University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
WHY MARGARET WAS SORROWFUL. — DREAMS. — LIVINGSTON.—
A GLIMPSE AT “THE WORLD.” — ISABEL. — NIGHT AND OTHER
SHADOWS.

After dinner, hospitable as it was rude, of which the
Master partook with sensible relish, Pluck proposed that
Chilion should play.

“The rosin, Margery,” said her brother.

“I have some rosin in my pocket,” said the Master, at
the same time producing a pint flask, which he set upon
the table. “A bibilous accompaniment,” he added, “I
thought would not be out of place.”

“Good enough for any of their High Mightinesses!”
ejaculated Pluck, drinking, and returning the bottle to the
Master.

“Nay, friend,” replied the latter; “Femina et vinum
make glad the heart of man. Let her ladyship gladden
her own.”

Mistress Hart also drank.

“Now, he who maketh speed to the spoil, Maharshalalhashbaz,”
said the Master.

“Not so good as pupelo,” replied Hash.

“A rightly named youth,” said Pluck, who, receiving
the bottle to return it to the Master, perceived its contents
nearly exhausted.

“Mea discipula,” said the Master, addressing himself to
Margaret, “you must be primarum artium princeps.”

“No thankee, — thank you sir,” replied she.

“Well done, well done!” exclaimed he.

“What! would you not have the child exhilirate and
spruce up a little?” cried the father.

“You mistake me, friend,” said the Master, “I approbated
the girl, not that she did not receive this very genial
beverage, but that she manifests such improvement in
speech.”

“Let her drink, and she will speak well enough,”
rejoined her father. “She won't touch it! She mopes,
she nuzzles about in the grass and chips. She is certainly
growing weakling. Only she sings roung after dark, like a
thrasher, and picks up spiders and pismires, like a frog.”

“This is none of your snow-broth, Peggy,” said the
mother, “it's warming, it's as good as the Widow's bitter-bags.”

“Don't you touch it,” said Chilion, who had been screwing
and snapping the strings of his violin.

“Yes, drink Peggy,” said Hash, thrusting his slavery
lips close to her ear. “He'll bring some more, he likes ye.
He wants ye too.”

Margaret started from him. “I can't,” she said; “it won't
let me.”

“What won't let you, dear?” asked her father, drawing
her between his knees, and patting her head.

“She's always a dreaming,” said her mother; “she is a
born bat, and flies off every night nobody knows where.
And in the day time I can't get her to quilling, but she's
up and away to the Widow's, or to the Pond, or on the Head.
She gets all my threads to string up her poses; she's as bad
as a hang bird that steals my yarn on the grass.”

“Did'nt I do all the spools?” inquired the child.

“You did indeed,” responded the father, “you are a nice
gal. Hush! Let us hear our son Chilion; he speaks
well.”

Chilion played, and they were silent.

“Now it's your turn, my daughter,” said Pluck, “you
will play if you won't drink.”

Margaret taking the instrument executed some popular
airs with considerable spirit and precision. “Now for the
cat, child;” so she imitated the cat, then the song-sparrow,
then Obed crying.

At this, and especially the last, there was a general
shout. The Master seemed highly surprised and pleased.
“A megalopsical child!” he exclaimed. Margaret with
blushes and tremors, glad to have succeeded, more glad to
escape her tormentors, ran away and amused herself with
her squirrel, whom she was teaching to ride on the dog's
back. The flask having been drained, the keg was brought
forward from the chimney wall.

“Here's to Miss Amy,” said Pluck, ogling the Master.

“Mehercule!” exclaimed the latter, “you forget the
propitiatory oblation. We must first propose his Majesty
the King of Puppetdom, defender by the grace of God of
England, France, and America; the most serene, serene,
most puissant, puissant, high, illustrious, noble, honorable,
venerable, wise and prudent Princes, Burgomasters, Councillors,
Governors, Committees of said realm, whether
ecclesiastical or secular; and the most celebrated Punch
and Judy of our worthy town of Livingston, Parson Welles
and Deacon Hadlock, to whom be all reverence.”

Pluck. “Amen. I stroke my beard and crook my
hamstrings as low as any one.”

The Master. “Your promising daughter, Mistress Hart.”

Mis. Hart. “Long life to you, and many visits from you.”

Hash. “I say yes to that; and here's for Peggy to Obed.”

The Master. “Miss Sibyl Radney.”

“How you color, Hash!” exclaimed his mother. —
“Hang your nose under your chin, and it would equal old

Gobbler's wattles. Put you into the dye-tub and Peggy
won't have to get any more log-wood. There now she
must go down for some copperas this very afternoon.”

“Odzbodkins! You won't spoil our sport,” cried her
husband. “Your crotchets are always coming in like a
fox into a hen-roost.”

“I have work in hand that must be done,” replied his
wife. “Trencher worm!” she exclaimed, raising her
voice with her fist, “what do you do? lazying about here
like a mud-turtle nine days after it's killed. You may
whip the cat ten years, and you won't earn enough to stitch
your own rags with. — I have to tie up your vines, or you
would have been blown from the poles long since.”

“Dearest Maria,” began Pluck.

“Don't deary me,” said Brown Moll; “you had better
go to washing dishes, and I'll take care of the family.”

While Mistress Hart was entertaining her spouse in this
manner, for it seemed to be entertainment to him, the
Master called Margaret and asked her to spell some words
he put to her, which she did very correctly. “You
must certainly have a new spelling-book,” said he. “And
now I want you to repeat the `Laplander's Ode.'”

She began as follows: —

The Master, having expressed his delight at this, said he
must return to the village.

“I will go with you,” added Margaret.

“Here are the eggs,” so her mother instructed her,
“Deacon Penrose must give a shilling a dozen. One
pound of copperas, six skeins of No. Nine, half a pound of
snuff, the rest in tobacco.”

Margaret, wearing in addition to her usual dress a pair
of moccasons which an Indian who came sometimes to the
Pond gave her, called Bull and started off. Hash, in no
unusual fit, ordered the dog back.

“Woman! woman!” cried Pluck, “the keg is out, it is
all gone.”

“Let the yarn go,” said her mother, “and get it in rum.”

“She will bring home some of the good book,” said
Pluck to Hash, “the real white-eye, you know. Let her
take the dog.”

Her brother yielded, and she went on with Bull and the
Master; the latter, having grown a little wavering and
muddled by liquor, taking the child's hand.

There were two ways to the village, one around by No.
4, the other more direct through the woods; the distance
by the former was nearly four miles, by the latter, as we
have said, about two; and at the present season of the year

it was the most eligible. This they took; they went
through the Mowing, traversed a beautiful grove of walnuts,
black-birches, and beeches, and came to the Foot-bridge
made of a large tree lying across the small brook Margaret
encountered on her way to the Widow's. This stream,
having its rise among the hills on the north of the Pond, at
the present point, flowed through a deep fissure in the
rocks. The branches of the tree rose perpendicularly, and
a hand rail was fastened from one to another.

“Danger menaces us, my child,” sighed the Master.

“Give me one of your hands,” said Margaret, “hold on
by the rail with the other, shut your eyes, that is the way
Pa does.”

“How it shakes!” exclaimed the Master. “It would be
dreadful to fall here! How deep it is! My head swims,
my brain giddies, I am getting old, Margaret. Tempora
mutantur et nos. When I was young as you I could go
any where. Facilis descensus—.”

“You can hold on by Bull, he'll keep you steady. Here,
Bull.”

The well-trained dog came forward, and the Master
leaning on this tri-fold support, the child's arm, the rail, and
the animal's head, accomplished the pass. Their course
was downward, yet with alternate pitches and elevations,
now by a sheep's track, now across a rocky ledge, anon
through the unbroken forest. The fumes of the liquor subsiding,
and the path becoming more smooth and easy, the
Master spake to Margaret of her dreams.

Master. “Dreams come of a multitude of business, says
Solomon.”

Margaret. “What, Solomon Smith? He says that
great folks come of dreams, that children will die, and some
be rich; and people lose their cows, and have new gowns,

and such things. I dream about a great many things,
sometimes about a pretty woman.”

