he bore the glad tidings so anxiously expected, "Sebastopol not
taken,"--Laura Matilda in the parlor, to whom he brings but one, looks
with envious eyes upon Biddy in the kitchen who gets two.
A time when men who haven't got a wife wish they had, and those who are
provided with that article of questionable usefulness wish they had
another; when maids wish for one husband, and matrons for half a dozen.
A time when nunneries and monasteries go into disrepute, and the
accommodating doctrines of Mahomet, and the get-as-many-wives-as-you-
can-support-and-keep-them-as-long-as-they-don't-fight principles of
Mormonism, are regnant in the land.
And above all, a time when independent bachelors like the deponent, are
beset with so many written laudations of the married state, by unknown
females, that every single blessed man in all the land wishes he could
take a short nap and wake up with a good-looking wife and nine
large-sized children.
On the morning of this traditional pairing-off day, the postman brought
me seventeen letters, all unpaid, and all from "Valentine." Retired to
my room--closed the curtains--lit the gas--placed before me a mug of ale
and two soda crackers, and proceeded to open and examine the documents.
No. 1 was sealed with beeswax and stamped with a thimble; and from its
brown complexion, I should think it had fallen into the dishwater, and
been dried with a hot flatiron. I couldn't read it very well--there
wasn't any capitals--the g's and y's had tails with as many turns as a
corkscrew, the p's bore a strong resemblance to inky hair pins, the h's
resembled miniature plum trees; every f looked like a fish-pole, and
every z like a frog's foot, and the signature I should judge had been
made by the ink bottle, which must have been taken suddenly sea-sick,
and have used the paper as a substitute for the wash-bowl.
All I could understand of it was "my penn is poor, my inck is pail, my
(something) for yew shal never" do something else, I couldn't make out
what.
No. 2 was in a lace envelope--cucumber-colored paper, and was perfumed
with something that smelt like bumble-bees; handwriting very delicately
illegible, proving that it came from a lady--spelling very bad, showing
that it came from a _fashionable_ lady--poetry very unfamiliar,
commencing "come rest in this" the next word looked like "boots," but
that didn't seem to make sense--concluded it must be "barn-yard" as it
went on to say "though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still
here." Couldn't make out whether she was in earnest and wanted me to
come and see her, or was only trying to insinuate that I was a stray
calf, and had better go home to my bovine parent.
(Bull Dogge says he wonders the ladies take such pains to render their
correspondence unreadable--the up-strokes being just visible to the
naked eye, and the down-strokes no heavier than a mosquito's leg--and
why there is such a universal tendency to make little fat o's and a's
just on the line, so that they look like glass beads strung on a
horse-hair--and why they _will_ persist in making their chirography
generally so uncertain and undecided that a page of ordinary feminine
handwriting looks like a sheet of paper covered with a half finished
web, made by 'prentice spiders, and condemned as awkwardly clumsy by the
journeymen spinners).
Will somebody answer Bull Dogge?
I soon threw aside No. 2 in disgust, and went on to the others--most of
them pictured off with hymeneal designs; plethoric cupids with apostolic
necks--flowers the like of which never grew anywhere--birds, intended
for doves, supposed to be "billing and cooing," but which, in reality,
more resembled a couple of wooden decoy ducks fastened together by the
heads with a tenpenny nail--a heart stuck through with an arrow,
reminding me of a mud turtle on a fish spear--little boy with a feather
duster (supposed to represent Hymen with his torch,) standing by a
dry-goods box with a marking brush sticking out at the top of it, (put
by courtesy for an altar with a flame on it,) going through some kind of
a performance with a young couple (supposed to be lovers intent on
wedlock,) who appeared as if they had done something they were ashamed
of, and deserved to be spanked and put in the trundle-bed--besides
vines and wreaths, bows, arrows, babies, and other articles, the
necessity of which to human happiness I have ever been at a loss to
discover.
Some were complimentary and some abusive--one was from the bar-keeper
and hinted at egg-nogg, insinuating that it wasn't paid for--and one I
know was from Sandie, for it accused me of taking more than half the
bed-clothes on cold nights. But I couldn't find out who wrote the good
ones, and couldn't lick anybody for writing the bad ones, as the boys
all denied it; and as they cost me three cents each, I've regretted ever
since that I didn't sell them to the corner grocery man to wrap round
sausages, and invest the money in a flannel nightcap.
