The Puddleford Papers: or, Humors of the West

The "Colonel," as we called him, was a fair specimen of the bankrupt class. He was one of those unfortunate beings who was well enough started in the world; but after having been tossed and buffeted around by his own extravagance, he was finally driven into the forest. He was educated, polished, proud, and poor. He had sunk two or three fortunes, earned by somebody else, chasing pleasure around the world. His reputation having become soiled, and his pockets emptied, he concluded – to use his own language – to "hide himself from his enemies and die a kind of civil death." "Men," said the Colonel, "are naturally robbers, and it is safer to run than fight with them." I have heard him declare, in a jocose way, that he was the most "injured man living; for the whole human family," he said, "set to and picked his pockets, and now the public ought to support him." He said, "he couldn't see why the government didn't pass laws for the relief of cases like his; for a government is good for nothing that fails to support its people. Starvation in a republic would be a disgrace, and ought not to be permitted." The Colonel said "there was no use in fighting destiny – no one man can do it – and it was his destiny to be poor." He said he "had no place to remove to, and that he couldn't get there if he had;" that he was "like an old pump that needs a pail of water thrown in every time it is used to set it a-going."

The Colonel resided in the village of Puddleford. His family was composed of a wife and two daughters, a couple of dashing girls, who looked like birds of fine plumage that had been driven by a storm beyond their latitude. His household furniture was made up of the fag-ends of this and that, which had somehow escaped a half a dozen sheriff's sales. His family wardrobe had been rescued in the same way, and contained all the fashions of the last twenty-five years. Here and there were scattered some plain articles of western manufacture, by way of contrast. Three shilling chairs stood on a faded Brussels carpet; an unpainted white-wood table supported a silver tea-set; thus, the faded splendor of the past contrasted with the rustic simplicity of the present. One thing I must not overlook: the Colonel had an old tattered carriage that had followed him through good and evil report, his ups and downs of life. I have often been amused to see it roll along with a melancholy air of superiority, putting on the face of a good man in affliction. It was drawn by two diminutive Indian ponies, who would turn and look wildly at the antiquated thing, as if apprehensive of danger.

The Colonel kept an office, and pretended to act as a kind of land agent, and agent for insurance companies, and so on. He was never known to pay a debt; it being against his principles, as he used to say: besides, he said "his note would last a man ten times as long as the money; and they were not very uncurrent neither; for the justice of the peace at Puddleford had taken a very great many of them, and passed his judgment upon them for their full face."

But I will not go into particulars with the Puddlefordians at present. During the summer my acquaintance with Venison Styles had ripened into a deeper affection for the old hunter. I accepted his invitation to visit him, and found him sheltered in the depths of the forest, and nestled in a valley, his hut, overshadowed by great trees, which were filled with birds pouring forth their songs. A little brook tinkled down the slope by his hut, singing all kinds of woodland tunes, as the breeze swelled and died along its banks. The squirrels were chatting their nonsense, and the rolling drum of the partridge was heard almost at his very door.

Venison was a hunter, a fisher, and a trapper. The inside walls of his cabin were hung about with rifles, shot-guns, and fishing-rods, which had been accumulating for years. Deer-horns and skins lay scattered here and there, the trophies of the chase. Seines for lakes, and scoop-nets for smaller streams, were drying outside upon the trees.

Venison kept around him a brood of lazy, lounging, good-for-nothing boys, of all ages, about half-clothed, who followed the business of their father. This young stock were growing up as he had grown, to occupy somewhere their father's position, and lead his life. They lived just as well as the hounds, for all stood on an equality in the family. These ragamuffins were perfect masters of natural history. There was not an instinct or peculiarity belonging to the denizens of the woods and streams which they did not perfectly understand. They seemed to have penetrated the secrecy of animal life, and fathomed it throughout. Birds, and beasts, and fish were completely within their power; and there was a kind of matter-of-course success with them in their capture that was absolutely provoking to a civilized hunter.

It was of no importance where Venison Styles' boys made their home, or under what particular roof. Their home was mainly a depot for their fishing-tackles, guns, and game. They roamed away weeks at a time, fifty miles off, up this stream and that, over many a lake, and camped out nights, feeding upon their plunder; and Venison felt no more concern about them than he did about the deer, who indeed were not much wilder than they. They were as hard as flints, sharp on the chase, happy in their wild, wayward-life, and generally managed to trap and kill just enough to be self-supporting, and keep soul and body together.

