It’s a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire.
The opening line of the story effectively situates the setting. Right from the opening, the reader knows this is a New England tale and with the “story they tell” reference, it immediately takes on the characteristics of a tall tale or legend, so it becomes safe to assume the story is not taking place in the present.
You see, for a while, he was the biggest man in the country. He never got to be President, but he was the biggest man. There were thousands that trusted in him right next to God.
This is the introduction to Daniel Webster. For those who may not be aware of his identity—a section of the readership that grows larger with each passing year, these few lines really tell all that needs to be known. More details will arrive, but the only serve to satisfy the portrait painted here.
There was a man named Jabez Stone, lived at Cross Corners, New Hampshire. He wasn’t a bad man to start with, but he was an unlucky man. If he planted corn, he got borers; if he planted potatoes, he got blight.
The same holds true here with Jabez Stone. Again, details are filled in, but with this introduction, it is already clear enough what kind of man Stone is and easy enough to predict why he might be so willing to enter into a deal with the devil.
”I vow it’s enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil! And I would, too, for two cents!”
With these simple words stimulated by his latest round of bad luck—the breaking of a plowshare—the transformation of Jabez Stone from perpetual victim of misfortune into the holder of a contractual obligation to the Devil commences.
“Perhaps Scratch will do for the evening. I’m often called that in these regions.”
The Devil goes by many names and it is an example of regional writing that Scratch is what he prefers to be called in the New England area so described at the very beginning. It is a fascinating element of the Devil that he truly does bear so many different names, which leads to a natural conclusion that perhaps he bears as many different faces. The Yankee stock are notoriously suspicious of outsiders and it only stands to reason that Scratch would also look a bit more forthcoming and Yankee-like in his appearance.
“And who with better right? When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on? Am I not spoken of, still, in every church in New England? ‘Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner and the South for a Northerner, but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself—and of the best descent—for, to tell the truth, Mr. Webster, though I don’t like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.”
In response to Daniel Webster’s objection that no American shall be forced to comply with a foreign prince, the Devil questions what makes Webster think he’s a foreigner. When Jabez Stone further questions that he has never heard of the Devil making claim to being an American, Scratch responds thusly. The allusion to America’s shame of slavery is one of the more ironic points of the story; after all, when the Devil can insult your traditions, those traditions must be a pretty sorry sight.
“We find for the defendant, Jabez Stone. Perhaps ’tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.”
The jury returns its verdict and the spokesman speaks aloud what is on the mind of all who cannot figure out how the evidence against Stone could possibly ever be overcome. And, indeed, it was not. The jury reveals that it was solely through the power of oration that they were swayed; a jury of the notorious who lived and died in infamy, at that.
But they say whenever the devil comes near Marshfield, even now, he gives it a wide berth. And he hasn’t been seen in the state of New Hampshire from that day to this. I’m not talking about Massachusetts or Vermont.
The closing lines present a humorous callback to the opening lines. The Devil has learned his lesson about trying to trick honest people in New Hampshire. Things are considerably safer for Scratch elsewhere, however.
