The Life of Bret Harte Part 25

Often, of course, the employment of an archaic expression confers upon the speaker that air of quaintness which the author wishes to convey.

Johnson's Old Woman, for example, "'Lowed she'd use a doctor, ef I'd fetch him." The verb to _use_, in this sense, may still be heard in some parts of New England as well as in the West. "I never use sugar in my tea" is a familiar example.

Many other words which Bret Harte's Pioneer people employ are still in service among old-fas.h.i.+oned country folk, although they have long since pa.s.sed out of literature, and are never heard in cities. Thus Salomy Jane was accused by her father of "honeyfoglin' with a hoss-thief"; and the blacksmith's small boy spoke of Louise Macy as "philanderin'" with Captain Greyson. These good old English words are still used in the West and South. In the same category is "'twixt" for between. d.i.c.k Spindler spoke of "this yer peace and good-will 'twixt man and man." "Far" in the sense of distant is another example: "The far barn near the boundary."

"Mannerly" in the sense of well-mannered has the authority of Shakspere and of Abner Nott in _A s.h.i.+p of '49_.

One of Bret Harte's Western girls speaks of hunting for the plant known as "Old Man" (southernwood), because she wanted it for "smellidge."

"Smellidge" has the appearance of being a good word, and it was formerly used in New England and the West, but it is excluded from modern dictionaries.

Some expressions which might be regarded as original with Bret Harte were really Pioneer terms of Western or Southern use. "Johnson's Old Woman,"

for "Johnson's wife" was the ordinary phrase in Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, and doubtless all over the West and South. Thus a Missouri farmer is quoted as saying: "My old woman is nineteen years old to-day." "You know fust-rate she's dead" is another quaint expression used by Bret Harte, but not invented by him, for this use of "fust-rate" in the sense of very well was not uncommon in the West. In the poem called _Jim_, there are two or three words which the casual reader might suppose to be inventions of the poet.

What makes you star', You over thar?

Can't a man drop 'S gla.s.s in yer shop But you must r'ar?

This use of r'ar or rear, meaning to become angry, to rave, was frequent in Arkansas and Indiana, if not elsewhere.

The next stanza runs:--

Dead!

Poor--little--Jim!

Why, thar was me, Jones, and Bob Lee, Harry and Ben,-- No-account men: Then to take _him_!

"No-account" in this sense was a common Western term; and so was "ornery,"

from ordinary, meaning inferior, which occurs in the next and final stanza.

When Richelieu Sharpe excused himself for wearing his best "pants" on the ground that his old ones had "fetched away in the laig," he was amply justified by the dialect of his place and time. So when little Johnny Medliker complained of the parson that "he hez been nigh onter pullin' off my arm," he used the current Illinois equivalent for "nearly." Mr. Hays'

direction to his daughter, "Ye kin put some things in my carpet-bag agin the time when the sled comes round," was also strictly in the vernacular.

No verbal error is more common than that of using superfluous prepositions. "To feed up the horses," for instance, may still be heard almost anywhere in rural New England. On the same principle, Mr. Saunders, in _The Transformation of Buckeye Camp_, ruefully admits that he and his companion were thrown out of the saloon, "with two shots into us, like hounds ez we were." This subst.i.tution of into for in, though common in the West, is probably now extinct in the Eastern States; but a purist, writing in the year 1814, quoted the following use as current at that time in New York: "I have the rheumatism into my knees."

A few words were taken by the Pioneers from the Spanish. "Savey," a corruption of _sabe_, was one of these, and Bret Harte employed it.

"Hedn't no savey, hed Briggs."

The wealth of dialect in Bret Harte's stories is not strange, considering that it was culled from Pioneers who represented every part of the country. But, it may be asked, how could there be such a thing as a California dialect:--all the Pioneers could not have learned to talk alike, coming as they did from every State in the Union! The answer is, first, that, in the main, the dialect of the different States was the same, being derived chiefly from the same source, that is, from England, directly or indirectly; and, secondly, the dialect of what we now call the Middle West--of Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois--tended to predominate on the Pacific Slope, because the Pioneers from that part of the country were in the majority. It is almost impossible to find a dialect word used in one Western State, and not in another.

There are, however, some Western, and more especially some Southern words which never became domiciled in New England. The word allow or 'low, in the sense of declare or state, is one of these, and Bret Harte often used it. "Then she _'lowed_ I'd better git up and git, and shet the door to.

Then I _'lowed_ she might tell me what was up--through the door."

And here is another example:--

"Rowley Meade--him ez hed his skelp pulled over his eyes at one stroke, foolin' with a she-bear over on Black Mountain--_allows_ it would be rather monotonous in him attemptin' any familiarities with her."

("Rowley Meade," by the way, is an example of Bret Harte's felicity in the choice of names. No common fate could be reserved for one bearing a name like that.)

Lowell employs the word allow in its corrupted sense in the "Biglow Papers"; but he adds in a footnote that it was a use not of New England, but of the Southern and Middle States; and to prove the antiquity of the corruption he cites an instance of it in Hakluyt under the date of 1558.

"Cahoots" is another example. When the warlike Jim Hooker said to Clarence, "Young fel, you and me are cahoots in this thing," he was using a common Western expression derived remotely from the old English word cahoot, signifying a company or partners.h.i.+p, but not known, it is believed, in New England.

"When we rose the hill," "put to" (_i. e._ harness) the horse, "cavortin'

round here in the dew," and "What yer yawpin' at ther'?" are found in almost every State, East or West. But "I ain't kicked a fut sens I left Mizzouri" is a Southern expression. "Blue mange" for _blanc mange_ is probably original with Bret Harte.

One of Bret Harte's most effective dialect words is "gait" in the sense of habit, or manner. "He never sat down to a square meal but what he said, 'If old Uncle Quince was only here now, boys, I'd die happy.' I leave it to you, gentlemen, if that wasn't Jackson Wells's gait all the time." And Rupert Filgee, impatient at Uncle Ben Dabney's destructive use of pens, exclaimed, "Look here, what you want ain't a pen, but a clothes-pin and split nail! That'll about jibe with your dilikit gait."

"Gait" is a very old term in thieves' lingo, meaning occupation or calling, from which the transition to "habit" is easy; and it is interesting to observe that in one place Bret Harte uses the word in a sense which is about half-way between the two meanings. Thus, when Mr.

McKinstry was severely wounded in the duel, he apologized for requesting the attendance of a physician by saying, "I don't gin'rally use a doctor, but this yer is suthin' outside the old woman's regular gait." Bret Harte's adoption of the word as a Pioneer expression is confirmed by Richard Malcolm Johnston, the recognized authority on Georgia dialect, for he makes one of his characters say:--

"After she got married, seem like he got more and more restless and fidgety in his mind, and in his gaits in general."

The ridiculous charge has been made that Bret Harte's dialect is not Californian or even American, but is simply c.o.c.kney English. The only reason ever given for this statement is that Bret Harte uses the word "which" in its c.o.c.kney sense, and that this use was never known in America.

Which I wish to remark, And my language is plain,

is the most familiar instance, and others might be cited. Thus, in _Mr.

Thompson's Prodigal_ we have this dialogue between the father of the prodigal and a grave-digger:--

"'Did you ever in your profession come across Char-les Thompson?'

"'Thompson be d.a.m.ned,' said the grave-digger, with great directness.

"'Which, if he hadn't religion, I think he is,' responded the old man."

This use of "which" is indeed now identified with the London c.o.c.kney, but it may still be heard in the eastern counties of England, whence, no doubt, it was imported to this country. Though far from common in the United States, it is used, according to the authorities cited below, in the mountainous parts of Virginia,[110] in West Virginia,[111] in the mountain regions of Kentucky,[112] especially in Eastern Kentucky,[113]

and in the western part of Arkansas.[114]

Professor Edward A. Allen of the University of Missouri says that this use of "which" is "not Southern, but Western."

Moreover, upon this point also we can cite the authority of Richard Malcolm Johnston, for the c.o.c.kney use of "which" frequently occurs in his tales of Middle Georgia; as, for instance, in these sentences:--

"And which I wouldn't have done that nohow in the world ef it could be hendered."

"Which a man like you that's got no wife."

"Howbeever, as your wife is Nancy Lary, which that she's the own dear sister o' my wife."

"And which I haven't a single jubous doubt that, soon as the breath got out o' her body, she went to mansion _in_ the sky same as a bow-'n'-arrer, or even a rifle-bullet."

Another authority on this point is the well-known writer of stories, Alfred Henry Lewis, a native of Arkansas. In his tales we find these expressions:--

"Which his baptismal name is Lafe."

"Which if these is your manners."

"Which, undoubted, the barkeeps is the hardest-worked folks in camp."

"Which it is some late for night before last, but it's jest the shank of the evening for to-night."

No writer ever knew Virginia better than did the late George W. Bagby, and he attributes the c.o.c.kney "which" to a backwoodsman from Charlotte County in that State. "And what is this part of the country called? Has it any particular name?"

"To be sho. Right here is Brilses, _which_ it is a presink; but this here ridge ar' called 'Verjunce Ridge.'"