Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot Page 4

  CHAPTER II.

  _THE TERRIBLE MISHAP TO MR. FOGG'S BABY_.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fogg have a young baby which was exceedingly restless andtroublesome at night while it was cutting its teeth. Mr. Fogg, devotedand faithful father that he is, used to take a good deal more than hisshare of the nursing of the infant, and often, when he would turnout of bed for the fifteenth or sixteenth time and with flutteringgarments and unshod feet carry the baby to and fro, soothing it witha little song, he would think how true it is, as Napoleon once said,that "the only real courage is two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage."Mr. Fogg thought he had a reasonable amount of genuine bravery, andjustly, for he performed the functions of a nurse with unsurpassedpatience and good humor.

  One night, however, the baby was unusually wakeful and tempestuous,and after struggling with it for several hours he called Mrs. Fogg andsuggested that it would be well to give the child some paregoricto relieve it from the intense pain from which it was evidentlysuffering. The medicine stood upon the bureau, but Mrs. Fogg had to godown stairs to the dining-room to get some sugar; and while she wasfumbling about in the entry in the dark it occurred to Mr. Fogg thathe had heard of persons being relieved from pain by applications ofmesmerism. He had no notion that he could exercise such power; butwhile musing upon the subject he rubbed the baby's eyebrows carelesslywith his fingers and made several passes with his hands upon itsforehead. As Mrs. Fogg began to feel her way up stairs, he wassurprised and pleased to find that the baby had become quiet and haddropped off into sweet and peaceful slumber. Mrs. Fogg put the sugaraway as her husband placed the child in its crib and covered it upcarefully, and then they went to bed.

  MR. FOGG AS A MESMERIST]

  They were not disturbed again that night, and in the morning the babywas still fast asleep. Mrs. Fogg said she guessed the poor littledarling must have gotten a tooth through, which made it feel easier.Mr. Fogg said, "Maybe it has."

  But he had a faint though very dark suspicion that something waswrong.

  After breakfast he went up to the bed-room to see if the baby wasawake. It still remained asleep; and Mr. Fogg, when he had leaned overand listened to its breathing, shook it roughly three or four timesand cleared his throat in a somewhat boisterous manner. But it did notwake, and Mr. Fogg went down stairs with a horrible dread upon him,and assuming his hat prepared to go to the office. Mrs. Fogg called tohim,

  "Don't slam the front door and wake the baby!"

  And then Mr. Fogg did slam it with extraordinary violence; after whichhe walked up the street with gloom in his soul and a wretched feelingof apprehension that the baby would never waken.

  "What on earth would we do if it should stay asleep for years?S'pose'n it should sleep right straight ahead for half a century, andgrow to be an old man without knowing its pa and ma, and without everlearning anything or seeing anything!"

  The thought maddened him. He remembered Rip Van Winkle; he recalledthe Seven Sleepers of Ephesus; he thought of the afflicted woman whomhe saw once at a menagerie in a trance, in which she had been fortwenty years continuously, excepting when she awoke for a few momentsat long intervals to ask for something to eat. Perhaps when he andMrs. Fogg were dead the baby might be rented to a menagerie, and becarried around the country as a spectacle. The idea haunted him. Itmade him miserable. He tried for two or three hours to fix his mindupon his office-duties, but it was impossible. He determined togo back to the house to ascertain if the baby had returned toconsciousness. When he got there, Mrs. Fogg was beginning to feel veryuneasy. She said,

  "Isn't it strange, Wilberforce, that the baby stays asleep? He is notawake yet. I suppose it is nervous exhaustion, poor darling! but I ama little worried about it."

  Mr. Fogg felt awfully. He went up and jagged a pin into the baby'sleg quietly, so that his wife could not see him. Still it lay therewrapped in slumber; and after repeating the experiment he abandonedhimself to despair and went back to his office, uncertain whether tofly or to go home and confess the terrible truth to Mrs. Fogg.

  In a couple of hours that lovely woman came in to see him. She wasscared and breathless:

  "Mr. Fogg, the baby is actually asleep yet, and I can't rouse him.I've shaken him, called to him and done _everything_, and he don'tstir. What _can_ be the matter with him? I'm afraid something dreadfulhas happened to him."

  "Maybe he is sleeping up a lot ahead, so's to stay awake at night somemore," said Mr. Fogg, with a feeble smile at his attempt at a joke.

  "Wilberforce, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to trifle with sucha matter! S'pose the baby should die while it is in that condition? Ibelieve it _is_ going to die, and I want you to go straight for thedoctor."

  Mr. Fogg started at once, and in half an hour he reached the house incompany with Dr. Gill. The doctor examined the child carefully andsaid that it was a very queer case, but that, in his opinion, he mustbe under the influence of opium.

  "Did you give him any while I was asleep last night, Mr. Fogg?" askedMrs. Fogg, suspiciously and tearfully.

  "Upon my word and honor I didn't," said Mr. Fogg, with the coldperspiration standing upon his forehead.

  "Are you _sure_ you didn't give him _anything_?" demanded the mother,suddenly remembering that the baby became quiet while she was downstairs upon the preceding night.

  "Maria, do you think I would deceive you?" asked Mr. Fogg, in agony."I'll take my solemn oath that I did not give it a drop of medicine ofany kind."

  "It is very remarkable--very," said the doctor. "I don't know that Iever encountered precisely such a case before. I think I will call inDr. Brown and consult with him about it."

  Then Mrs. Fogg began to sob; and while she fondled the baby, Mr. Fogg,feeling like a murderer, followed the doctor down stairs. When theyreached the hall, Mr. Fogg drew the doctor aside and said, in aconfidential whisper:

  "Doctor, I am going to tell you something, but I want you to promisesolemnly that you will keep it a secret."

  "Very well; what is it?"

  "You won't tell Mrs. Fogg?"

  "No."

  "Well, doctor, I--I--I--know what is the matter with that baby."

  "You do! you know! Well, why didn't you--What _is_ the matter withit?"

  "The fact is, I mesmerized it last night."

  "You did! Mesmerized it! And why don't you rouse it up again?"

  "I don't know how; that's the mischief of it. I did it accidentally,you know. I was sort of fingering around the child's forehead, and allof a sudden it stopped crying and dropped off. Can't you find me aprofessional mesmerizer to come and undo the baby?"

  "I don't believe I can. The only one I know of lives in San Francisco,and he couldn't get here in less than a week even if we shouldtelegraph for him."

  "By that time," shrieked Mr. Fogg, "the baby'll be dead and Maria willbe insane! What, under Heaven, are we going to do about it?"

  "Let's hunt up Brown; maybe he knows."

  So they went around to Dr. Brown's office and revealed the secret tohim. Brown seemed to think that he might perhaps do something to robthe situation of its horrors, and he accompanied Mr. Fogg and Dr.Gill to the house. When they entered, Mrs. Fogg was rapidly becominghysterical. Dr. Brown placed the baby on the bed; he slapped itslittle hands and rubbed its forehead and dashed cold water in itsface. In a few moments the baby opened its eyes, then it suddenly satup and began to cry. Mr. Fogg used to hate that noise, but now itseemed to him sweeter than music. Mrs. Fogg was wild with joy. Shetook the baby in her arms and kissed and hugged it, and then she said,

  "What do you think was the matter with him, doctor?"

  "Why, your husband says he mesmerized the child," replied the doctor,incautiously letting the secret drop.

  Then Mrs. Fogg looked at the culprit as if she wished to assassinatehim; but she merely ejaculated, "Monster!" and flew from the room; andMr. Fogg, as he went down with the physicians, put on an injured lookand said,

  "If that baby wants to holloa now, I'm going to let him holloa, if heholloas
the top of his head off."

  * * * * *

  It was this offence, according to popular rumor, that brought thingsto a crisis in Mr. Fogg's family and induced Mrs. Fogg to seek toremove the heavy burden of woe imposed upon her by her husband. Onlya few days later Mr. and Mrs. Fogg knocked at the door of ColonelCoffin's law office, and then filed in, Mrs. Fogg in advance. Mr.Fogg, the reader may care to know, was a subdued, weak-eyed and timidperson. He had the air of a victim of perpetual tyranny--of a man whohad been ruthlessly and remorselessly sat upon until his spirit waswholly gone. And Mrs. Fogg looked as if she might have been hisdespot. She opened the conversation by addressing the lawyer:

  "Colonel, I have called to engage you as my counsel in a divorce suitagainst Mr. Fogg. I have resolved to separate from him--to sunder ourties and henceforth to live apart."

  "Indeed!" replied the colonel; "I'm sorry to hear that. What's thematter? Has he been beating and ill-treating you?"

  "Beating!" exclaimed Mrs. Fogg, disdainfully; "I should think not! Ishould like him to try it."

  "Maria, let me--" interposed Mr. Fogg, mildly.

  "Now, Wilberforce," she exclaimed, interrupting him, "you remainquiet; I will explain this matter to Colonel Coffin. You see, colonel,Mr. Fogg is eccentric beyond endurance. He goes on continually in amanner that will certainly drive me to distraction. I can stand it nolonger. We _must_ be cut asunder. For years, colonel, Wilberforce hasbeen attempting to learn to play upon the flute. He has no moreidea of music than a crow, but he _will_ try to learn. He has beenpracticing upon the flute since 1862, and he has learned but a portionof but one tune--'Nelly Bly.' He can play but four notes, 'Nelly Blyshuts--' and there he stops. He has practiced these four notes forfourteen years. He plays them upon the porch in the evening; he blowsthem out from the garret; he stands out in the yard and puffs them;he has frequently risen in the night and seized his flute and played'Nel-ly Bly shuts' for hours, until I had to scream to relieve myfeelings."

  "Now, Maria," said Mr. Fogg, "you know that I can play as far as'shuts her eye'--six notes in all. I learned them in the early part ofJune."

  "Very well, now; it's of no consequence. Don't interrupt me. This isbad enough. I submitted to it because I loved him. But on Tuesday,while I was watching him through the crack of the parlor door, I sawhim wink twice at my chambermaid; I saw him distinctly."

  "Maria," shrieked Fogg, "this is scandalous. You know very well that Iam suffering from a nervous affection of the eye-lids."

  "Wilberforce, hush! In addition to this wickedness, colonel, Mr. Foggis becoming so absent-minded that he torments my life; he makes meutterly wretched. Four times now has he brought his umbrella to bedwith him and scratched me by joggling it around with the sharp pointsof the ribs toward me. What on earth he means I cannot imagine. Hesaid he thought somehow it was the baby, but that is so preposterousthat I can hardly believe him."

  "Why can't you? Don't you remember perfectly well that I emptied abottle of milk into the umbrella twice? Would I have done that if Ihadn't thought it was the baby?"

  "There, now, Wilberforce! that's enough from you. Do let me have achance to talk! And, colonel, the real baby he treats in the mostmalignant manner. A few days ago he mesmerized it secretly, and scaredme so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dearchild would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in onThursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on thedarling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought it would neverrecover."

  "Maria, didn't I tell you I gave it to the child to play with to keephim quiet?"

  "Mr. Fogg, will you please let me get a word in edgeways? Our olderchildren, too, he is simply ruining. He teaches them the mostpernicious and hurtful doctrines. He told Johnny the other day thatMadagascar was an island in the Peruvian Ocean off the coast ofIllinois, and that a walrus was a kind of a race horse used by theCaribbees. And our oldest girl told me that he instructed her thatPolycarp fought the battle of Waterloo for the purpose of defeatingthe Saracens."

  "Not the Saracens, Maria; Lucy misunderstood--"

  A NOVEL MOUSETRAP]

  "Wilberforce, I wish you would hush! His general treatment of me wasscandalous. He was constantly taking my teeth for the purpose ofknocking around the spigot in the bath-tub at night when the babywanted a drink, and only last week he took both sets after I had goneto bed, propped them apart, baited them with cheese, and caught twohorrid mice before morning. I was so hurt by his behavior that I dranksome laudanum for the purpose of committing suicide, and then Mr. Foggborrowed a pump in at Knott's drug store and pumped me out twice insuch a rude manner that I have felt hollow ever since."

  "I did it from kindness, Maria."

  "Don't talk of kindness to me, Wilberforce, after your conduct. And,colonel, one night last week, after I had retired, Mr. Fogg sat downin the room below and determined to see if it were true that a candlecould be shot through a board from a gun. He dropped a lighted candlein his gun, and of course it exploded. It came up through the floorand made a large spot of grease upon the ceiling of my room, nearlyscaring me to death and filling my legs full of bird-shot."

  "Maria, I asked you to believe that I forgot about the candle beinglighted. I did it in a fit of absent-mindedness."

  "Do go into the other room, Wilberforce, or else hold your tongue. So,colonel, I want to get a divorce. Existence is unendurable to me. Thelives of my children are in danger. I cannot remain in such slaveryany longer. Can you release me?"

  Colonel Coffin said he would think it over and give her an answer in aweek. His idea was to give her time to think better of it. So thenshe told Wilberforce to put on his hat; and when he had done so, hefollowed her meekly out, and they went home. It is believed in theneighborhood that she has concluded to stick to him for a whilelonger.