when he looked up again, the vision had changed, and he saw before
him the inside of a soldier's tent on the banks of the Rapidan,
with two gentle Zouaves arraying themselves in their new uniforms,
which had just arrived. Owing to some trifling mental aberration,
accompanied by hiccups, which often attacks the members of an army
confined to damp localities, these two troops had somehow mistaken
their jackets for their pants, and were struggling with Herculean
strength to thrust their dainty nether limbs into the sleeves of
the first-named garments. After an animated struggle of about a
quarter of an hour, something was heard to tear; whereupon, one of
the Zouaves tore his fractured jacket from his limbs, and dashed it
furiously to the ground, hurling imprecations upon all hard-hearted
wretches who coined money by making clothing out of rotten rags for
the glorious defenders of their homes and firesides.
"'Old boy,' thundered Mr. Pepper's Ghost, reproachfully, 'did you
not have an interest with your brother, the ---- street tailor, in
that Government contract for uniforms?'
"'I did,' replied the mournful banker.
"'Then behold,' said the spirit, 'how you have earned the eternal
hate of your country's gallant volunteers, and will be handed down
to future scorn and infamy as a member of the 'Shoddy Aristocracy.'
'And now, continued Mr. Pepper's Ghost, 'that I have shown you
these illustrations of your wickedness as a rich man, how do you
feel?'
"'Well,' responded old Pursimmons, 'to tell the truth, I feel
greatly bored and very sleepy.'
"'And you wont bestow all your wealth upon the next poor widow with
six small children?'
"'Not exactly.'
"'Nor at least one half of it upon the Mission for the Regeneration
of the starving Choctaw Nation?'
"'I'd rather be excused.'
"'Well, then,' exclaimed Mr. Pepper's Ghost, plaintively, 'wont
you--_wont_ you, oblige _me_ with--a loan of five dollars?'
"'Yes--if you will take greenbacks.'
"At the word, Mr. Pepper's Ghost uttered a scream of despair, smote
its breast frantically, and gave the chair upon which old
Pursimmons had just seated himself such a vicious kick that the
flinty-hearted banker suddenly awoke, found it all a dream,
and,--went outrageously to sleep again; thereby giving convincing
proof of that utter callousness of soul which all worthy poor men
know to be the sure accompaniment of riches!"
As Villiam ceased reading, we all retired silently from the tent,
greatly improved by what we had heard. And now, my boy, let me conclude
with a little story of my own:
Some months ago, a certain western General gave an order to an Eastern
contractor for a couple of peculiarly made gunboats for his service;
but, happening to pass the White House, shortly after, saw what he took
to be the models of two just such gunboats protruding out of one of the
windows. Thinking that the President had concluded to attend to the
matter himself, he immediately telegraphed to the contractor not to go
on with the job.
Quite recently, the contractor came here again, and says he to the
General,--
"I'd like to see the model of those White-House gunboats."
The General conducted him toward the White House, my boy, and the two
stood admiring the models, which protruded from the window as usual.
Pretty soon a Western Congressman came along, and says the contractor
to him:
"Can you tell me, sir, whether those models of gunboats up there are on
exhibition?"
"Gunboats!" says the Western chap, looking. "Do you take those things
for gunboats?"
"Of course," says the contractor.
"Why, you fool!" says the Congressman, "those are the Secretary's
boots. The Secretary always sits with his feet out of the window when
he is at home, and those are the ends of his boots!"
Without another word, my boy, the General and the contractor turned
gloomily from the spot, convinced that they had witnessed the most
terrific feet of the campaign.
Yours, merrily,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER C.
GIVING DIVERS INSTANCES OF STRANGELY-MISTAKEN IDENTITY; AND
REVEALING A WISE METHOD OF SAVING THE COUNTRY FROM BANKRUPTCY.
WASHINGTON, D.C., March 5th, 1864.
This gray-headed pen of mine, my boy,--which is mightier than the
sword, inasmuch as it can, itself, "draw" the sword when it chooses,
quite as accurately as any pencil-vanian,--has run the blockade
recently imposed upon it, and once more gambols nervously down the
lines of contemporaneous military history. When first I heard that
aphorism of the elegant and ghostly Bulwer, by which the sober sceptre
of the scribe is magnified above the fancy-dress weapon of the hero, I
took it to be like any other high-sounding sentiment of the stage,
whereby the poor but virtuous editor was nobly and improvingly
encouraged to believe himself rather more powerful in this universe
than all its great captains put together. Being a child of the pen
myself, I felt benignantly inflated by the venerable "Richelieu's"
excellent remark, and looked with much generous pity upon a crushed
young army officer in the box next to mine; but, at the same time, I
remember that it reminded me of the exceedingly moral popular delusion
making starving virtue a much pleasanter and more admirable thing to
possess than a king's crown; and I also remember how it thereupon
dawned upon me, that the pen was possibly mightier than the sword only
in the far-removed sense of Might being Write. Since I have lived in
Washington, however, I have learned, my boy, that the sentiment in
question is capable of demonstration as a very plain fact; seeing, as I
do, that off-hand strokes of the pen can in a very few minutes promote
into Major Generals and Brigadiers certain pleasing brass-buttoned
chaps whose actual swords could never have done as much for them in all
their lives. And yet, my boy, if all those powerful, unsordid
creatures, our country editors, had their youths to live over again, I
verily believe that two-thirds of them would sooner be put to the sword
than put to the pen. Such is man!
Nevertheless, mighty as the pen may be, it must fail equally with the
well-known Southern Confederacy to do justice to this Capital of our
distracted country in its present social peculiarities. The cackling of
geese once saved the Capitol of the Roman Empire, my boy; but it will
take more geese than those who have come hither with the expectation of
being respected for their virtues, to save Washington from permanent
investment by all the speculative chaps on earth who have no other
capital to invest. The present social circle around the family hearth
of this Capitalian and Congressional town, my boy, is somewhat more
remarkable than it was, even in the palmiest and most mutually abusive
days of our eloquent National Legislature, and fully equals the
frequent domestic symposium of Albany when the State Legislature meet
_there_. Look into a Washington home, and you shall find the venerable
grandfather, who sits nearest the fire, talking and chuckling to
himself over his success that day in depreciating the national currency
by first frightening a country squire on the street almost into fits by
prating learnedly about "repudiation," and then buying all his treasury
notes from him at fifty per cent. discount! Next sits the younger
husband and father, cataloguing to his devoted wife, with the
forefinger of his right hand upon all the fingers of his left, the
successive pecuniary advantages sure to accrue from a contract he has
just obtained to supply our national troops with patent suspenders, and
which will enable him to return to New York in the spring, purchase a
palatial residence on Fifth Avenue, and sign urgent and influential
calls for Peace Conventions. Thirdly, my boy, we have the interesting
wife and mother who listens to her lord and master's revelation with
beaming satisfaction, glancing occasionally at her youthful son and
heir, who, with two thimbles, is practising upon the rug at her feet
the curious and ingenious game of the "Little Joker," whereby he hopes
to reap profit from his small associates on the morrow. The fourth
figure of this prayerful group around the home altar is the highly
elaborated daughter, reading over her lover's shoulder, from a
newspaper held conveniently by him, a spicy, exciting, moral tale of a
daring spirit who had sold a sloop-load of hay, just as it floated, to
the Government, and then--when he had got his pay--set fire to it and
burnt the whole concern so effectually, that very few could presume to
think that at least two-thirds of it had been old straw.
It is a noble and beautiful thing to remember, or note, my boy, that
the true and real Home,--the shrine of parental Love and Honor, and of
childhood's Innocence and fearless trust,--is ever held sanctified by
an unseen angel-circle, into which a few men can bring even so much of
the scheming outer world as its cares; that its name, long, perhaps,
after it has ceased to be, lives for our voices only in that plaintive
medium tone, which, like the master-string of an instrument responding
to a passionate touch, sums up, by its very cadence, all the noblest
music of a life.
It is this state of things in Washington that greatly confuses the
stranger, and causes him to make strange and horrible mistakes as to
personal identities. On Monday afternoon, as I stood musing in front of
Willard's, after a dispassionate conversation with the Conservative
Kentucky Chap as to the probability of Kentucky's consenting to the
setting apart of the first of January as New-Year's day, I overheard a
conversation between a middle-aged chap of much vest pattern from the
rural districts, and one of the Provost Marshal's disguised detectives.
The rural chap chewed a wisp of straw which he had been using as a
toothpick, and says he:
"That gentleman in a broad-brim hat, going along on the other side of
the street, is a prominent New York politician,--is he not?"
The detective involuntarily rattled a pair of miniature handcuffs which
were hanging from his watch-chain, and says he:
"Ha! ha! truly! That's a queer mistake. Why, that's Nandy Brick, the
incendiary and negro-killer."
Not at all discouraged by this failure at guessing, my boy, the rural
chap glanced knowingly at another passer-by, and says he:
"Well, this here other one who just went by is the French Minister, I
believe?"
"Really!" says the detective, with a slight cough, "Really, you're
wrong again, for that's 'Policy Loo,' the notorious Mexican murderer
and thief."
The rural chap bit his right thumb-nail irritatedly, and says he:
"At any rate, I know who yonder tall, gentlemanly person in the black
gloves is. It's a famous leader of fashions from Fifth Avenue."
The detective opened his eyes widely at this, and says he:
"Why, there you miss it again. I think I ought to know 'Slippery Jim,'
who got that fat contract to supply the army with caps, and made half
of them of shoddy."
The chap from the rural districts seemed very much ashamed of himself,
my boy, for doing such a wrong to our admirable and refined Best
Society; but he was bound to try it once more, and so says he, shortly:
"Perhaps you'll tell me that fleshy individual in a black silk vest,
coming this way, an't the British Minister?"
"Wrong again, by thunder!" says the detective; "for all the world knows
that respectable cove to be 'Neutral John,' the celebrated rebel-spy
and blockade-runner."
Indeed, appearances go so entirely by contraries here, that I really
fear, my boy,--I really fear, that many of our veritable great
politicians, diplomatists, and Missouri Delegates, are frequently taken
for unmitigated rogues by blundering amateurs in physiognomy.
It was on Wednesday that the Venerable Gammon being seized with a fresh
and powerful inspiration to confer a new benefaction on his favorite
infant, his country, came post haste from his native Mugsville, and was
quickly blessing the idolatrous populace in front of the Treasury
Buildings with some knowledge of his benevolent scheme for paying the
cost of the War.
"War?" says the Venerable Gammon, fatly,--pronouncing the word as
though he had just invented it for the everlasting benefit of some poor
but virtuous language,--"War costs money, and money costs gold. What we
want is gold, to pay for the money that pays for the war. And where
shall we get that gold?" says the Venerable Gammon, with a smile of
knowing beneficence.
"By reference to a California journal, I find that California and
Nevada contain about twenty columns of gold mines, and that each mine
is worth so many millions that its directors are obliged to levy daily
assessments of Five, Ten, and Twenty-five cents per share, or 'loot,'
in order that the shareholders, in their immense wealth, may not forget
that their distracted country has a decimal currency to be countenanced
and supported. Now I propose," says the Venerable Gammon, magisterially
pulling out his ruffles with his fat thumb and forefinger, "I propose
that the War debt and the board of our Major Generals be paid by an
especial tax on these mines, thus"--
"Killing the goose which lays the golden egg," broke in an aged
Treasury Clerk standing near, whose countenance possessed all the
oppressive respectability that large spectacles and a pimple on the
nose can possibly bestow.
The Venerable Gammon was hereupon seized with such a violent fit of
coughing that farther argument was impracticable; and it is not decided
to this day whether it would be in keeping with the eternal fitness of
things to tax the miners to pay the majors.
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER CI.
EXPLAINING THE WELL-MEANT DUPLICITY OF THE JOURNALS OF THE
OPPOSITION; AFFORDING ANOTHER GLIMPSE OF THE IRREPRESSIBLE
CONSERVATIVE SENTIMENT; AND SHOWING HOW THANKSGIVING DAY WAS KEPT
BY THE MACKERELS.
WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 10th, 1864.
Thanksgiving Day, my boy, is an able-bodied national festival which has
dwelt unctuously in all my less spiritual annual reminiscences, since
that poetical and beautiful time of life when the touching innocence of
childhood tempted me to surreptitiously pick a chicken-leg while my
good grandfather was asking a blessing; and to receive therefor that
wholesome box of the ears, which not unfrequently imparts a temporary
and excessive warmth to the brain of virtuous boyhood. 'Tis sweet to
remember that old-fashioned Thanksgiving Eve, my boy, when the
venerable and widowed Mrs. McShane, our cook, would renew her annual
custom of inveigling us children into the kitchen on pretence of
admiring our new shoes; and then proceed, by divers artful and
melancholy phrases, to darken our little souls with a heart-sickening
conviction of her utter failure to procure, in her recent trip to
market, that long-anticipated Turkey! 'Tis pleasant to recollect how
entirely we were cast down thereat, and how rigidly we refrained from
so much as a single glance toward the old "Dresser," whereon stood the
well-known market-basket of Mrs. McShane, with the plump legs of the
choicest of gobblers protruding very obviously therefrom! 'Tis joyous
to recall how we stared mercilessly at every possible thing in the
kitchen except that "Dresser;" and how desolately we received certain
sadly-philosophical remarks from Mrs. McShane, as to the unspeakable
admiration assuredly merited by those "rale good childers," who could,
for one Thanksgiving Day, endure starvation without tears.
The little deception was most tenderly and kindly meant, my boy; it was
the artless roguery of a dear old heart--the gentlest of cheats--the
fondest of frauds; and the very remembrance of it, at this remote
moment, not only fills my manly bosom with the softest charity, but
endows me with a nicer mental perception of actual good in seeming
wickedness, than any yet disclosed by my more obtuse fellow-countrymen.
Thus, my boy, when I note how some of our excellent Democratic daily
journals attempt to prove, with great sadness of manner and profound
sincerity of reluctant reasoning, that all the celebrated advances,
conquests, and flankings of our remarkable national armies are really
so many heart-breaking defeats in deep disguise; and that the
well-known Southern Confederacy is actually quite intoxicated with its
continued remorseless successes over us; when I note this, my boy, I am
moved to pleasant tears over that inherent and ineradicable goodness of
human nature, which instinctively inspires the nobler of our species to
first delude their fellow-beings to despondency with the most innocent
of falsehoods, only that their consummate bliss may be the greater when
the glorious truth can no longer be thus fondly concealed. Join with
me, my boy, in a noble tribute of affection to the humble but tender
Editors of these excellent Democratic daily journals, who would
lovingly make us, children of the nation, believe, that the Turkey of
Victory is not to be had at any price, though none of us need look very
far to see the plump legs of that very same turkey sticking out of the
family-basket. Thanks to thee, thou dear old Mrs. McShane, with thy
perpetual atmosphere of roast-beef gravy, and eternal rims of crusted
flour about thy finger-nails--thanks be to thee for that humanizing
remembrance of thy loving fraud, which thus enables me to rescue our
excellent Democratic daily journals from the unseemly imputations of
degenerate Black Republicans.
My long absence with our somewhat tedious national troops, my
boy,--troops now constituting a flaming about the throat of this
exciting Rebellion;--my long absence, I say, has given this Capital
City of our distracted country an opportunity to thrive apace in the
development of those public and private virtues, which so thoroughly
unpopularize Vice in this chaste locality, that even the Vice President
is never heard of. True it is, that one misses those pleasant and
gorgeous chaps of much watch-chain and an observable extent of diamond
breastpin, who were wont, in the days of genial Southern preponderance,
to lend lustre to the hall-ways of the more majestic hotels, and
occasionally induce the inebriated son of Chivalry to join them at Faro
his table. We miss these light and airy chaps, each of whom is now an
unblushing Confederacy without hope of Reconstruction; we miss the high
and lofty Carolina chap of much hat-brim, whose playful moments after
the bottle were now and then illustrated with a lively shot from a
revolver at a waiter, or cheerful pass with a bowie-knife at his
opponent in conversation. And oh! we miss those languishing magnolia
belles, whose eyes always reminded me of fresh drops of ink on tinted
paper, and whose beautiful belief in the utter vulgarity of all
Northern ladies it was really quite delightful to hear. Yes, my boy,
all, all are gone; but we have in their places such representatives of
genuine republican simplicity as you shall not see again in a circuit
of the globe. Our hotel-halls are brightened by youthful forms in the
self-sacrificing uniform of our national army; and these youthful
forms, being mostly from the country, confine their innocent gaming,
almost exclusively, to the athletic game of "checkers." The prominent
walking-gentlemen of Willard's wear black velvet vests all the year
round, and, so far from shooting waiters, are always on the most
familiar terms with that oppressed race; joking freely with them and
recognizing them as intimate equals, as all genuine citizens of a true
Republic should do. And as for our present Washington ladies,--wearing
Lisle-thread gloves at the dinner-table and putting almonds and raisins
into their pockets before leaving it, God bless 'em!--why they know no
more of anything vulgar, than a maniac does of insanity.
