UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES " While he turned up his eyes as if to holla louder, the big bear give him a dig with her paw in the seat of his pantaloons, and carried away drawers and all." Page 46. THE BIO BEAR'S ADVENTURES AND TRAVELS. >3=_r=. ' "" Wby , Captiug, we must charge you three and a quarter THIS time."-Po0e 108. PHILADELPHIA: T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S5B, by T. B. PETERSON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in in4 for th Eastern District of Pennsylvania. THE BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS, OTHER SKETCHES, ILLUSTRATIVE OF CHARACTERS AND INCIDENTS SOUTH AND SOUTH-WEST. EDITED BY WILLIAM T.^PORTER. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY DARLEY. M Thia is your charge ; you shall comprehend all vagrom men." DOGBERRY. T. B. PETERSON AND BROTHERS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by CAREY AND HART, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. COLLINS, PRINTER. CONTENTS. 7HE BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS, .... PAGE 13 .By T. B. THORPE, Esq. of Louisiana. JONES'S FIGHT, - : - - . -82 A Story of Kentucky By an JHabamian. THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT, ' * . . 4g A Story of Michigan by a JWio- Yorker. THAT BIG DOG FIGHT AT MYERS'S, - - - -54 A Story of Mississippi By a Mississippian. HOW SIMON SUGGS " RAISED JACK," - . 62 Jl Story of OeorgiaBy an dlabamian. SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE, - - - . -80 A Story of Illinois By a Missourian. \)[ A TEXAN JOKER "IN A TIGHT PLACE," * - . 87 , Jl Story of that Ilk By an Editor. BILLY WARRIOR'S COURTSHIP AND WEDDING, - - -90 A Story of the "Old JVorth State" By a County Court Lawyer. I ^ A BULLY BOAT AND A BRAG CAPTAIN, - - - 106 I A Story of Steamboat Life on the Mississippi By SOL. SMITH. %t LETTER FROM BILLY PATTERSON HIMSELF, - - - 115 "Who hit Billy Patterson?" %5 SWIM FOR A DEER, - - - -118 M A Story of Mississippi By the "Turkey Runner." ^^ CHUNKEY'S FIGHT WITH THE PANTHERS, ... 128 A thrilling- Hunting Adventure in Mississippi. A YANKEE THAT COULDN'T TALK SPANISH, - - 140 By JOHJVA. STUART, Esq. of South Carolina. 409247 Vi CONTENTS. "OLD SENSE," OF ARKANSAS, ... PAGE 143 By " Jf." of that Ilk. STOKE STOUT, OF LOUISIANA, ..... 147 By Thorpe and Patterson, of the "Coneordia Intelligencer." LIFE AND MANNERS IN ARKANSAS, ... 154 By an ex-governor of a Cotton-growing State* ANECDOTES OF THE ARKANSAS BAR, - - 159 By a Backwoods Lawyer. HOSS ALLEN, OF MISSOURI, - - - -164 PULLING TEETH IN MISSISSIPPI, - - - -167 By Uncle Johnny. THK WAT "LIGE" SHADDOCK "SCARED UP A JACK," 175 COUSIN SALLY DILLIAHD, ..... 178 A legal Sketch, in the "Old Jforth Suu." PBEFACE. A NEW vein of literature, as original as it is inex haustible in its source, has been opened in this country within a very few years, with the most marked success. Up to the period when the publication of the first Ame rican " Sporting Magazine" was commenced at Bal timore, in 1829 and which was immediately followed by the publication, in New York, of the " Spirit of the Times" there existed no such class of writers as have, since that recent day, conferred signal honour on the rising literature of America. The New York " Con stellation," then edited by that favoured disciple of Mo- mus, the late Dr. Green, was the only journal in the country which preferred any claim to popular favour on the ground of being expressly devoted to wit and hu mor to the fun and frolic, the flash and fashion of the day. But the novel design and scope of the " Spirit of the Times" soon fixed attention ; and ere long it be came the nucleus of a new order of literary talent. In addition to correspondents who described with equal felicity and power the stirring incidents of the chase and the turf, it enlisted another and still more numer ous class, who furnished most valuable and interesting reminiscences of the pioneers of the far West sketches of thrilling scenes and adventures in that then compara 7 Till PREFACE. lively unknown region, and the extraordinary charac ters occasionally met with their strange language and habitudes, and the peculiar and sometimes fearful cha racteristics of the " squatters" and early settlers. Many of these descriptions were wrought up in a masterly style ; and in the course of a few years a generous feel ing of emulation sprung up in the south and south-west, prompted by the same impulses, until at length the cor respondents of the " Spirit of the Times" comprised a large majority of those who have subsequently distin guished themselves in this novel and original walk of literature. COOPER and PAULDING were the first to excite the imagination of the world by their inimitable delinea tions of the back-woodsmen, trappers, and boatmen of the West. But the characters and scenes which they depicted with such marvellous fidelity and effect, be longed to an earlier period before the genius of Ful ton had covered the mighty rivers of the new world in the West with a substitute for the " broad horns" and flat boats, which took the place of the frail canoes of the aboriginal inhabitants of those " happy hunting grounds." The back-woodsmen and the boatmen of the era of" The Prarie," and " Westward Ho !" having given way to a new generation, perhaps quite as inter esting and novel in their characteristics, have been, in urn, succeeded by that hardy and indomitable race, rvhose sons and daughters are now enjoying a green old age, surrounded by the evidences of the highest civilization, and in the enjoyment of all those social, moral, and intellectual blessings engendered by an en- PREFACE. IX lightened public mind, a populous region, and generally diffused wealth and prosperity. Gradually retreating before the swarm of " squat ters" and settlers in the new states and territories of the West, the " pioneers" of a later day have finally established themselves in regions so distant as rather to overlook the Pacific than the acknowledged boundaries of the Federal Union. But they have left behind them, on all hands, scores of original characters to be encoun tered nowhere else under the sun. Indeed, several of the south-western states have been so recently re claimed from the wilderness Mississippi and Arkan sas particularly that no one acquainted with the coun try can be surprised at the fact. In these two states destined each, we trust, to confer additional lustre on the galaxy originally composed of the old thirteen yet reside some of the most extraordinary men who ever lived " to point a moral, or adorn a tale." With exteriors " like the rugged Russian bear," some of them are gifted with a great degree of good sense and know ledge of the world ; it is not to be denied that many are as fond of whiskey as of hunting, and that there are desperate and utterly reckless spirits among them ; but a large majority of those to whom we refer, are charac terized by no more striking features than their courtesy to the stranger, and their passion for hunting, except it be their fondness for story-telling. Of adventures and scenes in which these characters stand out in bold re lief, this volume is mainly composed, relieved occasion ally by sketches of men and things in some of the older southern states. X PREFACE. Among those who have attracted, of late years, the most attention abroad by their sketches of life and man ners in the backwoods of America, are Col. C. F. M. NOLAND, of Arkansas, and T. B. THORPE, the artist, of Louisiana. We may be permitted to state, that Col. N. is a son of the old Dominion, was educated at West Point, was an officer m the U. S. dragoons, and since his resignation has been a resident of Arkansas, where his time is about equally divided between courts of law, the land offices, and the legislature. Mr. Thorpe, (formerly a resident of this city, where his family still resides,) is no less distinguished as a writer than a painter. Some seven years since about the period when the "American Turf Register and Sport ing Magazine" fell into our hands Mr. Thorpe en listed in the corps of gifted correspondents who made the " Spirit of the Times" their medium of communi cation with the world of letters. His sketches of the men and manners of the great valley of the Missis sippi, over the signature of " The Author of Tom Owen, the Bee Hunter," have been read and admired wherever our language is spoken. Col. MASON, " Cap tain Martin SCOTT," (of " coon" remembrance,) Gen. GIBSON, Maj. MOORE, Gen. BROOKE, and a troop of other gallant officers of the U. S. army, whom we are not permitted to name, have contributed in an infinite degree to the popularity of the " curiosities of litera ture" so recently discovered. AUDUBON, the late TIMO THY FLINT, ALBERT PIKE, and more recently CHARLES F. HOFFMAN and CATLIN, to say nothing of the fanci ful "Mary Clavers" (Mrs. KIRKLAND.) Captains PREFACE. XI CARLETON, HENRY, ana JOHNSTON of the U. S. A., ex- Gov BUTLER and Mr. SIJ?LEY, the Indian agents, the late M. C. FIELD, Mr. KENDALL, of the " Picayune," and several others whose identity we are not at liberty to disclose, have all vastly magnified, by their writings, the eager curiosity to know more of the distinguishing traits of character of the denizens of the many com paratively unpeopled regions of the West and South west. We should premise here, that several of the eminent writers just enumerated, are not represented in this volume, its limits not allowing " scope and verge enough." Moreover, of those not named, many of them would " find themselves [equally] famous" if we dared " take the responsibility" of giving their names to the world ; and accordingly, in collating the mate rials of this volume, we have selected from the files of the " Spirit of the Times" those articles deemed best calculated to answer our purpose. Most, though not all, of the different sketches in this volume appeared, originally, in the columns of that journal. Many of equal, if not superior, merit have been here omitted, on the ground that, like dressing a salad, a small but pro per proportion of salt and pepper is quite as requisite as the more material ingredients of oil and mustard. This will, we trust, be appreciated by every one who is unwilling, incontinently, to swear " on his honour, the mustard is naught." But should there arise those of a different opinion, we shall take the earliest opportunity of renewing to them Grumio's offer to the supperlesa Katherme, of " the mustard without the beef." Xll PREFACE. It is proper to add, that the tales and sketches in eluded in this volume refer to characters and scenes of recent date to men who have not only succeeded " Mike Fink, the Last of the Boatmen," but " Col. Nimrod Wildfire," and originals of his stamp. They were furnished for publication mainly by country gen tlemen, planters, lawyers, &c. "who live at home at ease." We are utterly precluded, by repeated injunc tions of secresy, from giving the " name" or " local habitation" of any one of those not designated in the introduction to the respective sketches. Their modesty should be esteemed, indeed, " a flambeau to their merit." Most of them are gentlemen not only highly educated, but endowed with a keen sense of whatever is ludicrous or pathetic, with a quick perception of cha racter, and a knowledge of men and the world : more than all, they possess in an eminent degree the power of transferring to paper the most faithful and striking pictures with equal originality and effect. In this respect they have no superiors on either side of the Atlantic. In the compilation of this little volume, the editor has been animated by a wish to make it worthy of those correspondents who have extended to him, in the con duct of two publications requiring the exercise of daily application and unceasing toil, the aid of their abler pens. To them and to the world he delivers it " with the spirit cf a man that has endeavoured well." W. T. P Office of the " Spirit of the Times" New York, Feb. 1846 THE BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS, BY T. B. THORPE, ESQ. OF LOUISIANA. A.S the author of "Tom Owen the Bee Hunter," and other tales and sketches, Mr. THORPE has acquired a distinguished reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Though by profession a painter, his time for several years past has been about equally divided between the brush and the pen. He is now engaged in the publication of the " Concordia Intelligencer," a journal of unusual ability, issued weekly in the pleasant little village situated directly opposite the city of Natchez. The New York " Spirit of the Times" was the medium through which Mr. T. first appeared before the world of letters; and his inimitable delineations of South-western characters, incidents, and scenery, soon attracted attention. Now, wherever the language is spoken, he is deemed " Great in mouths of wisest censure." It is understood to be his intention to publish, at an early day, a col lection of his writings, original and selected, to be illustrated by him self. As he is alike felicitous in the use of crayon, brush, or pen, we anticipate a brace or two of volumes of the highest pictorial and lite rary interest. The story annexed will give the reader an idea of his peculiar style in hitting off the original " characters" frequently met with in the great valley of the Mississippi. A STEAMBOAT on the Mississippi frequently, in making her regular trips, carries between places vary ing from one to two thousand miles apart ; and as these boats advertise to land passengers and freight at " all intermediate landings," the heterogeneous charac- 13 14 THE BIG BEAK ter of the passengers of one of these up-count/y boat3 can scarcely be imagined by one who has never seen it with his own eyes. Starting from New Orleans in one of these boats, you will find yourself associated with men from every state in the Union, and from every por tion of the globe ; and a man of observation need not lack for amusement or instruction in such a crowd, if he will take the trouble to read the great book of cha racter so favourably opened before him. Here may be seen jostling together the wealthy Southern planter, and the pedler of tin-ware from New England the North ern merchant, and the Southern jockey a venerable bishop, and a desperate gambler the land speculator, and the honest farmer professional men of all creeds and characters Wolvereens, Suckers, Hoosiers, Buck eyes, and Corncrackers, beside a " plentiful sprinkling" of the half-horse and half-alligator species ot men, who are peculiar to " old Mississippi," and who appear to gain a livelihood simply by going up and down the river In the pursuit of pleasure or business, I have frequently found myself in such a crowd. On one occasion, when in New Orleans, I had occa sion to take a trip of a few miles up the Mississippi, and I hurried on board the well-known " high-pressure- and-beat-every-thing" steamboat " Invincible," just as the last note of the last bell was sounding ; and when the confusion and bustle that is natural to a boat's get ting under way had subsided, I discovered that I was associated in as heterogeneous a crowd as was ever got together. As my trip was to be of a few hours' dura tion only, I made no endeavours to become acquainted OF ARKANSAS. 15 4 with my fellow passengers, most of whom would oc to gether many days. Instead of this, I took out of my pocket the "latest paper," and more critically than usual examined its contents ; my fellow passengers at the same time disposed of themselves in little groups. While I was thus busily employed in reading, and my companions were more busily still employed in discuss ing such subjects as suited their humours best, we were startled most unexpectedly by a loud Indian whoop, ut tered in the " social hall," that part of the cabin fitted off for a bar ; then was to be heard a loud crowing, which would not have continued to have interested us such sounds being quite common in that place of spirits had not the hero of these windy accomplishments stuck his head into the cabin and hallooed out, " Hurra for the Big Bar of Arkansaw!" and then might be heard a confused hum of voices, unintelligible, save in such broken sentences as " horse," " screamer," " lightning is slow," &c. As might have been expected, this con tinued interruption attracted the attention of every one in the cabin; all conversation dropped, and in the midst of this surprise the " Big Bar" walked into the cabin, took a chair, put his feet on the stove, and look ing back over his shoulder, passed the general and fa miliar salute of " Strangers, how are you ?" He then expressed himself as much at home as if he had been at " the Forks of Cypress," and " prehaps a little more so." Some of the company at this familiarity looked a little angry, and some astonished ; but in a moment every face was wreathed in a smile. There was some thing about the intruder that won the heart on siglu 16 THE BIG BEAR He appeared to be a man enjoying perfect health and contentment : his eyes were as sparkling as diamonds, and good-natured to simplicity. Then his perfect confi dence in himself was irresistibly droll. " Prehaps," said he, "gentlemen," running on without a person speaking, "prehaps you have been to New Orleans often ; I never made the first visit before, and I don't intend to make another in a crow's life. I am thrown away in that ar place, and useless, that ar a fact. Some of the gentlemen thar called me green well, prehaps I am, said I, but I arn't so at home; and if I aint off my trail much, the heads of them perlite chaps themselves wern't much the hardest ; for ac cording to my notion, they were real know-nothings, green as a pumpkin-vine could'nt, in farming, I'll bet, raise a crop of turnips : and as for shooting, they'd miss a barn if the door was swinging, and that, too, with the best rifle in the country. And then they talked to me 'bout hunting, and laughed at my calling the prin cipal game in Arkansaw poker, and high-low-jack. ' Prehaps,' said I, ' you prefer chickens and rolette ;' at this they laughed harder than ever, and asked me if I lived in the woods, and didn't know what game was? At this I rather think I laughed. 'Yes,' I roared, and says, * Strangers, if you'd asked me how we got our meat in Arkansaw, I'd a told you at once, and given you a list of varmints that would make a car avan, beginning with the bar, and ending off with the cat ; that's meat though, not game.' Game, indeed, that's what city folks call it ; and with them it means chippen-birds and shite-pokes ; maybe such trash live OF ARKANSAS. 17 in my diggins, but I arn't noticed them yet : a bird any way is too trifling. I never did shoot at but one, and I'd never forgiven myself for that, had it weighed less than forty pounds. I wouldn't draw a rifle on any thing less than that ; and when I meet with another wild turkey of the same weight I will drap him." " A wild turkey weighing forty pounds !" exclaimed twenty voices in the cabin at once. " Yes, strangers, and wasn't it a whopper ? You see, the thing was so fat that it couldn't fly far ; and when he fell out of the tree, after I shot him, on striking the ground he bust open behind, and the way the pound gobs of tallow rolled out of the opening was perfectly beautiful." " Where did all that happen ?" asked a cynical-look ing Hoosier. " Happen ! happened in Arkansaw : where else could it have happened, but in the creation state, the finishing-up country a state where the sile runs down to the centre of the 'arth, and government gives you a title to every inch of it? Then its airs just breathe them, and they will make you snort like a horse. It's a state without a fault, it is." " Excepting mosquitoes," cried the Hoosier. " Well, stranger, except them ; for it ar a fact that they are rather enormous, and do push themselves in somewhat troublesome. But, stranger, they never stick twice in the same place ; and give them a fair chance for a few months, and you will get as much above noticing them as an alligator. They can't hurt my feelings, for they lay under the skin ; and I never knew but one casa 18 THE BIG BEAR of injury resulting from them, and that was to a Yan kee : and they take worse to foreigners, any how, than they do to natives. But the way they used that fellow up ! first they punched him until he swelled up and busted ; then he sup-per-a-ted, as the doctor called it, until he was as raw as beef; then he took the ager, owing to the warm weather, and finally he took a steam boat and left the country. He was the only man that ever took mosquitoes at heart that I know of. But mosquitoes is natur, and I never find fault with her. If they ar large, Arkansaw is large, her varmints ar large, her trees ar large, her rivers ar large, and a small mos- quitoe would be of no more use in Arkansaw than preaching in a cane-brake." This knock-down argument in favour of big mosqui toes used the Hoosier up, and the logician started on a new track, to explain how numerous bear were in his " diggins," where he represented them to be " about as plenty as blackberries, and a little plentifuler." Upon the utterance of this assertion, a timid little man near me inquired if the bear in Arkansaw ever attacked the settlers in numbers. " No," said our hero, warming with the subject, " no, stranger, for you see it ain't the natur of bar to go in droves ; but the way they squander about in pairs and single ones is edifying. And then the way I hunt them the old black rascals know the crack of my gun as well as they know a pig's squealing. They grow thin in our parts, it frightens them so, and they do take the noise dreadfully, poor things. That gun of mine is a erfect epidemic among bar : if not watched closely, it OF ARKANSAS. 19 will go off as quick on a warm scent as my dog Bowie- knife will : and then that dog whew ! why the fellow thinks that the world is full of bar, he finds them so easy. It's lucky he don't talk as well as think; for with his natural modesty, if he should suddenly learn how much he is acknowledged to be ahead of all other dogs in the universe, he would be astonished to death in two minutes. Strangers, that dog knows a bar's way as well as a horse-jockey knows a woman's : he always barks at the right time, bites at the exact place, and whips without getting a scratch. I never could tell whether he was made expressly to hunt bar, or whether bar was made expressly for him to hunt : any way, I believe they were ordained to go together as naturally as Squire Jones says a man and woman is, when he moralizes in marrying a couple. In fact, Jones once said, said he, ' Marriage according to law is a civil con tract of divine origin ; it's common to all countries as well as Arkansaw, and people take to it as naturally as Jim Doggett's Bowie-knife takes to bar.' " " What season of the year do your hunts take place?" inquired a gentlemanly foreigner, who, from some pe culiarities of his baggage, I suspected to be an English man, on some hunting expedition, probably at the foot of the Rocky mountains. " The season for bar hunting, stranger," said the man of Arkansaw, " is generally all the year round, and the hunts take place about as regular. I read in history that varmints have their fat season, and their lean sea son. That is not the case in Arkansaw, feeding as they do upon the spontenacious productions of the sile, tney 38 20 THE BIG BEAR have one continued fat season the year round : though in winter things in this way is rather more greasy than in summer, I must admit. For that reason bar with us run in warm weather, but in winter they only waddle. Fat, fat ! it's an enemy to speed ; it tames every thing that has plenty of it. I have seen wild turkeys, from its influence, as gentle as chickens. Run a bar in this fat condition, and the way it improves the critter for eating is amazing ; it sort of mixes the ile up with the meat, until you can't tell t'other from which. I've done this often. I recollect one perty morning in particular, of putting an old he fellow on the stretch, and consider ing the weight he carried, he run well. But the dogs soon tired him down, and when I came up with him wasn't he in a beautiful sweat I might say fever ; and then to see his tongue sticking out of his mouth a feet, and his sides sinking and opening like a bellows, and his cheeks so fat he couldn't look cross. In this fix I blazed at him, and pitch me naked into a briar patch if the steam didn't come out of the bullet-hole ten foot in a straight line. The fellow, I reckon, was made on the high-pressure system, and the lead sort of bust his biler." " That column of steam was rather curious, or else the bear must have been warm," observed the foreigner, with a laugh. " Stranger, as you observe, that bar was WARM, and the blowing off of the steam show'd it, and also how hard the varmint had been run. I have no doubt if he had kept on two miles farther his insides would have been stewed ; and I expect to meet with a varmint yet of OF ARKANSAS. 21 extra bottom, who will run himself into a skinfull of bar's grease: it is possible; much onlikelier things have happened." " Whereabouts are these bears so abundant ?" in quired the foreigner, with increasing interest. " Why, stranger, they inhabit the neighbourhood of my settlement, one of the prettiest places on old Mis sissippi a perfect location, and no mistake ; a place that had some defects until the river made the 'cut-off' at ' Shirt-tail bend,' and that remedied the evil, as it brought my cabin on the edge of the river a great ad vantage in wet weather, I assure you, as you can now roll a barrel of whiskey into my yard in high water from a boat, as easy as falling off a log. It's a great im provement, as toting it by land in a jug, as I used to do, evaporated it too fast, and it became expensive. Just stop with me, stranger, a month or two, or a year if you like, and you will appreciate my place. I can give you plenty to eat ; for beside hog and hominy, you can have bar-ham, and bar-sausages, and a mattrass of bar-skins to sleep on, and a wildcat-skin, pulled off hull, stuffed with corn-shucks, for a pillow. That bed would put you to sleep if you had the rheumatics in every .joint in your body. I call that ar bed a quietus. Then look at my land the government ain't got another such a piece to dispose of. Such timber, and such bottom land, why you can't preserve any thing natural you plant in it unless you pick it young, things thar will grow ou* of shape so quick. I once planted in those diggins a few potatoes and beets : they took a fine start, and aftei that an ox team couldn't have kept them from growing. 22 THE BIG BEAR About that time I went off to old Kentuck on bisiness, and did not hear from them things in three months, when I accidentally stumbled on a fellow who had stop ped at my place, with an idea of buying me out. ' How did you like things ?' said I. ' Pretty well,' said he ; ' the cabin is convenient, and the timber land is good ; but that bottom land ain't worth the first red cent.' ' Why?' said I. ''Cause,' said he. ''Cause what?' said I. ' 'Cause it's full of cedar stumps and Indian mounds,' said he, ' and it can't be cleared.' ' Lord,' said I, ' them ar "cedar stumps" is beets, and them ar "Indian mounds" ar tater hills.' As I expected, the crop was overgrown and useless : the sile is too rich, and plant ing in Arkansaw is dangerous. I had a good-sized sow killed in that same bottom land. The old thief stole an ear of corn, and took it down where she slept at night to eat. Well, she left a grain or two on the ground, and lay down on them : before morning the corn shot up, and the percussion killed her dead. I don't plant any more : natur intended Arkansaw for a hunting ground, and I go according to natur." The questioner who thus elicited the description of our hero's settlement, seemed to be perfectly satisfied, and said no more; but the "Big Bar of Arkansaw" rambled on from one thing to another with a volubility perfectly astonishing, occasionally disputing with those around him, particularly with a " live Sucker" from Illinois, who had the daring to say that our Arkansaw friend's stories " smelt rather tall." In this manner the evening was spent ; but conscious that my own association with so singular a personage OF ARKANSAS. 23 would probably end before morning, I asked him if he would not give me a description of some particular bear hunt ; adding, that I took great interest in such things, though I was no sportsman. The desire seemed to please him, and he squared himself round towards me, saying, that he could give me an idea of a bar hunt that was never beat in this world, or in any other. His man ner was so singular, that half of his story consisted in his excellent way of telling it, the great peculiarity of which was, the happy manner he had of emphasizing the prominent parts of his conversation. As near as I can recollect, I have italicized them, and given the story in his own words. " Stranger," said he, "in bar hunts I am numerous, and which particular one, as you say, I shall tell, puz zles me. There was the old she devil I shot at the Hurricane last fall then there was the old hog thief I popped over at the Bloody Crossing, and then Yes, I have it ! I will give you an idea of a hunt, in which the greatest bar was killed that ever lived, none excepted ; about an old fellow that I hunted, more or less, for two or three years ; and if that ain't a particular bar hunt, I ain't got one to tell. But in the first place, stranger, let me say, I am pleased with you, because you ain't ashamed to gain information by asking, and listening , and that's what I say to Countess's pups every day when I'm home ; and I have got great hopes of them ar pups, because they are continually nosing about ; and though they stick it sometimes in the wrong place, they gain experience any how, and may learn something useful to boot. Well, as I was saying about this big 24 THEBIGBEAR bar, you see when I and some more first settled in our region, we were drivin to hunting naturally ; we soon liked it, and after that we found it an easy matter to make the thing our business. One old chap who had pioneered 'afore us, gave us to understand that we had settled in the right place. He dwelt upon its merits until it was affecting, and showed us, to prove his as sertions, more marks on the sassafras trees than I ever saw on a tavern door 'lection time. ' Who keeps that ar reckoning ?' said I. ' The bar,' said he. ' What for ?' said I. ' Can't tell,' said he ; ' but so it is : the bar bite the bark and wood too, at the highest point from the ground they can reach, and you can tell, by the marks,' said he, ' the length of the bar to an inch.' ' Enough,' said I ; ' I've learned something here a'ready, and I'll put it in practice.' Well, stranger, just one month from that time I killed a bar, and told its exact length before I measured it, by those very marks ; and when I did that, I swelled up considerable I've been a prouder man ever since. So I went on, laming something every day, until I was reckoned a buster, and allowed to be decidedly the best bar hunter in my district ; and that is a reputation as much harder to earn thp.n to be reckoned first man in Congress, as an iron ramrod is harder than a toad stool. Did the varmints grow over-cunning by being fooled with by green-horn hunters, and by this means get troublesome, they send for mt- as a matter of course ; and thus I do my own hunting, and most of my neigh bours'. I walk into the varmints though, and it has become about as much the same to me as drinking. OF ARKANSAS. 25 It is told in two sentences a bar is started, and he is killed. The thing is somewhat monotonous now I know just how much they will run, where they will tire, how much they will growl, and what a thundering time I will have in getting them home. I could give you this history of the chase with all the particulars at the com mencement, I know the signs so well Stranger, Fm certain. Once I met with a match though, and I will tell you about it ; for a common hunt would not be worth relating. " On a fine fall day, long time ago, I was trailing about for bar, and what should I see but fresh marks on the sassafras trees, about eight inches above any in the forests that I knew of. Says I, * them marks is a hoax, or it indicates the d 1 bar that was ever grown.' In fact, stranger, I couldn't believe it was real, and I went on. Again I saw the same marks, at the same height, and I knew the thing lived. That conviction came home to my soul like an earthquake. Says I, ' here is some thing a-purpose for me : that bar is mine, or I give up the hunting business.' The very next morning what should I see but a number of buzzards hovering over my corn-field. ' The rascal has been there,' said I, ' for that sign is certain :' and, sure enough, on examin ing, I found the bones of what had been as beautiful a hog the day before, as was ever raised by a Buck eye. Then I tracked the critter out of the field to the woods, and all the marks he left behind, showed me that he was the bar. + " Well, stranger, the first fair chase I ever had with that big critter, I saw him no less than three distinct 26 THEBIGBEAR times at a distance : the dogs run him over eighteen miles and broke down, my horse gave out, and I was us nearly used up as a man can be, made on my prin ciple, which is patent. Before this adventure, such things were unknown to me as possible ; but, strange as it was, that bar got me used to it before I was done with him ; for he got so at last, that he would leave me on a long chase quite easy. How he did it, I never could understand. That a bar runs at all, is puzzling ; but how this one could tire down and bust up a pack of hounds and a horse, that were used to overhauling everything they started after in no time, was past my understanding. Well, stranger, that bar finally got so sassy, that he used to help himself to a hog off my pre mises whenever he wanted one ; the buzzards followed after what he left, and so, between bar and buzzard, I rather think I was out of pork. " Well, missing that bar so often took hold of my vitals, and I wasted away. The thing had been carried too far, and it reduced me in flesh faster than an ager. I would see that bar in every thing I did : he hunted me, and that, too, like a devil, which I began to think he was. While in this fix, I made preparations to give him a last brush, and be done with it. Having com pleted every thing to iny satisfaction, I started at sun rise, and to my great joy, I discovered from the way the dogs run, that they were near him ; finding his trail was nothing, for that had become as plain to the pack as a turnpike road. .On we went, and coming to an open country, what should I see but the bar very lei surely ascending a hill, and the dogs close at his heels, OF ARKANSAS. 27 either a match for him this time in speed, or else he did not care to get out of their way I don't know which. But wasn't he a beauty, though? I loved him 'ike a brother. " On he went, until he carne to a tree, the limbs of which formed a crotch about six feet from the ground. Into this crotch he got and seated himself, the dogs yell ing all around it; and there he sat eyeing them as quiet as a pond in low water. A green-horn friend of mine, in company, reached shooting distance before me, and blazed away, hitting the critter in the centre of his forehead. The bar shook his head as the ball struck it, and then walked down from that tree as gently as a lady would from a carriage. 'Twas a beautiful sight to see him do that he was in such a rage that he seemed to be as little afraid of the dogs as if they had been sucking pigs ; and the dogs warn't slow in making a ring around him at a respectful distance, I tell you ; even Bowie-knife, himself, stood off. Then the way his eyes flashed why the fire of them would have singed a cat's hair ; in fact that bar was in a u-ralh all over. Only one pup came near him, and he was brushed out so to tally with the bar's left paw, that he entirely disappeared ; and that made the old dogs more cautious still. In the mean time, I came up, and taking deliberate aim as a man should do, at his side, just back of his foreleg, if niy gun did not snap, call me a coward, and I won't take it personal. Yes, stranger, it snapped, and I could not find a cap about my person. While in this predica ment, I turned round to my fool friend says I. ' Bill,' says I, ' you're an ass you're a fool you might as 28 THE BIG BEAR well have tried to kill that bar by barking the tree un der his belly, as to have done it by hitting him in the head. Your shot has made a tiger of him, and blast me, if a dog gets killed or wounded when they come to blows, I will stick my knife into your liver, I will ' my wrath was up. I had lost my caps, my gun had snapped, the fellow with me had fired at the bar's head, and I expected every moment to see him close in with the dogs, and kill a dozen of them at least. In this thing I was mistaken, for the bar leaped over the ring formed by the dogs, and giving a fierce growl, was off the pack, of course, in full cry after him. The run this time was short, for coming to the edge of a lake the varmint jumped in, and swam to a little island in the lake, which it reached just a moment before the dogs. ' I'll have him now,' said I, for I had found my caps in the lining of my coat so, rolling a log into the lake, I paddled myself across to the island, just as the dogs had cornered the bar in a thicket. I rushed up and fired at the same time the critter leaped over the dogs and came within three feet of me, running like mad; he jumped into the lake, and tried to mount the log I had just deserted, but every time he got half his body on it, it would roll over and send him under; the dogs, too, got around him, and pulled him about, and finally Bowie-knife clenched with him, and they sunk into the lake together. Stranger, about this time I was excited, and I stripped off my coat, drew my knife, and intended to have taken a part with Bowie-knife myself, when the bar rose to the surface. But the varmint staid under Bowie-knife ame up alone, more dead ' He jumped into the lake and tried to mount th log." Page 2S. OF ARKANSAS. 29 than alive, and with the pack came ashore. ' Thank God,' said I, ' the old villain has got his deserts at last.' Determined to have the body, I cut a grape-vine for a rope, and dove down where I could see the bar in the water, fastened my queer rope to his leg, and fished him, with great difficulty, ashore. Stranger, may I be chawed to death by young alligators, if the thing I looked at wasn't a she bar, and not the old critter after all. The way matters got mixed on that island was onaccountably curious, and thinking of it made me more than ever convinced that I was hunting the devil himself. I went home that night and took to my bed the thing was killing me. The entire team of Ar- kansaw in bar-hunting, acknowledged himself used up, and the fact sunk into my feelings like a snagged boat will in the Mississippi. I grew as cross as a bar with two cubs and a sore tail. The thing got out 'mong my neighbours, and I was asked how come on that individ- u-al that never lost a bar when once started ? and if that same individ-u-al didn't wear telescopes when he turned a she bar, of ordinary size, into an old he one, a little larger than a horse? 'Prehaps,' said I, 'friends' getting wrathy ' prehaps you want to call somebody a liar.' ' Oh, no,' said they, ' we only heard such things as being rather common of late, but we don't believe one word of it ; oh, no,' and then they would ride off and laugh like so many hyenas over a dead nigger. It was too much, and I determined to catch that bar, go t Texas, or die, and I made my preparations accordin 7 . I had the pack shut up and rested. I took my rifle to pieces, and iled it. I put caps in every pocket about 30 THEBIGBEAR my person, for fear of the lining. I then told my neigh bours, that on Monday morning naming the day I would start THAT BAR, and bring him home with me, or they might divide my settlement among them, the owner having disappeared. Well, stranger, on the morning previous to the great day of my hunting expedition, I went into the woods near my house, taking my gun and Bowie-knife along, just from habit, and there sitting down also from habit, what should I see, getting over my fence, but the bar ! Yes, the old varmint was within a hundred yards of me, and the way he walked over that fence stranger, he loomed up like a black mist, he seemed so large, and he walked right towards me. I raised myself, took deliberate aim, and fired. In stantly the varmint wheeled, gave a yell, and walked through the fence like a falling tree would through a cobweb. I started after, but was tripped up by my in expressibles, which either from habit, or the excitement of the moment, were about my heels, and before I had really gathered myself up, I heard the old varmint groaning in a thicket near by, like a thousand sinners, and by the time I reached him he was a corpse. Stran ger, it took five niggers and myself to put that carcase on a mule's back, and old long-ears waddled under his load, as if he was foundered in every leg of his body, and with a common whopper of a bar, he would have trotted off, and enjoyed himself. 'T would astonish you to know how big he was : I made a bed-spread of his skin, and the way it used to cover my bar mattress, and leave several feet on each side to tuck up, would have delighted you. It was in fact a creation bar, and if it OF ARKANSAS. 31 had lived in Samson's time, and had met him, in a fair fight, it would have licked him in the twinkling of a dice-box. But, stranger, I never liked the way I hunt ed him, and missed him. There is something curious about it, I could never understand, and I never was satisfied at his giving in so easy at last. Prehaps, he had heard of my preparations to hunt him the next day, so he jist come in, like Capt. Scott's coon, to save his wind to grunt with in dying ; but that ain't likely. My private opinion is, that that bar was an unhuntable bar, and died when his time come." When the story was ended, our hero sat some mi nutes with his auditors in a grave silence ; I saw there was a mystery to him connected with the bear whose death he had just related, that had evidently made a strong impression on his mind. It was also evident that there was some superstitious awe connected with the affair, a feeling common with all " children of the * o wood," when they meet with any thing out of their every day experience. He was the first one, however, to break the silence, and jumping up, he asked all present to " liquor" before going to bed, a thing which he did, with a number of companions, evidently to his heart's content. Long before day, I was put ashore at my place of destination, and I can only follow with the reader, in imagination, our Arkansas friend, in his adventures at the " Forks of Cypress" on the Mississippi. JONES' MGHT, A STORY OF KENTUCKY BY AN ALABAMIAN. The inimitable story which follows, was, like ihe preceding one, writ ten for the New York " Spirit of the Times," where it first appeared in January, 1840; but such has been the demand for it, that it has been republished in the same journal more than once. The writer, who is also the author of "A Quarter Race in Kentucky," is a planter of North Alabama, and a gentleman of family and fortune. Greatly does the editor regret that his lips are sealed as to the name and lo cal habitation of this favoured disciple ol'Momus. In many respects, " Jones' Fight" is hardly surpassed by any sketch in the language not even by Tom Hood's " Antiquity of Horse Racing." No appeals to the writer for vanity or cupidity " is not in him" will induce him to write oftenerthan " when the ' Spirit' moves." Few gentle men are better known in the sporting world, as a breeder and turf man, or who have more distinguished themselves by their wealth, enterprise and spirit. COL. DICK JONES was decidedly the great man of the village of Summerville. He was colonel of the regiment he had represented his district in congress he had been spoken of as candidate for governor he was at the head of the bar in Hawkins county, Ken tucky, and figured otherwise largely in public life. His legal opinion and advice were highly valued by the senior part of the population his dress and taste was law to the juniors his easy, affable, and attentive manner charmed all the matrons his dignified polite ness captivated the young ladies and his suavity 32 JONES' FIGHT. 33 and condescension delighted the little boarding-school misses. He possessed a universal smattering of infor mation his manners were the most popular ; extremely friendly and obliging, lively and witty; and, in short, he was a very agreeable companion. Yet truth requires it to be admitted, that Col. Dick Jones was professionally more specious than deep, and that his political advancement was owing to personal partiality more than superior merit that his taste and dress were of questionable propriety: for instance, he occasionally wore a hunting-shirt white fringed, or a red waistcoat, or a fawn-skin one, or a calico morning- gown of a small yellow pattern, and he indulged in other similar vagaries in clothing. And in manners and deportment, there was an air of harmless (true Vir ginian bred and Kentucky raised) self-conceit and swagger, which, though not to be admired, yet it gave piquancy and individuality to his character. If further particulars are required, I can only state that the colonel boarded at the Eagle hotel his office, in the square, fronted the court-house he was a ma nager of all the balls he was vice-president of the Summer ville Jockey Club he was trustee of the Fe male Academy he gallanted the old ladies to church, holding his umbrella over them in the sun, and escort ed the young ladies, at night, to the dances or parties, always bringing out the smallest ones. He rode a high headed, proud-looking sorrel horse, with a streak down his face ; and he was a general referee and umpire, whether it was a horse swap, a race, a rifle match, 01 a cock fight. C 34 JONES' FIGHT. It so chanced, on a time, though Col. Jones was one of the best-natured of men, that he took umbrage at some report circulated about him in an adjoining county and one of his districts, to the effect that he had been a federalist during the last war ; and, instead of rely ing on the fact of his being a school-boy on Mill Creek at that time, he proclaimed, at the tavern table, that the next time he went over the mountain to court, Bill Patterson, the reputed author of the slander, should either sign a liebill, fight, or run. This became narrated through the town, the case and argument of the difference was discussed among the patriarchs of the place, who generally came to the conclusion that the colonel had good cause of quarrel, as more had been said of him than an honourable man could stand. The young store boys of the village be came greatly interested, conjectured how the fight would go, and gave their opinions what they would do under similar circumstances. The young lawyers, and young M. D.'s, as often as they were in the colonel's company, introduced the subject of the expected fight. On such occasions, the colonel spoke carelessly and banteringly. Some good old ladies spoke deprecating- ly, in the general and in the particular, that so good and clever a young man as Colonel Dick should set so bad an example; and the young ladies, and little misses, bless their dear little innocent souls, they only consulted their own kind hearts, and were satisfied that he must be a wicked and bad man that Colonel Jones would fight. Spring term of the courts came on, and the lawyers JONES' FIGHT. 35 all started on their circuit, and, with them, Col. Jones went over the mountain. The whole town was alive to the consequences of this trip, and without much com munion or understanding on the subject, most of the population either gathered at the tavern at his depar ture, or noticed it from a distance, and he rode off, gaily saluting his acquaintances, and raising his hat to the ladies, on both sides of the street, as he passed out of town. From that time, only one subject engaged the thoughts of the good people of Summerville; and on the third day the common salutation was, " Any news from over the mountain ?" " Has any one come down the road ?" The fourth, fifth, and sixth came, and still the public anxiety was unappeased : it had, with the delay, be come insufferable, quite agonizing ; business and occu pation was at a stand still ; a doctor or a constable would not ride to the country lest news of the fight might arrive in their absence. People in crossing the square, or entering or coming out of their houses, all had their heads turned up that road. And many, though ashamed to confess it, sat up an hour or two past their usual bed-time, hoping some one would return from court. Still all was doubt and uncertainty. There is an unaccountable perversity in these things that bothers conjecture. I watched the road from Louisville two days, to hear of Grey Eagle beating Wagner, on which T had one hundred dollars staked, of borrowed money, and no one came ; though before that, some person passed every hour. On the seventh morning, the uneasy public were con- 39 36 JONES' FIGHT. soled by the certainty that the lawyers must be home that day, as court seldom held a week, and the univer sal resolve seemed to be that nothing was to be attend ed to until they were satisfied about the fight. Store keepers and their clerks, saddlers, hatters, cabinet makers, and their apprentices, all stood out at the doors. The hammer ceased to ring on the anvil, and the bar keeper would scarcely walk in to put away the stran ger's saddle-bags, who had called for breakfast ; when suddenly a young man, that had been walking from one side of the street to the other, in a state of feverish anxiety, thought he saw dust away up the road, and stopped. I have been told a man won a wager in Philadelphia, on his collecting a crowd by staring, with out speaking, at an opposite chimney. So no sooner was this young man's point noticed, than there was a general reconnoissance of the road made, and before long, doubt became certainty, when one of the company declared he knew the colonel's old sorrel riding-horse, " General Jackson," by the blaze on his face. In the excited state of the public mind it required no ringing of the court-house bell to convene the people ; those down street walked up, and those across the square came over, and all gathered gradually at the Eagle hotel, and nearly all were present by the time Col. Jones alighted. He had a pair of dark green specks on, his right hand in a sling, with brown paper bound round his wrist ; his left hand held the bridle, and the forefinger of it wrapped with a linen rag " with care.*' One of his ears was covered with a muslin scrap, that looked much like the countrywomen's plan JONES' FIGHT. 37 of covering their butter when coming to market ; his face was clawed all over, as if he had had it raked by a cat held fast by the tail ; his head was unshorn, it being " too delicate an affair," as * * * said about his wife's character. His complexion suggested an idea to a philosophical young man present, on which he wrote a treatise, dedicated to Arthur Tappan, proving that the negro was only a white well pummelled ; and his general swelled appearance would induce a belief he had led the forlorn hope in the storming of a bee hive. The colonel's manner did not exactly proclaim " the conquering hero," but his affability was undiminished, and he addressed them with, " Happy to see you, gents ; how are you all?" and then attempted to enter the ta vern ; but Buck Daily arrested him with, " Why, colo nel, I see you have had a skrimmage. How did you make it ! You didn't come out at the little eend of the horn, did you ?" " No, not exactly, I had a tight fit of it, though. You know Bill Patterson ; he weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds, has not an ounce of superfluous flesh, is as straight as an Indian, and as active as a wildcat, and as quick as powder, and very much of a man, I assure you. Well, my word was out to lick him ; so I hardly put up my horse before I found him at the court-house door, and, to give him a white man's chance, I proposed alternatives to him. He said his daddy, long ago, told him never to give a liebill, and he was not good at running, so he thought he had best fight. By the time the word was fairly out. I haul ed off, and took him in the burr of the ear that raised 38 JONES' FIGHT. a singing in bis head, that made him think he was hi Mosquitoe town. At it we went, like killing snakes, so good a man, so good a boy ; we had it round and round, and about and about, as dead a yoke as ever pulled at a log chain. Judge Mitchell was on the bench, and as soon as the cry of " fight" was raised, the bar and jury ran off and left him. He shouted, " I command the peace," within the court-house, and then ran out to see the fight, and cried out, "I can't prevent you !" " fair fight !" " stand back !" and he caught parson Benefield by the collar of the coat, who, he thought, was about to interfere, and slung him on his back at least fifteen feet. " It was the evenest and longest fight ever fought : every body was tired of it, and I must admit, in truth, that I was" (here he made an effort to enter the tavern.) But several voices called out, " Which whipped ? How did you come out?" "Why, much as I tell you ; we had it round and round, about and about, over and under. I could throw him at rastle, but he would ma nage some way to turn me. Old Sparrowhawk was there, who had seen all the best fighting at Natchez, under the hill, in the days of Dad Girty and Jim Snod- grass, and he says my gouging was beautiful ; one of Bill's eyes is like the mouth of an old ink bottle, only, as the fellow said, describing the jackass by the mule, it is more so. But, in fact, there was no great choice between us, as you see. I look like having ran into a brush fence of a dark night. So we made it round and round, and about and about" (here again he attempted retreat into the tavern.) But many voices demanded, Why, much as I toll you; we had it round and round, about and about, over and under." Pagt 38. JONES' FIGHT. 41 "Who hollered?" "Which gave up?" "How did you hurt your hand?" " Oh ! I forgot to tell you, that as I aimed a sockdollager at him he ducked his head, and he can dodge like a diedapper, and hitting him awkwardly, I sprained my wrist ; so, being like the fel low who, when it rained mush, had no spoon, I changed the suit and made a trump and went in for eating. In the scuffle we fell, cross and pile, and, while he was chawing my finger, my head was between his legs ; his woollen jean britches did not taste well, but I found a bare place, where the seat had worn out, and meat in abundance ; so I laid hold of a good mouthful, but the bit came out ; and finding his appetite still good for my finger, I adopted Doctor Bones', the toothsmith's, patent method of removing teeth without the aid of instru ments, and I extracted two of his incisors, and then I could put my finger in or out at pleasure. However, 1 shall, for some time, have an excuse for wearing gloves without being thought proud." (He now tried to escape wider cover of a laugh.) But vox populi again. " So you tanned him, did you ?" " How did the fight finish ?" "You were not parted?" "You fought it out, did you ?" The colonel resumed, " Why, there is no tell ing how the fight might have gone ; an old Virginian, who had seen Francesco, and Otey, and Lewis, and Blevins, and all the best men of the day, said he had never seen any one stand up to their fodder better than we did. We had fought round and round, and about and about, all over the court-yard, and, at last, just to end the fight, every body was getting tired of it ; so, at 1 a a st, I hollered. (Exit colonel.) THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT, A STORY OF MICHIGAN BY A NEW YORKER. Among the most promising young writers of the day, is the author of a series of sketches which have appeared within a few years in the New York " Spirit of the Times," purporting to have been discovered among the "unfinished papers of the late editor of the ' Kalamazoo Advocate and Journal.' " The " late editor" referred to, " went crazy" one fine day, the reader is given to understand, from the com bined effects of fright, deep potations, and Tom Haines and was, in consequence, incapacitated from occupying longer the editorial chair. The following report of " The Great Kalamazoo Hunt," purports to have been written by one of the late editor's "printer's devils," who accompanied his "boss" on the expedition. We must premise that the hunt had been for some weeks previously " the town talk" that those engaged in getting it up, had met nightly at the " doggery" or tavern of a certain Major Bristol, to " talk the thing over," and that it was originally planned by Tom Haines and the " late editor," in, the confident hope and expectation of enjoying " the tallest kind of a spree 1" ON the morning of the hunt I got out of bed about half an hour after daylight, and went down into the boss's office, or room, or whatever he called it, to see if he was up ; but when I came to look round, blessed if he'd been to hum all night. There stood the bed just as it is in the day-time, looking as much like a book case as it could, and every thing else all natural. So 42 THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. 43 thinks I to myself, thinks I, per'aps he's down to the major's. Well, so down I went, and there, sure enough, he was, and about a dozen others, jist up. That is, they had jist rolled off the benches on which they had slept all night. I tell you what, that party did look streaky. " Hallo !" says old Haines to the boss, " how are you, old fellow? Pleasant dreams last night, hey?" " Curse that rum sling there was too much sugar in it, which leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth this morning. How is't with you, hey ?" " For 's sake," said the boss, " don't croak so, Tom, don't. You'll drive me mad with your cursed din. Be a Christian once in your life, and just knock the bar-keeper up, and let's medicine." Well, old Haines was a Christian that time, and after all the party had took a drink, except the boss, for he took two, the first being too sweet, the fellows got to gether their shooting traps, and made ready to be off. So the boss he gets up on a chair and makes them a speech, telling each one as how he should go, and says he, " as Haines and myself are about half of each other, I reckon we'll jine, make one, and go together this time." They all agreed, and started off, leaving the boss, Haines, an' me at the major's. " Now," said the boss, " suppose we licker agin, and then fill that case-bottle up there," p'inting to one in the bar " and be off too." " Agreed," said old Haines. So I filled the bottle with cider-brandy, and off we went for Long Swamp. There wasn't anvthinff of particular account as 44 THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. occurred while we were making for the swamp, except the boss would lag behind and take a sly pull at the case-bottle, when he thought old Haines wouldn't see. So all went on very quiet until we arrived down at the north end. " Now," says old Haines, " suppose, 'squire, we drink fust, and load afterwards ?" " Exactly," said the boss. So they took a drink apiece, and old Haines went to work loading up his old big bore, with as much care as a gal fixes herself when she slicks up. Well, after he had got the ball home, he took a squint at the priming, and then you should have heard how he took on. I swow to man, I thought he'd strike the boss. Some fel low had taken the powder out of his horn and put in black sand, and that wasn't the worst of it, they sarved the boss jist the same. "What's to be done now?" asked the boss, after Haines had blowed himself out. " Well," said he, " I don't know any better way than to keep down the middle of the swamp until we meet with some of the boys, get some ammunition of them, and then strike off on our own account." So we trarnpoosed along down the edge of the swamp till we came to a track, when we turned in Ingin file, and kept on about a mile or so, climbing over stumps, wading through mud-holes, tearing through cat briers, and stumbling among bogs, and at last found ourselves in an open piece about a pole across, which was per fectly dry, with two large oak trees standing some ten feet apart. " Hold on, Haines," says the boss, " let's pull up THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. 45 here and take some grub. You haint had any break fast, nor I neither ; so you take that tree and I'll take this, and we'll eat and rest a bit." " Agreed," said Haines. " There aint much use of going too fast, and we might as well pull up a bit here as not. 'Squire, suppose we liquor?" Well, old Haines and the boss sat down, and I fixed the things for them, not forgetting to leave the bottle ; and, thinks I to myself, I reckon I'll start on a piece and look after some of the boys. So on I goes for about a two or three miles, without seeing anything of any of them ; and beginning to feel tired, I turned round and put back agin. Well, when I got, as I thought, about where I left the boss and Haines, I heard a kind of growling and rustling, as if there was pigs huntin' after acorns. Holloa, says I to myself, what's this? I'll jist peep in the brush and see what it is. So I turns in out of the track, and by gosh, if there wasn't the boss behind one tree, and old Haines behind an other, each dodging a bear. Holloa ! says I, this is a fix ! What's to be done now ? So I hides behind a thick ivy bush, and looks on a spell ; but I had to laugh. There stood the boss behind a tree, with his legs one side and his head t'other, and whenever the bear would make a pass at him round one way, he dodged round the other ; while old Haines kept his head a-going from one side to the other, and danced round and back jist as if he weighed one stone in place of eighteen. "My God!" said old Haines to the boss, when his bear kept still a moment, and gin him a chance to 46 THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. breathe " if this work keeps on much longer, curse me if I don't have to give up. I can't stand it, by all that's holy. Holler, 'Squire, for I can't, and see if you can't bring that boy back." " I can't holla, Haines, I can't," said boss, " the ani mal is so infernally bent on grabbing my (Good Lord, he liked to have had me that time !) leg. Try, Haines, yourself! do, there's a good fellow ! That animal af ter you aint a she one, and mine is I know by its being so infernal artful. Ugh ! you bitch !" said the boss, shaking his fist at the one as was after him, as she stood on her hind legs, grabbing at him round the tree, with her head half way round, to see exactly where he was. " Can't we change trees?" asked Haines, " for I've got tired running round one way, and the cursed brute won't alter the track." "Hey! hollo! hey!" sung out the boss for me, " ho, hoop, ha 'r 'r 'r," and by gosh, while he turned up his eyes as if to holla louder, the bear give him a dig with her paw in the seat of his pantaloons, and carried away drawers and all. "Oh!" said the boss, and he put one hand behind to feel what damage was done, and darted round t'other side quicker. " Curse me if I keep this position much longer, Haines ! I'll take the path and make a run for it ! This is playing bo-peep with a vengeance ! It's altogether too exciting to be plea sant a pretty position for the editor of the ' Ad vocate and Journal' to be placed in a dodging bears round chestnut trees ! curse me if I can stand it any longer." But Haines hadn't any time to attend to what the THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. 49 saying, for t'other bear kept Lirn on the move, so tk>t he was all eyes, and no care for any thing else and the t\vo kept dodging and twisting, and heading off each other with great alertness and perseverance. " I wish I had a slight drop of something," said the boss to himself, for there was no use talking to Ilaines; he hadn't time to answer. "I th:nk I could keep this up somewhat longer, but without something strength ening I must knock under, that's a fact. No editor of flesh and blood could do it, and what's more, curse me if I do." He went on getting wrathy. "Look here, Ilaines! I tell you what, this can't last much longer without coming to some pass or other." " I, too, Katey," replied Haines ; " but may I never taste any thing stronger than water if I don't think we've come to a pretty considerable d d pass already. Here I am scouting round this infernal tree, first on one side then t'other, dodging here and there, headed off and chased round, making myself a cursed jinny-spinner, dry as , and as hot as thunder, and you yelling out to me to get you out of jist sich a fix as I am in myself. Curse the bitch, why don't you ah ! why don't you mesmerise her !" But it wasn't any use for them to get wrathy the bears didn't give them time to get in a passion, for it takes the boss and Haines ten minutes to fire up strong when they talk politics ; and as they were just at that time, they didn't get a minute, even to think. Well, after I had looked out for about fifteen minutes or so, and seed the boss begin to get desperately fright ened, and old Haines sweating like a pitcher with ice- 50 THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. water in it, and looking all-fired tired, thinks I, I heard a gun back north some time ago ; I guess I'll try and hunt up that fellow, and get him to come and shoot one of these varmint, so as to get our boss out of the scrape. So back I went, and in half an hour I found old Bullet poking around among a parcel of gorse and furze, look ing after a partridge that he had killed when I heard his gun go off; and as soon as I told him how matters stood with the boss and Haines, he loaded right up, and started away like a fire-engine under a full head of steam, and made tracks straight ahead, without steer ing clear of anything. Bullet drove on so fast, that when we came up to where the old 'uns were, I was so all-fired blowed that I hadn't wind enough left to laugh. There they was, just as I had left them, dodging and sliding round, and the bears growling and snapping like all natur. Old Haines had got so warm that he had pulled off his cra vat, coat, and waistcoat, and had unbuttoned his shirt at the neck and wristbands, awaiting a chance to duck his head and get that off too. I verily believe that, fat as he is, he did think of climbing the tree, just to vary the amusement. As for the boss, he wa* jerking his head from one side to the other, just like xhat Dutch figure on cousin Sally's mantel-piece ; and I do believe if he had kept on for about an hour more, he wouldn't have had a hair left on his scalp. He's a littlu Wld on top as it is. As soon as we got near enough I hollered out t*> old Haines, so as he might know there was somebody jigh at band ; and as soon as ever he seed Bullet with fci THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. 51 gun, didn't the old fellow look glad, and for fear Bullet would want to poke fun at him, and keep him dodging a little longer, you ought to have heard him try to peti tion and pray. But it wouldn't do ; if ever he learnt how, he'd forgot, I reckon, though he never had any schooling in that line. " Oh, Bullet," says he, "if you ever heer'd minster Damenhall tell about the next world, and you have a look to be saved, and just think about my da'ter, to hum, and the old woman (though you needn't lay any great stress on her in particular.) You know, Bullet, we don't know where we may go to. Oh ! Lord, look down on Bullet I mean the Squire and I and give us grace (why don't you fire, you cursed fool ? Do, that's a good fellow) and the Squire will ever pray. May we live so as to look forward (Bullet, I'll give you a pint of apple-jack the very minute I get back to the Major's, if you'll only fire quick) and may our hearts be bound up with grace (why, in the name of , don't you blow this brute's brains out, and be cursed to you ? I'll lick you like thunder, I will !) For all our past sins be merciful (I'll let you off that quarter you owe me, Bullet,) that we may live a godly, righte ous, and sober or at least moderate life; preserve us, oh Lord." I don't know whether the old fellow could have gone on any longer, but I hadn't a chance to know, for Bul let, who had got into thick cover, drew upon the var mint, and put a ball clean through its head. The other one scampered off as soon as he heard the report, and was hunted up next day, and killed by Bill Winkle. 52 THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. The very moment the boss and Haines found them selves clear, down they both dropped, clean gone. The boss fainted, and so would old Haines have done, but he couldn't; and besides, he was so busily engaged in cursing Bullet, and calling for a drink of something, he hadn't time. We had a bad time bringing the boss to, and he appeared a good deal flighty when we got him so as he could walk home. As for Haines, he swore he'd set two niggers to rubbing him down with ile, the very minute he got hum, or else he'd be as stiff as a spavined horse next day. When we arrived in town we all went to the Major's, but we couldn't keep the boss long, for he took on dreadfully. Some said he was crazy, some said he was wild drunk, the Major said that he thought perhaps the fright had slightly turned his brain ; whereupon old Haines, who was getting near about considerably tight, said as how that couldn't be, because the boss had stood the wear, tear, and racket, when the fellow came on from York to dun the boss for a bill of paper as he owed to one in that city, and said he, " if he could stand such a cursing as that was, burn my skin if all the bears this side of the York line, and west of the Rocky moun tains, would be able to shake one single nerve in his whole body!" However, be the cause what it may, the boss is clean gone, stark mad, and the schoolmaster has had to take his place. Some one of the boys, that night, after hearing Haines tell the story over about a dozen times, and seeing he was pretty drunk, went straight down to the Methodist THE GREAT KALAMAZOO HUNT. 53 meeting-house and told the minister, who was holding forth that night, that the old fellow had sent him to re quest " the prayers of the church for his safe delivery," and that as soon as he got rested, he himself would come down and jine in worship, besides giving in his testimony. The minister couldn't believe it at first, but when Jim declared it was truth, sure, he got right up and told the congregation. So they sets to work praying for the recovered sheep, regenerated sinner, and reco vered outcast from the fold of chosen lambs, together with many other beautiful names as they give Haines , while Jim went back to the Major's, and finding the lamb, jist right, ups and tells him as how he had just passed by the meeting-house, and heard minister Da- menhall say to the folks that he didn't believe one word of the story that 'twas an invention of Satan's put into Haines' mouth to deceive those who were on the road to ruin through the effects of liquor ; and that the quan tity that Haines had induced the boss to drink was the sole cause of his craziness. As soon as ever Haines heard this, he got straight up as he could, buttoned up his coat, and went right down to the meeting-house ; but what followed haint got any thing to do with the late Hunt at Kalamazoo. THAT BIG DOG EIGHT AT MYERS'S. A STORY OF MISSISSIPPI BY A MISSISSIPPIAN. The writer of the following story is one of the most entertaining com panions we ever met. Like the elder Placide, or Gabriel Ravel, he has the keenest perception of the ludicrous imaginable ; in him this is combined with an inexhaustible flow of spirits, and a rare fund of wit and humour peculiarly calculated to " set the table in a roar." For several years he has been a most acceptable correspondent of the New York " Spirit of the Times," and while his stories have " ranged from amazin to onkimmon," there is not an indifferent one among them all. His extraordinary merit as a story-teller is only equalled by his modesty ; " not for the world" would he permit us to name him. We are free to say, however, that he is a country gen tleman of Mississippi, " of about our size," and that he resides on a river-plantation nearly equi-distant from the regions of " the cotton trade and sugar line." " WELL, them was great times, and men lived about here, them days, too ! not sayin' they're all dead, but the settlements is got too thick for 'em to splurge, an' they are old beside, they're watin' for thar boys to do somethin' when they gits men ! I tell you what, if they lived till kingdom come they wouldn't be men. I'd like to see one single one of 'em that ever rid his horse up two pair of stairs, jumpt him thru " " Stop, stop, Uncle Johnny ! Do tell us about that big dog fight at Myers's." 54 THAT BIG DOG FIGHT AT MYERSES. 55 " Ha, ha, boy ! You thar ? Had your bitters yet ? Well, well we'll take 'em together ; licker is better now than it used to was ; but people don't drink so much, and that's strange ! ain't it ? Well, I was talkin' to these men about old Greensville, and about them same men, for they was all at that same dog fite Fe- atte, the Devil ! never be a patchin' to what old Greens ville was about the times 'Old CoV was sheriff! I'll just bet all the licker I ever expect to drink, that thar ain't no second story in Featte that's got hoss tracks on the floor and up agin' the ceil " " I must stop you again, Uncle Johnny ; Fayette is yet in its youth, and promises " " Youth, H 1 ! yes, like the youth of some of my old friends' sons upwards of thirty, an' they're expectin' to make men out'n 'em yet ! I tell you what, young men in my time'd just get in a spree, sorter open thar shirt collars, and shuck tharselves with a growl, and come out reddy-made men ; and most on 'em has staid reddy for fifty-one year ! I ain't failed now, yet, and " " Uncle Johnny, for God's sake stick to the dog story : we'll hear all this after " " Ah, you boy, you never will let me tell a story my way, but here goes: Let me see yes, yes. Well, it was a grate dog in Greensville, anyhow Charly Cox had run old Saltrum agin' a hoss from the Red-licks, and beat him shameful Run rite plum up the street in Greensville so as evry body mite see. Well, a power of licker was wasted nily evry house in town rid thru women and children skeared out, and evry drink we took was a ginral invite, and about night thar was one 40 56 THAT BIG DOG FIGHT ginral in town Ginral Intoxication. Well, 'bout sun down the old Ginral God bless him ! called up his troops ; some of the same ones who was at Orleans ; let's see thar was the high sheriff, Dick, Bat, Jim, old Iron Tooth, an ' " " Iron Tooth !" who'se he ?" suggested I. " Why, he's the man what fit the dog ! Ain't you never seen a man here in Featte, when he gits high up, just pulls out his knife, and goes to chawin' it as if he'd made a bet he could bite it in two ?" " Yes, yes, go on." " Well, the Ginral made 'em all mount, formed line, and rid rite into the grocery formed line agin, had a big stir-up drink handed to 'em all, and when the Ginral raised his hat and said ' the Hero of Orleans,' the yell that went up, put a bead on that man's licker that staid uily a month, I hearn. We come a rarin' out'n the grocery charged up and down two or three times, cleared the streets of all weak things, then started out home, all in a brest j evry one of us had a Polk stalk " " Hel-lo ! Polk stalks that early ?" "Well, well, Hickry sticks same thing out of town we went, chargin' evry thing we see fences, cat tle, ox-teams ; and at last we got to old Myers's, farly squeelin' to rar over somethin' ! Old Myers's dog was awful bad the worst in anybody's nolledge why, peo ple sent fifty miles to git pups from him ! Well, he come a chargin', too, and met us at the gate, lookin' like a young hyena. Iron Tooth just turned himself round to us, and says he, ' Men, I'll take this fite off'n And thar stood the dog with the awfullest countenance you ever seen a dog ware.' Page 57. AT MYERS'S. 57 your hands ;' so down he got, ondressed to his shirt, stock, and boots got down on his all-fours in the road, walkin' backards and forards, pitchin' up the dust and bellerin' like a bull ! When the dog see him at that sort of work, he did sorter stop barkin', but soon as he see our animal strut up to the gate and begin to smell, then, like another dog, he got fairly crazy to git thru at him ; rarin', cavortin', and tarin 1 off pickets ! Our ani mal was a takin' all this quite easy smellin' thru at him, whinin' me-you, me-you, me-you struttin' backards and forards, histin' up one leg agin the gate Well, after a while the dog begin to git sorter tired, and then our ani mal begin to git mad ! snap for snap he gin the dog, and the spit and slobber flew, and soon the dog was worse than he had been. Thar we was settin' on our hoses, rollin' with laughin' and licker, and thought the thing was rich, as it was ; but just then, our animal riz on his hinders, onlatched the gate, and the dog lunged for him. Ain't you never noticed when one dog bounces at ano ther, he sorter whirls round sideways, to keep him from hittin' him a fair lick? Well, jist so our animal: he whirled round sideways to let the dog have a glancin' lick, and true to the caracter, he was goin' to allow the dog a dog's chance, and he stuck to his all-fours. The dog didn't make but one lunge, and he stopt as still as the picter of the wolf in the spellin' book for you see our animal was right starn end facin' him, his shirt smartly up over his back, and standin' mity high up on his hind legs at that ! We all raised the old Indian yell for you never did see sich a site, and thar stood the dog with the awfullest countenance you ever seen a dog 68 THAT BIG DOG FIGHT ware ! Our man, sorter thinkin' he'd bluffed the dog, now give two or three short goat-pitches backards at him! Ha! ha! ha!" " What did he do ? What did he do ?" " Do ? why run ! wouldn't a d d hyena run ! The dog had a big block and chain to him, and soon our animal was arter him, givin' some of the awfullest leaps and yelps 'twarnt but a little squar picket yard round the house, and the dog couldn't git out, so round and round he went at last, turnin' a corner the chain rapt round a stump, and thar the dog was fast, and he had tofite! But he did give powerful licks to get loose! When he see his inemy right on him agin, and when Iron Tooth seen the dog was fast, round and round he'd strut ; and sich struttin ! Ain't you never seen one of these big, long-legged, short-tailed baboons struttin' round on the top of the lion's cage ? Well, so he'd go sorter smellin' at the dog (and his tongue hanging out right smart, for he was tired,) me-you ! me-you ! Snap ! snap ! the dog would go, and he begin to show fite d d plain agin, for our varmint was a facin' him, and he seen "'twas a man arter all ! But our animal knovv'd how to come the giraffe over him so round he turns and gives him the starn view agin ! That farly broke the dog's hart, and he jist rared back a pullin' and got loose ! One or two goat-pitches backards and the dog was flat on his back, playin' his fore-paws mity fast, and perhaps some of the awfullest barks you ever hearn a dog gin ! Old Iron Tooth he seen he had the dog at about the rite pint, and he give one mortal lunge back ards, and he lit with both hands on the dog's throat, AT MYERS'S. 61 turned quick as lightnin', div down his head, and fast ened his teeth on the dog's ears ! Sieh a shakin' and hovvlin' ! The dog was too skeared to fite, and our animal had it all his own way. We hollered to ' give him some in the short ribs,' but he only held on and growled at us, playin' the dog clean out, I tell you. Well, thar they was, rollin' and tumblin' in the dirt first one on top, and then tother our animal holdin' on like pitch to a waggin wheel, the dog never thinkin' 'bout fitein' once, but makin' rale onest licks to git loose. At last our varmint's hold broke the dog riz made one tiger lunge the chain snapt he tucked hi* tail, and and but you all know what skeared dogs will do ! " Nobody ain't never got no pups from Myers since the blood run rite out !" HOW SIMON SUGGS "RAISED JACK." A. GEORGIA STORY BY AN ALABAMIAN. L is a great pity that gentlemen of such sterling intellectual ability as the writer of the subjoined sketch, should hide their light under a bushel. We merely know of him that he is a young lawyer of re pute, Johnson J. Hooper by name, and editor, en amateur, of " The East Alabamian,' 1 published at La Fayette, in that state. His well written editorial articles are mainly confined to political themes, and it is only at rare intervals that he indulges his readers with sketches like the one annexed thrown off, probably, at a heat. What a " choice spirit" he would be in that circle of "jolly good fellows" whose contributions to the "Spirit of the Times" have rendered that journal far more famous for original wit and humour, than its being the " Chronicle of the Sporting World." Hooper has recently commenced in " The East Alabamian" a series of sketches, detailing the history, adventures, and operations of one Simon Suggs, late Captain of the Tallapoosa Volunteers, whom he introduces with an exordium as ornate, graphic, and fanciful, as Mr. Wirt's on the occasion of the trial of Aaron Burr. We propose here for like many other entertaining things the Captain's history is yet unwritten to give the reader an account only of those exploits of his at the early age of seventeen (when his ingenuity and shrewdness began first to attract attention.) which subsequently acquired for him the epithet of "Shifty," his whole ethical system happening to lie snugly in his favourite aphorism that " it is good to be a SHIFTY man in a new country." The following characteristic anecdote is given as one of the earliest specimens of the Captain's 'cuteness, and will serve to illustrate the precocious development of his peculiar talent. UNTIL Simon entered his seventeenth year, he lived with his father, an old ' hard-shell' Baptist preacher j 62 HOW SIMON SUGGS "RAISED JACK." 63 who, though very pious and remarkably austere, was very avaricious. The old man reared his boys or endeavoured to do so according to the strictest requi sition of the moral law. But he lived, at the time to which we refer, in Middle Georgia, which was then newly settled ; and Simon, whose wits from the time lie was a " shirt-tail boy," were always too sharp for his father's, contrived to contract all the coarse vices incident to such a region. He stole his mother's roost ers to fight them at Bob Smith's grocery, and his father's plough-horses to enter them in "quarter" matches at the same place. He pitched dollars with Bob Smith himself, and could " beat him into doll rags" whenever it came to a measurement. To crown his accomplishment, Simon was tip-top at the game of " old sledge," which was the fashionable game of that era ; and was early initiated in the mystery of " stocking the papers." The vicious habits of Simon were, of course, a sore trouble to his father, Elder Jedediah. He reasoned, he counselled, he remonstrated, he lash ed but Simon was an incorrigible, irreclaimable devil. One day the simple-minded old man came rather unexpectedly to the field where he had left Simon and Ben, and a negro boy named Bill, at work. Ben was still following his plough, but Simon and Bill were in a fence-corner very earnestly engaged at " seven up." Of course the game was instantly suspended, as soon as they spied the old man sixty or seventy yards off, striding towards them. It was evidently a " gone case" with Simon and Bill ; but our hero determined to make the best of it. 64 HOW SIMON SUGGS Putting the cards into one pocket, he coolly picked up the small coins which constituted the stake, and fobhed them in the other, remarking, " Well, Bill, this game's blocked ; we'd as well quit." " But, massa Simon," remarked the boy, " half dat money's mine. An't you gwine to lemme hab 'em?" " Oh never mind the money, Bill ; the old man's going to take the bark off of both of us and besides, with the hand I helt when we quit, I should 'a beat you and won it all any way." " Well, but, massa Simon, we nebber finish de game, and de rule" " Go to an orful h 1 with your rule," said the im patient Simon "don't you see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories ? I tell you I hilt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a beat the horns off of a billy-goat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or nother you'r d d hard to please !" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tone for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand he con tinued, " but may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie twon't hurt no way let's tell him we've been playin' mumble- Peg-" Bill was perforce compelled to submit to this in equitable adjustment of his claim of a share of the stakes ; and of course agreed to the game of mumble- peg. All this was settled and a peg driven in the ground, slyly and hurriedly between Simon's legs as ne sat on the ground, just as the old man reached the spot. He carried under his left arm several neatly- " RAISED JACK." 65 trimmed sprouts of formidable length, while in his left hand he held one which he was intently engaged in divesting of its superfluous twigs. " Soho ! youngsters ! you in the fence-corner, and the crop in the grass ! what saith the Scriptur', Simon? ' Go to the ant, thou sluggard,' and so forth and so on. What in the round creation of the yearth have you and that nigger been a-doin' ?" Bill shook with fear, but Simon was cool as a cucum ber, and answered his father to the effect that they had been wasting a little time in a game of mumble-peg. " Mumble-peg ! mumble-peg !" repeated old Mr. Suggs, " what's that ?" Simon explained the process of rooting for the peg ; how the operator got upon his knees, keeping his arms stiff by his side, leaned forward and extracted the peg with his teeth. " So you git upon your knees, do you, to pull up that nasty little stick ! you'd better git upon 'em to ask mercy for your sinful souls, and for a dyin' world. But lei's see one o' you git the peg up now." The first impulse of our hero was to volunteer to gratify the curiosity of his worthy sire, but a glance at the old man's countenance changed his " notion," and he remarked that " Bill was a long ways the best hand." Bill, who did not deem Simon's modesty an omen fa vourable to himself, was inclined to reciprocate com pliments with his young master ; but a gesture of im patience from the old man set him instantly upon his knees ; and, bending forward, he essayed to lay hold with his teeth, of the peg, which Simon, just at that 66 HOW SIM ON SUGGS moment, very wickedly pushed half an inch further down. Just as the breeches and hide of the boy were stretched to the uttermost, old Mr. Suggs brought down his longest hickory, with both hands, upon the precise spot where the tension was greatest. With a loud yell, Bill plunged forward, upsetting Simon, and rolled in the grass, rubbing the castigated part with fearful energy. Simon, though overthrown, was unhurt ; and he was mentally complimenting himself upon the sagacity which had prevented his illustrating the game of mum ble-peg, for the paternal amusement, when his attention was arrested by that worthy person's stooping to pick up something what is it ? a card upon which Simon had been sitting, and which, therefore, had not gone with the rest of the pack into his pocket. The simple Mr. Suggs had only a vague idea of the pasteboard abomination called cards ; and though he decidedly in clined to the opinion that this was one, he was by no means certain of the fact. Had Simon known this, he would certainly have escaped ; but he did not. His father, assuming the look of extreme sapiency which is always worn by the interrogator who does not desire 01 expect to increase his knowledge by his questions, asked, " What's this, Simon ?" " The Jack a-dimunts," promptly responded Simon, who gave up all as lost after this faux pas. "What was it doin' down thar, Simon, my sonny?" continued Mr. Suggs, in an ironically affectionate tone* of voice. " I had it under my leg thar, to make it on Bill, the first time it come trumps," was the ready reply. 1 So you git upon your knees, do you, to pull up that nasty little stick ; you'd better git upon 'em to ask mercy for your sinful souls, and for a dyin' world." Page 65. "RAISED JACK." 69 "What's trumps?" asked Mr. Suggs, with a view of arriving at the import of the word. " Nothin' a'nt trumps now," said Simon, who misap prehended his father's meaning " but clubs was, when you come along and busted up the game." A part of this answer was Greek to the Reverend Mr. Suggs, but a portion of it was full of meaning. They had, then, most unquestionably been " throwing" cards, the scoundrels ! the " oudacious" little hellions ! " To the ' Mulberry,' with both on ye ! in a hurry," said the old man, sternly. But the lads were not dis posed to be in a " hurry," for " the Mulberry" was the scene of all formal punishment administered during work hours in the field. Simon followed his father, however ; but made, as he went along, all manner of " faces" at the old man's back ; gesticulated as if he were going to strike him between the shoulders with his fists ; and kicking at him so as almost to touch his coat tail with his shoe. In this style they walked on to the mulberry tree, in whose shade Simon's brother Ben was resting. It must not be supposed that, during the walk to the place of punishment, Simon's mind was either inactive, or engaged in suggesting the grimaces and contortions wherewith he was pantomimically expressing his irre verent sentiments towards his father. Far from it. The movements of his limbs and features were the mere workings of habit the self-grinding of the cor poreal machine for which his reasoning half was only remotely responsible. For while Simon's person was thus, on its own account, " making game" of old Jede- 50 HOW SIMON SUGGS diah, his wits, in view of the anticipated flogging, were dashing, springing, bounding, darting about, in hot chase of some expedient suitable to the necessities of the case much after the manner in which puss, wbei* ' Betty, armed with the broom, and hotly seeking ven geance for the pantry robbed or room defiled, has closed upon her the garret doors and windows, attempts all sorts of impossible exits, comes down at last in the corner, with panting side and glaring eye, exhausted and defenceless. Our unfortunate hero could devise nothing by which he could reasonably expect to escape the heavy blows of his father. Having arrived at this conclusion and the " Mulberry" about the same time, he stood with a dogged look, awaiting the issue. The old man Suggs made no remark to any one while he was seizing up Bill a process which, though by no means novel to Simon, seemed to excite in him a sort of painful interest. He watched it closely, as if to learn the precise fashion of his father's knot ; and when at last Bill was strung up a-tiptoe to a limb, and the whipping commenced, Simon's eye followed every movement of his father's arm ; and as each blow de scended upon the bare shoulders of his sable friend, his own body writhed and " wriggled" in involuntary sym pathy. " It's the devil ! it's hell," said Simon to himself, " to take such a wallopin' as that. Why the old man looks like he wants to git to the holler, if he could rot his picter ! It's wuth, at the least, fifty cents je-e- miny, how that hurt ! yes, it's wuth three-quarters of a dollar, to take that 'ere lickin' ! Wonder if I'm "RAISED JACK." 71 ' predestinated,' as old Jed'diah says, to get the fellei to it ? Lord, how daddy blows ! I do wish to God he'd bust right open, the darn'd old deer-face ! If 'twa'n't for Ben helpin' him, I b'lieve I'd give the old dog a tussel when it comes for my turn. It couldn't make the thing no wuss, if it didn't make it no better. 'Drot it ! what do boys have daddies for, any how ? 'Taint for nuthin' but jist to beat 'em and work 'em. There's some use in mammies I kin poke my finger right in the old 'oman's eye, and keep it thar, and if I say it aint thar, she'll say 'taint thar, too. I wish she was here to hold daddy off. If 'twa'n't so fur, I'd holler for her, any how. How she would cling to the old fel ler's coat tail!" Mr. Jedediah Suggs let down Bill, and untied him. Approaching Simon, whose coat was off, "Come, Si mon, son," said he, " cross them hands, I'm gwine to correct you." " It aint no use, daddy," said Simon. " Why so, Simon ?" "Just bekase it aint. I'm gwine to play cards as long as I live. When I go off to myself, I'm gwine to make my livin' by it. So what's the use of beatin' me about it ?" Old Mr. Suggs groaned, as he was wont to do in the pulpit, at this display of Simon's viciousness. " Simon," said he, " you're a poor ignunt creetur. You don't know nothin' and you've never been no whars If I was to turn you off, you'd starve in a week" "I wish you'd try me," said Simon, "and jist see I'd win more money in a week than you can make in 7Z HOW SIMON SUGGS a year. There aint nobody round here kin make seed corn off o' me at cards. I'm rale smart," he added, with great emphasis. " Simon ! Simon ! you poor unletered fool. Don't you know that all card-players and chicken-fighters, and horse-racers, go to hell ? You crack-brained crea tur' you. And don't you know that them that play cards always lose their money, and" " Who wins it all then, daddy ?" asked Simon. " Shet your mouth, you imperdent, slack-jaw'd dog. Your daddy's a-tryin' to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin' up his words that way. I know'd a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to Augusty and sold a hundred dollars' worth of cotton for his daddy, and some o' them gambollers got him to drinkin', and the very first night he was with 'em they got every cent of his money." " They couldn't git my money in a week" said Si mon. " Any body can git these here green fellows' money ; them's the sort I'm a-gwine to watch for, my self. Here's what kin fix the papers jist about as nice as any body." " Well, it's no use to argify about the matter," said old Jedediah ; " What saith the scriptur' ? ' He that be- getteth a fool, doeth it to his sorrow.' Hence, Simon, you're a poor, miserable fool ! so, cross your hands!" " You'd jist as well not, daddy. I tell you I'm gwine to follow playin' cards for a livin', and what's the use o' bangin' a feller about it ? I'm as smart as any of 'em, and Bob Smith says them Augusty fellers can't make rent off* o' me." "RAISED JACK." 73 The Reverend Mr. Suggs had, once in his life, gone to Augusta ; an extent of travel which in those days was a little unusual. His consideration among his neigh bours was considerably increased by the circumstance, as he had all the benefit of the popular inference, that no man could visit the city of Augusta without acquir ing a vast superiority over all his untravelled neigh bours, in every department of human knowledge. Mr. Suggs, then, very naturally felt ineffably indignant that an individual who had never seen a collection of human habitations larger than a log-house village an indivi dual, in short, no other or better than Bob Smith should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners, customs, or any thing else appertaining to, or in any wise connected with, the ultima thvle of back-woods Georgians. There were two propositions which witnessed their own truth to the mind of Mr. Suggs the one was, that a man who had never been at Augusta, could not know any thing about that city, or any place or thing else ; the other, that one who had been there must, of necessity, be not only well inform ed as to all things connected with the city itself, but perfectly au fait upon all subjects whatsoever. It was therefore in a tone of mingled indignation and con tempt that he replied to the last remark of Simon. " Bob Smith says does he ? And who's Bob Smith'? Much does Bob Smith know about Augusty ! he's been thar, I reckon ! Slipped off yarly some mornin' when nobody warn't noticin', and got back afore night . It's only a hundred and fifty mile. Oh yes, Bob Smith knows all about it ! / don't know nothin' about U ! J E 74 HOW SIMON SUGGS a'n't never been to Augusty / couldn't find the road thar, I reckon, ha ! ha ! Bob Smi ih ! The eternal stink ! if he was only to see one o' them fine gentle men in Augusty, with his fine broad-cloth and bell- crown hat, and shoe-boots a-shinin' like silver, he'd take to the woods and kill himself a-runnin'. Bob Smith ! that's whar all your devilment comes from, Simon." " Bob Smith's as good as any body else, I judge ; and a heap smarter than some. He showed me how to cut Jack," continued Simon, " and that's more than some people can do if they have been to Augusty." " If Bob Smith kin do it," said the old man, " I kin too. I don't know it by that name ; but if it's book knowledge or plain sense, and Bob kin do it, it's rea sonable to s'pose that old Jed'diah Suggs won't be bothered bad. Is it any ways similyar to the rule of three, Simon?" " Pretty much, daddy, but not adzactly," said Si mon, drawing a pack from his pocket to explain. " Now daddy," he proceeded, " you see these here four cards is what we call the Jacks. Well, now, the idee is, if you'll take the pack and mix 'em all up together, I'll take off a passel from top, and the bottom one of them I take off will be one of the Jacks." " Me to mix em fust ?" said Jedediah. " Yes." " And you not to see but the back of the top one, when you go to ' cut,' as you call it ?" " Jist so, daddy." " And the backs all jist as like as kin be ?" said the senior Suggs, examining the cards "RAISED JACK." 75 " More like nor cow-peas," said Simon. " It can't be done, Simon," observed the old man, with great solemnity. " Bob Smith kin do it, and so kin I." " It's agin nater, Simon ; thar a'n't a man in Au- gusty, nor on the top of the yearth, that kin do it !" "Daddy," said our hero, "ef you'll bet me" "What!" thundered old Mr. Suggs, "bet, did you say?" and he came down with a scorer across Simon's shoulders "me, Jed'diah Suggs, that's been in the Lord's sarvice these twenty years me bet, you nasty, sassy, triflin', ugly" " I didn't go to say that, daddy ; that warn't what I ment, adzactly. I ment to say that ef you'd let me off from this here maulin' you owe me, and give me ' Bunch' ef I cut Jack, I'd give you all this here silver, ef I did'nt that's all. To be sure, I allers knowd you wouldn't bet." Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son handed him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also, mentally, compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of a certain Indian pony, called " Bunch," which he had bought for his "old woman's" Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a fence-corner, the first and only time she had ever mounted him. As he weighed the pouch of silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavoured to analyze the character of the trans action proposed by Simon. " It sartinly can't be nothin' but giviri 1 , no way it kin be twisted," he murmured to himself. " I know he can't do it, so there's no resk. 41 76 HOW SIMON SUGGS What makes bettin'? The resk. It's a one-sided business, and I'll jist let him give me all his money, and that'll put all his wild sportin' notions out of his head." " Will you stand it, daddy ?" asked Simon, by way of waking the old man up. " You mought as well, for the whippin' won't do you no good ; and as for Bunch, nobody about the plantation won't ride him, but me." " Simon," replied the old man, " I agree to it. Your old daddy is in a close place about payin' for his land ; and this here money it's jist eleven dollars, lacking of twenty-five cents will help out mightily. But mind, Simon, ef any thing's said about this, hereafter, re member, you give me the money." " Very well, daddy, and ef the thing works up instid o' down, I 'spose we'll say you give me Bunch eh ?" " You won't never be troubled to tell how you come by Bunch ; the thing's agin natur, and can't be done. What old Jed'diah Suggs knows, he knows as good as anybody. Give me them fixaments, Simon." Our hero handed the cards to his father, who, drop ping the plough-line with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of mixing. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuf fling the cards, making, however, an exceedingly awk ward job of it. Restive kings and queens jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to slide into the com pany of the rest of the pack. Occasionally, a sprightly knave would insist on facing his neighbour ; or, press ing his edge against another's, half double himself up, "RAISED JACK." 77 and then skip away. But Elder Jedediah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the refractory, while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his cheeks. All of a sudden, an idea, quick and penetrat ing as a rifle-ball, seemed to have entered the cranium of the old man. He chuckled audibly. The devil had suggested to Mr. Suggs an impromptu " stock," which would place the chances of Simon already sufficiently slim in the old man's opinion without the range of possibility. Mr. Suggs forthwith proceeded to cull out all the picter cards so as to be certain to include the jacks and place them at the bottom ; with the evident intention of keeping Simon's fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who was quietly looking over his father's shoulders all the time, did not seem alarmed by this disposition of the cards ; on the contrary, he smiled as if he felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it. " Now, daddy," said Simon, when his father had announced himself ready, " narry one of us aint got to look at the cards, while I'm a cuttin' ; if we do, it'll spile the conjuration." " Very well." " And another thing you've got to look me right dead in the eye, daddy will you ?" " To be sure to be sure," said Mr. Suggs ; " fire away." Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack. Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for about three seconds, during which a close observer might have 78 HOW SIMON SUGGS detected a suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder Suggs did not remark it. " Wake snakes ! day's a breakin' ! Rise Jack !" said Simon, cutting half a dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the bottom one for the inspection of his father. It was the Jack of Hearts ! Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps, with uplifted eyes and hands ! " Marciful master !" he exclaimed, " ef the boy haint ! well, how in the round creation of the ! Ben did you ever ! to be sure and sartin, Satan has power on this yearth!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in heavy bitter ness. " You never seed nothin' like that in Augusty, did ye, daddy ?" asked Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben. " Simon, how did you do it ?" queried the old man, without noticing his son's question. "Do it, daddy? Do it? 'Taint nothin'. I done it jest as easy as shootin'." Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to the perplexed mind of the elder Jedediah Suggs, cannot, after the lapse of time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is cer tain, however, that he pressed the investigation no far ther, but merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact that, in consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the state of Georgia, ne bestowed upon him the impracticable poney, " Bunch.' "RAISED JACK." 79 "Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily of the way mammy give old Trailler the side of bacon, last week. She was a-sweepin' up the hath the meat on the table ; old Trailler jumps up, gathers the bacon and darts ; mammy arter him with the broomstick as fur as the door, but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the stick at him, and hollers, ' You sassy aig-sukkin', roguish, gnatty, flop-eared var mint, take it along, take it along ! I only wish 'twas full of a'snic and ox vomit and blue vitrul, so as t'would cut your intrils into chitlins !' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon." It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but one more night beneath the pa ternal roof. What mattered it to Simon? He went home at night, curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially in his ear, that he was the "fastest piece of hoss-flesh, accordin' to size, that ever shaded the y earth ;" and then busied himself in prepar ing for an early start on the morrow. SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE, A STORY OF ILLINOIS BY A MISSOURIAN. We should hate to bet " Straws" that J. M. Field, the principal editor of the St. Louis " Reville," was not the writer of the following story. Unlike his late brother " Poor Mat" better known as " Phazma" who recently died at sea, our friend " Joe" is full of fun and frolic, and ready to " go at any thing in the ring from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter !" When he became an editor by profession, the stage sustained a material loss. He was indeed one of " the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral- comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-his torical-pastoral, scene undividable, or poem unlimited." For several years he has been a contributor to the periodical press ; but quite re cently he has embarked in the enterprise of a new daily journal at St. Louis, which appears to have succeeded almost beyond his hopes. The annexed sketch is " a taste of the quality" of the " Revill6" and himself. AT a late hour, the other night, the door of an oyster house in our city was thrust open, and in stalked a hero from the Sucker state. He was quite six feet high, spare, somewhat stooped, with a hungry, anxious coun tenance, and his hands pushed clear down to the bot tom of his breeches pockets. His outer covering was hard to define, but after surveying it minutely, we came to the conclusion that his suit had been made in his boyhood, of a dingy yellow linsey-wolsey, and that, having sprouted up with astonishing rapidity, he had 80 SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE. 81 been forced to piece it out with all colours, in order to keep pace with his body. In spite of his exertions, however, he had fallen in arrears about a foot of the necessary length, and, consequently, stuck that far through his inexpressibles. His crop of hair was sur mounted by the funniest little seal-skin cap imaginable. After taking a position, he indulged in a long stare at the man opening the bivalves, and slowly ejaculated " isters ?" " Yes, sir," responded the attentive operator, " and fine ones they are, too." " Well, I've heard of isters afore," says he, " but this is the fust time I've seed 'm, and pre-haps I'll know what thar made of afore I git out of town. Having expressed this desperate intention, he cau tiously approached the plate and scrutinized the un cased shell-fish with a gravity and interest which would have done honour to the most illustrious searcher into the hidden mysteries of nature. At length he began to soliloquize on the difficulty of getting them out, and how queer they looked when out. "I never seed any thin' hold on so takes an amazin' site of screwin, hoss, to get 'em out, and aint they slick and slip'ry when they does come ? Smooth as an eel ! I've a good mind to "give that feller lodgin', jist to realize the effects, as uncle Jess used to say about speckalation." " Well, sir," was the reply, " down with two bits, and you can have a dozen." "Two bits!" exclaimed the Sucker, "now come that's stickin' it on rite strong, hoss, for isters. A dozen 82 SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE. on 'em aint nothin' to a chicken, and there's no gettin' more'n a picayune a piece for them. I've only realized forty-five picayunes on my first ventur' to St. Louis. I'll tell you what, I'll gin you two chickens for a dozen, if you'll conclude to deal." A wag, who was standing by indulging in a dozen, winked to the attendant to shell out, and the offer was accepted. " Now mind," repeated the Sucker, " all fair two chickens for a dozen you're a witness, mister," turn ing at the same time to the wag ; " none of your tricks, for I've heard that your city fellers are mity slip'ry coons." The bargain being fairly understood, our Sucker squared himself for the onset ; deliberately put off his seal-skin, tucked up his sleeves, and, fork in hand, awaited the appearance of No. 1. It came he saw and quickly it was bolted ! A moment's dreadful pause ensued. The wag dropped his knife and fork with a look of mingled amazement and horror something akin to Shakspeare's Hamlet on seeing his daddy's ghost while he burst into the exclamation " Swallowed alive, as I'm a Christian!" Our Sucker hero had opened his mouth with pleasure a moment before, but now it stood open. Fear a horrid dread of he didn't know what a consciousness that all was'nt right, and ignorant of the extent of the wrong the uncertainty of the moment was terrible. Urged to desperation, he faultered out " What on earth's the row?" " Did you swallow it alive ?" inquired the wag. "0 gracious! what'll I do! it's got hold of my innards already, and I'm dead M a chicken ! do somethin' for me, do don't let the internal sea-toad eat me afore your eyes." Page 85. SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE. 85 "I swallowed it jest as he gin it to me !" shouted the Sucker. " You're a dead man !" exclaimed his anxious friend, " the creature is alive, and will eat right through you," added he, in a most hopeless tone. "Get a pizen pump and pump it out!" screamed the Sucker, in a frenzy, his eyes fairly starting from their sockets. " O gracious ! what'ill I do ? It's got holds of my innards already, and I'm dead as a chick en ! do somethin' for me, do don't let the infernal sea-toad eat me afore your eyes." " Why don't you put some of this on it ?" inquired the wag, pointing to a bottle of strong pepper-sauce. The hint was enough the Sucker, upon the instant, seized the bottle, and desperately wrenching out the cork, swallowed half the contents at a draught. He fairly squealed from its effects, and gasped and blowed, and pitched, and twisted, as if it were coursing through him with electric effect, while at the same time his eyes ran a stream of tears. At length becoming a lit tle composed, his waggish adviser approached, almost bursting with suppressed laughter, and inquired, " How are you now old fellow did you kill it ?" " Well, I did, hoss' ugh, ugh o-o-o my inards. If that ister critter's dyin' agonies didn't stir a 'ruption in me equal to a small arthquake, then 'taint no use sayin' it it squirmed like a sarpent, when that killin' stuff touched it; hu' and here with a countenance made up of suppressed agony and present determina tion, he paused to give force to his words, and slowly 86 SWALLOWING AN OYSTER ALIVE. and deliberately remarked, "If you git two chickens from me for that live animal, I'm d d!" and seizing his seal-skin he vanished. The shout of laughter, and the contortions of the company at this finale, would have made a spectator believe that they had all been swallowing oysters alive. A TEXAN JOKER "IN A TIGHT PLACE." Some three or four years since there was a newspaper published in the city of Houston, yclept " The Texas Morning Star." To the best of our knowledge and belief we have neither seen it nor its editor, but we would walk five miles to shake hands with the writer of the following sketch of " Aquatic Scenery." As Kendall, the well known co-editor of the New-Orleans " Picayune" was in Texas at the time, making arrangements for the Santa Fe Expedition, we should be willing to take long odds he could tell us somthing about its authorship. DURING the utmost severity of the late storm we took a lounge down to the steamboat landing. While standing on the brink of a deep gully that emptied its torrent of water into the bayou, our attention was at tracted to the bottom of the gully, where a drunken loafer was stemming the torrent, holding on to a root fast anchored in the bank. The poor fellow, not know ing any on'e was near him, was combating his fate manfully, and in calculating his chance of escape, gave utterance to the following : " Haynt this a orful sitivation to be placed in, nohow? If I wos a steamboat, a rail, or a woodpile, I'd be better worth fifty cents on the dollar than I'll ever be agin. Unless I'm a gone case now, there haynt no 87 88 A fcEXAN JOKER truth in frenology. I've weighed all the chances now like a gineral, and find only two that bears in my fa vour ; the first is a skunk-hole to crawl into, and the second a special interpersition of Providence ; and the best chance of the two is so slim, if I only had the change, I'd give a premium for the skunk-hole them's my sentiments. If I could be a mink, a muskrat, or a water snake for about two months, prehaps I wouldn't mount the first stump t'other side of the Bio, and flap my wings, and crow over everlastin' life, scientifically preservated. But what's the use holdin' on this root ? there haynt no skunk hole in these 'ere diggins; the water is gitting taller about a feet, and if my nose was as long as kingdom come, it wouldn't stick out much longer. Oh, Jerry ! Jerry ! you're a gone sucker, and I guess your marm don't know you're out ; poor wo man ! won't she cry the glasses out of her spectacles when she hears her darlin' Jerry has got the whole of Bufferlo Bio for his coffin ? What a pity 'tis some philanthropis, or member of the humane society, never had foresight enough to build a house over this gutter, with a steam engine to keep out the water ! If they'd done it in time, they might have had the honour and gratification of saving the life of a feller being ; but it's all day with you, Jerry, and a big harbour to cast an chor in. It's too bad to go off in this orful manner, when they knows I oilers hated water ever since I was big enough to know 'twant whiskey. I feel the root givin' way, and since I don't know a prayer, here's a bit of Watts' Doxologer, to prove I died a Christian: "IN A TIGHT PLACE." 89 " ' On the bank where droop'd the wilier, Long time ago/ " Before Jerry got to the conclusion, he was washed into the bayou, within a few feet of a large flat that had iust started for the steamboat ; his eye caught the prospect of deliverance, and he changed the burden of his dirge into a thrilling cry of" Heave to ! passenger overboard and sinkin', with a belt full of specie ! the man what saves me makes his fortin!" Jerry was fished up by a darkey ! and to show his gratitude, in vited Quashey " to go up to the doggery and liquor." BILLY WAHRICK'S COURTSHIP AND WEDDING, A STORY OF "THE OLD NORTH STATE" BY A COUNTY COURT LAWYER. Within a hundred miles of Fayetteville, North Carolina, resides one of the most eminent members of the bar the "Tar River country" boasts of. Further, of his identity, "this deponent saith not." Those who have lingered over " A Trip to County Court, by a North Carolina Lawyer," which has gone the rounds of the press, will be somewhat surprised to learn that the " Spirit of the Times" was indebted to the same pen for that masterly sketch, and the following amusing story. CHAPTER I. CK IN DISTRESS. PINEY BOTTOM, in Old North State, Jinuary this 4, 1844. MR. PORTER SIR : Bein' in grate distrest, I didn't inow what to do, till one of the lawyers councilled me to tell you all about it, and git your apinion. You see I are a bin sparkin' over to one of our nabors a cortin of Miss Barbry Bass, nigh upon these six munse. So t'other nite I puts on my stork that cum up so high that I look'd like our Kurnel paradin of the milertary on Ginral Muster, tryin' to look over old Snap's years he holds sich a high hed when he knows that he's got on his holdsturs and pistuls and his trowsen and sich 90 BILLY WARRICK'S COURTSHIP. 91 like, for he's a mity proud hoss. I had on a linun shurt koller starched stif that cum up monstrus high rite un der my years, so that evry time I turn'd my hed it putty nigh savv'd off my years, and they are so sore that I had to put on sum Gray's intment, which dravv'd so hard, that if I hadn't wash'd it in sopesuds I do bleve it would a draw'd out my branes. I put on my new briches that is new fashon'd and opens down before, and it tuck me nigh on a quarter of a houre to butten em, and they had straps so tite I could hardly bend my kneas I had on my new wastecoat and a dicky bus- sam with ruffles on each side, and my white hat. I had to be perticlar nice in spittin' my terbaccer juce, for my stork were so high I had to jerk back my head like you have seed one of them Snapjack bugs. Con- sidrin' my wiskurs hadn't grow'd out long enuff, as I were conceety to think that I look'd middlin' peart, and my old nigger 'oman Venus said I look'd nice enuff for a Bryde. It tuck one bale of good cotting and six bushils of peese to pay for my close. Dod drot it, it went sorter hard ; but when I tho't how putty she did look last singin' school day, with her eyes as blue as indiger, and her teath white as milk, and sich long curlin' hare hanjrin' clear down to her belt ribbun, and sich butiful O rosy cheaks, and lips as red as a cock Red-burd in snow time, and how she squeased my hand when I gin her a oringe that I gin six cents for I didn't grudge the price. Mr. Porter when I got to old Miss Basses bars, jist after nite, sich streaks and cold fits cum over me 92 BILLY WARRICK'S \vorse than a feller with the Buck agur, the furst time he goes to shute at a dear. My kneas got to trimblin', and I could hardly holler "get out" to Miss Basses son Siah's Dog, old Troup, who didn't know mo in my new geer, and cum out like all creashun a barkin' amazin'. Ses I to myself, ses I, what a fool you is and then I thort what Squire Britt's nigger man Tony, who went to town last week, told me about a taler there, who sed that jist as soon he got thru a makin' a sute of close for a member of assembly to go to Rawley in, he 'spected to come out a cortin' of Miss Barbry. This sorter rased my dander for he's shockin' likely, with black wiskurs 'cept he's nock-nead with his hare all comded to one side like the Chapel Hill boys and law yers. Then I went in, and after howdy'ing and shakin' hands, and sorter squeasin' of Barbry's, I sot down. There was old Miss Bass, Barbry and Siah Bass, her brother, a monstrus hand at possums old Kurnel Hard, a goin to cort and stopp'd short to rite old Miss Basses will, with Squire Britt and one of the nabors to witness it all rite and strate. This kinder shock'd me till Kurnel Hard, a mighty perlite man, sed ses he, " Mr. Warrick, you are a lookin' oncommon smart." "Yes," ses I, "Kurnel, (a sorter cuttin' my eye at Barbry) middlin' well in body but in mind" " Ah, I see," ses he, (cuttin' of my discoorse) " I understand that you are" (Mr. Porter, I forget the Dixonary words he sed but it were that I were in love. If you could have s-eed my face and felt it burne, you would a tho't that you had the billyous fever and as for Bar bry, now want she red as a turkey cock's gills and " Then she tuck up her pipe and went to smokin' the way she rowl'd the mok out was astonwhin'." Pa0 93. COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 93 she gump'd up and said, "Ma'am," and run outer the room, tho' nobody on yearth that I heerd on called her and then I heerd Polly Cox 'drot her pictur ! who is hired to weeve a sniggrin at me. Arter a while, Squire Britt and the nabor went off and Siah ho went a Coonin' of it with his dogs, but driv old Troup back, for he's deth on Rabbits and old Miss Bass went out, and Kurnal Hard, arter taken a drink outen his cheer box, he got behin' the door and shuck'd himself and got into one of the beds in the fur eend of the room. Arter a while, old Miss Bass cum back, and sot in the chimbly corner and tuck off her shoes and then tuck up her pipe and went to smokin' the way she rowl'd the smoke out was astonishin' and evry now and then she struck her head and sorter gron'd like what it were at I don't know, 'cept she were bother'd 'bout her consarns or thinkin' bout her will which she had jist sined. Bimeby Barbry cum back, and sot on a cheer clost by me. She was a workin' of a border that look ed mity fine. Ses I, " Miss Barbry, what is that that you're seamstring so plagy putty?" Ses she, " it teent nothin'." Up hollered old Miss Bass, " Why," ses she, " Mr. Warrick, it's a nite cap, and what on the Lord's yearth young peple now a days works and laces and befrils nite caps fur / can't tell it beets me bediz- inin' out their heads when they're gwain to bed, just as if any body but their own peple seed 'em ; and there's young men with wiskurs on there upper lip, and briches upenin' before it want so in my day but young peo ple's got no sense bless the Lord oh-me" " Lord mammy," ses Barbry, " do hush." Ses old Miss Bass, 42 94 BILLY WARRICK'S " I shaant for its the nat'ral truth." I sorter look'd at my briches and Mr. Porter, I were struck into a heap for if two of my buttons want loose, so that one could see the eend of my factry homespun shurt ! I drap't my handkercher in my lap, and run my hand down and hapen'd to button it putty slick but it gin me sich a skeer I shall never ware another pare. Miss Barbry then begun a talkin' with me 'bout the fashuns, when I were in town, but old Miss Bass broke in, and ses she, " Yes, they tells me that the gals in town has injun rubber things blowed up and ties aroun' there wastes, and makes 'em look bigger behin' than afore for all the world like an 'oman was sorter in a curous way behind." Thinks I, what's comin 1 next when old Miss Bass, knockin' the ashes outer her pipe, gethered up her shuse and went off. Then Barbry blushed and begun talkin' bout the singin' meetin', and kinder teched me up bout bein' fond of sparkin' Dicey Loomis jist to see how I'd take it. " Well," ses I, " she's bout the likeliest gal in this settlement, and I rekon mity nigh the smartest they tells me she kin spin more cuts in a day, and card her own rolls, and danse harder and longer, and sing more songs outer the Missunary Harmony, than any gal in the country." You see Mr. Porter, I thot I'd size her pile. Ses she sorter poutin' up and jist tossin her head " If thems your sentiments, why don't you cort her for my part I knows sevral young ladies that's jist as smart and can sing as many songs and dance as well and as for her bein' the prettiest Laws a Mersy ! sher you shouldn't judge for me sposin' /was a man!" COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 95 I thot I'd come agin, but was sorter feard of runnin' the thing in the groun'. Then I drawd up my cheer a leetle closer, and were jist about to talk to the spot, when I felt choky, and the trimbles tuck me uncommon astonishin'. Ses Barbry, lookin' rite up in my face, and 'sorter quivrinin her talk ses she, "Mr. Warrick, goodness gracious, what does ale you ?" Ses I, hardly abel to talk, " It's that drotted three day agur I cotch'd last fall a clearin' in the new grouns I raly bleve it will kill me, but it makes no odds, daddy and mammy is both ded, and I'm the only one of six as is left, and nobody would kear." Ses she lookin' rite mornful, and holdin' down her lied " Billy, what does make you talk so ? you auter know that there's one that would kear and greve too." Ses I, peartin up, " I should like to know if it ar an 'oman for if its any gal that's spectable and creddittable, I could love her like all creashun. Barbry," ses I, takin of her hand, " aint I many a time, as I sot by the fire at home, all by my lone self, aint I considerd how if I did have a good wife how I could work for her, and do all I could for her, and make her pleasant like and happy, and do evry thing for her ?" Well, Barbry she look'd up to me, and seemed so mornful and pale, and tears in her sweet eyes, and pretendin' she didn't know I held her hand, that I could not help sayin' " Barbry, if that sumbody that keard was only you, I'd die for you, and be burryd a dozen times." She trimbld, and look'd so pretty, and sed nothin' I couldn't help kissin' her, and seem' she didn't say " quit," I kissed her nigh on seven or eight times; and as old Miss Bass had gone to bed, and Kur- 96 BILLY WARRICK'S nel Hard was a snorin' away, I want perticillar, and I spose I kissed her too loud, for jist as I kissed her the last time, out hollered old Miss Bass, " My lord ! Barbry, old Troup is in the milk-pan ! I heerd him smackin his lips a lickin of the milk. Git out, you old varmint ! git out !" Seein' how the gander hopped, I jumped up, and hollered " Git out, Troup, you old raskel !" and opened the door to make bleve I let him out. As for Barbry, she laffed till she was nigh a bustin' a holdin' in, and run out ; and I heerd Kurnel Hardy's bed a shakin' like he had my three day agur. Well, I took tother bed, after havin' to pull my britches over my shuse, for I couldn't unbut- ten my straps. Next mornin I got up airly, and Siah axed me to stay to breakfast, but I had to feed an old cow at the free pastur, and left. Jist as I got to the bars, I meets old Miss Bass, and ses she, " Mr. Warrick, next time you see a dog a lickin up milk, don't let him do it loud enuff to wake up evry body in the house perticerlar when there's a stranger bout." And Barbry sent me word that she's so shamed that she never kin look me in the face agin, and never to come no more. Mr. Porter, what shall I do ? I feel oncommon sorry and distrest. Do write me. I seed a letter from N. P. Willis tother day in the Nashunal Intelligensur where he sed he nad a hedake on the top of his pen ; I've got it at both eends, for my hands is crampped a writin, and my hart akes. Do write me what to do. No more at pressence, but remane WM. WARRICK. COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 97 CHAPTER II. W A R R I C K IN LUCE. " I'd orfen heerd it said ob late, Dat Norf Carolina was de state, Whar hansome boys am bound to slime, Like Dandy Jim of de Caroline." Etc. PINEY BOTTOM, in Old North State, March 21, this 1844. MR. PORTER, I rode three mile evry Satterdy to git a letter outer the Post Offis, spectin' as how you had writ me a anser ; but I spose what with Pineter dogs, and bosses, and Kricket, and Boxin', and Texas, Tre- bla, and three Fannys, and Acorns, and Punch in per- ticlar, you hain't had no time. I'm glad your Speerit is revivin' ; so is mine, and, as the boy sed to his mam my, I hopes to be better acquainted with you. Well, I got so sick in my speerits and droopy like, that I thot I should ev died stone ded, not seein' of Barbry for three weeks. So one evenin' I went down, spectin' as how old Miss Bass had gone to Sociashun, for she's mity religus, and grones shockin' at prayers to hear two prechers from the Sanwitch Hans, where they tells me the peple all goes naked which is comi- kil, as factry homespun is cheap, and could afford to kiver themselves at nine cent a yard. When I went in, there sot old Miss Bass and old Miss Collis a- smokin' and chattin' amazin'. I do think old Miss Collis beats all natur at smokin'. Old Miss Collis had on her Sundy frock, and had it draw'd up over her kneas to keep from skorchin', and her pettykoats rased tolerble high as she sot over the 98 BILLY WARRICK'" fire to be more comfortabler like, but when she seed me she drop'd 'em down, and arter howd'ying and civerlizin' each other I sot down, but being sorter flusti- cated like, thinkin' of that skrape, last time I was here, about old Troup lickin' of the milk, and my briches that is open before comin' unbotten'd and showin' the eend of my sheert, I didn't notis perticlar where I sot. So I sot down in a cheer where Barbry had throw'd down her work (when she seed me comin' at the bars) and run and her nedle stuck shockin' in my into me, and made me jump up oncomtnon and hollered ! I thought old Miss Collis woulder split wide open a laffin', and old Miss Bass like to a busted, and axed my parding for laffin', and I had to give in, but it was laffin' on t'other side, and had to rub the place. Arter a while we got done but it looked like I had bad luck, for in sittin' down agin I lik'd to have sot on Barbry's torn cat, which if I had, I shoulder bin like* Kurnel Zip Coon's wife, who jump'd into a holler log to mash two young panters to deth, and they scratched her so bad she couldn't set down for two munse! I seed this 'ere in a almynack. Old Miss Bass seein' I was bothered, axed me to have a dram, but I thank'd her, no. Ses she, " Mr. Warrick, you ain't one of the Tem- prite Siety ?" Ses I, " No, but I hain't got no casion, at presence '" Ses she, " You is welcome." Well, we chatted on some time 'bout prechin, and mumps, and the measly oitment, and Tyler gripes, and Miss Collis she broke out and sod COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 99 " T never did hear the beat of them Tyler gripes ! I have hearn talk of all sorter gripes, and dry gripes, and always thought that the gripes was in the stomic, before now, but bless your soul, Miss Bass, this here gripes is in the hed ! I told my old man that no good would come of 'lectin' Tyler, but poor old creeter, he's sorter hard-headed, and got childish, and would do it. O! me? well, we're all got to come to it and leve this world ! Bless the Lord ! I hope I'm ready !" And then she struck her hed, and spit out her ter- baccer juce as slick as a Injun. "That's a fact," ses old Miss Bass, " you're right, Miss Collis ; old men gits uncommon stubborn ; a hard, mity hard time, I had with my old man. But he's ded and gone ! I hope he's happy !" and they both groan ed and shet their eyes, and pucked up their mouths. Ses she " He got mity rumitys and troubled me pow erful, and the old creetur tuck astonishin' of dokter's stuff, and aleckcampane and rose of sublimit but he went at last ! The Lord's will be done ! Skat ! you stinkin' hussy, and come out of that kibbard !" ses she to the cat " I do think cats is abominable, and that tom-cat of Barbry's is the 'scheviousest cat I ever did see!" Ses Miss Collis, " Cats is a pest, but a body can't do well without 'em ; the mice would take the house bo dily," ses she ; " Miss Bass, they tells me that Dicey Loomis is a-gwying to be married her peple was in town last week, and bort a power of things and arty- fishals, and lofe sugar, and ribbuns, and cheese, and sich like !" 100 BILLY WARRIOR'S " Why," ses Miss Bass, " you don't tell me so ! Did I ever hear the beat o' that ! Miss Collis, are it a fact!" " Yes," ses Miss Collis, " it's the nat'ral truth, for brother Bounds tell'd it to me at last class meetin'." Ses Miss Bass, hollerin' to Barbry in t'other room, * Barbry, do you hear that Dicey Loomis is gwying to git married ? Well ! well ! it beats me ! bless the Lord ! I wonder who she's gwying to git married to, Miss Collis?" Ses Miss Collis, " Now, child, yure too hard for me ; but they do say it's to that Taler from Town. Well, he's a putty man, and had on such a nice dress 'cept he's most too much nock nead, sick eyes and sick whiskers, and now don't he play the fiddle ?" Ses Miss Bass " Well, Dicey is a middlin' peart gal, but for my part I don't see what the taler seed in her." " Nor I nuther," ses Miss Collis," but she's gwine to do well. I couldn't a sed no if he'd a axed for our Polly." " Then in comes Barbry, and we how-dy'd and both turned sorter red in the face, and I trimbl'd tolerable and felt agurry. Well, arter we talk'd a spell, all of us, Miss Bass got up and ses she, " Miss Collis I want to show you a nice passel of chickens ; our old speckled hen come off with eleven, yisterdy, as nice as ever you did see." Then old Miss Collis riz up, and puttin' her hands on her hips, and stratened like, and ses, right quick " Laws a massy ! my poor back ! Drat the rumatics ! COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 101 It's powerful bad ; it's gwyne to rain, I know ! oh, me ! me !" and they both went out. Then Barbry look'd at me so comikil and sed, Billy, I raly shall die thinkin' of you and old Troup !" and she throw'd her self back and laffed and laffed ; and she look'd so putty and so happy ses I to myself, " Billy Warrick, you must marry that gal and no mistake, or brake a trace !" and I swore to it. Well, we then talk'd agreeable like, and sorter saft, and both of us war so glad to see one another till old Miss Bass and Miss Collis come back ; and bimeby Miss Collises youngest son come for her, and I helped her at the bars to get up behin' her son, and ses she, " Good bye, Billy ! Good luck to you ! I know'd your daddy and mammy afore you was born on yerth, and I was the fust one after your granny that had you in the arms me and Miss Bass talked it over! you'll git a smart, peart, likely gal! So good bye, Billy !" Ses I, " Good bye, Miss Collis," and ses I, " Gooly, take good kear of your mammy, my son !" You see I thot Fd be perlite. Well, when I went back there sot old Miss Bass, and ses she, " Billy ! Miss Collis and me is a bin talk- in' over you and Barbry, and seein' you are a good karickter and smart, and well to do in the world, and a poor orphin boy, I shan't say no ! Take her, Billy, and be good to her, and God bless you, my son, for I'm all the mammy you've got !" so she kiss'd me, and ses she, " now kiss Barbry. We've talk'd it over, and leave us now for a spell, for it's hard to give up my child!" So I kiss'd Barbry and left. 102 BILLY WARRIOR'S The way I rode home was oncommon peart, and my old mare pranced and was like the man in skriptur who " waxed fat and kickd," and I hurried home to tell old Venus, and to put up three shotes and some turkies to fatten for the innfare. Mr. Porter, it's to be the third Wensday in next month, and Barbry sends you a ticket and if it's a boy, I shall name it arter you hopin' you will put it in your paper that is, the weddin'. So wishin' you a heap of subskribers, I remane in good helth and speerits at presence. Your Friend, WM. WARRICK. CHAPTER III. WARRICK'S WEDDING. Described in a letter by an " old flame" of his. To Miss Polly Stroud, nigh Noxvil in the State of Tennysee, clost by where the French Broad and Holsin jines. Piney Bottom, this July 9, of 1844. Miss Polly Stroud dere maddam. I now take my pen in hand of the presence oppertunity to let you know how we are all well, but I am purry in sperits hopin this few lines may find you the same by gods mercy as I have been so mortyfide I could cry my eyes out bodily. Bill Warrick, yes Bill Warrick, is married to Bar bry Bass ! I seed it done a mean trifllin, deceevinist creetur but never mind Didnt I know him when we went to old field skool a little raggid orflin Boy, with nobody to patch his close torn behin a makin of a dicky-dicky- dout of himself cause his old nigger oman COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 103 Venus was too lazy to mend em ? Didnt I know him when he couldnt make a pot hook or a hanger in his copy book to save his life, as for makin of a S he al ways put it tother way, jist so g backwards. And then to say I were too old for him and that he always con ceited I was a sort of a sister to him ! O Polly Stroud, he is so likely, perticlar when he is dressed up of a Sunday or a frolick and what is worser his wife is prutty too, tho I dont acknowlige it here. Only too think how I doated on him, how I used to save bosim blossoms for him, which some people call sweet sentid shrubs and how I used to put my hand in an pull them out for him, and how I used to blush when he sed they was sweeter for comin from where they did ? Who went blackberryin and huckleberryin with me? who always rode to preechun with me and helped me on the hos? who made Pokebery stains in dimons and squares and circles and harts and so on at quiltins for me ? and talkin of Poke I do hope to fathers above that Poke will beat Clay jist to spite Bill, for he is a rank dis tracted Whig and secreterry to the Clay Club who always threaded my nedle and has kissed me in perticler, in playin of kneelin to the wittyist, bowin to the puttyist, and kissin of them you love best, and playin Sister Feebe, and Oats, Peas-Beans and Barly grows at least one hundred times? Who wated as candil holder with me at Tim Bolins weddin, and sed he knowd one in the room hed heap rather marry, and looked at me so un common, and his eyes so blue that I felt my face burn for a quarter of a hour ? who I do say was it but Bill Warrick yes, and a heap more. If I havent a grate 104 BILLY WARRICK'S mind to sue him, and would do it, if it wasnt I am feared bed show a Voluntine I writ to him Feberary a year ago. He orter be exposed, for if ever he is a widderer hell fool somebody else the same way he did me. Its a burnin shame, I could hardly hold my head up at the weddin. If I hadnt of bin so mad and too proude to let him see it I could of cried severe. Well, it was a nice weddin sich ice cakes and mi- nicies and rasins and oringis and hams, flour doins and chickin fixins, and four oncommon fattest big goblers rosted I ever seed. The Bryde was dressed in a white muslin figgured over a pink satin pettycote, with white gloves and satin shoes, and her hair a curlin down with a little rose in it, and a chain aroun her neck. I dont know whether it was raal gool or plated. She looked butiful, and Bill did look nice, and all the candydates and two preechers and Col. Hard was there, and Bills niggers, the likeliest nine of them you ever looked at, and when I did look at em and think, I raly thought I should or broke my heart. Well, sich kissin several of the gals sed that there faces burnt like fire, for one of the preechers and Col. Hard wosnt shaved clost. Bimeby I was a sittin leanin back, and Bill he come behin me and sorter jerked me back, and skeared me powerful for fear I was fallin backwards, and I skreamed and kicked up my feet before to ketch like, and if I hadnt a had on pantalets I reckon somebody would of knowd whether I gartered above my knees or not. We had a right good laff on old Parson Brown as he got through a marryin of em says he, "I pronounce you, William Warrick and Barbry Bass, man and oman," COURTSHIP AND WEDDING. 105 ho did look so when we laffed, and he rite quick sed " man and wife salute your Bryde," and Bill looked horrid red, and Barbry trimbled and blushed astonishin severe. Well, its all over, but I dont keer theres as good fish in the sea as ever come outen it. Im not poor for the likes of Bill Warrick, havin now three sparks, and one of them from Town, whose got a good grocery and leads the Quire at church outer the Suthern Harmony, the Missonry Harmony is gone outer fashion. Unkle Ben's oldest gal Suky is gwine to marry a Virginny tobacker roler, named Saint George Drum- mon, and he says he is a kin to Jack Randolf and Po- kerhuntus, who they is the Lord knows. Our Jack got his finger cut with a steal trap catchin of a koon for a Clay Club, and the boys is down on a tar raft, and ole Miss Collis and mammy is powerful rumatic, and the measly complaint is amazin. I jist heard you have got two twins agin that limestone water must be astonish- in curyous in its affects. What is the fashuns in Ten- nysee, the biggist sort of Bishups is the go here. My love to your old man, your friend. NANCY GUITON. Old Miss Collis and mammy is jist come home. Betsy Bolin is jist had a fine son and they say she is a doin as well as could be expected, and the huckleberry crop is short on account of the drouth. A BULLY BOAT . AND A BRAG CAPTAIN. A STORT OF STEAMBOAT LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI BY SOL. SMITH. One of the oldest and assuredly one of the best correspondents the " Spirit of the Times" ever boasted of, is the writer of the story which follows. " Old Sol," as he is familiarly termed, has been, in the course of his eventful life, " every thing by turns," but unlike many " a Jack of all trades" he is really " good at anything." As editor, manager, preacher, or lawyer, he has not only commanded success but deserved it. For many years he has been associated with Mr. Ludlow in the management of the Mobile, New Orleans, and St. Louis theatres. Within a few weeks he has been admitted to practice as an attorney and counsellor at law "in all the Courts of the state of Missouri." We will only add that we wish him in brief, lots of practice. DOES any one remember the Caravan ? She was what would now be considered a slow boat ; then [1827] she was regularly advertised as the "fast running," etc. Her regular trips from New Orleans to Natchez were usually made in from six to eight days ; a trip made by her in five days was considered remarkable. A voyage from New Orleans to Vicksburg and back, including stoppages, generally entitled the officers and crew to a month's wages. Whether the Caravan ever achieved the feat of a voyage to the Falls, (Louisville,) I have never learned; if she did, she must have "had a time of it!" 106 A BRAG CAPTAIN. 107 It was my fate to take passage in this boat. Tho Captain was a good-natured, easy-going man, careful of the comfort of his passengers, and exceedingly fond of the game of brag.* We had been out a little more than five days, and we were in hopes of seeing the bluffs of Natchez on the next day. Our wood was getting lo\v, and night coming on. The pilot on duty above, (the other pilot held three aces at the time, and was just calling out the Captain, who " went it strong" on three kings,) sent down word that the mate had reported the stock of wood reduced to half a cord. The worthy Cap tain excused himself to the pilot whose watch was below, and the two passengers who made up the party, and hurried to the deck, where he soon discovered, by the landmarks, that we were about half a mile from a wood- yard, which he said was situated " right round yonder point." " But," muttered the Captain, " I don't much like to take wood of the yellow-faced old scoundrel who owns it he always charges a quarter of a dollar more than any one else ; however, there's no other chance." The boat was pushed to her utmost, and, in a little less than an hour, when our fuel was about giving out, we made the point, and our cables were out and fastened to trees, alongside of a good-sized wood-pile. " Hollo, Colonel ! how d'ye sell your wood this time?" A yellow-faced old gentleman, with a two weeks' beard, strings over his shoulders holding up to his arm pits a pair of copperas-coloured linsey-woolsey pants, the * It must be recollected, that the incidents here related, took place seventeen years ago. Within the last ten years, although I have travel led en hundreds of boats, I have nnt teen an officer of a boat play a card. G 108 A BULLY BOAT legs of which reached a very little below the knee; shoes without stockings ; a faded, broad-brimmed hat, which had once been black, and a pipe in his mouth casting a glance at the empty guards of our boat, and uttering a grunt as he rose from fastening our " spring line," answered, " Why, Capting, we must charge you three and a quarter THIS time" "The d 11" replied the Captain (Captains did swear a little in those days) " what's the odd quarter for, I should like to know 1 You only charged me three as I went down." " Why, Capting," drawled out the wood-merchant, with a sort of leer on his yellow countenance, which clearly indicated that his wood was as good as sold, " wood's riz since you went down two weeks ago ; be sides, you are awar that you very seldom stop going down; when you're going up, you're sometimes oblee- ged to give me a call, becaze the current's aginst you, and there's no other wood-yard for nine miles ahead ; and if you happen to be nearly out of fooel, why" " Well, well," interrupted the Captain, " we'll take a few cords, under the circumstances" and he return ed to his game of brag. In about half an hour we felt the Caravan commence paddling again. Supper was over, and I retired to my upper berth, situated alongside and overlooking the brag-table, where the Captain was deeply engaged, having now the other pilot as his principal opponent. We jogged on quietly and seemed to be going at a good rate. AND A BRAG CAPTAIN. 109 " How does that wood burn ?" inquired the Captain of the mate, who was looking on at the game. " 'Tisn't of much account, I reckon," answered the mate " it's cotton-wood, and most of it green at that." " Well, Thompson (three aces, again, stranger I'll take that X and the small change, if you please it's your deal) Thompson, I say, we'd better take three or four cords at the next wood-yard it can't be more than six miles from here (two aces and a bragger, with the age ! hand over those Vs.") The game went on and the paddles kept moving. At 11 o'clock, it was reported to the Captain that we were nearing the wood-yard, the light being distinctly seen by the pilot on duty. " Head her in shore, then, and take in six cords, if it's good see to it, Thompson, I can't very well leave the game now it's getting right warm ! This pilot's beating us all to smash." The wooding completed, we paddled on again. The Captain seemed somewhat vexed, when the mate in formed him that the price was the same as at the last wood-yard three and a quarter; but soon again became interested in the game. From my upper berth (there was no state-rooms then) I could observe the movements of the players. All the contention appeared to be between the Captain and the pilots, (the latter personages took it turn and turn about, steering and playing brag,) one of them almost invaria bly winning, while the two passengers merely went through the ceremony of dealing, cutting, and paying up their " antics" They were anxious to learn the game 43 110 A BULLY BOAT and they did learn it ! Once in awhile, indeed, see ing they had two aces and a bragger, they would ven ture a bet of five or ten dollars, but they were always compelled to back out before the tremendous bragging of the Captain or pilot or if they did venture to "call out" on " two bullits and a bragger," they had the mor- lification to find one of the officers had the same kind of a hand, and were more venerable ! Still, with all these disadvantages, they continued playing they wanted to learn the game. At 2 o'clock, the Captain asked the mate how we were getting on ? " Oh, pretty glibly, sir," replied the mate, " we can scarcely tell what headway we are making, for we are obliged to keep the middle of the river, and there is the shadow of a fog rising. This wood seems rather better than that we took in at old yellow-face's, but we're nearly out again, and must be looking out for more. I saw a light just ahead on the right shall we hail?" " Yes, yes," replied the Captain, " ring the bell and ask 'em what's the price of wood up here ? I've got you again ; here's double kings." I heard the bell and the pilot's hail : " What's your price for wood ?" A youthful voice on the shore answered : " Three and a quarter !" " D n it !" ejaculated the Captain, who had just lost the price of two cords to the pilot the strangers suffering some at the same time " Three and a quarter again ! Are we never to get to a cheaper country ? deal, sir, if you please better luck next time." The other pilot's voice was again heard on deck AND A BRAG CAPTAIN. Ill " How much have you ?" " Only about ten cords, sir," was the reply of the youthful salesman. The Captain here told Thompson to take six cords, which would last till daylight and again turned his attention to the game. The pilots here changed places. When did they sleep ? Wood taken in, the Caravan again took her place in the middle of the stream, paddling on as usual. Day at length dawned. The brag-party broke up, and settlements were being made, during which opera tion the Captain's bragging propensities were exercised in cracking up the speed of his boat, which, by his reckoning, must have made at least sixty miles, and would have made many more, if he could have procur ed good wood. It appears the two passengers, in their first lesson, had incidentally lost one hundred and twenty dollars. The Captain, as he rose to see about taking in some good wood, which he felt sure of obtaining, now he had got above the level country, winked at his opponent, the pilot, with whom he had been on very bad terms during the progress of the game, and said, in an under-tone, " Forty a-piece for you and I and James ^the other pilot) is not bad for one night." I had risen, and went out with the Captain, to enjoy a view of the bluffs. There was just fog enough to prevent the vision taking in more than sixty yards so I was disappointed in my expectation. We were near- ing the shore for the purpose of looking for wood, the banks being invisible from the middle of the river. " There it is !" exclaimed the Captain, " stop her !" 112 A BULLY BOAT. Ding ding ding ! went the big bell, and the Cap tain hailed : Hollo ! the wood-yard !" "Hollo yourself!" answered a squeaking female voice, which came from a woman with a petticoat over her shoulders in place of a shawl. " What's the price of wood ?" " I think you ought to know the price by this time," answered the old lady in the petticoat " it's three and a qua-a-rter ! and now you know it." " Three and the d 1 !" broke in the Captain what, have you raised on your wood too ! I'll give you three, and not a cent more." " Well," replied the petticoat, " here comes the old man he'll talk to you." And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat, copperas-coloured pants, yellow countenance and two weeks' beard we had seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regu lating the price of cotton-wood squeaked out the follow ing sentence, accompanied by the same leer of the same yellow countenance ; " Why darn it all, Capting, there is but three or four cords left, and since ifs you, I don't care if I do let you have it for three as you're a good customer!" After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and turned in to take some rest. The fact became apparent the reader will probably have discovered it some time since that we had been wooding all night at the same wood-yard ! LETTER FROM BILLY PATTERSON HIMSELF. " Wlio hit Billy Patterson?" The following letter gives the very latest intelligence of the where abouts and "condition" of Mr. William Patterson an individual whose fame is as imperishable as that of" The Man with the Claret- coloured Coat," so renowned as the assailant of the New York Arse nal, and " My son George and the Carpenter." Mr. Patterson is the individual who was so brutally assaulted some time ago, and it will be seen that in the following letter (addressed to the New Orleans " Republican") he feelingly and delicately alludes to that " vilent bio reseaved long sense by some anonymus person." It may be pro per to state, by way of explanation of the cause which has brought Mr. Patterson himself before the public, over his own signature, thac there has lately been a great excitement at New Orleans about a Witch, who, it is alleged, has been seen thereabouts, meditating mis chief. N. Orleans jun 7. RE SPEXTID SUR. Owen to a vilent bio reseaved long sense by some anonymus person, by witch rooma- tiz tuk place in the eppygastrum and the hoptic nurve was hyly diskolor'd, comin nigh to subjectin yores truly to a Panefull post mortum opperrashun and a vilent hurtopsey i was kumpelled to 4 go a mixture with Publik effares and konfine myself to Silense and Diet on less i Wanted to make a Die of it to yuse a vul- gerism. I now ressom the pen so's to nudge the Pub lik mind on a Grave preposition. Here it Is. Ken 115 116 LETTER FROM BILLY PATTERSON. witchkraft flurrish in an intelligent age ? I holed the convurs of the fact but some Go it Strong on the opper- sition, and they sa that the witch witch was taken Up down in the Furst was a Boner fidey sprigg of the old Boy himselff. Now sais i wares yure prufe. Ken enny body ride a Steepel chase on a brume Handel ceptin the flyin Bird man, and He coudent. Wos evur enny wun knone to jump out of thare Skin, as roomer ses this witch did, ceptin a poor man that had a fortin left to Him, witch Dont komonly happen. Agin they say this witch went into the worter, wareas we all Kno that witches hate worter like Pizen and never so much as wosh theirselves, and the Salem fokes went so fur as to souse em in the Hoss pond when tha was suspected of puttin the devil into thare naburs ship and lams, witch went agin thar feelins wuss than Enny thing tha could do to em. So the worter biziness wont Go down no more than twill down a drunkerds throte. Now conollogy tells us that witchcraft has been nocked into a cock'd Hat ever sense the time of old King Joemes of Ingland, and Krumwill. McBeth upset their pot of potaturs for em in the Woods wun day as Billy Shakes Pear tells us, for witch tha turned round and give him pertikler Jessy; but littery men knoes that wos a licens of Potry and no sitch thing more Over didn't the Wizerd of the noth, old Walter Skott, who had a Feller feelin with the witches, rite a book to kwyit em. Tha aint no witches that's the way tc tell it ! But wots a Staggerer is this here clearviants and seein thru stun Wolls wen a man's in a Stait of Sum- LETTER FBOM BILLY PATTERSON. 117 nambei lism aint it the Dooty of the orthoryties to Sea weather thare aint No witcherry in that. Wy aint Mr. Bonnyvilly, Mr. Webbster, and Mr. Bontown, and all the other gentlemen that goes it strong on wusser can- ticoes than ever the witches Did, why aint they, i repit, horld over the Coles. Wy dont the lor Do its Dooty without fear or affexshun, and knot make a Silk puss of wun and a sows ere of tother. But mebby it will be kontended that our Statties haint no claws agin wizerds, but if pullin a stubburn Snag out of a man's jor and he not knoin its out aint wuth sich a claws, then tare me off and Burn me ! thay'll be Nock in a man's Hed off wile in a Mag Nettick state and plasterin it on agin afore he's brot to, bim by, and wuns ennymis will mes- mureys Him stock still in the streat when he darts Out in a hurre to pa a Note in the bank, and thare will be no End to the misschif that will B en Tailed, i sa them's em tha ort to be sket Up and med to kwit put- tin spells and witch gammon on the kommunety. paper bein out, No more til a futur pearioud. I re- mane yures with a rakkin pane in the sholder witch i hev ben trubbled with Ever sence my Ruffinly a salt W. PATTERSON. A SWIM FOR A DEEB. A MISSISSIPPI STOR Y B Y THE ' k TURKEY RUNXE R." Like "N. of Arkansas," Thorpe, Noland, Winslow, McClure, Ains- worth, and others, the writer of the following sketch made his debut before the world of letters in the New- York " Spirit of the Times." He is nearly connected with a late governor of one of the principal cotton-growing states ; and under the signature of" The Turkey Run ner,"* his original sketches of life and manners in the south-west have made him a formidable rival of the author of " Tom Owen the Bee Hunter." His two favourite characters, who figure in almost all his hunting stories, are "Jim" and " Chunkey." The latter, poor fellow, is now no more, having died very suddenly, recently, in his thirty-fifth year, at the plantation of ex-governor McNutt, in Missis sippi. His name was James W. Wofford. He is said to have been. a warm-hearted, generous and inoffensive man, and a keen sports man. His only faults grew out of his social disposition ; but he pos sessed so many virtues and good qualities, that the wide circle of his acquaintance could have better spared a better man. In the follow ing story Jim recounts to the writer a hunting incident, in which * In the barren lands of the South, during the autumn, from the fall- <Gg nut and ripening berry the turkeys not unfrequently become so fat as to be unable to fly any distance ; it is then the " Turkey Runner," who is also a bee and still hunter, sallies forth in quest of a drove, from which he selects some master spirit, and flushes him he very leisurely follows, desirous of tiring him by his flights until he is unable longer to fly; then the turkey runner lets out and exhibits a turn of speed as tonishing to the turkey. This is continued until he secures as many as he wants, when he makes for the nearest creek or spring branch when, after quenching his thirst, he watches for the honey-bee, takes his "bee line," and follows for half a mile, examining critically every tree until he detects the swarm issuing from some knot or gnarled trunk, then returns and tries for another, or seeks his cabin, as inclina tion prompts. 118 A SWIM FOR A DEER. 119 Chunkey and himself took part. They were both employed by Go vernor McNutt on a remote plantation of his on the Sunflower river, in a perfect wilderness. Here the events related below occurred. "YES, Capting, they war lower, I tell you why, God bless your soul, honey, they war not only powerful thick, but some on 'em war as big as common-sized horses, I do reckon ; 'cause why, nobody ever had hunted 'em, you see. In the winter time the overflow, and in the summer time the lakes and snakes, bayous and alliga tors, musketoes and gallinippers, buffalo gnats and sand flies, with a small sprinkle of the agur and a per fect cord of congestive, prevented the Ingins from gvvine through the country ! Oh no ; the red skins would rather hunt the fat turkey and deer in the Azoo hills and pine lands t'other side of the Pearl river, to killin' fat bar on the Creek or Sunflower." " Well, Jim, I think they were right ; you must then have been among the first hunters in the country." " Yes, I do reckon when I first went into that coun try, from the Azoo Hills to the Mississippi, there never had been but mighty few hunters. Why thar ar places thar now whar the deer ar tame as sheep, and whar the bar don't care a dam for nobody ! Fact ! ask Chunkey !" " That is very remarkable ; what is the cause!" " 'Cause they've never been hunted ; no, sir ; never hearn the crack of a rifle nor the yelp of a dog ; why thar ar more nor a hundred lakes and brakes in them diggins, that hain't never been pressed by no mortfil 'ceptin' varmints. You know more nor half the coun try is overflowed in the winter, and t'other half, whica 120 A SWIM FOR A DEER. is a darned sight the biggest, is covered with cane, pal metto and other fixins ; why it stands to reason, and in course no man ever had hunted 'em. Why, sir, when I first went to the Creek" "Let the Creek run, Jim ; tell us about the bear !" "Well, sir, the bar war very promiscuous indeed, and some of the old hees war mighty mellifluous, I tell you. I had no sens about bar then, but thar warn't no cabin or camp in the whole settlement, and in course I soon larnt thar natur by livin' 'mongst 'em. A bar, Capting, an old he bar, ain't no candidate or other good-natured greenhorn to stand gougin' and treating. Oh no, he ain't, but he's as rarnstugenous an animal as a log-cabin loafer in the dog days, jist about, and if a stranger fools with him he'll get sarved like that white gal what come into my settlement." "How was that, Jim?" " Why perfectly ruinated, as Buck Brien says." "X ou don't mean to say Jim, that you" " Yes, dam'd if I diddent. Ask Chunkey, or" " Oh, I am satisfied with the girl. Go on with the bear." "Well, let's licker (after drinking) a bar is a consaity animal, but as far as his sens do go he's about as smart as any other animal ; arter that, the balance is clear fat and fool. I have lived 'mongst 'em, and know ther natur. I have killed as many as seven in a day, and smartly to the rise of sixty in a season. Arter I'd been on the Creek about two months, up comes the Governor and Chunkey ; the Governor 'tended like he wanted to see how I come on with the clearin' ; but. A SWIM FOR A DEER. 121 sir, he were arter a spree, and I knoe'd it, or wTiy did he bring' Chunkey? Every thing looked mighty well; the negers looked fat and slick as old Belcher in catfish season. I'd done cut more nor two hundred acres of cane, and had the rails on the ground. I'd done" " Come, Jim, keep the track !" " Well, Capting, they war mighty savagerous arter likkcr; they'd been fightin' the stranger* mightly comin' up, and war perfectly wolfish arter some har of the dog, and dam'd the drop did I have ; so I started two negers with mules and jugs to the pint (Princeton, Washington county,) and the ox team arter a barrel. Well, sir, the day arter, the jugs come, and we darted on 'em, (giving a sigh) but lord, what war two jugs in sick a crowd ? They jist kept Chunkey from dyin', as he was so dry he had the rattles ; next day the barrel come, and then we &rae-ovienned up to it in airnest. You know what kind of man Chunkey is when he gits started if he commences talkin', singin', or whistlin', no matter which, you'd jist as well try and stop the Mississippi as him. Why I've knoed him to whistle three days and three nights on a stretch, the Gover nor couldent eat nor drink for Chunkey's whistlin', and at last he gits mad, and that's the last thing he does with any body what he likes, and, says he to Chunkey "'Chunkey, you have kept me awake two nights a whistlin, and you must stop it to night, or you or me must quit the plantation.'" * A barrel of whiskey is called a " stranger," from the fact that it it brought from a distance, there being none made in the country. 122 A SWIM FOR A DEER. " ' Chunkey said, ' Governor I don't want to put you to no trouble, but I can't stop in the middle of a chune, and as you have known the plantation longer than me, I expect you can leave it with lest trouble.' " The Governor jist roar'd, and gin Chunkey a new gun and" " Stop, Jim, you have forgot the bear." " Well, whar was I, Capting-^oh, I remember, now! Well, when the barrel come we did lumber ; Chunkey he soon commenced singin', and I to thinkin' about that white gal. We went on that way nigh a week, and then cooled off. One mornin', I and Chunkey had gone down to the creek to git a bait of water, and I knoed the bar would be thar, as it war waterin' time with them." " Why Jim, have they a particular time to water ?" " In course they has ; they come to water at a cer tain place, and jist as reglar as a parson to his eatin' ; every bar has his waterin' place, and he comes and goes in the same path and in the same foot tracks, always, until he moves his settlement : and jist you break a cane, or limb, or move a chunk or stick near his trail, and see how quick he'll move his cabin ! Oh yes, a bar is mighty particlar about sich things that's his sens that's his trap to find out if you are in his settlement. Why, Capting, I have watched 'em" " Jim, you have left yourself and Chunkey on the bank of the creek, ' a waterin'.' Are you going to stay there ?" " Well, we set down on the bank and took our stand opposite the biggest kind of sign, and sure enough, pre- A SWIM FOR A DEER. 123 sently down he come ; a bar don't lap water like a dog ; no, they sucks it like a hog. You jist ought to see him rais his nose and smell the wind. Well, he seed us, and with that he ris ! He war a whopper, I tell you ! He looked like a big burn, and he throw'd them arms about awful, honey. It war about one hundred and twenty yards to him, but I knoed he were my meat without an accident, so I let drive, and he took the creek then out he went and scampered up the bank mighty quick, and then sich a ratlin' among cane, sich a growlin' and snortin', sich a breakin' of saplins and vines, I reckon you never did hear ! I knoed, in course, I had him. I throwcd a log in and paddled across found his trail, and lots of har and fat, but no blood !" " That was very strange, Jim ; how did you account for that?" " Why he were too fat to bleed ! Oh, you think I am foolin' you, but you ask Chunkey. It is frequently the case. I follcred his trail about a quarter and a half a quarter, and thar he lay ; so I jist hollered to Chunkey to git two negers and a yoke of steers to take him to the house. How much do you reckon he weighed?" " I have no idea, Jim." "Now, sir, he weighed, without head, skin, or entrails, four hundred and ninety-three pounds, and his head sixty pounds ! You don't believe me ! Well, just ask Chunkey if I haint killed 'em smartly over seven hun dred pounds ! Killin' him sorter got my blood up, and I determined to have another. Chunkey had been jerkin' it to the licker gourd mighty smart, and was jest right. ' Chunkey,' says I, ' let's gin it to another " 124 A SWIM FOK A DEER. ' Good as -,' says Chunkey. ' Who cars for ex penses ? a hundred dollar bill aint no more in my pocket nor a cord of wood !' With that we started down to the Bend ; we haddent been thar long when in comes an old buck ; he was a smasher, and one horn were broke off. I telled Chunkey now's his time, as I skorird to toch him arter killin' a bar. Chunkey lathered away, and ca chunk! he went into the creek ; he then gin him a turn with t'other barrel ; the buck wabbled about a time or two and sunk, jist at the head of the little raft at the lower end of the clearin'. I know'd he'd lodged agin the drift, and determined to have him, and if you'll believe me, I'd been workin' at the gourd since I'd killed the bar. I pulled off my coat and jest throwed myself in ; I swimd out to the place and div you know the current are might rapid thar. Well, I found him, yes, if I diddent. But, Moses ! warn't I in a tight place that time ? Well, I reckon I were. I'd been willin' to fite the biggest he on the creek, and gin him the fust bite, to have been out !" " Why, Jim, what was the matter ?" " Arter I'd got in, I couldent get out that was the matter ! You see the drift were a homogification of old Cyprus logs, vines, and drift-wood of evry description, for nigh three hundred yards long, and the creek runs under thar like it was arter somebody ; the trees and vines, and prognostics of all sorts, ar sorter nit together like a sock, and you couldent begin to get through 'em. Well, Capting, I thought my time had come, and I knowed it war for killin' that cub what I tcJ'.cd you about. And, sir, it would have come if it b^ddent been A SWIM FOR A DEER. 125 for the sorritude I felt arterwards. You see, the young cub was standin' in the corner of the fence eatin' roastin' ears, and I was goin' to the" " But, Jim, you have told that once, and I don't want to hear it again." " Well, I tried to rise, but I'd as well tried to rise down'ard. I then tried to swim up 'bove the raft, but I found from the way the logs and vines ware tearin' the extras off me, that I were goin' further under, and I was gettin' out of wind very fast. I knowed thar was but one chance, and that was to go clean through ! So I busted loose and set my paddles to goin' mightily ; presently my head bumped agin the drift ! I div agin, and kept my paddles a lumberin' ! Chunk ! my head went agin a log, and then I knowed the thing were irrefrangably out, but I div agin, still workin' on my oars smartly, until I hung agin ! ' Good bye, Chunkey ! farewell, Governor,' says I. But, Capting, I were all the time tryin' to do something. Things had begun to look speckled, green, and then omniferous ; but findin' I were not gone yet, by the way I were kickin' and pawin', and knowin' I were goin' someurfiere, and ex- pectin' to the devil, there aint no tellin' how long or powerful I did work ! The fust thing I recollect artcr that, was gittin' a mouthful of wind ! Fact ! I'd done, gone clean through, and were hangin' on to a tree below the raft ! But, sir, I were mighty weak, and couldent tell a stump from an old he, and 'spected smartly for some time that I were in the yother world, and commenced an excuse for comin' so onexpectedly ! However, presently I got sorter right, and when I H 126 A SWIM FOR A DEER. found I were safe, I reckon you never did see a man feel so unanimous in your life, and I made the water fly for joy." " Well, Jim, what had become of Chunkey ! He did not leave you !" " Yes, if he diddent ! He'd commenced gittin' dry afore he shot the deer; and when Chunkey wants a drink, if his daddy was drounin', Chunkey would go to the licker gourd afore he'd go to his daddy. I went to the house, and thar he was settin' at the table, jist a rattlin' his teeth agin the bar's ribs ; the greese war runnin' off his chin ; he held a tin cup in one hand 'bout half full of licker ; his head were sorter throwd back ; he was breathin' sorter hard, his eye set on the Gover nor, humpin' himself on politics. ' Dam the specie kurrency,' says Chunkey, ' it aint no account, and I'm agin it. When we had good times, I drank five-dollar- a-gallon brandy, and had pockets full of money.' ' But,' says the Governor, ' you bought the brandy on a credit, and never paid for it !' ' What's the difference ?' asks Chunkey ! ' Them what I bought it from never paid for it ; they bought it on a credit from them foreigners, and never paid for it, and them fureigners, you say, are a pack of scoundrels, and I go in for ruinin' 'em, so far as good licker is concarned.' ' You are drunk,' says the Governor, and then but, Capting, you look sleepy ; let's licker and go to bed." " No, I am not sleepy, Jim." ' Well, then, I'll tell you how I sarved Chunkey for leavin' me under the raft. Moses ! diddent I pay him oack? Did I ever tell you 'bout takm' Chunkey out on A SWIM FOR A DEER. 127 Sky Lake, makin' him drunk, takin 1 his gun and knife away from him, and a puttin' him to sleep in a panter's nest?" " No, you never did; but was you not apprehensive they would kill him ?" " Apple hell ! No ! If they'd commenced bitin' Chunkey, they'd have been looed, as that's a game Chunkey invented! But here he comes; and if you mention it afore him, it puts the devil in him. Let's licker." [The story of how Jim " sarved Chunkey" follows.] 44 128 STRAY SUBJECTS. Er a hoo ! " " Wy, it's you yerself," continued the Yankee, approaching him cautiously " and yer've made noise enough to skeer the divil, or stop a camp-meet'n !" As he placed his hand upon the snorer's breast, a sudden " whoof!" escaped him, and the Yankee could bear no more ! "Help, yere!" Pshe eu !" said the snorer. "Do/" Ah shwoo " For God's sake !" Hup kir " Cap'n help yere! The man's a dyin' I say, Mister ! Murder ! help !" By this time the cabin was in a roar for the scene in its early stages had awakened most of the crowd, who had enjoyed it right heartily. The snorer turned over suddenly upon his side, and the effect awakened him. "What's the row, neighbour?" he inquired of the Yankee, who stood over him with a light. "Raow*? Thunder and lightnin' ! ain't yer dead yit ! Wai, I reck'n you're one uv 'em, stranger ! Mishi- gan thunder's a fool to yur'e snorin' by grashus ! Ef I sleep in this yere coop to-night, cuss my pictur!" he added and, in spite of all the captain's assurances, he went out upon the deck, where he lay till morning. At daylight he landed and, as he parted with the captain, he declared that he had "heern powerful thun der in his time, but that chap's snoring beat all the high-pressures he ever heerd jest as easy as open and shet!' G. P. B. "WOBOT BARWYMAW." AN ELECTION-DAY SCENE, IN BOSTON. THE annual election for city officials occurred in the good city of Boston, on Monday. There were no less than ' six Richmonds in the field,' on this occasion, and the prospect appeared promising at noon that before sunset, a Mayor and Common Council would be elect ed for the current political year, provided they didn't miss it. If not instructive, it was at least amusing to be present an hour at the polls. Take an example. A quiet-looking, decent enough kind of man ap proaches the door of one of the Ward rooms. He is clumsily dressed, it is true, and is evidently a stranger in these parts. His antiquated suit and apparent inno cence of the existence of such an article of wearing apparel as a pair of boots his long-tailed and longer- sleeved ' blue,' his low-crowned { felt' all indicated plainly that he wasn't ' bred in the town.' He sees the crowd and steps over the way. Some half-a-score of worthies are watching him, and a rush is made as he arrives near the door. " Fresh water ticket, sir?" bawls a vote distributor, m a greasy coat and slouched hat, who looks for all the world as if he hadn't been within hailing distance of any water fresh or foul for a quarter of a century. " Cold water ticket, sir .-"'inquires a one-eyed man, who sports a particularly red nose below it. 130 CHUNKEY'S FIGHT "Agreed," says I, and then we bulged. Capting, youv'e hearn Jem say he's hard of hearin' ? Well, he is, sometimes, 'specially when he don't want to hear; but that mornin' he was wide awake all over, and could have hearn an old he grunt in a thunder storm ! " I'll carry the horn, Chunkey; if you blow I can't hear you, and when I want you I'll blow, and you can." I dident 'spect anything then, but you'll see. Well, we had our big guns, them the Governor gin us ; they throw twelve to the pound, and war made by that man what lives in Louisville what's his name ? He promised to send me a deer gun gratis for two young panters, but he aint done it. Jem's gun were in bar order that mornin', and if you'd jest say varmint, above your breath, click it would go, cockin' itself. We haddint crossed the creek two hundred yards afore yelp, yelp, went old Rambler. "Cuss them dogs!" says Jem, "that's a deer?" Big Solomon went to ex- amin' the sign. " No it aint, massa Jem it's a panter sure! look at her long foot and sharp nail, and see hear whar he's been ridin' pigs ! Cuss his saitful coun tenance!" "Its a wolf," says Jem, "or a dog! Run down to the hossin-gum tree, Chunkey, and I'll go to the Cypress crossin' log ; he's bound to go one way or the yether, to git out." Well, I husseled off to the hossin-gum and Jem to the foot log, and afore we got to our stands the dogs had him gwine like a streak; away he went down to the Pint, and I knowed that's no place for him, and presently I heard 'em comin' back nearer and nearer here they is ! don't they make the snov fly, and jest look at him ! Look at them yaller eyes ! WITH THE PANTHERS. 131 them ears laid back, and them meat hooks a shinin' ! Aint he stretchin' himself? Aint them dogs talkin' to him with "tears in their eyes !" Yes they is, hoss, and now I'll git him! Bang! Oh, dam you! you've got it! I know you is ! you aint shakin' that tail for nothin' ! Yes, thar's blood on the snow ! But aint he "gittin' out de way?" "Never mind; them dogs will suck him afore he's much older, and if they don't Jem's yager will" Bang, went Jem's gun, and then all were still. " Howdy, wolf! how do you rise," says I, and started. When I got up Jem were shakin him. He were a smasher, but too full to run. Arter lickerin and cussin a spell, we took a "bee line" for Sky Lake. Goin along we lickered freely, and arter awhile Jem said, "Chunkey, I can slash you, shootin at that knot?" "Well, I reckun you can, Jem," says I, but you know he couldent, Capting. I wouldent shoot cause we hadent any amminition to spare. " Keep them dogs in, and break for the Forkin-Cypress, Sol," says I, " and make a cain camp; and Sol, do you hear, jest let them dogs loose, and I'll swaller you, wrong end foremost !" " Massa Chunkey is risin," said Sol, and then he busted. Lots of deer war 'tinually passin ; some on 'em stood feedin jist as careless as a loafer with a full belly they kno'ed they war safe. The day was mighty clear and yaller ; it warn't very cold, but still the snow diddent melt, but floated sorter like turkey feathers in the wind, and in the tall cane it fell round us like a fog. When we got to the Forkin-Cypress, Sol soon had a camp- done, and I and Jem started to look for sign. 132 CHUNKEY'S FIGHT We haddent been gone long when I hearn Jem'a horn, and made to him ; thar war a sign at the foot of a tree, and thar was his track in the snow. " Shall we nail him, Chunkey ?" "In course" says I. Well, he hollered to Sol to turn the dogs loose, and hear they come ; they jest fell onto the trail like a starved dog on a bloody bone. They circled about among the switch- cane and priscimmon bushes a long time afore they could make it out. Presently I hearn 'em give some short licks, and I knowed he war up. " Thar's a cry for you !" Away they go, further and further ; presently you can jest hear 'em, and then they are clean gone. I hearn Jem shoutin awhile, and then his mouth is lost too. I started on, spectin to meet em comin back, and in about an hour I hearn Jem's voice who-whoop. " Ah, bar," says I " whar's your friends?" I soon hearn Jem agin, and presently I hearn the dogs, like the ring- in' of a cowbell, a long way off. They come up the ridge, and then bore off to the thick cane on my right ; then they hushed awhile, and I kno'ed they's a fightin. Look out dogs ; thar, they are gwine agin ; no, hear they comes ! Lay low and keep dark ! I put down another ball and stood for him. I heard the cane crackin, and cocked my gun ! Here he comes here he is ! I hearn him snortin ; wake snakes ! Aint thatlum- berin ? Thar, they've got him agin, and now the fur flies. I crawled through the cane tryin to get a shot afore the dogs seen me. Thar they is, but which is he ? Dam that dog's head ! Bang! Whiff, whiff, said the bar, and with that every dog jumped him. The cane's a crackin, and the dogs a hollerin. I jerked mybowyerand plunged WITH THE PANTHERS. 133 in, and thar they war, hung together like a swarm of bees ! Thar lay " Singer" on the ground, and limber as a rag, and he had the " Constitutional" down. I felt the har risin on my head, and the blood ticklin the end of my fingers. I crept up behind him, and zip, zip, zip, I took him jest behind the shoulder-blade, and he war done fightin. He sot down, and sorter rolled his head from side to side, the blood runnin off his tongue, and his eyes full of dirt. He haddent got a hundred yards from the place whar I'd shot him. It war a death shot, and blinded him, and thar side of him lay " Singer" and the " Constitutional," two of the best dogs in Jem's pack. H 1 ! I gin' a shout and Jem answered. Presently I beam him cummin, blowin like a steamboat, and mad as hell ; he always gits mad when he's tired, and when he seen them dogs he commenced breathen mighty hard, and the blood filled the veins in his neck big as your fingers. Presently he commenced cussin, and then he got sorter easy. Arter a while he turned in and cleaned him ; we warn't more than a quarter and a half from the camp, whar we soon got, both mighty hungry and tired. Sol cooked the liver jest to the right pint, and we giv it Jessy. We spent the balance of the evenin in drinkin, braggin, and eatin spar ribs roasted brown. Jim made Sol sing "Oh, she waked me in the mornin, and its broad day, I looked for my ranu, and its done gone away" till we went to sleep. Next mornin' when we waked it war sorter cloudy and warm, and I and Jem were cloudy and warm too. The wind war blowin' mightily. 134 CHUNKEY'S FIGHT " Now, Chunkey, let's have a panter to-day, or no- " All sot" says I. Well, arter breakfast Jem says, " Chunkey, you must take the right side the Lake, and I'll take the 'yether, till we meet and, Chunkey, you must rush ; it aint more nor eight miles round, but your side may seem long, as you aint usen to the ground. Let's licker out of my gourd, you aint got more nor you'll want. Keep your eye skinned for sign, and listen for my horn !" " Hump yourself," says I, and we both darted well, I worked my passage through cane, palmetto and vines, until I war tired I haddent hearn Jem's horn, and pushed on the harder to meet him ; every once and a while I'd think hears the turn of the Lake, but when I'd git to the place, thar it was stretchin out big as ever. Once I thought I hearn Jem's horn, but couldent quite make it out. I kept movin' ; hours passed and no Jem or end of the Lake ; I'd seen lots of bar and panter sign, lots of deer, and more swan, wild goose, and duck, than you ever will see ; but I paid no attention to 'em, as I 'spected I'd taken some wrong arm of the Lake and war lost. It war gettin' towards night, and I 'spected I'd have to sleep by myself, but you know I diddent mind that, as I war used to it. But it war the first time in my life that I'd bin lost, and that did pester me mightily. Well, sir, after studyin awhile, I thought I'd better put back towards the camp, mighty tired and discouraged. I then throw'd my gourd round to take a drink of liker, and it were filled with water ! fact ! Thinks I, Chunkey, you must have been mighty WITH THE PANTHERS. 135 drunk last night ; that made me sorter low spirited like a 'oman, and my heart war weak as water. It had commenced gittin sorter dark ; the wind were hlowin' and groanin' through the trees and rivers, and the black clouds were flyin', and I war goin' along sorter oneasy and cussin', when a panter yelled out, close to me! I turned with my gun cocked, but couldent see it ; pre sently I hearn it agin, and out it come, and then an other ! " Here's hell !" said I, takin' a crack and mis- sin' to a sartainty ; and away they darted through the cane. I drap'd my gun to load, and, by the great Jack son, there warn't a full load of powder in my gourd ! I loaded mighty carefully, and started on to pick out some holler tree to sleep in. Every once and awhile I'd git a glimpse of the panters on my trail. " Pan- ters," says I, " I'll make a child's bargain with you; if you will let me alone, you may golong ; and if you don't here's a ball into the head of one of ye'er, and this knife ! husk, if my knife warn't gone, I wish I may never taste bar's meat ? I raised my arm, trimblin' like a leaf, and says I, " Jem ! I'll have your melt /" Well, I war in trouble sure ! I thought I war on the Tchule a Leta Lake, and imtched ! Well I did ! Oh, you may larph, but jist imagin' yourself lost in the cane on Sky Lake, (the cane on Sky Lake is some thirty miles long, from one to three miles wide, thick as the har on a dog's back, and about thirty feet high !) out of licker, out of pbwder, your knife gone, the ground kivered with snow, you very hungry and tired, and two panters folkrin your trail, and you'd think you was bewitched too ! 136 CHUNKEY'S FIGHT Well, here they come, never lettin' on, but makin' arrangements to have my skalp that night ; I never lettin' on, but detarmin'd they shouldent. The har had been standin' on my head for more nor an hour, and the sweat were gist rollirf off me, and that satisfied mo a fight war a brewin atween me and the panters ! I stopped two or three times, thinkin' they's gone, but presently hear they'd come, creepin' along through the cane, and soon as they'd see me they stop, lay down roll over and twirl their tails about like kittens playin' ; I'd then shout, shake the cane, and away they'd go. Oh, they thought they had me ! In course they did, and I detarmined with myself, if they did let me go, if they diddent attack an onarmed man, alone and lost, without licker, dogs, powder or knife, that the very fust time I got a panter up a tree, with my whole pack at the root, my licker gourd full, and I half full, my twelve-to-the- pound-yager loaded, and my knife in shavin order, I'd let him go ! Yes, dairfd if I diddent ! But what did they care ? They'd no more feelin' than the devil ! I know'd it woulddent do to risk a fight in the cane, and pushed on to find an open place whar I could make sure of my one load, and rely on my gun barrel arter. I soon found a place whar the cane drifted, and tliar I determined to stand and fight it out ! Presently here they come ; and if a stranger had seen 'em, he'd a thought they were playin' ! They'd jump and squat, and bend their backs, lay down and roll, and grin like puppys ; they kept gittin' nearer and nearer, and it wer gettin' dark, and I know'd I must let drive at the old he, 'afore it got so dark I coulddent see my ' I throw'd back my gun to gin It to her, as she come; the lick I aimed at her head struck across the shoulders and back, without doing any barm, and she had me!" Pagt 137. WITH THE PANTHERS. 137 sights ; so I jist dropped on one knee to make sure, and when I raised my gun, I were all in a trimble ! I know'd that woulddent do, and ris ! " You are witched, Chunkey, sure and sartin'," said I. Arter bracin' myself, I raised up agin and fired! One on 'em sprung into the air and gin a yell, and the other bounded towards me like a streak ! Lightin' close to me, it squatted to the ground and commenced creepin' towards me its years laid back, its eyes turnin' green, and sorter swimmin' round like, and the end of its tail tvvistin' like a snake. I felt light as a cork, and strong as a buffalo. I seen her commence slippin' her legs under her, and knew she were gwine to spring. I throw'd back my gun to gin it to her, as she come ; the lick I aimed at her head struck across the shoulders and back, without doing any harm, and she had me ! Rip, rip, rip and 'way went my blanket, coat, and britches. She sunk her teeth into my shoulder, her green eyes were close to mine, and the froth from her mouth were flyin' in my face ! ! Moses ! how fast she did fight ! I felt the warm blood runnin' down my side I seen she were arter my throat ! and with that I grabbed hern, and commenced pourin' it into her side with my fist, like cats-a-fightin ! Rip, rip, she'd take me, diff, slam, bang, I'd gin it to her she fightin' for her supper, I fightin' for my life! Why, in course it war an onequal fight, but she ris it ! Well, we had it round and round, sometimes one, and then yother ou top, she a growlin' and I a gruntin' ! We had both com menced gittin' mighty tired, and presently she made a spring, tryirf to git away ! Arter that thar warn't no 138 CHUNKEY'S FIGHT mortal chance for her ! Cause why, shi I'd sorter been thinkin' about sayin' " Now I lay me down to sleep," but I knowd if I commenced it would put her in heart, and she'd riddle me in a minit, and when she hollered nuff, I were glad to my shoe soles, and had sich confi dence in whippin' the fight, that / offered two to one on Chunkey, but no takers ! " Oh, dam you," says I, a hittin' her a lick every time I spoke, " you are willin' to quit even and divide stakes, are you ?" and then round and round we went agin ! You could have hearn us blow a quarter, but presently she made a big struggle and broke my hold ! I fell one way, and she the other ! She darted into the cane, and that's the last time I ever hearn of that pan- ter ! ! ! When I sorter come to myself, I war struttin' and thunderirf like a big he-gobler, and then I commenced examinin' to see what harm she'd done me ; I war bit powerful bad in the shoulder and army'ist look at them scars ! and I were cut into solid whip strings ; but when I found thar warn't no danger of its killin' me, I set in to cussin'. " Oh, you ain't dead yet, Chunkey !" says I " if you are sorter wusted, and have whipped a panter in a fair fight, and no gougin' ;" and then I cock a doodle dood a spell, for joy ! When I looked round, thar sot the old he, a lickin' the blood from his breast ! I'd shot him right through the breast, but sorter slantindickler, breakin' his snoulder blade into a perfect smash. I walked up to him WITH THE PANTHERS. 139 " Howdy, panter ? how do you do ? how is missis panter, and the little panters ? how is your consarns in gineral ? Did you ever hearn tell of the man they calls ' Chunkey ?' born in Kaintuck and raised in Missis sippi? death on a bar, and smartly in a panter fight? If you diddent, look, for Pm he! I kills bar, whips pan ters in a fair fight ; I walks the water, I out-bellars the thunder, and when I gets hot, the Mississippi hides itself! I I Oh, you thought you had me, did you? dam you ! But you are a gone sucker, now. I'll have your melt, if I never gits home, so" " Look out, Capting ! here's the place ! make the skift fast to that Cyprus log. Take care them oars, Abe ! Spring out and oncupple the dogs, and take car they don't knock them guns overboard. Now, Capting, we will have a deer movin' afore you can tell who's your daddy. A YANKEE THAT COULDN'T TALK SPANISH. BY JOHN A. STUART, ESQ. OF SOUTH CAROLINA. The late editor of the American side of the New Orleans " Bee,"- Alexander C. Bullitt, Esq. now of the " Picayune," occasionally indulges in a flight of fancy (which he appropriately terms " bal- loonery,") that would provoke a laugh under the very ribs of death. His " quips and sentences, and paper pellets of the brain," are irre sistibly diverting. He has burst more waistbands, and split more jackets, than we should care to pay for, judging from the damage sustained in our own proper person. We were wont to think that Bullitt, with Col. Greene of the Boston "Morning Post," and Pren tice of the Louisville "Journal," would surely be the death of us; but we never imagined ourselves in extremis until they were joined by Stuart, of the Charleston "Mercury," an editor who rejoices in an extraordinary fertility of imagination, combined with great flu ency and felicity of expression. Subjoined is a specimen of his style, to comprehend which, we must premise that the United States ship Alert some time since affronted the Mexicans at San Diego, Cali fornia, it being alleged that she threw overboard her ballast into the harbour, and when remonstrated with, landed a boat's crew, and spiked the guns of the fort ! These facts induced the following com ments by Stuart : THIS, as Matty Griggs said when the negro ate his oysters and flung the shells into the coffee pot, " this is rayther harsh treatment ;" and to muk /t the matter worse, the local governor declares in his despatch to president Santa Anna, that when his vicc-cxce^kaza, after these Yankee ad captandums, sent to 140 A YANKEE THAT COULDN'T TALK iPANISH. 141 the little Alert meant by such sluttish behaviour, all the reply he could get from our sea dog of a lieutenant was, that " he couldn't talk Spanish." Provoking ! Empty a cart load of dead cats in a gentleman's gate way, and then leap his fence and muzzle the yard dog o keep him from barking ! Shocking conduct ! Pull a Mexican's grand functionary's mahogany-handled nose, and then tie his hands behind his back to bar his striking ! Aggravating to a degree and decidedly odd ! Scrape your boots on his soup-plate, and kick away spoons, ladle, knife, fork, and bottle, and all things comeatable, battleable, and head flingatable ! Annoy ing certainly ! Cork his mouth with old Junk, and then draw his teeth and sew up his jaw ! Unkind, to say the least of it ! Kick his bustle, cut off his queue, and pull off his wig, and pick his pistol out of his pocket and spit in the pan and when he makes his bow com plimentary, and his bridling interrogatory with his key- hauties and ore rotundo non diminuendoes to your sha dow, and hismillessimal addendoes to your vitality, and his heigh signores ! and are-ye-done-dine-oh's for you to bid him to be muda, and strike flat the thick rotun dity of his grandiloquent protestandoes and shut up his barrel organ, by shifting your ear trumpet into a speaking trumpet, and bawling into the pricked ears of the astonished Don Michael Tureen or Don Ferolo Gridiron Hidalgo, to take the locked jaw and roll up his molasses sucker for you can't talk Spanish ? Uncour- teous and decidedly impolite! Hold your hammer thus and changing your segar while he asks you mo destly why you are spiking his great gun, pufFthe smoke 142 A YANKEE THAT COULDN'T TALK SPANISH. in his face, and tell him you don't know what he is gab bling about can't talk Spanish and hammer on? Prodigiously cool! Enough to make the cannonized leg of the Presidential Unipede (the very crus which De Joinville disjointed at Vera Cruz) burst its cerements unhosed from the wooden boot of its coffined calf cut dirt from its grave lifting its heel to high heaven and hopping stump downwards, crook its skeleton toes in convulsive indignation : and it will tax all the diplo matic tact of Major General Waddy Thompson, to lay the perturbed ghost of the resurrectioned regiment of foot, kicking at us with all its heroic sok, tooth and toe-nails ! ! Nous verrons. "OLD SENSE," OF ARKANSAS, BY "N." OP THAT ILK. For many years past the writer of the following anecdote has been one of the most popular correspondents of the " Spirit of the Times," as well as almost the only American writer who figures to manifest advantage in the English Sporting Magazines. His pen is usually devoted to the best interests of the American Turf, sporting intelli gence, etc. ; but his humorous letters over the signature of " Col. Pete Whetstone," have achieved for that personage an identity a* clear as Samivel Weller, junior, or Messrs. Quirk, Gammon & Snap. His communications are frequently interlarded with outline portraits like the following : SAM LAUGHMAN. "Who's Sam Laughman?" every body will ask. Well, Sam is the Mayor of Uniontown, to which office he has been thrice elected by the suffrages of his constituents ; and Uniontown is the prettiest town in all Mississippi it can boast of the only spe cie-paying bank in the State has a town-hall, church, many other public buildings, and a race track, with everything else denoting a Christianized community. But to Sam's story : A chap walking ont, came across " Old Mose," sitting in the broiling sun, fishing. " Well, Mose," said he, " what in the world are you doing thar ?" "Fiffin!" (fishing). "What?" "Fiffinl" "Fishing well, what'* the reason you can't talk ? what's in your mouth ?" " Oh, nuffin but warns (worms) for bait 1" I hallooed for old Izaak, when Sam opened his " wum" box. But two of N's favourite " characters " are " OLD SENSE," and DAN LOONEY, of whom the reader may form an idea by the subjoined sketch. THE way the natives sometimes talk here is amus ing. The following dialogue lately occurred here on the Devil's Fork of the Little Red (River.) Old Sense 45 143 144 "OLD SENSE," met Dan Looney ; they were strangers to each other. Says " Old Sense," "Good morning, sir; are you well?" " If you call a man ' well' that has run twenty miles, I am that" " Did you see any bear ?" " If you call a big black thing about the size of PETE WHETSTONE'S black mar, or boss, ' a bar? I did." " Had you a gun !" " Now you hit me." " Did you draw blood ?" " Do you call my double, double handsfull of brains, blood?" "Had you a dog?" " Is Old Bose a dog ?" "Did you skin him?" " Well, if you call a man in his shirt sleeves, with a Knife seventeen inches in the blade, among ribs and meat, skinning, I was thar !" "Was he fat?" " Do you call cutting eighteen inches on the ribs,/aZ?" " Did you pack him in ?" " If you call four pony loads packing, why I packed some!" " Light loads, I reckon." " If four hundred pounds to a pony is a light load, they were light." " Did you eat any of it ?" " Do you call drinking a quart of bar's He, eating ?" " You must have meat." " If you call two thousand seven hundred pounds of OF ARKANSAS. 145 clean meat, without a bone, safe inside of a smoke house, meat, we have got some ."' " They must be fat at your house?'' " Do you call a candle fat ?" Here OLD SENSE brought a perfect squeal, and swore e had found the very man he had been looking for. P. S. They had closed a quarter race up the last accounts. With another sketch of an incident in the career of " Old Sense" and his partner, we take our leave of " N. of Arkansas." Since I mentioned Old Sense, I'll tell you what has lately happened to him he got a most dreadful flog ging. He let his pony into young Shoulderstrap's old stud, and they had a fight, and the pony was about to lay it on to the old stud, when up slipped Shoulder- strap, and gathered a May-pole, and had well nigh made a finish of poor Old Sense who left these diggins on the strength of it. God knows where he is now I don't. I saw his partner 'tother day. He is a great big tall fellow, about half Injun; they call him Doctor, but he don't practice any except in certain cases of necessity. Last summer he kept a stud for old Mealbag, and stood him part of his time at old Squire Chiney's. The horse made a pretty good stand, and, from all accounts, the doctor made another ; at any rate, him and the old Squire had a monstrous falling out about the time the season expired ; and had not the Squire given his better half an awful flogging, one would have been at a loss to know what the falling out was about ; but since it is a fact that he did, "then and there, with 146 "OLD SENSE" OF ARKANSAS. malice aforethought, both expressed and implied,'' most wantonly and brutishly " pounced" his old wife, the natural supposition is, that her and Old Sense's partner had been too thick perhaps as thick as " two in a bed." But that does not justify old Chiney in beating the poor old critter till the blood run, as he most certainly did, and sent her forth in the world to " shift for herself," almost without a " shift." STOKE STOUT, OF LOUISIANA. BY THORPE AND PATTERSON, OF THE " CONCORDIA INTELLIGENCER.'' The original " character" now introduced to the reader, first made his appearance in the columns of the " Concordia Intelligencer," a capi tal weekly journal published in a beautiful village opposite the city of Natchez, on the western " coast" of the Mississippi river. Whe ther the creation of Thorpe, or Patterson his partner, this deponent saith not : but each has written so much and so well, as to care very little whether we or the public "put the saddle on the right horse." Mr. Stout's first letter was addressed to Thorpe, " the author of Tom Owen the Bee Hunter," immediately upon his leaving New Orleans to establish himself at Vidalia, and is to the following effect : STOKE STOUT, OF LOUISIANA, ON "THE WAY TO KILL WILD TURKEYS AND RHEUMATISM." Bi-o CHUCK-A-LUCK, ~) June the 14 teenth, 18 hundred fy 43 > In the Stait ov loozy-anne. 3 WELL, Kernul, I sees as how youve kwit Orleens and tuck up bout Videllai, but you newer sed nuthin bout it to noboddy. Well Irae sorry fur your kwitten the cittee, but Ime glad youve jined that uther Bobb who is zactly thar with a kwil, and you ma sai " how dy" tu him fur me. Well I thot az that I might az well kill the roomeytiz by tellin you how I kill turkis, az to grunt fur nuthin. So hears fur a hunt. Well now fust you must have a rifel az iz zactly to the spec. Bout the fust ov Octobur we ginerally takes 147 148 iTOKE 81 OUT. to huntin rigler in the scratching an mine you must hav a turky hown az iz bout 3 parts Dear Hown and the tother pinter, tho sumtimes haf and haf will doo. I knowd won wonst that wer a haf hown an ^ dog az wer purty good, an a man cum along heer goin on 2 weez now az said az that he had wun az wur all dog, an that he wer fust raght ; but, az I sed at fust, a tuch of hown with a leetle plnter, maks a turki huntin dog sartin. As I was sain, you taks yur hown in the woods and you skeers up the turkis in the trees, an you pokes and kreeps sow az if you seed wun all the time. The fust thing you heer, you see the turkis goin in a streek off, then you must go on furder, an when you gits right, you must put sum bushes on a big logg and git behin it, an yelp on yur kwil, whitch must be of kane, or a wing bowne of a turki, az yelped coarse afor you killed it, will do. Wei you must hav a flint lok, an then yu la low, an snap an flash as much as you pleas, but the fust cap as yu hexploads with a precushing gun the turkis they put and wawks Sphanish, which means a turki trot, an then to catch em yu must go on furder besides makin turkis wilde. Iv seen bad huntin make turkis so wild that they would run wen they heerd anybody yelpt, and they would run every time they gobbled. A feller down on Big Kooney sez az that heez seed em so wild az that they would cluck an put rown his tree an when the old wun cum up they would fly off an wait to kno for sartin it was her, an that he has seen em put their heds in swamp hols, an hollar logs afore they gobbled. But I cant certifi to this fellers tails, but sar- Un turnip kno what yu want an aint thar wen yu pokes STOKE STOUT. 149 yur hed rown a tree for em. Well, this kind of huntin continus tu about the Middel of febberry, an then yu must leav yur turki hown at home, az the hens begin tu lai thar egs, an no rale hunter wil kil any more until the fust of Octobure cums agin. Well, yu goz on mornins and evenins, an yu pokes an kreeps bout like snaix (you kno how snaix goz) an this wa sumtims yu gits wun an sumtims yu dont git wun ; whil this iz goin on yu haz rale sport, and yu uze your kane or kvvil so as to attrak the gobblers az iz now struttin an a gob- blin off sum of that sort a feelin az iz purty kommon to awl the awnymals bout this seezen o' the year. Sum peeple murder the turkis this time o' year by roosten em (finding their roosts) an buckshooten on em, but no rale hunter wil do that, less he haz cumpenny az wants gaim, or sum ladi wants a turki tale for a phan, or sum sich want. Thar, I'm got a nu twinge in mi fute, an feal kinder sleepy 2, and maybee the romeytis aint jist about got me treed, but that diseease duz yerk a feller an mak him vank an wurm, but it is lait an ile kwit. Yourn az same az anne boddi. I always sines myself STOKE STOUT, Tho Ime ginnerally called << OLD" STOKE; [Old Stoke Stout is one of the genuine turkey hunt ers of Louisiana, and we are glad that the " roomeytis" has driven him from necessity to use his " kwil" in the literary, as well as in the " turki huntin' " line. He is 150 STRAY SUBJECTS. worthy of a better cause, to pass off muslin (New York for cotton) for linen. What a contemptuous opinion of the intellects of Gotham the tall young man of twenty must entertain as a basis for his project ! Then we pic tured a very soft-spoken and very verdant gentleman in sewed boots and an intellectual- looking hat, with a mild description of checked gingham for a neckcloth, who meets the audacious pedlar, falls into the trap, sees no muslin in the sanguine and blooming view he takes of a shirt-pattern, and parts with an excellent pair of doe skins, which he has worn but once, for an article dear at four shillings York currency. ' But with the morning Cool reflection comes.' An astute matron his housekeeper perhaps at one dexterous tweak, accompanied by one flash of a pair of horn-bowed spectacles, detects the imposition. The verdant gentleman in the intellectual hat, sinks into a chair beneath the mingled pressure of shame and indig nation, and only rouses therefrom in the first rush of an inspiration, under the influence of which he pens the ad vertisement we have copied, and which cost him six shillings (York again), for insertion in the Sun. It never occurs to him that the tall young man of twenty' would snap his fingers at the threat, well knowing that if his victim knew where to find him or could prove his guilt, he would at once place a c Star' policeman on his . track, instead of uttering vague threats and cautions in the newspapers. Happily ignorant of this, the soft headed gentleman buttons his muslin shirt to his throat, and indulges in a romantic vision of a return of the < tall young gentleman of twenty,' in penitential tears, with the HOW WE SMOKED HIM OUT. 151 doeskins neatly folded on his arm those doeskins that have seen the light but once in the summer stillness of a Sabbath day at Harlem. Queer things these adver tisements ! F. A. D. HOW WE SMOKED HIM OUT. To the multitude acquainted with the miseries and mysteries of a < first-rate boarding-house' in New York the following sketch contains but little interest. The many who have never been ' thar,' however, may disco ver a sort of philosophy in the story ; and should any find themselves similarly circumstanced, let them adopt a like remedy, and < take our hat' if the critter is n't druv out!' In the year 183 , I had taken lodgings in a * respect able' boarding-place in street, and a four months' residence had fairly initiated me. I was scarcely twenty, yet I had been plundered of my wardrobe, by a stran ger, who was < stopping only a day or two ;' I had paid the supper-bills at Delmonico's for half-a-score of the knowin' ones, who had invited me to participate with them, and who had either < left their pocket-books at home,' or who had prematurely < stepped out,' as I was finishing my last cup of chocolate. I had run the < neffy* gauntlet, and was perfectly well acquainted with the shortest cut both to and from Passandro's ! I had been four months in Gotham and it was midsummer. The good lady of the house was one of the few who paid her bills, regularly. And well she might! Her 152 STOKE STOUT. bluffs 'bout 8 foot hi. In this fix I stared the bull in the fase, an' twixt the horns, an' thout how mutch he mit way, an' seed how strong he lookt, an' felt I wur a fool for not killin' him 2 yer afore ; an I lookt sharp, an 1 stared, an' grind mi teath, an' winct, an' maid mowths at him, but he only lookt fearser an' fearser. An' then I wisht him sich gude grasse, an' sitch gude wawter, an' sitch gude every ting, az I node he would finde in a field, I thot ov, a half ov a mile offe ; an' I wished this harde awl the tyme, an' I buggun to swett powurfullye, an it drapt offe ov mee. Well, sum how, whil I stared at the bull, an' wisht him every whar ruther than whar he wur, " Old Tony," that wus his nayme, lookt sleepilike, an' I wundered if. he mout be gettin' asleepe shure a nuff, but I wur afeered to try an' sea ; but he stude so purpendicklar, that I thout I wur gawn fur sartin. So I prayde what littell I node how, art kept starirf the bull in the face all the tyme. Directly, for I'me unabell to maike any kawl- kalashun of the tyme, (now min', this iz a fac,) I tell yu fur sartin, that old Mr. Stiggins' old yaller bull, " Toney," turned hisself rown, a' maide rite far the very plase Yde been wishin* him at. I gott out ov the hole, gathured mi gunn, maide trax up the nex hil, tu whar my kreeter wer hitcht, an' I kwit them " scratch- ins" fur the laste time, kwicer nor I never maide owt ov any woodst yit. When I kum 2 like, an' kood brethe a little, T buggun to thinck, an' I wer pestured mitily ; an' az soon az I gott tu the howse, I tells Mister Adverb, the skool teecher, 'bout it, an' he saide to mee, STOKE STOUT. 153 Yu mesmerized the bull, an' then maide him gow tu the phield yu wisht him att." It may be so, but I shall nuver furget the jogriphy ov that hollar in which the bull kawt me. Yours, az same as anne bodie. STOKE STOUT. LIFE AND MANNERS IN ARKANSAS, BY AN EX-GOVERNOR OF A COTTON-GROWING STATE. The following sketch is furnished by one of the most distinguished men in the Union. We are not at liberty to name him, but he will be re cognized by most readers at the South and West. THREE years ago, of a pleasant cool day in the spring, I was on my way, through the Washita Cove, (Arkansas,) to Fort Smith. I had ridden hard to get to the Widow Gaston's. It was drawing towards sun set, and my horse, like myself, was pretty well tired. At length I met two boys riding one pony, and he bare backed, with a leather tug round his under lip for a bridle. There was to be, as I afterwards learned, a wedding at the widow's that night, and they were going to bring the bridegroom. " How far is it to the Widow Gaston's, my boy ?" said I. " A mile and a half," responded the larger one. " Can I stay there to-night ?" " I reckon not," was the response : " she's not fixed to take in travellers ; and besides, there's going to be company there to-night." At this we separated. By means of hard drumming with their heels a gallop was extracted from the pony, and they were soon out of sight. I rode on to the Widow's, and asked her if I could 154 LIFE AND MANNERS IN ARKANSAS. 155 stay there ? She said I could not. " Well, madam," aid I, " how far is it to the next house ?" " Three quarters." " And how far to the next ?" " Twenty-four miles." I then asked her whether, if I went on to Royal's (the next house), and could not stop there, I could re turn and stay at her house, and she told me she reck oned I would have to do it. I pushed on towards Royal's, met him on horseback, just in sight of his house, and inquired if I could stay with him ? " No, you can't," was his response. " Why not ?" said I. " Why," said he, " I am just going to get a doctor, and my wife is a-going to be confined to-night." " Well, my friend," said I, " you guess a great deal better here than we do in my country." And so back I went to the Widow's. At the Widow's I found her daughter, who was to be married, waiting for the groom. She was really a beautiful girl, with bright eyes, long black hair, a white band round her head, white dress, red shoes, and no stockings. Soon after I stopped, the two boys were in sight, coming at the top of pony's speed, and shouting vociferously, " Here he comes ! here he comes !" Just behind them came the bridegroom, a great, clumsy, hulking, cur-dog looking fellow, in full dress of leather. The girl, when she heard the outcry, got up and stood in the door-way, twisting a handkerchief in her hands, and as he came in sight (they had not met for sbr 156 LIFE AND MANNERS months) she fell to crying. He came to the door, and without speaking to her, sat down on the outside. After a time in Parson came, dressed in leather breeches, with one shoe and one moccasin, and a straw hat, with half the brim torn off. Soon after the attendants came, two girls and two or three young men ; and the groom came in and sat down by the girl, without saying a word, she still crying. The parson requested the at tendants to tell him to come up and be married. He looked up, and responded gruffly, " I don't allow to be in a hurry about it." The attendant made his report accordingly, whereat the parson cried out loudly, " All candidates for matrimony come forward." At this Hunter came forward alone ; and being sent back, seized the girl by the arm, lugged her up and brought her forward. The parson was scared into fits, mum bled over the service indistinctly, and told them they were man and wife. I then retired into the shed, which was attached to the rear of the solitary room composing the house. Soon after one of the attendants came in and enquired the hour. I told him ten o'clock. He gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and it then struck me that, as it was Sunday, they were waiting for twelve to arrive, in order to commence the frolic. Accordingly when, a little time after, he again enquired the hour, I told him ten minutes after twelve, and he gave a jump which carried his head through the clap-boards of the roof. I went out with him to see the frolic, and told the Widow that in my part of the country it was the fashion to kiss round at weddings, and so proceeded to kiss her. She IK ARKANSAS. 157 made strenuous opposition, and told me I had got hold of the wrong person she was not one of that sort. However, I succeeded in doing the penance, and then repaid myself by making the same overture to the bride. She covered her mouth with her hand, so that it was with great difficulty I at last kissed one corner ; but when I had done so she paid me back with interest, and did not seem to want to quit. All took to kissing, and then to playing " Sister Phebe." The girls placed a man in the chair, and sung " How happy, how happy, how happy was we, When we sat under the juniper tree ; Put this hat on your head to keep it warm, And take a good kiss, it will do you no harm." They then put a hat on his head, and two of them sat down on his lap, placing their faces close on each side of his, so that he could with difficulty turn his head and kiss them. And so they went through all the trees in the forest. After two or three hours the girls took the bride into the shed room, and then told the groom it was time to go to bed. His response was, " I don't allow to go to bed to-night." They inquired what he intended to do. "Why," said he, "Sister Phebe does me very well." So they got the bride up, dressed her, and went to play ing again, and so we passed the night. The next night I tried to stop at the house of Squire Moore. I met him near his house, and asked him if 1 could stay. " I reckon not." " Why, what is the matter ?" said I. " I'm plumb out of bread." K 158 LIFE AND MANNERS IN ARKANSAS. " That makes no difference I can get along well enough with meat." " But I'm spang out of meat, and I've had mighty bad luck, for I've been out bar-hunting all day, and 1 haven't seen a bar." But I was still more amused, said B , in passing through Parailigta, on my way here. There are but two families living in the town, who have one cow and one child between them, and one family takes the milk in the morning, and the other at night. Early in the morning I heard an old man calling up an old sow, which I had noticed the night before running about with four pigs. The woods were vocal with the cry of Pigooee pigooee pig pig pigee! and directly 1 heard him say " Lige, do you feed that sow, and don't feed her mighty much neither ; and mind drive away them chickens while she's eating ; when the d d things go to roost you feed her again, and feed her good. I reckon we'll come it over 'em in that way." Did you ever hear how B P avoided a duel? He is a full-blooded Yankee, and while in the South on business, managed to be challenged by a fiery Southron. P is a big, good-natured, excellent fellow, and though brave enough, saw no propriety in fighting when that operation would injure his business. So, thinking over the matter, and seeing that he had to fight, or manoeuvre out of it honourably, he forthwith took the challenge to a notary, had it regularly protested, and notice duly given to the drawer. The intended fignt went off in an explosion of fun. ANECDOTES OF THE ARKANSAS BAE, BY A BACKWOODS LAWYER. As the author of " Hymns to the Gods," which appeared in Black- wood's Magazine some years since, ALBERT PIKE, of Arkansas, ac quired at once the highest distinction as a poet. He is a worthy son of New England, and is yet quite young. Upon returning from an expedition to Santa Fe, some years since, he settled in Arkansas, where, after " mauling rails," keeping school, editing a paper, and studying law, he has at length reached the head of his profession the law. He is at this moment quite the most distinguished man of his age in the state, whether as a lawyer or politician. Since the late presidential election he writes us that he is " going back to his books" again a circumstance that will be hailed with gratification by thou sands. Pike relates anecdotes, stories, etc., with inimitable humour and spirit. At our request he wrote out the following anecdotes of the Arkansas Bar, but they are tame when compared with his impas sioned recital. THE pretty little village of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, lies on each side of a line dividing two quarter sections of land, owned by different persons the upper one by a person named Pullen, the lower by a person named Davies. Puiien first laid off a town, after running a principal line between the quarter sections upon his own land, and numbered the lots, beginning with No. 1 at the river, on the north of the drawn line, which ran out at right angles with the river. A pragmatical old Frenchman, one Antoine Baraque, educated for a monk in France, and afterwards a commissary in Napoleon's 46 159 160 ANECDOTES OF THE Spanish army of invasion a small, adust, impetuous old man bought lot No. 1, received, and caused to be recorded, a deed to it from Pullen. The line was after wards run out by Pullen and Davies, and it was ascer tained that Pullen's original line was wrong, and that the true line so struck the river as to cut off lot No. .X entirely, throwing it upon Davies' quarter section. Da- vies then commenced laying off a town on his side, by lots of the same size as Pullen's, and numbering down river from the line, so that what was lot No. 1 on Pul len's town, became lot No. 1 on Davies' town, and was by the latter sold to a stout, ruddy, athletic Frenchman, named Joe Bonne. Baraque found it impossible to understand the new order of things ; and meeting Davies soon after, enter ed upon an expostulation with him upon his conduct, and the consequences to himself resulting from it. "Good God!" said he, " Meestare Davies, I 'ave my lot No. 1 in de town of Pine Bluff from dat Mr. Pul len, and 'ave my deed record in de clerk's office of de county lot No. 1, in de town of Pine Bluff! Ha ! you no see you 'ave rob me of my land. By gar, dere is my deed on record, and I will 'ave my land. I 'ave buy dat lot, and you number him lot No. 1, and he is my lot." " But, my dear sir," said Davies, " you bought of Pullen, and the lot was not upon his land. When thn true line was run, the lot fell on my quarter section." " G dam de line," hotly responded Baraque ; " what you 'spect I care for your dam line ! Dare is my deed on record for lot No. 1, in de town of Pine ARKANSAS BAB. 161 Bluff, and you number dat lot so, and by gar, I will 'ave my lot." " Oh, well, said Davies, " if that is all, I will com mence numbering my lots down in the swamp, and number them up, and then your lot will be lot No. 1 no longer." " Oh, by gar," cried Baraque, " dat would be one dam rascally ting, to rob me of my property in dat way ; and I shall bring one suit for my lot." Sue he did, accordingly, by action of ejectment against Joe Bonne, and employed Colonel Fowler to carry on his suit. During the six months that inter vened between the commencement of the suit and the sitting of the court, he wrote Fowler, on an average, a letter a week. The cause came on for trial Baraque was beaten, of course, and then refused to pay Fowler his fee. Fowler thereupon commenced suit against him. Baraque, upon this, healed up the breach be tween himself and Joe Bonne, and subpo3naed him as a witness. When the cause came on for trial, our two French men sat cosily in court, cheek-by-jowl, and as the trial progressed, Baraque often whispered merrily in Joe Bonne's ear. Fowler at length offered to read divers letters from Baraque in evidence ; and selecting one, commenced. It ran thus : " Mr. Colonel Absalom Foicler, Now I want you to be sure and be at court to attend to dat cause of mine aginst dat dam Joe Bonne, for my lot No. 1, in de town of Pine Bluff," &c. Fowler a formal, stiff, and precise man read the 162 ANECDOTES OF THE letter through without a wink or smile, and proceeded to read another, and another. The third or fourth began in this style : " Mr. Colonel Absalom Fowler, Sir, I want you to be sure and see to dat case of mine aginst dat dam rascal Joe Bonne. I have no idea of being rob of my land in dat dam rascally way, and I will 'ave you know dat I am bound to succeed." Joe drew off from Baraque, and cast upon him fierce glances of anger, and Baraque turned red and pale alternately. Fowler drew out another and commenced reading : " Dear Mr. Colonel Fowler, I will 'ave you know, sare, I must be sure and 'ave you at Court and see to my case against dat dam rascal Joe Bonne. Who stole de hog? Ha! I nevare steal any hog. If anybody want to know who stole de hog, let dem ask Joe Bonne." This capped the climax. Joe shook his fist in Ba- raque's face, and the latter rushed out of Court. Bench, bar, and jury, burst into universal laughter, and without further evidence Fowler took his judg ment. Speaking of Courts, reminds me of some of our specimens of forensic eloquence, pathetic in the highest degree. A limb of the law, who has been a Circuit Judge and Senator, once defended a client for assault and battery before two Justices, and opened his case thus: " May it please your Honours ! I appears before you this day, an humble advocate of the people's rights, ARKANSAS BAR. 163 to redress the people's wrongs. Justice, may it please your Honours, justice is all we ask ; and justice is due, from the tallest and highest archangel that sits upon the thrones of heaven, to the meanest and most in significant demon that hroils upon the coals of hell. If my client, may it please your Honours, has been guilty of any offence at all, unknown to the catalogue of the law, he has been guilty of the littlest and most insig nificant offence which has ever been committed from the time when the ' morning stars sung together with joy, shout heavenly muse !' ' Another eminent member of the bar, who has made a fortune by his practice, once in a murder case, in which I was engaged with him, the prisoner having committed the act while intoxicated, said to the jury in the course of his speech : " Gentlemen of the jury, it is a principle congenial with the creation of the world, and handed down from posterity, that drunkenness always goes in commiseration of damages." At another time he told a jury, that a person indicted for assault and battery, " beat and bruised the boy, and amalgamated his head." And finally, in an action for slander, brought by a female client against one Thomas Williams, who had uttered some injurious imputations against her virgin purity, he thus broke forth : "Who is this Tom Williams, gentlemen of the jury, that comes riding out of the Cherokee nation, on the suburbs of posterity ? He knocked at my client's door at the dead hour of the night, and she refused to get up and let him in. Wasn't this a proof of her virginity ?" HOSS ALLEN, OF MISSOURI. The following sketch is by the author of " Sioallovnng an Oyster JIUveF' and was originally published in the St. Louis "Reveill6." THIS celebrated gentleman is a recognized " hoss" certainly; and, we are told, rejoices as much at his cog- nomination, as he did at his nomination for the chair gubernatorial, last election. He did not run well enough to reach the chair, though it appears from his own ac count, that his hoss qualities, " any how," fall consider ably below those of the sure-enough animal. This ia his story which he is very fond of relating up by Pal- myry. "You see, boys, I came to the d d river, and found I had to swim. Had best clothes on, and didn't know what to do! 'What river?' Why, Salt river. Our Salt, here in Missouri, d d thing, always full when don't want it. Well, boys, you knows hoss Allen ! no back out in him, any how! Stripped to the skin, just tied clothes up in bundle, strapped it on to the critter's head, and 'cross we swum together. Well, don't you think, while I was gittin' up the bank, the d d thing got away, and started off with my clothes on his head ! and the more I run, and hollered, and 'whoa'd,' the more I couldn't catch the cussed varmint ! 'Way he'd go, and I arter hot as h 11, too, all the way, and yaller 164 BOSS ALLE9. 105 flies about and when I did get tol'ble near, he'd stop and look, cock his ears, and give a snuff, as if he never smelt a man afore, and then streak it off agin as if I had been an Ingin! Well, boys, all I had to do was to keep afollerin' on, and keep flies off; and I did, till we come to a slough, and, says I, now old feller, I got you, and I driv him in. Well, arter all, do you know, fellers, the d d critter wouldn't stick! he went in and in, and by'm-by came to a deep place, and swum right across a fact, true as thunder ! Well, you see, when I cum to the deep place, I swum, too ; and do you know that that d d beast just nat'rally waited till I got out, and looked at me all over, and I could act'ily see him laffin ! and I was nasty enough to make a hoss laugh, any how! Well, thinks I, old feller, recon you'v had fun enough with me now, so I gits some sticks and scrapes myself all over, and got tol'ble white agin, and then begins to coax the d d varmint. Well, I * whoa'd,' and ' old boy'd,' and cum up right civil to him, I tell ye, and he took it mighty condescendin', too ; and jist when I had him, sure cussed if he didn't go right back into the slough agin, swum the deep place, walked out, and stood on t'other side waitin' for me. " Well, by this time the d d yaller flies cum at me agin, and I jist nat'rally went in arter the blasted beast, and stood afore him, on t'other side, just as nasty as before did by thunder, boys ! Well, he Iqffed agin till he nearly shook the bundle off, and 'way he went, back agin, three miles to the river, and then he jist stopped dead and waited till I cum up to him, and jist 166 HOSS ALLEN. kind a axed me to cum and take hold of the bridle, and then guv a kick and a 'ruction and went in agin, laffin all the time ; and, right in the middle, d m me, if he didn't shake my clothes off, and 'way they went, down stream, while he swum ashore, and I, just nat'- rally, lay down on the bank, and cussed all creation. " Well, you see, boys, there I lays 'bove a hour, when I sees a feller pullin' up stream in a skift, a-tryin' on a coat ; and says I, stranger, see here, when you're done gittin' my coat on, I'll thank you for my shirt ! and the feller sees how it was, and pulls a-shore, and helps me. I tell you what boys, you may talk of hoss lafs, but when you want a good one, just think of Hoss Allen '" PULLING TEETH IN MISSISSIPPI, BY UNCLE JOHNNY. The following " Tooth-pulling Story" purports to have been related by " Uncle Johnny" to " Obe Oilstone," a well-known Mississippi cor respondent of the " Spirit of the Times." It was to " Uncle Johnny" that we were indebted for " That Big Dog Fight at Myers's .'" It will be seen that the present story is " told on" our amusing correspond ent himself. ELECTION day is a day away out here in the woods, and notwithstanding we have precincts . scattered throughout the counties, yet the county seat is the place at which most do congregate, for the triple purpose of voting, spreeing, and lastly, for the peculiar pleasure of witnessing the beginning ay, "the opening of the ball" of the " Fall Fighting Campaign," which inter esting event is usually postponed to that exciting period, when party excitement and individual misunderstand ing, leave a man very little hesitancy to " pitch" into his neighbour ; this comes not oftener than two years often enough, however, for " regular work." Having the common anxiety to see the first " regu lar despatch," I arrived early at Fayette, (our county seat,) on the 4th November last, when and where I had the good luck to see the campaign open ; the anxiety, among the numerous spectators, to continue the sport, was really commendable. Both claimed the victory, but the ring declared " a dead match ;" another heat 167 168 PULLING TEETH was promised by the defendant I immediately staked a hat on him " what got gouged." Whilst in the crowd, a well-known voice addressed me, " Hallo, boy ! come over here ! How are you ? I say, it's your treat, now, certain. Come in, men." " Certainly, Uncle Johnny," said I " pleasure al ways to treat you" " Me ? I'm if you don't treat the whole crowd ! Rosser, tell all them men to come in ! Hyena's breakin' chains and things ! Eh ! You thot I'd never see a paper, did you ? Well, well, I don't care a cuss about it myself, but the fact is, ' Old Iron's' in town now, and he says when he sees you thar'll be another Dog Fite ; so if you see him gittin' anyways high, wharfs your hoss? Well, well, jist keep out'n his way. Is you seen Wills sense them fellers was a pullin' his tooth?" " What fellows ?" was the immediate inquiry. " Oh, ho ! and so, my boy, you aint said nothin' about it, eh ' Well that is rich, fond of ritirt stories, but never tells 'em, eh ! Well, I'll" " Uncle Johnny, don't tell tales out of school, if you please. Recollect you should do unto others as" " I am done by, that's a fact, by gracious, so I'll jist out with it. " You see, 'twas the night arter the big dinner up here, and Wade got a crowd of youngsters to go home with him for some fun. Jist afore they gits to Wade's they overtakes me, and I took him up at his first offer to go by too he keeps good licker, Wade does. Well, arter supper I seen the boys was in for a frolic. I took two or three hands with 'em at cards, and after pun- "The doctor settin' straddle of his breast, in his shirt-tail, with a pair of bullet niok'K in his hands, tryin' to pull out one of his teeth.'' Page 171. iw MISSISSIPPI. 171 isnin' sum of the old stuff", I lays down. Well, I spose it wanted about two hours to day, when I was roused with the vvakenest noise I ever riz to. I can't hardly tell how they was all fixed in that room, but thar lay Wills flat on his back on the floor, a big nigger a holt of each hand, holdin' him spred out the doctor settin' straddle of his brest, in his shirt tail, with a pair of bullet moles in his hands, tryin' to pull out one of his teeth ! Then thar sat Henry B nes, from Clair- borne county, at his head, a holdin' the candle, and every now and then he would reach one hand over and hyst Wills's upper lip for the doctor to get the moles onto his tooth. Henry had a big pair of goat locks un der his chin, and in peepin' over at the opperation he'd git 'em right over the candle and they'd swinge. I seed him keep turnin' up his nose like he smelt somethin' a burnin', but he never dreamed it was his whiskers. Wills was a gruntin' powerful, and what between gruntin' and the hiccups, I thort he'd strangle. Major Bob was thar, too, and he had on a wonderful short shirt for a big fat man. He swore he could beat that doctor a pullin' teeth and he was hollerin for his 'insterments!' (a hammer and nail) to knock it out ! They got the nail, and as they could'nt find a hammer, in they fetch ed a pair of shoemaker's pinchers that's got a sort of hammer on one side. The doctor dropt the moles, for he found out that every time he'd jerk, they'd slip, so he sings out for the pinchers swore they were his favorite insterments always used 'em beat pullicans to h ! "Well, you never did see a drunken set so busy 172 PULLING TEETH about a serious job ! Every one was in ded ernest try in' to help Wills, and he was a takin' on wonderful, that's a fact ! The doctor set to work with the pinchers, and there sot Henry with the pleasinest countenance (and when he gits three sheets spred, and is tryin' to unfarl the fourth, he can jist out-laugh the univarse, or I'll borrow a hat to go home with !) there sot Henry reddy to hist Wills's upper lip when the doctor would staggei that way. Well, he got reddy Henry histed his lip, and arter two or three false jerks, he found the ham mer was on the wrong side of the pinchers for that tooth, so he turns in and asks Wills on which side the akin tooth was ? He said he did'nt know ! So he fastens 'em onto a sound tooth on tother side. But the Major had got impatient, so he riz pulled his shirt as low as he could git it, (and then it did'nt hide nothin') picks up the tongs, walks round, and puts one foot on Wills's brest before the doctor, and says he, ' Doctor, you've been sittin' cross that man for three hours ! You can't pull no tooth, nor never could ! Git up, man, git up ! I can jist take these tongs, and pull his tooth in half the time.' But he had'nt a chance to try, for Henry, who had been leanin' over to Wills's lip, puts his chin right over the candle, and afore he knowed it, his whiskers was in a big blaze ! He drops the candle with a ' hooze' right into Wills's face the nigger let go and jumpt Bob and the doctor fell in a lump, tongs and all. Wills riz to his all-fours and made for the gallery, with the stranglinest hiccups I ever heard ! I follered the man out I rally thort he was stranglin' to deth, but he had riz up by the gallery post, and was IN MISSISSIPPI. 173 a heavin' and settin' ! It beat all tooth pullins I ever seen. Says I, ' Curnel, what'fe you doin ?' says he, ' try in' to throw up (hie) that d tooth ! I think I inust'er swallered it? " Well, I looks around for this boy, and not seein' him, I inquires, but they had bin so busy they hadn't missed him. Think' s I, I'll take a turn around and see if I can't find him a holdin' up the fence, somewhar ! Well, soon as I got out of the noise in the house, I hear somebody hollerin' ; and there he was, sure enough, huggin' a red oak, three feet thru. * Well,' says I, ' What's you doin here ?' ' Uncle Johnny, come here for God sake come here,' says he, ' and put a rail up agin this tree ! I'm mighty tired,' says he, ' it's right easy now ; but when the wind blmcs, O Lord, but its mity heavy hurrah, here it comes,' says he, and he spread himself to it as he'd bin holdin' up the univarse ! Ha ! ha ! 'twas rich, to see him surgin' up agin that tree to hold it up, and beggin me to prop it up with a rail. I gits a rail, and leans it agin the tree. * Uncle Johnny,' says he, 'had'nt you better git another? It's a mity big tree and ruff at that.' * Let go,' says I, ' 'I wont fall these rails '11 hold it let go !' Soon as he let go, slam bang he went agin the pickets knock ed some off, and went clean thru ! ' G durn them pickets ! they bin tryin' to run over me all night,' says he, pickin' himself up mity awkward. I couldn't Hold in, he talked so natral. ' Why,' says I, ' you run over them? ' Oh, no,' says he, 'what with holdin' that tree up, and gittin' round on t'other side at the same , to git out in the pickets' way, is nily took nil the 174 PULLING TEETH IN MISSISSIPPI. flesh off 'n ray arms that's proof, aint it ?' Well, I could'nt begin to lead him to the house, so jist got be hind and pushed him. He's a little man, but you ort'er bin thar if you aint never seen a man walk tall; every time he stept, his legs went out to right angles. I say, ow's your arms got ?" " That'll do now, Uncle Johnny treat, won't you?" " Now you hit me. Come in men, what'll you pull your tooth with?" THE WAY "LIGE" SHADDOCK SCARED UP A JACK." The following sketch was suggested to the writer a capital Missis sippi correspondent of the "Spirit of the Times" by HOOPER'S story (previously given in this volume) of " How Simon Suggs raised Jack /" Now, it is barely possible that you never heard of Lige or Elijah Shaddock, commonly called " Judge." I say barely possible, for I think I have heard that you caused yourself to be towed up this river, and if you did, you heard of " Lige." He has been pilot on this river ever since it commenced running ! The oldest inhabitants only recollect him in flat-boat times that was before steamers ran but the Indians have a tra dition that a white man used to pilot drift logs to the Balize and turn them loose ; and I have heard it hinted that a man very much resembling Lige, was at the steering oar of Capt. Noah's craft, at the time of the big fresh I forget the year. What we call the Lower Mississippi from Vicksburg to New Orleans never changes its channel without consulting him; this fact is certain. I do not say that he invented cards, but rather think he was the man. If you will step on board the fastest New Orleans and Vicksburg packet the night she lays at Vicksburg, you may notice Elijah L 175 176 . "LIGE" SHADDOCK. making expenses somewhere about the social hall. It may be crack-loo, poker, brag, or set-back-euchre, but he is not losing any thing. I remember well the first time we met. It was on a fast Mississippi steamer, long time ago. It was a fair game, but he played it monstrous strong. Well, about " That Big Dog," I mean the gambler. He did not know Shaddock, and got in a little game of poker with him. He soon discovered that he was small potatoes, and after losing fifty or sixty dollars, he concluded that if by any trick he could recover his money, he would let Shaddock alone in future ; so he blocks the game of poker, and proposed to bet Shaddock fifty dol lars that he could turn a Jack at the first trial. Shad dock refused to bet, but immediately proposed a game of old sledge. In a short time the gambler had lost fifty dollars more, and began to show symptoms of dis tress. Says Shaddock, " I have been thinking of what you proposed a while ago ; d d if I dorft bet fifty you can't do it." The hundred was instantly on the table. The gambler took the whole pack and threw them on the table face up! "No you don't," says Shaddock. " Yes I do," says the gambler, " it was fairly done." Lige has a way of dropping one corner of his eye and mouth at the same time I don't know how he does it it's a way he's got but whenever you see it, there is something out. Well, just as the gambler claimed his throw for a fair one, this peculiarity might have been observed on Elijah's countenance. Stretching himself on tip-toe to see over the heads of the crowd collected "LIGE" SHADDOCK. 177 round the table, he observed, " If there is a Jack in THAT pack, Til be d d!" which proved to be the fact. This put the gambler's pipe entirely out, and he left in disgust. I always supposed, iry<e!f, that them Jacks got lost out quite promiscuous^ fir^rr _Ka litxle garcu* f " seven up." 47 COUSIN SALLY DILLIARD, A LEGAL SKETCH IN THE "OLD NORTH STATE.' The following inimitable sketch has gone the rounds of the American press some half a dozen times. It is understood to have been written by HAMILTON C. JONES, ESQ. and was originally published ten years or more since. Who knows but this sketch may have suggested to Judge LONGSTREET his side-splitting " Georgia Scenes?" It may have induced the authorship, by the late professor NOTT, of South Carolina, of his "Adventures of Thomas Singularity, journey man printer," one of the most entertaining books ever written in tho south. SCENE A Court of Justice in North Carolina. A BEARDLESS disciple of Themis rises, and thus ad dresses the Court : " May it please your Worships, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury, since it has been my for tune (good or bad, I will not say) to exercise myself in legal disquisitions, it has never befallen me to be obliged to prosecute so direful, marked, and malicious an assault a more wilful, violent, dangerous battery and finally, a more diabolical breach of the peace, has sel dom happened in a civilized country ; and I dare say it has seldom been your duty to pass upon one so shock ing to benevolent feelings, as this which took place over at Captain Rice's, in this county. But you will hear from the witnesses. The witnesses being sworn, two or three were ex amined and deposed one said that he heard the noise, 178 COUSIN SALLY DILLIARD. 179 and did not see the fight ; another that he seen the row, but didn't know who struck first and a third, that he was very drunk, and couldn't say much about the skrira- mage. Lawyer Chops. I am sorry, gentlemen, to have occupied your time with the stupidity of the witnesses examined. It arises, gentlemen, altogether from mis apprehension on my part. Had I known, as I now do, that I had a witness in attendance who was well ac quainted with all the circumstances of the case, and who was able to make himself clearly understood by the court and jury, I should not so long have trespassed upon your time and patience. Come forward, Mr. Har ris, and be sworn. So forward comes the witness, a fat, shuffy old man, a " leetle" corned, and took his oath with an air. Chops. Harris, we wish you to tell all about the riot that happened the other day at Captain Rice's ; and as a good deal of time has already been wasted in circum locution, we wish you to be compendious, and at the same time as explicit, as possible. Harris. Adzactly (giving the lawyer a knowing wink, and at the same time clearing his throat). Captain Rice, he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Billiard, she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't gp ? I told cousin Sally Billiard that my wife was poorly, being as how she had a touch of the rheumatics in the hip, and the big swamp was in the road and the big swamp was up, for there had been a heap of rain lately ; but howsomever, as it was she, cousin Sally Billiard my wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally 180 COUSIN SALLY BILLIARD. Dilliard then axed me if Mose he moutn't go ? I told cousin Sally Dilliard that he was the foreman of the crap, and the crap was smartly in the grass ; but how- somever as it was she, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go Chops. In the name of common sense, Mr. Harris, what do you mean by this rigmarole ? Witness. Captain Rice, he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go ? I told cousin Sally Dil- liard Chops. Stop, sir, if you please ; we don't want to hear anything about your cousin Sally Dilliard and your wife tell us about the fight at Rice's. Witness. Well, I will, sir, if you will let me. Chops. Well, sir, go on. Witness. Well, sir, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she come over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go Chops. There it is again. Witness, please to stop. Witness. Well, sir, what do you want ? Chops. We want to know about the fight, and you must not proceed in this impertinent story. Do you know anything about the matter before the court ? Witness. To be sure I do. Chops. Well, go on and tell it, and nothing else. Witness. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat Chops. This is intolerable. May it please the court, I move that this witness be committed for a contempt , he seems to be trifling with this court. Court. Witness, you are now before a court of jus- COUSIN SALLY BILLIARD. 181 tice, and unless you behave yourself in a more becom ing manner, you will be sent to jail ; so begin and telJ what you know about the fight at Captain Rice's. Witness [alarmed.] Well, gentlemen, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard Chops. I hope the witness may be ordered into cus tody. Court [after deliberating.] Mr. Attorney, the court .'s of the opinion that we may save time by telling wit ness to go on in his own way. Proceed, Mr. Harris, with your story, but stick to the point. Witness. Yes, gentlemen. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she mout go ? I told cousin Sally Dilliard that my wife she was poorly, being as how she had the rheumatics in the hip, and the big swamp was up ; but howsomever, as it was she, cousin Sally Dilliard, my wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally Dilliard then axed me if Mose he moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard as how Mose he was the foreman of the crap, and the crap was smartly in the grass but howsomever, as it was she, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go. So they goes on together, Mose, my wife, and cousin Sally Dilliard, and they come to the big swamp, and it was up, as I was telling you ; but being as how there was a log across the big swamp, cousin Sally Dilliard and Mose, like genteel folks, they walked the log ; but my wife, like a darned fool, hoisted her coats and waded through. And that's all I know about the fight. THE END.