University of Virginia Library

LETTER LXIII.

My good old Friend,—Ever since we got `the
Government' back here from the Rip Raps, we have
been as busy as if we was all on us cocking hay jist
afore a shower.

I tell'd you some time ago that I and the gineral
was fittin and jointin the beams and rafters of the
message, but almost every day some plaguy new motion
comes in from Mr. Van Buren, and some other of our
folks, and we have to chizzle new mortises, and run
new braces and string pieces, so that I begin to think
it will look curious enuf when its done. The gineral
says he dont care how it fronts, only he is determined
to show a sharp corner to the nullifiers. We shall have
a good deal to say about the Grand Tower; there is
nothin since the 8th of January at New Orleans tickles
the gineral half so much. Every time we talk about
it, the gineral gits right up, and says he, `Major, I
only wish I was fifty years younger, and then,' says he,
`give me the yankees east of Horse Neck, and I'd like
no better sport than to have nullification all over the
rest of creation.'

When things dont go right, and the gineral gits a
little wrathy, if I only tell him the yankees are ready
to back him, he is as firm as granite. It would make
you crawl all over to read that letter we writ to
France, when we come to hear that the king there
kinder suffled round that bill we drawed on him. `He
wont pay it, wont he?' Says he—`Major, what do you
think of that?'—`why,' says I, `Gineral, I think its a
nasty mean action—and a rascally one too,' says I.
`Well,' says he, `that's enuff,'—and then we writ the
letter,—its jest like Zekel Bigelow's speech—it cuts,
shaves, and makes the hair fly—and if it dont bring the
money, I'm mistaken.

If Mr. Livingston had stayd one week longer in
York, the gineral was for sendin me right out.

The most curious part of `the government' here, is
to manage the office seekers. You see, things aint now
as they was afore Mr. Van Buren's time, then it was
kinder divided around among the departments.

The post-master gineral appointed all the post-masters
and their folks. The secretary of the treasury appointed
all the folks in the custom-houses, and all folks
who collected money. These two had an everlastin
batch of fellers to appint, and made them feel pretty
considerable big, and then the war secretary had a good
slice in appointing the cadets, and Ingen agents, and
all the contracts was kinder sifted round among the
departments; and so by the time a new president was
to be made, some of these secretaries was a leetle bigger
than the president himself. Now this is the way
they kinder jockied Mr. Adams, who got to be the
smallest man at Washington, by lettin other folks
plant his corn, and do his huskin; and afore he knowd
it, his own field was all in weeds—and theirs well
howed, rich and clean as a whistle.

But things aint so now, w've got ony one crib, and
that's a whapping one too, and ony one door to it; and
when we shell out our corn, we take good care and
know well who gets it, and where he is going to plant
it; and that aint all—we make 'em agree about the
Huskin Frolic,[2] for that's the best ont arter all.

The longer I am in `the government' the more I
larn. But I must allow that of all the inventions I've
hearn on of Mr. Van Buren's, this is about the slickest.

There is ony one thing wantin, and that he is tryin
for pretty hard—and that is the bank. If he can ony
get that in the crib too, Virginy fences would n't stop
our cattle.

Ony think what an everlastin raft of fellows we

should have—all the presidents and cashiers, and
clerks, and money counters, about the crib, from
Downingville to New Orleans!—and that aint the best
ont; we would have a branch alongside every post-office
to keep our postages safe.

I should like this well enuf I was sartin I and the
gineral and Mr. Van Buren was to be here all the while,
to keep a good look out on the crib door. But the
gineral talks of going hum to put the Hermitage to
rights; and I am in the notion that congress is a leetle
too strong for `the government' when the gineral aint
in it—and I shall go with him. I am eny most fag'd
out myself, and I begin to think with the gineral,
I have done enuf for the country.

We are lookin for Amos Kindle now every hour.
He writ the gineral tother day, and teld him my `Bank
Report' warn't true, and that I must have got a loan of
Squire Biddle. Now that's jist the way with some
folks. What they dont know they guess at; and it's
jest so with old Miss Crane, who keeps the tavern this
side Downingville—jist as sure as any one goes by
without stopping, the old critur says, `There goes so
and so, and has got no money, too, and he knows I
would n't trust him.'

Howsumever, no one can make the gineral rathy
with me. He knows I am the best friend about him;
whenever they gets things in any kind of a twist or a
snarl, says he, `Major, do you unravel that, I 'm the
big wheel and you are the smasher,' says he; and then
we jist give Peleg Bissel's churn a turn or two and all
is right.

You don't print my letters right—you git some words
wrong and spell 'em bad. Jist so the printers sarved
the gineral's letters too; and folks thought he didn't
know nothin, till we got to Cambridge, where they
made a doctor on him.