Part 3

We come to 1850--some fifteen or eighteen years after John Jenks "caved." The John Jenks of 183- had been ruined by his good nature, set adrift moneyless, in a manner, with even a spotted reputation to begin with; he "profited by his reverses," he was now a man of family--fifty, fat, and wealthy, and altogether the meanest and most selfish man you ever saw!

Jenks freely admits his originality is entirely--"_used up!_" The reader may affix the _moral_ of my sketch--at leisure.

The Greatest Moral Engine.

Say what you will, it's no use talking, poverty is more potent and powerful, as a moral engine, than all the "sermons and soda water," law, logic, and prison discipline, ever started. All a man wants, while he _has_ a chance to be honest, and to get along smoothly, is a good situation and two dollars a day; give him five dollars a day, and he gets lazy and careless; while at ten, or a hundred a day, he is sure to cultivate beastly feeling, eat and sleep to stupefaction, become a _roue_, or a rotten politician. A poor man, in misery, applies to God for consolation, while a rich man applies to his banker, and tries on a "bender," or goes on a tour to Europe, and studies foreign folly and French license. Poverty is great; in a Christian community, or a thriving village, it is equal to "martial law," in suppressing moral rebellion and keeping down the "dander!" And how faithful, too, is poverty, says Dr. Litterage, for it sticks to a man after all his friends and the rest of mankind have deserted him!

The Story of Capt. Paul.

I love to speak, I love to write of the mighty West. I have passed ten happy and partly pleasant years travelling over the immense tracts of land of the West and South. I have, during that time, garnered up endless themes for my pen. It was my custom, during my travels, to keep a "log," as the mariners have it, and at the close of the day I always noted the occurrences that transpired with me or others, when of interest, and opportunities were favorable to do so.

Several years ago I was stopping at Vevay, Indiana, a small village on the Ohio river, waiting for a steamboat to touch there and take me up to Louisville, Ky. It was in the fall of the year, water was very low, and but few boats running. Shortly after breakfast, I took my rifle and ammunition and started down along the river to amuse myself, and kill time by hunting. Game was scarce, and after strolling along until noon, I got tired and came out to the river to see if any boats were in sight, as well as take shelter from a heavy shower of rain that had come on. I sought an immense old tree, whose broad crown and thick foliage made my shelter as dry as though under a roof, and here I sat down, bending my eyes along the placid, quiet and noble river, until I was quite lost in silent reverie. The rain poured down, and presently I heard a footstep approaching from the woods behind, and at the same moment a rough, curly dog came smelling along towards me. The dog came up to within a few rods of me and stopped, took a grin at me and then disappeared again. But my further anxiety was soon relieved by the appearance of a tall, gaunt man, dressed in the usual costume of a western woodsman, jean trowsers, hunting shirt, old slouched felt hat, rifle, powder horn, bullet pouch, and sheath knife. He was an old man, face sallow and wrinkled, and hair quite a steelish hue.

"Mornin', stranger," said he; "rayther a wet day for game?"

I replied in the affirmative, and welcomed him to my shelter. Having taken a seat near me, on the fallen trunk of a small tree, the old man, half to himself and partly to me, sighed--

"Ah! yes, yes, _our_ day is fast gwoin over; an entire new set of folks will soon people this country, and the old settler will be all gone, and no more thought of."

"I imagine," said I, interrupting his soliloquy, "that you are an old settler, and have noted vast, wonderful changes here in the Ohio Valley?"

"Wonderful; yes, yes, stranger, thar you're right; I have seen wonderful changes since I first squatted 'yer, thirty-five years ago. Every thing changes about one so, that I skearse know the old river any more. 'Yer they've brought their steamboats puffin', and blowin', and skeerin' off the game, fish, and alligators. 'Yer they've built thar towns and thar store houses, and thar nice farm houses, and keep up sich a clatter and noise among 'em all, that one fond of our old quiet times in the woods, goes nigh bein' distracted with these new matters and folks."

"Well," said I, "neighbor, you old woodsmen will have to do as the Indians have done, and as Daniel Boone did, when the advancing axe of civilization, and the mighty steam and steel arms of enterprise and improvement make the varmints leave their lairs, and the air heavy and clamorous with the gigantic efforts of industry, genius, and wealth, you must _fall back_. Our territories are boundless, and there are yet dense forests, woods, and wilds, where the Indian, lone hunter, and solitary beast, shall rove amid the wild grandeur of God's infinite space for a century yet to come."

"Ah, yes, yes, young man; I should have long since up stakes and rolled before this sweeping tide of new settlers, only I can't bar to leave this tract 'yer; no, stranger, I can't bar to do it."

"Doubtless," I replied; "one feels a strong love for old homes, a lingering desire to lay one's bones to their final resting place, near a spot and objects that life and familiarity made dear."

"Yes, yes, stranger, that's it, that's it. But look down thar--thar's what makes this spot dear to me--thar, do you see yon little hillock--yon little mound? Thar's what keeps old Tom Ward 'yer for life."

The old man seemed deeply affected, and sighed heavily, as he wiped the moisture from his eyes with the back of his hand. I gazed down towards the spot he had called my attention to, and there I beheld, indeed, something resembling a solitary and lonely grave; wild flowers bloomed around it, and a flat stone stood at the head, and a small stake at the foot.

"'Tisn't often one comes this way to ask the question, and the Lord knows, stranger, I'm always willing to tell the sad story of that lonely grave. Well, well, it's no use to grieve always, the red whelps have paid well for thar doins, and now, but few of 'em are spared to repent--the Lord forgive 'em all," to which I involuntarily echoed--"Amen!"

"Well, stranger, you see, about five-and-thirty years ago, I left Western Virginia to come down 'yer in the Ohio valley. I well remember the first glimpse I got of this stream; it war a big stream to me, and I gloried in the sight of it. Thar war but few settlements then upon its banks, and thar war none of your roarin', splashin' steamboats about; but I like the steamboats--thar grand creatures, and go it like high-mettled horses. Well, I war a young man then; me and my brother and our old mother joined in with a neighbor, built a family boat, put in our goods, and started off down the stream, towards the lower part thar of Kentucky.

"Captain Paul, our neighbor, war an old woodsman, though he war a young man; he had a wife and several fine, growin' children along with us, and our journey for many days war prosperous and pleasant. Capt. Paul's wife's sister war along with us, a fine young creature she war too. My brother and her I always carc'lated would make a match of it when we reached our journey's end; but poor Ben, God bless the boy, he little dreampt he'd be cut off so soon in the prime of life, and leave his bones 'yer to rot. I war young too, then, and little thought I should ever come to be this old, withered-up creature you see me now, stranger."

"Why, you appear to be a hearty, hale man yet," said I, encouraging the old man to proceed in his narrative, "and no doubt shoot as well and see as keenly and far as ever?"

"Ay, ay, I can drive a centre purty well yet; but my hand begins to tremble sometimes, and I'm failing--yes, yes, I know I'm failing. But, to go on with my story: I acted as sort of pilot. Then the country were yet pretty full of Ingins, and mighty few cabins war made along the river in them times. The whites and red-skins war eternally fighting. I won't say which war to blame; the whites killed the creatures off fast enough, and the Ingins took plenty of scalps and war cruel to the white man whenever they fastened on him.

"Our old ark or boat war well loaded down; a few loose boards served as a shelter from the sun and rain, and a few planks spiked to the sides 'bove water, kept the swells from rollin' in on us. Two black boys helped the captain and I to manage the boat, and an old black woman waited on the wimin folks and did the cooking.

"You see yon pint thar, up the river?" continued the narrator, pointing his long, bony finger towards a great bend, and a point on the Kentucky side of the stream.

"Yes," I replied, "I see it distinctly."

"Well, it war thar, or jest above thar, about sunset of a pleasant day, that we came drifting along with our flat-boat, or _broad horn_, as they were called in them days, when Captain Paul said he thought it would be a snug place just behind the pint, to tie up to them same big trees yet standin' thar as they did then. Ben, poor Ben and I concluded too, it would be a clever place to camp for the night; so we headed the boat in--for, you see, we always kept in the middle of the stream, as near as possible, to keep clear of the red skins who committed a mighty heap of depredations upon the movers and river traders, by decoyin' the boat on shore, or layin' in ambush and firin' their rifles at the incautious folks in the boats that got too nigh 'em. Guina and Joe, the two black boys, rowed enough to get around the pint. We had no fear of the Ingins, as we expected we war beyond thar haunts just thar; mother war gettin' out the supper things, and Captain Paul's wife and sister were nestling away the children. Just then, as we got cleverly under the lee of the shore thar, I heard a crack like a dry stick snappin' under foot--

"'Thar's a deer or bar,' said the captain.

"'Hold on your oars,' says I--'boys, I don't like that--it 'tain't a deer's tread, nor a bar's nether,' says I.

"By this time we had got within thirty yards of the bank--another slight noise--the bushes moved, and I sung out--'Ingins, by the Lord! back the boat, back, boys, back!'

"Poor Ben snatched up his rifle, so did the captain; but before we could get way on the boat, a band of the bloody devils rushed out and gave us a volley of shouts and shower of balls, that made these hills and river banks echo again. Poor Ben fell mortally wounded and bleeding, into the bottom of the boat; two of the captain's children were killed, his wife wounded, and a bullet dashed the cap off my head.

"I shouted to the boys to pull, and soon got out of reach of the Ingins. They had no canoes, bein' only a scoutin' war party; they could not reach us. The wounded horses and cows kicked and plunged among the goods, the wimin and children screamed.

"Oh! stranger, it war a frightful hour; one I shall remember to my dyin' day, as it war only yesterday I saw and heard it. It war now dark, the boat half filled with water, my brother dyin', Captain Paul nerveless hangin' over his wife and children, cryin' like a whipped child. I still clung on to my oar, and made the poor blacks pull for this side of the river, as fast and well as thar bewildered and frightened senses allowed 'em.

"My poor mother leaned over poor Ben. She held his head in her lap; she opened his bosom and the blood flowed out. He still breathed faintly--

"'Benjamin, my son,' said she, 'do you know me?'

"'Mother,' he breathed lowly. Mother tried to have him drink a cup of water from the river, but he war past nourishment--and she asked him if he knew he war dyin'?

"He gasped, 'Yes, mother, and may the Lord our God in heaven be merciful to me, thus cut from you and life, mother--'

"'God's will be done,' cried my mother, as the pale face of her darlin' boy fell upon her hand--he was gone.

"We reached shore, but dar not kindle a light, for fear the Ingins might be prowlin' about on this side; yes, under this very tree, did we 'camp that gloomy night. The whole of us, livin', dead, and wounded, lay 'yer, fearin' even to weep aloud. About midnight, I took the two blacks, and we dug yon grave and laid poor Ben in it, and the two children by his side. It war an awful thing--awful to us all; and our sighs and sobs, mingled with the prayers of the old mother, went to God's footstool, I'm sure. We made such restin' places as circumstances permitted. I lay down, but the cries of poor Captain Paul's wife and sister, cries of the two survivin' children, and moans of us all, made sleep a difficult affair. By peep of day I went down to the grave, and thar sat the old mother. She had sat thar the live-long night; the sudden shock had been too much for her.

"Two days afterwards the grave was opened and enlarged, and received two more bodies, the wife of Captain Paul, and our kind, good old mother. Thirty-five years have now passed. Could I leave this place? No; not a day at a time have I missed seeing the grave, when within miles of it. No, here must I rest too."

The old man seemed deeply affected. I could not refrain from taking up the thread of his narrative to inquire what had become of Captain Paul and his wife's sister.

"Well, poor thing, you see it war natural enough for her to love her sister's children, and the captain, he couldn't help lovin' her too, for that. The captain settled down here, about two miles back, and in a few years the sister-in-law and he war man and wife, and a kind, good old wife she is too. I've 'camped with 'em ever since, and with 'em I'll die, and be put thar--thar, to rest in that little mound with the rest. But I must bide my time, stranger--we must all bide our time. Now, stranger, I've told you my sad story, I must ax a favor. Seeing as you are a town-bred person, perhaps a preacher, I want you to kneel down by that grave and make a prayer. I feel that it is a good thing to pray, though we woods people know but little about it."

I told him I was not a minister in the common acceptation of the term, but considering we all are God's ministers that study God's will and our own duty to man, I could pray, did pray, and left the poor woodsman with an exalted feeling, I hope, of divine and infinite grace to all who seek it.

A boat touched Vevay that evening, and I left, deeply impressed with this little story.

Hereditary Complaints.

Meanness is as natural to some people, as gutta percha beefsteaks in a cheap boarding-house. Schoodlefaker says he saw a striking instance in Quincy market last Saturday. An Irish woman came up to a turkey merchant, and says she--

"What wud yees be after axin' for nor a chicken like that?"

"That's a turkey, not a chicken," says the merchant.

"Turkey? Be dad an' it's a mighty small turkey--it's stale enough, too, I'd be sworn; poor it is, too! What'd yees ax for 'un?"

"Well, seein' it's pooty nigh night, and the last I've got, I'll let you have it for _two and six_."

"Two and six? Hoot! I'd give yees half a dollar fur it, and be dad not another cint."

"Well," says the _satisfied_ poultry merchant, "take it along; I won't dicker for a cent or two."

Mrs. Doolygan paid over the half, boned the turkey, and went on her way quite elated with the brilliancy of her talents in financiering! There's one merit in meanness, if it disgusts the looker-on, it never fails to carry a pleasing sensation to the bosom of the gamester.

Nights with the Caucusers.

Office-Seeking has become a legitimatized branch of our every-day business, as much so as in former times "reduced gentlemen" took to keeping school or posting books. In former times, men took to politics to give zest to a life already replete with pecuniary indulgences, as those in the "sere and yellow leaf" are wont to take to religion as a solacing comfort against things that are past, and pave the way to a very desirable futurity. But now, politicians are of no peculiar class or condition of citizens; the success of a champion depends not so much upon the matter, as upon the manner, not upon the capital he may have in real estate, bank funds or public stocks, but upon the fundamental principle of "confidence," gutta percha lungs and unmistakable amplitude of--brass and bravado! If any man doubts the fact, let him look around him, and calculate the matter. Why is it that _lawyers_ are so

## particularly felicitous in running for, securing, and usurping most of

all the important or profitable offices under government? Lungs--gutta percha lungs and everlasting impudence, does it. A man might as well try to bail out the Mississippi with a tea-spoon, or shoot shad with a fence-rail, as to hope for a seat in Congress, merely upon the possession of patriotic principles, or double-concentrated and refined integrity. Why, if George Washington was a Virginia farmer to-day, his chance for the Presidency wouldn't be a circumstance to that of Rufus Choate's, while there is hardly a lawyer attached to the Philadelphia bar that would not beat the old gentleman out of his top boots in running for the Senate! But we'll _cut_ "wise saws" for a modern instance; let us attend a small "caucus" where incipient Demostheneses, Ciceros, and Mark Antonies most do congregate, and see things "workin'." It is night, a ward meeting of the unterrified, meat-axe, non-intervention--hats off--hit him again--butt-enders, have called a meeting to _caucus_ for the coming fall contest. "Owing to the inclemency of the weather," and other causes too tedious to mention, of some eight hundred of the _unterrified, non-intervention--Cuban annexation--Wilmot proviso, compromise, meat-axe, hats off--hit him again--butt-enders_--only eighty attend the call. Of these eighty faithful, some forty odd are on the wing for office; one at least wants to work his way up to the gubernatorial chair, five to the Senate, ten to the "Assembly," fifteen to the mayoralty, and the balance to the custom house.

Now, before the "curtain rises," little knots of the anxious multitude are seen here and there about the corners of the adjacent neighborhood and in the recesses of the caucus chamber, their heads together--caucusing on a small scale.

"Flambang, who'd you think of puttin' up to-night for the _Senate_, in our ward?" asks a cadaverous, but earnest _unterrified_, of a brother in the same cause.

"Well, I swan, I don't know; what do you think of Jenkins?"

"Jenkins?" leisurely responded the first speaker; "Jenkins is a pooty good sort of a man, but he ain't known; made himself rather unpop'ler by votin' agin that _grand junction railroad to the north pole_ bill, afore the Legislature, three years ago; besides he's served two years in the Legislature, and been in the custom house two years; talks of going to California or somewhere else, next spring--so I-a, I-a--don't think much of Jenkins, anyhow!"

"Well, then," says Flambang, "there's Dr. Rhubarb; what do you think of him? He's a sound _unterrified_, good man."

"A--ye-e-e-s, the doctor's pooty good sort of a man, but I don't think its good policy to run doctors for office. If they are defeated it sours their minds equal to cream of tartar; it spiles their practice, and 'tween you and I, Flambang, if they takes a spite at a man that didn't vote for 'em, and he gets sick, they're called in; how easy it is _for 'em to poison us!_"

"Good gracious!--you don't say so?"

"I _don't_ say, of course I don't say so of Dr. Rhubarb. I only supposed a case," replied the wily _caucuser_.

"A case? Yes-s-s; a feller would be a case, under them circumstances. I'm down on doctors, then, Twist; but what do you say to Blowpipes? He's one of our best speakers--"

"_Gas!_" pointedly responded Twist.

"Gas? Well, you voted for him last year, when he run for Congress; you were the first man to nominate him, too!"

"So I was, and I voted for him, drummed for him, fifed and blowed; that was no reason for my thinking him the best man we had for the office. He's a demagogue, an ambitious, sly, selfish feller, as we could skeer up; but, he was in our way, we couldn't get shut of him; I proposed the nomination, and tried to elect him, so that we should get him out of the way of our local affairs, and more deserving and less pretendin' men could get a chance, don't you see? Now, Flambang, you're the man I'm goin' in for to-night!"

"Me! Mr. Twist? Why, bless your soul, I don't want office!"

"Come, now, don't be modest. I'll lay the ground-work, you'll be nominated--I'll not be known in it--you'll get the nomination--called out for a speech--so be on the trigger--give 'em a rouser, and you're in!"

Poor Flambang, a modest, retiring man, peaceable proprietor of a small shop, in which, by the force of prudence and economy, he has laid up something, has a voice among his fellow-citizens and some influence, but would as soon attempt to carry a blazing pine knot into a powder magazine, or "ship" for a missionary to the Tongo Islands, as to run for the Legislature _and make a speech in public!_ Twist knows it; he guesses shrewdly at the effect.

"Why don't you run?" says Flambang, after many efforts to get his breath.

"Me? Well, if you don't want to _run_."

"_Run?_ I would as soon think of jumping over the moon, as running for office!" answers Flambang. "But I thank you, thank _you_ kindly, for your good intentions, for _your_ confidence(!), Twist, and whatever good I can do for you, I'll do, and--"

Twist having secured the first step to his _plot_, enters the caucus chamber in deep and earnest consultation with Flambang, and while preparations are being made to "histe the rag," he is seen making converts to his sly purposes, upon the same principle by which he converted his modest friend, Flambang.