister being an old maid of severe countenance, occupied such portions of the residence as seemed most safe from the intrusion of that s.e.x which seeks to make Woman its broken-hearted slave; and as long as the patient old chap answered the door-bell and didn't smoke in the house, she got along with him after the manner of a Methodist angel. Things went on pleasantly through the winter, the high-minded maiden using the coal of her aged kindred, and employing all his black tea without complaining; but in the spring she joined a Woman's Rights Convention, and commenced to hold indignation-meetings of virtuously-indignant females in the best room in the house. These meetings having decided, that,

"_Whereas_, Man is a ojus creature which is constantly preying upon that s.e.x which it is his mother's, and denying to it those inalienable Rights without which Woman's sphere cannot exist. Therefore be it

"_Resolved_, That Woman is the Superior s.e.x.

"_Resolved_, That union with man is incompatible with the good of a s.e.x which it is ourselves; and that we will immediately take that household furniture of which Woman is the only rightful owner, and only ask to be let alone."

The aged chap received a copy of these resolutions, my boy, and says the Wayward Sister: "I can no longer consent to live in the same house with an inferior being." The chap heard her in silence, and might have let her have her own way, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but when he came home next night he found that she had packed up all the furniture in the house to carry off with her, and expected him to give her his watch and night-key. He scratched his head, and says he: "I cannot permit this sort of thing, because I really want some furniture for my own use." The Wayward Sister threw her thimble at him, and says she: "Our male parient bought this furniture only because he got married to one of the Superior s.e.x; and as it was Woman which solely occasioned its purchase, it clearly belongs to Woman."

But the chap could not see it in this light, my boy; and as soon as his son came home he told him all about it. The manly youth took a look up the stairs to where the maiden and four or five other spring bonnets were intrenched behind the furniture, and says he:

"It's an unnatural thing to have trouble with relations; but I'm just going up there to capture that big chair."

By this time some of the neighbors had come in, and commenced to urge the old chap to take vigorous measures. He looked at his son, and says he:

"Can you do it Tommy?"

The child of his bosom winked twice, and immediately prepared to perform the feat, only pausing long enough to look in the gla.s.s and see if his necktie sat well. Then, gaining the head of the stairs, he leaned across a bureau barring the way, and was about to grasp the big chair, when the Wayward Sister hit him over the head with a broom, and presently he found himself prostrate at the foot of the stairs, with a violent pain in his nose.

On witnessing this disaster, all the neighbors shrank with indignation from the aged father, and said it was all his doings. The poor old chap scratched his head, and says he:

"I don't see how it's my fault."

"Why," says a neighbor of much fatness, "you're always interfering,--that's what you are. Now, you'll never get back any of your furniture."

"Interfering?" says the paternal chap, innocently. "Why, how _could_ I interfere with Tommy, when I only let him do, in his own way, what he gave me to understand he was able to?"

Here all the neighbors sighed grievously, and says one: