Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers; Together with "Taking the Census," and Other Alabama Sketches. By a Country Editor. With a Portrait from Life, and Other Illustrations, by Darley:
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Hooper, Johnson Jones, 1815-1862.
Illustrated by Darley, Felix Octavius Carr, 1822-1888.
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(title page) Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, Late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers; Together with "Taking the Census," and Other Alabama Sketches. By a Country Editor. With a Portrait from Life, and Other Illustrations, by Darley
(illustrated title page) Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, Taking the Census, Etc.
(running title) Captain Simon Suggs
(running title) Taking the Census
(running title) Daddy Biggs' Scrape. At Cockerell's Bend
A Country Editor
Illustrations by Darley
[i-iii], [1-6], 7-201, 1-3 p., ill.
Philadelphia:
Carey and Hart
1845
Call number E H786S (Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library)
The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digitization project, Documenting the American South.
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All footnotes are inserted at the point of reference within paragraphs.
This electronic edition has been transcribed from the original supplied by Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library.
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Library of Congress Subject Headings
Languages Used:
- English
- Latin
LC Subject Headings:
- Alabama -- Fiction.
- Alabama -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
- Dialect literature, American -- Southern States.
- Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction.
- Swindlers and swindling -- Fiction.
Revision History:
- 2006-07-20,
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revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition.
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2004-08-04,
Elizabeth S. Wright
finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
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2004-08-04,
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finished TEI/SGML encoding
- 2004-07-19,
Apex Data Services, Inc.
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[Cover Image]
[Spine Image]
[Frontispiece Image]
SIMON SUGGS.
"Now," continued the old she savage, "them's the severest dogs in this country." Page 151.
[1st Title Page Image]
[2nd Title Page Image]
[Title Page Verso Image]
ADVENTURES OF
CAPTAIN SIMON SUGGS,
TAKING THE CENSUS, ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY & HART.
1845.
SOME ADVENTURES
OF
CAPTAIN SIMON SUGGS,
LATE OF
THE TALLAPOOSA VOLUNTEERS;
TOGETHER WITH
"TAKING THE CENSUS,"
AND
OTHER ALABAMA SKETCHES. BY A COUNTRY EDITOR.
WITH A PORTRAIT FROM LIFE, AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
BY DARLEY.
"-- Si tantus amor scribendi te rapit, aude,
Cæsaris invicti res dicere."--HOR.
If you must scribble something--let it be, sir,
The mighty deeds of the unconquer'd Cæsar!
PHILADELPHIA:
CAREY AND HART.
1845.
Page verso
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by
CAREY AND HART,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.
Page 3
PREFACE.
A small portion of "Captain Suggs," and one or two of the other sketches in this little volume, have already appeared in a country newspaper edited by the writer, and in the New York "Spirit of the Times." These having been somewhat flatteringly received by the public, the writer was induced to accede to a proposition to print in this form. "Suggs" has therefore been extended greatly beyond the original intention, and several new sketches added; so that by far the larger portion of the volume is published for the first time.
If what was at first designed, chiefly, to amuse a community unpretending in its tastes, shall amuse the Great Public, the writer will, of course, be gratified. If otherwise, his mortification will be lessened by the reflection that the fault of the obtrusion is not entirely his own.
La Fayette, Chambers County, Ala. March, 1845.
Page 5
TO
WILLIAM T. PORTER, Esq.,
EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK SPIRIT OF THE TIMES,
THE FOLLOWING PAGES
ARE
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
AS WELL IN TOKEN
OF THE WRITER'S REGARD,
AS BECAUSE,
IF THERE BE HUMOUR IN THEM,
THEY COULD HAVE NO MORE
APPROPRIATE DEDICATION.
Page 7
CAPTAIN SIMON SUGGS.
CHAPTER FIRST.
INTRODUCTION--SIMON PLAYS THE "SNATCH" GAME.
IT is not often that the living worthy furnishes a theme for the biographer's pen. The pious task of commemorating the acts, and depicting the character of the great or good, is generally and properly deferred until they are past blushing, or swearing--constrained to a decorous behaviour by the folds of their cerements. Were it otherwise, who could estimate the pangs of wounded modesty which would result! Who could say how keen would be the mortification, or how crimson the cheek of Grocer Tibbetts, for instance, should we present him to the world in all the resplendent glory of his public and his private virtues!--dragging him, as it were, from the bosom of retirement and Mrs. Tibbetts, to hold him up before the full gaze of "the community," with all his qualities, characteristics, and peculiarities written on a large label and pasted to his forehead! Would'nt Mr. Tibbetts almost die of bashfulness? And would'nt Mrs. Tibbetts tell all her neighbours, that she would just as soon they had put Mr. Tibbetts in the stocks,
Page 8
if it were not for the concomitant little boys and rotten eggs? Certainly: and Mrs. Tabitha Tibbetts in making such a remark, would be impelled by a principle which exists in a majority of human minds--a principle which makes the idea revolting, that every body should know all about us in our life-times, notwithstanding our characters may present something better even than a fair average of virtue and talent.
But "there is no rule without an exception," and notwithstanding that it is both unusual and improper, generally, to publish biographies of remarkable personages during their lives, for the reason already explained, as well as because such histories must, of necessity, be incomplete and require post mortem additions--notwithstanding all this, we say, there are cases and persons, in which and to whom, the general rule cannot be considered to apply. Take, by way of illustration, the case of a candidate for office--for the Presidency we'll say. His life, up to the time when his reluctant acquiescence in the wishes of his friends was wrung from him, by the stern demands of a self-immolating patriotism, MUST be written. It is an absolute, political necessity. His enemies will know enough to attack; his friends must know enough to defend.--Thus Jackson, Van Buren, Clay, and Polk have each a biography published while they live. Nay, the thing has been carried further; and in the first of each "Life" there is found what is termed a "counterfeit presentment" of the subject of the pages which follow. And so, not only are the moral and intellectual endowments of the candidate heralded to the world of voters; but an attempt
Page 9
is made to create an idea of his physique. By this means, all the country has in its mind's eye, an image of a little gentleman with a round, oily face--sleek, bald pate, delicate whiskers, and foxy smile, which they call Martin Van Buren; and future generations of naughty children who will persist in sitting up when they should be a-bed, will be frightened to their cribs by the lithograph of "Major General Andrew Jackson," which their mammas will declare to be a faithful representation of the Evil One--an atrocious slander, by the bye, on the potent, and comparatively well-favoured, prince of the infernal world.
What we have said in the preceding paragraphs was intended to prepare the minds of our readers for the reception of the fact, that we have not undertaken to furnish for their amusement and instruction, in this and the chapters which shall come after, a few incidents--for we are by far too modest to attempt a connected memoir--in the life of CAPTAIN SIMON SUGGS, OF TALLAPOOSA, without the profoundest meditation on the propriety of doing so ere the captain has been "gathered to his fathers." No! no! we have chewed the cud of this matter, until we flatter ourself all its juices have been expressed; and the result is, that as Captain Simon Suggs thinks it "more than probable" he shall "come before the people of Tallapoosa" in the course of a year or two, he is, in our opinion, clearly "within the line of safe precedents," and bound in honor to furnish the Suggs party with such information respecting himself, as will enable them to vindicate his character whenever and wherever it may be attacked by the ruthless and polluted
Page 10
tongues of Captain Simon Suggs' enemies. And in order that our hero should not appear before his fellow citizens under circumstances less advantageous than those which mark the introduction to the public of other distinguished individuals, we have, at the outlay of much trouble and expense, obtained the services of an artist competent to delineate his countenance, so that all who have never yet seen the Captain may be able to recognize him immediately whenever it shall be their good fortune to be inducted into his presence. His autograph,--which was only produced unblotted and in orthographical correctness, after three several efforts, "from a rest," on the counter of Bill Griffin's confectionary--we have presented with a view to humor the whim of those who fancy they can read character in a signature. All such, we suspect, would pronounce the Captain rugged, stubborn, and austere in his disposition; whereas in fact, he is smooth, even-tempered, and facile!
In aid of the portrait, however, it is necessary we should add a verbal description, in order to perfect the reader's conceptions of the Captain.
Beginning then, at our friend Simon's intellectual extremity:--His head is somewhat large, and thinly covered with coarse, silver-white hair, a single lock of which lies close and smooth down the middle of a forehead which is thus divided into a couple of very acute triangles, the base of each of which is an eyebrow, lightly defined, and seeming to owe its scantiness to the depilatory assistance of a pair of tweezers. Beneath these almost shrubless cliffs, a pair of eyes with light-grey pupils and variegated whites, dance
Page 11
and twinkle in an aqueous humor which is constantly distilling from the corners. Lids without lashes complete the optical apparatus of Captain Suggs; and the edges of these, always of a sanguineous hue, glow with a reduplicated brilliancy whenever the Captain has remained a week or so in town, or elsewhere in the immediate vicinity of any of those citizens whom the county court has vested with the important privilege of vending "spirituous liquors in less quantities than one quart." The nose we find in the neighbourhood of these eyes, is long and low, with an extremity of singular acuteness, overhanging the subjacent mouth. Across the middle, which is slightly raised, the skin is drawn with exceeding tightness, as if to contrast with the loose and wrinkled abundance supplied to the throat and chin. But the mouth of Captain Simon Suggs is his great feature, and measures about four inches horizontally. An ever-present sneer--not all malice, however--draws down the corners, from which radiate many small wrinkles that always testify to the Captain's love of the "filthy weed." A sharp chin monopolizes our friend's bristly, iron-gray beard. All these facial beauties are supported by a long and skinny, but muscular neck, which is inserted after the ordinary fashion in the upper part of a frame, lithe, long, and sinewy, and clad in Kentucky jeanes, a trifle worn. Add to all this, that our friend is about fifty years old, and seems to indurate as he advances in years, and our readers will have as accurate an idea of the personal appearance of Captain Simon Suggs, late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers, as we are able to give them.
Page 12
The moral and intellectual qualities which, with the physical proportions we have endeavoured to portray, make up the entire entity of Captain Suggs, may be readily described. His whole ethical system lies snugly in his favourite aphorism--"IT IS GOOD TO BE SHIFTY IN A NEW COUNTRY"--which means that it is right and proper that one should live as merrily and as comfortably as possible at the expense of others; and of the practicability of this in particular instances, the Captain's whole life has been a long series of the most convincing illustrations. But notwithstanding this fundamental principle of Captain Suggs' philosophy, it were uncandid not to say that his actions often indicate the most benevolent emotions; and there are well-authenticated instances within our knowledge, wherein he has divided with a needy friend, the five or ten dollar bill which his consummate address had enabled him to obtain from some luckless individual, without the rendition of any sort of equivalent, excepting only solemnly reiterated promises to repay within two hours at farthest. To this amiable trait, and his riotous good-fellowship, the Captain is indebted for his great popularity among a certain class of his fellow citizens--that is, the class composed of the individuals with whom he divides the bank bills, and holds his wild nocturnal revelries.
The shifty Captain Suggs is a miracle of shrewdness. He possesses, in an eminent degree, that tact which enables man to detect the soft spots in his fellow, and to assimilate himself to whatever company he may fall in with. Besides, he has a quick, ready wit, which has extricated him from many an unpleasant
Page 13
predicament, and which makes him whenever he chooses to be so--and that is always--very companionable. In short, nature gave the Captain the precise intellectual outfit most to be desired by a man of his propensities. She sent him into the world a sort of he-Pallas, ready to cope with his kind, from his infancy, in all the arts by which men "get along" in the world; if she made him, in respect to his moral conformation, a beast of prey, she did not refine the cruelty by denying him the fangs and the claws.
But it is high time we were beginning to record some of those specimens of the worthy Captain's ingenuity, which entitle him to the epithet "Shifty." We shall therefore relate the earliest characteristic anecdote which we have been able to obtain; and we present it to our readers with assurances that it has come to our knowledge in such a way as to leave upon our mind not "a shadow of doubt" of its perfect genuineness. It will serve, if no other purpose, at least to illustrate the precocious development of Captain Suggs' peculiar talent.
Until Simon entered his seventeenth year, he lived with his father, an old "hard shell" Baptist preacher; who, though very pious and remarkably austere, was very avaricious. The old man reared his boys--or endeavoured to do so--according to the strictest requisitions of the moral law. But he lived, at the time to which we refer, in Middle Georgia, which was then newly settled; and Simon, whose wits from the time he was a "shirt-tail boy," were always too sharp for his father's, contrived to contract all the coarse vices incident to such a region. He stole his
Page 14
mother's roosters to fight them at Bob Smith's grocery, and his father's plough-horses to enter them in "quarter" matches at the same place. He pitched dollars with Bob Smith himself, and could "beat him into doll rags" whenever it came to a measurement. To crown his accomplishments, Simon was tip-top at the game of "old sledge," which was the fashionable game of that era; and was early initiated in the mysteries of "stocking the papers." The vicious habits of Simon were, of course, a sore trouble to his father, Elder Jedediah. He reasoned, he counselled, he remonstrated, and he lashed--but Simon was an incorrigible, irreclaimable devil. One day the simple-minded old man returned rather unexpectedly to the field where he had left Simon and Ben and a negro boy named Bill, at work. Ben was still following his plough, but Simon and Bill were in a fence corner very earnestly engaged at "seven up." Of course the game was instantly suspended, as soon as they spied the old man sixty or seventy yards off, striding towards them.
It was evidently a "gone case" with Simon and Bill; but our hero determined to make the best of it. Putting the cards into one pocket, he coolly picked up the small coins which constituted the stake, and fobbed them in the other, remarking, "Well, Bill, this game's blocked; we'd as well quit."
"But, mass Simon," remarked the boy, "half dat money's mine. An't you gwine to lemme hab 'em?"
"Oh, never mind the money, Bill; the old man's going to take the bark off both of us--and besides,
Page 15
with the hand I helt when we quit, I should 'a beat you and won it all any way."
"Well, but mass Simon, we nebber finish de game, and de rule----"
"Go to an orful h--l with your rule," said the impatient Simon--"don't you see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you I helt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a beat the horns off of a billygoat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or another you're d--d hard to please!" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tone--for by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand--he continued, "But maybe daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie--twon't hurt, no way--let's tell him we've been playin' mumble-peg."
Bill was perforce compelled to submit to this inequitable adjustment of his claim to a share of the stakes; and of course agreed to swear to the game of mumble-peg. All this was settled and a peg driven into the ground, slyly and hurriedly, between Simon's legs as he sat on the ground, just as the old man reached the spot. He carried under his left arm, several neatly-trimmed sprouts of formidable length, while in his left hand he held one which he was intently engaged in divesting of its superfluous twigs.
"Soho! youngsters!--you in the fence corner, and the crap in the grass; what saith the Scriptur', Simon? 'Go to the ant, thou sluggard,' and so forth and so on. What in the round creation of the yeath have you and that nigger been a-doin'?"
Bill shook with fear, but Simon was cool as a cucumber,
Page 16
and answered his father to the effect that they had been wasting a little time in the game of mumble-peg.
"Mumble-peg! mumble-peg!" repeated old Mr. Suggs, "what's that?"
Simon explained the process of rooting for the peg; how the operator got upon his knees, keeping his arms stiff by his sides, leaned forward and extracted the peg with his teeth.
"So you git upon your knees, do you, to pull up that nasty little stick! you'd better git upon 'em to ask mercy for your sinful souls and for a dyin' world. But let's see one o' you git the peg up now."
The first impulse of our hero was to volunteer to gratify the curiosity of his worthy sire, but a glance at the old man's countenance changed his "notion," and he remarked that "Bill was a long ways the best hand." Bill who did not deem Simon's modesty an omen very favourable to himself, was inclined to reciprocate compliments with his young master; but a gesture of impatience from the old man set him instantly upon his knees; and, bending forward, he essayed to lay hold with his teeth of the peg, which Simon, just at that moment, very wickedly pushed a half inch further down. Just as the breeches and hide of the boy were stretched to the uttermost, old Mr. Suggs brought down his longest hickory, with both hands, upon the precise spot where the tension was greatest. With a loud yell, Bill plunged forward, upsetting Simon, and rolled in the grass; rubbing the castigated part with fearful energy. Simon, though overthrown, was unhurt; and he was mentally
Page 17
complimenting himself upon the sagacity which had prevented his illustrating the game of mumble-peg for the paternal amusement, when his attention was arrested by the old man's stooping to pick up something--what is it?--a card upon which Simon had been sitting, and which, therefore, had not gone with the rest of the pack into his pocket. The simple Mr. Suggs had only a vague idea of the pasteboard abomination called cards; and though he decidedly inclined to the opinion that this was one, he was by no means certain of the fact. Had Simon known this he would certainly have escaped; but he did not. His father assuming the look of extreme sapiency which is always worn by the interrogator who does not desire or expect to increase his knowledge by his questions, asked--
"What's this, Simon?"
"The Jack-a-dimunts," promptly responded Simon, who gave up all as lost after this faux pas.
"What was it doin' down thar Simon, my sonny?" continued Mr. Suggs, in an ironically affectionate tone of voice.
"I had it under my leg, thar, to make it on Bill, the first time it come trumps," was the ready reply.
"What's trumps?" asked Mr. Suggs, with a view of arriving at the import of the word.
"Nothin' a' n't trumps now," said Simon, who misapprehended his father's meaning--"but clubs was, when you come along and busted up the game."
A part of this answer was Greek to the Reverend Mr. Suggs, but a portion of it was full of meaning.
Page 18
They had then, most unquestionably, been "throwing" cards, the scoundrels! the "oudacious" little hellions!
"To the 'mulberry' with both on ye, in a hurry," said the old man sternly. But the lads were not disposed to be in a "hurry," for "the mulberry" was the scene of all formal punishment administered during work hours in the field. Simon followed his father, however, but made, as he went along, all manner of "faces" at the old man's back; gesticulated as if he were going to strike him between the shoulders with his fists, and kicking at him so as almost to touch his coat tail with his shoe. In this style they walked on to the mulberry tree, in whose shade Simon's brother Ben was resting. Of what transpired there, we shall speak in the next chapter.
Page 19
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
SIMON GETS A "SOFT SNAP" OUT OF HIS DADDY.
IT must not be supposed that, during the walk to the place of punishment, Simon's mind was either inactive, or engaged in suggesting the grimaces and contortions wherewith he was pantomimically expressing his irreverent sentiments toward his father. Far from it. The movements of his limbs and features were the mere workings of habit--the self-grinding of the corporeal machine--for which his reasoning half was only remotely responsible. For while Simon's person was thus, on its own account, "making game" of old Jed'diah, his wits, in view of the anticipated flogging, were dashing, springing, bounding, darting about, in hot chase of some expedient suitable to the necessities of the case; much after the manner in which puss--when Betty, armed with the broom, and hotly seeking vengeance for pantry robbed or bed defiled, has closed upon her the garret doors and windows--attempts all sorts of impossible exits, to come down at last in the corner, with panting side and glaring eye, exhausted and defenceless. Our unfortunate hero could devise nothing by which he could reasonably expect to escape the heavy blows of his father. Having arrived at this conclusion and the "mulberry" about the same time, he stood with a dogged look awaiting the issue.
The old man Suggs made no remark to any one
Page 20
while he was seizing up Bill--a process which, though by no means novel to Simon, seemed to excite in him a sort of painful interest. He watched it closely, as if endeavouring to learn the precise fashion of his father's knot; and when at last Bill was swung up a-tiptoe to a limb, and the whipping commenced, Simon's eye followed every movement of his father's arm; and as each blow descended upon the bare shoulders of his sable friend, his own body writhed and "wriggled" in involuntary sympathy.
"It's the devil--it's hell," said Simon to himself, "to take such a walloppin' as that. Why the old man looks like he wants to git to the holler, if he could--rot his old picter! It's wuth, at the least, fifty cents--je-e-miny how that hurt!--yes, it's wuth three-quarters of a dollar to take that 'ere lickin'! Wonder if I'm "predestinated," as old Jed'diah says, to git the feller to it? Lord, how daddy blows! I do wish to God he'd bust wide open, the durned old deer-face! If 'twa'n't for Ben helpin' him, I b'lieve I'd give the old dog a tussel when it comes to my turn. It couldn't make the thing no wuss, if it didn't make it no better. 'D rot it! what do boys have daddies for, any how? 'Taint for nuthin' but jist to beat 'em and work 'em.--There's some use in mammies--I kin poke my finger right in the old 'oman's eye, and keep it thar, and if I say it aint thar, she'll say so too. I wish she was here to hold daddy off. If 'twa'n't so fur, I'd holler for her, any how. How she would cling to the old fellow's coat tail!"
Mr. Jedediah Suggs let down Bill and untied him. Approaching Simon, whose coat was off, "Come,
Page 21
Simon, son," said he, "cross them hands; I'm gwine to correct you."
"It aint no use, daddy," said Simon.
"Why so, Simon?"
"Jist bekase it aint. I'm gwine to play cards as long as I live. When I go off to myself, I'm gwine to make my livin' by it. So what's the use of beatin' me about it?"
Old Mr. Suggs groaned, as he was wont to do in the pulpit, at this display of Simon's viciousness.
"Simon," said he, "you're a poor ignunt creetur. You don't know nuthin', and you've never bin no whars. If I was to turn you off, you'd starve in a week--"
"I wish you'd try me," said Simon, "and jist see. I'd win more money in a week than you can make in a year. There ain't nobody round here kin make seed corn off o' me at cards. I'm rale smart," he added with great emphasis.
"Simon! Simon! you poor unlettered fool. Don't you know that all card-players, and chicken-fighters, and horse-racers go to hell? You crack-brained creetur you. And don't you know that them that plays cards always loses their money, and--"
"Who win's it all then, daddy?" asked Simon.
"Shet your mouth, you imperdent, slack-jawed dog. Your daddy's a-tryin' to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin' up his words that way. I knowed a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to Augusty and sold a hundred dollars worth of cotton for his daddy, and some o' them gambollers got him to drinkin', and the very
Page 22
first night he was with 'em they got every cent of his money."
"They couldn't get my money in a week," said Simon. "Any body can git these here green feller's money; them's the sort I'm a-gwine to watch for myself. Here's what kin fix the papers jist about as nice as any body."
"Well, it's no use to argify about the matter," said old Jed'diah; "What saith the Scriptur'? 'He that begetteth a fool, doeth it to his sorrow.' Hence, Simon, you're a poor, misubble fool--so cross your hands!"
"You'd jist as well not, daddy; I tell you I'm gwine to follow playin' cards for a livin', and what's the use o' bangin' a feller about it? I'm as smart as any of 'em, and Bob Smith says them Augusty fellers can't make rent off o' me."
The reverend Mr. Suggs had once in his life gone to Augusta; an extent of travel which in those days was a little unusual. His consideration among his neighbours was considerably increased by the circumstance, as he had all the benefit of the popular inference, that no man could visit the city of Augusta without acquiring a vast superiority over all his untravelled neighbours, in every department of human knowledge. Mr. Suggs then, very naturally, felt ineffably indignant that an individual who had never seen any collection of human habitations larger than a log-house village--an individual, in short, no other or better than Bob Smith, should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners, customs, or any thing else appertaining to, or in any wise connected
Page 23
with, the ultima thule of back-woods Georgians. There were two propositions which witnessed their own truth to the mind of Mr. Suggs--the one was, that a man who had never been at Augusta, could not know any thing about that city, or any place, or any thing else; the other, that one who had been there must, of necessity, be not only well informed as to all things connected with the city itself, but perfectly au fait upon all subjects whatsoever. It was, therefore, in a tone of mingled indignation and contempt that he replied to the last remark of Simon.
"Bob Smith says, does he? And who's Bob Smith? Much does Bob Smith know about Augusty! he's been thar, I reckon! Slipped off yearly some mornin', when nobody warn't noticin', and got back afore night! It's only a hundred and fifty mile. Oh, yes, Bob Smith knows all about it! I don't know nothin' about it! I a'n't never been to Augusty--I couldn't find the road thar, I reckon--ha! ha! Bob--Smi-th! The eternal stink! if he was only to see one o' them fine gentlemen in Augusty, with his fine broad-cloth, and bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots a-shinin' like silver, he'd take to the woods and kill himself a-runnin'. Bob Smith! that's whar all your devilment comes from, Simon."
"Bob Smith's as good as any body else, I judge; and a heap smarter than some. He showed me how to cut Jack," continued Simon, "and that's more nor some people can do, if they have been to Augusty."
"If Bob Smith kin do it," said the old man, "I kin too. I don't know it by that name; but if it's
Page 24
book knowledge or plain sense, and Bob kin do it, it's reasonable to s'pose that old Jed'diah Suggs won't be bothered bad. Is it any ways similyar to the rule of three, Simon?"
"Pretty much, daddy, but not adzactly," said Simon, drawing a pack from his pocket, to explain. "Now daddy," he proceeded, "you see these here four cards is what we calls the Jacks. Well, now the idee is, if you'll take the pack and mix 'em all up together, I'll take off a passel from top, and the bottom one of them I take off will be one of the Jacks."
"Me to mix 'em fust?" said old Jed'diah.
"Yes."
"And you not to see but the back of the top one, when you go to 'cut,' as you call it?"
"Jist so, daddy."
"And the backs all jist as like as kin be?" said the senior Suggs, examining the cards.
"More alike nor cow-peas," said Simon.
"It can't be done, Simon," observed the old man, with great solemnity.
"Bob Smith kin do it, and so kin I."
"It's agin nater, Simon; thar a'n't a man in Augusty, nor on top of the yeath that kin do it!"
"Daddy," said our hero, "ef you'll bet me----"
"What!" thundered old Mr. Suggs. "Bet, did you say?" and he came down with a scorer across Simon's shoulders--"me, Jed'diah Suggs, that's been in the Lord's sarvice these twenty years--me bet, you nasty, sassy, triflin' ugly--"
"I didn't go to say that daddy; that warn't what I meant, adzactly. I went to say that ef you'd let
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me off from this here maulin' you owe me, and give me 'Bunch,' ef I cut Jack; I'd give you all this here silver, ef I didn't--that's all. To be sure, I allers knowed you wouldn't bet."
Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son handed him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also, mentally, compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of a certain Indian poney, called "Bunch," which he had bought for his "old woman's" Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a fence corner, the first and only time she ever mounted him. As he weighed the pouch of silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavoured to analyse the character of the transaction proposed by Simon. "It sartinly can't be nothin' but givin', no way it kin be twisted," he murmured to himself. "I know he can't do it, so there's no resk. What makes bettin'? The resk. It's a one-sided business, and I'll jist let him give me all his money, and that'll put all his wild sportin' notions out of his head."
"Will you stand it, daddy?" asked Simon, by way of waking the old man up. "You mought as well, for the whippin' won't do you no good, and as for Bunch, nobody about the plantation won't ride him but me."
"Simon," replied the old man, "I agree to it. Your old daddy is in a close place about payin' for his land; and this here money--it's jist eleven dollars, lacking of twenty-five cents--will help out mightily. But mind, Simon, ef any thing's said
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about this, herearter, remember, you give me the money."
"Very well, daddy; and ef the thing works up instid o'down, I s'pose we'll say you give me Bunch--eh?"
"You won't never be troubled to tell how you come by Bunch; the thing's agin nater, and can't be done. What old Jed'diah Suggs knows, he knows as good as any body. Give me them fixments, Simon."
Our hero handed the cards to his father, who, dropping the plough-line with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of mixing. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive kings and queens jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally a sprightly knave would insist on facing his neighbour; or, pressing his edge against another's, half double himself up, and then skip away. But Elder Jed'diah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the refractory, while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his cheeks. All of a sudden an idea, quick and penetrating as a rifle-ball, seemed to have entered the cranium of the old man. He chuckled audibly. The devil had suggested to Mr. Suggs an impromptu "stock," which would place the chances of Simon, already sufficiently slim, in the old man's opinion, without the range of possibility. Mr. Suggs forthwith proceeded to cull
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out all the picter ones, so as to be certain to include the Jacks, and place them at the bottom; with the evident intention of keeping Simon's fingers above these when he should cut. Our hero, who was quietly looking over his father's shoulders all the time, did not seem alarmed by this disposition of the cards; on the contrary, he smiled as if he felt perfectly confident of success, in spite of it.
"Now, daddy," said Simon, when his father had announced himself ready, "narry one of us aint got to look at the cards, while I'm a cuttin'; if we do, it'll spile the conjuration."
"Very well."
"And another thing--you've got to look me right dead in the eye, daddy--will you?"
"To be sure--to be sure;" said Mr. Suggs; "fire away."
Simon walked up close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack. Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder Suggs did not remark it.
"Wake snakes! day's a-breakin'! Rise Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the bottom one for the inspection of his father.
It was the Jack of hearts!
Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps with uplifted eyes and hands!
"Marciful master!" he exclaimed, "ef the boy
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haint! well, how in the round creation of the ----! Ben, did you ever? to be sure and sartin, Satan has power on this yeath!" and Mr. Suggs groaned in very bitterness.
"You never seed nothin' like that in Augusty, did ye, daddy?" asked Simon, with a malicious wink at Ben.
"Simon, how did you do it? queried the old man, without noticing his son's question.
"Do it daddy? Do it? 'Taint nothin'. I done it jist as easy as--shootin'."
Whether this explanation was entirely, or in any degree, satisfactory to the perplexed mind of Elder Jed'diah Suggs, cannot, after the lapse of time which has intervened, be sufficiently ascertained. It is certain, however, that he pressed the investigation no farther, but merely requested his son Benjamin to witness the fact, that in consideration of his love and affection for his son Simon, and in order to furnish the donee with the means of leaving that portion of the state of Georgia, he bestowed upon him the impracticable poney, "Bunch."
"Jist so, daddy; jist so; I'll witness that. But it 'minds me mightily of the way mammy give old Trailler the side of bacon, last week. She a-sweep-in' up the hath; the meat on the table--old Trailler jumps up, gethers the bacon and darts! mammy arter him with the broom-stick, as fur as the door--but seein' the dog has got the start, she shakes the stick at him and hollers, 'You sassy, aig-sukkin', roguish, gnatty, flop-eared varmint! take it along! take it along! I only wish 'twas full of a'snic, and ox-vomit,
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and blue vitrul, so as 'twould cut your interls into chitlins!' That's about the way you give Bunch to Simon."
"Oh, shuh! Ben," remarked Simon, "I wouldn't run on that way; daddy couldn't help it, it was pre-destinated--'whom he hath, he will,' you know;" and the rascal pulled down the under lid of his left eye at his brother. Then addressing his father, he asked, "Warn't it, daddy?"
"To be sure--to be sure--all fixed aforehand," was old Mr. Suggs' reply.
"Didn't I tell you so, Ben?" said Simon--"I knowed it was all fixed aforehand;" and he laughed until he was purple in the face.
"What's in ye? What are ye laughin' about?" asked the old man wrothily.
"Oh, it's so funny that it could all a' been fixed aforehand!" said Simon, and laughed louder than before.
The obtusity of the Reverend Mr. Suggs, however, prevented his making any discoveries. He fell into a brow study, and no further allusion was made to the matter.
It was evident to our hero that his father intended he should remain but one more night beneath the paternal roof. What mattered it to Simon?
He went home at night, curried and fed Bunch; whispered confidentially in his ear that he was the "fastest piece of hoss-flesh, accordin' to size, that ever shaded the yeath;" and then busied himself in preparing for an early start on the morrow.
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CHAPTER THE THIRD.
SIMON SPECULATES.
OLD Mrs. Suggs' big red rooster had hardly ceased crowing in announcement of the coming dawn, when Simon mounted the intractable Bunch. Both were in high spirits--our hero at the idea of unrestrained license in future; and Bunch from a mesmerical transmission to himself of a portion of his master's deviltry. Simon raised himself in the stirrups, yelled a tolerably fair imitation of the Creek war-whoop, and shouted--
"I'm off, old stud! remember the Jack-a-hearts!"
Bunch shook his little head, tucked down his tail, ran side-ways, as if going to fall; and then suddenly reared, squealed, and struck off at a brisk gallop.
Out of sight of his old home, Simon became serious--half melancholy. He thought over all the little incidents of his life--of his frolics with Bill and Ben--of the neighbour boys and girls--of the doting love of his mother; and he couldn't deny to himself, that it was sad to leave them all thus, perhaps no more to return to them. How long he may have indulged these sombre reflections is unknown; they were at length interrupted however, by an outburst of laughter, so sudden and violent that Bunch almost jumped out of his hide in a paroxysm of fright.
"Now won't it be great!" said he, thinking aloud. "Won't the old 'oman jump, and sputter, and tear
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off her cap, and break her spectacles!" and Simon roared with delight at the fun visible to his mind's eye. "And Jee-e-hu!" he continued, "won't old Jed'diah grunt, and cuss, and pray! I think I see him now, with his shirt tail a-flyin'! Hoop-ee! won't they roll over the floor, and have chicken fits, a dozen at a time! And thar's Ben, 'd rot him, 'ill have every bit of fun to hisself! But I don't care no how; I know adzactly how 'twill be--thar she lays a-kickin', and thar hit is, on the hath, busted all to flinderjigs; and thar's daddy, a flyin' round, a-turnin' over every thing, jest as ef he had the blind-staggers. And bime-by, she'll sort o' come too, and daddy'll ax her ef she's bad hurt; and then right away she'll take another one o' them starricks, and then from that, of all the kickin', snortin', hollerin', and cavortin' that ever was seen, they'll do it--haw! haw! haw!"
This quick transition from gloomy feelings to furious mirth, would perhaps be inexplicable to our readers, unless we mentioned the fact that Simon had, as soon as he arose, stolen into his mother's room, and nicely loaded the old lady's pipe with a thimble full of gunpowder; neatly covering the "villainous saltpetre" with tobacco. It was the scene he thought likely to occur when Mrs. Suggs should begin to solace herself with her matutinal "smoke," which made him laugh so loudly and so long. Whether the explosion did actually occur, must ever remain a question of some doubt: but there certainly is great plausibility in Simon's view of the matter, which is, that every thing was so excellently arranged, that he'll
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"be damned if it didn't blow the old woman within a foot, or a foot and a half of kingdom come." Howbeit, there are those who do not scruple to declare their belief that Mr. Suggs hazards nothing by such an asservation--seeing, as they declare, that the probability of his escaping the clutches of the old gentleman with the cloven hoof is exceedingly minute, independent of any mistake in relation to the explosion of the pipe. On this point, we, of course, have nothing to say. We are Captain Suggs' biographer. If he be saved, well! If not, it's none of our business. On so delicate a question, propriety will barely allow us the single remark, that should the Captain fail to slip past St. Peter, none but the "duly qualified" need thereafter attempt to effect an entrance.
His fit of laughter over, it was not long before Simon was at Bob Smith's grocery; and here, we are sorry to say, we lose all trace--at least all authentic trace--of him, for the next twenty years. Over, and over again, we have questioned "those who ought to know," but without ever having been able to get our hero one foot beyond the grocery. Like a sulky mule, there he stops every time, at Bob Smith's grocery. And in truth, we can say that the habit of stopping at places of that description has only been confirmed by time; notwithstanding which, however, it is right we should add, that we have never known the Captain to remain at one longer than six weeks at any one visit--a period of time greatly less than twenty years. We therefore do not, for a moment, entertain the idea that the Captain remained at Bob Smith's during the last-mentioned period. The supposition
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is altogether improbable: Bob Smith himself, did not, in all likelihood, remain there so long. But so it is, all concur that he went there, while none know how long he remained, or whither he afterwards went. Some have heard that he went thence to Augusta; others aver that in their opinion, he travelled away down into the low country "whar they call sop, gravy; again, some say that a man very much like him was seen travelling in the Cherokee country; and not a few contend that he married, and settled in an adjoining eastern county, leading a quiet and blameless life for many years. It is certain that he married: eight or ten strapping boys attest that fact--the rest is all doubt, uncertainty, and vague speculation. But, asks the reader, cannot Captain Suggs himself solve this mystery? Softly, good friend! The Captain chooses to be silent on the subject, and it does not become his friends to press him with questions. We once knew an individual in whose history there was a hiatus of four years. Of all other portions of his life he spoke with the utmost freedom, but to these four years he never referred, and when questioned closely as to how he spent them, his reply was ever a wink, and "None of your business, sir!" Some years after his death, it was accidentally discovered that the four years unaccounted for were spent in a penitentiary. Now we, by no means, mean to insinuate any thing like this in regard to Captain Suggs. Penitentiaries might gape on every side, and we'd give long odds that the Captain would be found outside while any body else was! We but mean to intimate that the Captain has some
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very good reason for not referring in any way to the unilluminated period, or any events which may have transpired therein. It' a free country, this, and no man is obliged by the law--and if the law do not oblige him, who or what else shall?--to state to the public where he lived, or how he spent his time, during any particular year or series of years. Suppose--we speak hypothetically--some enemy of Captain Suggs were to assert, that during the twenty years he was "buried to the world," he had lived in the county of Carroll, in the "sovereignty" of Georgia, where, from "time immemorial," the chief occupation of the inhabitants has been to steal horses--Carroll, the head-quarters of the old "Pony Club!" Just suppose that! And suppose further, that this bold and knowing individual should accompany that assertion with a wink of the eye, or a down-drawing of his mouth corners, or the placing of his thumb on the tip of his nose, or any other gesture or gesticulation intended to express covertly, (and falsely, of course,) the charge that Captain Suggs himself had stolen horses! What would the world--what would we say? It might, perhaps, be presumptuous in us to give a supposititious answer for the world; but for ourself we can speak outright. WE should say--boldly, haughtily, indignantly say--"LET HIM PROVE IT!"
Skipping over a score of years, then, during which the Captain's head from close application to theological studies, or some other cause, had become quite gray, we find him, in the year of our Lord 1833, snugly settled on public land on the Tallapoosa river, in the midst of that highly respectable town of Indians,
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known as the Oakfuskees. There he was, as jolly as Bacchus, with a pretty large family and considerable experience, but without funds--a speculator in Creek lands!
To the uninitiated it may seem odd that a man without a dollar should be a land speculator. We admit that there is a seeming incongruity in the idea: but have those in whose minds speculation and capital are inseparably connected, ever heard of a process by which lands were sold, deeds executed, and all that sort of thing completely arranged, and all without once troubling the owner of the soil for an opinion even, in regard to the matter? Yet such occurrences were frequent some years since, in this country, and they illustrated one mode of speculation requiring little, if any, cash capital. But there were other modes of speculating without money or credit; and Captain Simon Suggs became as familiar with every one of them, as with the way to his own corncrib. As for those branches of the business requiring actual pecuniary outlay, he regarded them as only fit to be pursued by purse-proud clod-heads. Any fool, he reasoned, could speculate if he had money. But to buy, to sell, to make profits, without a cent in one's pocket--this required judgment, discretion, ingenuity--in short, genius!
The following is a true account of the Captain's first "operation:"
Shortly after the land office had been opened at Montgomery, a perfect mania for entering government lands prevailed through the country. Speculators from Georgia and Tennessee, and from the older settlements
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of this state, might be seen dashing along at half-speed, almost any hour in the twenty-four, towards Montgomery. Many a long and hard race was run by rival land-hunters, intent upon the acquisition of the same "first-rate eighty" or "tip-top quarter." Ah! but those were "the times that tried" horse-flesh! But as we were going to say, there was a public house on the road from Captain Suggs' neighbourhood to Wetumpka, about fifteen miles from the latter place, and double that distance from Montgomery. At this house the Captain stopped once, in the hope of finding prey among the numerous speculators who thronged it almost every night, going to, or returning from, the land office. It so chanced on the occasion to which we refer, that supper-time brought with it no additional guest to Mr. Doublejoy's table; and the Captain having nothing better to do, retired early to bed. He had hardly fixed himself snugly between the sheets, however, when two persons rode up to the house, almost simultaneously, and put up for the night. One of these persons came from the direction of Wetumpka, the other from the Georgia end of the road. It was not long before the new-comers, who proved to be old acquaintances, had dispatched supper, and taken a bed together in a room adjoining the Captain's. Their bed, however, was close to his, and the cracks of the log partition enabled him to catch a part of the conversation which occurred after the strangers had lain down. From it he gathered the facts, that one of the parties was bound for Montgomery, and that his object was to enter a tract of land, upon which was a very valuable
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mill-shoal. He listened to hear the numbers, but the speculator only incidentally mentioned that it was part of section ten, leaving the Captain entirely in the dark as to the township and range.
"If," muttered he, "I could only get the township and range, I'd make a cahoot business with old man Doublejoy, get the money from him, and enter that mill-shoal with the twenty foot fall, before ten o'clock to-morrow." But though he listened closely, he could obtain no more accurate description of the land than that it was a part of section ten, in the eastern part of his own county, near Dodd's store, and valuable as a location for a set of mills. He learned further, that the stranger was very apprehensive that an agent of a certain company would be at his heels by morning, and give him a race for the land. This determined the captain how to act, and he rolled over and went to sleep.
