University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Nature, it is sometimes said, often smiles auspiciously
on those undertakings which are fraught with important
benefactions to man. When the birds flew to the right,
the chickens fed well, and Sol unveiled his smiling features,
then, and then only would the sagacious old Romans commence
any important undertaking. In what direction the
birds flew, on the morning that our two friends set forth on
their journey, it was not noticed; but certain it is, that
the numerous brood of dame Jenks' chickens manifested
no lack of appetite on that memorable occasion: and a
bright October's sun burst smilingly through the thick and
humid mantle of mist and fog that had closely wrapt,
through the night, the head waters of the sluggish Otter,
as they applied the string to the back of old Cyclops, and
rattled off on their intended enterprise. The learned Boaz
had been duly boxed and shipped aboard their partnership
vehicle, and a stock of provisions laid in, consisting of
baked meats and bread for the biped, and soft corn, sweet
apples, and oats, for the quadruped portion of this distinguished
party, which might have served a company of Bedouins
for crossing the great desert of Africa. They did
not strike immediately into the main road leading to the
west, but by common consent took a by-road which passed
through a thinly inhabited part of the country, and, after
a circuit of some half dozen miles, came into the direct
road to New-York. This aberation, indeed, cost old Cyclops
four or five additional miles' travel, but it enabled
them wholly to avoid the village of examination-memory,
which our hero had resolved should never again enjoy the
light of his presence, and thus saved him from the violation
of vows that both he and his friend, in the present instance,
seemed equally anxious to preserve inviolate.

Nothing of particular interest happened to our travellers
during their first day's journey. Having their provisions
with them, and not expecting to reap any emoluments
by the exhibition of Boaz while in Vermont, or accumulate
much by their exertions as pharmacopolists till they had
reached a more gullable people than those jacks-at-all-trades
and professions, the inhabitants of the Green-Mountains,
they stopped at neither private house or tavern during
the day; and at night, after a diligent day's drive,
they found themselves in the vicinity of the Hudson, and
many miles within that great political bee-hive, the State
of New-York, where a numerous array of proud and luxurious
queen-bees are generously allowed all the honey for
governing the `workies.'

About dark they hauled up at the door of a kind of farmer's
tavern, situated adjacent to a pine plain, which was
now on fire, while the country for some miles round was
enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke, through which a
thousand lights from stump and tree were beginning to
twinkle with the gathering shades of the approaching
evening. The landlord, an easy, though rather of a sneaking
looking personage, came out, with his pipe in his
mouth, and greeted our travellers as they drove up to the
door. Our hero immediately leaped out of the waggon,
and, with a dignity of demeanor suitable to his elevated
standing in masonry, returned the salutation of the host,
while at the same time, seizing the hand of the latter, he
gave him a hearty grasp. “What a d—l of a grip you
have, stranger!” said the landlord, as wincing with pain
he withdrew his own passive hand from the vice-like
squeeze of Timothy's fingers—“You must be a southerner,
I guess, for they always shake hands with a fellow whether
they have ever seen him before or not; but they don't
knudge in among a body's knuckles so, as I knows of.”—
`Ah! he has never been admitted to the glorious light of
masonry,' thought Timothy, with a sigh.

“Landlord,” said Jenks, now taking upon himself the
character of spokesman, “we should like to put up with

you to-night provided we can pay you in our way, and we
are willing to give you an excellent bargain.”

`Your way?' asked the other, giving a suspicious glance
at the waggon, `your way!—what mought that be, if I
may be so bold?'

“Why,” replied Jenks, “we have a live bear for show,
and”—

`A live bear!' peevishly interrupted the man—`Pho!
pish! pshaw!'

“Yes, a fine one! but hear me,” said Jenks, somewhat
abashed at the other's sneers—“hear me through: we ask
twenty-five cents a person for a sight, and if you will keep
us, you, and all your family, shall see the animal, which, I
presume, will amount to much more than the reckoning;
so you will be making quite a spec!”

`A curious spec that!' said the landlord—`I would give
about three skips of a flea to see your bear—I was out to
a great hunt on the mountains the other day, and help'd
kill four as loud bears as ever was seen: But I won't ax
any thing better than money for your keeping; and that
you have enough of, I'll warrant.—Come, come, none of
your Yankee tricks for me—I used to be a Yankee myself
once, and understand a thing or two about their contrivances
to get along on the road.'

