The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (best book series to read TXT) 📖

Dat fetched him—he shtood all shpell pound;
She pooled his coat-tails down,
She drawed him oonder der wasser,
De maidens mit nodings on.
[Pg 357] THE HOOSIER AND THE SALT PILE BY DANFORTH MARBLE

"I'm sorry," said Dan, as he knocked the ashes from his regalia, as he sat in a small crowd over a glass of sherry, at Florence's, New York, one evening,—"I'm sorry that the stages are disappearing so rapidly. I never enjoyed traveling so well as in the slow coaches. I've made a good many passages over the Alleghanies, and across Ohio, from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati, all over the South, down East, and up North, in stages, and I generally had a good time.

"When I passed over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a stage, I met a queer crowd. Such a corps, such a time, you never did see. I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team,—spanking horses, fine coaches, and one of them drivers you read of. Well, there was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a stage full of Christians ever started before, so chuck full of music.

"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler,—Cowes and a market; wedging him was a dandy black-leg, with jewelry and chains around about his breast and neck enough to hang him. There was myself, and an old gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly, soldering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus-rider, whose breath was enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as cotton velvet! A cross old[Pg 358] woman came next, whose look would have given any reasonable man the double-breasted blues before breakfast; alongside of her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the biggest and ugliest mouth ever got up since the flood. He was flanked by the low comedian of the party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to Orleans to get an army contrac' to supply the forces, then in Mexico, with beef.

"We rolled along for some time. Nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The old aunty sat bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat to nod and dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalets and poetry; the old gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph nose, looked out at the corduroy and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the circus convoy followed suit, leaving the preacher and me vis-à-vis and saying nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out of the window and criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was wishing somebody would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany' made a break.

"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman with the cane.

"'No, sir,' says the old gentleman. 'There's very little grazing here, and the range is pretty much wore out.'

"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the hoosier opened ag'in:

"'It's the d——dest place for 'simmon-trees and turkey-buzzards I ever did see!'

"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the old lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker.[Pg 359]

"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the hoosier.

"'No,' says the gentleman.

"'Well, I don't see how in h——ll they all manage to get along in a country whar thar ain't no ranges and they don't make no beef. A man ain't considered worth a cuss in Indiany what hasn't got his brand on a hundred head.'

"'Yours is a great beef country, I believe,' says the old gentleman.

"'Well, sir, it ain't anything else. A man that's got sense enuff to foller his own cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle Sam to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so bad. I s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers about the Indiany boys at Bony Visty.'

"'I've read some accounts of the battle,' says the old gentleman, 'that didn't give a very flattering account of the conduct of some of our troops.'

"With that, the Indiany man went into a full explanation of the affair, and, gettin' warmed up as he went along, begun to cuss and swear like he'd been through a dozen campaigns himself. The old preacher listened to him with evident signs of displeasure, twistin' and groanin' till he couldn't stand it no longer.

"'My friend,' says he, 'you must excuse me, but your conversation would be a great deal more interesting to me—and I'm sure would please the company much better—if you wouldn't swear so terribly. It's very wrong to swear, and I hope you'll have respect for our feelin's, if you hain't no respect for your Maker.'

"If the hoosier had been struck with thunder and lightnin', he couldn't have been more completely tuck aback. He shut his mouth right in the middle of what he was[Pg 360] sayin', and looked at the preacher, while his face got as red as fire.

"'Swearin',' says the old preacher, 'is a terrible bad practice, and there ain't no use in it, nohow. The Bible says, Swear not at all, and I s'pose you know the commandments about swearin'?'

"The old lady sort of brightened up,—the preacher was her 'duck of a man'; the old fellow with the nose and cane let off a few 'umph, ah! umphs'; but 'Indiany' kept shady; he appeared to be cowed down.

"'I know,' says the preacher, 'that a great many people swear without thinkin', and some people don't b'lieve the Bible.'

"And then he went on to preach a regular sermon ag'in swearing, and to quote Scripture like he had the whole Bible by heart. In the course of his argument he undertook to prove the Scriptures to be true, and told us all about the miracles and prophecies and their fulfilment. The old gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and the hoosier listened, without ever opening his head.

"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to hear what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow, and seen the place whar Lot's wife fell.'

"'Ah!' says the old gentleman with the cane.

"'Yes,' says the preacher; 'he went to the very spot; and, what's the remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was turned into.'

"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman.

"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.'

"'What!' says the hoosier, 'real genewine, good salt?'

"'Yes, sir, a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman was punished for her disobedience.'[Pg 361]

"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach, looked at the preacher,—the hoosier with an expression of countenance that plainly told us that his mind was powerfully convicted of an important fact.

"'Right out in the open air?' he asked.

"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.'

"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, if she'd dropped in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore sundown!'

"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics, what he didn't get over till we came to the next change of horses. The hoosier had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party; even the old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the young lady's eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward. The old preacher hadn't another word to say on the subject; but whenever we came to any place, or met anybody on the road, the circus-man nursed the thing along by asking what was the price of salt."[Pg 362]

A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT BY KATE FIELD

I once heard a bright child declare that if circuses were prohibited in heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naïve utterance touched a responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the ring-master, in a wrinkled dress-coat, seemed the most enviable of mortals, being on speaking terms with all the celestial creatures who jumped over flags and through balloons; how the clown was the dearest, funniest of men; how the young athletes in tights and spangles were my beau-ideals of masculinity; and how La Belle Rose, with one foot upon her native heath, otherwise a well-padded saddle, and the other pointed in the direction of the sweet little cherubs that sat up aloft, was the most fascinating of her sex. I am persuaded that circuses fill an aching void in the universe. What children did before their invention I shudder to think, for circuses are to childhood what butter is to bread; and what the world did before the birth of Barnum is an almost equally frightful problem. Some are born to shows, others attain shows, and yet again others have shows thrust upon them. Barnum is a born showman. If ever a man fulfills his destiny, it is the discoverer of Tom Thumb. With the majority of men and women life is a[Pg 363] failure. Not until one leg dangles in the grave is their raison d'être disclosed. The round people always find themselves sticking in the square holes, and vice versa; but with Barnum we need not deplore a vie manquée. We can smile at his reverses, for even the phænix has cause to blush in his presence. Though pursued by tongues of fire, Barnum remains invincible when iron, stone, and mortar crumble around him; and while yet the smoke is telling volumes of destruction, the cheery voice of the showman exclaims, "Here you are, gentlemen; admission fifty cents, children half price."

Apropos of Barnum, once in my life I gave myself up to unmitigated joy. Weary of lecturing, singing the song "I would I were a boy again," I went to see the elephant. To speak truly, I saw not one elephant, but half a dozen. I had a feast of roaring and a flow of circus. In fact I indulged in the wildest dissipation. I visited Barnum's circus and sucked peppermint candy in a way most childlike and bland. The reason seems obscure, but circuses and peppermint candy are as inseparable as peanuts and the Bowery. Appreciating this solemn fact, Barnum provides bigger sticks adorned with bigger red stripes than ever Romans sucked in the palmy days of the Coliseum. In the dim distance I mistook them for barbers' poles, but upon direct application I recognized them for my long lost own.

However, let me, like the Germans, begin with the creation. "Here, ladies and gentlemen, is for sale Mr. Barnum's Autobiography, full of interest and anecdote, one of the most charming productions ever issued from the press, 900 pages, thirty-two full-page engravings, reduced from $3.50 to $1.50. Every purchaser enters free."

How ordinary mortals can resist buying Barnum's Autobiography for one dollar—such a bargain as never[Pg 364] was—is incomprehensible. I believe they can not. I believe they do their duty like men. As one man I resisted, because I belong to the press, and therefore am not mortal. Who ever heard of a journalist getting a bargain? With Spartan firmness I