The Puddleford Papers; Or, Humors of the West

by Henry Hiram Riley

Squire Longbow was elected captain of the Puddleford company. When he spoke so eloquently of the liberty and property of the people being so likely to be jeopardized by an officer ignorant in the law, he carried his point, for there was no man in the settlement so mighty as the Squire in that respect, in the estimation of the public.

In the fall, the Squire exhibited the first Puddleford militia company ever assembled upon parade to the gaping wonder of its men, women, and children. He formed his raw recruits into a line by the aid of a board fence, which was supposed to be nearly straight, in the outskirts of the place. The Squire was a very blood-thirsty looking captain, after he had mounted his regimentals. He had turned up a broad-brimmed felt hat, and tacked the sides by a flaming red cockade made of flannel, and had fastened an ostrich feather, which he found in the wardrobe of his second wife, Aunt Graves, in its top, which drooped heavily over his back. His coat was his best homespun, the same that was woven by the hands of his first wife, and in which he afterwards courted Aunt Graves, and it was bedizened with stripes of cloth of every color. His sword was an old-fashioned affair, which he had loaned of Ike Turtle, and was an heirloom in the Turtle family, it having been used by his grandfather in the revolutionary war. His waistcoat was red, and his boot-legs came over his pantaloons, each one supporting a heavy cotton tassel, which swung to and fro as he walked.

The company was as complete a specimen of ragamuffins as were ever congregated together. There were three guns to the crowd, and the balance of the arms were made up of the most murderous implements within reach, such as axes, pitchforks, &c.

But the Squire did not forget his dignity for a single moment. He put on a martial air, and felt himself every inch a captain. While his company stood erect in a line against the board fence, he marched backwards and forwards, looking at it over his shoulder, with the greatest military pride, while three dogs, his own property, and who had come out to witness the parade, trotted after him. When the Squire wheeled to retrace his steps, the dogs wheeled; when the Squire faced about to take a broadside view of his company, the dogs sat down on their haunches, and took a view with him. During the exercises, the Squire accidentally cut a low flourish with his sword, and upset one of his own curs, who went howling towards the fence, and lay down in the shade, perfectly satisfied with war, while the other two, taking warning, retired farther in the rear, where they thought they could see just as well. The Squire had not studied very deeply military works on tactics, and his orders were somewhat monotonous, and were mostly made up of two—"Shoul-der arms!" and "Rest!" Walking a few paces, he would suddenly wheel and cry, like the cracking of a pistol, in a most furious tone—"Shoul-der arms!" then taking a few strides, which seemed to soften his temper, he would turn softly, as if he repented his harshness, with—"Rest!" And the Puddleford company for an hour shouldered and unshouldered their arms, to the astonishment of the crowd of urchins that were looking on.

It had been announced for a week, that the field exercises would come off in the afternoon, at three o'clock. The ladies were invited to attend at that hour, to witness the display. Squire Longbow gave as a reason for this second eruption of patriotism, that the "Hos Guards down on the Susquehannas allers had field exercises in the arternoon,"—"that, if it hadn't-er been for field exercises, the Hos Guards wouldn't-er never been fit for war,"—and Aunt Sonora told Mrs. Swipes, and Mrs. Swipes told Mrs. Beagle, and they all told somebody else, that the field exercises were going to be "jist sich as the Squire used to have down on the Susquehannas." Aunt Sonora, however, sent down her boy Jabez to inquire of Squire Longbow's wife, if there was a-goin' to be any shootin' there, for if there was, "she was the last critter that would go—she could tell 'em that."

At noon the Puddleford company adjourned for one hour, when the Squire thanked them, "one and all, for their grand military performance, which was a credit alike unto themselves and their country, and he hop'd they'd be on hand in the arter-noon, 'cordin' to law."

At three o'clock the troops assembled for field exercises, in a ten-acre lot, and they appeared to be very much recruited. Some eight or ten of the patriots, however, had evidently been indulging at the "Eagle," and they did not stand quite plumb. The captain found it very difficult to form them into a line. Beagle could not possibly shoulder arms without sagging against the column. Swipes stood much straighter than he did when sober in the forenoon. He was so anxious to disguise his condition, that he had planted himself in a most defiant attitude, with one foot advanced, and had fixed his eyes upon the sky; he went through the exercises in a twitching, nervous way, as if Longbow was moving him like a puppet by a string. Turtle felt mischievously well, and the colonel stood as stoical as if he expected to lay down his life before the enemy in fifteen minutes.

The Squire's three dogs, who had been out during the forenoon, had returned to see the end of the parade. Thirty or forty women and children were also present, sitting upon stumps, and hanging upon fences in a very miscellaneous sort of confusion. Aunt Sonora and Mrs. Longbow had procured a couple of chairs, and the old lady seated herself, and took up her knitting. Mrs. Longbow did not mix very much with the crowd, because she could not forget that her husband was "captin of the day," as she said, and she and her husband she felt to be one.

The Squire formed the company into a line. "The fust thing to be did," exclaimed he, drawing his sword, and swinging it three times around his head, as a kind of three cheers, and scaring his dogs by this frightful flourish, repeated before their eyes, and who had not forgotten the accident of the morning—"the fust thing to be did, feller-sogers, is to turn a circle."

"To turn a what?" roared Turtle from the ranks.