Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1886 — “SHON SMIDT UND DRIXIE.” [ARTICLE]

“SHON SMIDT UND DRIXIE.”

BY MANDA L. CROCKER.

’Twas but a mite of a cottage, up which the climbing roses had only to turn a handspring from their box below, in order to land in a eong-and-chorus, attitude on the brown gables. But this cosy lilliputian affair, which stood, or rather nestled in the shadow of the great cathedral in the Catholic quarter of the city of Wayne, had a history which hade defiance toits more pretentions neighbors. There was the great drab-colored boarding-house, three numbers away, which might revel in a hundred flirtations, over its mysterious menu, or profound “asides" passed in eulogy above the shin-bone porter-house, but it could not compare gum-drops with Von Nixy; hot it, and it might flaunt its yellow shutters, and variegated hash until the thousand years of peace, still Von Nixy would be ahead. Even the elegant residences over the way, whose be-laced and be-ruffled inmates completely Saored the little gem of thrift in the ado wk of piety, even they stood in sackcloth at the rear, when romance and adventure came to the front And that was the provoking difference; for, when sensation twangs her banjo, and calls for the sentimental, Nixy tightens her girdle, and bounces into the ring palpitating from the foundation to the top-round of the Tom Thumb chimney, with well-earned glory—the achievements of the love that laughs at locksmiths. To-day it scintillates and glows, in the aurora-borealis effulgence of a glory fairer, more Eden-like, than hangs like a nimbus over the woman who sits among the thirteen stars on the almighty dollar, and everlastingly Wears her hair about halfreefed, and without any common-sense taste as to how the test of her natural wig flies fore and aft on her cranium. Yea! more than this; over the-little dove-nest folds itself in a dreamy rapture that even the venerable tri-color emblem of our nation never indulged in on the Fourth of July. The heroine of this rapturous story, which the Von Nixy cottage has legitimately hooked onto, was the fair fraulien, Trixie Von Nixy, whose big brother ran the cash drawer of the little grocery at No. 18, on Market street, and whose globular vater stuck to his last, and punctured the hardened soles of tke j>oorer denizens of the quarter. The junior Nixys ran in and out of the little humble-bee home; a whole baker's dozen of them, rosy cheeked and bubbling over with the soft liquid tongue of the Vaterland. Papa Von Nixy loved to hear the pursuasive language rolling over the lingual adjuncts of his beloved progeny, but in spite of his partiality to his ownest own, Trixie and the big broth ?.r chewed English, with their pretzels, and became the mashers of the family. These firstlings of the Von Nixy flock didn’t seem to browze off the sauerkraut fodder naturally, but some way sniffed the Yankee world afar off, and struck an attitude over the left shoulder, toward the innocent sweitzer-kase and mellow atmosphere of their rooftree, much to the disgust of their dismayed masculine parent. Mamma Von Nixy was a veritable roilypoly matron, fair-haired and blue-eyed, who waded around among the little Von Nixys with a waddle, and crooned the good old “Heim-gang” to the cherub in the wicker-basket cradle; that wicker preambulator which came over the pond with the wilful Trixie smiling in its depths. Little did frau Von Nixy think, when she yanked that little ark onto American soil, that iteoeenpant would live to become a genuine heroine in the Hoosier State. But she did, and here comes the story, hero, heroine, seconds, and all. It was all natural enough for Trixie’s big brother to have a friend and chum, down at the grocery, and he froze to young Herman Von Nixy, with the celerity of a renegade wharf-rat buckling up to something to eat. And then naturally enough too, this friend who answered to the rhythmical drift of. the musical cognomen, John Smith, called occasionally, and twice a week, finally, at the cottage “under the rose,” ostensibly to see Herman, but in reality to do some fancy romantie courting,’ as be sublimely smiled a whole back-load of little golden shafts, said to be the property of Venus’ son, over Herman’s shoulder at the blushing Trixie. ■ i' Curiously enough, the simple-minded fraulein fell straightway in love with our Shonnie, or the big bogus diamond glorifying his immaculate shirt-front, one or the oilier. It didn't matter which point of excel- > lence commended him to Trixie, he was supremely happy; and the ah!-you-do-ad-mire-me smile spread,over his pink- andwhite English features, as butler distributes itself over a hot flap jack. And thusly it happened before the glory of the June roses faded into the stereotyped hurrah of the small-boy-and-fire cracker day, this mutual freeze had made a honeycomb frostwork of both youthful gizzards. And Cupid sat snugly among the gabled rose vines and watched his little game go on until the shadows of the great cathedral could mark the boundary of the daffodil garden of love but vaguely. But in this case, as in many others, the tender passion did not get a chance to run a full gallop. From the perversity of mundane hit and miss there always springs up some east wind, bearing on its vampire wings, a blight deadlier than a full-fledged sirocco, and. the budding sweetness of our pet Cupid goes down with • suddenness which never sat upon Jonah's gourd-vine. In this case the dynamite was toted around by papa Von Nixy. who finally fired the fuse one aggravating morning in dog-day weather, after the Von Nixy’s usual war-dance,and blew Cupid out of the rose-vines ker-flop. landing him somewhere this side of heaven, with a black eye and a broken wing to comfort him. At first, Von Nixy looked upon this taffy distribute as a flourish of puppy-love, which would run its time, like the measles, and die out of itself, leaving the sufferers to laugh Mid grow wiser for their having gone through one of life’s fitful fevers. But. as Hie frisky passion left its chrysalis in blood earnest for the broad expanse

of boundless delusion, ha deliberately dipped ite wings, and cuffed the feathery dust off.its fliers. In other words Von Nixy swore by the soul of St. Crispin, and the head of the Nixy establishment, that he would not allow that “Shon Smidt to run away mit his Drixie’s affections." So he complacently eat down on the rose and the violet, in this manner: “Now, mine von girl Drixie, vat fur you haft dat goot fur noting wagabone smilin' *roun' here at you, shust like von ahick kitten vat tinks you haff shweet gream fur its shupper?" During this lengthy Question, the healthy old vater eyed the blushing Trixie, much! as he would a mug>of beer which he suspected was not genuine. Trixie was inclined to take this in a bantering mood, at first, but when she saw the tel!-me-at-once-or-die resolve cantering over her father's countenance, with the strength of a pioneer limburger, she knew the game was up. Then the eldest daughter of the castle of Nixy, knowing that the knight of the fastness was in earnest, could no longer doubt the mustness of the climax: vet she merely hung her sunny head and listened to the two-forty gait of her life’s pumping marine, while it threatened momentarily to burst its barriers, and flop right down, before pater-familias and plead for itself. But papa Von Nixy had opened the cam- 1 naign against “Shonnie,” in the spirit, and his daughter's reticence was no damper whatever; in fact, it only convinced him that he had Struck the right trail and wonld soon have that “buppy luff” where it would be obliged to cry for quarter. “Veil!” he exclaimed, so explosively that the bristles on the “waxed-end” he jerked into place lifted up their extremities in sheer amazement, “Veil, I has shwom by mine awl and all, dot Misther Shonnie's visits hes an endt. He ish not amoundting to much, by Shimminy, und dish billin’ upd cooin* pesthness heff shust got to be sthont, now right avay soon. Und Drixie. aere ish no use a veeping mit te mem’ry ov dish scallawagt, fur fee ish nodt worth te shalt in von leedle gryspell.” But Trixie's eyes were suspiciously moist, and the native roses on her blooming cheeks withered, most pitiful, to see. “So, so, now Drixie,” continued Vater Nixy, pattingAhe braids of his darling, “you shust gif him up, und your old happy vill gif you te shining balm of peing a shenuine Von Nixy. It ish only buppy luff, Drixie, only buppy luff, und ven you gets ofer it vhy you’ll see shust how condemptible a buppy you has luffed.” is But instead of proving a comfort, this unlucky allusion to her illusion only served to nettle her generally mild dispositiop, and she fled to the solemn Sahara of her room under the rose, and spent the remainder of the day in saline recreation. In common parlance, “she cried her eyes out” over “Shonnie.” Papa Nixy, nothing daunted, however, rapped his lapstone a terrible clip, by way of emphasis, and said to himself, “Py Shimminy cracious, I’m poss, und dot condemptible buppy vill do veil to look oudt mit himself, or he vill run onto a shircumbstance vat vill knock te hindsights off dot pig baste bin of hisch. Mine coddage is mine castle, by shimminy!” So papa Nixy held the castle against all odds, pursuasion, and tears;' but that “wagabone” was a wily, determined lover, and despite his flashing “bastebin,"proved to be more than a match for the German antj-Shonnie committee.

