University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

The owner of the cottage, as the reader
is already apprised, was a Mr. Martin,
who with a few others had made, many
years before, the first permanent settlement
in the valley. They had purchased
of one Colvin, a resident of the small
village, to which allusion has before been
made, situated some six or eight miles below,
in the southerly corner of what had
now become an organized town embracing
the greatest part of this settlement
within its boundaries. This man had formerly
acted as agent to Harwood, the original
proprietor of the whole valley, in
disposing of the same lands to others which
he subsequently sold to Martin and his
companions as principal, the first occupants
becoming sick of their bargains, or
proving too poor and thriftless to pay for

their farms, having abandoned and left
them, before receiving any but defeasible
titles, with their few scanty improvements
to more able and enterprising successors.
About the time of this desertion of the
first settlers, or rather squatters, perhaps,
they might be termed, Colvin made a journey
to the sea-port in New Hampshire
where Harwood resided, and returned with
the story that he had bought out the original
proprietor, and was now sole owner
of the valley. He then immediately set
to work in searching for purchasers; and
by his unwearied exertions in this respect,
and the inducements held out by the smallness
of his reduced prices, he soon
succeeded in finding money purchasers
for all the valley thought capable of improvement.
This he had no sooner effected
than he suddenly left that part of the
country and was heard of no more. From
this time the settlement made rapid progress
in improvement; and many of the
families there now permanently located,
among which was that of Martin, were, at
that period of our tale, in comparatively
easy and comfortable circumstances.
Martin and his wife having no children of
their own had taken May, the heroine of
our story, when quite young, and adopted
her as a daughter.—Of the girl's parentage
little or nothing had ever been ascertained.
Her mother, it appeared, had been
taken ill on the road in a neighborhood on
the borders of New Hampshire, and gained
admittance into a private family to remain
during her confinement. The man
who attended her was not her husband,
but, as he stated, a person employed to
convey her to her friends in Vermont.
And pretending to give her name and residence,
and leaving a sum of money with
the family amply sufficient for the present
support of the mother and her expected
infant, he immediately returned, for the
purpose, as he avowed, of apprising her
husband of her situation. The young
woman, for so she seemed, in a few hours
gave birth to a daughter; not however
without the cost of her own life; for she
was soon seized with a fever and delirium,
which in two or three days put a period to
her existence. The infant was handed over
to nurse to a married daughter of the
family who resided with them, and who
kindly received the little stranger to share
with her own child that nourishment of
which it had been deprived by the untimely
death of its mother. After a few weeks
had elapsed, no one in the mean time appearing
to claim the child, a letter was sent
to the address of the supposed father, but
without bringing from any one either a
visit or an answer. Recourse was then
had to the post-master of the town which
had been given as the residence of the husband;
and in consequence information
was soon received that no person or family
of that name and description had ever
resided there. And as no other intelligence
was ever after received on the subject, and
neither any remarks of the deceased mother
during the few hours of her rationality
after her arrival, nor any thing found among
her effects, affording the least clue for
unravelling the mystery, the transaction
was very naturally concluded to be one of
those frauds often practiced to palm off as
respectable some frail fair one and her illegitimate
on strangers. The little innocent
subject of these suspicions, thus left
unknown and unowned among entire strangers,
was not, however, on that account
neglected. Having been at first whimsically
termed the May flower, and finally
May, from the circumstance of her having
been born on the first day of the month of
that name, she received the kindest attention
from the family till nearly two years
of age, when, becoming a pretty and promising
child, she was taken by Martin, who
then, and for some years afterwards, resided
in that neighborhood, from which he
removed to his present residence in the
valley. During the first years of May's
adoption, and till the removal of Martin to
Vermont, she was allowed, summer and
winter, the advantage of an excellent common
school, in which she was distinguished
for uncommon proficiency for her age.
And the taste for reading, which she here
thus early acquired, was ever after maintained
and improved by means of a choice
selection of books, which Martin inherited
from his father and preserved out of
respect to his memory rather than for any
pleasure or profit they ever afforded him,
or his still more unlettered companion.
At this period also she was apparently much
beloved by both Martin and his wife, and
was uniformly treated by them with parental
kindness and attention. But as she
approached to womanhood, and began to
attract the esteem and admiration of all
who became acquainted with her by her
amiable disposition, her sprightliness and
beauty, this former manifestation of kindness
on the part of Martin and his wife began
unaccountably to decline; and instead of
receiving these demonstrations of esteem
towards their deserving daughter with that
pride and gratification which real parents
would feel, they seemed to sicken at the
praises she received, and view them with
increasing uneasiness, giving vent to their
feelings at last on the innocent and distressed
cause of them in such bitterness of
manner and expression as to render her
often extremely miserable. And this treatment
was the more painful and perplexing
as it arose from no avowed or reasonable
causes, being founded probably in a
sense of growing inferiority, and a petty
jealousy at the preference with which she
was personally regarded, and the greater
respect which her intellectual superiority
always commanded, leaving her the most
hopeless of all tasks the endeavor to conciliate
those whose conduct arises from
motives they are ashamed to acknowledge,
and whose dislike has no other origin than
in the baseness of their own hearts.

A new era now occurred in the life of
May—the era of her first love. William

Ashley, and intelligent and enterprising
young man, had been employed by a gentleman
of Massachusetts owning wild lands
in Vermont, to survey the tract lying west
of the settlement. Making the valley his
head quarters, and the house of Martin
his home on his stated returns from his laborious
duties in the woods, he became
interested in May—loved her, and was soon
loved in return with all the purity and fervor
with which a young maiden yields up
her virgin affections. The intimacy soon
resulted in an engagement of marriage,
and a determination on his part to purchase
a farm and settle in the valley; to
all of which Martin and his wife either
seemed coldly indifferent, or manifested
their dislike; though, as before intimated,
they had the year previous used considerable
management to induce May to consent
to the hasty proposals of one a thousand
times less worthy. Ashley having
now contracted for a farm in pursuance
of his resolution to settle in the place, his
time had since been spent in alternately
improving his new purchase, and resuming
the avocation which had been the
means of introducing him into the settlement.

Having now given the reader a brief
sketch of the situation and characters of
the leading personages of our little story,
we will return to the thread of the narrative
where we left it for this digression.