Volume 3 — A CONVERSATION IN A KENTUCKY STAGE COACH.[13]

A CONVERSATION IN A KENTUCKY STAGE COACH.[13]

I can not refrain from giving a conversation which I heard as we came by the coach to Louisville. One of the speakers was a very agreeable and apparently well-informed gentleman, who seemed to have seen a great deal of the world. When he first entered the "stage," it would seem it was with the benignant intention of giving a sort of converzatione in the coach, in which, after a few preliminary interrogatories to the various passengers (as if to take the size and measure of their capacities), he sustained all the active part, not calling upon them for the slightest exercise of their conversational powers. He varied the entertainment occasionally, by soliloquizing and monopolyguizing; and ever and anon it appeared as if he addressed the human race generally, or was speaking for posterity in a very elevated tone indeed, and seemingly oblivious of that fraction of the contemporaneous generation who were then largely benefiting by his really most animated and amusing discourse—for he was thoroughly original and very shrewd and entertaining.

Where had he not been? What had he not seen? what not met, tried, suffered, sought, found, dared, done, won, lost, said? The last we could give the most implicit credence to, no matter how large the demand. Now he told us, or the ceiling of the coach, how he had been eighteen months in the prairies (which keep very open house for all visitors), shooting herds of buffaloes, and with his cloak for his only castle, and all his household furniture, and how he had been all this time without bed or bread: and he described the longing for the last, much in the way Mr. Ruxton does in his account of prairie excursions; and now—but I will not attempt to follow him in all his wondrous adventures.

Suffice it to say, Robinson Crusoe, placed in juxtaposition with him, was a mere fire-side stay-at-home sort of personage, one who had never left his own comfortable arm-chair, in comparison. In short, the adventures were marvelous and manifold, and all told in the same agreeable, lively, Scheherezade-like sort of a manner—so agreeable, indeed, that I am sure had Judge Lynch himself had any little account to settle with him, he would have postponed—à la Sultan of the Indies—any trifling beheading or strangling, or unpleasant little operation of the sort, to hear the end of the tale.

After these narratives and amusing lectures had been poured forth continuously for a length of time, it chanced that a quiet countryman-like person got into the coach, bundle and stick in hand. After a few questions to this rustic wayfarer, our eloquent orator left off his historic and other tales, and devoted himself to drawing out, and "squeezing the orange of the brains" of this apparently simple-minded and unlettered man. The discourse that ensued was a singular one—to take place, too, in the United States between Americans.

The new-comer was a Kentuckian by birth, who had not very long ago gone to settle in Indiana. He called himself a mechanic—these facts came out in answer to the queries put to him by our unwearied talker—but he had, as I have said, much more the appearance of a respectable country farming man—and, indeed, I believe, mechanic means here, in a general sense, a laborer. He seemed a fine, honest-hearted, straight-forward, noble-spirited son of the plow; and his lofty, earnest, generous sentiments were spoken in somewhat unpolished but energetic and good language; and what particularly struck me was a really beautiful and almost child-like simplicity of mind and manner, that was combined with the most uncompromising firmness and unflinching adherence in argument, to what he conceived to be right.

His features were decidedly plain, but the countenance was very fine, chiefly characterized by great ingenuousness, commingled with gentleness and benevolence; and yet bearing evident traces of strength, determination, and energetic resolution. It was rather a complicated countenance, so to say, notwithstanding its great openness and expression of downright truth and goodness.

After opening the conversation with him, as you would an oyster, by the introduction of a pretty keen knife of inquisitorial questions, the chief speaker began to hold forth, capriciously enough, on the essentials and distinguishing attributes of a gentleman. He declared, emphatically, that one qualification alone was necessary, and that money only made a gentleman, according to the world, and, above all, in the United States (quite a mistake is this, I fully believe). "Let a man," said he, "be dressed here in every thing of the best, with splendid rings on his fingers, and plenty of money to spend at the ends of them, and he may go where he will, and be received as a gentleman; ay, though he may be a gambler, a rogue, or a swindler, and you, now, you may be a good honest mechanic; but he will at once get into the best society in these parts, which you would never dream even of attempting to accomplish—"

"But he would not be a gentleman," broke in the Kentuckian, indignantly. "No, sir; nor will I ever allow that money only makes the gentleman: it is the principle, sir, and the inner feeling, and the mind—and no fine clothes can ever make it; and no rough ones unmake it, that's a fact. And, sir, there's many a better gentleman following the plow in these parts than there is among the richer classes: I mean those poor men who're contented with their lot, and work hard and try no mean shifts and methods to get on an' up in the world; for there's little some 'ill stick at to get at money; and such means a true gentleman (what I call a gentleman) will avoid like poison, and scorn utterly."

"Now, that's all very well for you to talk so here just now; but you know yourself, I don't doubt, that your own object, as well as all the world's around you, is to make money. It is with that object that you work hard and save up: you do not work only to live, or make yourself more comfortable, but to get money: and money is the be-all and end-all of all and every body; and that only commands consideration and respect."

"That only, sir, would never command mine, and—"

"Why, how you talk now! if you meet a fine dressed-out gentleman in one of these stages, you look on him as one directly—you don't ask him did he make or take his money—what's that to you?—there he is, and it is not for you to busy or bother yourself to find out all the private particulars of his history; and if you find him, as I say, well dressed in superfine, and he acts the gentleman to you, he may be the greatest rogue in existence, but he will be treated by you like a gentleman—yes, even by you."

"Yes, sir, that maybe while I know nothing of him—while, as you say, he acts the gentleman to me; but let me once find out what he is, and I would never show him respect more—no! though he had all the gold of California."

"Ah, California! just look at that now—look at people by scores and thousands, leaving their families, and friends, and homes—and what for but for gold? people with a comfortable competence already; but it's fine talking. Why, what are you taking this very journey for?—why, I can answer for you—for gold, I doubt not; and every other action of your life is for that object: confess the real truth now."

"I will, sir—I am come here from Indiana, for though I'm a Kentucky man, I live in the Hoosier State. I'm come here to see a dear brother; and instead of gaining money I'm spending it in these stages to get to see him and 'old Kentuck' agin. So you see, Sir, I love my brother—I do, more than money, poor man as I am; ay, and that I do, too."

"Well, I dare say you do; but come now, just tell me—haven't you a little bit of a speculation, now, here, that you're come after, as well as your brother—some trifle of a speculation afoot? You know you have now. You must have. Some horse, perhaps—"

It was quite delightful to see and hear the indignant burst of eager denial which this elicited from the ingenuous Kentuckian.

"No, sir! no, I have not—none whatever, indeed I have not:" his voice quivered with emotion; the earnest expression of his countenance was more than eloquent. If his interrogator had accused him of a serious crime he could hardly more anxiously and more earnestly have disclaimed it. To him, I thought the bare suspicion seemed like a coarse desecration of his real motives, a kind of undervaluing even of his "dear brother," to suppose he must have had a "little speculation on hand" to make it worth his while to go to see him.

He went on in an agitated, eager tone:

"And look ye here; I am leaving off my work and money-making for some days on purpose—only for that, and spending money at it, too!"

His somewhat case-hardened antagonist looked the least in the world discomfited; for that angry denial was a magnificent burst, and uttered in a tone that actually seemed to give an additional jolt to the rough coach; and I might say it had really a splendid theatrical effect, but that I should hesitate to use that expression with reference to one of the most beautiful natural exhibitions of deep feeling and generous sentiment I ever witnessed.

"Where are you going to?" at last inquired the other, apparently about to commence a little cross-examination.

"About twenty miles beyond Munsfordville," replied Kentucky, in his simple direct manner, "to"—I forget the name.

"Why, you're come by the wrong stage, then," exclaimed the other, "you should have waited till to-morrow, and then taken the stage to ——, and then you would have gone direct."

"Well, yes, sir; it's true enough, sir; but you see—in short, I couldn't wait—no, that I couldn't. I was so anxious, and I felt so like seeing my brother; and I was in such a mortal hurry to get to him."

"Hurry, man! why how will you see him any sooner by this? Why, you might as well have walked up and down Main-street till to-morrow; it would have advanced you just as much on your journey."

"You're right, sir, I know that; but I really couldn't wait: I wanted to feel I was going ahead, and getting nearer my brother at any rate; I got so impatient-like. No, sir; I couldn't have staid till the morning any how you could fix it."

"You'll have to walk for your folly, for you'll get no conveyance this way, I tell you."

"I'll have to walk the twenty miles to-night, I suppose," said Kentucky, with the most imperturbable smiling composure; "but never mind that! I shall be getting near my brother, then. Ha," he said, after a pause, "you see I do love my brother, sir, and I don't regard trouble for him. I'll have to walk the twenty miles to-night with my bundle, I dare say, and spending money at that, too, perhaps, for a bit of food; but I couldn't have waited—no! not another hour at Louisville—I felt so like getting nearer to my brother."

At the end of the argument about money-making being the all in all, one or two of us signified briefly that we thought Kentucky was right. You never saw any body so surprised. He had evidently entertained a deep conviction that all in the stage-coach were opposed to his opinions, and that he stood alone in his view on the matter. He replied he was glad any body thought as he did, and reiterated with strong emphasis to his opponent:

"I'm sure, sir, I'm right; it is the principle, and the manners, and the mind, and not money that makes a gentleman. No, no; money can never make half a one."

I shall feel a respect for "old Kentucky" forever after for his sake.