=Source.=--_The Clockmaker, or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel
Slick_, by T. C. Haliburton. London, 1838.
As we approached within fifteen or twenty miles of Parrsboro', a
sudden turn of the road brought us directly in front of a large
wooden house, consisting of two stories and an immense roof, the
height of which edifice was much increased by a stone foundation
rising several feet above ground. Now did you ever see, said Mr.
Slick, such a catamaran as that; there's a proper goney for you,
for to go and raise such a building as that are; and he has as
much use for it, I do suppose, as my old waggon here has for a
fifth wheel. Bluenose always takes keer to have a big house,
cause it shows a big man, and one that's considerable forehanded,
and pretty well to do in the world. These Nova Scotians turn up
their blue noses, as a bottle nose porpoise turns up his snout,
and puff and snort exactly like him at a small house. If neighbour
Carrit has a two storey house, all filled with winders like Sandy
Hook lighthouse, neighbour Parsnip must add jist two feet more on
to the post of hisn, and about as much more to the rafter, to go
ahead of him; so all these long sarce gentlemen strive who can
get the furdest in the sky, away from their farms. In New England
our maxim is a small house and amost an everlastin almighty big
barn; but these critters revarse it, they have little hovels for
their cattle, about the bigness of a good sizeable bear trap, and
a house for the humans as grand as Noah's Ark. Well, jist look at
it and see what a figur it does cut. An old hat stuffed into one
pane of glass, and an old flannel petticoat as yaller as jaundice
in another, finish off the front; an old pair of breeches and the
pad of a bran new cart-saddle worn out titivate the eend, while
the back is all closed up on account of the wind. When it rains,
if there aint a pretty how-do-you-do, it's a pity--beds toted out
of this room, and tubs set in tother to catch soft water to wash;
while the clapboards, loose at the eends, go clap, clap, clap, like
gals a hacklin flax, and the winders and doors keep a dancin to the
music. The only dry place in the house is in the chimbley corner,
where the folks all huddle up, as an old hen and her chickens do
under a cart of a wet day. I wish I had the matter of half a dozen
pound of nails (you'll hear the old gentleman in the grand house
say), for if I had, I'd fix them are clapboards; I guess they'll
go for it some o' these days. I wish you had, his wife would say,
for they do make a most particular unhansum clatter, that's a fact;
and so they let it be till the next tempestical time comes, and
then they wish agin. Now this grand house has only two rooms down
stairs, that are altogether slicked up and finished off complete;
the other is jist petitioned off roughlike, one half great dark
entries, and tother half places that look a plaguy sight more like
packin' boxes than rooms. Well, all upstairs is a great onfarnished
place, filled with every sort of good for nothin trumpery in
natur--barrels without eends, corncobs half husked, cast-off
clothes and bits of old harness, sheep skins, hides and wool,
apples, one half rotten and tother half squashed, a thousand or two
of shingles that have bust their withs and broke loose all over the
floor, hay rakes, forks and sickles without handles or teeth, rusty
scythes and odds and eends without number....
Whenever you come to such a grand place as this Squire, depend
on't the farm is all of a piece, great crops of thistles, and an
everlastin yield of weeds, and cattle the best fed of any in the
country, for they are always in the grain fields or mowin lands,
and the pigs a rootin in the potatoe patches....
The last time I came by here, it was a little bit arter daylight
down, rainin cats and dogs and as dark as Egypt; so, thinks I,
I'll jist turn in here for shelter to Squire Bill Blake's. Well,
I knocks away at the front door, till I thought I'd a split it
in; but arter a rappin a while to no purpose and findin no one
come, I gropes my way round to the back door, and opens it, and
feelin all along the partition for the latch of the keepin room
without finding it, I knocks agin, when someone from inside calls
out "Walk." Thinks I, I don't cleverly know whether that indicates
"walk in" or "walk out," it's plaguy short metre, that's a fact;
but I'll see anyhow. Well, arter gropin about a while, at last I
got hold of the string and lifted the latch and walked in, and
there sot old Marm Blake, close into one corner of the chimbley
fire-place, a see-sawin in a rockin-chair, and a half-grown black
house-help, half asleep in tother corner, a scroudgin up over
the embers. Who be you, said Marm Blake, for I can't see you. A
stranger, said I. Beck, says she ... get up this minit and stir
the coals till I see the man. Arter the coals were stirred into a
blaze, the old lady surveyed me from head to foot, then she axed
me my name, and where I came from, where I was agoin, and what my
business was. I guess, said she, you must be reasonable wet, sit to
the fire and dry yourself, or mayhap your health may be endamnified
pr'aps.
So I sot down, and we soon got pretty considerably well acquainted,
and quite sociable like, and her tongue, when it fairly waked up,
began to run like a mill race when the gate's up.... Well, when
all was sot to rights and the fire made up, the old lady began to
apologise for having no candles; she said she'd had a grand tea
party the night afore, and used them all up, and a whole sight of
vittals too; the old man hadn't been well since, and had gone to
bed airly. But, says she, I do wish with all my heart you had a
come last night, for we had a most a special supper--punkin-pies
and dough-nuts and apple-sarce, and a roast goose stuffed with
Indian puddin, and a pig's harslet stewed in molasses and onions,
and I don't know what all; and the fore part of to-day folks called
to finish. I actilly have nothin left to set afore you; for it was
none o' your skim-milk parties, but superfine uppercrust real jam,
and we made clean work of it. But I'll make some tea anyhow for
you, and perhaps after that, said she, alterin of her tone, perhaps
you'll expound the Scriptures, for it's one while since I've heerd
them laid open powerfully.... The tea-kettle was accordingly put
on, and some lard fried into oil and poured into a tumbler; which,
with the aid of an inch of cotton-wick, served as a makeshift for a
candle.