University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

It was a pleasant morning in the month of May, when
our hero shouldered his well-stored knapsack, and, with
the blessings of his father and mother on his head, and
their meagre outfit in his pocket, went forth into the wide
world to seek his fortune wherever he might find it.

Such was the obscure and lowly beginning of the renowned
hero of Mugwump!—Such the inauspicious and
rayless rising of that masonic star which was destined soon
to mount the mystic zenith, and irradiate the whole canopy
of America with its peerless effulgence! But not wishing
to anticipate his subsequent distinction, or waste words
in bestowing that panegyric which a bare recital of his
deeds cannot but sufficiently proclaim, I shall endeavor to
follow my hero through the bright mazes of his eventful
career, giving an unvarnished narration of his exploits, and
leaving them to speak their own praise and receive from
an unbiassed posterity, if not from this perverse and unmasonic
generation, the meed of unperishable honor.

Steering his course westward, Timothy arrived at the
end of his first day's walk at a little village within the borders
of Massachusetts. Here he put up at a respectable
looking tavern for the night. After a good substantial
supper had somewhat settled the inquietudes of the inner
man, he began to cast about him for companionship; and
hearing those who came in address the landlord by the various
titles of 'Squire, Colonel, &c., and concluding therefore
that the man must be the principal personage of the
village, he determined to have some conversation with
him, and this for two reasons,—first, because he wished to
make enquiries respecting the road to the State of New
York, to which it had been settled he should proceed as a
place well suited to give full scope to his splendid talents,

and, secondly, because he thought it doing the landlord
injustice to suffer him to remain any longer in ignorance
of the great Genius with whose presence his house was now
honored. He therefore opened the conversation in a manner
which he deemed suitable to the occasion.—

“Landlord,” said he, “comprehending you to be a man
of superlative exactitude, I take the present opportunity
for making a few nocturnal enquiries.”

`Oh, yes; yes, Sir,' replied the landlord, with a bow at
every repetition; `yes, Sir, I thank you,—may ben't, however,
I don't exactly understand your tarms; but I'll answer
your enquiries in the shake of a sheep's-tail.'

“I am now,” rejoined the former, “meandering my longitude
to the great State of New-York, where I contemplate
the lucid occupation of juvenile instruction, or some
other political aggrandizement, and I would more explicitly
direct my enquiries respecting the best road to that sequestered
dominion.”

`Oh, yes, yes Sir, I thank you,' said the other— speaking
of political matters—I have had some experience in that
line, and about the road too; why, let me see—it is just four
year agone coming June, since I went representative to the
General Court in Boston.—They would make me go to the
Legislature, you see.—Well, my speech on the Road Bill
of that session as to the best rout to New-York; but may
ben't you havn't read my speech.—Well, no matter.—But,
my friend, don't you miss it to go to New-York? Now I'll
tell you jest what I would do: I would go right to Old
Varmount at once.—They are all desput ignerant folks
there.—They must want a man of your larnen shockingly I
guess.—Now spose you jest think on't a little.'

“Should you advise me then,” observed Timothy, happy
in perceiving his talents were beginning to be appreciated
by the landlord, “should you advise me to concentrate
to that dispensation?”

`Go there, do you mean?' replied the polished ex-representative—`why,
to be sure I should.—These poor out-of-the-world
people must be dreadfully sunk. You wouldn't

find any body there that could hold a candle to you: and
besides teaching, which you are a person I conclude every
way fitting for it, I shouldn't wonder if you got to be governer
in two year.'

Much did Timothy, on retiring to rest, revolve in mind
the advice of the sage landlord. He could not but admit
that the argument for going to Vermont was a very forcible
one, and coming as it did from so candid a man, and
one who had been a representative to the legislature, it
seemed entitled to great weight;—so after mature deliberation,
he concluded to follow the 'Squire's enlightened
suggestions—go to Vermont, become a chief teacher of the
poor barbarians of that wild country, till such time as they
should make him their governor.

The next morning Timothy rose early, and under the
fresh impulse of his late resolution, eagerly resumed his
journey.

Nothing worthy particular notice occurred to our hero
during the three next succeeding days of his pilgrimage
for fame and fortune. Untroubled by any of those doubts
and fears of the future which so often prove troublesome
attendants to minds of a different mould, he pressed on in
the happy consciousness that merit like his must soon reap
its adequate reward. Emoluments and civil distinctions
would await him as matters of course, but an object of a
higher character more deeply engrossed his mind, and
formed the grateful theme of his loftiest aspirations. This
was the sublime mysteries of Masonry; and to the attainment
of its glorious laurels he looked forward with a sort
of prophetic rapture as a distinction which was to cap the
climax of his renown and greatness.

With such bright anticipations of the future beguiling
many a lonely hour, and shortening many a weary mile,
he arrived at the eastern bank of the beautiful Connecticut—that
river of which the now almost forgotten Barlow
sings or says with as much truth as felicity of expression—

Fearlessly passing this Rubicon, for such it was to one of
his preconceived notions of the country beyond, supposing,
as he did, its eastern borders to be the very Ultima Thule
of civilization, Timothy found himself, as a certain literary
dandy, who is now receiving “Impressions” among the
naked Venuses of Italy, has been pleased to express it,
“out of the world and in Vermont.”

Vermont! Ah, Vermont! calumniator of the heaven-born
Handmaid! How the mind of every true brother sickens
at thy degenerate name!—How deeply deplores thy
fallen condition!—How regrets and pities thy blindness
to that light which, but for thy perverseness, might still
have gloriously illuminated thy mountains, and soon have
shone the ascendant in all thy political gatherings, thy
halls of legislation and thy courts of justice—overpowering
in each the feebler rays of uninitiated wisdom, and filling
them with the splendors of mystic knowledge! What unholy
frenzy could have seized thy irreverent sons thus to
lay their Gothlike hands on the sacred pillars of that consecrated
fabric, in which we behold accomplished the magnificent
object for which the less favored projectors of ancient
Babel labored in vain,—the construction of a tower
reaching from earth to heaven, by which the faithful, according
to the assurance of their wise ones,

What high-handed presumption, thus to assail that institution
which, as its own historians, as learned as the Thebans
and as infallible as the Pope, have repeatedly informed us,
commenced in Eden, (whether before or after the gentleman
with the blemished foot made his appearance in the
garden, they have not mentioned,) and which has since
continued, from age to age, advancing in greatness and
glory, till it has at length arrived at the astonishing excellence
of nineteen degrees above perfection! What blind infatuation
and unappreciating stupidity, thus to pursue with
obloquy and proscription that heaven-gifted fraternity,
who are, we are again informed, so immeasurably exalted
above the grovelling mass of the uninitiated, that,

No wonder this daughter of heaven is indignant at thy
ungrateful rebellion to her celestial rule! No wonder her
Royal Arch sons of light mourn in sackcloth and ashes
over thy disgrace! No wonder her yet loyal and chivalrous
Templars are so anxious to see thy “lost character redeemed!”
[1]

But from this vain lament over a country once honored
and blest—by that glorious Light she has since so blindly
strove to extinguish—over a country once happy and unsuspected
in her fealty to those who, like the sun-descended
Incas, are thus endowed with the peculiar right to govern
the undistinguished multitude—over a land thus favored,
but now, alas! forever fallen, and become a by-word
and reproach among her sister states—let us return to those
halcyon days of her obedience in which transpired those
brilliant adventures which it has become our pleasing task
to delineate.

After crossing the river, our hero entered a thriving village
situated around those picturesque falls where this magnificent
stream, meeting a rocky barrier, and, as if maddened
at the unexpected interruption after so long a course of
tranquil meanderings, suddenly throws itself, with collected
strength, headlong down through the steep and yawning
chasm beneath, with the delirious desperation of some
giant maniac hurling himself from a precipice.

After a brief stay at this place, which, to his surprise,
wore the marks of considerable civilization, and which he
concluded therefore must be the strong out-post of the frontier,
and the largest town of the Green-Mountain settlement,
he pushed boldly into the interior. Taking a road
leading north-westerly, with a view of passing through the

mountains into some of the western counties of the state,
which he had been told comprised the best part of Vermont,
he travelled on several hours with increasing wonder in
finding the country cultivated like other places he had
been accustomed to see—the farm-houses comfortable,
and not made of logs; and the inhabitants much like other
people in appearance. In pondering on these, to him
unaccountable circumstances, as he diligently pursued his
way through a variety of scenery which was continually
arresting his attention, he wholly forgot to acquaint himself
with the relative distances of the houses of public entertainment
on the road. At length, however, the setting
sun, slowly sinking behind the long range of Green-Mountains,
which now, with broad empurpled sides, lay looming
in the distance, reminded him of his inadvertence, and
warned him that he must speedily seek out a lodging for
the night. But now no inn, or, indeed, any other habitation
was in sight; and to add to his perplexity the road
became more woody, and he was now evidently approaching
a wilder part of the country. Undismayed, however,
he pressed onward with a quickened pace, and after travelling
some distance he came to a small farm-house. Determined
to make application for a night's lodging at this
cottage, as it was now nearly dark, he approached it and
rapped for admittance. The rap was instantly answered
from within, and at the same time a host of white-headed
urchins crowded to the door, headed by the house-cur,
yelping at the very top of his cracked voice. Presently,
however, the owner of this goodly brood made his appearance,
loudly vociferating, “Fraction! get out, get out,
you saucy scamp! you have no more manners than a sophomore
in vacation.—Number One, take a stick and baste the
dog to his heart's content; and you, Number Two, Three,
and the rest of ye, to your seats in a moment!” After
thus stilling the commotion around him, the farmer cordially
invited Timothy into the house, where the latter was
soon made welcome for the night to such fare as the house
afforded. As soon as the common-place remarks usual on
such occasions were a little over, our hero, whose curiosity
was considerably excited by the specimen of Green-Mountain
manners which this family presented, began to make
his observations with more minuteness; and taking what
he here saw, as many other learned travellers in a strange
country have done, for a fair sample of the rest of the inhabitants,
he could not but marvel much on the singularity
of this people. Every thing about the house exhibited
a strange mingling of poverty, and what he had been taught
to believe could only be the results of some degree of affluence.
The family appeared to be in possession of the
substantials of living in abundance, and yet rough benches
were about their only substitute for chairs: Indeed, the
usual conveniences of furniture were almost wholly wanting.—Again,
there were two or three kinds of newspapers
in the room, one of which two of the boys, each as ragged
as a young Lazarus, were reading together by fire-light,
with one hand holding up the tattered nether garments,
and the other grasping a side of the sheet whose contents
they seemed to devour with the eagerness of a young candidate
for Congress on the eve of an election, occasionally
making their sage comments, till one, coming to some
partisan prediction or political philippic with which the
newspapers at that period were teeming, suddenly let go
the paper and exclaimed, “Hurra for Madison and the
Democrats! Dad, we shall have a war, and I'll go and fight
the British!”—while, “so will I!” “and I too!” responded
several of the younger boys, starting up, and brandishing
their sturdy little fists. While these tiny politicians
were thus settling the destinies of the nation, an embryo
Congress-member, the oldest boy, or Number One, (as his
father called him) a lad of about fifteen, lay quietly on his
back, with his head to the fire, studying a Greek Grammar,
and furnishing himself with light by once in a while throwing
on a pine knot, a pile of which he had collected and
laid by his side for the purpose.[2] These circumstances,
particularly the latter, filled our hero with surprise, and he
asked the farmer how he `contrivified,' in a place with no
more `alliances for edifercation,' to bring his boys to such
a `length of perfecticability' as to be studying Greek? To
this the man replied, that they had a school in every neighborhood
that furnished as many, and indeed more advantages
than common scholars would improve; and he did not
suppose boys in any country, whatever might be said of its
advantages, could be very well taught much faster than
they could learn. As to his own boys, he did not consider
the smaller ones any great shakes at learning; but with
regard to Number One, it came so natural for him to learn,
that he did not believe the boy could help it. A college
school-master, he said, teaching in their school the year
before, had put the child agoing in the dead lingos and
lent him some books;—since which, by digging along by
himself nights, rainy days, and so on, and reciting to the
minister, he had got so far that he thought of going to college
another year, which he was welcome to do, if he could
`hoe his own row.'

Timothy then asked him the reason of his `designifying'
his children by such odd `appliances.' To this question,
also, the farmer (who was one of those compounds of oddity
and shrewdness who have enough of the latter quality
to be able to give a good reason for the same) had his ready
answer, which he gave by saying, that he never gave names
to any of his children, for he thought that his method of
numbering them as they came, and so calling them by their
respective numbers, altogether preferable to giving them
the modern fashionable double or treble names; because
it furnished brief and handy names by which to call his
children, and possessed the additional advantage of giving
every body to understand their comparative ages, which
names could never do; besides, there could be no danger
of exhausting the numeral appellatives, which the other
course, in this respect, was not without risk in the Green-Mountains;
[3] though as to himself, he said he did not know

that he ought to feel under any great apprehensions of running
out the stock of names, as he had as yet but seventeen
children, though to be sure he had not been married
only about fifteen years.

Our hero now retired to rest for the night, and, after a
sound sleep, rose the next morning to resume his journey,
when to his great joy a waggoner came along and kindly
gave him a passage over the mountains, landing him at
night at an inn in the open country several miles to the
west of them.