University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
A LESSON IN SYNTAX.

THE young men were gone until the latter part of
November. Several persons longed for their return.
Mr. Job Goodwin, for one, began to feel a
strong conviction that Mort had taken the fever and
died in the woods. He was also very sure that each
succeeding day would witness some act of hostility
toward himself on the part of Captain Lumsden; and
as each day failed to see any evil result from the
anger of his powerful neighbor, or to bring any tidings
of disaster to Morton, Job Goodwin faithfully
carried forward the dark foreboding with compound
interest to the next day. He abounded in quotations
of such Scripture texts as set forth the fact that man's
days were few and full of trouble. The book of
Ecclesiastes was to him a perennial fountain of misery
—he delighted to found his despairing auguries upon
the superior wisdom of Solomon. He looked for
Morton's return with great anxiety, hoping to find
that nothing worse had happened to him than the
shooting away of an arm. Mrs. Goodwin, for her
part, dreaded the evil influences of the excitements of
hunting. She feared lest Morton should fall into the
bad habits that had carried away from home an older
brother, for whose untimely death in an affray she
had never ceased to mourn.

And Patty! When her father had on that angry
afternoon discovered the turkey that Morton had given
her, and had sent it home with a message in her
name, Patty had borne herself like the proud girl that
she was. She held her head aloft; she neither indicated
pleasure nor displeasure at her father's course;
she would not disclose any liking for Morton, nor
any complaisance toward her father. This air of defiance
about her Captain Lumsden admired. It showed
her mettle, he said to himself. Patty would almost
have finished that two dozen cuts of yarn if it had
cost her life. She even managed to sing, toward the
last of her weary day of work; and when, at nine
o'clock, she reeled off her twenty-fourth cut,—drawing
a sigh of relief when the reel snapped,—and hung her
twelve hanks up together, she seemed as blithe as
ever. Her sickly mother sitting, knitting in hand,
with wan face bordered by white cap-frill, looked approvingly
on Patty's achievement. Patty showed her
good blood, was the mother's reflection.

But Patty? She did not hurry. She put everything
away carefully. She was rather slow about retiring.
But when at last she went aloft into her room
in the old block-house part of the building, and shut
and latched her door, and set her candle-stick on the
high, old-fashioned, home-made dressing-stand, she
looked at herself in the little looking-glass and did
not see there the face she had been able to keep
while the eyes of others were upon her. She saw
weariness, disappointment, and dejection. Her strong
will held her up. She undressed herself with habitual

[ILLUSTRATION]

PATTY IN HER CHAMBER.

[Description: 554EAF. Page 077. In-line engraving of a woman leaning on a bureau looking in a mirror, near a lit candle.] quietness. She even stopped to look again in self-pity
at her face as she stood by the glass to tie on her
night-cap. But
when at last she
had blown out the
candle, and carefully
extinguished
the wick, and had climbed
into the great, high,
billowy feather-bed under
the rafters, she buried
her tired head in
the pillow and cried a long time, hardly once admitting
to herself what she was crying about.

And as the days wore on, and her father ceased
to speak of Kike or Morton and she heard that they
were out of the settlement, she found in herself an
ever-increasing desire to see Morton. The more she
tried to smother her feeling, and the more she denied
to herself the existence of the feeling, the more intense

did it become. Whenever hunters passed the gate, going
after or returning laden with game, she stopped involuntarily
to gaze at them. But she never failed, a
moment later, to affect an indifferent expression of
countenance and to rebuke herself for curiosity so
idle. What were hunters to her?

But one evening the travelers whom she looked for
went by. They were worse for wear; their buck-skin
pantaloons were torn by briers; their tread was
heavy, for they had traveled since daylight; but Patty,
peering through one of the port-holes of the block-house,
did not fail to recognize old Blaze, burdened
as he was with venison, bear-meat and skins, nor to
note how Morton looked long and steadfastly at Captain
Lumsden's house as if hoping to catch a glimpse
of herself. That look of Morton's sent a blush of
pleasure over her face, which she could not quite conceal
when she met the inquiring eyes of a younger
brother a minute later. But when she saw her father
gallop rapidly down the road as if in pursuit of the
young men, her sense of pleasure changed quickly to
foreboding.

Morton and Kike had managed, for the most part,
to throw off their troubles in the excitement of hunting.
But when at last they had accumulated all the
meat old Blaze could carry and all the furs they
could “pack,” they had turned their steps toward home.
And with the turning of their steps toward home had
come the inevitable turning of their thoughts toward
old perplexities. Morton then confided to Kike his
intention of leaving the settlement and leading the

life of a hermit in the wilderness in case it should
prove to be “all off” between him and Patty. And
Kike said that his mind was made up. If he found
that his uncle Enoch had sold the land, he would be
revenged in some way and then run off and live with
the Indians. It is not uncommon for boys now-a-days
to make stern resolutions in moments of wretchedness
which they never attempt to carry out. But the
rude life of the West developed deep feeling and a
hardy persistence in a purpose once formed. Many a
young man crossed in love or incited to revenge had
already taken to the wilderness, becoming either a
morose hermit or a desperado among the savages.
At the period of life when the animal fights hard for
supremacy in the soul of man, destiny often hangs
very perilously balanced. It was at that day a question
in many cases whether a young man of force
would become a rowdy or a class-leader.

When once our hunters had entered the settlement
they became more depressed than ever. Morton's eyes
searched Captain Lumsden's house and yard in vain
for a sight of Patty. Kike looked sternly ahead of
him, full of rage that he should have to be reminded
of his uncle's existence. And when, five minutes later,
they heard horse-hoofs behind them, and, looking back,
saw Captain Lumsden himself galloping after them on
his sleek, “clay-bank” saddle-horse, their hearts beat
fast with excitement. Morton wondered what the Captain
could want with them, seeing it was not his way
to carry on his conflicts by direct attack; and Kike
contented himself with looking carefully to the priming

of his flintlock, compressing his lips and walking
straight forward.

“Hello, boys! Howdy? Got a nice passel of furs,
eh? Had a good time?”

“Pretty good, thank you, sir!” said Morton, astonished
at the greeting, but eager enough to be on good
terms again with Patty's father. Kike said not a
word, but grew white with speechless anger.

“Nice saddle of ven'son that!” and the Captain
tapped it with his cow-hide whip. “Killed a bar,
too; who killed it?”

“Kike,” said Morton.

“Purty good fer you, Kike! Got over your pout
about that land yet?”

Kike did not speak, for the reason that he could
not.

“What a little fool you was to make sich a fuss
about nothing! I didn't sell it, of course, when you
didn't want me to, but you ought to have a little
manners in your way of speaking. Come to me next
time, and don't go running to the judge and old
Wheeler. If you won't be a fool, you'll find your
own kin your best friends. Come over and see me
to-morry, Mort. I've got some business with you.
Good-by!” and the Captain galloped home.

Nor did he fail to observe how inquiringly Patty
looked at his face to see what had been the nature
of his interview with the boys. With a characteristic
love of exerting power over the moods of another, he
said, in Patty's hearing: “That Kike is the sulkiest
little brute I ever did see.”

And Patty spent most of her time during the
night in trying to guess what this saying indicated.
It was what Captain Lumsden had wished.

Neither Morton nor Kike could guess what the
Captain's cordiality might signify. Kike was pleased
that his land had not been sold, but he was not in
the least mollified by that fact. He was glad of his
victory and hated his uncle all the more.

After the weary weeks of camping, Morton greatly
enjoyed the warm hoe-cakes, the sassafras tea, the
milk and butter, that he got at his mother's table.
His father was pleased to have his boy back safe and
sound, but reckoned the fever was shore to ketch them
all before Christmas or Noo Years. Morton told of
his meeting with the Captain in some elation, but Job
Goodwin shook his head. He “knowed what that
meant,” he said. “The Cap'n always wuz sorter deep.
He'd hit sometime when you didn't know whar the
lick come from. And he'd hit powerful hard when he
did hit, you be shore.”

Before the supper was over, who should come in
but Brady. He had heard, he said, that Morton had
come home, and he was dayloighted to say him agin.
Full of quaint fun and queer anecdotes, knowing all
the gossip of the settlement, and having a most miscellaneous
and disordered lot of information besides,
Brady was always welcome; he filled the place of a
local newspaper. He was a man of much reading, but
with no mental discipline. He had treasured all the
strange and delightful things he had ever heard or
read—the bloody murders, the sudden deaths, the

wonderful accidents and incidents of life, the ups and
downs of noted people, and especially a rare fund or
humorous stories. He had so many of these at command
that it was often surmised that he manufactured
them. He “boarded 'round” during school-time, and
sponged 'round the rest of the year, if, indeed, a man
can be said to sponge who paid for his board so
amply in amusement, information, flattery, and a thousand
other good offices. Good company is scarcer
and higher in price in the back settlements than in
civilization; and many a backwoods housewife, perishing
of ennui, has declared that the genial Brady's
“company wuz worth his keep,”—an opinion in which
husbands and children always coincided. For welcome
belongs primarily to woman; no man makes another's
reception sure until he is pretty certain of his
wife's disposition toward the guest.

Mrs. Goodwin set a place for the “master” with
right good will, and Brady catechised “Moirton”
about his adventures. The story of Kike's first bear
roused the good Irishman's enthusiasm, and when
Morton told of his encounter with the circuit-rider,
Brady laughed merrily. Nothing was too bad in his
eyes for “a man that undertook to prache afore hay
could parse.” Brady's own grammatical knowledge,
indeed, had more influence on his parsing than on
his speech.

At last, when supper was ended, Morton came to
the strangest of all his adventures—the meeting with
Captain Lumsden; and while he told it, the school-master's
eyes were brimming full of fun. By the time

the story was finished, Morton began to suspect that
Brady knew more about it than he affected to.

“Looky here, Mr. Brady,” he said, “I believe you
could tell something about this thing. What made the
coon come down so easy?”

“Tut! tut! and ye shouldn't call yer own dair
father-in-law (that is to bay) a coun. Ye ought to
have larn't some manners agin this toime, with all the
batins I've gin ye for disrespect to yer supayriors.
An' ispicially to thim as is closte akin to ye.”

Little Henry, who sat squat upon the hearth, tickling
the ears of a sleepy dog with a straw, saw an infinite
deal of fun in this rig on Morton.

“Well, but you didn't answer my question, Mr.
Brady. How did you fetch the Captain round? For
I think you did it.”

“Be gorra I did!” and Brady looked up from under
his eyebrows with his face all a-twinkle with fun.
“I jist parsed the sintince in sich a way as to put
the Captin in the nominative case. He loikes to be
put in the nominative case, does the Captain. If iver
yer goin' to win the devoine craycher that calls him
father ye'll hev to larn to parse with Captin Lumsden
for the nominative.” Here Brady gave the whole
party a look of triumphant mystery, and dropped his
head reflectively upon his bosom.

“Well, but you'll have to teach me that way of
parsing. You left that rule of syntax out last winter.”
said Morton, seeking to draw out the master by humoring
his fancy. “How did you parse the sentence
with him, while Kike and I were gone?”

“Aisy enough! don't you say? the nominative governs
the varb, and thin the varb governs 'most all the
rist of the sintince.”

“Give an instance,” said Morton, mimicking at the
same time the pompous air and authoritative voice
with which Brady was accustomed to make such a
demand of a pupil.

“Will, thin, I'll till ye, Moirton. But ye must all
be quiet about it. I wint to say the Captin soon afther
yerself and Koike carried yer two impty skulls
into the woods. An' I looked koind of confidintial-loike
at the Captin, an' I siz, `Captin, ye ought to
riprisint this county in the ligislater,' siz I.”

“`Do you think so, Brady?' siz he.

“`It's fwat I've been a-sayin' down at the Forks,'
siz I, `till the folks is all a-gittin' of me opinion,' siz
I; `ye've got more interest in the county,' siz I, `than
the rist,' siz I, `an' ye've got the brains to exart an
anfluence whin ye git thar,' siz I. Will, ye see, Moirton,
the Captin loiked that, and he siz, `Will, Brady,'
siz he, `I'm obleeged fer yer anfluence,' siz he. An'
I saw I had 'im. I'd jist put 'im in the nominative
case governin' the varb. And I was the varb. An' I
mint to govern the rist.” Here Brady stopped to smile
complacently and enjoy the mystification of the rest.

“Will, I said to 'im afther that: `Captain' siz I,
`ye must be moighty keerful not to give the inimy any
handle onto ye,' siz I. An' he siz `Will, Brady, I'll
be keerful,' siz he. An' I siz, `Captin, be pertik'ler
keerful about that matter of Koike, if I may make so
bowld,' siz I. `Fer they'll use that ivery fwere.

They're a-talkin' about it now.' An' the Captin siz,
`Will, Brady, I say I kin thrust ye,' siz he. An' I
siz, `That ye kin, Captain Lumsden: ye kin thrust
the honor of an Oirish gintleman,' siz I. `Brady,'
siz he, `this mess of Koike's is a bad one fer me,
since the little brat's gone and brought ole Whayler
into it,' siz he. `Ye bitter belave it is, Captin, siz I.
`Fwat shill I do, Brady?' siz he. `Spoike the guns,
Captin,' siz I. `How?' siz he. `Make it all roight
with Koike and Moirton,' siz I. `As fer Moirton,' siz
I, `he's the smartest young man,' siz I (puttin' imphasis
on `young,' you say), he's the smartest young
man,' siz I, `in the bottoms; and if ye kin make an
alloiance with him,' siz I, `ye've got the smartest old
man managin' the smartest young man. An' if ye kin
make a matrimonial alloiance,' siz I, a-winkin' me oi
at 'im, `atwixt that devoine young craycher, yer charmin'
dauther Patty,' siz I, `and Moirton, ye've got him
tethered for loife, and the guns is spoiked,' siz I. An'
he siz, `Brady, yer Oirish head is good, afther all.
I'll think about it,' siz he. An' that's how I made
Captin Lumsden the nominative case governin' the
varb — that's myself — and thin the varb rigilates the
rist. “But I must go and say Koike, or the little black-hidded
fool 'll spoil all me conthrivin' and parsin' wid
the captin. Betwixt Moirton and Koike and the captin,
it's meself as has got a hard sum in the rule of
thray. This toime I hope the answer 'll come out all
roight, Moirton, me b'y!” and Brady slapped him on
the shoulder and went out. Then he put his head
into the door again to say that the answer set down
in the book was: “Misthress Patty Goodwin.”