f elevating their
understandings.

Mine host, who stood behind the bar, like most of his country men, was
great of stature, good-natured and loose-jointed, with an enormous shock
of hair on his head, and a great tall hat on the top of that.

In fact, everybody in the room bore on his head this characteristic
emblem of man's sovereignty; whether it were felt hat, palm-leaf, greasy
beaver, or fine new chapeau, there it reposed with true republican
independence. In truth, it appeared to be the characteristic mark of
every individual. Some wore them tipped rakishly to one side--these
were your men of humor, jolly, free-and-easy dogs; some had them jammed
independently down over their noses--these were your hard characters,
thorough men, who, when they wore their hats, _wanted_ to wear them, and
to wear them just as they had a mind to; there were those who had them
set far over back--wide-awake men, who wanted a clear prospect; while
careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats sat, had them
shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in fact, were quite a
Shakespearean study.

Divers negroes, in very free-and-easy pantaloons, and with no redundancy
in the shirt line, were scuttling about, hither and thither, without
bringing to pass any very particular results, except expressing a
generic willingness to turn over everything in creation generally
for the benefit of Mas'r and his guests. Add to this picture a
jolly, crackling, rollicking fire, going rejoicingly up a great wide
chimney,--the outer door and every window being set wide open, and the
calico window-curtain flopping and snapping in a good stiff breeze
of damp raw air,--and you have an idea of the jollities of a Kentucky
tavern.

Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the
doctrine of transmitted instincts and pecularities. His fathers were
mighty hunters,--men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free,
open heavens, with the stars to hold their candles; and their descendant
to this day always acts as if the house were his camp,--wears his hat
at all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the tops of
chairs or mantelpieces, just as his father rolled on the green sward,
and put his upon trees and logs,--keeps all the windows and doors
open, winter and summer, that he may get air enough for his great
lungs,--calls everybody "stranger," with nonchalant _bonhommie_, and
is altogether the frankest, easiest,