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Ebook has 434 lines and 36396 words, and 9 pages

GRIGGS'S MIND

The other day I met Griggs on the cars. Griggs is the man with the mind. Other people have minds, but they're not like Griggs's. He lives in Rutherford, New Jersey, and is, like me, a commuter, and as neither of us plays cards nor is interested in politics, and as we have tabooed the weather as a topic, it almost always happens that when we meet, we, or rather he, falls back on his mind as subject for conversation. For my part, my daily newspaper would be all-sufficient for my needs on the way to town; but it pleases Griggs to talk, and it's bad for my eyes to read on the cars, so I shut them up and cultivate the air of listening, the while Griggs discourses.

I had recently read in the Contributors' Club of the "Atlantic," an article by a woman, who said that the letters of the alphabet seemed to be variously colored in her mind; that is, her mental picture gave to one letter a green hue, to another red, and so on. I spoke of this to Griggs, and he was much interested. He said that the sound of a cornet was always red to him. I asked him whether it made any difference who blew it, but Griggs scorns to notice puns, and he answered: "Not a particle. I don't pretend to explain it, but it is so. Likewise, to me the color of scarlet tastes salt, while crimson is sweet."

I opened my eyes and looked at him in amazement. It sounded like a bit out of "Alice in Wonderland." Then I remembered that it was Griggs who was talking, and that he has a mind. When I don't understand something about Griggs, I lay it to his mind and think no more about it. So I shut my eyes again and listened.

"Why, I never thought of its running at all, although it passes quickly enough, for the most part!"

"But hasn't it some general direction? Up or down, north or south, east or west?"

"Griggs," said I, "is this your mind?"

"Yes," said he.

"Well, go ahead; fire it off; unfold your kinks!" said I, leaning back in my seat; "but kindly remember that I have no mind, and if you can't put it in words of one syllable, talk slowly so that I can follow you."

He promised to put it as plainly as though he were talking to his youngest, aged three; and, with this assurance, my cerebrum braced itself, so to speak, and awaited the onslaught.

"My idea of the direction of time in all its divisions and subdivisions is as follows--"

"Say, Griggs," said I, "let's go into the smoker. A little oil of nicotine always makes my brain work easier."

When we were seated in the smoker, and had each lighted a cigar, he went on:

"Assuming that I am facing the north, far in the southwest is the Garden of Eden and the early years of recorded time. Moving eastward run the centuries, and the years to come and the end of the world are in the far east."

I felt slightly bewizzled, but I gripped the seat in front of me and said nothing.

"My mental picture of the months of the year is that January is far to the north. The months follow in a more or less zigzag, easterly movement, until we find that July and August have strayed far south. But the autumn months zigzag back, so that by the time December sweeps coldly by she is twelve months east of January, and then the new January starts on a road of similar direction. You still observe that the current of time sets toward me instead of away from me."

What could I do but observe that it did? I had the inside seat, and Griggs has an insistent way about him, so I generally observe just when he asks me to, and thus avoid friction. Then, too, I always feel flattered when Griggs condescends to talk at me and reveal the wonders of his mind. So I observed heartily, and puffed away at my cigar, while he continued:

"The direction of the week-days is rather hazy in my mind--"

I begged him not to feel low-spirited about it--that it would probably seem clear to him before long; but I don't think he heard me, for he went right on: "But it is a somewhat undulatory movement from west to east, Sundays being on the crest of each wave. Coming to the hours, I picture them as running, like the famous mouse, 'down the clock,' the early day-light being highest. The minutes and seconds refuse to be marshaled into line, but go ticking on to eternity helter-skelter, yet none the less inevitably."

I rather admired the independence of the minutes and seconds in refusing to be ordered about even by his mind; but, of course, I didn't tell him so. On the contrary, I congratulated him on the highly poetic way in which he was voicing his sentiments.

Just then we came into the station, and an acquaintance of his buttonholed him and lugged him off, for Griggs is quite a favorite, in spite of his mind. I was sorry, for I had wanted to ask him where the moments and instants seem bound for in his brain. I did manage, just as we were leaving the boat at Chambers Street, to tell him that I was going to be in the Augustan part of the city at noon, and would be pleased to take him out to lunch, if he ran across me; but he must have mistaken the month, as I ate my luncheon alone. I dare say he understood me to say January, and wandered all over Harlem looking for me. How unpleasant it must be to have a mind!

THE SIGNALS OF GRIGGS

You may remember Griggs as the man who had a mind. At the time that I wrote about that useful member of his make-up he was living out in New Jersey; but he was finally brought to see the error of his ways, and took the top flat in a nine-story house without an elevator, 'way up-town.

The other evening I went to call on the Griggses. He had not yet come home, but his wife let me in and helped me to a sofa to recover from the effects of my climb. I have been up the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and Popocatepetl, but I never felt so exhausted as I did after walking up those nine frightful flights. And Mrs. Griggs told me that she thought nothing of running up- and down-stairs a dozen times a day, which was a sad commentary on her truthfulness.

After I was there a few minutes, trying to get used to the notes of two lusty and country-bred children , there came a feeble and dejected ring at the front-door bell. Mrs. Griggs hastened to the kitchen,--they do not keep a servant ,--and after pressing the electric button that opened the front door, she said: "That's poor Mr. Griggs. He must be feeling bad to-night, and I must put the children to bed before he gets up, as he is too nervous to stand their noise."

I was somewhat astonished, but she ripped the clothes off of her buds of promise and popped them into bed with a skill and rapidity that would have secured her a position on the vaudeville stage. After they were covered up she returned to me. Of course Mr. Griggs had not yet arrived, and I asked her how she knew he was tired.