CHAPTER 11. Thus it went on down the pay-roll for the “gay, guiltless pair.” From sighs to tears Trixie descended, until she landed at the mosaic work called the sulks. On “Shonnie’s” side of the stage he was noted for his absence more than anything else, until Cupid concluded that to smuggle notes from one trusting soul to the other wouldn’t be a bad thing. The ardent lovers tumbled to the racket, and after duly installing the big brother as postman all parties were made happy. Time went on in his tireless lope toward the mysterious bourne, and jerked the leaves off that ancient rose-vine, ahundred at a time, more or less, until Cupid was compelled to retreat to the cellar. This he did with rapid flops after Miss -Trixie received a certain pansy perfumed note, which seemed to cap the climax and tighten the golden chain between the home of the Smiths and Castle Von Nixy. The pent-up tide of true love was slipping over the dam, which Rapa Von Nixy had thrown across its course; here a good deal and there an awful sight, until finally, one breezy night in October, it swept every vestige of the obstruction out of existence with a vengeance. And Cupid caxeasedhisbrokenwingandsangof Paradise. Now in our narrative we come to John Smith as he really is; heretofore we have been viewing him as though a gin bottle. Like a bar of beaten gold the sunset light lays across the questionable tide of the and a gray gleaming hugged the horizon, trembling in anticipation over the events to come. But the golden bar, nor the poetical gleaming as it hitched itself onto the car of night had any place in the thoughts of “Shonnie,” as he folded his jirave arms and looked about him, letting the boat drift toward the confluence of the two rivers, which shift their sands over the toes of the byssiest city in Ingeanny. Now which John Smith this was, communing with his over-yanked heart, we are not able to say, not having examined the city directory. But the great town clock strack the restful hour of 6 o’clock p. m., and our hero grasped the oars and muttered, “to-night, by hall the harrows Venus’ little codger carries bin is quiver, hi ham going to win or lose; there's no huse ’aving my ’art hall broken hnp without a cause; so ’elp me jehosephat!” Having thus poured out the red-hot lava from the fiery crater of his volcanic organ of love and hate, he pulled rapidly for the shore, feeling more like the stranded wreck pulled to the banks all over Christendom. than anything else in this precarious sphere. ” ~ Giving the boat-chain an extra jerk as an emphasis to his declaration of independence, the little Englishman, adjusted his left cuff-button, and struck ont on a midnight-fire-in-town amble, for the Market street grocery, and was soon out of sight ■” : i ;" The old fisherman, who had been watching our hero, pulled his eight-cornered hat-rim a little more to the left, spit on his bait, and wondered where “that galoot was strikin' fur, anyway.!’ Bnt when darkness had settle down over the city, softly and tenderly as the feathered mamma prepares the trundle-bed for the downy children, and the winds went whooping down the street, and talked of the frigid hours to come, that old fisherman smoked his pipe alongside of that “galoot" in the spicy grocery where Herman Von Nixy, presided. And John Smith listened to his nobbiest yarns of the “red-boss and sturgeon, he netted and hooked in Hopsierdom long ago;” nearer to the time when Anthony Wayne held his picnic, and serving the “het and hot,” smoothed the thornv pathway to the happy hunting grounds for his angelic red brother he found in the wilderness, than to the tame days of present retrogression. But right in the midst of the old fisherman’s most brilliant piscatorial triumph, onr hero went ont in the blackness of the October night; as a candle goetfi out in a gust, so went John Smith, but instead of dropping into

annihilation ha went to reconnoiter around castle Von Nixy. It might have been that Herman knew nothing of Johnnie's wanderings in the night time, but the way he drew down his pursy mouth at the off corner, augured differently. Perhaps he knew more than might have been healthy for him, had Papa Von Nixy known. But Von Nixy senior didn't know, and smoked away on his curioasly-carved German pipe, and chuckled to himself as to 1 how easily he had gotten ahead of “dot schamp." I Nevertheless, while he meditated and puffed away his cares in the clouds of fragrance, and while frsn Von Nixy cuddled the last American-born cherub to sleep, the firstling of their flock was up-stairs scraping together her gew-gaws, arranging , her spit-curia, and blacking her “toed , slippers.” And in the fullness of her filial affection she had told mamma Nixy of an I invitation out in the evening, but concluded not to go. She did not add, as she might, that she was invited to a party, and that she was the party of the second part, and best calico disciple on the floor, and that “dot schamp” was to figure as the best waltzer under the rose., Trixie had heard it said it was wise not to tell the truth at all times, and, in her simplicity, concluded this must be one of rtbe times when silence was golden. 80 ~“rt® spent —the T" satin - shod hours rattling her traps together and reading a note alternately, which said, “be ready, dear, at precisely 10 o’clock, or as soon thereafter as the old gent is asleep; ibut for the love of heaven don’t make a move before he goes to bed. Yours for time and eternity, John Smith.” True, Trixie wept a little over the pleasant excitement, but “Shonnie” was hers, diamond pin, waxed mustache and all, and a Smith was as good as a Von Nixy, so why not—ah, why not? Ten o’clock found papa Von Nixy dreaming of his beloved Vaterland, and of the marriage of his “Drixie” with a grand German count, who owned a luxuriously appointed castle somewhere—Lord knows where—like those of the old legends he had read of, when he was a boy. And how exultingly he smiled in his dreams when he espied “dot schamp,” had simmered down to only a valet in Trixie’s household. But dreams go crawfishing sometimes, and at this suspicious moment in Papa Von Nixy’s dreamland triumph, the real John Smith was just beneath his window, bent on a silent serenading expedition. The town-clock, faithful old monitor, notified our youngsters that it was time to “pass the countersign.” Trixie pushed up the sash and let drop the gewgaws into the claws of the agile “Shonnie.” Then with stealthy treaa he deposited the precious bundle of the princess of the castle with the utmost caution 4>y Ahegatepost, and then dodged around the cottage to the rear cellar window, and crouched down to wait and listen. Cupid’s hour had come for glory on earth, and he slung his shot-pouch on his back, ran his golden bow over hie arm, and danced over the kraut tub in ecstacies. Trixie crept softly down stairs in her stocking feet, arrayed in her Sunday best; and carrying her slippers in her hand, while Papa Von Nixy slept on, reveling in his German castle over the pond, and Mamma Von Nixy hugged up the least little birdling to her faithful bosom, and slept the unbroken sleep of the just. One step at a time, successfully measured by the nimble feet of the tricky Trixie, and she found herself in the little box of a hall below; never had the cottage stairs seemed so long to the fair-haired fraulein. Then she cautiously opened the trap-door of the cellarway and glided down the half dozen steps to the bottom. With the help of the candlebox and kraut tub, on which Cupid was waltzing out his sweet life, the dauntless Trixie climbed on the top of the venerable cider-cask, and tapped with one little taper finger on the row of panes fastened in a rude sash, composing the cellar window. Then our crouching hero gave the rude sash a wrench, and out it came, letting a draught of cold autumn air go skirmishing over the carefully-prepared toilet of the future Mrs. John Smith. “Mercy!” ejaculated Trixie ........ “What is it, iny dearest one?” came in dulcet tones from the crouching “Shonnie.” “Oh, nothing,” answered the expectant bride. Thus reassured, the brave lover gathered his precious love in his great faithful arms, and gave one tremendous lurch backward, similar to the retrograde movement of a gosling, when dining on the growing hay crop. This heroic effort brought Trixie to solid terra firms; bet unluckily the final frantic flop of the little fraulien upset the cider cask, which keeled over and came down kersmash on a row of fruit cans at its frisky foot, making more noise than a tin-can escort seeing an express canine home on Sunday night. Cupid poised himself in the midst of the din and dust, and with a seraphic “hoop-la” followed his wards to the wedding feast. ’ Papa Von Nixy awoke as suddenly as if a million fire-crackers had fizzed under his couch, or a dynamite explosion had uprooted his German castles—count and all. “Dere ish thieves in mine shellar,” he shrieked. “Mien Gott vare ish mine von leedle gun, dot shoods mit its revolushuns?” Not waiting for an answer he racked off down cellar, holding his night lamp aloft. At the trap-door the draught from the opened window whiffed out his lamp in the twinkling of an eye, and ivlfivnd Trv Mountains” with the hem of his night-shirt, with such icy fingers that a shiver went to his marrow bones. His hair stood on end as he thought that likely some one was making ready to grapple with him in the solemn night, and not being willing to die in the dark he shouted, “Gretchen, mien vise, Gretchen, the night browlers are in mien shellar; und pring me some madefies right avay gwick.” Reinforced by Gretchen and the lucifers. Papa Von Nixy began investigations, but no "browlers” could he find. A halfdozen fruit-jars smashed beyond recognition, with thtir contents making little rivulets here and there, however, met his affrighted gaze; then there were the careened cider receptacle and the open window to contemplate. “Veil, veil,” muttered Papa Von Nixy, “it peats te fery teyful, Gretchen, vot vash schomperin’ after our vintejgßubblies.” , .. ..■■• ■ Gretchen made no reply, and het 1 ’ liege ruler sputtered and bobbed this way and that, righting the commodities, not displaying half the agility his Drixie had in disarranging them, however. Finally the window was pulled into place, and the tomato sauce scraped off his stockings by the good wife, while her husband indulged in fgnratively exploring sheol for a place for his “browlers." Then he preceded Mrs. Von Nixy upstairs and went back to his slumbers and castle and count, only to be rudely awakened next morning by the news that his eldest blessing had flown through the window, upsetting their winter’s store of sauce with her pink toes, and gone with “dot schamp.” ——-—Lx—.— Ah! the still watches of the night had unroofed his castle and crumbled its walls tq dust over the bones of. hue dlustrious son-in law; and the valet, John Smith, had arisen to the august position of husband of the flower of the Von Nixy cot-" tage. . Papa Von Nixy sat silent and thoughtful over his beer that morning. Mamma Von Nixy let the crystal dew of the soul bathe

tfie baby's face, while she rocked back and forth. Herman looked guilty and sheep-! ish, and the bare rose-vines rapped the gables ominously with hard, thorny hands. Cupid had triumphed in spite of the hea<| of Von Nixy cottage, or his patron saint. In the coarse of the day the “wagabone” came in with his wife Trixie on his arm, and Cupid smiled triumphantly on the vine with its thorns, and thought he had laughed last. The shadow of the cathedral failed this time, signally, to gather in the mixedup greeting of the inmates of Von Nixy cottage. There were tears, there were curses, there were blessings; there was good English shying around at Papa Von Nixy, from Fort Bmldt, there was broken German mopping “Shonnie” over the brainpan, and both languages rolled together promiscuously as twins or potato vines. But by the persistent efforts of the newly-fledged son-in-law, order came out of chaos after a while, and Papa Von Nixy was heard to exclaim: “Mein Gott, Shonnie, I ish so mixed up mit myself dot I has no. notion vat dish ting ish; vether I has losht mine fraulein, vat vash a Von Nixy, or vether I has a son vat ish no Nixy vatever, I kandt make oudt. Mine cracious, I ish shust disgusted mit mine memory of de way dish vamily ish hitched up. Mine last child ish mine oldest son; veil, veil, veil! Gretchen, I shust guess dish vamily additions hat petter sthop, or else I vill be pack in mine binafores pooty kwidek, by shimminy.”