University of Virginia Library

THIRD YEAR.

32. CHAPTER XXXII.

The commencement of our third summer was marked by
an event very sad to our little self-exiled company in the
woods—the death of Mrs. Glenville.

Were all here said affection prompts and truth warrants,
a volume might be easily written, interesting to most, but
specially to that comparatively small yet most excellent class
known as religious people: for never had such a brighter
ornament or safer pattern. No one, except the inspired
person who first gave the exhortation, could more truly have
said with her lips to her friends as she did by her life—“Be
ye followers of me as I am of Christ.” But none ever
was so unwilling to appropriate that or similar expressions:
she was too pious, too humble and meek, and childlike ever
to think her lovely temper, resigned spirit, and disinterested
goodness to be, as they were, a bright and burning light.

In early life she was said to be surpassingly beautiful.
But danger and temptation from beauty were soon prevented;
in the midst of her bloom her enchanting face was for

ever marred by the fearful traces of the small-pox. Yet
spite of this, and even in advanced life, rare was it to behold
a countenance more agreeable than hers; in which
was the blended expression of pleasing features, benevolent
feeling, pure sentiment, and heavenly temper. The
original beauty of the countenance had seemingly been
transferred to the heart; whence it beamed afresh from the
face, refined, chastened, renovated. Her person was tall
and finely proportioned; and so imposing her mien, from a
native dignity of soul, that had her original beauty remained,
Mrs. Glenville must have always appeared a Grace.

She was well educated and extensively read in history,
and many other important secular subjects, but her chief
reading had always been that best of books—the Bible:
indeed, to this, during the last few years of her sorrowful
life, her whole attention was given. She, however, read
now one other book—a book we name, although with no
expectation of its obtaining favour in an unreflecting age—
“Ambrose's looking unto Jesus.” And these two books,
in the latter months of her life, owing to the nature of her
disease, she read on her knees! That disease was an
aneurism of the femoral artery, of long continuance, and towards
the last exceedingly painful—and which, from an
early period of its existence had been pronounced fatal.
Yet all this created in her no alarm, produced not the slightest
murmur, and abated not her customary cheerfulness and
playful vivacity. Nay, she tried even to comfort and encourage
our little settlement—being really more joyous in
anticipation of a removal to the better land, than we could
have been in returning from exile to vast temporal possessions
and a beauteous earthly home!

Reason was unimpaired till within a very few moments
of death; and we all stood around her bed in the rude
cabin, while she, placing her hands on the heads of her
grandchildren, offered a solemn prayer for their welfare;

—and then, with an interrupted voice of the utmost tenderness,
she, looking on us for the last, and smiling, said—“I
am dying—all—peace!” The king of terrors was there
—to her an Angel of beauty—to us dark and frightful!—
and he rudely shook that dear frail tabernacle with a severe,
perhaps a painful convulsion! But that loved heart, after
one throe of agony, was still!—a deep sigh breathed from
the quivering lips—and she was not, for God had taken
her! A blood ransomed and sanctified spirit was in its
true home!

Two days after we laid her in a lone and forest grave.
And there all were mourners; none walked in that procession
of the dead but the people of Glenville—brothers, sisters,
children! In that solitary spot we laid her, far away
from consecrated ground and the graves of our fathers!

But what! though night after night around that spot was
heard the melancholy howl of the wild beast!--what!
though the great world knows not, cares not to know of that
leaf-covered grave! The dust that slumbers there shall
live again—and die no more! Better far lie in an unknown
grave and rise to the resurrection of the just, than under a
sculptured monument amid the lofty mausoleums of kings,
if one thence must rise to die the endless death!

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.

Important changes to the Glenville settlement soon followed
the death of Mrs. Glenville. It was found necescessary
to connect a store with the tannery; and hence,
after due deliberation, it was decided that Mr. Carlton
should now remove to Woodville and open the store;—
the ex-legislator, J. Glenville, to remain and conduct the
leather department with old Dick, and also buy up produce
for the Orleans market, and all along shore there.
He—(not Dick, but Glenville)—was now also a candidate
for Prothonotary; although not from elevated and pure
patriotism, as in his other campaign; the fact is we had
had honour enough and—loss. An eye was now fixed on
the salary; we wished to serve the people, provided like
other great patriots, we could also serve ourselves; bad
men serve only themselves, good ones both themselves and
the people.

Uncle John and Aunt Kitty were to stay with Glenville
in the patriarchal cabin; but Miss Emily Glenville was to
go with us to Woodville, where she and Mrs. Carlton
would set up an Institute for Young Ladies!—the very first
ever established in the New Purchase.

In due season, and after innumerable dividings and packings
of goods and chattels, off we set; a good two horse
wagon and its owner and driver, a robust youth of the timber
world, having been hired to take us and “the plunder.”
Aunt Kitty insisted on going over to see us safe at our

new home and to help fix; and old Dick, poor fellow!
looked so wistfully at me, that I agreed to ride the honest
creature to Woodville, if he would consent to come back
tied to the tail of the wagon; and to that he made no objection
whatever. And so he went along too.

Nothing important occurred on the journey, only a curious
complimentary mistake of the bustling hostess during the
night we were compelled to pass on the road. This sagacious
lady, seeing a baby in the party, inferred, in Pillbox's
style, that somebody was married; and as Aunt Kitty carried
the little “crittur,” and made an awful deal of fuss,
and Mr. C. used once or twice nursery diminutives, the
landlady concluded that if I was “faddywaddy,” Aunt
Kitty must be “mammywammy.” Hence, about bed time,
she considerately said--“I want to 'commodate near about
as well as we can fix it, and so him—(pointing to Mr. Carlton)—and
you ma'am—(speaking to Aunt Kitty)—kin have
the room up loft thare; and them young folks—(Mrs. Carlon,
Emily C. and the driver)—kin have this room down
here all alone to 'emselves!”

Now, reader, had I a very grave and solemn countenance
in my youth, or was Aunt Kitty then just thirty-five
years and six months my senior, a very pretty, youthful,
looking woman? And what could have deceived our Hoosierina?
that when informed of her error, she should have
exclaimed:—

“Well! now! I never seed the like on it! Why if I
didn't sentimentally allow you was the two old folkses, and
them two likely young gals, your two oldenmost daters—
and that leetle crittur, you look'd like you was a nussin
your last and youngenest!”

Awh! come now, reader, act fair; for Aunt Kitty was
after all a right down good looking body, and as lively as
a young lady of plus-twenty. And do not fine, handsome

young fellows sometimes marry good looking aged ladies
very rich?

However, spite of this, next day we came safe to Woodville.
But now, alas! was to be the parting with old Dick!
True, he let them tie him to the tail of the wagon—but
evidently, he was trotted off contrary to his secret wishes,
and a good deal faster than he was accustomed to go; for
our driver, desirous of reaching the river by night, and
having no return load, drove away at a Jehu gait. I, standing
at our upper story back window, cried out, as he
wheeled into his retrograde position—“Good bye, Dick,
good bye! and, would you have believed it? He cocked
back his ears!—rolled up his eyes!—and with head and
neck almost horizontal, he made not only desperate efforts
not to trot, but to slip his halter! In vain! The brute
horses in front, were too many for the poor fellow, and away,
away they jerked him; till the party, entering the woods,
turned suddenly into the road to Glenville, and he was
forced round with an ample sweep of his rear quarters;
and the last I ever saw of my poor dear old comrade was
a most indignant flourish of his venerable tail! For, before
my visit to the former home, Dick who would not grind
bark alone, and John could not be constantly with him, was
sold to a neighbouring teamster; and then, in about a year
after, he ended his earthly career as he had begun it—a
wheel-horse to a wagoner! Whether from the infirmity
of age, or heart-broken at quitting our family, he dropped
dead, holding back in his place, on the descent of a precipitous
hill!! * * * * * * Poor Dick!
poor Dick!—Don't pshaw at me, reader! I'm not crying,
any such thing—yes! he's dead now! I shall never see him
again! and you will never hear of him. If he has plagued
you some in this work, he will not, like some bipedalic and
quadrupedal heroes in certain other books, plague you all
through!

Behold us, then, one step back towards the worldly
world. And so now we shall have a little backwoods town
life, with an occasional excursion to our country seat at
Glenville, like great shop-keepers of eastern cities.

Our first step at Woodville was to write and fasten up at
the post-office, court-house, jail, doctor's office and other
public places, copies of our prospectus for the Woodville
young ladies' institute. This was necessary for sixteen
reasons; firstly, there was no printing office nearer (then)
than one hundred miles; secondly,—Oh! I see you are
satisfied—I'm not going on. Wonderful care, however,
had been used to make our notice a specimen, both of penmanship
and patriotism; and hence more was accomplished
in our favour than could nave been done by sixteen line
pica and long primer. For instance, heading the foolscap
was a superb American eagle, in red ink flourish, and holding
in his bill, a ribbon, inscribed—“Young Ladies Institute.”
Then came the mistresses' names in large round
hand—then the location in letters, inclining backward, like
old Dick when wheel-horse—Oh! pardon, he shall not hold
back for us again—I was off my guard; and then the word
PROPOSE that introduced the page-like matter, in capitals
of german text, with heads and tails curled and crankled
and interlaced, so as nearly to bewilder the reader about
the meaning! And yet, so adroitly was this word contrived,
that if one pertinaciously and judiciously kept on through
all the windings, he would emerge safe enough at the final
flourish of the E; and be not a little triumphant at twisting
unhurt and unscared through the labyrinth of “sich a
most powerful hard and high larn'd hand write!”

Leaving this prospectus to produce its own effects, I set
out for Louisville to lay in goods, and also to bring out for
our school-purposes, a piano. Now this was the very first
that “was ever heern tell of in the Purchus!” and hence
no small sensation was created, even by the bare report

of our intention. Nay, from that moment, till the instrument
was backed up to our door to be removed from the
wagon, expectation was on tip-toe, and conjecture never
weary. “A pianne! what could it be? Was it a sort a
fiddle-like—only bigger, and with a powerful heap of
wire strings? What makes them call it a forty pianne?—
forty—forty—ah! yes, that's it—it plays forty tunes!”

Some at Woodville knew well enough what a piano was,
for there, as elsewhere, in the far west, were oddly congregated,
a few intelligent persons from all ends of the
earth: but these did all in their power to mislead conjecture,
enjoying their neighbours' mistakes. After a narrow
escape of being backed, wagon and all, into the creek,
already mentioned, as having the ford just seven feet deep,
and notwithstanding the roughness, or as my friend, lawyer
Cutswell used to say, “the asperities” of the road, the instrument
reached us, and in tune,—unless our ears were
lower than concert pitch. At all events, we played tunes
on it, and vastly to the amazement and delight of our native
visitors; who, considering the notes of the piano as those
of invitation, came by day or night, not only around the window,
but into the entry, and even into the parlour itself, and
in hosts! Nor did such ever dream of being troublesome, as
usually it was a “sorter wantin to hear that powerful pianne
tune agin!” But often the more curious “a sort o' wanted
the lid tuk up like to see the tune a playin, and them little
jumpers (dampers) dance the wires so most mighty darn'd
powerful smart!”

All this was, indeed, annoying, yet it was amusing. Beside,
we might as well have bolted the store, and left the
Purchase, as to bolt our door, or quit playing: and beyond
the ill-savour of such conduct in a backwood's republic, it
would have been cynical not to afford so many simple people
a great pleasure at the cost of a little inconvenience
and some rusting of wires from the touches of perspiring

fingers. An incident or two on this head, and our music
may, for the present, be dismissed.

One day, a buxom lass dismounted, and after “hanging
her crittur” to my rack, walked not, as was usual, into the
store first, but direct into our parlour, where she made herself
at home, thus:—

“Well! ma'am, I'm a sort a kim to see that 'are thing
thare—(pointing to the piano)—Jake says its powerful—
mought a body hear it go a leetle ma'am?”

Of course, Mrs. Carlton let it “go a leetle,” and then it
was rapturously encored, rubbed, patted, wondered at,
asked about, &c. for one good solid hour, when our familiar
made the following speech and retired:—

“Well!—pianne tunes is great! I allow that pianne
maybe prehaps cost near on to about half a quarter section,
(forty acres, valued at fifty dollars.) I wish Jake and me
was rich folks, and I'd make him go half as high as yourn,
however, I plays the fiddle, and could do it right down
smart, only some how or nuther I can't make my fingers
tread the strings jist ezactly right!”

A very respectable woman, wife of a wealthy farmer
seven miles from Woodville, having been one day in town
till towards evening, thought she would step over, and for
the first time hear the famous piano; and that, although
she was to ride home by herself, and by a very long and
lonesome road. Our best tunes were accordingly done,
and with flute accompaniments; at which our honest-hearted
neighbour, raising both hands, and with a peculiar nod of
the head and wonderful naivete, exclaimed:—

“Compton—(her husband)—Compton said it was better
nor the fiddle!—but I'm sentimentally of opinion its as fur
afore a fiddle, as a fiddle's afore a jusarp!!”

Illustrious shade of Paganini! what say'st thou to that?

Once, however, a fine, yet unpolished young man came,
but evidently with an impression that some invitation was

necessary, as he rapped at the parlour door, and would not
enter till invited by Mrs. Carlton. She was playing at the
time, and well knowing the cause of the visit, she soon
asked if he was fond of music, to which he answered:

“Oh! most powerful fond, ma'am; and as I heern tell
of the pianne, I made a sort a bold to step in—and maybe
prehaps you'd play a tune.”

Tune after tune was accordingly played; while the
young man, who, abashed at his entrance, remained near
the door, now arose and advancing, as if drawn by some
enchantment, little by little, he stood at the end of the instrument,
absorbed in the music, and his eyes fixed with
an intense gaze on the lady's countenance—and at last,
when the music ceased at the conclusion of some piece of
Beethoven's, he heaved a profound sigh, and thus fervently
said:—

“If I had a puttee wife and such a fixin, I'd never want
nothing no more no how!”

Reader! that man had a soul! Sweet sounds and a fair
face—(my mother-in-law had been a very beautiful woman,
—now touched chords in his heart never before so vibrated;
and there came ill-defined but enrapturing visions—so lofty!
so aerial! so unlike his cabin, his sisters, and, perhaps,
his sweetheart! Wo to the fop who then should even have
looked impertinence towards the musician! Ah! sweetheart!
for an instant thy image was away! Thy lover had
caught a dim glimpse of a region and atmosphere where a
more refined lady-love only could live!

