The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 7

Here Captain Bob Shorty stepped forward, and says he:

"What does the Const.i.tution say about custard pie, Mr. Davis?"

The aged chap spat at him, and says he:

"I claim protection under that clause which refers to the pursuit of happiness. Custard pies," says he, reasoningly, "are included in the pursuit of happiness."

"That's very true," says the General, looking kindly over his fan at the venerable pet.i.tioner. "Let a guard be detailed to protect this good old man's premises. We are fighting _for_ the Const.i.tution, not against it."

A guard was detailed, my boy, with orders to make no resistance if they were fired upon occasionally from the windows of the house; and then Captain Villiam Brown pushed forward with what was left of Company 3, to engage the Confederacy on the edge of Duck Lake, supported by the Orange County Howitzers. Headed by the band, who played patriotic airs as soon as he could shake the crumbs out of his key-bugle, the cavalcade advanced to the edge of the lake and opened a heavy salute of round shot and musketry on the atmosphere, whilst Commodore Head kept up a hot fire at the horizon with his iron-plated fleet and swivel gun.

Only waiting to finish a game of base ball, in which they had been engaged, four regiments of Confederacies, at whom this deadly a.s.sault was directed, threw aside their bats and ball dresses, put on their uniforms, loaded their muskets and batteries, and sent an iron shower in all directions. Greatly demoralized by this unseemly occurrence, a file of Mackerels under Sergeant O'Pake immediately threw down their muskets and knapsacks, emptied their pockets upon the ground, piled their neckties in a heap, and were making a rapid retrograde movement, when Villiam suddenly threw himself in their path, and says he:

"Where are you going to, my fearless eaglets?"

"Hem!" says the sergeant, with much French in his manner, "we thought of visiting the Great Exhibition in London."

"Ah!" says Villiam, understandingly, "you have acquired French in one easy lesson, and--"

Here an orderly rode up with an order for the Mackerels to fall back from the edge of the Lake immediately, leaving their artillery, bayonets, havelocks, and baggage behind them; and Villiam was obliged to conduct the movement, which was a part of the strategical scheme of the General of the Mackerel Brigade. As we retreated back into Paris, my boy, we were joined by the Conic Section, and shortly after by the Anatomical Cavalry, both of which had succeeded in leaving all their accoutrements on the field.

As we all rushed together before head-quarters in perfect order, and while the Confederacy was eating some provisions, which we had refrained from bringing off the late scene of conflict, the General of the Mackerel Brigade came from under a tree, where he had been tanning himself, and says he:

"My children, we have whipped them at all points, and the day is ours."

"Ah!" says Villiam, abstractedly, "the day is hours."

"My children," says the General, in continuation, "we have pushed the enemy to the wall without fracturing the Const.i.tution, and have only put the war back six months. We can say with pride, my children, that we belong to the Army of Duck Lake, and shall have no more Bull Runs.

My children, I love you. Accept my blessing."

We were reflecting upon this soul-stirring speech, my boy, and silently admiring the strategy which had brought us all together again so soon, when the sound of drum and fife called our attention to a club of political chaps who had just arrived by steamer from the Sixth Ward, and were filing past us to a platform recently erected in the very centre of Paris.

"I do believe," says Captain Bob Shorty, whisperingly, "I do believe we're going to have a ma.s.s meeting."

Onward went the political chaps to the platform.

A delegation mounted the steps, advanced to the front rails, and commenced unfurling a vast linen banner. The sun was just setting, my boy, and as his parting beams fell upon the uplifted faces of the political chaps, a soft breeze unrolled the standard, and the Mackerels read upon its folds--

REGULAR CONSERVATIVE NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1865.

THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.

Shall it be said, after this, that republics are ungrateful? I think not, my boy--I think not. We have won a great and glorious victory, and the only question remaining to be answered is, Who is responsible for it, my boy--who is responsible for it?

Yours, in bewilderment, ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER LVI.

WHEREIN ARE PRESENTED SOME FEMININE REFERENCES, AN ANECDOTE BY THE EXECUTIVE, AND CERTAIN NOTES OF A VISIT TO THE FESTIVE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 19th, 1862.

Permit me to return thanks through your mail, my boy, for a large feather fan recently consigned to my address by one of the admiring Women of America. It looks like a tail freshly plucked from a large-sized American eagle, and is decorated with a French-plate mirror in the centre and other French plates around the edges. The kind-hearted woman of America (who writes from Boston) says in her presentation note--"I admire to see a fan in the hands of the sterner s.e.x; for it shows that the same hero-fist that grasps the sword has enough inherent gentleness to wave the cooling bauble. Such is life.

The hand which falls like a hundred pounds of granite on the flinty eye of his ke-yuntery's foes has the softness of a blessing when it caresses the golden head of plastic childhood.

Yours, gushingly, Zephyrina Percy."

I find the "cooling bauble" very useful to brush the flies from my gothic steed Pegasus, my boy, and am a fanatic "to this extent, no more."

And here is what another young woman of America says to me in a note:

"My ma requests me to tell you that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you hateful thing, for encouraging the vulgar people to be in favor of this nasty war, that is causing their superiors so much trouble, and has driven away the opera, and made enemies of those nice Southerners, with their beautiful big eyes and elegant swearing. Why don't you advocate a compromise, or a Habeas Corpus, or some other paper with names to it, and get Mr. Lincoln to stop the Const.i.tution and order the war to be ended before there's any more a.s.sa.s.sinations and things? My pa was once a leather banker, and sold shoes for plantation servants, and made a great deal of money by it; but now he's a captain, or a surveyor, or some ridiculous thing, of the Home Guard, and may be ma.s.sacred in cold blood the first time there's a battle in our neighborhood. My pa has to go to drill every night, and when he comes home in the morning he's so worn out with exhaustion that I've known him to lay right down in the hall and shed tears. My ma often says, that if Beauregard, or Palmerston, or any other foes should attack our house while pa is in that state, it would kill her dead. And I know it would make me so nervous that I should be a perfect fright for a week. My brother, Adolphus, has likewise joined the Home Guard, and has already had a b.l.o.o.d.y engagement with a Southerner named Tailor, who used to sell him clothes when the two sections were at peace.

Adolphus says if it hadn't been for his double-quick, or some ridiculous military thing or other, he would have been made a prisoner.

It makes me sick to see how much lowness there is about Adolphus since he joined the ridiculous army; he calls his dinner 'rations,' and addresses me as 'Corporal Lollypop,' (the absurd thing!) and calls ma's crinoline a 'counter-scarp.'

"My pa says that he shall have to sell the carriage and the beautiful dog-cart if this hateful war don't end by the first of next month; and when I asked him yesterday if we couldn't have the gothic villa next to the Jones's at Newport this summer, he actually swore! The Joneses, you know, are very pleasant, sociable, vulgar sort of people, with a little money; and it would kill me to see them putting on airs over us because we didn't happen to take a cottage with bow-windows like them. My pa says that old Jones has got a contract to make clothes for the soldiers, and has made a great deal of money by manufacturing coats and other ridiculous things out of blue paper instead of cloth. Augustus Jones says if he don't meet me at Newport this summer he will enlist as soon as he comes back; and it would be just like the absurd creature to do it. I don't see why pa can't get out an indictment or something against the blockade, and call on the postmaster or some other ridiculous thing to send his new stock of plantation shoes to Alabama under a guard, and bring back the money. I don't see the use of living in a republic if one can't do that much. My ma says that you newspaper people could stop the dreadful war if you would only advocate compromises and things, and not be so ridiculous. Why can't you leave out some of those absurd advertis.e.m.e.nts, and publish an article telling Mr. Lincoln that the war is ruining society? If it continues much longer, I shall have to wear my last year's bonnet a whole month, and I'd rather die. Do say something absurd, you ridiculous thing."

Have the war stopped right away, my boy,--have the war stopped right away.

Matters and things here are still in a strategic condition, and naught has disturbed our monotony, for a week, save a story they tell about the Honest Old Abe. It seems that two of the conservative Border State chaps, who are here for the express purpose of protesting against everything whatever, had a discussion about the Honest Abe, and one chap bet the other chap five dollars that he couldn't, by any possible means, speak to the President without hearing a small anecdote.

"Done!" says the other chap, gleefully, "I'll take the bet."

That very same night, at about twelve o'clock, he tore frantically up to the White House, and commenced thundering at the door like King Richard at the gates of Ascalon. The Honest Abe stuck his night-capped head out of the window, and says he:

"Is that you, Mr. Seward?"

"No, sir," says the Border State chap, glaring up through the darkness.

"I'm a messenger from the army. Another great strategic movement has taken place, and our whole army have been taken prisoners by the Southern Confederacy. In fact," says the conservative chap, frantically, "the backbone of the rebellion is broken AGAIN."

"Hem!" says the Honest Abe, shaking a musquito from his nightcap, "this strategy reminds me of a little story. There was a man, out in Iowa, sat down to play a game of checkers with another man, inducing his friends around him to lend him the change necessary for stakes. He played and he played, and he lost the first game. Then he played much more cautiously, and lost the next game. His friends commenced to grumble; but, says he: 'Don't you worry yourselves, boys, and I'll show you a cute move pretty soon.' So he played, and he played, and he lost the third game. 'Don't be impatient, boys,' says he; 'you'll see that great move pretty soon, I tell you.' Then he played with great care, taking a long time to consider every move, and, by way of change, lost the fourth game. Close attention to what he was about, and much minute calculation, also enabled him to lose the fifth game. By this time his friends had lent him all their change, and began to think it was time for that great move of his to come off. 'Have you any more change?'

says he. 'Why, no,' says they. 'Then,' says he, with great spirit, 'the time for that move I was telling you about has come at last.' As he commenced to rise from his chair, instead of continuing to play, his cleaned-out friends bethought themselves to ask him what that famous move was? 'Why,' says he, pleasantly, 'it's to move off for a little more change.'"

At the conclusion of this quaint tale, my boy, the Border State chap fled groaning to his quarters at Willard's, stuck a five-dollar Treasury Note under the pillow of the other Border State chap, and immediately took the evening train for the West.

Such is the story they tell, my boy; but I'm inclined to accept it merely as a work of fiction, with a truthful moral. Certain it is, that as strategy increases, small change grows scarcer, and it is the general opinion that no small change is needed in military matters.

In company with a patriotic democratic chap, who had come up from New York, for the express purpose of seeing that the negroes of the Southern Confederacy were not permitted to inform our forces of the movements of the enemy in contravention of the Const.i.tution, I made a reconnoissance in force, on Monday, to the festive Shenandoah Valley.

On our way thither, the democratic chap was greatly bitten by musquitos, for which he justly blamed the black republicans, who are trying to break up this Government, and on our arrival near Winchester, we stumbled upon a phlegmatic fellow-man in a swallow-tailed coat and green spectacles, who was seated on a stone by the roadside, reading the "Impending Crisis." The democratic chap pa.s.sed on, swearing, to the nearest camp; but I paused before this interesting student.

"Well, old swallow-tails," says I, affably, "what are you doing in this section?"

He looked up at me with great severity of countenance, and says he: "I have come here, young man, to agitate the Negro Question; to open African schools; and, peradventure, to start a water cure establishment."

"What for?" says I.