At this declaration, which conveyed the startling intelligence
that their host was a fellow-countryman, our travellers
concluded to say no more about Boaz by way of paying
their fare, but to put up on the offered conditions; so,
after seeing Cyclops well stabled and fed, and Boaz safely
locked up in the barn, they all went into the house, and
entered into conversation.

“Would it not,” said Timothy, as the landlord left the
room for a moment, “would it not, Brother Jenks, be more
complaisant with the dignity of our station to take some
hot digestibles to-night? My appetite begins to be somewhat
excruciating, and I propound that we take a supper
like gentlemen.”

`My appetite, under such circumstances, would have

been as keen as yours before I was married, I presume,
Timothy,' replied the other, glancing, with a comical smile,
at a rosy-cheeked girl in the next room, on whom our hero's
eyes had been all the while rivited, `and as it is, I
have no objection to what you say.'

The landlord then entering the room, a supper was accordingly
bespoken, and while it was in preparation the
garrulous host took a seat with his guests, and resumed
his discourse.

“So, you are from old Varmount, you say,” began mine
host. “Well, I was original born in Cornetercut.”

`Ah!' said Jenks, `then I don't wonder you understand
so much about Yankee contrivances, as you call them:
Did you ever follow the business of pedling?'

“Not by a jug-full, Mister,” replied the other—“I never
was one of your wooden nutmeg fellers, I'll warrant it.—
But I peddled love and larnin to some purpose when I fust
come to York State, I tell ye—he-he he!”

`Why, how was that?' asked Jenks.

“I was goin' to tell you,” said the host.—“As soon as
I got my edifercation parfect, I steered for York State, and
teached in one of the low counties among the Dutch till I
got acquainted with a young wider with an only darter,
when we soon struck up a bargain, and moved up to this
farm, which fell to her as her portion out of her father's
estate, and here we all are, pretty well to do in the world,
as you may say.”

`We don't make our fortunes quite so easy as that in
Vermont,' observed Jenks.

“No,” rejoined the other, “I never could see how you
all contrive to live in that cold, barren, out-of-the-way region.
Why, I once travelled a piece into the Green-Mountains
about the middle of June, and going by a log-hut, I
saw a man planting potatoes with his great coat on,—it
was then about ten oclock in the forenoon.—At sundown
I returned by the same place, & found the man to work digging
his potatoes up again.—So, thinking this was rather
queerish, I stopped and axed him what he was doing that

for, when he said he didn't dare to trust his potatoes in the
ground over night for fear they would freeze! he did, as
true as my name is Jonas Bidwell—he-he he!”

`Was that,' retorted Jenks, somewhat nettled at the
taunt thus thrown at his native state, as well as at the boisterous
and self-applauding laugh of the landlord at his happy
delivery of this witty story, `was that about the time
when the Yorkers were so anxious to possess `this cold,
barren, out-of-the-way place,' that they came on in large
numbers and tried to drive the owners from their farms, so
that they could live there themselves, but getting handsomely
basted with beech clubs, or beech-sealed as it was
called, retreated as fast as their legs would carry them,
leaving the Green-Mountain Boys to enjoy the sour grapes
to themselves?'

“I don't know any thing about that,” said the landlord,
still chuckling at his own story—“but the potatoes—he-he
he!”

`But the Beech-Sealers,' rejoined Jenks, imitating the
tone of the other—`what a cold, barren place Vermont has
ever since been with the Yorkers!—ha-ha ha!'

Just at this moment the landlady, a short, fat, chubby
figure, that would have rolled down a hill one way as well
as the other, came waddling into the room, stopping every
two or three steps to take breath, or a fresh puff at her
pipe,—“Shonas!” said she, addressing her husband, as she
dropped into her chair with a force that shook the whole
house,—“Shonas! Pe Cot! You look tam vell here in ter
house ven ter vire ish purnin all mine vinter crain up! I
can take care dese Cot tam Yankee petlars ash petter ash
you.—So pe off to vatch ter vire all night, or ter hell take
yer!”

The obedient husband, who had sunk into silence the
moment his bigger half made her appearance, no sooner
heard the promulgation of this ukase than he took his hat
and sneaked out of the house to his appointed task. The
landlady then entertained our travellers with many a story
about her farm, which “Shonas,” she said, “a coot fellow

enough, help her carry on;” and enlarged with much apparent
interest on her stock of cattle, giving even the pedigree
of her calves and colts, and finally wound up the history
of her prospects by saying, “Tank mine Cot, I havn't
seen ter pottom of mine milk-tup dese twenty years!”

This last observation our travellers better understood
when they sat down to supper, which in the meanwhile had
been announced as ready, and which consisted, among other
things, of bonnyclabber, a favorite dish with the Dutch.
They, it is said, always keep a tub in one corner of the
pantry, for the purpose of making and keeping this sine qua non of their tables; it being manufactured by adding
every day a quantity of new milk, always leaving, when
they use out of it, (unless forced by necessity to use the
whole) a portion of the old in the bottom of the tub to turn
these daily additions into this delectable beverage. Hence
the Dutchman's thermometer of prosperity is his milk-tub.

At supper, our travellers were attended by the landlady's
daughter, to whom allusion has before been made.—
Nature, as regarded the family stock, here seemed to be in
a process of rapid improvement, without being very badly
cramped for room for her operations; for the daughter, in
features, was to the mother, after making every reasonable
allowance for the ravages of time, as Hebe to Hecate. But
aside from this, and difference of diameter, if a gauger's
term be admissible in this connection, the girl was a chip
of the old block, which she abundantly proved by retorting
all the jokes cracked upon her by her guests with a spirit
equalled only by the refinement and delicacy of her language.
Our hero being the young man of the party, and
having been somewhat smitten from the first by her appearance
withal, particularly attempted to display his gallantry;
all of which she met with such jocose freedom that he
proceeded with her to the highest pitch of sociability;
and, by the time that supper was over, and the table cleared
off, he began to feel, as she turned her little twinkling
black eyes upon him, rather queer about the inwards.
Jenks now going out to see to old Cyclops and Boaz, left

our enamored swain to the enjoyment of more privacy with
his spanking sweetheart—an opportunity which he did not
fail to improve; and soon getting into a romp with her,
he became emboldened to throw out hints which most
damsels, who reckon themselves among the household of
Diana, might have perhaps resented. Not so, however,
with the lively Katreen; for she, like most of her country-women,
I believe, not holding to restricting the liberty of
debate on one subject more than another, met Timothy more
than half way in all his advances; and, as far as words
were concerned, fairly beat him on his own ground. By
the time they had been performing their domestic waltz
half an hour or so, our hero could have sworn he was in
love, with as clear a conscience as Uncle Toby had done
before him, after the rubbing operation by the soft hand
of Widow Wadman. By the way, I wonder if the fashionable
dances, known by the appellation of waltzes, did not
originate in a hint taken from Uncle Toby's courtship. I
can think of no other supposition so probable when the
similar operations and results of the two performances are
fairly considered.

Jenks now coming in, deprived Timothy of further opportunity
of prosecuting his suit at this time, and of making
some direct propositions which he was about to do when
thus interrupted in his amorous parlance, and which, he
had no doubt would be favorably received.

It was now bed-time, and our hero was reluctantly compelled
to retire with Jenks, leaving his conquest, as he believed,
on the very point of its achievement. Their sleeping
apartment was one of the front rooms of the house, the
other front room being used as the bar-room, while a long
room in the rear of these, answering the purpose of kitchen,
bed, and dining-room, completed the ground work of the
building, which was of one story with a Dutch roof, and a
long, low piazza in front.

As soon as our travellers were by themselves in their
sleeping-room, Jenks at once proceeding to disrobe himself,
began talking on the subject of their journey, while

Timothy, taking a chair, and, without seeming to heed the
observations of his companion, sat some time silent and
abstracted. On perceiving this, the former inquired the
cause; and, after pumping and rallying him awhile, succeeded
in reviving his usual ingenuousness, and making
him confess the reason of his sudden entrancement. Just
at this time, our hero, with the quick ears of love, caught
the sounds of the footsteps of his fair one in the chamber
above him bustling about in preparation for bed. The
ancients represented the god of love as blind—a wight, of
course, who never looked before he leaped. By this, nothing
more was intended, doubtless, than that he was considered
a rash, short-sighted and foolish fellow; but I have
frequently suspected, from his so often deliberately instigating
his devotees to acts which result in their total discomfiture,
and from the design so often apparent in the
mischief which he seems to delight in occasioning, that
this deity is much more of a knave than a numb-skull; and
that this, after all, is the only reason why

Timothy, having noticed that there were several windows
in the roof of the house within reaching distance of
the top of the piazza, and knowing that one of these must
open from the chamber of his charmer, now formed the
chivalrous project of scaling the outward walls which enclosed
the bright prize of his affections. This resolution
was no sooner taken than communicated to his companion.

“These Dutch minxes,” coolly observed the latter, “are
clear pepper-pots for grit; and if this one should happen
to take a snuff at your climbing up to her window, Tim, I
would not warrant your pate from all damage short of
money.”

`O, no trouble there,' said the other eagerly, `for I have
ascertained for an intense certainty that she has taken a
most amorous conviction for me.'

“It may be as you suppose,” rejoined Jenks, “for I saw
that you and she were as thick as two cats in a bag, in the

supper-room; but have you thought, Brother Timothy, of
the possibility of your violating your masonic obligations
if you go on in this affair? How do you know that this girl
is not a Master Mason's daughter?”

`Why!' replied our hero, `I gave the old man as derogatory
a grip as ever was given to a brother, when we first
met him at the door, and he returned it no more than the
most dormant cowan in existence!'

“Well, but her own father,” said Jenks, “is dead—perhaps
he was a Mason.”

`Allowing your conjectural supposition to be true,' observed
the other, somewhat staggered, `do you think the
obligation was meant to be amplified and distended to a
Mason's wife or daughter after he is dead?'

“I rather think,” replied the elder votary of mystic morality,
“that the obligation does not bind us, in this respect,
after a brother's death; though it doubtless would
extend to a brother's widow in a matter of charity. But
you are on sure ground for another reason, which I guess
you never thought of, Timothy.—The oath says, `you shall
not violate a brother Master's wife, sister or daughter,
knowing them to be such.'—Now, when you don't know
that a woman is a relation to a brother of such a degree,
you can't of course infringe on your obligation, whatever
you may do. So you see you are safe in this case; but I
thought I would see how you would get along with my
questions. Thus you see that our obligations, when you
come to look at their true meaning, are not so rigid after
all; for even at the worst, this caution applies only to Masters'
relations; and as to the female connections of Entered
Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts, I know of nothing in
masonry that forbids us to meddle with them if we wish,—
much less as regards all the rest of the sex who have not
the honor to be related to Masons of any degree; for to
enjoy ourselves with these is, I take it, one of the privileges
that masonry bestows on her trusty followers.”

Timothy, who had been somewhat startled by the naming
of his masonic obligations, and once or twice perplexed

by the questions thus unexpectedly put to him on the subject
which occupied his mind, was now happily relieved
from his doubts and misgivings by the explanation of his
more experienced masonic friend, and, entirely coinciding
with the latter in opinion respecting the latitude which his
obligations implied, began in earnest to think of his nocturnal
enterprise.

As soon, therefore, as all was quiet below, of which he
was soon assured by hearing the old lady pitch the pipes
of her nasal melody, he crept carefully out of the front
door, and, after taking a hasty observation at the heights
to be surmounted, and the situation of the window that
opened into his fancied Elysium, he began to climb a post
of the piazza. This, after a hard struggle, he happily effected.
Being now on the top of the piazza, which was
almost flat, he found no difficulty in walking along till he
came under the window in question. Here he paused to
consider what might be the most suitable manner of making
known his presence to the fair object of his visit. As
soon as he had made up his mind upon this delicate, though
important subject, and screwed up his courage to the sticking
point, he reached up, and, taking hold of the window
stool, and bracing his feet against the steep slant of the
roof beneath it as he mounted, raised himself till he could
look into the window, which, it being a warm night, the
unsuspicious occupant had fortunately left open. “Now,”
said Timothy, in a whispered ejaculation, “now may the
gods of love and masonry inspire me.” And, for the double
purpose of awakening the respectful admiration of his
charmer by making known his masonic quality, and at the
same time enrapturing her with the melody of verse, he
commenced chanting, in the soft, winning accents of love,
one of those delicate and beautiful little stanzas of masonic
poesy which are forever the pride and boast of mystic
minstrelsy—

“The bitches! I wish they were dead—caterwauling
round the house all night,” muttered the half-roused sleeper,
between dreaming and thinking.

Our hero, feeling somewhat mortified in finding that his
own sweet notes should be mistaken by his drowsy inamorata
for the music of some nocturnal band of feline performers,
and perceiving by her snoring that she was again
relapsing into slumber, resolved to regale her ears with a
livelier strain, though with a text no less beautiful and appropriate:—

“That aint the cats!” exclaimed the damsel in tones of
alarm, starting up in her bed,—“what's that in the window!
Who are you?”

`O it is I,' replied Timothy, with a most affectionate
simpering of voice—`it is only I, the gentleman who had
the connubial conversation with you in the supper-room,
and could not rest for thinking of the pelucid embellishments
of your charms.'

“And what,” replied the girl, who had become thoroughly
awake during this gallant speech, “and what, Mr. Pelucid
Embellishment, do you want here? It strikes me that
you won't be much more apt to rest, if you stay here long,
than you would in your own room where you ought to be.”

`O, celestial charmer!' exclaimed our hero, `do not
cause my extraction forever! I know your internals must
bleed with the most amorous propensities for my anxious
condition! I am a high Mason; and

“Well, Sir,” said Katreen coolly, “if you are one of
those wise fellers that strut about with aprons as solemn
as a pack of old women at a granny-gathering, I will trust

you on this occasion with a secret: do you want I should
tell it?”

`O, I should be extremely extatic to hear it,' replied
Timothy, overjoyed at this supposed symptom of her relenting.

“Well, then,” said she, in no very mild accents, “if you,
Sir, don't make yourself scarce in two minutes, I'll give
you something that will make you keep as long as a pickled
lobster!—that's all.”

`O, you lily of cruelty!' exclaimed our swain, `O, don't
retard my congenial anxieties, but let me come in: I shall
propagate no noise.'

“No, nor any thing else, I guess,” said she, tartly; “but
I shall though,” she continued, leaping out of bed, “I shall
though—scamp of impudence! Will you be gone?”

But Timothy, notwithstanding the ominous tones of her
voice, and the rather unloving nature of her remarks, which
might, perhaps, have discouraged one of a less gallant and
sanguine disposition, still persisted in thinking that she was
merely joking, and not believing that she could seriously
be otherwise than enraptured with him, became the more
emboldened as he beheld this fearless daughter of Amsterdam
standing in her night-clothes beside her bed, apparently
waiting his approach; and he began to make a
movement to climb into her window. Perceiving this,
she sharply bid him desist, or he should repent it. Timothy
begged her not to speak so loud, lest she should raise
the folks in the house.

“I can help myself, I thank you,” she replied, “without
calling any assistance; and I will do it too, to your sorrow.”

Our hero hearing that she did not wish to alarm the
house, and feeling no great apprehensions on any other
score, now boldly began to mount the window; but scarcely
had he thrust his head over the threshold of his fancied
paradise, when, (shade of Dean Swift, inspire me to tell
it!) the hidden reservoirs of that paradise were suddenly
uncapt—a masked battery was unexpectedly opened upon
the unconscious victim, and its projected torrent of liquid

wrath, coming with fatal aim, met him full in the face with
a force that nearly swept him from the window-stool with
the shock!

“There! take that, stupid puppy!” exclaimed the gentle
angel within, “and if that an't enough, I've got another
in store for you. It will be quite an addition to your
pelucid embellishments, I apprehend.”

Reader! did you ever shoot a squirrel in a tree-top? If
you have, and noticed how suddenly he fell from his hold
as the messengers of death reached his heart, then you
may form some idea how quickly our hero dropped from
the window on to the piazza below on receiving this deadly
shot from the fortress of his charmer.

Almost all diseases, in this age of physiological research,
have their specific remedies: and why not love among the
rest? But when Byron, in his wicked wit, while treating
of the antidotes of this complaint, said or sung—

he must have been wholly ignorant, I think, of the efficacy
of that potion which was thus promptly administered to
our hero—a potion no sooner taken than his Cyprian fever,
with all its hallucination and burning agonies, left
him instantly and forever. The lovely and the loved one,
whom, one moment before, his fancy had invested with all
the charms and graces of the Houri, was now to his disenthralled
senses....bah! he could not endure to think of her.
His first thoughts were involuntarily employed in making
this metamorphose—his second were turned to his own
condition: and for the next half hour, a dark object, in
form much resembling our hero, might have been seen
standing in the neighboring brook, busily engaged in something,
the accompanying motions of which seemed not
much unlike those attending the ordinary process of washing
clothes. But why longer dwell on this sad and singular
catostrophe? Misapprehensions will often occur among
the wisest and best; and how then could it be expected,
in the present cese, that a mere country girl could perfectly
understand the rights and privileges to which our hero
was duly entitled by the liberal principles and blessed spirit
of masonry?

Some physicians have recommended, I believe, salt water
bathing for promoting sound and healthy slumbers. I
much incline to second the opinion of its efficacy in this
respect; and had he, who discovered this remedy, have
wished to extend his fame in this particular, our hero would
have freely given him a certificate in favor of the practice;
for he never slept more soundly than on the night of his
adventure with the lovely Katreen, the heroine of the Dutch
tavern.