His
sentiments apparently fell no further towards his heart than that; his
brain belonged to the bridge of his nose.
"Another Meshach Milburn, by smoke!" concluded Jimmy.
After a little pause Phoebus inquired into the character of the people
in this apparently new region of country.
"The quotient of much misplanting and lawyering is the lands on the
Nanticoke," spoke the gray-nosed Apollo; "the piece of country directly
before us, in the rear of my neighbor Johnson's cross-roads, was an old
Indian reservation for seventy years, and so were three thousand acres
to our right, on Broad Creek. The Indian is a bad factor to civilize his
white neighbors; he does not know the luxury of the law, that grand
contrivance to make the equation between the business man and the herd.
Ha, ha!"
Mr. Cannon chuckled as if he, at least, appreciated the law, and turned
the fine horsy bridge of his nose, all gray with dancing eyelight,
enjoyingly upon Mr. Phoebus.
"The Indians were long imposed upon, and when they went away, at the
brink of the Revolutionary War, they left a demoralized white race; and
others who moved in upon the deserted lands of the Nanticokes were, if
possible, more Indian than the Indians. This peninsula never produced a
great Indian, but when Ebenezer Johnson settled on Broad Creek it
possessed a greater savage than Tecumseh. He took what he wanted and
appealed to nature, like the Indian.
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