University of Virginia Library

MAJOR JONES'S
SKETCHES OF TRAVEL
Through the United States. LETTER I.

To Mr. Thompson:—Dear Sir—I have almost gin
up writin intirely, sense you quit editin the Southern
Miscellany; but I spose I'm like other peeple what's
got the kakoethis skribendy, as they call it, and never
will git cumpletely cured of it as long as I live. Dr.
Mountgomery ses it depends a grate deal how peeple
take it, whether they ever git over it or not; sumtimes,
he ses, when they catch it at school they git cured of it,
when it comes out, by a few doses of judishus kriticism.
But he ses he thinks it's a constitootional disease with
me, and I better jest let it take its course.

Well, sense my book[1] has been printed and so many
thousand copies of it has been sold all over the country,
I've felt a monstrous curiosity to see a little more of the
world and the peeple in it, than what a body can see
out here in the piny-woods; and as the crap is pretty
well laid by now, and things is considerable easy with
me, I've made up my mind to make a tower of travel
to the big North this summer, jest for greens, as we say
in Georgia, when we hain't got no very pertickeler
reason for any thing, or hain't got time to tell the real

one. I'm gwine to take Mary and little Henry Clay
(who's a mazin smart little feller now, I can tell you,) and
go to New York, and Filadelfy, and Washington City,
and Baltomore, and Boston and all about thar, and
spend the summer until pickin time, nockin round in
them big cities, mong them peeple what's so monstrous
smart and religious and refined, and see if I can't pick
up sume idees what'll be worth rememberin. I've got
a first-rate overseer to take care of the plantation, and
every thing's fixed for the trip. Mary's tickled to deth
at the idee of seein New York, and gettin a new bonnet
rite from the French milliner; and the galls is all gwine
to send for new frocks to be made in the very newest
fashion.

Old Miss Stallins, who you know is one of the
economicalist old wimen that ever lived, hain't got much
notion of no such doins. She ses its all down-right
nonsense to spend so much money jest for nothing but
to travel away off among people what we don't know
nothin about, and maybe won't never see agin if we
was to live to be as old as Methusleum. The fact is the
old woman hain't got no notion of them northern people
no how. Ever sense that feller Crotchett tried to git
round her for one of her daughters, she can't bear the
name of the north; and jest talk to her about water
privileges, and it puts her in a passion in a minit. She
ses, Lord knows she wouldnt' give a thrippence to see
all the bominable Yankees in the world, and as for
seein the country, she ses ther's as many fine plantations,
and handsum towns, as many big mountains and rivers,
and as many cataracks and sulfer springs in Georgia, as
she wants to see, 'thout gwine away off on the sea to
git shipracked maybe, or blowed up by some everlastin
steamboat bustin its biler. Besides, she ses, it's no wonder
the southern people is always complainin about hard
times, when they go to the north every summer and
spend all ther money in travelin and byin fineries and

northern gigamarees of one kind another what they
mought jest as well do without.

Mother's a little more reasonable 'bout it. She ses
that bein as I'm a literary caracter I ought to see something
of the world, and as it's monstrous troublesome to travel
with children, we better go now, when we hain't got but
one. She ses it's fashionable to go to the north, and she
don't see why I haint as good a right to be like other
folks, as sum people she knows, what goes to the Sarrytogy
springs every year, when they can't hardly make
out to live at home. All she don't like about it is, takin
little Henry so far from home. She ses if he was to git
sick at the north then she couldn't be thar to nurse him,
and Lord only knows what would come of the child.
But she's bundled up a whole heap of things to make
yarb tea for the baby when it gits sick, and told Mary
all how to do, and Prissy's one of the best nurses in the
world; so ther ain't no fear about that. Lord knows,
she ses, old misses needn't trouble herself 'bout little
massa Harry, for she nussed Miss Mary through all her
croops and measels and hoopin-coughs, and all manner
of ailments, and she reckons she ought to know how to
take care of sick children by this time. I never did see
sich a proud nigger before in all my life as she is 'bout
gwine to the north. The galls has been makin some
new frocks for her, and Mary ses she really does believe
the creeter's head is turned; for she can't stand still long
enuff to try 'em on. She don't think of nothing else but
carryin her little massy Harry 'bout New York to look at
the stores, and she's promised every nigger on the plantation
to bring 'em sumthing from the north. Ned wants
to go too, but I don't think it's hardly worth while to
take him along for all the use he'd be to us, and then it
would add to the expense.

We're all in a muss now gettin ready for the journey,
and sich other fixin and packin you never did see. I do
believe old Miss Stallins and mother has packed up 'bout

seven trunks full of plunder of one kind and another, and
the more we tell 'em that ther ain't no use in takin so
much, the more they say we don't know any thing about
it. Do you think old Miss Stallins hain't put in a heap
of quilts and pillar-cases! and I do believe if we had a
trunk big enuff to hold 'em, she'd make us carry a
feather-bed or two. She ses people never does know
what they want til they find themselves without it, and
the best way is always to be on the safe side. She tried
her best this morning to git Mary to let her put in 'bout
twenty pounds of country soap. She ses she don't
care how cheap it is at the north, she knows ther ain't
no better in the world than her own make; and she
don't see any sense in people gwine and spendin ther
money for things what they've got at home. She's a
monstrous clever old woman, and I try to humour her
all I can in her notions, but I can't stand the soap.

We expect to start day after to-morrow, if nothing
don't turn up to prevent, and if you think my letters is
worth the postage, I'll give you my impressions of matters
and things now and then, whenever I meet any thing
in my travels worth noticin.

Hopin you will be alive and able to keep off the
muskeeters when I cum back this fall, I must bid you
good-by for the present. So no more from