the least doubt that this one would been jest as good, if Sam hadn't
strained to beat t'other, and so broke his bridle. The ginuine grit aint
all sifted out on 'm, I'll bet a cookey; and I haint the least doubt
that the printers spiled this one. They're etarnally twistifying my
words into some darn'd thing or other that would make a minister swear.
Sometimes they transmogrify what I write till I shouldn't know as it was
mine; but then you know, cousin John, it aint everybody that knows how
tu spell out the ginuine English as we du in Weathersfield." Cousin John
he smiled, and then I kept on, and sez I,
"It raly made me grit my teeth to read sich things, and think the purty
gals would believe that I writ them. I didn't blame my par," sez I,
"for writing me a great long letter of admonition about sich words; but
he ought to have known better than to believe I put them there. It aint
in my natur to write anything that the most mealy-mouthed gal on arth
mightn't read out loud afore all the chaps in creation; and if any on
'em see anything that don't come right up to the chalk, in the way of
gentility, they may be sartin it aint _mine_."
My dear par, jest you keep easy about me,--and if you and marm want to
jaw any body, haul our Sam over the coals and sarmonize him; you'll find
fust rate picking on that goose,--but I haint but jest begun to put out
my pin feathers yit.
Wal now, I may as well give you a leetle notion of my goings-on here,
since I went to that smashing ball, and eat presarves with a rale queen.
Somehow I've begun to git sort of tired of the big bugs and the tippies,
they're all too much alike, and arter a chap's been to a few of their
parties, and balls, and so on, he kinder loathes their darned soft
finefied nonsense, as well as the cider and sweet sarse that they stuff
a feller with.
Going among quality is like boarding at a fust rate tavern. At fust a
critter don't know what to du with himself he's so tickled with the nice
things on the table, but by-and-by his stomach begins to turn agin the
chickens, and turkeys, and young pigs, and takes tu a hankering arter
pot-luck and plain pork and beans.
This sort of feeling kinder settled on me arter the ball. I raly was
eenamost sot agin the harnsome critters that sidle up and down Broadway,
with leetle round things, made out of silk, about as big as a good sized
toad-stool, stuck up before their faces, to keep the sun off; so I
eenamost made up my mind to put on the old pepper and salts agin, see a
leetle of human natur among the gals that git their own living, and work
themselves to death to make them stuck up critters in Broadway look as
harnsome as they du.
I'd heard say that there were lots of purty gals to work in the
milliners' stores up in Division street, and in the Bowery, but somehow
I didn't exactly know how to git acquainted with any on 'em. I never
felt a mite bashful about scraping acquaintance with stuck up critters,
like my pussey cousin's wife and Miss Miles; but when I see a harnsome
innocent young gal a going out arly in the morning and a coming home
late at night, and working like a dog to arn a decent living, somehow my
heart rises up in my throat, and insted of shinning up to 'em, and
talking soft sodder, as I du to the tippies, I feel sort of dashed, and
as if a chap ought to take off his hat, and let them see that honest men
respect them the more because they are alone, with nobody to take care
of them.
I never see one of hem harnsome young critters going along hum, arter
working hard all day, to arn something to live on, and mebby to feed
their pars and mars with, but I git to thinkin how much a ginuine chap
ought to prize them for keeping honest, and industrious, and vartuous,
when they haint much to encourage them to du right, and generally have a
good deal to tempt them to du wrong, insted of turning up their noses at
'em afore folks, or a tryin to tempt them into sin and wickedness behind
people's backs. It has raly made my blood bile more than ever to see
foreign and dandefied chaps, like that hairy lipped Count, go by them
gals in the day time, with their noses up in the air, and a looking as
if the purty critters warn't good enough to go along the same stun walk
with them, and the stuck up quality ladies; when any body that took
pains to watch the etarnal varments arter dark, might ketch them a
hanging round the dark corners of the streets, and a chasing arter them
same working gals like so many darn'd yaller foxes scouting round a hen
coop, arter the geese and turkeys; chaps that would run a man through
with a sword-cane or a bagonet if he dared to look sideways at his wife
or sister, will impose on an honest gal if they can git a chance, and
think it's allfired good fun tu. Darn such fellers! hangin's too good
for 'em! I tell you what, par, you may talk about people's being born
free and equal, and about liberty, and independence, and all that, but
it's my opinion that there aint a place on arth, where the people try to
stomp each other down to the dirt more than they du here in York.
Wal, I wont finish off this ere sarmon, so your minister needn't get
wamblecropped, for fear I'll cut him out. But I'll jest tell you what
put all these sober notions into my head.
You haint forgot that Judy White had a cousin that come here to York to
larn a trade. She was a tarnal sweet purty critter when she come away
from Weathersfield, as plump as a partridge, and with cheeks as red as a
rosy. Judy made me promise a good while ago that if ever I come down to
York I'd go and see her cousin, but somehow it does make a feller forget
old friends to be always going to parties and dinners with these big
bugs, and it warn't till t'other day that I thought anything about Susan
Reed.
The fust minit she come into my head I up and went straight along the
Bowery, detarmined to find the place that she worked at, and see how she
was getting along. I had forgot the number, but when I come to a store
that was all windows in front, and that had a smasher of a bonnet hung
agin every square of glass, besides beautiful caps and ribbons and
posies as nat'ral as life, hung up between, I made up my mind that I'd
hit the right nail on the head, and so in I went as independent as a
wood-sawyer's clerk.
A leetle bit of a stuck up old maid stood back of a counter, all sot off
with bonnets and feathers that looked tempting enough to make a feller's
purse jump right out of his trousers' pocket. She had on a cap all bowed
off with pink ribbons, that looked queer enough round her leetle wizzled
up face, and a calico frock, figgered out with great bright posies,
besides one of them ere sort of collars round her neck, all sprigged and
ruffled off as slick as a new pin. Her waist warn't bigger round than a
quart cup, and she stuck her hands down in the pockets of her dashy silk
apron, as nat'ral as I could a done it myself. I was jest a going to ask
if Susan Reed worked there, when a lady come in and wanted to buy a
bonnet. At it they went, hand over first, a bargainin and a tryin on red
and yaller and pink and blue bonnets.
The milliner she put one sort on, and then another, and went on pouring
out a stream of soft sodder, while the lady peaked at herself in a
looking-glass, and twistified her head about like a bird on a bramble
bush, and at last said, she didn't know, she'd look a leetle further,
mebby she'd call agin, if she didn't suit herself, and a heap more
palavar, that made the leetle woman look as if she'd been a drinking a
mug of hard cider.
While the lady was trying to edge off to the door, and the milliner was
a follering her with a blue bonnet, and a great long white feather a
streaming in her hand, I jest took a slantindicular squint at the glass
boxes that stood about chuck full of jimcracks and furbelows, for there
was something in one of 'em that raly looked curious. It was a sort of a
thing stuffed out and quilted over till it stood up in the glass box as
stiff and parpendicular as a baby's go-cart.
I jest put my hands down in my pockets sort of puzzled, and stood a
looking at the critter to see what I could make on it. Arter I'd took a
good squint at the consarn, up one side, down t'other, and down the
middle, right and left, I purty much made up my mind that it was one of
them new-fashioned side-saddles, that I'd heard tell on, and I took a
notion into my head that I'd buy one and send it to marm. So when the
leetle old maid cum back from the door, I jest pinted at the saddle, and
sez I,
"What's the charge for that are thing?"
"Why, that pair," sez she, a sticking her head on one side, and a
burying her hands, that looked like a hawk's claws, down in the pocket
of her cunning short apron, "I'll put them to you at twelve dollars;
they're French-made, 'lastic shoulder straps, stitched beautifully in
the front, chuck full of whalebone--and they set to the shape like the
skin to a bird."
Lord a massey, how the little stuck up critter did set off the talk! I
couldn't shove in a word edgeways, till she stopped to git breath, and
then sez I,
"I s'pose you throw in the martingales, sirsingle, and so on, don't
you?"
"The what," says she, a stepping back, and squinting up in my face sort
of cross, as if she didn't like to throw in the whole harnessing at that
price.
"The martingale," sez I, "and the sirsingle; but mebby you have some
other name for 'em down here in York. I mean the straps that come down
in front to throw the chest out, and give the neck a harnsome bend, and
the thing to girt up in the middle with. Marm wont know how to use this
new-fashioned thing if I don't send all the tackle with it."
"Oh," sez the milliner, "I didn't understand; you want the laces and
the steel in front; sartinly we give them in. The steel is kivered with
kid, and the laces are of the strongest silk."
