The Clockmaker

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> The Clockmaker

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"If this sad picture you have drawn be indeed true to nature, how
does your country," said I, "appear so attractive, as to draw to it
so large a portion of our population?"

"It ain't its attraction," said the Clockmaker; "it's nothin' but its
power of suction; it is a great whirlpool--a great vortex--it drags
all the straw and chips, and floatin' sticks, drift-wood and trash
into it. The small crafts are sucked in, and whirl round and round
like a squirrel in a cage--they'll never come out. Bigger ones pass
through at certain times of tide, and can come in and out with good
pilotage, as they do at Hell Gate up the Sound."

"You astonish me," said I, "beyond measure; both your previous
conversations with me, and the concurrent testimony of all my friends
who have visited the States, give a different view of it."

"YOUR FRIENDS!" said the Clockmaker, with such a tone of ineffable
contempt, that I felt a strong inclination to knock him down for
his insolence, "your friends! Ensigns and leftenants, I guess, from
the British marchin' regiments in the Colonies, that run over five
thousand miles of country in five weeks, on leave of absence, and
then return, lookin' as wise as the monkey that had seen the world.
When they get back they are so chock full of knowledge of the
Yankees, that it runs over of itself, like a Hogshead of molasses
rolled about in hot weather--a white froth and scum bubbles out of
the bung; wishy-washy trash they call tours, sketches, travels,
letters, and what not; vapid stuff, jist sweet enough to catch flies,
cockroaches, and half-fledged gals. It puts me in mind of my French.
I larnt French at night school one winter, of our minister, Joshua
Hopewell (he was the most larned man of the age, for he taught
himself e'enamost every language in Europe); well, next spring, when
I went to Boston, I met a Frenchman, and I began to jabber away
French to him: 'Polly woes a french say,' says I. 'I don't understand
Yankee yet,' says he. 'You don't understand!' says I, 'why it's
French. I guess you didn't expect to hear such good French, did you,
away down east here? But we speak it real well, and it's generally
allowed we speak English, too, better than the British.' 'Oh,' says
he, 'you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk
Indian and call it French.' 'But,' says I, 'Mister Mount shear; it is
French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes--all
clear stuff; it will pass survey in any market--it's ready stuck
and seasoned.' 'Oh, very like,' says he, bowin' as polite as a black
waiter at New OrLEENS, 'very like, only I never heerd it afore; oh,
very good French dat--CLEAR STUFF, no doubt, but I no understand--it's
all my fault, I dare say, Sare.'

"Thinks I to myself, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. I
see how the cat jumps--Minister knows so many languages he hain't
been particular enough to keep 'em in separate parcels and mark 'em
on the back, and they've got mixed, and sure enough I found my French
was so overrun with other sorts, that it was better to lose the whole
crop than to go to weedin', for as fast as I pulled up any strange
seedlin', it would grow right up agin as quick as wink, if there was
the least bit of root in the world left in the ground, so I let it
all rot on the field.

"There is no way so good to larn French as to live among 'em, and if
you WANT TO UNDERSTAND US, YOU MUST LIVE AMONG US, TOO; your Halls,
Hamiltons, and De Rouses, and such critters, what can they know of
us? Can a chap catch a likeness flyin' along a railroad? Can he even
see the feature? Old Admiral Anson once axed one of our folks afore
our glorious Revolution (if the British had a known us a little
grain better at that time, they wouldn't have got whipped like a sack
as they did then), where he came from. 'From the Chesapeeke,' said he.
'Aye, aye,' said the Admiral, 'from the West Indies.' 'I guess,' said
the Southaner, 'you may have been clean round the world, Admiral, but
you have been plaguy little in it, not to know better nor that.'

"I shot a wild goose at River Philip last year, with the rice of
Varginny fresh in his crop; he must have cracked on near about as
fast as them other geese, the British travellers. Which know'd the
most of the country they passed over, do you suppose? I guess it
was much of a muchness--near about six of one and a half dozen of
t'other; two eyes ain't much better than one, if they are both blind.

