 | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West |  |
SIXTH YEAR.
56. CHAPTER LVI.
“Mar. Alas my lord I have but killed a Fly!
Tit. But how, if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air?
Poor harmless fly!
That with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry—And thou hast killed him!”
By a recent charter of our college, it was appointed that
the Faculty should oversee the Students; the Trustees,
oversee the Faculty; the Board of Visitors, the Trustees;
and the Legislature the Visitors;—the people in general
engaging to oversee the Legislature, and the people of
Woodville, the entire whole! The cause of education was,
then, well overseen! And yet our circle was as vicious as
that of the Church Militant and Insultant; which keeps its
antagonist foundations in perpetual somerset—top and bottom
being always at bottom and top—and yet so circumferential
as to be alike destitute of top or bottom, or bottom
or top—and bound by its infallibility to roll on for ever in its
absurdities!
And now was to be found the rara avis—the white crow
—a good President. Distant and learned gentlemen had
answered our first inquiries, by an earnest recommendation
of Mr. Clarence; but so widely did that personage differ in
opinion, that he suppressed a letter written to himself urging
him by all means to be a candidate. He plead his
youth; and his wish to remain in a subordinate post to
perfect himself in his favourite studies,—languages, history,
were as important as a good president; and with a little allowable
vanity, he added, if he should make so good a president,
as his friends' partiality led them to suppose, it
would be quite a loss to deprive the college of so good a
professor! He, therefore, did,—(unwisely as Mr. Carlton
thinks)—decline a nomination, and earnestly entreat the
Board to look out for “an older man!”
Professor Harwood then suggested the Reverend Constant
Bloduplex, D. D., of Wheelabout; and a committee
was appointed to open a correspondence with that gentleman.
But as his reply was not received till after my return
from collecting certain debts, &c., we shall for the present,
take our reader on an excursion.
Fortunately, for the last forty-eight hours were collecting
reverend gentlemen at Woodville to form a travelling
party towards the south to a famous council, of which
Clarence was also a member; and I was furnished with
the most agreeable associates. Regalists may sneer at
dissenting and republican clergy; but I repeat, what can
never be repeated too often, that such clergy, when evangelical
and intelligent, aside from a spice of sectarianism—
(and a man without a spice is no man, but a sneaking time-server)—are
the most benevolent, instructive, entertaining,
cheerful, and liberal of men. They condense and concentrate
most qualities, too, essential to good fellowship. Ay!
they are usually men of the greatest courage. And when
and where duty calls, whether into jeopardy of property,
or character, or ease, or limb, or life itself, no men more
fearlessly or resolutely encounter it. A good man fears
God—and that absorbs or counteracts all other fears.
Exceptions occur; yet of intelligent and learned folks
the true clergy can and do, most easily and naturally, accommodate
themselves to opposite lives; and, not to acquire
fame or money or power, or do penance—but to do
good. Influence is, indeed, thus acquired, yet not more
that hour, when her own republican ministers shall have no
literary, moral and spiritual influence! God shield her
from the Egyptian darkness threatening from yonder
ominous cloud rising above the distant horizon—shaped not
like a man's hand, and pregnant with refreshing rains, but
like a man's toe portending contempt, spurning, overthrow
and subjugation. But I smell faggots!—and I court not
martyrdom—and none can tell what Hugheous attempts may
next be made nor when! Sneer on! antipuritan! if you
fear not for us, it is high time, as Cato told Cæsar in the
Roman Senate, we should fear for ourselves! Bow your
own base neck—we will never bow ours!
Our party was increased at every ferry and cross path
till it numbered twenty-two; enough to hold meeting on
horseback. The time was mid Spring; and the old woods
were glorying in the sylvan splendours of new dresses and
decorations. The sun was, indeed, ardent, and rejoicing
like one to run a race; but then the dense foliage spread a
screen over the pathway, while the balmy breath of
zephyrs, rich with perfume of wild flower and blossom,
fanned our faces and sported with the forest leaf and spray.
Beauteous birds and tribes of unseen animals and insects
from every branch, and every bushy lair or cavern, were
pouring forth choral symphonies of praise.
Was it wonderful, then, that Christians going to a spiritual
congress, should be unable to restrain hymns of praise?
Out upon rationalism, or any pseudo-ism that makes men
dumb like—like—“beasts?” No; “insects?” No;—
these in the woods God planted and nurtured for ages are
vocal. “Like what then?” Like a German or a French
Atheist.
Hymns then, as we rode, were sung; and, with heart
and voice, in the solemn and joyous words of king David.
God was felt to be there! His grand temple was around
How like the Church in the wilderness! We have before
said, what in religion begins in poetry often ends in prose;
—and so would be the result now, if fanaticism should get
up a system of protracted and locomotive meetings on horse-back!
The poetry belongs only to the accidental occurrence.
Arrived in due time at the place of the council, I was induced
to remain a day and witness its proceedings. The
weather being favourable, and no cabin being large enough
to accommodate the hundreds of spectators, many of whom
had come more than a hundred miles, it was arranged to
hold the sessions in the woods. Among the accommodations
was a large wagon body placed on suitable timbers, to serve
for a pulpit; and here, during the religious exercises, were
seated all the clerical members—making with their aggregate
weight a half a ton of theologians, if not of divinity. Here,
also, during the secular business, was seated the President,
—and supported by his scribes on the right and left.
But I was soon hurried from this Nice council, by the
stress of worldly business; and that accomplished, it was
necessary for me to return alone to Woodville, and by a
route then very rarely taken by any person, and never before
nor since by myself.
On my first day, I was fortunately overtaken by a large
company, unlike my religious friends, and yet by no means
unacceptable comrades in the vast wilderness I had just
entered. It was a Surveyor and his assistants, going to
run some line, or lay out some road. In genuine Western
style they welcomed me not only to ride with them, but to
participate their dough-biscuits and jerked venison. We
beguiled the way, of course, with anecdote and story of
adventures and mishaps till tired of telling and hearing;
and then, recreation came on wings, in the shape of horse-flies!
The tame or civilized horse-fly of the Atlantic States, is
reasonably well;—but the ill-bred, barbarian horse-fly, or
rather flies, for the sorts are countless,—can't they bite!
Like all hoosiery and woolverine things, they are regardless
of dignities; and hence suck blood from the rider as
well as the horse! They even make no distinction between
merchants[1] and men! or between the “brethren” and
“the misters!!” Very probably they would suck blood
from the President of the United States!—the greatest of
all earthly potentates—(in breeches, of course!) Ay!
from Uncle Sam, and Brother Jonathan:—although their
blood so much excels that of the Russian Bear, or John
Bull! Nothing like the Great-Grand-North-American-Re-publican
Horse-Fly![2] —ten of them can kill a dandy!
Now, a man can endure a single fly: but a cloud
pitching at once on him and his horse, requires some patience
and no small activity and diligence. The best antidote
is a duck's bill. This, however, is inconvenient to
administer, as it requires a cessation of motion and a recumbent
posture. Indeed, to be fully benefitted, one must lie
down, as we saw a cow to-day at a squatter's cabin, and
permit, as she did, six active ducks and one drake, to
traverse the whole body, and gobble up and down the flies
at the instant of alighting, and make repeated successful
snaps at them on the wing!
The best defensive armour would doubtless be to have
one's whole skin tanned—(leatherwise):—and next, are
boots and leggins, as far as they go: but summer coat and
inexpressibles are as good as—nothing. Some advantage
is found by inserting tops of broken bushes into every crevice
of the horse-trappings; into the hat-band and button
these, will be lots of work both for the man's hands and
the horse's tail.
I do wish Mrs. Trollope had been with us to-day. If
she had seen nothing to amuse and interest her, I am certain
we should—although we had enough as it was. To a
student of nature, how interesting our appearance—all bestuck
with bushes—a grove on horse-back! whence issued
human hands slapping hard, as a Catholic self-inflicting
penance! Then the madness of a bushman missing a fly!
and his triumph and malicious joy in mashing one! The
horses, now stopping with one side to stamp and bite!
now springing away, to rub off the torment in the bushes!
and then their tails!—it did seem they would, sooner or
later, switch and swing loose, and fall off!
The grand exhibition, however, was by a poor brute of
a horse, with a short tail and a tipsy rider. As to the tail,
that had been partly amputated by some barbarian—(there
being a fashion in horse-tails as in whiskers)—and, added
to that inhumanity, was the inconsiderate behaviour of a
silly colt, into whose mouth the tail-stump had fallen—the
hair being all eaten away by the said colt, till the denuded
thing stuck out six inches only, like a wooden article of
the same name, glued to a toy-horse, to show which end
is not the head. Think!—to be with such a make-believe
tail, in a flock of horse-flies! And the drunken rider had
arranged no grove of bush-tops!!
Had the flies infested the human beast! but these sagacious
flocks knew what was for their health, and, therefore,
stuck to the horse; thus causing the animal to endure a
thousand fold for the sin of his master. In vain, then, did he
wag that stump of a naked tail! in vain halt to stamp, bite,
and kick! in vain vibrate his hide and the tip of the ears, till
he seemed all over like a church full of moving fans!—
there stuck the flies! At every halt, the rider kicked and
halting, and biting, and kicking could not dislodge his foes,
and then he moved to be sure—but not ahead. He did it
sideways, till he reached some tree or bush, along which
he rubbed, crushing and sweeping off the flies; and often,
very much to our inward delight, barking the skin from his
vile master's legs!
At last, the flies, understanding the brevity of the tail,
and the defenceless state of the nag, attacked his quarters,
head and rear, covering, but not protecting, his entire
flanks! What could he do? He reiterated his stamp—
bite—vibration; he sidled against trees, rubbing and kicking;
and then, under the combined attacks of whip, heels
and flies, seizing the bit between his teeth, he, on a sudden,
darted away as if borne on wings himself! Pencil of
Hogarth! paint that sight! Set forth the trembling spicebushes
divided, broken, crushed, by a tornado borne on
horse-heels! Draw that nag emerging, ever and anon,
from thickets of thorn and briar!—a human leg, despoiled
of leggin, rising horizontal, this side now, now that, and instinctively,
like the scales of justice, keeping the equilibrium
of a body recumbent, with head nodding and jerking,
amid the dishevelled and raggy mane of a horse-neck!—
hands therein clenched! Depict the flocks of surviving
flies hanging over in the air, and waiting for the race to
end! And, oh! last, yet not least, though so very little,
do that tail!
It had played its part before; now it was worked with
more than one-horse power! It spun round as on a patent
gudgeon! It multiplied itself—now, a dozen tails—now,
no tail at all!—nothing appearing, save a white circumference,
a streak made by the bone where the article had
been amputated! Its motion was no longer to switch
away flies; it was instinctive, and to steer by: yet whether
it failed as a helm, or steered as was designed, on
pig-like in a delicious stream of spring water; and the
rider wading out about ankle deep, and dripping! And so
ends about the tail.
The tender-hearted will rejoice to know, however, that
upon this poetical justice administered by the horse, the
master, now a cold-water man and sobered, kept a whole
wilderness of bushes about both; and, that he abstained,
that day at least, from his whiskey bottle—partly, I believe
though, because it was broken in the fall.
Shortly after this, I left the Surveyor's company, and,
pursuing a solitary trace, reached, late in the evening, my
lodging place; where I learned I had yet forty miles to
travel to reach Woodville.
“Stranjer,”—said my host—“it's a most powerful woody
country, and without no road, nor even blind trace worth
naming—it being, a sort a kiver'd with ole leaves; and
thar's no cabin nearer nor King's—and that's more nor 15
miles. Howse'er, I'll set you over the river afore sun-up—
and if you don't miss the trace, then you kin git to King's
for breakfust.”
Almost devoured by flies, and then frightfully flea-bitten
in bed, my dreams were naturally fantastic; and I had
visions of howling wildernesses, tangled thickets, prowling
panthers, and great swollen fiery serpents. Woodsmen,
also, I knew had been lost in that unsettled region; and
even last summer two persons had wandered about three
days. Yet, I longed to be on my journey, and to know the
worst; and, with a hope my case would be different. Beside,
I had a secret ambition to appear well as a woodsman
in Domore's and Ned's eyes; and I was aware Sylvan
would even think better of me, if I crossed such a wilderness
alone. It was something of a task with such men.
Accordingly, by early dawn, I was ferried over, the
river, and sat in my saddle, while my host, standing in
“Ride strate up-bank whare you be—then keep spang
a-head, across the bottim, without no turn at all, and, in a
short quarter, you'll strike the d'sarted cabin. It's burnt
now—but the logs are some on 'em a-layin' in a heap—
that's whare the poor squatter was murdered and skulp'd
in the war time, by the Injins. Well—arter you git thare,
ride round to the west ind of the ole clerein, and you'll
find the trace, sich as it is, if it ain't kivered—and, if you
get once fair on it—I sort a think you'll go safe enough to
King's.”
That said, good byes were shouted; while the scow
swung from the shore, and my noble creature ascended the
bank; and we began to go a-head for the burnt cabin.
Some declination was, indeed, necessary to get round unleapable
logs, impassable thickets, and the like; yet, prior
to such deviations, having placed myself in a line with several
objects before and behind, I easily regained my
course, and, in a short time, came to the cabin ruins.
Here we paused an instant, to contemplate the scene—so
like what I had pictured in reading border tales! But,
haste and anxiety allowed only short delay, and I rode
quickly round to the west of the clearing; where, after a
narrow search along the edge of the forest I discerned the
only semblance of a trace; and, into this, dashing with
trembling confidence, I was soon hid in the shades of a true
wilderness.
However romantic such a wild may be in print, my
thoughts in the wilderness itself, were all concentrated on
one object—the path. And long what seemed the path,
dim always and sometimes obliterated, as it led far away
into the gloom of impervious shades, now turning almost
back to skirt an impassable thicket, now tumbling almost
perpendicularly into a deep ravine, and now scaling its opposite
dark and dangerous looking water, and then vanishing for
a few moments as of necessity it passed through patches of
weeds and briars—long time this trace occupied all my
meditations and excited my intensest watchings and kept
me asking in a mental and often an audible voice—“I do
wonder, if this is the way?” To which, as nobody else replied,
I would answer myself—“Well, I guess it must be
—if this is not, I'm sure I don't see any other!”
And then, as though poor Kate shared my anxiety, would
I say “Come! Kate!—cheer up, you shall soon have your
breakfast—let's hurry on to King's!” When gaily tossing
her fine head, and shaking her flowing mane, she would
with her hoofs redouble the echoes; and away, away, with
thrilling hearts, we ever bounded onward and onward and
farther and farther into the solemn grandeur of those primitive
wilds!
In some two hours the trace, owing to the nature of the
ground, became better defined and less interrupted; hence,
waxing confident we indulged in a colloquy, self-congratulatory
and maybe self-laudatory, thus:
“Well, we're safe after all, Kate, I do believe!—wonder
what Ned will say?—hey?”
To this Kate switched an answer with her magnificent
tail, and evinced increased eagerness to be going ahead;
and so with a real “hurraw' my noble Kate?—hurraw!”
on my part, and an additional snort on hers, we were
streaking on at the rate now of seven miles to the hour!
And then, in about four hours from the burnt cabin, we
caught sight of King's cabin, crowning a mound on the far
side of a small stream.
Advancing to bespeak refreshments, I was met at the
door by a portly lady, who proved to be that King's wife;
and though no queen, was large enough for two queen patterns
of the Victoria-Albert size.
“Is this Mr. King's, ma'am?”
“Well, I allow so; but my ole man's from home—he's
went to a rasin two miles off—”
“You keep public, don't you, Ma'am?”
“Well, I allow so; but King's tuk the bakun with him to
the rasin—”
“Ay?—can't I get something for my nag?”
“Well, I allow so; jist go round to yan crib, and git
what cawn you like.”
This done, and Kate left to enjoy as much corn as was
wholesome, I entered the cabin and our conversation was
renewed.
“Well, but Mrs. King, ain't you got nothing at all a
hungry fellow can eat?”
“Stranjur—I'm powerful sorry—but we're teetotally out
—he tuk every bit of food with him—”
“What's that—up there?”
“Law, bless you, stranjur! that's a piece of most powerful
rusty flitch—tain't fit for a dog to eat—”
“Oh! ma'am, let's have it—why I can eat your dog
himself—I'm so hungry.”
“He! ha!—well you ain't proud like the Fakilty big-bugs
across thar at Wood'ill, that's sarten. How I do wish
King hadn't a tuk the food! But you ain't in arnest about
the yaller flitch are you?”
“To be sure!—clap on your skillet, Mrs. King!”
“Well—I do sentimentally wish it was better like. Let's
see, here's a handful of meal in the bag arter all—and I'd
a got it afore, only I allowed you was proud like. But I
see you're none of that 'are sort—'spose I do the meal?”
“Thank you, ma'am! I know you would give me the
best if Mr. King hadn't gone to the raising.”
The skillet was soon hot; and then received as many
slices as could lie in comfort on the bottom. The colour of
the dainty had been originally amber, the fat being then
and beech nuts. Time, however, fatal to beauty, had incrusted
the flitch with an oxide of wonderful thickness and
peculiar dirt colour, and turned its lovely amber transparency
into a decided and opaque yellow. Something of the kind
I had often seen in cot-days; when, on being importunate
for buckwheat cakes in the kitchen, Betty often threatened
my face with “the griddle-greaser!”
Mrs. King had shaken her bag into a large wooden bowl;
and the deposit was, one pint of second chop meal, minus
half a gill something else, and a few horse hairs; for, bags
in attending mill are used as saddles, and pommelled between
inexpressibles and perspiring horsebacks. Water
then was poured into the compound; and the lady after
handling the mixture without gloves, produced a handful
of good chicken-feed. Then the hissing flitch being hastily
turned into a pewter plate with a damaged circumference,
the feed was splashed in, like mortar into chinking,
to be converted into corn bread. This transmigration over,
the bread was associated with the flitch on the cloudy pewter,
Mrs. King remarking that, “her man had tuk the crokry
to the rasin;” and then, after wiping each thumb on her
woollen petticoat, she invited me with the formula, “Well
—come! set up.”
I was soon seated on my rickety stool at the board, or
rather boards, (as the table was of two such and a piece,)
and began to flourish my blade,—the knife belonging to that
irascible class that had flown off the handle,—and, also, I
began to look for its partner, the fork. But that had flown
off with the handle, for, said she—“He tuk all thar knives
and forks but this poor bit of a thing, and that was left 'cos
it had no handle!”—“but, Stranjur,” continued she, “jeest
lend me that a minit, and I'll git you a fork.”
Out, then, darted Mrs. King; and soon returned manufacturing
as she came a fork, and saying thus: “Thar,
to a pint, 'ill do for a fork better nor your fingers—albeit,
I'm powerful sorry for our poor fixins.”
“Thank you, ma'am! all the same—you've a kind
heart; and that's meat and drink in this world of ours,
sometimes.”
Yet these and other speeches were continually interrupted
by the rapid ingress of lumps of flitch and balls of bread.
I regret to record, however, that while I used my fork to
pin down the fat till its reduction to mouthfuls, I was compelled
to eat, like a democrat, with my knife! I made, indeed,
some amends to a violated good-breeding, by sopping
my gravy with bread in my left hand,—like a gentleman eating
fish and other things, with a leaky silver fork. Singular!
how the extremes of refinement and hoosierism do meet!
Dialogue Continued.
“Well, I'm powerful rite down glad you kin eat sich
like food! what mought your name be—if it's no offence!”
“Carlton, ma'am, I live in Woodville—”
“Well—that's what I suspish'nd. Ned Stanley was
out here last winter a huntin, and I heerd him tell on you—
as how you was a powerful clever feller—albeit a leetle of
a big-bug. But I'll take your part arter this—and King
shill too.”
“Oh! Mrs. King if we were all better acquainted with
one another, we'd all think better of our friends and neighbours.
But I must be off—what's the damage?”
“Bless me! Mr. Carltin, I don't take nuthin for sich a
meal! Put up that puss, if you want to be friends—I'm
powerful sorry King's away—call here next time, sir, and
I allow, you'll git somethin good enough for a white man.”
“Thank you! Mrs. King, thank you. Well—please
give me directions—I'm not much of a woodsman.”
“Well, you're comin on. Howsever you've kim the
fifteen miles on at the next settlement, Ike Chuff's—where
you mought foller a cow path—and so you'd better stop thar
and axe.”
In due time, and after a hard ride of thirty miles from the
burnt cabin, we came in sight of Ike Chuffs clearing. As
the trace ran plain and broad round the fence and across a
small ravine, I was unwilling to waste time with needless
inquiries, and, therefore, followed the line of path with undiminished
confidence.
The trace, indeed, narrowed—it once or twice vanished
—all that was no novelty; but at last we seemed to reach
the vanishing point, for now, after the last vanish, the path
never re-appeared! In place of the one, however, were
seen four! and those running in as many different directions
and evidently, like Gay's road—to no places at all! And so,
for the neglect of inquiring, Kate and I had been judiciously
following a cow-path!
“Why not steer by the sun?”
That is easy enough, my friend, in a country where
there is a sun. I had, indeed, seen little of that “Great
Shine” all day; and for the last two hours nothing, a rain
having then commenced which lasted till our reaching
Woodville.
“What did you do then?”
Trusted to Kate to find the way back to Chuff's;—as
we had hardly gone two miles astray—and that she did in
fifteen minutes.
“What then?”
You shall hear for yourself—“Hilloo! the house!”
“Well—hilloo! what's wantin!”
“The trace to Woodville—I missed it just now.”
“Sorter allowed so, when I seed you take the cow-path
to the licks—
“Well, my friend, why didn't you hollow to me?”
“'Cos I allowed you mought a ax'd if you ain't a wood a
man—and if you be, you know'd the way to the licks as
well as me.”
“Thank you, sir; will you show me now?”
“Take the path tother ind of the fence.”
Neighbour Chuff's settlement differs, you see, in suavity
from King's. Still, the Hoosier's direction was right; and
with nothing more romantic than our feed in the morning,
we arrived pretty much used up to a late dinner in the
evening at Woodville—having done more than forty wilderness
miles in about twelve hours! For the whole, however,
I was rewarded, when Dr. Sylvan that night called
at our house and said with an approving smile:
“Pretty well done! pretty well done! After this I
think we may dubb you a backwoodsman.”
57. CHAPTER LVII.
“Ha! ha! ha! D'ye think I did not know you, Hal?”
Dr. Sylvan's visit was to announce the favourable reply
of Dr. Bloduplex to the letter of the committee. But
the people were in a new tumult; and a petition to the
next Assembly was circulating for signatures, praying that
the Trustees be ordered to expel either Clarence or Harwood,
or both; and that while Bloduplex should be elected
as President, the professors should be taken each out of
different sects. For, reader, the two existing members of
the Faculty were both Rats; and Dr. Bloduplex was of
the same denomination! This, however, was then[3]
the
natural result of circumstances—that sect being twenty-five
And this I am bound as a true historian to declare, although
Dr. Bloduplex and myself do not belong to the same sect!
—an impartiality to be remembered to my credit hereafter.
I perceive we have thoughtlessly given a clue to the
sect meant. For when it is found by the reader what sect
twenty-five years ago, was pre-eminent in the respects
named, my secret so nicely kept is out—he has discovered
the Rats! But if such sect cannot be found, then among
the fictitious things of this book will, I fear, be placed our
worthy President, the Rev. Constant Bloduplex.
In this emergency, it occurred, that another petition in
aid apparently of the other, and yet subversive, by reducing
its principles to an absurdity, should be sent to the Legislature,
as the proper way for “Hoosier to fight Hoosier.”
Something must be done, because our magnates at the
Capitol would certainly essay something disastrous to the
college. Hence, the suggestion meeting Dr. Sylvan's approbation,
the framing of said petition was committed to
Mr. Carlton; when in a few days the following able paper
—(hem)—was submitted, corrected, approved, and adopted
by our friends:
“To the Honorable the Representatives of — in General
Assembly convened at Timberopolis, this petition of the
People of Woodville and the New Purchase generally,
is respectfully submitted:—
“First, that the existing Faculty of our College be requested
to resign before the election of a President, that
all denominations may have a fair and equal chance for
places:
“Secondly, that, there being nine religious sects in our
state, and three of philosophers, viz:—the Deistical, the
Atheistical, and the Fanny-wright-dale-owen-istical,—three
members of Faculty be annually elected out of each and
to serve one month, till the year ends, and then to recommence
with other sets of three, and so on till the end of
time.
“Among many unanswerable reasons for this petition,
we urge only four:—
“1. It is the true Anti-federal Democratical and Pure
Republican course, founded on rotation; for it is useless
to assert that all have a right to become Professors, unless
it can be shown possible and practicable:
“2. It will promote learning: for, when manifest that
every body, in turn, can be Professor, every body will go
to studying to get enough to last him at least a month:
“3. It is said, confidently, by some sectarian leaders,
that if they were in, their sects would each send one hundred
students to College! Hence, all sects doing the
same—as all will when one does—our College flourishes
at once with twelve hundred students!!
“4. The amazing cheapness of the plan. It will cost
nothing, except travelling expenses! Your petitioners
have been repeatedly informed, that no Democratical Republican
and patriotic Citizen will charge a dollar for his one
month's professional services!—but that all will serve for
the honour! and hence our Transmontane Commonwealth
shall show to the Whole Admiring World, the noble sight
of the Greatest, Most Wonderful, Most Powerful Free
School System in the Universe!!!!
“This petition, and reasons, are respectfully submitted,
and your petitioners—all, at least, that acknowledge a Supreme
Being—will ever pray,” &c.
This petition was copied by James Sylvan, the Doctor's
nephew; who, being a talented young man, the paper was
generally attributed to him. When circulated, it soon had
the proper number of signatures—a few signing with a full
to the other, and already signed by them! These
latter thought, if one petition would do good, two would do
more.
Sorry am I to say, both Ned and Domore signed both
papers! Yet, afterwards, Ned insisted, with the most
awful “busts of his rifle!” that he had signed the first
only to please his neighbours! and then ours, to counteract
the other's evil tendency!! Ned had a little of the
Falstaff in him—and Shakspeare drew from life.
Well, the petition was forwarded about Christmas: and
a waggish member, who affected to be a very Adams in defence
of the right of petition, contrived to present our paper
before the appearance of its enemy. And the effect, they
say, was such on the risibles of our “grave and reverend
seigniors,” that Insidias Cutswell, Esq., who had charge
of the other paper, did himself join heartily in the laugh,—
(he always laughed if the majority indulged)—and never
took the true people's-people's petition from his pocket!
In justice must it be said, that, while that petition had
been drawn up by himself ad hoosierandum, he was secretly
glad to have it defeated. Still, he condoled with
the signers, by lamenting and condemning “the unhappy
state of indecorum at the time too prevalent in the House,
which rendered it unadvisable to submit grave and important
matters to their consideration!”
Learning and talents now are not necessary in teachers; for there
are many first-rate teachers without. Owing to the iproved era.
58. CHAPTER LVIII.
From rank to rank your vollied thunder flew!”
Campbell.
Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry!”
This autumn was remarkable for wild pigeons. The
mast had failed elsewhere; while with us, the oak, the
beech, and all other nut trees, had never borne more abundant
crops. The woods, therefore, teemed with hogs,
squirrels, and all other nut-crackers, that, like the primitive
men of poetry, preferred this acorn-life.
How many swine were slaughtered this fall, I never
learned: but, within six weeks, our upper and lower regiments
of hunters, and simply by shooting occasionally
around their clearings, on counting, at the muster, their
squirrel scalps, found the sum more than 30,000!!
As to pigeons, the first large flocks attracted no unusual
notice: and, yet, were they mere scouting parties from the
grand army! For, within a week, that army began to
arrive, as though flocks had never before been seen! and
all the birds under the whole heavens, had been congregated
into one company! Had the leaves of our trees all
been changed into birds, the number could have been no
greater!
With a friend, I stood in an open space in the woods,
two miles east of Woodville, from 10 o'clock A. M. to 3
o'clock, P. M.—five hours—during which, with scarcely
thirty seconds intermission, a stream of pigeons, about two
above us, and with the rapidity of thought! It was an
endless hurricane on wings, rushing innoxious, yet with
such an uproar as seemed to be prostrating the forests:
and the deep reverberating thunder, in the distant wilds,
seemed to announce the fall of their ponderous and ancient
trees! Never had I felt the awe and solemnity of sound
thus; even in beholding the wind-tempest pass over the
same wilds, bowing the submissive woods, and bearing
onward their wide tops, as if mown off with an angel's
scythe!
It will readily be thought, our hunters and sportsmen
were in all places firing away at the living torrent:
and yet, with but small loss to the pigeons. Rifles are
useless in firing at very distant and flying troops; and we
had not more than a dozen Leather-stockings in the Purchase,
able to single out and kill a bird at a time.
“Why not use shot-guns?” What a question! “Well
—but why?” Why, first and foremost, that toy could not
be found in twenty houses in the whole Purchase. Secondly,
our men could hardly be coaxed to use the thing,
both out of contempt, and, what may seem strange, out of a
little fear; for, as Ned said, “the spiteful critter kick'd so
powerful.” Beside, it is unfavourable to rifle-shooting to
acquire the dodge taught by a shot-gun. But, lastly, the
pigeons usually flew twenty yards above our trees—and
that rendered the Mantons, or any best shot-guns, as efficacious
nearly as—a quill and a slice of potato.
However, all the shot-guns and horse-pistols were sought
and fixed, so feverish became the excitement, and since there
were half-cut backwoodsmen enough, and some degenerate
natives to use them. But here was the next difficulty;
powder was plenty,—yet, who had shot? In our store
was not a pound; and it was the same almost in the others.
Still, a few pounds were ferretted from lurking places, and
pound:—whence was proved, that a pound of lead in shot-shape,
is not even as heavy as a pound of feathers!—the
air-pump to the contrary notwithstanding.
With immense persuasion, Ned and Domore consented
to shoot horse-pistols: but they both utterly refused to
fire off “store-shot.” And, like some others, they hammered
bullets into bars; which were then cut into cubes
and triangles, this being “a sort a-shootin bullets, and no
inkuridjment to store-keepers to bring out their blasted
baby shot!”
In justice to my own manhood, it must be told, I stooped
not to the shot concern till after several days' failure in
hitting with my rifle, a single bird, at 140 yards, and moving
as near like “the greased lightning” as possible: nor
then, before the following accident showed there may be
danger in firing a rifle as well as a shot-gun. Satisfied
that the rifle must be fired now by the doctrine of chances,
and not of “the sights;” and that the chance with one
bullet was a “slim chance,” it seemed better to multiply
chances, and load with two balls instead of one. And yet
the spaces between the flying birds were as plentiful as
birds; and, into these spaces the two balls chanced to go
when they parted company, or, if they stuck together, it
was, after all, but one chance. Therefore, we at last ventured
on patching the balls separately; and then, indeed,
the effect was considerably different; not, however, upon
the pigeons, but at my end of the gun: for, at the flash, I
was suddenly driven partly around, and with a tingling in
the fingers supporting the barrel, while about me, for several
yards, lay the silver mounting and ornaments of my
rifle!
“What was the matter?”
The piece had burst; and the stock was shattered up
to the spot sustained by my left hand! and, yet, had I received
the same cause,—(air intercepted between the patched
balls)—another rifle burst; and, although the owner remained
with its butt only in his hand, he too was unharmed
midst the scattered fragments of wood and iron. Ned's
remark about the accidents, was paradoxical, for he “Bust
his rifle, if he allowed a rifle would a-busted no how!”
After this, I descended to the shot-gun. But, while I
took my station in the opening already named, and, furnished
with two and a half theoretic pounds of different
sized shot, fired away till all was expended, I was rewarded
with only two pigeons—these being from a small
cloud that, by some accident, flew a few yards below the
tree-tops, and both killed at one fire.
One evening, shortly after sunset, Ned Stanley brought
a report into the village, that the pigeons were forming an
encampment for the night somewhere to the south-east.
And, not long after, this was confirmed by Domore, who
had surprised an out-post, nestling in the woods within a
mile and a half of Woodville.
Had a scout brought intelligence of a hostile Indian
band, our town could not have been more effectually roused
and speedily armed. And now, verily, shot-guns and shot
rose a thousand per cent.—like caterpillars' eggs in the
mulberry fever: and every where some body met any body
and every body, legs and all, full tilt in search of the article!
Turkeys, sang, coon-skins, ven's'n-hams, and even
cash (hoarded to buy land!)—were offered for guns, pistols,
and shot!—and, all round, could be seen and heard men
and boys hammering, rolling, and cutting shot! Indeed,
many intended to fire this extemporaneous shot out of—
rifles! And when hunters, or even semi-hunters, can so
demean these—the temptation and excitement must be
prodigious!
Some could not procure even rifles; and these persons,
and gun barrels hastily mounted on rude stocks, to be fired
in partnership, one holding the matchlock, and the other
“touching her off” with an ignited stick or cigar.
“What was all this stir about?” Why, for a night attack
on the Grand Roosting Encampment! For, since
the Purchase became a purchase, never, in the memory of
our oldest and most respectable squatters, had such an occurrence
happened, as for the pigeons to roost so near
Woodville! Now, some had read in Ornithology, and
others had been told by people from Kentucky—oh! such
wonders about roosts and encampments! how pigeons
covered all the branches; and then perched on one another,
till the trees became living pyramids of feathers!
And how, then, all tumbled down and killed themselves,
till the ground was covered with dead pigeons, oh! as
much as two feet!—like quails round the Israelitish camp!
Yes! and the pigeons slept so sound, and were so averse to
flying in the dark, that you could walk up and gather birds
from trees like wild-plums in a prairie! Ay! and the farmers
used to camp near a roost, with droves of hogs;
which, (after the farmers had barrelled up enough birds for
winter,) were driven in every morning to be fattened on
dead pigeons!
“Did you believe all that, Mr. Carlton?”
Well—I was but mortal—beside, every body said it
would be such a most mighty powerful smart chance to
get such a heap of pigeons! I did not, indeed, go as far
as some; for I never expected to find them two feet high,
already dead, and, maybe, picked and ready for the skillet.
Beside, I wanted to go, and “who knows,” says I to myself,
“if there mightn't be some truth in the account after
all.” Hence, after five minutes cogitation, I hurried down
after Clarence and Harwood—but, mark it, reader, I was
met by those learned gentlemen, hastening up to Carlton's
living in the edge of the forest, knew well enough that the
pigeons were camping, from the thunderings, like the deep
and solemn mutter of an earthquake, (although the nearest
point of the camp proved nearly three miles distant,) and
hence, quite as excited and credulous as we small fry, they
were posting up town to join a party:
“Which way? Which way? neighbours!”
“Coming up to your store,—are you going down to College?”
“I was—did you hear what Domore and Ned say?”
“No—but, hark! don't you hear them?”
“What!—is that the pigeons?”
“To be sure!—Carlton, won't you go?”
“That's what I was coming down for —”
“That's your sort—agreed. Going to take a gun?”
“No—guess not: all Woodville is out with guns—pistols—rifles—match-locks—and
big keys, with touch-holes
filed in—let's only take things to carry back birds in.”
“Agreed—they say you can pick a barrel under a tree—
what shall we take?”
“Bags?”
“Yes—and a long string to tie them by the legs, and
carry back on a pole!”
“Ready now, Carlton?”
“Yes—yes—yes! let's keep on.”
“Well, stop at my house,” said Clarence, “and there
we'll fix a bag and some twine, and so lose no time.”
All was done quick as a squirrel's jump. Then guided
by the sound, we put out, regardless of a course, and unable
to discern objects dubious in the dim light of a waning
moon, and partly obscured by clouds. We were in Indian
file,—now trotting, now running, and occasionally walking,
—here stumbling over logs—there scrambling up and down
gullies—then diving into sink-holes—then ripping through
suggestive, performed with no little blowing and palpitation,
and broken abruptly by exclamation, thus:—
“Hark!”
“Ye-e-s!”
“Like—ooh!—thun-der!—hey!”
“Ve-ry! Got—bag?”
“Ooh!—yes! You—ooh!—got—string?”
“Oho! ouch!—no! he's got it—ooh!”
“What now? oho! ouch!—bad briars here!” &c. &c.
In about two miles, even this laconic dialect was difficult
to use, being lost in the roar of pigeon-thunder—mingling
with which was heard, however, the artillery, the
outcries and shouts of our gallant village troops!
“Yes! hark!—they're pelting away! Come! come
on! Get that bag ready—pull out those strings—hurraw!”
And yet it was curious—we had come to no outposts!
—had caught no drowsy sentinel pigeons on their roosts!
What on earth made the thunder so late at night? How
could pigeons, packed on one another, and with heads
comfortably stuck under wings, keep up such an awful
noise? Was it snoring? Ay! maybe it was the noise of
pigeons tumbling down, and trees breaking —
Hark! a storm rushes this way! How sudden the
moon is hid! Is that a cloud? Yes, reader, it was a
storm—but of pigeons rushing on countless wings! It was
a cloud—but of careering and feathered squadrons! The
moon was hid—and by a world of startled birds!
In vain our search that night for pigeon bearing trees!
In vain our bag and three strings! We might have filled
a bolster with feathers; but no bird living or dead burdened
either our sack or lines! The myriad hosts for miles
and miles were on their wings! and guns were flashing
away in hopeless vengeance and idle wrath! Neither
the free air of Heaven! Pitiful our bag and string!—pitiful
our very selves! and all Woodville gazing from the
dark depths of the woods upward on that boundless canopy
of sounding, black, and rushing pinions!
To remain was worse than useless—it was hazardous;
at every flash of gunpowder, showers of shot foreign and
domestic fell like hail on the leaves around us—and we
fancied rifles cracked as if speeding balls, and that we heard
the peculiar whistling of their death dealing music! And
we turned to go home. But the way thither had now become
a question. That we were about three miles distant
was probable; yet after turnings and windings in the dark,
our puzzle was no wonder. Besides the moon, as if unable
to penetrate the cloud of wings, had never re-appeared;
and clouds of another kind had succeeded, whence heavy
and frequent rain-drops now pattered on us!
At last we decided our course by instinct; in which we
satisfactorily learned that human instinct is inferior to brute:
for after a trot of ten minutes, sudden torchlights crossed
our way at right angles, and a voice from one carrier thus
hailed—
“Hilloo! whar're you a travellin?”
“To Woodville—whose that?”
“To Woodville!—bust my rifle if you ain't a goin a
powerful strate course on it—”
“Why Ned, is that you?”
“That's the very feller; why Mr. Carltin if you keep
that course, you'll reach the licks about sun-up!—why
this here's the way—foller our trail.”
“Ha! ha! Ned, I thought I was a better woodsman—
keep a-head, we'll follow.”
“Well, you're puttee smart in the day-light, Mr. Carltin—
but it's raythur more hardish to strike the course of a dark
night.”
“Where's Domore, Ned?”
“Foller'd arter the d— pigins —”
“Don't swear, Ned, the preacher's here. Did you get
any?”
“Git any! Nobody didn't git none. Bust my rifle if
this ain't a judjmint on the settlemint for firing shot guns
and shot out a rifles!”
“I think myself, Ned, shot guns had something to do in
scaring the birds so. But how far yet to Woodville?”
“Well, I can't jist about say sartinly—it taint more nor
four miles no how—'spose we a sorter stop talking—it
hinders runnin; and here goes for a fresh start.”
And start fresh did Ned and his party, and at a rate extremely
prejudicial to easy conversation, and giving us genteel
folks work enough to keep in sight of the torches. In
little more than an hour, however, we stood in the edge of
the clearings; when our course being pointed out by Ned,
the parties separated, and I went with Harwood and Clarence
to take supper at the house of the latter,—a supper ready
to greet our arrival with a bag and string of pigeons!
I acknowledge it—this is a very tame and spiritless end
of our pigeon tale—a very bad dove-tailing! Yet is it as
natural as our flat and unprofitable feelings, when we sat
down about twelve o'clock that night at Clarence's to an
overdone, burnt up, tasteless supper—our poetry and romance
all flown away with the pigeons, and washed out by
the rain! However, we may add, that many followed the
pigeons all night; and once or twice small flocks were
found settled on trees where about one hundred in all were
killed—but the grand body was never overtaken. It continued,
perhaps, on the wing till a favourite roosting place
some hundred miles south was reached, that being their
direction. Domore got back at eight o'clock next morning,
having done twenty-five miles and obtained twenty-two
or bursting of his horse pistol. Hence shot guns were in
worse odour than ever and no light curses heaped on “all
sich spiteful bird skerers and them what made and shot
em!”
Domore, indeed, soon recovered: when his first rifle-shot
afterward was so melancholy in its consequence, as to
make him abstain from his favourite weapon and hunting
for many months. With that account we conclude this
chapter.
He went out several hours before day-break and lay in
wait at a salt-lick for a deer. Here he waited patiently till
the dawn; and then opposite his station his keen eyes discovered
in the bushes the cautious approach of an animal,
and soon he caught a glimpse of its body. To flash his
eye through the sights and to touch the trigger was instinctive—and
then came the cry not of a wounded deer or bear,
but of human agony! Domore flew to the spot; and what
was his horror there to see bleeding on the ground and apparently
dying, poor Jesse Hardy, his intimate friend, and
the honest fellow who had been with us in the cave!
He, too, had come to watch the lick; and had Domore
been later than Hardy, their fates, perhaps, had been reversed!
Generally great precaution is employed by our
hunters to prevent such mishaps, yet sometimes with all,
they do occur. Happily in the present case the wound,
though severe, was not mortal, and Hardy in a few minutes
so recovered as to speak; when Domore, after doing
what seemed proper, left his friend for fifteen minutes,
and then was again on the spot with the assistance of a
neighbouring family. The wounded man was carefully removed
to the cabin; and Domore mounting a horse darted
away full speed for Dr. Sylvan. The Doctor came; and
being a skilful surgeon, as he had in that capacity served
in the war a regiment of mounted riflemen, he used the best
poor Jess was able to return to his domestic duties. During
this confinement Domore did all he could for his friend,
and also for the widow-mother, supplying as far as possible
the place of a son; and although after Jess recovered, Domore
hunted again with his rifle, he never again, while we
were in the Purchase, went out to watch a lick.
59. CHAPTER LIX.
What, smitten, most proclaims the pride of power
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme
To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;
The feeble wrap the athletic in his shroud
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb.”
Scarcely had the gloom from the late melancholy occurrence
been dispelled before our settlements were trembling
at reports of a coming, resistless, unpitying, destructive
foe—the Asiatic Cholera!
Innumerable were our schemes to turn aside, evade, or
counteract, this fell disease; and all fear of other sickness
and death was absorbed in fear of this! As if God had
only one minister of vengeance, or of chastisement! As if
He was to be dreaded in the thunder and tempest, and forgotten
in the calmness and sunshine! Indeed, that only
dreaded death then came not;—God sent another messenger
of terror and of mercy—The Scarlet Fever!
This disease appeared first and without apparent cause
in the family of Dr. Sylvan. Thence, in a few weeks, it
spread carrying death and mourning into most of our habitations.
It followed no known law, sometimes yielding and
then refusing to yield to the same treatment and in the
places resisting the established, or different, or even opposite
treatment, and sweeping all into the grave! The
cholera then had no alarms! The King of Terrors was
among us in forms as frightful and destructive!
Then was it, dear one! after days and nights of ceaseless
and anxious watchings, and after fitful alternations of
hope and fear, we saw those eyes, so soft and yet so brilliant,
suddenly and strangely quenched—as though life had
retreated thither to a last refuge and death, having long
before triumphed o'er thy dear, dear form, did there, as a
last act, put out that most precious light!
What didst thou mean by those mysterious words in the
dying strife?—“Father! father! how tired I am!” Was
it so hard to die?— * * Didst thou hear, in answer,
the wailings of bitterest anguish?—or feel on thy cold
cheek the last kisses—while tears wet that face, changing
and passing for ever? * * * Sleep, dear babe! in thy
bed under the forest leaves, amid those lone graves—we
shall meet, and, never to part—no! never!
Clarence had buried two children in the far East: he
was now called to lay another in the far West. That Sabbath
morning can never be forgot! Among others, who
suffered most, was our fellow-citizen Mr. Harlen. His
four chidren were all deaf-mutes. Two of these had died
in succession, at an interval of eight days: and, when the
second lay in its little coffin, in front of the pulpit in the
Methodist Chapel, the third, a fine boy, nine years old,
distressed at some supposed error, stole from his weeping
parents in the church, and, advancing to the coffin of his
dead brother, placed the bier as to him seemed suitable
and decorous! Poor darling one! on the next Sabbath,
he lay in his own coffin on that same bier, and before that
there—and the chief mourner was Clarence! The heart-broken
parents of the mutes—(ay! mute, indeed, now!)
—had entreated him to pray for themselves, if possible,
that day in public! He did so. And over the coffins of
their dead children, he spoke to others and himself too,
words of consolation; and offered prayer to Him that can
and did bind up the broken in heart, and raise up them that
were bowed down!
Mournful train! The vision is before me ever—as it
emerges from the house of God! It slowly ascends the
hill!—the two coffins!—the two stricken households!—
the False One between friends at that double burial!
The train is entering the Forest Sanctuary! They are
separating, some to lay the deaf one with his kin—some
to see the stranger lay his babe near my buried one! —
— Reader! I now write many things in playfulness
—none in malice—yet, years of my life passed, when sadness
only was in my heart; and words and thoughts of
pleasantness were impossible! Ay! the gloom of hell, if
not its despair, possessed my soul! But, I have found
religion not inconsistent with great and habitual cheerfulness.
Nay, thoughts of death, judgment, and eternity, may
be ever present and ever dominant in a mind taught by
many sorrows to make light of the things of time and
sense!
How do these solemn words and things sort with thy
cheerfulness? For, remember, by the agreement or disagreement,
your character is: and that thine most certainly,
as mine, are—Death—Judgment—Eternity!
| The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | |