Part 11

While stopping there, I noticed they were engaged in the pleasurable task of firing a salute of twenty-one guns, in commemoration of Bunker Hill. They were having a busy time of it, for while the wooden-legged corporal was loading and discharging the cannon, the private was forwarding the ammunition from the magazine—about a quarter of a mile distant—in a wheelbarrow. “If soldiers will do this in time of peace,” I said to myself, “what would they not accomplish in time of war?” and I walked away from the spot, congratulating myself for having invested in Government bonds.

The town, in all likelihood, would never have been heard of outside of the State of California, had it not been for the brave “Benicia Boy.” Here it was that he swung the blacksmith’s heavy sledge, and practiced the first rudiments of the pugilistic profession, which subsequently gained him his world-wide notoriety.

Many of the citizens are yet pointed out to the visitor as parties who at some period of their life served as a sand bag on which the muscular “Boy” hardened his knuckles.

As I gazed upon the scattered village,—for it is no more,—I mused, how a man should come forth from such a paltry place to “awe” the world. For as Goliath challenged the hosts of Israel, so came the brave “Benicia Boy” and dared creation’s millions.

And as the youthful shepherd, afterwards king, rose up and smote the overweening giant with a stone, till all his brain oozed forth, so from Albion’s Isle a youthful “King,” smote the western champion in the midriff with his mawley, and all his wind gushed out!

After searching some time to discover the blacksmith shop where the pugilist used to work, I learned that it was long since torn down and a church now occupied the site. But an old gentleman who kept a small boarding house, conducted me to an ancient pump, at which he said the “Boy” on several occasions bathed his nose after having a bout with some person who didn’t let him have things all his own way, and there I wept my tears of tribute.

A large iron-bound boot-jack, set in a glass case, was shown to me by a saloon-keeper. He assured me, with this weapon the “Boy” had killed several cats belonging to the neighbors which had disturbed his slumbers. This boot-jack had also caused the death of a mule, for on one occasion the pugilist hurled it with such violence at a cat that was scampering across the roof of a shed that the heavy missile went through the boards. A farmer’s mule that was standing inside received the weapon behind the ear, and immediately went to gravel as though he had been felled with a sledge-hammer. The farmer instituted a suit against the “Boy” to recover damages, but the friends of the pugilist made up a purse to satisfy the demand of the farmer, and the matter was hushed.

I was also shown a jagged hole in a high board fence, which, it is said, the “Boy” made one night while going home from a neighboring saloon.

It seems he had some trouble with a companion before leaving the saloon, and seeing his shadow dogging his steps, mistook it for the substance of his late antagonist; very naturally presuming that his intentions were anything but friendly, he turned hastily around and dissipated the obnoxious shadow by knocking it about fifteen feet into the garden.

The fence rattled and shook around the whole lot under the terrible blow. He made a hole in the boards through which a large goat could readily jump without sacrificing any of its hair by the performance, and permanently injured a good-sized pear tree that stood inside the enclosure, about three feet distant. The concussion was terrible. A couple of turkeys that happened to be roosting in the tree at the time dropped from their limb as though shot through the head with a needle-gun. Never afterwards could they be induced to roost upon anything further from the ground than the cross-bar of a saw-horse or the handles of a wheelbarrow.

No doubt the town at one time had great expectations, as it formerly was the capital of the State. It is now a capital joke to see a person undertaking to walk through the town in the winter season, without faith strong enough or feet broad enough to support him upon the surface of the oceans of mud he will find himself gazing wistfully across.

On my way down a man was pointed out to me on the boat who is said to be the meanest man in his county. My informant assured me that when the mean individual’s wife died last year, he borrowed a pair of forceps from the dentist at Benicia, and extracted all her gold-filled teeth. And on the morning prior to her funeral he sat upon the door-step, hammer in hand, with a flat-iron upon his knees, cracking the teeth like English walnuts, and with a sewing awl extracting the filling from the cavities.

During my journey I didn’t cultivate that man’s acquaintance. He is a person to stand away from, especially when clouds are charged with electricity.

TOO MUCH OF INDIAN.

Take away the dish; I have had my fill of Modoc; have had buck for breakfast, squaw for dinner, and papoose for supper, until at the very name of Indian my appetite forsakes me.

The appellations that for a season fell upon my ears, like a new poem from the lips of some sweet bard, have poetry for me no longer. The names, “Captain Jack,” “Scarfaced Charlie,” “Shacknasty Jim,” “Rain-in-the-face,” “Old-man-afraid-of-his-horse,” “Sitting Bull,” or “Ellen’s Man,” have lost their charm. They have become dull and uninteresting, and I would hear them no more forever. I have been duped, deceived, defrauded, on account of these rascally Indians.

I have gazed in silent awe upon what I supposed to be the scalp of no less a personage than “Old Sconchin,” and it now transpires that the redoubtable old chief turns up among the Indians recently captured.

Oh! Oh! how this world is given to lying!

I have journeyed long and far, by water and by rail, on horseback and on foot, and purchased at an extravagant price an Indian’s scalp which the seller under oath, with lifted hand, assured me was the veritable crown lock of that same “Old Sconchin.”

With tears coursing down his sunburned cheeks he informed me, that with his own eyes, in the full light of day, he saw it plucked smoking from the sconce of the expiring brave.

I have consequently braided watch chains of the hair, fashioned a money purse of the skin, and then withdrawn into a private apartment to shed bitter tears of sorrow, because the material didn’t quite hold out to make a tobacco pouch. And now the distressing intelligence reaches me that the renowned “Old Sconchin” stands manacled in the camp of his foemen, with an unscarified top and as luxuriant hair as ever drew nourishment from an Indian head.

Oh! where shall we turn, or where shall we look for honesty, since it is not found in the breast of the Indian scalp peddler?

GOING UP THE SPOUT.

Rats and mice, like ourselves, often labor at a great disadvantage while endeavoring to make a livelihood. They often make a miss of it altogether by not knowing the proper time to set out upon an expedition. Their life is a perpetual skirmish. They have to take chances and be upon their guard continually. Their mortal enemy and dread, the cat, may be asleep in the fourth story, and the poor mouse knows not of it as he looks wistfully across the intervening space between the ash barrel and the basement stairs; but after weighing the chances of escape or capture, he scurries across the opening with as much haste as though the sharp claws of pussy were raking the stunted fur from his wiry tail.

The sun may pour down its genial rays and the planks which his way lies over be warm and inviting, but he cannot loiter to enjoy its warmth or survey the beauties of nature. Oh! who would be a mouse? sigh I, as I sit and ponder over his life of inherent fear and uncertainty.

He seems to have no confidence in himself. His actions are like those of an inferior checker player. Shove about as he may, the chances are he will soon regret the manœuvre, and wish himself safely back again at the starting point.

Everything about the premises seems to be after him. He regards the old blacking-brush that lies under the bench with looks of suspicion for hours together, and dare not risk a scamper past. He takes it for a horrid cat, quietly and patiently biding her time. He retires into his hole and waits fully an hour before peeping out again; but there it sits to blast his sight and cause a cold thrill to run along his little spine. The fact that it does not change its position does not in the least weaken his mistrust; on the contrary, it rather strengthens it. “It is so cat-like,” he says to himself, “for it to be sitting there motionless.” In the handle projecting from one end he very naturally thinks he recognizes the tail, and at this new discovery he backs into his hole again in great trepidation.

He feels certain now that he was right in his suspicions. Another wait follows. On again emerging, there it lies as before; and if that mouse was profane, and had a soul to hazard, it would undoubtedly hazard it, and roundly berate that brush through compressed teeth.

It takes but little to set a poor mouse into a perfect fluster. Down rolls a stick of wood from the pile, and Mr. Mouse, nibbling at the other corner of the shed, jumps at least eight feet in the direction of his hole. The wind blows down the clothes-line stick, and simultaneous with its fall upon the planks the heart, liver and lights of the poor mouse seem to be running a steeple-chase to see which can jump from his mouth first. Away he scurries across the yard, so fast, that though your eyes were endeavoring to keep up with him all the way, you merely know _something_ has been moving, but can only surmise what.

We sometimes think the trials and disappointments of humanity are great, but dear me! what are they compared to the miseries of these poor creatures. From their hardships deliver me! For all their care and caution, they do so often miscalculate. This is evidenced by the number of times our old cat enters the house with her mouth full, and her eyes sparkling with pride.

There is nothing so very degrading or humiliating in a cat’s life, and the thought of becoming a cat does not make one shudder as does the thought of becoming a mouse. A good household cat does not occupy such a very bad position in life after all; by _good_ I mean an excellent mouser, one never guilty of letting a mouse escape after having the second wipe at him; no scraggy creature with stove-singed back and scolloped ears, but a well-behaved, home-loving animal. The lot of such a creature is preferable to that of some men whom I have met in life, that is, if there were no rude children in the house. There is always some drawback; a cat is peculiarly blessed that lives in a house where there are no children; it seems to be counted as one of the family almost, and its life, though short, is certainly a happy one. But ah! these reckless children, that snatch up Tommy by the tail as they would a sauce-pan, and as though the tail was actually intended for a handle. On second thought, the life of a cat is not so very pleasant after all.

For the last half hour I have been deeply interested in the manœuvres of a large rat in the yard of an adjacent house. He has made three unsuccessful attempts to go up the sink-spout. Thrice has he glided up the slippery incline until the tip of his long tail disappeared from view, but as often has he beat a hasty retreat, assisted on his downward way by a rushing torrent of hot dish-water.

He is a determined fellow, however, and sticks to an enterprise with the spirit and pertinacity of a world-seeking Columbus, or a prison-breaking Monte Christo. No doubt the hungry edge of appetite is whetted by the strong effluvium arising from Limburger cheese (the people are Germans) that fills the whole atmosphere with an odor truly agreeable to the rodent nose, every time the pantry door is opened. The cheese has been lately stirred up, I presume, by the trenchant knife of Pater-familias, and consequently the poor hunger-pinched rat is allured up the spout at this inopportune hour, while the servant girl is washing the dishes.

Every living creature has its weakness. The horse whinnies when the oats draw nigh, and forgets the galling collar. Sheep, that at other times will not come within gunshot, grow tame and unsuspicious when the salt is shaken in the pan.

The hog has a penchant for clover-roots, or wherefore does the rusted wire ring ornament his nose? Is it there because it is the fashion? Ask the farmer.

And undoubtedly cheese is the weakness of the rat family. It is their aim, and often their end, too. It is the shrine to bow down before which the rat will jeopardize his life every hour of the twenty-four.

He dreams of it. In his fitful slumbers he beholds it ranged around him tier on tier, as in a great store room, and not a cat within forty leagues. He is in the rat’s Paradise, and happy. No deceptive poisons that consume the stomach, no insidious, subtle traps, yawning ready to clutch the unsuspecting victim, surround him. He is safe and at peace, and would dwell there forever and forever in one unbroken endless night. But the heavy rumbling of a dray startles him, for all sweet dreams have their wakings, alas! that it is so! He wakes, and where is he? Under the wet sidewalk, drenched and tousled with the drippings of the day’s rain, with nothing for breakfast but a dry onion peel, the prog of the previous night, which nothing but a forty-eight hours’ fast could induce him to seize. Ah, me! what chances the fellow has to take in order to secure sufficient sustenance to keep life and body together.

“Honor pricks me on,” soliloquized old Sir John, on the field of Shrewsbury, when he withdrew from the general clash and rendering up of souls, to breathe a spell, and moralize upon the insignificance of Fame, or Honor, as against the value of life. But nothing pricks on the poor rat but his craving little digestive organs. The mill is crying out for grists, the hopper is empty, the stone still turning, and something must be done, and that quickly.

No honor is attached to the expedition, and even though he should succeed in making the “inning,” which is doubtful, all that can be said is that he has “gone up the spout,” and in the common acceptation of the saying, that is certainly nothing to be very highly elated over.

I actually feel ashamed when I think of the many projects I have abandoned through life, because I met with slight reverses. Here before me is this poor water-soaked rat, his hair still smoking from his recent scald, emerging once more from behind the wood box, determined to solve the problem of the sink-spout or perish in the attempt. A grim smile of resolution seems to part his pointed features, as he moves quietly up to the dripping conduit from which he lately scampered with steaming ribs.

They may talk of deeds of noble daring, of vaulting the breach, or traversing the wild; but for sterling courage, for indomitable perseverance and pluck, commend me to this little adventurer in my neighbor’s yard. In the face of three scalding inundations, he ventures again upon the expedition, unshaken, unsubdued, unterrified. He takes more chances and subjects himself to more risks in ascending that spout than old Samuel de Champlain in exploring up the St. Lawrence among the Iroquois.

What if the large flea-pasturing dog lying indolently in the yard would rouse from the lethargic sleep that holds him, and for once make himself useful by thrusting his bristling muzzle up the orifice after the little explorer, thereby cutting off retreat in the event of another disastrous deluge? The terrible result of such an action on the part of the dog is too painful and improbable to contemplate.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.

You need not wake to call me, to call me, mother dear, For to-morrow’ll be the noisest day of all the passing year; Of all the passing year, mother, the most uproarious day, And I, you bet, will stirring be before the morning gray.

A flag-staff will be hoisted, mother, two hundred feet in air, And cannon will be ranged around the whole of Union Square, And on the instant Phœbus shoots his arrows o’er the hill, There’ll be a roar will shake the shore as far as Watsonville.

You know the tailor’s nephew, mother, they call him Squinty Ware; Last year he powdered Perry’s jaw, and blinded Dobson’s mare, And while his poor old grandmamma was peeping through the blind, She got a “whiz” in her old phiz, that she’ll forever mind.

And Henrietta Loring, mother, tied crackers to the tail Of Deacon Reed’s big, lazy hound, while eating from a pail; And goodness! gracious! how he jumped, and dusted for the shed; And in a moment every straw was blazing in his bed.

And you’d have died of laughter, mother, I’m certain, if you saw Old Deacon Reed run out to tramp upon the burning straw; And when he ran to get the hose—for tramping would not do— His wig blew off, and down the street for half a block it flew.

I _know_ it was not proper, mother, and I ashamed should be To stand and gag, just like a wag, another’s loss to see; But ’twas a sight that got me quite, and I’ll be old indeed When I forget the comic look of that old Deacon Reed.

I’ve got a rousing pistol, mother, the loudest in the block; And I have filed the little catch that holds the thing at cock, And hardly do I get the charge of powder in the bore, When off it goes just with a shake, and thunder! what a roar!

So sleep on if you can, dear mother, and have no thought of me, For I’ll be up and charging round before there’s light to see; And when you hear a bang that makes the ring dance in your ear, Then you can bet your scissors, mother, that I am somewhere near.

JIM DUDLEY’S SERMON.

Hereafter I shall have no faith in reports. Last week I heard that Jim Dudley had left the city, and was congratulating myself on at last escaping him. But my congratulations were premature. Last night he called upon me, and kept me in torture for fully two hours; at a time, too, when I should have been asleep. But what cared he for that? The scoundrel! there was no shaking him off. He sticks to a person like mortar to a brick. I had to sit and listen, though I do honestly believe every word the fellow uttered was an unqualified lie; but he swears to its truth, and how can I prove it otherwise. It is better to take it as it comes and ask no questions for conscience’ sake.

“I never told you about the sermon I preached over in Misertown one Sunday. I had a time of it thar and no mistake. Hold on a minute and I’ll tell you how it was.

“You see, Gil Bizby—that plaguey shirk, I never mention his name but what I feel like trouncin’ of him—but he was a genius though and no foolin’ about it, a natural born inventor, chock full of notions as a toy shop.

“But somehow or another he never could bring anythin’ to a payin’ focus. Allers whittlin’ and borin’ and plannin’ around though. Wherever you’d meet him he’d be haulin’ out of his pocket some old drawin’, with more wheels and contrivances pictured out on it than you could think of in a twelve hours’ dream. He never could git the cap sheaf onto his endeavor though. Allers somethin’ amiss; a wheel too many, or another one wantin’, or too many cogs to have the thing work just right.

“He invented a contrivance for pluckin’ chickens.

“That was a rustler. He shoved the fowls through a machine somethin’ like a corn sheller, an gin ’em an electric shock while passin’ along, and shot ’em out of a spout at t’other end of the machine as bare as weavers’ shuttles. He didn’t make anythin’ out of it though. He had to chuck ’em through while alive, you see, and that clashed with the law. When he took the machine down to the city to introduce it to the pultry dealers, the society fellers who look out for the interests of dumb critters got arter him and sewed him up. They put a reef in his jib pooty quick now, I tell you.

“They were passin’ along through the market one day, and they saw Gil just a humpin’ himself showin’ off the apparatus to the market men. He was crankin’ and pumpin’ away, like a sailor when there’s fifteen feet of water in the hold and still rizin, and the chickens were a screamin’ and a scootin’ through the contrivance, close as if they were run on a string head ag’inst tail, and just a cloud of feathers hoverin’ around over it. Didn’t they fasten on to that Gil Bizby though? They snatched him up quicker than if he had been hoss-stealin’, and confiscated his plucker, and tucked an alfired heavy fine onto him besides.

“Meetin’ with such poor encouragement in that direction he went back to Sculleyville, and set out to invent a thunderin’ great machine for layin’ cobble-stones. That was just him all over; allers startin’ in to git up some outlandish lookin’ thing. This machine was a crusher and no gettin’ ‘round it. It was fearful enough to make a cow slip her cud, I’ll be shot if it wasn’t. It looked somethin’ like Noah’s ark set on wheels and filled with all kinds of machinery.

“He started in to experiment one moonlight night in front of the court house, but got the main belt crossed or somethin’, I disremember just what, and Jerusalem! in less than ten minutes he ran the whole population out to the foot-hills in thar night clothes. There wasn’t no stoppin’ the consarned thing. Poor Gil was knocked senseless at the first revolution, and nobody else knowed how to control it. It rolled the whole length of the square, tearin’ up the stones it had pounded down the day before and sendin’ of ’em buzzin’ over the village in all directions.

“No home was sacred, and no head was safe, as the poet has it. Poor old Mrs. Scooley lived just long enough to learn this, and no longer. She was goin’ once too often to git her pitcher filled at the corner grocery that night, and a stone took her in the small of the back as she was enterin’ the door, and it h’isted her clear over the counter on top of a barrel; it’s true as I’m tellin’ it to you. Poor old body; she was the pioneer female of the village too. The first woman to wash a shirt in Sculleyville. But arter all, the town wasn’t much loser by her passin’ away.

“She was a sort of panicky old critter anyhow, always scary about catchin’ the smallpox or any other prevailin’ disease that come around. The old village physician said he would ruther see the very old scratch makin’ towards him on the street than old Mrs. Scooley.

“Comin’ from church or market, as the case might be, she would fasten on to him like a wood-tick to a leaf, and he couldn’t git rid of her nohow. She would have him time her pulse right thar on the sidewalk; and be a shovin’ of her tongue out for his inspection. And she did have such an unlimited, wallopin’ great tongue too; it seemed when she was shovin’ all of it out, as though she was actewelly disgorgin’ her liver. It’s so, by Jingo! People would be a stoppin’ and standin’ thar, wonderin’ what was the matter with the old gal—that is, people that didn’t know her peculiarities; though most everybody in the village had seen her standin’ in that position so often, that they would be more surprised to see her with her tongue in her mouth than projectin’ out in the rain.

“The old Doctor used to be terribly annoyed. He would say, kind of hurriedly like, because he would be itchin’ to git away from her: