 | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
THE SEARCHING.
9. CHAPTER IX.
“In medias res—”
“Floundering into mud holes—”
“Who could have dreamed, my dear,” said Mrs. C. to
her husband, “these forests so picturesque when seen
from the Ohio, concealed such roads?”
Mr. C. made no reply; although the phenomenon was
certainly very remarkable;—in fact, his idea about the
Muses was passing in review—and he thought, maybe after
all, it was something else that had echoed the flute notes.
The lady's query, however, and the gentleman's silence occurred
about thirty miles due north of the Ohio River, in a
two-horse Yankee cart,—a kind of mongrel dearborne—
amid what was now called their “plunder”—with a hired
driver on the front seat, and intending to find, if possible, a
certain spot in a very uncertain part of the New Purchase
—about one hundred and twenty honest miles in the interior,
and beyond Shining River. This was the second day
of practice in the elementary lessons of forest travelling; in
which, however, they had been sufficiently fortunate as to
get a taste of “buttermilk land,”—“spouty land,”—and
to learn the nature of “mash land”—“rooty and snaggy
land”—of mud holes, ordinary and extraordinary—of quick
sands—and “corduroys” woven single and double twill
—and even fords with and without bottom.
The autumn is decidedly preferable for travelling on the
virgin soil of native forests. One may go then mostly by
land and find the roads fewer and shorter; but in the
early spring, branches—(small creeks)—are brim full, and
they hold a great deal; concealed fountains bubble up in a
thousand places where none were supposed to lurk; creeks
turn to rivers, and rivers to lakes, and lakes to bigger ones;
and as if this was too little water, out come the mole
rivers that have burrowed all this time under the earth, and
which, when so unexpectedly found are styled out there—
“lost rivers!” And every district of a dozen miles square
has a lost river. Travelling by land becomes of course
travelling by water, or by both: viz., mud and water. Nor
is it possible if one would avoid drowning or suffocation to
keep the law and follow the blazed road; but he taks first
to the right and then to the left, often making both losing
tacks; and all this, not to find a road but a place where
there is no road,—untouched mud thick enough to bear, or
that has at least some bottom.
Genuine Hoosiers, Corn-crackers, et id omne genus—
(viz.all that sort of geniuses)—lose comparatively little time
where it is proper to quit the submerged road of the legislature,
and where they are likely to fulfil the proverb “out of
the frying pan into the fire.” And so we, at last, in utter
despair of finding a royal road to the New Purchase, did
enter souse into the most-ill-looking, dark-coloured morasses,
enlivened by steams of purer mud crossing at right angles,
and usually much deeper than we cared to discover.
The first night we had stayed at a “public;” yet while
the tavern was of brick, candour forces me to record that
affairs so much resembled the hardware and crockery in
their streaked and greasy state after Messrs. Brown & Co.
had cleaned them, that we were rejoiced—prematurely
however—when morning allowed us half-refreshed to
resume our land tacking. But more than once afterwards
did we sigh even for the comforts of the Brick
Tavern, with its splendid sign of the sun rising and setting
between two partitions of paint intended for hills; and
which sun looked so much like spreading rays, that a friend
soberly asked us afterwards—“If we didn't put up the first
night at the sign of the Fan?”
It was now after sunset on our second day, that we inquired
with much anxiety at a miserable cabin, how far it
was to the next tavern, and were answered—“A smart bit
yet—maybe more nor three miles by the blaze—but the
most powerfullest road!” Since early morning we had,
with incessant driving, done nearly twenty miles; if then we
had, in a bad road, done by daylight about one and a half
miles per hour, how were we likely to do three miles in
the dark, and over what a native styled—the “most powerfullest
road?” Hence, as the lady of the cabin seemed
kind, and more than once expressed compassion for “my
womin body”—(so she called Mrs. C.) and as she “allowed”
we had better stop where we were, with a sudden and
very respectful remembrance of the Rising or Setting Fan
were going really and actually to pass a night in a veritable,
rite-dite, cabin!—in a vast forest too!—and far enough
from all the incumbrances of eastern civilization!
“And did you not thrill Mr. Carlton?”
“I rather think, dear reader,—I did;—at least I felt
some sort of a shiver; especially as the gloom of the
frightful shades increased; and the deafening clangour of
innumerable rude frogs in the mires and on the trees arose;
and the whirl and hum and buzz of strange, savage insects
and reptiles, and of winged and unwinged bugs, began and
increased and grew still louder; and vapours damp, chilly
and fœtid ascended and came down; and the only field in
sight was a few yards of “clearing,” stuck with trunks of
“deadened” trees and great stumps blackened with the
fires! And I think the thrill, or whatever it was, grew more
and more intense on turning towards the onward road, and
finding a suspicion in my mind that it only led to the endless
repetition of the agreeable night scene around us—ah! ha!
—maybe to—and then came retrospective visions of
friends in the far East now—till—“what?”—I hardly know
what—till something, however, like a wish came, that it
were as easy to float up the Ohio as down. Heyho!
Nor was the cabin a fac simile of those built in dreams
and novels and magazines. Mine were of bark, and as
neat as a little girl's baby house! This had, indeed, bark
enough about, but still not put up right. It was in truth a
barbarous rectangle of unhewed and unbarked logs, and
bound together by a gigantic dove-tailing called notching.
The roof was thick ricketty shingles, called clapboards;
which when clapped on were held down by longitudinal
poles kept apart by shorter pieces placed between them
perpendicularly. The interstices of the log-wall were
“chinked”—the “chinking” being large chips and small
slabs dipping like strata of rocks in geology; and then on
yellow clay ferociously splashed in soft by the hand of the
architect, and then left to harden at its leisure. Rain and
frost had here, however, caused mud daubing to disappear;
so that from without could be clearly discerned through the
wall, the light of fire and candle, and from within, the light
of sun, moon and stars—a very fair and harmless tit for tat.
The chimney was outside the cabin and a short distance
from it. This article was built, as chaps, in raining weather,
make on the kitchen hearth stick houses of light wood,—
it consisted of layers of little logs reposing on one another
at their corners and topped off when high enough with flag
stones:—it was, moreover, daubed, and so admirably as to
look like a mud stack! That, however, was, as I afterwards
found inartistical—the daubing of chimneys correctly
being a very nice task, although just as dirty as even political
daubing.
The inside cabin was one room below and one loft above
—to which, however, was no visible ascent.—I think the
folks climbed up at the corner. The room contained principally
beds, the other furniture being a table, “stick
chairs,” and some stools with from two to three legs apiece.
Crockery and calabashes shared the mantel with two dangerous
looking rifles and their powder horns. The iron ware
shifted for itself about the fire place, where awkward feet
feeling for the fire or to escape it, pushed kettle against pot
and skillet against dutch oven.
What French cook committed suicide because something
was not done “to a turn?” Ample poetic justice may be
done to his wicked ghost by some smart writer, in chaining
him with an imabie or two to the jamb of that cabin
hearth—there for ever to be a witness of its cookery.
Here came first the pettish outcries of two matron hens
dangled along to a hasty execution; then notes of preparation
sung out by the tea-kettle; then was jerked into position
coals; and lastly the skillet began sputtering forth its
boiling lard, or grease of some description. The instruments
ready, the hostess aided by a little barefooted daughter, and
whose white hair was whisped at the top of the head with a
string and horn comb, the hostess put into the oven, balls of
wet corn meal, and then slapped on the lid red hot and covered
with coals, with a look and motion equal to this sentence—“Get
out of that, till you're done.” Then the two
fowls, but a moment since kicking and screeching at being
killed, were doused into the skillet into hot oil, where they
moved around dismembered, as if indignant now at being
fried.
We travellers shifted quarters repeatedly during these
solemn operations, sometimes to get less heat, sometimes
more, and sometimes to escape the fumes direct; but usually,
to get out of the way. That, however, being impracticable,
we at length sat extempore, and were kicked and
jostled accordingly. In the meanwhile our landlady, in
whom was much curiosity, a little reverence, and a misty
idea that her guests were great folks, and towards whom as
aristocrats it was republican to feel enmity, our landlady
maintained at intervals a very lively talk, as for example:
“From Loo'ville, I allow!”
“No—from Philadelphia.”
A sudden pause—a turn to look at us more narrowly,
while she still affectionately patted some wet meal into
shape for the oven.
“Well!—now!—I wonder!—hem!—Come to enter land,
'spose—powerful bottom on the Shining—heavy timber,
though. He's your old man, mam?”
Mrs. C. assented. The hostess then stooped to deposit
the perfect hall, and continued:
“Our wooden country's mighty rough, I allow, for some
their own niggurs, mam—what mought your name be?”
Mrs. C. told the lady, and then in a timid and piteous sort
of tone inquired if girls could not be hired by the year?
To this the landlady replied at first with a stare—then with
a smile—and then added:
“Well! sort a allow not—most time, mam, you'll have
to work your own ash hopper”—(viz. a lie-cask, or, rather,
an inverted pyramidical box to contain ashes, resembling a
hopper in a mill)—“Nan”—(name of little flax head)—
“Nan, sort a turn them thare chickins.”
And thus the cabin lady kept on doing up her small stock
of English into Hoosierisms and other figures; now, with
the question direct—now, the question implied; then, with
a soliloquy—then, an apostrophe: and all the time cleaning
and cutting up chickens, making pones, and working and
wriggling among pots, skillets and people's limbs (?) and
feet, with an adroitness and grace gained by practice only;
and all this, without upsetting any thing, scalding any body,
or even spilling any food—excepting, maybe, a little grease,
flour and salt. Nor did she lose time by dropping down
curtsey fashion to inspect the progress of things baked or
fried: but she bent over as if she had hinges in the hips,
according to nature doubtless, but contrary to the Lady's
Book; although the necessary backward motion to balance
the head projected beyond the base, did render garments
short by nature still shorter, as grammarians would say, by
position.
Corn-bread takes its own time to bake; and therefore it
was late when the good woman, having placed the “chicken
fixins” on a large dinner-plate, and poured over them the
last drop of unabsorbed and unevaporated oil, set all on the
table, and then, giving her heated and perspiring face a last
wipe with the corner of her tow-linen apron, and also giving
out the ordinary summons:
“Well! come, sit up.”
This sit-up we instantly performed—as well, at least, as
we could—while she stood up to pour out the tea, complimenting
all the time its quality, saying—“'Tisn't nun of your
spice-wood or yarb stuff, but the rele gineine slore tea.”
Nanny remained near the dutch oven to keep us supplied
with red-hot pones, or corn-balls—and hard enough by the
way, to do execution from cannon. The teacups used, held
a scant pint; and to do exact justice to each cup, the mistress
held the teapot in one hand and the water-pot in the
other, pouring from both at once till the cup was brim-full
of the mixture:—an admirable system of impartiality, and
if the pots have spouts of equal diameters, the very way to
make precisely “half and half.” But sorry am I to say, that
on the present occasion, the water-pot had the best and
easiest delivery.
“And could you eat, Mr. Carlton?”
How could we avoid it, Mr. Nice? Besides, we were
most vulgarly hungry. And the consequence was, that, at
the arrival of the woodman and his two sons, other cornbread
was baked, and, for want of chicken, bacon was fried.
“But how did you do about retiring?”
We men-folks, my dear Miss, went out to see what sort
of weather we were likely to have; and on coming in again,
the ladies were very modestly covered up in bed—and then
we—got into bed—in the usual way. I have no doubt Mr.
Carlton managed a little awkwardly: but I fear the reader
will discover, that in his attempts at doing as Rome does,
and so forth, Mr. Carlton departed finally from the native
sweetness and simplicity of eastern and fashionable life;
still we seemed to leave rather an unfavourable impression
at the cabin, since, just before our setting out in the morning,
the landlady told the driver privately—“Well! I allow
big-bugs—but maybe they aint got more silver than Squire
Snoddy across Big Bean creek; and his wife don't think
nuthin on slinging round like her gal—but never mind, maybe
Mrs. Callten or Crawltin, or somethin or nuther, will larn
how too.”
10. CHAPTER X.
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
“Really, Mr. Carlton, unless you tell us whither you are
travelling we will proceed no further.”
And really I could not blame you, friends, since, had it
not been for very shame and impracticability, we ourselves,
on the third morning, would have imitated Sawney of apple-orchard
memory, and “crawled back again.” But I am on
the very point of telling as distinctly as possible about our
destination—and as you have got thus far, and have paid[1]
(?) for the book, you may as well finish it.
We are proceeding as slowly as we can in search of the
Glenville Settlement, a place somewhere in the New Purchase.
Among other persons we hope to find there, my
wife's mother, my wife's aunt, my wife's uncle, and her
sisters and her brother, John Glenville. One of my purposes
is to become Mr. Glenville's partner in certain land speculations,
and with him to establish a store and also a tannery.
Of the New Purchase itself we will speak at large when
we reach that famous country—famous in itself out there—
and to become so elsewhere when its history is published.
As to Glenville Settlement itself, lofty opinions of its elegancies
its houses would be found no better than they ought to be:
and in these we were not disappointed, as the reader may
in time discover.
The third night of the Searching now approached; and
we had come to a very miserable hut, a ferry-house, on the
top of a high bluff, and fully a quarter of a mile from the
creek below. An ill-natured young girl was apparently the
sole occupant; and she, for some reason, refused to ferry
us over the water, stating, indeed, that the creek could as yet
be forded, but giving us no satisfactory directions how to
find or keep the ford. Judge our feelings, then, on getting
to the bank, to find a black, sullen and swollen river, twenty
yards wide—a scow tied at the end of the road—and that
road seeming to enter upon the ford, if, indeed, any ford
was there! I stepped into the boat and, with its “setting-pole,”
felt for the ford; and happily succeeded in finding the
bottom when the pole was let down a little beyond six feet!
No house, except the ferry-hut on the bluff above, was on
this side the water for many a long and weary mile back; and
beyond the water was a low, marshy and, at present, a truly
terrific beech-wood, and, from its nature, known to be necessarily
uninhabited: so that, unless we could help ourselves,
nobody else was likely to help. With great difficulty, there
fore, and no small danger from our want of skill and hands
enough, we “set” ourselves over in the scow: and when
safely landed in the mud beyond, we at first determined to
let the boat go adrift as a small punishment to the villany of
the ferry people; but reflecting that possibly some benighted
persons might suffer by this vengeance, we tied the scow—
(but of course on the wrong side the river)—and splattered
on. In half a mile, strange enough, we met a large party
of women and children, to whom we told what had happened
and what had been done with the scow: on which they
cordially thanked us, it being necessary for them to cross
far forward, and which led to “a preacher's” house, where
we should find a comfortable home and a welcome for the
night.
What the oasis of dry deserts is, all know; but the oasis
of waste woods and waters is—a clearing with its dry land
and sunlit opening. Such was now before us, not indeed
sunlit,—for the sun was long since set—such was before
us; and in the midst of a very extensive clearing was not
a cabin, but a veritable two-story house of hewn and squared
timbers, with a shingle roof, and smoke curling gracefully
upward from its stone chimney! Yes, and there were corn-cribs,
and smoke-house, and barn and out-houses of all sorts:
and removed some distance from all, was the venerable cabin
in a decline,—the rude shell of the family in its former
chrysalis state!
But our reception!—it was a balm and a cordial. We
found, not indeed the parade and elegant variety of the East,
but neat apartments, refreshing fire after the chill damps of
the forest, a parlour separate from the kitchen, and bedrooms
separate from both and from one another. There,
too, if memory serves right, were six pretty, innocent girls
—(no sons belonged to the family)—coarsely but properly
dressed; and who were all modest and respectful to their
elders and superiors—a very rare thing in the New Purchases,
and, since the reign of Intellect, a rarer thing than
formerly in most Old Purchase countries. The mere diffusion
of “knowledges,” without discipline of mind in their
attainment, is not so favourable to virtue and good manners
as Lyceum men think. Our six little girls were mainly
educated on Bible principles—living fortunately in that dark
age when every body's education was not managed by legislatures
and taxes. The law administered by irreligious
or infidel statesmen, or by selfish and sullen demagogues,
is always opposed to the Gospel.
No pains were spared by the whole family in our entertainment:
and all was done from benevolence, as if we
were children and relatives. The Rev. William Parsons
and his lady, our hosts, had never been in the East, or in
any other school of the Humanities; and yet with exceptions
of some prejudices, rather in favour, however, of the
West than against the East, this gentleman and lady both
beautifully exemplified the innate power of Christian principles
to make men not only kind and generous, but courteous
and polite.
In my dreams no oasis of this kind had appeared—yet
none is so truly lovely as that where religion makes the
desert and the wilderness blossom as the rose. I have
been much in the company of clergy and laity both, and in
many parts of the Union, and my settled belief in consequence
is, that the true ministers of the Gospel, in spite
of supposed characteristical faults and defects, and prejudiees,
are, as a class, decidedly the very best and noblest
of men.
We discovered that Mr. Parsons, like most located and
permanent pastors of a wooden country, received almost
literally nothing for ecclesiastical services. Nay, Mrs.
Parsons incidentally remarked to Mrs. C. that for seven
entire years she had never seen together ten dollars either
in notes or silver! Hence, although suspecting he would
refuse, and fearing that the offer might even distress him, I
could not but sincerely wish Mr. P. would accept pay for
our entertainment: and the offer was at last made in the
least awkward way possible. But in vain was every argument
employed by me, that decorum would allow, to
induce his acceptance—he utterly refused, only saying:—
“My dear young friend, pay it to some preacher of the
Gospel, and in the same way and spirit the present service
is rendered to you.” And here, in justice to ourselves,
we must be permitted to record that we did most gladly,
Mr. Parsons in the way enjoined.
Formerly it was indeed rare, that any one in the Far
West, however poor, a ferryman or a tavern keeper, would
ask or take if offered, a cent for his services from any
man known as a preacher. True, the immunity existed
in a few places under a belief that preachers ought not to
expect or receive the smallest salary; and sometimes a
preacher was actually questioned on that point, and treated
according to his answer: but still in the primitive times,
especially of the New Purehase, the vast majority of
woodsmen would have indignantly scouted the thought of
demanding pay from a preacher, and that whether he received
a small stipend for his own services, or as was the
common case, nothing. Once a clerical friend of the
author's travelled nearly one thousand miles in woods and
prairies, and brought back in his inexpressibles-pocket, the
identical pecunia carried with him for expenses—viz. Fifty-Cents!
That, on leaving home, he had supposed would
be enough;—it proved too much!
During my Western sojourn, I was powerfully impressed
with the importance and necessity of forming a new Society;
nor has the notion been abandoned since leaving that
country. I have been indeed always deterred from making
the attempt, from its internal difficulty, from its entire novelty,
and a deep settled conviction of its great unpopularity
the moment it is announced. Indeed, I fear the thing
is wholly impracticable in an age when all kinds of public
instruction is gratuitous—and it is deemed enough to be
honoured with a hearing in public, and to hear the criticisms
of audiences that all know all things, and even
something to boot, as well and maybe a little better than
the literati themselves; but so much would my scheme, if
adopted, do to alleviate the great distresses, anxieties and
privations of many very worthy clergymen, that I will
a visionary. The Society I propose is to bear this title:—
“The-make-congregations-PAY-what-they-voluntarily-PROMISE-Society.”
For which I shall only now name one
reason—viz that most clergymen do perform all they ever
promise—and often a very great deal more. If the Society
is now ever formed by others, I must here once for all,
however, positively decline the honour of being one of the
travelling agents—I can stand some storms, but not all.
Certain wits sneer here, and reversing the Indian's remark,
say “poor preach—poor pay;” and please themselves
with drawing contrasts between the Western and
the Eastern styles of preaching. But take away libraries
from our preachers, take away the sympathy and the
applause; make such work, not with small and very often
incompetent stipends as is the case pretty generally here,
but with no salary whatever; make them work, chop wood,
plough, ride day after day, and night after night in dim,
perilous, endless wilds; bid them preach in the open air
or between two cabins, or in an open barn, or even barroom,
without notes or preparation, and all this weary,
sick, jaded; smoke and suffocate them in a cold, cheerless
day, with a fire not within but without the house, to which
the congregation repair during the sermon in committees
both for heat and gossip—do all this and we shall hear no
more of the contrast. And yet within those grand old
woods you shall often hear bursts of eloquence—stirring
appeals—strains of lofty poetry—ay, the thunderings of
resistless speech, that would move and entrance through all
their length and breadth the cushioned seats of our bedizzened
churches! True, as a whole, even such discourses
may not do to print. What then? Is a sermon the best
adapted to be spoken, always the best to be printed? Does
not the patent steam press squeeze the very life and soul
out of most sermons? Granted that the notes of a preacher
preacher himself must be present to make his notes speak
forth the latent sense—and if he find not the sense and
spirit there he expected—to put them there at the impulse
of the moment. The very Reverend Lord Bishop Baltimore—
“Mr. Carlton!—we are impatient to continue the search
for Glenville.”
Oh! yes—true—true!—advance we then to a new
chapter.
