University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

“Hilloa there! hilloa! where under the canopy
is all the folks? be a joggin', can't ye?” shouted
one of the newly arrived.

Mr. Gaston hurried as fast as his poor blind eyes
would allow, and his wife threw fresh wood upon
the fire, and swept the rough hearth anew, as well
as she could with the remnant of a broom.

This was scarcely done when we heard voices
approaching—at first mingled into a humming
unison with the storm, then growing more distinguishable.
A very shrill treble overtopped all the
rest, giving utterance to all the approved forms of
female exclamation.

“O dear!” “O mercy!” “O bless me!” “O
papa!” “O! I shall be drowned—smothered!”
“O dear!” but we must not pretend to give more
than a specimen.

A portly old gentleman now made his appearance,
bearing, flung over his shoulder, what seemed at
first view a bolster cased in silk, so limp and helpless
was his burden. Behind him came as best

she might, a tall and slender lady, who seemed his
wife; and after scant salutation to the mistress of
the cottage, the two old people were at once anxiously
occupied in unrolling the said bolster, which
proved, after the Champollion process was completed,
to be a very delicate and rather pretty young
lady, their daughter.

After, or rather with, this group entered a bluff,
ruddy, well-made young man, who seemed to have
been charioteer, and to whom it was not unreasonable
to ascribe the adjuration mentioned at the head
of our chapter. He brought in some cushions and a
great coat which he threw into a corner, establishing
himself thereafter with his back to the fire,
from which advantageous position he surveyed the
company at his leisure.

“The luggage must be brought in,” said the
elderly gentleman.

“Yes! I should think it had oughter,” observed
the young man in reply; “I should bring it in, if
it was mine, any how!”

“Why don't you bring it in then?” asked the
gentleman with rather an ominous frown.

“I! well, I don't know but what I could, upon a
pinch. But, look here, uncle! I want you to take
notice of one thing—I didn't engage to wait upon
ye. I a'n't nobody's nigger, mind that! I'll be up
to my bargain. I came on for a teamster. If you
took me for a servant, you're mistaken in the
child, sir!

“However,” he continued, as if natural kindness
was getting the better of cherished pride,—“I can
always help a gentleman, if so be that he asks me
like a gentleman; and, upon the hull, I guess I'm
rather stubbeder than you be, so I'll go ahead.”

And with this magnanimous resolution the youth
departed, and with some help from our host soon
filled up every spare corner, and some that could
ill be spared, with a multifarious collection of conveniences
very inconvenient under present circumstances.
Three prodigious travelling-trunks of white
leather formed the main body, but there were bags
and cases without end, and to crown all, a Spanish
guitar.

“That is all, I believe,” said the old gentleman,
addressing the ladies, as a load was set down.

“All!” exclaimed the teamster; “I should hope
it was! and what any body on earth can want with
sich lots o' fixins, I'm sure's dark to me. If I was
startin' for Texas I shouldn't want no more baggage
than I could tie up in a handkercher. But what's
curious to me is, where we're all a-goin to sleep tonight.
This here rain don't talk o' stoppin'; and
here we've got to stay if we have to sleep, like pins
in a pin-cushion, all up on eend. It's my vote that
we turn these contraptions, the whole bilin' on
'em, right out into the shed, and just make up a
good big shake-down, with the buffaloes and cushions.”

The young lady, upon this, looked ineffable

things at her mamma, and indeed disgust was very
legible upon the countenances of all these unwilling
guests. The house and its inhabitants, including
our inoffensive and accidental selves, underwent an
unmeasured stare, which resulted in no very respectful
estimate of the whole and its particulars. Nor
was this to be wondered at, for as to the house, it
was, as we have said, one of the poorest and not one
of the best of log-houses,—there is a good deal of
difference,—and the people were much poorer
than the average of our settlers.

The young lady at least, and probably her parents,
had never seen the interior of these cabins
before; indeed, the damsel, on her first unrolling,
had said very naturally, “Why, papa, is this a
house?”

Then as to the appearance of our little party, it
was of a truly Western plainness, rendered doubly
plain, even in our own eyes, by contrast with the
city array of the later comers. Theirs was in all
the newest gloss of fashion, bedimmed a little, it is
true, by the uncourtly rain; but still handsome;
and the young lady's travelling-dress displayed the
taste so often exhibited by our young country-women
on such occasions—it was a costume fit for a
round of morning visits.

A rich green silk, now well draggled; a fine
Tuscan-bonnet, a good deal trimmed within and
without, and stained ruinously by its soaked veil;
the thinnest kid shoes, and white silk stockings

figured with mud, were the remains of the dress in
which Miss Angelica Margold had chosen to travel
through the woods. Her long ringlets hung far
below her chin with scarce a remnant of curl, and
her little pale face wore an air of vexation which
her father and mother did their best most duteously
to talk away.

“This is dreadful!” she exclaimed in no inaudible
whisper, drawing her long damp locks through
her jeweled fingers, with a most disconsolate air:
“It is really dreadful! We can never pass the
night here.”

“But what else can we do, my love?” rejoined
the mamma. “It would kill you to ride in the
rain—and you shall have a comfortable bed at any
rate.”

This seemed somewhat consoling. And while
Mrs. Margold and her daughter continued discussing
these matters in an under tone, Mr. Margold
set about discovering what the temporary retreat
could be made to afford besides shelter.