"Wal," sez I, "I never heard of a steel martingale, and I should be
afeard they wouldn't be over pliable."
"Oh," sez she, "you can bend 'em double, they give so."
"How you talk," says I, "it raly is curious what new inventions people
du have, but somehow it sort of seems to me that a silk girt might be a
leetle too slimpsey, don't you think so marm?"
"Lor, no sir," sez she, "they are strong enough, I can tell you; jest
take a look at the Broadway ladies, they never use anything else, and
they girt tight enough, I'm sure."
I hadn't the least idee what the critter was a diving at; she see that I
looked sort of puzzled, and I s'pose she begun to think that I shouldn't
buy the saddle.
"Look a here," sez she, a putting her hands on both sides of her leetle
stuck up waist; "I've got 'em on myself, so you can judge how tight they
can be fitted."
"Gaully offalus!" sez I, a snorting out a larfing, and a eyeing the
leetle finefied old maid; but I didn't think it was very good manners to
burst right out so, and I tried all I could to choke in. Gracious me!
think sez I, no wonder the York gals have such humps on their backs,
since they've got to wearing saddles like horses.
By-am-by, arter I'd eenamost bust myself a trying to stop larfing, it
come into my head that the critter of a milliner was a trying to poke
fun at me, cause I wanted to beat her down: for I couldn't believe the
tippies quite so bad as to girt up and strap down like a four year old
colt. Wal, think sez I, I'll be up to her anyhow; so I looked jest as
mealy-mouthed as if I believed her, and sez I, as innocent as a rabbit
in a box trap, sez I,
"If the wimmen folks have took to wearing saddles, I s'pose they haint
forgot the bridles tu; so I dont care if I take this ere pair for some
old maids we've got in our parts. If I had my way, they'd all be bitted
the minit they turned the fust corner. Darn'd talking critters them old
maids are, marm," sez I, a looking at her sort of slanting, jest to let
her see she hadn't got hold of quite so great a greenhorn as she seemed
to think.
Lord a Massey, how she did look! Her leetle wizzled up face begun to
twist itself up till it looked like a red winter apple puckered up by
the frost. I didn't seem to mind it, but put my hand down in my pocket
sort of easy, and begun to whistle Yankee Doodle.
"You haint got no bridle's then?" sez I, after a minit; for she looked
wrathy enough to spit fire, and sot up sich an opposition in the pocket
line, that I was raly afeard her leetle hands would bust through the
silk or break her apron strings, she dug down so.
"Bridles! no!" sez she, as spiteful as a meat-axe jest ground, "but I'll
send out and git a halter for you, with all my heart."
"Gaully!" sez I, "but you're clear grit--smart as a steel trap, aint
you?"
"Yes," sez she, more spiteful yet, "when it snaps at some animal like
you, that don't know enough to keep out of its teeth?"
Think sez I, Mr. Jonathan Slick, Esq., it's about time for you to haul
in these horns of your'n. You aint no match for a woman, anyhow; there
never was a critter of the feminine gender, that couldn't talk a chap
out of his seven senses in less than no time.
"Gaully," sez I, "you've about used me up--I begin to feel streaked as
lean pork in the bottom of a barrel. I guess I shan't tackle in with a
smart critter like you agin in a hurry! but don't git too mad; it'll
spile that harnsome face of your'n. I swan! but I should think you was
eenamost thirty this minit, if I hadn't seen the difference before you
begun to rile up."
Didn't the puckers go out of her face when I said this! She was
mollified down in a minit. I don't s'pose she ever had twenty years took
off from her good fifty so slick afore in her hull life; but it aint
human natur to come out all to once,--at any rate, it aint an old maid's
natur, when her back once gits up. So when I see her darned thin lips
begin to pucker and twist into sort of a smile, I let off a leetle more
soft sodder, that wilted her down like a cabbage-leaf in the sun; and
then sez I, a pinting to the glass-box--
"Come, now, s'posing we strike up a trade. I've took a sort of a
sneaking notion to that ere new-fashioned side-saddle. So if you'll
throw in the tackling, I'll give you ten dollars for it, cash on the
nail."
"That what?" said she, a looking fust at me and then at the saddle, with
her mouth a leetle open and her eyes sticking out like peeled onions.
"That what?"
"Why, that are saddle," sez I, beginning to feel my dander rise.
"That saddle," sez she, "that saddle; why, sir, did you take that pair
of French corsets for a saddle?"
With that she slumped down into a chair, and kivered her face with both
hands, and larfed till I raly thought the critter would a split her
sides. The way she wriggled back'rd and fored, tee-heeing and
haw-hawing, was enough to make a Presbyterian Missionary swear like a
sea captain.
"That saddle!" sez she, a looking up from between her hands, and then
letting off the fun again as bad as ever. "That saddle! _Oh, dear, I
shall die._ Did you really take that pair of _French corsets_ for a
side-saddle, sir? Oh, dear, I shall die a larfin!"
Didn't I feel streaked though! Only think what an etarnal coot I had
made of myself, to take a pair of gal's corsets for a side-saddle. "Darn
the things," sez I, and it was as much as I could du to keep from
putting foot to the glass case, and kicking it into the street. I felt
the blood bile up into my face, and when the old maid bust out agin, and
I see a hull grist of purty faces come a swarming to a glass door, that
they'd hauled back a curtain from, I could have skulked through a knot
hole, I felt so dreadful mean. But by-am-by I begun to think they had
more cause to be ashamed than I had. Who on arth would ever have thought
them stiff indecent looking things were made for a delicate gal to wear?
I felt dreadfully though, to think that I'd been a talking about a gal's
under-riggin, to a woman so long, but after a few minits I begun to
think that I needn't fret myself much about that. The woman that stuck
them things out in the street for young fellers to look at, needn't go
off in a fit of "the dreadful suz," because a chap asks the price of
them. "So, who cares!" sez I.
The old maid jumped up, arter she'd larfed herself into a caniption fit,
and out on it agin--and she run into the back room where the gals were.
It warn't more than a minit before there was in there sich a pow-wow and
rumpus kicked up,--the gals begun to hop about like parched corn on a
hot shovel. They sot up sich a giggle and tee-heeing, that I couldn't a
stood it one minit longer. But all tu once I heard somebody say,
"My gracious, it's Mr. Jonathan Slick, from our parts!"
At that they all choked in, and were as still as mice in a flour bin. I
looked to the glass door, and there stood Susan Reed, a holding back the
curtain with one hand and peaking through a square of glass to be sartin
it was me. I tell you what, but the gal looked like a picter, and a
darned purty picter tu, as she stood a holding back the heap of red
cloth in her dark colored calico dress, and black silk apron that made
her neck and face look as white as a lily. The rosy cheeks that she used
to have in Weathersfield were all gone, and her eyes seemed as if they'd
grown larger than they ever were before. I don't know when I've seen a
gal that has took my notion as she did while she was a standing in that
door. Arter a minit I see her fling her head back till the long shiney
curls streamed in heaps over her shoulder, and I heard her say,--
"Oh, let me go out!--I'm sure it's him."
"What of that?" I heard the old maid squeak out, as sour as vinegar; "he
aint no relation, is he?"
"No, no," sez Susan, a droppin the curtain, and a speaking as if her
heart was brim full and a running over; "but he come from
Weathersfield,--we went to school together; he come from _home_,--I must
speak to him!"
With that she opened the door and come towards me, a holding out her
hand and a trying to smile; but the tears were a standing in her great
blue eyes, and I raly thought she was a going to bust right out a
crying. I knew she was a thinking about the old humstead, and when I
remembered how them darned lawyers cheated her old mother out of house
and hum, I felt so bad I could a cried tu, jest as well as not.
I went right up and shook hands, and sez I--
"How do you du, Susan? I swanny! but the sight of you is good for sore
eyes; it raly seems like old times, only jest to look at you."
She kinder smiled a leetle, and sez she, "How are all the folks in
Weathersfield?"
"Oh, they were all so as to be crawling about when I come away," sez I.
"Sally Sikes has got married, I s'pose you know."
"And how is cousin Judy?" sez she.
"Purty well, considerin," sez I; and you can't think how all-overish I
felt to hear any body speak of Judy so fur from hum. I was jest a going
to say something to keep her from asking anything more about the gal,
when the old maid she come out, and sez she--
"Miss Reed, I don't hire you to talk with young fellers in the front
shop."
Gaully! didn't my blood bile, I could a knocked the stuck up leetle
varmint into a cocked hat, but Susan she looked sort of scared, and, sez
she,
"Call and see me, Mr. Slick, at my boarding-house: I shall be _so_ glad
to talk over old times." The tears bust right into her blue eyes as she
spoke, and she looked so humsick I raly felt for her.
"What time shall I call?" sez I, a follering her to the glass door.
"I haint a minit that I can call my own till arter eight o'clock at
night," sez she; "but if you'll call some evening I shall be glad to see
you."
"I shall sartinly come," sez I, and arter shaking hands with her agin I
went out of the store and hum to my office, a feeling purty considerably
humsick and with more ginuine human natur bilin up in my heart than I'd
felt since I cum to York.
Your loving son,
JONATHAN SLICK.
* * * * *
LETTER XV.
Jonathan visits the Milliner girl--Reflections about her situation.
DEAR PAR:
I couldn't seem to rest easy till I went to see Susan. She boarded in a
sort of a gloomy house eenamost up to Dry-dock. I knocked away at the
door with my knuckles ever so long afore I could make any body hear.
By-am-by Susan come to the door herself, and she took me up a pair of
stairs, kivered with rag carpeting, into a leetle stived up room with a
stove in it. Two leetle squalling brats were a playing on the floor, and
a harnsome woman, but not over nice in her fixings, sot in one corner, a
sewing on a round-about. Susan she was dressed up jest as she was in the
milliner's store; she looked peaked and eenamost tuckered out, but the
minit I'd got seated, she took hold with the woman and begun to sew away
for dear life.
"You seem to be rather industrious," sez I.
She smiled sort of mournful, and sez she, so low I couldn't but jest
ketch the words,
"I'm obliged to be or starve."
Think sez I, there's something that aint right here, and with that I
begun to talk about the prices of the work, till I found out that with
all her hard trying, it was more than she could du to arn a decent
living. I begun to talk about hum and the time when I used to lend her
my mittens when she was a leetle gal and her fingers were cold; but all
I could do she wouldn't chirk up, but the other woman she got rale
sociable and told me lots of stories about milliners and sewing girls,
and as I was going hum I took it into my head that I'd write some on 'em
out for the Express.
I mean to send one on 'em next week, but I raly think they ought to
shell out more chink than they du for my letters, for I've had to study
the dictionary two days a ready to sarch out long words, and I haint
got half enough yit. I went to Cousin Beebe about it, and he said that
mebby I'd better study some of the arly English writers before I begun
to write stories, or else Washington Irving, Cooper, or some of them
chaps might cut me out. I didn't jest know what he meant by arly
writers, but made up my mind that it was them that begun to write when
they was shavers, so I went into a bookstore and told them I wanted to
buy a good book that was writ by some English youngster.
"Here's a work by Boz," say he, a handing down a big book; "he begun the
youngest and writes the best of any of the folks across the water." I
bought the book and went back to my office. Gaully-oppalus, but aint
that Boz Dickens a smasher! if he don't beat all natur, nobody does. If
I could write like him I raly should bust my dandy vest, I should be so
puffed up. I kept on reading eenamost all night, and more than once I
bust right out a crying afore I knew it. I swan to man that leetle Nell
that he writes about is the sweetest, purtyest critter that anybody ever
dreamed on. Oh! how I wish you would read the story about her, it's as
good as the Pilgrim's Progress any day.
Then there's a mean, etarnal sneaking coot, a Mr. Quilp, that drunk
bilin hot licker out of a skillet, and licked a poor peaked little
critter--his wife--amost to death every once in a while, and when he
hadn't her handy he took to cudgelling a wooden image. I swan to man, it
made my blood bile to read about sich dreadful carryings on; but yit
when I cum to consider and think on it all over, it kinder seems to me
as if Boz Dickens had stretched his galluses a trifle, in writing out
sich an allfired spiteful varmint. Human natur is bad enough, any how;
but my paper is run out, and I aint but jest room to subscribe myself.
Your loving son,
JONATHAN SLICK.
* * * * *
LETTER XVI.
MISS JOSEPHINE BURGESS--A TALE.
In which Jonathan shows up the Hardships of Sewing Girls--Describes a
Tammany Hall Ball--Milliner Aristocracy and Exclusiveness--Informs the
reader how Miss Josephine Burgess took a tall man with whiskers into her
Establishment, who took her in in return--The desperation of a little
Apothecary--His Marriage, and the Ascent of Miss Josephine Burgess from
the front store to a work room a little higher up.