Читать книгу Letters of Peregrine Pickle - George P. Upton - Страница 6

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HE is the child of sunny Italy, and it is to be regretted that he is not with his parents.

Likewise his monkey.

I was reminded this morning that Spring is slowly coming up this way, by meeting him and his organ and his red-blanketted monkey; and the air was full of the infernal jangle and din, ground out by that remorseless man; and as I passed along I reflected.

Does the Italian take naturally to the hand-organ? Is he born with the crank and the monkey in his mouth? What sin has he committed that he should be compelled to tramp, making day and night hideous? What becomes of him in winter? Where does he live? Does he go where the flies go? Is he preserved in amber from Autumn to Spring? You see him on one of the last days of Autumn. A biting wind the next day and the birds are gone. If you ask me what becomes of him, I will answer, I will tell you, when you tell me what becomes of all the hoop-skirts. Does the Organ-Grinder go to church? Does he pay taxes? Are there a Mrs. Organ-Grinder and little Organ-Grinders bringing up little monkeys to the business? Do they live in houses, or do they burrow in the ground? Where do they go when they die? In fact, do they ever die? Are they not like the wandering Jew, compelled to keep moving, grinding as they go?

These questions are worthy of consideration. There is only one thing certain about him. He is as resistless as fate. Give him a penny to go away and he will come the next day for a similar favor. Threaten to shoot him and he will laugh at you. Buttons and board-nails are just as current with him as pennies. Tell him your family are at the point of death, and he will grind out a soothing strain and come the next day with several more of his tribe to play a dirge at the funeral. I think I can eat a frugal meal with a Digger Indian; I am even prepared to recognize the greasy Esquimaux and horse-eating Gauls, but I cannot recognize a man and brother in the Organ-Grinder.

He is one of those mysterious dispensations like the cholera, rinderpest and trichiniasis which only future ages may appreciate. Undoubtedly he has his mission. Undoubtedly there are people who dote on the Organ-Grinder and the organ and the monkey and are soothed with the touching story of "Old Dog Tray." Undoubtedly there was an old woman who kissed a cow; and there are people at the antipodes who eat mice and other small deer.

Such patience, determination, humility and industry, if applied to the Foreign Missions, would speedily clothe every Fiji sinner in a flannel jacket and his right mind. Were such attachments as exist between the Organ-Grinder and his monkey more common, we should rapidly approach the Millenium. Tramp on, then, O! Organ-Grinder! Tramp on, O! monkey! It is meet we should be taught patience.

April 13, 1867.