University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

From the time or our arrival in and at Glenville, (it being
both a big and a little place,) we commenced forming acquaintance
with our neighbours. And this business was
promoted by the many “little and big meetings” held by
Mr. Hilsbury in all directions, over and above the regular
monthly ones in Glenville, and on three successive Sabbaths
in old man Welden's settlement—for every body, man,

woman and child, was found at meeting. Nor does it interfere
with attendance, if it be rainy or shiney, or mighty
cloudy, or powerful skyey; but in all weathers and seasons,
and from all quarters of the woods, along roads, traces,
paths, or short cuts, come horses to the preaching; some
with single riders of any sex, bursting, at a gallop, into
view, through underwood thickets of spicewood and papaw,
or clearing log after log, in a kind of hop, skip and jump
gait. Many horses indeed have two riders, a mode of
horsmanship called in the Purchase “riding twice.” And
some horses come with folks riding even twice and a half,
or may be thrice: for instance, with a man and his wife,
the latter holding in her lap a two year old child, although
the child is very often carried by the father; or with three
girls; or with one beau, having two sun-bonnetted damsels
behind. Dick always figured on such occasions with a
cargo on his back that doubtless made a lively impression on
his feelings of past times, and of the loads he had in his earlier
days seen crammed into a Conestogo wagon: and never,
in fact, did he look so like a family horse as on Sundays,
when he usually carried so much of our family on his back.

In fording swollen waters, if the water came up no higher
than the saddle skirts, and if depending articles (legs and
so on) could be crooked up or neatly packed on the mane,
in plunged all, whether riding once, twice, or morefold:
nay, it was contended that the more riders the better; the
heavier weight preventing the horse from being floated or
losing his foothold in a strong current. But if it was certain
that the creek was “swimming high,” then the riders
crossed on a log, the horse swimming by its side and the
bridle being held by the rider. Afterwards the furniture
(saddle and so on) was transported over the natural bridge.

Arrived at meeting “the critters” (alias the horses, or
“hoss beasts”) are hung to a swinging branch of some tree;
for such, yielding to the inquietude of the horses, prevents

the snapping of reins, and yet affords ample space for the
curvilinear play of the hind quarters. Nor are the horses
at all backward in using their ecclesiastical privileges; especially
if we are favoured with “a powerful smart preacher,”
that is, a fellow with a very glib tongue, who preaches
by inspiration, and has the wonderful power of saying nothing,
or something worse, over and over again, for hours.
Then the hung animals, impatient maybe, begin and carry
on extra dancings, rump-rangings, branch-shakings, and
other exercises. They champ bits!—snap their teeth at
neighbouring horses!—kick, as quadrupeds should, in
quadruple time!—and stamp, squeak, and squeal! In fact,
they make as much noise and behave as foolishly as if they
held a fanatical meeting themselves!

Often too, among the horses, are a few knowing old
codgers, (and Dick, I am sorry to say, cultivated their acquaintance,)
who have slipped their own bridles, and are
now misspending the time in eating off the bridle reins of
quiet animals, or in kicking and biting, with most provoking
sang-froid, fastened horses, already furious and indignant.
Most horses when liberated usually start home at full speed,
inconsiderately leaving folks that rode once or twice to
meeting, to walk away in single or double file, or to get a
lift from a neighbour. Dick, however, never ran home:
he preferred, like luke-warm Christians, Sunday visiting;
and so went to see his neighbours in settlements directly
opposite the way to Glenville. Yet I must say he never
made the least objection to be caught and bridled again—
provided you could find him.

Let none understand me to say that religious meetings in
the wooden world are not by very many attended from serious
and devout motives: yet there, as elsewhere, many
attend such meetings from secular motives, and some from
very improper ones. Numbers go to see their neighbours

or to hear the news, and not a few to electioneer. A very
frequent cause is to “advertise strays.”

