beads to draft all the Pioneers into it likewise, so that we were
five-and-forty at least, and the accession of passengers was not at
all of that kind which improved the prospect of sleeping at night.
Our people grumbled at this, as people do in such cases; but
suffered the boat to be towed off with the whole freight aboard
nevertheless; and away we went down the canal. At home, I should
have protested lustily, but being a foreigner here, I held my
peace. Not so this passenger. He cleft a path among the people on
deck (we were nearly all on deck), and without addressing anybody
whomsoever, soliloquised as follows:
‘This may suit YOU, this may, but it don’t suit ME. This may be
all very well with Down Easters, and men of Boston raising, but it
won’t suit my figure nohow; and no two ways about THAT; and so I
tell you. Now! I’m from the brown forests of Mississippi, I am,
and when the sun shines on me, it does shine – a little. It don’t
glimmer where I live, the sun don’t. No. I’m a brown forester, I
am. I an’t a Johnny Cake. There are no smooth skins where I live.
We’re rough men there. Rather. If Down Easters and men of Boston
raising like this, I’m glad of it, but I’m none of that raising nor
of that breed. No. This company wants a little fixing, IT does.
I’m the wrong sort of man for ’em, I am. They won’t like me, THEY
won’t. This is piling of it up, a little too mountainous, this
is.’ At the end of every one of these short sentences he turned
upon his heel, and walked the other way; checking himself abruptly
when he had finished another short sentence, and turning back
Page 103
Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
again.
It is impossible for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in
the words of this brown forester, but I know that the other
passengers looked on in a sort of admiring horror, and that
presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as many of the
Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away, were got
rid of.
When we started again, some of the boldest spirits on board, made
bold to say to the obvious occasion of this improvement in our
prospects, ‘Much obliged to you, sir;’ whereunto the brown forester
(waving his hand, and still walking up and down as before),
replied, ‘No you an’t. You’re none o’ my raising. You may act for
yourselves, YOU may. I have pinted out the way. Down Easters and
Johnny Cakes can follow if they please. I an’t a Johnny Cake, I
an’t. I am from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am’ – and
so on, as before. He was unanimously voted one of the tables for
his bed at night – there is a great contest for the tables – in
consideration for his public services: and he had the warmest
corner by the stove throughout the rest of the journey. But I
never could find out that he did anything except sit there; nor did
I hear him speak again until, in the midst of the bustle and
turmoil of getting the luggage ashore in the dark at Pittsburg, I
stumbled over him as he sat smoking a cigar on the cabin steps, and
heard him muttering to himself, with a short laugh of defiance, ‘I
an’t a Johnny Cake, – I an’t. I’m from the brown forests of the
Mississippi, I am, damme!’ I am inclined to argue from this, that
he had never left off saying so; but I could not make an affidavit
of that part of the story, if required to do so by my Queen and
Country.
As we have not reached Pittsburg yet, however, in the order of our
narrative, I may go on to remark that breakfast was perhaps the
least desirable meal of the day, as in addition to the many savoury
odours arising from the eatables already mentioned, there were
whiffs of gin, whiskey, brandy, and rum, from the little bar hard