The American Eagle.
Jist look out of the door, said the Clockmaker, and see
what a beautiful night it is, how calm, how still, how
clear it is, beant it lovely?--I like to look up at them
are stars, when I am away from home, they put me in mind
of our national flag, and it is generally allowed to be
the first flag in the univarse now. The British can whip
all the world, and we can whip the British. Its near
about the prettiest sight I know of, is one of our first
class Frigates, manned with our free and enlightened
citizens all ready for sea; it is like the great American
Eagle, on its perch, balancing itself for a start on the
broad expanse of blue sky, afeared of nothin of its kind,
and president of all it surveys. It was a good emblem
that we chose, warn't it? There was no evading so direct,
and at the same time, so conceited an appeal as this.
Certainly, said I, the emblem was well chosen. I was
particularly struck with it on observing the device on
your naval buttons during the last war--an eagle with an
anchor in its claws. That was a natural idea, taken from
an ordinary occurrence: a bird purloining the anchor of
a frigate--an article so useful and necessary for the
food of its young. It was well chosen, and exhibited
great taste and judgment in the artist. The emblem is
more appropriate than you are aware of--boasting of what
you cannot perform--grasping at what you cannot attain
--an emblem of arrogance and weakness--of ill-directed
ambition and vulgar pretension. Its a common phrase, said
he, (with great composure) among seamen, to say 'damn
your buttons,' and I guess its natural for you to say so
of the buttons of our navals; I guess you have a right
to that are oath. Its a sore subject, that, I reckon,
and I believe I hadn't ought to have spoken of it to you
at all. Brag is a good dog, but hold fast is a better
one. He was evidently annoyed, and with his usual
dexterity gave vent to his feelings, by a sally upon the
Blue Noses, who he says are a cross of English and Yankee,
and therefore first cousins to us both. Perhaps, said
he, that are Eagle might with more propriety have been
taken off as perched on an anchor, instead of holding it
in his claws, and I think it would have been more nateral;
but I suppose it was some stupid foreign artist that made
that are blunder, I never seed one yet that was equal to
ourn. If that Eagle is represented as trying what HE
CAN'T DO, its an honorable ambition arter all, but these
Blue Noses wont try what THEY CAN DO. They put me in mind
of a great big hulk of a horse in a cart, that wont put
his shoulder to the collar at all for all the lambastin
in the world, but turns his head round and looks at you,
as much as to say, 'what an everlastin heavy thing an
empty cart is, isnt it?' An Owl should be their emblem,
and the motto, 'He sleeps all the days of his life.' The
whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at,
but silent as the grave--still as death, asleep, becalmed.
If the sea was always calm, said he, it would pyson the
univarse; no soul could breathe the air, it would be so
uncommon bad. Stagnant water is always unpleasant, bat
salt water when it gets tainted beats all natur; motion
keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our minister used
to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This
province is stagnant; it tante deep like still water
neither, for its shaller enough, gracious knows, but it
is motionless, noiseless, lifeless. If you have ever been
to sea, in a calm, you'd know what a plaguy tiresome
thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An everlastin
flappin of the sails, and a creakin of the boombs, and
an onsteady pitchin of the ship, and folks lyin about
dozin away their time, and the sea a heavin a long heavy
swell, like the breathin of the chist of some great
monster asleep. A passenger wonders the sailors are so
plagy easy about it, and he goes a lookin out east, and
a spyin out west, to see if there's any chance of a
breeze, and says to himself 'Well, if this aint dull
music its a pity.' Then how streaked he feels when he
sees a steamboat a clippin it by him like mad, and the
folks on board pokin fun at him, and askin him if he has
any word to send to home. Well, he says, if any soul ever
catches me on board a sail vessel again, when I can go
by steam, I'll give him leave to tell me of it, that's
a fact. That's partly the case here. They are becalmed,
and they see us going a head on them, till we are een
amost out of sight; yet they hant got a steamboat, and
they hant got a rail road; indeed, I doubt if one half
on em ever see'd or heerd tell of one or tother of them.
