The Puddleford Papers: or, Humors of the West

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 Massachusetts, 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 "Bumble-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 Coke;" 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 titles 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 Washington. I looked, and its ceiling was raised to an enormous height, while through open doors and passages 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 'pussy' 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 assertions, 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-fashioned 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 passengers cannot endure them; they go laboring and splashing 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!" ejaculated 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 nobles; man is man, not merely one of a class 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 asserted, 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 constitution 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. Canals traversed every street, and boats of merchandise were loading and unloading their freights. Steam-carriages were puffing along the roads that ran by the canal, 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 ship canal 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 passengers 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.

"Adams then rose up, and said he must leave, and Jefferson, Uncle Ben, and Fulton followed. And in a moment Uncle Ben, Fulton, Adams, Jefferson, the little man, the apartments, wheels, and machinery, began to rock, and heave, and fade, and finally dissolve; and suddenly I awoke!"

"You did awake!" exclaimed the Colonel, drawing a breath all the way from his boots; "I should have thought you would."

Bates gave a yawn, and throwing his quid into the fire, called for a glass of whiskey and water, saying he would "try to choke down the story with that."

Longbow sat perfectly magnetized – his arms folded across his breast, his chin dropped, his legs resting on his boot-heels, and pushed out in front of him, as though he was driving a hard-bitted horse, and his one eye stared vacantly at the coals in the huge fireplace. He gave an unconscious grunt when Smith concluded, but made no commentary.

Turtle said "the dream was very remarkable for such a man as Smith; but he guessed he had it, and he was going to believe it, because it was upon the word of a Puddlefordian. But he'd had one that beat it all holler – s'prisin' dream – like them air visions that somebody unriddled for – he couldn't recollect the name of the man now – no matter, the dream's the same.

"I got up one morning," said Ike, "and went down to my breakfast-table, but there warn't one of my family present. I saw seated around it, however, a strange company of folks, and dressed as no mortals ever were before, since the flood, I reckon. There warn't nothin' that ever I seed before on any on 'em. I took my place at the head of the board, and attempted to do the carvin'; but there warn't nobody that understood my meanin'. Pork warn't pork any more; and when I tried to pass pork, I found that it had a kind-er' fancy name, which I have now forgot.

"One great goggle-eyed fellow, who sat at my right hand, informed a lady near him 'that he'd got-ter go over to Agoria before dinner, and get his sun-dial fixed; but his wings were down at the shop being fixed, and he couldn't start this hour yet."

"'Agoria! Where's that?' asked I.

"'Don't know where Agoria is – ha, ha! On the River Amazon, a trip of a couple of thousand of miles.' And so he took out a little eye-glass, and looked at me for a long time, and, putting it back in his pocket, said 'he thought I was a North Pole-ander, or a ghost; he didn't know which.

"'Dear me! you will be keerful, now won't you?' said the lady. Two hundred collisions in the air last night, among the winged men; almost as many the night afore – awful!'

"The goggle-eyed man said he would.

"'Did you hear President Jones lecter last night,' said a spectacled critter, at the upper end of the table, sticking his fore-finger out to me.

"'No, sir-ee!' I hollered back to him, as I was some little frustrated by this time.

"'He showed,' said the man, 'that one Tom Jefferson prob'bly did write the Declaration of Independence that the ancients made.'

"'You don't say so, though, do you?' said I. 'You're a bright set of chaps the whole on you, President Jones and all.'

"There was a mighty deal said about the Persian war with America; what somebody said who came from Africa last night – what this man and that man done in Congress; but getting out of patience at last, I jumped up, and left the whole on 'em; and as I passed out of the room, told 'em 'they might all go to grass.'

"As I left the house, I saw an almanac hanging on the wall for the year 2564. The first thought, when I saw this, was, 'Where, in the name of Andrew Jackson, is Puddleford now?'

"But what was my surprise, when I got inter the street, which was all laid with slabs of granite, and lined with palaces, to find Squire Longbow walking along with his wings folded on his back, looking as nat'ral as the old fogy himself.

"'Squire,' said I, 'here's to you!'

"The Squire said 'he hadn't the honor of my 'quaintance.'

"'O, you old scoundrel!' said I, 'you can't come that – '"

"That's false!" exclaimed Longbow; "I didn't have no such talk."

"It was only a dream– you forget," answered Ike.

"Exactly," replied the Squire, relapsing into his former mood.

"'You can't come that, old man,' I repeated; 'I could tell you in the streets of Jerusalem in the night; what are you about, old feller? You look fat and pussy.'

"The Squire said 'he was Judge of the Continental Supreme Court.'

"'So I should think,' said I; 'I just left a dozen asses at my breakfast table, and you're just the man for all the world to be their judge.'

"That's a contempt!" exclaimed the Squire, jumping from his chair.

"Nothin' but a dream, and they allers go by contraries," answered Ike.

"So they do,' said the Squire, calmly, sitting down again.

"Where's Bates, and the Colonel, and Bulliphant, and the other Puddlefordians?' inquired I.

"'Bates,' said the Squire, 'burst a blood-vessel several hundred years ago, running down a southern kidnapper, and died quick-ern a flash. He didn't leave nothing scasely for his family, 'cause he spent all his time on public affairs. The Colonel left the country with the sheriff at his heels; and he rather thought he was somewhere about the streets now, as he saw a feller t'other day 'fore the court, for debt, that looked jest like him. Bulliphant went off in spontaneous combustion – in a kind of blue fire, and the old woman fretted herself out, a couple of years arter; but,' said the Squire, 'I can't be detained. Story's waitin' for me on the bench, and we decide the title to a million of acres of land, at ten this morning.'