University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.

After all that has been said and written to show
that the poor and the unlettered, the awkward, the
vulgar, and the rough of our race ought, in spite of
their disadvantages, and even because of them, to
awaken an interest in the hearts of their more
favored fellow-mortals, nothing is more difficult
than to call up any thing like true sympathy for
those whose outward appearance and circumstances
are divested of every thing that captivates the
imagination. I am disposed, after some experience,
to count it among the compensations of a country
life, that in the close contact into which the joint
tenants of the wilds must come,—be their discrepancies
what they may,—we are brought sooner
and more certainly to a sense of the dignity of
human nature—independent of all the accessories
on which so much stress is laid in society,—than
we could ever be amid the forms and barriers of
more polished life.

There is very little disguise or reserve in the
intercourse of this new country. Every one's
affairs are talked over without stint or measure;

and if they are, or ought to be, private affairs, so
much the worse for the owner. Indeed it is, I
believe, part of the creed imported into these
shades by the Orientals, that nobody ought to have
any private affairs; and that if there be any, it is
the duty of the community to ferret them out.
This is a little unpleasant before one gets used to
it; but there is a comfort in thinking that such a
limitless unveiling of the springs and motives of
human action brings us acquainted occasionally
with varieties of character which would never have
come under our notice in the more ceremonious
world.

I have mentioned the dignity of human nature,
and I will here sketch an instance which occurs to
me as explanatory of what I mean by the term.

In a small house, on the outskirts of our village,
lives an old woman with whom the country in
general claims relationship; at least every body
calls her Aunty Parshalls. I had often noticed an
odd-looking figure hovering about that isolated
dwelling, sometimes seeming engaged in various
homely household labors, and more than once every
day toiling up a hill which rises back of the house,
loaded apparently with something too heavy for her
strength. I conjectured that she was some poor
widow, who led a lonely life, spending her whole
time in feeble efforts for the little that nature required,
but probably inured to hardship and solitude,
and too dull to desire companionship. I do

not know how I could have imbibed so uncharitable
an opinion, but I suppose it was the uncouth
outline of the figure, together with the spiritless,
packhorse air with which she pursued her daily
labors. The distance between us was too great to
allow of my making out more than an outline, but
I often followed her movements with listless eye,
and at last began to feel some curiosity to know
something of her.

It so happened that I had become the happy
possessor of the spare fleeces of two sheep that
spent their time looking into each other's silly eyes
in a little enclosure on our premises; and it was a
matter of no small moment to me to dispose of this
produce of the farm to the very best advantage. I
could readily have exchanged the wool for yarn, at
the store, or with one of the neighbors, or I could
have sold it for “hard money,” so great a treasure
is it as yet among the pioneers. But this would
not have been farmish; so I determined to have it
spun into stocking-yarn at once, that some of my
household at least might be clothed in some small
measure with home-manufacture. It lacked but
little and I should have proposed buying a where
and hiring an expert maiden to perform the work;
but a stray smile or two, when I touched upon this
plan, warned me that I was quitting the sublime
for something less pleasant, and I contented myself,
after all, with making inquiry where and by whom
I could get my four pounds of wool transformed into

stocking-yarn in the most unexceptionable style.
More than one good housewife recommended me to
“Aunty Parshalls.”

“That leetle taunty house there, there—at the
bottom of the knob—with that queer stick chimbly
and sich a poor fence—that's Mr. Parshalls-es.”

Unwilling of course to intrust any one with so
important a negotiation, I posted at once to the
“taunty” house, pleased to find an excuse for getting
a little nearer to the odd-looking tenant, and
quite surprised to discover that she was the owner
of a husband, having often seen her putting up
fences which were invariably down again the next
day, and driving out cattle that sometimes spent a
great part of the time in her cornfield. These being,
by country etiquette, mannish offices, I took it for
granted the husband must be helpless at least, since
he was not dead.

I found Aunty Parshalls out of doors as usual.
She had placed her wheel in the shady spot at the
west end of the house, and there she was spinning
with all the alacrity of a young girl; while in the
middle of the only room in the house, in a great
arm chair placed directly between two doors, so as
to catch every breath of air, sat a jolly-looking man
scarcely as old as herself,—his feet propped up, a
long pipe in his mouth, and in his hand a newspaper
which he seemed attentively studying.

I opened my business, received a favorable reply,
and feeling my mind relieved from the pressure of

this important affair, began in earnest to make a
new acquaintance. One single question answered
the purpose, and that was one which might be
stereotyped as the universal form of opening a conversation
among us.

“How long have you lived in the Western country?”
This lifted the flood-gates. The old woman
began on her own biography and that of her
husband—told the county and town in Connecticut
where each was born, the county and town in “York
state,” in which each had lived before marriage; and
every particular point of topography relating to the
places where they had resided since; the day of
the month and year when they had first spoken of
coming to Michigan, and also the particular day on
which they came to a decision to that effect, with
the causes thereunto moving; the day of the week
and month on which they set out; ditto when they
arrived at Buffalo; the various chances which had
befallen their attempts at getting their “things”
on board a steamboat, and all that the captain said
touching a reduction of fare, the inconveniences of
two nights' lodgings on deck, when the cabin passengers
objected to the deck passengers blocking
up every avenue, which the deck passengers thought
very tyrannical; the arrival at Detroit, and the deposit
of the “things” on the wharf, where “th' old
man” staid by them while the good wife went
round and looked up a teamster, and brought him
to her husband to be bargained with; the hazards

and delays in crossing the Rouge, which was
swollen by a freshet, and had lost its poor old bridge,
the frail dependence of those times; then the crossing
in a scow, and her fears lest the old man should
get tipped over, as he would not get out of the
wagon; and the arrival in the neighborhood of the
“eighty,” on which the backwoods life was to
commence. All this, though thus succinctly indicated
here, took a good hour in the telling; and
the poor woman had removed her wheel and I my
seat several times to avoid the encroachments of
the sun, which now approached the noon-mark.

“Why do you not spin in the house, Mrs. Parshalls?”
I asked; “it is much cooler there, I have no
doubt.” “Oh yes, to be sure and sartin it is; but
then you see the hum of the wheel disturbs my
old man so, he can't take no comfort a readin'. So
I spin out o'doors as long as it's shady, and then go
about my other work. But come in now, and I'll
show you the prettiest brood of young ducks you
ever saw in all your born days.” So saying she
went into the house, and I followed, to see the
young ducks, but more curious to see “th' old
man,” who seemed a person of so much importance.

He looked up from his paper and vouchsafed me
a civil salutation, and then asked his wife rather
sharply whether dinner was ready.

“Bless your dear soul!” she exclaimed, “why,
I ha'n't so much as thought about dinner! But I

can get some snaps in a minute, and stir up some
griddles, if that'll do. You don't care much about
dinner, such a hot day, do ye?”

“Snaps!” said the fat man contemptuously,
“keep your green victuals for your goslins; and as
for griddles, I a'n't a going to have a fire in here;
so whatever you do, you must do it out o' doors. I
must have some pork, any way. I sha'n't keep,
this weather, if I don't have some salt meat.”

Poor Aunty Parshalls cast a doleful glance at the
blazing sunshine, and ventured a gentle remonstrance.

“Why, deary now, them snaps is so tender, I
know you would like 'em with butter, and I could
cook 'em with a little blaze of chips, and bake the
griddles too. But then if you don't like it,” she
concluded, seeing a frown gathering on his brow,
“why, it a'n't no matter. I'll make a fire out o'
doors.”

I admired the young ducks duly, and accorded
just commendation to the little tub of water sunk
in the ground near the back door for them to paddle
in, and then took my leave. (I must tell my
reader what I did not always know myself, that
“snaps” are young green beans, and “griddles”
cakes baked on a griddle;—favorite cates in these
parts.)

After I reached home again, and sat fanning myself
by the window, I saw Mrs. Parshalls hazing

about her open fire, and I had a feeling sense of
what she must be suffering.

This business acquaintance ripened into real
interest before a great while. Mr. Parshalls was
always the very man he appeared at first sight,
selfish and exacting, and determinedly indolent. In
summer it was too hot for him to stir, in winter too
cold; and in the intermediate seasons it was either
wet or windy or chilly, neither of which conditions
of atmosphere agreed with him. The greatest
exertion he was ever known to make was to walk
over to the village in the morning, and sit smoking
on the tavern steps or in the store all day; laying
down the law on all disputed points for the instruction
of the hordes of idlers who are always to be
found about those places. His wife, meanwhile,
led, as I have before hinted, a sort of shifting, Robinson
Crusoe life, doing the best she could with
very small means, and performing the parts of man
and woman both.

She was the very opposite of her husband, in
exterior as well as in heart. As he was fat she was
lean, and even to a much greater degree. Her
long knobby limbs looked like mere frame-work,
while he wore the air of having been run into his
clothes, and pretty large clothes too. His face was
of a hue approaching that of a red cabbage; his
wife's brown and wrinkled with exposure and
fatigue. His walk was an habitual strut; she had,

at least while in his presence, an uneasy, watching
air, keeping her eye on him as much as possible, as
if she dreaded a blow, although I believe nobody
ever suspected Mr. Parshalls of that sort of brutality.
He ruled by a less unpopular species of tyranny,
and the humble and loving disposition of his wife
gave him unusual opportunities in this way. A
harsh word or an angry look had more terrors for
her than a blow would have for harder natures.
And she had so much of that charity which
“hopeth all things” that she persuaded herself
always that her husband was improving.