The Portsmouth Inquirer

While riding, not long since in the old county of Stafford, in Va., and passing a rarely frequented road, I heard a noise that at once arrested my attention. It was a soliloquy in a very loud key, and interlarded with an occasional oath to prove that the colloquist was in earnest. Guiding my horse quietly in the direction of the voice, I saw a fellow evidently about half corned, deliberately cutting a long hickory switch, and talking to himself at the same time with great earnestness. I thought at first, that he intended to whip his horse, that stood tied hard by, and I was about turning off, when a new set of phrases in his self talk arrested me at once, and made me the witness of the following scene:

"Well, now, Leroy Jenkins, I expect you will catch goss in a little while. It won't be long first, before Leroy Jenkins' hide gets painted some. I'll pay you, Leroy Jenkins, for all this, you trifling cuss you."

Being in some doubt whether Leroy Jenkins was the name of his horse, or of some expected combatant whose preparations, of a character similar to those I have mentioned, were quietly progressing a short distance on, I determined to wait the issue of these fierce threats, and throwing my leg over my saddle, I prepared to become a calm spectator of the fight, and perhaps an umpire when one party or the other had got enough.

My friend of the hickory, as soon as he had cut and trimmed his switch, and satisfied himself of its elasticity and unbroken strength, laid it down on the ground talking all the time in a very truculent manner, of Leroy Jenkins. Deliberately taking off his coat, and laying it on a log, he took up his flail, and the first I heard of his succeeding soliloquy, was about as follows:

"Now Leroy Jenkins, ain't you ashamed of yourself, you nasty hound pup, and I am just now going to give you your bitters, you infernal mean reptile, you!"

In the mean time I leaned a little forward to catch a glimpse of his antagonist, but though the coast was comparatively clear, I could see no human face save that of the speaker, and I was now very sure that he did not mean his horse, for he took an opposite direction. I had small time, however, for reflection, for as his speech waxed warmer, he stepped a little forward, and aimed a sort of backhanded blow which descended with a keen sound and considerable force on his own back.

"There you infernal devil, take that, and that, and that, (shrow, shrow, the switch descended.) That's for your meanness, Leroy Jenkins. Now, sir, what are you going to tell your wife when you go home, about the money you get for her eggs and huckleberries, you mean pup? You spent it for liquor, did you? There take that sir, (shrow, shrow shrow.) She told you, Leroy Jenkins, to buy her a looking-glass, and enough calico to make her a chicken-bonnet, and where are they, you darned cuss you? Gone for liquor, hey? (shrow, shrow, shrow,) Well, I don't care if it does hurt, it serves you right Leroy Jenkins, for making a beast of yourself, and fooling your poor wife, you mean whelp you. You know, sir, when you left home, she told you that you couldn't pass Simmons's without spending all that money. You know she did, don't you? Now, sir, take that (shrow, shrow, shrow,) and didn't you promise her, Leroy, that you wouldn't go near Simmons's and you would be sure to buy her a nice glass, and the prettiest kind of calico for her bonnet? Didn't you, now, you cussed mean dog you. Yes, sir, you know you did (shrow, shrow, shrow, and the hickory descended with frightful keenness,) and Leroy Jenkins, what made you such a fool as to go by Simmons's at all when you saw Tom Walker standing in the door ready to treat you, and to drink all your money up? What made you do that, you rotten herring you? (shrow, shrew.) Well, sir, I'll pay you for all this, (shrow, shrow. You'll go to town and spend your wife's money for whiskey again, will you ?)" (and the blows were repeated with more frequency than his words.)

Although almost dying with suppressed laughter, I watched the infliction of self-acting punishment, which was bestowed with far more zeal than were the thousands of strokes whereby Sancho was to disenchant the lady love of his master. At length Leroy Jenkins stopped, either from pure exhaustion or because he thought the delinquency was sufficiently punished.

Throwing away his switch, which by this time was a little frayed at the end, he resumed his coat and his speech.

"Now Leroy Jenkins, now, sir, you've got licked, too, this time, and the next time you do this trick, I'll just airly take the hide off of you. You hear that, don't you, and now go home to your wife, and beg her pardon, you mean cuss you."

I slipped away unperceived by this justice dealing culprit, but I never think of this scene without an irresistible desire to laugh. And even now, whenever there happens to be a little family breeze, I can always make my wife smile by telling her, "I'll go into the woods my dear, and as a punishment for having vexed you, for a while I'll play Leroy Jenkins."—Spirit of the Times.