Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1883 — HIRAM'S FOLKS. [ARTICLE]

HIRAM'S FOLKS.

*BO Hiram's foils has made money, •h?” said old Mr. Biggs. Miss Paulina Prickett had invited the Biggs family to tea, With hot waffles, quince preserves, Sally-lunns, angel «ake and the best quality of Young Hyson, to celebrate the purchase of a new to* set—white French China with a gold band on the edge—in which she had indulged. Inviting the Biggs family, as Paulina very well knew, was better inan advertising the -whole thing in the newspaper, for there was a goodly number of them, and they always talked to •everybody about everything. The Biggses seldom invited company themselves, because, like John Gilpin’s wife, they had a frugal mind* but they always ctme in full force when they were bidden. ' •*. “Yes,” said Mrs. Horatio Biggs; “in the book business, I’m told.” “I knowed a book maker once.” observed Miss Prickett, liberally ladling St the golden sirup of the quinces, “as lv got 90 cents a dav and found liimielf. ” “That was a bookbinder, Aunt Priek■stt, ” said Esther, her niece, who was. sewing up the waffles nice and hot, with •S countenance considerably inflamed from the ifcciiiity of the kitchen.stove. “Well, where’s the difference?” sharply retorted Miss Prickett. “And everybody knows «as printers don’t get no wages to signify,’’ joined :|n Mrs. Luke Biggs, who wore a green•dyetl silk with plated bracelets, and a oameo breastpin as large as an individual butter. plate. “I saw . one once standing on the steps of a newspaper •office, and he wore a dreadful shabby hat, with no coat, and a shirt as was ail 'blacks and grease spots, only fit for the washtub.”

“Printers have to dress according to 'their work, I suppose,” said Luke, sur--iilv. The Biggs family had not been like Dr. Watts’ proverbial birds, which “in their '.little nests agreed.” Horatio Biggs Ikad overreached his two younger brothers in business, and set up a “general store” in Biggsville, out of the result of sharp practice, with a tall, angular wife who despised Mrs. Luke because she had once worked in a factory, and Bcomed Mrs. Hiram because 4he* was a teacher when her husband first mother Luke Biggs was a selfish, grinding, miserly fellow who drudged away •n the old farm because he was too parsimonious to spend the money necessary to enter any other business, and Mrs. Luke’s chief end and aim in life was to -screw enough oash but of her husband to outdress the other matrons and maids of the neighborhood. Miss Josepha ‘Biggs, the unmarried daughter/ made dresses for “the genteelest families only,” and old Mr. and Mrs. Biggs lived in a wing of the old homestead, and when they were not quarreling between themselves made common .eause against Mrs. Horatio. Under the circumstances it was not to be r);arvelled at that Hiram Biggs, who had contrived to get an education from his, slender share of the family money (a few thousand dollars left by a distant relative, and gobbled np at «nce by the Biggses), and the young wife that he had married, had found tile atmosphere too full of disagreeable electricity, and*removed to New York. “Take my word for it,” said Mrs. Jforatio Biggs, “you are making a great mistake.” “Ijjon’t you expect us to support you -when you come back here without a 'Went,? said Mrs. Luke, ruefully sighing- “ Hiram’s marriage has been his ruin,” vrikispered Miss Josepha. “I offered to pay ms wife 50 cents a day to help trim dresses in busy times, but she declined it” “Elizabeth always was too proud to up with us plain people,” said Mrs. Siggs, Sr., with the quiet malice that occasionally develops itself in a motherThese family details may in some ■•Mure account for the animus displayed over the waffles and angel-cake •I Mi« rriokett’s tea-party that after- “ Well,” Mias Josepha, “accorddag to inj idea of things bookmaking

