Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1888-09-28


motives after the New England hero,
General Israel Putnam, whose famous
gallop down a precipice in his apocryphal
escape has served to illustrate every
school history for fifty years, and has
sent that illustrious warrior down to
posterity, indissolubly connected with a
horse In color, "0ld Putt was white;
in disposition, amiability itself. Never
in all the outrages and freaks committed
upon him by whole troops of children
was he ever known to exhibit the slight
est impotence, while to the old and in
firm he was palladium of safety.
Dignifed, affable and venerated, both
on account of age and character, "Old
Put" was an institution. There was
nothing frivolous about him, nothing
cratic. In short, he was the embodi-
ment of Presbyterian ideas, in the shape
of horse. One thing only in his per-
sonal appearance did not sustain his
general character as it was known to all.
In early life, probably while owned by
some irreligious horse fancier, Puts tail
had been nicked, and from earliest recol-
lection it presented the appearance of a
CHASTITY weeping willow, being always
carried at an angle Of forty-five degrees.
the white hair floating from it like the
locks of some venerable patriarch.
Now, like all boys worthy the name,
Charley and myself were mighty hunters.
and in the fall when wild pigeons passed
over the woods of Kentucky in vast
droves, we reveled in the sport of hunt
ing. This season only lasted for a few
weeks, and every Saturday, therefore,
was eagerly expected and gloriously
spent.
Never can we forget the sacrifices of
personal property, dear to our hearts, the
trades and articles end shifts of all sorts
to which we resorted in order to obtain
ammunition for these autumnal hunts.
One Friday afternoon, in the mid st of
the pigeon season, when we could look
from the school-house window and see
drove after drove of birds darkening the
sky, Charley came to me with the infor-
nation that he had secured, by master
stroke of enterprise, large amount of
powder, with shot in proportion, for the
next day, and we proceeded to map out
all the details of the hunt. The envy of
every other boy in the school was excited
by our boasts of what we proposed to do
on the morrow, and in our anticipated
success we went back to past exploits,
many of them imaginary:
Thrice fought our battles DER again,
And thrice we slew the slain.
The morrow came, but instead of the
"sun of Austerlitz," the heavens were
shrouded in gloom, and the rain flooded
the earth the long dreary day. Moodily,
desperately, Charley and myself sat
gazing through the dripping windows.
asking each other over and over the
savage questions: "What shall we do?"
and ''Why does it always rain on Satur-
day." We were just in that condition of
mind when Satan makes his appearance,
and in bland respectable, gentlemanly
way, as Goethe tells us, proposes some
internal scheme of ruin. On that event
full day his Satanic majesty, true to his
antecedents, intruded himself and
prompted Charley to suggest that we
slip off and go hunting the next day,
Sunday.
At first the proposition was received
with horror, then we discussed it with
''bated BREATH" and finally we illus
trated the truth of that much hackneyed
quotation, "Vice is monster of such
frightful MEN," etc., by arranging all |
the preliminaries. Charley was to take |
charge of the ordnance department and
have guns and ammunition at a
certain secluded spot very early
the next morning., and I
was to be responsible for the transporta-
ton, and to meet him with an ancient |
family chase and "Old Put. That |
night crept to bed with a feeling of |
guilt and pretermitted my usual prayers. |
A dozen times | determined to abandon |
the unholy enterprise, and even after 1 |
fell into a troubled sleep all sorts of |
spectral visions floated around me. A |
negro boy, whom l had suborned for the !
purpose, walked me up at an early |
hour, and my courage having partially |
returned, 1 managed to secure the chaise
with "Old Put" and met Charley at the
rendezvous. In safety, without being |
seen by single person, we reached the
open country, and then, finging to the
winds all reflections as to consequences,
we proceeded to elevate our feet above the
dashboard of the old chase and to
smoke two very long but common cigars,
the only luxury Of that kind our limited
exchequer could afford. Suddenly. at
sharp turn in the road, we encountered |
the ancestral family carriage of Squire
Joe Roberts, containing the Roberts
family, consisting of the father
and three maiden daughters, on
their way to the church at
an utterly unprecedented hour in the
morning. Old Pomp, a gray-haired
Ethiopian, sat in sober majesty on the
drivers seat, driving two family animals
as faithful himself. To the casual OBJ
server the vehicle and its attachments
were eminently suggestive of patriarchal
dignity and domestic propriety, but to
mo II eunnocfa6 po+bipn hut onoDr op6 |