James H. McClintock - "Mormon Settlement in Arizona"

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "Poems of Progress"

Edward Francis Wilson - "Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians"

G. K. Chesterton - "A Miscellany of Men"

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




"'Hullo,' sais she, 'here's the devil to pay, and no pitch hot. Are
you a goin' to kill that boy, massa?' and she seized hold of me and
took me away from him, and caught me up in her arms as easy as if I
was a doll.

"'Here's a pretty hurrahs nest,' sais she, 'let me see one of you dare
to lay hands on this brave pickininny. He is more of a man than the
whole bilin' of you put together. My poor child,' said she, 'they have
used you scandalous, ridiculous,' and she held down her nasty oily
shiny face and kissed me, till she nearly smothered me. Oh, Doctor, I
shall never forget that scene the longest day I ever live. She might a
been Rose by name, but she warn't one by nature, I tell you. When
niggers get their dander raised, and their ebenezer fairly up, they
ain't otter of roses, that's a fact; whatever Mrs Stowe may say. Oh, I
kicked and yelled and coughed like anything.

"'Poor dear boy,' she said, 'Rosy ain't a goin' to hurt her own brave
child,' not she, and she kissed me again and again, till I thought I
should have fainted. She actually took away my breath.

"'Come,' said she, and she set me down on my feet. 'Come to the house,
till I put some dry clothes on you, and I'll make some lasses candy
for you with my own hands!' But as soon as I touched land, I streaked
off for home, as hard as I could lay legs to the ground; but the
perfume of old Rose set me a sneezing so, I fairly blew up the dust in
the road as I went, as if a bull had been pawin of it, and left a
great wet streak behind me as if a watering-pot had passed that way.
Who should I meet when I returned, but mother a standin at the door.

"'Why, Sam,' said she, 'what under the sun is the matter? What a spot
of work? Where in the world have you been?'

"'In the mill pond,' said I.

"'In the mill pond,' said she, slowly; 'and ruinated that beautiful
new coat I made out of your father's old one, and turned so nicely for
you. You are more trouble to me than all the rest of the boys put
together. Go right off to your room this blessed instant minite, and
go to bed and say your prayers, and render thanks for savin' your
clothes, if you did lose your life.'

"'I wish I had lost my life,' said I.

"'Wish you had lost your life?' said she. 'Why you miserable,
onsarcumsised, onjustified, graceless boy. Why do you wish you had
lost your life?'

"'Phew, phew,' said I, 'was you ever kissed by a nigger? because if
you was, I guess you wouldn't have asked that are question,' and I
sneezed so hard I actually blew down the wire cage, the door of it
flew open, and the cat made a spring like wink and killed the canary
bird.

"'Sam, Sam,' said she ('skat, skat, you nasty devil, you--you have got
the knary, I do declare.) Sam! Sam! to think I should have lived to
hear you ask your mother if she had ever been kissed by a nigger!' and
she began to boohoo right out. 'I do believe in my soul you are drunk,
Sam,' said she.

"'I shouldn't wonder if I was,' said I, 'for I have drunk enough
to-day to serve a cow and a calf for a week.'

"'Go right off to bed; my poor dear bird,' said she. 'And when your
father comes in I will send him to your cage. You shall be punished
for this.'

"'I don't care,' sais I, for I was desperate and didn't mind what
happened, 'who you send, providin' you don't send black Rose, the
nigger wench, to me.'

"Well, in about an hour or so I heard father come to the foot of the
stairs and call out 'Sam.' I didn't answer at first, but went and
threw the winder open ready for a jump.

"Thinks I, 'Sam, you are in great luck to-day. 1st. You got nearly
drowned, savin' that little brat Zeb Snell. 2nd. You lost a bran new
hat, and spoilt your go-to-meetin' clothes. 3rd. Mrs Snell boxed your
ears till your eyes shot stars, like rockets. 4th. You got an
all-fired licking from old Colonel Jephunny, till he made a mulatto of
you, and you was half black and half white. 5th. You got kissed and
pysoned by that great big emancipated she-nigger wench. 6th. You have
killed your mother's canary bird, and she has jawed you till she went
into hysterics. 7th. Here's the old man a goin' to give you another
walloping and all for nothin. I'll cut and run, and dot drot me if I
don't, for it's tarnation all over.'

"'Sam,' sais father again, a raisin' of his voice.

"'Father,' sais I, 'I beg your pardon, I am very sorry for what I have
done, and I think I have been punished enough. If you will promise to
let me off this time, I will take my oath I will never save another
person from drowning again, the longest day I ever live.'

"'Come down,' said he, 'when I tell you, I am goin' to reward you.'

"'Thank you,' sais I, 'I have been rewarded already more than I
deserve.'

"Well, to make a long story short, we concluded a treaty of peace, and
down I went, and there was Colonel Snell, who said he had drove over
to beg my pardon for the wrong he had done to me, and said he, 'Sam,
come to me at ten o'clock on Monday, and I will put you in a way to
make your fortune, as a recompense for saving my child's life.'

"Well, I kept the appointment, tho' I was awful skared about old Rose
kissin of me again; and sais he, 'Sam, I want to show you my
establishment for making wooden clocks. One o' them can be
manufactured for two dollars, scale of prices then. Come to me for
three months, and I will teach you the trade, only you musn't carry it
on in Connecticut to undermine me.' I did so, and thus accidentally I
became a clockmaker.

"To sell my wares I came to Nova Scotia. By a similar accident I met
the Squire in this province, and made his acquaintance. I wrote a
journal of our tour, and for want of a title he put my name to it, and
called it 'Sam Slick, the Clockmaker.' That book introduced me to
General Jackson, and he appointed me attaché to our embassy to
England, and that again led to Mr Polk making me Commissioner of the
Fisheries, which, in its turn, was the means of my having the honour
of your acquaintance," and I made him a scrape of my hind leg.

"Now," sais I, "all this came from the accident of my havin' saved a
child's life one day. I owe my 'wise saws' to a similar accident. My
old master and friend, that you have read of in my books, Mr Hopewell,
was chock full of them. He used to call them wisdom boiled down to an
essence, concretes, and I don't know what all. He had a book full of
English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and above all, Bible ones.
Well, he used to make me learn them by heart for lessons, till I was
fairly sick and tired to death of 'em.

"'Minister,' sais I, one day, 'what under the sun is the use of them
old, musty, fusty proverbs. A boy might as well wear his father's
boots, and ride in his long stirrups, as talk in maxims, it would only
set other boys a laughin' at him.'

"'Sam,' sais he, 'you don't understand them now, and you don't
understand your Latin grammar, tho' you can say them both off by
heart. But you will see the value of one when you come to know the
world, and the other, when you come to know the language. The latter
will make you a good scholar, and the former a wise man.'

"Minister was right, Doctor. As I came to read the book of life, I
soon began to understand, appreciate, and apply my proverbs. Maxims
are deductions ready drawn, and better expressed than I could do them,
to save my soul alive. Now I have larned to make them myself. I have
acquired the habit, as my brother the lawyer sais, 'of extracting the
principle from cases.' Do you take? I am not the accident of an
accident; for I believe the bans of marriage were always duly
published in our family; but I am the accident of an incident."

"There is a great moral in that too, Mr Slick," he said. "How
important is conduct, when the merest trifle may carry in its train
the misery or happiness of your future life."

"Stick a pin in that also. Doctor," said I.

Here Cutler and the pilot cut short our conversation by going on
board. But Peter wouldn't hear of my leaving his house, and I
accordingly spent the night there, not a little amused with my new
acquaintances.



CHAPTER V.

A NEW WAY TO LEARN GAELIC.


After the captain and the pilot had retired, sais I, "Miss Jessie,
sposin we young folks--(ah me, it is time to get a new word, I guess,
for that one has been used so long, it's e'en amost worn out
now)--sposin we young folks leave the doctor and your father to finish
their huntin' stories, and let us go to the other room, and have a
dish of chat about things in general, and sweethearts in particular."

"Oh, we live too much alone here," said she, "to know anything of such
matters, but we will go if you will promise to tell us one of your
funny stories. They say you have written a whole book full of them;
how I should like to see it."

"Would you, Miss?" said I, "well, then, you shall have one, for I have
a copy on board I believe, and I shall be only too proud if you will
read it to remember me by. But my best stories ain't in my books.
Somehow or another, when I want them they won't come, and at other
times when I get a goin talkin, I can string them together like
onions, one after the other, till the twine is out. I have a heap of
them, but they are all mixed and confused like in my mind, and it
seems as if I never could find the one I need. Do you work in worsted,
Miss?"

"Well, a little," sais she. "It is only town-bred girls, who have
nothing to attend to but their dress and to go to balls, that have
leisure to amuse themselves that way; but I can work a little, though
I could never do anything fit to be seen or examined."

"I shouldn't wonder," said I, and I paused, and she looked as if she
didn't over half like my taking her at her word that way. "I shouldn't
wonder," said I, "for I am sure your eyes would fade the colour out of
the worsted."

"Why, Mr Slick," said she, drawing herself up a bit, "what nonsense
you do talk, what a quiz you be."

"Fact," sais I, "Miss, I assure you, never try it again, you will be
sure to spoil it. But as I was a sayin, Miss, when you see a thread of
a particular colour, you know whether you have any more like it or
not, so when a man tells me a story, I know whether I have one of the
same kind to match it or not, and if so, I know where to lay my hand
on it; but I must have a clue to my yarns."

Squire, there is something very curious about memory, I don't think
there is such a thing as total forgetfulness. I used once to think
there was, but I don't now. It used to seem to me that things rusted
out, but now it appears as if they were only misplaced, or overlaid,
or stowed away like where you can't find them; but depend on it, when
once there, they remain for ever. How often you are asked, "Don't you
recollect this or that?" and you answer, "No, I never heard, or saw
it, or read it," as the case may be. And when the time, and place, and
circumstances are told you, you say, "Stop a bit, I do now mind
something about it, warn't it so and so, or this way, or that way,"
and finally up it comes, all fresh to your recollection. Well, until
you get the clue given you, or the key note is struck, you are ready
to take your oath you never heard of it afore. Memory has many cells:
Some of them ain't used much, and dust and cobwebs get about them, and
you can't tell where the hinge is, or can't easily discarn the secret
spring; but open it once, and whatever is stowed away there is as safe
and sound as ever. I have a good many capital stories poked away in
them cubby-holes, that I can't just lay my hand on when I want to; but
now and then, when looking for something else, I stumble upon them by
accident. Tell you what, as for forgettin' a thing tee-totally, I
don't believe there is sich a thing in natur. But to get back to my
story.

"Miss," sais I, "I can't just at this present moment call to mind a
story to please you. Some of them are about hosses, or clocks, or
rises taken out of folks, or dreams, or courtships, or ghosts, or what
not; but few of them will answer, for they are either too short or too
long."

"Oh," says Catherine Fraser, "tell us a courtship; I dare say you will
make great fun of it."

"No, no," says Jessie, "tell us a ghost story. Oh! I delight in them."

"Oh," said Janet, "tell us about a dream. I know one myself which came
out as correct as provin' a sum."

"That's it, Miss Janet," said I; "do you tell me that story, please,
and it's hard if I can't find one that will please you in return for
it."

"Yes, do, dear," said Jessie; "tell Mr Slick that story, for it's a
true one, and I should like to hear what he thinks of it, or how he
can account for it."

"Well," said Janet, "you must excuse me, Mr Slick, for any mistakes I
make, for I don't speak very good English, and I can hardly tell a
story all through in that language.

"I have a brother that lives up one of the branches of the Buctouche
River in New Brunswick. He bought a tract of land there four or five
years ago, on which there was a house and barn, and about a hundred
acres of cleared land. He made extensive improvements on it, and went
to a great expense in clearing up the stumps, and buying stock and
farming implements, and what not. One season, between plantin' and
harvest, he run short of money for his common daily use, and to pay
some little debts he owed, and he was very dull about it. He said he
knew he could come here and borrow it from father, but he didn't like
to be away from home so long, and hardly knew how the family was to
get on or to pay the wages till his return, so it was agreed that I
was to go the next Monday in a vessel bound for Halifax and bring him
what he wanted.

"At that time, he had a field back in the woods he was cultivating.
Between that and the front on the river, was a poor sand flat covered
with spruce, birch, and poplar, and not worth the expense of bringing
to for the plough. The road to the back field ran through this wood
land. He was very low-spirited about his situation, for he said if he
was to borrow the money of a merchant, he would require a mortgage on
his place, and perhaps sell it before he knew where he was. Well, that
night he woke up his wife, and said to her--

"'Mary,' said he, 'I have had a very curious dream just now. I dreamed
that as I was going out to the back lot with the oxcart, I found a
large sum of money all in dollars in the road there.'

"'Well,' says Mary, 'I wish it was true, John, but it is too good news
for us. The worriment we have had about money lately has set you a
dreaming. Janet sails on Monday, she will soon be back, and then it
will all be right; so go to sleep again, dear.'

"Well, in the morning, when he and his wife got up, he never spoke or
thought any more about the dream, but as soon as breakfast was over,
he and his man yoked up the oxen, put them to the cart, and lifted the
harrow into it, and started for the field. The servant drove the team,
and John walked behind with his head down, a turning over in his mind
whether he couldn't sell something off the farm to keep matters
a-goin' till I should return, when all at once, as they were passing
through the wood, he observed that there was a line of silver dollars
turned up by one of the wheels of the cart, and continued for the
space of sixty feet and then ceased.

"The moment he saw the money he thought of his dream, and he was so
overjoyed that he was on the point of calling out to the man to stop,
but he thought it was more prudent as they were alone in the woods to
say nothing about it. So he walked on, and joined the driver, and kept
him in talk for awhile. And then, as if he had suddenly thought of
something, said, 'Jube, do you proceed to the field and go to work
till I come. I shall have to go to the house for a short time.'

"Well, as soon as he got out of sight of the cart, off he ran home as
hard as he could lay legs to it, only stopping to take up a handful of
the coins to make sure they were real.

"'Mary, Mary,' sais he, 'the dream has come true; I have found the
money--see here is some of it; there is no mistake;' and he threw a
few pieces down on the hearth and rung them. 'They are genuine Spanish
crowns. Do you and Janet bring the market-basket, while I go for a
couple of hoes, and let us gather it all up.'

"Well, sure enough, when we came to the place he mentioned, there was
the wheel-track full of dollars. He and I hoed each side of the rut,
which seemed to be in a sort of yellow powder, like the dust of rotten
wood, and got out all we could find. We afterwards tried under the
opposite wheel, and behind and before the rut, but could find no more,
and when we got home we counted it, and found we had eighty-two
pounds, five shillings.

"'Well, this is a God-send, Mary, ain't it?' said brother; and she
threw her arms round his neck, and cried for joy as she kissed him."

"Which way," said I, "show me, Miss, how she did it, only you may
laugh instead of cry if you like."

"Not being a wife," said she, with great quietness, "I cannot show you
myself, but you may imagine it, it will do just as well, or dream it,
and that will do better.

"Well, John was a scrupulous man, and he was determined to restore the
money, if he could find an owner for it; but he could hear of no one
who had lost any, nor any tradition in that place that any one ever
had done so since the first settlement of the country. All that he
could discover was, that about forty years before, an old Frenchman
had lived somewhere thereabouts alone, in the midst of the woods. Who
he was, or what became of him, nobody knew; all he could hear was,
that a party of lumbermen had, some years afterwards, found his house
amidst a second growth of young wood that wholly concealed it, and
that it contained his furniture, cooking utensils, and trunks, as he
had left them. Some supposed he had been devoured by bears or wolves;
others, that he had been lost in the woods; and some, that he had died
by his own hands.

"On hearing this, John went to examine his habitation, or the remains
of it, and he found that about four acres around it were covered with
the second growth, as it is called, which was plainly to be
distinguished from the forest, as the trees were not only not so large
or so old as the neighbouring ones, but, as is always the case, were
of a different description of wood altogether. On a careful inspection
of the spot where he found the money, it appeared that the wheel had
passed lengthways along an enormous old decayed pine, in the hollow of
which he supposed the money must have been hid; and when the tree
fell, the dollars had rolled along its centre fifty feet or more, and
remained there until the wood was rotten, and had crumbled into dust.

"There, Sir, there is my story: it is a true one, I assure you, for I
was present at the time. What do you think of it?"

"Well," sais I, "if he had never heard a rumour, nor had any reason to
suppose that the money had been hid there, why it was a singular
thing, and looks very much like a--"

"Like a what?" said she.

"Like a supply that one couldn't count upon a second time, that's
all."

"It's a dream that was fulfilled though," she said; "and that don't
often happen, does it?"1


1 The names of the persons and river are alone changed in this
extraordinary story. The actors are still living, and are persons of
undoubted veracity and respectability.


"Unless," sais I, "a young lady was to dream now that she was a going
to be married to a certain person, and that does often come true. Do
you--"

"Oh, nonsense," said she. "Come, do tell us your story now, you know
you promised me you would if I related mine."

"Yes," said Miss Jessie; "come now, Mr Slick, that's a good man, do?"

Sais I, "Miss, I will give you my book instead, and that will tell you
a hundred of them."

"Yes, but when will you give it to me?" she replied.

"To-morrow," said I, "as soon as I go on board. But mind, there is one
condition." And I said in Gaelic: "Feumieth thu pog thoir dhomh eur a
shon (you must give me a kiss for it)."

"Oh," said she, lookin' not over pleased, I consaited; but perhaps it
was because the other girls laughed liked anything, as if it was a
capital joke, "that's not fair, you said you would give it, and now
you want to sell it. If that's the case I will pay the money for it."

"Oh, fie," sais I, "Miss Jessie."

"Well, I want to know!"

"No, indeed; what I meant was to give you that book to remember me by
when I am far away from here, and I wanted you to give me a little
token, O do bhilean boidheach (from your pretty lips), that I should
remember the longest day I live."

"You mean that you would go away, laugh, and forget right off. No,
that won't do, but if you must have a token I will look up some little
keepsake to exchange for it. Oh, dear, what a horrid idea," she said,
quite scorney like, "to trade for a kiss; it's the way father buys his
fish, he gives salt for them, or flour, or some such barter, oh, Mr
Slick, I don't think much of you. But for goodness gracious sake how
did you learn Gaelic?"

"From lips, dear," said I, "and that's the reason I shall never forget
it."

"No, no," said she, "but how on earth did you ever pick it up."

"I didn't pick it up, Miss," said I, "I kissed it up, and as you want
a story I might as well tell you that as any other."

"It depends upon what sort of a story it is," said she, colouring.

"Oh, yes," said the Campbell girls, who didn't appear quite so
skittish as she was, "do tell us, no doubt you will make a funny one
out of it. Come, begin."

Squire, you are older than I be, and I suppose you will think all this
sort of thing is clear sheer nonsense, but depend upon it a kiss is a
great mystery. There is many a thing we know that we can't explain,
still we are sure it is a fact for all that. Why should there be a
sort of magic in shaking hands, which seems only a mere form, and
sometimes a painful one too, for some folks wring your fingers off
amost, and make you fairly dance with pain, they hurt you so. It don't
give much pleasure at any time. What the magic of it is we can't tell,
but so it is for all that. It seems only a custom like bowing and
nothing else, still there is more in it than meets the eye. But a kiss
fairly electrifies you, it warms your blood and sets your heart a
beatin' like a brass drum, and makes your eyes twinkle like stars in a
frosty night. It tante a thing ever to be forgot. No language can
express it, no letters will give the sound. Then what in natur is
equal to the flavour of it? What an aroma it has! How spiritual it is!
It ain't gross, for you can't feed on it; it don't cloy, for the
palate ain't required to test its taste. It is neither visible, nor
tangible, nor portable, nor transferable. It is not a substance, nor a
liquid, nor a vapour. It has neither colour nor form. Imagination
can't conceive it. It can't be imitated or forged. It is confined to
no clime or country, but is ubiquitous. It is disembodied when
completed, but is instantly reproduced, and so is immortal. It is as
old as the creation, and yet is as young and fresh as ever. It
preëxisted, still exists, and always will exist. It pervades all
natur. The breeze as it passes kisses the rose, and the pendant vine
stoops down and hides with its tendrils its blushes, as it kisses the
limpid stream that waits in an eddy to meet it, and raises its tiny
waves, like anxious lips to receive it. Depend upon it Eve learned it
in Paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and varieties by an
angel, there is something so transcendent in it.

How it is adapted to all circumstances! There is the kiss of welcome
and of parting, the long-lingering, loving present one, the stolen or
the mutual one, the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow, the seal of
promise, and the receipt of fulfilment. Is it strange therefore that a
woman is invincible whose armoury consists of kisses, smiles, sighs,
and tears? Is it any wonder that poor old Adam was first tempted, and
then ruined? It is very easy for preachers to get up with long faces
and tell us he ought to have been more of a man. My opinion is, if he
had been less of a man, it would have been better for him. But I am
not agoin' to preach; so I will get back to my story; but, Squire, I
shall always maintain to my dying day, that kissing is a sublime
mystery.

"Well," sais I, "ladies, I was broughten up to home, on my father's
farm, and my edecation, what little I had of it, I got from the
Minister of Slickville, Mr Joshua Hopewell, who was a friend of my
father's, and was one of the best men I believe that ever lived. He
was all kindness and all gentleness, and was at the same time one of
the most learned men in the United States. He took a great fancy to
me, and spared no pains with my schooling, and I owe everything I have
in the world to his instruction. I didn't mix much with other boys,
and, from living mostly with people older than myself, acquired an
old-fashioned way that I have never been able to shake off yet; all
the boys called me 'Old Slick.' In course, I didn't learn much of life
that way. All I knew about the world beyond our house and hisin, was
from books, and from hearing him talk, and he convarsed better than
any book I ever set eyes on. Well, in course I grew up unsophisticated
like, and I think I may say I was as innocent a young man as ever you
see."