Well, I don’t like hard words; when you crack them, which is plaguy tough work, you have to pick the kernel out with a cambric needle, and unless it’s soaked in wine, like the heart of a hickory nut is, it don’t taste nice, and don’t pay you for the trouble. So to change the subject, “Doctor,” sais I, “how long is this everlasting mullatto lookin’ fog a goin’ to last, for it ain’t white, and it ain’t black, but kind of betwixt and between.”
Sais he, and he stopped and listened a moment, “It will be gone by twelve o’clock to-night.”
“What makes you think so?” said I.
“Do you hear that?” said he.
“Yes,” sais I, “I do; it’s children a playin’ and a chatterin’ in French. Now it’s nateral they should talk French, seein’ their parents do. They call it their mother-tongue, for old wives are like old hosses, they are all tongue, and when their teeth is gone, that unruly member grows thicker and bigger, for it has a larger bed to stretch out in,—not that it ever sleeps much, but it has a larger sphere of action,—do you take? I don’t know whether you have had this feeling of surprise, Doctor, but I have, hearing those little imps talk French, when, to save my soul, I can’t jabber it that way myself. In course of nature they must talk that lingo, for they are quilted in French—kissed in French—fed in French—and put to bed in French,—and told to pray to the Virgin in French, for that’s the language she loves best. She knows a great many languages, but she can’t speak English since Henry the Eighth’s time, when she said to him, ‘You be fiddled,’ which meant, the Scotch should come with their fiddles and rule England.
“Still somehow I feel strange when these little critters address me in it, or when women use it to me (tho’ I don’t mind that so much, for there are certain freemason signs the fair sex understand all over the world), but the men puzzle me like Old Scratch, and I often say to myself, What a pity it is the critters can’t speak English. I never pity myself for not being able to jabber French, but I blush for their ignorance. However, all this is neither here nor there. Now, Doctor, how can you tell this fog is booked for the twelve o’clock train? Is there a Bradshaw for weather?”
“Yes,” said he, “there is, do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear nothing,” sais I, “but two Frenchmen ashore a jawing like mad. One darsen’t, and t’other is afraid to fight, so they are taking it out in gab—they ain’t worth listening to. How do they tell you the weather?”
“Oh,” said he, “it ain’t them. Do you hear the falls at my lake? the west wind brings that to us. When I am there and the rote is on the beach, it tells me it is the voice of the south wind giving notice of rain. All nature warns me. The swallow, the pig, the goose, the fire on the hearth, the soot in the flue, the smoke of the chimney, the rising and setting sun, the white frost, the stars—all, all tell me.”
“Yes,” sais I, “when I am to home I know all them signs.”