Rather more than a hundred miles from New York the railway crosses the Connecticut River, on one of those bridges that at a little distance resemble spiders' webs hung between the shores. From here one may look down quite to the river's mouth, where it enters the Sound; and if it be a warm summer's day, the bluish-gray streak of land across it may be seen. The Connecticut is the only river of importance emptying upon the New England coast that has not an island lodged in its throat.
It was on one of those parched days of midsummer, when the very air is quivering, and every green thing droops and shrivels under a vertical sun, that I first alighted at the station at Saybrook. The listless, fagged, and jaded air of city swells lounging about the platform, the flushed faces of blooming girls and watchful dowagers, betokened the general prostration of weary humanity, who yearned for the musical plash of sea-waves as the withering leaves and dusty grass longed for rain.
How feminine New England exaggerates, to be sure! A group of three young ladies exchange their views upon the sultriness of the day: one observes, "What a dreadful hot day!" a second declares it "horrid" (torrid, perhaps she meant to say); and the last pronounces it "perfectly frightful," emphasizing the opinion by opening her umbrella with a sharp snap. What they would have said to an earthquake, a conflagration, or a shipwreck, is left to bewildering conjecture.
In a certain unquiet portion of the American Union, the term Connecticut Yankee is expressive of concentrated dislike for shrewd bargaining, a nasal twang of speech, and a supposed desire to overreach one's neighbor. How often have I heard in the South the expression, "A mean Yankee;" as if, forsooth, meanness were sectional! Here in New England a Connecticut Yankee is spoken of as a cunning blade or sharp fellow; as an Englishman would say, "He's Yorkshire;" or an Italian, "È Spoletino."
The day of wooden nutmegs is past and gone, and Connecticut is more familiarly known as the "Land of Steady Habits." The whole State is a hive. Every smoky town you see is a busy work-shop. The problem of the Connecticut man is how to do the most work in the shortest time, whether by means of a sewing-machine, a Colt, or a mitrailleuse. If I should object to any thing in him, it would be the hurry and worry, the drive, which impels him through life—and in this I do not imagine he differs from the average American man of business—until, like one of his own engines that is always worked under a full pressure of steam, he stops running at last. That is why we see so many old men of thirty, and so many premature gray hairs in New England.
But what I chiefly lament is the disappearance of the Yankee—not the conventional Yankee of the theatre, for he had never an existence elsewhere; but the hearty yet suspicions, "cute" though green, drawling, whittling, unadulterated Yankee, with his broad humor, delicious patois, and large-hearted patriotism. His very mother-tongue is forgotten. Not once during these rambles have I heard his old familiar "I swaow," or "Git aout," or "Dew tell."[336] Railway and telegraph, factory and work-shop, penetrating into the most secluded hamlets, have rubbed off all the crust of an originality so pronounced as to have become the type, and often the caricature too, of American nationality the world over.
One peculiarity I have noticed is that of calling spinsters, of whatever age, "girls." I knew two elderly maiden ladies, each verging on three-score, who were universally spoken of as the "Young girls," their names, I should perhaps explain, being Young. Once, when in quest of lodgings in a strange place, I was directed to apply to the two Brown girls, whose united ages, as I should judge, could not be less than a century and a quarter. But one is not to judge of New England girls by this sample.
Another practice which prevails in some villages is that of designating father and son, where both have a common Christian-name, as "Big Tom" and "Little Tom;" and brother and sister as "Bub" and "Sis." One can hardly maintain a serious countenance to hear a stalwart fellow of six feet alluded to as "Little" Tom, or Joe, or Bill, or a full-grown man or woman as "Bub" or "Sis." On the coast, nicknames are current principally among the sea-faring element; "Guinea Bill" or "Portugee Jack," presupposes the owner to have made a voyage to either of those distant lands.
The Italians count the whole twenty-four hours, beginning at half an hour after sunset. By this method of computation I reckoned on arriving at Saybrook Point at exactly twenty-two o'clock. I walked through the village leisurely observant of its outward aspect, which was that of undisturbed tranquillity. Modern life had been so long in reaching it, that it had been willing to accommodate itself to the old houses, and so far to the old life of the place. The toilets here, as elsewhere, encroached in many instances upon those of the last century, and were wonderfully like the portraits one sees of the time. Now, let us have the old manners back again.