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Title: Traits of American Humour, Vol. II of III
Author: Various
Language: English
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T R A I T S
OF
A M E R I C A N H U M O U R,
B Y N A T I V E A U T H O R S.
EDITED AND ADAPTED
BY THE AUTHOR OF “SAM SLICK,”
“THE OLD JUDGE,” “THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA,” &C. &C.
I N T H R E E V O L U M E S.
V O L. II.
L O N D O N :
C O L B U R N A N D C O., P U B L I S H E R S,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1 8 5 2.
L O N D O N :
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
P R E F A C E F R O M V O L . I.
Most Europeans speak of America as they do of England, France, or
Prussia, as one of the great countries of the world, but without
reference to the fact that it covers a larger portion of the globe than
all of them collectively. In like manner as the New England confederacy
originally comprised the most enlightened and most powerful
transatlantic provinces, and the inhabitants accidentally acquired the
appellation of Yankees, so this term is very generally applied to all
Americans, and is too often used as a national, instead of a provincial
or a sectional soubriquet. In order to form an accurate estimate of the
national humour, it is necessary to bear these two great popular errors
constantly in view. The Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern
States, though settled by a population speaking the same language, and
enjoying the same institutions, are so distant from each other, and
differ so widely in climate, soil, and productions, that they have but
few features in common; while the people, from the same causes, as well
as from habits, tastes, necessities, the sparseness or density of
population, free soil, or slave labour, the intensity, absence, or
weakness of religious enthusiasm, and many other peculiarities, are
equally dissimilar.
Hence, humour has a character as local as the boundaries of these civil
subdivisions.
The same diversity is observable in that of the English, Irish and
Scotch, and in their mirthful sallies, the character of each race is
plainly discernible.
That of the English is at once manly and hearty, and, though embellished
by fancy, not exaggerated; that of the Irish, extravagant, reckless,
rollicking, and kind-hearted; while that of the Scotch is sly, cold,
quaint, practical, and sarcastic.
The population of the Middle States, in this particular, reminds a
stranger of the English, that of the West resembles the Irish, and the
Yankees bear a still stronger affinity to the Scotch. Among the
Americans themselves these distinctions are not only well understood and
defined, but are again subdivided so as to apply more particularly to
the individual States.
Each has a droll appellation, by which the character of its yeomanry, as
composed of their ability, generosity, or manliness on the one hand, and
craft, economy, or ignorance of the world, on the other, is known and
illustrated. Thus, there are the Hoosiers of Indiana, the Suckers of
Illinois, the pukes of Missouri, the buck-eyes of Ohio, the red-horses
of Kentucky, the mud-heads of Tenessee, the wolverines of Michigan, the
eels of New England, and the corn-crackers of Virginia.
For the purpose of this work, however, it is perhaps sufficient merely
to keep in view the two grand divisions of East and West, which, to a
certain extent, may be said to embrace those spread geographically North
and South, with which they insensibly blend.
Of the former, New England and its neighbours are pre-eminent. The rigid
discipline and cold, gloomy tenets of the Puritans required and enforced
a grave demeanour, and an absence from all public and private
amusements, while a sterile and ungrateful soil demanded all the
industry, and required all the energy of the people to ensure a
comfortable support. Similar causes produce a like result in Scotland.
Hence the striking resemblance in the humour of the two people. But
though the non-conformist fathers controlled and modified the mirth of
the heart, they could not repress it. Nature is more powerful than
conventional regulations, and it soon indemnified itself in the
indulgence of a smile for the prohibition of unseemly laughter.
Hypocrisy is short-lived:
“Vera redit facies, dissimulata peret.”
The Puritans, as one of their descendants has well observed,[1]
emigrated “that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit
upon hard benches, and to listen to painful preaching as long as they
would, even unto thirty seventhly, if the Spirit so willed it. They were
not,” he says, “plump, rosy-gilled Englishmen that came hither, but a
hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, stiff from long wrestling
with the Lord in prayer, and who had taught Satan to dread the new
Puritan hug.” Add two hundred years’ influence of soil, climate, and
exposure, with its necessary result of idiosyncrasies, and we have the
present Yankee, full of expedients, half master of all trades, inventive
in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of comfort,
armed at all points against the old enemy, hunger, longanimous, good at
patching, not so careful for what is best as for what _will do_, with a
clasp to his purse, and a button to his pocket, not skilled to build
against time, as in old countries, but against sore-pressing need,
accustomed to move the world with no assistants but his own two feet,
and no lever but his own long forecast. A strange hybrid, indeed, did
circumstances beget here, in the New World, upon the old Puritan stock,
and the earth never before saw such mystic-practicalism, such
niggard-geniality, such calculating-fanaticism, such cast-iron
enthusiasm, such unwilling-humour, such close-fisted generosity. This
new ‘_Græculus esuriens_’ will make a living out of anything. He will
invent new trades as well as new tools. His brain is his capital, and he
will get education at all risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and he will
make a spelling-book first, and a salt-pan afterwards. _In cœlum
jusseris_, _ibit_, or the other way either, it is all one so as anything
is to be got by it. Yet, after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more
like the Englishman of two centuries ago than John Bull himself is. He
has lost somewhat in solidity, has become fluent and adaptable, but more
of the original groundwork of character remains.
New England was most assuredly an unpromising soil wherein to search for
humour; but, fortunately, that is a hardy and prolific plant, and is to
be found in some of its infinite varieties, in more or less abundance
everywhere.
To the well-known appellation of Yankees, their Southern friends have
added, as we have seen, in reference to their remarkable pliability, the
denomination of “Eels.” Their humour is not merely original, but it is
clothed in quaint language. They brought with them many words now
obsolete and forgotten in England, to which they have added others
derived from their intercourse with the Indians, their neighbours the
French and Dutch, and their peculiar productions. Their pronunciation,
perhaps, is not very dissimilar to that of their Puritan forefathers. It
is not easy to convey an adequate idea of it on paper, but the following
observations may render it more intelligible:
“1.[2] The chief peculiarity is a drawling pronunciation, and sometimes
accompanied by speaking through the nose, as _eend_ for _end_, _dawg_
for _dog_, _Gawd_ for _God_, &c.
“2. Before the sounds _ow_ and _oo_, they often insert a short _i_,
which we will represent by the _y_; as _kyow_ for _cow_, _vyow_ for
_vow_, _tyoo_ for _too_, _dyoo_ for _do_, &c.
“3.[3] The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the _r_, when
he can help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoiding
it, even before a vowel.
“4. He seldom sounds the final _g_, a piece of self-denial, if we
consider his partiality for nasals. The same may be said of the final
_d_, as _han’_ and _stan’_ for _hand_ and _stand_.
“5. The _h_ in such words as _while_, _when_, _where_, he omits
altogether.
“6. In regard to _a_, he shows some inconsistency, sometimes giving a
close and obscure sound, as _hev_ for _have_, _hendy_ for _handy_, _ez_
for _as_, _thet_ for _that_; and again giving it the broad sound as in
father, as _hansome_ for _handsome_.”
“7. _Au_ in such words as _daughter_ and _slaughter_, he pronounces
_ah_.”
Wholly unconstrained at first by conventional usages, and almost beyond
the reach of the law, the inhabitants of the West indulged, to the
fullest extent, their propensity for fun, frolic, and the wild and
exciting sports of the chase. Emigrants from the border States, they
engrafted on the dialects of their native places exaggerations and
peculiarities of their own, until they acquired almost a new language,
the most remarkable feature of which is its amplification. Everything is
superlative, awful, powerful, monstrous, dreadful, almighty, and
all-fired. As specimens of these extravagancies four narratives of the
Adventures of the celebrated Colonel Crocket are given, of which the
humour consists mainly in the marvellous. As they were designed for “the
million,” among whom the scenes are laid, rather than the educated
class, they were found to contain many expressions unfit for the perusal
of the latter, which I have deemed it proper to expunge. Other numbers
in both volumes, liable to the same objection, have been subjected to
similar expurgation, which, without affecting their raciness, has
materially enhanced their value.
The tales of both West and South are written in the language of the
rural population, which differs as much from the Yankee dialect as from
that of the Cockney. The vocabulary of both is most copious. Some words
owe their origin to circumstances, and local productions, and have
thence been spread over the whole country, and adopted into general use;
such as[4] _backwoods_, _breadstuffs_, _barrens_, _bottoms_,
_cane-brake_, _cypress-brake_, _corn-broom_, _corn-shucking_,
_clearing_, _deadening_, _diggings_, _dug-out_, _flats_, _husking_,
_prairie_, _shingle_, _sawyer_, _salt-lick_, _savannah_, _snag_.
Metaphorical and odd expressions often originated in some curious
anecdote or event, which was transmitted by tradition, and soon made the
property of all. Political writers and stump speakers perform a
prominent part in the invention and diffusion of these phrases. Among
others may be mentioned: _To cave in_, _to acknowledge the corn_, _to
flash in the pan_, _to bark up the wrong tree_, _to pull up stakes_, _to
be a caution_, _to fizzle out_, _to flat out_, _to fix his flint_, _to
be among the missing_, _to give him Jessy_, _to see the elephant_, _to
fly around_, _to tucker out_, _to use up_, _to walk into_, _to mizzle_,
_to absquatulate_, _to cotton_, _to hifer_, _&c._
Many have been adopted from the Indians; from corn, come, _samp_,
_hominy_, _and sapawn_; from the manive plant, _mandioca_, _and
tapioca_, and from articles peculiar to the aborigines, the words,
_canoe_, _hammock_, _tobacco_, _mocassin_, _pemmican_, _barbecue_,
_hurricane_, _pow-wow_.
The Spaniards have contributed their share to the general stock, as
_canyon_, _cavortin_, _chaparral_, _pistareen_, _rancho_, _vamos_.
The French have also furnished many more, such as _cache_, _calaboose_,
_bodette_, _bayou_, _sault_, _levee_, _crevasse_, _habitan_,
_charivari_, _portage_.[5]
The “Edinburgh Review,” for April, 1844, in an article on the
provincialisms of the European languages, states the result of an
inquiry into the number of provincial words which had then been arrested
by local glossaries at 30,687.
“Admitting that several of them are synonymous, superfluous, or common
to each county, there are nevertheless many of them which, although
alike orthographically, are vastly dissimilar in signification. Making
these allowances, they amount to a little more than 20,000; or,
according to the number of English counties hitherto illustrated, to the
average ratio of 1478 to a county. Calculating the twenty-six
unpublished in the same ratio, (for there are supposed to be as many
words collected by persons who have never published them,) they will
furnish 36,428 additional provincialisms, forming in the aggregate,
59,000 words in the colloquial tongue of the lower classes, which can,
for the chief part, produce proofs of legitimate origin.”
The process of coinage has been far more rapid and extensive in America
than in Europe. That of words predominates in the Western, and that of
phrases in the Eastern States. The chief peculiarity in the
pronunciation of the Southern and Western people, is the giving of a
broader sound than is proper to certain vowels; as _whar_ for _where_,
_thar_ for _there_, _bar_ for _bear_.
In the following table of words, incorrectly pronounced, such as belong
to New England are designated by the letters N.E.; those exclusively
Western, by the letter W.; the Southern words by S.; the rest are common
to various parts of the Union. In this attempt at classification, there
are, doubtless, errors and imperfections; for an emigrant from Vermont
to Illinois would introduce the provincialisms of his native district,
into his new residence.
Arter _for_ After.
Ary " Either.
Attackted " Attack’d.
Anywheres " Anywhere.
Bachelder " Bachelor.
Bagnet " Bayonet.
Bar " Bear, W.
Becase " Because.
Bile " Boil.
Cheer " Chair.
Chimbly " Chimney.
Cupalo " Cupola.
Cotch’d " Caught.
Critter " Creature.
Curous " Curious.
Dar " Dare, W.
Darter " Daughter.
Deu " Do, N.E.
Delightsome " Delightful.
Drownded " Drown’d.
Druv " Drove, W.
Dubous " Dubious.
Eend " End.
Everywheres " Everywhere.
Gal " Girl.
Gin " Give.
Git " Get.
Gineral " General.
Guv " Gave.
Gownd " Gown.
Har " Hair, W.
Hath " Hearth, S.
Hender " Hinder.
Hist " Hoist.
Hum " Home, N.E.
Humbly " Homely, N.E.
Hull " Whole, W.
Ile " Oil.
Innemy " Enemy.
Jaunders " Jaundice.
Jest " Just.
Jeems " James.
Jine " Join.
Jist " Joist.
Kittle " Kettle.
Kiver " Cover.
Larn " Learn.
Larnin " Learning.
Lives " Lief.
Leetle " Little.
Nary " Neither.
Ourn " Ours.
Perlite " Polite.
Racket " Rocket.
Rale " Real.
Rench " Rince.
Rheumatiz " Rheumatism.
Ruff " Roof, N.E.
Sarcer " Saucer.
Sarce " Sauce.
Sarve " Serve.
Sass " Sauce.
Sassy " Saucy.
Scace " Scarce.
Scass " Scarce, W.
Sen " Since, W.
Shay " Chaise, N.E.
Shet " Shut, S.
Sistern " Sisters, W.
Sich " Such.
Sot " Sat.
Sorter " Sort of.
Stan " Stand, N.E.
Star " Stair, W.
Stun " Stone, N.E.
Stiddy " Steady, N.E.
Spettacle " Spectacle.
Spile " Spoil.
Squinch " Quench.
Streech " Stretch, W.
Suthin " Something.
Tech " Touch.
Tend " Attend.
Tell’d " Told, N.E.
Thar " There, W.
Timersome " Timerous.
Tossel " Tassel.
Umberell " Umbrella.
Varmint " Vermin, W.
Wall " Well, N.E.
Whar " Where, W.
Yaller " Yellow.
Yourn " Yours.
Until lately, the humour of the Americans has been chiefly oral. Up to
the period when the publication of the first American “Sporting
Magazine” was commenced at Baltimore, in 1829, and which was immediately
followed by the publication, in New York, of “The Spirit of the Times,”
there existed no such class of writers in the United States, as have
since that recent day, conferred such popularity on this description of
literature.
The New York “Constellation,”[6] was the only journal expressly devoted
to wit and humour; but “The Spirit of the Times” soon became the general
receptacle of all these fugitive productions. The ability with which it
was conducted, and the circulation it enjoyed, induced the proprietors
of other periodicals to solicit contributions similar to those which
were attracting so much attention in that paper. Of the latter kind are
the three articles from the pen of McClintoch, which originally appeared
in the “Portland Advertiser.” The rest of the series by the same author,
I have not been able to procure, as they have shared the fate of many
others of no less value, that appeared in the daily press of the United
States. To collect, arrange, and preserve these specimens of American
humour, and present them to the British reader, in an unobjectionable
shape, is the object of this compilation.
To such of the numbers contained in these volumes as I could trace the
paternity, I have appended the names of the authors, and shall now
conclude, by expressing to those gentlemen the very great gratification
I have experienced in the perusal of their admirable sketches.
DECEMBER, 1851.
-----
[1] See Introduction to Biglow’s Papers, p. xix.
[2] See Introduction to Dictionary of Americanisms, p. xxiv, and
Biglow’s Papers.
[3] See Introduction to Biglow’s Papers, p. xxiv.
[4] Introduction to Dictionary of Americanisms.
[5] See Dictionary of Americanisms.
[6] See Porter’s account of “The Spirit of the Times.”
C O N T E N T S
O F
T H E S E C O N D V O L U M E.
I.
PAGE
THE EDITOR’S CREED 1
II.
JOSH BEANPOLE’S COURTSHIP 8
III.
PETER BRUSH, THE GREAT USED UP 27
IV.
COUSIN SALLY DILLIARD 45
V.
THE AGE OF WONDERS 51
VI.
HOW SIMON SUGGS “RAISED JACK” 59
VII.
MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND 80
VIII.
BILLY WARRICK’S COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 88
IX.
OUR TOWN 111
X.
“FALLING OFF A LOG,” IN A GAME OF “SEVEN UP” 113
XI.
A YANKEE CARD-TABLE 119
XII.
DICK M’COY’S SKETCHES OF HIS NEIGHBOURS 125
XIII.
KICKING A YANKEE 134
XIV.
WHY MR. SELLUM DISPOSED OF THE HORSE 140
XV.
METAPHYSICS 146
XVI.
A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN’ 157
XVII.
A SHARK STORY 175
XVIII.
A BEAR STORY 192
XIX.
THE BEST-NATURED MAN IN THE WORLD 203
XX.
CHUNKEY’S FIGHT WITH THE PANTHERS 216
XXI.
A BULLY BOAT, AND A BRAG CAPTAIN 230
XXII.
FYDGET FYXINGTON 239
XXIII.
DOING A SHERIFF 259
XXIV.
THE MUSCADINE STORY 265
XXV.
POLLY PEABLOSSOM’S WEDDING 280
XXVI.
THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD 297
XXVII.
PELEG PONDER; OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A SIDE 304
T R A I T S
OF
A M E R I C A N H U M O U R.
I.
THE EDITOR’S CREED.
He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may
never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton.
For which reason I would derive the name _editor_ not so much from
_edo_, to publish, as from _edo_, to eat, that being the peculiar
profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of
political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily
boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these
mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many
have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties
consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine labour to impress upon the people the great principles of
_Tweedledum_, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal
earnestness the doctrines according to _Tweedledee_.
I du believe in Freedom’s cause,
Ez fur away ez Paris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Pharisees;
It’s wal enough agin a king
To dror resolves an’ triggers,—
But libbaty’s a kind o’ thing
That don’t agree with niggers.
I du believe the people want
A tax on teas an’ coffees,
Thet nothin’ aint extravygunt,—
Purvidin’ I’m in office;
Fer I hev loved my country sence
My eye-teeth filled their sockets,
An’ Uncle Sam I reverence,
Partic’larly his pockets.
I du believe in _any_ plan
O’ levyin’ the taxes,
Ez long ez, like a lumberman,
I git jest wut I axes:
I go free-trade thru thick an’ thin,
Because it kind o’ rouses
The folks to vote,—an’ keeps us in
Our quiet custom-houses.
I du believe it’s wise an’ good
To sen’ out furrin missions,
Thet is, on sartin understood
An’ orthydox conditions;—
I mean nine thousan’ dolls, per ann.,
Nine thousan’ more fer outfit,
An’ me to recommend a man
The place ’ould jest about fit.
I du believe in special ways
O’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;
The bread comes back in many days,
An’ buttered, tu, fer sartin;—
I mean in preyin’ till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An’ in convartin’ public trusts
To very privit uses.
I du believe hard coin the stuff
Fer ’lectioneers to spout on;
The people’s ollers soft enough
To make hard money out on;
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,
An’ gives a good-sized junk to all,—
I don’t care _how_ hard money is,
Ez long ez mine’s paid punctooal.
I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press’s freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An’ in the traces lead ’em;
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes
At my fat contracts squintin’,
An’ withered be the nose thet pokes
Inter the gov’ment printin’!
I du believe thet I should give
Wut’s his’n unto Cæsar,
Fer it’s by him I move an’ live,
Frum him my bread an’ cheese air;
I du believe thet all o’ me
Doth bear his souperscription,—
Will, conscience, honour, honesty,
An’ things o’ thet description.
I du believe in prayer an’ praise
To him thet hez the grantin’
O’ jobs,—in everythin’ thet pays,
But most of all in CANTIN’;
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o’ sin to rest—
I _don’t_ believe in princerple,
But, O, I _du_ in interest.
I du believe in bein’ this
Or thet, ez it may happen
One way or t’other hendiest is
To ketch the people nappin’;
It aint by principles nor men
My preudunt course is steadied,—
I scent wich pays the best, an’ then
Go into it baldheaded.
I du believe thet holdin’ slaves
Comes nat’ral tu a Presidunt,
Let ’lone the rowdedow it saves
To hev a wal-broke precedunt;
Fer any office, small or gret,
I couldn’t ax with no face,
Without I’d ben, thru dry an’ wet,
Th’ unrizzest kind o’ doughface.
I du believe wutever trash
’ll keep the people in blindness,—
That we the Mexicuns can thrash
Right inter brotherly kindness,
Thet bombshells, grape, an’ powder ’n’ ball
Air good-will’s strongest magnets,
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
Must be druv in with bagnets.
In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it’s a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;
This heth my faithful leader ben,
To browsing sweet heth led me,
An’ this’ll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me.
II.
JOSH BEANPOLE’S COURTSHIP.
“Mother!” exclaimed Josh Beanpole, “Mother, I say, I feel all over in a
twitteration like. Huh! huh! Who’d have thought it?”
“What ails ye, Josh?” asked the old woman, stopping her spinning-wheel
at this exclamation. “What bug has bit you now?”
“Can’t tell,” said Josh, in a drooping, dolorous tone, and hanging his
head as if he had been caught stealing a sheep.
“Can’t tell?” said Mrs. Beanpole, turning quite round, and giving Josh a
wondering stare. “Can’t tell? what does the critter mean?”
“Who’d ha’ thought it?” repeated Josh, fumbling in his pockets, twisting
round his head and rolling up his eyes in a fashion most immensely
sheepish.—“Hannah Downer’s courted!”
Here Josh shuffled himself awkwardly into the settle in the chimney
corner, and sunk upon one side, fixing his eyes with a most
ludicro-dismal squint upon the lower extremity of a pot-hook that hung
at the end of the crane.
“Courted!” exclaimed Mrs. Beanpole, not exactly comprehending the state
of her son’s intellectuals. “Well—what’s all that when it’s fried?”
“Arter so many pails of water as I’ve pumped for her,” said Josh in a
dismal whine,—“for to go for to let herself to be courted by another
feller!”
“Here’s a to-do!” ejaculated the old woman.
“It’s tarnation all over!” said Josh, beginning a bolder tone as he
found his mother coming to an understanding of the matter. “It makes me
crawl all over to think on’t. Didn’t I wait on her three times to
singing school? Hadn’t I e’en a most made up my mind to break the ice,
and tell her I shouldn’t wonder if I had a sneakin’ notion arter
somebody’s Hannah? I should ha’ been reg’lar courting in less than a
month—and Peet Spinbutton has cut me out—as slick as a whistle!”
“Peet Spinbutton!” said the old woman, “well, I want to know!”
“Darn his eyes!” exclaimed Josh.
“Peet Spinbutton!” repeated Mrs. Beanpole; “what, the ensign of the
Dogtown Blues? that great lummokin’ feller!”
“Darn him to darnation!” exclaimed Josh, catching hold of the toast-iron
as if he meant to lay about him, “to cut in afore me in that ere sort o’
way!”
Mrs. Beanpole caught Josh by the arm, exclaiming:
“Josh! Joshy! Joshy! what are you about? Peet Spinbutton? I don’t
believe it.”
“What!” said Josh, “didn’t I hear with my own ears, last night that ever
was, Zeb Shute tell me all about it?”
“Zeb Shute! well, what did Zeb Shute say?”
“Why, says he to me:
“‘Josh,’ says he, ‘what do you think?’ says he.
“‘I don’t know, no, n’t I,’ says I.
“‘Tell you what,’ says he, ‘that ’ere Hannah Downer—’
“‘What of Hannah Downer?’ says I, for I begun to crawl all over.
“‘Tell ye what,’ says he; ‘she’s a whole team.’
“‘Ah,’ says I, ‘she’s a whole team, and a horse to let.’
“‘Tell ye what,’ says he, ‘guess somebody has a sneakin’ notion that
way.’
“‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ says I, feelin’ all over in a flustration, thinkin’
he meant me.
“‘Tell ye what,’ says he, ‘guess Peet Spinbutton and she’s pretty thick
together.’
“‘How you talk!’ says I.
“‘Fact,’ says he.
“‘Well, I never!’ says I.
“‘Tell ye what,’ says he. No, that’s all he said.”
“Pooh!” said the old woman, “it’s all wind, Joshy; it’s nothing but Zeb
Shute’s nonsense.”
“Do you think so?” exclaimed Josh, with a stare of uncommon animation,
and his mouth wide open.
“No doubt on’t, Joshy, my boy,” replied she, “for Peggy Downer was here
yesterday forenoon, to borrow a cup of starch, and she never mentioned
the leastest word about it under the light of the livin’ sun.”
“If I was only sure of that!” said Josh, laying down the toast-iron and
sticking his knuckles into his right eye.
“Joshy, my boy,” said the old woman, “I don’t believe Hannah Downer ever
gin Peet Spinbutton the leastest encouragement in the universal world.”
“Think so?” asked Josh, setting his elbows on his knees, his chin in his
fists, and fixing his eyes vacantly downward in an angle of forty-five
degrees, as if in intense admiration of the back-log.
“I’ll tell you what, Joshy,” said Mrs. Beanpole, in a motherly tone, “do
you just put on your go-to-meetin’ suit, and go to see Hannah this
blessed night.”
“Eh!” exclaimed Josh, starting from his elbows at the astounding
boldness of the suggestion, and gazing straight up the chimney. “Do you
think she’d let me?”
“Nothin’ like tryin’, Joshy; must be a first time. Besides, the old
folks are going to lecture, Hannah’ll be all alone—hey! Joshy, my boy!
Nothin’ like tryin’.”
“Eh! eh!” said Josh, screwing himself all up in a heap and staring most
desperately at the lower button of his own waistcoat—for the thoughts
of actually going a courting came over him in a most alarming fashion;
“would ye though, mother? Hannah’s a nice gal, but somehow or other I
feel plaguy queer about it.”
“Oh, that’s quite naiteral, Joshy; when you once get a goin’ it be
nothin’ at all.”
“Higgle, giggle, giggle,” said Josh, making a silly, sputtering kind of
laugh, “that’s the very thing I’m afraid of, that ’ere gettin’ a goin’.
Hannah Downer is apt to be tarnation smart sometimes; and I’ve hearn
tell, that courtin’ is the hardest thing in the world to begin, though
it goes on so slick arterwards.”
“Nonsense, Josh, you silly dough-head; it’s only saying two words, and
it all goes as straight as a turnpike.”
“By the hokey!” said Josh, rolling up his eyes and giving a punch with
his fist in the air, “I’ve an all-fired mind to try it though!”
Josh and his mother held a much longer colloquy upon the matter, the
result of which was such an augmentation of his courage for the
undertaking, that the courtship was absolutely decided upon; and just
after dark, Josh gave his face a sound scrubbing with soapsuds, drew
forth his Sunday pantaloons, which were of the brightest cow-colour, and
after a good deal of labour, succeeded in getting into them, his legs
being somewhat of the longest, and the pantaloons as tight as a glove,
so that on seeing him fairly incased, it was somewhat of a puzzle to
guess how he could ever get out of them. A flaming red waistcoat, and a
grey coat with broad pewter buttons, set off his figure to the greatest
advantage, to say nothing of a pair of bran new cow-hide shoes. Then
rubbing his long hair with a tallow candle, and sprinkling a handful of
Indian meal by way of powder, he twisted it behind with a leather string
into a formidable queue, which he drew so tight that it was with the
greatest difficulty he could shut his eyes; but this gave him but little
concern, as he was determined to be wide awake through the whole affair.
Being all equipt, he mounted Old Blueberry, and set off at an easy trot,
which very soon fell into a walk, for the nearer Josh approached the
dwelling of his Dulcinea, the more the thought of his great undertaking
overpowered him.
Josh rode four times round the house before he found courage to alight;
at length he made a desperate effort and pulled up under the lee side of
the barn, where he dismounted, tied his horse, and approached the house
with fear and trembling. At two rods distance he stopped short. There
was a dead silence, and he stood in awful irresolution. All at once a
terrible voice, close at hand, caused him to start with great
trepidation:—it was nothing but a couple of turkeys who had set up a
gobbling from their roost on the top of the barn. Josh looked up, and
beheld, by the light of the moon, the old turkey cosily perched by the
side of his mate; the sight was overpowering. “Ah! happy, happy turkey!”
he mentally exclaimed, and turned about to proceed up the yard, but the
next moment felt a violent cut across the broadest part of his nose. He
started back again, but discovered it to be only a clothes-line which he
had run against.—“The course of true love never did run smooth.” He
went fearfully on, thinking of the connubial felicities of the turkey
tribe, and the perils of clothes-lines, till he found himself at the
door, where he stood fifteen minutes undetermined what to do; and if he
had not bethought himself of the precaution of peeping in at the window,
it is doubtful whether he would have mustered the courage to enter. But
peep he did, and spied Hannah all alone at her knitting-work. This sight
emboldened him, and he bolted in without knocking.
What precise sort of compliments Josh made use of in introducing
himself, never could be discovered, for Josh laboured under such a
confusion of the brain at the time, that he lost all recollection of
what passed till he found himself seated in a flag-bottomed chair with a
most uncomfortably deep hollow in it. He looked up, and actually saw
Hannah sitting in the chimney corner knitting a pepper-and-salt
stocking.
“Quite industrious to-night,” said Josh.
“Don’t know that,” replied Hannah.
“Sure on’t,” returned Josh. “Guess now you’ve knit from four to six
pearl at the lowest calculation.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” replied Hannah.
“Tarnation!” said Josh, pretending to be struck with admiration at the
exploit, though he knew it was nothing to boast of.
“How’s your mother, Josh?” asked Hannah.
“Pretty considerable smart, Hannah; how’s _your_ mother?”
“So, so,” replied Hannah; and here the conversation came to a stand.
Josh fumbled in his pockets and stuck his legs out till they reached
nearly across the room, in hopes to think of something more to say; but
in vain. He then scratched his head, but there appeared to be nothing in
it.
“Is’t possible,” thought he, “that I’m actually here a courting?”
He could hardly believe it, and began to feel very awkward.
“I swow!” he exclaimed, opening his eyes as wide as he could.
“What’s the matter?” asked Hannah, a little startled.
“Cotch a ’tarnal great musquash this forenoon.”
“Ah!” said Hannah, “how big was it?”
“Big as all out-doors!”
“Lawful heart!” exclaimed Hannah.
Josh now felt a little more at his ease, finding the musquash helped him
on so bravely. He hitched his chair about seven feet at a single jerk,
nearer to Hannah, and exclaimed:
“Tell ye what, Hannah, I’m all creation for catching musquashes.”
“Well, I want to know!” replied Hannah.
Josh twisted his eyes into a squint, and gave her a look of melting
tenderness. Hannah perceived it, and did not know whether to laugh or be
scared; so, to compromise the matter, she pretended to be taken with a
fit of coughing. Josh felt his heart begin to beat, and was fully
convinced he was courting, or something very like it; but what to do
next was the question.
“Shall I kiss her?” thought he. “No, no, it’s a _leetle_ too early for
that; but I’ll tell her I love her.” At this thought his heart went
bump! bump! bump! harder than ever.
“Hannah!” he exclaimed, in a squeaking voice, and stopped short.
“Hey, Josh!” said Hannah.
“Hannah, I—I—” he rolled up the whites of his eyes, in a most
supplicating leer, but the word stuck in his throat. Hannah looked
directly in his face; he was in a dreadful puzzle what to say, for he
was obliged to say something. His eye fell by accident on a gridiron
hanging in the chimney corner:
“What a terrible crack your gridiron’s got in it!” exclaimed he.
“Poh!” said Hannah.
Here the conversation came again to a dead stop, for Josh had so
exhausted himself in this effort to break the ice, that he was not
master of his faculties for several minutes; and when he came fairly to
his senses, he found himself counting the tickings of an old wooden
clock that stood in the corner. He counted and counted till he had
numbered three hundred and ninety-seven ticks, when he luckily heard a
cow lowing out of doors.
“Ugh!” said he, “whose cow’s that?”
“Drummer Tucker’s,” replied Hannah.
“Drummer Tucker’s! Well, I want to know!”
This reply suggested an idea.
“Hannah,” asked he, “did you ever see a dromedary?”
“No; did you, Josh?”
“No,” returned Josh, “I never see nothin’ in my life but a green monkey;
and then I was a’most skeered to death!”
“Lawful heart! Mercy’s sake!” exclaimed Hannah, and here the
conversation came to a pause again.
The longer they sat, the more awkwardly Josh found himself situated; he
sat bolt upright in his chair, with his knees close together and his
head stooping forward in such a manner that his long queue stuck out
horizontally behind, and his eyes stuck out horizontally before, like
those of a lobster. For several minutes he sat contemplating the handle
of the warming-pan that hung by the side of the fireplace; and then
gradually elevating his line of vision, came in sight of a huge
crook-necked squash lying on the mantel-piece. Then he looked at Hannah,
and then at the dish-cloth in the mouth of the oven, and from the
dish-cloth made a transition back to the warming-pan.
“Courting,” thought Josh, “is awful hard work.” The perspiration stood
on his forehead, and his eel-skin queue pulled so tight that he began to
fear the top of his head was coming off; but not a word could he say.
And just at that moment a green stick of wood upon the fire began to
sing in a dismal tone, “_Que, que, que, que, que_.” Nothing frets the
nerves more when a body is a little fidgetty, than the singing and
sputtering of a stick of wood. Josh felt worse than ever, but the stick
kept on: _que, que, que, quiddle, de dee, que, que, quiddledy quiddledy
que, que, que_. Josh caught up the tongs and gave the fire a tremendous
poke. This exertion somewhat relieved him.
“Hannah!” said he, hitching his chair a yard nearer.
“Well, Josh.”
“Now,” thought Josh, “I _will_ tell I love her.”
“Hannah,” said he again, “I—” He stared so wildly and made such a
horrible grimace that Hannah bounced from her chair. “Hannah, I say,”
repeated he; but here again his courage failed him.
“What say, Josh?”
“I—I—it’s a grand time for turnips,” said Josh, “Ugh! ugh! ugh!”
“Poh!” returned Hannah, “let alone of my apron-string, you Josh.”
Josh sat in silence and despair for some time longer, growing more and
more nervous every moment. Presently the stick of wood burst out
squeaking again in the most doleful style imaginable: _Quiddledy,
quiddledy quee-ee-ee-iddledy, que, que quiddledy quiddledy que que
que-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee_. Josh could not bear it any longer, for he verily
believed his skull-bone was splitting.
“I swaggers!” he exclaimed, “this is too bad!”
“What’s the matter, Josh?” asked Hannah, in considerable alarm.
“Suthin’ ails me,” said Josh.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Hannah; “shan’t I get you a mug of cider?”
“Do,” replied Josh, “for I don’t feel as I used to did.”
Hannah ran down to the cellar and returned with a quart mug of cider.
Josh put it to his lips and took a heavy pull. It was what the farmers
call _hard_ cider, and Josh verily feared his eyes would start out of
his head while he was drinking it, but after several desperate gulps he
succeeded in draining the mug. Then pulling a blue and white check
handkerchief from his pocket, he rubbed his face very hard, and looked
straight into the fire.
But in a few minutes he found his spirits wonderfully rising; he lifted
up his eyes, hitched his chair nearer, sent Hannah a sly look, and
actually gave a loud giggle. Hannah giggled in reply, for giggling, like
gaping, is contagious. In two minutes more, his courage rose higher; he
threw one of his long legs across the other, gave a grin, slapped his
hand upon his knee, and exclaimed as bold as a lion:
“Hannah, if a young feller was for to go to offer for to kiss you, what
d’ye think ye should do?”
Having uttered these words, he stopped short, his mouth wide open, in
gaping astonishment at his own temerity.
If Hannah did not blush, it was probably owing to her being at that
moment engaged in blowing the fire at a desperate rate with an enormous
pair of broken-winded bellows, which occupation had set her all in a
blowze.
She understood the hint, and replied:
“Guess ye’d better not try, Josh.”
Whether this was intended as a warning, or an invitation, never could be
satisfactorily known. Josh did not stop to inquire, but he thought it
too good a chance to be lost:
“I’ll kiss her! by Golly!” he exclaimed to himself.
He made a bounce from his chair and seized the nozzle of the bellows,
which Hannah was sticking at that moment under a huge iron pot over the
fire. Now, in this pot were apples a stewing, and so it happened that
Hannah, in the confusion occasioned by the visit of Josh, had made a
mistake and put in sour apples instead of sweet ones: sour apples when
cooking, everybody knows, are apt to explode like bomb-shells. Hannah
had been puffing at the bellows with might and main, and raised the heat
to a mischievous degree; there was no safety-valve in the pot-lid, and
just as Josh was upon the point of snatching a kiss, whop! the whole
contents of the pot went off in their faces!
At the same moment the door flew open, and the whole Downer family came
in from meeting. Such a sight as they beheld! There stood Josh
beplastered with apple-sauce from head to foot, and frightened worse
than if he had seen a green monkey. Hannah made her escape, and left
Josh to explain the catastrophe. He rolled up his eyes in utter dismay.
“What _is_ the matter?” exclaimed Peggy Downer.
“Ugh! ugh! ugh!” replied Josh, and that was all he could say.
“Goodness’ sake! Josh Beanpole! is that you?” asked Mother Downer, for
Josh was so beplastered, beluted and transubstantiated by the
apple-sauce, that she did not at first discover who it was.
“I d’n know—no, n’t I,” said Josh.
“What a spot o’ work!” exclaimed Peggy.
Josh looked down at his pantaloons.
“Oh! forever!” he exclaimed, “this beats the gineral trainin’!”
How matters were explained, and how Josh got safe home, I cannot stop to
explain. As to the final result of the courtship, the reader may as well
be informed that Josh had too much genuine Yankee resolution to be
beaten away from his prize by a broadside of baked apples. In fact, it
was but a few months afterwards, that Deacon Powderpost, the town clerk,
was digging all alone in the middle of his ten-acre potato field, and
spied Josh Beanpole looming up over the top of the hill. Josh looked all
around the horizon, and finding no other living soul to be seen, came
scrambling over the potato hills, and got right behind the Deacon, where
in about a quarter of an hour he mustered courage sufficient to ask him
to step aside, as he had a communication for his private ear. To make a
long story short, Josh and Hannah were published the next Sunday.
III.
PETER BRUSH, THE GREAT USED UP.[7]
It was November; soon after election time, when a considerable portion
of the political world are apt to be despondent, and external things
appear to do their utmost to keep them so. November, the season of
dejection, when pride itself loses its imperious port; when ambition
gives place to melancholy; when beauty hardly takes the trouble to look
in the glass; and when existence doffs its rainbow hues, and wears an
aspect of such dull, common-place reality, that hope leaves the world
for a temporary excursion, and those who cannot do without her inspiring
presence, borrow the aid of pistols, cords, and chemicals, and send
themselves on a longer journey, expecting to find her by the way:—a
season, when the hair will not stay in curl; when the walls weep dewy
drops, to the great detriment of paper-hangings, and of every species of
colouring with which they are adorned; when the banisters distil
liquids, anything but beneficial to white gloves; when nature fills the
ponds, and when window-washing is the only species of amusement at all
popular among housekeepers.
It was on the worst of nights in that worst of seasons. The atmosphere
was in a condition of which it is difficult to speak with respect; much
as we may be disposed to applaud the doings of nature. It was damp,
foggy, and drizzling; to sum up its imperfections in a sonorous and
descriptive epithet, it was “’orrid muggy weather.”
The air hung about the wayfarer in warm, unhealthy folds, and extracted
the starch from his shirt-collar and from the bosom of his dickey, with
as much rapidity as it robbed his spirits of their elasticity, and
melted the sugar of self-complacency from his mind.
The street lamps emitted a ghastly white glare, and were so hemmed in
with vapoury wreaths, that their best efforts could not project a ray of
light three feet from the burner. Gloom was universal, and any change,
even to the heat of Africa, or to the frosts of the arctic circle,
would, in comparison, have been delightful. The pigs’ tails no longer
waved in graceful sinuosities; while the tail of each night-roving,
hectoring bull-dog ceased flaunting toward the clouds, a banner of wrath
and defiance to punier creatures, and hung down drooping and dejected,
an emblem of a heart little disposed to quarrel and offence.
The ornamentals of the brute creation being thus below par, it was not
surprising that men, with cares on their shoulders and raggedness in
their trousers, should likewise be more melancholy than on occasions of
a brighter character.
Every one at all subject to the “skyey influences,” who has had trouble
enough to tear his clothes, and to teach him that the staple of this
mundane existence is not exclusively made up of fun, has felt that
philosophy is but a barometrical affair, and that he who is proof
against sorrow when the air is clear and bracing, may be a very
miserable wretch, with no greater cause, when the wind sits in another
quarter.
Peter Brush is a man of this susceptible class. His nervous system is of
the most delicate organization, and responds to the changes of the
weather, as an Eolian harp sings to the fitful swellings of the breeze.
Peter was abroad on the night of which we speak; either because, unlike
the younger Brutus, he had no Portia near to tell him that such exposure
was “not physical,” and that it was the part of prudence to go to bed,
or that, although aware of the dangers of miasma to a man of his
constitution, he did not happen at that precise moment to have access to
either house or bed; in his opinion, two essential pre-requisites to
couching himself, as he regarded taking it _al fresco_, on a cellar
door, not likely to answer any sanitary purpose.
We incline ourselves to the opinion that he was in the dilemma last
mentioned, as it had previously been the fate of other great men. But be
that as it may, Mr. Peter Brush was in the street, as melancholy as an
unbraced drum, “a gib-ed cat, or a lugged bear.”
Seated upon the curb, with his feet across the gutter, he placed his
elbow on a stepping-stone, and like Juliet on the balcony, leaned his
head upon his hand—a hand that would perhaps have been the better of a
covering, though none would have been rash enough to volunteer to be a
glove upon it. He was in a dilapidated condition—out at elbows, out at
knees, out of pocket, out of office, out of spirits, and out in the
street—an “out and outer” in every respect, and as _outré_ a mortal as
ever the eye of man did rest upon.
For some time, Mr. Brush’s reflections had been silent. Following
Hamlet’s advice, he “gave them an understanding, but no tongue;” and he
relieved himself at intervals by spitting forlornly into the kennel. At
length, suffering his locked hands to fall between his knees, and
heaving a deep sigh, he spoke:
“A long time ago, my ma used to put on her specs and say, ‘Peter, my
son, put not your trust in princes;’ and from that day to this I haven’t
done anything of the kind, because none on ’em ever wanted to borry
nothing of me: and I never see a prince or a king, but one or two, and
they had been rotated out of office, to borry nothing of them. Princes!
pooh! Put not your trust in politicianers—them’s my sentiments. You
might jist as well try to hold an eel by the tail. I don’t care which
side they’re on, for I’ve tried both, and I know. Put not your trust in
politicianers, or you’ll get a hyst.
“Ten years ago it came into my head that things weren’t going on right;
so I pretty nearly gave myself up tee-totally to the good of the
republic, and left the shop to look out for itself. I was brimfull of
patriotism, and so uneasy in my mind for the salivation of freedom, I
couldn’t work. I tried to guess which side was going to win, and I stuck
to it like wax; sometimes I was a-one side, sometimes I was a-tother,
and sometimes I straddled till the election was over, and came up jist
in time to jine the hurrah. It was good I was after; and what good could
I do if I wasn’t on the ’lected side? But, after all, it was never a bit
of use. Whenever the battle was over, no matter what side was sharing
out the loaves and the fishes, and I stepped up, I’ll be hanged if they
didn’t cram all they could into their own mouths, put their arms over
some, and grab at all the rest with their paws, and say, ‘Go away, white
man, you ain’t capable.’ Capable! what’s the reason I ain’t capable?
I’ve got as extensive a throat as any of ’em, and I could swallow the
loaves and fishes without choking, if each loaf was as big as a
grindstone and each fish as big as a sturgeon. Give Peter a Chance, and
leave him alone for that. Then, another time when I called—‘I want some
spoils,’ says I; ‘a small bucket full of spoils. Whichever side gets in,
shares the spoils, don’t they?’ So they first grinned, and then they ups
and tells me that virtue like mine was its own reward, and that spoils
might spoil me. But it was _no_ spoils that spoilt me, and _no_ loaf and
fish that starved me—I’m spoilt because I couldn’t get either. Put not
your trust in politicianers—I say it agin. Both sides used me jist
alike.
“Here I’ve been serving my country, more or less, these ten years, like
a patriot—going to town meetings, hurraing my daylights out, and
getting as blue as blazes—blocking the windows, getting licked fifty
times, and having more black eyes and bloody noses than you could shake
a stick at, all for the common good, and for the purity of our illegal
rights—and all for what? Why, for nix. If any good has come of it, the
country has put it into her own pocket, and swindled me out of my
arnings. I can’t get no office! Republics is ungrateful! It wasn’t
reward I was after. I scorns the base insinivation. I only wanted to be
took care of, and have nothing to do but to take care of the public, and
I’ve only got half—nothing to do! Being took care of was the main
thing. Republics _is_ ungrateful; I’m swaggered if they ain’t. This is
the way old sojers is served.”
Peter, having thus unpacked his o’erfraught heart, heaved a sigh or two,
as every one does after a recapitulation of their own injuries, and
remained for a few minutes wrapped in abstraction.
“Well, well,” said he, mournfully, swaying his head to and fro after the
sagacious fashion of Lord Burleigh, “live and learn—live and learn—the
world’s not what a man takes it for before he finds it out. Whiskers
grow a good deal sooner than experience—genus and patriotism ain’t got
no chance—heigh-ho!—But anyhow, a man might as well be under kiver as
out in the open air in sich weather as this. It’s as cheap laying down
as it is settin’ up, and there’s not so much wear and tear about it.”
With a groan, a yawn, and a sigh, Peter Brush slowly arose, and
stretching himself like a drowsy lion, he walked towards the steps of a
neighbouring house. Having reached the top of the flight, he turned
about and looked round with a scrutinizing glance, peering both up and
down the street, to ascertain that none of the hereditary enemies of the
Brushes were in the vicinity. Being satisfied on that score, he prepared
to enjoy all the comfort that his peculiar situation could command.
According to the modern system of warfare, he carried no baggage to
encumber his motions, and was always ready to bivouac without
troublesome preliminaries. He therefore placed himself on the upper
step, so that he was just within the doorway, his head reclining against
one side of it, and his feet braced against the other, blockading the
passage in a very effectual manner. He adjusted himself in a position as
carefully as the Sybarite who was annoyed at the wrinkle of a rose-leaf
on his couch, grunting at each motion like a Daniel Lambert at his
toilet, and he made minute alterations in his attitude several times
before he appeared perfectly satisfied that he had effected the best
arrangements that could be devised.
After reposing for a while as if “the flinty and steel couch of war were
his thrice-driven bed of down,” he moved his head with an exclamation of
impatience at the hardness of the wall, and taking his time-worn beaver,
he crumpled it up, and mollified the austerity of his bolster by using
the crushed hat as a pillow.
“That will do,” ejaculated Brush, clasping his hands before him, and
twirling his thumbs; and he then closed his eyes for the purpose of
reflecting upon his condition with a more perfect concentration of
thought than can be obtained when outward objects distract the mind. But
thinking in this way is always a hazardous experiment, whether it be
after dinner, or in the evening; and Peter Brush soon unwittingly fell
into a troubled, murmuring sleep, in which his words were mere
repetitions of what he had said before, the general scope of the
argument being to prove the received axiom of former times, that
republics do not distribute their favours in proportion to services
rendered, and that, in the speaker’s opinion, they are not, in this
respect, much better than the princes against whom his mother cautioned
him. Such, at least, was the conviction of Mr. Brush; at which he had
arrived, not by theory and distant observation, but by his own personal
experience.
It is a long lane which has no turning, and it is a long sleep in the
open air, especially in a city, which does not meet with interruption.
Brush found it so in this instance, as he had indeed more than once
before. Several gentlemen, followed by a dog, arrived at the foot of the
steps, and, after a short conversation, dispersed each to his several
home. One, however, remained—the owner of the dog—who, whistling for
his canine favourite, took out his night-key, and walked up the steps.
The dog, bounding before his master, suddenly stopped, and after
attentively regarding the recumbent Brush, uttered a sharp rapid bark.
The rapidity of mental operations is such that it frequently happens, if
sleep be disturbed by external sounds, that the noise is instantly
caught up by the ear, and incorporated with the subject of the dream—or
perhaps a dream is instantaneously formed upon the nucleus suggested by
the vibration of the tympanum. The bark of the dog had one of these
effects upon Mr. Brush.
“Bow! wow! waugh!” said the dog.
“There’s a fellow making a speech against our side,” muttered Peter;
“but it’s all talk—where’s your facts?—print your speech in pamphlet
form, and I’ll answer it. Hurray for us!—everybody else is
rascals—nothing but ruination when that fellow’s principles get the
upper hand—our side for ever—we’re the boys!”
“Be still, Ponto!” said the gentleman. “Now, Sir, be pleased to get up,
and carry yourself to some other place. I don’t know which side has the
honour of claiming you, but you are certainly on the wrong side at
present.”
“Don’t be official and trouble yourself about other people’s business,”
said Brush, trying to open his eyes; “don’t be official, for it isn’t
the genteel thing.”
“Not official! what do you mean by that? I shall be very official, and
trundle you down the steps if you are not a little more rapid in your
motions.”
“Oh, very well,” responded Brush, as he wheeled round in a sitting
posture, and fronted the stranger—“very well; be as sassy as you
please; I suppose you’ve got an office, by the way you talk—you’ve got
one of the fishes, though perhaps it is but a minny, and I ain’t; but if
I had, I’d show you a thing or two. Be sassy, be anything, Mr.
Noodle-soup. I don’t know which side you’re on either, but I do know one
thing; it isn’t saying much for your boss politicianer that he chose you
when I must have been on his list for promotion; that’s all, though yon
are so stiff, and think yourself pretty to look at. But them that’s
pretty to look at ain’t always good ’uns to go, or you wouldn’t be
poking here. Be off; there’s no more business before this meeting, and
you may adjourn. It’s moved, seconded, and carried—pay the landlord for
the use of the room as you go.”
The stranger, now becoming somewhat amused, felt a disposition to
entertain himself a little with Peter.
“How does it happen,” said he, “that such a public-spirited individual
as you appear to be should find himself in this condition? You’ve had a
little too much of the _stimulantibus_, I fear.”
“I don’t know Greek, but I guess what you mean,” was the answer. “It’s
owing to the weather—part to the weather, and part because republics is
ungrateful; that’s considerable the biggest part. Either part is excuse
enough, and both together makes it a credit. When it’s such weather as
this, it takes the electerizing fluid out of you; and if you want to
feel something like; do you know what ‘something like’ is? it’s
cat-bird, jam up; if you want to feel so, you must pour a little of the
electerizing fluid into you. In this kind of weather you must tune
yourself up, and get, rosumed, or you ain’t good for much, tuned up to
concert pitch. But all that’s a trifle; put not your trust in
politicianers.”
“And why not, Mr. Rosum?”
“Why not! Help us up—there—steady she goes—hold on! Why not?—look at
me, and you’ll see the why as large as life. I’m the why you mustn’t put
your trust in politicianers. I’m a rig’lar patriot—look at my coat. I’m
all for the public good—twig the holes in my trousers. I’m steady in my
course, and I’m upright in my conduct—don’t let me fall down. I’ve
tried all parties, year in and year out, just by way of making myself
popular and agreeable; and I’ve tried to be on both sides at once,”
roared Brush, with great emphasis, as he slipped and fell, “and this is
the end of it!”
His auditor laughed heartily at this striking illustration of the
political course of Peter Brush, and seemed quite gratified with so
strong a proof of the danger of endeavouring to be on two sides at once.
He therefore assisted the fallen to rise.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m used to being knocked about—the steps and the pavement are no
worse than other people—they’re like politicianers—you can’t put any
trust in ’em. But,” continued Brush, drawing a roll of crumbled paper
from the crown of his still more crumpled hat, “see here now, you’re a
clever fellow, and I’ll get you to sign my recommendation. Here’s a
splendid character for me all ready wrote down, so it won’t give you any
trouble, only to put your name to it.”
“But what office does it recommend you for? what kind of recommendation
is it?”
“It’s a circular recommend—a slap at anything that’s going.”
“Firing into the flock, I suppose!”
“That’s it exactly, good character, fit for any fat post either under
the city government, the state government, or the gineral government.
Now jist put your fist to it,” added Peter, in his most persuasive
tones, as he smoothed the paper over his knee, spread it upon the step,
and produced a bit of lead pencil which he first moistened with his
lips, and then offered to his interlocutor.
“Excuse me,” was the laughing response; “it’s too dark, I can’t see
either to read or write. But what made you a politicianer? Haven’t you
got a trade.”
“Trade! yes,” replied Brush, contemptuously; “but what’s a trade, when a
feller’s got a soul! I love my country, and I want an office—I don’t
care what, so it’s fat and easy. I’ve a genus for governing—for telling
people what to do, and looking at ’em do it. I want to take care of my
country, and I want my country to take care of me. Head work is the
trade I’m made for—talking—that’s my line—talking in the streets,
talking in the bar rooms, talking in the oyster cellars. Talking is the
grease for the waggon wheels of the body politic and the body corpulent,
and nothing will go on well till I’ve got my say in the matter; for I
can talk all day, and most of the night, only stopping to wet my
whistle. But parties is all alike—all ungrateful; no respect for
genus—no respect for me. I’ve tried both sides, got nothing, and I’ve a
great mind to knock off and call it half a day. I would, if my genus
didn’t make me talk, and think, and sleep so much I can’t find time to
work.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “you must find time to go away. You’re too
noisy. How would you like to go before the Mayor?”
“No, I’d rather not. Stop—now I think of it, I’ve asked him before; but
perhaps if you’d speak a good word, he’d give me the first vacancy.
Introduce me properly, and say that I want something to do shocking—no,
not something to do—I want something to get; my genus won’t let me
work. I’d like to have a fat salary, and to be general superintendent of
things in general and nothing in particular, so I could walk about the
streets, and see what is going on. Now, put my best leg foremost—say
how I can make speeches, and how I can hurray at elections.”
“Away with you,” said the stranger, as he ran up the steps, and opened
the door. “Make no noise in this neighbourhood, or you’ll be taken care
of soon enough.”
“Well, now, if that isn’t ungrateful,” soliloquized Brush; “keep me here
talking, and then slap the door right in my face. That’s the way
politicianers serve me, and it’s about all I’d a right to expect. Oh,
pshaw! sich a world—sich a people!”
Peter rolled up his “circular recommend” put it in his hat, and slowly
sauntered away. As he is not yet provided for, he should receive the
earliest attention of parties, or disappointment may induce him to
abandon both, take the field “upon his own hook,” and constitute an
independent faction under the name of the “Brush party,” the cardinal
principle of which will be that peculiarly novel impulse to action,
hostility to all “politicianers” who are not on the same side.
-----
[7] By Neal.
IV.
COUSIN SALLY DILLIARD.
A LEGAL SKETCH IN THE “OLD NORTH STATE.”
SCENE: _A Court of Justice in North Carolina_.
A _beardless_ disciple of Themis rises, and thus addresses the court:
“May it please your worships, and you, gentlemen of the jury, since it
has been my fortune (good or bad, I will not say) to exercise myself in
legal disquisitions, it has never befallen me to be obliged to prosecute
so direful, marked, and malicious an assault—a more wilful, violent,
dangerous battery—and finally, a more diabolical breach of the peace,
has seldom happened in a civilized country; and I dare say it has seldom
been your duty to pass upon one so shocking to benevolent feelings, as
this which took place over at Captain Rice’s, in this county. But you
will hear from the witnesses.”
The witnesses being sworn, two or three were examined and deposed. One
said that he heard the noise, and did not see the fight; another that he
had seen the row, but didn’t know who struck first; and a third, that he
was very drunk, and couldn’t say much about the skrimmage.
_Lawyer Chops._ I am sorry, gentlemen, to have occupied your time with
the stupidity of the witnesses examined. It arises, gentlemen,
altogether from misapprehension on my part. Had I known, as I now do,
that I had a witness in attendance who was well acquainted with all the
circumstances of the case, and who was able to make himself clearly
understood by the court and jury, I should not so long have trespassed
upon your time and patience. Come forward, Mr. Harris, and be sworn.
So forward comes the witness, a fat, shuffy old man, a “leetle” corned,
and took his oath with an air.
_Chops._ Harris, we wish you to tell all about the riot that happened
the other day at Captain Rice’s; and as a good deal of time has already
been wasted in circumlocution, we wish you to be compendious, and at the
same time as explicit, as possible.
_Harris._ Adzackly (giving the lawyer a knowing wink, and at the same
time clearing his throat). Captain Rice, he gin a treat, and cousin
Sally Dilliard, she came over to our house, and axed me if my wife she
moutn’t go? I told cousin Sally Dilliard that my wife was poorly, being
as how she had a touch of the rheumatics in the hip, and the big swamp
was in the road, and the big swamp was up, for there had been a heap of
rain lately; but howsomever, as it was she, cousin Sally Dilliard, my
wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally Dilliard then axed me if Mose he
moutn’t go? I told cousin Sally Dilliard that he was the foreman of the
crap, and the crap was smartly in the grass; but howsomever as it was
she, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go.
_Chops._ In the name of common sense, Mr. Harris, what do you mean by
this rigmarole?
_Witness._ Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she
came over to our house, and axed me if my wife she moutn’t go? I told
cousin Sally Dilliard—
_Chops._ Stop, Sir, if you please; we don’t want to hear anything about
your cousin Sally Dilliard and your wife. Tell us about the fight at
Rice’s.
_Witness._ Well, I will, Sir, if you will let me.
_Chops._ Well, Sir, go on.
_Witness._ Well, Sir, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and Cousin Sally
Dilliard she came over to our house, and axed me if my wife she moutn’t
go—
_Chops._ There it is again. Witness, please to stop.
_Witness._ Well, Sir, what do you want?
_Chops._ We want to know about the fight; and you must not proceed in
this impertinent story. Do you know anything about the matter before the
court?
_Witness._ To be sure, I do.
_Chops._ Well, go on and tell it, and nothing else.
_Witness._ Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat—
_Chops._ This is intolerable. May it please the court, I move that this
witness be committed for a contempt; he seems to be trifling with this
court.
_Court._ Witness, you are now before a court of justice, and unless you
behave yourself in a more becoming manner, you will be sent to gaol; so
begin and tell what you know about the fight at Captain Rice’s.
_Witness._ (alarmed.) Well, gentlemen, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and
Cousin Sally Dilliard—
_Chops._ I hope the witness may be ordered into custody.
_Court._ (after deliberating.) Mr. Attorney, the Court is of opinion
that we may save time by telling witness to go on in his own way.
Proceed, Mr. Harris, with your story, but stick to the point.
_Witness._ Yes, gentlemen. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and Cousin
Sally Dilliard she came over to our house, and axed me if my wife she
mout go? I told Cousin Sally Dilliard that my wife she was poorly, being
as how she had the rheumatics in the hips, and the big swamp was up; but
howsomever, as it was she, Cousin Sally Dillard, my wife she mout go.
Well, Cousin Sally Dilliard then axed me if Mose he moutn’t go. I told
Cousin Sally Dilliard as how Mose he was foreman of the crap, and the
crap was smartly in the grass; but howsomever, as it was she, Cousin
Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go. So they goes on together, Mose, my
wife, and Cousin Sally Dilliard, and they came to the big swamp and it
was up, as I was telling you; but being as how there was a log across
the big swamp, Cousin Sally Dilliard and Mose, like genteel folks, they
walked the log; but my wife, like a darned fool, hoisted her coats and
waded through. _And that’s all I know about the fight._
V.
THE AGE OF WONDERS.
My neighbour over the way, Colonel Swallowmore, thinks himself born in
the age of wonders:—and no wonder he thinks so, for he reads the
newspapers and believes them! It is astonishing how gravely the Colonel
gulps down every crude lump of monstrous fudge the papers contain.
Sea-serpents, crook-necked squashes, consumption cured, talking pigs,
and three-legged cats, are nothing to an appetite like his. He believes
electioneering speeches and predictions of political quidnuncs. All is
fish that comes to his net.
“These are times! Mr. Titterwell, these are times, indeed!” says he to
me, with a most rueful visage, as he lays down the newspaper. “What
_are_ we coming to! People have got to _such_ a pass! Something is
certainly going to happen before long. I’m really, really frightened to
think of it. There never were such doings in my day. Positively I’ve got
so now that I an’t surprised at anything!”
And so he shakes his head, hitches up his breeches, sticks his
spectacles higher up his nose, and reads the wonders of the day over
again.
Twenty-eight several times has this country been irretrievably ruined
since I knew the Colonel. Seven times has the world come quite to an
end. Nineteen times have we had the hardest winter ever known within the
memory of the oldest inhabitant. Twenty-one times there never was seen
such a backward spring. Forty-seven times the approaching session of
Congress has been one of uncommon interest; and thirteen thousand, nine
hundred and sixty-six times has death snatched away the best man upon
earth, leaving mortals inconsolable, and society with an immense void.
The mental agitations he has undergone in pondering upon the “wonderful
wonders” that spring up as plenty as grasshoppers in this wonderful age,
are not to be described; for the Colonel takes an immense interest in
public affairs, and cannot see the universe go to ruin about his ears
without pangs of sympathy. Whatever mole-hill he stumbles upon, he makes
a mountain of it.
He thought the Salem mill-dam absolutely necessary to the balance of
power, and was certain that the bridge over Peg’s Run was the only means
of saving the nation.
He went to bed in a great fright on reading in the paper that Emerson’s
Spelling-book would overthrow the liberties of the country; and he was
struck with the deepest alarm when he heard of the feud that had broken
out between the Houses of Correction and Reformation about a cart-load
of chips.
I shall never forget the anxiety that beset him last summer when the
City Council could not come to a choice about the Superintendent of
Drains. The newspapers were full of the affair, and the Colonel, I
verily believe, would have worried himself into a nervous fever, had
this alarming schism between the two branches of the city government
been carried much farther.
“A strange affair, Mr. Titterwell, a very mysterious affair,” said he.
“There are some dark, under-ground manœuvres going on in this matter,
depend upon it; and really the Mayor and Aldermen—” here he turned up
the whites of his eyes and shook his head. Heaven only knows what he
thought of those great dignitaries. However, the affair of the drains
got through without any great catastrophe to folk above ground, that
ever I could learn, and the Colonel’s consternation subsided for that
time.
All the world were going mad the other day about white mustard-seed.
“Pray, Colonel,” said I, “what is white mustard-seed to you or me? Can’t
we eat our bread and butter, and sleep till six in the morning, without
troubling our heads about white mustard-seed? Didn’t we fight the
battles of the revolution without white mustard-seed? Didn’t Samson
carry off the gates of Gaza without white mustard-seed? Didn’t your
blessed old grandmother knit stockings and live to the age of ninety
without white mustard-seed? Then what’s the use of minding the dolts in
the newspapers who tell you that white mustard-seed is better than meat,
drink and sunshine, and that we shall all die untimely deaths unless we
take white mustard-seed?”
The Colonel could not understand it: it was a great mystery indeed, but
the newspapers were full of it, and he was convinced white mustard-seed
had something in it, that would come out in due time. White
mustard-seed, however, has had its day; and the Colonel has probably
taken to saw-dust, as I heard him talk of Dr. Graham last week.
But of all mortals the Colonel is the most prone to sympathize with the
unfortunate public upon the loss of great men. I popped in upon him the
day before yesterday, and found him lamenting a huge public calamity.
Three great men had fallen in Israel—an eminent clergyman, an eminent
country representative, and an eminent dealer in salt-fish on Long
Wharf. The Colonel was triply dolorous upon the matter; society,
business, politics, had suffered an immense loss; a loss incalculable,
irreparable, and so forth.
I assured the Colonel there was no great cause for apprehension, for the
world was pretty sure to turn round once in twenty-four hours, whether
great men died or lived.
“The fact is, Colonel,” said I, “great men may die as fast as they
please for aught I care. I have never been frightened by the death of
them since an adventure that happened to me in my ninth year, when I
lived in the country.”
“What is that?” asked the Colonel.
“I’ll tell you,” said I.
“On a certain day—a day never to be forgotten by me, news arrived in
town that the Governor was dead. No sovereign prince, pontiff, or
potentate on the face of the earth, ever appeared so gigantic and
formidable to my childish eyes, as that harmless gentleman the Governor
of Massachusetts. Imagine the shock occasioned by this announcement!
Straightway the bells began tolling, people collected in groups,
quidnuncs scoured from place to place, gossips chattered, children gaped
in dumb astonishment, and old women with dismal faces ran about croaking
‘The Governor is dead!’
“To me these things seemed to betoken the general wreck of nature, for
how the order of the universe could subsist after the death of the
Governor, was beyond my comprehension. I expected the sun and moon to
fall, the stars to shoot from their spheres, and my grandfather’s
mill-pond to upset. The horrible forebodings under which I lay down to
sleep that night, are not to be described, and it was a long time ere I
could close my eyes. In the morning I was awakened by a dreadful
rumbling noise. ‘The Governor is dead!’ I exclaimed, starting up in a
terrible fright. The noise continued: I listened, and discovered it to
be nothing more than my old grandmother, grinding coffee!
“The effect of this prodigious anti-climax can hardly be imagined; never
in my life was I so puzzled and confounded as at the first moment of
this discovery.
“‘What!’ said I to myself, ‘is the Governor dead, and yet people grind
coffee? then it seems we are to eat our breakfast just as if nothing had
happened. Is a great man of no more consequence than this?’
“A new ray of light broke in upon me. I fell to pondering upon the
occurrence, and five minutes pondering completely demolished the power
supreme with which many a pompous owl had stalked through my
imagination.
“From that moment, governors, town-clerks, select-men, representatives,
justices of the peace, and great people of every degree, lost
nine-tenths of their importance in my eyes, for I plainly saw the world
could do without them.
“How often, in after life, have I applied the moral of this incident!
How much moving eloquence and dire denunciation have I passed by with
the remark:
“‘That is a great affair, no doubt, but it won’t stop a coffee-mill.’”
VI.
HOW SIMON SUGGS “RAISED JACK.”
Until Simon entered his seventeenth year, he lived with his father, an
old “hard-shell” Baptist preacher; who, though very pious and remarkably
austere, was very avaricious. The old man reared his boys—or
endeavoured to do so—according to the strictest requisition of the
moral law. But he lived, at the time to which we refer, in Middle
Georgia, which was then newly settled; and Simon, whose wits from the
time he was a “shirt-tail boy,” were always too sharp for his father’s,
contrived to contract all the coarse vices incident to such a region.
He stole his mother’s roosters to fight them at Bob Smith’s grocery, and
his father’s plough-horses to enter them in “quarter” matches at the
same place. He pitched dollars with Bob Smith himself, and could “beat
him into doll-rags” whenever it came to a measurement. To crown his
accomplishments, Simon was tip-top at the game of “old sledge,” which
was the fashionable game of that era, and was early initiated in the
mystery of “stocking the papers.”
The vicious habits of Simon were, of course, a sore trouble to his
father, Elder Jedediah. He reasoned, he counselled, he remonstrated, he
lashed, but Simon was an incorrigible, irreclaimable devil.
One day the simple-minded old man came rather unexpectedly to the field
where he had left Simon and Ben, and a negro boy named Bill, at work.
Ben was still following his plough, but Simon and Bill were in a
fence-corner very earnestly engaged at “seven up.” Of course the game
was instantly suspended, as soon as they spied the old man sixty or
seventy yards off, striding towards them.
It was evidently a “gone case” with Simon and Bill; but our hero
determined to make the best of it. Putting the cards into one pocket, he
coolly picked up the small coins which constituted the stake, and fobbed
them in the other, remarking:
“Well, Bill, this game’s blocked; we’d as well quit.”
“But, Massa Simon,” remarked the boy, “half dat money’s mine. An’t you
gwine to lemme hab ’em?”
“Oh, never mind the money, Bill; the old man’s going to take the bark
off of both of us—and besides, with the hand I helt when we quit, I
should ’a beat you and won it all any way.”
“Well, but, Massa Simon, we nebber finish de game, and de rule—”
“Go to Old Scratch with your rule!” said the impatient Simon; “don’t you
see daddy’s right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you
I hilt nothin’ but trumps, and could ’a beat the horns off of a
billy-goat. Don’t that satisfy you? Somehow or nother your d—d hard to
please!” About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tone—for
by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand—he continued: “but
maybe daddy don’t know, _right down sure_, what we’ve been doin’. Let’s
try him with a lie—twon’t hurt no way; let’s tell him we’ve been
playin’ mumble-peg.”
Bill was perforce compelled to submit to this inequitable adjustment of
his claim of a share of the stakes; and of course agreed to the game of
mumble-peg. All this was settled and a peg driven in the ground, slyly
and hurriedly between Simon’s legs as he sat on the ground, just as the
old man reached the spot. He carried under his left arm several
neatly-trimmed sprouts of formidable length, while in his left hand he
held one which he was intently engaged in divesting of its superfluous
twigs.
“Soho! youngsters!—_you_ in the fence-corner, and the _crop_ in the
grass? what saith the Scriptur’ Simon? ‘Go to the ant, thou sluggard,’
and so forth and so on. What in the round creation of the yearth have
you and that nigger been a-doin’?”
Bill shook with fear, but Simon was cool as a cucumber, and answered his
father to the effect that they had been wasting a little time in a game
of mumble-peg.
“Mumble-peg! mumble-peg!” repeated old Mr. Suggs, “what’s that?”
Simon explained the process of _rooting_ for the peg; how the operator
got upon his knees, keeping his arms stiff by his side, leaned forward
and extracted the peg with his teeth.
“So you git _upon your knees_, do you, to pull up that nasty little
stick! you’d better git upon ’em to ask mercy for your sinful souls, and
for a dyin’ world. But let’s see one o’ you git the peg up now.”
The first impulse of our hero was to volunteer to gratify the curiosity
of his worthy sire, but a glance at the old man’s countenance changed
his “notion,” and he remarked that “Bill was a long ways the best hand.”
Bill, who did not deem Simon’s modesty an omen favourable to himself,
was inclined to reciprocate compliments with his young master; but a
gesture of impatience from the old man set him instantly upon his knees;
and, bending forward, he essayed to lay hold with his teeth, of the peg,
which Simon, just at that moment, very wickedly pushed half an inch
further down.
Just as the breeches and hide of the boy were stretched to the
uttermost, old Mr. Suggs brought down his longest hickory, with both
hands, upon the precise spot where the tension was greatest. With a loud
yell, Bill plunged forward, upsetting Simon, and rolled in the grass,
rubbing the castigated part with fearful energy. Simon, though
overthrown, was unhurt; and he was mentally complimenting himself upon
the sagacity which had prevented his illustrating the game of
mumble-peg, for the paternal amusement, when his attention was arrested
by that worthy person’s stooping to pick up something—what is it?—a
card upon which Simon had been sitting, and which, therefore, had not
gone with the rest of the pack into his pocket.
The simple Mr. Suggs had only a vague idea of the pasteboard abomination
called _cards_; and though he decidedly inclined to the opinion that
this was one, he was by no means certain of the fact. Had Simon known
this, he would certainly have escaped; but he did not. His father,
assuming the look of extreme sapiency which is always worn by the
interrogator who does not desire or expect to increase his knowledge by
his questions, asked:
“What’s this, Simon?”
“The Jack a-dimunts,” promptly responded Simon, who gave up all as lost
after this _faux pas_.
“What was it doin’ down thar, Simon, my sonny?” continued Mr. Suggs, in
an ironically affectionate tone of voice.
“I had it under my leg thar, to make it on Bill, the first time it come
trumps,” was the ready reply.
“What’s trumps?” asked Mr. Suggs, with a view of arriving at the import
of the word.
“Nothin’ ain’t trumps _now_,” said Simon, who misapprehended his
father’s meaning, “but _clubs_ was, when you come along and busted up
the game.”
A part of this answer was Greek to the Reverend Mr. Suggs, but a portion
of it was full of meaning. They had, then, most unquestionably been
“throwing” cards, the scoundrels! the “oudacious” little hellions!
“To the “Mulberry,” with both on ye! in a hurry,” said the old man,
sternly.
But the lads were not disposed to be in a “hurry,” for the “Mulberry”
was the scene of all formal punishment administered during work hours in
the field. Simon followed his father, however; but made, as he went
along, all manner of “faces” at the old man’s back; gesticulated as if
he were going to strike him between the shoulders with his fists; and
kicking at him so as almost to touch his coat-tail with his shoe. In
this style they walked on to the mulberry-tree, in whose shade Simon’s
brother Ben was resting.
It must not be supposed that, during the walk to the place of
punishment, Simon’s mind was either inactive or engaged in suggesting
the grimaces and contortions wherewith he was pantomimically expressing
his irreverent sentiments towards his father. Far from it. The movements
of his limbs and features were the mere workings of habit—the
self-grinding of the corporeal machine—for which his reasoning half was
only remotely responsible. For while Simon’s person was thus on its own
account, “making game” of old Jedediah, his wits, in view of the
anticipated flogging, were dashing, springing, bounding, darting about,
in hot chase of some expedient suitable to the necessities of the
case—much after the manner in which puss, when Betty, armed with the
broom, and hotly seeking vengeance for the pantry robbed or room
defiled, has closed upon her the garret doors and windows, attempts all
sorts of impossible exits, comes down at last in the corner, with
panting side and glaring eye, exhausted and defenceless. Our unfortunate
hero could devise nothing by which he could reasonably expect to escape
the heavy blows of his father. Having arrived at this conclusion and the
“Mulberry” about the same time, he stood with a dogged look, awaiting
the issue.
The old man Suggs made no remark to any one while he was seizing up
Bill—a process which, though by no means novel to Simon, seemed to
excite in him a sort of painful interest. He watched it closely, as if
to learn the precise fashion of his father’s knot; and when at last Bill
was strung up a-tiptoe to a limb, and the whipping commenced, Simon’s
eye followed every movement of his father’s arm; and as each blow
descended upon the bare shoulders of his sable friend, his own body
writhed and “wriggled” in involuntary sympathy.
“It’s the devil!—it’s tarnation,” said Simon to himself, “to take such
a wallopin’ as that. Why the old man looks like he wants to git to the
holler, if he could—rot his picter! It’s wuth, at the least, fifty
cents—je-e-miny, how _that_ hurt!—yes, it’s wuth three-quarters of a
dollar, to take that ’ere lickin’! Wonder if I’m ‘predestinated,’ as old
Jed’diah says, to get the feller to it? Lord, how daddy blows! I do wish
he’d bust right open, the darn’d old deer-face! If ’twan’t for Ben
helpin’ him, I b’lieve I’d give the old dog a tussel when it comes for
my turn. It couldn’t make the thing no wuss, if it didn’t make it no
better. Drot it! what do boys have daddies for, any how? ’Taint for
nuthin’ but jist to beat ’em and work ’em—There’s some use in
mammies—I kin poke my finger right in the old ’oman’s eye, and keep it
thar, and if I say it aint thar, she’ll say ’taint thar, too. I wish she
was here to hold daddy off. If ’twan’t so fur, I’d holler for her any
how. How she would cling to the old feller’s coat-tail!”
Mr. Jedediah Suggs let down Bill, and untied him. Approaching Simon,
whose coat was off:
“Come, Simon, son,” said he, “cross them hands, I’m gwine to correct
you.”
“It aint no use, daddy,” said Simon.
“Why so, Simon?”
“Just bekase it aint, I’m gwine to play cards as long as I live. When I
go off to myself, I’m gwine to make my livin’ by it. So what’s the use
of beatin’ me about it?”
Old Mr. Suggs groaned, as he was wont to do in the pulpit, at this
display of Simon’s viciousness.
“Simon,” said he, “you’re a poor ignunt creetur. You don’t know nothin’
and you’ve never been no whars. If I was to turn you off, you’d starve
in a week.”
“I wish you’d try me,” said Simon, “and jist see. I’d win more money in
a week than you can make in a year. There aint nobody round here kin
make seed corn off o’ me at cards. I’m rale smart,” he added, with great
emphasis.
“Simon! Simon! you poor unletered fool. Don’t you know that all
card-players and chicken-fighters, and horse-racers go to hell? You
crack-brained creatur’ you. And don’t you know that them that play cards
always lose their money, and—”
“Who wins it all then, daddy?” asked Simon.
“Shet your mouth, you imperdent, slack-jaw’d dog. Your daddy’s a-tryin’
to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin’ up his words that way. I
know’d a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to
Augusty and sold a hundred dollars’ worth of cotton for his daddy, and
some o’ them gambollers got him to drinkin’, and the _very first_ night
he was with ’em they got every cent of his money.
“They couldn’t get my money in a _week_,” said Simon. “Anybody can git
these here green fellows’ money; them’s the sort I’m a-gwine to watch
for, myself. Here’s what kin fix the papers jist about as nice as
anybody.”
“Well, it’s no use to argify about the matter,” said old Jedediah; “What
saith the Scriptur’? ‘He that begetteth a fool, doeth it to his sorrow.’
Hence, Simon, you’re a poor, miserable fool! so, cross your hands!”
“You’d jist as well not, daddy. I tell you I’m gwine to follow playin’
cards for a livin’, and what’s the use o’ bangin’ a feller about it? I’m
as smart as any of ’em, and Bob Smith says them Augusty fellers can’t
make rent off o’ me.”
The Reverend Mr. Suggs had, once in his life, gone to Augusta; an extent
of travel which in those days was a little unusual. His consideration
among his neighbours was considerably increased by the circumstance, as
he had all the benefit of the popular inference that no man could visit
the city of Augusta without acquiring a vast superiority over all his
untravelled neighbours, in every department of human knowledge. Mr.
Suggs, then, very naturally felt ineffably indignant that an individual
who had never seen a collection of human habitations larger than a
log-house village—an individual, in short, no other or better than Bob
Smith—should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners,
customs, or anything else appertaining to, or in any wise connected
with, the _ultima thule_ of backwoods Georgians. There were two
propositions which witnessed their own truth to the mind of Mr.
Suggs—the one was, that a man who had never been at Augusta, could not
know anything about that city, or any place or thing else; the other
that one who _had_ been there must, of necessity, be not only well
informed as to all things connected with the city itself, but perfectly
_au fait_ upon all subjects whatsoever. It was therefore in a tone of
mingled indignation and contempt that he replied to the last remark of
Simon.
“_Bob Smith_ says—does he? And who’s _Bob Smith_? Much does _Bob Smith_
know about Augusty! He’s been thar, I reckon! Slipped off yarly some
mornin’ when nobody warn’t noticin’, and got back afore night! It’s
_only_ a hundred and fifty mile. Oh yes, _Bob Smith_ knows all about it!
_I_ don’t know nothin’ about it! _I_ a’n’t never been to Augusty—I
couldn’t find the road thar I reckon, ha! ha! _Bob—Smi—th!_ The
eternal stink! if he was only to see one o’ them fine gentlemen in
Augusty, with his fine broad-cloath and bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots
a-shinin’ like silver, he’d take to the woods and kill himself
a-runnin’. Bob Smith! that’s whar all your devilment comes from, Simon.”
“Bob Smith’s as good as anybody else, I judge; and a heap smarter than
some. He showed me how to cut Jack,” continued Simon, “and that’s more
than some people can do if they _have_ been to Augusty.”
“If Bob Smith kin do it,” said the old man, “I kin too. I don’t know it
by that name; but if it’s book knowledge or plain sense, and Bob kin do
it, it’s reasonable to s’pose that old Jed’diah Suggs won’t be bothered
bad. Is it any ways similyar to the rule of three, Simon?”
“Pretty much, daddy, but not adzactly,” said Simon, drawing a pack from
his pocket to explain. “Now daddy,” he proceeded, “you see these here
four cards is what we call Jacks. Well, now, the idee is, if you’ll take
the pack and mix ’em all up together, I’ll take off a passel from top,
and the bottom one of them I take off will be one of the Jacks.”
“Me to mix em fust?” said Jedediah.
“Yes.”
“And you not to see but the back of the top one, when you go to ‘cut,’
as you call it?”
“Jist so, daddy.”
“And the backs all jist as like as kin be?” said the senior Suggs,
examining the cards.
“More like nor cow-peas,” said Simon.
“It can’t be done, Simon,” observed the old man, with great solemnity.
“Bob Smith kin do it, and so kin I.”
“It’s agin nater, Simon; thar a’n’t a man in Augusty, nor on the top of
the yearth, that kin do it!”
“Daddy,” said our hero, “ef you’ll bet me—”
“What!” thundered old Mr. Suggs, “_bet_, did you say?” and he came down
with a _scorer_ across Simon’s shoulders—“me, Jed’diah Suggs, that’s
been in the Lord’s sarvice these twenty years—_me_ bet, you nasty,
sassy, triflin’, ugly—”
“I didn’t go to say that, daddy; that warn’t what I ment, adzactly. I
ment to say that ef you’d let me off from this here maulin’ you owe me,
and _give me_ ‘Bunch’ ef I cut Jack, I’d _give you_ all this here
silver, ef I didn’t—that’s all. To be sure, I allers know’d _you_
wouldn’t _bet_.”
Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son
handed to him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also,
mentally, compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of
a certain Indian pony, called “Bunch,” which he had bought for his “old
woman’s” Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a
fence-corner, the first—and only—time she had ever mounted him. As he
weighed the pouch of silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavoured to
analyze the character of the transaction proposed by Simon. “It sartinly
_can’t_ be nothin’ but _givin’_, no way it kin be twisted,” he murmured
to himself. “I _know_ he can’t do it, so there’s no resk. What makes
bettin’? The resk. It’s a one-sided business, and I’ll jist let him give
me all his money, and that’ll put all his wild sportin’ notions out of
his head.”
“Will you stand it, daddy?” asked Simon, by way of waking the old man
up. “You mought as well, for the whippin’ won’t do you no good; and as
for Bunch, nobody about the plantation won’t ride him, but me.”
“Simon,” replied the old man, “I agree to it. Your old daddy is in a
close place about payin’ for his land; and this here money—it’s jist
eleven dollars lacking of twenty-five cents—will help out mightily. But
mind, Simon, ef anything’s said about this, hereafter, remember, you
_give_ me the money.”
“Very well, daddy, and ef the thing works up instid o’ down, I s’pose
we’ll say you give _me_ Bunch—eh?”
“You won’t never be troubled to tell how you come by Bunch; the thing’s
agin natur, and can’t be done. What old Jed’diah Suggs knows, he knows
as good as anybody. Give me them fixaments, Simon.”
Our hero handed the cards to his father, who dropping the plough-line
with which he had intended to tie Simon’s hands, turned his back to that
individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of
_mixing_. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the
cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive
_kings_ and _queens_ jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to
slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally, a
sprightly _knave_ would insist on _facing_ his neighhour; or, pressing
his edge against another’s, half double himself up, and then skip away.
But Elder Jedediah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the
refractory, while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his
cheeks. All of a sudden, an idea, quick and penetrating as a rifle-ball,
seemed to have entered the cranium of the old man. He chuckled audibly.
The devil had suggested to Mr. Suggs an _impromptu_ “stock,” which would
place the chances of Simon—already sufficiently slim in the old man’s
opinion—without the range of possibility. Mr. Suggs forthwith proceeded
to cull out all the _picter cards_—so as to be certain to include the
_jacks_—and place them at the bottom; with the evident intention of
keeping Simon’s fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who
was quietly looking over his father’s shoulders all the time, did not
seem alarmed by this disposition of the cards; on the contrary, he
smiled as if he felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it.
“Now, daddy,” said Simon, when his father had announced himself ready,
“nary one of us ain’t got to look at the cards, while I’m a cuttin’; if
we do, it’ll spile the conjuration.”
“Very well.”
“And another thing—you’ve got to look me right dead in the eye,
daddy—will you?”
“To be sure—to be sure,” said Mr. Suggs; “fire away.”
Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack.
Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon’s eye, and Simon returned the look for
about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a
suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder
Suggs did not remark it.
“Wake snakes! day’s a breakin’! Rise Jack!” said Simon, cutting half a
dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the
bottom one for the inspection of his father.
It was the Jack of Hearts!
Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps, with uplifted eyes and
hands!
“Marciful Master!” he exclaimed, “ef the boy hain’t! well, how in the
round creation of the——! Ben, did you ever! to be sure and sartin,
Satan has power on this yearth!” and Mr. Suggs groaned in heavy
bitterness.
“You never seed nothin’ like that in _Augusty_, did ye, daddy?” asked
Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.
“Simon, _how_ did you do it?” queried the old man, without noticing his
son’s question.
“Do it, daddy? Do it? ’Taint nothin’. I done it jest as easy
as—shootin’.”
Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to
the perplexed mind of the Elder Jedediah Suggs, cannot, after the lapse
of time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is
certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but
merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact that, in
consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order
to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the state
of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable pony, “Bunch.”
“Jist so, daddy, jist so; I’ll witness that. But it ’minds me mightily
of the way mammy _give_ old Trailler the side of bacon, last week. She
was a-sweepin’ up the hath—the meat on the table; old Trailler jumps
up, gethers the bacon and darts; mammy arter him with the broomstick as
fur as the door, but seein’ the dog has got the start, she shakes the
stick at him, and hollers, ‘You sassy, aig-sukkin’, roguish, gnatty,
flopped-eared varmint, take it along, take it along! I only wish ’twas
full of a’snic and ox vomit and blue vitrul, so as ’twould cut your
intrils into chitlins!’ That’s about the way you give Bunch to Simon.”
It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but
one more night beneath the paternal roof. What mattered it to Simon?
He went home at night, curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially
in his ear, that he was the “fastest piece of hoss-flesh, accordin’ to
size, that ever shaded the yearth;” and then busied himself in preparing
for an early start on the morrow.
VII.
MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND.[8]
In the fall of the year 1829, I took it into my head I’d go to Portland.
I had heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place it was, and
how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall there was a
couple of new papers come up to our place from there, called the
“Portland Courier,” and “Family Reader,” and they told a good many queer
kind of things, about Portland and one thing another; and all at once it
popped into my head, and I up and told father, and sais:
“I am going to Portland whether or no; and I’ll see what this world is
made of yet.”
Father stared a little at first, and said he was afraid I would get
lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it up, and he stepped
to his chist, and opened the till, and took out a dollar, and gave to
me; and says he:
“Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go and lead an honest life, and
I believe I shall hear good of you yet.”
He turned and walked across the room, but I could see the tears start
into his eyes. And mother sat down, and had a hearty crying spell.
This made me feel rather bad for a minit or two, and I almost had a mind
to give it up; and then again father’s dream came into my mind, and I
mustered up courage, and declared I’d go. So I tackeled up the old
horse, and packed in a load of axe-handles, and a few notions; and
mother fried me some doughnuts, and put ’em into a box, along with some
cheese and sassages, and ropped me up another shirt, for I told her I
didn’t know how long I should be gone. And after I got all rigged out, I
went round, and bid all the neighbors good-bye, and jumped in, and drove
off for Portland.
Aunt Sally had been married two or three years before, and moved to
Portland; and I inquired round till I found out where she lived, and
went there, and put the old horse up, and eat some supper, and went to
bed.
And the next morning I got up, and straightened right off to see the
editor of the “Portland Courier,” for I knew, by what I had seen in his
paper, that he was just the man to tell me which way to steer. And when
I come to see him, I knew I was right; for soon as I told him my name,
and what I wanted, he took me by the hand as kind as if he had been a
brother, and says he:
“Mister,” says he, “I’ll do anything I can to assist you. You have come
to a good town; Portland is a healthy, thriving place, and any man with
a proper degree of enterprise may do well here. But,” says he,
“stranger,” and he looked mighty kind of knowing, says he, “if you want
to make out to your mind, you must do as the steam-boats do.”
“Well,” says I, “how do they do?” for I didn’t know what a steam-boat
was any more than the man in the moon.
“Why,” says he, “they go ahead. And you must drive about among the folks
here, just as tho’ you were at home, on the farm among the cattle. Don’t
be afraid of any of them, but figure away; and, I dare say, you’ll get
into good business in a very little while. But,” says he, “there’s one
thing you must be careful of; and that is, not to get into the hands of
them are folks that trades up round Hucklers’ Row, for there’s some
sharpers up there, if they get hold of you, would twist your eye-teeth
out in five minits.”
Well, arter he had gin me all the good advice he could, I went back to
Aunt Sally’s agin, and got some breakfast; and then I walked all over
the town, to see what chance I could find to sell my axe-handles, and
things, and to get into business.
After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along towards the
upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of all
sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I:
“What place is this?”
“Why this,” says he, “is Hucklers’ Row.”
“What,” says I, “are these the stores where the traders in Hucklers’ Row
keep?”
And says he: “Yes.”
Well then, says I to myself, I have a pesky good mind to go in and have
a try with one of these chaps, and see if they can twist my eye-teeth
out. If they can get the best end of a bargain out of me, they can do
what there ain’t a man in our place can do; and I should just like to
know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made of. So in I
goes into the best-looking store among ’em. And I see some biscuit lying
on the shelf, and says I:
“Mister, how much do you ax a piece for them are biscuits?”
“A cent a piece,” says he.
“Well,” says I, “shan’t give you that, but if you’ve a mind to I’ll give
you two cents for three of them, for I begin to feel a little as tho’ I
would like to take a bite.”
“Well,” says he, “I wouldn’t sell ’em to anybody else so, but seeing
it’s you, I don’t care if you take ’em.”
I knew he lied, for he never seen me before in his life. Well, he handed
down the biscuits, and I took ’em, and walked round the store a while,
to see what else he had to sell. At last, says I:
“Mister, have you got any good cider?”
Says he “Yes, as good as ever ye see.”
“Well,” says I, “what do you ax a glass for it?”
“Two cents,” says he.
“Well,” says I, “seems to me I feel more dry than I do hungry now. Ain’t
you a mind to take these ere biscuits again and give me a glass of
cider?” and says he:
“I don’t care if I do.”
So he took and laid ’em on the shelf again, and poured out a glass of
cider. I took the cider and drinkt it down, and to tell the truth, it
was capital good cider. Then says I:
“I guess it’s time for me to be a-going,” and I stept along towards the
door; but says he:
“Stop, Mister, I believe you haven’t paid me for the cider.”
“Not paid you for the cider!” says I; “what do you mean by that? didn’t
the biscuits that I give you just come to the cider?”
“Oh, ah, right!” says he.
So I started to go again, and says he:
“But stop, Mister, you didn’t pay me for the biscuit.”
“What?” says I, “do you mean to impose upon me? do you think I am going
to pay you for the biscuits and let you keep them too? Ain’t they there
now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, Sir, you don’t
whittle me in that way.”
So I turned about and marched off, and left the feller staring and
scratching his head as tho’ he was struck with a dunderment.
Howsomever, I didn’t want to cheat him, only jest to show ’em it wan’t
so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next day, and
paid him two cents. Well, I stayed at Aunt Sally’s a week or two, and I
went about town every day to see what chance I could find to trade off
my axe-handles, or hire out, or find some way or other to begin to seek
my fortune.
And I must confess the editor of the “Courier” was about right in
calling Portland a pretty good thriving sort of a place; everybody
seemed to be as busy as so many bees, and the masts of the vessels stuck
up round the wharves as thick as pine-trees in Uncle Joshua’s pasture,
and the stores and the shops were so thick, it seemed as if there was no
end to them. In short, altho’ I have been round the world considerable,
from that time to this, all the way from Madawaska to Washington, I’ve
never seen any place yet, that I think has any business to grin at
Portland.
-----
[8] By Zeba Smith.
VIII.
BILLY WARRICK’S COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
CHAPTER I.
WARRICK IN DISTRESS.
Piney Bottom, in Old North State,
Jinuary this 4, 1844.
Mr. Porter,
Sir:—Bein’ in grate distrest, I didn’t know what to do, till one of the
lawyers councilled me to tell you all about it, and git your apinion.
You see I are a bin sparkin’ over to one of our nabors a cortin’ of Miss
Barbry Bass, nigh upon these six munse. So t’other nite I puts on my
stork that cum up so high that I look’d like our Kurnel paradin of the
milertary on Gin’ral Muster, tryin’ to look over old Snap’s years—he
holds sich a high hed when he knows that he’s got on his holdsturs and
pistuls and his trowsen and sich like, for he’s a mity proud hoss. I had
on a linun shurt koller starched stif that cum up monstrus high rite
under my years, so that ev’ry time I turn’d my hed it nigh saw’d off my
years, and they are so sore that I had to put on some Gray’s intment,
which draw’d so hard, that if I hadn’t wash’d it in sope-suds I _do_
bleve it would a draw’d out my branes. I put on my new briches that is
new fashon’d and opens down before, and it tuck me nigh a quarter of a
hours to butten ’em, and they had straps so tite I could hardly bend my
kneas—I had on my new wastecoat and a dicky bussam with ruffles on each
side, and my white hat. I had to be perticlar nice in spittin’ my
terbaccer juce, for my stork were so high I had to jerk back my head
like you have seed one of them Snapjack bugs. Considrin’ my wiskurs
hadn’t grow’d out long enuff, as I were conceety to think that I look’d
middlin’ _peart_, and my old nigger ’oman Venus said I look’d nice enuff
for a Bryde.
It tuck one bale of good cotting and six bushils of peese to pay for my
close. Dod drot it, it went sorter hard; but when I tho’t how putty she
_did_ look last singin’ school day,—with her eyes as blue as indiger,
and her teath white as milk, and sich long curlin’ hare hanging clear
down to her belt ribbun, and sich butiful rosy chaeks, and lips as red
as a cock Red-burd in snow time, and how she squeased my hand when I gin
her a oringe that I gin six cents for—I didn’t grudge the price.
Mr. Porter—when I got to old Miss Basses bars, jist after nite, sich
streaks and cold fits cum over me worse than a feller with the Buck
agur, the furst time he goes to shute at a dear. My kneas got to
trimblin’, and I could hardly holler “get out” to Miss Basses son Siah’s
dog, old Troup, who didn’t know me in my new geer, and cum out like all
creashun a barkin’ amazin’. Ses I to myself, ses I, what a fool you
is—and then I thort what Squire Britt’s nigger man, Tony, who went to
town last week, told me about a taler there, who sed that jist as soon
he got thru a makin’ a sute of close for a member of assembly to go to
Rawley in, he ’spected to come out a cortin’ of Miss Barbry. This sorter
raised my dander—for he’s shockin’ likely, with black wiskurs ’cept
he’s nock-nead—with his hare all comded to one side like the Chapel
Hill boys and lawyers. Then I went in, and after howdying and shakin’
hands, and sorter squeasin’ of Barbry’s, I sot down. There was old Miss
Bass, Barbry and Siah Bass, her brother, a monstrus hand at possums—old
Kurnel Hard, a goin to cort and stopp’d short to rite old Miss Basses
will, with Squire Britt and one of the nabors to witness it all rite and
strate. This kinder shock’d me—till Kurnel Hard, a mighty perlite man,
sed, ses he:
“Mr. Warrick, you are a lookin’ oncommon smart.”
“Yes,” ses I, “Kurnel, (a sorter cuttin’ my eye at Barbry) middlin’ well
in body—but in mind—”
“Ah, I see,” ses he, (cuttin’ of my discoorse) “I understand that you
are”—(Mr. Porter, I forget the dixonary words he sed but it were that I
were in _love_). If you _could_ have seed my face and felt it burne, you
_would_ a tho’t that you had the billyous fever; and as for Barbry, now
want she red as a turkey-cock’s gills—and she gump’d up and said,
“Ma’am,” and run outer the room, tho’ nobody on yearth that I heerd on
called her; and then I heerd Polly Cox—drot her pictur!—who is hired
to weeve—a sniggrin’ at me.
Arter a while, Squire Britt and the nabor went off—and Siah he went a
coonin’ of it with his dogs, but driv old Troup back, for he’s deth on
rabbits; and old Miss Bass went out, and Kurnal Hard, arter taken a
drink outen his cheer-box, he got behin’ the door and shuck’d himself
and got into one of the beds in the fur eend of the room.
Arter a while, old Miss Bass cum back, and sot in the chimbly corner and
tuck off her shoes, and then tuck up her pipe and went to smokin’—the
way she rowl’d the smoke out was astonishin’—and ev’ry now and then she
struck her head and sorter gron’d like, what it were at I don’t know,
’cept she were bothered ’bout her consarns—or thinkin’ ’bout her will
which she had jist sined. Bimeby Barbry cum back, and sot on a cheer
clost by me. She was a workin’ of a border that looked mity fine.
Ses I, “Miss Barbry, what is that that you’re seamstring so plaguy
putty?”
Ses she, “It teent nothin’.”
Up hollered old Miss Bass:
“Why,” ses she, “Mr. Warrick, it’s a _nite-cap_, and what on the Lord’s
yearth young peple now-a-days works, and laces, and befrils nite-caps
fur, _I_ can’t tell—it beets me—bedizinin’ out their heads when
they’re gwain to bed, just as if anybody but their own peple seed ’em;
and there’s young men with wiskurs on there upper lip; it want so in my
day, but young people’s got no sense—bless the Lord! oh me—”
“Lord, mammy,” ses Barbry, “do hush.”
Ses old Miss Bass, “I shaan’t—for it’s the nat’ral truth.”
Miss Barbry then begun a talkin’ with me ’bout the fashuns, when I were
in town, but old Miss Bass broke in, and ses she:
“Yes, they tells me that the gals in town has injun-rubber things blowed
up and ties aroun’ there wastes, and makes ’em look bigger behin’ than
afore—for all the world like an ’oman was sorter in a curous way
behind.”
Thinks I, what’s comin’ next—when old Miss Bass, knockin’ the ashes
outer her pipe, gethered up her shuse and went off. Then Barbry blushed
and begun talkin’ ’bout the singin’ meetin’, and kinder teched me up
’bout bein’ fond of sparkin’ Dicey Loomis—jist to see how I’d take it.
“Well,” ses I, “she’s ’bout the likeliest gal in this settlement, and I
rekon mity nigh the smartest; they tells me she kin spin more cuts in a
day, and card her own rolls, and danse harder and longer, and sings more
songs outer the Missunary Harmony, than any gal in the country.”
You see, Mr. Porter, I tho’t I’d size her pile.
Ses she, sorter poutin’ up and jist tossin’ her head, “If them’s your
sentiments why don’t you cort her? For my part, I knows sev’ral young
ladies that’s jist as smart, and can sing as many songs, and dance as
well, and as for her bein’ the prettiest, Laws a mersy! sher—you
shouldn’t judge for me sposin’ _I_ was a man!”
I thot I’d come agin, but was sorter feard of runnin’ the thing in the
groun’. Then I drawd up my cheer a leetle closer, and were jist about to
talk to the spot, when I felt choky, and the trimbles tuck me oncommon
astonishin’.
Ses Barbry, lookin’ rite up in my face, and ’sorter quiv’rin’ in her
talk, ses she, “Mr. Warrick, goodness gracious! _what does_ ale you?”
Ses I, hardly abel to talk, “It’s that drotted three-day agur I cotch’d
last fall a clearin’ in the new grouns; I raly bleve it will kill me,
but it makes no odds, daddy and mammy is both ded, and I’m the only one
of six as is left, and nobody would kear.”
Ses she, lookin’ rite mornful, and holdin’ down her bed, “Billy, what
_does_ make you talk so? you auter know that there’s _one_ that would
kear and greve too.”
Ses I, peartin’ up, “I should like to know if it ar an ’oman; for if
it’s any gal that’s ’spectable and creddittable, I could love her like
all creashun. Barbry,” ses I, takin’ of her hand, “ain’t I many a time,
as I sot by the fire at home, all by my lone self, ain’t I considered
how if I _did_ have a good wife how I could work for her, and do all I
could for her, and make her pleasant like and happy, and do ev’rything
for her?” Well, Barbry she look’d up to me, and seem’d so mornful and
pale, and tears in her sweet eyes, and pretendin’ she didn’t know I held
her hand, that I could not help sayin’: “Barbry, if that sumbody that
keared was only _you_, I’d die for you, and be burry’d a dozen times.”
She trimbl’d, and look’d so pretty, and sed nothin’, I couldn’t help
kissin’ her; and seein’ she didn’t say “quit,” I kissed her nigh on
seven or eight times; and as old Miss Bass had gone to bed, and Kurnel
Hard was a snorin’ away, I want perticillar, and I spose I kiss’d her
too loud, for jist as I kissed her the last time, out hollered old Miss
Bass:
“My lord! Barbry, old Troup is in the milk-pan! I heard him smackin’ his
lips a lickin’ of the milk. Git out, you old varmint!—git out!”
Seein’ how the gander hopped, I jumped up, and hollered: “Git out,
Troup, you old raskel!” and opened the door to make bleve I let him out.
As for Barbry, she laffed till she was nigh a bustin’ a holdin’ in, and
run out; and I heerd Kurnel Hard’s bed a shakin’ like he had my
three-day agur. Well, I took tother bed, after havin’ to pull my
britches over my shuse, for I couldn’t unbutton my straps.
Next mornin’ I got up airly, and Siah axed me to stay to breakfast, but
I had to feed an old cow at the free pastur, and left. Jist as I got to
the bars, I meets old Miss Bass, and ses she, “Mr. Warrick, next time
you see a dog a lickin’ up milk, don’t let him do it loud enuff to wake
up ev’rybody in the house—perticerlar when there’s a stranger ’bout.”
And Barbry sent me word that she’s so shamed that she never kin look me
in the face agin, and never to come no more.
Mr. Porter, what shall I do? I feel oncommon sorry and distrest. Do
write me. I seed a letter from N. P. Willis tother day in the Nashunal
Intelligensur where he sed he had a hedake on the top of his pen; I’ve
got it at both eends, for my hands is crampped a writin’, and my hart
akes. Do write me what to do.
No more at pressence, but remane
Wm. Warrick.
CHAPTER II.
WARRICK IN LUCK.
“I’d orfen heerd it said ob late,
Dat Norf Carolina was de state,
Whar han’some boys am bound to shine,
Like Dandy Jim of de Caroline,” &c.
Piney Bottom, in Old North State,
March 21, this 1844.
Mr. Porter,
I rode three mile ev’ry Satterdy to git a letter outer the Post Offis,
spectin’ as how you had writ me a anser; but I spose what with Pineter
dogs, and hosses, and Kricket, and Boxin’, and Texas, Trebla, and three
Fannys, and Acorns, and Punch in perticlar, you hain’t had no time. I’m
glad your _Speerit_ is revivin’; so is mine, and, as the boy sed to his
mammy, I hopes to be better acquainted with you.
Well, I got so sick in my speerits and droopy like, that I thot I should
ev died stone ded, not seein’ of Barbry for three weeks. So one evenin’
I went down, spectin’ as how old Miss Bass had gone to Sociashun—for
she’s mity religus, and grones shockin’ at prayers—to hear two prechers
from the Sanwitch Ilans, where they tell me the peple all goes
naked—which is comikil, as factry homespun is cheap, and could afford
to kiver themselves at nine cent a yard.
When I went in, there sot old Miss Bass and old Miss Collis a-smokin’
and chattin amazin’. I _do_ think old Miss Collis beats all natur at
smokin’.
Old Miss Collis had on her Sundy frock, and had it draw’d up over her
kneas to keep from skorchin’, and her pettykoats rased tolerble high as
she sot over the fire to be more comfortabler like, but when she seed me
she drop’d ’em down, and arter howdying and civerlizin’ each other I sot
down, but being sorter flusticated like, thinkin’ of that skrape, last
time I was here, about old Troup lickin’ of the milk, I didn’t notis
perticlar where I sot. So I sot down in a cheer where Barbry had throw’d
down her work (when she seed me comin’ at the bars) and run—and her
nedle stuck shockin’ in my—into _me_, and made me jump up oncommon and
hollered!
I thought old Miss Collis woulder split wide open a laffin’, and old
Miss Bass like to a busted, and axed my parding for laffin’, and I had
to give in, but it was laffin’ on t’other side, and had to rub the
place.
Arter awhile we got done—but it looked like I had bad luck, for in
sittin’ down agin I lik’d to have sot on Barbry’s tom cat, which if I
had, I shoulder bin like Kurnel Zip Coon’s wife, who jump’d into a
holler log to mash two young panters to deth, and they scratched her so
bad she couldn’t set down for two munse! I seed this ’ere in a almynack.
Old Miss Bass seein’ I was bothered, axed me to have a dram, but I
thank’d her, no.
Ses she, “Mr. Warrick, you ain’t one of the Temprite Siety?”
Ses I, “No, but I hain’t got no ’casion at presence!”
Ses she, “You is welcome.”
Well, we chatted on some time ’bout prechin, and mumps, and the measly
oitment, and Tyler gripes, and Miss Collis she broke out and sed:
“I never _did_ hear the beat of them Tyler gripes! I have hearn talk of
all sorter gripes, and dry gripes, and always thought that the gripes
was in the stomic, before now, but bless your soul, Miss Bass, this here
gripes is in the hed! I told my old man that no good would come of
’lectin’ Tyler, but poor old creeter, he’s sorter hard-headed, and got
childish, and would do it. O! me? well, we’re all got to come to it and
leve this world! Bless the Lord! I hope I’m ready!”
“That’s a fact,” ses old Miss Bass, “you’re right, Miss Collis; old men
gits uncommon stubborn; a hard, mighty hard time, I had with my old man.
But he’s ded and gone! I hope he’s happy!”
And they both groaned and shet their eyes, and pucked up their mouths.
Ses she, “He got mity rumitys and troubled me powerful, and the old
creetur tuck astonishin’ of dokter’s stuff, and aleckcampane and rose of
sublimit—but he went at last! The Lord’s will be done!—_Skat!_ you
stinkin’ hussy, and come out of that kibbard!” ses she to the cat; “I
_do_ think cats is abominable, and that tom cat of Barbry’s is the
’scheviousest cat I ever _did_ see!”
Ses Miss Collis, “Cats _is_ a pest, but a body can’t do well without
’em; the mice would take the house bodily,” ses she. “Miss Bass, they
tell me that Dicey Loomis is a-gwying to be married—her peple was in
town last week, and bort a power of things and artyfishals, and lofe
sugar, and ribbuns, and cheese, and sich like!”
“Why,” ses Miss Bass, “you don’t tell me so! Did I ever hear the beat o’
that! Miss Collis, are it a fact?”
“Yes,” ses Miss Collis, “it’s the nat’ral truth, for brother Bounds
tell’d it to me at last class meetin’.”
Ses Miss Bass, hollerin’ to Barbry in t’other room: “Barbry, do you hear
that Dicey Loomis is gwying to git married? Well! well! it beats me!
bless the Lord! I wonder who she’s gwying to get married to, Miss
Collis?”
Ses Miss Collis, “Now, child, yure too hard for me! but they do say it’s
to that Taler from Town. Well, he’s a putty man, and had on such a nice
dress—’cept he’s most too much nock-nead, _sich_ eyes and _sich_
whiskers, and now _don’t_ he play the fiddle?”
Ses Miss Bass, “Well, Dicey is a middlin’ peart gal, but for my part I
don’t see what the taler seed in _her_.”
“Nor I nuther,” ses Miss Collis, “but she’s gwine to do well. I couldn’t
a sed no if he’d a axed for our Polly.”
Then in comes Barbry, and we how-dy’d and both turned sorter red in the
face, and I trimbl’d tolerable and felt agurry. Well, arter we talk’d a
spell, all of us, Miss Bass got up and ses she:
“Miss Collis I want to show you a nice passel of chickens; our old
speckled hen come off with eleven, yisterdy, as nice as ever you _did_
see.”
Then old Miss Collis riz up, and puttin’ her hands on her hips, and
stratened like, and ses, right quick:
“Laws a massy! my poor back! Drat the rumatics! It’s powerful bad; it’s
gwyne to rain, I know!—oh, me! me!”—and they both went out.
Then Barbry look’d at me so comikil and sed:
“Billy, I raly _shall_ die thinkin’ of you and old Troup!” and she
throw’d herself back and laffed and laffed; and she looked so putty and
so happy ses I to myself:
“Billy Warrick, you must marry that gal and no mistake, or brake a
trace!” and I swore to it.
Well, we then talk’d agreeable like, and sorter saft, and both of us war
so glad to see one another till old Miss Bass and Miss Collis come back;
and bimeby Miss Collises youngest son come for her, and I helped her at
the bars to get up behin’ her son, and ses she:
“Good-bye, Billy! Good luck to you! I know’d your daddy and mammy afore
you was born on yerth, and I was the fust one after your granny that had
you in the arms—me and Miss Bass _talk’d it over! you’ll git a smart,
peart, likely gal!_ So good-bye, Billy.”
Ses I, “Good-bye, Miss Collis,” and ses I, “Gooly, take good kear of
your mammy, my son!”
You see I thot I’d be perlite.
Well, when I went back, there sot old Miss Bass, and ses she:
“Billy, Miss Collis and me is a bin talkin’ over you and Barbry, and
seein’ you are a good karickter and smart, and well to do in the world,
and a poor orphin boy, I shan’t say _no_! Take her, Billy, and be good
to her, and God bless you, my son, for I’m all the mammy you’ve got,” so
she kiss’d me, and ses she, “now kiss Barbry. We’ve talk’d it over, and
leave us for a spell, for it’s hard to give up my child.”
So I kissed Barbry, and left.
The way I rode home was oncommon peart, and my old mare pranced and was
like the man in Skriptur, who “waxed fat and kick’d,” and I hurried home
to tell old Venus, and to put up three shotes and some turkies to fatten
for the innfare. Mr. Porter, it’s to be the third Wensday in next month,
and Barbry sends you a ticket, hopin’ you will put it in your
paper—that is, the weddin’.
So wishin’ you a heap of subskribers, I remane in good helth and
speerits at presence.
Your Friend,
Wm. Warrick.
CHAPTER III.
WARRICK’S WEDDING.
Described in a letter by an “old flame” of his.
Piney Bottom, this July 9, of 1844.
Miss Polly Stroud,
Dere Maddam.—I now take my pen in hand of the presence oppertunity to
let you know how we are all well, but I am purry in sperits hopin’ this
few lines may find you the same by gods mercy as I have been so
mortfiyde I could cry my eyes out bodily. Bill Warrick, yes Bill
Warrick, is married to Barbry Bass! I seed it done—a mean triflin;
deceevinist creetur—but never mind—Didn’t I know him when we went to
old field skool—a little raggid orflin Boy, with nobody to patch his
close torn behin a makin of a dicky-dicky-dout of himself—cause his old
nigger oman Venus was too lazy to mend ’em? Didn’t I know him when he
couldn’t make a pot-hook or a hanger in his copy book to save his life,
as for makin of a S he always put it tother way, jist so S backwards.
And then to say I were too old for him, and that he always conceited I
was a sort of a sister to him! O Polly Stroud, he is _so_ likely,
perticlar when he is dressed up of a Sunday or a frolick—and what is
worser his wife is prutty too, tho I don’t acknowlige it here. Only too
think how I doated on him, how I used to save bosim blossoms for him,
which some people call sweet sentid shrubs—and how I used to put my
hand in an pull them out for him, and how I used to blush when he sed
they was sweeter for comin’ from where they did? Who went blackberryin’
and huckleberryin’ with me? who always rode to preechun with me and
helped me on the hoss? who made Pokebery stains in dimons and squares
and circles and harts and so on at quiltins for me?—and talkin’ of
Poke—I do hope to fathers above that Poke will beat Clay jist to spite
Bill, for he is a rank distracted Whig and secreterry to the Clay
Club—who always threaded my nedle and has kissed me in perticler, in
playin’ of kneelin’ to the wittyist, bowin’ to the puttyist, and kissin’
of them you love best, and play in Sister Feebe, and Oats, Peas-Beans
and Barley grows—at least one hundred times? Who wated as candil holder
with me at Tim Bolins weddin’, and sed he knowd one in the room hed heap
rather marry, and looked at me so oncommon, and his eyes so blue that I
felt my face burn for a quarter of a hour? who I _do_ say was it but
Bill Warrick?—yes, and a heap more! If I haven’t a grate mind to sue
him, and would do it, if it wasn’t I am feared hed show a Voluntine I
writ to him Feberary a year ago. He orter be exposed, for if ever he is
a widderer hell fool somebody else the same way he did me. It’s a
burnin’ shame, I could hardly hold my head up at the weddin’. If I
hadn’t of bin so mad and too proud to let him see it I could cried
severe.
Well, it was a nice weddin’; sich ice-cakes and minicles, and raisins,
and oringis and hams, flour doins and chickin fixins, and four oncommon
fattest big goblers rosted I ever seed.
The Bryde was dressed in a white muslin figgured over a pink satin
pettycote, with white gloves and satin shoes, and her hair a curlin’
down with a little rose in it, and a chain aroun her neck. I don’t know
whether it was raal gool or plated. She looked butiful, and Bill did
look nice, and all the candydates and two preechers and Col. Hard was
there, and Bills niggers, the likeliest nine of them you ever looked at,
and when I did look at em and think, I raly thought I should or broke my
heart.
Well, sich kissin’—several of the gals sed that there faces burnt like
fire, for one of the preechers and Col. Hard wosn’t shaved clost.
Bimeby I was a sittin’ leanin’ back, and Bill he come behin me and
sorter jerked me back, and skeared me powerful for fear I was fallin’
backwards, and I skreamed and kicked up my feet before to ketch like,
and if I hadn’t a had on pantalets I reckon somebody would of knowd
whether I gartered above my knees or not. We had a right good laff on
old Parson Brown as he got through a marryin’ of em—says he:
“I pronounce you, William Warrick and Barbry Bass, man and oman,”—he
did look so when we laffed, and he rite quick sed—“man and wife—salute
your Bryde,” and Bill looked horrid red, and Barbry trimbled and blushed
astonishin’ severe.
Well, it’s all over, but I don’t keer—there’s as good fish in the sea
as ever come outen it. I’m not poor for the likes of Bill Warrick,
havin’ now three sparks, and one of them from Town, whose got a good
grocery and leads the Quire at church, outer the Suthern Harmony, the
Missonry Harmony is gone outer fashion.
Unkle Ben’s oldest gal Suky is gwine to marry a Virginny tobacker roler,
named Saint George Drummon, and he says he is a kin to Jack Randolf and
Pokerhuntus, who they is the Lord knows. Our Jack got his finger cut
with a steal trap catchin’ of a koon for a Clay Club, and the boys is
down on a tar raft, and ole Miss Collis and mammy is powerful rumatic,
and the measly complaint is amazin! I jist heard you have got two twins
agin—that limestone water must be astonishin’ curyous.
What is the fashuns in Tennysee, the biggest sort of Bishups is the go
here. My love to your old man,
Your friend,
Nancy Guiton.
To Miss Polly Stroud,
Nigh Noxvil in the State of Tennysee,
Close by where the French Broad and Holsin jines.
Old Miss Collis and mammy is jist come home. Betsy Bolin is jist had a
fine son and they say she is a doin’ as well as could be expected, and
the huckleberry crop is short on account of the drouth.
IX.
OUR TOWN.[9]
I spent a summer in the Eastern States, for the purpose of studying
Yankee character, and picking up such peculiarities of dialect and
expression as I could, from constant communication with the “critters”
themselves. In Boston, I was thus invited by a countryman to visit the
town in which he lived.
“Wal, stranger, can’t you come down our way, and give us a show?”
“Where do you live?” inquired I.
“Oh, abeout half way between this ere and sunrise.”
“Oh, yes,” said I, adopting at once the style of the countryman, “I
know; where the trees grow under-ground, and galls weigh two hundred
pounds. Where some on ’em are so fat, they grease the cart-wheels with
their shadow, and some on ’em so thin, you’re obliged to look at ’em
twice afore you can see ’em at all.”
“Wal, I guess you’ve been there,” says he, saying which, the countryman
departed.
-----
[9] By G. H. Hill.
X.
“FALLING OFF A LOG,” IN A GAME OF “SEVEN UP.”
“Hoss and hoss!”
“Yes; ‘hoss and hoss,’ and my deal!”
“I’ll double the bet and have the whole bottle or none.”
“Let me cut, and I’ll stand it.”
“S’pose we both take a _little_ drink first,” said Chunkey.
“No: darned if I do! thar ain’t enough for us both—if I win I’ll drink
it, and you must wait till a boat comes, if you die! If you win, I’ll
wait, if I die!”
Such was the conversation between Jim and Chunkey, as they were sitting
across a log on the banks of the Yazoo River, surrounded by a cloud of
musquitoes, playing “seven-up” for a remaining bottle of whisky, which
was not enough for the two, and “wouldn’t set one forward” _much_. They
were just returning from Bear Creek, in Township 17, Range 1, where they
had some hands deadening timber, preparatory to opening a plantation in
the Fall. They had sent the negroes to the river to take a steam-boat,
whilst they, with their furniture, and the remains of a forty-two gallon
“red-head,” came down Deer Creek in a day, out into False Lake, through
False Lake into Wasp Lake, and down that to where it empties into the
Yazoo, and here on the banks of that river our scene opens.
“Go ahead, then,” said Chunkey, “shuffle, deal, and win, if you can, but
take out that Jack what’s torn!”
I took the Jack out, shuffled, dealt, and at it we went. Chunkey looked
mighty scared; his eye was sorter oneasy, and dartin’ about, and he
seemed to be choked as he kept tryin’ to swaller somethin’—the long
beard on his face looked powerful black, or else his face looked
powerful white, one or the ’yether. We both played mighty slow and
careful. The first hand I made “high, low,” and Chunkey “game;” the
second hand I made “low, Jack,” and Chunkey “high, game.”
“Four to three,” says I.
“Yes, and my deal,” said Chunkey.
He gin ’em the Sunflower “shuffle,” and the Big Greasy “cut,” and pushed
’em back. Chunkey dealt ’em mighty slow, and kept tryin’ to see my
cards, but I laid my hand on ’em as fast as they fell on the log, to
prevent him from seein’ the marks. He turned up the Ace of Clubs. When I
looked at my hand, thar was the King, Jack, Nine, and Deuce,—I led my
King——
“High!” says I.
“Low!” said Chunkey, poppin’ down the Tray.
“Not edzactly,” said I, hawlin’ in the trick, and leadin’ the Deuce, and
jist as I done so, I seed Chunkey starin’ over my shoulder, lookin’
wilder nor a dyin’ bar. I never seed a man look so awful in my life. I
thought he were gwine to have a fit.
“Ya, ya!” said he, “fallin’ off the log,” cryin’ “_Snake! snake!_”
I never took time to look, but made a big he-spring about twenty feet in
the cane, the har on my head standin’ stiff as bristles and ratlin’ like
a raftsman’s bones, with the Sky lake ager, and the bad feelins runnin’
down to my toes. I reckon you never seed a man so frightened of snakes
as I is, and I’ve been so all my life; I’d rather fight the biggest bar
in the swamp with his own weapons, teeth and claws, takin’ it rough and
tumble, dependin’ on my mind and knowledge of a bar’s character, than
come in contact with a big rusty highland mocassin or rattlesnake, and
that’s the reason I never hunts in the summer time. When I lived up on
Deer Creek, thar was a perfect cord of all sorts, and I used to wear all
summer the thickest kind of cow-hide boots, reachin’ up to my hips, and
I _never_ went into the field, ’ceptin on a mule, with a
double-barrelled gun at that. This, Chunkey knowed; and whenever he seed
one he gin me warnin’. Chunkey ain’t afraid of snakes; he’d jist as soon
eat of a gourd with a snake, as not, if the snake would help himself and
not meddle with his licker.
Well, arter lookin’ about a spell I couldn’t see no snake-sign, and I
then hollered to Chunkey, but darned a word did he say. It then flashed
across my mind that as Chunkey fell on the side of the log whar the
licker lay, he _might_ sorter taste it, as he were dry enough to be able
to swaller a little at a time; so I struck a lick back to the log and
looked over, and thar he lay, jist curled up like a ’coon in the
sunshine, _and the bottle jist glued to his lips_, and the licker
runnin’ down his throat like a storm! darn him, I hadden’t no time to
think afore I bounced at him! I struck across his snout, and he nailed
my thumb in his jaws, and rostled up a handful of dirt and throwed it in
my eyes, and that sot me to gwine, and I throwed the licks into him
right and left, and I made the fur fly, _I tell you_; but Chunkey stood
it like a man! Darned the word did he say; he wouldn’t holler, he was
_perfectly game_!
“No, that’s a fact! I didn’t holler; I didn’t have time; while you were
working away on that gum-knot, I were standin’ up agin a little dog-wood
finishin’ the licker!”
“How comes it that you never wrung in that part of the story about the
knot before?”
“’Cause, I’d done got the licker, and I was satisfied; you thought you’d
gin me some mighty big licks, and you was satisfied; and it would have
been mean in me to crow over you then: you was out of licker, tobacco,
and had your fist all skinned and beat as soft as a bar’s foot! Oh no,
Jim, I’m reasonable, _I is_.”
“Well, _go along_; if I don’t set you to gnawin’ somethin’ harder than
that knot afore long, then my name ain’t nothin’ to me, and I don’t car
for nobody, that’s all.”
“All sot,” says Chunkey, “let’s licker. You wanted to know what ‘_fallin
off a log_’ meant, and I thought I’d show you; but, my honey, I’ll jist
let you know if you’d a hit _me_ any of them licks what you struck
‘right and left’ into that knot, I’d a gin you a touch of panter
fistcuffs—a sort of cross of the scratch on the bite—and a powerful
strong game it is, in a close fight. Come, gents, let’s licker, and then
I can beat any man that wars har, for a mighty nice chunk of a poney, at
any game of short cards:
Oh, the waggoner was a mighty man, a mighty man was he:
He’d pop his whip, and stretch his chains, and holler ‘wo, gee!’”
XI.
A YANKEE CARD-TABLE.[10]
When I was about leaving New Orleans, standing upon the Levee, waiting
for my luggage, I was thus addressed by a long, lean, down-Easter:
“Say yeou, which of these things slips up fust?”
“What?” said I.
“Which of these things slips up fust?”
“Do you mean which steam-boat goes up the river first?”
“Yes, I’ll be darned if I don’t.”
“That one,” said I pointing to the nearest.
“I’m in an awful hurry to git eout of this. It is so thundering hot, and
I smell the yeller fever all reound.”
This individual had a very intellectual forehead, measuring about an
inch and a quarter in height, and punched in at the sides to match. His
eyes were set deep in their sockets, and something like a pig’s, only
the colour was not as good. His nose pushed boldly out, as it started
from the lower part of his forehead, as though it meant to be something,
but when it had reached half its destination, it bent suddenly in like a
parrot’s beak. His upper lip was long and thin, and was stretched on a
sort of rack, which was made by a couple of supernumerary teeth, which
stuck out very prominently. His chin, too modest to attempt a rivalry
with his projecting lip, receded backwards towards the throat, so that,
to look at him in front, you did not perceive that he had any chin at
all. His hair was very light and bristly. A snuff-coloured coat of
domestic manufacture adorned the upper part of his person. It was an
ancient affair. The velvet was worn from the collar in several places,
but which was carefully patched with red flannel, being the nearest
approach to the original colour of the collar that could be found in his
domestic menagerie of reserved rags. The buttons, which one would
naturally look for at the bottom of the waist, had wandered up between
his shoulders. The coat was remarkably long, extending from high up on
the shoulders to the lower part of the calves of his legs. He was
slightly round-shouldered, so that when he stood right up, a small lady
might have found shelter in a rain storm in the vacancy left beween the
coat and the back. His pants, to common observers, would have been
called too short, but he denied this, averring that his legs were too
long for his trowsers. On his arm hung an old-fashioned camblet cloak,
with the lining of green baize hanging about a quarter of a yard below
the edge of the camblet. He said this was no fault of the lining,
anyhow; “it got wet, and t’other shrunk a leetle, but the lining stuck
to it like blazes.” The Yankee was exceedingly anxious to secure his
passage by the first boat, and he sang out to some person:
“Say, yeou, where is the Captain of this consarn. Say, yeou, (to some
one else,) I want the Captain. Look here, Nigger, show a feller the
Captain. Look here, you black sarpint, don’t stick out your lips at me.
Wal, I swow, I’ll give anybody three cents that will show me the
Captain.”
The Captain, hearing the noise, stepped forward, and told the Yankee if
he wished to see the Captain, he was commander of the boat.
“Dew tell? Wal, I swan, you have got a kind of commanding way about you,
that’s a fact.”
“What do you wish?” said the Captain.
“Wal, I want a bathe.”
“Very well, jump into the river, there is plenty of water.”
“I tell you, I want a bathe.”
“Well, don’t I tell you to jump in, you can swim across if you like; we
shall not start just yet.”
“I want a bathe to lie down in. Now do you know what I mean, darn you?”
“Oh, you want a berth?”
“Wal, darn you, didn’t I say bathe? I know what I’m about, I guess.”
“I will accommodate you as far as I can,” said the Captain, “but I’ve
nothing but a mattrass to offer, and that is upon the cabin floor.”
“Dew tell.”
“It is the only one that is vacant, and the cabin floor is covered with
them, so you had better secure it at once.”
“Wal, then, I guess I’d better turn right in.”
I omitted to mention that he carried a valise in his hand. Some one
rather impertinently asked him what he had in it.
“Wal,” said he, “I don’t know that it’s any of your business, but I
don’t mind telling on you. There is two shirts, one clean, t’other
dirty; a pair of pants about as good as new, only a leetle worn here and
there, and a pair of pistols. D’ye want I should take ’em out and show
you?”
When he went down to turn in, he put the valise under his head, wrapped
his old cloak around him, and threw himself, as he said, “into the arms
of omnibus.” The mattrasses on the other side of him, were occupied by
some rough Kentucky boatmen. In the middle of the night, these men got
up and commenced playing cards. No table being handy, they made use of
the back of our Yankee friend for one, and chalked the reckoning of the
game upon the camblet cloak, which surrounded the body of the
unconscious sleeper. They became interested in the game, and began to
lay down their cards with a might of fist, and earnestness of manner,
which soon roused up our sleeping friend. He attempted to rise, but was
held down by one of the party, who exclaimed:
“Lie still, stranger, I’ve only got three to go, and I hold the Jack.”
“Never mind, I’m a most smothered here, but go ahead, darn you, play
quick and I’ll go you halves.”
He according lay still, until they had finished their game, but whether
the Kentucky gambler divided his gains with his table, was never
satisfactorily ascertained.
-----
[10] By G. H. Hill.
XII.
DICK M’COY’S SKETCHES OF HIS NEIGHBOURS.
Last summer, I determined to visit the battle-ground of the
_Horse-Shoe_, to see if any vestiges remained of _Old Hickory’s_ great
fight with the Indians of the Tallapoosa. Fond of all sorts of aquatic
diversion, I concluded to take the river four or five miles above, and
descend to the “Shoe,” and I therefore employed an old crony of mine,
Dick M’Coy, to take me down in a canoe. Dick lives on the bank, and has
all the qualifications of an otter, for river explorations.
For some miles above the battle-ground, the river is a succession of
shallows, broken every mile or two by lovely patches of smooth, still
water, generally bedecked with a green islet or two, around which the
trout love to play. The banks are generally large, irregular hills, that
look as if they were struggling to pitch themselves, with their huge
pines, into the stream; but, once in a while, you find a level strip of
alluvial in cultivation, or a beautiful and fertile declivity, shaded by
magnificent poplars, beech-trees, and walnut. Now and then you may see
the cabin of a squatter, stuck to the side of a hill, like a fungus
against a wall; but, generally, the Tallapoosa retains the wild,
pristine features of the days when the Creek hunted on its banks, or
disported himself upon its waters. A little way out from the river, on
either side, among the “hollows” formed by little creeks and smaller
streams, live a people, half-agricultural, half-piscatorial—a sinewy,
yellow-headed, whiskey-loving set. Those south of the river, are the
inhabitants of “’Possum-Trot,” while those on the north are the citizens
of “Turpentine.” Dick M’Coy is a ’Possum-Trotter, a fishing fellow,
fishy in his stories, but always _au fait_ in regard to matters of
settlement gossip.
Seated on a clap-board, a little aft of the centre of the boat, and
facing Dick, I was amused for several hours with his conversation, as we
threaded the intricate passages of the shoals, now whizzing by and
barely touching an ugly rock, now spinning round in a little whirlpool,
like a tee-totum. The skill of my Palinurus, however, seemed equal to
any emergency; and we alternately twisted and tumbled along, at the rate
of two miles and a half an hour.
As we came into a small, deep sheet of water, Dick pointed with his
paddle to a smoke issuing from among the trees, on the “Turpentine” side
of the river, and remarked:
“Thar’s whar our _lazy_ man lives—Seaborn Brown.”
“Ah! is he lazy much?”
“Powerful.”
“As how?”
“Onct he went out huntin’, and he was so lazy he ’cluded he wouldn’t. So
he laid down in the sand, close to the aidge of the water. It come on to
rain like the devil, and I, seen him from t’other side, tho’t he was
asleep, and hollered to him.
“Ses I, ‘it’s rainin’ like wrath, Seab, and why don’t you git up?’
“Ses he, hollerin’ back, ‘I’m wet any how, and thar’s no use.’
“After a little, the river begun to rise about five foot an hour, and I
hollers to him agin.
“Ses I, ‘Seaborn, the river’s a-risin’ on to your gun; the but’s half
way in the water now.’
“Ses he, hollerin’ back, ‘The water ain’t gwine to hurt the wood part.’
“I waited a few minutes, and sung out:
“‘Seaborn, you’re half under water yourself, and your gun-lock is in the
river!’
“Ses he, ‘I never ketches cold, and thar’s no load in the gun, and
besides, she needs a washin’ out.’
“And Squire,” continued Dick, “the last I seen of him that day, he tuck
a flask out of his pocket, _as he lay_, drinkt, ketcht some water in the
flask, and drinkt again, _as he lay; and then throw’d his face back_,
this way, like, _to keep the river out of his mouth and nose_!”
Amused at Dick’s anecdote of his lazy neighbour, I solicited some
information about the occupant of a cabin nearly in the water, on the
’Possum Trot side.
At the very door of the dwelling commenced a fish-trap dam; and on the
trap stood a stalwart fellow in a red flannel shirt, and pantaloons that
were merely breeches—the legs being torn off entirely.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Wait till we pass him, and I’ll tell you.”
We tumbled onward a few yards.
“That’s Jim Ed’ards; _he loves cat-fish, some! Well_, he does! Don’t do
nothin’ but ketch ’em. Some of the boys says he’s got slimy all over,
_like_ unto a cat—don’t know about that; all I know is, we ketcht one
in the seine, that weighed over forty pounds. Thar was a _mocassin_ tuk
out of it longer than my arm. And nobody wouldn’t have it then, but Jim.
As we was goin’ home, Jim a totin’ the fish—ses I, ‘Jim, you ain’t
agwine to eat _that_ cat, sure_ly_!’
“Ses he, ‘Pshaw! that mocassin warn’t nothin’.’
“Ses I, ‘Jim, enny man that’ll eat that cat, would eat a bull-frog.’
“And with that, he knocked me down and liked to a killed me: and that
was the reason I didn’t want to tell you about him twell we’d passed
him.”
As we neared a pretty little island, on which were a house and two or
three acres in cultivation:
“Thar,” said Dick, “is Dock Norris’s settle_ment_. I guess he won’t
‘_play horse_’ agin in a hurry. He claims ’Possum Trot for his beat, but
we’d all rather he’d take Turpingtine.”
“What game was that he played?” I asked.
“Oh! playin’ horse. See, thar was a crowd of boys come down and kamped
on Turpingtine side, to seine. They was but a little ways from the
river—leastways thar camp-fire was—and between the river and it, is a
pretty knoll, whar the river’s left a pretty bed of white sand as big as
a garden spot, and right at it the water’s ten foot deep, and it’s about
the same from the top of the bluff to the water.
“A big, one-eyed fellow named Ben Baker, was at the head of the town
crowd, and as soon as they’d struck a camp, Ben and his fellers, except
one (a lad like), tuck the seine and went away down the river, fishin’,
and was gone a’most all day. Well, Dock bein’ of a sharp,
splinter-legged, mink-face feller, gits some of his boys, and goes over
in the time, and they drinks all Ben’s whiskey and most all his coffee,
and eats up all his bacon-meat—’sides bein’ sassy to the boy. Arter a
while here comes Ben and his kump’ny, back, wet and tired, and hungry.
The boy told ’em Dock Norris and his crowd had eat and drunk up
everything, and Ben’s one eye shined like the ev’ning star.
“‘Whar’s he?’ axed Ben; and then he turned round and seed Dock and his
boys, on thar all-fours squealin’ and rearin’, _playin’ horse_, they
called it, in that pretty sandy place. Ben went right in amongst ’em,
and ses he, ‘I’ll play horse, too,’ and then he came down to his
all-fours, and here they had it, round and round, rearin’, pitchin’, and
cavortin’! Dock was might’ly pleased that Ben didn’t seem mad; but
bimeby, Ben got him close to the bank, and then, in a minute, gethered
him by the seat of his breeches and the har of the head and slung him
twenty foot out in the current. About the time Dock ris, Ben had another
of the crowd harnessed, and he throw’d _him_ at _Dock_! Then he pitched
another, and so on, twell he’d thrown ’em all in. You oughter ’a seen
’em swim to the shoals and take that bee-line for home!”
“Why didn’t they turn on him and thrash him?” I asked.
“Oh, you see he was a great big fellow, weighed two hundred, and was as
strong as a yoke of oxen; and you know, ’squire, most of the people is
mighty _puny-like_, in the _Trot_. Well, _playin’ horse_ got broke up
after that.”
When the next clearing came into view, I inquired of M’Coy, whose it
was.
“_Don’t_ you know, ’squire? Ain’t you never _seen_ him? Why, it’s old
Bill Wallis’s place, and he’s _our ugly man_! The whole livin’,
breathin’ yeth ain’t got the match to his picter! His mouth is split
every way, and turned wrong-side out, and when he opens it, it’s like
spreadin’ an otter trap to set it. The skin’s constant a pealin’ from
his nose, and his eyes looks like they was just stuck on to his face
with pins! He’s got hardly any skin to shet his eyes with, and not a
sign of _har_ to that little! His years is like a wolf’s, and his
tongue’s a’most allers hangin’ out of his mouth! His whole face looks
like it was half-roasted! Why, he’s obleeged to stay ’bout home; the
nabor women is afraid their babies ’ill be like him!”
Just after this last story, we reached a fall of two feet, over which
Dick’s plan was to descend bow-foremost, with a “ca-souse,” as he
expressed it. But we ran upon a rock, the current swayed us round, and
over we went, broadside.
“This is an ugly scrape, Dick,” said I, as soon as we got ashore.
“Yes, ’squire, but not so ugly as old Wallis; thar’s nuthin but deth can
eekal him. Howsever, less leave bailin’ the boat twell mornin’, and go
and stay with old Billy to-night, and then you’ll see for yourself.”
So, instead of sleeping at the Horse-shoe, we spent the night with old
Billy and his folks; and we had a rare time there, I assure you.
XIII.
KICKING A YANKEE.[11]
A very handsome friend of ours, who a few weeks ago was _poked_ out of a
comfortable office up the river, has betaken himself to Bangor, for a
time, to recover from the wound inflicted upon his feelings by our
“unprincipled and immolating administration.”
Change of air must have had an instantaneous effect upon his spirits;
for, from Galena, he writes us an amusing letter, which, among other
things, tells us of a desperate quarrel that took place on board of the
boat between a real live dandy tourist, and a real live Yankee settler.
The latter trod on the toes of the former; whereupon the former
threatened to “Kick out of the cabin” the latter.
“You’ll kick me out of this cabing?”
“Yes Sir, I’ll kick you out of this cabin!”
“You’ll kick _me_, Mr. _Hitchcock_, out of this cabing?”
“Yes, Sir, I’ll kick _you_, Mr. Hitchcock!”
“Wal, I guess,” said the Yankee, very coolly, after being perfectly
satisfied that it was himself who stood in such imminent peril of
assault—“I guess’ since you talk of kicking, you’ve never heard me tell
about old Bradley and my mare, there, to hum?”
“No, Sir, nor do I wish—”
“Wal, guess it won’t set you back much, any how, as kicking’s generally
best to be considered on. You see old Bradley is one of these
sanctimonious, long-faced hypocrites, who put on a religious suit every
Sabbath morning, and with a good deal of screwing, manage to keep it on
till after sermon in the afternoon; and as I was a Universalist, he
allers picked me out as a subject for religious conversation—and the
darned hypocrite would talk about sacred things, without ever winking.
Wal, he had an old roan mare that would jump over any fourteen-rail
fence in Illinois, and open any door in my barn that hadn’t a padlock on
it. Tu or three times I found her in my stable, and I told Bradley about
it, and he was ‘very sorry’—‘an unruly animal’—‘would watch her,’ and
a hull lot of such things, all said in a very serious manner, with a
face twice as long, as Deacon Farrar’s on Fast day. I knew all the time
he was lying, and so I watched him and his old roan tu; and for three
nights regular, old roan came to my stable about bed time, and just at
daylight Bradley would come, bridle her, and ride off. I then just took
my old mare down to a blacksmith’s shop, and had some shoes made with
‘corks’ about four inches long, and had ’em nailed on to her hind feet.
Your heels mister, ain’t nuthing to ’em. I took her home, give her about
ten feet halter, and tied her right in the centre of the stable, fed her
well with oats about nine o’clock, and after taking a good smoke, went
to bed, knowing that my old mare was a truth-telling animal, and that
she’d give a good report of herself in the morning. I hadn’t got fairly
to sleep before the old ’oman hunched me and wanted to know what on
airth was the matter out at the stable.
“Says I, ‘Go tu sleep, Peggy, it is nothing but Kate—she is kicking off
flies, I guess!’
“Purty soon she hunched me again, and says she:
“‘Mr. Hitchcock, du git up and see what in the world is the matter with
Kate, for she is kicking most powerfully.’
“‘Lay still, Peggy, Kate will take care of herself, I guess.’
“Wal, the next morning, about daylight, Bradley, with bridle in hand,
cum to the stable, as true as the book of Genesis; when he saw the old
roan’s sides, starn, and head, he cursed and swore worse than you did,
mister, when I came down on your toes. Arter breakfast that morning Joe
Davis cum to my house, and says he:
“‘Bradley’s old roan is nearly dead—she’s cut all to pieces and can
scarcely move.’
“‘I want to know,’ says I, ‘how on airth did it happen?’
“Now, Joe Davis was a member of the same church with Bradley, and whilst
we were talking, up cum that everlastin’ hypocrite, and says he:
“‘Mr. Hitchcock, my old roan is ruined!’
“‘Du tell,’ says I.
“‘She is cut all to pieces,’ says he; ‘do you know whether she was in
your stable, Mr. Hitchcock, last night?’
“Wal, mister, with this I let out:
“‘Do I _know_ it?’—(the Yankee here, in illustration, made a sudden
advance upon the dandy, who made way for him unconsciously, as it
were)—‘Do I know it? you no-souled, shad-bellied, squash-headed, old
night-owl you!—you hay-hookin’, corn-cribbin’, fodder-fudgin’,
cent-shavin’, whitlin’-of-nuthin’ you!—Kate kicks like a mere dumb
beast, but I’ve reduced the thing to a _science_!’” The Yankee had not
ceased to advance, or the dandy, in his astonishment, to retreat; and
now, the motion of the latter being accelerated by an apparent
demonstration on the part of the former to “suit the action to the
word,” he found himself in the “social hall,” tumbling backwards over a
pile of baggage, and tearing the knees of his pants as he scrambled up,
a perfect scream of laughter stunning him from all sides.
The defeat was total: a few moments afterwards he was dragging his own
trunk ashore, while Mr. Hitchcock finished his story on the boiler deck.
-----
[11] By J. M. Field.
XIV.
WHY MR. SELLUM DISPOSED OF THE HORSE.
A MATTER OF FACT STORY.
Mr. Sellum is a horse-jockey; that is, when he is not more profitably
employed, he is not ashamed, so he says, to “try his fort’n in that very
respectable callin’.” He dropped in at Bailey’s bazaar a few weeks
since; and very soon after Sellum arrived, a superb-looking charger,
mounted by a graceful rider, pranced up the court, and entered the
arena, to be sold at public vendue.
“There he is, gents,” said the auctioneer; “there he is! a splendid
beast! Look at him, and judge for yourselves. There’s an ear, a forearm,
a nostril, an eye for you! That animal, gentlemen, was ‘knocked down’ to
a gentleman under the hammer, less than three months ago, for two
hundred and eighty dollars. But I am authorized to-day to sell that
horse—let him bring more or less. He’s a beauty; fine figure, splendid
saddle-beast, natural gait fourteen miles to the hour, trots a mile in
2′ 42″; and altogether he’s a great horse,” which last remark no one
could doubt, for he weighed eleven hundred pounds. “How much am I
offered for that beautiful beast?” continued the auctioneer. “Move him
round the ring once, John. That’s it; elegant motion.”
There the horse stopped short, and refused to budge an inch, though John
buried the rowels to the shoulder in his ribs.
“Give me a bid, gentlemen, if you please. The horse must be sold.”
“Twenty dollars,” was heard from one corner of the room.
“_Twenty dollars!_” screamed the auctioneer, with a seemingly ironical
laugh. “I’m offered the stupendous sum of twenty dollars, gentlemen, for
that horse. Are there no sausage-makers in this congregation? I’m
offered only twenty dollars! But, as I said before, the horse is here to
be sold, so I shall accept the bid. Twenty dollars. I’m offered twenty
dollars—twenty—twenty—give me thirty? Twenty dollars—twenty—did I
hear thirty? Twenty dollars—give _five_? Twenty dollars—say _one_?
Shall I have twenty-one? If that’s the best bid, down he must go,
gentlemen! Twenty dollars! going! Twenty, only. Who’s the fortunate
buyer?”
“Sellum, John Sellum,” said our friend.
“John Sellum, twenty dollars,” says the auctioneer; “you’ve got a horse
as is a horse, Mr. Sellum.”
And the fortunate John bore his magnificent charger away in triumph. A
few days subsequently, an old acquaintance met John in the cars, and
inquired about his purchase.
“Got that horse yet, John?”
“No, I sold him.”
“So soon—what for?”
“Wal, nothin’ in particular; but I didn’t fancy the critter, all things
considered.”
“He was sound; wasn’t he?”
“Wall, I reckon he wasn’t; that is to say, I cal-k’late he wasn’t.
Show’d very good pluck, till I got him down into Washington Street,
after I left the baz-a-r, but just opposite the Old South, he fell slap
down on the pavement.”
“Pshaw! you don’t say so!”
“Yaas. Blindstaggers—wust kind. But I didn’t mind that, so I took him
home, and nussed him up a little. Put him in the gig next day; wouldn’t
start a peg! Coax’d him, draw’d him, run a hot wire in his ear, wollup’d
him, and so forth; and finally, I built a fire under him. All no use;
cunning cuss, sot rite down on the pile o’ lighted shavins, and put it
out.”
Here his friend smiled.
“That wasn’t nothin’ tho’. Went to git inter the wag’n, and he started
’fore I gath’red up the ribbins. Went ’bout three rods for’ard, and
stopped agin quicker’n lightnin’. Brought him back, put him in the
stall—low stable—got out of his reach, and then begun to whale him.
Then he kicked up agin; knocked the floorin’ all through over head,
stove his shoes off, broke his halter, and then run back inter the
stable-floor. Trap-door happened to be open, and down went his hind
legs, clear to the hips. There I had him foul.”
“Yes, you did,” replied his friend.
“I got a piece o’ plank, an’ I lam’d ’im for ’bout ten minutes, w’en, I
be hanged, if he didn’t _git mad_! and kick hisself out o’ the hole.
Next mornin’ found him swelled up big as four hogs-heads. Rub’d sperrets
o’ turpentine all over ’im, an the ungrateful rascal kep tryin’ to kick
me for’t. Give him nothin to eat for eight days, and the swellin’ went
down. Took him out o’ the stable, and found him lame _behind_.”
“Very likely.”
“But on a closer examination, see he was full as lame for’ard; one
balanced t’other, so’s he couldn’t limp. One eye had been knocked out in
the fight, but the head-stall kivered that misfort’n. Brushed ’im up
kerefully, and put on the shiny harness. Led him down the street, an’
met an old gent in search of a ‘spirited’ beast. Asked me if, I wanted
to sell?
“‘No, Sir,’ sez I.
“‘Wot’ll you take for’m?’ sez he.
“‘He’s high strung,’ sez I.
“‘He is,’ sez he; ‘wot’s he wuth?’
“‘I never warrants hosses,’ sez I. ‘If you wa’t’m jest as he is. You’re
a good judge o’ hosses, no doubt?’ sez I.
“‘Wal, I am,’ sez he.
“‘Very well, then; you may have’m for two hundred dollars.’
“The old gent pecked in his mouth, stroked his neck, looked very
knowin’, and replied:
“‘I’ll give you a hundred and fifty.’
“‘Split the difference,’ sez I.
“‘Done!’ sez he.
“‘The hoss is yourn,’ sez I.
“He give me the money, took the animal, an’ that’s the last I’ve heene
o’ him or that hoss.”
“Possible!” exclaimed his friend.
“Yaas, under all the circumstances, I thort it wan’t best to keep the
beast, you see, so I let him go.”
“Where are you going now?” asked his friend.
“To York.”
“When do you return?”
“_Not at present_,” said Mr. Sellum, slyly; and I reckon he didn’t.
XV.
METAPHYSICS.[12]
Most people are of opinion that whatever is, is right; but, strange to
say, an acquaintance with pen and ink and that sort of thing is very apt
to reverse this opinion. No sooner do we begin to study metaphysics,
than we find how egregiously we have been mistaken, in supposing that
“Master Parson is really Master Parson.”
I, for my part, have a high opinion of metaphysical studies, and think
the science a very useful one, because it teaches people what sheer
nobodies they are. The only objection is, they are not disposed to lay
this truth sufficiently to heart, but continue to give themselves airs,
just as if some folks were really some folks.
Old Doctor Sobersides, the minister of Pumpkinville, where I lived in my
youth, was one of the metaphysical divines of the old school, and could
cavil upon the ninth part of a hair about entities and quiddities,
nominalism and realism, free will and necessity, with which sort of
learning he used to stuff his sermons and astound his learned hearers,
the bumpkins. They never doubted that it was all true, but were apt to
say with the old woman in Molière:
“Il parle si bien que je n’entend goutte.”
I remember a conversation that happened at my grandfather’s, in which
the Doctor had some difficulty in making his metaphysics all “as clear
as preaching.” There was my grandfather; Uncle Tim, who was the greatest
hand at raising onions in our part of the country, but “not knowing
metaphysics, had no notion of the true reason of his not being sad;” my
Aunt Judy Keturah Titterwell, who could knit stockings like all possest,
but could not syllogize; Malachi Muggs, our hired man, that drove the
oxen, and Isaac Thrasher, the district schoolmaster, who had dropped in
to warm his fingers and get a drink of cider. Something was under
discussion, and my grandfather could make nothing of it; but the Doctor
said it was “metaphysically true.”
“Pray, Doctor,” said Uncle Tim, “tell me something about metaphysics; I
have often heard of that science, but never for my life could find out
what it was.”
“Metaphysics,” said the Doctor, “is the science of abstractions.”
“I’m no wiser for that explanation,” said Uncle Tim.
“It treats,” said the Doctor, “of matters most profound and sublime, a
little difficult perhaps for a common intellect or an unschooled
capacity to fathom, but not the less important, on that account, to all
living beings.”
“What does it teach?” asked the schoolmaster.
“It is not applied so much to the operation of teaching,” answered the
Doctor, “as to that of inquiring; and the chief inquiry is, whether
things are, or whether they are not.”
“I don’t understand the question,” said Uncle Tim, taking the pipe out
of his mouth.
“For example, whether this earth on which we tread,” said the Doctor,
giving a heavy stamp on the floor, and setting his foot slap on the
cat’s tail, “whether this earth does really exist, or whether it does
not exist.”
“That is a point of considerable consequence to settle,” said my
grandfather.
“Especially,” added the schoolmaster, “to the holders of real estate.”
“Now the earth,” continued the Doctor, “may exist——”
“Who the dogs ever doubted that?” asked Uncle Tim.
“A great many men,” said the Doctor, “and some very learned ones.”
Uncle Tim stared a moment, and then began to fill up his pipe, whistling
the tune of High Betty Martin, while the Doctor went on:
“The earth, I say, may exist, although Bishop Berkeley has proved beyond
all possible gainsaying or denial, that it does not exist. The case is
clear; the only difficulty is, to know whether we shall believe it or
not.”
“And how,” asked Uncle Tim, “is all this to be found out?”
“By digging down to the first principles,” answered the Doctor.
“Ay,” interrupted Malachi, “there is nothing equal to the spade and
pickaxe.”
“That is true,” said my grandfather, going on in Malachi’s way, “’tis by
digging for the foundation that we shall find out whether the world
exists or not; for, if we dig to the bottom of the earth and find a
foundation—why then we are sure of it. But if we find no foundation, it
is clear that the world stands upon nothing, or, in other words, that it
does not stand at all; therefore, it stands to reason—”
“I beg your pardon,” interrupted the Doctor, “but you totally mistake
me; I use the word _digging_ metaphorically, meaning the profoundest
cogitation and research into the nature of things. That is the way in
which we may ascertain whether things are or whether they are not.”
“But if a man can’t believe his eyes,” said Uncle Tim, “what signifies
talking about it?”
“Our eyes,” said the Doctor, “are nothing at all but the inlets of
sensation, and when we see a thing, all we are aware of is, that we have
a sensation of it; we are not sure that the thing exists. We are sure of
nothing that we see with our eyes.”
“Not without spectacles,” said Aunt Judy.
“Plato, for instance, maintains that the sensation of any object is
produced by a perpetual succession of copies, images, or counterfeits
streaming off from the object to the organs of sensation. Descartes,
too, has explained the matter upon the principle of whirligigs.”
“But does the world exist?” asked the schoolmaster.
“A good deal may be said on both sides,” replied the Doctor, “though the
ablest heads are for non-existence.”
“In common cases,” said Uncle Tim, “those who utter nonsense are
considered blockheads.”
“But in metaphysics,” said the Doctor, “the case is different.”
“Now all this is hocus pocus to me,” said Aunt Judy, suspending her
knitting-work, and scratching her forehead with one of the needles. “I
don’t understand a bit more of the business than I did at first.”
“I’ll be bound there is many a learned professor,” said Uncle Tim,
“could say the same after spinning a long yarn of metaphysics.”
The Doctor did not admire this gibe at his favourite science.
“That is as the case may be,” said he; “this thing or that thing may be
dubious, but what then? Doubt is the beginning of wisdom.”
“No doubt of that,” said my grandfather, beginning to poke the fire,
“but when a man has got through his doubting, what does he begin to
build upon in the metaphysical way?”
“Why, he begins by taking something for granted,” said the Doctor.
“But is that a sure way of going to work?”
“’Tis the only thing he can do,” replied the Doctor, after a pause, and
rubbing his forehead as if he was not altogether satisfied that his
foundation was a solid one. My grandfather might have posed him with
another question, but he poked the fire and let him go on.
“Metaphysics, to speak exactly—”
“Ah,” interrupted the schoolmaster, “bring it down to vulgar fractions,
and then we shall understand it.”
“’Tis the consideration of immateriality, or the mere spirit and essence
of things.”
“Come, come,” said Aunt Judy, taking a pinch of snuff, “now I see into
it.”
“Thus, man is considered, not in his corporeality, but in his essence or
capability of being; for a man metaphysically, or to metaphysical
purposes, hath two natures, that of spirituality and that of corporeity,
which may be considered separate.”
“What man?” asked Uncle Tim.
“Why any man; Malachi there, for example, I may consider him as Malachi
spiritual or Malachi corporal.”
“That is true,” said Malachi, “for when I was in the militia, they made
me a sixteenth corporal, and I carried grog to the drummer.”
“That is another affair,” said the Doctor, in continuation, “we speak of
man in his essence; we speak also of the essence of locality, the
essence of duration—”
“And essence of peppermint,” said Aunt Judy.
“Pooh!” said the Doctor, “the essence I mean is quite a different
concern.”
“Something too fine to be dribbled through the worm of a still,” said my
grandfather.
“Then I am all in the dark again,” rejoined Aunt Judy.
“By the spirit and essence of things I mean things in the abstract.”
“And what becomes of a thing when it gets into the abstract?” asked
Uncle Tim.
“Why, it becomes an abstraction.”
“There we are again,” said Uncle Tim; “but what the deuce is an
abstraction?”
“It’s a thing that has no matter; that is, it cannot be felt, seen,
heard, smelt or tasted; it has no substance or solidity; it is neither
large nor small, hot nor cold, long nor short.”
“Then what is the long and short of it?” asked the schoolmaster.
“Abstraction,” replied the Doctor.
“Suppose, for instance,” said Malachi, “that I had a pitchfork—”
“Ay,” said the Doctor, “consider a pitchfork in general; that is,
neither this one nor that one, nor any particular one, but a pitchfork
or pitchforks divested of their materiality—these are things in the
abstract.”
“They are things in the hay-mow,” said Malachi.
“Pray,” said Uncle Tim, “have there been many such things discovered?”
“Discovered!” returned the Doctor, “why all things, whether in heaven or
upon the earth, or in the waters under the earth, whether small or
great, visible or invisible, animate or inanimate; whatever the eye can
see, or the ear can hear, or the nose can smell, or the fingers touch;
finally, whatever exists or is imaginable in _rerum natura_, past,
present or to come, all may be abstractions.”
“Indeed!” said Uncle Tim, “pray what do you make of the abstraction of a
red cow?”
“A red cow,” said the Doctor, “considered metaphysically, or as an
abstraction, is an animal possessing neither hide nor horns, bones nor
flesh, but is the mere type, eidolon, and fantastical semblance of these
parts of a quadruped. It has a shape without any substance, and no
colour at all, for its redness is the mere counterfeit or imagination of
such. As it lacks the positive, so is it also deficient in the
accidental properties of all the animals of its tribe, for it has no
locomotion, stability, or endurance, neither goes to pasture, gives
milk, chews the cud, nor performs any other function of a horned beast,
but is a mere creature of the brain, begotten by a freak of the fancy,
and nourished by a conceit of the imagination.”
“A dog’s foot!” exclaimed Aunt Judy. “All the metaphysics under the sun
wouldn’t make a pound of butter.”
“That’s a fact!” said Uncle Tim.
-----
[12] Anonymous.
XVI.
A TIGHT RACE CONSIDERIN’.
During my medical studies, passed in a small village in Mississippi, I
became acquainted with a family named Hibbs, residing a few miles in the
country. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hibbs and son. They were
plain, unlettered people, honest in intent and deed, but overflowing
with that which amply made up for all their deficiencies of education,
namely, warm-hearted hospitality, the distinguishing trait of southern
character. They were originally from Virginia, from whence they had
emigrated in quest of a clime more genial, and a soil more productive
than that in which their fathers toiled.
Their search had been rewarded, their expectations realized, and now, in
their old age, though not wealthy in the “Astorian” sense, still they
had sufficient to keep the “wolf from the door,” and drop something more
substantial than condolence and tears, in the hat that poverty hands
round for the kind offerings of humanity.
The old man was like the generality of old planters, men whose ambition
is embraced by the family or social circle, and whose thoughts turn more
on the relative value of “Sea Island” and “Mastodon,” and the
improvement of their plantations, than the “glorious victories of
Whiggery in Kentucky,” or the “triumphs of democracy in Arkansas.”
The old lady was a shrewd, active dame, kind-hearted and long-tongued,
benevolent and impartial, making her coffee as strong for the poor
pedestrian, with his all upon his back, as the broadcloth sojourner,
with his “up-country pacer.”
She was a member of the church, as well as the daughter of a man who had
once owned a race-horse: and these circumstances gave her an
indisputable right, she thought, to “let on all she knew,” when religion
or horse-flesh was the theme.
At one moment, she would be heard discussing whether the new “circus
rider,” (as she always called the preacher,) was as affecting in Timothy
as the old one was pathetic in Paul, and anon, protecting dad’s horse
from the invidious comparisons of some visitor, who, having heard,
perhaps, that such horses as Fashion and Boston existed, thought himself
qualified to doubt the old lady’s assertion that her father’s horse
“Shumach” had run a mile on one particular occasion.
“Don’t tell _me_,” was her never-failing reply to their doubts, “don’t
tell _me_ ’bout Fashun or Bosting, or any other beating ‘Shumach’ a fair
race, for the thing was unfesible: didn’t he run a mile a minute by
Squire Dim’s watch, which always stopt ’zactly at twelve, and didn’t he
start a minute afore, and git out, jis as the long hand war givin’ its
last quiver on ketchin’ the short leg of the watch? And didn’t he beat
everything in Virginny ’cept once? Dad and the folks said he’d beat
then, if young Mr. Spotswood hadn’t give ‘old Swaga,’ Shumach’s rider,
some of that ‘Croton water,’ and jis ’fore the race Swage or Shumach, I
don’t ’stinctly ’member which, but one of them had to ‘_let down_,’ and
so dad’s hoss got beat.”
The son I will describe in a few words. Imbibing his parents’ contempt
for letters, he was very illiterate, and as he had not enjoyed the
equivalent of travel, was extremely ignorant on all matters not relating
to hunting or plantation duties. He was a stout, active fellow, with a
merry twinkling of the eye, indicative of humour, and partiality for
practical joking. We had become very intimate, he instructing me in
“forest lore,” and I, in return, giving amusing stories, or, what was as
much to his liking, occasional introductions to my hunting-flask.
Now that I have introduced the “Dramatis Personæ,” I will proceed with
my story. By way of relaxation, and to relieve the tedium incident more
or less to a student’s life, I would take my gun, walk out to old
Hibbs’s, spend a day or two, and return refreshed to my books.
One fine afternoon I started upon such an excursion, and as I had, upon
a previous occasion missed killing a fine buck, owing to my having
nothing but squirrel shot, I determined to go this time for the
“antlered monarch,” by loading one barrel with fifteen “blue whistlers,”
reserving the other for small game.
At the near end of the plantation was a fine spring, and adjacent, a
small cave, the entrance artfully or naturally concealed, save to one
acquainted with its locality. The cave was nothing but one of those
subterranean washes so common in the west and south, and called
“sink-holes.”
It was known only to young H. and myself, and we, for peculiar reasons,
kept secret, having put it in requisition as the depository of a jug of
“old Bourbon,” which we favoured, and as the old folks abominated
drinking, we had found convenient to keep there, whither we would repair
to get our drinks, and return to the house to hear them descant on the
evils of drinking, and “vow no ‘drap,’ ’cept in doctor’s truck, should
ever come on their plantation.”
Feeling very thirsty, I took my way by the spring that evening. As I
descended the hill o’er-topping it, I beheld the hind parts of a bear
slowly being drawn into the cave.
My heart bounded at the idea of killing a bear, and my plans were formed
in a second. I had no dogs—the house was distant—and the bear becoming
“small by degrees, and beautifully less.” Every hunter knows, if you
shoot a squirrel in the head when it’s sticking out of a hole, ten to
one he’ll jump out; and I reasoned that if this were true regarding
squirrels, might not the operation of the same principle extract a bear,
applying it low down in the back.
Quick as thought I levelled my gun and fired, intending to give him the
buckshot when his body appeared; but what was my surprise and horror,
when, instead of a bear rolling out, the parts were jerked nervously in,
and the well-known voice of young H. reached my ears.
“Murder! Ingins! snakes and kuckle-burs! Oh! Lordy! ’nuff!—’nuff!—take
him off! Jis let me off this wunst, dad, and I’ll never run mam’s colt
again! Oh, Lordy! Lordy! _all my brains blowed clean out!_ Snakes!
snakes!” yelled he, in a shriller tone, if possible, “Old Scratch on the
outside and snakes in the sink-hole! I’ll die a Christian, anyhow, and
if I die before I wake,” and out scrambled poor H., pursued by a large
black-snake.
If my life had depended on it, I could not have restrained my laughter.
Down fell the gun, and down dropped I shrieking convulsively. The hill
was steep, and over and over I went, until my head striking against a
stump at the bottom, stopped me, half senseless. On recovering somewhat
from the stunning blow, I found Hibbs upon me, taking satisfaction from
me for having blowed out his brains. A contest ensued, and H. finally
relinquished his hold, but I saw from the knitting of his brows, that
the bear-storm, instead of being over, was just brewing.
“Mr. Tensas,” he said with awful dignity, “I’m sorry I put into you
’fore you cum to, but you’re at yourself now, and as you’ve tuck a shot
at me, it’s no more than far I should have a chance ’fore the hunt’s
up.”
It was with the greatest difficulty I could get H. to bear with me until
I explained the mistake; but as soon as he learned it, he broke out in a
huge laugh:
“Oh, Dod busted! that’s ’nuff; you has my pardon. I ought to know’d you
didn’t ’tend it; ’sides, you jis scraped the skin. I war wus skeered
than hurt, and if you’ll go to the house and beg me off from the old
folks, I’ll never let on you cuddent tell copperas breeches from
bar-skin.”
Promising that I would use my influence, I proposed taking a drink, and
that he should tell me how he had incurred his parent’s anger. He
assented, and after we had inspected the cave, and seen that it held no
other serpent than the one we craved, we entered its cool recess, and H.
commenced:
“You see, Doc, I’d heered so much from mam ’bout her dad’s Shumach and
his nigger Swage, and the mile a minute, and the Croton water what was
gin him, and how she bleved that if it wara’t for bettin’, and the
cussin’ and fightin’, runnin’ race-hosses warn’t the sin folks said it
war; and if they war anything to make her ’gret gettin’ religion and
jinin’ the church, it war cos she couldn’t ’tend races, and have a
race-colt of her own to comfort her ’clinin’ years, sich as her daddy
had afore her; so I couldn’t rest for wantin’ to see a hoss-race, and go
shares, p’raps, in the colt she war wishin’ for.
“And then I’d think what sort of a hoss I’d want him to be—a quarter
nag, a mile critter, or a hoss what could run (fur all mam says it can’t
be did) a whole four mile at a stretch. Sometimes I think I’d rather own
a quarter nag, for the suspense wouldn’t long be hung, and then we could
run up the road to old Nick Bamer’s cow-pen, and Sally is almost allers
out thar in the cool of the evenin’; and in course we wouldn’t be so
cruel as to run the poor critter in the heat of the day. But then agin,
I’d think I’d rather have a miler; for the ’citement would be greater,
and we could run down the road to old Withers orchard, an his gal Miry
is frightfully fond of sunnin’ herself thar, when she ’spects me ’long,
and she’d hear of the race, certain; but then thar war the four-miler
for my thinkin’, and I’d knew’d in such case the ’citement would be
greatest of all, and you know, too, from dad’s stable to the grocery is
jist four miles, an’ in case of any ’spute, all hands would be willin’
to run over, even if it had to be tried a dozen times.
“So I never could ’cide on which sort of a colt to wish for. It was fust
one, then t’others, till I was nearly ’stracted. So I found the best way
was to get the hoss fust, and then ’termine whether it should be Sally
Bamers, and the cow-pen; Miry Withers, and the peach orchard; or
Spillman’s grocery, with the bald face.
“You’ve seed my black colt, that one that dad’s father gin me in his
will when he died, and I ’spect the reason he wrote that will war, that
he might have wun then, for it’s more then he had when he was alive, for
granma war a monstrus overbearin’ woman. The colt would cum up in my
mind, every time I’d think whar I was to git a hoss. ‘Git out!’ said I
at fust—_he_ never could run, and ’sides if he could, mam rides him
now, an he’s too old for anything, ’cept totin her and bein’ called
mine; for you see, though he war named Colt, yet for the old lady to
call him old, would bin like the bar ’fecting contempt for the rabbit,
on account of the shortness of his tail.
“Well, thought I, it does look sorter unpromisin’, but it’s colt or
none; so I ’termined to put him in trainin’ the fust chance. Last
Saturday, who should cum ridin’ up but the new circut preacher, a
long-legged, weakly, sickly,
never-contented-on-less-the-best-on-the-plantation-war-cooked-fur-him
sort of a man; but I didn’t look at him twice, his hoss was the critter
that took my eye; for the minute I looked at him, I knew him to be the
same hoss as Sam Spooner used to win all his splurgin’ dimes with, the
folks said, and wot he used to ride past our house so fine on. The hoss
war a heap the wuss for age and change of masters; for preachers, though
they’re mity ’ticular ’bout thar own comfort, seldom tends to thar
hosses; for one is privit property and ’tother generally borried.
“I seed from the way the preacher rid, that he didn’t know the animal he
war straddlin’; but I did, and I ’termined I wouldn’t lose sich a chance
of trainin’ Colt by the side of a hoss wot had run real races. So that
night, arter prayers and the folks was a-bed, I and Nigger Bill tuck the
hosses and carried them down to the pastur’. It war a forty-aker lot,
and consequently jist a quarter across—for I thought it best to promote
Colt, by degrees, to a four-miler. When we got thar, the preacher’s hoss
showed he war willin’; but Colt, dang him! commenced nibblin’ a
fodder-stack over the fence. I nearly cried for vexment, but an idea
struck me; I hitched the critter, and told Bill to get on Colt and stick
tight wen I giv’ the word. Bill got reddy, and unbeknownst to him I
pulled up a bunch of nettles, and, as I clapped them under Colt’s tail,
yelled, ‘Go!’ Down shut his graceful like a steel-trap, and away he shot
so quick an’ fast that he jumpt clean out from under Bill, and got
nearly to the end of the quarter ’fore the nigger toch the ground: he
lit on his head, and in course warn’t hurt—so we cotched Colt, an’ I
mounted him.
“The next time I said ‘go’ he showed that age hadn’t spiled his legs or
memory. Bill ’an me ’greed we could run him now, so Bill mounted
Preacher and we got ready. Thar war a narrer part of the track ’tween
two oaks, but as it war near the end of the quarter, I ’spected to pass
Preacher ’fore we got thar, so I warn’t afraid of barkin’ my shins.
“We tuck a fair start, and off we went like a peeled ingun, an’ I soon
’scovered that it warn’t such an easy matter to pass Preacher, though
Colt dun delightful; we got nigh the trees, and Preacher warn’t past
yet, an’ I ’gan to get skeered, for it warn’t more than wide enuf for a
horse and a half; so I hollered to Bill to hold up, but the imperdent
nigger turned his ugly pictur, and said, ‘he’d be cussed if he warn’t
goin’ to play his han’ out.’ I gin him to understand he’d better fix for
a foot-race when we stopt, and tried to hold up Colt, but he wouldn’t
stop. We reached the oaks, Colt tried to pass Preacher, Preacher tried
to pass Colt, and cowollop, crosh, cochunk! we all cum down like
’simmons arter frost. Colt got up and won the race; Preacher tried hard
to rise, but one hind leg had got threw the stirrup, an’ tother in the
head stall, an’ he had to lay still, doubled up like a long nigger in a
short bed. I lit on my feet, but Nigger Bill war gone entire. I looked
up in the fork of one of the oaks, and thar he war sittin’, lookin’ very
composed on surroundin’ nature. I couldn’t git him down till I promised
not to hurt him for disobeyin’ orders, when he slid down. We’d ’nuff
racin’ for that night, so we put up the hosses and went to bed.
“Next morning the folks got ready for church, when it was diskivered
that the hosses had got out. I an’ Bill started off to look for them; we
found them cleer off in the field, tryin’ to git in the pastur’ to run
the last night’s race over, old Blaze, the reverlushunary mule, bein’
along to act as judge.
“By the time we got to the house it war nigh on to meetin’ hour; and dad
had started to the preachin’, to tell the folks to sing on, as preacher
and mam would be ’long bimeby. As the passun war in a hurry, and had
been complainin’ that his creetur war dull, I ’suaded him to put on
uncle Jim’s spurs what he fotch from Mexico. I saddled the passun’s
hoss, takin’ ’ticular pains to let the saddle-blanket come down low in
the flank. By the time these fixins war threw, mam war ’head nigh on to
a quarter. ‘We must ride on, passun,’ I said, ‘or the folks’ll think we
is lost.’ So I whipt up the mule I rid, the passun chirrupt and chuct to
make his crittur gallop, but the animal didn’t mind him a pic. I ’gan to
snicker, an’ the passun ’gan to git vext; sudden he thought of his
spurs, so he ris up, an’ drove them _vim_ in his hoss’s flanx, till they
went through his saddle-blanket, and like to bored his nag to the
holler. By gosh! but it war a quickener—the hoss kickt till the passun
had to hug him round the neck to keep from pitchin’ him over his head.
He next jumpt up ’bout as high as a rail fence, passun holdin’ on and
tryin’ to git his spurs—but they war lockt—his breeches split plum
across with the strain, and the piece of wearin’ truck wot’s next the
skin made a monstrous putty flag as the old hoss, like drunkards to a
barbacue, streakt it up the road.
“Mam war ridin’ slowly along, thinkin’ how sorry she was, cos Chary
Dolin, who always led her off, had sich a bad cold, an’ wouldn’t be able
to ’sist her singin’ to-day. She war practisin’ the hymns, and had got
as far whar it says, ‘I have a race to run,’ when the passun huv in
sight, an’ in ’bout the dodgin’ of a diedapper, she found thar war truth
in the words, for the colt, hearin’ the hoss cumin’ up behind, began to
show symptoms of runnin’; but when he heard the passun holler, ‘wo wo!’
to his horse, he thought it war me shoutin’ ‘go!’ and sure ’nuff off
they started jis as the passun got up even; so it war a fair race.
Whoop! git out, but it war egsitin’—the dust flew, and the rail-fence
appeered strate as a rifle. Thar war the passun, his legs fast to the
critter’s flanx, arms lockt round his neck, face as pale as a rabbit’s
belly, and the white flag streemin’ far behind—and thar war Mam, fust
on one side, then on t’other, her new caliker swelled up round her like
a bear with the dropsy, the old lady so much surprized she cuddent ride
steddy, an’ tryin’ to stop her colt, but he war too well trained to stop
while he heard ‘go!’
“Mam got ’sited at last, and her eyes ’gan to glimmer like she seen her
daddy’s ghost axin’ ‘if he ever trained up a child or a race-hoss to be
’fraid of a small brush on a Sunday,’ she commenced ridin’ beautiful;
she braced herself up in the saddle, and began to make calkerlations how
she war to win the race, for it war nose and nose, and she saw the
passun spurrin’ his critter every jump. She tuk off her shoe, and the
way a number ten go-to-meetin’ brogan commenced givin’ a hoss particular
Moses, were a caution to hoss-flesh—but still it kept nose and nose.
She found she war carryin’ too much weight for Colt, so she ’gan to
throw off plunder, till nuthin’ was left but her saddle and close, and
the spurs kept tellin’ still. The old woman commenced strippin’ to
lighten till it wouldn’t bin the clean thing for her to have taken off
one dud more; an’ then when she found it war no use while the spurs
lasted, she got cantankerous.
“‘Passun,’ said she, ‘I’ll be cust if it’s fair or gentlemanly for you,
a preacher of the gospel, to take advantage of an old woman this way,
usin’ spurs when you know _she_ can’t wear ’em—’taint Christian-like
nuther,’ and she bust into cryin’.
“‘Wo! Miss Hibbs! Wo! Stop! Madam! Wo! Your son!’ he attempted to say,
when the old woman tuck him on the back of the head, and fillin’ his
mouth with right smart of a saddle-horn, and stoppin’ the talk, as far
as his share went for the present.
“By this time they’d got nigh on to the meetin’-house, and the folks
were harkin’ away on ‘Old Hundred,’ and wonderin’ what could have become
of the passun and Mam Hibbs. One sister in a long beard axt another
brethren in church, if she’d heerd anything ’bout that New York preecher
runnin’ way with a woman old enough to be his muther. The brethrens gin
a long sigh an’ groaned:
“‘It ain’t possible! marciful heavens! you don’t ’spicion?’ wen the
sound of the hosses comin’, roused them up like a touch of the agur, an’
broke off their sarpent-talk.
“Dad run out to see what was to pay, but when he seed the hosses so
close together, the passun spurrin’, and mam ridin’ close war skase whar
she cum, he knew her fix in a second, and ’tarmined to help her; so
clinchin’ a saplin’, he hid ’hind a stump ’bout ten steps off, and held
on for the hosses. On they went in beautiful style, the passun’s spurs
tellin’ terrible, and mam’s shoe operatin’ ‘no small pile of
punkins,’—passun stretched out the length of two hosses, while mam sot
as stiff and strate as a bull yearling in his fust fight, hittin’ her
nag fust on one side, next on t’other, and the third for the passun, who
had chawed the horn till little of the saddle, and less of his teeth war
left, and his voice sounded as holler as a jackass-nicker in an old
saw-mill.
“The hosses war nose and nose, jam up together so close that mam’s last
kiverin’ and passun’s flag had got lockt, an’ ’tween bleached domestic
and striped lindsey made a beautiful banner for the pious racers.
“On they went like a small arthquake, an’ it seemed like it war goin’ to
be a draun race; but dad, when they got to him, let down with all his
might on Colt, scarin’ him so bad that he jumpt clean ahead of passun,
beatin’ him by a neck, buttin’ his own head agin the meetin’-house, an’
pitchin’ mam, like a lam for the sacryfise, plum through the winder
’mongst the mourners, leavin’ her only garment flutterin’ on a nail in
the sash. The men shot their eyes and scrambled outen the house, an’ the
woman gin mam so much of their close that they like to put themselves in
the same fix.
“The passun quit the circut, and I haven’t been home yet.”
XVII.
A SHARK STORY.
“Well, gentlemen, I’ll go ahead, if you say so. Here’s the story. It is
true, upon my honour, from beginning to end—every word of it. I once
crossed over to Faulkner’s island to fish for _tautaugs_, as the
north-side people call black fish, on the reefs hard by, in the Long
Island Sound. Tim Titus (who died of the dropsy down at Shinnecock
point, last spring) lived there then. Tim was a right good fellow, only
he drank rather too much.
“It was during the latter part of July; the sharks and the dog-fish had
just began to spoil sport. When Tim told me about the sharks, I resolved
to go prepared to entertain these aquatic savages with all becoming
attention and regard, if there should chance to be any interloping about
our fishing ground. So, we rigged out a set of extra large hooks, and
shipped some rope-yarn and steel chain, an axe, a couple of clubs, and
an old harpoon, in addition to our ordinary equipments, and off we
started. We threw out our anchor at half ebb-tide, and took some
thumping large fish; two of them weighed thirteen pounds—so you may
judge. The reef where we lay was about half a mile from the island, and,
perhaps, a mile from the Connecticut shore. We floated there, very
quietly, throwing out and hauling in, until the breaking of my line,
with a sudden and severe jerk, informed me that the sea attorneys were
in waiting, down stairs; and we accordingly prepared to give them a
retainer. A salt pork cloak upon one of our magnum hooks forthwith
engaged one of the gentlemen in our service. We got him alongside, and
by dint of piercing, and thrusting, and banging, we accomplished a most
exciting and merry murder. We had business enough of the kind to keep us
employed until near low water. By this time, the sharks had all cleared
out, and the black fish were biting again; the rock began to make its
appearance above the water, and in a little while its hard bald head was
entirely dry. Tim now proposed to set me out upon the rock, while he
rowed ashore to get the jug, which, strange to say, we had left at the
house. I assented to this proposition; first, because I began to feel
the effects of the sun upon my tongue, and needed something to take, by
the way of medicine; and secondly because the rock was a favourite spot
for rod and reel, and famous for luck: so I took my _traps_, and a box
of bait, and jumped upon my new station. Tim made for the island.
“Not many men would willingly have been left upon a little barren reef
that was covered by every flow of the tide, in the midst of a waste of
waters, at such a distance from the shore, even with an assurance from a
companion more to be depended upon than mine, that he would return
immediately and take him off. But somehow or other, the excitement of
the sport was so high, and the romance of the situation was so
delightful, that I thought of nothing else but the prospect of my fun,
and the contemplation of the novelty and beauty of the scene. It was a
mild, pleasant afternoon, in harvest time. The sky was clear and pure.
The deep blue sound, heaving all around me, was studded with craft of
all descriptions and dimensions, from the dipping sail-boat to the
rolling merchantman, sinking and rising like sea-birds sporting with
their white wings in the surge. The grain and grass on the neighbouring
farms were gold and green, and gracefully they bent obeisance to a
gently breathing south-wester. Farther off, the high upland, and the
distant coast, gave a dim relief to the prominent features of the
landscape, and seemed the rich but dusky frame of a brilliant fairy
picture. Then, how still it was! not a sound could be heard, except the
occasional rustling of my own motion, and the water beating against the
sides, or gurgling in the fissures of the rock, or except now and then
the cry of a solitary saucy gull, who would come out of his way in the
firmament, to see what I was doing without a boat, all alone, in the
middle of the sound; and who would hover, and cry, and chatter, and make
two or three circling swoops and dashes at me, and then, after having
satisfied his curiosity, glide away in search of some other food to
scream at.
“I soon became half indolent, and quite indifferent about fishing; so I
stretched myself out at full length upon the rock and gave myself up to
the luxury of looking and thinking. The divine exercise soon put me fast
asleep. I dreamed away a couple of hours, and longer might have dreamed,
but for a tired fish-hawk who chose to make my head his resting place,
and who waked and started me to my feet.
“‘Where is Tim Titus?’ I muttered to myself, as I strained my eyes over
the now darkened water. But none was near me to answer that interesting
question, and nothing was to be seen of either Tim or his boat. ‘He
should have been here long ere this,’ thought I, ‘and he promised
faithfully not to stay long—could he have forgotten? or has he paid too
much devotion to the jug?’
“I began to feel uneasy, for the tide was rising fast, and soon would
cover the top of the rock, and high water-mark was at least a foot above
my head. I buttoned up my coat, for either the coming coolness of the
evening, or else my growing apprehensions, had set me trembling and
chattering most painfully. I braced my nerves, and set my teeth, and
tried to hum ‘Begone, dull care,’ keeping time with my fists upon my
thighs. But what music! what melancholy merriment! I started and
shuddered at the doleful sound of my own voice. I am not naturally a
coward; but I should like to know the man who would not, in such a
situation, be alarmed. It is a cruel death to die to be merely drowned,
and to go through the ordinary common-places of suffocation; but to see
your death gradually rising to your eyes, to feel the water rising, inch
by inch, upon your shivering sides, and to anticipate the certainly
coming, choking struggle for your last breath, when, with the gurgling
sound of an overflowing brook taking a new direction, the cold brine
pours into mouth, ears, and nostrils, usurping the seat and avenues of
health and life, and, with gradual flow,
stifling—smothering—suffocating! It were better to die a thousand
common deaths.
“This is one of the instances in which, it must be admitted, salt water
is not a pleasant subject of contemplation. However, the rock was not
yet covered, and hope, blessed hope, stuck faithfully by me. To beguile,
if possible, the weary time, I put on a bait, and threw out for fish. I
was sooner successful than I could have wished to be, for hardly had my
line struck the water, before the hook was swallowed, and my rod was
bent with the dead hard pull of a twelve foot shark. I let him run about
fifty yards, and then reeled up. He appeared not at all alarmed, and I
could scarcely feel him bear upon my fine hair line. He followed the
pull gently and unresisting, came up to the rock, laid his nose upon its
side, and looked up into my face, not as if utterly unconcerned, but
with a sort of quizzical impudence, as though he perfectly understood
the precarious nature of my situation. The conduct of my captive renewed
and increased my alarm. And well it might; for the tide was now running
over a corner of the rock behind me, and a small stream rushed through a
cleft, or fissure, by my side, and formed a puddle at my very feet. I
broke my hook out of the monster’s mouth, and leaned upon my rod for
support.
“‘Where is Tim Titus?’ I cried aloud. ‘Curse on the drunken vagabond!
Will he never come?’
“My ejaculations did no good. No Timothy appeared. It became evident
that I must prepare for drowning, or for action. The reef was completely
covered, and the water was above the soles of my feet. I was not much of
a swimmer, and as to ever reaching the island, I could not even hope for
that. However, there was no alternative, and I tried to encourage
myself, by reflecting that necessity was the mother of invention, and
that desperation will sometimes insure success. Besides, too, I
considered and took comfort from the thought that I could wait for Tim,
so long as I had a foothold, and then commit myself to the uncertain
strength of my arms and legs for salvation. So I turned my bait-box
upside down, and mounting upon that, endeavoured to comfort my spirits,
and to be courageous, but submissive to my fate. I thought of death, and
what it might bring with it, and I tried to repent of the multiplied
iniquities of my almost wasted life; but I found that that was no place
for a sinner to settle his accounts. Wretched soul, pray I could not.
“The water had not got above my ankles, when, to my inexpressible joy, I
saw a sloop bending down towards me, with the evident intention of
picking me up. No man can imagine what were the sensations of gratitude
which filled my bosom at that moment.
“When she got within a hundred yards of the reef, I sung out to the man
at the helm to luff up, and lie by, and lower the boat; but to my
amazement, I could get no reply, nor notice of my request. I entreated
them, for the love of heaven, to take me off; and I promised, I know not
what rewards, that were entirely beyond my power of bestowal. But the
brutal wretch of a captain, muttering something to the effect of ‘that
he hadn’t time to stop,’ and giving me the kind and sensible advice to
pull off my coat and swim ashore, put the helm hard down, and away bore
the sloop on the other tack.
“‘Heartless villain!’ I shrieked out, in the torture of my
disappointment; ‘may God reward your inhumanity.’
“The crew answered my prayer with a coarse, loud laugh; and the cook
asked me through a speaking trumpet, ‘If I was not afraid of catching
cold.’—The black rascal!
“It now was time to strip; for my knees felt the cool tide, and the wind
dying away, left a heavy swell, that swayed and shook the box upon which
I was mounted, so that I had occasionally to stoop, and paddle with my
hands against the water in order to preserve my perpendicular. The
setting sun sent his almost horizontal streams of fire across the dark
waters, making them gloomy and terrific, by the contrast of his amber
and purple glories.
“Something glided by me in the water, and then made a sudden halt. I
looked upon the black mass, and, as my eye ran along its dark outline, I
saw, with horror, that it was a shark; the identical monster out of
whose mouth I had just broken my hook. He was fishing now for me, and
was evidently only waiting for the tide to rise high enough above the
rock, to glut at once his hunger and revenge. As the water continued to
mount above my knees, he seemed to grow more hungry and familiar. At
last, he made a desperate dash, and approaching within an inch of my
legs, turned upon his back, and opened his huge jaws for an attack. With
desperate strength, I thrust the end of my rod violently at his mouth;
and the brass head, ringing against his teeth, threw him back into the
deep current, and I lost sight of him entirely. This, however, was but a
momentary repulse; for in the next minute he was close behind my back,
and pulling at the skirts of my fustian coat, which hung dipping into
the water. I leaned forward hastily, and endeavoured to extricate myself
from the dangerous grasp; but the monster’s teeth were too firmly set,
and his immense strength nearly drew me over. So, down flew my rod, and
off went my jacket, devoted peace-offerings to my voracious visitor.
“In an instant, the waves all round me were lashed into froth and foam.
No sooner was my poor old sporting friend drawn under the surface, than
it was fought for by at least a dozen enormous combatants! The battle
raged upon every side. High black fins rushed now here, now there, and
long, strong tails scattered sleet and froth, and the brine was thrown
up in jets, and eddied and curled, and fell, and swelled, like a
whirlpool in Hell-gate.
“Of no long duration, however, was this fishy tourney. It seemed soon to
be discovered that the prize contended for contained nothing edible but
cheese and crackers, and no flesh; and as its mutilated fragments rose
to the surface, the waves subsided into their former smooth condition.
Not till then did I experience the real terrors of my situation. As I
looked around me to see what had become of the robbers, I counted one,
two, three, yes, up to twelve, successively, of the largest sharks I
ever saw, floating in a circle around me, like divergent rays, all
mathematically equidistant from the rock, and from each other; each
perfectly motionless, and with his gloating, fiery eye, fixed full and
fierce upon me. Basilisks and rattlesnakes! how the fire of their steady
eyes entered into my heart! I was the centre of a circle, whose radii
were sharks! I was the unsprung, or rather _unchewed_ game, at which a
pack of hunting sea-dogs were making a dead point!
“There was one old fellow, that kept within the circumference of the
circle. He seemed to be a sort of captain, or leader of the band; or,
rather, he acted as the coroner for the other twelve of the inquisition,
that were summoned to sit on, and eat up my body. He glided around and
about, and every now and then would stop, and touch his nose against
some one of his comrades, and seem to consult, or to give instructions
as to the time and mode of operation. Occasionally, he would skull
himself up towards me, and examine the condition of my flesh, and then
again glide back, and rejoin the troupe, and flap his tail, and have
another confabulation. The old rascal had, no doubt, been out into the
highways and byways, and collected this company of his friends and
kin-fish, and invited them to supper.
“I must confess, that horribly as I felt, I could not help but think of
a tea-party, of demure old maids, sitting in a solemn circle, with their
skinny hands in their laps, licking their expectant lips, while their
hostess bustles about in the important functions of her preparations.
With what an eye have I seen such appurtenances of humanity survey the
location and adjustment of some especial condiment, which is about to be
submitted to criticism and consumption.
“My sensations began to be, now, most exquisite indeed; but I will not
attempt to describe them. I was neither hot nor cold, frightened nor
composed; but I had a combination of all kinds of feelings and emotions.
The present, past, future, heaven, earth, my father and mother, a little
girl I knew once, and the sharks, were all confusedly mixed up together,
and swelled my crazy brain almost to bursting. I cried, and laughed, and
spouted, and screamed for Tim Titus.
“In a fit of most wise madness, I opened my broad-bladed fishing-knife,
and waved it around my head with an air of defiance. As the tide
continued to rise, my extravagance of madness mounted. At one time, I
became persuaded that my tide-waiters were reasonable beings, who might
be talked into mercy and humanity, if a body could only hit upon the
right text. So, I bowed, and gesticulated, and threw out my hands, and
talked to them, as friends, and brothers, members of my family, cousins,
uncles, aunts, people waiting to have their bills paid; I scolded them
as my servants; I abused them as duns; I implored them as jurymen
sitting on the question of my life; I congratulated, and flattered them
as my comrades upon some glorious enterprise; I sung and ranted to them,
now as an actor in a play-house, and now as an elder at a camp-meeting;
in one moment, roaring,
“‘On this cold flinty rock I will lay down my head,’—
and in the next, giving out to my attentive hearers for singing, a hymn
of Dr. Watts so admirably appropriate to the occasion:
“‘On slippery rocks I see them stand,
While fiery billows roll below.’”
“What said I, what did I not say! Prose and poetry, scripture and drama,
romance and ratiocination—out it came. ‘_Quamdiu, Catalina, nostra
patientia abutere?_’—I sung out to the old captain, to begin with: ‘My
brave associates, partners of my toil,’—so ran the strain. ‘On which
side soever I turn my eyes,’—‘Gentlemen of the jury,’—‘I come not here
to steal away your hearts,’—‘You are not wood, you are not stones,
but’—‘Hah!’—‘Begin, ye tormentors, your tortures are vain,’—‘Good
friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to any sudden
flood,’—‘The angry flood that lashed her groaning sides,’—‘Ladies and
gentlemen,’—‘My very noble and approved good masters,’—‘Avaunt! and
quit my sight; let the earth hide ye,’—‘Lie lightly on his head, O
earth!’—‘O, heaven and earth, that it should come to this!’—‘The
torrent roared, and we did buffet it with lusty sinews, stemming it
aside and oaring it with hearts of controversy,’—‘Give me some drink,
Titinius,’—‘Drink, boys, drink, and drown dull sorrow,’—‘For liquor it
doth roll such comfort to the soul,’—‘Romans, countrymen and lovers,
hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear,’—‘Fellow
citizens, assembled as we are upon this interesting occasion, impressed
with the truth and beauty,’—‘Isle of beauty, fare thee well,’—‘The
quality of mercy is not strained,’—‘Magna veritas et
prevalebit,’—‘Truth is potent, and’—‘Most potent, grave, and reverend
seigniors,’—
“‘Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar’s vesture wounded,’—
Ha! ha! ha!—and I broke out in a fit of most horrible laughter, as I
thought of the mincemeat particles of my lacerated jacket.”
“In the meantime, the water had got well up towards my shoulders, and
while I was shaking and vibrating upon my uncertain foothold, I felt the
cold nose of the captain of the band snubbing against my side.
Desperately, and without a definite object, I struck my knife at one of
his eyes, and, by some singular fortune, cut it out clean from the
socket. The shark darted back, and halted. In an instant, hope and
reason came to my relief; and it occurred to me, that if I could only
blind the monster, I might yet escape. Accordingly, I stood ready for
the next attack. The loss of an eye did not seem to affect him much, for
after shaking his head once or twice, he came up to me again, and when
he was about half an inch off, turned upon his back. This was the
critical moment. With a most unaccountable presence of mind, I laid hold
of his nose with my left hand, and with my right scooped out his
remaining organ of vision. He opened his big mouth, and champed his long
teeth at me, in despair. But it was all over with him. I raised my right
foot and gave him a hard shove, and he glided off into deep water, and
went to the bottom.
“Well, gentlemen, I suppose you’d think it a hard story, but it’s none
the less a fact, that I served every remaining one of those nineteen
sharks in the same fashion. They all came up to me, one by one,
regularly and in order, and I scooped their eyes out, and gave them a
shove, and they went off into deep water, just like so many lambs. By
the time I had scooped out and blinded a couple of dozen of them, they
began to seem so scarce that I thought I would swim for the island, and
fight the rest for fun, on the way; but just then, Tim Titus hove in
sight, and it had got to be almost dark, and I concluded to get aboard
and rest myself.”
XVIII.
A BEAR STORY.
“What a lie!” growled Daniel, as soon as the shark story was ended.
“Have my doubts;” suggested the somnolent Peter Probasco, with all the
solemnity of a man who knows his situation; at the same time shaking his
head and spilling his liquor.
“Ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!” roared all the rest of the boys together.
“Is he done?” asked Raynor Rock.
“How many shirks was there?” cried long John, putting in his unusual
lingual oar.
“That story puts me in mind,” said Venus Raynor, “about what I’ve heerd
tell on Ebenezer Smith, at the time he went down to the North Pole on a
walen’ voyage.”
“Now look out for a screamer,” laughed out Raynor Rock, refilling his
pipe. “Stand by, Mr. Cypress, to let the sheet go.”
“Is there anything uncommon about that yarn, Venus?”
“Oncommon! well, I expect it’s putty smart and oncommon for a man to go
to sea with a bear, all alone, on a bare cake of ice. Captain Smith’s
woman used to say she couldn’t bear to think on’t.”
“Tell us the whole of that, Venus,” said Ned—“that is, if it is true.
Mine was—the whole of it—although Peter has his doubts.”
“I can’t tell it as well as Zoph can; but I’ve no ’jections to tell it
my way, no how. So, here goes—that’s great brandy, Mr. Cypress.” There
was a gurgling sound of “something-to-take,” running.
“Well, they was down into Baffin’s Bay, or some other o’ them cold
Norwegen bays at the north, where the rain freezes as it comes down, and
stands up in the air, on winter mornens, like great mountens o’ ice, all
in streaks. Well, the schooner was layen at anchor, and all the hands
was out into the small boats, looken out for wales—all except the
capting, who said he wa’n’t very well that day. Well, he was walken up
and down, on deck, smoken and thinking, I expect, mostly, when all of a
sudden he reckoned he see one o’ them big white bears—polar bears, you
know—big as thunder—with long teeth. He reckoned he see one on ’em
sclumpen along on a great cake o’ ice, that lay on the leeward side of
the bay, up agin the bank. The old capting wanted to kill one o’ them
varments most wonderful, but he never lucked to get a chance. Now tho’,
he thought, the time had come for him to walk into one on ’em at laast,
and fix his mutton for him right. So he run forrard and lay hold onto a
small skiff, that was layen near the forc’stal, and run her out and
launched her; then he tuk a drink, and—here’s luck—and put in a stiff
load of powder, a couple of balls, and jumped in, and pulled away for
the ice.
“It wa’n’t long ’fore he got ’cross the bay, for it was a narrer piece
of water—not more than haaf a mile wide—and then he got out on to the
ice. It was a smart and large cake, and the bear was ’way down to the
tother end on it, by the edge o’ the water. So, he walked fust strut
along, and then when he got putty cloast he walked round
catecorned-like—like’s if he was drivin’ for a plain plover—so that
the bear wouldn’t think he was comen arter him, and he dragged himself
along on his hands and knees, low down, mostly. Well, the bear didn’t
seem to mind him none, and he got up within ’bout fifty yards on him,
and then he looked so savage and big—the bear did—that the captain
stopped and rested on his knees, and put up his gun, and was agoin’ to
shoot. But just then the bear turned round and snuffed up the
captin—just as one of Lif’s hounds snuffs up an old buck, Mr.
Cypress—and begun to walk towards him, slowly like. He come along, the
captin said, clump, clump, very slow, and made the ice bend and crack
again under him, so that the water come up and putty much kivered it all
over. Well, there the captin was all the time squat on his knees, with
his gun pinted, waiten for the varment to come up, and his knees and
legs was mighty cold by means of the water that the bear riz on the ice
as I was mentionen. At last the bear seemed to make up his mind how the
captin _would_ taste, and so he left off walkin’ slow, and started off
on a smart swift trot, right towards the old man, with his mouth wide
open, roaren, and his tail sticken out stiff. The captin kept still,
looken out all the time putty sharp, I should say, till the beast got
within about ten yards on him, and then he let him have it. He aimed
right at the fleshy part of his heart, but the bear dodged at the flash,
and rared up, and the balls went into his two hind legs, just by the
jynt, one into each, and broke the thigh bones smack off, so that he
went right down aft, on the ice, thump, on his hind quarters, with
nothen standen but his fore legs, and his head riz up, a growlen at the
captin. When the old man see him down, and tryen to slide along the ice
to get his revenge, likely, thinks he to himself, thinks he, I might as
well get up and go and cut that ere creter’s throat. So he tuk out his
knife and opened it.
“But when he started to get up, he found, to his astonishment, that he
was fruz fast to the ice. Don’t laugh: it’s a fact; there an’t no doubt.
The water, you see, had been round him a smart and long while, whilst he
was waiten for the bear, and it’s wonderful cold in them regions, as I
was sayen, and you’ll freeze in a minit if you don’t keep moven about
smartly. So the captin he strained first one leg, and then he strained
tother, but he couldn’t move ’em none. They was both fruz fast into the
ice, about an inch and a half deep, from knee to toe, tight as a Jersey
oyster perryauger on a mud flat at low water. So he laid down his gun,
and looked at the bear, and doubled up his fists.
“‘Come on, you bloody varmint,’ says the old man, as the bear swalloped
along on his hinder eend, comen at him.
“He kept getten weaker, tho,’ and comen slower and slower all the time,
so that at last, he didn’t seem to move none; and directly, when he’d
got so near that the captin could jist give him a dig in the nose by
reachen forrard putty smart and far, the captin see that the beast was
fruz fast too, nor he couldn’t move a step further forrard no ways. Then
the captin burst out a laughen, and clapped his hands down on to his
thighs, and roared. The bear seemed to be most onmighty mad at the old
man’s fun, and set up such a growlen that what should come to pass, but
the ice cracks and breaks all around the captin and the bear, down to
the water’s edge, and the wind jist then a shiften, and comen off shore,
away they floated on a cake of ice about ten by six, off to sea, without
the darned a biscot or a quart o’ liquor to stand ’em on the cruise!
There they sot, the bear and the captin, just so near that when they
both reached forrards, they could jist about touch noses, and nother one
not able to move any part on him, only excepten his upper part and fore
paws.”
“By jolly! that was rather a critical predicament, Venus,” cried Ned,
buttoning his coat. “I should have thought that the captain’s nose and
ears and hands would have been frozen too.”
“That’s quite naytr’l to suppose, Sir, but you see the bear kept him
warm in the upper parts, by being so cloast to him, and breathen hard
and hot on the old man whenever he growled at him. Them polar bears is
wonderful hardy animals, and has a monstrous deal o’ heat into ’em, by
means of their bein’ able to stand such cold climates, I expect. And so
the captin knowed this, and whenever he felt chilly, he just tuk up his
ramrod and stirred up the old rascal, and made him roar and squeal, and
then the hot breath would come pouren out all over the captin, and made
the air quite moderat and pleasant.”
“Well, go on, Venus. Take another horn first.”
“Well, there a’nt much more on’t. Off they went to sea, and sometimes
the wind druv ’em nothe, and then agin it druv ’em southe, but they went
southe mostly; and so it went on until they were out about three weeks.
So at last, one afternoon—”
“But, Venus, stop: tell us, in the name of wonder, how did the captain
contrive to support life all this time?”
“Why, Sir, to be sure, it was a hard kind o’ life to support, but a
hardy man will get used to almost—”
“No, no: what did he eat? what did he feed on?”
“O—O—I’d liked to’ve skipped that ere. Why, Sir, I’ve heerd different
accounts as to that. Uncle Obe Verity told me he reckoned the captin cut
off one of the bear’s paws, when he lay stretched out asleep one day,
with his jack-knife, and sucked that for fodder, and they say there’s a
smart deal o’ nourishment in a white bear’s foot. But if I may be
allowed to spend my ’pinion, I should say my old man’s account is the
rightest, and that’s—what’s as follows. You see after they’d been out
three days abouts, they begun to grow kind o’ hungry, and then they got
friendly, for misery loves company, you know; and the captin said the
bear looked at him several times, very sorrowful, as much as to say,
‘Captin, what the devil shall we do?’ Well, one day they was sitten
looken at each other, with the tears ready to burst out o’ their eyes,
when all of a hurry, somethin’ come floppen up out o’ the water onto the
ice. The captin looked and see it was a seal. The bear’s eyes kindled up
as he looked at it, and then, the captin said, he giv him a wink to keep
still. So there they sot, still as starch, till the seal not thinken
nothin’ o’ them no more nor if they was dead, walked right up between
’em. Then slump! went down old whitey’s nails into the fish’s flesh, and
the captin run his jack-knife into the tender loin. The seal soon got
his bitters, and the captin cut a big hunk off the tale eend, and put it
behind him, out o’ the bear’s reach, and then he felt smart and
comfortable, for he had stores enough for a long cruise, though the bear
couldn’t say so much for himself.
“Well, the bear, by course, soon run out o’ provisions, and had to put
himself onto short allowance; and then he begun to show his natural
temper. He first stretched himself out as far as he could go, and tried
to hook the captin’s piece o’ seal, but when he found he couldn’t reach
that, he begun to blow and yell. Then he’d rare up and roar, and try to
get himself clear from the ice. But mostly he rared up and roared, and
pounded his big paws and head upon the ice, till by-and-by (jist as the
captin said he expected) the ice cracked in two agin, and split right
through between the bear and the captin and there they was on two
different pieces o’ ice, the captin and the bear! The old man said he
raaly felt sorry at parten company, and when the cake split and
separate, he cut off about a haaf o’ pound o’ seal and chucked it to the
bear. But either because it wan’t enough for him, or else on account o’
his feelen bad at the captin’s goen, the beast wouldn’t touch it to eat
it, and he laid it down, and growled and moaned over it quite pitiful.
Well, off they went, one, one way, and t’other ’nother way, both feel’n
pretty bad, I expect. After a while the captin got smart and cold, and
felt mighty lonesome, and he said he raaly thought he’d a gi’n in and
died, if they hadn’t pick’d him up that arternoon.”
“Who picked him up, Venus?”
“Who? a codfish craft off o’ Newfoundland, I expect. They didn’t know
what to make o’ him when they first see him slingen up his hat for ’em.
But they got out all their boats, and took a small swivel and a couple
o’ muskets aboard, and started off—expecten it was the sea-sarpent, or
an old maremaid. They wouldn’t believe it was a man, until he’d told ’em
all about it, and then they didn’t hardly believe it nuther; and they
cut him out o’ the ice and tuk him aboard their vessel, and rubbed his
legs with ile o’ vitrol; but it was a long time afore they come to.”
“Didn’t they hurt him badly in cutting him out, Venus?”
“No, Sir, I believe not; not so bad as one might s’pose: for you see
he’d been stuck in so long, that the circulaten on his blood had kind o’
rotted the ice that was right next to him, and when they begun to cut,
it crack’d off putty smart and easy, and he come out whole like a hard
biled egg.”
“What became of the bear?”
“Can’t say as to that, what became o’ him. He went off to sea
somewheres, I expect. I should like to know, myself, how the varment got
along right well, for it was kind in him to let the captin have the
biggest haaf o’ the seal, any how. That’s all, boys. How many’s asleep?”
XIX.
THE BEST-NATURED MAN IN THE WORLD.[13]
A yielding temper, when not carefully watched and curbed, is one of the
most dangerous of faults. Like unregulated generosity, it is apt to
carry its owner into a thousand difficulties, and, too frequently, to
hurry him into vice, if not into crimes. But as it is of advantage to
others while inflicting injury upon its possessor, it has, by the common
consent of mankind, received a fine name, which covers its follies and
promotes its growth. This easiness of disposition, which is a compound
of indolence, vanity, and irresolution, is known and applauded as
“good-nature;” and, to have reached the superlative degree, so as to be
called the “best-natured fellow in the world—almost too good-natured
for his own good,” is regarded as a lofty merit.
The “best-natured fellow in the world” is merely a convenience; very
useful to others, but worse than useless to himself. He is the bridge
across the brook, and men walk over him. He is the wandering pony of the
Pampas, seeking his own provender, yet ridden by those who contribute
not to his support. He giveth up all the sunshine, and hath nothing but
chilling shade for himself. He waiteth at the table of the world,
serveth the guests, who clear the board, and, for food and pay, give him
fine words, which culinary research hath long since ascertained cannot
be used with profit, even in the buttering of parsnips. He is, in fact,
an appendage, not an individuality; and when worn out, as he soon must
be, is thrown aside to make room for another, if another can be had.
Such is the result of excessive compliance and obsequious good-nature.
It plundereth a man of his spine, and converteth him into a flexible
willow, to be bent and twisted as his companions choose, and, should it
please them, to be wreathed into a fish-basket.
Are there any who doubt of this? Let them inquire for one Leniter Salix,
and ask his opinion. Leniter may be ragged, but his philosophy has not
so many holes in it as might be inferred from the state of his wardrobe.
Nay, it is the more perfect on that account; a knowledge of the world
penetrates the more easily when, from defective apparel, we approach the
nearer to our original selves. Leniter’s hat is crownless, and the clear
light of knowledge streams without impediment upon his brain. He is not
bound up in the strait jacket of prejudice, for he long since pawned his
solitary vest, and his coat, made for a Goliath, hangs about him as
loosely as a politician’s principles, or as the purser’s shirt in the
poetical comparison. Salix has so long bumped his head against a stone
wall, that he has knocked a hole in it, and like Cooke, the tragedian,
sees through his error. He has speculated as extensively in experience
as if it were town lots. The quantity of that article he has purchased,
could it be made tangible, would freight a seventy-four;—were it
convertible into cash, Crœsus would be a Chelsea pensioner to Salix. But
unluckily for him, there are stages in life when experience itself is
more ornamental than useful. When, to use a forcible expression—when a
man is “done,”—it matters not whether he has as much experience as
Samson had hair, or as Bergami had whisker—he can do no more. Salix has
been in his time so much pestered with _duns_, “hateful to gods and
men,” that he is _done_ himself.
“The sun was rushing down the west,” as Banim has it, attending to its
own business, and, by that means, shedding benefit upon the world, when
Leniter Salix was seen in front of a little grocery, the _locale_ of
which shall be nameless, sitting dejectedly upon a keg of mackerel,
number 2. He had been “the best-natured fellow in the world,” but, as
the geologists say, he was in a state of transition, and was rapidly
becoming up to _trap_. At all events, he had his nose to the grindstone,
an operation which should make men keen. He was houseless, homeless,
penniless, and the grocery man had asked him to keep an eye upon the
dog, for fear of the midsummer catastrophe which awaits such animals
when their snouts are not in a birdcage. This service was to be
recompensed with a cracker, and a glass of what the shopman was pleased
to call _racky mirackilis_, a fluid sometimes termed “railroad,” from
the rapidity with which it hurries men to the end of their journey. Like
many of the best-natured fellows in the world, Salix, by way of being a
capital companion, and of not being different from others, had acquired
rather a partiality for riding on this “railroad,” and he agreed to keep
his trigger eye on the dog.
“That’s right, Salix. I always knowed you were the best-natured fellow
in the world.”
“H-u-m-p-s-e!” sighed Salix, in a prolonged, plaintive, uncertain
manner, as if he admitted the fact, but doubted the honour;
“h-u-m-p-s-e! but, if it wasn’t for the railroad, which is good for my
complaint, because I take it internally to drive out the perspiration,
I’ve a sort of a notion Carlo might take care of himself. There’s the
dog playing about without his muzzle, just because I’m good-natured;
there’s Timpkins at work making money inside, instead of watching his
own whelp, just because I’m good-natured; and I’m to sit here doing
nothing instead of going to get a little job a man promised me down
town, just because I’m good-natured. I can’t see exactly what’s the use
of it to me. It’s pretty much like having a bed of your own, and letting
other people sleep in it, soft, while you sleep on the bare floor, hard.
It wouldn’t be so bad if you could have half, or quarter of the bed; but
no—these good friends of mine, as I may say, turn in, take it all, roll
themselves up in the kivering, and won’t let us have a bit of sheet to
mollify the white pine sacking bottom, the which pleasant to whittle
with a sharp knife—quite soft enough for that purpose—but the which is
not the pink of feather-beds. I don’t like it—I’m getting tired.”
The brow of Salix began to blacken—therein having decidedly the
advantage of his boots, which could neither blacken themselves, nor
prevail on their master to do it—when Mrs. Timpkins, the shopman’s
wife, popped out with a child in her arms, and three more trapesing
after her.
“Law, Salix, how-dee-doo? I’m so glad—I know you’re the best-natured
creature in the world. Jist hold little Biddy a while, and keep an eye
on t’other young ’uns—you’re such a nurse—he! he! he!—so busy—ain’t
got no girl—so busy washing—most tea time—he! he! he! Salix.”
Mrs. Timpkins disappeared, Biddy remained in the arms of Salix, and
“t’other young ’uns” raced about with the dog. The trigger eye was
compelled to invoke the aid of its coadjutor.
“Whew!” whistled Salix; “the quantity of pork they give in this part of
the town for a shilling is amazin’—I’m so good-natured! That railroad
will be well earnt any how. I’m beginning to think it’s queer there
ain’t more good-natured people about besides me—I’m a sort of mayor and
corporation all myself in this business. It’s a monopoly where the
profit’s all loss. Now, for instance, these Timpkinses won’t ask me to
tea, because I’m ragged; but they ar’n’t a bit too proud to ask me to
play child’s nurse and dog’s uncle—they won’t lend me any money,
because I can’t pay, and they’re persimmony and sour about cash
concerns—and they won’t let me have time to earn any money, and get
good clothes—that’s because I’m so good-natured. I’ve a good mind to
strike, and be sassy.”
“Hallo! Salix, my good fellow!” said a man, on a horse, as he rode up;
“you’re the very chap I’m looking for. As I says to my old woman, says
I, Leniter Salix is the wholesoul’dest chap I ever did see. There’s
nothing he won’t do for a friend, and I’ll never forget him, if I was to
live as old as Methuselah.”
Salix smiled—Hannibal softened rocks with vinegar, but the stranger
melted the ice of our hero’s resolution with praise. Salix walked
towards him, holding the child with one hand as he extended the other
for a friendly shake.
“You’re the best-natured fellow in the world, Salix,” ejaculated the
stranger, as he leaped from the saddle, and hung the reins upon Salix’s
extended fingers, instead of shaking hands with him; “you’re the
best-natured fellow in the world. Just hold my horse a minute. I’ll be
back in a jiffey, Salix; in less than half an hour,” said the dismounted
rider, as he shot round the corner.
“If that ain’t cutting it fat, I’ll be darned!” growled Salix, as soon
as he had recovered from his breathless amazement, and had gazed from
dog to babe—from horse to children.
“Mr. Salix,” screamed Miss Tabitha Gadabout from the next house, “I’m
just running over to Timpson’s place. Keep an eye on my street
door—back in a minute.”
She flew across the street, and as she went, the words “best-natured
soul alive” were heard upon the breeze.
“That’s considerable fatter—it’s as fat as show beef,” said Salix. “How
many eyes has a good-natured fellow got, anyhow? Three of mine’s in use
a’ready. The good-natureder you are, the more eyes you have, I s’pose.
That job up town’s jobbed without me, and where I’m to sleep, or to eat
my supper, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to tell. Ain’t paid
my board this six months, I’m so good-natured; and the old woman’s so
good-natured, she said I needn’t come back. These Timpkinses and all of
’em are ready enough at asking me to do things, but when I ask
them—There, that dog’s off, and the ketchers are coming—Carlo! Carlo!”
The baby began squalling, and the horse grew restive, the dog scampered
into the very teeth of danger; and the three little Timpkinses, who
could locomote, went scrabbling, in different directions, into all sorts
of mischief, until finally one of them pitched head foremost into a
cellar.
Salix grew furious.
“Whoa, pony!—hush, you infernal brat!—here, Carlo!—Thunder and
crockery!—there’s a young Timpkins smashed and spoilt!—knocked into a
cocked hat!”
“Mr. Salix!” shouted a boy, from the other side of the way, “when you’re
done that ’ere, mammy says if you won’t go a little narrand for her,
you’re so good-nater’d.”
There are moments when calamity nerves us; when wild frenzy congeals
into calm resolve; as one may see by penning a cat in a corner. It is
then that the coward fights; that the oppressed strikes at the life of
the oppressor. That moment had come to Salix. He stood bolt upright, as
cold and as straight as an icicle. His good-nature might be seen to drop
from him in two pieces, like Cinderella’s kitchen garments in the opera.
He laid Biddy Timpkins on the top of the barrel, released the horse,
giving him a vigorous kick, which sent him flying down the street, and
strode indignantly away, leaving Carlo, Miss Gadabout’s house, and all
other matters in his charge, to the guardianship of chance.
* * * * *
The last time Salix was seen in the busy haunts of men, he looked the
very incarnation of gloom and despair. His very coat had gone to relieve
his necessities, and he wandered slowly and dejectedly about, relieving
the workings of his perturbed spirit by kicking whatever fell in his
way.
“I’m done,” soliloquized he; “pardenership between me and good-nature is
this day dissolved, and all persons indebted will please to settle with
the undersigned, who alone is authorized. Yes, there’s a good many
indebted, and it’s high time to dissolve, when your pardener has sold
all the goods and spent all the money. Once I had a little shop—ah!
wasn’t it nice?—plenty of goods and plenty of business. But then comes
one troop of fellows, and they wanted tick—I’m so good-natured; then
comes another set of chaps, who didn’t let bashfulness stand in their
way a minute; they sailed a good deal nearer the wind, and wanted to
borry money—I’m so good-natured; and more asked me to go security.
These fellows were always very particular friends of mine, and got what
they asked for; but I was a very particular friend of theirs, and
couldn’t get it back. It was one of the good rules that won’t work both
ways; and I, somehow or other, was at the wrong end of it, for it
wouldn’t work my way at all. There’s few rules that will, barring
substraction, and division, and alligation, when our folks allegated
against me that I wouldn’t come to no good. All the cypherin’ I could
ever do made more come to little, and little come to less; and yet, as I
said afore, I had a good many assistants too.
“Business kept pretty fair; but I wasn’t cured. Because I was
good-natured, I had to go with ’em frolicking, tea-partying,
excursioning, and busting; and for the same reason, I was always
appinted treasurer to make the distribution when there wasn’t a cent of
surplus revenue in the treasury, but my own. It was my job to pay all
the bills. Yes, it was always ‘Salix, you know me’—‘Salix, pony up at
the bar, and lend us a levy’—‘Salix always shells out like a
gentleman.’ Oh, to be sure! and why not?—now I’m shelled out
myself—first out of my shop by old _venditioni exponas_, at the State
House—old _fiery fash’us_ to me directed. But they didn’t direct him
soon enough, for he only got the fixtures. The goods had gone out on a
bust long before I busted. Next, I was shelled out of my boarding house;
and now,” (with a lugubrious glance at his shirt and pantaloons,) “I’m
nearly shelled out of my clothes. It’s a good thing they can’t easy
shell me out of my skin, or they would, and let me catch my death of
cold. I’m a mere shell-fish—an oyster with the kivers off.
“But, it was always so—when I was a little boy, they coaxed all my
pennies out of me; coaxed me to take all the jawings, and all the
hidings, and to go first into all sorts of scrapes, and precious
scrapings they used to be. I wonder if there isn’t two kinds of
people—one kind that’s made to chaw up t’other kind, and t’other kind
that’s made to be chawed up by one kind?—cat-kind of people, and
mouse-kind of people? I guess there is. I’m very much of a mouse myself.
“What I want to know is, what’s to become of me. I’ve spent all I had in
getting my eddication. Learnin’, they say, is better than houses and
lands. I wonder if anybody will swap some house and land with me for
mine? I’d go it even and ask no boot. They should have it at prime cost;
but they won’t; and I begin to be afraid I’ll have to get married, or
’list in the marines. That’s what most people do when they’ve nothing to
do.”
* * * * *
What became of Leniter Salix immediately, is immaterial; what will
become of him eventually is clear enough. His story is one acting every
day, and, though grotesquely sketched, is an evidence of the danger of
an accommodating disposition when not regulated by prudence. The
softness of “the best-natured fellow in the world” requires a large
admixture of hardening alloy to give it the proper temper.
-----
[13] By J. C. Neal.
XX.
CHUNKEY’S FIGHT WITH THE PANTHERS.
Co Chunk! went Jem into the middle of the floor; jest at the crack off
day (Jem is a labor-savin’ man about ondressing when he goes to bed). He
commenced chunkin’ the fire, then “ah!” says he, feelin’ for the tin
cup. Presently he went to the door, and shouted to the foreman:
“Sound that horn, Hembry. Tell the niggars in the quarter to lumber the
hollar back agin to the kitchen, for a hurricane has surely broke
loose!”
Then “ah!” says he again, and in he comes.
“Chunkey!” says he.
“What’s busted, Jem?”
“North pole has busted, and no mistake. The ground is kivered with
snow.”
I sprung up, and sure enough thar was the snow, the first that ever fell
in the creek, jest follerin’ civilization. I knowed thar’d be howlin’,
smashin’ of teeth, burnin’ of brimstone, and a worryin’ of the stranger,
on the creek to-day, and so, I reckon, did the dogs, ’cause when Hembry
blowed the horn, they come a shoutin’ like so many imps. Jest imagin,
Captin, thirty full-grown dogs, a cross of the blood on the old Virginny
foxhound, keen as a bowyer, and adzactly of Jem’s opinion, signifying as
plain as they could, if huntin’s goin’ on, they’d take a chance.
Well, we splurged about till breakfast-time, gettin’ up and cleanin’
guns, and countin’ balls, and dividin’ powder.
“Bring out them bar-sassage and deer melts,” says Jem; “and then,
Chunkey, we’ll locomotion.”
His eyes all the time lookin’ like a live coal of fire, and every muscle
jumpin’ for joy.
“Look out, bar,” says he.
“Say low, and keep dark, panter,” says I.
“Deer, don’t you come nigh me,” says Jem, and then he commenced singin’:
“Oh, rain come wet me, sun come dry me,
Take care, white man, don’t come nigh me,”
and strikin’ a few flourishes of the goin’ and comin’ double shuffle.
“Hurrah for Sky Lake,” says I.
“Hurrah for the Forkin’ Cypress drive,” says Jem, takin’ a drink, and
cuttin’ a few pigeon-wings with his left leg. “Now mind, Chunkey, no
deer or wild turkey, no hogs or cub—nothin’ but bar or panter.”
“Agreed,” says I, and then we budged.
Captin, you’ve hearn Jem say, he’s hard of hearin’? Well, he is
sometimes, ’specially when he don’t want to hear; but that mornin’ he
was wide awake all over, and could have hearn an old he bar grunt in a
thunder-storm.
“I’ll carry the horn, Chunkey. If you blow, I can’t hear you; and when I
want you, I’ll blow, and you can.”
I didn’t ’spect anything then, but you’ll see.
Well, we had our big guns, them the govenor gin us; they throw twelve to
the pound, and war made by that man what lives in Louisville; what’s his
name?
He promised to send me a deer-gun gratis for two young panters, but he
ain’t done it.
Jem’s gun war in bar order that mornin’, and if you’d jest say varment
above your breath, click it would go, cockin’ itself.
Lots of deer war ’tinually passin’; that day some on ’em stood feedin’
jist as careless as a loafer with a full belly; they kno’ed they war
safe. The day was mighty clear and yaller; it warn’t very cold, but
still the snow diddent melt, but floated sorter like turkey-feathers in
the wind, and in the tall cane it fell round us like a fog.
When we got to the Forkin’ Cypress, Sol soon had a camp made; and I and
Jem started to look for sign.
We hadn’t been gone long, when I hearn Jem’s horn, and made to him; thar
war a sign at the foot of a tree, and thar war his track in the snow.
“Shall we hail him, Chunkey?”
“In course,” says I.
Well, we hollered to Sol, to let the dogs loose. Presently, I heard ’em
give some short licks, and I knowed he war up.
“Thar’s a cry for you.”
Away they go further and further, presently you can jest hear ’em, and
then they are clean gone. I hearn Jem shoutin’ awhile, and then his
mouth is lost too. I started on, spectin’ to meet ’em comin’ back, and
in about an hour I hearn Jem’s voice:
“Who-whoop!”
“Ah, bar!” says I, “whar’s your friends?”
I soon hearn Jem agin, and presently I hearn the dogs, like the ringin’
of a cow-bell, a long way off. They come up the ridge, and then bore off
to the thick cane on my right. Then they hushed awhile, and I knoed
they’s a fightin’.
Look out, dogs; thar, they are gwyine again—no, here they comes! Lay
low, and keep dark.
I put down another ball, and stood for him. I heard the cane crackin’,
and cocked my gun. Here he comes—here he is. I hear him snortin’, wake
snakes. Ain’t that lumberin’? Thar, they’ve got him again, and now the
fur flies. I crawled thro’ the cane, trying to get a shot afore the dogs
seen me. Thar they is, but which is he?
Bang! whiff, whiff, said the bar, and with that every dog jumped him.
The canes a crackin’, and the dogs a hollerin’. I jerked my bowyer and
plunged in, and thar they war hung togather like a swarm of bees. I felt
the har risin’ on my head, and the blood ticklin’ the end of my fingers.
I crept up behind him and he war done fightin’. He haddent got a hundred
yards from the place whar I’d shot him. It war a death shot, and blinded
him, and thar side of him lay “Singer” and “Constitutional,” two of the
best dogs in Jem’s pack. I giv a shout, and Jem answered. Presently I
hearn him cummin’, blowin’ like a steam-boat, and mad as anything; he
always gits mad when he’s tired, and when he seen them dead dogs, he
commenced breathin’ mighty hard, and the veins in his neck was as big as
fingers; we warn’t more than a quarter and a half from the camp, whar we
soon got, both mighty hungry and tired. Sol cooked the liver jest to the
right pint, and we spent the balance of the evenin’ in singin’,
braggin’, and eatin’ spar-ribs roasted brown, till we went to sleep.
Next mornin’ when we waked, it was sorter cloudy and warm too. The wind
war blowin’ mightily.
“Now, Chunkey, let’s have a panter to-day, _or nothin’_.”
“All _sot_,” says I.
Well, arter breakfast Jem says, “Chunkey, you must take the right side
the Lake, and I’ll take the ’yether, till we meet—and, Chunkey, you
must _rush_; it ain’t more nor eight miles round, but your side _may_
seem long, as you ain’t usen to the ground. Let’s licker out of _my_
gourd, you ain’t got more nor you’ll want. Keep your eye skinned for
sign, and listen for my horn!”
“Hump yourself,” says I, and we both darted—_well_; I worked my passage
through cane, palmetto, and vines, until I war tired—I haddent hearn
Jem’s horn, and pushed on the harder to meet him; every once and a while
I’d think _hears the turn of the Lake_, but when I’d git to the place,
_thar it was_ stretchin’ out as big as ever. Once I thought I hearn
Jem’s horn, but couldent quite make it out. I kept movin’; hours passed
and no Jem or end of the Lake; I’d seen lots of bar and panter sign,
lots of deer, and more swan, wild-goose, and duck, than you ever will
see; but I paid no attention to ’em, as I ’spected I’d taken some wrong
arm of the Lake and war lost. It war gettin’ towards night, and I
’spected I’d have to sleep by myself, but you know I diddent mind that,
as I war used to it. But it war the first time in my life that I’d bin
lost, and that _did_ pester me mightily. Well, Sir, after studyin’
awhile, I thought I’d better put back towards the camp, mighty tired and
discouraged. I then throw’d my gourd round to take a drop of liker, and
it were _filled with water_! fact!—Thinks I, Chunkey, you must have
been _mighty_ drunk last night; that made me sorter low-spirited like a
a ’oman, and my heart war weak as water. It had commenced gittin’ sorter
dark; the wind were blowin’ and groanin’ through the trees and rivers,
and the black clouds were flyin’, and I war goin’ along sorter oneasy
and cross-grained, when _a panter yelled out, close to me_! I turned
with my gun cocked, but couldent see it; presently I hearn it again, and
out it come, and then another! “Is that you?” said I, takin’ a crack and
missin’ to a sartainty; and away they darted through the cane. I drap’d
my gun to load, and by the great Jackson, there warn’t a full load of
powder in my gourd!—I loaded _mighty_ carefully, and started on to pick
out some holler tree to sleep in. Every once and awhile I’d git a
glimpse of the panters on my trail. “Panters,” says I, “I’ll make a
child’s bargain with you; if you will let _me_ alone, _you_ may
_golong_;—and if you don’t, here’s a ball into the head of one of
ye’er, and this knife!”—_hush_, if my knife warn’t gone, I wish I may
never taste bar’s meat? I raised my arm, trimblin’ like a leaf, and says
I, “Jem!—_I’ll have your melt!_” Well, I _war_ in trouble sure!—I
thought I war on the _Tchule a Leta Lake_, and _witched_.
Well I did! Oh, you may larph, but jist imagin’ _yourself_ lost in the
cane on Sky Lake, (the cane on Sky Lake _is some_—thirty miles long,
from one to three miles wide, thick as the har on a dog’s back, and
about thirty feet high!) out of licker, out of powder, your knife gone,
the ground kivered with snow, you very hungry and tired, _and two
panters follerin’ your trail_, and you’d think you was bewitched too!
Well, here they come, never lettin’ on, but makin’ arrangements to have
my skalp that night; I never lettin’ on, but detarmin’d they shouldent.
The har had been standin’ on my head for more nor an hour, and the sweat
were gist _rollin’_ off me, and that satisfied me a fight war a brewin’
atween me and the panters! I stopped two or three times, thinkin’ they’s
gone, but presently here they’d come, creepin’ along through the cane,
and soon as they’d see me they stop, lay down, roll over and twirl their
tails about like kittens playin’; I’d then shout, shake the cane, and
away they’d go. Oh, they thought they had me! _In course they did_, and
I detarmined with myself, if they _did let me go_, if they diddent
attack an onarmed man, alone and lost, without licker, dogs, powder or
knife, that the very fust time I got a panter up a tree, with my whole
pack at the root, my licker gourd full, and I half full, my
twelve-to-the-pound-yager loaded, and my knife in shavin’ order, I’d let
_him_ go! Yes, _’tisn’t Chantrey if I diddent_!
But what did _they_ care? They’d no more feelin’ than a pine-stump! I
know’d it woulddent do to risk a fight in the cane, and pushed on to
find an open place whar I could make sure of my one load, and rely on my
gun barrel arter. I soon found a place whar the cane drifted, and _thar_
I determined to stand and fight it out! Presently here they come; and if
a stranger had seen ’em, he’d a thought they were playin’! They’d jump
and squat, and bend their backs, lay down and roll, and grin like
puppys;—_they kept gittin’ nearer and nearer_, and it wer gettin’ dark,
and I know’d I must let drive at the old _he_, ’afore it got so dark I
coulddent see my sights; so I jist dropped on one knee to make sure, and
when I raised my gun, I were all in a trimble! I know’d _that_ woulddent
do, and _ris_!
“You are witched, Chunkey, sure and sartin’,” said I. Arter bracin’
myself, I raised up agin and _fired_! One on ’em sprung into the air and
gin a yell, and the other bounded towards me like a streak! Lightin’
close to me, it squatted to the ground and commenced creepin’ towards
me—its years laid back, its eyes turnin’ green, and sorter swimmin’
round like, and the end of its tail twistin’ like a snake. I felt light
as a cork, and strong as a buffalo. I seen her commence slippin’ her
legs under her, and knew she were gwine to spring. I throw’d back my gun
to gin it to her, as she come; the lick I aimed at her head struck
across the shoulders and back without doing any harm, _and she had
me_!—Rip, rip, rip—and ’way went my blanket, coat, and britches. She
sunk her teeth into my shoulder, her green eyes were close to mine, and
the froth from her mouth were flyin’ in my face!! _Moses!_ how fast she
_did_ fight! I felt the warm blood runnin’ down my side—I seen she were
arter _my_ throat! and with that I grabbed _hern_, and commenced pourin’
it into her side with my fist, like cats-a-fightin!—Rip, rip, she’d
take me,—diff, slam, bang, I’d gin it to her—she fightin’ for her
_supper_, I fightin’ for my _life_! Why, in course it war an onequal
fight, but she ris it! Well, we had it round and round, sometimes one,
and then yother on top, she a growlin’ and I a gruntin’! We had both
commenced gittin’ mighty tired, and presently she made a spring, _tryin’
to git away_! Arter _that_ thar wan’t no mortal chance for her! Cause
why, she were whipped! I’d sorter been thinkin’ about sayin’
“Now I lay me down to sleep,”
but I know’d if I commenced it would put her in heart, and she’d riddle
me in a minit, and when _she_ hollered _nuff_, I were glad to my shoe
soles, and had sich confidence in whippin’ the fight, that _I offered
two to one on Chunkey_, but no takers!
“Oh, ho!” says I, a hittin’ her a lick every time I spoke, “you are
willin’ to quit even and divide stakes, are you?” and then round and
round we went agin! You could have hearn us blow a quarter, but
presently she made a _big struggle_ and broke my hold! I fell one way,
and she the other! She darted into the cane, and that’s the last time I
ever hearn of _that_ panter!!!
When I sorter come to myself, I war struttin’ and _thunderin’_ like a
big he-gobler, and then I commenced examinin’ to see what harm she’d
done me; I war bit powerful bad in the shoulder and arm—_jist look at
them scars!_—and I were cut into solid whip-strings; but when I found
thar warn’t no danger of its _killin’_ me, I set in to braggin’. “Oh,
you ain’t dead yet, Chunkey!” says I, “if you are sorter wusted, and
have whipped a panter in a fair fight, and _no_ gougin’;” and then I
_cock a doodle dood_ a spell, for joy!
When I looked round, _thar_ sot the old he, a lickin’ the blood from his
breast! I’d shot him right through the breast, but sorter
slantindickler, breakin’ his shoulder blade into a perfect smash. I
walked up to him:
“Howdy, panter? how do you do? how _is_ missis panter, and the little
panters? how is your consarns in gineral? Did you ever hearn tell of the
man they calls ‘Chunkey?’ born in Kaintuck and raised in Mississippi?
death on a bar, and _smartly_ in a panter fight? If you diddent, look,
for _I’m he_! I kills bars, whips panters in a fair fight; I walks the
water, I out-bellars the thunder, and when I gets hot, the Mississippi
hides itself! I—I—Oh, you thought you _had_ me, did you?—_drot you!_
But _you_ are a gone sucker, now. I’ll have your melt, if I never gits
home, so—”
“Look out, Capting! here’s the place! make the skift fast to that Cyprus
log. Take care them oars, Abe! Spring out and oncupple the dogs, and
take car they don’t knock them guns overboard. Now, Capting, we will
have a deer movin’ afore you can say—Chunkey.”
XXI.
A BULLY BOAT, AND A BRAG CAPTAIN.
A STORY OF STEAM-BOAT LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
Does any one remember the ‘Caravan?’ She was what would now be
considered a slow boat; _then_ (1827) she was regularly advertised as
the “fast-running,” &c. Her regular trips from New Orleans to Natchez
were usually made in from six to eight days; a trip made by her in five
days was considered remarkable. A voyage from New Orleans to Vicksburg
and back, including stoppages, generally entitled the officers and crew
to a month’s wages. Whether the ‘Caravan’ ever achieved the feat of a
voyage to the Falls (Louisville), I have never learned; if she did, she
must have “had a time of it!”
It was my fate to take passage in this boat. The captain was a
good-natured, easy-going man, careful of the comfort of his passengers,
and exceedingly fond of the _game of brag_. We had been out a little
more than five days, and we were in hopes of seeing the bluffs of
Natchez on the next day. Our wood was getting low, and night coming on.
The pilot on duty _above_ (the other pilot held three aces at the time,
and was just calling out the captain, who “went it strong” on three
kings) sent down word that the mate had reported the stock of wood
reduced to half a cord. The worthy captain excused himself to the pilot,
whose watch was _below_, and the two passengers who made up the party,
and hurried to the deck, where he soon discovered, by the landmarks,
that we were about half a mile from a wood-yard, which he said was
situated “right round yonder point.”
“But,” muttered the captain, “I don’t much like to take wood of the
yellow-faced old scoundrel who owns it; he always charges a quarter of a
dollar more than any one else; however, there’s no other chance.”
The boat was pushed to her utmost, and, in a little less than an hour,
when our fuel was about giving out, we made the point, and our cables
were out and fastened to trees, alongside of a good-sized wood-pile.
“Hollo, Colonel! how d’ye sell your wood _this_ time?”
