_Tuesday, June 10._ Considerable rain fell during the morning. The
thermometer thus far has averaged ten to twenty degrees lower at noon
than during the same time last year. We are at times anxious about our
summer's work, as the river has fallen very little.
_Thursday, 12._ Took a long tramp in pursuit of game, got lost, and
walked about twelve miles. Our table expenses at present are about
fifty cents apiece a day.
_Wednesday, 25._ Stopped the water at the head of our race on
Saturday, and Monday began again the work which the rain interrupted
two months ago.
Sunday afternoon, a quail led her young brood just before our door.
We had been long desirous to secure some of these birds, in hopes of
taming them; but though we had spent part of every day for weeks in
rambling over the country, and had seen innumerable flocks, they had
always eluded our pursuit. Now that our hunting days were over, and
we had given up all hopes of accomplishing our object, it was a very
agreeable surprise to see our prey thus throw itself into our hands.
We made a sudden and impetuous sweep, and in a moment caught eight of
these pretty creatures, no bigger than an English walnut, and covered
with the same soft down that renders the chickens of our barnyards
so engaging. We carried them into the tent, and having secured them
in a small raisin box, I set about constructing what Reaumer calls
an artificial mother, to keep them warm in the cold nights. This was
nothing more than a low shed with a sloping roof of flannel--an old
shirt supplied the material--and here I doubted not my young family
would soon find themselves at home. But hardly had I got into bed when
a faint peep from the raisin box, followed by another and another
till the whole brood were in full chorus, called me to their side.
There was no resisting that plaintive importunity; I put my hand
into the box, like a scooching father-long-legs, and presently the
tender nurselings crept under this warm shelter. I felt their little
checkerberry hearts beating against my fingers, while they quietly
composed themselves to sleep. My heart warmed to them amazingly
on their giving me this proof of confidence, and I began to think
seriously of sitting up all night, rather than disturb their slumbers;
but fearful lest I should fall into a drowse, and perhaps squeeze them
harder than might be convenient, I put them all safely back under the
artificial mother, and left them with anxious concern.
The next morning they all lay apparently dead in the bottom of
the box, but by warming them in our hands with our hot breath, we
recovered all but one, and if we had known how to feed them, we
should undoubtedly have succeeded in preserving their lives. We tried
everything we could think of, and were almost in despair, when Jimmy,
one of our company, who had been gamekeeper to an English nobleman,
told us that they fed them on "hants' heggs" in his country. "Hants'"
nests were plenty in our neighbourhood; we lost no time in digging
one open, and soon presented our young starvelings with abundance of
"heggs." They eat a few, but their strength was too far gone to be
restored, and the second morning not one was left alive.
Our canal on which we were now working had been in great part
excavated through a ledge of the hardest granite--it varied from
twelve to twenty feet in width, and from five to ten in depth.--Half
of these dimensions would have been sufficient if its course had been
even moderately straight; but the frequent and sudden curves checked
too much the rapidity of the current. As a little labor here would
save a great deal on the dam, we bent our backs to the work with less
reluctance, though nothing that we had yet done in California could
be compared to it for a moment. If there is any thing in this world
deserving the contempt of a rational being, it is a big stone. A pig
is certainly as obstinate, but then he can be wheedled into going the
way you wish. A fool is perhaps as stupid, but he can be beaten into
reason. But a stone, especially if large enough to fancy itself a
rock, is worse than a tortoise. It draws itself up into its shell deaf
to all argument or entreaty, and insensible to blows. If we had only
had Amphion's lyre; but we had not even a fiddle, only crowbars and
gunpowder, and our poor fingers. And there was no wind to disturb the
stagnant air--the sun streamed down into our granite prison till it
became as hot as a Sandwich Island oven.
