Chapter C: O N T E N T S (2)

“Well, stranger, except them; for it ar a fact that they are rather _enormous_, and do push themselves in somewhat troublesome. But, stranger, they never stick twice in the same place; and give them a fair chance for a few months, and you will get as much above noticing them as an alligator. They can’t hurt my feelings, for they lay under the skin; and I never knew but one case of injury resulting from them, and that was to a Yankee: and they take worse to foreigners, any how, than they do to natives. But the way they used that fellow up! first they punched him until he swelled up and busted; then he sup-per-a-ted, as the doctor called it, until he was as raw as beef; then he took the ager, owing to the warm weather, and finally he took a steam-boat, and left the country. He was the only man that ever took mosquitoes at heart that I know of. But mosquitoes is natur, and I never find fault with her. If they ar large, Arkansaw is large, her varmints ar large, her trees ar large, her rivers ar large, and a small mosquitoe would be of no more use in Arkansaw than preaching in a cane-brake.”

This knock-down argument in favour of big mosquitoes used the Hoosier up, and the logician started on a new track, to explain how numerous bear were in his “diggins,” where he represented them to be “about as plenty as blackberries, and a little plentifuler.”

Upon the utterance of this assertion, a timid little man near me inquired if the bear in Arkansaw ever attacked the settlers in numbers.

“No,” said our hero, warming with the subject, “no, stranger, for you see it ain’t the natur of bar to go in droves; but the way they squander about in pairs and single ones is edifying. And then the way I hunt them—the old black rascals know the crack of my gun as well as they know a pig’s squealing. They grow thin in our parts, it frightens them so, and they do take the noise dreadfully, poor things. That gun of mine is a perfect _epidemic among bar_: if not watched closely, it will go off as quick on a warm scent as my dog Bowie-knife will: and then that dog—whew! why the fellow thinks that the world is full of bar, he finds them so easy. It’s lucky he don’t talk as well as think; for with his natural modesty, if he should suddenly learn how much he is acknowledged to be ahead of all other dogs in the universe, he would be astonished to death in two minutes. Strangers, that dog knows a bar’s way as well as a horse-jockey knows a woman’s: he always barks at the right time, bites at the exact place, and whips without getting a scratch. I never could tell whether he was made expressly to hunt bar, or whether bar was made expressly for him to hunt: any way, I believe they were ordained to go together as naturally as Squire Jones says a man and woman is, when he moralizes in marrying a couple. In fact, Jones once said, said he:

“‘Marriage, according to law, is a civil contract of divine origin; it’s common to all countries as well as Arkansaw, and people fake to it as naturally as Jim Dogget’s Bowie-knife takes to bar.’”

“What season of the year do your hunts take place?” inquired a gentlemanly foreigner, who, from some peculiarities of his baggage, I suspected to be an Englishman, on some hunting expedition, probably at the foot of the Rocky mountains.

“The season for bar-hunting, stranger,” said the man of Arkansaw, “is generally all the year round, and the hunts take place about as regular. I read in history that varmints have their fat season, and their lean season. That is not the case in Arkansaw: feeding as they do upon the _spontenacious_ productions of the sile, they have one continued fat season the year round: though in winter, things in this way is rather more greasy than in summer, I must admit. For that reason, bar with us run in warm weather, but in winter they only waddle. Fat, fat! it’s an enemy to speed; it tames everything that has plenty of it. I have seen wild turkeys, from its influence, as gentle as chickens. Run a bar in this fat condition, and the way it improves the critter for eating is amazing; it sort of mixes the ile up with the meat, until you can’t tell t’other from which. I’ve done this often. I recollect one perty morning in particular, of putting an old he fellow on the stretch, and considering the weight he carried, he run well. But the dogs soon tired him down, and when I came up with him, wasn’t he in a beautiful sweat—I might say fever; and then to see his tongue sticking out of his mouth a feet, and his sides sinking and opening like a bellows, and his cheeks so fat he couldn’t look cross. In this fix I blazed at him, and pitch me naked into a briar patch if the steam didn’t come out of the bullet-hole ten foot in a straight line. The fellow, I reckon, was made on the high-pressure system, and the lead sort of bust his biler.”

“That column of steam was rather curious, or else the bear must have been _warm_,” observed the foreigner, with a laugh.

“Stranger, as you observe, that bar was _warm_, and the blowing off of the steam show’d it, and also how hard the varmint had been run. I have no doubt if he had kept on two miles farther, his insides would have been stewed; and I expect to meet with a varmint yet of extra bottom, who will run himself into a skinful of bar’s grease: it is possible; much onlikelier things have happened.”

“Whereabouts are these bears so abundant?” inquired the foreigner, with increasing interest.

“Why, stranger, they inhabit the neighbourhood of my settlement, one of the prettiest places on old Mississipi—a perfect location, and no mistake; a place that had some defects, until the river made the ‘cut-off’ at ‘Shirt-tail Bend;’ and that remedied the evil, as it brought my cabin on the edge of the river—a great advantage in wet weather, I assure you, as you can now roll a barrel of whiskey into my yard in high water from a boat, as easy as falling off a log. It’s a great improvement, as toting it by land in a jug, as I used to do, _evaporated_ it too fast, and it became expensive. Just stop with me, stranger, a month or two, or a year, if you like, and you will appreciate my place. I can give you plenty to eat; for, beside hog and hominy, you can have bar-ham and bar-sausages, and a mattrass of bar-skins to sleep on, and a wildcat-skin, pulled off hull, stuffed with corn-shucks, for a pillow. That bed would put you to sleep, if you had the rheumatics in every joint in your body. I call that ar bed a _quietus_. Then look at my land—the government ain’t got another such a piece to dispose of. Such timber, and such bottom land! why, you can’t preserve anything natural you plant in it, unless you pick it young; things thar will grow out of shape so quick. I once planted in those diggins a few potatoes and beets: they took a fine start, and after that an ox-team couldn’t have kept them from growing. About that time, I went off to old Kentuck on bisiness, and did not hear from them things in three months, when I accidentally stumbled on a fellow who had stopped at my place, with an idea of buying me out. ‘How did you like things?’ said I. ‘Pretty well,’ said he: ‘the cabin is convenient, and the timber land is good; but that bottom land ain’t worth the first red cent.’ ‘Why?’ said I. ‘’Cause,’ said he. ‘’Cause what?’ said I. ‘’Cause it’s full of cedar stumps and Indian mounds,’ said he, ‘and _it can’t be cleared_.’ ‘Lord!’ said I, ‘them ar “cedar stumps” is beets, and them ar “Indian mounds” ar tater hills.’

“As I expected, the crop was overgrown and useless: the sile is too rich, and _planting in Arkansaw is dangerous_. I had a good-sized sow killed in that same bottom land. The old thief stole an ear of corn, and took it down where she slept at night to eat. Well she left a grain or two on the ground, and lay down on them: before morning, the corn shot up, and the percussion killed her dead. I don’t plant any more: natur intended Arkansaw for a hunting-ground, and I go according to natur.”

The questioner who thus elicited the description of our hero’s settlement, seemed to be perfectly satisfied, and said no more; but the “Big Bar of Arkansaw” rambled on from one thing to another with a volubility perfectly astonishing, occasionally disputing with those around him, particularly with a “live Sucker” from Illinois, who had the daring to say that our Arkansaw friend’s stories “smelt rather tall.”

In this manner the evening was spent; but, conscious that my own association with so singular a personage would probably end before morning, I asked him if he would not give me a description of some particular bear-hunt; adding, that I took great interest in such things, though I was no sportsman. The desire seemed to please him, and he squared himself round towards me, saying that he could give me an idea of a bar-hunt, that was never beat in this world, or in any other. His manner was so singular, that half of his story consisted in his excellent way of telling it, the great peculiarity of which was, the happy manner he had of emphasizing the prominent parts of his conversation. As near as I can recollect, I have italicized them, and given the story in his own words.

“Stranger,” said he, “in bar-hunts _I am numerous_; and which particular one, as you say, I shall tell, puzzles me. There was the old she-devil I shot at the Hurricane last fall—then there was the old hog thief I popped over at the Bloody Crossing, and then—Yes, I have it! I will give you an idea of a hunt, in which the greatest bar was killed that ever lived, _none excepted_; about an old fellow that I hunted, more or less, for two or three years; and if that ain’t a _particular bar-hunt_, I ain’t got one to tell.

“But, in the first place, stranger, let me say, I am pleased with you, because you ain’t ashamed to gain information by asking and listening; and that’s what I say to Countess’s pups every day, when I’m home; and I have got great hopes of them ar pups, because they are continually _nosing_ about; and though they stick it sometimes in the wrong place, they gain experience any how, and may learn something useful to boot.

“Well, as I was saying about this big bar, you see, when I and some more first settled in our region, we were drivin’ to hunting naturally: we soon liked it, and after that we found it an easy matter to make the thing our business. One old chap, who had pioneered ’afore us, gave us to understand that we had settled in the right place. He dwelt upon its merits until it was affecting, and showed us, to prove his assertions, more marks on the sassafras-trees than I ever saw on a tavern door ’lection time. ‘Who keeps that ar reckoning?’ said I. ‘The bar,’ said he. ‘What for?’ said I. ‘Can’t tell,’ said he; ‘but so it is: the bar bite the bark and wood too, at the highest point from the ground they can reach; and you can tell by the marks,’ said he, ‘the length of the bar to an inch.’ ‘Enough,’ said I; ‘I’ve learned something here a’ready, and I’ll put it in practice.’

“Well, stranger, just one month from that time I killed a bar, and told its exact length before I measured it, by those very marks; and when I did that, I swelled up considerable—I’ve been a prouder man ever since. So I went on, larning something every day, until I was reckoned a buster, and allowed to be decidedly the best bar-hunter in my district; and that is a reputation as much harder to earn than to be reckoned first man in Congress, as an iron ramrod is harder than a toadstool. Did the varmints grow over-cunning by being fooled with by green-horn hunters, and by this means get troublesome, they send for me as a matter of course; and thus I do my own hunting, and most of my neighbours’. I walk into the varmints though, and it has become about as much the same to me as drinking. It is told in two sentences—a bar is started, and he is killed. The thing is somewhat monotonous now—I know just how much they will run, where they will tire, how much they will growl, and what a thundering time I will have in getting them home.

“I could give you this history of the chase, with all the particulars at the commencement, I know the signs so well—_Stranger, I’m certain_. Once I met with a match though, and I will tell you about it; for a common hunt would not be worth relating.

“On a fine fall day, long time ago, I was trailing about for bar, and what should I see but fresh marks on the sassafras-trees, about eight inches above any in the forests that I knew of. Says I, ‘Them marks is a hoax, or it indicates the d—t bar that was ever grown.’ In fact, stranger, I couldn’t believe it was real, and I went on. Again I saw the same marks, at the same height, and _I knew the thing lived_. That conviction came home to my soul like an earthquake. Says I, ‘Here is something a-purpose for me: that bar is mine, or I give up the hunting business.’ The very next morning what should I see but a number of buzzards hovering over my corn-field. ‘The rascal has been there,’ said I, ‘for that sign is certain;’ and, sure enough, on examining, I found the bones of what had been as beautiful a hog the day before, as was ever raised by a Buck-eye. Then I tracked the critter out of the field to the woods, and all the marks he left behind, showed me that he was _the bar_.

“Well, stranger, the first fair chase I ever had with that big critter, I saw him no less than three distinct times at a distance: the dogs run him over eighteen miles and broke down, my horse gave out, and I was as nearly used up as a man can be, made on _my_ principle, _which is patent_. Before this adventure, such things were unknown to me as possible; but, strange as it was, that bar got me used to it before I was done with him; for he got so at last, that he would leave me on a long chase _quite easy_. How he did it, I never could understand. That a bar runs at all is puzzling; but how this one could tire down and bust up a pack of hounds and a horse, that were used to overhauling everything they started after in no time, was past my understanding. Well, stranger, that bar finally got so sassy, that he used to help himself to a hog off my premises whenever he wanted one; the buzzards followed after what he left, and so, between _bar and buzzard_, I rather think I was _out of pork_!

“Well, missing that bar so often took hold of my vitals, and I wasted away. The thing had been carried too far, and it reduced me in flesh faster than an ager. I would see that bar in everything I did: _he hunted me_, and that, too, like a devil, which I began to think he was. While in this fix, I made preparations to give him a last brush, and be done with it. Having completed everything to my satisfaction, I started at sunrise, and to my great joy, I discovered from the way the dogs run, that they were near him; finding his trail was nothing, for that had become as plain to the pack as a turnpike road. On we went, and coming to an open country, what should I see but the bar very leisurely ascending a hill, and the dogs close at his heels, either a match for him this time in speed, or else he did not care to get out of their way—I don’t know which. But wasn’t he a beauty, though? I loved him like a brother.

“On he went, until he came to a tree, the limbs of which formed a crotch about six feet from the ground. Into this crotch he got and seated himself, the dogs yelling all around it; and there he sat eyeing them as quiet as a pond in low water. A green-horn friend of mine, in company, reached shooting distance before me, and blazed away, hitting the critter in the centre of his forehead. The bar shook his head as the ball struck it, and then walked down from that tree as gently as a lady would from a carriage. ’Twas a beautiful sight to see him do that—he was in such a rage that he seemed to be as little afraid of the dogs as if they had been sucking-pigs; and the dogs warn’t slow in making a ring around him at a respectful distance, I tell you; even Bowie-knife, himself, stood off. Then the way his eyes flashed—why the fire of them would have singed a cat’s hair; in fact that bar was in a _wrath all over_. Only one pup came near him, and he was brushed out so totally with the bar’s left paw, that he entirely disappeared; and that made the old dogs more cautious still. In the meantime, I came up, and taking deliberate aim, as a man should do, at his side, just back of his foreleg, _if my gun did not snap_, call me a coward, and I won’t take it personal. Yes, stranger, _it snapped_, and I could not find a cap about my person. While in this predicament, I turned round to my fool friend—says I, ‘Bill,’ says I, ‘you’re an ass—you’re a fool—you might as well have tried to kill that bar by barking the tree under his belly, as to have done it by hitting him in the head. Your shot has made a tiger of him, and blast me, if a dog gets killed or wounded when they come to blows, I will stick my knife into your liver, I will——’

“My wrath was up. I had lost my caps, my gun had snapped, the fellow with me had fired at the bar’s head, and I expected every moment to see him close in with the dogs, and kill a dozen of them at least. In this thing I was mistaken, for the bar leaped over the ring formed by the dogs, and giving a fierce growl, was off—the pack, of course, in full cry after him. The run this time was short, for coming to the edge of a lake the varmint jumped in, and swam to a little island in the lake, which it reached just a moment before the dogs.

“‘I’ll have him now,’ said I, for I had found my caps in the _lining of my coat_—so, rolling a log into the lake, I paddled myself across to the island, just as the dogs had cornered the bar in a thicket. I rushed up and fired—at the same time the critter leaped over the dogs and came within three feet of me, running like mad; he jumped into the lake, and tried to mount the log I had just deserted, but every time he got half his body on it, it would roll over and send him under; the dogs, too, got around him, and pulled him about, and finally Bowie-knife clenched with him, and they sunk into the lake together. Stranger, about this time I was excited, and I stripped off my coat, drew my knife, and intended to have taken a part with Bowie-knife myself, when the bar rose to the surface. But the varmint staid under—Bowie-knife came up alone, more dead than alive, and with the pack came ashore.

“‘Thank God!’ said I, ‘the old villain has got his deserts at last.’

“Determined to have the body, I cut a grape-vine for a rope, and dove down where I could see the bar in the water, fastened my queer rope to his leg, and fished him, with great difficulty, ashore. Stranger, may I be chawed to death by young alligators, if the thing I looked at wasn’t a _she-bar, and not the old critter after all_. The way matters got mixed on that island was onaccountably curious, and thinking of it made me more than ever convinced that I was hunting the devil himself. I went home that night and took to my bed—the thing was killing me. The entire team of Arkansaw in bar-hunting, acknowledged himself used up, and the fact sunk into my feelings like a snagged boat will in the Mississippi. I grew as cross as a bar with two cubs and a sore tail. The thing got out ’mong my neighbours, and I was asked how come on that individ-u-al that never lost a bar when once started? and if that same individ-u-al didn’t wear telescopes when he turned a she-bar, of ordinary size, into an old he one, a little larger than a horse?

“‘Prehaps,’ said I, ‘friends’—getting wrathy—‘prehaps you want to call somebody a liar?’

“‘Oh, no!’ said they ‘we only heard such things as being _rather common_ of late, but we don’t believe one word of it; oh, no,’—and then they would ride off and laugh like so many hyenas over a dead nigger.

“It was too much, and I determined to catch that bar, go to Texas, or die,—and I made my preparations accordin’. I had the pack shut up and rested. I took my rifle to pieces, and iled it. I put caps in every pocket about my person, _for fear of the lining_. I then told my neighbours, that on Monday morning—naming the day—I would start _that bar_, and bring him home with me, or they might divide my settlement among them, the owner having disappeared. Well, stranger, on the morning previous to the great day of my hunting expedition, I went into the woods near my house, taking my gun and Bowie-knife along, just _from habit_, and there sitting down also from habit, what should I see, getting over my fence, but _the bar_! Yes, the old varmint was within a hundred yards of me, and the way he walked _over that fence_—stranger, he loomed up like a _black mist_, he seemed so large, and he walked right towards me. I raised myself, took deliberate aim, and fired. Instantly the varmint wheeled, gave a yell, and _walked through the fence_ like a falling tree would through a cobweb. I started after, but was tripped up by my inexpressibles, which, either from habit, or the excitement of the moment, were about my heels, and before I had really gathered myself up, I heard the old varmint groaning in a thicket near by, like a thousand sinners, and by the time I reached him he was a corpse. Stranger, it took five niggers and myself to put that carcass on a mule’s back, and old long-ears waddled under his load, as if he was foundered in every leg of his body, and with a common whopper of a bar, he would have trotted off, and enjoyed himself. ’Twould astonish you to know how big he was: I made a _bed-spread of his skin_, and the way it used to cover my bar-mattress, and leave several feet on each side to tuck up, would have delighted you. It was in fact a creation bar, and if it had lived in Samson’s time, and had met him, in a fair fight, it would have licked him in the twinkling of a dice-box. But, stranger, I never liked the way I hunted him, _and missed him_. There is something curious about it, I could never understand,—and I never was satisfied at his giving in so _easy at last_. Prehaps, he had heard of my preparations to hunt him the next day, so he jist come in, like Capt. Scott’s coon, to save his wind to grunt with in dying; but that ain’t likely. My private opinion is, that that bar was an _unhuntable bar, and died when his time come_.”

When the story was ended, our hero sat some minutes with his auditors in a grave silence; I saw there was a mystery to him connected with the bear whose death he had just related, that had evidently made a strong impression on his mind. It was also evident that there was some superstitious awe connected with the affair,—a feeling common with all “children of the wood,” when they meet with anything out of their everyday experience. He was the first one, however, to break the silence, and jumping up, he asked all present to “liquor” before going to bed,—a thing which he did, with a number of companions, evidently to his heart’s content.

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[7] By T. B. Thorpe.

V.
JOHNNY BEEDLE’S COURTSHIP.[8]

After my sleigh-ride last winter, and the slippery trick I was served by Patty Bean, nobody would suspect me of hankering after the woman again in a hurry. To hear me rave and take on, and rail out against the whole femenine gender, you would have taken it for granted that I should never so much as look at one again, to all etartinity. Oh, but I was wicked! “Darn their ’ceitful eyes,” says I, “blame their skins, torment their hearts, and drot them to darnation!”

Finally, I took an oath, and swore that if I ever meddled, or had any dealings with them again—in the sparking line I mean—I wish I might be hung and choked. But swearing off from woman, and then going into a meeting-house chockfull of gals, all shining and glistening in their Sunday clothes and clean faces, is like swearing off from liquor and going into a grog-shop—it’s all smoke.

I held out and kept firm to my oath for three whole Sundays, forenoons, a’ternoons, and intermissions complete: on the fourth there were strong symptoms of a change of weather. A chap, about my size, was seen on the way to the meeting-house, with a new patent hat on, his head hung by the ears upon a shirt-collar, his cravat had a pudding in it, and branched out in front into a double-bow knot. He carried a straight back, and a stiff neck, as a man ought to when he has his best clothes on; and every time he spit, he sprung his body forward like a jack-knife, in order to shoot clear off the ruffles.

Squire Jones’s pew is next but two to mine, and when I stand up to prayers, and take my coat-tail under my arm, and turn my back to the minister, I naturally look quite straight at Sally Jones. Now Sally has got a face not to be grinned at in a fog. Indeed, as regards beauty, some folks think she can pull an even yoke with Patty Bean. For my part, I think there is not much boot between them. Anyhow, they are so well matched that they have hated and despised each other like rank poison, ever since they were school-girls.

Squire Jones had got his evening fire on, and set himself down to read the great Bible, when he heard a rap at his door.

“Walk in. Well, John, how der do? Git out, Pompey!”

“Pretty well, I thank you, Squire; and how do you do?”

“Why, so as to be crawling. Ye ugly beast will ye hold yer yop! Haul up a chair and set down, John.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Jones?”

“Oh, middlin’. How’s yer marm?”

“Don’t forget the mat there, Mr. Beedle.”

This put me in mind that I had been off soundings several times in the long muddy lane, and my boots were in a sweet pickle.

It was now old Captain Jones’s turn, the grandfather, being roused from a doze by the bustle and racket; he opened both his eyes, at first with wonder and astonishment. At last, he began to halloo so loud that you might hear him a mile; for he takes it for granted that everybody is just exactly as deaf as he is.

“Who is it, I say? Who in the world is it?”

Mrs. Jones, going close to his ear, screamed out:

“It’s Johnny Beedle!”

“Ho, Johnny Beedle; I remember he was one summer at the siege of Boston.”

“No, no, father; bless your heart, that was his grandfather, that’s been dead and gone this twenty years!”

“Ho! But where does he come from?”

“Daown taown.”

“Ho! And what does he foller for a livin’?”

And he did not stop asking questions after this sort, till all the particulars of the Beedle family were published and proclaimed in Mrs. Jones’s last screech. He then sunk back into his doze again.

The dog stretched himself before one andiron, the cat squat down before the other. Silence came on by degrees, like a calm snow-storm, till nothing was heard but a cricket under the hearth, keeping time with a sappy, yellow-birch forestick. Sally sat up, prim as if she were pinned to the chair-back, her hands crossed genteely upon her lap, and her eyes looking straight into the fire. Mammy Jones tried to straighten herself too, and laid her hands across in her lap. But they would not lay still. It was full twenty-four hours since they had done any work, and they were out of all patience with keeping Sunday. Do what she would to keep them quiet they would bounce up now and then, and go through the motions, in spite of the Fourth Commandment.

For my part, I sat looking very much like a fool. The more I tried to say something, the more my tongue stuck fast. I put my right leg over the left, and said, “Hem!” Then I changed, and put the left over the right. It was no use, the silence kept coming on thicker and thicker. The drops of sweat began to crawl all over me. I got my eye upon my hat, hanging on a peg, on the road to the door, and then I eyed the door. At this moment, the old Captain all at once sung out:

“Johnny Beedle!”

It sounded like a clap of thunder, and I started right up an eend.

“Johnny Beedle, you’ll never handle sich a drumstick as your father did, if you live to the age of Methuseler. He would toss up his drumstick, and while it was whirlin’ in the air, take off a gill er rum, and then ketch it as it come down, without losin’ a stroke in the tune. What d’ye think of that, ha? But scull your chair round close alongside er me, so you can hear. Now, what have you come arter?”

“I arter? Oh, jist takin’ a walk. Pleasant walkin’, I guess. I mean, jest to see how ye all do.”

“Ho, that’s another lie! You’ve come a courtin’, Johnny Beedle; you’re a’ter our Sal. Say, now, d’ye want to marry, or only to court?”

This is what I call a choker. Poor Sally made but one jump, and landed in the middle of the kitchen; and then she skulked in the dark corner, till the old man, after laughing himself into a whooping-cough, was put to bed.

Then came apples and cider, and the ice being broke, plenty chat with Mammy Jones about the minister and the “sarmon.” I agreed with her to a nicety upon all the points of doctrine, but I had forgot the text and all the heads of the discourse, but six. Then she teazed and tormented me to tell who I accounted the best singer in the gallery, that day. But, mum! there was no getting that out of me.

“Praise to the face, is open disgrace,” says I, throwing a sly squint at Sally.

At last, Mrs. Jones lighted tother candle, and after charging Sally to look well to the fire, she led the way to bed, and the Squire gathered up his shoes and stockings, and followed.

Sally and I were left sitting a good yard apart, honest measure. For fear of getting tongue-tied again, I set right in, with a steady stream of talk. I told her all the particulars about the weather that was past, and also made some pretty ’cute guesses at what it was like to be in future. At first, I gave a hitch up with my chair at every full stop; then, growing saucy, I repeated it at every comma and semicolon; and at last, it was hitch, hitch, hitch, and I planted myself fast by the side of her.

