 | CHAPTER III. Forest life |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
Through which, in frail but buoyant boat,
With skies now dark and now serene,
Together thou and I must float.
Moore.
As, in this fitful and fancy-led world, it is prudent
to secure one faithful and confidential friend,
rather than to seek to be generally beloved, so it is
better for one who is desirous of communicating
thoughts and impressions which have proved interesting
to himself, but which may yet possess little
intrinsic value, to aim steadily at pleasing a single
reader,—to seek for the sympathy of one alone,
to throw himself upon the indulgence of an individual,
rather than hope to interest the undistinguishing
crowd. We are all apt to be cross or stupid
sometimes,—how delightful to be so with impunity!
And if we have any bright moments, how
pleasant to feel that we are making some amends
to the dear patient soul who has borne our vagaries
with unruffled brow!
It is on this principle that I have resolved to
write solely for that generous being who was so
easily pleased with the earlier history of Montacute;
who entered so readily into our moving difficulties
our new-country expedients, and bore our grumblings
with such unexampled equanimity. To
you exclusively then, O best of readers! to you
whose tried kindness encourages me to speak out
my whole mind, without fear of reproach or ridicule,
are the following pages addressed. Let a
league be established between us at the outset,—
a league offensive and defensive. Bear with me
when I am dull, and take my part when I am
abused, and I, on the other hand, will wink at your
napping over my best stories, and maintain your
infallible taste against all challengers. Is it agreed?
I read in your intelligent smile an answer favorable
to my undertaking; so I begin without dread of
unfriendly criticism.
Shall we venture to unite the new thread with
the old? to take up our portfolio just as we laid
it down, and continue in the old strain our desultory
notices of the village and its vicinity? New-country
customs and ways of thinking favor such
an arrangement of our materials, for we consider
twenty miles round only a moderate extent of
neighborhood,—a fact which must in all reason be
supposed to prevent every approach to a narrow
and contracted view of things. And indeed I must
protest against being limited even to this liberal
allowance of scope, since I mean the history of one
settlement to include that of many others. My
making nothing of distance, so there be only plenty
of sunshine, and no intervening mists.
But though I have named the daguerreotype, it
must be acknowledged that the restless, ever-shifting
character of our population would make a
faithful chronicle of their doings bear no small
resemblance to the phantasmagoria exhibited by
that pretty scientific toy, the magic-lantern; for
our neighbors seem bit with the strange madness
of ceaseless transit, flitting mostly westward, like
ghosts that shun the coming day. Some of them—
not a few indeed—are now living on their third
or fourth Western farm;—successive purchases
and residences in scarcely more than a corresponding
number of years. The effect of this blundering
search after happiness is what might be expected.
One would think they must have vowed themselves
to a nomadic life, and, as a natural consequence,
renounced all the dear delights of home;
all idea of providing domestic comforts; all interest
in public improvements; all local attachments and
neighborly sympathies. These have indeed the
true spirit of pioneers, and their peculiarity of taste
has done much to expedite the rapid settlement of
the wilds. They purchase a lot or two of “government
land;” build a log-house, fence a dozen
acres or so, plough half of them, girdle the trees,
and then sell out to a new comer; one whose less
resolute spirit has perhaps quailed a little before
is then ready for a new purchase, a new clearing,
and a new sale. How his wife and children
enjoy themselves meanwhile is matter of small
doubt, but this is a trifle for the present. The
future—the bright, far-ahead, vague Western future—is
to make up for all. The eager adventurer,
unscared by difficulty, undiscouraged by disappointment,
still “chases airy good,” contenting himself
with mere existence en attendant, forgetting that
only to-day is his own.
There was at one time some show of reason in
all this; so profitable was the flitting plan during
the early speculating times, that many who began
with an “eighty” only, found themselves, after a
few such changes, possessed of great farms,—
whether of stock or implements in proportion
may be another question,—but land—the grand
object of ambition—was easily tripled by those
who were able to turn their strength and hardihood
to account in breaking the way for the less adventurous.
Now the case is far different, and the advantages
of these frequent changes are not always
evident to the unconcerned spectator.
Nor is the spirit of change evinced in migratory
habits only. Horses, oxen, wagons, carts, are
equally subject to mutation. Some people scarce
ever have the same for six months at a time. I do
not observe that such of our community as are
especially attached to this system, grow rich any
seem to doubt that each change is for the better.
“Any thing for a trade,” is a common expression.
We have seen the scrip or certificate for eight hundred
acres of soldiers' bounty land, lying in some
far south-western region, sold for ten sheep; and
in a week resold for a drove of cattle,—each
dealer well satisfied with his bargain. A broken-down
hack will be exchanged for another stone-blind,
to the great chuckling of both parties. This
sort of traffic in horses is, I believe, of foreign origin,
but it would appear to be a thing easily learned.
When regular business is dull, these entr'acte proceedings
are more common. They serve to keep
the spirit of trade from stagnation, a state which it
dreads above all others. Not but there are many
among us who are as averse to this shifting plan
as if they had been born and bred under the shadow
of the dikes of the king of Holland—but the enterprising,
being the majority, rule the hour. And
it is not to be denied that the quietists, though
willing to follow in the track of the more adventurous,
would never have penetrated and ploughed
this wide-spread and teeming land, so lately the
home of the deer, the bear, and the wild wolf, now
fast becoming one wide expanse of industry and
abundance.
Our little village has of course been affected, like
the rest of the Western world, by the depressed
state of the times. It has not increased with the
career of such settlements a few years ago. Every
thing but the outpouring abundance of mother
Earth has dwindled and looked blighted since the
great commercial revulsion which succeeded the
land-mania. Even our little, isolated, unimportant
village was not too insignificant to be swept by the
skirts of the great whirlwind; and distances—not
“magnificent,” like those of our seat of government,—but
simply blank and bare, or cumbered
with oak-brush, intervene between the houses even
in the “business part” of the place. Buildings
are still less ostentatious in size than formerly;
fences content themselves without pickets, and paint
is forgotten by general consent. Corn-cribs and pigsties
are as large, and—truth to say—as well
filled as ever; but they are made of slender tamarack
poles, which need no cost of sawing. The
men wear their old coats; the women turn and
alter their faded dresses; and the children are
taught that it is wholesome to go barefoot. In
short, if the axiom that “economy is wealth,”
have any value, we are all in a fair way to be rich,
and as soon as we are rich, we all intend to be
very happy indeed.
| CHAPTER III. Forest life | |