A Yankee In A Pork-House
by
“Conscience sakes! but hain’t they got a lot of pork here?” said a looker-on in Quincy Market, t’other day.
“Pork!” echoes a decidedly Green Mountain biped, at the elbow of the first speaker.
“Yes, I vow it’s quite as- tonishing how much pork is sold here and et up by somebody,” continued the old gent.
“Et up?” says the other, whose physical structure somewhat resembled a fat lath, and whose general contour made it self-evident that he was not given much to frivolity, jauntily-fitting coats and breeches, or perfumed and “fixed up” barberality extravagance.
“Et up!” he thoughtfully and earnestly repeated, as his hands rested in the cavity of his trousers pockets, and his eyes rested upon the first speaker.
“You wern’t never in Cincinnatty, I guess?”
“No, I never was,” says the old gent.
“Never was? Well, I cal’lated not. Never been in a Pork-haouse?”
“Never, unless you may call this a Pork-house?”
“The-is? Pork-haouse?” says Yankee. “Well, I reckon not–don’t begin–’tain’t nothin’ like–not a speck in a puddle to a Pork-haouse–a Cincinnatty Pork-haouse!”
“I’ve hearn that they carry on the Pork business pooty stiff, out there,” says the old gentleman.
“Pooty stiff? Good gravy, but don’t they? ‘Pears to me, I knew yeou somewhere?” says our Yankee.
“You might,” cautiously answers the old gent.
“‘Tain’t ‘Squire Smith, of Maoun-Peelier?”
“N’no, my name’s Johnson, sir.”
“Johnson? Oh, in the tin business?”
“Oh, no, I’m not in business, at all, sir,” was the reply.
“Not? Oh,”–thoughtfully echoes Yankee. “Wall, no matter, I thought p’raps yeou were from up aour way–I’m from near Maoun-Peelier–State of Varmount.”
“Ah, indeed?”
“Ya-a-s.”
“Fine country, I’m told?” says the old gent.
“Ye-a-a-s, ’tis;”–was the abstracted response of Yankee, who seemed to be revolving something in his own mind.
“Raise a great deal of wool–fine sheep country?”
“‘Tis great on sheep. But sheep ain’t nothin’ to the everlasting hog craop!”
“Think not, eh?” said the old gent.
“I swow teu pucker, if I hain’t seen more hogs killed, afore breakfast, in Cincinnatty, than would burst this buildin’ clean open!”
“You don’t tell me so?”
“By gravy, I deu, though. You hain’t never been in Cincinnatty?”
“I said not.”
“Never in a Pork-haouse?”
“Never.”
“Wall, yeou’ve hearn tell–of Ohio, I reckon?”
“Oh, yes! got a daughter living out there,” was the answer.
“Yeou don’t say so?”
“I have, in Urbana, or near it,” said the old gent.
“Urbanny! Great kingdom! why I know teu men living aout there; one’s trading, t’other’s keepin’ school; may be yeou know ’em–Sampson Wheeler’s one, Jethro Jones’s t’other. Jethro’s a cousin of mine; his fa’ther, no, his mother married–’tain’t no matter; my name’s Small,–Appogee Small, and I was talkin’—-“
“About the hog crop, Cincinnatty Pork-houses.”
“Ye-a-a-s; wall, I went eout West last fall, stopped at Cincinnatty–teu weeks. Dreadful nice place; by gravy, they do deu business there; beats Salvation haow they go it on steamboats–bust ten a day and build six!”
“Is it possible?” says the old gent; “but the hogs—-“
“Deu beat all. I went up to the Pork-haouses;–fus thing you meet is a string–’bout a mile long, of big and little critters, greasy and sassy as sin; buckets and bags full of scraps, tails, ears, snaouts and ribs of hogs. Foller up this line and yeou come to the Pork-haouses, and yeou go in, if they let yeou, and they did me, so in I went, teu an almighty large haouse–big as all aout doors, and a feller steps up to me and says he:–
“‘Yeou’re a stranger, I s’pose?’
“‘Yeou deu?’ says I.
“‘Ye-a-a-s,’ says he, ‘I s’pose so,’ and I up and said I was.
“‘Wall,’ says he, ‘ef you want to go over the haouse, we’ll send a feller with you!’
“So I went with the feller, and he took me way back, daown stairs–aout in a lot; a-a-a-nd everlastin’ sin! yeou should jist seen the hogs–couldn’t caount ’em in three weeks!”