University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Widow, who weepest sore in the night, and whose
tears are on thy cheeks, because thy young children are
fatherless, and the husband of thy bosom and thy youth
in the dust, dry thy tears. Remember Him, who hath
promised to be the husband of the widow, and take
courage. Orphan, who hast seen thy venerated father
taken from thee by the rude hand of death, and whose
thought is, that in the wide world, there is none to love,
pity, or protect thee, forget not the gracious Being, who
has promised to be a father to the orphan, and remember,
that thy business in life is, not to give up to weak
and enervating despondence, and waste thy strength in
sorrow and tears. Life is neither an anthem nor a
funeral hymn, but an assigned task of discipline and
struggle, and thou hast to gird thyself, and go to thy
duty in the strength of God. I write for the young,
the poor, and the desolate; and the moral and the maxim
which I wish to inculcate is, that we ought never to

despond, either in our religious or our temporal trials.
To parents I would say, inculcate the spirit, the duties,
and the hopes of religion upon your children in the
morning and the evening, in the house and by the way.
Instil decision and moral courage into their young bosoms.
Teach them incessantly the grand maxim—self-respect.
It will go farther to gain them respect, and
render them deserving of it, than the bequeathed stores
of hoarded coffers. A child, deeply imbued with self-respect,
will never disgrace his parents. The inculcation
of this single point includes, in my view, the best
scope of education. If my powers corresponded to my
wishes, I would impress these thoughts in the following
brief and unpretending story. The reader will see, if
he knows the country, where it is laid, as I do, that it
is true to nature. He will comprehend my motive for
not being more explicit on many points; and he will not
turn away with indifference from the short and simple
annals of the poor, for he will remember, that nine in
ten of our brethren of the human race are of that class.
He will not dare to despise the lowly tenants of the valley,
where the Almighty, in his wisdom, has seen fit to
place the great mass of our race. It has been for ages
the wicked, and unfeeling, and stupid habit of writers,
in selecting their scenery and their examples, to act as
if they supposed that the rich, the titled, and the distinguished,
who dwell in mansions, and fare sumptuously
every day, were the only persons, who could display
noble thinking and acting; that they were the only characters,
whose loves, hopes, fortunes, sufferings, and
deeds had any thing in them, worthy of interest, or
sympathy. Who, in reading about these favorites of
fortune, remembers that they constitute but one in ten
thousand of the species? Even those of humble name
and fortunes have finally caught the debasing and enslaving
prejudice themselves, and exult in the actions,
and shed tears of sympathy over the sorrows of the
titled and the great, which, had they been recorded of
those in their own walk of life, would have been viewed
either with indifference or disgust. I well know that
the poor can act as nobly, and suffer as bitterly and
keenly as the rich. There is as much strength and
force and truth of affection in cottages as in palaces.
I am a man, and as such, am affected with the noble
actions, the joys and sorrows, the love and death of the
obscure, as much as of the great. If there be any difference,
the deeds, affections, fortunes, and sufferings of
the former have more interest; for they are unprompted
by vanity, unblazoned by fame, unobscured by affectation,
unalloyed by pride and avarice. The actings of
the heart are sincere, simple, single. God alone has
touched the pendulum with his finger, and the vibrations
are invariably true to the purpose of Him who
made the movement. If, therefore, reader, you feel
with me, you will not turn away with indifference from
this, my tale, because you are forewarned, that none of
the personages are rich or distinguished. You will believe,
that a noble heart can swell in a bosom clad in
the meanest habiliments. You will admit the truth as
well as the beauty of the poet's declaration, respecting
the gems of the sea, and the roses that “waste their
sweetness on the desert air;” and you will believe,
that incidents, full of tender and solemn interest, have
occurred in a log cabin in the forests of the Mississippi.

In the year 1816, the Rev. George Mason arrived
towards sunset at a settlement, eight miles south of the
Iron Banks, in what is commonly called the Jackson
Purchase, on the lower Mississippi. The family had
emigrated from New-England, and consisted of this
gentleman, a man of dignified appearance, though indicating
fatigue, exhaustion, and feeble health, and turned
of forty years; his lady, with a complexion which
had originally been as fair as a lily, but now browned
by the suns of a long journey, in the warmer days of
Autumn, and with an expression of sweetness, rendered

interesting by a strong touch of care and sorrow, and
whose age, from appearance, might be thirty-five; and
five children, four sons and a daughter. George, the
hero of this story, was a fair, white-headed, blue-eyed
boy of fourteen; Eliza, a sweet little girl of twelve,
with a keen black eye, a face of Italian contour, and
slightly olive. Glossy ringlets of black hair curled in
her neck. A shrinking and timid manner evidenced
natural sensibility, the seclusion and retirement, in
which she had been reared, and the rough people,
from whom she had recently shrunk, on a journey of
sixteen hundred miles. Henry, Thomas, and William
were eight, six, and four years old. It was a group, in
which the parents were of uncommon interest, and the
children lovely, beyond what I wish to describe; because
I would avoid expressions, that might seem extravagant.
They had that singular expression of mingled
pride and lowliness, which is apt to be marked
upon the countenance and manner of the children of
ministers, who constitute the connecting link between
the rich and the poor; their education, and the standing
annexed to the profession, placing them on a
level with the rich; and the scantiness and precariousness
of their subsistence placing them distinctly on
the footing of the poor. It was obvious, from their fatigued
and weather-beaten appearance, and their being
apparently much exhausted, that they had travelled a
long way. A slight inspection of their dress, and the
hired wagon that had brought them and their effects
from the banks of the Mississippi, where they had debarked
from a flat boat, manifested that one of their
trials had been want of sufficient money to bring
them comfortably over such a long way, by such a tedious
and expensive route. There was a shyness about
them, too, which marked, however they disguised it externally,
that their hearts revolted from the outlandish
and foreign aspect of the tall planters, dressed in deer-skin
hunting-shirts, with fringed epaulets of leather on
their shoulders, a knit sash of red, green, and blue about
their waists, buck-skin pantaloons and moccasins, a rifle
on their shoulders, five or six dogs attending each one
of them, and a dozen ragged and listless negroes lounging
behind them. Real dignity, however, is an internal
thing, and belongs only to the mind. A family could
not have been reared, as they had been, where self-respect
had been inculcated every day, and every hour,
both by precept and example, without showing the influence
of their discipline, be their dress and appearance
in other respects, as they might. There was a look of
decency, uprightness, and calm assertion of their standing,
a certain indescribable, but easily felt manner impressed
upon the whole family, which manifested at a
glance, that it was the family of a gentleman. It at once
awed and repressed rude and impertinent curiosity, and
made the vulgar rich, for there were three or four such,
who had come to be spectators of the arrival of this family,
shrink from the manifestation of that unfeeling and
insulting superiority, which such people are apt to evince
in the presence of those, who are poorer than themselves.
Mr. Pindell, the owner of twenty-five negroes,
and Mr. Gorvin, the owner of fifteen, were among the
dozen nearest settlers who had come professedly to welcome
them to their cabin in the woods. There was
much rough but well intended complimenting, and proffer
of aid and courtesy, and desire that they might be
better acquainted; in short, all the kindly meant ceremonial,
customary among such people on such occasions.
After an acquaintance of two years, it would
have been pleasant to Mr. Mason and his family. At
present the dim shades of twilight gathering over the
boundless woods, the savage aspect of these huntsmen
and their negroes, even the joyous evening yell of the
hounds, the unwonted and strange terms of welcome,
the foreign look of every thing about them, all this was
of a character to inspire dismay and homesickness in
the hearts of people, recently transferred from a pleasant
New-England village. Way-worn, and but slenderly
furnished with the means of simple subsistence,
whether they looked around them upon the new society,
in the midst of which their lot was cast, upon the
dark and sterile woods, whose leaves were falling about
them, or into the roofless and unfloored cabin, where
they were to shelter for the night; the whole scene was
desolate and chilling. God is a shade, a shelter, and a
high tower of defence in such cases. The young children
had wept with weariness, had thrown themselves
on a blanket, and were asleep under the open sky.
The neighbours saw that their newly arrived friends
were weary, and wished to be by themselves. They
had considerately provided plenty of such provisions, as
the settlement afforded; spread bear skins on the sward
in the interior of the cabin, and left a black woman to
cook supper and breakfast for them. In that mild season,
and cloudless weather, there was nothing formidable
to them, in the idea of leaving the family to repose
on bear skins under the open canopy. One after
the other, with the significant Western salutation, “I
wish you well,” left them to themselves. The younger
children were too soundly asleep to be awakened to supper.
The parents and George and Eliza took a hasty
supper, provided for them by the black woman, and
soon forgot their cares and slept as deeply as if they
had been reposing on down, in the most magnificent
dwelling.

Mr. Mason, on report only, and without having seen
it, had purchased, as an asylum and a shelter from the
approaching winter, this unfinished log-house, in the
midst of a clearing of three acres, cut out of the deep
forest, in this settlement, eight miles from the river.
The nearest habitation was distant two miles. Beyond
that, there was a considerable settlement, recently established
in the forests. Some of the planters, as we
have remarked, were comparatively opulent, and had a
considerable number of slaves. The neighbours, of

whom we have spoken, had visited them, as is customary,
to welcome them to the settlement, and to proffer
their acquaintance and their aid.

A bright morning sun, slanting its beams through the
forests, at this season delightfully rich with all the mellow
colors of autumn, a plentiful breakfast provided for
the family, before they were awake, by the black woman,
and to which she awaked them, the devouring
appetite of the children, refreshed by their sleep, the
air, prospects, and cheerful sounds of the morning, rendered
the scene before them as different from that of
the evening, as can be imagined. Every member of
the family was cheerful, and the sole theme was, how
they should render the habitation comfortable, and lay
in a sufficient quantity of the provisions, which the settlement
furnished, for the approaching winter. We
have remarked, that Mr. Mason was in feeble health.
He suffered, also, from nervousness, and a temperament,
probably resulting from that habit, inclining to dejection
and despondency. But his was a wisely religious
family, which had been taught by constant training,
that despondency, indulged and allowed, under
any circumstances is a sin, implying dishonoring and
distrustful views of God, and particularly so, when it
hinders the desponding from exertions, which they
might otherwise make, to better their condition.

The depression of Mr. Mason was that of feebleness
of health and the physical nature, and not that of the
mind. Immediately after breakfast, and the departure
of the black woman, the father was seen in company
with George, making mortar from the clay, and exerting
himself to fill up the intervals between the logs, in
the language of the country, “daubing” the house, and
in all the common expedients of the country, to render
the habitation a warm and secure shelter from the frosts
and rains of the approaching winter. Though his neighbours
were rough, some of them were kind in their
way, and they came in and aided him. He saw in

their mode of managing the business, that there is a
dexterity in every business, to be acquired only by
practice, and that they knew infinitely better than he
did how to “daub and chink” a log cabin. In a
couple of days, which fortunately continued fair, the
house had a roof, which would shed the rain, though
the covering was of cypress-splits, secured in their place
by logs, laid at right angles over them, and a chimney,
which did not smoke, although it was made of clefts,
plastered with clay-mortar, in which, as the material
was abundant, there was no lack of thickness of coating.
The intervals between the logs were tightly closed with
chinking, well covered with the same material. A
partition of small and straight timbers, with an opening
cut through one end for a door, divided the area of the
cabin into two apartments, one of which contained one,
and the other two husk mattrasses. The neighbours
assisted him to raise another smaller cabin, in the language
of the country, a “logpen,” covered and daubed
in the same manner, but without a chimney, and here
was another mattrass, in which George and Henry
slept. These mattrasses, thanks to the cheapness of
bleached cottons in our country, though coarsely covered,
had an appearance of coolness and neatness, which
spread a charm round the precincts of the rustic, but
neat cabin. A draft was necessarily made upon the
small sum of money, that remained to the family, and
which was reserved for the most pressing emergencies,
to purchase a supply of winter provisions. These consisted
of the substantial materials of a west countryman's
diet, corn, bacon, and sweet potatoes. Such are
the appointments with which a hundred thousand families
have commenced in the Western country, and with
which they have, probably, been more contented and
happy than their posterity will be when dwelling in
spacious mansions.

When the first white frosts of November rendered an
evening fire necessary; when a bright one was kindled

on their broad clay hearth; when their “puncheon”
shutters, for glass they had none, had excluded the uncertain
light and the chill air of evening; when the broad
table, made with an adz from white poplar clefts, was
spread before this fire; when the repast of smoking
corn loaf, sweet potatoes, and fried bacon were arranged
on it; when the fragrant tea was added, in remembrance
of New-England, for they still retained a few pounds,
brought all the way from that country; and when the
whole was seasoned by cheerful conversation, and that
appetite, which is felt in such cabins, and by industrious
backwoodsmen in the highest perfection, the guests at
this humble feast had no need to envy those of any
other. A brilliant blaze, kindled with dry wood, enlightened
the whole interior structure of this fresh-looking,
rough-cast, timbered apartment. The faithful dog,
that had followed them all the way from their late home,
and now doubly dear to them, as associated with their
fond remembrances of that country, sat beside the table,
looking earnestly upon its contents, apparently as hungry,
and as happy, as the children, wagging his tail, and
occasionally interpolating a yelp of joy, as an interjection
in the pauses of the gay conversation. The prolonged
and distant howl of the wolves, the ludicrous
and almost terrific noises of a hundred owls, the scream
of other nocturnal animals, the measured creaking of
the crickets and catadeds, and the gathering roar of
autumnal winds along the forest, only sweetened a sense
of present protection to the children, and rendered the
brightness and shelter of the scene within more delightful,
by contrast with the boundless and savage forest
without. Such are the scenes, where narratives of the
incidents of common life have their highest zest and
charm. Such are the scenes, where the confidence
and affection of children towards their parents root deep
and strong in the heart, and have no touch of mercenary
and selfish expectation mixed with them. I have
never passed, and I never expect to pass, happier hours,
than I have spent, while an inmate of such a cabin. It
has seemed to me, that a woodsman's cabin that has
just risen in the forests, rendered happy by innocence,
competence, contentment, and prayer, concentres affection,
and produces some singular and undescribed
associations of contrast, that render it the chosen and
hallowed abode of that unassuming happiness, which is
the most durable and satisfying, that we can feel here
below. I have delightful remembrances of my long
sojourn in such places; and as they return to my
thoughts. I earnestly invoke the blessing of God upon
the dwellers in cabins.

The children, each one of whom inherited a sprinkling
of romance from their parents, were charmed with
these first essays of the life of a backwoodsman.
Poor things! They had as yet seen but the romance
and the illusion of the picture. Long may they remain
under this pleasant spell, which charms the woods and
this new condition for them. A circumstance contributed
to heighten the charm. The sixth day after their arrival,
a deer strayed so near the cabin, that George shot
it from the door. The same day the father and son, in
exploring the grounds directly about them, in relation
to commencing a clearing, started a bear from the cane
brake. He retreated slowly, and growling from their
path, and made his retreat upon a prodigions sycamore.
A passing neighbour came to the place. Two or three
dogs surrounded the tree, and made the woods ring
with cries, which indicated, to a knowing huntsman, that
fear was mingled with their joy. A few, rifle-shots
brought the savage to the ground. There was something
less wounding to their feelings in the slaughter of
such a ferocious animal, than in that of an inoffensive deer.
Apart from the noble and spirit-stirring sport of bringing
down a large and fat bear, the meat, which is excellent,
and easily preserved, was a matter of no small consideration
to a family like this. Even the skin is an
important item in the arrangement of a backwoods

cabin. I can scarcely imagine more ample materials
for pleasant evening conversation and amusement, than
were furnished by the hunting of the day. Tender
pieces of venison and bear's-meat smoked on the table.
The fortunes of that day seemed to promise, that there
would be no danger of want of meat, while they possessed
a rifle, powder, and lead. The black eyes of
the charming Eliza glistened with intense interest, as
she contemplated the terrible claws and teeth of the
savage animal, with an involuntary shudder, observing,
that much as she longed to gather the wild flowers,
she should always tremble to go in woods, where
such terrible beasts were common. George exulted in
the spirit of a little Nimrod, as he related the circumstances
of bringing down the bear to his younger
brothers, who had not been permitted to be in at the
death. The misfortune of this pleasant circle was, that
there were generally two or three speakers chattering
at a time. None, but a canine Lavater, would have
comprehended all the visible satisfaction of the dog,
who was evidently listening with all his ears, and probably
regretting the want of speech, that he could not
disclose his thoughts among the rest. Even the head
of this family turned a countenance, brightening from
its common dejection, on Mrs. Mason, who, it would appear,
had been averse to this immigration. “Eliza,”
said he, with an air of quiet triumph in his eye, “are
you sorry now, that we have brought our dear ones
here?”

How often has my heart been glad in view of scenes
like these! How often have I thanked God, that the
world was not made for a favored few! How often
have I felt a religious gladness, in thinking, that calm,
simple, pure, and natural enjoyments were thus accessible
to the tenants of such habitations! An unenvious
spirit of contentment, industry, and prayer rests upon
you, ye dwellers in this lowly habitation. Only know
your happiness, and you need not envy the tenants of

palaces. Mrs. Mason herself, as she pressed the hand
of her husband, admitted, that the first samples of their
new ways of life were more pleasant, than she had anticipated.
To say the truth, though she never remonstrated
against the plans of her husband, she had entertained
in her heart the most gloomy forebodings, in
reference to a new existence in such a distant and
unknown country.