“What is a cussed sight wusser than his gittin' Sofy war the fact, that he _borrowed that calf the night before from Dick Harkley!_ Arter the varmint got Sofy hitched, he told the joke all over the settlement, and the boys never seed me arterwards that they didn't b-a-h at me fur lettin' a calf cut me out of a gal's affections. I'd a shot Jake, but I thort it war a free coantry, and the gal had a right to her choice without bein' made a widder, so I jest sold out and travelled! I've allays thort sence then, boys, that wimin wur a good deal like licker, ef you love 'em too hard thar sure to throw you some way: 'Then here's to wimin, then to licker, Thar's nuthin' swimmin' can be slicker!” AN EMIGRANT'S PERILS; OR, A FLYING TICKET ON THE MISSISSIPPI. |The inexperienced dweller in a quiet home, who has never been tempted to wander from its peaceful precincts, has but a faint idea of the emigrant's troubles, and many may fail to deeply sympathise with Michael O'Reily, the subject of our sketch; but there are those who have mingled in the perilous tide, and can knowingly speak of its dangers. “Maybe,” as Michael would say, “it's mesilf that has had a full peck measure of thim, barrin' what I injayneously iscaped.” Michael's brother, Patrick, had induced him to quit the little cottage and _pratie patch_ on the green sod, for a home where “goold” flowed up the rivers. At the time we encountered him he had reached the spot where “a great man intirely,” had prophesied this shiny metal would flow to, and he but waited to reach Patrick's home on the Missouri river, to set a net in the stream and catch his share. As he and Mrs. O'R., who was well, but, naturally enough, “wakely,” were seated on the boat, considering how they could get further up stream, a steamboat runner came to their aid, and forthwith made every necessary arrangement for taking them safe. Michael's mind being at ease about that matter, he ventured to indulge in a whiff of the pipe, when he was accosted by another of the off-in-twenty-minutes agents. “Passage up the Missouri, sir?” inquires the runner. “Yis, I'm goin' wid ye's,” says Michael, “sure wan uv your boys _ingaged_ me a minnit ago.” The runner perceiving in a moment that a rival had encountered Michael, resolved to do the aforesaid rival out of his passenger, and accordingly hurried him off to his own boat, by telling him that _steam, was up!_ The “_done_” runner, on returning and finding his passenger off, suspected that the rival boat had secured him, and ventured upon the “terror experiment” to win him back. Michael instantly recognised his first friend, and saluted him with--“I'm here, ye see!” “Yes, but you've got yourself into a kingdom-come snarl, if you only know'd it, without half tryin'.” Twist the _snarl_ which way Michael would, it sounded unpleasantly, and he ventured to inquire--“Its what did ye say kind of _snarl_, I was in?”