Clotel, William Wells Brown [i like reading books .txt] 📗

“I heard you,” continued the minister, “and now you hear me out. It is indeed wonderful how people become lovers of strong drink. Some years since, before I became a teetotaller I kept spirits about the house, and I had a servant who was much addicted to strong drink. He used to say that he could not make my boots shine without mixing the blacking with whiskey. So to satisfy myself that the whiskey was put in the blacking, one morning I made him bring the dish in which he kept the blacking, and poured in the whiskey myself. And now, sir, what do you think?”

“Why, I s’pose your boots shined better than before,” replied the white hat.

“No,” continued the minister. “He took the blacking out, and I watched him, and he drank down the whiskey, blacking, and all.”

This turned the joke upon the advocate of strong drink, and he began to put his wits to work for arguments. “You are from Connecticut, are you?” asked the Southerner.

“Yes, and we are an orderly, pious, peaceable people. Our holy religion is respected, and we do more for the cause of Christ than the whole Southern States put together.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said the white hat gent. “You sell wooden nutmegs and other spurious articles enough to do some good. You talk of your ‘holy religion’; but your robes’ righteousness are woven at Lowell and Manchester; your paradise is high per centum on factory stocks; your palms of victory and crowns of rejoicing are triumphs over a rival party in politics on the questions of banks and tariffs. If you could, you would turn heaven into Birmingham, make every angel a weaver, and with the eternal din of looms and spindles drown all the anthems of the morning stars. Ah! I know you Connecticut people like a book. No, no, all hoss; you can’t come it on me.” This last speech of the rough featured man again put him in the ascendant, and the spectacled gent once more ran his fingers between his cravat and throat.

“You live in Tennessee, I think,” said the minister.

“Yes,” replied the Southerner, “I used to live in Orleans, but now I claim to be a Tennessean.”

“Your people of New Orleans are the most ungodly set in the United States,” said the minister. Taking a New Orleans newspaper from his pocket he continued, “Just look here, there are not less than three advertisements of bull fights to take place on the Sabbath. You people of the Slave States have no regard for the Sabbath, religion, morality or anything else intended to make mankind better.” Here Clotel could have borne ample testimony, had she dared to have taken sides with the Connecticut man. Her residence in Vicksburgh had given her an opportunity of knowing something of the character of the inhabitants of the far South. “Here is an account of a grand bull fight that took place in New Orleans a week ago last Sunday. I will read it to you.” And the minister read aloud the following:

Yesterday, pursuant to public notice, came off at Gretna, opposite the Fourth District, the long-heralded fight between the famous grizzly bear, General Jackson (victor in fifty battles), and the Attakapas bull, Santa Anna.

The fame of the coming conflict had gone forth to the four winds, and women and children, old men and boys, from all parts of the city, and from the breezy banks of Lake Pontchartrain and Borgne, brushed up their Sunday suit, and prepared to see the fun. Long before the published hour, the quiet streets of the rural Gretna were filled with crowds of anxious denizens flocking to the arena, and before the fight commenced, such a crowd had collected as Gretna had not seen, nor will be likely to see again.

The arena for the sports was a cage, twenty feet square, built upon the ground, and constructed of heavy timbers and iron bars. Around it were seats, circularly placed, and intended to accommodate many thousands. About four or five-thousand persons assembled, covering the seats as with a cloud, and crowding down around the cage, were within reach of the bars.

The bull selected to sustain the honour and verify the pluck of Attakapas on this trying occasion was a black animal from the Opelousas, lithe and sinewy as a four year old courser, and with eyes like burning coals. His horns bore the appearance of having been filed at the tips, and wanted that keen and slashing appearance so common with others of his kith and kin; otherwise it would have been “all day” with Bruin⁠—at the first pass, and no mistake.

The bear was an animal of note, and called General Jackson, from the fact of his licking up everything that came in his way, and taking “the responsibility” on all occasions. He was a wicked looking beast, very lean and unamiable in aspect, with hair all standing the wrong way. He had fought some fifty bulls (so they said), always coming out victorious, but that either one of the fifty had been an Attakapas bull, the bills of the performances did not say. Had he tackled Attakapas first it is likely his fifty battles would have remained unfought.

About half past four o’clock the performances commenced.

The bull was first seen, standing in the cage alone, with head erect, and looking a very monarch in his capacity. At an appointed signal, a cage containing the bear was placed alongside the arena, and an opening being made, bruin stalked into the battle ground⁠—not, however, without sundry stirrings up with a ten foot pole, he being experienced in such matters, and backwards in raising a row.

Once on the battlefield, both animals stood, like wary champions, eyeing each other, the bear cowering low, with head upturned and fangs exposed, while Attakapas stood wondering, with his eye dilated, lashing his sides with his long and bushy tail, and pawing up the earth in very wrath.

The bear seemed little