Dignity is given to our pulpit gazetteering by confining
the business to the clergy; but in the Purchase, lay members,
and even “a worldling” give out notices: and that,
not by reading the advertisement in the reverential manner
of the civilized churches, but extemporaneously and orally.
Sometimes the affair assumes the form of the question implied,
as thus:—

“Neighbour Bushwhack, livin down the lower end of
Sugar Holler, would like to hear if any body in this here
settlement has heern or seed a stray critter of hissin, as his
hoss-beast, a three year old black geldin, come next spring,
with a switch tail, but a kind a eat off by his other colt,
slipt his bridle on Hick'ry Ridge last big meetin, and he aint
heern or seen nothin of him sense.”

To which indirect query one or more neighbours rising
up will answer in this style;—

“Well, I allow the critter didn't come over here, as he'd
been heern on or seed by some of us—but if any body hears
or sees sich a stray, we'll put him up, and let neighbour
Bushwhack know of it.”

Perhaps a notice thus given and answered in a city church
would do as much to discountenance Sabbath advertising,
as the rebukes of the religious press. Try it.

A big meeting is often held in the woods in our delicious
autumns. And nothing is more welcome to our young people
hard at work till then, and needing a holiday, than such
a gathering. Then is the grand sparking time, and young
men go expressly as they say, to find “a most powerful
heap of gals!” Nor is this curious heap of sun-bonnets
and calico frocks adverse to a little extra attention; and
hence, compound parties steal away at intervals to the
springs, where they contrive accidentally to have a little

meeting of their own, whose merry and loud notes return
as strange echoes to the voice of psalmody and prayer.

A small meeting extra, is often held at night in a friend's
cabin. Then it sometimes happens, by reason of a storm
or very long sermon, or both, that the folks conclude to stay
all night; and then if the author's memory is faithful, we
used to see what was called “a leetle fun.” Nothing immoral
or gross ever takes place; but certainly we had something
more lively than praying and singing.

It was, therefore, with some surprise we used to read
reports from new missionaries, in which “the large numbers
that came in all weathers and from great distances to attend
protracted meetings, and who seemed unable to tear themselves
away from the exercises, &c. &c,” was considered
as conclusive evidence that we New Purchase people had
uncommon anxieties to hear the truth. Now, the result of
all our experience, and we had a pretty rich one, is and
was—that unregenerate hearts are pretty much out there
as in here—that men born of log cabins and stick chimneys,
and men born of silks and broadcloths, are all equally “born
of the flesh” and “are flesh.” Maybe the German population
about central Pennsylvania are exceptions, as a certain
learned young Doctor of Divinity seems to think; but
then, they are the sole exceptions.

The occasion offers to say a few words about the missionaries
themselves. But while we profess to be very good-natured
and social, we are not, reader, so charitable as to
extend our term beyond pretty well educated, talented and
evangelical missionaries. We made Glenville head-quarters
for missionaries and we ever found uneducated preachers
and even small talented gentlemen, an inconvenience
and an evil more than a blessing; and as to the unevangelical
sort, learned or unlearned, they were a nuisance and
a pest.

As a body, then, the true missionaries in the New Purchase

were very excellent men; eminent in self-denial, in
ardent zeal, in endless labours, in disinterestedness. They
were considered Domestic Missionaries; but they endured
as much as their brethren in the foreign field, and that
without the incidental excitement and support derived from
the eclat of a mission: especially when the wood's preacher
comes to depend for his entire sustenance on two or more
weak settlements, the aid of the missionary society being
declined or withdrawn. For a year or two an approximate
salary may be paid, a few shillings in cash and the balance
in “trade.” Still, educated men need a few other articles
beyond pork, corn, tow-linen, leather, &c.—a few books for
instance. And they are forced to go a few journeys; wish
to educate their children; pay doctor's fees, and the like.
Nor is it, maybe, an unpardonable sin to aspire after furniture
one degree above rough cabin apparatus. Hence the
missionary must have a little hard cash; and hard enough for
them, poor fellows, it is by the time they handle it.

