Life in the Clearings versus the BushMoodie, Susanna
History
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Moodie, Susanna
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Moodie, Susannah, 1803-1885; Ontario -- Description and travel
I now proceeded with the concert. The song of the drowning child saved
by the Newfoundland dog drew down thunders of applause. When the
clamour had a little subsided, a tall man rose from his seat at the
upper end of the room, and, after clearing his throat with several loud
hems, he thus addressed me,--"How do you do, Mr. H---? I am glad,
sir, to make your acquaintance. This is my friend, Mr. Derby," drawing
another tall man conspicuously forward before all the spectators. "He,
tew, is very happy to make your acquaintance. We both want to know if
that dog you have been singing about belongs to you. If so, we should be
glad to buy a pup." He gravely took his seat, amid perfect yells of
applause. It was impossible to be heard in such a riot, and I closed the
adventures of the evening by giving out "'Hail, Columbia,' to be sung by
all present." This _finale_ gave universal satisfaction, and the
voice of my friend the singing master might be heard far above the rest.
I was forced, in common politeness, to invite Mr. Browne to partake of
the oyster supper I had provided for my friends from W---. "Will you
join our party this evening, Mr. Browne?"
"Oh, by all manner of means," said he, rubbing his hands together in a
sort of ecstasy of anticipation; "I knew that you would do the thing
handsome at last. I have not tasted an i'ster since I sang at Niblo's
in New York. But did we not come on famously at the _con-sort?_
Confess, now, that I beat you holler. You sing _pretty_ well, but
you want confidence. You don't give expression enough to your voice.
The applause which followed my first song was tremendous."
"I never heard anything like it, Mr. Browne. I never expect to merit
such marks of public approbation."
"All in good time, my _leetle_ friend," returned he, clapping me
familiarly on the shoulder. "Rome was not built in a day, and you are
a young man--a very young man--and very _small_ for your age. Your voice
will never have the volume and compass of mine. But I smell the i'sters:
let's in, for I'm tarnation hungry."
Gentle reader! you would have thought so to have seen him eat. My
companions looked rather disconcerted at the rapidity with which they
disappeared within his capacious jaws. After satisfying his enormous
appetite, he washed down the oysters with long draughts of porter, until
his brain becoming affected, he swung his huge body back in his chair,
and, placing his feet on the supper-table, began singing in good
earnest,--not one song in particular, but a mixture of all that had
appeared in the most popular Yankee song books for the last ten years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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