Mrs. Tubbs had been a very fine woman—she was still good looking at the period of which we write, but then—
- "Fanny was younger once than she is now,
- And prettier of course."
She had been married some years. Tubbs was a gentleman farmer, and lived out in Roxbury, when land was cheaper there than it is now, and a man of moderate means could own a few acres within three miles of Boston State House. On retiring from the wholesale West India goods business, he had purchased a little estate in the vicinity of the Norfolk House, and raised vegetables and other "notions" with the usual success attendant upon the agricultural experiments of gentlemen amateurs; that is, his potatoes cost him about half a dollar a peck, and his quinces ninepence apiece. He had a greenhouse one quarter of a mile long, and kept a fire in it all the year round, at the suggestion of a rascally gardener, whose brother kept a wood and coal yard. We could tell some droll stories about Tubbs's gardening, if they were to the purpose. We will mention, however, that when he went into the vegetable business he was innocent as a lamb, and verdant as one of his own green peapods, and of course he made some curious mistakes. He was not aware that the infant bean, like the pious Æneas, was "in the habit of carrying its father on its back," and so thinking that nature had made a mistake, he reversed the order of the young sprouts, and reinterred the aged beans. This was one of his many blunders. However, we have nothing to do with his gardening. We have said he was innocent as a lamb, but he was by no means so pacific; on the contrary, his temper was as inflammable as gun cotton—the slightest spark would set it in a blaze.
To return to Mrs. Tubbs, whom we have most ungallantly left in the lurch since the first paragraph. She had been into Boston one day, shopping, and returned home in the omnibus. She sat between two young men. The one on her right was modest and well-behaved, while the other was entirely the reverse. He might have been drinking—he might have been partially insane—these are charitable suppositions; but at all events, he had the impertinence to address Mrs. Tubbs in a low tone, audible only to herself. He muttered some compliment to her appearance—talked a little nonsense—inoffensive in itself, but intolerable as coming from a stranger. Mrs. Tubbs made no reply, but she was glad to spring from the conveyance when the driver pulled up at the Norfolk House. To her great joy she espied the faithful Tubbs, attired in a blouse, and wheeling a barrow full of gravel down Bartlett Street, with all the dignity of a gentleman farmer, conscious of being a useful, if not an ornamental, member of society. She accosted him with,—
"Tubbs, love, I've got something to tell you."
Tubbs relinquished the handles of the barrow, and sat down in the gravel.
"Mr. Tubbs!" screamed the lady, "you've got your best pantaloons on."
"Never mind, my dear; out with your story, for I'm busy."
"Mr. Tubbs! I've been insulted!"
Mr. Tubbs's head instantly became as red as one of his own blood beets.
"Who is the miscreant?" he yelled, jumping up.
"A young man who sat next to me in the omnibus."
"Describe him!"
"Dark hair and eyes, with a black stock, light waistcoat, dark-colored coat and pantaloons—"
"Which way did he go?" interrupted Mr. Tubbs.
"Into the hourly office."
"'Tis well! Mrs. T., I'll have his heart's blood!"
"Now, T., be calm!" interposed his better half.
"Mrs. T., I will be calm," was the dignified reply, "calm as the surface of Mount Ætna, on the eve of an eruption. Farewell, love, for a moment. Have an eye to the wheelbarrow while I have a settlement with this scoundrel!"
With these words, Tubbs marched up the hill. He entered the hourly office, and looked round him. His first glance lighted on a young man who answered the description given by Mrs. Tubbs; but he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and so he accosted him politely,—
"Fine growing weather, sir."
"Yes, sir," replied the stranger.
"Peas are doing finely," said Mr. Tubbs.
"Indeed!"
"If the weather holds, we can plant corn next week."
"Indeed!"
"Pray, sir," continued Tubbs, "did you come out in the last coach?"
"I did, sir."
"Was there a lady in the coach?"
"There was, sir. I recollect a lady sat next to me."
"You scoundrel! what did you mean by insulting my wife?"
This question was followed by a blow, which sent the young gentleman sprawling on the floor. Tubbs stood him up, and knocked him down again and again, like a man practising on a single pin in a bowling alley. The sufferer showed some fight, but Tubbs's blood was up, and he hammered down all opposition. The drivers looked on in admiration to see "Old Tubbs vollop the chap as had insulted his wife," and so he had it all his own way. He dragged the offender out of the office, and finished him off on the sidewalk. He was engaged in this laudable occupation, when his better half, tired of mounting guard over the wheelbarrow, appeared upon the field.
"Mr. Tubbs!" she screamed.
"Wait a minute, my dear. I've only done one side of his head."
"But, Mr. Tubbs! That wasn't the man!"
Tubbs suspended operations, and stood fixed in horror. The remains of the injured individual were taken into the hourly office. Then came remorse and apologies unaccepted and unacceptable—a lawyer's letter—an action for assault and battery, and heavy damages. The real offender had escaped, and was never heard of; the victim was the well-behaved young gentleman, who had sat on Mrs. Tubbs's right. Her description, which had answered for both, had occasioned the dilemma, which, while it proved an expensive lesson to Mr. Tubbs, was also an effectual one, and saved him from many a rash and hasty action, and induced him ever afterwards to adopt Colonel Crockett's golden maxim, "Be always sure you're right, then go ahead."
More Francis A. Durivage Short Stories