Persons that borrow this work, and all who rent it of some second
rate book-establishment at a fippenny-bit a volume, will of course read
it through.
11. CHAPTER XI.
Ignoti nova forma viri, miserandaque cultu.
Respicimus: dira illuvies, immissaque barba,
Consertum tegmen spinis.
On the morning of the fourth day, about ten o'clock, A.
M., we emerged from the forest upon a clearing one mile in
length, and a half a mile in breadth: and nearly in its
centre stood Woodville, the capital of the New Purchase—
a village just hewed and hacked out of the woods, fresh,
rough and green. And this identical town, reader, is, we
are informed, somewhere about twenty miles from Glenville—unless
in the contraction of the roads in dry seasons,
when the distance is variously estimated at from sixteen to
nineteen miles. And as we have a letter of introduction
to Dr. Sylvan of the capital, and shall remain here an
hour, it seems the very time to describe Woodville, in and
about which, as the centre of our orbit, we moved for nearly
eight years.
Woodville was now almost three years old; large, however,
for its age, and dirty as an undisciplined, neglected
It was the destined seat of a University: hence when Mind
whose remarkable tramp was now being —(hem!)—heard,
halted here in its march some years after, in the shape of
sundry learned and great men, we were all righted up,
licked into shape and clarified. But to day, never were
strange animals so stared at, walked around and remarked
upon near at hand by the brave, and peeped at by the modest
and timid, from chinks and openings, as were we, tame
and civilized bipeds, Mr. and Mrs. C., by our fellow-creatures
of Woodville. Why, we could not then conjecture
—unless because Mr. C. wore a coat and was shaved—or
because Mrs. C. had on no cap, and a cap there was worn
by all wives old and young—a sign in fact of the conjugal
relation—and so it was “suspicioned” if Mrs. C. was not
my wife, she ought to be. N. B. The caps most in vogue
then were made of dark, coarse, knotted twine, like a cabbage
net—and were worn expressly as the wives themselves
said—“to save slicking up every day, and to hide
dirt!”
But here comes Dr. Sylvan, and we must introduce him.
First, however, be it understood that Woodville even then,
had two classes, the superior and the inferior; the former
shaved once a week, the latter once in two weeks, or thereabouts.
At our first meeting, which was accidental, I was
at a loss where to class my friend; and had we not already
acquired some art in decyphering character by studying the
countenance and the mien, and not by looking at the dress,
or rather the want of it, we should have fallen into a great
mistake about this true Christian and gentleman.
Shoes he wore, it is true—but one a coarse cow-hide
laced boot, the other a calf-skin Jefferson, or some other
presidential name. And this latter was well blacked,
though not shiney; but the cow-hide had been two stiff,
stubborn and greasy, to receive its portion. Above the
à fortiori evidence that the ancle in the boot was in a natural
condition. Coat he wore none; but he had on a
Kentucky-jean vest, open to its lowest button, and allowing
the display of a reddish-yellow flannel shirt bosom, his
arms being encased in sleeves of thick cotton something,
and all unembroidered. As a rare extravagance, and which
placed him in the aristocratic class of democrats, the
Doctor wore, not carried, a pocket-handkerchief; and he
wore it circumambient,—the cotton bandana going over
one shoulder, and under the opposite arm, and then both
ends met and were tied just above his os femoris. This
luxury, however, was used only as “a sweat rag,” and
not as “a nose-cloth,”—delicate names applied appropriately
to a handkerchief, as it was employed to wipe off
perspiration or to blow the nose. As to the Doctor's nose,
it was, in its necessities, most cruelly pinched and twisted
between his finger and thumb; and these were then wiped
on the rag just mentioned—on the plan of the man that
topped the candle with his fingers, and then deposited the
burnt wick in the snuffers. The operation was certainly
performed with great skill, yet it seemed unnatural at the
time; and it was not till I had seen the governor himself
in a stump speech, and the judge on the bench, perform
the same instinctively and involuntarily, that I came to
regard the affair as natural, and to conclude that, after all,
handkerchiefs were nothing more than civil conveniences.
Such was the leaden casket—the outer man; but reader,
within was a rare jewel. With a little fixing, this gentleman
would easily have adorned and delighted the best
company in the best places. He was a brave soldier, an
able statesman, and a skilful physician; and if not learned,
he was extensively and even profoundly read in his
favourite studies, medicine and politics. His person, disfigured
even by his dress, was uncommonly fine, his countenance
and instructive. In the legislative assemblies he
was highly respected, and often his influence there was
unbounded; and happily that influence was usually well
directed. The Doctor, in short, would have graced the
halls at Washington. As a husband and a father, no man
was ever more affectionate; and as a physician, none
more kind, tender, and anxious—indeed he not only prescribed
for a patient, but, as far as possible, nursed him.
A little more moral courage would have made Dr. Sylvan
a still more valuable friend. It was strange, however, that
so brave a man in the field, should have been occasionally
cowed in the presence of political foes—but so it was; and
this was the only material blemish in a man otherwise
good, noble, and generous.
Other citizens may be introduced hereafter; at present,
we shall speak of Woodville itself. This was, as has been
stated, the capital of the New Purchase—the name of a
tract of land very lately bought from the Indians, or the
Abor'rejines, as the Ohio statesman had just then named
them, in his celebrated speech in the legislature:—“Yes,
Mr. Speaker, yes sir,” said he, “I'd a powerful sight
sooner go into retiracy among the red, wild, Abor'rejines
of our wooden country, nor consent to that bill.” The
territory lay between the north and south Shining Rivers
—called sometimes the Shinings, sometimes the Shineys,
from the purity of the waters and the brightness of the
sands—and it contained fine land, well timbered and rolling.
The white population was very sparse, and mainly
very poor persons, very illiterate, and very prejudiced,
with all the virtues and vices belonging to woodsmen.
Among them were very few, indeed scarcely any, persons
born east of the mountains; and our community was a
pure Western one—men of the remote West being by far
the majority of the settlers.
As a tribe, the Indians had themselves “gone into retiracy,”
away beyond the great father of waters; yet many
lingered in their favourite hunting-grounds and around the
graves of warriors and chieftains; and we often met them
in the lonely parts of the wilderness, seemingly dejected;
and now and then they came gliding like sad spectres into
Woodville. The town itself stood on the site of their own
wigwam village. Here they spent hour after hour, with
unerring arrows splitting apples and knocking off six-pences
some fifty or eighty yards distant; and once when
taunted for want of skill, on assurance of immunity,
they gratified and surprised us by sending two arrows
against the ball of the court-house steeple, full seventy
feet high, and with force enough to leave two holes in its
gilt sides—and these, the Doctor writes me, remain to this
day.
The grand building then was this very court-house. Its
order of architecture I never ascertained—it was, however,
most certainly a pile. The material was brick of a
fever-colour; the building being kept under and down by
the steeple just named, which topped off with its gilded
ball and spire, straddled the roof, determined to keep the
ascendency. The vane was an uncommonly wise one,
utterly refusing, like earthly weathercocks and demagogues,
to turn about by every wind; and yet when in the humour
it whirled about just as it pleased, and without any wind—
emblem of our hunters and woodsmen, who seemed to like
the vane for its very inconsistency and independence.
From the road or street a double door opened immediately
into the court-room. This was paved all over with brick,
to cool the bare feet in summer, and in winter to bear the
incessant stamping of feet shod with bull-skin boots armed
to the centre of the sole with enormous heels, and with
the sole and all fortified with rows of shingle nails:—four
such feet were equal to one rough-shod horse. The pave
side the door and within the room were stairs. These
were deflected from a perpendicular just enough to rest at
the top like a ladder to a new building in a city; so that
we climbed, ladder-like, to our second story, where several
rooms were found well finished and convenient for their
uses—the sole excellency in the structure.
West from this citadel of justice was the guardian of
liberty—the jail; the close vicinity of the two reminding
one forcibly of a doctor's shop adjoining a grave-yard.
This keep, in its construction, was in imitation of a conjuror's
series of box within box; for first was an exterior
brick house, and then within it another house of hewed
logs. No wall, however, surrounded the prison; hence,
from its only cell prisoners used, through a little grated
window open to the public square, to converse unrestrained
with their friends or attorneys. The consequence uniformly
was a very magical trick, the exact reverse of what
happened with the wizard boxes: for while the piece of
silver conjured from your fingers would most miraculously
be found in the very last of the indwelling series, the condemned
thief or murderer safely caged in our interior cell,
at the very moment the officers wished him to come and be
hung, or some such exaltation, lo! and behold! then and
there—the criminal was not! And at every renewal of this
curious trick, which was two or three times a year, we
were as much amazed as ever!
Getting out was still a little troublesome, more so at least
than not getting in; and so a rowdy school-master of the
Purchase, against whom were charges of assault and battery,
used this preventive. He had given bail for his appearance,
but the day before the trial the following was
inserted in our Woodville paper—the “Great Western
Republican Democrat:”—
“Melancholy.—The body corporate of Mr. Patrick Erin,
some brush below the log across Shelmire's Creek. It
is known he left town yesterday in a state of intoxicated
inebriety, and with a jug of the creature, so that as he
tried to cross in the great fresh he slipped off and was
drowned.”
Accounts, indictments, charges, and so on, were all
quashed—and then the day after Mr. Patrick Erin, that
was lately drowned, or somebody exactly like him, was
reeling about the court-yard, pretty well corned, to the
amazement of us all, judge, grand jury, and citizens. The
scamp had written the “Melancholy” for the paper himself,—and
for that time escaped all prosecutions.
Churches at the era of the Searching, if by a church be
meant according to certain syllogisms in school logic, “a
building of stone,” did not grace our capital. But if by
church we understand “a congregation,” then churches
were about as plenty as private houses. We numbered
five hundred citizens, and these all belonged to some one or
more of our Ten Religious Sects—hence almost every
house-keeper had a “meeting” of his own and in his own
dwelling. I fear we were in all things too superstitious,
and that some of us worshipped an unknown God. Indeed
most that was done at most of our meetings, was to
revile others and glorify ourselves. Judge, however, reader,
of the nature of our fanaticism by an instance or two
that occurred when I resided afterwards in Woodville.
I had a neighbour who conducted private prayer, not by
entering his closet and shutting the door, but by opening
his doors and windows, and praying so awfully loud, that
we could distinctly hear and see him too, from our house
distant from his a full half-furlong! But again, some extra
saints, wishing to worship on a high place, used to
resort to the top of the court-house steeple! A peculiar
grumble repeatedly heard thence several evenings in succession,
to clamber up to ascertain the cause—and there, sure
enough, were the steeple saints away up towards heaven,
at their devotions!—pity they ever came down to earth
again—they fell away from grace afterwards, and died, I
fear, and made no sign!
Household churches are sometimes very unfavourable
to devotion and elocution, especially if children belong to
the establishment. If such, indeed, are of the class
mammilla, they may be nursed into order: but no apples,
cookies, maple-sugar, little tin cups and hardware mugs of
milk or spring water, can keep quiescent those that are
independent of the milky way. True, they are at last captured,
after eluding a dozen hands, and laughing at nods,
frowns, and twisted faces, and are then hurried out, kicking
away at the air and knocking off a sun-bonnet or two
near the door-way—but then the “screamer!”—and this followed
by the clamour between the belligerents outside—she
administering a slapping dose of the wise man's prescription,
and it exclaiming, indignant and outrageous at the medicine!
In one house where we often went to meeting, the owner
annoyed in the week by customers leaving an inner door
open, posted up within the room and on that door the following,
and in large letters:
“If you please, shut the door, and if you don't please—
shut it any how!”
The preacher did not seem greatly disturbed at the first
glance—but alas!—my weak thoughts wandered away to
the apostolic churches somewhere, and fancied the surprise
of clergy and laity, if by any modern miracle,
this ingenious caution had, late on Saturday night, taken
the place of certain golden inscriptions!
The universal address on entering a house, after a premonitory
rap or kick at the door was—“Well! who keeps
house?” It was a kind of visiting appogiatura to smooth
we were listening devoutly to the preacher, when a neighbour
came, for the first time indeed, but by express invitation,
to our meeting; and after tying his horse, putting
the stirrups over the saddle and pulling down his tow-linen
trowsers, he advanced to the house and startled both minister
and people by administering a smart prefatory rap to
the door cheek, and drawling out in a slow, but very loud
tone, the usual formula—“W-e-ll—who—keeps—house?”
—when he squeezed in among us and took a seat as innocent
as a babe. Query for casuists—Is it always sinful to
laugh in meeting?
One more, dear reader, from our string of onions, and
we suspend at present the ecclesiastical history. A hostess
who had a church in her house, found her dinner often
delayed by the length of the services, and therefore insisted
that a friend of mine, who was the preacher, should shorten
the exercises, which occasioned the following colloquy:
“Sister Nancy, we must not starve our souls.”
“Well, I allow we'll starve our bodies then!”
“By no means, sister, is that necessary—”
“Well—how in creation is a body to have dinner if a
body aint time cook it?”
“Why, sister, as soon as you hear amen to the sermon
—clap on the pot!”
Sister Nancy ever after obeyed, and so the pork, cabbage,
and all that constitute a regular Sunday mess, were
bubbling away in the prophet's pot about the time the final
hymns, prayers, exhortations, and other appendices to the
regular worship were ended:—a beautiful verification of
the remark, that “some things can be done as well as
others,” and, as may be added, at the very same time too.
As to our private edifices, the description of one will aid
an ordinary imagination to picture the rest. And we select
being builded by special order.
This domicile was of burnt clay, rough as a nutmeg grater,
and of no decided brick shape or colour—each apparently
having being patted into form, and freckled in the drying.
