University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

My natal soil is Chester County. My father
had a small farm on which he has been able, by industry,
to maintain himself and a numerous family. He has had
many children, but some defect in the constitution of our
mother has been fatal to all of them but me. They died successively
as they attained the age of nineteen or twenty,
and, since I have not yet reached that age, I may reasonably
look for the same premature fate. In the spring of last
year my mother followed her fifth child to the grave, and
three months afterwards died herself.

My constitution has always been frail, and, till the death
of my mother, I enjoyed unlimited indulgence. I cheerfully
sustained my portion of labour, for that necessity prescribed;
but the intervals were always at my own disposal, and in
whatever manner I thought proper to employ them, my plans
were encouraged and assisted. Fond appellations, tones of
mildness, solicitous attendance when I was sick, deference
to my opinions, and veneration for my talents compose the
image which I still retain of my mother. I had the thoughtlessness
and presumption of youth, and now that she is gone
my compunction is awakened by a thousand recollections of
my treatment of her. I was indeed guilty of no flagrant
acts of contempt or rebellion. Perhaps her deportment was
inevitably calculated to instil into me a froward and refrantory
spirit. My faults, however, were speedily followed by

repentance, and in the midst of impatience and passion, a
look of tender upbraiding from her was always sufficient to
melt me into tears and make me ductile to her will. If
sorrow for her loss be an atonement for the offences which
I committed during her life, ample atonement has been
made.

My father is a man of slender capacity, but of a temper
easy and flexible. He was sober and industrious by habit.
He was content to be guided by the superior intelligence
of his wife. Under this guidance he prospered; but when
that was withdrawn, his affairs soon began to betray marks
of unskilfulness and negligence. My understanding, perhaps,
qualified me to counsel and assist my father, but I was
wholly unaccustomed to the task of superintendence. Besides,
gentleness and fortitude did not descend to me from
my mother, and these were indispensable attributes in a boy
who desires to dictate to his grey-headed parent. Time,
perhaps, might have conferred dexterity on me, or prudence
on him, had not a most unexpected event given a different
direction to my views.

Betty Lawrence was a wild girl from the pine forests of
New-Jersey. At the age of ten years she became a bound
servant in this city, and, after the expiration of her time,
came into my father's neighbourhood in search of employment.
She was hired in our family as milk-maid and market
woman. Her features were coarse, her frame robust, her
mind totally unlettered, and her morals defective in that
point in which female excellence is supposed chiefly to consist.
She possessed superabundant health and good humour,
and was quite a supportable companion in the hay-field of
the barn-yard.

On the death of my mother, she was exalted to a somewhat
higher station. The same tasks fell to her lot; but the
time and manner of performing them were, in some degree,
submitted to her own choice. The cows and the dairy were
still her province; but in this no one interfered with her, or

pretended to prescribe her measures. For this province she
seemed not unqualified, and as long as my father was pleased
with her management, I had nothing to object.

This state of things continued, without material variation,
for several months. There were appearances in my father's
deportment to Betty, which excited my reflections, but not
my fears. The deference which was occasionally paid to the
advice or the claims of this girl, was accounted for by that
feebleness of mind which degraded my father, in whatever
scene he should be placed, to be the tool of others. I had
no conception that her claims extended beyond a temporary
or superficial gratification.

At length, however, a visible change took place in her manners.
A scornful affectation and awkward dignity began to
be assumed. A greater attention was paid to dress, which
was of gayer hues and more fashionable texture. I rallied
her on these tokens of a sweetheart, and amused myself with
expatiating to her on the qualifications of her lover. A
clownish fellow was frequently her visitant. His attentions
did not appear to be discouraged. He therefore was readily
supposed to be the man. When pointed out as the favourite,
great resentment was expressed, and obscure insinuations
were made that her aim was not quite so low as that. These
denials I supposed to be customary on such occasions, and
considered the continuance of his visits as a sufficient confutation
of them.

I frequently spoke of Betty, her newly acquired dignity,
and of the probable cause of her change of manners to my
father. When this theme was started, a certain coldness
and reserve overspread his features. He dealt in monosyllables
and either laboured to change the subject or made some
excuse for leaving me. This behaviour, though it occasioned
surprise, was never very deeply reflected on. My father
was old, and the mournful impressions which were made upon
him by the death of his wife, the lapse of almost half a
year seemed scarcely to have weakened. Betty had chosen

her partner, and I was in daily expectation of receiving a summons
to the wedding.

One afternoon this gril dressed herself in the gayest manner
and seemed making preparations for some momentous
ceremony. My father had directed me to put the horse to the
chaise. On my inquiring whither he was going, he answered
me, in general terms, that he had some business at a few
miles distance. I offered to go in his stead, but he said that
was impossible. I was proceeding to ascertain the possibility
of this when he left me to go to a field where his workmen
were busy, directing me to inform him when the chaise was
ready, to supply his place, while absent, in overlooking the
workmen.

This office was performed; but before I called him from
the field I exchanged a few words with the milk-maid, who
sat on a bench, in all the primness of expectation and decked
with the most gaudy plumage. I rated her imaginary lover
for his tardiness, and vowed eternal hatred to them both for
not making me a bride's attendant. She listened to me with
an air in which embarrassment was mingled sometimes with
exultation, and sometimes with malice. I left her at length,
and returned to the house not till a late hour. As soon as I
entered, my father presented Betty to me as his wife, and
desired she might receive that treatment from me which was
due to a mother.

It was not till after repeated and solemn declarations from
both of them that I was prevailed upon to credit this event.
Its effect upon my feelings may be easily conceived. I knew
the woman to be rude, ignorant, and licentious. Had I suspected
this event I might have fortified my father's weakness
and enabled him to shun the gulf to which he was tending;
but my presumption had been careless of the danger. To
think that such an one should take the place of my revered
mother was intolerable.

To treat her in any way not squaring with her real merits;
to hinder anger and scorn from rising at the sight of her in

her new condition, was not in my power. To be degraded to
the rank of her servant, to become the sport of her malice
and her artifices was not to be endured. I had no independent
provision; but I was the only child of my father, and
had reasonably hoped to succeed to his patrimony. On this
hope I had built a thousand agreeable visions. I had meditated
innumerable projects which the possession of this estate
would enable me to execute. I had no wish beyond the
trade of agriculture, and beyond the opulence which an hundred
acres would give.

These visions were now at an end. No doubt her own
interest would be, to this woman, the supreme law, and this
would be considered as irreconcilably hostile to mine. My
father would easily be moulded to her purpose, and that act
easily extorted from him which should reduce me to beggary.
She had a gross and preverse taste. She had a numerous kindred,
indigent and hungry. On these his substance would
speedily be lavished. Me she hated, because she was conscious
of having injured me, because she knew that I held
her in contempt, and because I had detected her in an illicit
intercourse with the son of a neighbour.

The house in which I lived was no longer my own, nor
even my father's. Hitherto I had thought and acted in it
with the freedom of a master, but now I was become, in
my own conceptions, an alien and an enemy to the roof under
which I was born. Every tie which had bound me to it was
dissolved or converted into something which repelled me to
a distance from it. I was a guest whose presence was borne
with anger and impatience.

I was fully impressed with the necessity of removal, but
I knew not whither to go, or what kind of subsistence to
seek. My father had been a Scottish emigrant, and had no
kindred on this side of the ocean. My mother's family lived
in New-Hampshire, and long separation had extinguished
all the rights of relationship in her offspring. Tilling the
earth was my only profession, and to profit by my skill in it,

it would be necessary to become a day-labourer in the service
of strangers; but this was a destiny to which I, who had so
long enjoyed the pleasures of independence and command,
could not suddenly reconcile myself. It occurred to me that
the city might afford me an asylum. A short day's journey
would transport me into it. I had been there twice or thrice
in my life, but only for a few hours each time. I knew not
an human face, and was a stranger to its modes and dangers.
I was qualified for no employment, compatible with a town-life,
but that of the pen. This, indeed, had ever been a favourite
tool with me, and though it may appear somewhat strange,
it is no less true that I had had nearly as much practice at the
quill as at the mattock. But the sum of my skill lay in tracing
distinct characters. I had used it merly to transcribe what
others had written, or to give form to my own conceptions.
Whether the city would afford me employment, as a mere
copyist, sufficiently lucrative, was a point on which I possessed
no means of information.

My determination was hastened by the conduct of my new
mother. My conjectures as to the course she would pursue
with regard to me had not been erroneous. My father's
deportment, in a short time, grew sullen and austere. Directions
were given in a magisterial tone, and any remissness in
the execution of his orders, was rebuked with an air of authority.
At length thefe rebukes were followed by certain
intimations that I was now old enough to provide for myself;
that it was time to think of some employment by which I
might secure a livelihood; that it was a shame for me to
spend my youth in idleness; that what he had gained was by
his own labour; and I must be indebted for my living to the
same source.

These hints were easily understood. At first, they excited
indignation and grief. I knew the source whence they
sprung, and was merely able to suppress the utterance of my
feelings in her presence. My looks, however, were abundantly
significant, and my company became hourly more insupportable.

Abstracted from these considerations, my
father's remonstrances were not destitute of weight. He
gave me being, but sustenance ought surely to be my own gift.
In the use of that for which he had been indebted to his own
exertions, he might reasonably consult his own choice. He
assumed no control over me: he merely did what he would
with his own, and so far from fettering my liberty, he exhorted
me to use it for my own benefit, and to make provision
for myself.

I now reflected that there were other manual occupations
besides that of the plough. Among these none had fewer
disadvantages than that of carpenter or cabinet-maker. I
had no knowledge of this art; but neither custom, nor law,
nor the impenetrableness of the mistery required me to serve
a seven years' apprenticeship to it. A master in this trade
might possibly be persuaded to take me under his tuition:
two or three years would suffice to give me the requiste skill.
Meanwhile my father would, perhaps, consent to bear the
cost of my maintenance. Nobody could live upon less than
I was willing to do.

I mentioned these ideas to my father; but he merely commended
my intentions without offering to assist me in the
execution of them. He had full employment, he said, for all
the profits of his ground. No doubt if I would bind myself
to serve four or five years, my master would be at the expence
of my subsistence. Be that as it would, I must look
for nothing from him. I had shewn very little regard for his
happiness: I had refused all marks of respect to a woman
who was entitled to it from her relation to him. He did
not see why he should treat as a son one who refused what
was due to him as a father. He thought it right that I
should henceforth maintain myself. He did not want my
services on the farm, and the sooner I quitted his house the
better.

I retired from this conference with a resolution to follow
the advice that was given. I saw that henceforth I must be

my own protector, and wondered at the folly that detained
me so long under his roof. To leave it was now become
indispensable, and there could be no reason for delaying my
departure for a single hour. I determined to bend my course
to the city. The scheme foremost in my mind was to apprentice
myself to some mechanical trade. I did not overlook
the evils of constraint and the dubiousness as to the
character of the mafter I should choose. I was not without
hopes that accident would suggest a different expedient, and
enable me to procure an immediate subsistence without forfeiting
my liberty.

I determined to commence my journey the next morning.
No wonder the prospect of so considerable a change in my
condition should deprive me of sleep. I spent the night
ruminating on the future, and in painting to my fancy the adventures
which I should be likely to meet. The foresight of
man is in proportion to his knowledge. No wonder that in
my state of profound ignorance, not the faintest preconception
should be formed of the events that really befel me.
My temper was inquisitive, but there was nothing in the fcene
to which I was going from which my curiosty expected to
derive gratification. Discords and evil smells, unsavoury
food, unwholesome labour, and irksome companions, were, in
my opinion, the unavoidable attendants of a city.

My best clothes were of the homeliest texture and shape.
My whole stock of linen consisted of three check shirts. Part
of my winter evening's employment, since the death of my
mother, consisted in knitting my own stockings. Of these I
had three pair, one of which I put on, and the rest I formed,
together with two shirts, into a bundle. Three quarter-dollar
pieces composed my whole fortune in money.