“This wet makes one chilly,” he said. “Haven't
you a pair of bellows to help the fire a little?”

The good woman of the house tried her apron,
and then the good man tried his straw hat—but
the last wood had been wet, and seemed not inclined
to blaze.

“Bellowses!” exclaimed the young man, (whose
name we found to be Butts;) “we can do our own
blowin' in the woods. Here! let me try;” and

with the old broom-stump he flirted up a fire in a
minute, only scattering smoke and ashes on all
sides.

The ladies retreated in dismay, a movement
which seemed greatly to amuse Mr. Butts.

“Don't you be scart!” he said; “ashes never
pison'd any body yet.”

Mr. Margold was questioning Mrs. Gaston as to
what could be had for tea,—forgetting, perhaps,
that a farmer's house is not an inn, where chance
comers may call for what they choose without
offence.

“But I suppose you have tea—and bread and
butter—and'—”

“Dear!” exclaimed the poor woman, “I haven't
seen any but sage tea these three months;—and
as for bread, I could make you some johnny-cake
if you like that; but we have had no wheat flour
this summer, for my old man was so crowded to pay
doctor bills and sich, that he had to sell his wheat.
We've butter, and I believe I may say it's pretty
good.”

“Bless my soul! no bread!” said the old gentleman.

“No tea!” exclaimed his wife.

“O dear! what an awful place!” sighed Miss
Angelica piteously.

“Well! I vote we have a johnny-cake,” said the
driver; “you make us a johnny-cake, aunty, and
them that can't make a good supper off of johnny-cake

and butter, deserves to go hungry, that's a
fact!”

Mrs. Gaston, though evidently hurt by the rude
manner of her guests, set herself silently at work in
obedience to the hint of Mr. Butts, while that gentleman
made himself completely at home, took the
little girl in his lap with the loving title of “Sis,”
and cordially invited Mr. Margold to sit down on a
board which he had placed on two blocks, to eke
out the scanty number of seats.

“Come, uncle,” said the facetious Mr. Butts,
“jes' take it easy, and you'll live the longer. Come
and set by me, and leave more room for the women-folks,
and we'll do fust-rate for supper.”

Mr. Butts had evidently discovered the true philosophy,
but his way of inculcating it was so little
attractive, that the Margolds seemed to regard him
only with an accumulating horror.

Hitherto we had scarcely spoken, but, rather
enjoying the scene, had bestowed ourselves and our
possessions within as small a compass as possible,
and waited the issue. But these people looked so
thoroughly uncomfortable, so hopelessly out of
their element, and seemed moreover, by decree of
the ceaseless skies, so likely to be our companions
for the night, that we could not help taking pity
on them, and offering such aid as our more mature
experience of forest life had provided. Our champagne
basket was produced, and the various articles
it contained gave promise of a considerable amendment

of Mrs. Gaston's tea-table. A small canister
of black tea and some sparkling sugar gave the
crowning grace to the whole, and as these things
successively made their appearance, it was marvellous
to observe how the facial muscles of the fashionables
gradually relaxed into the habitually bland
expression of politer atmospheres. Mrs. Margold,
who looked ten years younger when she smoothed
the peevish wrinkles from her brow, now thought
it worth while to bestow a quite gracious glance at
our corner, and her husband actually turned his
chair, which had for some time presented its back
full to my face.

We got on wondrously after this. Mrs. Gaston,
who was patience and civility personified, very
soon prepared a table which was nearly large
enough to serve all the grown people, and as she
announced that all was ready, Mr. Butts, who had
been for some time balancing a chair very critically
on its hinder feet, wheeled round at once to the
table, and politely invited the company to sit down.
As there was no choice, the strangers took their
seats, with prim faces enough, and Mrs. Gaston
waited to be invited to make tea, while her poor
half-blind husband quietly took his place with the
children to await the second table.

Mr. Butts was now in his element. He took
particular pains to press every body to eat of every
thing, and observing that Miss Angelica persisted
in her refusal of whatever he offered her, he cut

with his own knife a bountiful piece of butter, and
placed it on her plate with an air of friendly
solicitude.

The damsel's stare would infallibly have frozen
any young man of ordinary sensibility, but Mr.
Butts, strong in conscious virtue, saw and felt
nothing but his own importance; and moreover
seemed to think gallantry required him to be
specially attentive to the only young lady of the
party. “Why, you don't eat nothing!” he exclaimed;
“ridin' don't agree with you, I guess!
now for my part it makes me as savage as a meataxe!
If you travel much after this fashion, you'll
grow littler and littler; and you're little enough
already, I should judge.”

It was hardly in human nature to stand this,
and Mr. Margold, provoked beyond the patience
which he had evidently prescribed to himself, at
last broke out very warmly upon Butts, telling him
to mind his own business, and sundry other things
not particularly pleasant to relate in detail.

“Oh! you're wrathy, a'n't ye? Why, I didn't
mean nothing but what was civil! We're plain-spoken
folks in this new country.”

Mr. Margold seemed a little ashamed of his sudden
blaze when he found how meekly it was met,
and he took no further notice of his republican
friend, who on his part, though he managed to
finish his supper with commendable sang froid,
was evidently shorn of his beams for the time.