Social War.—Longbow, Turtle & Co.—Bird, Swipes, Beagle & Co.—Mrs. Bird.—Mrs. Beagle.—Mrs. Swipes—Turkey and Aristocracy.—Scandal.—Husking-bees, and "such like."—The Calathumpian Band.—The Horse-fiddle.—The Giant Trombone.—The Gyastacutas.—Tuning up.—Unparalleled Effort.—Puddleford still a representative Place.

I have taken the liberty, in the preceding chapters, to speak freely of some of the leading characters of Puddleford. I have alluded to Longbow, Turtle, and Bigelow, not because they were the only people of the village, or the best; but because they were the rudder of society, and steered it along in the same way that ships are guided over stormy waters. Now, there were a great many more very excellent folks, who helped chink in and fill up around these more important personages, and make up an harmonious whole. Zeke Bird, the blacksmith, was one; Tom Beagle, the shoemaker, another; Lem Swipes, the tailor, still another. These men were among the first settlers of Puddleford, and had done as much towards its up-building as any other. They had immigrated from a place in Ohio, and consequently knew something about the world. All three families were cousins, or second cousins, to one another, and they acted in unison upon any public or social question.

They hated, with a supreme hatred, Longbow, Turtle & Co., because they were "aristocrats." Mrs. Bird, who was a very impulsive, peak-nosed sort of a woman, and who always wore a red flannel petticoat protruding beyond her dress, and her shoes slip-shod, used to often say, "that if there was anything she did despise it was a stick-up. She didn't believe old Mrs. Longbow, or any of her darters, were any better than common folks; and she'd see the whole pack on 'em pumpin' lightning at two cents a clap, before she'd skrouch to 'em!"

Mrs. Beagle was quite a different body. She was not so full of fire and fury as Mrs. Bird. She didn't allow her feelings to get the advantage of her malice. She moved more underground; yet she was always busy pecking away at that "up-street clique," as she called them.

Mrs. Beagle was a neat, tidy body, and wore an air of great sincerity about her face. She used to say that "nothing grieved her so much as to be compelled to believe anything bad 'bout her neighbors," and that "she never spoke of nothing till it got all over, and there warn't no use of holding in any longer." She made it her business to watch the morals and religion of all the Longbows, and Turtleses, and Bateses, and report accordingly. She said "she didn't know but it was all right for a member of the Methodist church, like Miss Lavinia Turtle, to wear three bows to her bonnet on Sunday—she didn't know—she warn't going to say—'haps she hadn't orter say—but the way she looked at religion, 'twas as wicked as Cain—for herself, she made no pretensions, but when folks did, she wanted to see 'em lived up to." She said, "she meant to have Mrs. Bates turned out of the church for riding out on Sunday, for she'd seen her several times with her own eyes, six miles from town; but she wouldn't speak of it, if it warn't such a scandal on her profession;" besides, she had it from good authority, that "she water'd her milk 'fore she sold it, but she wouldn't say who told her, 'cause she promised not to."

Mrs. Swipes was a fat, blouzy-faced, coarse, ignorant woman, and revenged herself by firing bombshells into the aristocratic camp every opportunity she could get, and cared but little what she said, or whom she hit, if she could only keep the enemy stirred up. "She'd heard that Mrs. Longbow's father got into jail once down in Pennsylvania, and that the hull batch on 'em were as poor as Job's turkey; and that the old Squire himself had a pretty tight nip on't; but his friends bailed him out, and he lean'd for the west. As for Mrs. Bates, she knew she'd lie, right flat out—she'd catch'd her dozens of times; and, of course, Lavinia couldn't be any better—for as the old cock crows, the young one learns. She wouldn't swap characters with any on 'em, not she."

The husbands of these ladies thought just about as much of Longbow & Co. as their wives did. They were an indolent trio, and labored only enough to keep soul and body together. The rest of their time was devoted to the "Eagle tavern," street-lounging, and commentaries upon the daily developments of the aristocracy. Each one of the families of these cliques were social centres, around which others revolved, and drew all their light and heat. And then there were still other families, away down below the Birds and Beagles in the scale of respectability, who were ever warring upon them, proving

"That fleas have other fleas to bite 'em,
And so on, ad infinitum."

I recollect attending a party, one evening during the winter, at Bird's, when the aristocracy took a regular broadside fire. It seemed that Longbow, some days previous, had a turkey on his table for dinner, which roused up all the wrath of his adversaries. Mrs. Bird said, "she really s'posed that he thought poor people couldn't have such things; but she'd let him know she'd lived on' turkeys before he ever know'd there was such a thing—and she had good sass with 'em too. Mrs. Longbow," she said, "cooked it for nothing in the world but to make her knuckle to her; but she'd never give in as long as she drew the breath of life—that she wouldn't!"

Mrs. Sonora Brown said, "that warn't all—Longbow had bo't a bran new carpet for down-stairs, and used sales-molasses for common, eenamost every day—and the clark in Clewes' grocery had got a goin' arter Lavinny every night—and Mrs. Longbow had got mift at Mrs. Weazel, because Weazel said he wouldn't stand any more of Longbow's decisions—and they'd got a burning sperm ile in the house instead-er taller—and they were a puttin' on the drefulest sight of airs, old woman and all, that ever was seen."