he solemn inspiration of antiquity,
I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us
is fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images than
that of any other people I have seen. Very many such will be found in
Mr. Bartlett's book, though his short list of proverbs at the end seem
to me, with one or two exceptions, as un-American as possible. Most of
them have no character at all but coarseness, and are quite too
long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always 'takes off
its coat to it,' as a Yankee would say. There are plenty that have a
more native and puckery flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, and
yet new varieties. One hears such not seldom among us Easterners, and
the West would yield many more. 'Mean enough to steal acorns from a
blind hog;' 'Cold as the north side of a Jenooary gravestone by
starlight;' 'Hungry as a graven image;' 'Pop'lar as a hen with one
chicken;' 'A hen's time ain't much;' 'Quicker 'n greased lightnin';'
'Ther's sech a thing ez bein' _tu_' (our Yankee paraphrase of [Greek:
maeden agan]); hence the phrase _tooin' round_, meaning a supererogatory
activity like that of flies; 'Stingy enough to skim his milk at both
eends;' 'Hot as the Devil's kitchen;' 'Handy as a pocket in a shirt;'
'He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon;' 'All deacons are good,
but there's odds in deacons' (to _deacon_ berries is to put the largest
atop); 'So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights;'[32]
may serve as specimens. 'I take my tea _barfoot_,' said a backwoodsman
when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find _barfoot_, by the
way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man speaking to me once of a very rocky
clearing said, 'Stone's got a pretty heavy mortgage on that land,' and I
overheard a guide in the woods say to his companions who were urging him
to sing, 'Wal, I _did_ sing once, but toons gut invented, an' thet spilt
my trade.' Whoever has driven over a stream by a bridge made of _slabs_
will feel the picturesque force of the epithet _slab-bridged_ applied to
a fellow of shaky character. Almost every county has some good
die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the
whole neighborhood. Such a one described the county jail (the one stone
building where all the dwellings are of wood) as 'the house whose
underpinnin' come up to the eaves,' and called hell 'the place where
they didn't rake up their fires nights.' I once a