University of Virginia Library

LETTER IX.

Dear Cousin Ephraim. — I 've wrote you three postscripts
since I wrote you a letter, and the reason is, these

Legislaters have been carryin on so like all possest, and
I 've been in looking at 'em so much, I could n't get time
to write more than three lines at once, for fear I should be
out of the way, and should miss seeing some of the fun.
But thinkin you 'd be tired of waiting, I tried to get the
printer to send my letter yesterday; but he told me right
up and down he could n't. I told him he must, for I
ought to sent before now. But he said he could n't, and
would n't, and that was the upshot of the matter, for the
paper was chock full, and more tu, of the Governor's
message. Bless my stars, says I, and have we got a
Governor done enough so he can speak a message?
Yes, indeed we have, says he, thanks be to the two great
republikin parties, who have saved the State from the
anarkee of the Jacksonites and Huntonites; the Governor
is done, and is jest a going into the Legislater, and if
you 'll go right up there, you can see him. So I pushed
in among the crowd, and I got a pretty good squeezin
tu; but I got a good place, for I could elbow it as well
as any on 'em. And I had n't been there five minutes,
seemingly, before we had a Governor sure enough; and
a good stout, genteel looking sort of a man he was tu, as
you would see in a whole regiment, taking in captains
and all. Nobody disputed that he was finished pretty
workmanlike; and he ought to be, for they 'd been long
enough about it. So they concluded to swear him in, as
they call it, and he took a great oath to behave like a
Governor a whole year. Some say the wheels of government
will go along smooth and easy now, as a wheelbarrow
across a brick yard; but some shake their heads,
and say the wheels will be jolting over rocks and stumps
all winter yet; and I dont know but they will, for the
Governor had n't hardly turned his back upon 'em and
gone out, before they went right to disputing agin as
hard as ever. I was a good mind to run out and call the
Governor back to still 'em. But I could n't tell where
to look for him, so they got clear of a drubbing that time.
I know he 'd a gin it to 'em if he 'd been there; for what
do you think was the first thing they went to disputing
about? It was how many Governor's speeches they
should print this winter; jest as if the Governor could n't
tell that himself. Some wanted three hundred, and some
five hundred, and some seven or eight hundred. Finally
they concluded to print five hundred; and I should think
that was enough in all conscience, if they are all going
to be as long as that one they printed in the Courier
yesterday. In the next place, they took up that everlasting
dispute about Mr Roberts' having a seat; for if
you 'll believe me, they 've kept that poor man standing
there till this time.

I'll tell you how tis, Cousin Ephraim, we must contrive
some way or other to keep these Jacksonits and
Huntonites out of the Legislater another year, or we
shall be ruin'd; for they make pesky bad work, triging
the wheels of government. They've triged 'em so much
that they say it has cost the State about fifteen thousand
dollars a'ready, more than 'twould, if they had gone
along straight without stopping. So you may tell uncle
Joshua that besides that bushel of corn he lost in betting
about the Speaker, he'll have to shell out as much as two
bushels more to pay the cost of triging the wheels. Jingoe!
sometimes when I've seen the wheels chocked with
a little trig not bigger than a cat's head, and the whole
legislater trying with all their might two or three days,
and couldn't start it a hair, how I've longed to hitch on
my little speckled four-year-olds, and give 'em a pull;
if they wouldn't make the wheels fly over the trigs in a
jiffy, I wont guess agin. 'Tother day in the great convention,
when both Legislaters met together to chuse
some Counsellors, Mr Boutelle and Mr Smith of Nobleborough
tried to explain how 'twas the wheels of government
were trig'd so much. Mr Boutelle, as I have
told you a-fore, is a national republican, and Mr Smith
is a democratic republican. They differed a little in

their opinion. Mr Boutelle seemed to think the trigs
were all put under by one class of politicians, and from
what he said, I took it he meant the Jacksonites. He
said ever since the Legislater began, the moment they
started the wheels, that class of politicians would throw
under a chock and stop 'em; and which ever way they
turned, that class of politicians would meet 'em at every
corner and bring 'em up all standin. Mr Smith seemed
to think another class of politicians had the greatest hand
in it, and it was pretty clear that he meant the Huntonites.
He said when they first got here, that class of politicians
sot the wheels of government rolling the wrong way;
they put the big wheels forward, and the Legislater had
been going backwards ever since, jest like a lobster.
And the Huntonites not only trig'd the wheels, whenever
they begun to roll the right way; but as soon as the
`blessed Governor' was done they trig'd him tu; and
though he had been done four days, they wouldn't let
him come into the Legislater so that their eyes could be
blest with the sight of him. So from what I can find
out, the Jacksonites and Huntonites both, are a troublesome
contrary set, and there must be some way contrived
to keep 'em out of the Legislater in future.

It seems soon after you got my first letter, uncle
Joshua tackled up, and started off to Boston with a
load of turkeys and apple-sauce. I had a letter from
him t'other day, as long as all out doors, in the Boston
Advertiser. He says he got more for the turkeys than
he expected tu; but I think it's a plaguy pity he did'nt
bring 'em to Portland. I know he'd got more than he
could in Boston. Provision kind is getting up here
wonderfully, on account of these Legislaters being likely
to stay here all winter; and some think they'll be
here half the summer tu. And then there's sich a cloud
of what they call lobby members and office hunters, that
the butchers have got frightened, and gone to buying up
all the beef and pork they can get hold on far and near,

for they are afraid a famine will be upon us next.
Howsomever, uncle Joshua did well to carry his `puckery
apple-sauce' to Boston. He could 'nt get a cent
for't here; for every body's puckery and sour enough
here now.

Give my love to father and mother and cousin Nabby.
I shall answer their letters as soon as I can.