Bill Arp from the Uncivil War to Date,
1861-1903:
Electronic Edition.
Arp, Bill, 1826-1903
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First edition, 1998
ca. 800K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1998.
Call number PS2859.S5 B52 1903, c1902
(Davis Library, UNC-CH)
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Library of Congress Subject
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21st edition, 1998
LC Subject Headings:
Arp, Bill, 1826-1903.
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography.
Humorists, American -- Biography.
Southern States -- Social life and customs.
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal
narratives, Confederate.
1999-01-14,
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Victoria Strickland-Cordial
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The events of my father's life may be chronicled in a
few lines, but it would take many pages to tell of the mental
and spiritual gifts that made that life notable, and of its
influence over a wide circle of known and unknown friends.
Still more potent was the impress of his character upon
those nearest to him, whose privilege it was to see him day
by day and partake of the wit, wisdom, kindliness and humor
that made him the most fascinating of companions to his
children. He has himself told in this book the main incidents
of his career; how his father, Asahel Reid Smith, a sturdy
young son of Massachusetts, came South to teach school
and married his fourteen-year-old pupil, pretty little Caroline
Maguire, whose story as her son has written it, is most
interesting and romantic. They were married near Savannah
but later moved to Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, where
my father was born on June 15th, 1826, the eldest of ten
children. My grandfather became a thriving merchant of
Lawrenceville, postmaster as well, and my father has told
us many entertaining stories of the days when he used to
"ride the mail" and sell ribbons and things to the girls.
After some time spent in a manual labor school, he went
to college at Athens, where he was the classmate and
friend of many of the notable men of later
days. He held his friends in the greatest esteem and
affection, and it was one of the sorrows of his long life to
see them pass away one by one.
After his graduation at Franklin College, now the
University of Georgia, my father studied law in the office
of Judge Nathan Lewis Hutchins of Lawrenceville, and
was admitted to the bar. Here also he had the privilege of
association with the noted politicians, lawyers and judges
that made of Georgia history of that day a series of brilliant
chapters.
In 1849 he married Mary Octavia Hutchins, the daughter
of his preceptor, then only seventeen years old. The
following poem was written in her album while they were
sweethearts:
TO OCTAVIA.
I've
not the Bard's rich gift or Poet's
soul To
pen my feelings in a tuneful
rhyme;
I
have no power that can at will
control
The
thoughts and breathings of my humble mind.
A
heart to feel, and knowledge to
discern The
ties of friendship, and of love, are
mine;
May these, Octavia gain the kind
return Of
real friendship from that heart of thine.
An
album's pages tell of many a
friend Pleasant
to sight and to the memory
dear; Each
loves to wish thee well, and to
blend Thy
destiny with joys and hope sincere.
Thine
be the lot that gives to others
joy, For
thus you'll reap a harvest of your
own; May
no misfortune, pain, or cares
annoy And
garlands in thy path of life be strewn.
When
incense on the sacred altar
burned Its
odours seemed in prayerful clouds to
rise;
so may our wishes all to Heaven
turned Procure
rich blessings for thee from the skies.
Fifty-four years they
lived together, and all the days of
those years were a continuation of that youthful
devotion.
Shortly after their marriage my father and mother
moved to Rome, where he began the practice of law,
associated with Judge J. W. H. Underwood. When the
war began he became a staff officer with General Francis
Bartow, later was assigned by President Davis to special
judiciary duty in Macon. It was on his return to Rome in
1865 that he began to write regularly over the nom de
plume of Bill Arp, but his first letter appeared in 1861, and
is as follows:
"Rome, Ga., April, 1861.--Mr. Linkhorn: Sur: These are to
inform you that we are all well, and hope these lines may
find you in statue ko. We received your proklamation, and
as you have put us on very short notis, a few of us have
conkluded to write you, and ax for a little more time. The
fact is, we are most obleeged to have a few more days, for
the way things are happening, it is utterly onpossible for us
to disperse in twenty days. Old Virginny, Tennessee, and
North Callina, are continually aggravatin us into tumults and
carousements, and a body can't disperse until you put a
stop to sich onruly condukt on their part. I tried my
darndest yisterday to disperse and retire, but it was no go;
and besides, your marshal here ain't doing a darned thing -
he don't read the riot act, nor remonstrate, nor nothing, and
ought to be turned out. If you conklude to do so, I am
orthorized to rekummend to you Colonel
Gibbons or Mr. McLung, who would attend to the bizness
as well as most anybody.
"The fact is, the boys round here want watchin, or they'll
take sumthin. A few days ago I heard they surrounded two
of our best citizens, because
they was named Fort and Sumter. Most of em are so hot
that they fairly siz when you pour water on em, and that's
the way they amke up their military companies here now--
when a man applies to jine the volunteers, they sprinkle him,
and if he sizzes they take him, and if he don't they don't.
"Mr. Linkhorn, sur, privately speakin, I'm afeerd I'll git in
a tite place here among these bloods, and .have to slope out
of it, and I would like to have your Skotch cap and kloak that
you traveled in to Washington. I suppose you wouldn't be
likely to use the same disgize agin, when you left, and
therefore I would propose to swap. I am five feet five, and
could git my plow breeches and coat to you in eight or ten
days if you can wait that long. I want you to write me
immegitly about things generally, and let us know
wherebouts you intend to do your fitin. Your proklamation
says something about takin possession of all the private
property at 'All Harzards.' We can't find no such place on
the map. I thot it must be about Charleston, or Savannah, or
Harper's Ferry, but they say it aint anywhere down south.
One man said it was a little Faktory on an iland in Lake
Champlain, where they make sandbags. My opinion is that
sandbag bisness won't pay, and it is a great waste of money.
Our boys here carry there sand in there gizzards, where it
keeps better, and is always handy. I'm afeered your
government is givin you and your kangaroo a great deal of
onnecessary trubbul, and my humble advice is, if things
don't work better soon, you'd better grease it, or trade the
darned old thing off. If you don't trade or do sumthin else
with it soon, it will spile or die on your hands, sertain.
members of the kangaroo. What's Hannibal doin?
I don't hear anything from him nowadays. Yours,
with care,
BILL ARP."
My father has already told how he came to use the name
which he has made famous throughout the South. The
original Bill Arp, an illiterate countryman, moved to Texas,
and for some years after newspaper paragraphs confusing
his identity and my father's were both annoying and
amusing. We have long since lost trace of him.
In October, 1877, we moved to Bartow County, my
father having purchased a farm which he subsequently sold
to Sam Jones, the evangelist. The new home was called
Fontainebleau, from Mr. Francis Fontaine, the previous
owner. As the boys grew up and left the farm for more
congenial occupations and my father's duties as writer and
lecturer took him much from home, it was decided to leave
the country and settle in Cartersville, where we have since
lived at "The Shadows," and where my father died on
August the 24th, aged seventy-seven years.
The family tree is one which has now many
branches. There were ten children in the original
family; there were thirteen of us, ten are now living.
The children and grandchildren may be thus de-
scribed:
1. Hines M. Smith, civil engineer, Rome, Ga., married
Miss Sparks, of Athens, Ga., five children.
2. Royal Randolph Smith, civil engineer, Cartersville, Ga.,
married to Miss Ayer of Rome, Ga., three children.
3. Harriet Hutchins Smith, married to George H. Aubrey,
Cartersville, Ga., five children. Mr. Aubrey, is a grandson
of Hon. John Forsyth, former Governor of Georgia.
4. Frank Clifton Smith, civil engineer, San Antonio,
Texas, married to daughter of Colonel Stanwood of Ohio,
two children.
5. Victor Smith, with New York Press, unmarried.
6. Marian Smith, living at home.
7. Stella Smith, widow of the late R. H. Brumby; living at
home; one child.
8. Ralph Smith, physician, Marietta, Ga., married to Miss
Sara Keely, of Philadelphia; one child.
9. Carl Smith, in Mexico; unmarried.
10. Jessie Smith, married to William Young, of
Cartersville, Ga.; three children.
Besides these there were two nieces of my mother,
brought up as members of the family.
11. Mrs. Julia Iverson Patton, of Atlanta, Ga.
12. Mrs. Minnie Iverson Randolph, Atlanta, Ga.
My father's weekly letters to the Atlanta "Constitution"
and the Louisville "Home and Farm" were widely read and
copied and brought him in close touch with people North,
South, East and West. In addition to this work he published
the following books:
"Bill Arp's Letters," 1870.
"Bill Arp's Scrap Book," Humor and Philosophy, 1884.
"The Farm and Fireside," 1891.
"History of Georgia," 1895.
"From the Uncivil War to Date," 1903.
Always an early riser, it was his habit to walk up and
down the halls of the home playing the flute to waken us in
the morning, or playing the piano in his own unique fashion,
all on the black keys, but peculiarly sweet and effective as
he did it. One of my earliest recollections is of being
aroused by the strains of the flute, when climbing out of
bed, nightgowned,
barefooted, I toddled to his side and with the other
children marched up and down the hall clinging to his
dressing gown while he played "Way Down in Shinbone
Alley," "Run, Nigger, Run," and other old-time tunes, until
nurse came to get us ready for breakfast.
His loving care of us as little ones continued in after
years, when he unselfishly shared our larger griefs, or
rejoiced with us in our pleasures and pastimes. How often
as I have told him of some sorrow or disappointment would
he gently stroke my hand and say earnestly: "Even this shall
pass away." His example led us to love the church; by his
side we managed to live through many a long and tiresome
discourse, comforted by smuggled candies or peppermint
drops.
The following story illustrates his interest even in
children not his own:
During one of his lecture trips he was travelling in the
car with a tired mother and several restless little children.
One little one begged, "Mama, may I suck my thumb?" The
mother refused, evidently feeling that discipline must be
maintained. My father's child-loving heart could stand it no
longer, so he said in his courteous way, "Madam, I think,
under the circumstances, I would let her suck her thumb."
We never realized what a rare privilege was ours in
having such a companion until we moved to the country.
Here a certain degree of privation followed closely on our
footsteps. We had to practice hitherto unknown economies
and to shoulder household cares that were new to us, but
he was the lever that made things easy. His very
cheerfulness was a
godsend, and his philosophy lightened many difficult and
uncongenial tasks.
After work hours or on Sundays he would call us all for
a walk, "go to Nature's Church," as he said. Such lessons in
natural history and botany! We were taught to respect the
very worm that crawls; to know when and where to find
the first wild flowers and fruits--taught in his broad-minded,
reverent way the wonders of mother earth. He never
ceased to study these great mysteries himself, and it was
this nearness to nature that made him the noble, clean-hearted
man he was to the day he died.
On long winter evenings he would gather us around a
huge wood fire and tell us wonderful tales of his boyhood,
of his mother's life, of the war, and stories of the great and
good people he had known in both real life and books.
He did not care for the ephemeral literature of the time,
but was rarely versed in standard works of both poetry and
prose. The Bible and Josephus were his daily companions,
and his library contained reference books of every kind,
through which he constantly added to his store of
knowledge, giving it out in conversation and letters with
generous heart to those less wise or learned.
I have heard him chuckle over a good joke in his own
whole-hearted fashion, or have seen the tears in his eyes
as he read some touching story of human interest. He
encouraged every member of the family to love music and
good books; he would allow nothing but good-natured
gossip of our friends and neighbors. His last years at the
"Shadows" were devoted to his garden; flowers and fruits
grew for him to perfection. Roses and old-fashioned pinks
were his favorites. Every morning the rarest blossom
was culled and laid, a morning greeting, at my
mother's breakfast plate. Later in the day we were all
expected to gather in the garden and enjoy its delights with
him. He shared his flowers with all the friends who came to
see us, presenting a short-stemmed, old-fashioned bouquet
to each one, with a courtly, old-time grace peculiar to
himself.
The Confederacy was a passion with my father. He
loved to honor the old South and her veterans. It was
something worth living for to hear him tell
an appreciative audience of the old days, and defend the
rights of his people. He was peculiarly gifted as a
story-teller, he never forgot an incident or a name.
During his last illness the question arose concerning
the name of a New York physician who figured in an
incident some twenty years ago. No one could recall it. The
question was put to my father, who was tossing and
muttering, semi-delirious. A moment of quiet, a look of
intelligence, and the name was uttered clearly--then an
immediate lapse into unconsciousness. As a college girl I
always declared I "never needed a dictionary or an
encyclopedia - papa knew everything."
The day came when he grew too feeble to walk in his
garden, or to read or write as he had always done. Then he
would totter out to his chair on the porch and with his
"far-glasses" on wait patiently for the coming of his little
grandchildren. His mind, grown childlike, craved their
companionship. The love of children for him was only
equalled by his love for them. Half the little ones in the
town called him "grandpa." Hardly a day passed that
he did not get letters from boys and girls of all ages, and
never did he fail to answer them.
Letters came from all over the United States, with
questions and requests of all kinds. Hundreds wrote just
to tell of the sunshine he had brought into their lives. Since
he has gone from us the letters continue to come from
known and unknown friends, written as if with one pen:
"The loss is not yours alone; our loss is great; the whole
South mourns with you." All this sympathy and appreciation
is a priceless treasure to us who mourn our truest friend
and dearest companion.
We laid him away under a pall of beautiful flowers sent
by those who loved him, in the little cemetery at
Cartersville, for he said he wanted to be near us still in both
body and spirit. In the same grave with him is the body of
his youngest grandchild, little Sara, eight months old, the
daughter of my brother Ralph, who died within a week after
he passed away.
If one might write my father's epitaph in the language of
a great poet, it would be this:
"He was a man take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again."
My dear young friends: Let me tell you a pretty story. Just
a hundred years ago there was a young man hanged in
Dublin, Ireland, for committing treason against the English
government. His name was Robert Emmet, and his crime
was that of organizing a rebellion which was intended to set
Ireland free from the dominion of England and to place his
native land among the nations as free and independent. The
rebellion failed, and its leaders had to escape for their lives.
Emmet was one of the most eloquent and gifted men in all
the land. He graduated with high honors at Trinity College,
and at this time was engaged to be married to Miss Curran,
the beautiful daughter of the great Irish lawyer, John Philpot
Curran. After the rebellion was crushed he fled to France,
where he remained for two years, and then, in disguise,
went back to Ireland to marry the lady he loved and bring
her to the United States. But English detectives were on his
track and arrested him. He was tried, convicted and hanged,
and his affianced died of a broken heart. His speech made
in his own defense was the most eloquent, pathetic and
patriotic ever delivered in any court room. I used
to speak part of it when I was a schoolboy, and still recall
the last sentence, "When I am dead let no man write my
epitaph--until Ireland is free let not my epitaph be written."
pointer to my story. Among Emmet's college companions
and his comrades in the rebellion were two brothers whose
names were James and Patrick Maguire. They were the
younger sons of Sir Francis Maguire, a member of
Parliament and a very wealthy gentleman. He did not favor
the rebellion, but could not control his younger boys. They,
too, had to flee the country, and did so in a vessel that their
father bought and equipped for that purpose. They came to
Charleston, S. C., in 1803 and began business as linen
merchants. In the course of a year or two Patrick sold his
interest and changed his abode, but James continued the
business and married Emily Barret. Two children were born
to them, James and Caroline. When these children were
nine and seven years of age the yellow fever visited
Charleston, and in a brief time swept half of the population
into their graves. Maguire and his wife died almost
simultaneously, and were buried by night in the same
grave--for all night long the hearses and dead carts were
rumbling over the cobble stones, their tires bound in bagging
to smother the noise.
Now, my children, this brings me to the saddest and
sweetest part of my story. The pestilence was awful. All
who could fly from it did so, but there were thousands who
had nowhere to go or who could not leave the dead and
dying in their own households. A good man came and took
James, the boy, to his home, and a good woman took
Caroline. Next morning an order was issued that all children
who had no homes should be put on board the vessels that
were anchored near the city and sent to some other port. In
the confusion there was no effort made to keep brothers
and sisters together, and James was placed on board a
brig bound for Boston, and Caroline on a
schooner under sail for Savannah, but neither knew what
had become of the other. Just imagine their grief and
desolation. Alone in the wide world - no father or mother, no
kindred, no loving friends! After a stormy voyage the brig
reached Boston, where the boy was placed in an orphan
asylum. Caroline was landed in Savannah and found a
home in an asylum there. The matrons in charge of each
were good and kind, but the children's eyes were red and
their pillows wet with weeping. They were just old enough
to realize what they had lost.
Now, let us skip over two or three years. When James
was ten years old, a wealthy gentleman, a manufacturer of
boots and shoes who lived at Randolph, fifteen miles east of
Boston, came to the asylum to choose a boy, to wait on him
in his counting room. James was a bright and handsome lad,
and the gentleman, whose name was Burwell, chose him
and took him home with him. He proved to be the very boy
he wanted, and grew into favor. Part of the time he was
sent to school and learned rapidly, and in a few years was
taken into partnership, and the old gentleman gave him his
only daughter for a wife. Young Maguire was a good man,
loved and respected by all who knew him, but at times he
was sad, very sad, because of his lost sister. Twice he had
visited Charleston and made diligent search, but found no
clue. He found the very house he was born in and where his
parents died, but new people lived in it and the neighbors
were all new. An old negro woman remembered the
Maguires, and said she washed for them, but that was all.
She thought that the fever "got 'em all," she said.
people. So much so that when he was only twenty-six years
old he was elected State Senator, and became well
acquainted with Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate and
Judge Story.
Now you know, my young friends, in a small village like
Randolph everybody knew all about everybody, and could
tell where they came from. And so it was very generally
known that Maguire had lost his sister and had not a
relative in the wide world that he knew of, and how he had
sought for her, but in vain, and why it was that at times he
seemed so sad and distressed. Well, he lived in a beautiful
home in Randolph, and right across the street lived his most
intimate friend and neighbor, whose name was Wales.
Wales knew all his sorrows and could weep over them too.
But what of little Caroline, "The Flower of Dumblane,"
as they used to call her in her childhood--for she was
as lovely in disposition as she was beautiful. She had to tell
her sad story in tears to the good matron--and the good
woman cried too, and the orphans cried, for it was a sadder
case, if possible, than any of theirs.
But Time is a good doctor, and after a few days Caroline
became interested in her new home, and her broken heart
began to heal and went out in love to the matrons and the
many children who were her companions. She had been
there about two years when one day a fine lady came there
in a fine carriage, and after introducing herself to the
matron, she said she came to see if she could get a nice,
pretty orphan girl to go and live with her and keep her
company. That she lived on a rice plantation in Liberty
county--that her children had grown up and married and
moved too far away, and that her
name was Goulding, the mother of Dr. Goulding, the
Presbyterian preacher, and the grandmother of Frank, who
wrote "The Young Marooners." It was not an unusual thing
for good people to come and choose a child and take her
away and adopt her, but it was always a sad time and made
solemn and serious impression upon them. They knew that
one of their number had to go, and that they would see her
no more, perhaps forever--which one--which one, they
wondered, and each one said, "maybe it will be me," and the
thought alarmed them. They were happy where they were,
and a change to some one they did not know, filled their
hearts with fear. Well, the fine lady was shown to the large
reception room where the children had to gather on such
occasions. The children had of course to put on their best
garments, which were all uniform, and wash their faces and
brush their hair, and they marched in and were seated on
the benches that were next to the walls of the large room.
Then the grand lady walked around slowly and talked to
every one she fancied, and said kind, pleasant words and
asked them many questions. It was soon noticed that every
time she went around she stopped longer with little Caroline
than any other, and after the third round she turned to the
matron and said, "I will take this one." The little girl
trembled like an aspen leaf. Her heart beat rapidly, and
tears filled her eyes. With the other girls the agony was
over, but they grieved that Caroline was chosen, for they
loved her very dearly. The matron, too, was sad as she
kissed her a last goodbye--her heart was too full to speak it.
It was a tearful scene as the orphans, every one of whom
had her own sad experience, marched to Caroline and
kissed her farewell.
But she was soon in the fine carriage with the fine lady,
and a fine team of horses were gaily trotting down the
avenue. They reached the lady's home that evening, and
Caroline found everything so strange and singular that for a
time she forgot the change in her condition. There was a
grand old mansion in a grove of evergreens. All along the
way she had seen the beautiful magnolias and caught the
fragrance of the yellow jessamine, and now she inhaled the
sweet odor of the cape jessamine that came from a long
row that bordered the carriage way and adorned the walks
near the house. Not far away were the barns and rice mills,
and another for the sugar cane, and still further off were
long lines of negro houses - all just alike and whitewashed,
and each with a garden attached.
But alas! not a white child was to be seen nor a white
person, save Mrs. Goulding and herself. Scores of little
negroes were playing around the cabin yards, and they came
near and looked curiously at the little white girl that "Ole
Mistis" had brought home with her. After supper Caroline
soon grew tired from her journey and was put to bed, where
she again wet the pillows with her tears, but soon dropped to
sleep. The morning was bright and the country air was
balmy, and she brightened with the day. About a mile away
there lived a family of Allstons, who had recently moved
from South Carolina. They were good people, and closely
related to the family of William Allston, the great painter,
who married Theodosia, the daughter of Aaron Burr, and
who was drowned at sea or murdered by pirates. Her sad
fate is still unknown. With the children of this Allston family
Caroline soon got intimate, and Mr. Allston, when on a
visit to Charleston,
made diligent effort to find some clew to her lost
brother, but found none.
Mrs. Goulding was very desirous of sending Caroline to
school, but there was none near enough. And so Mr.
Allston went to Savannah to look around and if possible to
secure a teacher.
Now, children, listen, for we have come to another
branch of this story. About the year 1817 a young man whose
name was Reid, a native of Vermont, was teaching school
in a little town in Massachusetts. He was smart and
energetic and saved his money. One of his young friends
told him one day that they could charter a sloop and make a
big lot of money shipping brick to Savannah. Brick were
cheap in Newberryport and brought a high price in
Savannah. They put their money together, bought the
cargo, hired four sailors, and set sail. The voyage was
prosperous until they neared the port. Then a terrific storm
came up, and for fear of losing their vessels and their lives,
they had to throw a good part of the cargo into the sea.
They had barely enough brick left to sell for sufficient
money to pay off the sailors and send the sloop back to its
owners. Young Reid's companion got discouraged and
homesick and went back with it; but Reid was too game a
young man to go back without a dollar in his pocket. So he
hired to a grocery merchant as a porter, and did his work so
well and faithfully that he soon grew into favor and was
promoted to the counting room. It was about this time that
Mr. Allston visited the city in search of a teacher, and it so
happened that this merchant was his friend and factor. He
gave Reid a very high character, and told him he was a
good scholar and had taught school up North. He hated to
give him up, but Reid desired
to go, and he was soon on his way to Liberty county. A
good school was made up for him at once, and Caroline
became one of his scholars. In that day the teachers
boarded around among their patrons, staying a week or
more with each family; and so Reid soon learned all about
Caroline's sad history, and his tender heart went out in
sympathy for her. She was then thirteen years old, well
grown for her age, and was lovely in form and feature. She
was modest in behavior and at times seemed sad almost to
tears. Reid took great interest in her, and she soon became
one of his brightest scholars.
But change is written on everything in this world, and so it
happened that when Caroline became fourteen years old
and had a right under the law to choose her own guardian,
she went into court and choose Mr. Allston and became an
inmate of his family. She was so lonely with the old lady,
and besides the old lady had married again--a Mr.
Williamson,--and they did not live harmoniously together, and
each contended for the guardianship of Caroline. It was
young Reid, however, who took Caroline into his confidence
and advised her to choose Mr. Allston. About this time the
State of Georgia bought from the Creek Indians all their
land in the up country and had them surveyed and opened
up to settlers. Then there began a great exodus of low
country people up to the new purchase, where mountains
and valleys and fast flowing streams abounded. Mr. Allston
took the up-country fever and prepared his household to
move. He did move, and of course Caroline had to go with
the family. She bade her teacher goodbye and wept upon
his bosom. He never knew till then how much he loved her.
At the end of his school term he too took the up-country
fever, but finding a good opening at Mt. Vernon, in
Montgomery county, he stopped there and taught for a year
and laid up a little more money. Mr. Allston had settled on
a creek, a few miles east from Decatur, and was engaged
in building log houses and clearing land. He had built a large
double log cabin, with shed rooms attached, and had moved
into it. He concluded to christen the new home with a
frolic, so one bright moonshiny night he had all of the
neighbors invited to come over and have music and perhaps
a country dance. But Caroline did not seem to enjoy it.
Most of the time she sat in the piazza and seemed anxious
and melancholy. A spirit whispered to her that Reid was
coming, she always declared, and she could not get rid of
the expectation. And sure enough, about nine o'clock, she
saw a man riding slowly up the road-way, and when quite
near he dismounted and hitched his horse. She did not wait
for him, but with a cry of joy, rushed out to meet him and
threw herself gladly into his arms. Once again she had
found her best friend.
Now, children, we must skip some, for this story is
getting too long. A young man by the name of
Featherstone had married Mr. Allston's eldest daughter.
He was a merchant, and was living in Lawrenceville, about
twenty miles away. Reid was expecting to make up a
school in that little town, but Featherstone persuaded him
to join him in his mercantile business, for it had outgrown
his capital and Reid's money was just what was wanted.
Sometimes Mr. Allston or some of his family came to
Lawrenceville, and Caroline came with them. Sometimes
Reid rode out there Saturday evening and spent the
Sabbath. And so the love affair progressed smoothly, and
when Caroline was sweet sixteen
they were married at Mr. Featherstone's house in the
good old town of Lawrenceville. When Caroline was asked
why she married so young, she always said, "Why, I didn't
dare to refuse. He was my teacher, and I was taught to
obey him."
Well, now, we will skip over some more. In course of
time two children were born to them, two fine, handsome
boys, and Caroline was happy, always happy, except at
times when the image of her lost brother came before her.
Reid had already advertised for him in all of the
Southern papers and in New York and Philadelphia. One
day when he came home he found that she had been
weeping, and he resolved to make one more effort. So he
sent an advertisement to a Boston paper and one to St.
Louis and New Orleans.
Now, let us go back to the little town of Randolph and
see what Mr. Wales is doing. It was Sunday morning, and
he was not feeling well and did not go to church. He had on
his gown and slippers and cap and had laid down on the
sofa to read his Boston paper. That advertisement was
almost the first thing that caught his eye.
"James F. Maguire, whose parents died of yellow fever
in Charleston in the summer of 1815, and who was
separated from his only sister, Caroline, during the panic,
can hear from her by addressing the undersigned at
Lawrenceville, Georgia. She is well and happy."
Wales read it and re-read it, and suddenly realizing what
it meant rose up, and, with the paper in his hand, rushed
wildly across the street to Maguire's house. Nobody was
there. They had all gone to church, which was only two
blocks away. Wales did not stop, but hurried up the street
and into the side
door of the church, which was near the Maguire pew.
The minister had begun to read the hymn but Wales never
stopped nor considered his apparel, but cried out in a
delirium of joy, "Maguire, I've found your sister. Thank God
I have. Here she is sure, and is alive and well. Thank the
good Lord for his mercies," and being overcome with his
own emotions he sat down and wept. The minister stopped,
of course, and came down to hear the paper read. Half the
congregation gathered near while Maguire read the
advertisement, and had others read it aloud. He trembled
like an aspen leaf and said, "That is Caroline and no
mistake. Bless the Lord for his goodness unto me," and he
knelt down in silent prayer and sobbed in tears of joy, for
tears are signs of joy as well as grief.
Enough of that. You young people, whose hearts are
tender and full of emotions, must imagine the rest, and you
will be more ready to believe that when the Lord said over
and over again in the scriptures, "I am the God of the
fatherless and the widow," He meant it.
Now, this is about all of my story except that I have
failed to mention that Reid's name was Asahel Reid Smith.
He was my father, and Caroline was my own dear mother.
I was seven years old then, and cannot forget the delirious
joy of that meeting after a separation of eighteen years. My
brother James was nine years old, and our uncle had two
boys of a like age with us. For years the brother and sister
and their children visited and re-visited each other. Their
eldest son, in course of time, established a branch of his
father's shoe business at Melbourne, Australia. The last
letter from him said that he had married a sweet English
lady and
And now a brief mention of my wife and myself--my
birth and youth and manhood. On the 15th day of June,
1826, half a million children were born into the world and I
was one of them. In the pleasant village of Lawrenceville,
Gwinnett county, Georgia, I first saw the light. My infancy
was not unlike that of other children, except that sometimes
I had little fits of passion and threw myself upon the floor or
bumped my head against the wall, at which my mother
smiled and sometimes said I couldn't help it, for it was
South Carolina fighting Massachusetts. My childhood was
happy, and so were my school days. I still have fond
recollections of my teachers. Miss Cooley, an aunt of Mrs.
George Hillyer's, was the first one. She was good and kind
to us all. Then came Dr. Wilson and Mr. Sayre, John
Norton and Dr. Patterson and Mr. McAlpin in succession. I
was a mischievous lad, and Mr. Norton whipped me
occasionally--not hard but lightly--once he whipped me on my
boil and bursted it, and nearly broke my mother's heart, but
it was good for the boil. My teachers are all dead. A few
years ago old Father Sayre called to see me in Chester, S. C.,
and as he grasped my hand said, "Yes, you went to
school to me, and I never whipped you but once. Perhaps if
I had whipped you more you would have made a better
man--but I am proud of you, my boy. Yes, I am proud of
you."
In course of time I was sent to the manual labor institute,
two miles away, where I mingled with the boys of the best
families of the State. The Gouldings, Holts, Hoyles, Allans,
Alexanders, Lintons and Crawfords and others. They are all
dead but two that I know of. My father was a merchant, and
when I was nearly grown he gave me a clerk's place in his
store, and I sold goods for two or three years. About this
time of course I fell in love, and dressed better and brushed
my hair with a cowlick touch and wore boots and smiled
sweetly on my sweethearts as they passed. When I was
nineteen I was sent to college at Athens, and found a new
sweetheart there. She played and toyed with me while she
was secretly engaged to another fellow. When I was senior
my father was taken seriously ill, and called me home to take
charge of his business. So I went to selling goods again. In
the meantime a pretty, hazel-eyed lassie I had only known
as a child had grown out of her pantalets and into long
dresses, and was casting sly glances at the boys about town.
I imagined she cast some at me, for she liked to trade at my
store and was in no hurry to go, and was pleased to buy
what I advised her and never asked the price. She was a
bashful brunette, with hair as black as that of Pocahontas,
and it is yet, and her name was Mary Octavia, the eldest
daughter of Judge Hutchins. Of course it didn't take me long
to fall desperately in love, - nor did it take a long siege for me
to take that fort, for I was a right handsome youth myself,
and was smart and doing well. What better does a pretty girl
want? Yes, I found that pearl, and did not throw it away like
Othello. I've got it yet. From the beginning I knew that she
loved me, and I never had to plead or get on my knees--
nor did I ever ask her to have me, but one moonlight night
as we were walking I said, "Octavia, when shall we get
married?" and, as she pressed my hand, she whispered,
"Whenever you think best." It was like the murmur of a
dream, but I heard it. Now she will deny all this, but
nevertheless it is the truth, and so within three months we
were wedded. I knew very well that with her parents I was
an acceptable lover, for my mother had found it out from
her mother, and everything was calm and serene. She was
sweet sixteen and I was twenty-one. I took her young,
thinking I could train her to suit my notion, but she soon
trained me to suit her's.
Now, my young friends, that was nearly fifty-four years
ago. I was one of ten children; my wife was one of ten. We
have ten all living, and they have just twenty, and just keep
on multiplying and replenishing according to scripture. My
brothers are dead. I have three sisters living, who are very
dear to me. Well, I built a little cottage in a pretty grove and
we moved there. Judge Hutchins had a large plantation on
the river, and over a hundred slaves. He did not offer us any
money, for he knew we did not need it, but sent up two of
the favorite family servants, and Tip, the same faithful Tip
of whom I have written, was one of them. They begged old
master to give them to "Miss Tavy," and he did so. A few
months after our marriage Judge Hutchins insisted that I
should study law, for he needed a young man's help in his
office. So I placed my mercantile interests in other hands
and began to peruse Blackstone. In two or three months I
was admitted to the bar on promise of continuing my studies,
which promise I kept, and in due time began to ride the
circuit at the tail of the procession. And what
a procession it was! Judge Junius Hillyer, Judge Jackson,
the Doughertys, Hope Hull, Howell Cobb and his brother,
Tom Cobb, Cincinnatus Peeples, Basil Overby, and meeting
occasionally Robert Tombs and Alex Stephens. All great
lawyers and eloquent, both in the forum and on the
platform. They are all dead, and I, only I, am left. Then
there were the Judges of the Supreme Court, Lumpkin,
Warner and Nisbet, whom I well knew, for somehow all of
these noble men made a pet of me, and from them I drew
inspiration and knowledge.
In 1851 I took the Western fever, and moved to Rome to
grow up with the town and the country. I was soon
associated with Judge Underwood in the practice of law,
and for thirteen years we were as intimate as brothers. The
war came and we parted. After the, war I became
associated with Judge Joel Branham, another most
delightful partnership, which was only severed by his
elevation to the bench.
And now in my old age I cannot say as Jacob said to
Pharaoh, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of
my pilgrimage." We have had more than our share of
blessings. We have been blessed with health and the
comforts of life. Of course the war made an inroad upon
our peace and happiness for a time, but the good Lord
preserved us and we suffered no dire calamity or affliction.
My motto is that of the Latin poet,
"Carpe diem," enjoy the
day, enjoy every day as far as possible.
We have been blessed in our children, for they have been
good to us. Our boys are all in good form and feature - not a
single deformity to mar their manhood. Our girls are modest
and well favored. Not a Leah among them - all are Rachels--all are
frugal and industrious, and love their paternal home. It is
their Mecca, and will be until we die.
For twenty-seven years we lived in Rome and prospered.
Then we retired to a beautiful little farm near Cartersville,
where there were springs and branches, a meadow and a
creek near by, with a cane-brake border. Not far away was
a mill and a pond, and there was a mountain in the background
where small game abounded. There we raised
Jersey cows and colts and sheep and chickens and
peafowls, and lived well by day and feasted on music by
night, for every member of the family is a musician, which
art they inherited from their mother. It was a lovely home,
and all the younger children grew up there to manhood and
womanhood, and were happy. Their schooling was not
neglected, though I could not send but one boy and one girl
to college. It was on the farm that the boys learned what a
dollar was worth when they earned it.
But by and by and one by one the boys left us for other
avocations, and five of the six now live in five different
States from New York to Mexico. As I had to be away a
good portion of my time, my wife and daughters were left
without a protector, so I moved to this town of Cartersville
and bought this pleasant home, which we call "The
Shadows," because it is embowered by the shade of many
beautiful trees. This is all. We are still in the land of the
living, where mercy may be sought and pardon found.
Enough of this. It savors of self-conceit and vanity to
write so much about myself, and I feel that what I am or
what I have done should be told by another. But what is
writ is writ.
NOTE.--Some of "Bill Arp's" friends wish that he had been less modest,
diffident and unassuming, it being a favorite contention that with the
assurance, self-laudation and pretentious aggressiveness of the times,
supported by his profound knowledge and philosophic temperament, he
could have attained high political honors or achieved the loftiest eminence
in our judiciary. Others who love him better prefer him as he was and is. He
could not be as he is if he had not been as he was. The "Cherokee
Philosopher" is dearer to us than would be the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, or "governor," or "senator," or "Mr.
President." We love him for
the offices he has avoided, the political entanglements he has escaped.
While there are millions struggling for political office, from a
doorkeepership in a police court to the Presidency "Bill Arp" stands alone
in the dignity of a personal office to which he has been elected by a
universal suffrage of hearts touched and mellowed by a physical sympathy
wholly unknown in the field of political stress and strain. He is the elect of
a people who could see no other possible candidate for the place he fills. He
is neither soiled nor spoiled, except by the little tenderness of legions who
seek opportunity to show a sort of filial reverence for the patriarch. Mrs.
Arp knows his faults, chief of which is that he likes to be petted. The
introduction he received at Tupelo, Miss., most tenderly expresses his
relation to the Southern people. The speaker said in conclusion, "I cannot
say that Bill Arp is the greatest man nor the best man, nor the most
eloquent man, but I can truthfully say that he is the best loved man in all
the Southland."
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and
women merely players."
The civil war was a play, a thrilling tragedy, in which
great armies were the players and the world the witnesses.
But in every play there are performances behind the scenes
that the footlights do not shine upon nor the audience have
any knowledge of. There are prompters and properties,
dressing and undressing, false hair and false faces, weapons
and banners, and machinery for thunder and lightning.
There is hurrying to and fro, and sometimes subdued
altercations, jealousies and envyings. Sometimes there is
real rivalry and real love transpiring behind the scenes while
it is mimicked and played in front. The acts and deeds of
mankind are behind the scenes. The greater part of life--the
better part and the worse - is invisible to the world. Our
domestic relations, fireside pleasures, family dissensions, our
joys and sorrows, desires and ambitions, yes, our secret
thoughts that harbor hate or cherish love are all behind the
scenes, known only to a few or to ourselves alone.
I propose now to touch briefly upon some things that
were behind the scenes before and during the civil war--
some things that have not been published and which
present a vivid contrast to the glory of a
soldier's life. These are war times and it is well enough to
exhibit the picture to the young men of the South and let
them ponder upon it and draw the line between a war of
patriotic duty and one of conquest and glory. This part of
my address will be brief and is intended chiefly for the
entertainment of the veterans who still live, for you know
that while the capital stock of youth is hope, that of age is
memory.
Early in the year 1861, when secession was the great
and vital question that agitated our people, a convention
was called to decide whether Georgia would follow South
Carolina's lead, or not. All of the young men,
nearly all of the women, and many of the
old men, were outspoken for secession, even though it
provoked war. There was a party, however, with Alexander
Stephens as a leader, who preferred co-operation and did
not wish Georgia to secede alone, but favored a convention
of delegates from all the Southern States and let them all go
out together or remain in the Union. This party, however,
was too feeble to stem the tide of resistance to Northern
aggression, and so the delegates from every county
gathered at the capital.
There was a Union element among the delegates. It was
composed of old men who had property and did not wish it
imperiled by war, and there were some non-slaveholders,
who were not in sympathy with the slaveholders' policy or
alarmed by their fears.
There were a few strong men who were for the old flag
and the Union above all other considerations. Of this class
Herschel Johnson was the leader. He was one of the great
men of Georgia. He was on the ticket for Vice-President
when Stephen A. Douglass ran for President. He was a
man of sluggish, ponderous
mind, not easily excited by ordinary events, but
when aroused from his lethargy by some vital issue he had
no equal in Georgia. He was called the sleeping Sampson,
and his political foes used all their arts to keep him asleep.
He was opposed to secession, and went as a delegate to the
convention. Toombs and his party dreaded him and feared
the power of his eloquence. "Old Sampson is aroused,"
said Toombs, "and the boys must look out." Johnson began
to speak just before twelve and was fairly getting under
way, and knocking out the props upon which secession
leaned, when he was interrupted by Albert Lamar, the
secretary and a suggestion made to adjourn for dinner. At
the dining wine was served, and Johnson, being pressed by
Lamar and his friends, drank too freely. He lost his mental
balance and the remainder of his speech fell flat and tame
and unfinished. After his death, Lamar, who was editor of
the Macon Telegraph, wrote up the unwritten fraud and
published it, boasting how he drugged the wine at the dinner
table, and that if it had not been done the old lion would
have carried the majority of the delegates with him as easily
as a tornado carries the trees in its track. "But for those two
drinks," said Lamar, "Georgia would not have seceded and
there would have been no war."
Whether this be true or not true is of no great concern,
for if no war then it would have come later. There was no
averting it as long as the negro was here in slavery.
And so Georgia seceded and prepared for war, and her
sister States followed in quick succession. While the new
regiments were forming the State was one vast recruiting
camp. The call of the drum resounded from mountain to
seaboard. Men, women
and children participated in the general enthusiasm. Beautiful
banners were being made by womanly fingers and presented
to the companions with womanly benedictions. Why is it, my
friend, why is it, that loving, pitying, tender-hearted women,
who will not willingly tread upon a worm, are always first and
foremost in urging their husbands, brothers, sons, to battle for
their country or their section? It is a fact that but for the
smiles of mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts, Georgia
would never have sent 100,000 soldiers to the front. I did not
visit Virginia, in June, 1861, with any intention of joining the
army, but I did join while there and knew full well that my
wife would weep but still be proud of it. Her five brothers
were already there, and the wonder of it is that she was not
there herself, playing the role of Joan of Arc. But she had a
lively time of it at home three years later and saw enough of
war, for she had to flee from the foul invader with five little
children tagging after her. She paused in Atlanta, but only for
a day--just long enough to catch breath and start again. Then
she made a good, long run down to Tuskegee, in the secluded
shades of Alabama, the State whose beautiful name means
"here we rest." But it was no resting place for her, for
Wilson's raiders were on the wild hunt for rebels and
refugees, and so she departed those coasts with alacrity and
sought retreat and safety at her father's plantation on the
upper Chattahoochee. She left almost everything behind her
when she fled from Rome that dark and dismal night. The
house was full of furniture, the pantry full of good things, the
smoke-house full of meat and lard and a barrel of home-made
soap. I believe she made more ado about losing that soap than
anything, for she had made it
in the dark of the moon and stirred it from left to right with
a sassafras paddle while it was boiling,
But in her wild haste
she forgot some things that were very precious. She forgot
the package of love letters that I wrote her during my
courtship, in which I promised many things that she declares
I have ceased to perform since she lost them. She forgot
the letters that I wrote home from the army, many of them
containing graphic descriptions of the battles and who of our
boys were killed and who were wounded, and they were
read aloud to the people from her front door as soon as she
received them. I would give money for those letters now.
She forgot her album - her maiden's treasure, in which her
friends and lovers, including myself, had written tender
verses. These were all given up as lost, but in December,
1884, she received the album, with these lines inscribed on
the last page:
"FRANKLIN, PA., Dec. 22d, 1884.
"With pleasure I return this book to its rightful owner. I
came in possession of it while marching through Georgia
with Sherman's army. I became attached to it for the
sentiment contained in the verses, and I sent it to a lady
friend, Miss Downs, in Sparta, Ohio. She married and
moved away and has just returned the book to me after
twenty years' possession. My wish is that the rightful
owner may preserve its pages and hand it down to
posterity.
Respectfully,
"E. A. Wilson."
That man is a gentleman, if he did belong to Sherman's
army, but it took him a long time to reform.
Shortly after I joined the army, I was appointed brigade
commissary on the staff of General Bartow. I had no
military forms or papers, no money where
with to purchase supplies, and I had not yet drawn or issued
a single ration, for I had just been appointed. I was green,
and was waiting for money and advices to come from
Richmond. After we had crossed the Shenandoah river,
General Bartow told me to ride on ahead until I reached
Marshall, a small village, and there procure some fresh meat
and some bacon for the boys to cook and eat when they
arrived. "General," said I, timidly, "how will I get these
things? I have no money to buy them with." "My dear sir,"
said he, "you must remember that this is war and everything
in this country owes tribute to the army. Look around
Marshall for three or four fat cattle--everything is fat up
here--buy them at a fair price, and give the owner a receipt
and a certificate and tell him to bring it to me when I get
there and I will approve it so that he can draw his money at
Richmond. Buy some good bacon, also, say a thousand
pounds. The boys will want it to cook with their beef. This is
war, I tell you."
About that time I began to realize what war was, and
that the civil law was silent, dead or sleeping, and that
nobody had any rights save the generals and their officers.
When I arrived at Marshall I found a farmer unloading
corn, and he had the finest, fattest yoke of oxen attached to
his wagon that I ever saw. I stopped and saluted him.
"Those are fine steers," said I, "what would buy them?"
"Well, about one hundred dollars, I reckon," he replied. Then
I made known my business, and soon found that he would
not sell, nor would he take any scrap of paper on this here
Southern Confederacy, as he called it. The argument was
soon exhausted and time was precious. By this time some
butchers from the First
Kentucky Regiment had arrived and were ready for
work. I pointed out the steers to them, and before
the farmer could say Jack Robinson they had them
unyoked and were leading them to the branch.
Amazement, indignation, anger, took it by turns over
his features; then he began to use language--cuss
words and expletives in abundance. Suddenly he
swore he'd ruther die than be run over in any such
way, army or no army. Then he cried and wiped
the tears away with his coat sleeve. His last exclamation
was, "How in the hell am I to get my wagon
home?" I was awfully sorry for that man. My
hope is that he got his pay from the Federal government
after the war. Well, I got the bacon without
any trouble, for the merchant was a red-hot rebel
and made me eat dinner with him. Those great
oxen were killed and butchered and cut up into
small mess pieces in less time than I can tell about it.
Wood was hauled up and camp fires built, and by
dark our brigade of four thousand men were full and
had tumbled down to sleep.
Well, I soon learned that war was war, and in course of
time I could impress provisions with but little scruples of
conscience. One time I impressed four hundred barrels of
flour from a Union sympathizer in Orange county who had
a merchant mill and was waiting to sell it to the Yankees for
greenbacks. His wife was a genuine rebel woman and
treated me so kindly on the sly that I gave back two
hundred barrels of it. It was a case of Nabel and Abigail.
Impressment of provisions was nothing compared with
the conscription of men and forcing them to fight and face
the enemy, willing or unwilling, whether they were brave
men or cowards. There
was the case of Jacob Wise, a rich Jew who lived in Rome
and had neither wife nor children. When the conscription
officers came to Rome he secreted himself, and one night
came to my house about midnight in tears. Trembling, he
said, "Major, I vas porn a coward; I could not fight a lettle
poy nor a von arm seek man. My legs vill turn around and
run avay mid me efery time. I vas porn shust dot vay, and I
will pay big money if you vill keep me out of his old war. Oh,
mine Gott; oh, Abraham; oh, Isaac and Yacup." He excited
my sympathies so much that I undertook to befriend him.
There was an examining board then sitting in the town, of
whom Dr. Starr of Rome was the chairman. He was my
friend and knew Wise well, and so I brought Wise over to be
examined. Wise was ready to swear that he had consumption
and rheumatism and epilepsy and apoplexy and Bright's
disease and heart disease and any other disease; but I juggled
with Starr and we agreed that Wise should pay $5,000 to the
county fund for the support of poor soldier's wives and
children, and be discharged. Wise never hesitated a moment.
Dr. Starr filled up a printed blank and named the disease for
which he was discharged in these Latin words: "Non
controlus shankus in combatibus"--can't control his legs in battle.
When we returned home, Wise paid the money over to the
county treasurer and I gave him the certificate of discharge,
but never explained the meaning of his remarkable disease.
But neither victories nor defeats are to be compared to
the horrors of battle, the things that are behind the scenes
and are never published. During the seven days' fight
across the Chickahominy, hundreds of the dead were
hastily buried in trenches,
buried head to foot a foot or so under the surface, and the
earth heaped over them; for you must know, my friends,
that on a battlefield there are neither shrouds nor graves,
nor coffins nor mourners.
Heavy rains came on and softened that earth to mud and
when a few, days later, our wagons had to cross that field,
the wheels sank to the hubs when crossing the trenches and
sometimes a leg, sometimes an arm, and sometimes a
ghastly skull was thrown up, as if beseeching for mercy.
Another graphic scene I witnessed the night after the battle
of Manassas. The hospital chosen was a large brick building
near the battle-ground. It was property that had been
vacated under military orders. But the surgeons' operating
room was not there. It was in a willow glade, not far away,
where there was a clear spring branch flowing peacefully
along. Dr. Miller ordered all the wounded brought there, for
the night was beautiful and the water convenient. All night
long he and his assistants amputated arms and legs, and
probed for balls, and used bandages and splints and other
appliances, and as fast as one man was fixed up he was
taken away and the doctor said "Next!" like in a barber
shop. But there was no groaning. The boys were heroes
under the surgeon's knife as well as on the battle-field. I
remember when Jett Howard, of Kingston, limped up
without assistance and the doctor said, "What's the matter
with you, Jett?" Jett pointed to where a minie ball had
penetrated his hip and said he could feel it on the other side.
Quickly the doctor thrust a probe into the wound, and as
quickly drew it out, and turning Jett around, and sound for
the ball under the skin, he found it. With his knife he cut an
opening and thrusting in his finger pulled out the ball and
gave it to him. "Here's your diploma, Jett," he said. "Next!"
Jet limped away with a smile and had his wound dressed.
When my brother-in-law, Captain Cooper, was brought up
with a shattered leg, his knee pan crushed and his bones
mangled, the doctor said, "Fred, this leg must come off
immediately," and he reached for his knife and saw."Stop,
doctor," exclaimed Fred, "can't you save my leg?" "No; it is
impossible," said he, "it must come off, I tell you." "Doctor,
is there a possible chance for me to save this leg?" "Perhaps,"
said the doctor, "one chance in a hundred, but I
warn you now that if it is not speedily cut off you will be a
dead man in two weeks." Captain Cooper was full of nerve
and faith. "Doctor, I will take that chance," he said; and the
doctor said "Next!" Fred was taken to the hospital that night
and died in two weeks.
Poor Tom King's leg was broken, and while it was being
splinted he was laughing and joking like a school boy. He
lost only sixty days from the service and lived only to die at
Chickamauga.
On the sixth day of the Chickahominy fight, when
McClellan was in full retreat, our brigade commander,
Tige Anderson, sent me down the river to General Lee's
headquarters for some instructions about moving the
brigade. I found him in a large wall tent with many officers
around him. This tent opened into another where the camp
tables were set for dinner and the servant bringing it in.
There were four or five large camp tables joined together,
and as I sat upon my horse awaiting a reply, I saw a man,
an officer, whose head and body were underneath the right hand
table and his feet out upon the straw. His slouched hat was over
his head and eyes, his sword was unbuckled, and his boots
were on and
spurred. His Confederate gray clothes seemed faded and
worn. My curiosity was greatly excited, and when the
adjutant handed me the instructions, I ventured to point to
the sleeping man and to ask, "Who is he?" "That is
Stonewall," he said; "he has had no sleep for forty-eight
hours and fell down there exhausted. General Lee would
not suffer him to be disturbed, and so our dinner will be
eaten over him and in silence." Reverently I gazed upon
him for a minute, for I felt almost like I was in the presence
of some divinity. What a scene for a painter was that--the
two greatest generals of the army, yes, of the age, together;
one asleep upon the straw, worn out with fatigue and
excitement, the camp tables set above him; while the other,
with his staff, dined in silence over him and watched his
needed rest. Both of them were patriots and Christians, and
both of them were men of prayer.
With them there were
no selfish motives behind the
scenes, but every act and deed and thought was for God
and their country. I have long been grateful that I
witnessed that scene, the bivouac of a sleeping hero, and I
love to recall Palmer's beautiful lines:
"We
see him now--he old slouched hat
Cocked
over his eye askew,
The
shrewd, dry smile, the speech so pat,
So
calm, so blunt, so true.
The
blue light elder knows 'em well;
Says
he, "That's Banks. He's fond of shell
Lord
save his soul. Now give him--," well,
That's
Stonewall Jackson's way.
Silence,
ground arms, kneel all, caps off;
Old
Blue Light's going to pray.
Strangle
the fool who dares to scoff
At
Stonewall Jackson's way.
He's in the saddle; now fall in,
Steady, the whole brigade;
Hill's at the ford, cut off. Let's win
Him out with ball and blade.
Ah, maiden, wait, and watch and yearn
For news of Stonewall's band;
Ah, widow, read with eyes that burn
That ring upon thy hand.
Ah, wife, sew on, pray on, hope on,
Thy life shall not be all forlorn;
The foe had better ne'er been born,
That gets in Stonewall's way.
With many people on the border line, their loyalty rested
on very delicate pivots. Which shall I work for, pray for, or
fight for, was a serious and perplexing question. Fathers
were separated from sons, and brothers from brothers.
Mrs. Lincoln was a Miss Todd, of Kentucky, and all her
brothers were in the Confederate service. I knew one of
them well, for he was for months on the staff of our corps
commander. He was of no force, just an ornament, and
made himself disagreeable by his abuse of Old Abe, his
brother-in-law. Mrs. Grant was interviewed last year in
Saint Augustine and said her sympathies were with the
South, but her interest was with her husband's choice. With
many West Pointers there was no patriotic emotion.
Fighting was their profession, and position, pay and
promotion their coveted reward. General Geo. C. Thomas,
one of the ablest Federal generals, was a class-mate of
General Joe Johnston, and like him was a Virginian of the
Virginians. When Johnston was made a major-general by
Mr. Davis, Thomas sought a similar position, but was told
the places were all filled and he would have to wait. He did
not wait, but was soon after offered that position by Mr.
Lincoln and accepted it. General
Johnston told me of this at my house in '67 and was
greatly mortified. General Grant had no sympathy with the
anti-slavery feature of the war, for he was a slave-holder
himself and hired them out in St. Louis until sometime after
Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of freedom to the slaves. You
will find more about this in Appleton's Cyclopedia of
American Biography, wherein is published a letter from
General Grant's father, in which he says, "My son, Ulysses,
was very improvident before the war and frequently
applied to me for money. In the fall of 1860 he begged me
to lend him $500, as he was in pecuniary distress. I wrote to
him that I could not do it, and I thought the income from the
rent of his house and the hire of his negroes ought to
support him, but if he was suffering he had better go to
Galena and work for his brother in the tan-yard. This he did,
and got along fairly well till the war began and he got a
good position in the army."
What a blessed thing is peace and law and order, for, as
Ben Franklin said, "There never was a good war, nor a bad
peace." The contest was too unequal to last longer. Seven
hundred thousand could not cope longer with two million,
seven hundred thousand. There were many blunders on
both sides, and much good blood was wasted, and there
were some pivotal points on which turned tremendous
results on the side of the South. Prominent among them
was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh, the
failure of Huger to come in time and cut off McClellan's
retreat at Malvern Hill, the death of Stonewall Jackson, the
invasion of Pennsylvania, and the removal of General
Johnston at Atlanta. But, no doubt, the will of God was
done. Time is a good doctor. We are learning to know each
other better, both
North and South, and to tolerate each other's opinions and
prejudices. All that is now necessary to make the
reconciliation complete is for the North to put our heroes
and Confederate widows on the pension rolls, just as they
have theirs. Most all of ours are dead; only seventy
thousand are left of all our army; but there are a million
pensioners on the rolls up North, and as time rolls on they
grow more thicker, more denser-as Cobe would say.
"Time cuts down all,
Both great and small,
Except a pensioned soldier;
They do not die,
But multiply
As fast as they grow older."
Now, if the North will do that, and apologize, we will be
calm and serene.
Before the civil war our Southern civilization was divided
into two classes--the aristocracy and the common people.
The aristocrats were generally slave-holders, and though
they were only one-seventh of the voting population, they
dominated the other six-sevenths politically, socially, and
financially. And yet there was no friction. The common
people were loyal to their wealthy and educated leaders.
They voted for them and fought for them. They elected
them to our highest offices. These aristocrats were our
governors, judges, and members of Congress, our
civil and military office-holders. And they were shining
lights in the councils of the nation. The common
people were allowed to be magistrates, constables and
non-commissioned officers in the militia. They
served on the petit juries and worked the public roads.
Their loyalty to the aristocracy was beautiful. They shouted
for Toombs and Stephens, and Colquitt and Cobb, with a
wild hurrah, and when the war came they fought for their
principles just like our forefathers fought who resisted a tax on tea
when not one in a thousand drank it. Out of a company of eighty-four
men who went from Murray county, not one was a
slave-holder. The aristocracy was mainly an aristocracy of
dominion. This kind of aristocracy brings with it culture and
pride and dignity of bearing. The scriptures always mention the
number of servants when speaking of the old patriarchs'
consequence in the land. "I am a man having authority,"
said the Centurion. "I say unto this man, go, and he goeth,
and to another, come, and he cometh." Dominion is the
pride of man--dominion over something. A negro is
proud if he owns a "possum" dog. A poor man is proud if he
owns a horse and a cow and some razor-back hogs. His
neighbor is proud if he owns a good horse and a top buggy
and some bottom land and can take the lead in his country
church or his county politics. The big boy loves dominion
over his little brother, and the father takes it over all--well,
not always, for there are some wives who have a sweet and
silent control over their husbands; I speak from experience.
Bob Toombs once remarked, "That the dominion of a good
wife over her husband was his surest safeguard" against
the temptations of life. Toombs was a very great and noble
man, and the most beautiful trait of his character was his
loyalty and devotion to his wife.
But the Anglo-Saxon race glories in owning men, and it
makes but little difference whether the men are their
dependents or their slaves; the glory is all the same if they
have got them in their power. Wealthy corporations, railroad
kings, princely planters, have dominion over their employees
and they control them at their pleasure. It is not a dominion
in law, but it is almost absolute in fact, and there is nothing
wrong about it when it is humanely exercised; indeed, it is a
very agreeable relation between the poor laborer and the
rich employer. An humble, poor man loves to lean upon a
generous landlord, and the landlord is proud of the poor
man's homage. I asked Bill A. once how he was going to
vote, and he said he couldn't tell me until he saw Colonel
Johnson.
But the dominion of the old aristocracy of the South
was not over their own race. It was over another, and it
gradually grew into an oligarchy of slave-owners, and the
poorer whites were kept under the ban. There was a line
of social caste between them, and it was widening into a
gulf, for the poor white man could not compete with slave
labor any more than the farmer or the mechanic can now
compete with convict labor. But, at the same time, this kind
of slave aristocracy gave dignity and leisure to the rich, and
Solomon says: "In leisure there is wisdom;" and so these
men became our law-makers and jurists, and they were
shining lights in the councils of the nation. But, my friends, it
was an aristocracy that was exclusive, and it overshadowed
the masses of the people like a broad spreading oak
overshadows and withers the undergrowth beneath it. The
results of the war wiped out this distinction between the
aristocrat and the common people. But there are still left
two classes--those who have seen better days, and those
who haven't. The first class used to ride or drive, but most
of them now take it afoot or stay at home. Seventy-five per
cent. of them are descendants of old Henry Clay Whigs.
Forty and fifty years ago they were the patrons of high
schools and colleges, and stocked the professions with an
annual crop of high-strung graduates who swore by Henry
Clay and Fillmore and Stephens and Toombs and John Bell
and the Code of Honor. They were proud of their birth and
lineage, their wealth and culture; and when party spirit ran
high and fierce they banded together against the pretensions
of the struggling democracy. When I was a young man, a
Whig girl deemed it an act of condescension to go to a
party with a Democrat boy. But
the wear and tear of the war, the loss of their slaves, and a
mortgage or two to lift, broke most of these old families up,
though it didn't break down their family pride. They couldn't
stand it like the Democrats who lived in log cabins and wore
wool hats and copperas breeches. I speak with freedom of
the old Georgia democracy, for I was one of them. The
wealth and refinement of the State was, in the main,
centered in the party known as the Old Line Whigs. Out of
one hundred and sixty student in our State University at
Athens, fifty-five years ago, one hundred and thirty of them
were the sons of Whigs. I felt politically lonesome in their
society, and was just going to change my base when I fell in
love with a little Whig angel who was flying around. This
hurried me up, and I was just about to go over to the Whig
party, when suddenly that party came over to me. I don't
know yet whether that political somersault lifted me up or
pulled the little angel down--but I do know she wouldn't have
me, and at last I mated with a Democratic darling who had
either more pity or less discrimination. She took me, and
she's got me yet; she surrendered, but I am the prisoner.
So I did not marry my first love, but Mrs. Arp married
her's--bless her heart--and she now declares I took advantage
of her innocent youth and gave her no chance to make a
choice among lovers. That is so, I reckon, for I was in a
powerful hurry to secure the prize, and pressed my suit with
all diligence for fear of accidents. Once before I had loved
and lost, and I thought it would have killed me; but it didn't,
for I never sprung from suicide stock. I had loved that little
maid of Athens amazingly. I would have climbed the
Chimborazo mountains and
fought a tizer for her--a small tiger. And she loved me, I
know, for the evening before I left for my distant home I
told her of my love and devotion, my adoration and
aspiration and admiration and all other "ations," and the
palpitating lace on her bosom told me how fast her heart
was beating, and I gently took her soft hand in mine and
drew her head upon my manly shoulder and kissed her.
Delicious feast--delightful memory. It lasted me a year, I
know, and hasn't entirely faded yet. I never mention it at
home - no never; but I think of it sometimes on the sly--yes,
on the sly. Before I left her for my distant home she
promised to consider my love and write to me--but she never
wrote. She is considering it yet, I reckon. In a year or so
she married another college boy and was happy, and not
long after I married Mrs. Arp, and was happy, too. So it is
all right and no loss on our side.
I still love to ruminate about those delightful days--the
memories of love's young dream. And why not? Four
thousand years ago Jacob kissed Rachel, and Moses made
a record of it in the sacred volume, and it has come down to
us through the corridors of time, and is still the sweetest
part of the story. To be mated as well as married is the
happiest condition of human life. What a beautiful sight it is
to see a venerable couple with loving children and
grandchildren around them, and going down the vale like
John Anderson my Jo John and his loving spouse. It seems
to me that marriage in those days, half a century ago, were
more serious than now. I will not say there was more love,
but I know there were less clothes and fewer divorces and
grass widows. The boys married the girls and the girls
married the boys. But now it is not uncommon to see our
old widowers
following General Longstreet's example, and taking
the girls for wives. It is not according to nature and is
dangerous to both, especially if the old man refuses to die in
a reasonable time and fails to leave the blooming widow a
goodly sum. I recall now a beautiful Gwinnett girl, the
daughter of a friend of ours. The civil war wrecked her
father's fortune and he died soon after, leaving her almost
penniless. When she was twenty years old she wedded a
rich old man of fifty - an invald, whose lease on life seemed
short - and he settled on her an ample fortune to be hers at
his death. Now she is fifty years old and he is eighty, and
keeps living on and on and on. They are childless, and live
on a farm in the country, and she looks almost as old and
haggard as he does. Hers is the wreck of a once happy and
hopeful life.
Now, before the civil war, our young men almost
invariably mated with our young girls, and our widowers
married widows as a general rule, unless there was a
Yankee school mistress in sight. They always married
Southern widowers, and were glad to get them. Four New
England girls went off that way in my town, and they made
good wives and good mothers. They were raised to habits of
industry and economy, and that is what a widower wants in
a second wife. They take good care of his first crop of
children and get them educated and out of the way by the
time the second crop is coming on. There was no economy
in ante-bellum days among the aristocracy of the South. It
wasn't necessary. The little negroes were always standing
around waiting for the scraps, either of food or clothing.
Whereas, in New England, where I went to school one
winter, they didn't even keep a dog or a cat at my uncle's
house, and the rule was to take no more on your plate
than you were going to eat, and the dishes and the plates
were left so clean after meals that it was hardly necessary
to wash them--and maybe they didn't.
Most of these families are poor, but they are
proud. They are highly respected for their manners and
their culture. They are looked upon as good stock and
thoroughbred, but withdrawn from the turf. Their daughters
carry a high head and a flashing eye, stand up square on
their pastern joints, and chafe under the bits. They come
just as nigh living as they used to as possible. They dress
neatly in plain clothes, wear starched collars and corsets,
and a perfumed handkerchief. They do up their hair in the
fashion, take Godey's Lady's Book or somebody's Bazaar.
If they are able to hire a domestic, the darkey finds out in
two minutes that free niggers don't rank any higher in that
family than slaves used to. The negroes who know their
antecedents have the highest respect for them, and will say
Mas' William or Miss Julia with the same deference as in
former years. One would hardly learn from their general
deportment that they cleaned up the house, made up the
beds, washed the dishes, did their own sewing and gave
music lessons--in fact, did most everything but wash the
family clothes. They won't do that. I have known them to
milk and churn, and sweep the back yard, and scour the
brass; but I've never seen one of them bent over the
washtub yet. In the good old times their rich and patriarchal
father lived like Abraham, and Jacob, and Job. They felt
like they were running an unlimited monarchy on a limited
scale. When a white child was born in the family it was ten
dollars out of pocket; but a little nigger was a hundred
dollars in and got fifty dollars a year better for twenty
years to come.
The economy of the old plantation was the economy of
waste. Two servants to one white person was considered
moderate and reasonable. In a family of eight or ten--with
numerous visitors and some poor kin--there was generally a
head cook and her assistant, a chamberhaid, a seamstress, a
maid or nurse for every daughter, and a little nig for every
son, whose business it was to trot around after him and hunt
up mischief. Then there was the stableman and carriage
driver, and the gardener and the dairy woman, and two little
darkies to drive up the cows and keep the calves off while
the milking was going on. Besides these, there were
generally half a dozen little chaps crawling around or picking
up chips, and you could hear them bawling and squalling all
the day long, as their mothers mauled them and spanked
them for something or nothing with equal ferocity.
But the good old plantation times are gone--the times
when these old family servants felt an affectionate abiding
interest in the family; when our good mothers nursed their
sick and old, helpless ones, and their good mothers waited so
kindly upon their "mistis," as they called her, and took care
of the little children by day and by night. Our old black
mammy was mighty dear to us children, and we loved her,
for she was always doing something to please us as she
screened us from many a whipping. It would seem an
unusual wonder, but nevertheless it is true, that these faithful
old domestics loved their master's children better than their
own, and they showed it in numberless ways without any
hypocrisy. We frolicked with their children, and all played
together by day and hunted together by night, and it beat the
Arabian Nights to go to the old darkey's cabin of a winter
night and hear him tell of ghosts and witches
and jack-o' lanterns, and wildcats and grave yards, and raw
head and bloody bones, and we would listen with faith and
admiration until we didn't dare to look around, and wouldn't
have gone back to the big house alone for a world of
gold. Bonaparte said that all men were cowards at night,
but I reckon it was these old darkies that made us so, and we have
hardly recovered from it yet. When I used to go a-courting I had to
pass a grave-yard in the suburbs of the little village, and it
was a test of my devotion that I braved its terrors on the darkest night
and set at defiance the wandering spirits that haunted my path. Mrs.
Arp appreciated it, I know, for she would follow me to the
door when I left and anxiously listen to my retiring footsteps;
and she declares to this day she could hear me
running up that hill by the graveyard like a fast trotting
horse on a shell road. The slaves of that day were loyal
to their masters, and in the main were happy and contented.
Of course there were some bad negroes, and there
were some bad masters. Alas for the negro! Before the
war there was not an outrage committed by them from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande. There was not a chaingang
nor a convict camp in all the South. Now, there are five
thousand in the chain-gangs of Georgia and fifteen
thousand more in the Southern States. here would
be fifty thousand if the laws were enforced for
minor offences, but we overlook them out of pity.
What a blessed privilege it was for the boys of our
day to go with the cotton wagons to market, and camp out
at night, and hear the trusty old wagoners tell their
wonderful adventures. What a glorious
time when we got home again, and brought sugar, and
coffee and molasses, and had shoes all around
for white and black, with the little wooden measures in
them and the names written on every one. And we had
Christmas, too, for white folks and black folks; little red
shawls, and head handkerchiefs, jack knives and jews-harps,
tobacco and pipes, were always laid up for the
family servants.
The times have wonderfully changed since then--
some things for better, some for worse. The old
aristocracy is passing away. Some of them escaped
the general wreck that followed the war and have
illustrated by their energy and liberality the doctrine
of the survival of the fittest-but their name is
not legion. A new and hardier stock has come to
the front--that class which prior to the war was
under a cloud, and are now seeing their better days.
The pendulum has swung to the other side. The results
of the war made an opening for them and developed
their energies. With no high degree of culture
they have nevertheless proved equal to the
struggle up the rough hill of life, and now
play an important part in running the financial
machine. Their practical energy has
been followed by thrift. They have proved
to be our best farmers and most prosperous
merchants and mechanics. They now constitute the
solid men of the State, and have contributed largely
to the building up of our schools and churches, our
factories and railroads, and the development of our
mineral resources. They are shrewd and practical
and not afraid of work. The two little ragged brothers
who sold peanuts in Rome in 1860 are now her
leading merchants. Two young men who then clerked
for a meagre salary are now among the merchant
prices of Atlanta. These are but types of the modern,
self-made Southerner--a class who form a most
striking contrast to the stately dignity and aristocratic
repose of the grand old patriarchs and statesmen whose
beautiful homes adorned the hills and groves of the South
some forty years ago.
But the children of the old patricians have come down
some, and the children of the common people have come up
some, and they have met upon a common plane and are
now working happily together, both in social and business
life. Spirit and blood have united with energy and muscle,
and it makes a splendid team--the best all-round team the
South has ever had.
Some time in the spring of 1861, when our Southern boys
were hunting for a fight, and felt like they could whip all
creation, Mr. Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering us all
to disperse and retire within thirty days, and to quit
cavorting around in a hostile and belligerent manner.
I remember writing an answer to it as though I was a
good Union man and law-abiding citizen, and was willing to
disperse, if I could; but it was almost impossible, for the
boys were mighty hot, and the way we made up our military
companies was to send a man down the lines with a bucket
of water and sprinkle the boys, as he came to 'em, and if a
feller sizzed like hot iron in a slack trough, we took him, and
if he didn't sizz, we didn't take him; but still, nevertheless,
notwithstanding, and so forth, if we could possibly disperse
in thirty days we would do so, but I thought he had better
give us a little more time, for I had been out in an old field
by myself and tried to disperse myself and couldn't do it.
I thought the letter was right smart, and decently
sarcastic, and so I read it to Dr. Miller and Judge
Underwood, and they seemed to think it was right smart,
too. About that time I looked around and saw Bill Arp
standing at the door with his mouth open and a merry
glisten in his eye. As he came forward, says he to me:
"Squire, are you gwine to print that?"
"I reckon I will Bill," said I. "What name are ye gwine
to put to it?" said he. "I don't know yet," said I; "haven't
thought about a name." Then he brightened up and said:
"Well, 'Squire, I wish you would put mine, for them's my
sentiments;" and I promised him that I would.
So I did not rob Bill Arp of his good name, but took it on
request, and now, at this late day, when the moss has
covered his grave, I will record some pleasant memories of
a man whose notoriety was not extensive, but who filled up
a gap that was open, and who brightened up the flight of
many an hour in the good old times, say from forty to fifty
years ago.
He was a small, sinewy man, weighing about one
hundred and thirty pounds, as active as a cat, and always
presenting a bright and cheerful face. He had an amiable
disposition, a generous heart, and was as brave a man as
nature ever makes.
He was an humble man and unlettered in books; never
went to school but a month or two in his life, and could
neither read nor write; but still he had more than his share
of common sense; more than his share of good mother wit,
and was always welcome when he came about.
Lawyers and doctors and editors, and such gentlemen of
leisure who used to, in the olden time, sit around and chat
and have a good time, always said, "Come in, Bill, and take
a seat;" and Bill seemed grateful for the compliment, and
with a conscious humility squatted on about half the chair
and waited for questions. The bearing of the man was one
of reverence for his superiors and thankfulness for their
notice.
Bill Arp was a contented man--contented with his humble
lot. He never grumbled or complained at
anything; he had desires and ambition, but it did not
trouble him. He kept a ferry for a wealthy gentleman who
lived a few miles above town on the Etowah river, and he
cultivated a small portion of his land; but the ferry was not of
much consequence, and when Bill could slip off to town and
hear the lawyers talk he would turn over the boat and the
poles to his wife or his children and go. I have known him to
take a back seat in the courthouse for a day at a time, and
with face all greedy for entertainment listen to the learned
speeches of the lawyers and charge of the court, and go
home happy and be able to tell to his admiring family what
had transpired. He had the greatest reverence for Colonel
Johnson, his landlord, and always said that he would about as
leave belong to him as to be free; "for," said he, "Mrs.
Johnson throws away enough old clothes and second-hand
vittels to support my children, and they are always nigh
enough to pick 'em up."
Bill Arp lived in Chulio district; we had eleven districts in
the county, and they had all such names as Pop-skull, and
Blue-gizzard, and Wolf-skin, and Shake-rag, and Wild-cat,
and Possum-trot, but Bill lived and reigned in Chulio. Every
district had its best man in those days, and Bill was the best
man in Chulio. He could out-run, out-jump, out-swim,
out-rastle, out-ride, out-shoot anybody, and was so far ahead
that everybody else had given it up, and Bill reigned
supreme. He put on no airs about this, and his nabors were
all his friends.
But there was another district adjoining, and it had its
best man, too. One Ben McGinnis ruled the boys of that
beat, and after awhile it began to be whispered around that
Ben wasn't satisfied with his limited territory, but would like
to have a small
tackle with Bill Arp. Ben was a pretentious man. He
weighed about 165 pounds, and was considered a regular
bruiser. When Ben hit a man he meant business, and his
adversary was hurt--badly hurt, and Ben was glad of it.
But when Bill Arp hit a man he was sorry for him, and if he
knocked him down he would rather help him up and brush
the dirt off his clothes than swell around in triumph. The quicker
a man whips a fight the less of it he has to do, and both
Ben and Bill had settled their standing most effectually.
Bill was satisfied with his honors, but Ben was not, for
there was many a Ransy Sniffle who lived along
the line between the districts, and carried news from the
one to the other, and made up the coloring, and soon it was
narrated around that Ben and Bill had to meet and settle it.
The court-grounds of that day consisted of a little log
shanty and a shelf. The shanty had a dirt floor
and a puncheon seat, and a slab for the 'Squire's docket,
and the shelf was outside for the whiskey.
The whiskey was kept in a gallon jug, and that held
just about enough for the day's business. Most every body
took a dram in those days, but very few took
too much, unless, indeed, a dram was too much. Pistols
were unknown, and bowie-knives and brass-knuckles and
sling-shots and all other devices that gave one man an artful
advantage over another.
When Colonel Johnson, who was Bill Arp's landlord, and
Major Ayer and myself got to Chulio, Bill Arp was there,
and was pleasantly howdying with his nabors, when
suddenly we discovered Ben McGinnis arriving upon the ground.
He hitched his horse to a swinging limb and dismounted
and began trampoosing around, and every little crowd he got to,
he would lean forward in an insolent manner and say, "Any
body here got anything agin Ben McGinnis? If they have, I
goll, I'll give 'em five dollars to hit that; I golly, I dare
anybody to hit that," and he would point to his forehead with
an air of insolent defiance.
Bill Arp was standing by us and I thought he looked a
little more serious than I ever had seen him. Frank Ayer
says to him, "Bill, I see that Ben is coming around here to
pick a fight with you, and I want to say that you have got no
cause of quarrel with him, and if he comes, do you just let
him come and go, that' all." Colonel Johnson says, "Bill, he is
too big for you, and your own beat knows you, and you
haven't done anything against Ben, and so I advise you to let
him pass; do you hear me?"
By this time Bill's nervous system was all in a quiver. His
face had an air of rigid determination, and he replied
humbly, but firmly, "Colonel Johnson I love you, and I
respect you, too; but if Ben McGinnis comes up here outen
his beat, and into my beat, and me not having done nothing
agin him, and he dares me to hit him, I'm going to hit him, if
it is the last lick I ever strike. I'm no phist puppy dog, sir,
that he should come out of his deestrict to bully me."
I've seen Bill Arp in battle, and he was a hero. I've seen
him when shot and shell rained around him, and he was cool
and calm, and the same old smile was upon his features, but
I never saw him as intensely excited as he was that
moment when Ben McGinnis approached us, and,
addressing himself to Bill Arp, said, "I golly, I dare anybody
to hit that."
As Ben straightened up, Bill let fly with his hard, bony
fist right in his left eye, and followed it up with another so
quick that the two blows seemed as one. I don't know how
it was, and never will know; but in
less than a second, Bill had him down and was on him, and
his fists and his elbows and his knees seemed all at work.
He afterwards said that his knees worked on Ben's bread
basket, which he knew was his weakest part. Ben hollered
"enough" in due time, which was considered honorable to do
when a feller had enough, and Bill helped him up and
brushed the dirt off his clothes, and said, "Now, Ben, is it all
over betwixt us, is you and me all right?" And Ben, said,
"It's all right 'twixt you and me, Bill; and you are much of a
gentleman." Bill invited all hands up to the shelf, and they
took a drink, and he and Ben were friends.
This is enough of Bill Arp--the original, the simon-pure.
He was a good soldier in war. He was the wit and the wag
of the camp-fires, and made a homesick youth laugh away
his melancholy. He was a good citizen in peace. When told
that his son was killed he looked no surprise, but simply said:
"Major, did he die all right?" When assured that he did, Bill
wiped away a falling tear and said, "I only wanted to tell his
mother."
You may talk about heroes and heroines; I have seen all
sorts, and so has most everybody who was in the war, but I
never saw a more devoted heroine than Bill Arp's wfe. She
was a very humble woman, very, and she loved her
husband with a love that was passing strange. I have seen
that woman in town, three miles from her home, hunting
around by night for her husband, going from one saloon to
another, and in her kind, loving voice inquiring, "is William
here?" Blessings on that poor woman; I have almost cried
for her many a time. Poor William, how she loved hm.
How tenderly would she take him, when she found him,
and lead him home, and bathe
his head and put him to bed. She always looked
pleased and thankful when asked about him, and
would say, "he is a good little man, but you know
he has his failings." She loved Bill and he loved
her; he was weak and she was strong. There are
some such women now, I reckon. I know there are
some such men.
"Big John" was one of the earliest settlers of Rome, and
one of her most notable men. For several years he was
known by his proper name of John Underwood; but when
another John Underwood moved there, the old settler had to
be identified by his superior size, and gradually lost his
surname, and was known far and near as "Big John." The
new comer was a man of large frame, weighing about 225
pounds, but Big John pulled down the scales at a hundred
pounds more. He had shorter arms and shorter legs, but his
circumference was correspondingly immense. He was
notable for his humor and his good humor. The best town
jokes came from his jolly, fertile fancy, and his comments
on men and things were always original, and as terse and
vigorous as ever came from the brain of Dr. Johnson. He
was a diamond in the rough. He had lived a pioneer among
the Indians of Cherokee, and it was said fell in love with an
Indian maid, the daughter of old Tustenuggee, a limited
chief, and never married because he could not marry her.
But if his disappointment preyed upon his heart, it did not
prey long upon the region that enclosed it, for he continued
to expand his proportions. He was a good talker and an
earnest laugher--whether he laughed and grew fat, or grew
fat and laughed, the doctors could not tell which was the
cause and which was effect, and it is still in
doubt, but I have heard wise men affirm that laughing
was the fat man's safety-valve, that if he did not laugh and
shake and vibrate frequently, he would grow fatter and
fatter, until his epidermic cuticle could not contain his
oleaginous corporosity.
Big John had no patience with the war, and when he
looked upon the boys strutting around in uniforms, and fixing
up their canteens and haversacks, he seemed as much
astonished as disgusted. He sat in his big chair on the
sidewalk, and would remark, "I don't see any fun in the like
of that. Somebody is going to be hurt, and fighting don't
prove anything. Some of our best people in this town are kin
to them fellers up North, and I don't see any sense in
tearing up families by a fight." He rarely looked serious or
solemn, but the impending strife seemed to settle him.
"Boys," said he, "I hope to God this thing will be fixed up
without a fight, for fighting is a mighty bad business, and I
never knowed it to do any good."
Big John had had a little war experience--that is, he had
volunteered in a company to assist in the forcible removal of
the Cherokees to the far west in 1835. It was said that he
was no belligerent then, but wanted to see that the maiden
he loved had a safe transit, and so he escorted the old chief
and his clan as far as Tuscumbia, and then broke down and
returned to Ross Landing on the Tennessee river. He was
too heavy to march, and when he arrived at the Landing, a
prisoner was put in his charge for safe keeping. Ross
Landing is Chattanooga now, and John Ross lived there, and
was one of the chiefs of the Cherokees. The prisoner was
his guest, and his name was John Howard Payne. He was
suspected of trying to instigate the Cherokees to revolt and
fight, and not
leave their beautiful forest homes on the Tennessee and
Coosa and Oostanaula and the Etowah, or New Town, as it
was called, an Indian settlement on the Coosawattee, a few
miles east of Calhoun, as now known. There he kept the
author of "Home, Sweet Home" under guard, or on his
parol of honor, for three weeks, and listened to his music
upon the violin, and heard him sing his own songs until
orders came for his discharge, and Payne was sent under
escort to Washington.
Many a time have I heard Big John recite his sad
adventures. "It was a most distressive business," said he.
"Them Injuns was heart-broken; I always knowed an Injun
loved his hunting-ground and his rivers, but I never knowed
how much they loved 'em before. You know they killed
Ridge for consentin' to the treaty. They killed him on the
march and they wouldn't bury him. The soldiers had to stop
and dig a grave and put him away. John Ross and John
Ridge were the sons of two Scotchmen, who came over
here when they were young men and mixed up with these
tribes and got their good will. These two boys were splendid
looking men, tall and handsome, with long auburn hair, and
they were active and strong, and could shoot a bow equal to
the best bowman of the tribe, and they beat 'em all to
pieces on the cross-bow. They married the daughters of the
old chiefs, and when the old chiefs died they just fell into
line and succeeded to the old chiefs' places, and the tribes
liked 'em mighty well for they were good men and made
good chiefs. Well, you see Ross dident like the treaty. He
said it wasent fair, and that the price of the territory was
too low, and the fact is he dident want to go at all. There
are the ruins of his old home now over there in DeSoto,
close to Rome, and I tell you he was a king. His word
was the law of the Injun nations, and he had their love and
their respect. His half-breed children were the purtiest
things I ever saw in my life. Well, Ridge lived up the
Oostanaula river about a mile and he was a good man, too.
Ross and Ridge always consulted about everything for the
good of the tribes, but Ridge was a more milder man than
Ross, and was more easily persuaded to sign the treaty that
gave the lands to the State and take other lands away
across the Mississippi.
"Well, it took us a month to get 'em all together and begin
the march to the Mississippi, and they wouldn't march then.
The women would go out of line and set down in the Woods
and go to grieving, and you may believe it or not, but I'll tell
you what is a fact, we started with 14,000, and 4,000 of 'em
died before we got to Tuscumbia. They died on the side of
the road; they died of broken hearts; they died of starvation,
for they wouldn't eat a thing; they just died all along the
way. We didn't make more than five miles a day on the
march, and my company didn't do much but dig graves and
bury Injuns all the way to Tuscumbia. They died of grief
and broken hearts, and no mistake. An Indian's heart is
tender and his love is strong; it's his nature. I'd rather risk
an Injun for a true friend than a white man. He is the best
friend in the world, and the worst enemy. He has got more
gratitude and more revenge in him than anybody."
Big John's special comfort was a circus. He never
missed one, and it was a good part of the show to see him
laugh and shake and spread his magnificent face.
He took no pleasure in the quarrels of mankind, and
never backed a man in a fight; but when two dogs locked
teeth, or two bulls locked horns, or two game chickens
locked spurs, he always liked to be about. "It is their nature
to fight," said he, "and let 'em fight." He took delight in
watching dogs and commenting on their sense and
dispositions. He compared them to the men about town, and
drew some humorous analogies. "There is Jimmy Jones,"
said he, "who ripped and splurged around because Georgia
wouldn't secede in a minute and a half, and he swore he
was going over to South Carolina to fight; and when
Georgia did secede shore enough, he didn't join the army at
all, and always had some cussed excuse, and when
conscription came along, he got on a detail to make potash,
con-ding him, and when that played out he got him a couple
of track dogs and got detailed to catch runaway prisoners.
Just so I've seen dogs run up and down the palings like they
was dying to get to one another, and so one day I picked up
my dog by the nape of the neck and dropped him over on
the outside. I never knowed he could jump that fence
before, but he bounced back like an Indian rubber ball, and
the other dog streaked it down the sidewalk like the dickens
was after him. Dogs are like folks, and folks are like dogs,
and a heap of 'em want the palings between. Jack Bogin
used to strut round and whip the boys in his beat, and kick
'em around, because he knew he could do it, for he had the
most muscle; but he couldn't look a brave man in the eye,
muscle or no muscle, and I've seen him shut up quick when
he met one. A man has got to be right to be brave, and I
had rather see a bully get a licking than to eat sugar."
MR. EDITOR: "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"
as somebody said, I am seeking a log in some vast
wilderness, a lonely roost in some Okeefinokee swamp,
where the foul invaders cannot travel nor their pontoon
bridges float. If Mr. Shakespeare were correct when he
wrote that "sweet are the juices of adversity," then it is
reasonable to suppose that me and my folks, and many
others, must have some sweetening to spare. When a man
is aroused in the dead of night, and smells the approach of
the foul invader; when he feels constrained to change his
base and become a runagee from his home, leaving behind
him all those ususary things, which hold body and soul
together; when he looks, perhaps the last time upon his
lovely home where he has been for many delightful years
raising children and chickens, strawberries and peas, lye
soap and onions, and all such luxuries of this sublunary life;
when he imagines every unusual sound to be the crack of
his earthly doom; when from such influences he begins a
dignified retreat, but soon is constrained to leave the dignity
behind, and get away, without regard to the order of his
going--if there is any sweet juice in the like of that, I haven't
been able to see it. No, Mr. Editor, such scenes never
happened in Bill Shakespeare's day, or he wouldn't have
written that line.
beautiful city need any forewarnings, to make 'em avoid
the breakers upon which our vessel was wrecked, but for
fear they should some day shake their gory locks at me, I
will make public a brief allusion to some of the painful
circumstances which lately occurred in the eternal city.
Not many days ago the everlasting Yankees (may they
live always when the devil gets 'em) made a valiant assault
upon the city of the hills--the eternal city, where for a
hundred years the Indian rivers have been blending their
waters peacefully together--where the Cherokee children
built their flutter mills, and toyed with frogs and tadpoles
whilst these majestic streams were but little spring
branches babbling along their sandy beds. For three days
and nights our valiant troops had beat back the foul invader,
and saved our pullets from their devouring jaws. For three
days and nights we bade farewell to every fear, luxuriating
upon the triumph of our arms, and the sweet juices of our
strawberries and cream. For three days and nights fresh
troops from the South poured into our streets with shouts
that made the welkin ring, and the turkey bumps rise all
over the flesh of our people. We felt that Rome was safe--
secure against the assault of the world, the flesh and the
devil, which last individual is supposed to be that horde of
foul invaders who are seeking to flank us out of both bread
and existence.
But alas for human hopes! Man that is born of woman
(and there is no other sort that I know of) has but a few
days that is not full of trouble. Although the troops did
shout; although their brass band music swelled upon the
gale; although the turkey bumps rose as the welkin rung)
although the commanding general assured us that Rome
was to
be held at every hazard, and that on to-morrow the big battle
was to be fought, and the foul invaders hurled all howling and
bleeding to the shores of the Ohio, yet it transpired somehow
that on Tuesday night the military evacuation of our city was
peremptorily ordered. No note of warning - no whisper of
alarm - no hint of the morrow came from the muzzled lips of
him who had lifted our hopes so high. Calmly and coolly we
smoked our killikinick, and surveyed the embarkation of
troops, construing it to be some grand manoeuvre of military
strategy. About ten o'clock we retired to rest, to dream of
tomorrow's victory. Sleep soon overpowered us like the fog
that covered the earth, but nary bright dream had come, nary
vision of freedom and glory. On the contrary, our rest was
uneasy - strawberries and cream seemed to be holding
secession meetings within our corporate limits, when
suddeny, in the twinkling of an eye, a friend aroused us from
our slumber and put a new phase upon the "situation."
General Johnston was retreating, and the foul invaders were
to pollute our sacred soil the next morning. Then came the
tug of war. With hot and feverish haste we started out in
search of transportation, but nary transport could be
had. Time-honored friendship, past favors shown, everlasting
gratitude, numerous small and lovely children, Confederate
currency, new issues, bank bills, black bottles, and all
influences were urged and used to secure a corner in a car;
but nary corner--too late--too late--the pressure for time was
fearful and tremendous--the steady clock moved on--no
Joshua about to lengthen out the night, no rolling stock, no
steer, no mule. With reluctant and hasty steps, we prepared
to make good our exit by that overland line
which railroads do not control, nor A. Q. M.s impress.
With our families and a little clothing, we crossed the
Etowah bridge about the break of day on Wednesday, the
17th of May, 1864, exactly a year and two weeks before
the time when General Forrest marched in triumph through
our streets. By and by the bright rays of the morning sun
dispersed the heavy fog, which like a pall of death had
overspread all nature. Then were exhibited to our afflicted
gaze a highway crowded with wagons and teams, cattle
and hogs, niggers and dogs, women and children, all
moving in disheveled haste to parts unknown. Mules were
braying, cattle were lowing, hogs were squealing, sheep
were bleating, children were crying, wagoners were
cursing, whips were popping, and horses stalling, but still
the grand caravan moved on. Everybody was continually
looking behind, and driving before--everybody wanted to
know everything, and nobody knew anything. Ten thousand
wild rumors filled the circumambient air. The everlasting
cavalry was there, and as they dashed to and fro gave
false alarms of the enemy being in hot pursuit.
About this most critical juncture of affairs, some
philanthropic friends passed by with the welcome news
that the bridge was burnt, and the danger all over. Then
ceased the panic; then came the peaceful calm of heroes
after the strife of war is over--then exclaimed Frank Ralls,
my demoralized friend, "Thank the good Lord for that. Bill,
let's return thanks and stop and rest--boys, let me get out
and lie down. I'm as humble as a dead nigger--I tell you
the truth--I sung the long metre doxology as I crossed the
Etowah bridge, and I expected to be a
dead man in fifteen minutes. Be thankful, fellows, let's all
be thankful--the bridge is burnt, and the river is three
miles deep. God sakes, do you reckon those Yankees
can swim? Get up, boys--let's drive ahead and keep
moving--I tell you there's no accounting for anything
with blue clothes on these days--ding'd if I ain't afraid of
a blue-tailed fly."
With a most distressing flow of language, he continued
his rhapsody of random remarks.
Then there was that trump of good fellows, Big John -
as clever as he is fat, and as fat as old Falstaff--with
indefatigable diligence he had secured, as a last resort, a
one-horse steer spring wagon, with a low, flat body setting
on two rickety springs. Being mounted thereon, he was
urging a more speedy locomotion by laying on to the
carcass of the poor old steer with a thrash-pole ten feet
long. Having stopped at a house, he procured a two-inch
auger, and boring a hole through the dashboard, pulled the
steer's tail through and tied up the end in a knot. "My
running gear is weak," said he, "but I don't intend to be
stuck in the mud. If the body holds good, and the steer
don't pull out his tail, why, Bill, I am safe." "My friend,"
said I, "will you please inform me what port you are bound
for, and when you expect to reach it?" "No port at all,
Bill," said he, "I am going dead straight to the big Stone
Mountain. I am going to get on the top and roll rocks
down upon all mankind. I now forewarn every living thing
not to come there until this everlasting foolishness is over."
He was then but three miles from town, and had been
traveling the live-long night. Ah, my big friend, thought I,
when wilt thou arrive at thy journey's end? In the language
of Patrick Henry, will it be the next week or the
next year? Oh, that I could write a poem, I would
embalm thy honest face in epic verse. But I was in a
right smart hurry myself, and only had time to drop
his memory a passing rhyme.
Farewell, Big John, farewell! 'Twas painful to my heart To see thy chances of escape, Was that old steer and cart.
Methinks I see thee now, With axletrees all broke, And wheels with nary hub at all, and hubs with nary spoke.
But though the mud is deep, Thy wits will never fail; That faithful steer will pull thee out, If he don't pull out his tail.
Mr. Editor, under such variegated scenes we reported
progress, and in course of time arrived under the shadow
of thy city's wings, abounding in gratitude and joy.
With sweet and patient sadness, the tender hearts of
our wives and daughters beat mournfully as we moved
along. Often, alas, how often was the tear seen swimming
in the eye, and the lips quivering with emotion, as memory
lingered around deserted homes, and thoughts dwelt upon
past enjoyments and future desolation. We plucked the
wildflowers as we passed, sang songs of merriment,
exchanged our wit with children--smothering by every
means, the sorrow of our fate. These things, together with
the comic events that occurred by the way, were the
safety-valves that saved the poor heart from bursting. But
for these our heads would have been fountains and our
hearts a river of tears. Oh, if some
kind friend would set our retreat to music, it would be
greatly appreciated indeed. It should be a plaintive tune,
interspersed with occasional comic notes, and frequent
fugues scattered promiscuously along.
Our retreat was conducted in excellent order, after the
bridge was burnt. If there was any straggling at all, they
straggled ahead. It would have delighted General Johnston
to have seen the alacrity of our movements.
But I must close this melancholy narrative, and hasten to
subscribe myself, Your runagee,
BILL ARP.
P. S.--Tip is still faithful unto the end. He says the old
turkey we left behind has been setting for fourteen weeks,
and the fowl invaders are welcome to her. Furthermore,
that he threw a dead cat into the well, and they are
welcome to that. B. A.
Some frog-eating Frenchman has written a book and
called it "Lee's Miserables," or some other such name,
which I suppose contains the misfortunes of poor refugees
in the wake of the Virginny army. General Hood has also
got a few miserables in the suburbs of his fighting-ground,
and if any man given to romance would like a fit subject for
a weeping narrative, we are now ready to furnish the
mournful material.
As the Yankees remarked at Bull Run, "those are the
times that try men's soles," and I suppose my interesting
family is now prepared to show stone bruises and blisters
with anybody. It is a long story, Mr. Editor, and cannot
possibly be embraced in a single column of your wandering
newspaper; but I will condense it as briefly as possible,
smoothing over the most affecting parts, so as not to
occasion too great a diffusion of sympathetic tears.
After our hasty flight from the eternal city, we became
converted over to the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, and
pitched our tents in the piney woods. Afar off in those fields
of illimitable space, we roamed through the abstruse regions
of the philosophic world. There no unfriendly soldier was
perusing around and asking for papers. There the
melancholy mind was soothed. There the lonely runagee
could contemplate the sandy roads, the wire-grass woods,
and the millions of majestic pines that stood
like ten-pins in an alley, awaiting some huge cannonball to
come along and knock 'em down. The mountain scenery in
this romantic country was grand, gloomy and peculiar,
consisting in numberless gopher-hills, spewed up in
promiscuous beauty as far as the eye could reach. All
around us the swamp frogs were warbling their musical
notes. All above us the pines were sighing and singing their
mournful tunes. Dame Nature has spread herself there in
showing her lavish hand, and wasting timber along those
endless glades. Truly, we were treading on classic ground,
for we pitched our tents in a blackberry patch, and morning,
noon and night, luxuriated in peace upon the delicious fruit
which everywhere adorned the sandy earth.
But those piney woods to which we fled did not by any
means agree with our ideas of future comfort. After it had
rained some forty days and forty nights without a recess,
the corn crop had pretty well died out, and General
Starvation seemed about to assume command of the region
around about.
We felt constrained to depart from those coasts, and
seek an Egypt somewhere in a rounder and more rolling
country. So we took the train for Atlanta and designed to
take roundance from there and find a retreat away up the
Chattahoochee river where Mrs. Arp's father lived.
All along the line, at every station, pretty women got on
and got off. When they leave us, an affectionate man like
myself unconsciously whispers, "Depart in peace, ye
treasures of delight." Casting a longing, lingering look
behind, I exclaimed in the beautiful language of Mr.
Shakespeare, 'I have thee not, but yet I see thee still.'
Farewell, sweet darlings, until I come again. But woman is
sometimes very variegated
and peculiar in the way she does. I am just reminded
how, on a late occasion, I found but one vacant seat in the
car after I located my numerous and interesting family. A
luxurious lady, with some aggravating curls, had occupied
nearly all of a seat, spreading herself like a setting-hen, all
over the velvet cushion. "Madam, can I share this seat with
you?" said I. "Certainly sir," and she closed in her skirts
some several inches. In a short space of time she became
affected with drowsiness. Her neck became as limber as a
greasy rag. Leaning on my shoulder, she seemed
wonderfully affectionate, as her head kept bobbing around,
and I felt very peculiar at such times as she would subside
into my palpitating bosom. About this critical juncture, I
ventured to turn my astonished gaze towards Mrs. Arp, and
seeing that she was waiting for some remark, I observed,
"Hadn't I better remove my seat? Do you think I can
endure the like of this?"
"I do not, William," said she. "You had better stand up
awhile, and when you get tired some of the children will
relieve you." The glance of her eye and the manner in
which she spoke brought me up standing, and gave me a
correct view of the situation. Immediately I assumed a
perpendicular attitude, and the curly head was left without a
prop. I assure you, Mr. Editor, a man's wife is the best
judge of such peculiar things; and as for me, I am always
governed by it.
We arrived in Atlanta about the time the first big shells
commenced scattering their unfeeling contents among the
suburbs of that devoted city. Then came the big panics;
then shrieked the man-eater; then howled the wild hyena
among the hills of Babylon.
All sorts of people seemed moving in all sorts of ways,
with an accelerated motion. They gained ground on their
shadows as they leaned forward on the run, and their legs
grew longer at every step. With me it was the second
ringing of the first bell. I had sorter got used to the thing,
and set myself down to take observations. "How many
miles of Milybright?" said I. But no response came, for their
legs were as long as light, and every bursting shell was an
old witch on the road. Cars was the all in all. Depots were
the center of space, converging lines from every point of the
compass made tracks to the offices of railroad
superintendents. These functionaries very prudently
vamoosed the ranch to avoid their too numerous friends,
leaving positive orders to their subordinates. The passenger
depot was thronged with anxious seekers of transportation. I
"Won't you let these boxes go as baggage?" "No,
madam, it is impossible." Just then somebody's family trunk
as big as a nitre bureau was shoved in, and the poor woman
got desperate. "All I've got ain't as heavy as that," said she;
"I am a poor widow, and my husband was killed in the
army. I've got five children, and three of them cutting teeth,
and my things have got to go." We took up, her boxes and
shoved them in. Another good woman asked very anxiously
for the Macon train. "There it is, madam," said I. She shook
her head mournfully and remarked, "You are mistaken, sir,
don't you see the engine is headed right up the State road,
towards the Yankees? I shan't take any train with the
engine at that end of it. No, sir, that ain't the Macon train."
Everybody was hurrying to and fro at a lively tune. "What's
today, nigger?" said a female darkey with a hoopskirt on her
arm. "Taint
no day, honey, dat ever I seed. Yesterday was Sunday,
and I reckon today is Runday from de way de white folks
are movin' about. Yah, yah; ain't afeered of Yankees
myself, but dem sizzin' bumshells kills a nigger quicker dan
you can lick your tongue out. Gwine to getaway from here -
I is."
I went into a doctor's shop, and found my friend packing
up his vials and poisons and copiva and such like. Various
excited individuals dame in, looked at a big map on the wall,
and pointed out the roads to McDonough and Eatonton and
Jasper, and soon their proposed lines of travel were easily
and greasily visible from the impression of their perspiring
fingers. An old skeleton, with but one leg, was swinging
from the ceiling looking like a mournful emblem of the fate
of the troubled city. "You are going to leave him to stand
guard, doctor?" said I. "I suppose I will," said he; "got no
transportation for him." "Take the screw out of his skull,"
said I "and give him a crutch, maybe he will travel; all flesh
is moving and I think the bones will catch the contagion
soon."
A few doors further, and a venerable auctioneer was
surveying the rushing, running crowd, and every now and
then he would raise his arm with a seesaw motion and
exclaim, "Going--going--gone! Who's the bidder?" "Old
Daddy Time," said I, "he'll get them all before long." The
door of an old friend's residence swung open to my gaze,
and I walked in. Various gentlemen of my acquaintance
were discussing their evidences of propriety over a jug of
departing spirits. "I believe I'll unpack," said one. "Dinged if
I'm afraid of a blue-tailed fly; I'm going to sit down and be
easy." "In a horn,"
said I. Just then a sizzing, singing, crazy shell sung a short-
metre hymn right over the house. "Jake, has the dray
come?" he said, bouncing to his feet: "confound that dray--
blame my skin if I'll ever get a dray to move these things--
boys, lets all stay; durned if it don't look cowardly to run!
Boys, here's to-who shall we drink to?" "Here's to
Cassabianca," said I. "Good, good," they all shouted. "Here's
to Cabysianka. Let me speak it for you, boys," said out
host; "I've spoken it a thousand times." He mounted the
seat of a broken sofa, and spreading himself, declaimed:
"The boy stood on the burning deck,
When all had fled but him."
"That's me," said one. "It's me exactly," said another.
"I'm Babysianka myself--dog my cat if I don't be the last one
to leave this ship." Another shell sizzed, and bursted a few
yards off. "Boys, let's take another drink and leave the town--
dod rot the Yankees." "Here's to--the--the 'Last of
the Mohicans,' " said I. "Exactly--that's so. I'm him myself.
I'm the mast of the Lohikens; durned if I'll leave these
diggins as long as--as long as--" "As the State road," said I,
"which is now about four inches and a half." "That's it;
that's so," said my friends. "Here's to the State road and
Dr. Brown and Joe Phillips, as long as four inches and a
half."
By and by the shells fell as thick as Governor Brown's
proclamations, causing a more speedy locomotion in the
excited throng who hurried by the door, but my friends
inside had passed the Rubicon, and one by one retired to
dream of Bozarris and, his Suliote band. Vacant rooms and
long corridors
echoed with their snores, and they appeared like
sleeping heroes in the halls of the Montezumas.
Contagious diseases are said to be catching, and the
Atlanta big panics brought the Atlanta folk to an active
perpendicular quicker than all the physics ever seen in a
city drug store. It certainly has a tendency to arouse the
dormant energies of feeble invalids. Weak backs and lame
legs, old chronics and rheumatics, in fact, all the internal
diseases which honest fear of powder and ball had
developed since the war begun, were now forgotten in the
general flight; and the examination boards could have seen
many a discharge invalidated, and a living, moving lie given
to their certificates.
All day and all night the iron horses were snorting to the
echoing breeze. Train after train of goods and chattels
moved down the road, leaving hundreds of anxious faces
waiting their return. There was no method in this madness.
All kinds of plunder was tumbled in promiscuously. A huge
parlor mirror, some six feet by eight, all bound in elegant
gold, with a brass buzzard spreading his wings on top, was
set up at the end of the car and reflected a beautiful
assortment of parlor furniture to match, such as pots,
kettles, baskets, bags, barrels, kegs, bacon and bedsteads
piled up together. Government officials had the preference
and government officials all have friends. Any clever man
with a charming wife or a pretty sister could secure a
corner in more cars than one, and I will privately mention to
you, Mr. Editor, that I have found a heap of civility on this
account myself. Indeed, I have always thought that no man
is excusable who has not either one or the other.
ROME, GA., September 1, 1865.
MR. ARTEMUS WARD, Showman -
SIR: The reason I write to you in particler, is because
you are about the only man I know in all "God's country,"
so-called. For some several weeks I have been wantin' to say
sumthin'. For some several years we rebs, so-called, but
now late of said country deceased, have been tryin' mighty
hard to do somethin'. We didn't quite do it, and now it's very
painful, I assure you, to dry up all of a sudden, and make
out like we wasn't there.
My friends, I want to say somethin'. I suppose there is no
law agin thinkin', but thinkin' don't help me. It don't let down
my themometer. I must explode myself generally so as to
feel better. You see I'm tryin' to harmonize. I'm tryin' to
soften down my feelin's. I'm endeavoring to subjugate
myself to the level of surroundin' circumstances, so-called.
But I can't do it until I am allowed to say somethin'. I want
to quarrel with somebody and then make friends. I ain't no
giant-killer. I ain't no Norwegian bar. I ain't no boa-constrickter, but I'll be horn-swaggled if the talkin' and
writin' and slanderin' has got to be all done on one side any
longer. Sum of your folks have got to dry up or turn our
folks loose. It's a blamed outrage, so-called. Ain't you
editors got nothin' else to do but peck at us, and squib at
us, and crow over us? Is every man
what can write a paragraph to consider us bars in a cage,
and be always a-jobbin' at us to hear us growl? Now, you
see, my friend, that's what's disharmonious, and do you jest
tell 'em one and all, e pluribus unum, so-called, that if they
don't stop it at once or turn us loose to say what we
please, why, why, we rebs, so-called, have unanimously
and jointly and severally resolved to--to--to--think very
hard of it--if not harder.
That's the way to talk it. I ain't agoin' to commit myself. I
know when to put on the brakes. I ain't goin' to say all I
think. Nary time. No, sir. But I'll jest tell you, Artemus, and
you may tell it to your show. If we ain't allowed to express
our sentiments, we can take it out in hatin'; and hatin' runs
heavy in my family, sure. I hated a man once so bad that all
the hair cum off my head, and the man drowned himself in
a hog-waller that night. I could do it agin, but you see I'm
tryin' to harmonize, to acquiess, to becum calm and sereen.
Now, I suppose that, poetically speakin',
"In Dixie's fall,
We sinned all."
But talkin' the way I see it, a big feller and a little feller
so-called, got into a fite, and they fout and fout a long time,
and everybody all 'round kept hollerin', "hands off," but
helpin' the big feller, until finally the little feller caved in and
hollered enuf. He made a bully fite, I tell you. Well, what
did the big feller do? Take him by the hand and help him
up, and brush the dirt off his clothes? Nary time! No, sur!
But he kicked him arter he was down, and throwed mud on
him, and drugged him about and rubbed sand in his eyes,
and now he's gwine about huntin' up his
poor little property. Wants to confiscate it, so-called. Blame
my jacket if it ain't enuf to make your head swim.
But I'm a good Union man, so-called. I ain't agwine to
fight no more. I shan't vote for the next war.
I ain't no
gurilla. I've done tuk the oath, and I'm gwine to keep it, but
as for my being subjugated, and humilyated and
amalgamated, and enervated, as Mr. Chase says, it ain't so--
nary time. I ain't ashamed of nuthin' neither--ain't repentin' -
ain't axin' for no one-horse, short-winded pardon. Nobody
needn's be playin' priest around me. I ain't got no twenty
thousand dollars. Wish I had; I'd give it to these poor
widders and orfins. I'd fatten my own numerous and
interestin' offspring in about two minutes and a half. They
shouldn't eat roots and drink branch-water no longer. Poor
unfortunate things! to cum into this subloonary world at
such a time. There's Bull Run Arp, and Harper's Ferry Arp,
and Chicahominy Arp, that never saw the pikters in a
spellin' book. I tell you, my friends, we are the poorest
people on the face of the earth--but we are poor and proud.
We made a bully fite, and the whole American nation ought
to feel proud of it. It shows what Americans can do when
they think they are imposed upon. Didn't our four fathers
fight, bleed and die about a little tax on tea, when not one in
a thousand drunk it? Bekaus they succeeded, wasn't it
glory? But if they hadn't, I suppose it would have been
treason, and they would have been bowin' and scrapin'
round King George for pardon. So it goes, Artemus, and to
my mind, if the whole thing was stewed down it would
make about half a pint of humbug. We had good men, great
men, Christian men, who thought we was
right, and many of them have gone to the undiscovered
country, and have got a pardon as is a pardon. When I die I
am mighty willing to risk myself under the shadow of their
wings, whether the climate be hot or cold. So mote it be.
Well, maybe I've said enough. But I don't feel easy yet.
I'm a good Union man, certain and sure. I've had my
breeches died blue, and I've bot a blue bucket, and I very
often feel blue, and about twice in a while I go to the
doggery and git blue, and then I look up at the blue
cerulean heavens and sing the melanchonly chorus
of the Blue-tailed Fly. I'm doin' my durndest to
harmonize, and think I could succeed if it wasn't
for sum things.
I don't want much. I ain't ambitious, as I used to was.
You all have got your shows and monkeys and sircusses
and brass bands and organs, and can play on
the patrolyum and the harp of a thousand strings,
and so on, but I've only got one favor to ax you. I want
enough powder to kill a big yaller stump-tail dog that prowls
around my premises at night. Pon my honor, I won't shoot
at anything blue or black or mulatter. Will you send it? Are
you and your folks so skeered of me and my folks that you
won't let us have any ammunition? Are the squirrels and
crows and black raccons, to eat up our little corn-patches?
Are the wild turkeys to gobble all around with impunity?
If a mad dog takes the hiderphoby, is the whole
community to run itself to death to get out of the way?
I golly! it looks like your people had all took the rebelfoby
for good, and was never gwine to get over it. See here, my friend,
you must send me a little powder and a ticket to your show,
and me and you will harmonize sertin.
I love to meet a nabor and hear him say; "how's craps?"
I continue to like farmin'. I like it better and better, except
that the wheat is sumwhat doubtful about making a crop. A
little long bug with a tail at both ends has got in the joints
and sucked the sap out, and it's fallin' down in patches.
Looks like there is always somethin' preyin on somethin',
and nothin' is safe from disaster in this subloonary world.
Flies and bugs and rust prey on the green wheat. Weevils
eat it up when it's cut and put away. Rats eat the corn--
moles eat the gubbers--hawks eat the chickens--the minks
killed three of our ducks in one night--cholera kills the hogs
and the other night one of my nabor's mules cum along with
the blind staggers and fell up a pair of seven steps right into
my front gate and died without kickin'. Then there is briars
and nettles and tread safts, and smartweed and poison
that's always in the way on a farm, and must be looked
after keerfully, especially snakes, which are my eternal
horror, and I shall always believe are sum kin to the devil
himself. I can't tolerate such long insects. But we farmers
have to take the bad with the good, and there is more good
than bad with me up to the present time.
I wonder if Harris ever saw a pack saddle. Well, it's as
pretty as a rainbow, just like the most all of the devil's
contrivances, and when you crowd one of 'em on a
fodderblade you'd think that forty yaller
jackets had stung you all in a bunch and with malice
aforethought. And there's the devil's race horse which plies
around about this time and, Uncle Isam says, chaws
tobakker like a gentleman, and if he spit in your eyes you'd
go blind in a half a second. And one day he showed me the
devil's darning needle which mends up the old fellow's
stockins, and the devil's snuff box which explodes when
you mash it, and one ounce of the stuff inside will kill a
sound mule before he can lay down. Then there's some
flowers that he wears in his button-hole called the devil Is
shoestring and the devil in the bush.
I like farmin'. Its an honest, quiet life, and it does me so
much good to work and get all over in a sweat of
prespiration. I enjoy my umble food and my repose, and get
up every mornin' renewed and rejuvenated like an eagle in
his flight, or words to that effect. I know I shall like it more
and more, for we have already passed over the Rubycon,
and are beginnin' to reap the rewards of industry. Spring
chickens have got ripe, and the hens keep bloomin' on. Over
200 now respond to my wife's call every morning, as she
totes around the bread tray a-singin' tcheeky, tcheeky,
tcheeky. I tell you, she watches those birds close for she
knows the value of 'em. She was raised a Methodist, she
was, and many a time has watched through the crack of the
door sadly, and seen the preachers helped to the last gizzard
in the dish. There was 54 chickens, 7 ducks, 5 goslins, 12
turkeys and seven pigs, hatched out last week, and Daisy
had a calf and Mollie a colt, besides. This looks like bisness,
don't it? This is what I call successful farmin'--
multiplying and replenishing according to Scripter. Then we
have a plenty of peas and potatoes and other garden yerbs,
which helps a
poor man out, and by the 4th of July will have wheat bread
and buiskit and blackberry pies, and pass a regular
declaration of independence.
I like farmin'. I like latitude and longitude. When we
were penned up in town my children couldn't have a slingshot,
or a bow and arrow, nor a chicken fight in the back
yard, nor sick a dog on another dog, nor let off a big Injun
whoop, without some neighbor making a fuss about it. And
then, again, there was a show, or a dance, or a bazar, or a
missionary meeting most every night, and it did look like the
children were just obleeged to go, or the world would come
to an end. It was money, money, money all the time, but
now there isn't a store or a milliner shop within five miles of
us, and we do our own work, and have learned what it
costs to make a bushel of corn and a barrel of flour, and by
the time Mrs. Arp has nursed and raised a lot of chickens
and turkeys, she thinks so much of 'em she don't want us
to kill 'em, and they are a heap better and fatter than any
we used to buy. We've got a great big fireplace in the
family room, and can boil the coffee, or heat a kettle of
water on the hearth if we want to, for we are not on the
lookout for company all the time like we used to be. We
don't cook half as much as we used to, nor waste a whole
parsel every day on the darkey, and we eat what is set
before us, and are thankful.
It's a wonder to me that everybody don't go to farmin'.
Lawyers and doctors have to set about town and play
checkers, and talk politics and wait for somebody to quarrel
or fight, or get sick; clerks and book-keepers figure and
multiply and count until they get to counting the stars and
the flies on the ceiling, and the peas in the dish, and the
flowers
on the papering; the jeweler sits by his window all the year
round, working on little wheels, and the mechanic strikes
the same kind of a lick every day. These people do not
belong to themselves; they are all penned up like convicts in
a chain-gang; they can't take a day nor an hour for
recreation, for they are the servants of their employers.
There is no profession that gives a man such freedom, such
latitude, and such a variety of employment as farmin'.
While I was ruminating this morning, a boy come along
and said the dogs had treed something down in the bottom.
So me and my boys shouldered the guns and an ax, and
took Mrs. Arp and the children along to see the sport. We
cut down a hollow gum tree, and caught a 'possum and two
squirrels, and killed a rabbit on the run, and had a good time
generally, with no loss on our side. We can stop work most
any time to give welcome to a passing friend and have a
little chat, and our nabors do the same by us; but if you go
into one of these factories or workshops, or even a printing
office, the first signboard that greets you says, "Don't talk
to the workmen." Sociable crowd, ain't it?
There's no monotony upon the farm. There's something
new every day, and the changing work brings into action
every muscle in the human frame. We plow and hoe, and
harrow and sow, and gather it in at harvest time. We look
after the horses and cows, the pigs and sows, and the rams
and the lambs, and the chickens, and the turkeys, and
geese. We cut our own wood, and raise our own bread and
meat, and don't have to be stingy of it like city folks. A
friend, who visited us not long ago, wrote back from the
town, that his grate don't seem bigger
than the crown of his hat since he sat by our great big
friendly fireplace.
But they do git the joak 'on me sometimes, for you see,
I'm farmin' according to schedule, and it don't always make
things exactly luminous. Fur instance, it is said that cotton
seed is an excellent fertilizer. Well, I had 'em, and as they
was a clean, nice thing to handle, I put 'em under most
everything in my garding. I was a-runnin' ingun sets heavy,
and one mornin' went out to peruse 'em. and I saw the
straight track of a big mole under every row. He jest histed
'em all up about three inches. He hadn't eat nary one, and
thinks to myself, he's goin' around a-smellin' of 'em. Next
mornin' all my sets was a settin' about six inches up in the
air and on top of the thickest stand of cotton you ever did
see. Now, if I had known about spilin' of 'em, as my nabors
call it, before used 'em it would have been more luminous.
Howsoever, I knifed 'em down and set the inguns back
again, and nobody ain't got a finer crop.
It's a great comfort to me to set in my piazzer these
pleasant evenings and look over the farm, and smoke the
pipe of peace, and ruminate. Ruminate upon the rise and fall
of empires and parties and presidents and preachers. I
think when a man has passed the Rubicon of life, and seen
his share of trouble smokin' is allowable, for it kinder
reconciles him to live on a while longer and promotes
philosophic reflections. I never knowed a high-tempered
man to be fond of it.
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me a little higher
grade of happiness to look out upon the green fields of
wheat and the leafing trees and the blue mountains in the
distance and hear the dove
cooing to her mate, and the whipporwill sing a
welcome to the night, and hunt flowers and bubbly
blossoms with the children, and make whistles for
'em and hear 'em blow, and see 'em get after a
jumpin' frog or a garter snake, and hunt hen's
nests, and paddle in the branch and get dirty and
wet all over, and watch their penitent and subduded
expression when they go home, as Mrs. Arp looks
at 'em with amazement and exclaims, "Mercy on
me; did ever a poor mother have such a set? Will
I ever get done making clothes? Put these on right
clean this morning, and not another clean rag in the
house! Get me a switch, right straight; go! I will
not stand it!" But she will stand it, and they know
it - especially if I remark, "Yes, they ought to be
whipped." That saves 'em and by the time the
switch comes the tempest is over and some dry
clothes are found, and if there is any cake in the
house they get it. Blessed mother! Fortunate
children! What would they do without her? Why
her very scolding is music in their tender ears. I'm
thankful that there are some things in that corner in
the domestic circle that Wall street cannot buy nor
money kings depress.
"All the world's a stage," as Mr. Shakespeare
says, and all the men and women merely travelers.
It is a mighty big stage, of course--in fact, an omnibus,
for it carries us all, and we are traveling along
and getting in and getting out all along the line, and
ever and anon stopping by the wayside to nurse our
sick and bury our dead. There is nothing else that
puts on the brakes as we move down the big road on
the journey of life. Sickness and death are a veto
upon all progress, and upon plans, and schemes, and
hopes, and ambition, and fame, and fashion and folly.
We suffer awile and stop awile, but if we don't die
we get in the stage again and move on with the crowd.
Sickness knocks up a man and humbles him quicker
than anything. Just let the pitiless angel of pain
come along suddenly and seize him by some vital
part and twist him around a time or two and shake
him up, and he will know better what the word torture
means when he reads it in a book. I thought
I was a strong man and tough, and so the angel has
had no terrors for me. I've had the toothache and
mashed my big toe with a crow-bar and got around
lively with a green-corn dance, but after it was over
I forgot the sting of it and only remembered the joke.
But there are some things without any joke, and that
won't let you forget 'em, and when they come and
go they leave you humbled and hacked and as meek
as a lamb with his legs tied. They take away your
pride, and your brag and your starch and stiffening. They
strip you of flowers and frills and thread lace and jewelry,
and leave a poor mortal like a dependent beggar for the
charity of health, good health. "If I was only well again,"
the poor victim sighs: "Oh, if I was only well again."
When a man gets along to my age he forgets that he is on
the down grade; that he is like a second-hand wagon
patched up and painted and sold at auction to the highest
bidder. It will run mighty well on a smooth road and a light
load and a careful driver, but it won't do to lock wheels with
another, or run into a gully, or over stumps, or up to the hubs
in the low grounds. A man is very much like a wagon,
anyhow, for his shoulders and hips are the axle-trees and his
arms and legs are the wheels and the wagon-body is his
body and the coupling-pole is his spine and the hounds are
his kidneys--his reins, as the Scriptures call 'em--and they
brace up everything and hold up the tongue and the coupling-pole,
and if the hounds are weak and rickety the hind
wheels don't track with the fore wheels, and the whole
concern moves along with a hitch and a jerk and a double
wabble. "He tryeth the reins of the children of men," for
that was the test of a man. If the kidneys were sound and
well ordered the man was right before the Lord, for in them
was supposed to be centered the affections and passions
and emotions of a man. Those old-time philosophers
attached a good deal of importance to the kidneys, but I
thought it was a superstition of their ignorance, and I never
cared much about my kidneys. In fact, I didn't care whether
I had any kidneys or not, for I was thinking what Judge
Underwood told me a long time ago about the spleen, which
he said was only put there to make
men splenetic and cross, and keep 'em from getting
overjoyful in this subloonary world. I thought that maybe
the kidneys were like the liver of a man over in California,
which was crushed out of him in a mine some fifty years
ago, when he was about fifty years old, but he was sewed
up and got well, and he is a hundred years old and not a
hair turned grey, nor a wrinkle come, nor his eyes grown
dim, nor his teeth come out, and he keeps well and sound
and plump and active, and goes to balls, and never has an
ache or a pain, and its all because his liver is gone. Jesso.
Well, you see I had promised to build a dam across the
branch down in the willow thicket and make a bathing pool
for the children; and so a few days ago I went at it with a
will, and got my timbers across and my boards nailed on
slanting up the stream to a rock bottom, and then I put on
some old boots and went to chinkin' up the leaks with turf
and gravel and willow brush and sand bags, and as fast as I
stopped one leak another broke out; but I worked fast and
worked hard, and the children waited on me and brought
me material, and after a while the water began to rise on
me, and got higher till it went over the dam. It was then
about noon, and the hot sun was blistering down and the
cold spring water was chilling me up, and I begun to feel
age and infirmity; so I took a bath myself, and put on dry
clothes and retired to rest from my labors. That evening I
listened to the shouts of happy children as they frolicked in
the pool, and I rejoiced, for it always makes me happy to
see them happy. The next day I dident get up well, and I
was a knockin' around in my garden, a holdin' up my back,
shore enough,
without any warnin', the unfeelin' angel of pain come along
suddenly and snapped me up by the left kidney like he
wanted to wrestle, and took an underholt, and he spun me
around with such a jerk I almost lost my breath with agony,
and he pummeled me and humped me all the way to the
house, and threw me on the bed while I hollered. "What in
the world is the matter with you, William?" says my wife,
Mrs. Arp, says she to me; and the children all gathered
around and thought I was snake bit. "I've got a turrible pain
round here." says I; "turrible, turrible. Oh. Lordy!" They
filled up the stove in a hurry, and brought water; and they
gave me camphor, and paregoric, and one thing and
another; but I got worse, and groaned and grunted
amazingly, for I tell you I was sufferin'.
"I expected it! I expected it!" says Mrs. Arp, as she
moved round lively. "I just knew some trouble would come
from all that dam business of yesterday." My stomach had
suddenly gone out of order--I don't know how--for
everything they give me come up before it was down; and
so they tried salts and quinine and hot water and painkiller,
and morphine and magnum bonum, and everything in the
house, but nothing would stick. and at last the pain left just
as suddenly as it came on, and I went to sleep. But my
system was all out of order; the machinery wouldn't work
nowhere. The cold sweat poured from me all night, and I
dreamed I was away off in a wet prairie, lying down in the
cold grass, hiding from a herd of buffaloes, and I woke up
with a shaking ague and had to have my night clothes
changed and dried like a race horse.
The morning brought another attack worse than the first,
but the good Dr. Kirkpatrick came in time
and put me on morphine and spirits of nitre, a hot bath and
shortened up the time, and told me my trouble was in the
kidneys, and what was going on. ble, and could look around
on my wife and children and when he left me I was easy
and meek and humble.. and could look around on my wife
and chldren like nobody was a sinner but me. When I was
awake I could look up at the old whitewash that was peeling
off from the ceiling, and see all sorts of pictures I never saw
before. They took shapes innumerable, for there were
monkeys and camels, and bears and buzzards, and turtles,
and big Injuns, and little Frenchmen, and old witches, and
anacondas and other menagerie animals all out of shape, and
funny and fantastic; and while I was asleep I dreamed
ridiculous dreams, and the quinine that was in me made me
to hear waterfalls and milldams, and once I imagined the
dam I had built had grown and swelled until Niagara was but
a circumstance compared to it. But alas, there is no rest for
the wicked, for although I had escaped for a day and night.
and was banking upon bright hopes and returning health, the
unfeeling angel came along again, and seeing me recovering
from the fight, began on me with a second assault, and beat
up my left kidney again till it was in a jelly and as sore and
sensitive as a carbuncle. While he was beating me I seemed
to hear him say, "You didn't know you had kidneys, did you?"
"About a dozen," said I; "eight or ten anyhow, and they
are as big and heavy as shot bags." The fact is that my left
side was so sore and I was so nervous that it almost gave
me a spasm to think of anybody touching me there with a
stick. But the torture all of a sudden left me, as suddenly as
it came, and the breath, good and free,
could get way once more. But now I think I am all safe,
and Richard is himself again. Good nursing and the
doctor's skill and patience has got the wagon in traveling
condition, and now I think I will make friends with my
kidneys and a treaty of peace with the angel, and the treaty
is that I am to build no more dams during life, if I have to
wade in the water to do it.
Married and gone. It is the same old story. Love and
courtship. Then comes the engagement ring and a blessed
interval of fond hopes and happy dreams, and then the
happy day is fixed--the auspicious day that is never to be
forgotten--a day that brings happiness or misery and
begins a new life. Then comes the license, the permit of the
law which says you may marry, you may enter into bonds.
The State approves it and the law allows it, and it will cost
you only a dollar and a quarter. Cheap, isn't it? And yet it
may be very dear. Then comes the minister, and the happy
pair stand up before him and make some solemn vows and
listen to a prayer and a benediction, and they are one. In a
moment the trusting maid has lost her name and her free
will, and is tied fast to a man. Well, he is tied fast, too, so it
is all right all around, I reckon; but somehow I always feel
more concern about the woman than the man. She is a
helpless sort of a creature and takes the most risk, for she
risks her all.
We gave him a cordial welcome into the family, and we
kissed her lovingly and bade them good-bye, and the
children threw a shower of rice over them and an old shoe
after them, and they were soon on their way to the land of
flowers. She was not our child, but was almost, for Mrs.
Arp was the only mother she ever knew, and we loved her.
I wondered that there was as many happy matings as there
seem to be. Partners for life ought to be congenial and
harmonious in so many things. When men make a
partnership in business they can't get along well if they are
unlike in disposition or in moral principles, or in business
ways and business habits. But they can dissolve and
separate at pleasure and try another man.
A man and his wife ought to be alike in almost
everything. It is said that folks like their opposite, their
counterparts, and so they do in some respects. A man with
blue eyes goes mighty nigh distracted over a woman with
hazel eyes. I did, and I'm distracted yet whenever I look
into them. But in mental qualities and emotional qualities
and tastes and habits and principles and convictions and the
like, they ought to class together. Indeed, it is better for
them to have the same politics and the same religion. And
so I have observed that the happiest unions, as a general
thing, are those where the high contracting parties have
known each other for a long time, and have assimilated
from their youth in thought and feeling. When a man goes
off to some watering place and waltzes a few times with a
charming girl and falls desperately in love and marries her
off hand, it is a long shoot and a narrow chance for
happiness. Why, we may live in the same town with people
and not know as much about them as we ought to. I
never made any mistake about my choice of a partner for the
dance of life, but I've thought of it a thousand times that if
Mrs. Arp had known I loved codfish and got up by
daybreak every morning, she never would have had me. It
was nip and tuck to get her anyhow, and that would have
been the feather to break the camel's back. Well, I'm
mortal glad
she didn't know it, though I am free to say that if I had known
she slept until the second ringing of the first bell for breakfast
and was fond of raw oysters, it would have had a dampening
effect upon my ardor for a few minutes, only a few. But I
have seen some mighty clever people eat oysters raw and
sleep late in the morning. But still a man and his wife can
harmonize and compromise a good many of these things, and
it is a beautiful illustration of this to see Mrs Arp cooking
codfish for me and fixing it all up so nice with eggs and
cream; and it is a touching evidence of my undying devotion
to her, to see me wandering around the house lonely and
forlorn every morning for an hour or two, and forbidding even
the cat to walk heavy while she sleeps. That codfish business
comes to me honestly from my father's side, and my mother
put up with it like a good, considerate wife, and we children
grew up with an idea that it was good. I've heard of a young
couple who got married and went off to Augusta on a tour,
and the feller stuck his fork into a codfish ball and took a bite.
He choked it down like a hero, and when his beloved asked
him what was the matter, replied: "Don't say anything about it,
Mandy, but as sure as you are born there is something
dead in the bread."
Well, we can make compromises about all such things as
habits and tastes, but there are some things that won't
compromise worth a cent. If a girl has been brought up to
have a good deal of freedom, and thinks it no harm to go
waltzing around with every gay Lothario who loves to
dance, and after she gets a feller of her own, wants to keep
at it and have polluted arms around her waist, she had just
as well sing farewell to conjugal love and domestic peace,
for it is against the order of nature for a loving husband to
stand it, and he oughn't. There is another thing that ought to
be considered, and that is age. A few years makes no
difference, but an old man had better be careful about
marrying a young wife. He won't be happy but about two
weeks, and then his misery will begin and it will never end.
It may be better for a woman to be an old man's darling
than a young man's slave, but she had better be neither.
When a young girl marries an old man for his money she
has gone back on herself, for money don't bring happiness.
Money helps, but money with a dead weight is a curse--an
aggravation. I was talking one day to an old man, a
Frenchman, who had made a hermit of himself, and was
living all alone in the woods, and he said: "Mine frien', I
have made one grand meestake. My first wife whom I
marry ven I vos young vas an angel from heaven, God bless
her, but mine last wife she did not come from dere she
come dis vay"--and he pointed downwards. "I vas old and
she vas young. I had money and she had none. I marry her
in haste and repent at my leisure. I try to live wid her tree
years, but we were not compatible. It was against the order
of nature and I found myself a fool and a prisoner, and so I
geeve her half my monies and run away from her and hide
in dis vilderness, and here vill I live and here vill I die, and
ven I go oop to St. Peter and tell heem how dat voman
trouble me on earth, de good man will open de garden gate
and say, come in, my brother, for you have had trouble
enough."
Country marriages are generally happier than those
made in cities among the families of the rich. Children
raised to work and to wait on themselves
make better husband and better wives than those raised in
luxury. It is mighty hard for a man to please his wife and
keep her in good humor if she has been petted by her
parents and never knew a want and had no useful work to
do. She soon takes the ennui or the conniptions or the "don't
know what I want," and must go back to ma. A young lady
who never did anything after she quit school but dress for
company and make visits and go to the theatre or the dance,
will never make a good wife. This wife business is a very
serious business. It is right hard work to play wife. The
mother of six, eight or ten children has seen sights. She
knows what care is and work is, and one of these do-nothing
women can't stand it. If she is a used up institution with one
child, two will finish her, and if it wasn't for condensed milk
the children would perish to death in a month after they
were born, and be sorter like the cows in Florida. I heard a
Florida man say the other day that a Florida cow dident give
enough milk to color the coffee for breakfast, and they had
to raise the calves on the bottle. Getting married ought to be
a considerate business. Folks oughtn't to get married in a
hurry; neither ought they to wait four or five years. Six
months is long enough for an engagement. I don't mean
children; I mean grown folks who have settled down in life
and know what they are about. There is no goodlier sight in
all nature than to see a good-looking, healthy young man,
who is making an honest living, standing up at, the altar with
a pure, sweet, good-tempered, affectionate, industrious girl,
and the parents on both sides approving the match. Then the
big pot ought to be put in the little pot, and everybody
rejoice.
It is impossible for a man or a woman either to be calm
and serene when surprised by awful and terrible things,
unless they are always prepared for 'em, which they ain't. I
have been wanting to see some big things all my life, but I
wanted to be in a safe place while it happened, and at a
very respectable distance. I would have liked to have been
there when Vesuvius run over and swallowed up
Herculaneum and Pompeii, and I want to feel the shake of
a big earthquake a mile or two away from the crack. I
would enjoy a storm at sea and a genuine shipwreck if I
knew we were to strike some rock not far from shore and
eventually be saved. I've been reading every now and
then about those awful storms and winds that of late years
have been perusing the country below us and blowing
wagons up in the tree tops and shingles through solid oak
trees and carrying houses away and twisting off timber like
it was wheat straw, and I thought I would like to see a
young cyclone meandering around, just to get the hang of
the thing, and shore enough a little one come along here last
Sunday and made a call without any premonition, and now
I'm satisfied, and don't hanker after any more such
visitations. We were sitting on the piazza watching the
black clouds as they loomed up in the west, and listening to
the rumbling thunder, when suddenly the roar of coming
winds was heard, and the storm came in sight over the
brow of Munford's
mountain, and came down the valley before, us
with the big drops of rain in front, and then the hail
following after, and the wind like a tornado. We hurried
down the window sash and took in the chairs, and before we
knew it it took two of us to shut the front door, and so we
retreated to the back piazza, and by the time we got there
the roof was rattling like a million buck-shot was being
poured on it from a big dump-cart away up yonder, and it
covered the ground and banked up in the back yard about
three inches deep, and while we were all a wondering what
the thing would do next, the wind shifted around and around
and come from the east as hard as it did from the west, and
pretty soon it was coming from all points of the compass and
everywhere else all at once, and slammed all the doors and
twisted the tree tops around and around, and I was a-fixing
to move the family down in the basement, when suddenly
my wife, Mrs. Arp, says she to me, "Where is Carl and
where is Ralph?" "They are down in the barn," said I calmly;
"they are all safe, for the barn is under the hill." "Merciful
heavens," she said, "I know something will happen to 'em.
You must go after 'em." So I put on the oilcloth and fooled
round for an umbrel and couldn't find one, and it wouldn't
have been any more than a fly in a hurricane, no how, and I
heard the limbs a-popping and saw the trees a-bending, and
the hail was getting bigger and more thicker and more
denser, and I knowed the little boys were safe, and so I kept
foolin' round and round until shore enough I dident go, and
Mrs. Arp she calmed down a little, for about this time the
storm abated a little and we could see the boys looking out
from the barn windows. I ain't tellin' no lie when I say that
fall of rain and hail dident
last more than fifteen minutes, but it raised the branch that
crosses the big road by my house five feet in half an hour
and spread out all over the meadow and up and down the
road for a hundred yards, and a nabor come along from
town in a buggy and had to swim it, horse and all, and he
said the road was as dry as a powder horn at Felton's
chapel, and another man came from the other way and said
it was all dust at Bishop's, and this showed me that the storm-path
was only about a mile wide, and it was obliged to have
been a cyclone, for we have heard of it going on about the
same way and tearing things up fearfully. One nabor had a
big tree blown on his barn, and a lad of a boy was in there
and it skeered him so he tried to run head foremost home,
and the wind picked him up and spun him round like a hummin'
top and then laid him down flat and told him to stay
there, and he stayed. The oats that had not been harvested
looked just like a big iron roller had been rolled over 'em and
then the whole concern ironed out smooth with a flat iron.
We've been mighty busy mowing 'em with the machine, and
have managed to save 'em pretty well, though it's right hard
to tell which is the best end of the bundles. But they will
thrash all the same, and no loss on our side. The rail fences
on nabor Cotton's hill went to playin' Jack-straws, and the
corn looks like the blades had all been drawn through a
shuck riddle. Nearly all my tomatoes have got a bruise on
'em, and the grapes are pretty much in the same fix. Squash
leaves and cabbage leaves are riddled with holes, but after
all I can't see any very serious damage, and we are trying
to be calm and serene. Well, I believe the cyclone did sorter
surprise two nice young gentlemen who
were perusing the girls at our house, and when they went
out in the hail to keep their horse and buggy from running
away the storm got so bad, and they got so damp and moist
all over, they had to go home prematurely, which we didn't
approve, for we could have made a fire and dried 'em in a
few minutes, or they could have put on some of my
garments, which would have been more than a foot or a
foot and a half too short at both ends. But they are young
and hopeful, and went off down the road singing Hail
Columbia, happy land, Hail Boreas and be hanged.
We've had a birthday at our house. There are big
birthdays and little ones, common ones and uncommon ones;
when the female patriarch of a family, the queen of the
household, meets her sixtieth birthday and has got too much
sense to go back on her age or be ashamed of it, it is an
event, it is, sorter like a golden wedding or the declaration
of independence or some other big thing But there is no
collapse, no surrender, no let down not a silver thread
among the raven hair, no crow's feet or wrinkled brows, no
loss of speech or language, no weakness of memory.
Sometimes I wish she would forget something, but she
can't, and my short-comings, like Banquo's ghost, come up
before me ever and anon. So the queen had a birthday
dinner, and she got a nice new dress and a hall lamp and a
beautiful chair and a pair of peafowls wherewith to raise
her own fly brushes, and that night we had music and
dancing and song, for Solomon says old age is honorable,
and I never could see any good sense in a woman or a
widower trying to conceal it. I never expect to be either the
one or the other, and can't appreciate their peculiar feelings,
but I never hear of a married
woman concealing her advancing years but I think she is
fixing the triggers for a second husband before the first one
dies. But one thing is certain--there's no triggers about our
house, and there will be no step-father to my children, for,
as Mrs. Arp says, sometimes a burnt child dreads the fire.
Jesso.
Man was not made to live alone. I don't mean like
Robinson Cruso, but alone in a house without a woman--a
help-mate, a pard. It's an awful thing to come in and find
the maternal chair vacant, even for a season. I know she
has gone, but still imagine she is somewhere on the
premises a circulatin' around and around. I am listenin' for
the rustle of her dress or the creak of her nimble shoe -
she wears number 2's, with a high instep, and walks like a
deer. Ever and anon methinks I hear her accustomed voice
saying, "William, William--major, come here a moment."
What wonderful resolution some women have got! Mrs.
Arp has at last departed. She has undertook a journey. For
several weeks it has been the family talk. Some said she
would get off and some said she wouldent. As for herself,
she was serious and noncommittal, but we daily observed
that the big old trunk that contained the accumulated
fragments of better days was being diligently ransacked.
Scraps of lace, and lawn, and ribbon, and silk, and velvet,
and muslin, and bumbazeen, and cassimere, were brought
forth and aired, and the flat iron kept busy pressing and
smoothing the wrinkles that age had furrowed in them. All
sorts of patterns from Demorest, and Ehrich and Butterick,
were overhauled and consulted with a kind of sad reality. A
woman may be too poor to buy calico at five cents a yard,
but she will have patterns. Little jackets, and pants,
and shirts, little dresses, and drawers, and petticoats, and
aprons had to be made up, and nobody but her knew what
they would be made of. I tell you, one of these old-fashioned
mothers is a miracle of grace. It ain't uncommon
for folks nowadays to be their own tailors and dressmakers,
but it takes sense and genius to get up a respectable outfit
from scraps and old clothes outgrown or abandoned for
ratage and leakage. It was wonderful to see her rip 'em,
and turn 'em, and cut 'em, and twist 'em--getting a piece here
and a scrap there, cutting them down to the pattern--running
them through the machine, and before anybody knew it
she had the little chaps arrayed as fine as a band-box,
and never called on anybody for a nickel. That's what I
call the quintessence of domestic economy. Nobody can
beat her in that line. She knows how to put the best foot
foremost. Her children have got to look as decent as other
people's, or she will keep 'em at home, certain. She don't go
about much, and seems to grow closer and closer to the
chimney corner; but when she does move it's a family
sensation. Every one helps--every one advises and
encourages her in a subdued and respectful way. All want
her to go off and rest and have a good time for her own
sake, but tell her over and over how much they will miss
her, and wear a little shadow of sorrow in the nigh side of
the face. I think though she suspected all the time they
would turn up Jack while she was away.
Well, she did get off at last--on a three hours' journey and
to stay a whole week. It was a tremendous undertaking, for
she said the harness might break, or the buggy collapse, or
the old mare run away on the road to town, and the cars
might run off the track or break through a bridge, or not
stop long
enough for her to get off with the children, or let her
off and take the children on, or some of us would get sick,
or the house catch afire, or some tramp come along in the
night and rob us and cut all our throats while we were
asleep, and we wouldent know a thing about it till next
morning.
"Now, William," said she, "be mighty careful of everything,
for you know how poor we are anyhow." "Poor as Lazarus,"
said I, "but he's a restin' in Abraham's bosom." "Well, never
mind Lazarus," said she, "the paragoric and quinine and
turpentine are on the shelf in the cabinet. I have hid the
laudanum, for it's dangerous, and you havent got more than
half sense in the night time and might make a mistake. Don't
let Ralph have the gun nor go to the mill pond. There are four
geese a setting, and you must look after the goslins, and if you
don't shoot that hawk spring chickens will be mighty scarce
on this lot. And see here, William, I want you to take the beds
off the bedsteads in my room and shut the doors and windows
and make a fire of sulphur in some old pan. They say it will
just kill everything." "Must I stay inside or outside," said I, in a
Cassibianca tone. "Maybe you had better try it awhile inside,"
said she, "just to see if you ever could get used to it. Now,
William, take good care of everything, for you may never see
me again. Somehow I feel like somethin's going to happen to
me. Don't whip Ralph while I'm gone - the poor boy ain't well -
he looks right pekid--and when you whipped Carl the other
day the marks were all over his little legs." She always looks
for marks--he little willows are soft as broom straws, but she
is bound to find a faint streak or two, and there's a tear for
every mark.
"William, the buttons are all right on your shirts. Feed the
little chickens until I come back. I think the buntin' hen is
setting somewhere, and there's six eggs in my drawer that
old Browny laid on my bed. If the children get sick you
must telegraph me." "And if I get sick myself," said I,
inquiringly - "Why there's the medicine in the cabinet,"
said she, "and you musent forget to water my
pot-plants. I told Mr. Freeman to look after you
and the boys, and Mrs. Freeman will keep an eye on
the girls. Goodbye. Don't you cut the hams. I want
them for company, and don't go in the locked pantry."
I reckon she must have taken the key off with her, for we
can't find it. "Goodbye--take care of Bows." She kissed us all
around and choked up a little and dropped a few tears and
said she was ready. I looked at the clock and told her we
could barely make it - five miles in an hour and five minutes,
and the road muddy and the mule slow. She said she had
never been left by the train in her life, and she didn't think
she would be too late. I pressed the old mule through mud
and slop, up hill and down hill. She was afraid of that mule,
and when I larruped him she told me not to. Then he would
put on the brakes, and she declared she would be left if I
dident drive faster. We dident say much, but leaned forward
and pressed forward in solemn energy as if the world hung
upon the crisis. When we got within half a mile of town the
whistle blowed away down the road and we had a slick hill
to clime. I larruped heavily and clucked every step of the
way, and we made the trip just in time to be left. The train
moved off right before us. It didn't seem to care a darn. We
gazed at it with feelings of sublime despair. Mrs. Arp was
looking
dreamily away off into space when I ventured to remark,
"Shall we go back?" She quielty pointed to the St. James
and replied, "Hotel."
I saw her and little Jessie comfortably quartered in a nice
room with a cheerful fire. Mr. Moss, the landlord, was kind
and sympathetic and promised she should not be left by the
morning train, and so bidding them as sad goodbye I returned
to my bairns. Take it all in all it was a big thing--a mighty
big thing at my house. I'm poking around now hunting for
consolation. She knows I'm desolate and is sorter glad of it. I
know she is homesick already, but she won't own it. She
would stay away a whole year before she would own it. She
wants me to beg her to come back soon, and I won't, for she
left her other little darling with me, and he will bring her. I've
half a mind to drop her a postal card and say: "Carl is not
well, but don't be alarmed about him," and then go to meet
her on the first train that could bring her, for I know she
would be there. It does look like a woman with ten children
wouldent be so foolish about one of them, but there's no
discount on a mother's anxiety. Her last command was,
"Keep Carl with you all the time, and tuck the cover under
him good at night, bless his little heart." I wonder what would
become of children if they didn't have a parent to spur 'em
up. In fact, it takes a couple of parents to keep things
straight at my house. Yesterday the gray mule broke open
the gate and let the cow and calf together. Carl left open
another gate and the old sow got in the garden. Another boy
has got a felon on his finger, and whines around and says his
ma could cure it if she was here. He can't milk now, and so
I thought I would try it, but old Bess wouldn't let nary drop
down for me. I squeezed and
pulled and tugged at her until she got mad and suddenly
lifted her foot in my lap and set it down in the
bucket whereupon I forgot my equilibrium, and when I
got up I gave old Bess a satisfactory kick in the side and
departed those coasts in great humility. It's not my forte to
milk a cow. The wind blew over more trees across my
fences. The clock run down. Two lamp chimneys bursted.
The fire popped out and burned a hole in the carpet while
we were at supper, and everything is going wrong just
because Mrs. Arp's gone.
It's mighty still, and solemn, and lonely around here now.
Lonely ain't the word, nor howlin' wilderness. There ain't
any word to express the goneness and desolation that we
feel. There is her vacant chair in the corner--
Yes, the rocker still is sitting
Just where she was ever knitting-- Knitting for the bairns she bore. And now the room seems sad and dreary And my soul is getting weary, And my heart is sick and sore - and so forth.
The dog goes whining round--the maltese cats are
mewing, and the children look lost and droopy. But we'll get
over it in a day or two, maybe, and then for a high old time.
Hark,
I hear a bluebird
sing, And
that's a sign of coming spring
The
bull-frog bellers in the
ditches, He's
throwed away his winter
breeches. The
robbin is bobbin' around so merry,
I
reckon he's drunk on a China
berry. The
hawk for infant chickens
watcheth, And
'fore you know it one he
cotcheth. The
lizzard is sunning himself on a
rail; The
lamb is shaking his newborn
tail. The
darkey is plowing his stubborn
mule, And
gaily hollers, "Gee, you
fool." King
Cotton has unfurled his
banner, And
scents the air with sweet
guanner. The
day grows long--the night's
declining, The
Indian summer's sun is
shining; The
smoking hills are now on
fire, And
every night it's climbing
higher. The
water warm, the weather
fine, The
time has come for hook and
line; Adown
the creek, around the
ponds, Are
gentlemen and
vagabonds. And
all our little dirty sinners
Are
digging bait and catching minners.
The
dogwood buds are now
a-swelling, And
yaller jonquills sweet are
smelling; The
little busy bees are
humming, And
every thing says spring is coming.
It has been a hard old winter on man and beast; hard in
weather and harder in fire and flood and pestilence and all
sorts of unnatural troubles. The horrors of hotels
burning up, and theatres and circuses shrouded
in flames, and thousands of poor people
made homeless and destitute by the raging waters, and
smallpox marking its victims all over the land, is pitiful, most
pitiful; but I can't get over the shock of those poor little
children who were trampled to death in that school-room in
New York City. I can't help seeing them all laid out in the
room together, and their parents hovering over their little
disfigured and mangled corpses. The distressing scene
haunts me. There is a power of trouble in the world that we
know nothing--trouble that we who live in the country
do not have. Here there are no storms, no floods, no fires,
no pestilence, no scarcity of wood, or of food or comfortable
clothing. A poor man in the country is safer from all
calamity than a rich one in the city. A poor man may lament
his poverty and envy the rich, but he has no reason to. A
man who makes a comfortable living on a farm has a
greater security for life and liberty and happiness and long
life than any other class that I know of. Cobe says he is
getting along "tolerable well, I thank you." Cobe is always
calm and serene. He owns a mouse-colored mule, and has
owned him ever since the war. That mule is one of the
family and he knows it. The children play under him and
over him, and between his legs, and the mule is happy too.
Cobe has a chunk of a cow, and a sow and pigs, and about
enough old rickety furniture to move in one wagon load, and
that's all Cobe has got except his wife and half a dozen little
children, who live on corn bread and taters. And they are
smart children, and healthy and good looking, though Cobe is
called the ugliest man in the county, and I think enjoys his
reputation. His face is of three colors and splotched about,
and his mouth is in a twist one way and his
nose in another, and his eyes are of a different color, and he
is hump-shouldered and walks pigeon-toed, but he don't
care. His wife says he is just the best little man in the
world. He works hard, he and the mule, and always says he
is getting along "tolable," and finds no more trouble in
supporting six children than he did one. He says there never
was a 'possum born that dident find a 'simmon tree
somewhere. Says he is raising his boys more for endurance
than for show--for another war will come along about their
time of day and he wants 'em to be able to stand it. Cobe is
an honest man, and came from an honest family, and his
wife did too, and their children are well-mannered, and they
are getting a little schooling, and my opinion is that there is
more hope and better hope for the country in that kind of
stock than in the average children of the rich. They will
make good, humble, law-abiding citizens, and they will work
and produce something. When war or trouble comes, it is
the yeomanry of the land we have to depend on. The
children of the poor are running this Southern country now.
They are the foremost men in most everything. They are
the best merchants in Atlanta and other cities--the best
farmers, the best mechanics, and the best railroad men.
Some of 'em make splendid bankers, if they do spell hog
with a double g. Grammar may deceive, but figures don't
lie.
We are all mighty busy now in these parts. I can sit in
my piazza and see over a good deal of farming territory,
and the mules are moving up lively. They seem to know
the spring is late and the farmers are behind time. But I
don't sit long at a time, for the garden is to plant, and the
rose bushes have to be
trimmed, and the flower beds dressed off, and the compost
scattered around, and the vines want new trellaces and
everything got ready for a new suit of clothes. The old year
is just now dead, and the new one is born with the spring.
March used to be the first month and it ought to be now. I
don't see what they ever changed it for. One hundred and
twenty years ago our English forefathers took a notion to
set old Father Time back a couple of months, without any
good reason for it, and I think we ought to move up the
clock and put him forward where he was. The spring is the
new birth of nature, and is the type of our own resurrection.
I don't believe that everything that dies will live again, but I
do believe that everything that is good and beautiful will,
even to animals, trees and flowers. This is a mighty pretty
world we live in--mighty pretty, especially in the spring, and
for fear of accidents I am willing to be a tenant a good
while longer.
"I
would not live always,
I
ask not to stay,"
is a very beautiful sentiment, provided a man is sure of a
better home when he quits this one. But another poet sung
with more caution and content when he said:
"This world is very lovely--oh, my God,
I thank thee that I live."
I reckon the majority of mankind are like the fellow who
said he dident want to go to heaven if he had to die to get
there. Many would like for the ages of Adam and
Methuselah to come back again. It wouldent do, though--it
wouldent do at all, for if
Jay Gould and Vanderbilt and company should live a
thousand years they would gobble up the whole terrestial
concern and crown us all off onto a plank in the ocean. On
the whole, I'm obliged to think that everything is fixed up
about right--I reckon it is.
It was after midnight. About the time when deep sleep
falleth upon man, but not upon woman, for Mrs. Arp's ears
were always awake, it seems to me. I felt a gentle dig in
my side from an elbow and a whispered voice said:
"William, William, don't you hear that?" "What is it?" said
I. "Somebody is in the front piazza," she said. "Don't you
hear him rocking in the rocking chair?" And sure enough I
did. The chair would rock awhile, and then stop, and then
rock again. "Is the gun loaded?" she said; "they are robbers,
but don't shoot, don't make a noise; can't you peep out of
the window? Mercy on us, what do they want to rob us
for? Maybe they come to steal one of the children. Slip in
the little room and see if Carl is in his bed. Don't stumble
over a chair, maybe somebody is under the bed." The
rocker took a new start and I had another dig in my side. "It
is the wind," said I. "No it is not," said she. "There is no
wind, the window is up, and the curtain don't move. They
are robbers, I tell you. Hadn't you better give them some
money and tell them to go?" "I havn't got any money," said
I. "It's all gone." "Lord have mercy upon us," said she.
"William get your gun and be ready."
I gently slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the window and
cautiously peeped out, and there was the pointer puppy
sitting straight up in my wife's rocking chair, and ever
and anon he would lean forward
and backwards and put it in motion. I whispered to Mrs.
Arp to come and see the four-legged robber, which she did,
and in due time all was calm and serene.
Last night there was another sensation in the back piazza,
and it was sure enough feet this time, for they made a
racket on the floor and moved around lively, and the elbow
digs in my side came thick and fast; took me a minute to
get fairly awake, and after listening awhile I exclaimed in
audible language, "goats, Carl's goats," and I gathered a
broom and mauled them down the back steps. "I told you,
my dear," said I "that those goats would give us trouble, but
I can stand it if you can."
Carl and Jessie have been begging for goats a good
while and I was hostile, very hostile to goats, for I knew
how much devilment they would do; but the little chaps
slipped up on the weak side of their mother, and she finally
hinted that children were children; that old folks had their
dotage and children had their goatage and her little brothers
used to have goats, and so the pair of goats were bought
and Ralph worked two days making a wagon, and
contrived some harness out of old bridle-reins and plow
lines, and it took all hands to gear 'em up, and at the first
crack of the whip they bounced three feet in the air, and
kept on bouncing, and jerked Carl a rod, and got loose and
run away and turned the wagon up side down, and they
kept on leaping and jumping until they got all the harness
broken up and got away. It beat a monkey show. We all
laughed until we cried, but the little chaps have reorganized
on a more substantial basis, and there is another exhibition
to come off soon.
but to my opinion a boy has about ten of his own. He begins
with his first pair of breeches and a stick horse, and climbs
up by degrees to toy guns and fire crackers and sling shot
and breaking calves and billy goats, and to sure enough
guns and a pointer dog; and the looking glass age when he
admires himself and greases his hair and feels of his downy
beard; and then he joins a brass band and toots a horn; and
then he reads novels and falls in love and rides a prancing
horse and writes perfumed notes to his girl. When his first
love kicks him and begins to run with another fellow he
drops into the age of despair, and wants to go to Texas or
some other remote region and sadly sings:
"This world is all a fleeting show."
Boys are mighty smart now-a-days. They know as much
at ten years as we used to know at twenty, and it is right
hard for us to keep ahead of 'em. Parents use to rule their
children but children rule their parents now. There is no
whipping at home, and if a boy gets a little at school it raises
a row and a presentation to the grand jury. When my
teacher whipped me I never mentioned it at home for fear
of getting another. I got three whippings in one day when I
was a lad; I had a fight with another boy and he whipped
me, and the school teacher whipped me for fighting, and my
father whipped me because the teacher did. That was
awful, wasent it? But it was right, and it did me good.
One of these modern philanthropies was telling my kinsman
the other day how to raise a boy. "Never whip him," said
he. "Raise him on love and kindness and reason," and then
he appealed to me for endorsement. "And when that boy
is about twelve years old," said I,
"do you go and talk to him and if possible persuade him
not to whip his daddy. Tell him that it is wrong and unfilial,
and will injure his reputation in the community."
The modern boy is entirely too bigity. I was at church in
Rome last Sunday and saw two boys there, aged about ten
and twelve years, and after service they lit their cigarrettes
and went off smoking. An old-fashioned man looked at 'em
and remarked: "I would give a quarter to paddle them two
boys two minutes. I'll bet their fathers is afraid of 'em right
now." The old-fashioned man never was afraid of his. He
worked 'em hard, but he gave 'em all reasonable
indulgence. He kept 'em at home at nights, and he made
good men of them. They have prospered in business and
acquired wealth, and are raising their children the same
way, and they love and honor the old gentleman for giving
them habits of industry and economy. He was a merchant
and didn't allow his boys to sweep out a string or a scrap of
paper as big as your hat. Habits are the thing, good habits,
habits of industry and economy; when acquired in youth
they stick all through life.
And the girls need some watching too. They are most
too fast now-a-days. Too fond of fashion, and they read too
much trash. The old fashion retiring modesty of character is
at a discount. They don't wait for the boys to come now,
they go after 'em; they marry in haste and repent at
leisure; they run round in their new-fashioned night gowns
and call it a Mother Hubbard party. The newspapers have
got up a sensation about the arm clutch. The waist clutch in
these round dances is just as bad or worse. They are all
immodest and there is not a good
mother in the land that approves of them. A girl who goes to
a promiscuous ball and waltzes around with promiscuous
fellows puts herself in a promiscuous fix to be talked about
by the dudes and rakes and fast young men who have
encircled her waist. A girl should never waltz with a young
man whom she would not be willing to marry. Slander is
very common now, slander of young ladies, and there are
not many who escape it; the trouble is it is not all slander,
some of it is truth. In the olden times when folks got married
they stayed married, but now the courts are full of divorces
and the land is spotted with grass widows, and in many a
household there is a hidden grief over a daughter's shame. It
is a good thing for the girls to work at something that is
useful. There is plenty of home work to do in most every
household. If there is not then they can try drawing and
sketching or painting or music, something that will entertain
them. There are as many female dudes as males, and they
ought to marry, I reckon, and go to raising fools for market.
We have got a cook now and my folks are taking a rest.
She is an old-fashioned darkey and flies around with a quick
step and lightly. Anybody could tell that "Sicily" had had
good training from a white mistress. When she gets through
her work she brings up a tub of water and goes to washing
up the floors without being told; she washes the dishes
clean and is nice about the milk and the churning, and is
good to the children. She lets them cook a little and make
boys and horses out of the biscuit dough. The like of that
suits Mrs. Arp exactly. If I was a darkey I would know
exactly how to get Mrs. Arp's money and her old dresses
and a heap of little
things thrown in. Yesterday morning Sicily's husband
knocked at the door very early and said his wife was sick,
sick all night, and I heard 'em groan and say "goodness
gracious;" but they got up and gave us a first-class
breakfast, and I praised 'em up lots. I promised to let 'em go
to town and tumble up the new goods and bring back a big
lot of samples. Girls should be encouraged when they do
well.
Sometimes a man feels entirely unadequate to the
occasion. A kind of lonesome and helpless feeling comes
over him that no philosophy can shake off. I dident have but
five sheep. They were fine and fat and followed us about
when we walked down to the meadow, and our little
shepherd dog thought they were the prettiest things in the
world, and they would eat salt out of the children's hands,
and we were thinking about the little lambs that would
come in the spring. There was a house for them in the
meadow and it was full of clean wheat straw where they
could take shelter from the rain and the wind.
Alas for human hopes. It looks like everything is born to
trouble, especially sheep. Yesterday morning I walked
down to the branch with my tender offspring, and before I
was prepared for it the torn and bloody form of the old he
ram was seen lying in the water before me. While I stood
and pondered over his sad calamity, the children soon found
the others scattered round in the mire and bullrushes stiff
and cold and dead. I thought of Mrs. Arp, my wife. What
would she say? I thought of that passage of Scripture
which says "beware of dogs." I thought of Joe Harris and
the Constitution and that confounded legislature. I thought
of guns and striknine and the avenger of blood. Slowly and
sadly we returned to the house, and when the children had
unfolded the mournful tale Mrs. Arp, my wife, stopped
washing the dishes and sat down by the fire. For awhile she
never spoke. She seemed unadequate. There was a solemn
stillness pervading the assembled family. The children
looked at me and then at their mother, when suddenly says
she, choking up, "The poor things; torn to pieces by the
dogs right here in a few steps of the house. I heard Juno
barking furiously in the piazza and I heard the cows lowing
like something was after their calves, and I thought I would
wake you, but I didn't. Poor things, if they had only blated or
made a noise." After a solemn pause, she rose forward and
exclaimed: "William Arp, if I was a man I would take my
gun and never stop till I had killed every dog in the
naborhood. A little while back they killed all our geese in
that same meadow. These trifling people round here hunt
rabbits all over your plantation with the sheep killing dogs,
and you won't stop 'em for fear of hurtin their feelings, and
now you see what we get by it. I'd go and shoot their dogs
in their own yards, and if they made a fuss about it I would -
well I don't know what I wouldn't do."
"If I knew the dogs that did it--" said I, meekly.
"Knew the dogs!" said she. "Why you know that big
brindle that got hung by his block down there in the willows,
and you ought to have killed him then, and you know that
white dog, and the spotted one that prowls around. and
those dogs that them boys are always hunting with--you can
kill them anyhow. We will never have anything if you don't
protect yourself, and the Lord knows we've got little
enough now."
"They will come back to-night," said I, and shore
enough they did, and the boys laid in wait for 'em and
got some revenge, and we've given the naborhood fair
warning that henceforth we will kill every dog that puts his
foot on our premises, law or no law, gospel or no gospel.
We've declared war. A dog that won't stay at home at night
ain't fit to be a dog. The next man who runs for the
legislature in this county has got to commit himself against
dogs or I'll run against him whether the people vote for me
or not, and if he beats me I reckon I can move out of the
county, can't I, or quit trying to raise sheep. My nabor, Mr.
Dobbins, says they have killed over a hundred for him in the
last two years and he has quit. He won't try to raise any
more.
But we are reviving a little. The ragged edge of our
indignation has worn off. We skinned the poor things and
the buzzards have preyed upon their carcasses, and once
more our family affairs are moving along in subdued
serenity. Last night Mrs. Arp, my wife, told the girls she
didn't think their lightbread was quite as light and nice as
she used to make it, and she would show them her way, so
they could take pattern. She fixed up the yeast and made up
the dough and put it down by the fire to rise, and this
morning it had riz about a quarter of an inch, which she
remarked was very curious, but reckoned it was too cold,
and so she put it in the oven to bake and then it got sullen
and riz downwards, and by the time it was done it was
about as thick as a ginger cake, and weighed nigh unto a
pound to the square inch. She never said anything, but hid it
away on the top shelf of the cupboard. I saw the girls
blinking around, and when lunch time came I got it down
and carried it along like it was a keg of nails and
put it before her. "I thought you would like some
lightbread," said I.
She laid down her knife and fork, and for a moment was
altogether unadequate to the occasion. Suddenly she seized
the stubborn loaf, and as I ran out of the door it took me right
in the small of my back, and I actually thought somebody bad
struck me on the spine with a maul. "Now, Mr. Impudence,
take that," said she. "If a man asks for bread will you give
him a stone?" said I. Seeing that hostilities were about to be
renewed, I retired prematurely to the piazza to ruminate on
the rise of cotton and wheat, and iron, and everything else
but bread. She's got two little grandsons staying with her,
and unbeknowing to me she hacked that bread into chunks
and armed five little chaps with 'em, and she came forth as
captain of the gang and suddenly they took me unawares in
a riotous and tumultuous manner. They banged me up
awfully before I could get out of the way. My head is sore
all over, and take it all in all, I consider myself the injured
person. I mention this circumstance as a warnin' to let all
things alone when your wife hides 'em, especially bread that
wouldent rise. Mrs. Arp, my wife, has most wonderful
control of these little chaps--children and grand-children.
She can sick 'em onto me with a nod or a wink, but I can't
sick 'em onto her; no sir. I never tried, and I don't reckon I
ever will, but I just know I couldn't. I don't have much of a
showing with these children. This morning I found one of
'em climbin I up on the sash of the flower pit, and while I
was hunting for a switch the little rascal ran to his grandma,
and that was the end of it. She never said nothing, but sorter
paused and looked
at me. My only chance is to get 'em away off in the field or
the woods and thrash 'em generally for a month's rascality,
and then honey them up just before we get home to keep
'em from telling on me. For thirty years Mrs. Arp, my wife,
has labored under the delusion that the children are hers,
and that I had mightly little to do with 'em from the
beginning. I would like to see somebody try to take 'em
away with a habeas corpus or any other corpus. Goodness
gracious. Talk about a lioness robbed of her whelps or a she
bear of her cubs. Well, it couldn't be done, that's all.
Old Uncle Bart, as we call him, wasn't a common
drunkard nor an uncommon one either, but every time he
came to town he would get drunk. He came mighty seldom,
for when he did the memory of it lasted him about three
months. He told me after such a spree he felt as mean and
lonely as a stray dog. He said he couldn't eat nor sleep, and
away in the night wanted water so bad he "felt like he
could bite a branch in two and swallow the upper end."
One morning he came in early to see Dolph Ross, who
was going to Texas. He came across him before he came
across the grocery, and says he: "Hallo, Dolph--gwine to
Texas?"
"Yes, Uncle Bart, I am."
"Well, my brother Ben lives over there, and he's got big
rich, and no family, and I thought if you'd see him and tell
him how sorry we was gettin' along he mout do something
for us. You see my wheat crop is likely to fail, for the back-water
from the spring freshet got over it, and it's all turned
yaller, and my corn looks sickly, and my best cow got
snake-bit last week and died, and the old lady is powerful
puny, and Sal she got to hankerin' arter a likely chap in the
naborhood and married him, and he ain't got nothin', and
I'm gettin' old and can't stand nigh as much as I used to,
and I want you to see Brother Ben, and maybe he'll do
somethin'--you see?"
"Yes, I see, Uncle Bart, but where does your brother
"Live? Why, he lives in Texas, I told ye! If you don't
meet him in the road you can send him some word by
somebody and he'll find you. He's over there shore."
In about an hour he met Dolph again, and slapping his
foot down limberly, he seized Dolph's hand with a loving
grip, and says he, "Hello, Dolph--gwine to Texas?"
"Yes, Uncle Bart."
"Will you tell Brother Ben that we are all doin' tol'able;
the crop looks 'bout as good as common, and the old
'oman's sweet and sassy as ever, and Sal's she's married
and done splendid. Good by, Dolph, God bless you, I love
you."
In about two more drinks, from that time, Uncle Bart
come weavin' along, and, says he, "Hello, Dolph, gwine to
Texas?--tell Brother Ben I've got--the brest crop in the -
State--to let me know how he's golonging along--if he
wants anything--he shall--s'havit--he shan't--he shan't--
she shan't suffer--as long as--as I've got nothin'--I can
send him--twen or twelve-teen dollars - any time--farewell,
Dolph."
About the close of the day Dolph found him on the
lowermost step of the grocery, his head on his knees and
his hat on the ground. Thinking it a poor place to spend the
night, he aroused him to a glimmering view of the situation.
"Hello--Roff Doss," says he, "gwine to--Texas?--tell
Brother Ben--hell's afloat and the river's a-risin'." (Hic.)
"Everything is adopted." Says I, "Cobe, you musent say
adopted, for you mean adapted." "Well, I reckon so," says
he. "Everything is adapted. Everything fits to everything.
There is that houn' dog a-runnin' that rabbit and the dog is
adopted to the rabbit and the rabbit is adopted to the dog.
One was made for the tother to run. If there wasent any
rabbits there wouldent be any houn' dogs. Boys is adopted
to squirrels. If there wasent any boys there wouldent be any
squirrels. If there wasent any chickens there wouldent be
any hawks, for hawks is adopted to chickens, and if there
wasent any chickens and birds there wouldent be any bugs
and worms; and the bugs and worms is adopted to the
leaves and vegetables, and there is always enough left of
everything for seed and for white folks to live on. Hogs is
adopted to acorns, and if there wasent any hogs there
wouldent be more than eight or ten acorns on a tree--just
enough for seed; and hogs is adopted to folks, and if there
wasent any folks there wouldent be any hogs. There
wouldent be any use for 'em. I'll tell you, major, everything
was fixed up about right, as shore as you're born, and most
everything was fixed up for us. Hogs has got sausage meat
and tripe and cracklins, and souse and backbone and
sparerib and lard and ham and shoulder and jowl to eat with
turnip greens, and it's all mighty good and its all adopted."
"That is all so, Cobe," said I; "everything is adapted,
whether it is adopted or not."
"Yes, said he, "and I've noticed it for a long time, when
the wheat is cut off the land the grass comes up for hay,
and if we cut it off another crop comes up and keeps the
hot sun off the land, and one crop follows another, and if
we make a poor crop one year we make a better one the
next year, and if we don't we can live on hope and cut
down expenses and work the harder to fix up, and some
how or other or somehow else we all get along, and when
there is a gap we fill it up with something, and we all get
along and nobody perishes to death in the name of the Lord,
for everything fits and everything is adopted."
"Well, says I, "Cobe, that is all so--not only so, but also,
but there are a heap of things come along that don't seem
to be adopted, as you call it. Here comes the army worm,
and the grasshoppers, and the caterpillars, and all sorts of
vermin, and they are not adapted, and what are we going to
do with them? What are you going to do with snakes, mad
dogs, and storms, and pestilence, and diphtheria, and
smallpox, and all such afflictions? Are they adopted, or are
they adapted, or what are they?"
"Well, sir," says Cobe, "I'll tell you. I haven't been
troubled with them things yet, but if I was I know there
would be some offset, something to balance the account. I
never knowed a man to have a big trouble but what there
was something to balance off the trouble. I never knowed a
man to go to Texas but what he writ back that there wasn't
anything to brag off after he got there. The good things of
this life are pretty equally distributed if we only did know it.
A rich man haint got much advantage of a
poor man if the poor man is any account. Some poor folks is
bad stock and don't want to work and goes about grumbling.
They is just like a bad stock of horses or cattle or dogs and
ought to die out and quit the country. We don't send round
the settlement to git a poor dog or a poor cat, or a poor hog
or a poor cow. We want a good stock of anything; and there
is about the same difference in folks that there is in anything
else. There are some rich folks that are clever and some
that are mean--some grind you down and some help you up,
but them who grind you down don't have much enjoyment.
They are never happy unless they are miserable. I'd rather
be poor than to be some rich men that I know. My children
have a better time eating simmons and black haws and
digging gubbers and hunting possums than their children do
in getting to parties and wearing fine clothes and fussing
with one another and doing nothing for a living. There is
nothing like work--working for a living and being contented
with your situation. I love to see rich folks doing well, for
they help out the country and build railroads, and factories,
and car shops, and open up the iron mines, and I know that if
everybody was as poor as I am the country wouldent
prosper, and it looks like everything was adopted, and we
need rich folks to plan and poor folks to work, and they
couldent get along without us any more than we could get
along without them. I don't want their fine clothes, nor their
fine house, nor their carriage and horses, and they don't
want my little old mule, nor my bobtail coat, and so it's all
right all round, and everything is adopted. It don't take me
but a minute and a half to get ready to go to
meetin', for all I've got to do is to put on my coat and
comb the cuckleburs outen my hair and wash my face and
git a couple of chaws of tobacco and take my foot in my
hand and go. I can squat down at the door whin I git there,
and hear all the preachers has got to say, and thank the
Lord for his goodness, and that is worship enough for a
poor man, I reckon, and it's all adopted. When I see fine
things and fine people I'm always thankful for some favors
that are pow'ful cheap considering that money runs the
world, for we have got good health and good appetites at
my house and can sleep well on a hard bed, and a drink of
spring water is the best thing in the world to a hungry man.
We haint got no dishpepsy nor heart burn, and nobody haint
suing me for my land, for I haint got any, and my wife can
make as good corn bread as anybody, and our tables is a
good kind, and the old cow lets down her milk about right
and can live and do well without being curried and fed up
like a Jersey, and she understands my children and they
understand her, and so it looks like everything is aodpted. I
was thinking the other day how much service this old coat
Mrs. Arp gave me has done, for if it had been a new one I
would have been afeered of it, but I've wore it now for six
months, and its good yet, and the children have wore the old
clothes she give them, and they are all adopted, and now,
major, if you have got a chaw or two of that good tobacco
you always have I want a bite or two, for that is one thing I
like better than poor folks' tobaccer. Its one thing that I
think is a little better adopted than anything else. At least I
like it better."
Cobe got his tobacco and flanked his little mule with his
heelless shoes and galloped away in peace
If he is not adapted, I know he feels adopted. Cobe has
peculiar ideas and a peculiar language. He always said that
thunder killed a man, and when I told him it was lightning he
said, "Well, I know they say it is lightning,, but I've always
noticed that when it strikes a tree or a man or a mule the
thunder and the lightning comes all in a bunch, and you can't
tell tother from which." "But, Cobe" says I, "when a gun
shoots, the noise don't hurt anything; it is the shot." "Just so.
Just so," says he, "but there is no shot about this thunder
business."
I never could write like a school-master, and now my
fingers are all in a twist and I am as nervous as a woman
with the neuralgia. Me and my hopeful set out yesterday
morning to cut an acre of second-crop clover, for these lazy
niggers round here wanted a dollar a day and board, and I
wouldn't give it, and so me and him undertook the job for our
vittles alone, and he had a good mowing-blade and I rigged
up an old scythe that belonged to a wheat-cradle, and
it was about six feet long and took a sweep accordin', and the
clover was rank and mixed up with morning glories, and for
the first ten minutes it looked like we would just walk
through it like one of McCormick's reapers; but you see,
that kind of work brought into play a new set of nerves and
muscles, that hadent been used in a long time, for mowin'
clover with a long blade is an irregular, side-wipin' business
that swings a man in all sorts of horizontal attitudes, for
sometimes he don't put on enough power for the reach of
his blade, and then again he puts on a little too much, and it
comes round with a jerk that twists him up like a corkscrew,
and so the first thing I knew I was blowin' worse than a
tired steer and my shirt stuck to me and my heart was
beating like a muffled drum, and I rather look back at what I
had cut than ahead of me at what I hadn't. But I was too
proud to surrender, for, though I say it myself, there's grit in
me, and ever and anon it
shows itself, under peculiar circumstances. I heaved ahead
of my boy with my long-sweepin' simiter, that give me time
to stop and git my wind and wait for my palpitatin' bosom to
quit thumpin', and then I would rally my wastin' forces and
go it again until I couldent go it any longer. My boy was as
willing to quit as I was, for the sun was hot and the air was
close, and I say now after due reflection, it was the hardest
morning's work I ever did, and I'm not for hire to repeat it
at a dollar a day or any other insignificant reward, for it
has twisted me out of all decent shape and I go about hump-shouldered
and sway-backed and as sore all over as if I had
been beat with a thrash-pole. I don't think I would have made such
a fool of myself, but you see some of my wife's relations
had come a long ways to see us and all the family paraded
over to the clover field like a general and his staff, and as
they stood around I put on as much style as possible in
swingin' my blade and could hear 'em admiring us how
gracefully and easily we handled the instruments, when the
truth was we had mighty nigh mowed ourselves to death
and saved the king of terrors the job.
What a power of influence these female smiles do have
upon us. What undertaking is there that we will not
undertake if they will stand by and look on and encourage.
Why Sir, I have thought in moments of enthusiasm that if
my wife, Mrs. Arp, was to unfold her angelic wings and
soar away to Chimborazo's top, and call me with a
heavenly smile, I'd go too if I could. I wish they were all
rich, for these two traits about women have always struck
me. They can live on less than they are obliged to, and
make a little go a heap further than the men, but when
money is handy they can spend more and take more
satisfaction in gettin' rid of it than anybody.
I read the other day in a farming paper that moles dident
do an harm, but on the contrary they did good in eating up
bugs and worms; well, I caught one on the first day of this
month, a nice, slick, fat fellow; and as my folks had been
making an April fool of me all day, I just emptied the sugar
bowl and shut the sweet little innocent up in there. Mrs. Arp
is a dignified woman, especially at the table. She takes her
seat the last of all and after grace she arranges the cups in
the saucers, and the next thing is to put in the sugar and
cream and give it a little stir with a spoon. Mrs. Arp is afraid
of rats, and so when she stertched forth her sweet little
hand and removed the sugar dish top the varmint rose
suddenly to a perpendicular position, and stuck his red snout
just above the top edge. She saw him--I know she did
from the way she done. Anticipating a catastrophy, I had
slipped around to the rear and reached her just in time to
receive her into my affectionate arms as she was reaching
backward in a riotous and tumultuous manner. Shutting up
the animal again, I departed those coasts, and it took me
two days to mole-ify her lacerated feelings and make things
calm and serene. The next morning I turned him loose in the
garden, and before night he had run his underground
railroad right under a row of peas that was about ten inches
high, and cut the peas from the seed, and the tops was lying
flat and wilted, like a cabbage plant when the cut worms
find it.
Farmin' is a good deal like fishin'. Every time you start
out you can just see yourself catchin' 'em but after tryin'
every hole in the creek you go home sorrowfully, with a
fisherman's luck. But we are not
complainin' by no means, for we've got wheat enuf for
biskit every day and light-bread on Sunday, and a few
bushels to spare for them angels that's to come along
unawares sum of these days. We finished cuttin' the oat crop
this mornin', and what with them and the clover already
housed, the cattle are safe for another year. I imagine they
look sassy and thankful; but as for me, I am a used up
individual. Durin' harvest I have had to be a binder, and if
you don't know what that is, ask Harris. The ends of these
fingers which are now inscribin' this epistle are in a bad fix.
Skarified and done up with bull nettles and briars, they are as
sore as a school-boy's bile. There was sum variation to my
business, such as catchin' young rabbits, and findin' partridge
nests, and pickin' dewberries; but the romance wore off the
first day, and by the end of the next my wife says I was as
humble a man as any woman could desire. It's a mighty
purty thing to write about and make up oads and pomesou.
The golden grain, the manly reapers, the strutten' sheaves,
the song of the harvesters, and purty Miss Ruth coquettin'
around the fields of old man Boaz, and "how jokin' did they
drive their team afield," is all so sweet and nice to a man up
a tree with an umbrel, but if them poets had to tie wheat half
a day in a June sun, their sentimentality would henceforth
seek another subjek. I tried swingin' the cradle awhile, but
somehow or somehow else, I couldn't exactly get the lick. It
wasent the kind of a cradle I've been used to, and I am too
old a dog to learn new tricks now.
The branches are getting low. The corn is curling in the
blades. The mills grind a little in the morning and then wait
for the pond to fill. The locust is
singin' a parchin' tune. Summer flies keeps the cows' tails
busy, and all nature gives sign of a comin' drouth. I don't
like this, but am tryin' to be resigned. Before I turned
farmer such weather dident concern me much if I could
find a cool retreat, but now I realize how dependent is
mankind upon the farm, and the farmer upon Providence.
The truth is, its a precarious business all around, and I
sometimes catch myself a wishin' I was rich or had a sorter
side-show to my circus.
A sorry farmer on a sorry farm is a sorry spectacle. A
good farmer on poor land and a poor farmer on good land
are purty well balanced, and can scratch along if the
seasons hit; but I reckon a smart and diligent man with good
hands to back him is about as secure against the shiftin'
perils of this life as anybody can be; and then if a man could
have besides a few thousand dollars invested in stocks and
draw the intrust twice a year he ought to be as happy as
subloonary things can make him. Then, you see, he could
send off his children to school, and visit his kin, and keep a
cook and a top buggy and lay in some chaney ware and a
carpet for the old 'oman, and new bonnets and red ear-rings
for the girls, and have a little missionary money left.
If the drouth or the army worm or the caterpillar comes
along he would have something to fall back on and make
him always feel calm and sereen. I think I would like that -
wouldent you?--and I reckon there ain't no harm in prayin'
for it as Agur did when he said, "Give me neither poverty
nor riches." Most every aspirin' man I know of in the towns
and cities is lookin' forward to this blessed state. They work
and toil and twist, and dodge in and
dodge out, and do a thousand little things they are sorter
ashamed of, with a view at the last of settling down on some
good farm with creeks and springs and meadows and mills
and fine cattle, and windin' up a perplexin' life in peace with
mankind and communion with honest nature. No ambitious
man becomes lost to such pleasant hopes as these, and the
more trouble he has the more he longs for it, for it's about the
fittenest way I know of to get time to repent and make
preparation for shuffling off this mortal coil. But to all such
the outside investment is highly necessary. Even Beecher
could not get along without it--for there are a thousand little
leeks in farmin' that a man without experience can't stop, and
without capital can't remedy. Why, only this mornin' one of
my boys was driving across a bridge and the mule Joe got
skeered at his shadder and shoved Tom over on the hand rail
and it broke, and he fell in the creek and dragged Joe with
him, and the wagon, too, and broke the tongue all to pieces,
and the houns and the haims and the harness and the driver,
and both the mules set in to kickin' with the front end of the
wagon on top of 'em, and the hind end up on the bridge, and
you could have heard the racket for two miles without a
telefone; and the girls ran and screamed, and Mrs. Arp liked
to have fainted every step of the way, for she said she knew
Paul was killed as he fell, and kicked to death by the mules
and drowned afterwards, and it took two hours to clear the
wreck and restore the wounded and passify the women and
get everything once more calm and sereen. Now, you see,
there's some unforseen damages to pay and nobody to pay
'em and all we can do is to charge it up to the mule. I do think
that
we farmers ought to have some protection agin the like of
this, and I want to introduce a bill the next session, for
they've been protecting manufacturers for seventy-five
years and neglectin' agriculture, which is the very subsill of
a nation's prosperity. I wonder if our law-makers who can
save a State couldn't fix up an arrangement that would give
everybody a good price for what they had to sell, and put
everything down low what we had to buy, and then abolish
taxes and work the roads with the chain-gang, and let the
bell-punch run the government. Such a law would give
universal satisfaction and immortalize its author.
It's a thrillin' time when a country family
have invited their city cousins to visit 'em, and are fixin'
up to receive 'em in a hospitable manner.
The scouring mop and the floor-cloth and an old jar of
lye soap and a pan full of sand are not very elegant things
to handle, but they are useful and can't be abolished with
decency.
Everything around and about our premises is mighty
clean and nice now. I wish it would stay so. I don't care so
much about it myself, but it harmonizes with Mrs. Arp, and
the girls and the Scriptures. I'm afraid I'm a little heathenish
about such things, for I don't like to live under such
constraint--to have to scrape my shoes so much and shut the
doors and hang up my hat and empty the wash-bowl. I don't
like to see the ashes taken up quite so clean and so often
and so much sweeping and scrubbing. I don't think the
broom ought to be set in the corner upside down nor the
clean towel hid in the washstand where me and the little
boys can't find it. I think I would like a room somewhere
close about where me and the children could do as we
please and enjoy a little dirt on the floor and throw the saw
and the hammer and a few nails around and kick off our
muddy shoes and mould bullets and pop corn and play horse
and marbles and tumble up the bed and do as we please
and clean up things about once a month. But there's no
room to spare, and so I have to endeavor to live like
a gentleman whether I want to or not. I've got an idea that a
little clean dirt is healthy. I'm afraid that little tender children
are washed and bathed too much. Poor little things. It's very
disagreeable to 'em I never saw one that liked it, and that's
pretty good evidence it's not accordin' to nature. Once a
week is very reasonable, but this every night's business is a
sin. They say it keeps the pores open, but maybe they
oughtent to be kept open all the time. The surgeons say that
a handful of fresh earth bound on a flesh wound or a bruise
will cure it up, and I've found out that the best cure for
scratches in horses' feet is walking in fresh plowed ground. I
never saw a healthy child that didn't love to play in the dirt,
and the sand and make frog houses and mud pies. But still I
don't go to extremes. I don't want 'em to get so dirty their
skin hasn't got any pores at all and their little ears would
sprout turnip seed. Everything must be done in reason and in
season. There's some things I am mighty particular about--
such as clean dishes and butter and milk and sausage-meat.
I saw a woman milking the other day, and she pulled the calf
away by the calf's tail and then wiped off the cows tits
with the cow's tail and went to milking. I thought there was
too little water and too much tail in that.
But to return to the preparations for the reception. The
girls took matters in charge and for several days the
exciting episode went on. It was like clearing the deck of a
man-of-war for a fight. The house has been scoured and
scrubbed and sand-papered. Everything in it has been taken
down and put up again, and moved to a new place, and I
can't find anything now when I want it. The old faded
carpets have been taken up and patched all over, and
curtailed and put
down again. They get smaller and smaller, which they say
is a good way to wear 'em out without taking cold. The
furniture has been freshly varnished with kerosene oil; the
window glass washed on both sides, and the knives and
forks, water buckets, wash pans, and shovel and tongs
brightened up. The hearths have been painted a Spanish
brown, the soiled plastering whitewashed, the family
portraits dusted, and the pewter teapot and plated castors
and spoons and napkin rings polished as fine as a jewelry
store.
I surveyed the operations from day to day with
affectionate interest, for it does me good to see young
people work diligently in a meritorious cause; nevertheless
my routine of daily life appears to be somewhat demoralized.
On the first day our humble dinner was dispensed with and
me and the boys invited to lunch on bread and sorghum at a
side table. The next day we were allowed to lunch in the
back piazzer, for fear we would mess up the dining room,
and the next we were confined to the water-shed to keep us
from messing up the piazzer, and after that I meekly
prepared myself to be shoved out doors on a plank, but we
wasn't. Mrs. Arp lectures me every day on manners and she
don't confine her lectures to my private car. The last time
we had turkey we had company, and when I asked a lady if
she would have some of this fowl, my wife, Mrs. Arp, she
looked at me indignantly, and said: "William, this is not fowl -
it is turkey." When I asked the lady if she would have some
of the stuffin, Mrs. Arp, my wife, observed sarcastically, "Of
course she will have some of the 'dressing.' " You see, I
thought that dressing was generally worn outside, but it
seems
that a turkey is not dressed until it is undressed. Well, she
overlooked me when the pie was sent around; she overlooks
me a great deal, and when I ventured to remind her that I
would take some of the dessert, she said she didn't have
any Sahara, but maybe a desert of mince pie would do just
as well. We took tea at a nabor's once, and when a servant
handed me a little glass dish of peaches in a waiter, I
thought the whole concern was for me and set it down by
my plate. But my wife, Mrs. Arp, she watches me pretty
close and whispered to me to take some of the preserves
if I wanted any as the servant was waiting for the dish.
So after awhile I was handed a saucer of canned peaches,
and when I took one out and put it on my plate, my wife,
Mrs. Arp, kindly requested me to eat out of the saucer. She
has never got reconciled to the way I imbibe my coffee, for
you see I was raised to pour it out in the saucer, and when I
try to take it from the cup it burns me so I have to give it
up. Some folks will endure a heap for style, but I am too old
to begin it now. I think I do pretty well considering all
things and deserve credit.
Delicate hints have been given that it ain't polite to set
down to dinner with one's coat off, or eat hominy with a
knife, or smoke in the parlor. The wash bowl has been
turned upside down to keep us from using it. With this side
up it holds about a pint and a half, and as I was washing my
face with the tips of my fingers they surveyed me with a
look of unutterable despair. When I raise my workin' boots
on the banister rail for an evening rest they wipe it off
with a wet rag as soon as I leave. I musn't step on the
purty red hearth to make a fire or put a back log
on that weighs fifty pounds. They've put pillows on my bed
about half as big as a bale of cotton and fringed all round
like a petticoat. They are to stay on in day time and be
taken off at night. When I'm tired and feel the need of a
midday nap that bed was a comfort, but the best I can do
now is to sit up in my chair and nod. The dogs don't
understand the new system at all. Old Bows has been
coming in the house to the fire or lying in the piazza for
fourteen years, and it does seem impossible to break him of
it in a sudden though dogmatic manner. Broomhandles and
fishing-poles move 'em out at one door, but they slip in at
another.
I think the best thing I can do is to vamoose the ranch
and take the dogs and cats and children with me. We can
sleep on the hay in the loft and eat peas and drink water
and swell to keep from starvin'. Maybe Mrs. Arp and the
girls will take pity on us then and let us come back to the
old regulations. When the cousins come all will be well. I
wish they were here now.
It's bad luck now at our house. One of those peculiar
spells when everything goes wrong and nobody to blame
for it. Saw the new moon through a brush, I reckon. On
Monday, two of my pigs, just littered, got drowned in the
branch; Tuesday my shoats got into my potato patch;
Wednesday a nigger was found struttin' around town with
my equestrian walking cane, which was a present, and
which I dident know was lost, and yesterday mornin',
while Mrs. Arp was away, I thought it was a good time to
cut little Jessie's hair off, for it was continually gittin' down
over her eyes like any other country gal's, and so I shingled
it all over after a fashion of my own, and when her mother
came home I dident know at first but what she had took
the highsterics, but I soon found out better without much
assistance, if any, and all that day I had right smart
business away from the house. I gently suggested that it
was all owin' to the way she looked at the moon, but that
dident screen anything, for you see she was countin' on
showin' off the child at the fair, and now she can't. I am
hopeful, however, that when the ambrosial locks grow out
again our conjugal life will once more be calm and sereen.
Husbands! fathers! martyrs to wedded bliss, don't cut your
little girl's hair off without permission--don't.
It looks like my bad luck comes all in a bunch. You
see, I had dug a flower pit and rigged it up with
shelves and put glass windows in the top of it, and Mrs.
Arp and the girls had managed one way and another to fill
it with geraniums and all sorts of pretty things, and some
of them were in bloom and everything growing so nice and
smelt so sweet and the women folks were proud of 'em
and nursed them and watered them and showed them to
everybody; but yesterday they discovered some little
varmints, about as big as a gnat, were gathering on the
leaves and doing damage, and when they told me about it,
I didn't say nothing, but I thought I knew what would kill
'em, for I had tried it in the hen house, and it worked like
a charm. So I got some sulphur and put in an old pan and
set it afire and shut down the sash. Well, I've killed all the
bugs, that's a fact, and the misery of it is I have killed most
everything else. I'm not going to enlarge upon the
melancholy consequences, but will just say I wish my
folks would put on mourning and be done with it. I can't
stand this sort of resigned sadness that's hovering over us
much longer. If they would tear around and cut up awhile
and quit, I wouldent mind it, but this drooping way they've
got of going to the flower-pit like it was a graveyard is just
a-killin me. They don't say nothing, so I have been reading
history for consolation.
Old Bows is dead, my loving and trusty friend, the
defender of my children, the protector of my household in
the dark and silent watches of the night. For thirteen years
he has been both fond and faithful, and now we feel like
one of the family is dead. Bows was the best judge of
human nature I ever saw. He knew an honest man and a
gentleman by instinct. He never frightened a woman or a
child--he never went tearing down the front walk after
anybody, but the
very looks of him would mighty nigh scare a nigger to
death. When they had to come to our house they begun to
holler "hello" a quarter of a mile off. Bows loved to skeer
'em, he did. He had character and emotions. Having no tail
to wag (for he was not cur-tailed) he did the best that he
could and wagged where it ought to be. Bows was a dark
brindle. He was a dog of ancestors. His father was named
Shylock, and his grand-father's name was Sheriff. They
were all honorable dogs. He was not quarrelsome or
fussy. I never knew him to run up and down a nabor's
pairings after the dog on the other side. He was above it -
but he never dodged a responsibility. He has come in
violent personal contact with other dogs a thousand times,
more or less, and was never the bottom dog in the fight.
And then what an honest voice he had. His bark was not
on the C, but it was a deep, short basso profundo. We
have buried him on the brow of the hill where he used to
sit and watch for tramps and stragglers. Slowly and sadly
we laid him down. Talk about your sheep--I wouldn't
have given him for a whole flock. Sheep are to eat and
wear, but Bows was a friend. It's like comparing appetite
with emotion--the animal with the spiritual. But I am
done now. Let Harris press on his dog law. I've got nothin'
agin sheep--in fact, I like 'em. Ever since Mary had a
little lamb I've thought kindly of sheep, and I am perfectly
willin' to a law that will exterminate all hounds and suck-egg
pups and yeller dogs and bench-leg fices. They are a
reflection on Bows' memory.
Yesterday morning about the broke of day a big clap of
thunder come along and shook a month's rain out of the
clouds in half an hour. My old friend
Peckerwood says he's lived here thirty-five years and
never seed the like before. It dident rain nor pour, but just
come down in horizontal sheets, and the little branches
turned into creeks, and the creeks into rivers and they
swelled out of their channels and all over the bottom land,
and tore down fences and bridges and water-gates and
carried off rails and planks and watermelons and punkins,
and the low ground corn ain't nigh as high as it was, and
there's a dozen places in the farm where my nabor's hogs
can walk into my fields and help themselves if they want
to, you know, for I never saw a gate open or the bars
down that there wasent an educated hog in sight
somewhere. I reckon a hundred people have told me I had
the well-wateredest farm in the county, and now I believe
it; but if you know of a man who has got one that ain't
quite so well-watered, and is a mile or two high, and not
subject to the avalanch, and I keep in my present humor,
please send him along and I'll swap.
Everywhere that a fence crossed a slew or a branch it's
washed away for a dozen panels, and the big long logs
that swung the water gates are gone, and the plank fences
on both sides of the big road are gone, and now it takes
all the hands and the dogs to keep the nabor's hogs back
while we are repairin' damages, and reminds me of the
time we used to guard the road to keep the small-pox
from comin' to town.
The meandering swine whose fourfathers ran down into
the sea have been perusin' the pasture, and now it's open
to the later patch, and so we've had to pen up everything
in the barn-yard together, and the old sow has been
samplin' the young chickens, and the Governor (that's our
man cow) tried to horn General
Gordon, the finest colt perhaps you ever laid your eyes
on; and this morning as I was a movin' about with alacrity,
Mrs. Arp told me the flour was out and I told her to run us
on shorts, and she said the shorts was out, and I hollered
back to run us on meal, and she said the meal was out, and
then I surrendered and had some wheat and corn sent to
the mill, and in about an hour Ralph come back and said
one mill dam had washed away and the other mill had up
the rocks a peckin' of 'em, and the creek was still a risin'
and he couldn't cross any more, and I sent him to one
nabor to borrow and they had locked up and gone a
visitin', and another nabor didn't have but a handful in the
house, and so here we are jest a perishin' to death in the
name of the State, and if you and your folks have got any
bowels now is the time to extend to me and my folks your
far reachin' sympathies--ain't it?
And Mrs. Arp thought it a good day to clean up the
kitchen and scour up the pans and cook-vessels, and the
girls said shorely nobody would come foolin' around in
such wether, and they went to moppin' and sloppin' over
the house, and shore enuf about four o'clock this evenin' p. m.,
in the afternoon a couple of nice young gentlemen
swum their horses all the way from town to get to see 'em,
and there was no darkey to open the door and my black-eyed
Pocahontas had it to do, and she got behind it and
hid and ax'd 'em in, and about sundown I come home and
I told 'em I was agoin' to put up their nags and they must
stay all night, which was the boldest venture on the least
capital I ever made in my life, but they respectfully
declined, which was fortunate for them, for although bright
eyes and rosy cheeks and
bang'd up hair may have some effect on a young man's
heart, they are mighty little comfort to his stomach--ain't
they?
And it ain't done freshin' yet, for the frogs are croakin'
and the air is full of swet and the salt sticks together and
the camphor bottle is cloudy, and I don't think Mrs. Arp is
as smilin' as usual, and all of these signs hardly ever fail at
once, you know.
Such is life and I can't help it. The bad and the good, the
wet and the dry, is all mixed up together. I have spread
forth my trouble and feel better. There's lots of folks in my
fix, and I want 'em to know I sympathize. I'm sorry for
'em, and if they are sorry for me it's all right. As Cobe
says, it's all right. We have got a power of good things to
be thankful for. A little boy was drowned in my nabor's
mill-pond yesterday, but he wasn't mine. The doctor
passes my house most every day, but he don't stop. There
was a barn full of corn and mules burnt up in the settlement
last week, but it wasent mine. The poor-house is just up
the road a piece, but we don't board there. I'm not a
candidate for any office. I've got plenty to eat right now,
and when we get tired of our homely fare we can just step
over to nabor Freeman's and fare better. There's nothing
like having a good nabor in eating distance--for we don't
have to dress up nor put on any particular style about it,
but just send up word we are coming up to supper and it's
all right. Folks can't do that way in town.
I don't hear of many folks getting rich. I don't know of
but a few who are making more than a good fair living,
and there's ten to one who are powerfully scrouged to do
that. The majority of mankind are always on a strain.
Most of them work hard enough, but somehow or
somehow other, they can't get ahead, and a good many
are in old Plunket's fix who said he was even with the
world, for he owed about as much as he dident owe.
Some folks are just like hogs. They won't stay in one
place or keep at one business long enough to make
anything, but are always a rooting and ranging around for
new places. I've noticed children picking blackberries -
some will stay at a bush until they have gathered 'em all
and others will spend nearly all the time in hunting for a
better place. You can tell 'em by their buckets when they
get home. My good old father used to say he never knew
a man to stick closely to a business for ten years but what
he made money--that is, excepting preaching and
politics. The one don't want to make it and the other can't
keep it, as a general rule, for money made easy goes
easy. When a lawyer gets five dollars for writing
a deed he spends it before night, but if he had to make
ten bushels of corn to get it he would carry
it in his pocket just as long as he could. It's altogether
another sort of a V. But it's all right, provided we are
happy, and I don't think there is much difference in
this respect between the poor
and the rich. I used to be sorter envious of rich people and
wondered at Providence for letting them have so much
more than they needed, but I ain't now; I've got more
sense, for I perceive they are no happier than I am, and
then, besides, when they begin to get old their grip
weakens, and they build up colleges and churches, and
orphans' homes, and establish libraries and other
institutions. If they don't do that, their children get it, and as
a general rule they scatter it all before they die, for it comes
easy and will go the same way. So it's all right in the long
run and if it ain't I can't help it, and I'm not going to grieve
over what I can't remedy. Honest industry and a contented
disposition is the best insurance company for happiness in
this world and will make a man independent of fine houses
and fine clothes and the luxuries of life on the one side, and
court houses and jails and pinching poverty on the other. It
seems to me that somebody has said something like this
before, but I'll say it again anyhow. There's one thing I
consider settled--my children will have no chance to
waste and squander my money, for there won't be any left
to speak of and it will be such a long division the fractions
will be too small to fuss about. Turn about is fair play, and
if we take care of them in infancy and youth and spend the
last dollar we get on 'em, they must look after us when we
get old and helpless--and they will, I know. We've tried to
make their young lives happy. I've mighty nigh wore myself
out playing horse and marbles and carrying 'em on my
back, and rolling 'em in a wheelbarrow, and doing a
thousand things to please 'em, and that's more than a rich
man will do, who is all absorbed in stocks and bonds and
speculation, and goes home at night with money on
the brain. He's no father--he ain't; he's a machine. The
average family man is hard run. There's nobody perishing
or freezing in this sunny land, and very few folks boarding
at the poor-house, but still there is a general struggle going
on in the town and the country. Most everybody is in debt
more or less, and what one crop don't pay has to lap over
on the next. The merchants say that money is awful tight
right now, and I reckon it is. I'm sorry for the merchants,
for as a general thing money is their sole dependence. If he
hasent got any money he is a busted institution, and that is
where the advantage of being a farmer comes in. He can
be out of money and still squeeze along, for he has corn
and wheat and sheep and hogs and chickens, and don't
have to wear store clothes to any great extent, and his
children can wear their old ones a long time and go bare
headed and bare footed when there's no company around.
Town folks have to dress better and dress oftener,
whether they can pay for 'em or not. But it is a hard time
all round to make a living, and I don't know exactly what
is the matter. The average family is not extravagant. They
understand the situation at home and try to conform, but it
looks like they are just obleeged to fudge a little and go in
debt, and then the misery begins. When the good man gets
his mail from the post-office he is most afraid to open it for
fear of a dun. These darned little just debts, as Saul
McCarney used to call 'em, hang around like a shadow.
The four D's are mighty close kin--debt, duns, death
and the devil--and one is nearly as welcome as the
other. A man who was born rich and managed to keep so,
or a man who was born poor and has gotten rich, don't
know much about the horror of
debt and hasent got much sympathy for the debtor class
and is very apt to lay it all to their imprudence or bad
management, but the fact is most of our rich men got a start
before the war or built up on the ruins of it before society
with its extravagance got hold of 'em. They couldent do
it now. I know lots of rich men who, if they were to lose
their fortunes, couldent start now and make another.
They think they could, but they couldent; mankind are too
smart and too sharp now for an old-fashioned man to
stand any chance. He would get licked up in his first
experiment. Money makes money and money can keep
money after it is made, but there is a small chance now for
a young man to make money and save it and keep in
gunshot of society. He can bottle himself up and remain a
bachelor and turn his back on society and accumulate a
fortune, but the trouble is that most of 'em want to marry
and ought to marry, and if he bottles himself up and spends
nothing and dresses common he is not the sort of man the
girls are waiting for. And so if he spends freely and rides
around, he is apt to get married, and then comes house rent
and servant's hire and clothes according, and he squeezes
along and is always on the strain. There are mighty few
getting rich now-a-days, but when a man does get a start,
he can get richer than they used to. A half a million now is
about what fifty thousand used to be. But the average man
is not going to get rich, and I reckon it is the common lot,
and therefore it is all right. Nobody ought to distress
himself about it, or hanker after money, but somehow I
can't help wishing that our common people were a little
better off.
and middle aged men. Let us pat 'em on the back and
point to the flag and say, "Excelsior." It will help 'em climb
the mountain. Jesso--but I said awhile back that this
generation will not produce men as grand as our fathers,
and it won't. There are no young men who give promise of
equaling Clay or Webster or Calhoun or Crawford or
Forsyth or Troup or Howell Cobb or Toombs, in the days
of his splendor, or Stephens or Joseph Henry Lumpkin or
Warner or Walter T. Colquitt, and a score of others I
could name. I am talking about grand men--men who
stood away above their fellows and adorned society like
mountains adorn and dignify a landscape. Nobody is to
blame about it that I know of, for it comes according to
nature's laws and the decrees of Providence, and I reckon
it's all right. Those grand men of the olden time have
served their day and accomplished their work. They
moulded manners and statesmanship and great principles
and patriotism, and the masses looked up to them and
learned wisdom. All this was in the days of Southern
aristocracy, and these grand men had abundant leisure and
dident have to be on the wild hunt for money. It was the
aristocracy of dominion, for dominion dignified a man then,
and it does now just as it did in the days of the centurion,
who said: "I say unto this man go, and he goeth, and to
another come, and he cometh." Dominion over men makes
a man feel a responsibility that nothing else does, and this
responsibility enlarges his moral nature and ennobles him
as a gentleman and a philosopher. It is this feeling that
dignifies judges and railroad presidents, and captains of
ships, and generals in armies. They can all command men
and be obeyed.
But the time came in the Providence of God for a
change. The masses of the people were under a cloud.
They were overshadowed, and the wreck of the slave
aristocracy, together with the results of the war, made an
opening for them and their children. Humbler men have
come to the front and now run the machine. The masses
are looming up. Overseers have got rich. Poor boys, who
had a hard time, are now our merchant princes. The old
lines of social standing are broken down, and one man is
as good as another, if he succeeds. Success is everything
now, especially success in making money. Statesmanship
has gone down. Great learning is at a discount, money
makes presidents, and governors and members of
Congress. We talk about a candidate's "bar'l" now just as
we used to talk about his eloquence or his service to his
country. Everywhere there is a wild rush for money, and it
don't matter how a man gets it so he gets it.
Now, how can this sort of an age produce great men?
How can the young men escape the infection! Where is
any purity or honor in politics or in the court house? When
a man has to resort to deceit or hypocrisy or questionable
means to support his family he loses his self-respect, and
when his self-respect is gone his ability to be a great man is
gone. He can't do it. No man is truly great who is not
honest and sincere and a lover of his fellow-men. A
lawyer who lies or resorts to tricks--a merchant who
conceals the truth may get rich, but they will never be great
I tell you the grand old men are gone, or going, and their
places will not be filled by this generation nor the next. The
next generation will be worse than this, for these people
who have sprung up and
got rich are going to get richer, and they will spoil their
children with money and a fashionable education. They are
doing it now, and by and by these children will get to be
proud and vain and no account, and won't work, and
finally go down the hill their father climbed. Stuck up
vagabonds will marry the girls, and the boys will loaf
around town and play billiards and drive a fast horse. A
man who was raised poor and by a hard struggle gets rich,
is the biggest fool in the world about his children. He came
from one extreme and puts his children on the other.
Nevertheless I am hopeful, and if I do sometimes take
the shady side, I mean no harm by it. I am always
reconciled to what I cannot help. The wild rush for a big
pile of surplus money alarms me, for the older I grow the
surer I am that the surplus will not bring happiness or be a
blessing to the children. There is no security except in
honest industry, and boys won't work whose fathers are
rich. Old Agur was right. "Lord give me neither poverty
nor riches, lest if I be rich I take thy name in vain or lest I
be poor and steal." But there is some comfort in this great
change from the old to the new. The common people have
a better chance than they used to have. All classes are
assimilating and becoming more alike--more on an
equality. One man is about as good as another now, if not
better. The Joe Brown type is in the ascendant, and the
humblest man has an equal chance for the highest honors.
So let it rip along, for a wise Providence is above us.
Cobe says he "aint makin' a blessed thing--no corn,
no 'taters, no cotton, no nuthin'--and Willy is down with
the new-money, and the chickens all died
with the cholera;" and then he gave a three-cornered grin
and squeezed his tobacco between his teeth as he
remarked, "but, major, it ain't nigh as bad as it mout be; it
ain't nigh as bad as war." Then he stuck his heels in the
little mule's flanks and away he went galloping up the road.
There used to be a bureau called the bureau of refugees
and abandoned lands. Cobe says if them yankees will
revive it now he is about ready to jine the concern. Says
he will do most anything except beg or steal, or go to the
poor house. So when I feel melancholy I think about Cobe
and cheer up. The truth is, we all borrow too much
trouble. It is better to look back once in awhile and recall
the vast amount of fears and forebodings that were wasted
and maybe that will give us brighter hopes of the future.
There's a new lot of boys a circulatin' around us now.
Grand-children have come to visit us and see the spring
show open in our country home. Penned up for months in
a little city, they have lived in a sort of prison home and
feel now like school boys when recess comes--want to
go out and rock somebody. They hardly took time to kiss
and say howdy and shuck off their store clothes before
they were off--dabblin' in the branch, rockin' the ducks
in the little pond, frightenin' the ganders as they stand guard
over their sitting mates, digging bait, fishing for minners,
rollin' an old hogshead down the hill, breakin' the bull calf
and every half hour sendin' to grandma for some more
gingerbread. Here they go and there they go, while their
poor mother jumps up every five minutes to see if they
havent got killed or drowned or turned over the hen-house.
She like to have took a
fit this mornin' as she looked out of the window and seen
'em coming down the big road with a calf a pullin' a little
wagon with gum-log wheels. One a pullin' haw, another
pullin' gee, and four of 'em a ridin' and all a hollerin' tell
they made such a racket the calf took a panic and run
away with the whole concern and never stopped tell he
got in the branch and landed their gable ends in the water.
Blessings on the children and the children's children.
How I do love to have 'em around and see 'em frolic, and
ever and anon hear one squall with a cut finger or a
stumped toe, or the bark knocked off his hide
somewhere. What a pity they have got to grow up and see
trouble and be sent to the legislature or congress, and
there get a little behind in morals and money. But sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof.
My little boy geared up an imitation bug last night, made
of black cloth with horse-hair legs--an awful looking
varmint--and slyly swung it before me on a stick, and I
had like to have a fit, trying to knock the ugly thing out of
my face. The little rascal just laid down and hollered, and
the family ain't done laughing about it till yet. Mrs. Arp
sometimes tells me I let them take too many liberties with
the dignity of their paternal ancestor, but it's all right, I
reckon. And I noticed the other night when the girls jerked
her up from the sofa and whirled her round the room to the
music of the dance, she submitted to it with a humility and
a grace that was impressive. I like that. I like an
affectionate familiarity between parents and children,
though I want it understood that I'm the boss of the family,
that is, when Mrs. Arp is away from home. I give 'em
butter on their biscuit as a regular thing, but when I put
sugar on the butter I expect 'em to be more than ordinarily
grateful.
I was discoursing Mrs. Arp, my wife, about that last
night. You see, it was New Year, and I called on her. I
dident have any swallow-tail coat and white kids, but I
called. I had procured a bunch of misseltoe full of pearly
berries, and I got the girls to make it into a wreath with
some heliotrope blossoms, and sweet violets, and
geraniums, and strawberry blooms which they had in the
pit, and as she sat by the parlor fire I came in and
addressed her: "Fair lady, I come with the New Year's
greeting. May it bring you joy and peace, and love and
rest, and happy days. Thirty long years of devotion and
arduous duty in the infantry service of your country entitles
you to be crowned the queen of love and beauty. Allow
me to encircle your brow with this wreath." She enjoyed
that first-rate, and when the girls took off the chaplet to
show it to her, she remarked with a touch of sadness, "It
is very beautiful, but your promising parent has been
promising me a tiara of diamonds for thirty years, and now
he pays me off in mistletoe and flowers." "Solomon," said
I, "in all his glory, had no such gems as these. You know,
my dear, I have always desired to be able to purchase a
diamond ring and breast-pin and a diamond tiara for you,
not that you need any ornaments to make you beautiful
and attractive, for all the gems of Golconda could add
nothing to your natural loveliness."
"Ralph," said she, "your father has got a fit; you had better
throw some water on him."
"But then," continued I, "the love of ornament is natural
to women; Isaac knew her weakness when he sent
Rebecca the ear-rings and bracelets. The ear-rings
weighing half a shekel apiece, which, according to the
tables, made the pair worth exactly sixty-two and a half
cents. It rejoices me, my dear, that I shall soon be able to
present you with a full set of genuine diamonds of the first
water."
"When did you get so suddenly rich?" says she. "Have
you drawn a prize in a lottery?" "Not at all, by no means,"
said I. "But a London chemist has just discovered how to
make diamonds of charcoal. They have known for 20
years how to make charcoal out of diamonds, but now
they reverse the process and pure diamonds will soon be
manufactured on a large scale, and it is predicted will be
sold at about 8 dollars a bushel. When they get down to
that price, my dear? I am going to buy you a whole quart
and you can string 'em all over you and cook in 'em and
wash in 'em and make up the beds in 'em. I'm going to
stick a kohinoor in the end of the broom handle. What do
you think of that, my dear, won't it be elegant?"
"No it won't" said she. "I don't want any of your
charcoal diamonds. Eight dollars a bushel is 25 cents for
the quart you propose to spend on me. I wouldn't be so
extravagant if I were you. No, I thank you. Isaac spent
more than that on Rebecca, and didn't hurt himself. Buy
me a carriage and horses and I'll do without the diamonds.
They were intended for homely folks, and I am so
beautiful and lovely I don't need them. Suppose you try
me with
a pearl necklace. I reckon your London man is not making
pearls out of charcoal, is he?"
"Why, that's an old trick," said I. "Parisian jewelers have
them at fifty cents a string and you can't tell them from the
genuine. What does it matter if they are cheap so they are
beautiful? What are all the gems of the ocean to be
compared to these fragrant and lovely flowers that cost us
nothing? Beautiful flowers that 'weep without woe and
blush without a crime.' I never liked golden ornaments,
nohow; as Tom Hood says, it's 'bright and yellow, hard
and cold;' you can't tell it from brass without close
inspection, and it wouldent be worn as jewelry if it was
cheap. I wish everything was cheap--cheap as the air and
the water. Then we wouldent be tied down to one little
spot all the time, but we would travel--we would go to
Florida and California and London and Paris and all over
the Alps, and see the pyramids and the city of Jerusalem,
and when we got tired we would come back home again
and rest. Wouldent that be splendid?"
"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Arp. "All that is very romantic, but
it sounds very much like 'college talk,' as old Mr.
Dobbins would say. Whenever he hears anybody gassing
around or talking extraordinary he says, 'Oh, that don't
amount to anything. Its college talk.' He says he never
knew a college-bred man that didn't build air-castles, and
imagine a heap more than ever come in sight. We are right
here on this farm and we will never see California nor the
pyramids, and I'll never see the diamonds nor the pearls,
and I don't care to, but I never like cheap things for they
are not much account--so we'll fall back on the flowers,
and when you have a little money
to spare I want to send on for a few choice ones and a
collection of seed. Do you understand?"
"I do, madam," said I, "you are a sensible woman. You
shall have the money if I have to sell my Sunday boots.
'Bring flowers, bring flowers to the fair young bride.' "
I believe it's a good rule for everybody to attend to their
own business. The other night I was reading aloud to the
family about a feller who was standing at the forks of the
road with an umbrella over him, when a flock of sheep
came along and got tangled up, and so he thought he
would help the driver by shooing 'em a little and waving his
umbrel. An old ram dident like that and suddenly made for
him and went through his umbrel like it was a paper hoop,
and having knocked him down in the mud, he had to lay
there until about a hundred sheep jumped over him one at
a time When he arose and took in his dilapidated
condition, he remarked: "The next time I see a drove of
sheep a-coming I reckon I'll attend to my own business."
Next day Mrs. Arp, my wife, was fixing to grind up
sausage meat and I ventured to remark that if she would
salt the pieces before she put them through the machine, it
would save her a heap of trouble. Her sleeved were rolled
up and as she looked at me she assumed a chivalric
attitude and remarked: "There will be an old ram after you
the first thing you know." Of course I retired in good
order, and now I can't make a remark about domestic
affairs without having that old ram thrown up to me. You
see a woman has more liberty of speech than a man, for its
mighty nigh the only liberty she has and I don't begrudge
her the use of it. But then their five senses
are more sensitive and acute than ours. In fact I think my
wife, Mrs. Arp, has seven or eight, for she can come to a
conclusion about things so quick it makes my head swim,
and I know she must have some perceptions unknown to
the books. She can hear more unaccountable noises in the
night, and see more dirt on the floor and smell more
disagreeable odors than anybody in the world. I won't say
she can point partridges, but a few years ago our nabor
come over one day and said he had lost his dog, and my
wife, Mrs. Arp, laid down her knitting, and says she: "That
dog is in our well. The water has tasted and smelt dog all
day." We all laughed at her and continued to use the water
for two or three days, but she dident. Finally, we give it up
that something was wrong, and I sent a darkey down a
hundred feet to the bottom, and shore enough there was
the dog.
Well, the rats took possession of our house not long ago
and we could hear 'em at all times of night ripping around
overhead and playing tag and leap-frog, till it was past
endurance. So I got some rat poison that was warranted to
drive 'em away to water, and shore enough they
disappeared and we were happy. The next morning my
wife, Mrs. Arp, was snuffing around about the mantel-piece,
and says she, "William, these rats are dead, but they
never went after water--they are in these walls." Well, we
dident pay much attention until next day, when some of the
family thought there was a very faint taint in the
atmosphere. We waited another day, and then had to take
down the mantel-piece and found six dead ones behind it
as big as young squirrels, and we have mighty nigh tore the
house all to pieces hunting for the rest of 'em. Fact is, we
had to quit the room,
and it's just gittin' so now we can live in it. There's no
fooling such a nose with fraudulent combinations. If a man
ventures to take a little something for his stomach's sake
and his often infirmities, she can tell what kind of medicine
it was by the time he gets to the front gate, which to say
the least of it is very inconvenient.
OLD THINGS ARE PASSING AWAY AND ALL THINGS
HAVE BECOME NEW.
That is the way it used to be in Scripture times, and it is
the same way now. I wonder what were their old things?
In those primitive days there were not very many things of
any kind--not much invention or contrivance--no
steamboats, no steam cars, or telegraphs, or telephones,
or sewing machines, or telescopes, or spectacles, or
cooking stoves, or reaping machines, or threshing
machines, or patent plows, or cotton factories, or wool
carders, or printed books, or the like. But still I suppose
they did improve some, and shook off the old ways of
living, and cooking, and dressing. I was looking at a
venerable patch-work quilt the other day that a good old
lady made some forty years ago, and it was very nice and
pretty; and right beside it, on another bed, was a printed
one that was pretty, too. One cost days and weeks of
labor, and the fingers got tired, and so did the eyes, and I
reckon the back; and if the labor and time could be fairly
computed, it was worth twenty five dollars, and now one
can be made for a dollar that is just as good and just as
pretty. What a world of trouble our forefathers and
foremothers had! And yet they were just as happy and got
along about as easy as we do. They dident want much
and they dident have much. They had simple ways and
simple habits. They prized what they had made a good
deal more than we do what we buy. When the
good housewife put the last stitch in a woolen coverlet, or
even a pair of woolen socks, she felt happy. Her work
was a success and it was a pride.
The other day I received a present of a pair of socks,
knit with golden silk, and the good old lady wrote me a
note with her trembling fingers that this was the 865th pair
that she had knit upon the same needles; that she began
more than half a century ago and had knit for young and
old, for silver weddings and golden weddings, and for
weddings that were new-born--when the lily and the rose
put their first blush upon the maiden's cheek; that she had
knit scores of pairs for the soldiers in the last terrible war,
both in the field and in the hospital, and that she had never
lost any time from her other household duties, but knit only
after her other labors were done.
Well, it is a wonderful amount of work to think about. I
know some venerable women, who are close akin and
very dear to me, who have been working in the same way,
too. They havent knit as much, but they have sewed and
patched and darned for large households and never
complained. It is a world of work for a mother to keep
her children clothed, especially in these days when it takes
more clothes than it used to. How many little jackets and
waists, and breeches, and shirts, and drawers, and
petticoats, and dresses, and aprons, and socks, and
stockings! When the great pile of clothes comes in from
the washer-woman and Mrs. Arp sits down beside it
to assort out and put away in the different drawers, I look
on with amazement, and wonder when she made them all. Why, it
takes about sixty different garments for our youngest
child, who is only ten years old, and she hasent got
anything fine--not very fine. There are about ten little
dresses, mostly calico, and a like number
of undergarments and stockings and aprons, but it
takes work, work--lots of work--and the sewing
machine rattles away most all the time. What a blessing
that wonderful invention is to woman, for society is
exacting and progressive, and the families of moderate
means could hardly keep in sight of the rich if all the
stitches had to be made by hand. As it is, we keep up
pretty well--that is, we keep in a respectable distance -
and our folks can fix up well enough to go to church and
send the children to school.
The old ways were pretty hard ways, and the next
generation is not going to work like the last. I am glad that
it won't have to, for it is a waste of time and toil to make a
patch-work quilt now, or to knit the stockings, or to beat
the biscuit dough, or to bake them in a spider with coals
underneath and coals on top of the heavy old-fashioned
lid. Our mothers used to do all that "when niggers was,"
but the cooking stove came along just in the right time,
and now it is much easier to cook "when niggers wasent."
Everything was hard to do in the old times. It was hard
to thresh out the wheat with a couple of hickory flails. I
have swung them many a day until my arms were tired,
and I could find only a few bushels under the straw after a
half day's work. But it made me strong and made the
wheat bread taste mighty good. I remember the first
cotton gin that was put up in our country, and the long
round bags we used to pack with a crow-bar, and how
we used to wagon it to Augusta and camp out at night and
hear the old trusty wagoners recite their wonderful
adventures. It was a glorious time to us boys, and when
we got back home again and brought sugar, and salt, and
coffee, and molasses, and shoes all
round for white and black with the wooden measures in
them, and the names written upon them all, the family was
as happy and merry as if Christmas had come before its
time. I remember when a pocketknife was a wonderful
treasure, and a pair of boots the height of all ambition. But
now a pocket-knife is nothing to a boy. He can lose it in a
month and get another, and if he isent born in boots, he
gets them soon after.
"I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn."
Well, there was no glass in that window--only a
shutter--and there was no ceiling overhead. But we boys
kept warm under the cover of a winter night, and when the
rain pattered on the shingle roof above us it was the
sweetest and most soothing lullaby in the world. Folks
would complain now if their children had to put up with
such a shelter, and I reckon they ought to, for this
generation haven't been raised that way and they couldent
stand it. But we found out during the war what we could
stand, and it dident take us very long to get used to it. A
shingle roof and a plank window would have been a luxury
then. But even war is not as hard as it used to be. Here is
a road in front of my house that Gen. Jackson's soldiers
cut out, and it is called Jackson's road yet. He cut it out
for a hundred miles during the war of 1812. In those days,
when the soldiers wanted to march across a country, they
had to carry the roads with them. They had to make them
as they went along; but now the railroads pick up an army
and hurry it along - everything is lightning now.
Truly, the old things are done away. Farewell to home-made
chairs, and home-made jeans, and the old back log,
and the crane that swung in the kitchen fire-place, and to
home-made baskets, and shuck collars, and shuck foot-mats,
and dominicker chickens and oldfashioned cows, and
castor oil, and paregoric, and opodeldoc, and salts, and
sassafras tea. Farewell to marigolds and pinks and holly-hocks,
for there are finer flowers now. Farewell to
simplicity of manners, and water without ice, and temperate
habits, and contented dispositions. Farewell to abundance
of time to come and to go and to stay, for everybody is in a
hurry now--a dreadful hurry--for there is a pressure
upon us all, a pressure to keep up with the crowd, and the
times, and with society. Push ahead, keep moving, is the
watchword now, and we must push or we will get run over,
and be crushed and forgotten.
So let us all work and keep up if we can. We must fall
into line and keep step to the new music that is in the air.
"Old Hundred" is gone, and "Sweet Home," and "Kathleen
Mavourneen," and "Billy in the Low-grounds," and now it
is something else that passeth comprehension. But there is
no use in complaining about what we cannot help, for
some things are better, even if others are worse. We can
still do our duty and put on the brakes for our children.
We can tell them to go slow and go sure. Be honest.
Money is a good thing, but money gained by fraud or by
luck will do no good. Money earned by honest, diligent
labor is the only kind that will stick to a man and do good.
Money is a social apology for lack of brains or lack of
education or graceful manners, but it is no apology for lack
of honesty or good
principles. Make money, save money, but not at the
sacrifice of self-respect or the respect of others. Some
things pay in the short run and for a little while, but honesty
and truth and diligence pay in the long run, and that is the
run we have to die by. Folks differ about religion and
politics, but all mankind agree on this. It is old-fashioned
talk, I know, but some old-fashioned things are good yet.
I have even got respect for my rheumatism, for it has stuck
by me like a friend for a long time, and is nearly the only
disease that has not changed its name and its pain since I
was a boy.
Another busy year has gone--gone like the water that
has passed over the dam--gone never to return. It has
carried many friends along with it and left sad memories in
our household, but on the whole it has been a good year
to us all, and Providence has been kind. Now is the time
to look back and review the past--to take an account of
stock like the merchants do--a time to be thankful for
what we have received, and to compare our condition,
not with those who are better off, but with those who are
worse off.
It is a good time to feel happy, for there is something
about Christmas that seems like a recess from a long year
of work, and toil, and tribulation. Man needs just such a
rest for body, and mind, and spirit. These periods of
relaxation prolong life, both of man and beast. If it were
not for the Sabbath we would wear out before we get old,
and I remember reading a long time ago about some
emigrants going overland to California. Some of them
rested their teams every Sunday, and some did not, and
the first got there several days ahead, and were in the best
condition at the end of the long journey. But one day in
seven is not enough--we want a whole week at the end
of the year, and according to Scripture it is a good thing to
have a whole year in seven--a year of jubilee when even
the land we till shall have a rest and a time to recover
itself and renew its wasted
energies. Blessings on the holy fathers who established the
Christmas holidays, and on the good men who for
eighteen centuries have preserved it for us and our
children. It is a blessed heritage and belongs to all alike -
the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the king and
his subject. But these good old ways are changing and
becoming circumscribed. Christmas used to last from the
25th of December to the 6th of January, and for twelve
days there was neither work nor toil, nor official business,
nor suits for debt, dunning, nor preparations for war, but
all was peace and pleasure and kindly feelings. The
peasant was on a level with the prince, and the girls and
boys wore chaplets of ivy and laurel and holly and
evergreen, and it was no sin for them to take a sly kiss
while the rosemary wreaths encircled their brows, for a
kiss under the rose was an emblem of innocence and had
the sanction of heaven, and love whispered while wearing
the mistletoe crown was too pure to be lost or betrayed.
I love the old superstition that clusters around this
season of joy and gladness. Long did I lament the day
when my childish eyes were opened and I learned there
was no Saint Nicholas nor Santa Claus, no reindeer on the
roof, no coming down the chimney to fill the stockings that
hung by the mantel. Even now I would fain believe, with
Shakespeare, that for these twelve days witches, and
hobgoblins, and devilish spirits had to fly away from the
haunts of men and hide themselves in the dark pits and
caves of the earth, while the good spirits who love and
watch over us nestled their invisible forms among the
evergreens that hung upon the walls. It was pleasant to
think that on the last day of the twelve the cattle knelt
down at midnight and humbly prayed that souls
might be given them when they died, so that they too,
might live in heaven and worship God. I hope the poor
things will have a good time in the next world, for they see
a rough one in this, and I reckon they will, considering
what a splendid pair of horses came down after the
prophet Elijah. Heaven wouldn't be any the less heaven to
me to find my good dog Bows up there, all renewed in his
youth, and to receive the glad welcome that wags in his
diminished tail.
How naturally we become reconciled to the approach
of death. How tired we get fighting through the hard battle
of life. I remember when it was the grief and horror of my
young life that sometime or other I would have to
surrender and give it up, but I don't care now. Let it
come. I would not live it over again if I could. I do not
lament like Job that I was ever born, but still I have no
desire to hold on and worry and struggle for several
hundred years longer, as did the old patriarchs before the
flood. If I was a good man, and everything moved
along serenely I wouldn't care, but there's a power of
trouble and we make the most of it ourselves. Like
David and Solomon, we keep sinning and repenting, and
the memory of it haunts a man and cuts into him like a knife,
and all sorts of friends come along and clutch the handle
and give it a gentle twist. Not one in a thousand will
pull it out and put a little salve on the wound.
I always thought it a pretty idea to weigh a man--to put
his life in a pair of balances, the good on
one side and the
bad on the other, and let him rise to heaven or fall below
it, as the scales might turn. I know it's not an orthodox
doctrine exactly, for they
say that one bad deed will outweigh a thousand good
ones. Nevertheless, Belshazzer was weighed, and the
Scriptures abound in such figures of speech. It will take
miracles of grace to save us all anyhow, and it becomes
everybody to help one another, for the devil is doing his
best. David committed murder, and Solomon worshipped
idols, Cain killed his brother, and Jacob cheated Esau out
of his birthright, and Noah got drunk and Peter denied his
Master; but they all repented and got forgiveness, and if
there's any difference between folks now and then I don't
know it, unless it is that they had the strongest support and
the least temptation to fall.
But then, a man ought not to take too much comfort
from such comparisons, for they savor of vanity, and
vanity don't save anbody nor keep him from doing wrong.
A man who moves along the pathway of life happily and
serenely in the midst of cares and temptations, is a long
ways better off than one who don't. A man who brings no
sorrow to his friends and nabors lives to a better purpose
than one who does, and it must be a blessed bed to die on
when a man gets old and has no stinging memories in his
pillow-case. There is no goodlier sight in nature than a
good man going down to the grave in graceful composure.
I recall one who, not long ago, reached his four-score
years and died. He was a model of that sweet decay that
has no odor of dissolution. He was never a burden or a
cross, and to the last received his children and his
children's children with a rejoicing smile. Would that I, too,
like him, might go do down behind the everlasting hills -
not in a cloud nor yet in a blaze of glory, but rather like the
sun when his rays are softened and subdued by the Indian
summer sky.
Our family frolic is over. The show of it and the
pleasant hilarity of the occasion, with all the delightful
surprises and rejoicings, passed away most happily, but
the sweet perfume of love and kindness that Christmas
brought remains with us still. It is more blessed to give than
to receive, and the purest pleasure we can feel is in making
others happy. In the good old times Prince Rupert used to
go round in disguise and find out who was needy and
grateful and kind, and when Christmas came he distributed
his gifts according to their deservings. It seems to me that if
I was Mr. Vanderbilt I would do like that, but maybe not.
Then a rich and merry Christmas to the rich, And a bright and happy Christmas to the poor, So their hearts are joyful it doesn't matter which Has the fine velvet carpet on the floor.
For riches bring a trouble when they come, And money leaves a pain when it goes, But everybody now must have a little sum To brighten up the year at its close.
Pleasing the children is about all that the majority of
mankind is living for, though they don't realize it, and if
they did they would hardly acknowledge it. It is
emphatically the great business of this sublunary life. We
look on with amazement at the busy crowd in the towns
and cities that are ever going to and fro, and the most of
them are working and struggling to please and maintain
children. It is the excuse for all the mad rush of business
that hurries mankind through the world. It is the apology
for all the stealing and cheating and lying in the land. One
time a man sold me a Poland China sow for $15 and she
eat up $5 worth of chickens the day I
got her, and when I asked him why he didn't tell me she
was a chicken eater, he smiled and said he thought I would
find it out soon enough. He spent that money on his
children and so I had to forgive him. Sometimes when I
ruminate on the meanness of we grown-up folks, I wish
that the children would never get grown, for they don't
get very mean or foolish until they do.
Now the biggest part of all this Christmas business is to
please the children. Of course there is service in the
churches, and the good pious people cerebrate the day in
prayer and devotion, but most of it is for the children. The
stores are thronged with parents hunting something for
them. The Christmas trees are for them, and all the dolls
and wagons and tea-sets and pocket-knives and harps
and fire crackers and a thousand other things too
numerous to mention. Why, there will be five thousand
dollars spent in this county this week for Christmas gifts.
There will be half a million in the State. There will be
twenty millions in the United States, and it is nearly all for
children. So, my young friends, you must understand how
very important you are in this world's affairs, but you
needent get uppity nor bigoty about it, for that spoils all the
old folks' pleasure.
Now, let us imagine we are around the cheerful
Christmas fire, and talk about Christmas and tell what it
means. Of course you know that it is the anniversary of the
birth of Christ, and all Christian people celebrate it. It is
very common everywhere to celebrate birthdays.
Americans make a big fuss over Washington's birthday
because he was called the father of his country. My
folks make a little
fuss over my birthday and my good wife's birthday. They
don't toot horns nor pop fire crackers, but they have an
extra good dinner and fix up a pleasant surprise of some
sort. We use to surprise the children with a little present
like a pocket-knife, or a pair of scissors, or sleeve buttons
or something, but so many children came along that there
was a birthday in sight almost all the time, and as we got
rich in children we got poor in money and had to skip over
sometimes. The 4th of July was the birthday of a nation
and so the nation always celebrates that day.
Christians began to observe Christmas about 1,500
years ago at Jerusalem and Rome. They had service in the
churches and made it a day of rejoicing. In course of time
the young people rather lost sight of the sacredness of the
day and the devotion that was due to the occasion,, and
made it a day of frolicking and feasting. They sang hilarious
songs, because they said the shepherds sang songs at
Bethlehem. They made presents to each other because
they said the wise men from the east brought presents to
the young child and its mother. They kept up their
festivities all night because the Savior was born at midnight.
The Roman Catholic Church has observed these annual
celebrations for centuries, and the Church of England took
them up, and so did the Protestants in Germany and other
countries. Christians everywhere adopted them, and
Christmas day became a universal holiday except among
the Puritans of New England, who forbade it under
penalties. They never frolicked or made merry over
anything. In a great painting of the nativity by Raphael,
there is seen a shepherd at the door playing on a bagpipe.
The Tyrolese who live on the
mountains slopes of Switzerland always come down the
valleys on Christmas eve, and they come caroling sweet
songs and playing on musical instruments, and spend the
night in innocent festivities. A century or so ago there were
many curious superstitutions about Christmas. It was
believed that an ox and an ass that were near by when the
Saviour was born bent to their knees in supplication, and
so they said the animals all went to prayer every Christmas
night. Of course they might have known better if they had
watched all night to see, but when folks love a superstition
they humor it. If a child believes in ghosts they are sure to
see them, whether they are there are not. These old-time
people believed that when the rooster crowed on
Christmas night all the wizards and witches and hobgoblins
and evil spirits fled away from the habitations of men and
hid in caves and hollow trees and deserted houses, and
stayed there for twelve days.
Nations have superstitions just like individuals have
them. The Persians had their genii and fairies; the Hindoos
their rakshar; the Greeks and Romans had all sorts of
wonderful gods and goddesses, such as Jupiter and Juno
and Hercules and Vulcan and Neptune, and they built
temples for them to dwell in. The more learned and
enlightened a people are the more sublime are their
superstitions. The uncivilized Indians are mystified and "see
God in the clouds, and hear Him in the wind." The native
Africans come down to crocodiles and serpents and owls
for their gods. Some of the negro tribes take a higher grade
of animals and set their faith in brer fox and brer rabbit, as
Uncle Remus has told you. When I was a boy we could tell
the
difference in the negro character by the stories they
told us in their cabins at night; and good negroes always
told us funny, cheerful stories about the tar baby, and the
bear and the bee-tree, and about foxes and wolves; but
the bad negroes told us about witches and ghosts and
Jack-o'-lanterns, and raw-head-and-bloody-bones I used to
listen to them until I didn't dare look around, and I got up
closer and closer to the fire, and when my mother called
me I had to be carried to the house in a negro's arms. But
what about the evergreens, the holly and laurel and ivy and
mistletoe and the Christmas tree? That is a curious history,
too, and it all came from the poetry and romance that
belongs to our nature. Evergreens have for ages been used
as symbols of immortality. The victors returning from the
wars were crowned with them; chaplets of green leaves
and vines were made for the successful ones at the
Olympic games. The poets of Scripture tell us of green bay
trees and the cedars of Lebanon. Churches and temples
have been decorated with them for centuries. Evergreens
have always had a poetic prominence in the vegetable
kingdom. We all love them, for they cheer us in midwinter
when there are no other signs of vegetation to gladden our
longing eyes.
Now, children, these superstitions are all fancy, as you
know, and are not even founded on fact, and yet it is
human nature to love them. We are all fond of anything
that is marvellous, especially if it turns out well for the
good. We love to read the Arabian Nights, and we rejoice
with Ali Baba who outwitted the forty thieves, and with
Aladdin who found the wonderful lamp. Just so we rejoice
with
Cinderella for marrying the prince, and we take comfort in
it, although we know it never happened. It is human nature
to want good to triumph over bad, and on this heavenly
trait in our humanity is our government and our social
system founded.
You know all about St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, and
where that pleasant superstition came from, but the
traditions of the Germans about the good Knight Rupert are
just as good, and, I think, are more stimulating to the
children. In every little village Knight Rupert comes out just
after twelve o'clock and nobody knows where he comes
from. He has a beautiful sleigh and four fine horses, all
dressed up in silver spangles and silver bells, and he dashes
around from house to house and calls out the mother and
whispers something to her, and she whispers something to
him, and he nods his head and wags his long gray beard
and dashes away to the next house. You see he is going
around to find out from the mother which ones of her
children have been good and which ones have been bad, so
as to know what presents to bring and how many. If the
good mother says sorrowfully, "Well, Knight Rupert, my
Tom has not been a good boy; he is not kind to his sisters,
and he is selfish and has fights with other boys,
and he wont study at school, but I hope he will
get to be better, so please bring Tom some little thing,
won't you?" She is obliged to tell the truth on all her
children, and it goes very hard with her sometimes. So
after knight Rupert has been all around he drives away
about dark and nobody knows where he went to. That
night he brings the presents while the children are all
asleep, and sure enough Tom don't get anything. Now, that
is what they pretend to believe, but of course Knight
Rupert is some good, jolly fellow about town, and he is all
bundled up and disguised and cuts up just such a figure as
old Santa Claus does in the pictures.
The year is almost gone, and all of us ought to stop a
minute and think about how much good we have done
since the last Christmas--how many times we have tried
to make our kindred happy--not only our kindred, but
our nabors and companions. As I came out of the
Markham House, in Atlanta, one cold morning,
two little dirty newsboys came running up to
me from opposite directions to sell me a paper. They are
not allowed to go inside the hotels to sell papers, and so
they stand outside in the cold and watch for the men to
come out. One of these boys was a stout lad of ten years,
and the other was a little puny, palefaced, barefooted
chap, and although he was the farthest off, he got to me
first. I said to the biggest boy, "Why didn't you run? You
could have got here first." He smiled and said, "I dident
want to." "Why not?" said I; "Is that boy your brother?"
"No, sir," said he, "but he's little, and he's been sick."
Now, that was kindness that will do for Christmas or any
other day. I gave them a dime a piece, and they were
happy for a little while. Children, if you can't do a big thing
you can do a little thing like that. I wouldent let the little
ragged newsboys get ahead of me.
We keep Grier's almanac at our house. We get a good
many almanacs from the merchants as advertisements, but
Grier's is the old standard and is the one that is always
hung by the mantle. If you have that kind at your house
and will look at the bottom of the last page to see what
kind of weather we are
to have this Christmas week you will find it put down this
way: "Be thankful for all the blessings you have enjoyed
this year and try to do better the next." That is a
curious kind of weather, but it is mighty good weather.
GRANDFATHER'S DAY--THE LITTLE URCHIN OF THE THIRD
GENERATION.
This is a most blessed land--where everything grows
that man is obleeged to have, and a power of good things
throw'd in just to minister to his pleasure. The summer
sun is now ripening the fruits of the earth, and when I see
children and grandchildren and nefews and neeses rejoicin'
in their wanderin's over the fields and orchards, it carries
me back to the blessed days of childhood. The old-field
plums and the wild strawberries and cherries, mulberries
and blackberries were worth more then than gold, and it
made no difference who was priest or president, or how
rich was Astor or Girard or any of the nabors, or whether
Sal Jackson's bonnet was purtier than Melyann
Thompson's or not. What a glorious luxury it was to go
barefooted and wade in the branch and go seining and
climb trees and hunt bird's nests and carry the corn to the
mill and leave it, just to get to run a horse-race home
again. I know now that those days were the happiest, and
so I won't rob my posterity of the same sort, if I can help
it. I want 'em to love the old homestead, and I want
children's children to gather about and cherish its memory.
What a burlesque on childhood's joy it must be to visit
grandma and grandpa in a crowded city, penned up in
brick walls with a few sickly flowers in front and a garden
in the rear about as big as a wagon sheet. But that's the
way the thing is drifting. Them calculatin'
yankees have long ago done away with the "old
back log" and the blazing hearth-stone and substituted a
furnace in the basement and a few iron pipes running
around the walls and a hole in the floor to let the heat in.
All that may be economy, but in my opinion a man can't
raise good stock in no such way. They'll be picayunish
and nice and sharp featured and gimlety, but they won't
do to bet on like them children that's been bro't up 'round
a fire-place on a hundred acre farm and had plenty of
fresh air and latitude.
Pleasin' the children is about all the majority of mankind are
livin' for, though they don't know it, and if they did they
wouldn't acknowledge it. It is emphatically the great
business of life. We look on with wonder and amazement
at the busy crowds in a great city that are ever goin' to
and fro like a fiddler's elbow, and eight out of ten of 'em
are workin' and strugglin' to please and maintain the
children. It's the excuse for all the mad rush of business
that hurries mankind through the world. It's the apology
for nearly all the cheatin' and stealin' and lyin' in the land,
and in a heap of such cases I have thought the good
angels would drop tears enuf on the big book to blot 'em
out forever. The trouble is, that most people are always
livin' on a strain, tryin' to do a little too much for their
children, and scufflin' against wind and tide to git just a
little ahead of their nabors. Some of 'em won't let a ten
year old boy go to meetin' or to Sunday-school if he can't
fix up as fine as other boys. They won't let him go
barefooted, nor wear a patch behind nor before, nor ride
bareback, nor go dirty, and so the domestic pressure for
finery becomes tremendous. Jesso with bonnets, and
parasols, and kid gloves, and silk dresses,
and chanyware,, and carpets, and winder curtains--and a
thousand things that cost money and runs up the outgo a
heap bigger than the incum. Generally speakin' this home
pressure ain't a noisy one, but, on the contrary, is very
silent and sad--so sad that a body would think there was
somebody dead in the house, and so after awhile sumhow
or sumhow else the finery comes, and thus for awhile all is
sereen. But the collapse is shore to cum sooner or later,
and the children ain't to blame for it. Sumtimes when I
ruminate upon the meanness of mankind, I wish the
children would never get grown for they don't get mean or
foolish until they do. Just think what a sweet time of it old
mother Eve and Mrs. Commodore Noah, and aunt
Methusaler had with thirty or forty of 'em wearin' bibs and
aperns until they were fifty years old, toggin' along after
their daddies until they were a hundred. I don't think that
old father Woodruff could have stood that. When a man
who ain't no yearling' gits married, and ten or a dozen of
'em cum right straight along in a row, and by the time he
gets on the piazza, tired and grunty, they begin to climb all
over him and under him and betwixt him, and on the back
of his chair and the top of his head, it's a little more than his
venerable nature can stand. On such occasions, it ain't to
be wondered at that he gently shakes himself aloose and
exclaims, "Lord, have mercy upon me," But, then, the like
of this must be endured. 'Tis a part of the bargain, implied
if not expressed, and no man ought to dodge it. Humor
'em, play horse and frolic with 'em, wash 'em, undress 'em,
tell 'em stories about Jack and the bean stalk, and what
you done when you was a little boy; scratch their backs
and put 'em to bed, and if they can't sleep, get up with 'em
away in the night, and nod around in your night-gown until
they can. Let them trot after you a heap in week days and
all day of a Sunday, and don't try to shirk off the trouble
and the responsibility on the good woman who bore 'em.
Solomon says: "Children are the chief end of man, and the
glory of his declining years," and raisin' of 'em is the
biggest business I know of in this life, and the most
responsible in the life to come.
When a man begins to get along in years he gradually
changes from being a king in his family to a patriarch. He is
more tender and kind to his offspring, and instead of ruling
them, the first thing he knows they are ruling him. My
youngest children and my grandchildren just run over me
now, and it takes more than half my time to keep up with
'em, and find out where they are and what they are doing.
It rains most every day, and the weeds and grass are
always wet, and the children and the dogs track mud all
over the house. We can't keep 'em in and we can't keep
'em out. The boys have got traps set in the swamp, and
are obliged to go to 'em every fifteen minutes, and if they
catch a bird it's as big a thing as killin' an elephant. They
built a brick furnace in the back yard, and have been
cookin' on it for two days, bakin' hoe-cakes, and fryin'
eggs, and boilin' coffee, and their afflicted mother has
mighty near surrendered; for she can't keep a skillet, nor a
spoon, nor a knife, nor a plate in the kitchen, and so she
tried to kick the furnace over, and now goes about limpin'
with a sore toe. Some of the older ones have found a
chalk quarry in a ditch, and taken a notion to drawin' and
sculpture,
and made pictures of dogs and chickens and snakes all
around the house on the outside; and while the good
mother was cookin' the two youngest ones chalked over
the inside as good as they could. The mantel-piece, and
jams, and doors, and bedsteads and sewin' machine, and
window glass were all ring-streaked and striked, and as I
couldent do justice to the subject myself, I waited for
reinforcements. When the maternal ancestor appeared, I
was a peepin' through the crack of the door. She paused
upon the threshold like an actor playing high tragedy in a
theater. "Merciful fathers!" then a long and and solemn
pause. "Was there ever such a set upon the face of the
earth? What shall I do? Ain't it enough to run anybody
distracted? Here I have worked and worked to make this
old house look decent and now look at it! I've a good
mind to ring your little necks for you. Did ever a mother
have such a time as I have--can't leave 'em one minit
that they ain't into mischief, and it's been the same thing
over and over and over with all of 'em for the last twenty
nine-years. I'd rather been an old maid a thousand times
over. I wish there wasn't a child in the world--yes, I
do!" (Looks at 'em mournfully for a minute.) "Come here,
Jessie, you little pale-faced darling. Mamma ain't mad with
you; no, you're just the sweetest thing in the world; and
poor little Carl's broken finger makes my heart ache every
time I look at it. He did have the sweetest little hand
before that boy mashed it to pieces with his maul; and
there's that great scar on his head, where the brick fell on
him, and another over his eye, where he fell on the hatchet.
I wonder if I ever will raise you poor little things; you look
like little
orphans; take your chalk and mark some more if you want
to." When I came in she was helpin' 'em make a bob-tail
dog on the closet door. I've found your old tom cat," said
I; "Carl had him fastened up in that nail keg that's got a
hen's nest in it." "Why, Carl, what upon earth did you put
the cat in there for?" "Why mamma, he's a settin', and I
wanted him to lay some little kittens. Me and Jessie wants
some kittens."
These little chaps ride the horses and colts over the
meadow and pasture, and make the sheep jump the big
branch, and they go in a washing two or three times a day,
and they climb the grape arbor and the apple trees and
stuff their craws full of fruit and trash, and they can tell
whether a watermelon is ripe or green, for they plug it to
see. And every one of 'em has got a sling shot and my
pigeons are always on the wing, and the other day I found
one of the finest young pullets laying dead with a hole in her
side, and all the satisfaction I get is, "I dident mean to do it,
or I won't do it any more, or I dident do it at all." Jesso.
It's most astonishing how the litle rascals can shoot with
their slings, and now I don't believe it was a miracle at all
that made David plump old Goliah in the forehead, for
these boys can plump a jaybird now at forty yards, and we
have had to take all their weapons away to protect the
birds and poultry. Sometimes I get mad and rip up and
around like I was going to do something desperate, but
Mrs. Arp comes a-slipping along and begins to tell how
they didnt mean any harm, and they are just like all other
boys, and wants to know if I dident do them sorts of things
when I was a boy. Well, that's a fact--I did--and I got
a lickin' for it,
too. You see, I was one of the oldest boys, and they
always catch it, but the youngest one never gets a
lickin', for by the time he comes along the old man has
mellowed down and wants a pet. The older children have
married and gone, and the old folks feel sorter like they
have been throwed off for somebody no kin to 'em, and so
they twine around those that are left all the closer; but by-and
by they grow up, too, and leave them, and it's pitiful to
see the good old couple bereft of their children and living
alone in their glory. Then is the time that grandchildren find
a welcome in the old family homestead, for as Solomon
saith, the glory of an old man is his children's children. Then
is the time that the little chaps of the second and third
generation love to escape from their well-ruled home and
for awhile find refuge and freedom and frolic at granpa's. A
child without a grandma and grandpa can never have its
share of happiness. I'm sorry for 'em. Blessings on the
good old people, the venerable grand-parents of the land,
the people with good old honest ways and simple habits
and limited desires, who indulge in no folly, who hanker
after no big thing, but live along serene and covet nothing
but the happiness of their children and their children's
children. I said to a good old mother not long ago: "Well, I
hear that Anna is to be married." "Yes, sir," said she,
smiling sorrowfully, "I don't know what I will do. The last
daughter I've got is going to leave me. I've nursed her and
petted her all her life, and I kinder thought she was mine
and would always be mine, but she's run off after a feller
she's no kin to in the world, and who never did do a thing
for her but give her a ring and a book or two and a little
French candy now and then, and it does look so strange
and unreasonable. I couldent stand it at all if--if I hadent
done the same thing myself long ago," and she kept
knitting away with a smile and a tear upon her motherly
face.
But I am not going to slander these little chaps that keep
us so busy looking after them, for there is no meanness in
their mischief, and if they take liberties it is because we let
'em. Mrs. Arp says they are just too sweet to live, and is
always narrating some of their smart sayings. Well, they
are mighty smart, for they know exactly how to get every
thing and do everything they want, for they know how to
manage her, and they know that she manages me, and that
settles it. A man is the head of the house about some
things, and about some other things he is only next to
head, if he ain't foot. A man can punish his children, but it's
always advisable to make an explanation in due time and
let his wife know what he did it for, because you see they
are her children shore enough, and she knows it and feels
it. The pain and trouble, the nursing and night watching
have all been hers. The washing and dressing, and
mending, and patching--tying up fingers and toes, and
sympathizing with 'em in all their great big little troubles, all
falls to her while the father is tending to his farm, or his
store, or his office, or friends, or maybe to his billiard
table. When a woman says "this is my child," it carries
more weight and more meaning than when a man says it,
and I've not got much respect for a law that will give the
man the preference of ownership just because he is a man.
I remember when I was a boy, a sad, pretty woman taught
school in our town, and she had a sweet little
girl about eight years old, and one day a man came there
for the child and brought a lawyer with him, and the mother
was almost distracted, and all of us boys--big and little -
got rocks and sticks and thrash poles and hid the little girl
up in the cupalo, and when the sheriff came we attacked
him like killing snakes or fighting yeller jackets, and we run
him off, and when he came back with more help, we run
'em all off, and the man never got his child, and I can say
now that the soldiers who whipped the Yankess at Bull
Run were not half so proud of their victory as we were,
though I found out afterwards that the sheriff was willing to
be whipped, for he was on the side of the mother and
didn't want to find the child nohow. But the world is getting
kinder than it used to be--kinder to women and to the
poor and dependent, and kinder to brutes. Away up in
New England they use to drown women for being witches,
but they don't now. Well, they do bewitch a man
powerfully sometimes, that's a fact, but if any drowning is
done he drowns himself because he can't get the woman he
wants and live under her witching all the time. But a man is
still the head of the house and always will be, I reckon, for
it's according to Scripture. He has got a natural right to run
the machine and keep up the supplies, and if he always has
money when the good wife wants it and doesn't wait for
her to ask for it but makes her take it as a favor to him,
then he is a successful husband and peace reigns supreme.
Jesso. When there is money in the till a man can sit in his
piazza with his feet on the banisters and smoke the pipe of
peace. A woman never loves money for its uses. She never
hoards it or hides it away like a man--and when I used to
be a
merchant I thought there was no goodlier combination in
all nature than a new stock of dry goods and a pretty
woman in the store with a well filled purse in her pocket.
Jesso.
Hog killing is over at last. We had about made up our
minds to kill one at a time as we needed them and not
cure any for bacon, but the weather got right and the
moon was on the increase, and so we slayed them. I don't
care anything about the moon myself, but there are some
old family superstitions that the meat will shrink in the pot
if the moon is on the wane when you kill it. The new moon
is quite level this time, which is a sure sign that it will rain a
good deal this month, or that it won't. We have pretty well
disposed of this greasy business. The little boys had a
good time frying liver on the hot rocks and roasting tails in
the ashes and blowing up balloons, and now if we had a
few darkies to cook up the heads and clean the feet and
fix up the skins for sausages and make a nice lot of souse,
we could live like princes, but it's troublesome work and
costs more than it comes to if we have to do it ourselves.
I am very fond of sausage--home-made sausage such
as Mrs. Arp knows how to make, and so she delicately
informed me that the meat was all chopped and ready for
the machine, and said something about my everyday
clothes and one of her old aprons. She further remarked
that when it was all ground up she would come down and
show me how much salt and pepper and sage to put in
and how to mix it all up together. Well, I didn't mind the
machine business at all, but I remembered seeing her work
mighty hard over that mixing of the salt and pepper and
sage, and frying a little mess on the stove and tasting it, and
then putting in more salt and working it over again, and
cooking another mess and tasting it again, and then putting
in more pepper and more sage, and after the job was all
over, heard her declare there wasn't enough of anything in
it, and so I conjured up a bran new idea, and sprinkled
about a hatful of salt and a quart of black pepper and a
pint of cayenne and all the sage that was on the premises
all over the meat before I ground it. Then I put it through
the machine and cooked and tasted it myself. Well, it was
a little hot--that's a fact--and a little salty, and a right
smart sagey, but it was good, and a little of it satisfied a
body quicker than a good deal of the ordinary kind, and
the new plan saved a power of mixing. I took a nice little
cake of it to Mrs. Arp to try, which she did with some
surprise and misgiving. By the time she had sneezed four
times and coughed the plate out of her lap, she quietly
asked me if it was all like that. "All," said I, solemnly. "Do
you like it?" she said. "Pretty well, I think," said I; "I
wanted to save you trouble. and maybe I've got it a leetle
too strong." She never replied, but the next day she made
up the little cloth bags and stuffed 'em and hung 'em all
overhead in the kitchen, and remarked as she left, "Now,
children, that's your pa's sausage. It's a pity he hadn't
stayed away another day."
Mrs. Arp has been mighty busy, as usual--always a
working, for the house will get dirty, and the children's
clothes will wear out, and it's clean up and sew, and
patch, and darn, and sew on buttons; and it's the same old
thing day after day and week after week; and the little
chaps have to be watched all day and
washed every night; and their shoe strings get in a hard
knot, and it's a worry to get it undone. They wander over
the hill and play in the branch, or frolic in the barn loft, or
slip off to Cobe's; and I can hear a sweet motherly voice
about forty times a day, as she steps to the door and calls:
"Carl--you Carl! Jessie, Jessie-e-e! Where upon earth
have those children gone to? I will just have to tie the little
wretches, or put a block and chain to them." One day she
caught me laughing at her anxiety, and I knew she didn't
like it, for she said: "Never mind, William, some of these
days those children will come home drowned in the creek,
and carried off by the gypsies, and you won't laugh then."
When she succeeds in getting them home she places her
arms akimbo, and with a look of unutterable despair, gazes
at them and exclaims: "Merciful fathers! Did a poor mother
ever have such children?--feet right wet, shoes all muddy;
and there--another hole in the knee of his pants--and
Jessie has torn her apron nearly off of her. Bring me a
switch. I will not stand it, for it's sew and patch and worry
forever. I could hardly put those shoes on you this morning,
for they have been wet and dried, and wet and dried until
they are as hard as boards, and your pa won't get you any
new ones; and your stockings are worn out and wet
besides; and the diphtheria is all over the country, and it's a
wonder you don't take it and die. Come in to the fire, you
poor little orphans, and warm your feet. You may pop
some corn, and here's some apples for you. Don't you
want some dinner, my darlings?"
The poet hath said that "a babe in the house is a well
spring of pleasure." There is a brand new one
here now, the first in eight years, and it has raised a
powerful commotion. It's not our baby, exactly, but it's in
the line of descent, and Mrs. Arp takes on over it all the
same as she used to when she was regularly in the
business. I thought maybe she had forgotten how to nurse
'em and talk to em, but she is singing the same old familiar
songs that have sweetened the dreams of half a score, and
she blesses the little eyes and the sweet little mouth and
uses the same infantile language that nobody but babies
understand. For she says, "tum here to its dandmudder,"
and "bess its 'ittle heart," and talks about its sweet little
footsy tootsies, and holds it up to the window to see the
wagons go by and the wheels going rouny-pouny, and
now my liberty is curtailed, for as I go stamping around
with my heavy farm shoes she shakes her ominous finger at
me just like she used to, and says, "Don't you see the baby
is asleep?" And so I have to tip-toe around, and ever and
anon she wants a little fire, or some hot water, or some
catnip, for the baby is a-crying and shorely has got the
colic. The doors have to be shut now for fear of a draft of
air on the baby, and a little hole in the window pane about
as big as a dime had to be patched, and I have to hunt up
a passel of kinlings every night and put 'em where they will
be handy, and they have sent me off to another room
where the baby can't hear me snore; and all things
considered the baby is running the machine, and the well
spring of pleasure is the center of space. A grandmother is
a wonderful help and a great comfort at such a time as this,
for what does a young mother, with her first child, know
about colic and thrash, and hives and hiccups, and it takes
a good deal of faith to dose 'em with
sut tea and catnip, and lime water, and paregoric, and
soothing syrup, and sometimes with all these the child gets
worse, and if it gets better I've always had a curiosity to
know which remedy it was that did the work. Children
born of healthy parents can stand a power of medicine and
get over it, for after the cry comes the sleep, and sleep is a
wonderful restorer. Rock 'em awhile in the cradle, then
take 'em up and jolt 'em a little on the knee and then turn
'em over and jolt 'em on the other side, and then give 'em
some sugar in a rag, and after awhile they will go to sleep
and let the poor mother rest. There is no patent on this
business, no way of raising 'em all the same way, but it is
trouble, from the start, and nobody but a mother knows
how much trouble it is. A man ought to be mighty good
just for his mother's sake, if nothing else, for there is no
toil or trial like nursing and caring for a little child, and
there is no grief so great as a mother's if all her care and
anxiety is wasted on an ungrateful child.
It looks like we will be obleeged to import a doctor in
the settlement. Fact is we are obleeged to have a doctor -
not that one is needed at all, but just to quiet the female
hystericks when any little thing happens. Since we've lived
here I've had to send five miles on the run for a doctor
two times just to keep down the family hystericks. Both
times the patient recovered before the doctor arrived, but
then it was such a comfort to have him around, and hear
him say it is all right, and see him measure out a little yeller
powder. It was only day before yesterday that Ralph put
our little Carl on the old mare and was leading her along at
the rate of half a mile
an hour, when the little chap took a notion to fall off, and
as soon as the wind of it got to headquarters then was a
wild female rush to the scene of great disaster. "Oh
mercy, oh the dear child. He's killed. I know he's killed,
poor little darling. Oh my child, my child. Ralph, I'll whip
you for this if I live. Oh my precious. Just look at that
place on his little head. Children, where is your pa? Send
for the doctor. Oh mercy--what did we ever move out
here for, five miles from a doctor?" I was mighty busy
planting peas and so forth in my garden, but I snuffed
the commotion in the air, and in a few moment found 'em
all bringing the boy to the house, and Mrs. Arp and the
girls talked so fast and took on so I couldent find out what
had happened to him. Finally I got the bottom facts from
Ralph, the reckless--the butt end of all complaints--the
promise of a thousand whippings with nary one
performed. I looked in vain for wounds and bruises and
dislocations. "The boy is not seriously hurt," said I--"he is
badly scared and you are making him worse by all this
commotion--what he wants is rest and sleep."
"Oh, never," said my wife, "it won't do to let him sleep -
when the brain is hurt sleep is the very worst thing--it
brings on coma and coma is next thing to death--we
must not let him sleep." I was pretty well aroused by this
time and said, "He shall sleep," and turned everybody out
but Mrs. Arp, and she acquiesced in my determination and
the boy slept. He slept all night and Mrs. Arp sat beside
the bed and watched. He was all right in the morning and
ready for another ride.
The old trunk was open. Away down in its mysterious
recesses Mrs. Arp was searching for something, and as I
sat in the other corner with my little table and pen I
watched her as she laid the ancient relics on a chair and
unfolded first one and then another and looked at them so
earnestly, and then folded them up again. "What are you
hunting for, my dear?" said I. "Oh, nothing much," said she;
"I was just looking over these little dresses to see if there
was anything that would do for the little grandchildren.
Here is a pretty dress. That dress cost me many a careful
stitch. All these plaits were made by my hand, my own
hand. There is very little such work done now, for we had
no sewing machines then, and it took a long, long time.
This embroidery was beautiful then, and it is pretty yet. Do
you remember when the first daguerrean came to our town
to take pictures? Well, Hattie wore this dress when her
picture was taken, and I thought she was the sweetest little
thing in the world, and so did you, and she was. Since then
we have had ambrotypes, and photographs and porcelain
pictures, and I don't know what all; but that little
daguerreotype gave me more pleasure than anything since,
and it is pretty now. Let me see--that was twenty-five
years ago, and now I think this same dress will look right
pretty on Hattie's child. And here is one that our first boy
was christened in, and there is no machine work
about it, either. That was more than thirty years ago, and
now there are four grandchildren at his house, and three
more at another one's house, and I don't know what will
become of the poor little things, but I reckon the Lord will
provide for them. And here is a little garment that Jennie
made. Poor Jennie, she had a troubled life; but she is in
heaven now, and I'll save this for Pet. She will prize it
because her mother made it. And here is a piece of my
wedding dress--do you remember it! I know you said
then that I looked an angel in it, but my wings have
dropped off long ago, and now I'm only a poor old
woman, a faded flower, an overworked mother, ten living
children and three more up yonder, and I will be there,
too, I hope, before long, for I'm getting tired, very tired,
and it seems to me I would like to be nursed, nursed by
my mother, and petted like she used to pet me in the long,
long ago. And here is a pair of little baby shoes, and the
little darling who wore them is in the grave, but he is better
off now, and I wouldent call him back if I could.
Sometimes I want to feel sad, and I rummage over these
old things. There is not much here now, for every little
while I have to get out something to mend with or patch or
make over again. I wish you would go and see what Carl
and Jessie are doing; down at the branch, I reckon, and
feet all wet, and they have both got dreadful colds. I can't
keep them away from that branch."
"Dident you play in the branch, my dear, when you
were a child?" said I. "Yes," she said, mournfully, "but
nothing couldent hurt me then; we were not raised so
delicate in those days. You know I used to ride to the
plantation, twelve miles, and back again in a day and bring
a bag of fruit on the horn of
the saddle, but the girls couldent do it now. They can go
to a party in a buggy and dance half the night, but that is
all excitement, and they are not fit for anything the next
day. We dident have any dances--hardly ever--we
went to the country weddings sometimes. You remember
we went to James Dunlap's wedding, when he married
Rebecca Sammons. That was a big frolic--an old-fashioned
frolic. Everybody was there from all the
naborhood, and there were more turkeys and roast pig
and cake than I ever saw, and we played everything we
could think of. Rebecca was pretty then, but, poor woman
- she has had a thousand children, too, just like myself,
and I reckon she is faded, too, and tired." "But Jim Dunlap
hasn't faded," said I. "I see him when I go to Atlanta, and
he is big and fat and merry--looks a little like old David
Davis."
"Oh, yes, of course he does," said Mrs. Arp. "The men
don't know anything about care and anxiety and sleepless
nights. It's a wonder to me they die at all. "But I have
helped you all I could, my dear," said I, "and you see it's
telling on me. Look at these silver hairs, and these wrinkles
and crows-feet, and my back hurts ever and anon, and
this rainy, bad weather gives me rheumatism, but you
haven't a gray hair and hardly a seam on your alabaster
forehead. Why, you will outlive me, too, and maybe there
will be a rich widower stepping around here in my shoes,
and you will have a fine carriage and a pair of beautiful bay
horses, and--"
"William, I told you to go after Carl and Jessie."
"If Vanderbilt's wife should die and he could
accidentally see you," said I, "after I'm gone, there's no
telling--"
"Well, go along now and find the children, and when
you come back I'll listen to your foolishness. I'm not going
to let you die if I can help it, for I don't know what would
become of us all. Yes, you have helped me, I know, and
been a great comfort and did the best you could--most
of the time; yes, most of the time--and I might have done
worse, and you must nurse me now and pet me, for I am
getting childish." "And you must pet me, too," said I. "Oh,
of course I will," said she; "am I not always petting you?
Now go along after the children before we both get to
crying and have a scene; and I wish you would see if the
buff cochin hen has hatched in the hen house." "She has
been setting about fourteen weeks," said I, "but she is
getting old, and these old mothers are slow, mighty slow."
I went after the children, and sure enough they were
fishing in the spring branch, and their shoes were wet and
muddy, and they were bare-headed, and I marched them
up tenderly, and Mrs. Arp set them down by the fire and
dried their shoes, and got them some more stockings, and
then opened their little morning school. How patiently
these old-fashioned mothers work and worry over the little
things of domestic life. Day after day, and night after night,
they labor and watch and watch and wait, while the fathers
are contriving some big thing to keep up the family
supplies. Parents are very much like chickens. The old hen
will set and set and starve, and when the brood comes will
go scratching for worms and bugs as hard as she can and
be always clucking and looking out for hawks, but the old
rooster will strut around and notice the little chickens with
a paternal pride, and when he
scratches up a bug makes a big fuss over it and calls them
with a flourish, and eats it himself just before they get
there.
That was a mighty good talk in your last Sunday's paper
about sleep, and letting folks sleep until nature waked 'em.
He was a smart doctor who said all that, and he said it well,
but I couldent help thinking what would become of the
babies if the mothers dident wake until they had got sleep
enough. There are no regular hours for them. Job speaks of
the dark watches of the night when deep sleep falleth upon
a man, but it don't fall upon a weary mother with a fretful
child when it is cutting its front teeth and wants to nurse the
livelong night. When she is sleeping she is awake, and when
she is waking she is half asleep, and the morning brings no
rest or refreshment; and I was thinking, too, of what would
become of the farm if the boys were not waked up early
in the morning. Not many boys will wake up themselves,
and they must be called, and in course of time have habits
of waking forced upon 'em. A family that sleeps late will
always be behind with farm work. I do not believe in getting
up before day and eating breakfast by candle light, but I do
believe in early rising. I don't know how long my children
would sleep if I did not call 'em, for I never tried it; but I
don't call Mrs. Arp, of course, I don't, though she says I
had just as well, for I stamp around and slam the doors and
whistle and sing until there is no more sleep for her. She
wants me to build her a little house away off in the garden,
where she can sleep enough to make up for lost time, and
be always calm and serene, and I think I will.
Two cents--only two cents. When I look at a postage
stamp it carries me away back--back to the time when
my father was postmaster and I was clerk and had to
make up the mails in a country town. The difference
between now and then shows that the world's progress in
this department is hardly excelled in any other branch of
improvement. We couldn't bear to be set back again in the
old ways that our fathers thought were pretty good. There
were no stamps and no envelopes and no mucilage. The
paper was folded up like a thumb-paper, and one side
slipped in the other end and sealed with a wafer. The little
school-boys, you know, had to use thumb-papers in their
spelling books to keep them clean where their dirty hands
kept the pages open. Girls didn't have to use them, for
they were nicer and kept their hands clean, and didn't
wear out the leaves by the friction of their fingers. Boys are
rough things anyhow, and I don't see what a nice, sweet.
pretty girl wants with one of 'em. Girls, they say, are made
of sugar and spice and all that's nice, but boys are made of
snaps and snails and puppy dogs' tails. Josephus says that
when the Queen of Sheba was testing Solomon's wisdom,
she had fifty boys and fifty girls all dressed alike in girls'
clothes and seated around a big room, and asked the king
to pick out the boys from the girls; and he called for a
basin of water and had it carried around to each one and
told them to wash their hands. The girls all rolled up their
sleeves a little bit, the boys just sloshed their hands in
any way, and got water all over their aprons, and so the
king spotted every mother's son of them.
The postage used to be regulated by the distance that
Uncle Sam carried the letters. It was 12 1/2 cents anywhere
in the state, and 18 3/4 cents to Charleston, and 25 cents
to New York. It was never prepaid. A man could afflict
another with a pistareen letter that wasent worth five cents.
A pistareen, you know, was 18 3/4 cents--that is a
sevenpence and a thrip. We had no dimes or half dimes.
The dollars were cut up into eighths instead of tenths.
When a countryman called for letters and got one, he
would look at it some time and turn it over and meditate
before he paid for it, and very often they would say,
"where did this letter come from?" Well, I would say, for
instance, "it came from Dahlonega--don't you see
Dahlonega written up on the corner?" Then he would say,
"well, I reckon it's from Dick, my brother Dick. He is up
there diggin' gold. Don't you reckon it's from Dick?" "I
reckon it is," said I. "Why don't you open it and see."
When he got home that letter would be an event in the
family, and perhaps it would take them half an hour to
wade through it and make out its contents. Nine out of ten
of those country letters began, "I take my pen in hand to let
you know that I am well, and hope these few lines will find
you enjoying the same blessing." My father kept store, and
his country customers used to ask him to write their letters
for them, and he always sent them to me, and most of them
told me to begin their letters that way. There was not more
than one
in five that could write, but they were good, clever, honest
people and paid their debts, but they hardly ever paid up
in full at the end of the year, and so they gave their notes for
the balance and made their mark. My father used to say
that he had known cases where a man swore off his written
signature, but he never knew a man to deny his mark. Our
big northern mail used to come in a stage from Madison
twice a week, and I used to think the sound of the stage-horn,
as the stage came over the hill, was one of the
sublimest things in the world, and I thought that if ever I got
to be a man I would be a stage-driver if I could. Well, I
came pretty near it, for my father had hired a man to ride
the mail to Roswell and back twice a week, and the man
got sick and so my father put me on a dromedary of a
horse and the mail in some saddle-bags behind me, and I
had to make the forty-eight miles in a day and kept it up all
the winter. I like to have frozen several times, and had to be
lifted off the horse when I got home, and it nearly broke my
mother's heart, but I was getting a dollar a trip and it was
my money, and so I wouldn't back out. The old women on
the route used to crowd me with their little commissions
and get me to bring them pepper, or copperas, or blueing,
or pins and needles, or get me to take along some socks
and sell them, and so I made friends and acquaintances all
the way. The first trip I made, an old woman hailed me
and said, "Are you a mail boy?" "Why, yes, mam," said I.
"You dident think I was a female boy, did you?" I
thought that was smart, but it wasent very civil, and as
she turned her back on me I heard her say, "I'll bet he's a
little stuck up town boy."
My father was postmaster for nearly thirty years. It
didn't pay more than about$200 a year, but it made his
store more of a public place. He didn't know that anybody
else hankered after it or was trying to get it, but all of a
sudden he got his orders to turn over the office to another
man, an old line Whig and a competitor in business. It
mortified him very much and made us all mad, for there
was no fault found with his management, and he never took
much interest in politics but voted for the man he liked the
best whether he was a Whig or a Democrat. When he
found that Alex. Stephens had it done he wasent a
Stephens man any more, and I grew up with an idea Mr.
Stephens was a political fraud. I dident understand the
science of politics as well as I do now. I told Mr. Stephens
about it one night at Milledgeville when we were all in a
good humor and were talking about old times of Whigs and
Democrats; he smiled and said, "yes, we had to do those
things, and sometimes they were very disagreeable." I will
never forget that night's talk. It was during the session of
the first legislature after the war. Jim Waddell took me to
Mr. Stephens' room to hear him talk, and there was Mr.
Jenkins and Tom Hardeman and Benning Moore and
Beverly Thornton and Peter Strozier and Dr. Ridley and
some others, and everybody was in a good humor, and
Mr. Stephens was reclining on his bed and told anecdote
after anecdote about the old Whigs and how he met the
Democrats on the stump and what they said and what he
said, and he most always got the advantage and carried the
crowd with him. I was very much fascinated with his
conversation, but couldent help being reminded of a
circumstance
that transpired some years before in the town of Calhoun.
The Whigs of Gordon county had sent for Mr. Stephens
to come up and make a speech and rally the boys for the
next election, for Gordon was pretty equally balanced
between Whigs and Democrats; the Whigs wanted a big
revival. So Aleck accepted, and when the day came the
crowd was tremendous. The Democrats had tried to get
Howell Cobb and Herschel Johnson to come up and reply
to Aleck, but they couldent come, and so little Aleck had
it all his own way. In the meantime the Democratic boys
had hunted up A. M. Russell and got his promise to reply
to Mr. Stephens. Russell was an original genius. He was
gifted in language, gifted in imagination, gifted in cheek,
gifted in lying, and was utterly regardless of
consequences.
Mr. Stephens made a splendid speech. He arraigned the
Democracy and held them up to ridicule, and when he got
through the Whigs were more than satisfied; and Mr.
Stephens was satisfied too, -- He came down from the
stand and was receiving the congratulations of his friends,
when suddenly Russell mounted the rostrum and, rapping
on the plank in front of him, screamed out in one unearthly
yell: "Fellow citizens!" Everybody knew him, and
everybody wanted to hear him, and hushel into silence.
After a sentence or two Mr. Stephens was attracted to
him, and with curious and astonished interest inquired,
"Who is that man?" After Russell had paid an eloquent
tribute to the glorious old Democratic party, and given it
credit for every good thing that had been done since the
fall of Adam, he then turned to Mr. Stephens, and, with a
sneering scorn, said: "And what have you and
your party been doing and trying to do? What made you
vote away the public lands so that Yankees and furriners
could get 'em and our people couldent. What made you
vote for high tariff on sugar and coffee and raise the price
so that our poor people couldent buy it," Mr. Stephens
arose, excited and irritated, and stretching his long arm to
the audience, screamed out: "I never did it, my fellow
citizens--I deny the fact and call upon the gentlemen for
his proof." With the utmost self-possession, Russell said,
"You do--you call for the proof. Sir, if I was to go 200
miles from home to make a speech I would carry my proof
with me. I wouldent be vain enough to go without it; but,
sir, I am at home--these people know me--they raised
me, and when I assert a thing they believe me. You are the
men to bring the proof." The crowd shouted and laughed
as tumultously as they had done for Mr. Stephens, and he
sat down disgusted. Russell continued: "And what was
your motive when you were a member of the legislature in
voting for a law that prohibited a man from voting unless he
was worth $500? Answer me that while you are here face
to face with these humble citizens of Gordon county." At
this Mr. Stephens rose again, furious with indignation, and
screamed: "It is false, sir, it is false; I deny that fact."
"You do," said Russell, scornfully, "I supposed you
would--you deny the fact. That is just what you have
been doing for twenty years--going about, over the
country denying facts." And the crowd went wild with
merriment, for even the Whigs couldn't help joining in the
fun. Mr. Stephens
turned to his companions and said with a tone of
despair, "Let us go to the hotel;" and they went.
I thought of all this while Mr. Stephens was telling me of
his triumphs over veteran foes, and so when he came to a
pause I timidly said: "Mr. Stephens, did you ever
encounter a man by the name of Russell up at Calhoun?"
With a merry glistening of his wonderful eyes he
straightened up and said: "I did, I did, yes, I did. I will
never forget that man. He got me completely. If I had
known him I would not have said a word in reply, but I
dident know him. He cured me of one expression. I
frequently used to emphasize my denial of lies and slander,
and that was to say, 'I deny the fact.' I had never thought
of its grammatical absurdity, but that man Russell taught
me and I quit it. I think he had the most wonderful flow of
language and lies of any man I ever met." Mr. Stephens
then made a pretty fair recital of his encounter and his
"utter defeat," as he expressed it, all of which we enjoyed.
Where are they now? Old Father Time has cut them all
down but three, Hardeman and Thornton and myself are
here, but all the rest of that bright, intelligent crowd are
gone. It looks like most everybody is dead. If they are not
they will be before long, and another set will be in their
places and have their jokes and flash their wit and
merriment all the same.
As the world grows older mankind becomes more
liberal in opinion and less wedded to prejudice and
superstition. We rub against one another so closely
nowadays, and talk so much and read so much that our
conceit is weakening, and we think more and think deeper
than we used to, and we are more ready to absorb
knowledge. A man don't dare nowadays to say anything is
impossible, for many impossibilities have already been
performed, and we now live in a state of anxious
expectation as to what big thing will come next. Still, there
are some folks who stubbornly refuse to fall into line, and
they stand by the old landmarks. Not long ago I passed by
a blacksmith shop away off in the country, and there was a
horse doctor cutting the hooks out of a horse's eyes to
keep him from going blind, and he got very indignant when
I told him that the horse books were all against it, and said
it ought to be prohibited by law. I heard an old hardshell
arguing against this idea that the world turned over every
day, and he declared it was against common sense and
Scripture, and he wouldent let his children go to school to
learn any such nonsense, for he knowed that the water
would all spill out if you turned it upside down, and the
Scripters said that Joshua commanded the sun to stand
still, and it stood still; and he asked me how I was going to
get over the like of that. I saw that the crowd was against
me, and so I replied: "Jesso,
Jesso, my friend. And right then the wonderful change
took place. The sun used to go around the earth, of
course, but Joshua stopped it and he never set it to
going again, and it is there yet."
This weakened the old man a little and unsettled the
crowd, and I got away from there prematurely for fear the
old man would send for his Bible. Answer a fool according
to his folly is a good way sometimes. Dr. Harden told me
about his father raising a rumpus a long time ago in
Watkinsville by asserting that all horses had botts in 'em,
and it was accordin' to nature and the botts were not a
disease, and a horse never died on account of 'em. Old
man Moore kept the tavern there, and he swore that
Harden was a luniack and so one day when they were
playing checkers in the tavern a storm came up and a
terrible crash was heard, and pretty soon a darkey came
running in the house and told his master the lightning had
struck his iron grey horse and killed him. Old man Moore
thought as much of that horse as he did of his wife, and the
crowd all hurried out to the lot to see him. Moore was
greatly distressed and used bad language about the
catastrophe; and after he had subsided a little Harden says,
says he, "Now, Moore, if you say so, I'll cut open that
horse and show you the botts, and I reckon that will settle
it." So Moore agreed to it, and when he was opened, and
the botts began to cut their way out and worm around,
Harden looked at Moore with triumphant satisfaction and
paused for a reply. Moore had his hands crossed behind
his back, and was gazing intently at the ugly varmints, when
suddenly he exclaimed, "Harden, I was powerful mad with
that lightning for killing old Selim, but I ain't now, for if the
lightning hadent struck
him I'll be damned if them infernal botts wouldent
have killed him in thirty minutes."
Moore had a big fighting stump-tail dog by the
name of Ratler, and one day a little Italian came along
with an organ and a monkey, and as the crowd gathered
around he asked the man if his monkey could fight. "Oh,
yes, he fight," said the Italian. "Will he fight a dog?" said
Moore. "Oh, yes; he fight a dog--he whip dog quick,"
said the Italian. Moore pulled out a five dollar bill, and
said: "I'll bet you this that I've got a dog he can't whip."
The little fellow covered it with another five and the money
was handed over to a stakeholder and they went through
to the back yard, followed by half the folks in the little
town. There lay the dog on the grass asleep, and at the
word the little Italian tossed the monkey on him. In less
than a jiffey the little brute had his teeth and his claws
fastened like a vise in the stump of that dog's tail and was
screeching like a hyena. The dog gave but one astonished
look behind as he bounced to his feet and made tracks for
another country. The monkey held on until Ratler sprung
over a ten-rail fence at the back of the garden, when he
suddenly quit his hold and sat on the top rail, and watched
the dog's flight with a chatter of perfect satisfaction and
danced along the rail with delight. The crowd was
convulsed. They laughed and roared and hollered
tumultuously, all but old man Moore, whose voice could
be heard above all others as he stood upon the fence and
shouted, "Here, Ratler, here, here; here, Ratler, here; here,
Ratler, here." But Ratler wouldent hear. Ratler rattled on
and on, across field after field, until he got to the woods
and was gone from
human sight. The Italian shouldered his. monkey
affectionately, and walking up to Moore, said: "Your dog
not well to-day; maybe your dog gone off to hunt rabbeet.
Your dog no like my monkey --he not acquaint. Maybe
ven I come again next year he come and fight some more.
Ven you look for him to come back?" Moore gave up the
wager, but he asserted solemnly that Ratler would have
whipped the fight if he hadent have run. "The surprise,
gentlemen, the surprise was what done it," said he, "for that
dog has whipped wild cats and a bear and a she wolf and
every dog in ten miles of Watkinsville." And all that evening
and away in the night and early the next morning an inviting,
mournful voice could be heard at the back of the garden
calling, "Ratler, here; Ratler, here;" and three days after a
man brought Ratler home, but he had lost his integrity and
never could be induced to fight anything more.
Some men never give up a thing, and some give up too
much. Judge Bleckley says that he is in the cautious,
credulous state about everything, and just lives along
serenely and waits for events. He says that if a man can
hear the voice of a friend from New York to Boston by the
aid of a telephone, why shouldn't all the other senses be
aided in like manner by some invention; and he hints that
he wouldent be surprised at an invention that would enable
a man to kiss his wife across the Atlantic ocean. I don't
think that follows to reason, for hearing and seeing are both
for distance, and so is smelling, but feeling is a very
different thing. Feeling means contact, and the closer the
contact the more intense the feeling. It never was intended
to
feel afar off, and so I don't believe that any good would
come of a man kissing his wife through a machine a
thousand miles long. It would be very dangerous, for it
might encourage folks to be kissing other people's wives,
and the machine would be kept busy all the time, for there
are some men who couldent be choked off, and by and by
the whole world would be kissing one another, and
business would be neglected and mankind would come to
want.
But I do believe that everything will come that ought to
come. Nature has a mighty big storehouse, and she always
unlocks it at the right time. She is very economical of her
treasures, and keeps 'em from us until she sees that we are
obliged to have 'em. Cotton dident come, nor cotton
machinery, until the world was bad off for clothing. The
sewing machine come along just as the poor women were
about worn out, and Tom Hood had written his sad, sweet
"Song of the Shirt." Coal was found when wood got
scarce in the old world. Railroads and steamships were
invented as population increased, and now we couldent
possibly do without 'em. Old Peter Cooper said that a
million people would perish in New York city in one
month if the cars were to stop running that long. Then
came the telegraph, and now the telephone, and I don't
think any other very big thing will happen soon, for
mankind is very comfortable, and don't need it, so let us all
rest awhile and let Dame Nature rest. She has been very
kind to her creatures, and we all ought to be thankful.
On this pellucid day when the sky is so beautifully blue
and the sun so warm and cheerful, when the jaybirds are
chanting their safe return from purgatory, and the crows
are cawing over the sprouting corn, when the sheep bells
tinkle merrily in the meadow and the children and chickens
are cackling around, it seems like everything in nature was
happy and everybody ought to be. The darkies are singing
to the mules in the cotton field and are happier with a little
than the white folks are with a good deal. The darkey
never borrows trouble. I wish our race would take a few
lessons in contentment from 'em--not enough to make
us shiftless and with no ambition to better our condition,
but enough to stop this restlessness, this wild rush for
money, this wear and tear upon brain and heart that is
getting to be the curse of the land. I wish everybody was
happy and had nothing against nobody. I wish every
farmer had fine horses and fat cattle and plenty of pocket
change, and dident have to work only when he felt like it. I
wish I had a winter home in Florida with orange groves
and pineapples and bananas, and a summer home up
among the mountains, and a railroad and palace cars
between the two, and a free pass over the line and plenty
of money at both ends of it. I wish I was a king with a mint
of gold and silver at my
command, so I could go about in disguise and mingle with the
poor and friendless and lift them up out of distress and
make 'em happy. I wish I was a genii like we read of in the
Arabian Nights, and could, at a breath, build palaces and
make diamonds and pearls and marry all the poor girls to
rich husbands, and all the struggling boys to princesses and
kick up a cloud of golden dust wherever I went. No I
don't, either, for I know now that the like of that wouldent
bring happiness in this sublunary world. The best condition
for a man is to have neither poverty nor riches. Old Agur
prayed a good prayer and he knew how it was--
For riches bring us trouble when they come,
And there's want in the homes of the poor,
But it's good for a man to have a little sum
To keep away the wolf from the door.
Some folks are never happy unless they are miserable.
Their livers are green and yellow like melancholy, and they
want everything they can get and would rather see
mankind going to hell than to heaven if they could stay
behind and play wreckers on eternity's shore. I have seen
men whose very presence would dry up all hilarity as
quick as a slack tub cools hot iron; men who never smile
willingly, and when they force one the cadaverous visage
is lit up for a moment with a brimstone light, and then
relapses into its natural scowl. Such people are a nuisance
upon society, and ought to be abolished or put into a
lower asylum like luniacks. I've no more toleration for 'em
than for a mad dog, and if there's any apology it's in favor
of the dog.
when nature like a blushing maid is putting on her pantalets
and preparing to bang her silken hair. How quickly it
brings to life the slumbering emotions which, though chilled
by the frosts and the winds of winter, were not dead, but
only lay dormant like a bear in his den. What harmonious
feelings spring up in one's bosom and gush forth to all
mankind. This balmy weather fills all the chambers of the
soul with music that is not heard and with poetry that is not
expressed. The very air is redolent with love and peace.
Turnip greens are running up to seed, the plum trees are in
bloom, the busy bee is sucking their fragrant blossoms, and
by and by will be stinging the children as usual. The sweet
south wind is breathing upon the violet banks. Alder tags
hang in graceful clusters upon their drooping stems.
Jonquils are in a yellow strut, and the odorous shallots are
about right for the frying pan. The little silversides and
minnows have opened their spring regattas. The classical
robin has ceased to get drunk on the China berry, and the
ferocious chicken hawk catches about one a day from our
earliest broods. Everything is lively now--
Over the meadows the new-born lambs are skipping,
Over the fields the little boys are ripping.
The country is the best place for children. What a
glorious luxury it is for them to go barefooted and wade in
the branch and go seining, and climb trees and hunt birds'
nests, and carry the corn to mill, and run pony races. It is
well enough for a man to live in a town or a city when he is
young and active, but when he gets married and the little
chaps come along according to nature, he ought to get on
a farm
to raise 'em. An old man with numerous grandchildren has
got no business in a city. What a burlesque on childhood's
joy it must be to visit grandpa and grandma in a city
penned up in brick walls, with a few sickly flowers in the
window, and a garden in the rear about as big as a wagon
sheet. Might as well try to raise good, healthy, vigorous
colts in a stableyard. There is too much machinery about
raising children now-a-days anyhow. The race is running
out, and nothing but country life can save it. The old back-log
is gone, and the big, open, friendly fire-place, and the
cheerful, blazing family hearth; and now it is a hole in the
floor, or iron pipes running around the walls. I reckon that
is economy, but in my opinion a man can't improve the
stock that way nor keep it as good as it was. The children
will be picayunish and over-nice and sharp-featured and
potty before and gimlety behind. They won't do to bet on
like those chaps brought up around a fire-place on a
hundred-acre farm.
Raisin' children is the principal business of human life,
and is about all that the majority of mankind are working
for, though they don't know it. It is the excuse for all the
mad rush of business that hurries us along. It is the apology
for nearly all the cheating and stealing and lying in the land.
Working for the children is behind it all, and the trouble is
that most everybody is trying to do too much for 'em and
scuffling against wind and tide to keep up with their nabors
or get a little ahead. Too many fine clothes, too many kid
gloves and parasols and new bonnets--too many
carpets and pictures and curtains, and a thousand other
things that run
up the outgo bigger than the income, and keep the poor
fellows always on a strain. I love to humor 'em and to play
horse with 'em, and tell 'em stories about Jack and the
bean stalk, and what I did when I was a little boy; and I
put 'em to bed and rub their backs and let 'em trot around
with me a good deal on week days and all day Sunday,
but I'm not going to waste my slender substance on 'em,
for it's nature's law that they must work for a living and
they shall. I'm going to raise 'em in the country, for, as
Thomas Jefferson said: "The influence of great cities is
pestilential to health and morals and the liberties of the
people."
A happy New Year to you and your readers. I don't
mean just the first day, but all the year round. I wish from
my heart everybody was comfortable and contented and
everybody lived in peace. I was ruminating over that kind
of a mellenium which would come if there were no bad
folks--no lazy folks, no envy nor spite nor revenge--no
bad passions, but everybody took things easy and tried to
make all around them happy. I wasent thinking about a
religious millennium for I have known people to make
mighty good, honorable citizens who dident have any
religion to spare, and some who had a power of it on
Sunday but was a juggling with the devil all the rest of the
week. I was thinking about that class of folks who gave us
no trouble and was always willing to tote fair. The law
wasent made for them. I was thinking about the half a
million of dollars it costs to run the State government a year
and the half a million more it costs to run the counties and
courts. If everybody was clever and kind we could save
most all of it and in a few years everybody would have
enough to be comfortable and to educate their children.
The laws are made for bad people only, and bad people
costs us about all the surplus that's made. I know folks all
around me who never violate a law or impose on their
nabors or have a law suit, and it seems to me they ought
not to be taxed like people who are always a fussing
around the courthouse and taking up the time of juries and
witnesses. There ought to be some way to reward good
citizens who give us no trouble or expense, and to make
folks who love strife and contention pay the expense of it.
But I started out wishing for a happy New Year to
everybody, and my opinion is that we can all make it
happy if we try. Let's try. Let's turn over a new leaf. Let's
have a Christmas all the year long. Let's keep the family
hearth always bright and pleasant. Fussing and fretting
don't pay. Solomon says it's like water dropping on a
rock--it will wear away a stone. The home of an
unhappy discordant family is no home at all. It aint even a
decent purgatory. The children won't stay there any longer
than possible. They will emigrate and I don't blame em.
We've had a power of fun at my house the last few
days. Mrs. Arp said she was going to town. She had a
little passel of money hid away--nobody knew how much
or where she got it, but sometimes when my loose change
is laying around or left in my pockets, I've noticed that it
disappears very mysteriously. It took about two hours to
arrange herself for the expedition and she left us on a
mission of peace on earth and good will to her children.
"Now, William, you know the Christmas tree is to be
put up in the hall. You have very good taste about such
things and I know I can trust you without any directions.
Put in that large square box in the smoke house and fasten
it well to the bottom, and put the top on the box for a
table, and the girls will cover it nicely with some curtain
calico. But I will not direct you, for I know you can fix it
all right. There are most too many limbs on the tree.
There
is a lot of pop corn already threaded and you can arrange
them in festoons all over the tree, and the oranges that
Dick sent us from Florida are locked up in the pantry.
Thread them with a large kneedle and tie them all about on
the limbs. The little wax candles and the tins to fasten them
are in the drawer of my bureau. I've had them for several
years and we will light up the tree to-night. The milk is
ready to churn you know. Set the jar in the large tin
bucket before you churn. It will save messing the floor.
There are two turkeys in the coop--take the fattest one--
you can tell by holding them up in your hands. Ralph will
help about the turkey. If you think one turkey will not be
enough you had better kill a couple of chickens to go with
it. I do hope all the children will be here, but I am afraid
they won't. It does look like we might get together once a
year anyhow. Now do attend to the turkey just as nice as
you can, and leave the butter for me to work over when I
come back. The front yard ought to be swept and the
back yard is an awful mess. But I will just leave everything
to you. Keep the hall doors locked, for the children
mustent see the tree until Santa Claus comes. That
mistletoe must be put over the parlor pictures. Hunt up a
few more eggs if you can find them. Don't disturb the
mince pies in the closet--never mind about that either,
for I've got the key in my pocket."
It always did seem to me that ours was the noisiest,
liveliest and most restless set that ever stumped a toe or
fell into the branch. They went through the measles, and
whoopin' cough, and chicken pox, and I don't know how
many more things, without stoppin' to see what was the
matter. A long time
ago it was my opinion that I could regulate 'em and raise
'em up accordin' to science, but I dident find that amount
of co-operation which was necessary to make a fair
experiment. On the contrary, I found myself regulated,
besides being from time to time reminded by their maternal
ancestor that the children were hern, and to this day she
always speaks of 'em as "my children." Well that's a fact;
her title is mighty good to 'em I know, and on reflection I
don't remember to have heard any dispute about who was
the mother of a child.
Well, we can sing the same old song--how the little
folks had lived on tip-toe for many days waiting for Santa
Claus, and how that umble parlor was dressed in cedar
and mistletoe, and the big back log put on, and the blazing
fire built up, and the little stockings hung by the mantel,
and everything got ready for the kind old gentleman. How
that blue-eyed daughter played deputy to him, and was the
keeper of everybody's secret; and shutting herself up in the
parlor, arranged everything to her notion. How that when
supper was over one of the boys slipped up the ladder to
the top of the house with his cornet and tooted a few
merry notes as the signal that Santa Claus had arrived.
Then came the infantile squal, and the youthful yell, and the
Arpian shriek, and all rushed in wild commotion to the
festive hall. Then came the joyful surprises, all mixed up
with smiles and sunbeams, and exclamations and
interjections. Tumultuous gladness gleamed and glistened
all around, and the big bucket of family joy ran over. But
everybody knows how it is hisself, and don't hanker after
a history of other people's frolics.
Well, the old year has burried its dead, and brought
forth its living to take their places. And the time is at hand
when everybody is going to open a new set of books, and
turn over a new leaf and pass a few resolutions to be kept
about three weeks. That's all right. Keep 'em as long as
you can, but don't repent of this year's sins too much at
once. Don't get too much religion at a revival, for by and
by the snow will be gone, and the spring will open and the
birds begin to sing and the flowers to bloom and man's
conceit and independence come back to him and make
him forget the winter and his promises, and strut around
like he was running the whole macheen. But it's all right,
judge, all right, as Cobe says. If a man is good accordin' to
his capacity he can't be any gooder.
How sweet are the sounds from home. How soothing
the consolations of a discerning wife. I was feeling bad and
she knew it. My cogitations over the election news were
by no means jubilant. Silent and sad, with the newspaper
open on my knee, I had been looking dreamily at the
flickering flames for about ten minutes while Mrs. Arp sat
near me sewing a patch on a pair of little breeches, when
suddenly she inquired:
"What did you expect Mr. Cleveland to do for you?"
"Nothing," said I, "nothing at all; but then you see, my
dear, its highly important that a Democrat should be at the
head of the nation."
She never looked up nor for a moment stopped the
graceful jerk of her needle and thread as she again
inquired:
"And what would a Democratic President do for you?"
"Well, nothing--nothing at all," said I; "but then you
see I feel interested in the success of our party and the
promulgation of the great general principles of the
Democracy. They are the hope of the country - the--the - "
"Please tell me something about those great principles,"
said she; "what are they?"
"Why, my dear. the great principles of our party are--
they--are--the--why they are as old as the
government. They underlie the foundation of Democratic
institutions--they"--
"But what are they?" said she.
"Well, in the first place," said I, "when Thomas Jefferson
was President he disseminated and set forth those
principles in a series of state papers that have established
in the mind of American patriots a reverence for
democratic government that"--
"But what are the principles?" said she.
"Well, as I was going to say, the democratic institutions
of our country have contributed more to the preservation
of life, liberty and happiness than all other causes
combined; indeed the benefits that its adherents partake of
are--they are"--
"Justification, adoption, and sanctification," said she.
"No, not exactly; not to that pious extent," said I. "An
enumeration of all those great principles would require
more time than--than--"
"Well, never mind, William, never mind," said she
affectionately; "I don't want to take up your valuable time,
but I've been suspecting, for a long time, that those
principles were to get in office and draw big salaries, and
live high without work, and I reckon one party can do that
about as well as another; don't you?"
"Well, yes, my dear; there is, I confess, some
foundation for your suspicions; but then, you see, we are
trying to nationalize the American people through a
national party, and become once more in fraternal union,
and--"
"Well, you can't do that, William," said she. "They
never did like us and we never did like them. We needn't
have any more war, but we can be stately
and distant like we have to be with nabors that are not
congenial. If I was you I'd let national politics, as you call
it, alone, for it's a jack o'lantern business and will never
profit you. Look after your farm and your home affairs.
You had better go out now and water the flowers in the
pit, and see where Carl and Jessie are. The meal is nearly
out, and you had better shell a turn of corn this evening,
and while you are down there see if the old blue hen has
hatched. Her time is about up. Stir around awhile and
don't be looking so far away."
Blessed woman! I did stir 'round, and it made me feel
better. I shall take no more interest in national politics until
- well, until the next election. Consolation is a good thing.
I'm going to be reconciled anyway and not give up the
ship. Reckon I can stay at home and make corn and
cotton, and frolic with the children, and ruminate on the
uncertainties of life and bask in the sunshine of the family
queen.
"I am afraid you are hankering after an office," said she,
"and that would take you away from home and leave me
and the children alone. Office is a poor thing; when a man
gets one, everybody is envious of him, and he has to give
about half his salary to keep his popularity. We've got a
good home, and we are getting along in years, and I think
we had better stay here, and be as happy as we can. Don't
you, John Anderson, my Joe?" and she placed her little
soft hand so gently and lovingly on my frosty brow, my
reverend head, that I havent thought about office since.
I'm going to camp right here. Dr. Talmage has been
preaching a sermon lately on married folks, and he says it's
the way the women do that drives their husband off at
night to the club
house, and the stores, and the loafing places about town;
says they don't sweeten up on 'em like they did before
they was married--don't come to the door to meet
'em--don't play the piano, but sorter give up, and are
always complaining about something, or scolding the
children or the servants. Well, maybe that's so to some
extent, but my observation is that most of them fellers went
to the clubhouses and loafed around before they were
married. I've knowed men to quit home and go up town
every night because they said they was in the way while
the children were being washed and put to bed. My wife,
Mrs. Arp, taught me a long time ago that a man could
perform those little offices about as well as a woman, and
if they are his children he ought to be willing to do it. There
the poor woman sits and sews and nurses the little chaps
all the day long, tying up the cut fingers and stumped toes,
and doctoring the little tooth-ache, and leg-ache, and
stomach-ache and fixin' 'em something to eat, and helping
'em in a thousand little ways--while the lord of the house
is chatting with his customers or sitting in his office with his
feet upon a table or against the mantel-piece, and another
feller just like him is doing the same thing, and they talk,
and swap lies, and laugh, and carry on, and it's "ha, ha,
ha," and "he, he, he," and "ho, ho, ho;" and about dark he
stretches and yawns and says, "Well, I must go home; it's
about my supper time;" and brother Talmage wants his
poor wife to be a watching at the window and when she
sees him coming she must run out and meet him 'twixt the
house and the gate, and kiss him on his old smoky lips and
say, "Oh, my dear, my darling, I'm so glad you have
come." Well, that's all right, I reckon, if a woman ain't got
nothing else to think about but fitting herself for heaven,
but to my opinion a man ought to go home a little sooner
than he does, and take a little more interest in things when
he gets there.
Women are a heap better than men if they have half a
chance. They were created better. They begin the world
better in their infancy. Little girls don't go round throwing
rocks at birds and shooting slingshots at the chickens and
running the calves all over the lot and setting the dogs on
the barn cats and breaking up pigeons' nests and all that.
Never saw a boy that didn't want to shoot a gun and kill
something. It's a wonder to me that these kind,
tenderhearted girls will have anything to do with 'em, but it
seems like they will, and I reckon it's all right, but if I was a
young marryin' woman I would be mighty particular about
mating with a feller round town who belonged to half a
dozen societies of one sort or another and was out every
night. If I wanted a man all to myself I would look out for
some farmer boy who would take me to the country where
there ain't no clubs or Masonic lodge or Odd Fellows or
Knights of Honor or Pythias or Scylla or Charybdis, or fire
companies, or brass bands, or mardi grass, or pate defoi
gras. I'd force him to love me whether he wanted to or not,
for there wouldn't be anything to distract his attention. But
then, if a girl wants to fly round and be everybody's gal,
and have all sorts of a time, why then she'd better marry in
town. It's all a question of having one good man to love
you, or a dozen silly ones to admire. But as I ain't a
woman, I suppose it's none of my business.
It was about the close of a bright and happy day. We
were all sitting in the broad piazza and Mrs. Arp had laid
aside her spectacles and was talking about the old Hog
mountain that she had been reading about in Joel Harris's
pretty story, "At Teague Poteets." "Why," said she,
"that Hog mountain is in old Gwinnett, away up north
towards Gainesville, and I went to school there when I
was a child. Old Aunty Bird taught us, and she was a
sweet old-soul. I know she is in heaven if anybody is. I
wonder if it is the same Hog mountain--but I don't
remember any of the Poteets."
Good, honest, clever Tom Gordon, who lives a few
miles above us, passed along as we were talking, and
Mrs. Arp's memories took a fresh start as she remarked:
"He was a good boy, Tom was. I went to school with him
to Mr. Spencer, and I know his speech right now," and
she arose forward, and assuming an anxious, excited
countenance, she said as she stretched forth her hand, "Is
the gentleman done? Is he completely done?" Mrs. Arp
is mighty good on a speech, and her memory is wonderful,
and so to toll her along I said, "and Charley Alden, what
was his speech?" and without a moment's hesitation she
took a new position and
made one of those short neck bows and cleared her
throat, and repeated with slow and solemn voice,
" 'On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser rolling rapidly.' "
Then she put her other little foot forward, and
brightened up as she continued:
" 'But Linden saw another sight,' "
And when she got down to the thick of the fight it was
thrilling to hear her and to see her heroic attitude as she
screamed:
" 'Wave, Munich--all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.' "
And she waved an imaginary flag all around her classic
head.
We all cheered and clapped our hands, for the girls had
never seen their mother in that role before.
"And poor Thad Lowe," said I, "what was his speech?"
"So from the region of the north," said she.
"And Rennely Butler," said I.
"At midnight in his guarded tent," and she gave us a
whole verse of Marco Bozzaris. She likes that, and we
begged her to go on, and she went through that fighting
verse where the Greeks came down like an avalanche,
and her martial patriotism was all aglow as she said:
"Strike for the green graves of your sires,
Strike for your altars and your fires,
God and your native land."
Goodness gracious, what a soldier she would have
made.
It was my turn now, and so I put in on Jim Alexander's
speech at my school.
"Make way for liberty, he cried
Make way for liberty and died."
Jim was always a cruising around for liberty, and the
speech suited him mighty well. But Tom, his brother, had
a liking for the law and spoke from Daniel Webster,
"Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case." And there
was Gib Wright, the biggest boy in school, who carried
his head on one side like he was fixing to be hung, and he
came out on the floor with a flourish and made big
demonstrations, fixing his No. 13 feet, and you would
have thought he was going to speak something from
Demosthenes or Ajax or Hercules or the rock of
Gibraltar, when suddenly he stretched forth his big long
arm and said:
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour."
We never thought he would get to be a big lawyer and a
judge, but he did.
And General Wofford was there too, and his speech
was the speech of an Indian chief to the pale faces, and
most every sentence began with "brothers," and he
whipped a big sassy Spaniard by the name of Del Gardo
for imposing on us little boys, and then went off to fight
the Mexicans for imposing on Uncle Sam, and ever since
he has been fighting somebody for imposing on
somebody, and I think he had rather do it than not.
And there was Jim Dunlap who used to spread himself
and swell as he recited from Patrick Henry's great speech:
"They tell us, sir, that we are weak, but when shall we be
stronger! Will it be the next week or the next year?" and
he just pawed around and shook the floor as he
exclaimed, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Jim dident
carry as much weight before him as he carries now, but he
was a whale, and had a voice like a bass drum with a bull
frog in it. Jim was called on during the late war to choose
betwixt liberty or death, and he sorter split the difference
and took neither, but he pulled through all right.
After this effort, which sorter exhausted me, Mrs. Arp
recalled Melville Young's speech about "King Henry of
Navarre," and Charley Norton's speech to the eagle,
"Great bird of the wilderness, lonely and proud," and
Charley Rowland's solemn dirge to Sir John Moore, "Not
a drum was heard, not a funeral note," and then I was
called on for my own speech, and I had to stand up and
advance forward and make a bow and say: "My name is
Norval - on the Grampian hills my father fed his flocks."
I remember it took my teacher two weeks to keep me
from saying "my name is Norval on the Grampian hills,"
and he asked me what was my name off the Grampian
hills; and finally I got the idea that I must put on the brakes
after I said Norval and then make a new start for the hills.
Mrs. Arp then branched off on the composition and
recitations of the girls, and recited sweet little Mary
Maltbie's piece on the maniac: "Stay, jailer, stay and hear
my woe," and Sallie Johnson's composition on "Hope."
"Hope! If it was not for hope man would die. Hope is a
good invention. If it was not for hope, woman would
mighty nigh give up a ship."
And that reminded me of Hack Montgomery's prize
essay on money.
"Money! Money is a good invention. The world couldn't
get along much without money. But folks oughten to love
money too good. They oughten to hanker after other folks
money, for if they do it's mighty apt to make 'em steal and
rob. One day there was a lonesome traveler going along a
lonesome road in the woods all solitary and alone by
himself, without nobody at all with him, when suddenly in
the twinkling of an eyeball out sprang a robber and shotten
him down, and it was all for money."
Mrs. Arp's thoughts seemed away off somewhere as
she tenderly repeated:
"When I am dead no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier."
"That was my dear brother's speech," said she "and it all
came true. He was killed at Chickamauga. The cruel bullet
went in his brain and he fell with his face to the foe and
there was no pageant train; no kindred; no sorrows
wasted; no time for sorrow; no loving hand; no burial for a
long time. Oh, it is so sad even now, to think about the
poor, dear boy. He was good to us and we loved him."
Our school-mates are few and far between now. Death
has carried most of them away and those who are left are
widely scattered. How the roads of life do fork--and
some take one and some another. We are all like pickets
skirmishing around, and one by one get picked off
ourselves by the common foe.
I had liked to have got picked off myself a day or two ago.
The wagon had come from town with a few comforts, and
one was a barrel of flour. Mrs. Arp and the children always
come to the south porch when the wagon comes, for they
want to see it unloaded and feel good for a little while, and
so when the hind gate was taken off and Mrs. Arp had
wondered how we would get out the flour, I thought I
would show her what a man could do. I rolled the barrel to
me as I stood on the ground and gently eased it down on
my knees. My opinion now is that there is a keg of lead in
that barrel, for my knees gave way and I was falling
backwards, and to keep the barrel from mashing me into a
pancake or something else, I gave it a heave forward and
let her go, and it gave me a heave backward and let me go,
and I fell on a pile of rocks that were laid around a cherry
tree, and they were rough and ragged and sharp, and tore
my left arm all to pieces and raked it to the bone. The
blood streamed through my shirt sleeve and I was about to
faint, for blood always make me faint, when Mrs. Arp
screamed for camphor, and the girls ran for it, and before I
could stop 'em they had campfire and turpentine fire
poured all over my arm, and I went a dancing around like I
was in a yeller jacket's nest. It liked to have killed me,
shore enuf, but after while I rallied and went to bed. I
havens used that arm nor a finger on that hand till now, and
go about sad and droopy. But I have had a power of
sympathy, and Mrs. Arp is good--mighty good. I'm most
willing to tear up a leg or two by and by, for they are all so
good. And now I'm in a fix--for I can't shave but one side
of my face and company is coming tomorrow.
Well, I used to could let down a barrel of flour--I
used to could--but rolling years will change a man -
anno domini will tell. I reckon by the time I get my neck
broke I will begin to realize that I'm not the man I used to
be, but as Cobe says, "if I could call back 20 years I'd
show 'em." The next time a barrel of flour comes to my
house I will get two skids twenty-five feet long and let it
roll out, see if I don't. But it's all right, and I've had a
power of sympathy, and sympathy is a good thing. I
would almost die for sympathy. I shall get well slowly--
very slowly. But Mrs. Arp asked me this morning if I
could pick the raspberries for dinner with one hand--
said she could swing a little basket round my neck. What
a thoughtful, ingenious women.
The older we grow the oftener do we reverse the
telescope and look back. How distant seem the scenes of
our youth. If I did not know better I would say it has been
a hundred years since I was a little boy trudging along to
the first school I ever attended. The old school days are a
notable part of everyone's life. My wife and I frequently
indulge in these memories, for we went to school together,
though I was six years her senior. We tell over to the
children all the funny things that happened, and discuss the
frailties and the virtues of our school mates and magnify
the teachers, and she tells them as how I was a smart boy
and stood head in the spelling class for a month at a time,
and she remembers the speeches I spoke, and with a
pretended regret she says: "Children, your father was a
very handsome boy, with black, glossy hair, and he had
plenty of it then. The girls used to cast sheep's eyes at him
then, but I didn't, for I was too young to be a
sweetheart then, but he had them. Yes, he was smart and
good-looking too, and he knew it. Yes, he knew it. He
had a fight once at school about his sweetheart. Her name
was Penelope McAlpin, and another boy called her Penny-
lope, just to tease your pa, and he hit him right straight and
they fought like wild cats for awhile. When he was a young
man and I was in my teens, he was the dressiest youth in
the town and wore the tightest boots. Oh, my! I had no
idea he would ever notice me, and I don't know yet what
made him do it."
Well, you see, the like of that called for a response, and
so I had to put in and tell what a beautiful, hazel-eyed
creole she was--what long raven hair that fell over her
shoulders in waving tresses, and what beautiful hands and
feet, and how fawnlike she locomoted about and about,
and how shy and startled she was when I began to
address her, and what juicy lips that seemed pouting for a
lover, and then her teeth--her pearly teeth--that were
almost as pretty as those she has now. I told them how
hard it was to win her until she found out I was in earnest,
and then how suddenly she surrendered with tumultuous
affection, and I recited with tender pathos those beautiful
lines of Coleridge:
"She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and virgin shame,
And like the murmur of a dream
I heard her breathe my name.
She half enclosed me in her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace,
And bending back her head looked up
And gazed upon my face."
Just then Mrs. Arp stopped sewing and gazed at me
sure enough, as she said: "Was there ever such
a story-teller? Why, you know I didn't do any such thing.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"I was just telling how Genevieve did," said I, "and
how Coleridge won his 'bright and beauteous bride.' She
had hazel eyes, too."
Young man, you had better not try to flirt with a pair of
hazel eyes. It is a waste of time and dangerous. They are
less susceptible than the blue, and when once deceived do
not pine away in grief, but rally for revenge and take it out
in scorn. If you tackle them you had better go in to win or
leave the country. And while I think of it, I'll make another
remark: When you woo and win and wed, you had better
keep on wooing and winning afterwards or leave the
country. It takes a power of love to do them.
We little chaps used to go to school to female teachers--
to Yankee school marms, who were well educated and
smart. But they never taught school very long, for our
widowers married them about as fast as they came. You
see, our high-strung blooded girls wouldn't marry
widowers, for they could always get young men to their
liking, but a well-to-do widower had a fancy for a settled
woman, who was raised to economy, and would be so
grateful for having bettered her condition in life. Of course
they did not all marry widowers, but they married, and
they made good wives and good mothers, and their
descendants are all over the sunny land, and have proved
a splendid cross from Southern blood and Northern
energy.
The first teacher I ever went to was a Yankee woman,
and she had a dunce block set up in the middle of the
room for the lazy scholars to sit on.
The mischievous ones were made to stand on the table or
in the corner with face to the wall. She never whipped us,
and was a kind motherly woman. Jim Wardlaw "fit" her
once and she laid him on her lap and tried to spank him,
but he bit her on the knee and she screamed "mercy" and
let him go.
The other day I chanced to be one of a party of I
assorted gentlemen and they took it by turns telling
of their schoolboy frolics and adventures. One
said, "while I was going to school to old Greer I
picked a lot of wet mud off my shoe heels and made
it into a ball and thought I would toss it over and
hit Ed. Omberg, who sat on the other side of the
school room. Old Greer was on that side, too, and
right between me and Ed., but I thought I could flip
it over his head while he was leaning over his desk
setting copies, but somehow dident flip it hard
enough and it came down on old Greer's head ker-flop
and flattened out like a pancake. I never saw a
man more astonished in my life, and I was scared
mighty nigh to death. I ducked down to my book
and dident dare to look up. My ducking down was
what caught me, for the other boys were looking up
in wonder, and they would look at old Greer and
then look at me, and a pointer dog couldn't have
spotted a bird any better. 'Come here,' said he.
'Come here; come here; come right along here;"
and he met me half way and gave me about twenty five that
lasted and lingered for a whole week.
"Jim Jones was a stuttering boy, and chock full of
mischief. Early one morning he fastened the historic pin in
old Greer's split-bottom chair, and when he came in and
called the roll and then took a seat in his accustomed seat,
he didn't stay there long, but rose up with great alacrity.
His eyes flashed fire as
he gazed around the room, and he caught Jim in the same
way he caught me, and seizing a long, keen, supple
hickory said: 'Come up here, sir, you villainous scamp. I'll
show you--come along, sir.' Jim approached trembling
and slow. 'Come along, I tell you, sir.' Jim stopped and
stuttered with pitiful accents: 'Ger-ger-ger-gwine to wh-wh-
wh-whip me?' 'Come along, I tell you, or I'll - ' 'Ger-ger-fer-
gwine to wh-wh-whip me hard.' Old Greer started
towards him, but Jim had lost confidence, and wheeling
suddenly made tracks for the door with old Greer after
him. Jim bounced over two benches to get there first, but
Greer had to turn a corner around the benches, and in
doing so tripped and fell broadcast and rolled over
besides, and we boys just cackled. He bounced up as
mad as Julius Cæsar, and said in a towering passion: 'I'll
whip every boy that laughs. Now laugh again, if you dare.'
And we dident dare."
Well, it is curious that most every devilish boy in every
school is named Jim. The very name seems to make a boy
devilish. They generally make notable men, and some of
them climb very high. There is James Madison and James
Monroe and Polk and Buchanan and Garfield. And Jimmy
Blaine is cavorting around and thinks he ought to be
president just because his name is Jim. If there is any other
good reason I don't know it. And I went to school with Jim
Wilson and Jim Alexander and Jim Wardlaw and Jim
Linton and Jim Walker and they were a sight. There is
another thing to be noted about school boys. They always
call their teachers "old." They called Dr. Patterson "old
Pat," and Professor McCoy "old Mack," and Professor
Waddell "old Pewt," and there was old
Nahum and old Beeman, and old Fouche and old Isham.
We were talking about old Isham, and one of our party
said: "I went to school to him, and sometimes he would
slip up on a boy as slyly as a cat upon a rat, and catch him
making pictures on his slate. He would hover over him for
a moment, and then pounce down upon him like a hawk
upon a chicken, and catch him by the ears and shove his
face down on the slate and wipe out the pictures with his
nose. One day Jim Harris was up at the blackboard
blundering along and making all sorts of mistakes, and old
Isham got mad and, seizing him under the arms, lifted him
up bodily and mopped the blackboard with him and
rubbed out all his figures, and set him down again and sent
him to his seat."
"I went to school to old George," said another, "and
there was a fire-place at one end of the long room, and
when it was cold weather the small fry were allowed to sit
up near the fire and the big boys had to do the best they
could at the other end. Tom Jackson was a big, strapping,
freckle-faced boy, who was everlastingly hungry. One
morning he brought a big, long sweet potato to school and
so he pretended to be very cold and said "Mr. George,
mayn't I go up to the fire to warm?" "Go along, sir," said
George. Tom took the shovel and pretended to be
punching the fire, but he was slying opening a hole in the
ashes and suddenly dropped the potato in and covered it
up. Some of the little boys saw him and whispered:
"Gimme some, Tom; when its done gimme some." "Hush,"
said Tom, "and I will." In about half an hour Tom got very
cold again and asked to go up and warm. "Go along, sir,"
said George, "you must be very cold this morning." Tom
warmed awhile and took the shovel and pulled out the
potato and put it in his pocket. "Gimme some, Tom;
gimme some," was whispered all around as he marched
back to his seat. "Gimme some or I'll tell."
The little boys began to snicker and point at Tom as he
was peeling and blowin' his "tater" behind his desk. "What
are you boys making all that racket about?" said old
George, as he approached them with his hickory. "We
was laughing at Tom Jackson over yonder eatin' his 'tater.'
He roasted it here in the fire and promised to give us some
if we wouldn't tell, but he didn't." "Aha," said old George,
"come up here, Tom Jackson, you sly, deceitful rascal.
That is what you were so cold about. What is that sticking
out of your pocket?" "A tater, sir." "Give it here, sir. I'll
have you know this school house is no cook kitchen. You
are so cold I think a little warming up will do you good,
sir." And he gave him about a dozen over his shoulders
and lower down, and then divided the tater among the little
boys.
These school boy tales would fill a book, and I wish
that "Philemon Perch" would write another.
I once heard of a grumblin' old farmer who made a big
crop of very fine corn, and on being congratulated about
it, said:
"Well, yes; my corn is all mighty fine, but I don't know
how I'll get along without some nubbins to feed the steers
on."
It's a raining now every day, but it came a little too late,
and we'll all have plenty of steer food this year. I reckon
we will make some tolerable corn on the bottoms, and the
late planting is coming out smartly. If misery loves
company we can take comfort like the darkey did that Mr.
Stephens told about in his speech, for poor crops are a
pretty "general thing" in this naborhood.
But maybe it's all right--for we did make an
abundance of wheat, and it aint too late to make a right
smart cotton and git 15 cents a pound for it. A man ought
to be reconciled to what he cannot help, that is unless he
owes a little passer of money he can't pay and is reminded
of it once a month on a postal card. That's bad, aint it? Or
unless he has got a lot of sickly no account children. I tell
Mrs. Arp we ought to be mighty thankful, for there's nary
one of the ten that's cross-eyed or knock-need or pigeon-toed
or box-ankled or sway-backed or hump-shouldered
or lame or blind or idiotic, and the grandchildren are an
improvement upon the stock, and I don't believe
any of 'em will ever git to the poor-house or carry a pistol
or go to the legislature and have some feller offer 'em a
hundred dollars for his vote.
A sound, healthy body is a great blessing, and a fair set-off
to most every kind of bad luck that can happen to a
man. Mr. Beecher was right when he said the first rule to
insure good health was to select good, healthy parents to
be born from. My ruminations on this subject have been
quite luminous of late, for I've been powerful sick. The
fact is, I like to have died the other night, and all of a
sudden. You see I had overworked myself a fixing up a
turnip patch, and got wet besides, and didn't stop for
dinner, and was sorter hungry and bilious to start on and
we had roaster ears for supper and buttermilk and honey,
and takin' it all together I took the green corn dance about
midnight and the small of my back caved in, and from then
until daybreak I never sot up, nor lay down, nor stood still
a minute. Doubled up and twisted and jerked around with
excruciatin' pains, I cavorted all over one side of the
house, for we had some Atlanta company on the other,
and my groanings were worse than a foundered mule. It
was just awful to behold and awfuller to experience.
Spirits of turpentine, camphire, hot water, mustard plaster,
mush poultice, paregoric, Jamaica ginger were all used
externally and internally, but no relief. I trotted around and
paced and fox-trotted and hugged the bed-post and laid
down and rolled over on the floor like a hundred dollar
horse, and my wife, Mrs. Arp, she trotted around too, and
dosed me with this thing and that thing and had the stove
fired up and hollered for hot water forty times before she
got it.
"I told you not to work so hard in the hot sun," said
she. "Oh, Lordy," said I.
"I asked you to change your clothes as soon as you
came to the house and you didn't do it." "Oh, my country,"
said I.
"Don't wake up the company," she continued. "And you
would eat them roaster ears for supper--did ever
anybody hear of a man eating roaster ears for supper and
then wash 'em down with buttermilk and honey." "Oh, my
poor back," said I.
"Do you reckon it's your back--aint it further round in
front?" "Oh, no," said I, "it's everywhere, it's lumbago, it's
siatiker, it's Bright's disease, its Etna and Vesuvious all
mixed up. Oh, I'm so sick--can't nobody do nothin'."
"Poor fellow, poor William, I'm so sorry for you, but
you will wake up the company if you don't mind--I'm
doing everything I can. You've taken enough things now to
kill you. I declare I don't know what to do next, and all
this comes from moving to the country five miles from a
drug store or a doctor. I told you how it would be--
plumbago and skyatiker and a bright disease, and the Lord
knows what, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you had
the yellow fever to boot--caught it a trampin' around
Memphis, and it's just broke out on you. Poor man, if he
does die what will become of us? But if he gets well he'll
go and do the same thing over again. Don't grunt so loud. I
declare you make enough noise to wake up a graveyard. I
never saw such a man. Here, try this mush poultice. I
thought that water never would get hot. Does it burn
you?"
"Oh, yes; it burns, but fire is nothing now, let it burn.
Oh! I'm so sick. Bring me the paregoric,
or the laudanum, or something, I can't stand it ten minutes
longer," said I.
"There aint a drop left. You've taken it all. There's
nothing left but chloroform, and I'm so afraid of that, but
maybe it will relieve you, William. My poor William, how I
do hate to see you suffer so, but you will never do as I tell
you. Do please don't wake up the company!"
Well, I took the chloroform and went to sleep--to the
happy land--all-blessed relief, and when I waked I was
easier, and in due time was restored to my normal
condition. In my gyrations my mind was exceedingly
active. I ruimnated over my past life, and could find a little
comfort in what Leigh Hunt wrote about some Arab who
was admitted to heaven because he loved his fellow-men,
that is, except some. Just so I have loved mine; that is,
except some. I thought about money in comparison with
health and freedom from pain, and I felt such an utter
disgust for riches, it made me sick at the stomach. I would
have given a house full of gold for two minutes' cessation
of those internal hostilities.
Well, I kept this numerous and interesting family in a
very lively state for a few long hours, and it taught me a
useful lesson. I'm going to take care of myself; I am going
to do everything Mrs. Arp tells me, for she has got sense--
she has. She takes care of herself--not a gray hair in her
head, and is as bright as the full moon; and when she gives
an opinion it is an opinion. From that horrible night's
experience I am more than ever satisfied she loves me as
well as ever, and wouldn't swap me off for nobody. When
I stand up before her and say "Juror look upon the
prisoner--prisoner look upon
In the good old patriarchal times most every family of
wealth kept what was called "open house" and all who
came were welcome. There was no need to send word
you were coming, for food and shelter were always ready.
The generous host met his guests at the gate and called for
Dick or Jack or Cæsar to come and take the horses in
the barn--plenty of big fat hams and leaf lard in the
smoke house house--plenty plenty of chickens and
ducks and turkeys in the back yard--plenty of preserves
in the pantry--plenty of trained servants to do the work
while the lady of the house entertained her guests. How
proud were these family servants to show off before their
visitors and make display of their accomplishments in the
kitchen and the dining room and the chamber. They
shared the family standing in the community and had but
little sympathy for the "poor white trash" of the
neighborhood.
Some of us try to keep open house yet, but can't do it
like we used to. The servants are not trained, and they
come and go at their pleasure. Sometimes the larder gets
very low and the purse looks like an elephant had trod on
it. But still we do the best we can. We "welcome the
coming and we speed the parting guest."
During the last summer we had a great deal of
company at our house and some of them stayed a
good long time, for most of them were from a lower
latitude and imagined that the yellow fever or some dread
pestilence was about to invade their low country homes.
And so they were easily persuaded to protract their visit.
When they had all departed I was glad, for I knew that
Mrs. Arp was tired--very tired. I was glad too because
the supplies were well nigh exhausted and the cook had
given notice of a change of base. Our recess had just
begun when I received the following appalling epistle:
SAVANNAH, GA.,
My Dear Cousin William:
It is about time that we were paying you that long
promised visit (The way he came to be our cousin was his
step-father's aunt married my wife's great uncle about 40
years ago.) It is awful hot weather down here. The
thermometer is away up to an 100. It makes us long for
the rest and shade of some quiet, cool retreat in the
mountains of North Georgia, where we can get on the
broad piazza of a country home and enjoy the fresh
mountain air and the cool spring water. Our children are all
at home now. Our eldest son has just returned from
college, and our eldest daughter is now spending her
vacation, and they need a good frolic in the country--and
there are, as you know, just six others of all ages and
sizes, and they continually talk of your springs and your
branches and the fish pond that you write about so
charmingly in your Sunday letters. So if you have room for
us we will all be up in a few days. Our second boy has a
favorite dog to whom he is much attached. If you have no
objections we will bring the dog. He is well behaved and
will give you no trouble. The third boy has a pair of fancy
goats that are trained to work in harness, and I know your
children will like to frolic with them. We will bring the
goats. Our nurse will come with us. Now, don't give
yourselves any anxiety on our account, for we are just
coming to have a free and easy time and enjoy the air and
the water. We will bring our fishing tackle along.
YOUR LOVING COUSIN.
It was with great hestitation that I read this letter to Mrs.
Arp, but she was equal to the occasion, for her hospitality
never surrenders. "Well, write to them to come along,"
she said with a sigh. "I expect their children are tired of
that hot city, and would be happy to get up here and play
in the branch. Their poor mother has had a time of it just
like I have--a thousand children and no negroes. Born
rich and had to live hard, and will die poor I reckon. But
write to them to come along and enjoy the air and the
water, for there is not much else here now."
"But my dear," said I, "there isent anything else, and I
don't see how we can take them. The truth is I am plum
out of money and I am ashamed to go to town and ask for
any more credit. Two months ago when our company
began to come we had three or four hundred chickens
running around the lot, and before the company left I was
buying twenty a day. It is just awful, and we can't get
another cook anywhere."
"Well, it don't matter," said she, "we can't refuse them -
it would be bad manners. Write to them to come along, ,
and we will do the best we can. You can pick up
something, I konw; I never knew you to fail."
So under conjugal
pressure I indited the following reply:
My dear Cousin: Your
letter delighted us beyond
expression. Our end of the line is all fixed up, and when
you telegraph us that you are coming we will meet you at
the depot. We have a double buggy and a farm wagon,
and if they will not hold all and the baggage and livestock,
the boys and the dog and the goats can walk out and
peruse the country. It is only five miles, so come along and
be happy and enjoy the air and the water. There is plenty
of room now, for we shipped the last of eighteen visitors
yesterday. They have run us down to air and water, but
there is still an abundance of that and you are welcome to
it. We don't care anything about your dog, but we have
one here that I am afraid will eat his ears off in two
minutes. Country dogs never did have much consideration
for a town dog. The only trouble is about feeding your dog
with palatable food, for we have no scraps left from our
table now, and our dog has got to eating crawfish. This
kind of food makes a dog hold on when he bites.
I think you had better bring the goats, for we would like
to have a barbecue while you are here and we are just out
of goats. You needent bring your fishing tackle as we have
plenty, but fish are awful scarce in our creek since the mill
pond was drawn off. Couldent you bring some salt water
fish as a rarity to our children? Huckleberries are ripe
now and your children will enjoy picking them. Ticks and
red bugs are ripe, too, and your children will enjoy picking
them about bed time. Scratching is a healthy business in
the country and is the poor man's medicine. Town folks
can take
Cuticura and Sarsaparilla and S. S. S. and B. B. B. but a
poor man just has to scratch--that's all.
I wouldent mention it
to my wife, but it has occured to
me that as you are about to break up for a season you
might just as well bring your cow along, for ours are about
played out. It would do your cow good to enjoy the air
and water. And this reminds me that my wife scraped the
bottom of the sugar barrel yesterday. It does take a power
of sweetening for these country berries. A hundred pounds
or so from your store wouldent come amiss. I suppose
your nurse wouldent mind sleeping in the potatoe shed. It
is a good cool place to roost at night. We have no
musketoes but snakes are alarmingly frequent in these
parts. Carl killed a rattlesnake in the garden yesterday but
he had only six rattles and we think that we can soon learn
your children to dodge them; so come along and enjoy the
air and water. It is well worth a visit up here to see the blue
mountains and watch the young cyclones meander around.
A cyclone came in sight of us last spring and unroofed
nabor Munford's house and killed seven mules and three
negro children and went on. It is a grand and inspiring sight
to see a cyclone on an excursion. Our crab apples are ripe
now. I read the other day a very sad account about three
children dying of crab apple colic in one family. Our cook
has given us notice that she will leave next Sunday and my
wife says she has tried all over the naborhood to secure
another but failed. Maybe you had better bring up a cook
with you, but if you can't why then we will all try and get
along on the air and the water. I can cook pretty well
myself on an
emergency, but don't fancy it as a regular job. But the
greatest trouble now is that we have nothing to cook. But
come along and enjoy the air and the water. Your
cousin,
WILLIAM
Well, he dident come. The next time I saw him he said
he was just joking, and I told him I was too.
Some time ago my business called me to an old
venerable town that is still a score of miles from a railroad,
and consequently has not made much progress in its
business or its architecture. Forty years had passed since I
had visited the place, and there was but little change. The
same old hotel was there, one of those big, old-fashioned
barns that used to prevail in almost every town, and had a
swinging signboard that creaked and swayed with the wind
and said, "Entertainment for Man and Beast." They use to
have a plantation bell swung up on a frame close by, and a
rope attached to ring the guests to fried chicken and ham
and eggs and beat biscuit and bacon and greens and
sausage and lye hominy and cracklin' bread. The judge and
the bar rode the circuit then--not in railroads nor one at a
time, but all together in buggies and gigs and sulkies. It was
quite a cavalade, and attracted wonder and awe and
attention like a traveling circus. The judge's room was
always the biggest and best, and every night the lawyers
would gather there and talk and tell anecdotes and
exchange their genial wit and humor, and it was a rare treat
to a young man to be admitted to a corner and listen to
them. It was a feast to me, I know, and I still treasure the
memory of those delightful evenings at Gainesville and
Jefferson and Monroe and
Watkinsville and Clarkesville, when Howell Cobb and
Hillyer and Dougherty and Overby and Hutchins and
Peeples and Jackson and Hull and Underwood were the
luminaries of the western circuit. What a galaxy was there -
all notable men in their day, and all honorable. There was
no trickery in their practice, for they scorned it, and they
loved to meet each other on these semi-annual ridings, and
each one was expected to come laden with a new batch of
anecdotes wherewith to cheer the night. Book agents were
unknown; newspapers were neither numerous or newsy,
and hence it was a great comfort to catch the sparks of
genius as they scentillated from the lawyers and the
politicians on the stump and in the forum. Stump politics
were a big thing with the people. The two great parties of
Whigs and Democrats were pretty equally divided.
Sometimes one was in power and sometimes the other,
and the contest went on from year to year and never
ceased to create excitement. It is not so now in the South,
for there is practically but one party and it takes two to get
up a fight.
But this venerable town had memories, and its moss
covered hotel with its steep stairs and narrow passages
carried me back to those good old primitive times, and I
felt like painting a head board and nailing it up somewhere
with the inscription, "Sacred to the memory of- - - - -."
A friend said that it was a pity the old house would not
catch fire and burn up. But no. I wouldent have it so. Let it
stand if it will stand. It will never rot, for the timbers are all
heart and
hewed and honest. I felt like taking off my hat to it and
saying:
Good friend, let's spare that barn, Touch not its mossy roof - Its walls heard many a yarn In its historic youth.
Under the weight of years Its back has crooked grown; Look at the creaking doors, See how the stairs are worn.
Oft in each hall and room, Lye-soap and sand were thrown, And many a home-made broom And many a shuck have gone.
Full many a chick was killed, And died without a tear, And many a guest was filled With comfort and good cheer.
No, no; let's keep the inn, Though it has lost the sign-- keep it for what it's been-- Keep it for auld lang syne.
A good old matron is keeping it now, and her table
abounds in generous old-fashioned fare.
The other day Judge Milner and Col. McCamy and I
were lamenting that Judge Underwood, the last of that
splendid galaxy of lawyers, had passed over the river, and
we exchanged many delightful recollections of him, for he
was a genial gentleman, and his presence always brought
sunshine. He was a notable man--notable as a jugde, as
a lawyer, as congressman, and as a wit. We recalled the
famous Calhoun convention, when Judge Wright and
General Young and General Wofford and Lewis Tumlin
and some others were candidates for the nomination
to congress, and no man had enough votes to elect,
and all were stubborn, and the balloting went on all day,
and part of the night, and the delegates were getting mad
and furious and were about to break up in a row, and
Judge Underwood, who was not a candidate, volunteered
to make a concililiatory speech, and he did it in such a
delightful, affectionate manner, and praised up all the
candidates in such eloquent tributes that when he closed
one man got up and waved his hat and moved three
cheers for Judge Underwood, and they were given with
wild enthusiasm, and right on top ot it another delegate
moved that he be nominated for congress by acclamation,
and he was. Never was there such a surprise to anybody
except to the judge,, though he always denied that it was a
preconcerted scheme.
Oh, rare Judge Underwood! Colonel McCamy
remarked that the judge did not have a very high regard
for that picture of justice which makes her blindfolded and
holding the scales equally balanced in her hand. So far as
crime was concerned he claimed the right to see, and he
did see the criminal with open, unfriendly eyes, and he
sought to convict him and gave the solicitor-general so
much aid and co-operation that the lawyers used to say
the judge and the solicitor were in partnership. His charge
to the jury in a criminal case was always fair and strictly
legal, for he was a great lawyer, but woe be unto the
lawyer who asked for more than he was entitled to. On
one occasion a big, rough, malicious young man was
indicted for striking a smaller youth with a brickbat and
inflicting a terrible wound. The small boy had been
imposed
upon by him, and seizing a stick he struck him and ran. Bill
Glenn was defending the young man who used the brick,
and after the judge had given a very fair charge to the jury,
he said: "Now, gentlemen,, if I have omitted anything that
you think should be given in the charge, I will be glad to
be reminded of it." Bill Glenn rose forward and, said, "I
believe your honor omitted to charge the jury a man may
strike another in self-defense."
"Yes, gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, with great
sarcasm. "Yes, there is such a provision in the law, and if
you believe from the evidence that this great big, double-jointed,
long-armed, big fisted young gentleman was
running after that puny pale-faced boy with that brickbat,
and because he couldent catch him threw it at him with all
his force, and struck him on the back of the head and
knocked him senseless, and that he did all this in self-defense,
then you can find the defendant not guilty. Is
there anything else, Brother Glenn?"
"Nothing, I believe sir. Your honor has covered the
ground," said Glenn, biting his lips.
"I was always afraid," said McCamy, "to ask the judge
to charge anything more than he chose to-- especially in a
criminal case."
A merchant or a lawyer or any outsider who never
farmed any has got an idea that farming is a mighty simple,
and easy, and innocent sort of business. They think there
is nothing to do but plow and hoe and gather the crop,
and there is no worry or complication about it, except you
can't get a rain every time you want it, and the crop is
short in consequence. I had pretty much that sort of a
notion myself, but I know better now. I've been farming
for five years, and I like it better and better; I like the
freedom of it, its latitude and longitude and its variety; but
there is a power of little worries, and not a few big ones,
that a man has to encounter and provide for that these
outsiders never dreamed of. When a man is running hired
labor it takes about half his time to watch 'em and keep
'em from wasting things and losing things and doing things
wrong. I went down in the field yesterday and stumbled
on the monkey-wrench in the grass by the turn row, and it
had been there for a month, and I had hunted for it all over
the premises, and nobody could tell anything about it; but
now the darkey "members takin' it down dar to screw up
de taps on de cultivator." Not long ago I found the
hatchet in the edge of the bushes where one of the boys
had cut poles to lay off by. I can pick up scooters and dull
plows all about the farm, in the corners of the panels and
on the stumps where they put 'em when they changed 'em.
My log chain is missing now, and the little crow-bar and
one of the
hammers, for sometimes I have to leave home for a few
days, and although these niggers and my yearlin' boys do
their level best to surprise me with doin' a power of work
while I was gone, they don't notice little things; they lose at
the bung-hole while stopping up the spigot, or vice varcy,
as the saying is. They bore the augur bit against a nail, or
dull the saw in the same way, and let the old cow get in
the orchard, or the hogs into the tater patch. I've got good
workin' boys and right industrious darkeys, but it takes a
man with a head on and his eyes well open to keep up
with 'em and watch out for little things--little damages
that aggravate a man and keep him in a fret, that is if he is
but human and can't help fretting when things go wrong. A
nabor borrowed my brace and bit, and the bit came back
with one corner off; another one borrowed my cross-cut
saw, and it came back awful dull, and will cost me a new
file. They don't like it if I don't lend them my mower to cut
their clover, though they never have cleaned up the rocks
in their field.
A darkey will work a mule sometimes for two hours
with the hames out of the collar and never see it, and he
thinks it mighty hard if you won't lend him a mule to ride to
meetin' of a Sunday. But I won't do that. They beg me out
of a heap of things, but they shant ride my stock of
Sundays, for I hate to do it myself, and when a darkey
gets on a mule and out of sight he is like a beggar on
horseback--he'll ride him and run him as long as he can
stand up. I like the darkeys, I do, but I haven't got much
hope of 'em ever being anything but the same old careless,
contented, thoughtless creatures they always were. I've got
one who took a notion he would lay up half of his wages in
spite of himself, and he
told me to put it in the contract that I wasn't to pay him but
five dollars a month and keep the other half till the end of
the year. And now he tries to beg me out of the other five
at the end of every month, but I won't pay it, and he goes
off satisfied. Nabor Freeman came home the other day
and found his nigger tenants right smart behind with their
crops, and they had all been off to a three day's meeting
and an excursion besides, and so he got mad and hauled
up Bob, and says he: "Bob, what in the dickens are you all
goin' to such a meetin' for? What is the matter, is the devil
after you with a sharp stick and a bug at the end of it?"
"Well now, boss, says Bob, "I'll tell you how it is. We
niggers have been seein' for a long time dat you white folks
done got this world, and so we is gwine to meetin' and
fixin' up to get de next one as soon as we git dar; dat's all;"
and Bob stretched his mouth and showed his pearly teeth,
and laughed loud at his own wit.
I love to hear these old time good natured darkeys talk.
John Thomas was in the ragged edge of a cyclone the
other day, and said I, "John, what did you darkeys do
when the cyclone struck you?" "God gracious, boss, I tell
you--dem niggers just frowed themselves down on the
ground, sir, and holler 'Oh Lordy--good Lord hab
mercy on a poor nigger. Nebber be a bad nigger any
more, oh Lordy, good Lordy--and de old slycoon pay
no tention at all, but jes' lif 'em up and twis' 'em all round
and toss 'em ober de fence into de red mud hole, and
Gim, as he was gwine ober de fence he struck a postis that
was stickin' up, and he gethered it wid both arms and held
on and hollered wus than eber, 'Oh, Lordy--oh my
good Lord. Bless de
Lord, hab mercy on a poor nigger;' and about that time
the old slycoon twis he tail aroun and lif Gim's feet way up
over he's head and his bolt broke and he bounced off on
the groun' and den took anoder bounce into the mud hold,
and dar de consarn lef him.
"Atter de slycon gone clean away, I run up to Gim, and
says I, 'Gim, is you dead or no?' Gim lyin dar in de mud
hole wid nuffin but his head out. Gim neber spoke nary
word, and his eyes was swelled like a dead steer, and
says I agin, 'I say, Gim, is you done gone clean dead?' for
you see I thought if Gim dead no use in my wading in de
mud after him, and Gim he grunt and wall one eye at me
and whisper, 'Wha is he?' Wha's who,' said I. 'De debbil,'
said he. 'Done gone,' said I--'gone clean away. Git up
from dar--git up, I say.' Gim gib a groan and say, "I
can't, I'm done dead.' 'Git up, I tell yo,' said I, but Gim
neber move.
"Bymeby I frow up my hands and look down de big
road and say, 'My good Lord Almighty, ef dat old
slycoon aint a comin right back here.' Neber see a
nigger come to life like Gim. He bounced outen dat mud
hole and start off up de road a runnin' and hollerin' for a
quarter of a mile. White folks come along and stop him
and neber find a scratch. When he got back we was all
cuttin' away de timbers from offen de mules, and it was
half an hour before we could git Gim to strike ary lick. Tell
you what, boss, we was all mighty bad skeered, but I
neber see a nigger as onready for jedgment as dat same
nigger Gim. When de old debil do get him he raise a
rumpus down in dem settlements, shore."
"Dident the cyclone take off the roof of your cabin,
Bob?"
"Of course he did, boss. He take de roof off along
eberywhere he go. Look like ebery house he come to he dip
down and say, take your hat off, don't you see me comin',
and aint you got no manners', and zip, he strike 'em and
take it off hisself. He take de roof offen de colored school
and offen de white school all de same. He no respekter of
pussons, bless God. Tell you, boss, what I think about dis
old slycoon, I tink he nuffin but de old debil on a scursion,
yah, yah, yah," and Bob cackled at his own ideas.
Bob came over last Sunday to see us. He used to be a
tenant of mine and we liked him because he had a big
mouth and was always happy. He was a good worker and
not afraid of the weather, but he was careless and left his
tools most anywhere and barked my young apple trees
when plowing the orchard. I loaned him a new shovel to
work the road and he lost it, but I couldn't stay mad with
Bob long at a time. We never supposed he could get mad
enough to have a fight with anybody, but he was not on
good terms with a neighboring darkey, and so one
Saturday when they both came from town and had taken
a drink or two of red eye they undertook to settle the old
feud and Bob killed him. It was a willing fight and a bad
case all around, and Bob got two years and would have
got ten but for his good character all his previous life. He
has served out his term and honestly feels that he has paid
the debt, if he ever owed it.
"How did they treat you, Bob?"
"Well,, sir, dey treat me purty well, purty well; I can't
complain. No, sir, I can't complain. For de fust six mont I
didn't like it very well, for, you
see, me and de gyards hadn't got 'quainted. Bimeby, when
we all got 'quainted, dey took a likin' to me and tell de
capen to take off my shackles, and he take 'em off. De
best way is to make friens with de gyard fuss, jes like a
man wants to make frien of another man he muches up de
chillun fuss, and dat gits de old man and de old 'oman,
too. Den de next best way is ter pervide by the laws as
nigh as you kin. De capen tell us dat de fust day--sez he,
'boys, you must pervide by de laws.' Dere wasent but
three or four of 'em, and I lissen wid both years wide
open, and I say to myself, Bob Smith, you mus pervide by
the laws, and shore enuf I did, and atter we git 'quainted
like, we gits sorter intimat and I nevre had any trouble.
Dey like me so well dey shorten my term three months and
three days, and when I cum away de capen say, "Bob, I
am sorry to see you go--can't you finish out your visit?"
And I say, 'Capen, I likes you mighty well, but dis is de
longest visit I eber made anybody in my life, and if we ever
meet again, you will have to come to my house.' "
"Did they work you hard, Bob?"
"No, sir, not overly hard--got to do a full day's work,
though, and dey knows perzactly what it is. Can't fool 'em,
and can't play sick unless you is sick, and hardly den. I
neber lose but four days in all my time. Heap times I
thought I was sick, and if I had been home I would have
laid up shore but dey said I wasent, and dey looked like
dey knowed and I didn't know, and so I went to work,
and shore enuf I was all right agin by dinner. Colonel
Towers he come along every week or so and look roun,
and he ax me if I have any complaint, and I say,
'No, sir, sepen I would like some poun cake,' and he says
he forgot to bring it. I tell you what, boss, de very best
thing for a man to do when he gits dar is not to go dar -
not to do nuffin to go dar for, and den when he gits dar
de nex bes thing is to pervide by de laws. Dere is some
folks in dar jes as mean and no count as folks outen dar.
Dere is mean riggers and mean white folks everywhere
you go. Some folks cum in de worl mean and dey stays
mean all de time; but I say dis, dat if a man, when he goes
dar, will haive hisself and pervide by de laws he kin git
along and have a tolable easy time.
"De last six mont I stay dar I dident have to work any.
Dey made me a trusty and I have charge of de dogs--de
track dogs--and when de riggers get away de boss he
holler for Bob mighty quick. We had two track dogs; one
of 'em was a big, long-eared houn dog--could track
mighty fast--de oder was a small dog, sorter like a fice,
but he mighty shore on de scent of a runaway. One
mornin' about daybreak de boss holler, 'Git up, Bob, git
up quick, bring de dogs, two niggers got away.' So I brings
de dogs and we put em on de track, and away dey went
cross an old field and into de woods and was barkin'
every step. I throws de saddles on de mules in a hurry,
and I got on one and de boss on toder and away we went
after de dogs. De runaways dident have mor'n half an hour
start and de track was powerful warm. And so de dogs
run and de niggers run and we run, and bimeby after we
gone about four miles we hear de old houn change his tune
like he treed sumfin, and de boss say, 'Bob, old Sheriff
have got 'em.' And shore enuf when we got dar de
runaways was up in a white oak tree a
settin' on a limb, and de old houn dog was a settin' on de
groun wid his head up a lookin' at 'em and a barkin',
and every time he open his mouf he say, 'Too-ooo of 'em,
too-ooo of em, too-ooo of 'em.' And de little dog was a
settin' back on his tail, and he say, 'dats a fak, dats a fak,
dats a fak.' Yah, yah, yah. Boss make dem niggers
come down from dar quick and march 'em back to de
stockade and give 'em forty lashes apiece, cos you see
dey dident pervide by de laws."
Bob asked me one day if a man's soul could be split in
two. "What do you mean," said I, "what kind of a fool
question is that?" Bob spread his big mouth and said: "My
boss was tryin' to devil me one day 'bout gwine to meetin'
so much, and he say: 'Bob, don't you know dat a nigger
ain't got no soul?' And den I ax him if a white man got a
soul, and he say, 'Of course he had.' And den I say,
'Sposin' a colored man is a melatter and is jes half and
half, how's dat?' He study awhile and say he 'low a
melatter have jes half a soul. And den I say, 'Look a here,
boss, what kind of a thing is dat, dat half a soul? Can you
split a soul in two?' He turn off and laugh and say,
'Damfino,' and I tell him I's gwine to ax you about it." And
Bob showed his pearly teeth and laughed tumultuously.
When the prohibition election came off in our county the
negroes were generally on the side of whiskey, more
whiskey, and better whiskey, but Bob came up as a
temperance darkey and made a speech to the darkeys of
his church. A whiskey man in the crowd interrupted him
and said, "Sho as you are bornd, Bob Smith, effen you
vote whiskey outen Cartersville de grass will grow waist
high in dem streets." " 'Sposin' it do?" said Bob, " 'sposin'
it do? Den we'll raise more hay and less hell, and dat's
what's de matter wid Hannah. Yah! Yah!"
Most
every night about half-past eight,
A
screech owl mourneth at the outside gate.
The sweet little katydids sing all the day long. Earlier in
the season they were happy only at night, but now the
woods are full of their music by day. It is not a song from
the mouth, but they rub the bars of their wings together
and puff out their bodies for sounding boards, and if a man
could sing as loud in proportion to size I suppose he could
be heard across the Atlantic ocean, and his voice would
make an earthquake and shake down the stars, and so
that wouldn't do at all, and he wasn't made that way. But
these little screech owls are a nuisance and are enough to
make a nervous woman have fits or hysterics or
something. I shot one on the gate post one night while he
was complaining about something we had done to him, but
another one came back and set up his mournful wails. I
wonder what makes 'em stay away off in the woods all
day and come screeching around the house at night like
they wanted to haunt us. There is some excuse for
superstition about owls, for they love darkness rather
than light, and the ancient philosophers said they were the
sentinels and forerunners of evil spirits, and the Scriptures
classed 'em with demons and all sorts of trouble and
misery. The prophet Isaiah cursed Babylon and said the
owl should dwell there,
and satyrs should dance there. And then they look so wise
out of their big eyes and twist their heads 'round and
'round watching you, and you can't scare 'em nor tame
'em. Well, they were made for something, but I don't
know what it is, and I have frequently thought that when
the flood covered the earth it was a mighty good time for
Father Noah to have left out of the ark all such
disagreeable varmints as owls, and snakes, and whang-doodles
that mourn for their first-born.
General Black told me that if I wanted to get rid of
screech owls to put the shovel in the fire when one of 'em
was a screechin' and he would leave forthwith. The
general said the fire contracted with the oxide in the iron
and deluminated an odoriferous that was disagreeable to
the oil factories of the bird. Jesso. Well, I tried it, and he
dident leave worth a cent.
That screech owl is sitting on the gate-post singing a
funeral dirge. It's a bird of bad omen, and I would shoot
him, but my wife says an old African witch told her
grandmother that there would be a death in the family if
you killed one of 'em, shore. It always seemed to me that
in the fitness of things they belonged to a graveyard or a
haunted house or a dismal swamp or a country meetin'
house that the hogs slept under and nobody preached in. I
don't like 'em, especially at this juncture of home concerns,
for my wife saw the last new moon through a bushy tree
top right over her left shoulder, which she didn't mean to
do by no means. Things don't move on serenely, and the
old horseshoe over the kitchen door has lost its influence. I
havent seen a pin on the floor that dident pint away from
me, and
the other day a rabbit run across the road right before me,
and soon after I come to a snake track, which they say is
mighty bad if you don't rub it out with your face towards
the snake, but I couldn't tell whether the snake that made
the track was going north or coming back, and so had to
rub out by guess, and now while I'm a-writin' Mrs. Arp
has got a hummin' in her right ear, and she says it sounds
like an Eolian harp, or a musketer away off, and that's
another funeral sign--and last night a black pet chicken
came in the family room while we was at supper and went
to roost on top of a picture that hung over the clock on the
mantel-piece, and nobody knowed it until we had put the
light out and went to bed, when it chuckled a little and
Mrs. Arp chuckled a good deal until I struck a light, and
now she says that Mr. Poe had a raven that done the
same thing and he died soon after.
The weather is sad. It mists and weeps and stays
cloudy all the time, and that makes everybody gloomy.
There hasent been a dry day in three weeks that we can
plow. The grass grows as fast as the cotton and the seed
will scatter all over the open bolls and the cotton buyers
will dock us a cent for trash. Things are not working right
for us farmers, but we can't help it. The flies take shelter in
the house, and so do the bugs and the grand-daddies and
the bats.
"Here, William, quick, I say--here's a granddaddy on
me; don't you see; why don't you take him off? Lord a
mercy, did I ever see a man as slow as you are? Do
please take the thing off."
Well, you see it takes a long time to find the thing, and
when you do he's a crawlin' on the floor
a gettin' away as fast as he can, and she declares that's
another one and I have to hunt all over her for five
minutes.
"There's one of those contemptible bats in here again.
Get the broom, William, I wouldn't have it to get on me for
a thousand dollars. Mercy on me! I do believe the house
will be run over with vermin. Don't break the bureau glass.
Why don't you stand on the table? Why, you don't come
in a yard of him! It does seem to me if I was a man I could
knock a bat down."
"He has gone out," said I meekly.
"How do you know--did you see him? Bet anything
it's on my bed somewhere. Move the pillows and bolster.
I'll dream about the thing all night."
It looks like I'll perish to death for want of some good
warm vittels. I'm juicin' away. You see when Mrs. Arp
was a cookin' the other day in the basement an innocent
chicken snake crawled out from behind the meal-chest.
Such a scream was never heard since the Injuns scalped
my great uncle. I run for my life and was pickin' her up in
my arms when she rallied and said, "Kill the snake first;"
and I killed it. He was a lovely snake--all speckled with
dark green and white, and had just swallowed a mouse.
But, alas! the kitchen is purty much deserted and all
regular cooking abandoned. When they cook now I have
to take a gun and stand guard. I march forred and
backwards like a sentinel. I've had to move the meal tub
and the stove wood and everything else fourteen times, for
she declares it's got a mate and the mate is there
somewhere. "Maybe it's a bachelor snake," said I.
"Oh, of course, you don't believe there's another snake
in the wide world--and I've found out you
killed one last week under the hearth, and you told
the children not to let me know anything about it; didn't
you?"
"It was a very little one," said I, "and I dident want you
troubled about it."
"Yes, I suppose it was a little one, but snakes are
snakes, and where there's little ones there's big ones. I do
believe the whole plantation is haunted with 'em, and
everywhere else, for I can't take up a newspaper without
seeing where somebody was bitten."
"Men and boys," says I; "I havent seen any mention of
a woman being bitten nowhere--fact is, I don't believe
they bite females. You know that old mother Eve was
mighty friendly with 'em."
"Yes, that's always the way--you turn everything into
ridicule. Well, you may hire a cook; I'm not going to risk
my life nor the children's in this old haunted kitchen."
But I think she is getting over it, and with a little
encouragement things will resume their natural condition in
a few days. The greatest trouble I have in this connection
is Freeman--my nabor Freeman. I reckon he don't mean
any harm by it; but just as soon as my wife, Mrs. Arp, told
him about the snake, he up and told her about killin' one
over in his field as long as a fence rail, and how it had its
den in a rock pile, and would run out after him and the
niggers, and then retreat; and they were fightin' and runnin'
and runnin' and fightin' for two hours, until they wore him
out; and he brung down the rattles of a rattlesnake and
rattled 'em around, and told us about finding a spring lizard
in the water pail, and had liked to have swallered
him alive in the gourd. And now my wife Mrs. Arp,
won't drink out of anything but a glass goblet; and when
she walks out in the front yard she has one eye for flowers
and the other for snakes and lizards, and shakes her
clothes tremendous when she comes back. I wish that one
would bite Freeman.
Music is the only employment that is innocent and
refining, and that cannot be indulged in to excess. It stands
by itself as the peculiar gift of God. It is the only art that is
alike common to angels and to men. It has a wonderful
compass and variety, and yet from the grandest to the
simplest, it is all pleasing and all innocent. Every other
pleasure can be carried to dissipation, but not music.
The highest order of music is that which we never hear,
but only read about and wonder. It is called the music of
the spheres--the grand symphony that is made by the
planets and other heavenly bodies coursing around the sun,
and which Milton says is heard only by God and the
angels. I don't suppose that such creatures as we are,
afflicted and limited with original sin, could bear that kind
of music. The child that is charmed with a lullaby or
soothed to sleep with "Hush, my dear, lie still and
slumber," would be frightened at an oratorio from Handel
But musical taste is progressive, like every other good
thing.
The time was when I thought "Billy in the Low Grounds,"
and "Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine," perfectly splendid,
but I don't now. I have advanced to a higher grade. By
degrees the children have educated me, and as they climb
up, I climb a little too. Time was when I thought "Kathleen
Mavourneen"
the sweetest song, and my wife, whom I was
courting, the sweetest singer in the world. But I don't now -
that is, I mean the song. There are sweeter songs. I don't
wish to be misunderstood about the singer. No doubt her
voice has the same alluring, ensnaring, angelic, elysian
sweetness it had forty years ago, more or less, but the fault
is in me, for when a man has once been allured, and
ensnared, and is getting old and deaf, he loses some of his
gushing appreciation. Nevertheless, when her eldest
daughter touches the ivory keys and sings Longfellow's
beautiful hymn of
"The
day is done, and the darkness
Falls
from the wings of night,"
my appreciation seems to come back, and it makes me
calm and serene.
There is nothing in all nature that so proves the
goodness of God to his creatures as in giving to them the
love of music and the faculty to make it. It is the cheapest
and the most universal pleasure. Much of it costs nothing,
for we hear it in the winds and waves, the trees, the
waterfalls, and from birds and insects. It is of many kinds,
from the pealing anthem that swells the note of praise in
Westminster Abbey down to the plantation harmonies of the
old-time darkies around the corn-pile. Between these
extremes we have the music of the drama, the concert, the
nursery, and the drawing-room.
I was having these thoughts because Mrs. Arp and the
children were practicing some church music in the parlor,
preparing for Sunday. Some of the family belong to the choir,
and it is a good thing to belong to. Choirs have their little
musical fusses sometimes, and get in the pouts; but, nevertheless,
it is a good place to raise children. It makes them go to
church and to Sunday-school, and go early, and if they are
facing the congregation they have to keep awake and
behave decently, and they do their best to look pretty and
sing sweetly. I used to belong to the choir, and it was there
Mrs. Arp saw me, and ever and anon heard the sweet
strains of my melodious tenor voice. But, alas, that voice
has changed to a bass at one end and a falsetto at the
other, and "there's a melancholy crack in my laugh."
Young man, young woman, if you have any gifts for
music, you had better join the church choir, but if you
haven't, don't.
Sacred music is very much varied according to
denominations. The Roman Catholic church is the oldest
and richest and has the most passionate music and the
finest organs, and embraces a rendering of such intense
words as are found in the "Angus Dei," and "Gloria in
Excelsis," and the litany and chants of the old masters. The
Protestant church has rejected the dramatic style and
confined its music to hymns and psalms of sober temper,
and in the main, has done away with the fugue and
galloping style of one part chasing another through the
vocal harmonies.
I remember when it was the fashion, in fashionable choirs, to
give one part several feet the start in the race, and the
others would start later and overtake it before they all got
to the end of the line. There is a hymn beginning, "I love to
steal awhile away," and the tenor would start out with "I
love to steal"--and then the alto would prance up with "I
love to steal," and then the bass confessed the
unfortunate frailty, "I love to steal," and hurried on for fear
the first man would steal it all before he got there.
Sacred music is of very ancient origin. Indeed, it is older
than the church or the temple, for we find that Moses sang
a song when he had crossed the Red Sea, and he said, "I
will sing a song unto the Lord, for he is my strength and
my salavtion," and when he finished his song, Miriam took
it up, and she and her maidens sang and made music on
timbrels. King David sang all through his psalms, and
Isaiah not only sang, but wanted everything to sing, for he
says: "Sing, oh ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it.
Break forth into singing, oh ye mountains, for the Lord
hath redeemed Israel."
I was looking over this book that we are now using in
our church, a new and beautiful book containing 1,200
hymns, and a tune with written music to every hymn. Here
are 360 authors of all Christian denominations. Of these,
sixty-one are women, seventy are English Episcopalians,
twenty are Scotch Presbyterians, and only eight are
American Presbyterians. Eight are Methodists, ten are
Baptist, fourteen are Congregationalists, and five are
Roman Catholics rest are Dissenters, Lutherans, Unitarians
Moravians, Quakers and Independents. Only fifty-four are
Americans. Leaving out Isaac Watts and Charles
Wesley, most of these hymns were composed by English
Episcopalians. Isaac Watts was the founder of hymnology.
One hundred and twenty-six of his hymns are in this book.
He has been dead 142 years, but we are still singing:
"Welcome, Sweet Day of Rest," "How Beauteous Are
Their Feet," "When I Can Read My Title Clear," "Before
Jehovah's Awful
Throne," "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" and many more
of his composing.
He was a very small man with a large soul. He was only
five feet high, weighed less than a hundred pounds, and
never married. His hymns are sung all over the Christian
world. Our grand-parents and parents, ourselves and our
children, have all treasured them and become familiar with
them.
Charles Wesley, a Methodist, has thirty-six hymns in
this book--most of them inspired from his intense,
absorbing love of the Savior--such as "Blow Ye the
Trumpet, Blow," and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." He was
a brother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and
came to Georgia with him in 1735.
Rev. John Newton has twenty-six hymns in this
collection. What a strange, eventful life was his. Seized
and impressed for a seaman on board a man-of-war when
he was only nineteen years of age--deserted--was
caught, and dogged, and degraded--deserted again and
hired himself to a slave-trading vessel. Four years
afterwards he went back to England and married Mary
Catlett, the girl he had been loving for years. He then
equipped a slaver of his own, and shipped negroes from
Africa to the West Indies, and made a fortune.
In a few years he became disgusted with the business
and studied mathematics, Latin, Greek and Hebrew
without a teacher. About that time Wesley and Whitfield
began their great religious uprising, and he was converted
and joined them and went to preaching. When eighty
years old he preached three times a week, and when
urged to stop on account of his feeble health, he replied:
"What! Shall the old African negro trader and
blasphemer stop while he can speak? No!" No wonder
that the great change inspired him to write those beautiful
hymns: "Amazing Grace! How Sweet the Sound;" "One
There is Above All Others;" "Glorious Things of Thee
Are Spoken;" "Savior, Visit Thy Plantation."
And next comes Cowper--the amiable, lovable,
miserable Cowper--whose life was spent in alternating
between hope and despair, and who was sent several
times to the insane asylum. In his lucid intervals of hope he
composed such hymns as "Sometimes a Light Surprises,"
"There is a Fountain Filled With Blood;" "Oh, For a Closer
Walk With God," and many others.
James Montgomery, a Moravian, has twenty-three
hymns in this book. His early life was full of trouble. He
was indicted, tried and imprisoned for writing a ballad on
the fall of the Bastile. Soon after his release he wrote an
account of the riot at Sheffield, and was again imprisoned.
The press had but little freedom in his day, but his gentle,
earnest Christian character finally won for him the regard
of his enemies, and he was granted a pension by the
crown. There are no hymns in this book sweeter than his.
Such, for instance, as "Oh, Where Shall Rest Be Found?"
"Prayer is The Soul's Sincere Desire;" "People of The
Living God," etc.
Addison, too, that stately, polished writer of essays,
found time and inclination to pay poetic tribute to his
Maker. There is no poetry more majestic than the hymns
beginning, "When All Thy Mercies, Oh, My God," and
"The Spacious Firmament on High." And next we have
Heber, the gifted bishop of Calcutta, the Christian
gentleman,
who never knew a want, but, nevertheless, spent his
life in charity and missionary work. His world-renowned
hymn would have immortalized him, if he had written
nothing else.
"From Greenland's Icy Mountains," still stands as the
chief of all missionary hymns. He wrote others of exquisite
beauty, such as "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the
Morning" and "By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill."
Then there were many other composers who did not
write much, but wrote exceeding well. There is:
"How Firm a Foundation," by George Keith; "Come,
ye Disconsolate," by Thomas Moore, the poet laureate of
England; "Awake, My Soul," by Medley; "Come Thou
Fount of Every Blessing," by Robert Robinson.
Rev. Augustus Toplady has several beautiful hymns, but
none compare with his "Rock of Ages Cleft For Me." Sir
William Gladstone, the great premier of England, was so
much impressed with this hymn that he has translated it
into Latin and other languages. Of a later date we find,
"Nearer, My God, to Thee," by Mrs. Adams, an English
lady.
The oldest hymn in the book was written by Thomas
Sternhold, in 1549. He was groom to Henry VIII. The
next oldest is well worth remembrance, for it was written
in 1560 by Thomas Ken, and has but one verse, and that
verse is sung oftener than any other verse in the world. Its
first line is, "Praise God from Whom all Blessing Flow." If
Thomas Ken is in the heavenly choir (and we believe he
is), what serene comfort does his translated soul enjoy as it
listens every Sabbath to his
own doxology as it goes up from a million voices and
swells heavenward from thousands of organs all over
Christendom!
Then we have hymns from Richard Baxter, who was
chaplain to Charles II, and resisted the usurpaiton of
Cromwell.
And here we have hymns from Mrs. Charles, the gifted
authortess of the Schoenberg Cotta stories, and from
William Cohen Bryant, our own poet laureate, and Francis
S. Key, the author of the "Star Spangled Banner," and from
Mrs. Sigourney and John Dryden, another poet laureate
of England, and Henry Kirk White, who died in his twenty-
first year, but left as his monument "The Star of
Bethlehem." Here, too, is the litany by Sir Robert Grant.
And here are many hymns from Dr. Muhlenberg, who
wrote "I Would Not Live Always."
And now, let me pause to remember that all these men
and women are dead. Some have been dead three
hundred years, some two hundred and very many one
hundred, and some far less, but all are dead. But poetry
outlives prose, and a song outlives a sermon. It is a
comforting fact that most all of the famous poets have
been Christian men and women, and have given to the
church some of their sweetest and holiest thoughts in song.
Dr. Oliver W. Holmes and John G. Whittier are both
represented in this collection.
But hymns without music lose half their beauty. They are
like birds without wings--they cannot fly heavenward.
And now if the choir and congregation will enter into
the spirit of these beautiful hymns and sing them
with pure religious feeling, it will be acceptable praise. A
song without inspiration is music, but it is not praise.
Professional choirs who sing for pay seem to be singing for
men and not for God. Such singing is like the funerals that
have hired mourners. When the tune fits the sentiment of
the hymn, like it was all one creation of genius, it greatly
enhances the beauty of both. The Coronation Hymn would
not be half so popular if the coronation music were not set
to it. And this is one reason why the oratorios of the great
masters, such as Handel and Mozart, have never been
excelled. They composed both the sentiment and the song.
The
earliest fires of the
fall Have
brightened up the
room, The
cat and dog and children
all Have
bid old winter come.
The
wind is running at the
nose, The
clouds are in a
shiver; By
day we want more warmer
clothes, At
night we want more kiver
When a farmer has laid
by his crop and the seasons
have been kind and the corn and cotton are maturing, and
the sweet potato vines have covered the ground, what an
innocent luxury it is to set in the piazza in the shade of
evening with one's feet on the banisters, and contemplate
the beauty and bounty of nature and the hopeful prospect
of another year's support. It looks like that even an
Ishmaelite might then feel calm and serene, and if he is
still ungrateful for his abundant blessings he is worse than a
heathen, and ought to be run out of a Christian's country.
Every year brings toil and trouble and apprehension, but
there always comes a long rest and peace and the ripe
fruits of one's labors.
Persimmons and 'possums are getting ripe. The May-pops
have dropped from the vines. Chestnuts and
chinkapins are opening, and walnuts are covering the
ground. Crawfish and frogs have gone
into winter quarters--snakes and lizards have bid us
adieu. All nature is preparing for a winter's sleep--sleep
for the trees, and grass and flowers. I like winter; not six
long months of snow and ice and howling winds, but three
months interspersed with sunny days and Indian summers.
The Sunny South is the place for me, the region of mild and
temperate climate, of lofty mountains and beautiful vallesy,
and fast-flowing streams. The region where the simoon nor
the hurricane ever comes, and the streams do not become
stagnant, nor the mosquito sing his little song. I don't want
to be snowbound in winter, nor to fly from a fiery hurricane
in summer; and it's curious to me that our Northern brethren
don't bid farewell, a long farewell, to such a country and
settle down in this pleasant land.
"The cricket chirrups on the hearths
The crackling fagot flies."
The air is cool and lovely. The family have peartined up,
and everything is lovely around the farmer's comfortable
fire. How invigorating is the first chilling breeze of coming
winter. The hungry horses nicker for their corn; the cattle
follow you around; the pesky pigs squall at your feet, and
this dependence of the brutes upon us for their daily food
makes a man feel his consequence as he struts among them
like a little king. The love of dominion is very natural. It
provokes a kindliness of heart, and if a man hasn't got
anything else to lord it over it's some comfort to love and
holler at his dog. I've seen the day when I strutted around
among my darkies like a patriarch. I felt like I was running
an unlimited monarchy on a limited scale. And Mrs. Arp
felt that way too. Sometimes in my
dreams I still hear the music of her familiar call, "Becky,
why don't you come along with that coal-hod?" "I'se
comin', mam." "Rosanna, what in the world are you doing;
havent you found that needle yet?" "I'se most found it,
mam." Poor thing; patient and proud, she hunts her own
needles now, and the coal-hod falls to me.
But we still live, thank the good Lord, and are worrying
through the checkered life as gracefully as possible.
What's the use of brooding over trouble when you can't
help it? Sometimes, when a rainy day comes and
all out-doors is wet and sloppy, and the dogs
track mud in the piazza, and the children
have to be penned up in the house, and everything is
gloomy, we get sad and look on the dark side, and long
for things we havent got. When the little chaps play
hide and seek till they get tired, and shove the chairs
around for cars and engines, and look at all the
pictures, and cut up all the newspapers,
and turn summersets on their little bed, and then
get restless and whine around for freedom, Mrs. Arp
opens her school and stands 'em up by the buro to say
their lessons.
"Now Carl, let me see if you can say your psalm. Put
your hands down and hold up your head."
"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He--he -
he--"
"Let that fly alone, and put your hands down. He
maketh me to lie down--"
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He, he--"
"Quit pulling at that curtain. He leadeth me--"
"He leadeth me. La, mamma, yonder comes a covered
wagon. I speck it's got apples."
"Carl, stand away from that window. If I take a switch
to you I'll make you look after apple wagons. He leadeth
me."
"He leadeth me--in the house of the Lord forever."
"Bless my soul, if he hasn't skipped over to the very
end. Where are you going now?"
"Mamma, I want a drink of water--mamma, please
give me and Jessie an apple."
"No, sir, you shan't smell of an apple. Every time I try
to teach you something you want water, or an apple, or
go to catching flies. I wish I had that switch that's up on
the clock."
"I'll get it for you," said I.
"No you needent, either. Just go on with your writing. I
wish you would let me manage the children. All the
learning they ever get I have to ding dong it into 'em.
When I want the switch I can get it. Here, Jessie, come
and say your verses."
And Jessie goes through with "Let dogs delight" like a
daisy.
Oh, she's as smart as a steel trap--just like her
mother. I wish you could see Mrs. Arp's smile when some
other woman comes along and norates the smart sayings
of her juvenile.
"Ain't it strange," says she to me, "how blinded most
mothers are about their children. Mrs. Trotter thinks her
Julia a world's wonder, but Jessie says things every day a
heap smarter, and I never thought anything about it."
"Jesso," says I; "children are shore to be smart when
they have a smart mother. Their meanness all comes from
the old man."
But the rainy days don't last forever. Sunshine follows
cloud and storm and darkness. In the journey
of life the mountains loom up before us, and they look
high and steep and rugged, but somehow they always
disappear just before we get to them, and then we can
look back and feel ashamed that we borrowed so much
trouble and had so much anxiety for nothing. What a great
pile of miserable fears we build up every day. It's good for
a man to ruminate over it and resolve to have more faith in
Providence, and I am ruminating now, for I went to town
to-day to attend a little court that had my tenant's cotton
money all tangled up by the lawyers, and I never expected
to get my share, but I did and I feel happy. Mrs. Arp had
told the children she would like to go and do some
shopping for them, but she knew that I was so poor and
they would have to do without.
So when I came home and found her stitching away
with a sad expression on her countenance, I pulled out the
twenty-two dollars of cotton money, and assuming a
pathetic attitude exclaimed:
"Turn, Angelina, ever dear,
My charmer, turn to see
Thine own, thy long-lost William here,
Restored to Heaven and thee."
And I laid the shining silver in her lap. In about two
minutes everything was calm and serene, and we had
music that night and Mrs. Arp played on the piano and
sang some of the songs of her girlhood. It's most
astounding what a little money can do.
Uncle Tom Barker was much of a man. He had been
wild and reckless, and feared not God nor regarded man,
but one day at a campmeeting, while Bishop Gaston was
shaking up the sinners and scorching them over the
infernal pit, Tom got alarmed, and before the meeting was
over he professed religion and became a zealous,
outspoken convert, and declared his intention of going
forth into the world and preaching the gospel. He was
terribly in earnest, for he said he had lost a power of time
and must make it up. Tom was a rough talker, but he was
a good one, and knew right smart of "scripter," and a
good many of the old-fashioned hymns by heart. The
conference thought he was a pretty good fellow to send
out into the border country among the settlers, and so
Tom straddled his old flea-bitten gray, and in due time
was circuit riding in North Mississippi.
In course of time Tom acquired notoriety, and from his
strong language and stronger gestures, and his muscular
eloquence, they called him old "Sledge Hammer," and
after awhile, "Old Sledge," for short. Away down in one
corner of his territory there was a blacksmith shop and a
wagon shop and a whisky shop and a post-office at Bill
Jones's crossroads; and Bill kept all of them, and was
known far and wide as "Devil Bill Jones," so as to
distinguish him from 'Squire Bill the magistrate. Devil Bill had
sworn that no preacher should ever toot a horn or sing a
hymn in the settlement, and if one of the cussed hypocrites
ever dared to stop at the crossroads, he'd make him dance
a hornpipe and sing a hymn, and whip him besides. And
Bill Jones meant just what he said, for he had a mortal hate
for the men of God. It was reasonably supposed that Bill
could and would do what he said, for his trade at the anvil
had made him strong, and everybody knew that he had as
much brute courage as was necessary. And so Uncle Tom
was advised to take roundance and never tackle the crossroads.
He accepted this for a time, and left the people to
the bad influence of Devil Bill; but it seemed to him he was
not doing the Lord's will, and whenever he thought of the
women and children living in darkness and growing up in
infidelity, he would groan.
One night he prayed over it with great earnestness, and
vowed to do the Lord's will if the Lord would give him
light, and it seemed to him as he rose from his knees that
there was no longer any doubt-- he must go. Uncle Tom
never dallied about anything when his mind was made up.
He went right at it like killing snakes; and so next morning
as a "nabor" passed on his way to Bill's shop, Uncle Tom
said:
"My friend, will you please carry a message to Bill Jones
for me? Do you tell him that if the Lord is willin', I will be
at the cross-roads to preach next Saturday at eleven
o'clock, and I am shore the Lord is willin'. Tell him to
please 'norate' it in the settlement about, and ax the women
and children to come. Tell Bill Jones I will stay at his
house, God willin', and I'm shore he's willin', and I'll
preach Sunday, too, if things git along harmonious."
When Bill Jones got the message he was amazed,
astounded, and his indignation knew no bounds. He raved
and cursed at the "onsult," as he called it--the "onsulting
message of 'Old Sledge' "--and he swore that he would
hunt him up, and whip him, for he knowed that he wouldn't
dare to come to the cross-roads.
But the "nabors" whispered it around that "Old Sledge"
would come, for he was never known to make an
appointment and break it; and there was an old horse thief
who used to run with Murrel's gang, who said he used to
know Tom Barker when he was a sinner and had seen him
fight, and he was much of a man.
So it spread like wild-fire that "Old Sledge" was
coming, and Devil Bill was "gwine" to whip him and make
him dance and sing a "hime," and treat to a gallon of peach
and brandy besides.
Devil Bill had his enemies, of course, for he was a hard
man, and one way or another had gobbled up all the
surplus of the "naborhood," and had given nothing in
exchange but whiskey, and these enemies had long hoped
for somebody to come and turn him down. They, too,
circulated the astounding news, and, without committing
themselves to either party, said that h-ll would break loose
on Saturday at the cross-roads, and that "Old Sledge" or
the devil would have to go under.
On Friday the settlers began to drop into the crossroads
under pretense of business, but really to get the
bottom facts of the rumors that were afloat.
Devil Bill knew full well what they came for, and he
talked and cursed more furiously than usual, and swore
that anybody who would come expecting to
see "Old Sledge" tomorrow was an infernal fool, for he
wasn't a-coming. He laid bare his strong arms and shook
his long hair and said he wished the lying, deceiving
hypocrite would come, for it had been nigh onto fourteen
years since he had made a preacher dance.
Saturday morning by nine o'clock the settlers began to
gather. They came on foot, and on horseback, and in carts
- men, women and children, and before eleven o'clock
there were more people at the crossroads than had ever
been there before. Bill Jones was mad at their credulity, but
he had an eye to business and kept behind his counter and
sold more whiskey in an hour than he had sold in a month.
As the appointed hour drew near the settlers began to look
down the long, straight road that "Old Sledge" would
come, if he came at all, and every man whose head came in
sight just over the rise of the distant hill was closely
scrutinized.
More than once they said, "Yonder he comes--that's
him, shore." But no, it wasn't him.
Some half a dozen had old bull's-eye silver watches,
and they compared time, and just at 10:55 o'clock the old
horse thief exclaimed:
"I see Tom Barker a risin' of the hill. I hadn't seed him
for eleven years, but, gintlemen, that ar's him, or I'm a
liar."
And it was him.
As he got nearer and nearer, a voice seemed to be
coming with him, and some said, "He's talkin' to himself,"
another said, "He's talkin' to God Almighty," and another
said, "I'll be durned if he ain't a praying;" but very soon it
was decided that he was "singin' of a hime."
Bill Jones was advised of all this, and coming up the
front, said: "Darned if he ain't singing before I axed him,
but I'll make him sing another tune until he is tired. I'll pay
him for his onsulting message. I'm not a-gwine to kill him,
boys. I'll leave life in his rotton old carcass, but that's all. If
any of you'ens want to hear 'Old Sledge' preach, you'll
have to go ten miles from the road to do it."
Slowly and solemnly the preacher came. As he drew
near he narrowed down his tune and looked kindly upon
the crowd. He was a massive man in frame, and had a
heavy suit of dark brown hair, but his face was clean
shaved, and showed a nose and lips and chin of great
firmness and great determination.
"Look at him, boys, and mind your eye," said the
horse thief.
"Where will I find my friend, Bill Jones?" inquired "Old
Sledge."
All round they pointed him to the man.
Riding up close, he said: "My friend and brother, the
good Lord has sent me to you, and I ask your hospitality
for myself and beast," and he slowly dismounted and
faced his foe as though expecting a kind reply.
The crisis had come, and Bill Jones met it.
"You infernal old hypocrite; you cussed old shaved-
faced scoundrel; didn't you know that I had swored an
oath that I would make you sing and dance, and whip you
besides if you ever dared to pizen these cross-roads with
your shoe-tracks?" Now, sing, d--n you, sing, and dance
as you sing," and he emphasized his command with a
ringing slap with his open hand upon the parson's face.
"Old Sledge" recoiled with pain and surprise. Recovering
in a moments he said: "Well, Brother Jones I did not
expect so warm a welcome, but if this be your crossroads
manners, I suppose I must sing;" and as Devil Bill gave
him another slap on his other jaw, he began with:
"My soul, be on thy guard."
And with his long arm he suddenly and swiftly gave
Devil Bill an open hander that nearly knocked him off his
feet, while the parson continued to sing in a splendid tenor
voice:
"Ten thousand foes arise."
Never was a lion more aroused to frenzy than was Bill
Jones. With his powerful arm he made at "Old Sledge" as
if to annihilate him with one blow, and many horrid oaths,
but the parson fended off the stroke as easily as a
practised boxer, and with his left hand dealt Bill a settler
on his peepers, as he continued to sing:
"Oh, watch and fight, and pray,
The battle ne'er give o'er"
But Jones was plucky to desperation, and the settlers
were watching with bated breath. The crisis was at hand,
and he squared himself and his clenched fists flew thick
and fast upon the parson's frame, and for awhile disturbed
his equilibrium and his song. But he rallied quickly and
began the defensive, as he sang:
"Ne'er think the victory won,
Nor lay thine armor down--"
He backed his adversary squarely to the wall of his
shop, and seized him by the throat, and mauled him as he
sang:
"Fight on, my soul, till death--"
Well, the long and short of it was, that "Old Sledge"
whipped him and humbled him to the ground, and then
lifted him up and helped to restore him, and begged a
thousand pardons.
When Devil Bill had retired to his house and was being
cared for by his wife, "Old Sledge" mounted a box in front
of the grocery and preached righteousness and
temperance, and judgment to come, to that people.
He closed his solemn discourse with a brief history of his
own sinful life before his conversion and his humble work
for the Lord ever since, and he besought his hearers to
stop and think--"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think," he
cried in alarming tones.
There were a few men and many women in that crowd
whose eyes, long unused to the melting mood, dropped
tears of repentance at the preacher's kind and tender
exhortation. Bill Jones's wife, poor woman, had crept
humbly into the outskirts of the crowd, for she had long
treasured the memories of her childhood, when she, too,
had gone with her good mother to hear preaching. In
secret she had pined and lamented her husband's hatred
for religion and preachers. After she had washed the
blood from his swollen face and dressed his wounds she
asked him if she might go down and hear the preacher.
For a minute he was silent and seemed to be dumb with
amazement. He had never been whipped before and had
suddenly lost confidence in himself and his infidelity.
"Go 'long, Sally," he answered, "if he can talk like he
can fight and sing, maybe the Lord did send him. It's all
mighty strange to me," and he groaned in anguish. His
animosity seemed to have changed into an anxious,
wondering curiosity, and after Sally had gone, he left his
bed and drew near to the window where he could hear.
"Old Sledge" made an earnest, soul-reaching prayer,
and his pleading with the Lord for Bill Jones's salvation
and that of his wife and children reached the window
where Bill was sitting, and he heard it. His wife returned in
tears and took a seat beside him, and sobbed out her
heart's distress, but said nothing. Bill bore it for awhile in
thoughtful said nothing. Bill bore it for awhile in thoughtful
silence, and then putting his bruised and trembling hand in
hers, said: "Sally, if the Lord sent 'Old Sledge' here, and
maybe he did, I reckon you had better look after his
horse." And sure enough 'Old Sledge" stayed there that
night and held family prayer, and the next day he preached
from the piazza to a great multitude, and sang his favorite
hymn:
"Am I a soldier of the Cross?"
And when he got to the third verse his untutored but
musical voice seemed to be lifted a little higher as he sang:
"Sure I must fight if I would reign,
Increase my courage, Lord."
Devil Bill was converted and became a changed man.
He joined the church, and closed his grocery and helped
to build a meeting house, and it was always said and
believed that "Old Sledge" mauled the grace into his
unbelieving soul, and it never would have got in any other
way.
Josh Billings is dead, and the world will miss him. He
was a success in his way, and it was not a bad way. He
did no harm. He did much good, for he gave a passing
pleasure and gave it frequently, and left the odor of good
precepts that lingered with us. He was Aesop and Ben
Franklin, condensed and abridged. His quaint phonetic
spelling spiced his maxims and proverbs, and made them
attractive. It is curious how we are attracted by the wise,
pithy sayings of an unlettered man. It is the contrast
between his mind and his culture. We like contrasts and
we like metaphors and striking comparisons. The more
they are according to nature and everyday life, the better
they please the masses. The cultured scholar will try to
impress by saying "facilis decensus averni." but Billings
brings the same idea nearer home when he says, "When a
man starts down hill, it looks like everything is greased for
the occasion." We can almost see the fellow sliding down.
It is an old thought that has been dressed up fine for
centuries, and suddenly appears in everyday clothes. Wise
men tell us that the people do not think for themselves, but
follow their leaders in politics and religion. That is true, and
it is tame and old. But when I asked the original Bill Arp how he
was going to vote he said he couldn't tell me until how he
he saw Colonel Johnson, and Colonel Johnson wouldn't know until
he talked to Judge Underwood, and Judge Underwood
wouldn't know until he heard from Aleck Stephens. "But
who tells Aleck Stephens how to vote?" "I'll be dogged if
I know." Well, that was the same old truth, but it was
undressed, and therefore more forcible. The philosophic
theory has come down to a homely fact.
Some years ago I met Mr. Shaw in New York, at
Carleton's book store. I did not know that he was Josh Billings. In
fact I had forgotten Billings' real name, and I thought this man was
a Methodist preacher. He looked like one, a very solemn one. His
long hair was parted in the middle and silvered with gray. His face
was heavily bearded, his eyes well set and his mouth drooped at
the corners. We sat facing each other for a few moments, when
suddenly he leaned forward and said: "Friend Arp, say something."
I knew then that Mr. Carleton had surprised me and that this was
Billings, for he had told me that his friend Billings was going to call.
We soon got friendly and familiar, and suddenly he inquired, "How
is my friend, Big John?" "Dead," said I. "And how is that faithful
steer?" said he. "Dead," I replied. With a mock sorrow he wiped
his eyes and remarked, "Hence these tears." ( Steers. )
While we were talking, a lad of the house came back
and said there was a man in a balloon and we could see
him from the front. We all went forward and we watched
the daring aeronaut soar away until he was out of sight,
and we took seats near the door. Billings heaved a sigh
and said, "I feel very bad, my friends. That sight distresses
me." We asked him why, and he said, "It carries me back
to the scenes of my early youth, and reminds me of a sad
event." We waited a moment for him to recover from his
depression, and he said: "I was an indolent, trifling boy. I
wouldn't work and I wouldn't study at school. I had a
longing to get away from home and go West. Most
everybody was going West, and so one morning my father
said to me: 'Henry, I reckon you had better go. You are
not doing any good here.' And so he gave me ten dollars
and a whole lot of advice, and my mother fixed me up a
little bundle of clothes and I started. That money lasted me
until I got away out to Illinois, for I worked a little along the
way to pay for lodging and vittels, but at last it was all
gone, and my shoes were worn out, and when I got to a
little village one afternoon I was homesick and friendless,
and I didn't know what to do next. I noticed that the
people were all going one way, and they told me they were
going out to the suburbs to see a man go up in a balloon.
So I followed the crowd, and when I got there I saw a
dirty little Italian sitting down on an old, dingy balloon, and
there was a fellow going around with a hat in his hand
trying to make up ten dollars. The little Italian said he
would go up for that money. But the fellow couldn't make
it. He counted the money and had only six dollars and a
half, and so he gave it up, and was about to give the money
back when I thought I saw my opportunity. I was sorry for
the Italian and sorry for myself, and so I whispered to to
him and asked him if he would give me all over ten dollars
that I could make up and he said "Yes, all over eight
dollars.' Well, I had the gift of speech pretty lively, and I
went round and round among the folks and told them
how this poor, little, sunburnt son of Italy
came three thousand miles from his home to minister to
their pleasure and put his life in peril, and it was a shame
that we couldn't make him up the pitiful sum of ten dollars.
I soon got the crowd in a good humor, and in about five
minutes I had made up eighteen dollars. I felt proud and
happy, and said: "Now, my friend, fire up,' and I helped
him to fire up. The old balloon was patched and leaky, and
I thought it would burst before we got ready, for we piled
the gas in heavy. Before long the little chap was in the
basket, and we cut the ropes and away she went. It was a
calm, still day in June--not a breath of air to drift the
balloon from a perpendicular. Up, up, she went, growing
smaller and smaller, until finally she was but a tiny speck in
the zenith. We nearly broke our necks looking at it, and
sure enough in a few minutes more she was gone. Not a
spy-glass could find it. We watched all the evening for the
little fellow to come back in sight, but he never came. The
shades of night came over us, but no Italian. The crowd
dispersed one by one until all were gone but me, for I was
his friend and treasurer, you know. Next morning he was
still missing, and all that day we made inquiries from the
surrounding country, but no Italian and no balloon, and
from that day to this good hour he has never been heard
from. I have felt a heavy weight of responsibility about him,
for fear I put in too much gas. My hope is that he went
dead straight to heaven. I have his money in my bank, and
it is drawing interest."
And Josh wiped away another pretended tear of grief.
He was a companionable man and talked without a
strain. When he visited our little city of Rome
our people gave him a glad welcome, for he had been long
ministering to their pleasure, and in all his great and curious
utterances he had never written a line that showed
prejudice or malignity to our people or our section.
They are the funniest things--these duels. They are
both funny and fantastic. They beat a circus-- that is to
say the newspaper pictures of them beat the circus
pictures, and it is reasonable to suppose that the antics of
the performers are more ludicrous than the clown and the
monkeys and the trick horse combined. I would like to be
up in a tree and see a duel--no I wouldent either. It
would be safer to be in front of one of the performers.
Sometimes I think that these little affairs of honor are just
gotten up to amuse the public, and they are a success in
that way. They beat Sullivan and Kilrain in the wind up,
and the only objection is we don't know about it until the
show is all over. We don't have a chance to take sides and
bet on anybody, and if we did we wouldent win or lose,
for it is always a draw--nobody hurt, wonderful pluck,
amazing heroism, magnanimous conduct, noble bearing,
amicable adjustment, but nobody hurt; that's what's the
matter. When it leaks out that a great show is coming, the
people want it to come. If a hanging is advertised, it is an
outrage if somebody don't hang. If a duel has to be fought
to preserve honor, the public want some blood. Honor or
death, honor or crippled, honor or hit somewhere. But this
widespreading around and fixing up the thing on a wood-pile,
or, "I'll retreat if you'll retreat," or, "I dident
mean what you thought I meant," don't satisfy the public.
Some years ago one of our notable men called another
of our notable men a thief and he got challenged for it, and
we thought there was blood on the moon, but mutual
friends interposed and he retracted by saying he dident
mean that he was a personal thief, but an official thief, and
that was satisfactory and the affair was honorably
adjusted.
When an affair of honor is settled nowadays we can't
find out who whipped the fight--who was right and who
was wrong. The whole matter is left so mystified that the
stakeholders won't pay the money. In fact it is sometimes
hard to tell from the newspapers who were doing the
fighting, the principles or the seconds, or an amateur
performer who recklessly rushed in where angels fear to
tread.
"The combat thickens--on ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave."
Awful scene--terrific beyond expression. It reminds
me of a little Frenchman who was prancing around the
hotel in St. Louis and had a little impudent terrier dog
following him about. The dog gave just cause of offense to
a big whiskered Kentuckian who was talking to a friend,
and with a sudden swing of his boot he sent the animal a
rod or two out in the street. Quick as lightning the
Frenchman danced up to Kentuck, and with violent
gesticulations exclaimed: "Vat for you keek mon leetle tog!
Vot for, me say? Here is mine card. I demand de
sateesfacsheon of de shenteel mon." The Kentuckian
seized him gently by the nap of the neck and lifted him
bodily to the door and gave him a kick
outward, and then walked back and resumed his
conversation.
The Frenchman spied an acquaintance who was
passing, and rushing up to him poured out this history: "dot
you call des American honeur. He keek mon leetle tog and
I geeve heem mine card and demond de sateesfacshun of
de genteelhomme, de sateesfacshun of de sword or de
peestole--dear to de Frenchman's heart. You tinks he
geeve him to me. No saree--no time, but mon Dieu, he
leef me up by de collare--he speen me round and roun
like I vas von tom top and keek me more harder than de
leetle tog. Vot you calls dot, American honeur? Bah! I go
pack to La Belle France and hoonts up some American
and fights him. I will have de satis-facshun--begor."
If retractions are to be made they should be very
explicit. It is related of John Randolph that he expressed
his contempt of a man by saying of him that he wasn't fit to
carry--offal to a bear. A retraxit was demanded or a
fight, and he promptly responded that he would now say
that the gentleman was fit to carry--offal to a bear. This
proved satisfactory and goes to show how small a
retraxit will satisfy wounded honor. But it seems to be
a matter of great nicety as to the time when the retraxit
shall be made. Among all gentlemen it is admitted that an
apology should be made just as soon as the gentleman has
discovered that he has done another gentleman an injury or
has, without just cause, wounded his feelings; but these
mysterious affairs of honor are very slow about such
things, and the retraxits are not allowed to be made until a
challenge has passed and the seconds chosen and the
pistols loaded and everything got in readiness for a
fight. Then the retraxit is in order and the honorable
adjustment. The whole thing is methodical, to say the least
of it. It is like a bill in equity that has nine parts, and there is
the accusation and the rejoinder and the surrejoinder and
other mysteries. The fact is, considering the funny and
fantastic and harmless character of most of the modern
duels, I think that justice's court would be the best tribunal
wherein to settle such matters. The first case I ever had
was a case in justice court, where I was employed to
defend a man who was sued for thirty dollars worth of
slander because he had accused his nabor of stealing his
hog and changing the mark from an underbit in the right ear
to a swallow fork in the left. After the joinder and the
rejoinder and the surrejoinder the jury retired to a log and
eventually brought in this verdict: "We, the jury, find for the
plaintiff two dollars and fifty cents unless the defendant will
take back what he said." I have always thought that was a
just verdict, and if ever any fool sends me a challenge I
shall propose to leave the matter to a jury in a justice court.
They always give a man a chance without his having to
practice with pistols on a tree. It is a strange thing how a
man can hit the bull's eye on a tree every pop but can't hit a
man one time in five, and yet be perfectly cool and calm
and serene all the time.
The books say that duelling originated in the
superstitious ages when it was believed that the fates or
the gods were on the side of truth and justice, and always
avenged the man who had been wronged. The
philosophers declared that there was a mysterious
connection between honor and courage and between
courage and the nervous system, and
that when a man was in the wrong his courage wavered,
and his nerves became unsteady, and so he couldn't fight to
advantage and was easily overcome by his adversary.
There may be something in this, but not a great deal, for we
do know that the professional duelist is generally in the
wrong and generally whips the fight. In fact, the wrong man
has most generally been killed in all the fatal duels of
modern times. During the past century duelling has had its
chief support from the army and the navy, where chivalry
seems to have centered. They talk about chivalry as though
they belonged to some knightly order like unto the olden
times when Don Quixote mounted his flea-bitten gray and
sallied forth and charged a windmill with a lance about
twenty feet long. The word chivalry comes from "cheval," a
horse, and so if a man was not mounted there was no
chance to be chivalrous. A seat in a buggy won't do at all. It
won't churn up heroism like the canter of a horse. That was
called the "fantastic age of famished honor," for honor was
said to be always hungry for a fight with somebody, and the
knights started out periodically to provoke difficulties.
Happy for us that this age has passed away and the knights
are unhorsed, but unhappily for us, like the comet, a portion
of its tail still lingers in the land, and ever and anon some
valiant knight shows up and strikes his breast and exclaims:
"Mine honor, sir, mine honor!" Right then I want to rush
to his relief and give him a sharpened pole and mount him
on some "Rosinante" and escort him to one of these
modern windmills that are built to pump water and tell him
to charge it until his honor is satisfied. Most of these
chivalric gentlemen have a very vague, indefinite idea of
what honor is and where it is located. Hudibras throws
some light upon the seat of honor when he tells of a man
who was "kicked in the place where honor is lodged," and
he says:
"A kick right there hurts honor more Than deeper wounds when kicked before."
This locates honor in the background, where we
will leave it.
Honor is like the chameleon. It takes any color that suits
its surroundings. Aaron Burr challenged Hamilton in order
to preserve his honor, and yet he was a traitor, an enemy
of Washington, a libertine, and boasted of his amours and
his intrigues. If a man is going to fight for his honor he
should be sure that he has not tarnished it by his own
dishonorable conduct. If a man is a thief or a swindler or
an extortioner or a libertine or a blackmailer, he has no
right to challenge a man for calling him a liar. Honor is a
very broad quality and does not split up in parts. It makes
up the complete gentleman in all his conduct; though a man
may not have told a lie, yet he may have no honor to
defend, for he had lost it all in other vices. When a man
can look his fellow men in the face and say, "Whom have I
defrauded or whom have I wronged or from whom have I
taken a bribe?" then let him fight for his honor if he wants
to.
But the average man who has made his money by ways
that are dark and tricks that are vain, or who has used
deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy or oppression in gaining his
ends, has no right to send or accept a challenge to mortal
combat. He must stand fair and square before the people
if he expects their
sympathy. If he fights of course it is out of respect to public
opinion, for no two men would fight if they were on an
island by themselves. And this proves the duelist a coward,
the worst kind of a coward, for he has more regard for
public opinion that he has for himself or his family or his
friends or his Maker. He knows that a duel proves nothing
and settles nothing, and yet he deliberately lets public
opinion outweigh his wife and his children and worse than
all he puts his soul in reach of the devil. From every moral
standpoint he is a fool and a coward and could be
convicted of lunacy in any court, and ought to be. Lord,
help us all--when will this foolishness stop? The law is
against it. Public opinion is against it. Common sense is
against it, and so is humanity and morality. Public opinion
says that every such case lowers our moral standard at
home and belittles us abroad. Public opinion doesn't care a
snap for the duel or the duelist. Duels prove nothing. They
establish no man's character for truth or integrity. They give
him no better credit in bank, no more friends in business.
Among decent people he is looked upon as a partial
outlaw, and they shrink from his society for fear of
offending him. His code of morals and his peculiar sense of
honor is a silent insult to them, as though he had said: "I
move in a higher plane than you common folks. I am a man
of honor--a gentleman." He has been engaged in a
dishonorable business and he knows it, for he has had to
skulk around in the night and hide and dodge like a thief.
He does not dare to fight on the genial, loving soil of his
own State, for that would disfranchise him, and so he seeks
some other. In fact, the whole thing would be as funny as a
farce if nobody
was concerned but the principals and their seconds. But
there are parents and wives and children and friends, and
hence the deep concern. Then let us have more peace and
less foolishness. Let a man take part in no show that he
has to keep secret from his wife or his children. Let him
undertake no peril that his preacher couldn't approve with
a parting prayer and benediction. In fact, I have always
wondered why the preacher was not taken along as well
as the surgeon, for where the devil is the man of God
ought to have an equal chance to capture an immortal soul.
Write, my child--write something to The Constitution. I
don't care what. I am too nervous. I can't think my own
thoughts. It is perfectly horrible --awful, but I reckon it's
all right. I reckon so. I wish there was not a tooth in my
head. When they come, they come with pain and peril, and
keep the poor child miserable, and when they go they go
with a torture that no philosophy can endure. Oh, my poor
jaw--just look how it is swollen. I am a sight. A pitiful
prospect. I look like a bloated bond-holder on one side of
my face and no bonds to comfort me. I wonder what
would comfort a man in my fix. I have suffered more
mortal agony from my teeth than from everything else put
together. Samson couldn't pull them, hardly, for they are all
riveted to the jawbone. I have been living in dread for a
month, for I knew that eyetooth was fixing up trouble; and
so yesterday morning it sprung a leak at the breakfast table
and I jumped out of my chair. The shell caved in, the nerve
was touched, and in my agony I gave one groan and
retired like I was a funeral. Five miles from town and no
doctor. Don't put down what I suffered all that day, and
the night following, for you can't. Mush poultices and
camphor and paregoric and bromide and chloroform, and
still the porcession moved on, and the jumping, throbbing
agony sent no flag of truce--no cessation of hostilities.
What do I care for anything? Don't tell me about
Hendricks being in Atlanta. I don't care where he
is. Yes, I do. He is a good man, but I've got no time to
think about him now. Please give me some more of that
camphor. I've burned all the skin off my mouth now, but it
is a counter-irritant and sorter scatters the pain around. If
I had some morphine I would take it, for I want rest. I am
tired. Oh, for one short hour of rest.
Write something, my daughter--write to The
Constitution and explain. Tell them I am "Billy in the low
grounds." I am suffering and want sympathy. Write a note
to the doctor, and tell him to come, come quick. I can't go
through another night. Oh, my country. Let me try that hot
iron again. I'll cook this old fat jaw outside and inside. I
wish I had no tongue, for I can't keep it from touching the
plagued tooth. Just look at my gums, they have swelled up
so you can hardly see the old tooth. Give me a knife and
the hand glass. I'll see if I can't let some blood out of these
strutting gums. I am so nervous I can't hardly hold the
knife, but here she goes. Oh, my country. Now give me
the camphor and I'll let it burn in a new place.
Just write a line to The Constitution; I don't care what
- say I am sick. I wonder if the doctor will come. He will
kill me, I know. It is awful to think of cold steel clamping
this tooth and being jammed away up on these gums. I'll
take chloroform, I reckon, for I can't stand it. I am afraid
he will come. I want him and I don't want him. The last
tooth I had pulled I went to the dentist's office like a hero,
and I was glad he wasn't in--glad his door was locked -
and for two more days I endured my agony, and then had
to have it pulled at last. And he pulled me all to pieces,
and the chloroform left me before he got done, and I had
an awful time.
The memory of it is excruciating, and yet I have got to go
through with the same thing again. "Oh, the pity of it, Iago,
pity of it." What has a man got teeth for, I would like to
know. It is the brute that is in him, the dog, or the old
Adam that evoluted from the monkeys. There is nothing
Godlike about teeth. They bite, that is all. They are called
"canines." I saw a man bite another man's nose off, once -
the teeth did it. The eye is Godlike, angelic, beautiful,
harmless. The ear is a good thing, too, for it takes in the
harmonies of nature and makes music sweet--music,
that is the only thing common to angels and men. The nose
is gentle and ornamental, but it is not of much consequence
except to blow off a bad cold and tell the difference
between cologne and codfish. But the teeth--well, I
think that false ones are better than the genuine, for they
never ache. I don't care for any, now. I am tired. These
women can have eight or ten pulled at one time--just to
get a new set. How in the world do they stand it? Pride, I
reckon; womanly pride, womanly nature; her love of the
beautiful. But we men can wear a moustache and hide a
whole set of rotten snags. If women had beards, the
dentists would perish.
There she goes again, and then boom! Let me try some
more paregoric and camphor. Maybe I can go to sleep
after awhile if I will keep dosing. I wish I had just a small
grain of dynamite behind that tooth, just at the end of the
roots; I would explode it if it killed me.
The doctor coming, you say! Merciful heavens! Well,
let him come. In the language of Patrick Henry, "I repeat
it, sir, let him come." "Lay on, McDuff"--cold steel
forceps, wrenching, twisting,
crushing, gouging. I don't believe I have got a friend in the
world. I almost wish I was dead. Teeth are a humbug--a
grand mistake--a blunder --an eye-tooth especially, that
sends roots away up under the eye and makes an abscess
there. They say a child is smart when it cuts the eye-tooth.
I believe I had rather do without and be a fool. I have had
rheumatism and all sorts of pains, but I will compromise on
anything but the toothache. I've a great respect for dentists,
for they do the best they can to relieve mankind from his
most miserable agony.
"Good morning, doctor, I suppose I am the unfortunate
individual you have come to doctor. I am ready for the
rack. Get out your chloroform and your steel-jawed
grabs; I am ready for the sacrifice. Is that a dagger that I
see before me?"
Father is in his little bed. He is asleep now. The long
agony is over. For nearly one hour we all wrestled with
him, for the chloroform gave out. He had taken so many
things before the doctor came that chloroform failed to
subdue him. It only made him delirious, and when we
could not hold him we called in our blacksmith, and even
then he pulled us all over the room, and the doctor had to
take him on the wing. The old shell crushed and the roots
had to be dug out in fragments. It was pitiful to hear him
beg to go home. He has morphine now, and will be all right
in the morning. He told me to write you something, and I
have written.
BILL ARP, Per M.
Just now he waked up and wanted to know who
whipped that fight--the parrot or the monkey. M.
It is home where the heart is, and we are all happy now.
Here is the big old family room, and the spacious fireplace
is crowded with the big back logs and the front logs and
the top logs, and the cheerful, genial blaze leaps out at
every opening and makes us all sit back in the family circle.
I sit near the good old window and look out upon the same
pleasing prospect of fields and distant hills and am
comforted. The dogs are in the family ring and the canaries
are singing in their cage, and the maltese cat is purring in
Jessie's lap. There is a lively chattering of happy voices all
around me, for the long spell is broken and the broken
family almost united. I say almost, for the sick boy and his
mother are in town at his sister's, and these children have
not yet seen them. It was too cold to bring him five miles
over a frozen road, and so I came out alone to give them
pleasure in broken doses. I hoped to surprise them and
peep in at the window, but they were on the lookout down
the road, and have nearly looked a hole through the
window in anxious expectation. With a scream and a shout
they all came flying down the hill to meet me; and such a
time as we all had, hugging and kissing and dancing around
with joy. They loaded me down and I could hardly wag
along for their embraces. I don't believe that folks are any
happier in heaven, and I don't know that I wish to be.
cot over the long wharf that stretches away out into the
lake, and put him aboard the beautiful steamer, the "City
of Jacksonville." We set him down in an easy chair, and
when the warning bell was rung we bade a sweet good-bye
to kindred and friends, and soon the engines were
unloosed and the big wheels turned and the boat moved
down the lake with quivering throbs. The anxious mother
watched her boy with watery eyes as he looked out
greedily upon the bright waters and feasted his eyes once
more upon scenes outside of a sick-chamber. The boy has
no use of his lower limbs and has to be carried in arms
from place to place, and it was no small trouble to get him
through narrow doors and up and down the stairs and into
the cars, but next morning we got him safely on a sleeper
to Jacksonville and then breathed easier, for it was the last
transfer until we got to Macon.
Waycross. I see Waycross now. I expect to see
Waycross in visions by day and in dreams by night for
years to come. I have memories of Waycross. I like
Waycross, for it is a bright and pleasant town, and has
good hotels and pleasant homes, and is kept lively with
moving trains; but I had an awful time at Waycross. Our
train stopped there and had to wait for a train on another
road, they said, and I got out with other passengers and
walked the board platform, but keeping an eye upon our
sleeper and within easy reach of it. There were two
sleepers behind ours that belonged to the train, and so I
meandered along down to where a newsboy was selling
Savannah morning papers. I gave him a quarter and was
quietly waiting for the change, when suddenly I heard a
darkey say: "Macon is a slippin' and a slidin' off." I looked
around instantly to see what he meant, and
sure enough she was already a hundred yards away,
moving like a black snake over the ground and getting
faster every moment. The two rear sleepers had been cut
off and I did not know it. I will never forget the
concentrated misery of that moment when I realized that
my wife and helpless boy were gone and I was left. My
heart sank down, my voice left me, and all my philosophy
was gone. I grew weak and faintish, and sat down on a
bench to collect myself and consider the awful situation.
what will they do? When will they find out that I am
not somewhere on the train? The boy will soon want me, I
know, and his mother will send the porter to hunt me up.
The conductor will soon call for our fare, and I have the
passes and my wife no money. Bye and bye she will learn
that I am not on the train, and then, ah! then. I could see
the tears in her eyes and the quivering lips, and the nervous
restlessness of the boy, and there was no help. Arousing
myself, I hurried to the telegraph that was clicking near by
and asked hurriedly for a dispatch to be sent to Jessup so
that the operator there might tell the conductor or my wife
that I was safe and would overtake them at Macon. My
anxiety was intense, but I got no sympathy. The youth said
all right, and I waited for an assurance from the operation
at Jessup that he would attend to it. I called three times for
an answer from him, but got none. When, for the third
time, I asked and almost begged for him to ask for a reply,
he said with uncivil indifference: "I have no time, sir; I am
busy." Well, he was very busy--smoking a cigar and
chatting with a friend. He was not at the instrument. A
gentleman near by noted the incivility
and told me I had better go up to the Western Union
if I wanted attention. This was news to me, for I had
thought all the time that this was the Western Union, but
suddenly found that it was only a railroad office. I had paid
him for a dispatch to Mr. Brown, of Macon, that called for
an answer, and two hours had passed and none had
come. So I went to the Western Union and repeated to
Mr. Brown and soon had a reply that he would meet my
wife and boy and take care of them. Her desolation and
distress was complete when she learned that I was missing
- nobody called on her or the conductor at Jessup. The
train rolled on and passed Eastman before her fears
began, and from there to Macon she imagined I had fallen
from the platform or in some way had met my death, and
when at last she reached Macon, and Mr. Brown came in
the sleeper and told her I was all right, she and the boy
both cried with joy. The Brown House gave them kind
welcome and every attention. They had a good night's rest
and were only aroused by a vigorous knock at the door at
four o'clock the next morning. That was me. The poet
says:
"One glorious hour of crowded life
Is worth an age without a name."
And just so we can sometimes live longer and live more
in a minute than at any other time in a month. I dident
blame her for slipping off and leaving me, and she dident
blame me for stopping at Waycross, but now that the long
agony is over we can smile at our mutual woes and fears.
My kind and considerate wife has not told it on me but
fourteen times up to this date, and I don't expect to hear of
it any longer than I live. She gently hinted yesterday that
she didn't suppose that I would ever mention Waycross in
my Sunday letter, for it was most too personal and was
not of a character to interest the public. So you perceive I
have taken the hint and told it all just as it was. As
General Lee said at the battle of Gettysburg: "It was all my
fault. It was all my fault."
I shall step off no more trains to buy a paper, and I now
warn all travelers to stand by the car the wife is in and not
go fooling down the line. Dick Hargis hollers "All aboard!"
like a fog horn when his train is ready to move, and you
can hear him a quarter of a mile, but Dick can't run all the
trains, and so ever and anon some poor fellow like me is
bound to get left.
Farewell, Waycross. I found some pleasant friends
there before I left, and they comforted me, especially the
host of the Grand Central, who was an old Gwinnett boy,
and we revived many recollections of our youthful days.
But still when I thinks of Waycross it is with feelings
somewhat like those we have when we visit an old-time
battlefield where we fought, bled and died for liberty.
We see that Dr. Curry, that great and good man, is
writing the reminiscences of his youth. How lovingly he
proceeds with his work! How gushingly he tells of his old
school days, and the halos and rainbows that gilded his
childhood! How reverently he writes of the grand old men
of the olden time, for there were giants in those days! How
feelingly he records his companionship with the family
negroes--the servants of the household who were
contented and happy and trusting, and who loved and
honored every member of their master's family, and were
loved by them! Oh, the tender and teary recollections of
'possum hunts and coon hunts and rabbit hunts and corn
shuckings, and eating watermelons in the cotton patch and
sometimes finding them while pulling fodder in the hot and
sultry cornfield! What frolics in going to mill and going in
washing and jumping from the springboard into ten-foot
water! What glorious sport in playing town-ball and bull-pen
and cat and rolly-hole and knucks and sweepstakes.
Baseball has grown out of town-ball; it is no improvement.
The pitcher used to belong to the ins and threw the best
ball he could, for he wanted it hit and knocked as far away
as possible, but now he belongs to the outs and wants it
missed. We used to throw at a boy to stop him running to
another base, and we hit him if we could; but these
modern balls are hard and heavy and dangerous,
and many a boy goes home with a bruised face or a broken
finger. We used to take an old rubber shoe and cut it into
strings and wind it tight into a ball until it was half grown,
and then finish it with yarn that was unraveled from an old
woolen sock. Our good mothers furnished everything, and
then made a buckskin cover and stitched it over so nice.
Oh, my, how those balls would bounce, and yet they didn't
hurt very bad when hit by them. They were sweet to throw
and sweet to catch. I heard lying Tom Turner say he had
one that bounced so high it never came down till next day,
and then his little dog grabbed it, and it took the dog up,
and he had never seen the dog nor the ball since. I used to
believe that, but I don't now. When we played town-ball
some of the outs would circle away off, two hundred yards,
and it was glorious to see them catch a ball that had nearly
reached the sky as it gratefully curved from the stroke of
the bat. We had an hour and a half for recess, and most of
it was spent in town-ball or bull-pen. Bull-pen was no bad
game, especially when the ins got down to two and the
juggling began. I used to be so proud because I could
stand in the middle of the pen and defy the jugglers to hit
me, for I was slender and active and could bend in or bend
out or squat down or jump up and dodge every ball that
came, but I couldn't do it now, not much I couldn't, for,
alas! I can neither squat nor jump, and a boy could hit my
corporosity as easy as a barn door. Oh, these memories,
how sweet they haunt us.
"I remember, I remember The house where I was born; The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn."
Of course I do--everybody does. The other night
there were ten of our school board in session, and the
special business was whether to give a longer recess at
noon or not, and it was curious to hear the various
opinions on the subject. Our president listened patiently to
all, and then made a speech for himself, and said that the
children should have more time to go home and get a
good, warm dinner. "Cold dinners," he said, "are
unhealthy. The laws of hygiene teach us that the processes
of digestion are much more easily carried on when the
food is warm and fresh from the oven. More than half of
the pupils take their dinners to school shut up in tin buckets
or wrapped up in baskets, and they get cold and clammy,
and are crammed into the stomach in a hurry, and the
children go to playing before digestion begins, and of
course the stomach rebels and won't do its work; and after
school is out they go home and cram in a lot of cake and
jelly and pickle on top of the cold, undigested dinner, and
the first thing you know the boy or the girl is sick and has
to stay at home a day or two to recuperate. I am
decidedly in favor of a longer recess and warm dinners."
