Wy one should take to feelin' cheap a

minnit sooner 'n t' other, Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;

It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me:

There's one good thing, though, to be

said about my wooden new one,The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;

So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller could n't beg

A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;

It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,

But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.

I've lost one eye, but thet 's a loss it's easy to supply

Uut o' the glory that I've gut, fer thet is all my eye;

An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,

To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it;

ff'cers, I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins, Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;

So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,

An' not allow myself to be no gret put

out about it.

Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used,

'fore leavin' Jaalam,

To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em : Ware's my left hand? O, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't; I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't; It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.

I've hed some ribs broke, - six (I b'lieve), I haint kep' no account on 'em ;

Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em. An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind

One thet I could n't never break, - the one I lef' behind;

Ware every

rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin', Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em, An' desput rivers run about abeggin' folks to dam 'em ;

Then there were meetinhouses, tu,
chock ful o' gold an' silver
Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't
hand ye in no bill fer:-
Thet's wut I thought afore I went,
thet's wut them fellers told us
Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an'
to the buzzards sold us;

I thought thet gold mines could be gut
cheaper than Chiny asters,
An' see myself acomin' back like sixty
Jacob Astors;

But sech idees soon melted down an'
didn't leave a grease-spot;
I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles
would n't come nigh a V spot:
Although, most anywares we've ben,
you needn't break no locks,
Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your
pocket full o' rocks.

I guess I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs

O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,

But I fergut to name new things to speak on so abounded) How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded. The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter

Our Prudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her; Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so 's not a drop 'ould dreen

out,

Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out, The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tealeaves an' tea an' kiver 'ould all come down kerswosh! ez

though the dam broke in a river. Jest so 't is here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be alayin' heads together

Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot, 'T'ould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.

The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here, an' thet's

One piece o' propaty along,

the shakin' fever; It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one, Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with t' other leg an' arm on; An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doos n't pay,

To hey it said you 're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way.

'T worn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin', One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin', One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes, Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.

But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,

Thet's an investment, arter all, thet
may n't turn out so bad;
But somehow, wen we 'd fit an' licked,
I ollers found the thanks

Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;

The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the
Cunnies next, an' so on,-
We never gut a blasted mite o' glory
ez I know on;

An' spose we hed, I wonder how
goin' to contrive its

you 're

Division so 's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;

Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,

You would n't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; We git the licks, we 're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers: Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers. It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,

An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't; But glory is a kin' o' thing I sha'n't pursue no furder,

Coz thet 's the off'cers parquisite, yourn's on'y jest the murder.

Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one

Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an’ thet 's the GLORIOUS FUN; Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we

All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.

I'll tell ye wut my revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em ; We never gut inside the hall: the nigh

est ever come

Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it seemed a cent'ry)

A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry, An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses,

A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses:

I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'. rals hed inside;

All I know is, thet.out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,

An' not a hunderd miles away frum ware this child wuz posted,

A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an biled an' roasted;

The un'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me

Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee.

They say the quarrel 's settled now; fer

my part I've some doubt on 't, 'T'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean out on 't; At any rate, I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin',

The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin';

Now, ez the people 's gut to hev a milingtary man,

An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan;

The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T,

An' ef I lose, 't wunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea;

So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office,

(I mean fer any thet includes good easycheers an' soffies;

-

Then you can call me "Timbertoes," thet 's wut the people likes; Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes ;

Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,

I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees;

"Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold on, There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on;

It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody

Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy;

It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind

Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind;

Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em, Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM ; Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses, An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes.

There's one thing I'm in doubt about ; in order to be Presidunt,

It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;

The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller

Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller. Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,

Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),

214

pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames? The speculation has sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a moneytree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive tree, growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous? In the sylva of our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my attention to the china-tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of life, venerabile donum fatalis virga. That money-trees existed in the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on every bush, imply a fortiori that there were certain bushes which did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and, indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth Eneid have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable (too) foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were, in more primitive and happier times, shops

where money was sold, and that, too, on credit and at a bargain, I take to be matter of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that olus who supplied Ulysses with motive power for his fleet in bags? What that Ericus, king of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? what, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day, raising the wind is proverbial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later period.

And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archæological theories, as I was passing, hæc negotia penitus mecum revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a sign-board, CHEAP CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations, and the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning in raising up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of the Jaalam meetinghouse, a gift appropriately, but modestly, commemorated in the parish and town records, both, for now many years, kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the University. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as actually lording it over those Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that found that sign-board to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights of harpy dies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made, not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this Astræaforsaken nineteenth century.

Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title Sawin, B., let us extend our in

vestigations, and discover if that instructive volume does not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money was going, we should be less likely to commit extravagances. At present, these things are managed in such a huggermugger way, that we know not what we pay for; the poor man is charged as much as the rich; and, while we are saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing off at the bung. If we could know that a part of the money we expend for tea and coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which makes the clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us athinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured to myself a government official entering my study and handing me the following bill: