The Clockmaker — or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Clockmaker — or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville Most of them are dyke marshes have what they call 'HONEY POTS' in 'em; that is a deep hole all full of squash, where you can't find no bottom. Well, every now and then, when a feller goes to look for his horse, he sees his tail a stickin right out an eend, from one of these honey pots, and wavin like a head of broom corn; and sometimes you see two or three trapped there, e'en a most smothered, everlastin' tired, half swimmin' half wadin, like rats in a molasses cask. When they find 'em in that are pickle, they go and get ropes, and tie 'em tight round their necks, and half hang 'em to make 'em float, and then haul 'em out. Awful looking critters they be, you may depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half drowned kittens—all slinkey—slimey—with their great long tails glued up like a swab of oakum dipped in tar. If they don't look foolish its a pity? Well, they have to nurse these critters all winter, with hot mashes, warm covering, and what not, and when spring comes, they mostly die, and if they don't they are never no good arter. I wish with all my heart half the horses in the country were barrelled up in these here 'honey pots,' and then there'd be near about one half too many left for profit. Jist look at one of these barn yards in the spring—half a dozen half starved colts, with their hair lookin a thousand ways for Sunday, and their coats hangin in tatters, and half a dozen good for nothin old horses, a crowdin out the cows and sheep. Can you wonder that people who keep such an unprofitable stock, come out of the small eend of the horn in the long run? No. X The Road to a Woman's Heart—The Broken Heart. As we approached the Inn at Amherst, the Clockmaker grew uneasy. Its pretty well on in the evening, I guess, said he, and Marm Pugwash is as onsartain in her temper as a mornin in April; its all sunshine or all clouds with her, and if she's in one of her tantrums, she'll stretch out her neck and hiss, like a goose with a flock of goslins. I wonder what on airth Pugwash was a thinkin on, when he signed articles of partnership with that are woman; she's not a bad lookin piece of furniture neither, and its a proper pity sich a clever woman should carry such a stiff upper lip—she reminds me of our old minister Joshua Hopewell's apple trees. The old minister had an orchard of most particular good fruit, for he was a great hand at buddin, graftin, and what not, and the orchard (it was on the south side of the house) stretched right up to the road. Well, there were some trees hung over the fence, I never seed such bearers, the apples hung in ropes, for all the world like strings of onions, and the fruit was beautiful. Nobody touched the minister's apples, and when other folks lost theirn from the boys, hisn always hung there like bait to a hook, but there never was so much as a nibble at em. So I said to him one day, Minister, said I, how on airth do you manage to keep your fruit that's so exposed, when no one else cant do it nohow. Why, says he, they are dreadful pretty fruit, ant they? I guess, said I, there ant the like on em in all Connecticut. Well, says he, I'll tell you the secret, but you need'nt let on to no one about it. That are row next the fence, I grafted it myself, I took great pains to get the right kind, I sent clean up to Roxberry, and away down to Squaw-neck Creek, (I was afeared he was agoin to give me day and date for every graft, being a terrible long-winded man in his stories,) so says I, I know that, minister, but how do you preserve them? Why I was a goin to tell you, said he, when you stopped me. That are outward row I grafted myself with the choicest kind I could find, and I succeeded. They are beautiful, but so etarnal sour, no human soul can eat them. Well, the boys think the old minister's graftin has all succeeded about as well as that row, and they sarch no farther. They snicker at my graftin, and I laugh in my sleeve, I guess, at their penetration. Now, Marm Pugwash is like the Minister's apples, very temptin fruit to look at, but desperate sour. If Pugwash had a watery mouth when be married, I guess its pretty puckery by this time. However, if she goes to act ugly, I'll give her a dose of 'soft sawder,' that will take the frown out of her frontispiece, and make her dial-plate as smooth as a lick of copal varnish. Its a pity she's such a kickin devil, too, for she has good points—good eye—good foot—neat pastern—fine chest—a clean set of limbs, and carries a good —-. But here we are, now you'll see what' soft sawder' will do. When we entered the house, the traveller's room was all in darkness, and on opening the opposite door into the sitting room, we found the female part of the family extinguishing the fire for the night. Mrs. Pugwash had a broom in her hand, and was in the act (the last act of female housewifery) of sweeping the hearth. The strong flickering light of the fire, as it fell upon her tall fine figure and beautiful face, revealed a creature worthy of the Clockmaker's comments. Good evening, Marm, said Mr. Slick, how do you do, and how's Mr. Pugwash? He, said she, why he's been abed this hour, you don't expect to disturb—him this time of night I hope. Oh no, said Mr. Stick, certainly not, and I am sorry to have disturbed you, but we got detained longer than we expected; I am sorry that —. So am I, said she, but if Mr. Pugwash will keep an Inn when he has no occasion to, his family cant expect no rest. Here the Clockmaker, seeing the storm gathering, stooped down suddenly, and staring intently, held out his hand and exclaimed, well if that aint a beautiful child—come here, my little man and shake hands along with me—well I declare if that are little feller aint the finest child I ever seed—what, not abed yet? ah you rogue, where did you get them are pretty rosy cheeks; stole them from mamma, eh? Well, I wish my old mother could see that child, it is such a treat In our country, said he, turning to me, the children are all as pale as chalk, or as yeller as an orange. Lord, that are little feller would be a show in our country—come to me my man. Here the soft sawder began to operate. Mrs. Pugwash said in a milder tone than we had yet heard, 'go my dear to the gentleman, go dear.' Mr. Slick kissed him, asked him if he would go to the States along with him, told him all the little girls there would fall in love with him, for they didn't see such a beautiful face once in a month of Sundays. Black eyes, let me see, ah mamma's eyes too, and black hair also; as I am alive, why you are mamma's own boy, the very image of mamma. Do be seated, gentlemen, said Mrs. Pugwash—Sally make a fire in the next room. She ought to be proud of you, he continued. Well, if I live to return here, I must paint your face, and have it put on my clocks, and our folks will buy the clocks for the sake of the face. Did you ever see, said he, again addressing me, such a likeness between one human and another, as between this beautiful little boy and his mother. I am sure you have had no supper, said Mrs. Pugwash to me; you must be hungry and weary, too—I will get you a cup of tea. I am sorry to give you so much trouble, said I. Not the least trouble in the world, she replied, on the contrary a pleasure. We were then shown into the next room, where the fire was now blazing up, but Mr. Slick protested he could not proceed without the little boy, and lingered behind me to ascertain his age, and concluded by asking the child if he had any aunts that looked like mamma. As the door closed, Mr. Slick said, it's a pity she don't go well in gear. The difficulty with those critters is to get them to start, arter that there is no trouble with them if you don't check 'em too short If you do, they'll stop again, run back and kick like mad, and then Old Nick himself would'nt start 'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't understand the natur of the critter; she'll never go kind in harness for him. When I see a child, said the Clockmaker, I always feel safe with these women folk; for I have always found that the road to a woman's heart lies through her child. You seem, said I, to understand the female heart so well, I make no doubt you are a general favorite among the fair sex. Any man, he replied, that understands horses, has a pretty considerable fair knowledge of women, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment. Incourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but lather the sulky ones like blazes. People talk an everlastin sight of nonsense about wine, women and horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded in all of them, and I tell you, there aint one in a thousand that knows a grain about either on 'em. You hear folks say, oh, such a man is an ugly grained critter—he'll break his wife's heart; jist as if a woman's heart was as brittle as a pipe stalk. The female heart, as far as my experience goes, is just like a new India Rubber Shoe; you may pull and pull at it, till it stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will fly right back to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout leather, I tell you; there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em, I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that was in tother sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer. He was tall enough to spit down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about high enough to wade across Charlestown River, and as strong as a tow boat. I guess he was somewhat less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism too. He was a perfect pictur of a man; you could'nt falt him in no particular; be was so just a made critter; folks used to run to the winder when he passed, and say there goes Washington Banks, beant he lovely? I do believe there was'nt a gall in the Lowell factories, that warnt in love with him. Sometimes, at intermission, on Sabbath days, when they all came out together, (an amasin hansom sight too, near about a whole congregation of young galls) Banks used to say, 'I vow, young ladies, I wish I had five hundred arms to reciprocate one with each of you; but I reckon I have a heart big enough for you all; its a whapper, you may depend, and every mite and morsel of it at your service.' Well, how you do act, Mr. Banks, half a thousand little clipper clapper tongues would say, all at the same time, and their dear little eyes sparklin, like so many stars twinklin of a frosty night. Well, when I last see'd him, he was all skin and bone, like a horse turned out to die. He was tetotally defleshed, a mere walkin skeleton. I am dreadful sorry, says I, to see you, Banks, lookin so peecked; why you look like a sick turkey hen, all legs; what on airth ails you? I am dyin, says he, OF A BROKEN HEART. What, says I, have the galls been jiltin you? No, no, says he, I beant such a fool as that neither. Well, says I, have you made a bad speculation? No, says he, shakin his head, I hope I have too much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that. What under the sun, is it, then? said I. Why, says he, I made a bet the fore part of summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles, that I could shoulder the best bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the Anchor was so eternal heavy it broke my heart. Sure enough he did die that very fall, and he was the only instance I ever heerd tell of A BROKEN HEART. No. XI Cumberland Oysters Produce Melancholy Forebodings. The 'soft sawder' of the Clockmaker had operated effectually on the beauty of Amherst, our lovely hostess of Pugwash's Inn: indeed, I am inclined to think, with Mr. Slick, that 'the road to a woman's heart lies through her child,' from the effect produced upon her by the praises bestowed on her infant boy. I was musing on this feminine susceptibility to flattery, when the door opened, and Mrs. Pugwash entered, dressed in her sweetest smiles and her best cap, an auxiliary by no means required by her charms, which, like an Italian sky, when unclouded, are unrivalled in splendor. Approaching me, she said, with an irresistible smile, would you like Mr. —-, (here there was a pause, a hiatus, evidently intended for me to fill up with my name; but that no person knows, nor do I intend they shall; at Medley's Hotel, in Halifax, I was known as the stranger in No. 1. The attention that incognito procured for me, the importance it gave me in the eyes of the master of the house, its lodgers and servants, is indescribable. It is only great people who travel incog. State travelling is inconvenient and slow; the constant weight of form and etiquette oppresses at once the strength and the spirits. It is pleasant to travel unobserved, to stand at ease, or exchange the full suit for the undress coat and fatigue jacket. Wherever too there is mystery there is importance; there is no knowing for whom I may be mistaken—but let me once give my humble cognomen and occupation, and I sink immediately to my own level, to a plebeian station and a vulgar name: not even my beautiful hostess, nor my inquisitive friend, the Clockmaker, who calls me 'Squire,' shall extract that secret!) Would you like, Mr. —-. Indeed, I would, said I, Mrs. Pugwash; pray be seated, and tell me what it is. Would you like a dish of superior Shittyacks for supper? Indeed I would, said I, again laughing; but pray tell me what it is? Laws me! said she with a stare, where have you been all your days, that you never heerd of our Shittyack Oysters? I thought every body had heerd of them. I beg pardon, said I, but I understood at Halifax, that the only Oysters in this part of the world were found on the shores of Prince Edward Island. Oh! dear no, said our hostess, they are found all along the coast from Shittyack, through Bay of Vartes, away up to Ramshag. The latter we seldom get, though the best; there is no regular conveyance, and when they do come, they are generally shelled and in kegs, and never in good order. I have not had a real good Ramshag in my house these two years, since Governor Maitland was here; he was amazin fond of them, and Lawyer Talkemdeaf sent his carriage there on purpose to procure them fresh for him. Now we can't GET THEM, but we have the Shittyacks in perfection; say the word, and they shall be served up immediately. A good dish and an unexpected dish is most acceptable, and certainly my American friend and myself did ample justice to the Oysters, which, if they have not so classical a name, have quite as good a flavor as their far famed brethren of Milton. Mr. Slick eat so heartily, that when he resumed his conversation, he indulged in the most melancholy forebodings. Did you see that are nigger, said he, that removed the Oyster shells? well, he's one of our Chesapickers, one of General Cuffy's slaves. I wish Admiral Cockburn had a taken them all off our hands at the same rate. We made a pretty good sale of them are black cattle, I guess, to the British; I wish we were well rid of 'em all. THE BLACKS AND THE WHITES in the States show their teeth and snarl, they are jist ready to fall to. The PROTESTANTS and CATHOLICS begin to lay back their ears, and turn tail for kickin. THE ABOLITIONISTS AND PLANTERS are at it like two bulls in a pastur. MOB LAW AND LYNCH LAW are working like yeast in a barrell, and frothing at the bung hole. NULLIFICATION AND TARIFF are like a charcoal pit, all covered up, but burning inside, and sending out smoke at every crack, enough to stifle a horse. GENERAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE GOVERNMENT every now and then square off and sparr, and the first blow given will bring a genuine set-to. SURPLUS REVENUE is another bone of contention; like a shin of beef thrown among a pack of dogs, it will set the whole on 'em by the ears. You have heerd tell of cotton rags dipt in turpentine, hav'nt you, how they produce combustion? Well, I guess we have the elements of spontaneous combustion among us in abundance; when it does break out, if you don't see an eruption of human gore, worse than Etna lava, then I'm mistaken. There'll be the very devil to pay, that's a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern whites, and the northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our folks' temper, as raw meat does that of a dog—it fairly makes me sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all be tranquil once more, but its an even chance if it don't leave us the three steam boat options, to be blown sky high, to be scalded to death or drowned. If this sad picture you have drawn, be indeed true to nature, how does your country, said I, appear so attractive, as to draw to it so large a portion of our population? It tante its attraction, said the Clockmaker, its nothin but its power of suction; it is a great whirlpool—a great vortex—it drags all the straw, and chips and floatin sticks, drift wood and trash into it. The small crafts are sucked in, and whirl round and round like a squirrel in a cage— they'll never come out. Bigger ones pass through at certain times of tide, and can come in and out with good pilotage, as they do at HELL GATE up the Sound. You astonish me, said I, beyond measure; both your previous conversations with me, and the concurrent testimony of all my friends who have visited the States, give a different view of it. YOUR FRIENDS! said the Clockmaker, with such a tone of ineffable contempt, that I felt a strong inclination to knock him down for his insolence —your friends! Ensigns and leftenants, I guess, from the British marchin regiments in the Colonies, that run over five thousand miles of country in five weeks, on leave of absence, and then return, lookin as wise as the monkey that had seen the world. When they get back they are so chock full of knowledge of the Yankees, that it runs over of itself, like a Hogshead of molasses rolled about in hot weather—a white froth and scum bubbles out of the bung; wishy washy trash they call tours, sketches, travels, letters, and what not; vapid stuff, jist sweet enough to catch flies, cockroaches, and half fledged galls. It puts me in mind of my French. I larnt French at night school one winter, of our minister, Joshua Hopewell (he was the most larned man of the age, for he taught himself een amost every language in Europe); well, next spring, when I went to Boston, I met a Frenchman, and I began to jabber away French to him: 'Polly woes a french say,' says I. I don't understand Yankee yet, says he. You dont understand! says I, why its French. I guess you didn't expect to hear such good French, did you, away down east here? but we speak it real well, and its generally allowed we speak English, too, better than the British. Oh, says he, you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk Indian and call it French. But, says I, Mister Mount shear; it is French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes—all clear stuff; it will pass survey in any market—its ready stuck and seasoned. Oh, very like, says he, bowin as polite as a black waiter at New OrLEENS, very like, only I never heerd it afore; oh, very good French dat—CLEAR STUFF, no doubt, but I no understand—its all my fault, I dare say, Sare. Thinks I to myself a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, I see how the cat jumps—Minister knows so many languages he hant been particular enough to keep 'em in separate parcels and mark 'em on the back, and they've got mixed, and sure enough I found my French was so overrun with other sorts, that it was better to loose the whole crop than to go to weedin, for as fast as I pulled up any strange seedlin, it would grow right up agin as quick as wink, if there was the least bit of root in the world left in the ground, so I left it all rot on the field. There is no way so good to larn French as to live among 'em, and if you WANT TO UNDERSTAND US, YOU MUST LIVE AMONG US, TOO; your Halls, Hamiltons, and De Rouses, and such critters, what CAN they know of us? Can a chap catch a likeness flying along a rail road? can he even see the feature? Old Admiral Anson once axed one of our folks afore our glorious Revolution, (if the British had a known us a little grain better at that time, they would'nt have got whipped like a sack as they did then) where he came from. From the Chesapeeke, said he. Aye, aye, said the Admiral, from the West Indies. I guess, said the Southaner, you may have been clean ROUND THE WORLD, Admiral, but you have been plaguy LITTLE IN IT, not to know better nor that I shot a wild goose at River Philip last year, with the rice of Varginey fresh in his crops he must have cracked on near about as fast as them other geese, the British travellers. Which know'd the most of the country they passed over, do you suppose? I guess it was much of a muchness—near about six of one and a half dozen of tother; two eyes aint much better than one, if they are both blind. No, if you want to know all about us and the Blue Noses (a pretty considerable share of Yankee blood in them too, I tell you; the old stock comes from New England, and the breed is tolerable pure yet, near about one half apple sarce, and tother half molasses, all except to the Easterd, where there is a cross of the Scotch,) jist ax me and I'll tell you candidly. I'm not one of them that can't see no good points in my neighbor's critter, and no bad ones in my own; I've seen too much of the world for that, I guess. Indeed, in a general way, I praise other folks' beasts, and keep dark about my own. Says I, when I meet Blue Nose mounted, that's a real smart horse of yourn, put him out, I guess he'll trot like mad. Well, he lets him have the spur, and the critter does his best, and then I pass him like a streak of lightning with mine. The feller looks all taken aback at that. Why, says he, that's a real clipper of yourn, I vow. Middlin, says I, (quite cool, as if I had heard that are same thing a thousand times,) he's good enough for me, jist a fair trotter, and nothin to brag of. That goes near about as far agin in a general way, as a crackin and a boastin does. Never TELL folks you can go a head on 'em, but DO it; it spares a great deal of talk, and helps them to save their breath to cool their broth. No, if you want to know the inns and the outs of the Yankees—I've wintered them and summered them; I know all their points, shape, make and breed; I've tried 'em alongside of other folks, and I know where they fall short, where they mate 'em, and where they have the advantage, about as well as some who think they know a plaguy sight more. It tante them that stare the most, that see the best always, I guess. Our folks have their faults, and I know them, (I warnt born blind, I reckon,) but your friends, the tour writers, are a little grain too hard on us. Our old nigger wench had several dirty, ugly lookin children, and was proper cross to 'em. Mother used to say, 'Juno, its better never to wipe a child's nose at all, I guess, than to wring it off.' No. XII The American Eagle. Jist look out of the door, said the Clockmaker, and see what a beautiful night it is, how calm, how still, how clear it is, beant it lovely?—I like to look up at them are stars, when I am away from home, they put me in mind of our national flag, and it is generally allowed to be the first flag in the univarse now. The British can whip all the world, and we can whip the British. Its near about the prettiest sight I know of, is one of our first class Frigates, manned with our free and enlightened citizens all ready for sea; it is like the great American Eagle, on its perch, balancing itself for a start on the broad expanse of blue sky, afeared of nothin of its kind, and president of all it surveys. It was a good emblem that we chose, warn't it? There was no evading so direct, and at the same time, so conceited an appeal as this. Certainly, said I, the emblem was well chosen. I was particularly struck with it on observing the device on your naval buttons during the last war—an eagle with an anchor in its claws. That was a natural idea, taken from an ordinary occurrence: a bird purloining the anchor of a frigate—an article so useful and necessary for the food of its young. It was well chosen, and exhibited great taste and judgment in the artist. The emblem is more appropriate than you are aware of—boasting of what you cannot perform—grasping at what you cannot attain —an emblem of arrogance and weakness—of ill-directed ambition and vulgar pretension. Its a common phrase, said he, (with great composure) among seamen, to say 'damn your buttons,' and I guess its natural for you to say so of the buttons of our navals; I guess you have a right to that are oath. Its a sore subject, that, I reckon, and I believe I hadn't ought to have spoken of it to you at all. Brag is a good dog, but hold fast is a better one. He was evidently annoyed, and with his usual dexterity gave vent to his feelings, by a sally upon the Blue Noses, who he says are a cross of English and Yankee, and therefore first cousins to us both. Perhaps, said he, that are Eagle might with more propriety have been taken off as perched on an anchor, instead of holding it in his claws, and I think it would have been more nateral; but I suppose it was some stupid foreign artist that made that are blunder, I never seed one yet that was equal to ourn. If that Eagle is represented as trying what HE CAN'T DO, its an honorable ambition arter all, but these Blue Noses wont try what THEY CAN DO. They put me in mind of a great big hulk of a horse in a cart, that wont put his shoulder to the collar at all for all the lambastin in the world, but turns his head round and looks at you, as much as to say, 'what an everlastin heavy thing an empty cart is, isnt it?' An Owl should be their emblem, and the motto, 'He sleeps all the days of his life.' The whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at, but silent as the grave—still as death, asleep, becalmed. If the sea was always calm, said he, it would pyson the univarse; no soul could breathe the air, it would be so uncommon bad. Stagnant water is always unpleasant, bat salt water when it gets tainted beats all natur; motion keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our minister used to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This province is stagnant; it tante deep like still water neither, for its shaller enough, gracious knows, but it is motionless, noiseless, lifeless. If you have ever been to sea, in a calm, you'd know what a plaguy tiresome thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An everlastin flappin of the sails, and a creakin of the boombs, and an onsteady pitchin of the ship, and folks lyin about dozin away their time, and the sea a heavin a long heavy swell, like the breathin of the chist of some great monster asleep. A passenger wonders the sailors are so plagy easy about it, and he goes a lookin out east, and a spyin out west, to see if there's any chance of a breeze, and says to himself 'Well, if this aint dull music its a pity.' Then how streaked he feels when he sees a steamboat a clippin it by him like mad, and the folks on board pokin fun at him, and askin him if he has any word to send to home. Well, he says, if any soul ever catches me on board a sail vessel again, when I can go by steam, I'll give him leave to tell me of it, that's a fact. That's partly the case here. They are becalmed, and they see us going a head on them, till we are een amost out of sight; yet they hant got a steamboat, and they hant got a rail road; indeed, I doubt if one half on em ever see'd or heerd tell of one or tother of them. I never see'd any folks like 'em except the Indians, and they wont even so much as look—they hav'nt the least morsel of curiosity in the world; from which one of our Unitarian preachers (they are dreadful hands at DOUBTIN them. I don't DOUBT but some day or another, they will DOUBT whether every thing aint a DOUBT) in a very learned work, doubts whether they were ever descended from Eve at all. Old marm Eve's children, he says, are all lost, it is said, in consequence of TOO MUCH curiosity, while these copper colored folks are lost from havin TOO LITTLE little. How can they be the same? Thinks I, that may be logic, old Dubersome, but it ant sense, don't extremes meet? Now these Blue Noses have no motion in 'em, no enterprise, no spirit, and if any critter shows any symptoms of activity, they say he is a man of no judgment, he's speculative, he's a schemer, in short he's mad. They vegitate like a lettuce plant in sarse garden, they grow tall and, spindlin, run to seed right off, grow as bitter as gaul and die. A gall once came to our minister to hire as a house help; says she, minister, I suppose you don't want a young lady to do chamber business and breed worms do you? For I've half a mind to take a spell of livin out (she meant, said the Clockmaker, house work and rearing silk worms.) My pretty maiden, says he, a pattin her on the cheek, (for I've often observed old men always talk kinder pleasant to young women,) my pretty maiden where was you brought up? why, says she I guess I warnt brought up at all, I growed up; under what platform, says he, (for he was very particular that all his house helps should go to his meetin,) under what Church platform? Church platform, says she, with a toss of her bead, like a young colt that's got a check of the curb, I guess I warnt raised under a platform at all, but in as good a house as yourn, grand as you be—you said well said the old minister, quite shocked, when you said you growed up, dear, for you have grown up in great ignorance. Then I guess you had better get a lady that knows more than me, says she, that's flat. I reckon I am every bit and grain as good as you be—If I don't understand a bum-byx (silk worm) both feedin, breedin, and rearin, then I want to know who does, that's all; church platform indeed, says she, I guess you were raised under a glass frame in March, and transplanted on Independence day, warnt you? And off she sot, lookin as scorney as a London lady, and leavin the poor minister standin starin like a stuck pig. Well, well, says he, a liftin up both hands, and turnin up the whites of his eyes like a duck in thunder, if that don't bang the bush!! It fearly beats sheap shearin arter the blackberry bushes have got the wool. It does, I vow; them are the tares them Unitarians sow in our grain fields at night; I guess they'll ruinate the crops yet, and make the grounds so everlastin foul; we'll have to pare the sod and burn it, to kill the roots. Our fathers sowed the right seed here in the wilderness, and watered it with their tears, and watched over it with fastin and prayer, and now its fairly run out, that's a fact, I snore. Its got choaked up with all sorts of trash in, natur, I declare. Dear, dear, I vow I never seed the beat o' that in all my born days. Now the Blue Noses are like that are gall; they have grown up, and grown up in ignorance of many things they had'nt ought not to know; and its as hard to teach grown up folks as it is to break a six year old horse; and they do ryle one's temper so—they act so ugly that it tempts one sometimes to break their confounded necks—its near about as much trouble as its worth. What remedy is there for all this supineness, said I; how can these people be awakened out of their ignorant slothfulness, into active exertion? The remedy, said Mr, Slick, is at hand—it is already workin its own cure. They must recede before our free and enlightened citizens like the Indians; our folks will buy them out, and they must give place to a more intelligent and ac-TIVE people. They must go to the lands of Labrador, or be located back of Canada; they can hold on there a few years, until the wave of civilization reaches them, and then they must move again, as the savages do. It is decreed; I hear the bugle of destiny a soundin of their retreat, as plain as any thing. Congress will give them a concession of land, if they petition, away to Alleghany backside territory, and grant them relief for a few years; for we are out of debt, and don't know what to do with our surplus revenue. The only way to shame them, that I know, would be to sarve them as Uncle Enoch sarved a neighbor of his in Varginey. There was a lady that had a plantation near hand to hisn, and there was only a small river atwixt the two houses, So that folks could hear each other talk across it. Well, she was a dreadful cross grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she bear that has cubs, an old farrow critter, as ugly as sin, and one that both hooked and kicked too—a most particular onmarciful she devil, that's a fact. She used to have some of her niggers tied up every day, and flogged uncommon severe, and their screams and screeches were horrid—no soul could stand it; nothin was heerd all day, but OH LORD MISSUS! OH LORD MISSUS! Enoch was fairly sick of the sound, for he was a tender hearted man, and says he to her one day, 'Now do marm find out some other place to give your cattle the cowskin, for it worries me to hear em take on so dreadful bad—I cant stand it, I vow; they are flesh and blood as well as we be, though the meat is a different color' but It was no good—she jist up and told him to mind his own business, and she guessed she'd mind hern. He was determined to shame her out of it; so one mornin after breakfast he goes into the cane field, and says he to Lavender, one of the black overseers, 'Muster up the whole gang of slaves, every soul, and bring 'em down to the whippin post, the whole stock of them, bulls, cows and calves. Well, away goes Lavender, and drives up all the niggers. Now you catch it, says he, you lazy villains; I tole you so many a time—I tole you Massa he lose all patience wid you, you good for nothin rascals. I grad, upon my soul, I werry grad; you mind now what old Lavender say anoder time. (The black overseers are always the most cruel, said the Clockmaker; they have no sort of feeling for their own people.) Well, when they were gathered there according to orders, they looked streaked enough you may depend, thinkin they were going to get it all round, and the wenches they fell to a cryin, wringin their hands, and boo-hooing like mad. Lavender was there with his cowskin, grinnin like a chessy cat, and crackin it about, ready for business. Pick me out, says Enoch, four that have the loudest voices; hard matter dat, says Lavender, hard matter dat, Massa, dey all talk loud, dey all lub talk more better nor work—de idle villians; better gib 'em all a little tickle, jist to teach em larf on tother side of de mouth; dat side bran new, they never use it yet. Do as I order you, Sir, said Uncle, or I'll have you triced up, you cruel old rascal you. When they were picked out and sot by themselves, they hanged their heads, and looked like sheep goin to the shambles. Now, says Uncle Enoch, my Pickininnies, do you sing out as loud as Niagara, at the very tip eend of your voice— Dont kill a nigger, pray, Let him lib anoder day. Oh Lord Missus—oh Lord Missus. My back be very sore, No stand it any more, Oh Lord Missus—oh Lord Missus. And all the rest of you join chorus, as loud as you can bawl, 'Oh Lord Missus.' The black rascals understood the joke real well. They larfed ready to split their sides; they fairly lay down on the ground, and rolled over and over with lafter. Well, when they came to the chorus 'Oh Lord Missus,' if they did'nt let go, its a pity. They made the river ring agin—they were heerd clean out to sea. All the folks ran out of the Lady's House, to see what on airth was the matter on Uncle Enoch's plantation —they thought there was actilly a rebellion there; but when they listened awhile, and heerd it over and over again, they took the hint, and returned a larfin in their sleeves. Says they, Master Enoch Slick, he upsides with Missus this hitch any how. Uncle never heerd any thing more of 'Oh Lord Missus' arter that Yes, they ought to be shamed out of it, those Blue Noses. When reason fails to convince, there is nothin left but ridicule. If they have no ambition, apply to their feelings, slap a blister on their pride, and it will do the business. Its like a puttin ginger under a horse's tail; it makes him carry up real handSUM, I tell you. When I was a boy, I was always late to school: well father's preachin I didn't mind much, but I never could bear to hear mother say, 'Why Sam, are you actilly up for all day? Well, I hope your airly risin wont hurt you, I declare. What on airth is agoin to happen now?' Well, wonders will never cease. It raised my dander; at last says I, 'Now, mother, don't say that are any more for gracious sake, for it makes me feel ugly, and I'll get up as airly as any on you,' and so I did, and I soon found what's worth knowin in this life, 'An airly start makes easy stages.' No. XIII The Clockmaker's Opinion of Halifax. The next morning was warmer than several that had preceded it. It was one of those uncommonly fine days that distinguish an American autumn. I guess, said Mr. Slick, the heat to-day is like a glass of Mint Julip, with a lump of ice in it, it tastes cool and feels warm—its real good, I tell you; I love such a day as this dearly. Its generally allowed the finest weather in the world is in America—there ant the beat of it to be found anywhere. He then lighted a cigar, and throwing himself back on his chair, put both feet out of the window, and sat with his arms folded, a perfect picture of happiness. You appear, said I, to have travelled over the whole of this Province, and to have observed the country and the people with much attention, pray what is your opinion of the present state and future prospects of Halifax? If you will tell me, said he, when the folks there will wake up, then I can answer you, but they are fast asleep; as to the Province, its a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead, it will grow as fast as a Varginey gall, and they grow so amazin fast, if you put your arm round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you're done, they've grown up into women. It's a pretty Province I tell you, good above and better below; surface covered with pastures, meadows, woods, and a nation sight of water privileges, and under the ground full of mines—it puts me in mind of the soup at the TREE-mont House. One day I was a walkin in the Mall, and who should I meet but Major Bradford, a gentleman from Connecticut, that traded in calves and pumpkins for the Boston market. Says he, Slick, where do you get your grub to-day? At General Peep's tavern, says I; only fit for niggers, says he, why don't you come to the TREE-mont house, that's the most splendid thing its generally allowed in all the world. Why, says I, that's a notch above my mark, I guess it's too plagy dear for me, I cant afford it no how. Well, says he, its dear in one sense, but its dog cheap in another—its a grand place for speculation—there's so many rich southerners and strangers there that have more money than wit, that you might do a pretty good business there, without goin out of the street door. I made two hundred dollars this mornin in little less than half no time. There's a Carolina Lawyer there, as rich as a bank, and says he to me arter breakfast, Major, says he, I wish I knew where to get a real slapping trotter of a horse, one that could trot with a flash of lightning for a mile, and beat it by a whole neck or so. Says I, my Lord, (for you must know, he says he's the nearest male heir to a Scotch dormant peerage,) my Lord, says I, I have one a proper sneezer, a chap that can go ahead of a rail road steamer, a real natural traveller, one that can trot with the ball out of the small eend of a rifle, and never break into a gallop. Says he, Major, I wish you would'nt give me that are nickname, I dont like it, (though he looked as tickled all the time as possible,) I never knew says he a lord that warnt a fool, that's a fact, and that's the reason I don't go ahead and claim the title. Well, says I, my Lord I dont know, but somehow I cant help a thinkin, if you have a good claim, you'd be more like a fool not to go ahead with it. Well, says he, Lord or no Lord, let's look at your horse. So away I went to Joe Brown's livery stable, at tother eend of the city, and picked out the best trotter he had, and no great stick to brag on either; says I, Joe Brown what do you ax for that are horse? Two hundred dollars, says he; well says I, I will take him out and try him, and if I like him I will keep him. So I shows our Carolina Lord the horse, and when he gets on him, says I, dont let him trot as fast as he can, resarve that for a heat; if folks find out how everlastin fast he is, they'd be afeared to stump you for a start. When he returned, he said he liked the horse amazinly, and axed the price; four hundred dollars, says I, you cant get nothin special without a good price, pewter cases never hold good watches; I know it, says he, the horse is mine. Thinks I to myself, that's more than ever I could say of him then any how. Well, I was goin to tell you about the soup—says the Major its near about dinner time, jist come and see how you like the location. There was a sight of folks there, gentlemen and ladies in the public room (I never seed so many afore except at commencement day,) all ready for a start, and when the gong sounded, off we sott like a flock of sheep. Well, if there warnt a jam you may depend—some one give me a pull, and I near abouts went heels up over head, so I reached out both hands, and caught hold of the first thing I could, and what should it be but a lady's dress—well, as I'm alive, rip went the frock, and tare goes the petticoat, and when I righted myself from my beam eends, away they all came home to me, and there she was, the pretty critter, with all her upper riggin standin as far as her waist, and nothin left below but a short linen under garment. If she didn't scream, its a pity, and the more she screamed the more folks larfed, for no soul could help larfin, till one of the waiters folded her up