A Night In The Cars

At fifty minutes after five o'clock, P.M., I took my seat in the cars at Augusta, for Madison. In less than ten minutes some thirty or forty persons, including both sexes, did the like. Among the rest was a portly, well dressed gentleman, his wife, and his daughter. All I knew of the first was, that he was a Major, and this I learned from hearing a gentleman bid him farewell, by that title. It was easy to discover that the elderly lady was his wife, from his deportment to her; and still more easy to discover that the younger was their daughter, by the same course of reasoning. They called her Catharine; and the mother looked as if she thought Catharine pretty—and I thought so too.

She might well have passed for a Greensboro' lassie of 1817. Certainly the daughter did not get her beauty by inheritance; for the parents were both far from being handsome. The Major was a prodigiously large man, though he was not encumbered with flesh; and, large as he was, his features were disproportionately large to his frame. His nose, which terminated in a "pretty peert" (as we say in Georgia) Irish potato, would not, I am sure, have weighed less than a quarter of a pound. His lips were thick and protruding, and so was his chin. Making my own height a gauge, I should say that he would have stood six feet two in his stockings.

A few remarks that he made to his wife and daughter, soon after entering the car, convinced me that he was an intelligent, amiable and dignified man; for though there was nothing in them but what might be heard from any husband and father, under like circumstances, yet the tone, cadence, emphasis and countenance with which they were delivered, all bespoke the accomplished gentleman. I judge of character, moral and intellectual, from the first sentence that I hear a stranger utter—and I am not often deceived. I took up the idea that the Major had been, was, or would be a Kentucky Governor.

As we had to travel all night, I knew that the Major would be compelled, before morning, to lay all his dignity at the feet of Somnus¹; and I was curious to witness the surrender. Chance favored my desire, and threw the Major and myself face to face, and in adjoining seats. Mrs. Major was in all respects, a match for her husband, (judging as before,) except in stature. She was plump, genteel, dignified and ugly. Catharine seated herself with her back to me, or rather to my seat, for she occupying the forward of hers, and I the rearward end of mine, she was not immediately before me. The part of my seat, directly behind her, was soon taken by a very handsome young man—a stranger to me, but a Georgian I judged from his beauty. I saw Catharine look at him, and he at Catharine, as he entered the car— and I thought the glance he cast at her determined him to take a seat at my side. This brought him directly behind Catharine.

"How far is it from Augusta to Madison, sir?" said she to me, soon after we got under way.

"About a hundred miles, I believe," said I.

"A hundred and five miles," said the young gentleman at my right.

"How far did you say, sir?" said Catharine, in the sweetest voice in the world, as she faced the young stranger.

He repeated what he had said. She paused a moment, as if counting up the miles about which she knew nothing, gave her lips two pretty little tucks, and a half smile, and then resumed her former position. She didn't ask me the question in the same tone or with the same look that she assumed when she put it to him. At precisely twenty-three minutes after eight, (for I looked at the watch,) Catharine bounced to the other extreme of her seat, (right before me,) took off her bonnet, turned half round, rested her head on the side of the car, threw a lawn handkerchief over her face, and dropt to sleep right away. Her mother apologized for her, to her father, on the ground of her excessive fatigue and loss of sleep during her long travel.

The Major didn't seem to hear it; but I did, and so did my right-hand man. In a little time the handkerchief fell off her face—of course —and there slept Catharine in full view of the young stranger.

"Now, Kate," thought I, "that is downright wickedness, to go and spread out all your beauties right before this young gentleman. You are not asleep, I know you an't, for I saw you peep then—there, you're peeping again—I wish he'd sleep back at you, you little heart-breaker—he's a match for you in all respects. What do you wish to get him in love with you for? Will you ever see him again? Then what do you want to take his heart with you to Kentucky for?"

But all this is an undesigned episode. The Major is my man. I determined to see him drop to sleep, if I never saw another man sleep. Eight, nine, ten, and eleven rolled away before the Major surrendered the ten-thousandth part of a scruple of his dignity to the drowsy god. At length, at about three-quarters past eleven, the Major's upper lids became slightly pendant, and he rolled his eyes slowly to the right and left as if looking for something that he didn't care anything about. Then the corners of his mouth fell, and his tout ensemble was precisely that of one who has just taken an emetic. At this point the Major was extremely hard-favored. He now bowed his head upon his gold headed walking-stick, played a short tattoo on it, with his head, to the motion of the cars, and rose as bright as if he slept all night; looked sharply about, drew his hand briskly over his face, and gaped like the opening of a carpet-bag.

But old Somnus was soon at him again and brought his chin upon his breast. Here his head rocked from side to side in great majesty, until Mrs. Major fetched him a lurch in the side in one of her own oscillations. Up he rose again as before, and, for a moment, seemed as bright as a May morning. Mrs. Major now moved over to the opposite seat, and took a sort of spoon-fashion position with Kate, who was, by this time, fast asleep, sure enough. She was hardly seated, before she was clean gone, and very limber and gelatinous in her motions. The Major soon began to give way again, and having placed his head in a corner and extended his legs a little, he began to drink sleep with interest— but still with an eye to his dignity.

Like one inhaling the nitrous oxid, the more he sucked the better it got, and the less regard he paid to externals. Now, his body began to settle down, and the rest of his person to slip diagonally. This soon brought him to no other support than the os caescygi², which, of course, soon rebelled against this abuse of its office, and he nestled sideways into his seat, slipping as he nestled, and obviously taking in sleep with greediness. In performing this evolution, in which the main body was extended as far as it could be, the nether extremities were drawn suddenly forward, brushing Mrs. Major's extremities rudely as they passed, and settling firmly against Miss Catharine's, even to the crowding them ungrace fully against her mother.

The Major was now a figure four, and an ugly one at that—no, it was rather a horizontal capital N, or more accurately still, something of a cross of an N upon an Z.

"There," thought I, "my young friend, if that spectacle doesn't cool your love, nothing will; for if there's an uglier man in the universal world than Major Kentuck, just at this time, or an uglier woman than his wife, or if there ever was another family on earth so forbiddingly mixed up as this, then I have yet to see them."

The Major frowned frightfully—Mrs. Major looked as if her olfactories were insulted by the sweet perfumes that exhaled from Kate, and even Catharine looked as if she was dreaming of the inquisition—and I didn't wonder at it, pressed as she was on all sides. But the young gentleman, I do not think looked at any but Kate, and never much below her chin: it was reserved for me to be peeping over, and under, and round about, to see how matters went on below the backs of the seats. It is due to myself, however, just here to remark, that I am rarely guilty of such rudeness, and that I was prompted to it, at this time, only by curiosity, to witness a contrast be tween Nature and Majesty in their mightiest efforts. If a man, knowing that he has a whole night of travel before him, begins early in the evening to make preparation to catch what sleep he can, under circumstances so unfavorable, why I no more think of bestowing particular observation upon him, than I do of following a stranger; but when I see a man, whom I either know or think, sets himself up as the champion of dignity, against nature, why then I feel myself at perfect liberty to witness the fight.

What Nobleman in old England—the land of assumacy, as old B.W. used to say—would refuse to attend a prize-fight, and carefully record all its turns, and overturns? But let us return to the Major. We left him "on the little figure," but here he could not long remain. His neck and trochanter-Major³ raised a simultaneous revolt against it; he therefore rolled over lazily upon his back, lifted high his left leg—felt for a moment with it near the ceiling of the car, for something to put it on, and finding nothing, brought it down slowly upon the arm-railing, right at the middle joint, which, of course, let it fall pendant in the pass-way—while the other leg remained down among the family—I didn't see exactly where. In performing this evolution the Major's vest came un buttoned—perhaps it was so before, but unobserved by me; but no matter, it was so now, and it threw a most agreeable négligé over the whole man.

Now, I wanted the skill and chisel of a Phideas. The right leg soon got intimation that the left was comfortable, and moved up and joined it. At this moment the cars stopt for wood and water, and I found out that the Major was snoring upon the pitch of a bassoon, and with almost as great a variety of tone.

He was responded to "elegantly" by a fat man in the opposite seat,

"Dem men snore ver' much!" said a little man at my back, who seemed to be the only one awake in the cars, except myself —for even my right-hand man had now fallen asleep.

"Yes, sir," said I softly, disposed to encourage his remarks without waking the sleepers.

"Have you got no sleep to-night?"

"Yes," rejoined he; "I sleep some, till de cars stop—Humph! I have not hear such ver' loud snore as dat in my life. I have not pleasure to hear somebody snore in dat way—'t is ver' dis agreeable."

Just here the fat man fetched a tremendious abrupt snort and ceased, for a moment, both to snore and to breathe.

"Tank God, one dead!" said my new acquaintance; "and t'oder mose gone," continued he, looking at the Major, who now breathed as if at the point of suffocation.

"Don't wake them, my friend," said I ; "let them get what sleep they can."

"If one shall not wake t'oder, and he shall not wake him self, when he snore so loud, I tink I must make one noise ver' grand, to wake dem—Humph, de lady is begin!" Here Mrs. Major began to cheep audibly. A titter from several whom I supposed asleep, (and perhaps were, when we stopt,) was drowned in the noise of the starting engine. Soon after I dropt to sleep myself; and so remained with but a dreamy idea of what passed afterwards until we reached Madison.

When I awoke, the Major was just going to look after his baggage: Mrs. Major was looking at nothing: Kate was adjusting her hair, and looking at my right-hand man—he was looking at her—and so I left them, to go and look after my own baggage—which, by-the-way, I did not find ; for, while I was watching the Major, or asleep, my baggage, by mistake, had been put out at one of the stopping places. But I soon recovered it—for, in no land is there more honesty than in Georgia; on no Rail-Road is there kinder or more trust-worthy agents than on the Georgia Road!

This essay first appeared in Georgia Scenes, a book of Southern life and accounts originally published in 1835.

Footnotes

1. Somnus is the personification of sleep.

2. A term describing one’s tailbone.

3. An upper region of the femur.