Chapter III (3)

“Well, the bear, by course, soon run out o’ provisions, and had to put himself onto short allowance; and then he begun to show his natural temper. He first stretched himself out as far as he could go, and tried to hook the captin’s piece o’ seal, but when he found he couldn’t reach that, he begun to blow and yell. Then he’d rare up and roar, and try to get himself clear from the ice. But mostly he rared up and roared, and pounded his big paws and head upon the ice, till by-and-by (jist as the captin said he expected) the ice cracked in two agin, and split right through between the bear and the captin and there they was on two different pieces o’ ice, the captin and the bear! The old man said he raaly felt sorry at parten company, and when the cake split and separate, he cut off about a haaf o’ pound o’ seal and chucked it to the bear. But either because it wan’t enough for him, or else on account o’ his feelen bad at the captin’s goen, the beast wouldn’t touch it to eat it, and he laid it down, and growled and moaned over it quite pitiful. Well, off they went, one, one way, and t’other ’nother way, both feel’n pretty bad, I expect. After a while the captin got smart and cold, and felt mighty lonesome, and he said he raaly thought he’d a gi’n in and died, if they hadn’t pick’d him up that arternoon.”

“Who picked him up, Venus?”

“Who? a codfish craft off o’ Newfoundland, I expect. They didn’t know what to make o’ him when they first see him slingen up his hat for ’em. But they got out all their boats, and took a small swivel and a couple o’ muskets aboard, and started off—expecten it was the sea-sarpent, or an old maremaid. They wouldn’t believe it was a man, until he’d told ’em all about it, and then they didn’t hardly believe it nuther; and they cut him out o’ the ice and tuk him aboard their vessel, and rubbed his legs with ile o’ vitrol; but it was a long time afore they come to.”

“Didn’t they hurt him badly in cutting him out, Venus?”

“No, Sir, I believe not; not so bad as one might s’pose: for you see he’d been stuck in so long, that the circulaten on his blood had kind o’ rotted the ice that was right next to him, and when they begun to cut, it crack’d off putty smart and easy, and he come out whole like a hard biled egg.”

“What became of the bear?”

“Can’t say as to that, what became o’ him. He went off to sea somewheres, I expect. I should like to know, myself, how the varment got along right well, for it was kind in him to let the captin have the biggest haaf o’ the seal, any how. That’s all, boys. How many’s asleep?”

XIX.
THE BEST-NATURED MAN IN THE WORLD.[13]

A yielding temper, when not carefully watched and curbed, is one of the most dangerous of faults. Like unregulated generosity, it is apt to carry its owner into a thousand difficulties, and, too frequently, to hurry him into vice, if not into crimes. But as it is of advantage to others while inflicting injury upon its possessor, it has, by the common consent of mankind, received a fine name, which covers its follies and promotes its growth. This easiness of disposition, which is a compound of indolence, vanity, and irresolution, is known and applauded as “good-nature;” and, to have reached the superlative degree, so as to be called the “best-natured fellow in the world—almost too good-natured for his own good,” is regarded as a lofty merit.

The “best-natured fellow in the world” is merely a convenience; very useful to others, but worse than useless to himself. He is the bridge across the brook, and men walk over him. He is the wandering pony of the Pampas, seeking his own provender, yet ridden by those who contribute not to his support. He giveth up all the sunshine, and hath nothing but chilling shade for himself. He waiteth at the table of the world, serveth the guests, who clear the board, and, for food and pay, give him fine words, which culinary research hath long since ascertained cannot be used with profit, even in the buttering of parsnips. He is, in fact, an appendage, not an individuality; and when worn out, as he soon must be, is thrown aside to make room for another, if another can be had. Such is the result of excessive compliance and obsequious good-nature. It plundereth a man of his spine, and converteth him into a flexible willow, to be bent and twisted as his companions choose, and, should it please them, to be wreathed into a fish-basket.

Are there any who doubt of this? Let them inquire for one Leniter Salix, and ask his opinion. Leniter may be ragged, but his philosophy has not so many holes in it as might be inferred from the state of his wardrobe. Nay, it is the more perfect on that account; a knowledge of the world penetrates the more easily when, from defective apparel, we approach the nearer to our original selves. Leniter’s hat is crownless, and the clear light of knowledge streams without impediment upon his brain. He is not bound up in the strait jacket of prejudice, for he long since pawned his solitary vest, and his coat, made for a Goliath, hangs about him as loosely as a politician’s principles, or as the purser’s shirt in the poetical comparison. Salix has so long bumped his head against a stone wall, that he has knocked a hole in it, and like Cooke, the tragedian, sees through his error. He has speculated as extensively in experience as if it were town lots. The quantity of that article he has purchased, could it be made tangible, would freight a seventy-four;—were it convertible into cash, Crœsus would be a Chelsea pensioner to Salix. But unluckily for him, there are stages in life when experience itself is more ornamental than useful. When, to use a forcible expression—when a man is “done,”—it matters not whether he has as much experience as Samson had hair, or as Bergami had whisker—he can do no more. Salix has been in his time so much pestered with _duns_, “hateful to gods and men,” that he is _done_ himself.

