So We Have No Grudge
To Lay Up Against Him, And Only Pictures Tinged With Couleur-De-Rose
To Carry Away With Us.
SEA-SIDE AMUSEMENT IN THE "CITY OF SOLES".
As it is our custom to come to these New England shores every summer, in
order, as Jim says, to get salted so that we may keep well through the
winter (by which you need not infer that we "get into a pickle"), we
commence the process at this place, before proceeding to more Northerly
points.
As the "dry spell" has made the roads so dusty that there is little
pleasure in driving, and our horses are at present in the stables of our
Chateaux-en-Espagne, and consequently not available this warm evening,
we gather on the porch to be entertained by the learned converse of the
professors, until an approaching storm drives us in-doors. Within the
"shooting box", as the young man who has traveled christens the house, -
thinking that an appropriate title for a domicile where so many members
of the Hunt family are collected, - there is a motley assembly, as they
gather around the sitting room table. There are Portuguese,
Michiganders, Pennites, Illinoisyones, Bangorillas, and other specimens
of natural history such as would have puzzled Agassiz himself; and the
question arises, "What shall we do to amuse ourselves this rainy
evening?" But "Pat", the engineer, oiler of the domestic machinery of
the establishment, and keeper of this menagerie, seems overcome with
fatigue; the Astronomer is eclipsed in a corner; the professors are
absorbed in sines and co-sines; the Fisherman nods over his paper;
Grandma knits her brows and the stocking; Elsie is deep in a book; and
no one displays any special interest in the matter until pencils and
paper are distributed for the game of Crambo. The modus operandi of
that most wise and learned game is as follows: Four slips of paper are
given each person, on one of which he is requested to write a question,
and on each of the other scraps a word. These are then shuffled, and all
in turn draw. And now there is great commotion, for each participant is
expected to answer his question in rhyme, and to bring the three words
which he has drawn, into his answer, also. Such a chorus of "Oh dears",
and such dismayed faces! The student proposes to procure the coffee mill
to assist him in grinding out his "pome"; the tennis player wishes she
had a hatchet to chop up a long word which has fallen to her lot, so
that she can put it in proper metre; but Mr. Short (6 ft. 2 in.), with
watch in hand, calls "Time", and then "Silence", as pencils race over
papers as if on a wager. Ten minutes is the brief space allotted for the
production of the wondrous effusions; and when Mr. S. announces, "Time's
up", the hat is again full; and one says, with a sigh of relief, "There,
I never made two lines rhyme in my life before;" another modestly
remarks, "You needn't think we are verdant because we are in Green - "
but the warning finger of the Philosopher is raised, and Pat, the
reader, begins, emphasizing the words drawn as he reads:
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