The word "Fyste!" was once applied to the Pedlar and Jockey now. Was it not a Boston Historian who told us the other day, that William Penn was only great, because he came of true blue Yankee stock a kind of Quaker mastodeon from the fossil region of Plymouth Rock? These persons grossly err we all know that Pennsylvania like a worn out clock would stop forever, were she not wound up by a key, fashioned from the iron bolt of that New England gibbet on which they hung Quakers in good old times. Persons there are, who pretend that New England keeps her Religion, her Intellect, her Liberality at Home, and only sends abroad her Fanaticism, her Stupidity and Meanness. And once a year they get together in some cozy hotel - as many of them as Society can spare - and amid a wilderness of chowder and punkin-pie, they drench themselves with Cider from Jersey and Blarney from Plymouth Rock. Pennsylvania could not get on without them. They preach our sermons, they do our law, they publish our papers, they write our histories. In fact, every path that leads to eminence or pennies, is macadamized by flints from Plymouth Rock. They do not peddle - not they! Nor jockey? No, Sir ! Why our souls could not be saved, nor our minds enlightened, nor the course of Justice go forward, were it not for these Missionaries, sent to our benighted clime, by Old New England. She sends us Preachers, Editors and Lawyers. New England from the fountain of her overflowing benevolence, no longer sends to ignorant Pennsylvania, her former goodly offering of Pedlars and Horse-Jockies. "Tat Yankee fyste!" was the exclamation of a Berks County farmer who had been persuaded to purchase a Patent-Right of an Improved Wheel-barrow which was to go of itself by gravitation as the Yankee candidly observed.īut those days are passed. It is said to have been applied in the first place, to those benevolent pilgrims, who journeying from the land of Plymouth Rock, enlightened the benighted Germans by a severe course of wooden nutmegs, horn flints and patent medicines. It was once much in vogue in the German districts of Pennsylvania. A spavined horse a Bank Director 'found out' in his little speculations a lady of fashion, whose husband and lover come to fisty-cuffs, about her damaged reputation a lawyer who pockets fees from both sides, and drives a smart trade between the Thief and the Bailiff a sheriff elected to office by a certain party and sharing all the plunder with the hungry ones of the opposite party - these all, in Pennsylvania language are "ORNERY."Īs to the cabalistic word, "Fyste" we know not whether it is German, Greek or Indian. The first word is a modification of "Ordinary" and is much used in the Land of Penn, to express the last extreme of worthlessness. "Ornery fystes!" This phrase looks mysterious. "Te ornery fystes!" panted Betsy as she flung the broom away, and sank exhausted into a chair, beside the wondering Jacopo. They went their ways, Jake cursing, Pete blowing and Chon endangering his blood vessels by a smothered fit of laughter. "Now ye ornery fystes ever say tat house is hanted agin if ye dare!" With one brilliant attack, Betsy worried them over the grass plot and charged them through the gate.
The broom, that peculiar weapon of all lonely and afflicted women, from the trembling virgin who grasps it to immolate a spider to the injured wife who rears it to admonish a drunken husband - the Broom! It was the sight of this formidable missile that made the pot-companions tremble. With respect to the recent discussion of " Ornery", there's a relevant passage in George Lippard's 1848 novel Paul Ardenheim, the Monk of Wissahikon:
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