“I swore, Sally, you looked so plaguy handsome to-day, that I wanted to eat you up!”

“Pshaw! get along you,” said she.

My hand had crept along, somehow, upon its fingers, and begun to scrape acquaintance with hers. She sent it home again, with a desperate jerk. Try it again—no better luck.

“Why, Miss Jones, you’re gettin’ upstropulous; a little old-maidish, I guess.”

“Hands off is fair play, Mr. Beedle.”

It is a good sign to find a girl sulky; I knew where the shoe pinched—it was that are Patty Bean business. So I went to work to persuade her that I had never had any notion after Patty, and to prove it, I fell to running her down at a great rate. Sally could not help chiming in with me; and I rather guess Miss Patty suffered a few. I now not only got hold of her hand without opposition, but managed to slip an arm round her waist. But there was no satisfying me; so I must go to poking out my lips after a buss. I guess I rued it. She fetched me a slap in the face, that made me see stars, and my ears rung like a brass kettle for a quarter of an hour. I was forced to laugh at the joke, tho’ out of the wrong side of my mouth, which gave my face something the look of a gridiron. The battle now began in the regular way.

“Ah, Sally, give me a kiss, and ha’ done with it, now.”

“I won’t, so, there: nor tech to—”

“I’ll take it, whether or no.”

“Do it if you dare!”

And at it we went, rough and tumble. An odd destruction of starch now commenced: the bow of my cravat was squat up in half a shake. At the next bout, smash went shirt-collar; and at the same time, some of the head fastenings gave way, and down came Sally’s hair in a flood, like a mill-dam broke loose, carrying away half a dozen combs. One dig of Sally’s elbow, and my blooming ruffles wilted down to a dish-cloth. But she had no time to boast. Soon her neck tackeling began to shiver; it parted at the throat, and whorah came a whole school of blue and white beads, scampering and running races, every which way about the floor.

By the hookey, if Sally Jones is not real grit, there’s no snakes. She fought fair, however, I must own, and neither tried to bite or scratch; and when she could fight no longer, she yielded handsomely. Her arms fell down by her sides, her head back over her chair, her eyes closed, and there lay her little plump mouth, all in the air. Lord, did ye ever see a hawk pounce upon a young robin, or a bumble-bee upon a clover top? I say nothing.

Consarn it, how a buss will crack of a still, frosty night! Mrs. Jones was about half way between asleep and awake.

“There goes my yeast bottle,” says she to herself, “burst into twenty hundred pieces; and my bread is all dough agin.”

The upshot of the matter is, I fell in love with Sally Jones, head over ears. Every Sunday night, rain or shine, finds me rapping at Squire Jones’s door; and twenty times have I been within a hair’s breadth of popping the question. But now I have made a final resolve, and if I live till next Sunday night, and I don’t get choked in the trial, Sally Jones will hear thunder.

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[8] By W. J. McClintoch.

VI.
THE MARRIAGE OF JOHNNY BEEDLE.[9]

Since I came out in print about my sleigh-riding, and frolicing, and courting, I have entered into the matrimonial state, and left off dabbling in the newspapers: for a married man has a character to take care of. But folks tease and torment me so much to let ’em know the particulars about my marriage, that I don’t know that I had best sit down once for all, and tell the rest of my experience.

When I left off, I believe I was spunking up to Sally Jones like all vengeance, and threatening to give her the butt-end of my sentiments, wasn’t I? Well, I was as good as my word. The next Sabbath-day I went right to work, after meeting, upon the outer man, as Deacon Carpenter says, and by sundown, things looked about right. I say nothing; but when I stood up to the glass to finish, and thought of titivating hair and wiskers, and so forth, I saw a little fellow there that looked wicked, and says I, “If Sally Jones knows which side her bread is buttered—but no matter, she shan’t say I didn’t give a chance.”

“Well, I went over to the Squire’s, pretty well satisfied in my own mind; so, after flattering and crowing about her a little while, I up and shew the cloven foot.

“Sally,” says I, “will you take me for better or worser?”

This put her to considering, and I gave a flourishing about the room, and cut a carly-cue with my right foot, as much as to say, “Take your own time.”

At last, says she, “I’d as liv’s have you as anybody in the world, John, but—I declare I can’t.”

“You can’t, ha! And why?”

“Cause—”

“Cause what?”

“Cause I can’t, and that’s enough. I would in a minute, John, but for only one reason, and that I’m afraid to tell ye.”

“Poh, poh!” says I, “don’t be bashful. If there’s only one stump in the way, I guess here’s a fellow—”

“Well, then, look tother way, John; I can’t speak if you look at me.”

“O, yes; there, now’s your time,” says I, with a flert.

“The reason is—Joe Bowers, the stage-driver. Now, you shan’t tell nobody, John, will ye?”

Who would have thought this of Sally Jones!

It seemed to me the very Old Boy had got into the women: they fairly put me to nonplush! All this time, my popularity with the ladies was amazing. To see them flattering and soft-soaping me all at once, you would have sworn I had nothing to do but pick and choose. I had as much gallantry to do as I wanted everywhere; and for politeness and gentility I never turned my back to no man. Then they were so thick and familiar with me, that they didn’t care what they said or did before me; and, finally, whenever they had errands or chores to, who but I was the favourite bird to fetch and carry? I was for ever and ever racing and cantering from post to pillar, to do their bidding. Rain or shine, snow or mud, nothing stopping me; and, I may say, I fairly earned their smiles by the sweat of my brow. Then it was, “O, Mr. Beedle! what should we do without Mr. Beedle!” But when I caught one alone, and began to touch upon the matrimonial sentiments, then how quick the tune was changed! O, the ways of women are curious!

Patty Bean was not the first I run against, by a long short. I never lost anything for the want of asking; and I was plagy apt to talk turky always when I get sociable, if it was only out of politeness. Now and then one would promise, and then fly off at the handle; but most all contrive some reason or other for giving me the bag to hold. One had taken a firm resolve never to marry—“No, never, never!” and the next Sunday morning she was published! Another chicken thought she was a great deal too young to undertake to manage a family. At last, I took a great shine to the school-marm, Huldah Hornbeam, though she was ten years older than I, and taller by half a yard of neck; and when I offered her heart and hand, she fixed up her mouth, and, says she, “I’ve a great respect and esteem for you, Mr. Beedle, but—” and so forth. Nothing will cool a man quicker than respect and esteem, unless it is a wet blanket. But let Huldah alone, she had her eyes upon Deacon Carpenter all the time.

Well, as I was going moping along home, from Squire Jones’s, I fell in with Doctor Dingley. The Doctor saw in a minute that something was the matter, and he went to work and pumped the whole secret out of me. Then he seemed so friendly, that I up and told him all my experience with the women, from the beginning to the end.

“Well, John,” says he, “I advise you now to wait till the twenty-ninth of February, when the gals turn round and courted the fellows. It’s none of my business, but, I wouldn’t let the women make a fool of me any more.”

Well, I took a resolution, and I stuck to it firm; for when I once set up my ebenezer, I am just like a mountain. I stuck to it along pretty well into January, when I had to go to singing school. I must go to singing school, for I was leader in treble, and there was no carrying on the parts without me. But this was nothing, if it hadn’t fell to my lot to go home with Hannah Peabody, four times running. Politeness before everything. Well, she kept growing prettier and prettier every time, but I only grit my teeth and held on the harder.

By and by, Sabbath-day night came round, and I felt a sort of uneasy, moping about home; and, says I, this resolution will never set well on my stomach without air and exercise; and before I had done thinking of this, I was more than half way to Captain Peabody’s. It was about daylight down as I was passing by the kitchen; but hearing a sort of snickering inside, I slipped up and peeped into the window, just out of curiosity.

There was no candle burning, for Mrs. Peabody is saving of tallow, but I could see Hannah and Pol Partridge, the help, telling fortunes in the ashes by firelight. I turned round to go off, and run right against Jack Robinson. Jack was come to sit up with the help, and would insist upon it, I should go in and see Hannah—“She hasn’t had a spark this month,” says he, “and in you shall go, or I’ll lick ye.”

Well, there was no dodging here, and all I had to do was to grin and bear it. So in I went, and once in, good bye to resolution. The short and the long of it, I was soon as deep in the mud as I had been in the mire. But I had another guess chap to deal with than Sally Jones now. And here was now the difference between them. Where you got a slap in the chops from Sal, Hannah kep ye off with a scowl and a cock up of the nose. And Madam couldn’t bear handling. With her, it was talk is talk, but hands off, Mister.

But I rather guess I had cut my eye-teeth by this time. If I hadn’t learnt something about the nature of the women, the kicks I had taken from all quarters fell upon barren ground. There is no way to deal with them but to coax and flatter; you gain nothing, let me tell ye, by saving of soft soap; and you must be sly about it. It is no way to catch a wicked devil of a colt, in a pasture, to march right up, bridle in hand; you must sort of sidle along as if you was going past, and whistle, and pretend to be looking tother way; and so round and round, till at last you corner him up; then jump and clench him by the forelock. O! I’m not so great a fool as I might be.

But it was a long tedious business before Hannah and I could come to any sort of understanding. There was old Captain Peabody was a stump in my way. He was a man that had no regard for politeness; he travelled rough-shod through the town, carrying a high head and a stiff upper lip, as much as to say: “I owes nobody nothing, by ——.” He had been a skipper and sailed his schooner all along ashore, till he had got forehanded; then went back, up country, and set down to farming. But I never tuckle to man, if he’s as big as all out-doors. And after he poked his fist in my face, one ’lection, we never hitched horses together.

Well, as I was afeard to go to the house, and court Hannah in the regular way, I had to carry on the war just when and where I could; sometimes of a dark night, I could steal into the kitchen. But my safest plan was, to track her to the neighbour’s house, where she went to spend the evenings; skulk about till she started home, then waylay her on the road. Pretty poor chance this, you’ll say. But if this wasn’t enough, Hannah herself must join in to plague me half to death.

You see I wanted to let her know what I was after in a sort of a delicate under-hand way, and keep myself on the safe side of the fence all the time, if there was to be any kicking. But Hannah had no notion of riddles; she would not understand any sort of plain English. I hinted plagy suspicions about true love, and Cupid’s darts, and all that. Then I would breathe a long sithe, and say: “What does that mean, Hannah?” But no, she couldn’t see, poor soul; she looked as simple an’ innocent all the while as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

She was plaguy close, too, as to her goings and comings; and if she happened any time by accident to let drop the least word that show’d me where to find her next time, she was so mad with herself that she was ready to bite her tongue off.

One day she was going to her Aunt Molly’s to spend the evening, and she went all the way round to Dr. Dingley’s to tell Mrs. Dingley not to tell me. “For,” says she, “I don’t want him to be dodging me about everywhere.” Well, Mrs. Dingley, she promised to keep dark, but she told the Doctor, and what does the Doctor do, but comes right straight over and tells me, “Gone all stark alone,” says he, “but it’s none of my business.”

This is the day that I have marked with a piece of chalk. Hardly was daylight down before I was snug in my skulking nest, in Aunt Molly’s barn. It was on the hay-mow, where there was a knot-hole handy to look through and see all that went in or out of the house. I had a scheme in my head that Hannah little dreamt of; and I lay and I thought it over till she came out; and when I got her under my arm, and walking down the lane, thinks I, I’ll set the stone a-rolling anyhow, let it stop where it will.

So I set on to talking about this and that and tother thing, and happened (by mere chance, you know) to mention our old hatter shop, that stands at the corner, that my father used to work in when he was alive. “And,” says I, “speaking of the shop, always puts me in mind of you, Hannah.”

“Of me, John?” says she. “Why?”

“O! it’s just the thing for a store,” says I.

“Well?”

“Sweep out the dirt, and old hat pairings, and truck—”

“Well?”

“Take the sign; rub out ‘Hatter,’ and put in ‘Merchant;’ and that spells ‘John Beedle, Merchant—’”

“Well, John?”

“Then get rum and molasses, and salt-fish, and ribbonds and calicoes—”

“O!” says she, “it’s my new calico gownd you was a-thinking of. Ain’t it pretty?”

“Oh!” says I “’tis a sweet pretty gownd,” says I. “But—I finally concluded to set up store and get married, and settle myself down as a merchant for life—”

At this, Hannah hung down her head and gave a snicker. “And how does all that put you in mind of me, John?” says she.

“Guess.”

“I won’t guess to touch to, so there now—I never!”

What I said, and what she said next, is all lost, for I’ll be shot if I can remember. It’s all buz, buz, in my head, like a dream. The first thing I knew, we were right again Captain Peabody’s barn, walking as close together as we could with comfort, and our arms crossed round each other’s waist. Hannah’s tongue had got thawed out, and was running like a brook on a freshet, and all one steady stream of honey. I vow, I was ready to jump out of my skin.

It was a mile and a half from Aunt Molly’s to Captain Peabody’s, and I thought we had been about a minute on the road. So says I: “Hannah, let’s go set down under the great apple-tree and have-a little chat, just to taper off the evening.” We now sat down and began to talk sensible. We settled all the predicaments of the nuptial ceremony, and then talked over the store till we thought we saw ourselves behind the counter; I weighing and measuring, and dickering and dealing out, and she, at the desk, pen in hand, figuring up the accounts. “And mind, John,” says she, “I’m not a-going to trust everybody at the corner, I tell ye.” But just as we were beginning to get sociable, as I thought, Hannah looks up, and says she: “What can that ’ere great red streak be, in the sky, away down there beyond Sacarrap?”

“I rather guess,” says I, “it’s a fire in the woods.”

“Fire in the woods! I’ll be skinned if it isn’t daylight a-coming. Quick, John, help me into the window before father’s a-stirring, or here’ll be a pretty how d’ye do.”

The next job was to tell the news to Captain Peabody. Hannah had settled it that she should speak to her mother, and said she could manage her well enough, and it was my business to ask her father. This was a thing easier said than done. It stuck in my crop for days, like a raw onion. I tried to persuade Hannah to marry fust, and ask afterwards. Says I: “You are twenty-four, and free according to law.” But she wouldn’t hear to it. She had no notion of doing anything clandestinely. Then I asked Doctor Dingley to go and break the ice for me. But no: he would not meddle with other folks’ business—he made it a point.

“Well,” says I, “if I have got to come to the scratch, the less I consider on it the better.” So one stormy day I put my head down against a north-easter, and set my feet a-going; and the next thing I was standing right before Captain Peabody. He was in his grain-house, shelling corn, sitting on a tub, with an old frying-pan stuck through the handles; and he made the cobs fly every which way, hit or miss—he didn’t care. But it tickled him so to see me dodge ’em, that he got into uncommon good humour.

“Well, Johnny Beedle, what has bro’t you up here, right into the wind’s eye, this ere morning?”

“Why, Cap’m, I’ve got an idea in my head.”

“No! how you talk!”

“Ye see, the upshot of the matter is, I’ve a notion of setting up a store, and getting a wife, and settling myself down as a merchant.”

“Whoorah, John, there’s two ideas—a store and a wife.”

“But I want a little of your help,” says I.