 | CHAPTER XI. Home as found |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
“Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be boiled to
death with melancholy.”
—Shakspeare.
The progress of society in America, has been distinguished
by several peculiarities that do not so properly
belong to the more regular and methodical advances
of civilization in other parts of the world. On
the one hand, the arts of life, like Minerva, who was
blow, have started full-grown into existence, as the
legitimate inheritance of the colonists, while, on the
other, every thing tends towards settling down into a
medium, as regards quality, a consequence of the community-character
of the institutions. Every thing
she had seen that day, had struck Eve as partaking of
this mixed nature, in which, while nothing was vulgar,
little even approached to that high standard, that her
European education had taught her to esteem perfect.
In the Wigwam, however, as her father's cousin had
seen fit to name the family dwelling, there was more
of keeping, and a closer attention to the many little
things she had been accustomed to consider essential
to comfort and elegance, and she was better satisfied
with her future home, than with most she had seen
since her return to America.
As we have described the interior of this house, in
another work, little remains to be said on the subject,
at present; for, while John Effingham had completely
altered its external appearance, its internal
was not much changed. It is true, the cloud-coloured
covering had disappeared, as had that stoop also, the
columns of which were so nobly upheld by their superstructure;
the former having given place to a less obtrusive
roof, that was regularly embattled, and the latter
having been swallowed up by a small entrance
tower, that the new architect had contrived to attach
to the building with quite as much advantage to it, in
the way of comfort, as in the way of appearance. In
truth, the Wigwam had none of the more familiar features
of a modern American dwelling of its class.
There was not a column about it, whether Grecian,
Roman, or Egyptian; no Venetian blinds; no verandah
or piazza; no outside paint, nor gay blending of
colours. On the contrary, it was a plain old structure,
built with great solidity, and of excellent materials, and
in that style of respectable dignity and propriety, that
it is peculiar to their successors, our worthy selves.
In addition to the entrance tower, or porch, on its
northern front, John Effingham had also placed a prettily
devised conceit on the southern, by means of
which the abrupt transition from an inner room to the
open air was adroitly avoided. He had, moreover,
removed the “firstly” of the edifice, and supplied its
place with a more suitable addition that contained some
of the offices, while it did not disfigure the building, a
rare circumstance in an architectural after-thought.
Internally, the Wigwam had gradually been undergoing
improvements, ever since that period, which, in
the way of the arts, if not in the way of chronology,
might be termed the dark ages of Otsego. The great
hall had long before lost its characteristic decoration
of the severed arm of Wolf, a Gothic paper that was
better adapted to the really respectable architecture
of the room being its substitute; and even the urn that
was thought to contain the ashes of Queen Dido, like
the pitcher that goes often to the well, had been broken
in a war of extermination that had been carried on
against the cobwebs by a particularly notable housekeeper.
Old Homer, too, had gone the way of all
baked clay; Shakspeare, himself, had dissolved into
dust, “leaving not a wreck behind;” and of Washington
and Franklin, even, indigenous as they were, there
remained no vestiges. Instead of these venerable memorials
of the past, John Effingham, who retained a
pleasing recollection of their beauties as they had presented
themselves to his boyish eyes, had bought a few
substitutes in a New-York shop, and a Shakspeare,
and a Milton, and a Cæsar, and a Dryden, and a
Locke, as the writers of heroic so beautifully express
it, were now seated in tranquil dignity on the old medallions
that had held their illustrious predecessors.
Although time had, as yet, done little for this new collection
already throwing around them the tint of antiquity.
“The lady,” to use the language of Mr. Bragg, who
did the cooking of the Wigwam, having every thing
in readiness, our party took their seats at the breakfast
table, which was spread in the great hall, as soon as
each had paid a little attention to the toilette. As the
service was neither very scientific, nor sufficiently peculiar,
either in the way of elegance or of its opposite
quality, to be worthy of notice, we shall pass it over
in silence.
“One will not quite so much miss European architecture
in this house,” said Eve, as she took her seat
at table, glancing an eye at the spacious and lofty
room, in which they were assembled; “here is at least
size and its comforts, if not elegance.”
“Had you lost all recollection of this building, my
child?” inquired her father, kindly; “I was in hopes
you would feel some of the happiness of returning
home, when you again found yourself beneath its
roof!”
“I should greatly dislike to have all the antics I
have been playing in my own dressing-room exposed,”
returned Eve, rewarding the parental solicitude of her
father by a look of love, “though Grace, between her
laughing and her tears, has threatened me with such
a disgrace. Ann Sidley has also been weeping, and,
as even Annette, always courteous and considerate,
has shed a few tears in the way of sympathy, you
ought not to imagine that I have been altogether so
stoical as not to betray some feeling, dear father. But
the paroxysm is past, and I am beginning to philosophize.
