 | CHAPTER XXX. Forest life |  |
30. CHAPTER XXX.
Shuts out the world's bright glare.
Our friend Mr. Hay has a noble farm. His
cleared and cultivated acres may be counted by
hundreds, and his “stock” of all kinds will far outnumber
them. A wide tract of forest land hems
in his clearing, and this too calls him master. He
is wont to boast that he has more land enclosed
within a ring-fence than any man in the county,
and he boasts still louder that it is all the fruit of
his own industry, and loudest of all, that it has
never made him proud.
He maintains and insists upon his family's maintaining
the simplicity of habits and manners that
is usual in the neighborhood, and watches with
jealous eye every tendency towards an imitation of
those who attempt fashion and style among us.
He goes daily into the field with his men, and his
wife and daughters spin and wear wool and flax
of home production. No imported luxury graces
their daily table. Mrs. Hay, to be sure, has her
tea, but she has it in the afternoon, before the
family supper; and the sugar (for the few who
like sweetnin' in their tea) comes from no further
these strict sumptuary laws however, no family
lives in greater comfort and abundance.
Mr. Hay's house is large enough to make a figure
any where, though it lacks as yet the beautifying
aid of the paint-brush. His barn would make
a hotel of tolerable dimensions, and the various out-houses,
and sheds, and coops, and pens, that cluster
around it, make passing travellers fancy they are
coming upon a rising village in the deep woods.
A fine young orchard adorns the sloping bank
behind the house; whole rows of peach and cherry-trees
border the ample door-yard; hedges of currant
and gooseberry bushes intersect the garden; thick
screens of wild grape and honeysuckle overshadow
the porch and drapery the “square-room” windows.
When you enter, you find bare but well-scrubbed
floors; the only exception being found in the aforesaid
“square-room,” which is decorated with a
home-made carpet of resplendent colors, large
enough to reach almost the border of chairs, and
shaken every morning on the grass to avoid the
ravages of the wasteful broom. A great eight-day
clock with a moon on its face is the most conspicuous
ornament of the common or “keepin'-room;”
but there is, besides this, in a favored corner near
the window, a small mirror, round which hang
black profiles of all the family, including aunts and
uncles; pin-cushions of every size and hue; strings
of little birds' eggs; vials of camphor, peppermint
small articles much prized by different members of
the family; while over the glass wave a few peacocks'
feathers, and a whole plume of asparagus.
Pass into the kitchen and you will find Mrs.
Hay kneading bread or rolling pie-crust to give her
stout handmaid time for some less delicate service;
her daughter Marthy-Ann preparing dinner; her
daughter Sophia-Jane shelling peas; her daughter
Harriet-'Lizzy rocking the cradle in which lies
yet another daughter, whose name is Apollonia,—
not quite Apollyon, but so like it that I almost
wonder that people who read John Bunyan should
be fond of the appellation. The truth is, we do
love high-sounding names, and the more syllables
or adjuncts the better.
The kitchen has a great fireplace, with a crane
stout enough to swing a five pail kettle of soap,
and a great oven too, that will hold at least a dozen
country loaves. About the walls are disposed
all the conveniences necessary for the full use of
fireplace and oven, on the same plenteous scale.
A rifle and a shot-gun hang on wooden hooks
driven into the rafters overhead; two or three
gleaming butcher-knives ornament a leather strap
fixed against the chimney. A meal-room near at
hand contains several varieties of flour, and a buttery
and milk-house supply other rustic dainties in
profusion. Is it not to be supposed that Mr. and
and their hired men, live well?
One daughter we have not introduced into the
kitchen, because she was seldom found there. Caroline
Hay was delicate from her infancy, so much
so that even her father was willing to see her excused
from the more arduous part of domestic duty,
and sent to school more constantly than were her
sisters. But it was not without many misgivings
that Mr. Hay observed the distinction which this
circumstance occasioned between his daughters.
He dreaded, and with reason, that Caroline should
become that useless and uncomfortable being, a
pretty girl, with just enough of education to fill her
with conceit and pretension, while her exemption
from the household cares that occupied her mother
and sisters would be likely to create in time an
impression that she was of right entitled to superior
respect and a higher destiny. And, in truth, the
young lady herself had already begun to verify in
part her father's sagacity, by showing off, on proper
occasions, a very sufficient share of those airs which
young ladies sometimes mistake for graces. In an
especial degree did she scorn the beaux of the
neighborhood, who, being accustomed to find themselves
very favorably received elsewhere, and who
could not perceive why Car'line Hay should “stick
up,” disliked her in proportion. We forgive any
thing but “sticking up.”
The three hired men are curiosities in their way,
and as I wish to present a sketch of a Western settler's
home of some dozen years' standing, I will
say a few words about them, although two of them
have no very direct interest in my story.
The elder, John Kendall, is a huge Titan, who
looks able to play at quoits with almost any of our
Michigan hills; a man of might, whose very voice
as he shouts “Haw, Star!” or “Gee, Brin'!” is
enough to make the earth quake, and so supersede
the necessity for using the immense plough which
he guides with one hand. This is of course the
head man where hard work is to be done.
Then comes—I take them as they sit at table—
a rosy-cheeked, handsome, quizzical Tim Rice, one
of those resolutely agreeable persons, who are always
diving desperately after jokes, undeterred by
the frequent mortification of coming up empty-handed.
This youth is better dressed than great
John Kendall, and he is Mr. Hay's right hand man
in all matters requiring rather address than strength.
He refreshes the memory of distant debtors; he buys
and sells horses, (he is a born horse-jockey,) and
superintends the training of the colts; he feels the
pulse of the county as elections come round, and
even addresses his fellow-citizens occasionally when
the town requires to be “redeemed, regenerated,
disinthralled,” from the sway of some unpopular
assessor or recreant constable. Mr. Hay is a politician
of course, or he never would have stood where
now somewhat tired of justiceships, and commissionerships,
and memberships for himself, but he
has always a favorite candidate, in whose behalf he
and Tim Rice ride, and run, and talk, and scold, till
the grand end is accomplished; and in all such
matters the handsome-faced Timothy is Mercury.
The young gentleman in the blue jeans, who sits
next Mr. Rice, being particularly interested in my
story, must have a paragraph to himself.
Seymour Bullitt was, at the time when I first saw
him, one of the most awkward and clumsy boys I
remember to have met; thick-set, red-faced, and
withal much given to that kind of desperate and
unreasonable yawning which threatens permanent
dislocation of the maxillary processes. This habit
had but one advantage,—it disclosed, the times a
day, a double row of the most regular and beautiful
teeth that ever wasted their energies upon salt pork.
These and a pair of dark eyes were all that poor
Seymour had to recommend him, and his extreme
rusticity was the continual whetstone of Tim Rice's
would-be wit, especially at table, when the ladies
of the family were present. On these occasions
Seymour's face became redder than ever, and Tim
declared that he looked every where but at Caroline,
whose languid blue eyes seemed scarcely to
note his presence.
This young man was the son of a “fore-handed”
farmer who had half a dozen such, and
sent Seymour (by the by, a favorite name with us,
and usually pronounced “Simmer”) to learn Mr.
Hay's way of managing a farm; and the regular
mode of doing this was to hire out as an ordinary
“hand” to perform Mr. Hay's bidding. And Seymour
would have liked his place passing well if it
had not been for Tim Rice's wit. This was sair
to abide, surely; but then Mr. Hay was such a nice
man, and Mrs. Hay was such a nice woman, and
the girls were such nice girls, and Caroline—
here was always a misty place in his mind, so we
will leave a blank.
We are not to suppose that Seymour ever spoke
to any one within doors when he could help it.
He came in with the men from the field,—he
washed in the kitchen, and then went out of doors
to comb his shaggy head, just as the rest did. But
when all were seated at the table, and John Kendall
gave grave opinions or put forth sage truisms as
to the crops and things in general, and Tim Rice
practised the profitable art of word-catching, at the
risk of biting his tongue with his dinner, Seymour
sat in an unbroken silence which seemed stupid
enough. He was always bashful in the extreme,
and under present circumstances, the fear that Tim
Rice might find in his most trifling observation
something that would bear twisting, kept him
absolutely mute. Of course the young ladies did
not like him.
That Tim Rice was a torment, to be sure! and
to see the ease with which he laughed and talked
with Caroline Hay, and the smiles that she gave
him! Seymour tried to think what it could be that
gave Tim such advantages, but he could not make
it out.
| CHAPTER XXX. Forest life | |