 | III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
3. III.
When morning began to redden over the eastern stars, our
household was astir, and while we partook of an early breakfast,
the light wagon, which was drawn by two smart young
bays, was brought to the door. Baskets, jugs, and other things,
were imbedded among the straw, with which our carriage was
plentifully supplied, and a chair was placed behind the one seat,
for my accommodation, as Mrs. Wetherbe was to occupy the
place beside my father. I have always regarded the occupancy
of the chair, on that occasion, as an example of self-sacrifice
which I should not like to repeat, however beautiful in theory
may be the idea of self-abnegation. But I cannot hope that
they have ridden eight or more miles, in an open wagon, and
on a chair slipping from side to side, and jolting up and down,
behind two coltish trotters, and over roads that for a part of
the time kept one wheel in the gutter and one in the air.
But I must leave to the imagination the ups and downs of
this particular epoch of my life. Still one star stood, large and
white, above the hills, but the ground of crimson began to be
dashed with gold when we set forward.
Notwithstanding the “rough, uneven ways, which drew out
the miles, and made them wearisome,” these goings to the city
are among the most delightful recollections of my life. They
were to my young vision openings of the brightness of the
world; and after the passage of a few years, with their experiences,
the new sensations that freshen and widen the atmosphere
of thought are very few and never so bright as I had
then.
Distinctly fixed in my mind is every house—its color and
size, and the garden walks and trees with which it was surrounded,
and by which the roadsides between our homestead and
that dim speck we called the city, were adorned; and nothing
would probably seem to me now so fine as did the white walls,
and smooth lawns, and round-headed gate-posts, which then
astonished my unpractised eyes.
Early as we were, we found Mrs. Wetherbe in waiting at her
gate, long before reaching which the fluttering of her scarlet
merino shawl, looking like the rising of another morning, apprised
us of our approach to it.
She had been nigh about an hour watching for us, she said,
and was just going into the house to take off her things, when
she saw the heads of the horses before a great cloud of dust;
and though she couldn't see the color of the wagon, nor a sign
of the critters, to tell whether they were black or white, she
knew right-a-way that it was our team, for no body else druv
such fine horses.
“Here, Mrs. Witherbe, get right in,” said my father, who
was fond of horses, and felt the compliment as much as if
it had been to himself; and it was owing entirely to this that
not sufficiently a metaphysician to explain why such cause
should have produced such an effect.
Helphenstein, who was chopping wood at the door, called
out, as we were leaving, “Don't forget to ask Jenny to come
to the quilting;” and Mr. Wetherbe paused from his churning,
beneath a cherry-tree, to say, “Good-bye, mother; be careful,
and not lose any money, for it's a hard thing to slip into a pus,
and it's easy to slip out.”
The good woman held up her purse—a little linen bag tied at
one end with a tow string, and pretty well distended at the
other—to assure the frugal husband she had not lost it in
climbing into the wagon; and having deposited it for safe keeping
where old ladies sometimes stow away thread, thimble,
beeswax, and the like, she proceeded to give us particular accounts
of all the moneys, lost or found, of which she ever knew
any thing, and at last concluded by saying she had sometimes
thought her old man a leetle more keerful than there was any
need of; but, after all, she didn't know as he was; and this
was just the conclusion any other loving and true-hearted wife
would have arrived at in reference to any idiosyncrasy pertaining
to her “old man,” no matter what might, could, would or
should be urged on the contrary.
One little circumstance of recent occurrence operated greatly
in favor of the carefulness of Mr. Wetherbe, in the mind of
his very excellent and prudent wife. Helph had lately, in a
most mysterious and unaccountable manner, lost two shillings
out of his trowsers pocket.
“It was the strangest thing ever could have happened,” she
said: “he was coming home from town—Helph was—and he
said, when he paid toll, he just had two shillings left; and he
put it in the left pocket of his trowsers, he said; he said he
knew he had it then, for just as he rode up the bank of the
creek, his horse stumbled, and he heard the money jingle, just
as plain as could be; and when he got home, and went up stairs,
and went to hang up his trowsers before he went to go to bed,
he just thought he would feel in his pocket, and the money
wasn't there! He said then, he thought he might have been
behold, it was clean gone! And such things make a body feel
as if they could not be too keerful,” observed Mrs. Wetherbe,
“for you might as well look for a needle in a haystack, as for
a dollar once lost. Helph,” she added, “rode back the next
morning as far as the toll-house, and though he kept his eyes
bent on the ground, the search wasn't of no use.” And she
suddenly started, and clapped her hand, not in her pocket, but
where she had deposited her own purse, exclaiming, as she did
so, “Mercy on us! I thought at fust it was gone; and I declare
for it, I am just as weak as a cat, now, and I shall not get over
my fright this whole blessed day.”
“You are a very nervous person,” said my father, and with
him this was equivalent to saying, you are a very foolish woman;
for he had little patience with men or women who make
much-ado-about-nothing; and, venting his irritation by a sudden
use of the whip, the horses started forward, and threw me quite
out of my chair; but the straw prevented me from receiving
any injury, and I gained my former position, while the hands
of Mrs. Wetherbe were yet in consternation in the air.
This feat of mine, and the laughter which rewarded it, brought
back more than the first good-humor of my father, and he
reined in the horses, saying, “They get over the ground pretty
smartly, don't they, Mrs. Wetherbe?”
“Gracious sakes!” she replied, “how they do whiz by things;
it appears like they fairly fly.” The conversation then turned
on the march of improvement; for we had come to the turnpike,
and the rattling of the wheels, and the sharp striking of
the hoofs on the stones, were reminders of the higher civilization
we were attaining, as well as serious impediments to any
colloquial enjoyment.
“A number of buildings have gone up since you were here,”
said my father, addressing the old lady.
“What has gone up where?” she answered, bending her ear
towards him. But failing to notice that she did not reply correctly,
he continued: “That is the old place Squire Gates used
to own; it don't look much as it used to, does it?”
“Yes, la me! what a nice place it is! Somewhere near old
Squire Gates's, isn't it?”
“Yes, he was an old man,” said my father, “when he owned
that place; and near sixty when he married his last wife, Polly
Weaver, that was.”
“Dear me, neighbor, how we get old and pass away! but I
never heard of the old man's death. What kind of fever did
you say he died with?”
“He is dead, then, is he? Well, I believe he was a pretty
good sort of man. I have nothing laid up against him. Do
you know whether he made a will?”
“Who did he leave it to?” inquired the lady, still misapprehending.
“Jeems, I believe, was his favorite, though I always
thought Danel the best of the two.”
“Well, I am glad Jeems has fared the best,” replied my
father; “he was the likeliest son the old man had.”
“Yes,” she said, vaguely, for she had not heard a word this
time.
“What did you say?” asked my father, who liked to have
his remarks answered in some sort.
The old lady looked puzzled, and said she didn't say any
thing; and after a moment my father resumed: “Well, do you
know where the old man died?” And in a tone that seemed
to indicate that she didn't know much of any thing, she inquired,
“What?” and then continued, in a tone of irritation, “I
never saw a wagon make such a terrible rattletebang in my
born days.”
“I asked if you knew where he died?” repeated my father,
speaking very loud.
“Oh no, we did hear once that he had separated from his
wife, and gone back to the old place; folks said she wasn't any
better than she should be; I don't pretend to know; and I
don't know whether he died there, or where he died. I don't
go about much to hear any thing, and I didn't know he was
dead till you told me.”
“Who told you?” asked my father, looking as though she
would not repeat the assertion the second time.
“I said I didn't know it till you told me,” she answered,
innocently; “and I was just about to ask where he died.”
“The devil!” said my father, losing not only all civility, but
all patience too; “I never told you any such thing, Mrs.
Wetherbe. I have not seen you to talk with you any for a
number of years till this morning, when you told me yourself
that the old man was dead; and if I had ever told such a story,
I should remember it.”
“Why,” she interposed, “you will surely remember, when
you think of it. It was just after we passed Squire Gates's
house; and the fever he died with you mentioned too.”
“Good heavens! it was just there you told me; and I had
not heard till that minute of his death. I will leave it to my
daughter here,” he continued, turning to me, who, laughing at
these blunders, was shaken and jolted from side to side, and
backward and forward, and up and down, all the time.
At this juncture, a smart little chaise, drawn by a high-headed
black horse, with a short tail, approached from the
opposite direction. Within sat a white-haired old gentleman,
wearing gloves and ruffles; and beside him, a more youthful
and rather gayly dressed lady. Both looked smiling and
happy; and as they passed, the gentleman bowed low to Mrs.
Wetherbe and my father.
“That is Squire Gates and his wife now!” exclaimed both
at once; and each continued, “It's strange how you happened
to tell me he was dead.”
“Both are right, and both are wrong,” said I, and thereupon
I explained their mutual misunderstanding, and the slightly irritable
feelings in which both had indulged subsided, and ended
in hearty good-humor.
The slant rays of the sun began to struggle through the black
smoke that blew against our faces, for the candle and soap
factories of the suburbs began to thicken, and the bleating of
lambs and calves from the long, low slaughter-houses which
ran up the hollows opposite the factories, made the head sick
and the heart ache as we entered city limits.
Fat and red-faced butchers, carrying long whips, and reining
in the gay horses they bestrode, met us, one after another,
and half maddened, galloped hither and thither, lashing their
tails furiously, and now and then sharply striking their horns
against each other, till they were forced through narrow passages
into the hot and close pens—no breath of fresh air, nor a
draught of water between them and their doom.
Now and then a little market-cart, with empty boxes and
barrels that had lately been filled with onions, turnips, or radishes,
went briskly by us: the two occupants, who sat on a
board across the front of it, having thus early disposed of their
cargo, and being now returning home to their gardens. Very
happy they looked, with the proceeds of their sales in the
pockets of their white aprons, and not unfrequently also a calf's
head or beef's liver, half-a-dozen pigs' feet, or some similar delicacy,
to be served up with garlics for dinner.
Countrymen who had ridden to market on horseback, were
likewise already returning to their farms. The basket which
had so lately been filled with the yellow rolls of butter, and
covered with the green broad leaves of the plantain, was filled
now, instead, with tea and sugar, with perhaps some rice and
raisins, and possibly a new calico gown for the wife at home.
What a pleasant surprise when the contents of the basket shall
be made known!
After all, the independent yeoman, with his simple rusticity
and healthful habits, is the happiest man in the world. And as
I saw these specimens of the class returning home, with joyous
faces and full baskets, I could not help saying what all the
world should know, if it be true, from its having been pretty
frequently repeated, “When ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be
wise.”
“What is it, darter?” said Mrs. Wetherbe, bending towards
me, for her apprehensions were not very quick.
“I was saying,” I replied, “that the farmers are the happiest
people in the world.”
“Yes, yes, they are the happiest,”—her predilections, of
course, being in favor of her own way of living; “it stands
to reason that it hardens the heart to live in cities, and makes
folks selfish too. Look there, what a dreadful sight!” and she
were thrown two or three calves, with their feet tied together,
and reaching upwards, their heads stretched back, and their
tongues hanging out. “Really, the law should punish such
wicked and useless cruelty,” she said; and I thought and still
think that Mrs. Wetherbe was not altogether wrong.
Men, and the signs of affairs, began to thicken; blacksmiths
were beating iron over their glowing forges, carpenters shoving
the plane, and the trowel of the mason ringing against the
bricks. Men, women, and children hurried to and fro, and
all languages were heard, and all costumes were seen, as if
after a thousand generations, the races were returning to be
again united at Babel.
“What a perfect bedlam!” said Mrs. Wetherbe; “I wish to
mercy I was ready to go home. Here, maybe, you had better
wait a little,” she added, seizing the rein, and pointing in the direction
of a grocery and variety shop, where some crockery appeared
at the window, and a strip of red flannel at the door.
“Don't you want to go down town?” said my father, reining
up.
“Yes,” she replied, “but I see some red flannel here, and I
want to get a few yards for a pettikit.”
Having assured her she could get it anywhere else as well,
she consented to go on, fixing the place in her mind, so that she
could find it again, if necessary; and we shortly found ourselves
at Mr. Randall's door.
| III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |