Minervas Manoeuvres by Charles Battell Loomis

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Title: Minerva's Manoeuvres
The Cheerful Facts of a "Return to Nature"

Author: Charles Battell Loomis

Illustrator: Frederic R. Gruger

Release Date: March 29, 2018 [EBook #56872]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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MINERVA’S MANŒUVRES

The balloon, Minerva, a shriek and a shout.

Minerva’s Manœuvres

The Cheerful Facts of a “Return to Nature”

By

CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS

Author of “Cheerful Americans,”

Etc.

Illustrated by Frederic R. Gruger

New York

A. S. Barnes & Company

1905

Copyright, 1905 by

A. S. BARNES & CO.
Published August, 1905

To

J. B.

PREFACE.

When a play makes a tremendous hit the author is called before the curtain and after bowing and allowing his heart (and his

head) to swell more and more, he generously points to the actors and actresses who are grouped around him as much as to
say, “They did it.”

And then the audience goes wild at such unselfishness and cries of “Speech, speech!” rend the air and the author has

arrived at the happiest moment of his life. He feels that all creation was evolved just for this supreme moment and his knees
shake and (in a voice surcharged with emotion) he says things that do not read well in print, but which rouse the house to
greater enthusiasm, and he wishes that William Shakespeare could have lived to see this night, and goes home to dream
happy dreams.

Sometimes he can’t contain his speech any longer than the end of the third act, and with comparatively little applause, and,

it may be, only one solitary call of “Author” (from his devoted brother in the front row) he rushes to the footlights and delivers
himself of his pent up eloquence. And then perhaps the critics jump on the piece and kill it, and the next day he wishes he
hadn’t spoken.

But no dramatic author would think of going out before the gray asbestos curtain had been raised on the overture to say to

the cold, sternly critical audience that this was the proudest moment of his life and that he hoped the actors would see their
duty and do it. That would be considered assurance.

And yet we writers of—novels—do rush on before the first chapter has been reached and sometimes we tell how it is

going to end and sometimes we give the names of the authorities from whom we lifted our central idea, and sometimes we
strike an attitude of timid uncertainty and bespeak the indulgence of the reader—but always without response of any kind.

Not a hand, not a cry of “Author”: nothing but the gray asbestos curtain of silence.
Of course there are cases when a book runs into the “six best selling class” and people get into the habit of buying it and

the habit is not broken for weeks and weeks; and then, after the twentieth edition is exhausted the author comes out with a
“Preface to the twenty-first edition,” and as he smells the fragrance of the bouquets that the critics have handsomely handed
out and hears the plaudits of those who have thronged to read him he says brokenly, “I thank you. You have raised me from a
point where I was living on my brother in the front row to a position where I can take my pick of motor cars” (Not
automobiles, mind you), “and while I never thought of money while I was writing the book, now I both think and have a good
deal of it. Thank you! Thank you!”

But I, (rather than not come out at all) am going to squeeze before the gray asbestos and say “Thank you. Critics, readers;

gentle and otherwise, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“If there is anything good in this book, believe me it is the characters who are responsible for it.
“And let me take this occasion to say that the book would never have been written if I had not been encouraged by one

who has the faculty of making a man do his best. She is here to-night, but I am not permitted to mention her.

“I have had great fun writing ‘Minerva’s Manœuvres,’ and this is really the proudest moment of my life. (Cheers.) My

heroine, Minerva, is a good girl and I can give her a fine character if she should ever seek a place—in your hearts.

“Thank you! Thank you!”
(Curtain goes up.)

C. B. L.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER.

PAGE.

I.
A Coerced Cook
1

II.
Minerva Studies Nature
14

III.
An East Wind
27

IV.
A Friendly Burglar
40

V.
The Constable Calls
58

VI.
Miss Pussy Tries Fly Paper
73

VII.
Minerva’s Pastoral
81

VIII.
The ’Cordeen Comes
91

IX.
A Naked Scutterer
108

X.
We Plan a Concert
123

XI.
The Horse in the Kitchen
134

XII.
“The Simple Life”
140

XIII.
An Unsuccessful Fiasco
158

XIV.
The-Fourth-of-July
173

XV.
Minerva’s Nature Study
194

XVI.
When the Law is On
206

XVII.
The Story of a Pipe
217

XVIII.
We Find a Piano
225

XIX.
Th’ Ould Scut
240

XX.
A Musical Tramp
252

XXI.
We Make Hay
258

XXII.
“Ding Dong Bell”
266

XXIII.
Eligible
276

XXIV.
Pat Casey Calls
292

XXV.
A Continuous Week End
299

XXVI.
We Invite More Guests
310

XXVII.
A Hot Night
319

XXVIII.
“Tramp’s Rest”
333

XXIX.
Minerva and the Snake
339

XXX.
A Horsehead Perch
350

XXXI.
The Hundredth Anniversary
361

XXXII.
We Go to the Fair
373

XXXIII.
Cherry Disposes
392

XXXIV.
Minerva Settles it
409

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Balloon, Minerva, a Shriek, and a Shout
Frontispiece

“Steal Away”
148

“Th’ Ould Scut”
242

She Made a Croquet Wicket of Herself
358

A

CHAPTER I

A COERCED COOK.

T the last minute we learned that the girl we had counted upon to do our cooking at Clover Lodge had scarlet fever,

and as she was the only local girl that we could hire—New England girls preferring to work in a “shop” to domestic

service—we were at our wits’ end.

In our extremity Mrs. Vernon (my wife) made a last appeal to Minerva. She went into the kitchen of our New York flat

and said,

“Minerva, Mamie Logan, the girl we expected to have up at Clover Lodge, has scarlet fever.”
Minerva was blacking the stove (as I could see from the dining room), but she stopped and turned around as she always

did when her mistress spoke to her, and said “Yas’m.”

“Well, do you know what that means, Minerva?”
“Means she’s sick, ma’am.”
“Yes, but it also means that I haven’t anybody to cook for me up there.”
“Yas’m.”
“Well, don’t you think you could go up if we gave you five dollars a month more than you’re getting now?”
Minerva rubbed her already black arm with the blacking brush in an absent-minded sort of way as she said,
“’Deed I hate the country. It’s so dismal.”
I would have given up trying to get her to come then, as her tone sounded final to me, but Mrs. Vernon caught a gleam of

willingness in her expression, and she said,

“Some country places may be doleful, Minerva, but Clover Lodge is in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and

there’s a light kitchen and you can take ‘Miss Pussy,’ you know. I’m sure you’ll like it and the work won’t be as hard as it is
here and there’s lots of fresh air. And I’ll lend you books to read. If you won’t come we’ll have to give up going, as I won’t
take a stranger up from the city.”

“Yas’m,” said Minerva, turning to the stove and beginning to use the brush again.
“Well, will you go, Minerva?”
“Yas’m.”
“Oh, you dear good thing,” said my wife, and I fully expected her to hug Minerva.
She came in to where I was finishing my second cup of coffee and said,
“Minerva is a jewel. She’s going up. Do you know, in some ways it’s better than if we had Mamie Logan because Minerva

is a much better cook and she won’t have any beaux from the village to make a noise in the kitchen in the evening—”

“No, but you may have to import beaux from Thompson Street to solace her loneliness,” said I. “If I know the kind at all,

Minerva will die one day away from New York.”

“Nonsense,” said Ethel. “She can’t help falling in love with the view from the kitchen windows. That lovely old purple

Mount Nebo.”

I had my doubts of a New York born and bred colored cook falling in love with any view that did not comprehend a row

of city houses somewhere in its composition, but I said nothing. The doctor had told me that Ethel absolutely needed a long
rest in the “real country,” hill country preferred, and even if I had to go out and help Minerva in the kitchen I was going up.

We had spent a delightful week at Clover Lodge the year before with the Chauncey Wheelocks, but this year they were

going to Europe and had proposed our renting it furnished and had promised Mamie Logan as cook. But a cordon bleu is
not immune from scarlet fever, as we had found to our vexation—although I doubt if we felt it as much as Mamie did. She, by
the way, had actually liked scenery and had told Mrs. Vernon that the distant old mountain peak was company for her while
she was washing dishes. But a purple peak would not take the place of the yellow lights of a great city to Minerva and I
looked forward to varied experiences, although I said nothing about my expectations to Ethel.

I half expected Minerva to back out when it came to going, but she did not. Possibly the excitement of going on the cars

had something to do with her fortitude. Possibly the diversion that “Miss Pussy” afforded made her forget that she was leaving
her beloved city.

The cat was a startler and no mistake. While the train was in motion she kept quiet, but whenever we stopped at a station

she let forth ear splitting shrieks, acting exactly as if she were being tortured. More than one non-smoking man sought refuge
in the smoker and many were the black looks cast at Minerva.

I was glad that she sat behind us, for I did not wish to be mixed up in the affair. As for her she shrieked with laughter every

time that the cat shrieked with dismay, and I felt that the cat, though unpleasant, was really making our journey easier, as it
kept Minerva from dwelling upon her exile.