"Why, we have a code of signals. Mr. Griggs invented them. When he has done well down-town, he taps out a merry peal on the bell, and then I tell the children to greet him at the hall door and prepare for a romp. When the bell rings sharply I know that he is in no humor for fun, but will tolerate the children if they are quiet. But when he rings slowly and faintly, as he did to-night, I always put the dears to bed, as I know he has had bad luck and is worn out."

As she spoke, Griggs opened the hall door and staggered in, weak from his superhuman climb and worn out from his day's work. I said: "Good-by, old man; I'll call some day when you're going to give the bell the glad hand. You seem cozily situated." And then I came down in the dumb-waiter, although I suppose it was risky.

What a great thing is an electric bell! But how much greater is an inventive mind like that of Griggs.

? LA SHERLOCK HOLMES

Jones and I recently had occasion to take a drive of four or five miles in upper Connecticut. We were met at the station by Farmer Phelps, who soon had us snugly wrapped in robes and speeding over the frozen highway in a sleigh. It was bitter cold weather--the thermometer reading 3? above zero. We had come up from Philadelphia, and to us such extreme cold was a novelty, which is all we could say for it.

As we rode along, Jones fell to talking about Conan Doyle's detective stories, of which we were both great admirers--the more so as Doyle has declared Philadelphia to be the greatest American city. It turned out that Mr. Phelps was familiar with the "'Meemoirs' of Sherlock Holmes," and he thought there was some "pretty slick reasonin'" in it. "My girl," said he, "got the book out er the library an' read it aout laoud to my woman an' me. But of course this Doyle had it all cut an' dried afore he writ it. He worked backwards an' kivered up his tracks, an' then started afresh, an' it seems more wonderful to the reader than it reely is."

"I don't know," said Jones; "I've done a little in the observation line since I began to read him, and it's astonishing how much a man can learn from inanimate objects, if he uses his eyes and his brain to good purpose. I rarely make a mistake."

Just then we drove past an outbuilding. The door of it was shut. In front of it, in a straight row and equidistant from each other, lay seven cakes of ice, thawed out of a water-pan.

"There," said Jones; "what do we gather from those seven cakes of ice and that closed door?"

I gave it up.

Mr. Phelps said nothing.

Jones waited impressively a moment, and then said quite glibly: "The man who lives there keeps a flock of twelve hens--not Leghorns, but probably Plymouth Rocks or some Asiatic variety. He attends to them himself, and has good success with them, although this is the seventh day of extremely cold weather."

I gazed at him in admiration.

Mr. Phelps said nothing.

"Well, those cakes of ice were evidently formed in a hens' drinking-pan. They are solid. The water froze a little all day long, and froze solid in the night. It was thawed out in the morning and left lying there, and the pan was refilled. There are seven cakes of ice; therefore there has been a week of very cold weather. They are side by side: from this we gather that it was a methodical man who attended to them; evidently no hireling, but the goodman himself. Methodical in little things, methodical in greater ones; and method spells success with hens. The thickness of the ice also proves that comparatively little water was drunk; consequently he keeps a small flock. Twelve is the model number among advanced poultrymen, and he is evidently one. Then, the clearness of the ice shows that the hens are not excitable Leghorns, but fowl of a more sluggish kind, although whether Plymouth Rocks or Brahmas or Langshans, I can't say. Leghorns are so wild that they are apt to stampede through the water and roil it. The closed door shows he has the good sense to keep them shut up in cold weather.

"To sum up, then, this wide-awake poultryman has had wonderful success, in spite of a week of exceptionally cold weather, from his flock of a dozen hens of some large breed. How's that, Mr. Phelps? Isn't it almost equal to Doyle?"

"Yes; but not accordin' to Hoyle, ez ye might say," said he. "Your reasonin' is good, but it ain't quite borne aout by the fac's. In the fust place, this is the fust reel cold day we've hed this winter. Secon'ly, they ain't no boss to the place, fer she's a woman. Thirdly, my haouse is the nex' one to this, an' my boy an' hers hez be'n makin' those ice-cakes fer fun in some old cream-pans. Don't take long to freeze solid in this weather. An', las'ly, it ain't a hen-haouse, but an ice-haouse."

The sun rode with unusual quietness through the heavens. We heard no song of bird. The winds were whist. All nature was silent.

So was Jones.

MY SPANISH PARROT

I have two maiden aunts living down in Maine, on the edge of the woods. Their father was a deaf-and-dumb woodsman, and their mother died when they were small, and they hardly see a soul from one year's end to the other. The consequence is, they're the simplest, dearest old creatures one ever saw. They don't know what evil means. They pass their days knitting and working in their garden. The quarterly visits of the itinerant preacher who deals out the gospel in that region, and my occasional trips up there, constitute the only chances they have of mingling with the outside world, and they're as happy and unsophisticated as birds.

A year ago I took up a parrot that I'd bought of a sailor. The bird had a cold when I got it, and wasn't saying a word; but the sailor vouched for its character, and I thought it would be a novelty and company for the old ladies, so I took it along. They'd never seen a parrot before, and they couldn't thank me enough. I told them that when it got over its cold it would talk; and then it occurred to me that as the sailor of which I bought it was a Spaniard, the bird would be likely to speak that tongue. "So you'll be able to learn Spanish," said I; and they were mightily pleased at the notion.

In about two months I received a letter from Aunt Linda, saying that the bird was the greatest company in the world, and they didn't know what they'd do without him. "And," wrote my aunt, "the bird is a great talker of Spanish, and we have learned much of that strange tongue."

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