did. Jase put his arm through mine, and asked me to slip into the hall a
minit.
"Look a here, cousin, this is ruther too bad," sez Jase, eenamost crying; "you ought to make apology to his lordship for speaking so afore him--what'll he think of American manners?"
"What'll he think," sez I, "darn me if I care what he thinks; if he's a ginuine nobleman--one that's got good English common sense--he wont think the better of us for trying to make believe we're a notch above what we raly be, and he'll like my human natur better than your soft sodder by a jug full. If he expects the hull nation of America to pucker and twist itself out of all nat'ral shape jest to gibe with his notions, he _ought_ to be disappointed and that's the long and the short of it; and if he believes that we want to see our wimmen folks to be spitting out poetry and varses afore strangers, or that the ginuine wimmen of America want to du sich things, he'd better stay to hum and read Mrs. Trollope's books. Now, jest hold your gab, Jase," sez I, as he was a going to speak again, "I'm in the right on't--if we want to give these English Lords a true idea of us, act out human natur, and give me a warm, honest welcome, but less soft soap."
As I'd spoke out, jest so, the bell rung, and a hull grist of big bugs got out of some carriages at the door and come in. There was three or four harnsome wimmen and gals dressed off in silks and satins, with the dresses all fringed off round the bottom and a hugging tight up to them white necks as close as the skin to an eel, and a showing off the wide shoulders and leetle tapering waists about the best of any dresses I ever sot eyes on. The men folks had on span white gloves, and looked as if they'd jest come out of a band-box. While Jase was a blustering about from one to t'other, I jest cut stick for the other room, detarmined not to have any more jaw with the critter if I could help it. Miss Slick and Jemima looked sour enough to turn new milk; but Lord Morpeth he cum right up to me and begun to talk as if I'd been his twin brother. He asked me about every thing on arth, and more too; all about the way we raise onions and garden sarce, how much hay our Weathersfield meadows give to an acre, and all about our district schools, meeting houses, and the old blue laws of Connecticut. When I told him that a man was fined five dollars for bussing his wife on the sabberday arter he'd been away to sea four years, Lord Morpeth he larfed right out as nat'ral as could be. Then I took turn about and asked him a few pozers about Old England, and he answered right up like a man that understood things, for all he was a Lord. I raly took a shine to the critter, though I'd made up my mind agin it, tooth and nail, and while he was a talking I took a good squint at his head and face.
He aint so over harnsome, not quite so good looking as a sartin chap I could tell you on if I wasn't so mealy-mouthed, but then he's got an allfired big head, high up over the ears, and one that looks chuck full of brains as an egg is full of meat. His eyes aint great black starers like some folk's, but as bright as diamonds, and as sharp as a hull paper of cambrick needles, and they know how to look right straight through a feller without flinching the first glance.
Purty soon, the gals and them chaps I'd seen in the hall cum a pouring in, and then there was no more talk with Lord Morpeth; he had to be led around like a race-horse by Miss Slick and Jemima, and I cum in for my share of the fun, for arter he and I got so thick together, they begun to think what I'd said was according to gunter, and sot it all down for eccentricity of genius instead of ginuine common sense; howsomever, I did not care so long as all was ship-shape agin with 'em, for I hate to get a woman a pouting with me, for if I'm ever so right it makes me feel kinder ugly.
* * * * *
THE DINNER SCENE.
We hadn't but just got settled down when the great wide looking-glass that I've told you of, seemed to slide back of the curtains to the lower eend of the room, and by gauly! there was another room further on, with a table sot in it all kivered over with silver plates, and soup dishes, and Chiny ware, with one of them trees of gold and glass all lighted up, and swung to the wall, a glittering, and flashing, and pouring down the shine over the heap of silver things, till it made a feller ketch his breath on'y jest to peak in.
Lord Morpeth he gin his arm to my pussy she cousin--Jase gin his to a harnsome gal that stood close to him, and I crooked my elbow up to Jemima, for I kinder wanted to make up for what I'd sed about her reading--poor critter! she aint to blame if she is a little shaller. The rest on 'em followed on two and two, and arter a little we all sot down round the table with six great strapping fellers, with blue and white regimentals on, and gloves on all their twelve hands, a standing up behind our chairs. I can't give you no idea of what we had to eat, for they called every thing by some darn'd jaw-breaker of a name, and kept a carrying things on and off and giving a feller clean plates all of solid silver, till it a'most made me dizzy with seeing them a flashing about so in the critters' hands. They had all sorts of mince meat with hard names tucked to it, and fish kivered with gravy, and butter, and every thing else, and sich a darn'd heap of things that I can't begin to tell you all. I tried to take a bite of everything, but it wasn't of no use--I was purty well filled up afore the puddings, and pies, and custards cum on, and arter they were carried off I thought we'd all made a purty good Thanksgiving dinner, considering it wasn't to hum, and I can't tell when I've felt so big and pussy; but jest as I was thinking we'd got about through, the fellers went to work and swept the hull table clean as could be, and by-am-by on they cum agin with silver baskets full of grapes, and oranges, and prunes, with a grist of fust rate apples, and hull bunches of raisins that made a feller feel wrothy because he'd eat enough, they looked so tempting a hanging over the sides of them silver baskets, and a looking so meller in the light that cum a shining down from the consarn overhead.
When the wimmen folks had jest eat a few grapes, and mebby a chunk of orange or so, Miss Slick she got up and off they went into t'other room, but yet a looking back sort of longing, jest as Eve did when the angels made her quit the garden of Eden, poor critter!
The minit the wimmen folks had made themselves scarce the servants begun to cut about like all possessed, and a hull regiment of decanters and cider bottles with sheet-lead caps to 'em, marched onto the table, and arter them cum another regiment of glasses, some of 'em round and bulky with short stems and kinder dark green, some white as ice, and then agin some that was short and slender, cut on in squares, and red as a gal's lip, besides the long necked cider glasses that stood poking up among the rest, like a Down East gineral, and his officers ready to lead on the red and green militia agin the hull squad of bottles and decanters, till one side gin up beat. The help gin the first shot, for each on 'em took a bottle, and pop, pop, pop, went the corks--then the red, and green, and white glasses marched up, and cum off chuck full and a brimming over with plunder. As for me, I sent up a long necked feller and took a swig at the cider, and Lord Morpeth he went dead into the green glasses, but they put me in mind of an old maid's goggles, and I couldn't take a notion to 'em till arter I'd drunk two hull glasses of the cider, and then I didn't seem to care what I drank out on. By-am-by some one called out and wanted a toast. I never heard of topping off a Thanksgiving dinner with toast afore, but it made me think of hum, and so I thought I'd have one tu.
"Look a here," sez I to the chap that stood back of my chair, "you may make me a toast tu, but none of your dry stuff now, but make it as marm used to, you remember Jase," sez I, "half a pint of hot milk with a chunk of butter about as big as a piece of chalk melted in, and then the hull soaked up with slices of toasted bread--hum made is best--one slice laid on top of t'other. Now you git out, and make some right off," sez I to the chap, sez I.
"Look a here, Jonce, what are you about?" sez Jase, a poking his elbow sort of sly into my ribs. "It aint that we mean, we're a going to drink a toast."
"Wal," sez I, "I haint no arthly objection, but if the feller makes it according to rule it'll be ruther tough to swaller without some chawing."
"I tell you," sez Jase agin, "we are a going to drink a toast to Lord Morpeth in wine."
"Wal," sez I agin, "I haint no objection, if Lord Morpeth likes toast and wine, it's his idee of what's good, and I can't help it; but as for me, hand over a bowl of ginuine toast and cider with the bread crumbled in, Weathersfield fashion, ruther hot, and sweetened well with lasses, that's my notion. Lord a massey, how marm does mix them critters up, it's enough to make a feller's nose tingle to think on it, aint it, cousin Jase."
It warn't of no use a speaking to him, there he stood a strutting over back with a glass in his hand and a singing out, "Our noble guest, Lord Morpeth," like all possessed. Every critter at the table, excepting Lord Morpeth and I, jumped up with glasses in our hands, and begun to drink like a patch of seed onions after a six weeks' dry spell; but Lord Morpeth and I sot still and looked as if we didn't know what possessed the critters; but the minit they sot down up he jumped like a house a fire, and the way he cracked jokes and said smart things, made the fire fly from every body's eyes round the table. I swanny, if he didn't take me a'most off the handle with his consarned sweet voice and harnsome manners. It raly was eenamost as good as a play, to hear him reel out the common sense and soft sodder about this land of liberty and old England. When he sot down, it was as much as I could du to keep from going right up and giving him a hug, if he was a lord. Arter this we mixed in the talk altogether, like lemon, and sugar, and brandy in a punch bowl, as sociable as so many chickens in a coop, till by-am-by, Jase he begun to swell up and talk to Lord Morpeth about the Slicks, and the crouchants, and lions, that belonged to the family coat of arms as he called it; he gin us all to understand that the Slick's warn't a family to be sneezed at by any of the English Lords, and gin out some purty broad hints about a barron-night, and a lord, that gin a start to the name ever so long back in England; then the consarned shote branched out into a sarmon about ancient birth, and pure blood, a running from one generation to another, without being siled by anything low since the Slick's cum to this country, jest arter the Pilgrims, and a hull lot of the darndest stuff that ever a transmogrified hand-cartman thought on. I'd topped off my cider with two or three glasses of hock, the feller called it, and it made me feel dreadful smart, and I felt jest like tackling Jase in his own camp.
"Look a here, cousin Jase," sez I, "what on arth do you want to make out that we Slick's are anything but jest what we be, for aint it a darned sight more to our credit, Yankees as we are, and Republicans as we ought to be, to own it at once, that we had to hoe our own row up, and found it a purty tough one? Now you know well enough, for all your crouchongs, and lions, and roosters,--that you've picked up, lord-a-massey knows where--that you begun life, or any how begun to save up chink, fust by a horse cart on Peck Slip, and that wife of your'n went out a nussing other folk's children till arter you married her, and that aint no disgrace to her nor you neither, so long as you don't try to make out that you're something more than you raly be. It is too bad you're trying to make out that you're a English big bug, when you can prove yourself as good a nobleman as ever lived, by going back to our grand-par, the brave old shoemaker, that swung his lap-stone over his shoulder when the Revolution broke out, and jined the patriots when their struggle was dark as the grave. The old man never gave way once, but fought like a lion when fighting was to be done. He clung to his companions in good and bad luck, and though he fought, and marched, and suffered with the toughest of 'em, never once gin out or got discouraged, but arter a long day's march would unsling his lap-stone, take out his rusty tools, and hammer and stitch away half the night long, to make up shoes for his tired and sore footed feller soldiers, whenever he could find a scrap of sole leather or a piece of cow skin to make up!"
I was a going on, but Lord Morpeth he got up, and sez he, "Let us drink to the memory of Mr. Slick's ancestor, the 'brave Shoemaker.'"
Jase looked sort of ugly about what I'd said--but I couldn't help that, and when Lord Morpeth jined in, the hull biling on us got up, and another squad of wine glasses was put into action. When the rest had sot down, I felt as if I couldn't break off so, but I thought it wouldn't do no harm to give 'em a short specimen of Weathersfied chin music, seeing as there was a lord to hear me.
"Now," sez I, "it's of no use denying that we Yankees do think a good deal of noble birth and pure blood, and all of them ere things that the English have boosted up their throne with so many hundred years; for my part, I du feel a kind of love and reverence for a family of any kind, whose blood has run pure from one generation to another, through brave men and good women, till it beats full of warm ginerous human natur in the heart of a true nobleman, whether he has a title or not. It gives a man something to be proud of, something to guard and keep himself good and honorable for. A man must be mean as pusley, and meaner yet, who could do a small action while he knew that his blood had been kept, pure as spring water, by a hull line of good men, all a sleeping in their graves."
"But, arter all," sez I, "what is the nobility of Old England more than that which we Yankees have a right to?"
"Was William the Conqueror, that they brag so much about, any thing to be compared to our Washington? Was his conquest of Old England, half so great, or so tough a job as the tussle we had to get New England into our own native land? Now, the whole truth is, blood is like wine, the older it is, the stronger and clearer it grows. If it warn't for that, we Yankees, that had forefathers in the Revolutionary war, have as good a right to brag about our pure blood, as the greatest and oldest line of proud England." Here I stopped jest long enough to make a bow to Lord Morpeth, and on I went agin. "I say," sez I, a stretching out my arm, "there aint a true born American on arth, if he owns the truth, that haint English grit and pride enough about him to feel a kind of respect for an English nobleman, if he behaves himself like folks: but if he don't," sez I, "we've got a right to dispise him more than we do one another when we act mean; for he not only disgraces hisself, but all the forefathers that he ought to be proud on, and a man that can do that must be mean as git out and meaner tu, a darned sight. Now," sez I, a looking at Lord Morpeth, "we Yankees and the English are purty much alike, for all. If they've got their lords, and dukes, and princes, haint we no military captins, and generals, and deacons, and squires,--rather small potatoes compared to the English, but yet it shows a sort of native notion we've got arter sich things, and don't du no sort of harm one way nor t'other. Now," sez I, "in a few hundred years from this, we Americans, shall have a sort of republican nobility of our own. I aint sartin about the titles, but by-am-by, when the 'tea party,' and the battle of Bunker Hill lies clear back in our history, as William the Conquerer's does among the British, Cousin Jase there, wouldn't have to make up a story about his British ancestors; for the pure blood of this ere country will be that which goes right back to the Revolutionary war. All Yankee noblemen will have to sarch for their titles on the pension list of this ere very generation; and the old man that now draws his twenty dollars a month, will be the founder of a line, jest as noble as any that ever sprung up in the heart of old England! That's my ginuine opinion. Now," sez I, "if we Slicks wanted to make out that we are any great shakes, it aint no very hard job to du it. It aint by no means sartin that we, any on us, ever had any forefathers afore the old Shoemaker, that we've jest been a telling on; but he was a hull team and horse to boot. When the ammunition gin out at Bunker Hill, he flung away his gun, and went to storming a hull regiment, tooth and nail, on his own hook, till in the eend he was shot down dead with a piece of the old lap stun in his hand, that he gripped like an Injun arter his teeth was sot, and his fingers stiff and stun cold. Old England, I must own, has got a grist of noble families and great men, that are an honor and etarnal glory to it, but the blood that biled up in that old man's heart, was as red, as brave, yes, and as noble tu, as ever poured itself out on the sile of old England, in the time of William, or any other Conqueror; and if I ever set up for a big bug, and put picters on my carriage door, I kinder think that I shan't be much ashamed to have Jonathan Slick's coat of arms, a 'hand gripped hard on a lap-stun;' for consarn me, if we, any on us, ever get to be much, it will be through the old Shoemaker, and I aint ashamed to own it."
With that I took another swig at the hock, and was a going on agin, but all tu once my head began to whirl round like a top. The table began to spread itself into half a dozen, and it seemed as if the glass consarn over head had got a hull family of leetle ones around it, dancing jigs and pouring out the shine all over the room--and then the wine bottles, and the decanters, and the grapes, and apples, and raisins, seemed to get onsteady, and more on 'em kept a starting up. Then the waiters in regimentals grew taller and taller, and I'm consarned if Lord Morpeth hadn't half a dozen chaps a looking like so many twin brothers a dodging up and down all around him, awful onsteady though, for Lords. Then, arter all, the floor begun to rise and pitch up and down till I was obliged to give up, and so I sot down, and held onto my chair with both hands, and called out 'Whoa' like a house afire, for it seemed as if everything was a getting upsot; and between you and I and the post, Par, my ginuine opinion is, that all the chaps in the room had got about half seas over, except me. I was as steddy as a judge, and sot up parpendicular and independent, jest as a true born Republican ought tu, determined to set that English Lord and the rest on 'em a good example. It wasn't no wonder, though, that they got a leetle how come-you-so, for they all drank wine, but I only took that sparkling white cider and hock, for I was detarmined not to make a shote of myself. Yet it made me feel so bad to see how they went on, that I got a'most sick thinking about it.
Arter a while we all went back into the keeping-room, and there the wimmen folks sot on them red benches, all in pimlico order, drinking coffee out of some leetle finefied cups, but I'm afeared they didn't set up so straight as young ladies ought tu in company--their heads did seem to set rather unsartin on their shoulders every time I looked at 'em.
I drunk off a cup of coffee jest to oblige Jase, and then I begun to be kinder sociable with a young gal that sot by Jemima, while Jase took Lord Morpeth round to look at his marble head, and the two whopping picters of himself and wife.
Arter he had gone the rounds--as we Editors say of a prime article--Lord Morpeth made his bow and went out, I begun to feel kinder as if I'd like to take a snooze, and so I jest gin one smashing bow at the door for all, and arter getting my hat, I follered Lord Morpeth out. It was tarnal cold, and I begun to chirk up a leetle, when I see that Jase's carriage stood there. Lord Morpeth stepped back when he see me close to him, and moved his hand as much as to say--Git in; but I stepped back, and sez I, "I guess I've been taught better manners than to help myself fust,"--so with that he got in, and I arter.
We had a good deal of talk in the carriage; and when we both got out, Lord Morpeth shook hands with me as if I'd been his twin brother, and asked me to come and see him to his room, for he wanted to talk with me about picters and the fine arts, and things in general.
I gin his hand an allfired grip, and sez I, "Lord Morpeth, you can depend on this chap, for he'll tell you the truth and no soft sodder. I didn't take much of a notion to you at fust, for I aint a chap to run arter you because you're a lord, but I like you in _spite_ of that, for you're a darned good hearted, smart critter, and lord or no lord, that's enough."
With that I shook hands agin, and went up stairs to bed. Fanny Elssler didn't keep me awake that night I reckon. That hock is tarnal sleepy stuff, Par.
Your loving son,
JONATHAN SLICK.
* * * * *