I hope, cousin Jack, you have not forgotten
that the drawing-room is a lady's empire!”
“I have respected your rights, Miss Effingham,
though, with a wish to prevent any violence to your
tastes, I have caused sundry antediluvian paintings and
engravings to be consigned to the—”
“Garret?” inquired Eve, so quickly as to interrupt
the speaker.
“Fire,” coolly returned her cousin. “The garret
is now much too good for them; that part of the house
being converted into sleeping-rooms for the maids.
Mademoiselle Annette would go into hysterics, were
she to see the works of art, that satisfied the past
generation of masters in this country, in too close familiarity
with her Louvre-ized eyes.”
“Point du tout, monsieur,” said Mademoiselle Viefville,
innocently; “Annette a du gout dans son metier
sans doute, but she is too well bred to expect impossibilités.
No doubt she would have conducted herself
with decorum.”
Every body laughed, for much light-heartedness prevailed
at that board, and the conversation continued.
“I shall be satisfied if Annette escape convulsions,”
Eve added, “a refined taste being her weakness; and,
to be frank, what I recollect of the works you mention,
is not of the most flattering nature.”
“And yet,” observed Sir George, “nothing has surprised
me more than the respectable state of the arts
of engraving and painting in this country. It was unlooked
for, and the pleasure has probably been in proportion
to the surprise.”
“In that you are very right, Sir George Templemore,”
John Effingham answered; “but the improvement
is of very recent date. He who remembers an
American town half a century ago, will see a very
different thing in an American town of to-day; and
this is equally true of the arts you mention, with the
essential difference that the latter are taking a right
direction under a proper instruction, while the former
are taking a wrong direction, under the influence of
money, that has no instruction. Had I left much of
the old furniture, or any of the old pictures in the Wigwam,
we should have had the bland features of Miss
this very moment.”
“And yet I have seen fine old furniture in this country,
cousin Jack.”
“Very true; though not in this part of it. The
means of conveyance were wanting half a century
since, and few people risk finery of any sort on corduroys.
This very house had some respectable old
things, that were brought here by dint of money, and
they still remain; but the eighteenth century in general,
may be set down as a very dark antiquity in all this
region.”
When the repast was over, Mr. Effingham led his
guests and daughter through the principal apartments,
sometimes commending, and sometimes laughing, at
the conceits of his kinsman. The library was a good
sized room; good sized at least for a country in which
domestic architecture, as well as public architecture,
is still in the chrysalis state. Its walls were hung with
an exceedingly pretty gothic paper, in green, but over
each window was a chasm in the upper border; and
as this border supplied the arches, the unity of the entire
design was broken in no less than four places, that
being the precise number of the windows. The defect
soon attracted the eye of Eve, and she was not slow
in demanding an explanation.
“The deficiency is owing to an American accident,”
returned her cousin; “one of those calamities of which
you are fated to experience many, as the mistress of
an American household. No more of the border was
to be bought in the country, and this is a land of shops
and not of fabricants. At Paris, Mademoiselle, one
would send to the paper-maker for a supply; but, alas!
he that has not enough of a thing with us, is as badly
off as if he had none. We are consumers, and not
producers of works of art. It is a long way to send
to France for ten or fifteen feet of paper hangings,
arches will remain forever without their key-stones!”
“One sees the inconvenience of this,” observed Sir
George—“we feel it, even in England, in all that
relates to imported things.”
“And we, in nearly all things, but food.”
“And does not this show that America can never
become a manufacturing country?” asked the baronet,
with the interest an intelligent Englishman ever feels
in that all-absorbing question. “If you cannot manufacture
an article as simple as that of paper-hangings,
would it not be well to turn your attention, altogether,
to agriculture?”
As the feeling of this interrogatory was much more
apparent than its logic, smiles passed from one to the
other, though John Effingham, who really had a regard
for Sir George, was content to make an evasive reply,
a singular proof of amity, in a man of his caustic
temperament.
The survey of the house, on the whole, proved satisfactory
to its future mistress, who complained, however,
that it was furnished too much like a town resisidence.
“For,” she added, “you will remember, cousin
Jack, that our visits here will be something like a villeggiatura.”
“Yes, yes, my fair lady; it will not be long before
your Parisian and Roman tastes will be ready to pronounce
the whole country a villeggiatura!”
“This is the penalty, Eve, one pays for being a
Hajji,” observed Grace, who had been closely watching
the expression of the others' countenances; for,
agreeably to her view of things, the Wigwam wanted
nothing to render it a perfect abode. “The things
that we enjoy, you despise.”
“That is an argument, my dear coz, that would
apply equally well, as a reason for preferring brown
sugar to white.”
“In coffee, certainly, Miss Eve,” put in the attentive
Aristabulus, who having acquired this taste, in
virtue of an economical mother, really fancied it a
pure one. “Every body, in these regions, prefers the
brown in coffee.”
“Oh, mon père et ma mère, comme je vous en veux,”
said Eve, without attending to the nice distinctions of
Mr. Bragg, which savoured a little too much of the
neophyte in cookery, to find favour in the present
company, “comme je vous en veux for having neglected
so many beautiful sites, to place this building in the
very spot it occupies.”
“In that respect, my child, we may rather be grateful
at finding so comfortable a house, at all. Compared
with the civilization that then surrounded it, this dwelling
was a palace at the time of its erection; bearing
some such relation to the humbler structures around it,
as the château bears to the cottage. Remember that
brick had never before been piled on brick, in the
walls of a house, in all this region, when the Wigwam
was constructed. It is the Temple of Neptune of Otsego,
if not of all the surrounding counties.”
Eve pressed to her lips the hand she was holding in
both her own, and they all passed out of the library
into another room. As they came in front of the hall
windows, a party of apprentice-boys were seen coolly
making their arrangements to amuse themselves with
a game of ball, on the lawn directly in front of the
house.
“Surely, Mr. Bragg,” said the owner of the Wigwam,
with more displeasure in his voice than was
usual for one of his regulated mind, “you do not countenance
this liberty?”
“Liberty, sir!—I am an advocate for liberty
wherever I can find it. Do you refer to the young
men on the lawn, Mr. Effingham?”
“Certainly to them, sir; and permit me to say, I
think they might have chosen a more suitable spot for
I fear.”
“Why, sir, I believe they have always played ball
in that precise locality.”
“Always!—I can assure you this is a great mistake.
What private family, placed as we are in the centre
of a village, would allow of an invasion of its privacy
in this rude manner? Well may the house be termed
a Wigwam, if this whooping is to be tolerated before
its door.”
“You forget, Ned,” said John Effingham, with a
sneer, “that an American always means just eighteen
months. Antiquity is reached in five lustres, and the
dark ages at the end of a human life. I dare say these
amiable young gentlemen, who enliven their sports with
so many agreeable oaths, would think you very unreasonable
and encroaching to presume to tell them they
are unwelcome.”
“To own the truth, Mr. John, it would be downright
unpopular.”
“As I cannot permit the ears of the ladies to be
offended with these rude brawls, and shall never consent
to have grounds that are so limited, and which so
properly belong to the very privacy of my dwelling,
invaded in this coarse manner, I beg, Mr. Bragg, that
you will, at once, desire these young men to pursue
their sports somewhere else.”
Aristabulus received this commission with a very ill
grace; for, while his native sagacity told him that Mr.
Effingham was right, he too well knew the loose habits
that had been rapidly increasing in the country during
the last ten years, not to foresee that the order would
do violence to all the apprentices' preconceived notions
of their immunities; for, as he had truly stated,
things move at so quick a pace in America, and popular
feeling is so arbitrary, that a custom of a twelve
months' existence is deemed sacred, until the public,
itself, sees fit to alter it. He was reluctantly quitting
turned to a servant, who belonged to the place, and
bade him go to the village barber, and desire him to
come to the Wigwam to cut his hair; Pierre, who
usually performed that office for him, being busied
in unpacking trunks.
“Never mind, Tom,” said Aristabulus obligingly, as
he took up his hat; “I am going into the street, and
will give the message to Mr. Lather.”
“I cannot think, sir, of employing you on such a
duty,” hastily interposed Mr. Effingham, who felt a
gentleman's reluctance to impose an unsuitable office
on any of his dependants—“Tom, I am sure, will do
me the favour.”
“Do not name it, my dear sir; nothing makes me
happier than to do these little errands, and, another
time, you can do as much for me.”
Aristabulus now went his way more cheerfully, for
he determined to go first to the barber, hoping that
some expedient might suggest itself, by means of which
he could coax the apprentices from the lawn, and
thus escape the injury to his popularity, that he so
much dreaded. It is true, these apprentices were not
voters, but then some of them speedily would be, and
all of them, moreover, had tongues, an instrument Mr.
Bragg held in quite as much awe as some men dread
salt-petre. In passing the ball-players, he called out
in a wheedling tone to their ringleader, a notorious
street brawler—
“A fine time for sport, Dickey; don't you think
there would be more room in the broad street than on
this crowded lawn, where you lose your ball so often
in the shrubbery?”
“This place will do, on a pinch,” bawled Dickey—
“though it might be better. If it warn't for that
plagued house, we couldn't ask for a better ball-ground.”
“I don't see,” put in another, “what folks built a
play-ground in the village.”
“Some people have their notions as well as others,”
returned Aristabulus; “but, gentlemen, if I were in
your place, I would try the street; I feel satisfied you
would find it much the most agreeable and convenient.”
The apprentices thought differently, however, or they
were indisposed to the change; and so they recommenced
their yells, their oaths, and their game. In
the mean while, the party in the house continued their
examination of John Effingham's improvements; and
when this was completed, they separated, each to his
or her own room.
Aristabulus soon reappeared on the lawn; and, approaching
the ball-players, he began to execute his
commission, as he conceived, in good earnest. Instead
of simply saying, however, that it was disagreeable to
the owner of the property to have such an invasion on
his privacy, and thus putting a stop to the intrusion for
the future as well as at the present moment, he believed
some address necessary to attain the desired end.
“Well, Dickey,” he said, “there is no accounting
for tastes; but, in my opinion, the street would be a
much better place to play ball in than this lawn. I
wonder gentlemen of your observation should be satisfied
with so cramped a play-ground!”
“I tell you, Squire Bragg, this will do,” roared
Dickey; “we are in a hurry, and no way particular;
the bosses will be after us in half an hour. Heave
away, Sam.”
“There are so many fences hereabouts,” continued
Aristabulus, with an air of indifference; “it's true
the village trustees say there shall be no ball-playing
in the street, but I conclude you don't much mind what
they think or threaten.”
“Let them sue for that, if they like,” bawled a particularly
amiable blackguard, called Peter, who struck
his ball as he spoke, quite into the principal street of
gentlemen where they are to play ball!”
“Sure enough,” said Aristabulus, “and, now, by
following up that blow, you can bring matters to an
issue. I think the law very oppressive, and you can
never have so good an opportunity to bring things to a
crisis. Besides, it is very aristocratic to play ball
among roses and dahlias.”
The bait took; for what apprentice—American apprentice,
in particular—can resist an opportunity of
showing how much he considers himself superior to
the law? Then it had never struck any of the party
before, that it was vulgar and aristocratic to pursue
the sport among roses, and one or two of them
actually complained that they had pricked their fingers,
in searching for the ball.
“I know Mr. Effingham will be very sorry to
have you go,” continued Aristabulus, following up his
advantage; “but gentlemen cannot always forego
their pleasures for other folks.”
“Who's Mr. Effingham, I would like to know?”
cried Joe Wart. “If he wants people to play ball on
his premises, let him cut down his roses. Come, gentlemen,
I conform to Squire Bragg, and invite you all
to follow me into the street.”
As the lawn was now evacuated, en masse, Aristabulus
proceeded with alacrity to the house, and went
into the library, where Mr. Effingham was patiently
waiting his return.
“I am happy to inform you, sir,” commenced the
ambassador, “that the ball-players have adjourned;
and as for Mr. Lather, he declines your proposition.”
“Declines my proposition!”
“Yes, sir; he dislikes to come; for he thinks it will
be altogether a poor operation. His notion is, that if
it be worth his while to come up to the Wigwam to
cut your hair, it may be worth your while to go down
to the shop, to have it cut. Considering the matter in
rather not engage in the transaction at all.”
“I regret, sir, to have consented to your taking so
disagreeable a commission, and regret it the more, now
I find that the barber is disposed to be troublesome.”
“Not at all, sir. Mr. Lather is a good man, in his
way, and particularly neighbourly. By the way, Mr.
Effingham, he asked me to propose to let him take
down your garden fence, in order that he may haul
some manure on his potato patch, which wants it dreadfully,
he says.”
“Certainly, sir. I cannot possibly object to his hauling
his manure, even through this house, should he
wish it. He is so very valuable a citizen, and one
who knows his own business so well, that I am only
surprised at the moderation of his request.”
Here Mr. Effingham rose, rang the bell for Pierre,
and went to his own room, doubting, in his own mind,
from all that he had seen, whether this was really the
Templeton he had known in his youth, and whether he
was in his own house or not.
As for Aristabulus, who saw nothing out of rule, or
contrary to his own notions of propriety, in what had
passed, he hurried off to tell the barber, who was so
ignorant of the first duty of his trade, that he was at
liberty to pull down Mr. Effingham's fence, in order to
manure his own potato patch.
Lest the reader should suppose we are drawing caricatures,
instead of representing an actual condition
of society, it may be necessary to explain that Mr.
Bragg was a standing candidate for popular favour;
that, like Mr. Dodge, he considered every thing that
presented itself in the name of the public, as sacred
and paramount, and that so general and positive was
his deference for majorities, that it was the bias
of his mind to think half-a-dozen always in the right,
as opposed to one, although that one, agreeably to the
great decision of the real majority of the entire community,
abstract merits of the disputed question. In short, to
such a pass of freedom had Mr. Bragg, in common
with a large class of his countrymen, carried his notions,
that he had really begun to imagine liberty was
all means and no end.
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