University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Mr. Clavers at length returned; and the progress
of the village, though materially retarded by the obliquities
of Mr. Mazard's course, was still not entirely at
a stand. If our own operations were slow and doubtful,
there were others whose building and improving
went on at a rapid rate; and before the close of summer,
several small tenements were enclosed and rendered
in some sort habitable. A store and a public
house were to be ready for business in a very short time.

I had the pleasure of receiving early in the month
of September, a visit from a young city friend, a
charming lively girl, who unaffectedly enjoyed the
pleasures of the country, and whose taste for long
walks and rides was insatiable. I curtained off with
the unfailing cotton sheets a snow-white bower for her
in the loft, and spread a piece of carpeting, a relic of
former magnificence, over the loose boards that served
for a floor. The foot square window was shaded by a
pink curtain, and a bed-side chair and a candle-stand
completed a sleeping apartment which she declared
was perfectly delightful.

So smoothly flowed our days during that charming

visit that I had begun to fear my fair guest would be
obliged to return to—without a single adventure
worth telling, when one morning as we sat sewing,
Arthur ran in with a prodigious snake-story, to which,
though we were at first disposed to pay no attention,
we were at length obliged to listen.

“A most beautiful snake,” he declared, “was coming
up to the back door.”

To the back door we ran; and there, to be sure,
was a large rattle-snake, or massasauga, lazily winding
its course towards the house, Alice standing still to admire
it, too ignorant to fear.

My young friend snatched up a long switch, whose
ordinary office was to warn the chickens from the dinner-table,
and struck at the reptile which was not three
feet from the door. It reared its head at once, made
several attempts to strike, or spring, as it is called here,
though it never really springs. Fanny continued to
strike; and at length the snake turned for flight, not
however without a battle of at least two minutes.

“Here's the axe, cousin Fanny,” said Arthur, “don't
let him run away!” and while poor I stood in silent terror,
the brave girl followed, struck once ineffectually,
and with another blow divided the snake, whose writhings
turned to the sun as many hues as the windings
of Broadway on a spring morning—and Fanny was a
heroine.

It is my opinion that next to having a cougar spring
at one, the absolute killing of a rattle-snake is peculiarly
appropriate to constitute a Michigan heroine;—
and the cream of my snake-story is, that it might be

sworn to, chapter and verse, before the nearest justice.
What cougar story can say as much?

But the nobler part of the snake ran away with far
more celerity than it had displayed while it “could a
tail unfold,” and we exalted the coda to a high station
on the logs at the corner of the house—for fear none
of the scornful sex would credit our prowess.

That snake absolutely haunted us for a day or two;
we felt sure that there were more near the house, and
our ten days of happiness seemed cut short like those
of Seged, and by a cause not very dissimilar. But the
gloom consequent upon confining ourselves, children
and all, to the house, in delicious weather, was too
much for our prudence; and we soon began to venture
out a little, warily inspecting every nook, and harassing
the poor children with incessant cautions.

We had been watching the wheelings and flittings
of a flock of prairie hens, which had alighted in Mr.
Jenkins's corn-field, turning ever and anon a delighted
glance westward at the masses of purple and crimson
which make sunset so splendid in the region of the
great lakes. I felt the dew, and warning all my companions,
stepped into the house. I had reached the
middle of the room, when I trod full upon something
soft, which eluded my foot. I shrieked “a snake! a
snake!” and fell senseless on the floor.

When I recovered myself I was on the bed, and well
sprinkled with camphor, that never failing specific in
the woods.

“Where is it?” said I, as soon as I could utter a
word. There was a general smile. “Why, mamma,”
said Alice, who was exalted to a place on the bed,

“dont you recollect that great toad that always sits
behind the flour-barrel in the corner?”

I did not repent my fainting though it was not a snake,
for if there is anything besides a snake that curdles the
blood in my veins it is a toad. The harmless wretch
was carried to a great distance from the house, but the
next morning, there it sat again in the corner catching
flies. I have been told by some persons here that they
“liked to have toads in the room in fly time.” Truly
may it be said, “What's one man's meat—” Shade
of Chesterfield, forgive me!—but that any body can be
willing to live with a toad! To my thinking nothing
but a toady can be more odious.

The next morning I awoke with a severe head-ache,
and racking pains in every bone. Dame Jennings said
it was the “agur.” I insisted that it could be nothing
but the toad. The fair Fanny was obliged to leave us
this day, or lose her escort home—a thing not to be
risked in the wilderness. I thought I should get up to
dinner, and in that hope bade her a gay farewell, with
a charge to make the most of the snake story for the
honour of the woods.

I did not get up to dinner, for the simple reason that
I could not stand—and Mrs. Jennings consoled me by
telling me every ten minutes, “Why, you've got th'
agur! woman alive! Why, I know the fever-agur as
well as I know beans! It a'n't nothin' else!”

But no chills came. My pains and my fever became
intense, and I knew but little about it after the
first day, for there was an indistinctness about my perceptions,
which almost, although not quite, amounted
to delirium.

A physician was sent for, and we expected, of course,
some village Galen, who knew just enough to bleed and
blister, for all mortal ills. No such thing! A man of first-rate
education, who had walked European hospitals, and
who had mother-wit in abundance, to enable him to profit
by his advantages. It is surprising how many such
people one meets in Michigan. Some, indeed, we have
been led to suppose, from some traits in their American
history, might have “left their country for their country's
good:”—others appear to have forsaken the old
world, either in consequence of some temporary disgust,
or through romantic notions of the liberty to be
enjoyed in this favoured land. I can at this moment
call to mind, several among our ten-mile neighbours,
who can boast University honours, either European or
American, and who are reading men, even now. Yet
one might pass any one of these gentlemen in the road
without distinguishing between him and the Corydon
who curries his horses, so complete is their outward
transformation.

Our medical friend, treated me very judiciously;
and by his skill, the severe attack of rheumatic-fever,
which my sunset and evening imprudences had been
kindling in my veins, subsided after a week, into a
daily ague; but Mrs. Jennings was not there to exult
in this proof of her sagacity. She had been called
away to visit a daughter, who had been taken ill at a
distance from home, and I was left without a nurse.

My neighbours showed but little sympathy on the
occasion. They had imbibed the idea that we held
ourselves above them, and chose to take it for granted,
that we did not need their aid. There were a good

many cases of ague too, and, of course, people had their
own troubles to attend to. The result was, that we
were in a sad case enough. Oh! for one of those
feminine men, who can make good gruel, and wash
the children's faces! Mr. Clavers certainly did his
best, and who can more? But the hot side of the bowl
always would come to his fingers—and the sauce-pan
would overset, let him balance it ever so nicely. And
then—such hungry children! They wanted to eat all
the time. After a day's efforts, he began to complain
that stooping over the fire made him very dizzy. I
was quite self-absorbed, or I should have noticed such
a complaint from one who makes none without cause;
but the matter went on, until, when I asked for my
gruel, he had very nearly fallen on the coals, in the attempt
to take it from the fire. He staggered to the
bed, and was unable to sit up for many days after.

When matters reached this pitch—when we had,
literally, no one to prepare food, or look after the children—little
Bell added to the sick-list, too—our physician
proved our good genius. He procured a nurse
from a considerable distance; and it was through his
means that good Mrs. Danforth heard of our sad condition,
and sent us a maiden of all-work, who materially
amended the aspect of our domestic affairs.

Our agues were tremendous. I used to think I
should certainly die in my ten or twelve hours' fever—
and Mr. Clavers confidently asserted, several times,
that the upper half of his head was taking leave of the
lower. But the event proved that we were both mistaken;
for our physician verified his own assertion,
that an ague was as easily managed as a common cold,

by curing us both in a short time after our illness had
assumed the intermittent form. There is, however,
one important distinction to be observed between a
cold and the ague—the former does not recur after
every trifling exertion, as the latter is sure to do.
Again and again, after we seemed entirely cured, did
the insidious enemy renew his attacks. A short ride,
a walk, a drive of two or three miles, and we were
prostrated for a week or two. Even a slight alarm,
or any thing that occasioned an unpleasant surprise,
would be followed by a chill and fever.

These things are, it must be conceded, very discouraging.
One learns to feel as if the climate must be a
wretched one, and it is not till after these first clouds have
blown over, that we have resolution to look around us—
to estimate the sunny skies of Michigan, and the ruddy
countenances of its older inhabitants as they deserve.

The people are obstinately attached to some superstitious
notions respecting agues. They hold that it
is unlucky to break them. “You should let them run
on,” say they, “till they wear themselves out.” This
has probably arisen from some imprudent use of
quinine, (or “Queen Ann,”) and other powerful tonics,
which are often taken before the system is properly prepared.
There is also much prejudice against “Doctor's
physic;” while Lobelia, and other poisonous
plants, which happen to grow wild in the woods
are used with the most reckless rashness. The opinion
that each region produces the medicines which its own
diseases require, prevails extensively,—a notion which,
though perhaps theoretically correct to a certain extent,

is a most dangerous one for the ignorant to practise
upon.

These agues are, as yet, the only diseases of the
country. Consumption is almost unknown, as a Michigan
evil. Indeed many, who have been induced to
forsake the sea-board, by reason of too sensitive lungs,
find themselves renovated after a year in the Peninsula.
Our sickly season, from August till October,
passed over without a single death within our knowledge.

To be sure, a neighbour told me, not long ago, that
her old man had a complaint of “the lights,” and that
“to try to work any, gits his lights all up in a heap.”
But as this is a disease beyond the bounds of my medical
knowledge, I can only “say the tale as 't was said
to me,” hoping, that none of my emigrating friends
may find it contagious:—any disease which is brought
on by working, being certainly much to be dreaded in
this Western country!