Reflecting upon these things, on Monday last, my boy, I strolled
abstractedly into an establishment where they sell army stores, such as
lemons by the slice, sugar by the half-ounce, etc. I strolled dreamily
in, when who should I see at the crockery-counter but the Conservative
Kentucky chap, whose hat was very far down over his eyes, like one who
has just come through a severe election. He appeared to be taking
Richmond at the moment, my boy, with a spoon in it; and as quickly as I
entered, he let the hand grasping it fall suddenly down on his obverse
side, and gave his entire and most unremitting attention to the picture
of a flesh-colored young lady on the farthest wall. I slapped him on
the shoulder, and says I:
"Well, my ancient Talleyrand, how are we?"
The Conservative Kentucky chap gloomily placed his tumbler upon the
stomach of a gentleman in checked pants, who was calmly sleeping on
three chairs near the stove, and says he: "Kentucky can no longer blind
herself to the fact that we are on the brink of a monikky. Yes!"
exclaimed the Conservative chap,--wildly tearing off his hat, and then
putting it on again so that it entirely covered his left eye,--"Yes,
sir, a monikky with a Yankee for its Austrian tyrant!"
Here the Conservative Kentucky chap deliberately buttoned his coat to
the very neck, turned up his collar, and gazed sternly at a bowl of
cloves near by. I called his attention to the Ten of Spades, which was
edging itself down between his hat and his right ear, and says I,--
"Hast proof of this, Horatio?"
"Proof?" says the Conservative Kentucky chap, with such a start that
the gentleman in the checked pants vibrated as though sleeping on
springs,--"Proof? You know Smith,--John Smith,--that little apothecary
from Connecticut? Well, sir, he voted in this here last election for
the Austrian usurper, and now he's knighted! Yes, sir, by A. Lincoln's
recommendation he's now SIR JOHN SMITH!! I've heard him called so
myself. And this--this--is Kentucky's reward!"
At this crisis the Conservative Kentucky chap shut the stove-door with
great violence, and seemed for a moment to meditate personal outrage on
the young assistant oysterer, who had just arrived with the
coal-skuttle.
Before I could make rejoinder, my boy, there approached us a
middle-aged gentleman in a shocking bad hat and an overcoat very shiny
about the seams, who had cordially invited himself to take a little
something that morning, and had accepted the invitation with pleasure.
Straightening himself suddenly, with a violent start, to restrain an
unruly hiccup, or make me believe that he made the noise with his feet,
he eyed the Conservative chap with a benignant smile, and says he:
"You're mistaken there, sir,--muchly, sir, hem! Mr. Smith is my friend,
sir; my bosom friend, till time shall end.--Beautiful idea, that.--My
friend, I say; and he's only been appointed to the medical department
by recommendation of the President.--Let nature do her best, and then
your doctors are of use to men.--Byron.--Yes, sir, Mr. Smith is now a
military doctor; and that's how you've made the mistake. You thought it
was 'Sir John' Smith they said, when it was '_Sur-geon_' Smith!"
As he said this, the middle-aged gentleman became aware that one of his
toes was sticking very much through his boot, and retired to
confidentially ask the assistant oysterer if any one had yet found
that valuable diamond scarf-pin which he (the middle-aged gentleman)
had recently lost.
I looked at the Conservative Kentucky chap, my boy, and his chin had
sunk down upon his breast. He felt that his mistake was also the
mistake of Kentucky, and his heart was too full for further
conversation.
'Twas on Thursday morn,--Thanksgiving Day,--that I blithely scaled the
heights of my faithful Gothic steed, the architectural Pegasus, and
softly urged that ruined temple of a horse to trot me a lively
reminiscence of his youth. Forward we went with a unique, chopping
motion, with now and then a stumble to keep the blood in circulation,
interpersed with occasional plunges at stumps and shyings at fluttering
withered leaves. When you have mounted a beloved horse, on a fine,
bracing autumnal morning, my boy, did you ever feel like a kind of new
and superior being; as though you and your steed were one consummate
individual, inspired by one bounding, uncontrollable impulse, and
impatiently regarding the line of the horizon as a tyrannical limit to
a ride that should else tear gallantly and recklessly forth into
illimitable space? Did you ever feel thus, my boy?...
Because, if you did, your feelings were not at all like mine.
* * * * *