University of Virginia Library

LOGOOCHIE;
OR,
THE BRANCH OF SWEET WATER.
A LEGEND OF GEORGIA.

1. I.

With the approach of the white settlers, along
the wild but pleasant banks of the St. Mary's
river, in the state of Georgia, the startled deities
of Indian mythology began to meditate their
departure to forests more secure. Tribe after
tribe of the aborigines had already gone, and the
uncouth gods of their idolatry presided, in numberless
instances, only over their deserted habitations.
The savages had carried with them no
guardian divinities — no hallowed household altars
— cheering them in their new places of abode, by
the acceptance of their sacrifice, and with the
promise of a moderate winter, or a successful
hunt. In depriving them of the lands descended
to them in trust from their fathers, the whites seem
also to have exiled them from the sweet and mystic

influences, so aptly associated with the vague
loveliness of forest life, of their many twilight
superstitions. Their new groves, as yet, had no
spells for the huntsman; and the Manneyto of
their ancient sires, failed to appreciate their tribute
offerings, intended to propitiate his regards, or to
disarm his anger. They were indeed outcasts;
and, with a due feeling for their exiled worshippers,
the forest-gods themselves determined also
to depart from those long-hallowed sheltering
places in the thick swamps of the Okephanokee,
whence, from immemorial time, they had gone
forth, to cheer or to chide the tawny hunter in
his progress through life. They had served the
fathers faithfully, nor were they satisfied that the
sons should go forth unattended. They had consecrated
his dwellings, they had stimulated his
courage, they had thrown the pleasant waters
along his path, when his legs failed him in the
chase, and his lips were parched with the wanderings
of the long day in summer; and though
themselves overcome in the advent of superior
gods, they had, nevertheless, prompted him to the
last, in the protracted struggle which he had
maintained, for so many years, and with such
various successes, against his pale invaders. All
that could be done for the feather-crowned and
wolf-mantled warrior, had been done, by the divinities
he worshipped. He was overcome, driven
away from his ancient haunts, but he still bowed
in spirit to the altars, holy still to him, though,
haplessly, without adequate power to secure him
in his possessions. They determined not to leave
him unprotected in his new abodes, and gathering,
at the bidding of Satilla, the Mercury of the
southern Indians, the thousand gods of their
worship — the wood-gods and the water-gods —
crowded to the flower-island of Okephanokee, to
hear the commands of the Great Manneyto.

2. II.

All came but Logoochie, and where was he?
he, the Indian mischief-maker — the Puck, the
tricksiest spirit of them all, — he, whose mind,
like his body, a creature of distortion, was yet
gentle in its wildness, and never suffered the
smallest malice to mingle in with its mischief.
The assembly was dull without him — the season
cheerless — the feast wanting in provocative.
The Great Manneyto himself, with whom Logoochie
was a favourite, looked impatiently on the
approach of every new comer. In vain were all

his inquiries — where is Logoochie? who has
seen Logoochie? The question remained unanswered
— the Great Manneyto unsatisfied. Anxious
search was instituted in every direction for
the discovery of the truant. They could hear
nothing of him, and all scrutiny proved fruitless.
They knew his vagrant spirit, and felt confident
he was gone upon some mission of mischief; but
they also knew how far beyond any capacity of
theirs to detect, was his to conceal himself, and so,
after the first attempt at search, the labor was
given up in despair. They could get no tidings
of Logoochie.

3. III.

The conference went on without him, much to
the dissatisfaction of all parties. He was the
spice of the entertainment, the spirit of all frolic;
and though sometimes exceedingly annoying,
even to the Great Manneyto, and never less so
to the rival power of evil, the Opitchi-Manneyto,
yet, as the recognized joker on all hands, no one
found it wise to take offence at his tricks. In
council, he relieved the dull discourse of some
drowsy god, by the sly sarcasm, which, falling

innocuously upon the ears of the victim, was yet
readily comprehended and applied by all the rest.
On the journey, he kept all around him from any
sense of weariness, — and, by the perpetual practical
application of his humor, always furnished
his companions, whether above or inferior to him
in dignity, with something prime, upon which to
make merry. In short, there was no god like
Logoochie, and he was as much beloved by the
deities, as he was honored by the Indian, who
implored him not to turn aside the arrow which
he sent after the bounding buck, nor to spill the
water out of his scooped leaf as he carried it from
the running rivulet up to his mouth. All these
were tricks of the playful Logoochie, and by a
thousand, such as these, was he known to the
Indians.

4. IV.

Where, then, was the absentee when his brother
divinities started after the outlawed tribes? Had
he not loved the Indians — had he no sympathy
with his associate gods — and wherefore went he
not upon the sad journey through the many
swamps and the long stretches of sand and forest,
that lay between the Okephanokee, and the rapidly-gushing