“The sun was rushing down the west,” as Banim has it, attending to its own business, and, by that means, shedding benefit upon the world, when Leniter Salix was seen in front of a little grocery, the _locale_ of which shall be nameless, sitting dejectedly upon a keg of mackerel, number 2. He had been “the best-natured fellow in the world,” but, as the geologists say, he was in a state of transition, and was rapidly becoming up to _trap_. At all events, he had his nose to the grindstone, an operation which should make men keen. He was houseless, homeless, penniless, and the grocery man had asked him to keep an eye upon the dog, for fear of the midsummer catastrophe which awaits such animals when their snouts are not in a birdcage. This service was to be recompensed with a cracker, and a glass of what the shopman was pleased to call _racky mirackilis_, a fluid sometimes termed “railroad,” from the rapidity with which it hurries men to the end of their journey. Like many of the best-natured fellows in the world, Salix, by way of being a capital companion, and of not being different from others, had acquired rather a partiality for riding on this “railroad,” and he agreed to keep his trigger eye on the dog.

“That’s right, Salix. I always knowed you were the best-natured fellow in the world.”

“H-u-m-p-s-e!” sighed Salix, in a prolonged, plaintive, uncertain manner, as if he admitted the fact, but doubted the honour; “h-u-m-p-s-e! but, if it wasn’t for the railroad, which is good for my complaint, because I take it internally to drive out the perspiration, I’ve a sort of a notion Carlo might take care of himself. There’s the dog playing about without his muzzle, just because I’m good-natured; there’s Timpkins at work making money inside, instead of watching his own whelp, just because I’m good-natured; and I’m to sit here doing nothing instead of going to get a little job a man promised me down town, just because I’m good-natured. I can’t see exactly what’s the use of it to me. It’s pretty much like having a bed of your own, and letting other people sleep in it, soft, while you sleep on the bare floor, hard. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could have half, or quarter of the bed; but no—these good friends of mine, as I may say, turn in, take it all, roll themselves up in the kivering, and won’t let us have a bit of sheet to mollify the white pine sacking bottom, the which pleasant to whittle with a sharp knife—quite soft enough for that purpose—but the which is not the pink of feather-beds. I don’t like it—I’m getting tired.”

The brow of Salix began to blacken—therein having decidedly the advantage of his boots, which could neither blacken themselves, nor prevail on their master to do it—when Mrs. Timpkins, the shopman’s wife, popped out with a child in her arms, and three more trapesing after her.

“Law, Salix, how-dee-doo? I’m so glad—I know you’re the best-natured creature in the world. Jist hold little Biddy a while, and keep an eye on t’other young ’uns—you’re such a nurse—he! he! he!—so busy—ain’t got no girl—so busy washing—most tea time—he! he! he! Salix.”

Mrs. Timpkins disappeared, Biddy remained in the arms of Salix, and “t’other young ’uns” raced about with the dog. The trigger eye was compelled to invoke the aid of its coadjutor.

“Whew!” whistled Salix; “the quantity of pork they give in this part of the town for a shilling is amazin’—I’m so good-natured! That railroad will be well earnt any how. I’m beginning to think it’s queer there ain’t more good-natured people about besides me—I’m a sort of mayor and corporation all myself in this business. It’s a monopoly where the profit’s all loss. Now, for instance, these Timpkinses won’t ask me to tea, because I’m ragged; but they ar’n’t a bit too proud to ask me to play child’s nurse and dog’s uncle—they won’t lend me any money, because I can’t pay, and they’re persimmony and sour about cash concerns—and they won’t let me have time to earn any money, and get good clothes—that’s because I’m so good-natured. I’ve a good mind to strike, and be sassy.”

“Hallo! Salix, my good fellow!” said a man, on a horse, as he rode up; “you’re the very chap I’m looking for. As I says to my old woman, says I, Leniter Salix is the wholesoul’dest chap I ever did see. There’s nothing he won’t do for a friend, and I’ll never forget him, if I was to live as old as Methuselah.”

Salix smiled—Hannibal softened rocks with vinegar, but the stranger melted the ice of our hero’s resolution with praise. Salix walked towards him, holding the child with one hand as he extended the other for a friendly shake.

“You’re the best-natured fellow in the world, Salix,” ejaculated the stranger, as he leaped from the saddle, and hung the reins upon Salix’s extended fingers, instead of shaking hands with him; “you’re the best-natured fellow in the world. Just hold my horse a minute. I’ll be back in a jiffey, Salix; in less than half an hour,” said the dismounted rider, as he shot round the corner.

“If that ain’t cutting it fat, I’ll be darned!” growled Salix, as soon as he had recovered from his breathless amazement, and had gazed from dog to babe—from horse to children.

“Mr. Salix,” screamed Miss Tabitha Gadabout from the next house, “I’m just running over to Timpson’s place. Keep an eye on my street door—back in a minute.”

She flew across the street, and as she went, the words “best-natured soul alive” were heard upon the breeze.

“That’s considerable fatter—it’s as fat as show beef,” said Salix. “How many eyes has a good-natured fellow got, anyhow? Three of mine’s in use a’ready. The good-natureder you are, the more eyes you have, I s’pose. That job up town’s jobbed without me, and where I’m to sleep, or to eat my supper, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to tell. Ain’t paid my board this six months, I’m so good-natured; and the old woman’s so good-natured, she said I needn’t come back. These Timpkinses and all of ’em are ready enough at asking me to do things, but when I ask them—There, that dog’s off, and the ketchers are coming—Carlo! Carlo!”

The baby began squalling, and the horse grew restive, the dog scampered into the very teeth of danger; and the three little Timpkinses, who could locomote, went scrabbling, in different directions, into all sorts of mischief, until finally one of them pitched head foremost into a cellar.

Salix grew furious.

“Whoa, pony!—hush, you infernal brat!—here, Carlo!—Thunder and crockery!—there’s a young Timpkins smashed and spoilt!—knocked into a cocked hat!”

“Mr. Salix!” shouted a boy, from the other side of the way, “when you’re done that ’ere, mammy says if you won’t go a little narrand for her, you’re so good-nater’d.”

There are moments when calamity nerves us; when wild frenzy congeals into calm resolve; as one may see by penning a cat in a corner. It is then that the coward fights; that the oppressed strikes at the life of the oppressor. That moment had come to Salix. He stood bolt upright, as cold and as straight as an icicle. His good-nature might be seen to drop from him in two pieces, like Cinderella’s kitchen garments in the opera. He laid Biddy Timpkins on the top of the barrel, released the horse, giving him a vigorous kick, which sent him flying down the street, and strode indignantly away, leaving Carlo, Miss Gadabout’s house, and all other matters in his charge, to the guardianship of chance.

* * * * *

The last time Salix was seen in the busy haunts of men, he looked the very incarnation of gloom and despair. His very coat had gone to relieve his necessities, and he wandered slowly and dejectedly about, relieving the workings of his perturbed spirit by kicking whatever fell in his way.

“I’m done,” soliloquized he; “pardenership between me and good-nature is this day dissolved, and all persons indebted will please to settle with the undersigned, who alone is authorized. Yes, there’s a good many indebted, and it’s high time to dissolve, when your pardener has sold all the goods and spent all the money. Once I had a little shop—ah! wasn’t it nice?—plenty of goods and plenty of business. But then comes one troop of fellows, and they wanted tick—I’m so good-natured; then comes another set of chaps, who didn’t let bashfulness stand in their way a minute; they sailed a good deal nearer the wind, and wanted to borry money—I’m so good-natured; and more asked me to go security. These fellows were always very particular friends of mine, and got what they asked for; but I was a very particular friend of theirs, and couldn’t get it back. It was one of the good rules that won’t work both ways; and I, somehow or other, was at the wrong end of it, for it wouldn’t work my way at all. There’s few rules that will, barring substraction, and division, and alligation, when our folks allegated against me that I wouldn’t come to no good. All the cypherin’ I could ever do made more come to little, and little come to less; and yet, as I said afore, I had a good many assistants too.

“Business kept pretty fair; but I wasn’t cured. Because I was good-natured, I had to go with ’em frolicking, tea-partying, excursioning, and busting; and for the same reason, I was always appinted treasurer to make the distribution when there wasn’t a cent of surplus revenue in the treasury, but my own. It was my job to pay all the bills. Yes, it was always ‘Salix, you know me’—‘Salix, pony up at the bar, and lend us a levy’—‘Salix always shells out like a gentleman.’ Oh, to be sure! and why not?—now I’m shelled out myself—first out of my shop by old _venditioni exponas_, at the State House—old _fiery fash’us_ to me directed. But they didn’t direct him soon enough, for he only got the fixtures. The goods had gone out on a bust long before I busted. Next, I was shelled out of my boarding house; and now,” (with a lugubrious glance at his shirt and pantaloons,) “I’m nearly shelled out of my clothes. It’s a good thing they can’t easy shell me out of my skin, or they would, and let me catch my death of cold. I’m a mere shell-fish—an oyster with the kivers off.

“But, it was always so—when I was a little boy, they coaxed all my pennies out of me; coaxed me to take all the jawings, and all the hidings, and to go first into all sorts of scrapes, and precious scrapings they used to be. I wonder if there isn’t two kinds of people—one kind that’s made to chaw up t’other kind, and t’other kind that’s made to be chawed up by one kind?—cat-kind of people, and mouse-kind of people? I guess there is. I’m very much of a mouse myself.

“What I want to know is, what’s to become of me. I’ve spent all I had in getting my eddication. Learnin’, they say, is better than houses and lands. I wonder if anybody will swap some house and land with me for mine? I’d go it even and ask no boot. They should have it at prime cost; but they won’t; and I begin to be afraid I’ll have to get married, or ’list in the marines. That’s what most people do when they’ve nothing to do.”

* * * * *

What became of Leniter Salix immediately, is immaterial; what will become of him eventually is clear enough. His story is one acting every day, and, though grotesquely sketched, is an evidence of the danger of an accommodating disposition when not regulated by prudence. The softness of “the best-natured fellow in the world” requires a large admixture of hardening alloy to give it the proper temper.

-----

[13] By J. C. Neal.

XX.
CHUNKEY’S FIGHT WITH THE PANTHERS.

Co Chunk! went Jem into the middle of the floor; jest at the crack off day (Jem is a labor-savin’ man about ondressing when he goes to bed). He commenced chunkin’ the fire, then “ah!” says he, feelin’ for the tin cup. Presently he went to the door, and shouted to the foreman:

“Sound that horn, Hembry. Tell the niggars in the quarter to lumber the hollar back agin to the kitchen, for a hurricane has surely broke loose!”

Then “ah!” says he again, and in he comes.

“Chunkey!” says he.

“What’s busted, Jem?”

“North pole has busted, and no mistake. The ground is kivered with snow.”

I sprung up, and sure enough thar was the snow, the first that ever fell in the creek, jest follerin’ civilization. I knowed thar’d be howlin’, smashin’ of teeth, burnin’ of brimstone, and a worryin’ of the stranger, on the creek to-day, and so, I reckon, did the dogs, ’cause when Hembry blowed the horn, they come a shoutin’ like so many imps. Jest imagin, Captin, thirty full-grown dogs, a cross of the blood on the old Virginny foxhound, keen as a bowyer, and adzactly of Jem’s opinion, signifying as plain as they could, if huntin’s goin’ on, they’d take a chance.

Well, we splurged about till breakfast-time, gettin’ up and cleanin’ guns, and countin’ balls, and dividin’ powder.

“Bring out them bar-sassage and deer melts,” says Jem; “and then, Chunkey, we’ll locomotion.”