in a table cloth. What an awkward devil you be, Slick, says the Major, now that comes of not falling in first, they should have formed four deep, rear rank in open order, and marched in to our splendid national air, and filed off to their seats right and left shoulders forward. I feel kinder sorry, too, says he, for that are young heifer, but she shewed a proper pretty leg tho' Slick, didn't she—I guess you don't often get such a chance as that are. Well I gets near the Major at table, and afore me stood a china utensil with two handles, full of soup, about the size of a foot tub, with a large silver scoop in it, near about as big as a ladle of a maple sugar kettle. I was jist about bailing out some soup into my dish, when the Major said fish it up from the bottom, Slick,—well, sure enough, I gives it a drag from the bottom, and up come the fat pieces of turtle, and the thick rich soup, and a sight of little forced meat balls of the size of sheep's dung. No soul could tell how good it was—it was near about as handSUM as father's old genuine particular cider, and that you could feel tingle clean away down to the tip eends of your toes. Now, says the Major, I'll give you, Slick, a new wrinkle on your horn. Folks aint thought nothin of unless they live at Treemont: its all the go. Do you dine at Peep's tavern every day, and then off hot loot to Treemont, and pick your teeth on the street steps there, and folks will think you dine there. I do it often, and it saves two dollars a day. Then he put his finger on his nose, and says he, "MUM IS THE WORD." Now this Province is jist like that are soup, good enough at top, but dip down and you have the riches, the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum, and what not. As for Halifax, its well enough in itself, though no great shakes neither, a few sizeable houses, with a proper sight of small ones, like half a dozen old hens with their broods of young chickens; but the people, the strange critters, they are all asleep. They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what they say one day they forget the next, they say they were dreaming. You know where Governor Campbell lives, don't you, in a large stone house with a great wall round it, that looks like a state prison; well, near hand there is a nasty dirty horrid lookin buryin ground there—its filled with large grave rats as big as kittens, and the springs of black water there, go through the chinks of the rocks and flow into all the wells, and fairly pyson the folks—its a dismal place, I tell you—I wonder the air from it don't turn all the silver in the Gineral's house of a brass color, (and folks say he has four cart loads of it) its so everlastin bad—its near about as nosey as a slave ship of niggers. Well you may go there and shake the folks to all etarnity and you wont wake em, I guess, and yet there ant much difference atween their sleep and the folks at Halifax, only they lie still there and are quiet, and don't walk and talk in their sleep like them above ground. Halifax reminds me of a Russian officer I once seed at Warsaw; he had lost both arms in battle: but I guess I must tell you first why I went there, cause that will show you how we speculate. One Sabbath day, after bell ringin, when most of the women had gone to meetin (for they were great hands for pretty sarmons, and our Unitarian ministers all preach poetry, only they leave the ryme out, it sparkles like perry,) I goes down to East India wharf to see Captain Zeek Hancock, of Nantucket, to enquire how oil was, and if it it would bear doing any thing in; when who should come along but Jabish Green. Slick, says he, how do you do; isn't this as pretty a day as you'll see between this and Norfolk; it whips English weather by a long chalk; and then he looked down at my watch seals, and looked and looked as if he thought I'd stole 'em. At last he looks up, and says he, Slick, I suppose you would'nt go to Warsaw, would you, if it was made worth your while? Which Warsaw? says I, for I believe in my heart we have a hundred of them. None of ourn at all, says he; Warsaw in Poland. Well, I don't know, says I; what do you call worth while? Six dollars a day, expenses paid, and a bonus of one thousand dollars, if speculation turns out well. I am off, says I, whenever you say go. Tuesday, says he, in the Hamburgh packet. Now, says he, I'm in a tarnation hurry; I'm goin a pleasurin to-day in the Custom House Boat, along with Josiah Bradford's galls down to Nahant. But I'll tell you what I am at: the Emperor of Russia has ordered the Poles to cut off their queues on the 1st of January; you must buy them all up, and ship them off to London for the wig makers. Human hair is scarce and risin. Lord a massy! says I, how queer they will look, wont they. Well, I vow, that's what the sea folks call sailing UNDER BARE POLES, come true, aint it? I guess it will turn out a good spec, says he; and a good one it did turn out— he cleared ten thousand dollars by it. When I was at Warsaw, as I was a sayin, there was a Russian officer there who had lost both his arms in battle; a good natured contented critter, as I een amost ever see'd, and he was fed with spoons by his neighbors, but arter awhile they grew tired of it, and I guess he near about starved to death at last. Now Halifax is like that are SPOONEY, as I used to call him; it is fed by the outports, and they begin to have enough to do to feed themselves—it must larn to live without 'em. They have no river, and no country about them; let them make a rail road to Minas Basin, and they will have arms of their own to feed themselves with. If they don't do it, and do it soon, I guess they'll get into a decline that no human skill will cure. They are proper thin now; you can count their ribs een a most as far as you can see them. The only thing that will either make or save Halifax, is a rail road across the country to Bay of Fundy. It will do to talk of, says one; you'll see it some day says another; yes, says a third, it will come, but we are too young yet. Our old minister had a darter, a real clever lookin gall as you'd see in a day's ride, and she had two or three offers of marriage from sponsible men—most particular good specs—but minister always said 'Phoebe, you are too young—the day will come—but you are too young yet dear.' Well, Phoebe did'nt think so at all; she said she guessed she knew better nor that: so the next offer she had, she said she had no notion to lose another chance—off she sot to Rhode Island and got married; says she, father's too old, he don't know. That's jist the case at Halifax. The old folks say the country is too young—the time will come, and so on; and in the mean time the young folks won't wait, and run off to the States, where the maxim is, 'youth is the time for improvement; a new country is never too young for exertion—push on—keep movin—go ahead.' Darn it all, said the Clockmaker, rising with great animation, clinching his fist, and extending his arm—darn it all, it fairly makes my dander rise, to see the nasty idle loungin good for nothin do little critters—they aint fit to tend a bear trap, I vow. They ought to be quilted round and round a room, like a lady's lap dog, the matter of two hours a day, to keep them from dyin of apoplexy. Hush, hush, said I, Mr. Slick, you forget. Well, said he, resuming his usual composure—well, it's enough to make one vexed though, I declare—is'nt it? Mr. Slick has often alluded to this subject, and always in a most decided manner; I am inclined to think he is right. Mr. Howe's papers on the rail road I read till I came to his calculations, but I never could read figures, 'I can't cypher,' and there I paused; it was a barrier: I retreated a few paces, took a running leap, and cleared the whole of them. Mr. Slick says he has UNDER and not OVER rated its advantages. He appears to be such a shrewd, observing, intelligent man, and so perfectly at home on these subjects, that I confess I have more faith in this humble but eccentric Clockmaker, than in any other man I have met with in this Province. I therefore pronounce 'there will be a rail road.' No. XIV Sayings and Doings in Cumberland. I reckon, said the Clockmaker, as we strolled through Amherst, you have read Hook's story of the boy that one day asked one of his father's guests who his next door neighbor was, and when he heerd his name, asked him if he warnt a fool. No, my little feller, said he, he beant a fool, he is a most particular sensible man; but why did you ax that are question? Why, said the little boy, mother said tother day you were next door to a fool, and I wanted to know who lived next door to you. His mother felt pretty ugly, I guess, when she heerd him run right slap on that are breaker. Now these Cumberland folks have curious next door neighbors, too; they are placed by their location right atwixt fire and water; they have New Brunswick politics on one side, and Nova Scotia politics on tother side of them, and Bay Fundy and Bay Varte on tother two sides; they are actilly in hot water; they are up to their croopers in politics, and great hands for talking of House of Assembly, political Unions, and what not. Like all folks who wade so deep, they can't always tell the natur of the ford. Sometimes they strike their shins agin a snag of a rock; at other times they go whap into a quicksand, and if they don't take special care they are apt to go souse over head and ears into deep water. I guess if they'd talk more of ROTATIONS, and less of ELECTIONS, more of them are DYKES, and less of BANKS, and attend more to TOP-DRESSING, and lees to RE-DRESSING, it ed be better for 'em. Now you mention the subject, I think I have observed, said I, that there is a great change in your countrymen in that respect. Formerly, whenever you met an American, you had a dish of politics set before you, whether you had an appetite for it or not; but lately I have remarked they seldom allude to it. Pray to what is this attributable? I guess, said he, they have enough of it to home, and are sick of the subject. They are cured the way our pastry cooks cure their prentices of stealing sweet notions out of their shops. When they get a new prentice they tell him he must never so much as look at all them are nice things; and if he dares to lay the weight of his finger upon one of them, they'll have him up for it before a justice; they tell him its every bit and grain as bad as stealing from a till. Well, that's sure to set him at it, just as a high fence does a breachy ox, first to look over it, and then to push it down with its rump; its human natur. Well, the boy eats and eats till he cant eat no longer, and then he gets sick at his stomach, and hates the very sight of sweetmeats arterwards. We've had politics with us, till we're dog sick of 'em, I tell you. Besides, I guess we are as far from perfection as when we set out a roin for it. You may get PURITY OF ELECTION, but how are you to get PURITY OF MEMBERS? It would take a great deal of cyphering to tell that. I never see'd it yet, and never heerd tell of one who had see'd it. The best member I een amost ever seed was John Adams. Well, John Adams could no more plough a straight furrow in politics than he could haul the plough himself. He might set out straight at beginnin for a little way, but he was sure to get crooked afore he got to the eend of the ridge—and sometimes he would have two or three crooks in it. I used to say to him, how on airth is it, Mr. Adams, (for he was no way proud like, though he was president of our great nation—and it is allowed to be the greatest nation in the world, too—for you might see him sometimes of an arternoon, a swimmin along with the boys in the Potomac; I do believe that's the way he larned to give the folks the dodge so spry;) well, I used to say to him, how on airth is it, Mr. Adams, you can't make straight work on it? He was a grand hand at an excuse, (though minister used to say that folks that were good at an excuse, were seldom good for nothin else); sometimes, he said, the ground was so tarnation stony, it throwed the plough out; at other times he said the off ox was such an ugly wilful tempered critter, there was no doin nothin with him; or that there was so much machinery about the plough, it made it plagy hard to steer; or may be it was the fault of them that went afore him, that they laid it down so bad; unless he was hired for another term of four years, the work wouldn't look well; and if all them are excuses wouldn't do, why he would take to scolding the nigger that drove the team—throw all the blame on him, and order him to have an everlastin lacin with the cowskin. You might as well catch a weazel asleep as catch him. He had somethin the matter with one eye—well, he knew I know'd that when I was a boy; so one day, a feller presented a petition to him, and he told him it was very affectin. Says he, it fairly draws tears from me, and his weak eye took to lettin off its water like statiee so as soon as the chap went, he winks to me with tother one, quite knowin, as much as to say, YOU SEE ITS ALL IN MY EYE, Slick, but don't let on to any one about it, that I said so. That eye was a regular cheat, a complete New England wooden nutmeg. Folks said Mr. Adams was a very tender hearted man. Perhaps he was, but I guess that eye didn't pump its water out o' that place. Members in general aint to be depended on, I tell you. Politics makes a man as crooked as a pack does a pedlar; not that they are so awful heavy, neither, but it TEACHES A MAN TO STOOP IN THE LONG RUN. Arter all, there's not that difference in 'em (at least there aint in Congress) one would think, for if one of them is clear of one vice, why, as like as not, he has another fault just as bad. An honest farmer, like one of these Cumberland folks, when he goes to choose atwixt two that offers for votes, is jist like the flying fish. That are little critter is not content to stay to home in the water, and mind its business, but he must try his hand at flyin, and he is no great dab at flyin, neither. Well, the moment he's out of water, and takes to flyin, the sea fowl are arter him, and let him have it; and if he has the good luck to escape them, and makes a dive into the sea, the dolphin, as like as not, has a dig at him, that knocks more wind out of him than he got while aping the birds, a plagy sight. I guess the Blue Noses know jist about as much about politics as this foolish fish knows about flyin. All critters in natur are better in their own element. It beats cock fightin, I tell you, to hear the Blue Noses, when they get together, talk politics. They have got three or four evil spirits, like the Irish Banshees, that they say cause all the mischief in the Province—the Council, the Banks, the House of Assembly and the Lawyers. If a man places a higher valiation on himself than his neighbors do, and wants to be a magistrate before he is fit to carry the ink horn for one, and finds himself safely delivered of a mistake, he says it is all owing to the Council. The members are cunnin critters, too; they know this feelin, and when they come home from Assembly, and people ax 'em "where are all them are fine things you promised us?" why, they say, we'd a had 'em all for you, but for that etarnal Council, they nullified all we did. The country will come to no good till them chaps show their respect for it, by covering their bottoms with homespun. If a man is so tarnation lazy he wont work, and in course has no money, why he says its all owin to the banks, they wont discount, there's no money, they've ruined the Province. If there beant a road made up to every citizen's door, away back to the woods (who as like as not has squatted there) why he says the House of Assembly have voted all the money to pay great men's salaries, and there's nothin left for poor settlers, and cross roads. Well, the lawyers come in for their share of cake and ale, too; if they don't catch it, its a pity. There was one Jim Munroe of Onion County, Connecticut, a desperate idle fellow, a great hand at singin songs, a skatin, drivin about with the galls, and so on. Well, if any body's windows were broke, it was Jim Munroe—and if there were any youngsters in want of a father, they were sure to be poor Jim's. Jist so it is with the lawyers here; they stand Godfathers for every misfortune that happens in the country. When there is a mad dog a goin about, every dog that barks is said to be bit by the mad one, so he gets credit for all the mischief that every dog does for three months to come. So every feller that goes yelpin home from a court house, smartin from the law, swears he is bit by a lawyer. Now there may be something wrong in all these things, (and it cant be otherwise in natur) in Council, Banks, House of Assembly, and Lawyers: but change them all, and its an even chance if you don't get worse ones in their room. It is in politics as in horses; when a man has a beast that's near about up to the notch, he'd better not swap him; if he does, he's een amost sure to get one not so good as his own. My rule is, I'd rather keep a critter whose faults I do know, than change him for a beast whose faults I dont know. No. XV The Dancing Master Abroad. I wish that are black heifer in the kitchen would give over singing that are everlastin dismal tune, said the Clockmaker, it makes my head ache. You've heerd a song afore now, said he, hav'nt you, till you was fairly sick of it? for I have, I vow. The last time I was in Rhode Island, (all the galls sing there, and its generally allowed there's no such singers any where; they beat the EYE-talians a long chalk—they sing so high some on em, they go clear out o' hearin sometimes, like a lark) well, you heerd nothin but 'Oh no, we never mention her,' well, I grew so plaguy tired of it, I used to say to myself, I'd sooner see it, than heer tell of it, I vow, I wish to gracious you 'would never mention her,' for it makes me feel ugly to hear that same thing for ever and ever and amen that way. Well, they've got a cant phrase here, 'the schoolmaster is abroad,' and every feller tells you that fifty times a day. There was a chap said to me not long ago, at Truro, Mr. Slick, this Country is rapidly improving, 'the schoolmaster is abroad now,' and he looked as knowin as though he had found a mate's nest. So I should think, said I, and it would jist be about as well, I guess, if he'd stay to home and mind his business, for your folks are so consoomedly ignorant, I reckon he's abroad een amost all his time. I hope when he returns, he'll be the better of his travels, and that's more nor many of our young folks are who go 'abroad,' for they import more airs and nonsense, than they dispose of one while, I tell you—some of the stock remains on hand all the rest of their lives. There's nothin I hate so much as cant, of all kinds, its a sure sign of a tricky disposition. If you see a feller cant in religion, clap your hand into your pocket, and lay right hold of your puss, or he'll steal it as sure as you're alive; and if a man cant in politics, he'll sell you if he gets a chance, you may depend. Law and physic are jist the same, and every mite and morsel as bad. If a lawyer takes to cantin, its like the fox preachin to the geese, he'll eat up his whole congregation; and if a doctor takes to it, he's a quack as sure as rates. The Lord have massy on you, for he wont. I'd sooner trust my chance with a naked hook any time, than one that's half covered with bad bait. The fish will sometimes swaller the one, without thinkin, but they get frightened at tother, turn tail and off like a shot. Now, to change the tune, I'll give the Blue Noses a new phrase. They'll have an election most likely next year, and then 'the dancin master will be abroad.' A candidate is a most particular polite man, a noddin here, and a bowin there, and a shakin hands all round. Nothin improves a man's manners like an election. 'The dancin master's abroad then;' nothin gives the paces equal to that, it makes them as squirmy as an eel, they cross hands and back agin, set to their partners and right and left in great style, and slick it off at the eend, with a real complete bow, and a smile for all the world as sweet as a cat makes at a pan of new milk. Then they get as full of compliments as a dog is full of fleas—enquirin how the old lady is to home, and the little boy that made such a wonderful smart answer, they never can forget it till next time; a praisin a man's farm to the nines, and a tellin of him, how scandalous the road that leads to his location has been neglected, and how much he wants to find a real complete hand that can build a bridge over his brook, and axin him if HE ever built one. When he gets the hook baited with the right fly, and the simple critter begins to jump out of water arter it, all mouth and gills, he winds up the reel, and takes leave, a thinkin to himself 'now you see what's to the eend of my line, I guess I'll know where to find you when I want you.' There's no sort of fishin requires so much practice as this. When bait is scarce one worm must answer for several fish. A handful of oats in a pan, arter it brings one horse up in a pastur for the bridle, serves for another, a shakin of it, is better than a givin of it, it saves the grain for another time. It's a poor business arter all is electioneering, and when 'the Dancin Master is abroad,' he's as apt to teach a man to cut capers and get larfed at as any thing else. It tante every one that's soople enough to dance real complete. Politicks take a great deal of time, and grinds away a man's honesty near about as fast as cleaning a knife with brick dust, 'it takes its steel out.' What does a critter get arter all for it in this country, why nothin but expense and disappointment. As King Solomon says, (and that are man was up to a thing or two, you may depend, tho' our professor did say he warn't so knowin as Uncle Sam,) it's all vanity and vexation of spirit. I raised a four year old colt once, half blood, a perfect pictur of a horse, and a genuine clipper, could gallop like the wind; a real daisy, a perfect doll, had an eye like a weasel, and nostril like Commodore Rodgers's speakin trumpet. Well, I took it down to the races at New York, and father he went along with me; for says he, Sam, you don't know every thing, I guess, you hant cut your wisdom teeth yet, and you are goin among them that's had 'em through their gums this while past. Well, when we gets to the races, father he gets colt and puts him in an old waggon, with a worn out Dutch harness, and breast band; he looked like Old Nick, that's a fact. Then he fastened a head martingale on, and buckled it to the girths atwixt his fore legs. Says I, father, what on airth are you at? I vow I feel ashamed to be seen with such a catamaran as that, and colt looks like old Saytan himself—no soul would know him. I guess I warn't born yesterday, says he, let me be, I know what I am at. I guess I'll slip it into 'em afore I've done as slick as a whistle. I guess I can see as far into a mill stone as the best on 'em. Well, father never entered the horse at all, but stood by and see'd the races, and the winnin horse was followed about by the matter of two or three thousand people, a praisin of him and admirin him. They seemed as if they never had see'd a horse afore. The owner of him was all up on eend a boastin of him, and a stumpin the course to produce a horse to run agin him for four hundred dollars. Father goes up to him, lookin as soft as dough, and as meechin as you please, and says he, friend, it tante every one that has four hundred dollars—its a plaguy sight of money, I tell you; would you run for one hundred dollars, and give me a little start? if you would, I'd try my colt out of my old waggon agin you, I vow. Let's look at your horse, says he; so away they went, and a proper sight of people arter them to look at colt, and when they see'd him they sot up such a larf, I felt een a most ready to cry for spite. Says I to myself; what can possess the old man to act arter that fashion, I do believe he has taken leave of his senses. You need'nt larf, says Father, he's smarter than he looks; our Minister's old horse, Captain Jack, is reckoned as quick a beast of his age as any in our location, and that are colt can beat him for a lick of a quarter of a mile quite easy—I see'd it myself. Well, they larfed agin louder than before, and says father, if you dispute my word, try me; what odds will you give? Two to one, says the owner—800 to 400 dollars. Well, that's a great deal of money, aint it, says father, if I was to lose it I'd look pretty foolish, would'nt I. How folks would pass their jokes at me when I went home again. You would'nt take that are waggon and harness for fifty dollars of it, would you? says he. Well, says the other, sooner than disappoint you, as you seem to have set your mind on losing your money, I don't care if I do. As soon as it was settled, father drives off to the stables, and then returns mounted, with a red silk pocket handkerchief tied round his head, and colt a looking like himself as proud as a nabob, chock full of spring like the wire eend of a bran new pair of trowser galluses—one said that's a plaguy nice lookin colt that old feller has arter all, that horse will show play for it yet, says a third; and I heard one feller say, I guess that's a regular Yankee trick, a complete take in. They had a fair start for it, and off they sot, father took the lead and kept it, and won the race, tho' it was a pretty tight scratch, for father was too old to ride colt, he was near about the matter of seventy years old. Well when the colt was walked round after the race, there was an amasin crowd arter him, and several wanted to buy him; but, says father, how am I to get home without him, and what shall I do with that are waggon and harness so far as I be from Slickville. So he kept them in talk, till he felt their pulses pretty well, and at last he closed with a Southerner for 700 dollars, and we returned, having made a considerable good spec of colt. Says father to me, Sam says he, you seed the crowd a follerin the winnin horse, when we came there, did'nt you? yes Sir, said I, I did. Well, when colt beat him, no one follered him at all, but come a crowded about HIM. That's popularity, said he, soon won, soon lost—cried up sky high one minute, and deserted the next or run down; colt will share the same fate. He'll get beat afore long, and then he's done for. The multitude are always fickle minded. Our great Washington found that out, and the British officer that beat Bounaparte, the bread they gave him turned sour afore he got half through the loaf. His soap had hardly stiffened afore it ran right back to lye and grease agin. I was sarved the same way, I liked to have missed my pension, the Committee said I warn't at Bunker's hill at all, the villans. That was a Glo—-, (thinks I, old boy, if you once get into that are field, you'll race longer than colt, a plaguy sight; you'll run clear away to the fence to the far eend afore you stop, so I jist cut in and took a hand myself,) yes, says I, you did 'em father, properly, that old waggon was a bright scheme, it led 'em on till you got 'em on the right spot, did'nt it? Says father, THERE'S A MORAL SAM, IN EVERY THING IN NATUR. Never have nothin to do with elections, you see the valy of popularity in the case of that are horse—sarve the public 999 times, and the 1,000th, if they don't agree with you, they desart and abuse you—see how they sarved old John Adams, see how they let Jefferson starve in his old age, see how good old Munroe like to have got right into Jail, after his term of President was up. They may talk of independence, says father, but Sam, I'll tell you what independence is, and he gave his hands a slap agin his trowses pocket, and made the gold eagles he won at the race all jingle agin; THAT, says he, giving them another wipe with his fist, (and winkin as much as to say do you hear that my boy) THAT I CALL INDEPENDENCE. He was in great spirits, the old man, he was so proud of winnin the race, and puttin the leake into the New Yorkers—he looked all dander. Let them great hungry, ill favored, long legged bitterns, says he, (only he called them by another name that don't sound quite pretty) from the outlandish states to Congress, TALK ABOUT independence; but Sam, said he, (hitting the Shiners agin till be made them dance right up an eend in his pocket) I LIKE TO FEEL IT. No Sam, said be, line the pocket well first, make that independent, and then the spirit will be like a horse turned out to grass in the spring, for the first time, he's all head and tail, a snortin and kickin and racin and carryin on like mad—it soon gets independent too. While it's in the stall it may hold up, and paw, and whiner, and feel as spry as any thing, but the leather strap keeps it to the manger, and the lead weight to the eend of it makes it hold down its head at last. No, says he, here's independence, and he gave the Eagles such a drive with his fist, he bust his pocket and sent a whole raft of them a spinnin down his leg to the ground—says I, father, (and I swear I could hardly keep from larfin, he looked so peskily vexed) Father, says I, I guess there's a moral in that are too—EXTREMES NARY WAY ARE NONE O' THE BEST. Well, well, says he, (kinder snappishly) I suppose you're half right, Sam, but weve said enough about it, let's drop the subject, and see if I have picked em all up, for my eyes are none of the best now, I'm near hand to seventy. No. XVI Mr. Slick's Opinion of the British. What success had you, said I, in the sale of your Clocks among the Scotch in the eastern part of the Province? do you find them as gullible as the Blue Noses? Well, said he, you have heerd tell that a Yankee never answers one question, without axing another, havent you? Did you ever see an English Stage Driver make a bow? because if you hante observed it, I have, and a queer one it is, I swan. He brings his right arm up, jist across his face, and passes on, with a knowin nod of his head, as much as to say, how do you do? but keep clear o' my wheels, or I'll fetch your horses a lick in the mouth as sure as youre born; jist as a bear puts up his paw to fend off the blow of a stick from his nose. Well, that's the way I pass them are bare breeched Scotchmen. Lord, if they were located down in these here Cumberland mashes, how the musquitoes would tickle them up, would'nt they? They'd set 'em scratching thereabouts, as an Irishman does his head, when he's in sarch of a lie. Them are fellers cut their eye teeth afore they ever sot foot in this country, I expect. When they get a bawbee, they know what to do with it, that's a fact; they open their pouch and drop it in, and its got a spring like a fox trap—it holds fast to all it gets, like grim death to a dead nigger. They are proper skin flints, you may depend. Oatmeal is no great shakes at best; it tante even as good for a horse as real yeller Varginey corn, but I guess I warnt long in finding out that the grits hardly pay for the riddlin. No, a Yankee has as little chance among them as a Jew has in New England; the sooner he clears out, the better. You can no more put a leake into them, than you can send a chisel into Teake wood—it turns the edge of the tool the first drive. If the Blue Noses knew the value of money as well as they do, they'd have more cash, and fewer Clocks and tin reflectors, I reckon. Now, its different with the Irish; they never carry a puss, for they never have a cent to put in it. They are always in love or in liquor, or else in a row; they are the merriest shavers I ever seed. Judge Beeler, I dare say you have heerd tell of him—he's a funny feller—he put a notice over his factory gate at Lowell, 'no cigars or Irishmen admitted within these walls;' for, said he, the one will set a flame agoin among my cottons, and t'other among my galls. I wont have no such inflammable and dangerous things about me on no account. When the British wanted our folks to join in the treaty to chock the wheels of the slave trade, I recollect hearin old John Adams say, we had ought to humor them; for, says he, they supply us with labor on easier terms, by shippin out the Irish. Says he, they work better, and they work cheaper, and they don't live so long. The blacks, when they are past work hang on for ever, and a proper bill of expence they be; but hot weather and new rum rub out the poor rates for tother ones. The English are the boys for tradin with; they shell out their cash like a sheef of wheat in frosty weather—it flies all over the thrashin floor; but then they are a cross grained, ungainly, kicken breed of cattle, as I een a most ever see'd. Whoever gave them the name of John Bull, knew what he was about, I tell you; for they are bull-necked, bull-headed folks, I vow; sulky, ugly tempered, vicious critters, a pawin and a roarin the whole time, and plaguy onsafe unless well watched. They are as headstrong as mules, and as conceited as peacocks. The astonishment with which I heard this tirade against my countrymen, absorbed every feeling of resentment. I listened with amazement at the perfect composure with which he uttered it. He treated it as one of those self evident truths, that need neither proof nor apology, but as a thing well known and admitted by all mankind. There's no richer sight that I know of, said he, than to see one on 'em when he first lands in one of our great cities. He swells out as big as a balloon, his skin is ready to bust with wind—a regular walking bag of gas; and he prances over the pavement like a bear over hot iron—a great awkward hulk of a feller, (for they aint to be compared to the French in manners) a smirkin at you, as much as to say, 'look here, Jonathan, here's an Englishman; here's a boy that's got blood as pure as a Norman pirate, and lots of the blunt of both kinds, a pocket full of one, and a mouthfull of tother; beant he lovely?' and then he looks as fierce as a tiger, as much as to say, 'say boo TO A GOOSE, if you dare.' No, I believe we may stump the Univarse; we improve on every thing, and we have improved on our own species. You'll sarch one while, I tell you, afore you'll find a man that, take him by and large, is equal to one of our free and enlightened citizens. He's the chap that has both speed, wind and bottom; he's clear grit—ginger to the back bone, you may depend. Its generally allowed there aint the beat of them to be found any where. Spry as a fox, supple as an eel, and cute as a weasel. Though I say it that should'nt say it, they fairly take the shine off creation—they are actilly equal to cash. He looked like a man who felt that he had expressed himself so aptly and so well, that any thing additional would only weaken its effect; he therefore changed the conversation immediately, by pointing to a tree at some little distance from the house, and remarking that it was the rock maple or sugar tree. Its a pretty tree, said he, and a profitable one too to raise. It will bear tapping for many years, tho' it gets exhausted at last. This Province is like that are tree, it is tapped till it begins to die at the top, and if they dont drive in a spile and stop the everlastin flow of the sap, it will perish altogether. All the money that's made here, all the interest that's paid in it, and a pretty considerable portion of rent too, all goes abroad for investment, and the rest is sent to us to buy bread. Its drained like a bog, it has opened and covered trenches all through it, and then there's others to the foot of the upland to cut off the springs. Now you may make even a bog too dry; you may take the moisture out to that degree, that the very sile becomes dust and blows away. The English funds, and our banks, rail roads, and canals, are all absorbing your capital like a spunge, and will lick it up as fast as you can make it. That very Bridge we heerd of at Windsor, is owned in New Brunswick, and will pay tole to that province. The capitalists of Nova Scotia treat it like a hired house, they wont keep it in repair; they neither paint it to preserve the boards, nor stop a leak to keep the frame from rottin; but let it go to wrack sooner than drive a nail or put in a pane of glass. It will sarve our turn out they say. There's neither spirit, enterprise, nor patriotism here; but the whole country is as inactive as a bear in winter, that does nothin but scroutch up in his den, a thinkin to himself, "well if I ant an unfortunate divil, it's a pity; I have a most splendid warm coat as are a gentleman in these here woods, let him be who he will; but I got no socks to my feet, and have to sit for everlastingly a suckin of my paws to keep 'em warm; if it warn't for that, I guess, I'd make some o' them chaps that have hoofs to their feet and horns to their heads, look about them pretty sharp, I know." It's dismal now, aint it? If I had the framin of the Governor's message, if I would'nt shew 'em how to put timber together you may depend, I'd make them scratch their heads and stare, I know. I went down to Matanzas in the Fulton Steam Boat once—well, it was the first of the kind they ever see'd, and proper scared they were to see a vessel, without sails or oars, goin right straight ahead, nine knots an hour, in the very wind's eye, and a great streak of smoke arter her as long as the tail of a Comet. I believe they thought it was old Nick alive, a treatin him self to a swim. You could see the niggers a clippin it away from the shore, for dear life, and the soldiers a movin about as if they thought that we were a goin to take the whole country. Presently a little half starved orange-coloured looking Spanish officer, all dressed off in his livery, as fine as a fiddle, came off with two men in a boat to board us. Well, we yawed once or twice, and motioned to him to keep off for fear he should get hurt; but be came right on afore the wheel, and I hope I may be shot if the paddle did'nt strike the bow of the boat with that force, it knocked up the starn like a plank tilt, when one of the boys playing on it is heavier than t'other; and chucked him right atop of the wheel house—you never see'd a feller in such a dunderment in your life. He had picked up a little English from seein our folks there so much, and when he got up, the first thing he said was,' Damn all sheenery, I say, where's my boat?' and he looked round as if he thought it had jumped on board too. Your boat, said the Captain, why I expect it's gone to the bottom, and your men have gone down to look arter it, for we never see'd or heerd tell of one or t'other of them arter the boat was struck. Yes, I'd make 'em stare like that are Spanish officer, as if they had see'd out of their eyes for the first time. Governor Campbell did'nt expect to see such a country as this, when he came here, I reckon; I know he did'nt. When I was a little boy, about knee high or so, and lived down Connecticut river, mother used to say, Sam, if you don't give over acting so like old Scratch, I'll send you off to Nova-Scotia as sure as you are born; I will, I vow. Well, Lord, how that are used to frighten me; it made my hair stand right up an eend, like a cat's back when she is wrathy; it made me drop it as quick as wink—like a tin night cap put on a dipt candle agoin to bed, it put the fun right out. Neighbour Dearborn's darter married a gentleman to Yarmouth, that speculates in the smugglin line; well, when she went on board to sail down to Nova-Scotia, all her folks took on as if it was a funeral; they said she was goin to be buried alive like the nuns in Portengale that get a frolickin, break out of the pastur, and race off, and get catched and brought back agin. Says the old Colonel, her father. Deliverance, my dear, I would sooner foller you to your grave, for that would be an eend to your troubles, than to see you go off to that dismal country, that's nothin but an iceberg aground; and he howled as loud as an Irishman that tries to wake his wife when she is dead. Awful accounts we have of the country, that's a fact; but if the Province is not so bad as they make it out, the folks are a thousand times worse. You've seen a flock of partridges of a frosty mornin in the fall, a crowdin out of the shade to a sunny spot, and huddlin up there in the warmth—well, the Blue Noses have nothin else to do half the time but sun themselves. Whose fault is that? Why it's the fault of the legislature; they don't encourage internal improvement, nor the investment of capital in the country: and the result is apathy, inaction and poverty. They spend three months in Halifax, and what do they do? Father gave me a dollar once, to go to the fair at Hartford, and when I came back, says he, Sam, what have you got to show for it? Now I ax what have they to show for their three months' setting? They mislead folks; they make 'em believe all the use of the Assembly is to bark at Councillors, Judges, Bankers, and such cattle, to keep 'em from eatin up the crops; and it actilly costs more to feed them when they are watchin, than all the others could eat if they did break a fence and get in. Indeed some folks say they are the most breachy of the two, and ought to go to pound themselves. If their fences are good them hungry cattle could'nt break through; and if they aint, they ought to stake 'em up, and with them well; but it's no use to make fences unless the land is cultivated. If I see a farm all gone to wrack, I say here's bad husbandry and bad management; and if I see a Province like this, of great capacity, and great natural resources, poverty-stricken, I say there's bad legislation. No, said he, (with an air of more seriousness than I had yet observed,) How much it is to be regretted, that, laying aside personal attacks and petty jealousies, they would not unite as one man, and with one mind and one heart apply themselves sedulously to the internal improvement and developement of this beautiful Province. Its value is utterly unknown, either to the general or local Government, and the only persons who duly appreciate it, are the Yankees.

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