"No, if you want to know all about us and the Bluenoses (a pretty
considerable share of Yankee blood in them too, I tell you; the old
stock comes from New England, and the breed is tolerable pure yet,
near about one half apple sarce, and t'other half molasses, all
except to the East'ard, where there is a cross of the Scotch), jist
ax me and I'll tell you candidly. I'm not one of them that can't see
no good points in my neighbour's critter, and no bad ones in my own;
I've seen too much of the world for that, I guess. Indeed, in a
general way, I praise other folks' beasts, and keep dark about my
own. Says I, when I meet Bluenose mounted, 'that's a real smart horse
of your'n, put him out, I guess he'll trot like mad.' Well, he lets
him have the spur, and the critter does his best, and then I pass
him like a streak of lightning with mine. The feller looks all taken
aback at that. 'Why,' says he, 'that's a real clipper of your'n, I
vow.' 'Middlin',' says I (quite cool, as if I had heard that 'ere
same thing a thousand times), 'he's good enough for me, jist a fair
trotter, and nothin' to brag of. That goes near about as far agin in
a general way, as a crackin' and a boastin' does. Never TELL folks
you can go a head on 'em, but DO it; it spares a great deal of talk,
and helps them to save their breath to cool their broth.

"No, if you want to know the inns and the outs of the Yankees--I've
wintered them and summered them; I know all their points, shape,
make and breed; I've tried 'em alongside of other folks, and I know
where they fall short, where they mate 'em, and where they have the
advantage, about as well as some who think they know a plaguy sight
more. It ain't them that stare the most, that see the best always, I
guess. Our folks have their faults, and I know them (I warn't born
blind, I reckon), but your friends, the tour writers, are a little
grain too hard on us. Our old nigger wench had several dirty,
ugly-lookin' children, and was proper cross to 'em. Mother used
to say, 'Juno, it's better never to wipe a child's nose at all, I
guess, than to wring it off.'"

No. XII

The American Eagle.

"Jist look out of the door," said the Clockmaker, "and see what a
beautiful night it is, how calm, how still, how clear it is; bean't
it lovely? I like to look up at them 'ere stars, when I am away from
home; they put me in mind of our national flag, and it is generally
allowed to be the first flag in the univarse now. The British can
whip all the world, and we can whip the British. It's near about the
prettiest sight I know of, is one of our first class Frigates, manned
with our free and enlightened citizens all ready for sea; it's like
the great American Eagle, on its perch, balancing itself for a start
on the broad expanse of blue sky, afeared of nothin' of its kind, and
president of all it surveys. It was a good emblem that we chose,
warn't it?"

There was no evading so direct, and at the same time, so conceited
an appeal as this. "Certainly," said I, "the emblem was well chosen.
I was particularly struck with it on observing the device on your
naval buttons during the last war--an eagle with an anchor in its
claws. That was a natural idea, taken from an ordinary occurrence:
a bird purloining the anchor of a frigate--an article so useful
and necessary for the food of its young. It was well chosen, and
exhibited great taste and judgment in the artist. The emblem is
more appropriate than you are aware of--boasting of what you cannot
perform--grasping at what you cannot attain--an emblem of arrogance
and weakness--of ill-directed ambition and vulgar pretension."

"It's a common phrase," said he with great composure, "among seamen,
to say 'Damn your buttons,' and I guess it's natural for you to say
so of the buttons of our navals; I guess you have a right to that
'ere oath. It's a sore subject, that, I reckon, and I believe I
hadn't ought to have spoken of it to you at all. Brag is a good dog,
but hold fast is a better one."

He was evidently annoyed, and with his usual dexterity gave vent
to his feelings by a sally upon the Bluenoses, who he says are a
cross of English and Yankee, and therefore first cousins to us both.
"Perhaps," said he, "that 'ere Eagle might with more propriety have
been taken off as perched on an anchor, instead of holding it in his
claws, and I think it would have been more nateral; but I suppose it
was some stupid foreign artist that made that 'ere blunder, I never
seed one yet that was equal to our'n. If that Eagle is represented as
trying what he can't do, it's an honourable ambition arter all, but
these Bluenoses won't try what they can do. They put me in mind of a
great big hulk of a horse in a cart, that won't put his shoulder to
the collar at all for all the lambastin' in the world, but turns his
head round and looks at you, as much as to say, 'what an everlastin'
heavy thing an empty cart is, isnt it?' An Owl should be their
emblem, and the motto, 'He sleeps all the days of his life.' The
whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at, but silent
as the grave--still as death, asleep, becalmed.

"If the sea was always calm," said he, "it would pyson the univarse;
no soul could breathe the air, it would be so uncommon bad. Stagnant
water is always unpleasant, but salt water when it gets tainted
beats all natur'; motion keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our
minister used to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This
province is stagnant; it ain't deep like still water neither, for
it's shaller enough, gracious knows, but it is motionless, noiseless,
lifeless. If you have ever been to sea, in a calm, you'd know what
a plaguy tiresome thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An
everlastin' flappin' of the sails, and a creakin' of the boombs, and
an onsteady pitchin' of the ship, and folks lyin' about dozin' away
their time, and the sea a-heavin' a long heavy swell, like the
breathin' of the chist of some great monster asleep. A passenger
wonders the sailors are so plagy easy about it, and he goes a-lookin'
out east, and a-spyin' out west, to see if there's any chance of a
breeze, and says to himself 'Well, if this ain't dull music it's a
pity.' Then how streaked he feels when he sees a steamboat a-clippin'
it by him like mad, and the folks on board pokin' fun at him, and
askin' him if he has any word to send to home. 'Well,' he says, 'if
any soul ever catches me on board a sail vessel again, when I can go
by steam, I'll give him leave to tell me of it, that's a fact.'

"That's partly the case here. They are becalmed, and they see us
going ahead on them, till we are e'enamost clean out of sight; yet
they hain't got a steamboat, and they hain't got a railroad; indeed,
I doubt if one half on 'em ever seed or heerd tell of one or t'other
of them. I never seed any folks like 'em except the Indians, and they
won't even so much as look--they havn't the least morsel of curiosity
in the world; from which one of our Unitarian preachers (they are
dreadful hands at DOUBTIN' them. I don't DOUBT but some day or
another, they will DOUBT whether everything ain't a DOUBT), in a very
learned work, doubts whether they were ever descended from Eve at
all. Old marm Eve's children, he says, are all lost, it is said, in
consequence of TOO MUCH curiosity, while these copper coloured folks
are lost from havin' TOO LITTLE little. How can they be the same?
Thinks I, that may be logic, old Dubersome, but it ain't sense,
don't extremes meet? Now these Bluenoses have no motion in 'em, no
enterprise, no spirit, and if any critter shows any symptoms of
activity, they say he is a man of no judgment, he's speculative, he's
a schemer, in short he's mad. They vegitate like a lettuce plant in
sarse garden, they grow tall and, spindlin', run to seed right off,
grow as bitter as gaul and die."

"A gal once came to our minister to hire as a house-help; says she,
'Minister, I suppose you don't want a young lady to do chamber
business and breed worms do you? For I've half a mind to take a spell
of livin' out.' She meant," said the Clockmaker, "house work and
rearing silk-worms. 'My pretty maiden,' says he, a-pattin' her on the
cheek (for I've often observed old men always talk kinder pleasant
to young women), 'my pretty maiden where was you brought up?' 'Why,'
says she, 'I guess I warn't brought up at all, I growed up.' 'Under
what platform,' says he (for he was very particular that all his
house-helps should go to his meetin'), 'under what Church platform?'
'Church platform!' says she, with a toss of her head, like a young
colt that's got a check of the curb, 'I guess I warn't raised under a
platform at all, but in as good a house as your'n, grand as you be.'
'You said well,' said the old minister, quite shocked, 'when you said
you growed up, dear, for you have grown up in great ignorance.' 'Then
I guess you had better get a lady that knows more than me,' says she,
'that's flat. I reckon I am every bit and grain as good as you be. If
I don't understand a bum-byx (silk-worm), both feedin', breedin', and
rearin', then I want to know who does, that's all; church platform
indeed!' says she; 'I guess you were raised under a glass frame in
March, and transplanted on Independence day, warn't you?' And off
she sot, lookin' as scorney as a London lady, and leavin' the poor
minister standin' starin' like a stuck pig. 'Well, well,' says he,
a-liftin' up both hands, and turnin' up the whites of his eyes like a
duck in thunder, 'if that don't bang the bush! It fearly beats sheep
shearin' arter the blackberry bushes have got the wool. It does, I
vow; them are the tares them Unitarians sow in our grain fields at
night; I guess they'll ruinate the crops yet, and make the grounds
so everlastin' foul; we'll have to pare the sod and burn it, to kill
the roots. Our fathers sowed the right seed here in the wilderness,
and watered it with their tears, and watched over it with fastin' and
prayer, and now it's fairly run out, that's a fact, I snore. It's got
choked up with all sorts of trash in, natur', I declare. Dear, dear,
I vow I never seed the beat o' that in all my born days.'

"Now the Bluenoses are like that 'ere gal; they have grown up,
and grown up in ignorance of many things they hadn't ought not to
know; and it's as hard to teach grown-up folks as it is to break a
six-year-old horse; and they do rile one's temper so--they act so
ugly that it tempts one sometimes to break their confounded necks;
it's near about as much trouble as it's worth."

"What remedy is there for all this supineness," said I; "how can
these people be awakened out of their ignorant slothfulness, into
active exertion?"

"The remedy," said Mr. Slick, "is at hand--it is already workin' its
own cure. They must recede before our free and enlightened citizens
like the Indians; our folks will buy them out, and they must give
place to a more intelligent and ac-TIVE people. They must go to the
lands of Labrador, or be located back of Canada; they can hold on
there a few years, until the wave of civilization reaches them,
and then they must move again, as the savages do. It is decreed; I
hear the bugle of destiny a-soundin' of their retreat, as plain as
anything. Congress will give them a concession of land, if they
petition, away to Alleghany's backside territory, and grant them
relief for a few years; for we are out of debt, and don't know what
to do with our surplus revenue. The only way to shame them, that I
know, would be to sarve them as Uncle Enoch sarved a neighbour of his
in Varginny.

"There was a lady that had a plantation near hand to his'n, and
there was only a small river atwixt the two houses, so that folks
could hear each other talk across it. Well, she was a dreadful
cross-grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she bear that
has cubs, an old farrow critter, as ugly as sin, and one that both
hooked and kicked too--a most particular onmarciful she-devil, that's
a fact. She used to have some of her niggers tied up every day,
and flogged uncommon severe, and their screams and screeches were
horrid--no soul could stand it; nothin' was heerd all day, but 'Oh
Lord Missus! Oh Lord Missus!' Enoch was fairly sick of the sound, for
he was a tender-hearted man, and says he to her one day, 'Now do marm
find out some other place to give your cattle the cowskin, for it
worries me to hear 'em take on so dreadful bad; I can't stand it, I
vow; they are flesh and blood as well as we be, though the meat is
a different colour.' But it was no good; she jist up and told him
to mind his own business, and she guessed she'd mind her'n. He was
determined to shame her out of it; so one mornin' after breakfast he
goes into the cane field, and says he to Lavender, one of the black
overseers, 'Muster up the whole gang of slaves, every soul, and bring
'em down to the whippin' post, the whole stock of them, bulls, cows
and calves.' Well, away goes Lavender, and drives up all the niggers.
'Now you catch it,' says he, 'you lazy villains; I tole you so
many a time--I tole you Massa he lose all patience wid you, you
good-for-nothin' rascals. I grad, upon my soul, I werry grad; you
mind now what old Lavender say anoder time.' The black overseers are
always the most cruel," said the Clockmaker; "they have no sort of
feeling for their own people.

"Well, when they were gathered there according to orders, they
looked streaked enough you may depend, thinkin' they were going to
get it all round, and the wenches they fell to a-cryin', wringin'
their hands, and boo-hooing like mad. Lavender was there with his
cowskin, grinnin' like a chessy cat, and crackin' it about, ready
for business. 'Pick me out,' says Enoch, 'four that have the loudest
voices.' 'Hard matter dat,' says Lavender, 'hard matter dat, Massa,
dey all talk loud, dey all lub talk more better nor work--de idle
villians; better gib 'em all a little tickle, jist to teach 'em larf
on t'other side of de mouth; dat side bran' new, they never use it
yet.' 'Do as I order you, sir,' said Uncle, 'or I'll have you triced
up, you cruel old rascal you.' When they were picked out and sot by
themselves, they hanged their heads, and looked like sheep goin' to
the shambles. 'Now, says Uncle Enoch, my pickininnies, do you sing
out as loud as Niagara, at the very tip eend of your voice--

'"Don't kill a nigger, pray,
Let him lib anoder day.
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus!

'"My back be very sore,
No stand it any more,
Oh Lord Missus--oh Lord Missus!"

And all the rest of you join chorus, as loud as you can bawl, "Oh
Lord Missus."' The black rascals understood the joke real well.
They larfed ready to split their sides; they fairly lay down on the
ground, and rolled over and over with lafter. Well, when they came
to the chorus 'Oh Lord Missus,' if they didn't let go, it's a pity.
They made the river ring agin--they were heerd clean out to sea. All
the folks ran out of the Lady's House, to see what on airth was the
matter on Uncle Enoch's plantation--they thought there was actilly a
rebellion there; but when they listened awhile, and heerd it over
and over again, they took the hint, and returned a-larfin' in their
sleeves. Says they, 'Master Enoch Slick, he upsides with Missus this
hitch anyhow.' Uncle never heerd anything more of 'Oh Lord Missus'
arter that Yes, they ought to be shamed out of it, those Bluenoses.
When reason fails to convince, there is nothin' left but ridicule.
If they have no ambition, apply to their feelings, slap a blister on
their pride, and it will do the business. It's like a-puttin' ginger
under a horse's tail; it makes him carry up real handSUM, I tell
you. When I was a boy, I was always late to school: well father's
preachin' I didn't mind much, but I never could bear to hear mother
say, 'Why Sam, are you actilly up for all day? Well, I hope your
airly risin' won't hurt you, I declare. What on airth is a-goin' to
happen now?' Well, wonders will never cease. It raised my dander; at
last says I, 'Now, mother, don't say that 'ere any more for gracious
sake, for it makes me feel ugly, and I'll get up as airly as any on
you,' and so I did, and I soon found what's worth knowin' in this
life--An airly start makes easy stages."

No. XIII

The Clockmaker's Opinion of Halifax.

The next morning was warmer than several that had preceded it. It was
one of those uncommonly fine days that distinguish an American autumn.

"I guess," said Mr. Slick, "the heat today is like a glass of mint
julip, with a lump of ice in it, it tastes cool and feels warm;
it's real good, I tell you. I love such a day as this dearly. It's
generally allowed the finest weather in the world is in America;
there ain't the beat of it to be found anywhere." He then lighted
a cigar, and throwing himself back on his chair, put both feet out
of the window, and sat with his arms folded, a perfect picture of
happiness.

"You appear," said I, "to have travelled over the whole of this
Province, and to have observed the country and the people with much
attention; pray what is your opinion of the present state and future
prospects of Halifax?"

"If you will tell me," said he, "when the folks there will wake up,
then I can answer you, but they are fast asleep. As to the Province,
it's a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead, it will grow
as fast as a Varginny gal; and they grow so amazin' fast, if you put
your arm round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you're
done, they've grown up into women. It's a pretty Province I tell you,
good above and better below; surface covered with pastures, meadows,
woods, and a 'nation sight of water privileges, and under the ground
full of mines--it puts me in mind of the soup at the TREE-mont House.

"One day I was a-walkin' in the Mall, and who should I meet but Major
Bradford, a gentleman from Connecticut, that traded in calves and
pumpkins for the Boston market. Says he, 'Slick, where do you get
your grub today?' 'At General Peep's tavern,' says I. 'Only fit for
niggers,' says he, 'why don't you come to the TREE-mont house, that's
the most splendid thing, it's generally allowed, in all the world.'
'Why,' says I, 'that's a notch above my mark; I guess it's too plagy
dear for me, I can't afford it no how.' 'Well,' says he, 'it's dear
in one sense, but it's dog cheap in another--it's a grand place for
speculation. There's so many rich southerners and strangers there
that have more money than wit, that you might do a pretty good
business there, without goin' out of the street door. I made two
hundred dollars this mornin' in little less than half no time.
There's a Carolina lawyer there, as rich as a bank, and says he to
me arter breakfast, "Major," says he, "I wish I knew where to get a
real slapping trotter of a horse, one that could trot with a flash
of lightning for a mile, and beat it by a whole neck or so." Says I,
"My Lord," for you must know, he says he's the nearest male heir to
a Scotch dormant peerage, "my Lord," says I, "I have one, a proper
sneezer, a chap that can go ahead of a railroad steamer, a real
natural traveller, one that can trot with the ball out of the small
eend of a rifle, and never break into a gallop." Says he, "Major,
I wish you wouldn't give me that 'ere nickname, I don't like it,"
though he looked as tickled all the time as possible; "I never knew,"
says he, "a lord that warn't a fool, that's a fact, and that's the
reason I don't go ahead and claim the title." "Well," says I, "my
Lord I don't know, but somehow I can't help a-thinkin', if you have
a good claim, you'd be more like a fool not to go ahead with it."
"Well," says he, "lord or no lord, let's look at your horse." So away
I went to Joe Brown's livery stable, at t'other eend of the city, and
picked out the best trotter he had, and no great stick to brag on
either; says I, "Joe Brown what do you ax for that 'ere horse?" "Two
hundred dollars," says he. "Well," says I, "I will take him out and
try him, and if I like him I will keep him." So I shows our Carolina
Lord the horse, and when he gets on him, says I, "Don't let him trot
as fast as he can, resarve that for a heat; if folks find out how
everlastin' fast he is, they'd be afeared to stump you for a start."
When he returned, he said he liked the horse amazinly, and axed the
price; "four hundred dollars," says I, "you can't get nothin' special
without a good price, pewter cases never hold good watches." "I know
it," says he, "the horse is mine." Thinks I to myself, that's more
than ever I could say of him then anyhow.'

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