Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1885 — MY PRIVATE ASTRONOMER. BY CLARENCE A. WEBSTER. [ARTICLE]

MY PRIVATE ASTRONOMER.

BY CLARENCE A. WEBSTER.

My early education was neglected, übiefly by myself, a fact which my wife, who is superior to me, mentally and •morally, is not slow to keep in the foreground in a very annoying manner. She does not know how irritating she is in her efforts to improve my mind, as I have never pointed it out to her. When she commences to talk I merely walk out of the house, lighting a cigar with slow absent-mindedness, which, judging from the effect, is truly exasperating. From long experience I have discovered that conscious silence is beyond a woman’s comprehension, and shuts her up in a manner only equaled by the effect on a man of an offer to bet five to one, closely followed by a show of money. Although I would not care to own it, I was at length goaded into a sneaking desire to shine in intellectual circles, and to be able to distinguish between the works of Emerson the minstrel and Emerson the author. Between you and me, I regard Billy as having more brains than his high-toned brother who wrote books. He made more money any way; but how my wife would rave should she hear me utter such a “Philistine heresy.” (“Philistine heresy” is one of her pet gags). I commenced my intellectual improvement by buying books, those of neat but not gaudy binding being preferred. I brought home a book nearly every day, and at first my wife beamed on me at the evidence of my “renaissance” (her gag); but I think at length she came to regard it as extravagance, and entertained a mean suspicion that too much “intellectual pabulum” (her gag again)might affect the sealskin sacque fund. I sought after knowledge pretty evenly, and with considerable nerve, until one day an unprincipled dealer worked off a Welsh dictionary on me, and then I shut down. I am rather liberal in my educational views, but I draw the line at Welsh dictionaries. After that I rarely bought a book, except when I had been out late with the boys, and wished to fortify my statement to the effect that I had spent the evening at our literary club and had just brought home something choice from the club library. Little things like this sometimes carry conviction when arguments fail. I was walking along the street one fine frosty evening when an idea struck pie, suggested by the sight of a cold and shivering curbstone telescope fakir. X stopped in front of him in order to thoroughly grasp the idea; for with me they are scarce and come high. With my wife it is different. “Five cents a look. Fine view of Jupiter,” remarked the sidewalk astronomer. “Here, gimme a quarter’s worth,” said I, handing over the coin. The man grinned, believing me drunk and good for any amount of money. I was never more sober in my life. It was .merely the. idea working. “Astronomy goesftsaid I. “Wliat?” observed the man, a little :anxiously, for he was not now sure he did not have a crank on his hands. “How much do you make a night ?” I tasked. “Not enough to keep me in salt,” he

answered, rathor savagely, for he now thought he saw in me a possible rival. “Then I can hire you pretty cheap, for my own private use, can’t 1?” A shade of regret that he had not announced himself on the high road to wealth crossed his face as he commenced to haggle with me over the price of the service. “I merely want you to give me some practical lessons in agronomy. My education is way off, and I want to get posted. Books put me to sleep. Now this is practical. It’s getting right at things. I'll look through your machine, and you can give me the pedigree and time of the stars as we go along, and I will remember it just as easy as I can the record of a boss I see trot with my own eyes. You get on to mv scheme?” “I think I do.” “You can give me a starter right now. Here’s a dollar for you. Aow tell me all I can remember about that star you have leveled your spyglass at.” The fellow hemmed and hawed and acted as though he didn’t know how to begin, until I suggested his refunding the dollar. That seemed to revive him and he turned loose a dray load of information, all of which 1 could not believe, not being of a credulous turn of mind. “That is the planet Jupiter,” he commenced, while I nearly broke my back bending down to get a good fair chance at it. “It is the largest of the constellations and is a hundred and seventyfive thousand miles thick.” I took it in without a quaver and my astronomer seemed to chipper up, talking with less hesitancy. “It has four moons, which you will observe ranged around the planet like the bags around the pitcher’s stand on a base-ball field. They have on that world both night and day shift moons. There is enough, so that at least one can throw off light all the time without too much wear and tear on the solar system. Moonlight walks on Jupiter have lost their charm, having become so common. ” I soaked in that piece of knowledge, and the astronomer brightened up still more. “If you will observe very closely you will be able to see tbe planet is enveloped in a vague and scarcely discernable nebula hypothesis.” “Hold on; say that again.” “What? Nebula hypothesis?” “Stop her, while I get my note-book to bear on it. Just let me gather that word in, and if I don’t paralyze my wife with it you may call me a horned toad.” He told me how to spell and pronounce it, and then I let him go on with the show. “A year on the planet Jupiter is a very long time,” he resumed. “It is about as long as eleven of ours.” “Oh, come, now; you can’t make me believe that!” I protested, as I let go the machine and tried to straighten out the crick in my back. “That’s what Proctor says. I don’t know anything about it myself, but he stakes his professional reputation on the assertion, ” urged my astronomer. It was a tough story, but Proctor settled it. I had heard my wife mention Proctor. “Yes sir, eleven years and nearly twelve ” “Great Caesar, but that’s hard on the grangers over in Jupiter—only one crop to three Presidential elections.” “I reckon it’s tiresome, but I suppose they get used to it. ” “It must be pleasant for merchants when a farmer comes in and asks to get trusted, and says he will pay after harvest—in the course of eight or ten years.” “There are some disadvantages about that, and then there are some advantages, too. It isn’t so bad if you are the one who owes the money. ” “That’s so. Now give her a turn ahead. ” “Some scientists assert that the inhabitants of Jupiter are transparent.” “Say-er-er, what’s your name?” “Liggins. ” “Well, Liggins, I’m cussed if astronomy isn’t interesting. Why, it’s great! It knocks a political campaign clear out. Gimme some more.” “As I was saying, some scientists, notably Herschel and La Place, assert that the inhabitants of Jupiter are transparent, while Kepler disputes this. ” “I guess I’ll tie up with Kepler on this deal. ” «■ “But there is one thing they all agree on—that the people can only be a foot and a half high, and about four feet thick, sloped a good deal like a mud-turtle with a head on top instead of at the end. You see the force of gravitation is so great that a man built like us would be plastered right down, and wouldn’t be able to stand alone unless he was several times stronger than men usually are. Why, it would break Sullivan’s back ” “Good deal like your machine, eh?” The planet, as I saw it, was hard to describe. It looked more like a big gob of light with four spatters around it than anything I can call to mind. It appeared rather scratchy, and was speckled with some dark spots, as, also, with some white specks. I asked Liggins, who was getting pretty cold by this time, what one of the largest white specks was, and he gave an opinion to the effect that in his estimation—scientific men, he allowed, couldn’t be too careful in their deductions—in his estimation it was the canvass of some big, first-class show company—the “iNine Allied London Shows,” for instance, all spread out, Possibly, it included the side shows, though he didn’t care to go on record about the side shows. Scientific men had to be careful. The thing looked plausible and I absorbed it.

“When I proposed having a shy at some other star, Liggins said he had a sick baby, and must hurry home. I was enthusiastic, in spite of my back, and wanted more, but Liggins waved his sick baby, so to speak, .in my face, and I let him go when be promised to have a fresh star on top the next night. As I had no desire to make a holy show of myself, we arranged to have the succeeding seances come off in my back-yard, and I got well started in astronomy. Every night Liggins lugged his telescope up to my house and back again, notwithstanding my offer to keep it safely. He said he wanted to pursue some private investigations by himself. Another thing struck me as peculiar, Avhich was that we could have but one star at a time. As soon as I suggested a sort of astronomical free-for all, Liggins always remembered that his baby had swallowed a copper or something of that sort. I didn’t believe the yarns about the baby, and I didn’t believe Liggins had a baby. I could not, nor can I now, understand how any self-respecting baby could own Liggins for a father, for he was about the most mangy-looking citizen I ever saw. Notwithstanding bis economy in the matter of stars we got along swimmingly. I took one every clear night and learned to be satisfied with that. I then thought he had an idea his invoice of planets and asteroids might run short. I found out differently later. “I want to see a comet,” said I one night. “I’ll find you one,” remarked Liggins, who was a very accommodating person. “We will have comets to morrow.”

