The Puddleford Papers: or, Humors of the West

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Riley Henry Hiram. The Puddleford Papers: or, Humors of the West

PREFACE

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

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Many years have passed since Puddleford was first published. In the meanwhile the world has turned round and round, and so has Puddleford. The book, too, has been growing in size, from time to time, and some new "matter" has been now introduced.

The object of the book was not merely humor. It was hoped by the author that the reader would discover an undercurrent, showing strong points of human nature in the rough, and how at last the rugged rock becomes rounded and polished into the smooth stone – the iron cleaver turned into the tempered sword. How stern, honest men, who are driven to grapple and struggle with the hardships of a new country, meet and dispose of them in an irregular and home-made way, by striking at the root of the question, disregarding mere form. How the foundation of law, religion, and order is laid in strength, if not in beauty. How other generations build thereon the temple with its pillars and spire.

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"Hold on! hold on! you old reprobate! now I've got you! now you are mine!" exclaimed he. "You are up to the limit of the law! You cannot inflict only ten dollars in fines in any one case! Now stand and take it!"

And such a volley of oaths, cant phrases, humor, wrath, sarcasm, and fun, sometimes addressed to the Squire, sometimes to the audience, and sometimes to his client, never rolled out of any other man's mouth since the flood. He commenced with the history of the Squire, when, as he said, "he was a rafting lumber down on the Susquehanna;" and he followed him up from that time. "He could tell the reason why he came west, but wouldn't." He commented on his personal appearance, and his capacity for the office of justice. He told him "he hadn't only one eye, any way, and he couldn't be expected to see a great way into a mill-stone; and he didn't believe he had as many brains as an 'ister. For his part, he knew the law; he had ransacked every part of the statute, as a glutton would Noah's Ark for the remnant of an eel; he had digested it from Dan to Beersheba; swallowed everything but the title-page and cover, and would have swallowed that if he warn't mortal; he was a living, moving law himself; when he said 'law was law, 'twas law;' better 'peal anything up from predestination than from his opinion! he would follow this case to the backside of sundown for his rights!"

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