Chapter I: ADDRESS myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct (2)

The young lady curtsied at the close of her speech, which was so sensible, and well-worded, and delivered with such grace and propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be Preceptress of the best Academy in the State. But a stranger would have supposed that Mr. Higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at Parker’s Falls, and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his murder, so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning their mistake. The mill-men resolved to bestow public honours on Dominicus Pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail, or refresh him with an ablution at the town pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news. The select-men, by the advice of the lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanour in circulating unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth. Nothing saved Dominicus either from mob law or a court of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf. Addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and drove out of town under a discharge of artillery from the school-boys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neighbouring clay-pits and mud-holes. As he turned his head, to exchange a farewell glance with Mr. Higginbotham’s niece, a ball, of the consistence of hasty-pudding, hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. His whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles that he had almost a mind to ride back and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the town pump, for, though not meant in kindness, it would have been a deed of charity.

However, the sun shone bright on poor Dominicus, and the mud, an emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium, was easily brushed off when dry. Being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story excited. The handbills of the select-men would cause the commitment of all the vagabonds in the State. The paragraph in the _Parker’s Falls Gazette_ would be reprinted from Maine to Florida, and perhaps form an item in the London newspapers; and many a miser would tremble for his money-bag and life, on learning the catastrophe of Mr. Higginbotham. The pedler meditated with much fervour on the charms of the young school-mistress, and swore that Daniel Webster never spoke nor looked so like an angel as Miss Higginbotham, while defending him from the wrathful populace at Parker’s Falls.

Dominicus was now on the Kimballton turnpike, having all along determined to visit that place, though business had drawn him out of the most direct road from Morristown. As he approached the scene of the supposed murder, he continued to revolve the circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed. Had nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller it might have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact; and there was a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. When to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumour tallied with Mr. Higginbotham’s character and habits of life; and that he had an orchard, and a St. Michael’s pear-tree, near which he always passed at nightfalls, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that Dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece’s direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. Making cautious inquiry along the road, the pedler further learned that Mr. Higginbotham had in his service an Irishman of doubtful character, whom he had hired without a recommendation, on the score of economy.

“May I be hanged myself,” exclaimed Dominicus Pike aloud, on reaching the top of a lonely hill, “if I believe old Higginbotham is unhanged, till I see him with my own eyes, and hear it from his own mouth! And as he’s a real shaver, I’ll have the minister or some other responsible man for an endorser.”

It was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on Kimballton turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. His little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback, who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer, and kept on towards the village. Dominicus was acquainted with the toll-man, and while making change, the usual remarks on the weather passed between them.

“I suppose,” said the pedler, throwing back his whip-lash to bring it down like a feather on the mare’s flank, “you have not seen anything of old Mr. Higginbotham within a day or two?”

“Yes,” answered the toll-gatherer; “he passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. He’s been to Woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff’s sale there. The old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me; but to-night he nodded, as if to say, ‘Charge my toll,’ and jogged on, for wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o’clock.”

“So they tell me,” said Dominicus.

“I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does,” continued the toll-gatherer. “Says I to myself to-night, he’s more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.”

The pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognise the rear of Mr. Higginbotham; and through the evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse’s feet, the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and grey light. Dominicus shivered.

“Mr. Higginbotham has come back from the other world, by way of Kimballton turnpike,” thought he.

He shook the reins and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the grey old shadow, till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. On reaching this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns, clustered around the meeting-house steeple. On his left was a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot, beyond which lay an orchard; further still, a mowing-field, and, last of all, a house. These were the premises of Mr. Higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the Kimballton turnpike, and Dominicus knew the place; and the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins.

“For the soul of me I cannot get by this gate,” said he, trembling. “I never shall be my own man again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael pear-tree!”

He leaped from the cart, gave the reins a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if Old Nick were chasing behind. Just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell, Dominicus gave a fresh bound and flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear-tree. One great branch stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the darkest shadow on that one spot. But something seemed to struggle beneath the branch!

The pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valour on this awful emergency. Certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy Irishman with the butt end of his whip, and found—not indeed hanging on the St. Michael’s pear-tree, but trembling beneath it, with a halter round his neck—the old, identical Mr. Higginbotham.

“Mr. Higginbotham,” said Dominicus tremulously, “you’re an honest man, and I’ll take your word for it. Have you been hanged or not?”

If the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the simple machinery by which this coming event was made to cast its shadow before. Three men had plotted the robbery and murder of Mr. Higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in the act of perpetration when a champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of Dominicus Pike.

It only remains to say that Mr. Higginbotham took the pedler into high favour, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty school-mistress, and settled his whole property on their children, allowing themselves the interest. In due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favours by dying a Christian death, in bed, since which melancholy event Dominicus Pike has removed from Kimballton and established a large tobacco factory in my native village.

_Nathaniel Hawthorne._

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_GOING TO CALIFORNIA._

“DEAR me!” exclaimed Mrs. Partington sorrowfully, “how much a man will bear, and how far he will go, to get the soddered dross, as Parson Martin called it when he refused the beggar a sixpence, for fear it might lead him into extravagance! Everybody is going to California and Chagrin arter gold. Cousin Jones and the three Smiths have gone; and Mr. Chip, the carpenter, has left his wife and seven children, and a blessed old mother-in-law, to seek his fortin, too. This is the strangest yet, and I don’t see how he could have done it; it looks so ongrateful to treat Heaven’s blessings so lightly. But there we are told that the love of money is the root of all evil, and how true it is! for they are now rooting arter it, like pigs arter ground-nuts. Why, it is a perfect money mania among everybody!”

And she shook her head doubtingly, as she pensively watched a small mug of cider, with an apple in it, simmering by the winter fire. She was somewhat fond of drink made in this way.

_Benjamin Penhallon Shillaber_
(“_Mrs. Partington_”).

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“_ROUGHING IT._”

ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and turmoil. But morning came by-and-by. It was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast expanses of level greensward, bright sunlight, an impressive solitude utterly without visible human beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of such amazing magnifying properties that trees that seemed close at hand were more than three miles away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed a-top of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side, shouted occasionally at our frantic mules, merely to see them lay their ears back and scamper faster, tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away, and levelled an outlook over the world-wide carpet about us for things new and strange to gaze at. Even at this day it thrills me through and through to think of the life, the gladness and the wild sense of freedom, that used to make the blood dance in my veins on those fine overland mornings!

Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular _cayote_ (pronounced ky-_o_-te) of the farther deserts. And if it _was_, he was not a pretty creature or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick- and sorry-looking skeleton, with a grey wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that for ever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of want. He is _always_ hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is apologising for it. And he is _so_ homely!—so scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush, glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; he will trot fifty yards and stop again—another fifty and stop again; and finally the grey of his gliding body blends with the grey of the sagebrush, and he disappears. All this is when you make no demonstration against him; but if you do, he develops a livelier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies his heels, and puts such a deal of real estate between himself and your weapon that by the time you have raised the hammer you see that you need a minié rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have “drawn a bead” on him you see well enough that nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of lightning could reach him where he is now. But if you start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it ever so much—especially if it is a dog that has a good opinion of himself, and has been brought up to think he knows something about speed. The cayote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful trot of his, and every little while he will smile a fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambition, and make him lay his head still lower to the ground, and stretch his neck further to the front, and pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out straighter behind, and move his furious legs with a yet wilder frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and marking his long wake across the level plain! And all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet behind the cayote, and to save the soul of him he cannot understand why it is that he cannot get perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated, and it makes him madder and madder to see how gently the cayote glides along and never pants or sweats or ceases to smile; and he grows still more and more incensed to see how shamefully he has been taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is; and next he notices that he is getting fagged, and that the cayote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep from running away from him—and _then_ that town-dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever, and reach for the cayote with concentrated and desperate energy. This “spurt” finds him six feet behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope is lighting up his face, the cayote turns and smiles blandly upon him once more, and with a something about it which seems to say: “Well, I shall have to tear myself away from you, bub—business is business, and it will not do for me to be fooling along this way all day”—and forthwith there is a rushing sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!

It makes his head swim. He stops and looks all around; climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost waggon, and feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a week. And forasmuch as a year after that, whenever there is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog will merely glance in that direction without emotion, and apparently observe to himself, “I believe I do not wish any of the pie.”

The cayote lives chiefly in the most desolate and forbidding deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit, and the raven, and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcasses of oxen, mules, and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men who have been opulent enough to have something better to butcher than condemned army bacon. He will eat anything in the world that his first cousins, the desert-frequenting tribes of Indians, will, and they will eat anything they can bite. It is a curious fact that these latter are the only creatures known to history who will eat nitroglycerine and ask for more if they survive.

