Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

“You better keep pretty close up, Major, ’case if I should happen to shine your eyes, you see, I moughtn’t know ’em from a deer, and old Betsey here toats fifteen buck-shot and a ball, and slings ’em to kill.”

I fell behind no more.

We had wandered about for several hours, and the sky, which had not been the clearest in the commencement, now began to assume the appearance of rain. I had more than once suggested the propriety of going home—but Sam was eager to show me how to shine the eyes of a buck, and no argument or persuasion could win him from his purpose. We searched on as before for another half hour, and I was about to express my determination to go home, when Sam suddenly paused:

“Stop, stop,” said he; “thar’s eyes, and whappers they is, too. Now hold still, Major.”

I raised on tiptoe with eager anticipation—I heard the click of the lock—there was a moment of portentous silence—then the old musket blazed forth with a thundering report, and in the same instant was heard a loud squeal, and a noise like the snapping of bridle reins.

“Thunder and lightnin’!” exclaimed Sam, as he dropped gun, pan and all, and stood fixed to the spot—“I’ve shot old Blaze!”

So soon as he had recovered from the shock, we hastened to the spot, and, sure enough, there lay the luckless mule, still floundering in the agonies of death. The aim had been but too good, and poor Blaze was hurt “past all surgery.” Sam stood over him in silent agony, and, notwithstanding the bitter maledictions he had so recently heaped upon him, now that he saw the poor animal stretched upon the ground in death, and knew that his “infernal picter” would greet him no more for ever, a flood of tender recollections of past services poured over his repentant heart. He uttered not a word until after the last signs of life were extinct—then, with a heavy sigh, he muttered:

“Pore old cretur!—well, well, I reckon I’s done the business now, sure enough. That’s what I calls a _pretty_ night’s work, anyhow!”

“A ‘bad beginning doesn’t always make a good ending,’ Mr. Sikes,” I remarked.

“Cus the luck, it will run so sometimes,” said he in a sullen tone, as he commenced taking the saddle off his deceased donkey. “I’m blamed if I see how I got so turned round.”

By this time it had commenced to rain, and we were anxious to get home; but Sam had dropped his gun and pan, as the awful truth rushed upon him, that he had killed the only mule he possessed in the world, and we now found it difficult to recover them. After searching about for near half an hour in the drizzling rain, Sam chanced to come upon the spot from which he had taken the hapless aim, and having regained his gun and pan, we endeavoured to strike a fire; all our efforts, however, to produce a light, proved ineffectual, and we essayed to grope our way amid the darkness.

“Hello, Major, whar is you?”

“Here!”

“Whar you gwine?”

“Home!”

“Well, that ain’t the way.”

“Why, we came this way.”

“No, I reckon not.”

“I’m sure we didn’t come that way.”

“Whar, in the devil’s name, is the branch?” petulantly inquired Sam. “If I could only see the branch, I could soon find the way.”

“It must be down this way,” I replied.

“Somehow or other I’m tetotiatiously deluded, to-night,” remarked Sam, as he came tearing through the briers with his stirrup-irons dangling about him, his gun in one hand and frying-pan in the other. “If I hadn’t a been completely dumfoozled, I’d never a killed Blaze like I did.”

I volunteered to carry his gun, but he was in no humour for the interchange of civilities—“still harping” on his mule, he trudged on, grumbling to himself—

“What,” he muttered, “will Polly say now—I’ll never hear the last of that critter the longest day I live. That’s worse than choppin’ the coon-tree across the sittin’ hen’s nest, and I liked never to hearn the eend o’ that.”

After groping through the brush and briers, which seemed to grow thicker the farther we proceeded, for some time, Sam stopped.

“I swar, Major, this ain’t the way.”

“Well, then, lead the way, and I’ll follow you,” I replied, beginning, myself, to think I was wrong.

Changing our direction, we plodded on, occasionally tumbling over logs and brush, until Sam concluded that all our efforts to find the way were useless.

“Oh, thunderation!” said he, as he tore away from a thick jungle of briers in which he had been rearing and pitching for more than a minute, “it ain’t no manner of use for us to try to find the way, Major—so let’s look out a big tree, and stop under it till morning.”

Seeing no alternative, I reluctantly acceded to his proposal.

Accordingly, we nestled down under the shelter of a large oak. For a time neither spoke, and all was still, save the incessant buzz of the countless hosts of mosquitoes that now seemed intent upon devouring us. At length I broke silence, by remarking—at the same time that I gave myself a box upon the ear, intended for the mosquitoe that was biting me:

“I think this will be my last fire-hunt, Mr. Sikes.”

“The fact is,” replied Sam, “this ’ere ain’t very incouragin’ to new beginners, Major, that’s a fact—but you musn’t give it up so. I hope we’ll have a better showin’ next time.”

“My curiosity is satisfied,” I remarked. “I wouldn’t pass such another night in the woods for all the deer in Georgia.”

“’Shaw, I wouldn’t care a tinker’s cus,” said Sam, “if I only jest hadn’t a killed Blaze. That’s what sets me back, monstrous.”

“That was indeed an unlucky mistake. I should think a few such exploits as that would cure you of your fire-hunting propensity. But I expect you never had such luck, before to-night.”

“No, not ’zactly—tho’ I’ve had some monstrous bad luck in my time, too. I reckon you never hearn about the time I got among the panters.”

“No—how was that?”

“Why, it was ’bout this time last fall, I and Dudley went out and ’camped on Sperit Creek. Well, he tuck his pan and went out one way, and I went another. I went shinin’ along jest like you seed me to-night, till I got a good bit from the camp, and bimeby, shore enough, I sees eyes not more’n forty yards off. I fotched old Betsey up to my face and cut loose, and the deer drapped right in his tracks, but somehow in my hurryment I drapt my pan, jest like I did to-night when I heard old Blaze squeel. While I was tryin’ to kindle up a light, what should I see but more eyes shinin’ way down in the holler. I drapt the fire and loaded up old Betsey as quick as I could, to be ready for the varmint, whatever it was. Well, the eyes kep comin’ closer and closer, and gettin’ bigger and brighter, and the fust thing I know’d ther was a whole grist of ’em all follerin’ right after the fust ones, and dodgin’ up and down in the dark like they was so many dancin’ devils. Well, I begun to feel sort o’ jubous of ’em, so I raised old Betsey and pulled at the nearest eyes, but she snapped—I primed her agin, and she flashed—and when I flashed, sich another squallin’ and yellin’ you never did hear, and up the trees they went all round me. Thinks I them must be somethin’ unnatural, bein’ as my gun wouldn’t shoot at ’em—so I jest drapt old Betsey, and put out for the camp as hard as I could split. Well, we went back the next mornin’, and what do you think them infernal critters had done?—eat the deer up slick and clean, all but the bones and horns, and a little ways off lay old Betsey, with four fingers of buck-shot and bullets, but not a bit of powder in her. Then I know’d they was panters.”

“Why, they might have eaten you too.”

“That’s a fact. Dudley said he wondered they didn’t take hold of me.”

The drizzling shower which had already nearly wet us to the skin, now turned to a drenching storm, which continued for more than an hour without intermission. When the storm abated, we discovered the dawn approaching, and, shortly after, were enabled to ascertain our whereabouts. We were not more than five hundred yards from the clearing, and probably had not been, during the night, at a greater distance than a mile from the house which we had left in the evening.

As we stepped from the wood into the open road, I contemplated, for a moment, the ludicrous appearance of my unfortunate companion. Poor Sam!—daylight, and the prospect of home, brought no joy to him—and as he stood before me, with the saddle and bridle of the deceased Blaze girded about his neck, his musket in one hand, and pan in the other, drenched with rain, his clothes torn, and a countenance that told of the painful conflict within, I could not but regard him as an object of sympathy rather than ridicule.

“Well,” said he, with a heavy sigh, and without looking me in the face, “good mornin’, Major.”

“Good morning,” I replied, touched with sympathy for his misfortune, and reproaching myself for the mirth I had enjoyed at his expense—“Good morning, Mr. Sikes. I am very sorry for your loss, and hope you will have better luck in future.”

“Oh, Major,” said he, “it ain’t the vally of the mule that I minds so much—though old Blaze was a monstrous handy cretur on the place. But thar’s my wife—what’ll she say when she sees me comin’ home in this here fix? Howsomedever, what can’t be cured must be indured, as the feller said when the monkey bit him.”

“That’s the true philosophy,” I remarked, seeing that he endeavoured to take courage from the train of reasoning into which he had fallen; “and Mrs. Sikes should bear in mind that accidents _will_ happen, and be thankful that it’s no worse.”

“To be sure she ought,” replied Sam, “but that ain’t the way with her—she don’t believe in accidents, nohow; and then she’s so howdacious unreasonable when she’s raised. But, she better not,” he continued, with a stern look as he spoke—“she better not come a cavortin’ ’bout me with any of her rantankerous carryin’s on this mornin’, for I ain’t in no humour nohow!” and he made a threatening gesture with his head, as much as to say he’d make the fur fly if she did.

We parted at the gate, Sam for his home, and I for my bed; he sorely convinced that a “bad beginning” does not _always_ “make a good ending,” and I fully resolved that it should be my first and last FIRE-HUNT.

XX.
A PAIR OF SLIPPERS; OR, FALLING WEATHER.

Whenever we look upon the crowded thoroughfare, or regard the large assembly, we are compelled to admit that the infinite variety of form in the human race contributes largely to the picturesque. The eye travels over the diversity of shape and size without fatigue, and renews its strength by turning from one figure to another, when, at each remove, it is sure to find a difference. Satiated with gazing at rotundity, it is refreshed by a glance at lathiness: and, tired with stooping to the lowly, it can mount like a bird to the aspiring head which tops a maypole.

But, while the potency of these pictorial beauties is admitted, it must be conceded that the variations from the true standard, although good for the eyesight, are productive of much inconvenience; and that, to consider the subject like a Benthamite, utility and the general advantage would be promoted if the total amount of flesh, blood, bone, and muscle were more equally distributed. As affairs are at present arranged, it is almost impossible to find a “ready-made coat” that will answer one’s purpose, and a man may stroll through half the shops in town without being able to purchase a pair of boots which he can wear with any degree of comfort. In hanging a lamp, every shop-keeper, who “lights up,” knows that it is a very troublesome matter so to swing it, that, while the short can see the commodities, the tall will not demolish the glass. If an abbreviated “turnippy” man, in the goodness of his heart and _in articulo mortis_, bequeaths his wardrobe to a long and gaunt friend, of what service is the posthumous present? It is available merely as new clothing for the juveniles, or as something toward another kitchen carpet. Many a martial spirit is obliged to content himself with civic employment, although a mere bottle of fire and wrath, because heroism is enlisted by inches, and not by degree.

If under “five foot six,” Cæsar himself could find no favour in the eye of the recruiting-sergeant, and Alexander the Great would be allowed to bestride no Bucephalus in a dragoon regiment of modern times. Thus, both they who get too much, and they who get too little, in Dame Nature’s apportionment bill, as well as those who, though abundantly endowed, are not well made up, have divers reasons for grumbling, and for wishing that a more perfect uniformity prevailed.

Some of the troubles which arise from giving a man more than his share in altitude, find illustration in the subjoined narrative:

Linkum Langcale is a subject _in extenso_. He is, to use the words of the poet, suggested by his name,

“. . . . . . _A bout_
_Of linked sweetness long drawn out:_”

and, in speaking of him, it is not easy to be brief. Linkum is entirely too long for his own comfort—something short—if the word _short_ may be used in this connection—something short of the height of the Titans of old, who pelted Saturn with brickbats; but how much, has never yet been ascertained, none of his acquaintances being sufficiently acquainted with trigonometry to determine the fact. He is one of those men who, like the gentle Marcia, “tower above their sex,” and must always be called down to their dinner, as no information can be imparted to them unless it be hallooed up, and in conversing with whom, it is always necessary to begin by hailing the maintop.

There is not, however, more material in Linkum than enough for a man of ordinary length. The fault is in his not being properly made up. He is abominably wire-drawn—stretched out, as Shakspeare says, almost to the crack of doom. It is clear that there has been an attempt to make too much of him, but the frame of the idea has not been well filled out. He is the streak of a Colossus, and he resembles the willow wand at which Locksley shot his gray goose shaft in the lists of Ashby de la Zouche. The consequence is, that Linkum is a crank vessel. If he wore a feather in his cap, he would be capsized at every corner; and as it is, he finds it very difficult to get along on a windy day, without a paving stone in each coat-pocket to preserve the balance of power. He is, however, of a convivial nature, and will not refuse his glass, notwithstanding the aptitude of alcohol to ascend into the brain, and so to encumber it as to render a perpendicular position troublesome to men shorter than himself. When in this condition, his troubles are numberless, and among other matters, he finds it very difficult to get a clear fall, there being in compact cities very little room to spare for the accommodation of long men tumbling down in the world.

One evening Linkum walked forth to a convivial meeting, and supped with a set of jolly companions. Late at night a rain came on, which froze as it fell, and soon made the city one universal slide, sufficiently “glip” for all purposes, without the aid of saw-dust. Of Linkum’s sayings and doings at the social board, no record is preserved; but it is inferred that his amusements were not of a nature to qualify him for the safe performance of a journey so slippery as that which it was necessary to undertake to reach home. No lamps were lighted, they who were abroad being under the necessity of supposing the moonshine, and of seeing their way as they walked, or of gathering themselves up, when they fell, by the lantern of imagination.

“Good night, fellers,” said Linkum, at the top of the steps, as the door closed after him.

He pulled his hat over his eyes determinedly, buttoned his coat with resolution, and sucked at his cigar with that iron energy peculiar to men about to set forth on their way home on a cold, stormy night. The fire of the cigar reflected from his nose was the only illumination to be seen; and Linkum, putting his hands deep into his pockets, kept his position on the first step of the six which were between him and the pavement.

“I’ve no doubt,” said he, as he puffed forth volumes of smoke, and seemed to cogitate deeply—“I’ve not the slightest doubt that this is as beautiful a night as ever was; only it’s so dark you can’t see the pattern of it. One night is pretty much like another night in the dark; but it’s a great advantage to a good-looking evening, if the lamps are lit, so you can twig the stars and the moonshine. The fact is, that in this ’ere city, we do grow the blackest moons, and the hardest moons to find, I ever did see. Sometimes I’m most disposed to send the bellman after ’em—or get a full-blooded pinter to pint ’em out, while I hold a candle to see which way he pints. It wouldn’t be a bad notion on sich occasions to ask the man in the steeple to ring which way the moon is. Lamps is lamps, and moons is moons, in a business pint of view, but practically they ain’t much if the wicks ain’t a-fire. When the luminaries are, as I may say, in the raw, it’s bad for me. I can’t see the ground as perforately as little fellers, and every dark night I’m sure to get a hyst—either a forred hyst, or a backerd hyst, or some sort of a hyst—but more backerds than forrerds, ’specially in winter. One of the most unfeeling tricks I know of, is the way some folks have got of laughing out, yaw-haw! when they see a gentleman ketching a riggler hyst—a long gentleman, for instance, with his legs in the air, and his noddle splat down upon the cold bricks. A hyst of itself is bad enough, without being sniggered at: first, your sconce gets a crack; then, you see all sorts of stars, and have free admission to the fireworks; then, you scramble up, feeling as if you had no head on your shoulders, and as if it wasn’t you, but some confounded disagreeable feller in your clothes; yet the jacksnipes all grin, as if the misfortunes of human nature was only a poppet-show. I wouldn’t mind it, if you could get up and look as if you didn’t care. But a man can’t rise, after a royal hyst, without letting on he feels flat. In such cases, however, sympathy is all gammon; and as for sensibility of a winter’s day, people keep it all for their own noses, and can’t be coaxed to retail it by the small.”

Linkum paused in his prophetic dissertation upon “hysts”—the popular pronunciation, in these parts, of the word _hoist_, which is used—_quasi lucus a non lucendo_—to convey the idea of the most complete tumble which man can experience. A fall, for instance, is indeterminate. It may be an easy slip down—a gentle visitation of mother earth; but a hyst is a rapid, forcible performance, which may be done, as Linkum observes, either backward or forward, but of necessity with such violence as to knock the breath out of the body, or it is unworthy of the noble appellation of hyst. It is an apt, but figurative mode of expression, and it is often carried still further; for people sometimes say, “lower him up, and hyst him down.”

Our hero held on firmly to the railing, and peered keenly into the darkness, without discovering any object on which his vision could rest. The gloom was substantial. It required sharper eyes than his to bore a hole in it. The wind was up, and the storm continued to coat the steps and pavements with a sheet of ice.

“It’s raining friz potatoes,” observed Linkum; “I feel ’em, though I can’t see ’em, bumping the end of my nose; so I must hurry home as fast as I can.”

Heedless and hapless youth! He made a vain attempt to descend, but, slipping, he came in a sitting posture upon the top step, and, in that attitude, flew down like lightning—bump! bump! bump! The impetus he had acquired prevented him from stopping on the sidewalk, notwithstanding his convulsive efforts to clutch the icy bricks, and he _skuted_ into the gutter, whizzing over the curbstone, and splashing into the water, like a young Niagara.

A deep silence ensued, broken solely by the pattering of the rain and the bowling of the wind. Linkum was an exhausted receiver; the hyst was perfect, the breath being completely knocked out of him.

“Laws-a-massy!” at length he panted, “ketching” breath at intervals, and twisting about as if in pain; “my eyes! sich a hyst! Sich a quantity of hysts all in one! The life’s almost bumped out of me, and I’m jammed up so tight, I don’t believe I’m so tall by six inches as I was before. I’m druv up and clinched, and I’ll have to get tucks in my trousers.”

Linkum sat still, ruminating on the curtailment of his fair proportions, and made no effort to rise. The door soon opened again, and Mr. Broad Brevis came forth, at which a low, suppressed chuckle was uttered by Linkum, as he looked over his shoulder, anticipating “a quantity of hysts all in one” for the new-comer, whose figure, however—short and stout—was much better calculated for the operation than Linkum’s. But Brevis seemed to suspect that the sliding was good, and the skating magnificent.

“No, you don’t!” quoth he, as he tried the step with one foot, and recovered himself; “I haven’t seen the Alleghany Portage and inclined planes for nothing. It takes me to diminish the friction, and save the wear and tear.”

So saying, he quietly tucked up his coat-tails, and sitting down upon the mat, which he grasped with both hands, gave himself a gentle impulse, crying “All aboard!” and slid slowly but majestically down. As he came to the plain sailing across the pavement, he twanged forth “Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra-tra-a-a!” in excellent imitation of the post-horn, and brought up against Linkum. “Clear the course for the express mail, or I’ll report you to the department!” roared Brevis, trumpeting the “alarum,” so well known to all who have seen a tragedy—“Tra-tretra-ta-ra-tra-a-a!”

“That’s queer fun, anyhow,” said a careful wayfarer, turning the corner, with lantern in hand, and sock on foot, who, after a short parley, was induced to set the gentlemen on their pins. First planting Brevis against the pump, who sang, “Let me lean on thee,” from the Sonnambula, in prime style, he undertook to lift up Linkum.

“Well,” observed the stranger, “this is a chap without no end to him—he’d be pretty long a drowning anyhow. If there was many more like him in the gutters, it would be better to get a windlass, and wind ’em up. I never seed a man with so much slack. The corporation ought to buy him, starch him up stiff, cut a hole for a clock in his hat, and use him for a steeple; only Downing wouldn’t like to trust himself on the top of such a ricketty concern. Neighbour, shall I fetch the Humane Society’s apparatus?”

“No—I ain’t drownded, only bumped severe. The curbstones have touched my feelings. I’m all over like a map—red, blue, and green.”

“Now,” said their friendly assistant, grinning at the joke, and at the recompense he had received for the job, “now, you two hook on to one another like Siameses, and mosey. You’ve only got to tumble one a top of t’other, and it won’t hurt. Tortle off—it’s slick going—’specially if you’re going down. Push ahead!” continued he, as he hitched them together; and away they went, _a pair of slippers_, arm in arm. Many were their tumbles and many their mischances before they reached their selected resting-place.

“I can’t stand this,” said Linkum to his companion, as they were slipping and falling; “but it’s mostly owing to my being so tall. I wish I was razee’d, and then it wouldn’t happen. The awning posts almost knock the head off me; I’m always tumbling over wheelbarrows, dogs, and children, because, if I look down, I’m certain to knock my noddle against something above. It’s a complete nuisance to be so tall. Beds are too short; if you go to a tea-fight, the people are always tumbling over your trotters, and breaking their noses, which is what young ladies ain’t partial to; and if you tipple too much toddy of a slippery night—about as easy a thing to do as you’d wish to try—you’re sure to get a hyst a square long—just such a one as I’ve had. If I’d thought of it, I could have said the multiplication-table while I was going the figure. Stumpy chaps, such as you, ain’t got no troubles in this world.”

“That’s all you know about it,” puffed Brevis, as Linkum alternately jerked him from his feet, and then caused him to slide in the opposite direction, with his heels ploughing the ice, like a shaft-horse holding back: “phew! That’s all you know about it—stumpies have troubles.”

“I can’t borrow coats,” added Linkum, soliloquizing, “because I don’t like cuffs at the elbows. I can’t borrow pants, because it isn’t the fashion to wear knee-breeches, and all my stockings are socks. I can’t hide when anybody owes me a lambasting. You can see me a mile. When I sit by the fire, I can’t get near enough to warm my body, without burning my knees; and in a stage-coach, there’s no room between the benches, and the way you get the cramp—don’t mention it.”

“I don’t know nothing about all these things; but to imagine I was a tall chap—”

“Don’t try; you’ll hurt yourself, for it’s a great stretch of imagination for a little feller to do that.”

After which amicable colloquy, nothing more was heard of them, except that, before retiring to rest, they chuckled over the idea that the coming spring would sweat the ice to death for the annoyance it had caused them. But ever while they live, will they remember “the night of hysts.”

XXI.
A SWIM FOR A DEER.

“Yes, Capting, the bar war _lower_, I tell _you_—why, bless your soul, honey, they war not only powerful thick, but some on ’em war as big as common-sized horses, I _do_ reckon; cause why, nobody ever had hunted ’em, you see. In the winter time the overflow, and in the summer time the lakes and snakes, bayous and alligators, musketoes and gallinippers, buffalo-gnats and sand-flies, with a small sprinkle of the agur and a _perfect cord_ of congestive, prevented the Ingins from gwine through the country! Oh no; the red skins would rather hunt the fat turkey and deer in the Azoo hills and pine lands t’other side of the Pearl river, to killin’ fat bar on the Creek or Sunflower.”

“Well, Jim, I think they were right; you must then have been among the first hunters in the country.”

“Yes, I _do_ reckon when I first went into that country, from the Azoo Hills to the Mississippi, there never had been but _mighty few_ hunters. Why thar ar places thar now whar the deer ar tame as sheep, and whar the bar don’t care for _nobody_! Fact! ask Chunkey!”

“That is very remarkable; what is the cause?”

“’Cause they’ve never been hunted; no, Sir: never hearn the crack of a rifle nor the yelp of a dog; why thar ar more nor a hundred lakes and brakes in them diggins, that hain’t never been pressed by no mortal ’ceptin’ varmints. You know more nor half the country is overflowed in the winter, and t’other half, which is a darned sight the biggest, is covered with cane, palmetto and other fixins;—why it stands to reason, and in course no man ever _had_ hunted ’em.—Why, Sir, when I first went to the Creek—”

“Let the Creek run, Jim; tell us about the bear!”

“Well, Sir, the bar war _very_ promiscuous indeed, and some of the old hees war mighty mellifluous, I tell _you_. I had no sens about bar _then_, but thar warn’t no cabin or camp in the whole settlement, and in course I soon larnt thar natur by livin’ ’mongst ’em. A bar, Capting, an old _he_ bar, ain’t no candidate or other good-natured greenhorn to stand gougin’ and treatin’. Oh no, _he_ ain’t, but he’s as ramstugenous an animal as a log-cabin loafer in the dog days, jist about, and if a stranger fools with him he’ll get sarved out in no time.

“Well, let’s licker. A bar is a _consaity_ animal, but as far as his sens do go he’s about as smart as any other animal; arter that, the balance is clear fat and fool. I have lived ’mongst ’em, and know ther natur. I have killed as many as seven in a day, and _smartly_ to the rise of sixty in a season. Arter I’d been on the Creek about two months, _up_ comes the Governor _and_ Chunkey; the Governor ’tended like he wanted to see how I come on with the clearin’; but, Sir, he were arter a spree, and I knoe’d it, or _why_ did he bring Chunkey? Everything looked _mighty_ well; the negers looked fat and slick as old Belcher in catfish season. I’d done cut more nor two hundred acres of cane, and had the rails on the ground. I’d done—”

“Come, Jim, keep the track!”

“Well, Capting, they war mighty savagerous arter likker; they’d been fightin’ the stranger[13] mightly comin’ up, and war perfectly wolfish arter some har of the dog, and I hadn’t a drop; so I started two negers, with mules and jugs, to the Pint (Princeton, Washington County), and the ox-team arter a barrel. Well, Sir, the day arter, the jugs come, and we _darted_ on ’em” (giving a sigh), “but lord, what war two jugs in _sich_ a crowd? They jist kept Chunkey from dyin’, as he was so dry he had the rattles; next day the barrel come, and then we _krack_-ovienned up to it in airnest. You know what kind of man Chunkey is when he gits started—if he commences talkin’, singin’, or whistlin’, no matter which, you’d jist as well try and stop the Mississippi as him. Why I’ve knoed him to whistle three days and three nights on a stretch—the Governor coulden’t eat nor drink for Chunkey’s whistlin’, and at last he gits mad, and that’s the last thing he does with anybody what _he_ likes, and, says he to Chunkey—

“‘Chunkey, you have kept me awake two nights a-whistlin’, and you must stop it to-night, or _you_ or _me_ must quit the plantation.’

“Chunkey said: ‘Governor, I don’t want to put you to no trouble, but I _can’t_ stop in the middle of a chune, and as you have known the plantation longer than me, I expect you can leave it with lest trouble.’

“The Governor jist roar’d, and gin Chunkey a new gun and—”

“Stop, Jim, you have forgot the bear.”

“Well, whar was I, Capting?—oh, I remember now! Well, when the barrel come we _did_ lumber; Chunkey he soon commenced singin’. We went on that way nigh a week, and then cooled off. One mornin’, I and Chunkey had gone down to the creek to git a bait of water, and I knoed the bar would be thar, as it war waterin’ time with them.”

“Why, Jim, have they a particular time to water?”

“In course they has; they come to water at a certain place, and jist as reglar as a parson to his eatin’; every bar has his waterin’ place, and he comes and goes in the same path and _in the same foot-tracks_ always, until he moves his settlement: and jist you break a cane, or limb, or move a chunk or stick near his trail, and see how quick he’ll move his cabin! Oh yes, a bar is mighty particlar about sich things—that’s his _sens_—that’s his _trap_ to find out if you are in his settlement. Why, Capting, I have watched ’em—”

“Jim, you have left yourself and Chunkey on the bank of the creek, ‘a-waterin’.’ Are you going to stay there?”

“Well, we set down on the bank and took our stand opposite the _biggest kind_ of sign, and sure enough, presently _down_ he come; a bar don’t lap water like a dog; no, they sucks it like a hog. You jist ought to see him rais his nose and smell the wind. Well, he seed us, and with that he _ris_! He war a whopper, I _tell you_! He looked like a big burn, and he throw’d them arms about awful, honey. It war about one hundred and twenty yards to him, but I knoed he were _my_ meat without an accident, so I let drive, and he took the creek—then out he went, and scampered up the bank _mighty quick_, and then sich a ratlin’ among cane, sich a growlin’ and snortin’, sich a breakin’ of saplins and vines, I reckon you never _did_ hear; I knoed, in course, I had him. I throwed a log in and paddled across—found his trail, and lots of har and fat, but no blood!”

“That was very strange, Jim; how did you account for that?”

“Why he were too fat to bleed! Oh, you think I am foolin’ you, but you ask Chunkey. It is frequently the case. I follered his trail about a quarter and a half a quarter, and _thar_ he lay; so I jist hollered to Chunkey to git two negers and a yoke of steers to take him to the house. How much do you reckon he weighed?”

“I have no idea, Jim.”

“Now, Sir, he weighed, without head, skin, or entrails, four hundred and ninety-three pounds, and his head sixty pounds! You don’t believe me! Well, just ask Chunkey if I haint killed ’em smartly over seven hundred pounds! Killin’ him sorter got my blood up, and I determined to have another. Chunkey had been jerkin’ it to the licker gourd mighty smart, and was jest right.”

“‘Chunkey,’ says I, ‘let’s gin it to another!’

“‘Good as ——,’ says Chunkey. ‘Who cars for expenses? a hundred-dollar bill ain’t no more in my pocket nor a cord of wood!’

“With that we started down to the Bend; we haddent been thar long when _in_ comes an old buck; he was a smasher, and one horn were broke off. I telled Chunkey now’s his time, as I skorn’d to toch him arter killin’ a bar. Chunkey lathered away, and _ca chunk!_ he went into the creek; he then gin him a turn with t’other barrel; the buck wabbled about a time or two and sunk, jist at the head of the little raft at the lower end of the clearin’. I know’d he’d lodged agin the drift, and determined to have him, and if you’ll believe me, I’d been workin’ at the gourd since I’d killed the bar. I pulled off my coat and jest throwed myself in; I swimd out to the place and _div_—you know the current are might rapid thar. Well, I found him, yes, —— if I diddent. But, Moses! warn’t I in a tight place _that_ time? Well, I reckon I were. I’d been willin’ to fite the biggest _he_ on the creek, and gin him the first bite, to have been out!”

“Why, Jim, what was the matter?”

“Arter I’d got in, I couldent get out—_that_ was the matter! You see the drift were a homogification of old cyprus logs, vines, and drift-wood of evry description, for nigh three hundred yards long, and the creek runs under thar like it was arter somebody; the trees and vines, and prognostics of all sorts, ar sorter nit together like a sock, and you couldent begin to get through ’em. Well, Capting, I thought my time had come, and I knowed it war for killin’ that cub what I telled you about. And, sir, it would have come if it haddent been for the sorritude I felt arterwards. You see, the young cub was standin’ in the corner of the fence eatin’ roastin’ ears, and I was goin’ to the——”

“But, Jim, you have told that once, and I don’t want to hear it again.”

“Well, I tried to rise, but I’d as well tried to rise down’ard. I then tried to swim up ’bove the raft, but I found from the way the logs and vines ware tearin’ the extras off me, that I were goin’ further under, and I was gettin’ out of wind very fast. I knowed thar was but one chance, and that was _to go clean through_! So I busted loose and set my paddles to goin’ mightily; presently my head bumped agin the drift! I div agin, and kept my paddles a lumberin’! Chunk! my head went agin a log, and then I knowed the thing were _irrefrangably out_—but I div agin, still workin’ on my oars smartly, until I hung agin!

“‘Good bye, Chunkey!—farewell, Governor,’ says I.

“But, Capting, I were all the time tryin’ to do _something_. Things had begun to look speckled green, and then _omniferous_; but findin’ I were not gone yet, by the way I were kickin’ and pawin’, and knowin’ I were goin’ _somewhere_, and expectin’ to the devil, there ain’t _no_ tellin’ how long or powerful I _did_ work! The fust thing I recollect arter that, was gittin’ a mouthful of wind! _Fact!_ I’d done, gone clean through, and were hangin’ on to a tree below the raft! But, Sir, I were _mighty_ weak, and couldent tell a stump from an old he, and ’spected smartly for some time that I were in the yother world, and commenced an excuse for comin’ so onexpectedly! However, presently I got sorter right, and when I found I were safe, I reckon you never _did_ see a man feel so _unanimous_ in your life, and I made the water fly for joy.”

“Well, Jim, what had become of Chunkey? He did not leave you?”

“Yes, —— if he diddent? He’d commenced gittin’ dry afore he shot the deer; and when Chunkey wants a drink, if his daddy was drounin’, Chunkey would go to the licker gourd afore he’d go to his daddy. I went to the house, and _thar_ he was settin’ at the table, jist a rattlin’ his teeth agin the bar’s ribs; he held a tin cup in one hand ’bout half full of licker; his head were sorter throwd back; he was breathin’ sorter hard, his eye set on the Governor, humpin’ himself on politics.

“‘Down with the specie kurrency,’ says Chunkey; ’it ain’t no account, and I’m agin it. When we had good times, I drank five-dollar-a-gallon brandy, and had pockets full of money.’

“‘But,’ says the Governor, ‘you bought the brandy on a credit, and never paid for it!’

“‘What’s the difference?’ asks Chunkey. ‘Them what I bought it from never paid for it; they bought it on a credit from them fureigners, and never paid for it, and them fureigners, you say, are a pack of scoundrels, and I go in for ruinin’ ’em, so far as good licker is concarned.’

“‘You are drunk,’ says the Governor, and then——but, Capting, you look sleepy; let’s licker, and go to bed.”

“No, I am not sleepy, Jim.”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you how I sarved Chunkey for leavin’ me under the raft. Moses! diddent I pay him back! Did I ever tell you ’bout takin’ Chunkey out on Sky Lake, makin’ him drunk, takin’ his gun and knife away from him, and a puttin’ him to sleep in a panter’s nest?”

“No, you never did; but was you not apprehensive they would kill him?”

“Kill him! No! If they’d commenced bitin’ Chunkey, they’d have been looed, as that’s a game Chunkey _invented_! But here he comes; and if you mention it afore him, it puts the dander in him. Let’s licker.”

-----

[13] A barrel of whiskey is called a “stranger,” from the fact that It is brought from a distance, there being none made in the country.

XXII.
DILLY JONES; OR, THE PROGRESS OF
IMPROVEMENT.[14]

One of the most difficult things in the world is to run before the wind; and, by judiciously observing the changes of the weather, to avoid being thrown out. Fashion is so unsteady, and improvements are so rapid, that the man whose vocation yields him an abundant harvest now, may, in a few years, if he has not a keen eye, and a plastic versatility, find that his skill and his business are both useless. Many were the poor barbers ship-wrecked by the tax upon hair-powder, and numerous were the leather breeches’ makers who were destroyed by the triumph of woollens. Their skill was doubtless very great, but it would not avail in a contest against the usages of the world; and unless they had the capacity to strike out a new course, they all shared the fate of their commodities, and retired to the dark cellars of popular estimation. Every day shows us the same principle of change at work, and no one has more reason to reflect and mourn about it than one Dilly Jones of this city. Dilly is not, perhaps, precisely the person who would be chronicled by the memoir writers of the time, or have a monument erected to him if he were no more; but Dilly is a man of a useful though humble vocation, and no one can saw hickory with more classic elegance, or sit upon the curbstone and take his dinner with more picturesque effect.

Yet, as has been hinted above, Dilly has his sorrows, particularly at night, after a hard day’s work, when his animal spirits have been exhausted by reducing gum logs to the proper measure. In the morning he is full of life and energy, feeling as if he could saw a cord of Shot-towers, and snap the pillars of the Bank across his knee like pipe-stems. In the full flush of confidence at that time of day, reflection batters against him in vain; but as the night draws on, Dilly feels exhausted and spiritless. His enthusiasm seems to disappear with the sun, and neither the moon nor the stars can cause high tide in the river of his mind. The current of his good spirits shrinks in its channel, leaving the gay and gorgeous barques of hope and confidence drearily ashore on the muddy flats; and his heart fails him as if it were useless longer to struggle against adversity.

It was in this mood that he was once seen travelling homeward, with his horse and saw fixed scientifically upon his shoulders. He meandered in his path in the way peculiar to men of his vocation, and travelled with that curvilinear elegance which at once indicates that he who practises it is of the wood-sawing profession, and illustrates the lopsided consequences of giving one leg more to do than the other. But Dilly was too melancholy on this occasion to feel proud of his professional air, and perhaps, had he thought of it, would have reproved the leg which performed the “sweep of sixty,” for indulging in such graces, and thereby embarrassing its more humble brother, which, knowing that a right line is the shortest distance between two places, laboured to go straight to its destination. Dilly, however, had no such stuff in his thoughts. His mind was reasoning from the past to the future, and was mournfully meditating upon the difficulties of keeping up with the changes of the times, which roll onward like a Juggernaut, and crush all who are not swift enough to maintain themselves in the lead. He wondered why fashions and customs should so continually change, and repined that he could not put a spoke in their wheel, that the trade of one’s early days might likewise be the trade of one’s latter years. So complete was his abstraction that he unconsciously uttered his thoughts aloud:

“Sawing wood’s going all to smash,” said he, “and that’s where everything goes what I speculates in. This here coal is doing us up. Ever since these black stones was brought to town, the woodsawyers and pilers, and them soap-fat and hickory-ashes men, has been going down; and, for my part, I can’t say as how I see what’s to be the end of all their new-fangled contraptions. But it’s always so; I’m always crawling out of the little end of the horn. I began life in a comfortable sort of a way; selling oysters out of a wheelbarrow, all clear grit, and didn’t owe nobody nothing. Oysters went down slick enough for a while, but at last cellars was invented, and darn the oyster, no matter how nice it was pickled, could poor Dill sell; so I had to eat up capital and profits myself. Then the ‘pepree pot smoking’ was sot up, and went ahead pretty considerable for a time; but a parcel of fellers come into it, said my cats wasn’t as good as their’n, when I know’d they was as fresh as any cats in the market; and pepree pot was no go. Bean soup was just as bad; people said kittens wasn’t good done that way, and the more I hollered, the more the customers wouldn’t come, and them what did, wanted tick. Along with the boys and their pewter fips, them what got trust and didn’t pay, and the abusing of my goods, I was soon fotch’d up in the victualling line—and I busted for the benefit of my creditors. But genius riz. I made a raise of a horse and saw, after being a wood-piler’s ’prentice for a while, and working till I was free, and now here comes the coal to knock this business in the head. My people’s decent people, and I can’t disgrace ’em by turning Charcoal Jemmy, or smashing the black stones with a pickaxe. They wouldn’t let me into no society at all if I did.”

The idea of being excluded from the upper circles of the society in which he had been in the habit of moving, fell heavily upon the heart of poor Dilly Jones. He imagined the curled lips and scornful glances of the aristocratic fair, who now listened with gratification to his compliments and to his soft nonsense; he saw himself passed unrecognised in the street—absolutely cut by his present familiar friends, and the thought of losing caste almost crushed his already dejected spirit.

The workings of his imagination, combined with the fatigue of his limbs, caused such exhaustion, that, dislodging his horse from his shoulder, he converted it into a camp-stool, seated himself under the lee of a shop window, and, after slinging his saw petulantly at a dog, gazed with vacant eyes upon the people who occasionally passed, and glanced at him with curiosity.

“Hey, Mister!” said a shop-boy, at last, “I want to get shut of you, ’cause we’re goin’ to shet up. You’re right in the way, and if you don’t boom along, why Ben and me will have to play hysence, clearance, puddin’s out with you afore you’ve time to chalk your knuckles—won’t we, Ben?”

“We’ll plump him off of baste before he can say fliance, or get a sneak. We’re knuckle dabsters, both on us. You’d better emigrate—the old man’s coming, and if he finds you here, he’ll play the mischief with you, before you can sing out, ‘I’m up if you knock it and ketch.’”

So saying, the two lads placed themselves one on each side of Dilly, and began swinging their arms with an expression that hinted very plainly at a forcible ejectment. Dilly, however, who had forgotten all that he ever knew of the phrases so familiar to those who scientifically understand the profound game of marbles, wore the puzzled air of one who labours to comprehend what is said to him. But the meaning became so apparent as not to be mistaken, when Ben gave a sudden pull at the horse, which almost dismounted the rider.

“Don’t be so unfeelin’,” ejaculated Dilly, as he clutched the cross-bars of his seat; “don’t be unfeelin’, for a man in grief is like a wood-piler in a cellar—mind how you chuck, or you’ll crack his calabash.”

“Take care of your calabash, then,” was the grinning response; “you must skeete, even if you have to cut high-dutchers with your irons loose, and that’s no fun.”

“High-dutch yourself, if you know how; only go ’way from me, ’cause I ain’t got no time.”

“Well,” said the boys, “haven’t we caught you on our payment?—what do you mean by crying here—what do you foller when you’re at home?”

“I works in wood; that’s what I foller.”

“You’re a carpenter, I s’pose,” said Ben, winking at Tom.

“No, not exactly; but I saws wood better nor any half-dozen loafs about the drawbridge. If it wasn’t for grief, I’d give both of you six, and beat you, too, the best day you ever saw, goin’ the rale gum and hickory—for I don’t believe you’re gentlemen’s sons; nothin’ but poor trash—half-and-half—want to be and can’t, or you wouldn’t keep a troubling of me.”

“Gauley, Ben, if he isn’t a wharf-rat! If you don’t trot, as I’ve told you a’ready, boss will be down upon you, and fetch you up like a catty on a cork-line—jerk!”

“That’s enough,” replied Dilly; “there’s more places nor one in the world—at least there is yet; new fashions haven’t shut up the streets yet, and obligated people to hire hackney balloons if they want to go a-walkin’, or omnibus boardin’-houses when they want a fip’s worth of dinner, or a levy’s-worth of sleep. Natural legs is got some chance for a while, anyhow, and a man can get along if he ain’t got clock-vurks to make him go.

“I hope, bimeby,” added Dill, scornfully, as he marched away from the chuckling lads, “that there won’t be no boys to plague people. I’d vote for that new fashion myself. Boys is luisances, accordin’ to me.”

He continued to soliloquize as he went, and his last observations were as follows:

“I wonder if they wouldn’t list me for a Charley? Hollering oysters and bean-soup has guv’ me a splendid woice; and instead of skeering ’em away, if the thieves were to hear me singing out, my style of doing it would almost coax ’em to come and be took up. They’d feel like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk up, and poke their coat-collars right into my fist. Then, after a while, I’d perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of pig-ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry elegant, requires genus. Tisn’t every man that can come the scientifics in that line, and has studied the nature of a pig, so as to beat him at canœuvering, and make him surrender ’cause he sees it ain’t no use of doing nothing. It wants larning to conwince them critters, and it’s only to be done by heading ’em up handsome, hopping which ever way they hop, and tripping ’em up genteel by shaking hands with their off-hind leg. I’d scorn to pull their tails out by the roots, or to hurt their feelin’s by dragging ’em about by the ears.

“But what’s the use? If I was listed, they’d soon find out to holler the hour and to ketch the thieves by steam; yes, and they’d take ’em to court on a railroad, and try ’em with biling water. They’ll soon have black locomotives for watchmen and constables, and big bilers for judges and mayors. Pigs will be ketched by steam, and will be biled fit to eat before they are done squealing. By and by, folks won’t be of no use at all. There won’t be no people in the world but tea-kettles; no mouths, but safety-valves; and no talking, but blowing off steam. If I had a little biler inside of me, I’d turn omnibus, and week-days I’d run from Kensington to the Navy Yard, and Sundays I’d run to Fairmount.”

-----

[14] By J. C. Neal.

XXIII.
LANTY OLIPHANT IN COURT.

Lawyers allege that there are four classes of witnesses: those who prove too much, those who prove too little, those of a totally negative character, and those of no character at all, who will prove anything. We have a case in point.