A yellow-faced old gentleman, with a two-weeks’ beard, strings over his
shoulders holding up to his arm-pits a pair of copperas-coloured,
linsey-woolsey pants, the legs of which reached a very little below the
knee, shoes without stockings, a faded, broad-brimmed hat, which had
once been black, and a pipe in his mouth, casting a glance at the empty
guards of our boat, and uttering a grunt as she rose from fastening our
“spring-line,” answered:
“Why, Capting, we must charge you _three and a quarter_ THIS _time_.”
“The d——l!” replied the Captain, (captains did swear a little in those
days); “what’s the odd _quarter_ for, I should like to know? You only
charged me _three_ as I went down.”
“Why, Capting,” drawled out the wood-merchant, with a sort of leer on
his yellow countenance, which clearly indicated that his wood was as
good as sold, “wood’s riz since you went down two weeks ago; besides you
are awar’ that you very seldom stop going _down_; when you’re going
_up_, you’re sometimes obleeged to give me a call, becase the current’s
against you, and there’s no other wood-yard for nine miles ahead; and if
you happen to be nearly out of fooel, why—”
“Well, well,” interrupted the Captain, “we’ll take a few cords, under
the circumstances,” and he returned to his game of brag.
In about half an hour, we felt the ‘Caravan’ commence paddling again.
Supper was over, and I retired to my upper berth, situated alongside,
and overlooking the brag-table, where the Captain was deeply engaged,
having now the _other_ pilot as his principal opponent. We jogged on
quietly, and seemed to be going at a good rate.
“How does the wood burn?” inquired the Captain of the mate, who was
looking on at the game.
“’Tisn’t of much account, I reckon,” answered the mate; “it’s
cotton-wood, and most of it green at that—”
“Well, Thompson—(three aces again, stranger. I’ll take that X and the
small change, if you please—it’s your deal)—Thompson, I say, we’d
better take three or four cords at the next wood-yard; it can’t be more
than six miles from here; (two aces and a bragger, with the ace! hand
over those Vs.)”
The game went on, and the paddles kept moving. At eleven o’clock it was
reported to the Captain that we were nearing the wood-yard, the light
being distinctly seen by the pilot on duty.
“Head her in shore, then, and take in six cords, if it’s good. See to
it, Thompson; I can’t very well leave the game now; it’s getting right
warm! This pilot’s beating us all to smash.”
The wooding completed, we paddled on again. The Captain seemed somewhat
vexed when the mate informed him that the price was the same as at the
last wood-yard, _three and a quarter_; but soon again became interested
in the game.
From my upper berth (there was no state-rooms _then_) I could observe
the movements of the players. All the contention appeared to be between
the captain and the pilots, (the latter personages took it turn and turn
about, steering and playing brag), one of them almost invariably
winning, while the two passengers merely went through the ceremony of
dealing, cutting, and paying up their “antics.” They were anxious to
_learn the game_—and they did learn it! Once in a while, indeed, seeing
they had two aces and a bragger, they would venture a bet of five or ten
dollars; but they were always compelled to back out before the
tremendous bragging of the captain or pilot; or if they _did_ venture to
“call out” on “two bullits and a bragger,” they had the mortification to
find one of the officers had the same kind of a hand, and were _more
venerable_! Still, with all these disadvantages, they continued
playing—they wanted to learn the game.
At two o’clock, the captain asked the mate how we were getting on.
“Oh, pretty glibly, Sir!” replied the mate; “we can scarcely tell what
headway we _are_ making, for we are obliged to keep the middle of the
river, and there is the shadow of a fog rising. This wood seems rather
better than that we took in at old yellow-face’s, but we’re nearly out
again, and must be looking for more. I saw a light just ahead on the
right—shall we hail?”
“Yes, yes,” replied the Captain; “ring the bell, and ask ’em what’s the
price of wood up here. I’ve got you again; here’s double kings.”
I heard the bell and the pilot’s hail:
“What’s _your_ price for wood?”
A youthful voice on the shore answered:
“Three _and_ a quarter!”
“Hollo!” ejaculated the captain, who had just lost the price of two
cords to the pilot, the strangers suffering _some_ at the same time,
“three and a quarter again! Are we _never_ to get to a cheaper country?
Deal, Sir, if you please—better luck next time.”
The other pilot’s voice was again heard on deck:
“How much _have_ you?”
“Only about ten cords, Sir,” was the reply of the youthful salesman.
The Captain here told Thompson to take six cords, which would last till
daylight, and again turned his attention to the game.
The pilots here changed places. _When did they sleep?_ Wood taken in,
the ‘Caravan’ again took her place in the middle of the stream, paddling
on as usual. Day at length dawned, the brag-party broke up, and
settlements were being made, during which operation the Captain’s
bragging propensities were exercised in cracking up the speed of his
boat, which, by his reckoning, must have made at least sixty miles, and
would have made many more if he could have procured good wood. It
appears the two passengers, in their first lesson, had incidentally lost
one hundred and twenty dollars. The Captain, as he rose to see about
taking in some _good_ wood, which he felt sure of obtaining, now he had
got above the level country, winked at his opponent, the pilot, with
whom he had been on very bad terms during the progress of the game, and
said, in an under tone:
“Forty a-piece for you, and I, and James (the other pilot) is not bad
for one night.”
I had risen, and went out with the Captain, to enjoy a view of the
bluffs. There was just fog enough to prevent the vision taking in more
than sixty yards, so I was disappointed in _my_ expectation. We were
nearing the shore for the purpose of looking for wood, the banks being
invisible from the middle of the river.
“There it is!” exclaimed the Captain; “stop her!”
Ding, ding, ding! went the big bell, and the Captain hailed:
“Hollo! the wood-yard!”
“Hollo, yourself!” answered a squeaking female voice, which came from a
woman with a petticoat over her shoulders in place of a shawl.
“What’s the price of wood?”
“I think you ought to know the price by this time,” answered the old
lady in the petticoat; “it’s three and a qua-a-rter! and now you know
it.”
“Three and the d——l!” broke in the Captain; “what, have you raised on
_your_ wood too? I’ll give you three, and not a cent more.”
“Well,” replied the petticoat, “here comes the old man; _he’ll_ talk to
you.”
And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat,
copperas-coloured pants, yellow countenance, and two weeks’ beard we had
seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regulating the
price of cotton-wood, squeaked out the following sentence, accompanied
by the same leer of the same yellow countenance:
“Why, darn it all, Capting! there is but three or four cords left, and
_since it’s you_, I don’t care if I _do_ let you have it for _three, as
you’re a good customer_!”
After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and
turned in to take some rest. The fact became apparent: the reader will
probably have discovered it some time since, _that we had been wooding
all night at the same wood-yard_!
XXII.
FYDGET FYXINGTON.[14]
The doctrine, that “all is for the best,” though cherished in the
abstract, is but little practised. The world is much more addicted to
its opposite. “All’s for the worst” is a very common motto, and under
its influence there are thousands who growl when they go to bed, and
growl still louder when they get up; they growl at their breakfast, they
growl at their dinner, they growl at their supper, and they growl
between meals. Discontent is written in every feature of their visage;
and they go on from the beginning of life until its close, always
growling, in the hope of making things better by scaring them into it
with ugly noises.
The active grumbletonians are a very different race of mortals from the
passives. The world is largely indebted to them for every comfort and
convenience with which it abounds; and they laugh at the inquiry whether
their exertions have conduced to the general happiness, holding it that
happiness consists chiefly in exertion—to which the passives demur, as
they look back with no little regret to the lazy days of pastoral life,
when Chaldean shepherds lounged upon the grass. The actives are very
much inclined to believe that whatever is, is wrong; but then they have
as an offset, the comfortable conviction that they are able to set it
right—an opinion which fire cannot melt out of them. These restless
fellows are in a vast majority; and hence it is that the surface of this
earthly sphere is such a scene of activity; hence it is that for so many
thousand years, the greater part of each generation has been unceasingly
employed in labour and bustle; rushing from place to place; hammering,
sawing, and driving; hewing down and piling up mountains; and
unappalled, meeting disease and death, both by sea and land.
The passive grumbletonian is useless to himself and to others: the
active grumbletonian is just the reverse. In general, he combines
individual advancement with public prosperity; but there are exceptions
even in that class—men, who try to take so much care of the world that
they forget themselves, and, of course, fail in their intent.
Such a man is Fydget Fyxington, an
amelioration-of-the-human-race-by-starting-from-first-principles-philosopher.
Fydget’s abstract principle, particularly in matters of government and
of morals, is doubtless a sound rule; but he looks so much at the
beginning that he rarely arrives at the end, and when he advances at
all, he marches backward, his face being directed towards the starting
place instead of the goal. By this means he may perhaps plough a
straight furrow, but instead of curving round obstructions, he is very
apt to be thrown down by them.
* * * * *
Winter ruled the hour when Fydget Fyxington was last observed to be in
circulation—winter, when men wear their hands in their pockets and
seldom straighten their backs—a season however, which, though sharp and
biting in its temper, has redeeming traits. There is something
peculiarly exhilarating in the sight of new-fallen snow. The storm which
brings it is not without a charm. The graceful eddying of the drifts
sported with by the wind, and the silent gliding of the feathery flakes,
as one by one they settle upon the earth like fairy creatures dropping
to repose, have a soothing influence not easily described, though
doubtless felt by all. But when the clouds, having performed their
office, roll away, and the brightness of the morning sun beams upon an
expanse of sparkling unsullied whiteness; when all that is common-place,
coarse, and unpleasant in aspect, is veiled for the time, and made to
wear a fresh and dazzling garb, new animation is felt by the spirit. The
young grow riotous with joy, and their merry voices ring like bells
through the clear and bracing air; while the remembrance of earlier days
gives a youthful impulse to the aged heart.
But to all this there is a sad reverse. The resolution of these
enchantments into their original elements by means of a thaw, is a
necessary, but, it must be confessed, a very doleful process, fruitful
in gloom, rheum, inflammations, and fevers—a process which gives
additional pangs to the melancholic, and causes valour’s self to droop
like unstarched muslin.
Such a time was it when Fydget was extant—a sloppy time in January. The
city, it is true, was clothed in snow, rusty and forlorn in aspect, and
weeping, as if in sorrow that its original purity had become soiled,
stained, and spotted by contact with the world. Its whiteness had in a
measure disappeared, by the pressure of human footsteps; wheels and
runners had almost incorporated it with the common earth; and, where
these had failed in effectually doing the work, remorseless distributers
of ashes, coal dust, and potato peelings, had lent their aid to give
uniformity to the dingy hue. But the snow, “weeping its spirit from its
eyes,” and its body too, was fast escaping from these multiplied
oppressions and contumelies. Large and heavy drops splashed from the
eaves; sluggish streams rolled lazily from the alleys, and the gutters
and crossings formed vast shallow lakes, variegated by glaciers and ice
islands. They who roamed abroad at this unpropitious time, could be
heard approaching by the damp sucking sound which emanated from their
boots, as they alternately pumped in and pumped out the water in their
progress, and it was thus that our hero travelled, having no caoutchouc
health-preservers to shield his pedals from unwholesome contact.
The shades of evening were beginning to thicken, when Fydget stopped
shiveringly and looked through the glass door of a fashionable
hotel—the blazing fire and the numerous lights, by the force of
contrast, made an outside seat still more uncomfortable.
The gong pealed out that tea was ready, and the lodgers rushed from the
stoves to comfort themselves with that exhilarating fluid.
“There they go on first principles,” said Fydget Fyxington with a sigh.
“Cla’ de kitchen da’,” said one of those ultra-aristocratic members of
society, a negro waiter, as he bustled past the contemplative
philosopher and entered the hotel; “you ought to be gwang home to
suppa’, ole soul, if you got some—yaugh—waugh!”
“Suppa’, you nigga’!” contemptuously responded Fydget, as the door
closed, “I wish I was gwang home to suppa’, but suppers are a sort of
thing I remember a good deal oftener than I see. Every thing is
wrong—such a wandering from first principles!—there must be enough in
this world for us all, or we wouldn’t be here; but things is fixed so
badly that I s’pose some greedy rascal gets my share of suppa’ and other
such elegant luxuries. It’s just the way of the world; there’s plenty of
shares of everything, but somehow or other there are folks that lay
their fingers on two or three shares, and sometimes more, according as
they get a chance, and the real owners, like me, may go whistle. They’ve
fixed it so that if you go back to first principles and try to bone what
belongs to you, they pack you right off to jail, ’cause you can’t prove
property. Empty stummicks and old clothes ain’t good evidence in court.
“What the deuse is to become of me! Something must—and I wish it would
be quick and hurra about it. My clothes are getting to be too much of
the summer-house order for the winter fashions. People will soon see too
much of me—not that I care much about looks myself, but boys is boys,
and all boys is sassy. Since the weather’s been chilly, when I turn the
corner to go up town, I feel as if the house had too many windows and
doors, and I’m almost blow’d out of my coat and pants. The fact is, I
don’t get enough to eat to serve for ballast.”
After a melancholy pause, Fydget, seeing the coast tolerably clear,
walked in to warm himself at the fire in the bar-room, near which he
stood with great composure, at the same time emptying several glasses of
comfortable compounds which had been left partly filled by the lodgers
when they hurried to their tea. Lighting a cigar which he found half
smoked upon the ledge of the stove, he seated himself and puffed away
much at his ease.
The inmates of the hotel began to return to the room, glancing
suspiciously at Fydget’s tattered integuments, and drawing their chairs
away from him as they sat down near the stove. Fydget looked
unconscious, emitting volumes of smoke, and knocking off the ashes with
a nonchalant and scientific air.
“Bad weather,” said Brown.
“I’ve noticed that the weather is frequently bad in winter, especially
about the middle of it, and at both ends,” added Green. “I keep a
memorandum book on the subject, and can’t be mistaken.”
“It’s raining now,” said Griffinhoff, “what’s the use of that when it’s
so wet under foot already?”
“It very frequently rains at the close of a thaw, and it’s beneficial to
the umbrella makers,” responded Green.
“Nothin’s fixed no how,” said Fydget with great energy—for he was tired
of listening.
Brown, Green, Griffinhoff, and the rest started and stared.
“Nothings fixed no how,” continued Fydget rejoicing in the fact of
having hearers; “our granddads must a been lazy rascals. Why didn’t they
roof over the side walks, and not leave everything for us to do? I ain’t
got no numbrell, and besides that, when it comes down as if raining was
no name for it, as it always does when I’m cotch’d out, numbrells is no
great shakes if you’ve got one with you, and no shakes at all if it’s at
home.”
“Who’s the indevidjual?” inquired Cameo Calliper, Esq., looking at
Fydget through a pair of lorgnettes.
Fydget returned the glance by making an opera glass with each fist, and
then continued his remarks; “It’s a pity we ain’t got feathers, so’s to
grow our own jacket and trousers, and do up the tailorin’ business, and
make our own feather beds. It would be a great savin’—every man his own
clothes, and every man his own feather bed. Now I’ve got a suggestion
about that—first principles bring us to the skin—fortify that, and the
matter’s done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow,
beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole
family once a week? The young ’uns might be soused in it every Saturday
night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash
brush. Then there wouldn’t be no bother a washing your clothes or
yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor to make people sick,
because it lets in the cold in winter and the heat in summer, when
natur’ says shut up the porouses and keep ’em out. Besides, when the new
invention was tore at the knees or wore at the elbows, just tell the
nigger to put on the kittle and give you a dab, and you’re patched
slick—and so that whole mobs of people mightn’t stick together like
figs, a little sperrits of turpentine or litharage might be added to
make ’em dry like a house-a-fire.”
“If that fellow don’t go away, I’ll hurt him,” said Griffinhoff _sotto
voce_.
“Where’s a waiter?” inquired Cameo Calliper edging off in alarm.
“He’s crazy,” said Green, “I was at the hospital once, and there was a
man in the place who——”
“’Twould be nice for sojers,” added Fyxington, as he threw away his
stump, and very deliberately reached over and helped himself to a fresh
cigar, from a number which Mr. Green had just brought from the bar and
held in his hand—“I’ll trouble you for a little of your fire,”
continued he, taking the cigar from the mouth of Mr. Green, and after
obtaining a light, again placing the borrowed Habana within the lips of
that worthy individual, who sat stupified at the audacity of the
supposed maniac. Fydget gave the conventional grin of thanks peculiar to
such occasions, and with a graceful wave of his hand, resumed the thread
of his lecture, “’Twould be nice for sojers. Stand ’em all of a row, and
whitewash ’em blue or red, according to pattern, as if they were a
fence. The gin’rals might look on to see if it was done according to
Gunter; the cap’ins might flourish the brush, and the corpulars carry
the bucket. Dandies could fix themselves all sorts of streaked and all
sorts of colours. When the parterials is cheap and the making don’t cost
nothing, that’s what I call economy, and coming as near as possible to
first principles. It’s a better way, too, of keeping out the rain, than
my t’other plan of flogging people when they’re young, to make their
hides hard and waterproof. A good licking is a sound first principle for
juveniles, but they’ve got a prejudice agin it.”
“Waiter!” cried Cameo Calliper.
“Sa!”
“Remove the incumbent—expose him to the atmosphere!”
“If you hadn’t said that, I’d wopped him,” observed Griffinhoff.
“Accordin’ to first principles, I’ve as good a right to be here as
anybody,” remarked Fydget, indignantly.
“Cut you’ stick, ’cumbent—take you’sef off, trash!” said the waiter,
keeping at a respectful distance.
“Don’t come near me, Sip,” growled Fydget, doubling his fist—“don’t
come near me, or I’ll develope a first principle and ’lucidate a simple
idea for you—I’ll give you a touch of natur’ without no gloves on—but
I’ll not stay, though I’ve a clear right to do it, unless you are
able—yes, sassy able!—to put me out. If there is anything I scorns
it’s prejudice, and this room’s so full of it and smoke together that I
won’t stay. Your cigar, Sir,” added Fydget, tossing the stump to Mr.
Green and retiring slowly.
“That fellow’s brazen enough to collect militia fines,” said Brown, “and
so thin and bony, that if pasted over with white paper, and rigged
athwart ships, he’d make a pretty good sign for an oyster cellar.”
The rest of the company laughed nervously, as if not perfectly sure that
Fydget was out of hearing.
* * * * *
“The world’s full of it—nothin’ but prejudice. I’m always served the
same way, and though I’ve so much to do planning the world’s good, I
can’t attend to my own business, it not only won’t support me, but it
treats me with despise and unbecoming freedery. Now, I was used sinful
about my universal language, which everybody can understand, which makes
no noise, and which don’t convolve no wear and tear of the tongue. It’s
the patent anti-fatigue-anti-consumption omnibus linguister, to be done
by winking and blinking, and cocking your eye, the way the cat-fishes
make Fourth of July orations. I was going to have it introduced in
Congress, to save the expense of anchovies and more porter; but t’other
day I tried it on a feller in the street; I danced right up to him, and
began canœuvering my daylights to ask him what o’clock it was, and I’m
blow’d if he didn’t swear I was crazy, up fist and stop debate, by
putting it to me right atween the eyes, so that I’ve been pretty well
bung’d up about the peepers ever since, by a feller too who couldn’t
understand a simple idea. That was worse than the kick a feller gave me
in market, because ’cording to first principles I put a bullowney
sassinger into my pocket, and didn’t pay for it. The ’riginal law, which
you may see in children, says when you ain’t got no money, the next best
thing is to grab and run. I did grab and run, but he grabb’d me, and I
had to trot back agin, which always hurts my feelin’s and stops the
march of mind. He wouldn’t hear me ’lucidate the simple idea, and the
way he hauled out the sassinger, and lent me the loan of his foot, was
werry sewere. It was unsatisfactory and discombobberative, and made me
wish I could find out the hurtin’ principle and have it ’radicated.”
Carriages were driving up to the door of a house brilliantly
illuminated, in one of the fashionable streets, and the music which
pealed from within intimated that the merry dance was on foot.
“I’m goin’ in,” said Fydget—“I’m not afeard—if we go on first
principles we ain’t afeard of nothin’, and since they’ve monopolized my
sheer of fun, they can’t do less than give me a shinplaster to go away.
My jacket’s so wet with the rain, if I don’t get dry I’ll be sewed up
and have _hic jacket_ wrote atop of me, which means defuncted of toggery
not imprevious to water. In I go.”
In accordance with this design, he watched his opportunity and slipped
quietly into the gay mansion. Helping himself liberally to refreshments
left in the hall, he looked in upon the dancers.
“Who-o-ip!” shouted Fydget Fyxington, forgetting himself in the
excitement of the scene—“Who-o-ip!” added he, as he danced forward with
prodigious vigour and activity, flourishing the eatables with which his
hands were crammed, as if they were a pair of cymbals—“Whurro-o-o!
plank it down—that’s your sort!—make yourselves merry, gals and
boys—it’s all accordin’ to first principles—whoo-o-o-ya—whoop!—it
takes us!”
Direful was the screaming at this formidable apparition—the fiddles
ceased—the waltzers dropped their panting burdens, and the black band
looked pale and aghast.
“Who-o-o-p! go ahead!—come it strong!” continued Fydget.
But he was again doomed to suffer an ejectment.
“Hustle him out!”
“Give us a ‘shinplaster’ then—them’s my terms.”
It would not do—he was compelled to retire shinplasterless; but it
rained so heavily that, nothing daunted, he marched up the alley-way,
re-entered the house through the garden, and gliding noiselessly into
the cellar, turned a large barrel over which he found there, and getting
into it, went fast asleep “on first principles.”
The company had departed—the servants were assembled in the kitchen
preparatory to retiring for the night, when an unearthly noise
proceeding from the barrel aforesaid struck upon their astonished ears.
It was Fydget snoring, and his hearers, screaming, fled.
Rallying, however, at the top of the stairs, they procured the aid of
Mr. Lynx, who watched over the nocturnal destinies of an unfinished
building in the vicinity, and who, having frequently boasted of his
valour, felt it to be a point of honour to act bravely on this occasion.
The sounds continued, and the “investigating committee,” with Mr. Lynx
as chairman, advanced slowly and with many pauses.
Lynx at last hurriedly thrust his club into the barrel, and started back
to wait the result of the experiment.
“Ouch!” ejaculated a voice from the interior, the word being one not to
be found in the dictionaries, but which, in common parlance, means that
a sensation too acute to be agreeable has been excited.
“Hey!—hello!—come out of that,” said Lynx, as soon as his nerves had
recovered tranquillity. “You are in a bad box whoever you are.”
“Augh!” was the response, “no, I ain’t—I’m in a barrel.”
“No matter,” added Lynx, authoritatively; “getting into another man’s
barrel unbeknownst to him in the night-time, is burglary.”
“That,” said Fydget, putting out his head like a terrapin, at which the
women shrieked and retreated, and Lynx made a demonstration with his
club—“that’s because you ain’t up to first principles—keep your stick
out of my ribs—I’ve a plan, so there won’t be no burglary, which is
this—no man have no more than he can use, and all other men mind their
own business. Then, this ’ere barrel would be mine while I’m in it, and
you’d be asleep—that’s the idea.”
“It’s a logo-fogie!” exclaimed Lynx with horror—“a right down
logo-fogie!”
“Ah!” screamed the servants—“a logo-fogie!—how did it get out?—will
it bite?—can’t you get a gun?”
“Don’t be fools—a logo-fogie is a sort of a man that don’t think as I
do—wicked critters all such sort of people are,” said Lynx. “My lad,
I’m pretty clear you’re a logo-fogie—you talk as if your respect for me
and other venerable institutions was tantamount to very little. You’re a
leveller I see, and wouldn’t mind knocking me down flat as a pancake, if
so be you could run away and get out of this scrape—you’re a ’grarium,
and would cut across the lot like a streak of lightning if you had a
chance.”
“Mr. Lynx,” said the lady of the house from the head of the stairs—she
had heard from one of the affrighted maids that a “logo-fogie” had been
“captivated,” and that it could talk “just like a human”—“Mr. Lynx,
don’t have anything to say to him. Take him out, and hand him over to
the police. I’ll see that you are recompensed for your trouble.”
“Come out, then—you’re a bad chap—you wouldn’t mind voting against our
side at the next election.”
“We don’t want elections, I tell you,” said Fydget, coolly, as he walked
up stairs—“I’ve a plan for doing without elections, and
police-officers, and laws—every man mind his own business, and support
me while I oversee him. I can fix it.”
Having now arrived at the street, Mr. Lynx held him by the collar, and
looked about for a representative of justice to relieve him of his
prize.
“Though I feel as if I was your pa, yet you must be tried for snoozling
in a barrel. Besides, you’ve no respect for functionaries, and you sort
of want to cut a piece out of the common veal by your logo-fogieism in
wishing to ’bolish laws, and policers, and watchmen, when my brother’s
one, and helps to govern the nation when the President, the Mayor, and
the rest of the day-watch has turned in, or are at a tea-party. You’ll
get into prison.”
“We don’t want prisons.”
“Yes we do though—what’s to become of functionaries if there ain’t any
prisons?”
This was rather a puzzling question. Fyxington paused, and finally said:
“Why, I’ve a plan.”
“What is it, then—is it logo-fogie?”
“Yes, it upsets existing institutions,” roared Fyxington, tripping up
Mr. Lynx, and making his escape—the only one of his plans that ever
answered the purpose.
-----
[14] Neal.
XXIII.
DOING A SHERIFF.
A GEORGIA SKETCH.
Many persons in the county of Hall, State of Georgia, recollect a queer
old customer who used to visit the county site regularly on “General
Muster” days and Court Week. His name was Joseph Johnson, but he was
universally known as Uncle Josey. The old man, like many others of that
and the present day, loved his dram, and was apt, when he got among “the
boys” in town, to take more than he could conveniently carry. His
inseparable companion on all such occasions was a black pony, who
rejoiced in the name of “General Jackson,” and whose diminutiveness and
sagacity were alike remarkable.
One day, while court was in session in the little village of
Gainesville, the attention of the Judge and bar was attracted by a
rather unusual noise at the door. Looking towards that aperture, “his
honour” discovered the aforesaid pony and rider deliberately entering
the Hall of Justice. This, owing to the fact that the floor of the court
house was nearly on a level with the ground, was not difficult.
“Mr. Sheriff,” said the Judge, “see who is creating such a disturbance
of this court.”
“It’s only Uncle Josey and Gin’rel Jackson, Judge,” said the intruder,
looking up with a drunken leer, “Jest me an’ the Gin’rel come to see how
you an’ the boys is gettin’ along.”
“Well, Mr. Sheriff,” said the Judge, totally regardless of the interest
manifested in his own and the lawyers’ behalf, by Uncle Josey, “you will
please collect a fine of ten dollars from Uncle Josey and the General,
for contempt of court.”
“Look-a-here, Judge, old feller,” continued Uncle Josey, as he stroked
the “Gin’ral’s” mane, “you don’t mean to say it, now do yer? This child
hain’t had that much money in a coon’s age, and as for the Gin’ral here,
I know he don’t deal in no kind of quine, which he hain’t done, ’cept
fodder and corn, for these many years.”
“Very well, then, Mr. Sheriff,” continued his honour, “in default of the
payment of the fine, you will convey the body of Joseph Johnson to the
county jail, there to be detained for the space of twenty-four hours.”
“Now, Judge, you ain’t in right down good yearnest, is you?—Uncle Josey
hain’t never been put into that there boardin’ house, yet, which he
don’t want to be, neither,” appealed the old man, who was apparently too
drunk to know whether it was a joke or not.
“The sheriff will do his duty, immediately,” was the Judge’s stern
reply, who began to tire of the old man’s drunken insolence.
Accordingly, Uncle Josey and the “Gin’ral” were marched off towards the
county prison, which stood in a retired part of the village. Arriving at
the door, the prisoner was commanded by the sheriff to “light.”
“Look-a-here, Jess, horse-fly, you ain’t agwine to put yer old Uncle
Josey in there, is yer?”
“’Bliged to do it, Uncle Josey,” replied the sheriff, “ef I don’t, the
old man (the judge) will give me _goss_ when I go back. I hate it
powerful, but I must do it.”
“But, Jess, couldn’t you manage to let the old man git away? Thar ain’t
nobody here to see you. Now do, Jess, you know how I _fit_ for you, in
that last run you had ’long er Jim Smith, what like to a beat you for
sheriff, which he would a done it, if it hadn’t been for yer Uncle
Josey’s influence.”
“I know that, Uncle Josey, but thar ain’t no chance. My oath is very
pinted against allowin’ anybody to escape. So you must go in, cos thar
ain’t no other chance.”
“I tell you what it is, Jess, I’m afeared to go in thar. Looks too dark
and dismal.”
“Thar ain’t nothing in thar to hurt you, Uncle Josey, which thar hain’t
been for nigh about six months.”
“Yes, thar is, Jess, you can’t fool me that a-way. I know thar is
somethin’ in thar to ketch the old man.”
“No thar ain’t, I pledge you my honour thar ain’t.”
“Well, Jess, if thar ain’t, you jest go in and see, and show Uncle Josey
that you ain’t afeared.”
“Certainly, I ain’t afeared to go in.”
Saying which the sheriff opened the door, leaving the key in the lock.
“Now, Uncle Josey, what did I tell you? I know’d thar wan’t nothin’ in
thar.”
“May be thar ain’t where you are standin’, but jest le’s see you go up
into that dark place, in the corner.”
“Well, Uncle Josey,” said the unsuspecting sheriff, “I’ll satisfy you
thar ain’t nothin’ thar either,” and he walked towards the “dark
corner.” As he did so, the old man dexterously closed the door and
locked it.
“Hello! thar,” yelled the frightened officer, “none o’ yer tricks, Uncle
Josey; this is carryin’ the joke a cussed sight too fur.”
“Joke! I ain’t a jokin’, Jess; never was more in yearnest in my life.
Thar ain’t nothin’ in thar to hurt you though, that’s one consolation.
Jest hold on a little while, and I’ll send some of the boys down to let
you out.”
And before the “sucked in” sheriff had recovered from his astonishment,
the pony and his master were out of hearing.
Uncle Josey, who was not as drunk as he appeared, stopped at the
grocery, took a drink, again mounted the Gin’ral, and called the keeper
of the grocery to him—at the same time drawing the key of the jail from
his pocket.
“Here, Jeems, take this here key, and ef the old man or any them boys up
thar at the Court-House inquires after Jess Bunion, the sheriff, jest
you give ’em this key and my compliments, and tell ’em Jess is safe.
Ketch ’em takin’ in old Uncle Josey, will yer? Git up, Gin’ral, these
boys here won’t do to trust; so we’ll go into the country, whar people’s
honest if they _is_ poor.”
The sheriff, after an hour’s imprisonment, was released, and severely
reprimanded by the judge, but the sentence of Uncle Josey was never
executed, as he never troubled the Court again, and the judge thought it
useless to imprison him with any hope of its effecting the slightest
reform.
XXIV.
THE MUSCADINE STORY.
It was a bland September morning, in a year that need not be specified,
that the Captain, standing in view of the west door of the Court-House
at Dadeville, perceived the sheriff emerging therefrom, a bundle of
papers in hand, and looking as if he desired to execute some sort of a
_capias_.
The Captain instantly bethought him, that there was an indictment
pending against himself for gaming, and began to collect his energies
for an emergency. The sheriff hailed him at the same moment, and
requested him to “hold on.”
“Stop, Ellis—_right thar_ in your tracks, as the bullet said to the
buck,” Suggs responded; “them dockyments look _venermous_!”
“No use,” said the officer—“sooner or later you must be taken; dog-face
Billy Towns is here, and he’ll go your security.”
“Keep off, I tell you, Ellis; I ain’t safe to-day—the old woman’s
coffee was cold this mornin’, and it fretted me. If you’ve got anything
agin me, keep it ’till Court—I’ll be thar—‘waive all formalities,’ you
know!”
“I will waive nothing,” replied the sheriff, advancing: “I’ll put you
whar I can find you when wanted.”
Suggs drew an old revolving pistol, whereupon the sheriff paused.
“The blood,” shouted the Captain, “of the High Sheriff of Tallapoosy
County be upon his own head. If he crowds on to me, I give fair warnin’
I’ll discharge this _revolten’_ pistol seven several and distinct times,
as nigh into the curl of his forehead, as the natur’ of the case will
admit.”
For a moment the sheriff was intimidated; but recollecting that Captain
Suggs had a religious dread of carrying _loaded_ fire-arms about his
person, although he often sported them uncharged for effect, he briskly
resumed his stride, and the Captain, hurling the “revolter” at his head,
at once fell into a “killing pace” towards the rack where stood his
pony, “Button.”
The sheriff’s horse, by chance, was tied at the same rack, but a wag of
a fellow, catching Suggs’s idea, unhitched the pony, and threw the
bridle over its neck, and held it ready to be mounted; so that the
Captain was in his saddle, and his nag at half speed, ere the sheriff
put his foot in the stirrup.
Here they go! clattering down the street “like an armed troop!” Now the
blanket-coat of the invincible Captain disappears round Luke Davenport’s
corner! The sheriff is hard after him! “Go it, Ellis!” “Go it Suggs!”
“Whoop! whoop! hurrah!” Again the skirts of the blanket-coat become
visible, on the rise by M’Cleudon’s, whisking about the pony’s rump!
“Lay whip, Sheriff; your bay’s lazy!” The old bay gains on Button,
however. But now they turn down the long hill towards Johnson’s Mill
creek. Right sturdily the pony bears his master on, but the bay is
overhauling him fast! They near the creek! He has him! no!—the horse
runs against the pony—falls himself—projects his rider into the
thicket on the right—and knocks the pony and its rider into the stream.
It happened, that, by the concussion or some other cause, the girth of
Captain Suggs’s saddle was broken; so that neither himself nor his
saddle was precisely on Button’s back when they reached the water. It
was no time to stop for trifles, however; so leaving the saddle in the
creek, the Captain bestrode the bare back of his panting animal, and
made the best of his way onward. He knew that the Sheriff would still
follow, and he therefore turned from the road at right angles, skirted
the creek swamp for a mile, and then took a direction by which he would
reach the road again, four or five miles from the scene of his recent
submersion.
The dripping Captain and his reeking steed cut a dolorous figure, as
they traversed the woods. It was rather late in the season to make the
hydropathic treatment they had so lately undergone agreeable; and the
departure of the Captain from Dadeville had been too unexpected and
hurried to allow the slightest opportunity for filling his quart
tickler.
“Wonder,” said he to himself, “if I won’t take a fit afore I git any
more—or else have a whole carryvan of blue-nose monkeys and forky-tail
snakes after me—and so get a sight of the menajerie ’thout payin’ the
fust red cent. Git up, you lazy Injun!”
With the last words, Simon vigorously drove his heels against Button’s
sides, and in a half hour had regained the road.
Scarcely had Captain Suggs trotted a hundred yards, when the sound of
horses’ feet behind him caused him to look back. It was the Sheriff.
“Hello! Sheriff! stop!” said Suggs.
The Sheriff drew up his horse.
“I’ve got a proposition to make to you; you can go home with me, and
_thar_ I can give bond.”
“Very well,” said the Sheriff.
“But hands off till we git thar, and you ride fifty steps ahead of me,
for fear of accidents—that’s the proposition.”
“Agreed!”
“Not so fast,” said Suggs, “thar’s a condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you got any liquor along?”
The Sheriff pulled out a black bottle by way of reply.
“Now,” said Captain Suggs, “do you put the bottle on that stump thar,
and ride out from the road fifty yards, and when I git it, take your
position in front.”
These manœuvres were performed with much accuracy, and the parties being
ready, and the Captain one drink ahead:
“For—rard, march!” said Suggs.
In this order, the Sheriff and Captain wended their way, until they
arrived at the crossing of Eagle Creek, a stream having a miry swamp on
each side. As his pony was drinking, an idea popped into the Captain’s
head which was immediately acted upon. He suddenly turned his pony’s
head down stream, and in half a minute was out of sight.
“Come, Button,” said he, “let’s hunt wild-cats a spell!”
The Sheriff, almost as soon as he missed our hero, heard him splashing
down the creek. He plunged into the swamp, with the intention of heading
him, but the mud was so soft that after floundering about a little
while, he gave it up, and returned to the road, cursing as much for the
loss of his black bottle, as of the Captain.
“Hello, Ellis!” shouted Suggs.
“Hello, yourself!”
“Don’t you try that swamp no more; it’ll mire butterflies, in spots!”
“No danger!” was the response.
“And don’t you try to follow me, on that tall horse, down the run of
this creek; if you do, you’ll have both eyes hangin’ on bamboo briers in
goin’ a hundred yards—besides, _moccasin time ain’t over yet_, and
thar’s lots of ’em about these old logs!”
“Take care of yourself, you old thief!” said the irritated officer.
“Once again, Ellis, old fellow!” said Suggs, coaxingly.
“What do you want?”
“Nothin’, only I’m much obleeged to you for this black bottle—_here’s
luck!_—you can charge the price in the next bill of costs you git agin
me.”
The discomfited Sheriff could stand this jeering from the Captain no
longer, so he put spurs to his horse and left.
“Now,” murmured Suggs, “let me depart in peace, for thar’s no chance to
ketch up with me now!—Cuss the hole—and yonder’s a horsin’ log!
“Well, the wicked flee when no man pursueth; wonder what they’d do if
they had that black rascal, Martin Ellis, after ’em, on that infernal
long-legged bay? Durn the luck! thar’s that new saddle that I borrowed
from the Mississippi feller—which he’ll never come back for
it—_that’s_ lost in the mill creek!—jist as good as ten dollars out of
my pocket. Well, it’s no use ’sputin’ with providence—hit _will_
purvide!
“The Grand Jurors of the State of Alabama,” he continued, soliloquizing
in the verbiage of an indictment; “elected, sworn, and charged—_darned
rascals all, with Jim Bulger at the head!_—to inquire for the body of
Tallapoosa County—_durn their hearts! it’s_ MY _body they’re
after!_—upon their oaths present—_confound them!_—that Simon
Suggs—_hem! that’s me, but they might’ve put the ‘Captain’ to it,
though!_—late of said County—_just as if I warn’t one of the fust
settlers, which I was here, afore they had a sign of a Court-House!_
“Well, it’s no use thinkin’ about the lyin’ thing; I’ll have to go
Hadenskeldt, at Court, to get me out’n the suck. Now, _he’s_ a quar one,
ain’t he? Never got him to do any law job for me yet but what I had to
pay him—drot the feller. Anybody would think ’twas as hard to git money
from me as ’tis for a man to draw a headless tenpenny nail out’n an oak
post with his teeth—but that little black-headed lawyer makes a _ten_,
or a _twenty_, come every pop!
“Wonder how fur ’tis down to the bend? This creek makes into the river
about a mile below it, they say. Never mind, thar’s a few drinks of the
_ipsydinxy_ left, and the menajerie won’t open to-day. I judge if my old
woman knowed _whar_ I was goin’, and _who_ I was goin’ to see, she’d
make the yeath shake. But she don’t know; it’s a prinsippel that
Providence has put into the bosom of a man—leastways all sensible
men—to run on and talk a heap afore their wives, to make ’em believe
_they’re turnin’ wrong-side out before ’em_ and yet never tell ’em the
fust word of truth. It’s a wise thing in providence, too. Wonder, if
I’ll ketch that rascal Jim Sparks jewlarkin’ round Betsy, down at old
Bob’s!”
On the morning after the occurrence of the adventure we have related,
Captain Suggs sat in a long trim-built Indian canoe, which was moored to
the north bank of the Tallapoosa river. Near him was Miss Betsy
Cockerell. She sat facing the Captain, on a board laid across the
gunwales of the boat. Miss Betsy was a bouncing girl, plump, firm, and
saucy, with a mischievous rolling eye, and a sharp word for ever at her
tongue’s end. She seemed to be coquetting with the paddle she held in
her hand, and occasionally would strike it on the water, so as to
besprinkle Captain Suggs, much to his annoyance.
“Oh, Captin, you do persuade me to promise you so hard. And Jim Sparks
says you’re married; and if you ain’t you mought ’a been, twenty years
ago; you’re old enough.”—(splash!)
“I say, mind how you throw your water! Jim Sparks is a triflin’ dog—if
I have got a wife, Betsy, she is goin’ fast.”
“Goin’ _whar_?” asked Betsy, striking the water again.
“Confound your paddle! can’t you keep it still? Providence is goin’ to
take her home, Betsy—she’s dwindled away to a shadder, with that cough
and one thing and another. She ain’t long for this world,” he added,
mournfully; “and if you, Betsy, will only make up your mind—the devil
take that paddle!—you’ll turn over the boat, and throw me in the
river!—make up your mind to step into her shoes, it looks like it would
sort o’ reconcile me to lose her”—and here a tear leaked out of each
corner of the Captain’s eyes.
“Oh, Captin,” said Betsy, half shutting one eye, and looking quizzical;
“thar’s so many good-lookin’ young fellers about, I hate to give ’em up.
I _like_ you, Captin, but thar’s Bill Edwards, and Jet Wallis, and Jim
Sparks, and”—
“‘Good lookin’!’ and ‘Jet Wallis’ and ‘Jim Sparks!’ Why Jet’s mouth is
no better than a hole made in the fore part of his head with a
claw-hammer—and as for Jim Sparks, he’s got the face of a terrier dog.”
“Do you count _yourself_ good-lookin’?” asked Betsy, with great
_naïveté_.
“Gal!” replied Suggs, with dignity, “did you ever see me in my uniform?
with my silver oppolots on my shoulder? and my red sash round my waist?
and the sword that Governor Bagby give me, with the gold scabbard a
hangin’ by my side?”
Just at this moment a step was heard, and before the Captain and Betsy
had recovered from the shock of intrusion, Sheriff Ellis stepped into
the boat, and asserted that Suggs “was his prisoner!”
“Treed at last!” said the Captain; “but it’s no use frettin’; the ways
of Providence is mysterious. But whar did you cross, Ellis?”
“Oh, I knew you’d be about the old lick log ’a fishin’ with Betsy. I’ll
turn the kunnoo loose, and Bets will take us across. I crossed at
Hambrick’s ferry, left my horse on t’other side, and come down on you,
like a mink on a settin’ hen. Come! come! it’s time we were off to
Dadeville.”
“Providence is agin me,” sighed the Captain; “I’m pulled up with a short
jerk, in the middle of my kurreer. Well, but,” he continued, musing,
“’spose a feller tries on his own hook—no harm in takin’ all the
chances—I ain’t in jail, _yet_!”
A few yards below the boat landing, there grew out of the bank, an
immense water-oak, projecting over the river, at an angle of about
forty-five. A huge muscadine vine enwrapped the oak in every part, its
branches and tendrils covering it like network. The grapes were now
ripe, and hung over the river
“In bacchanal profusion,—
Purple and gushing.”
Betsy allowed the canoe to drop down slowly, just outside of where the
tips of the lower branches of the tree dallied with the rippling water.
The fruit attracted the Sheriff’s eye and appetite, and reaching out an
arm he laid hold of a branch, and began to “pluck and eat.”
“Drot the grapes!” said Suggs, angrily; “let’s go on!”
“Keep cool,” said the Sheriff, “I’ll fill my pockets first.”
“Be in a hurry, then, and if you _will_ gather the sour things, reach up
and pull down them big bunches, up thar,” pointing to some fine clusters
higher than the Sheriff could reach, as he stood up in the boat, “pull
the vines down to you?”
The Sheriff tried, but the vines resisted his utmost strength; so crying
“steady!” he pulled himself up clear of the boat, and began to try to
establish a footing among the foliage.
At this moment Captain Suggs made no remark orally, but his eye said to
Betsy, as plainly as eye could talk, “hit her a lick back, my gal!”
Silently the paddle went into the water, Betsy leaning back, with lips
compressed, and in a second the canoe shot ten feet out from the tree,
and the Sheriff was left dangling among the vines!
“Stop your senseless jokes!” roared the officer.
“Keep cool, old Tap-my-shoulder! thar’s jist the smallest grain of a
joke in this here, that ever you seed. It’s the coldest sort of
airnest.”
“What shall I do? How shall I get out of this?” asked Ellis, piteously.
“Let all go and drop in the water, and swim out,” was the reply.
“I can’t swim a lick—how deep is it?”
Suggs seemed to ruminate, and then replied:
“From—say—fifteen—yes, _at least_, fifteen—to—about twenty-five
foot. Ugly place!”
“Gracious goodness!” said poor Ellis, “you certainly won’t leave me here
to drown—my strength is failing already.”
“If I don’t,” said the Captain, most emphatically, “I wish I may be
cotched and hanged where you are,” and saying a word to Betsy, they shot
rapidly across the river.
Kissing his companion as he stepped out of the boat, Suggs sought
Button, who was tied to a thicket near by, and mounting, pursued his
homeward way.
“_Never despar_,” he said to himself, as he jogged along, “never despar!
Honesty, a bright watch-out, a hand o’ cards in your fingers and one in
your lap, with a little grain of help from Providence, will always fetch
a man through! Never despar! I’ve been hunted and tracked and dogged
like a cussed wolf, but the Lord has purvided, and my wust _inimy has
tuck a tree_! Git up, Button, you old, flop-eared Injun!”
XXV.
POLLY PEABLOSSOM’S WEDDING.[15]
“My stars! that parson is _powerful_ slow a-coming! I reckon he wa’n’t
so tedious gitting to his own wedding as he is coming here,” said one of
the bridesmaids of Miss Polly Peablossom, as she bit her lips, and
peeped into a small looking-glass for the twentieth time.
“He preaches enough about the shortness of a lifetime,” remarked another
pouting Miss, “and how we ought to improve our opportunities, not to be
creeping along like a snail, when a whole wedding-party is waiting for
him, and the waffles are getting cold, and the chickens burning to a
crisp.”
“Have patience, girls, maybe the man’s lost his spurs and can’t get
along any faster,” was the consolatory appeal of an arch-looking damsel,
as she finished the last of a bunch of grapes.
“Or perhaps his old fox-eared horse has jumped out of the pasture, and
the old gentleman has to take it a-foot,” surmised the fourth
bridesmaid.
The bride used industrious efforts to appear patient and rather
indifferent amid the general restiveness of her aids, and would
occasionally affect extreme merriment; but her shrewd attendants charged
her with being fidgety, and rather more uneasy than she wanted folks to
believe.
“Hello, Floyd!” shouted old Captain Peablossom out of doors to his
copperas-trowsered son, who was entertaining the young beaux of the
neighbourhood with feats of agility in jumping with weights—“Floyd,
throw down them rocks, and put the bridle on old Snip, and ride down the
road and see if you can’t see Parson Gympsey, and tell him hurry along,
we are all waiting for him. He must think weddings are like his
meetings, that can be put off to the ‘Sunday after the fourth Saturday
in next month,’ after the crowd’s all gathered and ready to hear the
preaching. If you don’t meet him, go _clean_ to his house. I ’spect he’s
heard that Bushy Creek Ned’s here with his fiddle, and taken a scare.”
As the night was wearing on, and no parson had come yet to unite the
destinies of George Washington Hodgkins and “the amiable and
accomplished” Miss Polly Peablossom, the former individual intimated to
his _intended_ the propriety of passing off the time by having a dance.
Polly asked her ma, and her ma, after arguing that it was not the
fashion in her _time_, in North Car’lina, to dance before the
_ceremony_, at last consented.
The artist from Bushy Creek was called in, and after much tuning and
adjusting of the screws, he struck up “Money Musk;” and away went the
country-dance, Polly Peablossom at the head, with Thomas Jefferson
Hodgkins as her partner, and George Washington Hodgkins next, with
Polly’s sister, Luvisa, for his partner. Polly danced to every
gentleman, and Thomas Jefferson danced to every lady; then up and down
in the middle and hands all round. Next came George Washington and his
partner, who underwent the same process; “and so on through the whole,”
as Daboll’s Arithmetic says.
The yard was lit up by three or four large light-wood fires, which gave
a picturesque appearance to the groups outside. On one side of the house
was Daniel Newnan Peablossom and a bevy of youngsters, who either could
not or did not desire to get into the dance—probably the former—and
who amused themselves by jumping and wrestling. On the other side a
group of matrons sat under the trees, in chairs, and discoursed of the
mysteries of making butter, curing chickens of the pip and children of
the croup, besides lamenting the misfortunes of some neighbour, or the
indiscretion of some neighbour’s daughter, who had run away and married
a circus rider. A few pensive couples, eschewing the “giddy dance,”
promenaded the yard and admired the moon, or “wondered if all _them_
little stars were worlds like this.” Perhaps they may have sighed
sentimentally at the folly of the musquitoes and bugs which were
attracted round the fires to get their pretty little wings scorched and
lose their precious lives; or they may have talked of “true love,” and
plighted their vows, for aught we know.
Old Captain Peablossom and his pipe, during the while, were the centre
of a circle in front of the house who had gathered around the old man’s
arm-chair to listen to his “twice-told tales” of “hair-breadth ’scapes,”
of “the battles and sieges he had passed;” for you must know the captain
was no “summer soldier and sunshine patriot;” he had burned gunpowder in
defence of his beloved country.
At the especial request of Squire Tompkins, the captain narrated the
perilous adventures of Newnan’s little band among the Seminoles. How
“bold Newnan” and his men lived on alligator flesh and parched corn, and
marched barefooted through saw-palmetto; how they met Bowlegs and his
warriors near Paine’s Prairie, and what fighting was there. The amusing
incident of Bill Cone and the terrapin shell, raised shouts of laughter
among the young brood, who had flocked around to hear of the wars. Bill,
(the “Camden Bard,” peace to his ashes), as the captain familiarly
called him, was sitting one day against the logs of the breastwork,
drinking soup out of a terrapin shell, when a random shot from the enemy
broke the shell and spilt his soup, whereupon he raised his head over
the breastwork and sung out: “Oh, you villain! you couldn’t do that
again if you tried forty times.” Then the captain, after repeated
importunities, laid down his pipe, cleared his throat, and sung:
“We march_ed_ on to our next station,
The Ingens on before did hide,
They shot and killed Bold Newnan’s nigger,
And two _other_ white men by his side.”
The remainder of the epic we have forgotten.
After calling out for a _chunk_ of fire, and relighting his pipe, he
dashed at once over into Alabama, in General Floyd’s army, and fought
the battles of Calebee and Otassee over again in detail. The artillery
from Baldwin county blazed away, and made the little boys aforesaid
think they could hear thunder almost, and the rifles from Putnam made
their patriotic young spirits long to revenge that gallant corps. And
the squire was astonished at the narrow escape his friend had of falling
into the hands of Weatherford and his savages, when he was miraculously
rescued by Timpoochie Barnard, the Utchee chief.
At this stage of affairs, Floyd (_not the general_, but the ambassador)
rode up, with a mysterious look on his countenance. The dancers left off
in the middle of a set, and assembled around the messenger, to hear the
news of the parson. The old ladies crowded up, too, and the captain and
the squire were eager to hear. But Floyd felt the importance of his
situation, and was in no hurry to divest himself of the momentary
dignity.
“Well, as I rode on down to Boggy Gut, I saw——”
“Who cares what the devil you saw?” exclaimed the impatient captain;
“tell us if the parson is coming, first, and you may take all night to
tell the balance, if you like, afterwards.”
“I saw—” continued Floyd pertinaciously.
“Well, my dear, what did you see?” asked Mrs. Peablossom.
“I saw that some one had _tooken_ away some of the rails on the cross
way, or they had washed away or somehow—”
“Did anybody ever hear the like?” said the captain.
“And so I got down,” continued Floyd, “and hunted some more and fixed
over the boggy place.”
Here Polly laid her hand on his arm and requested, with a beseeching
look, to know if the parson was on the way.
“I’ll tell you all about it presently, Polly. And when I got to the run
of the creek, then—”
“Oh, the devil!” ejaculated Captain Peablossom, “stalled again!”
“Be still, honey, let the child tell it his own way—he always would
have his way, you know, since we had to humour him so when he had the
measles,” interposed the old lady.
Daniel Newnan Peablossom, at this juncture, facetiously lay down on the
ground, with the root of an old oak for his pillow, and called out
yawningly to his pa, to “wake him when brother Floyd had crossed over
the _run_ of the creek and arrived safely at the parson’s.” This caused
loud laughter.
Floyd simply noticed it by observing to his brother, “Yes, you think
you’re _mighty smart_ before all these folks!” and resumed his tedious
route to Parson Gympsey’s, with as little prospect of reaching the end
of his story as ever.
Mrs. Peablossom tried to coax him to “_jist_” say if the parson was
coming or not. Polly begged him, and all the bridesmaids implored. But
Floyd “went on his way rejoicing.”
“When I came to the Piney-flat,” he continued, “old Snip _seed_
something white over in the bay-gall, and shy’d _clean_ out o’ the road,
and—” where he would have stopped, would be hard to say, if the
impatient captain had not interfered.
That gentleman, with a peculiar glint of the eye, remarked, “Well,
there’s one way I can bring him to a showing,” as he took a large horn
from between the logs, and rung a “wood-note wild” that set a pack of
hounds to yelping. A few more notes as loud as those that issued from
“Roland’s horn at Roncesvalles” was sufficient invitation to every
hound, foist, and “cut of low degree,” that followed the guests, to join
in the chorus. The captain was a man of good lungs, and “the way he
_did_ blow was the way,” as Squire Tomkins afterwards very happily
described it; and as there were in the canine choir some thirty voices
of every key, the music may be imagined better than described. Miss
Tabitha Tidwell, the first bridesmaid, put her hands to her ears and
cried out:
“My stars! we shall all git _blow’d_ away!”
The desired effect of abbreviating the messenger’s story was produced,
as that prolix personage in copperas pants, was seen to take Polly
aside, and whisper something in her ear.
“Oh, Floyd, you are joking; you oughtn’t to serve me so. An’t you
joking, _bud_?” asked Polly, with a look that seemed to beg he would say
yes.
“It’s true as preaching,” he replied, “the cake’s all dough!”
Polly whispered something to her mother, who threw up her hands, and
exclaimed, “Oh, my!” and then whispered the secret to some other lady,
and away it went. Such whispering and throwing up of hands and eyes, is
rarely seen at a quaker meeting. Consternation was in every face. Poor
Polly was a very personification of “patience on a monument, smiling
green and yellow melancholy.”
The captain, discovering that something was the matter, drove off the
dogs, and inquired what had happened to cause such confusion. “What the
devil’s the matter now?” he said. “You all look as _down in the mouth_
as we did on the _Santaffee_ (St. Fe), when the quartermaster said the
provisions had all give out. What’s the matter—won’t somebody tell me?
Old ’oman, has the dogs got into the kitchen and eat up all the supper,
or what else has come to pass? out with it!”
“Ah, old man, bad news!” said the wife with a sigh.
“Well, what is it? you are _all_ getting as bad as Floyd, _terryfying_ a
fellow to death.”
“Parson Gympsey was digging a new horse trough and cut his leg to the
bone with the foot-adze, and can’t come—Oh, dear!”
“I wish he had taken a fancy to ’a done it a week ago, so we _mout_ ’a
got another parson, or, as long as no other time would suit but to-day,
I wish he had cut his derned eternal head off!”
“Oh, my! husband,” exclaimed Mrs. Peablossom. Bushy Creek Ned, standing
in the piazza with his fiddle, struck up the old tune of
“We’ll dance all night, ’till broad daylight,
And go home with the _gals_ in the morning.”
Ned’s hint caused a movement towards the dancing room, among the young
people, when the captain, as if waking from a revery, exclaimed in a
loud voice: “Oh, the devil! what are we all thinking of? why here’s
Squire Tompkins, _he can perform the ceremony_. If a man can’t marry
folks, what’s the use of being squire at all?”
Manna did not come in better time to the children of Israel in the
wilderness, than did this discovery of the worthy captain to the company
assembled. It was as vivifying as a shower of rain on corn that is about
to shoot and tassel, especially to G. W. Hodgkins and his lady-love.
Squire Tompkins was a newly elected magistrate, and somewhat diffident
of his abilities in this untried department. He expressed a hint of the
sort, which the captain only noticed with the exclamation, “hoot toot!”
Mrs. Peablossom insinuated to her husband, that in her _day_ the
“_quality_,” or better sort of people in North Ca’lina, had a prejudice
_agin_ being married by a magistrate; to which the old gentleman
replied: “None of your nonsense, old lady, none of your Duplin county
aristocracy about here, now. The better sort of people, I think you say!
Now, you know North Ca’lina ain’t the best State in the Union, nohow,
and Duplin’s the poorest county in the State. Better sort of people, is
it? _Quality_, eh! Who the devil’s better than we are? An’t we honest?
An’t we raised our children decent, and learned them how to read, write
and cipher? An’t I _fou’t_ under Newnan and Floyd for the country? Why,
darn it! we are the _very best_ sort of people. Stuff! nonsense! The
wedding shall go on; Polly shall have a husband.” Mrs. P.’s eyes lit
up—her cheek flashed, as she heard “the old North State” spoken of so
disparagingly; but she was a woman of good sense, and reserved the
castigation for a future curtain lecture.
Things were soon arranged for the wedding; and as the old wooden clock
on the mantel-piece struck one, the bridal party were duly arranged on
the floor, and the crowd gathered round, eager to observe every twinkle
of the bridegroom’s eye, and every blush of the blooming bride.
The bridesmaids and their male attendants were arranged in couples, as
in a cotillion, to form a hollow square, in the centre of which were the
squire and betrothing parties. Each of the attendants bore a candle;
Miss Tabitha held hers in a long brass candlestick, which had belonged
to Polly’s grandmother, in shape and length somewhat resembling
“Cleopatra’s needle;” Miss Luvisa bore a flat tin one; the third
attendant bore such an article as is usually suspended on a nail against
the wall, and the fourth had a curiously devised something cut out of
wood with a pocket-knife. For want of a further supply of candlesticks,
the male attendants held naked candles in their hands. Polly was dressed
in white, and wore a bay flower with its green leaves in her hair, and
the whisper went round: “Now _don’t_ she look pretty?” George Washington
Hodgkins rejoiced in a white satin stock, and a vest and pantaloons of
orange colour; the vest was straight-collared, like a continental
officer’s in the revolution, and had eagle buttons on it. They were a
fine-looking couple.
When everything was ready, a pause ensued, and all eyes were turned on
the Squire, who seemed to be undergoing a mental agony, such as Fourth
of July orators feel when they forget their speeches, or a boy at an
exhibition, when he has to be prompted from behind the scenes. The truth
was, Squire Tompkins was a man of forms, but had always taken them from
form-books, and never trusted his memory. On this occasion he had no
“Georgia Justice,” or any other book from which to read the
marriage-ceremony, and was at a loss how to proceed. He thought over
everything he had ever learned “by heart,” even to
“Thirty days hath the month of September,
The same may be said of June, April, November;”
but all in vain; he could recollect nothing that suited such an
occasion. A suppressed titter all over the room admonished him that he
must proceed with something, and in the agony of desperation, he began:
“Know all men by these presents, that I—” here he paused and looked up
to the ceiling, while an audible voice in a corner of the room was heard
to say:
“He’s drawing up a _deed_ to a tract of land,” and they all laughed.
“In the name of God, Amen!”—he began a second time, only to hear
another voice in a loud whisper say:
“He’s making his _will_ now. I thought he couldn’t live long, he looks
so powerful bad.”
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord—”
was the next essay, when some erudite gentleman remarked:
“He is not dead, but sleepeth.”
“O yes! O yes!” continued the Squire.
One voice replied: “Oh no! oh no! don’t let’s.” Another whispered, “No
ball!” Some person out of doors, sung out, “Come into court!” and the
laughter was general.
The bridesmaids spilt the tallow from their candles all over the floor,
in the vain attempt to look serious. One of them had a red mark on her
lip for a month afterwards, where she had bit it. The bridegroom put his
hands in his pockets, and took them out again; the bride looked as if
she would faint—and so did the Squire!
But the Squire was an indefatigable man, and kept trying. His next
effort was:
“To all and singular, the sher—”
“Let’s run! he’s going to _level_ on us,” said two or three at once.
Here a gleam of light flashed across the face of Squire Tompkins. That
dignitary looked around all at once, with as much satisfaction as
Archimedes could have felt, when he discovered the method of
ascertaining the specific gravity of bodies. In a grave and dignified
manner, he said:
“Mr. Hodgkins, hold up your right hand.”
George Washington obeyed, and held up his hand.
“Miss Polly, hold up yours.”
Polly, in her confusion held up the left hand.
“The other hand, Miss Peablossom.”
And the Squire proceeded, in a loud and composed manner, to qualify
them:
“You and each of you do solemnly swear, before the present company, that
you will perform toward each other, all and singular the functions of a
husband or wife—as the case may be—to the best of your knowledge and
ability, so help you God!”
“Good as wheat!” said Captain Peablossom. “Polly, my gal, come and kiss
your old father; I never felt so happy since the day I was discharged
from the army, and set out homewards to see your mother.”
-----
[15] By the Hon. J. B. Lamar.
XXVI.
THE MOTHER AND HER CHILD.
Whence comes the gibberish which is almost invariably used by mothers
and nurses, to infants? Take for example the following, which will
answer the twofold purpose of illustrating my idea, and of exhibiting
one of the peculiarities of the age.
A few days ago, I called to spend an hour in the afternoon with Mr.
Slang, whose wife is the mother of a child about eight months old.
While I was there, the child in the nurse’s arms, in an adjoining room
began to cry.
“You Rose,” said Mrs. Slang, addressing a female slave, “quiet that
child!”
Rose walked it, and sang to it; but it did not hush.
“You Rose! if you do not quiet that child, I lay I make you.”
“I is tried, ma’am,” said Rose, “an’ he wouldn’t get hushed.”
(_Child cries louder._)
“Fetch him here to me, you good for nothing hussy you. What’s the matter
with him?” reaching out her arms to receive him.
“I dun know ma’am.”
“Nhei—nhun—nho—nha’am!” (_mocking and grinning at Rose._)
As Rose delivered the child, she gave visible signs of dodging, just as
the child left her arms; and, that she might not be disappointed, Mrs.
Slang gave her a box: in which there seemed to be no anger mixed at all;
and which Rose received _as a matter of course_, without even changing
countenance under it.
“Da den!” said Mrs. Slang, “come elong e muddy (mother.) Did nassy
Yosey, (Rose,) pague muddy thweety chilluns? (children)” pressing the
child to her bosom, and rocking it backward and forward tenderly.
“Muddins will whippy ole nassy Yosey. Ah! you old uggy Yosey,”
(_knocking at Rose playfully_.) “Da den; muddy did wippy bad Yosey.”
(_Child continues crying._)
“Why what upon earth ails the child? Rose, you’ve hurt this child,
somehow or other!”
“No m’m, ’cla’ I didn’t—I was jist sitt’n down dar in the rock’n chair
long side o’ Miss Nancy’s bureau, an’ want doin’ nothin’ ’tall to him,
jis playin’ wid him, and he jis begin to cry heself, when nobody wa’n’t
doin’ nothin’ ’tall to him, and nobody wa’nt in dar nuther sept jis me
and him, and I was—”
“Nhing—nhing—nhing—and I expect you hit his head against the bureau.”
“Let Muddy see where ole bad Yosey knocky heady ’gin de bureaus. Muddy
_will_ see,” taking off the child’s cap, and finding nothing.
(_Child cries on._)
“Muddy’s baby was hongry. Dat was what ails muddy’s darling, th’sweety
ones. Was cho hongry, an’ nobody would givy litty darling any sings
’tall for eaty?” (_loosing her frock bosom._) “No, nobody would gim
t’shweety ones any sings fo’ eat ’tall”—(_offers the breast to the
child, who rejects it, rolls over, kicks, and screams worse than ever_.)
“Hush, you little brat! I believe it’s nothing in the world but
crossness. Hush! (_shaking it_,) hush, I tell you!”
(_Child cries to the ne plus ultra._)
“Why surely a pin must stick the child. Yes, was e bad pin did ticky
chilluns. Let muddy see where de uggy pin did ticky dear prettous
creter,” (_examining_.) “Why no, it isn’t a pin. Why what can be the
matter with the child! It must have the cholic surely. Rose, go bring me
the paragoric off the mantle-piece. Yes, muddy’s baby did hab e tolic.
Dat was what did ail muddy’s prettous darly baby.”
(_Pressing it to her bosom and rocking it. Child cries on._)
Rose brought the paragoric, handed it, dodged, and got her expectations
realized as before.
“Now go bring me the sugar, and some water.”
Rose brought them, and delivered both without the customary reward; for
at that instant, the child being laid perfectly still on the lap,
hushed.
The paragoric was administered, and the child received it with only a
whimper now and then. As soon as it received the medicine, the mother
raised it up and it began to cry.
“Why Lord help my soul, what’s the matter with the child! what have you
done to him, you little hussy?”
(_Rising and walking towards Rose._)
“’Cla’, Missis, I eint done nothin’ ’tall—was jis sittin’ down da by
Miss Nancy’s bu—”
“You lie, you slut!” (_hitting her a passing slap_,) “I know you’ve hurt
him. Hush, my baby,” (_singing the Coquet_,) “don’t you cry, your
sweetheart will come by’m’by; da, de dum dum dum day, da de dum diddle
dum dum day.”
(_Child cries on._)
“Lord help my soul and body, what can be the matter with my baby!”
(_tears coming in her own eyes._) “Something’s the matter with it; I
know it is,” (_laying the child on her lap, and feeling its arms, to see
whether it flinched at the touch of any particular part_.) But the child
cried less while she was feeling it than before.
“Yes, dat was it; wanted litty arms yubb’d. Mud will yub its sweet
little arms.”
(_Child begins again._)
“What upon earth can make my baby cry so!” rising and walking to the
window.
(_Stops at the window, and the child hushes._)
“Yes, dat was it: did want to look out ’e windys. See the pretty
chickens. O-o-o-h! Look, at, the beauty, rooster! Yonder’s old aunt
Betty! See old aunt Betty, pickin’ up chips. Yes, ole aunt Betty,
pickin’ up chip fo’ bake bicky (biscuit) fo’ good chilluns. Good aunt
Betty fo’ make bicky fo’ sweet baby’s supper!”
(_Child begins again._)
“Hoo-o-o! see de windy!” (_knocking on the window. Child screams._)
“You Rose! what have you done to this child? You little hussy you, if
you don’t tell me how you hurt him, I’ll whip you as long as I can find
you!”
“Missis I ’cla’ I never done noth’n’ ’tall to him. I was jis sett’n’
down da by Miss Nancy’s bu—”
“If you say ‘_Miss Nancy’s bureau_’ to me again, I’ll stuff Miss Nancy’s
bureau down your throat, you little lying slut! I’m just as sure you’ve
hurt him, as if I’d seen you. How did you hurt him?”
Here Rose was reduced to a _non plus_; for, upon the peril of having a
bureau stuffed down her throat, she dare not repeat the oft-told tale,
and she knew no other. She therefore stood mute.
“Julia,” said Mr. Slang, “bring the child to me, and let me see if I can
discover the cause of his crying.”
Mr. Slang took the child, and commenced a careful examination of it. He
removed its cap, and beginning at the crown of its head, he extended the
search slowly and cautiously downward, accompanying the eye with the
touch of the finger. He had not proceeded far in this way, before he
discovered in the right ear of the child, a small feather, the cause, of
course, of all its wailing. The cause removed, the child soon changed
its tears to smiles, greatly to the delight of all, and to none more
than to Rose.
XXVII.
PELEG W. PONDER;
OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A SIDE.[16]
It is a curious thing—an unpleasant thing—a very embarrassing sort of
thing—but the truth must be told—if not at all times, at least
sometimes; and truth now compels the declaration, that Peleg W. Ponder,
whose character is here pourtrayed, let him travel in any way, cannot
arrive at a conclusion. He never had one of his own. He scarcely knows a
conclusion, even if he should chance to see one belonging to other
people. And, as for reaching a result, he would never be able to do it,
if he could stretch like a giraffe. Results are beyond his compass. And
his misfortune is, perhaps, hereditary, his mother’s name having been
Mrs. Perplexity Ponder, whose earthly career came to an end while she
was in dubitation as to which of the various physicians of the place
should be called in. If there had been only one doctor in the town,
Perplexity Ponder might have been saved. But there were many—and what
could Perplexity Ponder do in such a case?
Ponder’s father was run over by a waggon, as he stood debating with
himself, in the middle of the road, whether he should escape forward or
retreat backward. There were two methods of extrication, and between
them both old Ponder became a victim. How then could their worthy son,
Peleg, be expected to arrive at a conclusion? He never does.
Yet, for one’s general comfort and particular happiness, there does not
appear to be any faculty more desirable than the power of “making up the
mind.” Right or wrong, it saves a deal of wear and tear; and it prevents
an infinite variety of trouble. Commend us to the individual who closes
upon propositions like a nutcracker—whose promptness of will has a
sledge-hammer way with it, and hits nails continually on the head.
Genius may be brilliant—talent commanding; but what is genius, or what
is talent, if it lack that which we may call the clinching faculty—if
it hesitates, veers, and flutters—suffers opportunity to pass, and
stumbles at occasion? To reason well is much, no doubt; but reason loses
the race, if it sits in meditation on the fence when competition rushes
by.
Under the best of circumstances, something must be left to hazard. There
is a chance in all things. No man can so calculate odds in the affairs
of life as to insure a certainty. The screws and linchpins necessary to
our purpose have not the inflexibility of a fate; yet they must be
trusted at some degree of risk. Our candle may be put out by a puff of
wind on the stairs, let it be sheltered ever so carefully. Betsy is a
good cook, yet beefsteaks have been productive of strangulation. Does it
then follow from this, that we are never to go to bed, except in the
dark, and to abstain from breaking our fast until dinner is announced?
One may pause and reflect too much. There must be action, conclusion,
result, or we are a failure, to all intents and purposes—a
self-confessed failure—defunct from the beginning. And such was the
case with Peleg W. Ponder, who never arrived at a conclusion, or
contrived to reach a result. Peleg is always “stumped”—he “don’t know
what to think”—he “can’t tell what to say”—an unfinished gentleman,
with a mind like a dusty garret, full, as it were, of ricketty
furniture, yet nothing serviceable—broken-backed chairs—three-legged
tables—pitchers without a handle—cracked decanters and fractured
looking-glasses—that museum of mutilations, in which housewifery
rejoices, under the vague, but never-realized hope, that these things
may eventually “come in play.” Peleg’s opinions lie about the workshop
of his brain, in every stage of progress but the last—chips, sticks,
and saw-dust, enough but no article ready to send home.
Should you meet Peleg in the street, with “Good morning, Peleg—how do
you find yourself to-day?”
“Well—I don’t know exactly—I’m pretty—no, not very—pray, how do you
do, yourself?”
Now, if a man does not know exactly, or nearly, how he is, after being
up for several hours, and having had abundant time to investigate the
circumstances of his case, it is useless to propound questions of
opinion to such an individual. It is useless to attempt it with Peleg.
“How do you do,” puzzles him—he is fearful of being too rash, and of
making a reply which might not be fully justified by after-reflection.
His head may be about to ache, and he has other suspicious feelings.
“People are always asking me how I do, and more than half the time I
can’t tell—there’s a good many different sorts of ways of feeling
betwixt and between ‘Very sick, I thank you,’ and ‘Half dead, I’m
obliged to you;’ and people won’t stop to hear you explain the matter.
They want to know right smack, when you don’t know right smack yourself.
Sometimes you feel things a-coming, and just after, you feel things
a-going. And nobody’s exactly prime all the while. I ain’t, anyhow—I’m
kinder so just now, and I’m sorter t’other way just after.—Then, some
people tell you that you look very well, when you don’t feel very
well—how then?”
At table, Peleg is not exactly sure what he will take; and sits looking
slowly up and down the board, deliberating what he would like, until the
rest of the company have finished their repast, there being often
nothing left which suits Peleg’s hesitating appetite.
Peleg has never married—not that he is averse to the connubial
state—on the contrary, he has a large share of the susceptibilities,
and is always partially in love. But female beauty is so various. At one
time, Peleg is inclined to believe that perfection lies in queenly
dignity—the majesty of an empress fills his dreams; and he looks down
with disdain upon little people. He calls them “squabs,” in derogation.
But anon, in a more domestic mood, he thinks of fireside happiness and
quiet bliss, declining from the epic poetry of loveliness, to the
household wife, who might be disposed to bring him his slippers, and to
darn the hole in his elbow. When in the tragic vein, he fancies a
brunette; and when the sunshine is on his soul, blue eyes are at a
premium. Should woman possess the lightness of a sylph, or should her
charms be of the more solid architecture? Ought her countenance to beam
in smiles, or will habitual pensiveness be the more interesting? Is
sparkling brilliancy to be preferred to gentle sweetness?
“If there wasn’t so many of them, I shouldn’t be so bothered,” said
Peleg; “or, if they all looked alike, a man couldn’t help himself. But
yesterday, I wanted this one—to-day, I want that one; and to-morrow,
I’ll want t’other one; and how can I tell, if I should get this, or
that, or t’other, that it wouldn’t soon be somebody else that I really
wanted? That’s the difficulty. It always happens so with me. When the
lady’s most courted, and thinks I ought to speak out, then I begin to be
skeered, for fear I’ve made a mistake, and have been thinking I loved
her, when I didn’t. May be it’s not the right one—may be she won’t
suit—may be I might do better—may be I had better not venture at all.
I wish there wasn’t so many ‘may-bes’ about everything, especially in
such affairs. I’ve got at least a dozen unfinished courtships on hand
already.”
But all this happened a long time ago; and Peleg has gradually lost
sight of his fancy for making an addition to his household. Not that he
has concluded, even yet, to remain a bachelor. He would be alarmed at
the bare mention of such an idea. He could not consent to be shelved in
that decisive manner. But he has subsided from active “looking around”
in pursuit of his object, into that calm, irresponsible submissiveness,
characteristic of the somewhat elderly bachelor, which waits until she
may chance to present herself spontaneously, and “come along” of her own
accord. “Some day—some day,” says Peleg; “it will happen some day or
other. What’s the use of being in a hurry?”
Peleg W. Ponder’s great object is now ambition. His personal affairs are
somewhat embarrassed by his lack of enterprize; and he hankers greatly
for an office. But which side to join? Ay, there’s the rub! Who will
purvey the loaf and fish? For whom shall Peleg shout?
Behold him, as he puzzles over the returns of the state elections,
labouring in vain to satisfy his mind as to the result in the
presidential contest. Stupefied by figures—perplexed by contradictory
statements—bothered by the general hurrah; what can Peleg do?
“Who’s going to win? That’s all I want to know,” exclaims the vexed
Peleg; “I don’t want to waste my time a blowing out for the wrong
person, and never get a thank’e. What’s the use of that? There’s
Simpkins—says I, Simpkins, says I, which is the party that can’t be
beat? And Simpkins turns up his nose and tells me every fool knows
that—it’s his side—so I hurrah for Simpkins’s side as hard as I can.
But then comes Timpkins—Timpkins’s side is t’other side from Simpkins’s
side, and Timpkins offers to bet me three levies that his side is the
side that can’t be beat. Hurrah! says I, for Timpkins’s side!—and then
I can’t tell which side.
“As for the newspapers, that’s worse still. They not only crow all
round, but they cipher it out so clear, that both sides must win, if
there’s any truth in the ciphering-book; which there isn’t about
election times. What’s to be done? I’ve tried going to all the
meetings—I’ve hurraed for everybody—I’ve been in all the processions,
and I sit a little while every evening in all sorts of head-quarters.
I’ve got one kind of documents in one pocket, and t’other kind of
documents in t’other pocket; and as I go home at night, I sing one sort
of song as loud as I can bawl half of the way, and try another sort of
song the rest of the way, just to split the difference and show my
impartiality. If I only had two votes—a couple of ’em—how nice it
would be.
“But the best thing that can be done now, I guess, as my character is
established both ways, is to turn in quietly till the row is all over.
Nobody will miss me when they are so busy; and afterward, when we know
all about it, just look for Peleg W. Ponder as he comes down the street,
shaking people by the hand, and saying how we have used them up. I can’t
say so now, or I would—for I am not perfectly sure yet which is ‘we,’
or which is ‘them.’ Time enough when the election is over.”
It will thus be seen that Ponder is a remarkable person. Peter Schlemihl
lost his shadow, and became memorably unhappy in consequence; but what
was his misfortune when compared with that of the man who has no side?
What are shadows if weighed against sides? And Peleg is almost afraid
that he never will be able to get a side, so unlucky has he been
heretofore. He begins to dread that both sides may be defeated; and
then, let us ask, what is to become of him? Must he stand aside?
-----
[16] By J. C. Neal.
END OF VOL. II.
L O N D O N :
Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Printer errors have been corrected where obvious errors occur.
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[The end of _Traits of American Humour, Vol. II of III_, by Thomas
Chandler Halliburton, ed.]
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