done up in a grist of leaves; "you don't mean to put me off with that
ere! why, it aint a flee-bite to what I want. Come now, hunt up a few
hollyhocks, and marygolds, and poppies, and if you've got a good
smashing hidaranger, purple on one side and yaller on tother, tuck it in
the middle."
Mr. Hogg he stood a looking right in my eyes with his mouth a little
open, as if he didn't know what to make of it.
"The season is over for those things," sez he, "and I haint got one in
the hot-house."
"Wal," sez I, "du the best you can, all things considering, only tuck in
the big posies and enough on 'em, for I'm going to give 'em to a sneezer
of a harnsome gal--so don't be too sparing."
With that M. Hogg sarched out some great red and yaller posies, with
some streaming long blue ones a sticking through them, and arter a while
he handed over something worth while--a great smashing bunch of posies
as big as a bell-squash choked in at the neck.
Arter I'd examined the consarn to be sartin that all was shipshape, I
made Mr. Hogg a bow and, sez I,
"I'm much obliged to you--if ever you come to Weathersfield in the
summer time, marm will give you jest as many and be tickled with the
chance. She beats all natur at raising these sort of things."
He looked at me sort of arnest, but yet he didn't seem to be jest
satisfied, and after snapping his thumb across the blade of his
jack-knife a minit, he spoke out, but seemed kinder loth.
"We generally sell our bokays," sez he, arter haming and hawing a leetle
while.
"Wal," sez I, "mebby I shall want one some of these days, and then I'll
give you a call--but any how I'm obliged to you for the posies all the
same."
I wanted to offer him a fourpence for the trouble of picking the posies,
but he looked so much like a gentleman and a Weathersfield Deacon, I was
scared for fear he'd think I wanted to impose on him if I offered money.
So I made him another bow, and went off, while he stood a looking arter
me as if I'd been stealin a sheep. I have wished since that I'd offered
him the fourpence, for he kinder seemed to calculate on something like
it. I stopped into a store, and bought a yard of wide yaller ribbon, and
arter tying it round my bunch of posies in a double bow not, with great
long eends a streaming down, I took the critter in my hand, and cut dirt
for the theatre, for it was a gitting nigh on to dark.
Your loving son,
JONATHAN SLICK.
* * * * *
LETTER XXII.
Jonathan gives a Description of the Theatre, Private Boxes, Drop Scene,
&c.--His Ideas of _Miss_ Elssler's Dancing, and Dancing Girls in
general--Jonathan mistakes Williams in his Comic Song of "Old Maids and
Old Bachelors to Sell," for an Auctioneer who is knocking off "La Belle
Fanny," to the Highest Bidder--Jonathan is indignant that she is not
his, after so much hard bidding, by winks, &c.--He flings his Bouquet at
Fanny's Feet--Jonathan's Visit Behind the Scenes, and his Idea of Things
seen there--Gallants Fanny home to the Astor House.
DEAR PAR:
The man who keeps the door at the Park Theatre didn't seem to know me at
fust, but the minit I writ out my name the hull length, and handed it
over, curlecues and all, and told him I wanted the Astor House box, he
was as perlite as a basket of chips. He handed me over to another chap,
who took me up stairs and along a dark entry way, till he ended in a
harnsome leetle pen, all curtained off with red silk, with purty
mahogany frames that slid up and down over a sort of red pulpit cushion
that run round the front side.
The feller he shut me up, and I sot down on one of the chairs in the
box, and took a gineral survey of the theatre. From where I sot, it
looked as if somebody had laid down an allfired big horse-shoe for a
pattern, and then built after it one tier of seats above another till
they got tired of the fun, and topped off with a young sky all covered
over with golden picters and curlecued work.
There was a consarned great curtain hung down afore the stage, with a
sort of an Injun mound in the middle, and a house built on top of it. A
lot of painted fellers hung about the front of the curtain, niggers and
Injuns, some a setting down and some a standing up, and looking like
human meat-axes gone to sleep. One feller that was squat down with his
back leaned agin a post, had something that looked like a bunch of
prime onions with the tops on, stuffed inter his bosom, and he held a
kind of a short handled frying-pan in his hand as if he meant to cook
some and have a smart fry, as soon as he could git tu a fire.
I hadn't sot long when the men begun to stream into the theatre like all
possessed, with a small sprinkling of the feminine gender, jest enough
to take the cuss off and no more.
In less than no time the house was jammed chuck full and running over,
till I raly felt as if it was wicked to keep so much room all to myself,
when the rest was stowed and jammed up so close that you couldn't a hung
up a flax seed edgeways between 'em, but think sez I, every one for
himself--I know when I'm well off, and that's enough. So I leaned over
the cushion, and let one hand hang a leetle over the edge, as
independent as if the whole theatre was mine.
By-am-by the curtain begun to roll up, and I'd like to have larfed right
out to see them painted chaps du themselves up and curl over the
roller--fust their feet doubled up, then their legs and hips and
shoulders--then the roller took a slice off from the bottom of the
mound, and turights, the hull was twisted up into a beam, and hitched to
the ruff--goodness gracious knows how, I don't!
Wal, when the curtain was all rolled up snug, there raly was a picter
worth looking on behind it. There was a great high mountain with rail
fences cutting across it, and bridges and trees, that made a feller feel
oneasy to git into the shade, and oxen and cows and folks a driving 'em,
going along the road, that run around slantindicular to the top, and
there, jest at the foot of the hill, was a purty leetle house half
kivered over with grape vines and morning glories that made me think of
hum till I could a bust out crying as well as not.
All to once there was a toot horn sounded up among the rocks, and
then--oh creation! what a grist of harnsome gals cum a dancing and
larfing and hopping down the mountain, all with curls a flying and
posies twisted among 'em, and white frocks on, and ribbons a streaming
out every which way, and _sich_ feet, I swanny it made me ketch my
breath to see 'em a cutting about under their white petticoats.
When they got down onto the flat before the house, the way they cut it
down heel and toe, right and left, down outside and up the middle, was
enough to make the York tippes, the darned lazy coots, ashamed of
themselves. It was Down East all over!--they put it down about right,
with the ginuine Yankee grit. I felt all in a twitter to git down and
shake a toe with them. It would be worth while to cut a double shuffle
among so many harnsome gals, with a hull pen chuck full of fiddles a
reeling off the music for you. I'll be darned, Par, if I don't believe
it would make the blood streak it through your old veins about the
quickest, if you be a Justice of the Peace and a Deacon of the Church.
Arter a while a feller cum up that looked just like a tin pedler out of
work--a sneaking critter with a face like a jack-knife, and a white hat
on turned clear up on the sides till the front and back was pinted like
a butter scoop. He begun stepping about and making motions with his
arms, till the gals cut up the hill to work agin, like a coop full of
chickens scattered by a hen hawk.
The chap was a strutting about as crank as a woodchuck, when in come
Miss Elssler a hundred times handsomer than she was to hum, wheeling a
wheel-barrow with a churn in it.
Gauly oppalus! but wasn't she a sneezer! The rest wasn't no more to
compare with her than a dandalion is to a cabbage rose. On she cum a
teetering along as genteel as a bobalink in a wheat lot. She had on a
straw hat curled up at the sides that made her handsome face look so
cunning; besides this she wore a sort of a new fashioned jacket with
short sleeves, that showed a pair of the roundest fattest arms all sort
of tapering off to the hand--a purty leetle finefied hand as white as
curd, and that looked eenamost as soft too. With the hat on and the
jacket you might have took her for an allfired harnsome boy, but there
was no mistake about the rest. Mary Beebe couldn't raise a bigger bump
than she had on. Arter all, the boys' and gals' clothing pulled about an
even yoke on her. She had on a short petticoat that showed a purty
considerable chunk of understandings, that tapered off into a pair of
feet, that looked as if they couldn't be hired to keep still on no
account. Take her for all, I can't but allow, that she was a smasher in
the way of beauty, and her manners were sartinly very genteel.
The minit she cum on, the folks in the theatre begun to stomp, and yell,
and kick up a darned of a fuss; with that she dropped her wheel-barrow
as if it had been a hot potater, and begun to curchy, and smile, and put
that consarned hand agin her heart, till I begun to ketch breath like a
pair of bellerses.
It took nigh upon three minits afore the consarned fellers would stop
their yop; but when they did choke in a leetle, she ketched up the
wheel-barrow and scooted up the mountain with it, a teetering and
sidling along like a young colt when they are a breaking him to the bit.
The tin pedler chap, he poked on arter, and gin the wheel-barrow a boost
once in a while as chipper as could be. It made my dander rise to see
the chap a hankering arter her so. If she wanted to take a shine to a
Yankee why couldn't she a found a feller worth a looking at? But
sometimes it does seem as if these gals couldn't tell bran when the
bag's open--the brightest on 'em. I say nothing, but it seems to me that
she might a gin one peak up to the Astor House box. I guess it would
have made that chap sing small if she had.
Wal, arter all, the critters both came back agin. The gal had a red
ribbon in her hand and she'd lost her straw hat somewhere in the bushes.
It raly did beat all how she tanteralized that he coot with the ribbon;
fust she made as if she'd give it to him, and jest as he gripped it,
away it slipped through his fingers and she flourished it now on one
side his head, and now on t'other, as if it had been a streak of
lightning she was a playing with. It tickled me eenamost to death to see
how darned sheepish the critter looked when she sort of hovered about
him with the ribbon, now a sticking that tarnal sweet coaxing face into
his'n so pert, and then darnsing off as easy as git out, with the red
ribbon a streaming from her fingers so sarsy.
Oh gracious! I'd a gin something to have been in that feller's shoes, I
swan if I wouldn't a give her a buss right before 'em all--I couldn't a
help'd it if all creation had been at the door, and I swan, Par, I
believe you'd a up and give her a smack tu if you'd been by, old as you
be. The sight of her tarnal sweet winning ways was enough to rile up
the blood in a feller's heart, if he was as old and frosty as
Mathusaler's.
I don't wonder that the fellers stomped and clapped their paws,--I'm
afear'd I let out a young arthquake myself in that way. I tried to hold
in, but it wasn't the leastest might of use. That gal is like a
sky-rocket, she busts right on a feller and takes away his senses with
the blaze. I settled right down like a cabbage sprout in a hot sun.
Arter a while the gals all come down from the mountain agin, and begun
to cut up their tantrums; then a harnsome man with a cap and feathers
on, and clothes all kivered with silver and gold and precious stones,
come tipping along leading a great strapping woman as tall as all
out-doors, and dressed off in green like a bull-frog. They went into a
leetle sort of a cubby house with glass winders, and sot down to see the
rest dance.
Didn't they cut the dashes though! helter skelter, hurra boys; they went
at it like a flock of sheep at salting time. By-am-by they all give out,
and my gal, Fanny, she stood up with the leetle Yankee as if she was a
going to dance a jig. She'd put on another petticoat streaked yaller and
blue, but insted of running up and down, the streaks were a foot wide,
and run round and round like the hoops of a barrel. She'd lost her hat,
and a swad of the shineyest black hair that ever I saw on a gal's head
was kinder slicked down on the sides, and twistified up in a knot behind
her harnsome shaped head, and then topped off with a bunch of red roses
and a pink ribbon that hung streaming down her back about as long as
marm ties your cue, Par, when you go to meeting.
Wal, the leetle chap he begun to dance fust, and I thought I should a
haw-hawed right out to see him strain and exart himself, while she stood
by with her tarnal cunning head stuck a one side, so tickled, that the
tee-hee fairly bust through, and made her larf sort of easy all over,
but he didn't seem to know that she was a poking fun at him.
When the chap got through, Miss Elssler she jest sidled up as softly as
a snow storm--gin her foot a twirl, and took a sort of genteel dive as
if she was a going to swim in the air. Oh dear, didn't she swim, too! It
was like a bird on an apple tree limb in spring time, or a boy's kite a
sailing and ducking to a south wind. She didn't kick about, and shuffle,
and all that, as I've seen 'em do; nor did she pucker and twist and
sidle like the darned lazy varmints that I've seen among the fashionable
big bugs; but she was as chirk as a bird, as quick as a grasshopper, and
as soft as a mealy potatoe with the skin off.
By-am-by she broke off short, and spread out her hands, and curchied to
the chap sort of sarsy, as if to say, "Beat that if you can."
Then the feller he tried agin, and then she, turn about, till at last
she let herself off like a fire cracker on the fourth of July. One foot
flew up into the air like a bird's wing, and whiz--off she went like a
she comet kicked on eend. Then she sort of let her foot down by degrees,
as a hawk folds its wing, and sloped off easy, a spreading her hands to
the feller, and curchying so sarsy, as much as to say,
"Try and beat that, now du! all over agin if you can."
The critter sneaked off as if he couldn't help it, then the show went
on, all of 'em talking in signs like deaf and dumb folks. But it would
take a week of Sundays to tell you all. To give you the butt eend, she
was married to the harnsome chap that run off with her; and out she cum
all in white, with diamonds in her hair and on her neck, and her frock
shone with 'em like a snowball bush kivered with dew in the arly summer.
Goodness gracious! wasn't she a beauty without paint or whitewash, and
didn't she dance! The folks stomped and yelled like a pack of Injuns,
when the chap gave her a grip round the waist, and she stood on one toe
with t'other leg stuck out, and her head twisted toward his bosom, a
twittering like a white swan that would a flown clear off, if the feller
hadn't held on like all natur. It raly seemed as if you could a seen the
white feathers a ruffling up she was so eager to fly away.
Consarn that chap--darn him to darnation, I say! It made me riley to see
him a holding on her as if there warn't nobody in creation but himself.
I'll be hanged and choked to death if it wouldn't a done me good to have
licked him on the spot. The mean finefied varmint! It was lucky the
curtain went down ca-smash as it did. It give me time to kinder think
what I was a doing, or he'd a ketched it.
I'd eenamost forgot about the auction, for arter the Astor House chap
read the card, I begun to think there was some mistake; but by-am-by out
come a queer looking chap, as chirk as a catydid, and he begun to sing
off a lot of men and women folks to auction.
Think sez I, goodness gracious! if any body but me bids off that
harnsome critter, I shall go off the handle; I sartinly shall. He'd
knocked off an old maid and a widder, and an Irishman, and was jest a
crying up an old bachelor, when I made up my mind to bid on her any way,
if I had to sell the old sloop, garden sarse and all, to toe the mark.
I knew the sloop and cargo wasn't mine, but that gal had got into my
head, and I didn't seem to know right from wrong. I forgot Judy White
and all the gals on arth for the time being. The feller kept a singing
out and a knocking on 'em off, but I didn't hear nobody bid, so I
s'posed they did it by winking. They tell me that's the fashion at the
big York vendues. At the very tip eend of the batch, he up and said he'd
got the best one yet for the young men to bid on, a gal jest eighteen,
and then he run on with a lot of soft sodder about her, but I can't
write what he said, I was in such a twitteration. Think sez I, it's
Fanny Elssler as sure as a gun, and I'll be darn'd if any of them chaps
out-wink me, so I got up and bent for'ard clear over the cushion, and
the way I snapped my eyewinkers at the auctioneer was awful savage I can
tell you.
"No more bids," sez he, a histing his fist, "no more bids,--going!" Here
I winked like all natur. "Going." I snapped my eyes till they a'most
struck fire, and I stuck out my fist to arms length and my breath seemed
to stop short, I was so dreadful eager. "Gone!" sez the chap, a stepping
back and a lifting his hand as if he didn't care if I shook to death,
and then he made a bow to the folks in ginral, and sez he,
"Yours with one eye out."
I sallied back and clapped my hand to my eye, for at first I thought
mebby it was out, I'd winked so etarnal arnest: but there it was, safe
and sound, and some etarnal wall-eyed coot had got that harnsome critter
away from me. At first I was mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in tu
without chawing; then I began to feel dreadful wamblecropped, and
eenamost boo-hooed out a crying. In the eend I made up my mind that it
was a mean cheat, and that I'd have the gal in spite of all the one-eyed
fellers in all creation; "for," sez I, "it aint the natur of things that
a critter could wink with one eye as fast as I could with both winkers
under full steam," so I jest made up my mind to look out the auctioneer,
and stick up for my rights.
There was another play, but I felt so down in the mouth that I up and
went right straight off in sarch of that auctioneer, but nobody seemed
to understand who I wanted, till, arter wandering around like a cat in a
strange garret ever so long, I asked the man at the door; and he said
the chap had gone hum, but that he'd be there agin to-morrow night.
"Wal," sez I, "I'll come and see him agin, and he'll find out I aint to
be imposed upon if I am from the country."
With that I went back to the Astor House box, jest in time to see Fanny
Elssler, the critter I'd been bidding off, out on the stage agin.
There she was, all dressed out in yaller silk, with heaps on heaps of
the black shiney lace a streaming over it, a hopping about and
twistifying round like a love-sick yaller-hammer hankering arter a mate.
She had a rattle-box on each hand, and she gin a rattle at every new
twist, and sometimes it was rattle, rattle, rattle, as swift as
lightning, and then twist, twist, twist; now her head eenamost bumped
agin the floor, and the hump on her back stuck up higher than ever; then
her arms went curlecueing over her head, and the rattle-boxes gin out a
whole hail-storm of noises, and then she'd stick her arms out at full
length and sidle off, dragging her feet along kind of easy, till I raly
didn't know what she was a doing, till I looked on the piece of paper
the man gin me, and saw that she was a doing up a Cachuca; but if it
wasn't dancing, it sartinly was fust cousin to it, or I aint a judge of
cat-fish. But then who knows but Cachuca is French for dancing? I don't!
any how, she sartinly cachukied it off like all natur, and no mistake.
