The Humors of Falconbridge

"Godfree! but ain't they thick! I hope to be stabbed with a gridiron," said Phipps, "if there ain't more niggers– look at 'em – more niggers than would patch and grade the infernal regions eleven miles! Guess I've enough niggers for a spell," continued Phipps, "so I'll just pop in here, and see how this feller sells his notions." And so Abner, having reached Dock square, saunters into a gun, pistol, bowie, jack-knife, dog-collar, shot-bag, and notion-shop in general. Unlucky step.

The stiff-dickied, frizzle-headed, polished and perfumed shop-keeper was on hand, and particularly predisposed to sell the stranger something. Just then a nigger passed the door, and looked in very sharply at Phipps, and presently two more passed, then a fourth and fifth, all looking more or less pointedly at the manufacturer of wooden doin's, and white-pine fixin's.

"That's a neat collar," says the shop-keeper, as Phipps, sort of miscellaneously, placed his hand upon a brass-band, red-lined dog-collar.

"Collar! don't call that a collar, do you?"

"I do, sir, a beautiful collar, sir."

"What for, solgers?" asks Phipps.

"Soldiers, no, dogs," says the shop-keeper, puckering his mouth as though he had sampled a lemon.

"O!" says Phipps, suddenly realizing the fact. "I ain't got no dogs; bad stock; don't pay; tax 'em up where I live; wouldn't pay tax for forty dogs." More niggers passed, repassed, and looked in at Phipps and the storekeeper.

"I say, ain't the niggers got to be thick – infernal thick, in your town lately?"

"Well, I don't know that they are," replied the shop-keeper; "getting rather scarce, I think, since the Fugitive bill has been put in force over the country, sir, but it does appear to me," said the shop-keeper, twiging sundry and suspicious-looking col'ud gem'en passing by his store, gaping in rather wistfully at the door, and peeping through the sash of the windows – "it does appear to me, that a good many colored persons are about this morning; yes, there is, why there goes more, more yet; bless me, there's another, two, three, four, why a dozen has just passed; they seem to look in here rather curiously, I wonder – only look; what has stirred them up, I want to know!" the fluctuation of the Congo market completely attracted the handsome man's attention; his surprise finally assumed the most tangible shape and complexion of fear, for the niggers, one and all, looked savage as meat-axes, and began to get too numerous to mention.

"Well, guess I'll be goin'," says Phipps, after fumbling over some of the shooting-irons, jack-knives, etc.; reaching the street, he was more fully impressed with the fixed fact, that the niggers were all sorts of thick. They fairly crowded him; one buck darkey rubbed slap up against Phipps, as he moved out of the store. "Look here, Mister," says Phipps, "ain't all this street big enough for you without a crowdin' me?"

The nigger stopped, looked arsenic and chain lightning at Phipps, and then moved off, saying in a sort of undertone —

"Gorra, I guess you'll be crowded a wus'n dat afore dis day is ober."

"Will, eh?" responded Abner Phipps, slightly mystified as to the why and wherefore, that he should, in particular, be "crowded," especially by an Ethiopic gentleman.

"I guess I won't then," resumed Phipps; "if any body ventures to crowd me, just a purpose, I guess I'll be darn'd apt, and mighty quick to squash in their heads, or whoop'm on the spot."

"What dat? got pistils in your pocket, eh?" says one of the two big buck niggers, shying up alongside of the now velocipeding up-country artisan. Phipps looked back, the negroes were following him. "Pistils? who's talkin' about pistils, mister?" he ventured to ask.

"Dat's him, watch'm."

"Why, we see'd you goin' in dar, dat pistol shop; want to lay in a stock of dirks and pistils, eh?" says the negro.

"You – you got any hand-cuffs in you' pocket?" inquired another.

"What dat? got de hand-cuffs in he pocket?"

"Pistils and bowie knibes!" says a third.

"Dat's him! watch'm!"

"Knock'm down, put dat white hat ober his eyes! Hoo-r-r!"

The negroes now fairly beset our victimized friend Phipps; he stopped, buttoned his coat, the negroes augmented; glared at him like demons; he fixed his hat firmly upon his head; the negroes began to grin and move upon him; he spat upon his hands; the negroes began to yell, and to close in upon him; with one grand effort, one mighty gathering of all the human faculties called into action by fear and desperation, Phipps bounded like a Louisiana bull at a gate post; he knocked down two, square; kicked over four, and rushing through the now very considerable and formidable array of ebony, he broke equal to a wild turkey through a corn bottom, or a sharp knife through a pound of milky butter; and it is very questionable whether Phipps ever stopped running until his boots busted, or he reached his bucket factory on Taunton river. His negro deputation waited on him with a rush clear outside of town, where the speed and bottom of Abner distanced the entire committee. The key to this joke is: Phipps was dogged from Tafts' – by the "vigilant committee," as an informer, or slave-hunter at least, and hence the delicate attentions of the col'ud pop'lation paid him. I have no doubt, that if Abner Phipps be asked, how things look around Boston, he would observe with some energy,

"Niggers – niggers are thick – Godfree! a-a-a-in't they thick!"

A Desperate Race

Some years ago, I was one of a convivial party, that met in the principal hotel in the town of Columbus, Ohio, the seat of government of the Buckeye State.

It was a winter evening when all without was bleak and stormy, and all within were blythe and gay; when song and story made the circuit of the festive board, filling up the chasms of life with mirth and laughter.

We had met for the express purpose of making a night of it, and the pious intention was duly and most religiously carried out. The Legislature was in session in that town, and not a few of the worthy legislators were present upon this occasion.

One of these worthies I will name, as he not only took a big swath in the evening's entertainment, but he was a man more generally known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley! whose "narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known, all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which being mostly told before and read by millions of people, that have ever seen his book, I will not attempt to repeat them.

Many were the stories and adventures told by the company, when it came to the turn of a well known gentleman who represented the Cincinnati district. As Mr. – is yet among the living, and perhaps not disposed to be the subject of joke or story, I do not feel at liberty to give his name. Mr. – was a slow believer of other men's adventures, and at the same time much disposed to magnify himself into a marvellous hero whenever the opportunity offered. As Captain Riley wound up one of his truthful, though really marvellous adventures, Mr. – coolly remarked, that the captain's story was all very well, but it did not begin to compare with an adventure that he had "once upon a time" on the Ohio, below the present city of Cincinnati.

"Let's have it!" "Let's have it!" resounded from all hands.

"Well, gentlemen," said the Senator, clearing his voice for action and knocking the ashes from his cigar against the arm of his chair. "Gentlemen, I am not in the habit of spinning yarns of marvellous or fictitious matters; and therefore it is scarcely necessary to affirm upon the responsibility of my reputation, gentlemen, that what I am about to tell you, I most solemnly proclaim to be truth, and – "

"Oh! never mind that, go on, Mr. – ," chimed the party.

"Well, gentlemen, in 18 – I came down the Ohio river, and settled at Losanti, now called Cincinnati. It was, at that time, but a little settlement of some twenty or thirty log and frame cabins, and where now stands the Broadway Hotel and blocks of stores and dwelling houses, was the cottage and corn patch of old Mr. – , a tailor, who, by the by, bought that land for the making of a coat for one of the settlers. Well, I put up my cabin, with the aid of my neighbors, and put in a patch of corn and potatoes, about where the Fly Market now stands, and set about improving my lot, house, &c.

"Occasionally, I took up my rifle, and started off with my dog down the river, to look up a little deer, or bar meat, then very plenty along the river. The blasted red skins were lurking about, and hovering around the settlement, and every once in a while picked off some of our neighbors, or stole our cattle or horses. I hated the red demons, and made no bones of peppering the blasted sarpents whenever I got a sight at them. In fact, the red rascals had a dread of me, and had laid a great many traps to get my scalp, but I wasn't to be catch'd napping. No, no, gentlemen, I was too well up to 'em for that.

"Well, I started off one morning, pretty early, to take a hunt, and travelled a long way down the river, over the bottoms and hills, but couldn't find no bar nor deer. About four o'clock in the afternoon, I made tracks for the settlement again. By and by, I sees a buck just ahead of me, walking leisurely down the river. I slipped up, with my faithful old dog close in my rear, to within clever shooting distance, and just as the buck stuck his nose in the drink, I drew a bead upon his top-knot and over he tumbled, and splurged and bounded awhile, when I came up and relieved him by cutting his wizen – "

"Well, but what had that to do with an adventure?" said Riley.

"Hold on a bit, if you please, gentlemen – by Jove it had a great deal to do with it. For while I was busy skinning the hind quarters of the buck, and stowing away the kidney-fat in my hunting shirt, I heard a noise like the breaking of brush under a moccasin up 'the bottom.' My dog heard it and started up to reconnoitre, and I lost no time in reloading my rifle. I had hardly got my priming out before my dog raised a howl and broke through the brush towards me with his tail down, as he was not used to doing unless there were wolves, painters (panthers) or Injins about.

"I picked up my knife, and took up my line of march in a skulking trot up the river. The frequent gullies, on the lower bank, made it tedious travelling there, so I scrabbled up to the upper bank, which was pretty well covered with buckeye and sycamore and very little under-brush. One peep below discovered to me three as big and strapping red rascals, gentlemen, as you ever clapt your eyes on! Yes, there they came, not above six hundred yards in my rear. Shouting and yelling like hounds, and coming after me like all possessed."

"Well," said an old woodsman sitting at the table, "you took a tree of course?"

"Did I? No, gentlemen! I took no tree just then, but I took to my heels like sixty, and it was just as much as my old dog could do to keep up with me. I run until the whoops of my red skins grew fainter and fainter behind me; and clean out of wind, I ventured to look behind me, and there came one single red whelp, puffing and blowing, not three hundred yards in my rear. He had got on to a piece of bottom where the trees were small and scarce – now, thinks I, old fellow, I'll have you. So I trotted off at a pace sufficient to let my follower gain on me, and when he had got just about near enough, I wheeled and fired, and down I brought him, dead as a door nail, at a hundred and twenty yards!"

"Then you skelp'd (scalped) him immediately?" said the backwoodsman.

"Very clear of it, gentlemen, for by the time I got my rifle loaded, here came the other two red skins, shouting and whooping close on me, and away I broke again like a quarter horse. I was now about five miles from the settlement, and it was getting towards sunset; I ran till my wind began to be pretty short, when I took a look back and there they came snorting like mad buffaloes, one about two or three hundred yards ahead of the other, so I acted possum again until the foremost Injin got pretty well up, and I wheeled and fired at the very moment he was 'drawing a bead' on me; he fell head over stomach into the dirt, and up came the last one!"

"So you laid for him and – " gasped several.

"No," continued the "member," "I didn't lay for him, I hadn't time to load, so I layed legs to ground, and started again. I heard every bound he made after me. I ran and ran, until the fire flew out of my eyes, and the old dog's tongue hung out of his mouth a quarter of a yard long!"

"Phe-e-e-e-w!" whistled somebody.

"Fact! gentlemen. Well, what I was to do I didn't know – rifle empty, no big trees about, and a murdering red Indian not three hundred yards in my rear; and, what was worse, just then it occurred to me that I was not a great ways from a big creek, (now called Mill Creek,) and there I should be pinned at last.

"Just at this juncture I struck my toe against a root, and down I tumbled, and my old dog over me. Before I could scrabble up – "

"The Indian fired!" gasped the old woodsman.

"He did, gentlemen, and I felt the ball strike me under the shoulder; but that didn't seem to put any embargo upon my locomotion, for as soon as I got up I took off again, quite freshened by my fall! I heard the red skin close behind me coming booming on, and every minute I expected to have his tomahawk dashed into my head or shoulders.

"Something kind of cool began to trickle down my legs into my boots – "

"Blood, eh? for the shot the varmint gin you," said the old woodsman, in a great state of excitement.

"I thought so," said the Senator, "but what do you think it was?"

Not being blood, we were all puzzled to know what the blazes it could be. When Riley observed —

"I suppose you had – "

"Melted the deer fat which I had stuck in the breast of my hunting shirt, and the grease was running down my legs until my feet got so greasy that my heavy boots flew off, and one hitting the dog, nearly knocked his brains out."

We all grinned, which the "member" noticing, observed —

"I hope, gentlemen, no man here will presume to think I'm exaggerating?"

"O, certainly not! Go on, Mr. – ," we all chimed in.

"Well, the ground under my feet was soft, and being relieved of my heavy boots, I put off with double quick time, and seeing the creek about half a mile off, I ventured to look over my shoulder to see what kind of a chance there was to hold up and load. The red skin was coming jogging along pretty well blowed out, about five hundred yards in the rear. Thinks I, here goes to load any how. So at it I went – in went the powder, and putting on my patch, down went the ball about half-way, and off snapped my ramrod!"

"Thunder and lightning!" shouted the old woodsman, who was worked up to the top-notch in the "member's" story.

"Good gracious! wasn't I in a pickle! There was the red whelp within two hundred yards of me, pacing along and loading up his rifle as he came! I jerked out the broken ramrod, dashed it away and started on, priming up as I cantered off, determined to turn and give the red skin a blast any how, as soon as I reached the creek.

"I was now within a hundred yards of the creek, could see the smoke from the settlement chimneys; a few more jumps and I was by the creek. The Indian was close upon me – he gave a whoop, and I raised my rifle; on he came, knowing that I had broken my ramrod and my load not down; another whoop! whoop! and he was within fifty yards of me! I pulled trigger, and – "

"And killed him?" chuckled Riley.

"No, sir! I missed fire!"

"And the red skin – " shouted the old woodsman in a phrenzy of excitement —

"Fired and killed me!"

The screams and shouts that followed this finale brought landlord Noble, servants and hostlers, running up stairs to see if the house was on fire!

Dodging the Responsibility

"Sir!" said Fieryfaces, the lawyer, to an unwilling witness, "Sir! do you say, upon your oath, that Blinkins is a dishonest man?"

"I didn't say he was ever accused of being an honest man, did I?" replied Pipkins.

"Does the court understand you to say, Mr. Pipkins, that the plaintiff's reputation is bad?" inquired the judge, merely putting the question to keep his eyes open.

"I didn't say it was good, I reckon."

"Sir!" said Fieryfaces, "Sir-r! upon your oath – mind, upon your oath, upon your oath, you say that Blinkins is a rogue, a villain and a thief!"

"You say so," was Pip's reply.

"Haven't you said so?"

"Why, you've said it," said Pipkins, "what's the use of my repeating it?"

"Sir-r!" thundered Fieryfaces, the Demosthenean thunderer of Thumbtown, "Sir-r! I charge you, upon your sworn oath, do you or do you not say – Blinkins stole things?"

"No, sir," was the cautious reply of Pipkins. "I never said Blinkins stole things, but I do say —he's got a way of finding things that nobody lost!"

"Sir-r," said Fieryfaces, "you can retire," and the court adjourned.

A Night Adventure in Prairie Land

"I'll take a circuit around, and come out about the lower end of your mot,"1 said I to my companion. "You remain here; lie down flat, and I'll warrant the old doe and her fawns will be found retracing their steps."

We had started from camp about sunrise, to hunt, three of us; one, an old hunter, who, after marking out our course, giving us the lay of the land, and various admonitions as to the danger of getting too far from camp, looking out for "Injin signs," &c., "Old Traps," as we called him, took a tour southward, and left us. Myself and companion were each armed with rifles; his a blunt "Yeager," by the way, and mine an Ohio piece, carrying about one hundred and twenty balls to the pound, consequently very light, and not a very sure thing for a distance over one hundred yards. It was in the fall of the year, delightful weather: our wardrobe consisted of Kentucky jean trousers, boots, straw hats, two shirts, and jean hunting shirts – all thin, to be sure, but warm and comfortable enough for a day's hunt. We trudged about until noon, firing but once, and then at an alligator in a bayou, whose coat of mail laughed to scorn our puny bullets, and, barely flirting his horny tail in contempt, he slid from his perch back into the greasy and turbid stream. Seating ourselves upon a dead cotton-wood, we made a slight repast upon some cold pone, which, moistened with a drop of "Mon'galy," proved, I must needs confess, upon such occasions, viands as palatable as a Tremont dinner to a city gourmand. While thus quietly disposed, all of a sudden we heard a racket in our rear, which, though it startled us at first, soon apprised us that game was at hand. Dropping low, we soon saw, a few yards above us, the large antlers of a buck. He darted down the slight bluffs, followed by a doe and two well-grown fawns.

As they gained the water, and but barely stuck their noses into the drink, we both let drive at them: but, in my rising upon my knee to fire at the buck, he got wind of the courtesies I was about to tender him, and absolutely dodged my ball. I was too close to miss him; but, as he "juked" – to use an old-fashioned western word – down his head the moment he saw fire, the bullet merely made the fur fly down his neck, and, with a back bound or double somerset, he scooted quicker than uncorked thunder.

Our eyes met – we both grinned.

"Well, by King," says my friend Mat, "that's shooting!"

"Both missed?" says I.

"Better break for camp, straight: if we should meet a greaser or Camanche here, they'd take our scalps, and beat us about the jaws with 'em!"

It was thought to bear the complexion of a joke, and we both laughed quite jocosely at it.

"Now," says I, "old Sweetener," loading up my rifle, "you and I can't give it up so, no how." Tripping up a cup of the alligator fluid, we washed down our crumbs, and started. We followed the deer about two miles up the bayou; the land was low prairie bottom, ugly for walking, and our track was slow and tedious. But, approaching a suspicious place carefully and cautiously, we had another fair view of the doe and fawns, feeding and watching on the side of a broad prairie. The distance between us was quite extensive; we could not well approach within shooting distance without alarming them. The only alternative was for my friend Mat to deposit himself among the brush and stuff, and let me circumvent the critters; one of us would surely get a whack at them. I started; a slow, tedious scratch and crawl of nearly a mile got me to the windward of the deer. As I edged down along the high grass and chapperel, about a branch of the bayou, the old doe began to raise her head occasionally, and scent the air: this, as I got still nearer, she repeated more frequently, until, at length, she took the hint, and made a break down towards my friend Mat, who, sharp upon the trigger, just as the three deer got within fifty yards, raised and fired. 'Bout went the deer, making a dash for my quarters; but before getting any ways near me, down toppled one of the young 'uns. Mat had fixed its flint; but my blood was up – I was not to be fooled out of my shot in that way; and perceiving my only chance, at best, was to be a long shot, off hand, as the doe and her remaining fawn dashed by, at over eighty yards, I let her have the best I had; the bullet struck – the old doe jumped, by way of an extra, about five by thirty feet, and didn't even stop to ask permission at that. A sportsman undergoes no little excitement in peppering a few paltry pigeons, a duck or a squirrel, but when an amateur hunter gets his Ebenezer set on a real deer, bear, or flock of wild turkeys, you may safely premise it would take some capital to buy him off.

I forgot all about time and space, Mat, "Old Traps," greasers and Injins – my whole capital was invested in the old doe, and I was after her. She was badly wounded; I thought she'd "gin eout" pretty soon, and I followed clear across the prairie. Time flew, and finally, feeling considerably fagged, and getting no further view of my deer, and being no longer able to trace the red drops she sprinkled along, I sat down, wiped the salt water from my parboiled countenance, and began to – think I'd gone far enough for old venison. In fact, I'd gone a little too far, for the sun was setting down to his home in the Pacific, the black shades of night began to gather around the timber, and I hurried out into the prairie, to get an observation. But it was no go. I had entirely reversed the order of things, in my mind; I had lost my bearings. The evening was cloudy, with a first rate prospect of a wet night, and neither moon nor stars were to be seen.

Taking, at a hazard, the supposed back track, across the broad prairie, upon which flourished a stiff, tall grass, I plodded along, quite chilly, and my thin garments, wet from perspiration, were cold as cakes of ice to my flesh. I began to feel mad, swore some, hoped I was on the right track back to Mat and his deer, but felt satisfied there was some doubt about that. Mat had the flint and steel for raising a fire, and the meat and what bread was left at our last repast. Night came right down in the midst of my cares and tribulations. A slight drizzling rain began to fall. The stillness of a prairie is a damper to the best of spirits – the entire suspension of all noises and sounds, not even the tick of an insect to break the black, dull, dark monotony, is a wet blanket to cheerfulness. I really think the stillness of a large prairie is one of the most painful sensations of loneliness, a man ever encountered. The sombre and dreary monotony of a dungeon, is scarcely a comparison; in fact, language fails to describe the essentially double-distilled monotony of these great American grass-patches – you can't call them deserts, for at times they represent interminable flower-gardens, of the most elegant and voluptuous description.