The cayote of the deserts beyond the Rocky Mountains has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the desert breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late ox it emanated from, as he is himself; and when this occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at a little distance watching those people strip off and dig out everything edible, and walk off with it. Then he and the waiting ravens explore the skeleton and polish the bones. It is considered that the cayote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the desert, testify their blood kinship with each other in that they live together in the waste places of the earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship, while hating all other creatures and yearning to assist at their funerals. He does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or four days between meals, and he can just as well be travelling and looking at the scenery as lying around doing nothing and adding to the burdens of his parents.

We soon learned to recognise the sharp, vicious bark of the cayote as it came across the murky plain at night to disturb our dreams among the mail-sacks; and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard fortune, made shift to wish him the blessed novelty of a long day’s good luck and a limitless larder the morrow.

_Samuel L. Clemens_ (“_Mark Twain_”).

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_THE HEAD-WRITER._

IT was early in the morning when I heard a great puffing and blowing on the stairs, and pretty soon footsteps sounded in the hall, and a woman’s voice said—

“Now, John Quincy, you want to look as smart as you can!”

The next moment the door opened, and a big fat woman and a small thin boy came into the room. She gave her dress a shake, snatched the boy’s hat off, and then, looking at me, she inquired—

“Is the head-writer in?”

“He is, madam,” I replied.

“Be you him?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, as she sat down on a chair and fanned herself with her handkerchief; “I like to have never got upstairs.”

I smiled and nodded.

“You see that boy thar?” she inquired after a while.

“Your son, I suppose?” I answered; “nice-looking lad.”

“Yes, he’s smart as a fox. There isn’t a thing he don’t know. Why, he isn’t but eight, and he composes poetry, writes letters, and plays tunes on the fiddle!”

“You ought to be proud of him,” I said.

“Wall, we kinder hope he’ll turn out well,” she answered. “Come up here, John Quincy, and speak that piece about that boy who stood on the busted deck.”

“I won’t!” replied the boy in a positive tone.

“He’s a little bashful, you see,” giving me an apologetical smile. “He’s rid fourteen miles this morning, and he doesn’t feel well, anyhow; I shouldn’t wonder if he was troubled with worums.”

“Worms be blowed!” replied John Quincy, chewing away at his hat.

“He’s awful skeard when he’s among strangers,” she went on; “but he’ll git over it in a short time. What I cum in for was to see if you wouldn’t take him and make a head-writer of him.”

“I don’t want to be a durned old bald-headed head-writer!” said John Quincy, picking his teeth with my scissors.

“The young never knows what’s good for ’em,” she went on. “He wants to be a preacher, or a great lawyer, or a big doctor; but he seems to take to writing, and we thought we’d make a head-writer of him. I don’t sopose he’d earn over five or six dollars and board a week for the first year, but I’ve bin told that Gen’ral Jackson didn’t get half that when he begun.”

“Madam,” I commenced, as she stopped for breath, “I’d like to take the boy. He looks as smart as a steel trap, and no doubt he’ll turn out a great man.”

“Then you’ll take him?”

“If you agree as to terms.”

“What is them ter-ums?”

“You see my left eye is out?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your son can never become a great writer unless you put his left eye out. If you will think back you will remember that you never saw a great writer whose left eye was not out. This is a matter of economy. A one-eyed writer only needs half as much light as a man with two eyes, and he isn’t half so apt to discover hair-pins in his butter, and buttons in his oyster soup. The best way to put his eye out is to jab a red-hot needle into it.”

“Good grashus!” she exclaimed.

“And you observe that I am bald-headed? You may think that my baldness results from scalp disease, but such is not the case. When a head-writer is bothered to get an idea he scratches his head. Scratching the hair wouldn’t do any good; it’s the scalp he must agitate. The hair is therefore pulled out with a pair of pincers, in order that a man can get right down to the scalp at once, and save time.”

“Can that be possible?”

“All this is strictly true, madam. You also observe that one of my legs is shorter than the other. Without an explanation on my part you would attribute this to some accident. Such is not the case. Every head-writer is located in the fourth storey of the office, and his left leg is shortened three inches to enable him to run up and down stairs. You will have to have a doctor unjoint your son’s leg at the hip, saw it off to the proper length, and then hook it back in its place.”