XXIII.
The Kentucky Tavern.
The State of Michigan having been the place of my preparation for
College, and the Michigan University the scene of my brilliant though
premature graduation, I was not wholly unacquainted with occidental
geography. As I entered the Institution just mentioned, broke the rules,
was tried, convicted, sentenced, punished, fined, suspended, and
expelled in an unprecedented short space of time, no one was more fully
prepared than I to admit that "this is a great country."
I was somewhat familiar with the entire country known as "out west;" had
rode over it, walked over it, and been shot through it by steam; had
stopped at all sorts of public-houses from the stylish hotel where you
can get your liquor in glass tumblers, have stairs to get to your room
with, and can repose on a bedstead, to the unostentatious tavern where
the whiskey is served out in a tin dipper, and you have to climb into
the garret by a ladder, and sleep on a bundle of straw, under the
populous protection of a horse-blanket. But I never so thoroughly
understood the discomforts of living at a hotel, as when on one occasion
I strayed into the state of Kentucky, the land of good horses, poor
jackasses, glorious corn-bread, and lazy darkies, and stopped at the
best house of entertainment I could discover.
Having been thoroughly cooked by the broiling sun, which had
unremittingly paid me his ardent devotions during the whole day--having
been alternately melted and blistered--having had my skin peeled by the
sun like a wet shirt from a little boy's back--having made a perfect
aqueduct of myself for twelve hours in the fruitless attempt to keep
cool, and having swallowed so much dust that I had a large sand-bar in
my stomach, I sat down to write in as enviable a state of mind as can
perhaps be imagined. I soon found that this was one of those
stranger-traps into which unwary travellers are decoyed, and made to pay
enormous prices for being rendered supremely unhappy--a place where
_comfort_ is mercilessly sacrificed to _show_--where the furniture is
too nice to use, the landlord of too much consequential importance to
treat people decently, and where there are so many dishes on the table
that there is not room for anything to eat--where the waiters run in
multitudinous directions at the tap of the bell, and seem to occupy most
of their time stepping on each other's heels, and spilling soup into the
laps of the ladies. Every one of these woolly-headed nuisances expects
to be handsomely fed before he will condescend to pay the slightest
attention to a guest, and a stranger must disburse an avalanche of
"bits," "pics," and "levys," before he can get even a plate of cold
victuals.
My experience at the house of entertainment at present under
consideration is somewhat as follows:
I endure the inconveniences of the day with what philosophy I may, and
retire, to "sleep, perchance." During the night I endeavor to bear
without complaining the savage onslaught of ferocious fleas, the
odoriferous attacks of bloodthirsty bed-bugs, and the insatiable and
impetuous assaults of musically murderous mosquitoes, and eventually
fall into a troubled doze, in which, like a modern Macbeth, who is
doomed to "sleep no more," I tumble about until I am roused by the
infernal clang of that most diabolical of all human contrivances--a
gong, a dire invention of the enemy, a metallic triumph of the
adversary, compounded of copper, and hammered upon with an "overgrown"
drumstick, by a perspiring darkey who does not "waste his sweetness in
the desert air" (more's the pity). After an abortive attempt to wash my
face in what is truly _living_ water, with a piece of marbleized soap,
and hastily drying it upon three inches of towel with a ragged edge and
iron rust in the corners, I proceed to dress.
Button off my shirt neck, which, being a matter of course, does not
affect my equanimity half as much as finding that one of the sleeves is
torn nearly across, and is only connected with the main body by a narrow
isthmus of seam, which is momentarily growing "small by degrees and
beautifully less."
Begin to grow impatient; second gong for breakfast; everything on but
boots--open the door and find the porter has brought the wrong ones--he
always does--ring the bell indignantly and sulkily wait (breakfast
disappearing the meanwhile), until the blundering darkey explores his
subterranean dominions and eventually returns with the missing articles.
Breakfast at last; waiter sets before me a mass of bones, sinews, and
tendons, which he denominates _chicken_, and then brings me something
which he calls _steak_, although but for the timely information I should
have supposed it gutta-percha. Pours out a lukewarm muddy mixture
supposed to have been originally coffee, which I sweeten with niggery
brown sugar, and swallow at a gulp, ignoring the milk pitcher entirely
on account of the variety of bugs which have found a "watery grave"
therein; bread hard and greasy, butter oily and full of little ditches
where the flies have meandered, knife with an edge like a saw, and fork
with a revolving handle, table cloth splotchy, eggs hard as pebbles;
rest of bill of fare consists of salt ham, red flannel sausages, hash
with hairs in it, dip-toast made with sour milk, burned biscuit, peppery
codfish, cold potatoes, mutton chops all bones, and mackerel with head,
fins, and tail complete. Stay my stomach with half a glass of equivocal
looking water, and exit.
Go to the office and order my room regulated immediately; go up in an
hour and find two inches of dust over everything, my portfolios untied,
books open at the wrong place, tooth-brush out and wet, and several long
red hairs in my comb. Considerate, cleanly chambermaid!
Sit down on my carpet-bag and reflect--resolve to go back to Michigan.
Pack trunks, pay landlord, fee porter, hurry to the cars, tumble baggage
on board, only too happy if by the diabolical ingenuity of the
baggage-man it does not get put off at the wrong station. So ends my
experience of the "Uncle Tom" State, which is probably the only place in
the world where they hitch two jackasses before a dray, and get a big
nigger with a red shirt on, up behind to drive 'em tandem.
XXIV.
The River Darkies.
To a person not accustomed to the unaccountable antics and
characteristic monkeyshines of the sable heroes of the corn fields,
sugar plantations, flat-boats, and steamboat "'tween decks" of the lower
river, a continual fund of amusement is afforded by their fantastic
sayings and doings. On the Kentucky river I first observed some of their
curious performances--the boats on this stream differ from any others in
the world--the one on which I obtained my experience was peculiarly
peculiar, and I find my impressions of the craft and the company
recorded as follows:--
_Steamboat Blue Wing._--Which said boat is very much the shape of a
Michigan country-made sausage, and is built with a hinge in the middle
to go around the sharp bends in the river, and is manned by two
captains, four mates, sixteen darkies, two stewards, a small boy, a
big dog, an opossum, two pair of grey squirrels, one clock, and a
cream-colored chamber-maid.
[Illustration: The River Darkies.]
Fog so thick you couldn't run a locomotive through it without a
snow-plough; night so dark the clerk has two men on each side of him
with pitch-pine torches, to enable him to see his spectacles (he wears
spectacles); pilot so drunk the boys have painted his face with charcoal
and coke berries, till he looks like a rag carpet in the last stages of
dilapidation; and he is fast asleep, with his legs (pardon me,
but--legs), tied to the capstan, his whiskers full of coal-dust and
cinders, and the black end of the poker in his mouth.
Boat fast aground, with her symmetrical nose six feet deep in Kentucky
mud; there she complacently lies, waiting for the mail boat to come
along and pull her out. Passengers elegantly disposed in various stages
of don't-care-a-cent-itiveness, and the subscriber, taking advantage of
the temporary sobriety of the clerk, and his consequent attendance in
the after-cabin to play poker with the mates, embraces the opportunity
to write. The silence is of brief duration, for I am interrupted by a
grand oratorio by the nigger firemen, much to my delight and
edification. It runs somewhat as follows:--
(Grand opening chorus) "A-hoo--a-hoo--hoo-oooo--a-hooo--a-hoo--a-hooo--
a-hoooo-oo!"
The dashes in the following represent the passages where the superfluity
of the harmony prevented the proper appreciation of the poetry.
"Gwin down de ribber--a-hoo-a-O!
Good-bye--nebber come back----debbil----beans----Grey-haired
injun----Ya-a--a--aaaa--Ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a----
Ga--!" (leader of orchestra) "dirty shirt massa, got de whisky
bottle in his hat, dis poor ole boy nebber git none----
A-hoo--a-hooo--a-hooooo!" (ending in an indescribable howl).
(Pensive darkey on the coal heap)--"Miss Serefiny good-bye--farewell;
nebber git no more red pantaloonses from Miss
Serefiny--Oho--Ahooo--Ahooo-O!"
(Extemporaneous voluntary by an original nigger with two turkey feathers
in his hat, and his hair tied up with yellow strings)--
"Corn cake--'lasses on it--vaphuns--" (meaning waffles) "big ones
honey on 'em--Ya-a-a-a-a-a."
(Stern rebuke by leader)--"Shut up your mouf, you 'leven hundred dollar
nigger."
(Leader improvises as follows) "Hard work--no matter--git to
hebben bym-bye--don't mind--go it boots--linen hangs out behind--"
(here having achieved a rhyme, he indulges in a frantic hornpipe.)
"My true lub--feather in him boots--yaller gal got another
sweetheart--A-hoo--Ahoooooo!--Ahooooooo-OOOO!!!!!----Hoe cake
done--nigger can't git any--ole hoss in de parlor playing de
pianny--You-a-a-a--Ga-Ga-Ga." Captain here interferes and orders
the orchestra to wood up--and so interrupts the concert.
Have got over on the Indiana side, principal difference to be noticed in
the inhabitants is in the hogs; on the Kentucky side they are big, fat,
and as broad as they are long; on this side they are shaped like a North
river steamboat, long and lean.
I just saw two of 'em sharpen their noses on the pavement, and engage in
mortal combat; one rushed at his neighbor, struck him between the eyes,
split him from end to end; cart came along, run over the two halves, cut
them into hams and shoulders in a jiffy--_requiescat in many pieces_.
This is decidedly a rich country; the staple productions are big hogs,
ragged niggers, and the best horses in the United States. The people
live principally on bread made of corn, whisky ditto; and hog prepared
in various barbarous ways. They give away whisky and sell cold water.
The darkies are mostly slaves; they nail horseshoes over their doors to
keep away the witches, indulge in parti-colored hats in the most
superlative degree of dilapidation, go barefooted, and have large
apertures "in puppes pantalooni." It is a perfect treat to watch their
entertaining performances. At the hotel the allowance is fourteen
niggers to each guest, and as each one seems to be possessed of the
peculiar idea that his province is to do nothing at all, with as many
flourishes as possible, the confusion that follows is far from being
devoid of entertainment.
They never bring you anything you call for; if you ask for chicken, you
will probably get corned beef and cabbage; if you want roast beef, they
will assuredly bring you apple dumplings; ask for sweet potatoes, and
you'll get fried eggs; send for corn bread, and you're safe to obtain
boiled pork; ring the bell for a boot-jack, and you'll get a hand-sled.
And when you want to retire at night, instead of providing you with a
pair of slippers and a candle, the chances are ten to one the attendant
sable angel will give you a red flannel shirt, a shot-gun, a flask of
whisky, three boiled eggs, and a pair of smoothing irons.
There is, however, one redeeming feature about the darkies, they won't
live in the same country with Irishmen. They can live with hogs, have
half a dozen shoats at the dinner-table, a litter of pigs in the family
bed, but they can't abide Irish.
The slaves are, as may be imagined, of various colors, ranging from the
hue of the beautiful yellow envelope of the Post Office Department, to
that of the blackest ink that ever indites a superscription thereon. The
theory of "woman's rights" is in practical operation among them; the men
cook, set the table, clean up the dishes, do the washing, and spank the
babies, while their blacker halves hoe corn, chop wood, go to market,
and "run wid de masheen."
Have great fruit in this country; apples big as pumpkins; not very large
pumpkins, small-sized pumpkins, diminutive pumpkins, infantile pumpkins,
just emerged from blossomhood, and ere they have assumed that golden
overcoat which maketh their maturer friends so glorious to the view. And
pumpkin pies, manufactured by the sable god of the kitchen; pies
enormous to behold; wherein after they are ready to be devoured you
might wade up to your knees in that noble compound which filleth the
interior thereof, and maketh the pie savory and nectarean; in fact, pies
celestial, whereof writers in all ages have discoursed eloquently.
To return to the principal topic--the darkies--they are all built after
the same model; hand like a shoulder of mutton, teeth white as milk,
foot of suitable dimensions for a railroad bridge, and mouth big enough
for the depot; have all got six toes on each foot, skull like an oak
plank, yellow eyes, and nose like a split pear.
XXV.
The Thespian Wigwam.
It naturally required some considerable time to recover from the
tremendous effect produced upon my nervous system, by witnessing the
unequalled acting of the "American Tragedian;" so that several weeks
elapsed before I felt again disposed to visit a theatre.
At length, however, I began to feel a longing for the green curtain
again; and feeling time hang heavy on my hands from the fact that I had
an entire evening at my own disposal, I held a great consultation with
my inseparable friends, on the most feasible and agreeable method of
sacrificing the great horological enemy.
