Chapter IX: Part 9

"I mind once we had an Irish gal as a dairy help; well, we had a wicked devil of a cow, and she kicked over the milk pail, and in ran Dora, and swore the Bogle did it. Jist so poor Rigby, he wouldn't allow it was nateral causes, but laid it all to politics. Talkin' of Dora, puts me in mind of the gals, for she warn't a bad-lookin' heifer that. My! what an eye she had, and I consaited she had a particular small foot and ankle too, when I helped her up once into the hay mow, to sarch for eggs; but I can't exactly say, for when she brought 'em in, mother shook her head and said it was dangerous; she said she might fall through and hurt herself, and always sent old Snow afterwards. She was a considerable of a long-headed woman, was mother; she could see as far ahead as most folks. She warn't born yesterday, I guess. But that 'ere proverb is true as respects the gals too. Whenever you see one on 'em with a whole lot of sweethearts, it's an even chance if she gets married to any on 'em. One cools off, and another cools off, and before she brings any one on 'em to the right weldin' heat, the coal is gone and the fire is out. Then she may blow and blow till she's tired; she may blow up a dust, but the deuce of a flame can she blow up agin, to save her soul alive. I never see a clever lookin' gal in danger of that, I don't long to whisper in her ear, You dear little critter, you, take care! you have too many irons in the fire; some on 'em will get stone cold, and t'other ones will get burnt so, they'll never be no good in natur'."

No. XXXIII

Windsor and the Far West.

The next morning the Clockmaker proposed to take a drive round the neighbourhood. "You hadn't ought," says he, "to be in a hurry; you should see the VIcinity of this location; there ain't the beat of it to be found anywhere."

While the servants were harnessing Old Clay, we went to see a new bridge, which had recently been erected over the Avon River. "That," said he, "is a splendid thing. A New Yorker built it, and the folks in St. John paid for it."

"You mean of Halifax," said I; "St. John is in the other province."

"I mean what I say," he replied, "and it is a credit to New Brunswick. No, sir, the Halifax folks neither know nor keer much about the country--they wouldn't take hold on it, and if they had a waited for them, it would have been one while afore they got a bridge, I tell you. They've no spirit, and plaguy little sympathy with the country, and I'll tell you the reason on it. There are a good many people there from other parts, and always have been, who come to make money and nothin' else, who don't call it home, and don't feel to home, and who intend to up killoch and off, as soon as they have made their ned out of the Bluenoses. They have got about as much regard for the country as a peddler has, who trudges along with a pack on his back. He WALKS, 'cause he intends to RIDE at last; TRUSTS, 'cause he intends to SUE at last; SMILES, 'cause he intends to CHEAT at last; SAVES ALL, 'cause he intends to MOVE ALL at last. It's actilly overrun with transient paupers, and transient speculators, and these last grumble and growl like a bear with a sore head, the whole blessed time, at everything; and can hardly keep a civil tongue in their head, while they're fobbin' your money hand over hand. These critters feel no interest in anything but cent per cent; they deaden public spirit; they hain't got none themselves, and they larf at it in others; and when you add their numbers to the timid ones, the stingy ones, the ignorant ones, and the poor ones that are to be found in every place, why the few smart-spirited ones that's left are too few to do anything, and so nothin' is done. It appears to me if I was a Bluenose I'd--but thank fortin' I ain't, so I says nothin'; but there is somethin' that ain't altogether jist right is this country, that's a fact.

"But what a country this Bay country is, isn't it? Look at that medder, bean't it lovely? The prayer-eyes of Illanoy are the top of the ladder with us, but these dykes take the shine off them by a long chalk, that's sartin. The land in our far west, it is generally allowed, can't be no better; what you plant is sure to grow and yield well, and food is so cheap you can live there for half nothin'. But it don't agree with us New England folks; we don't enjoy good health there; and what in the world is the use of food, if you have such an etarnal dyspepsy you can't digest it? A man can hardly live there till next grass afore he is in the yaller leaf. Just like one of our bran' new vessels built down in Maine, of best hackmatack, or what's better still, of our real American live oak (and that's allowed to be about the best in the world); send her off to the West Indies, and let her lie there awhile, and the worms will riddle her bottom all full of holes like a tin cullender, or a board with a grist of duck shot through it, you wouldn't believe what a BORE they be. Well, that's jist the case with the western climate. The heat takes the solder out of the knees and elbows, weakens the joints and makes the frame ricketty.

"Besides, we like the smell of the salt water; it seems kinder nateral to us New Englanders. We can make more a-ploughin' of the seas, than ploughin' of a prayer-eye. It would take a bottom near about as long as Connecticut river, to raise wheat enough to buy the cargo of a Nantucket whaler, or a Salem tea ship. And then to leave one's folks, and naTIVE place where one was raised, halter broke, and trained to go in gear, and exchange all the comforts of the Old States for them are new ones, don't seem to go down well at all. Why the very sight of the Yankee gals is good for sore eyes, the dear little critters! They do look so scrumptious, I tell you, with their cheeks bloomin' like a red rose budded on a white one, and their eyes like Mrs. Adams's diamonds (that folks say shine as well in the dark as in the light), neck like a swan, lips chock full of kisses--lick! It fairly makes one's mouth water to think on 'em. But it's no use talkin', they are just made critters that's a fact, full of health and life and beauty. Now, to change them 'ere splendid white water-lillies of Connecticut and Rhode Island for the yaller crocusses of Illanoy, is what we don't like. It goes most confoundedly agin the grain, I tell you. Poor critters, when they get away back there, they grow as thin as a sawed lath; their little peepers are as dull as a boiled codfish; their skin looks like yaller fever, and they seem all mouth like a crocodile. And that's not the worst of it neither, for when a woman begins to grow saller it's all over with her; she's up a tree then you may depend, there's no mistake. You can no more bring back her bloom than you can the colour to a leaf the frost has touched in the fall. It's gone goose with her, that's a fact. And that's not all, for the temper is plaguy apt to change with the cheek too. When the freshness of youth is on the move, the sweetness of temper is amazin' apt to start along with it. A bilious cheek and a sour temper are like the Siamese twins, there's a nateral cord of union atween them. The one is a sign board, with the name of the firm written on it in big letters. He that don't know this, can't read, I guess. It's no use to cry over spilt milk, we all know, but it's easier said than done, that. Women kind, and especially single folks, will take on dreadful at the fadin' of their roses, and their frettin' only seems to make the thorns look sharper. Our minister used to say to sister Sall (and when she was young she was a real witch, a'most an everlastin' sweet girl), 'Sally,' he used to say, 'now's the time to larn when you are young; store your mind well, dear, and the fragrance will remain long arter the rose has shed its leaves. The otter of roses is stronger than the rose, and a plaguy sight more valuable.' Sall wrote it down; she said it warn't a bad idee that; but father larfed, he said he guessed minister's courtin' days warn't over, when he made such pretty speeches as that 'ere to the gals. Now, who would go to expose his wife or his darters, or himself, to the dangers of such a climate for the sake of thirty bushels of wheat to the acre instead of fifteen? There seems a kinder somethin' in us that rises in our throat when we think on it, and won't let us. We don't like it. Give me the shore, and let them that like the Far West go there, I say.

"This place is as fartile as Illanoy or Ohio, as healthy as any part of the Globe, and right along side of the salt water; but the folks want three things--INDUSTRY, ENTERPRISE, ECONOMY; these Bluenoses don't know how to vally this location; only look at it, and see what a place for bisness it is: the centre of the Province; the nateral capital of the Basin of Minas, and part of the Bay of Fundy; the great thoroughfare to St. John, Canada, and the United States; the exports of lime, gypsum, freestone and grindstone; the dykes--but it's no use talkin'; I wish we had it, that's all. Our folks are like a rock maple tree: stick 'em in anywhere, but eend up and top down, and they will take root and grow; but put 'em in a real good soil like this, and give 'em a fair chance, and they will go ahead and thrive right off, most amazin' fast, that's a fact. Yes, if we had it, we would make another guess place of it from what it is. IN ONE YEAR WE WOULD HAVE A RAILROAD TO HALIFAX, WHICH, UNLIKE THE STONE THAT KILLED TWO BIRDS, WOULD BE THE MAKIN' OF BOTH PLACES. I often tell the folks this, but all they can say is, 'Oh, we are too poor and too young.' Says I, 'You put me in mind of a great long legged, long tailed colt, father had. He never changed his name of colt as long as he lived, and he was as old as the hills; and though he had the best of feed, was as thin as a whippin' post. He was colt all his days--always young--always poor; and young and poor you'll be, I guess to the eend of the chapter.'"

On our return to the inn, the weather, which had been threatening for some time past, became very tempestuous. It rained for three successive days and the roads were almost impassible. To continue my journey was wholly out of the question. I determined therefore, to take a seat in the coach for Halifax, and defer until next year the remaining part of my tour. Mr. Slick agreed to meet me here in June, and to provide for me the same conveyance I had used from Amherst. I look forward with much pleasure to our meeting again. His manner and idiom were to me perfectly new and very amusing; while his good sound sense, searching observation, and queer humour, rendered his conversation at once valuable and interesting. There are many subjects on which I should like to draw him out; and I promise myself a fund of amusement in his remarks on the state of society and manners at Halifax, and the machinery of the local government, on both of which he appears to entertain many original and some very just opinions.

As he took leave of me in the coach, he whispered, "Inside of your great big cloak you will find wrapped up a box, containin' a thousand real genuine first chop Havanas--no mistake--the clear thing. When you smoke 'em think sometimes of your old companion, SAM SLICK THE CLOCKMAKER."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Clockmaker, by Thomas Chandler Haliburton