“Did I ever hear the likes!” she exclaimed.

“And you also observe, madam, that two of my front teeth are gone. You might think they decayed, but such was not the case. They were knocked out with a crowbar in order to enable me to spit ten feet. According to a law enacted at the last Session of Congress, any head-writer who can’t spit ten feet is not entitled to receive Congressional reports free of postage.”

“Can it be so?” she said, her eyes growing larger every moment.

“And you notice my corpulent build?” I went on; “you might think this the result of high-living, but it is not. Every head-writer of any prominence has one of these big stomachs on him. They are all members of a secret society, and they tell each other outside of the lodge-room in this way: I am naturally very tall and thin, but I had to conform to the rules. They cut a hole in my chest and filled me out by stuffing in dry Indian meal. It took two bushels and a peck, and then it lacked a little, and they had to fill up with oatmeal. Now then, madam, you see what your son must go through with, and I leave you to judge whether you will have him learn the head-writer’s trade or not. I like the looks of the boy very much, and if you desire to——”

“I guess we’ll go hum!” she exclaimed, lifting herself off the chair. “I kinder want him to be a head-writer, and yit I think I ought to have a little more talk with his father, who wants him to git to be boss in a saw-mill. I’m ’bleged to you, and if we conclude to have him——”

“Yes, bring him right in, day or night. The first thing will be to unhinge his left leg and——!”

But they were out in the hall, and I heard John Quincy remark: “Head-writer be blowed!”

_C. B. Lewis_ (“_M Quad_”).

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_PELEG W. PONDER; OR, THE POLITICIAN WITHOUT A SIDE._

IT is a curious thing—an unpleasant thing—a very embarrassing sort of thing—but the truth must be told—if not at all times, at least sometimes; and truth now compels the declaration that Peleg W. Ponder, whose character is here portrayed, let him travel in any way, cannot arrive at a conclusion. He never had one of his own. He scarcely knows a conclusion, even if he should chance to see one belonging to other people, and, as for reaching a result, he would never be able to do it, if he could stretch like a giraffe. Results are beyond his compass. And his misfortune is, perhaps, hereditary, his mother’s name having been Mrs. Perplexity Ponder, whose earthly career came to an end while she was in dubitation as to which of the various physicians of the place should be called in. If there had been only one doctor in the town, Perplexity Ponder might have been saved. But there was many—and what could Perplexity do in such a case?

Ponder’s father was run over by a waggon, as he stood debating with himself, in the middle of the road, whether he should escape forward or retreat backward. There were two methods of extrication, and between them both old Ponder became a victim. How then could their worthy son, Peleg, be expected to arrive at a conclusion? He never does.

Yet, for one’s general comfort and particular happiness, there does not appear to be any faculty more desirable than the power of “making up the mind.” Right or wrong, it saves a deal of wear and tear; and it prevents an infinite variety of trouble. Commend us to the individual who chooses upon propositions like a nutcracker—whose promptness of will has a sledge-hammer way with it, and hits nails continually on the head. Genius may be brilliant—talent commanding! but what is genius, or what is talent, if it lack that which we may call the clinching faculty—if it hesitates, veers, and flutters—suffers opportunities to pass, and stumbles at occasion? To reason well is much, no doubt, but reason loses the race if it sits in meditation on the fence when competition rushes by.

Under the best of circumstances, something must be left to hazard. There is a chance in all things. No man can so calculate odds in the affairs of life as to ensure a certainty. The screws and linchpins necessary to our purpose have not the inflexibility of fate; yet they must be trusted at some degree of risk. Our candle may be put out by a puff of wind on the stair, let it be sheltered ever so carefully. Betsy is a good cook, yet beefsteaks have been productive of strangulation. Does it then follow from this that we are never to go to bed, except in the dark, and to abstain from breaking our fast until dinner is announced?

One may pause and reflect too much. There must be action, conclusion, result, or we are a failure, to all intents and purposes—a self-confessed failure—defunct from the beginning. And such was the case with Peleg W. Ponder, who never arrived at a conclusion, or contrived to reach a result. Peleg is always “stumped”—he “don’t know what to think”—he “can’t tell what to say”—an unfinished gentleman, with a mind like a dusty garret, full, as it were, of rickety furniture, yet nothing serviceable—broken-backed chairs—three-legged tables—pitchers without handles—cracked decanters and fractured looking-glasses—that museum of mutilations in which housewifery rejoices, under the vague but never realised hope that these things may eventually “come in play.” Peleg’s opinions lie about the workshop of his brains, in every stage of progress but the last—chips, sticks, and sawdust enough, but no article ready to send home.

