Chapter III (4)

The inmates of the hotel began to return to the room, glancing suspiciously at Fydget’s tattered integuments, and drawing their chairs away from him as they sat down near the stove. Fydget looked unconscious, emitting volumes of smoke, and knocking off the ashes with a nonchalant and scientific air.

“Bad weather,” said Brown.

“I’ve noticed that the weather is frequently bad in winter, especially about the middle of it, and at both ends,” added Green. “I keep a memorandum book on the subject, and can’t be mistaken.”

“It’s raining now,” said Griffinhoff, “what’s the use of that when it’s so wet under foot already?”

“It very frequently rains at the close of a thaw, and it’s beneficial to the umbrella makers,” responded Green.

“Nothin’s fixed no how,” said Fydget with great energy—for he was tired of listening.

Brown, Green, Griffinhoff, and the rest started and stared.

“Nothings fixed no how,” continued Fydget rejoicing in the fact of having hearers; “our granddads must a been lazy rascals. Why didn’t they roof over the side walks, and not leave everything for us to do? I ain’t got no numbrell, and besides that, when it comes down as if raining was no name for it, as it always does when I’m cotch’d out, numbrells is no great shakes if you’ve got one with you, and no shakes at all if it’s at home.”

“Who’s the indevidjual?” inquired Cameo Calliper, Esq., looking at Fydget through a pair of lorgnettes.

Fydget returned the glance by making an opera glass with each fist, and then continued his remarks; “It’s a pity we ain’t got feathers, so’s to grow our own jacket and trousers, and do up the tailorin’ business, and make our own feather beds. It would be a great savin’—every man his own clothes, and every man his own feather bed. Now I’ve got a suggestion about that—first principles bring us to the skin—fortify that, and the matter’s done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow, beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole family once a week? The young ’uns might be soused in it every Saturday night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash brush. Then there wouldn’t be no bother a washing your clothes or yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor to make people sick, because it lets in the cold in winter and the heat in summer, when natur’ says shut up the porouses and keep ’em out. Besides, when the new invention was tore at the knees or wore at the elbows, just tell the nigger to put on the kittle and give you a dab, and you’re patched slick—and so that whole mobs of people mightn’t stick together like figs, a little sperrits of turpentine or litharage might be added to make ’em dry like a house-a-fire.”

“If that fellow don’t go away, I’ll hurt him,” said Griffinhoff _sotto voce_.

“Where’s a waiter?” inquired Cameo Calliper edging off in alarm.

“He’s crazy,” said Green, “I was at the hospital once, and there was a man in the place who——”

“’Twould be nice for sojers,” added Fyxington, as he threw away his stump, and very deliberately reached over and helped himself to a fresh cigar, from a number which Mr. Green had just brought from the bar and held in his hand—“I’ll trouble you for a little of your fire,” continued he, taking the cigar from the mouth of Mr. Green, and after obtaining a light, again placing the borrowed Habana within the lips of that worthy individual, who sat stupified at the audacity of the supposed maniac. Fydget gave the conventional grin of thanks peculiar to such occasions, and with a graceful wave of his hand, resumed the thread of his lecture, “’Twould be nice for sojers. Stand ’em all of a row, and whitewash ’em blue or red, according to pattern, as if they were a fence. The gin’rals might look on to see if it was done according to Gunter; the cap’ins might flourish the brush, and the corpulars carry the bucket. Dandies could fix themselves all sorts of streaked and all sorts of colours. When the parterials is cheap and the making don’t cost nothing, that’s what I call economy, and coming as near as possible to first principles. It’s a better way, too, of keeping out the rain, than my t’other plan of flogging people when they’re young, to make their hides hard and waterproof. A good licking is a sound first principle for juveniles, but they’ve got a prejudice agin it.”

“Waiter!” cried Cameo Calliper.

“Sa!”

“Remove the incumbent—expose him to the atmosphere!”

“If you hadn’t said that, I’d wopped him,” observed Griffinhoff.

“Accordin’ to first principles, I’ve as good a right to be here as anybody,” remarked Fydget, indignantly.

“Cut you’ stick, ’cumbent—take you’sef off, trash!” said the waiter, keeping at a respectful distance.

“Don’t come near me, Sip,” growled Fydget, doubling his fist—“don’t come near me, or I’ll develope a first principle and ’lucidate a simple idea for you—I’ll give you a touch of natur’ without no gloves on—but I’ll not stay, though I’ve a clear right to do it, unless you are able—yes, sassy able!—to put me out. If there is anything I scorns it’s prejudice, and this room’s so full of it and smoke together that I won’t stay. Your cigar, Sir,” added Fydget, tossing the stump to Mr. Green and retiring slowly.

“That fellow’s brazen enough to collect militia fines,” said Brown, “and so thin and bony, that if pasted over with white paper, and rigged athwart ships, he’d make a pretty good sign for an oyster cellar.”

The rest of the company laughed nervously, as if not perfectly sure that Fydget was out of hearing.

* * * * *

“The world’s full of it—nothin’ but prejudice. I’m always served the same way, and though I’ve so much to do planning the world’s good, I can’t attend to my own business, it not only won’t support me, but it treats me with despise and unbecoming freedery. Now, I was used sinful about my universal language, which everybody can understand, which makes no noise, and which don’t convolve no wear and tear of the tongue. It’s the patent anti-fatigue-anti-consumption omnibus linguister, to be done by winking and blinking, and cocking your eye, the way the cat-fishes make Fourth of July orations. I was going to have it introduced in Congress, to save the expense of anchovies and more porter; but t’other day I tried it on a feller in the street; I danced right up to him, and began canœuvering my daylights to ask him what o’clock it was, and I’m blow’d if he didn’t swear I was crazy, up fist and stop debate, by putting it to me right atween the eyes, so that I’ve been pretty well bung’d up about the peepers ever since, by a feller too who couldn’t understand a simple idea. That was worse than the kick a feller gave me in market, because ’cording to first principles I put a bullowney sassinger into my pocket, and didn’t pay for it. The ’riginal law, which you may see in children, says when you ain’t got no money, the next best thing is to grab and run. I did grab and run, but he grabb’d me, and I had to trot back agin, which always hurts my feelin’s and stops the march of mind. He wouldn’t hear me ’lucidate the simple idea, and the way he hauled out the sassinger, and lent me the loan of his foot, was werry sewere. It was unsatisfactory and discombobberative, and made me wish I could find out the hurtin’ principle and have it ’radicated.”

