No. XIV Sayings and Doings in Cumberland
“I reckon,” said the Clockmaker, as we strolled through Amherst, “you have read Hook’s story of the boy that one day asked one of his father’s guests who his next door neighbour was, and when he heerd his name, asked him if he warn’t a fool. ‘No, my little feller,’ said he, ‘he bean’t a fool, he is a most particular sensible man; but why did you ax that ’ere question?’ ‘Why,’ said the little boy, ‘mother said t’other day you were next door to a fool, and I wanted to know who lived next door to you.’ His mother felt pretty ugly, I guess, when she heerd him run right slap on that ’ere breaker.
“Now these Cumberland folks have curious next door neighbours, too; they are placed by their location right atwixt fire and water; they have New Brunswick politics on one side, and Nova Scotia politics on t’other side of them, and Bay Fundy and Bay Varte on t’other two sides; they are actilly in hot water; they are up to their cruppers in politics, and great hands for talking of House of Assembly, political Unions, and what not. Like all folks who wade so deep, they can’t always tell the natur’ of the ford. Sometimes they strike their shins agin a snag of a rock; at other times they go whap into a quicksand, and if they don’t take special care they are apt to go souse over head and ears into deep water. I guess if they’d talk more of ROTATION, and less of ELECTIONS, more of them ’ere DYKES, and less of BANKS, and attend more to TOP-DRESSING, and less to RE-DRESSING, it’d be better for ’em.”
“Now you mention the subject, I think I have observed,” said I, “that there is a great change in your countrymen in that respect. Formerly, whenever you met an American, you had a dish of politics set before you, whether you had an appetite for it or not; but lately I have remarked they seldom allude to it. Pray to what is this attributable?”
“I guess,” said he, “they have enough of it to home, and are sick of the subject. They are cured the way our pastry cooks cure their ‘prentices of stealing sweet notions out of their shops. When they get a new ’prentice they tell him he must never so much as look at all them ’ere nice things; and if he dares to lay the weight of his finger upon one on ’em, they’ll have him up for it before a justice; they tell him it’s every bit and grain as bad as stealing from a till. Well, that’s sure to set him at it, just as a high fence does a breachy ox, first to look over it, and then to push it down with its rump; it’s human natur’. Well, the boy eats and eats till he can’t eat no longer, and then he gets sick at his stomach, and hates the very sight of sweetmeats arterwards.
“We’ve had politics with us, till we’re dog sick of ’em, I tell you. Besides, I guess we are as far from perfection as when we set out a-rowin’ for it. You may get purity of Election, but how are you to get purity of Members? It would take a great deal of ciphering to tell that. I never seed it yet, and never heerd tell of one who had seed it.
“The best member I e’enamost ever seed was John Adams. Well, John Adams could no more plough a straight furrow in politics than he could haul the plough himself. He might set out straight at beginnin’ for a little way, but he was sure to get crooked afore he got to the eend of the ridge—and sometimes he would have two or three crooks in it. I used to say to him, ‘How on airth is it, Mr. Adams’—for he was no way proud like, though he was president of our great nation, and it is allowed to be the greatest nation in the world, too; for you might see him sometimes of an arternoon, a-swimmin’ along with the boys in the Potomac; I do believe that’s the way he larned to give the folks the dodge so spry—well, I used to say to him, ‘How on airth is it, Mr. Adams, you can’t make straight work on it?’ He was a grand hand at an excuse, though minister used to say that folks that were good at an excuse, were seldom good for nothin’ else; sometimes he said the ground was so tarnation stony, it throwed the plough out; at other times he said the off ox was such an ugly wilful-tempered critter, there was no doin’ nothin’ with him; or that there was so much machinery about the plough, it made it plagy hard to steer; or maybe it was the fault of them that went afore him, that they laid it down so bad; unless he was hired for another term of four years, the work wouldn’t look well; and if all them ’ere excuses wouldn’t do, why he would take to scolding the nigger that drove the team, throw all the blame on him, and order him to have an everlastin’ lacin’ with the cowskin. You might as well catch a weasel asleep as catch him. He had somethin’ the matter with one eye; well, he knew I know’d that when I was a boy; so one day, a feller presented a petition to him, and he told him it was very affectin’. Says he, ‘it fairly draws tears from me,’ and his weak eye took to lettin’ off its water like statiee so as soon as the chap went, he winks to me with t’other one, quite knowin’, as much as to say, ‘You see it’s all in my eye, Slick, but don’t let on to any one about it, that I said so.’ That eye was a regular cheat, a complete New England wooden nutmeg. Folks said Mr. Adams was a very tender-hearted man. Perhaps he was, but I guess that eye didn’t pump its water out o’ that place.
“Members in general ain’t to be depended on, I tell you. Politics makes a man as crooked as a pack does a peddler; not that they are so awful heavy, neither, but it TEACHES A MAN TO STOOP IN THE LONG RUN. Arter all, there’s not that difference in ’em—at least there ain’t in Congress—one would think; for if one on ’em is clear of one vice, why, as like as not, he has another fault just as bad. An honest farmer, like one of these Cumberland folks, when he goes to choose atwixt two that offers for votes, is jist like the flying-fish. That ’ere little critter is not content to stay to home in the water, and mind its business, but he must try his hand at flyin’, and he is no great dab at flyin’, neither. Well, the moment he’s out of water, and takes to flyin’, the sea fowl are arter him, and let him have it; and if he has the good luck to escape them, and makes a dive into the sea, the dolphin, as like as not, has a dig at him, that knocks more wind out of him than he got while aping the birds, a plagy sight. I guess the Bluenose knows jist about as much about politics as this foolish fish knows about flyin’. All the critters in natur’ are better in their own element.
“It beats cock-fightin’, I tell you, to hear the Bluenoses, when they get together, talk politics. They have got three or four evil spirits, like the Irish Banshees, that they say cause all the mischief in the province: the council, the banks, the house of assembly and the lawyers. If a man places a higher valiation on himself than his neighbours do, and wants to be a magistrate before he is fit to carry the ink horn for one, and finds himself safely delivered of a mistake, he says it is all owing to the Council. The members are cunnin’ critters, too; they know this feelin’, and when they come home from Assembly, and people ax ’em, ‘where are all them ’ere fine things you promised us?’ ‘Why,’ they say, ‘we’d a had ’em all for you, but for that etarnal Council, they nullified all we did.’ The country will come to no good till them chaps show their respect for it, by covering their bottoms with homespun. If a man is so tarnation lazy he won’t work, and in course has no money, why he says it’s all owin’ to the banks, they won’t discount, there’s no money, they’ve ruined the Province. If there bean’t a road made up to every citizen’s door, away back to the woods—who as like as not has squatted there—why he says the House of Assembly have voted all the money to pay great men’s salaries, and there’s nothin’ left for poor settlers, and cross roads. Well, the lawyers come in for their share of cake and ale, too; if they don’t catch it, it’s a pity.
“There was one Jim Munroe of Onion County, Connecticut, a desperate idle fellow, a great hand at singin’ songs, a-skatin’, drivin’ about with the gals, and so on. Well, if anybody’s windows were broke, it was Jim Munroe, if any man’s horse lost a tail, or anybody’s dog got a kettle tied on to his’n, it was Jim Munroe, and if there were any youngsters in want of a father, they were sure to be poor Jim’s. Jist so it is with the lawyers here; they stand Godfathers for every misfortune that happens in the country. When there is a mad dog a-goin’ about, every dog that barks is said to be bit by the mad one, so he gets credit for all the mischief that every dog does for three months to come. So every feller that goes yelpin’ home from a court house, smartin’ from the law, swears he is bit by a lawyer. Now there may be something wrong in all these things—and it can’t be otherwise in natur’—in council, banks, house of assembly, and lawyers: but change them all, and it’s an even chance if you don’t get worse ones in their room. It is in politics as in horses; when a man has a beast that’s near about up to the notch, he’d better not swap him; if he does, he’s e’enamost sure to get one not so good as his own. My rule is, I’d rather keep a critter whose faults I do know, than change him for a beast whose faults I don’t know.”