After mature deliberation, we resolved to visit the lately established,
"truly gorgeous temple of the 'muses,'" and witness the redemption of
one of the pledges of the Directors, who had promised us the
restoration of the legitimate classic drama. We believed that there we
should find "true artistic taste, displayed in the adornment and
decoration of the building," and that we should see "sterling plays
acted by performers of the highest merit; where every attention would be
paid to propriety and elegance of costume, and splendor and magnificence
of stage appointments."
We took a stage and navigated up Broadway until we came opposite Bond
street, to the place where a big canvas sign marks the entrance to the
"_Grand Thespian Wigwam, and Head Quarters of Modern Orpheus_."
Through a wedge-shaped green-baize door--down a crooked pair of
stairs--under an overhanging arch--and we stood in the parquette.
Took a front seat, and immediately had occasion to commend the economy
of the managers in not lighting the gas in the upper boxes--then
proceeded to admire in detail the many beauties of this superb edifice,
which, at first glance, reminded me of an overgrown steamboat cabin.
Looked for a long time at the indefinite Indian over the stage, trying
to fix the gender to my satisfaction, and decide whether it is a squaw
or an individual of masculinity--hard to tell, for it has the face,
form, and anatomical developments of the former, and the position and
hunting implements of the latter--I concluded that it must be an
original Woman's Rights female, who, in the lack of breeches, had taken
possession of the "traps" of her copper-colored lord and master, and,
getting tired of the unusual playthings, had lain down to take a snooze.
Admired the easy and graceful drapery painted on the "drop," which looks
as if it was whittled out of a pine shingle--took a perplexed view of
the assorted landscape depicted thereon--endeavored to reconcile the
Turkish ruins with the Swiss mountains, or the Gothic castle with the
Arab slaves--wanted to harmonize the camels and other tropical
quadrupeds on the right, with the frozen mill-pond on the left--couldn't
understand why the man on the other side of the same, among the distant
mountains, should be so much larger than the individual close to the
shore, who is supposed to be nearer by several miles.
Tried to make out what the man in a turban is doing with his legs
crossed under him, on a raft, but gave it up--admired exceedingly the
two rows of private boxes, which looked like windows in a martin-house,
but could not perceive the propriety of having them supported by
plaster of paris ladies, without any arms, and their bodies covered up
in patent metallic burial-cases. (I was informed that the artist calls
them _Caryatides_.)
Was impressed with the admirable proportions of the stage; a hundred and
eleven feet wide, by four feet ten inches deep--reminded me forcibly of
an empty seidlitz-powder box, turned up edgeways--censured the
indelicacy of the managers in permitting the immodest little cupids, who
tacitly perform on the impossible lutes and fiddles, to appear before so
refined an audience, "all in their bare"--(my friend says the drapery
was "omitted by particular request.")
Was much chagrined about a mistake I made concerning a picture on one of
the proscenium flats, which I mistook for a Kentucky backwoods girl,
with a bowie-knife in one hand and a glass of corn-whiskey in the other;
but I was told that it represents the tragic muse, with the dagger and
poison bowl.
Resolved not to be deceived about the match picture on the other side,
and after an attentive scrutiny, I determined that it is either a female
rag-picker with a scoop-shovel, or a Virginia wench with a hoe-cake in
her hand; and I made up my mind that any one disposed to heathenism
might safely worship the same, and transgress no scriptural command, for
it certainly is a likeness of "nothing in the heavens above, the earth
beneath, or the waters under the earth." Many other barbaric attempts at
ornamentation claimed my attention, and would have received particular
notice, had I not perceived by the stir in front of the stage that the
performance was about to commence.
The multitudinous orchestra came out in a crowd--the big fiddle man took
the emerald epidermis from off his high-shouldered instrument, and after
a half hour preparatory tuning, and forty-one pages of excruciating
overture, the little bell _didn't_ ring (they never ring a bell at this
aristocratic establishment--it smacks of the kitchen), but with a
creaking of pulleys, a trampling of feet, a rattling of ropes, and a
noise like a full-grown thunderstorm, the curtain went up.
Magnificent forest scene--two blue-looking trees on one side--a green
baize carpet to represent grass--blue calico borders over head to
suggest sky--a bower so low the hero thrice knocked his hat off going
under to see his "lady love," and a mossy bank in one corner, made of
canvass, stretched over a basswood plank, and painted mud color.