The Clockmaker's Opinion of Halifax.
The next morning was warmer than several that had preceded it. It was
one of those uncommonly fine days that distinguish an American autumn.
"I guess," said Mr. Slick, "the heat today is like a glass of mint
julip, with a lump of ice in it, it tastes cool and feels warm;
it's real good, I tell you. I love such a day as this dearly. It's
generally allowed the finest weather in the world is in America;
there ain't the beat of it to be found anywhere." He then lighted
a cigar, and throwing himself back on his chair, put both feet out
of the window, and sat with his arms folded, a perfect picture of
happiness.
"You appear," said I, "to have travelled over the whole of this
Province, and to have observed the country and the people with much
attention; pray what is your opinion of the present state and future
prospects of Halifax?"
"If you will tell me," said he, "when the folks there will wake up,
then I can answer you, but they are fast asleep. As to the Province,
it's a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead, it will grow
as fast as a Varginny gal; and they grow so amazin' fast, if you put
your arm round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you're
done, they've grown up into women. It's a pretty Province I tell you,
good above and better below; surface covered with pastures, meadows,
woods, and a 'nation sight of water privileges, and under the ground
full of mines--it puts me in mind of the soup at the TREE-mont House.
"One day I was a-walkin' in the Mall, and who should I meet but Major
Bradford, a gentleman from Connecticut, that traded in calves and
pumpkins for the Boston market. Says he, 'Slick, where do you get
your grub today?' 'At General Peep's tavern,' says I. 'Only fit for
niggers,' says he, 'why don't you come to the TREE-mont house, that's
the most splendid thing, it's generally allowed, in all the world.'
'Why,' says I, 'that's a notch above my mark; I guess it's too plagy
dear for me, I can't afford it no how.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's dear
in one sense, but it's dog cheap in another--it's a grand place for
speculation. There's so many rich southerners and strangers there
that have more money than wit, that you might do a pretty good
business there, without goin' out of the street door. I made two
hundred dollars this mornin' in little less than half no time.
There's a Carolina lawyer there, as rich as a bank, and says he to
me arter breakfast, "Major," says he, "I wish I knew where to get a
real slapping trotter of a horse, one that could trot with a flash
of lightning for a mile, and beat it by a whole neck or so." Says I,
"My Lord," for you must know, he says he's the nearest male heir to
a Scotch dormant peerage, "my Lord," says I, "I have one, a proper
sneezer, a chap that can go ahead of a railroad steamer, a real
natural traveller, one that can trot with the ball out of the small
eend of a rifle, and never break into a gallop." Says he, "Major,
I wish you wouldn't give me that 'ere nickname, I don't like it,"
though he looked as tickled all the time as possible; "I never knew,"
says he, "a lord that warn't a fool, that's a fact, and that's the
reason I don't go ahead and claim the title." "Well," says I, "my
Lord I don't know, but somehow I can't help a-thinkin', if you have
a good claim, you'd be more like a fool not to go ahead with it."
"Well," says he, "lord or no lord, let's look at your horse." So away
I went to Joe Brown's livery stable, at t'other eend of the city, and
picked out the best trotter he had, and no great stick to brag on
either; says I, "Joe Brown what do you ax for that 'ere horse?" "Two
hundred dollars," says he. "Well," says I, "I will take him out and
try him, and if I like him I will keep him." So I shows our Carolina
Lord the horse, and when he gets on him, says I, "Don't let him trot
as fast as he can, resarve that for a heat; if folks find out how
everlastin' fast he is, they'd be afeared to stump you for a start."
When he returned, he said he liked the horse amazinly, and axed the
price; "four hundred dollars," says I, "you can't get nothin' special
without a good price, pewter cases never hold good watches." "I know
it," says he, "the horse is mine." Thinks I to myself, that's more
than ever I could say of him then anyhow.'
"Well, I was goin' to tell you about the soup; says the Major, 'It's
near about dinner time, jist come and see how you like the location.'
There was a sight of folks there, gentlemen and ladies in the public
room--I never seed so many afore except at commencement day--all
ready for a start, and when the gong sounded, off we sot like a flock
of sheep. Well, if there warn't a jam you may depend; some one give
me a pull, and I near abouts went heels up over head, so I reached
out both hands, and caught hold of the first thing I could, and what
should it be but a lady's dress--well, as I'm alive, rip went the
frock, and tear goes the petticoat, and when I righted myself from
my beam eends, away they all came home to me, and there she was, the
pretty critter, with all her upper riggin' standin' as far as her
waist, and nothin' left below but a short linen under-garment. If she
didn't scream, it's a pity, and the more she screamed the more folks
larfed, for no soul could help larfin', till one of the waiters
folded her up in a tablecloth.
"'What an awkward devil you be, Slick,' says the Major; 'now that
comes of not falling in first; they should have formed four deep,
rear rank in open order, and marched in to our splendid national air,
and filed off to their seats right and left shoulders forward. I feel
kinder sorry, too,' says he, 'for that 'ere young heifer; but she
showed a proper pretty leg tho' Slick, didn't she? I guess you don't
often get such a chance as that 'ere.' Well, I gets near the Major at
table, and afore me stood a china utensil with two handles, full of
soup, about the size of a foot-tub, with a large silver scoop in it,
near about as big as a ladle of a maple sugar kettle. I was jist
about bailing out some soup into my dish, when the Major said, 'Fish
it up from the bottom, Slick.' Well, sure enough, I gives it a drag
from the bottom, and up come the fat pieces of turtle, and the thick
rich soup, and a sight of little forced meat balls of the size of
sheep's dung. No soul could tell how good it was; it was near about
as handSUM as father's old genuine particular cider, and that you
could feel tingle clean away down to the tip eends of your toes.
'Now,' says the Major, 'I'll give you, Slick, a new wrinkle on your
horn. Folks ain't thought nothin' of unless they live at Treemont:
it's all the go. Do you dine at Peep's tavern every day, and then off
hot foot to Treemont, and pick your teeth on the street steps there,
and folks will think you dine there. I do it often, and it saves two
dollars a day.' Then he put his finger on his nose, and says he, 'Mum
is the word.'
"Now, this Province is jist like that 'ere soup--good enough at top,
but dip down and you have the riches, the coal, the iron ore, the
gypsum, and what not. As for Halifax, it's well enough in itself,
though no great shakes neither, a few sizeable houses, with a proper
sight of small ones, like half a dozen old hens with their broods of
young chickens; but the people, the strange critters, they are all
asleep. They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what
they say one day they forget the next; they say they were dreaming.
You know where Governor Campbell lives, don't you, in a large stone
house with a great wall round it, that looks like a state prison;
well, near hand there is a nasty dirty horrid-lookin' buryin' ground
there; it's filled with large grave rats as big as kittens, and the
springs of black water there go through the chinks of the rocks and
flow into all the wells, and fairly pyson the folks; it's a dismal
place, I tell you; I wonder the air from it don't turn all the silver
in the Governor's house of a brass colour--and folks say he has four
cart loads of it--it's so everlastin' bad; it's near about as nosey
as a slave ship of niggers. Well you may go there and shake the folks
to all etarnity and you won't wake 'em, I guess, and yet there ain't
much difference atween their sleep and the folks at Halifax, only
they lie still there and are quiet, and don't walk and talk in their
sleep like them above ground.
"Halifax reminds me of a Russian officer I once seed at Warsaw; he
had lost both arms in battle--but I guess I must tell you first
why I went there, 'cause that will show you how we speculate. One
Sabbath day, after bell ringin', when most of the women had gone
to meetin'--for they were great hands for pretty sarmons, and our
Unitarian ministers all preach poetry, only they leave the rhyme
out; it sparkles like perry--I goes down to East India wharf to see
Captain Zeek Hancock, of Nantucket, to enquire how oil was, and if
it it would bear doin' anything in; when who should come along but
Jabish Green. 'Slick,' says he, 'how do you do; isn't this as pretty
a day as you'll see between this and Norfolk; it whips English
weather by a long chalk;' and then he looked down at my watch seals,
and looked and looked as if he thought I'd stole 'em. At last he
looks up, and says he, 'Slick, I suppose you wouldn't go to Warsaw,
would you, if it was made worth your while?' 'Which Warsaw?' says I,
for I believe in my heart we have a hundred of 'em. 'None of our'n
at all,' says he; 'Warsaw in Poland.' 'Well, I don't know,' says I;
'what do you call worth while?' 'Six dollars a day, expenses paid,
and a bonus of one thousand dollars, if speculation turns out well.'
'I am off,' says I, 'whenever you say go.' 'Tuesday,' says he, 'in
the Hamburg packet. Now,' says he, 'I'm in a tarnation hurry; I'm
goin' a-pleasurin' today in the Custom House Boat, along with Josiah
Bradford's gals down to Nahant. But I'll tell you what I am at: the
Emperor of Russia has ordered the Poles to cut off their queues on
the 1st of January; you must buy them all up, and ship them off to
London for the wig makers. Human hair is scarce and risin'. 'Lord a
massy!' says I, 'how queer they will look, won't they. Well, I vow,
that's what the sea folks call sailing under bare poles, come true,
ain't it?' 'I guess it will turn out a good spec,' says he; and a
good one it did turn out--he cleared ten thousand dollars by it.
"When I was at Warsaw, as I was a-sayin', there was a Russian officer
there who had lost both his arms in battle; a good-natured contented
critter, as I e'enamost ever seed, and he was fed with spoons by his
neighbours, but arter awhile they grew tired of it, and I guess he
near about starved to death at last. Now Halifax is like that 'ere
SPOONEY, as I used to call him; it is fed by the outports, and they
begin to have enough to do to feed themselves; it must larn to live
without 'em. They have no river, and no country about 'em; let them
make a railroad to Minas Basin, and they will have arms of their own
to feed themselves with. If they don't do it, and do it soon, I guess
they'll get into a decline that no human skill will cure. They are
proper thin now; you can count their ribs e'enamost as far as you can
see them. The only thing that will either make or save Halifax, is a
railroad across the country to Bay of Fundy.
"'It will do to talk of,' says one. 'You'll see it some day,' says
another. 'Yes,' says a third, 'it will come, but we are too young
yet.'
"Our old minister had a darter, a real clever-lookin' gal as you'd
see in a day's ride, and she had two or three offers of marriage from
'sponsible men--most particular good specs--but minister always said,
'Phoebe, you are too young--the day will come--but you are too young
yet dear.' Well, Phoebe didn't think so at all; she said she guessed
she knew better nor that: so the next offer she had, she said she had
no notion to lose another chance--off she shot to Rhode Island and
got married. Says she, 'Father's too old, he don't know.' That's jist
the case at Halifax. The old folks say the country is too young, the
time will come, and so on; and in the meantime the young folks won't
wait, and run off to the States, where the maxim is, 'Youth is the
time for improvement; a new country is never too young for exertion;
push on--keep movin--go ahead.'
"Darn it all," said the Clockmaker, rising with great animation,
clinching his fist, and extending his arm, "darn it all, it
fairly makes my dander rise, to see the nasty idle, loungin'
good-for-nothin', do-little critters; they ain't fit to tend a
bear-trap, I vow. They ought to be quilted round and round a room,
like a lady's lap-dog, the matter of two hours a day, to keep them
from dyin' of apoplexy."
"Hush, hush!" said I, "Mr. Slick, you forget."
"Well," said he, resuming his usual composure, "well, it's enough to
make one vexed though, I declare--isn't it?"
Mr. Slick has often alluded to this subject, and always in a most
decided manner. I am inclined to think he is right. Mr. Howe's papers
on the railroad I read till I came to his calculations, but I never
could read figures, "I can't cipher," and there I paused; it was a
barrier: I retreated a few paces, took a running leap, and cleared
the whole of them. Mr. Slick says he has UNDER and not OVER rated its
advantages. He appears to be such a shrewd, observing, intelligent
man, and so perfectly at home on these subjects, that I confess I
have more faith in this humble but eccentric Clockmaker, than in any
other man I have met with in this Province. I therefore pronounce
"there will be a railroad."