By-am-by she give her foot a flirt out and her arms a flourish upwards,
and off she was a going like a trout with a fish-hook in his mouth; but
the folks begun to holler and yell, and take on so, that she had to cum
back whether or no.
She cum back sort of modest, a curchying and a smiling, and looking so
consarned harnsome and mealy-mouthed, that I thought the men would bust
the ruff right off from the theatre, they stomped and yelled, and made
such darned coots of themselves. All to once, down cum a hull baking of
posies, all around her, as thick as hops. But there wasn't none of them
a priming to the one I had stuffed, stem downwards, in the crown of my
hat.
I jumped up, and gripped the consarn with both hands, and when the rest
had got through, I drew back both hands with a jerk, and it whizzed
downwards with the yaller ribbons a streaming out, right over the row of
lamps, and the pen full of fiddlers, till it fell ca-swash right down to
Miss Elssler's feet.
Gauly offilus! didn't she give a jump! and didn't the folks in the
theatre set up another pow-wow, that a'most lifted the ruff off the
theatre! The chaps seemed to have a notion what a bunch of posies ought
to be when mine cum down amongst the mean leetle bunches that they'd
been a throwing, and sent them a streaming every which way.
Miss Elssler, arter the fust jump, looked tickled a'most to death to see
such a whopper a lying there, so tempting and sweet; and I rather guess
she took a squint, and sent one of her tarnal killing smiles towards a
good looking sort of a chap, about my size, that sot with a checkered
vest on a leaning over the Astor House box. I say nothing, but Jonathan
Slick haint been to husking balls and apple cuts ever since he was knee
high to a toad, without knowing the cut of a gal's looks when she's
taken a shine to you, or wants you to see her hum.
I gin her a sort of a knowing squint and a half bow, jest to let her see
that she needn't feel uneasy for fear that I shouldn't toe the mark; and
then I sot still, but awful impatient, till a chap cum in and picked up
a hull armful of the posies. He had to git down on one of his marrow
bones and boost hard at the whopper that I flung; and when Miss Elssler
took 'em all in her arms, and curchied over and over agin, that bunch
of mine lay right agin her bosom, and spread out so as a'most to kiver
her harnsome white neck. Jest as she was a going off on one side, she
gin another of her tarnal sweet squints up to where I sot, and then
stuck that harnsome face of her'n down into my posey so tantalizing, I
swan, I couldn't stand it no longer, but up I got, and in less than no
time I coaxed the door-keeper to show me the way back of the theatre,
where the critter was.
The chap took me along that entry way, up stairs by the Astor House box,
and through a leetle narrow door, and there he left me on the top of a
lot of stairs that looked as if they'd take me down into sumbody's
cellar. Sich a tarnal, dark, pokerish set of things I never did see,
that's a fact. But I'd got the steam up, and there aint no whoa to me at
sich times,--so down I went, hickle-te-picklety, head fust among the
paint-pots and boards, and slabs, and smoky lamps, and arter wandering
around like the babes in the woods, I cum ca-smash right into a room
chuck full of the darncing gals that I'd been half in love with all the
evening.
Oh gracious! it made me sick to think what a tarnal coot I'd been a
making of myself. Some of the critters that I'd thought so darned
harnsome were as old as the hills, and as homely as a sassafras root,
close tu. The paint and white-wash was an inch thick on some of their
faces, and most on 'em were a cutting about the room as awk'ard as a
flock of sheep jest arter shearing time--and these were the light purty
critters that had a'most drove me off the handle, they looked so
harnsome and taking a leetle way off. I swow, but it a'most sot me agin
all the feminine gender to think I'd made such a shote of myself as to
take such a shine to them as I had.
The room was chock full of folks. There were old men and young ones, and
all sorts of critters dressed off jest as I'd seen 'em in the play; but
they didn't look no more like the same critters, close to 'em, than
chalk's like a new milk's cheese. That darn'd leetle Yankee chap was
there, and while I was considering whether it was best to scrape
acquaintance or not, the identical auctioneer that had knocked off the
old maids and widders, and Fanny Elssler into the bargain, stood right
agin me. I felt my dander rise the minit I sot eyes on him, so I went
up to the Yankee chap, and sez I--
"You can't tell me who that chap is, can you?"
The Yankee looked round, and sez he--
"Oh, yes, that's Billy Williams, a good hearted comical chap as ever
lived. Don't you know him sir? I thought every body knew Billy
Williams."
"I don't know jest yet, but I guess I shall afore long," sez I, a
looking pitchforks and hatchel teeth at the auctioneer, and with that I
walked right straight up to him, with my hands dug down into my
trousers' pockets, as savage as could be, and sez I--