I never see'd any folks like 'em except the Indians, and
they wont even so much as look--they hav'nt the least
morsel of curiosity in the world; from which one of our
Unitarian preachers (they are dreadful hands at DOUBTIN
them. I don't DOUBT but some day or another, they will
DOUBT whether every thing aint a DOUBT) in a very learned
work, doubts whether they were ever descended from Eve
at all. Old marm Eve's children, he says, are all lost,
it is said, in consequence of TOO MUCH curiosity, while
these copper colored folks are lost from havin TOO LITTLE
little. How can they be the same? Thinks I, that may be
logic, old Dubersome, but it ant sense, don't extremes
meet? Now these Blue Noses have no motion in 'em, no
enterprise, no spirit, and if any critter shows any
symptoms of activity, they say he is a man of no judgment,
he's speculative, he's a schemer, in short he's mad. They
vegitate like a lettuce plant in sarse garden, they grow
tall and, spindlin, run to seed right off, grow as bitter
as gaul and die.
A gall once came to our minister to hire as a house help;
says she, minister, I suppose you don't want a young lady
to do chamber business and breed worms do you? For I've
half a mind to take a spell of livin out (she meant, said
the Clockmaker, house work and rearing silk worms.) My
pretty maiden, says he, a pattin her on the cheek, (for
I've often observed old men always talk kinder pleasant
to young women,) my pretty maiden where was you brought
up? why, says she I guess I warnt brought up at all, I
growed up; under what platform, says he, (for he was very
particular that all his house helps should go to his
meetin,) under what Church platform? Church platform,
says she, with a toss of her bead, like a young colt
that's got a check of the curb, I guess I warnt raised
under a platform at all, but in as good a house as yourn,
grand as you be--you said well said the old minister,
quite shocked, when you said you growed up, dear, for
you have grown up in great ignorance. Then I guess you
had better get a lady that knows more than me, says she,
that's flat. I reckon I am every bit and grain as good
as you be--If I don't understand a bum-byx (silk worm)
both feedin, breedin, and rearin, then I want to know
who does, that's all; church platform indeed, says she,
I guess you were raised under a glass frame in March,
and transplanted on Independence day, warnt you? And off
she sot, lookin as scorney as a London lady, and leavin
the poor minister standin starin like a stuck pig. Well,
well, says he, a liftin up both hands, and turnin up the
whites of his eyes like a duck in thunder, if that don't
bang the bush!! It fearly beats sheap shearin arter the
blackberry bushes have got the wool. It does, I vow; them
are the tares them Unitarians sow in our grain fields at
night; I guess they'll ruinate the crops yet, and make
the grounds so everlastin foul; we'll have to pare the
sod and burn it, to kill the roots. Our fathers sowed
the right seed here in the wilderness, and watered it
with their tears, and watched over it with fastin and
prayer, and now its fairly run out, that's a fact, I
snore. Its got choaked up with all sorts of trash in,
natur, I declare. Dear, dear, I vow I never seed the
beat o' that in all my born days.
Now the Blue Noses are like that are gall; they have
grown up, and grown up in ignorance of many things they
had'nt ought not to know; and its as hard to teach grown
up folks as it is to break a six year old horse; and they
do ryle one's temper so--they act so ugly that it tempts
one sometimes to break their confounded necks--its near
about as much trouble as its worth. What remedy is there
for all this supineness, said I; how can these people be
awakened out of their ignorant slothfulness, into active
exertion? The remedy, said Mr, Slick, is at hand--it is
already workin its own cure. They must recede before our
free and enlightened citizens like the Indians; our folks
will buy them out, and they must give place to a more
intelligent and ac-TIVE people. They must go to the lands
of Labrador, or be located back of Canada; they can hold
on there a few years, until the wave of civilization
reaches them, and then they must move again, as the
savages do. It is decreed; I hear the bugle of destiny
a soundin of their retreat, as plain as any thing. Congress
will give them a concession of land, if they petition,
away to Alleghany backside territory, and grant them
relief for a few years; for we are out of debt, and don't
know what to do with our surplus revenue. The only way
to shame them, that I know, would be to sarve them as
Uncle Enoch sarved a neighbor of his in Varginey.
There was a lady that had a plantation near hand to hisn,
and there was only a small river atwixt the two houses,
So that folks could hear each other talk across it. Well,
she was a dreadful cross grained woman, a real catamount,
as savage as a she bear that has cubs, an old farrow
critter, as ugly as sin, and one that both hooked and
kicked too--a most particular onmarciful she devil, that's
a fact. She used to have some of her niggers tied up
every day, and flogged uncommon severe, and their screams
and screeches were horrid--no soul could stand it; nothin
was heerd all day, but OH LORD MISSUS! OH LORD MISSUS!
Enoch was fairly sick of the sound, for he was a tender
hearted man, and says he to her one day, 'Now do marm
find out some other place to give your cattle the cowskin,
for it worries me to hear em take on so dreadful bad--I
cant stand it, I vow; they are flesh and blood as well
as we be, though the meat is a different color' but It
was no good--she jist up and told him to mind his own
business, and she guessed she'd mind hern. He was determined
to shame her out of it; so one mornin after breakfast he
goes into the cane field, and says he to Lavender, one
of the black overseers, 'Muster up the whole gang of
slaves, every soul, and bring 'em down to the whippin
post, the whole stock of them, bulls, cows and calves.
Well, away goes Lavender, and drives up all the niggers.
Now you catch it, says he, you lazy villains; I tole you
so many a time--I tole you Massa he lose all patience
wid you, you good for nothin rascals. I grad, upon my
soul, I werry grad; you mind now what old Lavender say
anoder time. (The black overseers are always the most
cruel, said the Clockmaker; they have no sort of feeling
for their own people.)
Well, when they were gathered there according to orders,
they looked streaked enough you may depend, thinkin they
were going to get it all round, and the wenches they fell
to a cryin, wringin their hands, and boo-hooing like mad.
Lavender was there with his cowskin, grinnin like a chessy
cat, and crackin it about, ready for business. Pick me
out, says Enoch, four that have the loudest voices; hard
matter dat, says Lavender, hard matter dat, Massa, dey
all talk loud, dey all lub talk more better nor work--de
idle villians; better gib 'em all a little tickle, jist
to teach em larf on tother side of de mouth; dat side
bran new, they never use it yet. Do as I order you, Sir,
said Uncle, or I'll have you triced up, you cruel old
rascal you. When they were picked out and sot by themselves,
they hanged their heads, and looked like sheep goin to
the shambles. Now, says Uncle Enoch, my Pickininnies, do
you sing out as loud as Niagara, at the very tip eend of
your voice--
Dont kill a nigger, pray,
Let him lib anoder day.
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus.
My back be very sore,
No stand it any more,
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus.
And all the rest of you join chorus, as loud as you can
bawl, 'Oh Lord Missus.' The black rascals understood the
joke real well. They larfed ready to split their sides;
they fairly lay down on the ground, and rolled over and
over with lafter. Well, when they came to the chorus
'Oh Lord Missus,' if they did'nt let go, its a pity. They
made the river ring agin--they were heerd clean out to
sea. All the folks ran out of the Lady's House, to see
what on airth was the matter on Uncle Enoch's plantation
--they thought there was actilly a rebellion there; but
when they listened awhile, and heerd it over and over
again, they took the hint, and returned a larfin in their
sleeves. Says they, Master Enoch Slick, he upsides with
Missus this hitch any how. Uncle never heerd any thing
more of 'Oh Lord Missus' arter that Yes, they ought to
be shamed out of it, those Blue Noses. When reason fails
to convince, there is nothin left but ridicule. If they
have no ambition, apply to their feelings, slap a blister
on their pride, and it will do the business. Its like a
puttin ginger under a horse's tail; it makes him carry
up real handSUM, I tell you. When I was a boy, I was
always late to school: well father's preachin I didn't
mind much, but I never could bear to hear mother say,
'Why Sam, are you actilly up for all day? Well, I hope
your airly risin wont hurt you, I declare. What on airth
is agoin to happen now?' Well, wonders will never cease.
It raised my dander; at last says I, 'Now, mother, don't
say that are any more for gracious sake, for it makes me
feel ugly, and I'll get up as airly as any on you,' and
so I did, and I soon found what's worth knowin in this
life, 'An airly start makes easy stages.'