KinSource - Tale of the Week - Our Boarding House

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Saturday Evening Spectator (Minneapolis), July 26, 1879, p. 1

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

BY ONE OF THE BOARDERS.

"Enough is as good as a feast. I'm done, Mary." Mr. Tipstaff wiped his moustache, threw down his napkin and pushed back from the table. The rest of the boarders had finished their tea and scattered through the house and grounds. Mr. Marrowfat, Miss Coldfoot and Mr. and Mrs. Lambkin were out on the lawn, mallet in hand, about to begin a game of croquet.

"Hillo Top," called fat old Dr. Harcourt from the front porch where he was seated, "just got home from the regatta, hey? Come out here and tell me about it."

"I'm so outrageously tired," replied Paul, "that I can hardly tell which end I stand on. Of course we had a good time, but the hotel was so crowded and the races were so long delayed that we were tired and bored almost to death. Miss Languish went to her room the moment we returned and we wont see her again till dinner to-morrow. You'll have to ask Fred Payton about the ladies, he had a regular mash on some of them. There was one girl there from St. Louis with yellow hair and magnolia balm complexion who hung to him like a tick."

"Oh, never mind the girls, bless their hearts of course they hang on. That's what they go to your watering places for. These regattas are good things. I wish we could have more of them. There's nothing like competitive exercise to bring out the muscles and energies of the boys."

"Those Burlington boys," said Paul, "are a fine lot of fellows. They were the fastest junior four-oared crew at Keokuk, and would have won the race there, had it not been that they were handicapped by heavy water. The best four-oared time made at Minnetonka was 13:37, by the Burlingtons, in the senior four-oared contest. They pulled over the same course for practice in the morning at 13:03. Their stroke, Ohrt, is a wirey, powerful fellow, who never allows his crew to get flustered and wild but starts off with a strong, deep stroke, getting under headway without the wild splashing and jerking exhibited by the other crews. Then, they handle their bodies exactly alike, every man recovers and lets fall at exactly the same instant, and their bodies, to a man, straight as a pole swing forward and back upon the hips, while Whitney and Chase of the Lurlines bow their backs and pull too much with their arms. Whitney especially swinging to one side as he pulls, throwing his body out of true. The Shoe-wae-cae-mettes pull in this strange fashion, but they are harmonious, two lean to port and two to Starboard, so the movement is uniform. McReeve pulls a fine bow oar, having. like Pres. King, had his preliminary training at Yale. Pres. is a noble oarsman really being the finest stroke on the lake. With two men in the center like Pres., our boys would never have to turn their heads to see their adversaries.

"Did the boys seem much exhausted when they finished?" inquired the Doctor.

"On the contrary, I was surprised to see how fresh they were. Why, I believe I was more exhausted than they were at night. We had to sit in the boiling sun on a pine board, our only amusement between the heats being the alternate witching strains of a brass band and a mosquito horn; but the crowd was very patient and bore well with the delays. The hotel people were almost wild. Guests poured in on them until they were obliged to absolutely refuse acommodations to another soul."

"Did you try pulling in one of the shells? I understand they are difficult to manage."

"Well, yes, I tried, but that's about all. I got in on both sides, that is, I got in the boat on one side and in the water on the other. It looks mighty easy to see the boys skimming over the water, but it ain't what its cracked up to be when it is tried for the first time. Why its like this," and Paul placed a croquet box on the piazza rail and, setting inside, balanced himself by holding on with his hands.

"Here is the boat, this rail here you see, 40 feet long, and this box is the cock pit, just long enough to stretch your limbs and wide enough to admit your hips. The bow and stern are as sharp as a horseman's lance. Here's the out riggers, way out on each side, through which the oars pass. The oars are very long with the blades turned up at the end like a spoon. You have to sit mightily still until you get under way and then its plain sailing. It's as exhilirating as an intoxicant. Here we go forward and back -- ugh!"

Paul had forgotten his perilous position and in his enthusiasm had let go his hold on the railing and as he leaned back with an imaginary recover, over he went head first into a bed of geraniums below.

"La me! exclaimed Mrs. Openarms, the landlady just coming out with a pitcher of ice water in her hand. "La me, Doctor, but you and Mr. Stiftaf" --

"Tipstaff," interposed Paul.

"Tiftaf, I beg pardon, sir. As I was a sayin', you and Mr. Distaff, Doctor, seem to be creating quite a promotion out here."

Our landlady was a good old soul, entirely ignoring her forms of speech, often perpetrating grave solecisms, but paying strict attention to the Doctor, upon whose affections and plethoric purse she was accused of having mercenary designs. She had a remarkable faculty for mistaking and mixing up people's names. Tipstaff was a miller, consequently an honest man, and as he never adulterated his flour or mixed his customer's grists he objected to the good soul's odd ways.

"Grind her picture," he exclaimed, as he lit his cigar and walked away, leaving the Doctor and his inamorata to gather up the fragments of the croquet box "She's the softest old woman I ever saw. If Doc. don't look out she'll catch him yet, although he pretends not to like her over well. She declares she has 'dognozed' his case, and all he wants to make him completely 'obvious' to this world is a good wife. Heigho! I'm glad I haven't a fortune for a widow to hunt. I'd leave here and go to the Nicollet but the old lady sets a pretty good table and takes it neatly all out in flour."

"Vat.s de madder Baul, olt voman mages drubble mit you vonce more?"

Our genial Teutonic fellow boarder, Carl Poppenheim was leaning on the gate winking his sleepy eyes over his porcelain pipe, blowing blasts of smoke through his nostrils like steam from a heated charger on a winter's day.

"She vas de vorst pill off de pox. I like to hear dot Engleesh lankwige right shpoke. Ich haf laft myseluf many dimes py her mishtooks. Ich haf been me hier dree jahr und Ich got no drubble mit Engleesh. Py my gundree ve mage us mooch fun py dot kind of vomans.

"Oh, she's good enough in her way," responded Paul, "but she's such a busybody."

"Yah, I know me dot. She mages mooch pizness mit every poty. Vomans is beculiar beebles lige de boetry man says.

'Tage um for some goot oder for some ills.
Vomans is but some gontradictions shtill.'

"What's up, were you going?" calld Lambkin from the croquet ground. "Hold on a bit we're almost through, and I'll go with you."

"There!" cried Mr. Marrowfat, "I'm through that cussed middle arch. That's the wust in the whole business. Which arch you for Miss Coldfoot? Oh, yes! I see. Goin' to the stake. Well, here goes. What! didn't I hit? Why, course I did, I saw it move."

"No you don't! said Lambkin. "you don't play that on us. Here Kate, you're for this arch, right in position too. Careful -- there by Jove, you're the awkwardest thing. You couldn't hit Bunker Hill with a stick if you stood on top of it. You don't get me to play with you for a partner again."

"Who wants to play with you. You're always getting mad if I happen to miss an arch. You'r real mean, so you are. My brother never used to do so. And you won't let me use two hands either, I shan't play another stroke. So there now!"

"Oh that's right! By all means make a scene, call the neighbors and tell them how abused you are. Perhaps you'd like to have a wooden man all covered with taffy and caramels for a husband. Can't you take a word of advice without blubbering! I'm going down town with Mr. Tipstaff."

"Please don't George, I ain't mad. I won't do so any more." As the gate slams -- "George where are you going? To the Metropolitan?"

"Dunno, maybe, perhaps," growled her liege lord as he locked arms with Paul.

"Here comes that pestifirous boy!" Mrs. Openarms did not like young Master Marrowfat he was continually getting into her preserves and other people's business.

"My Ma says to gimme a piece of bread and sugar!" shouted young incorrigible.

"Too late now sonny, you can't have none to-night."

"You better gimme some, else I'll tell 'bout you an Doctor Harcourt, 'cause I saw yer in the back parlor when I comed down stairs last night after a drink of water." He got the bread and an extra allowance of sweetmeats and posted behind the Doctor's chair proceeded to regale the company with a series of facial contortions and remarkable gestures exaggerating that genial old gentleman's peculiarities, till a well directed cuff on the ear from the hand of the paternal Marrowfat sent him howling to bed.

A few callers had dropped in and we enjoyed the usual compliments of stale ballads and nasal solos while the inevitable catarrhal young man came in on the chorus with his uhm pah, uhm pah, zoom, zoom, zoom; the last rubber of whist had been played; Paul and George were home from the theatre, and as I sat in my underclothing with my feet on the window sill staring the moon out of countenance, I could but remark that

For ways that are vain and hash that is queer
Our boarding house is peculiar.