But at length the work was completed--the digging, the blasting, the
rolling of stones, and piling them up into a firm smooth wall, were
all over--the dike at the mouth of the canal was removed--the parched
and thirsty channel seemed to swallow eagerly the inrushing river, and
we entered upon the far more agreeable task of repairing the dam. A
large flatboat had been already built by a ship carpenter belonging
to our company, and the various operations of the preceding year were
soon under full headway.
The 4th of July came hot and scorching as the breath of the Sirocco.
We had celebrated it the year before at Ford's Bar by firing guns
and drinking lemonade; but we now slightly varied these amusements.
Above our dam, and formed by the backing up of the water, lay a
swelling pond winding away a mile among the hills. Every day, as we
penned in the water, it stole noiselessly farther and farther up the
shore, drowning one after another the little islands and blades of
grass that vainly standing on tiptoe stretched their heads above
the surface. Embarked in our flatboat with only one companion, a
pleasant young fellow from Philadelphia, we paddled softly up this
newborn lakelet to a point on the farther shore, where another party
had already accumulated a pile of earth supposed to contain a slight
admixture of clay, which it was our duty to transport to the head of
the canal. Here it was taken by a third set of workmen, and carried
two hundred yards in handbarrows, over a most difficult path, to a
part of the canal where the island was so low that a short dike was
necessary to prevent the water from finding its way back into the
river. After making several trips, we yielded our situation to two
of the unfortunates on the bank, and took their place in digging and
carrying. The hillside where they had been excavating was several
hundred feet from the water, and the earth must be carried down to
the shore on handbarrows, of all inventions the most ingeniously
fatiguing. Clouds of dust rose from the parched ground, covering us
from head to foot in an undistinguishable suit of reddish grey. The
whole company were thus occupied a week in constructing a low wall
not more than twenty feet in length, and this being finished, again
returned to work on the dam, which we pushed forward with the fiercest
energy.
We had now to settle a very important question, how we should
drain the hollows or ponds that would remain after the river had
been entirely diverted from its channel. Man-power, horse-power,
and water-power were all proposed; but the first was altogether
inefficient, and the other two well nigh impracticable. Nothing then
seemed left but steam. We were all of us at first rather frightened
at the thought of employing so powerful an auxiliary, but it soon
became familiar, and now our only anxiety was lest we should be unable
to obtain an engine of suitable qualifications. Capt. Sampson was
despatched to San Francisco on this errand, and in the mean time our
work went on as usual.
Walking one morning along the dam, now presenting a level path for
half its length. I found in the middle where the water still rushed
through, a large salmon, who had leaped the fall, but being jammed
in among the stones was unable to overcome the force of the current.
Another was found soon after in the same predicament--the eyes of
both were gone--their noses worn off, and their bodies gashed with
frightful wounds. This is the condition to which nearly all are
reduced before reaching the sources of those rapid rivers; and perhaps
nothing else can show so clearly the force of what may here at least
be fairly termed a blind instinct.
Capt. Sampson returned in less than a week, bringing with him a small
steam-engine, and a heavy pump of cast-iron, of a very peculiar
construction, without valves or boxes, and working by centrifugal
force alone. The whole apparatus weighed about four thousand pounds,
and cost fifteen hundred dollars.
In the mean time, our dam had rapidly advanced to completion. We had
nothing better than partially decomposed granite to stop the leaks,
and were obliged to pick the whole of that from the solid ledge; yet
it answered the purpose so admirably that all the water that found its
way through a dam two hundred and fifty feet long and ten feet high,
could easily be carried in a canvass hose six inches in diameter. A
sudden rise in the river, occasioned by rain in the mountains, filled
us with uneasiness lest it should overflow our dam, but by making
great exertions we raised a small mound five or six inches high along
the whole extent, and this slight embankment was sufficient to avert
the threatened calamity. The next day the river had again fallen, and
after that continued steadily to abate, till the top of the dam was
nearly three feet above the surface.
It was the close of the third week in July that our patient
perseverance at length prevailed over the waters. The next day, being
Sunday, we saw from our elevated eyrie different members of the
company with pan and shovel wandering about in the bed of the river,
stopping here and there to dig and wash a small quantity of earth and
then shaking their heads in a very dolorous and unaccountable manner.
This process was several times repeated, and on every occasion the
head-shaking grew more decidedly melancholy. Monday morning, on going
to work as usual, we found the whole company, from Capt. Sampson down
to the merest halfshare of them all, in a state closely bordering on
distraction, and radiating the blues as fast as ever a redhot cannon
ball radiated caloric. "Well, Mr. Raven," said Jimmy almost ready to
cry, "our work's all lost. I'd sell my share for a hundred dollars and
glad o' the chance;" and with this the said radiators glowed colder
than ever. On requesting an explanation of this extraordinary conduct,
we learned that they had dug ever so many holes the day before and had
found nothing--so they had at once concluded that there was nothing
to find. As we had been the principal movers and originators of the
whole undertaking, they regarded us as in some sort the authors of
their misfortunes, and hence we had to bear not only our own share of
the common disappointment, but also their ill-concealed displeasure.
Our situation was indeed deplorable--most of us had expended not only
our labour but the greater part of our previous earnings in purchasing
the engine and other matters, and if the dam should prove a failure
we were utterly ruined. But would it prove a failure? We did not
believe it would. In the whole party there was hardly one who knew any
more about prospecting, at least in the river, than a hen of average
intelligence. Most of them had passed their apprenticeship in the
southern mines, and not one had ever had any thing to do with damming.
We ourselves had been very slow to learn the nicer mysteries of our
craft, but we knew enough to satisfy us that a claim like that could
not be explored in a day. We squeezed the gloom out of our companions
like water out of a sponge, and the next morning went to work
prospecting in earnest. St. John sunk the first hole between a snug
family of rocks just on the edge of our upper hollow--the earth paid
from twenty cents to ten dollars a bucket, and in two hours he took
out with my assistance sixty dollars. There was no more grumbling that
day--Jimmy raised his price from one hundred to ten thousand dollars,
and doubted whether he would sell even for that.
Hose was still wanting to convey the water that leaked through the
dam quite across the upper hollow, so that it might not increase too
much the labours of the engine,--and Wednesday I rode in a wagon to
Sacramento to obtain canvass sufficient for this purpose. On my return
the next day by stage I found that my companions had already moved the
engine and pump across the river by means of rollers, and had set them
up on a stout frame at the foot of the upper hollow. A short trough
was constructed to lead the water from the pump directly into the
round deep pool below, and we were all ready to begin.
Our affairs were now in a highly prosperous condition,--a half share
was sold before the engine had made a stroke, for nearly a thousand
dollars, and every day members of other companies, none of which had
"got into the river," came to look, and admire, and wonder they had
not bought shares when they could have done it so easily. The American
Damming stock was now among the best in the market, and was quoted in
the Sacramento papers at ten thousand dollars a share.
All this could not but be highly gratifying even to men of that meek
and modest temper for which, I do not say our whole company, but some
of us were remarkable. In the pride of our heart we could not help
glorying a little over our neighbours, as if our good fortune had been
entirely owing to our superior sagacity--and I noticed that one or
two who had been led into the scheme almost against their wills, were
now the loudest in this self-laudation. We met, however, with almost
innumerable delays--the wood was wet, or the boiler leaked, or the
belt slipt from the whirling drums. It was some time, too, before we
discovered the secret of the pump--after working finely several hours,
and lowering the water as many feet, the stream suddenly ceased to
flow. We took the pump to pieces, and spent nearly all the rest of the
day in trying to detect the cause of this interruption, but gained no
more by our scrutiny than the child who cut open the bellows to find
where the wind came from. After puzzling over it all night, we resumed
our examination in the morning, but with no better success, and were
all ready to despair, when suddenly the Captain and St. John both
cried out at once, "Suppose we put the pump nearer the water, and see
how that will work." Sure enough, it flashed upon us all in a moment
that it was not a suction but a force pump--we accordingly lowered the
frame on which it rested, and in this position found that it would
drain the hole in six hours.
The harvest had now commenced that was to repay us for months of
toil--we had thrust aside with strong arm the guardian river, and
its treasures only waited our touch to be laid open to the light. We
hastened to secure them with trembling hand. Rocks were torn from
their deep foundations, and the thick-skinned granite scraped even
to its quivering nerves. The bed where the old South Fork had lain,
reposing in quiet, or restlessly tossing, so many generations, was now
to be well shaken and made up afresh. Parties set to work at different
points, and everywhere the short puff of the engine and droning hum of
the pump mingled with the harsher tones of the rocker and the cheerful
sound of pick and shovel. Our gains were all put into one common
receptacle, and every evening we assembled at the Captain's tent to
see them weighed and divided.
There was a peculiar charm about those evening parties that is often
wanting in more elegant assemblies. The scene thus presented would
have made a fine subject for Hogarth. The flickering light of the
fire burning in the huge chimney shone on a group of men with coarse
woollen shirts and unshorn faces, leaning on their elbows round the
rude table, and fixing their eyes with eager interest on the paunchy
bags that lay before the Captain, and the gold which he was nicely
adjusting in the scales by means of his forefinger and thumb, as if
it had been so much genuine Irish Blackguard. A crowd of spectators
stand looking on, either men hired by the company, or miners in the
red bank. Hairy rheumatic Bill, the Captain's cook, with ladle in
hand, alternates from the table to the fire, divided between a fierce
avaricious love of his half share and a more tender solicitude for
the soup simmering in the corner. "Well, Capting, how much has us got
to-night?" says Jimmy, and "How much to a sheer?" cries a Missourian
sitting on the lower end of the long table, and craning his neck and
goggling his eyes after a most alarming fashion. Our three shares,
as being the largest undivided portion, were first weighed out, and
received in a wide-mouthed vial. Then the Captain, with peculiar
satisfaction, set aside a double portion for himself--then as much
more for Jimmy. The half shares, of which at one time there were six,
came last. All that was scattered on the table was magnanimously left
for old Bill. The same jokes were repeated regularly every evening,
and never failed of a favourable reception. "Well, Mr. Raven, your
bottle isn't full yet," says Jimmy, with a chuckle. The Captain
laments the necessity of taking care of so much of the plaguey stuff;
when instantly half a dozen disinterested individuals offer to relieve
him of the trouble, to which his only reply is an abstracted laugh.
The largest sum divided on these occasions was fourteen hundred
dollars, or one hundred and forty to a share, which in those days was
considered very tolerable mining.
Nor was the labour itself entirely devoid of excitement. Whenever a
remarkably rich spot was discovered, or there was an unusual "show"
in any of the rockers, nothing would do but all must come and see
it. "Well, boys! I say, just look a here;" and presently half a score
of eager heads are thrust together over the cradle, or down into some
crevice among the rocks lighted up with a right fairy splendour with
spangles of pure gold. When all other epithets have been exhausted,
some one exclaims, "Well! that's real lousy! that is!" a most
felicitous comparison, at least to the ears of a Californian.
But in the mean time trouble was brewing in a direction where none
of us looked for it. Ours was the first of a long series of claims
extending in unbroken succession some distance below Mormon Island. A
gap had remained in this chain for several weeks, the second company
below us not having finished their flume so soon as the others, and in
the mean time a second dam had been erected by the South Fork company
still farther down the river. But when the company first mentioned had
completed their preparations, they insisted upon the removal of this
dam, as it backed the water into their claim; and threatened, if their
request were not complied with, to tear it down with their own hands.
The South Fork finally yielded the point, and now our dam answered
for a dozen companies, covering an extent of nearly two miles. The
river ran for this distance sometimes in wooden flumes, and sometimes,
as with us, in canals; and as considerable water escaped from these
artificial channels, and as there were, besides, hollows of different
dimensions requiring to be drained in every claim, it was necessary
for the success of the whole that this water should all be pumped
back into the flumes and not suffered to flow into those below. There
were several reasons why we should not be required to enter into this
arrangement. In the first place, our company being older than those
next below, we had the undisputed right, according to the universal
law of the mines, to work in the way most suited to our convenience.
Furthermore, as only one of the other companies had built a dam, and
that was a very slight affair, while we had laboured for weeks for
the common advantage, we thought they could not reasonably object to
so slight a leakage, especially as, if they had built one, they would
still have had at least an equal quantity of water to contend with.
But it is in vain to expect reason from envy and disappointed avarice.
One day about the middle of August, Captain Sampson having been down
to the village, returned in great excitement with the information that
a large party of miners, consisting of members of the lower companies,
were already on their march to destroy our engine. We heard no more
of it, however, at that time, and members of the companies with whom
we were acquainted assuring us that they had no such design, we hoped
the storm had blown over. But less than a week after, a large party
came upon us while we were at work in the river, "to make us," as
they said, "take care of our leak water." Not one of them seemed to
know exactly what he had to complain of--they had not yet succeeded
according to their expectations, and in some way we were to blame.
They evidently had an idea that a vast body of water was sent down
upon them from our claim, either made by the engine or from some other
mysterious source; but more than all, though we did not learn this
till afterwards, they hated Captain Sampson and those Ravens, they
were so stuck up. Still we had no fears they would proceed to actual
violence, since one of our company could, by toppling a few stones
into our race, raise the river sufficiently to flow over the top of
our dam, when it would have been instantly washed away, and the whole
accumulated flood precipitated bodily upon all below, involving them
in one common destruction. After a long farrago of words, which it
would be in vain to dignify by the name of argument, they proposed
building a dam at the foot of our claim to catch the water then
flowing from our engine. To this we made no objection, as our upper
hollow would be exhausted in a few days, and we had already agreed
with the company immediately below to pump the water from the lower
one into their flume on condition of their providing a trough long
enough for the purpose. Though this difficulty was thus disposed
of, yet the impression it produced was so deep and lasting, and the
idea of continuing in such a state of warfare was so repugnant to
our feelings that we determined to hasten our departure as much as
possible.
To avoid the troublesome task of moving the engine we drained the
second hole, which was quite small, by means of an immense wooden pump
requiring three men to work it. They were relieved every half hour by
a second set, and thus the work went on day and night, till the water
was low enough to admit of a thorough exploration, and we found there
was hardly gold enough to pay us for the expense of pumping.
The lowest, and by far the largest, hollow still remained, and to
this we now directed all our energies. As there was no place on the
bank sufficiently level to set up our engine, and as we had already
experienced the inconvenience of a stationary support, we determined
to build a flatboat large enough to contain the engine, pump, and all
its appendages. The boat was christened by Capt. Sampson the Hoosier
or Who za? and was, I believe, the first steamboat ever built on
the American River, if not in California. It answered the purpose
admirably, falling with the water and thus keeping the pump always
level with the surface. We had need of every advantage, for besides
the great extent of the hole, we were obliged, in order to comply with
our agreement, to raise the water some fifteen feet above its average
level; and it was nearly a week before we were able to resume our
mining operations. The untiring engine was kept at work day and night;
but as our engineer, though a very clever fellow, was not made of the
same material, it was necessary to provide him with an assistant.
I occupied this responsible situation for a few hours, and must
confess I felt no slight degree of elation at my preferment. I
always had an infinite respect for one of your mammoth steam-engines,
which seem to me to furnish the best instance of magnanimity that can
anywhere be found; and our little spitfire, though it could claim
no such distinction, yet attracted me by its patient indefatigable
industry and honesty of purpose, so that I fairly loved it as if a
man's heart were beating under its closely-buttoned iron jacket.
It is the fashion to talk of the present century as in the highest
degree unromantic and prosaic; yet there is more real romance and
poetry in the engines of the Baltic than in all the barbaric pomp of
the middle ages. While I was not occupied in attending to the simple
wants of my humble work-fellow, I amused myself with watching the
dragon-flies riding tandem over the water, or balancing with wonderful
rigidity on the little twigs that rose above the surface. In the
evening the funnel sent forth a swarm of ephemera that returned no
more to the parent hive, but went dancing away over the black water
till they disappeared beneath it. They seemed like a wedding troop of
fairies in torchlight procession, escorting one of their number to
espouse a spirit of the wave. As they approached the water, a second
troop appeared coming to meet then; and each in turn, some with a
sudden plunge, others with a coquettish, sidling motion, rushed into
the arms of their partners, blowing out their torches at the moment of
their embrace to hide their burning blushes.
While I indulged in these idle fancies, the homely little engine by
my side still worked on, though wondering perhaps at my long silence;
twelve o'clock soon came, and with it the one who was to relieve me.
I picked my way darkling across the rocky channel--ran rapidly up the
river, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
_Wednesday, Sept. 3._ Our claim being by this time nearly worked out,
St. John sold his share for a few hundred dollars, and the next day
I disposed of mine for the same price. Soon after we struck a rich
streak, and I was extremely vexed at having sold. The purchaser,
on learning that the company was in debt to a trifling amount, felt
equally indisposed to the bargain, and the share returned into my
possession.
_Two o'clock_, P. M. St. John sorry he sold--evening cloudy,
night, a slight shower--Friday morning, more rain--very dismal--sorry
I did not sell. The man who bought St. John's share comes to our
tent in positive agony, and offers fifty dollars to be released from
his bargain. Eleven A. M. brighter--ten P. M. water low--shares
high--rich dirt--offered the same for my share as yesterday--refused.
It again rained during the night, and I had ample time to repent my
indiscretion, but the next day the sun shone with unusual brilliancy,
and I finally disposed of my share for the same price as before.
We had now nothing to keep us any longer in California--we sold our
tent with all its furniture for fifty dollars, and then began the
most successful mining we had yet had any thing to do with. We closed
the door of our tent, still ours until we had left it, and commenced
digging in the floor in places whose position we discovered by certain
marks upon the wooden framework of the walls. I first brought to
light a mustard bottle, now full, however, of a far brighter and more
pungent dust--St. John at the same moment displayed an ancient vinegar
cruet without a neck, so that it gave up all the more readily its
precious contents. I then produced from a third place of deposit a
vial that once contained, as the words blown into its sides declared,
a vegetable elixir of wonderful virtues; but few, I believe, who would
not have found the mineral panacea far more agreeable, unless indeed
administered on homoeopathic principles. In no long time a whole
apothecary's shop was arrayed on our little table, every vial, however
different in shape, containing the same grand catholicon, that if it
cannot cure all, will cure as many of the ills that flesh is heir to
as all others put together.
We emptied the contents of these vials into The New York Tribune,
and having transferred the shining heap into sundry leathern bags
and belts, we carried our well-filled trunk, containing a variety of
curiosities, out on to the bank before the tent,--came back to look
once more at the table, the beds, the stove, that had so wrought
themselves into our being--then softly closing the door for the last
time, walked swiftly down the well known path, not daring to look
behind us, and with a feeling of melancholy it was impossible to
resist.
We slept that night at Number Four's, and the next morning started in
a wagon for Sacramento, not without a sensation of regret at our final
abandonment of a life that with all its hardships had yet yielded
us so much enjoyment. We arrived at Sacramento only a few minutes
before the boat started, and at 2 P. M. bid that city a final
farewell, precisely two years to a day, and almost to an hour, since
I first landed from the Patuxent. The contrast between the diminutive
schooner and the spacious decks of the Senator was hardly greater
than that between the squalid miners huddled together like a flock of
sheep in the one, and the well dressed crowd of comfortable tradesmen
in the other; and but for a single incident I might have supposed
myself in one of the floating palaces of the Hudson. A handsome
young man, who came out of the saloon while we were sitting on the
quarter deck, attracted my attention by what I set down as the most
ridiculous affectation. He was drest in the height of the fashion,
with a superabundance of jewelry, and a pair of the very smallest
boots, which I thought partially accounted for his peculiar mincing
gait. I had begun to regard him with even painful aversion, when some
one whispered to me that it was a woman, and my feelings underwent a
sudden change. Whatever I might think of her moral character, I could
no longer accuse her of inconsistency or affectation--her mincing gait
became a swimming walk--her love of ornament, her little simpering
ways, her downcast lids, were her hereditary, inalienable right, with
which I had no more reason nor inclination to find fault than with
her slight figure and delicate complexion. She promenaded the deck for
hours in all the independence of her masculine assumed attire; but
when the bell rang for supper, she slunk down with the petticoats,
thus adroitly, like other apostles of woman's rights, reserving her
own peculiar privileges while insisting upon her claim to ours.
On arriving at San Francisco we took lodgings at a hotel, where we
remained until the sailing of the next steamer, in which we hastened
to secure a passage. We spent the time pleasantly enough in walking
about the city, visiting the various places of public amusement,
and the magnificent clippers lying at the wharves, among which the
Flying Cloud, lately arrived from the quickest passage on record, most
attracted our attention.
Being now about to leave the shores of California, I wished to
signalize the event by some deed of high emprise, or, in the words
of the great captain, finish the campaign by a clap of thunder. My
acquaintance in the city were constantly making fortunes by lucky
speculations, and I saw no reason why I should not follow their
example. Opportunities were not wanting--nearly every other building
in San Francisco was occupied as a commission and auction store, where
the most incredible bargains were offered every day and every hour.
I entered one of the largest of these establishments just as the
auctioneer was bidding off some kind of under garment; and as he
whirled them dexterously around, I observed that they had sleeves,
and asked to know no more. Here was the opportunity for which I had
panted. I pressed forward among the bidders, and the next moment, such
was the rapidity of my conclusion and the prompt energy of my action,
I found myself the happy owner of eight dozen ladies' undershirts.
"What name?" says the auctioneer. "Mr. Cash." "Please step into the
back part of the store, Mr. Cash, and receive your goods." While
I stood, like Atlas or Teneriffe, unremoved, and the whole crowd
of wondering bidders stared at me as who should say, "What under
the canopy do _you_ want of eight dozen ladies' undershirts?" St.
John, who had hitherto stood a silent and bewildered spectator of
the scene, the suddenness of the whole proceeding having given him
no time to interfere, now recovered from his torpor, and taking me
all unresisting by the arm he quietly led me to the back of the
shop, and then, making a skilful detour round a counter, out into
the street, where we never once stopped to look behind us till we
had left the danger far behind, and I was able to thank St. John for
my deliverance. When in answer to his very natural inquiries I gave
him an explanation of what he had just witnessed, though he highly
approved of my design, that is of making a fortune, he thought the
manner in which I set about the execution of it hardly justified any
very sanguine notions of success, and discouraged me to that degree
that I had no heart for any farther experiment; and thus ended my
first and last speculation. I have been since inclined to regret
this result when I have considered that Wellington was defeated in
his first battle, and that Frederick the Great even fled from the
field; and in the same manner I, though my first essay terminated so
disastrously, might have come in time to be the greatest merchant
since Jacob Astor. But whatever business talent I possessed was then
and there crushed in the bud--I have ever since shrunk from the
sight of an auctioneer as a thief from the sight of an officer, and
the merest glimpse of a lady's undershirt is enough to disturb my
equanimity for a whole day--while I regard the mention of such an
article in my hearing as an offence beyond the reach of forgiveness.