Jonathan Slick.
[LETTER XIII.]
Jonathan Slick and the Grand Fancy Ball—Jonathan in the character of an Injun, and Cousin Beebe in the character of Jonathan—Cousin Mary as Jonathan's Squaw—Jonathan among Kings and Queens, Spaniards, Turks and Jews—Jonathan meets his pussey Cousin in the character of a Turk—Jonathan cuts his pussey Cousin.
Dear Par:
Wal, Thursday, jest afore dark, I bundled up old blue, and the pepper and salt trousers, and pulled foot for Cousin Beebe's as chirk as a grass-hopper. The nigger set me in and took me up stairs to a little room, where John was sittin in a great chair, with the tarnationest heap of feathers and things about him that ever you did see. He jumped up as soon as he saw me with the bundle under my arm, and sez he—
"Come, hurry now and get off your things, I want to paint you." With that he come along with a saucer of red stuff, and begun to stir it up mighty savage.
Wal, think sez I, that don't look over inviting—but I s'pose I may as well die for an old sheep as a lamb; so I took off my coat, and unbuckled my stock, and let him brush away. Didn't he snake on the paint though! Think sez I, I don't know how I shall feel—but if I don't look streaked, it wont be the fault of this ere leetle brush any how. Arter a while he begun to ri-bob-skew my hair up on the top of my head; I raly couldn't but jest wink, he drew it so tight; but I grinn'd and bore it as well as I could. By-am-by he made me put on a red shirt, and sich a heap of nigger gimcracks as would've made you larf only jest to look at. When he'd tied, and pinned, and stuck on all the feathers he could find, he told me to get up and look in the glass. Gauly-oppalus—what a darn'd lookin critter I was! I raly thought I should a bust, I larfed so; my hair was all girt on the top of my head, and a hull grist of red feathers stuck into it every which way, till my head looked like an allfired great beet, a running to seed—my face was painted a sort of a brick color, with two or three streaks of black and yaller, to make it look lively; I had on a sort of a leather nightgown, without any sleeves—all fringed off with beads, and feathers, and quills, that made a noise every time I moved, like the loose ice rattling off a tree arter a freezing rain; besides the legs of a pair of leather trousers, that only come up to my knees, but they were fringed and finefied off to kill, I can tell you. The shoes were smashers, though they sot to my feet as slick as a biscuit, and felt as soft as a silk weed pod. You never saw anything worked off so—purty leetle shiney beads glistened all over with them, and they were kivered all over with flowers, and spangled off with silver, till they took the shine off eenamost anything I ever did see.
I don't know what got into me, but the minit I got the Injun toggery on, I begun to feel as subtle and slimpsey as an eel, and the way I flourished about and kicked up my heels, beat Miss Celeste all to nothing. I raly thought Cousin John would a died a larfin. "Look a here," sez he, "don't kick up a pow-wow till you get to the ball. Did you ever see a rale full-blooded Injun?"