The Clockmaker Part 12

"Minister was an uncommon pleasant man--for there was nothin' a'most he didn't know--except when he got his dander up, and then he did spin out his yarns for everlastinly.

"But I'm of his opinion. If the folks here want their country to go ahead, they must honour the plough; and General Campbell ought to hammer that 'ere into their noddles, full chisel, as hard as he can drive. I could larn him somethin', I guess, about hammerin' he ain't up to. It ain't every one that knows how to beat a thing into a man's head. How could I have sold so many thousand clocks, if I hadn't had that knack? Why, I wouldn't have sold half a dozen, you may depend.

"Agriculture is not only neglected but degraded here. What a number of young folks there seem to be in these parts, a-ridin' about, t.i.tivated out real jam, in their go-to-meetin' clothes, a-doin'

nothin'. It's melancholy to think on it. That's the effect of the last war. The idleness and extravagance of those times took root, and bore fruit abundantly, and now the young people are above their business. They are too high in the instep, that's a fact.

"Old Drivvle, down here to Maccan, said to me one day, 'For gracious sake,' says he, 'Mr. Slick, do tell me what I shall do with Johnny.

His mother sets great store by him, and thinks he's the makin's of a considerable smart man; he's growin up fast now, and I am pretty well to do in the world, and reasonable forehanded, but I don't know what the dogs to put him to. The lawyers are like spiders--they've eat up all the flies, and I guess they'll have to eat each other soon, for there's more on 'em than causes now every court. The Doctors' trade is a poor one, too, they don't get barely cash enough to pay for their medicines; I never seed a country pract.i.tioner yet that made anything worth speakin' of. Then, as for preachin', why church and dissenters are pretty much tarred with the same stick, they live in the same pastur' with their flocks; and, between 'em, it's fed down pretty close I tell you. What would you advise me to do with him?'

'Well,' says I, 'I'll tell you if you won't be miffy with me.' 'Miffy with you indeed,' said he, 'I guess I'll be very much obliged to you; it ain't every day one gets a chance to consult with a person of your experience; I count it quite a privilege to have the opinion of such an understandin' man as you be.' 'Well,' says I, 'take a stick and give him a real good quiltin'; jist tantune him like blazes, and set him to work. What does the critter want? You have a good farm for him, let him go and airn his bread; and when he can raise that, let him get a wife to make b.u.t.ter for it; and when he has more of both than he wants, let him sell 'em and lay up his money, and he will soon have his bread b.u.t.tered on both sides. Put him to, eh! why put him to the PLOUGH, the most nateral, the most happy, the most innocent, and the host healthy employment in the world.' 'But,' said the old man (and he did not look over half pleased), markets are so confounded dull, labour so high, and the banks and great folks a-swallerin' all up so, there don't seem much encouragement for farmers; it's hard rubbin', nowadays, to live by the plough--he'll be a hard workin' poor man all his days.' 'Oh!' says I, 'if he wants to get rich by farmin', he can do that, too. Let him sell his wheat, and eat his oatmeal and rye; send his beef, mutton and poultry to market, and eat his pork and potatoes; make his own cloth, weave his own linen, and keep out of shops, and he'll soon grow rich--there are more fortin's got by savin' than by makin', I guess, a plaguy sight--he can't eat his cake and have it too, that's a fact. No, make a farmer of him, and you will have the satisfaction of seeing him an honest, an independent, and a respectable member of society--more honest than traders, more independent than professional men, and more respectable than either.'

"'Ahem!' says Marm Drivvle, and she began to clear her throat for action; she slumped down her knittin', and clawed off her spectacles, and looked right straight at me, so as to take good aim. I seed a regular nor'wester a-brewin', I knew it would bust somewhere sartin, and make all smoke agin, so I cleared out and left old Drivvle to stand the squall. I conceit he must have had a tempestical time of it, for she had get her Ebenezer up, and looked like a proper sneezer. Make her Johnny a farmer, eh! I guess that was too much for the like o' her to stomach.

"Pride, squire," continued the Clockmaker (with such an air of concern, that, I verily believe, the man feels an interest in the welfare of a Province, in which he has spent so long a time), "Pride, Squire, and a false pride, too, is the ruin of this country, I hope I may be skinned if it ain't."

No. XXVII

The White n.i.g.g.e.r.

One of the most amiable, and at the same time most amusing traits, in the Clockmaker's character, was the attachment and kindness with which he regarded his horse. He considered "Old Clay" as far above a Provincial horse, as he did one of his "free and enlightened citizens" superior to a Bluenose. He treated him as a travelling companion, and when conversation flagged between us, would often soliloquize to him, a habit contracted from pursuing his journeys alone. "Well now," he would say, "Old Clay, I guess you took your time a-goin' up that 'ere hill--'spose we progress now. Go along, you old sculpin, and turn out your toes. I reckon you are as deff as a shad, do you hear there? Go ahead! Old Clay. There now," he'd say, "Squire ain't that dreadful pretty? There's action. That looks about right: legs all under him--gathers all up snug--no bobbin' of his head--no rollin' of his shoulders--no wabblin' of his hind parts, but steady as a pump bolt, and the motion all underneath. When he fairly lays himself to it, he trots like all vengeance. Then look at his ear--jist like rabbit's; none o' your flop-ears like them Amherst beasts, half horses, half pigs, but strait up and p'inted, and not too near at the tips; for that 'ere, I consait, always shows a horse ain't true to draw. There are only two things, Squire, worth lookin'

at in a horse, action and soundness; for I never saw a critter that had good action that was a bad beast. Old Clay puts me in mind of one of our free and enlightened--"

"Excuse me," said I, "Mr. Slick, but really you appropriate that word 'free' to your countrymen, as if you thought no other people in the world were ent.i.tled to it but yourselves."

"Neither be they," said he. "We first sot the example. Look at our declaration of independence. It was writ by Jefferson, and he was the first man of the age; perhaps the world never seed his ditto. It's a beautiful piece of penmans.h.i.+p that, he gave the British the b.u.t.t eend of his mind there. I calculate you couldn't falt it in no particular, it's generally allowed to be his cap s.h.i.+ef. In the first page of it, second section, and first va.r.s.e, are these words: 'We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' I guess King George turned his quid when he read that. It was somethin' to chaw on, he hadn't been used to the flavour of, I reckon."

"Jefferson forgot to insert one little word," said I; "he should have said, 'all white men;' for as it now stands, it is a practical untruth, in a country which tolerates domestic slavery in its worst and most forbidding form. It is a declaration of SHAME, and not of INDEPENDENCE. It is as perfect a misnomer as ever I knew."

"Well," said he, "I must admit there is a screw loose somewhere thereabouts, and I wish it would convene to Congress, to do somethin'

or another about our n.i.g.g.e.rs, but I am not quite certified how that is to be sot to rights; I consait that you don't understand us. But,"

said he, evading the subject with his usual dexterity, "we deal only in n.i.g.g.e.rs--and those thick-skulled, crooked-shanked, flat-footed, long-heeled, wooly-headed gentlemen, don't seem fit for much else but slavery, I do suppose. They ain't fit to contrive for themselves.

They are jist like gra.s.shoppers; they dance and sing all summer, and when winter comes they have nothin' provided for it, and lay down and die. They require some one to see arter them. Now, we deal in black n.i.g.g.e.rs only, but the Bluenoses sell their own species--they trade in white slaves."

"Thank G.o.d," said I, "slavery does not exist in any part of his Majesty's dominions now, we have at last wiped off that national stain."

"Not quite, I guess," said he, with an air of triumph, "it ain't done with in Nova Scotia, for I have seed these human cattle sales with my own eyes; I was availed of the truth of it up here to old Furlong's last November. I'll tell you the story," said he; and as this story of the Clockmaker's contained some extraordinary statements, which I had never heard of before, I noted it in my journal, for the purpose of ascertaining their truth; and, if founded on fact, of laying them before the proper authorities.

"Last fall," said he, "I was on my way to Partridge Island, to s.h.i.+p off some truck and produce I had taken in, in the way of trade; and as I neared old Furlong's house, I seed an amazin' crowd of folks about the door; I said to myself, says I, who's dead, and what's to pay now? What on airth is the meanin' of all this? Is it a vandew, or a weddin', or a rollin' frolic, or a religious stir, or what is it?

Thinks I, I'll see, so I hitches Old Clay to the fence, and walks in. It was some time afore I was able to swiggle my way through the crowd, and get into the house. And when I did, who should I see but deacon Westfall, a smooth faced, slick haired, meechin' lookin'

chap as you'd see in a hundred, a-standin' on a stool, with an auctioneer's hammer in his hand; and afore him was one Jerry Oaks and his wife, and two little orphan children, the prettiest little toads I ever beheld in all my born days. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I will begin the sale by putting up Jerry Oaks, of Apple River, he's a considerable of a smart man yet, and can do many little ch.o.r.es besides feedin' the children and pigs, I guess he's near about worth his keep.' 'Will you warrant him sound, wind and limb?' says a tall ragged lookin' countryman, 'for he looks to me as if he was foundered in both feet, and had a string halt into the bargain.' 'When you are as old as I be,' says Jerry, 'mayhap you may be foundered too, young man; I have seen the day when you wouldn't dare to pa.s.s that joke on me, big as you be.' 'Will any gentleman bid for him,' says the deacon, 'he's cheap at 7s. 6d.' 'Why deacon,' said Jerry, 'why surely your honour isn't a-goin' for to sell me separate from my poor old wife, are you? Fifty years have we lived together as man and wife, and a good wife has she been to me, through all my troubles and trials, and G.o.d knows I have had enough of 'em. No one knows my ways and my ailments but her, and who can tend me so kind, or who will bear with the complaints of a poor old man but his wife? Do, deacon, and Heaven bless you for it, and yours, do sell us together. We have but a few days to live now, death will divide us soon enough. Leave her to close my old eyes, when the struggle comes, and when it comes to you, deacon, as come it must to us all, may this good deed rise up for you, as a memorial before G.o.d. I wish it had pleased him to have taken us afore it came to this, but his will be done;' and he hung his head, as if he felt he had drained the cup of degradation to its dregs. 'Can't afford it, Jerry--can't afford it, old man,' said the deacon, with such a smile as a November sun gives, a-pa.s.sin' atween clouds. 'Last year they took oats for rates, now nothin' but wheat will go down, and that's as good as cash; and you'll hang on, as most of you do, yet these many years. There's old Joe Crowe, I believe in my conscience he will live for ever.' The biddin' then went on, and he was sold for six s.h.i.+llings a week. Well, the poor critter gave one long, loud, deep groan, and then folded his arms over his breast, so tight that he seemed tryin' to keep in his heart from bustin'. I pitied the misfortinate wretch from my soul; I don't know as I ever felt so streaked afore. Not so his wife, she was all tongue. She begged and prayed, and cryed, and scolded, and talked at the very tip eend of her voice, till she became, poor critter, exhausted, and went off in a faintin' fit, and they ketched her up and carried her out to the air, and she was sold in that condition.

"Well I couldn't make head or tail of all this, I could hardly believe my eyes and ears; so, says I, to John Porter--him that has that catamount of a wife, that I had such a touss with--'John Porter,' says I, 'who ever seed or heerd tell of the like of this, what under the sun does it all mean? What has that 'ere critter done that he should be sold arter that fas.h.i.+on?' 'Done?' said he, 'why nothin', and that's the reason they sell him. This is town meetin'

day, and we always sell the poor for the year, to the lowest bidder.

Them that will keep them for the lowest sum, gets them.' 'Why,' says I, 'that feller that bought him is a pauper himself, to my sartin knowledge. If you were to take him up by the heels and shake him for a week, you couldn't shake sixpence out of him. How can he keep him? It appears to me the poor buy the poor here, and that they all starve together.' Says I, 'there was a very good man once lived to Liverpool, so good, he said he hadn't sinned for seven years; well he put a mill-dam across the river, and stopped all the fish from goin' up, and the court fined him fifty pounds for it, and this good man was so wrathy, he thought he should feel better to swear a little, but conscience told him it was wicked. So he compounded with conscience, and cheated the devil, by callin' it a "dam fine business." Now, friend Porter, if this is your poor law, it is a d.a.m.n poor law, I tell you, and no good can come of such hard-hearted doin's. It's no wonder your country don't prosper, for who ever heerd of a blessin' on such carryins on as this?' Says I, 'Did you ever hear tell of a sartin rich man, that had a beggar called Lazarus laid at his gate, and how the dogs had more compa.s.sion than he had, and came and licked his sores? 'cause if you have, look at that forehanded and 'sponsible man there, deacon Westfall, and you see the rich man.

And then look at that 'ere pauper, dragged away in that ox-cart from his wife for ever, like a feller to States' Prison, and you see Lazarus. Recollect what follered, John Porter, and have neither art nor part in it, as you are a Christian man.'

"It fairly made me sick all day. John Porter follered me out of the house, and as I was a-turnin' Old Clay, said he, 'Mr. Slick,' says he, 'I never seed it in that 'ere light afore, for it's our custom, and custom you know will reconcile one to most anything. I must say, it does appear, as you lay it out, an unfeelin' way of providin' for the poor; but, as touchin' the matter of dividin' man and wife, why'

(and he peered all round to see that no one was within hearin'), 'why I don't know, but if it was my allotment to be sold, I'd as lives they'd sell me separate from Jane as not, for it appears to me it's about the best part of it.'

"Now, what I have told you Squire," said the Clockmaker, "is the truth; and if members, instead of their everlastin' politics, would only look into these matters a little, I guess it would be far better for the country. So, as for our declaration of independence, I guess you needn't twitt me with our slave-sales, for we deal only in blacks; but Bluenose approbates no distinction in colours, and when reduced to poverty, is reduced to slavery, and is sold--a White n.i.g.g.e.r."

No. XXVIII

Fire in the Dairy.

As we approached within fifteen or twenty miles of Parrsboro', a sudden turn of the road brought us directly in front of a large wooden house, consisting of two stories and an immense roof, the height of which edifice was much increased by a stone foundation, rising several feet above ground.

"Now, did you ever see," said Mr. Slick, "such a catamaran as that?

There's a proper goney for you, for to go and raise such a buildin'

as that 'ere, and he as much use for it, I do suppose, as my old wagon here has for a fifth wheel. Bluenose always takes keer to have a big house, 'cause it shows a big man, and one that's considerable forehanded, and pretty well to do in the world. These Nova Scotians turn up their blue noses, as a bottle nose porpoise turns up his snout, and puff and snort exactly like him at a small house. If neighbour Carrit has a two story house, all filled with winders, like Sandy Hook light house, neighbour Parsnip must add jist two feet more on to the post of his'n, and about as much more to the rafter, to go ahead of him; so all these long sarce gentlemen strive who can get the furdest in the sky, away from their farms. In New England our maxim is a small house, and a most an everlastin' almighty big barn; but these critters reva.r.s.e it, they have little hovels for their cattle, about the bigness of a good sizeable bear-trap, and a house for the humans as grand as Noah's Ark. Well, jist look at it and see what a figur' it does cut. An old hat stuffed into one pane of gla.s.s, and an old flannel petticoat, as yaller as jaundice, in another, finish off the front; an old pair of breeches, and the pad of a bran'

new cart-saddle worn out, t.i.tivate the eend, while the backside is all closed up on account of the wind. When it rains, if there ain't a pretty how-do-you-do, it's a pity--beds toated out of this room, and tubs set in t'other to catch soft water to wash; while the clapboards, loose at the eends, go clap, clap, clap, like gals a-hacklin' flax, and the winders and doors keep a-dancin' to the music. The only dry place in the house is in the chimbley corner, where the folks all huddle up, as an old hen and her chickens do under a cart of a wet day. 'I wish I had the matter of half a dozen pound of nails,' you'll hear the old gentleman in the grand house say, 'I'll be darned if I don't, for if I had, I'd fix them 'ere clapboards; I guess they'll go for it some o' these days.' 'I wish you had,' his wife would say, 'for they do make a most particular unhansum clatter, that's a fact;' and so they let it be till the next tempestical time comes, and then they wish agin. Now, this grand house has only two rooms downstairs, that are altogether slicked up and finished off complete; the other is jist pet.i.tioned off rough like, one half great dark entries, and t'other half places that look a plaguy sight more like packin' boxes than rooms. Well, all upstairs is a great onfarnished place, filled with every sort of good-for-nothin' trumpery in natur'--barrels without eends; corn-cobs half husked; cast off clothes and bits of old harness; sheep skins, hides, and wool; apples, one half rotten, and t'other half squashed; a thousand or two of s.h.i.+ngles that have bust their withes, and broke loose all over the floor; hay rakes, forks and sickles, without handles or teeth; rusty scythes, and odds and eends without number.

