University of Virginia Library

10. DILLY JONES;
OR, THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT.

One of the most difficult things in the world is to run
before the wind; and, by judiciously observing the
changes of the weather, to avoid being thrown out.
Fashion is so unsteady, and improvements are so rapid,
that the man whose vocation yields him an abundant
harvest now, may, in a few years, if he has not a keen
eye, and a plastic versatility, find that his skill and his
business are both useless. Many were the poor barbers
shipwrecked by the tax upon hair-powder, and numerous
were the leather breeches makers who were destroyed
by the triumph of woollens. Their skill was doubtless
very great, but it would not avail in a contest against the
usages of the world; and unless they had the capacity
to strike out a new course, they all shared the fate of
their commodities, and retired to the dark cellars of popular
estimation. Every day shows us the same principle
of change at work, and no one has more reason to reflect
and mourn about it than one Dilly Jones of this city.
Dilly is not, perhaps, precisely the person who would be
chronicled by the memoir writers of the time, or have a
monument erected to him if he were no more; but Dilly
is a man of a useful though humble vocation, and no one
can saw hickory with more classic elegance, or sit upon

the curbstone and take his dinner with more picturesque
effect.

Yet, as has been hinted above, Dilly has his sorrows,
particularly at night, after a hard day's work, when his
animal spirits have been exhausted by reducing gum logs
to the proper measure. In the morning he is full of life
and energy, feeling as if he could saw a cord of Shot-towers,
and snap the pillars of the Bank across his knee
like pipe stems. In the full flush of confidence at that
time of day, reflection batters against him in vain; but
as the night draws on, Dilly feels exhausted and spiritless.
His enthusiasm seems to disappear with the sun,
and neither the moon nor the stars can cause high tide in
the river of his mind. The current of his good spirits
shrinks in its channel, leaving the gay and gorgeous
barques of hope and confidence drearily ashore on the
muddy flats; and his heart fails him as if it were useless
longer to struggle against adversity.

It was in this mood that he was once seen travelling
homeward, with his horse and saw fixed scientifically
upon his shoulders. He meandered in his path in the
way peculiar to men of his vocation, and travelled with
that curvilinear elegance which at once indicates that he
who practises it is of the wood-sawing profession, and
illustrates the lopsided consequences of giving one leg
more to do than the other. But Dilly was too melancholy
on this occasion to feel proud of his professional
air, and perhaps, had he thought of it, would have reproved
the leg which performed the “sweep of sixty,”
for indulging in such graces, and thereby embarrassing
its more humble brother, which, knowing that a right
line is the shortest distance between two places, laboured
to go straight to its destination. Dilly, however, had no

such stuff in his thoughts. His mind was reasoning from
the past to the future, and was mournfully meditating
upon the difficulties of keeping up with the changes of
the times, which roll onward like a Juggernaut, and crush
all who are not swift enough to maintain themselves in
the lead. He wondered why fashions and customs
should so continually change, and repined that he could
not put a spoke in their wheel, that the trade of one's
early days might likewise be the trade of one's latter
years. So complete was his abstraction that he unconsciously
uttered his thoughts aloud:

“Sawing wood's going all to smash,” said he, “and
that's where every thing goes what I speculates in. This
here coal is doing us up. Ever since these black stones
was brought to town, the wood-sawyers and pilers, and
them soap-fat and hickory-ashes men, has been going
down; and, for my part, I can't say as how I see what's
to be the end of all their new-fangled contraptions. But
it's always so; I'm always crawling out of the little end
of the horn. I began life in a comfortable sort of a way;
selling oysters out of a wheelbarrow, all clear grit, and
didn't owe nobody nothing. Oysters went down slick
enough for a while, but at last cellars was invented, and
darn the oyster, no matter how nice it was pickled, could
poor Dill sell; so I had to eat up capital and profits myself.
Then the `pepree pot smoking' was sot up, and
went ahead pretty considerable for a time; but a parcel
of fellers come into it, said my cats wasn't as good as
their'n, when I know'd they was as fresh as any cats in
the market; and pepree pot was no go. Bean soup was
just as bad; people said kittens wasn't good done that
way, and the more I hollered, the more the customers
wouldn't come, and them what did, wanted tick. Along
with the boys and their pewter fips, them what got trust

and didn't pay, and the abusing of my goods, I was soon
fotch'd up in the victualling line—and I busted for the
benefit of my creditors. But genius riz. I made a raise
of a horse and saw, after being a wood-piler's prentice
for a while, and working till I was free, and now here
comes the coal to knock this business in the head. My
people's decent people, and I can't disgrace 'em by turning
Charcoal Jemmy, or smashing the black stones with
a pickaxe. They wouldn't let me into no society at all
if I did.”

The idea of being excluded from the upper circles of
he society in which he had been in the habit of moving,
fell heavily upon the heart of poor Dilly Jones. He
imagined the curled lips and scornful glances of the aristocratic
fair, who now listened with gratification to his
compliments and to his soft nonsense; he saw himself
passed unrecognised in the street—absolutely cut by his
present familiar friends, and the thought of losing caste
almost crushed his already dejected spirit.

The workings of his imagination, combined with the
fatigue of his limbs, caused such exhaustion, that, dislodging
his horse from his shoulder, he converted it into
a camp-stool, seated himself under the lee of a shop
window, and, after slinging his saw petulantly at a dog,
gazed with vacant eyes upon the people who occasionally
passed, and glanced at him with curiosity.

“Hey, mister!” said a shop-boy, at last, “I want to
get shut of you, 'cause we're goin' to shet up. You're
right in the way, and if you don't boom along, why Ben
and me will have to play hysence, clearance, puddin's out
with you afore you've time to chalk your knuckles—
won't we, Ben?”

“We'll plump him off of baste before he can say fliance,
or get a sneak. We're knuckle dabsters, both on us.

You'd better emigrate—the old man's coming, and if he
finds you here, he'll play the mischief with you, before
you can sing out `I'm up if you knock it and ketch.”'

So saying, the two lads placed themselves one on each
side of Dilly, and began swinging their arms with an expression
that hinted very plainly at a forcible ejectment.
Dilly, however, who had forgotten all that he ever knew
of the phrases so familiar to those who scientifically understand
the profound game of marbles, wore the puzzled
air of one who labours to comprehend what is said to him.
But the meaning became so apparent as not to be mistaken,
when Ben gave a sudden pull at the horse which
almost dismounted the rider.

“Don't be so unfeelin',” ejaculated Dilly, as he clutched
the cross-bars of his seat; “don't be unfeelin', for a
man in grief is like a wood-piler in a cellar—mind how
you chuck, or you'll crack his calabash.”

“Take care of your calabash then,” was the grinning
response; “you must skeete, even if you have to cut
high-dutchers with your irons loose, and that's no
fun.”

“High-dutch yourself, if you know how; only go
'way from me, 'cause I ain't got no time.”

“Well,” said the boys, “haven't we caught you
on our payment?—what do you mean by crying here—
what do you foller when you're at home?”

“I works in wood; that's what I foller.”

“You're a carpenter, I s'pose,” said Ben, winking at
Tom.

“No, not exactly; but I saws wood better nor any
half dozen loafs about the drawbridge. If it wasn't for
grief, I'd give both of you six, and beat you too the best
day you ever saw, goin' the rale gum and hickory—for I
don't believe you're gentlemen's sons; nothin' but poor

trash—half and half—want to be and can't, or you
wouldn't keep a troubling of me.”

“Gauley, Ben, if he isn't a wharf-rat! If you don't
trot, as I've told you a'ready, boss will be down upon
you and fetch you up like a catty on a cork-line—jerk!”

“That's enough,” replied Dilly; “there's more places
nor one in the world—at least there is yet; new fashions
haven't shut up the streets yet, and obligated people
to hire hackney balloons if they want to go a walkin', or
omnibus boardin' houses when they want a fip's worth
of dinner, or a levy's worth of sleep. Natural legs is
got some chance for a while anyhow, and a man can get
along if he ain't got clock-vurks to make him go.

`I hope, by'm'by,” added Dill scornfully, as he
marched away from the chuckling lads, “that there
won't be no boys to plague people. I'd vote for that
new fashion myself. Boys is luisances, accordin' to
me.”

He continued to soliloquize as he went, and his last
observations were as follows:

“I wonder, if they wouldn't list me for a Charley?
Hollering oysters and bean soup has guv' me a splendid
woive; and instead of skeering 'em away, if the thieves
were to hear me singing out, my style of doing it would
almost coax 'em to come and be took up. They'd feel
like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk up,
and poke their coat collars right into my fist. Then, after
a while, I'd perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of
pig ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry
elegant, requires genus. Tisn't every man that can come
the scientifics in that line, and has studied the nature of
a pig, so as to beat him at canœuvering, and make him
surrender 'cause he sees it ain't no use of doing nothing.
It wants larning to conwince them critters, and it's only

to be done by heading 'em up handsome, hopping which
ever way they hop, and tripping 'em up genteel by
shaking hands with their off hind leg. I'd scorn to pull
their tails out by the roots, or to hurt their feelin's by
dragging 'em about by the ears.

“But what's the use? If I was listed, they'd soon find
out to holler the hour and to ketch the thieves by steam;
yes, and they'd take 'em to court on a railroad, and try
'em with biling water. They'll soon have black locomotives
for watchmen and constables, and big bilers for judges
and mayors. Pigs will be ketched by steam, and will be
biled fit to eat before they are done squealing. By and
by, folks won't be of no use at all. There won't be no
people in the world but tea kettles; no mouths, but safety
valves; and no talking, but blowing off steam. If I had
a little biler inside of me, I'd turn omnibus, and week-days
I'd run from Kensington to the Navy Yard, and
Sundays I'd run to Fairmount.”