Sure enough, he was as good as his word, and trotted out a big comet as promised. It was somewhat breezy in the tail, and not exactly as I expected. I spoke to my wife about it, and she thought it was unbecoming in me to find fault with the solar system. Next thing I would be talking positive infidelity. I must learn not to set myself up against Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, La Place. Herschel, Lockyer, Proctor, and all those. The job lot of names she fired at me sounded as if they belonged to a hard crowd to beat, so 1 went out and smoked. Although the cloudy nights came in pretty thick about that time, we made very fair progress, doing up Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, the Pleiades, the Milky Way, the Dipper, Saturn, and some others. Saturn with its rings looked like a target in a shooting gallery. Liggins had been telling me about a French astronomer by the name of Verne, who built a big cannon, and crawling into a hollow ball, shot himself to the moon, a proceeding which I would consider a tritie risky. He took a flyer around the orb (“orb” is one of Liggins’ gags), rounding the last quarter post without a skip, and lit on earth again all right. It’s funny the newspapers didn’t say anything about it. They usually do touch on such things. Well, that little story got me interested in the moon, and we fixed a date to investigate it. My wife settled on the same night for one of her symposiums, to be followed by a little progressive eucher and toned up a trifle by something in the refreshment line. My wife is noted for her literary gatherings. Liggins came around as usual, and, to alleviate his disappointment at my not coming to time on astronomy, I had a waiter carry out a dollar, a plate of chicken salad, and a, glass of champagne. Unfortunately, the bottle was left within his reach, and he went home satisfied with every one on this earth, and especially grateful to the solar system. For the first time since I had known him he left his telescope on the back porch. We got up late the next morning and my wife was cross, but brightened up when I came home to lunch. “Tom,” said she, “do you know how to run that telescope?” “N—no—l don’t know as I do. Liggins always attended to that.” She said nothing more about it and I went down town. When I returned I found the girl on her knees scrubbing a kerosene spot on the sitting room carpet and the wreck of the telescope, dissected by my wife, lying about the floor. She grabbed me by the arm and took me to a window. There she held up a piece of dirty glass. “What is that, do you think?” she asked, in her superior way. “It looks like a photo negative.” “It looks like it, but it isn’t. ” “Now listen.” Just as if I could do anything else but listen. “That miserable astronomer, whom I told my friends was a distinguished savong in distress, is nothing but a mean cheat. On this piece of glass is a clumsy picture of the moon in India ink. Hold it up to the sun. That light spot is the moon, and this opaque part represents sky.” My face showed that I didn’t understand her, and it irritated her. “That telescope was nothing but a big tin tube bronzed over with a slide up near the end, to Blip this glass in, and a place beyond it for a small hanging kerosene lamp to light it up similar to a transparency. That is what you have been looking at all this time. Studying astronomy 1 Good heavens!” There are times when the English language does not fill the bill as a medium of expression. My wife caught me struggling with my overcoat. “Thomas Henry, where are you going ?” “I’m going to interview Mr. Liggins. ” “You shall do nothing of the sort. You will make yourself the laughing stock of the town. Take off that coat.” My wife was right, as usual. “How did you discover the fraud?” I

asked, after I had cooled down. My wife looked embarrassed, a d I saw there was something in the wind. I did not cut that day, nor the next, but by a strict attention to business I managed eventually to ascertain. She had always believed the Livingstones, although they held their heads rather high, did not have enough to eat on the table half the time. As we can command a view of their dining-room from our sitting-room window, by using a powerful glass, she had tried to bring a little science to bear on the problem, with the narrated result. When Liggins came for his telescope it was given him in pieces. I never saw him again, but some months later he sent for me to pay a fine for vagrancy. He, however, went up for sixty days, and I shipped him a copy of “Dick’s Sidereal Heavens, ” one of my early purchases, to comfort him in his seclusion.