No. VII Go Ahead
When we resumed our conversation, the Clockmaker said, “I guess we are the greatest nation on the face of the airth, and the most enlightened too.”
This was rather too arrogant to pass unnoticed, and I was about replying, that whatever doubts there might be on that subject, there could be none whatever that they were the most modest, when he continued “we ‘go ahead’; the Nova Scotians ‘go astarn.’ Our ships go ahead of the ships of other folks, our steamboats beat the British in speed, and so do our stage coaches; and I reckon a real right down New York trotter might stump the univarse for going ahead. But since we introduced the railroads if we don’t go ahead it’s a pity. We never fairly knew what going the whole hog was till then; we actilly went ahead of ourselves, and that’s no easy matter I tell you. If they only had edication here, they might learn to do so too, but they don’t know nothin’.”
“You undervalue them,” said I; “they have their College and Academies, their grammar schools and primary institutions, and I believe there are few among them who cannot read and write.”
“I guess all that’s nothin’,” said he. “As for Latin and Greek, we don’t vally it a cent; we teach it, and so we do painting and music, because the English do, and we like to go ahead on ’em, even in them ’ere things. As for reading, it’s well enough for them that has nothing to do, and writing is plaguy apt to bring a man to states-prison, particularly if he writes his name so like another man as to have it mistaken for his’n. Cyphering is the thing—if a man knows how to cipher, he is sure to grow rich. We are a ‘calculating’ people, we all cipher.
“A horse that won’t go ahead, is apt to run back, and the more you whip him the faster he goes astarn. That’s jist the way with the Nova Scotians; they have been running back so fast lately, that they have tumbled over a bank or two, and nearly broke their necks; and now they’ve got up and shook themselves, they swear their dirty clothes and bloody noses are all owing to the banks. I guess if they won’t look ahead for the future, they’ll larn to look behind, and see if there’s a bank near hand ’em.
“A bear always goes down a tree starn foremost. He is a cunning critter; he knows ’tain’t safe to carry a heavy load over his head, and his rump is so heavy, he don’t like to trust it over his’n, for fear it might take a lurch, and carry him heels over head, to the ground; so he lets his starn down first, and his head arter. I wish the Bluenoses would find as good an excuse in their rumps for running backwards as he has. But the bear ‘ciphers;’ he knows how many pounds his hams weigh, and he ‘calculates’ if he carried them up in the air, they might be top heavy for him.
“If we had this Province we’d go to work and ‘cipher’ right off. Halifax is nothing without a river or back country; add nothing to nothing, and I guess you have nothing still—add a railroad to the Bay of Fundy, and how much do you git? That requires ciphering—it will cost three hundred thousand dollars or seventy-five thousand pounds your money—add for notions omitted in the addition column, one third, and it makes even money—one hundred thousand pounds. Interest at five per cent, five thousand pounds a year. Now turn over the slate and count up freight. I make it upwards of twenty-five thousand pounds a year. If I had you at the desk, I’d show you a bill of items.
“Now comes ‘subtraction’; deduct cost of engines, wear and tear, and expenses, and what not, and reduce it for shortness down to five thousand pounds a year, the amount of interest. What figures have you got now? You have an investment that pays interest, I guess, and if it don’t pay more then I don’t know chalk from cheese. But suppose it don’t, and that it only yields two and a half per cent (and it requires good ciphering, I tell you, to say how it would act with folks that like going astarn better than going ahead), what would them ’ere wise ones say then? Why the foolish critters would say it won’t pay; but I say the sum ain’t half stated. Can you count in your head?”
“Not to any extent,” said I.
“Well, that’s an etarnal pity,” said the Clockmaker, “for I should like to show you Yankee Cyphering. What is the entire real estate of Halifax worth, at a valeation?”
“I really cannot say.”
“Ah,” said he, “I see you don’t cipher, and Latin and Greek won’t do; them ’ere people had no railroad. Well, find out, and then only add ten per cent to it, for increased value, and if it don’t give the cost of a railroad, then my name is not Sam Slick. Well, the land between Halifax and Ardoise is worth—nothing; add five per cent to that, and send the sum to the College, and ax the students how much it comes to. But when you get into Hants County, I guess you have land worth coming all the way from Boston to see. His Royal Highness the King, I guess, hasn’t got the like in his dominions. Well, add fifteen per cent to all them ’ere lands that border on Windsor Basin, and five per cent to what ’buts on basin of Mines, and then, what do you get? A pretty considerable sum I tell you—but it’s no use to give you the CHALKS, if you can’t keep the TALLIES.
“Now we will lay down the schoolmaster’s assistant, and take up another book every bit and grain as good as that, although these folks affect to sneer at it—I mean human natur’.”
“Ah!” said I, “a knowledge of that was of great service to you, certainly, in the sale of your clock to the old Deacon; let us see how it will assist you now.”
“What does a clock want that’s run down?” said he.
“Undoubtedly to be wound up,” I replied.
“I guess you’ve hit it this time. The folks of Halifax have run down, and they’ll never go to all eternity, till they are wound up into motion; the works are all good, and it is plaguy well cased and set—it only wants a key. Put this railroad into operation, and the activity it will inspire into business, the new life it will give the place, will surprise you. It’s like lifting a child off his crawling, and putting him on his legs to run—see how the little critter goes ahead arter that. A kurnel (I don’t mean a Kurnel of militia, for we don’t vally that breed o’ cattle nothing—they do nothing but strut about and screech all day, like peacocks), but a kurnel of grain, when sowed, will stool into several shoots, and each shoot hear many kurnels, and will multiply itself thus—four times one is four, and four times twenty-five is one hundred (you see all natur’ ciphers, except the Bluenoses). Jist so, this ’ere railroad will not, perhaps, beget other railroads, but it will beget a spirit of enterprise, that will beget other useful improvements. It will enlarge the sphere and the means of trade, open new sources of traffic and supply—develop resources—and what is of more value perhaps than all—beget motion. It will stool out and bear abundantly; it will teach the folks that go astarn or stand stock still, like the statehouse in Boston (though they do say the foundation of that has moved a little this summer), not only to ‘go ahead,’ but to nullify time and space.”
Here his horse (who, feeling the animation of his master, had been restive of late) set off at a most prodigious rate of trotting. It was some time before he was reined up. When I overtook him, the Clockmaker said, “this old Yankee horse, you see, understands our word ’go ahead’ better nor these Bluenoses.”
“What is it,” he continued, “what is it that ‘fetters’ the heels of a young country, and hangs like ‘a poke’ around its neck? What retards the cultivation of its soil, and the improvement of its fisheries? The high price of labour, I guess. Well, what’s a railroad? The substitution of mechanical for human and animal labour, on a scale as grand as our great country. Labour is dear in America, and cheap in Europe. A railroad, therefore, is comparatively no manner of use to them, to what it is to us; it does wonders there, but it works miracles here. There it makes the old man younger, but here it makes a child a giant. To us it is river, bridge, road and canal, all in one. It saves what we hain’t got to spare, men, horses, carts, vessels, barges, and what’s all in all—time.
“Since the creation of the Universe, I guess it’s the greatest invention, arter man. Now this is what I call ‘ciphering’ arter human natur’, while figures are ciphering arter the ‘assistant.’ These two sorts of ciphering make edecation—and you may depend on’t, Squire, there is nothing like folks ciphering, if they want to ‘go ahead.’”