Clarence Young - "The Motor Boys on the Pacific"

Lloyd Osbourne - "The Motormaniacs"

Peter B. Kyne - "The Long Chance"

Hector Malot - "Conscience, v2"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature and Human Nature

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> Nature and Human Nature




"'Why, Sam,' said she, 'as I'm a livin' sinner if you ain't got some
white hairs in your head, and there is a little bald patch here right
on the crown. How strange it is! It only seems like yesterday you was
a curly-headed boy.'

"'Yes,' sais I, and I hove a sigh so loud it made the window jar; 'but
I have seen a great deal of trouble since then. I lost two wives in
Europe.'

"'Now do tell,' said she. 'Why you don't!--oh, jimminy criminy! two
wives! How was it, poor Sam?' and she kissed the bald spot on my pate,
and took a rockin'-chair and sat opposite to me, and began rockin'
backwards and forwards like a fellow sawin' wood. 'How was it, Sam,
dear?'

"'Why,' sais I, 'first and foremost, Liddy, I married a fashionable
lady to London. Well, bein' out night arter night at balls and operas,
and what not, she got kinder used up and beat out, and unbeknownst to
me used to take opium. Well, one night she took too much, and in the
morning she was as dead as a herring.'

"'Did she make a pretty corpse?' said Lid, lookin' very sanctimonious.
'Did she lay out handsum? They say prussic acid makes lovely corpses;
it keeps the eyes from fallin' in. Next to dyin' happy, the greatest
thing is to die pretty. Ugly corpses frighten sinners, but elegant
ones win them.'

"'The most lovely subject you ever beheld,' said I. 'She looked as if
she was only asleep; she didn't stiffen at all, but was as limber as
ever you see. Her hair fell over her neck and shoulders in beautiful
curls just like yourn; and she had on her fingers the splendid diamond
rings I gave her; she was too fatigued to take 'em off when she
retired the night afore. I felt proud of her even in death, I do
assure you. She was handsome enough to eat. I went to ambassador's to
consult him about the funeral, whether it should be a state affair,
with all the whole diplomatic corps of the court to attend it, or a
private one. But he advised a private one; he said it best comported
with our dignified simplicity as republicans, and, although cost was
no object, still it was satisfactory to know it was far less expense.
When I came back she was gone.'

"'Gone!' said Liddy, 'gone where?'

"'Gone to the devil, dear, I suppose.'

"'Oh my!' said she. 'Well, I never in all my born days! Oh, Sam, is
that the way to talk of the dead!'

"'In the dusk of the evening,' sais I, 'a carriage, they said, drove
to the door, and a coffin was carried up-stairs; but the undertaker
said it wouldn't fit, and it was taken back again for a larger one.
Just afore I went to bed, I went to the room to have another look at
her, and she was gone, and there was a letter on the table for me; it
contained a few words only.--'Dear Sam, my first husband is come to
life, and so have I. Goodbye, love."

"'Well, what did you do?'

"'Gave it out,' said I, 'she died of the cholera, and had to be buried
quick and private, and no one never knew to the contrary.'

"'Didn't it almost break your heart, Sammy?'

"'No,' sais I. 'In her hurry, she took my dressing-case instead of her
own, in which was all her own jewels, besides those I gave her, and
all our ready money. So I tried to resign myself to my loss, for it
might have been worse, you know,' and I looked as good as pie.

"'Well, if that don't beat all, I declare!' said she.

"'Liddy,' sais I, with a mock solemcoly air, 'every bane has its
antidote, and every misfortin its peculiar consolation.'

"'Oh, Sam, that showed the want of a high moral intellectual
education, didn't it?' said she. 'And yet you had the courage to marry
again?'

"'Well, I married,' sais I, 'next year in France a lady who had
refused one of Louis Philip's sons. Oh, what a splendid gall she was,
Liddy! she was the star of Paris. Poor thing! I lost her in six
weeks.'

"'Six weeks! Oh, Solomon!' said she, 'in six weeks.'

"'Yes,' sais I, 'in six short weeks.'

"'How was it, Sam? do tell me all about it; it's quite romantic. I
vow, it's like the Arabian Nights' Entertainment. You are so unlucky,
I swow I should be skeered--'

"'At what?' sais I.

"'Why, at--'

"She was caught there; she was a goin' to say, 'at marryin' you,' but
as she was a leadin' of me on, that wouldn't do. Doctor, you may catch
a gall sometimes, but if she has a mind to, she can escape if she
chooses, for they are as slippery as eels. So she pretended to
hesitate on, till I asked her again.

"'Why,' sais she, a looking down, 'at sleeping alone tonight, after
hearing of these dreadful catastrophes.'

"'Oh,' sais I, 'is that all?'

"'But how did you lose her?' said she.

"'Why, she raced off,' said I, 'with the Turkish ambassador, and if I
had a got hold of him, I'de a lammed him wuss than the devil beatin'
tan-bark, I know. I'de a had his melt, if there was a bowie-knife out
of Kentucky.'

"'Did you go after her?'

"'Yes; but she cotched it afore I cotched her.'

"'How was that, Sam?'

"'Why, she wanted to sarve him the same way, with an officer of the
Russian Guards, and Mahomet caught her, sewed her up in a sack, and
throwed her neck and crop into the Bosphorus, to fatten eels for the
Greek ladies to keep Lent with.'

"'Why, how could you be so unfortunate?' said she.

"'That's a question I have often axed myself, Liddy,' sais I; 'but I
have come to this conclusion: London and Paris ain't no place for
galls to be trained in.'

"'So I have always said, and always will maintain to my dying day,'
she said, rising with great animation and pride. 'What do they teach
there but music, dancing, and drawing? The deuce a thing else; but
here is Spanish, French, German, Italian, botany, geology, mineralogy,
icthiology, conchology, theology--'

"'Do you teach angeolology and doxyology?' sais I.

"'Yes, angeolology and doxyology,' she said, not knowing what she was
a talking about.

"'And occult sciences?' sais I.

"'Yes, all the sciences. London and Paris, eh! Ask a lady from either
place if she knows the electric battery from the magnetic--'

"'Or a needle from a pole,' sais I.

"'Yes,' sais she, without listening, 'or any such question, and see if
she can answer it."

"She resumed her seat.

"'Forgive my enthusiasm,' she said, 'Sam, you know I always had a
great deal of that.'

"'I know,' said I, 'you had the smallest foot and ankle of anybody in
our country. My! what fine-spun glass heels you had! Where in the
world have you stowed them to?' pretendin' to look down for them.

"'Kept them to kick you with,' she said, 'if you are sassy.'

"Thinks I to myself, what next? as the woman said to the man who
kissed her in the tunnel, you are coming out, Liddy.

"'Kick,' said I, 'oh, you wouldn't try that, I am sure, let me do what
I would.'

"'Why not?' said she.

"'Why,' sais I, 'if you did you would have to kick so high, you would
expose one of the larger limbs.'

"'Mr Slick,' said she, 'I trust you will not so far forget what is due
to a lady, as to talk of showing her larger limbs, it's not decent.'

"'Well, I know it ain't decent,' said I, 'but you said you would do
it, and I just remonstrated a little, that's all.'

"'You was saying about London and Paris,' said she, 'being no place
for educating young ladies in.'

"'Yes,' sais I, 'that painful story of my two poor dear wives (which
is 'all in my eye,' as plain as it was then), illustrates my theory of
education in those two capitals. In London, females, who are a great
deal in society in the season, like a man who drinks, can't stop, they
are at it all the time, and like him, sometimes forget the way home
again. In Paris, galls are kept so much at home before marriage, when
they once get out, they don't want to enter the cage again. They are
the two extremes. If ever I marry, I'll tell you how I will lay down
the law. Pleasure shall be the recreation and not the business of life
with her. Home the rule--parties the exception. Duty first, amusement
second. Her head-quarters shall always be in her own house, but the
outposts will never be neglected.'

"'Nothin' like an American woman for an American man, is there?' said
she, and she drew nearer, lookin' up in my face to read the answer,
and didn't rock so hard.

"'It depends upon how they are brought up,' said I, looking wise.
'But, Liddy,' sais I, 'without joking, what an amazin' small foot that
is of yours. It always was, and wunst when it slipt through a branch
of the cherry-tree, do you recollect my saying, Well I vow that calf
was suckled by two cows? now don't you, Liddy?'

"'No, Sir,' said she, 'I don't, though children may say many things
that when they grow up they are ashamed to repeat; but I recollect
now, wunst when you and I went through the long grass to the
cherry-tree, your mother said, 'Liddy, beware you are not bit by a
garter-snake, and I never knew her meanin' till now;' and she rose up
and said, 'Mr Slick, I must bid you good morning.'

"'Liddy,' sais I, 'don't be so pesky starch, I'll be dod fetched if I
meant any harm, but you beat me all holler. I only spoke of the calf,
and you went a streak higher and talked of the garter.'

"'Sam,' said she, 'you was always the most impedent, forredest, and
pertest boy that ever was, and travellin' hain't improved you one mite
or morsel.'

"'I am sorry I have offended you, Liddy,' sais I, 'but really now, how
do you manage to teach all them things with hard names, for we never
even heard of them at Slickville? Have you any masters?'

"'Masters,' said she, 'the first one that entered this college would
ruin it for ever. What, a man in this college! where the juvenile
pupils belong to the first families--I guess not. I hire a young lady
to teach rudiments.'

"'So I should think,' sais I, 'from the specimen I saw at your door,
she was rude enough in all conscience.'

"'Pooh,' said she, 'well, I have a Swiss lady that teaches French,
German, Spanish, and Italian, and an English one that instructs in
music and drawing, and I teach history, geography, botany, and the
sciences, and so on.'

"'How on earth did you learn them all?' said I, 'for it puzzles me.'

"'Between you and me, Sam,' said she, 'for you know my broughtens up,
and it's no use to pretend--primary books does it all, there is
question and answer. I read the question, and they learn the answer.
It's the easiest thing in the world to teach now-a-days.'

"'But suppose you get beyond the rudiments?'

"'Oh, they never remain long enough to do that. They are brought out
before then. They go to Saratoga first in summer, and then to
Washington in winter, and are married right off after that. The
domestic, seclusive, and exclusive system, is found most conducive to
a high state of refinement and delicacy. I am doing well, Sam,' said
she, drawing nearer, and looking confidential in my face. 'I own all
this college, and all the lands about, and have laid up forty thousand
dollars besides;' and she nodded her head at me, and looked earnest,
as much as to say, 'That is a fact, ain't it grand?'

"'The devil you have,' said I, as if I had taken the bait. 'I had a
proposal to make.'

"'Oh,' said she, and she coloured up all over, and got up and said,
'Sam, won't you have a glass of wine, dear?' She intended it to give
me courage to speak out, and she went to a closet, and brought out a
tray with a decanter, and two or three glasses on it, and some frosted
plum-cake. 'Try that cake, dear,' she said, 'I made it myself, and
your dear old mother taught me how to do it;' and then she laid back
her head, and larfed like anything. 'Sam,' said she, 'what a memory
you have; I had forgot all about the cherry-tree, I don't recollect a
word of it.'

"'And the calf?' said I.

"'Get along,' said she, 'do get out;' and she took up some crumbs of
the cake, and made 'em into a ball as big as a cherry, and fired it at
me, and struck me in the eye with it, and nearly put it out. She
jumped up in a minit: 'Did she hurt her own poor cossy's eye?' she
said, 'and put it een amost out,' and she kissed it. 'It didn't hurt
his little peeper much, did it?'

"Hullo, sais I to myself, she's coming it too peeowerful strong
altogether. The sooner I dig out the better for my wholesomes.
However, let her went, she is wrathy. 'I came to propose to you--'

"'Dear me,' said she, 'I feel dreadful, I warn't prepared for this;
it's very onexpected. What is it, Sam? I am all over of a
twiteration.'

"'I know you will refuse me,' sais I, 'when I look round and see how
comfortable and how happy you are, even if you ain't engaged.'

"'Sam, I told you I weren't engaged,' she said: 'that story of General
Smith is all a fabrication, therefore don't mention that again.'

"'I feel,' said I, 'it's no use. I know what you will say, you can't
quit.'

"'You have a strange way,' said she, rather tart, 'for you ask
questions, and then answer them yourself. What do you mean?'

"'Well,' sais I, 'I'll tell you, Liddy.'

"'Do, dear,' said she, and she put her hand over her eyes, as if to
stop her from hearing distinctly. 'I came to propose to you--'

"'Oh, Sam,' said she, 'to think of that!'

"'To take a seat in my buggy,' sais I, 'and come and spend a month
with sister Sally and me, at the old location.'

"Poor thing, I pitied her; she had one knee over the other, and, as I
said, one hand over her eyes, and there she sot, and the way the upper
foot went bobbin' up and down was like the palsy, only a little
quicker. She never said another word, nor sighed, nor groaned, nor
anything, only her head hung lower. Well, I felt streaked, Doctor, I
tell you. I felt like a man who had stabbed another, and knew he ought
to be hanged for it; and I looked at her as such a critter would, if
he had to look on, and see his enemy bleed to death. I knew I had done
wrong--I had acted spider-like to her--got her into the web--tied her
hand and foot, and tantalized her. I am given to brag, I know, Doctor,
when I am in the saddle, and up in the stirrups, and leavin' all
others behind; but when a beast is choaked and down in the dirt, no
man ever heard me brag I had rode the critter to death.

"No, I did wrong, she was a woman, and I was a man, and if she did act
a part, why, I ought to have known the game she had to play, and made
allowances for it. I dropt the trump card under the table that time,
and though I got the odd trick, she had the honours. It warn't manly
in me, that's a fact; but confound her, why the plague did she call me
'Mr,' and act formal, and give me the bag to hold, when she knew me of
old, and minded the cherry-tree, and all that? Still she was a woman,
and a defenceless one too, and I did'nt do the pretty. But if she was
a woman, doctor, she had more clear grit than most men have. After a
while she took her hand off her eyes and rubbed them, and she opened
her mouth and yawned so, you could see down to her garters amost.

"'Dear me!' said she, trying to smile; but, oh me! how she looked! Her
eyes had no more expression than a China-aster, and her face was so
deadly pale, it made the rouge she had put on look like the hectic of
a dying consumption. Her ugly was out in full bloom, I tell you. 'Dear
cousin Sam,' said she, 'I am so fatigued with my labours as
presidentess of this institution, that I can hardly keep my peepers
open. I think, if I recollect--for I am ashamed to say I was a
noddin'--that you proposed (that word lit her eyes up) that I should
go with you to visit dear Sally. Oh, Sam!' said she (how she bit in
her temper that hitch, didn't she?) 'you see, and you saw it at first,
I can't leave on so short a notice; but if my sweet Sally would come
and visit me, how delighted I should be! Sam, I must join my class
now. How happy it has made me to see you again after so many years!
Kiss me, dear; good bye--God bless you!' and she yawned again till she
nearly dislocated her jaw. 'Go on and write books, Sam, for no man is
better skilled in human natur and spares it less than yourself.' What
a reproachful look she gave me then! 'Good bye, dear!'

"Well, when I closed the door, and was opening of the outer one, I
heard a crash. I paused a moment, for I knew what it was. She had
fainted and fell into a conniption fit.

"'Sam,' sais I to myself, 'shall I go back?'

"'No,' sais I, 'if you return there will be a scene; and if you don't,
if she can't account naterally for it, the devil can't, that's all.'

"Doctor, I felt guilty, I tell you. I had taken a great many rises out
of folks in my time, but that's the only one I repent of. Tell you
what, Doctor, folks may talk about their southern gentlemen, their New
York prince-merchants, and so on, but the clear grit, bottom and game,
is New England (Yankee-doodle-dum). Male or female, young or old, I'll
back 'em agin all creation."

Squire, show this chapter to Lord Tandembery, if you know him; and if
you don't, Uncle Tom Lavender will give you a letter of introduction
to him; and then ask him if ever he has suffered half so much as Sam
Slick has in the cause of edication.



CHAPTER XV.

GIPSEYING.


We tried the deck again, but the fog was too disagreeable to remain
there, for the water fell from the ropes in such large drops, and the
planks were so wet and slippery, we soon adjourned again to the cabin.

"I have to thank you, Doctor," said I, "for a most charming day at the
Beaver-Dam. That was indeed a day in the woods, and I believe every
one there knew how to enjoy it. How different it is from people in a
town here, who go out to the country for a pic-nic! A citizen thinks
the pleasure of gipseying, as they call it in England, consists solely
in the abundance and variety of the viands, the quality and quantity
of the wines, and as near an approach to a city dinner as it is
possible to have, where there are neither tables, chairs, sideboards,
nor removes. He selects his place for the encampment in the first
opening adjoining the clearing, as it commands a noble view of the
harbour, and there is grass enough to recline upon. The woods are
gloomy, the footing is slippery, and there is nothing to be seen in a
forest but trees, windfalls which are difficult to climb, and boggy
ground that wets your feet, and makes you feel uncomfortable. The
limbs are eternally knocking your hat off, and the spruce gum ruins
your clothes, while ladies, like sheep, are for ever leaving fragments
of their dress on every bush. He chooses the skirts of the forest
therefore, the background is a glorious wood, and the foreground is
diversified by the shipping. The o-heave-o of the sailors, as it rises
and falls in the distance, is music to his ears, and suggestive of
agreeable reflections, or profitable conversation peculiarly
appropriate to the place and the occasion. The price of fish in the
West Indies, or of deals in Liverpool, or the probable rise of flour
in the market, amuse the vacant mind of himself and his partner, not
his wife, for she is only his sleeping partner, but the wide-awake
partner of the firm, one of those who are embraced in the
comprehensive term the 'Co.' He is the depository of his secrets, the
other of his complaints.

"His wife is equally happy, she enjoys it uncommonly, for she knows it
will spite those horrid Mudges. She is determined not to invite them,
for they make too much noise, it gives her the headache, and their
flirting is too bad. Mrs White called them garrison hacks. And besides
(for women always put the real reason last--they live in a postscript)
they don't deserve it, for they left her girls out when they had the
lobster-spearing party by torch-light, with the officers of the
flag-ship, though that was no loss, for by all accounts it was a very
romping party, knocking off the men's hats, and then exchanging their
bonnets for them. And how any mother could allow her daughter to be
held round the waist by the flag-lieutenant, while she leaned over the
boat to spear the fish, is a mystery to her. The polka is bad enough,
but, to her mind, that is not decent, and then she has something to
whisper about it, that she says is too bad (this is a secret though,
and she must whisper it, for walls have ears, and who knows but trees
have, and besides, the good things are never repeated, but the too bad
always is), and Mrs Black lifts up both her hands, and the whites of
both eyes in perfect horror.

"'Now did you ever! Oh, is that true? Why, you don't!'

"'Lucy Green saw him with her own eyes,' and she opens her own as big
as saucers.

"'And what did Miss Mudge say?'

"'Well, upon my word,' said she, 'I wonder what you will do next,' and
laughed so they nearly fell overboard.

"'Oh, what carryings on, ain't it, dear? But I wonder where Sarah
Matilda is? I don't see her and Captain De la Cour. I am afraid she
will get lost in the woods, and that would make people talk as they
did about Miss Mudge and Doctor Vincent, who couldn't find their way
out once till nine o'clock at night.'

"'They'll soon get back, dear,' sais the other, 'let them be; it looks
like watching them, and you know,' laying an emphasis on you, 'you and
I were young once ourselves, and so they will come back when they want
to, for though the woods have no straight paths in them, they have
short cuts enough for them that's in a hurry. Cupid has no watch,
dear; his fob is for a purse,' and she smiles wicked on the mother of
the heiress.

"Well, then, who can say this is not a pleasant day to both parties?
The old gentlemen have their nice snug business chat, and the old
ladies have their nice snug gossip chat, and the third estate (as the
head of the firm calls it, who was lately elected member for Grumble
Town, and begins to talk parliamentary), the third estate, the young
folks, the people of progression, who are not behind but rather ahead
of the age they live in, don't they enjoy themselves? It is very hard
if youth, beauty, health, good spirits, and a desire to please
(because if people havn't that they had better stay to home), can't or
won't make people happy. I don't mean for to go for to say that will
insure it, because nothin' is certain, and I have known many a gall
that resembled a bottle of beautiful wine. You will find one sometimes
as enticin' to appearance as ever was, but hold it up and there is
grounds there for all that, settled, but still there, and enough too
to spile all, so you can't put it to your lips any how you can fix it.
What a pity it is sweet things turn sour, ain't it?

"But in a general way these things will make folks happy. There are
some sword-knots there, and they do look very like woodsmen, that's a
fact. If you never saw a forrester, you would swear to them as
perfect. A wide-awake hat, with a little short pipe stuck in it, a
pair of whiskers that will be grand when they are a few years older--a
coarse check or red flannel shirt, a loose neck-handkerchief, tied
with a sailor's knot--a cut-away jacket, with lots of pockets--a belt,
but little or no waistcoat--homespun trowsers and thick buskins--a
rough glove and a delicate white hand, the real, easy, and natural
gait of the woodman (only it's apt to be a little, just a little too
stiff, on account of the ramrod they have to keep in their throats
while on parade), when combined, actilly beat natur, for they are too
nateral. Oh, these amateur woodsmen enact their part so well, you
think you almost see the identical thing itself. And then they have
had the advantage of Woolwich or Sandhurst, or Chobham, and are dabs
at a bivouac, grand hands with an axe--cut a hop-pole down in half a
day amost, and in the other half stick it into the ground. I don't
make no doubt in three or four days they could build a wigwam to sleep
in, and one night out of four under cover is a great deal for an
amateur hunter, though it ain't the smallest part of a circumstance to
the Crimea. As, it is, if a stick ain't too big for a fire, say not
larger than your finger, they can break it over their knee, sooner
than you could cut it with a hatchet for your life, and see how soon
it's in a blaze. Take them altogether, they are a killing party of
coons them, never miss a moose if they shoot out of an Indian's gun,
and use a silver bullet.

"Well, then, the young ladies are equipped so nicely--they have uglies
to their bonnets, the only thing ugly about them, for at a distance
they look like huge green spectacles. They are very useful in the
forest, for there is a great glare of the sun generally under trees;
or else they have green bonnets, that look like eagle's skins; thin
dresses, strong ones are too heavy, and they don't display the beauty
of nature enough, they are so high, and the whole object of the party
is to admire that. Their walking shoes are light and thin, they don't
fatigue you like coarse ones, and India-rubbers are hideous, they make
your feet look as if they had the gout; and they have such pretty,
dear little aprons, how rural it looks altogether--they act a day in
the woods to admiration. Three of the officers have nicknames, a very
nice thing to induce good fellowship, especially as it has no tendency
whatever to promote quarrels. There is Lauder, of the Rifles, he is so
short, they call him Pistol; he has a year to grow yet, and may become
a great gun some of these days. Russel takes a joke good-humouredly,
and therefore is so fortunate as to get more than his share of them,
accordingly he goes by the name of Target, as every one takes a shot
at him. Duke is so bad a shot, he has twice nearly pinked the
marksman, so he is called Trigger. He always lays the blame of his
want of skill on that unfortunate appendage of the gun, as it is
either too hard or too quick on the finger. Then there is young
Bulger, and as everybody pronounces it as if it had two 'g's' in it,
he corrects them and says, 'g' soft, my dear fellow, if you please; so
he goes by the name of 'G' soft. Oh, the conversation of the third
estate is so pretty, I could listen to it for ever.