The Little Brown Jug at KildareNicholson, Meredith
General
The Little Brown Jug at Kildare
Nicholson, Meredith
Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Governors -- Fiction; Humorous stories; North Carolina -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
on which the patriots of Mecklenburg County severed the relations
theretofore existing between them and his Majesty, King George the
Third. Equally well known is the fact that in South Carolina it is an
article of religious faith that on that twentieth day of May, 1775, the
citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, cheered the English
flag and adopted resolutions reaffirming their ancient allegiance to the
British crown. This controversy and the inadequacy of the South Carolina
hay crop must be passed on to the pamphleteers, with such other vexed
questions as Andrew Jackson's birthplace--more debated than Homer's and
not to be carelessly conceded to the strutting sons of Waxhaw.
Griswold read of the New Orleans incident with a smile, while several
fellow-passengers discussed it in a tone of banter. One of them, a
gentleman from Mississippi, presently produced a flask, which he offered
to the others, remarking, "As the Governor of North Carolina said to the
Governor of South Carolina," which was, to be sure, pertinent to the
hour and the discussion, and bristling with fresh significance.
"They were both in Atlanta this morning," said the man with the flask,
"and they would have been traveling together on this train if they
hadn't met in the ticket office and nearly exploded with rage."
The speaker was suddenly overcome with his own humor, and slapped his
knee and laughed; then they all laughed, including Griswold.
"One ought to have taken the lower berth and one the upper to make it
perfect," observed an Alabama man. "I wonder when they'll get home."
"They'll probably both walk to be sure they don't take the same train,"
suggested a commercial traveler from Cincinnati, who had just come from
New Orleans. "Their friends are doing their best to keep them apart.
They both have a reputation for being quick on the trigger."
"Bosh!" exclaimed Griswold. "I dare say it's all a newspaper story.
There's no knife-and-pistol nonsense in the South any more. They'll both
go home and attend to their business, and that will be the last of it.
The people of North Carolina ought to be proud of Dangerfield; he's one
of the best governors they ever had. And Osborne is a first-class man,
too, one of the old Palmetto families."
"I guess they're both all right," drawled the Mississippian, settling
his big black hat more firmly on his head. "Dangerfield spoke in our
town at the state fair last year, and he's one of the best talkers I
ever heard."
Therefore, as no one appeared to speak for the governor of South
Carolina, the drummer volunteered to vouch for his oratorical gifts, on
the strength of an address lately delivered by Governor Osborne in a
lecture course at Cincinnati. Being pressed by the Mississippian, he
admitted that he had not himself attended the lecture, but he had heard
it warmly praised by competent critics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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