Читать книгу The Characteristics of American Humour - Various Authors - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Some ten or twelve years agone, one Summeval Dennis kept the “Union Hotel,” at the seat of Justice of the county of Tallapoosa. The house took its name from the complexion of the politics of its proprietor, he being a true-hearted Union man, and opposed, as I hope all my readers are, at all points, to the damnable heresy of nullification. In consequence of the candid exposition of his political sentiments upon his sign-board, mine host of the “Union” was liberally patronized by those who coincided with him in his views.

In those days, party spirit was, in that particular locality, exceedingly bitter and proscriptive; and had Summeval’s chickens been less tender, his eggs less impeachable, his coffee more sloppy, the “Union Hotel” would still have lost no guest, its keeper no dinners. But, as Dennis was wont to remark, “The Party relied on his honour, as an honest man, but more especially as an honest Union man, he was bound to give them the value of their money.”

Glorious fellow was Summeval! Capital landlady was his good wife, in all the plenitude of her embonpoint! Well-behaved children, too, were Summeval’s, from the shaggy and red-headed representative of paternal peculiarities, down to little Solomon of the sable locks, whose “favour” puzzled the neighbours, and set at defiance all known physiological principles. Good people, all, were the Dennises. May a hungry man never fall among worse!

Among the political friends who had for some years bestowed their patronage, semi-annually, during Court-week, upon the proprietor of the “Union,” was Captain Simon Suggs, whose deeds of valour and strategy are not known to the public. The Captain had “put up” with our friend Summeval, time and again; had puffed the “Union,” both “before the face and behind the back” of its owner, until it seemed a miniature of the microcosm that bears the name of Astor; and, in short, was so generally useful, accommodating, and polite, that nothing short of long-continued and oft-repeated failures to settle his bills, could have induced Summeval to consider Suggs in other light than as the best friend the “Union,” or any other house, ever had. But, alas! Captain Suggs had, from one occasion to another, upon excuses the most plausible, and with protestations the most profound, invariably left the fat larder and warm beds of the “Union,” without leaving behind the slightest pecuniary remuneration with Summeval.

For a long time, the patient inn-keeper bore the imposition with a patience that indicated some hope of eventual payment; but year in and year out, and the money did not come. Mrs. Dennis at length spoke out, and argued the necessity of a tavern-keeper’s collecting his dues, if he was disposed to do justice to himself and family.

“Suggs is a nice man in his talk,” she said; “nobody can fault him, as far as that is concerned; but smooth talk never paid for flour and bacon;” and so she recommended to her leaner half, that the next time, summary measures should be adopted to secure the amount in which the Captain was indebted to the “Union Hotel.”

Summeval determined that his wife’s advice should be strictly followed; for he had seen, time and again, that her suggestions had been the salvation of the establishment.

“Hadn’t she kept him from pitchin’ John Seagroves, neck and heels, out of the window for sayin’ that nullification warn’t treason, and John C. Calhoun warn’t as bad as Benedict Arnold. And hadn’t John been a good payin’ customer ever since? That was what he wanted to know.”

The next session of the Circuit Court after this prudent conclusion had been arrived at in Dennis’s mind—the Circuit Court with all its attractions of criminal trials, poker-playing lawyers, political caucases and possible monkey shows, found Captain Suggs snugly housed at the “Union.”

Time passed on swiftly for a week. The judge was a hearty liquor-loving fellow; and lent the Captain ten dollars “on sight.” The Wetumpka and Montgomery lawyers bled freely. In short, everything went bravely on for the Captain, until a man with small-pox pits and a faro-box came along. The Captain yielded to the temptation, yielded with a presentiment on his mind that he should be “slain.” The “tiger” was triumphant, and Suggs was left without a dollar!

As if to give intensity to his distress, on the morning after his losses at the faro-bank, the friendly Clerk of the Court hinted to Suggs, that the grand jury had found an indictment against him for gaming. Here was a dilemma! Not only out of funds, but obliged to decamp before the adjournment of the Court—obliged to lose all opportunity of redeeming his “fallen fortunes,” by further plucking the greenhorns in attendance.

“This here,” said Simon, “is an everlastin’ fix! a mile and a quarter square and fenced in all round. What’s a reasonable man to do? Ain’t I bin workin’ and strivin’ all for the best? Ain’t I done my duty? Cuss that mahogany box. I wish the man that invented it had had his head sawed off with a cross-cut, just afore he thought on’t. Now thar’s the sence in short cards. All’s fair, and cheat and cheat alike is the order; and the longest pole knocks down persimmon. But whar’s the reason in one of your darned boxes, full of springs and the like, and the better no advantages, except now and then when he kin kick up a squabble, and the dealer’s afeard of him.

“I’m for doin’ things on the square. What’s a man without his honour? Ef natur give me a gift to beat a feller at ‘old sledge,’ and the like, it’s all right! But whar’s the justice in a thing like farrer, that ain’t got but one side! It’s strange what a horrir I have for the cussed thing. No matter how I make an honest rise, I’m sure to ‘back it off’ at farrer. As my wife says, ‘farrer’s my besettin’ sin.’ It’s a weakness—a soft spot, it’s a—a—let me see!—it’s a way I’ve got of a runnin’ agin Providence. But hello! here’s Dennis.”

When the inn-keeper walked up, Captain Suggs remarked to him, that there was a “little paper out,” signed by Tom Garrett, in his official capacity, that was calculated to hurt feelins’, if he remained in town, and so he desired that his horse might be saddled and brought out.

Summeval replied to this by presenting to the Captain a slip of paper containing entries of many charges against Suggs, and in favour of the “Union Hotel.”

“All right,” said Suggs; “I’ll be over in a couple of weeks and settle.”

“Can’t wait; want money to buy provisions; account been standing two years, thirty-one dollars and fifty cents is money these days,” said Dennis, with unusual firmness.

“Confound your ugly face,” vociferated Suggs, “I’ll give you my note! that’s enough among gentlemen, I suppose?”

“Hardly,” returned the inn-keeper, “hardly; we want the cash; your note ain’t worth the trouble of writin’ it.”

“Dam you!” roared Suggs, “dam you for a biscuit-headed nullifier! I’ll give you a mortgage on the best half section of land in the county; south half of 13, 21, 29!”

“Captain Suggs,” said Dennis, drawing off his coat, “you’ve called me a nullifier, and that’s what I won’t stand from no man. Strip! and I’ll whip as much dog out of you as’ll make a full pack of hounds. You swindlin’ robber!”

This hostile demonstration alarmed the Captain, and he set in to soothe his angry landlord.

“Sum, old fel,” he said, in his most honeyed tones, “Sum, old fel! be easy. I’m not a fightin’ man—” and here Suggs drew himself up with dignity, “I’m not a fightin’ man except in the cause of my country! Thar I’m allers found! Come, old fellow—do you reckon ef you’d been a nullifier, I’d ever been ketched at your house? No, no! you ain’t no part of a nullifier, but you are rather hard down on your Union friends that allers puts up with you. Say, won’t you take the mortgage?—the land’s richly worth a thousand dollars, and let me have Old Bill.”

The heart of Dennis was melted at the appeal thus made. It was to his good-fellowship and his party feelings. So, putting on his coat, he remarked that he “rather thought he would take the mortgage. However,” he added, seeing Mrs. Dennis standing at the door of the tavern watching his proceedings, “he would see his wife about it.”

The Captain and Dennis approached the landlady and made known the state of the case.

“You see, Cousin Betsey,”—Suggs always cousined any lady whom he wished to cozen—“you see, Cousin Betsey, the fact is, I’m down just now, in the way of money, and you and Summeval bein’ afraid I’ll run away and never come back—”

“T’aint that I’m afraid of,” said Mrs. Dennis.

