P.T. Barnum - The Life of P.T. Barnum

“What in the name of decency has happened,” he exclaimed, “that you should all appear here half shaved?”

“Nothing at all, Mr. Backus,” said my grandfather, with apparent seriousness. “These gentlemen choose to wear their beards according to the prevailing fashion in the place they came from, and I think it is very hard that they should be stared at and insulted by you Yorkers because your fashion happens to differ a trifle from theirs.”

Backus half believed my grandfather in earnest, and the by-standers were quite convinced such was the fact, for not a smile appeared upon one of the half-shaved countenances.

After sitting a few minutes the passengers were shown to their rooms, and at tea-time every man appeared at the table precisely as they came from the sloop. The ladies looked astonished, the waiters winked and laughed, but the subjects of this merriment were as grave as judges. In the evening they maintained the same gravity in the bar-room, and at ten o’clock they retired to bed with all due solemnity. In the morning however, bright and early, they were in the barber’s shop undergoing an operation that soon placed them upon a footing with the rest of mankind.

It is hardly necessary to explain that the clergyman did not appear in that singular procession of Sunday afternoon. He tied a handkerchief over his face, and taking his valise in his hand, started for Market street, where it is presumed he found a good brother and a good razor in season to fill his appointment.

In the month of August, 1825, my maternal grandmother met with an accident which, although considered trivial at the time, resulted in her death. While walking in the garden she stepped upon the point of a rusty nail, which ran perhaps half an inch into her foot. It was immediately extracted, but the foot became swollen, and in a few days the most alarming symptoms were manifest. She was soon sensible that she was upon her death-bed, but she was a good Christian, and her approaching end had no terrors for her. The day before her departure, and while in the full possession of her faculties, she sent for all her grandchildren to take their final leave of her. I never can forget the sensations which I experienced when my turn came to approach her bed-side, and when, taking my hand in hers, she spoke to me of her approaching dissolution, of the joys of religion, the consoling reflections that a death-bed afforded those who could feel that they had tried to live good lives and be of benefit to their fellow-men. She besought me to think seriously of religion, to read my Bible often, to pray to our Father in heaven, to be regular in my attendance at church; to use no profane nor idle language, and especially to remember that I could in no way so effectually prove my love to God, as in loving all my fellow-beings. I was affected to tears, and promised to remember her counsel. When I received from her a farewell kiss, knowing that I should never behold her again alive, I was completely overcome, and however much I may have since departed from her injunctions, the impressions received at that death-bed scene have ever been vivid among my recollections, and I trust they have proved in some degree salutary. A more sincere Christian or a more exemplary woman than my grandmother I have never seen.

But my serious moods did not long remain undisturbed. One of the customers at our store was an Irishman named Peter O’Brien, a small farmer in one of the districts several miles north of Bethel. An Irishman in those days was a rarity in the interior of Connecticut, and the droll mother-wit, as well as the singular Irish bulls of Peter, gave him considerable celebrity in those parts.

On one occasion Peter visited the store to make some purchases, and one of our village wags perceiving a small dog in his wagon, and wishing to joke the Hibernian, asked O’Brien if the dog was for sale.

“As for the matter of that, I’ll be afther selling almost any thing for money,” responded the Irishman.

“Is he a good watch-dog?”

“Faith, and he’ll defind with his last dhrop of blood any property that you’ll show him.”

“Is he good to drive cattle from a field?”

“He’ll never give over chasing any thing he sees till it’s fairly into the street, after you once acquaint him with your wishes.”

“Will you warrant all that you say is true?”

“Sure I will, and I’ll give back the money if it’s a lie I’m telling you,” earnestly replied Peter O’Brien.

“What will you take for the dog?”

“Only the trifling matter of two dollars.”

“Well,” replied our villager, “he don’t look as if he was worth two cents, but as I want a watch-dog with all the good qualities which you recommend, I’ll take him.”

“I’m sure it’s making fun of me you are,” said Peter; “and I don’t know what Mrs. O’Brien could do without her favorite dog.”

“I confess I was joking at first, Peter, but I am now in earnest, and there is your money,” said his customer, handing him the two dollars.

“A bargain is a bargain,” replied Peter, as he stowed away his money in a bit of old bladder which he used as a purse, “but sure and there’ll be the deuce to pay with Mrs. O’Brien.”

“Oh, you must buy her a little snuff to pacify her,” replied the wag.

“Faith, and this will hold something that will do it better than snuff,” replied Peter, as he took a wooden gallon bottle from his wagon and walked into the store.

“Now, me boy,” said O’Brien, approaching me, “be after giving me half a gallon of New England rum, and half a gallon of molasses.”

“Where is your other bottle?” I inquired.

“That will hold a gallon,” replied Peter, with a gravity which evidently was not assumed.

“But you don’t want to mix the rum and molasses together, I suppose?” I replied.

“Sure, and what a jackass I am, for I never thought of that,” exclaimed Peter, in a tone of surprise, “and divil another bottle did I bring at all at all!”

Peter was as witty a fellow as ever left the Emerald Isle, and yet at times he was as stupid as a horse-block, the foregoing instance being a veritable illustration of the fact.

When Peter next came to our village, he was accosted very roughly by his dog-customer, when the following conversation ensued:

“You lying Irishman! I want you to take that miserable puppy and give me back my two dollars.”

“Fun is fun,” replied Peter, “and you are always funning me, but I don’t like ye to charge me with lying, for that’s a thing I leave for my betters. I never tells lies, sir.”

“You do; you lied and deceived me about that worthless dog.”

“Divil a lie did I tell ye at all at all.”

“Why, the dog is blind as a bat,” replied the customer in great anger.

“Sure, and that’s no fault of the poor dog’s, but his serious misfortune,” replied Peter solemnly, amid a shout of laughter from a dozen loungers in the store.

“But you said he would watch property, and drive cattle out of the field.”

“Not at all. I said he would chase any thing that he’d see , and watch all that you would show him,” replied O’Brien with imperturbable gravity.

Another scene of merriment ensued, and the wag, seeing that Peter had the advantage of him, quietly asked him if he was going to refund the money.

“Surely not, for many valuable reasons, one of which is, I spent it three days ago.”

“But your wife, who loved the dog so well, would be glad to see him home again, I suppose?” replied the victim, who was becoming reconciled to the joke.

“As for the matter of that,” replied Peter, “I told her he was sold into good and benevolent hands, and she has at last become reconciled to her loss.”