It was a story and a fraction high, and fastened at one
end to a wing containing the shop. Here was kept “the
doctor-stuff,” and also the skeleton of Red Fire, and Indian
chief, about whom the reader may expect a story in due
time. Here too was the doctor's rifle and all his hunter's apparel:
for, once or twice a year, our “Medicine” put on his leather
breeches, his leggins, his moccasins, his hunting shirt,
and fur cap, and with that long and ponderous rifle on his
shoulder, shot-pouch and powder-horn at his hip, and tomahawk
and knife in the belt, off went he to the uninhabited
part of the wilds. There he continued alone for days and
even weeks—killing deer, and turkeys, and bears, &c., and
camping out; stoutly and conscientiously maintaining all
was for the good of his health, while it supplied him at a
small expense with fresh meat. My heart always warmed
towards this genuine and noble woodsman thus apparelled!
oh! the measureless gulf between this Man and the Thing
with curled hair, kid gloves, and anointed head!—the
curious, bipedalic civet-cat of the East. I plead guilty,
reader, to a spirit of Nimrod and Ramrodism—ay! again
could I at times, shutting my eyes to the bitter past; again
could I exchange my now solitary native land for the cabin
and the woods! Alas! the doctor's age would now forbid
our occasional hunts together—and Ned Stanley and
Domore —
“Go on with the doctor's house, Mr. Carlton.”
Well, on the first floor were two rooms, and connected
with a Lilliputian half-story kitchen forming an L—as
near as possible. Between house proper and kitchen was
the dining-room, a magnificent hall eight feet wide by six
feet long, with a door on each side opening into—vacancy;
a year with great spirit being never executed. Indeed, at
last, Mrs. Sylvan herself declared to Mr. Carlton, that
“there was no use in steps, any way, as the children were
mighty spry, and the grown folks had got used to it.”
And to tell the truth, the little bodies did climb up and down
like lamp-lighters; and I certainly never heard of more
than half a dozen accidents to grown folks, owing to those
stepless doors all the while of our sojourn in the Purchase.
Nor was the space for eating any inconvenience in a country
where families rarely all sat at the same time to the table,
but came to their feed in squads.
The two rooms named contained each several beds,
couches by night, and settees by day. Indeed, even when
the doctor's lady—(an accident that occurred maybe once
in two years)—was confined by a slight illness to her bed
in the day-time, citizens of all sexes on visits of friendship
or business, might be seen very gravely and decorously
seated on the side and foot of madame's bedstead, knitting
or talking—
“Oh! fye!”
Ladies, it was unavoidable; and not more surprising
than when French ladies admit exquisites of the worthier
gender to aid at their toilette. How much of the person
may be exposed in stage dancing and French toilettes, we
have never been well-bred enough to ascertain; but in Mrs.
Sylvan's levee nothing, I do know, could be discerned,
save the tip of the nose and the frill of the cap.
From the rooms doors apiece opened into the street;
and as these were very rarely ever shut, summer or winter,
the whole house may be said to have been out of doors.
In fact, as the chimneys were awfully given to smoking, it
was usually as comfortless within the rooms as without.
But in each of the small rooms a large space was cut off
in one corner for a staircase; each stairway leading to
being kept apart, as well as could be done, by laths
and plaster. Often wondering at this dissocial wall upstairs,
I once inquired of Mrs. Sylvan what it was for, who
answered,
“Oh! sir, I had it done on purpose—”
“On purpose!—it wasn't accidental, then?”
“Law! bless you, no!—it was to keep the boys and
girls apart.”
Now where, pray, had modesty in the far east ever built
for her two staircases and a plastered wall, and to the discomfort
of a whole family? Yet, vain care! The boys had
perforated the partition with peep-holes; but these were
kept plugged by the girls on their side with tow, so that
their own consent was necessary to the use of said apertures.
Still I was told the syringes from the shop were
often used on both sides the wall, to give illustrations and
lessons in hydraulics, little perhaps to edification, but very
much to the fun of both squirters and squirted: proof that
even among hoosiers and all other wild men, “love laughs
at locksmiths.”
South of Woodville, (distance according to the weather,)
and in the very edge of the forest, were, at this time, two
unfinished brick buildings, destined for the use of the future
University. As we passed to-day in our vehicle, the
smaller house was crammed with somebody's hay and
flax; while the larger was pouring forth a flock of sheep—
a very curious form for a college to issue its parchments—
which innoxious graduates paused a moment to stare, possibly
at a future trustee, and then away they bounded, a
torrent of wild wool, to the shelter of the woods.
The larger edifice was called Big College. Its site was
a beautiful eminence; but it was no more fit for a college
than any other moderately large two-story double house.
The other edifice was for the “master,” and called, very
thing, like those in Pewterplatter-alley, ranged
each side a gutter,—the whole fragrance and prospect!
We shall resume this subject, saying only now that a most
sumptuous area had been already marred by the ignorance
and paltry cupidity of planners and builders; and among
other irremediable evils, not a grove of forest trees had
been left standing in the campus.
Excellent lands adjacent to the college site had been given
by the Federal Government, for its foundation; the judicious
sale of which, and also of other fine lands elsewhere
seated, it was thought would create a fund of nearly
200,000 dollars: but, until that easy-natured and rather
soft-pated old gentleman, Uncle Sam, shall, at the time of
his gifts, prescribe plans and times of commencing colleges,
and make restrictions to obtain for some twenty-five or
thirty years after the opening of the institutions, and himself
appoint a portion of the trustees, (non-residents even
of the State,) for at least ten years after things are properly
organized, then must we naturally expect waste and
stupid and ridiculous applications and uses of the people's
money. May be, after all, sectarianism is not so bad for
colleges.
Hark!—the rattle of our carriage; so we must hastily
wind up with saying, that east of Woodville was a wilderness,
and uninhabited for forty miles; south, cabins were
sprinkled, on an average, one to the league; south-west,
the same; but north and north-west, settlements and
clearings were more abundant.
12. CHAPTER XII.
Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt.”
Our driver finding the roads worse than his expectation,
now contrary to the solemn league and covenant between
us, refused to proceed another step towards Glenville
without additional pay. While the controversy was tending
upward in pitch and intensity, (for a very liberal price
had been already paid,) Dr. Sylvan said,
“Come, driver, don't leave the strangers this way. I
consider the price Mr. Carlton has already paid you to be
very fair, and that you are bound to go on with him to
Glenville—but here—(action to word)—here I'll pay
you a dollar, rather than this lady should not see her
mother to-night.” Of course Mr. C. never allowed that
dollar to be paid—yet such was the generous spirit of the
man! Alas! that politics should ever have made him lost
to some friends! and for what? ay! for what?—the good
of the people! Ay! yes—and times come, when politicians
sacrifice first their friends and then cut their own
throats, for that ignis fatuns, and are laughed at!
It was noon, and the roads less bad, and sometimes almost
good, we were, for awhile, in hopes of seeing our
friends in a few hours. The day, too, was pleasant; and
on the dry ridges being free from great perils, we began to
enjoy the wildness of the primitive world. And what
grander than the column-like trees ascending, many
twenty, many thirty, and some even forty feet, with scarce
a branch to destroy the symmetry! Unable, from their
number, to send out lateral branches, like stalks of grain
they had all grown straight up, hastening, as in a race, each
to squirrels, far beyond the sprinkling of a shot-gun,
and almost beyond the reach of the rifle! The timber in
the Purchase was only trunk and top! Yet where a hurricane
had passed, and, by destroying a part, allowed room
for the others to grow, there plainly could be seen how
such could “toss giant branches”—branches in amplitude
and strength greater than the trunks, or rather slim bodies
of puny trees in modern groves and parks!
