University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

We had this year a very merry Christmas. For first and
foremost we devoted the holidays to—hog killing and all
its accompaniments, lard rendering, spare-rib cooking, sausage
making, and the like. And secondly, our cow Sukey
performed a very wonderful thing in the eating and drinking
line:—she devoured a whole sugar trough full of mast fed
rendered lard! The blame, at first, attached to Dick; but
he could clearly prove an alibi, and besides Sukey had very
greasy chops, and got horrid sick, as much so as she had
swallowed a box of Quackenborg's pills: and when she
did again let us have milk it was actually oily! And then,
thirdly, there was aunt Kitty's mishap about the sausages.

Aunt Kitty was intended by nature for a dear delightful
old maid; and she greatly mistook her vocation by marrying,
although nothing but her being a great favourite with
the beaux of the last century hindered the fulfilment of her
destiny. She was the most amiable and kind hearted
woman—but a lee le too modest; so that, in her circumlocutions
and paraphrases to get round the tough places of
plain English, she often made us uneasy lest she stump, or,
perhaps light on some unlucky word or phrase worse than
the one she shyed at. She denominated the chanticleer—
chickbidde--or, he-bidde—or, old-rooster; and the braying
gentleman she styled--donkey; although she would
venture as far as—Jack. Ancle, with her, was any part

from the knee downward, and limbs were of course, her
what-y' callums. She milked the cow's dugs, and greased,
not her bag, but her—udder. From all which it maybe
conjectured what ingenious contrivances in strange cabins
were necessary before Aunt Kitty could get into bed or out
of it: indeed, setting all backwood scorn and ridicule at
defiance, she would take the very coverlet and fork it up for
a curtain!

Well, Aunt Kitty called things prepared for the reception
of sausages, skins; and so this Christmas having prepared
the skins by the scraping process, she laid them away in
salt and water till the stuffing was to take place; but when
the hour for that curious metamorphose of putting swine into
their own skins came, behold! the skins could not be
found--

“What! had Dick devoured them?”

Oh! no,—the girl had accidentally thrown them all
away. And this, indeed, was too bad; and no housekeeper
can blame Aunt Kitty for being greatly provoked: but alas!
for delicacies, anger permitted no choice of words:—
(and by that it may be seen how angry Aunt Kitty was;) for
on learning the cause and manner of the irreparable loss
she exclaimed:--

“Why, you careless—you! Have you really gone and
thrown out all my g—ts! that I was keeping for skins!!”

Fourthly, we had a deer hunt, not only somewhat remarkable
in itself, but memorable for the change it caused
in the relations of Brutus and Cæsar—the dogs of Glenville.
Of these, Brutus was the elder, and hence, though smaller
and weaker, he managed to govern Cæsar: proof that
among brutes opinion has much to do with mastership and
reverence. An intimate acquaintance with old Dick and
the two canine gentlemen has unsettled my early theories
about instinct and reason: and as to the first-named worthy,
the theory that the power of laughing is distinctive of

human beings much be received with limitation; for Dick,
if he never indulged in a rude boisterous horse-laugh,
could and did most decidedly and repeatedly grin—and that
is all some very sober and sensible persons ever attain to.

As to the others, Brutus had possession of the premises
before Cæsar was even a whelp; and though only Cæsar's
foster-sire, he had trained him in his puppyhood in all the
arts of doggery; showing him how to worry infant pigs,
then saucy shoats, and finally true hogs, and without
regard of size or sex. He taught him how to chase
poultry, and suck eggs; how to hang at a cow's tail and
yet avoid both horn and heel; how to hunt squirrels, opossums
and racoons; and how even to shake a venomous
snake to death and not be bit. And to his indefatigable
care and example was owing the loss of our original bacon-skin
hinges, and the ruin of sundry raw hides.

But when the cold meat, or potatoes, or buttermilk, &c.,
was set out in the dogs' sugar-trough, how instructive the
dignity of Brutus as he walked up solus, and with no ravenous
and indelicate haste to eat his fill! And how revereful
the mammoth and lubberly Cæsar, standing at a
distance till his step-father had finished and retired! Cæ
sar, when very hungry or smelling something extra, would
indeed crawl up with an imploring eye and piteous whine:
but then the awful look and cautionary growl he received
from the wiser dog, sent him away in a moment with
a trailed tail and even to a greater distance than ever!
And yet Cæsar was equal in strength and size to one Brutus
and a half! Carlyle's theory of opinion, must be extended
to dogs: and our deer hunt will confirm it.

One day during Christmas week Uncle John went a hunting.
About two o'clock, however, he returned, having
wounded a deer a mile beyond our clearing, and wishing
after dinner—(now on the table)—to take the two dogs
to put on its trail; when we should soon find the deer

and in all probability dead. Accordingly, on reaching the
spot, and blood being here and there visible, the dogs were
placed on the trail, and we soon came in sight of the poor
deer. It was not dead, as had been conjectured, but was
lying down sorely wounded, on a little island in the creek,
hoping there, after baffling pursuit by the intervening
water, to sob away its life unseen and undisturbed by its
relentless enemies! Poor creature! mere accident led us
to look towards its retreat; where, alarmed, it had incautiously
moved, and no moving thing ever is unseen by the
wary and stationary hunter—and then, at our shouts, up
sprang the terrified animal, wounded, but bounding away as
though unharmed! And away in pursuit leaped the yelping
dogs; but in the excitement Cæsar, forgetful of all reverence,
in the lead.

Following the uproar, I ran up on this side the creek
about two hundred yards; and then the deer was seen recrossing
the water a few rods higher, Cæsar close on the
flank, the most noble Brutus panting far enough in the rear!

The poor hunted victim, blind and expiring, staggered in
its last agony towards my station; and then, as Cæsar leaped
to seize its throat, it fell stone dead at my feet; for the
rifle ball had passed nearly through its body, and the
chase had happily but accelerated death. The two
brothers, for Uncle Tommy had joined us, now came up;
and then, the feet of the dead deer tied in pairs, and a sapling,
cut and prepared with a tomahawk, inserted longitudinally
under the thongs, we shouldered our prey and
marched homeward triumphant:—i. e. we three rationals
and the now opinionated and consequential Cæsar, who (or
which?) strutted near, every few paces leaping up
and smelling at the carcass. But Brutus, the hitherto
lord of the woods and clearing, alas! dejected,
lagged away behind, both crest fallen and tail fallen! yes,
both, for he hung his head and kept his tail dangling without
one thriumphant flourish! He evidently felt his importance

lessened, his dignity diminished by such a palpable
and utter natural—not to say moral—inability, to be in at
the death. Yes, opinion was changed! And he saw plain
enough that Cæsar entertained notions of dog authority now
very inconsistent with peaceable subjection—ay! as different
as when slaves first wake to the full perception of their
powers and rights and opportunities; their masters having
injudiciously allowed them to discover themselves to be
really men and to have souls! Yes, yes, opinion had
changed;—and these dogs read it in one another's eyes,—
for that very day the instant the entrails of the slain-deer
were thrown out as the dogs' reward, up-rushed the unceremonious
Cæsar; and when Brutus tried the experiment
of the old cautionary growl, Cæsar instead of modestly retiring
as usual, leaped ferociously upon his venerated step-father,
and so bit and gored and pitched and rolled and
tossed him, that away, away ran the elder dog at the first
fair interval howling with rage, vexation and pain! And
ever after that memorable deer hunt Cæsar continued to
eat at the first trough and Brutus at the second.

Part of the venison fell to Uncle Tommy's share, which
I aided him to take home; and, in return, he insisted on
my spending the evening at his cabin—and then the reader
may be sure we had many a long story on hunting; but he
would rather have described the squatteree itself than hear
all our stories and adventures. The squatteree was a cabin
just fourteen feet by ten, and most accurately built of small
round saplings, very much alike in diameter and looks, and
nicely dressed at the corners. It was, indeed, a darling
little miniaturo cabin, and would have done to a tittle for
rabblerousing in the late presidential campaign. Old Dick
could easily have drawn it, and Uncle Tommy, whose heart
was the old General's, would have driven!

A large space inside was occupied by a bed-apparatus
constructed as follows:—uprights, at their lower ends, were

nailed to cleets on the floor, and on the uprights were pegged
a side and foot piece;—the logs of the cabin making
unnecessary a second rail and head piece. Next was a
sacking of clapboards pinned down; and then a very thick
straw bed, and over that a sumptuous feather bed; the
whole very comfortable for the good old folks, especially as
Uncle Tommy used to say of themselves, that they were
“old and tough.”

Opposite the bed stood the bureau; the door opening into
the cabin between the two, and a narrow aisle or passage
being left to the cooking and eating end of the nest. Adjoining
the bureau was the puncheon table with its white
oak legs; and which served for eating, sewing, reading,
and indeed, all domestic uses; whilst opposite the table,
and at the foot of the bed, were shelves for crockery and
every article of squatter house keeping Over the fire-place
was an extraordinarily wide mantel, sustaining canister behind
canister and bowl upon bowl and bags, some of linen
and some of paper; and having above itself two racks one
supporting an enormously long duck gun, and the other,
“Old Bet”—a black surly looking rifle, with the appurte-nances
of horns pouches, loaders tomahawks and knives
pendant from the hooks. There hung, also, several pairs
of moccasins, and two sets of leggins: an old pair of green
baize, and a new pair of blue cloth.

Over the table and bureau were shelves, but mainly for
the library. The books were principally books of divinity
and church history, and also of prayer and devotion; but
yet were on the shelves Don Quixotte, Robinson Crusoe,
Paradise Lost Border Tales Cooper's Works, Thomson's
Seasons, and Young's Night Thoughts The bureau top
was consecrated to Bibles and Hymn Books; and here was
piled the famous Scott's Commentary, in five volumes quarto,
and so often read, from “kiver to kiver!” Indeed, from

their appearance, one would almost have judged them to
have been read clean through “the kivers!”

The neatness, the quiet, the cleanliness, the comfort, the
wild independence of this nest of a cabin;—the hunt of the
day;—the stories;—all, all were so like the dreams of my
boyhood! How happy Uncle Tommy, now more than
seventy years old! and Aunt Nancy, now more than sixty!
Happy in themselves, in one another, in their home, and in
their scriptural hopes of the future life!

But the arrangement for getting water, when the old
lady should be alone, and in wet weather, without leaving
the cabin!—that was the nicety. The nest was a few yards
below a beautiful fountain, and over its running stream;
then in the floor a light puncheon was fixed as a trap, so
that with a calabash at the end of a proper pole Aunt Nancy
could dip as from an artificial reservoir!—and all without
a water tax!

Our supper to-night was of coffee, corn bread, butter,
eggs, short-cakes, and venison steaks! Yes, venison
steaks!—Away with your Astor House, and Merchants'
Hotel, and Dandies' Taverns; if you do want to know how
venison steaks do taste—go to Aunt Nancy! We feel
tempted to give Uncle Tommy's “murakalus” escape in
fire-hunting! how he levelled his rifle at a “beast's eyes,”
and found in time it was light streaming through a negro
hut, where, on Christmas eve, the merry rascals were dancing
away to a cornstalk fiddle and a calabash banjo. But
we must hasten to our

Fifth and last amusement during the holidays. Usually
on the Sabbath we attended our own meeting in the Welden
Settlement; but bad roads and some other accidents often
kept us at home; when our three families assembled at
Uncle John's, where he read the Scriptures, and made or
read a prayer, with occasional help from Uncle Tommy,

while Glenville and Carlton conducted the choir and read
sermons and tracts.

Sometimes, however, we attended meeting at Mr. Sturgis',
out of compliment to our neighbour and Uncle Tommy;
never, indeed, for fun, although we usually were more
amused than profited; and always came back more and
more convinced that a learned, talented and pious ministry
was, after all, not quite so great a curse as many deem it.
But of this the reader may, after reading the ecclesiastical
parts and chapters of this History, judge for himself. And
here we beg leave to affirm that our accounts of certain sacred
matters is reduced and very much below the truth;
for while truthfulness is important in some writings, if on
these matters ours were truth-full, we should hardly be credited.
We dare not do our pictures up to life: and hence,
while they are by no means truthless, they are yet less than
the truth.

Neighbour Sturgis, it will be remembered, lived opposite
the tannery, and on the top of a bluff rising from our creek.
Compared with most cabins his was good and spacious;
and to accommodate some pet swine and a flock of tame
geese, openings under his house were left, whither the favourites
could retire for sleep, or as a retreat from unusual
sun, rain, or wind. Here, whilst swine and geese were
content with their several limits, gruntings and cacklings
were modest and expressive of enjoyment: although joy
itself would often squeal and scream too boisterously for
some congregations. But if wantonness induced either
piggy or goosey to pass the border; or if the dogs playfully
ran in nosing up the pigs, slapping a tail against a strutty
gander or a silly goose, then would the commingled din of
bark, howl, grunt, squawk, squeal and cackle, furnish a better
answer than the jest book itself to the question, “What
makes more moise than a she-swine caught in a gate?”—
Answer, “Old man Sturgis' pet-pen in a riot.”

Now, in the room exactly over the pet-pen, “meetins was
held!” The seats were long benches with very ricketty
limbs, expanded two a piece at each end, and double planks
resting on rude chunks—all wishing to obey at once the
great law of gravity, but prevented by their own inequalities,
and those of the floor. Hence during “sarvice,” as
folks were constantly shifting centres of motion and gravity,
no despicable noise of chunks and bench-legs was
maintained, in addition to all other noises rational and instinctive.

The pulpit was neither marble nor mahogany, being a
tough chair with two upright back pieces like plough handles,
and cross bars to suit: and its seat was (or were)
laced hickory withes, and wonderfully smooth and glistening
from the attrition of linsey garments, tow inexpressibles,
and oily buckskin unmentionables. And not in, but
behind this pulpit stood the preacher, placing his hymn
book on its polished seat, and holding on to the two handles
to squeeze by, in his energy or embarrassments. Hence
he never thumped his pulpit in the manner of the Rev.
Doctor Slapfist; but when necessary he raised the pulpit
itself, and with it thumped the floor—making of course just
four times the impression with its four legs that the Doctor
does with his single hand.

The Rev. Diptin Menniwaters usually preached here;
but on New-Year's Sabbath all Glenville went by invitation
to hear a new preacher: although in the Purchase, where
preachers of a sort are plenty as acorns or beach nuts, a
new one frequently held forth, and held on too, greatly to
the wonder of the hearers, and the disturbance of the pet-pen,
at our neighbour's of the bluff. The new preacher today,
doubtless apprised of the strangers' coming, in order
to create confidence, and ward off any false shame and unworthy
fear of man, struck off, after prayer and singing,

with an open avowal of enmity to all learning and learned
preachers, thus:—

“Brethurn and sisturn, it's a powerful great work, this
here preaching of the gospul, as the great apostul hisself
allows in them words of hissin what's jist come into my
mind; for I never know'd what to preach about till I riz up
—them words of hissin, `who is sufficient for all these
here things,' as near about as I recollect them.

“Thare's some folks--(glancing towards us)—howsomever,
what thinks preachers must be high larn'd, afore they
kin tell sinners as how they must be saved or be 'tarnally
lost; but it ain't so I allow—(chair thumped here and answered
by a squawk below)—no, no! this apostul of ourn
what spoke the text, never rubbed his back agin a collige,
nor toted about no sheepskins—no, never!—(thump!
thump! squawk and two grunts.) No, no, dear brethurn
and sisturn—(squeak)—larnin's not sufficient for them
things; as the apostul says, `who is sufficient for them.'
Oh worldlins! how you'd a perished in your sins if the
fust preachers had a stay'd till they got sheepskins. No!
no! no! I say, gim me the sperit. (Squeals and extra
gruntings in the swine's territory, and more animated
squawks and cackles, as the preacher waxed warmer.)
No! I don't pretend to no larnin whatsomever, but depends
on the sperit like Poll; (squee-e-el:) and what's to hinder
me a sayin, oh! undun worldlins! that you must be saved
or 'tarnally lost—yes, lost for ever an dever!—(things below
evidently getting on to their legs and flapping.) No!
no! no! oh! poor lost worldlins. I can say as well as the
best on them sheepskins, if you don't git relijin and be
saved, you'll be lost, teetolly and 'tarnally forever an dever-ah!
I know's I'm nuthen but poor Philip, and that I only
has to go by the sperit-ah! but as long as I live, I kin holler
out: (voice to the word)—and cry aloud and spare not,
(squ-aw-awk) O! no, brethurn and sisturn-ah! and al

evin high larn'd folks that's in the gaul, and maybe won't
thank me for it no how-ah! O! ho! o-ah! I poor Philipah,
what's moved to cry out and spare not-ah!—(sque-e-el;)
what was takin from tendin critturs like David-ah, and
ain't no prophet, nor no son of a prophet-ah. O! ho-o-ah,
how happy I am to raise my poor feeble-ah, dying-ah,
voice-ah, and spendin my last breath, in this here blessed
work; a warnin, and crying aloud; o-ho!-o-ah! repent
repent, poor worldlins and be saved, or you'll all be lost,
and perish for-ever-an-dever-ah.”