Mas. “A pretty woman! Whom does she look like?”

Mar. “I don't know, I can't tell him.”

Mas. “You; always say you to me. The juveniles
and younkers in the town say him. How does she seem to
you?”

Mar. “She looks somehow as I feel when Ma is good
to me, and she looks pale and sorry as Bull does when
Hash strikes him.”

Mas. “Where do you see her?”

Mar. “Sometimes among the clouds, and sometimes at
the foot of the rainbow.”

Mas. “That is where money grows.”

Mar. “Not money, it is flowers, buttercups, yellow
columbine, liverleaf, devil's ears, and such as I never saw
before.”

Mas. “Arum, the Arum! Your covetous friend Obed
won't like it if you get those flowers.”

Mar. “His mother wants to know what the woman
does; if she makes plasters out of the flowers, and if they
will cure worms.”

Mas. “Caustics of aures diaboli! The Devil is no
vermifuge, tell the Widow. Ha! ha!”

Mar. “But she don't speak to me; she stands on the
flowers, and breaks them off, and they fly away like little
birds; she pricks them into the rainbow, and they grow
on it.”

Mas. “Are you not afraid of her?”

Mar. “She tells me not to be.”

Mas. “You said she did not speak to you.”

Mar. “She don't speak, but she tells me things, just
as Bull does. He don't speak, but he tells me when he is

hungry, and when there is any thing coming in the woods.
Sometimes she kisses me, but I don't feel her. She goes
up on the rainbow, and I follow her. I see things like
people's faces in the sky, but they look like shadows, and
there is music like what you hear in the pines, but there
are no trees or violins. She steps off into the clouds. I
try to go too, and there comes along what you call the
egret of a thistle, that I get on to, and it floats with me
right into my bed, and I wake up.” So they discoursed
until they issued from the woods, in what was known as
“Deacon Hadlock's Pasture,” an extensive enclosure
reaching to the village, which it overlooked.

The village of Livingston lay at the junction of four
streets, or what had originally been the intersection of two
roads, which, widening at the centre, and having their
angles trimmed off, formed an extensive common known as
the Green. In some points of view, the place had an
aspect of freshness and nature; extensive forests meeting
the eye in every direction; farm-houses partially hidden in
orchards of apple-trees; the roads rough, ungraded, and
divided by parallel lines of green grass. Yet to one who
should be carried back from the present time, many objects
would wear an old, antiquated and obsolete appearance;
the high-pitched roofs of some of the houses, and jutting
upper stories; others with a long sloping back roof; chimneys
like castles, large, arched, corniced. Here and there
was a house in the then new style, three-storied, with gambrel
roof and dormar windows. The Meeting-house was
not old, but would now appear so, with its slim, tall spire,
open belfrey, and swarm of windows. There were Lombardy
poplars on the Green, now so unfashionable, waving
like martial plumes; and interspersed as they were among
the spreading willow-like elms, they formed on the whole

not a disagreeable picture. South of the Green was the
“Mill” on Mill Brook, before adverted to; this was a distinct
cluster of houses. Beyond the village on the east you
could see the River, and its grassy meadows.

Livingston was the shire town of the county of Stafford,
having a Court-house, square yellow edifice with a small
bell in an open frame on the roof; and a Jail, a wooden
building constructed of hewn timber. The Green contained
in addition a pair of Stocks, a Pillory and Whipping Post;
also, a store, school-house tavern, known as the “Crown
and Bowl,” and barber's shop. The four streets diverging
from the centre were commonly called the North, East,
South, and West Streets. A new one had been opened on
the west side of the Green, and received the name of Grove
Street. Let us observe the situation of the principal buildings.
The Meeting-house stood at the north-west corner of
the Green; in the rear of this were the Horse-sheds, a long
and conspicuous row of black, rickety stalls, having the
initials of the owner's name painted in a circle over each
apartment; at the east end of the sheds was the School-house;
and behind them terminated an old forest that
extended indefinitely to the north. The Tavern occupied
the corner formed by the junction of the West street with
the Green, a few rods from the church. Below the tavern,
flanking the west side of the Green, in succession, were the
Court-house, Jail, and Jail-house, the jail-fence being close
upon the highway. The Pillory with its adjuncts stood
under the trees in the open common fronting the Court-house.

