University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Several lots had already been purchased in Montacute
and some improvement marked each succeeding
day. The mill had grown to its full stature, the dam
was nearly completed; the tavern began to exhibit
promise of its present ugliness, and all seemed prosperous
as our best dreams, when certain rumours were
set afloat touching the solvency of our disinterested
friend Mr. Mazard. After two or three days' whispering,
a tall black-browed man who “happened in” from
Gullsborough, the place which had for some time been
honoured as the residence of the Dousterswivel of Montacute,
stated boldly that Mr. Mazard had absconded;
or, in Western language “cleared.” It seemed passing
strange that he should run away from the arge

house which was going on under his auspices; the
materials all on the ground and the work in full progress.
Still more unaccountable did it appear to us that
his workmen should go on so quietly, without so much
as expressing any anxiety about their pay.

Mr. Clavers had just been telling me of these things,
when the long genius above mentioned, presented himself
at the door of the loggery. His abord was a singular
mixture of coarseness, and an attempt at being
civil; and he sat for some minutes looking round and
asking various questions before he touched the mainspring
of his visit.

At length, after some fumbling in his pocket, he
produced a dingy sheet of paper, which he handed to
Mr. Clavers.

“There; I want you to read that, and tell me what
you think of it.”

I did not look at the paper, but at my husband's
face, which was black enough. He walked away with
the tall man, “and I saw no more of them at that
time.”

Mr. Clavers did not return until late in the evening,
and it was then I learned that Mr. Mazard had
been getting large quantities of lumber and other materials
on his account, and as his agent; and that the
money which had been placed in the agent's hands,
for the purchase of certain lands to be flowed by the
mill-pond, had gone into government coffers in payment
for sundry eighty acre lots, which were intended
for his, Mr. Mazard's, private behoof and benefit.
These items present but a sample of our amiable
friends trifling mistakes. I will not fatigue the reader

by dwelling on the subject. The results of all this
were most unpleasant to us. Mr. Clavers found himself
involved to a large amount; and his only remedy
seemed to prosecute Mr. Mazard. A consultation with
his lawyer, however, convinced him, that even by this
most disagreeable mode, redress was out of the question,
since he had through inadvertence rendered himself
liable for whatever that gentleman chose to buy
or engage in his name. All that could be done, was
to get out of the affair with as little loss as possible,
and to take warning against land sharks in future.

An immediate journey to Detroit became necessary,
and I was once more left alone, and in no overflowing
spirits. I sat,

when a tall damsel, of perhaps twenty-eight or thirty
came in to make a visit. She was tastefully attired
in a blue gingham dress, with broad cuffs of black
morocco, and a black cambric apron edged with orange
worsted lace. Her oily black locks were cut quite
short round the ears, and confined close to her head
by a black ribbon, from one side of which depended,
almost in her eye, two very long tassels of black silk,
intended to do duty as curls. Prunelle slippers with
high heels, and a cotton handkerchief tied under the
chin, finished the costume, which I have been thus
particular in describing, because I have observed so
many that were nearly similar.

The lady greeted me in the usual style, with a familiar

nod, and seated herself at once in a chair near the
door.

“Well, how do like Michigan?”

This question received the most polite answer which
my conscience afforded; and I asked the lady in my
turn, if she was one of my neighbours?

“Why, massy, yes!” she replied; “do n't you know
me? I tho't every body know'd me. Why, I'm the
school ma'am, Simeon Jenkins' sister, Cleory Jenkins.”

Thus introduced, I put all my civility in requisition
to entertain my guest, but she seemed quite independent,
finding amusement for herself, and asking questions
on every possible theme.

“You're doing your own work now, a' n't ye?”

This might not be denied; and I asked if she did
not know of a girl whom I might be likely to get.

“Well, I do n't know; I'm looking for a place where
I can board and do chores myself. I have a good deal
of time before school, and after I get back; and I did n't
know but I might suit ye for a while.”

I was pondering on this proffer, when the sallow
damsel arose from her seat, took a short pipe from her
bosom, (not “Pan's reedy pipe,” reader) filled it with
tobacco, which she carried in her “work-pocket,” and
reseating herself, began to smoke with the greatest
gusto, turning ever and anon to spit at the hearth.

Incredible again? alas, would it were not true! I
have since known a girl of seventeen, who was attending
a neighbour's sick infant, smoke the live-long day,
and take snuff besides; and I can vouch for it, that a
large proportion of the married women in the interior

of Michigan use tobacco in some form, usually that of
the odious pipe.

I took the earliest decent opportunity to decline the
offered help, telling the school-ma'am plainly, than an
inmate who smoked would make the house uncomfortable
to me.

“Why, law!” said she, laughing; “that's nothing
but pride now: folks is often too proud to take comfort.
For my part, I could n't do without my pipe to
please nobody.”

Mr. Simeon Jenkins, the brother of this independent
young lady now made his appearance on some trifling
errand; and his sister repeated to him what I had
said.

Mr. Jenkins took his inch of cigar from his mouth,
and asked if I really disliked tobacco-smoke, seeming
to think it scarcely possible.

“Do n't your old man smoke?” said he.

“No, indeed,” said I, with more than my usual
energy; “I should hope he never would.”

“Well,” said neighbour Jenkins, “I tell you what,
I'm boss at home; and if my old woman was to stick
up that fashion, I'd keep the house so blue she could n't
see to snuff the candle.”

His sister laughed long and loud at this sally, which
was uttered rather angrily, and with an air of most
manful bravery; and, Mr. Jenkins, picking up his end
of cigar from the floor, walked off with an air evidently
intended to be as expressive as the celebrated and
oft-quoted nod of Lord Burleigh in the Critic.

Miss Jenkins was still arguing on the subject of her
pipe, when a gentleman approached, whose dress and

manner told me that he did not belong to our neighbourhood.
He was a red-faced, jolly-looking person,
evidently “well to do in the world,” and sufficiently
consequential for any meridian. He seated himself
quite unceremoniously; for who feels ceremony in a
log-house? said he understood Mr. Clavers was absent—then
hesitated; and, as Miss Jenkins afterwards
observed, “hummed and hawed,” and seemed as if he
would fain say something, but scarce knew how.

At length Miss Cleora took the hint—a most necessary
point of delicacy, where there is no withdrawing
room. She gave her parting nod, and disappeared;
and the old gentleman proceeded.

He had come to Montacute with the view of settling
his son, “a wild chap,” he said, a lawyer by profession,
and not very fond of work of any sort; but as he
himself had a good deal of land in the vicinity, he
thought his son might find employment in attending
to it, adding such professional business as might occur.

“But what I wished particularly to say, my dear
madam,” said he, “regards rather my son's wife than
himself. She is a charming girl, and accustomed to
much indulgence; and I have felt afraid that a removal
to a place so new as this might be too trying to her,
I knew you must be well able to judge of the difficulties
to be encountered here, and took the liberty of
calling on that account.”

I was so much pleased with the idea of having a
neighbour, whose habits might in some respects accord
with my own, that I fear I was scarcely impartial in
the view which I gave Mr. Rivers, of the possibilities

of Montacute. At least, I communicated only such as
rises before my own mind, while watching perhaps a
glorious sunset reflected in the glassy pond; my hyacinths
in all their glory; the evening breeze beginning
to sigh in the tree-tops; the children just coming in
after a fine frolic with D'Orsay on the grass; and
Papa and Prince returning up the lane. At such times,
I always conclude, that Montacute is, after all, a dear
little world; and I am probably quite as near the truth,
as when,
when Arthur comes in with a pound of mud on each
foot, D'Orsay at his heels, bringing in as much more;
little Bell crying to go out to play; Charlie prodigiously
fretful with his prospective tooth; and some gaunt
marauder from “up north,” or “out west,” sits talking
on “bis'ness,” and covering my andirons with tobacco
juice; I determine sagely, that a life in the woods is
worse than no life at all. One view is, I insist, as
good as the other; but I told Mr. Rivers he must make
due allowance for my desire to have his fair daughter-in-law
for a neighbour, with which he departed; and I
felt that my gloom had essentially lightened in consequence
of his visit.