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82
HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
their concert* with voice and violins are really enchanting. Excited and nervous after the fiery ordeal I had passed, they soothed my soul with melody, and my slumbers with charming dreams. Long after the witching hoar of night, in the dclicioai delirium between deeping and waking, the tinkle of the guitar and a sweet voice, softer than a sigh, mingled with the lullaby of the winds in the tops ot the aged pines.
Their names are in harmony with their music. What can be more melodious than Elizabeth Amanda, Priscilla Brunetta, Louvena An-neta, Martha Miranda, Zelphi Emmeline, and Sophronie Angelina ?
This house has been a favorite stopping-place for candidates for many years, and Breeland is pretty well posted up with anecdotes.
When Harry Cage and Franklin E. Plummer were canvassing for Congress they came here together, and Cage began to joke and sport with the children, much to the mother’s delight. But
Plummer soon won her heart. He picked up the little wee one, just then toddling about, placed it across his lap, turned np its little petticoats, and began to search for red bugt!
Next morning Cage stole out before day, went to the wood-pile, cut a turn of wood, determined to win the “old lady’s" favor by making her fire, whilePlum-mer, as he fancied, lay snoring in bed. While toiling up the hill with his load, what was his astonishment to see the old ’un milking her cow, and Plummer holding off the calf h$ the tail I
A day or two after this, said Squire B., Cage made a tip-top speech at Greene Court House. It was hard to beat, and Plummer knew it. So when he got op he said: “ Fellow -citizens, I would answer the gentleman’s argument if there was any argument to answer. It reminds me of an honest couple down in my county who are troubled with a very small specimen of a child that cries all night. The husband, much tormented, complaincd that he could not get a moment’s sleep. “Spank it, then," says the wife. He fumbled about, but the child continued to cry. “Well, why don't you spank it?” says she. “Because,"saidhe, “/ can't Jind any thing to tpank!"
It is hardly necessary to say that Cage “ incontinently caved in,” and refused to travel any farther with the Yankee wagon-boy.
“ Plummer was hafd pressed sometime after this, being charged with sundry matters affecting his integrity. Ho deliberately sat down and wrote an account of his visit to my house, charging that he had attempted to swindle me, had behaved with gross indecorum to my family, and had been kicked out of doors. This he contrived to have published, and it went the round ot the papers, creating great excitement. He called on me for my certificate, which, of course, was promptly given, for I was surprised and indignant at such a slander. The reaction was tremendous; and after this nobody in this section would believe any thing against Plummer."
When the Hon. Powhatan JSllia, a very finished gentleman, was traveling through this district electioneering for some office, he lost his
BOUGH RIDING DOWN SOUTH.
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portmanteau in attempting to ford a creek. Plummer immediately advertised its contents: “6 ruffled shirts, 6 cambric handkerchiefs, 1 hair-brush, 1 tooth-brush, 1 nail-brush, 1 pair cufling tongs, 2 sticks pomatum, I box pearl-powder, 1 bottle Cologne, 1 do. rose-water, 4 pairs silk stockings, and 2 pairs kid gloves.” This defeated the Judge. He was set down as a born aristocrat and “ swelled head.”
Plummer was a poor young lawyer, boarding, or loafing, at a tavern in Westville, when he announced himself for Congress. He hadn’t a single “ red” in his pocket. He opened the canvass in Benton, put up at the best hotel, dined a dozen friends every day, and opened a very liberal account at the bar. On the third day, when about to depart, he cried ont to the crowd, “Gentlemen, I wish to make my public acknowledgments to our generous landlord. He has treated me like a prince; he has feasted my friends; his tipple has run freely. Sir,” said he, turning to the landlord, “if you ever come to my town don't go to a hotel: put up with me; I shall be proud to reciprocate your hospitality 1" With these words he vaulted on his horse, and was out of sight before the astonished Boniface could “ say turkey” about his bill.
While sojourning at this pleasant retreat it was agreed, one day, that we should go out on a deer-drive. I was wrapping up a lunch to put in my pocket, and said to my boy Tom, “ Well, Tom, how about this butter ? I can’t put it in my pocket.” “No, massa,” said Tom, “him runaway. But you kin eat him 'fore you go I”
On a deer-drive in the South one man follows the hounds in the thickets or reed brakes where the herds usually feed, while three or four others take their stands at various points which they are expected to cross in their flight. The dogs soon broke cover; a noble doe came bounding by me. I fired and missed; but passing on, the Squire, who is a noted shot, brought her down. The outcries of the huntsman soon called us down to the brake, and there we saw a most extraordinary spectacle. Two bucks of the largest siie in deadly combat, their branching antlers so interlocked that neither could use them against the other. The ground was torn up all around; their sides were dripping blood; aud they had evidently fought long before this singular onion of their weapons terminated the combat. Their furious struggles at our approach only united them more closely; and thus they would have perished. The hunters shot them, and informed me that they had often found the skeletons of bucks that had thus died, their horns so locked that no ingenuity could undo them.
The buck is a timid animal nntil wounded. He then stands at bay, and is dangerous to approach. He is the sworn enemy of the rattlesnake. When he perceive* one, he walks around it nntil it throws itself into a coil, and then the buck vaults into the air and comes down upon it with his pointed hoofs. Not content with killing it, he stamps it into shreds. Those noxious (entiles always multinlr u the deer diminish.
Speaking of rattlesnakes, my friend Colonel Wilkins, of Green Court House, tells me that he was once rolling logs in a piece of new ground on the Bigbee River, near Bladen Springs, when one of his men cried out, “Here’s a rattle* snake!" Presently another sung out; and all round the “ clearing'’ they kept up the ciy, until the Colonel, quite angry, cried out, “ Let the logt alone, and all of you go to tnaking!" They pilod up fifty-three in the coursc of tiic evening.
I once went to purchase a country seat on the bayou of St. John, in the vicinity of New Orleans, belonging to Mr. Michel, who had gone to France. It was occupied by Mr. Creccy, an old Vicksburg editor. Strolling into the garden, I was about to step toward an orange hedge to gather a few leaves, when he said “ Look out forsnakes!” “What,”»aid I, “ have you snakes here?"
“Walk this way," said Creecy. He led me to a point where three or four ditches, communicating with the bayou and with the swampt intersected, and I counted a dozen dead moccasins lying about, and some twenty navigating the different ditches. “ This is our only game," said he. “I shoot moccasins every afternoon!”
Mr. Michel lost an excellent purchaser for his place, and my brother editor held on until the snakes fairly run him out of the house.
There was once a man by the name of Gal-lendee living in Hancock county, who was, per* haps, rather unjustly suspected of hog stealing. He came running in from the woods one day shouting murder, the shirt fairly whipped off his back. He assured me it had been done by a coach-whip snake that had wrapped itself round his leg and thrashed him over the shoulders; but uncharitable people suspected it had been done by Judge Lynch 1
The same man went to the late Judge Daniel to complain of these accusations, and to ask his advice. “Well,"said the Judge, “I will tell you what to do. If you feel innocent, face these chargcs like a man. But if you are guilty, get into Louisiana as soon as you can.” That evening his client crossed Pearl Uircr, and became a citizen of our sister State.
Having recruited at this pleasant anchorage,
I bid adieu to my friend Breeland, and set out for the villago of Augusta, bowling merrily along in my blood-red buggy. The road is beautiful, roofed over with trees and tendrils, and the air fragrant with the breath of flowers. There was, however, one drawback to my comfort—myriads of flics of every specics, that swarmed around and ravenously cupped the blood from my horse.
It was what is appropriately termed here “ fly time”—that is to say, the period when this numerous family of scourges have it all their own way, and neither man nor beast can sojourn in the woods without much suffering. Now the deer plungo into deep pools and lakes, leaving only their beads exposed, and browse only during a portion of the night while these insects sleep. The cattle from a thousand hills seek the abodes of man. and huddle around umn