Stray Leaves from the Unpublished Biography of Botheration Bartlett
by Ethan Spike, Esq., Late of Hornby, Me.
(Matthew Whittier wrote under the fictitious name and character of "Ethan Spike")

Some said the moon did it. Some, that it was because he was born at the wrong time of the tide. Some said one thing and some another. Scarcely two agreed as touching the cause, but all did agree that Botheration Bartlett was unfortunately made up. His outer man was about as unfortunately done up as anything that ever came from nature's workshop. No limb or feature matched its fellow. One eye was green, the other yellow. One looked toward Saco, the other regarded Great Chebeague. Measuring downward, his nose to the bridge was perpendicular--thence to the end horizontal. His right ear laid back on his neck like the ears of a vicious horse, while the other pointed forward like those of a setter dog. But his ill-matched limbs, and contradicting features, the tout ensemble of the outer, was as nothing compared with the unpleasant arrangement of the inner man. Botheration Bartlett was always where he ought not to be. When a mere child, he manifested a very distressing proclivity to get in the way. He was continually being stepped on, having hot liquids spilled on him, getting his fingers jammed by the shutting of doors, or his head bruised by their opening. Ere he was four years old, he was thrice caught in a rat-trap, was twice barely rescued from drowning, and once parboiled in a tub of hot water; had put out one of his sister's eyes--crippled for life his only brother--thrown his mother into convulsion fits, of which she died--and burned his father's house. He ascended stairs like other children, but invariably tumbled down, and never eat [sic] a meal without choking.

Such was his early career. The whole medical science of the place was brought to bear on his case, but with no effect. There was a time, it is true, that his friends were sanguine of a cure through the patent influence of Brandreth's pills and the "Hygean Compound Catholicon Concentrated Elix of Humbug." The combined effect of the valuable family medicines, produced temporary sickness, which, confining him to his bed for a few days, he was for once, out of the way! But when he recovered from the temporary, the permanent disease appeared again in pristine vigor. The learned Dr. Squizzle, who was called to consult with the family physician reported that in his opinion the child's name was too much for him, having struck into his stomach, and produced what the erudite Esculapian termed "an embrasure of the hypodotamus of the indiscretionary organs."

The above we obtained traditionally in his native village. Botheration was fully "grown up" as they say down east, ere we knew him. He had moved into town and set up in the retail grocery way. Our first introduction to him was in this wise. Sauntering leisurely down Exchange street one warm January afternoon, our attention was arrested by a heavy rumbling sound over the way. "Look out! look out for the snowslide," yelled a dozen voices at once. We looked and through the Niagara-like sheet of snow falling from the high and slated roof, caught a glimpse of a man rushing out from a projecting doorway to the very spot where the avalanche poured its wrath. For one instant he staggered and contended with the snowy cataract--the next, he was buried like another Herculaneum. Hastening with others to the rescue, we soon exhumed the victim. We laughed outright; we couldn't help it. Such an uncouth assemblage of limbs we had never seen outside of an anatomist's rooms; the strange, oddly-fitting anatomical collection which the Grand Jury of Suffolk identified as the remains of Dr. Parkman were symmetrical compared with them. Then and there we first saw Botheration Bartlett. We led him into the middle of the street, brushed him carefully, and admonished him to keep close to the buildings, when he heard a snowslide coming. Scarcely had we concluded when a sound as the rushing of many waters, indicated another avalanche. Botheration glared wildly around; then obedient to our sage counsel, plunged madly toward the sidewalk on which he arrived just in season to be buried still deeper than before.

It would seem that no man of Botheration's peculiar stripe and pattern, who had free access to a looking-glass, would ever dream of falling in love, or at least, if he did, of being loved in return, unless, indeed, we adopt the somewhat apocryphal sentiment of the great poet--we have forgotten the name--

There's never a Jack with Jill.

Be that as it may, he not only fell in love, but actually went so far as to believe that Lydia Ann Frisbee was willing, nay, anxious to leave--not exactly father and mother, never having had any to speak of--but the manufacture of glazed caps and cleave to him becoming bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. When the idea first took possession of him he was extremely exalted and lifted up. We well remember the time. We were sitting, each of us, on a keg of nails by his shop-stove, regaling ourselves with fragrant long nines and discussing the weather, past present and future. Suddenly our interesting friend paused in the middle of a sentence, and with one eye fixed on the end of his cigar and the other roaming wildly among the catsup, mustard, an bristol brick on his shelves, respired heavily. We knew that something had struck him and we waited the result. At length, slowly the roving eye desisted from its employment on the shelves, and sweepingn round the molasses hogshead, came in time to rest full upon our countenance. It was the green eye and was more than usually verdant in its expression. After a minute or two it left and resumed its inventory of the contents of the shelves. But it had no sooner gone than the yellow onw took its place and regarded us keenly. Suddenly the owner of these interesting visuals sprang to his feet, threw his cigar into the lard barrel and seizing us by both hands, spoke to use through tightly closed teeth.--

"I knowed it," said he, "I knowed it ever so long."

"Knew what?" queried we.

"Knowed she liked me--sot high by me."

"Who?"

"Liddy Ann," roared Botheration releasing our hands and striding haughtily about the room. "Yes, sir-ee," he continued, "a fact, sir. She says I haint very pretty to look at, and will be despertly in the way; but still, says Liddy Ann, says she, I'll have you just to please my little sister, who's never seen a weddin, says she. It'll come off in about--"

Here the voice of Botheration abruptly ceased, and looking round, we found that he had suddenly disappeared. An open trap-door and a dismal howl coming up from the cellar, revealed to us the catastrophe at once. One of his eyes being still engaged on the shelves, and the other having stepped out for a moment, their unlucky owner was left to test the correctness of the Newtonian theory of Gravitation.

With the assistance of another lounger we brought the unfortunate and unfashionable up to the light. Better to have left him in the dark. He had fallen among some old scythes, and his nose was clean gone forever.

Lydia Ann--alas for woman's constancy--she cast him off. She said that his decapitated nose was bad enough, but still better than none. She couldn't think of united her destiny to a noseless man--"Oh, Lud, no! she couldn't bear the ideer." And when after his recovery, our friend hastened on the wings of love to his betrothed, the woman of the house denied him admittance, and he heard the voice of his Lydia Ann directing that elderly female to "tell Mr. Botheration that she want to hum." Need we wonder that he was overcome.

He was overcome. And long afterward, when the bitterness had in a measure passed, he told us on leaving Lydia Ann's he felt just as though he had two ribs broken. "Once," said he, "I stopped right in the road, took out my jack-knife and intended to cut my throat. But I reflected a minute; that saved me. I only cut off a chaw of tobacco, and shut the knife up. And now," continued he, "I'm proper glad I did reflect."