Some Account of John Smith.--Nicknames.--Progress of the
Age.--The Colonel's Opinion of Science.--John Smith's
Dream.--Ike Turtle's Dream.--Ike takes the Boots.
Pioneers--men who grow up in the woods--are famous for luxuriant
imaginations. Everything, with them, is on a sweeping scale with the
natural objects amid which they dwell. The rivers, and lakes, and plains
are great, and seem to run riot--so men sometimes run riot too, in thought,
and word, and deed. They deal largely in the extravagant, and do
extravagant things in an extravagant way.
I have seen a rusty pioneer, when giving his opinion upon some trite
matter, garnish his language with imagery and figures, and clothe himself
with an action, that Demosthenes would have copied, if he had met with such
in his day. Gestures all graceful, eye all fire, language rough, but
strong, and an enthusiasm that was magnetic--a kind of unpremeditated
natural eloquence, that many a one has sought for, but never found.
John Smith was an ingenious Puddlefordian in the way of story-telling. He
was almost equal to Ike Turtle. John was a great, stalwart, double-breasted
fellow, who cared for nothing, not even himself; a compound made up of
dare-devil ferocity, benevolence, and impudence. His feelings, whether of
the higher or lower order, always ran to excess. He was an importation from
Massachusetts, of fair education, and, from his recklessness of life, had
drifted into Puddleford, like many other tempest-tossed vessels, stripped
of spars and rigging. Smith's fancy and imagination were always at work. He
had nicknamed two thirds of Puddleford, and there was something
characteristic in the appellations bestowed. One small-eyed man, he called
"Pink-Eye;" another, a bustling fellow, who made a very great noise on a
very small capital, was known as "Bumble-bee;" another, a long-shanked,
loose-jointed character, was "Giraffe;" Squire Longbow he christened "Old
Night-Shade." Turtle was known as "Sky-Rocket;" Bates as "Little Coke;" the
Colonel as "Puff-Ball." Indeed, not one man in twenty was recognized by his
true name, so completely had Smith invested the people with titles of his
own manufacture.
I recollect one of Smith's flights of imagination--one among many--for I
cannot write out all his mental productions.
The Puddlefordians were met, as usual, at Bulliphant's. That was the place,
we have seen, where all public opinion was created. Turtle, and Longbow,
and Bates, and the whole roll, even down to Jim Buzzard, were present. The
progress of the age was the subject.
Turtle thought "there was no cac'latin' what things would come to--steam
and ingin-rubber were runnin' one etarnal race, and he guess'd they'd lay
all opposition to the land, and bring on the millennium."
Bates said "the sciences were doin' sunthin', but _they'd_ never make
anybody better--human natur' was so shockin' wicked, that it would require
a heap mor'n injin-rubber to _rejuvify_ 'em."
Mr. Longbow requested Bates "to repeat that 'ere last word agin."
Bates said "it was '_rejuvify_'--that is, 'drag out,' 'resurrect.'"
The Squire thanked Bates for his explanation.
The Colonel said there was such a thing as too much science. He professed
to have lived a scientific life--that is, without work--but all the while
he found some one a little more scientific, and he had never been able to
hold his own anywhere. He had been stranded fourteen times in his life,
owing to a press of science brought against him; but the most destructive
science in the known world was that for the collection of debts. It
deprived men of their liberty, their comforts, their property, their
friends; and the manner in which this was all done was barbarous. He defied
any man to produce as cool-blooded a thing as an execution at law, which
was a branch of legal science.
Squire Longbow said--"A _fiery facius_ (_fieri facias_) was one of the most
ancientest writs which he issued, and there warn't nothin' cool-blooded or
ramptious about it."
Mr. Smith sat silently up to this point in the debate. "Boys," said he, at
last, "the world is goin' ahead. Talkin' of science, let me tell you a
dream I had last night." But, if the reader will permit me, I will give the
substance of Smith's dream in my own language. It may detract from its
point, but it will be more connected and intelligible.
"I dreamed, boys," said Smith, "that I was in the great Patent Office, at
Washington. I looked, and its ceiling was raised to an enormous height,
while through open doors and passages I saw room after room groaning with
thousands of models, until it appeared as though I was in a wilderness of
machinery. Very soon a pert little gentleman, with a quick black eye, and a
'pussy' body, arrayed in the queerest costume I ever saw, came bustling up
to me, and asked me for my ticket. I involuntarily thrust my hand into the
depths of my breeches-pocket, and pulling out a card, delivered it to him.