That was a good speech and a sensible argument, but it
hurt my feeling so bad that I rose forward and in trembling
accents told how I went to school three miles from home
for three long and happy years, and carried my dinner in a
bucket, and how I enjoyed those cold dinners that my
good mother so carefully prepared, and how I had often
tried to write a poem to that little tin bucket--such a
poem as Wordsworth wrote about "The old oaken bucket
that hung in the well." My poem began just like his, but
always ended with
That dear little bucket, That bright, shining bucket, That little tin bucket I carried to school
Oh, those delightful cold dinners that were so nicely
arranged! The tender and luscious fried chicken with the
liver and gizzard and all; the hard-boiled eggs, with the little
paper of pepper and salt close by; the home-made
sausages, linked sausages, that, in the language of Milton,
were "linked sweetness--long drawn out;" the little bottle
of syrup, and the round, hand-made biscuit that were
beaten from the dough and had no soda in them--and last
of all, the good, old-fashioned ginger cakes and the turn-over
pies. Ah, those rights and lefts, those delicious juicy
pies that were made of peaches that my mother dried.
Just then here was a racket behind me, and Will
Howard was seen falling over in his chair, with his hands
clasped below the belt and his eyes rolled up to heaven.
He gasped piteously as he whispered
"Hugh, Major, hush, for heaven's sake," Martin Collins
shouted, "Glory!" and Judge Milder heaved a troubled
sigh and murmured, "Oh, would I were a boy again. "
For fear of a scene I suspended my broken remarks
and our worthy president gracefully subsided. Major Foute
wiped his eyes with his empty sleeve and moved for an
adjournment, and so the recess hour remains unchanged.
I believe it is best for children to walk a mile or two to
school, especially if there are other children to walk with
them a part of the way. Every step
of that three-mile way is dear to me now, and I love to
recall the boyish frolics as morning and evening we
meandered along, playing tag or mad dog, or running foot
races, or jumping half-hammond, or stopping at the half-way
branch to wade in the water or dam it up, or catch
the tadpoles, or drive the little minnows into their holes. It
was there that I saw for the first time a tadpole turning into
a frog, and it was there we killed a water moccasin with a
frog in his throat and saw his frogship kick out backwards
and hop away. I can go now to the very gully that had a
vein of red chalk, and another one that had white. I know
every persimmon tree and chestnut and hickory, and
where the red haws were, and the black haws and the
fruitful walnut that we climbed in its season and rattled the
nuts to the ground and stained our hands and clothes in
hulling them. All such things are around me now, but there
is no charm, no fond memory about them, for they are not
mine. All these are for another generation--another set of
boys and girls. Bye and bye they will be looking back at
theirs as I am looking back at mine. In a few more years
they will reverse the telescope. Until I was past thirty I
looked through the little end and saw life expanded and
magnified before me, while the distant things were brought
almost within reach, and I was nearing the goal with my
hope and my ambition. But alas! I haven't reached it, and
by degrees hope weakened and ambition became chilled,
and with a sad humility I began to look backwards--I
reversed the telescope and saw my life away back in the
distant past. The picture was far--very far away, but it
was beautiful, and now as the years grow short I find
myself looking
through the large end almost altogether. The memories
of the past grow sweeter as the years roll on
The capital stock of the young is hope--but the
treasure of age is memory.
A sweet little girl from Marietta writes me a nice letter
and begs me to write something for the children--just for
the children.
I never look upon a flock of happy, well-raised children
without wondering if they know how well off they are -
how much better off than their grandparents were some
fifty or sixty years ago. I would like to see old Father time
set his clock back a half a century just for a week and put
eyervthing like it was then, and I would walk around and
have lots of fun out of those little folks. I don't believe they
could stand it for a whole week, but it would do them
good to try. In the first place, they would have to get out
of their comfortable houses with plastered walls and large
glass windows and coal grates, and get into smaller houses
with about two rooms in front and a back shed room that
had no fireplace and no ceiling and a window with a
wooden shutter, and in that shed room they would have to
sleep, and the wind would come slipping in all night and
kiss their faces ever so nice. They would have to take off
all their pretty clothes, and wear country jeans and linsey,
and they would have to go to the shoemaker's and have
some coarse, rough shoes made of leather and no high
heels nor box toes nor buttons. But they would be good
and strong, and two pairs would last any boy or girl a
whole year--one pair would do them if they greased
them now and then and went
barefooted during summer as we used to do. All the store
stockings would have to be dispensed with, and the
elastic, too, and they would put on some good warm
ones that were knit by hand, and be tied up with a rag. No
nice hats from the milliner's with pretty flowers and ribbons
gay flying, but the girls would have to put on home-made
bonnets, nicely quilted, and the boys would have to wear
home-made wool hats or sealskin caps that would last two
or three years and stretch bigger as the heads grew bigger.
There would not be found a store in the whole State where
ready-made clothing could be found--not a coat nor a
pair of pants, nor a shirt, nor a skirt, nor a doll, nor
hardly a toy of any kind. I suppose that some few things
for children might be found in Augusta, or Savannah, or
Macon; but the country stores wouldent have anything, not
even candy nor oranges or a box of raisins. A boy could
find a dog knife or a barrow, and be allowed about one a
year, but the little girls couldent even find a thimble small
enough nor a pair of scissors. Children were not of much
consequence then, especially girls.
I would like to see the clock set back for one week and
see the boys cutting wood and making fires, cutting wood
half the day Saturday for Sunday, and Sunday morning
sitting down to learn some more of the shorter catechism
about justification, and sanctification, and adoption, and
some more verses in the Bible, and that poetry in the
primer about--
"In Adam's fall We sinned all. The cat doth play And after slay.
Xerxes must die And so must I. Zacheus, he Did climb a tree His Lord to see."
I would like to see one of these boys wake up some
cold morning and when he tried to make a fire and stirred
around among the ashes to find a coal, he couldent find
one, and what then? Not a match in the wide, wide world,
for there was none invented. Wouldent he be in a fix!
Well, he would have to run over to the nabor's, if he was a
town boy, and borrow a chunk. If he was a country boy
he would have to walk a mile or so, maybe, and nearly
freeze to death before he got back, and if it was raining his
chunk was apt to go out on the way. I would like to see
these boys and girls studying their lessons by the light of
one tallow candle. No gas, no kerosene, no oil of any sort
- only one flickering light of a candle, or maybe only a
lightwood blaze in the fireplace. I reckon they would study
hard and study fast, and go to bed soon and get up early in
the morning and try it again. I would like to see them sit
down to write a letter and find nothing but an old goose
quill for a pen--not a steel pen in the world. I would
watch the poor fellow as he tried to make a pen out of a
quill, and after he had cut it to a point see him try to split it
in the middle with his knife, and split it too far or not far
enough, or on one side and then throw it away in despair.
It would all be fun to us old folks, but it wouldent be
fun for the boys or the girls to be set back. But there are
old people living now who do the same old things and live
in the same old way. Colonel Campbell Wallace still uses
the quill pens and makes them
himself, and I wish you could see how nicely and how
quickly he can do it. Our school teachers had to make the
pens for all their scholars, and it took about half their time,
for they had to mend them oftener than make them. When
the first split wore out he had to split it again and trim it
down to a new point. His knife was always open and
ready. Poor man! He died before the steel pens were
invented and never got the good of them.
But we were used to these ways and never thought hard
of them. Judge Lester used to run over to our house of a
cold morning and say to my mother: "Please, mam, lend
me a chunk of fire," and I used to go over to his house and
do the same thing. But we didn't let it go out often. We
knew how to cover up fire in the ashes so as to keep it till
morning. I remember going over to Forsyth county once
when an old Indian lived there by the name of Sawnee. He
didn't go off with the rest of the Indians, but lived on a
mountain called Sawnee's mountain, and he had some
grandsons about our age. George Lester and Cicero
Strong were with me, and we gave an Indian boy some
money to show us how they got fire when their fire went
out. He took two dry hickory sticks about a foot long and
as large as my thumb and a little bunch of dry grass and
started off on a run and rubbed the sticks together so
rapidly that you could hardly see them and the friction
made fire and caught the grass and he came back in half a
minute with a blaze in his hand. I used to go down to the
store at night with my father, and he had a tinder box
nailed up by the door and would strike the steel with the
flint and make a spark and let it fall on a piece of punk and
light it, and then he would light his candle from the punk.
But matches
came along after awhile and stopped all that. I remember
the first matches that came to our town. They were called
Lucifer matches, for some folks thought that the "old boy"
had something to do with them, and wouldent use them.
They smelled strong of brimstone and were sold at twenty-five
cents a box. Now ten times as many sell for a pickle.
But about lights. Dipping the candles was one of the
notable events of the year. It was almost as big a thing as
hog killing. The boys prepared the canes or reeds, about
sixty in number, as large as the little finger and nearly a
yard long. They were smoothed at the joints and put away
in a bundle to dry. When the time came, the first cold
weather in the fall, our mother would get out the candle
wick and wind it around a pair of cotton cards, end ways,
and after a good deal was wound would cut one end with
the scissors, and that made the wicks when doubled just
long enough for a candle. Three or four canes were then
interlaced through the back of an old-fashioned chair to
keep them steady while she looped the wicks around them
and twisted their ends together. Seven wicks were put on
each cane, and when the cane was taken out and held
horizontal the wicks hung down and were about two inches
apart. When all the canes were full they were laid upon a
table ready for dipping. The tallow was melted in a big
wash pot. Some beeswax was added and a little alum. Old
plank were placed on the floor where the dipping and
dripping was to be. Two long poles or quilting frames were
placed parallel on the backs of chairs and were wide
enough apart to let the candles between and hold up the
canes. The big pot had to be kept nearly full all the time. A
cane of wicks was
let down slowly in the pot until the cane rested on its
edges. Then it was lifted up and allowed to drip awhile
and then placed as number one between the long poles
where, if it dripped any more, it was on the old plank. The
first course was long and tedious, for it took the loose
cotton wick some time to absorb the tallow. After that the
process was rapid. Tallow would harden on tallow
quickly, and at every dipping the little candles got larger
until after awhile they were large enough at the bottom
ends to fill a candlestick, and that ended the job. They
were left on the poles over night and then slipped off the
rods and placed in the candlebox or an old trunk.
Seven times sixty made four hundred and twenty
candles, and that was the year's supply. Only one candle
was used for the table in the family room. The reading and
sewing was all done by that. The boys were allowed a
piece of one to go to bed by. Nobody sat up until
midnight then. The night was believed to be created for
sleep and rest, and the day for work. There were no
theaters nor skating rinks--no reading novels half the
night and lying in bed until breakfast the next morning. The
rule was to go to bed at nine o'clock and get up with the
chickens. But now we couldn't read by candle light. It
takes at least two lamps, and one lamp is equal to ten
candles. But we got along pretty well. All the substantial
things were as good as they are now. Good water, good
air, good sunshine and shower, good health, good warm
clothes, good bread and meat and milk and butter, good
peaches and apples, good horses to ride, good fishing and
swimming and hunting. We dident have railroads and
telegraphs and telephones and sewing machines and so
forth, but we didn't need them. We need them now, for
the world is so full of people that the old ways wouldent
feed and clothe them. The right thing always comes along
at the right time. If the clock was set back I wonder how
this generation would manage about the cooking business.
Fifty years ago there were no cooking stoves. The ovens
and skillets and spiders were big, heavy things that had to
be lifted on and off the fire with a pair of pot hooks. They
had heavy lids, and the cooking was done by putting coals
underneath and coals on top. It took bark and chips to
make coals quickly, and our old cook used to say, "Now
git me some bark, little master, and I gib you a bikket
when he done." There was no soda, no tartaric acid or
baking powder. The biscuit were made by main strength.
The dough was kneaded by strong arms, and sometimes it
was beaten with the rolling pin until it blistered. When the
dough blistered it was good and made good biscuit. I can't
say that we have any better cooking now than we had
then; but the stove makes it a great deal easier to cook.
The boys had no baseball, but they had bullpen and cat
and townball and roley hole and tag and sweepstakes
and pull over the mark and foot races and so forth, and
they thought there was nothing better. They had the best
rubber balls in the world, and made them themselves.
Some of them could bounce thirty feet high. They were
made by cutting an old rubber shoe into strings and
winding the strings into a ball and covering it with
buckskin. But after awhile the rubber shoes were not
made out of all rubber; they were mixed with
something that took some of the bounce out and our
balls degenerated. There was an old man living near us
who was called "Lying Tom Turner," and he told us
boys one day that when he was a boy he had a rubber ball
that he was afraid to bounce hard for fear it would go up
out of sight and he would lose it. We asked him what
became of his ball, and he said he bounced it one day
most too hard and it went up in the clouds and was gone
half an hour, and when it came down his little dog grabbed
it in his mouth, and it rebounced and carried the dog up
with it out of sight, and he had never seen the ball nor the
little dog since.
Well, I don't know which times are the best--the old
times or the new. It is very nice to have a nice house and
nice furniture and nice clothes and lots of nice story books
and to ride on the cars, but in the old times people didn't
hanker after such things, and they were easy to please,
and were in no hurry to get through life, and there were no
suicides, and very few crazy folks, and no pistols to carry
in the hip pocekts. Nowadays there is a skeleton in most
every house. I don't mean a real skeleton, but some great
big trouble that throws a dark shadow over the family.
There were not any exciting books to read--no sensation
novels that poison the mind just like bad food poisons the
body. There was but half a dozen newspapers in the
whole State, and they didn't have whole columns full of
murders and suicides and robberies and awful fires that
burned up poor lunatics and all other horrid things to make
a tender heart feel bad. There was nobody very rich and
nobody very poor, and we had as great men then as we
have now.
If the clock was set back and the little girl who wrote to
me wanted to go to Augusta with her grandpa to visit her
kinfolks, she would have to get in the mail coach and jog
along all day and all night
at four miles an hour and pay ten cents a mile, and it
would take two days and nights, and she would be tired
almost to death, and so would her grandpa Well, they just
couldn't go. But now they can go as cheap as to stay at
home, and do it in less time, as the Irishman said.
But the clock will not be set back, and so we must all
be content with things as they are and make them better if
we can.
"A MOTHER IS A MOTHER STILL, THE HOLIEST THING
ALIVE."
Goldsmith, in a short
and pretty preface to the "Vicar of
Wakefield," says: "There are a hundred faults in this thing
and a hundred things might be said to prove them beauties.
A book may be amusing with many errors, or it may be
dull without a single absurdity. The hero in this story unites
in himself the three greatest characters on earth--the
priest, the husbandman and the father of a family."
Strange that the author could write such a charming
story about the very three characters he knew least about,
for he had no fitness for nor experience in either. It was
not recorded that he was ever in love or sought the
company of virtuous young ladies, yet his ballad of the
Hermit in the "Vicar of Wakefield" is admitted to be the
tenderest and most perfect love poem ever written. My
father made me commit it to memory when I was young,
and there are at least a dozen verses in it that I can cry
over now and it does me good. It is a comfort to weep
over these sad, sweet things. Langhorn wrote a verse
about a poor woman with a babe at her breast hunting
over the battlefield of Minden for the body of her husband,
and when she found him she knelt by his side and wept,
and the big tears fell upon the face of her child and mingled
with the milk he drew; "A child of misery baptized in
tears." A painting was made of it, and Walter Scott says
that the only time
he ever saw Burns he was looking at that painting and
crying like a child. To read the lines and imagine the
painting is enough for me. But if I had been Goldsmith I
would have set down the mother of a family as greater
than the father.
Evan Howell said he would not vote for a curfew, for
his observation was that if a father would stay at home at
night the boys would, and that song of "Where is my
wandering boy tonight?" would not have been written. But
the fathers can't stay at home at night. They are wanted at
the store, the office, the counting room, for on them
depends the support of the family. But many a tired
mother can sing "Where is my wandering husband
tonight?" Alas, too many can be found at the club, at the
pool-room or the hotel, while the mother is straining her
mind to untangle that hard sum, "If A and B can build a
house in thirty days, and B can build it in forty-five days,
how long will it take A to build it?"
Take it all in all, it is the mothers who are the hope of
the world--the saviours of the children. They certainly
save the girls, for nobody has yet sung, "Where is my
wandering girl tonight?" If the fathers would do their half
and save the boys it would be all right. Oh, but for the
mothers and wives and sisters; what would become of us
without them! Since I have been sick sometimes away in
the silent watches of the night, when, as Job says,
"Deep sleep falleth upon a man," it does not fall upon
a woman, for I feel her gentle touch arranging the cover
and feeling whether I am breathing or not. Since I have been
sick I have never caught her fast asleep, and the other night she
got hurt with me because I slipped out in the hall and
called the girls down to make a fire and heat some water,
for I was sick and suffering
and there was no hot water in the boiler. It is just as Scott
wrote:
"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou."
And as Coleridge wrote:
"A mother is a mother still;
The holiest thing alive."
I may have written it before, but I will write it again, that
one night I agreed to stay with two dear little girls while
their father and mother went out to tea at a neighbor's.
This pleased me, for I am always happy in their company,
and they in mine. When bed-time came I undressed them
and they knelt by my knees and said their prayers; one of
them was soon asleep, but the other lingered and said,
"Gran'pa, when papa comes home please tell him I love
him." "Yes, I will," said I; "what must I tell your mamma?"
She closed her eyes and said, "Nothing--she knows I
love her." That expresses it. That child's father loves those
little girls dearly, but he keeps a drug store and is the
prescription partner. He goes to the store before his
children get up; he has but an hour with them at noon, and
has to return to the store soon after supper. No wonder
these little girls want him to know that they love him. Boys
are very different, and when they get up in their teens
mothers lose their influence. Some say it is bad associates.
Of course that has something to do with it, but Cain didn't
have any that we know of and yet he killed his brother.
Environment is a big word, but it covers everything that a
boy inherits or that he gets from association. One day a
friend of mine, a Hebrew, said to me, "Major, I perlieve
you does love your shildurn better
den anybody in de town." "Oh, no, I reckon not," said
I; "don't you love your children?" "Vy, yes, of course; but I
pelieve you would die for your shildurn." "Wouldn't you
die for yours?" said I. He pondered a while. "Yes, I
pelieve I vould; dat is, for all--except Frank." Frank was
his bad boy and gave him trouble; but Frank turned out to
be a good boy and is one of the best citizens of Atlanta.
One of my best old-time friends was a Norwegian, and
was killed during the war. He had some good, amiable
daughters, and had two sons who were bad, very bad,
and as I was mayor of the town they gave me trouble.
Their father was a member of the council, an elder in my
church, and I had favored his boys as much as possible;
but one night just before Christmas they broke into a
hardware store and stole a keg of powder and hid it in
their stable loft. They had planned to blow up the
calaboose. The city marshal (old Sam Stewart) found it
and arrested the boys and brought them before me for
trial. I put it off until the next morning. That night I went to
see the father and mother. She cried, of course, and he
choked up as he talked. "Mine good friend--I has been
prayin' over dis ting about mine poys, and it seems to me
de good Lord say mine poys is goin' to queet. Dey take it
all from me. I has been in de calaboose in Stockholm a
hundred times, but von day I queet. I shust queet right off
all a sudden, and I pelieve if you will try my boys one more
time dey will queet." And sure enough, they did quit, and
grew up to a good manhood. One of them is the cashier of
the largest bank in Memphis and the other the head of a
hardware store in Louisville, Ky. Sometimes I think that it
is the halo of a mother's prayers that reclaims many a
wayward boy. If the
young man would only stop and think--think of the
watches of the night, when he was a teething infant,
tugging at an empty breast for milk, while the poor tired
mother changed him from side to side and longed for the
morning. I have wondered how they survived it and why
they would go through the ordeal again. A man wouldn't,
and not all of them will help and comfort the mother when
she feels for the first time her first-born's breath. But we
must not give up the boys. Maybe they will, like the
prodigal son, come to themselves and "queet."
"Keokuk, Iowa, September 15, 1902.--Major
Charles H. Smith, Cartersville, Ga.--Dear Sir: For
several years past I have been reading your letters. I like
very much your writings about the home life, the everyday
events and the many little incidents of your experience,
looking backward over a long and busy career.
"Although a stranger, of opposite politics, and with
many different views of life, still your words have
interested me and have so many times touched my heart
that I want to write to you my appreciation. I wish you
could visit Iowa--go over it from the Mississippi to the
Missouri river and meet the people of a Republican State.
You would, no doubt, soften your writings about the
'Northerners.' You would find as warm-hearted and
generous a people as you have in Georgia.
"You would find a people that average in intelligence
with any people on earth. If you could interview the
fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters or wives of those who
had fallen in the war of the rebellion, you would not find
bitter resentment; you would not find that these men, who
had given their lives, had done so with any hatred toward
their Southern brethren, but you would find that the great
reason for their sacrifice was in the cause of the union of
all parts of this great country and liberty for all humanity.
This is Northern sentiment, and God, who
rules wisely, ordered that the result should be as it is.
"It is certainly a great curse to have so many illiterate,
low-lived negroes in your State; but how true is the Bible,
that you revere, when it says, 'The sins of the fathers
shall be visited upon the children unto the third and
fourth generations.' To my mind, the 'forefathers' of
Georgia sinned in purchasing and owning slaves, and
now their children's children suffer the consequences.
"I trust you will receive these words as they are meant,
with the greatest kindness and good will, and I wish you
many more years of happiness with your good wife,
children and grandchildren, and further hope that 'Bill
Arp's Letter' will continue to visit us for very many years
to come."
This is a good letter. A good man wrote it. I could
neighbor with him and his folks and never say a word to
give him offense. But I would teach them something do not
not know--teach them gently, line upon line, precept
upon precept--here a little and there a little. Now, here
is a gentleman of more than ordinary intelligence and
education who does not know that the sin of slavery
began in New England among his forefathers--not ours -
and from there was gradually crowded southward until it
got to Georgia. and that Georgia was the first State to
prohibit their importation. See Appleton's Cyclopedia
(Slavery and the Slave Trade). He does not know that
long after New England and New York had abolished
slavery their merchantmen continued to trade with Africa
and sold their cargoes secretly along the coast, and never
did but one reach Georgia, and that one, "The
Wanderer," was seized and confiscated and its officers
arrested. "The Wanderer" was built at Eastport, in Maine,
was equipped as a
slaver in New York and officered there and a crew
employed. He does not know that Judge Story, chief
justice of the United States Supreme Court, when
presiding in Boston in 1834, charged the grand jury that
although Massachusetts had freed their slaves, yet the
slave trade with Africa was still going on and Boston
merchants and Boston Christians were steeped to their
eyebrows in its infamy. He does not know that when our
national existence began the feeling against slavery was
stronger in the Southern States than in the Northern.
Georgia was the first to prohibit it, but later on the
prohibition was repealed. New England carried on the
traffic until 1845--and is doing it yet if they can find a
market and can get the rum to pay for them. The last
record of a slaver caught in the act was in 1861, off the
coast of Madagascar, and it was an Eastport vessel. The
slave trade with Africa was for more than a century a
favorite and popular venture with our English ancestors.
King James II. and King Charles II. and Queen Elizabeth
all had stock in it, and though Wilberforce and others had
laws passed to suppress it they could not do it. New
England and old England secretly carried it on (see
Appleton) long after slavery was abolished in the colonies.
They could afford to lose half their vessels and still make
money.
No, no, my friend. If slavery was a sin at all, which I
deny, it was not our sin, nor that of our fathers, nor were
we cursed with so many illiterate, low-lived negroes as
you suppose. Our slaves were not educated in books as
they were in manners and morals and industry, and, mark
you, there was not a heinous crime committed by them
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. We did not have a
chain
gang nor a convict in all of the land, and now there are
4,400 in the State of Georgia. Who is responsible for
that? General Henry R. Jackson said in the great address
he delivered in Atlanta in 1881: "During the four years of
war, when our men were far away from home, and their
wives and daughters had no protectors but their slaves,
there was not an outrage committed in all the Southland.
Where does history present a like development of loyalty?
Does it not speak volumes for the humanity of the master
and the devotion of the slave? If I had power to indulge
my emotional nature I would erect somewhere in the
center of this Southland a shaft, which should rise above
all monuments and strike the stars with its sublime head,
and on it I would inscribe, 'To the loyalty of the slaves of
the Confederate States during the years '62, '63, and '64. ' "
But this will do for the first lesson to my friend. It may
take some time--weeks or months--for us to
harmonize, and we will not until we get the facts straight,
but I know that he is a gentleman and I think more of
Iowa and her people since I received his letter.
But my friend is lamentably ignorant about the condition
of our negroes before the war and their condition now. I
must resent any slanders upon our slaves. They were not
low-lived. They were affectionate and loyal. I believe that
our family servants would have died for my wife, or for
me or our children. They were born hers and expect to
die hers. Tip was my trusted servant during the war and
was twice captured and twice escaped, the last time
swimming the Coos river in the night. But I have done for
this time, for I am not well and the doctor says I must not
strain my mind.
Wanted.--In 1881 General Henry R. Jackson, of
Savannah, delivered in Atlanta the most notable,
instructive and eloquent address that has ever been heard
in Georgia since the civil war. The subject was "The
Wanderer," a slave ship that landed on the Georgia coast
in 1858. But the whole address was an historical recital of
many political events that led to the civil war and of which
the generation that has grown up since were profoundly
ignorant and still are. It was delivered by request of the
Young Men's Library Association, when Henry Grady
was its chairman, and I supposed was published in
pamphlet form and could be had on application. But I
have sought in vain to find a copy. I have a newspaper
copy but it has been worn to the quick and is almost
illegible. I wrote to Judge Pope Barrow, who is General
Jackson's executor, and he can find none among the
General's papers. Can any veteran furnish me a copy?
I would also be pleased to obtain a copy of Daniel
Webster's speech at Capon Springs, which was
suppressed by his publishers and to which General
Jackson makes allusion. General Jackson was a great
man. He won his military laurels in the war with Mexico.
He was assistant attorney-general under Buchanan, when
Jeremiah Black was the chief. He was the vigilant,
determined, conscientious prosecutor of those who
owned and equipped and officered
the only slave ship that ever landed on the Georgia coast.
He was a man of splendid culture and a poet of ability and
reputation. Strange it is that this magnificent address has
not been compiled in the appendix of some Southern
history as a land mark for the present generation. It is sad
and mortifying that our young and middle-aged men and
our graduates from Southern colleges know so little of our
ante-bellum history. The Northern people are equally
ignorant of the origin of slavery and the real causes that
precipitated the civil war. Most of them have a vague idea
that slavery was born and just grew up in the South -
came up out of the ground like the seventeen-year-old
locusts--and was our sin and our curse.
Not one in ten thousand will believe that the South
never imported a slave from Africa, but got all we had by
purchase from our Northern brethren. I would wager a
thousand dollars against ten that not a man under fifty nor
a schoolboy who lives north of the line knows or believes
that General Grant, their great military hero and idol, was a
slave holder and lived off of their hire and their services
while he was fighting us about ours. Lincoln's proclamation
of freedom came in 1863, but General Grant paid no
attention to it. He continued to use them as slaves until
January, 1865. (See his biography by General James
Grant Wilson in Appleton's Encyclopedia.) Genera Grant
owned these slaves in St. Louis, Mo., where he lived. He
was a bad manager, and just before the war began he
moved to Galena and went to work for his brother in the
tanyard. While there he caught the war fever and got a
good position under Lincoln, but had he remained in St.
Louis would have greatly preferred one on our side. So
said Mrs.
Grant a few years ago to a newspaper editor in St.
Augustine.
How many of this generation, North or South, know, or
will believe that as late as November, 1861, Nathaniel
Gordon, master of a New England slave ship called the
Erie, was convicted in New York City of carrying on the
slave trade? (See Appleton.) Just think of it and wonder! In
1861 our Northern brethren made war upon us because we
enslaved the negroes we had bought from them; but at the
same time they kept on bringing more from Africa and
begging us to buy them. How many know that England, our
mother country, never emancipated her slaves until 1843,
when twelve millions were set free in the East Indies and
one hundred millions of dollars paid to their owners by act
of Parliament? It is only within the last half century that the
importation of slaves from Africa has generally ceased. Up
to that time every civilized country bought them and
enslaved them. English statesmen and clergymen said it was
better to bring them away than to have them continue in
their barbarism and cannibalism. And it was better. I
believe it was God's providence that they should be brought
away and placed in slavery, but the way it was done was
inhuman and brutal.
The horrors of the middle passage, as the ocean voyage
was called, is the most awful narrative I ever read and
reminds me of Dante's "Inferno." About half the cargo
survived, and the dead and dying were tumbled into the
sea. The owners said: "We can afford to lose half and
still have a thousand per cent. profit." Rev. John Newton,
one of the sweetest poets who ever wrote a hymn, the
author of
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a
wretch like me," "Savior, visit thy plantation," "Safely
through another week," and many otters, was for many
years a deck hand on a slave ship and saw all its horrors.
He became converted, but soon after became captain of a
slaver and for four years pursued it diligently and mitigated
its cruelty. Then he quit and went to preaching, and says in
his autobiography that it never occurred to him that there
was anything wrong or immoral in the slave trade when it
was humanely conducted. The Savior said: "Offenses must
needs come, but woe unto them by whom they come."
In Appleton's long and exhaustive article on slavery it is
said that slavery in some form has existed ever since
human history began. And it appears to have been under
the sanction of Providence as far back as the days of
Noah and Abraham. The latter had a very great household
and many servants whom he had bought with his money.
The word "slave" appears but twice in the Bible. It is
synonymous with servant and bondsman. There has been
no time since the Christian era that the dominant nations
have not owned slaves--sometimes the bondage was
hard, but as a general rule the master found it to his
interest to be kind to his slaves. As Bob Toombs said in
his Boston speech: "It is not to our interest to starve our
slaves any more than it is to starve our horses and horned
cattle." Shortly after the little cargo that the Wanderer
brought were secretly scattered around I saw some of
them at work in a large garden in Columbus, Ga., and was
told that they were docile and quickly learned to dig and
to hoe but that it was hard to teach them to eat cooked
meat. They wanted it raw and bloody. They
were miserable little runts, "Guinea negroes," with thick lips
and flat noses; but they grew up into better shape and
made good servants and I know were far better off than in
their native jungles, the prey for stronger tribes and made
food for cannibals.
No, there was no sin in slavery as instituted in the South
by our fathers and forefathers, and that is why I write this
letter--perhaps the last I shall ever write on this subject.
I wish to impress it upon our boys and girls so that they
may be ready and willing to defend their Southern
ancestors from the baseless charge of suffering now for
the sins of their fathers.
Lord Bacon said that children are hostages to fortune
and impediments to great enterprises. He had none to
trouble him and no doubt found more time to study and
become a great man, but his philosophical attainments did
not save him from disgrace. Perhaps some children would
have saved him, even though the world would have lost his
philosophy. Shakespeare had but one son, and he died in
early youth and the family name became extinct in the
second generation. Neither Dr. Johnson nor Charles Lamb
nor Hood nor Tom Moore left children, and Burns only
two. Sir Isaac Newton was never married, nor was Pope
or Goldsmith or Whitfield. Byron had one child, a
daughter. Calvin married a widow with four children, but
died without any of his own. John Wesley married a
widow, but she ran away from him three times. The last
time he wouldn't let her come back, but wrote: "I did not
forsake her; I did not expel her; I will not recall her."
Martin Luther married a nun, as he said: "To please his
father and tease the pope and vex the devil." I have
noticed in my reading that almost all the great thinkers,
philosophers and statesmen died childless or left but one
or two children. Washington had none, nor General
Jackson nor Polk nor Madison. Pierce had only two, but
they died before he did. Neither Jefferson nor Monroe left
any son. Webster left one; he was killed at Bull Run and
the
family name dropped out. John Randolph was never
married, and Poe left no children. Neither Toombs nor
Governor Troup left any son, and Alexander Stephens
was never married. Dr. Miller died childless and the family
name dropped out.
There is something sad and melancholy in noting the
dropping out of a noble family name for lack of children.
Now it is more than probable that these great men would
not have acquired fame or left to mankind the benefit of
their great achievements if numerous children had been
born to them and they had had to scuffle to maintain and
educate them. If a father does his duty by his children he
will hardly have time to acquire either fame or fortune. We
know from experience at our house that it is an anxious,
earnest struggle to raise ten children in a way that will
make them love us and love home and cherish the
memories of their youthful days. It is said for a man or a
woman to have to look back to a hard, unhappy
childhood. But which is best for a man--children or great
enterprises? The one is a compliance with nature and the
divine law--the other a gratification of man's selfish
ambition. The proper raising of a family of children is the
biggest thing in this life. In many cases marriages are
unhappy and the children a curse, but there is no good
excuse for the average man not seeking a mate. Of course
there are exceptions, but the universal law is that woman
was created for man and that her highest duty is to be a
mother to his children. No wife is happy without children.
Children are a heritage from the Lord, and nobody but
the Lord knows where they came from or why they came
at all. David says: "Blessed is he who hath his quiver full."
A child should be taught
early that he or she was created in the image of God. The
Bible says so. It will beget a self-respect and perhaps
prevent intemperance and bad conduct.
When King Henry II. was making a tour of his kingdom
his subjects met him on the way and gave him great
ovations and made presents to him and his courtiers, but
one humble peasant came and brought nothing. Count
Abensberry said to him: "What have you got to present to
his majesty, the king?" "Nothing," said he; "nothing but my
children," and he then marched them out and caused them
to salute him. There were twenty-two of them, and he
said: "May it please your majesty, these are my treasures -
the children of two mothers. They are all farmers and raise
produce for your subjects in peace and will defend you in
war." The king gave him a goodly present and his blessing
and said to his courtiers: "This poor man's gift is the richest
that I have yet found."
But I don't believe in twenty-two children in one family.
Ten are enough. If the number could be regulated I would
say that six or eight would be a good average; but we
have none to spare at our house. One child is better than
none, but if that one be lost there is none to cling to or
caress and the home is desoluate. One child is apt to be
spoiled and selfish. The best thing for a lone boy who is
overindulged at home is to send him to school early and let
him get a licking now and then from other boys until he
learns to give and take. Two boys are far better than one,
for they can be companions and help one another. Two
daughters are better than one, for they can counsel each
other and go around and visit together and keep each
other's little secrets. A numerous flock of children
strengthens the family and
makes it more respectable in the community. It
makes it strong and influential in the church and Sabbath-school.
By and by the children get married and that bring
in more strength to the family.
Then again there is economy in it, for the good mother
can hand down many of the garments of the older ones to
the younger. If the outside ones are too much worn, there
are lots of little petticoats and drawers and out-grown
pants that come in handy. My wife says that these "hand-me-downs,"
as she calls them, have saved her many a
weary stitch. I know a little handsome grandson who is
now wearing a nice suit made of a discarded cloak of
mine. Another advantage is that the older ones can help
the younger in their lessons, and this has saved my wife
and me lots of time and perplexing care. And so, although
the oldest boy or girl gets no hand-downs but has every
garment span new, they have to help the younger ones in
various ways--even to nursing the baby when mother is
sick or busy. There is no law of primogeniture in this
country; no English law that gives the paternal estate to the
first born; but all have to share and share alike and
contribute to the family welfare. From my window I see
my neighbor's boys working the garden, and they have a
good one and take a pride in it. They find ample time to
go to school and to play ball, but will not neglect the
garden.
But alas! there is a shadow over every large family. The
time will surely come when it will be broken up--either
by marriage of the children or emigration of the boys to
some distant region. When they leave us for good the
father is sad and the mother's eyes are often dimmed with
tears. For two years we have not seen our youngest boy,
who cast his
fortunes with a companion in the City of Mexico. But he is
coming soon and the mother is waiting, hopefully and
prayerfully waiting. We have one in New York, one in
Texas, and one in Florida, but they are good to write to us
and cheer us up, and there is no blight or cloud over them.
What a comfort there is in good loving letters from far-off
children. A good mother writes me that her married
daughter lives in Australia and her monthly letters are her
greatest blessing. I know of nothing that pays such good
dividends upon its cost as a loving letter from an absent
child or from a far-off friend. Only a little spare time and
two cents will bring pleasure that money cannot buy -
more than ever have I noticed this since I have been sick.
Even the sympathetic letters from unknown friends have
brought me comfort. I wish I could answer them all and
say, as Paul said to Timothy, "See how long a letter I have
written to you with mine own hand."
P. S.--I have lost a letter from a Mr. Lilly and wish he
would send me his address again. I have found his book.
The old carpet in the family room has been down and up
and up and down for seventeen years. It has been the best
carpet we ever had. It used to be the parlor carpet but
was reduced to a lower rank a long time ago. Time and
children and dogs and cats and brooms have worked on it
until it is faded and slick and threadbare. The colors are
gone and so are the figures and the fuz and the nap, but it
is a carpet still. It has been taken up and hung on the
fence and beaten with thrash poles about seventeen times,
and yet there is not a hole in it. In its aristocratic days it
bore the burden of aristocratic shoes and fancy slippers,
and music and song and love making and the parlor dance,
and the family weddings. Its downy flowers treasured
many a secret and many a joy. But in course of time it
ceased to be the pride of the family and became its
servant. We have raised children on that carpet--rough
boys and romping girls. We have raised dogs and cats. It
has been the mudsills of a nursery and a menagerie and a
schoolroom and a circus. As its colors disappeared in the
middle and around the hearthstone, Mrs. Arp would take it
up and change corners and bring to the front a brighter
portion that lay hidden under the bed and the bureau and
the sofa. She has done this so often that there is little
difference now. Every part has traveled the grand rounds
over and over again.
Mrs. Arp has been hinting about a new carpet for
some time. We could do without it if I couldn't afford it,
she said, and I must have a talma cloak anyhow, and the
children needed so many things, but she didn't want
anything for herself. Of course she didn't. I didn't give her
a chance. I keep her supplied. I never said anything--I
just looked into the fire and ruminated. She knows my
weakness. It's all honey and sugar and a little flattery
thrown in. When it comes to driving and bulldozing I am
an austere man, I am, and she knows it.
She said last week that she had promised Ralph to go
down to Atlanta and see him, and while there she could get
a cloak and some little things for the children for
Christmas. "I'll go with you," said I. "I wish to see Ralph,
too, and keep him encouraged. I think he will make a
pretty good doctor in ten or fifteen years, if he keeps on
studying and cutting up stiffs and holding the candle for Dr.
Westmoreland. He uses powerful big words now for a boy
his size. He talks about anesthetics and antiskeptics, and
the like." It wasn't much trouble to get her off, and she
never said nary time that she had nothing to wear. She has
just got past that at last. We took one of the girls along as
a chaperone, for my wife and I haven't kept up with city
style and street behavior and how to shop and look at fine
things like we were used to them. We had hardly got off
the cars when she met an old friend and hugged and
kissed her, and they got to talking about old times and
somebody that was dead, and my wife she got full in the
throat and watery in the eyes, and they blocked up the
sidewalk and everybody had to walk around them, and so
to prevent a scene our chaperone dissolved the interview
and we hurried on to Whitehal.
It has been built up wonderfully since Mrs. Arp was
there, and the show windows are just beautiful beyond
description. She stopped squarely before the first jewelry
store and feasted her hazel eyes in rapturous amazement.
"Did you ever in your life? Isn't that perfectly lovely? Do
look at that little cherub swinging to that clock for a
pendulum. I wonder if those are real diamonds in those
brooches. Oh, my! see that beautiful breastpin. Wouldent
Jessie love to wear that. Poor thing, she has never had a
nice pin." The chaperone began to take on a little, too, and
the passing crowd had to go round us again, and some of
them looked back and smiled, and that made her mad, and
so I took my women folks away from there and remarked:
"I wouldn't stop to look at everything. People will think
you never saw anything pretty or fine in your life " Mrs.
Arp prouded up her head and said: "What do I care for
people. The merchants put their finest things in the
windows to be looked at, and I am going to look just as
much as I please," and she stopped squarely against
another window and began the inspection of those lovely
ladies' shoes. Mrs. Arp goes perfectly daft on fine shoes - .
No. 2s. Daft is the word she uses on me sometimes, but I
don't know what it means. She says I promised her
thirteen pair a year before she married me. One pair a
month and one pair over. Maybe I did, but I've forgotten
all those things. They were not said in a lucid interval.
"Now buy your shoes," said I, "and let us move on to the
carpet store; it will be dinner time directly." She looked at
me in sweet surprise and followed me like a lamb, for I
hadent mentioned the carpet before. We went to the
carpet store, and there were so many beautiful patterns
that she
couldent decide on any. The carpet men unrolled piece
after piece, and sent the rolls whirling away down the room
and then back again, and they kept getting lovelier and
lovelier, and the price higher and higher, until my wife
sighed, and said: "Well, let us go now; we will come back
again after awhile." I followed them around meekly, and,
as we passed a French clock, I pointed to the hour, and it
was 2 o'clock p. m. "Only an hour and a half longer to
stay," said I, "and we have had no dinner." They didn't
seem to be worried about the dinner, and made a final
assault upon another carpet store, and I had to settle it at
last and make a choice for them. I always do. I used to be
a merchant, and kept the finest and prettiest goods in
town. I used to sell Mrs. Arp fine dressing when she was a
miss, and she wouldent trade anywhere else, and it took
her a long time to make up her mind, and I had to make it
up for her just as I do now. She never traded much at any
other store, and, to my opinion, there is about as much
courting done over the counter by day as in the parlor by
night. After we were married she traded with me
altogether. Thirty-six yards of carpeting was all that I had
bargained for when I left home, but there was a rug and a
hassock and two pairs of shoes and some syllabub stuff for
ruffles and flounces and a few Christmas things, and by the
time we got to Durand's we had only twenty minutes for
dinner. We were all happy and hungry, too, and the dinner
was splendid, and my wife brought home a basket of fruit
for the children, and she told them all about the big day's
work, and the beautiful things, and whom she saw, and I
reckon it was worth the money that was spent and more
too. The carpet came along in due time all ready made,
and three of the children
were at school, and didn't know it, and we hurried up
and took everything out of the room and bid farewell to
the old one, and cleaned up the straw and dust, and
washed up the floor and the windows, and put down the
paper, and the carpet on top of it, and pulled, and
stretched, and tugged and tacked until it was all right.
Then we put the furniture all back just like it was, and sat
down before the fire just like nothing had happened, and
in about ten minutes the school chaps came singing up to
the back door and walked in upon us before they had
time to look down, and it was worth$5 more to hear the
raptures and adjectives and adverbs and exclamation
points and other parts of speech that they indulged in
when their wondering eyes feasted upon the rich brown
colors under their feet. If I was rich I would buy another
right away just to have another good time with Mrs. Arp
and the children.
But we didn't have the pleasure of Ralph' company at
last. I found him at Dr. Westmoreland's with his sleeves
rolled up, helping the doctor to mend a man's broken arm.
They had a little tub half full of plaster paris in solution,
and a lot of bandage rolls in it, getting saturated. They set
the bones and kept the arm pulled straight, while the
bandages were wrapped from wrist to elbow, and elbow
to wrist, and wrapped again and again, and the plaster
hardened as fast as it was rolled on, and in a few minutes
it was hard as chalk and nearly half an inch thick, and the
man's arm was in a vise. He was soon dismissed, and the
doctor said "next." Then there was a man whose hand was
crushed between the cars, and another had an awful
splinter thrust into his stomach, and a child with a grain of
coffee in her lungs and her throat had to be cut open. It
is cutting
and mending and sewing up human flesh and bones all
the day long, and blood is as common as water. There is
no time for sympathy or tender words. It is business -
hard, stern business, and the signal word is "next." May
the Lord keep us all and preserve us from such calamities.
I'm going to quit thinking about the race problem, and
the tariff, and Speaker Reed and John Wanamaker, and
everything else of a turbulent and transitory nature. I'm
going to boycott everything now except domestic affairs.
I'm going to attend to my own business. I'm going to stay
at home and work, and if I read a paper at all it will be
with one eye on the head lines and nothing else.
They say that exercise is a remedy for trouble--
trouble of mind or trouble of body. Get up and move
around lively. My old father was afflicted with
rheumatism, and when the sharp pains began to worry him
he would take his long stick and start out over the farm
and limp, and grunt, and drag himself along until he got
warmed up, and in an hour or so would come back
feeling better. A man can mope and brood over his
troubles until, as Cobe says, "they get more thicker and
more aggrevatiner." He told me that he had tried liver
medicine and corn juice and various "anecdotes" for
disease, but that a right good sweat of perspiration was
the best thing for a man or a beast. He used to cure mules
of the colic by trotting them around until the sweat come.
I haven't got the colic nor the rheumatism, but I feel
such a constant uxorial goneness that I have to step
around lively to forget myself. I feel just like I had lost my
tobacco. The sparrows are regaling on
my strawberries. The happy mocking birds are singing
their tee diddle and too doodle, and the lordly peacock
screams and struts and spreads his magnificent tail, and all
nature seems gay and joyous, but how can the lord of
creation sing a glad song when his lady is far away in a
strange land? A letter from there says: "Mamma is having
a good time and behaving so nice to everybody." Of
course, of course. And I'm nice to everybody here--
especially the ladies. Some of them come every day--
come to comfort me, they say. I'm having a pretty good
time considering. We had some fine music last night -
some of the boys came home with Carl to practice for a
serenade to the spring chickens. They had a guitar and
some harps and a triangle, and were right good singers
besides, and I enjoyed it immensely. Jessie is a musician,
too, and when she struck the ivory key with some
salutatory notes like, "Oh, Jinny is your Ash-cake
Dance," and "The Highland Fling" and "Run Nigger Run,"
accompanied by the sweet harmonicas and the guitar, I
just couldent keep my old extremities subdued, and they
got me up and toted me around on light fantastic toes
amazing. I was all by myself in the next room, but I had
lots of fun. It does a man good sometimes to unbend
himself and forget his antiquity. I like a little hornpipe or a
pigeon wing on the sly sometimes. It may be original sin, or
it may be that there is a time to dance, as Solomon says,
but I like it. My beard is growing gray, and there's not
many hairs between my head and the cerulean heavens,
but I'm obliged to have some recreation, especially when
Mrs. Arp is away. You ought to see me caper around to
the music with a little grand-child, a three-year-old who
chooses me for a partner whenever the
music begins. She knows the dancing tunes as well as I do,
bless her little heart. My boys have got a new step now
that they call the "buzzard lope" that is grand, lively
and peculiar. The story goes that an old darkey lost
his aged mule, and found him one Sunday evening
lying dead in the woods and forty-nine buzzards feasting
upon his carcass. Forty-eight of them flew away, but the
forty-ninth, whose feathers were gray with age, declined
to retire. Looking straight at the darkey, he spread his
wings about half-and-half, like the American eagle on a
silver dollar, and tucked his tail under his body and drew
in his chin and pulled down his vest and began to lope
around the dead mule in a salutatory manner. He was a
greedy bird and likes his meat served rare, and rejoiced
that he now had the carcass all to himself, and so he
loped around with alacrity. The old darkey was a fiddler
and dancer by instinct and inspiration. He had played
prompter for the white folks at a thousand frolics, and
knew every step and turn and fling of the heel-tap and
the toe, but he had never seen such a peculiar double
demi-semi-quiver shuffle as that old buzzard loped around
that mule. He stood aghast. He spread his arms just
half-and half, and bent his back in the middle, unlimbered
his ankle joints, stiffened his elbows, and forgetting both the
day and the place he followed that bird around that mule
for four solid hours and caught the exquisite lope exactly.
At dusk the tired buzzard souzed his beak into one of the
dead mule's eyes and bore it away to his roost, while the
old darkey loped all the way home to his cabin door,
feeling ten years younger for his masterpiece. The
buzzard lope suits an old man splendid, for it is best
performed with rheumatism
in one leg and St. Vitus dance in the other, and it is
said to be a sovereign remedy for both.
Some folks don't care much about music--some don't
care anything about dancing, but some folks like both
because it is their nature and they can't help it. It is just as
natural for children to love to dance to the harmony of
sweet sounds as it is for them to love to play marbles or
jump the rope, or any other innocent sport. The church
allows its members to pat the foot to music, but condemns
dancing because it leads to dissipation and bad company;
but we shouldn't let it lead the young folks that way. The
church condemns minstrel shows and minstrel songs, but
has lately stolen from them some of their sweetest tunes,
and set them to sacred verse, and is all the better for it.
Who does not appreciate the "Lilly of the Valley" that is
now sung to the "Cabin in the Lane?" Puritanism, and
penance, and long faces, and assumed distress are
passing away. The Methodist discipline that forbade
jewelry, and ornaments, and fine dressing has become
obsolete, for it was against nature. What our Creator has
given us to enjoy, let us enjoy in reason and in season and
be all the more thankful for His goodness.
I believe in music. Joseph Henry Lumpkin, our great
chief justice, said there was music in all things except the
braying of an ass or the tongue of a scold. I believe in the
refining influence of music over the young, and if an
occasional dance at home or in the parlor of a friend will
make the young folks happy, let them be happy. I read
Dr. Calhoun's beautiful lecture that he delivered before the
Atlanta Medical College--a lecture on the human throat
as a musical instrument--and I was charmed with its
science, its instruction, and its literary beauty. I read part
of it
to those boys who were practicing for the serenade--
about the wonders of the human larynx, that in ordinary
singers could produce a hundred and twenty different
sounds, and fine singers like Jenny Lind could produce a
thousand, and Madam Mora, whose voice compassed
three octaves, could produce two thousand one hundred
different notes; and about Farinelli, who cured Philip V.,
king of Spain, of a dreadful malady by singing to him, and
after he was fully restored he was afraid of a relapse and
hired Farinelli to sing to him every night at a salary of fifty
thousand francs, and he sang to him as David harped for
Saul. Music fills up so many gaps in the family. The young
people can't work and read and study all the time. They
must have recreation, and it is better to have it at home
than hunt for it elsewhere. If the old folks mope and grunt
and complain around the house, it is no wonder that the
children try to get away. And they will get away if they
have to marry to do it. I have known girls to marry very
trifling lovers because they were tired of home. This
reminds me of a poor fellow who was hard pressed by a
creditor to whom he owed forty dollars. He came to
employ us to get a homestead for him so as to save his
little farm. "Are you a married man?" said I. "No, I ain't,"
said he. "Well, you will have to get married before you can
take a homestead. Is there no clever girl in your
naborhood whom you have a liking for?" He looked
straight in the fire for a minute or more, and then rose up
and shook his long, sandy hair, and said: "Gentlemen, the
jig are up. I'll have to shindig around and get that money,
for I'll be dogond if I'll get married for forty dollars. Good
mornin'."
We are working hard, now, renovating and repairing the
home inside and outside. We have whitewashed the fence
all around, and the barn and coalhouse, and chicken
house, and all. We have painted the gates a lovely red,
and striped the greenhouse, and Carl wanted to stripe the
calf with the same color, as a meandering ornament to the
lawn, but he couldn't catch him. I have planted out
Maderia vines and Virginia creepers and tomato plants,
and we have declared war against the English sparrows
that destroy more strawberries than we get. We will have
things fixed up when the maternal comes home. I reckon
she will come sometimes--come home spoiled like I do
as when I take a trip off and am petted up by genial
friends. It will take us a week to get her back in the
harness, but it won't take her half that long to get us back.
We've got two picnics on hand, and a fishing frolic, and
there are five pretty girls from Cement coming here
tonight, and on the whole I don't think I am as lonesome
as I think I am.
I was talking to the children the other night about
astronomy, and I said: "I am a traveler--a great traveler.
I have traveled forty thousand millions of miles in my life. I
was born traveling. I can beat railroads and telegraphs.
When I travel I make 68,000 miles an hour, and don't
exert myself a bit. I can make over 1,500,000 miles in a
day and turn a summerset 8,000 miles high in the bargain--
I turn one every day when I am on the road. I traveled
nearly 600,000,000 miles last year."
And so I made the children figure it all up so as to
impress upon them the immensity of space and the mighty
power of God. I know an old man--a lawyer--who
didn't believe in any of these things. He said it was not
according to scripture. He didn't believe the earth was
round or that it turned over. He said the scriptures spoke
of the ends of the earth, and the four corners of the earth,
and that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still just like
he did the moon, and they both stood still. We used to
argue with him, and tell him that navigators had sailed all
around the earth, but it was no use, and we gave him up.
I know lots of sensible people who don't believe that
astronomers know anything about these immense
distances and orbits and weights of the planets. They say it
is all guess work, pretty much, and that it is impossible to
tell how far it is from one place to
another, or one planet to another without measuring it with
a chain or a rod-pole or a string or something. And here is
where a higher education comes in and broadens the mind
and elevates it to a higher plane. There is no science so
exact and so fully established as astronomy. The distance
from here to Atlanta is not so accurately known as the
earth's orbit around the sun. A great astronomer like
Herschel or Newton or La Place can look through the
telescope at Jupiter's moons when they are in an eclipse,
and then mix up a few logarithms and fluxions and
parallaxes and tell how fast light travels and how far it is
to the remotest planet in the universe.
The children wanted to know why the new year began
with January, and I couldent tell them. Christmas would
have been a better day. The new era should have begun
with the birth of Christ instead of a week later; or the year
should begin with the birth of spring--the 21st of March -
when nature is putting on new garments. Those old
philosophers got things awfully mixed up anyhow. Their
years used to be measured by the moon, and they had
thirteen months, but that dident fit, and so they fell back to
ten months of thirty-six days each, and that dident fit, and
next and at last Pope Gregory fixed the measure all right -
just as we have it now.
It was only in the last century that the civilized nations
adopted the new time. Russia hasent adopted it yet; but I
don't know whether she is civilized or not.
January was a right good name for the first month. He
was a watchful old fellow and had two faces, and could
look before him and behind him at the same time. It is a
good idea for a man to look back over
the year that has gone and review his conduct, and then
look forward and promise to do better. But most of the
months were named for heathen gods who never evisted,
and so were the days of the week. I wish the school
children would read about them and be able to answer
what March means, and April and Wednesday and
Thursday, and the other names. Gather knowledge as you
go along--useful knowledge and store it away. If you
havent got the books borrow them from somebody and
read. I asked two young men yesterday how far it was to
the sun, and they had no idea.
1891. There is meaning in those figures. Every time they
are written on a letter head or a ledger or a bank check or
a note or a hotel register, or printed on a newspaper, they
mean something. The pens of Christians and infidels and
skeptics and agnostics and Jews and Gentiles are all
writing it visible and indelible upon the paper. Every day,
every hour, every minute, it is being written all over the
world, and every mark establishes a fact--a great fact--
that 1891 years ago there was a birth--a notable birth
and old Father Time began a new count and called it
Anno Domini. What a wonderful event it must have been
that closed the record of the ages and started time on a
new cycle. How in the world did it happen? The Greeks
had their calendar and the Romans had theirs, and the
Jews had one that was handed down by Moses, but all of
them were overshadowed by the one that a handful of
Christians set up, and for 1400 years the Anno Domini
has given a date to every birth and death and event in the
civilized world. It seems to me that if I was an infidel I
would not place these figures at the top of my letters. I
would not dignify the birth of a child that
way; I would rather write 5894 as the date of the creation.
But, no, if I did not credit Moses and the prophets, I
couldent choose that date, and so I would have no date -
no era to begin with. The Greeks had their Olympiads to
date from, and the Romans the birth of their ancient city,
and the Mohammedans the flight of Mahomet, but a
modern agnostic has nothing. If he was an American I
suppose he might begin with the Declaration of
Independence, and say January 114. The Jew is better off,
for he has a faith --a faith as strong as the ages--and his
era goes back to Moses and the prophets, but even he has
to conform to the Anno Domini of the Christian in all his
business relations with mankind. If he was to date a
business letter or make out a bill of goods according to his
faith it would be returned to him for explanations. What a
wonderful thing is this date --these four simple figures.
We write them and write them, but we seldom ponder on
what they prove.
On New Year's night I was talking to the children about
these things, and about the long journey we had taken
since the last New Year. We have gotten back to the
same place in the universe and have traveled nearly three
hundred millions of miles. Talk about your cannon ball
trains and your lightning express! Why, we have been
running a schedule of thirty thousand miles an hour and
never stopped for coal or water and never had a jostle or
put on a brake nor greased a wheel. Other trains have
crossed our track, and we have crossed theirs, but there
was no danger signal, no sign board, no red flag, no
watchman. Was there ever an engineer so reckless of
human life! Fifteen hundred millions of passengers aboard,
and they sleep half the time. Did ever
passengers ride so trustingly? And what is more wonderful
still, our train has a little fun on the way, and every day
turns a somersault twenty-five thousand miles round just
for the enjoyment and health of the passengers. Turns over
as it goes, turns at a speed of a thousand miles an hour
and never loses an inch of space or a moment of time.
Wouldn't it be big fun if we could stand off away from the
train and see it roll on and turn as it rolled and see the
passengers all calm and serene? It seems to me that if I
was an infidel or an agnostic I would want to get off this
train--a train without an engineer--a train that has got
loose from somewhere and is running wild at the rate of
five hundred miles a minute. Talk about your Pullman
sleepers and vestibule and dining-room cars! Why, this
train carries houses and gardens and fruit trees and
everything good to eat. It is a family train, and the family
goes along with their nabors and the preacher and the
doctor; and the graveyard is carried along, too, so that if
anybody dies on the way the train don't have to stop for a
funeral. It is well that it don't, for the passengers are dying
at the rate of a hundred a minute and the train would never
get anywhere if it had to stop to bury the dead.
Then the children got to talking about the centuries away
back, when the months and the years were unsettled and
nobody seemed to know how long a year was or how to
divide it; when the changes of the moon were a bigger
thing that going round the sun; when there were only ten
months in a year, and the year was only three hundred and
sixty days, and so January kept falling back until it got to
be summer instead of winter; when there were no weeks,
except among the Jews, and the month was divided by the
Greeks and Romans into three decades of ten days each;
when Julius Caesar tried to regulate the calendar and
made the year three hundred and sixty-five days and gave
a leap year of three hundred and sixty-six. But that didn't
work exactly right, for it made leap year eleven minutes
too long and so, as the centuries rolled on, it was found in
1582 that old Father Time had gained twelve days on
himself, or on the sun or something else, and Pope
Gregory concluded to set the old fellow back a peg or
two, and he did. If a pope could make us all twelve days
younger when he pleased to do it he would be a very
popular man, I reckon. But the calendar is all right now,
and the civilized world has adopted it. It is eleven minutes
fast every four years, but as the year 1900 is not to be a
leap year the gain will be canceled when that year comes.
Leap year used to double the sixth day of March instead
of adding a day to February, and so it was called the
bi-sextile year. It is well for the children to know these things
for they are worth knowing.
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