But here comes our first snake story. In answer to some
query about snakes, our landlord at Woodville had replied
that “there was a smart sprinkle of rattlesnake on Red
Run, and that it was a powerful nice day to sun themselves.”
We were now drawing near to the dragon district,
and began to experience that vibratory sensation
belonging to snake terror, when lo! a crackling and rustling
of leaves and sticks on our left—and there, sure enough,
was a living snake! It was not, indeed, a rattlesnake, but
a very fierce, large, and partly erect, black one, with a skin
as shiney as if just polished with patent blacking, a mouth
wide open and astonishingly active tongue! Several feet
of head and neck were visible, but how many of body and
tail were concealed can never be told except by Algebra;
for when with curiosity still stronger than fear, the driver
and myself got out for a nearer inspection, not only did her
ladyship increase her vengeful hissing but she was joined
in that unpleasent music by some half dozen concealed performers;
and then our new and yet long acquaintance,
instead of vanishing, as had been supposed on our nearer
approach, darted head foremost at us, and believe me reader,
in the true western style, like “greased lightning.”
Had a boa made that attack, our retreat could not have
been more abrupt and speedy—we pitched and tumbled into
our wagon—and on looking round, our queen snake was
leisurely retiring, attended by more of her subjects than we
infant black snakes; for the protection of which we
then conjectured the dam(?) snake had endeavoured to intimidate
us—in which attempt she had very reasonable
success.
Every noise now by bird or squirrel seemed serpentish;
and every perfume of wild flower or blossom, was like cucumbers,
the odour of which resembles the fragrance of a
rattlesnake; and every crooked dark stick in the leaves or
twisting vines was a formidable reptile. At length, however,
we had exhausted our snake stories, conquered our
apprehensions, and gliding into other topics, had reached a
point in the forest where was to be sought the path leading
off to Glenville.
Reader, do not, when we speak of roads and paths, figure
a lane between fences; such trammel on the liberty of
travellers, and the freedom of cattle would be intolerable.
No, a road authorised by law is achieved by levelling the
trees between given points, and thus making an avenue in
the woods from twenty to thirty feet wide: the small
stumps being often removed, but all a size larger left, only
(theoretically) dressed down so as to permit wagons to pass
over without striking the axle—if they can. This delicate
performance of wagons is called—straddling, and is done
by rough ones without fear; other vehicles utterly refuse
to straddle. As to saplings, such are cut off by one or
more oblique blows, some six or eight inches from the
ground, the remaining stumps thus conveniently sharpened,
and thre tening to impale whoever may be pitched on to
them from horse or carriage.
On one side usually, some times on both, of large stumps
was a hole from one to two feet deep. Where the stumps
followed in a serrated series, the wheels, but only of
straddling wagons, performed the most exhilarating see-saw,
with the most astonishing alternations of plunge,
fill a circle completely of half a mile radius! Indeed,
nothing so enlivened the wilderness! When vehicles
refused to straddle, driving became a work of the most
laborious skill in the perpetual windings among holes
and stumps that was then necessary; or when that was
too perilous, it became a matter of taste and fancy to choose
among the dozen extemporaneous roads inviting from the
right and left. Hercules himself would have been puzzled
to select sometimes, where all offered equal inducements,
or equal hindrances. These auxiliary ways have themselves
other helps, and these even other subsidiaries, so
that a person not a woodsman, after an agreeable ride of
some hours discovers often that a very long lane has no turn,
but a very unexpected end, and leads exactly—no where.
We, of course were chock full of instructions and with
all our windings and turnings still kept our eye steadily on
the—blazes. The blaze is a longitudinal cut on trees at
convenient intervals made by cutting off the bark with
an axe or hatchet: three blazes in a perpendicular line on
the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze,
a settlement or neighbourhood road. Hence, if desirous to
escape smoky blazes, we willingly kept on through this
sort; although unlike the smoky blazes, this sort is of use
only in the day time.
Well,—(to come back)—we began to look through the
legal blazes to espy a corner tree cut and notched in a peculiar
way, at which turning off, we should discover a
single blaze leading to Glenville—when—could it be possible!—up
that very tree was coiling an enormous and
frightful serpent!
“Obstupuri! steteruntque comæ! et vox faucibus hæsit!”
—in spite of which all of us spoke out, and Mrs. Carlton
really screamed. Of course we halted; and it being seen
that cutting across was prevented by a ravine, it was at last
concluded that Mr. C. be a committee to reconnoitre, while
snakes equal to covering up in bed or shutting one's eyes in
danger. Accordingly, on went capital I with a slow and
cautious step, an eye to the rear as well as to the fore, and
flourishing in my hands a very long pole to intimidate his
snakeship before it came to blows, or running away on one or
both sides—but the scaly rascal budged neither head nor
tail, and yet seemed to swell larger and larger, as we, i. e.
I and the pole advanced—till, strange! now his very form
was changing yet remaining—when all at once inspired
with a seeming phrenzy, I threw away my pole and dashing
headlong on the serpent I seized him by the tail—
“Oh!—Mr. Carlton!”—
Precisely as my own wife cried out at first; but as I
maintained the hold and the enormous reptile still remained
inflexibly bent around the tree, on came at last our friends,
wagon and all; and soon all capable of laughing, were joined
in the merriment on finding our frightful enemy subsiding
into the mere form of a snake very ingeniously
wrought with a hatchet into the corner tree and blackened
with charcoal! That indeed was “notching in a peculiar
way,” as Dr. Sylvan had said; and true enough as he said
also, “we should be sure enough to see it.”
I may as well add here that some years after as I rode
in company with a lady near this very spot, and I had just
ended the story for her entertainment, we both were no
little startled to see a veritable serpent enacting that same
part on a different tree indeed, and propriâ personâ—i. e. in
his own skin. How he could adhere almost perpendicularly
to the smooth bark of a large beech I know not—yet
there and thus the reptile was about eight feet from the
ground and ten below any branch! On passing I administered
him a smart switch on the tail with my riding whip:
a compliment he returned by detaching his head from the
bark, and fiercely hissing forth his acknowledgments. Our
of men: and yet we play in civilized places with very
sleek and cunning snakes—ay, that hiss and bite too!
The Glenville road was a mere path marked by a single
blaze, which we very pertinaciously followed although it
lighted us along a very circuitous route. In theory, the
shortest line between two points is the straight line; it is
not so in practice out there: at least it is not prudent to be
so mathematically correct in the neighbourhood paths of a
New Purchase. More than once especially when going by
the moss and the sun, and even with experienced woodsmen,
the mathematical travelling has occasioned our being
lost for hours, sometimes for days. Hence our backwoods
axiom—“the longest is the shortest.”
Notice here, a neighbourhood road does not imply necessarily
much proximity of neighbours. I have travelled all
day long upon a neighbourhood or settlement road and seen
neither neighbours nor neighbours' cabins. Such road
leads sometimes not to a settlement in actû—(i. e. under
the axe)—but to a settlement in posse—(i. e. among the
possums)—viz. a paper settlement—a speculator's settlement.
And even along an inhabited path, “neighbour” in the
Purchase was to be interpreted scripturally, and I rejoice
to say, was extended to comprise the Samaritans. Indeed,
out there, we were very kind to neighbours—whenever
we could find them: circumstances there created a
kindness and a hospitality wholly unknown in here.
And now we reached the two story log house at the entrance
of the bottom of “Big Shiney,” and where was to
be encountered “the most powerful slashy land.” That
the said slashy land was no better than it should be, may be
inferred from the fact, that it occupied us from half past
three P. M. until seven o'clock precisely in the evening to
do three miles—a speed less considerably than that of
birds and even than that of steam cars.
The river was still swollen and turbulent from recent
from its overflowings. And now a glorious sunset was
there, far away in the grand solitudes, where century after
century the god of day had gone down while his last beams
were pouring the rich mellow haze of evening over the
distant homes of the East! Gay birds were warbling
farewell songs with distinct and thrilling articulation, while
some darting from bank to bank seemed rays of sunlight
winged and glancing over the waters—such was their plumage!
And squirrels without fear raced and sported on
hoary and patriarchal trees so inclined towards the river,
that from opposite banks they united their umbrageous tops
in green and flowery arches above its bosom! It did seem
as if for once we had surprised nature's self in her wild,
unpruned, rich, varied, luxurious negligence; and were beholding
the sun, not coming from his chamber a strong man
rejoicing to run a race, but a glorious bridegroom retiring
to the bridal chamber of his spouse!
On the far bank was a small wigwam hut, and below in
the water was tied a clumsy scow; but who was to ferry
us over was not instantly apparent, our shoutings simple
and compound being answered only by Echo, senior and
junior. At last rose in answer the voice of an invisible
wood-nymph, and that was followed shortly by the appearance
among the bushes of the hamadryad in the shape of
an athletic woman with a red head; who girding up her
loins—(anglicè, pinning up her petticoat)—stepped barefooted
and bareheaded into the boat, her little boy at the
moment casting loose the grape vine rope—its fastening.
She then poled, or “set up stream” about 100 yards, and afterwards,
by a large oar on a pivot at an end of the scow, she
kept the boat nearly at right angles with the banks until the
current brought the ferrywoman as diagonally correct to
where we stool, as if all had been in a fashionable school
on a black board.
Alas! all this was nearly as unromantic as mathematics
the lake or any other lady made to paddle a skiff in poetry
or painting. She worked a scow to admiration, better truly
than the most poetic creature could have done—but then an
ugly shapeless clumsy scow! and a hearty, red-headed
woman in bare legs and Elssler petticoats!—what had such
to do with the sunset and the birds? Poetry, therefore,
being sufficiently cooled down, we embarked; and while
the good hearted, and honest woman insisted she needed
no aid, both Mr. C. and the driver helped to navigate her
boat. It seemed, then, our ferrywoman had never heard
our shouts, telling us we had not “larn'd to holler;” and
that having accidentally caught sight of our wagon, she
“know'd we wanted over and so had hollored naterally.”
And the way she could lift up the voice made crag and
cliff and forest far and wide speak with a dozen tongues!
Ay, reader, and we ourselves finallylearned to sing out
“O-o-o-o-ver!” till the rebellowing of the woods brought
the ferry person to the scow, even if at work in the clearing
hundreds of yards behind his cabin. This wondrous
art cannot be taught on paper; nor by question and answer,
like other equally valuable matters now a days: but buy this
book, and then we will add when you visit us, this important
lesson in Wildwood Elocution, gratis.
But happy we! the ferrywoman could tell us all about
the Glenville settlement! and then, unhappy we!—in her
directions, which were sufficiently ample, she, like many
other instructors, took for granted that we knew well the
elements and data of which we were profoundly ignorant:
—said she, “Well I allow you can't scarcely miss the
path to the tan house—little Jim here's bin thare many a
time—and 'cos the nabers go thare all round the settlemints
Howsoever keep rite strate along the bottim till
you come to the bio—(bayou)—then sort a turn to the left,
but not quite—'cos the path goes to the rite like—but you
clerein, till you come to the Ingin grave—and after that the
path's a sort a blind—but then it ain't more nor a mile to
ole man Sturgisses, and he lives rite fornence the tan house
over the run.”
Of course, reader, the above and most other directions
and speeches in this book like the above, are the filtered
condensation of our own translation: the full vernacular
you could not understand and perhaps might not relish.
But interrogation only rendered our labyrinthical direction
more implicated; and so, not wishing to seem less sagacious
than little Jim, off we splashed for the bayou, and
here we succeeded so well in “a sort-er turn to the left but
not quite,” that we soon lost sight of all roads, paths, and
blazes; and then we, hearing the sound of an axe still more
to the left, travelled that direction by ear, through a wonderous
wilderness of spice-wood, papaw, and twenty unknown
bushes, briers, and weeds, till we fell suddenly into
a clearing, supposed to be our neighbour's, Sam Little's.
Happily it proved to be Squire Brushwood's. For Sam
Little's, it seems, was nothing save a clearing destitute of
any cabin; while Brushwood's was adorned with a double
cabin and all sorts of out-houses: and but for the lucky
loss of our blaze, we should here be recording a night in
the woods, to us then as deplorable as the prophet's
lodging, thus poetically lamented in some ancient version:
Without fire or candle!
And nothing had he all the time
But cold fish g—ts to handle!”
corn-bread and bacon than we could devour. And instead
of being alone, our wife had, in addition to us and the
driver, a guard in her bed-room, or rather around her very
sons, and a journeyman chopper, whose axe had invited
and guided us to the clearing; add women and girls too
numerous to mention—so that Mrs. Carlton never felt the
least lonesome the livelong night.
How getting to bed was managed could not be told, as
Mrs. C. made an extemporary screen by hanging something—“what”—oh!
a utility on a rope or grape vine
stretched near our quarters: only no one went out to see
about the weather, and from first to last a very animated
talk went on in voices of opposite genders, and even amid
the creaking of ricketty bedsteads and after the dying of the
fire light. Great adroitness is acquired by women-bodies
especially in going to repose amidst company. For instance,
we were at Major Billy Westland's, in Woodville,
once in company with several male magnates, when the
major's lady withdrew from our circle at the fire, as for
some domestic duty; but on my accidentally looking around,
three minutes after, lo! there was a night-cap peering
above the “kiver-lid,” and Mrs. Major Billy Westland's
head in it!
Men-folks oversleeping themselves often find, on opening
their eyes, the girls fixing the table for breakfast;
and then they contrive to put on their indispensables under
the cover and in bed. Hence, on one memorable occasion,
when we were at a wedding, our groom having overslept
the early morn, made this covert arrangement with his
inexpressibles, and then most courageously thrust out
among us his invested limbs. But woful ingenuity!—just
then was entering at the opposite door, our groom's brother,
a gawkey young gentleman, with a green gosling
countenance, who seeing first the pantalooned limbs, suddenly
exclaimed in utter amazement at such conduct:—
“Hey! if our Jess did'nt sleep in his breeches!”
Reader!—good night! we are sleepy.
| The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |