University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

There is a small village on the west bank of the
Connecticut, not many miles from the point where the
boundaries of three states meet. The houses, at the
time our tale commences, were few and scattered; and
there was nothing in the aspect of the greater part of
them that would either attract the attention or invite
the stay of the passing traveller. They were low,
dark, without ornament, either of architecture, or horticulture,
and almost without any of the ordinary signs
of comfort, which so commonly accompany the cottage
of a New England farmer. The fences which here
and there appeared in broken patches, straggling, or
rather staggering from field to field, or from house to

house, indicated both the care and thrift of a former
generation which placed them there in due order and
stability, and the degeneracy of the present, which had
left them to decay and the winds. Every thing about
the village was in keeping with the fences, and, as a
matter of course, the animals and the children, (I
name them in the order of apparent intelligence and
cultivation,) were in no keeping at all. The fields
were the best possible illustration that modern times
can afford, of the garden of the sluggard, so well described
by Solomon; except that, in this case, the soil
seemed to be so utterly exhausted, that even the brier
refused to grow there, and the thistle scorned to be
seen in the stinted growth to which alone it could
attain. The white-headed children, and the equally
white-bodied pigs, among whom they played and rolled
in their dirt, as their fit companions and equals, gave
to the passer-by the only signs of life the village afforded,
save when, occasionally, a broken-down, withered
figure of a woman, issued from the door of her hut,
to draw water from the common well, or gather up a
few chips, or, more probably, abstract another rail from
the useless fence, to keep alive the scanty embers that
were smoking on the cheerless hearth.

It was about noon of a sultry day in August, when a
traveller on horseback rode slowly through the village,
on his way to the mansion of a friend, about five miles
above, on the banks of the river, but within the precincts
of the same town, of which the village was a
part. He was tall, well formed, and handsome. His
dress was that of a sportsman, and a beautiful pointer

that panted lazily after him, with his feverish tongue
hanging as if it would drop from his mouth, confirmed
the suspicion suggested by his dress. The horse and the
rider were evidently equally languid and fatigued; and
at every cottage as they passed, there seemed to be on
the countanence of each an expression of despairing
disappointment, that no one offered any temptation for
even a temporary halt to man or beast. From the
outward appearance, a sojourn in any of them would
have been any thing but repose or refreshment to the
traveller, while the shadeless aspect of the yards and
fields would but leave the horse exposed to the unmitigated
heat of the sun.

Fatigue and thirst, however, are urgent solicitors,
and, in their extremes, not over fastidious. They
would not be denied; and our traveller, after turning
in disgust from seven, made a desperate resolve that
at all events the next house should furnish what it
could for his relief. As he approached it, his courage
began to fail, for, if possible, it looked more cheerless
than any he had passed. But his mind once made
up, he seldom allowed himself to hesitate; and, with
a firm hand he turned the head of his over-wearied
beast towards the door of the miserable tenement in
which old Zeb Smiley, familiarly known in the neighbourhood
as Giant Zeb, had been for three-score and
seven years content to vegetate, and to see a numerous
progeny of stripling giants of the same name,
awake to the same kind of equivocal life, and creep
through the same kind of semi-vegetable existence.
Wallowing in the dirt before the door, was the last of

the many representatives of Giant Zeb, to whom the
name of Hopeful Mike, selected for its peculiar inappropriateness,
had now become as familiar as his own
thoughts. Noticing the first inclination of the traveller
to turn aside at his father's door, he scrambled up
from the dirt, shook his rags, somewhat as a shaggy
water-dog would do on emerging from the water; and
with a regard for decency which appeared singular in
such a place, and such a person, adjusted the more
important of them, so as to make them as available as
possible. Finding that the traveller was actually intent
upon alighting, Mike made bold to seize the bridle,
and to ask, in a very respectful manner, if he
might hold the horse.

“There is little fear,” replied the stranger, “that he
will attempt to move, for he is so overcome by the
heat, that he is scarcely able to put one foot before the
other. If you will bring me a pail of water I will
thank you.”

Pleased with any thing that afforded even a momen
tary relief from the stagnant monotony of mere being,
Mike rushed into the hovel, and immediately re-appeared
with an odd-looking, and exceedingly antiquated
apology for a bucket, accommodated, in the absence
of its original iron handle, with a rope which had
seen much service. He was followed, on the instant,
by as poor and shrivelled piece of mortality as ever
claimed the name of woman, screaming after him in
a tone quite above the practical gamut, between the
laboured wheeze of the asthma, and the screech of extreme
terror. “You lazy, good-for-nothing little varmint,

what are ye doing with my water? Bring it
back, this moment, or I'll skin ye alive.”

Surprised at a sight, so unusual, as a gentleman
halting at her door, Mrs. Smiley no sooner put her
ungainly visage out of the humble portal than she
withdrew it again to consider what could be the possible
design of so unexpected a visit. Unwilling to
intrude upon the rights, or disregard the wishes of even
the most humble individual, the courteous stranger
approached the door and apologized for the disturbance
he had occasioned, by explaining the circumstance
of his long and weary ride in the heat of the day, his
extreme fatigue, and the absolute necessity of obtaining
some refreshment for his horse before he could
proceed, and adding, that he had asked of her boy
the favour of a bucket of water for his horse.

True politeness never fails to win its way to the
heart, even of a savage. And he who would soothe
and subdue a woman, has only to use a gentle courteous,
conciliating address, and his purpose is accomplished.
In a mild and gratified tone, Mrs. Smiley
assured the stranger he was entirely welcome to any
thing her miserable hut could afford, which was little
enough, to be sure, for such a gentleman. She wished
it was better, but—

“I beg you will make no apologies,” interrupted
the stranger. “It is I who should apologize for disturbing
your house, and not you for your lack of
means to entertain me. It is not for myself that I
need attention so much as for my beast; and, if you

will allow me, I will see what I can do for his refreshment.”

While this brief conversation was going on, Mike
had begun to busy himself with the horse, and he
showed so much skill and aptness in hostelry, that the
traveller, when he turned that way, was fain to leave
to him the task he had intended to perform with his
own hands. Heated and reeking as the noble animal
then was, it was as much as his life was worth
to set before him so large a bucket of water. But
Mike evidently understood his business, though it
would be difficult to conjecture where he had ever had
an opportunity to handle a horse before, or to learn
how he should be treated. The operation occupied
some ten or fifteen minutes, during which the weary
traveller sat upon a rude bench, near the door of the
hovel, watching the movements of the boy, and wondering
in himself how he could have acquired so
much knowledge of hostelry.

“You have been well taught, my boy,” said he,
“in the care of horses. There are few experienced
grooms who could have done it better, and certainly
none who would have been more faithful. Where
did you learn this art?”

“I never larnt nothing,” replied the boy, still continuing
to rub down the breast and legs of the beast
with unabated zeal, and occasionally dashing a cool
handful into his nostrils. “I never larnt nothing, only
I heard Jim, the stage-driver, when he stopped one
day at Uncle Nat's shop to have a shoe fastened,
scolding at Sam for giving his horses water to drink

when it would do them more good to put it on their
legs, with a leetle washing of their tongues and noses,
besides being a tarnal sight safer than drinking when
they were all in a lather.”

There was nothing remarkable in this long speech
of Mike's except its length; and it is doubtful if he
had ever before put so many words together in one
sentence. But there was a heartiness of tone and
accent about it that attracted the notice of the stranger;
and when, a few minutes after, as he was in the
act of remounting his saddle, he slipped a piece of
money into the hand of the astonished and delighted
boy, with many thanks for the service he had rendered,
he added a word of courteous encouragement, and a
prediction that he would one day be master of a horse
of his own.

The suggestion touched the deepest chord that had
ever vibrated in the heart of Hopeful Mike. Stagnant
and uneventful as his brief life had been, he had
not been without an occasional aspiration after something
higher. He had dreamed of being something
and doing something for himself. He had even
soared so high in his dreams, as to imagine it possible
that he might, at some future day, attain to the dignity
of a stage-driver. This was his climax of human
greatness. He had never seen a character of so much
importance, one whose periodical arrival was so
anxiously waited for and so heartily welcomed, or one
whose authority in all matters was so absolute, as that
of Jim Crawford, the good-natured driver of the Connecticut
river stage.