Marse Henry | Page 6

a party of Whigs and Democrats had gathered in front of the principal hotel waiting for the arrival of the news, among the rest Sam Bugg and Chunky Towles, two local gamblers, both undoubting Democrats. At length Chunky Towles, worn out, went off to bed. The result was finally flashed over the wires. The crowd was nonplused. "Who the hell is Franklin Pierce?" passed from lip to lip.
Sam Bugg knew his political catechism well. He proceeded at length to tell all about Franklin Pierce, ending with the opinion that he was the man wanted and would be elected hands down, and he had a thousand dollars to bet on it.
Then he slipped away to tell his pal.
"Wake up, Chunky," he cried. "We got a candidate--Gen. Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire."
"Who the----"
"Chunky," says Sam. "I am ashamed of your ignorance. Gen. Franklin Pierce is the son of Gen. Benjamin Pierce, of Revolutionary fame. He has served in both houses of Congress. He declined a seat in Polk's Cabinet. He won distinction in the Mexican War. He is the very candidate we've been after."
"In that case," says Chunky, "I'll get up." When he reappeared Petway, the Whig leader of the gathering, who had been deriding the convention, the candidate and all things else Democratic, exclaimed:
"Here comes Chunky Towles. He's a good Democrat; and I'll bet ten to one he never heard of Franklin Pierce in his life before."
Chunky Towles was one of the handsomest men of his time. His strong suit was his unruffled composure and cool self-control. "Mr. Petway," says he, "you would lose your money, and I won't take advantage of any man's ignorance. Besides, I never gamble on a certainty. Gen. Franklin Pierce, sir, is a son of Gen. Benjamin Pierce of Revolutionary memory. He served in both houses of Congress, sir--refused a seat in Polk's Cabinet, sir--won distinction in the Mexican War, sir. He has been from the first my choice, and I've money to bet on his election."
Franklin Pierce had an only son, named Benny, after his grandfather, the Revolutionary hero. He was of my own age. I was planning the good time we were going to have in the White House when tidings came that he had been killed in a railway accident. It was a grievous blow, from which the stricken mother never recovered. One of the most vivid memories and altogether the saddest episode of my childhood is that a few weeks later I was carried up to the Executive Mansion, which, all formality and marble, seemed cold enough for a mausoleum, where a lady in black took me in her arms and convulsively held me there, weeping as if her heart would break.

V
Sometimes a fancy, rather vague, comes to me of seeing the soldiers go off to the Mexican War and of making flags striped with pokeberry juice--somehow the name of the fruit was mingled with that of the President--though a visit quite a year before to The Hermitage, which adjoined the farm of an uncle, to see General Jackson is still uneffaced.
I remember it vividly. The old hero dandled me in his arms, saying "So this is Harvey's boy," I looking the while in vain for the "hickory," of which I had heard so much.
On the personal side history owes General Jackson reparation. His personality needs indeed complete reconstruction in the popular mind, which misconceives him a rough frontiersman having few or none of the social graces. In point of fact he came into the world a gentleman, a leader, a knight-errant who captivated women and dominated men.
I shared when a young man the common belief about him. But there is ample proof of the error of this. From middle age, though he ever liked a horse race, he was a regular if not a devout churchman. He did not swear at all, "by the Eternal" or any other oath. When he reached New Orleans in 1814 to take command of the army, Governor Claiborne gave him a dinner; and after he had gone Mrs. Claiborne, who knew European courts and society better than any other American woman, said to her husband: "Call that man a backwoodsman? He is the finest gentleman I ever met!"
There is another witness--Mr. Buchanan, afterward President--who tells how he took a distinguished English lady to the White House when Old Hickory was President; how he went up to the general's private apartment, where he found him in a ragged _robe-de-chambre_, smoking his pipe; how, when he intimated that the President might before coming down slick himself a bit, he received the half-laughing rebuke: "Buchanan, I once knew a man in Virginia who made himself independently rich by minding his own business"; how, when he did come down, he was _en r��gle_; and finally how, after a half