University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
MARGARET INQUIRES AFTER THE INFINITE; AND CANNOT
MAKE HER WAY OUT OF THE FINITE.—HER PROGRESS QUITE
EXCITING.

“What is God?” said Margaret one morning to the
Master, who in his perambulations encountered her just as
she was driving the cow to pasture, and helped her put
up the bars; both of them standing under a large oak that
shaded the spot.

“God, God—” replied he, drawing back a little, and
thrusting his golden-headed cane under his arm, and blowing
his nose with his red bandanna handkerchief. “You
shut your cow in the pasture to eat grass, don't you, mea
discipula?” added he, returning the handkerchief to his
pocket, and planting himself once more upon his cane.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What if she should try to get out?”

“We put pegs in the bars.”

“Pegs in the bars! ahem. Suppose she should stop
eating, and leaning her neck across the bars, cry out, `O
you, Master hominum bovumque! who are you? Why do
you wear a pinafore?' In other words, should ask after
you, her little mistress; what would you think of that,
hey?”

“I don't know what I should,” replied Margaret, “it
would be so odd.”

“Cows,” rejoined the Master, “had better eat the grass,
drink the water, lie in the shade, and stand quietly to be
milked, asking no questions.”

“But do, sir,” she continued, “tell me what God is.”

The Master folded back both his ruffle cuffs, lifted his
golden-headed cane into the air, and cleared at a sudden
bound the road-side ditch, leaping with such force his large
shovel hat fell into the water. Margaret picked up the
unfortunate article, and wiping it very carefully on her
apron returned it to its owner, a circumstance that seemed
to recall the bewildered man to the thread of the child's
feelings. And he replied to her, saying,—

“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. God, child,
is Tetragammative, a Four-wordity; in the Hebrew חדדי,
the Assyrian Adad, the Egyptian Amon, the Persian Syre,
the Greek Θεος, Latin Deüs, German Gott, French Dieu;
Τὸν πταϱμον Θεον ηγουμεθα, says Aristotle; `God is the
Divine Being,' says Bailey; `Jupiter Divum Pater,' says
Virgil.”

“Christ the Beautiful One, I saw in my dream, said if I
loved I should know God,” replied Margaret.

“Verily, as saith the holy Apostle, God is Love.”

“Did Love make me?”

“Mundum fecit Amor; or as Jamblicus has it, `God
produced matter by separating materiality from essentiality,'
or as Thomas writes, `Creation is extension produced
by the Divine power.'”

“Is God Latin?”

“He is in Latin. Deus is Latin for God.”

“I don't know any thing about it. I had a good deal
rather go to Obed's.—His mother wants to see you; she
told me to ask you to call there, the next time you came to
the Pond.”

“I thought she did not like me.”

“She wants to see you very much.”

“I hope she has no designs upon me?”

“I don't know.—It is something she wants.”

“She does'nt contrive to marry me?”

“I guess that is it. Hash said Miss Amy was going to
marry you.”

“What, both? You are a ninny. You never heard of
the Knights of the Forked Order. There is the old song,—

Malum est mulier, women are an evil.”

Thus talking, they approached the Widow's. To the
road up which they went, the Master gave the name Via
Salutaris, the stile by which they crossed the stump-fence
into the herb-garden or front yard, he called Porta Salutaris,
as the Leech herself he had already honored by the title of
Diva Salus.

“The child said you wanted me,” outspoke the Master,
as he entered the house, in a tone that savored both of
irritated dignity and sarcastic inquisitiveness.

“Please ma'am,” interposed Margaret, both to explain
and appease, “he says he won't marry you.”

“Mehercule! What are you about, my little Beadswoman?”
exclaimed he, endeavoring to silence the child.
“In what way, capacity, office, character, can I do you service,
Mistress Wright?”

“Gummy!” retorted the woman. “He has been a
talkin' about me, and a runnin' of me down. I wouldn't
stoop so much as teu pick him up. I wouldn't crack my
finger jints for him.”

“He didn't mean you,” replied Margaret. “He said
women were an evil.”

“Not widows, child,” added the Master.

“Yes,” said the woman, “we are evil, but not evils, I
trust. No offence, I hope, sir,” she added, softening her
cadence.

“None in the world,” answered the Master. “A widow
the good Fuller enumerates in his Holy State.”

“They would try teu make us think we are sutthin when
we are nothin, as the Parson says,” she sighed.

“She is one, as that old writer observes, whose head
hath been cut off, yet she liveth, and hath the second part
of virginity!”

“The Lord be praised,” said the woman, looking meek,
and wiping the edge of the table with a corner of her apron;
“I do survive as good a husband as ever woman had.”

“Her grief for her husband,” continues the worthy to
whom I refer, “though real, is moderate.”

“I am a widder,” she answered, “and know what widders
feel, and can speak from experience.”

“She loveth to look on the picture of her husband, in
the children he hath left her, as adds our reverend Author,”
subjoined the Master, turning his eye towards Obed, who
stood in the door, tugging at the waistband of his breeches.