Master Elliman lodged with the Widow Small, who lived
on the South Street. In this street reappeared the small
stream they had so much trouble in crossing; to which, we
may add, the Master, from some fancy of his own, gave

the name Cedron; and the path by which they came
through the woods he called Via Dolorosa.

Children were playing on the Green, the boys dressed in
“tongs,” a name for pantaloons or overalls that had come
into use, and roundabouts; some in skirt coats and
breeches; some of them six or eight years of age were
still in petticoats. The girls wore checked linen frocks,
with short sleeves, and pinafores. All were bare-footed
and most of them bare-headed. “He's coming!” “The
Master!” was a cry that echoed from one to another.
They dropped their sports, and drew up in lines on either
side as the object of their attention passed; the boys folding
their arms and making short quick bows; the girls dove-tailing
their fingers and squatting in low courtesies. Margaret,
with Bull at her heels, kept at a respectful distance
behind. “Moll Hart,” exclaimed one of the boys. “A
Pond Gal.” “An Injin, an Injin.” “Where did you get
so much hat?” “Did your daddy make them are clogs?”
So she was saluted by one and another; but the dog, whose
qualities were obvious in his face, if they had not been
rendered familiar in any other way, saved her from all but
verbal insolence.

The Master's was a ground room in an old house. It
was large, with small windows; the walls were wainscoted,
the ceiling boarded, and darkened by age into a reddish
mahogany hue. The chairs were high-top, fan-back, heavy,
mahogany. A bureau desk occupied one side, with its
slanting leaf, pigeon-holes, and escutcheons bearing the
head of King George. On the walls hung pictures in small
black frames, comprising all the kings and queens of England,
from William the Conqueror to the present moment.
Margaret's attention was drawn to his books, which consisted
of editions of the Latin and Greek classics, and such school

books as from time to time he had occasion to use; and
miscellanies, made up of works on Free-Masonry, a craft of
which he was a devoted member; books of secular and
profane music, a science to which he was much attached;
various histories and travels; the works of Bolingbroke,
Swift and Sterne; the Spectator and Rambler, the principal
English Poets; Wolstoncraft's Rights of Women, Paine's
Age of Reason, Lord Monboddo's works; Tooke's Pantheon;
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; the Echo, by the
Hartford Wits, the American Museum, and the Massachusetts
Magazine; Trumbull's McFingal, The Devil on Two
Sticks, Peregrine Pickle; Quincy's Dispensatory; Nurse
Freelove's New Year's Gift, the Puzzling Cap, the “World
turned upside down.” He gave Margaret, as he had
promised, “The New Universal Spelling Book,” by
“Daniel Fenning, late School master of the Bures in
Suffolk, England.”

The Store, to which Margaret next directed her steps,
was a long old two-story building, bearing some vestiges of
having once been painted red. The large window-shutters
and door constituted advertising boards for the merchant
himself, and the public generally. Intermixed with articles
of trade, were notices of animals found, or astray; sales on
execution; beeswax, flax, skins, bristles and old pewter,
you were informed would be taken in exchange for goods,
and that “cash and the highest price would be given for
the Hon. Robert Morris's notes.” One paper read as
follows: “You, Josiah Penrose, of, &c., are hereby permitted
to sell 400 gallons W. I. Rum, do. Brandy, 140 Gin,
and 260 pounds of brown Sugar, on all of which the excise
has been duly paid, pursuant to an Act of the Legislature.

(Signed) }
William Kingsland,

Collector of excise for the
County of Stafford.”

There was also on the door a staring programme of a
lottery scheme. Lotteries, at this period common in all
New England, had become a favorite resort for raising
money to support government, carry on wars, build
churches, construct roads, or endow colleges. There was
one other sign, that of the Post-office. Entering the store
you beheld a motley array of dry and fancy goods, crockery,
hardware, and groceries, drugs and medicines. On the
right were rolls of kerseymeres, callimancoes, fustians,
shaloons, antiloons, and serges of all colors; Manchester
checks, purple and blue calicoes; silks, ribbons, oznaburgs
ticklenbergs, buckram. On the left were cuttoes, Barlow
knives, iron candlesticks, jewsharps, blackball, bladders of
snuff; in the left corner was the apothecary's apartment,
and on boxes and bottles were written in fading gilt letters,
“Ens Veneris,” “Oculi Cancrorum,” “Aqua æris fixi,”
“Lapis Infernalis,” “Ext. Saturn,” “Sal Martis,” &c.
On naked beams above were suspended weavers' skans,
wheelheads, &c., and on a high shelf running quite around
the walls was cotton warp of all numbers. The back
portion of the building was devoted to a traffic more fashionable
and universal in New England than it ever will be
again; and a long row of pipes, hogsheads and barrels,
indicated its extent. Above these hung proof-glasses, tap-borers,
a measuring rod, and decanting pump; interspersed
on the walls were bunches of chalk-scores in perpendicular
and transverse lines. Near by was a small counter covered
with tumblers and toddy sticks; and when Margaret
entered, one or two ragged will-gill looking men stood there
mixing and bolting down liquors. Had she looked into the
counting-room, she would have seen a large fireplace in
one corner, a high desk, round-back arm-chairs, and several
hampers of wine.

Margaret sat waiting for two young ladies, who appeared
to have some business with the clerk. These were Bethia
Weeks, the daughter of one of the village squires, and Martha
Madeline Gisborne, the daughter of the joiner. The
clerk's name was Abel Wilcox.

“For my part,” said Miss Bethia, “I don't believe a
word of it.”

“He has kept steady company with her every time he
has been in town,” responded Miss Martha Madeline.

“As if every upstart of a lawyer was to Captain Grand
it over all the girls here,” added the clerk.

“I don't think the Judge's folk are better than some
other people's folk,” said Martha Madeline.

“Susan is a nice girl,” rejoined Bethia.

“I should not be surprised if they were cried next Sabbath,”
said Martha Madeline.

“I guess there will be more than one to cry then,” added
Bethia.

“Now don't; you are really too bad,” rejoined Abel.

This conversation continuing some time, was unintelligible
to Margaret, as we presume it is to our readers, and it
were idle to report it.

“How much shall I measure you of this tiffany, Matty?”
at length asked Abel.

“Perhaps I shall not take any now,” replied the young
lady. “You give three shillings for cotton cloth, and this
is nine and six, a yard; I declare for't I shall have to put
to; and I must get some warp at any rate. We have been
waiting for some we sent up to Brown Moll's to be colored,
and I don't think it will ever be done.”

“There's young Moll, now,” said Abel, pointing to Margaret.

“Has your Marm got that done?” asked Martha Madeline.

“She has not,” replied Margaret.

“A book, a book!” exclaimed the same young lady.
“The Injin has got a book. She will be wise as the
Parson.”

“Can you say your letters?” asked Bethia.

“Yes,” answered Margaret.

“Who is teaching you?”

“The Master.”

“Pshaw!” ejaculated Martha Madeline, “I never was
at school in my life. Now all the gals is going; such as
can't tell treadles from treacle have got books. And here
the Master goes up to that low, vile, dirty place, the Pond,
to larn the brats.”

Margaret came forward and stated her errand to the
clerk.

“Yes, I dare say, she wants rum,” added Martha Madeline.
“Daddy says there is no sense in it; they will all
come to ruin; he says Pluck and his boys drink five or
six glasses a day, and that nobody should think of drinking
more than three. Parson Welles says it's a sin for any
family to have more than a gallon a week. There's Hopestill
Cutts, he has been kept out of the church this ten
months because he won't come down to half a pint a day.”

“Never mind,” interposed the clerk, “I guess they will
find their allowance cut short this time, ha! ha! Here
ain't eggs enough, gal.”

“Ma'm says you must give a shilling a dozen,” replied
Margaret.

“Perhaps your Marm will say that again before we do,”
rejoined the clerk. “Eggs don't go for but ninepence in
Livingston or any where else.”

Margaret was in a dilemma; — the rum must be had, the
other articles were equally necessary.

“Pa will pay you,” she bethought herself.

“No he won't,” answered the clerk.

“Chilion will bring you down skins, axe-helves, and
whip-stocks.”

“I tell you, we can't and won't trust you. Your drunken
dad has run up a long chalk already. Look there, I guess
you know enough to count twelve; — twelve gallons he
owes now. You are all a haggling, gulching, good-for-nothing
crew.”

“I will bring you chesnuts and thistle down in the fall,”
replied Margaret.

“Can't trust any of you. What will you take for your
book?”

“I can't sell it; the Master gave it to me.”

“If he would teach you to pay your debts he would do well.”

A little girl came in about the age of Margaret, and
stood looking attentively at her a moment, as one stranger
child is wont to do with another; then lifting Margaret's
hat as it were inspecting her face, said. “She is not an
Injin; they said she was; her face is white as mine.”
This little girl was Isabel Weeks, sister of Bethia.

“Ha, Belle!” said the latter, “what are you here for?”

“I came to see the Injin. Have you got a book too?”
she said, addressing herself to Margaret. “Can you say
your letters?”

“Yes,” replied Margaret, “but they want it for rum.”

“That's wicked; I know it is. Ma wouldn't let me
give my spelling-book for rum. I have threepence in my
pocket—you may have them.”

“Save a thief from hanging and he will cut your throat,”
said Martha Madeline.

“Can't bore an auger hole with a gimlet,” interjected
Abel; “two threepences won't be enough, Miss Belle.”

“Judah has got tenpence, I'll go and get them,” answered
Isabel.

The dog at this moment seeing the trouble of his mistress
began to growl and the young ladies to scream.

“Out with your dog, young wench, and go home,” cried
the clerk.

“Lie down Bull!” said Margaret. “Here, sir, you may
have the book.”

The bargain being completed, Margaret took her
articles, and left the store; and Isabel followed her.

The two children went across the Green in silence.
Isabel said nothing, but with her pinafore wiped the tears
from Margaret's eyes. She was too young, perhaps, to tell
all she felt, and could only alleviate the grief she beheld by
endeavoring to efface its effects.

Margaret, happy, unhappy, fagged up the hill; she had
lost her book, she had got the rum; she was miserable
herself, she knew her family would be pleased; yet she was
wholly sad when she thought of the Master and then of her
book. She left the highway and crossed the Pasture. The
sun had gone down when she reached the woods; she feared
not; her dreams, her own fresh heart, and the dog were
with her. The shadow of God was about her, but she
knew Him or It not; she was ignorant as a Hottentot.
She came to the bridge; the water ran deep and dark
below her. Who will look into her soul as she looked into
the water? Who will thread the Via Dolorosa of her
spirit. For the music, the murmurs of that brook, there
were no ears, as there were none for hers. Yet she looked
into the water, which seemed to hiss and race more merrily
over the stones as she looked. She heard owls and frogs;
and she might almost have heard the tread of the saturnine
wood-spider, at work in his loom with his warp-tail and

shuttle-feet, working a weft which the dews were even then
embroidering, to shine out when the sun rose in silver
spangles and ruby buds; and her own soul, woven as
silently in God's loom, was taking on impressions from
those dark woods, that invisible universe, to shine out when
her morning dawns. Alas! when shall that be; in this
world, in the next? Is there any place here for a pure
beautiful soul? If none, then let Margaret die. Or shall
we let her murmur on, like the brook, in hopes that some
one will look into her waters and be gladdened by her
sound? She ran on through the Chesnuts, the strange old
bald trees seeming to move as she moved, those more
distant shooting by the others in rapid lines, performing a
kind of spectral pantomime. Run on, Margaret! and let the
world dance round you as it may.

When she reached home, she found the family all a-bed,
excepting Chilion, who was sitting in the dark, patiently,
perhaps doggedly, waiting for her.

He gave her somewhat to eat, and she went to bed, and
to that forgetfulness which kind Nature vouchsafes to the
most miserable.