And so we were now fully under weigh at Woodville,
selling, buying, keeping school, and playing the piano—
the last important affair being sadly interrupted by the duties
of house-keeping. Mrs. C. began more clearly to understand
an elegant phrase, addressed to her at our entrance
into the wooden country—“the working of one's own ash-hopper.”
A girl was indeed caught, (although the creatures

were shy as wild turkeys) about once a month; but
the success was only small relief to the mistress. It might
be a kind of relief from rough scrubbing and washing; from
little else, however, as other work must be rectified and
often re-cleaned. Did a girl fancy, too, herself undervalued?—was
she not asked to the first table with company?
—not included in invitations sent us from “big bug” families?—not
called Miss Jane or Eliza?—she was off in a
moment! Real malice is often mixed with the dudgeons;
dough half kneaded is deserted by the young lady—clothes
abandoned in the first suds—batter left, and that at the instant
you invite your company to sit up, and expect “the
young woman that goes out to help her neighbours in a
pinch” to be coming in with the first plate of flannel cakes!

But if one unfortunately catches a girl who is a mad devotee
to some false form of the Christian religion, the employer
will be systematically cheated, under the vile plea
of higher obligations to attend the thousand and one meetings
got up by self-righteous revival makers. We have by
such been left on a sick-bed, and when it was by some supposed
we were actually dying!—her spiritual advisers held
a fanatical meeting that hour, and off she hurried, though
paid to nurse! Such a thing would not now be thought
worthy record, if we were not too well apprised that even
in here, girls, gals, helps, servants, and apprentices, are but
poorly instructed by some flaming religionists as to the sacred
duties of their offices; and that some of these helps,
although paid, fed, clothed, and nursed in sickness by the
employers, are, if not expressly taught, yet really encouraged,
to slight their work—to be impertinent—and to pay
no respect to proper family hours at night, or even to the
solemnities of a domestic religion!

Hence a New Purchase is not the most pleasant place in
the world for boarding-school young ladies—or indeed for

any females[1] who have not muscles of oak and patience of
an ox. Let then, no fair lady who can remain in an old
settlement, venture into a new one from mere poetical reasons;
or till she has long and deeply pondered this phrase
and its cognates—“to work your own ash-hopper!” And
if a nice young gentleman engaged to be married to a pretty
delicate lily-flower of loveliness, is meditating “to flit” to
a bran new settlement, let him know that out there rough
men, with rare exceptions, regard wives as squaws, and as
they often expressed their views to Mr. Carlton, “have no
idee of sich weak, feminy, wimmin bodies as warnt brung
up to sling a dinner-pot—kill a varmint—and make leather
brichises!”

MORAL.

Better to marry in the Range.

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.

Our Board of Trustees, it will be remembered, had been
directed by the Legislature to procure, as the ordinance
called it, “Teachers for the commencement of the State
College at Woodville.” That business by the Board was
committed to Dr. Sylvan and Robert Carlton—the most
learned gentlemen of the body, and of—the New Purchase!
Our honourable Board will be more specially introduced
hereafter; at present we shall bring forward certain rejected
candidates, that like rejected prize essays, they may be
published, and thus have their revenge.

None can tell us how plenty good things are till he looks
for them; and hence, to the great surprise of the Committee,
there seemed to be a sudden growth and a large crop of persons
even in and around Woodville, either already qualified
for the “Professorships,” as we named them in our publications,
or who could “qualify” by the time of election.
As to the “chair” named also in our publications, one very
worthy and disinterested schoolmaster offered, as a great
collateral inducement for his being elected, “to find his own
chair!”—a vast saving to the State, if the same chair I saw
in Mr. Whackum's school-room. For his chair there was
one with a hickory bottom; and doubtless he would have
filled it, and even lapped over its edges, with equal dignity
in the recitation room of Big College.

The Committee had, at an early day, given an invitation
to the Rev. Charles Clarence, A.M. of New Jersey, and
his answer had been affirmative; yet for political reasons
we had been obliged to invite competitors, or make them,
and we found and created “a right smart sprinkle.”

Hopes of success were built on many things—for instance,
on poverty, a plea being entered that some thing
ought to be done for the poor fellow—on one's having
taught a common school all his born days, who now deserved
to rise a peg—on political, or religious, or fanatical
partizan qualifications—and on pure patriotic principles,
such as a person's having been “born in a canebrake and
rocked in a sugar trough.” On the other hand, a fat, dull-headed,
and modest Englishman asked for a place, because
he had been born in Liverpool! and had seen the world
beyond the woods and waters too! And another fussy,
talkative, pragmatical little gentleman, rested his pretensions
on his ability to draw and paint maps!—not projecting them
in round about scientific processes, but in that speedy and
elegant style in which young ladies copy maps at first chop
boarding schools! Nay, so transcendant seemed Mr. Merchator's

claims, when his show or sample maps were exhibited
to us, that some in our Board, and nearly every body
out of it, was confident he would do for Professor of Mathematics
and even Principal.

But of all our unsuccessful candidates, we shall introduce
by name only two—Mr. James Jimmey, A.S.S., and Mr.
Solomon Rapid, A. to Z.

Mr. Jimmey, who aspired to the mathematical chair,
was master of a small school of all sexes, near Woodville.
At the first, he was kindly, yet honestly told, his knowledge
was too limited and inaccurate; yet, notwithstanding
this, and some almost rude repulses afterwards, he persisted
in his application and his hopes. To give evidence
of competency, he once told me he was arranging a new
spelling-book, the publication of which would make him
known as a literary man, and be an unspeakable advantage
to “the rising generation.” And this naturally brought on
the following colloquy about the work:—

“Ah! indeed! Mr. Jimmey?”

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Carlton.”

“On what new principle do you go, sir?”

“Why, sir, on the principles of nature and common
sense. I allow school-books for schools are all too powerful
obstruse and hard-like for to be understood without exemplifying
illustrations.”

“Yes, but Mr. Jimmey, how is a child's spelling-book to
be made any plainer?”

“Why, sir, by clear explifications of the words in one
column, by exemplifying illustrations in the other,”

“I do not understand you, Mr. Jimmey, give me a specimen—”

“Sir?”

“An example —”

“To be sure—here's a spes-a-example; you see, for
instance, I put in the spelling-column, C-r-e-a-m, cream,

and here in the explification column, I put the exemplifying
illustration—Unctious part of milk!”

We had asked, at our first interview, if our candidate
was an algebraist, and his reply was negative; but, “he
allowed he could qualify by the time of election, as he was
powerful good at figures, and had cyphered clean through
every arithmetic he had ever seen, promiscuous questions
and all!” Hence, some weeks after, as I was passing his
door, on my way to a squirrel hunt, with a party of friends,
Mr. Jimmey, hurrying out with a slate in his hand, begged
me to stop a moment, and thus addressed me:—

“Well, Mr. Carlton, this algebra is a most powerful thing
—aint it?”

“Indeed it is, Mr. Jimmey—have you been looking into
it?”

“Looking into it! I have been all through this here fust
part, and by election time, I allow I'll be ready for examination.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, sir! but it is such a pretty thing! Only to think
of cyphering by letters! Why, sir, the sums come out, and
bring the answers exactly like figures! Jist stop a minute
—look here; a stands for 6, and b stands for 8, and c
stands for 4, and d stands for figure 10; now if I say
a+b—c=d, it is all the same as if I said, 6 is 6 and 8 makes
14, and 4 substracted, leaves 10!! Why, sir, I done a
whole slate full of letters and signs; and afterwards, when
I tried by figures, they every one of them came out right
and brung the answer! I mean to cypher by letters altogether.”

“Mr. Jimmey, my company is nearly out of sight—if you
can get along this way through simple and quadratic equations
by our meeting, your chance will not be so bad—
good morning, sir.”

But our man of “letters” quit cyphering the new way,

and returned to plain figures long before reaching equations;
and so he could not become our professor. Yet
anxious to do us all the good in his power, after our college
opened, he waited on me, a leading trustee, with a proposal
to board our students, and authorised me to publish—“as
how Mr. James Jimmey will take strange students (students
not belonging to Woodville) to board, at one dollar
a week, and find every thing, washing included, and will
black their shoos three times a week to boot, and—give
them their dog-wood and cherry-bitters every morning into
the bargain!!”

The most extraordinary candidate, however, was Mr.
Solomon Rapid. He was now somewhat advanced into
the shaving age, and was ready to assume offices the most
opposite in character; although justice compels us to say
Mr. Rapid was as fit for one thing as another. Deeming it
waste of time to prepare for any station till he was certain
of obtaining it, he wisely demanded the place first, and then
set to work to become qualified for its duties, being, I suspect
the very man, or some relation of his, who is recorded
as not knowing whether he could read Greek, as he had
never tried. And, beside, Mr. Solomon Rapid contended
that all offices, from president down to fence-viewer, were
open to every white American citizen; and that every republican
had a blood bought right to seek any that struck
his fancy; and if the profits were less, or the duties more
onerous than had been anticipated, that a man ought to resign
and try another.

Naturally, therefore, Mr. Rapid, thought he would like to
sit in our chair of languages, or have some employment
in the State college; and hence he called for that purpose
on Dr. Sylvan, who, knowing the candidate's character, maliciously
sent him to me. Accordingly, the young gentleman
presented himself, and without ceremony, instantly
made known his business thus:—

“I heerd, sir, you wanted somebody to teach the State
school, and I'm come to let you know I'm willing to take
the place.”

“Yes, sir, we are going to elect a professor of languages
who is to be the principal, and a professor —”

“Well, I don't care which I take, but I'm willing to be
the principal. I can teach sifring, reading, writing, jogger-free,
surveying, grammur, spelling, definitions, parsin —”

“Are you a linguist?”

“Sir!”

“You of course understand the dead languages?”

“Well, can't say I ever seed much of them, though I
have heerd tell of them; but I can soon larn them—they
aint more than a few of them I allow?”

“Oh! my dear sir, it is not possible—we—can't—”

“Well, I never seed what I couldn't larn about as smart
as any body —”

“Mr. Rapid, I do not mean to question your abilities; but
if you are now wholly unacquainted with the dead languages,
it is impossible for you or any other talented man
to learn them under four or five years.”

“Pshoo! foo! I'll bet I larn one in three weeks! Try
me, sir,—let's have the furst one furst—how many are
there?”

“Mr. Rapid, it is utterly impossible; but if you insist, I
will loan you a Latin book —”

“That's your sorts, let's have it, that's all I want, fair
play.”

Accordingly, I handed him a copy of Historiæ Sacræ
with which he soon went away, saying, he “didn't allow
it would take long to git through Latin, if 'twas only sich a
thin patch of a book as that.”

In a few weeks, to my no small surprise, Mr. Solomon
Rapid again presented himself; and drawing forth the book
began with a triumphant expression of countenance:-

“Well, sir, I have done the Latin.”

“Done the Latin!”

“Yes, I can read it as fast as English.”

“Read it as fast as English!!”

“Yes, as fast as English—and I didn't find it hard at
all.”

“May I try you on a page?”

“Try away, try away; that's what I've come for.”

“Please read here then, Mr. Rapid;” and in order to
give him a fair chance, I pointed to the first lines of the
first chapter, viz; “In principio deus creavit caelum et terram
intra sex dies; primo die fecit lucem,” &c.

“That, sir?” and then he read thus, “in prinspo duse
cree-vit kalelum et terrum intra[2] sex dyes—primmo dye fe-fe-sit
looseum,” &c.

“That will do, Mr. Rapid —”

“Ah! ha! I told you so.”

“Yes, yes—but translate.”

“Translate?!” (eyebrows elevating.)

“Yes, translate, render it.”

“Render it!! how's that?” (forehead more wrinkled.)

“Why, yes, render it into English—give me the meaning
of it.”

“Meaning!!” (staring full in my face, his eyes like saucers,
and forehead wrinkled with the furrows of eighty)—
“Meaning!! I didn't know it had any meaning. I thought
it was a DEAD language!!”

Well, reader, I am glad you are not laughing at Mr. Rapid;
for how should any thing dead speak out so as to be

understood? And indeed, does not his definition suit the vexed
feelings of some young gentlemen attempting to read Latin
without any interlinear translation? and who inwardly, cursing
both book and teacher, blast their souls “if they can make
any sense out of it.” The ancients[3] may yet speak in their
own languages to a few; but to most who boast the honour
of their acquaintance, they are certainly dead in the sense
of Solomon Rapid.

Our honourable board of trustees at last met; and after
a real attempt by some, and a pretended one by others, to
elect one and another out of the three dozen candidates,
the Reverend Charles Clarence, A.M., was chosen our
principal and professor of languages; and that to the chagrin
of Mr. Rapid and other disappointed persons, who all
from that moment united in determined and active hostility
towards the college, Mr. Clarence, Dr. Sylvan, Mr. Carlton,
and, in short, towards “every puss proud aristocrat
big-bug, and darn'd blasted Yankee in the New Purchase.”

35. CHAPTER XXXV.

Scarcely had our college excitements subsided, when
we were favoured by a visit from two apostolic new lights.
These holely men worked by inspiration, and had from
heaven patent ways of converting folks by wholesale—by
towns, villages, and settlements; although it must be
owned, the converts would not stay converted. And yet

these men did verily do wonders at Woodville, as much so
as if by Mesmerism or Mormonism or Catholicism they
had magnetised and stupefied all our moral and spiritual
phrenological developements! If the doctrine be true, as
some religious editors assert, and we suppose on good authority,
that the sect which can in the shortest time convert
the most is the favourite with heaven, then our new lights
deserved the appellation they gave themselves—Christ
ians.

Our priests depended on no “high larnin,”—set no apples
of gold in frames of silver, but despised “man-hatch'd
fillosofees;” and we may add, even harmless grammar, being
as they said “poor, unlarn'd, ignorant men,” and also,
unshaved, uncomb'd, and fearfully dirt-begrimed—close
imitators, as they insisted, of primitive Christianity. All
they did was “goin from house to house a eatin and drinkin
sich as was set afore them,” bellowing prayers, snivelling
and sobbing, and slobbering over man, woman, and child,
and “a begginin and beseechinin on them to come to
meetin.” And as meetings were held at every hour of
every day and every night, we lived on the trot in going
to and from them—becoming thus a very peculiar, if not a
very good people.

At meeting, our venerable teachers prayed as loud and
pertinaciously as the priests of Baal, aided, however, by
amateurs in the congregations; yet with it all, we never
advanced beyond oh!-ing and ah!-ing. Still, definite petitions
were often presented, some for “onreginerit world-lins,”
some for “hypocrit professors,” and many “for
folks what believed in John Calvin's religion and hadn't
never been convarted.” But as it was of importance to
have certain persons saved, and the divinity of the new
lights might not fully understand who was meant, names
were metioned in prayer, as “dear brother Smith,” or poor

“dear sister Brown,” and sometimes titles were added, as
“dear Squire Goodman,” or “dear Major Meanwell.”

