University of Virginia Library

45. CHAPTER XLV.

I have departed from all rule and precedent in these
wandering sketches of mine. I believe I set out, a
great many pages ago, to tell of the interesting changes,
the progressive improvements in this model of a village
of ours. My intention, as far as I had any, was to
convey to the patient reader some general idea of our
way of life in these remote and forgotten corners of
creation. But I think I have discovered that the bent
of my genius is altogether towards digression. Association
leads me like a Will-o'-the-wisp. I can no
more resist following a new train of thought, than a
coquette the encouraging of a new lover, at the expense
of all the old ones, though often equally conscious that
the old are most valuable. This attempt to write one
long coherent letter about Montacute, has at least been
useful in convincing me that History is not my forte.
I give up the attempt in despair, and lower my ambition
to the collection of scattered materials for the use
of the future compiler of Montacutian annals.

Yet it seems strange, even to my desultory self, how
I could have passed in silence the establishment of a

weekly mail, that sweetener of our long delicious winter
evenings—that rich atonement for all that we lack of
fresh scandal and new news. Since this treasure was
ours, I have learned to pity most sincerely those who
get their letters and papers at all sorts of unexpected
and irregular times; a shower of scattering fire, feeble
and ineffectual—a dropping in at all hours, seasonable
and unseasonable, like some classes of visiters; coming
often when one's mood is any thing but congenial; and
sure to stay away when one longs for company—gay
ones intruding when we had determined to be blue and
miserable, and sad ones casting their long shadows on
our few sunny hours.

But a weekly mail! a budget that one waits and gets
ready for; a regularly-recurring delight, an unfailing
pleasure, (how few such have we!) hours, nay days, of delicious
anticipation—sure harvest of past care and toil,
an inundation of happiness! Let no one think he has
exhausted all the sources of enjoyment till he has lived
in the back-woods and learned to expect a weekly mail
with its lap-full of letters and its tumulus of papers;
a feast enjoyed by anticipation for a whole week previous,
and affording ample materials for resumées for
that which succeeds.

This pleasure has become so sacred in my eyes, that
nothing vexes me so intolerably as seeing our lanky
mail-bags dangling over the bony sides of Major Bean's
lame Canadian, and bestridden and over-shadowed by
the portly form of the one-eyed Major himself, trotting
or rather hobbling down Main-street on some intermediate
and unpremeditated day. Men of business are
so disagreeable and inconsiderate! To think of any

body's sending fourteen interminable miles over bush
and bog to B***, up hill both ways, as every one knows,
just to learn the price of flour or salt three days sooner,
and thereby spoiling the rest of the week, leaving
an objectless blank where was before a delicious chaos
of hopes; substituting dull certainty for the exquisite
flutterings of that sort of doubt which leaves us after
all quite sure of a happy result. I have often thought
I would not open the treasures which reached me in
this unauthorized, over-the-wall sort of way. I have
declared that I would not have Saturday evening spoiled
and the next week made ten days long. But this
proper and becoming spirit has never proved quite
strong enough to bear me through so keen a trial of all
feminine qualities. One must be more or less than
woman to endure the sight of unopened letters, longer
than it takes to find the scissors. I doubt whether
Griselidis herself would not have blenched at such a
requisition, especially if she had been transplanted to
the wilderness, and left behind hosts of friends, as well
as many other very comfortable things.

Another subject of the last interest which I have as
yet wholly neglected, is the new school-house, a gigantic
step in the march of improvement. This, in truth,
I should have mentioned long ago, if I could have found
any thing to say about it. It has caused an infinity of
feuds, made mortal enemies of two brothers, and separated
at least one pair of partners. But the subject
has been exhausted, worn to shreds in my hearing;
and whenever I have thought of searching for an end
of the tangled clew, in order to open its mazes for the
benefit of all future school-committees and their constituency,

I have felt that every possible view of the case
had been appropriated, and therefore must be borrowed
or stolen for the occasion. I might indeed have given
a description of the building as it now smiles upon
me from the opposite side of the public square. But
the reader may imagine St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the
Parthenon, the mosque of St. Sophia, or any edifice of
that character, and then think of the Montacute school-house
as something inexpressibly different, and he will
have as good an idea of it as I could give him in half
a page. I think it resembles the Temple of the Winds
more nearly than any other ancient structure I have
read of; at least, I have often thought so in cold weather,
when I have beguiled the hours of a long sermon
by peeping through the cracks at the drifting snow;
but it is built of unplaned oak-boards, and has no under-pinning;
and the stove-pipe, sticking out of one window,
looks rather modern; so the likeness might not
strike every body.

The school-ma'am, Miss Cleora Jenkins, I have
elsewhere introduced to the reader. From April till
October, she sways “the rod of empire;” and truly
may it be said,

though I believe she picks the leaves off, as tending to
defeat the ends of justice. Even the noon-spell shines
no holiday for the luckless subjects of her domination,
for she carries her bread and pickles rolled up in her
pocket-handkerchief, and lunches where she rules, reading
the while “The Children of the Abbey,”—which
took her all summer,—and making one of the large
girls comb her hair by the hour.

During the snowy, blowy, wheezy, and freezy months,
the chair has been taken—not filled—by Mr. Cyrus
Whicher,—not Switcher,—a dignitary who had
“boarded round” till there was very little of him left.
I have been told, that when he first bore the birch,—
in his own hand I mean,—he was of a portly and rather
stolid exterior; had good teeth and flowing locks;
but he was, when I knew him, a mere cuticle—a
“skellinton,” as Mr. Weller would say—shaped like
a starved greyhound in the collapsed stage, his very
eyes faded to the colour of the skim-milk which has
doubtless constituted his richest potation, since he attained
the empty honours of a district school.

When he came under my care, in the course of his
unhappy gyrations, I did my best to fatten him; and,
to do him justice, his efforts were not lacking: but one
cannot make much progress in one week, even in
cramming a turkey poult, and he went as ethereal as
he came.

One additional reason for his “lean and hungry”
looks I thought I discovered in his gnawing curiosity
of soul—I suppose it would be more polite to say, his
burning thirst for knowledge. When he first glided
into my one only parlour, I asked him to sit down, expecting
to hear his bones rattle as he did so. To my
astonishment he noticed not my civility, but, gazing on
the wall as who should say—

he stood as one transfixed.

At length—“Whose profile is that?” he exclaimed,
pointing to a portrait of my dear, cheerful-looking
grand-mamma—a half-length, by Waldo.

I told all about it, as I thought, but left room for a
dozen questions at least, as to her relationship—whether
by father or mother's side—her age when the picture
was taken, &c. &c. &c.; and Mr. Whicher's concluding
remark, as he doubled up to sit down, was—

“Well! she's a dreadful sober-lookin' old critter,
aint she now!” But ere he touched the chair, he
opened again like a folded rule out of a case of instruments,
and stood erect save head and shoulders.

“Is that a pi-anner?” he asked with a sort of chuckle
of delight. “Well! I heard you had one, but I did n't
hardly believe it. And what's this thing?” twirling
the music-stool with all his might, and getting down on
his poor knees to look underneath both these curiosities.

“Jist play on it, will you?”

“Dinner is ready, Mr. Whicher: I will play afterwards.”

He balanced for one moment between inanition and
curiosity; then, “with his head over his shoulder
turn'd,” he concluded to defer pleasure to business.
He finished his meal by the time others had fairly begun;
and then, throwing himself back in his chair,
said, “I'm ready whenever you be.”

I could not do less than make all possible speed, and
Mr. Whicher sat entranced until he was late for school:
not so much listening to the tinkling magic, as prying
into the nature and construction of the instrument,

which he thought must have taken “a good bunch o'
cypherin'.”

That week's sojourn added a good deal to the schoolmaster's
stores of knowledge. He scraped a little of
the chrystallized green off my inkstand to find out how
it was put on; pulled up a corner of the parlour-carpet,
to see whether it was “wove like a bed-spread;”
whether it was “over-shot or under-shot;” and not
content with ascertaining by personal inspection the
construction of every article which was new to him,
he pumped dry every member of the household, as to
their past mode of life, future prospects, opinion of the
country, religious views, and thoughts on every imaginable
subject. I began to feel croupish before he left
us, from having talked myself quite out.

One of his habits struck me as rather peculiar. He
never saw a letter or a sealed paper of any kind that
he did not deliberately try every possible method, by
peeping, squeezing, and poking, to get at its contents.
I at first set this down as something which denoted a
more than usually mean and dishonest curiosity; but
after I had seen the same operation performed in my
presence without the least hesitation or apology, by a
reverend gentleman of high reputation, I concluded
that the poor schoolmaster had at least some excuse for
his ill-breeding.

Mr. Whicher had his own troubles last winter. A
scholar of very equivocal, or rather unequivocal character,
claimed admission to the school, and, of all concerned,
not one had courage or firmness to object to
her reception. She was the daughter of a fierce, quarrelsome
man, who had already injured, either by personal

abuse, or by vexatious litigation, half the people
in the place; and though all-detested her, and dreaded
contamination for their daughters, not a voice was
raised—not a girl removed from the school. This
cowardly submission to open and public wrong seems
hardly credible; but I have observed it in many other
instances, and it has, in most cases, appeared to arise
from a distrust in the protecting power of the law,
which has certainly been hitherto most imperfectly and
irregularly administered in Michigan. People suppress
their just indignation at many abuses, from a fear
that they may “get into trouble;” i. e. be haled before
an ignorant justice of the peace, who will be quite
as likely to favour the wrong as the right, as interest or
prejudice may chance to incline him. Thus a bad
man, if he have only the requisite boldness, may trample
on the feelings, and disturb the peace of a whole
community.

When Hannah Parsons applied for admission to the
district school, Mr. Whicher made such objections as he
dared in his timidity. He thought she was too old—
her mother said she was not nineteen, though she had
a son of two years and upwards. And she did not
wish to study anything but arithmetic and writing; so
that there could be no objection as to classes. And
the wretched girl forced herself into the ranks of the
young and innocent, for what purpose or end I never
could divine.

From this hour the unfortunate Whicher was her
victim. She began by showing him the most deferential
attention, watching his looks, and asking his aid in
the most trivial matters; wanting her pen mended

twenty times in the course of one copy, and insisting
upon the schoolmaster's showing her again and again
exactly how it should be held. She never went to
school without carrying a tribute of some sort, a custard,
or an apple,—apples are something with us,—or a
geranium leaf at least. Now these offerings are so
common among school-children, that the wretched
master, though writhing with disgust, knew not how to
refuse them, and his life wore away under the anguish
inflicted by his tormentor.

At length it was whispered that Hannah Parsons
would again bring to the eye of day a living evidence
of her shame; and the unfortunate schoolmaster saw
himself the victim of a conspiracy.

It needed but this to complete his distraction. He
fled in imbecile despair; and after the wonder had died
away, and the scandal had settled on the right head,
we heard no word of the innocent pedagogue for a long
time. But after that came news, that Cyrus Whicher,
in the wretchedness of his poverty, had joined a gang
of idlers and desperadoes, who had made a vow against
honest industry; and it is not now very long since we
learned that he had the honour of being hanged at Toronto
as a “Patriot.”