Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-09-22
LAGNIAPPE.


LAGNIAPPE.
Why do wear a dogs tooth set in
gold for watch charm? All, boys, it
is to remind me of an infirmity that has
brought Jack Campion trouble ever
since he learned to talk.
To begin at the right end: I was just
twenty-five when my father bought me
a plantation up in the swamp, where
fortunes are still to be made in spite of
the changes of war; sHsu..
You Northern folks don't know much
about life on the banks of the old Missis-
sip, that's fact.
Strange that nature should make it
easy in the swamp to do everything but
live! Some people say you must be
half alligator and half Niger to get along
there; but as for me, I was always tough.
Cotton and corn grow higher than the
head of a man on horseback; the soil is
so fertile that a Northern farmer in the
midst of his stony fields would call the
tilling it receives mere child 8 play and
in addition to these blessings, your
brains at some seasons are nearly jOlted
out of your head by 'the chills.''
The mosquitoes are great black fell
lows that do their work with silent and
concentrated venom; no irrelevant
buzzing about the ears of the victim. As
for the deer-tfies, many time l have
come home from long ride when my
horses patient sides would be stream
ing with blood. Then the buffalo-gnats
they are small enough to slip through
the meshes of mosquito bar, but quite
large enough to keep you in fever.
The funniest thing about it is that 1
never knew swamper, born and bred,
who wouldn't stick it out that his native
place was perfectly healthy, and be an
CRY if you differed from him-sometimes
saying this while his teeth were chatter
ing so he could hardly talk.
My house stood behind the green
levee, which from the river made the
trees look as if they had no trunks.
At night the fog fell and fell upon the
low muddy banks, like some one card
ing cotton, and l could see the head
light of some steamboat now and then
looming up through the dusk like a
great red eye, and hear the wild cries,
half musical, half uncouth, of the roust-
abeuts. Then came the whistle-low
and hoarse at first, and deep as the
bass notes of tremendous organ, and
rising and shrilling into wall of agony.
How unutterably melancholy it used to
sound, dying hopelessly on the dead,
unchanging flats beyond! Plenty of
sport, too, up there for a hunting man
herds of deer, foxes, wild hogs, and
humber game, such as 'coons and pos
sums.
But if you want to know what desola-
ton is, just look at bit of irreclaimable
swamp land. Nowhere else does the
gray moss grow in such hoary album
dance upon the cypress-trees, and the
bayous that stretch their arms landward
are full of odd-looking marsh grasses.
Maybe the sun is shining through the
clouds with yellow glare, making a
sickly, feverish light among the sickly,
feverish smells and vapors that hang
about the stagnant water. Sometimes
you see a snake sliding sluggishly
through the underbrush, scarcely leav-
ing trail in the oozy soil; or often you
self on a log, and tumbling into the pool
with slump if he hears noise close
by.
I tell you, even if you haven't much
poetry in your nature. there is some
thing awful in the silence of such spot
it speaks so plainly of death and disease
and decay.
Well | went to work with will, de-
termined to be model planter. Among
other transactions, I snapped my rifle
with Jules Bastien, an aged and dried
up creole, for stout-built Texas cob.
s'Vait d meenit,'' said Jules, hobbling
to the back of his cabin. 81 geeve you
lagniappe; trow heem Gen."
Lagniappe, let me explain, is what
the vulgar American calls I" boot" He
returned, bringing with him brown
paper bag that might have contained
chincapins or pindars. Then, as it
squirmed slightly, was struck by the
fear that this present might prove to be
crawfish, and that Jules would force the
repulsive delicacy upon me. 7 was
comforting myself with the thought that
I could toss them into the nearest mud
hole on my way home, when out of the
aperture popped brindled head, all
eyes and ears.
"Eet ees fine leetle puppy dogue,"
remarked Jules. Take heem; he keep
off de tief by night
I thanked the old fellow, and was
really grateful; for had no dog, and l
fancied that Lagniappe- christened
him-would prove good company.
As time developed him, he became
character-study. He was part bulldog
and part hound, with more than strong
dash of cur, suspected. The bulldog
strain made him hold on like grim
death to anything in which he fastened
his teeth, and from his hound ancestors
/. he derived the habit of bowling syste-
matically for an hour at a stretch if you
wounded his feelings.
j If he had been a child instead of
puppy l should have been sure he was
going to prove naturalist, he had such