The Biglow Papers Part 12

Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come an' grinned, He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' sez, "You 're fairly pinned; Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git right up an' come, 'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me to be so long from hum."

At fust I put my foot right down an' swore I would n't budge.

"Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, "either be shot or trudge."

So this black-hearted monster took an' act'lly druv me back Along the very feetmarks o' my happy mornin' track, An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, an' worked me, tu, like sin, Till I bed gut his corn an' his Carliny taters in; He made me larn him readin', tu (although the crittur saw How much it hurt my morril sense to act agin the law), So 'st he could read a Bible he 'd gut; an' axed ef I could pint The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o' jint, Fer I weeled roun' about sou'west, an', lookin' up a bit, Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole him thet wuz it.

Fin'lly, he took me to the door, an', givin' me a kick, Sez,--"Ef you know wut 's best fer ye, be off, now, double-quick; The winter-time 's a comin' on, an', though I gut ye cheap, You 're so darned lazy, I don't think you 're hardly wuth your keep; Besides, the childrin's growin' up, an' you aint jest the model I 'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so you 'd better toddle!"

Now is there any thin' on airth 'll ever prove to me Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein' free?

D' you think they 'll suck me in to jine the Buff'lo chaps, an' them Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem?

Not by a jugfull! sooner 'n thet, I 'd go thru fire an' water; Wen I hev once made up my mind, a meet'nhus aint sotter; No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones wuz cawin',-- I guess we 're in a Christian land,--

Yourn,

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust with some mutual satisfaction. I say _patient_, for I love not that kind which skims dippingly over the surface of the page, as swallows over a pool before rain. By such no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls there be (as, indeed, the world is not without example of books wherefrom the longest-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper handful of mud), yet let us hope that an oyster or two may reward adequate perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself a gem worth diving deeply for.

It may seem to some that too much s.p.a.ce has been usurped by my own private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meeting-house save only the s.e.xton, who, remaining for yet a little s.p.a.ce, from a sense of official duty, at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys, humbly requested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily believe that the Gospel of St. John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert many to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he discoursed. The chief thing is, that the messenger believe that he has an authentic message to deliver.

For counterfeit messengers that mode of treatment which Father John de Plano Carpini relates to have prevailed among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their pulpit eloquence.

It is possible, that, having been invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I may have been too little scrupulous in using it for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a congregation drawn together in the expectation and with the desire of hearing him.

I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may compare myself to one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has _caught bottom_, hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various _algae_, among which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavoured to adapt myself to the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we have been abridged into a race of pigmies.

For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebrae of the saurians, whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the withstanding of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the innumerable _heads_ of one of those aforementioned discourses may supply us with a plausible interpretation of the second labour of Hercules, and his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent.

But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this regard, I cannot refuse to succ.u.mb to its influence. Looking out through my study-window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop is more abundant than my own,--by which sight I am admonished to turn to those orchards of the mind wherein my labours may be more prospered, and apply myself diligently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's discourse.--H. W.]

THE END.