By day-break the next morning the mill-shoal man was off. The Captain was "wide awake," but said nothing until his intended victim was fairly gone. He then ordered his own horse and dashed down the road at half-speed. By the time he had ridden half a mile, he overtook the land-seeker, whose horse seemed very stiff and slightly lame.
"--Mornin', mister," was the Captain's salutation, as he rode up by the stranger's side. "Sorter airish this morning'--judge that horse o' yourn is tetched with the founder."
"I'm afraid so," was the reply.
"Oh, I'll be damned if you need be afeerd of it, mister. It's jest so," said Captain Suggs. "In two
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hours more he won't be able to step over the butt cut of a broom straw."
"I hate it worse," said the stranger, "because I'm just now in a particular hurry to get to Montgomery on important business. I would give any gentleman," he continued, eyeing the Captain's old sorrel, "an excellent trade, to get a nag that would do a few hours' hard travel."
"Oh, I understand--but you needn't view this here old animal like you thought so much on him. I tell you what, mister ----, what did you say your name happened to be? Jones, eh?--well, 'squire Jones, I'll tell you on the honor of a gentleman, if you was to 'light from your horse and lay the purtiest hunderd dollar bill that ever had a picter on it, across your saddle, I wouldn't take 'em both for old Ball at this particular time. In four hours I must be in Montgomery."
"You certainly must be going to enter land, from your hurry."
"A body would think so, that looked into the matter rightly. And what's more," said the Captain, "it's quite likely there's somebody else after my land from what I've hearn--so I must push. Good mornin'."
As the Captain struck his heels against Ball's sides, Mr. Jones seemed to grow nervous.
"Whereabouts does your land lie?" he asked.
"Up in Tallapoosy," replied Suggs; and again he thumped Ball with his heels.
Mr. Jones evidently grew more uneasy.--"What part of the county?" he asked.
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"Close to the Chambers' line--not far from Dodd's store--get along Ball!" was the Captain's answer.
"Stop, sir--if you please--perhaps--I would like--we'd better perhaps under--" gasped Mr. Jones in great agitation.
"To be sure we had," said Suggs, with great sang froid. "It's jist as you say. But what the devil's the matter with you?--are you goin' to take a fit?"
Jones explained that he thought it likely they were both going to enter the same piece of land. "What did you say was the numbers of yours?" he asked.
"I didn't mention no numbers as well as I now recollect," said Suggs with a bland smile. "Hows'ever, 'squire Jones, as it looks like your gear don't fit you somehow, I'll jist tell you that the land I'm after is a d--d little, no-account quarter section, that nobody would have but me; its poor and piney, but it's got a snug little shoal on it, with twenty or twenty-five foot fall, and maybe they'll want to build a little town at Dodd's some of these days, and I mought sell 'em the lumber. Seein' you're pretty much afoot even if you wanted it, I may as well give you the numbers, if I can without lookin' in my pocket book. It's ten--ten--ten--Section ten, Township--Oh, damn the number, I never can remember--"
"S. E. quarter of 10: 22, 25--aint it?" asked Jones, who looked perfectly wild.
"Now you hit me!--good as four aces--them's the figures!" said Captain Suggs.
"It's the same piece I'm after; I'll give you fifty dollars to let me enter it."
"You wouldn't now, would you?"
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"I'll give you a hundred!"
"Try again!"
"Well, I'll give you a hundred and fifty, and not a dollar more," said Jones in a decisive tone.
"Let's see--well, I reckon--tho' I don't know--yes, I suppose I must let you have it, as I can't well spar' the money to enter it at this time, no how"--remarked Suggs, with much truth, as his cash on hand didn't amount to quite one-fortieth part of the sum necessary to make the entry. "But we must swap horses, and you must give me twenty dollars boot."
This was agreed to, and Captain Simon Suggs received the one hundred and seventy dollars with the air of a man who was conferring a most substantial favour; and made divers remarks laudatory of his own disposition while Mr. Jones counted the bills and changed the saddles. "Give my respects to Colonel Benson when you see him at the land office; tell him we're all well"--said he to Jones as they shook hands. Certes, he didn't know Colonel Benson from the great chief of the Pawnees: but Suggs has his weaknesses like other people.
Turning his horse's head homeward, Captain Suggs soliloquized somewhat in this vein: "A pretty, toloble fair mornin's work, I should say. A hundred and seventy dollars in the clear spizarinctum, and a horse wuth jist fifty dollars more than old Ball!--That makes about two hundred and twenty dollars, as nigh as I can guess without I had Dolbear along! Now some fellers, after makin' sich a little decent rise would milk the cow dry, by pushin' on to Double-joy's,
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startin' a runner the nigh way to Montgomery, by the Augusty ferry, and enterin' that land in somebody else's name before Jones gits thar! But honesty's the best policy. Honesty's the bright spot in any man's character!--Fair play's a jewel, but honesty beats it all to pieces! Ah yes, honesty, HONESTY's the stake that Simon Suggs will ALLERS tie to! What's a man without his inteegerty?"
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CHAPTER THE FOURTH.
SIMON STARTS FORTH TO FIGHT THE "TIGER," AND FALLS IN WITH A CANDIDATE WHOM HE "DOES" TO A CRACKLIN'.
READER! didst ever encounter the Tiger?--not the bounding creature of the woods, with deadly fang and mutilating claw, that preys upon blood and muscle--but the stealthier and more ferocious animal which ranges amid "the busy haunts of men"--which feeds upon coin and bank-notes--whose spots, more attractive than those of its namesake of the forest, dazzle and lure, like the brilliantly varying hues of the charmer snake, the more intensely and irresistibly, the longer they are looked upon--the thing, in short, of pasteboard and ivory, mother-of-pearl and mahogany--THE FARO BANK!
Take a look at the elegant man dealing out the cards, from that bijou of a box, there. Observe with what graceful dexterity he manages all the appliances of his art! The cards seem to leap forth rather in obedience to his will, than to be pulled out by his fingers. As he throws them in alternate piles, note the whiteness and symmetry of his hand, the snowy spotlessness of the linen exposed by the turn-up of his coat-cuff, and the lustre of the gem upon his little finger. Now look in his face. Isn't he a handsome fellow--a man to make hearts feminine ache? And how singularly at variance with the exciting nature
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of his occupation, is the expression of his countenance! How placid! He has hundreds depending upon the turn of the next card, and yet his face is entirely calm, if you except a very slight twitching of the eye-lids, which are so nearly closed that the long lashes nearly intermingle. A pretty, gentlemanly Tiger-keeper, in sooth! He smiles now--mark the beauty of that large mouth, and the dazzling splendour of those teeth!--as he addresses the florid and flushed young man, there at the table, whose last dollar he has just swept from the board. "The bank is singularly fortunate to-night. Nothing but the best sort of luck could have saved it from the skilful combination with which you attacked. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you would have broken it--I've had an escape." Spite of his ruinous losses, the poor devil is flattered by the compliment. Oh ass! of skull most impenetrable! To-day you are, or rather you were, on your way to college, with the first year's expenses--the close parings of the comforts of the old widow your mother, and the thin, blue-eyed girl your sister--in your pocket. This day twelvemonth, you will keep the scores of a gambling house and live upon the perquisites! See if you don't! The Tiger has cheated the professors, and you have cheated your family and--yourself!
Almost every man has his idiosyncrasy--his pet and peculiar opinion on some particular subject. Captain Simon Suggs has his; and he clings to it with a pertinacity that defies, alike the suggestions of reason, and the demonstrations of experience. Simon believes that he CAN WHIP THE TIGER, A FAIR FIGHT.
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He has always believed it; he will always believe it. The idea has obtained a lodgment in his cranium and peremptorily refuses to be ejected! It is the weak point--the Achilles' heel, as one might say--of his character. Remind him of the time, in Montgomery, when by a bite of this same Tiger, he lost his money and horse, and was compelled to trudge home afoot! ah, but then, he "hadn't got the hang of the game." Bring to his recollection how severely it scratched him in Girard!--oh, but "that fellow rung in a two-card box" upon him. Ask him if he did'nt drop a couple of hundreds at the Big Council? Certainly--but then he was "drinky and played careless;" and so on to the end.--Still he inflexibly believes he is to get the upper hand of the Tiger, some day when it is exceedingly fat, and wear its hide as a trophy! Still the invincible beast lacerates him instead! Such is the infatuation of Captain Suggs.
Acting under this delusion Simon determined, as soon as he obtained the money by the "land transaction" recorded in our last, to visit the city of Tuscaloosa, where the Legislature was to commence its session in a few days, with the double object of "weeding out" members, and making a grand demonstration against some bank. His "pile," to be sure, considering how extensive were the operations contemplated, was certainly small--inadequate. But as Simon remarked, upon setting out, "there is no telling which way luck or a half-broke steer will run." So perhaps the amount of his capital was really not a matter of any great consequence. He carried a hundred and fifty dollars with him; the results might not
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have been different, had he carried a thousand and fifty--who shall say?
The Captain--would that we could avoid the anachronism we commit every time we apply the military designation of Simon, in speaking of events which occurred anterior to the year of grace 1836;--however, let it go--the Captain left his horse at a farm-house near Montgomery, and took the mail-coach for the capital. The only other passenger was a gentleman who was about to visit the seat of government, with the intention of making himself a bank director, as speedily as possible. The individual assumed, and insisted on believing, that Simon was the member from Tallapoosa. This, of course Simon denied--but denied "in such a sort!"----
"I should be highly pleased, sir, if you could make it consistent with your views of the public good, to receive your support for that directorship, sir"--quoth the candidate.
"What keen people you candidates are, to find out folks," said Simon. "But mind, I haint said yet I was a member. I told wife when I started, I warn't goin' to tell nobod----hello! I liked to a ketcht myself--didn't I?" said Simon, winking pleasantly at the embryo director.
"Ah, you're a close, prudent fellow, I see," said the candidate; "I like prudence, sir, in public officers, sir! It's the bulwark, sir, to hang the anchor of the state upon, to speak nautically, sir. But as I was remarking, if duty to the state, to the country, and to the institution itself, would permit, I would be profoundly grate----."
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"Yes"--interrupted Suggs--"prudence is the stob I fasten the grape-vine of my cunnoo to. I said I wouldn't tell it--nor I won't."
"The present directory, sir, or at least a portion of it, sir, does not display that zeal, sir, in the service of the public--that promptitude, sir, and that spirit of accommodation--which the community has a right to expect, sir. Though, perhaps, I oughtn't, on account of the delicacy of my position, to make invidious remarks, sir--and sir, I make it a point never to do so--still, I may be permitted to say, that should the legislature honor me with their confidence, sir, I shall--that is to say, sir, a very different state of affairs may be anticipated. The institution, sir, should command the whole of my intellectual energies and faculties, sir. The institution, sir----."
"To be sure! to be sure! I onderstand," said Simon. "The institution's what we're all after. As for the present directory, they're all a pack of d--d swell-heads. Afore I left Montgomery I went to one on 'em, and told him who I was, and let on that I wanted a few dollars to pay expenses down. He knowned, in course, I'd soon be gittin' four----hello! I'm about to ketch myself agin!"--and Simon laughed, and winked at his companion.
"Four dollars per diem, besides mileage," said the candidate with a witching smile.
"Never mind about that, I say nothin' myself--other people can say what they please. Any how, that feller wouldn't let me have a dollar!"
"What ungentlemanly conduct!" remarked the financier, energetically."
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"D--d if he would--not a dollar--without I'd pledge myself to support him. That sir, I scorned to do," continued Simon, half rising from his seat, and swelling with indignation; "so I told him I'd see him as deep in h--ll as a pigeon could fly in a fortnight, first----"
"A very proper reply, sir--a very spirited reply, sir--just such a one, sir, as a man of high moral principle, refined feelings, pure patrio----"
"Oh, I gin him thunder and lightnin' stewed down to a strong pison, I tell you. I cussed him up one side and down tother, twell thar warn't the bigness of your thumb nail, that warn't properly cussed. And in the windin' up, I told him I'd pay my stage fare as fur towards Tuskalusy as my money hilt out, and walk the rest of the way, I would--but I'll show him," added the captain with a savage frown.
"Magnanimous, sir! that was magnanimous! A great moral spectacle, sir! You cursing the director, sir--withering him up with virtuous indignation--threatening to walk eightly miles, sir, over very inferior roads, to discharge your public functions--he cowering, as doubtless he did, before the representative of the people! Yes, sir, it was a sublime moral spectacle, worthy of a comparison with any recorded specimens of Roman or Spartan magnanimity, sir. How nobly did it vindicate the purity of the representative character, sir!"
"Belikes it did"--said the Captain--"shouldn't be surprised. There was smartly of a row betwixt us, certin. We did'nt make quite as much noise as a panter and a pack of hounds, but we made some.
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When we blowd off, I judge he had the wust of it: he looked like he had, any how."
"No doubt of it, sir; no doubt at all, sir. And now, my dear sir, if you will permit me to indicate what would have been my deportment upon such an occasion, I trust I can make you comprehend the difference between the conduct of an insolent official, and that of the high-bred, gentlemanly, public functionary!"
Captain Suggs gesticulated his willingness to listen; felicitating himself the while, upon the fact that Mr. Smith, his county member, would not be along for several days. The chances were altogether favourable for making a "raise," without fear of immediate detection--which is all the Captain ever cared for. So he isn't taken red-handed, after-claps may go to the devil!
"Why, sir," resumed the candidate, after taking a sly peep at a printed list, to get the name of the member from Tallapoosa--"why, sir, if you had approached me as you did the individual of whom we have been speaking; I occupying--you understand, sir--the important fiscal station of bank director, and you the highly honorable official position which you do occupy, of representative of the respectable county of Talla--"
"Stop! I never said my name was Smith; nor I never set myself up for a legislatur man! You heerd me tell the driver when I got up, not to tell the people who I was and whar I was goin'!"
"Oh, we understand all that, my dear sir, perfectly--perfectly!" said the candidate, with a smile
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of humorous intelligence.--"There are many reasons why gentlemen of distinction should at times desire to travel without being known."
"I'll be d--d if thar ain't!" thought Captain Simon Suggs.
"But my dear sir, there are persons so skilled in human nature, so acute in their perceptions of worth and talent, that they detect at a glance those whom the people have honored. You can't pass us my dear sir!--ha! ha! Oh no! We recognize you at once! However, as I was going on to remark--had you approached me under the circumstances stated, I should have said to you--Colonel Smith, your election by the enlightened people of the important county you represent, is ample guaranty to me, that you are a gentleman of the nicest honor, and the most unimpeachable veracity, even if the fact were not conclusively attested by your personal appearance. The sum you need, my dear Colonel, for expenses, is of course too small to justify a discount. Will you oblige me by drawing for the requisite amount on my private funds?--that's what I, sir, should have said, sir, under the circumstances."
"By the Lord, stranger," remarked the Captain, seizing the candidate's hand and shaking it repeatedly with great warmth, to all appearance as completely overwhelmed with gratitude for the supposititious loan, as he could possibly have been had it been real--"by the Lord, that would a-been the way! I'd a'stuck to a feller that done that way, twell the cows come home--I'd cut the big vein of my neck before I'd ever desert sich a friend! I'd wade to my ears in
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blood, to fight by that man's side; d--d if I wouldn't."
"Perhaps," said the candidate, "it isn't too late yet, to offer you a trifling accommodation of the sort?"
"No, it aint too late at all," answered Simon with admirable naiveté; "I could take a twenty, to right smart advantage yet!"
The office-seeker's pocket book was out in a twinkling, and a bank note transferred therefrom to Suggs' vest pocket.
"Of course, without the slightest reference to this little transaction, my dear Colonel, I count on your help."
"Give us your hand," said Suggs between his sobs--for the disinterested generosity of his companion had moved him to weeping--and they shook hands with great cordiality.
"You'll use your influence with your senator and other friends?"
"Look me in the eye!" replied the Captain with an almost tragic air.
The candidate looked steadily, for two seconds, in Simon's tearful eye.
"You see honesty thar--don't you?"
"I do! I do!" said the candidate with emotion.
"That's sufficient, aint it?"
"Most amply sufficient--most amply sufficient, my dear Colonel"--and then they shook hands again, and took a drink from the tickler which the financier carried in his carpet bag.
Suggs and his new friend travelled the remainder
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of the way to Tuskaloosa, in excellent companionship, as it was reasonable they should. They told their tales, sang their songs, and drank their liquor like a jovial pair as they were--the candidate paying all scores wherever they halted. And so things went pleasantly with Simon until his meeting with the tiger, which ensued immediately upon his arrival, and whereof we defer a description to the succeeding chapter.
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CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
SIMON FIGHTS "THE TIGER" AND GETS WHIPPED--BUT COMES OUT NOT MUCH THE "WORSE FOR WEAR."
As a matter of course, the first thing that engaged the attention of Captain Suggs upon his arrival in Tuskaloosa, was his proposed attack upon his enemy. Indeed, he scarcely allowed himself time to bolt, without mastication, the excellent supper served to him at Duffie's, ere he outsallied to engage the adversary. In the street, he suffered not himself to be beguiled into a moment's loitering, even by the strange sights which under other circumstances would certainly have enchained his attention. The windows of the great drug store cast forth their blaze of varied light in vain; the music of a fine amateur band preparing for a serenade, was no music for him; he paused not in front of the bookseller's, to inspect the prints, or the huge-lettered advertising cards. In short, so eager was he to give battle to the "Tiger," that the voice of the ring-master, as it came distinctly into the street from the circus--the sharp joke of the clown, and the perfectly-shadowed figures of "Dandy Jack" and the other performers, whisking rapidly round upon the canvass--failed to shake, in the slightest degree, the resolute determination of the courageous and indomitable Captain.
As he hurried along, however, with the long stride of the back-woods, hardly turning his head, and to
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all appearance, oblivious altogether of things external, he held occasional "confabs" with himself in regard to the unusual objects which surrounded him--for Suggs is an observant man, and notes with much accuracy whatever comes before him, all the while a body would suppose him to be asleep, or in a "turkey dream" at least. On the present occasion his communings with himself commenced opposite the window of the drug-store,--"Well, thar's the most deffrunt sperrets in that grocery ever I seed! Thar's koniac, and old peach, and rectified, and lots I can't tell thar names! That light-yaller bottle tho', in the corner thar, that's Tennessee! I'd know that any whar! And that tother bottle's rot-gut, ef I know myself--bit a drink, I reckon, as well's the rest! What a power o' likker they do keep in this here town; ef I warn't goin' to run agin the bank, I'd sample some of it, too, I reether expect. But it don't do for a man to sperrets much when he's pursuin' the beast--"
"H-ll and scissors! who ever seed the like of the books! Aint thar a pile! Do wonder what sort of a office them fellers in thar keeps, makes 'em want so many! They don't read 'em all, I judge! Well, mother-wit kin beat book-larnin, at any game! Thar's 'squire Hadenskelt up home, he's got two cart-loads of law books--tho' that's no tech to this feller's--and here's what knocked a fifty outen him once, at short cards, afore a right smart, active sheep could flop his tail ary time; and kin do it agin, whenever he gits over his shyness! Human natur' and the human family is my books, and I've never seed many but
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what I could hold my own with. Let me git one o' these book-larnt fellers over a bottle of "old corn," and a handful of the dokkyments, and I'm d--d apt to git what he knows, and in a ginral way gives him a wrinkle into the bargain! Books aint fitten for nothin' but jist to give to childen goin' to school, to keep 'em outen mischief. As old Jed'diah used to say, book-larnin spiles a man ef he's got mother-wit, and ef he aint got that, it don't do him no good--"
"Hello agin! Here's a sirkis, and ef I warnt in a hurry, right here I'd drop a quarter, providin' I couldn't fix it to slip in for nothin', which is always the cheapest in a ginral way!"
Thus ruminating, Simon at length reached CLARE'S. Passing into the bar-room, he stood a moment, looking around to ascertain the direction in which he should proceed to find the faro banks, which he had heard were nightly exhibited there. In a corner of the room he discovered a stair-way, above which was burning a lurid-red lamp. Waiting for no other indication, he strode up the stairs. At the landing-place above he found a door which was closed and locked, but light came through the key-hole, and the sharp rattling of dice and jingling of coin, spoke conclusively of the employment of the occupants of the room.
Simon knocked.
"Hello!" said somebody within.
"Hello yourself!" said the Captain.
"What do you want?" said the voice from the room.
"A game," was the Captain's laconic answer.
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"What's the name?" again inquired the person within.
"Cash," said Simon.
"He'll do," said another person in the room; "let 'Cash' in."
The door was opened and Simon entered, half-blinded by the sudden burst of light which streamed from the chandeliers and lamps, and was reflected in every direction by the mirrors which almost walled the room. In the centre of the room was a small but unique "bar," the counter of which, except a small space occupied by a sliding door at which customers were served, was enclosed with burnished brass rods. Within this "magic circle" stood a pock-marked clerk, who vended to the company wines and liquors too costly to be imbibed by any but men of fortune or gamesters, who, alternately rich and penniless, indulge every appetite without stint while they have the means; eating viands and drinking wines one day, which a prince might not disdain, to fast entirely the next, or make a disgusting meal from the dirty counter of a miserable eating-house. Disposed at regular intervals around the room, were tables for the various games usually played; all of them thronged with eager "customers," and covered with heavy piles of doubloons, and dollars, and bank notes. Of these tables the "tiger" claimed three--for faro was predominant in those days, when a cell in the penitentiary was not the penalty for exhibiting it. Most of the persons in the room were well-dressed, and a large proportion members of the legislature. There
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was very little noise, no loud swearing, but very deep playing.
As Simon entered, he made his rustic bow, and in an easy, familiar way, saluted the company with
"Good evenin' gentlemen!"
No one seemed inclined to acknowledge, on behalf of the company, their pleasure at seeing Captain Suggs. Indeed, nobody appeared to notice him at all after the first half second. The Captain, therefore, repeated his salutation:
"I say, GOOD EVENIN', gentlemen!"
Notwithstanding the emphasis with which the words were re-spoken, there was only a slight laugh from some of the company, and the Captain began to feel a little awkward standing up before so many strangers. While he was hesitating whether to begin business at once by walking up to one of the faro tables and commencing the "fight," he overheard a young man standing a few feet from him, say to another,
"Jim, isn't that your uncle, General Witherspoon, who has been expected here for several days with a large drove of hogs?"
"By Jupiter," said the person addressed, "I believe it is; though I'm not certain, as I haven't seen him since I was a little fellow. But what makes you think it's him: you never saw him?"
"No, but he suits the description given of your uncle, very well--white hair, red eyes, wide mouth, and so forth. Does your uncle gamble?"
"They say he does; but my mother, who is his sister, knows hardly any more about him than the
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rest of the world. We've only seen him once in fifteen years. I'll de d--d," he added, looking steadfastly at Simon, "if that isn't he! He's as rich as mud, and a jovial old cock of a bachelor, so I must claim kin with him."
Simon could, of course, have no reasonable objection to being believed to be General Thomas Witherspoon, the rich hog drover from Kentucky. Not he! The idea pleased him excessively, and he determined if he was not respected as General Witherspoon for the remainder of that evening, it should be "somebody else's fault," not his! In a few minutes, indeed, it was whispered through the company, that the red-eyed man with white hair, was the wealthy field-officer who drove swine to increase his fortune; and in consequence of this, Simon thought he discovered a very considerable improvement in the way of politeness, on the part of all present. The bare suspicion that he was rich, was sufficient to induce deference and attention.
Sauntering up to a faro bank with the intention of betting, while his money should hold out, with the spirit and liberality which General Witherspoon would have displayed had be been personally present, he called for
"Twenty, five-dollar checks, and that pretty toloble d--d quick!"
The dealer handed him the red checks, and he piled them upon the "ten."
"Grind on!" said Simon.
A card or two was dealt, and the keeper, with a profound bow, handed Simon twenty more red checks.
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"Deal away," said Simon, heaping the additional checks on the same card.
Again the cards flew from the little box, and again Simon won.
Several persons were now over-looking the game; and among the rest, the young man who was so happy as to be the nephew of General Witherspoon.
"The old codger has nerve; I'll be d--d if he hasn't," said one.
"And money too," said another, "from the way he bets."
"To be sure he has," said a third; "that's the rich hog drover from Kentucky."
By this time Simon had won seven hundred dollars. But the Captain was not at all disposed to discontinue. "Now!" he thought was the "golden moment" in which to press his luck; "now!" the hour of the "tiger's" doom, when he should be completely flayed.
"That brings the fat in great fleeks as big as my arm!" observed the Captain, as he won the fifth consecutive bet: "it's hooray, brother John, every fire a turkey! as the boy said. Here goes again!" and he staked his winnings and the original stake on the Jack.
"Gracious heavens! General, I wouldn't stake so much on a single card," said a young man who was inclined to boot-lick any body suspected of having money.
"You wouldn't, young man," said the Captain, turning round and facing him, "bekase you never tote a pile of that size."
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The obtrusive individual shrunk back under this rebuke, and the crowd voted Simon not only a man of spunk, but a man of wit.
At this moment the Jack won, and the Captain was better off, by fifteen hundred dollars, than when he entered the saloon.
"That's better--jist the least grain in the world better--than drivin' hogs from Kaintucky and sellin' 'em at four cents a pound!" triumphantly remarked Suggs.
The nephew of General Witherspoon was now confident that Captain Suggs was his uncle. He accordingly pushed up to him with--
"Don't you know me, uncle?" at the same time extending his hand.
Captain Suggs drew himself up with as much dignity as he supposed the individual whom he personated would have assumed, and remarked that he did not know the young man then in his immediate presence.
"Don't know me, uncle. Why, I'm James Peyton, your sister's son. She has been expecting you for several days;" said the much-humbled nephew of the hog drover.
"All very well, Mr. Jeemes Peyton, but as this little world of ourn is tolloble d--d full of rascally impostors; and gentlemen of my--that is to say--you see--persons that have got somethin', is apt to be tuk in, it stands a man in hand to be a leetle perticler. So jist answer me a strait forrard question or two," said the Captain, subjecting Mr. Peyton to a test, which if applied to himself, would have blown
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him sky-high. But Simon was determined to place his own identity as General Witherspoon above suspicion, by seeming to suspect something wrong about Mr. James Peyton.
"Oh," said several of the crowd, "every body knows he's the widow Peyton's son, and your nephew, of course."
"Wait for the wagin, gentlemen," said Simon; "every body has give me several sons, which, as I aint married, I don't want, and" added he with a very facetious wink and smile, "I don't care about takin' a nephy on the same terms without he's giniwine."
"Oh, he's genuine," said several at once.
"Hold on, gentlemen; this young man might want to borrow money of me--"
Mr. Peyton protested against any such supposition.
"Oh, well!" said the Captain, "I might want to borrow of you, and--"
Mr. Peyton signified his willingness to lend his uncle the last dollar in his pocket book.
"Very good! very good! but I happen to be a little notiony about sich matters. It aint every man I'd borrer from. Before I handle a man's money in the way of borrerin, in the fust place I must know him to be a gentleman; in the second place, he must be my friend; and in the third place, I must think he's both able and willin' to afford the accommodation"--and the Captain paused and looked around to receive the applause which he knew must be elicited by the magnanimity of the sentiment.
The applause did come; and the crowd thought
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while they gave it, how difficult and desirable a thing it would be, to lend money to General Thomas Witherspoon, the rich hog drover.
The Captain now resumed his examination of Mr. Peyton.
"What's your mother's fust name?" he asked.
"Sarah," said Mr. Peyton meekly.
"Right! so fur," said the Captain, with a smile of approval: "how many children has she?"
"Two: myself and brother Tom."
"Right again!" observed the Captain. "Tom, gentlemen," added he, turning to the crowd, and venturing a shrewd guess; "Tom, gentlemen, was named arter me. Warn't he, sir?" said he to Mr. Peyton, sternly.
"He was, sir--his name is Thomas Witherspoon."
Captain Suggs bobbed his head at the company, as much as to say, "I knew it;" and the crowd in their own minds, decided that the ci-devant General Witherspoon was "a devilish sharp old cock"--and the crowd wasn't far out of the way.
Simon was not acting in this matter without an object. He intended to make a bold attempt to win a small fortune, and he thought it quite possible he should lose the money he had won; in which case it would be convenient to have the credit of General Witherspoon to operate upon.
"Gentlemen," said he to the company, with whom he had become vastly popular; "your attention, one moment, ef you please!"
The company accorded him its most obsequious attention.
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"Come here, Jeemes!"
Mr. James Peyton approached to within eighteen inches of his supposititious uncle, who raised his hands above the young man's head, in the most impressive manner.
"One and all, gentlemen," said he, "I call on you to witness that I reckognize this here young man as my proper, giniwine nephy--my sister Sally's son; and wish him respected as sich. Jeemes, hug your old uncle!"
Young Mr. James Peyton and Captain Simon Suggs then embraced. Several of the bystanders laughed, but a large majority sympathized with the Captain. A few wept at the affecting sight, and one person expressed the opinion that nothing so soul-moving had ever before taken place in the city of Tuskaloosa. As for Simon, the tears rolled down his face, as naturally as if they had been called forth by real emotion, instead of being pumped up mechanically to give effect to the scene.
Captain Suggs now renewed the engagement with the tiger, which had been temporarily suspended that he might satisfy himself of the identity of James Peyton. But the "fickle goddess," jealous of his attention to the nephew of General Witherspoon, had deserted him in a pet.
"Thar goes a dozen d--d fine, fat hogs!" said the Captain, as the bank won a bet of two hundred dollars.
Suggs shifted about from card to card, but the bank won always! At last he thought it best to return
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to the "ten," upon which he bet five hundred dollars.
"Now, I'll wool you," said he.
"Next time!" said the dealer, as he threw the winning card upon his own pile.
"That makes my hogs squeal," said the Captain; and every body admired the fine wit and nerve of the hog drover.
In half an hour Suggs was "as flat as a flounder." Not a dollar remained of his winnings or his original stake. It was, therefore, time to "run his face," or rather, the "face" of General Witherspoon.
"Could a body bet a few mighty fine bacon hogs, agin money at this table?" he inquired.
The dealer would be happy to accommodate the General, upon his word of honor.
It was not long before Suggs had bet off a very considerable number of the very fine hogs in General Witherspoon's uncommonly fine drove. He began to feel, too, as if a meeting with the veritable drover might be very disagreeable. He began, therefore, to entertain serious notions of borrowing some money and leaving in the stage, that night, for Greensboro'. Honor demanded, however, that he should "settle" to the satisfaction of the dealer. He accordingly called
"Jeemes!"
Mr. Peyton responded very promptly to the call.
"Now," said Simon, "Jeemes, I'm a little behind to this gentleman here, and I'm obleeged to go to Greensboro' in to-night's stage, on account of seein' ef I can engage pork thar. Now ef I shouldn't be
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here, when my hogs come in, do you, Jeemes, take this gentleman to wharever the boys puts 'em up, and let him pick thirty of the finest in the drove. D'ye hear, Jeemes?"
James promised to attend to the delivery of the hogs.
"Is that satisfactory?" asked Simon.
"Perfectly," said the dealer; "let's take a drink."
Before the Captain went up to the bar to drink, he patted "Jeemes" upon the shoulder, and intimated that he desired to speak to him privately. Mr. Peyton was highly delighted at this mark of his rich uncle's confidence, and turned his head to see whether the company noted it. Having ascertained that they did, he accompanied his uncle to an unoccupied part of the saloon.
"Jeemes," said the Captain thoughtfully, "has your--mother bought--her--her--pork yet?"
James said she had not.
"Well, Jeemes, when my drove comes in, do you go down and pick her out ten of the best. Tell the boys to show you them new breed--the Berkshears."
Mr. Peyton made his grateful acknowledgements for his uncle's generosity, and they started back towards the crowd. Before they had advanced more than a couple of steps, however--
"Stop!" said Simon, "I'd like to a' forgot. Have you as much as a couple of hunderd by you, Jeemes, that I could use twell I git back from Greensboro'?"
Mr. Peyton was very sorry he hadn't more than fifty dollars about him. His uncle could take that,
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however--as he did forthwith--and he would "jump about" and get the balance in ten minutes.
"Don't do it, ef it's any trouble at all, Jeemes," said the Captain cunningly.
But Mr. James Peyton was determined that he would "raise the wind" for his uncle, let the "trouble" be what it might; and so energetic were his endeavours, that in a few moments he returned to the Captain and handed him the desired amount.
"Much obleeged to you, Jeemes; I'll remember you for this;" and no doubt the Captain has kept his word; for whenever he makes a promise which it costs nothing to perform, Captain Simon Suggs is the most punctual of men.
After Suggs had taken a glass of "sperrets" with his friend the dealer--whom he assured he considered the "smartest and cleverest" fellow out of Kentucky--he wished to retire. But just as he was leaving, it was suggested in his hearing, that an oyster supper would be no inappropriate way of testifying his joy at meeting his clever nephew and so many true-hearted friends.
"Ah, gentlemen, the old hog drover's broke now, or he'd be proud to treat to something of the sort. They've knocked the leaf fat outen him to-night, in wads as big as mattock handles," observed Suggs, looking at the bar-keeper out of the corner of his left eye.
"Any thing this house affords is at the disposal of General Witherspoon," said the bar-keeeper.
"Well! well!" said Simon, "you're all so clever,
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I must stand it I suppose, tho' I oughtn't to be so extravagant."
"Take the crowd, sir?"
"Certainly," said Simon.
"How much champagne, General?"
"I reckon we can make out with a couple of baskets," said the Captain, who was determined to sustain any reputation for liberality which General Witherspoon might, perchance, possess.
There was a considerable ringing of bells for a brief space, and then a door which Simon hadn't before seen, was thrown open, and the company ushered into a handsome supping apartment. Seated at the convivial board, the Captain outshone himself; and to this day, some of the bon mots which escaped him on that occasion, are remembered and repeated.
At length, after the proper quantity of champagne and oysters had been swallowed, the young man whom Simon had so signally rebuked early in the evening, rose and remarked that he had a sentiment to propose: "I give you, gentlemen," said he, "the health of General Witherspoon. Long may he live, and often may he visit our city and partake of its hospitalities!"
Thunders of applause followed this toast, and Suggs, as in duty bound, got up in his chair to respond.
"Gentlemen," said he "I'm devilish glad to see you all, and much obleeged to you, besides. You are the finest people I ever was amongst, and treat me a d--d sight better than they do at home"--which was a fact! "Hows'ever, I'm a poor hand to
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speak, but here's wishing of luck to you all"--and then wickedly seeming to blunder in his little speech--"and if I forgit you, I'll be d--d if you'll ever forgit me!"
Again there was a mixed noise of human voices, plates, knives and forks, glasses and wine bottles, and then the company agreed to disperse. "What a noble-hearted fellow!" exclaimed a dozen in a breath, as they were leaving.
As Simon and Peyton passed out, the bar-keeper handed the former a slip of paper, containing such items as--"twenty-seven dozen of oysters, twenty-seven dollars; two baskets of champagne, thirty-six dollars,"--making a grand total of sixty-three dollars.
The Captain, who "felt his wine," only hiccoughed, nodded at Peyton, and observed.
"Jeemes, you'll attend to this?"
"Jeemes" said he would, and the pair walked out and bent their way to the stage-office, where the Greensboro' coach was already drawn up. Simon wouldn't wake the hotel keeper to get his saddle-bags, because, as he said, he would probably return in a day or two.
"Jeemes," said he, as he held that individual's hand; "Jeemes, has your mother bought her pork yet?"
"No, sir," said Peyton, "you know you told me to take ten of your hogs for her--don't you recollect?"
"Don't do that," said Simon, sternly.
Peyton stood aghast! "Why sir?" he asked.
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"Take TWENTY!" said the Captain, and wringing the hand he held, he bounced into the coach, which whirled away, leaving Mr. James Peyton on the pavement, in profound contemplation of the boundless generosity of his uncle, General Thomas Witherspoon of Kentucky!
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CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
SIMON SPECULATES AGAIN.
THERE are few of the old settlers of the Creek territory in Alabama, who do not recollect the great Indian Council held at Dudley's store, in Tallapoosa county, in September of the year 1835. In those days, an occasion of the sort drew together white man and Indian from all quarters of the "nation"--the one to cheat, the other to be cheated. The agent appointed by the Government to "certify" the sales of Indian lands was always in attendance; so that the scene was generally one of active traffic. The industrious speculator, with his assistant, the wily interpreter, kept unceasingly at work in the business of fraud; and by every species and art of persuasion, sought--and, sooner or later, succeeded--in drawing the untutored children of the forest into their nets. If foiled once, twice, thrice, a dozen times, still they kept up the pursuit. It was ever the constant trailing of the slow-track dog, from whose fangs there was no final escape!
And where are these speculators NOW?--those lords of the soil!--the men of dollars--the fortune-makers who bought with hundreds what was worth thousands!--they to whom every revolution of the sun brought a reduplication of their wealth! Where are they, and what are they, now! They have been smitten by the hand of retributive justice! The curse
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of their victims has fastened upon them, and nine out of ten are houseless, outcast, bankrupt! In the flitting of ten years, the larger portion have lost money, lands, character, every thing! And the few who still retain somewhat of their once lordly possessions, mark its steady, unaccountable diminution, and strive vainly to avert their irresistible fate--an old age of shame and beggary. They are cursed, all of them--blighted, root and trunk and limb! The Creek is avenged! Avenged, and for what! ask you, reader? Let us tell you a little story!
We knew, at the period to which this chapter refers, an Indian who refused to sell his land on any terms. He was a sturdy, independent fellow; one of the few who would not be contaminated by intercourse with the whites. His land was very valuable, and many speculators were, therefore, anxious to purchase it. So desirable was it, that several would, perhaps, have paid the "Sky chief" half its actual value to obtain it; but the "Sky chief" resolutely persisted in resisting all their arts; and he was too well known to make it practicable to get it, by hiring some thieving Indian to personate him before the certifying agent. But "Sudo Micco" had a daughter, a very pretty girl of fifteen--slightly made, with a Grecian face, and long coal-black hair; and her name was Litka. Well! Litka went to a dance--the green corn dance of her people--and it was conceded, that in her new calico frock and profusion of blue and red ribbons, and her silver buckles, she was the handsomest girl on the ground. Among her admirers was a young man named Eggleston--a sub-partner, or
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"striker," of the great Columbus Land Company. Eggleston told a sweet tale to the Indian girl, and she--as he was a very handsome young man--believed it all. He told her that he would marry her and take care of her, and of her father; and that when the rest of the tribe should be forced to Arkansas, they could stay with him in their old home, by the graves of their fathers. The "long and short" of all this was, that the white man and Indian girl were married according to the Creek custom; Sudo Micco having willingly assented to an arrangement by which he expected to be permitted to remain upon the soil which contained the bones of his ancestors. For a few months Eggleston treated Litka and Sudo Micco very well, and they confided in him implicitly. Then he told his wife that her father must "certify" his land to him, or "bad white men" might contrive to get it. Litka told the old "Sky chief" what her husband said, and the simple-minded Indian said it was "a good talk," and that his "white man son" should do as he pleased. So the "Sky chief" "certified" his land to his son-in-law; and the certifying agent saw a thousand silver dollars paid to the Indian, who within ten minutes afterwards returned them. Then Eggleston deserted Litka, and sold the land for three thousand dollars. Sudo Micco fumed and raved--but what good could that do? And Litka, poor thing! was almost broken-hearted. And last of all, Sudo Micco begged his son-in-law, as he had got his land for nothing, and his daughter was too near her confinement to travel on foot, to get him a little wagon and a horse to take them to Arkansas.
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But Eggleston laughed in his face, and told him that a wagon would cost too much money. So Sudo Micco was compelled to wait until the Government removed his people; and then he went in one of the "public" wagons, among the "poor" of his tribe. FOR THIS, AND SUCH AS THIS--as we have shown--IS THE CREEK AVENGED!
But we set out to tell about the council at Dudley's, and here we are writing episodes about Creek frauds, as long almost, as the catalogue of Creek wrongs! We will come back to the starting point. It was a right beautiful sight to look at--the camp-fires of five thousand Indians, that burned at every point of the circular ridge which enclosed Dudley's trading establishment; and it was thrilling to hear the wild whoopings, and wilder songs of the "natives," as they danced and capered about their respective encampments--on the first night of the council. It was a little alarming too, to witness the occasional miniature battle between "towns" which, like the Highland clans, had their feuds of immemorable date.
"Coop! coop! hee!" shouts a champion of the Cohomutka-Gartska town, the principal family of which was that which rejoiced in the name of "Deer." "The Oakfuskee people are all cowards--they run like rabbits! They are liars! They have two tongues! Coop! coop! hee--e--! the Alligator family is mixed-blooded! they come from the runaway Seminole and the runlet-making Cherokee! The "Deer" people can beat the Alligator people till they beg for their hides!" Then the representative of the chivalrous "Deer" people struts before his
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camp-fire, gesticulating violently, and expressing his contempt of his Alligator brethren, by all sorts of grotesque attitudes; while the women and children about the fire, declare that Cho-yoholo, (the Screaming Deer,) is a great warrior, and can flog every Alligator of them all by himself.
Presently, a re