To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way. "T wor n't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin makin', One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin', One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes, Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes. But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed, Thet's an investment, arter all, thet may n't turn out so bad; But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks; The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on, We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on; its Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits; Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one, You would n't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; We git the licks, we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers; Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the It coppers. may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't, An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't; But glory is a kin' o' thing I shan't pursue no furder, Coz thet's the off'cers parquisite, - yourn's on'y jest the murder. Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' thet 's the GLORIOUS FUN; Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we like 'em; We never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever I come Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it seemed a cent'ry) A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry, An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses, A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted; They say the quarrel's settled now; fer my part I've some doubt on 't, 'T'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean out on 't; At any rate, I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin', (I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies; Fer ez to runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day, You know thet's wut I never did, except the other way;) Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run, Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to go for? Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG! Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT! Thet kin' o'talk I guess you'll find 'll answer to a charm, An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm; Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look An' tell 'em thet's percisely wut I never gin nor - took! Then you can call me "Timbertoes," - thet's wut 'the people likes; Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes; Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please, I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees; "Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold on, There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on; It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy; blind; Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em, Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM; Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses, An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes. There's one thing I'm in doubt about; in order to be It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt; Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller. Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes, Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes), But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe, You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby, An' then, to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say They hate an' cuss the very thing they vote fer every day, Say you're assured I go full butt fer Liberty's diffusion An' made the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion; But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'! I'll be more 'xplicit in my next. Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. [We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balancesheet stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result: B. SAWIN, Esq., in account with (BLANK) Glory. Dr. one suit of gray clothes (ingeniously unbecoming),. 15 "musical entertainments (drum and fife six months), one dinner after return, "chance of pension, 66 . privilege of drawing long- 511 23 == છુ 100 E. E. It would appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune. Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames? The speculation has sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous? In the sylva of our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my attention to the chinatree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list the birchtree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, therefore, be classed among the trees producing neces saries of life,-venerabile donum fatalis virgæ. That money-trees existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on every bush, imply a fortiori that there were certain bushes which did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and, indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth Æneid have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable (too) foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was sold, and that, too, on credit and at a bargain, I take to be matter of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that Eolus who supplied Ulysses with motive power for his fleet in bags? What that Ericus, king of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? What, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day, raising the wind is proverbial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later period. And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archæological theories, as I was passing, hæc negotia penitus mecum revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a sign-board, -CHEAP CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations, and the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruitingoffice window, or speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning in raising up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of the Jaalam meeting-house, a gift |