No. VIII The Preacher That Wandered From His Text
“I guess,” said the Clockmaker, “we know more of Nova Scotia than the Bluenoses themselves do. The Yankees see further ahead than most folks; they can e’enamost see round t’other side of a thing; indeed some of them have hurt their eyes by it, and sometimes I think that’s the reason such a sight of them wear spectacles. The first I ever heerd tell of Cumberland was from Mr. Everett of Congress; he know’d as much about it as if he had lived here all his days, and maybe a little grain more. He is a splendid man that—we class him No. 1, letter A. One night I chanced to go into General Peep’s tavern at Boston, and who should I see there but the great Mr. Everett, a-studying over a map of the Province of Nova Scotia. ‘Why it ain’t possible!’ said I; ‘if that ain’t Professor Everett, as I am alive! Why, how do you do, Professor?’ ‘Pretty well, I give you thanks,’ said he; ‘how be you? but I ain’t no longer Professor; I gin that up, and also the trade of preaching, and took to politics.’ ‘You don’t say so,’ said I; ‘why, what on airth is the cause o’ that?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘look here, Mr. Slick. What IS the use of reading the Proverbs of Solomon to our free and enlightened citizens, that are every mite and morsel as wise as he was? That ’ere man undertook to say there was nothing new under the sun. I guess he’d think he spoke a little too fast, if he was to see our steamboats, railroads, and India rubber shoes—three inventions worth more nor all he knew put in a heap together.’ ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said I, ‘but somehow or another, I guess you’d have found preaching the best speculation in the long run; them ’ere Unitarians pay better than Uncle Sam.’ (We call,” said the Clockmaker, “the American public Uncle Sam, as you call the British John Bull.)
“That remark seemed to grig him a little; he felt oneasy like, and walked twice across the room, fifty fathoms deep in thought; at last he said, ‘Which way are you from, Mr. Slick, this hitch?’ ‘Why,’ says I, ‘I’ve run away up South a-speculating in nutmegs.’ ‘I hope,’ says the Professor, ‘they were a good article, the real right down genuine thing.’ ‘No mistake,’ says I, ‘no mistake, Professor: they were all prime, first chop; but why did you ax that ’ere question?’ ‘Why,’ says he, ’that eternal scoundrel, that Captain John Allspice of Nahant, he used to trade to Charleston, and he carried a cargo once there of fifty barrels of nutmegs: well, he put half a bushel of good ones into each eend of the barrel, and the rest he filled up with wooden ones, so like the real thing, no soul could tell the difference until HE BIT ONE WITH HIS TEETH, and that he never thought of doing, until he was first BIT HIMSELF. Well, it’s been a standing joke with them southerners agin us ever since.
“‘It was only t’other day at Washington, that everlasting Virginny duellist, General Cuffy, afore a number of senators, at the President’s house, said to me, “Well Everett,” says he, “you know I was always dead agin your Tariff bill, but I have changed my mind since your able speech on it; I shall vote for it now.” “Give me your hand,” says I, “General Cuffy; the Boston folks will be dreadful glad when they hear your splendid talents are on our side. I think it will go now—we’ll carry it.” “Yes,” says he, “your factories down east beat all natur’; they go ahead on the English a long chalk.” You may depend I was glad to hear the New Englanders spoken of that way; I felt proud, I tell you. “And,” says he, “there’s one manufacture that might stump all Europe to produce the like.” “What’s that?” says I, looking as pleased all the time as a gal that’s tickled. “Why,” says he, “the ’facture of wooden nutmegs; that’s a cap sheef that bangs the bush—it’s a real Yankee patent invention.” With that all the gentlemen set up a laugh, you might have heerd away down to Sandy Hook, and the Gineral gig-gobbled like a great turkey-cock—the half nigger, half alligator-like looking villain as he is. I tell you what, Mr. Slick,’ said the Professor, ‘I wish with all my heart them ’ere damned nutmegs were in the bottom of the sea.’ That was the first oath I ever heerd him let slip: but he was dreadful riled, and it made me feel ugly too, for it’s awful to hear a minister swear; and the only match I know for it, is to hear a regular sneezer of a sinner quote Scripture. Says I, ‘Mr. Everett, that’s the fruit that politics bears; for my part I never seed a good graft on it yet, that bore anything good to eat, or easy to digest.’
“Well, he stood awhile looking down on the carpet, with his hands behind him, quite taken up a-ciphering in his head, and then he straightened himself up, and he put his hand upon his heart, just as he used to do in the pulpit (he looked pretty I tell you), and slowly lifting his hand off his breast, he said, ‘Mr. Slick, our tree of liberty was a beautiful tree—a splendid tree—it was a sight to look at; it was well fenced and well protected, and it grew so stately and so handsome, that strangers came from all parts of the globe to see it. They all allowed it was the most splendid thing in the world. Well, the mobs have broke in and tore down the fences, and snapped off the branches, and scattered all the leaves about, and it looks no better than a gallows tree. I am afeared,’ said he, ‘I tremble to think on it, but I am afeared our ways will no longer be ways of pleasantness, nor our paths, paths of peace; I am, indeed, I vow, Mr. Slick.’ He looked so streaked and so chop-fallen, that I felt kinder sorry for him; I actilly thought he’d a boo-hoo’d right out.
“So, to turn the conversation, says I, ‘Professor, what ’ere great map is that I seed you a-studyin’ over when I came in?’ Says he, ‘it’s a map of Nova Scotia. That,’ says he, ‘is a valuable province, a real clever province; we hain’t got the like on it, but it’s most plagily in our way.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘send for Sam Patch’ (that ’ere man was a great diver,” says the Clockmaker, “and the last dive he took was off the falls of Niagara, and he was never heerd of agin till t’other day, when Captain Enoch Wentworth, of the Susy Ann whaler saw him in the South Sea. ‘Why,’ says Captain Enoch to him, ‘why Sam,’ says he, ‘how on airth did you get here? I thought you was drowned at the Canadian lines.’ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I didn’t get ON airth here at all, but I came right slap THROUGH it. In that ’ere Niagara dive, I went so everlasting deep, I thought it was just as short to come up t’other side, so out I came in those parts. If I don’t take the shine off the Sea Serpent, when I get back to Boston, then my name’s not Sam Patch’.) ‘Well,’ says I, ‘Professor, send for Sam Patch, the diver, and let him dive down and stick a torpedo in the bottom of the Province and blow it up; or if that won’t do, send for some of our steam towboats from our great Eastern cities, and tow it out to sea; you know there’s nothing our folks can’t do, when they once fairly take hold on a thing in airnest.’
“Well, that made him laugh; he seemed to forget about the nutmegs, and says he, ‘That’s a bright scheme, but it won’t do; we shall want the Province some day, and I guess we’ll buy it of King William; they say he is over head and ears in debt, and owes nine hundred millions of pounds starling—we’ll buy it, as we did Florida. In the meantime we must have a canal from Bay Fundy to Bay Varte, right through Cumberland neck, by Shittyack, for our fishing vessels to go to Labradore.’ ‘I guess you must ax leave first,’ said I. ‘That’s jist what I was ciphering at,’ says he, ’when you came in. I believe we won’t ax them at all, but jist fall to and do it; IT’S A ROAD OF NEEDCESSITY. I once heard Chief Justice Marshall of Baltimore say; “If the people’s highway is dangerous, a man may take down a fence and pass through the fields as a way of NEEDCESSITY;” and we shall do it on that principle, as the way round by Isle Sable is dangerous. I wonder the Nova Scotians don’t do it for their own convenience.’ Said I, ‘it wouldn’t make a bad speculation that.’ ‘The critters don’t know no better,’ said he. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘the St. John’s folks, why don’t they? for they are pretty cute chaps them.’
“‘They remind me,’ says the Professor, ‘of Jim Billings. You knew Jim Billings, didn’t you, Mr. Slick?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said I, ‘I knew him. It was he that made such a talk by shipping blankets to the West Indies.’ ‘The same,’ says he. ‘Well, I went to see him the other day at Mrs. Lecain’s boarding-house, and says I, “Billings, you have a nice location here.” “A plaguy sight too nice,” said he. “Marm Lecain makes such an etarnal touss about her carpets, that I have to go along that everlasting long entry, and down both staircases, to the street door to spit; and it keeps all the gentlemen a-running with their mouths full all day. I had a real bout with a New Yorker this morning. I run down to the street door, and afore I seed anybody a-coming, I let go, and I vow if I didn’t let a chap have it all over his white waistcoat. Well, he makes a grab at me, and I shuts the door right to on his wrist, and hooks the door chain taught and leaves him there, and into Marm Lecain’s bedroom like a shot, and hides behind the curtain. Well, he roared like a bull, till black Lucretia, one of the house-helps, let him go, and they looked into all the gentlemen’s rooms and found nobody; so I got out of that ’ere scrape. So, what with Marm Lecain’s carpets in the house, and other folks’ waistcoats in the street, it’s too nice a location for me, I guess, so I shall up killock and off tomorrow to the TREE-mont.”
“‘Now,’ says the Professor, ‘the St. John’s folks are jist like Billings, fifty cents would have bought him a spit box, and saved him all them ’ere journeys to the street door—and a canal at Bay Varte would save the St. John’s folks a voyage all round Nova Scotia. Why, they can’t get at their own backside settlements, without a voyage most as long as one to Europe. If we had that ’ere neck of land in Cumberland, we’d have a ship canal there, and a town at each end of it as big as Portland. You may talk of Solomon,’ said the Professor, ‘but if Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like a lily of the field, neither was he in all his wisdom, equal in knowledge to a real free American citizen.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Professor, we are a most enlightened people, that’s sartain, but somehow I don’t like to hear you run down King Solomon neither; perhaps he warn’t quite so wise as Uncle Sam, but then,’ said I (drawing close to the Professor, and whispering in his ear, for fear any folks in the bar room might hear me), ‘but then, said I, may be he was every bit and grain as honest.’ Says he, ‘Mr. Slick, there are some folks who think a good deal and say but little, and they are wise folks; and there are others agin, who blart right out whatever comes uppermost, and I guess they are pretty considerable superfine darned fools.’
“And with that he turned right round, and sat down to his map and never said another word, lookin’ as mad as a hatter the whole blessed time.”