The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1867-12-06
PictOriaIizing Language.

I
81 take my tea 6arfoot," said back
woodsman, when asked if he would have
cream and sugar. Il find bartoot, by
the way, in the Coventry PlaYs.) A.,
speaking to me once of a very rocky
| clearing, said "Stone's got very heavy
mortgage on that land "and 1 over
heard a guide in the woods say to his
companions who were urging him to
sing, "Wal, 1 did sing once; but toons
got invented, and that split my trade.'
Whoever has driven over stream by
bridge made of slabs will feel the pic
turesque force of the'epithet sIa6-6ridge
applied to fellow of shaky character.
Almost every county has some good
die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage
passes into the currency of the whole
neighborhood. Such a one described
the county Jail (the one-story dwellings
are of woody as the house which under
pinin' come up to the caves, and called
hell ''the place where they didn't rake
up their fires nights" l once asked a
stage-driver if the other side of a hill
was as steep as the one we were climb
ing. "Steepl chain ightnin' couldn't
go down it 'thout putin the shoe on. y
And this brings me back to the exag-
gerstions Of which l spoke before. To
me there is something very taking in
the negro $50 black that charcoal made
chalk mark on him." and the shingle
"painted SO like marble that it sank in
water" as if its very consciousness Of
its vanity had been over-persusded by
the painter. / heard a man, in order
to give notion of some very cold
weather, say TO another that certain
Joe, who had been taking mercury,
found lump of quicksilver in each
boot when he went home to dinner.
This power ofrapidly dramatizings dry
fact into flesh and blood, and the vivid
conception of Joe as human thermome-
ter, strikes me as showing poetic sense
that may be refined into faculty.
Capt. Basil Hall denied that our peo-
pie had any humor, deceived, perhaps,
by their gravity of manner. Perhaps
Captain Hall had no humor himself
and if so he would never find it. Did
he always feel the point of what was
said to himselfl l doubt it, because /
happen to know a chance he once had
given him in vain. The Captain was
walking up and down the veranda of a
country tavern in Massachusetts while
the coach changed horses. A thunder
ing storm was going on, and with that
pleasant European air of indirect self
compliment in condescending to be sur
prising at American merit, which We
find so concilisting, he said to coun-
tryman lounging against the door,
"Pretty heavy thunder you have here"
The other, who had OWNED at a glance
his feelings of generous concession to a
new country, drawled gravely, "Wal.
we do, considerin' the number of the
inhabitants" This, the more 1 aualyze
it, the more humorous does it seem.
The same man was capable of wit
also, when he would. He was cabinet
maker, and was once employed to
make some commandment tables for
the parish meeting house. The parsOn,
very old man, annoyed him by look
ing into his workshop every morning,
and csutioning him to be very sure to
pick out 'clear mahogany, without any
knots in it." At last, wearied out he
retorted one day, "Wal l guess, DR..
B., if 1 was to leave the nots out o
some o the commandments, 'twould
SCOT you ez wal."-LoVeH.