Venison was here attracted by the roar of a gun, and a deer rushed past, breaking his discourse, and we both followed the hunter and the hunted, to see how the chase would end--saw the deer plunge into the river, the dogs after him, and I watched them until they floated away around the bend beyond my sight.
Some Account of John Smith.--Nicknames.--Progress of the Age.--The Colonel's Opinion of Science.--John Smith's Dream.--Ike Turtle's Dream.--Ike takes the Boots.
Pioneers--men who grow up in the woods--are famous for luxuriant imaginations. Everything, with them, is on a sweeping scale with the natural objects amid which they dwell. The rivers, and lakes, and plains are great, and seem to run riot--so men sometimes run riot too, in thought, and word, and deed. They deal largely in the extravagant, and do extravagant things in an extravagant way.
I have seen a rusty pioneer, when giving his opinion upon some trite matter, garnish his language with imagery and figures, and clothe himself with an action, that Demosthenes would have copied, if he had met with such in his day. Gestures all graceful, eye all fire, language rough, but strong, and an enthusiasm that was magnetic--a kind of unpremeditated natural eloquence, that many a one has sought for, but never found.
John Smith was an ingenious Puddlefordian in the way of story-telling. He was almost equal to Ike Turtle. John was a great, stalwart, double-breasted fellow, who cared for nothing, not even himself; a compound made up of dare-devil ferocity, benevolence, and impudence. His feelings, whether of the higher or lower order, always ran to excess. He was an importation from Massachusetts, of fair education, and, from his recklessness of life, had drifted into Puddleford, like many other tempest-tossed vessels, stripped of spars and rigging. Smith's fancy and imagination were always at work. He had nicknamed two thirds of Puddleford, and there was something characteristic in the appellations bestowed. One small-eyed man, he called "Pink-Eye;" another, a bustling fellow, who made a very great noise on a very small capital, was known as "Bumble-bee;" another, a long-shanked, loose-jointed character, was "Giraffe;" Squire Longbow he christened "Old Night-Shade." Turtle was known as "Sky-Rocket;" Bates as "Little Coke;" the Colonel as "Puff-Ball." Indeed, not one man in twenty was recognized by his true name, so completely had Smith invested the people with titles of his own manufacture.