The Talkative Wig | Page 2

lived for nothing else.
At last, the major's wife, our dear mistress, took me one day into her gentle hands, and after examining me carefully and making up her mind to the act, deliberately took her scissors, ripped me up into pieces, and sent me to the dyer's, to be colored brown. This was too horrid--I was soused into the vilest mixture you can imagine, and suffered every thing abominable, such as being stretched within an inch of my life, and then almost burned to death. At last, I came out with the color you now see me, not a handsome brown, but a real sickish rhubarb color. My dear mistress laughed when she looked at me. "This is a dose," said she, "but it will do for an every day coat for Jonathan, and I can make it myself, with Keziah Vose's aid; so I will not grieve about it. So Keziah was sent for and set to work.
Now Jonathan was a white-haired, chubby boy, and this was his first coat. Keziah went by her eye altogether. She took no measures except for the sleeves, and these she said she would make large and long, to allow for Jonathan's growing. She made me so broad behind that one brass button could not see the other, although they were, as you see, almost as large as a small plate; the skirts came down so as to hide the calves of his legs, and were so full as nearly to meet before. My sleeves had a regular slouch. There was no hollow in the back, and I looked as if I was made for one of the boys' snow men, not for a human being.
When I was finished and put on for the first time, all the children and their mother were present, as it happened. My droll looks and rhubarb color, the comical expression of Jonathan's face,--for he was a great rogue,--and his sun-bleached hair, half hidden by my high, stiff collar, set them all into a gale of laughter. He took hold of my full skirts, one on each side, and began to dance; and even his mother and Keziah laughed too. Nothing was to be done. A few times, the mother of Jonathan tried to induce him to wear me at home, for she could not afford, she said, to lose all I had cost her; but it was all in vain--giggle, giggle, went all the children when they saw me, and I had to be hung up, as you see me now. Whenever they wanted a comical dress in any of their plays, I was brought out, and that little girl asleep there, and her brothers still amuse themselves with my comical looks. Alas! I am of no other use in this world.
The young people used to amuse themselves by acting little plays, or some other nonsense; and when they wanted to make a very ridiculous figure, I noticed they came for me. I always observed that whoever had me on talked through his nose, with an ugly drawl, and used vulgar words and expressions, such as "Now you don't! Do tell! Sartin true!"
Once they put me on a dancing bear. This was insulting. I don't like to think of it. I try to forget it.
In short, every one laughs when I am present, for some reason or other; and I suppose I have been kept on account of the merriment I have afforded the family. After all, my friends, I am not sure that he who adds to the innocent gayety of people is not as valuable a person as one who has more dignity, and who never made any one laugh in his life.
I have done, my friends--the old cloak is a more serious, dignified person than I, and will now, I trust, give us her history."
The old cloak began to speak in a different tone from that of the coat. I cannot say the tone was gloomy, though it was very serious. It was a kindly, affectionate tone, that made you not unhappy, but thoughtful. "I agree," said she, "with my neighbor who has just spoken, that no one deserves better of society than he who promotes its innocent merriment. No bad person can know what true gayety of heart is. Goodness and cheerfulness are like substance and shadow; where the one is, the other will always follow.
I was made of German wool; and, in my country, the people all laugh and sing. They keep still a saying of old Martin Luther, which runs, if I remember rightly,--
"Wo man singt, leg' ich mich freilich nieder. Bose Menschen haben keine Lieder."
"Keep to plain English, you Hushan!" shouted the musket with a kick.
"I am sorry to hurt your feelings, my old soldier," said the good natured cloak.