The Early Experiences of Ralph Ringwood

[Footnote: Ralph Ringwood, though a
fictitious name, is a real personage: the worthy original is now living and
flourishing in honorable station. I have given some anecdotes of his early
and eccentric career in, as nearly as I can recollect, the very words in
which he related them. They certainly afforded strong temptations to the
embellishments of fiction; but I thought them so strikingly characteristic
of the individual, and of the scenes and society into which his peculiar
humors carried him, that I preferred giving them in their original
simplicity.--G. C.]

NOTED DOWN FROM HIS CONVERSATIONS

"I am a Kentuckian by residence and choice, but a Virginian by birth. The
cause of my first leaving the 'Ancient Dominion,' and emigrating to
Kentucky was a jackass! You stare, but have a little patience, and I'll
soon show you how it came to pass. My father, who was of one of the old
Virginian families, resided in Richmond. He was a widower, and his domestic
affairs were managed by a housekeeper of the old school, such as used to
administer the concerns of opulent Virginian households. She was a
dignitary that almost rivaled my father in importance, and seemed to think
everything belonged to her; in fact, she was so considerate in her economy,
and so careful of expense, as sometimes to vex my father, who would swear
she was disgracing him by her meanness. She always appeared with that
ancient insignia of housekeeping trust and authority, a great bunch of keys
jingling at her girdle. She superintended the arrangement of the table at
every meal, and saw that the dishes were all placed according to her
primitive notions of symmetry. In the evening she took her stand and served
out tea with a mingled respectfulness and pride of station, truly
exemplary. Her great ambition was to have everything in order, and that the
establishment under her sway should be cited as a model of good
housekeeping. If anything went wrong, poor old Barbara would take it to
heart, and sit in her room and cry; until a few chapters in the Bible would
quiet her spirits, and make all calm again. The Bible, in fact, was her
constant resort in time of trouble. She opened it indiscriminately, and
whether she chanced among the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Canticles of
Solomon, or the rough enumeration of the tribes in Deuteronomy, a chapter
was a chapter, and operated like balm to her soul. Such was our good old
housekeeper Barbara, who was destined, unwittingly, to have a most
important effect upon my destiny.

"It came to pass, during the days of my juvenility, while I was yet what is
termed 'an unlucky boy,' that a gentleman of our neighborhood, a great
advocate for experiments and improvements of all kinds, took it into his