The Puddleford Papers Part 19

This was a quaint, but a very pointed way, of ill.u.s.trating a law of nature.

Venison was a quaint man, and drove at a conclusion frequently cross lots, by some startling figure of speech.

"And I've got an idee," continued Venison, "an idee--I don't put it down as fact--that birds know one another, jest as we do--remember each other from y'ar to y'ar--how they sang together last y'ar and every y'ar in the shadows and suns.h.i.+ne of this old wood, and nested and raised their young 'uns together--and they kinder bid good by to one 'nother when they go off in the fall, and say How are you? when spring comes on--and may be they have their likes and dislikes, and old grudges to bring up agin--for there is a world of human natur' in 'em--a world on't--it is only an idee--can't say--but I believe it--but,"--and the old hunter turned round with a sad look,--"they won't roam round here much longer; the big trees are tumblin'; the old seventy-sixers are enymost gone; morn'er twenty y'ars ago they were mighty noisy up in that ar oak (he pointed to an enormous oak stump), but the varmints heeved it down, and made it inter lumber--the old tree that liv'd and rock'd in the storms five hundred years, I reckon; the bees and birds all knew it, and jest hung around it 'cause they lov'd it. I have had many a good shot from it. I heerd it crash when it came down--felt it, I did--feel it yet--the varmints."

"But," said I, with an effort to turn the current of the old man's thoughts, "you really believe that birds have their captains and colonels, and all that, do you?"

"Yes, sir! and mor'n that; kings and queens, for aught I know. It's a king that leads the ducks in their flight, ain't it? Hain't you heer'd him blow his horn, away in the sky, as he led 'em on up the rivers and takes? Don't the bees have their queen?"

Venison launched forth in his peculiar style on the theory of government, despotic and republican--maintained that G.o.d "hadn't any republics" in his kingdom--"all on 'em kings and queens--n.o.body was 'lected there--all on 'em were made from the beginning to rule and reign over their subjects." He maintained that as G.o.d was almighty, so he put almighty power in the rulers of the kingdoms under him. Therefore--such was his argument--"man orter be governed by man"--not by the voice of the people, but by a sovereign higher than himself. His arguments and language were home-made, but his ideas were brought out with great point and force.

I had long known that Venison was well posted on the trees and shrubs, flowers, and even the weeds. Nothing that he had ever observed had failed him. Probably he never read a book on the subject in his life, that is, if he could read. The familiar names of all creation were understood by him, and he had his own theories about everything animate and inanimate. I started him off on this subject. I called his attention to the oak over which he shed a tear, and by degrees drew him along to the time when the axe and the plough would change the whole face of the country around us into hamlets, green pastures, and waving fields of grain. The old man looked solemn. The subject was not pleasant to him--he heaved a sigh, and said, finally, "'Tis all the same! 'tis all the same with me! I shall be under the ground then! I don't wanter live to see it."

He rallied, and went on--"They've enymost spilt it now. When I was young, I could see a deer a mile away--no underbrush to shade my rifle. The deer, too, look'd grander like, somehow, than they do now. They had a freedom in 'em. They seemed to know the woods was theirs. They kinder go sneakin'

round now, as though some critter was arter 'em. This stream was filled with ducks, flappin' their wings, and was.h.i.+n' themselves; and many a time I've heer'd 'em, jest as the sun was a-settin', talkin' to themselves, and gettin' ready to go to bed. But the settlers came in, dammed the river, and down came the sawdust, and it roar'd and rattled 'em all away. The partridges used to drum and drum in the still afternoon, and whirr about--and they are gone, too. I don't believe natur' likes to be disturbed. She sorter rebels agin the plough at first. She allers sends up c.o.ke and bramble when the furrows are first made--fights it as well as she can, till they get her under, and put her inter what they call crops. The Lord made the airth well enough to begin with. He knew what we wanted. He gave us airth and sky, woods and water--birds and fish to eat--and it all rais'd itself, and enough on't, too. This thing they call civ'lation is right agin natur'. It makes poor young men and wim'in'. They hain't got no stuff in 'em--they can't do anythin'--they are peepin' round, full of pain of every sort--full of rheumatiz, agers, janders, and all sorter ails. I've gone morn'er twenty miles a day, loaded with game, and not a tired hair in me--can do it agin." And thus Venison preached, too much and too long for me to record in full.

Venison continued, and declared that "there was enough of everything just as it was." He attempted to show that there were seeds of life deep in the earth, planted there from the beginning, that came forth in due time, and replenished the earth. He never "see'd any c.o.ke till they ploughed a furrow, and built that ere rail fence"--"and down in that ere breakin'

(which I saw had been neglected, and was overgrown heavily), the blackberries and ten thousand other things were comin' up." He said he "would jest like to know where all that seed had been lyin' since the world was made--how long it would have laid, he'd jest like ter know, if that ere plough hadn't stirred up the sile." And thus he attempted to ill.u.s.trate his theory of vegetation.

"Not only the trees, but the Injuns were goin'. 'Tain't as 'twas with 'em when they went a-whoopin' around among the streams and woods. I've see'd mor'n nor forty canoes sailing away here on this river at on'st--and then we had raal Injuns--tall, six-foot fellers, with eyes like the eagle. But they, too, are pinin' out like. The white man, and the white man's ways, and the white man's drink, has taken all the tuck out on 'em. They know, what are left on 'em, that they ain't raal Injuns any more. They don't whoop any more. They hang about the towns a while, and get full of pizen, and then slink away silently inter the forest again. Sometimes, when huntin' season comes on, they fire up, and chase the game, but it is kinder melancholy, after all--like a flame jest spirtin' out a minute from a charr'd and half-burning log. There's old Sakoset (I've known him enymost on to forty years), was jest as much of a king, and had jest as much of a throne, as old George Third ever had. He lov'd his tribe, and they lov'd him. His word was law. These were all his grounds for a hundred miles round. I know it warn't mark'd off into counties, towns.h.i.+ps, and school de-stricts. They didn't have any place to file away papers, nor didn't write everythin' they did in books--but they had their laws jest as well, all written down inter their heads; and they knew their history--they had, what white men call their traditions--they knew all about their fathers and grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers--and old Sakoset was their chief. He was six feet three inches by measure, and as straight as that 'ere hickory. He was knit all over as tight as an oak. He was as hansome as a picter, and I've seen him in council, when I tho't he was the n.o.blest lookin' mortal on this airth. And there warn't no man, no gov'ment (Venison grew excited here) that had as good a right to these 'ere grounds as Sakoset. G.o.d gave 'em to him, and the white man stole 'em away, stole 'em, sir!--stole 'em. Yes, sir! they pa.s.sed a law that they should be removed 'yond the 'Sippi--gave 'em huntin' grounds, as they call 'em--drove 'em together like scar'd sheep, and forc'd 'em away from their own sile. But old Sakoset didn't like his new home, wouldn't stay, and he and a few of his tribe straggled back here agin, and now wander round these woods. But he ain't the same man any more; he's all broke down like; 'tain't the same place to him, he says. The stream winds round the hill yet, and the mountain is there, but the forest is mostly down, and the white man is everywhere. Sakoset says but little; goes round dreamin'-like; hangs about alone in the woods, a-thinkin', and sees in his mind his tribe all before him as it was when he was king over them on these grounds. I saw him a few days ago up in the Injun buryin'-ground sittin' so still, I first tho't he was a monerment somebody had put up--but 'twas Sakoset."

Venison was here attracted by the roar of a gun, and a deer rushed past, breaking his discourse, and we both followed the hunter and the hunted, to see how the chase would end--saw the deer plunge into the river, the dogs after him, and I watched them until they floated away around the bend beyond my sight.

CHAPTER XVI.

Some Account of John Smith.--Nicknames.--Progress of the Age.--The Colonel's Opinion of Science.--John Smith's Dream.--Ike Turtle's Dream.--Ike takes the Boots.

Pioneers--men who grow up in the woods--are famous for luxuriant imaginations. Everything, with them, is on a sweeping scale with the natural objects amid which they dwell. The rivers, and lakes, and plains are great, and seem to run riot--so men sometimes run riot too, in thought, and word, and deed. They deal largely in the extravagant, and do extravagant things in an extravagant way.

I have seen a rusty pioneer, when giving his opinion upon some trite matter, garnish his language with imagery and figures, and clothe himself with an action, that Demosthenes would have copied, if he had met with such in his day. Gestures all graceful, eye all fire, language rough, but strong, and an enthusiasm that was magnetic--a kind of unpremeditated natural eloquence, that many a one has sought for, but never found.

John Smith was an ingenious Puddlefordian in the way of story-telling. He was almost equal to Ike Turtle. John was a great, stalwart, double-breasted fellow, who cared for nothing, not even himself; a compound made up of dare-devil ferocity, benevolence, and impudence. His feelings, whether of the higher or lower order, always ran to excess. He was an importation from Ma.s.sachusetts, of fair education, and, from his recklessness of life, had drifted into Puddleford, like many other tempest-tossed vessels, stripped of spars and rigging. Smith's fancy and imagination were always at work. He had nicknamed two thirds of Puddleford, and there was something characteristic in the appellations bestowed. One small-eyed man, he called "Pink-Eye;" another, a bustling fellow, who made a very great noise on a very small capital, was known as "b.u.mble-bee;" another, a long-shanked, loose-jointed character, was "Giraffe;" Squire Longbow he christened "Old Night-Shade." Turtle was known as "Sky-Rocket;" Bates as "Little c.o.ke;" the Colonel as "Puff-Ball." Indeed, not one man in twenty was recognized by his true name, so completely had Smith invested the people with t.i.tles of his own manufacture.

I recollect one of Smith's flights of imagination--one among many--for I cannot write out all his mental productions.

The Puddlefordians were met, as usual, at Bulliphant's. That was the place, we have seen, where all public opinion was created. Turtle, and Longbow, and Bates, and the whole roll, even down to Jim Buzzard, were present. The progress of the age was the subject.

Turtle thought "there was no cac'latin' what things would come to--steam and ingin-rubber were runnin' one etarnal race, and he guess'd they'd lay all opposition to the land, and bring on the millennium."

Bates said "the sciences were doin' sunthin', but _they'd_ never make anybody better--human natur' was so shockin' wicked, that it would require a heap mor'n injin-rubber to _rejuvify_ 'em."

Mr. Longbow requested Bates "to repeat that 'ere last word agin."

Bates said "it was '_rejuvify_'--that is, 'drag out,' 'resurrect.'"

The Squire thanked Bates for his explanation.

The Colonel said there was such a thing as too much science. He professed to have lived a scientific life--that is, without work--but all the while he found some one a little more scientific, and he had never been able to hold his own anywhere. He had been stranded fourteen times in his life, owing to a press of science brought against him; but the most destructive science in the known world was that for the collection of debts. It deprived men of their liberty, their comforts, their property, their friends; and the manner in which this was all done was barbarous. He defied any man to produce as cool-blooded a thing as an execution at law, which was a branch of legal science.

Squire Longbow said--"A _fiery facius_ (_fieri facias_) was one of the most ancientest writs which he issued, and there warn't nothin' cool-blooded or ramptious about it."

Mr. Smith sat silently up to this point in the debate. "Boys," said he, at last, "the world is goin' ahead. Talkin' of science, let me tell you a dream I had last night." But, if the reader will permit me, I will give the substance of Smith's dream in my own language. It may detract from its point, but it will be more connected and intelligible.

"I dreamed, boys," said Smith, "that I was in the great Patent Office, at Was.h.i.+ngton. I looked, and its ceiling was raised to an enormous height, while through open doors and pa.s.sages I saw room after room groaning with thousands of models, until it appeared as though I was in a wilderness of machinery. Very soon a pert little gentleman, with a quick black eye, and a 'p.u.s.s.y' body, arrayed in the queerest costume I ever saw, came bustling up to me, and asked me for my ticket. I involuntarily thrust my hand into the depths of my breeches-pocket, and pulling out a card, delivered it to him.

After looking at the card, and then at me, and then at the card again, he burst out into a loud guffaw, that made the old Patent-Office ring. 'Why, sir,' said he, '_this_ is no ticket. It is the business card of one John Smith, advertising a patent dog-churn, of which he here says he is the real inventor, and it bears date in the year 1840--two hundred years ago! The churn may be found in room marked "Inventions of Year 1840," but the man John Smith we haven't got. I don't much think he is around above ground, just at this time," said the little man, chuckling. 'But,' said I, 'who are you, if I am not John Smith? Were you not appointed by Polk, Secretary of the Interior, and did I not put a word in his ear favorable to you?' 'Polk, a Secretary of the Interior!' exclaimed he; 'I appointed by Polk! Why, my dear sir, I was appointed only two years ago--not two hundred!--"Chief of the Great Central Department," as the office is now called.'

"While we were talking, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Fulton, walked in and took seats. I knew Uncle Ben the moment I cast my eyes upon him. He was dressed in good old '76 style;--shoe-buckles, short breeches, queue, and all; and that same jolly, round face, and double chin, that tranquil countenance just touched, without being destroyed, by comedy--were all there. Adams and Jefferson I had before seen, and they were a little more modern in dress, but they both looked care-worn. Fulton sat apart, and eyed the other three as though he had seen them somewhere, but yet could not call them by name.

"The rather unexpected arrival of these gentlemen broke up the comments of my bustling interrogator, and one of those pauses occurred which frequently do upon the appearance of strangers. Uncle Ben asked Jefferson if he would 'not like to move up to the fire and warm his feet?' 'Fire!' said I, 'fire.

Why, Uncle Ben, there is no fireplace now-a-days. Stoves and hot-air furnaces are all the go. This building is warmed by a great furnace, and two miles of pipe that conducts the heat to every room in it.' 'Not by a long way,' said my bustling friend--'not by a long way, Mr. John Smith.

This trumpery is all piled away among the inventions of the years that were. These things belong to the age of your dog-churn. Why, gentlemen,'

continued he, 'have you never heard of the Great Southern Hot-Air Company, chartered in 1960, whose business it is to furnish warm air from the South to persons at the North; price to families three dollars a year; all done by a gigantic underground tunnel, and branches, worked at the other end by an air-pump! Have you never heard of _this_, gentlemen? Here we get the natural heat of the South, warmed by the sun; none of your stinking coal and wood gases to corrupt and destroy it. And then the principle of reciprocity is kept up; for we send back our cold air in the same way; and so we keep up an equilibrium, for the South are just as strenuous as ever to keep up the equilibrium of the Union. Why, gentlemen, those stoves required constant care. As often as every week it was necessary to replenish them with wood or coal. No! no!--those improvements belonged to the dark ages."

"Bless me!" exclaimed Uncle Ben. "Impossible!" repeated Fulton. "And so you don't use the old 'Franklin' stove any more?" said Uncle Ben. "Perhaps," he continued, a quiet smile playing over his face, as if he intended a comical shot, "perhaps you don't use lightning now-a-days either, and my lightning-rods, of course, belong to the dark ages too!"

"We have the lightning, and use it too, but only one rod, built by the state, near its centre, which is so colossal and powerful that it protects everything around it." And then the little fellow rattled on about the _use_ of lightning; how it wrote all over the world the English language, until I verily believe that Uncle Ben, Fulton, and all, set him down as the most unscrupulous liar that they had ever met with.

"I think," said Uncle Ben, "that I could convince myself of the truth of your a.s.sertions, if I could go to Boston; but as my time is very limited, I cannot."

"Send you there in five minutes by the watch!" answered the little man; "or, if that's too soon, in twenty-four hours. It requires powerful lungs to go by balloon--time five minutes--departure every half hour. The magnetic railway train will take you through in four hours, or on the old-fas.h.i.+oned railroad in twenty-four." "What," said Uncle Ben, "is the old stage company entirely broken up?" "Don't know what you mean by stages,"

said the little man, "but I will look for the word in the big dictionary."

"Go by steamboat," said Fulton. "Steamboat!" repeated the little man,--"steamboat! too everlasting slow--not over twenty-five miles an hour--well enough for freight, but pa.s.sengers cannot endure them; they go laboring and splas.h.i.+ng along at a snail's pace, and they are enough to wear out any man's patience. Yet the steamboat was the greatest stride ever made at any one time in the way of locomotion, and was very creditable to Fulton and the age in which he lived." "That is admitting something," burst out Fulton, who had sat like a statue, watching the little man's volubility.

"But," said Uncle Ben, "all this talk don't get me on my way to Boston.

That is my birthplace. I was there for the last time in 1763, and you know that, according to the provisions of my will, there is more than four million pounds sterling of my money which has by this time been disposed of by the state somehow." Uncle Ben was always a shrewd fellow in the way of dollars and cents, and I could see he was very anxious about that money.

"Oho! oho!" said the little man; "so you are Ben Franklin, and you are the old gentleman who left that legacy. We've got a portrait of you up-stairs, more than two hundred years old, and it _does_ look like you. Glad to see you! You said something in your life-time about immersing yourself in a cask of Madeira wine with a few friends, and coming to the world in a hundred years again. These are your friends, I suppose?" "These gentlemen,"

replied Uncle Ben, "are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, signers of the Declaration of Independence." "The other gentleman," continued I, "is Robert Fulton, whom you have spoken of." "Well, I declare!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the little man, "this _is_ a meeting! But about that legacy, Uncle Ben, of yours; two million sterling of it has gone to build the Gutta Percha Magnetic Telegraph line, connecting Boston with London and Paris, two of the largest cities in the Eastern Republic of Europe." "Gutta Percha!--Magnetic telegraph!--_Republic_ of Europe!"--repeated all of them.

"All built under water, and sustained by buoys," continued the little man, "and it works to a charm--plan up-stairs in room 204--and can be seen in a moment; and, as I told you before, it writes the English language as fast as my deputy." "Republic of Europe!" exclaimed Jefferson, again. "Yes, sir," said the little man, "for more than a century. No more thrones; no more rulers by divine right; no more governments sustained by powder and ball; no lords nor n.o.bles; man is _man_, not merely one of a _cla.s.s_ of men, but _individually_ man, with rights as perfect and powers as great as any other man. The principles, Jefferson, of your Declaration, which you did not create, but only a.s.serted, have prostrated every arbitrary government on the globe. Even the Jews, since their return to Jerusalem, have organized a republican form of government, and have just elected Mr.

Noah President." "Well," thinks I to myself, "that can't be _Mordecia M._ Noah, anyhow, for politics must have used up his const.i.tution before this."

But the little man chattered away, and declared that Europe was divided into two republics, the Eastern and Western; that Constantinople was the capital of the Western; that Africa and Asia were also republican; until the three signers of the Declaration, perfectly wrought up to a frenzy of joy, rose up from their seats, took off their hats, and swinging them round, gave "Three cheers for '76, and the old Army of the Revolution!"--and I verily believe Uncle Ben forgot all about that money, and about going to Boston, for he did not allude to it any more in my presence.

"Great changes these!" continued the little man, "from your days. But you must not think, gentlemen, that we have forgotten you or your services, while we have improved in wisdom and strength. Look here, gentlemen," and he motioned us away, and, leading on, he conducted us to an observatory on the top of the building. Such a prospect I never before beheld. Away, around, on every side, stretched a mighty city, whose limits the eye could not reach. Towers, temples, spires, and masts succeeded towers, temples, spires, and masts, until they were lost in the distant haze. Ca.n.a.ls traversed every street, and boats of merchandise were loading and unloading their freights. Steam-carriages were puffing along the roads that ran by the ca.n.a.l, some filled with pleasure parties, and some laden with goods.

Turning my eye to an elevation, I saw fifty-six gigantic monuments, whose peaks were nearly lost in the sky, ranged in a line, all alike in form and sculpture. "These," said the little man, "were erected to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence;" and, taking out his telescope, he handed it to Uncle Ben, who read aloud among the inscriptions the names, FRANKLIN, JEFFERSON, ADAMS. "But let us know what this city is called?" inquired Jefferson. "This, sir, is called _Columbiana_; it lies on the west bank of the Mississippi, population five millions, according to the last census."

"But what supports it?" "Supports it! The great East India trade. That vessel down there is direct from Canton, by s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l across the Isthmus.

All Europe is secondary to us now. No doubling capes, as was done in _your_ day. Yonder stands the Capitol; and the whole North American continent is annually represented there. The city of San Francisco alone sends forty-four members. There," continued he, pointing his finger, "that balloon rising slowly in the sky has just started for that place, and the pa.s.sengers will take their dinner there to-morrow."

Jefferson asked the little man "whether the Federalists or Democrats were in power?"--and I saw that Adams waked up when he heard the question.

"Don't know any such division," replied he. "The great measure of the day, upon which parties are divided, is the purchase of the South American continent at five hundred millions of dollars. I go for it; and before another year the bargain will be consummated. We _must_ have more territory--we haven't got half enough. Extent of territory gives a nation dignity and importance. The old thirteen states of your day, gentlemen, were a mere cabbage patch, and should have been consolidated into one state. Ten or twenty days' sail ran you plump into a hostile port, and then you had a demand for duty. Besides, conflicting interests always brew up difficulties; and then come treaties, and finally war, and then debt, and at last oppressive taxation. A nation should own all the territory that joins it. The ocean is the only natural boundary for a people." Thinks I, "You have been a politician in your day, and I'll just engage you to correspond with a certain New York editor, who shall be nameless; you strike off the doctrine boldly!"

Uncle Ben told the little man, after he closed, that a nation might "get so very ripe as to become a little rotten; and, if he had no objection, he would present him with the 'Sayings of Poor Richard.'" And, suiting the action to the word, he pushed his hand into his breeches-pocket, and pulled out an old almanac, printed at Philadelphia in 1732, and, bowing, handed it to him. The little man thanked him, and promised to deposit it in the Museum, as a curious piece of antiquity.

"Getting somewhat anxious for a smoke, I drew forth a cigar and 'loco-foco,' rubbed the latter across my boot, which flashed out its light full in Uncle Ben's face. 'That is nice,' exclaimed he; 'rather an improvement on the old string, wheel, and tinder plan.' 'Simple, too, isn't it?' said I; 'and yet all the science of your day didn't detect it.' Just then I gave a puff, which made Uncle Ben sneeze; and he broke out into a tirade against tobacco that would read well. But I told him there was no use; men had smoked and chewed the weed--would smoke and chew it, economy or no economy, health or no health, filth or no filth; and that in all probability the last remnant of the great American Republic, for succeeding nations to gaze at, would be a plug of tobacco; for I sincerely believed that tobacco would outlive the government itself.

"The little man proposed returning into the Patent Office, and exhibiting to us in detail the models of art there deposited. But I cannot weary you with what I there saw. The fruits of every year, since the organization of the department, were divided into rooms, and indicated on the door by an inscription. There were thousands of improvements in every branch of science, many of which were so simple, that I thought myself a fool that I did not discover them long ago. Principles were applied, the very operation of which I now recollected to have often seen, yet without a thought of their practical utility. I came to the conclusion that accident was the parent of more that I saw than design; 'for how,' reasoned I, 'is it possible that these pieces of machinery could otherwise have escaped the great men who have lived and died in ignorance of them?'

"By this time we were quite fatigued, and Uncle Ben complained a little of the 'stone,' which he said he was subject to. The little man gave him some 'Elixir of Life,' as he called it, being, as he said, 'an extract of the nutritious portions of meats and vegetables, purged from their grossness as found in their natural state;' and while we were sipping it, he launched forth upon its great benefit to mankind; the money saved that used to be expended in cookery and transportation--millions upon millions; the great economy in time, formerly squandered in eating, &c., &c.; and he wound up his eulogy by presenting each of us with a bottle, which I carefully put away in my pocket.