Gala-Days | Page 8

awe quivers through the
angry, agitated air. On, still on, till the fair and smiling moon is but a
dull and tawny orb, with no beauty to be desired; on, still on, till even
that cold, coppery light wanes into sullen darkness. Whether it is a
cloud kindly hiding the humbled queen, or whether the queen is indeed
merged in the abyss of the Shadow, I cannot tell, and it is dismal
waiting to see. The wildness is gone with the moon, and there is
nothing left but a dark night. I wonder how long before she will
reappear? Are the people in the moon staring through an eclipse of the

Sun? I should like to see her come out again, and clothe herself in
splendor. I think I will go back to Walden. Ah! even my philosopher,
aping Homer, nods. It shimmers a little, on the lake, among the
mountains--of the moon.
I declare! I believe I have been asleep. What of it? It is just as well. I
have no doubt the moon will come out again all right,--which is more
than I shall do if I go on in this way. I feel already as if the top of my
head was coming off. Once I was very unhappy, and I sat up all night to
make the most of it. It was many hundred years ago, when I was
younger than I am now, and did not know that misery was not a thing
to be caressed and cosseted and coddled, but a thing to be taken, neck
and heels, and turned out doors. So I sat up to revel in the ecstasy of
woe. I went along swimmingly into the little hours, but by two o'clock
there was a great sameness about it, and I grew desperately sleepy. I
was not going to give it up, however, so I shocked myself into a torpid
animation with a cold bath, it being mid-winter, and betwixt bath and
bathos, managed to keep agoing till daylight. Once since then I was
very happy, and could not keep my eyes shut. Those are the only two
times I ever sat up all night, and, on the whole, I think I will go to bed;
wherefore, O people on the earth, marking eagerly the moon's eclipse,
and O people on the moon, crowding your craggy hills to see an eclipse
of the sun, Good night!
Then the lost June came back. Frost melted out of the air, summer
melted in, and my book beckoned me onward with a commanding
gesture. Consequently I took my trunk, Halicarnassus his cane, and we
started on our travels. But the shadow of the eclipse hung over us still.
An evil omen came in the beginning. Just as I was stepping into the car,
I observed a violent smoke issuing from under it. I started back in
alarm.
"They are only getting up steam," said Halicarnassus. "Always do,
when they start."
"I know better!" I answered briskly, for there was no time to be
circumlocutional. "They don't get up steam under the cars."

"Why not? Bet a sixpence you couldn't get Uncle Cain's Dobbin out of
his jog-trot without building a fire under him."
"I know that wheel is on fire," I said, not to be turned from the direct
and certain line of assertion into the winding ways of argument.
"No matter," replied Halicarnassus, conceding everything, "we are
insured."
Upon the strength of which consolatory information I went in. By and
by a man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire,"
chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By and by several
people who had been looking out of the windows drew in their heads,
went into the next car.
"What do you suppose they did that for?" I asked Halicarnassus.
"More aristocratical. Belong to old families. This is a new car, don't
you see? We are parvenus."
"Nothing of the sort," I rejoined. "This car is on fire, and they have
gone into the next one so as not to be burned up."
"They are not going to write books, and can afford to run away from
adventures."
"But suppose I am burned up in my adventure?"
"Obviously, then, your book will end in smoke."
I ceased to talk, for I was provoked at his indifference. I leave every
impartial mind to judge for itself whether the circumstances were such
as to warrant composure. To be sure, somebody said the car was to be
left at Jeru; but Jeru was eight miles away, and any quantity of mischief
might be done before we reached it,--if indeed we were not prevented
from reaching it altogether. It was a mere question of dynamics. Would
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