“What then?” asked Suggs.

“Of your comin’ back, eatin’ us out of house and home, and never payin’ nothin’!”

“Well,” said the Captain, slightly confused at the lady’s directness; “well, seein’ that’s the way the mule kicks, as I was sayin’, I proposed to Sum here, as long as him and you distrusts an old Union friend that’s stuck by your house like a tick even when the red-mouthed nullifiers swore you was feedin’ us soap-tails on bull-beef and blue collards—I say, as long as that’s the case, I propose to give you a mortgage on the south half of 21, 13, 29. It’s the best half section in county, and it’s worth forty times the amount of your bill.”

“It looks like that ought to do,” said Summeval, who was grateful to the Captain for defending his house against the slanders of the nullifiers; “and seein’ that Suggs has always patronized the Union and voted the whole ticket—”

“Never split in my life,” dropped in Suggs, with emphasis.

“I,” continued Dennis, “am for takin’ the mortgage, and lettin’ him take Old Bill and go; for I know it would be a satisfaction to the nullifiers to have him put in jail.”

“Yes,” quoth the Captain, sighing, “I’m about to be tuk up and made a martyr of on account of the Union; but I’ll die true to my prinsipples, see if I don’t.”

“They shan’t take you,” said Dennis, his long, lank form stiffening with energy as he spoke; “as long as they put it on that hook, hanged ef they shall. Give us the mortgage and slope!”

“You ain’t got no rights to that land; I jist know it, or you wouldn’t want to mortgage it for a tavern bill,” shouted Mrs. Dennis; “and I tell you and Summeval both, that Old Bill don’t go out of that stable till the money’s paid—mind, I say money—into my hand,” and here the good lady turned off and called Bob, the stable-boy, to bring her the stable key.

The Captain and Summeval looked at each other like two children school-boys. It was clear that no terms short of payment in money would satisfy Mrs. Dennis. Suggs saw that Dennis had become interested in his behalf; so acting upon the idea, he suggested:

“Dennis, suppose you loan me the money?”

“Egad, Suggs, I’ve been thinkin’ of that; but as I have only a fifty dollar bill, and my wife’s key bein’ turned on that, there’s no chance. Drott it, I’m sorry for you.”

“Well the Lord’ll purvide,” said Suggs.

As Captain Suggs could not get away that day, evidently, he arranged, through his friend Summeval, with the Clerk, not to issue a capias until the next afternoon. Having done this, he cast around for some way of raising the wind; but the fates were against him, and at eleven o’clock that night, he went to bed in a fit of the blues, that three pints of whiskey had failed to dissipate. An hour or two after the Captain had got between the sheets, and after every one else was asleep, he heard some one walk unsteadily, but still softly, up stairs. An occasional hiccup told that it was some fellow drunk; and this was confirmed by a heavy fall, which the unfortunate took as soon as, leaving the railing, he attempted to travel suis pedibus.

“Oh! good Lord!” groaned the fallen man; “who’d a thought it. Me, John P. Pullum, drunk and fallen down! I never was so before. This world’s a turnin’ over and over. Oh, Lord! Charley Stone got me into it. What will Sally say if she hears it? Oh, Lord!”

“That thar feller,” said the Captain to himself, “is the victim of vice. I wonder ef he’s got any money?” and the Captain continued his soliloquy inaudibly.

Poor Mr. Pullum, after much tumbling about, and sundry repetitions of his fall, at length contrived to get into bed, in a room adjoining that occupied by the Captain, and only separated from it by a thin partition.

“I’m very—very—oh, Lord!—drunk! Oh! me, is this John P. Pullum that—good Heavens! I’ll faint—married Sally Rugby, oh! oh!”

“Ah! I’m so weak!—wouldn’t have Sally—aw—owh—wha—oh, Lord!—to hear of it for a hundred dollars! She said when she agreed for me to sell the cotton, I’d be certain—oh, Lord! I believe I’ll die!”

The inebriate fell back on his bed, almost fainting, and Captain Suggs thought he’d try an experiment. Disguising his voice, with his mouth close to the partition, he said:

“You’re a liar! you didn’t marry Widow Rugby; your some thief tryin’ to pass off for something.”

“Who am I then, if I ain’t John P. Pullum, that married the widdow Sally Rugby, Tom Rugby’s widow, old Bill Stearns’s only daughter? Oh, Lord! ef it ain’t me, who is it? Where’s Charley Stone—can’t he tell if it’s John P. Pullum?”

“No, it ain’t you, you lyin’ swindler; you ain’t got a dollar in the world, and never married no sich widow,” said Suggs, still disguising his voice.

“I did—I’ll be hanged if I didn’t. I know it now; Sally Rugby with the red head, all of the boys said I married her for her money, but it’s a—oh, Lord I’m very ill.”

Mr. Pullum continued his maudlin talk, half asleep, half awake, for some time; and all the while Captain Suggs was analysing the man—conjecturing his precise circumstances, his family relations, the probable state of his purse, and the like.

“It’s a plain case,” he mused, “that the feller married a red-headed widow for her money—no man ever married sich for anything else. It’s plain agin, she’s got the property settled upon her, or fixed some way, for he talked about her ‘agreein’ for him to sell the cotton. I’ll bet he’s the new feller that’s dropped in down thar by Tallassee, that Charley Stone used to know. And I’ll bet he’s been down to Wetumpka to sell the cotton—got on a bust thar—and now’s on another here. He’s afeard of his wife too; leastways, his voice trembled like it, when he called her red-headed, Pullum! Pullum! Pullum!” Here Suggs studied. “That’s surely a Talbot county name—I’ll venture on it, anyhow.”

Having reached a conclusion, the Captain turned over in bed and composed himself for sleep.

At nine o’clock the next morning, the bar-room of the “Union” contained only Dennis and our friend the Captain. Breakfast was over, and the most of the temporary occupants of the tavern were in the public square. Captain Suggs was watching for Mr. Pullum, who had not yet come down to breakfast.

At length an uncertain step was heard on the stairway, and a young man, whose face showed indisputable evidence of a frolic on the previous night, descended. His eyes were bloodshot, and his expression was a mingled one of shame and fear. Captain Suggs walked up to him, as he entered the bar-room, gazed at his face earnestly, and slowly placing his hand on his shoulder, as slowly, and with a stern expression, said:

“Your—name—is—Pullum!”

“I know it is,” said the young man.

“Come this way then,” said Suggs, pulling his victim out into the street, and still gazing at him with the look of a stern but affectionate parent. Turning to Dennis as they went out, he said:

“Have a cup of coffee ready for this young man in fifteen minutes, and his horse by the time he’s done drinking it.”

Mr. Pullum looked confounded, but said nothing, and he and the Captain walked over to a vacant blacksmith’s shop across the street, where they could be free from observation.

“You’re from Wetumpka last,” remarked Suggs with severity, and as if his words charged a crime.

“What if I am?” replied Pullum, with an effort to appear bold.

“What’s cotton worth?” asked the Captain, with an almost imperceptible wink.

Pullum turned white and stammered out:

“Seven or eight cents.”

“Which will you tell your wife you sold yours—hers for?”

John P. turned blue in the face.

“What do you know about my wife?” he asked.

“Never mind about that. Was you in the habit of gettin’ drunk before you left Talbot county, Georgy?”

“I never lived in Talbot; I was born and raised in Hanis,” said Pullum, with something like triumph.

“Close to the line, though,” replied Suggs, confidently relying on the fact that there was a large family of Pullums in Talbot; “most of your connexions lived in Talbot.”

“Well, what of all that?” asked Pullum, with impatience; “what is it to you whar I come from, or whar my connexion lived?”

“Never mind—I’ll show you—no man that married Billy Stearns’s daughter can carry on in the way you’ve been doin’, without my interferin’ for the intrust of the family!”

Suggs said this with an earnestness, a sternness, that completely vanquished Pullum. He tremulously asked:

“How did you know that I married Stearns’s daughter?”

“That’s a fact ’most anybody could have known that was intimate with the family in old times. You’d better ask how I knowed that you tuk your wife’s cotton to Wetumpka—sold it—got on a spree—after Sally give you a caution too—and then came by here, got on another spree. What do you reckon Sally will say to you when you get home?”

“She won’t know it,” replied Pullum, “unless somebody tells her.”

“Somebody will tell her,” said Suggs, “I’m going home with you as soon as you’ve had breakfast. My poor Sally Rugby shall not be trampled on in this way. I’ve only got to borrow fifty dollars from some of the boys, to make out a couple of thousand. I need to make the last payment on my land. So go over and eat your breakfast quick.”

“For God’s sake, Sir, don’t tell Sally about it; you don’t know how unreasonable she is.”

Pullum was the incarnation of misery.

“The divil I don’t! she bit this piece out of my face,” here Suggs pointed to a scar on his cheek, “when I had her on my lap a little girl only five years old. She was always game.”

Pullum grew more nervous at this reference to his wife’s mettle.

“My dear Sir, I don’t even know your name.”

“Suggs, Sir—Captain Simon Suggs.”

“Well, my dear Captain, ef you’ll just let me off this time, I’ll lend you the fifty dollars.”

“You’ll—lend—me—the—fifty—dollars! Who asked you for your money, or rather Sally’s money?”

“I only thought,” replied the humble husband of Sally, “that it might be an accommodation. I meant no harm; I know Sally wouldn’t mind my lending it to an old friend of the family.”

“Well,” said Suggs, and here he mused, shutting his eyes, biting his lips, and talking very slowly, “ef I knowed you would do better.”

“I’ll swear I will,” said Pullum.

“No swearin’, Sir!” roared Suggs, with a dreadful frown; “no swearin’ in my presence!”

“No, Sir, I won’t any more.”

“Ef,” continued the Captain, “I knowed you’d do better—go right home,” (the Captain didn’t wish Pullum to stay where his stock of information might be increased); “and treat Sally like a wife all the rest of your days, I might, may be, borrow the fifty, (seein’ it’s Sally’s any way), and let you off this time.”

“Ef you will, Captain Suggs, I’ll never forget you; I’ll think of you all the days of my life.”

“I ginnarally makes my mark, so that I’m hard to forget,” said the Captain, truthfully. “Well, turn me over a fifty for a couple of months, and go home.”

Mr. Pullum handed the money to Suggs, who seemed to receive it reluctantly. He twisted the bill in his fingers, and remarked:

“I reckon I’d better not take this money; you won’t go home, and do as you said.”

“Yes, I will,” said Pullum; “yonder’s my horse at the door. I’ll start this minute.”

The Captain and Pullum returned to the tavern, where the latter swallowed his coffee and paid his bill.

As the young man mounted his horse, Suggs took him affectionately by the hand.

“John,” said he, “go home, give my love to cousin Sally, and kiss her for me. Try and do better, John, for the futur’; and ef you have any children, John, bring ’em up in the way of the Lord. Good-bye!”

Captain Suggs now paid his bill, and had a balance on hand. He immediately bestrode his faithful “Bill,” musing thus as he moved homeward:

“Every day I git more insight into things. It used to be, I couldn’t understand the manna in the wilderness, and the ravens feedin’ Elishy; now, it’s clear to my eyes. Trust in Providence—that’s the lick! Here was I in the wilderness, sorely oppressed, and mighty nigh despar, Pullum come to me, like a ‘raven,’ in my distress—and a fat one, at that! Well, as I’ve allers said, honesty and Providence will never fail to fetch a man out! Jist give me that for a hand, and I’ll ‘stand’ agin all creation?”