University of Virginia Library

43. CHAPTER XLIII.

Mr. Simeon Jenkins entered at an early stage of
his career upon the arena of public life, having been
employed by his honoured mother to dispose of a basket
full of hard-boiled eggs, on election day, before he was
eight years old. He often dwells with much unction
upon this his debût; and declares that even at that
dawning period, he had cut his eye-teeth.

“There was n't a feller there,” Mr. Jenkins often says,
“that could find out which side I was on, for all they
tried hard enough. They thought I was soft, but I let
'em know I was as much baked as any on 'em. `Be you
a dimocrat?” says one. Buy some eggs and I'll tell ye,
says I; and by the time he'd bought his eggs, I could
tell well enough which side he belonged to, and I'd hand
him out a ticket according, for I had blue ones in one
end o' my basket, and white ones in the other, and when

night come, and I got off the stump to go home,
I had eighteen shillin' and four pence in my
pocket.”

From this auspicious commencement may be dated
Mr. Jenkins' glowing desire to serve the public. Each
successive election day saw him at his post. From
eggs he advanced to pies, from pies to almanacs, whiskey,
powder and shot, foot-balls, playing-cards, and at
length, for ambition ever “did grow with what it fed
on,” he brought into the field a large turkey, which was
tied to a post and stoned to death at twenty-five cents
a throw. By this time the still youthful aspirant had
become quite the man of the world; could smoke twenty
four cigars per diem, if any body else would pay for
them; play cards, in old Hurler's shop, from noon till
day-break, and rise winner; and all this with suitable
trimmings of gin and hard words. But he never
lost sight of the main chance. He had made up his
mind to serve his country, and he was all this time convincing
his fellow-citizens of the disinterested purity
of his sentiments.

“Patriotism,” he would say, “patriotism is the
thing! any man that's too proud to serve his country
aint fit to live. Some thinks so much o' themselves,
that if they can have jist what they think they 're fit
for, they wont take nothing; but for my part, I call myself
an American citizen; and any office that's in the
gift o' the people will suit me. I'm up to any thing.
And as there aint no other man about here,—no suitable
man, I mean—that's got a horse, why I'd be willing
to be constable, if the people's a mind to, though it
would be a dead loss to me in my business, to be sure;

but I could do any thing for my country. Hurra for
patriotism! them 's my sentiments.”

It can scarcely be doubted that Mr. Jenkins became
a very popular citizen, or that he usually played a conspicuous
part at the polls. Offices began to fall to his
share, and though they were generally such as brought
more honour than profit, office is office, and Mr. Jenkins
did not grumble. Things were going on admirably.

Or thought he was just going to grasp them, when,
presto! he found himself in the minority; the wheel
of fortune turned, and Mr. Jenkins and his party were
left undermost. Here was a delimma! His zeal in
the public service was ardent as ever, but how could he
get a chance to show it unless his party was in power?
His resolution was soon taken. He called his friends
together, mounted a stump, which had fortunately been
left standing not far from the door of his shop, and then
and there gave “reasons for my ratting” in terms
sublime enough for any meridian.

“My friends and feller-citizens,” said this self-sacrificing
patriot, “I find myself conglomerated in sich a
way, that my feelin's suffers severely. I'm sitivated in
a peculiar sitivation. O' one side, I see my dear
friends, pussonal friends—friends, that's stuck to me
like wax, through thick and thin, never shinnyin' off
and on, but up to the scratch, and no mistake. O'
t' other side I behold my country, my bleedin' country,
the land that fetch'd me into this world o' trouble.

Now, sence things be as they be, and can't be no otherways
as I see, I feel kind o' screwed into an auger-hole
to know what to do. If I hunt over the history
of the universal world from the creation of man to the
present day, I see that men has always had difficulties;
and that some has took one way to get shut of 'em,
and some another. My candid and unrefragable opinion
is, that rather than remain useless, buckled down
to the shop, and indulging in selfishness, it is my solemn
dooty to change my ticket. It is severe, my friends,
but dooty is dooty. And now, if any man calls me a
turn-coat,” continued the orator, gently spitting in his
hands, rubbing them together, and rolling his eyes
round the assembly, “all I say is, let him say it so that
I can hear him.”

The last argument was irresistible, if even the others
might have brooked discussion, for Mr. Jenkins
stands six feet two in his stockings, when he wears any,
and gesticulates with a pair of arms as long and muscular
as Rob Roy's. So, though the audience did not
cheer him, they contented themselves with dropping
off one by one, without calling in question the patriotism
of the rising statesman.

The very next election saw Mr. Jenkins justice of
the peace, and it was in this honourable capacity that
I have made most of my acquaintance with him, though
we began with threatenings of a storm. He called to
take the acknowledgement of a deed, and I, anxious
for my country's honour, for I too am something of a
patriot in my own way, took the liberty of pointing out
to his notice a trifling slip of the pen; videlicet, “Justas

of Piece,” which manner of writing those words I
informed him had gone out of fashion.

He reddened, looked at me very sharp for a moment,
and then said he thanked me; but subjoined,

“Book-learning is a good thing enough where there
aint too much of it. For my part, I've seen a good
many that know'd books that did n't know much else.
The proper cultivation and edication of the human
intellect, has been the comprehensive study of the human
understanding from the original creation of the universal
world to the present day, and there has been a
good many ways tried besides book-learning. Not but
what that's very well in its place.”

And the justice took his leave with somewhat of a
swelling air. But we are excellent friends, notwithstanding
this hard rub; and Mr. Jenkins favours
me now and then with half an hour's conversation,
when he has had leisure to read up for the occasion in
an odd volume of the Cyclopedia, which holds an honoured
place in a corner of his shop. He ought, in fairness,
to give me previous notice, that I might study the
dictionary a little, for the hard words with which he
arms himself for these “keen encounters,” often push
me to the very limits of my English.

I ought to add, that Mr. Jenkins has long since left off
gambling, drinking, and all other vices of that class,
except smoking; in this point he professes to be incorrigible.
But as his wife, who is one of the nicest women
in the world, and manages him admirably, pretends
to like the smell of tobacco, and takes care never to
look at him when he disfigures her well-scoured floor,
I am not without hopes of his thorough reformation.