University of California Berkeley The Theodore H. Koundakjian Collection of American Humor HOW'S T H U E R FEVER T U Y A R K , NOWP" THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN PRIEST OF BUT FEW INCIDENTS, AND NO PLOT IN PARTICULAR WITH OTHER LEGENDS NEW-YORK: II. LONG & BROTHER, 121 NASSAU-STREET. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S55, by H. LONG & BROTHER In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. TKE H/ PAJ&1&7 PREFACE. To combine amusement with instruction, is said to be the legitimate province of the writer of h'ction, but the Author regrets to announce that in the hurry of preparing his volume for the press, the instructive portion was entirely for gotten until too late for this edition ; in fact, only thought of after the plate proofs were placed in his hand for final a revision. Then, oppressed by conscience, and a sense of his dereliction from duty, he rushed to the pub lisher, and besought the latter's concurrence in the only plan that seemed feasible in the prem ises to bind up with each copy, a popular treatise upon Geography, Grammar, or Ortho graphy ; but, alas ! the covers for the present iv PREFACE. edition were already prepared, and it proved too late even for this. Each proprietor of this work is, however, at perfect liberty to send to the publisher, for an instructive volume of the kind above mentioned, if he chooses. Among the trifles that constitute the latter portion of this work, the general reader may occasionally recognize an old friend. In defence, the Author would say that, as some of these light affairs have flown so widely, and rested upon so many strange trees, he thinks they like curses and chickens had bet ter come home to roost. The Author cannot close without returning his grateful thanks to his friends of the Press, for the great kindness with which they have hitherto treated A STRAY YANKEE IN TEXAS. CONTENTS. ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN PRIEST. PAGE PREFACE, ---------- iii CHAPTER I. LONG ISLAND PHILOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED, ... 9 CHAPTER IL THE BAY, 13 CHAPTER III. CAPTAIN JOB, ---18 CHAPTER IV. THE SALLY ANN, AND HER CREW, 25 CHAPTER V. DE OMNIBUS REBUS, 30 CHAPTER VI. ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS, INCLUDING THE HISTORY OF COLONEL JENKINS, AND THE NUPTIALS OF CAPTAIN JOB, 36 CHAPTER VIL CAPTAIN JOB'S WOMEN FOLKS, .... 42 CHAPTER VIII. HARRY FLINT, 47 CHAPTER IX. CAPTAIN JOB is " IN FOR IT " AT LAST, ... 52 CHAPTER X. CONCERNING THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING Too "SMART" DIAGNOSIS OF THE ALABAMA GENTLEMAN'S CASE AND THE OYSTER-CURE AN EPISODE, 59 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. PACK THE " BRAG " CITV, AND A QUEER CUPID, 66 CHAPTER XII. THE VERY DEUCE TO PAY JOB PROPOSES TO THE MAID, BUT SALUTES THE WIDOW, 73 CHAPTER XIII. "WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HlSTORY, BUT CONTAINS AX ACCOUNT OF THE IRISH HUNGARIAN AND THE WRONG BELL, 82 CHAPTER XIV. A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS, - .... 90 CHAPTER XV. A SPORTING CHAPTER, INCLUDING A RACE, A SWIM, AND ALSO SOME ACCOUNT OF JOB'S PlPE, AND HOW HE ENJOYED IT, 98 CHAPTER XVI. ON DAY BREAK AND THE HEN FEVER, - - - 106 CHAPTER XVII. IN WHICH HARRY is RESCUED FROM THE POND, AND GOES A FISHING ; ALSO, THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL ADVENTURE IN THE FISHING LINE. 112 CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH JOB SEEKS WHAT HE DOES NOT FIND, AND FINDS WHAT HE DOES NOT SEEK, 120 CHAPTER XIX. IN WHICH JOB MAKES HIS WILL, AND HIS CREW TAKE AX INVOLUNTARY PLUNGE-BATH, 129 CHAPTER XX. FROM CODFISH TO ALLIGATOR-GAR, 189 CHAPTER XXL TURTLING ; FROM MUD TURTLES TO TURTLE-DOVES, - - 148 CHAPTER XXII. IN WHICH JOB MAKES A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY, - 158 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XXIII. PAGE OFF AT LAST, AND WITH ONE HAND ON BOARD, NOT DOWN IN THE SHIPPING PAPERS, 167 CHAPTER XXIV. A NEW " ROAD TO BOSTON " PETE OBEYS ORDERS, AND PLATS THE VERY D L, 175 CHAPTER XXV. THE EVALINE FORSAKES HF.R COMPANION. JOB AFLOAT, LIKE A BEAR IN A WASH-TUB, - - 185 CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF THE TALE, 192 LEGENDS OF CITY AND COUNTRY. LEGEND THE FIRST. How I SPOILED MY COMPLEXION A LEGEND OF THE COUNTRY, 208 LEGEND THE SECOND, CAPTAIN BROWN'S CIGARS A LEGEND OF SOUTH-STREET, - 229 LEGEND THE THIRD. M. HYPOLITE'S SINGLE ADVENTURE A LEGEND OF FRONT- STREET, 236 LEGEND THE FOURTH. How TO GET OUT OF A CORNER A LEGEND OF WALL-ST., 244 LEGEND THE FIFTH. THE GREAT TAUTOG A LEGEND OF LONG ISLAND, - - 253 LEGEND THE SIXTH. THE SOLDIER AND THE HOST A LEGEND OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 263 LEGEND THE SEVENTH. MRS. MILLER'S SNUFF A LEGEND OF MOUNT OLYMPUS, - 267 Vlll CONTENTS. MIDSUMMER CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. PAGE A CHAPTER ON NAMES, - 271 CHAPTER II. A MUSICAL LANGUAGE, - - - - - - -2Y7 CHAPTER III. A NEW THEORY OF QUOTATIONS, 286 CHAPTER IV. A CHAPTER ON NAVIGATION, 291 CHAPTER V. LETTER FROM A POOR BODY IN DISTRESS, ... 294 CHAPTER VI. WET NURSES TO ORDER A FRAGMENT. - - - -298 ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN PRIEST. CHAPTER I. LONG ISLAND PHILOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. THERE is a certain terrene portion of the United States of America known upon the map as Long Island, and to sundry citizens of Gotham, who, to avoid the devastating heat, supposed to lay waste the city during the reign of Canis Major, fly to those equally intense, and far more unavoidable as the- Island. The more philosophic of the visitors, and the few natives who happen to be wide awake and possessed of thinking faculties, designate it usually as " Sleepy Long Island." Why it should be called an island, anybody owning the usual quantum of brains can discover at a glance, since it fully realizes Mr. Morse's idea of one, viz. " a body of land surrounded by 1* 10 LONG ISLAND PHILOLOQICALLY CONSIDERED. water ;" but why it is called Long Island, to the prejudice of sundry and divers other narrow strips of earth similarly circumstanced, is a matter not so easily to be comprehended. Many an island is longer ; nay, many a one possesses a greater length in proportion to its breadth. As this is a subject that hitherto has never been fairly broached, or brought before the public, the writer feels no little delicacy, and perhaps some excusable pride in advancing his opinions upon it ; opinions the truth of which a minute study of the Island itself, and of the manners, customs, and modes of life of its inhabitants, has convinced him. Length is its internal peculiarity, as w^ell as ex ternal characteristic ; everything in it is long the men eat long, drink long, and sleep long; the stages, before the innovations of the railroad, were universally known as Long Island rope-walks, and performed long journeys with long-winded horses, terminating not Journeys, but horses in long tails. They carried long lists of long-legged pas sengers, generally from twenty to thirty not in age but in number who longed to be at their journey's end long before they arrived there. The news of the day is a long time indeed in travelling down upon Long Island. " A great fire in New York, and a great loss of life," as the newsboy hath it ; a steamboat disaster or railroad SOFT CLAMS WELL EMPLOYED. 11 collision, and nobody to blame; the elopement of Mrs. So-and-so with her husband's dear friend, or of Miss WhatVher-name with her father's foot man ; the demise of Smith Brown, Esq., the emi nent and wealthy butcher, or the birth of another Victorian juvenile, under the conjoined auspices of Locock and Lilly, and other equally important arid pleasing items, are telegraphed to New Or leans and St. Louis, and forwarded by express half way to Mexico or Santa Fe del Norte, long ere the people of Sleepy Long Island rub their eyes, until a state of semi-wakefulness being at tained, they slowly open and prick up their ears to drink in the to them fresh intelligence. If the Long Islanders have any prominent and peculiar idiosyncrasy, it is the saltiness of their habits ; nor is it singular that this should be the case. Breathing from earliest infancy an air, im pregnated with saline exhalations, they naturally turn their attention to the ocean and its products. It is said, and I see no reason for doubting it, that the protruding neck of a soft-shelled clam is as efficient an agent in quieting the yells of an infan tile and refractory Long Islander, as ever was the bit of rag crammed with brown sugar, with which ordinary nurses are wont to fill the mouths, and still the troubled bosoms of more inland urchins, when the results of a slap on the sly may have 12 LONG- ISLAND PHILOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. compelled the attendants to stop the repeated squalls, and perchance lie too, as to the cause of them. The Long Islander, therefore, from the first, takes to the water as naturally as a spaniel ; he digs long clams with long-handled hoes, fishes up oysters with long-handled rakes, shoots ducks at long distances with preposterously long guns ; cuts long salt grass for his long-tailed horses and longer-eared mules; catches fish to manure his fields with long seines ; perchance ships for a voy age, but it is always a long one after whales ; and after a long life is carried to his long home in a long two-horse wagon, followed by a long con course of friends and neighbors. If I have not proved to the satisfaction of the reader that the term Long Island was worthily be stowed, I have at least to my own, which, under tho circumstances, is some consolation. CHAPTER II. THE BAY. ON the northern shore of Long Island, an off shoot or arm of the great Sound has deserted the main water, and forced its way far into the land, boldly and broadly at first, but perchance finding it had fallen upon a pleasant home, or it may be, fearing a sudden recall, and thinking that out of sight would be out of mind, it soon turned a short corner, and crept quietly away miles inland. Although now snugly hidden, its pulse still beats responsive to the parental throes, and though rushing lustily in now and again, as if it were about to march bodily over the land, and return by the shortest cut to repose once more upon the ever-yearning bosom of its grandmother, the Ocean, its strength is soon exhausted, and at the word of command, the vagrant creeps quietly and timidly back again, like a dog with a depressed termination, to an offended and deserted master. This endless coming in and going out of so 14 THE BAY. great a body of water is a mine of wealth to the dwellers upon its shores, and in many ways do they reap great advantages from the restless ac tivity of the Bay. The young flood makes his appearance gallantly garlanded with gay wreaths of algse, as for a nup tial feast, and with impetuous ardor embraces his bride, the shore ; then, heartless Lothario that he is, troops off again, leaving her a true grass widow bedecked with weeds weeds that are hastily gathered by the neighboring farmers, and thrown up into vast heaps to be converted in the great laboratory of Nature into oats and corn, wheat and rye. Then great shoals of inquisitive and ra pacious fish flock in to pay a passing call, and very often fail to make their way out again, but find themselves promoted ere long to a situation upon a corn-hill ; and evidently displeased at the scaly trick, announce, in very plain English in deed, that " the offence is rank, it smells to hea ven." The breezes of balmy morn, and the zephyrs of dewy eve, acting as general postmen, carry their plaints far and near, and every breath of air is redolent with anything but Sabsean odors. If this agent of fertilization is more peculiarly appli cable to one plant than to another, we should give the palm to " summer savory," although an Ori ental friend once sagely remarked that it smelt THE UP TIDE TIED UP. 15 like " thyme." The men do not mind it much, but I attribute the petit nez retrousse^ so peculiar to Long Island belles, entirely to the wonderful airs these fish give themselves upon their appoint ment to agricultural situations. The exodus of the water also discloses great mines of oysters, clams, and scollops, for human consumption, and quanti ties of muscles, horsefeet, and fiddlers for porcine palates. Sometimes even this very inconstant dis position of the tide is, by the cunning of man, seized upon and made to promote his ends in an extremely base and mechanical manner. When a small body has straggled off from the main array, and is established temporarily in a snug quarter, it often finds itself suddenly impris oned and locked up, totally incapable of joining in the general retreat that has been sounded, and only able to escape by working a passage, and pay ing the miller an outside toll in turning his wheel. Another and more important service yet, is the facility which it affords the small vessels of the Bay to discharge their cargoes of various kinds of manure, offal, and garbage, brought from the great city, to be here converted into grain, then into flour, pork, or beef, and then again returned, transmuted into red gold or pallid silver ; 16 THE BAY. " promises-to-pay " upon paper not being much regarded by the matter-of-fact Long Islander. Docks are superseded, and every proprietor of a modern Argo brings her to an anchor at high tide opposite his farm ; and when the water has receded, drives up his wagon to her, heeled down as she is, and succeeds without difficulty in trans ferring her Cargo to the shore. It is a curious, although not very romantic sight, at low tide, this Bay that I am describing, with its wide-spread mud flats black as Erebus, its shores covered with sea-weed, and its disconsolate clams throwing up tiny jets cPeau briny tears, superin duced by their desolate and widowed condition whole armies of fiddlers, uierque paratus, carrying aloft their one preposterously huge claw, a formi dable weapon for its size ; and last, but not least, the stranded fleet of black-hulled, keeled-over vessels, exceedingly ugly, and not over-cleanly guardian angels of the soil. Look again upon the same spot a few hours after. The tide is in, and countless gulls and water fowl have accompanied it, screaming out an lo Pcean to its progress ; the tiny waves are playfully curling and creaming upon the glistening shingle ; the flats now exhibit a rich field of darkly-green grass, nodding a graceful welcome to each succes- A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. 17 sive ripple ; the once unseemly vessels are riding gallantly at their anchors, their black hulls nearly concealed, their decks and sides washed off, and the green on the latter visible ; the burnt-powder effluvia of marsh-mud is banished, and replaced by the pure and exhilarating breath of the sea. The lusty old trees upon the shore bend down ap provingly over the waves that wash their very feet ; and the reflections of their broad leafy tops impart a deeper tint to the water, shadowing forth submarine groves upon its surface. A few neat white cottages are scattered here and there ; fields of mighty corn are standing in bold relief upon the hill-sides ; white sails are visible entering or leaving the port ; the rough but cheery shout or song of the fishermen, and the stroke of their oars, echo across the Bay ; and let there hang over this bright scene a delicate misty veil, such as young summer and early autumn love to cast over their brightest and fairest pictures, making everything seem gentle and quiet, the fiery sun himself look large and jovial and benignant, throwing a dreamy haze over all animate and inanimate nature ; and you have a fair, but not overstrained view of the Bay on the eventful afternoon of the 10th June, 183- ; as pretty and heart- warming a sight as you would wish to meet with in that very indefinite space of time, a month of Sundays. CHAPEE III. CAPTAIN JOB. HAVING wasted sufficient ink in describing the Bay, it is quite time to give it a name. Its true designation, for certain reasons, shall be concealed, although the title it then bore may very likely have been changed long ere this ; for Long Island ers of late years, beset by the demon of change, dropping the time-honored appellations . of Bays and Tillages, have sought to bring the latter into notice among summer-migrating and money-spend ing citizens, by enticing and romantic names. "Musquito" has, for instance, been promoted to " Glen Cove ;" why, it would be hard to deter mine, since glens there are not, and musquitoes there are, as many a musqui to-bitten cove from New York title-seduced can testify, and also to the fact of having been bitten in more ways than one. Cow Bay has in like manner lost its bucolic interest, and now figures as Manhasset. There is no telling where the spirit of innovation will stop ; it may even go to Jericho. CALLING HAltD NAMES. 19 "Well, small blame to them after all, for such aii agglomeration of names no other land can claim. Jerusalem, Babylon, and Jericho ; Yap- hank, Punk's Hole, and Mount Misery; Hard- scrabble, Shinnicock, Mettinicock, and Quag ; Great Neck and Little Neck, Horse Neck and Cow Neck, Fireplace and Fire Islands, Cutchogue, Mattituck and Poosepatuck, Turkey-ville, and Wolver-hollow, Quannontowunk, Rankonkama, Rankhonganock, and Manhausackahaquashurrwar- nock * * * * * Having ruined my best gold pen in the last effort, I think it time to close the catalogue, in forming my readers, en passant, that our Bay is known as Bay Harbor, which name also apper tains to the very pretty village at its head. The Bay forks near the head, and upon an ele vated promontory between the prongs, that com mands a fine view of the entire Bay and the Sound, partly lost amid a grove of fine old trees, half hidden by a luxuriant growth of eglantine and Multiflora rose, peeps out a small white cot tage. Its proprietor is Captain Priest, ordinarily known and addressed as Captain Job ; its inmates, the redoubtable sailor himself when at home, his daughter Mary, her maiden aunt Keziah, and a burly Irishman, caught very green by Captain Job, but now being duly seasoned, a very stalwart, 20 v CAPTAIN JOB. good-natured, and blundering laborer upon the farm. When Captain Priest's parents named him Job, they certainly made a job of it, unless, gifted with prescience of his future character, they did it upon the " lucus a non luceiido " principle the princi ple upon which I "presume it is that steamboat captains cry out plena ore, " all ashore that's a-going ;" meaning exactly the reverse, or that canal pilots order all hands to "lookout," when they mean them to keep in, or that the mason shouts " stand under," which, if any one obeyed, would render him a prominent candidate for a shutter ride to the hospital. Job he is yet per sonally in the present tense was certainly born in the imperative mood, and when he says " I will," king nor kaiser, nor Alter Ego could make him alter his " I," give it a shade less of emphasis, or abate his " will." The only two persons who have, or rather had any influence upon him, were Aunt Keziah and his daughter Mary. This influence in the former case was direct, and in the latter inverse. Keziah " caudled " him fearfully ; but Mary, when her end was not to be obtained by coaxing, had enough of woman's cunning to employ the same artifice that is practised to get mules and pigs to market ; pull him the way she did not want him NEW SYSTEM OF BOOK-KEEPING. 21 to go, and off he would march per contra. From all this it will be perceived, that our friend Job was what is vulgarly known as a pig-headed man; nay, he was not only pig-headed, but exceedingly passionate. The original Job was all over boils, but our specimen boils all over with rage at least twenty-four times in every twenty-four hours. It could scarcely be said with propriety that his education had been neglected, for he had received none to neglect. He could neither read nor could he write ; and what would have been very singu lar in any other less singular being, he was singu larly proud of the want of knowledge usually deemed of such importance. Job considered it as proof of his exceeding cleverness that he had got on so well in the world, despite his deficien cies. As he had many commissions to perform in the city, and also sold there for account of whom it might concern, vast quantities of poultry and country meats, mountains of oysters and clams, and great loads of hay and grain, it became necessary for him to keep some account of his va rious transactions ; and accordingly he employed a system of hieroglyphics peculiarly his own, which, however, would have puzzled Champollion himself. Dollars he designated by a large cypher, shillings by smaller ones, and the copper medal- 22 CAPTAIN JOD. lions of the Goddess of Liberty figured only as so many marks. His customers were represented by some leading characteristic, mental, physical, or professional. A saw stood for his friend the carpenter, a most emphatic nose for one of his customers a second Naso and something like a clenched fist was sup posed to represent a particularly pugnacious indi vidual who dealt in clams. The articles that he bought or sold were entered in a like manner, and when Mary was at home to take down his rude accounts in a more every-day manner, while they were yet fresh in his mind, all went well enough ; but if she happened to be ab sent on his return, and the transactions of another voyage had driven those of the previous out of his head, sometimes ludicrous blunders would occur. A man was once charged by him for the purchase of a couple of hoes and a rake, which he stoutly denied, and Job's litigious spirit would have soon involved the affair in the entanglements of the law, if the creditor's wife had not suggested that she had received two pipes and a long comb about the time, and that these might possibly be the articles charged. So it proved to be, and Job, for once in his life, was forced to submit. In person, Captain Job was a short, stubby, thick-set little fellow, with a dried-apple face, JOB S PERSONAL PECULIARITIES. 23 tanned and stained by the combined effects of sun, wind, and the manure atmosphere in which a, great part o/ his life had been spent, until- he looked something like an ex-sarcophagus'd mum my. His color was a mixture of brown and yel low orange tawny perhaps with a slight tinge of brick-red upon the extreme verge and outskirts of his face, which roseate hue increased in radi ance as it approached the centre his nose and upon the point of this Ultima Thule of the facial globe, it blazed out with intense ferocity. Some attributed this to the effects of a too gen erous liquid diet, others to the great proximity which this organ usually enjoyed to a very short and uncommonly busy pipe, while the Captain himself gave the exposures incident to his profes sion the whole credit of it. "Whatever was the cause, the nose seemed to be quite ashamed of the result, and endeavored to get rid of the color by continually shedding its skin. In fact, it was al ways on the peel, and no doubt the owner of it would have been mistaken in Ireland for a Peeler. His eyes were small, black, and at times spar kled like frost gems in the clear cold moonlight. A shock head of curly brown hair, a mouth whose outer edges were lost in a pair of bushy whiskers, giving one the idea of a great gulf hidden away in the woods and but a small portion 24: CAPTAIN JOB. of it visible, short sturdy arms with something like a lump of mud at their end, and legs and feet to match, completed the man. His dress was invariably a sailor's jacket of blue cloth and buttons that had once been gilt, vest ditto, and a collar open, leaving his throat bare. As for the covering of his nether man there was nothing singular about it, saving that his terminations terminated invariably within the confines of a pair of pot-metal boots. CHAPTER IY. THE " SALLY ANN" AND HER CKEW. LET us stand for a moment in front of Captain Job's cottage and look forth upon the Bay. Imme diately before us is a small sloop-rigged vessel, riding gracefully at her anchor, and as the wind is off shore and the tide setting out, she bows slowly and regularly to us, as if proud of our notice. You perceive that her appearance is somewhat superior to that of her sister craft moored about the Bay, that her sides are newly painted green with a white stripe, and her mast is quite lofty for so small a boat. See how sharp she is, and what a clean run she has ; she evidently carries no dead water to check her progress. From the topmast an unusually large swallow-tail is streaming out upon the breeze, and upon the strip of red bunting appear certain letters in white. Had we a glass we could read her name. It is the " SALLY ANN." She seems almost beneath us, and we can see that her decks have been lately washed off quite 2 26 THE "SALLY ANN" AND HEK CREW. clean, although their reddish hue shows plainly that she has carried bricks upon them. You will perhaps think her almost new, and that she has never been degraded by anything of a meaner nature than bricks or lumber. Not a oit of it ; she has carried Captain Job and his for tunes for twenty years, and has done her share towards improving the soil. If the one who makes two blades of grass to grow where but one did before, be a benefactor to the human race, it is difficult to estimate the high position that the " Sally Ann" should occupy. When her last voyage shall have been made, and her weary old bones shall be bleaching upon the strand, then should snuff-boxes highly scented indeed be formed of her planking, and canes be fashioned from her timbers, to be given as tokens of high reward to agricultural gentlemen who may have produced pigs of peculiar pinguidity, oxen outrageously oleaginous, pumpkins preposter ously ponderous, or cabbages of colossal circumfer ence. Job has lately obtained a contract to transport brick to the city and bring back lumber; and henceforth nothing more vulgar than ashes is to burden the " Sally Ann." She has been repaired and repainted upon the occasion, and looks as fresh and as saucy as when for the first time, with THE MATE. 27 an impetuous rush, she threw herself upon the bosom of the Bay, the water's bride, to swim or to sink, to be gently caressed in fair weather and buffeted in foul. It is said that every portion of the human sys tem undergoes a change, decays, departs, and is replaced in a certain number of years. Such has been the case with the sloop, and she has been overhauled and spliced, stripped and sheathed, new sparred and new rigged, until in fact, from truck to kelson, from cut-water to stern-post, scarcely a bit of the original Sally Ann remains. Upon the deck you see her crew. They are not very numerous, and as we are about to be fellow- sailors upon a momentous voyage, permit me to introduce them. That long-armed and long-legged personage with, bare-feet, without coat or vest, his head crowned by a round-topped felt hat, is the mate, steward, and cook. He is dabbling a line in the water and thinks he is fishing. That is a peculi arity of his. He never catches any thing, but seems to live in hopes that his time will come at last, and employs all of his leisure that he well can in the recreation. In winter, and during very severe weather, he amuses himself with furbishing up his tackle and making new lines. He is rather shy of exhibiting his accompiish- 28 THE " SALLY ANN*' AND HER CREW. ments in this line before Captain Job, because, if caught at it, he is pretty sure of being sent on shore to dig clams if the tide be out, and if it be in, the keen eyes of the " old man" are certain to detect the end of some rope that needs whipping or knotting. As he can only vary his amusement by cuffing his companion, perhaps his present occupation is laudable, and moreover he may be of a deeply imaginative and poetic temperament, and is stealthily revelling in the halls of fancy while we only think him wantonly wasting his time. His name is Pete : he has never had any other name, and does not know exactly how he came by that, as there are no proofs of his having had father or mother to bestow it upon him. He does not know how old he is, but has been with Job and the " Sally Ann" from his childhood, and is firmly convinced that the saucy jade would re fuse to sail without him. The other occupant of the deck is a stout boy. You see that at this moment he is standing upon his head. That something white, which is flutter ing in the breeze from his midships, is not a swal low-tail, but merely a bit of linen which under such circumstances is known to our gamins as " a letter in the post-office." His name is Dick, and he is addicted to both of these peculiarities. Cap tain Job has threatened, sworn at, and thrashed him for them, but it's no manner of use. SINGULAR RELATIONSHIP. 29 Dick will stand upon his head, and keep up a thorough ventilation. The captain has talked of leather breeches and a sheet-iron seat, but know ing Dick as he does, is fearful of throwing his money away, and has besides some obscure dread of a bursted boiler. Dick has two other amusements ; whistling and making little Sally Anns with a bit of pine and a jack-knife ; these he performs simultaneously, and alternates with the former. As he never whistles when he stands upon his head, this mode of recre ation is preferred by the mate, who, being of a quiet contemplative turn, does not like noise. Had Mr. Micawber known the boy, he would have been delignted with the sight of something turning up continually. Dick has never read of Quilp's boy, " Tom Scott," and is no imitator of his, but has taken to the exercise naturally, as if he had discovered a want of brain in its proper place, and wished to induce its return upon philo sophical and physical principles. He also has never been blessed with a father ; but more fortu nate than Pete, finds a mother in his aunt, an ex ceedingly virtuous and acidulous old maid. Such singular phenomena are of frequent occurrence upon the Island. Dick is the cabin boy and all hands. CHAPTEE Y. DE OMNIBUS KEBUS. CAPTAIN JOB was a proud man ; lie was proud of his house, proud of his farm, proud of his suc cess, very proud of his vessel, immeasurably proud of his daughter ; and, strange as it may seem, the acme, the culmination, the crowning point of all this great pyramid of pride, was his daughter's aristocratic descent. The line of demarkation between the patrician and the plebeian is nowhere drawn more distinctly, clearly, and palpably, than upon Long Island. The better classes are especially clannish, and deem no family or name equal to their own. They intermarry among their kindred, and the tribe increases in number as its members diminish in size. The surest proof of good blood among them is a diminutive person and dried-up phiz. In the good old days, the ancestors of the present race had been very unlike these, their quiet, plodding children. Not a few had filled THE TSAIL-KOAD WAR. 31 their purses with British gold, and it is both shrewdly surmised and somewhat broadly hinted that the foundation of more than one handsome estate was laid simultaneously with the keel of some sharp, fast-sailing privateer ; nay, there are even those who assert that many of these letters of marque carried no letters at all, but more a mark of any flag that came in their way. These stirring times have long passed by ; every thing and everybody has settled down into a quiet jog-trot, a kind of living dream, from which they will not be aroused ; and the only sign of vitality that has been exhibited for years, was elicited by the attempt to wake them up with a railroad. They were as spiteful about it as a man would be if driven from his bed before his nap is half fin ished. They tore up the track, placed impedi ments in the way of the cars, and what serious mischief they might have done is yet unknown, had not the unusual fatigue of thinking and acting, so overpowered them that they all fell to sleep again, quite as suddenly as they were awakened. The south-siders, probably owing to their accus tomed clam diet, were particularly clamorous, while the north-siders, who were brought up upon oysters, in imitation of that prudent variety of the molluscse family, kept very close indeed. The east-enders being extensively engaged in the oil 32 DE OMNIBUS KEBTJ8. trade, talked loudly of giving the company gen erally a whaling ; the fisherman acted as if in-sane themselves; and, in short, never was there .so much railing about a road. Some say that a natural dislike to disturb the sleepers, alone saved the track from utter destruc tion ; others attribute its present existence to the fear of a certain shrewd president, who out-gen- eralled them at every turn. My opinion, however, is, as expressed above, that if they could have kept their eyes open long enough, their own bulls, and those of Wall-street, would have suffered less than they have. The president that I have just mentioned, was, as I once heard an Islander remark, " considerably ahead of their time," and an instance of his man agement is worth recording. "When Mr. Blank assumed the presidential control, it was in a dark day indeed. Acres of woodland, fields of grain, houses and barns had been consumed by the loco motive sparks, and cattle without number destroyed upon the track. Demands against the company and impending lawsuits were more numerous than agreeable. One day a farmer made his appear ance at Mr. Blank's office. He was the champion of his neighborhood, and had come down to enforce payment for a valuable pair of oxen, sud denly converted into jerked beef by the iron-horse. YOUK BULL AND MY LOCOMOTIVE. 33 Our farmer entered the office as bold as a lion " I want pay for my cattle you killed last Satur day," said lie. " Your cattle !" inquired Mr. Blank ; " were those your cattle that were killed ?" " Mighty apt to be," returned the farmer, " and I want two hundred dollars for them." " And 7," said Mr. Blank, " want proof. You must make an affidavit of the particulars, and then we will come to a settlement." Eight willingly did the farmer assent, but when the instrument was properly drawn up, signed, and authenticated, Mr. Blank turned to him with, " Now, sir, /want two hundred dollars from you" " From me " exclaimed the amazed rustic. " Yes, sir, from you" reiterated the President. " Here I have proof, under your own hand, that your cattle were, contrary to law, upon the track, and thereby our engine was damaged to the extent of two hundred dollars. Are you prepared to set tle the affair amicably, or must I proceed legally ?" The farmer spake no word, but rushed open- mouthed from the office, sought his wagon, and upon reaching his home, advised his friends gen erally to pocket their grievances, or worse would come of it. From that day few demands were made upon the road. And so the railroad war passed quietly away, and Long Island turned over for t'other nap. 2* 34: DE OMNIBUS EEBUS. Many efforts have been made to overcome the vis inertige of the people of these shores. Con necticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts have sent forth their colonies, but not a whit of anima tion resulted from them, and the quick pulse of the Yankee very soon degenerated into the slug gish beat peculiar to the Island. " The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died." Time rolls on, but brings with it little alteration among the inhabitants, or in the face of the coun try. It is the work of years to found a petty hamlet, and of centuries to create a village. How different from the mighty West. See Cincinnati raising her bristles where lately bristled a forest ; dried hams have driven out the Hamadryads, and pickled pork pushed Pan from his pedestal. The nymphs of the pave have ousted those of the wood ; delicate dears, in silks and muslins, usurped the walks of the doe ; and her attendant buck is only kept in mind by the nice young gentlemen who parade the street in goatees and kids. Having founded mighty cities and sovereign states, one would think that "Western ambition might be satisfied ; but no, " en avant " is the motto, and nothing short of the Pacific will bring them up. FOLLOW MY LEADER. 35 Let but one pioneer show the way, and hun dreds immediately imitate Jupiter's game of " fol low my Leda." From all this disposition of inquiet and unrest, we turn with a feeling of relief to our slow and easy, contented Long Islander. Nothing now can arouse him. Kossuth may come, France may fume, Bull may bully, but all in vain. Even an unexampled ri^e in the clam market would not disturb him. CHAPTEE VI. ET QUIBTJSDAM ALHS, INCLUDING THE HISTORY OF COLONEL JENKINS, AND THE NUPTIALS OF CAPTAIN JOB. LET me return to Captain Job, and his pride in second-hand birth. It all came about from the doings of Mary's grandfather. If she had had no grandfather, or if her grandfather had been any man but the particular one that he was, there is no human possibility that Captain Job would have possessed any pride of the kind with which he was afflicted, direct or collateral, wherewithal to overswell the already sufficiently puffed out sails of his vanity. Long Islanders are fond of horses, and of fine ones at that. Why " slow " persons should inva riably affect " fast " things is a paradox several fathoms too deep for me to fathom ; in fact I am cff soundings altogether. The degenerate modern Spaniard loves the dis plays of brute courage and gallantry in the bull- 37 ring or the cock-pit, while the dare-devil !N"imrod Wildfire of our Western wilderness finds amuse ment in shooting at some unfortunate turkey or ill-fated goose tied up to a tree. If there is any fighting to be done, he wants to do it himself, and to use his own words is always willing "to take two chances." It would appear that we are all attached to our antitheses and antipodes, animate and inanimate. Thespians often enter the temple doorway, and en revanche parsons are possessed for a peep at play, if they can have it upon the sly. Upon something of the same antipodal principles is it that the herbs of our own country are deserted and ignored by our women, and that nothing will please their palates, oil their tongues, and set them off at railroad speed, but the black or green-leaf of the Celestial Empire. Distance lends enchant ment to the taste as well as to the view. Let enterprising Yankees beware how they waste time and money in introducing the exotic. When the easy cultivation of tea in America shall have become an established fact, the ladies will have none of it, and their tastes will be tickled with nothing short of an infusion of upas leaves, or of some impossible shrub from Japan. The pet hobby of old Colonel Jenkins our Mary's grandfather has been horseflesh, and par- 38 ET QUEBUSDAM ALIIS. ticularly the breeding of it. Many a man has made a fortune by the raising and selling of fine animals ; but he who keeps them for the sake of keeping them, and is prepared to back up his favorites at any figure, will some fine day be forced to back himself out of house and land. It is said that the exceptions prove the rule; .aot that I pretend to understand this at all, but bow my head meekly and take it for granted that it is all right. Colonel Jenkins proved the truth of an old law by its converse : Mares make the money go. Handicaps exhausted handy pockets ; fillies emptied his purse ; sweepstakes swept his grana ries ; and the " Course" used him coarsely indeed ; trots under saddles resulted in nothing but sad ills ; those in sulkies rarely left him in a sociable humor ; a tandem at length cut short his career, and his coup-de-grace was received from the Jockey- Club, who, having in one way or another, pouched all his money, now turned him out be cause he had no more of it. No longer a per former, he now attended races as a spectator, and his love for the turf ceased not until he was deposited beneath it. Peat may do very well in Ireland, but here the " turf" is a bad speculation for our farmers. There had been a single pause in the old man's DEAD BEAT. 39 career. Having buried a first wife soon after his fortune invested in horses had gone to the dogs, he looked around for a second, and not finding any of his own caste, with a sufficient matter of money inclined to matrimony, he descended seve ral pegs and espoused the daughter of a wealthy farmer of low extraction. His friends and rela tives treated him to the cold shoulder, his second wife's fortune was soon spent, and for a time he lived upon the credit of having a rich father-in- law. At last the latter paid the debt of nature which, being accustomed to quibble very much over the settlement of accounts, he did in a grumbling way and for a few years the Colonel again kept his head above water although not brandy and water. His race was up at length, and but for the shelter of Captain Job's roof, he must have bur dened the town for his support. His second wife having had but little happiness in this world, departed to search for it in another ; and the hus band not long after his fortune went to the devil, started off also, whether in pursuit of it or not, as an accurate and veracious historian, I cannot tell, but can only say that he bequeathed to Job the sum total of his earthly possessions, two helpless daughters of the respective ages of sixteen and twenty-five. iO ET QUIBUSDAM ALIIS. Captain Job had made his debut as cow-boy or general youth, upon the Colonel's farm, and after serving an apprenticeship at the business, em barked in our merchant marine as an able-bodied seaman in the manure-carrying trade. When the Colonel's ready money began in Job's vernacular to cut stick, he, taking the hint, went to cutting sticks himself, and having purchased a sloop to transport his wood cheaply to market, invested Job with the chief command. As Job saved money and the Colonel spent it, in the natural course of events, the former soon became a quarter, then a half, and finally the sole owner of the " Sally Ann," and ere long the pur chaser of a pretty cottage and snug farm, although to complete it he borrowed money upon his vessel, which required the earnings of after years to re pay. It is highly probable that some matrimonial scheme may have been flitting across our hero's brain, when he opened his doors to receive the poor old Colonel and his unfortunate daughters, but whether it was so or not, the result is certain ; and the modest, pretty, and industrious daughter of the second wife always a great favorite with the Captain so won upon him, that ere she had been the inmate of his cottage for a year, he olfered her a home for life, accompanied with a SOUR GRAPES. 4:1 particularly rough hand, and a heart, wilful enough it is true, but all right in the main. Miss Keziah Jenkins, the elder of the sisters, although ignored by relations and dependent upon Job for bread and shelter, was perfectly aghast at the latter's presumption, and had not nature turn ed up her nose so extremely high that any further attempt upon her part in that line must have re sulted in a backward sommersault, the degree of elevation the organ must have attained upon the occasion would actually have petrified the behold ers and perhaps have broken off the match. CHAPTER YIL EVERY now and then certain queer terms, newly coined, or of foreign origin, employed at first in book or in speech, by some man of mark for the time being, suddenly appear among their every day brethren, and before one reader in a thousand has even so much as obtained a glimpse of their true signification, they are popped at him from every newspaper column, and handled with re morseless energy by the entire corps editorial, from the Autocratic Responsible himself, in his " leader," to " Items " in his " dreadful acci dent." One of these is quite popular at this moment. It is borrowed from the gastronomic calendar of frog-eating France, and has been extensively used by most knights of the pen and scissors ; but not having had my fling at it yet, and perceiving now an excellent opportunity, by your leave, Mons. Soyer, I will improve the chance. AN OFF HORSE. 43 "Were I to waste three mortal chapters in de picting the person and attributes of Miss Keziah Jenkins, I could not do her half the justice that may be embodied in three words. She was, then, emphatically a piece de resist ance, a standing dish at Captain Job's board, and a very contrary one at that. Upon the other side of every question she was well described in the equine language of the late lamented Colonel, as " an off horse." Her pride had received a double blow, from Job's marriage with her sister. In the first place, she deemed it an unpardonable crime for so young a girl to throw herself away upon such a man, while so many better chances yet remained within the wheel of fate. Then again "Sally" was but "half-bred," at best, and another dash of plebeian blood would completely do the business ; and she and her descendants must be, and continue to be, perfect nobodies. The worst of the case was although she would not own it even to herself that, despising Job as she did for a brother-in-law, yet to have viewed him in the light of a husband, would have been a different thing altogether ; almost anything, in fact, in coats and continuations would have been a god-send to her under the circumstances. The grapes were very sour indeed, and the taste of 44 them imparted such a pucker to her mouth that it never after resumed its proper form. Taking her height and disposition into consider ation, a magnetizer might have pronounced her a negative pole ; a mathematician, however, would have told you that her person was perpendicular, temper, nose, and elbows acute, mind rather ob tuse, opinion always right, the physical tout en semble very like a line, possessing height, width, but no thickness, her longitude great, and the lati tude she gave herself extreme. She ruled the roast and the boiled ; had assumed entire con trol over her sister during the latter's lifetime, and now domineered over Job and Mary as far as prudence would permit, for she had learned by experience that the wilfulness of the one, and a certain spirit in the other, seldom exhibited, but proving most unequivocally, when evoked, that the Mary was her father's child, rendered it un safe for her to venture to extremities. When provoking beyond further endurance, Job's " there, Keziah, you've payed out enough, belay now or trip your anchor," would bring her to terms, and one glance from Mary's eyes, accom panied with a smart tap on the ground from a very pretty, but very decided little foot, produced the same result. Would you have a correct idea of her per- A RECTANGULAR VENUS. 45 sonnel? Elevate a perpendicular of some five feet ten in height a narrow plank will answer admirably clap on the top an indefinite maze of dimity, let a sharp, thin, and inquisitive nose pro ject not far beneath it, so inquisitive indeed that it always maintains an inquisitorial observation upon the cap for, verily, Xeziah's horn was ex alted a mouth, but no visible lips, allow ample space for a long and scraggy neck, then project from either side a pair of pump handles, with a sharp joint in their centres ; now a larger maze of white dimity drawn closely around an imaginary waist supposed to be situated immediately be neath her shoulders and pressing out balloon- wise above and below, like a cotton cloud ; then another mass of something white falling to the ground in straight lines, unimpeded in its course by any such obstacles as projecting hips ; illumine all this with a pair of small, snappish, black eyes, and enliven it with a voice apparently intended by nature to sing " alto " in duets with a saw un dergoing the operation of filing, and you have Aunt Keziah. I see but little use in causing Mary to sit for her portrait ; and if I did, fear I should make a daub of it. When I have said that she was a rustic beauty, I have covered the whole ground. Of course she had a flood of rich chestnut hair, that 46 CAPTAIN JOB'S "WOMEN FOLKS." poured down in rivulets upon her gracefully formed shoulders, a pair of large and loving hazel ejes, the most piquant little nose in the world, rosy lips, very dangerous indeed to look upon, which, when parted, as they often were with a smile, disclosed a mine of pearls ; a trim little figure, and small, plump hands and feet. I need not tell you that she had the merest soupqon of coquetry, for I should like to see maid or matron without it. There was a fair allowance of spirits, perchance a slight sprinkling of pepper in her dis position, but not one drop of vinegar. Her mother, whom she resembled, had imparted to her such education and accomplishments as she possessed, which, without including either Latin, Greek, geometry, and astronomy on the one hand, or the guitar, piano, and polking on the other, were nevertheless such that even Captain Job and Aunt Keziah looked up to them with a feeling some thing akin to awe. She teazed the old lady, wheedled her father, laughed at the Irishman, plagued Harry Flint al most to death, and kept sundry other young gen tlemen within an inch of distraction. CHAPTER YEI. HAKRY FLINT. R the edge of a beautiful sheet of fresh wa ter, situated immediately above the head of the Bay, and only separated from it by a lofty and an cient dam, over which the road passes, stands a very impretending edifice. There is nothing re markable certainly nothing romantic in its ap pearance. It is of one story, has a low roof, boasts of but one stunted chimney, is painted a most vil- lanous red, its only practical mode of egress or en trance, a very narrow and weather-beaten door, which if it could be transported to Central Ameri ca, would certainly pass for a whole book of his tory, from the numerous and strange hieroglyphi- cal carvings with which it is adorned, its sides or namented with a series of diminutive windows, consisting of four panes of seven-by-nine, and yet it is an institution nay, a part and parcel of the institution, par excellence^ of our country. If you should pass it, when the horns sounding 4:8 HAERT FLINT. far and near, proclaim the advent of noon, you would be surprised at its capacity for the stowage of juvenile humanity. You would see a great troop of flaxen-headed urchins rush out with jovial cries, and scamper away in every direction, as fast as their short, chubby legs would permit for what urchin ever lived, that walked away from school ? as if a certain distance must be attained as soon as possible, to satisfy them of their free dom. Having spread themselves out in an ex tended circle, they wheel, sweep about like a flock of swallows, and head in again for the house. Here young ideas are taught to shoot, as you will see by the games of marbles, and the bows and arrows quickly drawn from their snug places of concealment behind the fence. Here it was that Mary acquired the rudiments, and that little Harry Flint, after a few pretty solid bouts at fisticuff, was regularly installed as her protector, entitled to help her over the fences and out of the mud-puddles, to give her his rosiest- cheeked apple, to be an object of envy to the boys, and admiration to the girls. It was from that very pond that looks so placid and innocent, that Harry drew her all wet and dripping, when, having been decoyed into a boat by one of the larger boys contrary to all the laws of pedagogdom in such cases made and provided she was upset, and left to FIKST ATTEMPT AT WHALING. 49 make the most of it, while the cowardly truant paddled his way to dry ground. Having rescued and brought her on shore, not much hurt, but terribly frightened, Harry bore her into the school-house, and there, in the presence of the master, in defiance of his laws, in contempt of his orders, and in profanation of the sacred pre cincts of the Temple of Minerva itself, turned to, and administered to Master Tony Bigler so severe a flogging, that the presiding genius of the place did not deem it very safe, under the circumstances, to punish the offending lad, in his excited state, and so the matter dropped. Harry was the only child of a widow, in humble circumstances, and being a noble-spirited and quick-witted lad, he early determined to be a bur den to his mother no longer than absolute neces sity required. Commencing his salt-water career, as a matter of course upon a manure sloop ; but a few months saw him handling the ropes upon a whaler, at a good " lay ;" in a year or two, he was a second mate, and the next voyage a first mate, upon his first ship. He had been a great favorite with all of Job's family, except aunt Keziah, and Mary always re ceived him on his occasional returns to the village, with a smile and a warm pressure of the hand, tormented him as long as he stayed, and dismissed 3 50 HARRY FLINT. him with a kiss, succeeded by a small deluge of tears, which continued to fall at lengthened inter vals for a week or more after his departure. Captain Job's feelings, however, had undergone a change. "While the boy would sit for a long evening, and listen with wonder and admiration to the long-shore sailor's tales, it was all very well ; but when the former's experience in a wider field enabled him to spin yarns which were to those of Job, as a hawser to a bit of rattlin, it was entirely a different case. Job considered it as an attempt to dethrone his dignity and importance in his own stronghold, and became first crusty, then rude, and finally inhospitable. Not believing that any greater wonders of the deep could exist than those he had encountered, in cruising for twenty years from the Bay to New- York, he had really but little faith in Harry's descriptions of encoun ters with the monsters of the ocean. When Harry spoke of vast quantities of " blub ber," the old man imagined that if the Bohemoth was really guilty of any such effeminacy, he must be a Prince of Wails indeed. The " spouts" he deemed only some of Harry's blowing, the " sea lions" passed with him for a tall specimen of sea- lying, and the " seals," sealed the young sailor's fate. The whole affair ended finally in a downright GOLD GILDS GUILT. 51 quarrel, and the irate Job informed the whaler that he was " altogether too smart to be his son-in- law, and that he need not trouble himself any fur ther about his daughter." As Job did nothing by halves, he immediately commenced a matrimonial treaty, on Mary's be half, with the father of the very Tony Bigler who had figured so shabbily in the pond affair of schoolboy days. Tony's father bore the character of a very close old man ; too close, indeed, to be honest but it was well known that he had plied his trade of market-man so effectually that, honest or not, his coffers were well filled. Perhaps you cannot " gild refined gold or paint the lily ;" but very impure gold will gild anything else, and paint up a toad until he passes for a bird of paradise, wings, tail-feathers, and all included. CHAPTEK IX. CAPTAIN" JOB IS IN the heart of the little village of Bay Harbor stands a long narrow building two stories in height, with two one-story projections, setting forth at right-angles from its rear ; and, although they do not advance boldly to the front, yet laterally they extend quite a distance. A very imaginative mind might discover some resemblance between its form, when viewed from a distance, and that of an ancient baronial castle. Enter the door and you will see the front, rear, and ceiling, covered and adorned with all kinds of weapons of peace suspended in every manner, pretty much as the spoils of war and the chase are supposed to ornament the lordly mansions of the old world. There are plough-shares and reaping-hooks for spears and javelins, wood-axes for battle-axes, ox and log-chains for chain-armor, beavers with naps as long as those of the seven sleepers for helmets. A GENERAL ASSORTMENT. 