The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-08-01
Nasby's Dream.
MR.. NAsBY DREAMS A DREAM IN WHICH
THE FUTURE OF "GooD AND GREAT
MAN is FoREsHADowED.
CONFEDRIT X ROADS.

CoNFEDRIT X ROADS,
(wich is in the Stait of kentucky
June II, 1872.
am getting old and feel my years. Time
wuz when ten or dozen drinks more than
yoosual didn't make any difference with me,
but its quite different now. 1t tells on my
old body, and hev to be guarded.
We had a ratificashun meetin last mite, at
which l did indulge more than shood, and
fell asleepin chair at Bascom's and dream
ed a dream.
In my dream / saw high, elevated plain,
bounded on three sides by a steep, precipitus
blum. On the top OF that plain (wich wuz
pleasant and breezy place it wuzl and back a
little from the edge of the precipice, stood
that bildin wich is the mecca to wieh all Dim
ocrats hev been turnin their eyes for the past
II years, the White House. On the yery
edge Nv the precipice wuz 4 groop Nv individ-
GOALS wich had no difficulty in identifyjn.
There wuz Grant and COlfax, and around EN-
stood Morton, Butler, Sherman, Shellabarger,
and thousand others NV sich, while list
over their heads wuz hoatin in the air the
spirits Nv Washington, Adams, jefferson,
Linkin, and all Nv them deceest individooals
wich wood hev sympathiZed with the Repub-
likin party eff they he'd continood in the flesh.
Down at the foot Nv this precipiee there
wuz a low, swampy, marshy, malarious dee
strik, wich wuz the most uncomfortable seek
shun of kentry l ever see. The ground wuz
full NV cess-pOOls, Nv quagmires and qnick-
sands. There wuz bones Nv niggers scat
tered all over it-there was rooins Nv old
skool houses; there wuz grOceris and sloons
scattered about in wild profusion; there
wuz broken printin presses, and the lively
gallows tree on wich John Brown he'd
bin hung wuz distinctly visible At
tempts he'd bin apparently made to kiver up
presses and the gallows with rezolushuns, but
the kiyerin was too thin and they showed thro
very plainly! This spot was tsnanted by Boss
Tweed and Holman, surrounded with Con-
molly, Oakley Hall and all Nv them fellows.
and over theirSHead wuz the ghosts NV Wig
fall, Yancey, and Benedict Arnold thought
that l saw His Majesty, Satan, sailin about
with the ghost OF Yancey, but it mite hev bin
some one else. There wuz one quicksand
marked where Seward went down-in a very
bad smellin pool. Chase was floating about
on a board marked Supreme Bench" maxim
feeble attempts to land somewhere There
WIZ few solid spots Nv ground, Moo York,
Kentucky and Maryland and on them the
the live men were standin. From this an
promisin locality there wuz path up to the
heights above, but it wuz narrer, broken,
crooked and steep, and besides that, the passage
from the lower to the higher regin wuz des-
perately opposed by the array of men who ok
kepied it.
noticed that the party on the bluff all
wore sad expression. The ghost of Linkin
let fall spirit tear, and Grant and Morton
lookt as sad ez tho they wuz losin their IA
theirs. Colfax, in psrtikeler, seemed incon.
solable, and wuZ tearin his hair with ereef
Curious to know what it wuz that wuz cans
in all this commoshen, shifted my posishen
so as to get view Nv the entire arrangement,
and L saw it at once. Tweed and Hoffman
had histed up long ladder to the top NV the
rock wich wuz really a CURIOSITY The sides
wuz made out Nv hickory campane poles wich
he'd done servis from the time NV Polk down
to seymour; and the rounds were spokes from
the wheels Of Confederit cannon. The lad
der wuz labelled Cincinnati" and the rounds
civil servis reform" "one term," and so on
Hoffman and Connolly wuz holdin the feet
Nv the ladder steddy; Boss Tweed stood by
EN-, holdin out scroll labelled presidency"
On the top Nv the bluff stood Horris Greeley.
clothed in glory, and perfeckly radient in his
attire. His he'd wuz crowned with laures-
in fact he wuz walkin arbor Nv EN-. He he'd
one foot on the first round Nv the ladder.
''Come backp shouted Colfax.
Come to usP shoutid the crowd below.
sed Morton.
''Come to US, and you shell hev thisp sed
Tweed, Haunting the scroll.
That settled him. His face changed from
the innosence Nv the lamb to the hungry
| eagernis of the wolf, and down he went. He
made misstep and parshelly fell, knocking
off all his laurels. His appearance changed.
| The ladder he'd bin roughly made, and wuz
| full Nv splinters. His ekal rites cloak caught
| OH one Nv EN- and wuz torn off. A nail head
on the next rounds tripped off his protekshen
| coat, another on the next knokt his anti-cor-
rupshen vest into smithereens, his civil rites
pants wuz taken off by the next, and by the
| time he got to the fourth, he uuZ diyested of
| everything under heaven wich made him siz-
able, and stood there shivering in the wind, q
| mizable, deformed, weak, shaky, diminutiye,
| shrunken man; with nOthin under heaven
| remarkable about him but his white hat, and
| the fact that he he'd one boot and one shoe on,
Tweed and his friends saw this shrinkin
\ process goin on z he approached them, and
| they became alarmed.
"Good Lord! sed Okey Hall, 'ef he amt
| any bigger and more muskeler than he looks
now, we can't make any yoose NV him, He'll
never be strong enough to pull us out Nv this p
Them on the bluffs, wich he'd regarded his
| deparcher with sich locks of sadness, bust out
into peels Nv laffture.
''There amt a hundredth part ez much Nv
him ez we sposed," shouted they. "We've
nothing to fear from himp' and they laffed
vociferously at the ridiculous figger he wuz
i
| All this time Horris wuZ standing on the
one-term round NV the ladder, which wuz the
| thinest Nv all Nv EN-.
"Come down to us p shouted Tweed.
| Il can't go any further down than this
replied Horris, shudderin ez he saw the plite
he wuz in.
Whereupon Tweed and Hall and the Others
run up the ladder to support him. They wuz
| drippin with the nastness Nv the slum below.
| vr-hi fair fbo
| rubbed agin him. Then they threw him a
| Tammany banner and a Confedrit flag. To
keep him stiddy both Nv EN- run up the lad
der and got on the same round Sam Sim
clair, John Cochrane and sum others cum
down close behind him to assist and the
| yoonited weight wuz too much. The ladder
broke in two, and Tweed, Hoffman, Greeley,
Sinclair, Tri6oon and all plunged into the
quagmire. There wuz splash,
gurgle, or two, and the entire bilin NV en-
| sank out Nv site.
The splash awoke me, and meditated a
half hour over the singular dream afOre TAX
| ing another drink and goin home. ''Kin 1t
be" thot 'that all there is in Horris is in
his Republicanism 1t has trooy bin so with
| all our vencher. Chase comes to us, but
when he stepped over the line, he left all his
strength behind him, Seward, insted NV be-
| ing help to us, proved to be a load to carry.
Hev we taken Horris too our boozums only
| to find him helpless dead weight to be car
| ried, instead of giant strong enuH to carry
us Is this dream prophetic? Is the Gin
cinnati ladder tu weak to hold Greeley and us
uns, and will it break down with our yoonlted
| weight? fear me-"
And pensively drained my glass, and care
lessly goin thro the regular form Nv tellin
Bascom to mark it down, went sadly home,
fear me the day ofour deliycrance isn't yet
at hand. PETROLEUM V. NAsBY.
witch wuz Postmaster)
Toledo Blade.