After looking at the card, and then at me, and then at the card again, he
burst out into a loud guffaw, that made the old Patent-Office ring. 'Why,
sir,' said he, '_this_ is no ticket. It is the business card of one John
Smith, advertising a patent dog-churn, of which he here says he is the real
inventor, and it bears date in the year 1840--two hundred years ago! The
churn may be found in room marked "Inventions of Year 1840," but the man
John Smith we haven't got. I don't much think he is around above ground,
just at this time," said the little man, chuckling. 'But,' said I, 'who are
you, if I am not John Smith? Were you not appointed by Polk, Secretary of
the Interior, and did I not put a word in his ear favorable to you?' 'Polk,
a Secretary of the Interior!' exclaimed he; 'I appointed by Polk! Why, my
dear sir, I was appointed only two years ago--not two hundred!--"Chief of
the Great Central Department," as the office is now called.'
"While we were talking, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Fulton, walked in
and took seats. I knew Uncle Ben the moment I cast my eyes upon him. He was
dressed in good old '76 style;--shoe-buckles, short breeches, queue, and
all; and that same jolly, round face, and double chin, that tranquil
countenance just touched, without being destroyed, by comedy--were all
there. Adams and Jefferson I had before seen, and they were a little more
modern in dress, but they both looked care-worn. Fulton sat apart, and eyed
the other three as though he had seen them somewhere, but yet could not
call them by name.
"The rather unexpected arrival of these gentlemen broke up the comments of
my bustling interrogator, and one of those pauses occurred which frequently
do upon the appearance of strangers. Uncle Ben asked Jefferson if he would
'not like to move up to the fire and warm his feet?' 'Fire!' said I, 'fire.
Why, Uncle Ben, there is no fireplace now-a-days. Stoves and hot-air
furnaces are all the go. This building is warmed by a great furnace, and
two miles of pipe that conducts the heat to every room in it.' 'Not by a
long way,' said my bustling friend--'not by a long way, Mr. John Smith.
This trumpery is all piled away among the inventions of the years that
were. These things belong to the age of your dog-churn. Why, gentlemen,'
continued he, 'have you never heard of the Great Southern Hot-Air Company,
chartered in 1960, whose business it is to furnish warm air from the South
to persons at the North; price to families three dollars a year; all done
by a gigantic underground tunnel, and branches, worked at the other end by
an air-pump! Have you never heard of _this_, gentlemen? Here we get the
natural heat of the South, warmed by the sun; none of your stinking coal
and wood gases to corrupt and destroy it. And then the principle of
reciprocity is kept up; for we send back our cold air in the same way; and
so we keep up an equilibrium, for the South are just as strenuous as ever
to keep up the equilibrium of the Union. Why, gentlemen, those stoves
required constant care. As often as every week it was necessary to
replenish them with wood or coal. No! no!--those improvements belonged to
the dark ages."
"Bless me!" exclaimed Uncle Ben. "Impossible!" repeated Fulton. "And so you
don't use the old 'Franklin' stove any more?" said Uncle Ben. "Perhaps," he
continued, a quiet smile playing over his face, as if he intended a comical
shot, "perhaps you don't use lightning now-a-days either, and my
lightning-rods, of course, belong to the dark ages too!"
"We have the lightning, and use it too, but only one rod, built by the
state, near its centre, which is so colossal and powerful that it protects
everything around it." And then the little fellow rattled on about the
_use_ of lightning; how it wrote all over the world the English language,
until I verily believe that Uncle Ben, Fulton, and all, set him down as the
most unscrupulous liar that they had ever met with.
"I think," said Uncle Ben, "that I could convince myself of the truth of
your assertions, if I could go to Boston; but as my time is very limited, I
cannot."
"Send you there in five minutes by the watch!" answered the little man;
"or, if that's too soon, in twenty-four hours. It requires powerful lungs
to go by balloon--time five minutes--departure every half hour. The
magnetic railway train will take you through in four hours, or on the
old-fashioned railroad in twenty-four." "What," said Uncle Ben, "is the old
stage company entirely broken up?" "Don't know what you mean by stages,"
said the little man, "but I will look for the word in the big dictionary."
"Go by steamboat," said Fulton. "Steamboat!" repeated the little
man,--"steamboat! too everlasting slow--not over twenty-five miles an
hour--well enough for freight, but passengers cannot endure them; they go
laboring and splashing along at a snail's pace, and they are enough to wear
out any man's patience. Yet the steamboat was the greatest stride ever made
at any one time in the way of locomotion, and was very creditable to Fulton
and the age in which he lived." "That is admitting something," burst out
Fulton, who had sat like a statue, watching the little man's volubility.
"But," said Uncle Ben, "all this talk don't get me on my way to Boston.
That is my birthplace. I was there for the last time in 1763, and you know
that, according to the provisions of my will, there is more than four
million pounds sterling of my money which has by this time been disposed of
by the state somehow." Uncle Ben was always a shrewd fellow in the way of
dollars and cents, and I could see he was very anxious about that money.
"Oho! oho!" said the little man; "so you are Ben Franklin, and you are the
old gentleman who left that legacy. We've got a portrait of you up-stairs,
more than two hundred years old, and it _does_ look like you. Glad to see
you! You said something in your life-time about immersing yourself in a
cask of Madeira wine with a few friends, and coming to the world in a
hundred years again. These are your friends, I suppose?" "These gentlemen,"
replied Uncle Ben, "are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, signers of the
Declaration of Independence." "The other gentleman," continued I, "is
Robert Fulton, whom you have spoken of." "Well, I declare!" ejaculated the
little man, "this _is_ a meeting! But about that legacy, Uncle Ben, of
yours; two million sterling of it has gone to build the Gutta Percha
Magnetic Telegraph line, connecting Boston with London and Paris, two of
the largest cities in the Eastern Republic of Europe." "Gutta
Percha!--Magnetic telegraph!--_Republic_ of Europe!"--repeated all of them.
"All built under water, and sustained by buoys," continued the little man,
"and it works to a charm--plan up-stairs in room 204--and can be seen in a
moment; and, as I told you before, it writes the English language as fast
as my deputy." "Republic of Europe!" exclaimed Jefferson, again. "Yes,
sir," said the little man, "for more than a century. No more thrones; no
more rulers by divine right; no more governments sustained by powder and
ball; no lords nor nobles; man is _man_, not merely one of a _class_ of
men, but _individually_ man, with rights as perfect and powers as great as
any other man. The principles, Jefferson, of your Declaration, which you
did not create, but only asserted, have prostrated every arbitrary
government on the globe. Even the Jews, since their return to Jerusalem,
have organized a republican form of government, and have just elected Mr.
Noah President." "Well," thinks I to myself, "that can't be _Mordecia M._
Noah, anyhow, for politics must have used up his constitution before this."
But the little man chattered away, and declared that Europe was divided
into two republics, the Eastern and Western; that Constantinople was the
capital of the Western; that Africa and Asia were also republican; until
the three signers of the Declaration, perfectly wrought up to a frenzy of
joy, rose up from their seats, took off their hats, and swinging them
round, gave "Three cheers for '76, and the old Army of the
Revolution!"--and I verily believe Uncle Ben forgot all about that money,
and about going to Boston, for he did not allude to it any more in my
presence.
"Great changes these!" continued the little man, "from your days. But you
must not think, gentlemen, that we have forgotten you or your services,
while we have improved in wisdom and strength. Look here, gentlemen," and
he motioned us away, and, leading on, he conducted us to an observatory on
the top of the building. Such a prospect I never before beheld. Away,
around, on every side, stretched a mighty city, whose limits the eye could
not reach. Towers, temples, spires, and masts succeeded towers, temples,
spires, and masts, until they were lost in the distant haze. Canals
traversed every street, and boats of merchandise were loading and unloading
their freights. Steam-carriages were puffing along the roads that ran by
the canal, some filled with pleasure parties, and some laden with goods.
Turning my eye to an elevation, I saw fifty-six gigantic monuments, whose
peaks were nearly lost in the sky, ranged in a line, all alike in form and
sculpture. "These," said the little man, "were erected to the Signers of
the Declaration of Independence;" and, taking out his telescope, he handed
it to Uncle Ben, who read aloud among the inscriptions the names, FRANKLIN,
JEFFERSON, ADAMS. "But let us know what this city is called?" inquired
Jefferson. "This, sir, is called _Columbiana_; it lies on the west bank of
the Mississippi, population five millions, according to the last census."
"But what supports it?" "Supports it! The great East India trade. That
vessel down there is direct from Canton, by ship canal across the Isthmus.
All Europe is secondary to us now. No doubling capes, as was done in
_your_ day. Yonder stands the Capitol; and the whole North American
continent is annually represented there. The city of San Francisco alone
sends forty-four members. There," continued he, pointing his finger, "that
balloon rising slowly in the sky has just started for that place, and the
passengers will take their dinner there to-morrow."
Jefferson asked the little man "whether the Federalists or Democrats were
in power?"--and I saw that Adams waked up when he heard the question.
"Don't know any such division," replied he. "The great measure of the day,
upon which parties are divided, is the purchase of the South American
continent at five hundred millions of dollars. I go for it; and before
another year the bargain will be consummated. We _must_ have more
territory--we haven't got half enough. Extent of territory gives a nation
dignity and importance. The old thirteen states of your day, gentlemen,
were a mere cabbage patch, and should have been consolidated into one
state. Ten or twenty days' sail ran you plump into a hostile port, and then
you had a demand for duty. Besides, conflicting interests always brew up
difficulties; and then come treaties, and finally war, and then debt, and
at last oppressive taxation. A nation should own all the territory that
joins it. The ocean is the only natural boundary for a people." Thinks I,
"You have been a politician in your day, and I'll just engage you to
correspond with a certain New York editor, who shall be nameless; you
strike off the doctrine boldly!"
Uncle Ben told the little man, after he closed, that a nation might "get so
very ripe as to become a little rotten; and, if he had no objection, he
would present him with the 'Sayings of Poor Richard.'" And, suiting the
action to the word, he pushed his hand into his breeches-pocket, and pulled
out an old almanac, printed at Philadelphia in 1732, and, bowing, handed it
to him. The little man thanked him, and promised to deposit it in the
Museum, as a curious piece of antiquity.
"Getting somewhat anxious for a smoke, I drew forth a cigar and
'loco-foco,' rubbed the latter across my boot, which flashed out its light
full in Uncle Ben's face. 'That is nice,' exclaimed he; 'rather an
improvement on the old string, wheel, and tinder plan.' 'Simple, too, isn't
it?' said I; 'and yet all the science of your day didn't detect it.' Just
then I gave a puff, which made Uncle Ben sneeze; and he broke out into a
tirade against tobacco that would read well. But I told him there was no
use; men had smoked and chewed the weed--would smoke and chew it, economy
or no economy, health or no health, filth or no filth; and that in all
probability the last remnant of the great American Republic, for succeeding
nations to gaze at, would be a plug of tobacco; for I sincerely believed
that tobacco would outlive the government itself.
"The little man proposed returning into the Patent Office, and exhibiting
to us in detail the models of art there deposited. But I cannot weary you
with what I there saw. The fruits of every year, since the organization of
the department, were divided into rooms, and indicated on the door by an
inscription. There were thousands of improvements in every branch of
science, many of which were so simple, that I thought myself a fool that I
did not discover them long ago. Principles were applied, the very operation
of which I now recollected to have often seen, yet without a thought of
their practical utility. I came to the conclusion that accident was the
parent of more that I saw than design; 'for how,' reasoned I, 'is it
possible that these pieces of machinery could otherwise have escaped the
great men who have lived and died in ignorance of them?'
"By this time we were quite fatigued, and Uncle Ben complained a little of
the 'stone,' which he said he was subject to. The little man gave him some
'Elixir of Life,' as he called it, being, as he said, 'an extract of the
nutritious portions of meats and vegetables, purged from their grossness as
found in their natural state;' and while we were sipping it, he launched
forth upon its great benefit to mankind; the money saved that used to be
expended in cookery and transportation--millions upon millions; the great
economy in time, formerly squandered in eating, &c., &c.; and he wound up
his eulogy by presenting each of us with a bottle, which I carefully put
away in my pocket.
"Adams then rose up, and said he must leave, and Jefferson, Uncle Ben, and
Fulton followed. And in a moment Uncle Ben, Fulton, Adams, Jefferson, the
little man, the apartments, wheels, and machinery, began to rock, and
heave, and fade, and finally dissolve; and suddenly I awoke!"
"You _did_ awake!" exclaimed the Colonel, drawing a breath all the way from
his boots; "I should have thought you would."
Bates gave a yawn, and throwing his quid into the fire, called for a glass
of whiskey and water, saying he would "try to choke down the story with
_that_."
Longbow sat perfectly magnetized--his arms folded across his breast, his
chin dropped, his legs resting on his boot-heels, and pushed out in front
of him, as though he was driving a hard-bitted horse, and his one eye
stared vacantly at the coals in the huge fireplace. He gave an unconscious
grunt when Smith concluded, but made no commentary.
Turtle said "the dream was very remarkable for such a man as Smith; but he
guessed he _had_ it, and he was going to believe it, because it was upon
the word of a Puddlefordian. But he'd had one that beat it all
holler--s'prisin' dream--like them air visions that somebody unriddled
for--he couldn't recollect the name of the man now--no matter, the dream's
the same.
"I got up one morning," said Ike, "and went down to my breakfast-table, but
there warn't one of my family present. I saw seated around it, however, a
strange company of folks, and dressed as no mortals ever were before, since
the flood, I _reckon_. There warn't nothin' that ever I seed before on any
on 'em. I took my place at the head of the board, and attempted to do the
carvin'; but there warn't nobody that understood my meanin'. Pork warn't
pork any more; and when I tried to pass pork, I found that it had a
kind-er' fancy name, which I have now forgot.
"One great goggle-eyed fellow, who sat at my right hand, informed a lady
near him 'that he'd got-ter go over to Agoria before dinner, and get his
sun-dial fixed; but his wings were down at the shop being fixed, and he
couldn't start this hour yet."
"'Agoria! Where's that?' asked I.
"'Don't know where Agoria is--ha, ha! On the River Amazon, a trip of a
couple of thousand of miles.' And so he took out a little eye-glass, and
looked at me for a long time, and, putting it back in his pocket, said 'he
thought I was a North Pole-ander, or a ghost; he didn't know which.
"'Dear me! you _will_ be keerful, now won't you?' said the lady. Two
hundred collisions in the air last night, among the winged men; almost as
many the night afore--awful!'
"The goggle-eyed man said he would.
"'Did you hear President Jones lecter last night,' said a spectacled
critter, at the upper end of the table, sticking his fore-finger out to me.
"'No, sir-_ee_!' I hollered back to him, as I was some little frustrated by
this time.
"'He showed,' said the man, 'that one Tom Jefferson prob'bly _did_ write
the Declaration of Independence that the ancients made.'
"'You don't say so, though, do you?' said I. 'You're a bright set of chaps
the whole on you, President Jones and all.'
"There was a mighty deal said about the Persian war with America; what
somebody said who came from Africa last night--what this man and that man
done in Congress; but getting out of patience at last, I jumped up, and
left the whole on 'em; and as I passed out of the room, told 'em 'they
might all go to grass.'
"As I left the house, I saw an almanac hanging on the wall for the year
2564. The first thought, when I saw this, was, '_Where, in the name of
Andrew Jackson, is Puddleford now?_'
"But what was my surprise, when I got inter the street, which was all laid
with slabs of granite, and lined with palaces, to find Squire Longbow
walking along with his wings folded on his back, looking as nat'ral as the
old fogy himself.
"'Squire,' said I, 'here's _to_ you!'
"The Squire said 'he hadn't the honor of my 'quaintance.'
"'O, you old scoundrel!' said I, 'you can't come that--'"
"That's false!" exclaimed Longbow; "I didn't have no such talk."
"It was _only_ a _dream_--you forget," answered Ike.
"Exactly," replied the Squire, relapsing into his former mood.
"'You can't come that, old man,' I repeated; 'I could tell you in the
streets of Jerusalem in the night; what are you about, old feller? You look
fat and pussy.'
"The Squire said 'he was Judge of the Continental Supreme Court.'
"'So I should think,' said I; 'I just left a dozen asses at my breakfast
table, and you're just the man for all the world to be their judge.'
"That's a contempt!" exclaimed the Squire, jumping from his chair.
"Nothin' but a dream, and they allers go by contraries," answered Ike.
"So they do,' said the Squire, calmly, sitting down again.
"Where's Bates, and the Colonel, and Bulliphant, and the other
Puddlefordians?' inquired I.
"'Bates,' said the Squire, 'burst a blood-vessel several hundred years ago,
running down a southern kidnapper, and died quick-ern a flash. He didn't
leave nothing scasely for his family, 'cause he spent all his time on
public affairs. The Colonel left the country with the sheriff at his heels;
and he rather thought he was somewhere about the streets now, as he saw a
feller t'other day 'fore the court, for debt, that looked jest like him.
Bulliphant went off in spontaneous combustion--in a kind of blue fire, and
the old woman fretted herself out, a couple of years arter; but,' said the
Squire, 'I can't be detained. Story's waitin' for me on the bench, and we
decide the title to a million of acres of land, at ten this morning.'
"This _woke me_. _Story_ and the _decision_ by _Longbow_, knocked my dream
out-er sight."
Bates pulled off his boots, and handing them to Ike, informed him that they
were his, by the custom of Puddlefordians, and the meeting adjourned.