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- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
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- text
- The cock was dead.
If now you visit that hilly region, you will see, nigh the railroad
track, just beneath October Mountain, on the other side of the
swamp--there you will see a gravestone, not with skull and cross-bones,
but with a lusty cock in act of crowing, chiseled on it, with the words
beneath:
"_O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?_"
The wood-sawyer and his family, with the Signor Beneventano, lie in
that spot; and I buried them, and planted the stone, which was a stone
made to order; and never since then have I felt the doleful dumps, but
under all circumstances crow late and early with a continual crow.
Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!--oo!--oo!--oo!--oo!
THE FIDDLER
So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody
forever and ever. Intolerable fate!
Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism and rushed out into
Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a
side-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital
clown.
Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.
"Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what's the matter? Haven't been
committing murder? Ain't flying justice? You look wild!"
"You have seen it, then!" said I, of course referring to the criticism.
"Oh, yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure
you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone."
Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I
was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance
so unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a
juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye
sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an
overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.
"Come, Standard," he gleefully cried to my friend, "are you not going
to the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come, Mr. Helmstone,
too--come both; and circus over, we'll take a nice stew and punch at
Taylor's."
The sterling content, good-humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere
expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like
magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation
from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.
During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the
celebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment
as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing
called happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his
tongue as ripe magnumbonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed
to attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he
turned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared.
In a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the
slightest abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and
natural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine
good-nature, that the marvelous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort
of divine and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of
Greece.
But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet
that desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not
so entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But
from these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round
the broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human
faces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the vast assembly seemed
frantic with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why,
the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.
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