S. Appendix S
I find in my travelling journal a passage which may serve to
convey a more complete notion of the trials to which the women of
America, who consent to follow their husbands into the wilds, are
often subjected. This description has nothing to recommend it to
the reader but its strict accuracy:
". . . From time to time we come to fresh clearings; all
these places are alike; I shall describe the one at which we have
halted to-night, for it will serve to remind me of all the
others.
"The bell which the pioneers hang round the necks of their
cattle, in order to find them again in the woods, announced our
approach to a clearing, when we were yet a long way off; and we
soon afterwards heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the
trees of the forest. As we came nearer, traces of destruction
marked the presence of civilized man; the road was strewn with
shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or
cleft by the wedge, were still standing in the track we were
following. We continued to proceed till we reached a wood in
which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in
the height of summer their boughs were as leafless as in winter;
and upon closer examination we found that a deep circle had been
cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the
sap, soon kills the tree. We were informed that this is commonly
the first thing a pioneer does; as he cannot in the first year
cut down all the trees which cover his new parcel of land, he
sows Indian corn under their branches, and puts the trees to
death in order to prevent them from injuring his crop. Beyond
this field, at present imperfectly traced out, we suddenly came
upon the cabin of its owner, situated in the centre of a plot of
ground more carefully cultivated than the rest, but where man was
still waging unequal warfare with the forest; there the trees
were cut down, but their roots were not removed, and the trunks
still encumbered the ground which they so recently shaded. Around
these dry blocks, wheat, suckers of trees, and plants of every
kind, grow and intertwine in all the luxuriance of wild,
untutored nature. Amidst this vigorous and various vegetation
stands the house of the pioneer, or, as they call it, the log
house. Like the ground about it, this rustic dwelling bore marks
of recent and hasty labor; its length seemed not to exceed thirty
feet, its height fifteen; the walls as well as the roof were
formed of rough trunks of trees, between which a little moss and
clay had been inserted to keep out the cold and rain.
"As night was coming on, we determined to ask the master of
the log house for a lodging. At the sound of our footsteps, the
children who were playing amongst the scattered branches sprang
up and ran towards the house, as if they were frightened at the
sight of man; whilst two large dogs, almost wild, with ears erect
and outstretched nose, came growling out of their hut, to cover
the retreat of their young masters. The pioneer himself made his
appearance at the door of his dwelling; he looked at us with a
rapid and inquisitive glance, made a sign to the dogs to go into
the house, and set them the example, without betraying either
curiosity or apprehension at our arrival.
"We entered the log house: the inside is quite unlike that
of the cottages of the peasantry of Europe: it contains more than
is superfluous, less than is necessary. A single window with a
muslin blind; on a hearth of trodden clay an immense fire, which
lights the whole structure; above the hearth a good rifle, a
deer's skin, and plumes of eagles' feathers; on the right hand of
the chimney a map of the United States, raised and shaken by the
wind through the crannies in the wall; near the map, upon a shelf
formed of a roughly hewn plank, a few volumes of books -a Bible,
the six first books of Milton, and two of Shakespeare's plays;
along the wall, trunks instead of closets; in the centre of the
room a rude table, with legs of green wood, and with the bark
still upon them, looking as if they grew out of the ground on
which they stood; but on this table a tea-pot of British ware,
silver spoons, cracked tea-cups, and some newspapers.
"The master of this dwelling has the strong angular features
and lank limbs peculiar to the native of New England. It is
evident that this man was not born in the solitude in which we
have met with him: his physical constitution suffices to show
that his earlier years were spent in the midst of civilized
society, and that he belongs to that restless, calculating, and
adventurous race of men, who do with the utmost coolness things
only to be accounted for by the ardor of the passions, and who
endure the life of savages for a time, in order to conquer and
civilize the backwoods.
"When the pioneer perceived that we were crossing his
threshold, he came to meet us and shake hands, as is their
custom; but his face was quite unmoved; he opened the
conversation by inquiring what was going on in the world; and
when his curiosity was satisfied, he held his peace, as if he
were tired by the noise and importunity of mankind. When we
questioned him in our turn, he gave us all the information we
required; he then attended sedulously, but without eagerness, to
our personal wants. Whilst he was engaged in providing thus
kindly for us, how came it that in spit of ourselves we felt our
gratitude die upon our lips? It is that our host whilst he
performs the duties of hospitality, seems to be obeying an
irksome necessity of his condition: he treats it as a duty
imposed upon him by his situation, not as a pleasure. By the
side of the hearth sits a woman with a baby on her lap: she nods
to us without disturbing herself. Like the pioneer, this woman
is in the prime of life; her appearance would seem superior to
her condition, and her apparel even betrays a lingering taste for
dress; but her delicate limbs appear shrunken, her features are
drawn in, her eye is mild and melancholy; her whole physiognomy
bears marks of a degree of religious resignation, a deep quiet of
all passions, and some sort of natural and tranquil firmness,
ready to meet all the ills of life, without fearing and without
braving them. Her children cluster about her, full of health,
turbulence, and energy: they are true children of the wilderness;
their mother watches them from time to time with mingled
melancholy and joy: to look at their strength and her languor,
one might imagine that the life she has given them has exhausted
her own, and still she regrets not what they have cost her. The
house inhabited by these emigrants has no internal partition or
loft. In the one chamber of which it consists, the whole family
is gathered for the night. The dwelling is itself a little world
-an ark of civilization amidst an ocean of foliage: a hundred
steps beyond it the primeval forest spreads its shades, and
solitude resumes its sway."