Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. WorksHolmes, Oliver Wendell
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Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
American literature; Literature -- Collections
Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little water-beast which
pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs about
the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait and
hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it exposes
an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of
spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not been
able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and that the
colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them, and
especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to
cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet.
When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked round
the table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of it
I saw a head, and a--a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted
on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level enough for
him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt
for a minute as if there was a showman behind him who would pull him down
presently and put up Judy, or the hangman, or the Devil, or some other
wooden personage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose the first
of his sentence, but what I heard began so:
--by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to come
down from the tents on section and Independence days with their pails to
get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to school in Boston
as long as the boys would let me.--The little man groaned, turned, as if
to look around, and went on.--Ran away from school one day to see
Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a logger-head. That was in flip
days, when there were always two three loggerheads in the fire. I'm a
Boston boy, I tell you,--born at North End, and mean to be buried on
Copp's Hill, with the good old underground people,--the Worthylakes, and
the rest of 'em. Yes,--up on the old hill, where they buried Captain
Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet deep, to keep him safe from the
red-coats, in those old times when the world was frozen up tight and
there was n't but one spot open, and that was right over Faneuil
all,--and black enough it looked, I tell you! There 's where my bones
shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy Yard
opposite! You can't make me ashamed of the old place! Full crooked
little streets;--I was born and used to run round in one of 'em--
--I should think so,--said that young man whom I hear them call
"John,"--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking
in a half-whisper, evidently.--I should think so; and got kinked up,
turnin' so many corners.--The little man did not hear what was said, but
went on,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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