His eyes all the time lookin’ like a live coal of fire, and every muscle jumpin’ for joy.

“Look out, bar,” says he.

“Say low, and keep dark, panter,” says I.

“Deer, don’t you come nigh me,” says Jem, and then he commenced singin’:

“Oh, rain come wet me, sun come dry me,
Take care, white man, don’t come nigh me,”

and strikin’ a few flourishes of the goin’ and comin’ double shuffle.

“Hurrah for Sky Lake,” says I.

“Hurrah for the Forkin’ Cypress drive,” says Jem, takin’ a drink, and cuttin’ a few pigeon-wings with his left leg. “Now mind, Chunkey, no deer or wild turkey, no hogs or cub—nothin’ but bar or panter.”

“Agreed,” says I, and then we budged.

Captin, you’ve hearn Jem say, he’s hard of hearin’? Well, he is sometimes, ’specially when he don’t want to hear; but that mornin’ he was wide awake all over, and could have hearn an old he bar grunt in a thunder-storm.

“I’ll carry the horn, Chunkey. If you blow, I can’t hear you; and when I want you, I’ll blow, and you can.”

I didn’t ’spect anything then, but you’ll see.

Well, we had our big guns, them the govenor gin us; they throw twelve to the pound, and war made by that man what lives in Louisville; what’s his name?

He promised to send me a deer-gun gratis for two young panters, but he ain’t done it.

Jem’s gun war in bar order that mornin’, and if you’d jest say varment above your breath, click it would go, cockin’ itself.

Lots of deer war ’tinually passin’; that day some on ’em stood feedin’ jist as careless as a loafer with a full belly; they kno’ed they war safe. The day was mighty clear and yaller; it warn’t very cold, but still the snow diddent melt, but floated sorter like turkey-feathers in the wind, and in the tall cane it fell round us like a fog.

When we got to the Forkin’ Cypress, Sol soon had a camp made; and I and Jem started to look for sign.

We hadn’t been gone long, when I hearn Jem’s horn, and made to him; thar war a sign at the foot of a tree, and thar war his track in the snow.

“Shall we hail him, Chunkey?”

“In course,” says I.

Well, we hollered to Sol, to let the dogs loose. Presently, I heard ’em give some short licks, and I knowed he war up.

“Thar’s a cry for you.”

Away they go further and further, presently you can jest hear ’em, and then they are clean gone. I hearn Jem shoutin’ awhile, and then his mouth is lost too. I started on, spectin’ to meet ’em comin’ back, and in about an hour I hearn Jem’s voice:

“Who-whoop!”

“Ah, bar!” says I, “whar’s your friends?”

I soon hearn Jem agin, and presently I hearn the dogs, like the ringin’ of a cow-bell, a long way off. They come up the ridge, and then bore off to the thick cane on my right. Then they hushed awhile, and I knoed they’s a fightin’.

Look out, dogs; thar, they are gwyine again—no, here they comes! Lay low, and keep dark.

I put down another ball, and stood for him. I heard the cane crackin’, and cocked my gun. Here he comes—here he is. I hear him snortin’, wake snakes. Ain’t that lumberin’? Thar, they’ve got him again, and now the fur flies. I crawled thro’ the cane, trying to get a shot afore the dogs seen me. Thar they is, but which is he?

Bang! whiff, whiff, said the bar, and with that every dog jumped him. The canes a crackin’, and the dogs a hollerin’. I jerked my bowyer and plunged in, and thar they war hung togather like a swarm of bees. I felt the har risin’ on my head, and the blood ticklin’ the end of my fingers. I crept up behind him and he war done fightin’. He haddent got a hundred yards from the place whar I’d shot him. It war a death shot, and blinded him, and thar side of him lay “Singer” and “Constitutional,” two of the best dogs in Jem’s pack. I giv a shout, and Jem answered. Presently I hearn him cummin’, blowin’ like a steam-boat, and mad as anything; he always gits mad when he’s tired, and when he seen them dead dogs, he commenced breathin’ mighty hard, and the veins in his neck was as big as fingers; we warn’t more than a quarter and a half from the camp, whar we soon got, both mighty hungry and tired. Sol cooked the liver jest to the right pint, and we spent the balance of the evenin’ in singin’, braggin’, and eatin’ spar-ribs roasted brown, till we went to sleep.

Next mornin’ when we waked, it was sorter cloudy and warm too. The wind war blowin’ mightily.

“Now, Chunkey, let’s have a panter to-day, _or nothin’_.”

“All _sot_,” says I.

Well, arter breakfast Jem says, “Chunkey, you must take the right side the Lake, and I’ll take the ’yether, till we meet—and, Chunkey, you must _rush_; it ain’t more nor eight miles round, but your side _may_ seem long, as you ain’t usen to the ground. Let’s licker out of _my_ gourd, you ain’t got more nor you’ll want. Keep your eye skinned for sign, and listen for my horn!”

