University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

Thrifty housewives in cutting little boys' roundabouts
and trowsers always contrive out of a scant pattern of pepper
and salt stuff, to leave enough for patches; but for the
Glenvillians it remained to subdivide two hundred and eighty
nine square feet of internal cabin into all the apartments of
a commodious mansion. Hence ours became the model
cabin in the Purchase.

And first, the puncheoned area was separated into two
grand parts, by an honest Scotch carpet hung over a stout
pole that ran across with ends rested on the opposite wall
plates; the woollen portion having two-thirds of the space
on one side and the remaining third on the other.

Secondly, the larger space was then itself subdivided by
other carpets and buffalo robes into chambers, each containing
one bed and twelve nominal inches to fix and unfix in;
while trunks, boxes and the like plunder were stationed under
the bed. Articles intended by nature to be hung, frocks,

hats, coats, &c., were pendent from hooks and pegs of
wood inserted into the wall. To move or turn round in such
a chamber without mischief done or got was difficult; and
yet we came at last to the skill of a conjuror that can dance
blindfolded among eggs—we could in the day without
light and at night in double darkness, get along and
without displacing, knocking down, kicking over, or tearing!

The chambers were, one for Uncle John and his nephew;
one for the widow ladies and Miss Emily, who,
being the pet, nestled at night in a trundle bed, partly under
the large one; and one very small room for the help,
which was separated from the Mistress' chamber by pendulous
petticoats. Our apprentices slept in an out-house.
These chambers were all south of the grand hall of eighteen
inches wide between the suites; on the north, being
first our room and next it the stranger's—a room into which
at a pinch were several times packed three bodies of divinity
or clerical dignitaries. Beyond the hospitality chamber
was the toilette room, fitted with glasses, combs, hair-brushes,
&c., and after our arrival, furnished with the first glass
window in all that part of the Purchase. The window was
of domestic manufacture, being one fixed sash containing
four panes, each eight by ten's, by whose light in warm
weather we could not only fix but also read in retirement.

Thirdly, the smaller space, east of the Scotch wall, was
subdivided, but like zones and tropics, with mere imaginary
lines. Front of the fire-place was the parlour. Into it were
ushered visitors, mainly, however, to prevent curiosity or
awkwardness from meddling with the corners and their
uses; but against which we were forced finally to place a
table or two as preventives.

The right hand corner was the ladies' private sitting
room. It was fitted with clap-board shelves, and on these

were arranged work-bags, boxes, baskets, paint-boxes, machinery
for sewing, knitting, &c. The left side and whole
corner was the library, or as usually styled—Carlton's
study.

Our artificial rooms were indeed connected with some
anomalies: for instance, under the parlour, was the Potato
Hole! And that held about twenty bushels. The descent
into this spacious vault, was accomplished by raising a puncheon
and vaulting down on the vegetables; the ascent, by
resting the hands on the edges of the parlour floor and
weighing the body up. Again, Carlton's study had in it a
species of dresser-closet, invented and constructed by the
author himself. It was constructed of clap-boards dressed
with a hatchet, and held on some shelves, books in several
languages, writings, plates, knives, fiddle, pepper-box, flute,
mustard-box, and box of rosin, and so on; while some modest
and light cooking utensils were lodged in the basement
story shelves. To conceal the structure was hung
over as much of its front as could be covered, an invalid
table cloth, very white and very patched.

The kitchen proper had, about ten yards from the mansion
house, a whole cabin to itself. Here were all the vulgar
pots, kettles, frying-pans, homminy-block, and the like;
here the common cooking, the washing and ironing, and
weaving, and—oh! ever so many—common and uncommon—common
things besides. Pickling, preserving, cake-baking,
clear-starching, sugar-refining, ruffle-ironing, candy-making,
and all such polite affairs were commonly honoured
with attention in the parlour.

Like most grandee people brought low and “flitting” to
the West, our plunder was, like the Vicar's Family Picture,
too large for the house. We had also no small quantum of
envy and jealousy exciting articles, “the like of which
had never been seen growing among corn,” at least in the
Purchase—and such, policy required should be hid. Many

things, therefore, were left packed and deposited in lefts
and outhouses. Still some impolitic articles were unpacked,
being, however, kept concealed behind the curtain—like
sacred mysteries from the eyes and hands of the profane.
But an accident soon after our arrival delivered the colony
from part of these.

A large, antique, and elegantly japanned waiter had been
nicely balanced on a shelf in the toilette chamber; and on
this grand affair were tastefully set numerous anti-tee-total
glasses, jelly glasses, remains of a gilded French china tea
set, and ever so many Reliquiæ Danaum—all regarded, I
fear, with half repressed elation, as shining remembrancers
of departed glory and greatness. Anyhow, more than once
on my sudden appearance behind the woolly rampart,
there was Mrs. C., ay, and even Aunt Kitty herself, a
handling, and a dusting, and a refixing the relies, as devout
as if all had been saints' bones—often with smiles of complacency—but
sometimes with tears! And, after all, perhaps,
that was not so very unreasonable:—friends far away
now—yes some no more on earth—dear friends had once
surrounded that very waiter—sipped tea from those very
cups—and in the fashion of bygone days, had drunk healths
from those glasses. Reader! may be you have shed secret
tears yourself over such things? We think of friends then,
do we not? Mournful shadows of the past are in the vision!
But the Genius of the Woods was incensed: and
mark the consequences.

One day Mrs. Seymour entered the parlour with a cake of
sugar-tree sugar in her hands, and nearly as large and heavy
as she could conveniently carry. After our unanimous
admiration of its size, and breaking off lumps to taste, the
dear old lady disappeared to deposit the saccharine treasure
on the great store shelf constructed immediately over the
waiter of idols. Now oak pins are very strong, tough and
tenacious, and of most Job-like endurance—but the creatures

will not bear every thing; hence the two enormous
pins under the store shelf had repeatedly sighed forth remonstrances,
as extra pound after pound of hard soap, sugar,
tallow, and jugs of vinegar and molasses, and what
nots, were cruelly and inconsiderately added to the already
almost insupportable weight. But to-day, when that hugeous
lump of sugar was suddenly added to the grievance,
the indignant pins would stick to it no longer: in a moment—without
one further premonitory creak, off they both
snapped simultaneously—and down came the soap and sugar
and tallow—down came the store tea and the true coffee-coffee,
and the rye-coffee, and the ocra, and the spices
in brown paper bags, and the pepper, red and black in exiled
tea cups! Ah! yes! alas! alas! and down came that
japanned waiter and its gilded cups, and conical glasses
for wine, and bell-mouthed ones for ices and jellies! and,
moreover, down went the dear old lady of the crimped cap,
all rolling, heaped, mixed higgledee-piggledee, into one
bushel and a peck of yellow corn meal reposing in a wash
tub, and thirty-one and a half pounds of wheat flour in a
half-bushel measure, below! So much can a big lump of
unclarified backwoods sugar do! Ah! had it been double
rectified loaf, in blue paper, of a conical form and neatly
bound with hard twisted twines, dividing off circles and parabolas!
But a lump of uncivilized sweetness just turned
out of a pot!

Mrs. Seymour, however, was soon extricated amid the almost
endless oh's—ah's—who-could-have-thought-it's—and
similar exclamations, queries, reproaches and extenuations,
pertaining to accidents created by ourselves; and happily
she had sustained no injury whatever, although the outer
woman was considerably well sugared, well mealed, well
vinegared, and not a little soaped! But the glory of the
brittle ware shone only in pieces—multiplied but not increased!
Not an idol escaped, save a little punch goblet

belonging to the Carlton ancestory, and at the time considerably
more than a century old! and whether the sagacity
of age was the cause or not, this ancient relic contrived
to roll by itself into an untouched part of the meal
tub, where after the pell-mell ended, it was discovered,
whole and sound. If any one is incredulous we will show
him when he calls, the venerable article yet preserved in
cotton!

About the time of the accident just told, the venerable old
pier glass, suspended opposite the only door of the cabin
was threatened with a very great danger. A neighbour
having ended a morning call, that, according to the etiquette
of the Purchase, had lasted from a short time after
breakfast till past noon, rose to depart with the farewell
formula, “Well, I allow I must be a sort a-goin,” and then
off he started with great activity in the direction of the door
visible but not real. In other words mistaking the open
door reflected in the glass for the true door, he began kicking
his heavy shod feet towards the mirror; but as he
ducked his head to clear the lintel of the scant door,
he naturally encountered a rough looking personage
seemingly butting against himself from the apparent door—
when round he wheeled, confused indeed, but just in time,
(and before we could have arrested him) to avoid stepping
into the very bosom of the old reflector.

Such risk was too great for the glass to encounter
again, and so it was carefully re-packed and put away 'till
we removed some years after to Woodville; where, as it
could be placed so as to imitate neither door nor window,
it was brought again into the light and permitted to renew
its reflections. Alas! then, however, a dear face that had
been familiar to the old mirror for nearly three-fourths of a
century, was seen pictured there no more! Young and joyous,
and pleasant faces, have often since peeped from its bosom;
but never one so mild, so resigned, so radiant even

on earth with beams from the heavenly world, as that venerable
and venerated countenance gazing now and with
out a medium upon the resplendent and ravishing scenes!

Pulvis et umbra sumus!