When anything is wanted, then there is a general overhaul of the whole cargo, and away they get s.h.i.+fted forrard, one by one, all handled over and chucked into a heap together till the lost one is found; and the next time, away they get pitched to the starn agin, higglety pigglety, heels over head, like sheep takin' a split for it over a wall; only they increase in number each move, 'cause some on 'em are sure to get broke into more pieces than they was afore.

Whenever I see one of these grand houses, and a hat lookin' out o'

the winder, with nary head in it, think I, I'll be darned if that's a place for a wooden clock--nothin' short of a London touch would go down with them folks, so I calculate I won't alight.

"Whenever you come to such a grand place as this, Squire, depend on't the farm is all of a piece--great crops of thistles, and an everlastin' yield of weeds, and cattle the best fed of any in the country, for they are always in the grain fields or mowin' lands, and the pigs a-rootin' in the potato patches. A spic and span new gig at the door, s.h.i.+nin' like the mud banks of Windsor, when the sun's on 'em, and an old wrack of a hay wagon, with its tongue onhitched, and stickin' out behind, like a pig's tail, all indicate a big man.

He's above thinkin' of farmin' tools, he sees to the bran' new gig, and the hired helps look arter the carts. Catch him with his go-to-meetin' clothes on, a-rubbin' agin their nasty greasy axles, like a tarry n.i.g.g.e.r; not he, indeed, he'd stick you up with it.

"The last time I came by here, it was a little bit arter daylight down, rainin' cats and dogs, and as dark as Egypt; so, thinks I, I'll jist turn in here for shelter to Squire Bill Blake's. Well, I knocks away at the front door, till I thought I'd a-split it in; but arter a-rappin' awhile to no purpose, and findin' no one come, I gropes my way round to the back door, and opens it, and feelin' all along the part.i.tion for the latch of the keepin' room, without finding it, I knocks agin, when some one from inside calls out 'Walk!' Thinks I, I don't cleverly know whether that indicates 'walk in,' or 'walk out,'

it's plaguy short metre, that's a fact; but I'll see anyhow. Well, arter gropin' about awhile, at last I got hold of the string and lifted the latch and walked in, and there sot old Marm Blake, close into one corner of the chimbley fireplace, a-see-sawin' in a rockin'

chair, and a half grown black house-help, half asleep in t'other corner, a-scroudgin' up over the embers. 'Who be you?' said Marm Blake, 'for I can't see you.' 'A stranger,' said I. 'Beck!' says she, speakin' to the black heifer in the corner, 'Beck!' says she agin, raisin' her voice, 'I believe you are as deff as a post, get up this minit and stir the coals, till I see the man.' Arter the coals were stirred into a blaze, the old lady surveyed me from head to foot, then she axed me my name, and where I came from, where I was a-goin', and what my business was. 'I guess,' said she, 'you must be reasonable wet; sit to the fire and dry yourself, or mayhap your health may be end.a.m.nified p'r'aps.'

"So I sot down, and we soon got pretty considerably well acquainted, and quite sociable like, and her tongue when it fairly waked up, began to run like a mill-race when the gate's up. I hadn't been talkin' long, 'fore I well nigh lost sight of her altogether agin, for little Beck began to flourish about her broom, right and left in great style, a-clearin' up, and she did raise such an auful thick cloud o' dust, I didn't know if I should ever see or breathe either agin. Well, when all was sot to rights and the fire made up, the old lady began to apologize for havin' no candles; she said she'd had a grand tea-party the night afore, and used them all up, and a whole sight of vittals too; the old man hadn't been well since, and had gone to bed airly. 'But,' says she, 'I do wish with all my heart you had a come last night, for we had a most a special supper--punkin pies and doughnuts, and apple sarce, and a roast goose stuffed with indian puddin', and a pig's harslet stewed in mola.s.ses and onions, and I don't know what all, and the fore part of today folks called to finish. I actilly have nothin' left to set afore you; for it was none o' your skim-milk parties, but superfine uppercrust, real jam, and we made clean work of it. But I'll make some tea, anyhow, for you, and perhaps, arter that,' said she, alterin' of her tone, 'perhaps you'll expound the Scriptures, for it's one while since I've heerd them laid open powerfully. I hain't been fairly lifted up since that good man Judas Oglethorp travelled this road,' and then she gave a groan and hung down her head, and looked corner-ways, to see how the land lay thereabouts. The tea-kettle was accordingly put on, and some lard fried into oil, and poured into a tumbler; which, with the aid of an inch of cotton wick, served as a make s.h.i.+ft for a candle.

"Well, arter tea we sot and chatted awhile about fas.h.i.+ons, and markets, and sarmons, and scandal, and all sorts o' things; and, in the midst of it, in runs the n.i.g.g.e.r wench, screemin' out at the tip eend of her voice, 'Oh Missus! Missus! there's fire in the dairy, fire in the dairy!' 'I'll give it to you for that,' said the old lady, 'I'll give it you for that, you good-for-nothin' hussy; that's all your carelessness; go and put it out this minit; how on airth did it get there? My night's milk gone, I dare say; run this minit and put it out, and save the milk.' I am dreadful afeard of fire, I always was from a boy, and seein' the poor foolish critter seize a broom in her fright, I ups with the tea-kettle and follows her; and away we clipt through the entry, she callin' out 'Mind the cellar door on the right!' 'Take kear of the close horse on the left!' and so on, but as I couldn't see nothin', I kept right straight ahead.

At last my foot kotched in somethin' or another, that pitched me somewhat less than a rod or so, right agin the poor black critter, and away we went, heels over head. I heerd a splash and a groan, and I smelt somethin' plaguy sour, but I couldn't see nothin'; at last I got hold of her and lifted her up, for she didn't scream, but made a strange kind of chokin' noise, and by this time up came Marm Blake with a light. If poor Beck didn't let go then in airnest, and sing out for dear life, it's a pity, for she had gone head first into the swill tub, and the tea-kettle had scalded her feet. She kept a-dancin' right up and down, like one ravin' distracted mad, and boo-hoo'd like anything, clawin' away at her head the whole time, to clear away the stuff that stuck to her wool.

"I held in as long as I could, till I thought I should have busted, for no soul could help a-larfin', and at last I haw-hawed right out.

'You good-for-nothin' stupid s.l.u.t you,' said the old lady to poor Beck, 'it sarves you right, you had no business to leave it there--I'll pay you.' 'But,' said I, interferin' for the unfortunate critter, 'good gracious, marm! you forget the fire.' 'No I don't,'

said she, 'I see him,' and seizin' the broom that had fallen from the n.i.g.g.e.r's hand, she exclaimed, 'I see him, the nasty varmint,' and began to belabour most onmarcifully a poor half-starved cur that the noise had attracted to the entry. 'I'll teach you,' said she, 'to drink milk; I'll larn you to steal into the dairy; and the besot critter joined chorus with Beck, and they both yelled together, till they fairly made the house ring agin. Presently old Squire Blake popped his head out of a door, and rubbin' his eyes, half asleep and half awake, said, 'What the devil's to pay now, wife?' 'Why nothin','

says she, 'only FIRE'S IN THE DAIRY, and Beck's in the swill tub, that's all.' 'Well, don't make such a touss, then,' said he, 'if that's all,' and he shot tu the door and went to bed agin. When we returned to the keepin' room, the old lady told me that they always had had a dog called 'Fire,' ever since her grandfather, Major Donald Fraser's time, 'and what was very odd,' says she, 'every one on 'em would drink milk if he had a chance.'

"By this time the shower was over, and the moon s.h.i.+nin' so bright and clear that I thought I'd better be up and stirrin', and arter slippin' a few cents into the poor n.i.g.g.e.r wench's hand, I took leave of the grand folks in the big house. Now, Squire, among these middlin'-sized farmers you may lay this down as a rule: THE BIGGER THE HOUSE, THE BIGGER THE FOOLS BE THAT'S IN IT.

"But, howsomever, I never call to mind that 'ere go in the big house, up to the right, that I don't snicker when I think of 'FIRE IN THE DAIRY.'"

No. XXIX

A Body without a Head.