The manner of the Master was too pointed not to be felt,
and when he had succeeded in smarting the good woman's
sensibilities, his object was attained. But she, on the other
hand, had the faculty, by a smile that was peculiar to her,
of disguising her emotions, and always contrived to cover
up any sense of humiliation with airs of victory. These
two persons, as we have formerly remarked, did not like
each other very well, and in whatever respects they stood
mutually beholden, it was the object of each to make it
appear that favors were given without grace, and received
without gratitude. We will not follow their diplomatic
banterings, but join them when they have concluded to go

peaceably about their business. The Widow had invented
a new medicine that would cure a variety of diseases. But
she wanted a scientific name for it, and also the scientific
names of its several virtues. Her own vocabulary would
afford an abundance of common appellations, but her purposes
aspired to something higher, and the Master's aid was
brought in requisition. The Leech sat by a table, holding
a pen, with a pewter inkstand and some scraps of dingy
paper before her, and endeavored to avail herself of every
suggestion of the Master's by committing it to writing.

“Widder or woman,” said she, “I knows what I knows,
and I know what is in this ere medicine, how many yarbs,
and how I gathered 'em, and how I dried 'em, and how
they are pounded and mixed, and I cal'late there is a
vartue in every drop of it. It'll kill fevers, dry up sores,
stop rumatiz, drive out rattlesnake's bite, kill worms—there
an't a disorder you can mention that won't knock under to't.”

“Except one.”

“What is that?”

“Cacoethes Feminarum.”

“Up-a-daisy! What a real soundin' one! Bile me up
for soap, if that an't a pealer,” exclaimed the delighted
woman, giving a kind of chuckling grin both to the Master
and Margaret. “Deu tell us what it is?” she added. “Is
it round hereabouts much? Has any died on't?”

“I know,” said Margaret, “it is something about women.
Femina is Latin for woman.”

“O, forever! I dussay,” rejoined the Widow, “it's
some perlite matter, and he would'nt like to speak it out
before a body. How vallible is sientifikals and larnin'!
Prehaps he'd tell what brings it.—Lor me, what a booby I
be teu ask. My skull for a trencher, if I can't cure it, if
it's as bad as the itch itself.”

“Humors—” said the Master.

“Humors! Humors in wimmin—now don't say no more.
I knew 'twas some perlite matter. But I can cure it,
only if I had the name,—a name that has the sientifikals
and larnin' in't. There was four cases to Snake Hill, and
I got two, and should have got the whole, bein' Dr. Spoor
hadn't a come in, with his larnin' words, and that took.
They'll all go teu the dogs if it wasn't for a little schoolin'.
If he would only be so kind as to give a poor woman a
name for her medicine—but I won't beg, no I won't.”

“Nominis stat umbra,” said the Master slowly and
solemnly, while with assumed gravity and inward impatience
he had been listening to the balderdash of the woman.

“Is that it?” asked she hastily.

“Verily,” he replied, “Nominis stat umbra.”

“Nommernisstortumbug,” said the Leech. “Why now,
I vum, I could a thought of that myself. Obed here, see
how easy 'tis, Nommernisstortumbug, remember, Obed, and
you'll be as larnt as Miss Molly. Git Molly some honey,
prehaps the Master would like teu tas't on't.—Dr. Spoor
may hang his saddle-bags in his garret. There's Deacon
Penrose's gally pots and spattles, and Nigger Tony's
prinked up Patents, I an't afeered of none of 'em, no, nor
of old Death himself. He daren't show his white jaws
where I am. A box of Nommernisstortumbug would give
the saucy rascal an ague fit, and he'd be glad teu put on
some skin and flesh, and dress up like a man, and not be
round skeerin' people so with his old bones. There's
Parkin's Pints has been makin' a great pudder over to
England, but they an't knee high to a toad to't. The thing
of it is, people has got teu be so pesky proud and perlite,
they won't look at a cure unless it's a dreadful perlite one.
They'd all die every one on 'em, before they'd touch the

Widder's stuff, as they call it; but the Nommernisstortumbug
they'll swallow box and all, and git well teu, ha, ha! I
knows what I knows, I've seen how the cat has been jumpin'.
The ministers try to save their souls, and have to preach
sich things as 'll take; I mean to save their bodies, and I
must fix it so it 'll take;—I han't a grain of interest in the
matter, not I. As soon as Obed gits a leetle older, I mean
teu send him teu Kidderminster, and Hartford, and Boston,
and all about the country, with my medicines, and there
won't be a spice of disease left. The Pints is a pound
sterling, and I shall put my Nommernisstortumbug right
up, and when you ax a good round price, it means a good
round cure, and folks that is any body knows it.”

The Master, secretly amused at the Widow's complacency,
was not disposed to interrupt her, at least so long as
he ate of her clear white honey, which Obed supplied in
liberal quantities, and of which he was thoroughly fond.
Nay, he went farther, and at her request wrote down for
her in scientific terms the several and various properties
of her nostrum, which she described to him. The lady's
bad feelings towards the Master were likewise so melted
down in the thought of her good fortune as for the moment
to throw her off her guard, and she forgot her usual self-possessed
spitefulness. Their interview was in fair progress
towards an amicable termination, when the Master
happened to say he wanted Margaret to do a service for
him that day. But the Widow meanwhile had been concocting
plans of her own that included the aid of the child.
Difficulties broke out anew, there were taunts on the one
side and objurgations on the other. How far the matter
may have been carried we know not, when Margaret took
the decision into her own hands by running off and escaping
into the street. Both started for her, and came to the stile

at the same moment. Between the narrow and tangled
roots of which the fence was made they were both wedged,
and as it were locked in a common embrace. It was a
sorry sight to behold. They might have torn each other's
eyes out. Obed seized an arm of his mother to withdraw
her on one side, and Margaret sought to perform a like
office for the Master on the other. But the Widow had no
notion of being extricated. Obed shed tears of filial alarm.
Margaret shouted with untamed glee. The parties, finding
escape and victory alike impossible, had to beat a truce.

It was agreed Margaret should be at the service of the
Master that day, and assist the Widow some other.

Her old teacher sometimes employed his little pupil to
scour the woods in search of wild flowers, a pursuit for
which she was fitted both by her own lightness of heart and
foot, and a familiar acquaintance with the region. He instructed
her to preserve specimens of almost all kinds she
encountered, in the expectation, partly, of discovering some
new variety. He furnished her with a tin box to keep
the flowers fresh and sound. Providing herself with
a lunch of bread and cheese, she took a familiar route
through the Mowing into the rich birch and walnut woods
lying towards the village. Bull having gone off with Hash
in the morning, she was obliged to do without the usual
companion of her rambles.

The sun shone warm and inviting, and the air felt soft
and exhilarating. The olive-backs trolled and chanted
among the trees, and in the shadowy green boughs innumerable
and invisible creepers and warblers sang out a
sweet welcome wherever her footstep was heard. She
found varieties of fungus, yellow, scarlet, and blood-colored,
which she tore from the sides of trees, from stumps and
rails. She gathered the wild columbine, snakeroot, red

cohosh, purple bush-trefoil, flaxbell-flower, the beautiful purple
orchis, and dodder, that gay yellow-liveried parasite;
and other flowers, now so well known and readily distinguished
by every lover of Nature, but which, at the
period of our Memoir, had not been fully arranged in the
New England Flora.

Turning to the right, or towards South, she came to a spot
of almost solid rocks, through the hard chinks and seams of
which great trees had bored their way up, to spread their
trunks and branches in the light and air. This place was
set down in the vocabulary of the district as the Maples, or
Sugar Camp, from its growth of sugar maple-trees. Over
these stones she stepped as on a pavement, or leaped from
one to another as one does on the foam-crags at Nahant.
In the dark crevices she found bright green bunches of the
devil's ear-seed and the curious mushroom-like tobaccopipe;
all about her, on the rocks, the bright green polypods
and maiden's hair waved in silent feathery harmony
with the round dots of quavering sunlight, that descended
through the trees—little daughters of the sun dallying with
these children of the earth, and like spiders, spinning a thin
beautiful tissue about them, which was destroyed every
night and patiently renewed every morning. Here also she
found beds of shining white, and rose-colored crystal quartz
stones, all draped and ruffled with green moss. On the flat
top of a large bowlder, she saw growing a parcel of small
polypods in a circle, like a crown on a king's head. Up this
she climbed, and sitting among the ferns, she sang snatches
from old songs she had learned:—

Sorting out the fairest of the fronds, she still sung,—

and down she leaped. A humming-bird that she had seen,
or fancied she saw, early in the morning at her scarlet
bean flowers, shot by like an arrow. She would follow it.
On she went till she found its nest in a tree, and climbing
a rock and bending down the branch, she could look into
it. In a pretty cradle of moss lined with mullein down lay
two baby eggs. But the watchful parents did not know
who it was that was looking in upon them, and seemed
afraid she would hurt the eggs. She would'nt for the
world. They ruffled their golden-green and pretty tabby
feathers at her, and almost flew into her eyes. She saw
how mistaken they were, and took off her hat that they
might see her face and curly hair, and that it was
really the little Margaret whom they had seen at Pluck's.
When she did this, and spoke to them, the excited
creatures saw at once how it was, and seemed to be
mightily ashamed of themselves, especially when they remembered
how often they had got honey out of the flowers
she kept growing for them. One of them leaped into the
nest where she sat looking at Margaret, as much as to say,
“I'm glad you called;” the other hummed a pleasant little
song to her, flying about her head.

Leaving the birds, she crossed the road and entered the
Pines, where Solomon Smith took her a few nights before.
Here under the trees she found a crowd of persons, men
and women, boys and girls, who seemed bent on some
mysterious thing, which they pursued with an unwonted
stillness. Among them was a man, whom she knew to be

Zenas Joy, pacing to and fro with a drawn sword, and
preventing the approach of spectators.

Let us explain, what Margaret herself did not know,
though vitally connected with the whole affair, that through
the hocus pocus of the Fortune-teller and divination of the
child, young Smith of No. 4 had discovered what he supposed
to be a deposit of gold.

Having canvassed the ground privately to none effect, he
was obliged to communicate the secret while he invoked
the aid of his neighbors.

Several men had been digging now for a week, day and
night. They had excavated the ground to the depth of
nearly thirty feet. A prodigious heap of earth and stones
had been cast up, and great trees undermined. When
Margaret approached near enough to look in, she saw the
men, noiseless and earnest, at work with might and main.
Among them were her brother Hash, and others, whom
she knew to be No. 4's and Breaknecks. It was a
received notion of the times that if any spoke during the
operation the charm was destroyed, hence the palpitating
silence Margaret observed, and for this purpose also a
sentry had been appointed to keep order among the
people.

Margaret seeing Hash, was inconsiderate enough to
speak to him and ask where Bull was. For this, Zenas
Joy, since words were out of the question, administered a
corporeal admonition with his sword flatlong, and Damaris
Smith, with other girls, seconding his endeavors, fairly
drubbed the child from the place. She went off, singing as
she went,—

She had not gone far when Bull, who had been asleep
under a rock, awakened by the familiar voice of his mistress,
came leaping out to her, and went with her.

In the Pines she gathered such flowers as for the most
part are proper to that description of soil;—the sleepy
catchfly that is wide awake nights, pennyroyal with its
purple whorls, yellow bent spikes of the gromwell, the
sweet-scented pettymorrel, the painted cup with its scarlet-tipped
bractes, peach-perfumed waxen ladies' tresses, nodding
purple gay feather; she climbed after the hairy honeysuckle,
and the pretty purple ground-nut, which, despising
its name, overmounts the tallest shrubs. She encountered
in her way a “clearing,” now grown up to elecampane and
wild lettuce. She forced herself through a thicket of
brakes, blackberries and thistles, and clambered upon a
fence, where she sat to look at the tall lettuces that shot up
like trees above the other weeds. The seeds disengaging
themselves from the lofty capsule and spreading out their
innumerable long white filaments, but still hovering about
the parent stalk, gave the plant an appearance as if it had
instantaneously put forth in huge gossamer inflorescence.
Then a slight agitation of wind would disperse these flowers
or egrets and send them flying through the air, like globes
of silver light, or little burred fairies, some of them vanishing
in the white atmosphere, others brought into stronger
relief as they floated towards the green woods beyond.
Descending towards the Brook, she gathered the beautiful
yellow droops of the barberry-bush and flowers of the sweetbriar.

She came to the stream, Mill Brook, that flowed out
from her Pond, where grew the virgin's bower or traveller's
joy, bedstraw, the nighshades, the beautiful cardinal
flower or eye-bright just budding, and side-saddle flowers.

On the grassy bank, with the water running at her feet,
she sat down and prepared for dinner; which consisted of
bread and cheese, and boxberries. She kneeled on a stone
and drank from the swift sparkling waters. It was now
past noon; her box was full, and quite heavy enough for
one so young to carry, and she might have returned home.
The woods beyond, or to the west of the Brook, were close
and dark; hardly did the sun strike through them, but the
birds were noisy there, and she must perforce enter them,
as a cavern, and walk on the smooth leaf-strewed floor.
The ground sloped up, then rounded over into a broad interval
below, down into which she went. Here a giant forest
extended itself interminably, and she seemed to have come
into a new world of nature. Huge old trees looked as if
they grew up to the skies. Birds that she had never
seen before, or heard so near at hand, hooted and screamed
among the branches. A dark falcon pierced the air like an
arrow, in pursuit of a partridge, just before her eyes. An
eagle stood out against the sky on the blasted peak of a
great oak; a hen-harrier bore in his talons a chicken to his
young; large owls in hooded velvety sweep flew by her;
squirrels chattered and scolded one another; large snake-headed
wild turkeys strutted and gobbled in the underbrush;
a wildcat sprang across her path, and she clung
closer to her dog.

Here beneath a large pine she stopped to rest; the birds
fluttered, rioted and shrieked in strange confusion, and she
entertained herself watching their motion and noise. The
low and softened notes of distant thunder she heard, and

felt no alarm; or she may have taken it for the drum-like
sound of partridges that so nearly resemble thunder, and
which she had often heard, and thought no more of the
matter. Had she been on the tops of the trees where the
birds were, she would have seen a storm gathering, cloud
engendering cloud, peaks swelling into mountains, the entire
mass sagging with darkness, and dilating in horror.
The air seemed to hold in its breath, and in the hushed
silence she sat, looking at the rabbits and woodchucks that
scampered across the dry leaves, and dived into their burrows.
She broke into a loud laugh when a small brown-snouted
marten gave vigorous chase to the bolt-upright,
bushy, black-tipped tail of a red fox, up a tree, and clapped
her hands and stamped her feet, to cheer the little creature
on. She sung out, in gayest participation of the scene,
a Mother Goose Melody, in a Latin version the Master had
given her:—

While she was singing, hailstones bounded at her feet,
and the wind shook the tops of the trees. Suddenly it grew
dark; then, in the twinkling of an eye, the storm broke
over her,—howling, crashing, dizzying it came. The
whole forest seemed to have given way—to have been
felled by the stroke of some Demiurgic Fury, or to have
prostrated itself as the Almighty passed by. The great
pine, at the root of which she was sitting, was broken off
just above her head, and blown to the ground; and by its
fall, enclosing her in an impenetrable sconce, under which
alone in the general wreck could her life have been preserved.

A whirlwind or tornado, such as sometimes visits New
England, had befallen the region. It leaped like a maniac
from the skies, and with a breadth of some twenty rods and
and an extent of four or five miles, swept every thing in its
course; the forest was mown down before it, orchard-trees
were torn up by the roots, large rocks unearthed, chimneys
dashed to the ground, roofs of houses whirled into the air,
fences scattered, cows lifted from their feet, sheep killed,
the strongest fabrics of man and nature driven about like
stubble. In bush and settlement, upland and interval, was
its havoc alike fearful.

When Margaret recovered from the alarm of the moment,
her first impulse was to call for the dog;—but he, already
at a distance whither the eagerness of chase had carried
him, overtaken by the devastation of the storm, loosing all
sense of duty, wounded and frightened, fled away. She
herself was covered with leaves, bark, hailstones and sand;
blood flowed from her arm, and one of her legs was bruised.
A stick had penetrated her box of flowers and pinned it to
the earth. The sun came out as the storm went by; but
above her the trees with their branches piled one upon
another; what indeed had been her salvation, now roofed
her in solitude and darkness.

Making essays at self-deliverance, she found every outlet
closed or distorted. Trees cemented with shrubs overlaid
her path, while deep chasms formed by upturned roots
opened beneath her. When at last she reached the edge
of the ruins and stood in the open woods, she knew not
where she was or in what direction lay her home. No
cart-tracks or cow-paths, no spots or blazes on the trees
were to be seen. The sun was setting, but its light was
hidden by the still interminable foliage. Every step led
her deeper into the wood and farther from the Pond. She

mounted knolls, but could discern nothing; she crossed
brooks and explored ravines, to no purpose.

Despairing, exhausted, her sores actively painful, she
sank down under the projecting edge of a large rock. She
had not been sitting long when she saw approaching the
same place a large, shaggy, black bear, with three cubs.
The bear looked at Margaret and Margaret looked at the
bear. “It is very strange,” the old bear seemed to say;
the little bears frisked about as if they thought it was funny
to see a little two-legged child in their bed. Margaret
sat very still and said nothing, only she wished she could
tell the bears how tired she was, and hoped they would'nt
take offence at her being there. The big bear came close
to her, and, as bears are wont to do, smelt of her hand, and
even licked the blood that flowed from her arm; and Margaret
went so far as to stroke the long brown nose of the
bear, and was no more afraid than if it had been her own
Bull. The motherly beast seemed to be thinking, “How
bad I should feel if it had been one of the cubs that was
hurt!” Then she lay on the ground, and the little bears
knew supper was ready. Now the old bear saw that
Margaret was tired and bruised, and must have felt that
she was hungry also, for she gave a sort of wink with
her eyes that seemed to say, “Won't you take a seat
at our table, too? It is the best I can set, for, as you
see, I hav'nt any hands, and we can't use spoons.” It
would have been ungrateful in Margaret not to accept
so kind an invitation. Finally the good dam and her young
and Margaret all cuddled down together, and were soon
asleep; only one of the little bears could not get to sleep
so easy for thinking what a strange bedfellow he had, and
he got up two or three times just to look at the child.

Meanwhile the rumor of the tornado had reached the

Pond, and the family were not a little excited. Hash had
not returned; after finishing his bout in the Pines he went
with his comrades to see the results of the wind at No. 4,
and have a drunken carouse. The Widow and her son
came down both to seek news of the storm, and inflame the
impression of its terror. The ruddy and wanton face of
Pluck became pale and thoughtful. The dry and dark
features of his wife were even lighted up with alarm. Chilion,
who had been to the village, when he learned the
absence of his sister, seemed smitten by some violent internal
blow. He paced to and fro in front of the house, listening
to every sound, and starting at every leaf. The
intercourse of the family, if not positively rude and rough,
ordinarily affected a degree of lightness and triviality, and
unaccustomed to the expression of deeper sentiments, if
they had any, now in the moment of their calamity they
said but little. Yet they watched one another's looks and
slightest words with an attention and reverence which
showed how strongly interested they were in one another's
feelings, as well as in the common object of their
thoughts. They watched and waited and waited and
watched, uncertain what course the child had taken, not
knowing where to go for her, and hoping each successive
instant she might appear from some quarter of the woods.

It was now near sunset. Obed was despatched in the
direction of the dam at the north end of the Pond; Pluck
went over into the Maples; Chilion, seizing the tin dinner-horn,
ran to the top of Indian's Head, and blew a loud
blast. No response came from the far glimmering, passionate
sound but its own empty echo. Descending, he beheld
Bull returning alone, lame and bloody. The dog was at
once questioned, and as if convicted of weakness and infidelity
to his mistress, or with that native instinct which is proper

to the animal, he pulled at Chilion's trousers and made as if
he would have him follow him.

Chilion seized the hint, and went rapidly where his guide
would lead. Soon striking the track of the child, the
dog conducted the way along which Margaret had gone
in the morning. They reached the gold-digging, where
deluded men, under the light of pine-knots, sweltered in
silence. They crossed the Brook and entered the thick
woods. It was now night and dark, but Chilion was
familiar with every part of the forest, and had often traversed
it in the night. They followed the footsteps of the
child till they came to the line of the storm. Here prostrate
trees, upturned roots, vines and brush, knitted and
riven together, broke the scent and checked advance.—
The dog himself was baffled. He ran alongside the ruins,
tried every avenue, wound himself in among the compressed
and perplexed fissures of the mass, but failing to recover
the path, he returned to his master, and set up a loud howl.
What could Chilion do? He called his sister's name at the
top of his voice, he rung out the farthest reaching alarmcry.
He then repeated the attempt of his dog to gain an
entrance. He crept under trunks of trees, tore a passage
through brambles, and seemed almost to gnaw his way as
he crawled along the encumbered earth. At intervals
he gasped,—“She's dead, she's dead, she's crushed under
a tree.” Such was the dreadful reflection that began to tide
in upon his heart, and form itself in distincter imagery to
his thoughts. With renewed energy he explored with his
fingers every vacant spot, trembling indeed lest he should
encounter the dead and mangled form. A large limb, broken
off in the storm, which he was endeavoring to remove,
fell upon his foot, bruising the flesh, and nearly severing the
cords; but of this he took no notice. In uttermost despair

he exclaimed, “She is dead, she is dead!” He, the moody
and the silent, gave utterance to the wildest language of distress.
That deaf and dismal darkness was pierced with an
unwonted cry. “O, my sister! my dear, dear sister, sweet
Margery, dead, dead!” He fell with his face to the earth,
his spirit writhed as with some most exquisite torture;
from his stimulated frame dropped hot sweat. “O Jesus,
her Beautiful One, how couldst thou let the good Margery
die so? My music shall die, my hopes shall die, all things
die; sweet sister Margery, your poor brother Chilion will
die too.” His frenzy seemed to assume the majesty of inspiration,
as in simplicity of earnest love he gave vent to
his emotions.

Pain and weariness, along with the want of success,
served to divest him of the idea of finding her that night.
Extricating himself from the forest-wreck, yet as it were
plunging into deeper despair, he returned home. His
father and mother were still up, restless and anxious. His
foot was immediately dressed and bandaged, and Chilion was
obliged to be laid in his parents' bed. Obed was also there,
strongly moved by an unaffected solicitude, who, as soon as
it was light, was sent to the village to have the bell rung
and the town alarmed; Pluck himself immediately went
down to No. 4. In the course of two or three hours the
entire population of Livingston received the exciting and
piteous intelligence of “A child lost in the woods, and supposed
to have perished in the storm!” At No. 4, Hash
was aroused from his boosy stupor to something like fraternal
activity, and the four families composing the hamlet
started for the scene of the disaster. The village was
deeply and extensively moved. Philip Davis, the sexton,
flew to the Meeting-house and rang a loud and long fire-alarm.

The people flocked about Obed to learn the news,
and hurried away to render succor.

The Master, who was on his way to the barber's, hearing
of the sad probability respecting his little pupil, was like
one beside himself; perfectly bemazed, he made three
complete circles in the road, drew out his red bandanna
handkerchief, poised his golden-headed cane in the air,
then leaped forward, like a hound upon its prey, run down
the South Street, and disappeared at full speed up the
Brandon road. Judge Morgridge and his black man
Cæsar rode off in a swift gallop, on two horses. Men with
ox-carts, going into the Meadows, threw out their scythes,
rakes, pitchforks, or whatever they had, wheeled about,
took in a load of old men, women and children, and drove
for No. 4. Deacon Penrose shut up his store, Tony his
shop; Mr. Gisborne the joiner, and Mr. Cutts the shoemaker,
left their benches. Lawyer Beach, Esq. Weeks
and Dr. Spoor started off with axes and billhooks. Boys
seized tin dinner-horns and ran. There surged up the
Brandon road, like a sea, a great multitude of people. The
Pottles and Dunlaps, from Snake Hill and Five-mile-lot,
came down on foaming horses. A messenger had been
posted to Breakneck, and those families, the Joys, Whistons
and Orffs, turned out. Of all persons engaged in the
hunt, were absent the two most interested in it, Chilion and
Bull, whose wounded and stiffened limbs rendered it impossible
for them to leave the house. Dr. Spoor rode up
to see Chilion, and little Isabel Weeks and her sister
Helen brought him cordials and salves. It was his irrepressible
conviction that Margaret was dead, and he was
slow to be comforted.

Successively, as the several parties arrived at the spot

in the woods where Chilion had gone the night before, they
set themselves at work clearing away the trees. It was the
universal impression that the child lay buried somewhere
under the windfall. Capt. Eliashib Tuck and Anthony
Wharfield, the Quaker, took the superintendence of operations.
The melancholy silence of the workmen singularly
contrasted with the vehemence of their action. The forest
resounded with the blows of axes and the crashing of limbs.
Broad openings were made in the compact mass. Little
boys crept under the close-welded vines prying about in
anticipation of the men. Beulah Ann Orff and Grace Joy
helped one another bear the heavy branches. Abel Wilcox
and Martha Madeline Gisborne lifted large billets of wood.
Deacon Penrose executed lustily with a billhook. Pluck,
Shooks the Jailor, Lawyer Beach and Sibyl Radney, rolled
over a great tree, roots and all, while Judge Morgridge
and Isaac Tapley stood ready to dig into the mound of
earth and stones, which the roots had formed in their
sudden uprise. Zenas Joy and Seth Penrose rode off to get
refreshments. The Master alternately worked with the
others and sat on a stump, covering his eyes with his
hands, foreboding each moment some dreadful sight. In
the midst of all, kneeling on the damp leaves in the open
wood, might be heard the voice of the Camp-preacher, in
loud and importunate prayer, beseeching the Most High
for the life of the child, and for submission to a dreadful
peradventure.

To return to Margaret. The night had passed quietly,
and she awoke refreshed, though stiffened in every joint
She tried, but could not walk. She cried for help, but she
had wandered far from any neighborhood and beyond the
ordinary haunts of men. Dreary feelings and oppressive
thoughts came over her, and tears flowed freely, which the

tender-hearted bear wiped away with her tongue. Then
the three little bears began to play with their dam, one
climbed up her back, another hugged her fore leg, and the
third made as if it would tweak her nose, and the one upon
her back bandied paws with the one that was hugging the
leg, like kittens; and Margaret was forced to be amused
despite herself. Then she fell to singing, and as she sang,
the animals seemed to be moved thereby, and the old bear
and the three little bears seated themselves on their
haunches all in a row before her, to hear her; and they
were so much pleased with the performance that neither
of them spoke a word during the whole of it.

Where the people were at work, they canvassed a pretty
large area. One of the boys, Isaiah Hatch, who was burrowing
mole-like under the ruins, raised an exclamation
that brought several to the spot. He had discovered the
flower-box, which was at once recognized as having been
carried by the child. The little utensil, battened and perforated,
was borne to the Master, who clutched it with a
mixed and confused utterance of pleasure, apprehension and
regret. The conjecture arose that she might have escaped
from the storm, and while a few remained and continued
the search, it was agreed that the main body should distribute
themselves in squads and scour the forest and region
round about. They took horns wherewith to betoken success,
if success should attend them.

Margaret, who, as the hours wore away, could no more
than resign herself to passing events, was startled from her
reveries by the rustling of footsteps and the sound of a
human voice. At the same instant she saw the Master
running precipitously across the woods, and crying out,
“Ursa major! Ursæ minores! Great Bear! Little Bears!
O!” The man's arms were aloft, his hat and wig had

fallen, the flaps of his coat were torn in the underbrush, his
tall form like a stone down a precipice seemed to rebound
from stump to puddle and puddle to stump. Close at his
heels was the bear with her young, running with similar
velocity, but more afraid of her pursuers than the Master
was of her, and whose track she pursued only for the
instant that it happened to identify itself with the direct
course to her lair, whither she betook herself, while the
Master, making a desperate effort to dodge the fury of the
animal, flung himself into the arms of a tree.

At the same moment men and boys appeared storming
and rattling through the brush, with uplifted axes, clubs and
stones, in hue and cry after the bear, whom happening to
alight upon, they had given chase to, and driven to her
retreat. Their shouts after the beast were changed into
exclamations of a very different character when they beheld
the child. They sprang forward to Margaret, caught her
in their arms, and asked her a thousand questions. The
horns were blown, and presently there came up from hill
and hommoc, wood and bosket, rock and dingle, all around,
an answering volley. A loud trine reciprocating blast
conveyed the glad intelligence wherever there were those
interested to hear it. The Master at length ventured
forward. What were his emotions or his manners at finding
the lost one alive, we will not detail. To show feeling
before folks mortified him greatly; the received mode of
expression he did not follow; nor were his contradictions
executed by any rule that would enable us to describe
them. “We have found the child, let us now kill the
bear,” became the cry;—the animal in the mean time
having slunk, trembling to the death, under the low eaves
of her den.

“Never, never!” was the vehement expostulation of

Margaret, as she recounted the passages between herself
and the animal.

“Wal,” said the boys, “if she has been so good to the
gal, we won't touch her.”

It was a question how the child should be got home.
Some proposed carrying her in their arms, but the general
voice suggested a litter, which, of poles and green boughs,
was quickly made, and borne by four men. The hat and
wig of the Master were replaced, and his tattered garments
mended by the women, who, leaving their homes in haste,
carried away scissors, thread and needle in their pockets.
Their best course to the Pond was through Breakneck, and
so down the Brandon road by No. 4. A fearful gorge,
terminating, however, in a rich bottom, gave the name
Breakneck to what was in reality a pleasant neighborhood,
consisting of the three families before mentioned, the Orffs,
Joys and Whistons, who were all substantial farmers.
Joseph Whiston led the way to his father's. Margaret was
carried into the house, where Mistress Whiston and other
ladies examined and dressed her wounds, and had some
toast made for her, and a cup of tea, adding also quince preserves.
While Margaret was resting, the young men
busied themselves in putting together a more convenient
carriage than the litter, and Beulah Ann Orff brought thick
comfortables to cover it with, and pillows and bolsters to
put under the child's head. On this Margaret was placed,
and born off on the shoulders of the young men. For the
Master a horse was kindly provided. Again they started;
the boys whooping, capering, and sounding their horns.
Passing the side-path that led to Joyce Dooly, the Fortune-teller's,
there, at the entrance of the woods, on a high rock,
stood the mysterious woman herself, holding by strings her
five cats.

At sight of her the people were silent. She enacted
sundry grimaces, uttered mumming sentences, declared she
foresaw the day previous the loss and recovery of the child,
pronounced over her some mystic congratulations, waved
her hand and departed, and the people renewed their
shouts. Over fences, through the woods, up from ravines,
came others who had been hunting in different directions,
and when the party reached No. 4, its number was swelled
to more than a hundred. Here they found another large
collection of people, some of whom had arrived at a later
hour from the village, and others were just returned from
the search. Here also were desolating marks of the storm,
in roofs, chimneys, windows, trees, fences, fields. Deacon
Ramsdill, lame as he was, and his wife, had walked from their
home beyond the Green. Parson Welles and the Preacher
were engaged in familiar conversation,—the first time
they had ever spoken together. “The Lord be praised!”
ejaculated the Preacher. “We see the Scripture fulfilled,”
said the Parson. “There is more joy over one that is
brought back, than over the ninety and nine that went not
astray.” “Amen,” responded the Preacher.

“You came pretty nigh having considerable of a tough
sort of a time, didn't you, dear?” said Deacon Ramsdill,
advancing and shaking Margaret's hand; “but like-to never
killed but one man and he died a laughin'. It'll do you
good; it is the best thing in the world for calves to lie out
of nights when the dew is on.”

“Our best hog was killed in the pen,” said Mistress Gubtail;
“but here's some salve, if it'll be of any sarvice to the
child.”

“Salve!” retorted the Widow Wright, indignantly, and
elbowing her way through the crowd. “Here's the Nommernisstortumbug,
none of your twaddle, the gennewine

tippee, caustic and expectorant, good for bruises and ails
in the vitals.”

“I've got some plums that Siah picked under the tree
that blowed down,” said Mistress Hatch; “I guess the gal
would like them, and if any body else wants to eat, they
are welcome, if they are all we've got.”

“Bring um along, Dorothy,” said Mistress Tapley to her
little daughter. “A platter of nutcakes. The chimbly
tumbled in while I was frying, and they are a little sutty,
but if the gal is hungry they'll eat well.”

Provisions of a different description were furnished from
the Tavern, of which the multitude partook freely. People
from the village also sent up quantities of fruit and cakes.
But they could not tarry, they must hasten to the child's
home. They went up the hill, Margaret on the shoulders
of the young men, escorted, as it would seem, by half the
town, all wild with joy. Pluck was in transports; Obed
laughed and cried together; Hash was so much delighted
that he drank himself nearly drunk at the Tavern. When
they came in sight of the house, a new flourish of the horn
was made, three cheers given, hats and green twigs swung.
Chilion, whom the good news had already reached, was
seated in a chair outside the door; Bull, unable to move,
lay on the grass, wagging his tail with joy; Brown Moll
took to spinning flax as hard as she could spin and smoking,
to keep her sensations down; the little Isabel did not
know what to do, she was so glad.

Margaret was conveyed to her mother's bed. Dr. Spoor
examined her wounds and pronounced them not serious,
and all the women did and said the same thing. Parson
Welles suggested to the Preacher the opportuneness of a
prayer of thanksgiving, which the latter offered in a becoming
manner. A general collation was had in which the

family, who had tasted of nothing since the noon before,
were made glad participants. Chilion, to express his own
transport, or to embody and respond to the delight of the
people, called for his violin. He wrought that effect with
his instrument, in which he took evident pleasure, moving
the parties in a kind of subservient unison, and gliding into
a familiar reel he soon had them dancing. On the grass
before the house, old and young, grave and gay, they all
danced together. Parson Welles, the Preacher and Deacon
Hadlock, looked on smilingly. Deacon Ramsdill's
wife declaring Margaret must see what was going on, had
her taken from the bed, and held her in her lap on the doorsill.
There had been clouds over the sun all day, and mists
in the atmosphere, and much dark feeling in all minds, nor
did the sun yet appear, only below it, while it was now
about an hour high, along the horizon, cleared away a long
narrow strip of sky flushing with golden light. Above the
people's heads still hung gray clouds, about them were
green woods, underneath them the green grass, and within
them were bright joyous sensations, while through all
things streamed this soft-colored light, and every thing became
a sort of pavonine transparency, and the good folks'
faces glowed with magical lustre, and their hearts beat with
a kind of new-birth enthusiasm. Deacon Hadlock, stirred
irresistibly, gave out, as for years he had been accustomed
to do in Church, the lines of the Doxology,—
Chilion giving the pitch, and leading off on the violin as he
alone could, they sung as they felt. When they were about
breaking up, Deacon Ramsdill said, “Shan't we have a
collection? We have had pretty nice times, but strippins
arter all is the best milk, and I guess they'll like it as well
as any thing now. We shall have to feather this creeter's
nest, or the bird will be off agin. Here's my hat if some of
these lads will pass it round.”

A contribution was made, and thus the night of the
morning became a morning at night to the Pond and the
people of Livingston.