The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales | Page 8

lady we encountered," said Mr. Potts, "but,"
added he, with a burst of feeling, "she has no parasol!"
The assertion was indisputable. It was a truism, cows are never
provided with parasols,--but then great men are famous for uttering
truisms, and we venerated Mr. Potts for following the example.
"It is now twelve o'clock!" said Mr. Potts, consulting his repeater. "At
half past four, the shadow of the buttonwood will fall into this poor
animal's pasture. Four hours and a half of torture, rendered more
painful by the contemplation of the luxuries of her remote companions!
It is insufferable!"
Then Mr. Potts, with a genial smile on his Pickwickian countenance,
expanded his green silk umbrella, mounted the fence, on which he sat
astride, and patiently held the umbrella over the cow's head for the
space of four and a half mortal hours. The action was sublime. I regret
to add that the animal proved ungrateful, and, when Mr. Potts closed
his umbrella on the shadow of the buttonwood relieving guard,
facilitated his descent from the Virginia fence by an ungraceful
application of her horns to the amplitude of his venerable person.
It was in the summer following, that the incident I am about to relate
occurred. It was fly-time,--I remember it well. We were again walking
together, when we came to a wall-eyed horse, harnessed to a dog's meat
cart, and left standing by his unfeeling master while he indulged in
porter and pipes in a small suburban pothouse, much affected by
Milesians. The horse was much annoyed by flies, and testified his
impatience and suffering by stamping and tossing his head. Mr. Potts
was the first to notice that the poor animal had no tail,--for the two or
three vertebræ attached to the termination of the spine could hardly be
supposed to constitute a tail proper. The discovery filled him with
horror. A horse in fly-time without a tail! The case was worse than that
of the cow.
"And here I am!" exclaimed the great and good man, in a tone of the
bitterest self-reproach, "luxuriating in a pigtail which that poor creature
would be glad of!"

With these words he produced a penknife, and placing it in my hands,
resolutely bade me amputate his cue. I did so with tears in my eyes, and
placed the severed ornament in the hands of my companion. With a
piece of tape he affixed it to the horse's stump, and the gush of
satisfaction he felt at seeing the first fly despatched by the ingenious
but costly substitute for a tail, must have been, I think, an adequate
recompense for the sacrifice.
I think it was in that same summer that Mr. Potts laid before the
Philanthropic and Humane Society, of which he was an honorable and
honorary member, his "plan for the amelioration of the condition of
no-tailed horses in fly-time, by the substitution of feather dusters for
the natural appendage, to which are added some hints on the grafting of
tails with artificial scions, by a retired farrier in ill health."
During the last year of his life, Mr. Potts offered a prize of five
thousand dollars for the discovery of a harmless and indelible white
paint, to be used in changing the complexion of the colored population,
to place them on an equality with ourselves, or for any chemical
process which would produce the same result.
Mr. Potts proposed to substitute for capital punishment, houses of
seclusion for murderers, where, remote from the world, in rural retreats,
they might converse with nature, and in the cultivation of the earth, or
the pursuit of botany, might become gradually softened and humanized.
At the expiration of a few months' probation, he proposed to restore
them to society.
A criminal is an erring brother. The object of punishment is
reformation, and not vengeance. Hence, Mr. Potts proposed to supply
our prisoners with teachers of languages, arts and sciences, dancing and
gymnastics. Every prison should have, he contended, a billiard room
and bowling saloon, a hairdresser, and a French cook. Occasionally,
accompanied by proper officers, the convicts should be taken to the
Italian Opera, or allowed to dance at Papanti's. The object would be so
to refine their tastes that they should shrink from theft and murder,
simply because they were ungentlemanly. Readmitted to society, these
gentlemen would give tone to the upper classes.

But Mr. Potts has gone in the midst of his schemes of usefulness. The
tailless quadruped, the shedless cow, the unwhitewashed African, the
condemned felon, the unhappy prisoner, actually treated as if he were
no gentleman, in him have lost a friend. When shall we see his like
again? Echo answers, Probably not for a very long period.

THE GONDOLIER.
O, rest thee here, my gondolier, Rest, rest, while