ain’t no btudnesa at all. If it waa carpentering, now, or the hardware Hne, or if Elizabeth had energy enough to go into the millinary trade instead of paying $4 in good, hard maney for a spring hat, as she did when she was staying here in-April 1 But I’ve no faith in their calculations, and m-ver had.” Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Biggs, however, had ambitipns which the family never dreamed of. Hiram’s tastes had always been of a refined and literarynattire, aim several simple stories of rural life, which he had ventured to send, with fear and trembling, to a popular monthly magazine, had been acoepted and liberally paid for. And Elizabeth, though she could not trim hats, and abhorred the dressmaking business, had a delicate fancy with her pencil in illustrating the ideal dreams of others, and she, too, tried her luck and succeeded in the artistic world, much to her own amazement. And as time went on their good fortune became more pronounced. Mr. Biggs wrote a satrical the nom de plume of “Paul de Savez,” which had a wide and brilliant circulation; Mrs. Biggs illfistrated a popular j>oem which was brought out in an edition de ltjxe at Christmas. And the young couple became the fashion.

The Biggses, of Biggsville, not being literary, were a long time in finding out that their kinspeople were succeeding in the world. At first they declined to credit the thing at All, having a settled idea that the “bookmaking business,” as they persisted in palling it, was but a grade above the avocation of the ragpicker. But when at last they realized matters they decided that Hiram and Elizabeth ought to be encouraged. “I’ve never been to New York,” said old Mr. Biggs. “Folks tell me its quite a stirring place. I guess I’ll go and stay a spell with Hiram’s folks. And it’ll be a good opportunity for mother to buy herself that, new alpaoky gownd she’s been cacklin’ bout this ever so long.” “I don’t see why I Shouldn’t see the world as well as other folks,” remarked Mrs. Biggs, Sr. “I shouldn’t wonder if I went along, too, to get a look at the fall fashions,” said Miss Josepha. “Well, while we’re about it,” suggested Mrs. Horatio, “why don't we make up a party and get excursion tickets cheap ? I’ye always wanted to see what the city was like myself, only I 'don’t care about paying hotel prices. ” Mrs, Luke entered with ardor into the scheme, and the old man sat down, 'with a single sheet of fibrous paper, a muddy inkstand and a stumpy steel pen tied on a stick with thread, to concoct a letter, in which he formally notified “Hiram’s folks” of the pleasure which they might prepare themselves >to expect. The document was brought just as Hiram Biggs was getting into the spirit of his morning’s work in his study, with Elizabeth dreaming at an adjoining table, and the breath of a vase of Niphetos roses perfuming all the room. “My dear,” said hp, looking aghast at his wife, “what are we to do? All the family are coming to visit us. With the proof-sheets of my last novel coming in, and your etchings of ‘Wild Bose’ onlyhalf completed.” “We must do the best we can, Hiram,” said Elizabeth, perplexedly knitting her pretty brows together.

“My darling child, there’s no ‘best’ about it,” groaned Hiram, tearing his hair, being brown and curly, looked none the less picturesque for the operation. “You don’t know the peculiarities of the Biggs family as I do. You«will be dragged up and down Grand street, Eighth avenue and the Bowery from morning until night—you will have to visit every show, theater and picture gallery in New York, and pay all the bills. Your housekeeping will be pieked to pieces, your dress criticised, and ten to one my mother will offer to come here and take charge of the baby, while Josepha will volunteer to improve your most cherished drawings.”

Mrs. Hiram Biggs glanced with terror at the plump baby who, 'in charge of its white-capped nurse, was being carried up and down the pavement in front of the house. Then she looked piteously around the pretty Brusselscarpeted library, with its deep, crim-son-curtained bay windows, its tall Dracaena plants m majolica vases, its oil paintings and Japanese scrolls, its cage of green paroquets and shelves of china and bric-a-brac, and pictured to herself the whole Biggs family spreading themselves over its sacred precincts; she wafl only hnman, too, this young wife; she could scarcely help remembering how Mrs. Horatio had snubbed her when she first came, a timid and shrinking bride, to the Biggs farmhouse ; how Mrs. Luke bad once refused to lend her 25 cents, in Hiram’s absence, to pay the charges on a telegram, alleging as a reason “that it wasn’t never good policy to have business matters between relatives,” nor how old Mrs. Bi&ga tad cried and said “that Hiram had shown dreadful poor judgment in selecting his wife,” while Miss Josepha had taken especial pains to oontradict every statement she made, and Luke and Horatio had ignored her altogether.

Hiram laughed. “My little darling," said he, “I can interpret that look. You shall not be tormented out of your existence to become a convenience to a swarm of relations-in-law, who don't any of them care a copper cent for you. If they had ever treated us decently, it it would be a different matter. As it fa—” ‘♦But, Hiram, you can’t send word to your father and mother and brothers and sisters not to oome, ” pleaded Elizabeth. “No," farid Hirsm Biggs, thoughtfully,

“I shall do nothing of the sort. Bo* I shall send no word at aIU” “TbyU come, Ad the same,” said Elizabeth. “Bnt,” said Hiram, with sparkling eyes, “thenr don’t know where we live.” “They’ll look out your name in the directory,” sighed Elizabeth. “It isn’t there,” stud Hiram, chuckling. “Not there?” repeated his wife. “Don’t you remember that we didn’t move-in here until June? How could our names be in the directory'?” argued Hiram.

Mrs. Biggs clasped her hands dramatically. “There’s a family of Biggses in the next avenue,” said she—“ ‘H. Biggs, Boohs, Stationery and News Agent.’ They’ll go there. “Well, let them,” said Hiram. “Just as please, so long as they don’t come here.” And he threw the letter of Biggs pere into the scrap-basket, secretly feeling himself to be avenged on the family for all the slights and jeers and neglect that they had past not only on him, bnt on his gentle little Elizabeth. “Bnt, Hiram,” said Mrs. Biggs, “it seems so dreadfuL” “Not half so dreadful as a visitation of the whole Biggs family would be,” said Hiram, with a groan. But Hiram knew little of the perseverance and energy of the Biggses if he believed that so trifling an impediment as a lack of invitation or a delay in sending addresses would keep, out the invasion. It was Oanute and the f ocean over again; and in three days the whole family arrived) all pecked into one hack to save expense, with a perfect leaning Tower erf Pisa of baggage on the roof, the driver perched in front nobody knew how, and Mrs. Luke’s two little boys astride of the very apex of the tower. At the first wholesale grocery store on Barelay street a directory was handed in and duly studied, and the driver “hanging half-way down, like one who gathers samphire, dreadful trade,” was bidden to drive to No. 26,012 Thirteenth avenue.

“H. Biggs,” said Mrs. Horatio. “Bookmaker and news agent,” added old Mrs. Biggs, in a high falsetto. And the man chirruped to his horses and drove on. “Humph!” sniffed Miss Josepha, who lad had the good luck to secure a window, “if this is Hiram’s elegant city mansion, it don’t come up to my ideas of style. Brown brick, with dormer windows, and only two stories high; and the whole front a store, with the shutters up, just exactly as if there had been a death in the family.” “Dear me!” said old Mrs. Biggs, “how you do startle one! But there ain’t no crape on the door.” “Mother takes everything so dead in eafnest,” said Mr. Luke Biggs, scornfully. “Lemme see,” said Mrs. Horatio, crowding across the old lady, and giving her best hat a “poke” not intended by the milliner. “Well, I declare! I guess the bookmaker’s business ain’t so dreadful full of money, after all.” “And a liquor store next door and a pawnbroker across the street,” jeeringly observed Miss Josepha. “P’r-’aps that’s the way folks lives in New York,” said old Mr. Biggs, who was squeezed nearly flat between his wife and Mrs. Luke on the back seat. ’ “ ’Tain’t what I expecte*d to see,” said Mrs. Horatio, iu accents of scarcely repressed scorn. “I don't know how they can accommodate us all,” Bighed old Mrs. Biggs, vainly endeavoring to straighten her bonnet.

“That’s their lookout,” said- Mrs. Luke, leaning comfortably back, with the heel of her boot balanced on her father-in-law’s most sensitive com. The driver having by this time tumbled off his perilous seat, and rung the door-bell twice without evoking any signs of life from within, looked appetflingly toward his fares. “What am I to do?” said he. “Bing again,” said Mrs. Horatio. And .the hackman rang again, this time with so much energy as to pull the whole bell-wire out and precipitate himself backward on the pavement, like Hamlet at the first sight of his father’s ghost, at which the little boys laughed engagingly, and a hat box tumbled down from the Leaning Towe? into the gutter, where it split open like an over-ripe nut, revealing Mr. Hosatio Biggs’ best black felt hat.

“Boys, boys, do set steady up there!” screamed Mrs. Biggs. “Look! There’s some one coming at last. Is it Hiram ? Or is it Elizabeth?* It was neither one nor the other, as it happened, but a stout old woman in a flannel dressing-gewn, carpet slippers and a red nose. “Mr. Biggs’ folks to home?” shrilly inquired Mrs. Horatio, who had constituted herself spokeswomen for the party, without any formal appointment. "Oh, yes,” aswered the old woman, in a snuffy, confidential sort of tone, “they're to hum. But p’r’aps the children hadn’t better come in.” By this time the hackman had opened the door of the vehicle, and the tide of Biggses had began to flow out on the pavement. But Mrs. Luke stopped abruptly on the carriage step,‘with her father-in-law’s bronzed visage peeping over her shoulder. “Not oome in,” said she. “Why, we’re their relations —come to visit ’em. ” “Not but what thev’re a deal better, and the doctor says there ain’t no more danger of contagion,” reassuringly added the old woman. “Contagion,” echoed the Biggs family. • “Hadn’t yon heard?” said the old woman, with the solid satisfaction old women generally evince in oommtml-

eating any startling piece of information. “WelL it ain't no secret in the neighborhood, especially as people ain’t best pleased with the Board of Health concludin' to insulate 'em here instead of sendin’ ’em to hospital. They’ve every one of ’fern had the smallpox. And that’s the reason the store is shut up. I’m here to nurse ’em. I ain't afraid of the small-pox, bein’ as Pve had it already.” (Which was a self-evident fact to any one who looked- upon her broad, smiling countenance.) 1 “Bless me I” said Mrs. -Luke, promptly retreating into the hack. “Very thoughtless of Hiram’s folks not- to let ns know. Mother! Josephs! Harriet Ann! come in at once. Pick np the hat-box.. Tell the man to drive back to the ferry as fast as he can. P’Paps we’ll we able to catch the 4 o’clock train back'to Biggsville.” “I didn’t know,” suggested the old woman, rather disappointed at this sudden withdrawal of the invading forces, “but yon knight have come to help nurse ’em.” “Nothing of the sort,” Mrs. Horatio, answered, as, slamming herself into the already overful hack, she slammed the door with an emphatic bang, and shout-' ed to-the driver to “go on.” “The—small-pox,” groaned Mrs; Biggs senior. “And not one of the chiUren has been vaccinated!” “We’d better stop at the nearest drug store and have it done at once,” said Mrs. Luke, breathlessly. “It’ll be dreadful expensive,” sAid Mrs. Horatio.

“Bnt it’ll be cheaper than having the small-pox,” argued Mrs. Biggs. So, after this important sanitary ceremonial, during which the Biggs boys bawled as if they were being flayed alive, the family returned, without loss of time to Biggsville. And Hiram’s folks did not have the pleasure, then or ever, of entertaining their relations. In fact, they never how near they had been to that happiness. The Biggsville Biggses declared over and over again that, they should never forgive their city relations, but, as Hiram’s folks did not know, they were saved from any overwhelming pangs of conscience. They wrote a letter to the Board of Health, reproaching them bitterly with the bad management of the varioloid case in Thirteenth avenue, but they never got any answer from that august body. In short, the Biggs family were very angry, but they would probably have been angrier still if they had known with what fortitude Hiram’s folks endured the privation of their society.— Harper's Bazar. ~— —7 “