Buckeye

“ When the elderly members of the society drop off, the children of all residents will wear the buckeye, or forget it alike. And it certainly appeared to me that the cool assumption by Easterners of the superiority of New-England over all other countries was, whether just or not, likely to be quite as offensive to the buckeyes as any buckeye exultation could be to the Yankees. ”

“ The Ohio or Fetid Buckeye, reaching a height of about fifty feet, grows from Pennsylvania to Alabama, west to Michigan and Oklahoma. The wood is used for making artificial limbs and wooden ware. The Sweet or Big Buckeye is a large tree eighty to ninety feet high, growing from Pennsylvania to Georgia, west to Iowa and Texas, and often planted as an ornamental tree. The California Buckeye is a small tree thirty to forty feet high, native of California, and sparingly planted for ornament. ”

“ For upwards of two weeks he continued his painful march; both men and horses suffering excessively at times from hunger and thirst. At length, on the 19th of September, he reached the upper waters of Salmon River.
The weather was cold, and there were symptoms of an impending storm. The night set in, but Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was missing. He had left the party early in the morning, to hunt by himself, according to his custom. Fears were entertained lest he should lose his way and become bewildered in tempestuous weather. ”

“ Even the folk of this old New England village, who had in their stern doctrines no value for a fair face, turned for a second, as if by some compelling gleam of light under their eyelids, when this little Buckley maid entered the meeting-house; and her mother and sisters, although they saw her every day, would stop sometimes their work or speech when her face came suddenly before their eyes.
Persis had her little looking-glass. She looked in it when she had washed her face to see if it were clean, and when she braided her hair to see if it were smooth. ”

“ Yet often at night when the tempest howls and the thunders roar, his form, or shadow, or image, or whatever it be, is seen to stride this valley in which we ride, on his swift bob-tail nag. When a Buckner’s Creek baby cries, whether from pure perverseness or from colic, only say to him ‘Strap Buckner’ once, and he will forthwith scrooch up in his cradle, and you will hear no more from that baby for hours. ”

“ One morning in September it was hot inland, but cool on the point of land reaching out into the sea where the Buckley house stood. The son, Ichabod, had gone to sea in a whaling-vessel; the father was at home, working in the little slanting shed behind the house. One could hear the grating slide of his chisel down the boughs of a weeping-willow on a new gravestone. A very old woman of the village had died that week.
At the left of the house there was a bright unexpected glint from a great brass kettle which the eastern sun struck. ”

“ Scourging himself always, as a monk whips his besetting sin, Buckley threw himself with apparent recklessness into every danger, with the hope of some day ridding himself of the despised affliction. But each successive test brought no relief, and the ranger’s face, by nature adapted to cheerfulness and good-humour, became set to the guise of gloomy melancholy. ”

“ A multitude of small lads, with here and there a little petticoat among them, collected rapidly, and pelted along in the wake of this grand equipage. They followed it quite through the town to the road that led through the woods, past the graveyard, to the Buckley house, then up the road, panting but eager, the smaller children dragging at the hands of their elder brothers. ”

“ The husbands--with that intelligence which is the privilege of the male sex--saw the state of the case at a glance. A great warrior had been buried at the mound. Great warriors, as all the world knows, change into white men after death. Buckley was a white man; and, moreover, he had in his hand the very spear that had been stuck into the tomb. Nothing could be more satisfactory, and saluting the half-starved convict by the name of Murrangurk, they bore him off to their huts, with much shouting and demonstrations of joy. ”

“ He laughed harshly and his hands clenched as he thought of Bucky Nome. He had done right by him. But the skull—Mrs. Becker—was that right? Like a flash there came to him out of the darkness a picture of the scene beside the fire—of Mrs. Becker and the colonel, of the woman's golden head resting on her husband's shoulder, her sweet blue eyes filled with all the truth and glory of womanhood as she had looked up into his grizzled face. And then there took its place the scene beside the fire in the factor's room. ”

“ Popular theology is accustomed to cry out for "more props."
At last, after thirty-two years of savage life, Buckley met two natives, one of whom carried a flag over his shoulders. He had long given up all hope of meeting with white men; he had forgotten his language and almost his name, but the sight of the flag gave him a strange shock. The natives told him that they had seen a vessel at anchor in Port Phillip Bay, near the Indented Heads, and, all hands having left her on a boat expedition up the river, they had climbed on board and helped themselves. ”

“ When come back from old Mexico I’m going to teach you how to put up your dukes. You’re going to ride the range with me, son, and learn to stick to your saddle when the bronc and you disagrees. Oh, I’ll bet all you need is training. I’ll make a man out of you yet,” the ranger assured his charge cheerfully. “Will you?” came the innocent reply, but Bucky for a moment had the sense of being laughed at. ”

“ Buckingham’s departure was preceded by the despatching of his servants with fifty geldings and nags, and twelve coach horses. His personal retinue was consistent with all this grandeur and display; it reminds one of the gorgeous pomp of Wolsey in the height of his prosperity. Twenty privy gentlemen, seven grooms of his chambers, thirty chief women, and two master cooks constituted his own peculiar servants. Three rich suits apiece were given to each of these attendants. ”

“ Oh, madness, beyond all question!
"Here, wake up!" Buckley cried, in a voice that was strangely strong and natural. "I've found it. And it's been there all the time. We've been marching side by side with it for two or three days. Come along!"
"What is it?" Macardie gasped. "You are wet."
"Of course I am!" Buckley shouted. "It's water down there—a stream of beautiful clear, cold water, but so smothered with leaves that you can't see it. What we thought was flat rock was nothing in the world but thick leaves floating on the stream. ”

“ Henry, Earl of Richmond, appeared with a fleet off Devonshire, but finding no one on the coast to meet him, he sailed back to St. Malo. Buckingham, who ought to have been on the look-out, was blundering about the right bank of the Severn, which he was unable to cross in consequence of the rains, when his army, finding themselves short of rations, declined continuing such a very irrational enterprise. Buckingham was left without a man, except his own servant—a fellow of the name of Banister—upon whose fidelity he threw himself. ”

“ Buckingham's style was even stronger and coarser than the text leads one to suppose. "Your sowship" is the beginning of one letter, and "I kiss your dirty hands" the conclusion of another. The king had encouraged this by his own extraordinary familiarity. "My own sweet and dear child," "Sweet hearty," "My sweet Steenie and gossip," are the commencements of the royal epistles to Buckingham; and in one instance, where he proposes a hunting party and invites the ladies of his family, he does it in words of perfect obscenity. ”

“ Bucky laughed. “You’re ce’tainly the queerest kid I’ve run up against. I guess you didn’t scramble up in this rough-and-tumble West like I did. You’re too soft for this country.” He let his firm brown fingers travel over the lad’s curly hair and down the smooth cheek. “There it is again. Shrinking away as if I was going to hurt you. I’ll bet a biscuit you never licked the stuffing out of another fellow in your life.” ”

“ Bugbee loved to sing. She sang rather well, too. About once in so often she thought seriously of taking up grand opera. Something always happened, though. With the Bugbees something always did.
“Don’t you be worrying your head about him,” said Mr. Bugbee. “Being a wise old bird, the robin will be down in Georgia dragging those long stretchy worms out of the ground. I wish they’d put as good a grade of rubber into elastic garters as they do into those Southern worms. It’s what we’ll be doing ourselves, poor things, that gives me pause.” ”

“ It was about this time, probably, that Buckingham was first beheld drawn about in that coach with six horses, which was not only wondered at as a novelty, but “imputed to him as a mastering pride.” He had already excited the indignation of the English public by his appearance in a sedan chair; and when seen carried upon men’s shoulders, the populace raised an outcry against him in the streets, “loathing,” says Arthur Wilson, “that men should be brought to as servile a condition as horses.” ”

“ I ought to be worth that just to plan it out for ye and make sure ye get away. Better a third and a long life than the whole and a rope afore ye spend a hundred pound of it, if ye get as much as a drink out of it alone. How now, Bucky?"
"Real sweet of ye, old cock," said Buckrow, lighting a cigar. "A third and yer life looks better than none and a pile of bones. Thirkle has a bit of a way to look to his own ends; what, Reddy?"
"Ye don't stand to lose anything, do ye? I'm not the man to squeal when I'm down ”

“ After the trumpeters come four gentlemen ushers, and four pages, mounted on his spare horses, and habited in orange-coloured doublets and hose, with yellow plumes in their caps. To them succeed the grooms in mandilions, or loose sleeveless jackets, leading the Marquis's charger, which is to run in the lists—a beautiful dark bay jennet—trapped with green velvet, sewn with pearls, and pounced with gold. Next comes Buckingham himself, in a magnificent suit of armour, engraved and damaskeened with gold, with an aigret of orange feathers nodding on his casque. ”

“ He was too weak to put up a fight. He did not catch the ugly leer which Bucky turned upon Thompson. But Henry did, and his little eyes grew smaller and blacker. On snow-shoes the two men went out into the storm, Bucky carrying an ax. He led the way through the bit of thin timber, and across a wide open over which the storm swept so fiercely that their trail was covered behind them as they traveled. Billy figured that they had gone a quarter of a mile when they came to the edge of a ravine so steep that it was almost a precipice. For the first time Bucky touched him. ”

“ They lay down side by side, not more than a foot apart, glaring insanely into one another's eyes. And then Buckley broke out into horrible tears.
"Give it me!" he implored. "Let me have it! We'll share the bottle between us, every drop of it, then we shall go to sleep and wake no more. We've disappointed those chaps long enough; they're waiting for us!"
As Buckley spoke, he pointed with a shaking forefinger to three or four great black objects wheeling round slowly and majestically in the brazen sky overhead. And there was no reason to tell Macardie what they were. ”

“ Chinks, greasers, and several other kinds of citizens driftin’ that way, not to mention white men. I expect there will be room for you, Bucky, if you hurry before the seats are all sold out.”
He cantered down the plaza, swung from the saddle, threw the rein over the pony’s head to the ground, and jingled across the sidewalk into the gambling house. It was filled with a motley crowd of miners, vaqueros, tourists, cattlemen, Mexicans, Chinese, and a sample of the rest of the heterogeneous population of the Southwest. ”

“ Then said the two who bore the box to him of the adze, "Swarm up the wall and open the gate for us, O Bukhayt, for we are tired of carrying the chest on our necks; and when thou hast opened the gate thou shalt have one of those we catch inside, a fine fat rat which we will fry for thee after such excellent fashion that not a speck of his fat shall be lost." But Bukhayt answered, "I am afraid of somewhat which my weak wits have suggested to me: we should do better to throw the chest over the gateway; for it is our treasure." "If we throw it 'twill break," replied they ”

“ On the 11th of that month Richard, at Lincoln, proclaimed Buckingham a traitor, the ‘most untrue creature living.’ At the appointed time Buckingham moved eastwards with a Welsh force into Herefordshire; but he could get no further, and the Wye and Severn were in high flood, long remembered as ‘the Duke of Buckingham's water.’ They were impassable even if his distant kinsman, Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, had not been holding all the fords. ”

“ The movement may, indeed, be traced in the most worthless parts of our literature,—in the shameless productions of Buckingham, Dorset, Etherege, Killigrew, Mulgrave, Rochester, and Sedley. But neither then, nor at a much later period, were any of our great thinkers influenced by the intellect of [235] France; [375] on the contrary, we find in their ideas, and even in their style, a certain rough and native vigour, which, though offensive to our more polished neighbours, has at least the merit of being the indigenous product of our own country. ”

“ During the early morning, on to-day’s march, an astonishing incident occurred. Some of us, on the transport line, were suddenly startled by the rush of an animal from the bush, and were amazed to witness a buck jump clean across the road, over the top of a double line of mules. Half a dozen white men and some [90] natives saw this almost unbelievable feat. The buck landed on the far side of the road only two yards away from me, and I think it was a hartebeeste, but in the half-light I was unable to be quite certain of the species. ”