The Talkative Wig | Page 2

got the worst of it. So I lived to be made fun of,
and 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