THE EXPENSIVE TREAT OF COLONEL MOSES GRICE.

RICH

BY RICHARD MALCOMB JOHNSTON.

RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON, born in Hancock County, Ga., March 8, 1822, has a literary reputation of many years, originating with the "Dukesborough Tales," and identified with several characteristic works of humor, fancy and imagination.

BESIDES an incipient ventriloquist who had included it in a limited provincial tour which he was making, in some hope of larger development of his artistic powers, the only show that had visited Dukesborough thus far was the wax figures. The recollection of that had ever remained unsatisfactory. I can just remember that one of the figures was William Pitt, and another the Sleeping Beauty; that the former was the saddest and the yellowest great statesman that I had had opportunity, thus far, to look upon, and the latter-well, it is not pleasant, even now, to recall how dead, how long time dead, she appeared. When Aggy, my nurse, seeing me appalled at the sight, repeatedly asseverated, "De lady is jes a-tired and a-takin' of a nap," I cried the louder, and plucked so at Aggy that she had to take me away. Though not thus demonstrative, yet even elderly country people acknowledged to disappointment, and there was a general complaint that if what had been was the best that could be done by Dukesborough in the way of public entertainment, it might as well take itself away from the great highway of human travel, suspend its school, sell out its two stores at cost, abolish its tavern and postoffice, tear down its blacksmith's and shoe shops, and, leaving only its meeting-house, resolve itself into the elements from which it had been aggregated. Not that these were the very words: but surely their full equivalents were employed when William Pitt, the Sleeping Beauty, and their pale associates had silently left the town.

As for a circus, such an institution was not known, except by hearsay, even to Colonel Moses Grice, of the Fourteenth Regiment Georgia Militia, though he was a man thirty-five years old, over six feet high, of proportional weight, owned a good plantation and at least twenty negroes, and had seen the theatre as

many as three times in the city of Augusta. The ideas the Colonel had received there were such, he said, as would last him to the end of his days-a period believed to be remote, barring, of course, all contingencies of future wars. To this theatrical experience he had been desirous, for some time, to add that of the circus, assured in his mind that from what he had heard, it was a good thing. It happened once, while on a visit to Augustawhither he had accompanied a wagon-load of his cotton, partly on that business, but mainly to see the great world there-that he met at Collier's tavern, where he sojourned, a circus forerunner, who was going the rounds with his advertisements. Getting soon upon terms of intimacy with one who seemed to him the most agreeable, entertaining and intelligent gentleman that he had ever met, Colonel Grice imparted to him such information about Dukesborough that, although that village was not upon the list of appointinents-Dukesborough, in point of fact (to his shame the agent confessed it) not having been even heard of-yet a day was set for its visitation, and, when visited, another was set for the appearance there of the Great World-Renowed Circus, which claimed for its native homes London, Paris and New York.

It would be entertaining to a survivor of that period to make even small boys, from families of most limited means in this generation, comprehend the interest excited by those advertisements, in huge black and red letters, that were tacked upon the wall of Spouter's tavern. From across Beaver Dam, Rocky Creek, the Ogeechee, from even the head-waters of streams leading to the Oconee, they came to read over and spell over the mighty words. Colonel Grice, who had been found, upon his own frank admission, to be the main mover, was forced to answer all inquiries concerning its magnitude, its possible influences upon the future of Dukesborough, and kindred subjects. There would have been a slight drawback to the general eager expectation on grounds moral and religious; but the World-Renowned had anticipated and provided against that, as will hereafter appear. Then Colonel Grice had signified his intention of meeting the impending institution on the occasion of at least two of its exhibitions before its arrival, and should take it upon himself to warn it of the kind of people it was coming among.

The Colonel resided five miles south of the village. He had a wife, but no child (a point on which he was, perhaps, a little

sore), was not in debt, was hospitable, an encourager, especially in words, of public and private enterprises, and enthusiastically devoted, though without experience in wars, to the military profession, which-if he might use the expression-he would call his second wife. Off the muster-field he habitually practiced that affability which is pleasant because so rare to see in the warrior class. When in full uniform and at the head of the regiment, with girt sword and pistol-holster, he did indeed look like a man not to be fooled with; and the sound of his voice in utterance of military orders was such as to show that he intended those orders to be heard and obeyed. When the regiment was disbanded, the sternness would depart from his mien, and, though yet unstripped of weapons and regalia, he would smile blandly, as if to reassure spectators that, for the present, the danger was over, and friends might approach without apprehension.

The Colonel met the circus even farther away than he at first had intended. He had determined to study it, he said, and he traveled some seventy miles on horseback, attending daily and nightly exhibitions. Several times during this travel, and afterwards, on the forenoon of the great day in Dukesborough, he was heard to say that, if he were limited to one word with which to describe what he had seen, that word would be-grandeur. "As for what sort of a people them circus people are," he said, "in a moral and in a religious sense, now-ahem! you know, gentlemen and ladies, especially ladies-ah, ha! I'm not a member, but I'm as great a respecter of religion as can be found in the whole State of Georgia. Bein' raised to that, I pride myself on that. Now, these circus people, they ain't what I should call a highly moral, that is, they ain't a strictly religious people. You see, gentlemen, that ain't, not religion ain't, so to speak, their business. They ain't goin' about preachin', and havin' campmeetin' revivals, and givin' singin'-school lessons. They are-I wish I could explain myself about these circus people. These circus people are a-tryin' —you know, gentlemen, different people makes their livin' in different ways; and these circus people are jes a-tryin' to do exactly the same thing in jes exactly the same way. Well, gentlemen, grandeur is the word I should say about their performances. I should not confine myself to the word religion. Strictly speakin', that word do not embrace all the warious warieties, so to speak, of a circus. My word would

be GRANDEUR; and I think that's the word you all will use when that tent is up, that door is open, and you are rushin' into its-its -I don't know whether to use the word jaws or departments. But, for the sake of decency, I'll say-departments. As for moral and religious, gentlemen-and 'specially ladies-I tell you, it ain't neither a camp-meetin', a'sociation, a quarterly meetin', nor a singin'-school. I'm not a member, but I'm a respecter; and as to all that, and all them, Dukesborough may go farther and fare worse. That's all I got to say."

On the day before, Colonel Grice, by this time grown intimate with the manager, and as fond of him as if he had been his own brother (some said even fonder), in the fullness of his heart had invited the whole force to breakfast with him on the way to Dukesborough, and the invitation had been accepted. What was consumed was enormous; but he could afford it, and his wife, especially with distinguished visitors, was as hospitable and openhearted as himself.

Other persons besides boys believed in their hearts that they might not have been able to endure another day's delay of the show. For a brief period the anxiety of the school-children amounted to anguish when the master expressed doubts as to a holiday; for holidays then were infrequent, and schoolmasters had to be over-persuaded. But the present incumbent yielded early, with becoming reluctance, to what seemed to be the general desire. The eagerly expected morning came at last. Many who knew that the circus was lingering at Colonel Grice's went forth to meet it, some on foot, some on horseback. Some started even in gigs and other carriages, but, being warned by old people, turned, unhooked their horses, and hitched them to swinging limbs in the very farthest part of the graveyard grove, and then set out on foot. The great show had put foremost its best wagon, but nobody had any sort of idea what things those were which the military gentlemen who rode in it carried in their hands. One person, known generally to carry a cool head, said that one of these things looked to him like a drum, though of a size comparatively enormous, but the idea was generally scorned.

"Where you goin', there, Polly Ann?" said Mrs. Watts to her little daughter, who was opening the gate. "My Lord!" exclaimed the mother instantly afterwards, as the band struck up. Then she rushed out herself and ran over Polly Ann, knocking her

down. Polly Ann got up again and followed. "Stay behind there, you, Jack, and you, Susan! You want to git eat up by them camels and varmints? I never see sich children for cur'osity. They've got as much cur'osity as-as—”

"As we have," said Mrs. Thompson, laughing, as she attempted in vain to drive back her own little brood.

The effect of the music in the long, covered wagon, drawn by six gray horses slowly before the long procession, no words can describe. It put all, the aged and the young, into a tremor. Old Mr. Leadbetter, one of the deacons, who had been very "jubous," as he said, about the whole thing, was trying to read a chapter somewhere in Romans, when, at the very first blast, his spectacles jumped off his nose, and he told a few of the brethren afterwards, confidentially, that he never could recollect afterwards, where he had left off. As for Mrs. Bland, she actually danced in her piazza for, probably, as many as a dozen bars, and, when "had up" about it, pleaded in abatement, that she did it entirely unbeknownst to herself, and that she couldn't have holp it if it had been to have saved her life. It might have gone hard with the defendant had not some of her triers been known to march in time to the band, and besides, they had staid after the close of the animal show, contrary to the special inhibition against the circus. For the World-Renowned had provided against the scruples of the straitest sects by attaching to itself a small menagerie of animals, whose exhibition had been appointed for the opening. There were a camel, a lion, a zebra, a hyena, two leopards, a porcupine, six monkeys, a bald eagle and some parrots. By some means, never fully known, the most scrupulous of the spectators had gotten (late during this first act) to the very loftiest and remotest seats in the amphitheatre, and when the animals were shut from the view, these persons, though anxious, were unable to retire without stepping over the shoulders of those beneath a thing that no decent person could be expected to do. So Mrs. Bland got off with a mild rebuke.

As the cavalcade proceeded, it was a sight to see those who came in late in vehicles hastily turning in, apprehensive of the effect upon their horses of the music and the smell of the wild animals. For the first and only time in the history of Dukesborough, there was momentary danger of a blockade of wheels in its one street.