Part 8 (1/2)
”Presently, I heard him ax the groom who that 'ere Yankee lookin'
feller was. 'That?' said the groom, 'why, I guess it's Mr. Slick.'
'Sho!' said he, 'how you talk. What! Slick the Clockmaker? why it ain't possible; I wish I had a known that 'ere afore, I declare, for I have a great curiosity to see him; folks say he is an amazin'
clever feller that;' and he turned and stared, as if it was old Hickory himself. Then he walked round and about like a pig round the fence of a potato field, a-watchin' for a chance to cut in; so, thinks I, I'll jist give him something to talk about, when he gets back to the city; I'll fix a Yankee handle on to him in no time.
”'How's times to Halifax, sir,' said I. 'Better,' says he, 'much better. Business is done on a surer bottom than it was, and things look bright agin.' 'So does a candle,' says I, 'jist afore it goes out; it burns up ever so high and then sinks right down, and leaves nothin' behind but grease, and an everlastin' bad smell. I guess they don't know how to feed their lamp, and it can't burn long on nothin'.
No, sir, the jig is up with Halifax, and it's all their own fault. If a man sits at his door, and sees stray cattle in his field, a-eatin'
up of his crop, and his neighbours, a-eatin' off his grain, and won't so much as go and drive 'em out, why I should say it sarves him right.'
”I don't exactly understand, sir,' said he. Thinks I, it would be strange if you did, for I never see one of your folks yet that could understand a hawk from a handsaw. 'Well,' says I, 'I will tell you what I mean: draw a line from Cape Sable to Cape Cansoo, right through the Province, and it will split it into two, this way;' and I cut an apple into two halves; 'now,' says I, 'the worst half, like the rotten half of the apple, belongs to Halifax, and the other and sound half belongs to St. John. Your side of the province on the sea coast is all stone; I never seed such a proper sight of rocks in my life; it's enough to starve a rabbit. Well, t'other side on the Bay of Fundy, is a superfine country; there ain't the beat of it to be found anywhere. Now, wouldn't the folks living away up to the Bay, be pretty fools to go to Halifax, when they can go to St. John with half the trouble. St. John is the natural capital of the Bay of Fundy; it will be the largest city in America next to New York. It has an immense back country as big as Great Britain, a first chop river, and amazin' sharp folks, most as cute as the Yankees; it's a splendid location for business. Well, they draw all the produce of the Bay sh.o.r.es, and where the produce goes the supplies return; they will take the whole trade of the Province. I guess your rich folks will find they've burnt their fingers; they've put their foot in it, that's a fact. Houses without tenants, wharves without s.h.i.+pping, a town without people--what a grand investment! If you have any loose dollars, let 'em out on mortgage in Halifax, that's a security; keep clear of the country for your life; the people may run, but the town can't. No, take away the troops, and you're done; you'll sing the dead march folks did at Louisburg and Shelburne. Why you hain't got a single thing worth havin', but a good harbour, and as for that the coast is full of 'em. You havn't a pine log, a spruce board or a refuse s.h.i.+ngle; you neither raise wheat, oats, or hay, nor never can; you have no staples on airth, unless it be them iron ones for the padlocks in Bridewell. You've sowed pride and reaped poverty; take care of your crop, for it's worth harvestin'. You have no river and no country, what in the name of fortin' have you to trade on?
”'But,' said he (and he showed the whites of his eyes like a wall-eyed horse), 'but,' said he, 'Mr. Slick, how is it then, Halifax ever grew at all! Hasn't it got what it always had? It's no worse than it was.' 'I guess,' said I, 'that pole ain't strong enough to bear you, neither; if you trust to that, you'll be into the brook, as sure as you are born; you once had the trade of the whole Province, but St. John has run off with that now; you've lost all but your trade in blueberries and rabbits with the n.i.g.g.e.rs at Hammond Plains.
You've lost your customers; your rivals have a better stand for business--they've got the corner store; four great streets meet there, and it's near the market slip.'
”Well, he stared; says he, 'I believe you're right, but I never thought of that afore.' Thinks I, n.o.body'd ever suspect you of the trick of thinkin' that ever I heerd tell of. 'Some of our great men,'
said he, 'laid it all to your folks' selling so many clocks and Polyglot Bibles; they say you have taken off a horrid sight of money.' 'Did they, indeed?' said I; 'well, I guess it ain't pins and needles that's the expense of house-keepin', it is something more costly than that.' 'Well, some folks say it's the banks,' says he. 'Better still,' says I; 'perhaps you've hearn tell, too, that greasin' the axle, makes a gig harder to draw, for there's jist about as much sense in that.' 'Well then,' says he, 'others say it's smugglin' has made us so poor.' 'That guess,' said I, 'is most as good as t'other one; whoever found out that secret ought to get a patent for it, for it's worth knowin'. Then the country has grown poorer, hasn't it, because it has bought cheaper this year, than it did the year before? Why, your folks are cute chaps, I vow; they'd puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer, they are so amazin' knowin'.' 'Ah,'
said he, and he rubb'd his hands and smiled, like a young doctor, when he gets his first patient; 'ah,' said he, 'if the timber duties are altered, down comes St. John, body and breeches; it's built on a poor foundation--it's all show; they are speculatin' like mad; they'll ruin themselves.' Says I, 'if you wait till they're dead for your fortin', it will be one while, I tell you, afore you pocket the s.h.i.+ners. It's no joke waitin' for a dead man's shoes. Suppose an old feller of eighty was to say, ”When that 'ere young feller dies, I'm to inherit his property,” what would you think? Why, I guess you'd think he was an old fool. No sir, if the English don't want their timber we do want it all; we have used our'n up, we hain't got a stick even to whittle. If the British don't offer we will, and St.
John, like a dear little weepin' widow, will dry up her tears, and take to frolickin' agin and accept it right off.
”'There isn't at this moment such a location hardly in America, as St. John; for beside all its other advantages, it has this great one: its only rival, Halifax, has got a dose of opium that will send it snoring out of the world, like a feller who falls asleep on the ice of a winter's night. It has been asleep so long, I actilly think it never will wake. It's an easy death too; you may rouse them up if you like, but I vow I won't. I once brought a feller to that was drowned, and one night he got drunk and quilted me; I couldn't walk for a week. Says I, ”You're the last chap I'll ever save from drowning in all my born days, if that's all the thanks I get for it.” No sir, Halifax has lost the run of its custom. Who does Yarmouth trade with?
St. John. Who does Annapolis County trade with? St. John. Who do all the folks on the Basin of Mines, and Bay sh.o.r.e, trade with? St. John.
Who does c.u.mberland trade with? St. John. Well Pictou, Lunenburg and Liverpool, supply themselves, and the rest that ain't worth havin', trade with Halifax. They take down a few half-starved pigs, old viteran geese, and long legged fowls, some ram mutton and tough beef; and swap them for tea, sugar, and such little notions for their old women to home; while the railroads and ca.n.a.ls of St. John are goin'
to cut off your Gulf Sh.o.r.e trade to Miramichi, and along there. Flies live in the summer and die in winter, you're jist as noisy in war as those little critters, but you sing small in peace.
”'No, you're done for; you are up a tree, you may depend; pride must fall. Your town is like a ballroom arter a dance. The folks there eat, drank, and frolicked, and left an empty house; the lamps and hangings are left, but the people are gone.'
”'Is there no remedy for this?' said he; and he looked as wild as a Cherokee Indian. Thinks I, the handle is fitted on proper tight now.
'Well,' says I, 'when a man has a cold, he had ought to look out pretty sharp, afore it gets seated on his lungs; if he don't, he gets into a gallopin' consumption, and it's gone goose with him. There is a remedy, if applied in time: make a railroad to the Minas Basin, and you have a way for your customers to get to you, and a conveyance for your goods to them. When I was in New York last, a cousin of mine, Hezekiah Slick, said to me, ”I do believe Sam, I shall be ruined; I've lost all my custom; they are widening and improving the streets, and there's so many carts and people to work in it, folks can't come to my shop to trade; what on airth shall I do? and I'm payin' a dreadful high rent too?” ”Stop Ki,” says I, ”when the street is all finished off and slicked up, they'll all come back agin, and a whole raft more on 'em too, you'll sell twice as much as ever you did; you'll put off a proper swad of goods next year, you may depend;” and so he did, he made money, hand over hand. A railroad will bring back your customers, if done right off; but wait till trade has made new channels, and fairly gets settled in them, and you'll never divart it agin to all etarnity. When a feller waits till a gal gets married, I guess it will be too late to pop the question then.
”'St. John MUST go ahead, at any rate; you MAY, if you choose, but you must exert yourselves, I tell you. If a man has only one leg, and wants to walk, he must get an artificial one. If you have no river, make a railroad, and that will supply its place.'
”'But,' says he, 'Mr. Slick, people say it never will pay in the world; they say it's as mad a scheme as the ca.n.a.l. 'Do they indeed?'
says I; 'send them to me then, and I'll fit the handle on to them in tu tu's. I say it will pay, and the best proof is, our folks will take tu thirds of the stock. Did you ever hear any one else but your folks, ax whether a dose of medicine would pay when it was given to save life? If that everlastin' long Erie ca.n.a.l can secure to New York the supply of that far off country, most t'other side of creation, surely a railroad of forty-five miles can give you the trade of the Bay of Fundy. A railroad will go from Halifax to Windsor, and make them one town, easier to send goods from one to t'other than from Governor Campbell's House to Admiral c.o.c.kburn's. A bridge makes a town, a river makes a town, a ca.n.a.l makes a town; but a railroad is bridge, river, thoroughfare, ca.n.a.l, all in one; what a whappin' large place that would make, wouldn't it? It would be the dandy, that's a fact. No, when you go back, take a piece of chalk, and the first dark night, write on every door in Halifax, in large letters--a railroad--and if they don't know the meanin' of it, says you ”It's a Yankee word; if you'll go to Sam Slick, the Clockmaker” (the chap that fixed a Yankee handle on to a Halifax blade'--and I made him a sc.r.a.pe of my leg, as much as to say, That's you!) '”every man that buys a clock shall hear all about a railroad.”'”
No. XVIII
The Grahamite and the Irish Pilot.
”I think,” said I, ”this is a happy country, Mr. Slick. The people are fortunately all of one origin; there are no national jealousies to divide, and no very violent politics to agitate them. They appear to be cheerful and contented, and are a civil, good-natured, hospitable race. Considering the unsettled state of almost every part of the world, I think I would as soon cast my lot in Nova Scotia as in any part I know of.”
”It's a clever country, you may depend,” said he, ”a very clever country; full of mineral wealth, aboundin' in superior water privileges and n.o.ble harbours, a large part of it prime land, and it is in the very heart of the fisheries. But the folks put me in mind of a sect in our country they call the Grahamites; they eat no meat and no exciting food, and drink nothin' stronger than water. They call it Philosophy (and that is such a pretty word it has made fools of more folks than them afore now), but I call it tarnation nonsense.
I once travelled all through the State of Maine with one of them 'ere chaps. He was as thin as a whippin' post. His skin looked like a blown bladder arter some of the air had leaked out, kinder wrinkled and rumpled like, and his eye as dim as a lamp that's livin' on a short allowance of ile. He put me in mind of a pair of kitchen tongs, all legs, shaft and head, and no belly; a real gander-gutted lookin'
critter, as holler as a bamboo walkin' cane, and twice as yaller.
He actilly looked as if he had been picked off a rack at sea, and dragged through a gimlet hole. He was a lawyer. Thinks I, the Lord a ma.s.sy on your clients, you hungry, half-starved lookin' critter you, you'll eat 'em up alive as sure as the Lord made Moses. You are jist the chap to strain at a goat and swallow a camel, tank, shank and flank, all at a gulp.