"Don’t Know You, Sir!"
by
We shall never forget, and always feel proud of the fact, that we knew so great an every-day Plato as Davy Crockett. Had the old Colonel never uttered a better idea than that everlasting good motto–“Be sure you’re right, then go ahead!” his wisdom would stand a pretty good wrestle with tide and time, before his standing, as a man of genius, would pass to oblivion–be washed out in Lethe’s waters. We remember hearing Col. Crockett relate, during a “speech,” a short time before he lost his life at the Alamo, in Texas–a little incident, of his being taken up in New Orleans, one night, by a gen d’arme –lugged to the calaboose, and kept there as an out-and-out “hard case,” not being able to find any body, hardly, that knew him, and being totally unable to reconcile the chief of police to the fact that he was the identical Davy Crockett, or any body else, above par! “If you want to find out your ‘level,’– ad valorem, wake up some morning, noon or night– where nobody knows you! ” said the Colonel, “and if you ever feel so essentially chawed up, raw, as I did in the calaboose, the Lord pity you!”
There was a “modern instance” of Colonel Crockett’s “wise saw,” in the case of a certain Philadelphia millionaire, who was in the habit of carting himself out, in a very ancient and excessively shabby gig; which, in consequence of its utter ignorance of the stable-boy’s brush, sponge or broom, and the hospitalities the old concern nightly offered the hens–was not exactly the kind of equipage calculated to win attention or marked respect, for the owner and driver. The old millionaire, one day in early October, took it into his head to ride out and see the country. Taking an early start, the old gentleman, and his old bob-tailed, frost-bitten-looking horse, with that same old shabby gig, about dusk, found themselves under the swinging sign of a Pennsylvania Dutch tavern, in the neighborhood of Reading. As nobody bestirred themselves to see to the traveller, he put his very old-fashioned face and wig outside of the vehicle, and called–
“Hel-lo! hos-e-lair? Landlord?”
Leisurely stalking down the steps, the Dutch hostler advanced towards the queer and questionable travelling equipage.
“Vel, vot you vont, ah?”
“Vat sal I vant? I sal vant to put oup my hoss, vis-ze stab’l, viz two pecks of oats and plenty of hay, hos-e-lair.”
“Yaw,” was the laconic grunt of the hostler, as he proceeded to unhitch old bald-face from his rigging.
“Stop one little,” said the traveller. “I see ’tis very mosh like to rain, to-night; put up my gig in ze stab’l, too.”
“Boosh, tonner and blitzen, der rain not hurt yer ole gig!”
“I pay you for vat you sal do for me, mind vat I sal say, sair, if you pleaze.”
The hostler, very surlily, led the traveller’s weary old brute to the stable; but, prior to carrying out the orders of the traveller, he sought the landlord, to know if it would pay to put up the shabby concern, and treat the old horse to a real feed of hay and oats, without making some inquiries into the financial situation of the old Frenchman.
The landlord, with a country lawyer and a neighboring farmer, were at the Bar, one of those old-fashioned slatted coops, in a corner, peculiar to Pennsylvania, discussing the merits of a law suit, seizure of the property, etc., of a deceased tiller of the soil, in the vicinity. Busily chatting, and quaffing their toddy, the entrance of the poor old traveller was scarcely noticed, until he had divested himself of his old, many-caped cloak, and demurely taken a seat in the room. The hostler having reappeared, and talked a little Dutch to the host, that worthy turned to the traveller–