Part 19 (1/2)
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.'