“So you may kalkilate we made good time. Bimeby he slackened a little,

and then I had him for a spell, for I jest dropped behind a stump, and

that snubbed the critter.

“‘Now,’ ses I, ‘you’ll pull up this ’ere white oak, break you’re _tail_,

or jist hold on a bit till I blow.’

“Well, while I war settin’ thar, an idea struck me that I had better be

a gettin’ out o’ this in some way. But _how_, adzackly was the _pint_!

If I let go and run, he’d be a foul o’ me sure.

“So lookin’ at the matter in all its bearins, I cum to the conclusion

that I’d better let somebody _know_ whar I was. So I gin a _yell_ louder

than a locomotive whistle, and it warn’t long before I seed the Deacon’s

two dogs a comin’ down like as if they war seein’ which could get thar

fust.

“I know’d who they war arter—they’d jine the bull agin me, I war

sartin, for they war awful wenimous, and had a spite agin me.

“‘So,’ ses I, ‘old Brindle, as ridin’ is as cheap as walkin’ on this

rout, if you’ve no objections, I’ll jest take a deck passage on that ar

back o’ your’n.’

“So I wasn’t long gettin’ astride of him, and then if you’d been thar,

you’d ’ave sworn thar warn’t nothin’ human in that ar _mix_; the sile

flew so orrfully as the critter and I rolled round the field—one dog on

one side and one on t’other, tryin’ to clinch my feet!

“I pray’d and cuss’d, and cuss’d and pray’d, until I couldn’t tell which

I did last—and neither warn’t of any use, they war so orrfully mix’d

up.

“Well, I reckon I rid about an hour this way, when old Brindle thought

it war time to stop and take in a supply of wind and cool off a little!

So when we got round to a tree that stood thar, he nat’rally halted!

“‘Now,’ ses I, ‘old boy, you’ll lose _one_ passenger sartin!’

“So I just clum upon a branch, kalkelating to roost thar till I starved,

afore I’d be rid round that ar way any more.

“I war makin’ tracks for the top of the tree, when I heard suthin’ a

makin’ an orful buzzin’ over head, I kinder looked up, and if thar

warn’t—well thar’s no use swearin’ now, but it war the biggest

_hornet’s nest_ ever built!

“You’ll gin in now, I reckon, Mike, case thar’s no help for you! But an

idea struck me, then, that I’d stand a heap better chance a ridin’ the

old bull than where I war. Ses I, ‘Old feller, if you’ll hold on, I’ll

ride to the next _station_ any how, let that be whar it will!’

“So I jest drapped aboard him agin, and looked aloft to see what I’d

gained in changing quarters; and, gentlemen, I’m a liar if thar warn’t

nigh half a bushel of the stingen’ varmints ready to pitch into me when

the word ‘go’ was gin!

“Well, I reckon they got it, for ‘all hands’ started for our _company_!

Some on ’em hit the dogs—about a _quart_ struck me, and the rest

charged old Brindle.

“This time, the dogs led off fust, ‘dead’ beat, for the old Deacon’s,

and as soon as old Brindle and I could get under way, we _followed_. And

as I war only a deck passenger, and had nothin’ to do with stearin’ the

craft, I swore if I had we shouldn’t have run that channel, any how!

“But, as I said before, the dogs took the lead—Brindle and I next, and

the hornets dre’kly arter. The dogs yellin’, Brindle bellerin’, and the

hornets buzzin’ and stingin’! I didn’t say nothin’ for it warn’t no use.

“Well, we’d got bout two hundred yards from the house, and the Deacon

hearn us and cum out. I seed him hold up his hands and turn _white_! I

reckon he war prayin’ then, for he didn’t expect to be called for so

soon, and it warn’t long, neither, afore the hull congregation, men,

women, and children, cum out, and then all hands went to yellin’!

“None of ’em had the fust notion that Brindle and I belonged to this

world. I jest turned my head, and passed the _hull_ congregation! I seed

the run would be up soon, for Brindle couldn’t turn an inch from a fence

that stood dead ahead.

“Well, we reached that fence, and I went _ashore_, over the old

critter’s head, landin’ on t’other side, and lay thar stunned. It warn’t

long afore some of ’em as war not so scared, come round to see what I

war, for all hands kalkelated that the bull and I belonged _together_!

But when Brindle walked off by himself, they seed how it war, and one of

’em said:

“‘Mike Fink has got the _worst of the scrimmage once in his life_!’

“Gentlemen, from that day I drapped the _courtin’_ bizziness, and never

spoke to a gal since! And when my hunt is up on this yearth, thar won’t

be any more F I N K S and it’s all owin’ to Deacon Smith’s Brindle

Bull.”

IX.

OUR SINGING-SCHOOL.

A CHAPTER FROM THE HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF

PIGWACKET.

My second cousin by the mother’s side, Benjamin Blackletter, A.M., who

was born and lived all his lifetime in the ancient town of Pigwacket,

has compiled, with scrupulous accuracy, the annals of that venerable

town, in three volumes folio, which he proposes to publish as soon as he

can find a Boston bookseller who will undertake the job. I hope this

will be accomplished before long, for Pigwacket is a very interesting

spot, though not very widely known. It is astonishing what important

events are going on every day, in odd corners of this country, which the

world knows nothing about. When I read over these trusty folios, which

bear the title, “=The General History of the Town of

Pigwacket=, _from its first settlement until the present day,

comprising an authentic relation of all its civil, military,

ecclesiastical, financial and statistical concerns, compiled from

original records, &c._” and see the great deeds that have been done in

that respectable town, and the great men that have figured therein, and

reflect that the fame thereof, so far from extending to the four corners

of the earth, has hardly penetrated as far as Boston, I heave a sigh for

mortal glory.

Knowing that my readers must be impatient for the appearance of the

three folios of the History of Pigwacket, and as they cannot be put to

press for some months, I avail myself of this chance to feed their

curiosity by an extract, as the cook at Camancho’s wedding gave Sancho a

couple of pullets to stay his stomach till dinner-time. Take then the

portion contained in Chapter CLXXXVIII., which begins as follows:

It becomes my lot at this period of the narrative, to chronicle

an event that formed quite an epoch in the history of the town,

or rather of that part which constituted our parish. This

occurrence may not be deemed by the world quite so momentous as

the Declaration of Independence, or the French Revolution, but

the reader may believe me, it was a great affair in our

community. This was no less than a mighty feud in church matters

about psalm-singing. The whole parish went by the ears about it,

and the affair gave the community such a rouse, that many people

feared we should never fairly recover the shock. The particulars

were these:

From time immemorial we had continued to sing psalms at meeting,

as became good Christians and lovers of harmony. But my readers,

accustomed to the improvements of modern days, have need to be

informed that up to this period, our congregation had practised

this accomplishment according to that old method of psalmody,

known by the designation of “read-a-line-and-sing-a-line.” This

primitive practice, which had first come into use when

hymn-books were scarce, was still persisted in, though the

necessity for its continuance no longer existed. Our church

music, therefore, exhibited the quaint and patriarchal

alternation of recitation and melody, if melody it might be

called, while some towns in the neighbourhood had adopted the

new fashion, and surprised us by the superiority of their

performances over the rude and homely chants of old.

But it was not long ere the wish to improve our style of singing

began to show itself among us. At the first announcement of such

a design, the piety of many of the old members took the alarm,

and the new method was denounced as heathenish and profane.

The chief personage who figured in the troubles which arose upon

this matter was Deacon Dogskin, a man of scrupulous orthodoxy,

highly dogmatical on theological points, and a leader of

powerful influence in the church. This dignitary, whose office

it had been to give out the several lines of the psalm as they

were sung, was one of the sturdiest opponents of the new-fangled

psalmody, and set his face against the innovation with all the

zeal and devotion of a primitive Christian. Unfortunately for

him, Deacon Grizzle, his colleague, took the opposite side of

the question, exemplifying the vulgar saying, “Two of a trade

can never agree.”

The discordancy, to tell the whole truth, between these two

worthies lay in more interests than one, and it is to be doubted

whether they would have come to a rupture in church affairs, had

not their mutual animosities been quickened by certain temporal

janglings; for so it happened that the two deacons kept each a

grocery store, and neither of them ever let a chance slip of

getting away the other’s custom. Sorry I am to record the

frailties of two such reputable personages, who looked upon

themselves as burning and shining lights in our community; but I

am afraid that the fact cannot be concealed, that the petty

bickerings which arose between them on these little matters of

filthy lucre were suffered to intrude within the walls of the

sanctuary, and stir up the flame of discord in the great

psalm-singing feud; whereby, as our neighbour Hopper Paul sagely

remarked, the world may learn wisdom, and lay it down as a

maxim, that church affairs can never thrive when the deacons are

grocers.

Deacon Grizzle, therefore, partly from conscience and partly

from spite, placed himself at the head of the innovators, and

took every occasion to annoy his associate with all sorts of

ingenious reasons why the singing should be performed without

any intermixture of recitation. The younger part of the

congregation were chiefly ranged under his banner, but the older

people mustered strong on the opposite side. To hear the

disputes that were carried on upon this point, and the

pertinacity with which each one maintained his opinion, an

uninformed spectator would have imagined the interests of the

whole Christian world were at stake. In truth, a great many of

the good old souls really looked upon the act of altering the

mode of singing as a departure from the faith given unto the

saints. It was a very nice and difficult thing to come to a

conclusion where all parties were so hotly interested, but an

incident which fell out not long afterward, contributed to

hasten the revolution.

Deacon Dogskin, as I have already remarked, was the individual

on whom devolved, by prescriptive right, the duty of giving out

the psalm. The Deacon was in all things a stickler for ancient

usages; not only was he against giving up a hair’s breadth of

the old custom, but his attachment to the antique forms went so

far as to embrace all the circumstances of immaterial moment

connected with them. His predilection for the old tone of voice

was not to be overcome by any entreaty, and we continued to hear

the same nasal, snuffling drawl, which, nobody knows how, he had

contracted in the early part of his deaconship, although on

common occasions he could speak well enough. But the tone was a

part of his vocation; long use had consecrated it, and the

Deacon would have his way. His psalm-book, too, by constant use

had become to such a degree thumbed and blurred and torn and

worn, that it was a puzzle how, with his old eyes, he could make

anything of one half the pages. However, a new psalm-book was a

thing he would never hear spoken of, for, although the thing

could not be styled an innovation, inasmuch as it contained

precisely the same collocation of words and syllables, yet it

was the removal of an old familiar object from his sight, and

his faith seemed to be bound up in the greasy covers and dingy

leaves of the volume. So the Deacon stuck to his old psalm-book,

and, by the help of his memory where the letter-press failed

him, he made a shift to keep up with the singers, who, to tell

the truth, were not remarkable for the briskness of their notes,

and dealt more in semibreves than in demi-semi-quavers.

But, on a certain day, it happened that the Deacon, in the

performance of his office, stumbled on a line which happened to

be more than usually thumbed, and defied all his attempts to

puzzle it out. In vain he wiped his spectacles, brought the book

close to his nose, then held it as far off as possible, then

brought his nose to the book, then took it away again, then held

it up to the light, then turned it this way and that, winked and

snuffled and hemmed and coughed—the page was too deeply grimed

by the application of his own thumb, to be deciphered by any

ocular power. The congregation were at a dead stand. They waited

and waited, but the Deacon could not give out the line; every

one stared, and the greatest impatience began to be manifested.

At last Elder Darby, who commonly took the lead in singing,

called out:

“What’s the matter, Deacon?”

“I can’t read it,” replied the Deacon in a dolorous and

despairing tone.

“Then spell it,” exclaimed a voice from the gallery.

All eyes were turned that way, and it was found to proceed from

Tim Crackbrain, a fellow known for his odd and whimsical habits,

and respecting whom nobody could ever satisfy himself whether he

was knave, fool, or madman. The Deacon was astounded, the

congregation gaped and stared, but there was no more singing

that day. The profane behaviour of Tim caused great scandal, and

he was severely taken in hand by a regular kirk session.

This, however, was not the whole, for it was plainly to be

perceived that the old system had received a severe blow in this

occurrence, as no one could deny that such an awkward affair

could never have happened in the improved method of psalmody.

The affair was seized by the advocates of improvement, and

turned against their opponents. Deacon Dogskin and his old

psalm-book got into decidedly bad odour; the result could no

longer be doubtful; a parish meeting was held, and a resolution

passed to abolish the old system, and establish a singing

school. In such a manner departed this life, that venerable

relic of ecclesiastical antiquity, read-a-line-and-sing-a-line,

and we despatched our old acquaintance to the tomb of oblivion,

unwept, unhonoured, but not unsung.

This event, like all great revolutions, did not fail to give sad

umbrage to many in the church; and as to Deacon Dogskin, who had

fought as the great champion of the primitive system, he took it

in such dudgeon that he fell into a fit of the sullens, which

resulted in a determination to leave a community where his

opinion and authority had been so flagrantly set at nought.

Within two years, therefore, he sold off his farm, settled all

his concerns both temporal and spiritual in the town, and

removed to a village about fifteen miles distant. His ostensible

motive for the removal was his declining age, which he declared

to be unequal to the cultivation of so large a farm as he

possessed in our neighbourhood; but the true reason was guessed

at by every one, as the Deacon could never speak of the

singing-school without evident marks of chagrin.

Be this as it may, we proceeded to organise the singing-school

forthwith, for it was determined to do things in style. First of

all, it was necessary to find a singing-master who was competent

to instruct us theoretically in the principles of the art, and

put us to the full discipline of our powers. No one, of course,

thought of going out of the town for this, and our directors

shortly pitched upon a personage known to every body by the name

of Hopper Paul. This man knew more tunes than any person within

twenty miles, and, for aught we knew, more than any other man in

the world. He could sing Old Hundred, and Little Marlborough,

and Saint Andrews, and Bray, and Mear, and Tanzar, and Quercy,

and at least half a dozen others whose names I have forgotten,

so that he was looked upon as a musical prodigy.

I shall never forget Hopper Paul, for both the sounds and sights

he exhibited were such as could hardly be called earthly. He was

about six feet and a half high, exceedingly lank and long, with

a countenance which at the first sight would suggest to you the

idea that he had suffered a _face-quake_, for the different

parts of his visage appeared to have been shaken out of their

places and never to have settled properly together. His mouth

was capable of such a degree of dilation and collapse and

twisting, that it looked like a half a dozen pair of lips sewed

into one. The voice to which this comely pair of jaws gave

utterance might have been compared to the lowing of a cow, or

the deepest bass of an overgrown bull-frog, but hardly to any

sound made by human organs.

Hopper Paul, possessing all these accomplishments, was therefore

chosen head singer, and teacher of the school, which was

immediately set on foot. This was a great affair in the eyes of

all the young persons of both sexes, the thing being the first

of that sort which had ever been heard of in our parts; for

though the natives of the town were a psalm-singing race, like

all genuine New Englanders, yet they had hitherto learned to

sing much in the same way as they learned to talk, not by

theory, but in the plainest way of practice, each individual

joining in with the strains that were chanted at meeting

according to the best of his judgment. In this method, as the

reader may suppose, they made but a blundering sort of melody,

yet as the tunes were few, and each note drawled out to an

unconscionable length, all were more or less familiar with their

parts, or if they got into the wrong key, had time to change it

ere the line was ended. But things were now to be set on a

different footing; great deeds were to be done, and each one was

anxious to make a figure in the grand choir. All the young

people of the parish were assembled, and we began operations.

How we got through our first essays, I need not say, except that

we made awkward work enough of it. There were a great many

voices that seemed made for nothing but to spoil all our melody:

but what could we do? All were determined to learn to sing, and

Hopper Paul was of opinion that the bad voices would grow mellow

by practice, though how he could think so whenever he heard his

own, passes my comprehension. However, we could all raise and

fall the notes, and that was something. We met two evenings in

each week during the winter, and by the beginning of spring we

had got so well drilled in the gamut that we began to practise

regular tunes. Now we breathed forth such melodies as I think

have seldom been heard elsewhere; but as we had no standard of

excellence to show us the true character of our performances, we

could never be aware that our music was not equal to the harmony

of the spheres.

It was thought a peculiar excellence to sing through the nose,

and take a good reasonable time to swell out every note. Many of

us were apt to get into too high a key, but that was never

regarded, provided we made noise enough. In short, after a great

deal more practice we were pronounced to be thoroughly skilled

in the science, for our lungs had been put to such a course of

discipline that every one of us could roar with a most

stentorian grace; and as to our commander-in-chief, no man on

earth ever deserved better than he, the name of Boanerges, or

Son of Thunder.

It was decided, therefore, that on Fast day next we should take

the field; so we were all warned to prepare ourselves to enter

the singing seats at the meeting on that eventful day. Should I

live a thousand years, I shall never forget it; this was to be

the first public exhibition of our prowess, and we were exhorted

to do our best. The exhortation was unnecessary, for we were as

ambitious as the most zealous of our friends could desire, and

we were especially careful in rehearsing the tunes before hand.

The day arrived, and we marched in a body to take possession. No

stalwart knights, at a tournament, ever spurred their chargers

into the lists with more pompous and important feelings than we

entered the singing seats. The audience, of course, were all

expectation, and when the hymn was given out, we heard it with

beating hearts.

It was amusing, however, in the midst of our trepidation, to

witness the countenance of Deacon Dogskin, who was obliged to

sit facing us during the whole service. His looks were as sour

and cynical as if he could have driven us out of the house, and

he never vouchsafed to cast a glance at us from beginning to end

of the performance. There was another person who had been a

great stickler for the ancient usage. This was Elder Darby, who

had been head singer under the Deacon’s administration, and

looked upon himself as dividing the honours of that system with

the Deacon himself. He accordingly fought hard against the

innovation, and was frequently heard to declare that the whole

platform of christian doctrine would be undermined, if more than

one line was suffered to be sung at a time. In fact, this

personage, being what is emphatically called a “weak brother,”

but full of zeal and obstinacy, gave us a great deal more

trouble than the Deacon, who was not deficient in common

shrewdness, notwithstanding his oddities. This was a bitter day,

therefore, to Elder Darby, who felt very awkward at finding his

occupation gone, and his enemies triumphant all in the same

moment.

But we were now called upon to sing, and every eye, except those

of the Deacon and a few others, was turned upward: the hymn was

given out, Hopper Paul brandished his pitch-pipe and set the

tune, and we began with stout hearts and strong lungs. Such

sounds had never been heard within those walls before. The

windows rattled, and the ceiling shook with the echo, in such a

manner that some people thought the great chandelier would have

a down-come. Think of the united voices of all the sturdy,

able-bodied lads and lassies of the parish pouring forth the

most uproarious symphony of linked sweetness long drawn out,

that their lungs could furnish, and you will have some faint

idea of our melodious intonations. At length we came to a verse

in the hymn where the words chimed in with the melody in such a

striking and effective manner that the result was overpowering.

The verse ran thus:

“So pilgrims on the scorching sand,

Beneath a burning sky,

Long for a cooling stream at hand,

And they must drink, or die.”

When we struck one after another into the third line, and

trolled forth the reiterations,

“Long for a cooling—

Long for a cooling—

Long for a cooling—coo—oo—ooling,”

we verily thought, one and all, that we were soaring

up—up—upwards on the combined euphony of the tune and

syllables, into the seventh heaven of harmony. The congregation

were rapt into ecstasies, and thought they had never heard music

till then. It was a most brilliant triumph for us; every voice,

as we thought, though of course the malcontents must be

excepted, struck in with us, and swelled the loud peal till the

walls rung again. But I must not omit to mention the strange

conduct of Elder Darby, who, in the midst of this burst of

enthusiastic approbation, never relaxed the stern and sour

severity of his looks, but took occasion of the first momentary

pause in the melody, to utter a very audible and disdainful

expression of “Chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff!”

Deacon Grizzle was by no means slow in perceiving these

manifestations of the Elder’s mortified feelings, and did not

fail to join him on his way home from meeting, for the express

purpose of annoying him further by commendations of the

performances. All he could get in reply was a further

exclamation of “Chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff!” In fact, the

Elder’s obstinacy was incurable; he was seized during the

following week with a strange deafness in one of his ears, and

as it happened very strangely too, to be that ear which was

turned towards the singing seats when he sat in his pew, he

declared it would be impossible to hear sufficiently well on

that side of his head, to accompany the singers: as to altering

his position, it was not to be thought of: he had occupied the

same spot for forty years, and could no more be expected to

change his seat than to change his creed. The consequence was,

that on the day we began singing, the Elder left off. From that

time forth, he never heard the subject of church psalmody

alluded to, without a chop-fallen look, a rueful shake of the

head, a sad lamentation over the decline of sound christian

doctrine, and a peevish and indignant exclamation of “Chaff!

chaff! chaff! chaff! chaff!”

X.

WHERE JOE MERIWEATHER WENT TO.

“I do believe that’s Bill Meriweather,” said the old lady hostess of the

sign of “The Buck” tavern, as attracted by the noise of a horse’s hoofs,

she raised her eyes from her occupation of stringing dried slips of

pumpkin, and descried, this side of the first bend in the road, a

traveller riding a jaded horse towards the mansion.

“I do believe that’s Bill Meriweather. It’s about time for him to be

round agin a buyin’ shoats. But whar’s Joe? Phillisy Ann,” continued

Mrs. Harris, raising her voice, “catch a couple of young chickens, and

get supper ready soon as ye can, you dratted lazy wench you, for here

comes Bill Meriweather. But whar’s Joe? How do you do, Mr. Meriweather,”

concluded the old lady, as the stranger arrived in front of the porch.

“Lively,” replied that individual as he proceeded to dismount and tie

his horse. “How do you come on yourself, old ’omen.”

“Pretty well, Bill; how’s craps down in your parts?”

“Bad, uncommon bad,” replied Bill, “there’s a new varmint come around in

our country, that’s got a mortal likin’ fur the tobacker crap. They

looks a good deal like a fox, but are as big as a three year old nigger,

and kin climb a tree like a squearl, and they steals a dozen or so

‘hands’ every night, and next mornin’ if you notice, you’ll see all the

tops of the pine-oaks around the plantation kivered with them a dryin’,

and the infernal chawtobacks—that’s what we call ’em—a settin’ up in a

crotch, a chawin’ what is _cured_, and squirtin’ ambeer all over the

country. Got any on ’em up here yet?”

“The goodness, Lord ha’ mercy, no, Bill! But whar’s Joe?” Up to this

time Mr. Meriweather had been as pleasant and jovial a looking Green

River man, as you might find in a week’s ride along the southern border

of Kentucky, and had finished his lecture on the natural history of the

chawtoback, and the unsaddling his horse at the same time; but no sooner

had the old lady asked the question, “Whar’s Joe?” than he

instantaneously dropped on the bench alongside the questioner, gave her

an imploring look of pity and despair, let his head fail into his open

palms, and bending down both until they nearly touched his knees, he

uttered such a sigh as might a Louisville and New Orleans eight boiler

steam-packet in the last stage of collapsed flues.

“Goodness, gracious, Bill! what’s the matter?” cried the old lady,

letting her stringing apparatus fall. “Hev you got the cramps? Phillisy

Ann, bring that bottle here outen the cupboard, quick, and some pepper

pods!”

“Ah—h! no!” sighed the sufferer, not changing his position, but

mournfully shaking his head, “I ain’t got no cramps.” However, Phillisy

Ann arriving in “no time” with the article of household furniture called

for, that gentleman, utterly disregarding the pepper pods, proceeded to

pour out into a tumbler, preparatory to drinking, a sufficient quantity

of amber coloured fluid to utterly exterminate any cramps that might, by

any possibility, be secretly lingering in his system, or fortify himself

against any known number that might attack him in the distant future;

and having finished, immediately assumed his former position, and went

into most surprisingly exact imitations of a wheezy locomotive on a

foggy morning.

“Merciful powers! what can the matter be?” exclaimed the widow, now

thoroughly excited, as Mr. Meriweather appeared to be getting no better,

but was rocking himself up and down, “like a man who is sawing marble,”

groaning and muttering inarticulate sounds, as if in the last extremity

of bodily anguish. But Mr. Meriweather was for some time unable to make

any reply that could be understood, until at length, at the conclusion

of a very fierce paroxysm, the widow thought she could catch the two

words, “Poor Joe!”

“Is there anything the matter with Joe?” asked the old lady. If it were

possible for any _one_ man to feel and suffer, as far as appearances

went, all the agony and misery that a half dozen of the most miserable

and unfortunate of the human family ever have felt and suffered, and yet

live, Mr. Meriweather certainly was that individual, for he immediately

went off into such a state of sighs, groans, and lamentations, mingled

with exclamations of “Poor Joe!” “Poor Brother Joe!” that the widow,

aroused to the highest state of sympathy and pity, could do nothing but

wipe her eyes with her apron, and repeat the question.

“Whar is Joe, Mr. Meriweather, is he sick?”

“Oh—h—no!” groaned his mourning brother.

“Is he dead then? poor Joe!” faintly inquired the old lady.

“I don’t know that,” was the broken reply.

“The Lord ha’ mercy on our sinful sowls! then _whar_ is he?” cried the

widow, breaking out afresh. “Is he run away to Orleans—or gone to

Californey? Yes, that’s it! and the poor boy’ll be eaten’ up by them

‘diggers’ that they say goes rootin’ round that outlandish country, like

a set of mean stinkin’ ground-hogs. Poor Joe! he was a fine little

fellow, an’ it was only the other day last year, when you was on your

rounds, that he eat all my little bo——.”

“No, he ain’t gone to Californey as I know,” interrupted his brother.

“Then, for mercy’s sake! do tell a body what’s become on him!” rather

tartly inquired the old lady.

“Why, you see, Mrs. Harris,” replied Mr. Meriweather, still keeping the

same position, and interrupting the narrative with several bursts of

grief, (which we’ll leave out). “You see, Mrs. Harris, Joe and I went up

airly in the spring to get a boat load of rock from Boone county, to put

up the foundation of the new houses we’re buildin’, fur there ain’t no

rock down in them rich sily bottoms in our parts. Well, we got along

pretty considerable, fur we had five kegs of blast along, and what with

the hire of some niggers, we managed to get our boat loaded, an’ started

fur home in about three weeks. You never did see anythin’ rain like it

did the fust day we was floatin’ down, but we worked like a cornfilled

nigger ov a Crismus week and pretty near sundown we’d made a matter ov

nigh twenty mile afore we were ashore and tied up. Well, as we didn’t

have any shelter on the flat, we raised a rousin’ big fire on the bank,

close to whar she was tied up, and cooked some grub; and I’d eaten a

matter of two pounds of side, and half of a possum, and was sittin’ on a

log, smokin’ a Kaintuck regaly, and a talkin’ to Brother Joe, who was a

standin’ chock up agin the fire, with his back to it. You recollex, Mrs.

Harris, Brother Joe allers was a dressy sort of a chap—fond of brass

buttons on his coat and the flaim’est kind of red neckerchers; and this

time he had buckskin breeches, with straps under his boots. Well, when I

was a talkin’ to him ov the prospect fur the next day, all ov a sudden I

thought the little feller was a growin’ uncommon tall; till I diskivered

that the buckskin breeches, that wur as wet as a young rooster in a

spring rain, wur beginning to smoke and draw up kinder, and wur a

liftin’ Brother Joe off the ground.

“‘Brother Joe,’ sez I, ‘you’re a goin’ up.’

“‘Brother Bill,’ sez he, ‘I ain’t a doin’ anythin’ else.’

“And he scrunched down mighty hard; but it warn’t ov no use, fur afor

long he wur a matter of some fifteen feet up in the air.”

“Merciful powers,” interrupted the widow.

“‘Brother Joe,’ sez I.

“‘I’m here,’ sez he.

“‘Catch hold ov the top ov that black-jack,’ sez I.

“‘Talk!’ sez Brother Joe, and he sorter leaned over and grabbed the

saplin’, like as maybe you’ve seed a squ’el haul in an elm switch ov a

June mornin’. But it warn’t ov no use, fur, old ’omen, ef you’ll believe

me, it gradually begun to give way at the roots, and afore he’d got five

foot higher, it jist slipped out er the ground, as easy as you’d pull up

a spring reddish.

“‘Brother Joe!’ sez I agin.

“‘I’m a list’nin’,’ sez he.

“‘Cut your straps!’ sez I, for I seed it was his last chance.

“‘Talk!’ sez Brother Joe, tho’ he looked sort a reproachful like at me

fur broachin’ such a subject; but arter apparently considerin’ awhile,

he outs with his jack-knife, an’ leanin’ over sideways, made a rip at

the sole of his left foot. There was a considerable deal ov cracklin’

fur a second or two, then a crash sorter like as if a waggon-load of

wood had bruck down, and the fust thing I know’d, the t’other leg shot

up like, and started him; and the last thing I seed ov Brother Joe, he

was _a whirlin’ round like a four-spoked wheel with the rim off, away

overclost toward sundown_!”

XI.

GEORGIA THEATRICS.

If my memory fail me not, the 10th of June, 18— found me, at about

eleven o’clock in the forenoon, ascending a long and gentle slope in

what was called “The Dark Corner” of Lincoln. I believe it took its name

from the moral darkness which reigned over that portion of the county at

the time of which I am speaking. If in this point of view, it was but a

shade darker than the county, it was inconceivably dark. If any man can

name a trick or sin which had not been committed at the time of which I

am speaking in the very focus of all the county’s illumination

(Lincolnton), he must himself be the most inventive of the tricky, and

the very Judas of sinners. Since that time, however (all humour aside),

Lincoln has become a living proof “that light shineth in darkness.”

Could I venture to mingle the solemn with the ludicrous, even for the

purposes of honourable contrast, I could adduce from this county

instances of the most numerous and wonderful transitions, from vice and

folly to virtue and holiness, which have ever perhaps been witnessed

since the days of the Apostolic ministry.

So much, lest it should be thought by some that what I am about to

relate is characteristic of the county in which it occurred.

Whatever may be said of the moral condition of the Dark Corner, at the

time just mentioned, its natural condition was anything but dark. It

smiled in all the charms of spring; and spring borrowed new charms from

its undulating grounds, its luxuriant woodlands, its sportive streams,

its vocal birds, and its blushing flowers.

Rapt with the enchantment of the season, and the scenery around me, I

was slowly rising the slope, when I was startled by loud, profane, and

boisterous voices, which seemed to proceed from a thick covert of

undergrowth about two hundred yards in the advance of me and about one

hundred to the right of my road:

“You kin, kin you?”

“Yes, I kin, and am able to do it! Bo—oo—oo! Oh, wake snakes, and walk

your chalks! Brimstone and fire! don’t hold me, Nick Stoval! The fight’s

made up, and let’s go at it. My soul, if I don’t jump down his throat

and gallop every chitterling out of him before you can say ‘quit!’”

“Now, Nick, don’t hold him. Jist let the wild cat come, and I’ll tame

him. Ned’ll see me a fair fight, won’t you Ned?”

“Oh yes, I’ll see a fair fight, blame my old shoes if I don’t.”

“That is sufficient, as Tom Haynes said when he saw the elephant. Now

let him come!”

Thus they went on, with countless oaths interspersed, which I dare not

even hint at, and with much that I could not distinctly hear.

“In mercy’s name,” thought I, “what band of ruffians has selected this

holy season and this heavenly retreat for such Pandemonian riots?”

I quickened my gait, and had come nearly opposite to the thick grove

whence the noise proceeded, when my eye caught indistinctly and at

intervals, through the foliage of the dwarf oaks and hickories which

intervened, glimpses of a man or men who seemed to be in a violent

struggle, and I could occasionally catch those deep-drawn emphatic oaths

which men in conflict utter when they deal blows. I dismounted, and

hurried to the spot with all speed. I had overcome about half the space

which separated it from me, when I saw the combatants come to the

ground, and after a short struggle, I saw the uppermost one (for I could

not see the other) make a heavy plunge with both his thumbs, and at the

same instant I heard a cry:

“Enough! my eye’s out!”

I was so completely horror-struck that I stood transfixed for a moment

to the spot where the cry met me. The accomplices in the hellish deed

which had been perpetrated had all fled at my approach; at least I

supposed so, for they were not to be seen.

“Now, you old corn-shucking rascal,” said the victor (a youth about

eighteen years old), as he rose from the ground, “come cutt’n your

shines ’bout me agin, next time I come to the Court-House, will you? Get

your owl eye in again, if you can.”

At this moment he saw me for the first time. He looked excessively

embarrassed, and was moving off, when I called to him in a tone

emboldened by my office and the iniquity of his crime:

“Come back, you villain, and assist me in relieving your fellow-mortal,

whom you have ruined for ever!”

My rudeness subdued his embarrassment in an instant, and with a taunting

curl of the nose he replied:

“You needn’t kick before you’re spurred. There ain’t nobody there, nor

han’t been nother. I was jist seein’ how I could ’a fou’t.”

So saying, he bounded to his plough, which stood in the fence about

fifty yards beyond the battleground.

And would you believe it, gentle reader, his report was true? All that I

had heard and seen was nothing more or less than a Lincoln rehearsal, in

which the youth who had just left me had played all the parts of all the

characters in a Court-House fight.

I went to the ground from which he had risen, and there were the prints

of his two thumbs plunged up to the balls in the mellow earth, about the

distance of a man’s eyes apart, and the ground around was broken up, as

if two stags had been engaged upon it.

XII.

TAKING THE CENSUS.

Our next encounter was with an old lady, notorious in her neighbourhood

for her garrulity and simple-mindedness. Her loquacity knew no bounds;

it was constant, unremitting, interminable, and sometimes laughably

silly. She was interested in quite a large Chancery suit, which had been

dragging its slow length for several years, and furnished her with a

conversational fund, which she drew upon extensively, under the idea

that its merits could never be sufficiently discussed. Having been

warned of her propensity, and being somewhat hurried when we called upon

her, we were disposed to get through business as soon as possible, and

without hearing her enumeration of the strong points of her law case.

Striding into the house, and drawing our papers:

“Taking the census, Ma’am,” quoth we.

“Ah, well, yes! bless your soul, take a seat. Now do! Are you the

gentlemen that Mr. Fillmore has sent out to take the censis? I

wonder—well, good Lord, look down! how was Mr. Fillmore and family when

you seed him?”

We told her we had never seen the President; didn’t know him from a

piece of sole-leather; “we had been written to to take the census.”

“Well now, there agin! love your soul! Well, I s’pose Mr. Fillmore writ

you a letter, did he? No! Well, God be praised, there’s mighty little

_here_ to take down; times is hard, God’s will be done! but looks like

people can’t get their rights in this country, and the law is all for

the rich, and none for the poor, praise the Lord! Did you ever hear tell

of that case my boys has got agin old Simpson? Looks like they will

never get to the end on it, glory to His name! The children will suffer,

I’m mighty _afeard_, Lord give us grace! Did you ever see Judge B.? Yes!

Well, the Lord preserve us! Did you ever hear him say what he’s agwine

to do in the boys’ case agin Simpson? No! Good Lord! Well, Squire, will

you ax him the next time you see him, and write me word, and tell him

what I say? I’m nothing but a poor widow, and my boys has got no

larnin’, and old Simpson tuk ’em in. It’s a mighty hard case, and the

will ought never to a been broke, but—”

Here we interposed, and told the old lady that our time was

precious—that we wished to take down the number of her family, and the

produce raised by her last year, and be off. After a good deal of

trouble, we got through with the description of the members of her

family, and the “statistical table,” as far as the article “cloth.”

“How many yards of cotton cloth did you weave in 1850, Ma’am?”

“Well now, the Lord have mercy! less see. You know Sally Higgins that

used to live in the Smith settlement? Poor thing! her daddy drove her

off all on the ’count of Jack Miller, poor creetur! poor gal! she

couldn’t help it, I dare say. Well, Sally she come to stay ’long wi’ me

when the old man druv her away, and she was a powerful good hand to

weave, and I _did_ think she’d help me a power. Well, arter she’d bin

here awhile, her baby hit took sick, and Old Miss Stringer she undertook

to help it. She’s a powerful good hand, old Miss Stringer, on roots and

yearbs and sich like! Well, the Lord look down from above! she made a

sort of a tea, as I was a tellin’, and she gin it to Sally’s baby; it

got wuss—the poor creetur—and she gin it tea, and looked like the more

she gin it tea, the more—”

“My dear Madam, I’m in a hurry—please tell me how many yards of cotton

you wove in 1850. I want to get through and go on.”

“Well, well, the Lord have mercy! who’d a thought you’d a bin so

snappish! Well, as I was a sayin’, Sally’s child it kept gittin’ wus,

and old Miss Stringer she kept a givin’ it the yearb tea, till at last

the child hit looked like hit would die anyhow. And ’bout the time the

child was at its wust, Old Daddy Sikes he come along, and he said if we

git some nightshed berries and stew them with a little cream and some

hog’s lard. Now Old Daddy Sikes is a mighty fine old man, and he giv the

boys a heap of mighty good counsel about that case.

“‘Boys,’ said he ‘I’ll tell you what you do; you go and—’”

“In the name of goodness, old lady,” said we, “tell about your cloth;

and let the sick child and Miss Stringer, Daddy Sikes, the boys, and the

law-suit, go the Old Scratch. I’m in a hurry!”

“Gracious, bless your dear soul! don’t git aggravated. I was jist a

tellin’ you how it come I didn’t weave no cloth last year.”

“Oh, well you didn’t weave any cloth last year. Good! We’ll go on to the

next article.”

“Yes; you see the child hit begun to swell and turn yaller, and hit kept

a wallin’ its eyes, and a moanin’, and I know’d—”

“Never mind about the child—just tell me the value of the poultry you

raised last year.”

“Oh, well—yes—the chickens, you means. Why, the Lord love your poor

soul; I reckon you never in your born days see a creetur have the luck

that I did—and looks like we never shall have any good luck agin; for

ever since old Simpson tuk that case up to the Chancery Court—”

“Never mind the case, let’s hear about the chickens, if you please.”

“God bless you, honey! the owls destroyed in and about the best half

that I did raise. Every blessed night that the Lord did send, they’d

come and set on the comb of the house, and hoo, hoo; and one night in

particklar I remember, I had just got up with the nightshed salve to

’int the little gal with—”

“Well, well, what was the value of what you did raise?”

“The Lord above look down! They got so bad—the owls did—that they tuk

the old hens as well as the young chickens. The night I was a tellin’

’bout, I heard somethin’s s-q-u-a-l-l! s-q-u-a-l-l! and says I: ‘I’ll

bet that’s old Speck, that nasty awdacious owl’s got, for I see her go

to roost with the chickens up in the plum-tree, forenenst the

smoke-house.’

“So I went to whar old Miss Stringer was sleepin’, and says I:

“‘Miss Stringer! oh, Miss Stringer! sure’s you’re born, that owl’s got

old Speck out’n the plum-tree.’

“Well, old Miss Stringer she turned over ’pon her side like, and says

she:

“‘What did you say, Miss Stokes?’

“And says I:—”

We began to get very tired, and signified the same to the old lady, and

begged her to answer us directly, and without circumlocution.

“The Lord Almighty love your dear heart, honey, I’m tellin’ you as fast

I kin. The owls they got worse, and worse; after they’d swept old Speck

and all _her_ gang, they went to work on t’others; and Bryant (that’s

one of my boys), he ’lowed he’d shoot the pestersome creeturs. And so

one night arter that we hearn one holler, and Bryant he tuk the old

musket and went out, and sure enough there was owley (as he thought) a

sittin’ on the comb of the house, so he blazed away, and down come—what

on airth _did_ come down, do you reckon, when Bryant fired?”

“The owl, I suppose.”

“No sich thing; no sich thing; the owl warn’t thar. ’Twas my old house

cat came a tumblin’ down spittin’, sputterin’, and scratching and the

fur a flyin’ every time she jumped, like you’d busted a feather-bed

open. Bryant he said the way he come to shoot the cat, instead of the

owl, he seed somethin’ white—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Stokes, give me the value of your poultry, or

say you will not. Do one thing or the other.”

“Oh, well, dear love your heart, I reckon I had last year nigh about the

same as I’ve got this.”

“Then tell me how many dollars’ worth you have now, and the thing’s

settled.”

“I’ll let you see for yourself,” said Widow Stokes; and taking an ear of

corn between the logs of the cabin, and shelling off a handful, she

commenced scattering the grain, all the while screaming or rather

screeching: “Chick! chick! chick! chickee! chickee! chickee-ee!”

Here they came, roosters, hens, pullets, and little chicks; crowing,

cackling, chirping, flying, and fluttering against her sides, pecking at

her hands, and creating a din and confusion altogether indescribable.

The old lady seemed delighted, thus to exhibit her feathered “stock,”

and would occasionally exclaim:

“A nice passel! ain’t they a nice passel!”

But she never would say what they were worth, and no persuasion could

bring her to the point. Our papers at Washington contain no estimate of

the value of the Widow Stokes’s poultry, though, as she said herself,

she had a “mighty nice passel.”

XIII.

A FAMILY PICTURE.[9]

Mr. Hill, in one of his many visits “down east,” was belated one

evening, and was compelled to seek shelter at a small farm-house. He

thus describes the family party and the family doings on that evening.

The heads of the family were a Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who were honoured, on

this occasion, with a visit from a plain sort of man, who told me, said

Mr. Hill, that he teached school in winter, and hired out in haying

time. What this man’s name was, I do not exactly recollect. It might

have been Smith, and for convenience sake, we will call him John Smith.

This Mr. Smith brought a newspaper with him, which was printed weekly,

which Mr. Jones said—as it did not agree with his politics—was a very

weakly consarn.

Mr. Jones was seated one side of an old pine table, and Mr. Smith on the

other. Mrs. Jones sat knitting in one corner, and the children under the

fire-place—some cracking nuts, others whittling sticks, &c. Mr. Jones,

after perusing the paper for some time, observed to Mrs. Jones, “My

dear!”

_Mrs. Jones._ Well.

_Mr. Jones._ It appears.

_Mrs. J._ Well, go on.

_Mr. J._ I say, it appears.

_Mrs. J._ Well, law souls, I heard it; go on.

_Mr. J._ I say, it appears from a paragraph——

_Mrs. J._ Well, it don’t appear as if you were ever going to appear.

_Mr. J._ I say, it appears from a paragraph in this paper——

_Mrs. J._ There—there you go again. Why on airth, Jones, don’t you spit

it out.

_Mr. J._ I say, it appears from a paragraph in this paper——

_Mrs. J._ Well, I declare, Jones, you are enough to tire the patience of

Job. Why on airth don’t you out with it.

_Mr. J._ Mrs. Jones, will you be quiet. If you get my dander up, I’ll

raise Satan round this house, and you know it, tew. Mr. Smith you must

excuse me. I’m obliged to be a little peremptory to my wife, for if you

wasn’t here she’d lick me like all natur. Well, as I said, it appears

from this paper, that Seth Slope—you know’d Seth Slope, that used to be

round here?

_Mrs. J._ Yes; well, go on; out with it.

_Mr. J._ Well, you know he went out in a whalin’ voyage.

_Mrs. J._ Yes, well.

_Mr. J._ Well, it appears he was settin’ on the stern, when the vessel

give a lee lurch, and he was knocked overboard, and hain’t written to

his friends since that time.

_Mrs. J._ La, souls! you don’t say so.

Before going further, I will endeavour to give you some idea of this

Seth Slope. He was what they term down-east, “a poor shote;” his

principal business was picking up chips, feeding the hogs, &c., &c. I

will represent him with his hat. (_Puts on hat._)

“Mrs. Jones says I don’t know nothin’, and Mr. Jones says I don’t know

nothin’, (_laughs_;) and everybody says I don’t know nothin’; and I say

I _do_ know nothin’, (_laughs_.) Don’t I pick up all the chips to make

the fires? And don’t I feed the hogs, and the ducks, and the hens?

(_Laughs._) And don’t I go down to the store every morning, for a jug of

rum? And don’t I take a good suck myself? I don’t know

nothin’—ha—(_laughs_.) And don’t I go to church every Sunday? and

don’t I go up stairs, and when the folks go to sleep, don’t I throw corn

on ’em to wake ’em up? And don’t I see the fellers winking at the gals,

and the gals winking at the fellers? And don’t I go home and tell the

old folk; and when they come home, don’t the old folk kick up the

darndest row? (_Laughs._) And don’t I drive the hogs out of the garden,

to keep ’em from rooting up the taters? And don’t I git asleep there,

sometimes, and don’t they root _me_ up. (_Laughs._) And didn’t I see a

fly on Deacon Stoke’s red nose, t’other day; and didn’t I say, ‘Take

care, Deacon Stokes, you’ll burn his feet?’ I don’t know nothin’, eh!”

(_Laughs._)

This Mrs. Jones I have spoken of, was a very good kind of woman, and Mr.

Jones was considered a very good sort of man; but was rather fond of the

bottle. On one occasion, I recollect particularly, he had been to a

muster, and came home so much intoxicated, that he could hardly stand,

and was obliged to lean against the chimney-piece, to prevent himself

from falling, and Mrs. Jones says to him, “Now, Jones, aint you ashamed

of yourself? Where on airth do you think you’d go to, if you was to die

in that sitiwation?”

_Jones, (very drunk)._ Well, I don’t know where I should go to; but I

shouldn’t go far, without I could go faster than I do now.

As soon as Mr. Jones had finished the paragraph in the paper, Mrs. Jones

threw on her shawl, and went over to her neighbours to communicate the

news. I will endeavour to give you an idea of Mrs. Jones, by assuming

this shawl and cap. (_Puts on shawl and cap._)

“Well, Mrs. Smith, I suppose you ain’t heard the news?”

“La, no, what on airth is it?”

“You recollect Seth Slope, that used to be about here?”

“Yes, very well.”

“You know he went a whalin’ voyage?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it appears, from an advartisement in the papers, that he was

sittin’ on the starn of the vessel, when the vessel give a lee lurch,

that he was knocked overboard and was drowned, and that he has not

written to his friends ever since. Oh, dear! it’s dreadful to think on.

Poor critter!—he was such a clever, good-natured, kind soul. I

recollect when he was about here, how he used to come into the house and

set down, and get up and go out, and come in agin, and set down, and get

up and go out. Then he’d go down to the barn, and throw down some hay to

the critters, and then he’d come into the house agin, and get up and go

out, and go down to the store and get a jug of rum,—and sometimes he’d

take a little suck of it himself. But, la, souls! I never cared nothing

about that. Good, clever critter! Then arter he’d come back with the

rum, he’d set down a little while, and get up and go out, and pick up

chips, and drive the hogs out of the garden; and then he’d come into the

house and kick over the swill-pail, and set down, and stick his feet

over the mantel-piece, and whittle all over the hearth, and spit tobacco

juice all over the carpet, and make himself so _sociable_. And poor

fellow! now he’s gone. Oh, dear! how dreadful wet he must have got!

Well, Mrs. Smith, it goes to show that we are all accountable

_critters_.”

-----

[9] By G. H. Hill.

XIV.

COLONEL JONES’S FIGHT.

A STORY OF KENTUCKY.

Col. Dick Jones was decidedly the great man of the village of

Summerville. He was Colonel of the regiment—he had represented his

district in Congress—he had been spoken of as candidate for

Governor—he was at the head of the bar in Hawkins’ county, Kentucky,

and figured otherwise largely in public life. His legal opinion and

advice were highly valued by the senior part of the population—his

dress and taste were law to the juniors—his easy, affable, and

attentive manner charmed all the matrons, his dignified politeness

captivated the young ladies—and his suavity and condescension delighted

the little boarding-school misses. He possessed a universal smattering

of information—his manners were the most popular; extremely friendly

and obliging, lively and witty; and, in short, he was a very agreeable

companion.

Yet truth requires it to be admitted, that Col. Dick Jones was

professionally more specious than deep, and that his political

advancement was owing to personal partiality more than superior

merit—that his taste and dress were of questionable propriety: for

instance, he occasionally wore a hunting-shirt white fringed, or a red

waistcoat, or a fawn-skin one, or a calico morning-gown of a small

yellow pattern, and he indulged in other similar vagaries in clothing.

And in manners and deportment, there was an air of harmless (true

Virginian bred and Kentucky raised) self-conceit and swagger, which,

though not to be admired, yet it gave piquancy and individuality to his

character.

If further particulars are required, I can only state that the Colonel

boarded at the Eagle hotel—office, in the square, fronted the

court-house—he was a manager of all the balls—he was vice-president of

the Summerville Jockey Club—he was trustee of the Female Academy—he

gallanted the old ladies to church, holding his umbrella over them in

the sun, and escorted the young ladies, at night, to the dances or

parties, always bringing out the smallest ones. He rode a high headed,

proud-looking sorrel horse, with a streak down his face; and he was a

general referee and umpire, whether it was a horse-swap, a race, a rifle

match, or a cock fight.

It so chanced, on a time, though Colonel Jones was one of the

best-natured of men, that he took umbrage at some report circulated

about him in an adjoining county and one of his districts, to the effect

that he had been a federalist during the last war; and, instead of

relying on the fact of his being a school-boy on Mill Creek at that

time, he proclaimed, at the tavern table, that the next time he went

over the mountain to court, Bill Patterson, the reputed author of the

slander, should either sign a _liebill_, fight, or run.

This became narrated through the town,—the case and argument of the

difference was discussed among the patriarchs of the place, who

generally came to the conclusion that the colonel had good cause of

quarrel, as more had been said of him than an honourable man could

stand. The young store boys of the village became greatly interested,

conjectured how the fight would go, and gave their opinions what they

would do under similar circumstances. The young lawyers, and young

M.D.’s, as often as they were in the colonel’s company, introduced the

subject of the expected fight. On such occasions, the colonel spoke

carelessly and banteringly. Some good old ladies spoke deprecatingly, in

the general and in the particular, that so good and clever a young man

as Colonel Dick should set so bad an example; and the young ladies, and

little misses, bless their dear little innocent souls, they only

consulted their own kind hearts, and were satisfied that he must be a

wicked and bad man that Colonel Jones would fight.

Spring term of the courts came on, and the lawyers all started on their

circuit, and, with them, Colonel Jones went over the mountain. The whole

town was alive to the consequences of this trip, and without much

communion or understanding on the subject, most of the population either

gathered at the tavern at his departure, or noticed it from a distance,

and he rode off, gaily saluting his acquaintances, and raising his hat

to the ladies, on both sides of the street, as he passed out of town.

From that time, only one subject engaged the thoughts of the good people

of Summerville; and on the third day the common salutation was:

“Any news from over the mountain?”

“Has any one come down the road?”

The fourth, fifth, and sixth came, and still the public anxiety was

unappeased: it had, with the delay, become insufferable, quite

agonizing; business and occupation was at a stand still; a doctor or a

constable would not ride to the country lest news of the fight might

arrive in their absence. People in crossing the square, or entering or

coming out of their houses, all had their heads turned up that road. And

many, though ashamed to confess it, sat up an hour or two past their

usual bed-time, hoping some one would return from court. Still all was

doubt and uncertainty. There is an unaccountable perversity in these

things that bothers conjecture. I watched the road from Louisville two

days, to hear of Grey Eagle beating Wagner, on which I had one hundred

dollars staked, of borrowed money, and no one came; though before that,

some person passed every hour.

On the seventh morning, the uneasy public were consoled by the certainty

that the lawyers must be home that day, as court seldom held a week, and

the universal resolve seemed to be that nothing was to be attended to

until they were satisfied about the fight. Storekeepers and their

clerks, saddlers, hatters, cabinet-makers, and their apprentices, all

stood out at the doors. The hammer ceased to ring on the anvil, and the

bar-keeper would scarcely walk in to put away the stranger’s

saddle-bags, who had called for breakfast; when suddenly a young man,

that had been walking from one side of the street to the other, in a

state of feverish anxiety, thought he saw dust away up the road, and

stopped. I have been told a man won a wager in Philadelphia, on his

collecting a crowd by staring, without speaking, at an opposite chimney.

So no sooner was this young man’s _point_ noticed, than there was a

regular reconnoissance of the road made, and before long, doubt became

certainty, when one of the company declared he knew the colonel’s old

sorrel riding-horse, “General Jackson,” by the blaze on his face.

In the excited state of the public mind it required no ringing of the

court-house bell to convene the people; those down street walked up, and

those across the square came over, and all gathered gradually at the

Eagle hotel, and nearly all were present by the time Colonel Jones

alighted. He had a pair of dark green specks on, his right hand in a

sling, with brown paper bound round his wrist; his left hand held the

bridle, and the forefinger of it wrapped with a linen rag “with care.”

One of his ears was covered with a muslin scrap, that looked much like

the countrywomen’s plan of covering their butter when coming to market:

his face was clawed all over, as if he had had it raked by a cat held

fast by the tail; his head was unshorn, it being “too delicate an

affair,” as * * * said about his wife’s character. His complexion

suggested an idea to a philosophical young man present, on which he

wrote a treatise, dedicated to Arthur Tappan, proving that the negro was

only a white well pummelled; and his general swelled appearance would

induce a belief he had led the forlorn hope in the storming of a

beehive.

The Colonel’s manner did not exactly proclaim “the conquering hero,” but

his affability was undiminished, and he addressed them with:

“Happy to see you, gents; how are you all?” and then attempted to enter

the tavern; but Buck Daily arrested him with:

“Why, Colonel, I see you have had a skrimmage. How did you make it? You

didn’t come out at the little _eend_ of the horn, did you?”

“No, not exactly, I had a tight fit of it, though. You know Bill

Patterson; he weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds, has not an

ounce of superfluous flesh, is as straight as an Indian, and as active

as a wild-cat, and as quick as powder, and very much of a man, I assure

you. Well, my word was out to lick him; so I hardly put up my horse

before I found him at the court-house door, and, to give him a white

man’s chance, I proposed alternatives to him. He said his daddy, long

ago, told him never to give a _liebill_, and he was not good at running,

so he thought he had best fight. By the time the word was fairly out, I

hauled off, and took him in the burr of the ear that raised a singing in

his head, that made him think he was in Mosquitoe town. At it we went,

like killing snakes, so good a man, so good a boy; we had it round and

round, and about and about, as dead a yoke as ever pulled at a

log-chain. Judge Mitchell was on the bench, and as soon as the cry of

“fight” was raised, the bar and jury ran off and left him. He shouted,

‘I command the peace,’ within the court-house, and then ran out to see

the fight, and cried out, ‘I can’t prevent you!’ ‘fair fight!’ ‘stand

back!’ and he caught parson Benefield by the collar of the coat, who, he

thought, was about to interfere, and slung him on his back at least

fifteen feet.

“It was the evenest and longest fight ever fought: everybody was tired

of it, and I must admit, in truth, that I was” (_here he made an effort

to enter the tavern_.) But several voices called out:

“Which whipped? How did you come out?”

“Why, much as I tell you; we had it round and round, about and about,

over and under. I could throw him at rastle, but he would manage some

way to turn me. Old Sparrowhawk was there, who had seen all the best

fighting at Natchez, under the hill, in the days of Dad Girty and Jim

Snodgrass, and he says my gouging was beautiful; one of Bill’s eyes is

like the mouth of an old ink-bottle, only, as the fellow said,

describing the jackass by the mule, it is more so. But, in fact, there

was no great choice between us, as you see. I look like having ran into

a brush fence of a dark night. So we made it round and round, about and

about”—(_here again he attempted a retreat into the tavern_.)

But many voices demanded, “Who hollored?”

“Which gave up?”

“How did you hurt your hand?”

“Oh! I forgot to tell you, that as I aimed a sockdollager at him he

ducked his head, and he can dodge like a diedapper, and hitting him

awkwardly, I sprained my wrist; so, being like the fellow who, when it

rained mush, had no spoon, I changed the suit, and made a trump—and

went in for eating. In the scuffle we fell, cross and pile, and, finding

his appetite good for my finger, I adopted Doctor Bones’, the

toolsmith’s, patent method of removing teeth without the aid of

instruments, and I extracted two of his incisors, and released my

finger. However, I shall, for some time, have an excuse for wearing

gloves without being thought proud.” (_He now tried to escape under

cover of a laugh._)

But vox populi again.

“So you tanned him, did you?”

“How did the fight finish?”

“You were not parted?”

“You fought it out, did you?”

The colonel resumed, “Why, there is no telling how the fight might have

gone; an old Virginian, who had seen Francesco, and Otey, and Lewis, and

Blevins, and all the best men of the day, said he had never seen any one

stand up to their fodder better than we did. We had fought round and

round, and about and about, all over the courtyard, and, at last, just

to end the fight, every body was getting tired of it; so, at

l—a—a—s—t, I hollored.”—(_Exit Colonel._)

XV.

THE FASTEST FUNERAL ON RECORD.[10]

I had just crossed the long bridge leading from Boston to Cambridgeport,

and was plodding my dusty way on foot through that not very agreeable

suburb, on a sultry afternoon in July, with a very creditable

thunder-cloud coming up in my rear, when a stout elderly gentleman, with

a mulberry face, a brown coat, and pepper-and-salt smalls, reined up his

nag, and after learning that I was bound for Old Cambridge, politely

invited me to take a seat beside him in the little sort of tax-cart he

was driving. Nothing loth, I consented, and we were soon _en route_. The

mare he drove was a very peculiar animal. She had few good points to the

eye, being heavy-bodied, hammer-headed, thin in the shoulders,

bald-faced, and rejoicing in a little stump of a tail which was almost

entirely innocent of hair. But there were “lots of muscle,” as Major

Longbow says, in her hind quarters.

“She aint no Wenus, Sir,” said my new acquaintance, pointing with his

whip to the object of my scrutiny—“but handsome is as handsome does.

Them’s my sentiments. She’s a rum ’un to look at, but a good ’un to go.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, _Sir_! That there mare, Sir, has made good time—I may say, _very_

good time before the hearse.”

“Before the hearse?”

“Before the hearse! S’pose you never heard of _burying a man on time_!

I’m a sexton, Sir, and undertaker—Jack Crossbones, at your

service—‘Daddy Crossbones’ they call me at Porter’s.”

“Ah! I understand. Your mare ran away with the hearse.”

“Ran away! A child could hold her. Oh! yes, of course she ran away,”

added the old gentleman, looking full in my face with a very quizzical

expression, and putting the forefinger of his right hand on the right

side of his party-coloured proboscis.

“My dear Sir,” said I, “you have excited my curiosity amazingly, and I

should esteem it as a particular favour if you would be a little less

oracular and a little more explicit.”

“I don’t know as I’d ought to tell you,” said my new acquaintance very

slowly and tantalizingly. “If you was one of these here writing chaps,

you might poke it in the ‘Spirit of the Times,’ and then it would be all

day with me. But I don’t care if I do make a clean breast of it. Honour

bright, you know.”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, I live a piece up beyond Old Cambridge—you can see our

steeple off on a hill to the right, when we get a little further. Well,

one day, I had a customer (he was carried off by typhus) which had to be

toted into town—cause why? he had a vault there. So I rubbed down the

old mare, and put her in the fills. Ah! Sir! that critter knows as much

as an Injun, and more than a Nigger. She’s as sober as a judge when she

gets the shop—that’s what I call the hearse—behind her. You would not

think she was a three-minute nag, to look at her. Well, Sir, as luck

would have it, by a sort of providential inspiration, the day before,

I’d took off the old wooden springs and set the body on elliptics. For I

thought it a hard case that a gentleman who’d been riding easy all his

life, should go to his grave on wooden springs. Ah! I deal well by my

customers. I thought of patent boxes to the wheels, but _I_ couldn’t

afford it, and the parish are desperate stingy.

“Well, I got him in, and led off the string—fourteen hacks, and a

dearbourn wagon at the tail of the funeral. We made a fine show. As luck

would have it, just as we came abreast of Porter’s, out slides that

eternal torment, Bill Sikes, in his new trotting sulky, with the brown

horse that he bought for a fast crab, and _is_ mighty good for a rush,

but hain’t got nigh so much bottom as the mare. Bill’s light weight, and

his sulky’s a mere feather. Well, Sir, Bill came up alongside, and

walked his horse a bit. He looked at the mare and then at me, and then

he winked. Then he looked at his nag and put his tongue in his cheek,

and winked. I looked straight ahead, and only said to myself, ‘Cuss you,

Bill Sikes.’ By and bye, he let his horse slide. He travelled about a

hundred yards, and then held up till I came abreast, and then he winked

and bantered me again. It was aggravatin’, that’s a fact. Says I to

myself, says I: ‘That’s twice you’ve done it, my buzzum friend and

sweet-scented shrub—but you doesn’t do that ’ere again.’ The third time

he bantered me I let him have it. It was only saying, ‘Scat you brute,’

and she was off—that mare. He had all the odds, you know, for I was

toting a two hundred pounder, and he ought to have beat me like breaking

sticks, now hadn’t he? He had me at the first brush, for I told you the

brown horse was a mighty fast one for a little ways. But soon I lapped

him. I had no whip, and he could use his string—but he had his hands

full.

“Side by side, away we went—rattle-te-bang! crack! abuz! thump!—and I

afraid of losing my customer on the road; but I was more afraid of

losing the race. The reputation of the old mare was at stake, and I

swore she should have a fair chance. We went so fast that the posts and

rails by the road-side looked like a log fence. The old church and the

new one, and the colleges, spun past like Merry-Andrews.

“The hackmen did not know what was to pay, and, afraid of not being in

at the death, they put the string on to their teams, and came clattering

on behind as if Satan had kicked ’em on eend. Some of the mourners was

sporting characters, and they craned out of the carriage windows and

waved their handkerchiefs. The President of Harvard College himself,

inspired by the scene, took off his square tile as I passed his house,

and waving it three times round his head, cried:

“‘Go it, Boots!’

“It _is a_ fact. And I beat him, Sir! I beat him, in three miles, a

hundred rods. He gin it up, Sir, in despair.”

“His horse was off his feed for a week, and when he took to corn again

he wasn’t worth a straw. It was acknowledged on all hands to be the

fastest funeral on record, though I say it as shouldn’t. I’m an

undertaker, sir, and I never yet was over-taken.”

On subsequent inquiry at Porter’s, where the sporting sexton left me, I

found that his story was strictly true in all the main particulars. A

terrible rumpus was kicked up about the race, but Crossbones swore

lustily that the mare had run away—that he had sawed away two inches of

her lip in trying to hold her up, and that he could not have done

otherwise, unless he had run her into a fence and spilled his “customer”

into the ditch. If any one expects to die anywhere near the sexton’s

_diggings_, I can assure them that the jolly old boy is still alive and

kicking, the very “Ace of Hearts” and “Jack of Spades,” and that now

both patent boxes and elliptic springs render his professional

conveyance the easiest running thing on the road.

-----

[10] By F. A. Durivage, of Boston.

XVI.

