Chapter 12

"Then the wine it gets into their heads,
And turns the wit out of its station;
Nonsense gets in, in its stead,
And their puns are now all botheration."

_The Punning Society._

Guert Ten Eyck looked at me expressively, as the sleigh whirled round an
angle of the building and disappeared. He then proposed that we should
proceed. On ascending the main street, I was not a little surprised at
discovering the sort of amusement that was going on, and in which it seemed
to me all the youths of the place were engaged. By youths, I do not mean
lads of twelve and fourteen, but young men of eighteen and twenty, the
amusement being that of sliding down hill, or "coasting," as I am told
it is called in Boston. The acclivity was quite sharp, and of sufficient
length to give an impetus to the sled, that was set in motion at a short
distance above the English church; an impetus that would carry it past the
Dutch church--a distance that was somewhat more than a quarter of a mile.
The hand-sleds employed, were of a size and construction suited to the
dimensions of those that used them; and, as a matter of course, there was
no New Yorker that had not learned how to govern the motion of one of these
vehicles, even when gliding down the steepest descent, with the nicest
delicacy and greatest ease. As children, or boys as late in life as
fourteen even, every male in the colony, and not a few of the females, had
acquired this art; but this was the first place in which I had ever known
adults to engage in the sport. The accidental circumstance of a hill's
belonging to the principal street, joined to the severity of the winters,
had rendered an amusement suited to grown people, that, elsewhere, was
monopolized by the children.

By the time we had ascended as high as the English church, a party of young
officers came down from the fort, gay with the glass and the song of the
regimental mess. No sooner did they reach the starting-point, than three
or four of the more youthful got possession of as many sleds, and off
they went, like the shot starting from its gun. Nobody seemed to think it
strange; but, on the contrary, I observed that the elderly people looked
on with a complacent gravity, that seemed to say how vividly the sight
recalled the days of their own youth. I cannot say, however, that the
strangers succeeded very well in managing their sleds, generally meeting
with some stoppage before they reached the bottom of the hill.

"Will you take a slide, Mr. Littlepage?" Guert demanded, with a courteous
gravity, that showed how serious a business he fancied the sport. "Here
is a large and strong sled that will carry double, and you might trust
yourself with me, though a regiment of