“Orders, sir, orders; that’s what I’ll get then, and I’ll take my little old Sarah Jane and light out for New York, and you’ll see Smith on a studio doorplate, and folks’ll say, ‘Fine feeling for nature, has Smith!’”
I let this singular man speak for himself in his own vernacular, pruning nothing of its idiom or slang, as you shall choose to call it. In this faithful transcript there are words I could have wished to expunge, but they are his, not mine, and illustrate his mental construction.
The breath of most Californians is as unconsciously charged with slang as an Italian’s of garlic, and the two, after all, have much the same function; you touch the bowl or your language, but should never let either be fairly recognized in salad or conversation. But Smith’s English was the well undefiled when compared with what I every moment heard from the current of teamsters which set constantly by us in the direction of Copples’s.
Close in front came a huge wagon piled high with cases of freight, and drawn along by a team of twelve mules, whose heavy breathing and drenched skins showed them hard-worked and well tired out. The driver looked anxiously ahead at a soft spot in the road, and on at the station, as if calculating whether his team had courage left to haul through.
He called kindly to them, cracked his black-snake whip, and all together they strained bravely on.
The great van rocked, settled a little on the near side, and stuck fast.
With a look of despair the driver got off and laid the lash freely among his team; they jumped and jerked, frantically tangled themselves up, and at last all sulked and became stubbornly immovable. Meanwhile, a mile of teams behind, unable to pass on the narrow grade, came to an unwilling halt.
About five wagons back I noticed a tall Pike, dressed in checked shirt, and pantaloons tucked into jack-boots. A soft felt hat, worn on the back of his head, displayed long locks of flaxen hair, which hung freely about a florid pink countenance, noticeable for its pair of violent little blue eyes, and facial angle rendered acute by a sharp, long nose.
This fellow watched the stoppage with impatience, and at last, when it was more than he could bear, walked up by the other teams with a look of wrath absolutely devilish. One would have expected him to blow up with rage; yet withal his gait and manner were cool and soft in the extreme. In a bland, almost tender voice, he said to the unfortunate driver, “My friend, perhaps I can help you;” and his gentle way of disentangling and patting the leaders as he headed them round in the right direction would have given him a high office under Mr. Bergh. He leisurely examined the embedded wheel, and cast an eye along the road ahead. He then began in rather excited manner to swear, pouring it out louder and more profane, till he utterly eclipsed the most horrid blasphemies I ever heard, piling them up thicker and more fiendish till it seemed as if the very earth must open and engulf him.
I noticed one mule after another give a little squat, bringing their breasts hard against the collars, and straining traces, till only one old mule, with ears back and dangling chain, still held out. The Pike walked up and yelled one gigantic oath; her ears sprang forward, she squatted in terror, and the iron links grated under her strain. He then stepped back and took the rein, every trembling mule looking out of the corner of its eye and listening at qui vive.