OLD TUTTLE’S LAST QUARTER RACE.

As a matter of course a quarter race never goes off without old Tuttle

being thar—and he never attends without doing some business! So on

Thursday he makes his appearance on the track, on a bay gelding, (with

white hind feet,) which he calls “Indian Dick,” and allows he’s as good

a scrub as there’ll be on the ground! As old T. is _known_, and Dick has

been heard of, the boys are rather shy—but one of them thinks he’s got

a scrub that’s “some pumpkins!” and would like to know, without too much

cost, how far Dick can beat him; he, therefore, proposes to run them

three hundred yards, for “sucks all round.” Old T. understands the game,

and says:

“No, I don’t want yer to treat this crowd, but I’ll run with yer just to

show _yer hoss_ can’t run!”

This was what H. wanted, as he thought he could tell the speed of a

horse, even tho’ old T. did ride him; so back they go to the score, and

are off—with (as might be expected) H. a-head, and old T. in the rear,

whipping and spurring like mad, and letting his horse go just fast

enough to put H. at about the top of his speed—but he can’t _quite_

come it.

“H.’s horse is too smart and can beat him every inch of the road.”

So says H., and most of the crowd are of the same opinion.

Old T. says he believes he can beat H. Saturday, as “Dick’s shoes are

loose, and heavy, and he can’t run in ’em.”

There was nothing more said about it, till old Tut made his appearance

next morning, when the boys were after him with “Sharp Sticks” and “Hot

Bricks.” One wanted to bet him a horse on H.’s colt, _versus_ his Indian

Dick—another a V., another an X., and so on.

“Hold yer hosses b’hoys! Don’t be all after the old man at wunst. Wait a

while and he’ll commerdate yer! He’s an old man, and b’lieves he knows

mor’n all on yer; but he don’t want all yer money at wunst. He wants to

be _onatel_ with yer, so he can cum agin.”

This course didn’t set them back any, as they thought the old man was

_scary_, and they were after him the faster.

Some of the more wary cautioned them to look out, but they _didn’t want

no caution—they knew what they was about_. They could beat old Tuttle,

and they were going to “do the State some service” by skinning him.

They’d make the “old cuss” poor afore they left him!

He took it all very coolly, advised some of them to save their money for

the next time. He was an old man and b’lieved he knowed more’n all on

’em. _His father_ didn’t teach him for nothin’ sixty-five years ago! But

the boys said that was all gass to scare them off; but ’twouldn’t work!

The old cuss had got to be skinned or back out.

The result was, they got up a horse and fifty dollars a side, to run on

Saturday, at two o’clock, each one to start and ride his own horse,

judge tops and bottoms—the winning horse take the cakes—and no back

out. Either party refusing to run forfeits the whole stakes.

Things went on smooth that day—some thinking old T. was playing some

game with the boys, but what it was, no one could tell. However, before

night, it was known there was _a secret_ among the boys. They knew the

speed of Dick, and knew they could slay him; but there mustn’t anything

be said about it, as when they got the old man on the track and right,

they were going into him the whole amount of his fixins. They’d caught

the old man napping once. They’d got a plaguy sight faster horse than he

thought for, and now they were going to pay off old scores.

Two o’clock came, and found old T. on the spot leading Dick round, and

telling the boys they’d be surprised when they see Dick run his best—at

the same time “doing what _business_ offered,” but somehow the boys

appeared a little _scary_. Old T. was “on hand” for every offer, and no

mistake; and ’twas known he never bet liberally, unless he “had a sure

thing.” So that the betting soon began to lag, and the old man had the

call, but no takers. Finally the old man said:

“I’ve got a little more money, b’hoys, and I wouldn’t mind givin’ you a

chance at two to one for it.”

But this set them _clar back_—no one dare _bite_. There not appearing

any more chance for investment, the old man stripped off his hat, coat,

vest, and boots, tied a red cotton bandanna around his head (as an old

man only can tie it), then pulls off the cloths and saddle from Dick,

and mounts _bare-back_, declaring himself ready.

He mounted, and the word was given to “clear the track!”

Then Old T. says: “Are yer ready?”

“Yes.”

“Go along then!”

And over the score they go, H. a length ahead. But, oh! Jeminy! see Dick

run! Before you could turn round twice, the ends of Old T.’s bandanna

were pointing out the road for H., and at the outcome Dick was one, H.

nowhere.

Anybody that has seen a “quarter-horse” run by a “dunghill” knows how

this was—no one else can appreciate it—the thing was out. Old T.

really knew more than all of them, sure enough; but what was the secret,

and how could those in the secret be so stuck? That’s the idea.

The secret was, “the boys” stole Old Tuttle’s horse on Thursday night,

and run him with H.’s horse, and _beat him easy_. And the way they were

stuck was this: The old man supposing that they would steal his horse

that night, and run him, had put Dick’s cloths on another horse of the

same colour and marks, and about the same size, and put him in Dick’s

stall, starting a shoe, so that if they run him they would lose it, and

he should know they had taken the bait good. In the morning the shoe was

gone.

XVII.

SPEECH ON THE OREGON QUESTION.[11]

“Whoia! here I am, and intend, in a very few and expressive terms, to

speak my sentiments. Mr. Speaker, I have come all the way from Oregon,

to see, in behalf of my afflicted neighbours, who live a considerable

distance apart, and I want to know, what in thunder you’re about here,

in this comfortable location, while your fellow-countrymen, who are not

allowed to emigrate north of the Columbia River, on account of a raging

he-calf who is bla-ting on the other side; but, thunder and squashes!

can this be borne? No! Can the free inhabitants, who have emigrated

there with the full belief that protection was to be extended to them

from the great republic, bear the yoke of British law and British

tyranny? _No, Sir!_ we expect you to guard us from the sneers and

insults of savages subject and give us aid, and to plant the standard of

our country immutably on the 54–40, and, if anything, a leetle north.

“Powder and gun-flints! must we give up what is clearly proved by many

of our great men—and though not set down in Webster’s Spelling Book—to

belong to us? will any man, who has pure American blood coursing through

his veins, say let it go, ’cause we’re afraid to fight? No, Sir! no! it

is not in the natur of _Liberty boys_ to allow any usurpation of our

rights; let us be guided by Crockett’s motto: ‘_First, be sure your

right, then go ahead_.’

“I’ve killed four horses, worn out three pair of trousers and a pair of

saddle-bags, besides spending all my money to come here, and I must know

before I go back, which way the cat _jumps_, or both countries shall

hear from me, to their entire satisfaction, sooner or later. I’ve left

my grandmother, father, wife, three children, six cows, two hosses,

eighteen sheep, a gross of turkeys, geese, hens, chickens, a black dog,

and a grey cat, who fondly look for my return, and I wish to know,

without the shadow of a doubt, whether we are to be protected, or not,

by this government, or are we tew be trampled under the iron hoofs of

Europe’s roaring Bull. We are strong and true at heart for our country,

but we are as yet too few in number to offer just resistance. Give us a

chance for a few years, however, and we will then look out for

ourselves.

“Yet the time is not far off, when the locomotive will be steaming its

way to the Rocky Mountains, with a mighty big train of cars running

after it. Yes, the whistle of the engine will echo through the

South-west Pass, and sharply hint to the free people of that great

territory the approach of hundreds and thousands tew, who are to be

their neighbours. No, Sir, the time is not far distant, when our

commerce with China will equal that of all the world; when the Pacific

Ocean will be crossed with as much ease as the Frog pond on Boston

Common.

“Yes, Mr. Speaker, as my eloquent friend from the Hoosier State remarks:

‘Men of blood, and friends of General Washington, and that old hoss,

General Jackson, I want your attention. _Lightnin’_ has burst upon us;

and Jupiter has poured out the ile of his wrath. Thunder has broke loose

and slipped its cable, and is now rattling down the mighty Valley of the

Mississippi, accompanied by the music of the alligator’s hornpipe.

Citizens and fellers; on the bloody ground on which our fathers

catawampously poured out their claret free as ile, to enrich the soil

over which we now honour and watch with hyena eyes, let the catamount of

the inner varmint loose and prepare the engines of vengeance, for the

long looked-for day has come. The crocodile of the Mississippi has gone

into his hole, and the sun that lit King David and his host across the

Atlantic Ocean, looks down upon the scene, and drops a tear to its

memory.’

“I am with you, and while the stars of Uncle Sam, and the stripes of his

country, triumph and float in the breeze, whar, whar is the craven,

low-lived, chicken-bred, toad-hoppin’, red-mouthed mother’s son of ye

who will not raise the beacon-light of triumph, smouse the citadel of

the aggressor, and press onward to liberty and glory? Wha-ah! Hurrah!

where’s the inimy?”

-----

[11] By G. H. Hill.

XVIII.

BILL DEAN, THE TEXAN RANGER.[12]

Rare wags may be found among the Texas Volunteers, yet the funniest

fellow of all is a happy-go-lucky chap named Bill Dean, one of

Chevallier’s spy company, and said to be one of the best “seven-up”

players in all Texas. While at Corpus Christi, a lot of us were sitting

out on the stoop of the Kinney House, early one morning, when along came

Bill Dean. He did not know a single soul in the crowd, although he knew

we were all bound for the Rio Grande; yet the fact that the regular

formalities of an introduction had not been gone through with, did not

prevent his stopping short in his walk and accosting us. His speech, or

harangue, or whatever it may be termed, will lose much in the telling,

yet I will endeavour to put it upon paper in as good a shape as

possible.

“Oh, yes,” said he, with a knowing leer of the eye: “oh, yes; all going

down among the robbers on the Rio Grande, are you? Fine times _you’ll_

have, over the left. I’ve been there myself, and done what a great many

of you won’t do—I come back; but if I didn’t see nateral h—ll—in

August at that—I _am_ a teapot. Lived eight days on one poor hawk and

three blackberries—couldn’t kill a prairie rat on the whole route to

save us from starvation. The ninth day come, and we struck a small

streak of good luck—a horse give out and broke down, plumb out in the

centre of an open prairie—not a stick big enough to tickle a

rattlesnake with, let alone killing him. Just had time to save the

critter by shootin’ him, and that was all, for in three minutes longer

he’d have died a nateral death. It didn’t take us long to butcher him,

nor to cut off some chunks of meat and stick ’em on our ramrods; but the

cookin’ was another matter. I piled up a heap of prairie grass, for it

was high and dry, and sot it on fire; but it flashed up like powder, and

went out as quick. But—”

“But,” put in one of his hearers, “but how did you cook your horse-meat

after that?”

“How?”

“Yes, how?”

“Why, the fire caught the high grass close by, and the wind carried the

flames streakin’ across the prairie. I followed up the fire, holding my

chunk of meat directly over the blaze, and the way we went it was a

caution to anything short of locomotive doin’s. Once in a while a little

flurry of wind would come along, and the fire would get a few yards the

start; but I’d brush upon her, lap her with my chunk, and then we’d have

it again, nip and chuck. You never seed such a tight race—it was

beautiful.”

“Very, we’ve no doubt,” ejaculated one of the listeners, interrupting

the mad wag just in season to give him a little breath: “but did you

cook your meat in the end?”

“Not bad I didn’t. I chased that d—d fire a mile and a half, the

almightiest hardest race you ever heer’d tell on, and never give it up

until I run her right plump into a wet marsh: there the fire and chunk

of horse-meat came out even—a dead heat, especially the meat.”

“But wasn’t it cooked?” put in another one of the listeners.

“Cooked!—no!—just crusted over a little. You don’t cook broken-down

horse-flesh very easy, no how; but when it comes to chasing up a prairie

fire with a chunk of it, I don’t know which is the toughest, the meat or

the job. You’d have laughed to split yourself to have seen me in that

race—to see the fire leave me at times and then to see me brushin’ up

on her agin, humpin’ and movin’ myself as though I was runnin’ agin some

of those big ten mile an hour Gildersleeves in the old States. But I’m a

goin’ over to Jack Haynes’s to get a cocktail and some breakfast—I’ll

see you all down among the robbers on the Rio Grande.”

-----

[12] By G. W. Kendall.

XIX.

THE FIRE-HUNT.

Samuel Sikes was one of the most inveterate hunters I ever knew. He

delighted in no other pursuit or pastime, and though he pretended to

cultivate a small spot of ground, yet so large a portion of his time was

spent in the pursuit of game, that his agricultural interests suffered

much for the want of proper attention. He lived a few miles from town,

and as you passed his house, which stood a short distance from the main

road, a few acres of corn and a small patch of potatoes might probably

attract your notice as standing greatly in need of the hoe; but the most

prominent objects about Sam’s domicile pertained to his favourite

pursuit. A huge pair of antlers—a trophy of one of his proudest

achievements—occupied a conspicuous place on the gable end; some ten or

a dozen tall fishing-poles, though modestly stowed behind the chimney,

projected far above the roof of the little cabin, and upon its unchinked

walls, many a ’coon and deer-skin were undergoing the process of drying.

If all these did not convince you that the proprietor was a sportsman,

the varied and clamorous music of a score of hungry-looking hounds, as

they issued forth in full cry at every passer-by, could not fail to

force the conviction.

Sam had early found a companion to share with him his good or ill luck,

and though he was yet on the green side of thirty, he was obliged to

provide for some five or six little tallow-faced “responsibilities;” so

he not only followed the chase from choice, but when his wife—who hated

“fisherman’s luck” _worse_ than Sam did a “miss” or a “nibble”—took him

to account for spending so many broken days, Saturday afternoons, rainy

days and odd hours, to say nothing of whole nights, in the woods,

without bringing home so much as a cut-squirrel or horney-head, his

ready reply was, that he was “’bleeged” to do the best he could to get

meat for her and the “childer.”

The Fire-Hunt was Sam’s hobby, and though the legislature had recently

passed an act prohibiting that mode of hunting, he continued to indulge,

as freely as ever, in his favourite sport, resolutely maintaining that

the law was “unconstitootional and agin reason.” He had often urged me

to accompany him, just to see how “slick” he could shine a buck’s eyes;

and such were the glowing accounts he had from time to time given me of

his achievements in that way, that he had drawn from me a promise to go

with him “some of these times.”

I was sitting one evening, after tea, upon the steps of the porch,

enjoying the cool autumnal breeze, when my friend Sam Sikes suddenly

made his appearance. He had come for me to go with him on a fire-hunt,

and was mounted on his mule Blaze, with his pan upon one shoulder, and

his musket on the other. Determined to have everything in readiness

before calling on me, he had gone to the kitchen and lit a few

light-wood splinters, which were now blazing in his pan, and which

served the double purpose of lighting him through the enclosure, and of

demonstrating to me the manner of hunting by night. As he approached the

house, his light discovered me where I was sitting.

“Good evenin’, Major,” said he, “I’ve come out to see if you’ve a mind

to take a little hunt to-night.”

“I believe not, Mr. Sikes,” I replied, feeling entirely too well

satisfied with my pleasant seat in the cool breeze, to desire to change

it for a night-ramble through the woods. “Not to-night, I thank you—it

looks like rain.”

“Oh, ’shaw, ’taint gwine to rain, nohow—and I’m all fixed—come, come

along, Major.”

As he spoke, he rode close to the porch, and his mule made several

efforts to crop the shrubbery that grew by the door, which Sam very

promptly opposed.

“How far are you going, Mr. Sikes?” I inquired, endeavouring to shake

off the lazy fit which inclined me to keep my seat.

“Only jest up the branch a little bit—not beyant a mile from your

fence, at the outside. Look at him!” he exclaimed in a louder tone, as

he gave the reins a jerk. “Thar’s deer a plenty up at the forks, and

we’ll have r’al sport. Come, you better go, and—Why, look at him!”

giving the reins another jerk, at the same time that he sent a kick to

his mule’s ribs that might have been heard an hundred yards, “and I’ll

show you how to shine the eyes of a buck.”

As he sat in his saddle persuading me to go, his mule kept frisking and

turning in such a manner as to annoy him exceedingly. Upon his left

shoulder he bore his blazing-pan, and upon his right he held his musket,

holding the reins also in his right hand; so that any efforts on his

part to restrain the refractory movements of his animal was attended

with much difficulty. I had about made up my mind to go, when the mule

evinced a more resolute determination to get at the shrubbery.

“Whoa! wha, now!—confound you! Now, look at him!”—then might be heard

a few good lusty kicks. “Come, Major, git your gun, and let’s—will you

hold up yer head, you ’bominable fool?—and let’s take a little

round—it’ll do you good.”

“As I only go to satisfy my curiosity, I’ll not take a gun. You will be

able to shoot all the deer we meet.”

“Well, any way you mind, Major.”

We were about to start, when suddenly the mule gave a loud bray, and

when I turned to look, his heels were high in the air, and Sam clinging

to his neck, while the fire flew in every direction. The mule wheeled,

reared and kicked, and still Sam hung to his neck, shouting, “Look at

him!—whoa!—will you mind!—whoa!—whoa, now!”—but all to no purpose,

until at length the infuriated animal backed to the low paling fence

which enclosed a small flower-garden, over which he tumbled—Sam, pan,

gun and all, together!

When Sam had disengaged himself, he discovered that the saddle-blanket

was on fire, which had been the cause of the disaster.

“Cus the luck,” said he; “I thought I smelt something burnin’.”

Then addressing himself to the mule in a louder tone, he continued:

“That’s what comes o’ jerkin’ yer dratted head about that-a-way. Dod

drot you, you’ve split all my fixins—and here’s my pan, jest as crooked

as a fish-hook!”

Then there was a kick or two, and a blow with the frying-pan:

“Take that, you howdacious fool, and hold yer head still next time, will

you? And you’ve skinned my leg all to flinders, dadfetch your

everlastin’ picter to dingnation! Take that under your short ribs, now,

will you? Whoa! I’ve a great mind to blow yer brains out this very

night! And you’ve broke the Major’s palins down, you unnatural cus.

Whoa! step over now, if you’s satisfied.”

By this time Sam had got the mule out of the inclosure, and had gathered

up most of his “fixins.” The whole scene, after the upsetting of the

pan, had transpired in the dark, but from the moment I saw the mule’s

heels flying, and Sam clinging to his neck, it was with the utmost

difficulty I restrained my laughter. During his solo in the inclosure, I

was absolutely compelled to stuff my handkerchief in my mouth, to

prevent his hearing me.

“Did you ever see the likes o’ that, Major?” exclaimed Sam, as I

approached the spot where he was engaged in readjusting his saddle and

putting other matters to rights that had been deranged by the struggles

of the mule to free himself from the burning blanket.

“I am very sorry it happened,” I replied, “as it will prevent us from

taking our hunt.”

“No, I’ll be dadfetcht if it does, tho’—I ain’t to be backed out

that-a-way, Major, not by no means. You know, ‘a bad beginnin’ makes a

good endin’,’ as the old woman said. He isn’t done sich a monstrous

sight o’ harm, nohow—only bent the handle of my pan a little, and raked

some skin off one o’ my shins—but that’s neither here nor thar. So if

you’ll jest hold Blaze till I go and git a torch, we’ll have a shoot at

a pair o’ eyes yit, to-night.”

I took the bridle, while Sam procured a torch, and after he had gathered

up the faggots which he had brought to burn in his pan, we set off for

the branch—Sam upon his mule, with a torch in one hand, while I walked

by his side.

It was only necessary for us to go a short distance, before we were at

the designated spot.

“Thar,” said Sam, as he dismounted, “here’s as good a place as any; so

I’ll jest hitch Blaze here, and light our pan.”

Accordingly, Blaze was made fast to a stout sappling, and Sam proceeded

to kindle a fire in his pan, at the same time explaining to me, in a low

voice, the _modus operandi_ of the Fire-Hunt, which he accompanied with

sundry precautionary hints and directions for my own especial observance

on the present occasion.

“Now, Major,” said he, “you must keep close to me, and you mustn’t make

no racket in the bushes. You see, the way we does to shine the deer’s

eyes is this—we holds the pan so, on the left shoulder, and carries the

gun at a trail in the right hand. Well, when I wants to look for eyes, I

turns round slow, and looks right at the edge of my shadder, what’s made

by the light behind me in the pan, and if ther’s a deer in gun-shot of

me, his eyes’ll shine ’zactly like two balls of fire.”

This explanation was as clear as Sam could make it, short of a

demonstration, for which purpose we now moved on through the woods.

After proceeding a few hundred yards, Sam took a survey as described,

but saw no eyes.

“Never mind, Major,” said he, “we’ll find ’em—you see.”

We moved on cautiously, and Sam made his observations as before, but

with no better success. Thus we travelled on in silence, from place to

place, until I began to get weary of the sport.

“Well, Mr. Sikes,” I remarked, “I don’t see that your bad beginning

to-night is likely to insure any better ending.”

“Oh, don’t git out of patience, Major—you’ll see.”

We moved on again. I had become quite weary, and fell some distance

behind. Sam stopped, and when I came up, he said, in a low voice:

“You better keep pretty close up, Major, ’case if I should happen to

shine your eyes, you see, I moughtn’t know ’em from a deer, and old

Betsey here toats fifteen buck-shot and a ball, and slings ’em to kill.”