Should you meet Peleg in the street with “Good morning, Peleg—how do you find yourself to-day?”

“Well—I don’t know exactly—I’m pretty—no, not very—pray, how do you do yourself?”

Now if a man does not know exactly, or nearly, how he is after being up for several hours, and having had abundant time to investigate the circumstances of his case, it is useless to propound questions of opinion to such an individual. It is useless to attempt it with Peleg. “How do you do?” puzzles him—he is fearful of being too rash, and of making a reply which might not be fully justified by after-reflection. His head may be about to ache, and he has other suspicious feelings.

“People are always asking me how I do, and more than half the time I can’t tell. There’s a good many different sorts of ways of feeling betwixt and between ‘Very sick, I thank you,’ and ‘Half-dead, I’m obliged to you;’ and people won’t stop to hear you explain the matter. They want to know right smack, when you don’t know right smack yourself. Sometimes you feel things a-coming, and just after you feel things a-going. And nobody’s exactly prime all the while. I ain’t, anyhow—I’m kinder so just now, and I’m sorter t’other way just after. Then, some people tell you that you look very well, when you don’t feel very well—how then?”

At table Peleg is not exactly sure what he will take; and sits looking slowly up and down the board, deliberating what he would like, until the rest of the company have finished their repast, there being often nothing left which suits Peleg’s hesitating appetite.

Peleg has never married—not that he is averse to the connubial state—on the contrary, he has a large share of the susceptibilities, and is always partially in love. But female beauty is so various. At one time Peleg is inclined to believe that perfection lies in queenly dignity—the majesty of an empress fills his dreams; and he looks down with disdain on little people. He calls them “squabs” in derogation. But anon, in a more domestic mood, he thinks of fireside happiness and quiet bliss, declining from the epic poetry of loveliness to the household wife, who might be disposed to bring him his slippers, and to darn the hole in his elbow. When in the tragic vein he fancies a brunette; and when the sunshine is on his soul, blue eyes are at a premium. Should woman possess the slightness of a sylph, or should her charms be of the more solid architecture? Ought her countenance to beam in smiles, or will habitual pensiveness be the more interesting? Is sparkling brilliancy to be preferred to gentle sweetness?

“If there wasn’t so many of them, I shouldn’t be so bothered,” said Peleg; “or if they all looked alike, a man couldn’t help himself. But yesterday I wanted this one; to-day, I want that one; and to-morrow I’ll want t’other one; and how can I tell, if I should get this, or that, or t’other, that it wouldn’t soon be somebody else that I really wanted? That’s the difficulty. It always happens so with me. When the lady’s most courted, and thinks I ought to speak out, then I begin to be skeered, for fear I’ve made a mistake, and have been thinking I loved her, when I didn’t. Maybe it’s not the right one—maybe she won’t suit—maybe I might do better—maybe I had better not venture at all. I wish there wasn’t so many ‘maybe’s’ about everything, especially in such affairs. I’ve got at least a dozen unfinished courtships on hand already.”

But all this happened a long time ago; and Peleg has gradually lost sight of his fancy for making an addition to his household. Not that he has concluded, even yet, to remain a bachelor. He would be alarmed at the bare mention of such an idea. He could not consent to be shelved in that decisive manner. But he has subsided from active “looking around” in pursuit of his object, into that calm, irresponsible submissiveness, characteristic of the somewhat elderly bachelor, which waits until she may chance to present herself spontaneously, and “come along” of her own accord. “Some day—some day,” says Peleg; “it will happen some day or other. What’s the use of being in a hurry?”

Peleg W. Ponder’s great object is now ambition. His personal affairs are somewhat embarrassed by his lack of enterprise, and he hankers greatly for an office. But which side to join? Ay, there’s the rub! Who will purvey the loaf and fish? for whom shall Peleg shout?

Behold him as he puzzles over the returns of the State elections, labouring in vain to satisfy his mind as to the result of the presidential contest. Stupefied by figures—perplexed by contradictory statements—bothered by the general hurrah; what can Peleg do?

“Who’s going to win? That’s all I want to know,” exclaims the vexed Peleg. “I don’t want to waste my time a-blowing out for the wrong person, and never get a thank’e. What’s the use of that? There’s Simpkins—says I, Simpkins, says I, which is the party that can’t be beat? And Simpkins turns up his nose and tells me every fool knows that—it’s his side—so I hurrah for Simpkins’ side as hard as I can. But then comes Timpkins—Timpkins’ side is t’other side from Simpkins’ side—and Timpkins offers to bet me three levies that his side is the side that can’t be beat. Hurrah! says I, for Timpkins’ side!—and then I can’t tell which side.”

“As for the newspapers, that’s worse still. They not only crow all round, but they cipher it out so clear that both sides must win, if there’s any truth in the ciphering-book; which there isn’t about election time. What’s to be done? I’ve tried going to all the meetings—I’ve hurrahed for everybody—I’ve been in all the processions, and I sit a little while every evening in all sorts of headquarters. I’ve got one kind of documents in one pocket, and t’other kind of documents in t’other pocket; and as I go home at night I sing one sort of song as loud as I can bawl half of the way, and try another sort of song the rest of the way, just to split the difference and show my impartiality. If I only had two notes—a couple of ’em—how nice it would be!

“But the best thing that can be done now, I guess, as my character is established both ways, is to turn in quietly till the row is all over. Nobody will miss me when they are all so busy; and afterwards, when we know all about it, just look for Peleg W. Ponder as he comes down the street, shaking people by the hand, and saying how we have used them up. I can’t say so now, or I would, for I am not perfectly sure yet which is ‘we’ or which is ‘them.’ Time enough when the election is over.”

It will thus be seen that Ponder is a remarkable person. Peter Schlemihl lost his shadow and became memorably unhappy in consequence; but what was his misfortune when compared with that of the man who has no side? What are shadows if weighed against sides? And Peleg is almost afraid that he never will be able to get a side, so unlucky has he been heretofore. He begins to dread that both sides may be defeated; and then, let us ask, what is to become of him? Must he stand aside?

_Joseph C. Neal._

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_THE SHAKERS._

THE Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met.

I’D hearn tell of ’em and I’d seen ’em, with their broad brim’d hats and long wastid coats; but I’d never cum into immejit contack with ’em and I’d sot ’em down as lackin intelleck, as I’d never seen ’em to my Show—leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white peple’s close, so I didn’t know ’em.

But in the Spring of 18— I got swampt in the exterior of New York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.

I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer I obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet’s nest to my off hoss’s tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the place. I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a tall, slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn’d out to be a Elder.

“Mr. Shaker,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes shelter of you.”

“Yay,” sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another Shaker bein sent to put my hosses and waggin under kiver.

A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year’s beanpole stuck into a long meal bag, cum in and axed me was I athurst and did I hunger? to which I urbanely anserd “a few.” She went orf and I endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.

“Elder, I spect?” sed I.

“Yay,” he sed.

“Helth’s good, I reckon?”

“Yay.”

“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?”

“Yay.”

“Stormy night, sir.”

“Yay.”

“If the storm continners there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”

“Yay.”

“It’s onpleasant when there’s a mess underfoot?”

“Yay.”

“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?”

“Yay!”

I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, bust into a harty larf, and told him that as a _yayer_ he had no livin ekal.

He jumpt up as if Bilin water had bin squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed: “You’re a man of sin!” He then walkt out of the room.

Jest then the female in the meal bag stuck her hed into the room and statid that refreshments awaited the weary travler, and I sed if it was vittles she ment the weary travler was agreeable, and I follered her into the next room.

I sot down to the table and the female in the meal bag pored out sum tea. She sed nothin, and for five minutes the only live thing in that room was a old wooden clock, which tickt in a subdood and bashful manner in the corner. This dethly stillness made me oneasy, and I determined to talk to the female or bust. So sez I, “Marrige is agin your rules, I bleeve, marm?”

“Yay.”

“The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?”

“Yay.”

“It’s kinder singler,” sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and speakin in a winnin voice, “that so fair a made as thou never got hitched to some likely feller.” [N.B.—She was upards of 40 and homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I’d tickil her.]

“I don’t like men!” she sed, very short.

“Wall, I dunno,” sez I, “they’re a rayther important part of the populashun. I don’t scarcely see how we could git along without ’em.”

“Us poor wimin folks would git along a grate deal better if there was no men!”

“You’ll excoos me, marm, but I don’t think that air would work. It wouldn’t be regler.”

“I’m afraid of men!” she sed.

“That’s onnecessary, marm. _You_ ain’t in no danger. Don’t fret yourself on that pint.”

“Here, we’re shot out from the sinful world. Here, all is peas. Here, we air brothers and sisters. We don’t marry and consekently we hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don’t abooze their wives—wives don’t worrit their husbans. There’s no children here to worrit us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked matrimony here. Would thow like to be a Shaker?”

“No,” sez I, “it ain’t my stile.”

I had now histed in as big a load of pervishuns as I could carry comfortable, and, leanin back in my cheer, commenst pickin my teeth with a fork. The female went out, leavin me all alone with the clock. I hadn’t sot thar long before the Elder poked his hed in at the door. “You’re a man of sin!” he sed, and groaned and went away.

Direckly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was dressed in meal bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky har was hid from sight by long white caps, sich as I spose female Josts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diminds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin enuff to make a man throw stuns at his granmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearin away the dishes, castin shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forgot Betsy Jane in my rapter, and sez I, “My pretty dears, how air you?”

“We air well,” they solumly sed.

“Whar’s the old man?” sed I, in a soft voice.

“Of whom dost thow speak—Brother Uriah?”

“I mean the gay and festiv cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name was Uriah.”

“He has retired.”

“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have sum fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”

“Air you a Shaker, sir?” they axed.

“Wall, my pretty dears, I havn’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yit, but if they was all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I’m a Shaker pro-temporary.”

They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a leetle skeery. I tawt ’em Puss in the corner and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin quiet of course so the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I, “My pretty dears, ear I go you hav no objections, hav you, to a innersent kiss at partin?”

“Yay,” they sed, and I _yay’d_.

I went up stairs to bed. I spose I’d been snoozin half a hour when I was woke up by a noise at the door. I sot up in bed, leanin on my elbers and rubbin my eyes, and I saw the follerin picter: The Elder stood in the doorway, with a taller candle in his hand. He hadn’t no wearin appeerel on except his night close, which fluttered in the breeze like a Seseshun flag. He sed, “You’re a man of sin!” then groaned and went away.

I went to sleep agin, and drempt of runnin orf with the pretty little Shakeresses, mounted on my Californy Bar. I thawt the Bar insisted on steerin strate for my dooryard in Baldinsville, and that Betsy Jane cum out and giv us a warm recepshun with a panfull of bilin water. I was woke up arly by the Elder. He sed refreshments was reddy for me down stairs. Then sayin I was a man of sin, he went groanin away.

As I was goin threw the entry to the room where the vittles was, I cum across the Elder and the old female I’d met the night before, and what d’ye spose they was up to? Huggin and kissin like young lovers in their gushingist state. Sez I, “My Shaker frends, I reckon you’d better suspend the rules, and git marrid!”

“You must excoos Brother Uriah,” sed the female; “he’s subjeck to fits, and hain’t got no command over hisself when he’s into ’em.”

“Sartinly,” sez I, “I’ve bin took that way myself frequent.”

“You’re a man of sin!” sed the Elder.

Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear away the dishes.

“My pretty dears,” sez I, “shall we _yay_ agin?”

“Nay,” they sed, and I _nay’d_.

The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went. The meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as chalk and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all on hand, in clean weskits and meal bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery companies, the mails on one side of the room, and the females on tother. They commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin. They danced kinder slow at fust, but as they got warmed up they shaved it down very brisk, I tell you. Elder Uriah, in particler, exhiberted a right smart chance of spryness in his legs, considerin his time of life, and as he cum a double shuffle near where I sot, I rewarded him with a approvin smile and said, “Hunky boy! Go it, my gay and festiv cuss.”

“You’re a man of sin!” he said, continnering his shuffle.

The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers, and all was ekal. They was the purest and seleckest peple on the yearth. Other peple was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right. Shakers was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobody want goin to stand at the gate to bar ’em out, if they did they’d git run over.

The Shakers then danced and sung agin, and arter they was threw, one of ’em axed me what I thawt of it.

Sez I, “What does it siggerfy?”

“What?” sez he.

“Why this jumpin up and singin? This long weskit bizniss, and this anty-matrimony idee? My frends, you air neat and tidy. Your lands is flowin with milk and honey. Your brooms is fine, and your apple sass is honest. Wehn a man buys a kag of apple sass of you he don’t find a grate many shavins under a few layers of sass—a little Game I’m sorry to say sum of my New Englan ancesters used to practiss. Your garding seeds is fine, and if I should sow ’em on the rock of Gibralter probly I should raise a good mess of garding sass. You air honest in your dealins. You air quiet and don’t distarb nobody. For all this I givs you credit. But your religion is small pertaters, I must say. You mope away your lives here in single retchidness, and as you air all by yourselves nothing ever conflicts with your pecooler idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I give Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No children’s prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns—you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho’ it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker as I ever sot eyes on, air syin to place their heds agin weskits which kiver honest, manly harts, while you old heds fool yerselves with the idee that they air fulfillin their mishun here, and air contented. Here you air, all pend up by yerselves, talkin about the sins of a world you don’t know nothin of. Meanwhile said world continners to resolve round on her own axeltree onct in every 24 hours, subjeck to the Constitution of the United States, and is a very plesant place of residence. It’s a unnatral, onreasonable, and dismal life you’re leadin here. So it strikes me. My Shaker friends, I now bid you a welcome adoo. You hav treated me exceedin well. Thank you kindly, one and all.”

“A base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and onprincipled wax works!” sed Uriah.

“Hello, Uriah,” sez I, “I’d most forgot you. Wall, look out for them fits of yourn, and don’t catch cold and die in the flour of your youth and beauty.”

And I resoomed my jerney.

_Artemus Ward._

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“_EARLY RISING._”

“GOD bless the man who first invented sleep!”
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I:
And bless him also that he didn’t keep
His great discovery to himself; nor try
To make it—as the lucky fellow might—
A close monopoly by patent right.

Yes—bless the man who first invented sleep
(I really can’t avoid the iteration);
But blast the man with curses loud and deep,
Whate’er the rascal’s name, or age, or station,
Who first invented, and went round advising,
That artificial cut-off—Early Rising!

“Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,”
Observes some solemn sentimental owl.
Maxims like these are very cheaply said;
But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,
Pray, just inquire about his rise and fall,
And whether larks have any beds at all!

“The time for honest folks to be abed”
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who cannot keep his precious head
Upon his pillow till it’s fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery; or else—he drinks.

Thomson, who sung about the “Seasons,” said
It was a glorious thing to _rise_ in season;
But then he said it—lying—in his bed,
At ten o’clock A.M.—the very reason
He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is,
His preaching wasn’t sanctioned by his practice.

’Tis, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake,—
Awake to duty, and awake to truth,—
But when, alas! a nice review we take
Of our best deeds and days, we find in sooth,
The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep
Are those we passed in childhood or asleep!

’Tis beautiful to leave the world awhile
For the soft visions of the gentle night;
And free, at last, from mortal care or guile,
To live as only in the angels’ sight,
In sleep’s sweet realm so cosily shut in,
Where, at the worst, we only _dream_ of sin.

So, let us sleep, and give the Maker praise,—
I like the lad who, when his father thought
To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase
Of vagrant worm by early songster caught,
Cried, “Served him right! it’s not at all surprising;
The worm was punished, sir, for early rising.”

_John G. Saxe._

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_HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON’S BAR._

IT had been raining in the valley of Sacramento. The North Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable.

The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson’s Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up stage was stopped at Granger’s; the last mail had been abandoned in the _tules_, the rider swimming for his life.

“An area,” remarked the _Sierra Avalanche_ with pensive local pride, “as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water.”

Nor was the weather any better in the foothills.

The mud lay deep on the mountain road; waggons that neither physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the evil ways into which they had fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to Simpson’s Bar was indicated by broken-down teams and hard swearing.

And farther on, cut-off and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson’s Bar, on the eve of Christmas Day, 1862, clung like a swallow’s nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain, and shook in the blast.

As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights gleamed through the mist from the windows of cabins on either side of the highway now crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept by marauding winds.

Happily most of the population were gathered at Thompson’s store, clustered around a red-hot stove, at which they silently spat in some accepted sense of social communion that perhaps rendered conversation unnecessary.

Indeed most methods of diversion had long since been exhausted on Simpson’s Bar; high water had suspended the regular occupations on gulch and on river, and a consequent lack of money and whisky had taken the zest from most illegitimate recreation.

Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket—the only amount actually realised of the large sums won by him in the successful exercise of his arduous profession.