"I'm sorry," says Dan, as he knocked the ashes from his regalia, as
he sat in a small crowd over a glass of sherry at Florence's, New
York, one evening. "I'm sorry that the stages are disappearing so
rapidly; I never enjoyed traveling so well as in the slow coaches.
I've made a good many passages over the Alleghanies, and across Ohio,
from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati, all over the South, down
East, and up North, in stages, and I generally had a good time.
"When I passed over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a
stage, I met a queer crowd--such a _corps_, such a time you never did
see; I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team--
spanking horses, fine coaches, and one of them _drivers_ you read of.
Well, there was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a
stageful of Christians ever started before so chuck full of music.
"There was a beautiful young lady going to one of the Cincinnati
academies; next to her sat a Jew peddler--for Cowes and a market;
wedging him in was a dandy blackleg, with jewelry and chains around
his breast and neck--enough to hang him. There was myself and an old
gentleman with large spectacles, gold-headed cane, and a jolly,
soldiering-iron-looking nose; by him was a circus rider whose breath
was enough to breed yaller fever and could be felt just as easy as
cotton velvet! A cross old woman came next, and whose _look_ would
have given any reasonable man the double-breasted blues before
breakfast; alongside of her was a rale backwoods preacher, with the
biggest and ugliest mouth ever got up since the flood. He was flanked
by the low comedian of the party, an Indiana Hoosier, 'gwine down to
Orleans to get an army contract' to supply the forces then in Mexico
with beef.
"We rolled along for some time; nobody seemed inclined to 'open.' The
old aunty sot bolt upright, looking crab-apples and persimmons at the
Hoosier and the preacher; the young lady dropped the green curtain of
her bonnet over her pretty face, and leaned back in her seat, to nod
and dream over japonicas and jumbles, pantalettes and poetry; the old
gentleman, proprietor of the Bardolph 'nose,' looked out at the
'corduroy' and swashes; the gambler fell off into a doze, and the
circus covey followed suit, leaving the preacher and me _vis-a-vis_
and saying nothing to nobody. 'Indiany,' he stuck his mug out at the
window and criticized the cattle we now and then passed. I was
wishing somebody would give the conversation a start, when 'Indiany'
made a break:
"'This ain't no great stock country,' says he to the old gentleman
with the cane.
"'No, sir,' was the reply. 'There's very little grazing here; the
range is nearly wore out.'
"Then there was nothing said again for some time. Bimeby the Hoosier
opened again:
"'It's the d----est place for 'simmon trees and turkey buzzards I
ever did see!'
"The old gentleman with the cane didn't say nothing, and the preacher
gave a long groan. The young lady smiled through her veil, and the
old lady snapped her eyes and looked sideways at the speaker.
"'Don't make much beef here, I reckon,' says the Hoosier.
"'No,' says the gentleman.
"'Well, I don't see how in h-ll they all manage to get along in a
country whar thar ain't no ranges and they don't make no beef. A man
ain't considered worth a cuss in Indiany what hasn't got his brand on
a hundred head.'
"'Yours is a great beef country, I believe,' says the old gentleman.
"'Well, sir, it ain't anything else. A man that's got sense enuff to
foller his own cow-bell with us ain't in no danger of starvin'. I'm
gwine down to Orleans to see if I can't git a contract out of Uncle
Sam to feed the boys what's been lickin' them infernal Mexicans so
bad. I s'pose you've seed them cussed lies what's been in the papers
about the Indiany boys at Bony Visty.'
"'I've read some accounts of the battle,' says the old gentleman,
`that didn't give a very flattering account of the conduct of some of
our troops.'
"With that the Indiany man went into a full explanation of the
affair, and, gittin' warmed up as he went along, begun to cuss and
swear like he'd been through a dozen campaigns himself. The old
preacher listened to him with evident signs of displeasure, twistin'
and groanin' till he couldn't stand it no longer.
"'My friend,' says he, 'you must excuse me, but your conversation
would be a great deal more interesting to me--and I'm sure would
please the company much better--if you wouldn't swear so terribly.
It's very wrong to swear and I hope you'll have respect for our
feelings if you hain't no respect for your Maker.'
"If the Hoosier had been struck with thunder and lightnin' he
couldn't have been more completely tuck a-back. He shut his mouth
right in the middle of what he was sayin' and looked at the preacher,
while his face got as red as fire.
"'Swearin',' says the preacher, 'is a terrible bad practice, and
there ain't no use in it nohow. The Bible says, "swear not at all,"
and I s'pose you know the Commandments about swearin'?'
"The old lady sort of brightened up--the preacher was her `duck of a
man'; the old fellow with the `nose' and cane let off a few `umph,
ah! umphs.' But 'Indiany' kept shady; he appeared to be _cowed_ down.
"'I know,' says the preacher, 'that a great many people swear without
thinkin', and some people don't believe the Bible.'
"And then he went on to preach a regular sermon agin swearing, and to
quote Scripture like he had the whole Bible by heart. In the course
of his argument he undertook to prove the Scriptures to be true, and
told us all about the miracles and prophecies, and their fulfilment.
The old gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and
the Hoosier listened without ever opening his head.
"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to
the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to
hear what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow,
and seen the place whar Lot's wife fell!'
"'Ah,' says the old gentleman with the cane.
"'Yes,' says the preacher, 'he went to the very spot; and what's the
remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was
turned into!'
"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman.
"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.'
"'What!' says the Hoosier,'real genewine, good salt?'
"'Yes, sir; a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman
was punished for her disobedience.'
"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach,
looked at the preacher--the Hoosier with an expression of countenance
that plainly told that his mind was powerfully convicted of an
important fact.
"'Right out in the open air?' he asked.
"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.'
"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, _if she'd
dropped in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore
sundown!_'
"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and
the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics; what he
didn't get over till he came to the next change of horses. The
Hoosier had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party;
even the old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the
young lady's eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward.
The old preacher hadn't another word to say on the subject; but
whenever we came to any place or met anybody on the road, the circus
man cursed the thing along by asking what was the price of salt."
_________
-THE END-
Danforth Marble's short story: The Hoosier and the Salt-pile
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