Meantime the day was not wholly given over to playing and fighting and drinking. More and more it was becoming the great public day of the month, and mirroring the life and spirit of the times—on occasion a day of fearful, momentous gravity, as in [101] the midst of war, financial distress, high party feeling; more and more the people gathered together for discussion and the origination of measures determining the events of their history. Gradually new features incrusted it. The politician, observing the crowd, availed himself of it to announce his own candidacy or to wage a friendly campaign, sure, whether popular or unpopular, of a courteous hearing; for this is a virtue of the Kentuckian, to be polite to a public speaker, however little liked his [102] cause. In the spring, there being no fairs, it was the occasion for exhibiting the fine stock of the country, which was led out to some suburban pasture, where the owners made speeches over it. In the winter, at the close of the old or the beginning of the new year, negro slaves were regularly hired out on this day for the ensuing twelvemonth, and sometimes put upon the block before the Courthouse door and sold for life.
THE "TICKLER."
But it was not until near the half of the second quarter of the century that an auctioneer originated stock sales on the open square, and thus gave to the day the characteristic it has since retained of being the great market-day of the month. Thenceforth its influence was to be more widely felt, to be extended into other counties and even States; thenceforth it was to become more distinctively a local institution without counterpart.
To describe minutely the scenes of a county court day in Kentucky, say at the end of the half-century, would be to write a curious page in the history of the times; for they were possible only through the unique social conditions they portrayed. It was near the most prosperous period of State life under the old regime. The institution of slavery was about to culminate and decline. Agriculture had about as nearly perfected itself as it was ever destined to do under the system of bondage. The war cloud in the sky of the future could be covered [103] with the hand, or at most with the country gentleman's broad-brimmed straw-hat. The whole atmosphere of the times was heavy with ease, and the people, living in perpetual contemplation of their superabundant natural wealth, bore the quality of the land in their manners and dispositions.
When the well-to-do Kentucky farmer got up in the morning, walked out into the porch, stretched himself, and looked at the sun, he knew that he could summon a sleek kindly negro to execute every wish and whim—one to search for his misplaced hat, a second to bring him a dipper of ice-water, a third to black his shoes, a fourth to saddle his horse and hitch it at the stiles, a fifth to cook his breakfast, a sixth to wait on him at the table, a seventh to stand on one side and keep off the flies. Breakfast over, he mounted his horse and rode out where "the hands" were at work. The chance was his overseer or negro foreman was there before him: his presence was unnecessary. What a gentleman he was! This was called earning one's bread by the sweat of his brow. Whose brow? He yawned. What should he do? One thing he knew he would do—take a good nap before dinner. Perhaps he had better ride over to the blacksmith-shop. However, there was nobody there. It was county court day. The sky was blue, the sun golden, the air delightful, the road broad and smooth, the gait of his horse the very poetry of motion. He would go to [104] county court himself. There was really nothing else before him. His wife would want to go, too, and the children.
So away they go, he on horseback or in the family carriage, with black Pompey driving in front and yellow Cæsar riding behind. The turnpike reached, the progress of the family carriage is interrupted or quite stopped, for there are many other carriages on the road, all going in the same direction. Then pa, growing impatient, orders black Pompey to drive out on one side, whip up the horses, pass the others, and get ahead, so as to escape from the clouds of white limestone dust, which settles thick on the velvet collar of pa's blue cloth coat and in the delicate pink marabou feathers of ma's bonnet: which Pompey can't do, for the faster he goes, the faster the others go, making all the more dust; so that pa gets red in the face, and jumps up in the seat, and looks ready to fight, and thrusts his head out of the window and knocks off his hat; and ma looks nervous, and black Pompey and yellow Cæsar both look white with dust and fear.
A rural cavalcade indeed! Besides the carriages, buggies, horsemen, and pedestrians, there are long droves of stock being hurried on towards the town—hundreds of them. By the time they come together in the town they will be many thousands. For is not this the great stock-market of the West, and does not the whole South look from its rich [105] plantations and cities up to Kentucky for bacon and mules? By-and-by our family carriage does at last get to town, and is left out in the streets along with many others to block up the passway according to the custom.
THE QUACK-DOCTOR.