This is a great old book from 1854 which has seen better days. It was written based on a series of "sketches" by one Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, a humorist and contributor to the Boston Post. His character of Mrs. Partington (a sassy and somewhat indignant old lady) became hugely popular with the public, and after several appearances in the Post, a book was published by the Derby Brothers. Mark Twain was apparently a big Mrs. Partington fan even.
Here is one of the illustrated plates from my copy as well as the excerpt that goes with the it:
"It was a sort of half twilight, when the daylight begins to be thick and muddy, and a time when ghosts are said to be round fully as plenty as at the classic hour of midnight. We never could see the propriety of restricting ghostly operations to this sombre hour, and, as far as our experience goes, we have seen as many ghosts at " noon of day " as at the " noon of night."
She never told us why, or if she were thinking of ghosts at this time; indeed, all we know about the ghost was from Mrs. Battlegash, and we shall have to give the narration as we had it under Mrs. B.'s own hand: —
" Says Mrs. Part'nton, says she, 'Mrs. Battle,' she always calls me Battle, though my name is Battlegash —my husband's name, and his father's — says she, 'Mrs. Battle, I 've seen an apprehension;' and I thought she was agoing to have an asterisk, she was so very pale and haggard like; and says I, ' What's the matter 1' for I felt kind of skeered. I had heered a good deal about the spirituous manifestations, and didn't know but they had been a manifesting her. Says I, 'What's th'c matter,' agin and then says she, as solum as a grave-yard, ' I 've seen Paul!' I felt cold chills a crawlin all over me, but I mustard courage enough to say, ' Do tell!' ' Yes,' says she, ' I saw him with my mortal eyes, just as he looked when he was a tenement of clay, with the very soger clo'es and impertinences he had on the last day he sarved his country in the auxiliary.'
'' I tried to comfort the poor cretur by telling her that I guessed he didn't keer enough about her to want to come back, and as his estate had all been settled sacreligiously, it would be very unreasonable indeed in him to come back to disturb her.
" ' Where did you see him? ' says I. ' Out into the yard,'said she. 'When did you see him?' says I. 'Just now,' said she. ' Are you shore it was he ?' said I, determined to get at the bottom of it. 'Yes,' said she, ' if ever an apprehension did come back, that 'ere was Due. P'raps it is there now.' Then says I, 'Ruth,' says I, ' le's go and see.'
'' She riz right up, and we walked along through the long entry into her room, and looked out of her back window, and there, shore enough, was a sight as froze my blood to calves-foot jelly. There was the soger cap and coat, as nateral as life, with the tompion atop. My heart come up into my mouth, so that I could have spit it out just as easy as not. Mrs. Part'nton, says she. ' What do you think of it? Isn't it his apprehension'! But I 'm determined to speak to it.'
" I tried to persuade her not to, but she insisted on it, and out she went.
" ' Paul!' said she, ' what upon airth do you want that you should come back arter it, so apprehensively' The figure was setting on the top of the pump when she spoke, and it didn't take no notice of her. ' Paul!' said she, a little louder. Then slowly and solemly that 'ere cap turned round, and instead of Paul, Mr. Editor, if you '11 believe it, it was Ike, the little scapegrace, that had frightened us almost out of our wits, if we ever had any. That boy, I believe, will be the means of somebody's death. Mrs. Part'nton grew very red in the face, and razed her hand to inflict corporal punishment onto the young corporal, but the boy looked up kind of pleasantly like, and she couldn't find the heart to strike him, though I told her if she spared the rod she would spile that 'ere child. It is fortnight for him that he isn't a child of mine, I can tell him."
Here Mrs. Battlegash's narrative ends. We can fancy the scene in the yard: the youngster in the corporal's coat, the red face changing to pleasant equanimity, the raised hand, indicative of temper, subsiding, as the waves do when the wind ceases to blow, and peace, like the evening star above them, pervading and giving grace to the tableau."
Here is a wonderful article someone shared with me on the publishers
https://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?page=2444
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