I never had the pleasure of hearing the bulls of Bashan
roar; yet, having heard our new light preachers, I can now
form a better conjecture as to that peculiar eloquence; at
all events, our two preachers foamed like a modern bull
worried by boys and butchers' dogs, and never gave over
till exhausted. Often what they said was unknown, as
their words seemed to burst asunder as soon as let out—
peculiar shells from wonderful mortars! And these two
personages as far excelled poor Philip in noise, grimace,
and incoherence, as he excelled in those qualities, a delicate
divine of the nineteenth century, who reads a sleepy
second-rate didactic discourse of a warm afternoon in dog-days,
in Pompous Square church; and that when the Rev.
Doctor Feminit fears the bronchitis.

And yet by this simple machinery, and well worked, in
about two weeks our new lights had converted every man,
woman, and child in Woodville, except Dr. Sylvan, Mr.
Carlton, and some other half dozen hardened sinners that
would “stout it out any how!” And now, from every house,
alley, grove, orchard, resounded forth curious groans, outcries,
yells, and other hell-a-beloo's of private prayer!
For all this was called private prayer!—the Scriptures, indeed,
directing otherwise; but Barton Stone, and Campbell
Stone can do much more with people out there than Peter
Stone the apostle; and men naturally love the fanatical
Pharisaism of pseudo-inspired teachers, councils and conclaves.

An opinion was held by most of our fanatics, that direct,
earnest, and persevering prayer would result in the instantaneous
conversion of any one in whose favour it was
made; and of course to the most opposite creeds! This
naturally led to some ridiculous consequences; for it soon
was argued that if an unregenerate man could be got by

any art or contrivance, or coaxing, to pray right earnestly
for himself, and cry out loud and long for mercy, he would
be immediately converted; nay, it was held to be efficacious
if he could be forced by physical means to pray! Hence
among other things of the sort, one of our domestic chaplains,
a very large and fat man, now stirred up and enlivened
by this visit of the good men, overtook a neighbour
in the woods going to meeting, and after having in vain exhorted
the person “to fall right down on his knees and cry
for mercy,” he suddenly leaped on the incorrigible rascal,
and cast him to the earth; and then getting astride the
humbled sinner, he pressed him with the weight of 225lbs
avoirdupois, till he cried out with sufficient earnestness and
intensity to “get religion!” Nor did this convert made
by so novel a papistical engine fall away any sooner than
most other converts mechanically forced, although by different
contrivances—he hung on some weeks. Besides,
if little children in western New-York were whipped with
a rod into the kingdom of heaven, why should not a stout
sinner, too big for that discipline, be pommelled into the
same kingdom in the New Purchase, by Bishop Paunch?

And would not more persons have been converted to
Oberlinism, Finneyism, or Abolitionism, or Anyism, if, after
the manner with our new lights, folks had more frequently
been characterized by their entire names and employments,
when prayed for? Indeed, one distinguished lawyer
in Western New-York, always ascribed his non-conversion,
after innumerable prayers made for him in public, and even
by name, to the unfortunate omission of his middle name!

Religious reader! do not mistake us; we are laughing
at Satan's delusions! And we lived long enough to find
true what we once heard a very learned, talented and pious
minister of the Gospel say, that “all such excitements from
false religions were sure to be followed by infidelity.” Our
evangelical churches were for a time deserted; our family altars

abandoned; our domestic intercourse ruined; the Sabbath
desecrated; the sacred name profaned, and his attributes
sneered at; and avowed and flaming converts to fanaticism
were, in two or three years after, reeling drunkards, midnight
gamblers, open and unblushing atheists! Nay, assembled
in a certain grog-shop—(out there appropriately
called “a doggery”)—three years after did some of the
man-made converts form a horrible crew that tied up
against the wall one of their party in a mock crucifixion!
—and setting fire to rum poured on the floor, they called it
—“the blazes of hell!!”

But a religious incident reminds me of my friend, Insidias
Cutswell, Esq. And his history adds to the many
instances of self-education and self-elevation. His career,
it was said by his political enemies, began with his being a
musician to a caravan of travelling animals; but it argues
great intrinsic genius, that a man ever made the attempt to
rise from such a life, and had skill and tact to use opportunities,
by thousands in like circumstances suffered to pass
unheeded. Rise, however, Mr. Cutswell did, till in all
that country he stood intellectually pre-eminent, and was
justly celebrated for learning, enterprise, skill in his legal
profession, and, as a political leader. Since then he has
stood on elevated pinnacles, both east and west; and had
his spiritual man been good as the intellectual, there would
he be still standing;—and perhaps higher. Contrary to
the old saws, “virtue is its own reward” and “honesty is
the best policy” moral excellency does not always meet
with earthly rewards; but yet, the retirement of some
talented men, is occasionally owing to moral causes rather
than political ones. And hence, many lamented that this
gentleman had not been as good as he was great.

Mr. C. was a good Latin and Greek scholar, and well
acquainted with antiquities and other subjects cognate

with the classics. He was deeply versed in the books of
law, and extensively read in history, political economy,
agriculture, architecture, chemistry, natural philosophy,
and metaphysics; and he was, moreover, an excellent
orator, using in his speeches the best language and with
the just pronunciation.

But,[4] my friend had two venial faults; one in common
with most politicians out (?) there, and one peculiar to himself
—maybe.

The first of these, was selfishness, and its consequence
moral cowardice. Hence, little reliance could be placed
in Mr. Cutswell by his friends—his enemies had in this
respect the advantage of his friends. And hence, he had
continual resort to log-rolling expedients; to some of
doubtful morality; and to some positively sinful, in order
to acquire or retain political ascendancy. Still, he was the
most sagacious man I ever knew at making political somersets;
for he turned so adroitly and so noiselessly, as to cheat
the eyes of beholders, and make it doubtful often whether
he was on his head or his feet; indeed, he kept such a
continual whirl as to seem always in the same place, and
yet he was always in a different one! Or to change
figures, he never turned with the tide, but watching the
symptoms of ebbs and flows he turned a little before the
tide; and thus, he always passed for a meritorious, patriotic,
people-loving leader of the true and honest party—i. e. the
strongest; instead of a tag-rag and bob tailed follower in
search of loaves and fishes. Yea! he so managed that the
world usually said “Well, Cutswell's friends have deserted
him, poor fellow!”—when all the time Mr. Insidias Cutswell,
poor fellow, had deserted them!

The other foible of his was a grand deportment put on

like a cloak when he entered elevated society, but laid
aside in his chambers or among the canaille. Doubtless
this arose from a mistaken notion of what constitutes good
behaviour as he was passing from the grub to the winged
state; and, maybe, to conceal that he had not always soared
but sometimes creeped. For instance, nothing could transcend
the pomp of his manner and dress on some occasions,
when from home, unless a New Purchase “Gobbler” in
the gallanting season; and then his style of taking snuff
when in full costume and under the eye of magnates, was
equal to a Lord Chamberlain's—it made you sneeze to
witness it!

First came an attitude—so grand!—it looked as if it had
been studied on a cellar door under the windows of a print
shop, from an engraving of Cook, or Kean, or Kemble in
royal robes at the acme of his sublime! Oh! the magnificence
of that look! And next, the polished box of fragrant
sternutatory powder (which he took instead of snuff)
would be extracted from the receptacle of an inner vest, a
single finger and thumb being delicately insinuated for that
duty; and the box thus withdrawn with so bewitching a
grace would then be held a moment or two till my lord
had completed some elaborate period, or till his deep interest
in the absorbing nothings you were uttering should
seem suspended by your own pausing. At that instant, his
eye glancing in playful alternation from his friend's face to
the box, he would perform a scale of rapid taps on the side
of the box with the index finger of the dexter hand to wake
up the sternutatory inmate; after which, modestly removing
or opening the lid, he would, in the manner of Sacas,
the Persian cup-bearer, first present the delicious aromatic
for your touch, and then with his own finger and thumb a
moment suspended in a pouncing position, he would suddenly
dart on to the triturated essence and snatch hurriedly
thence the tiniest portion possible. Arresting now his

hand half way in its upward flight, the pinch downward
yet at the tips of the finger and the thumb, he would for
the last time look with an interesting smile into his friend's
face, and in the midst of that gay sunshine, suddenly turning
the pinch under his own olfactory organ, he would inhale
the perfume with the most musical sniffle imaginable!
Retrograde motions and curves of becoming solemnity,
amplitude and grace, would close the box and restore it to
the inner vest—and so Mr. Cutswell would have snuffed!

Impatient folks may think it takes long to describe a
pinch; but, then, it took still longer to perform one.

Mr. Cutswell, among other matters, was no mean performer
on the violin; and on one occasion, at a private
concert at my house, forgetting his usual caution, he entertained
me with an anecdote about his fiddle and his
Bishop. For be it known, that like other politicians, Mr.
C. was a theoretical member of a religious people, who
looked on fiddle-playing as on the sin of witchcraft—although
I do not know whether he had ever received the
rite of confirmation; yet nothing but his high standing
saved him from an excommunication, that out there would
speedily have been visited on a poor player. Still his
Bishop was a faithful shepherd's dog, and hesitated not to
growl and bark, if he did to bite; being, also, one who prayed
for men sometimes by name, and at them often by description.
And so he contrived once to pray at Mr. Cutswell's
fiddling or rather against his fiddle; and nothing could
ever so belittle that instrument as this preacher's periphrastic
abuse of that curious compound of catgut, rosin,
and horsehair.

“I was present,” said Mr. Cutswell, laying down his
fiddle and bow upon our piano,—“some few evenings
since, after the discharge of my legal duties at the court
house—(attitude commencing for taking snuff,)—present,
Mr. Carlton, in the prayer-room of our chapel, a large con-course

of members being congregated for the customary
weekly devotions.” (snuff box out.) “Among others in
the apartment, was our venerable Bishop.” (Box tapped
and opened.) “He is a good and worthy man, sir; but
sub rosâ not wholly exempt from prejudice. Indeed, as to
music generally, but more especially that of the violin,—
(finger and thumb pouncing)—he entertains the most erroneous
sentiments;—(pinch going upwards)—and I fear that
he regards both myself and my instrument with feelings of
acerbity.” (Hem!—pinch inhaled.) In the course of his
prayer this evening, he contrived to administer to myself
in particular;—(lid closing)—but also to you, Mr. Carlton
and all other gentlemen that handle the bow,—(box “being”
returned)—the following very severe and appropriate admonition,
and in the exact words I now quote:

“ `Oh! Lord! oh!—I beseech thee to have marsy on
all them there poor sinners what plays on that instrumint,
whose sounds is like the dying screech of that there
animal out of whose intrils its strings is made!' ”

Amen!—at a venture! (Pompey or Cæsar.)

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.

This chapter is devoted to a man;—Mr. Vulcanus Allheart.
And, although he will rap our knuckles for smiling
at a few smileable things in him, Mr. Allheart will not be
displeased to see that Mr. Carlton, the author, remembers

his friend, as Mr. Carlton the storekeeper and tanner, always
said he would, when we blew his bellows for him or
fired rifles together.

During a life some what peculiarly chequered, we have both
by land and sea been more or less intimate with excellent
persons in the learned professions, and in the commercial,
agricultural and mechanical classes; but never out of the
circle of kinsfolk, including the agnati and the cognati,
have I ever so esteemed, ay. so loved any one as Vulcanus
Allheart. And who and what was he?

He was by birth a Virginian, by trade a blacksmith, by
nature a gentleman, and by grace a Christian; if more
need be said, he was a genius. Ay! for his sake to this
hour I love the very sight and smell of a blacksmith's shop;
and, many a time in passing one, do I pause and steal a
glance towards the anvil, vainly striving to make some
sooty hammerer there assume the form and look of my lame
friend!—for he was lame from a wound in his thigh
received in early life. Oh! how more than willing would
I stand once more and blow his bellows to help him gain
time for an evening's hunt, could I but see anew that
honest charcoal face and that noble soul speaking from
those eyes, as he rested a moment to talk till his iron arrived
at the proper heat and colour!

But let none suppose Vuleanus Allheart was a common
blacksmith. He was master both of the science and the
art, from the nailing of a horse-shoe up to the making of
an axe; and to do either right, and specially the latter, is
a rare attainment. Not one in a million could make an
axe as Allheart made it; and hence in a wooden country,
where life, civilization, and Christianity itself, are so dependent
on the axe, my blacksmith was truly a jewel of a
man. His axes, even where silver was hoarded as a
miser's gold, brought, in real cash, one dollar beyond any
patent flashy affairs from New England, done up in pine

boxes and painted half black, while their edge-part was
polished and shiney as a new razor—and like that article,
made not to shave but to sell; and all this his axes commanded,
spite of the universal nation, all-powerful and
tricky as it is. No man in the Union could temper steel
as my friend tempered; and workmen from Birmingham
and Sheffield, who sometimes wandered to us from the world
beyond the ocean, were amazed to find a man in the Purchase
that knew and practised their own secrets.

Necessity led him to attempt one thing and another out
of his line, till, to accommodate neighbours, (and any man
was his neighbour) he made sickles, locks and keys,
augurs, adzes, chisels, planes, in short, any thing for making
which are used iron and steel. His fame consequently
extended gradually over the West two hundred miles at
least in any direction; for from that distance came people
to have well done at Woodville, what otherwise must have
been done, or a sort of done, at Pittsburgh. Nay, liberal
offers were made to Allheart to induce him to remove to
Pittsburgh; but he loved us too much to accept them; and
beside, he was daily becoming richer, having made a very
remarkable discovery, which, however, he used to impart to
others for a consideration—viz. he had found out the curious
art of beating iron into gold. My friend was indeed
the great “Lyon” of the West.[5]

Mr. Allheart's skill was great also in rifle-making, and
also naturally enough in rifle-shooting. I have compared
Pittsburgh and Eastern and Down-eastern rifles with his,
(for the one concealed in my chamber is a present from
Allheart,) but none are so true, and none have sights that will
permit the drawing of a bead so smooth and round. Does

any maker doubt this? Grant me three months to regain
my former skill, and I stake my rifle against all you have
on hand, that she beats the things, one and all, eighty-five
yards off hand—or (as I shall only give back your articles)
I'll try you for the fun and glory alone! By the way, do
you shoot with both eyes open? If not, let me commend
the practice, both from its superiority and because it may
save you from killing your own wife, as it did Mr. Allheart
once.

He excelled, we have intimated, as a marksman. Perhaps
in horizontal shooting he could not have a superior;
for in his hands the rifle was motionless as if screwed in
one of his vices; and thence would deliver ball after ball
at fifty, sixty, or seventy yards, into one and the same augur
hole. For him missing was even difficult; and all I had
ever heard of splitting bullets on the edge of axe or knife,
hitting tenpenny nails on the head, and so forth, was accomplished
by Allheart. And his sight had become like
that of the lynx; for at the crack of the gun he would
himself call out where the ball had struck. Nor is all this
so wonderful if we recollect that many years in proving
rifles he practised daily; indeed target-shooting was a
branch of his business—and in it his skill became rare,
ay! even bewitching!

His place for making these daily trials was at first a
large stump some seventy yards distant on the far side of
a hollow, against which stump was fixed his target; and
along that ravine his wife, a pretty young woman, used to
pass and repass to get water from a spring at the lower end.
Her almost miraculous escape in that ravine I shall give in
Mr. Allheart's own words, although his idiom was slightly
inaccurate and provincial.

“You say, why can't we shoot across the holler agin that
ole walnut stump yander? I ain't pinted a rifle across thare
for four year—and never intend to no more.”

“Why so, Vulcanus? I'm sure 'tis a capital place for
our mark.”

“Well, Mr. Carlton, I'll tell you, and then you wont
wonder. One day, about six months after we was furst
married, I had a powerful big bore[6] to fix for a feller going
out West; and so I sit down just here—(at the shop door)—
to take it with a rest agin a clap-board standing before that
stump, and where I always before tried our guns. I sit
down, as I sort a suspicioned the hind sight mought be a
leetle too fur to the right, and I wanted to shoot furst with
allowance, and then plump at the centre without no allowance—and
then to try two shots afterwards off-hand. Well,
I got all fixed, and was jeest drawing a fine bead, and had
my finger actially forrard of the front triggur—(and she
went powerful easy)—and was a holdin my breath—when
something darkened the sight, and my left eye ketch'd a
glimpse of something atween me and the dimind—and I
sort a raised up my head so—and there was Molly's head
(Mrs. Allheart's)—with the bucket in her hand a goin for
water! She pass'd you know in a instant, almost afore I
could throw up the muzzle; but, Mr. Carlton, if I hadn't
a had both eyes open or no presence of mind, she'd a been
killed to a dead certainty! I unsot the triggurs and went
right in; and for more nor two hours my hand trembled
so powerful I couldn't hold a hammer or use a file. And
that's the reason I never fired across to that ole stump
since, and why I never will agin.”

But another reason for shooting with both eyes open is,
that a curious experiment in optics cannot conveniently be
made with one eye closed—an experiment taught me by
Mr. Allheart. And hence I would now commend both
our book and the experiment to all spectacle-makers and

spectacle-wearers—to all ladies and ladies' gentlemen with
quizzing glasses—in fact to all persons with two or more
eyes, and all speculative and practical opticians.

EXPERIMENT.

Place over the muzzle of your loaded rifle a piece of
paste-board about four inches square, and so as entirely to
prevent the right eye while looking steadily on the bead in
the hind sight from seeing the diamond mark in the target
placed twenty yards from you; then keep the left eye fixed
immoveably on the diamond, and stand yourself without motion
thus for a few seconds; and then will the thick paper
over your muzzle disappear, and you will see or seem to
see the diamond mark with your right eye and mixing with
the bead—touch then your “forrard” trigger and your ball
is in the centre of the target. A dead rest is indispensable
for this experiment. N.B.—If this experiment properly
done fails, I will give you a copy of this work; provided, if
I myself can successfully perform it, you will purchase two
copies.

When it is said Mr. Allheart made rifles, be it understood
as certain rules of grammar, in the widest sense; for
his making was not like a watch-maker's a mere putting
parts and pieces together, but our artist made first all the
separate parts and pieces, and then combined them into a
gun. He made, and often with his own hand, the barrel—
the stock—the lock—the bullet moulds, complete; the
brass, gold, or silver mountings; the gravings, the everything!
And each and every part and the whole was so well
executed, that one would think all the workmen required
to make a pin had been separately employed upon the rifle!
He even made the steel gouges for stamping names on his
own work, and also for stamping type-founders' matrices;
he made, moreover, tools for boring musical instruments.

And this last reminds me that Allheart was the most

“musical blacksmith” I ever knew—more so probably than
our learned blacksmiths. Not only could he play the ordinary
and extraordinary anvil tunes with hammers of all
sizes, making “sparks” and points, too, of light flash out
much warmer and far more brilliant than ever sprang from
the goat-strings of the Italian Maestro under the flaggellating
horse-hair, but Allheart played the dulcimer, a monotone
instrument shaped like an æolian harp, and done with
a plectrum on wire strings; and could, beyond all doubt,
have easily played a sackbut, psaltery and cymbals!

He soon became enamoured of the flute; and on my proposing
to give him lessons, he purchased an instrument
and attended regularly at my house one or more evenings
of every week for two years, till he became as great a proficient
as his master, and from that to the present time (as
he lately wrote me) he has been the conductor of the Woodville
Band. Perhaps my friend's musical enthusiasm may
be better understood from the following little incident. His
hands and fingers were nearly as hard as cast-iron; but
this, while no small advantage in fingering the iron strings
of a dulcimer, or in playing on the sonorous anvil, was a
serious disadvantage in flute-playing; for the indurated
points of his fingers stopped the holes like keys with badly
formed metallic plugs, and permitted the air to leak out.
On several occasions I had admired secretly the fresh and
polished look of his finger-points when he came to take
lessons; till once he accidentally, and with the most delightful
naivete, unfolded the cause in answer to the following
indirect query:—

“You are quite late to-night, Allheart?”

“Yes—ruther—but some customers from Kaintuck stopped
me, and after that I had to stay till I filed down my
fingers!”

My friend was besides all this a painter. And verily,
as to the lettering of signs, the shading, the bronzing, the

peppering and salting, and so forth, I defy any first-rate
glazier any where to beat Allheart; for he yet does signs
for his neighbours, and more from the goodness of his heart
and the love of the arts than for gain. To be sure, formerly
he would mis-punctuate a little, placing commas for
periods and periods where no diacritical mark was needed
—although I do believe he sometimes, like a wag of a
printer, only followed copy. One thing is certain, he never
improperly omitted a capital, though he may have put such
in where it might have been omitted; but then, this only
rendered the name more conspicuous, and the sign itself
altogether more capital.

Lettering was not, however, his sole forte; he aspired
to pictorial devices, such as vignettes; and at last he ventured
boldly upon portraits and even full-length figures.
His own portrait was among the very first he took, and that
by means of a mirror; but, whether from modesty or want
of skill, or want of faithfulness in the glass, the likeness
was not very flattering. And yet one thing done by our
New Purchase artist ought (I speak with becoming deference)
to be imitated by many eminent eastern portrait-painters.

“What is that, sir?”

Well, I am actuated by the best of motives, gentlemen,
as it was a peculiarity in Mr. Allheart's finish, by which,
however bad the mere painting, the likeness intended could
always be seen at a glance if you knew how to look.

“What was it, sir? we are impatient.”

Why, he always painted on the frame of the picture
the name of the person to whom the likeness or portrait
belonged.[7]

But the chef-d'œuvre of Allheart was a full-length figure
of the American Goddess, Liberty, done for the sign of the
new hotel—the Woodville House. He was engaged at
this picture, during the intervals stolen from his smithery,
one whole summer: and many were the wondering visitors,
from far and near, that favoured the artist with their
company and remarks. For most matters here done in private
were with us then done in public,—this of course
being conducive to the perfection of the fine arts. And
hence it is not surprising that Allheart, profiting by the
endless remarks and suggestions of our democratical people,
should have embodied all the best sentiment of the purest
republicans in nature, and given to the Purchase the very
beau ideal of American Liberty.

I shall attempt no elaborate critique, but shall say enough
to help intelligent readers to a fair conception of this piece

The Goddess, like a courageous and independent divinity,
stood, Juno fashion, right straight up and down the
canvass, and with immoveable and fearless eyes fronted the
spectator and looked exactly into his face; thus countenancing
persecuted freemen, to the confusion of all tyrannical
oppressors! Her face, in size and feature, was a
model for wholesome Dutch milkmaids to copy after; but
the cheeks, instead of blushing, were, I regret to say, only
painted red, like those of an actress too highly rouged.

In the right hand was a flag-staff, less indeed than a
liberty-pole or Jackson-hickory, but considerably larger
every way than a broom-handle; and on its top was hung,
exactly in the centre, a cap—thus by its perfect balance
and equi-distances of all parts of the rim from the staff,
showing that liberty is justice, and is independent and impartial.
The cap had, however, an ominous resemblance
to one of Jack Ketch's; and no doubt foreign despots,
ecclesiastical and secular, will pull said article over Liberty's

eyes, if they succeed in apprehending and hanging
her.

On the left shoulder squatted a magnificent eagle in all
the plenitude of stiff golden feathers, and in the act of being-a-going
to drink from a good sized bowl held up by the left-hand
fingers of the goddess. What was the mixture could
not be seen—the bowl was so high—but most probably it
was a sleeping-potion, as the bird seemed settled for a
night's roost. Nay, this was the sentiment intended—to
mark a time of profound peace, like shutting the gates of
Janus: and hence the eagle held in his claws no arrowy
thunder and lightning, being evidently disposed to let kings
alone to take their naps, if they would let him alone to take
his. The idea was equal in sublimity to Pindar's eagle
snoozing on Jupiter's sceptre at the music of Orpheus;
although my friend's bird was uncommonly big and heavy
—but then his goddess was hale and hearty.

The drapery or dress was a neat white muslin slip then
fashionable in Kentucky, which was the Paris whence we
derived fashions; and this simple attire was tied gently under
the celestial bosom, which was heaved far up towards
the chin, as if the heart was swollen with one endless and
irrepressible emotion, and threatened some day or other to
sunder the tie and burst right out, breast and all, through
the frail barrier of the frock! Yet doubtless the slip was
high in the back, and, a là Kaintuque, well secured between
the shoulders, so that if things gave way in the front, there
was still some support from behind—but then it looked dangerous.
The frock was, however, undeniably starched and
rather too short—(owing maybe to the upward heave of the
bosom, as is the case sometimes with dresses from ill-made
or too much tournure and bustle,)—for the article stood
forth, not from the canvass but from the person, and all smooth
and unwrinkled as if just from under the hot smoothing-iron!
And, alas! its great brevity—(and the figure up so

high too)—revealed the sturdy ankles away up till they began
to turn into limbs!

The feet, unlike Liberty's martyrs in the Revolution, and
to indicate our advance in comfort and security, and perhaps
in compliment to a ladies' shoe-maker just established next
the Woodville House, were covered with a pair of red
morocco slippers; while on the ankles and upwards were
drawn nice white stockings—so that there was no denudity
of limb, as a lady-reader may have feared, and the fashionable
frock was not so bad after all. Some error, perhaps,
in foreshortening had happened as to the position of the
feet, or rather the red moroccos; for, while the artist designed
to represent the right foot as stepping from the
other, and the left, as pointing the shoe-toe at the spectator
immediately in front, yet the right shoe was fixed horizontally
with its heel at a right angle with the other, and that
other, the left hung perpendicularly down as if broken at
the instep—a marvellous likeness to the two slippers on
the shoe-maker's own sign, one there with its sole slap
against the board, and the other up and down as if hung
upon a peg.

And oh! how I do wish I had not been born before the
era of composition books!—or only now could take a few
lessons with the author of one!—so as write with all the
modern improvements, like the talented family of the Tailmaquers
in the leading magazines and other picture books
for grown up children!—I should so like to describe the
putting up of our new tavern post, and the first hanging of
the Goddess of Liberty! But that's not for the like of me—
I'm no orator as Brutus. How can I paint the open-mouthed
wonder of that crowd! How make you see the
hunchings!—the winks!—the nods!—the pointings!—or
hear the exclamations!—the queries!—the allowings!—
the powerfuls!—the uproar? And when lawyer Insidias

Cutswell, candidate for Congress, mounted the “hoss block”
at the post, and ended his half-hour's speech—oh! I never!

EXTRACT.

“—Beautiful, indeed, fellow-citizens, vibrates
above us in the free air and sunshine of Heaven, that picture!
but more beautiful even is our own dear, blood-bought
liberty! Long! long may her sign dance and rejoice
there—(pointing up)—long, long may her image repose
here—(slapping the chest and rather low)—and long, long,
long live our enterprising townsman and fellow-citizen, who,
untaught, has yet so ably embodied all that is substantial
and solid, and upright and unflinching and stable in abstract,
glorious, lovely liberty—our townsman, Allheart!”

But “Non possumus omnia” must be our moral and
conclusion.

37. CHAPTER XXXVII.

Early this autumn, Aunt Kitty having after considerable
unfixings got us fixed, returned to Glenville, whither
we all at the same time paid a flying visit. At our arrival,
we found true the report that John was defeated in his
views on the clerkship by a majority against him of eleven;
and that our ex-legislator had now leisure to collect the
debts due Glenville & Co.—debts increased by two political
campaigns into “a puttee powerful smart little heap.”

This business would have been altogether easy and
pleasant, but for two small obstacles; most of our debtors
who were very willing indeed to pay, had no visible pro

perty; and the rest were even invisible themselves! For,
pleased with the credit system in the Purchase, they had
gone to try it elsewhere, and had become suddenly so unmindful
of “the powerfullest smartest man and darndest
cleverest feller in the county,” as to go away without one
tender adieu! The fact is, our dear old friends had absquatulated,
and gone away off somewhere to give other
candidates a sort of a lift.

But important changes almost destructive of Glenville Settlement,
were now on the eve of accomplishment. Mr.
Hilsbury had, his health being ruined, resigned his bishopric
with all its emoluments, and was about returning to the far
east; and Uncle Tommy from an irrepressible spirit of
wandering, was just starting to go and build a cabin on Lake
Michigan.[8] And so, we had come in time to bid farewell!

How melancholy the houses already, seemed so soon to
be tenantless, and then so soon to moulder and fall into
ruins;—a deserted cabin quickly changes, like a body left
by the vital spark! Ah! how dreary the forest would be
without friends! I had no spirits to hunt; although I
wandered away and sat down on the bank of the creek opposite
the little islet where the deer lay down to die—but
without my rifle—it was to weep! Reader! if you have
a soul you will not laugh at me;—and if you have none,
then laugh away, poor creature, why should you not enjoy
yourself your own way?—but dear reader with a soul, I
after that went and sat down in the old bark-mill. And
there I recalled the morning we stumbled down the opposite
cliff into Uncle John's open arms—I saw the very spot
where the mother had clasped the daughter to her bosom,
and “lifted up her voice and wept”—and the sad spot too
where that mother now rested in the lonely grave! I remembered
the fresh revival of early dreams and visions

realized in the novelty of a wild forest life!—ay! I recalled
the oddity of my labours—and even that poor mute, but
not wholly irrational companion!—and when I felt in my
soul that changes had come and were yet coming, and that
I never, no, never, could be in these woods as I had been—
I even wept there, too, reader!—not loud indeed, but bitterly!

In a few days we took a mournful farewell of the two
families going from Glenville; and with no expectation of
ever meeting again in this life. True, some of these persons,
wanderers like ourselves, we did meet for a brief
space in other parts of the United States again; but others
we have never seen since the morning of our separation.
And at this hour we know not where Uncle Tommy lives
—or if dead, where his grave is! In this work, however,
there will be no further mention of these two families.

During the past summer Uncle John had been appointed
a lay delegate from the Welden Diocese to attend an ecclesiastical
convention about to meet early this fall at Vincennes;
and he now, before our return to Woodville, obtained
my promise to accompany him. Accordingly, a few
days after our return, he, and with him Bishop Shrub, called
on me, and we three set out for the Convention, or as
all such gatherings are there called—the Big Meeting.

The weather was luxurious, and the ride across the
small prairies was to me, who now for the first time saw
these natural meadows, indescribably bewitching; indeed,
this first glimpse of the prairie world was like beholding an
enchanted country! The enchanted land in that most
transcendently enchanting book, the Pilgrim's Progress,
came so naturally to one's mind, that surely Bunyan must
have imagined a world like this meadowy land of wild and

fragrant scents wafted by balmy airs from countless myriads
of blossoms and flowers! Nothing is like the mellow
light, as the sun sinks down far away behind the cloudless
line of blended earth and sky—as if there one could, at a
step, pass from the plane of this lower world through the
hazy concave into the world of the ransomed! The
bosoms of these grassy lakes undulate at the slightest
breeze, and are sprinkled with picturesque islets of timber,
on which the trees are fancifully and regularly disposed,
suggesting an arrangement by the taste of an unrecorded
people of bygone centuries for pleasure and religion. The
whole brought back delusive dreams—we felt the strange
and half-celestial thrill of a fairy scene!

But pass we to a more earthly one. Eight miles from
Vincennes we stopped at a friend's house to shave and
preach; for among western folks a bishop is supposed to
be made for preaching and we use him accordingly—and
not infrequently we use him entirely up. The preaching was
in due season easily performed, but the shaving, ah! there's
the—scrape! Bishop Shrub was fortunately shaved close
enough to last to Vincennes; not so Uncle John and myself.
And when the old gentleman examined his saddle-bags,
alas! alas! by an unaccountable negligence our razors
and concomitants had been left at Woodville! But this
forgetfulness was promptly supplied, I may add, and punished
also by our host; for he offered his own razor—a
curious cutting tool in a wooden handle nearly as large and
quite as rough as a corn-cob! The bone handle, or make-believe-turtle
one, had, in the course of ages, been worn
away by the handling of grandsires and grandsons; and so
had the edge itself by the ferocious stubble on the chins
of woodsmen! Or perhaps it had been tritered away on a
grindstone—the thing so much resembled a farmer's knife
done up for hog-killing!

Now Uncle John's countenance (?) was tender asa

lamb's. Hence his razors were always in prime order;
and when he and I shaved with his articles in company, he
always insisted on the—first shave. But to-day, the excellent
old gentleman most condescendingly gave me the
precedence, internally resolving to watch my performance
and success, and then to shave or not accordingly. Well,
duly appreciating this unusual condescension, and thinking
it a pity Uncle John should enter Vincennes with such a
crop as his chin now held, we also secretly purposed—viz.
to go through the whole affair without one audible or visible
sign of torture! For certain was it, that if Mr. Carlton
whose face was just as lamb-like as Mr. Seymour's, shaved
without wincing, certain was it, Uncle John, long before
my complete abrasion, would be so in the suds that, for
consistency's sake, he must go through the whole scrape
before he would get out it.

Hence I strapped the oyster-knife, first on the instep of
my boot, making there, however, an ominous scratch or
two; then on the cover of a leaven-bit Testament done up
in freckled leather; and finally, although very lightly, on
the palm of my hand secundum artem: after which I made a
feint at a hair, and then laid down the tormentor with so
complacent compression of my lips as to say, that notwithstanding
looks, the razor after all was “jeest” the very
thing! Next, with a small bundle of swine's bristles tied
in the middle with a waxed thread, I applied, out of a
broken blue tea-cup, as much brown soap lather to my face
as would stick; and then with a genuine far-east barber's
flourish, touched the vile old briar-hook to my cheek,
boldly and—lightly as possible.

Reader! I did not swear in those days, but I could not
avoid saying mentally—“O-o-oh! go-o-od! gramine!!”—
and thinking of Job and the barrel of ale. Some profane
wretches would have cursed right out as horribly as Pope
Pius or Innocent, the vice-god damning and blackguarding

a Calvinistic heretic; and for which malignancy the said
Pope deserves to be scraped over his whole divine carcass
twice a-day with the above razor, and without the alleviation
of the brown soap. Happily for the success of my
benevolent statagem I kept in; for at the moment I caught a
glimpse of uncle John's face peeping over my shoulder into
the tiny bit of looking-glass, and with his spectacles on!
But if he did detect the involuntary tear in my eye, and take
the alarm, he became instantly calm again by seeing the
smile on my lip! Blood he discerned not; the tool was
guiltless of all cutting, and brought away no beard save
what it pulled out by the roots. Hence uncle John was
most essentially bamboozled; and long before my beard
was all plucked up, he had laid aside his coat and cravat,
and according to custom and to soften his beard, he was
lathering away with the hog bristles and brown soap.

Had the old gentleman taken a peep now, he must have
smelled the rat; for, spite of pain and tears, my laugh was
too broad for mere delectability from a good shave—there
was mischief and, I fear, some hypocrisy in the scarcely
suppressed chuckle. However, being done, or scraped, I
put down the eradicator with the air of one willing to shave
all day with such a razor; upon which Uncle John advanced
and took up the thing, manifesting, indeed, a little
suspicion on glancing at its edge, and yet with very commendable
confidence too; and then after the usual strappings
and flourishings, he seized his nose with the left
hand, and with the right laid the scraper sideways on a
cheek, and essayed a rapid and oblique sweep towards his
ear.

Ah! me!—if I live a thousand more years, I shall ever
be haunted by the dear old gentleman's look! Such a compound
of surprise, and vexation, and pain, and fun, and
humour! Such a “Carlton—you—rascal—you!—if I don't
—never mind!” expression as met my view while I peeped

over his shoulder into the fragment of glass against the
wall! And then as he espied me therein grinning, when
he turned, and with eyes swimming in tears, uttered in a
whisper, and between a cry and a laugh, his favourite expression
of benevolence and amazement—“Oh!—cry!—
out!”

Yes! yes! if one could have cried out, or even laughed
out! But there was our host and all his family; and the
father kept on at very judicious intervals with praise of
that razor, thus:—“Powerful razor that, Mr. Carlton!
Grandaddy used to say he'd shaved with it when he was
young, Mr. Seymour! and his face was near on about as
saft as yourn I allow. However its getting oldish now,
and don't cut near as sharpish as it once did—allow it
wants grinding: still I wouldn't give it for are another two
I ever seen.”

Could one dare venture to complain about such a razor?
against which no dog had even wagged a tongue or a tail
for a hundred years! So we cried in and laughed in then
—but when we got out of sight and hearing in the prairie!
Nobody, I fear, would have conjectured we were going to
the big meeting. Poor dear, old Uncle John! I am laughing
even now at thy beloved face in that most furious lather
of brown soap! and with that grand swathe cut through towards
thy ear by that venerable briar-hook!—ay! and at
that concentration of kindness, surprise, and joke-taking
embodied in—“Oh! cry out!”

“But, la! me! Mr. Carlton, where's the moral of this
story?”

My dear madam, some stories have no moral; but the
design is to warn you never to travel in new settlements if
your face is tender without your own shaving apparatus.

“For shame!—ladies never shave.”

Oh! my!—the sentence is carelessly constructed; but
none can say where beards may not grow next. Certainly

they are now found, if not on girls' chins, yet on very girlish
faces. And agriculture of all kinds is now better understood,
and the most unpromising soils produce the most
astonishing crops: and besides, we are evidently in the
Hairy Age, and tobacco is puffed and spurted from hairy
lips like black mud from a quagmire —

“Sir! this is offensive!”

Very; therefore let us quit it.

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.

On reaching Vincennes our party, as others, were quartered
upon the citizens; and such kindness as belongs preeminently
to the West and South was bestowed upon us
during the week of the convocation.

Vincennes has been the scene of many meetings, civil,
political, ecclesiastical, and military; to say nothing about
Frenchified-Indian-councils and Indianised-French-dances,
and other odd things produced by this amalgamation of the
red and white savages. But now it was the theatre of
two remarkable exhibitions,—the gathering of a Protestant
council, and the erection of a Papistical cathedral!—strange
meeting of light and darkness. And both professed to be
for the propagation of the religion of Jesus Christ.

Now, whether the simple shining of truth in the reading
and preaching of a vernacular Bible, and in the good lives
and examples of puritanic Christians, and without aid from
the civil arm, and without a base indulgence of men's evil

passions and propensities, shall be more potent than a tradition,
dark, bewildering, and uncertain, delivered by doctors
and professors of the faggot and the thumb-screw, admits
a question; but, judging from the success that has
always attended the affectionate embraces of the old woman
with the scarlet mantle, and especially when seated amid
“the wimples and crisping-pins,” the roasters, and boilers,
and toasters of the Inquisition,—from the efficacy of sweet
doses and sugared cups and intoxicating bowls of indulgences
granted to the saints and holy ones, it is more than
likely that the great crowd of such as “love darkness” and
“the wages of unrighteousness,” and “prefer the pleasures
of sin for a season,” will—(and are not such the δι Πολλοι)
will become militant, and on earth triumphant members of
the Holy (?) Catholic (??) Church (???)

In vain, while looking at the sacred walls of the cathedral
rising brick by brick, did I severely chide my antagonist
feelings as heretical pravity; in vain recall the oft-repeated
remark, that we were in the nineteenth century, the age
of courtesy, and charity, and light, and wisdom, and oh!
of ever so many first chop good things beside; in vain remember
that human nature had been gradually refining ever
since the days of Judas Iscariot, till it was now ten per
cent. per annum better and more spiritual and heavenly-minded;
yea, poor sinner that I was, in vain I said this is
the march of mind, and that I was, poor sneaking doubter,
in danger of falling into the rear of my age! Nothing
would do—but my historic readings kept intruding in the
most impertinent and unbecoming manner; and I was abominably
harassed with the fables of the Vaudois—and
Huguenots—and Jerome—and Huss—and St. Bartholomew's,
and Irish, and other massacres, and all such ridiculous
things! Nay, I was plunged most unreasonably
into nasty dungeons, and saw racks, and halters, and augurs,—and,
silly creature, I imagined an auto da fe! and

heard shouts and groans! and smelled incense, faggots and
gunpowder! and even Te Deums for the death of ungodly
heretics wickedly killed by the state, contrary to the entreaties
of the Holy Church! Alas! reprobate that I was,
for reading books proscribed by that Church!—and all those
books got up by folks worthy of no credit—enemies of the
Church and of the Pope,—and who would wickedly tell
when they were tortured, and refused to be damned for
ever by escaping from prison, gibbets and stakes!

And then I said, Oh! you unreasonable man, has not
the Holy Catholic Church long since given up her bloody
persecuting principles, and resolved never to do so again,
if we will only take on her yoke—until she gets the power?
Alas! I thought of political mottos used as ornaments[9] to
secular newspapers, such as “Power steals from the many
to the few;” and of that narrow, bigotted puritanical sentiment,
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked;” and so I turned to contemplate

THE PROTESTANT CONVOCATION.

And I could not but feel grateful to the rightful Head of the
spiritual Church, that here was a little band hated of Rome
and Oxford. For with the men of this conference the true
light had travelled thus far westward, and we hoped it
might shine out far and wide over the noble plains, and
dispel the gloom of the grand forests—since the march of
the mind is only an evil without the march of the Bible.

This Protestant assembly was a gathering of delegates
principally from the land of Hoosiers and Suckers; but
with a smart sprinkling of Corn-crackers, and a small chance
of Pukes from beyond the father of floods, and even one or
two from the Buckeye country. These were not all eminent
for learning, and polish, and dress, wearing neither

gowns nor cocked-hats; although some there were worthy
seats in the most august assemblies any where, and however
distinguished for wit, learning, and goodness. Most
of them, indeed, carried to excess a somewhat false and
dangerous maxim: “better wear out than rust out,”—since
it is better to do neither. And worn truly were they, both
in apparel and body, as they entered the town on jaded
horses, after many days of hard and dangerous travelling
away from their cabin-homes, left far behind in dim woods
beyond rivers, hills and prairies.

And what came they together for? Mainly, I believe,
to preach, to pray, to tell about their successes and disappointments
and encouragements—their hopes, and fears,
and sorrows—to rectify past errors, and form better plans
of doing good for the future—to see, and encourage, and
strengthen one another. Business, in the semi-politico-ecclesiastical
sense, they did little—for of that was but little to do.
And there were few causes of heart burning and jealousy.
No richly endowed professorships, no a là mode congregations
were found in all their vast extent of diocesses—
no world's treasures or places to tempt to divide, to sour!

Truly it was a House of Bishops, if not of Lords: if by
a bishop is meant one that has the care of many congregations,
an enormous parish, abundant religious labours, and a
salary of one or two hundred dollars above nothing. In
the midst of so fraternal and cheerful a band of misters and
brothers, I was constantly reminded of an old saying; “Behold!
how these Christians love one another!” What could
exceed their cordial and reciprocal greetings at each arrival?
What their courtesy in debate? What the deep interest in
each other's welfare?—the lively emotions excited by their
religious narratives and anecdotes? And then their tender
farewells! To many the separation was final as to this
life—but why should that make us sad? They who find

heaven begun on earth, meet beyond the grave, and there
find heaven consummated!

Brother Shrub and myself were entertained, during the
convention week, at the house of a medical gentleman,
eminent in his profession, but addicted, it was said, to profanity
in ordinary conversation. Without a premonition, no
suspicion of so blameworthy a practice could have arisen in
our minds; for no real Christian ever showed guests greater
courtesy, or seemed so far from profaneness than our gentlemanly
host. He did not even annoy us with lady-like
mincings, putting forth the buddings of profanity in “la!
me!—good gracious!” and the like.

But on Sabbath night, our conversation taking a religious
turn, the subject of profane swearing was incidentally
named, when I could not resist the temptation of drawing
a bow at a venture; and so I said:

“Doctor, we leave you to-morrow; and be assured we
are very grateful to Mrs. D. and yourself; but may I say
dear sir, we have been disappointed here?”

“Disappointed!”

“Yes, sir, but most agreeably —”

“In what, Mr. Carlton?”

“Will you pardon me, if I say we were misinformed,
and may I name it?”

“Certainly, sir, say what you wish.”

“Well, my dear sir, we were told that Doctor D. was not
guarded in his language—but surely you are misrepresented
—”

“Sir,” interrupted he, “I do honour you for candour; yet,
sir, I regret to say, you have not been misinformed. I do,
and, perhaps, habitually use profane language; but, sir, can
you think I would swear before religious people, and one of
them a clergyman?”

Tears stood in my eyes (the frank-heartedness of a

gentleman always starts them) as I took his hand, and replied:

“My dear sir, you amaze us! Can it be that Doctor D.,
so courteous and so intelligent a man, has greater reverence
for us than for the venerable God!”

“Gentlemen,” replied the Doctor, and with a tremulous
voice, “I never did before see the utter folly of profane
swearing. I will abandon it for ever.”

Reader, are you profane? Imitate the manly recantation
of my estimable friend, Doctor D.

During the week, in company with some clergymen, we
visited the grave of a young man, who, unavoidably exposed
to a fatal illness in discharging his missionary duties,
had died at Vincennes in early manhood, and far away
from his widow-mother's home. Deep solemnity was in
the little company of his classmates as they stood gazing
where rested the remains of the youthful hero! Dear
young man, his warfare was soon ended—and there he lay
among the silent ones in the scented meadow-land of the
far west! He heard not the voice of the wind, whether it
breathed rich with the fragrance of wild sweets, or roared
around in the awful tones of the hurricane, sweeping over
the vastness of the measureless plains! Nor heard he the
sighs of his comrades—nor saw their sudden tears wiped
away with the stealthy motion of a rapid hand!

To him that visit was vain; not so to us, for we departed,
resolved ourselves to be ready for an early death. And
since then several of that little company of mourners in a
strange land have themselves, and before the meridian of
life, gone down to the sides of the pit!

Are you ready, my reader?

Time is a price to buy eternity!

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.

Sigourney.

Uncle John and I, being now very near Illinois, where
resided a distant relative of ours, determined to pay him a
visit. This person was much like uncle Tommy in his
leather-stocking propensities, but in no other respects; except
that he was, at first, a squatter, and had escaped on
some occasions, being scalped by the Indians. Once, too,
he escaped an ambuscade as he descended the Ohio
river with several other young men in a boat. Incautiously
approaching too near the bank, our relative was saved from
death by being in the act of bending to his oar at the flash
of the Indian rifles; for their balls, barely passing over his
back, struck the breast of a comrade, who fell dead at his
side. But, before the enemy could reload, the boat was
rowed beyond their reach. And so our friend lived, and
ever since had kept on growing till he now had become a
venerable and patriarchal Sucker, counting some sixty-five
concentric circles in his earthly vegetation.

Our way led through successive and beautiful little prairies,
separated by rich bottom lands of heavy timber and
other interposing woody districts—the trees being all magnificently
glorious in the autumnal colours of their dense
foliage. No artificial dyes rival the scarlet, the crimson,
the orange, the brown, of the sylvan dresses—giant robes

and scarfs, hung with indescribable grandeur and grace,
over the rough arms and rude trunks of the forest!

And voices enough of bird, and beast, and insect, and
reptile, rose at our approach from the bosom of the wavy
grass, to break the solitude of the treeless plains; but, on
entering a district of wood, the uproar of tones, voices,
shrieks, hisses, barkings, and a hundred other nameless
cries, was deafening! It was bewildering! How like the
enchanted hills and groves of the Arabian Tales! Indeed,
had a penalty awaited our looking around, we should have
become stone, or stump, or paroquet, or squirrel, a thousand
times over and over, much to our surprise and mortification!
The bewildering tumult assailing him, on entering the solemn
dark of primitive oriental forests, must have suggested
to the Magician of the Thousand and One Nights, some
of the charms and witcheries and incantations that entranced
our first years of boyhood and dreams! To the elfish notes
of four-footed and creeping goblins and winged and gay
sprites, were added the rustle of fresh fallen leaves, the
crackling of brush-wood, the rattling of branch and bush,
the strange creaking of great trees, rubbing in amity their
arms and boughs, and the wailing and moaning of fitful
winds; and this formed our sinless Babel.

Under the most favourable arrangement of lungs, and
larynx and ears, conversation is a labour in such groves
and meadows; but, ah! my dear friend, if one's comrade
is deaf! or still worse if he is a modest man of the muttery
and whispery genus! and hearing uncommonly
sharp himself, takes for granted you hear ditto! True, if
you like to do talking, and the other hearing, that is the
very thing; but alas! our escort in this episodial trip,
who was a Mr. Mealymouth, was even more desirous of
talking than hearing! And what made it more awful, it
was not possible to answer him in the “Amen-at-a-venture”
mode; for most of Mr. Mealymouth's queries, which were

numerous as a pedlar's from the land of guesses, admitted not
the mere answer yes or no, but demanded explanatory replies
like those of Professor Didactic. He asked to find out what
you knew, and not to be answered.

Uncle John quickly contrived to shuffle out of this scrape,
and with a most unchristian design to take revenge for the
razor affair; but then he ought not to have paid back with
so terrible an interest. Nay, he lagged just in our rear,
every now and then switching my creature, till the huzzy—
(a lady horse)—feared to quit the side of the escort's horse
—(a horse-horse)—and so kept on even a head with him,
pace for pace, trot for trot, shuffle for shuffle; her eyes
strained backward, her ears pointed and tremulous, and
her heels in the panlo-ante-future tense of being-nearly-about-a-going-to-kick;—while
I, completely snared and
in-for-it, could be seen, all eye and ear, with my neck
away out forward to catch the sense of Mr. Mealymouth
muttering and whispering some half-articulate question
direct or indirect, thus:

“Well—Carlt—powerful—don't—allow?”

“Si-i-i-r?” at the top of my voice to provoke him to a
higher pitch.

“Most powerful good meet—reckon—dont—?”

“Oh! yes, rather lean, however,—it wasn't stall fed—
think it was?”—(I thought he alluded to the beefsteak at
breakfast.)

“Meetin—meetin—convoc—hard heerin—allow?”

“The leaves rattle so—oh! yes, noble set of good men.”

“Mr. Carlton—allow—Mr. Seymour—ain't he?”

“Yes!—no!” And turning round I bellowed out;—
“Hullow! Uncle John, ride up, Mr. Mealymouth wants
you!”

“Road too narrow—'fraid of things getting rubbed in
my saddle-bags,”—replied Uncle J.

Here I politely made a movement to fall in the rear and
give up my privilege; but my skittish jade, catching sight
of Uncle John's upraised switch, snorted, and cocking back
her ears trotted me up again to the place of punishment—
while from Uncle John's face, it was plain enough he was
indulging in a malicious inward laugh. Nay, although I
hate to tell it, he actually put up his finger against his
cheek and made signs of shaving!—a pretty way for a
pious man of returning good for evil!

I shall not detail all my misapprehensions nor contrivances
to avoid answering at hazard, as for instance, suddenly
crying out, when expected to reply to a query—
“See! see! that deer!”—or—“Hurraw! for the turkeys
there!”—or—“Smell cowcumbers—guess a rattlesnake's
near?” Nor shall I relate how, at last, I did get behind
Uncle John; and how Mr. M. fell back and rode with him;
I ever and anon admonishing Mr. Seymour to take care of
his saddle-bags;—nor how Uncle John was attacked with
a very uncommon and alarming stiffness, rendering it
necessary for him to dismount and walk a whole mile;
and how he over took us at the ford of the Wabash, Mr.
M. fortunately volunteering to lead his horse; but I hasten
to say that about evening we reached the house of a friend
who had invited us to call on him, and that here, to crown
the pleasures of the day, we found our host Mr. Softspeech
was even more inarticulate in speech than Mr. Mealymouth
himself.

Uncle John now proposed to bury the hatchet, and form
a league of offence and defence; hence, after due deliberation
while out washing and wiping, it was concluded
that we both sit together, and always in front of the fire;
thus keeping our innocent tormentors each at opposite sides
of the chimney place. For first, this would do them a service
by compelling them to talk out, it seeming impossible,
if they designed speaking to one another at all, to do it

long in a mutter; and secondly, if we were assailed by
either enemy right or left, we should have four ears to defend
and aid us, instead of two, and so we could together
compound a pretty fair answer:—this judicious arrangement
made us nearly equal to a Siamese twins.

And yet, one important matter was found to have been
overlooked—the effect on our risibility. For when the
two cousins of Simongosoftly began a gentle stir of murmuring
lips, and both found, in despite of keen ears, that
articulate language must be used; and when evident vexation
from their reciprocal mutters and mistakes arose, and
they looked at one another in a style like saying, “Blast
you, why don't you speak louder”—Oh! dear reader,
would you have believed it. Uncle John all at once laughed
right out!—and then you know I couldn't help it—could I?

But then, the old gentleman turned it so adroitly, thus:

“Mr. Carlton,”—said he—“whenever I think of that
trick you served me about the razor I can't help laughing.”

And of course that affair was narrated; and we had the
satisfaction of finding our two friends could laugh like
Christians, if they could not talk like them. And truly
man is pretty much of a laughing animal—and certainly
none deserves to be more laughed at; although for this
vile sin of muttering, and grumbling, and whispering out
words with a fixed jaw, and eyes half-shut up like a dreamy
cat in the sunshine, words, that should be articulated in
the sweet vocality of human speech, the whole abominable
tribe of Mealymouths deserves not only to be laughed and
hooted at, but actually well scourged.

Well, we paid our visit to our Sucker relative; and then,
after the two worthy old gentlemen had exhausted their
reminiscences, and edified one another with adventures in
hunting, and fishing, and camping out, and voyaging, and
so on, we bade farewells; and Uncle John and myself, but
without an escort, took the homeward trail. The accidents
in the path belong to the next chapter.

40. CHAPTER XL.

On the return, our first night was passed with the host
of the antediluvian razor. But going into the woods we needed
now no shaving; although we shortly became entangled
in another scrape, to be estimated in comparison and contrast,
according to the tenderness of one's face, and his leggins
and trousers.

Let me not forget that, before reaching Razorville, we
had passed through a primitive world, an antique French
settlement; and in it could be discerned no trace of modern
arts and inventions; but agriculture, architecture and other
matters were so ancient that we seemed to have come
among aboriginal Egyptians or Greeks. The carts or
wagons were like the wain of Ceres, and moved on spokeless
wheels of solid wood, without naves, and, if circumsference
applied to wheels must be a circle, without circumference.

The horse—if such may be called a dwarf, shaggy
pony, so dirty and earthy as to seem raised in a crop, like
turnips or potatoes—this villanous and cunning horse was
tied to the Cerealian vehicle by thongs of elm bark, fastened
to a collar of corn blades around his neck; and he had
a head-gear of elm bark ropes for halter or bridle—but
sometimes he had no head-gear whatever. He was driven
usually by flagellation from a stick-whip, in size between
a switch and a pole, yet often with a corn-stalk fourteen

feet long without its tassel, and, not infrequently, by a clod
or rock[10] thrown against his head or side.

At the first hint from the persuasives, shaggy coat would
merely shake his head and look up, and then, with an impudent
flourish of a tail compounded of burs and horse-hair,
he would pull away—not, indeed, at his load—but at
the corn-blades and ears dangling in plenty about his unmuzzled
mouth. On a repetition of the hint, especially if
accompanied by a Canadianised-French execration—(and
its potency may be thus judged)—pony would whisk with
his cart some half-dozen decided jerks, attended by the
rattling of his corn-collar, the straining of bark traces, and
the screeching of dry wheel and axis; minus also a mess
of corn bounced from the wain at every jerk. And thus
matters proceeded, with iterations of thumps, pelts, curses,
and outcries on one side, and jerks ahead on the other, till
the horse and wagon was clear of the corn-field—and then
look out! Pony had now no more to expect in the way of
mouthfuls till he reached the stack-yard, and so, go ahead
was his motto—and, with him, no idle sentiment! True,
the machine wabbled and bounced—that was owing to the
inartificiality of the workmanship, and the asperities of the
ground; the load jumped over the sides or rattled from the
tail—that was because the sides were too low, and there
was no tail-board; perhaps, even the collar broke, and little
shaggy was released—the collar should have been leather:
his duty was plain—to get to the stack-yard as
speedily as possible, with or without a cart, or with it full
or empty.

How my nameless quadrupedal old friend would have
relished and adorned this areadian life! What a theatre
for his abilities and accomplishments! It may be something

to live in clover; but what is life in a clover-patch
of a dozen rods, to life in a prairie corn-field of a thousand
acres?

But this is digression, of which, indeed, other examples
occurred on our way home.

A friend of ours, a citizen of Woodville, returning now
from Vincennes, and who travelled in a small one-horse-wagon,
had told us of a short cut across the prairie; and
had stated also that, while the path was an almost imperceptible
trace, being used only by a few horsemen, still we
should easily follow the marks of his wheels—and thus a
whole hour could be gained. Passing us, therefore, on
the evening we had reached Razorville, he went by the
short cut to “ole man Stafford's,” a distance of seven miles,
intending there to stay all night and await our arrival to a
very early breakfast next morning,—the remainder of the
journey to be made in company.

Well, an hour before day-break on Tuesday morning we
put out, and in half an hour came to the “blind path,” into
which we struck bold enough, considering we had to dismount
to find it, and that from the dimness of the early
morn, no wagon ruts could yet be discerned. But as the
light increased, we could see here and there in the grass
traces of a light wagon; and that emboldened us to trot on
very fast, in the comfortable assurance of rapidly approaching
a snug breakfast of chicken fixins, eggs, ham-doins,
and corn slap-jacks. By degrees the prairie turned into
timber land; but that had been expected, although the
woods were rather more like thickets and swamps than
ought to be encountered on entering the Stafford country.
Still, every two or three rods was some mark of our friend's
wagon; and as short cuts often pass through out-of-the-way
districts, and we travelled now not by stars, or sun, or compass,
but by wheel-ruts, we deemed it best to stick to our

guide and Uncle John's old saw—“'tis a long lane that
has no turn.”

At last we came to the edge of a dense and dark thicket;
and here, at right angles with the ruts, (for long since the
six-inch horse-path had run out, or sunk, or evaporated, or
something,) ran a deep and wide gulley blocked with fallen
trees and brushwood; over which of course the wagon had
got somehow, and, as was natural, without leaving any
visible trace. This deficiency was, however, not important,
because, you know, we should find the wagon tracks
on the far side of the ravine; and so over we went working,
where the impediments seemed fewest, in a zig-zag
method, for about two hundred yards, when all at once we
rose, large as life, up the opposite bank, and instantly began
talking:—

“See any ruts?”

“No,—do you?”

“No,—let's ride to the left.”

“Through that papaw and spice!—no, no, try the right.”

“The right!—look at the grape and green briar—better
keep straight ahead.”

“Straight ahead, indeed!—that's worse than the other
courses.”

“Why, how in the name of common sense did Mr.
Thorn ever get his wagon through here!—come, you go
right and I'll go left, and let's see if we can't find the wheel-ruts.”

And then we separated; but after hard “scrouging”
each way some hundred yards, and halloing questions, answers,
doubts, guesses, &c., &c., in a very unmealy-mouthed
manner, till we became hoarse, and withal finding
no ruts, nor even hoof-marks, we came together and
held a council. The result of the deliberation was:

1. That we were probably—(Uncle J. being a woodsman
would allow only a probability)—were probably lost:

2. That maybe we might have followed a wrong wagon,
and maybe we might not:

3. That maybe we had better go back, and maybe we
had not:

4. That as it was likely we had been spirited into the
Great Thicket of the White River, it would be best to work
ahead, and strike the river itself now, up or down which
(I forget which Uncle J. said) was a settlement maybe.

This last proposition having a decided majority of two
voices, we began to work our passage into the river, Mr.
Seymour as general in the van, Mr. C. as rear-guard.

Now how shall our swamp be described? What language
can here be an echo to the sense? Any attempt of
the sort would be so complicated an implexicity in the interwovenness
of the circularity, that should give the sight,
and sound, and fragrance of the maziness in that most amazing
of mazes, where all sorts of crookednesses made contortion
worse in its interlacings, that—that—one would go
first this way, and then some other way, and then back
again once more towards the end, side, middle and beginning
of the sentence, and yet fail to discover the—the—
echo,—and be no more able to get through with so labyrinthical
unperiodical a period, in any other way than we were
to get out of the thicket, and that was by bursting out—so!

However, you've picked black-berries?—gone after
chicken-grapes or something, in your early days? You've
set snares in pretty thick thickets, where you went on all-fours
through prickle-bushes to save your face? Well—
aggregate the trifling impediments of your worst entanglements;
then colour matters a little, and you approximate a
just conception of our thicket. In this, all sorts of trees,
bushes, briars, thorns, and creepers, the very instant their
seeds were dropped or roots set by nature,—and some without
staying for either root or seed,—started right up and
off all at once a growing with all their might, each and

every struggling, like all creation for the ascendancy, and
thus preventing one another and all others from getting too
large; yea, in haste and eagerness, like candidates climbing
a hickory-pole, all wrapping, and interlacing, and interweaving
trunks, boughs, branches, arms, roots and shoots,
till no eye could tell whether, for instance, the creeper
produced the thorn, or the thorn the creeper, or the vine
the scrub-oak, or the oak the grapes—and till the shaking,
or pulling, or touching, of a single branch, vine, root, or
briar shook a thousand!—ay! like the casting of a pebble
into a lake, till it disturbed in some degree the whole immensity
of the thicket! And so all, in sheer rage, malice,
and vexation, sent forth all manners, kinds and sorts of
prickers and scratchers, and thorns, and scarifiers; and began
to bear all manners and kinds and sorts of flowers,
and poisonous berries, and grapes!

In places, a black walnut, or hackberry, or sycamore,
having, like a Pelagian, an intrinsic virtue had got the start
of nature by a few hours at the beginning of the swamp;
and had ever since kept a head so elevated as now to be
overlooking miles around of the mazy world below, and
presenting a trunk and boughs so wrapped in vines and
parasites as to form a thicket within a thicket, an imperium
in imperio; while coiled and wreathed there into fantastic
twistings, immense serpentine grape vines seemed like
boas and anacondas, ready to enfold and crush their victims!
Nay, in every labyrinth were concealed worlds of
insects, reptiles, and winged creatures; and some, judging
from their hisses, and growls, and mutterings, as they darted
from one concealment to another at the strange invasion
of their dens and lairs, were doubtless formidable in aspect,
and not innoxious in bites and stings.

Through this apparently impervious wilderness of the
woven world twist, however, we did—onward, as Uncle
John said. I thought it was a vain struggle, like striving

to free one's self from the meshes of a giant's net! Yet I
kept close in the rear of his horse; for Mr. Seymour insisted
on being pilot, and politeness yields to elders even
in wriggling through a swamp. But what need be told our
contrivances to work through? Never in words can be
painted the drawing up of our legs!—the shrinking of our
bodies!—the condensation of our arms!—the bowings
down of our heads, with compressed lips and shut eyes!
But still we talked thus:

“Oh! hullow! stop, won't you?”

“What's the matter?”

“My hat's gone.”

“There it is, dangling on that branch—look up—higher!
—higher yet!”

“Oh! yes—I see:—lucky the hat wasn't tied under a
fellow's chin, hey?—how the thing jerked!”

“Ouch!—what a scratch!—just get out your knife and
cut this green-briar.”

“I've cut it—go on:—look out, you'll lose your right
leggin.”

“Whi-i-i-rr!—what's that?”

“A pheasant!”

“H-i-i-ss!—what's that?”

“A snake!”

“Haw! haw! haw!—if your trousers aint torn the
prettiest!”

“Don't taste them!—they aint grapes!—they are poison
berries!”

“Look—quick!—what an enormous lizard!”

And then such knocks on the head! Did I ever think
heads, before the aid of phrenology, could bear such
whacks! Soft heads, surely, must have been mashed, and
hard ones, cracked; and, therefore, Uncle John and I
had medium sculls, and the precise developments to go
through thickets. I had always disbelieved the vulgar
saying about “knocked into a cocked hat,”—deeming it,

indeed, possible to be knocked out of one; but my infidelity
left me in that swamp, when I saw the very odd figures
we made after our squeezings, abrasions, and denudings.
The shape of a cocked hat was not at all like them! and
yet, in about three hours from the starting at the gulley,
we somehow or other stood on the summit of a bold bluff,
and beheld the river coolly and beautifully flowing beneath
our feet away below! Here we halted, first to repair
apparel, wipe off perspiration, and pick out briars and thorns
from the hands and other half-denuded parts; and, secondly,
to determine the next movement, when—hark! the
sound of an axe!—yes! and hark!—of human voices!

Between us and the sounds, evidently not more than
two hundred yards up the river, interposed a dense and
thorny rampart; but with coats fresh buttoned to our
throats, hats half-way over the face, and leggins rebound
above the knee and at the ankle, we, in the saddles, and
retired within ourselves, like snails, the outer man being
thus contracted into the smallest possible dimension, and
with heads so inclined as to render following the nose alike
impossible and useless, we charged with the vengeance of
living battering rams against and into the matted wall of
sharp and sour vegetables; and onward, onward, went we
thus, till all at once, the impediment ceasing, we burst and
tumbled through into an open circular clearing of about fifty
yards diameter!

In one part was a rude shantee or temporary lodge of
poles and bark, a la Indian, having in front, as cover to a
door-way, a suspended blanket, perhaps to keep out mosquitoes;
for I could neither see nor imagine any other use.
On one side the area, were large heaps of hoop-poles, on
another, of barrel-staves; while in several places stood
gazing at us three squatter-like personages, and evidently
not gratified at our unceremonious visit. The nature of
their employment was manifest—the preparation of some

western “notions and ideas” for the Orleans market. And
down the bluff was a grand fleet of flat boats, ready to float
whenever the water chose to come up to them, and convey
to market a whole forest, in the shape of hoop-poles, staves,
and other raw material, not only now being prepared, but
which had been being prepared and was yet to be being
pre-prepared in all the fashionable modern tenses!

“Well, what of that?”

Nothing; it was very correct, except in one small particular,
although not a grammatical one; this snug little
swamp and thicket, some thirty miles by two in extent, and
full of choice timber, happened to belong to our Great
Father's elder brother, the venerable dear good old Uncle
Sam! And these reprobate nephews, our cousins, were
simply busy in taking more than their share of the common
heritage—in short, they were poaching and stealing!
Now, kind reader, for the last three hours, we had passed
through a considerable scrape; nay, as we had shrunk up,
it may be called a narrow scrape, but on comprehending
the present affair, it seemed not improbable that we had
only come out of the scrape literal, into the scrape metaphorical.

“How so?” Why you see, a large penalty was incurred
for cutting down and stealing public timber; and the informer
got a handsome share of the fine as reward; so that our
industrious kinsmen taking us, at first, for spies and informers,
not only looked, but talked quite growly; and we both
felt a little nervous at sight of the rifles and scalping knives
in the shantee! Here is a first-rate temptation to make a
thrilling story; but I must not forget the dignity of history
—(although Uncle John and I both thrilled at the time without
any story)—and so I proceed to say, that we soon satisfied
our free traders who we were; and that they condescended
not only to laugh, but to sneer at us, and then
pointed to a nice little wagon that one of them had driven

yesterday from near Razorville, with their supplies for the
current week! And that was the identical rut-making
machine, that, so contrary to every body's wishes had
coaxed us into the thicket!

We were then taught how to return on its trace, by a
kind of opening through the maze; and received ample
directions where and how to cross the ravine. We accordingly
hastened away; but we never felt perfectly easy, or
ventured to laugh honestly, till full two hundred yards
beyond the longest rifle shot, which might very accidentally
take our direction, and, may be, hit us. The path over
the ravine was, indeed, less tangled, where the wagon had
passed; yet it was a quarter of a mile above our crossing
place, and concealment had evidently been studied in the
way the stave-maker's vehicle had put off, even at an acute
angle, at the point where we had lost its trail; and in the
windings we had to thread among the high grass before we
again reached that point. After having thus lost a wagon
in a prairie, I felt inclined to believe in the difficulty of finding
a needle in a hay-stack. But we came, finally, to a
deserted cabin; and there, after a keen look, discovered a
little path laid down for us in the late verbal chart. Here,
confident from experience, that this rabbit track of a road,
some two inches wide was yet one of fifty similar ones
leading to the grand trace, path, or way, we struck off at a
rapid gait; and in an hour came to the open wagon road,
which we knew conducted to Mr. Stafford's Public.

Revived we now cantered on, and not long after reached
our breakfast-house, just as the sun was going down—having
in the day's navigation with all our tackings made precisely
seven miles, by the short cut, in the homeward direction.
Since Monday night, we had eaten nothing, and
were naturally ready now for three meals in one; and yet
were we destined to wait a little longer, and condense into
one four repasts—like ancient Persians when hunting.

For, either not liking our appearance, or vexed at our not
having come earlier to breakfast, we were here most pertinaciously
refused any entertainment whatever, and even
peremptorily ordered away; and were, indeed, compelled
to put off for the nearest house, some eight miles farther at
the ferry! Half a mile from Stafford's, we met a young
fellow, evidently in an ill humour at something, who did,
verily, condescend to direct us how to steer through a sea
of grass, rolling its waves over the prairie's bosom in the
haze of the approaching night; but whether the rascal sent
us wrong purposely, or we had so practiced getting lost as
to render the thing easy, after seeming to come duly to
expected points, in about six miles we could find no more
points, and so began again travelling at a venture; and at
ten o'clock at night, it being then profoundly dark, we resigned
our reason to the horses' instinct to take us where
they listed. We knew the creatures would follow some path
and carry us, some time or other, to a human habitation, if
that of a poacher or squatter; and any thing seemed then
preferable to the wilds of the prairie!

In about two hours my horse, now in the lead, suddenly
halted, when dismounting, I tried first with my feet, and
then my hands, and quickly had by these new senses a
feeling sense of our situation, viz. that we stood at the diverging
point of two paths running from one another at
nearly a right angle!

“Well, what do you say—which shall we take?”

“Hem!—what do you say? Don't it seem damp towards
the right?”

“I think it does—and maybe the river is that way,
Don't it seem like rising ground towards the left, to
you?”

“It does—let's try the left—we've had enough of thickets
for one day—hark! hark!!”

“Bow-wow-wow! bow-wow!” on the left.

“Sure enough! a dog towards the left! push a-head that
way.”

The canine outcry was reduplicated and prolonged; and
we were soon rewarded for our sagacity in going to
the left by coming whack up against a worm-fence! But
groping our way through this impediment, a light was
soon discerned gleaming through some crevice; and the
noise of the dog then subsided into an angry growl—which
growl was again exchanged into a bark, as we let out our
hearty and door penetrating “Hullow!” This backwood's
sonnet had soon the desired effect on the clap-board shutter;
for it now creaked slowly open, and allowed to issue
from the cabin the following reply in a strong soprano, yet
vibratory from apprehension—

“Well—who be you? what's a wantin?”

“Strangers, ma'am, from the Big Meeting at Vincennes;
we've been lost all day in the Swamp below Stafford's—
and we're lost now. Will you be so kind as to let us stay
the rest of the night here?”

“Well, it's most powerful onconvenent—couldn't you
a sort a keep on to Fairplay—'taint more nor two miles no
how, and you'd git mighty good 'comedashins thar?”

“Oh! ma'am, we'd never find the way in the dark. Besides,
our horses are nearly given out; and we ourselves
haven't touched food for nearly two days—”

“Well! now! if that aint amost too powerful hard like!
—I'm a poor lone woman body—but I can't let you go on
—so come in. But, strangers, you'll find things right down
poor here, and have to sleep on the floor, as 'cos I've no
more nor two beds and them's all tuk up by me and the
childurn. Howsever, thar's a corn heap over thar to feed
your critturs; but we're now teetotally out of meal;—and
Bill's to start in the morning for a grist—and I'm powerful
sorry we've nothin to eat—”

“Oh! thank you, ma'am—never mind us—thank you—
never mind! If we get corn for our poor brutes, and shelter

for ourselves that will do—thank you, ma'am—never
mind!”

Having fed our jaded animals we entered the cabin, and
depositing our saddles and furniture in one corner, we sat
down on two rude stools, like some modern ottomans in the
city; being so low as to force one's knees and chins into
near proximity. They had, indeed, no covering or cushion,
unless such be considered the lone woman's indescribable,
lying on the one, and Bill's tow-linen breeches on the
other—articles we considerately, however, removed for fear
of soiling.

The next thing we did was to poke up the slumbering
fire; by the light of which we first cast rueful looks on
one another, and then some sideway glances around the
apartment. In one spot, stood a barrel with an empty bag
of dim whiteness, hanging partly in and partly out, while
across its top was laid a kneading bowl, and in that a small
washing machine;—the barrel being manifestly the repository
of meal, and the bag the very affair Bill was to ride,
in the morning, to mill. Near us was a shelf holding a
few utensils for mush and milk, several tin cups, a wooden
bowl in need of scouring, and some calabashes; a large
calabash we had noticed outside the door, having a small
grape vine for a handle, and intended to represent a bucket
for water and other wet and dry uses. In a strap of deer-skin
nailed under the shelf were stuck certain knives,
some ornamented with buck-horn handles, one or two with
corn-cob handles, and one handleless; and interspersed
judiciously in the same strap were pincushions, scissors,
comb, and a few other et ceteras of a hoosiery toilette.

But the curiosities were “the two beds and all tuk up
by the mother and the childurn.” What the bedsteads were
made out of was not ascertained. Ricketty they were,
screeching, squirming, and wriggling at every slight motion
of the sleeping household; but tough and seasoned too

must they have been to bear up under their respective
loads, especially considering the way some that night kicked
under the covers, and, occasionally over them!

In one bed were the lone (?) woman and two children;
and in this I am confident having counted three heads, and
one with a cap on. In the other were three or four bodies
—Uncle John insisted on, four—but I only counted three
heads at the bolster; yet Uncle John in his very last letter
holds to it, that he saw another head sticking out near the
foot, and two or three legs in such direction as could come
only from a head in that latitude. Strong presumptive
evidence, granted;—yet only presumptive, for a real backwood's
boy can twist himself all round; beside the fleas[11]
that night made the bed loads twist their utmost, and legs
and arms became so surprisingly commingled, that no ordinary
spectator could tell to what bodies they severally pertained.
And never were beds so “all tuk up,” nor so wonderfully
slept all over, till by daylight the whole of their sleep
must have been fully extracted; and hence, it was plain
enough there was no room for Uncle John or me in either
bed; and that if we wanted any sleep we must get it out of
the puncheons. We spread, therefore, our horse-blankets
each on a puncheon, our separating line being an interstice
of three inches; and, transforming saddlebags into pillows,
we essayed to sleep away our weariness and hunger. But
the “sweet restorer's” balmy influences were all confined
that night, to the two regular beds; and that among other
causes owing to a motherly she-swine with a litter of ever
so many pigs, and some other bristled gentry in the basement,
whence ascended an overpowering dry hickory nut
fragrance, and endless variations of grunt, squeak, and shuffle—and
in all likelihood the oceans of fleas disturbing us!

If not thence, I leave it to such critics to ascertain, who
delight in saying and finding smart things.

Upon the whole it was not, then, so odd that about an
hour before dawn, we made ready to set out in search of
Fairplay. And of course our preparations awaked the
lone woman; when the “cap,” already named, being elevated
above the sleeping line of the other heads, and also
several capless pates of dirty matted hair—(gender indeterminate)—being
also raised and thrust forth in the other bed,
we thus held our farewell colloquy:

“Well, my good friend, we thank you kindly for your
hospitality, and we are about starting now;—what shall we
pay you?”

“Laws! bless you, stranger! how you talk!—why do
y' allow I'd axe people what's lost anything?—and for sich
'comedashins?”

Oh! ma'am—but we put you to trouble—”

“Trouble!—I don't mind trouble now no how—I've had
too big a share on it to mind it any more amost—”

“Why, ma'am, you've been very kind—and we really
can't go away till we pay you something—”

`Stranger!—I sees you wants to do what's right—but
you needn't take out that puss—I'll have to be a most powerful
heap poorer nor I'm now, afore I'll take anything
for sich a poor shelter to feller critturs what's lost—and
them a comin from meetin too! Ain't that oldermost stranger
a kinder sort a preacher?”

“No, my friend, I'm only a member—”

“Well—I couldn't axe meetin folks nothin for the best.
I'm right glad you didn't take the right hand trail below our
fence, you'd a got into the swamp agin. Now jist mind
when you come to a big sugar what blow'd down by the
harricane, and take the left, and that will git you clear of
the bio—and then keep rite strate on forrerd and you'll soon
git to Fairplay.”

Farewells were then cordially exchanged, and we left
the poor lone woman with emotions of pity, gratitude, and
admiration; and we thought too of “the cup of cold water”
—“the two mites”—of “one half the world knows not
how the other lives”—and “man wants but little here below”—and
of all similar sacred and secular sayings, till
we came to the prostrate sugar-tree. There we made a
judicious digression to avoid miring and suffocating in the
morass, and then shortly after dismounted safe and sound,
but frightfully hungry, at Fairplay.

And here we rest awhile to devour two breakfasts and
repair if possible the loss of dinner and supper; and in the
meanwhile we shall speak of the village.

Fairplay was a smart place, consisting of two entirely
new log houses, built last summer, in spite and opposition
to Briarton concealed in the bushes on the other side of
the river: and also a public or tavern—in futuro, however,
as it was only now a-building. As yet it was not roofed entirely,
nor were the second story floors laid, nor had it
any chimneys. Indeed, its walls were incomplete, the
daubing being—ah! what is the fashionable grammar here,
for the case absolute? I do not wish to be behind the age
too far, and am desirous of having the Fairplay hotel grammatically
daubed. “Daubing being done?” No, it was
not completed. “Daubing doing?”—that would make mud
an active agent; whereas, in the operation, it is the most
passive subject in the world, and is dreadfully trampled,
pounded, beat, splashed, scattered and smeared. “Daubing
a-doing?” no: the work had ceased for the present, and
the clay was actually dry where the work had been “being”
done. Stop! I have it—the daubing “being” being
done! and so all eating and sleeping were in one large airy
room below, with a flooring of unnailed boards, and half a
dozen windows full of sashes but destitute of glass; and

having also two doors closed with sheets instead of shutters.

Cooking was performed to day out of doors; hence, while
waiting for breakfast we inhaled the savory essence of
fried chickens, fried bacon, roasted potatoes, herb-tea, store-coffee,
and above all, of slap-jacks compounded from cornmeal,
eggs and milk, and fried in a pan—thus in a measure
getting two breakfasts out of one. True, with the fragrance
entered the smoke; yet what great pleasure is
without its concomitant pain! Beside—but take care! take
care! here comes the breakfast, and we are ordered:—

“Well, strangers! come, sit up and help yourselves. I
allow you're a sorter hungry after sich a most powerful
starvation.”

Breakfast among the Stars

“Landlord! our horses, if you please.”

“They're at the door—they look a right smart chance
wusted—but maybe they'll take you home—wish you a
pleasant journey and no more scrapes.”

The landlord's wishes were not disappointed, for in due
time we were snug at home.

41. CHAPTER XLI.

Not long after Mr. Seymour's return to Glenville, the
patriarchal cabin with its acres of clearings, deadenings and
girdlings, and with all its untouched and unfenced woods,
was sold to a stranger; and then our friends all removed to
Bishop Hilsbury's late residence, near the tannery. The
name, indeed, was retained, but the glory of Glenville Settlement

was fading. Still, visits were interchanged,
although we of Woodville received more than we paid;
and my emotions became most delightful, whenever returning
on Saturday evenings from a short squirrel hunt, I discerned
at a distance Uncle John's horse tied to our rack. Often,
too, would some of us, the day he was expected, sit the
last hour at an upper window, and watch the leafy barrier,
where our dear friend was expected momentarily to break
through into the mellow light of the departing sun—ay!
that dear old man was so loved, we felt like hugging and
kissing the very horse that brought him!

Christmas was now approaching; and all Glenville that remained
was expected to spend the holiday at Woodville.
For this visit, our whole house had been prepared—bed-rooms
were arranged to render sleeping warm and refreshing—fat
poultry was killed—mince-pies concocted, cider
bought; in short, all the goodies, vegetable, animal, and
saccharine, usually congregated at this joyous season, were
stored and ready. In the parlour, a compound of sitting-room,
dining room, and bed-chamber, a magnificent fire of
clean white sugar-tree with a green beech back-log was
warming and enlivening; while the lid of the piano was
raised, with copies of favourite pieces ready, and an
eight-keyed flute, and a four-stringed violin on its top—all
ready for a grand burst of innocent fun and frolic at the
coming of the loved ones! Oh! we should be so happy!

Night at length drew near; and so after an entire afternoon
passed in expectation and affirmations, thus—“Well,
they will be here in a few minutes, now!”—and after repeated
visits to our observatory in the attic, we had concluded
that, beyond all doubt, within a half-hour the cavalcade
would arrive. But, that half-hour elapsed, and no
friends came! and then another! and still another! and
even then no friends! It was then so very much later than
our old folks had been wont to come, that we all sat now

in the gloom of disappointment around the parlour, uneasy,
and with forebodings of evil—when the clatter of a horse
moving rapidly over the frozen earth called us in haste to
the door; upon opening which, John Glenville was seen
dismounting, who immediately entered and with a countenance
of deep distress—

“Why, dear John! what is the matter?”

“Melancholy enough! poor Uncle has fallen and broken
his thigh! I've come over for Sylvan, and must go back
with him instantly. I left word for him to be ready in
fifteen minutes.”

Ah! dear reader! if one's happiness is wholly from the
earth, what shall we do when that happiness is so marred?
Our joy became instant mourning—our pleasant apartment,
cheerless—our dainty food, tasteless—our music, the voice
of lamentation!

Dear old kind-hearted man! after all the sore disappointments
of a long life, is this sad affliction added to your sorrows,
and pains, and many bodily injuries! Again, in old
age, must you lie in that dark forest in the anguish of broken
limbs!—again separated from many that so love you!
What a Christmas eve for you! how different from those
passed in our days of prosperity!

For myself, when recalling the incidents of our late
journey—our harmless pleasantries—our solemn and serious
conversations—his hoary head on the floor of the lone
woman's cabin—his patience, hilarity, and noble heart—
and thought of him refused a night's lodging, who had sheltered
and fed so many strangers, and of him turned, weary,
hungry and sick into a western wilderness at night!—and
now that grey head on a pillow of anguish! that pleasant
face changed by pain! that often broken body again
crushed and mangled—But, let us change the subject.

Our friends had purposed leaving home early on the

morning of the 24th, but an unforeseen business having
called away John Glenville, the expedition was postponed
a few hours. Yet when he came not at the hour, it was
then concluded that the old folks should set out by themselves,
with the belief that Mr. Glenville could easily over-take
them on the road. To prepare the horses, Mr. Seymour
descended a small hill to the stable, whilst Aunt Kitty
remained in the cabin to arrange a few small matters previous
to the starting. But as her brother was absent a full
quarter of an hour beyond what seemed necessary, she
stepped to the cabin-door, and with the slightest possible
impatience—when, to her amazement, she heard a faint
voice calling on her for help, and the groans of one as
in great bodily pain! She flew in alarm down the hill—and
at the stable-door lay Uncle John, his leg broken off at the
head of the thigh bone, himself in an agony of pain, and in
danger of perishing even from cold, without a speedy removal!
His horse had proved restive on being led from
the stable, and in a consequent struggle Mr. S. slipping on
some ice had fallen and received the hurt.

Aunt Kitty quickly decided on her plan. She brought
from the cabin the buffalo robe bestowed by the Osage warchief,
and spreading it near her wounded brother, she managed,
weak and unaided, to get him, a large and heavy
man, fairly into the middle of the robe. Staying, then, her
tears, and raising her heart to God for fortitude and strength,
she began to drag her mournful load towards the cabin.
But she soon found herself too weak for the task, and in
despair looked around—when, on her way home, and, by
an unusual path near our cabin, passed now that very woman
commemorated elsewhere in this work for a novel
appearance in cow hunting! Catching a glimpse of this
woman Aunt Kitty cried out for assistance; and the kind-hearted
neighbour was almost instantly at her side, and
adding a strength superior to that of a dozen pretty ladies,

she soon, with Aunt Kitty's aid, had our wounded relative
hauled to the cabin-door. Here, with great difficulty and
labour on their part and pain on his, the sufferer was partly
lifted and partly dragged up and over the steps and sill,
and finally laid on a low bed prepared for his reception.

Mrs. Littleton now examined her brother's wound, and
with the help of her humble friend, she forced the leg into
something like a natural position, and then splintered and
bandaged it, to the best of her ability. In a few minutes
after this, John Glenville entered the cabin, who, on learning
the mournful accident, instantly remounted and hurried
to Woodville.

Dr. Sylvan was unfortunately not at home, and we obtained
only one of his students; when Glenville, having
refreshed himself a few moments with us, was, attended by
the pupil, quickly replunged into the cold and darkness of a
now tempestuous night and howling wilderness! They
reached the cabin a short time before day-break: but the
embryo surgeon, without adding or taking from, deemed it
best to let all the bandages remain as Aunt Kitty had bound
them! And so poor Uncle John, after lying on his bed for
seventy wearisome days and nights, rose again to life and
health—yet not to his former shape and activity; for the
leg had shrunk in the knitting of the bone, and his right
side was two inches shorter than before the accident.

And yet, reader, so youthful and buoyant the spirit of
this noble old gentleman, that he and I hunted often together
after his recovery—he walking with a crutch in one
hand and a heavy rifle in the other! But so gloomy had
become the cabin life to the old folks, where death might
easily occur from the absence of ordinary help, and where,
perhaps, Uncle John's deformity might have been lessened
by prompt medical aid, that our tannery was sold, and our
relatives removed to Woodville. Mr. Glenville, however,
chose a new site for a store several miles from the old settlement,

which then, as to us, ceased to be—save that
sacred spot reserved in the sale, and where rest, far from
us, scattered as we are, and ever in this life shall be, the
ashes of the mother!

Once, and but once, subsequent to this desertion, did I
pass along a new road laid through that settlement, and
between the two cabins. Around, for many acres, the
forest was no more, but corn and grain were ripening in
its place. A new brick house stood in our garden; and
the cabin was changed into a stable. And yet, while all
the changes were for the better, and a most joyous evening
was smiling on the coming harvest—I sat on my horse
and had one of my girlish fits of tears!

Yes!—I cried like Homer's heroes—and that in spite of
the critic who, running over the book to make an article,
will say, “the author, tender-hearted soul, cries again towards
the close of year the third, Chap. xli. p. 77, Vol. II.”
Yes!—I cried! And since that summer's evening, I have
never seen my first forest home; for I purposely ever after
avoided the hateful new road through it, and that too by
the Indian grave.