The Humors of Falconbridge Part 43

Who was that Poor Woman?

I do not know a feminine--from the piney woods of Maine to the Neuces--so given to popularity, newspaper philippics, and city item bombards, as Aunt Nabby Folsom, of the town of Boston. The name and doings of Aunt Nabby are linked with nearly all popular cabals in Faneuil Hall, the "Temple," "Chapel," or Melodeon--from funeral orations to political caucusses--Temperance jubilees to Abolition flare ups; for Aunt Nabby never allows _wind_, weather or subject, time, place or occasion, to prevent her "full attendance." The police, and over-zealous auditors, at times _snake her down_ or crowd her old straw bonnet, but Aunt Nabby is always sure of the polite attention of the "Reporters,"

and s.h.i.+nes in their notes, big as the biggest toad in the puddle.

Indeed, Aunt Nabby is one of 'em!--a perfect she-male Mike Walsh. She will have her _say_, though a legion of constables stood at the door; her princ.i.p.al _stand-point_ is the freedom of speech and woman's rights, and she goes in tooth and nail _agin law_, Marshal Tukey, and the entire race-root and rind of the Quincys--particularly strong! Aunt Nabby is subject to a series, too tedious to mention, of "sells" by the _quid nuncs_ and rapscallions of the day, and one of these "sells" is the pith of my present paper.

It so fell out, when Jenny Lind arrived here, about every fool within five-and-fifty miles ran their heels and brazen faces after the Nightingale and her carriage wherever she went, from her bed-chamber to her dinner table, from her drawing-room to the Concert Hall. It took Barnum and his whole "private secretary" force and equal number of policemen and servants, besides Stephens himself, of the Revere, and his bar-keeper, to keep the mob from rus.h.i.+ng pell-mell up stairs and surrounding Jenny as Paddy did the Hessians.

Now and then a desperate fellow got in--had an audience, grinned, backed down and went his way, tickled as a dog with two tails. Others were victimized by notes from Barnum (!) or Miss Lind's "private secretary,"

offering an interview, and many of these transactions were "rich and racy" enough, in all conscience, for the pages of a modern Joe Miller.

But Aunt Nabby Folsom's time was about as rich as the raciest, and will bear rehearsing--easy.

"Good morning, sir," said a pleasing-looking, neatly-dressed, elderly lady, to the two scant yards of starch and d.i.c.key behind Stephens' slab of marble at the Revere.

"Good morning, ma'am," responded the _clark_, who, not knowing exactly who the lady was, _jerked_ down his well-oiled and brushed "wig and whiskers" to the entire satisfaction of the matronly lady, who went on to say--

"I wish to see Miss Lind, sir."

"Guess she's engaged, ma'am."

"Well, but I've an invitation, sir, from Miss Lind, to call at 9 A. M.

to-day. I like to be punctual, sir; my time is quite precious; I called precisely as desired; Miss Lind appointed the time; and----"

"Oh, very well, very well, ma'am," said the _clark_, with a flourish, "if Miss Lind has invited you----"

"Why, of course she has! Here's her--"

"O, never mind, ma'am; all correct, I presume."

The "pipes" and bells soon had the attendance of a gang of white-jacketed, polish-faced Paddies, and the elderly lady was marshalled, double-file, towards the apartments of the Nightingale.

Jenny had but just "turned out," and was "feeding" on the right wing and left breast of a lark, the leg of a canary, "a dozen fried" humming bird eggs--her customary fodder of a morning.

The servants pa.s.sed the countersigns, and the elderly lady was admitted--the Nightingale, without disturbing the ample folds of her camel's hair dressing-gown--a present from the Sultan of all the Turkies, cost $3,000--motioned the matron to squat, and as soon as she got her throat in talking order, said--

"Goot mornins."

"How do you do?" responds the old lady.

"Pooty well, tank'ees. You have some breakest? No!"

"No, ma'am. I've had my breakfast three hours ago."

"Yes? indeed! you rise up early, eh?--Well, it is goot for ze hels, eh?"

"So my doctor says," responded the matron. "But I like to get up and be stirring around."

"Ah! yes; you stir around, eh? What you stir around?"

"Well, Miss Lind, I'll tell you what I stir around. I-stir-the-monsters (Miss Lind looks sharp) who-try-to-trample-on-the-universal-rights-_of-woman!_ (The matron 'up'

and gesticulating like the brakes of an engine--Miss Lind drops her eating tools--eyes of the two servants bulge out!) A-n-d I-stir-the-demagogues-who-a.s.semble-in-Faneuil-Hall (down with the brakes!), to prevent-the-freedom-of-speech (rush upon the brakes!), a-a-n-d-put-me-down!"

It was evident that the appet.i.te of the Nightingale was getting spoiled--she looked suspicious, and, just in time to prevent the female orator--who was no other personage, of course, than Aunt Nabby Folsom, from ripping into a regular caucus fanfaronade of gamboge and gas, a knock upon the door announced a "call" for Miss Lind, to dress and appear to a fresh lot of bores--yclept the Mayor and his suit of Deacons, soup, pork and bean-venders.

"Ah! yes; I will be ready in one min't. Madame, you will please come again; once more, adieu--good mornins--adieu!"

And Aunt Nabby, in spite of her ancient teeth, found herself bowed--half way down stairs--into the hall, and clean out doors, before she caught her breath to say another word upon the interminable subject of the freedom of speech and woman's rights!

But Aunt Nabby "blowed"--O! didn't she _blow_ to the various tea and toast coteries, scandal and slang express women--and the various knots of anxious crowds who stood about Bowdoin Square during the Lind mania!

Aunt Nabby had had a genuine _tete-a-tete_ with the Nightingale--and, ecod, an invitation to call again! But Jenny Lind, and her cordon of sentinels, secretaries and suckers, were "fly" for the old screech owl, when again and again she beset the _clark_ and the stairways of the Revere. Though Aunt Nabby hung on and growled dreadfully, she finally caved in and kept away.

When Jenny Lind gave the proceeds of one concert to charitable purposes, among the items set down in the list was--"A poor woman--_one hundred dollars!_"

"Why, it's you, of course," said a _quid-nunc_, to Aunt Abby, as she held the Evening Transcript in her hands, in the store of Redding & Co., and observed the interesting item above alluded to.

"Well, so I think," says Aunt Nabby. "If I ain't a poor woman, and a var-tuous woman, and a good and _true woman_ (down came her brakes on the book piles), I'd like to know where--_where_, on this univarsal _yearth_ (down with the brakes), you'd find one! One hundred dollars to a poor woman," she continued, reading the item. "I must be the person--yes, Abigail, _thou art the man!_" she concluded in her favorite apothegm.

The _quid_ gave Abby the residence of the Agent (!) who was to disburse the Lind charities, and away went Abby to the Agent, who happened to be an amateur joker; knowing Aunt Abby, and smelling a "sell," he told the old 'un that Mr. Somerby, of No. -- Cornhill, the joker of the Post, was the Agent, and would sh.e.l.l out next morning, at nine o'clock. At that hour, S. had Aunt Nabby in his sanctum. He knew the ropes, so a.s.sured Abby that there was a mistake; Charles Davenport, of Cornhill, rear of Joy's building, was the man. Charles D. informed Aunt Nabby, that he had declined to disburse for Miss Lind, but that Bro. Norris, of the Yankee Blade, had the pile, and was serving it out to an excited mob. Norris declared that she was in error. She was not, by a jug full, the only, poor woman in town, and didn't begin to be _the_ poor woman set forth in Miss Lind's schedule! But Aunt Nabby wasn't to be _done!_ She besieged Miss Lind--followed her to the cars--mounted the platform--Jenny espied her, and to avoid a harangue on the freedom of speech and woman's rights, hid her head in her cloak. The last exclamation the Nightingale heard from the screech owl, was--

"Miss Jane Lind--who was that poor wom-a-n?"

Infirmities of Nature.

Some folks are easily glorified. We once knew a man who became so elated because he was elected first sergeant in the militia, that he went home and put a silver plate on his door. Ollapod, in speaking of this kind of people, makes mention of one Sabin, who was so overjoyed the first time he saw his name in the list of letters, advertised by the post-office, that he called his friends together and put them through on woodc.o.c.k.

Andrew Jackson and his Mother.

It is a most singular, or at least curious fact, connected with the histories of most all eminent men, that they were denied--by the decrees of stern poverty, or an all-wise Providence--those facilities and indulgences supposed to be so essentially necessary for the future success and prosperous career of young men, but acted as "whetstones" to sharpen and develop their true temper! The fact is very vivid in the early history of Andrew Jackson--a name that, like that of the great, G.o.dlike Was.h.i.+ngton, must survive the wreck of matter, the crush of worlds, and, pa.s.sing down the vista of each successive age, brighter and more glorious, unto those generations yet to come, when time shall have obliterated the asperities of partisan feeling, and learned to deal most gently with the human frailties of the ill.u.s.trious dead.

Andrew Jackson, senior, emigrated from Ireland in 1765, with his wife and two boys--Hugh and Robert, both very young; they landed at Charleston, S. C, where Jackson found employment as a laborer, and continued to work thus for several years, until, possessed of a few dollars, he went to the interior of the state and bought a small place near Waxhaw. About this time, 1767, Andrew Jackson, Jr., was born, and during the next year--by the time the infant could lisp the name of his parent--the father fell sick of fever and died. Mrs. Jackson, left with three small children, in an almost wild country, where nothing but toil of a severe and arduous kind could provide a subsistence, was indeed in a most grievous situation. But she appears to have been a woman of no ordinary temperament, courage, and perseverance, for she continued cheerfully the work left her--rearing her boys, and preparing them for the situations in life they might be destined to fill. Mrs. Jackson was a woman of some information, and a strong advocate for the rights and liberties of men; as, it is said, she not only gave her boys their first rudiments of an English education, but often indulged in glowing lectures to them of the importance of instilling in their hearts and principles an unrelenting war against pomp, power, and circ.u.mstance of monarchical governments and inst.i.tutions! She led them to know that they were born free and equal with the best of earth, and that that position was to be their heritage--maintained even at the peril of life and property! and how well he learned these chivalric lessons, the countrymen of Andrew Jackson need not now be told, as it was exemplified in every page of his whole history.

Hugh, Robert, and Andrew, were now the widow's hope and treasures; Hugh and Robert were her main dependence in working their little farm, and Andrew, never a very robust person, was early sent to the best schools in the neighborhood, and much care taken by his mother to have him at least educated for a profession--the ministry. This resolve was more perhaps decided upon from the naturally stern, contemplative, and fixed principles of young Jackson; as at the early age of fifteen, he was by nature well prepared for the scenes being enacted around him, and in which, even those young as himself, were called upon to take an active part. This was in the days of the revolution, when the weak in numbers of this continent were about to try the _experiment_ of living free and independent, and establish the fact that royalty was an imposition and a humbug, only maintained by arrogance and pomp at the point of the bayonet.

The British had begun the war--already had the echoes of "Bunker Hill,"

and the smell of "villainous saltpetre," invaded and aroused the quiet dwellers in the woods and wilds of South Carolina, and the chivalric spirit that has ever characterized the men of the Palmetto state, at once responded to the tocsin of _liberty_. It was with no slight degree of sorrow and aching of the mother's heart, that she saw her two sons, Hugh and Robert, shoulder their muskets and join the Spartan band that a.s.sembled at Waxhaw Court-house. But she blessed her children and gave up her holy claim of a mother's love, for the common cause of the infant nation.

Cornwallis and his army crossed the Yadkin, Lord Rawden, with a large force, took the town of Camden, and began a desolation of the adjacent country. Being apprised of a "rebel force" in arms at Waxhaw, he immediately dispatched a company of dragoons, with a company of infantry, to capture or disperse the "rebels." About forty men, including the two boys Jackson, were attacked by these veterans of the British army, but aided by their true courage, a good cause, and perfect knowledge of the country, they gave the invaders a hot reception, and many of the enemy were killed; and not until having made the most determinate resistance, and being overwhelmed by the great majority of the opposing forces, did these patriots retreat, leaving many of their friends dead upon their soil, and eleven of their number prisoners in the hands of the British. It was during this fight that Andrew Jackson--a mere lad--hearing the noise of the conflict, while he sat in the log-house of his mother, besought her to allow him to take his father's gun, and fly to join his brothers. And it was vain that the parent restrained him, knowing the temperament of the boy, from this dangerous determination; for with one warm embrace and parting kiss upon the brow of his mother, Andrew Jackson buckled on his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and rushed to the scene of battle. But his friends were already flying, and hotly pursued by the enemy. Andrew met his brother Robert, who informed him of the death of their elder brother, Hugh; the two boys now fled together and concealed themselves in the woods, where they lay until hunger drove them forth--they sought food at a farm house, the owner of which proved to be a _tory_, and gave information to some soldiers in the vicinity--the Jacksons were both captured and led to prison. In the affray--for they yielded only by force--Robert was cut on the head by a sword in the hands of a petty officer, and he died in great agony in prison. It was here and then that the firm and manly bearing of the boy was exhibited; for he stood his griefs and imprisonment like a true hero. Not a tear escaped him by which his enemies might be led to believe he feared their power, or wavered in his allegiance to the cause of his country.