Miss Mehetabels Son | Page 4

in deep black, stepped into
the room.
"Silas Jaffrey," said Mr. Sewell, with a comprehensive sweep of his
arm, picking up me and the new-comer on one fork, so to speak. "Be
acquainted!"
Mr. Jaffrey advanced briskly, and gave me his hand with unlooked-for
cordiality. He was a dapper little man, with a head as round and nearly
as bald as an orange, and not unlike an orange in complexion, either; he
had twinkling gray eyes and a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous
freckles upon which were deepened by his funereal dress-coat and
trousers. He reminded me of Alfred de Musset's blackbird, which, with
its yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked like an undertaker eating
an omelet.
"Silas will take care of you," said Mr. Sewell, taking down his hat from
a peg behind the door. "I 've got the cattle to look after. Tell him, if you
want anything."
While I ate my breakfast, Mr. Jaffrey hopped up and down the narrow
bar-room and chirped away as blithely as a bird on a cherry-bough,
occasionally ruffling with his fingers a slight fringe of auburn hair
which stood up pertly round his head and seemed to possess a luminous
quality of its own.
"Don't I find it a little slow up here at the Corners? Not at all, my dear

sir. I am in the thick of life up here. So many interesting things going
on all over the world--inventions, discoveries, spirits, railroad disasters,
mysterious homicides. Poets, murderers, musicians, statesmen,
distinguished travellers, prodigies of all kinds turning up everywhere.
Very few events or persons escape me. I take six daily city papers,
thirteen weekly journals, all the monthly magazines, and two
quarterlies. I could not get along with less. I could n't if you asked me. I
never feel lonely. How can I, being on intimate terms, as it were, with
thousands and thousands of people? There's that young woman out
West. What an entertaining creature she is!--now in Missouri, now in
Indiana, and now in Minnesota, always on the go, and all the time
shedding needles from various parts of her body as if she really enjoyed
it! Then there 's that versatile patriarch who walks hundreds of miles
and saws thousands of feet of wood, before breakfast, and shows no
signs of giving out. Then there's that remarkable, one may say that
historical colored woman who knew Benjamin Franklin, and fought at
the battle of Bunk--no, it is the old negro man who fought at Bunker
Hill, a mere infant, of course, at that period. Really, now, it is quite
curious to observe how that venerable female slave--formerly an
African princess--is repeatedly dying in her hundred and eleventh year,
and coming to life again punctually every six months in the small-type
paragraphs. Are you aware, sir, that within the last twelve years no
fewer than two hundred and eighty-seven of General Washington's
colored coachmen have died?"
For the soul of me I could not tell whether this quaint little gentleman
was chaffing me or not. I laid down my knife and fork, and stared at
him.
"Then there are the mathematicians!" he cried vivaciously, without
waiting for a reply. "I take great interest in them. Hear this!" and Mr.
Jaffrey drew a newspaper from a pocket in the tail of his coat, and read
as follows: "It has been estimated that if all the candles manufactured
by this eminent firm (Stearine & Co.) were placed end to end, they
would reach 2 and 7/8 times around the globe. Of course," continued
Mr. Jaffrey, folding up the journal reflectively, "abstruse calculations of
this kind are not, perhaps, of vital importance, but they indicate the

intellectual activity of the age. Seriously, now," he said, halting in front
of the table, "what with books and papers and drives about the country,
I do not find the days too long, though I seldom see any one, except
when I go over to K------ for my mail. Existence may be very full to a
man who stands a little aside from the tumult and watches it with
philosophic eye. Possibly he may see more of the battle than those who
are in the midst of the action. Once I was struggling with the crowd, as
eager and undaunted as the best; perhaps I should have been struggling
still. Indeed, I know my life would have been very different now if I
had married Mehetabel--if I had married Mehetabel."
His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his bright face,
his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed to have faded out
of his hair. With a shuffling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic
tread, he turned to the door and passed into the road.
"Well," I said to myself, "if