CHAPTER II

Lawsuit: Filkins against Beadle. – Squire Longbow and his Court. – Puddleford assembled. – Why Squire Longbow was a Great Man. – Ike Turtle and Sile Bates, Pettifoggers. – Mrs. Sonora Brown. – Uproar and Legal Opinions. – Seth Bolles. – Miss Eunice Grimes. – Argument to Jury, and Verdict.

My intercourse with the inhabitants of Puddleford had been frequent during the summer, and my acquaintance with them had now become quite general. One morning, in the month of September, I was visited by a constable, who very authoritatively served upon me a venire, which commanded me to be and appear before Jonathan Longbow, at his office in the village of Puddleford, at one o'clock P. M., to serve as a juryman in a case, then and there to be tried, between Philista Filkins, plaintiff, and Charity Beadle, defendant, in an action of slander, etc. The constable remarked, after reading this threatening legal epistle to me, that I had better "be up to time, as Squire Longbow was a man who would not be trifled with," and then leisurely folding it up, and pushing it deep down in his vest-pocket, he mounted his horse, and hurried away in pursuit of the balance of the panel. Of course, I could not think of being guilty of a contempt of court, after having been so solemnly warned of the consequences, and I was therefore promptly on the spot, according to command.

Squire Longbow held his court at the public house, in a room adjoining the bar-room, because the statute prohibited his holding it in the bar-room itself. He was a law-abiding man, and would not violate a statute. I found, on my arrival, that the whole country, for miles around, had assembled to hear this interesting case. Men, women, and children had turned out, and made a perfect holiday of it. All were attired in their best. The men were dressed in every kind of fashion, or, rather, all the fashions of the last twenty years were scattered through the crowd. Small-crown, steeple-crown, low-crown, wide-brim, and narrow-brim hats; wide-tail, stub-tail, and swallow-tail, high-collar, and low-collar coats; bagging and shrunken breeches; every size and shape of shirt-collar were there, all brought in by the settlers when they immigrated. The women had attempted to ape the fashions of the past. Some of them had mounted a "bustle" about the size of a bag of bran, and were waddling along under their load with great satisfaction. Some of the less ambitious were reduced to a mere bunch of calico. One man, I noticed, carried upon his head an old-fashioned, bell-crowned hat, with a half-inch brim, a shirt-collar running up tight under his ears, tight enough to lift him from the ground (this ran out in front of his face to a peak, serving as a kind of cutwater to his nose), a faded blue coat of the genuine swallow-tail breed, a pair of narrow-fall breeches that had passed so often through the wash-tub, and were so shrunken, that they appeared to have been strained on over his limbs: this individual, reader, was walking about, with his hands in his pockets, perfectly satisfied, whistling Yankee Doodle, and other patriotic airs. Most of the women had something frizzled around their shoes, which were called pantalets, giving their extremities the appearance of the legs of so many bantam hens.

The men were amusing themselves pitching coppers and quoits, running horses, and betting upon the result of the trial to come off, as every one was expected to form some opinion of the merits of the case.

The landlord of the Eagle was of course very busy. He bustled about, here and there, making the necessary preparations. Several pigs and chickens had gone the way of all flesh, and were baking and stewing for the table. About once a quarter "Old Stub" "moistened his clay," as he called it, with a little "rye," so as to "keep his blood a-stirring." Mrs. "Stub Bulliphant" was busy too. She was a perfect whirlwind; her temper was made of tartaric acid. Her voice might be heard above the confusion around giving directions to one, and a "piece of her mind" to another. She was the landlady of the Eagle beyond all doubt, and no one else. Better die than doubt that.

"Bulliphant!" screamed she, at the top of her lungs, "Bulliphant, you great lout, you! what in the name of massy sakes are you about? No fire! no wood! no water in! How, in all created natur, do you s'pose a woman can get dinner? Furiation alive, why don't you speak? Sally Ann! I say, Sally Ann! come right here this minute! Go down cellar, and get a jug of butter, some milk, and then – I say, Sally Ann! – do you hear me, Sally Ann? – go out to the barn and – run! run! you careless hussy, to the stove! the pot's boiling over!"

And so the old woman's tongue ran on hour after hour.

At a little past one, the court was convened. A board placed upon two barrels across the corner of the room, constituted the desk of Squire Longbow, behind which his honor's solitary dignity was caged. Pettifoggers and spectators sat outside. This was very proper, as Squire Longbow was a great man, and some mark of distinction was due. Permit me to describe him. He was a little, pot-bellied person, with a round face, bald head, swelled nose, and had only one eye, the remains of the other being concealed with a green shade. He carried a dignity about him that was really oppressive to by-standers. He was the "end of the law" in Puddleford; and no man could sustain a reputation who presumed to appeal from his decisions. He settled accounts, difficulties of all sorts, and even established land-titles; but of all things, he prided himself upon his knowledge of constitutional questions. The Squire always maintained that hard drinking was "agin" the Constitution of the United States, "and so," he said, "Judge Story once informed him by letter when he applied to him for aid in solving this question." "There is no such thing as slander," the Squire used to say, "and so he had always decided, as every person who lied about another, knew he ought not to be believed, because he was lying, and therefore the 'quar-animer,' as the books say, is wanting." (This looked rather bad for "Filkins's" case.) Sometimes Squire Longbow rendered judgments, sometimes decrees, and sometimes he divided the cause between both parties. The Squire said he "never could submit to the letter of the law; it was agin' personal liberty; and so Judge Story decided." "Pre-ce-dents", as they were called, he wouldn't mind, not even his own; because then there wouldn't be any room left for a man to change his mind. "If," said the Squire, "for instance, I fine Pet. Sykes to-day for knocking down Job Bluff, that is no reason why I should fine Job Bluff to-morrow for knocking down Pet. Sykes, because they are entirely different persons. Human natur' ain't the same." "Contempt of court," the Squire often declared, "was the worst of all offences. He didn't care so much about what might be said agin' Jonathan Longbow, but Squire Longbow, Justice of the Peace, must and should be protected;" and it was upon this principle that he fined Phil. Beardsley ten dollars for contradicting him in the street.

"Generally," the Squire says, "he renders judgment for the plaintiff," because he never issues a process without hearing his story, and determining the merits. "And don't the plaintiff know more about his rights than all the witnesses in the world?" "And even where he has a jury," the Squire says, "that it is his duty to apply the law to the facts, and the facts to the law, so that they may avoid any illegal verdict."

The court, as I said, was convened. The Squire took his seat, opened his docket, and lit his pipe. He then called the parties: —

"Philista Filkins!" "Charity Beadle!"

"Here," cried a backwoods pettifogger, "I'm for Philista Filkins; am always on hand at the tap of the drum, like a thousand of brick."

This man was a character; a pure specimen of a live western pettifogger. He was called Ike Turtle. He was of the snapping-turtle breed. He wore a white wool-hat; a bandana cotton-handkerchief around his neck; a horse-blanket vest, with large horn-buttons; and corduroy pantaloons; and he carried a bull's-eye watch, from which swung four or five chains across his breast.

"Who answers for Charity Beadle?" continued the Squire.

"I answer for myself," squeaked out Charity; "I hain't got any counsel, 'cause he's on the jury."

"On the jury, ha! Your counsel's on the jury! Sile Bates, I suppose. Counsel is guaranteed by the Constitution – it's a personal right – let Sile act as your counsel, then."

And so Sile stepped out in the capacity of counsel.

"Charity Beadle!" exclaimed the Squire, drawing out his pipe and laying it on his desk, "stand up and raise your right hand!"

Charity arose.

"You are charged with slandering Philista Filkins, with saying, 'She warn't no better than she ought to be;' and if you were believed when you said so, it is my duty, as a peace-officer, to say to you that you have been guilty of a high offence, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul. What do you say?"

"Not guilty, Squire Longbow, by an eternal sight, and told the truth, if we are," replied Bates. "Besides, we plead a set-off."

"I say 'tis false! you are!" cried Philista, at the top of her lungs.

"Silence!" roared Longbow; "the dignity of this court shall be preserved."

"Easy, Squire, a little easy," grumbled a voice in the crowd, proceeding from one of Philista's friends; "never speak to a woman in a passion."

"I fine that man one dollar for contempt of court, whoever he is!" exclaimed the Squire, as he stood upon tiptoe, trying to catch the offender with his eye.

"I guess 'twarn't nothing but the wind," said Bates.

The Squire took his seat, put his pipe in his mouth, and blew out a long whiff of smoke.

"Order being restored, let the case now proceed," he exclaimed.

Ike opened his case to the jury. He said Philista Filkins was a maiden lady of about forty; some called her an old maid, but that warn't so, not by several years; her teeth were as sound as a nut, and her hair as black as a crow. She was a nurse, and had probably given more lobelia, pennyroyal, catnip, and other roots and herbs, to the people of Puddleford, than all the rest of the women in it. Of course she was a kind of peramrulary being. (The Squire here informed the jury that peramrulary was a legal word, which he would fully explain in his charge.) That is, she was obliged to be out a great deal, night and day, and in consequence thereof, Charity Beadle had slandered her, and completely ruined her reputation, and broken up her business to the damage of ten dollars.

Bates told the court that he had "no jurisdiction in an action of slander."

Longbow advised Bates not to repeat the remark, as "that was a kind of contempt."

Some time had elapsed in settling preliminaries, and at last the cause was ready.

"We call Sonora Brown!" roared out Ike, at the top of his lungs.

"No, you don't," replied the Squire. "This court is adjourned for fifteen minutes; all who need refreshment will find it at the bar in the next room; but don't bring it in here; it might be agin' the statute."

And so the court adjourned for fifteen minutes.

There was a rush to the bar-room, and old Stub Bulliphant rolled around among his whiskey bottles like a ship in a storm. Almost every person drank some, judging from the remarks, "to wet their whistle;" others, "to keep their stomach easy;" some "to Filkins;" others, "to Beadle," etc., etc.

Court was at last convened again.

"Sonora Brown!" roared Ike again.

"Object!" exclaimed Sile; "no witness; hain't lived six months in the state."

Squire Longbow slowly drew his pipe from his mouth, and fixed his eyes on the floor in deep thought for several minutes.

"Hain't lived six months in the state," repeated he, at last; "ain't no resident, of course, under our Constitution."

"And how, in all created airth, would you punish such a person for perjury? I should just like to know," continued Sile, taking courage from the Squire's perplexed state of mind; "our laws don't bind residents of other states."

"But it isn't certain Mrs. Brown will lie, because she is a non-resident," added the Squire, cheering up a little.

"Well, very well, then," said Sile, ramming both hands into his breeches-pocket very philosophically; "go ahead, if you wish, subject to my objection. I'll just appeal, and blow this court into fiddle-strings! This cause won't breathe three times in the circuit! We won't be rode over; we know our rights, I just kinder rather think."

"Go it, Sile!" cried a voice from the crowd; "stand up for your rights, if you bust!"

"Silence!" exclaimed Squire Longbow.

Ike had sat very quietly, inasmuch as the Squire had been leaning in his favor; but Sile's last remark somewhat intimidated his honor.

"May it please your honor," said Ike, rising, "we claim there is no proof of Mrs. Brown's residency; your honor hain't got nothing but Sile Bates's say so, and what's that good for in a court of justice? I wouldn't believe him as far as you could swing a cat by the tail."

"I'm with you on that," cried another voice.

"Silence! put that man out!" roared Longbow again.

But just as Ike was sitting down, an inkstand was hurled at him by Sile, which struck him on his shoulder, and scattered its contents over the crowd. Several missiles flew back and forth; the Squire leaped over his table, crying out at the top of his lungs, —

"In the name of the people of the State of – , I, Jonathan Longbow, Justice of the Peace, duly elected and qualified, do command you."

When, at last, order was restored, the counsel took their seats, and the Squire retired into his box again.

Sonora Brown was then called for the third time. She was an old lady, with a pinched-up black bonnet, a very wide ruffle to her cap, through which the gray hairs strayed. She sighed frequently and heavily. She said she didn't know as she knew "anything worth telling on." She didn't know "anything about lawsuits, and didn't know how to swear." After running on with a long preliminary about herself, growing warmer and warmer, the old lady came to the case under much excitement. She said "she never did see such works in all her born days. Just because Charity Beadle said 'Philista Filkins warn't no better than she ought to be,' there was such a hullabalu and kick-up, enough to set all natur crazy!"

"Why la! sus me!" continued she, turning round to the Squire, "do you think this such a dre'ful thing, that all the whole town has got to be set together by the ears about it? Mude-ra-tion! what a humdrum and flurry!"

And then the old lady stopped and took a pinch of snuff, and pushed it up very hard and quick into her nose.

Ike requested Mrs. Brown not to talk so fast, and only answer such questions as he put to her.

"Well, now, that's nice," she continued. "Warn't I sworn, or was't you? and to tell the truth, too, and the whole truth. I warn't sworn to answer your questions. Why, maybe, you don't know, Mr. Pettifogger, that there are folks in state's prison now for lying in a court of justice?"

Squire Longbow interfered, and stated that "he must say that things were going on very 'promis'cusly,' quite agin the peace and dignity of the state."

"Just so I think myself," added Mrs. Brown. "This place is like a town-meeting, for all the world."

"Mrs. So-no-ra Brown!" exclaimed Ike, rising on his feet, a little enraged, "do you know anything about what Charity Beadle said about Philista Filkins? Answer this question."

"Whew! fiddle-de-dee! highty-tighty! so you have really broke loose, Mr. Pettifogger," for now the old lady's temper was up. "Why, didn't you know I was old enough to be your grandmother? Why, my boy," continued she, hurrying on her spectacles, and taking a long look at Ike, "I know'd your mother when she made cakes and pies down in the Jarseys; and you when you warn't more than so high;" and she measured about two feet high from the floor. "You want me to answer, do you? I told you all I know'd about it; and if you want anything more, I guess you'll have to get it, that's all;" and, jumping up, she left the witness-stand, and disappeared in the crowd.

"I demand an attachment for Sonora Brown!" roared out Ike, "an absconding witness!"

"Can't do it," replied the Squire; "it's agin the Constitution to deprive anybody of their liberty an unreasonable length of time. This witness has been confined here by process of law morn-a-nour. Can't do it! Be guilty of trespass! Must stick to the Constitution. Call your next witness."

Ike swore. The Squire fined him one dollar. He swore again. The Squire fined him another. The faster the Squire fined, the faster the oaths rolled out of Ike's mouth, until the Squire had entered ten dollars against him. Ike swore again, and the Squire was about to record the eleventh dollar, but Ike checked him.

"Hold on! hold on! you old reprobate! now I've got you! now you are mine!" exclaimed he. "You are up to the limit of the law! You cannot inflict only ten dollars in fines in any one case! Now stand and take it!"

And such a volley of oaths, cant phrases, humor, wrath, sarcasm, and fun, sometimes addressed to the Squire, sometimes to the audience, and sometimes to his client, never rolled out of any other man's mouth since the flood. He commenced with the history of the Squire, when, as he said, "he was a rafting lumber down on the Susquehanna;" and he followed him up from that time. "He could tell the reason why he came west, but wouldn't." He commented on his personal appearance, and his capacity for the office of justice. He told him "he hadn't only one eye, any way, and he couldn't be expected to see a great way into a mill-stone; and he didn't believe he had as many brains as an 'ister. For his part, he knew the law; he had ransacked every part of the statute, as a glutton would Noah's Ark for the remnant of an eel; he had digested it from Dan to Beersheba; swallowed everything but the title-page and cover, and would have swallowed that if he warn't mortal; he was a living, moving law himself; when he said 'law was law, 'twas law;' better 'peal anything up from predestination than from his opinion! he would follow this case to the backside of sundown for his rights!"

During all this time there was a complete uproar. Philista's friends cheered and hurrahed; the dogs in the room set up their barking; Beadle's friends groaned, and squealed, and bellowed, and whimpered, and imitated all the domestic animals of the day, while the Squire was trying at the top of his lungs to compel the constable to commit Ike for contempt.

Ike closed and sat down. The Squire called for the constable, but he was not to be found. One man told him that "he was in the next room pitching coppers;" another, that the last time he saw him "he was running very fast;" another, that "he rather guessed he'd be back some time another, if he ever was, because he was a sworn officer;" another asked the Squire "what he'd give to have him catched?" but no constable appeared; he had put himself out the way to escape the storm.