Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/278

 with the faith and confidence of a child. A character of this kind is calculated to exhibit at times its laughable side, but it has undeniably a fresh, peculiar greatness about it, and is capable of accomplishing great things. And in the attainment of the most important object in the solution of the highest problem of humanity—a fraternal people, I believe that the Father of all people laid his hand upon the head of his youngest son, as our Charles the Ninth did, saying, “He shall do it! he shall do it!” As an example of those amusing and characteristic instances of Yankee spirit, which I have often heard related, take the following. A young man, brother to Charles Sumner, travelled to Petersburg to present an acorn to the Emperor Nicholas,—but I must tell you the story as Maria Child tells it, in her entertaining letters from New York.

“One day a lad, apparently about nineteen, presented himself before our ambassador at St. Petersburg. He was a pure specimen of the genus Yankee; with sleeves too short for his bony arms, trowsers half way up to his knees, and hands playing with coppers and tenpenny nails in his pocket. He introduced himself by saying—‘I've just come out here to trade, with a few Yankee notions, and I want to get a sight of the Emperor.’

“ ‘Why do you wish to see him?’

“ ‘I've brought him a present all the way from Americky. I respect him considerable, and I want to get at him, to give it to him with my own hands.’

“Mr. Dallas smiled, as he answered, ‘It is such a common thing, my lad, to make crowned heads a present, expecting something handsome in return, that I am afraid the Emperor will consider this only a Yankee trick. What have you brought?’

“ ‘An acorn!’

“ ‘An acorn! What under the sun induced you to bring the Emperor of Russia an acorn?’