The Humors of Falconbridge Part 11

A-a-a-in't they Thick?

During the "great excitement" in Boston, relative to the fugitive slave "fizzle," a good-natured country gentleman, by the name of Abner Phipps; an humble artisan in the fas.h.i.+oning of buckets, wash-tubs and wooden-ware generally, from one of the remote towns of the good old Bay State, paid his annual visit to the metropolis of Yankee land. In the multifarious operations of his shop and business, Abner had but little time, and as little inclination, to keep the run of _latest news_, as set forth glaringly, every day, under the caption of _Telegraphic Dispatches_, in the papers; hence, it requires but a slight extension of the imagination to apprise you, "dear reader," that our friend Phipps was but meagerly "posted up" in what was going on in this great country, half of his time. I must do friend Phipps the favor to say, that he was not ignorant of the fact that "Old Hickory" fout well down to New Orleans, and that "Old Zack" flaxed the Mexicans clean out of their boots in Mexico; likewise that Millerism was a humbug, and money was pretty generally considered a cash article all over the universal world.

But what did Phipps know or care about the Fugitive Slave bill? Not a red cent's worth, no more than he did of the equitation of the earth, the Wilmot proviso, or Barnum's woolly horse--not a _red_. He came to Boston annually to see how things were a workin'; pleasure, not business. The very first morning of his arrival in town, the hue and cry of "slave hunters," was raised--Shadrack, the fugitive, was arrested at his vocation--table servant at Taft's eating establishment, Corn Hill, where Abner Phipps accidentally had stuck his boots under the mahogany, for the purpose of recuperating his somewhat exhausted inner-man. Abner saw the arrest, he was quietly discussing his _tapioca_, and if thinking at all, was merely calculating what the profits were, upon a two-and-sixpence dinner, at a Boston _restaurateur_. He saw there was a muss between the black waiter and two red-nosed white men, but as he did not know what it was all about, he didn't care; it was none of his business; and being a part of his religion, not to meddle with that that did not concern him, he continued his _tapioca_ to the bottom of his plate, then forked over the equivalent and stepped out.

As Phipps turned into Court square, it occurred, slightly, that the n.i.g.g.e.rs had got to be rather thick in Boston, to what they used to be; and bending his footsteps down Brattle street, once or twice it occurred to him that the n.i.g.g.e.rs _had_ got to be thick--darn'd thick, for they pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed him--walked before him and behind him, and in fact all around him.

"Yes," says Phipps, "the n.i.g.g.e.rs are thick, thundering thick--never saw 'em so thick in my life. _Ain't they thick?_" he soliloquized, and as he continued his stroll in the purlieus of "slightly soiled" garments, vulgarly known as second-hand shops, mostly proprietorized by very dignified and respectable _col'ud pussons_, it again struck Phipps quite forcibly that the n.i.g.g.e.rs were _a_ getting thick.

"G.o.dfree! but ain't they thick! I hope to be stabbed with a gridiron,"

said Phipps, "if there ain't more _n.i.g.g.e.rs_--look at 'em--more n.i.g.g.e.rs than would patch and grade the infernal regions eleven miles! Guess I've enough n.i.g.g.e.rs for a spell," continued Phipps, "so I'll just pop in here, and see how this feller sells his notions." And so Abner, having reached Dock square, saunters into a gun, pistol, bowie, jack-knife, dog-collar, shot-bag, and notion-shop in general. Unlucky step.

The stiff-d.i.c.kied, frizzle-headed, polished and perfumed shop-keeper was on hand, and particularly predisposed to sell the stranger something.

Just then a n.i.g.g.e.r pa.s.sed the door, and looked in very sharply at Phipps, and presently two more pa.s.sed, then a fourth and fifth, all _looking_ more or less pointedly at the manufacturer of wooden doin's, and white-pine fixin's.

"That's a neat _collar_," says the shop-keeper, as Phipps, sort of miscellaneously, placed his hand upon a bra.s.s-band, red-lined dog-collar.

"Collar! don't call that a _collar_, do you?"

"I do, sir, a beautiful collar, sir."

"What for, _solgers_?" asks Phipps.

"Soldiers, no, dogs," says the shop-keeper, puckering his mouth as though he had _sampled_ a lemon.

