LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 826, 14 February 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

WILLIAM DOBBS, ESQUIRE. Struck by ‘ Lightning’ and Facts. (.Danbury News.) We landed one day—James, and Dobbs, and I—on the east bank of the river, whence a zigzag path led from the clay mud of the landing place to a high, sand-covered plain, dignified by the name of Buzzard’s Delight. It was a point—if a surface can properly be called a point—of considerable importance, being the focus of many and most villainous roads that afforded egress to the cotton crops of the back country, and an inlet to fashions, bacon, corn, and such few luxuries as a simple people usually indulge in when they are distant from market and wealth. Most of the lands under cultivation within the district shipping to Buzzard’s Delight were of a light, sandy soil, requiring the use of fertilisers to cause them to yield good returns; but the people, clinging to their old homes rather than remove to the rich, but less healthy low lands, had, by industry and perseverance built up comfortable homes, and surrounded themselves with many comforts, clinging, however, to the old habit of making cotton-raising a specialty, to the neglect of raising ‘ breadstuffs and meat,’ which compelled them to depend largely on commerce for supplies of plantation rations for the hands employed by them. This dependence had brought into existence four ‘ stores’ at the landing, and had attracted four of the sharpest, closest, ugliest ‘ merchants’ that ever sold whiskey, bacon, and dry goods to a civilised community; these stores were the only buildings in Buzzard’s Delight, and, barren and desolate as the plain naturally was, the buildings, instead of adding anything advantageous to the view, were simply unsightly necessities.

We ascended the bank, and made the acquaintance of one of the ‘ merchants/ who eyed us hungrily, as though he was appraising the percentage that could be made on our trade, and invited us to look at his stock.

Nothing beyond the ordinary contents of a country store met our eyes until we had made the tour of the building ana returned to the high desk, near the door, where a slim-legged and immense necktied young man was wrestling, with knitted brow, over problems of trade and extensions of blotted entries. A sleepy boy (whose very shadow —that was cast upon the floor, as he stood leaning against the side of the doorway—nodded and seemed to have laid itself down for a nap) had been drawn from one of the opposition corners by curiosity to see the strangers, and with hands thrust down in tremendous depths of pocket, stared with a solemn sleepiness at Dobbs, and grinned provokingly as that individual caught his stare.

‘ Do you raise sich around here ? ’ asked Dobbs of the ‘ merchant/ jerking his thumb oyer his shoulder towards the boy, on whom he had turned hia back in contempt. ‘ “ sleepy legs,” git ! ’ shouted the storekeeper, and the boy, by aid of his elbow, pushed himself away from the doorway, and went shambling over the gleaming sand towards the river.

A large glass jar, closely covered and sealed, attracted Dobbs’ attention, and the storekeeper, noticing the intensity of Dobbs’ gaze, took the jar from the shelf and placed it on the counter near the desk, when we saw preserved in alcohol a double-headed chicken. It was a fine specimen, and to James a wonderfully interesting subject. Dobbs preserved an unusual silence in viewing it, merely remarking as he winked at the big necktie, who blushed a dingy red, that it reminded him of a ‘ feller ’ he used to know.

After we had purchased 'a few articles, Dobbainvesting in a bottle of ‘lightning,’ James cautiously sounded the storekeeper as to his willingness to sell the curiosity, and finally purchased it at a price that brought a growl of protest from Dobbs. ‘Jeems,’ said the old growler ‘he’s skinned yi and skelped yi. Yi ort to hev a geardian. It’s only a chicken with a extra head threwed in, ’nd a jar of spirits thet is spiled fur all useful pupuses.’ * But,’ said James, looking fondly at his prize, and hugging it closely— ‘ it is a great curiosity—a splendid specimen. ’ ‘ Y-a-a-s,’ drawled Dobbs, ‘ I s’pose it es, to a body which hesn’t been fermiliar with two-headed men.’

‘ Why, you do not mean to say you have seen a live—man—or a dead one—with two heads ?’

‘ I lies thet, Jeems,’ replied Dobbs with sententious gravity. James looked at Dobbs with doubt on his intellectual face, but that matter-of-fact individual received the look with an overdone attempt at honesty of expression that brought a smile to the lips of the doubter, and we all accepted the merchant’s invitation to ‘ imbibe,’ James and I sipped a few drops of the liquor, and, looking at each other, with tears in our eyes, gently placed our glasses on the counter; but Dobbs, pouring out an allowance that caused our host to open his eyes with astonishment (that gave place to positive admiration as the poor fellow tossed his respects toward us, and shutting one eye, looked appreciatively at the host with the other) slowly raised his hand, with—

‘Gineral, may yer bar’l never run dry,’ sent the tumblerful down his throat in a single tip. ‘Great Washington!’ muttered the Necktie with a shudder, and the storekeeper leaned against a barrel on tap, and, in an animated voice, said—

‘Well, well ! I’ll be diddle-y-dad-bobbed, stranger, if you don’t fill my idea of a kind of customer that I’d pay a salary to—to patronise my neighbors.’ Dobbs made no reply, but a great gasp of surprise, then clasped his hand across his stomach and broke for the bluff in a jerky racking gait, that indexed a disturbed mind and imperative mission. Wc went racing after him, and I reached the brow of the bluff as Dobbs’ legs twisted around the first turn of the downward path. I gave a shout and he turned his face up toward mo—and a white scarred face it was hia lips moved, but no sound came from, them as he continued his zigzag i;oad with long steps and evident eangesfcneiis. James came putting and blowing behind me, cling ing to his jar as a shipwrecked mariner hugs the floating spar, and in broken sentence wheeled out — ‘ What —is—the matter —with Dobbs ?’

Dobbs reached the pirogue and lauded in it with a jump aud a whoop that nearly sent the darkey in the river, and, grabbing

his saddle-bags as he struck, hastily drew out a bottle, took a good pull at its contents, and sank back in the stern of the boat motionless.

We hurried down, arriving at the boat as Dobbs was slowly corking the bottle. He sat upright again, tucked the bottle back in the pouch, looked up at us with a sheepish expression in his face, and grunted — ‘ Thet sweet ile’s all that saved me. Oooof! hit war !

James laughed until the tears came in his eyes, while Dobbs, too much unstrung to pass an ‘ opinion’ on such unfeeling conduct, sat a picture of insulted misfortune, and as if in doubt of his safety being secured by the antidote he had taken.

At last the old Ku Klux gave a long breath, and said —

* Did you uns swaller any of thet vitrei ? ’

I told him we had only tasted it, and both of us testified to its having skinned the insides of our mouths.

‘ ’Twould scorch a salamander. Blast that pirate ! I’m good a mind to go up ’nd pour some of it on his head, ’nd take his har off. It’s jess the powfulest stimerlant thet Wm. Dobbs hes ever ’sperienced in his quiet life. Wah! ’—and Dobbs gave a snort of disgust— ‘ ’twould run a injine ’nd hev forty pouns to the square inch surplus. Thunder! my throat feels es if I hed swallered a red hot porkypine. Ef it hed’nt been fur thet sweet ile I’d been singing himes in t’other world afore sunsottin.’

Giving a rasping ‘ He-e-m! ’ Dobbs seemed to have resolved all doubts of his recovery and smiled sweetly on James, too happy, in his escape from ‘ hime’ singing in the world, to cherish enmity against his fellow voyager. We stowed our purchases in the bottom of the pirogue, except the ‘specimen’ which James carefully packed in a box containing clothes, and continued our course up the river.

Our boat was a very large ‘ dug-out’ or pirogue, of the kind usually used on Southern rivers, which are generally propelled by the motive power and a paddle, located in the stern; but James, who has a great deal of ingenuity, had fitted oar-locks and short oars to our pirogue, and the oarsman sat near the centre of the boat, assisted now and then in his tedious labour by Dobbs and a paddle in the stern. Desiring to set Dobbs forth in his best colours, the truth compels me to say that he gave more attention to helping himself at the jug than he gave to helping the negro at the paddle; but on that day, under pressure, perhaps, of the surplus ‘forty poun’s to the sqar’ inch’ of the * stimerlant,’ he braced himself to his volunteered labour, and with long, sweeping strokes helped to drive the pirogue swiftly against the sluggish stream, breaking out in a harsh, ear-torturing chant:—

* I’se gwine away, I’se gwino away, And whar d’ye think I’se gwine '1 I’se gwine whar de angels ar— Jess hear my horn a biowin’, Blow high, blow loud, blow down de walls, Like Jashua wid de ram’s horn ; And kotch de debil by de jaws And split him head like Samp-son.’ ‘That’s a nigger hime,’explained Dobbs, fearing we might think it his own composition. Curly tossed his head and Dobbs winked quizzingly at the offended darkey. James reclined in the bow in deep meditation, now and then softly dipping his hand in the river and gently tossing showers of diamond glitterings in the air. The scenery was monotonous and uninteresting and making a nest of bundles and blankets I curled down for a cozy time with my thoughts and a cigar, and had wandered away to a far off land where I lay one day beneath a wide-leafed awning and was swept by long, steady strokes of dusky oarsmen, who chanted in a musical-voiced tongue, past wrecks of temples and monuments that had outlived their histories.

‘ Mr Dobbs, did you say you had seen a man with two heads ?’ ‘ I said it, Jeems,’ replied Dobbs, giving an out-reaching sweep with his paddle to direct the boat near the bank—* and he lived whar I war horned.’ ‘ Was he a man of intellectuality ?’ Dobbs hesitated, and James hastened to put the question in plainer words. ‘Had he good sense ?’

‘ More’n middlin’,’ answered Dobbs, positively. I changed my position that I might convey without words a doubt of the truth of Dobbs assertion ; but the old Munchausen seemed unconscious of my effort, and looked me in the face with a solid honesty that staggered my unbelief. There was a brief silence, broken at last by Dobbs, whose eyes had commenced a blinking that was a sure indication of a weakening hold he had on facts under discussion; shifting his paddle to the other side he got the negro in range between us, which was a favorite method with him to dodge a point when too close pressed by James or myself. He gave a few strokes, took in his paddle, shoved it in the pirogue and began. ‘ I knew him better’n I does my Greek ’nd Latin.’ A soft chuckle pointed the affirmation, ‘He paddled all aroun’ the other boys in the way he tuk in book lamin’ kase he had two heads to their one. ’

‘ Each,’ said James, with a correcting nod of his head.

‘ Which ? ’ snapped William, shifting his position and harpooning James with the keen eyes. ‘ Two heads to the boys,’ one head—each,’ answered James, firmly. William cast loose his glance from James and fastened on Curly with a smile. ‘Oh ! I thought you hed made a important remark,’ said Dobbs, innocent of a sneer or even a look at James, and, addressing himself to me, he ignored James’ look of triumph. * He war the most ’stonishing man, ’cept a a woman, thet I ever knew. A fat woman war on show at The Corners one time, who war a equal ’stonisher but in a contrary line of business. She weighed 5)00 poun’s ’nd her head warn’t bigger’n my fist, ’nd her mouth was so smajl sho hed to keep a catin’ all her waking time to pervent starvin’ to death.

‘Hm!, ’ from James, whose extreme credulity was terribly strained by Dobbs’ facts.

* War you remarkin’ agin, Jeems ? ’ asked Dobbs, in that affectionate tone that James had learned to regard as a precursor of an ‘ opinion.’

‘ Only clearing my throat*’ said. James, meekly.

‘ Yes ? Weil, in my ’pinion, es I’m doin’ the talkin’ it wouldn’t be any backset to progress el you let it stay stopped up.’

‘ I think we had better land and camp for dinner and a nap,’ suggested James, at which Dobbs smiled approval, and began looking for a suitable landing place. We soon found a cozy little platform at the foot of a bluff, where the sun’s rays could not reach us, and a thin stream of water fell, with a swishing sound, from a mossy gap half way up the steep bluff. As we landed Dobbs drew the ‘ lightning’ (that he had purchased from the merchant at ‘ Buzzard’s Delight’) from his shirt pocket, and uncorking the bottle poured a few drops in the river, watching closely the result on the water.

‘What are you doing, Dobbs,’ said James.

* I’m a seein’ if the stuff sizzles when it teches water, but it only kindy biles. It’s orful truck.’ Looking sadly at the bottle and drawing his arm well back preparatory to a throw, Dobbs shut his eyes and sent the ‘ truck’ far out in the river ; turning to me he shook his head and looked for sympathy. * It’s the fust time in a long and va-ri-ous life,’ he groaned lugubriously , ‘thet I ever threw away anythink thet was called whiskey; ’nd I’d ruther bury a mother inlaw than to hev to do it agin.’