The outposts, therefore, must be either wholly abandoned
to profoundly ignorant, vain, empty, conceited, self-confident,
and snarling fanatical preachers; or proper preachers must
do some things that are secular. And if the New Purchases
are abandoned, then must they be cursed out there with
inspired clergy, such we have heard thus reciting their apostolic
creed:—

“Yes, bless the Lord, I are a poor, humble man—and I
doesn't know a single letter in the A B C's, and couldn't
read a chapter in the Bible no how you could fix it, bless
the Lord!—I jist preach like old Peter and Poll, by the
Sperit. Yes, we don't ax pay in cash nor trade nither for
the Gospel, and arn't no hirelins like them high-flow'd college-larned
sheepskins—but as the Lord freely give us, we
freely give our fellow critturs.”

Hence a few of the true preachers betake themselves to
teaching as the least uncanonical avocation. And all would

gladly do this, if scholars were plenty enough; and, if after
all the extra labour in teaching, pay came not also in the
shape of fat-flitch, cord-wood, eggs, and butter. Most true
preachers and pastors are, therefore, compelled to enter some
land; and then after long and arduous toils they contrive
to barter some produce at the settlement store for sugar, tea,
coffee and paper. But to jingle a few silver dollars, the
parson must sell a cow, or calf, or even a horse!

The proverb, “half a loaf better than no bread,” applies
here; for if proper ministers out West do not, in very many
places, in a great measure maintain themselves, settlements
now half-served by those noble men would not and could
not be served at all. True, the folks out there might have
husks from fanatical fellows; but Christ's sheep ought to
have pastors and proper food—they are not hogs to be fed
by the Devil's swine-herds.

Very nice and classic essays used to find their way sometimes
to Glenville, which were full of very proper rhetorical
words against secular clergy, and commanding them to reform
and give themselves wholly to the work of God and the
ministry; essays no doubt well intended, but written, we
apprehend, by inexperienced young gentlemen, just married,
and seated in the parsonage in the midst of a well furnished
library. Sometimes, too, such essays were penned
by learned gentlemen, with sons and daughters at good boarding
schools; and the writers, maybe, received so much
hard silver per page, especially if a prize essay; and our
far east censors not only had the pleasure of pelting our
poor frogs, but found it profitable too. In such essays the
Proton Pseudos was, “all pastors and preachers must give
up secular employments—their schools—their farms—their
merchandise—their trades—and imitate the Apostles, &c.”
In extraordinary times men are sustained by the providence
of God in extraordinary ways, and purse, scrip, and books
in the Apostles' time were not needed; and few then had

the care and expense of a family, except Pope Peter!—and
he, unlike some Unholinesses, was wicked enough to prefer
a Wife to a Harlot!

And even in those days Paul, whilst aiding to erect a
spiritual tabernacle, supported himself at secular tent-making!
It is not improbable that Luke, the beloved and
benevolent physician, prescribed and took fees in emergencies.
May, then, modern ministers in no cases do secular
things, without being subjected to unkind suspicions, and
not rarely denounced as merchants, farmers, speculators,
and even jockies? Nay, many thus stigmatized are among
the best of men; and that, however warned by hasty young
clerks and clergy to look out for the doom of unfaithful
stewards! and bid to expect, after a life of toil for the gospel
and after bestowing the spiritual without reaping the
carnal, bid to look out for banishment into the outer darkness!!
Ah! ye hasty censors! God will never forget labours
of love in that far West or elsewhere; even if a
preacher, to put bread into the mouths, and garments on the
bodies of his family, do work secularly with his own hands!