Carriages were driving up to the door of a house brilliantly illuminated, in one of the fashionable streets, and the music which pealed from within intimated that the merry dance was on foot.

“I’m goin’ in,” said Fydget—“I’m not afeard—if we go on first principles we ain’t afeard of nothin’, and since they’ve monopolized my sheer of fun, they can’t do less than give me a shinplaster to go away. My jacket’s so wet with the rain, if I don’t get dry I’ll be sewed up and have _hic jacket_ wrote atop of me, which means defuncted of toggery not imprevious to water. In I go.”

In accordance with this design, he watched his opportunity and slipped quietly into the gay mansion. Helping himself liberally to refreshments left in the hall, he looked in upon the dancers.

“Who-o-ip!” shouted Fydget Fyxington, forgetting himself in the excitement of the scene—“Who-o-ip!” added he, as he danced forward with prodigious vigour and activity, flourishing the eatables with which his hands were crammed, as if they were a pair of cymbals—“Whurro-o-o! plank it down—that’s your sort!—make yourselves merry, gals and boys—it’s all accordin’ to first principles—whoo-o-o-ya—whoop!—it takes us!”

Direful was the screaming at this formidable apparition—the fiddles ceased—the waltzers dropped their panting burdens, and the black band looked pale and aghast.

“Who-o-o-p! go ahead!—come it strong!” continued Fydget.

But he was again doomed to suffer an ejectment.

“Hustle him out!”

“Give us a ‘shinplaster’ then—them’s my terms.”

It would not do—he was compelled to retire shinplasterless; but it rained so heavily that, nothing daunted, he marched up the alley-way, re-entered the house through the garden, and gliding noiselessly into the cellar, turned a large barrel over which he found there, and getting into it, went fast asleep “on first principles.”

The company had departed—the servants were assembled in the kitchen preparatory to retiring for the night, when an unearthly noise proceeding from the barrel aforesaid struck upon their astonished ears. It was Fydget snoring, and his hearers, screaming, fled.

Rallying, however, at the top of the stairs, they procured the aid of Mr. Lynx, who watched over the nocturnal destinies of an unfinished building in the vicinity, and who, having frequently boasted of his valour, felt it to be a point of honour to act bravely on this occasion. The sounds continued, and the “investigating committee,” with Mr. Lynx as chairman, advanced slowly and with many pauses.

Lynx at last hurriedly thrust his club into the barrel, and started back to wait the result of the experiment.

“Ouch!” ejaculated a voice from the interior, the word being one not to be found in the dictionaries, but which, in common parlance, means that a sensation too acute to be agreeable has been excited.

“Hey!—hello!—come out of that,” said Lynx, as soon as his nerves had recovered tranquillity. “You are in a bad box whoever you are.”

“Augh!” was the response, “no, I ain’t—I’m in a barrel.”

“No matter,” added Lynx, authoritatively; “getting into another man’s barrel unbeknownst to him in the night-time, is burglary.”

“That,” said Fydget, putting out his head like a terrapin, at which the women shrieked and retreated, and Lynx made a demonstration with his club—“that’s because you ain’t up to first principles—keep your stick out of my ribs—I’ve a plan, so there won’t be no burglary, which is this—no man have no more than he can use, and all other men mind their own business. Then, this ’ere barrel would be mine while I’m in it, and you’d be asleep—that’s the idea.”

“It’s a logo-fogie!” exclaimed Lynx with horror—“a right down logo-fogie!”

“Ah!” screamed the servants—“a logo-fogie!—how did it get out?—will it bite?—can’t you get a gun?”

“Don’t be fools—a logo-fogie is a sort of a man that don’t think as I do—wicked critters all such sort of people are,” said Lynx. “My lad, I’m pretty clear you’re a logo-fogie—you talk as if your respect for me and other venerable institutions was tantamount to very little. You’re a leveller I see, and wouldn’t mind knocking me down flat as a pancake, if so be you could run away and get out of this scrape—you’re a ’grarium, and would cut across the lot like a streak of lightning if you had a chance.”

“Mr. Lynx,” said the lady of the house from the head of the stairs—she had heard from one of the affrighted maids that a “logo-fogie” had been “captivated,” and that it could talk “just like a human”—“Mr. Lynx, don’t have anything to say to him. Take him out, and hand him over to the police. I’ll see that you are recompensed for your trouble.”

“Come out, then—you’re a bad chap—you wouldn’t mind voting against our side at the next election.”

“We don’t want elections, I tell you,” said Fydget, coolly, as he walked up stairs—“I’ve a plan for doing without elections, and police-officers, and laws—every man mind his own business, and support me while I oversee him. I can fix it.”

Having now arrived at the street, Mr. Lynx held him by the collar, and looked about for a representative of justice to relieve him of his prize.

“Though I feel as if I was your pa, yet you must be tried for snoozling in a barrel. Besides, you’ve no respect for functionaries, and you sort of want to cut a piece out of the common veal by your logo-fogieism in wishing to ’bolish laws, and policers, and watchmen, when my brother’s one, and helps to govern the nation when the President, the Mayor, and the rest of the day-watch has turned in, or are at a tea-party. You’ll get into prison.”

“We don’t want prisons.”

“Yes we do though—what’s to become of functionaries if there ain’t any prisons?”

This was rather a puzzling question. Fyxington paused, and finally said:

“Why, I’ve a plan.”

