Holl farm,- -a cross of stripëd pig an' one o' Jacob's lambs; 'T wuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' enlarged edition, An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind; the' warn't no impersition. People 's impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be, An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' Hail Columby: Thet 's so: an' they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun men's Time is n't o' much more account than an ole settin' hen's; (They jest work semioccashnally, or else don't work at all, An' so their time an' 'tention both air at saci'ty's call.) Talk about hospatality! wut Nothun town d' ye know Would take a totle stranger up an' treat him gratis so? You'd better b'lieve ther''s nothin' like this spendin' days an' nights Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerlizin' whites. So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug, Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug. I did n't make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin', When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o' tar will leak in: I hev hearn tell o' winged words, but pint o' fact it tethers The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers, An' Choate ner Webster would n't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; They 'lowed it would n't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn some: The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, “I'll du wut's right, I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, An' give the nigger (when he 's caught), to pay him fer his trickin' In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',· It's jest the way with all on 'em, the inconsistent critters, They 're 'most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin' bitters; I'll be your frien' thru thick an' thin an' in all kines o' weathers, An' all you'll hev to pay fer's jest the waste o' tar an' feathers: A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon; It wuz her mite; we would ha' took another, ef ther 'd ben one: We don't make no charge for the ride an' all the other fixins. Le''s liquor; Gin'ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins." A meetin' then wuz called, where they RESOLVED, Thet we respec' B. S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' intellec' 66 An' doos gret honor to our race an' Southun institootions : (I give ye jest the substance o' the leadin' resolootions:) RESOLVED, Thet we revere in him a soger 'thout a flor, A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty an' lor: RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot 'longside o' us, For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't noways wuth a cuss." They gut up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o' thet; I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a leaky hat; Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at puttin' down their name, (When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jes' the same, Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to sign an' not to think A critter 'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for the chink: I did n't call but jest on one, an' he drawed tooth-pick on me, An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no sech dog-gauned econ❜my; So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' the good-will shown, Than ef't had ben from fust to last a regular Cotton Loan. It's a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense O'lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary red o''xpense: Sence then I've gut my name up for a gin'rous-hearted man By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this high-minded plan; I've gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort O' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't no poorer for 't. I warn't so bad off, arter all; I need n't hardly mention That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o' pension, I mean the poor, weak thing we hed: we run a new one now, Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta the nighes' bough, An' prectises the right o' man, purtects down-trodden debtors, Ner wun't hev creditors about ascrougin' o' their betters: Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, poscrip', fourteenth edition, He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition; Ourn 's the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou'doors for deepot; Yourn goes so slow you'd think 't wuz drawed by a las' cent'ry teapot;Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore our State seceded, An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds warn't jest the cheese I needed: Nut but wut they're ez good ez gold, but then it's hard a-breakin' on 'em, An' ignorant folks is ollers sot an' wun't git used to takin' on 'em; They're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em, An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, when ther''s a knife behind 'em; We du miss silver, jes' fer thet an' ridin' in a bus, Now we've shook off the desputs thet wuz suckin' at our pus; An' it's because the South's so rich; 't wuz natʼral to expec' Supplies o' change wuz jes' the things we should n't recollec'; We'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', though, o' thet good rule o' Crockett's, For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' niggers in your pockets, Ner 't ain't quite hendy to pass off one o' your six-foot Guineas An' git your halves an' quarters back in gals an' pickaninnies: Wal, 't ain't quite all a feller 'd ax, but then ther 's this to say, It's on'y jest among ourselves thet we expec' to pay; Our system would ha' caird us thru in any Bible cent❜ry, 'fore this onscripterl plan come up o' books by double entry; We go the patriarkle here out o' all sight an' hearin', For Jacob warn't a suckemstance to Jeff at financierin'; He never 'd thought o' borryin' from Esau like all nater An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to sech a small pertater; There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in❜my's, tu) to dooty! Wy, Jeff'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, An', stid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat it up an' owed it. But I wuz goin' on to say how I come here to dwall; 'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', I liked the place so wal, Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy 'em, By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' suckleatin' medium, Where a man's sunthin' coz he 's white, an' whiskey's cheap ez fleas, Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner 'd allow I 'd Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to meller a new cowhide. Miss S. is all 'f a lady; th' ain't no better on Big Boosy Ner one with more accomplishmunts 'twixt here an' Tuscaloosy; She's an F. F., the tallest kind, an' prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, An' never hed a relative thet done a stroke o' work; Hern ain't a scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez you git up Down East, Th' ain't a growed member on 't but owes his thousuns et the least: She is some old; but then agin ther' 's draw backs in my sheer: Wut's left o' me ain't more 'n enough to make a Brigadier: Wust is, thet she hez tantrums; she 's like Seth Moody's gun (Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an' Kerry One); He'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed to git her clear, So he onhitched, - Jeerusalem ! the middie o' last year Wuz right nex' door compared to where she kicked the critter tu (Though jest where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew); His brother Asaph picked her up an' tied her to a tree, An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half afore she 'd let it be: Wal, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an' pourinsout o' vials, But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' all on us hez trials. My objec', though, in writin' now warn't to allude to sech, But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech, I want thet you should grad'lly break my merriage to Jerushy, An' there's a heap of argymunts thet 's emple to indooce ye: Fust place, State's Prison, -wal, it 's true it warn't fer crime, o' course, But then it's jest the same fer her in gittin' a disvorce; Nex' place, my State 's secedin' out hez leg'lly lef' me free To merry any one I please, pervidin' it 's a she; Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she need n't hev no fear on 't, But then it's wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear on 't; Lastly, I've gut religion South, an' Rushy she's a pagan Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the gret Nothun Dagon; (Now I hain't seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treashry Loan, Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o' flown;) An' ef J wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' cultivation, To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation; For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' origenle patriarchs; To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you've gut to know is jes' beyund an evrage darky; Schoolin''s wut they can't seem to stan', they're tu consarned high-pressure, An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for bein' a Secesher. We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes; The min'ster's only settlement's the carpetbag he packs his Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an' his Bible, -- But they du preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib❜le! They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hosspower coleric ingine, An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he's used to singein'; Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the innards To hearin' on 'em put free grace t'a lot o' tough old sinhards! But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un ; I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun : I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in To Cynthy's hide : an' so, till death, BİRDOFREDUM SAWIN. No. II MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862. GENTLEMEN,I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the excellent essay upon "Old Age," the author of which I cannot help suspecting to be a young man who has never yet known what it was to have snow (canities morosa) upon his own roof. Dissolve frigus, large super foco ligna reponens, is a rule for the young, whose wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the best thing to keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this: that we attach a less inordinate value to our own productions, and, distrusting daily more and more our own wisdom (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment), do reconcile ourselves with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon Tinkham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the part of the publick (as I have reason to know from several letters of inquiry already received), but would also, as I think, have largely increased the circulation of your Magazine in this town. Nihil humani alienum, there is a curiosity about the affairs of our neighbors which is not only pardonable, but even commendable. But I shall abide a more fitting season. As touching the following literary effort of Esquire Biglow, much might be profitably said on the topick of Idyllick and Pastoral Poetry, and concerning the proper distinctions to be made between them, from Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to Collins, the latest authour I know of who has emulated the classicks in the latter style. But in the time of a Civil War worthy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, it may be reasonably doubted whether the publick, never too studious of serious instruction, might not consider other objects more deserving of present attention. Concerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow has adopted at my suggestion, it may not be improper to animadvert, that the name properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick in phrase (for, though the learned are not agreed as to the particular dialect employed by Theocritus, they are universanimous both as to its rusticity and its capacity of rising now and then to the level of more elevated sentiments and expressions), while it is also descriptive of real scenery and manners. Yet it must be admitted that the production now in question (which here and there bears perhaps too plainly the marks of my correcting hand) does partake of the nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the interlocutors therein are purely imaginary beings, and the whole is little better than καπνοῦ σκιᾶς ovap. The plot was, as I believe, suggested by the "Twa Briggs" of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the last century, as that found its prototype in the "Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey" by Fergusson, though the metre of this latter be different by a foot in each verse. Perhaps the Two Dogs of Cervantes gave the first hint. I reminded my talented young parishioner and friend that Concord Bridge had long since yielded to the edacious tooth of Time. But he answered me to this effect: that there was no greater mistake of an authour than to suppose the reader had no fancy of his own; that, if once that faculty was to be called into activity, it were better to be in for the whole sheep than the shoulder; and that he knew Concord like a book, an expression questionable in propriety, since there are few things with which he is not more familiar than with the printed page. In proof of what he affirmed, he showed me some verses which with others he had stricken out as too much delaying the action, but which I communicate in this place because they rightly define "punkinseed" (which Mr. Bartlett would have a kind of perch, a creature to which I have found a rod or pole not to be so easily equivalent in our inland waters as in the books of arithmetic), and because it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son of an excellent father, with whose acquaintance (eheu, fugaces anni!) I was formerly honoured. "But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they show, |