XXII. DILLY JONES; OR, THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT.[14]

XXII. DILLY JONES; OR, THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT.^[14]

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 ship-wrecked 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 everything goes what I speculates in. This here coal is doing us up. Ever since these black stones was brought to town, the woodsawyers 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 the 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, bimeby,” 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 woice; 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.”