“What is it, then—is it logo-fogie?”

“Yes, it upsets existing institutions,” roared Fyxington, tripping up Mr. Lynx, and making his escape—the only one of his plans that ever answered the purpose.

-----

[14] Neal.

XXIII.
DOING A SHERIFF.
A GEORGIA SKETCH.

Many persons in the county of Hall, State of Georgia, recollect a queer old customer who used to visit the county site regularly on “General Muster” days and Court Week. His name was Joseph Johnson, but he was universally known as Uncle Josey. The old man, like many others of that and the present day, loved his dram, and was apt, when he got among “the boys” in town, to take more than he could conveniently carry. His inseparable companion on all such occasions was a black pony, who rejoiced in the name of “General Jackson,” and whose diminutiveness and sagacity were alike remarkable.

One day, while court was in session in the little village of Gainesville, the attention of the Judge and bar was attracted by a rather unusual noise at the door. Looking towards that aperture, “his honour” discovered the aforesaid pony and rider deliberately entering the Hall of Justice. This, owing to the fact that the floor of the court house was nearly on a level with the ground, was not difficult.

“Mr. Sheriff,” said the Judge, “see who is creating such a disturbance of this court.”

“It’s only Uncle Josey and Gin’rel Jackson, Judge,” said the intruder, looking up with a drunken leer, “Jest me an’ the Gin’rel come to see how you an’ the boys is gettin’ along.”

“Well, Mr. Sheriff,” said the Judge, totally regardless of the interest manifested in his own and the lawyers’ behalf, by Uncle Josey, “you will please collect a fine of ten dollars from Uncle Josey and the General, for contempt of court.”

“Look-a-here, Judge, old feller,” continued Uncle Josey, as he stroked the “Gin’ral’s” mane, “you don’t mean to say it, now do yer? This child hain’t had that much money in a coon’s age, and as for the Gin’ral here, I know he don’t deal in no kind of quine, which he hain’t done, ’cept fodder and corn, for these many years.”

“Very well, then, Mr. Sheriff,” continued his honour, “in default of the payment of the fine, you will convey the body of Joseph Johnson to the county jail, there to be detained for the space of twenty-four hours.”

“Now, Judge, you ain’t in right down good yearnest, is you?—Uncle Josey hain’t never been put into that there boardin’ house, yet, which he don’t want to be, neither,” appealed the old man, who was apparently too drunk to know whether it was a joke or not.

“The sheriff will do his duty, immediately,” was the Judge’s stern reply, who began to tire of the old man’s drunken insolence. Accordingly, Uncle Josey and the “Gin’ral” were marched off towards the county prison, which stood in a retired part of the village. Arriving at the door, the prisoner was commanded by the sheriff to “light.”

“Look-a-here, Jess, horse-fly, you ain’t agwine to put yer old Uncle Josey in there, is yer?”

“’Bliged to do it, Uncle Josey,” replied the sheriff, “ef I don’t, the old man (the judge) will give me _goss_ when I go back. I hate it powerful, but I must do it.”

“But, Jess, couldn’t you manage to let the old man git away? Thar ain’t nobody here to see you. Now do, Jess, you know how I _fit_ for you, in that last run you had ’long er Jim Smith, what like to a beat you for sheriff, which he would a done it, if it hadn’t been for yer Uncle Josey’s influence.”

“I know that, Uncle Josey, but thar ain’t no chance. My oath is very pinted against allowin’ anybody to escape. So you must go in, cos thar ain’t no other chance.”

“I tell you what it is, Jess, I’m afeared to go in thar. Looks too dark and dismal.”

“Thar ain’t nothing in thar to hurt you, Uncle Josey, which thar hain’t been for nigh about six months.”

“Yes, thar is, Jess, you can’t fool me that a-way. I know thar is somethin’ in thar to ketch the old man.”

“No thar ain’t, I pledge you my honour thar ain’t.”

“Well, Jess, if thar ain’t, you jest go in and see, and show Uncle Josey that you ain’t afeared.”

“Certainly, I ain’t afeared to go in.”

Saying which the sheriff opened the door, leaving the key in the lock. “Now, Uncle Josey, what did I tell you? I know’d thar wan’t nothin’ in thar.”

“May be thar ain’t where you are standin’, but jest le’s see you go up into that dark place, in the corner.”

“Well, Uncle Josey,” said the unsuspecting sheriff, “I’ll satisfy you thar ain’t nothin’ thar either,” and he walked towards the “dark corner.” As he did so, the old man dexterously closed the door and locked it.

“Hello! thar,” yelled the frightened officer, “none o’ yer tricks, Uncle Josey; this is carryin’ the joke a cussed sight too fur.”

“Joke! I ain’t a jokin’, Jess; never was more in yearnest in my life. Thar ain’t nothin’ in thar to hurt you though, that’s one consolation. Jest hold on a little while, and I’ll send some of the boys down to let you out.”

And before the “sucked in” sheriff had recovered from his astonishment, the pony and his master were out of hearing.

Uncle Josey, who was not as drunk as he appeared, stopped at the grocery, took a drink, again mounted the Gin’ral, and called the keeper of the grocery to him—at the same time drawing the key of the jail from his pocket.

“Here, Jeems, take this here key, and ef the old man or any them boys up thar at the Court-House inquires after Jess Bunion, the sheriff, jest you give ’em this key and my compliments, and tell ’em Jess is safe. Ketch ’em takin’ in old Uncle Josey, will yer? Git up, Gin’ral, these boys here won’t do to trust; so we’ll go into the country, whar people’s honest if they _is_ poor.”

The sheriff, after an hour’s imprisonment, was released, and severely reprimanded by the judge, but the sentence of Uncle Josey was never executed, as he never troubled the Court again, and the judge thought it useless to imprison him with any hope of its effecting the slightest reform.

XXIV.
THE MUSCADINE STORY.

It was a bland September morning, in a year that need not be specified, that the Captain, standing in view of the west door of the Court-House at Dadeville, perceived the sheriff emerging therefrom, a bundle of papers in hand, and looking as if he desired to execute some sort of a _capias_.

The Captain instantly bethought him, that there was an indictment pending against himself for gaming, and began to collect his energies for an emergency. The sheriff hailed him at the same moment, and requested him to “hold on.”

“Stop, Ellis—_right thar_ in your tracks, as the bullet said to the buck,” Suggs responded; “them dockyments look _venermous_!”

“No use,” said the officer—“sooner or later you must be taken; dog-face Billy Towns is here, and he’ll go your security.”

“Keep off, I tell you, Ellis; I ain’t safe to-day—the old woman’s coffee was cold this mornin’, and it fretted me. If you’ve got anything agin me, keep it ’till Court—I’ll be thar—‘waive all formalities,’ you know!”

“I will waive nothing,” replied the sheriff, advancing: “I’ll put you whar I can find you when wanted.”

Suggs drew an old revolving pistol, whereupon the sheriff paused.

“The blood,” shouted the Captain, “of the High Sheriff of Tallapoosy County be upon his own head. If he crowds on to me, I give fair warnin’ I’ll discharge this _revolten’_ pistol seven several and distinct times, as nigh into the curl of his forehead, as the natur’ of the case will admit.”

For a moment the sheriff was intimidated; but recollecting that Captain Suggs had a religious dread of carrying _loaded_ fire-arms about his person, although he often sported them uncharged for effect, he briskly resumed his stride, and the Captain, hurling the “revolter” at his head, at once fell into a “killing pace” towards the rack where stood his pony, “Button.”

The sheriff’s horse, by chance, was tied at the same rack, but a wag of a fellow, catching Suggs’s idea, unhitched the pony, and threw the bridle over its neck, and held it ready to be mounted; so that the Captain was in his saddle, and his nag at half speed, ere the sheriff put his foot in the stirrup.

Here they go! clattering down the street “like an armed troop!” Now the blanket-coat of the invincible Captain disappears round Luke Davenport’s corner! The sheriff is hard after him! “Go it, Ellis!” “Go it Suggs!” “Whoop! whoop! hurrah!” Again the skirts of the blanket-coat become visible, on the rise by M’Cleudon’s, whisking about the pony’s rump! “Lay whip, Sheriff; your bay’s lazy!” The old bay gains on Button, however. But now they turn down the long hill towards Johnson’s Mill creek. Right sturdily the pony bears his master on, but the bay is overhauling him fast! They near the creek! He has him! no!—the horse runs against the pony—falls himself—projects his rider into the thicket on the right—and knocks the pony and its rider into the stream.

It happened, that, by the concussion or some other cause, the girth of Captain Suggs’s saddle was broken; so that neither himself nor his saddle was precisely on Button’s back when they reached the water. It was no time to stop for trifles, however; so leaving the saddle in the creek, the Captain bestrode the bare back of his panting animal, and made the best of his way onward. He knew that the Sheriff would still follow, and he therefore turned from the road at right angles, skirted the creek swamp for a mile, and then took a direction by which he would reach the road again, four or five miles from the scene of his recent submersion.

The dripping Captain and his reeking steed cut a dolorous figure, as they traversed the woods. It was rather late in the season to make the hydropathic treatment they had so lately undergone agreeable; and the departure of the Captain from Dadeville had been too unexpected and hurried to allow the slightest opportunity for filling his quart tickler.

“Wonder,” said he to himself, “if I won’t take a fit afore I git any more—or else have a whole carryvan of blue-nose monkeys and forky-tail snakes after me—and so get a sight of the menajerie ’thout payin’ the fust red cent. Git up, you lazy Injun!”

With the last words, Simon vigorously drove his heels against Button’s sides, and in a half hour had regained the road.

Scarcely had Captain Suggs trotted a hundred yards, when the sound of horses’ feet behind him caused him to look back. It was the Sheriff.

“Hello! Sheriff! stop!” said Suggs.

The Sheriff drew up his horse.

“I’ve got a proposition to make to you; you can go home with me, and _thar_ I can give bond.”

“Very well,” said the Sheriff.

“But hands off till we git thar, and you ride fifty steps ahead of me, for fear of accidents—that’s the proposition.”

“Agreed!”

“Not so fast,” said Suggs, “thar’s a condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you got any liquor along?”

The Sheriff pulled out a black bottle by way of reply.

“Now,” said Captain Suggs, “do you put the bottle on that stump thar, and ride out from the road fifty yards, and when I git it, take your position in front.”

These manœuvres were performed with much accuracy, and the parties being ready, and the Captain one drink ahead:

“For—rard, march!” said Suggs.

In this order, the Sheriff and Captain wended their way, until they arrived at the crossing of Eagle Creek, a stream having a miry swamp on each side. As his pony was drinking, an idea popped into the Captain’s head which was immediately acted upon. He suddenly turned his pony’s head down stream, and in half a minute was out of sight.

“Come, Button,” said he, “let’s hunt wild-cats a spell!”

The Sheriff, almost as soon as he missed our hero, heard him splashing down the creek. He plunged into the swamp, with the intention of heading him, but the mud was so soft that after floundering about a little while, he gave it up, and returned to the road, cursing as much for the loss of his black bottle, as of the Captain.

“Hello, Ellis!” shouted Suggs.

“Hello, yourself!”

“Don’t you try that swamp no more; it’ll mire butterflies, in spots!”

“No danger!” was the response.

“And don’t you try to follow me, on that tall horse, down the run of this creek; if you do, you’ll have both eyes hangin’ on bamboo briers in goin’ a hundred yards—besides, _moccasin time ain’t over yet_, and thar’s lots of ’em about these old logs!”

“Take care of yourself, you old thief!” said the irritated officer.

“Once again, Ellis, old fellow!” said Suggs, coaxingly.

“What do you want?”

“Nothin’, only I’m much obleeged to you for this black bottle—_here’s luck!_—you can charge the price in the next bill of costs you git agin me.”

The discomfited Sheriff could stand this jeering from the Captain no longer, so he put spurs to his horse and left.

“Now,” murmured Suggs, “let me depart in peace, for thar’s no chance to ketch up with me now!—Cuss the hole—and yonder’s a horsin’ log!

“Well, the wicked flee when no man pursueth; wonder what they’d do if they had that black rascal, Martin Ellis, after ’em, on that infernal long-legged bay? Durn the luck! thar’s that new saddle that I borrowed from the Mississippi feller—which he’ll never come back for it—_that’s_ lost in the mill creek!—jist as good as ten dollars out of my pocket. Well, it’s no use ’sputin’ with providence—hit _will_ purvide!

“The Grand Jurors of the State of Alabama,” he continued, soliloquizing in the verbiage of an indictment; “elected, sworn, and charged—_darned rascals all, with Jim Bulger at the head!_—to inquire for the body of Tallapoosa County—_durn their hearts! it’s_ MY _body they’re after!_—upon their oaths present—_confound them!_—that Simon Suggs—_hem! that’s me, but they might’ve put the ‘Captain’ to it, though!_—late of said County—_just as if I warn’t one of the fust settlers, which I was here, afore they had a sign of a Court-House!_

“Well, it’s no use thinkin’ about the lyin’ thing; I’ll have to go Hadenskeldt, at Court, to get me out’n the suck. Now, _he’s_ a quar one, ain’t he? Never got him to do any law job for me yet but what I had to pay him—drot the feller. Anybody would think ’twas as hard to git money from me as ’tis for a man to draw a headless tenpenny nail out’n an oak post with his teeth—but that little black-headed lawyer makes a _ten_, or a _twenty_, come every pop!

“Wonder how fur ’tis down to the bend? This creek makes into the river about a mile below it, they say. Never mind, thar’s a few drinks of the _ipsydinxy_ left, and the menajerie won’t open to-day. I judge if my old woman knowed _whar_ I was goin’, and _who_ I was goin’ to see, she’d make the yeath shake. But she don’t know; it’s a prinsippel that Providence has put into the bosom of a man—leastways all sensible men—to run on and talk a heap afore their wives, to make ’em believe _they’re turnin’ wrong-side out before ’em_ and yet never tell ’em the fust word of truth. It’s a wise thing in providence, too. Wonder, if I’ll ketch that rascal Jim Sparks jewlarkin’ round Betsy, down at old Bob’s!”

On the morning after the occurrence of the adventure we have related, Captain Suggs sat in a long trim-built Indian canoe, which was moored to the north bank of the Tallapoosa river. Near him was Miss Betsy Cockerell. She sat facing the Captain, on a board laid across the gunwales of the boat. Miss Betsy was a bouncing girl, plump, firm, and saucy, with a mischievous rolling eye, and a sharp word for ever at her tongue’s end. She seemed to be coquetting with the paddle she held in her hand, and occasionally would strike it on the water, so as to besprinkle Captain Suggs, much to his annoyance.

“Oh, Captin, you do persuade me to promise you so hard. And Jim Sparks says you’re married; and if you ain’t you mought ’a been, twenty years ago; you’re old enough.”—(splash!)

“I say, mind how you throw your water! Jim Sparks is a triflin’ dog—if I have got a wife, Betsy, she is goin’ fast.”

“Goin’ _whar_?” asked Betsy, striking the water again.

“Confound your paddle! can’t you keep it still? Providence is goin’ to take her home, Betsy—she’s dwindled away to a shadder, with that cough and one thing and another. She ain’t long for this world,” he added, mournfully; “and if you, Betsy, will only make up your mind—the devil take that paddle!—you’ll turn over the boat, and throw me in the river!—make up your mind to step into her shoes, it looks like it would sort o’ reconcile me to lose her”—and here a tear leaked out of each corner of the Captain’s eyes.

“Oh, Captin,” said Betsy, half shutting one eye, and looking quizzical; “thar’s so many good-lookin’ young fellers about, I hate to give ’em up. I _like_ you, Captin, but thar’s Bill Edwards, and Jet Wallis, and Jim Sparks, and”—

“‘Good lookin’!’ and ‘Jet Wallis’ and ‘Jim Sparks!’ Why Jet’s mouth is no better than a hole made in the fore part of his head with a claw-hammer—and as for Jim Sparks, he’s got the face of a terrier dog.”

“Do you count _yourself_ good-lookin’?” asked Betsy, with great _naïveté_.

“Gal!” replied Suggs, with dignity, “did you ever see me in my uniform? with my silver oppolots on my shoulder? and my red sash round my waist? and the sword that Governor Bagby give me, with the gold scabbard a hangin’ by my side?”

Just at this moment a step was heard, and before the Captain and Betsy had recovered from the shock of intrusion, Sheriff Ellis stepped into the boat, and asserted that Suggs “was his prisoner!”

“Treed at last!” said the Captain; “but it’s no use frettin’; the ways of Providence is mysterious. But whar did you cross, Ellis?”

“Oh, I knew you’d be about the old lick log ’a fishin’ with Betsy. I’ll turn the kunnoo loose, and Bets will take us across. I crossed at Hambrick’s ferry, left my horse on t’other side, and come down on you, like a mink on a settin’ hen. Come! come! it’s time we were off to Dadeville.”

“Providence is agin me,” sighed the Captain; “I’m pulled up with a short jerk, in the middle of my kurreer. Well, but,” he continued, musing, “’spose a feller tries on his own hook—no harm in takin’ all the chances—I ain’t in jail, _yet_!”

A few yards below the boat landing, there grew out of the bank, an immense water-oak, projecting over the river, at an angle of about forty-five. A huge muscadine vine enwrapped the oak in every part, its branches and tendrils covering it like network. The grapes were now ripe, and hung over the river

“In bacchanal profusion,—
Purple and gushing.”

Betsy allowed the canoe to drop down slowly, just outside of where the tips of the lower branches of the tree dallied with the rippling water. The fruit attracted the Sheriff’s eye and appetite, and reaching out an arm he laid hold of a branch, and began to “pluck and eat.”

“Drot the grapes!” said Suggs, angrily; “let’s go on!”

“Keep cool,” said the Sheriff, “I’ll fill my pockets first.”

“Be in a hurry, then, and if you _will_ gather the sour things, reach up and pull down them big bunches, up thar,” pointing to some fine clusters higher than the Sheriff could reach, as he stood up in the boat, “pull the vines down to you?”

The Sheriff tried, but the vines resisted his utmost strength; so crying “steady!” he pulled himself up clear of the boat, and began to try to establish a footing among the foliage.

At this moment Captain Suggs made no remark orally, but his eye said to Betsy, as plainly as eye could talk, “hit her a lick back, my gal!”

Silently the paddle went into the water, Betsy leaning back, with lips compressed, and in a second the canoe shot ten feet out from the tree, and the Sheriff was left dangling among the vines!

“Stop your senseless jokes!” roared the officer.

“Keep cool, old Tap-my-shoulder! thar’s jist the smallest grain of a joke in this here, that ever you seed. It’s the coldest sort of airnest.”

“What shall I do? How shall I get out of this?” asked Ellis, piteously.

“Let all go and drop in the water, and swim out,” was the reply.

“I can’t swim a lick—how deep is it?”

Suggs seemed to ruminate, and then replied:

“From—say—fifteen—yes, _at least_, fifteen—to—about twenty-five foot. Ugly place!”

“Gracious goodness!” said poor Ellis, “you certainly won’t leave me here to drown—my strength is failing already.”

“If I don’t,” said the Captain, most emphatically, “I wish I may be cotched and hanged where you are,” and saying a word to Betsy, they shot rapidly across the river.

Kissing his companion as he stepped out of the boat, Suggs sought Button, who was tied to a thicket near by, and mounting, pursued his homeward way.

“_Never despar_,” he said to himself, as he jogged along, “never despar! Honesty, a bright watch-out, a hand o’ cards in your fingers and one in your lap, with a little grain of help from Providence, will always fetch a man through! Never despar! I’ve been hunted and tracked and dogged like a cussed wolf, but the Lord has purvided, and my wust _inimy has tuck a tree_! Git up, Button, you old, flop-eared Injun!”

XXV.
POLLY PEABLOSSOM’S WEDDING.[15]

“My stars! that parson is _powerful_ slow a-coming! I reckon he wa’n’t so tedious gitting to his own wedding as he is coming here,” said one of the bridesmaids of Miss Polly Peablossom, as she bit her lips, and peeped into a small looking-glass for the twentieth time.

“He preaches enough about the shortness of a lifetime,” remarked another pouting Miss, “and how we ought to improve our opportunities, not to be creeping along like a snail, when a whole wedding-party is waiting for him, and the waffles are getting cold, and the chickens burning to a crisp.”

“Have patience, girls, maybe the man’s lost his spurs and can’t get along any faster,” was the consolatory appeal of an arch-looking damsel, as she finished the last of a bunch of grapes.

“Or perhaps his old fox-eared horse has jumped out of the pasture, and the old gentleman has to take it a-foot,” surmised the fourth bridesmaid.

The bride used industrious efforts to appear patient and rather indifferent amid the general restiveness of her aids, and would occasionally affect extreme merriment; but her shrewd attendants charged her with being fidgety, and rather more uneasy than she wanted folks to believe.

“Hello, Floyd!” shouted old Captain Peablossom out of doors to his copperas-trowsered son, who was entertaining the young beaux of the neighbourhood with feats of agility in jumping with weights—“Floyd, throw down them rocks, and put the bridle on old Snip, and ride down the road and see if you can’t see Parson Gympsey, and tell him hurry along, we are all waiting for him. He must think weddings are like his meetings, that can be put off to the ‘Sunday after the fourth Saturday in next month,’ after the crowd’s all gathered and ready to hear the preaching. If you don’t meet him, go _clean_ to his house. I ’spect he’s heard that Bushy Creek Ned’s here with his fiddle, and taken a scare.”

As the night was wearing on, and no parson had come yet to unite the destinies of George Washington Hodgkins and “the amiable and accomplished” Miss Polly Peablossom, the former individual intimated to his _intended_ the propriety of passing off the time by having a dance.

Polly asked her ma, and her ma, after arguing that it was not the fashion in her _time_, in North Car’lina, to dance before the _ceremony_, at last consented.

The artist from Bushy Creek was called in, and after much tuning and adjusting of the screws, he struck up “Money Musk;” and away went the country-dance, Polly Peablossom at the head, with Thomas Jefferson Hodgkins as her partner, and George Washington Hodgkins next, with Polly’s sister, Luvisa, for his partner. Polly danced to every gentleman, and Thomas Jefferson danced to every lady; then up and down in the middle and hands all round. Next came George Washington and his partner, who underwent the same process; “and so on through the whole,” as Daboll’s Arithmetic says.

The yard was lit up by three or four large light-wood fires, which gave a picturesque appearance to the groups outside. On one side of the house was Daniel Newnan Peablossom and a bevy of youngsters, who either could not or did not desire to get into the dance—probably the former—and who amused themselves by jumping and wrestling. On the other side a group of matrons sat under the trees, in chairs, and discoursed of the mysteries of making butter, curing chickens of the pip and children of the croup, besides lamenting the misfortunes of some neighbour, or the indiscretion of some neighbour’s daughter, who had run away and married a circus rider. A few pensive couples, eschewing the “giddy dance,” promenaded the yard and admired the moon, or “wondered if all _them_ little stars were worlds like this.” Perhaps they may have sighed sentimentally at the folly of the musquitoes and bugs which were attracted round the fires to get their pretty little wings scorched and lose their precious lives; or they may have talked of “true love,” and plighted their vows, for aught we know.

Old Captain Peablossom and his pipe, during the while, were the centre of a circle in front of the house who had gathered around the old man’s arm-chair to listen to his “twice-told tales” of “hair-breadth ’scapes,” of “the battles and sieges he had passed;” for you must know the captain was no “summer soldier and sunshine patriot;” he had burned gunpowder in defence of his beloved country.

At the especial request of Squire Tompkins, the captain narrated the perilous adventures of Newnan’s little band among the Seminoles. How “bold Newnan” and his men lived on alligator flesh and parched corn, and marched barefooted through saw-palmetto; how they met Bowlegs and his warriors near Paine’s Prairie, and what fighting was there. The amusing incident of Bill Cone and the terrapin shell, raised shouts of laughter among the young brood, who had flocked around to hear of the wars. Bill, (the “Camden Bard,” peace to his ashes), as the captain familiarly called him, was sitting one day against the logs of the breastwork, drinking soup out of a terrapin shell, when a random shot from the enemy broke the shell and spilt his soup, whereupon he raised his head over the breastwork and sung out: “Oh, you villain! you couldn’t do that again if you tried forty times.” Then the captain, after repeated importunities, laid down his pipe, cleared his throat, and sung:

“We march_ed_ on to our next station,
The Ingens on before did hide,
They shot and killed Bold Newnan’s nigger,
And two _other_ white men by his side.”

The remainder of the epic we have forgotten.

After calling out for a _chunk_ of fire, and relighting his pipe, he dashed at once over into Alabama, in General Floyd’s army, and fought the battles of Calebee and Otassee over again in detail. The artillery from Baldwin county blazed away, and made the little boys aforesaid think they could hear thunder almost, and the rifles from Putnam made their patriotic young spirits long to revenge that gallant corps. And the squire was astonished at the narrow escape his friend had of falling into the hands of Weatherford and his savages, when he was miraculously rescued by Timpoochie Barnard, the Utchee chief.

At this stage of affairs, Floyd (_not the general_, but the ambassador) rode up, with a mysterious look on his countenance. The dancers left off in the middle of a set, and assembled around the messenger, to hear the news of the parson. The old ladies crowded up, too, and the captain and the squire were eager to hear. But Floyd felt the importance of his situation, and was in no hurry to divest himself of the momentary dignity.

“Well, as I rode on down to Boggy Gut, I saw——”

“Who cares what the devil you saw?” exclaimed the impatient captain; “tell us if the parson is coming, first, and you may take all night to tell the balance, if you like, afterwards.”

“I saw—” continued Floyd pertinaciously.

“Well, my dear, what did you see?” asked Mrs. Peablossom.

“I saw that some one had _tooken_ away some of the rails on the cross way, or they had washed away or somehow—”

“Did anybody ever hear the like?” said the captain.

“And so I got down,” continued Floyd, “and hunted some more and fixed over the boggy place.”

Here Polly laid her hand on his arm and requested, with a beseeching look, to know if the parson was on the way.

“I’ll tell you all about it presently, Polly. And when I got to the run of the creek, then—”

“Oh, the devil!” ejaculated Captain Peablossom, “stalled again!”

“Be still, honey, let the child tell it his own way—he always would have his way, you know, since we had to humour him so when he had the measles,” interposed the old lady.

Daniel Newnan Peablossom, at this juncture, facetiously lay down on the ground, with the root of an old oak for his pillow, and called out yawningly to his pa, to “wake him when brother Floyd had crossed over the _run_ of the creek and arrived safely at the parson’s.” This caused loud laughter.

Floyd simply noticed it by observing to his brother, “Yes, you think you’re _mighty smart_ before all these folks!” and resumed his tedious route to Parson Gympsey’s, with as little prospect of reaching the end of his story as ever.

Mrs. Peablossom tried to coax him to “_jist_” say if the parson was coming or not. Polly begged him, and all the bridesmaids implored. But Floyd “went on his way rejoicing.”

“When I came to the Piney-flat,” he continued, “old Snip _seed_ something white over in the bay-gall, and shy’d _clean_ out o’ the road, and—” where he would have stopped, would be hard to say, if the impatient captain had not interfered.

That gentleman, with a peculiar glint of the eye, remarked, “Well, there’s one way I can bring him to a showing,” as he took a large horn from between the logs, and rung a “wood-note wild” that set a pack of hounds to yelping. A few more notes as loud as those that issued from “Roland’s horn at Roncesvalles” was sufficient invitation to every hound, foist, and “cut of low degree,” that followed the guests, to join in the chorus. The captain was a man of good lungs, and “the way he _did_ blow was the way,” as Squire Tomkins afterwards very happily described it; and as there were in the canine choir some thirty voices of every key, the music may be imagined better than described. Miss Tabitha Tidwell, the first bridesmaid, put her hands to her ears and cried out:

“My stars! we shall all git _blow’d_ away!”

The desired effect of abbreviating the messenger’s story was produced, as that prolix personage in copperas pants, was seen to take Polly aside, and whisper something in her ear.

“Oh, Floyd, you are joking; you oughtn’t to serve me so. An’t you joking, _bud_?” asked Polly, with a look that seemed to beg he would say yes.

“It’s true as preaching,” he replied, “the cake’s all dough!”

Polly whispered something to her mother, who threw up her hands, and exclaimed, “Oh, my!” and then whispered the secret to some other lady, and away it went. Such whispering and throwing up of hands and eyes, is rarely seen at a quaker meeting. Consternation was in every face. Poor Polly was a very personification of “patience on a monument, smiling green and yellow melancholy.”

The captain, discovering that something was the matter, drove off the dogs, and inquired what had happened to cause such confusion. “What the devil’s the matter now?” he said. “You all look as _down in the mouth_ as we did on the _Santaffee_ (St. Fe), when the quartermaster said the provisions had all give out. What’s the matter—won’t somebody tell me? Old ’oman, has the dogs got into the kitchen and eat up all the supper, or what else has come to pass? out with it!”

“Ah, old man, bad news!” said the wife with a sigh.

“Well, what is it? you are _all_ getting as bad as Floyd, _terryfying_ a fellow to death.”

“Parson Gympsey was digging a new horse trough and cut his leg to the bone with the foot-adze, and can’t come—Oh, dear!”

“I wish he had taken a fancy to ’a done it a week ago, so we _mout_ ’a got another parson, or, as long as no other time would suit but to-day, I wish he had cut his derned eternal head off!”

“Oh, my! husband,” exclaimed Mrs. Peablossom. Bushy Creek Ned, standing in the piazza with his fiddle, struck up the old tune of

“We’ll dance all night, ’till broad daylight,
And go home with the _gals_ in the morning.”

Ned’s hint caused a movement towards the dancing room, among the young people, when the captain, as if waking from a revery, exclaimed in a loud voice: “Oh, the devil! what are we all thinking of? why here’s Squire Tompkins, _he can perform the ceremony_. If a man can’t marry folks, what’s the use of being squire at all?”

Manna did not come in better time to the children of Israel in the wilderness, than did this discovery of the worthy captain to the company assembled. It was as vivifying as a shower of rain on corn that is about to shoot and tassel, especially to G. W. Hodgkins and his lady-love.

Squire Tompkins was a newly elected magistrate, and somewhat diffident of his abilities in this untried department. He expressed a hint of the sort, which the captain only noticed with the exclamation, “hoot toot!”

Mrs. Peablossom insinuated to her husband, that in her _day_ the “_quality_,” or better sort of people in North Ca’lina, had a prejudice _agin_ being married by a magistrate; to which the old gentleman replied: “None of your nonsense, old lady, none of your Duplin county aristocracy about here, now. The better sort of people, I think you say! Now, you know North Ca’lina ain’t the best State in the Union, nohow, and Duplin’s the poorest county in the State. Better sort of people, is it? _Quality_, eh! Who the devil’s better than we are? An’t we honest? An’t we raised our children decent, and learned them how to read, write and cipher? An’t I _fou’t_ under Newnan and Floyd for the country? Why, darn it! we are the _very best_ sort of people. Stuff! nonsense! The wedding shall go on; Polly shall have a husband.” Mrs. P.’s eyes lit up—her cheek flashed, as she heard “the old North State” spoken of so disparagingly; but she was a woman of good sense, and reserved the castigation for a future curtain lecture.

Things were soon arranged for the wedding; and as the old wooden clock on the mantel-piece struck one, the bridal party were duly arranged on the floor, and the crowd gathered round, eager to observe every twinkle of the bridegroom’s eye, and every blush of the blooming bride.

The bridesmaids and their male attendants were arranged in couples, as in a cotillion, to form a hollow square, in the centre of which were the squire and betrothing parties. Each of the attendants bore a candle; Miss Tabitha held hers in a long brass candlestick, which had belonged to Polly’s grandmother, in shape and length somewhat resembling “Cleopatra’s needle;” Miss Luvisa bore a flat tin one; the third attendant bore such an article as is usually suspended on a nail against the wall, and the fourth had a curiously devised something cut out of wood with a pocket-knife. For want of a further supply of candlesticks, the male attendants held naked candles in their hands. Polly was dressed in white, and wore a bay flower with its green leaves in her hair, and the whisper went round: “Now _don’t_ she look pretty?” George Washington Hodgkins rejoiced in a white satin stock, and a vest and pantaloons of orange colour; the vest was straight-collared, like a continental officer’s in the revolution, and had eagle buttons on it. They were a fine-looking couple.

When everything was ready, a pause ensued, and all eyes were turned on the Squire, who seemed to be undergoing a mental agony, such as Fourth of July orators feel when they forget their speeches, or a boy at an exhibition, when he has to be prompted from behind the scenes. The truth was, Squire Tompkins was a man of forms, but had always taken them from form-books, and never trusted his memory. On this occasion he had no “Georgia Justice,” or any other book from which to read the marriage-ceremony, and was at a loss how to proceed. He thought over everything he had ever learned “by heart,” even to

“Thirty days hath the month of September,
The same may be said of June, April, November;”

but all in vain; he could recollect nothing that suited such an occasion. A suppressed titter all over the room admonished him that he must proceed with something, and in the agony of desperation, he began:

“Know all men by these presents, that I—” here he paused and looked up to the ceiling, while an audible voice in a corner of the room was heard to say:

“He’s drawing up a _deed_ to a tract of land,” and they all laughed.

“In the name of God, Amen!”—he began a second time, only to hear another voice in a loud whisper say:

“He’s making his _will_ now. I thought he couldn’t live long, he looks so powerful bad.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord—”

was the next essay, when some erudite gentleman remarked:

“He is not dead, but sleepeth.”

“O yes! O yes!” continued the Squire.

One voice replied: “Oh no! oh no! don’t let’s.” Another whispered, “No ball!” Some person out of doors, sung out, “Come into court!” and the laughter was general.

The bridesmaids spilt the tallow from their candles all over the floor, in the vain attempt to look serious. One of them had a red mark on her lip for a month afterwards, where she had bit it. The bridegroom put his hands in his pockets, and took them out again; the bride looked as if she would faint—and so did the Squire!

But the Squire was an indefatigable man, and kept trying. His next effort was:

“To all and singular, the sher—”

“Let’s run! he’s going to _level_ on us,” said two or three at once.

Here a gleam of light flashed across the face of Squire Tompkins. That dignitary looked around all at once, with as much satisfaction as Archimedes could have felt, when he discovered the method of ascertaining the specific gravity of bodies. In a grave and dignified manner, he said: