University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE PUMPKIN FRESHET.

Aunt Patty Stow is sixty-seven years old; not quite
as spry as a girl of sixteen, but a great deal tougher
—she has seen tough times in her day. She can do
as good a day's work as any woman within twenty
miles of her, and as for walking, she can beat a regiment.
General Taylor's army on the march moved
about fifteen miles a day, but Aunt Patty, on a pinch,
could walk twenty. She has been spending the summer
with her niece in New York; for Aunt Patty
has nieces, abundance of them, though she has no
children; she never had any. Aunt Patty never was
married, and, for the last thirty years, whenever the
question has been asked her, why she did not get
married, her invariable reply has been, “she would
not have the best man that ever trod shoe-leather.”
Aunt Patty has been spending the summer in New
York, but she does n't live there; not she! she would
as soon live on the top of the Rocky Mountains. If

you ask her where she does live, she always answers,

This, to be sure, is a poetical license, and before you
get the sober prose answer to your question, Aunt
Patty will tell you that she is “a great hand for
poetry,” though the line above is the only one she has
ever been known to quote, even by the oldest inhabitant.
When you get at the truth of the matter, you
find she does live “on Susquehanna's side,” but a
good ways from “fair Wyoming,” that being in Pennsylvania,
while her residence, for fifty-eight years, has
been in the old Indian valley of Oquago, now Windsor,
in Broome county, New York. There, in that
beautiful bend of the Susquehanna, some miles before
it receives the waters of the Chenango, Aunt Patty
has been “a fixture” ever since the white inhabitants
first penetrated that part of the wilderness, and sat
down by the side of the red man. There, when a
child, she wandered over the meadows and by the
brook-side to catch trout, and clambered up the mountains
to gather blueberries, and down into the valleys
for wild lillies.

This valley of Oquago, before the revolutionary

war, was the favorite residence of an Indian tribe,
and a sort of half-way ground, a resting-place for the
“six nations” at the north, and the tribes of Wyoming
at the south, in visiting each other. It was to the
Indians in Oquago valley, that the celebrated Dr
Edwards, while a minister in Stockbridge, Mass., sent
the Rev. Mr. Hawley as a missionary; and also sent
with him his little son, nine years old, to learn the
Indian language, with a view of preparing him for an
Indian missionary. And when the French war broke
out, a faithful and friendly Indian took charge of the
lad, and conveyed him home to his father, carrying
him a good part of the way on his back. But all this
happened before Aunt Patty's time, and before any
white family, except the missionary's, resided within
a long distance of Oquago.

About the year of 1788, some families came in from
Connecticut, and settled in the valley, and Aunt
Patty's father and mother were among the first. Thus
brought up to experience the hardships and privations
of a pioneer life in the wilderness, no wonder Aunt
Patty should be much struck on viewing for the first
time the profusion and luxury and mode of life in a
city. The servant girl was sent out for some bread,
and in five minutes she returned with a basket of

wheat loaves, fresh biscuit and French rolls. Aunt
Patty rolled up her eyes and lifted up both
hands.

“Dear me!” says she, “do you call that bread?
And where, for massy sake, did it come from so quick
now? Does bread rain down from heaven here in
New York, jest as the manna in the Bible did to the
children of Israel?”

“Oh, no, Aunt Patty, there's a baker only a few
steps off, just round the next corner, who bakes more
than a hundred bushels a day; so that we can always
have hot bread and hot cakes there, half a dozen
times a day if we want it.”

“A hundred bushels a day!” screamed Aunt Patty,
at the top of her voice; “the massy preserve us!
Well, if you had only been at Oquago at the time of
the great punkin freshet, you would think a good deal
of having bread so handy, I can tell you.”

Aunt Patty's niece took her with her to the Washington
Market of a Saturday evening, and showed
her the profusion of fruits and vegetables and meats,
that covered an area of two or three acres.

“The Lord be praised!” said Aunt Patty, “why,
here is victuals enough to feed a whole nation. Who
would have thought that I should a-lived through the

punkin freshet to come to see such a sight as this
before I die?”

At the tea table, Mrs. Jones, for that was the name
of Aunt Patty's niece, had many apologies to make
about the food; the bread was too hard and the butter
was too salt, and the fruit was too stale, and something
else was too something or other. At the
expression of each apology, Aunt Patty looked up
with wonderment; she knew not how to understand
Mrs. Jones; for, to her view, a most grand and rich
and dainty feast was spread before her. But when
Mrs. Jones summed up the whole by declaring to
Aunt Patty she was afraid she would not be able to
make out a supper of their poor fare, Aunt Patty laid
down her knife, and sat back in her chair, and looked
up at Mrs. Jones with perfect astonishment.

“Why, Sally Jones!” said she, “are you making
fun of me all this time, or what is it you mean!”

“No, indeed, Aunt Patty, I only meant just what
I said; we have rather a poor table to night, and I
was afraid you would hardly make a comfortable tea.”

Aunt Patty looked at Mrs. Jones about a minute
without saying a word. At last she said, with most
decided emphasis, “Well, Sally Jones, I can't tell how
it is some folks get such strange notions in their heads;

but I can tell you, if you had seed what I seed, and
gone through what I have gone through, in the punkin
freshet, when I was a child, and afterwards come
to set down to sich a table as this, you'd think you
was in heaven.”

Here Mr. Jones burst out into a broad laugh.
“Well done, Aunt Patty!” said he, shoving back his
cup and shaking his sides; “the history of that
pumpkin freshet we must have; you have excited
my curiosity about it to the highest pitch. Let us
have the whole story now, by way of seasoning for
our poor supper. What was the pumpkin freshet?
and when was it, and where was it, and what did you
have to do with it? Let us have the whole story from
first to last, will you?”

“Well, Mr. Jones, you ask me a great question,”
said Aunt Patty, “but if I can't answer it, I don't
know who can—for I seed the punkin freshet with my
own eyes, and lived on the punkins that we pulled
out of the river for two months afterwards. Let me
see—it was in the year 1794; that makes it sixty
years ago. Bless me, how the time slips away. I
was only about seven years old then. It was a woodsy
place, Oquago Valley was. There was only six
families in our neighborhood then, though there was

some more settled away further up the river. Major
Stow, my uncle, was the head man of the neighborhood.
He had the best farm, and was the smartest
hand to work, and was the stoutest and toughest man
there was in them parts. Major Buck was the minister.
They always called him Major Buck, because
he'd been a major in the revolutionary war, and when
the war was over he took to preaching, and come and
lived in Oquago. He was a nice man; everybody
sot store by Major Buck.”

“Oh, well, I don't care about Major Buck, nor
Major Stow,” said Mr. Jones, “I want to hear about
the pumpkin freshet. What was it that made the
pumpkin freshet?”

“Why, the rain, I suppose,” said Aunt Patty,
looking up very quietly.

“The rain?” said Mr. Jones; “did it rain pumpkins
in your younger days, in the Oquago Valley!”

“I guess you'd a-thought so,” said Aunt Patty “if
you had seen the punkins come floating down the
river, and rolling along the shore, and over the
meadows. It had been a great year for punkins that
year. All the corn-fields and potato-fields up and
down the river was spotted all over with 'em, as yallow
as goold. The corn was jest beginning to turn hard,

and the potatoes was ripe enough to pull. And then,
one day, it begun to rain, kind of easy at first; we
thought it was only going to be a shower; but it
did n't hold up all day, and in the night it kept raining
harder and harder, and in the morning it come
down with a power. Well, it rained steady all that
day. Nobody went out into the fields to work, but
all staid in the house and looked out to see if it
would n't hold up. When it come night, it was dark
as Egypt, and the rain still poured down. Father
took down the Bible and read the account about the
flood, and then we went to bed. In the morning, a
little after daylight, Uncle Major Stow come to the
window and hollowed to us, and says he, turn out all
hands, or ye'll all be in the river in a heap.

“I guess we was out of bed about the quickest.
There was father, and mother, and John, and Jacob,
and Hannah, and Suzy, and Mike, and me, and Sally,
and Jim, and Rachel, all running to the door as hard
as we could pull. We didn't stand much about
clothes. When father unbarred the door and opened
it—`oh,' says Uncle Major, says he, `you may go
back and dress yourselves, you'll have time enough
for that; but there's no knowing how long you'll be
safe, for the Susquehanna has got her head up, and is

running like a race-horse. Your hen-house has gone
now. At that Hannah fetched a scream that you
might a heard her half a mile, for half the chickens
was her'n. As soon as we got our clothes on, we all
run out, and there we see a sight. It still rained a
little, but not very hard. The river, that used to be
away down in the holler, ten rods from the house,
had now filled the holler full, and was up within two
rods of our door. The chicken-house was gone, and
all the hens and chickens with it, and we never seed
nor heard nothin' of it afterwards.

“While we stood there talking and mourning about
the loss of the chickens, father he looked off upon
the river, for it begun to be so light that we could see
across it now, and father spoke, and says he, `what
upon airth is all them yallow spots floating along
down the river?'

“At that we all turned round and looked, and
Uncle Major, says he, `by King George, them's
punkins! If the Susquehanna has n't been robbing
the punkin fields in the upper neighborhood, there's
no snakes in Oquago.'

“And sure enough, they was punkins; and they
kept coming along thicker and thicker, spreading
away across the river, and up and down as far as we

could see. And bime-by Mr. Williams, from the
upper neighborhood, come riding down a horseback
as hard as he could ride, to tell us to look out, for the
river was coming down like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour. He said it had run over the
meadows and the low grounds, and swept off the
corn-fields, and washed out the potatoes, and was
carrying off acres and acres of punkins on its back.
The whole river, he said, was turned into a great
punkin-field. He advised father to move out what he
could out of the house, for he thought the water
would come into it, if it did n't carry the house away.
So we all went to work as tight as we could spring,
and Uncle Major he put to and helped us, and we
carried out what things we could, and carried them
back a little ways, where the ground was so high we
thought the river could n't reach 'em. And then we
went home with Uncle Major Stow, and got some
breakfast. Uncle Major's house was on higher
ground, and we felt safe there.

“After breakfast, father went down to the house
again, to see how it looked, and presently he come
running back, and said the water was up to the doorsill.
Then they began to think the house would go,
and we all went down as quick as we could, to watch

it. When we got there, the water was running into
the door, and was all the time rising. `That house is
a gone goose,' says Uncle Major, says he, `it's got to
take a journey down the river to look after the hens
and chickens.'

“At that, mother begun to cry, and took on about
it as though her heart would break. But father, says
he, `la, Patty,' mother's name was Patty, and I
was named after her; father, says he, `la, Patty, it's
no use crying for spilt milk, so you may as well wipe
up your tears. The house aint gone yet, and if it
should go, there's logs enough all handy here, and we
can build another as good as that in a week.'

“`Yes,' says Uncle Major, says he, `if the house
goes down stream, we'll all turn to and knock another
one together in short order.' So mother begun
to be pacified. Father went and got a couple of bed-cords
and hitched on to one corner of the house, and
tied it to a stump; for, he said, if the water come up
only jest high enough to start the house, maybe the
cords would keep it from going. The water kept
a-rising, and in a little more than an hour after we got
back from uncle's, it was two foot deep on the floor.

“`One foot more,' says Uncle Major, says he, `will
take the house off its legs.'

“But, as good luck would have it, one foot more
did n't come. We watched and watched an hour
longer, and the water kept rising a little, but not so
fast as it did, and at last we could n't see as it ris any
more. And, as it had done raining, after we found
it did n't rise any for an hour, Uncle Major he pronounced
his opinion that the house would stand it.
Then did n't we feel glad enough? Before noon the
water begun to settle away a little, and before night
it was clear of the house. But Uncle Major said it
was so wet, it would never do for us to stay in it that
night, without we wanted to ketch our death a-cold.
So we all went up to his house, and made a great camp
bed on the floor, and there we all staid till morning.
That day we got our things back into the house again,
and the river kept going down a little all day.

“But oh, such a melancholy sight as it was to see
the fields, you don't know. All the low grounds had
been washed over by the river, and everything that
was growing had been washed away and carried
down stream, or else covered up with sand and mud.
Then in a few weeks after that, come on the starving
time. Most all the crops was cut off by the freshet;
and there we was in the wilderness, as it were, forty
miles from any place where we could get any help,

and no road only a blind footpath through the woods.
Well, provisions began to grow short. We had a
good many punkins that the boys pulled out of the
river as they floated along the bank. And it was
boiled punkins in the morning, and boiled punkins at
noon, and boiled punkins at night. But that was n't
very solid food, and we hankered for something else.
We had some meat, though not very plenty, and we
got some roots and berries in the woods. But as for
bread, we did n't see any from one week's end to
another.