waters of the Chatahoochie, wher
both the aborigines and their rude deities had
now taken up their abodes. Alas! for Logoochie!
He loved the wild people, it is true, and
much he delighted in the association of those
having kindred offices with himself; but though
a mimic and a jester, fond of sportive tricks, and
perpetually practising them on all around him, he
was not unlike the memorable buffoon of Paris,
who, while ministering to the amusement of thousands,
possessing them with an infinity of fun and
frolic, was yet, at the very time, craving a precious
mineral from the man of science to cure him
of his confirmed hypochondria. Such was the
condition of Logoochie. The idea of leaving the
old woods and the waters to which he had been
so long accustomed, and which were associated in
his memory with a thousand instances of merriment,
was too much for his most elastic spirits to
sustain; and the summons to depart filled him
with a nameless, and, to him, a hitherto unknown
form of terror. His organ of inhabitiveness had
undergone prodigious increase in the many exercises
which his mind and mood had practised
upon the banks of the beautiful Branch of Sweet
Water, where his favorite home had been chosen
by a felicitous fancy. It was indeed a spot to be
loved and dwelt upon, and he who surveyed its
clear and quiet waters, sweeping pleasantly onward
with a gentle murmur, under the high and
bending pine trees that arched over and fenced it
in, would have no wonder at its effect upon a
spirit so susceptible, amidst all his frolic, as that
of Logoochie. The order to depart made him
miserable; he could not think of doing so; and,
trembling all the while, he yet made the solemn
determination not to obey the command; but
rather to subject himself, by his refusal, to a loss
of caste, and, perhaps, even severer punishment,
should he be taken, from the other powers having
guardianship with himself, over the wandering
red men. With the determination came the execution
of his will. He secreted himself from
those who sought him, and in the hollow of a log
lay secure, even while the hunters uttered their
conjectures and surmises under the very copse in
which he was hidden. His arts to escape were
manifold, and, unless the parties in search of him
knew intimately his practices, he could easily elude
their scrutiny by the simplest contrivances. Such,
too, was the susceptibility of his figure for distortion,
that even Satilla, the three eyed, the messenger
of the Indian divinities, the most acute and
cunning among them, was not unfrequently over-reached
and evaded by the truant Logoochie.
He too had searched for him in vain, and though
having a shrewd suspicion, as he stepped over a
pine knot lying across a path, just about dusk,
that it was something more than it seemed to be,
yet passing on without examining it, and leaving
the breathless Logoochie, for it was he, to gather
himself up, the moment his pursuer was out of
sight, and take himself off in a more secluded
direction. The back of Logoochie was, itself,
little better than a stripe of the tree bark to those
who remarked it casually. From his heel to his
head, inclusive, it looked like so many articulated
folds or scales of the pine tree, here and there
bulging out into excrescences. The back of his
head was a solid knot, for all the world like that
of the scorched pine knot, hard and resinous.
This knot ran across in front, so as to arch above
and overhang his forehead, and was crowned
with hair, that, though soft, was thick and woody
to the eye, and looked not unlike the plates of the
pine-bur when green in season. It rose into a
ridge or comb directly across the head from front
to rear, like the war tuft of a Seminole warrior.
His eyes, small and red, seemed, occasionally, to
run into one another, and twinkled so, that you
could not avoid laughing but to look upon them.
His nose was flat, and the mouth was simply an
incision across his face, reaching nigh to both his
ears, which lapped and hung over like those of a
hound. He was short in person, thick, and
strangely bow-legged; and, to complete the uncouth
figure, his arms, shooting out from under a
high knot, that gathered like an epaulette upon
each shoulder, possessed but a single though rather
long bone, and terminated in a thick, squab, burlike
hand, having fingers, themselves inflexible,
and but of single joints, and tipped, not with
nails, but with claws, somewhat like those of the
panther, and equally fearful in strife. Such was
the vague general outline which, now and then,
the Indian hunter, and, after him, the Georgia
squatter, caught, towards evening, of the wandering
Logoochie, as he stole suddenly from sight
into the sheltering copse, that ran along the edges
of some wide savannah.

The brother divinities of the Creek warriors
had gone after their tribes, and Logoochie alone
remained upon the banks of the Sweet Water
Branch. He remained in spite of many reasons
for departure. The white borderer came nigher
and nigher, with every succeeding day. The
stout log-house started up in the centre of his
favorite groves, and many families, clustering

within a few miles of his favorite stream, formed
the nucleus of the flourishing little town of St.
Mary's. Still he lingered, though with a sadness
of spirit, hourly increasing, as every hour tended
more and more to circumscribe the haunts of his
playful wandering. Every day called upon him
to deplore the overthrow, by the woodman's axe,
of some well remembered tree in his neighborhood;
and though he strove, by an industrious
repetition of his old tricks, to prevent much of this
desolation, yet the divinities which the white man
brought with him were too potent for Logoochie.
In vain did he gnaw by night the sharp edge of
the biting steel, with which the squatter wrought
so much desolation. Alas! the white man had
an art given him by his God, by which he
smoothed out its repeated gaps, and sharpened it
readily again, or found a new one, for the destruction
of the forest. Over and over again, did Logoochie
think to take the trail of his people, and
leave a spot in which a petty strife of this nature
had become, though a familiar, a painful practice;
but then, as he thought of the humiliating acknowledgment
which, by so doing, he must offer to his
brother gods, his pride came to his aid, and he
determined to remain where he was. Then again,
as he rambled along the sweet waters of the
branch, and talked pleasantly with the trees, his
old acquaintance, and looked down upon little
groups of Indians that occasionally came to visit
this or that tumulus of the buried nations, he felt
a sweet pleasure in the thought, that although all
were gone of the old possessors, and a new people
and new gods had come to sway the lands of his
outlawed race, he still should linger and watch
over, with a sacred regard, the few relics, and the
speechless trophies, which the forgotten time had
left them. He determined to remain still, as he
long had been, the presiding genius of the place.

5. V.

From habit, at length, it came to Logoochie to
serve, with kind offices, the white settlers, just as
he had served the red men before him. He soon
saw that, in many respects, the people dwelling in
the woods, however different their color and origin,
must necessarily resemble one another. They
were in some particulars equally wild and equally
simple. He soon discovered, too, that however
much they might profess indifference to the superstitions
of the barbarous race they had superseded,
they were not a whit more secure from the occasional

tremors which followed his own practices or
presence. More than once had he marked the
fright of the young woodman, as, looking towards
nightfall over his left shoulder, he had beheld the
funny twinkling eyes, and the long slit mouth,
receding suddenly into the bush behind him. This
assured Logoochie of the possession still, even
with a new people, of some of that power which
he had exercised upon the old; and when he saw,
too, that the character of the white man was plain,
gentle, and unobtrusive, he came, after a brief study,
to like him also; though, certainly, in less
degree, than his Indian predecessors. From one
step of his acquaintance with the new comers to
another, Logoochie at length began to visit, at
stolen periods, and to prowl around the little cottage,
of the squatter; — sometimes playing tricks
upon his household, but more frequently employing
himself in the analysis of pursuits, and of a
character, as new almost to him as to the people
whose places they had assumed. Nor will this
seeming ignorance, on the part of Logoochie,
subtract a single jot from his high pretension as an
Indian god, since true philosophy and a deliberate
reason, must, long since, have been aware, that
the mythological rule of every people, has been
adapted, by the superior of all, to their mental
and physical condition; and the Great Manneyto
of the savage, in his primitive state, was, doubtless,
as wise a provision for him then, as, in our
time, has been the faith, which we proudly assume
to be the close correlative of the highest point of
moral liberty and social refinement.

6. VI.

In this way, making new discoveries daily, and
gradually becoming known himself, though vaguely,
to the simple cottagers around him, he continued
to pass the time with something more of satisfaction
than before; though still suffering pain at
every stroke of the sharp and smiting axe, as it
called up the deploring echoes of the rapidly yielding
forest. Day and night he was busy, and he
resumed, in extenso, many of the playful humors,
which used to annoy the savages and compel their
homage. It is true, the acknowledgment of the
white man was essentially different from that commonly
made by the Indians. When their camppots
were broken, their hatchets blunted, their
bows and arrows warped, or they had suffered any
other such mischief at his hands, they solemnly
deprecated his wrath, and offered him tribute to

disarm his hostility. All that Logoochie could
extort from the borderer, was a sullen oath, in
which the tricksy spirit was identified with no less
a person than the devil, the Opitchi-Manneyto
of the southern tribes. This — as Logoochie
well knew the superior rank of that personage
with his people — he esteemed a compliment; and
its utterance was at all times sufficiently grateful
in his ears to neutralize his spleen at the moment.
In addition to this, the habit of smoking more frequently
and freely than the Indians, so common
to the white man, contributed wonderfully to commend
him to the favor of Logoochie. The odor
in his nostrils was savory in the extreme, and he
consequently regarded the smoker as tendering, in
this way, the deprecatory sacrifice, precisely as
the savages had done before him. So grateful,
indeed, was the oblation to his taste, that often, of
the long summer evening, would he gather himself
into a bunch, in the thick branches of the high
tree overhanging the long-house, to inhale the reeking
fumes that were sent up by the half oblivious
woodman, as he lay reposing under its grateful
shadow.

7. VII.

There was one of these little cottages, which,
for this very reason, Logoochie found great delight
in visiting. It was tenanted by a sturdy old farmer,
named Jones, and situated on the skirts of
the St. Mary's village, about three miles from the
Branch of Sweet Water, the favorite haunt of
Logoochie. Jones had a small family — consisting,
besides himself, of his wife, his sister — a lady
of certain age, and monstrous demure — and a
daughter, Mary Jones, as sweet a May-flower as
the eye of a good taste would ever wish to dwell
upon. She was young — only sixteen, and had
not yet learned a single one of the thousand arts,
which, in making a fine coquette, spoil usually a
fine woman. She thought purely, and freely said
all that she thought. Her old father loved her —
her mother loved her, and her aunt, she loved her
too, and proved it, by doing her own, and the
scolding of all the rest, whenever the light-hearted
Mary said more in her eyes, or speech, than her
aunt's conventional sense of propriety deemed
absolutely necessary to be said. This family Logoochie
rather loved, — whether it was because

farmer Jones did more smoking than any of the
neighbors, or his sister more scolding, or his wife
more sleeping, or his daughter more loving, we
say not, but such certainly was the fact. Mary
Jones had learned this latter art, if none other.
A tall and graceful lad in the settlement, named
Johnson, had found favor in her sight, and she
in his; and it was not long before they made the
mutual discovery. He was a fine youth, and quite
worthy of the maiden; but then he was of an inquiring,
roving temper, and though not yet arrived
at manhood, frequently indulged in rambles,
rather startling, even to a people whose habit in
that respect is somewhat proverbial. He had gone
in his wanderings even into the heart of the Okephanokee
Swamp, and strange were the wonders,
and wild the stories, which he gave of that region
of Indian fable — a region, about which they
have as many and as beautiful traditions, as any
people can furnish from the store house of its primitive
romance. This disposition on the part
of Ned Johnson, though productive of much disquiet
to his friends and family, they hoped to
overcome or restrain, by the proposed union with
Mary Jones — a connexion seemingly acceptable
to all parties. Mary, like most other good young
ladies, had no doubt, indeed, of her power to control
her lover in his wanderings, when once they
were man and wife; and he, like most good young
gentlemen in like cases, did not scruple to swear a
thousand times, that her love would be as a chain
about his feet, too potent to suffer him the slightest
indulgence of his rambling desires.

8. VIII.

So things stood, when, one day, what should
appear in the Port of St. Mary's — the Pioneer
of the Line — but a vessel — a schooner — a
brightly painted, sharp, cunning looking craft, all
the way from the eastern waters, and commanded
by one of that daring tribe of Yankees, which
will one day control the commercial world. Never
had such a craft shown its face in those waters, and
great was the excitement in consequence. The
people turned out, en masse, — men, women, and
children, — all gathered upon the sands at the
point to which she was approaching, and while
many stood dumb with mixed feelings of wonder
and consternation, others, more bold and elastic,
shouted with delight. Ned Johnson led this latter
class, and almost rushed into the waters to meet
the new comer, clapping his hands and screaming

like mad. Logoochie himself, from the close
hugging branches of a neighboring tree, looked
down, and wondered and trembled as he beheld
the fast rushing progress toward him of what
might be a new and more potent God. Then,
when her little cannon, ostentatiously large for the
necessity, belched forth its thunders from her side,
the joy and the terror was universal. The rude
divinity of the red men leaped down headlong
from his place of eminence, and bounded on without
stopping, until removed from the sight and the
shouting, in the thick recesses of the neighboring
wood; while the children of the squatters taking
to their heels, went bawling and squalling back
to the village, never thinking for a moment to
reach it alive. The schooner cast her anchor,
and her captain came to land. Columbus looked
not more imposing, leaping first to the virgin soil
of the New World, than our worthy down-easter,
commencing, for the first time, a successful trade
in onions, potatoes, codfish, and crab-cider, with
the delighted Georgians of our little village. All
parties were overjoyed, and none more so than our
young lover, Master Edward Johnson. He
drank in with willing ears, and a still thirsting appetite,
the narrative which the Yankee captain
gave the villagers of his voyage. His long yarn,
be sure, was stuffed with wonders. The new
comer soon saw from Johnson's looks how greatly
he had won the respect and consideration of the
youthful wanderer, and, accordingly, addressed
some of his more spirited and romantic adventures
purposely to him. Poor Mary Jones beheld,
with dreadful anticipations, the voracious delight
which sparkled in the eyes of Ned as he listened
to the marvellous narrative, and had the thing
been at all possible or proper, she would have insisted,
for the better control of the erratic boy,
that old Parson Collins should at once do his duty,
and give her legal authority to say to her lover—
“obey, my dear, — stay at home, or,” etc. She
went back to the village in great tribulation, and
Ned — he stayed behind with Captain Nicodemus
Doolittle, of the “Smashing Nancy.”

9. IX.

Now Nicodemus, or, as they familiarly called
him “Old Nick,” was a wonderfully 'cute personage;
and as he was rather slack of hands — was
not much of a penman or grammarian, and felt
that in his new trade he should need greatly the
assistance of one to whom the awful school mystery

of fractions and the rule of three had, by a
kind fortune, been developed duly — he regarded
the impression which he had obviously made upon
the mind of Ned Johnson, as promising to neutralize,
if he could secure him, some few of his
own deficiencies. To this end, therefore, he particularly
addressed himself, and, as might be suspected,
under the circumstances, he was eminently
successful. The head of the youth was soon
stuffed full of the wonders of the sea; and after a
day or two of talk, all round the subject, in which
time, by the way, the captain sold off all his “notions,”
he came point blank to the subject in the
little cabin of the schooner. Doolittle sat over
against him with a pile of papers before him,
some of which, to the uneducated down-easter, were
grievous mysteries, calling for a degree of arithmetical
knowledge which was rather beyond his
capacity. His sales and profits — his accounts
with creditors and debtors — were to be registered,
and these required him to reconcile the provoking
cross currencies of the different states — the York
shilling, the Pennsylvania levy, the Georgia
thrip, the pickayune of Louisiana, the Carolina
fourpence — and this matter was, alone, enough
to bother him. He knew well enough how to
count the coppers on hearing them. No man
was more expert at that. But the difficulty of
bringing them into one currency on paper, called
for a more experienced accountant than our worthy
captain; and the youth wondered to behold
the ease with which so great a person could be
bothered. Doolittle scratched his head in vain.
He crossed his right leg over his left, but still he
failed to prove his sum. He reversed the movement,
and the left now lay problematically of the
right. The product was very hard to find. He
took a sup of cider, and then he thought things
began to look a little clearer; but a moment after
all was cloud again, and at length the figures
absolutely seemed to run into one another. He
could stand it no longer, and slapped his hand
down, at length, with such emphasis upon the
table, as to startle the poor youth, who, all the
while, had been dreaming of plunging and wriggling
dolphins, seen in all their gold and glitter,
three feet or less in the waters below the advancing
prow of the ship. The start which Johnson made,
at once showed the best mode to the captain of
extrication from his difficulty.

“There — there, my dear boy, — take some
cider — only a little — do you good — best thing
in the world — There, — and now do run up these
figures, and see how we agree.”

Ned was a clever led, and used to stand head

of his class. He unravelled the mystery in little
time — reconciled the cross-currency of the several
sovereign states, and was rewarded by his patron
with a hearty slap upon the shoulder, and
another cup of cider. It was not difficult after
this to agree, and half fearing that all the while
he was not doing right by Mary Jones, he dashed
his signature, in a much worse hand than he was
accustomed to write, upon a printed paper which
Doolittle thrust to him across the table.

“And now, my dear boy,” said the captain,
“you are my secretary, and shall have best berth,
and place along with myself, in the `Smashing
Nancy.”'

10. X.

The bargain had scarcely been struck, and the
terms well adjusted with the Yankee captain, before
Ned Johnson began to question the propriety
of what he had done. He was not so sure that
he had not been hasty, and felt that the pain his
departure would inflict upon Mary Jones, would
certainly be as great in degree, as the pleasure
which his future adventures must bring to himself.
Still, when he looked forward to those adventures,

and remembered the thousand fine stories of Captain
Doolittle, his dreams came back, and with
them came a due forgetfulness of the hum-drum
happiness of domestic life. The life in the woods,
indeed — as if there was life, strictly speaking, in
the eternal monotony of the pine forests, and the
drowsy hum they keep up so ceaselessly. Woodchopping,
too, was his aversion, and when he reflected
upon the acknowledged superiority of his
own over all the minds about him, he felt that his
destiny called upon him for better things, and a
more elevated employment. He gradually began
to think of Mary Jones, as of one of those influences
which had substracted somewhat from the
nature and legitimate exercises of his own genius;
and whose claims, therefore, if acknowledged by
him, as she required, must only be acknowledged
at the expense and sacrifice of the higher pursuits
and purposes for which the discriminating Providence
had designed him. The youth's head was
fairly turned by his ambitious yearnings, and it
was strange how sublimely metaphysical his musings
now made him. He began to analyze closely
the question, since made a standing one among
the phrenologists, as to how far particular heads
were intended for particular pursuits. General principles
were soon applied to special developments in
his own case, and he came to the conclusion, just as
he placed his feet upon the threshold of Father
Jones's cottage, that he should be contending with
the aim of fate, and the original design of the
Deity in his own creation, if he did not go with
Captain Nicodemus Doolittle, of the “Smashing
Nancy.”

11. XI.

“Ahem! Mary —” said Ned, finding the little
girl conveniently alone, half sorrowful, and turning
the whizzing spinning wheel.

“Ahem, Mary — ahem —” and as he brought
forth the not very intelligible introduction, his eye
had in it a vague indeterminateness that looked
like confusion, though, truth to speak, his head
was high and confident enough.

“Well, Ned —”

“Ahem! ah, Mary, what did you think of the
beautiful vessel. Was n't she fine, eh?”

“Very — very fine, Ned, though she was so
large, and, when the great gun was fired, my
heart beat so — I was so frightened, Ned — that I
was.”

“Frightened — why what frightened you, Mary,”
exclaimed Ned proudly — “that was grand,

and as soon as we get to sea, I shall shoot it off
myself.”

“Get to sea — why, Ned — get to sea. Oh,
dear, why — what do you mean?” and the bewildered
girl, half conscious only, yet doubting
her senses, now left the wheel, and came toward
the contracted secretary of Captain Doolittle.

“Yes, get to sea, Mary. What! don't you
know I'm going with the captain clear away to
New York?”

Now, how should she know, poor girl? He
knew that she was ignorant; but as he did not feel
satisfied of the propriety of what he had done,
his phraseology had assumed a somewhat indirect
and distorted complexion.

“You going with the Yankee, Ned — you don't
say.”

“Yes, but I do — and what if he is a Yankee,
and sells notions — I'm sure, there's no harm in
that; he's a main smart fellow, Mary, and such
wonderful things as he has seen, it would make
your hair stand on end to hear him. I'll see them
too, Mary, and then tell you.”

“Oh, Ned, — you're only joking now — you
don't mean it, Ned — you only say so to tease me
— Isn't it so, Ned — say it is — say yes, dear
Ned, only say yes.”

And the poor girl caught his arm, with all the
confiding warmth of an innocent heart, and as the
tears gathered slowly, into big drops, in her eyes,
and they were turned appealingly up to his, the
heart of the wanderer smote him for the pain it
had inflicted upon one so gentle. In that moment,
he felt that he would have given the world to get
off from his bargain with the captain; but this
mood lasted not long. His active imagination,
provoking a curious thirst after the unknown; and
his pride, which suggested the weakness of a
vacillating purpose, all turned and stimulated him
to resist and refuse the prayer of the conciliating
affection, then beginning to act within him in rebuke.
Speaking through his teeth, as if he dreaded
that he should want firmness, he resolutely
reiterated what he had said; and, while the sad
girl listened, silently, as one thunder struck, he
went on to give a glowing description of the
wonderful discoveries in store for him during the
proposed voyage. Mary sunk back upon her stool,
and the spinning wheel went faster than ever; but
never in her life had she broken so many tissues.
He did his best at consolation, but the true hearted
girl, though she did not the less suffer as he
pleaded, at least forbore all complaint. The thing
seemed irrevocable, and so she resigned herself,

like a true woman, to the imperious necessity.
Ned, after a while, adjusted his plaited straw to
his cranium, and sallied forth with a due importance
in his strut, but with a swelling something
at his heart, which he tried in vain to quiet.

12. XII.

And what of poor Mary — the disconsolate, the
deserted and denied of love. She said nothing,
ate her dinner in silence, and then putting on her
bonnet, prepared to sally forth in a solitary ramble.

“What ails it, child,” said old Jones, with a
rough tenderness of manner.

“Where going, baby?” asked her mother, half
asleep.

“Out again, Mary Jones — out again,” vociferously
shouted the antique aunt, who did all the
family scolding.

The little girl answered them all meekly, without
the slightest show of impatience, and proceeded
on her walk.

The “Branch of Sweet Water,” now known
by this name to all the villagers of St. Mary's,
was then, as it was supposed to be his favorite

place of abode, commonly styled, “The Branch
of Logoochie.” The Indians — such stragglers
as either lingered behind their tribes, or occasionally
visited the old scenes of their home, — had
made the white settlers somewhat acquainted with
the character, and the supposed presence of that
playful God, in the region thus assigned him;
and though not altogether assured of the idleness
of the superstition, the young and innocent Mary
Jones had no apprehensions of his power. She,
indeed, had no reason for fear, for Logoochie had
set her down, long before, as one of his favorites.
He had done her many little services, of which
she was unaware, nor was she the only member of
her family indebted to his ministering good will.
He loved them all — all but the scold, and many
of the annoyances to which the old maid was subject,
arose from this antipathy of Logoochie. But
to return.

It was in great tribulation that Mary set out for
her usual ramble along the banks of the “Sweet
Water.” Heretofore most of her walks in that
quarter had been made in company with her lover.
Here, perched in some sheltering oak, or safely
doubled up behind some swollen pine, the playful
Logoochie, himself unseen, a thousand times looked
upon the two lovers, as, with linked arms, and

spirits maintaining, as it appeared, a perfect unison,
they walked in the shade during the summer
afternoon. Though sportive and mischievous,
such sights were pleasant to one who dwelt alone;
and there were many occasions, when, their love
first ripening into expression, he would divert from
their path, by some little adroit art or management
of his own, the obtrusive and unsympathising
woodman, who might otherwise have spoiled
the sport which he could not be permitted to share.
Under his unknown sanction and service, therefore,
the youthful pair had found love a rapture,
until, at length, poor Mary had learned to regard
it as a necessary too. She knew the necessity
from the privation, as she now rambled alone; her
wandering lover meanwhile improving his knowledge
by some additional chit-chat, on matters and
things in general, with the captain, with whom he
had that day dined heartily on codfish and potatoes,
a new dish to young Johnson, which gave
him an additional idea of the vast resources of the
sea.

13. XIII.

Mary Jones at length trod the banks of the
Sweet Water, and footing it along the old pathway
to where the rivulet narrowed, she stood
under the gigantic tree which threw its sheltering
and concealing arms completely across the stream.
With an old habit, rather than a desire for its refreshment,
she took the gourd from the limb whence
it depended, pro bono publico, over the water, and
scooping up a draught of the innocent beverage,
she proceeded to drink, when, just as she carried
the vessel to her lips, a deep moan assailed her
ears, as from one in pain, and at a little distance.
She looked up, and the moan was repeated, and
with increased fervency. She saw nothing, however,
and somewhat startled, was about to turn
quickly on her way homeward, when a third and
more distinct repetition of the moan appealed so
strongly to her natural sense of duty, that she
could stand it no longer; and with the noblest of
all kinds of courage, for such is the courage of
humanity, she hastily tripped over the log which
ran across the stream, and proceeded in the direction
from whence the sounds had issued. A few

paces brought her in sight of the sufferer, who
was no other than our solitary acquaintance, Logoochie.
He lay upon the grass, doubled now
into a knot, and now stretching and writhing himself
about in agony. His whole appearance indicated
suffering, and there was nothing equivocal
in the expression of his moanings. The astonishment,
not to say fright, of the little cottage maiden,
may readily be conjectured. She saw, for the
first time, the hideous and uncouth outline of his
person — the ludicrous combination of feature in
his face. She had heard of Logoochie, vaguely;
and without giving much, if any credence, to the
mysterious tales related by the credulous woodman,
returning home at evening, of his encounter in the
forest with its pine-bodied divinity; — and now,
as she herself looked down upon the suffering and
moaning monster, it would be difficult to say,
whether curiosity or fear was the most active principle
in her bosom. He saw her approach, and
he half moved to rise and fly; but a sudden pang,
as it seemed, brought him back to a due sense of
the evil from which he was suffering, and, looking
towards the maiden with a mingled expression of
good humor and pain in his countenance, he seemed
to implore her assistance. The poor girl did
not exactly know what to do, or what to conjecture.
What sort of monster was it before her.
What queer, distorted, uncouth limbs — what
eyes, that twinkled and danced into one another
— and what a mouth. She was stupified for a
moment, until he spoke, and, stranger still, in a
language that she understood. And what a musical
voice, — how sweetly did the words roll forth,
and how soothingly, yet earnestly, did they strike
upon her ear. Language is indeed a god, and
powerful before all the rest. His words told her
all his misfortunes, and the tones were all-sufficient
to inspire confidence in one even more suspicious
than our innocent cottager. Besides, humanity
was a principle in her heart, while fear was only
an emotion, and she did not scruple, where the two
conflicted, after the pause for reflection of a moment,
to determine in favor of the former. She
approached Logoochie — she approached him,
firmly determined in her purpose, but trembling
all the while. As she drew nigh, the gentle monster
stretched himself out at length, patiently extending
one foot towards her, and raising it in
such a manner as to indicate the place which afflicted
him. She could scarce forbear laughing,
when she looked closely upon the strange feet.
They seemed covered with bark, like that of the
small leafed pine tree; but as she stooped, to her
great surprise, the coating of his sole flew wide
as if upon a hinge, showing below it a skin as
soft, and white, and tender, seemingly, as her
own. There, in the centre of the hollow, lay the
cause of his suffering. A poisonous thorn had
penetrated, almost to the head, as he had suddenly
leaped from the tree, the day before, upon the
gun being fired from the “Smashing Nancy.”
The spot around it was greatly inflamed, and Logoochie,
since the accident, had vainly striven, in
every possible way, to rid himself of the intruder.
His short, inflexible arms, had failed so to reach
it as to make his fingers available; and then,
having claws rather than nails, he could scarce
have done any thing for his own relief, even
could they have reached it. He now felt
the evil of his isolation, and the danger of his
seclusion from his brother divinities. His case
was one, indeed, of severe bachelorism; and,
doubtless, had his condition been less than that of
a deity, the approach of Mary Jones to his aid,
at such a moment, would have produced a decided
revolution in his domestic economy. Still
trembling, the maiden bent herself down to the
task, and with a fine courage, that did not allow
his uncouth limbs to scare, or his wild and monstrous
features to deter, she applied her own small
fingers to the foot, and carefully grappling the
head of the wounding thorn with her nails, with
a successful effort, she drew it forth, and rid him
of his encumbrance. The wood-god leaped to
his feet, threw a dozen antics in the air, to the
great terror of Mary, then running a little way
into the forest, soon returned with a handful of
fresh leaves, which he bruised between his fingers,
and applied to the irritated and wounded foot.
He was well in a moment after, and pointing the
astonished Mary to the bush from which he had
taken the anointing leaves, thus made her acquainted
with one item in the history of Indian pharmacy.

14. XIV.

“The daughter of the white clay — she has
come to Logoochie, — to Logoochie when he was
suffering.

“She is a good daughter to Logoochie, and
the green spirits who dwell in the forest, they love,
and will honor her.

“They will throw down the leaves before her,
they will spread the branches above her, they will
hum a sweet song in the tree top, when she walks
underneath it.

“They will watch beside her, as she sleeps in
the shade, in the warm sun of the noon-day, —
they will keep the flat viper, and the war rattle,
away from her ear.

“They will do this in honor to Logoochie, for
they know Logoochie, and he loves the pale
daughter. She came to him in his suffering.

“She drew the poison thorn from his foot —
she fled not away when she saw him.

“Speak, — let Logoochie hear — there is sorrow
in the face of the pale daughter. Logoochie
would know it and serve her, for she is sweet in
the eye of Logoochie.”

15. XV.

Thus said, or rather sung, the uncouth god, to
Mary, as, after the first emotions of his own joy
were over, he beheld the expression of melancholy
in her countenance. Somehow, there was
something so fatherly, so gentle, and withal, so
melodious, in his language, that she soon unbosomed
herself to him, telling him freely and in the
utmost confidence, though without any hope of
relief at his hands, the history of her lover, and
the new project for departure which he had now

got in his head. She was surprised, and pleased,
when she saw that Logoochie smiled at the narrative.
She was not certain, yet she had a vague
hope, that he could do something for her relief;
and her conjecture was not in vain. He spoke —
“Why should the grief be in the heart and the
cloud on the face of the maiden? Is not Logoochie
to help her? He stands beside her to help.
Look, daughter of the pale clay — look! There
is power in the leaf that shall serve thee at the
bidding of Logoochie; — the bough and the
branch have a power for thy good, when Logoochie
commands; and the little red-berry which I
now pluck from the vine hanging over thee, it is
strong with a spirit which is good in thy work,
when Logoochie has said in thy service. Lo, I
speak to the leaf, and to the bough, and to the
berry. They shall speak to the water, and one
draught from the branch of Logoochie, shall put
chains on the heart of the youth who would go
forth with the stranger.”

As he spoke, he gathered the leaf, broke a bough
from an overhanging tree, and, with a red berry,
pulled from a neighboring vine, approached the
Branch of Sweet Water, and turning to the west,
muttered a wild spell of Indian power, than threw
the tributes into the rivulet. The smooth surface

of the stream was in an instant ruffled — the offerings
were whirled suddenly around — the waters
broke, boiled, bubbled, and parted, and in another
moment, the bough, the berry, and the leaf,
had disappeared from their sight.

16. XVI.

Mary Jones was not a little frightened by these
exhibitions, but she was a girl of courage, and
having once got over the dread and the novelty
of contact with a form so monstrous as that of
Logoochie, the after effort was not so great. She
witnessed the incantations of the demon without
a word, and when they were over, she simply listened
to his farther directions, half stupified with
what she had seen, and not knowing how much of
it to believe. He bade her bring her lover, as
had been the custom with them hitherto, to the
branch, and persuade him to drink of its waters.
When she inquired into its effect, which, at length,
with much effort, she ventured to do, he bade her
be satisfied, and all would go right. Then, with
a word, which was like so much music — a word
she did not understand, but which sounded like a
parting acknowledgment, — he bounded away

into the woods, and, a moment after, was completely
hidden from her sight.

17. XVII.

Poor Mary, not yet relieved from her surprise,
was still sufficiently aroused and excited to believe
there was something in it; and as she moved off
on her way home, how full of anticipation was her
thoughts — pleasant anticipation, in which her
heart took active interest, and warmed, at length,
into a strong and earnest hope. She scarcely
gave herself time to get home, and never did the
distance between Sweet Water Branch and the
cottage of her father appear so extravagantly
great. She reached it, however, at last; and there,
to her great joy, sat her lover, alongside the old
man, and giving him a glowing account, such as
he had received from the Yankee captain, of the
wonders to be met with in his coming voyage.
Old Jones listened patiently, puffing his pipe all
the while, and saying little, but now and then, by
way of commentary, uttering an ejaculatory grunt,
most commonly, of sneering disapproval.

“Better stay at home, a d — d sight, Ned Johnson,
and follow the plough.”

Ned Johnson, however, thought differently, and
it was not the farmer's grunts or growlings that
was now to change his mind. Fortunately for the
course of true love, there were other influences at
work, and the impatience of Mary Jones to try
them was evident, in the clumsiness which she exhibited
while passing the knife under the thin crust
of the corn hoe-cake that night for supper, and
laying the thick masses of fresh butter between
the smoking and savory-smelling sides, as she
turned them apart. The evening wore, at length,
and, according to an old familiar habit, the lovers
walked forth to the haunted and fairy-like branch
of Logoochie, or the Sweet Water. It was the
last night in which they were to be together, prior
to his departure in the Smashing Nancy. That
bouncing vessel and her dexterous captain were
to depart with early morning; and it was as little
as Ned Johnson could do, to spend that night
with his sweetheart. They were both melancholy
enough, depend upon it. She, poor girl, hoping
much, yet still fearing — for when was true love
without fear — she took his arm, hung fondly upon
it, and, without a word between them for a long
while, inclined him, as it were naturally, in the
required direction. Ned really loved her, and
was sorry enough when the thought came to him,

that this might be the last night of their association;
but he plucked up courage, with the momentary
weakness, and though he spoke kindly,
yet he spoke fearlessly, and with a sanguine temper,
upon the prospect of the sea-adventure before
him. Mary said little — her heart was too
full for speech, but she looked up now and then
into his eyes, and he saw, by the moonlight,
that her own glistened as with tears. He turned
away his glance as he saw it, for his heart smote
him with the reproach of her desertion.

18. XVIII.

They came at length to the charmed streamlet,
the Branch of the Sweet Water, to this day known
for its fascinations. The moon rose sweetly above
it, the trees coming out in her soft light, and the
scatterings of her thousand beams glancing from
the green polish of their crowding leaves. The
breeze that rose along with her was soft and wooing
as herself; while the besprinkling fleece of the
small white clouds, clustering along the sky, and
flying from her splendors, made the scene, if possible,
far more fairy-like and imposing. It was a
scene for love, and the heart of Ned Johnson

grew more softened than ever. His desire for
adventure grew modified; and when Mary bent
to the brooklet, and scooped up the water for him
to drink, with the water-gourd that hung from the
bough, wantoning in the breeze that loved to play
over the pleasant stream, Ned could not help thinking
she never looked more beautiful. The water
trickled from the gourd as she handed it to him,
falling like droppings of the moonshine again into
its parent stream. You should have seen her eye
— so full of hope — so full of doubt — so beautiful
— so earnest, — as he took the vessel from her
hands. For a moment he hesitated, and then how
her heart beat and her limbs trembled. But he
drank off the contents at a draught, and gave no
sign of emotion. Yet his emotions were strange
and novel. It seemed as if so much ice had gone
through his veins in that moment. He said nothing,
however, and dipping up a gourd full for
Mary, he hung the vessel again upon the pendant
bough, and the two moved away from the water
— not, however, before the maiden caught a
glimpse, through the intervening foliage, of those
two queer, bright, little eyes of Logoochie, with
a more delightful activity than ever, dancing gayly
into one.

19. XIX.

But the spell had been effectual, and a new nature
filled the heart of him, who had heretofore
sighed vaguely for the unknown. The roving
mood had entirely departed; he was no longer a
wanderer in spirit, vexed to be denied. A soft
languor overspread his form — a weakness gathered
and grew about his heart, and he now sighed
unconsciously. How soft, yet how full of emphasis,
was the pressure of Mary's hand upon his
arm as she heard that sigh; and how forcibly did
it remind the youth that she who walked beside
him was his own — his own forever. With the
thought came a sweet perspective — a long vista
rose up before his eyes, crowded with images of
repose and plenty, such as the domestic nature
likes to dream of.

“Oh, Mary, I will not go with this captain —
I will not. I will stay at home with you, and we
shall be married.”

Thus he spoke, as the crowding thoughts, such
as we have described, came up before his fancy.

“Will you — shall we? Oh, dear Edward, I
am so happy.”

And the maiden blessed Logoochie, as she uttered
her response of happy feeling.

“I will, dear — but I must hide from Doolittle.
I have signed papers to go with him, and he will
be so disappointed — I must hide from him.”

“Why must you hide, Edward — he cannot
compel you to go, unless you please; and you
just to be married.”

Edward thought she insisted somewhat unnecessarily
upon the latter point, but he replied to
the first.

“I am afraid he can. I signed papers — I
don't know what they were, for I was rash and
foolish — but they bound me to go with him, and
unless I keep out of the way, I shall have to go.”

“Oh, dear — why, Ned, where will you go —
you must hide close, — I would not have him find
you for the world.”

“I reckon not. As to the hiding, I can go
where all St. Mary's can't find me; and that's in
Okephanokee.”

“Oh, don't go so far — it is so dangerous, for
some of the Seminoles are there!”

“And what if they are? — I don't care that for
the Seminoles. They never did me any harm,
and never will. But, I shan't go quite so far.
Bull swamp is close enough for me, and there I

can watch the `Smashing Nancy' 'till she gets
out to sea.”

20. XX.

Having thus determined, it was not long before
Ned Johnson made himself secure in his place of
retreat, while Captain Doolittle, of the “Smashing
Nancy,” in great tribulation, ransacked the village
of St. Mary's in every direction for his articled
seaman, for such Ned Johnson had indeed
become. Doolittle deserved to lose him for the
trick which, in this respect, he had played upon
the boy. His search proved fruitless, and he was
compelled to sail at last. Ned, from the top of a
high tree on the edge of Bull swamp, watched his
departure, until the last gleam of the white sail
flitted away from the horizon; then descending,
he made his way back to St. Mary's, and it was
not long before he claimed and received the hand
of his pretty cottager in marriage. Logoochie
was never seen in the neighborhood after this
event. His accident had shown him the necessity
of keeping with his brethren, for, reasoning from
all analogy, gods must be social animals not less

than men. But, in departing, he forgot to take
the spell away which he had put upon the Sweet
Water Branch; and to this day, the stranger,
visiting St. Mary's, is warned not to drink from
the stream, unless he proposes to remain; for still,
as in the case of Ned Johnson, it binds the feet
and enfeebles the enterprise of him who partakes
of its pleasant waters.