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 Author of a Treatise on Book-Keeping, Time-Tables, Interest Tables, &c 
 
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 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, 
 
 By LYMAN PRESTON, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New- York. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, 
 
 Properly speaking, this little work consists of two 
 parts, the first having been more particularly designed 
 for the amusement and instruction of children. The 
 second part comprises a variety of hints, (some of which 
 are rather broad it is true,) designed to entertain the 
 mind, as well as improve the morals and correct the 
 habits of youth ; the privilege being extended to heads 
 of families to read, either for pastime or for profit, 
 should they discover a motive so to do. Truth is gene- 
 rally salutary in its effects, when uttered in a proper 
 manner, and with just motives, even though it appear 
 to be tinctured with a little severity. 
 
 It is not presumed that the fate of the nation depends 
 upon the merits of this humble production, — humble in 
 its origin and humble in its pretensions, — but it is con- 
 soling to know, that it can be injurious to none, and 
 encouraging to hope that it may prove beneficial to 
 many. " THE AUTHOR. 
 
 A 
 
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 STORIES. 
 
 PAlf Fllgf, 
 
 THE PITCHFORK STORY. 
 
 Charles was a little boy about six or seven 
 years old, and was very fond of being about the 
 barn in search of hens' eggs, and to see the swal- 
 lows build their nests. Charles would frequently 
 climb upon the hay-mow, and sometimes he would 
 even clamber over the great beam, and get upon 
 the wheat and rye, and then upon the oats, and 
 sometimes he would look all about the flax ; for the 
 hens, which could very easily fly up to the highest 
 places in the barn, did sometimes lay their eggs 
 on the wheat-mow and sometimes on the oats. 
 They would now and then build their nests on the 
 flax. Charles was a very good boy, and never did 
 any thing that his father and his mother told him 
 not to do ; and as they had told him not to meddle 
 1* 
 
6 THE PITCHFORK STORY. 
 
 with the swallows' nests, because they were very 
 harmless birds, he was careful not to disturb them 
 any more than he could help ; but they would often 
 fly about as though they were much afraid that he 
 would tear down their nests, or get their eggs, or 
 do them some other mischief. It happened one 
 day, that Henry, who was Charles' oldest brother, 
 had been out to the barn to give the cattle and 
 sheep some hay, while Charles was engaged in 
 shelling corn for the fowls ; for they had a great 
 many turkeys, geese, and ducks, as well as hens. 
 
 When Henry had done feeding the cattle and 
 sheep with hay, he put down the pitchfork which 
 he had been using, with the handle standing on the 
 floor, and the sharp tines pointing upward, leaning 
 against the hay-mow. After breakfast, Charles 
 went to the barn to look for eggs ; for he had been 
 so diligent in learning his lesson at school, that 
 his mother had promised to bake him a custard and 
 some ginger-cake on that day, and she wanted 
 some eggs to put into them. 
 
 After looking all over the hay-mow, Charles had 
 filled his hat almost full of eggs, and then went to 
 the edge of the mow to slide off, not knowing that 
 the pitchfork was there ; so he slid down right 
 where the fork stood, and the sharp tines ran into 
 his leg quite to the bone. His father and mother 
 heard him cry for help, and they went to the barn 
 
THE PITCHFORK STORY. 7 
 
 as fast as they could run ; and there they found 
 him lying on the floor, unable to help himself in 
 the least. They pulled the fork oat of his leg, and 
 took him in their arms and carried him into the 
 house, and put him on the bed. They washed the 
 blood off from his leg, and then tied it up with a 
 bandage, and wet it with something that was 
 thought good to keep out the inflammation. Poor 
 Charles did not leave his room for several weeks ; 
 and when he began to go about the house again, 
 he was obliged to walk with crutches. But at 
 length he got entirely well, and could run to school 
 as fast as any of the boys. 
 
 Henry was very sorry that lie had left the pitch- 
 fork with the tines upward, leaning against the 
 hay-mow, which had been the cause of so much 
 trouble ; and he often would say, that if he had 
 put the fork in its proper place, with the tines 
 downward on the barn floor, then Charles would 
 not have been hurt with it. I hope you will re- 
 member never to leave a pitchfork leaning against 
 the hay-mow with the tines upward ; but always 
 put it in a safe place, where it cannot hurt any 
 body. 
 
THE NAIL STORY. 
 
 When I was a young lad, like other boys, I was 
 very fond of play when I was out of school ; but 
 when I was in school, I was equally devoted to my 
 books. I could read, and write, and spell, and re- 
 cite my grammar lesson as well as any of the boys ; 
 and in a short time I could say the multiplication 
 table all by heart. And when I was at home, I 
 did not spend all my time at play, but improved 
 a good deal of the day and some of the evening, in 
 looking over my lessons ; for I did not like to have 
 any of the other boys get before me in any thing 
 that we were told to learn. There were some 
 large boys that could not read, nor write, nor spell ; 
 neither could they say the multiplication-table as 
 well as I could ; and the reason was, they did not 
 try to learn any thing. 
 
 Not far distant from the school-house lived a 
 good old man whom the school-children used to 
 call " Uncle Hall ;" and he used to raise a great 
 many colts, and calves, and lambs ; and all the 
 school-boys, as well as little girls, would sometimes 
 go, when school was out at noon, to see Uncle 
 
THE NAIL STORY. V 
 
 Hall's colts, calves, and lambs. Aunt Susan lived 
 in the house next to Uncle Hall's ; and she kept a 
 great flock of geese, and they used to lay ten or a 
 dozen eggs every spring, and then hatch their gos- 
 lings. 
 
 One day my brother Samuel and myself went 
 down into the pasture lot where the geese were, 
 with all their young goslings. I shall never forget 
 how pretty the dear little plump creatures looked. 
 Their legs were so short, and their little bodies so 
 fat, that they could but just waddle about. When 
 we had looked at them long enough, we started to 
 go to the school house again. On our way back, 
 we passed directly by Aunt Susan's garden, which 
 was enclosed with a board fence ; and, as ill luck 
 would have it, one of the boards had been torn off 
 by some of the oxen or cows ; and in it was a 
 rusty nail, with the point upward. My brother 
 Samuel did not see the nail ; and as he was run- 
 ning in a direction which led to the very spot 
 where it was, he stepped right upon its point. It 
 would be difficult to tell how much it hurt him, but 
 you will readily suppose that it was a painful 
 wound. It was well that I was with him to pull 
 it out of his foot ; for if he had been alone, he must 
 have waited till Aunt Susan had come all the way 
 from the house, to assist him. We made out to 
 get as far as Uncle Hall's house, where we stopped 
 
10 THE NAIL STORY. 
 
 and told the old gentleman of our misfortune. Af- 
 ter having told our story, he got some salve and a 
 bandage, and tied up Samuel's foot in the best 
 manner he could ; and then he went and got his 
 horse and wagon and put both of us into it, and 
 carried us home to our house. Samuel did not get 
 well enough to go to school again for several weeks, 
 but was obliged to stay in the house at home, until 
 it was thought prudent for him to go out again. 
 
 Aunt Susan's hired man knew that this board 
 with the sharp nail in it, had been torn from the 
 fence, for he had passed by it several times, and 
 saw it lie on the ground ; but he was either too 
 lazy, or too thoughtless of any danger, to turn the 
 board over or to pull out the nail, which, had he 
 done, my brother would not have hurt himself 
 with it. 
 
 If you ever see any nails in boards about the 
 house, barn, or fence, with the point upward, re- 
 member to turn the points downward. Bend them 
 down with a stone or hammer, or, what is better, 
 pull them out. By doing this, you will secure 
 yourself and others from danger, and may prevent 
 the loss of a leg and perhaps of life ; for a wound 
 from a nail has sometimes given persons the lock- 
 jaw, which has caused their death. 
 
THE PICTURE STORY 
 
 When I was in Petersburg, a town situated on 
 the Appomattox river, in the State of Virginia, I 
 was walking through one of the streets, where my 
 attention was taken by a very curious sign hang- 
 ing out in front of a hat store. The design of the 
 picture was to represent a hat in the water, and a 
 little child in the hat floating about upon the sur= 
 face. A spaniel dog, having discovered the peril- 
 ous situation of the child, which was fast asleep, 
 with its little thumb in its mouth, had plunged into 
 the water, swam to the muskrat vessel, and, having 
 taken the brim in his mouth, was returning to the 
 shore. I did not stop to see whether the dog got 
 both the hat and the child safe on land, or not ; 
 but he was a good, stout-looking dog, and I have 
 no doubt that he accomplished his undertaking as 
 far as it was possible a dog in a picture could do. 
 It was a pretty picture, and I wish you could see 
 it. If you ever go to Petersburg, you must stop 
 and look at it. 
 
 In Petersburg there are as many black people as 
 there are white folks. I saw a great many little 
 
12 THE PICTURE STORY. 
 
 black boys and girls not bigger than you are. They 
 do not go to school as you do, but they spend their 
 time at play, until they are old enough to work : 
 then they hoe corn and raise tobacco. 
 
 The man who' kept the house where I stopped, 
 had a little puppy and a little kitten. They were 
 quite fond of milk, and would both eat out of one 
 pan. When they had eaten as ' much as they 
 wanted, then they would run and play about the 
 house until they were tired. The puppy would 
 bark at the kitten ; but he did not dare to bite her 
 very hard, for if he did, she would scratch him in 
 his face with her sharp claws, 
 
 I have heard a great many curious stories about 
 dogs ; but whether they are all true or not, I can- 
 not tell. When I was riding in the stage, from 
 Baltimore to the city of Washington, a gentleman 
 told me that a certain man owned a large dog; 
 but that he got tired of keeping him : so he took 
 him into a skiff and went out into the middle of a 
 deep river, with an intention to drown him. But 
 in trying to fling the dog into the water, the skiff 
 upset, and turned both the dog and his master into 
 the river together. The dog was a large, stout 
 animal, and could swim almost as well as a duck ; 
 but the man could not swim at all. The dog saw 
 that his master could not swim ; and as he was 
 sinking under the water, the faithful animal caught 
 
THE PICTURE STORY. 13 
 
 him by the collar of his coat, with his mouth, held 
 him up and swam to the shore, not quitting his 
 hold till he saw his master safe on land. 
 
 If this story be true, how greatly was this man 
 indebted to his dog, for the preservation of his life, 
 and that, too, at a moment set apart by the master 
 for the destruction of his faithful and affectionate 
 deliverer ! I have no doubt that this man was 
 very sorry he had tried to drown his dog ; and to 
 atone for his error, I think it quite likely that he 
 fed him and took good care of him as long as he 
 lived. Every body that keeps a dog, should feed 
 him enough to make him comfortable, and should 
 also make a little coop or box, and put some straw 
 in it for him to sleep on in cold weather. In the 
 summer season, when it is warm, they do not need 
 any shelter ; but in cold weather they suffer very 
 much, if they have no shelter to sleep under. I do 
 not like to see a dog in the house, at any time, 
 especially if he be a large dog. Little lap-dogs are 
 not quite so offensive in the house, as large ones 
 are. One day, one of my neighbors came to my 
 house, and his great, black dog came with him ; 
 and his master did not know any better than to 
 let his dog come in with himself. I was very glad 
 when they were both gone ; and I hope the man 
 will not come to my house again, until he has 
 learned to make his dog siay out of doors. I wish 
 
14 THE PICTURE STORY. 
 
 to treat my neighbors with all due respect, but I 
 cannot be taxed with civilities for their dogs. I 
 would as soon allow my friends to bring their 
 calves into my house, as their dogs. 
 
THE UNFORTUNATE BOY. 
 
 The town of Utica is a handsome place, and 
 there are a great many inhabitants there— some 
 old men and some young men, besides women, boys, 
 and girls. The town of Utica is nearly one hun- 
 dred miles from Albany. It is in Oneida county, 
 and State of New-York. I lived in this village a 
 great many years ; and I shall remember all about 
 it, till I get to be an old man. The recollection 
 of going to church on Sunday, and of going to 
 singing-school on Tuesday evening, is still fresh in 
 my mind. But these pleasant seasons of my youth 
 have now gone by. I no longer sing or play upon 
 the flute, as I used to do when I lived in Utica. 
 
 I am going to tell you a story of a little boy, 
 whose name was Philip. He lived at the same 
 house where I boarded ; and he used to bring in 
 wood, and make fires ; and when we wanted wa- 
 ter, he would go to the well and get a pail or pitcher 
 full. The barn was not far from the house, and in 
 it were three or four horses that belonged to some 
 strangers who had come to town on a visit to their 
 frientif*. and to buy some sugar-candy and picture- 
 
16 THE UNFORTUNATE BOY. 
 
 books for their children. Philip had been told not 
 to go near the horses ; but he was so fond of look- 
 ing at them, that he ventured to disobey his orders, 
 and ran out to the barn, thinking he would not 
 stay but a minute, and then return to the house, so 
 that nobody should know that he had been there 
 at all. But while running about the stable, and 
 looking at the new carriages, and harness, and 
 whips, he went so near to the horses, that one of 
 them kicked him flat in his face, which knocked 
 him senseless upon the floor. One of the neigh- 
 bors happened to be going by the barn, shortly af- 
 ter, and, looking in, saw Philip lying stretched out, 
 apparently as dead as a stick of wood. The man 
 who saw him lying there, went in and took him 
 in his arms, and brought him into the house. The 
 blood ran down his face in almost a stream ; for 
 the horse had been shod but a short time before? 
 and the sharp corks had cut a deep hole in his 
 forehead, and split his nose from one end to the 
 other. The doctor was sent for immediately, to 
 come and see him. When the doctor came, he 
 took a rag and some water and washed off the 
 blood ; and then took a needle and thread and 
 sewed his nose together again. He was so badly 
 hurt by the horse, that he did not know they were 
 sewing up his nose, until they had got it almost 
 done : but when he came to his senses, and found 
 
THE UNFORTUNATE BOY. 17 
 
 they were sewing up his nose, and saw the blood 
 aH over his clothes, he began to struggle and groan 
 in a most pitiful manner. When they had dressed 
 his wounds, they put him into bed, where he re« 
 mained for a week without going out of doors once. 
 His face and head swelled up almost as big as a 
 calf's head. During two days, he could not see 
 any thing at all ; and he ate nothing for some time, 
 but chicken-broth and milk-porridge. In about 
 three weeks he got so well that he could go about 
 the house ; but his nose never looked as handsome 
 after it was hurt, as it did before. 
 
 Now if Philip had kept away from the horses, 
 as he was told to do, he would not have been hurt. 
 The object in telling you this story, i3 to remind 
 you of the danger of going too near strange horses. 
 You should always keep at a good distance from 
 them, and then they will not hurt you. Some 
 horses are good-natured, and will not kick unless 
 you go suddenly up to them, without speaking to 
 them to let them know that you are corning. My 
 cream-colored horse is a good-natured creature, 
 and he likes very much to have me go into tho 
 stable where he is, and card him and feed him with 
 hay and oats; but'l always speak to him some 
 time before I get near him, to let him know that 
 I am coming ; for if I were to go suddenly into the 
 stable without saying any thing, I should be afraid 
 
18 THE UNFORTUNATE BOY. 
 
 he would kick or bite me. Sometimes horses will 
 kick and bite little boys, although they will not 
 hurt a man. They know very well that little boys 
 have no right to meddle with them ; and I think, 
 after reading this story about poor Philip, you will 
 not go near the horses' heads or heels, unless your 
 father is with you; and even then, you had better 
 keep so far off that they cannot reach you. Poor 
 Philip's nose, for a time, was out of repair in good 
 earnest ; and to the disgrace of parents and teach- 
 ers, I must take this opportunity to remark, that 
 in travelling over the country, I often, very often, 
 meet, not only with Utile boys and girls, but large 
 boys and girls also, whose noses are most shock- 
 ingly out of repair, not from having been kicked 
 by a horse, as was poor Philip's, but from the or- 
 dinary changes of the weather. A hint to those 
 who would be decent, is sufficient. If you do not 
 understand what I mean, perhaps your parents or 
 school-teacher can tell you. 
 
THE FIRE STORY 
 
 There were two brothers, whose names were 
 Robert and Stephen, residing in the town of Au- 
 burn, in the State of New-York, who had been 
 promised by their father, that if they would be 
 good boys, and learn their lessons at school, and 
 read their books at home, he would buy each of 
 them a pen-knife, the first time he went to the city 
 of New- York. Now the city of New- York is a 
 great city, much larger than Hudson, Albany, or 
 Troy ; and pen-knives for little boys, and scissors 
 for little girls, can be bought in the city of New- 
 York, cheaper than in Utica, Auburn, Geneva, 
 Canandaigua, Rochester, or Buffalo. All the mer- 
 chants sell pen-knives and fish-hooks, as well as 
 scissors and thimbles, and various other things, 
 very low, even in all these towns that I have named 
 to you, 
 
 I believe they sell some jack-knives for twelve 
 cents ; and some very good double-bladed knives 
 for twenty-five cents. Some fish-hooks are worth 
 
20 THE FIRE TTORY, 
 
 one cent, and some two cents. Scissors and thim- 
 bles for little girls, can be purchased for a small 
 sum of money. Robert and Stephen were much 
 pleased to think that if they learned their lessons 
 well, they would have each of them a new knife ; 
 so they lost but little time at play, for fear they 
 should not be entitled to the presents which their 
 father had mentioned to them. They rose early 
 in the morning, washed their hands and faces, and 
 combed their heads ; nor did they forget to clean 
 their finger-nails, as most boys do. As soon as 
 they were dressed, then they would go and get 
 their books, and read three or four pages before 
 breakfast. Their father saw that they were de- 
 termined to learn their books and be good boys ; 
 and when he went to the city of New-York, he 
 remembered what he had promised to get them ; 
 so he purchased for Stephen and Robert, each of 
 them, a pen-knife and a fish-hook. When he came 
 home, they both ran to see if ffieir father had 
 brought their presents with him ; so he took them 
 out of his pocket, and gave them the reward that 
 he had promised them. Their sister Mary, too, 
 had been promised a thimble and a pair of scissors ; 
 so, as soon as she found that her father had got 
 home, she ran to get her presents also. Her fa- 
 ther had bought her a new r silver thimble, and a 
 pair of little scissors that were very bright and 
 
THE FIRE STORY. 21 
 
 handsome, and they would cut paper, and ribbon, 
 and silk, and every thing else that she wanted to 
 cut with them. Robert and Stephen had laid up 
 some small pine sticks, on purpose to whittle with 
 their new knives. The firs.t thing they made, was 
 a little kite. The two boys made the frame, which 
 they whittled to its proper shape and size, with 
 their new knives ; and Mary cut the paper to cover 
 the frame, with the new scissors which her father 
 had bought for her in New-York. 
 
 One day, when Mr. Edwards and his wife, who 
 were the father and mother of these children, had 
 gone to Geneva, a distance of about twenty miles, 
 to see their friends, Robert and Stephen were left 
 at home to take care of the house and watch the 
 fire. But they were so much delighted with their 
 kite, that they left the house, and went into the 
 street to fly their kite. They had not been gone 
 more than one hour, when they heard the cry of 
 Fire ! Fire ! ! Fire ! ! ! They ran back to the 
 house, where they found the whole town and all 
 the engines collected to put out the fire ; for while 
 they were gone, a brand had tumbled down, and 
 some of the coals had fallen upon the floor, which 
 had set fire to the house. Before the people could 
 get to the house, the fire had burned a great hole 
 in the floor, and had also demolished the stand-table 
 that stood near the fire-place. As ill luck would 
 
22 THE FIRE STORY. 
 
 have it, Robert and Stephen had left their knives 
 on the stand-table, and of coarse they were burned 
 up with the table. It happened very well that the 
 people of the village got to the house as soon as 
 they did ; for if they had been a little later, the 
 whole house and every thing in it, would have been 
 destroyed. But when they saw the smoke, they 
 all ran with their engines, and buckets, and pails 
 full of water, which they dashed on the fire, and 
 put it out before it had done any more mischief 
 than to burn a hole in the floor, and to burn up the 
 table with the two knives. Mary had put her 
 scissors and thimble in her work-pocket, which she 
 had hung up in the bed room ; so that they were 
 not burned. I had forgotten to tell you that Mary 
 had gone with her father and mother to Geneva, 
 to see her cousins ; and when she came home, she 
 was very glad to find that her presents had not 
 been burned up, as were the pen-knives which had 
 been given to Robert and Stephen. If these boys 
 had taken good care of the fire, before they went 
 to fly their kite, their pen-knives would not have 
 been burned up. 
 
 When I was a little boy, and my parents left me 
 at home alone, I used to be very particular to put 
 the fire in such a condition that it could not do any 
 mischief; and when I went to bed at night, I used 
 to put the andirons before the fire, and lay the 
 
THE FIRE STORY. 23 
 
 brands flat down on the hearth, and cover them up 
 carefully with ashes. You cannot be too careful 
 with fire ; for, although it is a good servant, yet 
 it is a bad master, 
 
 V 
 
A NOVEL REQUEST. 
 
 A lady of my acquaintance, by way of amusing 
 herself and little boy Daniel, took her scissors and 
 cut a piece of paper into the form of a heart. 
 With this little plaything, Daniel was much pleased 
 but not fully satisfied, as would appear from the 
 additional request which he immediately made, that 
 his mother would cut for him a paper soul, to keep 
 the heart company. The good lady was a very 
 indulgent mother ; but it is hardly necessary to 
 add, that she diverted the little boy's curiosity by 
 some other more practicable specimen of her skill. 
 
TEACHING YOUNG CATTLE TO 
 WORK. 
 
 When I was a little boy about ten or eleven 
 years old, I was very fond of going into the field 
 to see the oxen draw the plough. In the spring 
 of the year, when it was time to sow oats and. 
 peas, and to prepare the ground for planting corn, 
 my father would sometimes let me go with him to 
 drive the oxen. My father would not allow me to 
 whip the oxen any more than was necessary, be- 
 cause it hurt the cattle, he said, to be whipped, as 
 bad as it did any human being. 
 
 I remember one day that was quite warm, when 
 I went into the field to harrow in peas, with the 
 old oxen and a yoke of young steers. The old 
 oxen had been accustomed to work, and would do 
 just as I wanted them to do ; but the steers were 
 not much acquainted with the business, and they 
 would try to get away ; but the old oxen which 
 were before them, would not let them go any where 
 except where they went themselves. I did not 
 whip the steers much, but tried to tame them by 
 carding them with a card, and giving them now 
 
26 TEACHING YOUNG CATTLE TO WORK. 
 
 and then an ear of corn ; and about noon I gave 
 them some water in a pail. They seemed to be 
 very much pleased with this kind treatment ; and 
 in a short time they were as steady as the old oxen. 
 It is exceeding cruel and wicked to whip young 
 steers, when they are first yoked up to be taught 
 to work, When we speak to them, they do not 
 understand what we mean, and they are afraid of 
 us and afraid of our whip. My uncle Barnes was 
 a very thoughtful, good sort of a man, and was 
 much liked by every body who knew him, not only 
 because he was an obliging neighbor, but also be- 
 cause he was merciful towards his cattle. He 
 took great pains to build good shelters for every 
 creature that he owned ; and when the cold, stormy 
 weather came on, they all knew where to go to 
 find a good, dry, and comfortable place. When he 
 wanted to teach his steers to work, he would yoke 
 them up and let them remain in the yard all day ; 
 and when they had learned by experience, that the 
 yoke did not hurt them, and that they could eat 
 hay, and walk about the barn-yard with the yoke 
 on their necks, he would then let them run a part 
 of a day in the lot, with the yoke on them. He 
 called this teaching them their A, B, C. As soon 
 as they had learned these easy lessons, he put them 
 behind a steady horse or an old yoke of oxen, and 
 made them draw a sled or cart. In this gentle 
 
TEACHING YOUNG CATTLE TO WORK. 2? 
 
 way, in a short time he taught them how to be- 
 have, without whipping them but a very little. 
 
 I had forgotten to tell you that, when I went 
 with my father to help drag in peas, one of the 
 oxen came within one inch of stepping flat upon 
 a little bird's nest that had been built under a clod, 
 and which had four handsome, speckled, little eggs 
 in it. One minute more, and the harrow had run 
 over the spot where the nest was, and torn it all 
 in pieces, and broken every one of the eggs ; but 
 as soon as I saw the nest, I moved the harrow on 
 one side, so that it passed by without breaking the 
 eggs, or doing the nest any injury. In about four 
 weeks afterwards, I went to the place where the 
 nest was, and my brother James, and my sister 
 Nancy, went with me, to see what had become of 
 the eggs ; and as soou as we arrived at the spot, 
 we looked under the clod, and, behold ! there were 
 four pretty, little, young birds which had been 
 hatched from the four eggs. Nancy was so much 
 pleased with the little birds, that she took one of 
 them out of the nest, put it into her apron, and 
 carried it home. As soon as she got to the house, 
 she began to think that she had done wrong in ta- 
 king the bird from the nest, for she had no cage 
 to put it into ; and if she put it on the floor, the 
 cat would be certain to kill it : besides, she began 
 to consider how unhappy the little bird would feel 
 
28 TEACHING YOUNG CATTLE TO WORK, 
 
 to be separated from its mother, and how sorry tho 
 old bird would be, to find that one of her young 
 ones had been taken away. So she concluded to 
 carry the little bird back again, and put it in the 
 nest with the other three, there to remain until it 
 should become large and strong enough to fly about 
 and take care of itself. I am very glad that the 
 bird was carried back to the nest again; and I 
 presume you are so, too. 
 
 
THE MAN AND TIGER. 
 
 There are a great many kinds of animals in the 
 world. Some are small and very timid, and will 
 run away as fast as they can, when they see a 
 man coming where they are. These small ani- 
 mals, such as squirrels, foxes, deer, and racoons, 
 are also afraid of little boys and girls ; and they 
 are so spry, that nobody can run fast enough to 
 catch them. There are some large animals that 
 are not afraid of any body. If a man were to go 
 near a lion or a tiger, he would be torn in pieces 
 very quickly. A lion's teeth and claws are so 
 sharp and strong, that he is more dreadful than al- 
 most any other animal. He could kill a sheep or 
 a calf, and tear it in pieces in five minutes. He 
 is called a beast of prey, because he kills and eats 
 other animals. Lions and tigers are natives of 
 Africa and Asia. The people of those countries 
 frequently go out to hunt these fierce animals ; and 
 if they find any young ones in the den, when the 
 old ones are gone from home, they take them alive, 
 and carry them to their houses in their arms ; and 
 when they became so large as to be ungovernable 
 *3 
 
30 THE MAN AND TIGER. 
 
 they sell them to be put in a strong iron cage, and 
 carried about for a show. Perhaps you have seen 
 a lion in a cage already ; if you have not, it is quite 
 likely you will have an opportunity to see one be- 
 fore you get to be a man, for they are carried about 
 the country in cages almost every year, on purpose 
 to shjgw to people. I once paid twenty. five cents 
 to see a lion, but they let me see an elephant, a 
 camel, two wolves, and a little pony horse in the 
 bargain. They did not ask but twelve cents of 
 little boys and girls that went to see this caravan 
 of animals. They never do ask them but half 
 price for seeing a show, and I believe they do not 
 charge little children but half price for going into 
 the museum, where they have a great many curi- 
 ous things. 
 
 When I was in the city of New-York, I saw a 
 picture of a man in the top of a high tree, and a 
 large tiger climbing up after him. The man had 
 a hatchet in his hand, that he had carried up with 
 him ; and it was his intention to strike the tiger 
 with its sharp edge, when he got so near that he 
 could reach him with it. It so happened, that 
 when the tiger had climbed about half way up the 
 tree, a party of men who had gene out for the pur- 
 pose of hunting wild beasts, passed near to the very 
 spot where this tree stood ; and one of the men 
 who had a bow and plenty of arrows with him, saw 
 
THE MAN AND TIGER. 31 
 
 the tiger climbing up after the man that was in 
 the top of the tree ; so he went and shot nine or 
 ten of his sharp pointed arrows at the tiger, which 
 wounded him so much, that at last the ferocious 
 animal let go his hold, and fell to the ground per- 
 fectly dead. 
 
 As soon as it was discovered that the tiger was 
 dead, the man who was in the top of the tree, came 
 down, and took the lifeless beast on his shoulder 
 and carried him home to his house. Then he took 
 a knife and skinned the tiger, and then he tanned 
 the skin into leather, and then made himself a 
 roundabout coat of the skin, which proved to be a 
 very excellent garment, for it would keep out the 
 cold as well as the rain. It was a queer looking 
 coat, but it lasted him a great many years, and 
 kept him warm and dry. When it had got to be 
 an old coat, and the cuffs worn off, and holes were 
 in the elbows, they made a small jacket of the best 
 part of it, for one of the little boys. I dare say 
 that by this time the coat is all worn out, for I 
 have heard nothing about it for a long time. 
 
 I cannot stay to tell you any thing more about 
 wild animals at present, for I am going to New- 
 Haven to-day to see my friends, and it is now al- 
 most nine o'clock, and the steam-boat bell is now 
 ringing for the passengers to go on board ; but 
 when I come back again, it is quite possible that 
 
32 THE MAN AND TIGER. 
 
 I may tell you another story. If you should ever 
 come where I live, I hope you will call and see me, 
 and let me hear you read and spell ; for I am al- 
 ways glad to see little boys and girls who love to 
 go to school, and learn to read their books. 
 
 *3 
 
CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 When I was travelling from Portsmouth to Port- 
 land, the coach made a halt at a tavern to change 
 horses. We had a very handsome coach, and two 
 large white horses to go before it. These horses 
 would trot very fast, and sometimes, when the road 
 was quite smooth and level, they would gallop over 
 the ground in a cheerful and pleasant manner. 
 
 At the tavern where we stopped to feed the 
 -horses, there were nine or ten cattle standing about 
 the yardj and among them were three or four 
 yearling calves, that looked very sorrowful. I have 
 no doubt they were exceedingly hungry, for they 
 did not appear as though they had eaten any thing 
 for two or three days. These poor creatures kept 
 up a continual bellowing, it being the only way r 
 they had of telling their distress. I felt very sorry 
 for these hungry calves ; but there was an unfeel- 
 ing, cruel man, whose duty it was to assist in 
 feeeing horses, that appeared to he quite angry ; 
 and said if the calves did not stop bellowing, he 
 would get an axe and knock them in the head, 
 But he could not find an axe, so he picked up a 
 
34 CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 stone as large as an apple, and flung it at one of 
 the poor creatures, and hit it on the unprotected, 
 bony part of his nose, which, judging from the 
 echo that resounded, and the great uneasiness that 
 the harmless creature manifested, must have pro- 
 duced great pain. What shall we think of such 
 an act of cruelty as this ? The man who would 
 commit such a wanton outrage upon a poor, inof- 
 fensive, brute animal, would rob and murder his 
 fellow-man, were it not for the restraining terrors 
 of the law. 
 
 How often do we witness scenes of useless, un- 
 provoked, and undeserved cruelty like that which 
 Ave have here related ! Indeed, so common are 
 such painful occurrences, (painful to the subject of 
 cruelty, and painful to the thinking and feeling 
 beholder,) that it becomes almost a matter of doubt, 
 which of the two is endowed with the highest 
 faculty of reason — the brute beast, or the man 
 beast. I hope you never will be guilty of such 
 cruelty to animals. 
 
ANOTHER STORY OF CRUELTY. 
 
 I have travelled about the country a great deal, 
 and I have seen some good men, and some bad, 
 wicked men. One day I started to go from Hart- 
 ford to New-Haven, in the stage-coach, which was 
 according to my general mode of travelling. There 
 were also two gentlemen, two ladies, one little boy, 
 and one little black-eyed girl, in the stage-coach 
 with me. 
 
 When we were about half way to New-Haven, 
 we saw a flock of geese at a little distance ahead, 
 standing by the side of the road, picking grass. 
 The man who was driving the horses, had a long 
 whip in his hand ; and when we came up to where 
 the geese were eating grass, he struck one of them 
 as hard as he could with his long whip. I do not 
 know where he hit the goose, but I believe he hit 
 him either on the back-bone, or on his neck, or in 
 one of his eyes ; for the poor thing fell to the 
 ground as quick as though it had been shot with a 
 bullet. It was some time before the goose could 
 get upon his feet again ; and when he did attempt 
 to walk, he staggered about with his wings hang- 
 
 ^ 
 
 
36 ANOTHER STORY OF CRUELTT, 
 
 ing down upon the ground, which gave sufficient 
 proof that he was very weak? and in great pain. 
 The goose had not been doing any mischief; and 
 the driver that struck him, couM not furnish any 
 excuse for his wanton cruelty. 
 
 We kept on our journey, and left the goose still 
 staggering about the road, with his wings hanging 
 down upon the ground, till at length we were en- 
 tirely out of sight. Whether the poor goose got 
 well, or whether he died, I cannot tell, for I never 
 saw any thing of it after that time. 
 
 Good men and good boys never abuse any dumb 
 creature ; but bad folks take pleasure in whipping 
 and pounding any animal that comes within their 
 reach. I once knew two wicked boys, who seemed 
 to take great delight in flinging stones and clubs 
 at the sheep and cows. These naughty boys always 
 kept a great dog with them ; and whenever they 
 found any cattle or hogs in the street, they would 
 make him run after them and bite them. These bad 
 boys took more pleasure in this cruel sport, than 
 in going to school and reading their books. If 
 their parents bought them any new books, they 
 would not read them, but would ran away in pur- 
 suit of some mischief. 
 
FIRE-ARMS. 
 
 A loaded gun is a very dangerous thing when in 
 the hands of children, who do not know how to use 
 it. A bow and arrow, or a pop-gun, is a much 
 more suitable thing for little boys to play with, than 
 an iron gun loaded with powder. We often read 
 in the newspapers of some dreadful accident from 
 a careless use of guns, Last summer I was in the 
 village of Lowell, about twenty-five miles from 
 the city of Boston, and it was on the fourth of July, 
 when the people assembled to rejoice in their 
 liberty. In this village that I am telling you about, 
 a great many people had met together, some old 
 people and some young folks. There were also 
 a great many little boys and girls, that had come to 
 see the trainers, and to hear the drum and fife. 
 There were sugar-candy, ginger-bread, and raisins, 
 to sell in great abundance. The trainers had 
 placed a great cannon in the middle of the road, 
 loaded with a heavy charge of powder, for the pur- 
 pose of making as loud a noise as they could. 
 When they fired off this great gun, it scared all the 
 horses that were tied to the fence, and one of them 
 4 
 
38 FIRE-ARMS. 
 
 pulled so hard that he broke his bridle, and ran 
 about the street like a crazy creature* As soon as 
 the people saw that the horse had broken the bridle, 
 they all tried to get out of his way as quick as they 
 possibly could ; but there was one man more bold 
 than the rest, who was determined to stop the 
 horse ; so he placed himself in the middle of the 
 road, to prevent the horse from getting by, but the 
 animal was so much frightened, and was running 
 so swift, that he did not care for any thing or any 
 body ; so he did not regard the man who stood in 
 the middle of the road, but ran and jumped right 
 upon him, and broke his ribs. The horse also fell 
 and broke his own leg. The man died before night, 
 and was buried the next day. I cannot tell what 
 became of the horse, but I think it quite likely that 
 he died also. 
 
 Here, you see, a great deal of mischief wag done 
 by shooting off one gun. I saw a man in the town 
 of Utica, who had his leg shot off on the fourth of 
 July by the bursting of a gun ; and my cousin Silas 
 had his thumb shot off with a fowling-piece. 
 
 A fowling-piece is a gun made to shoot ducks, 
 and birds, and squirrels with. If you put too much 
 powder in a gun of this sort, it is as likely to burst 
 as any other kind of gun. 
 
 When I was in Kentucky last summer, I went 
 into the woods with a shot-gun, which is the same 
 
FIRE-ARMS. 
 
 thing as a fowling-piece, and I killed two great 
 owls in a very short time. Their eyes were as big 
 us buttons, and their claws almost as sharp as pins. 
 
THE MASK STORY. 
 
 New-York is a great city, and a great many 
 people live in it. There are in the city of New- 
 York a great many stores of all sorts. There are 
 dry-good stores, grocery stores, hard-ware stores, 
 crockery stores, book stores, hat stores, shoe stores, 
 druggist stores, fruit stores, and a great many other 
 stores and shops that I could tell you about, if I had 
 time to do so. There are also in New- York a great 
 many taverns and boarding-houses, where people 
 go and stay as long as they please, and then pay 
 for what they have had, and go away again. There 
 is a tavern in the city of New-York, which stands 
 on the corner of Pearl and Fulton streets, and which 
 is seven stories high. This large house was built 
 by Mr. Holt, and it is called Holt's Hotel. The 
 outside of this house is all white marble, and it looks 
 very well. There are in this house more than 
 four hundred windows, and about two hundred and 
 thirty rooms. If a man were to jump from the 
 top of this high house down upon the ground, it 
 would be certain to kill him. I would not jump off 
 from the eaves of this building, if any body would 
 
THE MASK STORY. 41 
 
 give me a large basket full of dollars. If I had 
 wings as large as a table-cloth, and could fly as 
 well as an eagle, I should not then be afraid to 
 jump off from the highest house that ever was built ; 
 and if I could swim as well as a duck, I should not 
 be afraid to jump into the deepest river that ever 
 was. I will now tell you about the mask. 
 
 When I boarded with Mrs. Inwood, in John-street, 
 an event occurred one evening, that made all the 
 boarders laugh quite heartily. 
 
 A m ask is an ugly looking thing. It is made of 
 paper, and then painted over with paints of differ- 
 ent colors, so as to make it look very queer. One 
 of the boarders had bought one of these frightful 
 looking things at one of the stores, and brought it 
 home with him. So when evening came, after 
 supper, he put it on his face, and sat down with 
 three other persons to a game of whist. They had 
 played only a little while, when Betsey, the Irish 
 girl, came into the room with her arms full of 
 wood, to put on the fire ; but when she saw the man 
 playing cards, with the mask on his face, she 
 screamed out, with all her might, and flung all the 
 wood on the middle of the floor, and then ran down 
 stairs as swift as she could go, and told Mrs. Inwood 
 that an evil spirit was in the dining-room playing 
 cards. 
 
 The man who put on the mask, did not mean to 
 4* 
 
42 THE MASK STORY. 
 
 scare any body with it, and lie was sorry that he 
 had not pulled it off be "ore Betsey came into the 
 room ; but he could not help laughing, to see how 
 swift she flung the wood on the floor, and then to 
 witness, how like a streak of wild-fire she scamp- 
 ered down stairs to Mrs. Inwood. 
 
 Poor Betsey did not come into the dining-room 
 again for a whole week ; and when she did come, 
 she looked cautiously about the room as she entered 
 the door, to see if the mask was not there again ; 
 but Mrs. Inwood had burned it up, and that was the 
 end of it. 
 
 It is very wicked for one person to frighten ano- 
 ther by design ; I mean on purpose. If you be- 
 have yourself properly, and remember the stories 
 that I have written for you to read, perhaps next 
 year I shall write some more for you, as well as 
 for other little boys and girls. If you ever come 
 to the city of New-York, I hope you will call and 
 make me a visit, for I should be very glad to see 
 you. 
 
STORY OF THE CHICKENS. 
 
 When I v/as a little boy, I lived at home with my 
 father and mother, and brothers and sisters. Since 
 that time, I have passed through many scenes, so 
 unlike any thing that came within the experience 
 of my early days, that I had not so much as dreamed 
 that I should ever become interested in the fears and 
 hopes, pleasures and pains, with which subsequent 
 years have been fraught. 
 
 I have been engaged in various kinds of business ; 
 but, after all, [ like farming better than any other 
 occupation. I could tell you a great many stories 
 about turkeys, geese, calves, and lambs, that would 
 please you as well as to tell you about whales, 
 sharks, lions, or tigers. 
 
 About three years ago, I went into the country 
 to spend the summer with aunt Sally. Aunt Saily 
 was a very good woman, and every body esteemed 
 her very much. Uncle George, her husband, had 
 been dead several years, and she did not keep any 
 cattle, or horses, or hogs ; but she spent all her time 
 in raising chickens, and goslings, and turkeys. Old 
 hens are generally very fond of their young chick- 
 
44 STORY OP THE CHICKENS. 
 
 ens, and will do all they can to procure food for 
 them, such as little bugs, and flies, and grass-hop- 
 pers, and when night comes they will go to some 
 shelter, where they will sit down and let all the 
 little chickens creep under their wings, so as to 
 keep them warm and dry ; but aunt Sally had one 
 cross hen, that ran away from her chickens as soon 
 as they were hatched, and left them without any 
 body to take care of them. There were just ten 
 of these poor little chickens, and they were as 
 handsome as little beauties. As soon as Aunt Sally 
 found out that the old hen had run away and left 
 her chickens, she took a basket and put some wool 
 into it, and then put the chickens in amongst the 
 wool. After the chickens had taken a good nap in 
 the basket of wool, aunt Sally made some chicken- 
 meat of corn-meal, and fed them. When they had 
 eaten enough, they took another nap. In a little 
 while they became large enough to run all about 
 the door-yard, and catch flies, little bugs, and grass- 
 hoppers, for themselves. Aunt Sally called these 
 little chickens her little babies. When it rained, 
 she would not let them go out of doors, but would 
 shut them up in a small room up chamber, and feed 
 them with crumbs of bread. She also gave them 
 water in a tea-saucer. In the course of a few 
 weeks these orphan chickens would ramble all 
 about the garden and meadow in search of food ; 
 
STORY OP THE CHICKENS. 45 
 
 but they always came up to the house before dark, 
 when aunt Sally would sit down on the door-step 
 and spread out her apron, and then they would all 
 fly into it, and be carried and put into the basket of 
 wool, where they would sleep till morning. 
 
 Aunt Susan had one black cat and one white cat, 
 and they would catch mice and birds ; but they 
 knew that these chickens were not birds, so they 
 did not hurt them. It is a circumstance worthy of 
 remark, that dogs, as well as cats, soon learn to 
 know the difference between domestic and wild 
 animals. A dog knows that he must not meddle 
 with the sheep and lambs ; but he thinks it fine 
 sport to run after and bite the hogs and pigs. I do 
 not like dogs very well ; they are dirty creatures 
 at best, and in nine cases out of ten, they do more 
 hurt than good. 
 
 . * 
 
MORNING CREED, 
 
 I believe that honesty is the best policy, and that 
 our duty to God, to ourselves and to our fellow men, 
 requires that we should deal righteously with others, 
 and walk soberly and circumspectly before the 
 Great Creator of the world. 
 
 I believe that temperance, industry, and truth, 
 are virtues which contrbute essentially to our hap- 
 piness here on earth ; for he that spends his time in 
 idleness, seldom, if ever, becomes rich ; and he that 
 eats. or drinks more than he wants, will speedily find 
 himself alike indisposed and disqualified to pursue 
 his daily business ; and he that will not tell the truth, 
 will be shuned by all good men, as being unworthy 
 of their confidence and esteem. 
 
 All vehement, profane, coarse and vulgar lan- 
 guage, is a disgrace to any one, and should be re- 
 garded as a vice wholly incompatible with the char- 
 acter of a gentleman, who aspires to an elevation 
 more worthy a sound head and a good heart. 
 
 I believe that one pint of pure water is worth 
 more than a ship load of brandy, rum, gin, or any 
 
 cL 
 
MORNING CREED, 47 
 
 other strong drink — And I belive that tobacco is 
 one of the most poisonous and filthy plants that the 
 earth produces, and which so far as experience can 
 testify, is good for nothing except as a death-scourge 
 to vermin upon calves and sheep. 
 
 I believe that the wicked will not escape the just 
 reward of their unrighteous deeds, but that they will 
 be punished for their crimes in prison and in chains; 
 and that the felon and the murderer will be exe- 
 cuted upon the gallows, — a dreadful and most dis- 
 graceful end. 
 
 I believe that the good man is far more likely to 
 be healthy, wealthy and happy, than he who re- 
 gards not the counsel of the wise, but learns to do 
 evil things. 
 
EVENING CREED. 
 
 I believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker 
 of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only 
 Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, and who, while 
 upon earth, went about doing good to men, healing 
 the sick, restoring sight to the blind, and raising 
 the dead to life. At length this righteous man, the 
 Son of God, and the Redeemer of a sinful world, was 
 taken by unthankful and wicked men, with Pontius 
 Pilate at their head, and cruelly put to death upon 
 the cross, in company with robbers. He was buried, 
 but at the end of three days he arose from his grave, 
 appeared unto his disciples, and conversed with 
 them. After this, he ascended into heaven to dwell 
 with God his Father, where he continues to inter- 
 cede for the blessing, forgiveness, and salvation of 
 men ; and I believe that those who repent of their 
 sins, and love and obey the commandments of God, 
 will at last be received into the paradise of heaven, 
 prepared for saints and just men. But wicked men, 
 who care for no good thing, will be turned away 
 from this happy abode, and shut up in a place of 
 darkness and pain, of which the Bible declares there 
 shall be no end. 
 
■■ 
 
 STORIES. 
 
 TWO WAYS OF DOING THE SAME 
 THING. 
 
 Archibald Fox was a young man of an inquisi- 
 tive mind, ready understanding, shrewd penetra- 
 tion, and correct judgment, but his zeal was more 
 than equal to his prudence. 
 
 It happened one day that I was present when 
 Archibald Fox was discussing with some of his 
 friends the relative merits of two persons who had 
 been nominated for an office in the town in which 
 he resided. The debate grew rather warm, when 
 Archibald declared that common sense could not 
 fail to teach any one that the candidate whose 
 cause he was advocating, was the most suitable 
 person of the two ; and that every honest man 
 would support his election. In effect, this was as 
 5 
 
50 TWO WAYS OF DOIJSG THE SAME THING. 
 
 much as to say, that all who differed from himself 
 upon the subject of discussion, were either fools or 
 hypocrites. Now even allowing all this to be true, 
 which, for aught I know, might have been the fact, 
 it was very indecent and very vulgar in Archibald 
 to say so, although, as it happened, the sensibility 
 of no one of the individuals present, was so delicate 
 as to receive any very serious wound from the im- 
 plied accusation. The opposite positions which 
 had been assumed by the contending parties, seemed 
 to be more the cause of displeasure, than the man- 
 ner in which the debate was conducted. Now, 
 with the truly refined, the reverse of this would be 
 the fact. The expression of a dissenting opinion 
 would be cheerfully listened to, provided the man- 
 net in which it were defended, were mild and re- 
 spectful. In argument, we seldom gain our point 
 by harsh means. To contradict our opponent, 
 never produces conviction in his mind of his errors, 
 however apparent they may be to every other man 
 living. We are far more likely to succeed in re- 
 conciling the feelings and minds of others to our 
 views, by ashing them if what we say is not true, 
 than by telling them that what they say is false. 
 Moreover, we should do well to bear in mind, that 
 we are as liable to err as others ; and that there 
 is some risk in advancing our sentiments with too 
 much confidence ; for if we should be detected in 
 
TWO WAYS OP DOING THE SAME THING. 51 
 
 an error, and find ourselves compelled to acknow- 
 ledge it at last, we 'should feel much less mortified 
 to reflect that we had defended our mistaken posi- 
 tions with that modesty and moderation which 
 could leave no room for our opponent to laugh at 
 our follv. 
 
 
HINNTS TO PARENTS AND 
 GUARDIANS. 
 
 The art of governing children, is studied only 
 by a small portion of the number to whom the im- 
 portant charge is committed ; and those who do 
 make any considerable progress in this branch of 
 domestic economy, are so seldom to be met with, 
 that they form a conspicuous exception to the com- 
 mon order of things, amounting almost to a mira- 
 cle in nature. 
 
 There are cases where the ignorance and folly 
 of a fellow-being may excite feelings of compas- 
 sion ; and where, instead of stern reproof, the 
 milder accents of counsel may be elicited. But I 
 must confess, for one, that on nearly all occasions 
 where I have been compelled to witness the stupid 
 folly of parents, as displayed in the mismanagement 
 of their children, every feeling of kindness, both 
 toward themselves and their stubborn, ungoverned 
 offspring, has been destroyed by the gross outrage 
 upon common sense, committed in their servile in- 
 dulgence of those over whom, for their own com- 
 fort and the comfort of others, they should exercise 
 a steady, just, and judicious control. 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS. 53 
 
 It is true, children are a troublesome crop to 
 raise, at best ; nor can the wisdom of Solomon de- 
 vise any plan, or prescribe any rules, that will re- 
 lieve the parent from all embarrassments, and teach 
 him the undeviating course that he should always 
 pursue. But there are some general maxims which, 
 if put in practice, would prove salutary in their 
 effects, elevating the parent at least to the condi- 
 tion of a co-partner with his children, whereby he 
 would be invested with the right of proposing the 
 terms of the social compact, if nothing more. , 
 
 I once boarded at a house in the town of * # * 
 where a family of four persons were also lodgers. 
 This family consisted of the man, his wife, a little 
 boy about three years old, and an infant. This 
 little boy was permitted to cry a great portion of 
 the time from morning till night, although he was 
 apparently in perfect health, nothing ailing and 
 nothing wanting. What do you suppose the effect 
 of all this was ? Nothing less than this : the child 
 was hated and the parents despised by every in- 
 mate of the house. Any parent who permits his 
 child to cry without good cause, richly deserves 
 the annoyance produced by the needless noise. 
 
 There are not a few mothers who are scolding 
 
 from morning till night, because their children are 
 
 so noisy, so fretful, and so disobedient. Now I 
 
 have no pity for such — no tears of compassion to 
 
 5* 
 
54 HINTS TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS. 
 
 shed for their case. If, reader, you are one — and 
 it is more than possible you are — I am not sorry 
 that you are thus troubled. It is good enough for 
 you. If you have any strength in your arm and 
 brains in your head, and do not remedy the evil, 
 your vexations are but the just reward of your 
 folly, and you have no reason to complain. If 
 your children do not mind you, it is because you 
 are constantly threatening but never 'performing. 
 
 Promises to children, both of rewards and pun- 
 ishments, should be made with great caution ; but 
 when they are made, should be fulfilled with un- 
 failing certainty. If you would threaten ninety, 
 nine-hundredths less, and perform one-hundredth 
 more, your children would become far more obedi- 
 ent, far more affectionate, and far more respectful, 
 depend upon it. 
 
 Children, when they become fatigued and sleepy, 
 are generally fretful and peevish, and then is their 
 favorite hour for crying. What do most parents 
 generally do on these occasions ? Why, after the 
 child has cried about half an hour, the mother, sis- 
 ter, or some other member of the family, sits down, 
 takes the child in her lap, sings it to sleep, and 
 then puts it on the bed, out of sight and hearing, 
 as it is hoped. But in this manoeuvre the child 
 wakes up, and begins to cry again. It does not 
 like to sleep on the bed : it chooses rather to sleep 
 
±IINTS TO PARENTS AND GUARDIAus. 55 
 
 in its mother's lap. So it is taken up again, and 
 another song of patience is administered to lull the 
 child to sleep, 
 
 Now, mothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins, if you 
 do not know better how to manage than all this 
 comes to, it is time you did know better. When 
 a child is old enough to understand what is said to 
 him* he should be made to go to sleep, when need- 
 ful, in any place where it is convenient to put him. 
 If you will not take my advice, you may suffer the 
 usual toil and inconvenience, in your own way, 
 and welcome. 
 
 A modern writer has said, with reference to the 
 government of children, that " the two strongest 
 impulses in our nature, are fear and love. In the- 
 ory, acting upon the latter is very beautiful ; but 
 in practice, I never found it to answer, and for the 
 best of reasons : our self "-love is stronger than our 
 love for others." He adds : " Now I have never 
 found fear to fail, for the very same reason that 
 the other does ; because with fear, we act upon 
 self-love, and nothing else." 
 
 I concur in opinion with the quoted author, so 
 far as to admit that, as a general rule, obedience 
 is not to be expected from motives of love and af- 
 fection ; but I should be very sorry to recommend 
 that system of discipline which excludes the hope 
 of reward, as a motive to induce children to obey 
 
56 HINTS TO PARENTS, 
 
 their guardian and teacher. A boy will work three 
 days for an orange, and six days for a pen-knife ; 
 but ten chances to one that he would desert a task 
 of three hours, at the hazard of a sound whipping, 
 rather than submit to the toil connected with it, 
 unattended by the prospect of remuneration. 
 
 All obligations on the part of children, for past 
 favors and past benefits conferred upon them by 
 their parents, are, by the laws of nature, (instead 
 of running" six years,) outlawed in six minutes. 
 Hence, those who would collect debts of obedience 
 from their children, will be certain to be non-suited. 
 If it is bad policy to pay a man in advance, it is 
 worse to pay children, to-day, for duties that are 
 to be performed to-morrow. To tell a child that 
 he may spend the forenoon at play, provided he 
 will study his book in the afternoon, is, in effect, 
 a good bargain — a safe stipulation on the part of 
 the child, to spend the ichole day in amusements of 
 his own choosing. In short, children, like grow r n 
 persons, will cheerfully toil for what is to be gained; 
 w r hile it is looked upon as a hardship to account 
 for that which has already been received. 
 
 Children often suffer more from the errors of 
 their guardians, than from their own ignorance. 
 If parents and guardians were first taught a little 
 wisdom, their children w r ould then inherit it from 
 them. I am not an advocate of severity in the 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 57 
 
 government of children. Such an extreme would 
 be even worse than its opposite. An even, firm, 
 though temperate control, is the best of all others. 
 Scolding has no excuse. A scolding mother never 
 yet secured the respect and obedience of her child- 
 ren ; but, on the contrary, she renders her voice 
 as useless as the ticking of an old clock. " If 
 thunder itself were to be continual, it would excite 
 no more terror than the noise of a mill ; and we 
 should sleep in the greatest tranquility, when it 
 roared the loudest." 
 
 Children should be taught to know the connex- 
 ion between actions and consequences, as soon as 
 possible. What good do you suppose it would do 
 to tell your boys not to roll in the dirt, or run 
 through a mud-puddle — telling them, as a reason, 
 that it costs their parents a great deal of labor to 
 procure clothes for them, and a great deal of trou- 
 ble to keep them clean when they rolled in the dirt 
 and run in the mud with them ; and then, as often 
 as they disobey your orders, give them a thorough 
 scolding, and go and wash their clothes and clean 
 their shoes for them yourself? I will tell you what 
 good it does to scold at your children for doing 
 what you have told them not to do : just as much 
 good as to scold at an unruly ox for jumping over 
 the fence and eating up the green corn, contrary 
 to orders previously given him. Children are gov- 
 
58 HINTS TO PARENTS. 
 
 erned by two motives : the hope of reward, and 
 the fear of unpleasant consequences. A stream of 
 scolding as long as from sunrise to sundown, never 
 yet had any other effect upon children, than to 
 render them wholly regardless of what is said to 
 them. If you wish to make your children trouble- 
 some, scold at them occasionally. If you wish to 
 make them bad, scold at them a little harder, louder, 
 and more frequently. If you wish to ruin them, 
 and relinquish all hope of controlling them, scold 
 continually, and you will be sure to gain your ob- 
 ject. A single appropriate penalty, inflicted in a 
 proper temper of mind, accompanied with mild ac- 
 cents of reproof, is more effectual than fifty of 
 those thoughtless threats which, if put in execution, 
 would sever the ears from the head, if not the head 
 from the shoulders. 
 
 I have said that children should be taught to 
 know the connexion between actions and conse- 
 quences, as soon as possible. In other words, they 
 should learn to act upon their own responsibility, as 
 soon as possible. If my boy washes half the dirt 
 off his hands, and wipes the other half on a clean 
 white towel, I make him go and wash that towel 
 himself. If he runs through the mud, and gets his 
 shoes all over dirt, I make him go and brush them 
 himself. He is a small boy ; and to stand over 
 him and show him how to perform these tasks> 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 59 
 
 costs me, it is true, more present time and labor 
 than it would to do them myself; but it is the best 
 way of all others, to prevent a repetition of the 
 offence, for in this way he discovers that, when 
 he is careless about what he does, he is acting upon 
 his oicn responsibility. Little children regard the 
 blaze of a candle as a pretty plaything, and, sooner 
 or later, they will contrive to get their finger into 
 it ; but who ever knew a child to do the like a 
 second time 1 The plain truth is, that in this, they 
 act upon their own responsibility. Now you might 
 scold at your children till they were twenty-one 
 years old, and they would still continue to put their 
 fingers in the fire as often as it should contribute 
 to their amusement, provided the pain could be 
 transferred to yourself, and you would consent to 
 suffer it. 
 
 Mr. G., an intelligent farmer with whom I am 
 acquainted, governs his boys with rigid adherence 
 to the policy above recommended — making them, 
 as far as practicable, responsible for their own 
 neglect. On one occasion, one of his boys, on re- 
 turning from the garden to the house, omitted to 
 shut the gale after him ; by which neglect, the 
 young potatoes and other vegetables were much 
 exposed to the inquisitive noses of a drove of pigs 
 that never permitted to pass, unimproved, a good 
 opportunity to do mischief, Mr. G. soon disco v- 
 
60 HINTS TO PARENTS. 
 
 ered that the gate was open ; but instead of shut- 
 ting it, drove the pigs into an adjoining yard where 
 he knew they would remain until he should see fit 
 to give them their liberty again. Do you ask what 
 he did to the boy ? Perhaps you think that he cal 
 led the lad out, and that, in a mild tone of voice, 
 he reminded the delinquent of his neglect, telling 
 him to go and shut the gate, and to remember in 
 future not to leave it open, when the safety of all 
 that the garden contained, required that it should 
 always be kept closedv Perhaps you think that he 
 gave him a thorough scolding — threatening to use 
 the rod upon him, should he be detected in a repe- 
 tition of the offence ; or perhaps you are ready to 
 conclude that he took the boy and, without farther 
 ceremony, gave him a sound lacing. No, neither 
 of these. Nothing was said and nothing done, 
 until the boy had gone to bed and to sleep. The 
 time had now arrived. Mr, G. called the lad from 
 his sleep and from his bed, and required him to 
 dress himself, and then to go and shut the gate. 
 Now then, ye tender hearted, ye indulgent, scold- 
 ing, caressing, ye threatening and relenting moth- 
 ers ; ye whose engagements represent the princi- 
 pal, while the fulfilment amounts to no more than 
 a commission ; ye whose promises of bitter penal- 
 ties, are redeemed in sugar candy, come forward 
 with frowns upon your faces that might darken a 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 61 
 
 clear day, and, in a tone of indignation, attended 
 with epithets of sharp reproach that might ampu- 
 tate a right arm, pronounce Mr. G. to be a wretch 
 and a tyrant, if you will ; but I tell you he was 
 right — exactly right — -perfectly right. And until 
 you can see and understand the propriety and the 
 justice of the policy pursued by him, you need not 
 come to me with complaints that your children are 
 forgetful, negligent, and disobedient. The word 
 responsibility is a great word, a word of stern so.- 
 lemnity ; and when its import, and the penalties 
 which it comprehends cannot be shunned, it is no 
 less true with respect to children than to grown 
 persons, that they will be cautious how they trifle 
 with its admonitory signification. 
 
 If in any of the concerns connected with human 
 life, there is occasion to put in practice the maxim 
 which admonishes us to " think twice before we 
 speak once," it is in that which relates to the go- 
 vernment of children. 
 
 It is no uncommon occurrence to hear parents 
 reward their children for good actions, by remind- 
 ing them of their more frequent acts of disobedu 
 ence. This is any thing but a rational policy. 
 Parents should by all means encourage their child- 
 ren to obedience and good behavior. A just dis- 
 crimination between perverseness and a cheerful, 
 submissive temper, is no less important in the man- 
 6 
 
62 HINTS TO PARENTS. 
 
 agement of children, than their attachment to an 
 upright and virtuous course of conduct in subse- 
 quent life — is momentous in relation to their own 
 happiness, and the happiness of others. 
 
 Whatever we know to* be true, we cannot deny, 
 however incredible the fact, in itself, may appear. 
 I allude to the most inconsiderate and impolitic of 
 all things, as relating to the government of child- 
 ren, the manifestations of counteracting sympathies 
 and excitements which alternately predominate in 
 the bosoms of husband and wife. To tell the story 
 in a few words, parents should never dispute about 
 measures in the presence of their children ; for> 
 believe me, it is a most mischievous error. When 
 the father undertakes to correct the child, the mo- 
 ther should not appear even to know what he is 
 doing. And so, on the other hand, when the wife 
 attempts to coerce the child to obedience, the hus- 
 band had better be cleaning his finger-nails, with 
 his back turned upon the scene of difficulty, than 
 to see, say, or do any thing that would embarrass 
 his wife in the execution of her commands. NuU 
 lification in family government, is wholly subver- 
 sive of good order, for it not only destroys in the 
 mind of children that respect for the authority of 
 the parent, without which a cheerful obedience 
 cannot be expected ; but, what is worse, it origi- 
 nates war between those with whom harmony and 
 peace should ever dwell uninterrupted. 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 63 
 
 Mr. Pannel, who married a Miss Impulse, had 
 often been heard to say that parents showed more 
 weakness and more folly in the manner in which 
 they conducted themselves towards their children, 
 thctn in any thing else ; and that if, in the course 
 of events, he should be called upon to exercise pa- 
 rental government over a child he would show to 
 his neighbors the effect of good laws judiciously 
 enforced. In other words, he would furnish them 
 with an example of good family discipline Mr. 
 Pannel knew full well, that, even in marriage con- 
 tracts, it required two to make a bargain ; but he 
 had not foreseen that, in family correction, it often 
 happens that the will or the sympathies of a third 
 person is to be consulted. In process of time, 
 however, he discovered the embarrassing truth, 
 that his own judgment was not always looked upon 
 by his good lady, as an infallible rule of action. 
 Mrs. Pannel was now the mother of a sprightly, 
 spirited boy. But this boy, like other smart, pro- 
 mising boys, was sometimes sullen, crabbed, and 
 obstinately disobedient ; and it was on one of these 
 occasions that Mr. Pannel took his little boy, 
 Thomas, (for that was his name,) and shut him up 
 in a room by himself — telling him that he should 
 remain there alone for half an hour, as a punish- 
 ment for his misconduct. Mrs. Pannel was, in 
 reality, as much Miss Impulse after marriage, as 
 
64 HINTS TO PARENTS. 
 
 she was before. She never stopped to consider 
 what future consequences might result from pre- 
 sent causes ; but spoke and acted in strict obedi- 
 ence to any exciting influence which casualty- 
 might produce on her nervous temperament. Mr. 
 Pannel was a rational but resolute man ; and hav- 
 ing determined that Thomas should be put into a 
 room by himself, there was no alternative. The 
 mother plead that he might be excused for this 
 once — assuring her husband that the next time 
 Thomas should do wrong, he should be punished 
 without fail. But no— Mr. P. insisted on present 
 penalty for present wrong ; so go the child must, 
 and go he did. This decision was too much for 
 the tender mercies of Mrs. Pannel's compassionate 
 heart. In the hearing of the child, she pronoun- 
 ced the course which her husband pursued, to be 
 unjust and cruel. She remained just long enough 
 to add, that " he was a good-for-nothing tyrant, to 
 make the best of him," and then rushed into the 
 room to which her darlSfg had been banished, took 
 the child into her arms, and sat down to appease 
 her precious boy and to console herself in the best 
 way she could. Although the conduct of Mrs. 
 Pannel was but a wretched manifestation of re- 
 spect for the authority of her husband, yet she 
 stood in too much fear of his superior muscular 
 power to presume to take the child from the room 
 until the half hour had expired. 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 65 
 
 Poor, silly, blind, ill-fated woman ! Little did 
 she consider that, by her passionate indiscretions 
 she was destroying, not only her own authority 
 over the child, but that of the father also, Indeed, 
 it soon happened.) as, under such circumstances, 
 it always will happen,) that the young lad bid an 
 open defiance to the authority of his mother ; and 
 that he submitted to the hated authority of his 
 father, through fear of the rod alone. As he grew 
 older, he thought it manly to call his mother a 
 fool ; and that, to spit upon her and to strike her 
 |l with his hand, was no reproach. 
 Wk Mr. Pannel had long warned his wife of the 
 great evil which, by interfering with his authority, 
 she would bring upon themselves and upon their 
 son ; but she heeded not his admonitions, till re- 
 formation was hopeless and repentance availed net. 
 Thomas, at an early age, contrary to the en- 
 treaties of his mother and the admonitions of his 
 father, learned to c.hew tobacco, smoke cigars, and 
 to drink strong, intoxicating liquors. The whole, 
 some restraints of parental authority became more 
 and more irksome to him, until at length, to obtain 
 the pleasures of society abroad, more congenial to 
 his vicious habits, and to shun the scrutinizing eye 
 of his father at home, he joined a military expedi- 
 tion against Canada, was taken prisoner, tried by 
 6* 
 
66 HINTS TO PARENTS, 
 
 a court martial, found guilty, was sentenced and 
 then hung. 
 
 The sad career and still more lamentable end of 
 this young man, are not to be attributed solely to 
 the single act of impropriety on the part of the 
 mother, which we have related. That was, as far 
 as is known, the Jirst error of the kind. It was, 
 however, an occurrence with which subsequent 
 days and weeks witnessed a thousand parallels. 
 
 The imprudent mother had often, while in an- 
 ger, been heard to say to Thomas, that she wished 
 his teeth were knocked down his throat ; and then, 
 in ten minutes after, she would have him in he 
 lap, feeding him with cake, and calling him her 
 sweet darling. One day, she promised Thomas 
 that, if he would do an errand for her, she would 
 make him a kite. Thomas performed the condi- 
 tion, and then importuned for the promised reward. 
 But the mother had neither time, materials, dispo- 
 sition, nor the requisite skill for making the kite. 
 Of course, it was never made ! 
 
 How many mothers there are, who, like Mrs. 
 Pannel, are daily and hourly threatening their 
 children with punishment for the next offence ! 
 Nor are we limited to rare instances of promises 
 of rewards which are never redeemed, and which 
 are not intended to be fulfilled, when made. One 
 clearly deserved penalty, remitted till next time, is 
 
 *-#... **% 
 
HINTS TO PARENTS. 67 
 
 in Fact regarded by the child as a license of impu- 
 nity for a month. 
 
 The word punishment, does not necessarily imply 
 chastisement with the rod. There are various 
 sorts and degrees of punishment ; and common 
 sense with dispassionate deliberation, need not 
 ever err in determining what kind and degree of 
 pwuishment the case in hand may require. 
 
 A gentle, respectful hint often works a salutary 
 influence upon a reflecting mind ; while there are 
 those upon whom all persuasion is lost. Is there, 
 then, no remedy for the thoughtless and stubborn ? 
 If the hard consequences of an erroneous course 
 of conduct, will not turn men from their evil ways, 
 what will ? Surely, I have no specific for their 
 case more gentle in its operation, than the touch 
 of lunar caustic, scalding hot water, or the sword 
 of extermination. 
 
 i 
 
» 
 
 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I dislike to hear a married man call his wife, 
 Ht my old woman" There is nothing loving in the 
 sound thereof. There are but few men, even of 
 the number who frequently make use of the above 
 objectionable phrase, who, at a fair, would inquire : 
 " Who wishes to buy my old horse V 
 
 I dislike, when promenading the walks of a city, 
 to have persons spit their tobacco-juice from the 
 window of the second story of their houses. It 
 is too flagrant a proof of what is sufficiently true 
 without so strong a testimony, that men prefer 
 their own convenience to that of others. This 
 detestable practice is the more objectionable, inas- 
 much as best friends and perhaps sweethearts may 
 be the sufferers. 
 
 I dislike to see persons, male or female, wipe 
 their mouths (when at table) on the table-cloth, or 
 spit upon the carpet. It is a gross violation of 
 delicacy and manners, and is painfully disgusting 
 to a truly refined mam I'nave seldom noticed this 
 
 • 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 69 
 
 vulgar habit in females — it is mostly confined to 
 my own sex. Men are frequently chargable with 
 a degree of carelessness in their manners, which 
 would prove the certain ruin of a lady. 
 
 I could as well excuse a man for seating himself 
 by my side, and spitting all over my coat and pan- 
 taloons, as for spitting upon my carpet or floor, or 
 wiping his greasy mouth and fingers upon the 
 clean table-cloth. Such abominable grossness sa- 
 vors too strongly of the animal whose name is so 
 commonly used in comparison, to signify brutality 
 in the lowest grade. 
 
 The superlative, royal-arch degree in the spitting 
 art, consists — not merely in spitting in the dining 
 room, in the parlor, in the cabin or on the deck of 
 a steam-boat, but — in the more perfect attainment 
 of spitting on a hot stove, from which -the exqui- 
 site flavor of roasted spittle may be enjoyed. 
 
 Plain spittle is bad enough, every decent man 
 knows ; but when seasoned with the horrid stench 
 of tobacco-juice, the sublimity exceeds the descrip- 
 tive powers of my poor, feeble pen. 
 
 By way of making but one job of this offensive 
 subject, I have a complaint to make against a prac- 
 tice which is only excusable with sheep, and with 
 poor children who have never been taught better, 
 and who have no handkerchief for obviating the 
 evil, and who would not know how to use one, if 
 
70 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 
 
 they had. There is no disguising the matter. I 
 allude to the snuffing of noses. Blowing the 
 nose is excusable, because it cannot be avoided ; 
 but snuffing the nose, finds no apology in necessity, 
 excepting, as I have already said, with sheep and 
 poor children, or poor children and sheep. Yet, 
 how many young ladies have I seen, who have 
 spent years in learning to play on the piano and 
 to speak French, who, nevertheless, have not learn- 
 ed to keep their noses still ! This is not among 
 the least of the many things that I dislike. Mar- 
 ried ladies, — dear me ! what a streak of awe creeps 
 through my veins ! What rising emotions of vene- 
 ration check the rude criticism in which I was 
 about to indulge ! When I speak of married ladies 
 with reference to this subject, I dare not look up, 
 lest a frown from the brow of some worthy signora, 
 should blot out every spark of that temerity which 
 is indicting the fault. But if they will snuff their 
 noses, they must abide the reproof; nor have they 
 much reason to complain, if, by way of retaliation, 
 their husbands neglect to scrape the dirt from their 
 shoes, before coming into the house ; or even should 
 they snore all night in their sleep, it would be dif- 
 ficult to tell, upon comparing accounts, on which 
 side the balance of errors should be placed. 
 
 I regard a nose upon the human face, subjected 
 as it is to the performance of certain unseemly 
 
THINGS* THAT I DISLIKE. 71 
 
 offices, to be an infirmity, at best. How much 
 more genteel is the clean, musical nose of a cat, 
 than that which stands so conspicuous upon the 
 face of a man ! 
 
 Neatness is a virtue ; therefore it may be seri- 
 ously urged upon parents as a duty, to instruct 
 their children, by their example as well as precepts, 
 to hold these maxims as of moral importance. 
 
 Never spit on the floor, carpet, or any thing else 
 that looks better clean than dirty. 
 
 Always keep your nose in good repair, whether 
 at home or abroad. Never enter a house without 
 first having scraped all the dirt from your shoes — 
 not half of it, but all of it. • 
 
 I dislike the company of dogs, in the parlor or 
 dining-room. I would as soon associate with pigs 
 and calves, as with puppies. There is no telling 
 how mrch I have been annoyed by the favorite 
 lap-dogs of those who have no other children to 
 worship. 
 
 I dislike to hear stories told in company, unless 
 they originate in facts of the most recent date, 
 combining something of interest or wit. In nine 
 cases out of ten, a story told to amuse a social 
 circle, turns out to be " an old acquaintance ;" and 
 which, instead of affording diversion to the com- 
 pany, requires to be sustained by an affected smile 
 from those who are only glad that it is ended. 
 
!72 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 
 
 I dislike to have a man put his hand on me in a 
 familiar manner, or to lean upon me in a style 
 which indicates more of indolence than respect. 
 Gentlemen of refinement are never seen with their 
 arms around each other's neck, or sitting in each 
 other's lap ; nor is it genteel for one man to place 
 his legs across those of his friend. These are 
 practices which are odious in the extreme, and I 
 hate them. I can hardly pardon a man for putting 
 even his finger on me, whatever his motive may 
 be — the whole hand of a lady would be far less ob- 
 jectionable. 
 
 Among the things that I dislike when travelling 
 and among strangers, is that (for the want of bet- 
 ter accommodations at a better tavern,) of sleeping 
 two in a bed, especially when there is no other 
 temptation to it, than that of a long beard, dirty 
 feet, a general external of doubtful cleanliness, and 
 the blessing of a loud, constant, and frightful sno- 
 ring. 
 
 Snoring ! My stars ! what lady could think of 
 marrying a man who snores in his sleep ! I would 
 almost as soon undertake to reconcile myself to 
 one who used tobacco and profane language when 
 awake. Nothing but the absolute necessity of the 
 case, ("the want of a better choice,) can justify a 
 lady for uniting herself with one under the matri. 
 monial yoke, who, independently of any additional 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 73 
 
 burthen, is all but choked to death with the yoke 
 which " single blessedness" had already placed 
 upon his neck. 
 
 1 dislike to see one, two, or more, clownish fel- 
 lows stretched at full length on a country mer- 
 chant's counter — a spectacle that may be daily 
 witnessed in every inland town in the union. The 
 counter of a dry-goods' store is not intended for 
 the exhibition of swine, dead or alive ; but for the 
 display of calicoes and cambrics for the inspection 
 of the ladies. My patience ! how much pork there 
 is in the world ! 
 
 When mild, persuasive means do fail, 
 Severe reproofs, perchance, prevail. 
 
 I dislike to see boys hang on to the hindmost 
 part of a stage-coach, gig, or sleigh, when any one 
 is driving along the street. Parents, masters, and 
 school-teachers who will knowingly permit this 
 practice, are either ignorant of what constitutes 
 the rules of decency, or shamefully indifferent to 
 the observance of them. Boys who indulge in this 
 practice, deserve to be earnestly admonished for 
 the first offence, and flogged for the second ; and 
 guardians who can witness the abominable rude- 
 ness with silent and thoughtless composure, de- 
 serve the same course of treatment, themselves. 
 
 I dislike, when walking or riding by a farmer's 
 house, to have a dog, large or small, run out of the 
 
74 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE 
 
 yard into the street, and bark at me in a style that 
 indicates a design to tear me or my horse, or both, 
 in pieces. 
 
 When I am thus annoyed, I conclude that the 
 owner of the dog — who, more than possibly, is 
 standing in the door, witnessing the scene — is no 
 less destitute of manners, than the cur that repre- 
 sents him ; and that, if he had no dog to snarl and 
 bark at travellers in his stead, he would do it him- 
 self. It would seem that the principal difference 
 between the surly dog and his stupid master, con- 
 sisted in the fact, that the animal with four legs- 
 manifests a spirit and energy that inspire him to 
 the assault, while the other one with only two legs,, 
 has but just life and sense of decency enough fco 
 stand or sit and look on with speechless indiffer- 
 ence. 
 
 I dislike to see any one, when standing with his 
 back to the fire, remove the skirts of his coat from 
 the position in which the tailor designed they 
 should hang. When I see an individual turn his 
 back to the fire, and remove the skirts of his coat 
 as above, I suspect him of having a roll of butter 
 in his pocket ; and that the precaution is taken to 
 prevent it from melting and running down upon 
 his pantaloons ; or for some other purpose which 
 need not be named. The practice to which I al- 
 lude, is certainly not genteel, particularly when 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 75 
 
 ladies are present. The spectacle reminds me of 
 the graceless predicament of a young robin, hav- 
 ing no feathers with which to cover its nakedness. 
 Who ever saw a lady go and stand with her 
 back to the fire, removing the loose folds of her 
 frock, either for the purpose of preventing the fire 
 from burning her clothes, or of warming herself 
 with all possible dispatch? Nobody. Ladies have 
 too much respect for themselves and for those with 
 whom they associate, to be caught in such a beastly 
 trick* 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I dislike to hear parents talk about their child- 
 ren. To sit and listen to a senseless narration of 
 the half-witted exploits of a little dirty child, is 
 absolutely worse than solitary confinement in a 
 dark cell. Most parents suppose their own child- 
 ren smarter, more forward, and more promising, 
 than those of their neighbors. If they can go alone 
 by the time they are a year old — which is nothing 
 more than a calf can do in less than fifteen min- 
 utes from the time he first sees day-light, it is con- 
 sidered with the parent of so much interest, that 
 he cannot refrain from speaking of it in the pre- 
 sence of company. Then a bow must be made, or 
 perhaps the child can entertain you, to the silly 
 exultation of his authors, by counting as far as 
 three, or telling the story of Jack and Jill going 
 through the rye. I am a great lover of children ; 
 but I choose to entertain myself with them in my 
 own way. When the parents become directors of 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 7l 
 
 ceremonies in the exhibition of their offspring, 
 every relish which might be enjoyed from the spon- 
 taneous and unrestrained movements of their pro- 
 geny, is turned to disgust. To hear any one praise 
 himself, or what is so inseparably identified with 
 himself, that it amounts to about the same thing, 
 is far enough from what is called agreeable enter- 
 tainment. Indeed, rather than submit to the chas- 
 tisement, I would go and sit on the bank of a mill- 
 pond, in the hot sun, to see a spaniel dog plunge 
 into the water to bring out chips in his mouth — a 
 sport so gratifying to the master who claims the 
 doubtful superiority, that can be delighted with a 
 feather and tickled with a straw. For mercy's 
 sake, keep your children, not only out of my way, 
 but out of my sight and hearing also, unless you 
 can allow me to feel and say as much and as little 
 as I like, in admiration of their voluntary move- 
 ments. 
 
 Physic. — I dislike to hear any one use the word 
 physic. The word is objectionable, considered 
 merely as the name of an article which never looks 
 so well as when at the greatest distance off. It 
 is a word without manners and without fashion — ■ 
 it pays no respect to the rules of .good society — in 
 all its operations, it neither asks favors nor returns 
 thanks — it keeps bad company — -it is the author 
 of unpopular productions — in short, it is the insti. 
 7* 
 
78 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE, 
 
 gator of treasonable internal commotions and fever- 
 ish excitements — -together with numerous other dis- 
 turbances that might be named -in legitimate asso- 
 ciation. Yet how often do I hear the word physic 
 used, even at the table, just as though it were ap- 
 propriate trimmings for the various meats and ve- 
 getables with which the board is spread. The 
 word medicine, which is sufficiently objectionable 
 at dinner time, is, nevertheless, far preferable to 
 the word 'physic. The word medicine is of a less 
 definite signification than physic. Some take 
 brandy and water as a medicine, (a poor excuse 
 where a better is not,) but the other word which 
 I can no longerendure, is never found in such good 
 company. Gently, now, my generous patient ; does 
 your pulse beat with indignation, under the influ- 
 ence of my prescription ? Do you accuse me of 
 wanton severity 1 and do you say that a milder 
 dose would have been adequate to the complaint ; 
 and that a more palatable pill would have worked 
 a reduction of the disease ? Perhaps you are right ; 
 but it would not be esteemed good practice in a 
 physician to consult with fancy, when considera- 
 tions of a greater moment are at stake. But after 
 all is said and done, preventives are better, cheaper, I 
 and far more certain than cures ; therefore let it 
 be understood that the object of this preparation 
 is to fortify the youthful constitution against a 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 79 
 
 prevalent contagion to which it is exposed ; in other 
 words, to serve as a sort of mental vaccination, un- 
 der the name of land hints. 
 
 To mention the name of any thing at the table, 
 which is in the least degree offensive in itself, is a 
 breach of good manners. 
 
 In the course of my travels about the country, I 
 once stopped, for a few days, at a very good public 
 house in Newburgh ; and while there, one day, we 
 had for dinner, among other things, a dish of eels. 
 A gentleman on my right, remarked that the 
 " Scotch never eat eels, for the reason that they 
 look so much like snakes." I could not suppress 
 the reply, that, for the same reason, the disgusting 
 comparison should never be made, especially at the 
 table. Had the board been furnished with a dish 
 of squirrels, I suppose the gentleman would have 
 said : " I never eat squirrels, they look so much 
 like rats." Against sausages he might have con- 
 jured up several objections. For myself, I was 
 glad that I had already made choice of roasted 
 beef, which placed me, in some degree, above his 
 persecuting fancy. 
 
 At a subsequent period of time, at a very re- 
 spectable boarding-house in the city of New-Or- 
 leans, a young gentleman who sat opposite to me 
 at the breakfast table, in the course of conversa- 
 tion, by way of forcible illustration, remarked to 
 
80 THINGS THAT I DXSLSKk. 
 
 his companions, that it was "hard to spoil foMn 
 eggs." To me, this allusion was particularly un- 
 seasonable ; for I had just at that moment taken a 
 fried egg upon my plate. I had no reason to doubt 
 that the egg which I had taken was a good one ; 
 but I did not feel at all gratified that the bare pos- 
 sibility of its being otherwise, should have been 
 suggested to my imagination. 
 
 In the city of Mobile, a gentlemen observed, at 
 the table, that the boiled mutton had the appear- 
 ance of having had the consumption! Another 
 gentleman at the same table, took the very impro- 
 per opportunity to lecture on the best method of 
 feeding silk-worms ! 
 
 In the town of * * * *, in the State of Georgia, 
 a certain lady observed, in my hearing, at the din- 
 ner-table, that if the Union political party gained 
 the victory at the pending election, she would go 
 forthwith and take a thorough portion of salts ! But 
 whether she meant to be understood that she 
 should resort to cathartics for the purpose of re- 
 lieving her mind or her corporeal functions from 
 oppression, I was not particular to inquire. 
 
 It was quite enough for my stomach, that 'physic 
 was to be the remedy. This lady was a zealous 
 politician and a spirited " nidlifier" and possessed 
 as much right and as much power to nullify the 
 operation of a dose of salts, as did her husband to 
 nullify constitutional law. 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 8! 
 
 To do this lady strict justice, when conversing 
 upon politics, she discovered as much wisdom as 
 do most men when discussing the merits of public 
 men and public measures, which, being interpreted, 
 signifies consummate ignorance. 
 
 Extremes, in any thing, do not commend them- 
 selves to a reflecting mind or a sound and stable 
 understanding. The professed dandy, the devotee 
 of fashion, is as contemptible in the estimation of 
 good sense, as filthy rags and pig-pen manners are 
 disgusting to a healthy regard for cleanliness or a 
 respectful deportment. 
 
 I do not like tight boots, and I know not who 
 does, especially in hot weather. Neither do I want 
 them so large that one might possibly answer the 
 purpose of two. 
 
 In fly-time, mosquitoes are most hateful. It is 
 the buzzing noise of more than fivehundred of these 
 piratical viilians, by which I am at this moment 
 surrounded, that has suggested this part of my com- 
 plaint. To be obliged to put on a thick great coat 
 with buckskin gloves, in a sultry evening, to keep 
 off these merciless invaders, is like destroying the 
 patient with the remedy, to cure the disease. 
 
 Too much kindness is almost as bad as too little. 
 I like uncle Samuel and all his family, and I believe 
 they like me well enough, too ; but I do not like 
 the manner in which they set their table. The 
 
82 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 
 
 meat, pudding, pie, cake, honey, and preserves are 
 all paraded before their guests, at once, Indeed, 
 so thickly are the various dishes crowded together, 
 that they literally cover the whole surface, leaving 
 no room to put any thing where something is not. 
 I should visit this worthy old uncle much oftener 
 than I now do, if his daughters (cheerful girls, my 
 own cousins, too.) would keep the puddings, pies, 
 cakes, and preserves out of the way, until I am 
 ready to eat them. I like elbow-room. Imagine 
 yourself a fiddler in a meal-bag, and then blame me 
 if you can, for complaining of the inconvenience 
 to which I allude. Now for the contrast. 
 
 When I visit the city of New-York, which I do 
 three or four times in a year, I stop at a hotel 
 where it is not so fashionably important what we 
 have to eat, as how we eat it. A hundred men 
 dining all at one table, under military discipline, 
 are no small show. Here we have one thing at a 
 time. When we have partaken of as much beef, 
 goose, chicken, veal, and mutton as we wish, our 
 plates are taken away, the dishes all removed, and 
 then the crumb-brush is put in requisition — all of 
 which formality occupies about half an hour. This 
 system of economy is a good thing, especially in a 
 tavern-keeper ; for, during this long and awkward 
 intermission between meats and desserts, one-half 
 sf the guests (whose patience has been exhausted 
 
THINGS THAT I DISLIKE, 83" 
 
 long before the reserved delicacies appear,) leave 
 the table and go about their business : of course, 
 so much is saved to the host. What I wish to say, 
 is, I dislike the practice. Could I have my way 
 about it, every individual's plate should be changed 
 the moment he has done with it, and the dessert 
 served to him before he has forgotten what he is 
 waiting for. Three pence worth of common sense 
 would keep folks somewhere between two ex- 
 tremes, and add much to the comfort of themselves 
 and others. 
 
 I am willing to accommodate my neighbors with 
 the loan of my saw, beetle, and wedges, hammer, 
 and gimlet ; but I do not like that they should keep 
 them till I want them, and then be obliged to go 
 after them myself. 
 
 I dislike to see a man assume too many airs of 
 self-importance, pretending to be better and to 
 know more than any body else — vainly viewing 
 himself as being the pinnacle of perfection ; there- 
 fore, fearing that I may fall into the pit of my own 
 working, I will dismiss the subject of this chapter, 
 for the present, with the following plea in defence. 
 
 It is an admittud truth, that a degree of assu* 
 ranee (by another name, confidence) seems to form 
 an indispensable seasoning in many affairs of lau- 
 j dable enterprise. Productions, inventions and im- 
 provements] of intrinsic merit, would often fall into 
 
84 THINGS THAT I DISLIKE. 
 
 the shade of thankless obscurity, were they not 
 proclaimed in terms that witness zeal, where in- 
 terest stands at the helm. But for that commenda- 
 ble perseverance in a good cause, which never 
 owned fatigue, how comparatively few would have 
 known the merits of Lee's genuine Windham pills ; 
 Thompson's celebrated eye- water ; Wheaton's in* 
 fallible itch-ointment ; Day & Martin's inimitable 
 blacking ; Swaim's renovating panacea ; or Pres- 
 ton's Popular Treatise on Book-Keeping ; to 
 say nothing of Interest Tables and Stories for 
 the Whole Family, by the same author ! 
 
THE CONTRIBUTION BOX, 
 
 OR 
 
 INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE. 
 
 When I was travelling through the State of 
 Virginia, I took passage on board the steam-boat, 
 at City-Point, about eleven miles from Petersburg, 
 for the city of Norfolk. There were several gen- 
 tlemen on board, who had come from Richmond, 
 and a number of others went on board at the same 
 time and place that I did. Here I was, an entire 
 stranger, among strangers ; but feeling disposed to 
 avail myself of the privilege which the court of 
 etiquette has decided to be common stock among 
 those who are journeying in a public conveyance, 
 I soon entered into conversation with a well-dres- 
 sed gentleman of significant airs, whose acquaint- 
 ance with the country and whose sociable turn of 
 mind proved him to be the most fortunate selection 
 that I could have made for the day's journey asso- 
 ciate. 
 
 Among other things that attracted my attention, 
 8 
 
86 INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE. 
 
 on board of our boat, was a small chest -or box, on 
 which was written, in capital letters : "Give a 
 cent to Fulton's heirs." Pointing to the box, I 
 remarked to my fellow-traveller, that there was a 
 loud appeal to our patriotism and benevolence, (I 
 am not certain that I did not use the more appro- 
 priate term, gratitude,) at the same time proposing; 
 to comply with the request. The gentleman ap- 
 proved of my proposal, and immediately put his 
 hand in his pocket, from which he took out a quan- 
 tity of change, and from which he began to sepa- 
 rate the cents, for the purpose of joining in the 
 contribution. Indeed, he appeared to relish the 
 opportunity of expressing his sense of the great 
 benefits that have been conferred upon the world, 
 by the exalted talents of him whose heirs have 
 been left to inherit the hungry patrimony of a 
 charitable revenue. Truly, thought I, this is " the 
 man of feeling." There was something peculiar 
 in his manner, that I could not admire too much, 
 It spoke relief to the unfortunate, consolation to 
 the afflicted, and sympathy for the poor. In the 
 mean time, I put in the only cent I had, (that, too, 
 being all that was asked,) and walked to another 
 part of the boat, feeling a little ashamed to stand 
 fey and see the other gentlemen put in four or five 
 cents, when I had put in but one. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon — whether from 
 
INFLUENCE OP EXAMPLE. ^ 87 
 
 that curiosity which distinguishes the land of my 
 nativity, (New-England,) whether from a consti- 
 tutional or acquired jealousy of mind, which leads 
 me to suspect that all is not gold that shines ; or 
 whether, from a more than ordinary share of sym- 
 pathy for the unfortunate, that induced me to ex- 
 amine the box, to see if it were half, two-thirds, 
 or three-quarters full, I know not ; but this I know, 
 I took up the box and gave it a good, faithful sha- 
 king, when, behold ! my solitary cent was all that 
 disturbed the silence of this repository of gifts. 
 But for my example, this gentleman would not 
 have taken the change from his pocket ; and but 
 for the circumstance of my having walked to the 
 other side of the boat, leaving him to act uninflu- 
 enced by my presence, he would not have put it 
 back again. 
 
 How many charitable donations are bestowed 
 in public, that would have been withheld in pri- 
 vate ! Contributions taken up in public assem- 
 blies, should not be received in a hat or a bag ; for 
 a broken button dropped into either of these, makes 
 as loud and as charitable a noise as would a dollar. 
 
 There are few, perhaps none, who are fully sen- 
 sible how much they are influenced in what they 
 think and do, by what others believe and practice. 
 Who dares but admire what the multitude applaud ! 
 Millions may delight to make themselves conspicu* 
 
88 INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE. 
 
 ous in a fashionable vice, while few there are who 
 have the fortitude and the virtue to be singularly 
 just. 
 
 Opinions, whether founded in truth or in error, 
 are fraught with a burning contagion. Who would 
 not follow in the " footsteps of an illustrious pre- 
 decessor?" Who would not worship at the altar 
 where our fathers have paid their devotions ; and 
 who would not think and speak well of a man and 
 of his performances which have already found their 
 way into good company, and which are apparently 
 on their ascending course to popular favor ? To 
 eat, to drink, to wear, read, admire, to love and 
 worship that which either chance, caprice good 
 sense, or folly may extol, constitutes the wisdom 
 of the world. 
 
IT IS DANGEROUS TO SPEAK ILL 
 OF OTHERS. 
 
 Self-love and self-gratification constituting in 
 the human mind a grand incentive to action, it is 
 nothing very strange that we should feel emotions 
 of uneasiness, whenever any thing transpires to 
 chill the ardor of aspiration, to embitter the sweets 
 of repose, to cast a shade over the scenes of pros- 
 pective joy — intercepting the current of social de- 
 light, or to shut the last avenue of hope. Self-love 
 dictates that we should love others who love us 
 and who contribute to our necessities, and who, 
 from the vivacity of their imagination and sweet- 
 ness of temper, increase the sum of our pleasures. 
 
 Self-love (not like charity,) uncovereth " a mul- 
 titude of sins," and places them to the account of 
 the man who, in crossing the orbit of our wishes, 
 deprives us of any good ; although, by a common 
 right, secured to him by the usage of social inter- 
 course as well as by the law of the land, he is justi- 
 fied in so doing. It is dangerous to speak ill of 
 others who are not so bad, so destitute of common 
 decency, and so void of principle, as to have two 
 8* 
 
90 . DANGER OF EVIL SPEAKING. 
 
 enemies to wish them ill, to one friend to wish them 
 well ; or who are not so absolutely contemptible 
 as to have neither the one nor the other. 
 
 I remember well an occurrence which happened, 
 as you will readily suppose, long before that period 
 in life when gray hairs denote a prudence which 
 would dictate the care to " think twice before 
 speaking once," and that the only safe repository 
 of an uncharitable thought, is in the breast of him 
 alone by whom it is conceived. In the course of 
 my professional avocation, during a short but una. 
 voidable absence from home, a young gentleman 
 for whom (until the moment when interest had 
 drawn a separating line,) I had ever cherished a 
 most cordial friendship, was employed to execute 
 a work which I had before anticipated would have 
 been given to me. This seemed an unpardonable 
 offence in my competitor ; and from that moment 
 I could not think of him without feelings of jealous 
 dislike. I looked upon him as employing every 
 low and secret artifice to accomplish his designs 
 at my expense ; and ever, when we happened to 
 meet, the smile which, as formerly, was wont to 
 play upon his fair, ingenuous, yet dignified coun- 
 tenance, was construed, in my mind, to be no other 
 than the mantle of deep intrigue. 
 
 Had I reproached him, unheard by friend or foe, 
 until the very walls of my chamber reflected black- 
 
DANGER OF EVIL SPEAKING. 91 
 
 ness, and whispered from every side the responding 
 epithet of demon, I might have been spared the 
 mortification which I was doomed to suffer ; but 
 it was my folly to communicate my displeasure, 
 accompanied by some expressions of contempt, to 
 an acquaintance but just formed ; who, with an 
 effort to maintain a medium of feeling between the 
 accused and the accuser, although with a discon- 
 certed countenance, gave me to understand that 
 the person of whom I complained, was his intimate 
 ariend and benefactor. I will not attempt to tell 
 you how I appeared, nor how I felt. That will be 
 less difficult for you to imagine, than for me to de- 
 scribe. Suffice it to say, it made an impression 
 upon my mind, which has served as a maxim 
 through succeeding years, that "it is dangerous 
 to speak ill of others." 
 
FATE OF TAVERN-KEEPERS 
 
 There is no business wholly exempt from griev- 
 ous circumstances. The farmer could relate as 
 many troubles as there are days in the week ; and 
 the faithful mechanic is as often compelled to abide 
 the verdict of guilty, because the wares of his shop 
 are not found proof against water, fire, and the 
 heedlessness of the consumer. 
 
 It is the fate of tavern-keepers to serve, not only 
 those who are respectful in their demands and 
 cheerful in paying for what they receive, but very 
 often, too, it is their sad fortune to witness the 
 magisterial airs and to listen to the dictatorial bid- 
 dings of those who are as worthless in character, 
 as they are destitute of means wherewith to settle 
 their bills. I have known instances where indi- 
 viduals, after having lodged in the chamber, drank 
 at the bar, and sat at the table of their landlord, 
 for three or four months, have settled their accounts 
 by giving their draft on some idle, gambling friend 
 no more able nor willing to pay than themselves, 
 The patience of Job was, it is said, thoroughly 
 tried by various severe tests ; but it is not related 
 
FATE OF TAVERN-KEEPERS. 93 
 
 that he ever kept a tavern for the accommodation 
 of all sort3 of trash that might happen to be stroll- 
 ing over the country, some without manners, oth- 
 ers without cash, and some having none of either. 
 It is not related of this good man, that he ever en- 
 tertained the daily arrivals of those whose external 
 decency required an introduction to his best rooms ; 
 and that the only marks of gratitude shown him in 
 their deportment, were to be traced in the bounti- 
 ful streams of tobacco-juice that had been deposited 
 on his once bright and cheerful looking carpet, the 
 pride of his mansion. 
 
 I have travelled considerably, but have seldom 
 stopped at a public house, however high its repu- 
 tation, where, itpon being shown to a lodging- 
 room, my every sense of decency was not shocked 
 at beholding the dried remains of tobacco-juice 
 and other expectorated matter, exhibiting a filthy 
 contrast with perhaps a clean and newly white- 
 washed wall! Any man that will lie in bed and 
 spit upon the wall, ought to have the mark of the 
 clog (for I know of no other beast whose practice 
 renders the association of his name more appro- 
 priate,) placed on his forehead, that the tavern- 
 keeper might know how to distribute among his 
 guests, each according to his merits, a spit-box to 
 receive the nocturnal oozings of his salivary glands. 
 No honest man will be guilty of this offence ; and 
 
14 FATE OF TAVERN-KEEPERS* 
 
 he who is, would steal my watch or my cloak, if 
 he could do it with equal impunity. It is a vice 
 Wholly incompatible with any pretensions to virtue. 
 
 The scandalous and disgusting nuisance of which 
 we complain, fully entitles its perpetrator to the 
 highest office and the highest honors within the 
 gift of swine. The culprit who can deliberately 
 commit so vile an act, should forthwith be furnished 
 with a yoke for his neck, a ring for his no3e, and 
 then turned into the street to run with compan- 
 ions which nature has adapted to his taste. 
 
 It is also a great want of respect, and ao entire 
 indifference to decency, to go into any house, pub- 
 lic or private, without first scraping the dirt from 
 the soles of your shoes. I must confess, however, 
 that I sometimes find an apology for neglecting 
 this ceremony, in the omission, on the part of the 
 owner, to furnish the requisite means for accom- 
 plishing it. Tavern-keepers, although often im- 
 posed upon by others, are in turn frequently remiss 
 on their own part. I have sat at a table where, 
 with every variety of flesh, fish, and fowl before 
 me, I might have starved for the want of a carv- 
 ing-knife sharp enough to cut either, had not the 
 bill of fare furnished a plate of soup as a substitute 
 for something more to my liking. A good lock to 
 a bed-room door, without any key, is often the only 
 sentinel (and which knows no respect to persons,) 
 that guards me and mine during the hours of sleep. 
 
FATE OP TAVERN-KEEPERS. 95 
 
 The warning or first bell for breakfast, rings at 
 seven ; and the second in fifteen minutes after. 
 This may do where every man can regulate his 
 own hours of business and of rest, or where it is 
 fashionable for company to appear at table in their 
 shirt-sleeves, without having washed, shaved, 
 brushed their hair, cleaned their finger-nails, or 
 made any other preparations to appear decently 
 in public ; but in cases where one has been kept 
 up late at night, in travelling or otherwise, half 
 an hour's warning is little enough. 
 
 The worst, however, remains to be told ; for in 
 some taverns and still more boarding-houses, we 
 have but one bell in the morning, and in other3» 
 none at all. 
 
 To conclude for the present, (gentle, accom- 
 plished, and fair reader, forgive the allusion,) the 
 most common but no less unpardonable neglect on 
 the part of tavern-keepers and those who keep 
 boarding-houses, is, to permit the accumulation of 
 dirt, filth, and cobwebs, in the apartments of fash, 
 ionable resort, until visitors are absolutely in dan- 
 ger of ruining their clothes. I regard this monu. 
 ment as furnishing the most infallible test of neat- 
 ness or of the sluttish habits of the house-keeper, 
 i of any other ; and were I a young man in search 
 of a wife, I would make my selection (as odd as it 
 may seem,) from that family where this test fur- 
 
 \ 
 
96 FATE OF TAVERN-KEEPERS. 
 
 nished the all-requisite testimonials of that neat- 
 ness without which there is not left, even for heav- 
 en's best gift to man, a single redeeming charm. 
 
 Spit-boxes. — I regard spit-boxes fas connected 
 with existing practices) to be a necessary — evil. 
 How often have I had my stomach nauseated by 
 one or more of these shameless intruders in a pub- 
 lic sitting or reading room ! Apple-parings and 
 pieces of cigars mingled in with the grand master 
 of the lodge, a great, filthy tobacco-cud I Com- 
 pared with this spectacle, a *******„*#* J even in 
 its worst condition, is good company. Were I 
 master of ceremonies, upon discovering the atten- 
 tions of one servant to be inadequate to the task 
 of keeping the graceless spit-boxes sufferably clean, 
 I would employ two ; and if two failed to accom- 
 plish the object, I would then go and do it myself. 
 
 It would seem that common sense would rectify 
 the errors and evils of which w r e have been speak- 
 ing ; but it is not so. The truth is, common-sense, 
 although capable of discriminating between twa 
 things of different degrees of perfection, when both 
 are exhibited at one view, and that difference for- 
 cibly illustrated by an accustomed observer, is, at 
 the same time, slow in the march of discovery, 
 when left in dependence upon its own native and 
 individual inventive powers. 
 
KEEP YOUR BAD COLD TO 
 YOURSELF. 
 
 That principle in our nature which prompts us 
 to social intercourse with our fellow-beings, is a 
 good one ; and there are transient pleasures, as 
 well as substantial and lasting benefits, to be de- 
 rived from a due exercise of that principle. 
 
 We are pleased to communicate to others such 
 events as have contributed to our present happi- 
 ness, or which promise to result in our future wel- 
 fare. Present as well as anticipated advantages 
 give us an importance in the estimation of others, 
 which, though it should excite their envy, will 
 command their respect. Hence, our vanity, as 
 well as our real interest, urges us to make known 
 to those with whom we associate, what these ad- 
 vantages are, although they may not be claimed 
 as such, under that name. This view of so promi- 
 nent a trait in the human character, may seem to 
 render it the more difficult to account for the pre- 
 vailing disposition in men, to reveal to others their 
 infirmities or misfortunes ; but the truth is, so ir- 
 resistible is oar desire to produce in the minds of 
 9 
 
98 KEEP YOUR COLD TO YOURSELF* 
 
 our associates, some feeling, some emotion of 
 thought, which relates to ourselves, that, when 
 other resources fail as, hoping thereby to excite 
 their sympathy, we complain of a bad head-ache 
 or bad cold ; at the same time, a voluntary, coun= 
 terfeit coughing is commenced, and the clean floor 
 or carpet is spit upon, by way of giving visible 
 evidence that the causs of complaint is not wholly 
 feigned. This ill-judged device may afford a mo- 
 mentary satisfaction to the invalid, but it is an 
 offence to the host. Men associate together for 
 purposes of mutual advantage ; and it is the hope 
 of gain that constitutes the bond of society. It 
 would be no less indiscreet for one who wished to 
 obtain credit of his neighbor, to confess his ex- 
 treme poverty, than for a man who wanted em- 
 ployment, to complain of an habitual pain in his 
 side. 
 
 If I meet an acquaintance (friend is the fashiona- 
 ble word ; but if I say acquaintance I am in no 
 danger of deceiving myself) if I meet an acquaint- 
 ance, I pass the usual compliments with him : 
 '* How do you do ? sir ;" and, perhaps, I inquire 
 after the health of his family, in return for my 
 civilities, he makes similar inquiries of me and 
 mine. Now what shall I say to him ? Shall I tell 
 him I am sick — that my nose is stopped up with 
 a terribly bad cold — or that the corns on my toes 
 
ItEEP YOUR COLD TO YOURSELF. 99 
 
 prophesy a storm 1 True, he has inquired of my 
 health — not because he cared one cent whether I 
 am sick or well, but because it would be uncivil 
 and awkward to meet and say nothings Hence, 
 if I am wellj I say so. If I am sickj the brief rei 
 ply is : " Thank you, sir, fine morning, sir," merely 
 dropping in a comma between the first three and 
 last three words. It affords me pleasure to meet 
 an acquaintance, provided he does not offend my 
 ears nor my stomach with the unwelcome com* 
 plaint of illness, 
 
 I remember even to this day, a good lady who, 
 eight years ago, kept a boarding-house in the city 
 of New-York, (I hope she is living still,) and who, 
 in order to impart a relish to the bounties of her 
 board, complained (at the dinner-table) of the great 
 inconvenience she realized from a painful tumor 
 that had for some days been gathering on the back 
 of her neck. I, for one, felt extremely sorry that 
 the vile excrescence had dared to grow on the good 
 woman's neck — sorry, not because it gave her pain, 
 but because her telling of it gave me disagreeable 
 sensations ; and had it been in my power, acting 
 from the impulse of the moment, instead of remo, 
 ving the cause of complaint, 1 should have placed 
 another one just like it, right by its side. I made 
 up my mind that, to pay five dollars j/qt week for 
 my board, and then to have my sympathies so un* 
 
100 KEEP YOUR COLD TO YOURSELF. 
 
 ceremoniously levied upon to the amount of five 
 dollars more, was a tax that I had not promised to 
 pay ; so I moved my lodgings to another house 
 where tumors, the head-ache, the back-ache, the 
 belly-ache, and physic were never mentioned at 
 the table. 
 
 Men esteem themselves and respect one another 
 for their natural and acquired abilities. Men re- 
 spect each other in proportion to their relative 
 favorable condition in life — not even making al- 
 lowance for the unavoidable calamities to which 
 all are liable. A man of full size and strength, al- 
 ways looks upon a rickety dwarf with feelings 
 wholly different from those realized in presence of 
 his equal in bone and muscle. It may be safe, 
 then, to speak of our advantages ; but of our bad 
 colds, head-aches, back-aches, and other infirmities 
 and disadvantages, let them pass in silence by. 
 
 MAXIMS. 
 
 Keep yourself from the anger of a great man, 
 from the tumult of a mob, from a woman of ill 
 fame, from a wind that comes in at a hole, and 
 from a reconciled enemy. 
 
 Industry secures health, competency, and peace 
 of mind. Idleness begets poverty, drunkenness, 
 guilty conscience, and death. 
 
MAXIMS. 101 
 
 He that would possess more than others posses* 
 of the good things of this world, must either know 
 more than they know, or do more than they do, 
 or both, 
 
I 
 
 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION, 
 
 He who is alike pleased with all the various 
 forms and qualities of things with which it hap- 
 pens to be most convenient to supply himself, or 
 with which, if from home, he may be furnished by 
 others, must indeed be blessed with a uniform tran- 
 quility of mind, which, with the more sensitive 
 fastidious man, must very often be greatly inter- 
 rupted. With the former, whether his coat be of 
 a shade of visible green, or of an invisible shade of 
 invisible blue, is a question about which he wastes 
 neither time nor words. With the latter, the real 
 and imaginary existence of shades, are subjects of 
 deep solicitude. Green, blue, and black must be 
 so skilfully blended together, as to puzzle his judg- 
 ment in deciding of which there has been most 
 used in the compound. In short, he finds himself 
 in a peck of trouble lest he should be deceived at 
 last, and find himself equipped in visible blue in- 
 stead of invisible green. 
 
 There appear to be in the world two opposite 
 classes of men, acting with reference to opposite 
 sources of enjoyment. The one provide for them- 
 
MISERIES OP DISCRIMINATION. 103 
 
 selves the needful supply of food and raiment 
 merely to preserve life and strength, that they may 
 befitted for labor: the other impose upon them- 
 selves the unwelcome task of toil, that they may 
 gratify a palate disciplined to luxury, and surround 
 themselves with an enviable splendor. And if it 
 be true, that where there are the greatest propor- 
 tion of honest men, rogues have the best chance 
 for plunder ; so it is also true, that when we meet 
 with sensibility, refinement, and a discriminating 
 choice in meats and drinks, a multitude of inci- 
 dents will intervene to curtail the enjoyment which 
 may have been reckoned as secure. 
 
 I rejoice that I am not so critically exact about 
 what I shall eat or drink, or what I shall put on 
 my back, as some others are ; at the same time I 
 regret that I am much more particular about these 
 things, than at times I could wish ; for, in travel- 
 ling over the country from Maine to Georgia, and 
 back again from Georgia to Maine, I am often 
 obliged to accept of such accommodations as are 
 not altogether agreeable to my artificial relish. I 
 have heard an elderly gentleman repeatedly (owing 
 I suppose to the importance of the fact,) relate an 
 adventure of his which is never to be forgotten 
 and the lady where he stopped to take supper, 
 never to be forgiven, because his tea was sweet- 
 ened with brown sugar. The only consolation I 
 
104 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 could offer him was, that, in all probability, the 
 sugar was an invisible brown, and that it was in- 
 tended expressly as a compliment to bis cultivated 
 taste. 
 
 Every thing that was made at the beginning, 
 was pronounced good, and I have no doubt of the 
 justness of the decision. Every thing is good 
 when in its proper place ; but sand is not good to 
 put int$ weak eyes; nor am I willing that my 
 anouth should be defiled with tobaGco, my nose 
 made a reservoir for snuff, or my stomach convert- 
 ed into a storehouse for pepper. As soon would 
 J permit my ears to be filled with Jews' harps, be- 
 cause they make a pretty sound when in their 
 proper place. 
 
 Pepper. — I hate pepper, yet I expect to be an- 
 noyed with it as long as I live in this world ; but 
 I hope it will constitute no part of my punishment 
 in the world to come. 
 
 Some years since, while journeying through the 
 Western part of the State of New-York, having 
 been thoroughly stuffed with pepper at the various 
 taverns where I chanced to take my meals, until 
 my stomach and indignation were alike inflamed, 
 I at length resolved to have one meal uncontami- 
 nated with pepper. Accordingly, at my usual hour 
 for taking breakfast, I stopped at a public house 
 and inquired if I could be accommodated. The 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 105 
 
 answer was, that I could. I need not describe the 
 smiles, the bows, and complacency of the landlord : 
 they were all very appropriate. Being resolved 
 that pepper should form no part of this meal, I re-* 
 quested of the host a piece of paper, saying that I 
 would give him a written memorandum of what I 
 wanted, and how I wanted it. This was evidently 
 the first time that he had ever received a written 
 requisition for a meal of victuals — indeed, it was 
 sufficiently apparent that he regarded the eccen- 
 tricity on my part, as a fit occasion for some witty 
 and sarcastic remarks on his. He assured me in 
 a very good natured manner, that it was making 
 myself unnecessary trouble — that he could do the 
 errand without so much ceremony — and that there 
 should be no mistake. Nevertheless, I adhered to 
 my resolution, and made out the memorandum, 
 which ran thus : 
 
 1 piece of beef-steak, cut thin, 
 
 1 piece of ham, also cut thin, 
 
 2 eggs, boiled five minutes, 
 2 boiled potatoes, 
 
 A cup of stnfcig green tea, 
 
 And no pepper on any thing. 
 
 The landlord took my paper and went laughing 
 
 into the kitchen, to make report that a breakfast 
 
 had been called for ; and this was the last I saw 
 
 of him or any one else, until about half an hour 
 
106 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION'. 
 
 afterwards, when a young woman opened the door 
 and informed me that breakfast was ready; This 
 was a pleasant report, and I stepped immediately 
 into the dining-room, when, what should I behold, 
 but that every article of food that had been prepa- 
 red for me, was thickly covered with black pepper ! 
 and that, too, after having used so much precau- 
 tion to avoid it. I inquired of the girl, if the gen- 
 tleman of the house had not communicated my 
 wish that no pepper should be put on my food; 
 She said, No. I then related to her in what way 
 I had given directions^ and at the same/ time re* 
 quested that the dishes might be removed, and 
 another breakfast prepared ; which, after another 
 half hour, was done. 
 
 If written instructions are good for nothing, what 
 are verbal orders good for 1 " If you want your 
 business done, send ; if you want it well done,. g.» 
 and do it yourself." Or, as it might be translated : ; 
 If you wish your instructions under $tood > tell them ; 
 if you wish them remembered, give them in writing; 
 but if you expect them adhered to, stand by and see 
 them put in execution yourself. I presume the land- 
 lord tore up my paper, and went and told his wife- 
 that a traveller wanted breakfast without pepper ; 
 and then his wife called to the cook, and told that de- 
 puty of deputies, that a traveller wanted breakfast; 
 and so the cook, like a good, honest fellow, went 
 and put on all the pepper they had in the house. 
 
Miseries of discrimination. 107 
 
 Not long after this occurrence, (which happened 
 at Auburn,) I arrived in the village of Buffalo, (now 
 a city,) and took lodgings at a most excellent house, 
 which I shall long remember, not only by reason of 
 their good coffee, good cakes, and good beds, but 
 more especially for their butter, which must have 
 been made by the same rule that is observed in ma- 
 king pound- cake, and which requires that equal 
 quantities should be used— that is to say, a pound of 
 salt to a pound of butter. 
 
 Here I again found myself in a sad dilemma ; for 
 I must either eat my meals without butter, or call 
 for a saucer of cold water and wash the salt out the 
 best way I could. I chose the latter course. No 
 one at the table ever saw such a thing before ; and 
 all eyes were gazing, and all heads wondering, to 
 know the object. This public criticism I did not 
 like, but it was the least of two evils. Here the 
 " miseries of discrimination" seemed to choose me 
 for their victim ; and I could not but envy the hap- 
 piness of those who could with like satisfaction par- 
 take of a lump of salted butter and a lump of but- 
 tered salt. I shall remember the house from ano- 
 ther more tailing circumstance also= While in my 
 room, I spoke to one of the servants whom I saw 
 passing my door in the hall, and requested him to 
 bring in half a wine glass of milk. In less than 
 half a minute, I heard him bawl out to some of his 
 
108 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 comrades to bring up some milk to No. 9. True 
 enough, I was served in due time with a bowl of 
 milk, a plate of bread, and a plate of cheese. I 
 used as much of the milk as I wanted, which was 
 just enough to rub over my chin, after shaving, and 
 left the residue of the bread, and milk, and cheese, 
 on the table, where it remains, for aught I know, till 
 this day. This piece of heedless stupidity on the 
 part of the servant, excited my wrath a little ; for 
 I must either have submitted to an extra charge of 
 twenty-five cents for a bowl of bread and milk, and 
 cheese, or have gone to the bar-keeper to show 
 cause why the item should be erased from my bill. 
 The ostler, too, ambitious to shine in the ranks of 
 stupidity, by his left-handed, blind-folded, upside- 
 down, wrong-end-first performance of my direction, 
 came within a hair's breadth of killing my horse. 
 I told him twice over, with an air and an emphasis 
 that I thought would reach his brains, at the same 
 time pointing my fore finger towards him and mov- 
 ing it up and down just as an orator would do on the 
 floor of congress, to give my horse six quarts of oats 
 and four potatoes. In the course of the forenoon 
 I was informed that my horse was much bloated and 
 apparently in great distress. All hands, a farrier 
 in the bargain, were soon set at work to relieve 
 him ; who, with more of good luck than of science 
 or of good sense, succeeded in removing his com- 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 109 
 
 plaint and preserving his life — one assigning this 
 thing and another that, as the cause of his illness. 
 
 For my own part, I was so well pleased with the 
 cure, that I gave myself no farther concern about 
 the origin of the disease, but forthwith made pre- 
 paration to proceed on my journey. I called for 
 my bill, when, to my surprise, the mystery was 
 wholly revealed, for among other things, instead 
 of six quarts of oats and four potatoes, I was charged 
 with four quarts of oats and six quarts of potatoes 
 
 The difference between four potatoes and six 
 quarts of potatoes, is enough to kill any horse. Even 
 the thick pated bull that administered them, might 
 have suffered a slight colic from the dose. 
 
 Again I say, if you wish your instructions under- 
 stood, tell them ; if you wish them remembered, put 
 them down in writing; but if you expect them ad- 
 hered to, stand by and see them put in execution 
 yourself. 
 
 However, in these, as in all other similar cases, 
 I congratulated myself that there were no broken 
 bones to be mended. Such occurrences are trifles, 
 compared with mutilated and fractured limbs, or a 
 dislocated shoulder, from which more serious ca- 
 lamities I have as yet wholly escaped. 
 
 10 
 
110 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 A HARD NIGHT'S LODGING. 
 
 I have lodged in a house which I cannot forget, 
 My masculine sleep-mate being tipsy and wet ; 
 Such snoring, too, old Niagara might wonder, 
 'T was more than a match for genuine thunder. 
 The talk of his sleep, and his restless rough heels, 
 Told he was dreaming of bobbing for eels ; 
 Bed-bugs, besides, counting four to the pound, 
 Performing, as usual, their nocturnal round. 
 
 To a traveller who is fond of good victuals, and 
 prizes the exclusive occupation of a lodging-room, 
 it is a thorough trial of patience to be placed on 
 short and coarse allowance at the table, and then to 
 be conducted to a chamber having two beds in it. 
 
 Not long since, I had occasion to visit a town of 
 ******, where, to complete my business, would oc- 
 cupy two or three weeks ; and as my errand was 
 one that did not promise much profit, I was induced 
 from motives of economy, to look up a private 
 boarding-house. After considerable search, I found 
 one, rang the bell, which call was attended to by 
 rather a genteel looking young lady, who showed 
 me up stairs to the sitting-room, which was fur- 
 nished with a carpet, sofa, piano, and other tokens 
 of accomplishments and comforts. I made known 
 the object of my call, and expressed my choice for 
 a single room. The lady of the house, (a widow 
 lady,) a good-looking personage, of rather a juicy 
 countenance, whose attention to the cut and fashion 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. Ill 
 
 of her dress, as well as to the adjustment of a due 
 and becoming set of artificial curls, evidently showed 
 that she was in the market again, told me, with all 
 the apparent regret that politeness required, (but no 
 more,) that she could not give me a single room ex- 
 actly ; but that, if I would consent to the arrange- 
 ment, she had one room partly occupied by a very 
 quiet and agreeable gentleman with whose company 
 she had no doubt I would be much pleased. This 
 was said with such a good grace, the words flowing 
 as they did from so juicy a face, and under the love- 
 inspiring patronage too of the skilful array of arti- 
 ficial curls, that I was induced, in forgetfulness of 
 the lessons which past experience had taught me, 
 to consent to lodge in the same room where this 
 agreeable gentleman with whose company I was to 
 be so much delighted, had heretofore been sole oc- 
 cupant. I soon, however, discovered abundant cause 
 to repent of my bargain ; for when the hour of bed- 
 time arrived, upon entering the room that had been 
 assigned me — shocking to my nerves — I beheld but 
 one bed in the room, and that was but little wider 
 than I should have thought necessary for my own 
 exclusive accommodation. This was an accumu- 
 lation of terror that had not before entered my mind. 
 The bare idea of sleeping in the same room with any 
 thing in the shape of a man, and that man a stranger, 
 too, was to me as much miserv as I could well con- 
 
112 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 ceal ; but to sleep in the same narrow bed with a 
 masculine bed-fellow, was more than a match for 
 my courage ; and my first thought was, to hasten 
 to a public house and procure accommodations more 
 to my liking. But it was a dark, rainy night, and 
 my baggage was bulky and heavy, and so many ob- 
 stacles presented themselves in the way of such a 
 scheme, that, upon second thought, I gave it up as 
 impracticable ; and, mustering all the philosophy 
 and fortitude that I was master of, I undressed and 
 crept into bed, to wait the arrival of the agreeable 
 gentleman. After I had been in bed about an hour, 
 I heard some one come stamping up stairs, and, as 
 I anticipated, it was my room-mate. As he had not 
 been informed of the arrangement, he appeared, 
 upon entering the room, to be a little surprised, al- 
 though nothing frightened and nothing displeased. 
 He made his inaugural speech as was to be expect- 
 ed: "Avery rainy night, friend." "Yes, sir, " 
 I replied, "it has rained, I believe, a great deal.' 9 
 I shuddered as he added : "I have been out in the 
 whole of it, and have got wet through to the skin, 
 from head to foot, and am as cold as a dead lamb's 
 mouth, as the saying is." Of the truth of his asser- 
 tions, I soon had proof to a demonstration ; for as 
 he got into bed, the temperature of the air, bed, and 
 bedding by which I was enveloped, fell to the frosty 
 depth of zero. He was evidently a man who knew 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 113 
 
 just enough of the world to suppose that, because all 
 men are born equal, (or equally born,) they also 
 move through life upon one common level ; and 
 hence, he felt none of that caution or timidity that 
 would have rendered close contact with a stranger 
 in a narrow bed, disagreeable. I was confirmed in 
 this estimate of the character of my free and easy 
 bed-fellow, from the proposition he at once made, 
 to sleep spoon-fashion. He did not wait for my as- 
 sent or dissent to the plan, but forthwith placed him- 
 self in his favorite position. When I was a lad, it 
 was among my childish sports to take a piece of 
 leather a little larger than a dollar, run a string 
 through the middle of it, wet it, press it with my 
 hand hard upon the table-drawer, and then pull. It 
 would often stick so fast as to pull the drawer out. 
 When my wet bed-fellow came in spoon-fashion 
 contact, I was reminded of the adhesive qualities 
 of the wet leather. I fancied myself to be the ta- 
 ble-drawer, and that my comrade was tiying phi- 
 losophical experiments, connected with the prin- 
 ciples of attraction and repulsion, adhesion and 
 cohesion. There was, however, no retreating. 
 There was no alternative, but to fortify myself for 
 the battle, and to make the best of a bad case. It 
 will be easy to conjecture how little I slept during 
 the night, especially when it is understood that my 
 bed-fellow, as soon as he fell asleep, which was in 
 10* 
 
114 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 about fifteen minutes, commenced a heavy whole- 
 sale business in the way of snoring. I had heard 
 snoring before ; but all previous examples had been 
 mere specimens taken from the sample end. That 
 with which I was now favored, was of the foun- 
 tain-head, the royal arch degree, produced by the 
 genuine locomotive principle. 
 
 I rose early in the morning, that I might have 
 time to dress and leave the room before my sleep- 
 mate should wake ; and it is well that I did so, for 
 on taking a survey of the apartment, I found that 
 there was but one looking-glass, one towel, one 
 wash-bowl, and a small pitcher about half full of 
 water — hard well- water, and no soap. After hav- 
 ing dressed and shaved, I walked out to take the 
 fresh air and to be alone. After rambling about 
 the town nearly two hours, I returned and 'found 
 breakfast waiting. For this repast, we had some- 
 thin"- that was called coffee, (of which I made out 
 to force down part of one cup,) bread and butter, 
 and hash. In most private boarding-houses, the 
 lady who superintends, sits down at one end of the 
 table, turns out tea or coffee, and puts in as much 
 or as little sugar and milk as she can afford ; which, 
 most unluckily, I never yet found to be to my 
 liking. I detest private boarding-houses on that 
 account. I choose to dress my own tea and cof- 
 fee myself; and no boarding-house can, in my 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. H5 
 
 opinion, be unexceptionably a good one, where su- 
 gar-bowls and milk-cups are not scattered about 
 the table within reach of every one who sits at it. 
 When I shall have lost the use of my hands or 
 head, I will try to reconcile myself to that ofn- 
 ciousness which has ever proved such a source of 
 dissatisfaction to me. In the present instance, I 
 was almost tempted to break over the rules of de- 
 corum, and reach across the table and take the 
 milk-cup from the tea-server that stood before the 
 lady, and help myself. In the first place, about 
 six drops of milk were put in my cup of sham cof- 
 fee, upon which I acquainted the lady that I liked 
 a good deal of milk in my coffee, and would thank 
 her for some more. Then about four drops more 
 were added, which did as much towards improving 
 it, as four drops of molasses would do towards 
 sweetening the Atlantic. I left the house before 
 another meal came round, and I thank fortune for 
 my escape. 
 
 TOO MUCH PORK FOR THE PRICE. 
 
 I am now at a good public house in Augusta, 
 (Maine,) where I have a room to myself, the best 
 of coffee, and milk and sugar in abundance, within 
 reach, and with unasked-for permission to use as 
 much or as little as I choose. But even here, in 
 
116 MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 
 
 this good house, at the seat of government, within 
 twenty rods of the capitol, I am annoyed by the 
 intrusion of clowns. To-day, at the dinner-table, 
 a gentleman, by favor, (as kissing goes,) who sat 
 next to me, wiped his mouth upon the clean table- 
 cloth — a most hoggish trick. Another could think 
 of no better way of betraying his ill breeding, than 
 by spitting on the floor, twice at least, as he ap- 
 proached the table. A third must degrade himself 
 and annoy me by picking his teeth with his pen- 
 knife. Perhaps he was a captain or a colonel, and 
 wished to show his bravery. A fourth, as if to 
 show that he was not bashful nor intimidated by 
 the presence of ladies or gentlemen, (for there were 
 several seated at the table, who behaved themselves 
 as such,) could invent no better method for making 
 himself most ridiculously conspicuous, than to en- 
 ter the dining room puffing and blowing like a 
 wholesale vendor of equinoctial gales. I promised 
 myself that when this unmannerly porpoise had 
 filled his mouth with bread, and butter, and beef- 
 steak, hostilities would cease ; but no, the moment 
 the mouth of this alligator was stopped, he com- 
 menced a snuffing with his nose, that would have 
 disgusted a savage. 
 
 How frequently do I witness this horrible out- 
 rage upon decency ! But, filthy and disgraceful 
 as the practice is, I am often doomed to endure the 
 
MISERIES OF DISCRIMINATION. 117 
 
 formidable eloquence of that infirmity called a nose. 
 Females, too, are not without their share in this 
 odium. As a masculine vice, it is bad enough ; 
 but when taken up by the ladies, where and when 
 will reformation begin ? 
 
 AUSPICIOUS TIMES. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with the Governor, and to- 
 day he dined with me. Pray, where is the harm 
 in telling of it ? With one unaccustomed to share 
 in such honors, it is a pardonable vanity that cir- 
 culates the story of his own good fortune. True, 
 I did not dine with his excellency upon invitation, 
 nor did he dine with me by request ; but we acci- 
 dentally stopped at the same public house, and yes- 
 terday he sat opposite to me at the dinner-table, 
 and to-day I sat opposite to him ; and so it was 
 that I came to the flattering distinction. By the 
 way, he is a fine looking man — a most majestic 
 looking man, and, if I may judge from all appear- 
 ances, a total abstinence man. I like him for that. 
 Moreover, he is dignified and genteel in his deport- 
 ment — no coarse, vulgar, and clownish tricks about 
 him — a model for morals and manners. Such is 
 the Governor of the State of Maine, with whom I 
 had the honor to dine one day ; and who, in turn, 
 had the honor to dine with me on the next, as I 
 have before stated, 
 
118 WAYLAID BY A PAIR OF WHISKERS. 
 
 WAYLAID BY A PAIR OF WHISKERS. 
 THREATENED BY A TOOTH-PICK. 
 
 Started from Gardiner on the morning of Oct. 
 10, 1835, on board the boat M'Donough. Fare- 
 well now, I fear, to good coffee and biscuit, for I 
 seldom meet with as good as that upon which I 
 feasted at Augusta, Hallowell, and Gardiner. I 
 would travel farther to get a cup of coffee at Ste- 
 ven's hotel in Augusta, (Maine,) than I would to 
 see twenty such nuisances as I consider a balloon 
 ascension to be. There are a great many reasons 
 why those who travel for pleasure, should direct 
 their course through the State of Maine. Their 
 first rate public houses, their splendid rivers, pleas- 
 ant vales, and towering hills, and their thousand 
 and one saw-mills, all united, rival the claims of 
 Niagara — of the Empire State itself. I predict 
 that, from Boston to Eastport, will soon become 
 the favdrite and fashionable tour with those who 
 travel for pleasure, to see and to be seen. 
 
 I am now under way for Bath, and I have no- 
 thing to do but to look at the passengers and take 
 an account of stock. I notice one article in the 
 crowd, that puzzles me to determine by what rule 
 I shall estimate his value, whether by the pound, 
 yard, or cubic dimensions. Upon second thought, 
 
WAYLAID BY A PAIR OF WHISKERS. 119 
 
 however, I believe I shall adopt the use of superfi- 
 cial measurement, as being the best adapted to his 
 foppish airs. If I may judge from the size of his 
 whiskers, he is an upholster, and incumbers him- 
 self with this patent crow's nest by way of pub- 
 lishing his occupation and his wares, that all may 
 be duly informed that he keeps constantly on hand 
 the best of hair matrasses made of domestic growth. 
 Perhaps, however, he is a dealer in Macassar oil, 
 and wishes to give public demonstration of its 
 merits ; but why he should promenade the deck 
 an hour upon the stretch, with a goose-quill tooth- 
 pick three inches long, dangling between his teeth, 
 is more than I know. It is by this that he renders 
 himself, in my estimation, no less disgusting than 
 conspicuous. 
 
 Rings in a lady's ears, or plumes in her bonnet, 
 are well enough ; but a tooth-pick from an old gan- 
 der's wing, hanging at a man's mouth, is far from 
 being ornamental. There are many vain young 
 men, and old men, too, who are much more talka- 
 tive than thoughtful, and who, instead of display- 
 ing an ugly tooth-pick between their lips, had 
 much better use a buckle that would effectually 
 keep their mouths shut. I had much rather look 
 at a man who is apparently thinking without 
 speaking, than to be annoyed by the senseless prat- 
 tle of a young fop who uses his tongue without the 
 benefit of brains. 
 
120 ENCOUNTER WITH A MOUSE. 
 
 ENCOUNTER WITH A MOUSE. 
 
 After about four hours' sail, I was landed in 
 Bath, another flourishing town on the bank of the 
 Kennebeck. Took lodgings at Beal's hotel, a de- 
 cent sort of a house, kept by decent sort of folks. 
 There are some things, however, about the con- 
 struction of this house, that are very objectionable. 
 Many of the partitions that separate one room 
 from another, are of thin pine boares, and those so 
 badly shrunk, that, when in my apartment, unless 
 I had been very cautious, my eyes would have 
 trespassed upon the retired privileges of adjoining 
 female occupants, and who appeared to be wholly 
 indifferent to their exposed situation. I could not 
 blame my ears for hearing all that was said and 
 done. I could control my eyes, but my ears would 
 have their own way. There are many things 
 which, in conversation, are harmless, nay, even 
 interesting to the parties who reciprocate in them, 
 but which sound ridiculously enough to one whom 
 circumstances beyond his control, have destined 
 to overhear. I extinguished my light at an early 
 hour, and retired to bed ; but these three happy 
 females who lodged on the other side of the leaky, 
 treacherous partition, kept their tongues in motion 
 for nearly an hour afterward. However, they at 
 
ENCOUNTER WITH A MOUSE. 121 
 
 length fell asleep — at least, they stopped talking. 
 Now, said I to myself, I shall stand a chance to 
 have a little undisturbed repose ; but I had no 
 sooner put myself in a slumbering attitude, my 
 mouth shut just as it should be, and my nose put 
 in a proper trim for breathing freely, than my ears 
 were saluted with the nibbling noise of a mouse, 
 which I soon discovered to be in my room. I was 
 a traveller, and a stranger in the house ; but this 
 mouse had been born and brought up in it, and he 
 could find his way about the room in the dark, as 
 well as 1 could by daylight. My trunk, in which 
 were some books lately bound, was standing open ; 
 and not knowing what the literary propensities of 
 my room-mate might be, I became a good deal un- 
 easy lest he should criticise them in a manner that 
 should prove in no degree beneficial to them or to 
 me. I had a great deal of baggage with me, and 
 among it many articles such as this mouse had 
 probably never seen before ; hence, he made him- 
 self very busy for about two hours, in the exami- 
 nation of them, with just noise enough to keep me 
 awake. He liked the books so well, particularly 
 the Book-Keeping, (Preston's Treatise on Book- 
 Keeping,) that he could not suppress an inclination 
 for scraping an acquaintance with its author. 
 Having, as I suppose, this object in view, he took 
 the liberty to crawl upon and about the bed, which 
 11 
 
122 ENCOUNTER WITH A MOUSE. 
 
 contributed nothing toward a reconciliation, on my 
 part, to the existing partnership. However, as 
 there was no help for the matter, I concluded that 
 if he would let me so far alone as not to meddle 
 with my ears, nor make any demands upon my 
 face, I would let him alone and not provoke hos- 
 tilities till daylight should appear. Having come 
 to this conclusion, I wrapped the bed-clothes close 
 up under my chin, drew a long breath of resigna- 
 tion, and went to sleep. So, during the remainder 
 of the night, the mouse was the acfo'ue-partner,, 
 (having reference to the Book-Keeping for his 
 guide,) and I was literally the silent or sleeping 
 partner. I arose early in the morning, and began 
 to look about for my partner ; but he had retired 
 from business. I looked under the bed, between 
 the beds, and in my trunk among the Book-Keeping 
 and Interest-Tables, thinking, perhaps, he might 
 be engaged in taking a trial-balance ; but saw no 
 traces of his lordship. At last the thought occur- 
 red to me, that perhaps he might be employed in 
 taking an inventory of the contents of my carpet- 
 bag ; and upon opening it, surely enough, there he 
 was, making out a bill of my soiled shirts and stock- 
 ings for the washer- woman. I now resolved to 
 come to a final settlement of the concern, and to 
 dissolve the co-partnership. Accordingly, waiving 
 notice and grace, I shut the door, took my cane, 
 
ENCOUNTER* WITH A MOUSE. 123 
 
 and went at him, hammer and tongs ; but, with all 
 the hiding-places there were in the room, of which 
 he could avail himself, it was nearly half an hour 
 before I could get a blow at him that should seal 
 upon him a voucher of maturity. At length, how- 
 ever, I cornered him and gave him a receipt in full, 
 that laid him sprawling in the helpless attitude of 
 insolvency, took him by the tail and endorsed him 
 over as a legal tender to the landlord's cat. 
 
 After all, I lament the fate of this mouse. Why 
 is it that this timid little creature had not as good 
 a right to disturb me during the night, as I had to 
 keep him in trembling awe during the day. Must 
 he be debarred the use of the dark remnants of time 
 which those whose enmity he dreads, consign to 
 waste ? I would that I had a territory where I 
 could colonize every mouse, mosquito, and bed-bug 
 that infests the land ; for amalgamation is out of 
 the question. A thousand times has the inquiry 
 presented itself to my mind : Why has the inscru- 
 table wisdom of Deity so constituted the animal 
 creation, as to make them enemies to each other's 
 peace — giving occasion for a standing declaration 
 of war 1 But it is a power, a design, that the hu- 
 man intellect cannot grasp, that has published the 
 decree ; and we, as in duty bound, must call it 
 just. 
 
 
124 SWEETMEATS AND FLIES. 
 
 SWEETMEATS AND FLIES. 
 
 Now for Portland, with my face toward home. 
 Upon my arrival at Portland, I took lodgings at a 
 private boarding-house. Here, a good room, good 
 closets, and a good bed were all exclusively at my 
 service. The lady of the house is as fat as butter, 
 1 wish I had her weight in gold, not merely with 
 reference to my own wants, but I wish it in bene- 
 volence to. the poor, for I should then have enough 
 and to spare. There are some things about this 
 house that I like, but then there are other things 
 that I do not like. It is no source of enjoyment, 
 especially in fly-time, that the dining-room win- 
 dow should open in close contact with the stable 
 where the cow stands. True, when the milk-cup 
 fails, it can be replenished at a minute's warning, 
 smoking fresh from the fountain-head ; but, after 
 all, this visible, sensible contiguity of places and com- 
 modities, whose names are never to be spoken at 
 one time, particularly at meal-time, associates with 
 it more of the idea of consanguinity than a delicate 
 stomach would be likely to relish. Then such a 
 countless swarm of flies, and as thrifty, too, as 
 they are numerous ; and why should they not 
 thrive, being privileged to occupy the stable one- 
 half the time, and to feast upon pies, cakes, and 
 
SNEEZING BY THE JOB. 125 
 
 sweetmeats in the dining room, the other half? 
 While I think of it, I wish every fly was a five 
 cent piece ; for if I should get the lump of gold 
 before mentioned, I should want some small change 
 to put with it. 
 
 SNEEZING BY THE JOB. 
 
 The house furnishes some other keepsakes by 
 which it will hereafter occasionally be brought to 
 my mind. One of the boarders betrays a wonder- 
 ful propensity for sneezing ; indeed, I must call it 
 an infirmity, for one would suppose, by his frequent 
 exhibitions in that way, that it was his occupa- 
 tion, that he was professor of the science of snee- 
 zing, and that he obtained his living by the busi- 
 ness. Being of an industrious turn of mind, when 
 he is not occupied in sneezing, he devotes his time 
 to grunting. The latter appears to be his favorite 
 employment at the table ; for every sip of tea is 
 succeeded by a sudden rush or gust of respiration 
 from his lungs, which, if not an entire, full-grown 
 grunt, amounts to a pretty fair substitute for that 
 swinish accomplishment. Whether it was his 
 method of returning thanks, or whether it was a 
 token of pain, I did not ask. 
 
 Here, too, as I witness in many other places, 
 one of the boarders (one, too, that thought himself 
 11* 
 
126 THE WAY TO KEEP COOL. 
 
 genteel,) committed the nuisance of wiping his? 
 mouth on the table-cloth. 
 
 GENUINE INDEPENDENCE, OR THE 
 WAY TO KEEP COOL. 
 
 I noticed in the morning, (Sunday morning,) 
 that three or four of the young men came from 
 their chambers to the breakfast. table, without their 
 cravats ; one of them, indeed, in his shirt-sleeves, 
 having on neither cravat, waistcoat, or coat, pre- 
 senting himself much in the same trim in which 
 sleep left him, promiscuous mass of the raw mate- 
 rial. My curiosity did not lead me to a very criti- 
 cal inspection of this genuine republican, lest I 
 should discover that in his hurry to get his pro- 
 vender, he had also forgotten his pantaloons. 
 
 The fair side of the story respecting this house, 
 is, that the sugar-bowl and milk-cup (and cow, too, 
 in factj are within reach ; and it is my estimable 
 privilege to prepare my own tea and coffee in the 
 way that I like best. Besides the venomous arti- 
 cle of pepper is not so fatally prescribed here as 
 in most other houses ; more gentle remedies are 
 substituted in its place, which, if they do not cure, 
 do not kill. 
 
 
FANNY KEMBLIT OBSCURED. 127 
 
 FANNY KEMBLE OBSCURED. 
 
 Oct. 20. — Stopped at a tavern between Portland 
 and Boston, which is as good a house as the place 
 where it is located will support. The room to 
 which I was shown as my lodging apartment, was 
 large enough and had carpet enough, bed and bed- 
 ding enough, looking-glass, wash-bowl, pitcher, 
 towel, and soap enough. Indeed, so far as the 
 article of crockery-wure was concerned, every 
 contingent want appeared to have been anticipa- 
 ted and abundantly provided for. Here I had -no 
 occasion to complain of an avaricious display of 
 dwarfish chamber-utensils, such as only degrade 
 the calling (however humble) that is usually as- 
 signed them. On the contrary, every piece of 
 service was of the most praiseworthy dimensions, 
 and could be found without the aid of magnifying 
 glasses, light or no light. 
 
 Let the tales of Brooks, which reach us from a 
 foreign land, have their admirers ; let the fame of 
 Fanny Kemble ring from Florida to Maine ; let the 
 ponderous attractions of Tarn O'Shanter delight 
 the idle crowd ; and those who will, may worship 
 at the feet of Celeste ; but it is my pleasure to re- 
 cord the excellencies of this rare and most liberal 
 appropriation of bed-room crockery. 
 
128 COPY RIGHT OF FEMALE MERIT. 
 
 I have spoken well of my room, but it is not 
 quite in the trim that I would have it. The paper 
 has got loose from the wall, and is hanging down 
 in patches in many places, which shows that the 
 housekeeper is deficient in either sense or indus- 
 try, or both. Three cents worth of common in- 
 genuity, two cents' worth of industry, and one 
 cents' worth of paste, would put the whole de- 
 rangement in good repair again ; and should I re- 
 main here one day longer, I am resolved to do the 
 job myself, for I would not be annoyed twenty-four 
 hours with such a poverty-stricken emblem of ru- 
 ins; for ten times the cost of restoring it to good 
 order. 
 
 COPY-RIGHT OF FEMALE MERIT. 
 
 I have once before intimated that were I a young 
 man in search of a wife, I would make my selec- 
 tion from that family where the apartment of fash- 
 ionable resort (and which never stands in front of 
 the dwelling,) furnished most satisfactory tes- 
 timonials of becoming cleanliness ; but to shun all 
 intimacy with those where this certificate and 
 copy-right of female merit should be wanting. 
 Should others be governed in their choice by the 
 same rule, I fear that the young ladies of this house 
 will go unmarried a good while, at least till a re- 
 formation takes place. 
 
COPY-RIGHT OF FEMALE MERIT. 129 
 
 Upon making complaint to the landlord that I 
 found no scraper at his door, in less than fifteen 
 minutes I discovered that one had been placed just 
 where it should be. It is all the distinction and 
 all the fame that I ask in this world, to have it 
 remembered, and to have it repeated to rising ge- 
 nerations, that it was a part of my secular creed, 
 to scrape the dirt from my shoes, before entering 
 my own house or the house of another, whether 
 public or private ; not a quarter of it, merely, but 
 half of it ; not half of it, but all of it. And I hope 
 that the first man, woman, or child who violates 
 this salutary rule, after reading this hint, will ex- 
 perience such compunctions of conscience as will 
 effectually prevent a repetition of the offence. 
 Future generations may, however, in addition to 
 this, do me the honor, if they please, to say of me 
 that it was a remarkable trait in my character, 
 upon going into or out of a house, to shut the door 
 after me, particularly in cold weather. And if 
 posterity should take it into their heads to erect 
 a monument to my memory, it is my request that 
 a reference to these facts should constitute the 
 entire inscription. I can forgive a thousand and 
 one offences of as many different names and de- 
 nrees of magnitude ; but for those who neglect to 
 profit by the example for which alone I claim any 
 distinction among men, there is, in my whole trea- 
 sury of benevolence, no such thing as pardon. 
 
130 NARROW ESCAPE. 
 
 NARROW ESCAPE FROM A DELUGE. 
 
 Oct. 23. — Rode from Portsmouth to Dover, a 
 distance of twelve miles. Between the two pla- 
 ces there is a good deal of upland, high and dry ; 
 and I was glad of it, for h was a fogjjy time, suf- 
 ficiently so to saturate one's clothes and lungs, too. 
 To make bad, worse, we had one passenger in the 
 coach who was the most juicy fellow and the great- 
 est spitter that ever I met with. To spit out of the 
 coach, would not do at all ; but he must spit in the 
 coach, although the curtains were all up. So be- 
 tween the fog and the spittle, I had a damp time 
 of it in good earnest. When I was in Philadel- 
 phia, I visited the celebrated water-works at Fair 
 Mount, and came away again without receiving 
 on my mind what might be called an indelible im- 
 pression ; but of this specimen of portable water- 
 works, this manufacturer and vender of freshets, 
 this travelling fountain of spittle, I am sure to be 
 reminded by every stream that flows, and every 
 pail of impure rinsings that pollute the gutters of 
 a street. 
 
NEW USE OF AN OLD TOOL. 131 
 
 NEW USE OF AN OLD TOOL. 
 
 Oct, 25, — Took lodgings, for a few days, at a 
 public house between Boston and Hartford. Un- 
 alloyed perfection in any thing beneath the sun, is 
 not to be looked for. There were many things 
 connected with my accommodations at the house 
 where I stopped, that I put down as tokens of good 
 sense ; but I had occasion to regret the partial 
 distribution or unequal application of it. The 
 cause of complaint here was, that the looking-glass 
 was hung so low down that I could not see to 
 shave myself by it, although it was a good, large 
 glass, and was liberally enriched with gold-leaf. 
 With all this in its favor — but for this exception, 
 that it showed, as I stood before it, whether my 
 pantaloons were properly buttoned up, and that it 
 served as a customary ornament to the room — it 
 might as well have been under the bed as on the 
 wall. I could not reprove the thought, as I tied 
 my silk handkerchief around the frame, and raised 
 it to a convenient altitude, How strange it is that 
 asses and mules should command so great a price, 
 when they are so plenty ! for surely it was instinct 
 that could commit so great a blunder, and not 
 know it. 
 
132 COVETING A HORSE 3 S TAIL* 
 
 COVETING A HORSE'S TAIL, 
 
 Nov. 1. — Arrived in New Haven, the place of 
 literature, morals, steady habits, and common sense. 
 Here fops are a rare show ; nevertheless, next 
 morning after my arrival, when on my way to the 
 post-office, I met a sample of ihe fraternity, label- 
 led with the first growth of a thrifty pair of mus- 
 taches. It would be wanton provocation to the 
 most disgusting thing that crawls, to say that it 
 resembles a young man whose mouth is decorated 
 with a horse's tail. A wig upon a cabbage-head 
 would be far more appropriate and far more at- 
 tractive. If it be true that young roosters crow 
 and young turkeys gabble to show that they have 
 gained a mature growth, and to excite the admi- 
 ration of the young hens, it may, too, for aught I 
 know, be the motive with those who cultivate 
 those distinguishing tokens of their sex, called 
 whiskers and mustaches, to make themselves in- 
 teresting in the sight of the young ladies. But if 
 the ladies can admire such a spectacle, I trust they 
 will excuse, at least, the very worst of what I 
 write, however destitute of merit it may be. 
 
 As a nuisance, mustaches stand the first and 
 best chance for the premium ; and he who wears 
 them, (in this country,) the best chance to be ridi- 
 
culed and sneered at. Whiskers that circumnavi- 
 gate the face from ear to ear, are fully entitled to 
 the second premium, as constituting the second 
 best scare-crow that has as yet been discovered. 
 If Cupid can contrive no better way to coax his 
 pupils, than by an extravagant display of bristles, 
 wool, or feathers, it is time that his commission 
 were taken from him, and that he be turned over 
 as a love-broker, to the service of swine, goats, 
 and turkey-buzzards. Judging from the circum- 
 ference and bulk of the whiskers in which some 
 men disguise themselves, I am led to the belief that 
 they are valued by their owners as the chief bull- 
 wark of their faith, the ?\m-part of a military am- 
 bition ; and should any one of this class feel in- 
 clined to compare his quadruped diploma of merit 
 upon a wager, I would turn out old Mount, the 
 mulatto man, the town-scavenger, as a suitable 
 competitor for the honor which superior deformity 
 shall confer. Old Mount is the favorite chimney- 
 sweep of the place ; for such is the superior effi- 
 ciency of his huge whiskers, that he has only to 
 pass up or down the chimney a single time, and 
 his work is done. 
 
 Moral. Young men who would secure the es- 
 teem of all classes, inferiors, equals, and superiors, 
 would do well to avoid all eccentricity, and all ex= 
 tremes in dress and in deportment. 
 12 
 
THE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 I have often heard it' said of individuals, that 
 they were 'perfect gentlemen ; but I never yet saw 
 the man whom I thought unexceptionably entitled 
 to that appellation. As soon could I imagine the 
 character of a man to be perfectly holy. It is true, 
 I often meet with those from whom [ deem it a 
 privilege to receive instruction, and whose man- 
 ners I regard, in many respects, as worthy of imi- 
 tation. 
 
 There are those who are polite toward their 
 equals, and who behave themselves very respect- 
 fully in presence of their superiors, at the same 
 time thinking it nothing derogatory to the charac- 
 ter they would maintain, to trifle with the feelings 
 of their inferiors. Such are gentlemen where they 
 dare not be otherwise. A man cannot be a perfect 
 gentleman, who, ignorantly, wilfully, or negligently 
 does or says any thing wrong, and which, in its 
 tendency, is calculated needlessly to wound the 
 sensibility or even to rebuke the honestly concei- 
 ved prejudices of others. A man may be genteel 
 sometimes, in some things, and yet be most shock- 
 
THE GENTLEMAN. 135 
 
 ingly offensive in many other respects. One may 
 sit at the head of the table, and carve a pig or a 
 turkey in a style satisfactory to the guests and 
 creditable to himself; but if his finger-nails are 
 filled with black dirt, it is a sad blemish upon the 
 map of his accomplishments ; and were he subject 
 to my will, he should not make a second attempt 
 without gloves on. I have often seen individuals 
 having their fingers amply furnished with gold 
 rings, and at the same time still more extravagantly 
 decorated with ten heavy dirt-rings under their 
 finger-nails. As emblems of latitude and longi- 
 tude, they might be appropriate for the profession 
 of a sailor; but with gentlemen in the ordinary 
 pursuits of lifc, these black meridians had better 
 be dispensed with. 
 
 On a certain time in the course of my travels in 
 New Jersey, my attention was directed toward an 
 individual who was engaged in conversation with 
 others at the farther end of a public hall. By the 
 attractive melody of his voice, the orderly keeping 
 of his dress, and the winning signification of his 
 general air, and by the circumstance, too, that 
 others were gathered around him silently listening 
 to his story, I felt myself invited to approach. I 
 did approach, and should hav£ been delighted with 
 the many agreeable qualifications that seemed so 
 happily to unite in the speaker ; but, alas ! he had 
 
136 THE GENTLEMAN, 
 
 his fault — a fault, not that he had forgotten to ply 
 the razor to his beard ; not that an eye, in some 
 unlucky battle fought, had been wrested from its 
 place ; not that an angry cancer had marred the 
 fair and healthy form of either cheek ; not that 
 one of all his teeth was missing ; but worse, much 
 worse than these. He evidently had not used a 
 tooth-brush from his infancy up, and his teeth were 
 thickly coated with a filth that defies description. 
 I turned away in disgust from the horrid specta- 
 cle ; and the thought stole upon my mind, that, 
 should he ever be cast overboard at sea, dead or 
 alive, and a whale should swallow him, he would 
 not be permitted to remain three, days and three 
 nights, as was Jonah ; but that he would be de- 
 livered on dry land in less than three hours. The 
 partial or entire loss of teeth is not a fault, but a 
 misfortune ; but the neglect of those we have, 
 until they bscome so foul as to be unfit to be seen, 
 is a gross fault, an abominable offence ; and no 
 man is a perfect gentleman, whatever other re- 
 deeming qualities he may possess, who does not 
 take some pains to keep his finger-nails and teeth 
 clean. The importance of music and drawing, as 
 accomplishments, is not to be named in compari- 
 son with that of cleati finger nails and clean teeth. 
 To be honest, clever, intelligent, and amiable, is 
 to be respectable : not to be so, is to be ultimately 
 
THE GENTLEMAN. 137 
 
 distrusted and forsaken. But a man may be hon- 
 est, clever, amiable, and to a certain degree intel- 
 ligent, and at the same time not be genteel. I can 
 recall to mind many instances where persons whom 
 I knew to be in many respects worthy, and who 
 were proverbially well disposed, have come into 
 the dining-room at dinner-hour, for the purpose of 
 speaking to some one sitting at the table, forget- 
 ting to take off their hats ; and I also recollect di- 
 ning, with other travellers, at a public house be- 
 tween Baltimore and Washington, some years 
 since, where the landlord assisted in waiting upon 
 the table, with due care to keep his weather-beaten 
 hat on his head, from the time we sat down till we 
 arose from the board. Grammatically speaking, 
 this man was not a gentleman of the superlative 
 degree — nothing more, at best, than of the com- 
 parative degree, like the poorer quality of mack- 
 erel, No. 2. 
 
 I once knew a man whose feelings were so sen- 
 sibly wrought upon by what he called the hickory 
 manners and careless appearance of a certain cler- 
 gyman, that he could not be prevailed upon to hear 
 him a second time, although there were strong in- 
 ducements, in other respects for him to do so. A 
 certain professional gentleman within the circle 
 of my acquaintance, who, from his skill in carving 
 and from his claim to the distinction by virtue of 
 12* 
 
138 THE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 other accomplishments, had been duly commission- 
 ed to perform the honor of the table, one day at 
 dinner, (the principal dish being a handsome piece 
 of roasted beef,) asked me if I would be helped to 
 a slice of" Old Golden." I accepted his offer; but 
 had he been a perfect gentleman, he would have 
 offered me a choice piece of roasted beef, instead 
 of a piece of Old Golden. Any allusion at the ta- 
 ble, which transfers living cattle, swine, the barn- 
 yard, and the stye, to the dining-room, is certainly 
 not genteel. I prefer for dinner, a piece of mutton 
 rather than a piece of sheep, or a piece of pork 
 rather than a piece of hog. As for Old Mike, Tib, 
 Dick, or Major, I have no relish for either, not- 
 withstanding they may have fed at the same rack 
 and toiled in the same field with " Old Golden." 
 
 No perfect gentleman will yawn in church, if he 
 can avoid it ; and if he must yawn, whether in 
 church or elsewhere, he will be very shy about it. 
 Neither will a perfect gentleman pick his teeth at 
 the table. At the public house where I spent a 
 few days at Montpelier, in the State of Vermont, 
 a young man at the dinner- table, took from his 
 pocket a quantity of wooden tooth-picks which he 
 was so polite as to offer to all those whom he 
 thought might have occasion to use one. This 
 act of civility was certainly one notch above the 
 vulgar ; for although it is common enough to see 
 
THE GENTLEMAN. 139 
 
 men sufficiently coarse to pick their own teeth at 
 the table, yet never before did I see any one pick 
 the teeth of his neighbor. Whether he was a den- 
 tist, and wished to introduce an improved pick of 
 his own invention, I did not inquire ; nor did I ask 
 whether he had in his possession any nose-picks, 
 for the accommodation of {hose whose noses re- 
 quired cleaning. In one thing, however, he was 
 right ; for if a new fashion is to be introduced, it 
 should be first issued at the metropolis ; and as 
 Montpelier is the seat of government, it was well 
 for him to try the favor of his tooth-picks there. 
 
 No 'perfect gentleman will make use of his nose 
 as if playing second to a bugle. Of all the ora- 
 tory that ever I listened to, that of nasal eloquence 
 is the cap-sheaf. Nose-music was never designed 
 for public entertainment. It may do for the amuse- 
 ment of a private circle, provided that the circle 
 be made up of cloven feet and locomotive spare 
 ribs. A decent man may chew tobacco ; but the 
 unfortunate habit constitutes no part of his accom- 
 plishments. A well-informed man may use profane 
 language ; but the degrading indulgence forms no 
 part of his respectability. 
 
 No perfect gentleman will conduct himself to- 
 wards his inferiors in a jeering, sarcastic manner ; 
 nor will he, in giving the orders and the instruc- 
 tions which the relations of principal and agent 
 
140 THE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 employer and employed, master and servant, per- 
 mit and require, express himself in manner, tone, 
 or language, which shall indicate a wanton love of 
 power, and which, though it may receive the obe- 
 dience of the hands, cannot command a compliance 
 of the heart. Depend upon it, that the man of 
 commanding station who is not revered, (which 
 signifies to be " regarded with fear mingled with 
 respect and affection,") is deficient in some of the 
 essential qualities which constitute the perfect 
 gentleman. 
 
A SHORT STORY OF A LONG 
 JOURNEY. 
 
 There is not a man among men, whose mind 
 is not impressed with lasting recollections of par- 
 ticular events which served as temporary acquisi- 
 tions of happiness, or as verifications of the truth 
 that pleasure and pain are busy rivals in the exer- 
 cise of their superintending agency, dealing out 
 unmeasured and unequal shares of favors and of 
 frowns. 
 
 There is a charm in variety ; and under some 
 circumstances it is a privilege to leave for a season 
 the friends, the endearments, and all the attrac- 
 tions of one place, for the purpose of participating 
 in the freedom and of enjoying the cordial greet- 
 ings that await us in another. But there is a dif- 
 ference, not hard to be understood, between the 
 fact of being pressed into the performance of any 
 service, and that of a voluntary submission to tem- 
 porary sacrifice and toil, when future gain is the 
 motive and its acquisition the reward. With one 
 who, from youth to manhood, has resided in his 
 native town, there is not a rock, a tree, or a post 
 
142 A LONG JOURNEY. 
 
 that does not command a share of his favorable 
 regard ; the first and perhaps final adieu to which, 
 when about to separate himself from friends and 
 all that he has been accustomed to associate with 
 home, calls forth the sigh and the tear which speak 
 the emotions of the soul, not within the power of 
 feeble words to tell. 
 
 For many years, the town of Utica, in the State 
 of New York, was the place of my residence, ha- 
 ving been conveyed there at the early age of six- 
 teen. I say, having been conveyed 1here ; for, like 
 all other important events in my life, this migra- 
 tion was more the effect of accident than the re- 
 sult of design or of calculation on my part. It is 
 not, however, a matter of essential consequence, 
 whether I sought and found employment in Utica, 
 or whether employment sought and found me. 
 Either way it is alike true that I lived there — true 
 that I formed an extensive acquaintance there — 
 true, also, that I contracted a few intimacies, not 
 to mention attachments, such as with young per- 
 sons are generally more distinguished by strength 
 than by wisdom. Under such circumstances, fa- 
 vored by the confidence, good will, and best wishes 
 of the whole village, (now a city,) I formed a re- 
 solution which was then as surprising to others as 
 it has since ever been unaccountable to myself, to 
 seek my fortune among strangers-—! knew not 
 whom nor where. 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 143 
 
 I had heard much of Ohio ; although if there 
 were believers in the story that the country a- 
 bounded in baked pigs and roasted turkies ready 
 stationed by the way-side for the accommodation 
 of travellers, free of charge, I was not among the 
 credulous number. On the contrary, so far from 
 anticipating these spontaneous supplies ready dres- 
 sed and cooked, I would readily have stipulated an 
 acceptance of such bounties in a living state, with 
 the hair and feathers all on. Be all this as it may, 
 I had resolved upon an adventure abroad, and Ohio 
 was to be the scene of my travels. 
 
 Every thing having been put in a state of readi- 
 ness, I took my leave of home and of friends — I 
 say every thing, which sometimes means much and 
 sometimes but little- — I say friends, which, being 
 interpreted, signifies those who would sooner smile 
 upon our prosperity than be called upon to aid us 
 in time of adversity. 
 
 At the time to which I allude, steam-boats, ca- 
 nals, and rail-roads were not as numerous as they 
 are now ; consequently, my journey from Utica to 
 Buffalo village (now a city) was as slow and as 
 gloomy as heart-rending certainties and hope de- 
 stroying uncertainties could make it. 
 
 Nevertheless, as good luck would have it, upon 
 my arrival at Buffalo, I noticed an advertisement, 
 stating that a boat would sail on the next day for 
 
144 
 
 A LONG JOURNEY, 
 
 •the City of Sandusky, as it has been called ever 
 since the survey of the site where it stands, was 
 first made. I immediately engaged a passage on 
 board of the boat, such as it was, and sailed on the 
 next morning at the appointed hour. But my ap- 
 plication for a passage was not made until every 
 sleeping-berth and every thing eke that might pos- 
 sibly have answered as a substitute for such a com- 
 fort, had been taken up by other more fortunate 
 travellers. Nevertheless, I found an abundance 
 of that consolation which, it is said, misery al- 
 ways finds in a corresponding calamity to which 
 others are subjected ; for more than half of my 
 journeying companions, men, women, and children, 
 were in the same sad predicament with myself; 
 and to make bad, worse, nine out of ten of all on 
 board, were as sick as the rolling surface of the 
 lake and the rocking motion of the boat could make 
 them. What a levelling influence, thought I, does 
 this old, wrinkle-faced somnambulist exert upon 
 those who come within the contagious touch of 
 her reeling, dancing palsy ! Of what avail is rank, 
 wealth, or science ? All, combined, would not bribe 
 the appetite to relish the most beguiling dish that 
 art could invent. Levelled in good earnest, I half 
 audibly exclaimed, as I raised my head from a coil 
 of tarred rigging upon which I was reclining ; for, 
 \ipon glancing my eye over the deck, I beheld young 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 145 
 
 and old, fine clad and rough clad, the proud and 
 the humble, all subjected with myself to one com- 
 mon fate, excepting that my own case was ren- 
 dered somewhat enviable by the substitute for a 
 pillow which I found in the coil of rigging, and 
 which was evidently coveted by others who were 
 less fortunately furnished. 
 
 Fare so much, if found; something less, if not 
 found. So read the advertisement, the literal 
 meaning of which was, that at the end of the trip 
 those who were found to be cdive, should pay the 
 highest price : those who were not found to be alive, 
 to pay the smaller sum. Upon arriving at the 
 City of Sandusky, upon close examination, it was 
 discovered that I should be classed with those who 
 were found: and, consequently, I was required to 
 pay the highest price. But for the extra accom- 
 modation, however, which I realized in the coil of 
 rope as a pillow, my debt would, in all probability, 
 have been cancelled by the smaller sum — a degree 
 of courtesy due to those who were among the mis- 
 sing, and could not be found. 
 
 The City of Sandusky at this time was very 
 young, just beginning to creep — contained fourteen 
 families, besides a cooper that had just started his 
 shop, and a blacksmith that was expected to estab- 
 lish himself there in the course of the summer fol- 
 lowing, Wood, fifty cents per cord. Venison to 
 13 
 
146 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 be had in great abundance, for the mere finding 
 and catching. Who would not prefer to live in a 
 City like this, rather than dwell in such an old- 
 fashioned, gouty place as New York, Philadelphia, 
 or Boston ? 
 
 After spending one day in this flourishing city, 
 and having feasted upon the best of bears' meat, 
 wild turkeys, venison, and such other game as the 
 suburbs of the town afforded, I resolved to take 
 passage in the first stage for Columbus. Here, 
 again, good luck was with me ; for had I been one 
 day later, it would have been at an expense of 
 seven days' detention, as the line of public convey- 
 ance went and came but once in a week. Indeed, 
 such was the badness of the roads, that before we 
 reached Columbus, it became a matter of surprise 
 to me, that the fortitude and enterprise of any man 
 should presume to perform the trip in two weeks ; 
 much more, that it should be attempted in one. 
 
 The first day was a ride of twenty miles across 
 open and miry prairies one-half the time, and over 
 corduroy bridges — the only traces of civilization 
 that marked the deep forest, the other half. Spent 
 the first night at a log-cabin, perhaps destined, at 
 some future period, to be a hotel. Here, owing to 
 the scarcity of accommodations, it became a mat- 
 ter of discussion whether I should sleep with the 
 driver, or he with mc. At length it was deter- 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 14? 
 
 mined that we should sleep together. On the part 
 of the driver, the only objection to this arrange- 
 ment seemed to be in the apprehension that I might 
 take some liberties with a little package of money 
 which had been entrusted to his care, to deposit 
 in the bank at Columbus. For once, (blessed be 
 nothing,) I had no occasion to sleep with my eyes 
 open, .for my pockets were above suspicion and 
 above temptation. So I slept like a king ; that is 
 to say, I slept with my eyes shut, with my lungs 
 and pulse in motion, with my head one way and 
 my feet the other. Like a king, too, I was un- 
 conscious of the quality as well as of the quantity 
 of surrounding things ; for sleep had annihilated 
 all the distinguishing features of circumstance. 
 Sleep is another leveller that puts the same price 
 upon the king and the subject, the driver and his 
 passenger, the master and the slave, the rich and 
 the poor. 
 
 After breakfast, (I got out of bed and dressed 
 myself before breakfast,) we proceeded on our jour- 
 ney. The roads growing worse instead of better, 
 it was agreed between the driver and myself, that 
 when he drove, I should go on foot ; and that when 
 I should become fatigued, he would walk, and I 
 should drive. This driving of four horses was new 
 business to me ; but in a short time [ could steer 
 my course through mud-holes and wind my way 
 
148 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 among the trees, logs, and bushes, with a skill thai 
 would have excited the jealousy of an experienced 
 pilot. 
 
 The greatest sum of earthly happiness of which 
 life is susceptible, at least, the greatest share with 
 which human beings can hope to be blessed, is to 
 be derived from innocent, harmless recreation and 
 from useful occupation. These are the affirmative 
 sources. The negative are, exemption from men- 
 tal anxiety and freedom from bodily pain ; and this 
 day's journey, so far as I was concerned^ furnished 
 ample verification of the doctrine. The charms of 
 novelty and the remedial influence of occupation, 
 (driving four horses not over but through the worst 
 road that clay and water ever formed,) chased 
 away the thoughts of those oppressive certainties, 
 and still more oppressive uncertainties, to which, 
 on a former page, I have made an allusion. 
 
 But unalloyed happiness is not to be overtaken, 
 especially in those regions of country where, to 
 travel twenty miles per day, is a great exploit. I 
 should have been better reconciled to existing cir- 
 cumstances, had not my sympathies been so se- 
 verely taxed in behalf of the suffering horses ; for, 
 judging from all appearances, with the musquetoes 
 and flies of all sorts and sizes, it must have been 
 a day of general resurrection, the countless swarms 
 of successive ages having congregated their armies 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 149 
 
 lo inflict, with renewed vigor, their piratical tor- 
 tures upon every defenceless animal that came 
 within their camp. If I should say that they liter- 
 ally devoured one of our horses, leaving nothing 
 but his tail, not one out of ten would believe me ; 
 but, belief or no belief, on the third day of our jour- 
 ney, from some cause or other, we had but three 
 horses to drive, instead of four. On the morning 
 of the third day, one of our passengers was also 
 missing ; and I am as certain now as I was then, 
 that he too was devoured by the flies. But it was 
 my fortune to escape every besetting danger, and 
 at length to arrive in safety at the seat of govern- 
 ment of the now populous State of Ohio. 
 
 The circumstances attending my arrival and 
 short stay at Columbus, although not of that mar- 
 vellous kind that will justify a comparison with 
 the burning of Moscow, or with the Declaration of 
 Independence, will, neverthless, not soon be obli- 
 terated from my mind ; for it was there that my 
 pantaloons were stolen from me. Not stolen off 
 from me — a spare copy, I mean, stolen from my 
 trunk. The thief was a young man, (as I after- 
 wards learned,) and had just commenced the busi- 
 ness of stealing on his own hook. His first attempt 
 having proved successful, he gradually extended 
 his business until, at length, he engaged in the 
 more hazardous enterprise of stealing horses. This 
 13* * 
 
150 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 soon brought him into public notice, and the civil 
 authorities paid him their respects by sending him 
 to the State seminary to receive seven years' tui- 
 tion free of charge. 
 
 From Columbus I continued my journey to Chil- 
 licothe, where I remained three or four months — 
 long enough to receive renewed demonstrations 
 that friendship, bows, shaking of hands, smiles, and 
 invitations to parties, are nowhere gratuitously be- 
 stowed. These favors being for sale, can be pur- 
 chased any where, provided we have a supply of 
 ready cash with which to pay for them. Hospi- 
 talities, like all other commodities, have their mar- 
 ket price. The forms under which they are bought 
 and sold, differ, it is true, from those which are 
 observed in the buying and selling of sugar, tea, 
 and tobacco. The latter are advertized in the- 
 public prints, sold at auction, and bartered at re- 
 tail for hoe-handles, rakes, white beans, and scythe 
 snaths. Hospitalities are advertised on gilt-edged 
 paper, in the form of billets, and on very small, 
 veiy smooth, and very elegant card?. It is under- 
 stood, in offering this article in the market, that 
 the purchasers will be select— that promiscuous and 
 random bids will not be received. The only re- 
 maining equality between men, exists in the fact 
 that all breathe the same air, and that the poor 
 man's shilling will purchase as large a shad as will 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 151 
 
 the same amount of money when offered by his 
 more wealthy neighbor. - 
 
 Money, with men, is often what superficial 
 beauty is with women — more than a substitute for 
 intrinsic merit. Money creates virtues where 
 they are not, and annihilates or conceals vices 
 where they are. Who will set limits to the influ- 
 ence of wealth ! It controls the social sympathies, 
 and even directs the flight and consummates the 
 passion of love. The beggar in rags, pays it his 
 homage, and the wisdom of gray locks awards it 
 due respect ; nor is it wholly forgotten by those 
 who, while they teach the prudence of laying up 
 treasures beyond the reach of chance, suffer no 
 good opportunity to pass, for surrounding them- 
 selves with that earthly splendor which it is the 
 privilege of the few to possess, and the only privi- 
 lege of the many to look at, to covet, to envy, and 
 to — praise. 
 
 After having seen enough of Chillicothe, and 
 having suffered too as much from various sources 
 of discouragement and from sickness as the most 
 monopolizing curiosity could have wished, or as 
 the most unyielding fortitude would have patiently 
 endured, I resolved to take my leave of the place, 
 and to direct my course for the city of Cincinnati. 
 No regular line of stages was, at this time, estab- 
 lished between the two towns ; consequently, for 
 
152 A SHORT STORY GF 
 
 this and for other good reasons, there was no choice 
 left me, but first to go to Portsmouth, and there to 
 take the first boat that might be downward bound. 
 Portsmouth is a town situated at the junction of 
 the Scioto and Ohio rivers — a point assuming more 
 recent notoriety from its connexion with the ter- 
 mination of the great Ohio canal. 
 
 Of my journey from Chillicothe to Portsmouth, 
 I have but little to say, except that I do not wish 
 to pass over the ground again in a similar way. 
 Indeed, if I were to dictate the mode of punishing 
 my enemies, I would compel them to travel forty 
 miles, and suffer all the convenience and comfort that 
 were allotted me on that occasion. The vehicle 
 that conveyed my trunk, was a four-horse wagon 
 loaded icilh flour ; and it was my privilege to walk 
 when I pleased — to ride on the top of the load of 
 flour, when I chose — and by way of change, I ob- 
 tained permission from the wagoner to ride his off 
 wheel HORSE, while he rode the mate. I hope 
 the printer will not, through mistake, leave out the 
 word horse ; for the bare thoughts of riding on the 
 wagon-z^eeZ, are excruciating. The facts as they 
 really existed, are bad enough, in all conscience. 
 It was the horse, not the wheel, that I rode. This 
 promotion, all things considered, was as enviable 
 as it was novel ; for the road which had been ac- 
 commodated in its construction to the uneven sur- 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 153 
 
 face of the country over which it passed, was 
 shaded by a thick forest of oak ; the sun had hid 
 his face behind the Western hills, and a dark and 
 chilling night had issued its nocturnal parole in 
 behalf of the solemn owl and the hungry, prowling 
 wolf. The partridge and the blue jay had taken 
 themselves to roost ; and the thick-set branches of 
 the hemlock, adding density to shade, seemed to 
 be nodding in dreams. This was " solitude" with- 
 out sweeteniag, plain solitude. My horse had no 
 saddle on his back — in theory a good cause of com- 
 plaint ; but in practice, considering the coldness 
 of the night, it was not so very objectionable, for 
 when two or three are gathered together, there 
 will be warmth, even though one of the number 
 should be a horse. Be that as it may, I was com- 
 pelled to choose between two or three evils, and 
 that of riding on the animal's bare back, was the 
 least of the whole catalogue. Besides, I was now 
 favored with the company of the wagoner, whose 
 skill in managing his team was to me a pastime, 
 saying the least of it. The readiness, too, with 
 which the horses comprehended every word and 
 sign of command, and the unerring precision with 
 which they put them in execution, was far from 
 being destitute of temporary entertainment. And 
 I confess that, for the first time, (although I have 
 often been tortured into the like doubts since,) I 
 
154 a SHORT STORY OF 
 
 was led to question which possessed the highest 
 grade of intellectual endowment, the man who is- 
 sued the words of command, or the horses who so 
 readily understood and obeyed them. These were 
 the cheering airs after which I marched from Chil- 
 licothe to Portsmouth. 
 
 Upon arriving at Portsmouth, I was informed 
 that such was the condition of the river, the steam- 
 boats had discontinued running, and that no alter- 
 native remained but to take passage on board of a 
 keel-boat, a kind of craft designed for the convey- 
 ance of freight, having, at best, the most indiffer- 
 ent accommodations for travellers, My greatest 
 trouble now was — not the questionable convenience 
 of apartments, nor the questionable character and 
 grade of travelling companions by which my jour- 
 ney down the river was to be made agreeable or 
 disagreeable — but it was the uncertainty when 
 even one of these dilatory floating vats would make 
 its appearance. I might be detained in waiting 
 for one of these slow and easy floats long enough 
 to build one that would serve as well, if not better. 
 But fortune, it seems, had determined that I should 
 suffer continued good luck; for, in less than an 
 hour, as I was standing upon the margin of the 
 river, watching its sleepy current, unable to deter- 
 mine, from the corresponding and no less doubtful 
 declension of its banks, whether its course was 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 155 
 
 uphill or down, my eyes were greeted with a sight 
 of the very object for the timely arrival of which 
 I would gladly have accepted terms of insurance 
 at a premium of ten per cent. In a few minutes 
 more, two of these transportation troughs were at 
 the wharf. There was no time to be lost ; so I 
 quickly purchased a small basket, which I fdled 
 with bread and butter, a roasted chicken, and a 
 chunk of dried beef, and then went on board. 
 
 Men, boxes, women, crates, dogs, barrels, and 
 children constituted the principal part of the cargo. 
 This heterogeneous collection of animal, vegetable, 
 and mineral bodies that constituted the entire 
 batch, was the cause of my conversion to a doc- 
 trine which I had, till then, uniformly opposed. 
 It was on this occasion that my zeal, as an advo- 
 cate for the doctrine of universal suffrage and of 
 equal dignity of rank and station, was cooled down 
 to within a few degrees of zero. Indeed, such 
 was the impression made upon my mind, by the 
 practical illustration of human weakness, degrada- 
 tion, and depravity which this unassorted congre- 
 gation afforded, that from thenceforth I have been 
 constrained to acknowledge the propriety and the 
 validity of all those claims to distinction in civil- 
 ized society, which originate in morals, science, 
 ornamental accomplishments, occupation, manners 
 and wealth. Men whose habits of life have been 
 
156 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 quite dissimilar, seldom find it altogether agreea- 
 ble to be confined to each other's company. There 
 is a sympathy and a congeniality of feeling exist- 
 ing between men of corresponding pursuits, which 
 is perpetuated, if not strengthened, by an equality 
 of success ; but which, if the favors of fortune are 
 capriciously bestowed, will gradually decline. 
 Prosperity and adversity are irreconcilable asso- 
 ciates. The political aspirant may address, it is 
 true, a promiscuous collection often thousand men 
 and boys in the park ; but his drawing room would 
 furnish a seat for every one of the whole number 
 of this vast collection whom he would own as an 
 acquaintance at a select party. The reciprocation 
 of ceremonies, compliments, and cards between a 
 beggar and a bishop, would be as ludicrous as it is 
 unnatural ; and the common sense of every man, 
 high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, 
 refined and unrefined, recognizes this truth. But 
 if common sense were hesitating between envy 
 and conviction, instinct itself would confirm the 
 fact. A man whose acquaintance with the world 
 is limited to his shop, his store, or his farm, and 
 whose knowledge of himself is the mere stereotype 
 effect of one continued succession of never varying 
 events ; one who, from his youth up, has never 
 been out of the town in which he was born, hav- 
 ing always slept in the same corner of the same 
 

 ,ONG JOURNEY. 15f 
 
 room, and who has always eaten at the same ta-i 
 ble, the longest way North and South, with the- 
 old, hereditary cuphoard on one side and the cellar 
 door on the other, may affect a total disregard for 
 every thing that is called fashion, courtesy, and 
 general refinement — pretending to despise those 
 who approve, study, and practice what he hates ; 
 but place this man two doors from his own dwel- 
 ling, or on the opposite side of the street, in com- 
 pany with individuals whose intercourse with man- 
 kind has been extensive, and whose manners have 
 been disciplined by the best examples which the 
 best society affords, and he will feel, if he does not 
 confess, that there are different classes and differ- 
 ent grades of men in the world. There is not a 
 man in existence, civilized or uncivilized, who does 
 not feel humbled when in the presence of others 
 better informed and more accomplished than him- 
 self. Even integrity, unblemished integrity, and 
 all the cardinal virtues, may, to say the least, re- 
 ceive additional Iu3tre under the correcting influ- 
 ence of scientific attainments, and of a social in- 
 tercourse with that society which is elevated and 
 refined. 
 
 But after all this commendation of embellish- 
 ments, rank, and classification, the truth remains, 
 that a man will live longer upon a loaf of bread 
 and a roasted potatoe, enjoy life and grow fat with 
 14 
 
158 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 thanks returned in bad grammar, than would a 
 dancing-master upon his pigeon-wing gruel, made 
 nutricious by bows, powdered hair, diamond-rings 
 by the bushel, together with ceremonies and com- 
 pliments enough to satisfy nobility itself. But be 
 all this true or false, it does not help me along on 
 my journey ; so now to the sweeps. Sw.eeps are 
 long oars or paddles with which the boatmen pro- 
 pel their boat down the river. They are so long 
 and so heavy that two or three men are required 
 to labor at each one. Indeed, some of the sweeps 
 to our boat were long enough to give employment 
 to a fourth hand ; so, for want of pastime and ex- 
 ercise, and I might say, for want of air and room 
 elsewhere, I was tempted to try my skill at rowing. 
 In a few minutes I became a perfect master of the 
 art ; and in a few minutes more, I became tired 
 enough to sit down at rest. But I was paid, fully 
 paid, three times paid for my toil. The amuse- 
 ment that it afforded me, was of itself a liberal re- 
 ward. The appetite which was thereby acquired, 
 and which led me into the agreeable delusion that 
 my basket of bread and cold chicken was the very 
 fountain-head of all luxuries, was a laughing scorn 
 upon dollars and cents, of which, though one might 
 buy an egg, a thousand could not make it taste 
 good. 
 
 I have already shown that this toiling at the 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 159 
 
 sweep was a lucrative business. But there are 
 perquisites still to be added ; for such was my 
 dexterity in the performance, that I was duly ap- 
 plauded by all the boatmen who witnessed the rea- 
 diness with which, as a pupil, I recited the first 
 lessons in the art of which they were old profes- 
 sors. Applauded ! We need not inquire how 
 great a fool a man must be, who can find gratifi- 
 cation for his pride in that praise which extols his 
 skill in shooting at a mark, blowing the bugle, beat- 
 ing the drum or in rowing a boat. But w r e may 
 well ask, how wise must a man become before the 
 praise of his deeds, let them be what they may, 
 shall fail to furnish stimulant to his nerves and 
 music to his ear. What conceited, silly things 
 human beings are ; and yet how little do they 
 know and how little can they do of which to be 
 vain ! No man can swim with a skill that shall 
 equal that of a frog ; nor can he hop and jump 
 with the dexterity of a flea. An eagle's flight is 
 out of sight ; for man to fly, 't is vain to try. The 
 most slippery rogue among rogues, is not half as 
 slippery as an eel ; nor can the most exquisite 
 dandy, in whom to despise himself would be a vir- 
 tue, hold his nose under water on a wager, with a 
 shoat. 
 
 There were a number of passengers on board of 
 our boat, who had embarked, some at one place 
 
160 
 
 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 and some at another ; and the rule of our ship be- 
 ing like that of a grist-mill, first come first serve, 
 I was left with no very enviable choice of accom- 
 modations for a night's lodging. At length, how- 
 ever, after some search, I found a dry goods' box, 
 upon which, with a keg of nails for a pillow, I pas- 
 sed the night — one-half of the time being spent in 
 turning from the left side to the right, the other 
 half in turning over back again. It is a well es- 
 tablished truth, that the power of attraction loses 
 none of its loving kindness when it finds a man 
 endeavoring to sleep upon a plank ; and had Sir 
 Isaac, in his more youthful days, tried the experi- 
 ment, the falling of an apple from the tree to the 
 ground, "would have been too late a hint to have 
 served in the direction of his mind to those impor- 
 tant discoveries for which he became so eminently 
 distinguished. 
 
 The second day passed away unattended by an} r 
 awful calamity, except that one of the female pas- 
 sengers, while leaning over the side of the boat, 
 dropped her sun-bonnet into the water, and that 
 in attempting to catch hold of it, she also pitched 
 head first into the river. But, as it happened, it 
 was in a shoal place, not more than three feet deep; 
 soon she was safely conducted into the boat again. 
 I am glad she was saved ; for she was a healthy, 
 smart, young woman, destined to help populate the 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 161 
 
 far West ; and what truth can be more evident 
 than this, that all branches of business at the East, 
 must prosper in proportion to the increase of popu- 
 lation at the West 1 
 
 I had resolved that, if circumstances favored the 
 design, I would pass the second night on shore ; 
 and, much to my gratification, a little after sun- 
 down we made a halt and lashed our boat to a tree, 
 when I sallied forth in pursuit of something on 
 shore that might be Called a house ; and as I reached 
 the summit of the bank, I spied a log-cabin appa- 
 rently about a quarter of a mile distant, and made 
 towards it like a man in earnest. In a few min- 
 utes I was at the threshhold ; and as there was no 
 bell (to pull) except the one that hung on the neck 
 of the old cow that stood close by, waiting to be 
 fed or to be milked, I knocked with my knuckles 
 against the door, which signal was followed by an 
 invitation from eleven or twelve voices, bass, tenor, 
 and treble, to «' walk in." Upon entering the en. 
 closure, {for what else is a log-hut with but one 
 room in it?) after appropriate explanations, my 
 first inquiry was, whether I could be accommoda- 
 ted with a night's lodging. The reply was but 
 little else than a statement of the inconveniences 
 that would attend a compliance with my wishes. 
 But necessity is sometimes prone to take what it 
 cannot purchase ; and having stated the peculiari- 
 14* 
 
162 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 ties of my case, it will, perhaps, not be though! 
 strange that I persevered in my importunities for 
 entertainment. 
 
 It was a well assorted family that occupied this 
 cabin ; for, so far as age, size, and sex were con- 
 cerned, one would have supposed that they had 
 been regularly surveyed and graded by an experi- 
 enced engineer, the rise and fall being six feet to 
 the dozen— the youngest so young that day-light 
 had not ceased to be a novelty — the oldest just old 
 enough to love their neighbors as themselves — a 
 very common occurrence among young unmarried 
 people, especially in the newly settled country. 
 There is a class of people called squatters, from the 
 circumstance that they settle themselves down 
 upon any piece of land that they like and find un- 
 occupied, without regard to the question of own- 
 ership. This family was of that class, and with 
 them the lack of money had, as usual, been abun- 
 dantly made up in the increase of children ; so 
 much so, that there was no such thing as a spare 
 bed in the house, nor was there any spare room 
 in the house, where a spare bed might have been 
 placed, so that the scarcity of beds was in reality 
 the least of two evils. 
 
 Discouragements multiplied thicker and faster, 
 till hope became almost extinguished ; for upon 
 proposing that I would sleep upon some loose straw 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 168 
 
 in one corner of the room, I was told that they 
 had no straw. Then I petitioned for a bundle of 
 corn-stalks ; but they had no stalks, the old cow 
 having eaten the last remnant of the stack, that 
 very day. I was now upon the point of returning 
 to the boat to spend another night on my box and 
 keg of nails, when one of my travelling compan- 
 ions came blustering into the house to solicit for 
 himself such accommodations as my own feeble 
 eloquence could not raise. I now joined my force 
 to his in besieging these poor though hospitable 
 ■squatters — my conscience in the meantime loudly 
 reproving me for the rude and ungenerous act. At 
 length, the mistress of the house, or rather the 
 mother of this large flock of children, consented 
 that we should occupy the family trundle-bed, 
 which, as it was hauled out into the middle of the 
 floor, looked more like a fit subject for quarantine, 
 than any thing of the kind I ever before placed my 
 eyes upon. The description which my companion 
 gave of this bed to his fellow-travellers, on the next 
 day, was much as follows : The tick, he said, had 
 about two and a half pounds of owls' feathers in it ; 
 and judging from general appearances, he thought 
 that it must have been used in the camp during the 
 revolutionary war. As a relic of '76, he thought 
 it quite worth preserving, and that it was entitled 
 to a pension, not merely because it was old, venera- 
 
164 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 ble, and covered with scars, but because, in all pro- 
 bability, there had been more than twenty children 
 raised on it, black or white ; probably some of 
 each. In short, he pronounced it an old soldier or 
 an old slave — adding that, in consideration oiextra 
 services, he hoped it might ere long be sent to Li- 
 beria, to enjoy the freedom to which all bed-ticks 
 in that country are entitled. At all events, it was 
 evident that it had passed through many severe 
 trials, having had, as my companion told the story, 
 the pleurisy three times, the itch seven times, the 
 small pox once, and the cholera twice. Indeed, 
 we concurred in opinion that, from indications not 
 to be misunderstood, it had taken so much physic 
 from first to last, (during the war and since,) as to 
 render it no subject of wonder that so few feath- 
 ers remained in the tick. 
 
 I have said that our trundle-bed was hauled out 
 into the middle of the floor. In this situation we 
 were in the centre of attractions, of which there 
 were many. A large fire that reached nearly 
 across one end of the mansion — a quarter of fresh 
 beef within gnawing distance, resting on the top 
 of a wash-tub — a barrel of new cider that had con- 
 vulsion fits all night, with a hissing noise that 
 threatened explosion, standing within eighteen 
 inches of my pillow- — the man of the house with 
 his wife, crying infant, and one other restless 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 165 
 
 child, within snoring report — the pork-barrel in 
 one corner and the soap-tub in another — the howl- 
 ing of wolves not far off, and the barking of the 
 watch-dog at the door, to make them cautious how 
 they exposed themselves to the tender mercies of 
 the squatter's rifle — the ruminating cow, whose 
 gingling bell was conscientiously accurate in re- 
 peating the minutes as well as the hours that suc- 
 ceeded each other — these were the anodynes that 
 sweetened repose and beguiled the lingering retreat 
 of night. 
 
 At length, day-light appeared, and those who 
 had slept, awoke. Those who had not slept, got 
 up without waking. My companion of trundle- 
 bed memory, in defiance of all opposing obstacles, 
 had slept during the whole night, as many others 
 do, with his mouth wide open, like a yawning fly- 
 trap. The rats and the mice did not, however, 
 curtail their midnight eambols on that account : 
 but continued, as usual, to frisk and to dance co- 
 tillons about the chamber-floor, which, being full 
 of knot-holes and cracks, showered down chaff and 
 broom-corn- seed, until his mouth was two-thirds 
 full of these heterogeneous siftings from the leaky 
 loft. 
 
 By the time we were cleverly dressed, which 
 signifies our hoots on without blacking, our coats 
 on without brushing, our chins on without sha- 
 
166 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 ving, our hands on without washing, and our heads 
 on without combing, we heard the boatman's horn, 
 summoning the passengers on board for a start. 
 Upon asking our squatter how much was to pay 
 for the accommodations of the night, after some 
 deliberation, as suited to the importance of the 
 case, and the admirable opportunity for extortion^ 
 we were told that, for lodging and cider, consider- 
 ing that his folks had put themselves to some extra 
 trouble on our account, six cents a piece would be 
 about right ; which, having paid, we took our 
 leave of the family and went our way. By a re- 
 ference to the memorandum-book in which I kept 
 an accurate account of daily expenses, I find it 
 written, " Paid at a squatter's cabin for lodging, 
 two cents ; and for as much new cider as I could 
 drink, four cents more — in all, six cents." 
 
 My companion paid the same price that I did, 
 although he had, in addition to lodging and cider, 
 his mouth two-thirds full of broom-corn-seed, which 
 left no room to doubt that the rats and the mice 
 of this cabin were wont to pass off upon strangers 
 such tricks as would be little likely to induce one 
 to spend a second night under the squatter's roof. 
 For these extra demonstrations of attention which 
 my travelling companion received, he would, at 
 the Astor-House in Broadway, have been charged 
 fifty cents, at least. 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 167 
 
 Whenever we meet with any thing which is 
 uncommon, either in form or in dimensions, we are 
 generally entertained and often much delighted. 
 Hence, an ox with wings, or a grasshopper of the 
 size of a dog, would constitute attractions that 
 would be sure to command the most " crowded 
 houses." In some respects, the captain of our 
 boat was a curiosity no less rare than would be 
 such an ox or such a grasshopper. He was short, 
 fat, and greasy. His hair was long, bushy, and 
 snarled, and was as red as it was tangled. No 
 prudent currycomb would hazard an encounter 
 with such an adversary. Indeed, it would have 
 proved fatal even to an iron rake, to have attempt- 
 ed the molestation of this knotted nest. Such is 
 the foolish vanity of the human heart, that we of- 
 ten see men proud even of their vices, when they 
 have nothing else of which to boast. But when 
 the ruling propensities are of a more peaceable 
 order, combining something either of fear or of 
 respect for the laws of the land, we see men taking 
 some pains to show off their personal deformities. 
 This was the ambition of our hero. Nature and 
 neglect had furnished him with a head of hair 
 which secured to him a matchless pre-eminence, 
 not to be bartered for the glory of any other crown. 
 He seldom was seen with any covering upon his 
 head, other than that which nature had placed 
 
J 68 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 there. If his own account be true, he was born 
 with a head of hair that a full grown spaniel-dog 
 might well have coveted ; and his mother, taking 
 the hint which the circumstance suggested, called 
 him Esau. His sirname was Savage, which, so 
 far as names can go or do, was a sufficient indica- 
 tion of fearless intrepidity ; but as his sirname did 
 not to him seem to exert any commanding agency, 
 in directing to his head of hair the attention of 
 those who should have occasion to address him, 
 every one who wished to keep on his right side by 
 flattering his weak side, did not fail to call him 
 Capt. Esau, instead of Capt. Savage. He was a 
 man of powerful physical strength, and could lift 
 a hogshead of molasses with as little effort as any 
 of his men could move a gallon-bottle. Such men 
 are generally marked by their evenness of temper, 
 good nature, and self-possession. Conscious of 
 their own superior muscular powers and of their * 
 consequent security from insult and abuse, they 
 are slow to anger, and patient under reproaches 
 from those who have but the will, without the 
 power to do the harm they would. Little Penny 
 may, in perfect security, bark at old Jowler all day. 
 So a dwarf of fifty pounds, may safely threaten 
 the face and eyes of a giant, till his excitement 
 shall subside in sleep. 
 
 We were several days on the river, before we 
 
A LONG JOURNEY, 169 
 
 reached our destined port; but during all this 
 time, I am pleased to say that, in no instance did 
 I witness from our Captain the slightest demon- 
 strations of excitement. With all his eccentrici- 
 ties of character, and with all his native rudeness 
 of manners, unlearned and unpolished as he was, 
 he had the prudence and the good sense which 
 thousands, of fairer form, fairer face, and more 
 elevated opportunities, might well look up to for 
 an example, to shux the bottle ! Whatever 
 might have been his manner of expressing his rule 
 of action, his practice was, touch not, taste not, 
 handle not. And were Pope to revise his Essay 
 on Man, to the assertion that '* an honest man is 
 the noblest work of God," he would add that a 
 total abstinence man comes next in the scale of no- 
 bility. Captain Esau was a good pilot, a rigidly 
 temperate man, and therefore a safe man ; and 
 1 sooner would I trust myself in descending the Ohio 
 and Mississippi with such a pilot, even though his 
 bushy head should occasionally be by others mis- 
 taken for a hay-stack, than to risk my life under 
 the gentlemanly command of a boozy, gold-chain, 
 and tipsy cassimer, crowned by an intoxicated 
 beaver, the cover to a head that might mistake 
 itself for a hogs-head of rum. 
 
 At the time of which 1 speak, to be so rigidly 
 abstemious as was Capt. Esau, so far was public 
 15 
 
170 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 opinion from regarding it as an essential virtue or 
 as an example which any one could be required to 
 follow, tnat it was esteemed by some (particularly 
 in reference to our hero,) as an act of vanity die- 
 tated by a love of notoriety ; for the customary 
 usages of the times did not demand of any one, 
 whether in high rank or in humble rank, to put in 
 practice any of those self-denying principles of 
 which " Total Abstinence" was then, and is now 
 to many, so frightfully significant. But whatever 
 might have bsen the motive that actuated our cap- 
 tain, his practice was commendable ; for it was this 
 singular trait in his character, denied or confessed, 
 that secured to him the confidence of his employ- 
 ers, the authority connected with his trust, and the 
 extra wages that crowned the conditions of his 
 indentures ; and, fortunately for the present and 
 the rising generation, they are permitted to imi- 
 tate the example which we have introduced, with- 
 out hazarding the imputation that eccentricity of 
 conduct may be supposed to imply. 
 
 I have said that Capt. Esau was no less remarka- 
 ble for his physical powers than for his equanimity 
 of temper — the latter being, as we have contended, 
 the consequent result of the former. On the third 
 day of our journey down the river, an occurrence 
 took place, that put our captain's energies in full 
 requisition. Two of the hands, after having, in 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 171 
 
 spite of the captain's better example, taken rather 
 freely of that of which a little is a great deal too 
 much, became noisy and quarrelsome, until at 
 length the two belligerents were upon the point of 
 blows. Our captain had already spoken to these 
 men two or three times without effect, and he saw 
 the necessity of resorting to some more efficient 
 means ; so he very deliberately walked up to the 
 disputants, and first took one by the collar of his 
 coat and by the seat of his pantaloons, and pitched 
 him head first into the river, with as much ease 
 as he would have tossed over board a fleece of 
 wool ; then took the second man in the same 
 manner, and served him in the same way. I shud- 
 dered for the consequences ; but the captain knew 
 the river better than I did, and I made my best ef- 
 fort to be tranquil in reliance upon his better judg- 
 ment. It was evident, however, that the captain 
 was himself a little disappointed in the depth of 
 the water ; for had it been six inches deeper, the 
 poor fellows would never have had another quarrel 
 on this side of that place where they do nothing 
 but quarrel. But, fortunately, they were not 
 drowned ; and, much to the relief of my nerves, 
 they were soon on board again, as cool as two 
 cucumbers, as mild as good weather, and as com- 
 pliant as a windmill. 
 
 On the third day, my morning meal exhausted 
 
172 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 the last remains of my stock of provisions ; and 
 when dinner-time came round, I found myself in 
 that predicament in which the importunity of a 
 good appetite never fails to place one who has no- 
 thing to eat. I could have begged or purchased 
 a dinner of my fellow-sinners ; for, after all, they 
 were, in their own way, a good hearted assembly 
 of quadrupeds, and, no doubt, upon application be- 
 ing made, would have ordered a contribution that 
 would have supplied my wants. But it will be re- 
 collected that I had of late become a convert to 
 the doctrines of aristocracy, and that I could not, 
 consistently with my new profession, partake of 
 their bounty, lest thereby I should find imposed 
 upon me the necessity of reciprocating their ci- 
 vilities. So I made up my mind that, of two evils, 
 to go without dinner would bo the least. The af- 
 ternoon soon passed away, and the sun having fin- 
 ished his day's work, we resolved to follow his 
 example ; and as it happened, we were at this 
 time within a {e\v rods of a snug little village. I 
 was among the number that went ashore to spend 
 the night. My supper cost me twenty-five cents ; 
 but, having eaten no dinner, it cost the landlord 
 all of double that amount. But, for this once, I 
 consulted appetite, not conscience. Had he de- 
 manded more, I should have paid more ; but as he 
 made no complaint, I made no confession, although 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. ITS 
 
 I must now acknowledge that, during the night, I 
 suffered some of the penalties which await excess. 
 One of my fellow-passengers who took supper with 
 me, proposed an apology to the dogs and the cats 
 that surrounded the table in waiting for the frag- 
 ments ; for on this occasion, (poor, starved crea- 
 tures,) they were deprived of their customary al- 
 lotment of crumbs. 
 
 After supper, having noticed lying on the mantel, 
 piece a book of respectable dimensions, I took it 
 down with an intention to amuse myself a while 
 with its contents. The obliging landlord furnished 
 me with an old-fashioned iron candle-stick, whose 
 socket was large enough to admit a corn-cob, con-; 
 taining a tallow-candle a trifle larger than a rat's 
 tail. 
 
 The former having been constructed upon liberal 
 principles, and the latter having been fashioned 
 under the superintending direction of a frugal if not 
 a parsimonious spirit, the two together did not con- 
 stitute a good looking and well behaved couple. 
 The consequence of this disproportion of things was, 
 that the candle stood in a position whereby it might 
 have been mistaken for a pocket well-sweep point- 
 ing from earth to Jupiter, like a gun-barrel levelled 
 at a squirrel dining on acorns in the top of an oak. 
 Lamp-oil and melted tallow are always faithfully 
 obedient to the laws of gravity. Let them have 
 15* 
 
174 A SHORT STORY OF 
 
 their own way, and they are sure to run down hill. 
 Standing as my candle did, in such an oblique di- 
 rection, in a few minutes, more than two-thirds of 
 it was transformed into a puddle of hot tallow, stand- 
 ing on the top of the table — affording a find oppor- 
 tunity for the children to amuse themselves by swim- 
 ming their toy-ducks. 
 
 During this transformation of candle-grease, I 
 had taken a glance at the book above alluded to, 
 which proved to be Lorenzo Dow's Journal (not of 
 " Commerce," but) of his Life and Travels. I felt 
 as if I had about as much as I could weU attend to, 
 in keeping an account of my own affairs and in de- 
 vising wa}^s and means wherewith to defray the 
 expenses of my own travels, without spending much 
 time over Lorenzo Dow. Besides, I had seen the 
 book before ; so I returned it to the shelf, and asked 
 to ba shown to my lodging apartment. The obli- 
 ging landlord was ag tin at my service, and led the 
 way to a bed-room where I was to spend the night. 
 The room was very small, and very low between 
 joints. The bedstead was narrow, and as weak in 
 the joints as the room was low between them. The 
 cord to the bedstead had probably not been tightened 
 since the birth of their oldest child, who was now 
 about twelve years old. My table and wash-stand 
 were ancient and almost destitute of any joints at 
 all. If the story of Methuselah furnishes us with a 
 
A LONG JOURNEY. 175 
 
 most remarkable instance of long life ; so also of 
 my table and stand, could their history be accurately 
 traced, they would be found to furnish a second in- 
 stance of extraordinary longevity. My door had 
 but one hinge on it, and that one was loose, and 
 complained of being lonesome. The lock on my 
 door looked well enough at a distance ; but, upon 
 close inspection, I found that it had the lockjaw, 
 and that the only security it afforded, was to be 
 found in external signification. 
 
 But, after all, I slept sound!}' enough, making 
 some allowance for the bad effect from having eaten 
 too much supper ; and I do not furnish this inven- 
 tory of defects for the purpose of reproaching the 
 keeper of the house. The accommodations were as 
 good as the newness of the country, the general 
 condition of things, and the slender amount of pat- 
 ronage that could reasonably be anticipated, would 
 support. Instead of complaint, I had much reason 
 to be gratified that I was so well provided for. Paid 
 my bill in the morning, with due thanks and becom- 
 ing acknowledgements for the comfortable provis- 
 ions and obliging attentions with which I was favored 
 during my short stay at this village hotel. Went 
 on board the boat, and, for the fourth and last day, 
 I was numbered as a passenger among a goodly 
 group, not one of whom, from that time to this, has 
 it been my good, ill, or indifferent fortune to meet 
 and to recognize. 
 
176 A SHORT STORY OF A LONG JOTJRKEY* 
 
 Were I to conjecture their destiny, I should say 
 that, in all probability, some of them have become 
 good and substantial farmers, some gone to the prac- 
 tice of law, some to preaching, some have been 
 drowned, and some massacred by the Indians ; and 
 while it is to be hoped that some of them have turned 
 from their evil ways, it is at the same time to be 
 feared that more have turned drunkards, that some 
 of them have turned pirates, some turned paupers, 
 and that others have turned into Slate-prison. For 
 myself, as it is now eleven o'clock at night, I shalt 
 forthwith turn into bed. 
 
'"^^ilillliiiSyli^ 
 
 THE DEER LICK, 
 
 A Temperance Sermon, said to have been delivered to a select congrega- 
 tion in Illinois, by — somebody. 
 
 My text is selected from that portion of the prai- 
 rie called the Deer-Lick ; and my design is, 
 I. To explain the text. 
 
 II. To state and illustrate the doctrine. And, 
 III. To make a practical applcation. 
 1. I am to explain the text. 
 
 A lick is a salt spring, so called from the circum- 
 stance that the earth about it is so impregnated with 
 valine paricles, as to be licked by the deer, the bi- 
 
178 THE DEER LICK. 
 
 son, and other animals. These licks abound on the 
 waters of the Kanahwa in Virginia, the Muskin- 
 gum in Ohio, near Shawneetown in Illinois, on the 
 Licking in Kentucky, and generally in the Western 
 States. Who that has travelled from Maysville to 
 Lexington, and has stopped to quaff a tumbler of 
 the Blue Lick water, will ever forget its taste or its 
 smell 1 Bless me ! if all the delicious things in a 
 drug-shop, assafoetida, castor-oil, Epsom-salts, and 
 rhubarb, were beaten together in a vast mortar, 
 they would make composition nothing like it. 
 
 A lick is also any place without salt, visited by 
 animals for the sake of gratifying their taste. Licks 
 of this description are numerous in the West ; and 
 though they abhor water as Nature does a vacuum, 
 there are many of them on our principal water- 
 courses. 
 
 They may be known by certain infallible signs. 
 
 One is, that the animals visiting them, are of 
 one kind only, and that peculiar. They have two 
 legs, and yet have neither wings nor feathers. 
 
 Another is, that these animals are inclined to be 
 both noisy and filthy — noisy as the moon-eyed bird 
 of the forest, and filthy as the African goat. 
 
 Another is, that beaten paths usually lead to 
 them. 
 
 Another, that these licks usually have accommo- 
 dations neither for man nor beast, both of which 
 they are required to keep, by law* 
 
THE DEER LICK. 179 
 
 Another is, that those who lick there, often get 
 licked themselves. 
 
 2. I am to state and illustrate the doctrine. 
 
 The doctrine of the text is, with a little change 
 in the orthography, that the lick is dear. 
 
 It is dear, whether we consider its cost or its con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Look at its cost. He who licks at the rate of 12 
 cents a day, licks away 43 dollars and 80 cents in 
 a year, which in twenty years, without interest, 
 amounts to the round sum of 876 dollars ! Enough 
 to build a comfortable house, buy a good farm, or 
 educate a son at college. 
 
 He who licks at the rate of one pint a day, swal- 
 lows 46 gallons in a year ; and in twenty years, 
 920 gallons, or 28 barrels and 24 gallons ! And 
 this, at one dollar a gallon, would purchase 786 acres 
 of Congress land ! 
 
 To lick so much, must cost time, at least one 
 hour a day, 365 days in a year — about one whole 
 year in twenty. And who can afford to part with 
 so much time, without a compensation of some four 
 or five hundred dollars ? 
 
 But the cost of licking is nothing, compared with 
 the consequences. 
 
 It leads to insanity. I have seen the animals 
 which lick there, raving mad. Of 495 patients in 
 one insane hospital, 267 were known to have 
 brought on their derangement in this way. 
 
180 THE iJEEK LICK. 
 
 It leads to crime. Almost all the criminal cases 
 which come before our courts, are occasioned the 
 same way. 
 
 It leads to disease and premature death. 
 
 So every intelligent physician will testify, who 
 has not been poisoned at the lick. This is the tes- 
 timony of 75 physicians in Boston, of 45 in Cincin- 
 nati, and of the great body of physicians throughout 
 the United States. 
 
 It leads to wretchedness. 
 
 There is no fiction here. Look into the family 
 whose head is in the habit of frequenting the lick, 
 and if you find wretchedness any where on earth, 
 you find it there — wretchedness alive, and no mis- 
 take. 
 
 It leads to ruin, temporal and eternal. 
 
 What is one of those animals which staggers and 
 vomits about the lick, good for ? Neither for the 
 land nor for the dunghill — neither for this world 
 nor for the next. He is not fit even to wallow with 
 the decent swine. When a mule has served his 
 generation faithfully, in pulling a dray, and can 
 stand on all fours no longer, his hide is of some 
 value ; but not so with the animals ruined at the 
 lick, for, living and dead, they are a curse to them- 
 selves and others. 
 
 Thus, whether we consider the cost or the con- 
 sequences of licking, it is extremely dear. 
 
THE DEER LICK. 181 
 
 B. The application. 
 
 I take it for granted, that none of my hearers are 
 in the habit of frequenting the lick ; yet there are 
 those who do, and to such you have a duty to per- 
 form. 
 
 Tell the mechanic that if he would save his cash, 
 his character, his health, and his happiness ; if he 
 would have a good house to cover his gray hairs, a 
 good wife whose heart will beat in unison with his 
 own, and good children to rock the cradle of his de- 
 clining years, tell him to keep away from the lick. 
 
 Tell the farmer, if he would not earn wages to 
 put into a bag with holes, if he would not sow to the 
 wind and reap to the whirlwind, if he would not till 
 the mortgaged farm of the sluggard and leave his 
 children to inherit only the reputation which drunk- 
 enness bequeaths — tell him to avoid the lick. 
 
 Tell the professional man to beware of the lick, 
 to shun it as he would the poisonous tree of Java or 
 the Sirocco of the desert ; that, instead of becom- 
 ing more learned, wiser, or better, he will soon be 
 the reverse for going there. 
 
 Entreat the old to take the old road round, rather 
 than go by the lick ; and, in the words of the wise 
 man, exhort the young : " Hearken unto me now, 
 therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of 
 my mouth. Let not thy heart decline to her ways, 
 go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down 
 16 
 
V 
 
 182 THE DEER LICK. 
 
 many wounded, yea, many strong men have been 
 slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going 
 down to the chambers of death. " 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
The publisher begs leave to introduce to the reader, the author of this 
 work, as he was in early life. Early risinsr, industry, frugality, temper- 
 ance, and scrupulous integrity, are the chief sources of health, camp^, 
 lence, honor, and peate. 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 I was born a little boy, as I have reason to sup- 
 pose, although my early employments were of a 
 mixed kind — some in door and some out. In my 
 babyhood days, I did my share of crying and rather 
 more than my share of mischief ; for, as I have been 
 informed, when I was not Crying myself, I would 
 steal the opportunity to scratch my little brothers 
 face, (he being only a few short months younger 
 than myself,) in order to set him at it. Thus, the 
 house was furnished with music, such as it was, 
 without intermission, (and without much expense,) 
 excepting when (as good luck would sometimes per- 
 mit) we were both asleep at one time* 
 
 The place of my nativity is distinguished by no* 
 thing of peculiar interest, except it be the difficulty 
 of obtaining an honest living, even by those who 
 labor early and late for it. Chickens must be hatch- 
 ed where the old hen lays her eggs, peradventure, 
 sometimes on the hay-mow, from which they can- 
 not descend without risk of limb and life ; and some- 
 times in the hollow stump of a tree, there to stay 
 and starve, unless relieved by the kindness of human 
 16* 
 
180 EiouHAimr, 
 
 agency. So with children, — those who are born at 
 all, must be born somewhere. It is not the fortune 
 of every child 1o be born in a palace ; nor even in 
 a place where a palace would not form a gaudy con- 
 trast to surrounding objects, such as seemed to have 
 been formed in a hurry and of rough material* 
 There are certain portions of this our earth, — fair 
 by equation, — that might remind one of the disor- 
 derly compound of tables, chairs, beds and bedding, 
 looking-glasses, books, wash-tubs, pots, kettles, and 
 muslin dresses, huddled into the middle of the street, 
 to avoid the fate of a burning house. About twelve 
 or fourteen miles from New-Haven, in the town of 
 Cheshire, in the State of Connecticut, there is such 
 a place, and there it is that I was born. . About 
 forty rods from the cottage in which I was cradled, 
 was a wide spread swamp, liberally productive of 
 poisonous copper-heads, alder-bushes, black-birds, 
 sour grapes, and bull-frogs. Immediately in the rear 
 of this homestead of mud, is seen a towering moun- 
 tain of rock, forming a sort of huge eyebrow dark- 
 ened by jealous apprehension, wanting only the pow- 
 er of utterance, to say this swamp is my swamp ; let 
 my vengeance fall upon the man who ventures to 
 meddle with my swamp. If we face to the right about 
 we behold a field, else barren, productive of black- 
 berry vines and briers, sweet-fern, pennyroyal 
 and wild hyssop, — a favorite place for whippoor- 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 187 
 
 Wills to nestle and hatch their young. So much for 
 the place of my nativity. 
 
 Of my ancestors I know little or nothing in the 
 line of genealogy, farther back than my parents. 
 Of them I know of much good and no harm. 
 
 I am perfectly satisfied, however, that were the 
 course of my descent thoroughly investigated, it 
 would prove to be as bright, as ancient and as hon- 
 orable as that of other more distinguished individu- 
 als, who have thought the butcher and the baker 
 well paid, by being~"permitted to serve a customer 
 of noble birth. Let the low and the vulgar pay for 
 what they eat and wear, but never think of degra- 
 ding a family of high extraction, by requiring them 
 to earn that which they consume. It would be cru- 
 elty to deprive them of a single luxury for the pur- 
 pose of remunerating those whose early rising and 
 unceasing toil have supplied the daily wants of a 
 noble customer. 
 
 I have no ambition to know when nor where the 
 first man by the name of Preston, lived, nor am I 
 anxious to learn what business he followed for a 
 living. I have a right to conjecture that he was 
 Secretary of State, under the administration of King 
 Solomon. Possibly he was Colonel in the army 
 in the service of Caesar. At the same time I am 
 just as well pleased to admit that he was one of the 
 first settlers on the banks of Jordan, and that he fol- 
 
188 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 lowed fishing, fowling and trapping for a support. 
 There are at the present day, individuals by the 
 name of Preston, who make no small figure in the 
 world. It is a name that is associated with Clay, 
 Webster, and Adams, in the high councils of the 
 nation. On the other hand, I doubt not that the 
 name is a familiar one at Botany Bay ; and I claim 
 just as much relationship in the one case, as I admit 
 to exist in the other, and no more. 
 
 I like to read the biography of General Washing- 
 ton, because it is said of him that when a child, hav- 
 ing been charged with the fault of cutting down a 
 valuable cherry-tree that stood in the garden, he 
 had the honesty and the courage to confess the act. 
 And I like also to read the biography of Benjamin 
 Franklin, because he mentions that his father was a 
 soap-boiler. But I hold in proud contempt, that 
 hereditary title to respect which can be seen only 
 through a telescope that reaches back to the days 
 of an uncle's great-grand-father. I think that I 
 have somewhere read of a certain Frenchman by 
 the name of Lewis, who had a picture hanging in 
 his parlor, in which Noah was represented as going 
 into the ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk, 
 on which was written " Papers belonging to the 
 Lewis Family." A certain Scotchman, no less 
 vain of ancestral honors, declared that his forefa- 
 thers, long before Noah's time, had an ark of their 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 189 
 
 own ; and he might with equal truth have asserted 
 that this family ark was furnished with stolen goods. 
 There are not a few, even in this country, who 
 would prido themselves on carrying about their 
 persons a perpetual and an incurable itch, provided 
 they could show a certificate that it had been inher- 
 ited as a family badge of ancient and noble origin. 
 To recite the names and occupations of a long list of 
 ancestors ; particularly if in the retrospective view, 
 one can make himself out to be the ninety-ninth 
 descendant of a select breed of bipeds, is as delight- 
 ful as it is truly exalting. Who would not spend 
 a year or two in the collection of documents which 
 shall secure to him the honors, the rank and the 
 privileges, that a little mixture of the imported gen- 
 uine bug-horn blood, is so unequivocally certain to 
 impart? When a few years shall have rolled away 
 and the wonderful deeds of men, and the still more 
 w onderful deeds of horses shall have become so far 
 faded, forgotten or confounded, as to render it doubt- 
 ful by which of the two classes of animals the boast- 
 ed exploits were performed, with what an air of 
 proud satisfaction will it be affirmed by those cove- 
 tous of ancestral honors, that they are the legitimate 
 descendants of the noble Sir Henry, victorious 
 Eclipse, the gallant Duroc, the heroic Childers, or 
 of some other quadruped of contemporaneous noto- 
 riety 
 
190 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 What a glorious age will that be, when young 
 aspirants to fame, shall misapprehendingly appro- 
 priate to themselves the birthright of colts 1 
 
 Such reflected merit, however, goes but a little 
 way towards supporting a family ; to depend upon 
 it, is to be placed on short allowance. My grand- 
 father, on one side$ was an honest, industrious, and 
 pious farmer ; on the other side, the trade of a black- 
 smith was pursued. As for my great-grand-fathers, 
 I know not whether they were corporals, or cap- 
 tains, lawyers, or tanners ; nor do I care one cent 
 who or what they were. 
 
 But of myself : in process of time, I became older 
 than I was along at first, and the tucks in my frocks 
 and aprons, which fitted very well in the beginning, 
 were let out to accommodate my increased growth. 
 Nor was it long before I could creep about the house 
 almost with the velocity of a spider. I became a 
 sort of perpetual motion. The contents of the dye- 
 tub were more than once strewed about the floor, 
 and those of the swill-pail occasionally shared the 
 same fate. In short, my hands were in every thirig 
 but the fire ; and I have often wondered how it hap- 
 pened, that curiosity had not led me to try that. 
 My next degree in the march of improvement, was 
 to get upon my feet ; and in a short time I could 
 move about in an upright position. This use of my 
 limbs proved quite a labor-saving acquisition ; fo? 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 191 
 
 now I could perform more mischief in one day, than 
 I could before in two. The circle of my operations 
 was now enlarged. Every nook and corner became 
 subject to my inspection. Prohibitions were as 
 soon forgotten as uttered ; and had a good tingling* 
 rod witnessed the chastisement of my offences, a de- 
 gree of reformation might have followed ; or had I 
 received one cent reward for each of my heedless 
 transgressions, I should have had money enough to 
 purchase a new checkered apron at the close of 
 every week. 
 
 Time rolled along and I rolled along with it, un- 
 til it was thought that I was old enough to go to 
 school, when it was resolved that I should make a 
 beginning. Accordingly, on Monday morning, 
 after having my face washed, and hair combed, I 
 was rigged out for the first time in a suit of boy's 
 clothes, suited to the occasion, and befitting my age. 
 This was a happy transition, super-atively grand ; 
 it was the proudest day of my life : and never since 
 that moment, could I create in imagination, the dig- 
 nity and superiority of my sex, by which I then fan- 
 cied myself so much exalted. Let the anniversa- 
 ry of that day be passed in celebration ; for it was 
 a day on which for the first time I was habited in 
 boifs clothes. There are in one's life, from first to 
 last, four occasions of peculiar interest ; that of 
 our birth, that which we have just mentioned, the 
 
192 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 day of marriage, and that of final exit. What may 
 well be considered of additional importance, as a 
 connection of cause and effect, this was the day on 
 which I commenced a course of education, without 
 which this story would never have been told. Well, 
 so it was, when all things were properly adjusted, 
 and my dinner-basket well furnished with bread 
 and butter, a piece of gingerbread and a roasted ap- 
 ple, I sat out, with some reluctance it is true ; but 
 my new clothes inspired me with courage, and I per- 
 severed, till at length I found myself in the school- 
 room, seated on a bench with a row of little urchins, 
 whose errand there was, like that of my own, to 
 learn the ABC. Here commences the task of years ; 
 and how fortunate it is, that the thoughtless, unsus- 
 pecting-child knows nothing of the magnitude of the 
 work which is placed before him ! — a labor equal 
 to the fortitude of mature strength, bodily and men- 
 tal. 
 
 As ignorant as I was of my letters, I was equally 
 deficient in the requisite skill for navigating in boy's 
 clothes ; and but for the precaution of the school- 
 dame, and the friendly aid of some of the older boys, 
 I might have regretted that I had been rigged out in 
 a dress of such complicated construction. Indeed I 
 had enough to do for the first day, in learning the 
 peculiarities of my jacket and trowsers, not to think 
 much about my alphabet. The day however passsed 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 193 
 
 away under favorable auspices, and nothing trans- 
 pired worthy of note, excepting when on my way 
 home, after school, in company with other little 
 boys, while chasing the butterflies from one side 
 of the road to the other, I unluckily made a mis- 
 step, and fell my whole length into a mud-puddle, 
 which so soiled my clean clothes, that on arriving 
 at my home, I was obliged to resume my frock and 
 checkered apron, till the soiled suit could be wash- 
 ed ; for as yet I had not a change of masculines fin- 
 ished. 
 
 As it is now, so it was then, — when one day 
 had passed away, another followed after it ; and 
 just so it was with weeks, and months, and }^ears ; 
 and with the exception of some few circumstances 
 connected with that eventful period when first I 
 was equipped in boy's clothes, my memory fails 
 to relate any thing of interest until I arrived at the 
 age of eight or nine years, when for the first time 
 within my recollection, I felt the enchanting in- 
 fluence of female charms taking gentle possession 
 of my youthful heart. Susan was a mere child, 
 younger, even, than myself. Her eyes were two 
 bright and sparkling ornaments of her modest face ; 
 mild and placid was the expression of her counte- 
 nance. How durable are earthly impressions ! 
 The harmony of her features, never can they be 
 erased from my mind, while memory retains the 
 17 
 
194 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 least vestige of its wonted power. What would 1 
 not give to know the history of her subsequent 
 life, if but to know it were a story of health, pros- 
 perity and happiness ! but, alas, the fear, — the fear 
 that disappointment, sorrow, poverty, sickness and 
 pain, have been her portion ! It is enough to con- 
 jecture her fate, — too much to know it. 
 
 I have said that Susan was the first girl that I 
 loved, — there were more than a dozen that I loved 
 afterwards ; but not more than two or three out 
 of the number cared one cent about me. I was 
 always hesitating, bashful, confused and agitated, 
 when in the company of young ladies, and young 
 men of that description are seldom favorites with 
 the lasses. Common sense, superior sense, philos- 
 ophy and logic, are but doubtful passports to a 
 young lady's esteem, unless diluted with a great 
 share of light wit and prattle, accompanied with a 
 liberal stock of assurance. I knew a gentleman 
 who, as a lawyer and a statesman, was the pride 
 of his profession and the boast of his constituents. 
 Hi3 intellectual endowments were of the highest 
 order. Among men he was in high repute, he 
 was of sedate and of dignified deportment* Among 
 men, he was a man indeed ; but among the ladies, 
 he was just no body at all. He knew not how to 
 make an obeisance, or pass compliments with a 
 lady, except under the guidance of logical rules, 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 195 
 
 and this did not answer the purpose ; hence, after 
 one or two unsuccessful attempts at gallantry, he 
 abandoned the hope of matrimonial bliss, and re- 
 solved to spend his days in single blessedness, 
 which resolution he adhered to through life. So 
 much for this lawyer, who was so much respected 
 among men, and so little esteemed among ladies. 
 
 The first four children with which my parents 
 were— blessed, (I suppose I must say,) were all 
 boys ; and to hire a girl to help do the work of the 
 house, cost money ; consequently I was often call- 
 ed upon to assist in sweeping the floor, washing 
 the dishes, shelling peas for dinner, and churning 
 the cream ; indeed, I believe I made some profi- 
 ciency in knitting, and twisting coverlet yarn ; and 
 I am not sure that my present taste and partiality 
 for mechanical employments, are not to be attrib- 
 uted in some degree to the variety of avocations 
 in which I was alternately exercised in my young- 
 er days. I would not omit to mention, while I 
 think of it, my skill in chopping meat for mince- 
 pies, dipping candles, dressing a fowl, frying dough- 
 nuts, and stuffing sausages. The stuffing of sau- 
 sages was a business that came around but once 
 in a year ; and ^o far as periodical recurrence is 
 concerned, it is similar to the business of making 
 new cider in the fall, and of washing sheep in the 
 spring. One day in each year is also rendered no- 
 
106 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 table by the butchering of swine, the blowing up of 
 bladders, and by a dinner of fresh pork and hog's 
 liver. With farmer boys, these are all occasions 
 of interest and amusement ; and so great was the 
 satisfaction that I always realized at such times, 
 that even to this day I cannot permit the recurring 
 seasons of them to pass, without some ceremony 
 that shall attach to them the character of anniver- 
 saries. Hence, in addition to new-year day and 
 the declaration of independence, I find in my cat- 
 alogue of holy days, the sausage anniversary, the 
 new eider anniversary, the sheep-washing anniversary 
 and the bladder -blowing anniversary ; not forgetting 
 the ever memorable occasion when first I was dress- 
 ed in boy's clothes. 
 
 I do not wish it understood, that because I was 
 so often called upon to assist in those matters of 
 in-door domestic concerns, that I remained unac- 
 quainted with the business of riding horse, planting 
 corn, weeding onions, raking hay, chopping wood, 
 digging potatoes, yoking the geese, wiring the 
 pigs' noses, and breaking steers. The business of 
 breaking steers is a glorious amusement for boys ; 
 but it is enjoyment at the cost of cruel and heedless 
 torture, inflicted upon the poor ill-fated animal. 
 My first essay at this princely diversion, resulted 
 in a disaster that frightened me out of at least a 
 year's growth. 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 197 
 
 To prevent my four-footed pupils from turning 
 their yoke, (for total depravity extends even to 
 brutes) I had taken the precaution to tie their tails 
 together with a good strong cord. Being thus 
 fastened together at each end, they were compel- 
 led to move, if they moved at all, in a parallel line 
 of direction, one with the other. The "breaking 
 of steers," when interpreted by the usual discipline, 
 signifies, first, to pound them over one end to make 
 them move, and then to pound them on the other 
 end to make them stand still. This monarchical 
 method of teaching my young candidates for yoke 
 honors, their first lessons in the " arts and myste- 
 ries " of civilization, is in strict accordance with the 
 dictates of common sense. But common sense is 
 not always good sense ; and if the young novices 
 which I had undertaken to drill, were wholly re- 
 gardless of the words of command, it was a worse 
 error on my part to attribute their disobedience to 
 a spirit of wilful obstinacy. I took it for granted 
 that they understood enough of Walker and John- 
 son (popular works of the day) to comprehend at 
 least a few short words that imply right, and left, 
 and wheel, go, and stand still; and I chastised 
 them accordingly. Nor is this the only instance 
 that could be related, in which the poor, the weak, 
 and the ignorant, are daily doomed to suffer the 
 two-fold penalties of their own errors, joined to 
 17* 
 
198 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the worse faults of 'their more wealthy and more 
 powerful neighbors. It is the love of power that 
 invests the chase with all its interest and all its 
 delights. It is the love of power that exults alike 
 in the destruction of an owl, a wren, or of an hum- 
 ble-bee. It is the love of power that finds ample 
 compensation for a hard day's work, (with the loss 
 of dinner) in the death of a fox, or of a timid de- 
 fenceless deer. Mankind are tyrants by nature, 
 and as far as opportunity permits, tyrants by prac- 
 tice. But there is in all things which engage the 
 attention of men, a point at which enjoyment of 
 pursuit, and fatigue in pursuing ; desire and sati- 
 ety ; are co-extensive. 
 
 Well, after tyrannizing over my young freshmen 
 till I was weary of glory, I returned with my charge 
 to the barn, took the yoke from their necks, but 
 forgot first to untie their tails, as I should have 
 done ; and, as was very natural, one pulled one 
 way while the other pulled in the opposite direc- 
 tion. The more they pulled, the more their tails 
 would not get loose ; that is, they would not get 
 loose in the right spot, but, judging from the crack- 
 ing of joints, they did get loose where nature de- 
 signed they should stay tight. I did the best that 
 I could do, which was, to stand and look on, and 
 see them pull, and hear the joints of their tails 
 snap, while I called for help. 
 
BIOGRAPHY, 199 
 
 There lived in the neighborhood an old, colored 
 man, commonly called Uncle Ishmael, the only col- 
 ored person that I had ever seen ; and who, as far 
 as I knew or even conjectured, was the only man 
 of sable skin that ever lived upon the face of the 
 earth. Well might he be called Uncle, for his black, 
 curly hair was as white as wool ; and when he 
 walked over the ground, his main-top was so much 
 bent over, that, to all appearance, he was looking 
 out for a good place in which to lay his bones. In 
 this hour of peril, who should make his appearance 
 but Uncle Ishmael, who, aside from his color, would 
 have made a good ghost. But no matter — he ren- 
 dered the assistance that I required ; and, notwith- 
 standing he has been dead for more than twenty 
 yearSj I cannot do less than record his name and 
 his kindness, with a promise that, should any of 
 his posterity be an hungered and I have any bread 
 to spare, they shall have a slice with butter on it, 
 
 Had I continued in sphere and in employment 
 till now, as I commenced in early life, the time 
 that I have spent in writing this account of my- 
 self, might have been occupied in a way more con- 
 ducive to my own interest and the benefit of man- 
 kind at large. It is a question, however, of some 
 doubt in my own mind, after all, whether it wa3 
 ever designed that I should prove a very conspicu- 
 ous item of clear net profit to the world, at best- 
 
200 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 How could such a thing be ? What circumstances 
 have there been shown, connected with my gene- 
 alogy, nativity, early employments, and scanty op- 
 portunities for gaining knowledge, that would jus- 
 tify such an expectation ? The great subject of 
 wonder is, that I have accomplished the little for 
 which I have received such ample and generous 
 testimonials of approbation, rather than that I have 
 not done more. 
 
 Thirty-five years ago, schools were not conduct- 
 ed as they are now. The mode of communicating 
 instruction was inefficient — comparatively a waste 
 of time. My geographical knowledge was gained 
 from reading Morse's Geography ; not from under- 
 standing so much as one word of it. The words 
 latitude, longitude, and bounded, were sounds with- 
 out meaning ; and whether the places described 
 were East, West, North, or South, or in a perpen- 
 dicular direction from the place where I then stood, 
 I knew not, thought not. My knowledge of gram- 
 mar was gained from hearing older boys repeat 
 Murray's Rule I., which says "a verb must agree 
 with its nominative case, in number and person," 
 until I could recite the rule with the utmost accu- 
 racy ; but signification was out of the question. 
 Design, application, and use never entered my 
 thoughts. In reading Morse's Geography, it is 
 true, I realized some benefit, for I learned to pro* 
 
BIOGRAPHY, 201 
 
 nounce words with facility ; but, aside from that 
 advantage, I might as well have read a modern 
 sized newspaper from one side to the other, cross- 
 wise, embracing in one line, fires, gales, prices 
 current, auction sales, breaches of promise, ship- 
 wrecks, marriages, rail-roads, patent rights, bal- 
 loons, turtle-soup, theatres, and nullifications ; or 
 instead of Morse's Geography, I might as well have 
 read Moses 9 Geography of the country from Egypt 
 to Canaan. 
 
 I learned the multiplication-table in the same 
 manner and with the same profit that I learned to 
 read Morse's Geography. I could repeat, " three 
 times three are nine, three times four are twelve," 
 with as much rapidity as any of the boys ; but 
 whether three times three were nine apples, or 
 three times three sleepies were nine sleepies, or 
 whether three times four hungries were twelve 
 hungries, my teacher did not inform me, nor did I 
 stop to inquire. 
 
 If I mistake not, it was in Webster's Spelling 
 Book that we used to read these lines : " The 
 wicked flee when no man pursue th, but the right- 
 eous ar° 4a bold as a lion." To me, this sentence 
 was iffi tremely ambiguous. It might as well have 
 read : The wicked mosqueto when no man pursueth, 
 but the righteous are as bold as a lion. 
 
 The doctrine of the text, as I understood it, was, 
 
202 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that there were some good fleas as well as some 
 wicked fleas; for I thought that the idea, when 
 fully carried out, required to be expressed in these 
 words : The wicked flea when no man pursueth, 
 but the righteous fleas are as bold as a lion. 
 
 Had my instructor explained to me the signifi- 
 cation of the word flea, as it appeared in the spell- 
 ing book, the error which I had imbibed would have 
 been corrected. But this was not done ; and the 
 result of this neglect on the part of my teacher, 
 was, to leave upon my mind a lasting prejudice 
 against the disposition and moral character of fleas. 
 Even to this day, (so durable are early impres- 
 sions,) I fancy them to be a race of incorrigible 
 sinners. 
 
 I mention these circumstances as an illustration 
 of the old-fashioned method of instructing children 
 at school, not to show myself on the wrong side 
 of a comparison with my schoolmates. On the 
 contrary, there were but very few of the number 
 that could read Morse's Geography or recite the 
 multiplication-table as fast as I could. Hence, 
 with all the disadvantages connected with my early 
 opportunities for gaining instruction, I maintained 
 a superiority over the majority of my schoolmates, 
 which might have excited their jealousy, and crea- 
 ted in my own mind a degree of vanity, but for the 
 neutralizing or equalizing effect produced by a still 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 203 
 
 more engrossing ambition, mutually indulged, to 
 excel in snow-balling, playing tag, and sliding 
 down hill. 
 
 The sons of farmers who own one hundred acres 
 of land, two yoke of oxen, a span of horses, have 
 ten fat hogs in the pen, milk six cows, and live in 
 a painted house, seldom manifest a consciousness, 
 at the early time of life I am speaking of, that 
 their present condition or their future prospects in 
 the world should constitute any just cause of dis- 
 tinction between themselves and the sons of neigh- 
 boring farmers who own less land, fewer cattle, 
 and have but three fat hogs in the pen, and live in 
 an unpainted house. It is not strange, then, that 
 the mixed group of boys and girls at a country- 
 school^ should be content to sit upon one bench, 
 and promiscuously join in their sports, even though 
 some be furnished with a new suit in each year, 
 while others are afforded but one suit for every 
 other year. 
 
 As a general rule, it may be said of farmer's 
 sons, that as soon as they become old enough and 
 strong enough to render any assistance in cultiva- 
 ting the land, they are thus employed in the sum- 
 mer season, and in the winter permitted to go to 
 school. This was just my case from the time I 
 was about ten years old till I was sixteen. My 
 first lessons in the business of hoeing corn, were 
 
204 BIOGRAPHY* 
 
 taken at so early a period of life, that to hoe three 
 and skip three, and keep up — -like paying ten shil- 
 lings on the pound- — was considered a satisfactory 
 performance. I do not suppose that all my read- 
 ers are sufficiently learned to understand what is 
 meant by hoeing three and skipping three, although 
 they may sooner or later be taught, experiment- 
 ally, the signification of paying or receiving ten 
 shillings on the pound. But I must tell my story 
 in appropriate terms, whether I am understood or 
 not. Thus was I raised among a class of people 
 who labored for a livelihood — who procured vict- 
 uals, clothes, and a shelter by hard work ; and 
 amongst whom I had my share both of the toil and 
 its compensation : nor did I feel any conscientious 
 scruples in being thus employed. Indeed, it was 
 many years after I left home, before I ever sus- 
 pected that it was ungenteel to work ; and so irre- 
 sistable is the influence of early habits, that, even 
 to this day, in defiance of all refined principles by 
 which others may be kept in awe, when I have 
 occasion to purchase a ball of thread or a skein of 
 silk, I seldom avail myself of the kind offer of the 
 merchant to send it to my house ; but carry it 
 home myself, let whoever will, see me do it. In- 
 deed, I feel myself quite disfranchised when, by 
 the customs of city society, I am required to pay 
 a man for rolling my wheel-barrow, instead of per- 
 
BIOGRAPHIC 205 
 
 forming the agreeable task myself. It is said that 
 an honest man is the noblest work of God ; but 
 they forgot to put in the saving clause— provided 
 he does not labor for a support, 
 
 I have said that the time was, when I did not 
 suspect that it was ungenteel to work ; but I now 
 understand why it is that Miss Eliza, the respecta. 
 ble daughter of a respectable lady who keeps are- 
 spectable boarding house, takes her seat at the head 
 of the table and turns out tea and coffee ; while 
 Lydia, the table-waiter, in the absence of Miss 
 Eliza, is required, when performing the same du- 
 ties, to stand up as erect and as conspicuous as a 
 country tavern-keeper's sign post. 
 
 I now understand the difference between going 
 to the grocer's to get a jug of molasses, as does 
 Robert, the colored boy, and of going to the bank 
 in Wall-street with a check of a thousand dollars, 
 as does young Mr. Hobbs for his very respectful 
 employer, a Pearl-street jobber. It is now no mys- 
 tery to me, why the conspicuous station of the 
 man who rides every morning (he never walks) 
 from street to street, crying " Charcoal" is so 
 little coveted, even by those who think it a great 
 treat to ride once in six months. I now perceive 
 the infinite, insurmountable, and awful distinction 
 between carrying quills, wafers, and sealing-wax 
 from counting-room to counting-room, in pursuit 
 18 
 
206 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 of purchasers, and of figuring in the right honora- 
 ble capacity of importer and wholesale vender of 
 the selfsame kinds of goods. 
 
 The comparative dignity of vending marbles, 
 dolls, and glass-beads by the bushel, and snuff-boxes 
 by the cart-load, as does Mr. ***** of Maiden-lane; 
 and of hawking penny-papers, "Sun," "Transcript," 
 and " Herald" as do the little, bare headed, Irish 
 boys at the corner of Nassau and Fulton, is no 
 longer hard for me to comprehend, to analyze, and 
 to expound. The sculptor's chisel will, in due 
 time, record on monumental marble, the marvellous 
 virtues of the one ; while of the other, it can only 
 be said that, as they were* never remembered, there- 
 fore they never can be forgotten. 
 
 We need not go to the tented field nor on board 
 a man-of-war to learn the comparative degrees in 
 which respectability attaches itself to men of high, 
 low, or middle station. We have our thermometers, 
 barometers, gasometers, and hydrometers, each of 
 which performs its office with admirable precision ; 
 but they are fully equalled, if not surpassed, by the 
 infallible accuracy of the native, universal, and in- 
 destructible gradometer, a little, snug, well made 
 piece of furniture that hangs suspended in one 
 corner of every man's intellectual chest of tools. 
 On all ordinary occasions we can arrive at satis- 
 factory conclusions without a very close, scrutini- 
 zing application of this unerring test. 
 
Biography. 207 
 
 We cannot well mistake the ascending grades 
 of respectability, as we turn from the man of mor- 
 tar-making destiny, to Professor Hod, whose lad- 
 der-climbing dexterity soon transfers him to the 
 imposing presence of a brick-laying apprentice, that 
 is, taking instructions under the fearful authority 
 of a journeyman mason, whose high prerogative it 
 is to be the medium of command that originates in 
 the still more august personage of the master-buil- 
 der. Indeed, the most superficial observer need 
 not err in determining the degree of rank and of 
 respectability that is to be awarded to the lean, 
 wrinkled, and sun-burned remnant of a woman 
 whose beggarly condition suggests the idea that 
 she has been permitted, on parole obtained from 
 the crows, to sell chestnuts, Spitzenbergs, Rhode- 
 Island greenings, and candy, on the corner of Wall 
 and William — it requires, I say, but the slightest 
 effort of mind to determine between the compara- 
 tive degree of credit, responsibility, and respecta- 
 bility that is conceded to this hopeless, helpless 
 wreck, and that which the healthy, cheerful, well 
 fed, and well clad female who occupies a stand in 
 Fulton-market, and deals out cherries by the full 
 quart and whortleberries by the ivhole peck, is per- 
 mitted to enjoy. 
 
 The lights and shades of precedence, although 
 perhaps not quite so obvious nor quite so palpable 
 
208 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 as the two extremes of Bowling Green and the 
 Five Points might supply, are, nevertheless, to be 
 seen even in the poor house. Paupers themselves, 
 however much they may abhor the arrogance of 
 those upon whose bounty they subsist, are, in their 
 intercourse with one another, an unequivocal illus- 
 tration of the fact, that the inextinguishable spirit 
 of rivalry, scorn, and disdain, pervades the whole 
 earth. Vice, too, whose only modesty and whose 
 only token of self-respect is shown in the choice 
 of darkness rather than light for the performance 
 of its sensual and unlawful deeds, has its select cir- 
 cles of companionship, Indeed, the spirit of aris- 
 tocracy is nowhere more prevalent in its influence, 
 than among pickpockets, counterfeiters, pirates, 
 and gamblers ; unless, in fact, it be among females 
 of the most abandoned character. Among this 
 latter class of unfortunate victims whose highest 
 hopes are crowned with despair and whose bright- 
 est prospects are premature death, there are, from 
 proud, scornful distress in silken garb, down to 
 hungry, ragged, rabid woe, as many grades as 
 there are ascending degrees from bitter drug to 
 drug most bitter of all that bitter is. 
 
 But the time will come, when, so far as all tem- 
 poral interests are concerned, the man who now 
 edits a daily penny-chronicle, and the little, dirty 
 boys who hawk it about the street — when the man 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 209 
 
 who now deals in oranges by the ship-load, and 
 the women who dispense them to steam-boat pas- 
 sengers, " four for a shilling" — when the man who 
 now walks about the streets of a city, bending un- 
 der the weight of a lathe and grindstone upon his 
 back, gingling, as he goes, a little hand-bell, which 
 signifies " Any scissors or razors to grind,'' and 
 the man who, with clean hands, clean clothes, and 
 clean conscience, keeps an office and a mill for 
 "grinding the faces of the poor" — will all become 
 joint tenants of one house and equal partners in 
 one common destiny, under stipulations that shall 
 have no reference to rank, privileges, profit, or loss. 
 Indeed, the time may come, when the man who 
 now, with his hands and face as black as the arti- 
 cle in which he traffics, performs his daily rounds, 
 'perpetrating the same monotonous, never ending 
 song of " charcoal ,•" and the man whose carpeted 
 counting-room, with polished mahogany-desk, re- 
 cords negotiation in Lehigh and Schuylkill to the 
 amount of millions — when the palzied debauchee, 
 the idle, worthless loafer, and the still more worth- 
 less dandy whose laudable employment it is to walk 
 the battery and the park, labelled with a straw- 
 rattan in his right, a spare white kid glove in his 
 left, with the mane of an ass upon his upper lip, 
 to keep his fellow-fools in countenance, and, withal, 
 to insure himself a soft reception into the soft so> 
 18* 
 
210 Biography. 
 
 ciety of soft females — will meet in company with 
 chimney-sweeps, to sit at the same table and lodge 
 in the same berth, where fuel and fire are alike 
 spontaneous, inexhaustible, and unquenchable. 
 
 But I am getting away from my story, and I 
 must go back and begin where I left off. 
 
 From my earliest recollection, I had a desire to 
 be employed as a clerk in a store ; although I do 
 not remember any other motive for cherishing this 
 desire, than that of being relieved from toiling in 
 the field, exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, 
 on the one hand, and of my childish fondness for 
 sugar and raisins, on the other. But when, where, 
 and how were my wishes to be gratified? Such 
 an event, to all appearance, was altogether beyond 
 the reach of probability. But how little do we 
 know, to-day, of what may transpire to-morrow ! 
 The long wished for but unexpected opportunity 
 did at length present itself; and, with the advice 
 and consent of my parents, I gladly embraced it. 
 I regarded my new employment as a kind of pro- 
 motion ; and I will venture to say, that seldom did 
 a private soldier feel more elated, when advanced 
 from his lowest capacity in the ranks, to the cor- 
 poral's next higher peg, than I did at this time. 
 What orator who does not remember the embar- 
 rassment that he felt when first he addressed a 
 public audience ? What young divine who cannot 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 211 
 
 lefl of disconcerted palpitations, when first he as- 
 cended the pulpit-stairs ? My case was not a par- 
 allel one, exactly, it is true ; but I had been accus- 
 tomed to regard the inside of a merchant's counter 
 as consecrated to the occupation of a sort of pri- 
 vileged class. It was a new sphere to me, and I 
 hardly knew how to act in it. I felt a little as I 
 had done on former occasions, when I had slily 
 crept over the fence into the meadow of a neighs 
 boring farmer, to gather strawberries. Perhaps I 
 shall be better understood, if I say that I felt a 
 little as every silly youth feels, when, On Sunday 
 morning, he lays aside his old, threadbare coat, and 
 puts on his new one in its stead* I am not sure 
 that I did not feel, in some respects, like a young 
 couple when first they appear at church, after 
 having been pronounced husband and wife* Ah 
 though 1 was a little disconcerted, still I was plea* 
 sed. I did not, however, realize it as an event of 
 that all-absorbing interest which, in my childish 
 days, I fancied to be connected with my first suit 
 of boy's clothes. Nevertheless, in truth, it was 
 an event that in its train of consequences ha3 pro- 
 ved the sum of my joys and the measure of my 
 grief. And here, with veneration, let it be said 
 that, unto God alone is known how much our char- 
 acter and condition, through a life of perhaps three 
 score years and ten, depend upon what in the out- 
 
210 BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 set we may regard as of the most trivial impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Who that has arrived to the ripe age of forty? 
 can look back upon his past life, deliberately re- 
 viewing some of those critical moments when as- 
 sailed by temptations and threatened by impend- 
 ing dangers, to which may be added the honest 
 though mortifying errors of an inexperienced judg- 
 ment ; and, while he trembles in the recollection 
 of the many narrow escapes with life, limb, and 
 unsullied reputation, — not be constrained to render 
 acknowledgments and thanksgivings to that divine 
 and ever watchful guardianship to which he is in- 
 debted for his protection? 
 
 Should my story run from one extreme to another 7 
 it will not be altogether my fault ; for my whole 
 life, from the cradle, till I was thirty years old, 
 has been distinguished by nothing more than by 
 the irregularities of my employments, the alter- 
 nate hopes and fears that were excited by the 
 diversity of passing realities, and the doubtful 
 complexion of every thing that sober sense could 
 anticipate in prospect. 
 
 I have already said something about a certain 
 kind of sympathy, a peculiar principle, the exer- 
 cise of which is called love. Nature implanted in 
 my soul a liberal share of this blessed passion. 
 Perhaps, however, I am wrong in naming the soul 
 
BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 213 
 
 as the location of this heavenly inspiration ; as, 
 for aught I know, its birthplace may be in the brain 
 or heart ; and then again, ten chances to one that 
 it circulates in the blood, from the toes to* the 
 finger's end, distributing its irresistible influence 
 into every part of the whole system. One thing 
 is certain, — whether called sympathy, affection, 
 sentiment or love, or whether it is located in one 
 place or another, — it is an active and powerful 
 agent, urging all to partake of the blessings it 
 was designed to impart. There is no philosophy 
 in love, it is true ; nor is it philosophy to deny its 
 power or to resist its claims. It is one of those 
 cases where submission is the " better part of 
 valor." Was I taught then, by such views, to 
 pass away thirty long, lonely, desponding years 
 in single wretchedness? or, was it because, like the 
 lawyer I have spoken of, I was so unskilful in 
 making love to the fair sex, that success never 
 crowned my efforts 1 Not so ; at least not wholly 
 so. Examples are not wanting to show, that a 
 man without house or home, without education 
 or manners, (an instance now occurring to my 
 mind in support of the assertion,) and even with- 
 out hands or feet, can, within the ordinary time of 
 business credit, (say 90 days after sight, and 
 grace added,) prevail upon somebody to accept 
 him for a husband, and that too without an in- 
 
214 BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 dorser ; but how long both, or either of the parties 
 will rejoice in the benefits resulting from the con- 
 tract, is more than I know. 
 
 To obtain a wife was one thing, to support her 
 is another part of the experiment ; besides, it 
 might be prudent to foresee wherewithal strangers 
 [should they in process of time chance to make a 
 complimentary call,) might be comfortably accom- 
 modated. 
 
 The truth is, I thought at the age of twenty- 
 five, that I possessed an ambition and a discrimi- 
 nation in relation to many things, the expense 
 attending which, by far exceeded my means and 
 my prospects ; and so far as this disproportion 
 between my will and my power was concerned, 
 my own case furnishes a picture, of which the 
 condition of thousands supplies an exact likeness. 
 
 It usually happens, I might safely say it always 
 happens, that when various laws or principles, 
 tending to opposite effects, are put in operation 
 and come in contact with each other, some dis- 
 turbance or commotion, if not a careful explosion, 
 takes place ; and tranquility cannot be restored, 
 until the adverse qualities of each shall have be- 
 come neutralized by the very effort that has been 
 made for an ascendency, or until the agent of 
 preponderating might shall have subued the weak- 
 er powers, and assumed a governing control over 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 215 
 
 the whole. I take this position to illustrate my 
 case. When I was old enough to attract the at- 
 attention of the girls, — yes, that will do, — I 
 did not fail in return to be by them enthralled 
 two for one, to pay for it. I then regarded con- 
 nubial bliss as the highest grade of human hap- 
 piness ; so I do now. But I then viewed the 
 matrimonial union as a sort of deed, or rather a 
 kind of bond and mortgage, by which permanent, 
 perpetual, and perfect happiness was secured; nor 
 was I more foolish in this delusive dream, than 
 thousands of others, who upon trial have found 
 their error. Was it strange that [ should sigh to 
 gain possession of such inestimable treasures? 
 and is it a subject of wonder, that intervening ob- 
 stacles which render such an attainment impracti- 
 cable, should cast a gloom over jny mind 1 Be- 
 sides, independently of the causes of which I have 
 been speaking, I was habitually thoughtful, distrust- 
 ful of my own capacity, and inclined to the belief 
 that fortune had no favors for me in store In my 
 general deportment, however, I was an example of 
 morality, industry, and temperance. I never in- 
 dulged in any of those excesses which prove the 
 final ruin of so many young men. Indeed, I sel. 
 dom took part even in those amusements which 
 are of a harmless character. I had neither incli- 
 nation nor opportunity for dancing, nor did I fre- 
 
216 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 quent evening parties. To be minute on this point, 
 I never danced a step in my life, and never shall, 
 although I think it an innocent amusement. I 
 never attended a theatre but once, and never at- 
 tended an evening party in my life. Neither did 
 I ever attend but one wedding, and that was when 
 I deserted the ranks of celebacy myself; and I am 
 not certain that I ever shall attend another, unless 
 (which I hope may not be the case,) I should be- 
 come a widower ; in which event I am resolved, 
 in honor to myself, and in testimony of my estima- 
 tion of female character and female influence, to 
 be present on another similar occasion, as soon as 
 a proper respect for the customs of society will 
 permit. 
 
 As a general rule, the man who has arrived at 
 a suitable age, having the means to support a fam- 
 ily, and can marry, but does not, cheats himself 
 most prodigiously. 
 
 It is true, that in negociating a marriage con- 
 tract, a man may be cheated in a still higher de- 
 gree ; for there is, as I have before said, no pJiilos. 
 ophy in matters of love, and I might add, but little 
 discretion ; but in three cases out of four, where 
 there is cause to regret the indissoluble union, it 
 is the fault of the husband, as I am inclined to be- 
 lieve, and not that of the wife. 
 
 With country boys, there is a formality connect- 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 217 
 
 ed with the business of courting, that would exceed 
 the fortitude of an experienced champion in gal- 
 lantry, taken from the higher and more fashionable 
 circles of life. It is a ceremony, too, that must 
 often be conducted under circumstances the most 
 awfully appalling. Let the reader suppose himself 
 a candidate for an adventure of this sort. Here, 
 then, are your instructions, suited to the condition 
 in which the inhabitants of a new country are to 
 be found. It is proper that I should mention, that 
 when I was ten years old, my father moved into 
 the State of New York, and located himself and 
 family in a region which was then comparatively 
 new. After having toiled six days of the week, 
 presuming the lass for whom you design to culti- 
 vate a friendship to have been as industrious as 
 yourself, and having passed the major part of the 
 seventh day in rest ; having too, perhaps, taken 
 two or three hours sleep, just by way of fortifica- 
 tion, you will commence your walk, say three 
 miles, across lots, (being careful not to tear your 
 Sunday pantaloons in climbing over the fences,) 
 or if you choose, four miles round by the road, to 
 the place you have in view. Upon arriving at the 
 house, you will knock with your knuckles against 
 the door, when you will hear a grum voice bid you 
 "come in." By this signal the dog will be roused 
 from his slumbers, and proceed, growling and bark-. 
 19 
 
21S BIOGRAPHY, 
 
 ing, to meet you as you enter the house. Every 
 voice will be raised to silence that of the saucy 
 dog, who after receiving two or three good hearty 
 kicks, and a well directed blow from the broom, 
 handle or tongs, will be driven under the bed out 
 of the way. Compliments, like certain kinds of 
 fish, vegetables, and fruits, are good only in the 
 season of them ; and hence the words come in meant 
 for you, and get out meant for the dog ; how do 
 you do, — take a chair, — and begone you cur, — will 
 be uttered in almost cne unbroken sentence with- 
 out punctuation. There will be no room, howev- 
 er, for mistake in construction, for the blow which 
 the dog receives from the broom-handle will inter- 
 pret the jargon to a demonstration ; so that you 
 may consider yourself respectfully received, not- 
 withstanding the words come in and get out are 
 uttered in such close and rapid connection. 
 
 By the time you are cleverly seated, you will be 
 asked if there is any news stirring in your neigh- 
 borhood : to which interrogation circumstances 
 will determine the snswer. Then your opinion of 
 the weather will be solicited, which of course you 
 will give, alluding to such indications as seem to 
 favor the judgment you have formed. You will 
 understand that the subject is introduced for talk's 
 sake solely ; and therefore the more you enlarge 
 upon it, the better. Whether your conjectures 
 
BIOGRAPHY. 219 
 
 should correspond with the event or not, is a mat- 
 ter of no importance at all ; for every word that 
 you say will be forgotten long before the rising of 
 the next sun. In the mean time, Miss ****** will 
 begin to suspect your errand. Indeed, the pre- 
 sumption is, that, by this time, she has made up 
 her mind whether she will permit you to stay with 
 her, or not ; and you have only to ask the question, 
 to ascertain your fate. 
 
 To be thoroughly, respectfully, scientifically and 
 affectionately stayed with, is to be kept up all night* 
 even until dawn of day. A visit from seven o'clock 
 to twelve, would be considered an odd and doubtful 
 courtship — a half-way, inefficient style — -a radical 
 error — a total lack of gallantry. By-the-by, the 
 house where you will visit, will be, by another 
 name, a log-cabin with but one room in it ; and it 
 will bs in this room that the other members of the 
 family will sleep ; and when their hour of bed-time 
 arrives, you will turn your face one way and your 
 back the other, as it is proper you should do, until 
 those who are too old or too young to be stayed 
 with, shall have stowed themselves away for the 
 night. 
 
 At the age of sixteen, or thereabouts, my first 
 essay at courting, was connected with facilities 
 such as the country afforded ; and which, if not 
 in exact accordance with the peculiarities that I 
 
220 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 have named, might have claimed the relationship 
 of second cousin to them at least. There is no 
 other incident connected with my whole life, that 
 furnishes to my mind a more decisive proof that 
 young persons are often governed in their actions 
 solely by motives of imitation, by a desire to do as 
 others do ; and there is not a trace of feeling now 
 left on my recollection, which enables me to ac- 
 count for this gallant enterprise, upon any other 
 principle. Hence, I do not hesitate to say that 
 my first attempt at courting and chewing tobacco, 
 originated in the same veritable cause. It now 
 affords me great pleasure to state, that I was alike 
 unsuccessful in both ; although by the event, at 
 the time, my pride was a little mortified on the one 
 hand, and my stomach made indescribably sick on 
 the other. My failure, however, was not one of 
 those desparate cases where no dividend remains 
 to silence the tongue of slander and reproach ; for 
 as Miss ****** intimated at the time, and as I sub- 
 sequently learned to be the fact, her ladyship had 
 antecedently bestowed her pledge of preference 
 upon another youth in that vicinity, who, as good 
 luck on my side would have it, did not happen to 
 make his appearance during my stay. 
 
 It is often said, that one-half the world are ig- 
 norant of the manner in which the other half live ; 
 and nothing can be more true. And I mention 
 
BIOGEAPHY. ' 221 
 
 this incident of my life, partly to remind those who 
 live in splendor, having every facility at command, 
 and possessing all the means that convenience or 
 even a polished refinement can require, how many 
 impediments, disadvantages, and obstables of every 
 sort, are to be encountered by the first settlers of 
 a new country — that to which I have made par- 
 ticular allusion, being one among many. And yet, 
 after all, you might make diligent search for a 
 month, and not meet with an individual, male or 
 female, who had arrived at the age of twenty-one, 
 that was not either married or engaged to be so. 
 
 Who can but be impressed with wonder and ad- 
 miration, in view of the readiness with wiiich the 
 human mind accommodates itself to surrounding 
 circumstances ! While the townsman may look 
 upon a country-life as a sort of banishment from 
 those embellishments that impart a grace to social 
 intercourse : on the other hand, the plain, unpol- 
 ished countryman could not be hired to endure the 
 tortures which city fashions inflict, nor the cere- 
 mhnies which high life imposes, for all the wealth 
 the world could produce. 
 
 A single page remains to receive the few words 
 that will close, for the present, the short account 
 I have been giving of myself. It is now eight 
 years since I first appeared before the public, as 
 author of a work which, I am thankful in saying. 
 19* 
 
222 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 has met with a reception as favorable as its circu- 
 lation has been extensive. I allude to " Preston's 
 Treatise on Book-Keeping" certified to be a plain, 
 practical, common sense production. Since that 
 work was first published, I have travelled through 
 twenty-two States, and visited nearly all of the 
 principal towns in the Union ; and were I to re- 
 count all the civilities that have been extended to 
 me, and the liberality with which the humble pro- 
 ductions of my pen have been patronized— these 
 manifestations of kindness from strangers too, an 
 entire volume might be required to contain the 
 narration. There is, nevertheless, nothing con- 
 nected with my avocation, when all its sides and 
 angles are justly estimated, that should excite an 
 envious thought or feeling in the mind of any one. 
 My calling is not the result of choice, but of ac- 
 cident. Continuing, however, to regard myself 
 as an atom floating upon the atmosphere of public 
 patronage, it shall be my earnest endeavor to merit 
 a . repetition of favors from the hands of those 
 whose past acts of generosity and politeness have 
 contributed so essentially to promote my pecuniary 
 success ; and which, with reference to personal 
 feelings, constitute so much of my happiness at 
 home and tranquillity abroad, 
 

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