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“Thither in a sieve I'll sail.”

“To what issue will this come.”

“Read on this book.”

The Rev. Mr. Littlejohn sat between his father and wife.
He had been intently reading the Scriptures.

“I strongly desire again to become a teacher of the lessons
of life, but I must refrain for years yet to come. I will employ
those years in those studies which enrich the mind and fit the
student for his high calling. I will not ascend the pulpit until
the world is convinced that the former aberration of my reason
has left no traces but those of salutary humiliation and selfdoubting.”

“My son, the perfect restoration of your health and reason
are already proved.”

“To you—not to the world—not to the public—who are
more prone to observe the failing than the amendment. I do
not mean to censure them for it. The failing was glaringly
obtrusive; the amendment is quiet, and shrinking from observation.
Quiet does not catch the attention of the busy or the
gay; and the busy or the gay are the world. Man may justly
require a long continuation of the interrupted exertion of reason,
to give assurance of perfect restoration and habitual

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health of mind, in one who professes to teach truth. I have
in you, my father, and you, Eliza, a double assurance that I
shall continue in the paths of peace.”

He pressed his father's hand. The old man's eyes filled
with tears of love and joy. Eliza threw herself on her husband's
neck and wept. He alone could speak.

“The restoration of physical and mental health; the gifts
of fortune and of such friends, might be thought enough for
earthly happiness; if we did not know that happiness can only
be gained by continued efforts to bless our fellow men—by
doing our duty to man, and thereby doing the will of God.”

With such views and resolutions we may leave this domestic
circle.

One of the personages introduced to the reader, and for
whom I hope some interest is felt, was not inclined to quiet.

George Frederick Cooke had not neglected his faithful servant;
and Trustworthy Davenport found himself, by the accumulation
of wages, and a handsome legacy, in possession of
what he said was “a considerable small fortune.”

After he had most sincerely mourned for his friend and master,
he told Dennis Dogherty that he was “railly at a nonplush
as to what next to do.”

“Why don't you set up for Congress?” said Dennis.

“No. I don't like to talk and do nothing; besides I like to
have my own way. I have determined to travel; but I am at
a loss to make up my mind as to the how, or the which way.”

“Travel. For what would you travel?”

“To see the world and bring home notions. I never was
tied to one spot so long before; and now that I can't help the
only cretur on arth I ever called my master—now that good
man—that mought a' been, if he would a' took the water naturally—
now that he is gone, I must go.”

“Not the same way, sure?”

“Not yit. But I was born with the desire to travel. My
mammy never could keep me long enough on her lap to feed
me. I have got the name of the Yankee traveller, and I well
deserve it. To be sure I might, now that I have serv'd a sort
of 'prenticeship to the stage—I might make my debutt, as they
call it, and then go to London as a star, “slow rising from the
west,” as one of the poets has it. But I have an objection to
stand up, without any breast work, to be shot at by encores or
hisses, just as any drunken blackguard or conceited coxcomb
pleases, and have no chance to fire back again. No! Free
trade and travel for Trusty!”

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“But what will you get by it?”

“Knowledge and seal-skins. I never envied any man so
much as my brother Yankee, that Ledyard, who kept going
round the world, as long as he could go ahead, by land or
water, and rather than not be going he would go barefoot to
Siberia. Then there was another Yankee, that Shockford,
a rale water-dog, that mann'd his own vessel with his own
hands—”

“Niggers, I suppose.”

“And steered her with his own head. Himself captain,
mate, cook, cabin-boy and crew! How grand that fellow
must have felt when he danced on the waves, and buffetted the
winds! When he had the whole ocean to himself, and could
say to the sun, “You and I are the only creturs above this
wide and boundless prairie of salt water, and for aught I know,
I am the greater of the two!”

Trusty, who could not be stopped by Dennis's “Niggers,”
was now silent in the contemplation of his imagined sublimity;
and the Hibernian was as much bewildered as one of that
clear-headed race could be.

“Mr. Devilsport,” he said, at length, “Dis is not the first
time that you have bother'd me; and what you mane by yourself
and your son, and your hands and your mate, I don't comprehend
exactly at all. But is it how you are to manage to
spind your fortune now you are Cooke's executor?”

“His legatee. Heaven bless him, I didn't call him master
for the sake of a legacy. He is gone, and so I'll travel. I
am rich—that is, I am well to do in the world, if I do well.
Plain dealing and switchell for that.”

“If I understand, you have not yet made up your mind.”

“Pretty much. Travel I will. But whether I shall invest
my funds in a carriage, horse, and a stock of wooden clocks
and tin ware for the western states and territories, and so
travel by land; or whether I shall build a vessel, load her, and
navigate her round Cape Horn to trade with the savages and
cannibals of the South Sea Islands; then cross the Pacific to
China, and return by the Cape of Good Hope, I have not yet
determined.”

“Blood and tunder! Why you must have a bank or a treasury
department of your own to do all that. Build a ship—
man her and victual her! You have big notions, Mr. Devilsport!”

“Yankee notions. Did you not hear of a man who crossed
the Atlantic in a boat just big enough to carry himself, his

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provisions and water; mann'd her with himself, and by himself,
and was owner, captain, mate and crew?”

“That I did not. And what countryman was he?”

“What country but Yankee-land could grow sich a cretur?
Now if he could do that thing, I'll be swampt if I don't do
more.”

“And swampt you will be, sure enough.”

“I've a conceit that I'll be the greatest Yankee-traveller the
world ever saw. Yes, Dennis, I think the south sea voyage
is more sublime than the tin-cart!”

As we have not heard of any extraordinary sensation produced
by Trustworthy in the territories, or the Rocky Mountains,
we suppose that he indulged himself as a navigator, and
is now luxuriating in the Sandwich Islands, or exploring the
yellow sea, or making discoveries at one or other pole. We
doubt not his safety, and unless when he returns he should
write his autobiography or reminiscences, we hope to be employed
for the benefit of posterity in doing both for him.

Dennis aspired to a seat in congress. His first step was
a corner grocery, by which he found that the city elections
were to be influenced through the naturalized. How high he
stands on the ladder we know not.

George Frederick Cooke died on the 26th of September,
1812. Attended to the last by his family physician, his trusty
valet, and one who had been his faithful nurse throughout his
illness. None knew the story of Mrs Johnson and her son,
but that son's wife.

Of the inferior actors in our tragi-comedy, one more shall
be noticed. Old Kent married a second wife, but never forgot
the first. In process of time, with his younger wife,
and a brood of young Kents, he wisely determined, for his
children's sake, to remove to Liberia, where we hope he is
still usefully employed as a teacher, and keeper of a circulating
library, his school well attended, and his books (among
which we hope this will be placed) much sought after. He
writes occasionally to his friends in New York, particularly
Mrs. Emma Johnson; and joins in blessing the leaders and
supporters of the society for removing the descendants of
Africans to the land of their fathers, imbued with those principles
and precepts—instructed in that knowledge and those
arts, which will make the desert bloom as a garden, and cause

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the white man to blush at the thought that ever there should
have been a day in which it was necessary for the negro to
cry, “am I not a man and a brother?” while exposed for sale
to the highest bidder in the city of Washington.

Before the marriage of Eliza Atherton to Thomas Littlejohn,
she insisted upon Spiffard's receiving such accumulation
as had accrued of the proceeds of the annuity which he, in his
days of supposed wealth, had liberally purchased for the
Atherton family. After her marriage, the benefit of the whole
was transferred to him. This made him indepeadent: the
Littlejohns insisted upon his receiving that which was no
longer needed by those who had enjoyed his benevolence.
He became a traveller; but a less ambitious one than his
fellow Yankee.

Twelve years after the death of Mrs. Spiffard, a little thin
gentleman was seen mounting to the pulpit of a church in
Virginia; and to the surprise of he stranger, who had arrived
from New York, he recognised Zebediah Spiffard, his old
acquaintance of the Park Theatre. After hearing a most excellent
sermon, the stranger waited in the street to accost the
preacher, and accomplished a meeting, after the reverend
man had passed through the kind and affectionate greetings
of a large congregation. He was, after due study, ordained.
He enjoyed the fruits of his experience and of his benevolent
disposition, having all the comforts of life about him, except a
wife. But there existed in Virginia circumstances which, after
struggling against them in vain, forced him to return to the north.
Many were the inducements to remain in that favoured land:
frank manners, kind dispositions, unbounded hospitality;
but he, even at that day, he set his heart upon establishing a
“temperance society,” foreseeing that if such a plant could
be made to take root, it would spread, and be nourished and
cultivated by all who saw or tasted of its fruit. Yes, Zebediah
Spiffard, who had seen and felt the evils of intemperance, was
the projector of the scheme which has saved thousands from
destruction. But, alas! the obstacles that have always opposed
projectors, did not fail to oppose our worthy clergyman.
The mint-julep before breakfast in summer, and the egg-nogg
in winter; the enticing toddy, with ice, at one season, and
smoking hot at the other, as a prelude to dinner—with all the
varieties of good old Jamaica rum, French brandy, real

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Hollands, Irish whiskey, cordials of names innumerable,
(although of one unchanging nature,) and wines from every
part of the globe—all were in dread array opposed to the
water-drinker's scheme.

Who can describe the Vermonter's astonishment, when on
the morning after his arrival, (it was in the month of June,)
he opened his eyes at the noise made by opening the chamber
door, and saw a negro approaching his bed with a huge bowl,
crowned with the fresh and fragrant herb, cool from the garden,
and mingled with transparent ice.

“Master says, please to take a drink, and make you sleep
till breakfast bell.”

Somewhat oppressed by heat, and feverish from the previous
day's travel, he looked on the green mint and ice—he smelt
the odour only of the dew-spangled leaves, and took the bait
from the hands of the slave—but the hook was soon obvious
to his unsophisticated sense—and as the fumes of rum mingled
with the cool atmosphere that surrounded the tempting
draught—it was rejected almost with disgust.

The negro stared! “Him very good to make sleep,
master.”

Spiffard excused himself—sent his thanks to the hospitable
planter, who wished to welcome him with that which delighted
himself—and instead of mint-julip, took water and a walk
before breakfast.

Another repulsive enemy to his peace was ever before his
eyes. It was Slavery. I may be permitted to mention it as
an evil, although it is cherished at the seat of my country's
government. But whether I have permission or not, I will
say that I think and know it to be an evil; and (any sophistry
to the contrary, notwithstanding) it is an evil that congress have
power and right to root out of the district, which is appropriated
as the hallowed spot where freemen meet to deliberate for the
welfare of freemen.

Spiffard knew he was in a slave-holding state, but he believed,
until he became a resident, that slave-holders considered
slavery an evil entailed upon them, which they wished
to throw off, and he was willing to assist them. But when he
saw that negroes were bred for exportation—that they were
pen'd in appropriate places, men, women and children shut up
together, and kept in drunkenness until the prison ship was ready
to carry them to the Mississippi—and that most of the male part
of his congregation ardently desired the creation of more slave
states as recipients for this growth of their plantations—he, in

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melancholy mood, turned his face home, and now lives with
the Littlejohns, assisting to rear the children of his aunt Eliza,
and his friends Henry and Emma Johnson, in the precepts of
heavenly love, and in promoting schools and societies for the
diffusion of that knowledge which will bring peace to individuals
and to nations.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say (but if only the necessary
had been said or written, how few would be now our books,
and how short the records of public speaking) that a moral is to
be drawn from the story of Zebediah Spiffard, almost as useful
as from that of George Frederick Cooke. For although
temperance guarded the Vermonter from the ills which the
tragedian drew upon himself, yet the water-drinker provided a
train of other ills to torment the early portion of his life.
First, by his disingenuous conduct toward his uncle—then by
yielding to the allurements of a theatrical life, and renouncing
the profession intended for him—and lastly, by his precipitate
choice of a partner for life. The ills flowing from these false
steps were consummated in the last; and the faults themselves
were, each one, consequent upon the other. Experience, the
great castigator, at length rendered him wise, and many years
of his life were passed happily, employed in the offices of
teaching and assisting others. He established temperance societies,
organized schools, and assisted in every good plan
proposed by others, for enlightening and ameliorating the condition
of the poor or the erring.