University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

The winter—the much dreaded winter in the woods,
strange to tell, flew away more rapidly than any previous
winter of my life. One has so much to do in the
country. The division of labour is almost unknown.
If in absolutely savage life, each man is of necessity
“his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntsman,
and fisherman;”—so in the state of society which I
am attempting to describe, each woman is, at times at
least, her own cook, chamber-maid and waiter; nurse,
seamstress and school-ma'am; not to mention various
occasional callings to any one of which she must be
able to turn her hand at a moment's notice. And every
man, whatever his circumstances or resources, must

be qualified to play groom, teamster, or boot-black, as
the case may be; besides “tending the baby” at odd
times, and cutting wood to cook his dinner with. If
he has good sense, good nature, and a little spice of
practical philosophy, all this goes exceedingly well.
He will find neither his mind less cheerful, nor his
body less vigorous for these little sacrifices. If he is
too proud or too indolent to submit to such infringements
upon his dignity and ease, most essential deductions
from the daily comfort of his family will be the
mortifying and vexatious result of his obstinate adherence
to early habits.

We witnessed by accident so striking a lesson on this
subject, not long after our removal to Montacute, that
I must be allowed to record the impression it made
upon my mind. A business errand called Mr. Clavers
some miles from home; and having heard much of the
loveliness of the scenery in that direction, I packed the
children into the great waggon and went with him.

The drive was a charming one. The time, midsummer,
and the wilderness literally “blossoming as
the rose.” In a tour of ten miles we saw three lovely
lakes, each a lonely gem set deep in masses of emerald
green, which shut it in completely from all but its own
bright beauty. The road was a most intricate one
“thorough bush—thorough brier,” and the ascents, the
“pitches,” the “sidlings” in some places quite terrific.
At one of the latter points, where the road wound, as
so many Michigan roads do, round the edge of a broad
green marsh; I insisted upon getting out, as usual.
The place was quite damp; but I thought I could pick
my way over the green spots better than trust myself

in the waggon, which went along for some rods at an
angle (I said so at least,) of forty-five. Two men were
mowing on the marsh, and seemed highly amused at
my perplexity, when after watching the receding vehicle
till it ascended a steep bank on the farther side, I
began my course. For a few steps I made out
tolerably, but then I began to sink most inconveniently.
Silly thin shoes again. Nobody should ever go one
mile from home in thin shoes in this country, but old
Broadway habits are so hard to forget.

At length, my case became desperate. One shoe
had provokingly disappeared. I had stood on one foot
as long as ever goose did, but no trace of the missing
Broqua could I find, and down went the stocking six
inches into the black mud. I cried out for help; and
the mowers, with “a lang and a loud guffaw,” came
leisurely towards me. Just then appeared Mr. Clavers
on the green slope above mentioned. It seems his
high mightiness had concluded by this time that I had
been sufficiently punished for my folly, (all husbands
are so tyrannical!) and condescended to come to my
rescue. I should have been very sulky; but then,
there were the children. However, my spouse did try
to find a road which should less frequently give rise to
those troublesome terrors of mine. So we drove on
and on, through ancient woods, which I could not help
admiring; and, at length, missing our way, we came
suddenly upon a log-house, very different from that
which was the object of our search. It was embowered
in oaks of the largest size; and one glance told us
that the hand of refined taste had been there. The
under-brush had been entirely cleared away, and the

broad expanse before the house looked like a smooth-shaven
lawn, deep-shadowed by the fine trees I have
mentioned. Gleams of sunset fell on beds of flowers
of every hue; curtains of French muslin shaded the
narrow windows, and on a rustic seat near the door lay
a Spanish guitar, with its broad scarf of blue silk. I
could not think of exhibiting my inky stocking to the
inmates of such a cottage, though I longed for a peep;
and Mr. Clavers went alone to the house to inquire the
way, while I played tiger and held the horses.

I might have remained undiscovered, but for the
delighted exclamations of the children, who were in
raptures with the beautiful flowers, and the lake which
shone, a silver mirror, immediately beneath the bank
on which we were standing. Their merry talk echoed
through the trees, and presently out came a young lady
in a demi-suisse costume; her dark hair closely braided
and tied with ribbons, and the pockets of her rustic
apron full of mosses and wild flowers. With the air
rather of Paris than of Michigan, she insisted on my
alighting; and though in awkward plight, I suffered
myself to be persuaded. The interior of the house corresponded
in part with the impressions I had received
from my first glance at the exterior. There was a
harp in a recess, and the white-washed log-walls were
hung with a variety of cabinet pictures. A tasteful
drapery of French chintz partly concealed another recess,
closely filled with books; a fowling-piece hung
over the chimney, and before a large old-fashioned
looking-glass stood a French pier-table, on which were
piled fossil specimens, mosses, vases of flowers, books,
pictures, and music. So far all was well; and two

young ladies seated on a small sofa near the table, with
netting and needle-work were in keeping with the
romantic side of the picture. But there was more
than all this.

The bare floor was marked in every direction with
that detestable yellow dye which mars every thing in
this country, although a great box filled with sand
stood near the hearth, melancholy and fruitless provision
against this filthy visitation. Two great dirty
dogs lay near a large rocking-chair, and this rocking-chair
sustained the tall person of the master of the
house, a man of perhaps forty years or thereabouts,
the lines of whose face were such, as he who runs may
read. Pride and passion, and reckless self-indulgence
were there, and fierce discontent and determined indolence.
An enormous pair of whiskers, which surrounded
the whole lower part of the countenance,
afforded incessant employment for the long slender
fingers, which showed no marks of labour, except very
dirty nails. This gentleman had, after all, something
of a high-bred air, if one did not look at the floor, and
could forget certain indications of excessive carelessness
discernible in his dress and person.

We had not yet seen the lady of the cottage; the
young girl who had ushered me in so politely was her
sister, now on a summer visit. Mrs. B—shortly
after entered in an undress, but with a very lady-like
grace of manner, and the step of a queen. Her face,
which bore the traces of beauty, struck me as one of
the most melancholy I had ever seen; and it was overspread
with a sort of painful flush, which did not conceal
its habitual paleness.

We had been conversing but a few moments, when
a shriek from the children called every one out of doors
in an instant. One of Mr. B—'s sons had ventured
too near the horses, and received from our “old Tom,”
who is a little roguish, a kick on the arm. He roared
most lustily, and every body was very much frightened,
and ran in all directions seeking remedies. I called
upon a boy, who seemed to be a domestic, to get some
salt and vinegar, (for the mother was disabled by terror;)
but as he only grinned and stared at me, I ran
into the kitchen to procure it myself. I opened a
closet door, but the place seemed empty or nearly so;
I sought every where within ken, but all was equally
desolate. I opened the door of a small bed-room, but
I saw in a moment that I ought not to have gone there,
and shut it again instantly. Hopeless of finding what
I sought, I returned to the parlour, and there the little
boy was holding a vinaigrette to his mother's nose,
while the young ladies were chafing her hands. She
had swooned in excessive alarm, and the kick had, after
all, produced only a trifling bruise.

After Mrs. B—had recovered herself a little, she
entered at some length, and with a good deal of animation
on a detail of her Michigan experience; not, as
I had hoped at the beginning,

But giving so depressing a view of the difficulties of the
country, that I felt almost disposed for the moment to
regret my determination of trying a woodland life. She
had found all barren. They had no neighbours, or worse
than none—could get no domestics—found every one
disposed to deal unfairly, in all possible transactions;
and though last not least, could get nothing fit to eat.

Mr. B—'s account, though given with a careless,
off-hand air, had a strong dash of bitterness in it—a
sort of fierce defiance of earth and heaven, which is
apt to be the resource of those who have wilfully thrown
away their chances of happiness. His remarks upon
the disagreeables which we had to encounter, were carried
at least as far as those of his wife; and he asserted
that there was but one alternative in Michigan—
cheat or be cheated.

We were not invited to remain to tea; but took our
leave with many polite hopes of further acquaintance.
Mr. Clavers found the spot he had been seeking, and
then, taking another road home, we called to see Mrs.
Danforth; whom we considered even then in the light of
the very good friend which she has since so often proved
herself. I told of our accidental visit and learned from
the good lady some particulars respecting this family,
whose condition seemed so strange and contradictory,
even in the western country, where every element enters
into the composition of that anomalous mass called
society.

Mr. B—, was born to a large fortune, a lot which
certainly seems in our country to carry a curse with it
in a large proportion of instances. Feeling quite above
the laborious calling by which his father had amassed
wealth, the son's only aim had been to spend his money,
like a gentleman; and in this he had succeeded so
well that by the time he had established himself, at the
head of the ton in one of our great Eastern cities, and
been set down as an irreclaimable roué by his sober

friends, he found that a few more losses at play would
leave him stranded. But he had been quite the idol of
the “good society” into which he had purchased admission,
and the one never-failing resource in such
cases—a rich wife, was still perhaps in his power. Before
his altered fortunes were more than whispered by
his very particular friends, he had secured the hand of
an orphan heiress, a really amiable and well-bred girl;
and it was not until she had been his wife for a year or
more, that she knew that her thousands had done no
more than prop a falling house.

Many efforts were made by the friends on both sides,
to aid Mr. B—in establishing himself in business,
but his pride and his indolence proved insuperable
difficulties; and after some years of those painful
struggles between pride and poverty, which so many of
the devotees of fashion can appreciate from their own
bitter experience, a retreat to the West was chosen as
the least of prospective evils.

Here the whole country was before him “where to
choose.” He could have bought at government price
any land in the region to which he had directed his
steps. Water-power of all capabilities was at his command,
for there was scarce a settler in the neighbourhood.
But he scorned the idea of a place for business.
What he wanted was a charming spot for a gentlemanly
residence. There, with his gun and his fishing rod he
was to live; a small income which still remained of his
wife's fortune furnishing the only dependance.

And this income, small as it was, would have been,
in prudent and industrious hands, a subsistence at least;
so small is the amount really requisite for a frugal way

of life in these isolated situations. But unfortunately
Mr. B—'s character had by no means changed with
his place of residence. His land, which by cultivation
would have yielded abundant supplies for his table,
was suffered to lie unimproved, because he had not
money to pay labourers. Even a garden was too
much trouble; the flower-beds I had seen were made
by the hands of Mrs. B—, and her sisters; and it
was asserted that the comforts of life were often lacking
in this unfortunate household, and would have been
always deficient but for constant aid from Mrs. B—'s
friends.

Mrs. B—had done as women so often do in similar
situations, making always a great effort to keep up
a certain appearance, and allowing her neighbours to
discover that she considered them far beneath her;
she had still forgotten her delicate habits, and that they
were delicate and lady-like, no one can doubt who had
ever seen her, and laboured with all her little strength
for the comfort of her family. She had brought up
five children on little else beside Indian meal and potatoes;
and at one time the neighbours had known the
whole family live for weeks upon bread and tea without
sugar or milk;—Mr. B—sitting in the house smoking
cigars, and playing the flute, as much of a gentleman
as ever.

And these people, bringing with them such views and
feelings as make straitened means productive of absolute
wretchedness any where, abuse Michigan, and
visit upon their homely neighbours the bitter feelings
which spring from that fountain of gall, mortified yet
indomitable pride. Finding themselves growing poorer

and poorer, they persuade themselves that all who
thrive, do so by dishonest gains, or by mean sacrifices;
and they are teaching their children, by the irresistible
power of daily example, to despise plodding industry,
and to indulge in repining and feverish longings
after unearned enjoyments.

But I am running into an absolute homily! I set out
to say only that we had been warned at the beginning
against indulging in certain habits which darken the
whole course of country life; and here I have been
betrayed into a chapter of sermonizing. I can only
beg pardon and resume my broken thread.