It is even granted by hasty writers, too, that the penuriousness
and dishonesty of congregations may drive the
minister to secular labour; and that surely is ample and
sufficient apology, one would think, for the minister's irreverent
conduct. Why then this perpetual cannonade against
the Clergy? Does it never occur, that the niggardly Mr.
Miser, the close-fisted Mr. Grip, the narrow-minded Miss
Snarl, and the dishonest Mr. and Mrs. Finepromise, may,
at the grand assize, have to appear as defendants and show
cause why the preacher was driven to be secular? Strange!
passing strange, if a hunted, defrauded, broken-spirited
man, who, because he wishes yet to preach, maintains himself,
should, in addition to all his sufferings, be decried and
rebuked as faithless and money-loving!—as needing reform!—as
passing to a severe doom and vengeance in the

life to come! Oh! you that in one sense, at least, are “at
ease in Zion,” and have, therefore, so much time to buffet,
go, visit a New Purchase!—and then write—

“Mr. Carlton!!—keep cool.”

Well then, I will go on to say that meetings in the Purchase
were not always dry affairs. Once, this very autumn,
a two days' meeting was to come off on Saturday and Sunday
in the Welden settlement. At the close of the first
day, while Glenville and Carlton were “settin the toone for
them,” a heavy shower began suddenly to fall; and as we
clerks could not get out to secure our saddles they became
well soaked. Many, indeed, hurried out to secure their
own accoutrements and those of the “wimmin folks's,” but
they forgot the clerks' and the rector's: hence after service
we found seats cool and refreshing as a wet sponge. We
had been invited to spend the night at a chieftain's[4] in the
settlement: and as we were without umbrellas or cloaks,
and the rain kept mizzling away, we had a very agreeable
ride of it, receiving too, from overhanging branches and
thick bushes frequent “baby-sprinklings” until the whole
amounted to “believer's baptism”—a thorough immersion.

However, we were neither salt nor sugar. On we splattered
and splashed, laughing and talking, while our saddle-seats
added to the noise very hearty and peculiar notes or
sounds, which may be called—soggings; and we comforted
one another with mutual promises of a dry house and a
drying fire. But—ah! me!—our dear good landlady, and
expressly to honour her guests, had determined to have
“things fixed!”—and a wet fix it was. First and foremost,
the puncheon-floor had undergone a deluge of scrubbing,
effected by pouring over it forty great calabashes of water,
or one great calabash forty times emptied! Then the floor

had been violently assaulted with stiff hickory brooms, till
its dirt was raked and floated away to form an alluvion in
the cellar below; but much of the flood having eluded the
swabbing process that followed, there remained many Lilliputian
lakes of muddy water in the cavities and gulleys of
the puncheons. Secondarily, chairs, tables, benches, and
even bedsteads had undergone Pharisaical ablutions: and
although things did dry in process of time, yet, as the good
woman remarked, “Things were a leetle dampish, to be
sure!” Indeed, chairs and benches on which persons of
a sanguine temperament sat, exhibited, on their rising, a
decided Mosaic of dark and light shades. Thirdly, when
we washed before supper and dinner in one, we were offered
a wet towel to dry on! the lady apologizing for the anomaly
by saying, “Thar'd been sich a rite down smart chance of
rain that their wash wouldn't dry.” Of course this apology
accounted for the undried table-cloth at the meal; where,
by the way, we recognized, in the midst of other good things,
and full of milk, the republican bowl that a few moments
before had enacted the part of wash-basin. In anticipation
of its complex and yet desultory character, we of Glenville,
instead of dipping at the time our hands into the bowl
had poured from it the water over the hands. All the guests,
we must say, were not so considerate.

But a most sumptuous fire was roaring away for our comfort;
and, be satisfied, in no sense was it cold comfort.
And soon all, and at a very respectable distance, were
steaming away, and, in the midst of haze and vapour, snuffing
the savoury odours of ham fried in lard—of venison
and wild-turkey in ditto—and of chickens in cream and
butter! Generally, meats of every sort in the Purchase
were fried, and that so perfectly as to be not only done, but
actually done up; till the pieces curled at the edges, and
the taste of one kind of flesh could not be distinguished
from another, like—like—oh! like the carcasses of one

horse and two cows burnt to death in the conflagration of
Mr. Forgethisname's[5] livery stables in the Northern Liberties.
And yet a cookery of squirrels or chickens, a la
Kaintuc, in cream, butter, and dusted flour, excels any fry
in the world.

By bed-time affairs had become dryish. Still, much
vapour hung in our atmosphere; and towards the arctic regions
of the cabin, matters were puddly. However, ten of
the company were accommodated in the beds, and as many
others,—indeed, I do not know where: yet we all retired;
when a spirited and general confabulation was maintained
till most of the trebles, tenors, and basses grew, some flat and
others muttering, and there was a subsidence into a colloquy
between two. At last, one of these returning a mumbling
kind of response, Mr. Holdon, despairing to extract any
more talk, cried out, “Well! good night:” which signal
was followed by a farewell crackling of bedsteads, and an
audible rustling of “kivers;” and then all lately so active
and chatty, was turned into sleeping and snoring. Bah!—
tell me not about the sleep of innocence! nothing comes up
to the sleep of a backwoodsman; and as to his snoring, beat
it if you can!

Well, I dreamed a dream. Methought old Dick was
harnessed to our bedstead, and was pulling us through
showery bushes and nettles, and that I had the tooth-ache,
and so uncomfortable all seemed that I determined, as is the
case in some dreams, to wake myself. Happy resolution!
for whilst Dick had vanished, and we were safe enough in
the cabin, yet the interpretation of the dream was present:
—a gentle stream was trickling from above through a hole
in the clapboard roof, the jeau d' esprit having already saturated
my rag-pillow, and more than a foot of the adjoining
covers!—and, what was very remarkable!—I had the toothache!!

“Indeed!”

Yes! indeed. I whipped out of bed; quietly worked the
bedstead from under the unelectric water spout; doubled
my end of the bolster in place of the pillow removed; got
once more into bed, and began to lull the grumbling tooth
by holding my mouth shut and breathing through the nose,
and occasionally counting slowly and deliberately as high
as a hundred. And in this laudable work I had at last
succeeded, and was sinking away into dryer dreams, when
I was suddenly aroused to my last and severest “trial by
water” by a rude shake from Glenville, who also thus addressed
me:—

“Carlton!—are you going to sleep all day?—get up if
you don't want your boots full of water—”

“My boots!—my boots!!—man alive! don't let them
get any wetter—I shall never get them on—never!”

“Up then—or Tom Hilton will clean yours as he has
mine—he'll dip them in the rain-trough.”

Fortunately all were up and out but myself—and yet it
would have been the same if Queen Victoria had been
there—my boots were not to be trifled with, even when
dry;—what! if provoked by such a ducking! I thought,
therefore, of neither man, woman, nor child—I thought only
of my boots—and I leaped out of bed without regard to the
ordinary precautions—and slipping on the limbs of the indispensables—(anglicè,
jerking on my breeches)—and
holding up and buttoning as I moved, I rushed to the door!
and in the very nick of time to witness the catastrophe!
Yes! there on the muddy earth stood, sad and sullen, boot
the first, clean and soaked as a scrubbed puncheon! and
there descended into the rain-trough boot the second, up to
the strap-stiches!!

“Tom! Tom!—why did'nt you let my boots alone?—
you've fixed me now—I shan't get them on to-day!”

“Well, sir, I was only a sort a cleanin them—they was

most powerful muddy like—hope no harm done, Mr.
Carltin?”

“Well, Tom, thank you—but I am afraid we have tight
work now—please let's have the articles, any how.”

And our fear, reader, was not unfounded. Never, since
the origin of boots, and the abolition of sandals, was there
such a tugging at straps! It did seem as if, at last, the
grand philosophical achievement would be effected, and with
a leetle harder pull we should, boots and all, be raised clean
up from the puncheons!—nearly equal to lifting one's self
over a fence! And oh! what soaping of heels!—what
numerous and contradictory suggestions and advices from
commiserating and laughing friends!—tears in all eyes!
Oh! the rubbing of insteps!—the contortions of the os
sublime! And then, withal, when a boot had reached a
certain point, the creature could be neither pulled on nor
pulled off! But there limped Mr. Carlton, his two limbs
glued, somewhere about the junction of ancle and foot, in
two remorseless leathers; a very “odd fellow,” indeed,
hobbling with four feet, two of his own treading downward,
and two of the boots treading sideways—and all with vain
hopes of stretching, and thus coaxing further on or off the
half-tanned conveniences!

At last it seemed necessary to cut the articles, as all ordinary
and extraordinary attempts to move them up or down
had failed, when, at the crisis, in came a Goliah-like woodsman,
who, understanding the fix, declared; “if them 'are
straps thare would a sort a hold, he allow'd he'd pull on
Mr. Carltin's boots.” We agreed to a new trial. Accordingly,
Mr. Goliah placed himself behind the patient, with
his own back to the wall, and then working two fingers
apiece into each strap—(all he could get in)—he did pull
the boots on, sure enough!! Ay! and that he would have
done if both of Mr. Carlton's legs had been in the same
boot, instead of one leg per boot!

King William was of opinion that thumbkins was logic
enough to make him confess to a lie—what, if he had tried
the logic of my boots! If the iron boot is any more forcible
—I cannot stand it at all—I should scream out my belief in
the Pope or the Devil, or any other dogma of the particular
catholic church! The holy church will of course canonize
a man who has already discovered two efficacious ways to
make Christians—our bark-wheel—and now our boots!

Apropos! de botte, this reminds me of the Kentuckian
saved from the massacre, at the Blue Licks, by a pair of
wet buckskin breeches. He was pursued by two Indians,
and on reaching the river, was forced to plunge in and swim
over. Emerging, he soon discovered that to run with his
former speed, his buckskins must be left for booty: hence,
he halted an instant to unskin himself, whilst his nimble
foes had now reached the opposite bank of the stream. But
now the wet unmentionables, half-way off, became obstinately
adhesive, and could be drawn neither up nor down—
and the enemy coming nearer and nearer.

“Poor fellow!—what a dreadful situation!”

Very; and so he made up his mind, like a gallant man,
to die—in his breeches. And yet, being a Presbyterian,
his predestined time had not come: for, to his amazement,
his red friends, on arriving, burst into loud laughter, and,
instead of knocking him on the head, they only spanked
him on the antipodes and took him prisoner; and the Kentuckian,
being ransomed, got home to tell his adventure—
and was one of the very few brave gentlemen that survived
the battle of the Blue Licks.

“Yes—but, Mr. Carlton, what has this deliverance to do
with the Pope or the Devil?”

“Oh! nothing—it was owing to the Indians:—other torturers
do not let off folks so easily. But talking of one
thing, you know, makes us think of another.”

However, after the second edition of wet towels, wet

table-cloths, and other dampers, we all went to church—or,
by courtesy, the dissenters' conventicle—where seats and
floor were also dampish: yet none of these little affairs
killed us then, and even now, most of the Glenvillians live
and talk, occasionally, of “Carlton's Wet Time.”

During the present summer and fall, others of our colony
had little adventures. For instance, John Glenville, in
moving a piece of bark to throw under the wheel, was bitten
in the wrist by a copper-head coiled under the bark; but,
by a timely application of proper remedies, he escaped very
serious injury. Uncle Leatherstocking also came something
nearer being killed than Sir Roger's ancestor, that had a
narrow escape from being slain in a battle by arriving on
the field the very day after the fight: for our uncle, stooping
to examine a fine cabbage in his patch, discovered a rattlesnake
ready to salute him, and yet time enough to leap back
and avoid the favour. And then a young woman coming
from Welden, by herself, to return a call due to Glenville
Settlement, just as she had reached the outskirts of our territory,
was gratified by the sight, a little way from her, of a
lady panther, affectionately sporting with two rampant pantherines—each
as big as a pair of domestic tom-cats.

“La!—and did she not scream?”

Scream!—Miss Peggy Whatmore scream! Fortunate
for the quadrupeds, Peggy was within reach of no rifle!
No, no! to use her own language, she only “a sort a skued
round towards ole-man Ashmoresis—and did'nt say nuthin
to them, as they didn't seem like wantin to say nuthin to
her—yet it was a leetle skary as they was powerful nasty
lookin varmints.”

A missionary, also, coming to fulfil an appointment among
us, saw in the edge of our clearing “three barr”—i. e.,”
three bears; there being, in western phrase, “a powerful
sprinkle” of such shaggy coats in our borough. At this
information, all our domestic and neighbourhood forces being

mustered, we succeeded in overtaking and killing the
growling trio: and in due time, the largest skin, properly
prepared at our tannery, was presented to the missionary;
who ever after, till the day of his death, used it as a bruin-saddle
cover.

Perhaps we may here say, that at night, on many occasions,
were around invisible serrenaders, that gave exact
imitations of wolves howling, foxes barking, and owls
screaming, hooting and screeching, with interruptions now
and then from sudden cries and growls so strange that we
could not say what bird or beast precisely was designed or
represented. The whole, however, riveted the conviction
that we were no longer dreaming about the woods, but were
actually living there; and, to be candid, I had never in
visions seen a single serpent, and could not have guessed
the wild beasts would turn out so very wild. But to all
things I got used, except snakes. To the very last of my
sojourn in the Purchase, I was slow to crawl through dark
thickets; and never did step over or off a log, till satisfied
no serpent was there to be tramped upon: and, that it was
necessary so to ponder our ways, may be believed by the
incident with which we now end the chapter.

One night Mr. and Mrs. C. were on a visit at Mr. Hilsbury's;
and, though pressed to remain till morning, and
warned of the danger in walking in the dark at that season
of the year, we decided on returning to uncle John's. The
path between the cabins was only a few inches wide, and
running through high grass and tall weeds, was nearly invisible
in the day: yet having travelled it some half dozen
times daily, I was familiar with every stone, stick and root,
lying in or across the path; and any thing new there would
be sure to arrest my attention. Furnished with a light in
a small glass lantern, we proceeded homeward, myself in
front and my wife following, till at the end of about two
hundred yards, an unexpected root presented itself, running

seemingly from the nearest beach: but as the root ought
not to be there, before taking the next step I stooped to
examine, holding the light down towards the root—which
turned not into, but was in reality nothing more nor less
than the head and neck of an enormous rattlesnake!

Perhaps a novice, as I then was in backwood life, may
be pardoned for feeling a momentary sickness when the
glare of the serpent's eye fell on mine, as the rays of the
lamp disclosed and struck on his! The distance between
us was only eighteen inches; another step, therefore, would
have carried me over or upon the reptile: in the former
case I should have been safe, in the latter, one, or both
Mrs. C. and myself would have been wounded, perhaps
killed! And no sooner had I said—It is a snake! than
Mrs. C. too alarmed to reflect, instantly from behind
clasped me, holding down both my arms; and thus allowing
me neither to advance, nor retreat, nor stir, she at the
same time began a series of most piercing shrieks, to which
as nothing better could be done, Mr. C. added loud cries
of “Hullow-ow! down there!—hullow-ow!!”

Of course, this uproar brought them all up from down
there, and a clerical visitor among the rest—Bishop Shrub
of Timberopolis. In the meantime the snake had retreated
or passed on; and as there was too great risk in poking
after him amid the weeds and grass at night, and the central
cabin was the farther away, our whole party returned,
and all spent the night at the parsonage.