53 rifles to sharpen scythes instead of the harque- buss, cradles not intended for infantry practice, rakes moral ones cultivators, harrow teeth, pot-metal boots, cards only two in a pack cur ry-combs, bundles of wire jewelry for the pigs shoe-lasts, carpenter's rules, augers and chisels, ox and pig-yokes, and, in fine, the whole para phernalia of a farmer, instead of plate armor, greaves, morions, gauntlets, swords, and jack boots. A counter ran around three sides of the store. On the left, as you entered, were arranged on shelves specimens of the vocabulary of dry goods, from thread and tape to calicoes and broadcloths. On the opposite side, a great variety of common crockery and earthenware was visible ; and standing upon the floor were quantities of pots, kettles, and various other articles, important necessaries in kitchen economy. Behind the rear counter were several suspicious-looking barrels, some of which probably contained nothing more potent than molasses, oil, or vinegar, but the odor of "New England " and " Turpentine Gin " that pervaded the atmosphere, sundry very queer tumblers upon the board, and the fact that three or four, half sailor, half farmer-looking men, were tossing off something, with a smack and apparent gusto that water-drinkers do not affect, induces me to sup- 54: CAPTAIN JOB IS " IN FOB IT" AT LAST. pose, that nothing like Maine-law was recognized in the establishment. In the sheds, connected with the main building, were to be found all kinds of provisions, fish and flesh, flour, meal, lime, paint-kegs, boxes of cheese, kegs of butter, and, to complete the title, the establishment might well lay claim to of a " store of all sorts," a number of pigeon-holes, elevated above one end of the counter, in which an occasional letter or paper was visible, proved that the proprietor was a government officer, a good democrat, and a distri butor of Uncle Sam's mails. See, a girl has just arrived with a pot of butter to trade off for " store-pay." She wants in ex change a yard of calico, a quarter of tea, a quart of molasses, a paper of radish-seed, a pound of sugar, a plug of tobacco, two pipes, a fine-tooth comb, a salt mackerel, a dose of rhubarb, two sticks of candy, and tell it not in the Tabernacle a bottle of "New England." The proprietor of this " Omnium Gatherum " is, in reality, the lord of the manor. All the villagers pay him tribute. He owns half the houses, half the land about the bay, two factories and a flour- mill, and, as a matter of course, " Squire Divine Underwood " is cordially hated by all of his neigh bors, partly because he is a rich, and partly because THE SQUIRE OFFERS A TRADE. 55 he is a hard man, and drives very close bargains indeed. Some dozen or more men are sitting on the counters, or leaning against them ; about the same number of boys imitate their example, and listen, open-mouthed, to all that is going on, amusing themselves in the meanwhile by kicking their heels together, and giving a sly pinch to a neighbor. Mr. Underwood is in the middle of the store, and something important is going on. He is speaking to one of the men. " Well, Jacob, if you won't go to Boston for thirty dollars, say what you will take ?" " Wouldn't like to, Mr. Underwood, 'cause I've never been there, and I'm kinder feared the *Teazer' wouldn't know the way." " Well, any of you, then ; what will you take ? I'll put the ballast on board for nothing. You shall have the ashes as fast as you'll take them, when you get there, and I'll pay any one of you thirty-five dollars for the trip. Come, who says I ?" !N~o one bid, and the Squire went on : "I'll give forty" (a pause,) "forty-five" (ano ther.) " Now stop, may-be you think I want to drive a tight trade with you, so I'll tell you what I'll give : sixty dollars to the first one of you who will undertake the job." " Captain Job's always tellin' on his goin' to Boston onst," replied a voice ; " may-be you and Mm can make a trade." "That's a fact," said Underwood. "Priest, you're the very man. I did not see you before." And he did not see him then, for, on the men tion of his name, Captain Job had quietly slid out of the store, and before Underwood had finished, was around the corner and in the shed, very busily engaged in the critical examination of an animal he despised above all others a horse. You have probably heard how once upon a time, a preacher that had been holding forth concerning the " last day," and who had wound up his exor dium with "who dare be found among the goats ?" received this reply, which was not to be found on the bills, from a sailor in the gallery : " I dares ; for I never takes a stump." Job, like the sailor, " never took a stump," and so, to keep himself out of harm's way, he staid in the shed until Underwood had passed up the road, homeward bound. When Job returned to the store, an animated dis cussion was going on about the proposed voyage to Boston; and Harry Flint, who had just entered, was engaged in it. '* Captain Job," said Harry, " come, take uj NEVER TAKES A " STUMP." 57 the offei, I'll go with you, and show you the way." . " No, you won't !" replied Job. " I know the way well enough ; but I don't want to dirty up the 4 Sally Ann.'" " Well, I'm blest, " retorted Harry, "if old Un derwood shall have it to say, that no Bay Harbor man had spunk enough to go to Boston. Before I let him go to Clam Cove and charter a vessel, I'll go in earnest. Who'll let me have his sloop on shares ? " " /will, Harry," said one of the captains. " Not spunk enough !" exclaimed Job. " Shan't say that about me. I'll take the job ;" and after laying in an additional supply of Dutch courage, he started off after Underwood. Now, Harry thought that he had been very sly and cunning in packing off the old man ; and so having him out of the way, and unable to inter fere between him and Mary, for ten days at least, but I'homme propose, et Dieu dispose,* and we shall see how it all turned out. Job felt very qualmish indeed ; he had been to Boston once, but that was a long time ago, and be fore he had attained to the dignity of master. He knew it was somewhere off the north end of the * NOTE. A maiden friend disputes the correctness of a part of thig proverb. " Th men," she says, " don't propote at all" 3* 58 CAPTAIN JOB IS " IN FOE IT" AT LAST. island, and that was the extent of his knowledge ; but as for seeking information upon the subject, he would have seen the " Sally Ann" sunk first. The fact of the business was, that neither the sloop nor her crew were exactly prepared for anything of a voyage. The only "log" that captain Job had ever kept on board, was a meat-block. For a com pass, he had a pair that moved their legs any way you wished ; his only needle had an eye in it, and though very useful in patching sails, only pointed to the north by accident. So with a heavy heart, Job entered Under wood's house, completed his bargain, and walked slowly home, muttering to himself : " Well, if I havn't put my foot into it this time !" CHAPTER X. CONCERNING THE INCONVENIENCES OF BEING TOO "SMART" DIAGNOSIS OF THE ALABAMA GENTLE MAN'S CASE AND THE OYSTER-CURE AN EPISODE. THE man who goes plodding on about his busi ness, may not, perhaps, effect quite as much as his "smarter" neighbor, but what little he per forms, is done well and surely. Somewhat dis trusting himself, feeling his way cautiously over slippery paths and upon thin ice, he comes out all right at the end ; but the " smart" man pushes on, making famous headway for a time, until, from holding his head too high, or trusting himself upon too slender a foundation, down he comes, all of a sudden, tears his best breeches, falls through, and then bawls out lustily for the tortoise to assist him, and keep his head above water. A proper degree of confidence is as necessary to the man of business as would be an India-rubber life-preserver to one floating upon his own hook on the Mississippi. A certain buoyancy is important 60 N EPISODE. to his safety ; but there is no use in engaging a balloon, and getting so high in it, that away goes he, soaring above all his compeers, until the sud den collision with a castle-in-the-air, or a collapse and escape of gas, precipitates him headlong, and the severity of his fall is in proportion to the ra pidity of his rise. I was once walking with an Alabama merchant in the streets of New Orleans, when we met half a dozen evidently " up-country" youths, and so very green, that they had not yet shed their " Ken tucky jeans," but for all that, their hands were ornamented with fashionable canes, and their mouths adorned with cigars of the largest size and most approved pattern ; and on they went, swing ing the former and puffing the latter, and appear ing very wide awake, indeed. "There," said my Alabama friend, " do you see those chaps smoking their ' three-for-a-quarter' Havanas ; don't they feel i piert,' and won't they catch it before long ? Some of them will be cured of their smartness by the first bucket of cold water that their conceit gets ; but with others it's a dis ease for life. It was taken out of ine in a hurry. I will tell you the story, and it's all true, which you'll probably believe ; for although I am the hero of the tale, it does not tell much to my credit. A GKEAT TRAVELLER. 61 " At home I was deemed the most knowing of the family, and when a mere lad, was intrusted with some important business to transact at Co lumbus, a place generally supposed among us to be somewhere near the world's end, and which even my father, a steady-going, well-to-do-planter, had but once visited. "When I arrived at my des tination, I found every thing ready for me, and my father's friend, knowing the dangers incident to country lads, even in so small a town, marched me off for home before night, having kept close by my side while I remained. " Now, I had done nothing that any dog, well trained to fetch and carry, might not have per formed with ease. I had seen nothing that I might not have seen at any little country town ; but upon my return I became the Sir Oracle of the settlement, and my wondrous stories of ships and steamboats, theatres and circuses, made all our good neighbors open their ears and eyes, very widely indeed. In fact, I told my tales so often and so well, that I finally became impressed with their truth myself. " When I came of age, my father, having made a good crop, and sold it at a good price, deter mined to send my brother and myself to Mobile, to see a little of the world. The old gentleman, at our departure, cautioned me to keep a sharp 62 AN EPISODE. look-out for John, who, as he was pleased to re mark, had none of my experience to depend upon, and it would have amused you to have witnessed the gravity with which I accepted the important trust. " Having arrived safely at Montgomery, and put up our horses at the inn, we strolled down to the landing, and when we reached the edge of the bluff, John started back in amazement. " < Jerusalem !' cried he. " What's that ?' ""Although the sight was as new to me as to him ; yet having some half-formed ideas upon the subject, I replied with great confidence: " 4 Pshaw ! nothing but a steamboat.' " And those monstrous tall black things grow ing right out of her,' he continued. " ' Boilers,' I answered laconically. Come, let's go on board.' " On board we went, and just as we were pass ing behind the real boilers, the engineer must needs try their water. Whiz-iz-iz whistled the steam, almost in my very ears. Stunned and be wildered by the unwonted racket, I caught John by the collar, and dashed overboard, with great presence of mind, dragging him with me. Fortu nately, the escapade was witnessed by quite a crowd of spectators. We were rescued from the water, and the alligators lost a choice supper. A GREAT TRAVELLER. 63 " < What under heaven P sputtered John, as soon as the water he had taken in would permit him, ' what under heaven was the matter ?' " ' Matter !' exclaimed I, ' matter enough ; don't you know that the boiler has bursted, and we are the only ones saved ?" "The guffaw from the bystanders, and as I turned round, the sight of the steamer majestic as ever, sent me to the right-about in double quick time. "Poof John had enough both of sight-seeing and of my experience, and left for home next morning; but I, smoothing my ruffled feathers for the next wind-mill encounter, took passage for Mobile. "You will perhaps think that my adventure would have cured me of smartness, but not a bit of it. On the passage down the river I fell in with a pleasant, chatty stranger, and in five min utes we were the best friends in the world. He did not pretend to quite as extended a knowledge of matters and things in general as I did, but knew enough to keep himself and me also, from falling into various pleasant games proposed for our amusement by certain finely-dressed gentlemen on board, who had taken a violent fancy to me, upon first sight. One night my < fidus Achates ' and I were conversing of the approaching plea 64 AN EPISODE. sures we were to enjoy at Mobile, and in his cata logue, the certainty of obtaining a full supply of oysters stood in the front rank. " ' I can eat more oysters than any live man,' said he. " Now, I had no idea what an oyster was, whether fish or flesh, biped, quadruped, or no ; ped ' at all ; but it would not do for me to be distanced upon any track, and so replied, without a moment's hesitation, < I can beat you, and never try.' " c We'll have a supper together,' said he, ' and the one who " caves " first shall pay the shot.' ""We had the supper, and /paid the shot, and got pretty well shot in the bargain. Thus it fell out. On our first night in Mobile, we adjourned from the theatre to an oyster saloon. " f How will you take them,' said he. " As I did not know what I was to take, how I was to take it was rather a puzzle, but there was one thing I would have come down handsome to have taken, and that was the < 'shute.' " ' Any way you do,' replied I at length. " He ordered a dozen raw, to be followed by a stew and a fry, and accompanied by champagne and brandy. " If you have a very powerful imagination you may perhaps conceive of the horror with which I viewed my dozen ' raw.' If they had killed me A PAIR OF OYSTER " RAKES." 65 I would have eaten them every one, and nearly kill me they did, for the only way that I could induce any one of the dozen to remain quiet and not revisit the earth, was by pouring down the brandy and water. I reversed the order of things and 'laid' them with 'spirits.' My friend won dered at my unaccustomed thirst, but southern courtesy demanded that he should keep up with me, neck and neck, and so he did. Next came the champagne, which did its work pretty effect ually, and, although of the remainder of our doings I was rather oblivious at the time, yet the full particulars of our performance appeared in the bills next morning as the newspapers say and I learned that, fatigued with our unusual ex ertions, we had been deposited with great care on what might be called two oyster-beds, in the room above, where we passed the night in performing the Cataract of Niagara. My friend played the American side, and I the Canada shore, which was not at all surprising, since seeing the Table Rock was among our last reminiscences. " The bill was pretty solid, but I paid it and it cured me." Now, some men will not be cured, and Captain Job was one of them. In contracting for his Boston voyage, he had been guilty of one smart thing, and he was fated to do one or two more before he sought the balmy god, that night. CHAPTEE XL THE "BRAG" CITY, AND A QUEER CUPID. THERE is a certain city in the Realm of Down- East known as the American Athens, but in reality a cis-atlantic Rome albeit not an over-safe place for a stranger to roam in whence, as you may have heard, a member of the State Legislature one of the archseval species after a week's pere grination in the streets, returned to his astonished constituents and informed them how he had wan dered up and down in this modern labyrinth until the bread and cheese provided by uxorial care was exhausted, and, not having been able to dis cover the State House, came home again, deter mined in future to attend to the res angustce domi and leave the affairs of the nation to abler geogra phers than himself, assuring them, in the very spirit of the astute Mrs. Glass, that in order to obtain a seat in the said house, it was first indis pensably necessary to catch it, evidently having an impression upon his mind that it was of a perambulating, evanescent, and transitory nature, 67 very like to the glory to be acquired therein ; where the streets go rambling up and down in a vague, irregular, unsatisfactory, and dissipated manner, wheresoever they list, as somebody has said of our volunteers ; where opposite houses are upon such intimate terms that if they had any Jack Spratical propensity to lean, they would be sure to salute d la Grecque, by touching noses ; where a man is fined two dollars for smoking a cigar, and one for using his handkerchief pub licly; and, in fine, where a certain hallucination of the mind is prevalent among the inhabitants, causing them to regard their strangely jumbled up little town as the moral and intellectual centre of the universe. This celebrated city, situated in lat. 42 23', long. 5 55', is bounded upon one side by Bunker Hill Monument, on the others by a delightful series of flats and marshes, and is generally known to the travelling world from an excellent inn and cheap coach-fares to be met with there. Consult the maps, and you will find the name recorded as " Boston." Ask the inhabitants, and they will inform you it is " Bosting ;" and the latter term is probably correct, being derived from the well-known propensity for boasting, with which the citizens are afflicted. To historians, however, it and the adjacent 68 THE " BEAG" CITY, AND A QUEER CUPID. country are well known, from the fact that the Revolutionary discord commenced at Concord. A considerable disturbance was bred upon Breed's hill, and the British army completely sewed up, were finally so hem'd in that Howe was sadly puzzled how to get away, for Washington would offer no battle gage to the General of that name, but engaged famine in his service to save his gun powder. This has been called a Fabian* policy, * Nota Bean-y. The printer begs to lay before the reader the following triangular, but interesting, correspondence : PRINTER TO PUBLISHER : Dear Sir, I beg to inquire, in a respect ful manner, if, in your opinion, the author intends to derive " Fabian " from "faba" LAT.: A BEAN : if such be the case, the compositor in timates a strong desire that it might be in his power to sentence the author to the galleys, instead of putting his sentences therein; and our head-devil, who reads to me at present, informs me that his mother supposed my office to be a reputable place rather a school for good morals than otherwise and that, upon the whole, he thinks of leaving next Saturday, if his wages be not advanced. Yours, respectfully, C. PUBLISHER TO AUTHOR. Mr. R. encloses the within note from the Printer, and desires Mr. P. to remember that this is a Republican country, where classical allusions are not gem rally understood, and poor puns not properly appreciated ; he also requests Mr. P. in future to mind his eye, as well as his P's and Q's, and, in conclu sion, begs a categorical reply to Mr. C.'s question. AUTHOR TO BOTH. Mr. P. begs to inform Messrs. C.