Now Dandy Jim has an objection to paper, why I never could discover; but paper, white or brown, newspaper or blank paper, leaves or letters, is to him a thing of horror—his very soul revolts at it. It certainly never could have done him any injury—it is, except as a vehicle of slander, so perfectly harmless—but he seemed to hold it in abject terror. This idiosyncracy was well known to me, but, unfortunately, my mind was so occupied with the effect I was producing that I did not notice the exciting cause. To aggravate the difficulty, just as we approached the objectionable article, and when my peculiar animal might have consented to pass by with a reasonable amount of self-restraint, a sudden gust blew it directly under his feet. If paper was his detestation, moving paper was a monstrosity magnified fifty fold; he reared up on his hind legs, made one bound sideways full thirty feet, and then, stopping suddenly, slipped on the pavement, and fell flat on his side.
Exactly what happened to me I never could determine. I seemed to be flying; next I beheld a splendid coruscation of fire-works; and then I awoke to find myself stretched at full length in the street, with a bloody nose and a scarcity of front teeth. Dandy Jim regained his feet more quickly than myself, ran away, smashed the wagon, as was his wont, and wound up by getting shut in by stages and carts, when he was ignominiously led away captive by a stalwart policeman. I gathered myself up as well as I could, and went home in a dilapidated state. This led to my selling Dandy Jim and buying a set of false front teeth; the former brought precisely what it cost to pay for the latter.
Thus it was that I overcame a prejudice that had long beset me against the artificial productions of manufacturing dentistry. This objection exists in the minds of many persons, although nothing can be more unfounded. If there is any thing that is an utterly miserable failure, it is the natural set of teeth. From almost the hour when we come into the world, until the time when we quit it, or so long as a stump or root remains, our teeth are a source of annoyance to us. They have to be cut, and then pulled out, that they may “cut and come again.” As babies, we are “never ourselves” for the cutting of our teeth; when we grow older we wish we were any body else, from the misery they cause us. They ache, and decay, and break; they come out when they should stay in, and stay in when they should come out; they torture and torment us till we only get rid of them with life itself.
On the other hand, the artificial teeth never pain the possessor, rarely break, and, if broken, are easily replaced; are readily cleaned, do not fall out, but can be removed at pleasure. They are infinitely handsomer than their ugly, irregular, uneven, discolored, and dirty prototypes. These exquisite productions of art are made of a delicate, pearly shade of white; they form a perfect row of well-proportioned beauty, undistinguishable from the genuine article, their very gums matching and closely fitting the natural flesh beneath them; they never inflict a torturing tooth-ache, driving man crazy with pain, and keeping him sleepless the long, dreary nights; they require no filling—an operation that the unfortunate possessor of living teeth dreads only less than the rack itself; and they do not have to be pulled out, with an agony comparable to the effect of drawing the entire brain out through the hole at the roots.
From my experience before and since my accident, I should certainly advise my fellow-creatures to have as little to do with real teeth as possible, and to substitute the imitation as soon as they can. There may be a certain amount of suffering in having teeth, and especially sound ones, extracted, but the satisfaction of being finally rid of the troublesome things more than pays for the temporary annoyance. A natural set will become dirty in spite of endless scrubbing with the tooth-brush; some are invariably longer than others; there are projections and depressions; wherever they lap, tartar settles; inside it is impossible to get at them at all, and they compel a half-yearly interview with the dentist, from which one comes away greatly unnerved. Their substitutes are a great improvement to one’s personal appearance, and never cause the slightest inconvenience, besides saving hours in cleaning, that, in a long life, amount to an aggregate of years. The new teeth were so far superior to those that they replaced, that they are valued on the credit side of the account at a hundred dollars, showing a clear profit of one hundred per cent. In fact, I regard this discovery as one of the most valuable, if not the very most valuable, of the results of my country experience.
The premises are set down at an increase of one thousand dollars, and, if my readers had seen the difference between a bare tract of land and a garden blooming with beauty, odorous with fragrance, and smiling with abundance, they would have felt that the improvement was stated at too low a rate. The strawberries are also put at a large advance upon the prime cost; but a thriving bed of this excellent fruit, bidding fair to supply the wants of the entire household, to gratify friends, and to supply the place of costlier desserts, was well worth a round sum of money. It certainly cost me much care and anxiety; it had failed once, and threatened at first to give out the second time, but finally had proved an absolute success, and was already becoming the parent of other plantations.
Among the items of yearly expense will be found included a charge for entrance-fee to the skating-pond. This may at first seem to be more of a luxury than an actual necessity, but, as it was clear that I should not have incurred it if I had not been in Flushing, I put it down. My yearly receipts do not represent so much income actually received, for, as has been stated previously, there did not appear to be a market for garden produce in Flushing, but are given as the amount I should have had to pay if I had bought the various articles at retail prices. This is clearly proper; for, if we had wanted them to eat, had purchased them at the stalls, and had paid the current charges, there would have been just so much additional outlay; that we did not eat them is no answer, for we could have done so had we wished.
This exhibit was certainly entirely satisfactory; the account had steadily improved, and bade fair soon to show a large income. I have even gone so far as to leave out of question rent saved, dissipation at Saratoga avoided, health improved, digestion invigorated, pure air enjoyed, and a thousand other matters for which we pay so dearly; I merely take the hard, dry figures—the positive profit and loss in dollars and cents—and they give a clear net profit of nearly eight hundred dollars. Nothing could be asked more promising than this; if it went on improving at this rate, there was no telling where it would stop. Farming had evidently proved itself a source of vast wealth. We were nowhere near the limit of the productiveness of my five acres, and, with additional attention, we might reasonably anticipate increased returns. The result was so encouraging, the life at Flushing so charming, the access to the city so easy, that I resolved to move there permanently. There was much to be done besides sleigh-riding and skating, even in the winter months; roots had to be stored from frost, bulbs required attention, potatoes and turnips demanded care, chicken-coops had to be built, forcing-frames dug, and a green-house erected. Taking all these things into consideration, I resolved to abandon the city, and, in spite of frozen ground, deep snows, piercing winds, and muddy roads, to devote myself to agricultural pursuits.
