High Life in New York: A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of ConnecticutStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
General
High Life in New York: A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of Connecticut
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Some of them was chuck full of watches and ear-rings, and silver spoons
spread all out like a fan, and lots on lots of finger rings all stuck
over a piece of black cloth to make 'em shine. I'll be darned if it
didn't make my eyes ache as if I'd been snow blind a week, only jest to
look at 'em as I went along! I stopped into one store jest by the Park,
and bought a silver thimble for marm, and it was as much as I could du
to keep from going into one of the stores where I saw such a heap of
calicos, to git her a new gown tu. But I can't begin to write more than
a priming of what a feller may see as he goes up Broadway. It fairly
made me ashamed of our horses, old Polly in perticlar, when I saw the
harnsome critters that the niggers drive about them coaches with here. I
tell you what, they make a glistening and a shining when they go through
the streets chuck full of gals all in their feathers and furbelows! That
Broadway _is_ a leetle lengthy, and no mistake. I believe I footed it
more than two miles on them tarnal hard stun walks, afore I got to Bond
street, where Cousin Beebe lives, I swan! I thought my feet would a
blistered.
Wal, arter all, I thought I never should a got into the house when I did
git to it. It was so allfired high, and a heap of stun steps went up to
the door, with a kind of picket fence made out of iron, all _curlecued_
over on the sides. I looked all over the door for a knocker, but
couldn't find nothing in the shape of one, only a square chunk of
silver, with cousin Beebe's name writ on it. I rapped with my fist till
the skin eenamost peeled off my knuckles, but nobody seemed to hear, and
I begun to think the folks warn't to hum, and that I should lose my
dinner arter all. I was jest beginning to think it best to make tracks
for Peck slip agin, when a feller come by and kinder slacked tackle, and
looked as if he was a going to speak.
"Look a here, you, sir," sez I, "can you tell me whether the folks that
live here are to hum or not? I can't make nobody hear."
"Why don't you ring the bell?" sez he, a looking at me as if he never
see a man afore.
I went down the steps and looked up to the ruff of the house, but it was
so darned high that I couldn't a seen anything in the shape of a belfry
if there'd been a dozen on 'em.
"I'll be darned if I can see any bell," sez I to the man, and then he
kinder puckered up his mouth, and looked as if he was a going to larf
right out.
"You seem to be a stranger in the city," sez he, a trying to bite in,
for I s'pose he see that my dander was a gitting up.
"Yes," sez I, "I am, and what of that?"
"Oh, nothing," sez he, a hauling in his horns quite a considerable.
"Jest pull that little silver knob there, and I rather think you can
make them hear."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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