“There was but very little corn or grain in the
neighborhood, and what little there was could n't be
ground, for the hand-mill had been carried away by
the freshet. At last, when we had toughed it out five
or six weeks, one day Uncle Major Stow, says he,
`well, I aint agoing to stand this starving operation
any longer. I am going to have some bread and
flour cake, let it cost what 'twill.'

“We all stared and wondered what he meant.

“`I tell ye,' says he, `I'm a-going to have some
bread and flour cake before the week's out, or else
there's no snakes in Oquago.'

“`Well, I should like to know how you are a-going
to get it,' says father, says he.

“`I'm a-going to mill,' says Uncle Major, says he.
`I've got a half bushel of wheat thrashed out, and if
any of the neighbors will put in enough to make up
another half bushel, I'll shoulder it and carry it down
to Wattle's ferry to mill, and we'll have one feast
before we starve to death. It's only about forty
miles, and I can go and get back again in three or four
days.'

“They tried to persuade him off the notion of it,
'twould be such a long tiresome journey; but he said
it was no use; his half bushel of wheat had got to go,
and he could as well carry a bushel as a half bushel,
for it would only jest make a clever weight to
balance him. So Major Buck and three other neighbors,
who had a little wheat, put in half a peck apiece,
and that made up the bushel. And the next morning
at daylight, Uncle Major shouldered the bushel of
wheat, and started for Wattle's ferry, forty miles, to
mill.

“Every night and morning while he was gone,
Major Buck used to mention him in his prayers, and
pray for his safe return. The fourth day, about noon,
we see Uncle Major coming out of the woods with a
bag on his shoulder; and then, if there was n't a
jumping and running all over the neighborhood, I

won't guess again. They all sot out and run for
Uncle Major's house, as tight as they could leg it,
and the whole neighborhood got there about as soon
as he did. In come Uncle Major, all of a puff,
and rolled the bag off his shoulder on to the
bench.

“`There, Molly,' says he; that was his wife, his
wife's name was Molly; `there, Molly, is as good a
bushel of flour meal as you ever put your hands into.
Now go to work and try your skill at a short cake.
If we don't have a regular feast this afternoon, there's
no snakes in Oquago. Bake two milk-pans full, so as
to have enough for the whole neighborhood.'

“`A short cake, Mr. Stow,' says Aunt Molly, says
she, `why what are you a thinking about? Don't
you know we have n't got a bit of shortnin' in the
house; not a mite of butter, nor hog's fat, nor nothin'?
How can we make a short cake?'

“`Well, maybe some of the neighbors has got
some,' says Uncle Major, says he.

“`No,' says Aunt Molly, `I don't believe there's a
bit in the neighborhood.'

“Then they asked Major Buck, and father, and all
round, and there wasn't one that had a bit of butter
or hog's fat.

“`So your short cake is all dough agin,' says Aunt
Molly, says she.

“`No taint, nother,' says Uncle Major, `I never
got agin a stump yet, but what I got round it some
way or other. There's some of that bear's grease left
yet, and there's no better shortnin' in the world. Do
let us have the short cake as soon as you can make it.
Come, boys, stir round and have a good fire ready to
bake it.'

“Then Aunt Molly stripped up her sleeves, and
went at it, and the boys knocked round and made up
a fire, and there was a brisk business carried on there
for awhile, I can tell you. While Aunt was going on
with the short cakes, Uncle Major was uncommon
lively. He went along and whispered to Major
Buck, and Major Buck looked up at him with a wild
kind of a stare, and says he, `you don't say so!'

“Then Uncle Major whispered to mother, and
mother says she, `why, Brother Stow, I don't believe
you.'

“`You may believe it or not,' says Uncle Major,
says he, `but 'tis true as Major Buck's preachin'.'

“Then Uncle Major walked up and down the
room, whistlin' and snappin' his fingers, and sometimes
strikin' up into Yankee Doodle.

“Aunt Molly she dropped her work, and took her
hands out of the dough, and says she, `Mr. Stow, I
wonder what's got into you; it must be something
more than the short cakes I'm sure, that's put such
life into you.'

“`To be sure 'tis,' says Uncle, `for the short cakes
hain't got into me yet.' And then he turned round
and give a wink to mother and Major Buck.

“`Well, there now,' says Aunt Molly, says she, `I
know you've got some kind of a secret that you've
been telling these folks here, and I declare I won't
touch the short cakes again till I know what 'tis.'

“When Aunt Molly put her foot down, there
'twas, and nobody could move her. So Uncle Major
knew he might as well come to it first as last; and
says he, `well, Molly, it's no use keeping a secret
from you; but I've got something will make you
stare worse than the short cakes.'

“`Well, what is it, Mr. Stow?' says Aunt Molly,
`out with it, and let us know the worst of it.'

“`Here,' says Uncle Major, says he, pulling out a
little paper bundle out of his pocket, and holding it
up to Aunt Molly's face; `here, smell of that,' says
he.

“As soon as Aunt Molly smelt of it, she jumped

right up and kissed Uncle Major right before the
whole company, and says she, `it's tea! as true as
I'm alive, it's the real bohea. I have n't smelt any
before for three years, but I knew it in a moment.'

“`Yes,' says Uncle Major, `it's tea; there's a
quarter of a pound of the real stuff. While my grist
was grinding, I went into the store, and there I found
they had some tea; and, thinks I, we'll have one dish
for all hands, to go with the short cakes, if it takes
the last copper I've got. So I knocked up a bargain
with the man, and bought a quarter of a pound; and
here 'tis. Now, Molly, set your wits to work, and
give us a good dish of tea with the short cakes, and
we'll have a real thanksgiving; we'll make it seem
like old Connecticut times again.'

“`Well, now, Mr. Stow, what shall we do?' says
Aunt Molly, `for there isn't a tea-kettle, nor a tea-pot,
nor no cups and sarcers in the neighborhood.'

“And that was true enough; they had n't had any
tea since they moved from Connecticut, so they
had n't got any tea-dishes.

“`Well, I don't care,' says Uncle Major, says he,
`we'll have the tea, any how. There's the dish-kettle,
you can boil the water in that, and you can

steep the tea in the same, and when it's done I guess
we'll contrive some way or other to drink it.'

“So Aunt Molly dashed round and drove on with
the work, and got the short-cakes made, and the boys
got the fire made, and they got the cakes down to
baking, and about four quarts of water hung on in the
dish-kettle to boil for tea, and when it began to boil,
the whole quarter of a pound of tea was put into it
to steep. Bime-by they had the table set out, and a
long bench on one side, and chairs on the other side,
and there was two milk-pans set on the table filled up
heaping full of short-cakes, and the old folks all sot
down, and fell to eating, and we children stood behind
them with our hands full, eating tu. And oh, them
short-cakes, seems to me, I never shall forget how
good they tasted the longest day I live.

“After they eat a little while, Uncle Major called
for the tea; and what do you think they did for teacups?
Why, they took a two quart wooden bowl,
and turned off tea enough to fill it, and sot it on to
the table. They handed it up to Major Buck first, as
he was the minister, and sot to the head of the table,
and he took a drink, and handed it to Uncle Major
Stow, and he took a drink, and then they passed it all
round the table, from one to t'other, and they all took

a drink; and when that was gone, they turned out
the rest of the tea, and filled the bowl up, and drinked
round again. Then they poured some more water
into the dish-kettle, and steeped the tea over again a
few minutes, and turned out a bowlful, and passed
it round for us children to taste of. But if it want
for the name of tea, we had a good deal rather have
water, for it was such bitter, miserable stuff, it spoilt
the taste of the short-cakes. But the old folks said if
we did n't love it, we need n't drink it; so they took
it and drinkt up the rest of it.

“And there they sot all the afternoon, eating short-cakes,
and drinking tea, and telling stories, and having
a merry thanksgiving of it. And that's the way we
lived at the time of the punkin freshet in the valley
of Oquago.”

Note—The main incidents in this sketch, in relation to the early
settlement of Oquago Valley, the “pumpkin freshet,” Major Stow's
pedestrian journey of forty miles to mill, the bushel of wheat, the
short-cakes and the tea, are all historically true.