A panther.
1803. My master the nest day heard of my battle with Cuffey. He said that I ought to live among painters and wolves, and sold me to a Georgia man for two hundred dollars. My new master was the devil. He made me travel with him hand-cuffed to Savannah; where he disposed of me to a tavern-keeper for three hundred dollars.—John Davis, ‘Travels in the U.S.A.,’ p. 382 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1820. “I felt quite rich, when I found my knife, flint, and steel in my shot pouch. These little fixens,” added he, “make a man feel right peart, when he is three or four hundred miles from any body or any place—alone among the painters and wild varments.”—James Hall, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 304 (Lond.).
1825. One day, our Towzle—he fit a painter;—well—and so the painter, he smacks him thro’ the ribs—clean as a whistle—same as a cat.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 41.
1836. They all burst out laughin like a passel [parcel] of painters.—Phila. Public Ledger, July 27.
1836. It’s never a man I’m talkin’ about, but a rale painter. He’s growlin’, an’ is goin’ to devour the whole graveyard.—Id., Dec. 6.
1843. I have been hunted like a paynter from Salem to Weathersfield.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘Writings,’ p. 47.
1845. It might be a painter that stirred him [the dog], for he could scent that beast a great distance.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Wigwam and the Cabin,’ p. 48 (Lond.). (Italics in the original.)
1845. I reckon you never hearn about the time I got among the panters.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Chronicles of Pineville,’ p. 173 (Phila.).
1846.
| Another time I was in the woods a-chopping, | |
| When I saw a painter from tree to tree hopping; | |
| He came over my head, and jumped down, | |
| And I drawed up my axe and struck him on his crown. | |
Knick. Mag., xxvii. 276 (March). |
1846. “You, Jake Snyder, don’t holler so!” says the old ’oman—“why you are worse nor a painter.”—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 85.
1846. I druv ten years in Kentucky, and four here, and I never carried a western woman that didn’t holler like a painter every time I jolted her a little, or put the horses up faster than a trot.—E. W. Farnham, ‘Life in Prairie Land,’ p. 294.
1847. Why, stranger, my father that spring swum across the big Satan, in a freshet, with a dead painter in his mouth, and a live alligator full splurge after him.—J. K. Paulding, ‘American Comedies,’ p. 195 (Phila.).
1847. I never leave the [surveyor’s] chain now unless I am afraid of getting my head combed by a painter or wild-cat.—Knick. Mag., xxix. 63 (Jan.).
1847. Didn’t he [Tom] get mad?—wur you ever near enough to a panter when his har riz with wrath?—Robb, ‘Streaks of Squatter Life,’ &c., p. 107 (Phila.).
1847. I’m some in a bar fight, and considerable among panters, but I warn’t no whar in that fight with Jess.—Id., p. 132.
1848. I staggered up agin the lamp-post, and held on to it [the baby], while it kicked and squalled like a young panter, and the sweat jest poured out of me in a stream.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 114 (Phila.).
1850. The bar and painter got so saucy that they’d cum to the tother side of the bayou and see which could talk impudentest! ‘Don’t you want some bar-meat or painter blanket?’ they’d ask; ‘bars is monstrous fat, and painter’s hide is mighty warm!’—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 170 (Phila.).
1851. We did’nt make quite as much noise as a panter and a pack of hounds, but we made some.—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 47 (Phila.).
1853. There was wolves in the Holler—an unaccountable mess of ’em; and painters—the wust kind of painters.—Knick. Mag., xli. 502 (June).
1855. I was amused at Middy’s astonishment at hearing the old hunters speak of shooting ‘painters.’ He was evidently unused to artists being thus summarily disposed of.—Knick. Mag., xlv. 569 (June).
1857. If you find a painter, or a bear, takin’ a nap in your path, and don’t want to have a clinch with him, wake him up before you get right onto him, and he’ll be very likely to think he’s cornered, and them animals have onpleasant ways with ’em when they’re in that fix.—S. H. Hammond, ‘Wild Northern Scenes,’ p. 223.
1860. [He] did n’t approve of these here sareynades; thought young men ought to be in bed time enough to get up airly in the mornin’, and not go round howlin’ like a pack o’ painters.—Knick. Mag., lv. 613 (June).
1869. She told us how, in her young days, where she was brought up in Maine, the painters (panthers) used to come round their log cabin at night, and howl and growl.—Mrs. Stowe, ‘Oldtown Folks,’ ch. xxviii.