Here the storm above was getting to its height, although
poor Philip kept on some ten minutes more, waxing louder
and hoarser, with endless repetitions and strong aspirations
in a hundred places occasioned by his catching breath,
and which we have several times marked with an -ah![8]

He also began spanking one thigh with a hand, and
ever and anon battering the floor with his pulpit, until he
was compelled at last to place one hand under his jaw, and
and partly up his cheek to support his “jawing tackle.”
And, in the meanwhile, the fraternity below, after much irregular
outcrying, had at length joined all their instruments
and voices, and to so good a purpose as at times nearly to
overwhelm the preacher. Two dogs also, half wolf and
half cur, now presented themselves at the door, and with
elevated brows and cocked ears, stood wistfully looking at
the parson, to know what he wished them to attack or hunt:
but on finding he was not halloing for them, and being now
too excited to be still, away they sprang towards the forest
yelping and howling and determined to hunt for themselves.
And shortly after the first hurricane ending, Poor Philip
hitting a favorite vein, went on with a train of reasoning

(designing to show that native wit was as good as college
logic) about cause and effect: but while he was again
cheered from below in the manner of an English audience
clapping an abolitionist, we shall not, by recording the applause,
interrupt the narrative.

“No—no: nobody can make nuthin. Thare's only one
what makes, and he made these here woods; he made
these here trees; and them bushes; he made yonders sun
—and yonders moon—and all them 'are stars what shines
at night in the firmamint above our heads like fires;—and
—and—he made—yes—he made them powerful big rivers
a runnin down thare to Orleans—and the sea, and all the
fishes, and the one what a sorter swallerd the prophit what
was chuck'd out and swallerd—and—and—yes—and all
them 'are deer, and them 'are barr, and them hossis what's
tied out thare. (Had Dick been there he would now unquestionably
have slipped his bridle.) And so you understand,
worldlins, how no man could a ever made anything.
And haven't we proof from nater that they was made, and
didn't come as high larn'd folks' sez, and grow of theirselves
out of forty atims by chance.

“No—no, worldlins, you couldn't, the most high larn'd
ither, could'nt make any of them thare things—you couldn't
make woods—you couldn't make trees—you couldn't make
fishes—no, you couldn't make airth—you couldn't make air
—you couldn't make fire—you couldn't make—hem!—no
you couldn't—make water.” (Sorry are we to record, but
Mr. Carlton here was guilty of sniggering; and even Uncle
John, in spite of his official dignity, did look as if he would
laugh when meeting was out. Poor Philip, however,
quickly emerged and went on.) “No—not one of you could
make a spring branch nor the like.”

Ah! poor Philip had you only had a little of the learning
you despised! Had you, at least, only seen Miss Carbon's

Chemistry for Boarding Schools of Young Ladies! But
did not Philip make us sweat for our sins, for he went on:

“Yes! yes! some folks laff in meetin, but wait till they
gits to h—l, and maybe they'll laff tother side of their
mouth. The fire down thare's hot, I allow, and will scorch
off folks's ruffles and melt their goold buttins, and the devel
and his angils will pelt them with red hot balls of brimrock
and fire!”

But the two dogs had just now returned from an unsuccessful
hunt, and forthwith they plunged headlong into the pit below;
and then, the barking and yelping of the dogs; the
scampering and squealing of the pigs; the flapping of
screaming geese's wings, and the squawking of insulted
ganders, together with the hoarse and continued roaring of
the preacher, produced a tempest rarely equalled in the best
organized fanatical assemblies here, and never surely excelled.
And the instant meeting was over, we of Glenville hurried
away glad to escape from the noise of bedlam and the almost
papistical curses of poor Philip.