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From Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas
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38 From Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas Richard Penn Smith For many years it was believed that Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas—published in 1836, the year after Crockett’s death at the Alamo— was an authentic work of autobiography. Even when it became evident that Philadelphian Richard Penn Smith was the real author, its importance was diminished little. As John Seelye has made clear, “it was so vivid an account of Crockett’s last adventure that it continued to influence other writers”— down to the present day (xi). This influential extract is an important case in point. Published the year after the lynching of the Vicksburg gamblers, this portrait of “Thimblerig” represents the earliest sustained portrait of a Mississippi gambler—charming, roguish, and rich in ambiguity. For more information , see John Seelye’s introduction to his modern edition of Smith’s work, On to the Alamo: Colonel Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas (New York: Penguin, 2003). There was a considerable number of passengers on board the boat, and our assortment was somewhat like the Yankee merchant’s cargo of notions, pretty particularly miscellaneous, I tell you. I moved through the crowd from stem to stern, to see if I could discover any face that was not altogether strange to me; but after a general survey, I concluded that I had never seen one of them before. There were merchants, and emigrants, and gamblers, but none who seemed to have embarked in the particular business that for the time being occupied my mind—I could find none who were going to Texas. All seemed to have their hands full enough of their own affairs, without meddling with the cause of freedom. The greater share of glory will be mine, thought I, so go ahead, Crockett. I saw a small cluster of passengers at one end of the boat, and hearing an occasional burst of laughter, thinks I, there’s some sport started in that quarter , and having nothing better to do, I’ll go in for my share of it. Accordingly I drew nigh to the cluster, and seated on the chest was a tall, lank, sea-sarpent looking blackleg, who had crawled over from Natchez under the hill, and was amusing the passengers with his skill at thimblerig; at the same time he was picking up their shillings just about as expeditiously as a hungry gobbler would a pint of corn. He was doing what might be called an average business in a small way, and lost no time in gathering up the fragments. 39 From Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas I watched the whole process for some time, and found that he had adopted the example set by the old tempter himself, to get the weathergage of us poor weak mortals. He made it a point to let his victims win always the first stake, that they might be tempted to go ahead; and then, when they least suspected it, he would come down upon them like a hurricane in a cornfield, sweeping all before it. I stood looking on, seeing him pick up the chicken feed from the green horns, and thought if men are such darned fools as to be cheated out of their hard earnings by a fellow who has just brains enough to pass a pea from one thimble to another, with such sleight of hand, that you could not tell under which he had deposited it, it is not astonishing that the magician of Kinderhook should play thimblerig upon the big figure, and attempt to cheat the whole nation. I thought that “the Government” was playing the same game with the deposites, and with such address, too, that before long it will be a hard matter to find them under any of the thimbles where it is supposed they have been originally placed. The thimble conjurer saw me looking on, and eyeing me as if he thought I would be a good subject, said carelessly, “Come, stranger, won’t you take a chance?” the whole time passing the pea from one thimble to the other, by way of throwing out a bait for the gudgeons to bite at. “I never gamble, stranger,” says I, “principled against it; think it a slippery way of getting through the world at best.” “Them are my sentiments to a notch,” says he; “but this is not gambling by no means. A little innocent pastime, nothing more...