The Little Brown Jug at Kildare

by Meredith Nicholson

Griswold lighted a cigar and opened the afternoon Atlanta papers in the smoking compartment. His eye was caught at once by imperative head-lines. It is not too much to say that the eye of the continent was arrested that evening by the amazing disclosure, now tardily reaching the public, that something unusual had occurred at the annual meeting of the Cotton Planters' Association at New Orleans on the previous day. Every copy-reader and editor, every paragrapher on every newspaper in the land had smiled and reached for a fresh pencil as a preliminary bulletin announced the passing of harsh words between the Governor of North Carolina and the Governor of South Carolina. It may as well be acknowledged here that just what really happened at the Cotton Planters' convention will never be known, for this particular meeting was held behind closed doors, and as the two governors were honored guests of the association, no member has ever breathed a word touching an incident that all most sincerely deplored. Indeed, no hint of it would ever have reached the public had it not been that both gentlemen hurriedly left the convention hall, refused to keep their appointments to speak at the banquet that followed the business meetings, and were reported to have taken the first trains for their respective capitals. It was whispered by a few persons that the Governor of South Carolina had taken a fling at the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; it was rumored in other quarters that the Governor of North Carolina was the aggressor, he having—it was said—declared that a people (meaning the freemen of the commonwealth of South Carolina) who were not intelligent enough to raise their own hay, and who, moreover, bought that article in Ohio, were not worth the ground necessary for their decent interment. It is not the purpose of this chronicle either to seek the truth of what passed between the two governors at New Orleans, or to discuss the points of history and agriculture raised in the statements just indicated. As every one knows, the twentieth of May (or was it the thirty-first!), 1775, is solemnly observed in North Carolina as the day on which the patriots of Mecklenburg County severed the relations theretofore existing between them and his Majesty, King George the Third. Equally well known is the fact that in South Carolina it is an article of religious faith that on that twentieth day of May, 1775, the citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, cheered the English flag and adopted resolutions reaffirming their ancient allegiance to the British crown. This controversy and the inadequacy of the South Carolina hay crop must be passed on to the pamphleteers, with such other vexed questions as Andrew Jackson's birthplace—more debated than Homer's and not to be carelessly conceded to the strutting sons of Waxhaw.

Griswold read of the New Orleans incident with a smile, while several fellow-passengers discussed it in a tone of banter. One of them, a gentleman from Mississippi, presently produced a flask, which he offered to the others, remarking, "As the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina," which was, to be sure, pertinent to the hour and the discussion, and bristling with fresh significance.

"They were both in Atlanta this morning," said the man with the flask, "and they would have been traveling together on this train if they hadn't met in the ticket office and nearly exploded with rage."

The speaker was suddenly overcome with his own humor, and slapped his knee and laughed; then they all laughed, including Griswold.

"One ought to have taken the lower berth and one the upper to make it perfect," observed an Alabama man. "I wonder when they'll get home."

"They'll probably both walk to be sure they don't take the same train," suggested a commercial traveler from Cincinnati, who had just come from New Orleans. "Their friends are doing their best to keep them apart. They both have a reputation for being quick on the trigger."

"Bosh!" exclaimed Griswold. "I dare say it's all a newspaper story. There's no knife-and-pistol nonsense in the South any more. They'll both go home and attend to their business, and that will be the last of it. The people of North Carolina ought to be proud of Dangerfield; he's one of the best governors they ever had. And Osborne is a first-class man, too, one of the old Palmetto families."

"I guess they're both all right," drawled the Mississippian, settling his big black hat more firmly on his head. "Dangerfield spoke in our town at the state fair last year, and he's one of the best talkers I ever heard."

Therefore, as no one appeared to speak for the governor of South Carolina, the drummer volunteered to vouch for his oratorical gifts, on the strength of an address lately delivered by Governor Osborne in a lecture course at Cincinnati. Being pressed by the Mississippian, he admitted that he had not himself attended the lecture, but he had heard it warmly praised by competent critics.

The Mississippian had resented Griswold's rejection of the possibility of personal violence between the governors, and wished to return to the subject.