cannot mean what he says it does.  We have always heard mulling used for stirring, bustling, sometimes in an underhand way.  It is a metaphor derived probably from mulling wine, and the word itself must be a corruption of mell, from O.F. mesler. Pair of stairs is in Hakluyt. To pull up stakes is in Curwen’s Journal, and therefore pre-Revolutionary.  I think I have met with it earlier. Raise:  under this word Mr. Bartlett omits ’to raise a house,’ that is, the frame of a wooden one, and also the substantive formed from it, a raisin’. Retire for go to bed is in Fielding’s ‘Amelia.’ Setting-poles cannot be new, for I find ’some set [the boats] with long poles’ in Hakluyt. Shoulder-hitters:  I find that shoulder-striker is old, though I have lost the reference to my authority. Snag is no new word, though perhaps the Western application of it is so; but I find in Gill the proverb, ’A bird in the bag is worth two on the snag.’  Dryden has swop and to rights. Trail:  Hakluyt has ‘many wayes traled by the wilde beastes.’

I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bartlett’s book which I have heard. Bald-headed:  ‘to go it bald-beaded;’ in great haste, as where one rushes out without his hat. Bogue:  ’I don’t git much done ’thout I bogue right in along ‘th my men.’ Carry:  a portage. Cat-nap:  a short doze. Cat-stick:  a small stick. Chowder-head:  a muddle-brain. Cling-john:  a soft cake of rye. Cocoanut; the head. Cohees:  applied to the people of certain settlements in Western Pennsylvania, from their use of the archaic form Quo’ he. Dunnow’z I know:  the nearest your true Yankee ever comes to acknowledging ignorance. Essence-pedler:  a skunk. First-rate and a half. Fish flakes, for drying fish:  O.E. fleck (cratis). Gander-party:  a social gathering of men only. Gawnicus:  a dolt. Hawkin’s whetstone:  rum; in derision of one Hawkins, a well-known temperance-lecturer. Hyper:  to bustle:  ’I mus’ hyper about an’ git tea.’ Keeler-tub:  one in which dishes are washed. (’And Greasy Joan doth keel the pot.’) Lap-tea:  where the guests are too many to sit at table. Last of pea-time:  to be hard-up. Lose-laid (loose-laid):  a weaver’s term, and probably English; weak-willed. Malahack:  to cut up hastily or awkwardly. Moonglade:  a beautiful word:  for the track of moonlight on the water. Off-ox:  an unmanageable, cross-grained fellow. Old Driver, Old Splitfoot:  the Devil. On-hitch:  to pull trigger (cf.  Spanish disparar). Popular:  conceited, Rote:  sound of surf before a storm. Rot-gut:  cheap whiskey; the word occurs in Heywood’s ‘English Traveller’ and Addison’s