The Humors of Falconbridge

There is not a beast in existence that will attack a man if he keeps his eyes steady upon the animal, but will cower and sneak off, and so did the wolf. But no sooner had she turned her head and with a howl started off, than a blue pill from the drover's Yeager split her skull, and brought her career to a speedy termination.

Whoo-ep!

A shout so peculiar to the lusty lungs of the western hunter made the welkin ring again, and as the astonished drover turned towards the shouter, he beheld a sight that proved quite as formidable as the wolf he had just slain.

"Well done, stranger; you're the man for me; I like you. That shot done my heart good, though I was about to do the old she devil's business for ye, seeing as you war sort o' close quartered with the varmint."

"Thank you," responded the drover, addressing the speaker, a tall, gaunt, iron-featured, weather-beaten figure, with long grey hair, and a rude suit of wolf-skin clothing, cap and moccasins. He held in his long arms a large rifle, a knife in his belt, and a powder horn slung over his side. He seemed the very patriarch of the woods, but good humored, and with his rough hilarity soon explained his presence there.

"Well, stranger," said he, "you have had a mighty chance of bad luck yer last night, and I never saw them cursed varmints so crazy afore."

"Do you live in these parts?" inquired the drover.

"Ha! ha! yes, yes," replied the hunter. "I live yer, I live anywhar's whar wolf can be found. But you don't know me, I reckon, stranger?"

"I do not," said the drover.

"Ha! ha! well, that's quare, mighty quare. I thought thar warn't a man this side the blue ridge but what knows me and old kit here, (his rifle.) Well, seeing you are a stranger, I'll just take that old sarpent's top-knot off, and have a talk with ye."

With this introductory of matters, the hunter in the wolf-skins scalped the wolf, and tucking the scalp in his belt, motioned the drover to follow. He led the way in deep silence some half a mile to a small stream, down which they proceeded for some distance, until they came to a low and rudely-constructed cabin. Here the hunter requested the drover to take a seat on a log, in front of the cabin, while he entered through a small aperture in his hut, and brought forth a pipe, tobacco, and some dried meat. These dainties being discussed, old Nimrod the mean time kept chuckling to himself, and mumbling over the idea that there should be a white man or Ingin this side the blue ridge that didn't know him.

"Ha! ha! well, well, I swar, it is curious, stranger, that you don't know me, me that kin show more Ingin skelps than any white man that ever trod these war paths; me, who kin shoot more wolves and fetch in more of the varmints' skelps in one night than any white man or Ingin that ever trod this wilderness. But I'm gittin' old, very old, forgotten, and here comes a white man clean and straight from the settlements and he don't know me; I swar I've lived to be clean ashamed o' myself." And with this soliloquy, half to himself and partly addressed to the drover, the old hunter seemed almost fit to cry, at his imaginary insignificance and dotage.

"But, friend," said the drover, "as you have not yet informed me by what name I may call you – "

"Call me, stranger? why I am" – and here his eyes glared as he threw himself into a heroic attitude – "Chris Green, old Chris Green, the wolf slayer! But, God bless ye, stranger, p'r'aps you're from t'other side the ridge, and don't know old Chris's history."

"That I frankly admit," replied the drover.

"Well, God bless ye, I love my fellow white men, yes, I do, though I live yer by myself, and clothe myself with the varmints' skins, go but seldom to the settlements, and live on what old kit thar provides me.

"Well, stranger, my history's a mighty mournful one, but as yer unlucky like myself and plenty of business to 'tend to 'fore night, I'll make my troubles short to ye.

"Well, you see about thirty years ago, I left the blue ridge with a party of my neighbors to come down yer in the Sciota country, to see it, and lay plans to drive the cussed red skins clean out of it. Well, the red skins appeared rather quiet, what few we fell in with, and monstrous civil. But cuss the sarpints, there's no more dependence to be put in 'em than the cantankerous wolves, and roast 'em, I always sets old kit talkin' Dutch to them varmints, the moment I claps eyes on 'em. The wolf's my nat'ral inimy – I'd walk forty miles to git old kit a wolf skelp. Well, we travelled all over the valley, and we gin it as our opinion that the Sciota country was the garden spot o' the world, and if we could only defend ourselves 'gainst the inimy we should move right down yer at once. We went back home, and the next spring a hull settlement on us came down yer. My neighbors thought it best for us all to settle down together at Chillicothe, whar a few Ingin huts and cabins war. I had a wife, and son and da'ter; now, stranger, I loved 'em as dearer to me 'nor life or heart's blood itself. Well, the red skins soon began to show their pranks – they stole our cre'ters (horses), shot down our cattle, and made all manner o' trouble for the little settlement. At last I proposed we should build a clever-sized block house, strong and stanch, in which our wimen folks and children, with a few men to guard 'em, could hold out a few days, while a handful o' us scoured Paint hills and the country about, and peppered a few of the cussed red devils. We had been out some four or five days when we fell in with the inimy; it war just about sunset, and the red skins war camped in a hollow close by this spot. We intended to let 'em get through their smoking and stretch themselves for the night, and then squar our accounts with 'em. Stranger, I've lived in these woods thirty years, I never saw such a hurricane as we had yer last night, 'cept once. The night we lay in ambush for the Ingins, six-and-twenty years ago, thar came up a hurricane, the next mornin' eleven of the bodies of my neighbors lay crushed along the bottom yer, and for a hundred miles along the Sciota, whar the hurricane passed, the great walnuts and sycamore lay blasted, root and branch, just as straight as ye'd run a bee line; no timber grow'd upon these bottoms since. Five on us escaped the hurricane, but before day we fell in with a large party of red skins, and we fought 'em like devils; three on us fell; myself and the only neighbor left war obliged to fly to the hills. I made my way to the settlement.

"Stranger, when I looked down from the hills of Paint creek, and saw the block house scattered over the bottom, and not a cabin standin' or a livin' cre'ter to be seen in the settlement of Chillicothe, my heart left me; I become a woman at once, and sot down and cry'd as if I'd been whipped to death." The old man's voice grew husky, and the tears suffused his eyes, but after a few sighs and a tear, he proceeded:

"Well, you see, stranger, a man cannot always be a child, nor a woman, either; my crying spell appeared to ease my heart amazin'ly. I shouldered old kit here, and down I went to examine things. The hurricane had scattered every thing; the fire had been at work too, but, great God! the bloody wolf had been thar, the settlement was kivered with the bloody bones of my own family and friends; if any had escaped the hurricane, the fire or wolf, the Ingins finished 'em, for I never seen 'em afterwards; I couldn't bear to stay about the place, I'd no home, friend, or kindred. I took to the woods, and swore eternal death to the red skins and my nat'ral inimy, the wolf! I've been true to my word, stranger; that cabin is lined with skelps and ornamented with Ingin top-knots! Look in, ha! ha! see there! they may well call old Chris the Wolf Slayer!"

The drover regaled his eyes on the trophies of the old forlorn hunter, and then visited the perch, which was situated close by a "deer lick," where wolves resorted to fall upon their victims. And from this perch old Wolf Slayer had made fearful work upon his nat'ral inimy the night previous. The old hunter assisted, during the day, to collect such of the scattered drove as yet were alive or to be found; the men came with another of their companions, and the small drove and men left the scene of terror and disaster, wishing a God-speed to the Wolf Slayer.

The Man that knew 'em All

If you have ever "been around" some, and taken notice of things, you have doubtless seen the man who knows pretty much every thing and every body!

I've seen them frequently. As the old preacher observed to a venerable lady, in reference to forerunners, "I see 'em now." Well, talking of that rare and curious specimen of the human family, the man that knows every body, I've rather an amusing reminiscence of "one of 'em." Stopping over night at the Virginia House, in that jumping off place of Western Virginia, Wheeling, some years ago, I had the pleasure or pastime of meeting several of the big guns of the nation, on their way from Washington city, home. It was in August, I think, when, as is most generally the case, the Ohio river gets monstrous low and feeble; when all of the large steamers are past getting up so far, and travelling down the river becomes quite amusing to amateurs, and particularly tedious and monotonous to business people, bound home. Three hundred travellers, more or less, were laying back at the "Virginia" and "United States," in the aforesaid hardscrabble of a city, or town, waiting for the river to get up, or some means for them to get down.

The session of Congress had closed at Washington, some time before, and as almost all of the M. C.'s, U. S. S.'s, wire pullers, hangers on, blacklegs, horse jockeys, etc., etc., came over "the National Road" to Wheeling, to take the river for Southern and Western destinations, of course the assemblage at that place, at that time, was promiscuous, and quite interesting; at least, Western and Southern men always make themselves happy and interesting, home or abroad, and particularly so when travelling. It was a glorious thing for the proprietors of the hotels, to have such a host of guests, as a house full of company always is a "host," the guests having nothing else to do but lay back, eat, drink, and be merry, and foot the bills when ready, or when opportunity offers, to – go.

They drank and smoked, and drank again, and told jests, and played games and tricks, and thus passed the time along. Among the multitude was one of those ever-talkative and chanting men of the world, who knew all places and all men – as he would have it. Just after removing the cloth, at dinner, a knot of the old jokers, bacchanalians and wits, settled away in a cluster, at the far end of a long table, and were having a very pleasant time. The man of all talk was there; he was the very nucleus of all that was being said or done. He was from below, somewhere, on his way, as he informed the crowd, to Washington city, upon affairs of no slight importance to himself and the country in general.

"Oho!" says one of the party, a sly, winking, fat and rosy gentleman, whom we shall designate hereafter, "you're bound to the capital, eh?"

"Yes, sir," responded the man of all talk.

"Of course you've been there before?" says the interrogator, nudging a friend, and winking at the rest.

"What? Me been in Washington before? Ha, ha! me been there before! Bless you, me been in Washington city!"

"Oho! ha, ha!" says the interrogator, "you're one of the caucus folks, eh? One of them wire pullers we read about, eh?"

"Me? Caucus? Ha, ha! Mum's the word, gents, (looking killingly cunning.) Come, gentlemen, let's fill up. Ha, ha! me pulling the – ha, ha! Well, here's to the old Constitution; let's hang by her, while there's a – a – a button on Jabe's coat."

And they all responded, of course, to this eloquent sentiment.

"Here's to Jabe's buttons, coat, hat, and breeches."

"Excuse me," continued the first operator, after the toast was wet down, "you'll please excuse me, in behalf of some of my friends here; as you've been down in that dratted place, and must know a good deal of the goings on there, I'd like to inquire about a few things we Western folks don't more than get an inkling of, through the papers."

"Certainly; go on, sir," says the victim, assuming all the dignity and depth of a man that's appealed to to settle a ponderous matter.

"I'd like to inquire if those Kitchen Cabinet disclosures of the Pennsylvania Senator, were true. Had you ever any means of satisfying yourself that there is, or was, a real service of gold in the President's house?"

"Aye! that's what we'd all like to know," says another.

"How many pieces were there?"

"What were they?"

"Aye, and what their heft was?"

"Mum, gentlemen; let's drink – no tales out of school, ha, ha! No, no – mum's the word." And looking funny and deep, merry and wise, all at one and the same time, the man of all talk proposed to drink and keep – mum.

But they wouldn't drink, and insisted on the secret being let out – they wanted a decided and positive answer, from a man who knew the ropes.

"Gentlemen," said the victim, dropping his voice into a sort of melo-dramatic stage whisper, and stooping quite over the table, so as to collect the several heads and ears as close into a phalanx as possible: "gentlemen, it's a fact!"

"What?" says the party.

"All gold!" says the victim.

"A gold service?" inquires the party.

"Thirty-eight pieces!" continued the victim.

"Solid gold?" chimed the rest.

"Just half a ton in heft!"

"You don't tell us that?"

"Know it; eat out of 'em, then weighed 'em all!"

"P-h-e-w!" whistled some, while others went into stronger exclamations.

"Fact, by the great – "

"Oh, it's all right, sir; no doubt of it now, sir," said the mover of the business, grasping the victim's upraised arm.

"Then, of course, sir, you're well acquainted with Matty Van; on good terms with the little Magician," continued the leading wag.

"Me? me on good terms with Matty? Ha, ha! that is a good joke; never go to Washington without cracking a bottle with the little fox, and staying over night with him. Me on good terms with Matty? We've had many a spree together! Yes, sir!" and the knowing one winked right and left.

"Well, there's old Bullion," continued one of the interrogators, a fine portly old gent, "you know him, of course?"

"What, Tom Benton? Bless your souls, I don't know my letters half as well as I know old Tom."

"And Bill Allen, of Ohio?" asked another. "What sort of a fellow is Bill?"

"Bill Allen? Lord O! isn't he a coon? Bill Allen? I wish I had a dime for every horn, and game of bluff, we've had together."

"Well, there's another of 'em," inquiringly asked a fat, farmer-looking old codger: "Dr. Duncan, how's he stand down there about Washington?"

"Oh, well, he's a pretty good sort of an old chap, but, gents, between you and I, (with another whisper,) there is a good deal of the 'old fogie' senna and salts about him. But then he's death and the pale hoss on poker."

"What, Doctor Duncan?" says they.

"Why, y-e-e-s, of course. Didn't he skin me out of my watch last winter, playing poker, at Willard's?"

"Well," continued the fat farmer-looking man, "I didn't know Duncan gambled?"

"Mum, not a word out of school; ha, ha! Let's drink, gents. Gamble? Lord bless you, it's common as dish-water down there – I've played euchre for hours with old Tom Benton, Harry Clay and Gen. Scott, right behind the speaker's chair!"

Then they all drank, of course, and some of the party liked to have choked. The company now proposed to adjourn to the smoking room, and they arose and left the table accordingly. The man of all talk promenaded out on to the steps, and in course of half an hour, says the leading spirit of the late dinner, or wine party, to him: —

"Mr. – a – a – ?"

"Ferguson, sir; George Adolphus Ferguson is my address, sir," responded the victim.

"Mr. Ferguson, did you know that your friend Benton was in town?" inquired the wag.

"What, Tom Benton here?"

"And Allen," continued the wag.

"What, Bill Allen, too?" says the victim.

"And Doctor Duncan."

"You don't tell me all them fellows are here?"

"Yes, sir, your friends are all here. Come in and see them; your friends will be delighted," says the wag, taking Mister Ferguson by the arm, to lead him in.

"Ha, ha! I'm a – a – ha, ha! won't we have a time? But you just step in – I a – I'll be in in one moment," but in less than half the time, Mr. Ferguson mizzled, no one knew whither!

The gentlemen at the table, it is almost needless to say, were no others than Benton, Allen, Duncan, and some three or four other arbiters of the fate of our immense and glorious nation, in her councils, and fresh from the capital.

Ferguson has not been heard of since.

A Severe Spell of Sickness

It is the easiest thing under heaven to be sick, if you can afford it. What it costs some rich men for family sickness per annum, would keep all the children in "a poor neighborhood" in "vittels" and clothes the year round. When old Cauliflower took sick, once in a long life-time, he was prevailed upon to send for Dr. Borax, and it was some weeks before Cauliflower got down stairs again. At the end of the year Dr. Borax sent in his bill; the amount gave Cauliflower spasms in his pocket-book, and threatened a whole year's profits with strangulation.

"Doctor," says Cauliflower, "that bill of yours is all-fired steep, isn't it?"

"No, sir," says Borax; "your case was a dangerous case – I never raised a man from the grave with such difficulty, in all my practice!"

"But, fifty-three calls, doctor, one hundred and six dollars."

"Exactly – two dollars a visit, sir," said the urbane doctor.

"And twenty-seven prescriptions, four plasters, &c. – eighty-one dollars!"

"One hundred and eighty-seven dollars, sir."

"Well," says Cauliflower, "this may be all very well for people who can af-ford it, but I can't; there's your money, doctor, but I'll bet you won't catch me sick as that again —soon!"

The Race of the Aldermen

In 183-, it chanced in the big city of New York, that the aldermen elect were a sort of tie; that is, so many whigs and so many democrats. Such a thing did not occur often, the democracy usually having the supremacy. They generally had things pretty much all their own way, and distributed their favors among their partizans accordingly. The whigs at length tied them, and the locos, beholding with horror and misgivings, the new order of things which was destined to turn out many a holder of fat office, many a pat-riot overflowing with democratic patriotism, whose devotion to the cause of the country was manifest in the tenacity with which he clung to his place, were extremely anxious to devise ways and means to keep the whigs at bay; and as the day drew near, when the assembled Board of Aldermen should have their sitting at the City Hall, various dodges were proposed by the locos to out-vote the whigs, in questions or decisions touching the distribution of places, and appointment of men to fill the various stations of the new municipal government.

"I have it – I've got it!" exclaimed a round and jolly alderman of a democratic ward. "To-night the Board meets – we stand about eight and eight – this afternoon, let two of us invite two of the whigs, Alderman H – and Alderman J – , out to a dinner at Harlem, get H – and J – tight as wax, and then we can slip off, take our conveyance, come in, and vote the infernal whigs just where we want them!"

"Capital! prime! Ha, ha, ha!" says one.

"First rate! elegant! ha, ha, ha!" shouts another.

"Ha, ha! haw! haw! he, he, he!" roared all the locys.

"Well, gentlemen, let's all throw in a V apiece, to defray expenses; we, you know, of course, must put the whigs through, and we must give them a rouse they won't forget soon. Champagne and turtle, that's the ticket; coach for four out and two in. Ha, ha! – The whigs shall see the elephant!"

Well, the purse was made up, the coach hired, and the two victims, the poor whigs, were carted out under the pretence of a grand aldermanic feast to Harlem, the scene of many a spree and jollification with the city fathers, and other bon vivants and gourmands of Gotham.

Dinner fit for an emperor being discussed, sundry bottles of "Sham" were uncorked, and their effervescing contents decanted into the well-fed bodies of the four aldermen. Toasts and songs, wit and humor, filled up the time, until the democrats began to think it was time that one of them slipped out, took the carriage back to the city, leaving the other to fuddle the two whigs, and detain them until affairs at "the Tea Room," City Hall, were settled to the entire satisfaction of the democrats.

"Landlord," says one of the democrats, whom we will call Brown, "landlord, have you any conveyance, horses, wagons, carriages or carts, by which any of my friends could go back to town to-night, if they wish?"

"Oh, yes," says the landlord, "certainly – I can send the gentlemen in if they wish."

"Very well, sir, – they may get very tight before they desire to return – they are men of families, respectable citizens, and I do not wish them, under any circumstances, to leave your house until morning. Whatever the bill is I will foot, provided you deny them any of your means to go in to-night. You understand!"

"Oh! yes, sir – if you request it as a matter of favor, that I shall keep your friends here, I will endeavor to do so – but hadn't you better attend to them yourself?"

"Well, you see," says Brown, "I have business of importance to transact – must be in town this evening. Give the party all they wish – put that in your fob – (handing the host an X) – post up your bill in the morning, and I'll be out bright and early to make all square. Do you hark?" says Brown.

"Oh, yes, sir – all right," responded the landlord.

Brown gave his confederate the cue, stepped out, promising to "be in in a minute," and then, getting into a carriage, he drove back to the city, almost tickled to death with the idea of how nicely the whigs would be "dished" when they all met at the City Hall, and came up minus two!

Smith, Brown's loco friend, did his best to keep the thing up, by calling in the New Jersey thunder and lightning – vulgarly known as Champagne – and even walked into the aforesaid t. and l. so deeply himself, that a man with half an eye might see Smith would be as blind as an owl in the course of the evening. But Smith was bound to do the thing up brown, and thought no sacrifice too great or too expensive to preserve the loaves and fishes of his party. All of a sudden, however, night was drawing on a pace, the whigs began to smell a mice. The absence of Brown, and the excessive politeness and liberality of Smith, in hurrying up the bottles, settled it in the minds of the whigs, that something was going on dangerous to the whig cause, and that they had better look out —and so they did.

"Jones," says one of the whigs, sotto voce, to the other, "Brown has cleared; it is evident he and Smith calculate to corner us here, prevent your presence in 'the Tea Room' to-night, and thus defeat your vote."

"The deuce! You don't think that, Hall, do you?"

"Faith, I do; but we won't be caught napping. Waiter, bring in a bottle of brandy."

"Brandy?" said Smith, in astonishment. "Why, you ain't going to dive right into it, in that way, are you?"

"Why not?" says Hall. "Brandy's the best thing in the world to settle your nerves after getting half fuddled on Champagne, my boy; just you try it – take a good stiff horn. Brown, you see, has cut, we must follow; so let's straighten up and get ready for a start. Here's to 'the loaves and fishes.'" Jones and Hall took their horns of Cogniac, which does really make some men sober as judges after they are very drunk on real or spurious Champagne.