“Hump yourself,” says I, and we both darted—_well_; I worked my passage through cane, palmetto, and vines, until I war tired—I haddent hearn Jem’s horn, and pushed on the harder to meet him; every once and a while I’d think _hears the turn of the Lake_, but when I’d git to the place, _thar it was_ stretchin’ out as big as ever. Once I thought I hearn Jem’s horn, but couldent quite make it out. I kept movin’; hours passed and no Jem or end of the Lake; I’d seen lots of bar and panter sign, lots of deer, and more swan, wild-goose, and duck, than you ever will see; but I paid no attention to ’em, as I ’spected I’d taken some wrong arm of the Lake and war lost. It war gettin’ towards night, and I ’spected I’d have to sleep by myself, but you know I diddent mind that, as I war used to it. But it war the first time in my life that I’d bin lost, and that _did_ pester me mightily. Well, Sir, after studyin’ awhile, I thought I’d better put back towards the camp, mighty tired and discouraged. I then throw’d my gourd round to take a drop of liker, and it were _filled with water_! fact!—Thinks I, Chunkey, you must have been _mighty_ drunk last night; that made me sorter low-spirited like a a ’oman, and my heart war weak as water. It had commenced gittin’ sorter dark; the wind were blowin’ and groanin’ through the trees and rivers, and the black clouds were flyin’, and I war goin’ along sorter oneasy and cross-grained, when _a panter yelled out, close to me_! I turned with my gun cocked, but couldent see it; presently I hearn it again, and out it come, and then another! “Is that you?” said I, takin’ a crack and missin’ to a sartainty; and away they darted through the cane. I drap’d my gun to load, and by the great Jackson, there warn’t a full load of powder in my gourd!—I loaded _mighty_ carefully, and started on to pick out some holler tree to sleep in. Every once and awhile I’d git a glimpse of the panters on my trail. “Panters,” says I, “I’ll make a child’s bargain with you; if you will let _me_ alone, _you_ may _golong_;—and if you don’t, here’s a ball into the head of one of ye’er, and this knife!”—_hush_, if my knife warn’t gone, I wish I may never taste bar’s meat? I raised my arm, trimblin’ like a leaf, and says I, “Jem!—_I’ll have your melt!_” Well, I _war_ in trouble sure!—I thought I war on the _Tchule a Leta Lake_, and _witched_.

Well I did! Oh, you may larph, but jist imagin’ _yourself_ lost in the cane on Sky Lake, (the cane on Sky Lake _is some_—thirty miles long, from one to three miles wide, thick as the har on a dog’s back, and about thirty feet high!) out of licker, out of powder, your knife gone, the ground kivered with snow, you very hungry and tired, _and two panters follerin’ your trail_, and you’d think you was bewitched too!

Well, here they come, never lettin’ on, but makin’ arrangements to have my skalp that night; I never lettin’ on, but detarmin’d they shouldent. The har had been standin’ on my head for more nor an hour, and the sweat were gist _rollin’_ off me, and that satisfied me a fight war a brewin’ atween me and the panters! I stopped two or three times, thinkin’ they’s gone, but presently here they’d come, creepin’ along through the cane, and soon as they’d see me they stop, lay down, roll over and twirl their tails about like kittens playin’; I’d then shout, shake the cane, and away they’d go. Oh, they thought they had me! _In course they did_, and I detarmined with myself, if they _did let me go_, if they diddent attack an onarmed man, alone and lost, without licker, dogs, powder or knife, that the very fust time I got a panter up a tree, with my whole pack at the root, my licker gourd full, and I half full, my twelve-to-the-pound-yager loaded, and my knife in shavin’ order, I’d let _him_ go! Yes, _’tisn’t Chantrey if I diddent_!

But what did _they_ care? They’d no more feelin’ than a pine-stump! I know’d it woulddent do to risk a fight in the cane, and pushed on to find an open place whar I could make sure of my one load, and rely on my gun barrel arter. I soon found a place whar the cane drifted, and _thar_ I determined to stand and fight it out! Presently here they come; and if a stranger had seen ’em, he’d a thought they were playin’! They’d jump and squat, and bend their backs, lay down and roll, and grin like puppys;—_they kept gittin’ nearer and nearer_, and it wer gettin’ dark, and I know’d I must let drive at the old _he_, ’afore it got so dark I coulddent see my sights; so I jist dropped on one knee to make sure, and when I raised my gun, I were all in a trimble! I know’d _that_ woulddent do, and _ris_!

“You are witched, Chunkey, sure and sartin’,” said I. Arter bracin’ myself, I raised up agin and _fired_! One on ’em sprung into the air and gin a yell, and the other bounded towards me like a streak! Lightin’ close to me, it squatted to the ground and commenced creepin’ towards me—its years laid back, its eyes turnin’ green, and sorter swimmin’ round like, and the end of its tail twistin’ like a snake. I felt light as a cork, and strong as a buffalo. I seen her commence slippin’ her legs under her, and knew she were gwine to spring. I throw’d back my gun to gin it to her, as she come; the lick I aimed at her head struck across the shoulders and back without doing any harm, _and she had me_!—Rip, rip, rip—and ’way went my blanket, coat, and britches. She sunk her teeth into my shoulder, her green eyes were close to mine, and the froth from her mouth were flyin’ in my face!! _Moses!_ how fast she _did_ fight! I felt the warm blood runnin’ down my side—I seen she were arter _my_ throat! and with that I grabbed _hern_, and commenced pourin’ it into her side with my fist, like cats-a-fightin!—Rip, rip, she’d take me,—diff, slam, bang, I’d gin it to her—she fightin’ for her _supper_, I fightin’ for my _life_! Why, in course it war an onequal fight, but she ris it! Well, we had it round and round, sometimes one, and then yother on top, she a growlin’ and I a gruntin’! We had both commenced gittin’ mighty tired, and presently she made a spring, _tryin’ to git away_! Arter _that_ thar wan’t no mortal chance for her! Cause why, she were whipped! I’d sorter been thinkin’ about sayin’

“Now I lay me down to sleep,”

but I know’d if I commenced it would put her in heart, and she’d riddle me in a minit, and when _she_ hollered _nuff_, I were glad to my shoe soles, and had sich confidence in whippin’ the fight, that _I offered two to one on Chunkey_, but no takers!

“Oh, ho!” says I, a hittin’ her a lick every time I spoke, “you are willin’ to quit even and divide stakes, are you?” and then round and round we went agin! You could have hearn us blow a quarter, but presently she made a _big struggle_ and broke my hold! I fell one way, and she the other! She darted into the cane, and that’s the last time I ever hearn of _that_ panter!!!

When I sorter come to myself, I war struttin’ and _thunderin’_ like a big he-gobler, and then I commenced examinin’ to see what harm she’d done me; I war bit powerful bad in the shoulder and arm—_jist look at them scars!_—and I were cut into solid whip-strings; but when I found thar warn’t no danger of its _killin’_ me, I set in to braggin’. “Oh, you ain’t dead yet, Chunkey!” says I, “if you are sorter wusted, and have whipped a panter in a fair fight, and _no_ gougin’;” and then I _cock a doodle dood_ a spell, for joy!

When I looked round, _thar_ sot the old he, a lickin’ the blood from his breast! I’d shot him right through the breast, but sorter slantindickler, breakin’ his shoulder blade into a perfect smash. I walked up to him:

“Howdy, panter? how do you do? how _is_ missis panter, and the little panters? how is your consarns in gineral? Did you ever hearn tell of the man they calls ‘Chunkey?’ born in Kaintuck and raised in Mississippi? death on a bar, and _smartly_ in a panter fight? If you diddent, look, for _I’m he_! I kills bars, whips panters in a fair fight; I walks the water, I out-bellars the thunder, and when I gets hot, the Mississippi hides itself! I—I—Oh, you thought you _had_ me, did you?—_drot you!_ But _you_ are a gone sucker, now. I’ll have your melt, if I never gits home, so—”

“Look out, Capting! here’s the place! make the skift fast to that Cyprus log. Take care them oars, Abe! Spring out and oncupple the dogs, and take car they don’t knock them guns overboard. Now, Capting, we will have a deer movin’ afore you can say—Chunkey.”

XXI.
A BULLY BOAT, AND A BRAG CAPTAIN.
A STORY OF STEAM-BOAT LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Does any one remember the ‘Caravan?’ She was what would now be considered a slow boat; _then_ (1827) she was regularly advertised as the “fast-running,” &c. Her regular trips from New Orleans to Natchez were usually made in from six to eight days; a trip made by her in five days was considered remarkable. A voyage from New Orleans to Vicksburg and back, including stoppages, generally entitled the officers and crew to a month’s wages. Whether the ‘Caravan’ ever achieved the feat of a voyage to the Falls (Louisville), I have never learned; if she did, she must have “had a time of it!”

It was my fate to take passage in this boat. The captain was a good-natured, easy-going man, careful of the comfort of his passengers, and exceedingly fond of the _game of brag_. We had been out a little more than five days, and we were in hopes of seeing the bluffs of Natchez on the next day. Our wood was getting low, and night coming on. The pilot on duty _above_ (the other pilot held three aces at the time, and was just calling out the captain, who “went it strong” on three kings) sent down word that the mate had reported the stock of wood reduced to half a cord. The worthy captain excused himself to the pilot, whose watch was _below_, and the two passengers who made up the party, and hurried to the deck, where he soon discovered, by the landmarks, that we were about half a mile from a wood-yard, which he said was situated “right round yonder point.”

“But,” muttered the captain, “I don’t much like to take wood of the yellow-faced old scoundrel who owns it; he always charges a quarter of a dollar more than any one else; however, there’s no other chance.”

The boat was pushed to her utmost, and, in a little less than an hour, when our fuel was about giving out, we made the point, and our cables were out and fastened to trees, alongside of a good-sized wood-pile.

“Hollo, Colonel! how d’ye sell your wood _this_ time?”

A yellow-faced old gentleman, with a two-weeks’ beard, strings over his shoulders holding up to his arm-pits a pair of copperas-coloured, linsey-woolsey pants, the legs of which reached a very little below the knee, shoes without stockings, a faded, broad-brimmed hat, which had once been black, and a pipe in his mouth, casting a glance at the empty guards of our boat, and uttering a grunt as she rose from fastening our “spring-line,” answered:

“Why, Capting, we must charge you _three and a quarter_ THIS _time_.”

“The d——l!” replied the Captain, (captains did swear a little in those days); “what’s the odd _quarter_ for, I should like to know? You only charged me _three_ as I went down.”

“Why, Capting,” drawled out the wood-merchant, with a sort of leer on his yellow countenance, which clearly indicated that his wood was as good as sold, “wood’s riz since you went down two weeks ago; besides you are awar’ that you very seldom stop going _down_; when you’re going _up_, you’re sometimes obleeged to give me a call, becase the current’s against you, and there’s no other wood-yard for nine miles ahead; and if you happen to be nearly out of fooel, why—”

“Well, well,” interrupted the Captain, “we’ll take a few cords, under the circumstances,” and he returned to his game of brag.

In about half an hour, we felt the ‘Caravan’ commence paddling again. Supper was over, and I retired to my upper berth, situated alongside, and overlooking the brag-table, where the Captain was deeply engaged, having now the _other_ pilot as his principal opponent. We jogged on quietly, and seemed to be going at a good rate.

“How does the wood burn?” inquired the Captain of the mate, who was looking on at the game.

“’Tisn’t of much account, I reckon,” answered the mate; “it’s cotton-wood, and most of it green at that—”

“Well, Thompson—(three aces again, stranger. I’ll take that X and the small change, if you please—it’s your deal)—Thompson, I say, we’d better take three or four cords at the next wood-yard; it can’t be more than six miles from here; (two aces and a bragger, with the ace! hand over those Vs.)”

The game went on, and the paddles kept moving. At eleven o’clock it was reported to the Captain that we were nearing the wood-yard, the light being distinctly seen by the pilot on duty.

“Head her in shore, then, and take in six cords, if it’s good. See to it, Thompson; I can’t very well leave the game now; it’s getting right warm! This pilot’s beating us all to smash.”

The wooding completed, we paddled on again. The Captain seemed somewhat vexed when the mate informed him that the price was the same as at the last wood-yard, _three and a quarter_; but soon again became interested in the game.

From my upper berth (there was no state-rooms _then_) I could observe the movements of the players. All the contention appeared to be between the captain and the pilots, (the latter personages took it turn and turn about, steering and playing brag), one of them almost invariably winning, while the two passengers merely went through the ceremony of dealing, cutting, and paying up their “antics.” They were anxious to _learn the game_—and they did learn it! Once in a while, indeed, seeing they had two aces and a bragger, they would venture a bet of five or ten dollars; but they were always compelled to back out before the tremendous bragging of the captain or pilot; or if they _did_ venture to “call out” on “two bullits and a bragger,” they had the mortification to find one of the officers had the same kind of a hand, and were _more venerable_! Still, with all these disadvantages, they continued playing—they wanted to learn the game.

At two o’clock, the captain asked the mate how we were getting on.

“Oh, pretty glibly, Sir!” replied the mate; “we can scarcely tell what headway we _are_ making, for we are obliged to keep the middle of the river, and there is the shadow of a fog rising. This wood seems rather better than that we took in at old yellow-face’s, but we’re nearly out again, and must be looking for more. I saw a light just ahead on the right—shall we hail?”

“Yes, yes,” replied the Captain; “ring the bell, and ask ’em what’s the price of wood up here. I’ve got you again; here’s double kings.”

I heard the bell and the pilot’s hail:

“What’s _your_ price for wood?”

A youthful voice on the shore answered:

“Three _and_ a quarter!”

“Hollo!” ejaculated the captain, who had just lost the price of two cords to the pilot, the strangers suffering _some_ at the same time, “three and a quarter again! Are we _never_ to get to a cheaper country? Deal, Sir, if you please—better luck next time.”

The other pilot’s voice was again heard on deck:

“How much _have_ you?”

“Only about ten cords, Sir,” was the reply of the youthful salesman.

The Captain here told Thompson to take six cords, which would last till daylight, and again turned his attention to the game.

The pilots here changed places. _When did they sleep?_ Wood taken in, the ‘Caravan’ again took her place in the middle of the stream, paddling on as usual. Day at length dawned, the brag-party broke up, and settlements were being made, during which operation the Captain’s bragging propensities were exercised in cracking up the speed of his boat, which, by his reckoning, must have made at least sixty miles, and would have made many more if he could have procured good wood. It appears the two passengers, in their first lesson, had incidentally lost one hundred and twenty dollars. The Captain, as he rose to see about taking in some _good_ wood, which he felt sure of obtaining, now he had got above the level country, winked at his opponent, the pilot, with whom he had been on very bad terms during the progress of the game, and said, in an under tone:

“Forty a-piece for you, and I, and James (the other pilot) is not bad for one night.”

I had risen, and went out with the Captain, to enjoy a view of the bluffs. There was just fog enough to prevent the vision taking in more than sixty yards, so I was disappointed in _my_ expectation. We were nearing the shore for the purpose of looking for wood, the banks being invisible from the middle of the river.

“There it is!” exclaimed the Captain; “stop her!”

Ding, ding, ding! went the big bell, and the Captain hailed:

“Hollo! the wood-yard!”

“Hollo, yourself!” answered a squeaking female voice, which came from a woman with a petticoat over her shoulders in place of a shawl.

“What’s the price of wood?”

“I think you ought to know the price by this time,” answered the old lady in the petticoat; “it’s three and a qua-a-rter! and now you know it.”

“Three and the d——l!” broke in the Captain; “what, have you raised on _your_ wood too? I’ll give you three, and not a cent more.”

“Well,” replied the petticoat, “here comes the old man; _he’ll_ talk to you.”

And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat, copperas-coloured pants, yellow countenance, and two weeks’ beard we had seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regulating the price of cotton-wood, squeaked out the following sentence, accompanied by the same leer of the same yellow countenance:

“Why, darn it all, Capting! there is but three or four cords left, and _since it’s you_, I don’t care if I _do_ let you have it for _three, as you’re a good customer_!”

After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and turned in to take some rest. The fact became apparent: the reader will probably have discovered it some time since, _that we had been wooding all night at the same wood-yard_!

XXII.
FYDGET FYXINGTON.[14]

The doctrine, that “all is for the best,” though cherished in the abstract, is but little practised. The world is much more addicted to its opposite. “All’s for the worst” is a very common motto, and under its influence there are thousands who growl when they go to bed, and growl still louder when they get up; they growl at their breakfast, they growl at their dinner, they growl at their supper, and they growl between meals. Discontent is written in every feature of their visage; and they go on from the beginning of life until its close, always growling, in the hope of making things better by scaring them into it with ugly noises.

The active grumbletonians are a very different race of mortals from the passives. The world is largely indebted to them for every comfort and convenience with which it abounds; and they laugh at the inquiry whether their exertions have conduced to the general happiness, holding it that happiness consists chiefly in exertion—to which the passives demur, as they look back with no little regret to the lazy days of pastoral life, when Chaldean shepherds lounged upon the grass. The actives are very much inclined to believe that whatever is, is wrong; but then they have as an offset, the comfortable conviction that they are able to set it right—an opinion which fire cannot melt out of them. These restless fellows are in a vast majority; and hence it is that the surface of this earthly sphere is such a scene of activity; hence it is that for so many thousand years, the greater part of each generation has been unceasingly employed in labour and bustle; rushing from place to place; hammering, sawing, and driving; hewing down and piling up mountains; and unappalled, meeting disease and death, both by sea and land.

The passive grumbletonian is useless to himself and to others: the active grumbletonian is just the reverse. In general, he combines individual advancement with public prosperity; but there are exceptions even in that class—men, who try to take so much care of the world that they forget themselves, and, of course, fail in their intent.

Such a man is Fydget Fyxington, an amelioration-of-the-human-race-by-starting-from-first-principles-philosopher. Fydget’s abstract principle, particularly in matters of government and of morals, is doubtless a sound rule; but he looks so much at the beginning that he rarely arrives at the end, and when he advances at all, he marches backward, his face being directed towards the starting place instead of the goal. By this means he may perhaps plough a straight furrow, but instead of curving round obstructions, he is very apt to be thrown down by them.

* * * * *

Winter ruled the hour when Fydget Fyxington was last observed to be in circulation—winter, when men wear their hands in their pockets and seldom straighten their backs—a season however, which, though sharp and biting in its temper, has redeeming traits. There is something peculiarly exhilarating in the sight of new-fallen snow. The storm which brings it is not without a charm. The graceful eddying of the drifts sported with by the wind, and the silent gliding of the feathery flakes, as one by one they settle upon the earth like fairy creatures dropping to repose, have a soothing influence not easily described, though doubtless felt by all. But when the clouds, having performed their office, roll away, and the brightness of the morning sun beams upon an expanse of sparkling unsullied whiteness; when all that is common-place, coarse, and unpleasant in aspect, is veiled for the time, and made to wear a fresh and dazzling garb, new animation is felt by the spirit. The young grow riotous with joy, and their merry voices ring like bells through the clear and bracing air; while the remembrance of earlier days gives a youthful impulse to the aged heart.

But to all this there is a sad reverse. The resolution of these enchantments into their original elements by means of a thaw, is a necessary, but, it must be confessed, a very doleful process, fruitful in gloom, rheum, inflammations, and fevers—a process which gives additional pangs to the melancholic, and causes valour’s self to droop like unstarched muslin.

Such a time was it when Fydget was extant—a sloppy time in January. The city, it is true, was clothed in snow, rusty and forlorn in aspect, and weeping, as if in sorrow that its original purity had become soiled, stained, and spotted by contact with the world. Its whiteness had in a measure disappeared, by the pressure of human footsteps; wheels and runners had almost incorporated it with the common earth; and, where these had failed in effectually doing the work, remorseless distributers of ashes, coal dust, and potato peelings, had lent their aid to give uniformity to the dingy hue. But the snow, “weeping its spirit from its eyes,” and its body too, was fast escaping from these multiplied oppressions and contumelies. Large and heavy drops splashed from the eaves; sluggish streams rolled lazily from the alleys, and the gutters and crossings formed vast shallow lakes, variegated by glaciers and ice islands. They who roamed abroad at this unpropitious time, could be heard approaching by the damp sucking sound which emanated from their boots, as they alternately pumped in and pumped out the water in their progress, and it was thus that our hero travelled, having no caoutchouc health-preservers to shield his pedals from unwholesome contact.

The shades of evening were beginning to thicken, when Fydget stopped shiveringly and looked through the glass door of a fashionable hotel—the blazing fire and the numerous lights, by the force of contrast, made an outside seat still more uncomfortable.

The gong pealed out that tea was ready, and the lodgers rushed from the stoves to comfort themselves with that exhilarating fluid.

“There they go on first principles,” said Fydget Fyxington with a sigh.

“Cla’ de kitchen da’,” said one of those ultra-aristocratic members of society, a negro waiter, as he bustled past the contemplative philosopher and entered the hotel; “you ought to be gwang home to suppa’, ole soul, if you got some—yaugh—waugh!”

“Suppa’, you nigga’!” contemptuously responded Fydget, as the door closed, “I wish I was gwang home to suppa’, but suppers are a sort of thing I remember a good deal oftener than I see. Every thing is wrong—such a wandering from first principles!—there must be enough in this world for us all, or we wouldn’t be here; but things is fixed so badly that I s’pose some greedy rascal gets my share of suppa’ and other such elegant luxuries. It’s just the way of the world; there’s plenty of shares of everything, but somehow or other there are folks that lay their fingers on two or three shares, and sometimes more, according as they get a chance, and the real owners, like me, may go whistle. They’ve fixed it so that if you go back to first principles and try to bone what belongs to you, they pack you right off to jail, ’cause you can’t prove property. Empty stummicks and old clothes ain’t good evidence in court.

“What the deuse is to become of me! Something must—and I wish it would be quick and hurra about it. My clothes are getting to be too much of the summer-house order for the winter fashions. People will soon see too much of me—not that I care much about looks myself, but boys is boys, and all boys is sassy. Since the weather’s been chilly, when I turn the corner to go up town, I feel as if the house had too many windows and doors, and I’m almost blow’d out of my coat and pants. The fact is, I don’t get enough to eat to serve for ballast.”

After a melancholy pause, Fydget, seeing the coast tolerably clear, walked in to warm himself at the fire in the bar-room, near which he stood with great composure, at the same time emptying several glasses of comfortable compounds which had been left partly filled by the lodgers when they hurried to their tea. Lighting a cigar which he found half smoked upon the ledge of the stove, he seated himself and puffed away much at his ease.