"_O!_" says Phipps, suddenly realizing the fact. "I ain't got no dogs; bad stock; don't pay; tax 'em up where I live; wouldn't pay tax for forty dogs." More n.i.g.g.e.rs pa.s.sed, repa.s.sed, and looked in at Phipps and the storekeeper.

"I say, ain't the n.i.g.g.e.rs got to be thick--infernal thick, in your town lately?"

"Well, I don't know that they are," replied the shop-keeper; "getting rather scarce, I think, since the Fugitive bill has been put in force over the country, sir, but it does appear to me," said the shop-keeper, twiging sundry and suspicious-looking col'ud gem'en pa.s.sing by his store, gaping in rather wistfully at the door, and peeping through the sash of the windows--"it does appear to me, that a good many colored persons are about this morning; yes, there is, why there goes more, more yet; bless me, there's another, two, three, four, why a dozen has just pa.s.sed; they seem to look in here rather curiously, I wonder--only look; what has stirred them up, I want to know!" the fluctuation of the _Congo_ market completely attracted the handsome man's attention; his surprise finally a.s.sumed the most tangible shape and complexion of fear, for the n.i.g.g.e.rs, one and all, looked savage as meat-axes, and began to get too numerous to mention.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What dat! got pistils in your pocket, eh?" says one of two big buck n.i.g.g.e.rs, shying up alongside of the new velocipeding up-country artisan. "What dat! got de hand-cuffs in he pocket!"--_Page_ 99.]

"Well, guess I'll be goin'," says Phipps, after fumbling over some of the shooting-irons, jack-knives, etc.; reaching the street, he was more fully impressed with the fixed fact, that the n.i.g.g.e.rs were all sorts of thick. They fairly crowded him; one buck darkey rubbed slap up against Phipps, as he moved out of the store. "Look here, Mister," says Phipps, "ain't all this street big enough for you without a crowdin' me?"

The n.i.g.g.e.r stopped, looked a.r.s.enic and chain lightning at Phipps, and then moved off, saying in a sort of undertone--

"Gorra, I guess you'll be crowded a wus'n dat afore dis day is ober."

"Will, eh?" responded Abner Phipps, slightly mystified as to the why and wherefore, that _he_ should, in particular, be "crowded," especially by an Ethiopic gentleman.

"I guess I _won't_ then," resumed Phipps; "if any body ventures to crowd me, just a purpose, I guess I'll be darn'd apt, and mighty quick to squash in their heads, or whoop'm on the spot."

"What dat? got pistils in your pocket, eh?" says one of the two big buck n.i.g.g.e.rs, shying up alongside of the now velocipeding up-country artisan.

Phipps looked back, the negroes were following him. "Pistils? who's talkin' about pistils, mister?" he ventured to ask.

"Dat's him, watch'm."

"Why, we see'd you goin' in dar, dat pistol shop; want to lay in a stock of dirks and pistils, eh?" says the negro.

"You--you got any hand-cuffs in you' pocket?" inquired another.

"What dat? got de hand-cuffs in he pocket?"

"Pistils and bowie knibes!" says a third.

"Dat's him! watch'm!"

"Knock'm down, put dat white hat ober his eyes! Hoo-r-r!"

The negroes now fairly beset our victimized friend Phipps; he stopped, b.u.t.toned his coat, the negroes augmented; glared at him like demons; he fixed his hat firmly upon his head; the negroes began to grin and move upon him; he spat upon his hands; the negroes began to yell, and to close in upon him; with one grand effort, one mighty gathering of all the human faculties called into action by fear and desperation, Phipps bounded like a Louisiana bull at a gate post; he knocked down two, _square_; kicked over four, and rus.h.i.+ng through the now very considerable and formidable array of ebony, he _broke_ equal to a wild turkey through a corn bottom, or a sharp knife through a pound of milky b.u.t.ter; and it is very questionable whether Phipps ever stopped running until his boots _busted_, or he reached his bucket factory on Taunton river. His negro deputation _waited on him_ with a rush clear outside of town, where the speed and bottom of Abner distanced the entire committee. The key to this joke is: Phipps was dogged from Tafts'--by the "vigilant committee," as an informer, or slave-hunter at least, and hence the delicate attentions of the col'ud pop'lation paid him. I have no doubt, that if Abner Phipps be asked, how things look around Boston, he would observe with some energy,

"n.i.g.g.e.rs--n.i.g.g.e.rs are thick--G.o.dfree! _a-a-a-in't they thick!_"

A Desperate Race.

Some years ago, I was one of a convivial party, that met in the princ.i.p.al hotel in the town of Columbus, Ohio, the seat of government of the Buckeye State.

It was a winter evening when all without was bleak and stormy, and all within were blythe and gay; when song and story made the circuit of the festive board, filling up the chasms of life with mirth and laughter.

We had met for the express purpose of making a night of it, and the pious intention was duly and most religiously carried out. The Legislature was in session in that town, and not a few of the worthy legislators were present upon this occasion.

One of these worthies I will name, as he not only took a big swath in the evening's entertainment, but he was a man _more_ generally known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley! whose "narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known, all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which being mostly told before and read by millions of people, that have ever seen his book, I will not attempt to repeat them.

Many were the stories and adventures told by the company, when it came to the turn of a well known gentleman who represented the Cincinnati district. As Mr. ---- is yet among the living, and perhaps not disposed to be the subject of joke or story, I do not feel at liberty to give his name. Mr. ---- was a slow believer of other men's adventures, and at the same time much disposed to magnify himself into a marvellous hero whenever the opportunity offered. As Captain Riley wound up one of his truthful, though really marvellous adventures, Mr. ---- coolly remarked, that the captain's story was all very _well_, but it did not begin to compare with an adventure that he had "once upon a time" on the Ohio, below the present city of Cincinnati.

"Let's have it!" "Let's have it!" resounded from all hands.

"Well, gentlemen," said the Senator, clearing his voice for action and knocking the ashes from his cigar against the arm of his chair.

"Gentlemen, I am not in the habit of spinning yarns of marvellous or fict.i.tious matters; and therefore it is scarcely necessary to affirm upon the responsibility of my reputation, gentlemen, that what I am about to tell you, I most solemnly proclaim to be truth, and--"

"Oh! never mind that, go on, Mr. ----," chimed the party.

"Well, gentlemen, in 18-- I came down the Ohio river, and settled at Losanti, now called Cincinnati. It was, at that time, but a little settlement of some twenty or thirty log and frame cabins, and where now stands the Broadway Hotel and blocks of stores and dwelling houses, was the cottage and corn patch of old Mr. ----, a tailor, who, by the by, bought that land for the making of a coat for one of the settlers. Well, I put up my cabin, with the aid of my neighbors, and put in a patch of corn and potatoes, about where the Fly Market now stands, and set about improving my lot, house, &c.

"Occasionally, I took up my rifle, and started off with my dog down the river, to look up a little deer, or _bar_ meat, then very plenty along the river. The blasted red skins were lurking about, and hovering around the settlement, and every once in a while picked off some of our neighbors, or stole our cattle or horses. I hated the red demons, and made no bones of peppering the blasted sarpents whenever I got a sight at them. In fact, the red rascals had a dread of me, and had laid a great many traps to get my scalp, but I wasn't to be catch'd napping.

No, no, gentlemen, I was too well up to 'em for that.

"Well, I started off one morning, pretty early, to take a hunt, and travelled a long way down the river, over the bottoms and hills, but couldn't find no _bar_ nor deer. About four o'clock in the afternoon, I made tracks for the settlement again. By and by, I sees a buck just ahead of me, walking leisurely down the river. I slipped up, with my faithful old dog close in my rear, to within clever shooting distance, and just as the buck stuck his nose in the drink, I drew a _bead_ upon his top-knot and over he tumbled, and splurged and bounded awhile, when I came up and relieved him by cutting his wizen--"

"Well, but what had that to do with an _adventure_?" said Riley.

"Hold on a bit, if you please, gentlemen--by Jove it had a great deal to do with it. For while I was busy skinning the hind quarters of the buck, and stowing away the kidney-fat in my hunting s.h.i.+rt, I heard a noise like the breaking of brush under a moccasin up 'the bottom.' My dog heard it and started up to reconnoitre, and I lost no time in reloading my rifle. I had hardly got my priming out before my dog raised a howl and broke through the brush towards me with his tail down, as he was not used to doing unless there were wolves, painters (panthers) or Injins about.