University of Virginia Library

1. PART I.
CHILDHOOD.

1. CHAPTER I.
PHANTASMAGORICAL—INTRODUCTORY.

We behold a child of eight or ten months; it has
brown curly hair, dark eyes, fair conditioned features, a
health-glowing cheek, and well-shaped limbs. Who is it?
whose is it? what is it? where is it? It is in the centre
of fantastic light, and only a dimly-revealed form appears.
It may be Queen Victoria's or Sally Twig's. It is God's
own child, as all children are. The blood of Adam and
Eve, through how many soever channels diverging, runs in
its veins, and the spirit of the Eternal, that blows every
where, has animated its soul. It opens its eyes upon us,
stretches out its hands to us, as all children do. Can you
love it? It may be the heir of a throne, does it interest
you; or of a milking stool, do not despise it. It is a miracle
of the All-working, it is endowed by the All-gifted.
Smile upon it, it will smile you back again; prick it,
it will cry. Where does it belong? in what zone or
climate? on what hill? to what plain? It may have
been born on the Thames or the Amazon, the Hoan Ho or
the Mississippi.

The vision deepens. Green grass appears beneath the
child. It may, after all, be Queen Victoria's in Windsor
Park, or Sally Twig's on Little Pucker Island. The sun
now shines upon it, a blue sky breaks over it, and the wind

rustles its hair. Sun, sky, and wind are common to Arctic
and Antartic regions, and belong to every meridian. A
black-cap is seen to fly over it; and this bird is said by
naturalists to be found in both hemispheres. A dog, or the
whelp of a dog, a young pup, crouches near it, makes a
caracol backwards, frisks away, and returns again. The
child is pleased, throws out its arms, and laughs right
merrily.

As we now look at the child, we can hardly tell to which
of the five races it belongs; whether it be a Caucasian,
Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, or Malay. Each child on
this terraqueous ball, whether its nose be aquiline, its eyes
black and small, its cheek bones prominent, its lips large, or
its head narrow; whether its hue be white, olive, or jet, is
of God's creating, and is delighted with the bright summer
light, a bed of grass, the wind, birds, and puppies; and
smiles in the eyes of all beholders. It it God's child still,
and its mother's. It is curiously and wonderfully made;
the inspiration of the Almighty hath given it understanding.
It will look after God, its Maker, by how many soever
names he may be called; it will aspire to the Infinite,
whether that Infinite be expressed in Bengalee or Arabic,
English or Chinese; it will seek to know truth; it will long
to be loved; it will sin and be miserable, if it has none to
care for it; it will die.

Let us give it to Queen Victoria. “No,” says Sally
Twig, “it is mine.” “No,” says the Empress Isabella,
“it is destined to the crown of Castile.” “Not so shure
of that, me hearty; it is Teddy O'Rourke's own Phelim.”
“Ha,” laughs a Tahitian, “I left it playing under the palm
trees.” “What presumption!” exclaims Mrs. Morris, “it
is our Frances Maria, whom the servant is airing on the
Common.” “I just bore it in my own arms through the
cypresses,” observes Osceola, quietly.

It seems to be in pain. “Mein Gott! gehet eilend hin.”
“Poor Frances Maria!” “Paneeweh htouwenaunuh neenmaumtehkeh!”
“Per amor del Cielo!” “Jesus mind
Teddy's Phelim.” “O Nhaw nddg erm devishd!” “Wæ
sucks! my wee bonny wean, she'll die while ye are bletherin
here.” “Bismillahi!” “Ma chere enfante!” “Alohi,
Alohi!” “Ora pro nobis!” “None of your whidds, dub
the giggle, and take the bantling up.” “Highder davran
under!” — What a babel of exclamations! What manifold
articulations of affection! — How the motherly heart
bursts forth in a thousand tongues! But hold, good friends,
may be the child does not belong to you.

The scene advances. Two hands are seen thrust down
towards it, and now it smiles again. Near by discovers
itself a peach-tree. Where does that belong? Not like
the black-cap every where. In the grass gleams the golden
eye of a dandelion; the skin of the child settles into a
Caucasian whiteness, and its fat fingers are making for the
flower. Be not disappointed, my friends, your children still
live and smile; let this one live and smile too. Go, Mongolian,
Ethiopian, American, or Malay, and take your child
to your bosom, and it will remind you of this, since all
children are a good deal alike.

Now the child crawls towards the peach-tree. Those two
hands, that may belong to its brother, set the child on its
feet by the side of the tree, as it were measuring their heights,
which are found to be the same. Yellow and brown chickens
appear on the grass, and run under the low mallows and
smart-weed. A sheet of water is seen in the distance,
spotted with green islands. Forest trees burst forth in the
rim of the picture — butternuts, beeches, maples, pines. A
sober-faced boy, seven or eight years old, to whom the two
hands are seen to belong, sits down, and with a fife pipes to

the child, who manifests strong joy at the sound. A man
in a three-cornered hat and wig, with nankeen small-clothes,
and paste buckles, takes the child in his arms. Where is
the child? A log cabin appears; a woman in a blue striped
long-short and yellow skirt comes to the door. An Anglo
Saxon voice is heard. If you were to look into the cabin
or house, you would discover a loom and spinning-wheels,
and behind it a larger boy making shingles, and somewhere
about a jolly-faced man drinking rum. The woman, addressing
the first boy as Chilion, tells him to bring the child
into the house.

This child we will inform you is Margaret, of whom we
have many things to say, and whom we hope to reveal more
perfectly to you. She is in the town of Livingston, in that
section of the United States of America known as New
England. And yet, so far as this book is concerned, she is
for you all as much as if she were your own child; and if you
cared any thing about her when you did not know her, we
desire that your regards may not subside when you do
know her, even if she be not your own child; and we dedicate
this memoir of her to ALL who are interested in her,
and care to read about her. In the mean time, if you are
willing, we will lose sight of her for seven or eight years,
and present her in a more tangible form, as she appeared
at the end of that period.

2. CHAPTER II.
WORK AND BEAUTY. — AN IMPRESSION OF THE REAL.

The child Margaret sits in the door of her house, on a
low stool, with a small wheel, winding spools, in our vernacular,
“quilling,” for her mother, who, in a room near
by, is mounted in a loom, weaving and smoking; the fumes
of her pipe mingling with the whizz of the shuttle, the jarring
of the lathe, and the clattering of treadles. From a
windle the thread is conducted to the quills, and buzz, buzz
goes Margaret's wheel, while a gray squirrel, squatted on
her shoulder, inspects the operation with profound
gravity.

“Look up the chimney child,” says the mother, “and
see what time it is.”

“I don't know how,” replies Margaret.

“I suppose we must get the Master to learn you your
a b c's in this matter,” rejoined the mother. “When the
sun gets in one inch, it is ten o'clock; when it reaches the
stone that bouges out there, it is dinner time. How many
quills have you done?”

“The basket is full, and the box besides. Chilion said
I might go and sail with him.”

“We have a great deal to do. Miss Gisborne's flannel
is promised the last of the week, and it must be drawn in
to-morrow. I want you to clean the skans; there is a
bunch of lucks down cellar, bring them up; get some plantain
and dandelion on the smooth for greens; you must

pick over those beans; put some kindlers under the pot;
then you may go.”

“I had a dream last night.”

“Hush! You are always dreaming. I am afraid you
will come to a bad end.”

“It was a pretty dream.”

“I can't help your dreams; here, pick up this.”

The woman had broken a thread in the chain, and while
Margaret was helping repair the accident, she looked into
her mother's face, and, as if following out her thoughts,
said, “A woman came near to me, she dropped tears upon
me, she stood in the clouds.”

“I can't stop to hear you now,” replied her mother.
“Run and do what I have told you.”

When Margaret had finished the several chores, she went
to the Pond. She was barefooted and barearmed. She
wore a brown linen gown or tunic, open in front, a crimson
skirt, a blue checked apron, and for head covering a green
rush hat. By a narrow foot-path, winding through shrubbery
and brambles, and defiling along the foot of a steep
hill that rose near the house, she came to the margin of the
water. Chilion, her brother, who was at work with a piece
of glass, smoothing a snow-white bass wood paddle, for a
little bark canoe he had made her, saw Margaret approach
with evident pleasure, yet received her in the quietest possible
manner, as she leaped and laughed towards him. He
asked her if she remembered the names of the flowers;
and while he was finishing the paddle, she went along the
shore to gather them. The Pond covered several hundreds
of acres, its greatest diameter measured about a mile
and a half; its outline was irregular, here divided by sharp
rocks, there retreating into shaded coves; and on its face
appeared three or four small islands, bearing trees and low

bushes. Its banks, if not really steep, had a bluff and precipitous
aspect from the tall forest that girdled it about.
The region was evidently primitive, and the child, as she
went along, trod on round smooth pebbles of white and rose
quartz, dark hornblende, greenstone, and an occasional
fragment of trap, the results of the diluvial ocean, if any
body can tell when or what that was. In piles, among the
stones, lay quivering and ever accumulating masses of
fleece-like and fox-colored foam; there were also the empty
shells af various kinks of mollusks. She climbed over the
white peeled trunks of hemlocks, that had fallen into
the water, or drifted to the shore; she trod through beds of
fine silver-gray sand, and in the shallow edge of the Pond
she walked on a hard even bottom of the same, which the
action of the waves had beaten into a smooth shining floor.
She discovered flowers which her brother told her were
horehound, skull-caps, and Indian tobacco; she picked
small green apples that disease had formed on the leaves of
the willows; and beautiful velvety crimson berries from
the black alder.

When all was ready, she got into her canoe, while her
brother led the way in a boat of his own. With due
instructions in the management of the paddle, she succeeded
tolerably well. Chilion had often taken her on the
water, and she was not much afraid. The pond was commonly
reported to have no bottom, and it possessed the
minds of the people with a sort of indefinable awe: but
this Margaret was too young to feel; she took manifest
delight in skimming across that dark, deep mystery.
She toppled somewhat, her canoe shook and tilted, but on
it went; there was a thin wake, a slight rustle of the water;
her brother kept near her, and she enjoyed the fearful pastime.
Reaching the opposite shore, Chilion drew up his

boat, and went to a rock, where he sat down to fish with a
long pole. Margaret turned into a recess where the
trees and rocks darkened the water, and the surface
lay calm and clear. The coolness of the spot was
inviting, birds were merry-making in the underwood,
and deep in the water she saw the blue sky and the
white clouds. “That looks like her,” she said, calling
to mind her dream. She urged her canoe up a shelving
rock, where she took off her hat and apron; and,
the process of disrobing being speedily done, waded into
the water. She said, “I will go down to the bottom, I
will tread on the clouds.” She sunk to her neck, she
plunged her head under; she could discover nothing but the
rocky or smooth sandy bed of the pond. Was she disappointed?
A sand-piper glided weet weeting along the
shore; she ran after it, but could not catch it; she sat
down and sozzled her feet in the foam; she saw a blue-jay
washing itself, ducking its crest, and hustling the water
with its wings, and she did the same. She got running
mosses, twin-flower vines, and mountain laurel blossoms,
which she wound about her neck and waist, and pushing off
in her canoe, looked into the water as a mirror. Her dark
clear hazle eyes, her fair white skin, the leaves and flowers,
made a pretty vision. She smiled and was smiled on in
turn; she held out her hand, which was reciprocated by
the fair spirit below; she called her own name, the rocks
and woods answered; she looked around, but saw nothing.
Had she fears or hopes? It may have been only
childish sport. “I will jump to that girl,” she said, “I
will tumble the clouds.” She sprang from the canoe, and
dropped quietly, softly, on the bottom; she had driven her
companion away, and as she came up, her garlands broke
and floated off in the ripples. Wiping herself on a coarse
towel her mother wove for her, see dressed, and went back
to her brother. A horn rang through the woods. “Dinner
is ready,” he said; “we must go.”

Returning, they came to the greensward in front of the
house, where was a peach-tree.

“I remember,” said her brother, “when you and that
were of the same size; now it shades you. It is just as old
as you are. How full of fruit it is.”

“How did it grow?” asked Margaret.

“I put a peach-stone in the ground one winter,” replied
her brother, “and it sprouted in the spring.”

“I was an acorn once,” rejoined the child, “so Obed says,
and why did'nt I grow up an oak-tree?”

A dog bounding towards them interrupted the conversation.
This animal had enormous proportions, and looked
like a cross of wolf and mastiff; his color was a brindled
black, his head resembled the ideas we have of Cerberus,
his legs were thick and strong, and he was called Bull. Following
the dog, approached the jolly-faced father of Margaret
from the barn, where he had been swingling flax; his
hat, face, and clothes were dangling and netted with tow
and whitish down, but you could see him laugh through the
veil; and the glow of his red face would make you laugh.
He caught Margaret and set her on the dog, who galloped
away with his load. They encountered her older brother
coming in from the woods, where he had been burning a
piece; his frock crusted with ashes, his face smirched with
coals. He spoke tartly to Margaret, and contrived to trip
the dog as he ran by, and throw his sister to the ground.

“Don't do so,” said she.

“Let Bull alone,” he replied, speaking in a blubbering,
washy manner, which we cannot transcribe. “You'll spile
him; would you make a goslin of him? Here's your sticks

right in the track;” saying which he scattered with his foot
a little paling she had constructed about a dandelion. She
must needs cry; the dog went to her, looked in her eyes,
lapped her tears, and she put her arms about his neck.
Her brother, who seemed to be a kind of major domo in
the family, whistled the dog away, and ordered his sister
into the house to help her mother.

Her father and older brother wore checked shirts, and a
sort of brown tow trousers known at the time—these things
happened some years ago—as skilts; they were short, reaching
just below the knee, and very large, being a full half
yard broad at the bottom; and, without braces or gallows,
were kept up by the hips, sailor fashion. Neither wore any
coat, vest, or neck-cloth. Her father had on what was
once a three-cornered hat, but the corners were now reduced
to loose ragged flaps; a leather apron completed his suit.
Her brother had a cap made of wood-chuck skin, steeple-shaped,
the hair of which was pretty well rubbed off. They
went to the cistern on the back side of the house, washed
and rinsed themselves for dinner. The father discovered
a gamesome expression of face, shining scirrous skin, and
a plump ruby head; his eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks
whealed and puffed, and through his red lips his laughter
exposed a suite of fair white teeth; his head was nearly
bald, and the crown showed smooth and glairy; and under
the thin flossy wreath of hair that invested his temples, you
would not fail to notice that one of his ears was gone.
Her brother had a more catonian look; thick locks of coarse
black hair kept well with his russet, sunburnt face, and his
lips, if by nothing else, were swollen with large quids of
tobacco.

The dinner-table, appropriate to the place in which it
was set, consisted of boards laid on a movable trestle without
a cloth. A large wooden dish or trencher contained,

flummery-like, in one mass, the entire substance of the
meal—pork, potatoes, greens, beans. There were no suits
of knives and forks, and the family helped themselves on
wooden plates, with cuttoes. A large silver tankard
curiously embossed, and bearing some armorial signets,
formed an exception to the general aspect of things, and
looked quite baronially down on its serf-like companions.
This filled with cider constituted their drink. They sat on
blocks of wood and rag-bottom chairs. Margaret occupied
a corner of the table near her younger brother Chilion, and
had a cherry plate with a wolf's bone knife and fork he
made for her. They all ate heartily and enjoyed their
meal. After dinner, Chilion went with his gun into the
woods, the father and elder brother returned to their
respective employments, her mother resumed her smoking
and weaving, and Margaret had a new stint at quilling.

3. CHAPTER III.
LOCALITIES DESCRIBED.—THE FAMILY MORE PARTICULARLY
ENUMERATED.—OBED INTRODUCED.

The house where Margaret lived, of a type common in
the early history of New England, and still seen in the
regions of the West, was constructed of round logs sealed
with mud and clay; the roof was a thatch composed of
white-birch twigs, sweet-flag and straw wattled together,
and overlaid with a slight battening of boards; from the
ridge sprang a low stack of stones, indicating the chimney-top.
Glass windows there were none, and in place thereof
swung wooden shutters fastened on the inside by strings.
The house was divided by the chimney into two principal
apartments, one being the kitchen or commons, the other a
work shop. In the former were prominently a turn-up
bed used by the heads of the family, and a fireplace; the
last, built of slabs of rough granite, was colossal in height,
width, and depth; stone splinters filled the office of and-irons.
A handle of wood thrust into the socket of a broken
spade supplied the place of a shovel. The room was neither
boarded nor plastered; a varnish of smoke from tobacco
pipes and pine-knots possibly answering in stead; and the
naked stones of the chimney front were blackened and
polished by occasional effusions of steam and smoke from
the fire. The room also contained the table-board, block,
and rag-bottom chairs, and little stool for Margaret before
mentioned. In one corner stood a twig broom. On
pegs in the log, hung sundry articles of wearing apparel;

sustained by crotched sticks nailed to the sleepers above,
were a rifle and one or two muskets; a swing shelf was
loaded with shot-pouches, bullet-moulds, powder-horns,
and fishing tackle, &c.; on the projecting stones of the
chimney were sundry culinary articles, and conspicuously
a one-gallon wooden rum-keg, and the silver tankard. In
the room, which we should say was quite capacious, hung
two cages, one for a robin, the other with a revolving apartment
for a gray squirrel, called Dick. You would not also
omit to notice a violin in a green baize bag, suspended on
the walls, which belonged to Chilion, and was an important
household article. On a post, near the chimney, were
fastened some leaves of a book, which you would find to be
torn from the statistical chapters of the Old Testament.
The floor of the room was warped in every direction,
slivered and gaping at the joints; and, being made of
knotty boards, the softer portions of which were worn down,
these knots stood in ridges and hillocks all over the apartment.

The workshop, of smaller dimensions, was similar, in its
general outline, to the kitchen; it contained a loom, a kit
where the father of Margaret sometimes made shoes, a
common reel, hand reel, a pair of swifts, blades, or windle,
a large, small, and quilling wheel, a dye tub, with yarn of
all colors hanging on the walls. The garret was divided
by the chimney in a manner similar to the rooms below;
on one side Margaret slept, and the boys on the other; her
bed consisted simply of a mattrass of beech leaves spread on
the floor, with tow and wool coverlids, and coarse linen
sheets. The ascent to this upper story was by a ladder.

In rear of the kitchen was a shed, a rough frame of slabs
and poles. Here were a draw-shave, beetle and wedges,
hog and geese yokes, barking irons, a brush-bill, fox-traps,

frows and sap-buckets; this also was the dormitory of the
hens. At one corner of the shed was a half-barrel cistern,
into which water was brought by bark troughs from the hill
near by, forming an ever flowing, ever musical, cool bright
stream, passing off in a runnel shaded by weeds and grass.
On all sides of the house, at certain seasons of the year,
might be seen the skins of various animals drying; the
flesh side out, and fastened at the extremities; foxes,
wood-chucks, martins, raccoons, and sometimes even bears
and wolves; the many-colored tails of which, pendant, had
an ornamental appearance.

The house was on the west side of the road, and fronted
the south. Across what might have been a yard, saving
there were no fences, was a butternut tree—the Butternut
par excellence—having great extension of limb, and beautiful
drooping willow-like foliage. Beyond lay the eastern
extremity of the Pond. On the north was a small garden
enclosed by a rude brush hedge. On the east side of the
road stood a log-barn, covered with thatch, and supported
in part by the trunks of two trees.

The name of the family whose residence we have explored
was Hart, and it consisted essentially of six members; Mr.
and Mrs, Hart, their three sons, Nimrod, Hash, and Chilion,
and Margaret. We should remark that the heads of this
house were never or rarely known by their proper names.
Mr. Hart at some period had received the sobriquet
of Head and Pluck, by the latter part of which he was
generally designated; his wife was more commonly known
as Brown Moll. Mr. Hart had also a fancy for giving his
children scriptural names; his first-born he called Nimrod;
his second, Maharshalalhashbaz, abbreviated into Hash; and
for his next son he chose that of Chilion. It must not be
thought he had any reverence for the Bible; his conduct

would belie such a supposition. He may have been
superstitious; if it were so, that certainly was the extent of
his devotion. The subject of this Memoir was sometimes
called after her mother, Mary or Molly, and from regard to
one long since deceased she had received the name of
Margaret. Her father and mother were fond of contradicting
each other, especially in matters of small moment, and
while the latter called her Margaret or Peggy, the former
was wont to address her as Molly.

Nimrod, the oldest son, was absent from home most of
the year; how employed, we shall have occasion hereafter
to notice. Hash worked the farm, if farm it might be called,
burnt coal in the fall, made sugar in the spring, drank,
smoked, and teased Margaret the rest of the time. Chilion
fished, hunted, laid traps for foxes, drowned out wood-chucks;
he was also the artisan of the family, and with
such instruments as he could command, constructed sap-buckets
and spouts, hencoops, sleds, trellises, &c. He was
very fond of music, and played on the violin and fife; in
this also he instructed Margaret, whom he found a ready
pupil; taught her the language of music, sang songs with
her; he also told her the common names of many birds and
flowers. He was somewhat diffident, reserved, or whatever
it might be; and while he manifested a deep affection for
his sister, he never expressed himself very freely to her.
Mr. Hart, or Pluck, if we give him the name by which he
was commonly known, helped Hash on the farm, broke
flax, made shoes, a trade he prosecuted in an itinerating
manner from house to house, “whipping the cat,” as it was
termed, and drank excessively. Mrs. Hart, or Brown
Moll, carded, spun, colored and wove, for herself and more
for others, nipped and beaked her husband, drank and
smoked. At the present time she was about forty-five or

fifty; she had seen care and trouble, and seemed almost
broken down alike by her habits and her misfortunes. She
was wrinkled, faded and gray; her complexion was sallow,
dark and dry; her expression, if it were not positively
stern, was far from being amiable; she was a patient
weaver, impatient with every thing else. Her dress was a
blue-striped linen short-gown, wrapper, or long-short, a
coarse yellow petticoat and checked apron; short grizzly
hairs bristled in all directions over her head. If in this
family you could detect some trace of refinement, it would
not be easy to discriminate its origin or to say how far
removed it might be from unmixed vulgarity.

The term Pond, applied to the spot where this family
dwelt, comprised not only the sheet of water therein situated,
but also the entire neighborhood. In the records of the
town the place was denominated the West District. Sometimes
it was called the Head, or Indian's Head, from a hill
thereon to which we shall presently refer, and the inhabitants
were called Indians from this circumstance. An
almost unbroken forest bounded the vision and skirted the
abode of this family. They had only one neighbor, a
widow lady, who resided at the north about half a mile.
A road extending across the place from north to south
terminated in the latter direction, about the same distance
below Mr. Hart's, at a hamlet known as No. 4. In the
other course, directly or divergingly, this road led to
sections called Snakehill, Five-mile-lot, and the Ledge. On
the south-west was a plantation that had been christened
Breakneck. The village of Livingston, or Settlement, as
it was sometimes termed, lay to the east about two miles in
a straight line. If a stranger should approach the Pond
from the village he would receive the impression that it
was singularly situated up among high hills, or even on a

mountain, since his route would be one of continual and
perhaps tedious ascent. But those who abode there had
no idea their locality was more raised than that of the rest
of the world, so sensibly are our notions of height and
depression affected by residence. From the village you
could descry the top of the Head, like a tower upon a
mountain, elevated far into the heavens.

On this hill, it being a striking characteristic of the Pond,
we must cast a passing look. A few rods back of Mr. Hart's
house the ascent commenced, and rose with an abrupt
acclivity to the height of nearly one hundred feet. Its
surface was ragged and rocky, and interspersed with
various kinds of shrubs. From the edge of the water its
south front sprang straight and sheer like a castle. The
top was flat and nearly bare of vegetation, save the dead
and barkless trunk of a hemlock, which, solitary and alone,
shot up therefrom, and was sometimes called the Indian's
Feather. This hill derived its specific name, Indian's
Head, from a rude resemblance to a man's face that could
be traced on one of its sides. This particular eminence
was not, however, a detached pinnacle; it seemed rather
to form the abrupt and crowned terminus of a mountainous
range that swept far to the north, and ultimately merged in
those eternal hills that in-wall every horizon. Behind the
hill at the northern extremity of the Pond proper, where its
waters were gathered to a head by a dam, and a saw-mill
had been erected, was the Outlet; which became the source
of a stream, that proceeding circuitously to No. 4, and
turning towards the village where it was again employed
for milling purposes, had been denominated Mill Brook.

Mr. Hart had cleared a few acres for corn, potatoes and
flax, and burnt over more for grain. He enjoyed also the
liberty of brooks and swamps, whence he gathered grass,

brakes and whatever he could find to store his barn. Beyond
the barn was a lot of five or six acres, known as the
Mowing or Chesnuts. It was cleared, und partially cultivated
with clover and herdsgrass. This consisted originally
of a grove of chesnut trees, which not being felled, but
killed by girdling, had become entirely divested of bark
even to the tips of the limbs, and now stood, in number two
or three score, in height fifty or seventy-five feet, denuded,
blanched, a resort for crows, where woodpeckers hammered
and blue-linnets sung.

When Margaret had done her task, she was at liberty to
repair the effect of Hash's spleen and attend to other little
affairs of her own. Obed Wright, the son and only child
of their only neighbor, was at hand to assist her. She had
hops and virgin's bower trained up the side of the house,
and even shading her chamber window. To prevent the
ravages of hogs and geese, Chilion had fenced in a little
spot for her near the house. Obed brought her new flowers
from the woods, and instructed her how to plant them.
He was thirteen or fifteen years of age, homely but clever,
as we say, a tall, knuckled-jointed, shad-faced youth; his
hair was red, his cheeks freckled; his hands and feet were
immense, his arms long and stout. He suffered from near-sightedness.
He was dressed like his neighbors, in a shirt
and skilts, excepting that his collar and waistbands were
fastened by silver buttons; and he wore a cocked hat. It
seemed to please him to help Margaret, and he staid till
almost sunset, when Hash came in from his work. Hash
hated or spited Obed, partly on Margaret's account, partly
because of misunderstandings with his mother, and partly
from the perverseness of his own nature; and he annoyed
him with the dog, who always growled and glared when he
saw the boy. But Margaret stood between him and harm.
In the present instance, she held the dog by the neck, till

Obed had time to run round the corner of the house and
make his escape.

Margaret seated herself on the door-step to eat her supper,
consisting of toasted brown bread and watered cider,
served in a curiously wrought cherry-bowl and spoon. The
family were taking their meal in the kitchen. The sun
had gone down. The whippoorwill came and sat on the
butternut, and sang his evening note, always plaintive,
always welcome. The night-hawk dashed and hissed
through the woods and the air on slim, quivering wings.
A solitary robin chanted sweetly a long time from the hill.
Myriads of insects revolved and murmured over her head.
Crickets chirped in the grass and under the decaying sills
of the house. She heard the voice of the waterfall at the
Outlet, and the croaking of a thousand frogs in the Pond.
She saw the stars come out, Lyra, the Northern Crown,
the Serpent. She looked into the heavens, she opened her
ears to the dim evening melodies of the universe; yet as a
child. She was interrupted by the sharp voice of her
mother, “Go to your roost, Peggy!”

“Yes, Molly dear,” said her father, very softly, “Dick
and Robin are asleep; see who will be up first, you or the
silver rooster; who will open your eyes first, you or the
dandelion?”

“Kiss me Margery,” said Chilion. She climbed into
her chamber, she sank on her pallet, closed her eyes and
fell into dreams of beauty and heaven, of other forms than
those daily about her, of a sweeter voice than that of father
or mother.

We conclude this chapter by remarking, that the scenes
and events of this Memoir belong to what may be termed
the mediæval or transition period of New England history,
that lying between the close of the war of our Revolution
and the commencement of the present century.

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE WIDOW WRIGHT.

Margaret was up early in the morning, before the
sun. She washed at the cistern and wiped herself on a
coarse crash towel, rough, but invigorating, beautifying and
healthy. She did her few chores, and, as she had promised,
started for the Widow Wright's. Hash was getting ready
his team, a yoke of starveling steers, in a tumbril cart, the
wheels of which were formed from a solid block of wood.
He set her in the cart, he desired to show his skill in driving,
perhaps he wished to tease her on the way. “Haw!
Buck, hish! Bright, gee up!” Vigorously plied he his
whip of wood-chuck skin on a walnut stock. The cart
reeled and rattled. It jolted over stones, canted on knolls,
sidled into gutters. Margaret held fast by the stakes.
“Good to settle your breakfast, Peggy. Going to see
Obed, hey? and the Widder? ask her if she can cure the
yallers in Bright.” Margaret was victimized and amused
by her brother. She half cried, half laughed. Her
brother came at last to the lot he was engaged in clearing.
He lifted Margaret from the cart. She went on, and Bull
followed her. Hash called the dog back, and in great
wrath gave him a blow with his whip. The animal leaped
and skulked away, and joined again with Margaret, who
patted his head as he ran along by her side. She entered
woods; the path was narrow, grass-grown. She followed
the cow-tracks through thickets of sweet fern almost as
high as her head. The road descended to a brook crossed

by a pole-bridge. The dog stopped to drink, she to look
into the water, Minnows and pinheads were flashing and
scudding through the clear, bright stream. There were
hair-worms fabled to spring from horse-hair, in black lines
writhing on the surface; caddice-worms clothed with shells
and leaves, crawling on the bottom; and boat-flies
swimming on their backs. The water made music with
the stones. She waded in, and sported bare-foot on the
slippery pebbles. She looked under the bridge, and that
shaded spot had a mystery to the child's mind, such perhaps
as is more remembered in future years than commented
on at the time. She pursued a trout, that had
shown its black eye and golden-spotted back and vanished.
She could not find it. On she went towards Mrs. Wright's.

This lady had lost her husband a few years before. He
left her in possession of a small farm, and a large reversion
in the medicinal riches of the whole district. It had been
a part of Dr. Wright's occupation to gather and prepare
herbs for the sick. His materia medica was large, various
and productive. He learnt as he could the nature of
diseases, and was sometimes called to prescribe as well
as sell his drugs. When he died his wife came in
full possession of his secrets and his practice. She
gathered plants from all the woods, sands and swamps.
She knew the quality of every root, stalk, leaf, flower and
berry. Her son Obed she was instructing to be her servitor
and aid, as well as the successor of his father. The lady's
habits were careful, saving, thriving. She cultivated, in
addition, a few acres of land. Her house was neat and
comfortable. It was a small frame building, clap-boarded
on the sides and roof. It had a warm sunny position, on a
southern slope, with rocks and woods behind. It stood in
the centre of a large yard, surrounded on all sides by a fence

of hemlock stumps, with their large, spreading, tangled roots,
like the feet of giants, turned towards the street, making a
grotesque but complete barrier. You entered the yard by
a stile formed of the branches of these roots. Within the
enclosure were beds of cultivated herbs, caraway, rue,
savory, thyme, tansy, parsley and other aromatic and
medicinal plants. Obed was at work among the beds.
Margaret climbed the stile. Bull leaped up after her.
When Obed saw Margaret his dull face emitted rays of joy
which were succeeded by a cloud of dismay.

“Bull won't hurt you Obed. He's a good dog,” said
Margaret. “Put your hand on his head.”

“He's a great dog,” said Obed. “He's got dreadful
big teeth. Hash's allers makin' him bite.”

The dog taking no notice of these insinuations, retired to
the shade of the fence. Margaret proceeded to assist Obed
weed his beds, then she walked through the little aisles her
kind friend treated with so much care. The atmosphere
was charged with the perfume of the flowers. Margaret
shook the thyme-bed, and a shadowy motion, like the
waving of a cloud, floated over it. Bees, flies, beetles,
butterflies, were bustling upon it, diving into every flower,
and searching every cup.

“What d'ye think of the yarbs, Moll?” said the Widow,
calling to Margaret from the door of the house.

“They look pretty,” replied Margaret.

“Not looks, child, 'tis use. We'll get a hundred bunches,
this year. The saffron we cut to-morrow, and the balm'll
be ready soon.”

“You are not going to cut all these flowers, are you?”

“Yes. Them's for medicine. Wait till the flowers is
gone, they wouldn't be worth more'n your toad-flax and
bean vines. They wouldn't fetch a bungtown copper. See

here, that's sage, good for tea. That's goat's rue, good for
women as has little babies. Guess you was a little baby
once. I've known ye ever sen ye warn't more'n so high.”

“Was I so little?” asked Margaret.

“Yes, and pimpin enough. An I fed yer marm with rue,
and comfrey-root, or ye never'd come teu this. Ye was
thin and poor as a late chicken.”

The Widow Wright was dressed in the costume of the
times, a white linen short-gown, checked apron and black
petticoat. She wore on her head a large brown turban.
Her eye was black and piercing, and she had a singular
power of laughter, which was employed to express
every variety of emotion, whether pleasure or pain, anger
or complacence.

This lady possessed a fine colony of bees, and Margaret
approached their house. These orderly and profitable
busy-bodies seemed like a rain storm blowing from all points
of the compass, and the child looked as if she was out in it.
The ominous drops fell on her head, and she appeared to
be catching some in the bare palm of her hand; some lit on
her hat, and crawled over her neck. Not one offered her
harm; she was not stung.

“A marvellous wonderful gal,” uttered the Widow to
herself, as she surveyed the scene from the door. “Pity
'tis she's Brown Moll's child.”

Margaret had an errand, to get honey for a bee-hunt
Chilion had in prospect, and stated her desire to Mrs. Wright.
There was an old feud between the two families, not
affecting intercourse and acquaintance, so much as matters
of interest. The widow received the message rather
coldly, and beginning in unwillingness, ended with
invective

“He's a lazy, good for nothin' feller, Chil is. He's no
better than a peakin' mud-sucker. He lives on us all here

like house-leek. He's no more use than yer prigged up
creepers. He is worse than the witches; vervain nor dill
won't keep him away. I tell ye, Chil shan't have no
honey.”

Margaret was abashed, silenced. She could understand
that her brother would feel disappointed; that he was not
so bad. Beyond this she did not discriminate.

“Chilion is good,” she stammered at last.

“Good! what's he good for?” rejoined the woman,
“Does he get any money? Can he find yarbs? He
don't know the difference between snake-root and lavender.”

“He's good to me,” said Margaret. This was an appeal
that struck the woman with some force. She seemed to
soften.

“Ye are a good child; ye help Obed.”

“Yes,” said Margaret, as if watching her cue, “I will
help Obed. I'll mind the beds when the birds are about.
I'll go into the woods and get plants. I'll keep Bull off
from him.”

“Bein' ye'll help Obed, I'll give ye the honey. But don't
come agin.”

Margaret, taking the article in question on some green
leaves, went merrily home.

We cannot dismiss this chapter without remarking that
the Widow Wright revered the memory of her husband.
It was certainly of some use for her to do so, as his reputation
had been considerable in the line of his practice. The
representation of the deceased, which she herself bore, she
designed by degrees to transfer to her son. The silver buttons,
which shone on Obed, as well as other articles of dress
he occasionally wore, belonged to his late father. With all
her thrift and care, the lady liked our Margaret very well.
“She was so feat and spry, and knowin, and good-natered,”
she said, “she could be made of some use to somebody.”

5. CHAPTER V.
THE BEE HUNT. — MARGARET GOES FARTHER INTO NATURE.
— SHE SINS AND REPENTS. — THE MASTER.

The next morning, Chilion and Margaret, joined by
Obed, started on a bee-hunt. Obed was to remain with
them till the chase was over, when Margaret promised to
aid him in collecting plants for his mother. They took
with them honey, leather mittens for the hands, screens for
the face, brimstone and other requisites. They entered the
woods lying to the south of the Pond, an unlimited range,
extending in some directions many miles. The honey
being placed on a stump, several bees, springing up as it
were from vacuity, laded themselves with the fatal bait, and
darted off. Our hunters pursued, watching the course of
their flight, and were conducted by the unconscious guides
to their own abode, a partially decayed tree. A few
strokes of the axe brought it crashing to the ground. It
was a more difficult task to possess themselves of the honey.
The outraged and indignant insects spurted out from their
nest like fire; their simultaneous start, their mixed and
deepened huzz, their thousand wings beating as for life,
made a noise not unlike a distant waterfall, or the hidden
roar of an abyss. The persecutors speedily covered
their faces and hands, and waited for the alarm to subside.
Margaret said she thought they would not hurt her, as
those at the Widow's did not. It is said there are some
persons whom bees never sting. She kindled the brimstone
each side of the tree. The bees within, called out

by a rap on the trunk, and those without, flying and crawling
about their nest, fell dead in the smoke. Chilion cut
a passage to the cavity where the comb lay. Margaret,
looking in, and seeing the beautiful chambers of these sylvan
operatives seemed struck with remorse. She had
eaten honey and honey-comb. She had seen bees, but
she never had associated the two together in such a
touching, domestic and artistical sense. She saw the bees
lying dead in heaps. She had killed them. Some not quite
dead, lay on their backs, their feet convulsed and arms
quivering. Others were endeavoring to stretch their wings.
She could render back no life; she could set not a muscle in
motion; she could re-form not a filament of a wing. They
would visit her flowers no more; their hum would blend
never again with the sounds she loved to hear. Whether
the reflections of the child were just of this sort, order
and proportion, we are not told. The bees were dead, and
she was sad. She had seen dead squirrels, raccoons, partridges,
pigeons. But they were brought in dead; she had
not killed them. What is the child's first sense of death?
She would have given all her little heart was worth, could
she restore the life she had so thoughtlessly taken, and see
them again busy, blithe, happy about her house. Tears ran
down her cheeks, the unconscious expiation of Nature to
the Infinite Life. Chilion and Obed were apparently too
much occupied to notice her agitation, nor would she have
dared to speak to them of what she felt.

The tall gawky form of Obed went before through the
woods. The lad's trousers, through which penetrated his
lean dry shanks, gave him a semblance to a peasant of
Gascony on stilts. His shovel hat skewed on this side and
that, and bobbed up and down among the branches. It was,
as we might say, a new scene to Margaret. She had never

gone so far into the forest before. She was susceptible in
her feelings, and fresh as susceptible. The impression of
the bees somewhat abated, though its remembrance could
never be stifled. The woods, — where Adam and Eve
enjoyed their pastime and sought their repose; where the
Amorites and Assyrians learned to pray, and the Israelites
to rebel; where all ancient nations found materials for
sacrifice and offering; where Hertha, the Goddess of the
Angles, had her lovely residence; where the Druids
“thought every thing sent from Heaven that grew on the
oak;” the religion and worship of the old Germans, Italians
and Gauls; where Pan piped, the Satyrs danced, the
Fauns browsed, Sylvanus loved, Diana hunted, and Feronia
watched; whence Greek and Saracen, Pagan and Christian
derived architecture, order, grace, capitals, groins,
arches; whence came enchantment and power to Shakspeare,
Milton, Wordsworth, Scott, Cooper, Bryant, Titian,
Claude, Allston; where “the stately castle of the feudal
lord reared its head, the lonely anchorite sang his evening
hymn, and the sound of the convent bell was heard,” and
the fox and stag-hunter pursued their game; where Robin
Hood and his merry men did their exploits, and king Rufus
was slain; the enlivenment and decoration of the Feast of
Tabernacles, May-day, Whitsuntide, Christmas; the ward
of dryads, the scene of fairy revels, and Puck's pranks,
the haunt of bul-beggars, witches, spirits, urchins, elves,
hags, dwarfs, giants, the spoorn, the puckle, the man in the
oak, will-o'-the-wisp; the opera-house of birds, the shelter
of beasts, the retreat of mosquitoes and flies; where sugar
was made, and coal burnt; where the report of the rifle
was heard, and the stroke of the axe resounded; the home,
manor, church, country, kingdom, hunting-ground and
burial place of the Indian; the woods, green, sweet-smelling,
imparadisaical, inspiring, suggestive, wild, musical,
sombre, superstitious, devotional, mystic, tranquilizing; —
these were about the child and over her.

That we must know in order to know, that we must feel
in order to feel, was a truth Margaret but little realized.
She was beginning to know and to feel. Could the Immortal
Spirit of the Woods have spoken to her?—but she was not
prepared for it; she was too young; she only felt an
exhilarating sensation of variety, beauty, grandeur, awe.
She leaped over roots, she caught at the spray above her
head, she hid herself in thickets, she chased the birds. Yet
with all that was new about her, and fitted to engross her
vision, and supplant her recent sorrowful impressions, there
seemed a new sense aroused, or active within her, an
unconscious instinct, a hidden prompting of duty; she trod
with more care than usual; a fly, beetle, or snail, she
turned aside for, or stepped protectingly over; she would
not jostle a spider's web.

“It won't hurt ye,” said Obed. “It brings good
weather.”

“I know that,” replied Margaret, “but I don't want to
kill it.

Obed was homely and clever, as we have said, simple
and trusting. He never argued a point with Margaret; he
was glad to have her help him, and glad to help her. He
held back the low branches for her to pass, he assisted her
over slippery trunks, he lifted her across the narrow
deep stream of Mill Brook. He brandished his spade, and
said he would keep off the snakes; Margaret replied that
she was not afraid of them. They came to a sunny glade in
the woods, tufted with black and white moss, shaded by
huckle-berry shrubs, and sown with checker-berries, whose
fruit hung in round crimson drops, and little waxen flowers

bloomed under the dark shining leaves. Margaret sat down
and ate the sweet berries and their spicy leaves. The
shadows of the forest vibrated and flickered on the yellow
leaf-strewed earth and through the green underwood; the
trunks of the trees shot up, in straight, rough, tapering
stems clear through to the sky.

This particular patch of woods was of great age, and the
trees were very large, and the effect on Margaret's mind
was like that of a child going into St. Peter's church at
Rome. But there were no bronze saints here to look down
on her; a red squirrel, as she came in sight, raised a loud
shrill chattering, a singular mixture of contempt, welcome
and alarm. She made some familar demonstrations towards
the little fellow, and he, like a jilt, dropped a nut into her
face. She saw a brown cat-headed owl asleep, muffled in
his dark feathers and darker dreams, and called Obed's
attention to it.

“That's an owl,” cried the startled lad; “it's a bad sign;
Marm says it will hurt.”

“No,” replied Margaret; I've seen them on the Butternut
a good many times.” Knowing that as Obed never
reasoned so he could never be persuaded, Margaret joined
him in leaving the ominous vicinage.

“That's saxifax,” said her companion, striking his spade
into the roots of a well-known shrub. “It's good teu chaw;
the Settlers eats it—take it down, and they'll give ye ribbons
and beads for it.” Wisping the top together, and
bending it over, he bade Margaret hold on, while he proceeded
with the digging. The light black mould was
removed, and the reddish damp roots disclosed. “Taste
on't,” he said, “it's good as nutcakes.” Margaret loitered,
wandered, attracted by the flowers she stopped to pick.
“Marm won't let us,” said Obed, “them ant yarbs, they

won't doctor, the Settlers won't touch them. Margaret,
whether convinced or not, yielded, and ran on before,
apparently the most anxious to discover the plants desired.

“That's um!” cried Obed.

Margaret was bounding through a wet bog, springing
from one tussock of sedge to another. She, too, had espied
it, and in sight of its beauty and novelty forgot every thing
else. It was a wake-robin, commonly known as dragonroot,
devil's ear, or Indian turnip. Margaret broke off the
flower, which she would have carried to her nose.

“Don't ye taste on't!” exclaimed Obed, “it's orful
burnin; put it in the basket.” So the plant, flower and all,
were deposited with the rest of their collection.

It was time to go home. They had reached the edge of
the woods whence they started.

“That's him!” cried Margaret, clapping her hands.

“It's the Master!” echoed Obed, quite disconcerted.

There appeared before them a man, the shadow of whom
they had seen among the leaves, about fifty years of age,
and dressed in the full style of the times, or we should say
of his own time, which dated a little earlier than that of
Margaret. He wore a three-cornered hat, with a very
broad brim tied with a black ribbon over the top. His
coat, of drab kerseymere, descended in long, broad, square
skirts, quite to the calves of his legs. It had no buttons in
ront, but in lieu thereof, slashes, like long button holes,
and laced with silk embroidery. He had on nankeen
small-clothes, white ribbed silk stockings, paste knee and
shoe buckles, and white silk knee-bands. His waistcoat,
or vest, was of yellow embossed silk, with long skirts or
lappels, rounded and open at the bottom, and bordered
with white silk fringe. The sleeves and skirts of his coat
were garnished with rows of silver buttons. He wore ruffle

cuffs that turned back over his wrists and reached almost to
his elbows; on his neck was a snow-white linen plaited
stock, fastened behind with a large silver buckle, that glistened
above the low collar of his coat. Under his hat appeared
a gray wig, falling in rolls over his shoulders, and
gathered behind with a black ribbon. From his side depended
a large gold watch-seal and key, on a long gold
chain. He had on a pair of tortoise-shell bridge spectacles.
A golden-headed cane was thrust under his arm. This was
Mr. Bartholomew Elliman, the Schoolmaster, or the Master,
as he was called. He was tall in person, had an aquiline
nose, and a thin face.

“Ha, my Hamadryad!” said he, addressing Margaret;
“salutem et pacem; in other words, how do you do, my girl
of the woods?”

“Pretty well, thankee,” replied Margaret.

“I thank you, Sir,” said he, amending her style of expression.

“I forgot,” she added, “pretty well, I thank you, Sir.”

He nodded to Obed, who stood aloof in awkward firmness;
besides there were signs of uneasiness or displeasure
on the faces of both.

“How came the Pond Lily in the woods?” said he.

“I am after herbs,” replied Margaret; “and I have
some flowers too,” added she, taking off her hat.

“Flowers, have you? You are a noble specimen of
foliacious amfractuosity — a hortus siccus of your hat!
Would I could send you and your flowers across the waters
to my friend, Mr. Knight, the great botanist, nox semperlucens.”

“He shan't hurt Molly,” interrupted Obed. “He 'll
drown her, he 'll pull her teu pieces. Marm says he spiles
every thing. He wants to pitch Molly into the Pond.”

“Don't be alarmed, my glandulous champion, no harm
shall come to this fair flower.”

“He 'll git um all, Molly; don't ye let him have any.”

“I tell you,” responded the Master, “Margaret is a
flower; she is my flower.”

“She an't a flower,” rejoined Obed, “she 's Pluck's
Molly.”

Obed became quite excited, and spake with more than
his customary freedom. It needs perhaps to be explained,
that Master Elliman and the Widow Wright were somewhat
at odds. He was in pursuit of science, she of gain.
They took a common track, plants and flowers; their ends
essentially diverged. They frequently encountered, but
they could never agree. Margaret herself was another
point of issue, the Widow being jealous of the child's attachment
to the Master. The impression that Obed on the
whole derived, was, that he was an evil-disposed person,
and one whose presence boded no good to Margaret.

The Master proceeded in the examination of the flowers
Margaret gave him.

“I have another one,” said she; and thrusting her hand
into Obed's basket, drew out the wake-robin.

“An Arum!” said the Master, “the very thing I have
been written to upon.”

“Tan't yourn, Molly; it's Marm's,” said Obed, seizing
the flower and replacing it in the basket.

Here was, indeed, a mistake. Margaret had unreflectingly
given the flower to Obed to carry, at the same time
thinking it belonged to herself. She did not know the
value attached to it by Obed, whose mother had enjoined
him to get one if possible, for some particular purpose of
her own. At last she said, —

“I can get more; I know where they grow.”

“Can you, can you?” said the Master, “their habitat is
sphagnous places, what you call swamps. It is impossible
for me to reach them. Stultiloquent yarb-monger!” he
broke out, speaking of or to Obed; “son of a helminthic
android! you ought to be capistrated.”

“That's hocuspocus, Molly,” said the lad: “Marm says
'tis. He 'll hurt ye, he 'll hurt ye.”

“I will get some for both of you,” said Margaret; “I
will go to-morrow.”

“You don't know the way,” rejoined Obed, “snakes 'll
bite ye; there's painters in the woods, and wild cats, and
owls.”

“I 'll take Bull with me,” answered Margaret.

This allusion to the dog renewed Obed's trouble. He
feared his mother, who he thought would not wish the
Master should have the flower; he dreaded the dog, he
disliked the Master, he loved Margaret; he was in a quandary.
He stammered, he tried to laugh, he put his hand
on Margaret's head, he yerked up his trousers, he looked
into his basket. He leaned against a tree, and dropped his
face upon his arm. Margaret ran to him, and took hold of
his hand. “Don't cry Obed,” she said; “poor Obed, don't
cry.”

The Master, seeing the extremity of affairs, told Margaret
not to care, that he presumed she would be able to get
the flower for him, and took her hand to lead her away.
She clung to Obed, or he to her, wholly enveloping her
little hand, wrist and all, in his great fist. Thus linked,
sidling, skewing, filing as they could through the trees and
brush, they soon emerged in the road. The Master went
on with them to the house, and Obed continued his course
homeward. Master Elliman was evidently not a stranger
to the family. His visit seemed welcome. Even the hard

muddy features of Hash brightened with a smile as he entered.
The dry, pursed mouth of the mother yielded
a pleasant salutation. Chilion offered the best chair.—
Pluck was always merry. Margaret alone for the moment,
contrary to her general manner, appeared sorrowful.

6. CHAPTER VI.
WHY MARGARET WAS SORROWFUL. — DREAMS. — LIVINGSTON.—
A GLIMPSE AT “THE WORLD.” — ISABEL. — NIGHT AND OTHER
SHADOWS.

After dinner, hospitable as it was rude, of which the
Master partook with sensible relish, Pluck proposed that
Chilion should play.

“The rosin, Margery,” said her brother.

“I have some rosin in my pocket,” said the Master, at
the same time producing a pint flask, which he set upon
the table. “A bibilous accompaniment,” he added, “I
thought would not be out of place.”

“Good enough for any of their High Mightinesses!”
ejaculated Pluck, drinking, and returning the bottle to the
Master.

“Nay, friend,” replied the latter; “Femina et vinum
make glad the heart of man. Let her ladyship gladden
her own.”

Mistress Hart also drank.

“Now, he who maketh speed to the spoil, Maharshalalhashbaz,”
said the Master.

“Not so good as pupelo,” replied Hash.

“A rightly named youth,” said Pluck, who, receiving
the bottle to return it to the Master, perceived its contents
nearly exhausted.

“Mea discipula,” said the Master, addressing himself to
Margaret, “you must be primarum artium princeps.”

“No thankee, — thank you sir,” replied she.

“Well done, well done!” exclaimed he.

“What! would you not have the child exhilirate and
spruce up a little?” cried the father.

“You mistake me, friend,” said the Master, “I approbated
the girl, not that she did not receive this very genial
beverage, but that she manifests such improvement in
speech.”

“Let her drink, and she will speak well enough,”
rejoined her father. “She won't touch it! She mopes,
she nuzzles about in the grass and chips. She is certainly
growing weakling. Only she sings roung after dark, like a
thrasher, and picks up spiders and pismires, like a frog.”

“This is none of your snow-broth, Peggy,” said the
mother, “it's warming, it's as good as the Widow's bitter-bags.”

“Don't you touch it,” said Chilion, who had been screwing
and snapping the strings of his violin.

“Yes, drink Peggy,” said Hash, thrusting his slavery
lips close to her ear. “He'll bring some more, he likes ye.
He wants ye too.”

Margaret started from him. “I can't,” she said; “it won't
let me.”

“What won't let you, dear?” asked her father, drawing
her between his knees, and patting her head.

“She's always a dreaming,” said her mother; “she is a
born bat, and flies off every night nobody knows where.
And in the day time I can't get her to quilling, but she's
up and away to the Widow's, or to the Pond, or on the Head.
She gets all my threads to string up her poses; she's as bad
as a hang bird that steals my yarn on the grass.”

“Did'nt I do all the spools?” inquired the child.

“You did indeed,” responded the father, “you are a nice
gal. Hush! Let us hear our son Chilion; he speaks
well.”

Chilion played, and they were silent.

“Now it's your turn, my daughter,” said Pluck, “you
will play if you won't drink.”

Margaret taking the instrument executed some popular
airs with considerable spirit and precision. “Now for the
cat, child;” so she imitated the cat, then the song-sparrow,
then Obed crying.

At this, and especially the last, there was a general
shout. The Master seemed highly surprised and pleased.
“A megalopsical child!” he exclaimed. Margaret with
blushes and tremors, glad to have succeeded, more glad to
escape her tormentors, ran away and amused herself with
her squirrel, whom she was teaching to ride on the dog's
back. The flask having been drained, the keg was brought
forward from the chimney wall.

“Here's to Miss Amy,” said Pluck, ogling the Master.

“Mehercule!” exclaimed the latter, “you forget the
propitiatory oblation. We must first propose his Majesty
the King of Puppetdom, defender by the grace of God of
England, France, and America; the most serene, serene,
most puissant, puissant, high, illustrious, noble, honorable,
venerable, wise and prudent Princes, Burgomasters, Councillors,
Governors, Committees of said realm, whether
ecclesiastical or secular; and the most celebrated Punch
and Judy of our worthy town of Livingston, Parson Welles
and Deacon Hadlock, to whom be all reverence.”

Pluck. “Amen. I stroke my beard and crook my
hamstrings as low as any one.”

The Master. “Your promising daughter, Mistress Hart.”

Mis. Hart. “Long life to you, and many visits from you.”

Hash. “I say yes to that; and here's for Peggy to Obed.”

The Master. “Miss Sibyl Radney.”

“How you color, Hash!” exclaimed his mother. —
“Hang your nose under your chin, and it would equal old

Gobbler's wattles. Put you into the dye-tub and Peggy
won't have to get any more log-wood. There now she
must go down for some copperas this very afternoon.”

“Odzbodkins! You won't spoil our sport,” cried her
husband. “Your crotchets are always coming in like a
fox into a hen-roost.”

“I have work in hand that must be done,” replied his
wife. “Trencher worm!” she exclaimed, raising her
voice with her fist, “what do you do? lazying about here
like a mud-turtle nine days after it's killed. You may
whip the cat ten years, and you won't earn enough to stitch
your own rags with. — I have to tie up your vines, or you
would have been blown from the poles long since.”

“Dearest Maria,” began Pluck.

“Don't deary me,” said Brown Moll; “you had better
go to washing dishes, and I'll take care of the family.”

While Mistress Hart was entertaining her spouse in this
manner, for it seemed to be entertainment to him, the
Master called Margaret and asked her to spell some words
he put to her, which she did very correctly. “You
must certainly have a new spelling-book,” said he. “And
now I want you to repeat the `Laplander's Ode.'”

She began as follows: —

The Master, having expressed his delight at this, said he
must return to the village.

“I will go with you,” added Margaret.

“Here are the eggs,” so her mother instructed her,
“Deacon Penrose must give a shilling a dozen. One
pound of copperas, six skeins of No. Nine, half a pound of
snuff, the rest in tobacco.”

Margaret, wearing in addition to her usual dress a pair
of moccasons which an Indian who came sometimes to the
Pond gave her, called Bull and started off. Hash, in no
unusual fit, ordered the dog back.

“Woman! woman!” cried Pluck, “the keg is out, it is
all gone.”

“Let the yarn go,” said her mother, “and get it in rum.”

“She will bring home some of the good book,” said
Pluck to Hash, “the real white-eye, you know. Let her
take the dog.”

Her brother yielded, and she went on with Bull and the
Master; the latter, having grown a little wavering and
muddled by liquor, taking the child's hand.

There were two ways to the village, one around by No.
4, the other more direct through the woods; the distance
by the former was nearly four miles, by the latter, as we
have said, about two; and at the present season of the year

it was the most eligible. This they took; they went
through the Mowing, traversed a beautiful grove of walnuts,
black-birches, and beeches, and came to the Foot-bridge
made of a large tree lying across the small brook Margaret
encountered on her way to the Widow's. This stream,
having its rise among the hills on the north of the Pond, at
the present point, flowed through a deep fissure in the
rocks. The branches of the tree rose perpendicularly, and
a hand rail was fastened from one to another.

“Danger menaces us, my child,” sighed the Master.

“Give me one of your hands,” said Margaret, “hold on
by the rail with the other, shut your eyes, that is the way
Pa does.”

“How it shakes!” exclaimed the Master. “It would be
dreadful to fall here! How deep it is! My head swims,
my brain giddies, I am getting old, Margaret. Tempora
mutantur et nos. When I was young as you I could go
any where. Facilis descensus—.”

“You can hold on by Bull, he'll keep you steady. Here,
Bull.”

The well-trained dog came forward, and the Master
leaning on this tri-fold support, the child's arm, the rail, and
the animal's head, accomplished the pass. Their course
was downward, yet with alternate pitches and elevations,
now by a sheep's track, now across a rocky ledge, anon
through the unbroken forest. The fumes of the liquor subsiding,
and the path becoming more smooth and easy, the
Master spake to Margaret of her dreams.

Master. “Dreams come of a multitude of business, says
Solomon.”

Margaret. “What, Solomon Smith? He says that
great folks come of dreams, that children will die, and some
be rich; and people lose their cows, and have new gowns,

and such things. I dream about a great many things,
sometimes about a pretty woman.”

Mas. “A pretty woman! Whom does she look like?”

Mar. “I don't know, I can't tell him.”

Mas. “You; always say you to me. The juveniles
and younkers in the town say him. How does she seem to
you?”

Mar. “She looks somehow as I feel when Ma is good
to me, and she looks pale and sorry as Bull does when
Hash strikes him.”

Mas. “Where do you see her?”

Mar. “Sometimes among the clouds, and sometimes at
the foot of the rainbow.”

Mas. “That is where money grows.”

Mar. “Not money, it is flowers, buttercups, yellow
columbine, liverleaf, devil's ears, and such as I never saw
before.”

Mas. “Arum, the Arum! Your covetous friend Obed
won't like it if you get those flowers.”

Mar. “His mother wants to know what the woman
does; if she makes plasters out of the flowers, and if they
will cure worms.”

Mas. “Caustics of aures diaboli! The Devil is no
vermifuge, tell the Widow. Ha! ha!”

Mar. “But she don't speak to me; she stands on the
flowers, and breaks them off, and they fly away like little
birds; she pricks them into the rainbow, and they grow
on it.”

Mas. “Are you not afraid of her?”

Mar. “She tells me not to be.”

Mas. “You said she did not speak to you.”

Mar. “She don't speak, but she tells me things, just
as Bull does. He don't speak, but he tells me when he is

hungry, and when there is any thing coming in the woods.
Sometimes she kisses me, but I don't feel her. She goes
up on the rainbow, and I follow her. I see things like
people's faces in the sky, but they look like shadows, and
there is music like what you hear in the pines, but there
are no trees or violins. She steps off into the clouds. I
try to go too, and there comes along what you call the
egret of a thistle, that I get on to, and it floats with me
right into my bed, and I wake up.” So they discoursed
until they issued from the woods, in what was known as
“Deacon Hadlock's Pasture,” an extensive enclosure
reaching to the village, which it overlooked.

The village of Livingston lay at the junction of four
streets, or what had originally been the intersection of two
roads, which, widening at the centre, and having their
angles trimmed off, formed an extensive common known as
the Green. In some points of view, the place had an
aspect of freshness and nature; extensive forests meeting
the eye in every direction; farm-houses partially hidden in
orchards of apple-trees; the roads rough, ungraded, and
divided by parallel lines of green grass. Yet to one who
should be carried back from the present time, many objects
would wear an old, antiquated and obsolete appearance;
the high-pitched roofs of some of the houses, and jutting
upper stories; others with a long sloping back roof; chimneys
like castles, large, arched, corniced. Here and there
was a house in the then new style, three-storied, with gambrel
roof and dormar windows. The Meeting-house was
not old, but would now appear so, with its slim, tall spire,
open belfrey, and swarm of windows. There were Lombardy
poplars on the Green, now so unfashionable, waving
like martial plumes; and interspersed as they were among
the spreading willow-like elms, they formed on the whole

not a disagreeable picture. South of the Green was the
“Mill” on Mill Brook, before adverted to; this was a distinct
cluster of houses. Beyond the village on the east you
could see the River, and its grassy meadows.

Livingston was the shire town of the county of Stafford,
having a Court-house, square yellow edifice with a small
bell in an open frame on the roof; and a Jail, a wooden
building constructed of hewn timber. The Green contained
in addition a pair of Stocks, a Pillory and Whipping Post;
also, a store, school-house tavern, known as the “Crown
and Bowl,” and barber's shop. The four streets diverging
from the centre were commonly called the North, East,
South, and West Streets. A new one had been opened on
the west side of the Green, and received the name of Grove
Street. Let us observe the situation of the principal buildings.
The Meeting-house stood at the north-west corner of
the Green; in the rear of this were the Horse-sheds, a long
and conspicuous row of black, rickety stalls, having the
initials of the owner's name painted in a circle over each
apartment; at the east end of the sheds was the School-house;
and behind them terminated an old forest that
extended indefinitely to the north. The Tavern occupied
the corner formed by the junction of the West street with
the Green, a few rods from the church. Below the tavern,
flanking the west side of the Green, in succession, were the
Court-house, Jail, and Jail-house, the jail-fence being close
upon the highway. The Pillory with its adjuncts stood
under the trees in the open common fronting the Court-house.

Master Elliman lodged with the Widow Small, who lived
on the South Street. In this street reappeared the small
stream they had so much trouble in crossing; to which, we
may add, the Master, from some fancy of his own, gave

the name Cedron; and the path by which they came
through the woods he called Via Dolorosa.

Children were playing on the Green, the boys dressed in
“tongs,” a name for pantaloons or overalls that had come
into use, and roundabouts; some in skirt coats and
breeches; some of them six or eight years of age were
still in petticoats. The girls wore checked linen frocks,
with short sleeves, and pinafores. All were bare-footed
and most of them bare-headed. “He's coming!” “The
Master!” was a cry that echoed from one to another.
They dropped their sports, and drew up in lines on either
side as the object of their attention passed; the boys folding
their arms and making short quick bows; the girls dove-tailing
their fingers and squatting in low courtesies. Margaret,
with Bull at her heels, kept at a respectful distance
behind. “Moll Hart,” exclaimed one of the boys. “A
Pond Gal.” “An Injin, an Injin.” “Where did you get
so much hat?” “Did your daddy make them are clogs?”
So she was saluted by one and another; but the dog, whose
qualities were obvious in his face, if they had not been
rendered familiar in any other way, saved her from all but
verbal insolence.

The Master's was a ground room in an old house. It
was large, with small windows; the walls were wainscoted,
the ceiling boarded, and darkened by age into a reddish
mahogany hue. The chairs were high-top, fan-back, heavy,
mahogany. A bureau desk occupied one side, with its
slanting leaf, pigeon-holes, and escutcheons bearing the
head of King George. On the walls hung pictures in small
black frames, comprising all the kings and queens of England,
from William the Conqueror to the present moment.
Margaret's attention was drawn to his books, which consisted
of editions of the Latin and Greek classics, and such school

books as from time to time he had occasion to use; and
miscellanies, made up of works on Free-Masonry, a craft of
which he was a devoted member; books of secular and
profane music, a science to which he was much attached;
various histories and travels; the works of Bolingbroke,
Swift and Sterne; the Spectator and Rambler, the principal
English Poets; Wolstoncraft's Rights of Women, Paine's
Age of Reason, Lord Monboddo's works; Tooke's Pantheon;
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy; the Echo, by the
Hartford Wits, the American Museum, and the Massachusetts
Magazine; Trumbull's McFingal, The Devil on Two
Sticks, Peregrine Pickle; Quincy's Dispensatory; Nurse
Freelove's New Year's Gift, the Puzzling Cap, the “World
turned upside down.” He gave Margaret, as he had
promised, “The New Universal Spelling Book,” by
“Daniel Fenning, late School master of the Bures in
Suffolk, England.”

The Store, to which Margaret next directed her steps,
was a long old two-story building, bearing some vestiges of
having once been painted red. The large window-shutters
and door constituted advertising boards for the merchant
himself, and the public generally. Intermixed with articles
of trade, were notices of animals found, or astray; sales on
execution; beeswax, flax, skins, bristles and old pewter,
you were informed would be taken in exchange for goods,
and that “cash and the highest price would be given for
the Hon. Robert Morris's notes.” One paper read as
follows: “You, Josiah Penrose, of, &c., are hereby permitted
to sell 400 gallons W. I. Rum, do. Brandy, 140 Gin,
and 260 pounds of brown Sugar, on all of which the excise
has been duly paid, pursuant to an Act of the Legislature.

(Signed) }
William Kingsland,

Collector of excise for the
County of Stafford.”

There was also on the door a staring programme of a
lottery scheme. Lotteries, at this period common in all
New England, had become a favorite resort for raising
money to support government, carry on wars, build
churches, construct roads, or endow colleges. There was
one other sign, that of the Post-office. Entering the store
you beheld a motley array of dry and fancy goods, crockery,
hardware, and groceries, drugs and medicines. On the
right were rolls of kerseymeres, callimancoes, fustians,
shaloons, antiloons, and serges of all colors; Manchester
checks, purple and blue calicoes; silks, ribbons, oznaburgs
ticklenbergs, buckram. On the left were cuttoes, Barlow
knives, iron candlesticks, jewsharps, blackball, bladders of
snuff; in the left corner was the apothecary's apartment,
and on boxes and bottles were written in fading gilt letters,
“Ens Veneris,” “Oculi Cancrorum,” “Aqua æris fixi,”
“Lapis Infernalis,” “Ext. Saturn,” “Sal Martis,” &c.
On naked beams above were suspended weavers' skans,
wheelheads, &c., and on a high shelf running quite around
the walls was cotton warp of all numbers. The back
portion of the building was devoted to a traffic more fashionable
and universal in New England than it ever will be
again; and a long row of pipes, hogsheads and barrels,
indicated its extent. Above these hung proof-glasses, tap-borers,
a measuring rod, and decanting pump; interspersed
on the walls were bunches of chalk-scores in perpendicular
and transverse lines. Near by was a small counter covered
with tumblers and toddy sticks; and when Margaret
entered, one or two ragged will-gill looking men stood there
mixing and bolting down liquors. Had she looked into the
counting-room, she would have seen a large fireplace in
one corner, a high desk, round-back arm-chairs, and several
hampers of wine.

Margaret sat waiting for two young ladies, who appeared
to have some business with the clerk. These were Bethia
Weeks, the daughter of one of the village squires, and Martha
Madeline Gisborne, the daughter of the joiner. The
clerk's name was Abel Wilcox.

“For my part,” said Miss Bethia, “I don't believe a
word of it.”

“He has kept steady company with her every time he
has been in town,” responded Miss Martha Madeline.

“As if every upstart of a lawyer was to Captain Grand
it over all the girls here,” added the clerk.

“I don't think the Judge's folk are better than some
other people's folk,” said Martha Madeline.

“Susan is a nice girl,” rejoined Bethia.

“I should not be surprised if they were cried next Sabbath,”
said Martha Madeline.

“I guess there will be more than one to cry then,” added
Bethia.

“Now don't; you are really too bad,” rejoined Abel.

This conversation continuing some time, was unintelligible
to Margaret, as we presume it is to our readers, and it
were idle to report it.

“How much shall I measure you of this tiffany, Matty?”
at length asked Abel.

“Perhaps I shall not take any now,” replied the young
lady. “You give three shillings for cotton cloth, and this
is nine and six, a yard; I declare for't I shall have to put
to; and I must get some warp at any rate. We have been
waiting for some we sent up to Brown Moll's to be colored,
and I don't think it will ever be done.”

“There's young Moll, now,” said Abel, pointing to Margaret.

“Has your Marm got that done?” asked Martha Madeline.

“She has not,” replied Margaret.

“A book, a book!” exclaimed the same young lady.
“The Injin has got a book. She will be wise as the
Parson.”

“Can you say your letters?” asked Bethia.

“Yes,” answered Margaret.

“Who is teaching you?”

“The Master.”

“Pshaw!” ejaculated Martha Madeline, “I never was
at school in my life. Now all the gals is going; such as
can't tell treadles from treacle have got books. And here
the Master goes up to that low, vile, dirty place, the Pond,
to larn the brats.”

Margaret came forward and stated her errand to the
clerk.

“Yes, I dare say, she wants rum,” added Martha Madeline.
“Daddy says there is no sense in it; they will all
come to ruin; he says Pluck and his boys drink five or
six glasses a day, and that nobody should think of drinking
more than three. Parson Welles says it's a sin for any
family to have more than a gallon a week. There's Hopestill
Cutts, he has been kept out of the church this ten
months because he won't come down to half a pint a day.”

“Never mind,” interposed the clerk, “I guess they will
find their allowance cut short this time, ha! ha! Here
ain't eggs enough, gal.”

“Ma'm says you must give a shilling a dozen,” replied
Margaret.

“Perhaps your Marm will say that again before we do,”
rejoined the clerk. “Eggs don't go for but ninepence in
Livingston or any where else.”

Margaret was in a dilemma; — the rum must be had, the
other articles were equally necessary.

“Pa will pay you,” she bethought herself.

“No he won't,” answered the clerk.

“Chilion will bring you down skins, axe-helves, and
whip-stocks.”

“I tell you, we can't and won't trust you. Your drunken
dad has run up a long chalk already. Look there, I guess
you know enough to count twelve; — twelve gallons he
owes now. You are all a haggling, gulching, good-for-nothing
crew.”

“I will bring you chesnuts and thistle down in the fall,”
replied Margaret.

“Can't trust any of you. What will you take for your
book?”

“I can't sell it; the Master gave it to me.”

“If he would teach you to pay your debts he would do well.”

A little girl came in about the age of Margaret, and
stood looking attentively at her a moment, as one stranger
child is wont to do with another; then lifting Margaret's
hat as it were inspecting her face, said. “She is not an
Injin; they said she was; her face is white as mine.”
This little girl was Isabel Weeks, sister of Bethia.

“Ha, Belle!” said the latter, “what are you here for?”

“I came to see the Injin. Have you got a book too?”
she said, addressing herself to Margaret. “Can you say
your letters?”

“Yes,” replied Margaret, “but they want it for rum.”

“That's wicked; I know it is. Ma wouldn't let me
give my spelling-book for rum. I have threepence in my
pocket—you may have them.”

“Save a thief from hanging and he will cut your throat,”
said Martha Madeline.

“Can't bore an auger hole with a gimlet,” interjected
Abel; “two threepences won't be enough, Miss Belle.”

“Judah has got tenpence, I'll go and get them,” answered
Isabel.

The dog at this moment seeing the trouble of his mistress
began to growl and the young ladies to scream.

“Out with your dog, young wench, and go home,” cried
the clerk.

“Lie down Bull!” said Margaret. “Here, sir, you may
have the book.”

The bargain being completed, Margaret took her
articles, and left the store; and Isabel followed her.

The two children went across the Green in silence.
Isabel said nothing, but with her pinafore wiped the tears
from Margaret's eyes. She was too young, perhaps, to tell
all she felt, and could only alleviate the grief she beheld by
endeavoring to efface its effects.

Margaret, happy, unhappy, fagged up the hill; she had
lost her book, she had got the rum; she was miserable
herself, she knew her family would be pleased; yet she was
wholly sad when she thought of the Master and then of her
book. She left the highway and crossed the Pasture. The
sun had gone down when she reached the woods; she feared
not; her dreams, her own fresh heart, and the dog were
with her. The shadow of God was about her, but she
knew Him or It not; she was ignorant as a Hottentot.
She came to the bridge; the water ran deep and dark
below her. Who will look into her soul as she looked into
the water? Who will thread the Via Dolorosa of her
spirit. For the music, the murmurs of that brook, there
were no ears, as there were none for hers. Yet she looked
into the water, which seemed to hiss and race more merrily
over the stones as she looked. She heard owls and frogs;
and she might almost have heard the tread of the saturnine
wood-spider, at work in his loom with his warp-tail and

shuttle-feet, working a weft which the dews were even then
embroidering, to shine out when the sun rose in silver
spangles and ruby buds; and her own soul, woven as
silently in God's loom, was taking on impressions from
those dark woods, that invisible universe, to shine out when
her morning dawns. Alas! when shall that be; in this
world, in the next? Is there any place here for a pure
beautiful soul? If none, then let Margaret die. Or shall
we let her murmur on, like the brook, in hopes that some
one will look into her waters and be gladdened by her
sound? She ran on through the Chesnuts, the strange old
bald trees seeming to move as she moved, those more
distant shooting by the others in rapid lines, performing a
kind of spectral pantomime. Run on, Margaret! and let the
world dance round you as it may.

When she reached home, she found the family all a-bed,
excepting Chilion, who was sitting in the dark, patiently,
perhaps doggedly, waiting for her.

He gave her somewhat to eat, and she went to bed, and
to that forgetfulness which kind Nature vouchsafes to the
most miserable.

7. CHAPTER VII.
RETROSPECTIVE AND EXPLANATORY.

At this day of comparative abstinence and general sobriety,
one is hardly prepared to receive the accounts that
might be given of the consumption of intoxicating liquors
in former times. In the Old World, drinking was cultivated
as an Art; it was patronized by courtiers, it fellow-shipped
with rustics; it belonged to the establishment, and
favored dissent; it followed in the wake of colonial migration,
and erected its institutions in the New World. Contemporary
with the foundation, it flourished with the growth
and dilated with the extension of this Western Empire.
Herein comes to pass a singular historical inversion; what
we rigorously denounce as “distilled damnation,” the Puritans
cheerily quaffed under the names of “Strong Water,”
and “Aqua Vitæ.” While we expel rum from our houses
as a pestilence, an earlier age was wont to display it with
picturesque effect, and render it attractive by environments
of mahogany and silver.

In Livingston there were five distilleries for the manufacture
of cider-brandy, or what was familiarly known as
pupelo. There was also consumed a proportionate quantity
of alcoholic liquors of other kinds. The amount annually
required for a population of about twelve hundred
could not have been less than six thousand gallons. It
found its way into every family, loaded many sideboards,
filled innumerable jugs; all denominations of men bowed

to its supremacy. In the account kept with Parson
Welles at Deacon Penrose's, rum composed at least one
half the items. Master Elliman, as we have seen, was not
exempt from the habits of his age. He drank constantly,
and at times excessively. To the cheer prevailing at the
Pond he was no stranger. His botanical excursions were
enlivened and relieved by the humor of Pluck and the liberality
of his entertainment. There were other causes
operating to bring together these two persons of qualities
and manners in some respects so apparently opposed. On
these we must beg the patience of the reader while we
briefly delay.

The first permanent settlement in Livingston was effected
in the year 1677, at the close of the war of King Philip or
Pometacom, the chief of the Wampanoags. The original
inhabitants came partly from the old colonies, and were
reënforced by migrations direct from Europe. A one-story
log-house with thatched roof constituted the primitive
church edifice; a tin horn, in place of a bell, being used to
summon the people to worship. What is now known as the
Green early became the centre of the town, and on the four
streets before mentioned many of the planters established
themselves. The town underwent and survived the various
incidents and vicissitudes that belong to our national history;
Queen Anne's war, Lovell's war, the Seven Years'
war, incursions from the Indians, drafts of men for the
frontiers, small-pox, throat-distemper, Antinomianism, Newlightism,
Scotch Presbyterianism, an attempted “visit from
Whitefield,” settling ministers, the stamp-act, succession of
sovereigns, kings in England, governors at home, earthquakes,
tornadoes, depreciation of currency, taxes, etc., etc.
A period of more exciting interest approached. The question
of a final separation from the mother country engaged

all minds. Committees of Safety, Inspection, Vigilance or
Correspondence, whatever they might be called, were
formed in every village; these cöperated with the County
Committees, which in their turn became auxiliary to those
of the State. “The towns,” say our historians, “assumed,
in some respects, the authority of an individual community,
an independent republic. The Committee met daily and
acted in a legislative, executive and judicial capacity. All
suspicious persons were brought before them, and if found
guilty were condemned.” “Numerous arrests, imprisonments
and banishments were made.” “The Committee
was empowered to use military force. Many tories and
their families were expelled the State, and others required
to give security to reside in prescribed limits; and occasionally
the jails, and even the churches, were crowded
with prisoners, and many were sent for safe-keeping to the
jails of neighboring States.” An “Association,” as it was
termed, covenant, or oath, was prepared and offered for the
signatures of the people of Livingston. The sessions of the
court, which had been interrupted elsewhere, received little
or no disturbance in this town. Judge Morgridge, a resident
of the place, who received his commission under the
king, and faithfully administered the old laws of the State,
was equally devoted to the interests of the people. News
of the battle of Lexington had arrived; Tony, the negro
barber, fiddler and drummer, had gone through the streets
at midnight, sounding alarms from time to time.

Court week came, and in addition to such scenes as for
many years had characterized that occasion—huckstering,
wrestling, horse-racing—at the present moment there assembled
great quantities of people, from Livingston itself, and
the neighboring towns, who were animated by unusual
topics. There was little business for the functionaries of

law, and more for the officers of the people. The County
Committee was in session. Numbers of delinquents were
brought from various parts, and lodged in the jail. The
Crown and Bowl was filled with people, among whom was
Pluck. While others were drinking to the Continental
Congress, he toasted the king; when rebuked, he replied
in some wanton language. This, in addition to other conduct
of a suspicious nature, exposed him to the action of
the Committee, before which he was taken; that body consisting
in part of his fellow-townsmen, Deacon Hadlock and
Mr. Gisborne the joiner. The proceedings in his case may
be known by the subjoined extract from the records:—

The next day an event occurred that aroused the people
still more against Pluck. Another individual in town had
rendered himself obnoxious to public sentiment. This was
Colonel Welch, a brother-in-law of Judge Morgridge, who
had derived his title for services against the French in the
Seven Years' war. He occupied a large house at the
head of the West Street, near “Deacon Hadlock's Pasture.”
He refused to sign the Association, and used language
which gave the people cause to doubt his patriotism.
He declined also accepting a command in the Continental
army, and intimated that his present commission could not
be supplanted or nullified. He had already been summoned
before the Town Committee, where his replies were
not satisfactory. Further measures were proposed.

At this crisis of affairs, late in the evening, Judge
Morgridge visited his brother-in-law, and informing
him of what was in progress, suggested that he had no
other alternative but recantation or flight. The Colonel
replied that the former he would not do, and if it

came to the latter, that should be done; and with his family
made hasty preparations for departure. In the middle of
the night he left Livingston, went to New York, whence
he ultimately sailed for Nova Scotia. When the two families
had indulged those tokens of regret, speedily finished,
which were natural to the occasion, and the Colonel was on
the point of starting, it was discovered that one horse delayed,
and the cause was soon obvious. Cæsar, a servant
of Judge Morgridge, was found clinging passionately to
Phillis, the servant of the Colonel. Such a moment for the
expression of what they might feel was certainly most inopportune,
and the lovers were unceremoniously parted.
The next morning, Pluck understanding from Cæsar what
had happened, and withal as we say now-a-days, endeavoring
to make capital out of the fellow's distress, appeared
on the Green, and more than half in liquor made boast
of toryism, applauded the conduct of Colonel Welch,
and declaimed on the cruelty practised towards the negro.
Already sufficiently odious, he would have done better not
to trifle with an indignant populace. He was declared not
only inimical but dangerous, and by order of the Committee
was confined in jail.

Among a multitude of fellow-prisoners Mr. Hart found
one of whom till that moment he had known but little; this
was his townsman and subsequent acquaintance, Master
Elliman. This gentleman, inveterately attached to olden
time, without reverence for the people, and as his subsequent
conduct would indicate, with no other regard for
kings than what consisted in a preference for an old and
long-established state of things over any new projects that
might be started, possibly unwilling to have his quiet
disturbed, perhaps averse to receiving dictation from those
whose children he had flogged, or who themselves may

have been under his thumb; certainly we have reason
to believe, from no conscientious scruples; this gentleman,
we say, received the Committee who waited upon him
with an irritating indifference, and refused to sign the
oath. It was considered unsafe to have him at large,
and he was thrown into prison.

Thus commenced an intimacy that in the result proved
not unfavorable to one as yet unborn, Margaret. Whatever
points of resemblance might exist between Pluck
and the Master, these became strengthened by their
confinment together, and contrariety was forgotten in a
sense of common sorrow. The cells of the jail were
crowded, comforts did not overflow, and whatever relief
could be had from an exchange of sympathies the convicts
would naturally betake themselves to. In the end
it appeared that Pluck and the Master became very good
friends, and the visits of the latter to the Pond, originating
in the double cause which has now been related, were
in after years not infrequent. Add to this a deep and
ingenuous interest in Margaret, and we shall understand
why he came so often to her house, and exerted himself
so readily for her instruction. The durance of these
recusants lasted no more than two or three months.—
Pluck, as being of less consequence, was released almost
on his own terms. In the Kidderminster Chronicle
appeared the following, which relates to the Master:—

8. CHAPTER VIII.
MARGARET'S OLDEST BROTHER, NIMROD, COMES HOME. — HE
PROPOSES A VARIETY OF DIVERSIONS.

Nimrod made his annual visit to his father's. Where
he had been, or what he did, none asked, none knew. His
appearance would indicate the sailor and the horse-jockey;
he wore a tarpauling and blue jacket, high-top boots
with spurs, and leather trousers; he flourished a riding
stick, commonly known as a cowhide, and had large gold
rings dangling in his ears. He rode a horse, a cast-iron
looking animal, thin and bony, of deep gray color, called
Streaker. He seemed to have money in his pocket, as he
evidently had brandy in his saddle-bags and humor in his
soul. He brought one or two books for Margaret, to whom
he showed great attachment, and whose general management
seemed surrendered to him, while he was at home.
These books were Mother Goose's Melodies, National
Songs, and Bewick's Birds with plates. He gave her, in
addition, a white muslin tunic with pink silk skirt. Nimrod
was tall in person, with bluish, lively eyes, light hair
and a playful expression of face. All the family seemed
delighted with his return; Pluck, because his son's temper
was congenial with his own; his mother, for some presents;
Hash, because of the brandy; Chilion was happy to see his
brother; and Margaret for obvious reasons. He leaped
from his horse and ran to Margaret, who met him at the
door; raised her in his arms, kissed her, set her down, took
her up again, made her leap on his horse, caught her off and

kissed her a second time. “Can you spell Streaker?”
said he, which she did. “Ah, you little rogue!” he added,
“you are spruce as a blue-jay.”

“Has the Indian come yet?”

“He was here last week.”

“An't you afraid of him?”

“No. The little girl that was with him gave me some
apples.”

“That's you, for a broad joe! Never be afraid of any
body, or any thing, two-legged or four-legged, black, white,
blue or gray, streaked or speckled, on the earth or in the
air. I have learned that lesson. How is our other Margaret,
the Peach tree?”

“Don't you see what beautiful red peaches there are
on it?”

“Yea, verily,” as the Master says, “this is like a wood-chuck
in clover. These are sweet and luscious as your
cheek, Margaret.”

Nimrod ran into the house, and out to the cistern, and
towards the Pond, and up the Head. He shook his father's
hand heartily; to his mother he made a low bow; Hash
chuckled and grinned at sight of him, and Nimrod laughed
harder in response. Chilion greeted him cordially, but said
little. Bull he held up by his paws, made sundry bows and
grimaces to the dog, and talked to him like an old friend,
so that Margaret declared the animal laughed.

If Nimrod were enjoying a furlough or vacation, or any
thing of the kind, it seemed to be his purpose to make the
most of it. He talked of the meeting in the woods, a turkey
hunt the next moon, a husking bee, thanksgiving ball,
racing, and a variety of things. In whatever he undertook,
Margaret was his constant attendant; and at some risk
even, he carried her into all scenes of wildness, exposure

and novelty; nor can it be said she was loth to go with her
brother.

The meeting in the woods was the first in order of time.
This practice, imported from England, began to flourish
incipiently in our country. From the suburbs of old cities,
from church-yards, court-yards, gardens, the scene was
transferred to pine forests, shady mountains, and a maiden
greensward. Heptenstall Bank was revived in Snake
Hill. The scoffing Kentishmen appeared in the “Injins,”
No. 4's and Breaknecks. What lived in Europe must
needs luxuriate in America. The jumpers of Wales were
outdone by the jerkers of Kentucky.

The meeting was to be held in the district we have before
spoken of as Snake Hill, lying four or five miles north
of the Pond. Nimrod started off horseback, with Margaret
behind him on a pillion. Hash and Bull went afoot. At
the Widow Wright's, they found that lady with her son
mounting their horse,—a small black animal resembling
the Canada breed, called Tim,—and just ready to proceed
on the same excursion. The Widow was solemn and collected,
and she greeted Nimrod, for whom she had no love,
with a smile that a susceptible eye might have construed
into coldness. Tim, the horse, had a propensity for dropping
his ears, biting and kicking, when a stranger approached.
He began some demonstrations of this sort
as Nimrod came up. Whether Nimrod regarded this an
insult on Streaker, or was nettled at the manner of the
woman, or to gratify his own evil taste, he dealt the horse
a smart blow with his cowhide. Tim darted off at full
jump; insomuch that Obed and his mother, with all their
use to his back and manners, had much ado to keep their
seat. Nimrod ambled forward about a mile to a house
known as Sibyl Radney's, where he overtook the Widow

breathing her beast. Sibyl lived alone with her mother in
the woods, cultivated a small farm, kept a horse and cow,
mowed, cut wood, and did all her work without aid. Her
face and neck were deeply browned, her arm was like that
of a blacksmith. She was also getting ready for Snake
Hill. Nimrod contrived to stimulate the three horses into
a race; which was executed in a manner a fox-hunter
might have envied, through brambles, over stumps, across
ditches.

The spot to which these riders directed their way was
in a forest on the crown of a hill. A circular opening had
been cut among the trees for the purposes of the meeting.
At one end of this amphitheatre was the pulpit, constructed
of rough boards; about the sides were arranged the tents
or camps, made for the most part of hemlock boughs. Slab
seats filled the area between. In the centre of the whole
was a huge pile of wood to be kindled in the evening for
warmth if need be, or for light. There were also booths
on the outside for the sale of cider, rum, gingerbread, and
the practice of various games. Here were assembled people
from twenty different towns. Nimrod fastened his
horse to the trees amongst scores of others. The Widow
reminding Nimrod of the circumstances of the place, admonished
him of his recklessness. “I cal'late God is
here,” said she, “and you had better not be pokin' your
fun about.” Compassionating the dangerous situation of
Margaret, she requested that she might be delivered to her
care. Nimrod, knowing he should find entertainment of a
sort that would not be agreeable to the child, yielded her
to the Leech. He and Sibyl went towards the booths, and
Mistress Wright, leaning on the arm of her son, leading
Margaret, entered the encampment. Three men in black
occupied the pulpit, their heads powdered, with white
stocks and bands, and straight square-cut collars. One of

them, a tall bronze-complexioned man, was addressing the
congregation.

“The sacred flame,” said he, “has spread in Virginia.
Brother Enfield, the assistant in the Brunswick Circuit,
conjectures that from eighteen hundred to two thousand
souls have been converted since the middle of May.
Twelve hundred experienced the work of grace in Sussex;
in Amelia half as many more. Many Christians had severe
exercises of mind respecting the great noise that attended
this work of God. Some thought it was not divine; yet
from its effects they dare not ascribe it to Satan; but when
the Lord broke in upon their own families, they saw it at
once, and began to bemoan their own hardness of heart.
Many gospel-hardened, old, orthodox sinners, have, as
mighty oaks, been felled; and many high-towering sinners,
as the tall cedars of Lebanon, bowed down to the dust. As
many as fifteen or twenty commonly gave up in a day under
Brother Staffin's preaching, who is indeed a Samson
among the Philistines. It is no strange thing now for
children down to seven years of age to come in.”

The Preacher then digressed in a strain of exortation
designed to reproduce effects similar to those he had recounted.
A thunder cloud gathered in the sky, and buried
the woods in darkness. “That,” said he, “is the shadow
of hell. It is the smoke of torments that ascendeth up forever
and ever.” The thunder burst upon the camp, its
hollow roar reverberated among the hills. “Behold!”
he exclaimed, “God proclaims his law in fire and smoke!”
It began to rain, “What!” continued he, “can you not
endure a little wetting, when you will so soon call for a
drop of water to cool your parched tongues?” Lightnings
blazed through the trees. “The great day of
the Lord is coming, when the elements shall melt with

fervent heat; the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise, the earth also shall be burned up.” There was a
movement in the congregation. “Oh my soul!” “Jesus
save!” “Glory! glory!” rang from seat to seat. “It
is the Lord's doings, and marvellous in our eyes,” exclaimed
one of the men in the pulpit. Nimrod and his
confreres from the booths ran in to see what had
befallen. There sat Obed waving to and fro in his
seat, groaning, and calling upon his mother. “Yes, my
son,” exclaimed the latter convulsively, “its an orful time.
God has come, we are great sinners. I han't done my duty
by ye. Parson Welles would let us all go teu hell together.”
“What a mercy,” exclaimed another, “we can come
where the gospel is preached!” “O Lord, forgive me,”
cried a third, “for going to the Universal up to Dunwich;
I do believe there is a hell, I do believe there is a
hell.” “I have been down among the Socinians,” echoed
a fourth. “God be praised I have found where there is
some religion at last. Glory, glory!”

The Preacher, the storm and the effect increased. Some
of the congregation foamed at the mouth, others fell to the
ground in spasms; the color of their faces fluctuating from
white through purple to black; one appeared to be strangling
and gasping for life, another became stiff, rigid, and sat
up like a dead man on his seat; there were sobs,
shrieks, and ejaculations. The thunder crashed, as if
the heavens had split and the earth would give way.
There was a stifled groan, a shuddering recoil among the
people; the Preacher himself seemed for a moment
stunned. Margaret screamed to the top of her voice, which
sounded like a clarion over an earthquake. Nimrod impulsively
rushed among the people, dashed Obed from
his seat, seized Margaret and drew her out.

The Preacher recovering himself as he observed this
movement, “Son of Belial!” he broke forth, “thinkest
thou to stop the mighty power of God? Will he deliver
that child into thy hand as he did the children of Israel
into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim? Stop, on thy soul,
and repent, lest ye die.”

“I guess I shan't die before my time,” retorted Nimrod,
“nor any sooner for your croaking, old Canorum. The
child is getting wet, and she is sca't. I han't lived in the
woods to be skeered at owls.”

“A scoffer!” “A scoffer!” one or another exclaimed.
The people began to look up and about them. The tide of
feeling was somewhat diverted. “O, there will be mourning,
mourning, mourning,” &c., was pealed forth from
the pulpit, and a full chorus of voices chimed in. The
Preacher renewed his exhortations, and the attention of
the assembly was regained. Groans and sobs began once
more. “This beats the Great Earthquake all hollow,” exclaimed
one of the congregation. “Yes,” echoed the
Preacher, “what a rattling among the dry bones.” “O
Lord!” cried one of the assistants, “send an earthquake,
shake these sinners, send it quick, send it now. There
were near four hundred converted at the last earthquake
in Boston.” “O, what a harvest of souls we should have,
brother!” rejoined the Preacher. “Help me with your
prayers, brethren, as Aaron and Hur did Moses.”

In due time these exercises closed. After supper in the
evening the pile of wood was kindled, pine knots were
lighted at the corners of the pulpit; the horn blew and the
people reassembled. Margaret ran off into the woods with
her dog and laid down under a tree, her head resting on
the flanks of the animal, and her feet nestling in the soft
moss. Nimrod was drinking and roistering at the booths.

At the close of the evening service, the people dispersed
to their tents. A middle aged man, Mr. Palmer,
from the Ledge, happening in the woods, saw Margaret
asleep under the trees, took her in his arms, carried her
into one of the tents, and gave her in charge of his wife.
The good woman with one hand patted Margaret on her
head, while with the other she tended her own with a pinch
of snuff, and asked her if she didn't want to be saved.
Margaret replied that she didn't know.

“The spirit is here mightily,” said the woman, taking a
fresh pinch, “won't you come in for a share?”

“It won't let me,” replied Margaret.

“You may lose your soul.”

“I haven't got any.”

“Mercy on me!” exclaimed the woman, “Don't you
know the devil will get you if you don't come in?”

“It won't,” replied Margaret, “Bull won't let it.”

“What will you do when all the little boys and gals
goes up a singing?”

“I'll stay at home and hear Chilion play on the fiddle,
and read my new books.”

“Luddy mussy! can you read? Where do you live?”

“Down to the Pond.”

“Han't they got any of the religion at your house?”

“No, Ma'm, they drink pupelo and rum.”

“A born fool!” ejaculated the woman with herself.—
“But she can read, she must be knowing. Wonder if the
power is'nt in her? She will certainly die, and she an't
no more ready than our Rufus.”

The people began to crowd into the tent, among whom
were Mistress Wright and her son Obed. The widow made
immediately for Margaret, who with Mistress Palmer, was

sitting on the straw in a corner apart. She heard the latter
lady's soliloquy, and added, “O no, I'm afeered she an't.”

“What's the matter of the child?” asked Mistress
Palmer.

“Don't know Marm,” replied the Widow. “I wish
sutthin' could be done for her, she's bred in orful wickedness.
Any sick up your way, Miss Palmer? I've brought
a few yarbs with me. If we could only keep the poor sinners
alive long enough teu save their souls it would be a
marcy.”

The speakers were interrupted by noises in the tent, into
which a large number of people had found their way, who
began to sing, exhort and pray. They had Obed down flat
on his back. The mouth of the lad was open, his eyes
shut; he shook spasmodically, he groaned with a deep guttural
guffaw. Men and women were over and about him;
some praying, others crying, “Glory!” The Preacher
came in, a bland smile on his face, rubbing his hands;
“Good!” he ejaculated with a short, quick snap of the
voice. “The Lord is here, Miss Palmer,” said he.

“Yes in truth, you told us we should have a great time,”
rejoined the woman. “But see this gal, I wonder if any
thing can be done with her.”

“Ah! my little lamb,” said the Preacher, taking Margaret's
hand and drawing her gently towards him. “Hope
you have found the Savior, you are old enough to repent.”
Margaret wrested herself from him. “What's the matter,
dear?” inquired the man. “You are not one of the
wicked children that reviled the prophet, and the bears
came out of the woods and tare them in pieces?”

“I an't afraid of the bears,” replied Margaret pettishly.

“A mazed child! a mazed child!” exclaimed Mistress
Palmer.

“Don't you want to be converted?” asked the Preacher.

“I don't like you, I don't like you,” replied Margaret.
“You hollered so and scared Obed, he's scared now. They
are hurting him,” she said, pointing where the youth lay.
Darting from her company, she penetrated the crowd and
knelt down by the side of Obed. “Poor Obed!” she said,
“dont make such a noise, Molly is here.”

“I am going to hell,” hoarsely and mournfully replied
the boy.

“The arrows of the Almighty are thick upon him,”
ejaculated the Preacher.

“If the Lord would only grant him deliverance!” said
his mother, looking through the crowd.

“Pray, brother, pray, sister,” said the Preacher, addressing
one and another. “Jacob wrestled all night in
prayer with God. The Ark is now going by. Three have
already closed with the offers in Dunwich tent.”

“Don't cry so, Obed,” said Margaret. “They shan't
hurt you.”

“The devil is in that child, take her away,” said the
Preacher.

Some one endeavored to pull her off. “Let me alone,
she exclaimed, “I can't go, I won't go,” and she adhered
to the boy, whose arm had become closed about her neck
as that of a man in a fit.

There was a hubbub of voices; men and women reeking
with excitement, and vieing one with another who should
pray the most importunately.

“What are ye doing here?” shouted a still louder voice
over the heads of the crowd. It was Nimrod, who half intoxicated
thrust himself among them. “Bite um Bull,
bite um,” he rubbed the dog's ears and holding him between
his legs, teased him into a piercing yelp and howl that startled
the people.

“Bull! Bull!” shrieked Obed. “He's comin', he'll bite.”
The lad sprang to his feet staring wildly about.

“Satan has come in great wrath,” cried the Preacher.

“And I guess you know as much about him as any
body, old Cackletub!” rejoined Nimrod. “You set them
all a-going, and then snap them up like a hawk.”

“Hoora!” shouted another of the scoffers from the others'
side of the tent. “I hearn him comin' down a tree jest
now; look out or he'll be in your hair, white-top.”

Meanwhile the uproar deepened, profanity and fanaticism,
like opposing currents of air, meeting in that confined
space, wrapped the scene in confusion and dismay; lights
were extinguished, friends and enemies tore at each others'
throats; Sibyl Radney, alone collected and resolute, drew
Margaret from the midst, and returned with her to the
Pond.

9. CHAPTER IX.
MARGARET SUCCESSFUL IN A NOVEL ADVENTURE.

A few days afterwards, there came to the Widow
Wright's Mr. Palmer from the Ledge, the man who found
Margaret in the woods and delivered her to his wife. He
purchased of the Widow a prescription for his daughter
Rhody, who he said was not in strong health, and then
stated that his family had been troubled for want of water,
and intimated a conjecture of his wife that Margaret was
one in whom resided the faculty of discovering it, and asked
the Widow if she would accompany him to Pluck's, and
aid in procuring the services of the child for the purpose
indicated. They went to the Pond, where Mr. Palmer
gained the consent of the family to his object, and especially
that of Nimrod, who evinced a positive delight in the
project, and even volunteered to be Margaret's gallant on
the occasion. They all proceeded together, accompanied
by the Widow, who suggested that her personal attention
might be of benefit to Rhody. The Ledge was six or
seven miles from the Pond. It was properly speaking a
marble quarry, and belonged to Mr. Palmer, who with his
sons, in addition to a large farm they carried on, sometimes
worked at gravestones and hearths.

Mr. Palmer was in popular phrase a forehanded man,
his house and barns were large, and his grounds indicated
thrift. He had three sons, Roderick, Alexander
and Rufus, stout, vigorous boys; and one daughter
Rhody, about seventeen, a fair-looking, black-haired girl.

This family were obliged to fetch their water from a
considerable distance, not having been able to find a
spring near the house. Agreeably to the doctrines of
rhabdomancy, formerly in vogue, and at the present moment
not entirely discarded, a twig, usually of witchhazle,
borne over the surface of the ground, indicates the presence
of water to which it is instinctively alive, by stirring
in the hand. The number of persons would seem to be
small in whom this power is lodged, or through whom the
phenomenon exhibits itself. It appeared that the neighborhood
had been canvassed for an operator, but none succeeded.
It occurred to Mistress Palmer, at the camp, that
Margaret might be endowed with the rare gift, and she was
accordingly sent for.

The family at the Ledge showed great joy on the arrival
of the party from the Pond. Mistress Palmer took a pinch
of snuff, and helped Margaret from the horse, and even received
Nimrod kindly, although his pranks at the meeting
might have operated to his prejudice. The large pewter
tankard of cider was passed round, but Margaret refused
to taste, saying she should prefer water. “Dear me! we
hav'nt a drop of decent water in the house,” exclaimed
Mistress Palmer. “The gal shall have some milk, the
best we have; Rhody get some of the morning's; pour it
out cream and all.” Of this Margaret drank freely. “Poor
thing!” ejaculated the lady, “she don't know as she has
got a soul, and our Rufus is nigh as bad, for he won't do
nothing to save his.”

“I tell you what it is, Marm,” rejoined Rufus, her
youngest son, about twelve or fourteen years of age; “I
an't going to have that old preacher whining and poking
about me. I believe I can get to heaven without his help;
if I can't, then I am willing to stay away.”

“Well, well, child,” replied the mother, “I shall not care
how, if you get there at all, only I want you to be a good
boy.” She took a large pinch of snuff. These preliminaries
being settled, and Margaret having received her instructions
to hold the stick firmly and tell when it moved,
proceeded on her duty. She made sundry gyrations, she
traversed the grounds about the house, she tried the garden,
but effected nothing. “It is too wet,” said one; “it
is too cold,” said a second; “it is too dry,” said a third;
“it is too warm,” said a fourth. Mistress Palmer took a
pinch of snuff. Another trial was proposed. The child
went farther from the house, and perambulated the orchard.
All looked on with a breathless interest; she moved about
slowly and carefully, the stick held horizontally forward in
her two fists — a little diviner, in green rush hat and Indian
moccasons; the wind shook her brown curls, her blue
checked pinafore streamed off like a pennon. Did they do
wrong to use a little creature so? Yet is not God useful?
Is not Utility the sister of Beauty? At last she cried out
that it moved. Mr. Palmer hastened forward and struck
his spade into the spot; Margaret ran off. Presently
there were signs of water, then it bubbled up, then it
gushed forth a clear limpid stream. Mr. Palmer praised
God. The boys hoora'd. Mistress Palmer took a pinch
of snuff.

“Taste on't, Alek,” said Rufus.

“No,” replied the father. “It belongs to the finder to
be the first taster. The gal, where is she?”

Rufus was despatched for Margaret. He found her at
the quarry trying to get a harebell that grew far above her
head. The boy crouched under her, and she, stepping on
his shoulders, reached the flower. When she would have
descended, Rufus fastened his arms about her and bore her

off on his back, pappoose-like. Approaching the spot where
the water was found, she leaped down and scampered
around the house; Rufus pursued, she laughed, he laughed,
and full of frolic, he brought her to the spring. She said
she was not dry and would not drink, and would have run
away again; when Nimrod prevailed with her to the end
desired. Then they all drank, and pronounced it excellent
water. Mistress Palmer said it was soft and would
wash well; Mistress Wright declared it was nice to boil
mint in; Alexander didn't care if he hadn't to lug any
more from the brook. All were satisfied, and Margaret
became a wonder.

A sumptuous home-made dinner, with suet Indian-pudding
and molasses for dessert, was served on bright pewter
plates with stag-horn knives and forks. After this, Rufus
brought Margaret a marble flower-pot he had made, also a
kitten very well executed, which he had cut from the same
material. Rhody gave her a root of the Guelder rose.
Mr. Palmer paid the Widow handsomely for her visit to
his daughter, whose case she elaborately investigated.
He offered money to Nimrod, who refused it. Mistress
Palmer presented Margaret with a roll of beautiful linen of
her own manufacture.

“Thank Miss Palmer,” said Nimrod to his sister.

“O no!” exclaimed the lady. “Take it and welcome,
and any thing we have got. But do, my young friend,”
she added as he was mounting his horse, “do think on your
ways, strive, strive, who knows but you may find the good
thing at last? And the little gal—she is a good child as
ever was. It was very kind of her to come all the way up
here, and do us a service. She is worth her weight in
gold. I hope she will have a new heart soon. “Here,”
she continued, “let me help you on.” Margaret, scarcely

touching the woman's hand, sprang to the pillion. “Why,
how she jumps! She is as spry as a cricket. How pretty
she does look up there behind you; I must have a kiss at
her,—there—remember thy Creator in the days of thy
youth—and don't you forget, my young friend.—Good
day.”

“I want Rhody to kiss me,” said Margaret.

“Run Rhody,” said her mother.

“Did Rhody kiss you?” asked Nimrod, when they had
gone on a while without saying any thing.

“Yes,” was the reply.

10. CHAPTER X.
THANKSGIVING, OR NEW ENGLAND'S HOLIDAY.—MARGARET
HAS HER DIVERSION.

It is noticeable that we of the present age have fewer
holidays than our puritanical ancestors. “The King's
Birth Day” was formerly celebrated with great pomp; in
addition there were enjoyed “Coronation Days,” the
“Birth of a Prince,” Accessions and Burials of Governors,
Victories in War, Masonic Festivals, to say nothing of
Military Reviews, Election Days, Ordination of Ministers,
Executions for Murder; and at a still later period Washington's
Birth Day, now almost forgotten, and the Fourth
of July, at present diverted to a Sunday-school or Temperance
Festival. But of Thanksgiving; a day devoted to
mirth, gratefulness, hospitality, family love, eating, drinking;
a day sometimes externally snowy, drizzly, benumbing,
drenching; internally so elastic, smiling, lark-like, verdant,
blithe; it is not sanctified or squandered like Merry
Christmas in the Old World: it has no gooding, candles,
clog, carol, box, or hobby-horse; it has no poetry or song;
it does not come in the calendar, only by the Governor's
proclamation; New Englanders can sing with Old Englanders,
mutatis mutandis:—

They cannot add, —

Our houses and churches are brown and sear as the gardens
and orchards about them. The cedar may be green
in the woods, the box-tree, the fir and the pine together,
we never use them. In both cases, there is, or was, an
abundance of wassailing, dancing, gaming, shooting, and if
one pleases to say, “Heathenrie, Divelrie, Dronkennesse,
Pride.” We have no budding oak or holy-thorn, which
sprang from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, and bears
milk-white blossoms every Christmas day, in the forests of
Glastonbury; although no doubt such trees might be found
in our woods. Unlike Christmas, bread baked Thanksgiving
Eve moulds never the slower. Yet, bating ecclesiastical
days and a few calendar superstitions, which the dissenting
Colonists left behind, how much did they not bring
with them from their native soil! “We owe,” says the
Democratic Review, “our political institutions, and nearly
all the arrangements of our public, social and domestic life,
to our English ancestors.” In addition to religion, language,
habits, costume, fashions, science, art, architecture,
agriculture, the military and naval art, horses, carriages,
cows, sheep, grass, bells, knives and forks, glass ware,
apples, etc., etc., there floated across the sea, and has descended
the stream of Time, idiosyncrasies of temper, idioms
of speech, rhetorical figures, colloquial metaphors, an entire
dialect of vulgarisms, ballads, madrigals, maxims, witticisms,

witchcraft, bigotry, omens, a thousand and one fanciful
calculations on the moon, the weather, beasts, birds,—a
whole argosy. Some of these may be traced to the Saxons
and Britons, in unbroken succession. They still exist in
England, Germany, Sweden, nay, every where. We must
look perhaps for some great Oriental centre, some fountain
head beyond the Indus. The fathers of the Sanscrit, the
authors of the Vedas, the original Brahmins, whoever they
may have been, possibly the step-sons of Noah, seem to
have given population, language, law, philosophy, superstition,
and, saving Christ, religion to the world.

John Bull and Brother Jonathan, a North Briton and a
Yankee, have the same flesh and blood, the same corpuscular
ingredients, the same inspiration of the Almighty.
The latter differs from the former chiefly in this, breadth;
his legs are longer and his feet larger, because he has
higher fences and steeper hills to climb, and longer roads
to travel; he is more lank because he has not time to
laugh so much, since it takes him so long to go to mill, to
pasture, and the neighbors; he is less succulent and oozy
because he gets dry and hardened in the extensive tracts
of open air he has to traverse; he is more suspicious because
in his circuits he meets with more strangers; he is
more curious for the same reason; he is more inventive and
calculating for this same breadth, having no aids at hand,
and depending entirely on himself; his eye is keener because
he sees his objects at a greater distance; he is more
religious because he has farther to go for his religion, that
is to say, to meeting; men valuing what costs them much;
—the whole difference is breadth, interminable forests,
rivers, mountains, platitudinous farms, families reaching
from the Madawaska to the Yazoo. The same cause operates
to distinguish the Kentucky hunter from the Yankee,

cypress swamps, alligators, catamounts, the Indians, the
Mississippi. Sam Slick is an elongated and skinny John
Browdie, and David Crockett is the same “critter,”
knobbed and gnarled.

Thanksgiving was an anti-Christmas festival, established
as a kind of off-set to that. Yet both are a fealty paid to
the universal gala sentiment. We cannot always work, we
cannot always pray. So say young and old, grave and gay.
Hence, Hindoo Doorga, Celtic Juul, Jewish Succoth, Japanese
Majira, the Panathenæa, Fete des Fous, Volks-fest,
Carnival, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving.

Thanksgivings have been observed—what do we say?
The first Thanksgiving must have been of God's own ordaining
about the beginning of the new year 1621, that is
to say, the 25th of March, at New Plymouth, after a dismal
winter of destitution, disease and alarm, when the
snows were melting, and “brooks of sweet fresh water”
broke loose, the children found a new May-flower peeping
from the dead leaves, the buds of the dogwood began to
swell and the birds to sing, the “sick and lame recovered
apace,” and the Colonists saw something that looked like
living and home. The first Thanksgiving “by authority”
was, if we are agreed, June 13, 1632. We can hardly call
that a New England Thanksgiving, inasmuch as it embraced
but a handful of the people. The Indians must
have kept it as a Fast.

Thanksgivings were appointed for “the removal of sickness,”
“the precious life of our Sovereign;” “success of
the king of Prussia,” “the conquest of Martinico,” that
“God had been pleased to support our most gracious Queen
in the perils of childbirth,” “for success against the Indians,
so that scarce a name or family remain in their former
habitation,” “the suppression of rebellion in Great Britain,”

“the near view of peace.” Fasts, the antipodal holiday,
were proclaimed by reason of “the small-pox,” earthquakes,
inundations, and other calamities in Europe,”
“distressing Indian wars,” “that we may be preserved
against the rage of the heathen,” “the great number of
insects,” “drought,” “unseasonable rains,” “divisions in
our churches,” the “Ranters and Quakers,” “the low estate
of the people of God,” “some heathen yet in hostility,”
“the great distresses of Ministers, their salaries being paid
in depreciated paper.”

Thanksgiving was at hand for Livingston, the Pond,
Nimrod, Margaret. Its succedanea, as respects the latter,
were a turkey shoot the next day and a ball in the evening
at No. 4. If Margaret had lived in the village, or almost
any where else than the Pond, she might have enjoyed
the meeting of families, parents and children, grandparents
and grandchildren, uncles, cousins; she might
have united in the consumption of turkeys, chickens, plum-pudding,
pumpkin, mince and apple pies, beer, cider, flip;
she might have gone to church and heard a discourse from
Parson Welles on the distressing state of the times, and
the imminent danger from French influence, and learned
what a Philistine Napoleon Bonaparte was; she might
have gone to a party of boys and girls at Esq. Weeks's and
played “blind-man's buff,” “run round the chimney,” and
“button, button, who's got the button;” but she did not.
Yet she was quite busy at home. Two or three of the
preceding days she spent riding about with Nimrod to
invite company and arouse interest for the ball. They
went to Mr. Pottle's at Snake Hill, and Mr. Dunlap's at
Five-mile-lot, where they also encountered the camp
Preacher sedulously disputing the field with them. They
went also to the Ledge, where the Preacher followed.

But Mistress Palmer decided the question by saying that
Roderick, her oldest son, had professed a hope and would
not think of going, but that Rhody had not come forward at
all, and she thought the exercise would do her good, and
that Rufus, if he had been serious, had lost his impressions,
and it would not harm him to go.

Thanksgiving Eve was kept at the Pond in this wise:
their candles were pine torches, which they flourished about
the premises in pursuit of hens and turkeys; their clogs
were large clumps of bark crowded into the immense fireplace:
their carol consisted of oaths, smirks, songs; for ale
they had an abundance of cider brandy. No St. Nicholas
watched about the chimney during the night, or filled Margaret's
stocking in the morning. Who is the patron saint
of Thanksgiving? Only Chilion made her a present of a
beautiful blue-painted sled to coast with when the snows
came, and named Humming Bird. They had stewed chicken
and crust coffee for breakfast, and for dinner chickens
roasted by strings suspended before the fire, potatoes,
brown bread and cider. Pies and cakes were wanting.
The remainder of the time was occupied in preparing for
the events of the next day, scouring guns, polishing buckles,
and the like. Nimrod took occasion to renew his instructions
to Margaret in the dancing art, and Chilion intimated
some of his best tunes.

No. 4, to which the attention of the family was now directed,
lay in a valley below the Pond, formed by the passage
of Mill Brook, and was enriched by nature with fine
intervals and excellent drainages. The approach to the
place was by a narrow, woody, rocky road or lane. Here was
a large tavern, known as Smith's, and a distillery owned by
the same gentleman. In the language of a writer of the
times, this hamlet presented a spectacle of “houses without

windows, barns without roofs, gardens without enclosures,
fields without fences, hogs without yokes, sheep without
wool, meagre cattle, feeble horses, and half clad, dirty
children, without manners, principles or morals.” The
people were loungers about the tavern, which seemed to
have exhausted the life of the place, and to have diffused
over it instead, indolence, dreariness and sterility.

To this hamlet Nimrod bore Margaret, and Hash carried
his turkeys. The day was chilly and drizzling, and
Margaret was deposited in the kitchen of the tavern, where
she had a chance to become acquainted with Mr. Smith's
daughters, the Gubtailes, Hatchs, Tapleys, from the neighborhood,
Paulina Whiston, Grace Joy and Beulah Ann
Orff from Breackneck. The bar-room was filled with men
and boys, fumes of rum and tobacco, and a jargon of voices;
the air about was charged with the smoke of powder;
there were the report of rifles, the running to and fro of
men and boys, disputes about the shots, wrangling, and wrestling;
in all which Margaret had no share. Thus passed
the fore part of the day.

In the evening, Nimrod, as one of the masters of arrangements,
with Margaret, came early to the tavern.
Soon the ladies and gentlemen began to assemble. Of the
number were Pluck and his wife, the Widow Wright and
Obed, and Sibyl Radney. Abel Wilcox, the clerk, and
Hancock Welles, grandson of the Parson, from the village,
constituted the principal loafers. The hall was a
long unfinished upper room, having its naked timbers and
sleepers garnished with pine and hemlock. Tallow candles
in wooden blocks effected a rude illumination. The
ladies' dresses presented considerable variety; some had
made requisition on the wardrobes of their grandmothers,
some had borrowed from their neighbors, servants from

their mistresses; in a few appeared the latest style of the
cities; several wore gowns of their own manufacture, striped
or checked linen, with flowers elaborately wrought with the
needle. There were sacques, trails, and one or two hoops.
All had necklaces of gold, glass, or waxen beads. The
coiffures were equally diversified, consisting of tye-tops,
crape cushions, toupees, sustained and enriched with brass
and gilt clasps, feathers and flowers. Their shoes were
striped with a white welt. There was an agreeable inter-mixture
of old and faded brocades, rustling padusoys, and
shining lutestrings. Many wore ear hoops of pinch-beck,
large as a dollar.

The gentlemen exhibited a similar blending of old and
new patterns. If Joseph's coat of many colors had been
miraculously enlarged, and cut into separate garments, it
would form the appropriate suit of this assemblage, in which
red, blue, yellow, chocolate, butternut, green, and all hues
but black, were represented. Their hair was powdered,
and done in tyes, queues, frizzes. Margaret wore the
new dress Nimrod brought her, and her moccasons.
Pluck retained his leather apron, his wife had donned
a clean long-short. Chilion, the chief musician, had on
a pearl-colored coat, buff swansdown vest, white worsted
breeches and ribbed stockings. Tony Washington, the
negro barber from the village, and assistant violinist,
appeared in powdered hair, a faded crimson silk coat, ruffle
cuffs and white smalls. It was a singularly freaked and
speckled group. There were burly, weather-beaten faces
under powder and curls; broad, hard hands in kid gloves;
thewy, red elbows that had plied brooms, shuttles, cards, in
lace ruffles; there were bright eyes, smiling faces and many
pleasant words.

Chilion, whose general manner was reserved and obscure,

grew animated as the dance began. Margaret, omitted
at first, was presently called up by Rufus Palmer. None
were so young and small as she; but she enacted her part
with vigor and precision. Her father asked her for a
partner, and it gave her new life when she saw she pleased
him. She was, for the most part, among strangers, in a
strange place and strangely occupied. The lights, the
open fantastically shadowed garret above, the evergreens,
the windows shining with the dew of so many breaths, the
mystic motion, steps which one takes and comprehends not,
balancing, gallopading, confusion harmonized, oiled intricacies,
plough-boys graceful and boors mannerly, earnestness
of participation, so earnest that even in the height of the
sport no one smiles; and then more than this, the
clear, exhilarating, penetrating notes of the violin, and
Chilion's violin, that she always loved to hear, played in
its best way; the life of all this life, the motion of this motion,
the inspirer and regulator of this maze,—as to all
these things, she felt grateful to her brother, and for the
rest, she seemed to enjoy it with a deep unconsciousness of
joy.

One might have noticed her brother Chilion peculiarly
employed. He not only controlled the action, but
seemed to gratify himself in varying and modifying it. He
evidently fantasied with the company. He made them
move faster or slower as he pleased. He might have been
seen watching the effect of his viol, or his own effect through
it. Whatever power he possessed he exerted to the utmost.
He seemed to be playing more upon the dancers than upon
his instrument. In the midst of a figure he would accelerate
the parties, and whirl them to the end with frantic
rapidity and bewildering intent. In a contra-dance, to the
“Campbells are Coming,” never did plaided Highlander

leap down his native rocks with more headlong step than
those same pied bumpkins sprang over that hall floor. He
slackened the motion at the close, and dismissed them quietly
to their seats. In one of the intermissions might have
been seen entering the place the indefatigable Preacher.
He stole through the crowd, erected his tall dark form on
a bench, and taking advantage of the pause, broke upon
them like a thunder gust. His loud, guttural, solemn voice
rang through the room:—

“Thus saith the Lord God, thy pomp shall be brought
down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols!”

“A sermon! a sermon!” cried Abel Wilcox.

Preacher. “You look fair and seemly, but you are
stench in the nostrils of the Almighty.”

Crowd. “Another set, who'll lead off?”

Preacher. “The Lord will take away the bravery of
your tinkling ornaments, your cauls and round tires like
the moon, your chains and bracelets and mufflers.”

Pluck. “Let us praise God in the dance, praise him
with the stringed instrument. Let us, as David did, dance
before the Lord.”

Preacher. “This place shall be as God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah; owls shall dwell here, and satyrs shall
dance here.”

Crowd. “Peggy and Molly!” “The Haymakers,”
“Here's Zenas Joy and Delinda Hoag want `Come haste
to the Wedding!'”

Preacher. “You stand on slippery places, your feet
shall stumble on the dark mountains.”

Crowd. “Chorus Jig! Hoa! Chilion!”

Chilion. “Take your partners.”

The words of the Preacher, as not unusually happens,
were disregarded. He pitched his voice still higher. They

danced the faster, Chilion played with the greater energy.
The Preacher himself, exhausted or discouraged, became at
length a listener, and finally his eye was riveted to the
scene before him. Chilion played on almost wildly. Tony
seconded the purposes of his master to the best of his endeavors,
his teeth and eyes shone with a terrified whiteness,
and the powder from his hair ran in chalky streams down
his face. Chilion was unmoved in the storm he raised.
Curls uncurled, ruffles were ruffled, trains trailed; but
the game went on. Margaret revelled in the movement;
she danced as to the winds; she knew her brother, she
loved his power, she leaped out his spirit and tones. She
sprang through the figure like a shuttle, she spun round
and round like a top. Chilion, in his own time, softened
the measure, and suffered the piece to glide away in the
gentlest pulsations. The night waxed and waned. The
Preacher and spectators had gone; most of the dancers left.

Here we must recede a moment to relate that in the
forenoon, Hash, the brother of Margaret, and Zenas Joy, a
resident of the place called Breakneck, had a serious misunderstanding
about a shot the latter made at a turkey set
up by the former. Numbers came forward to the arbitration,
and in the result it happened that the interests and
jealousies of all parties became joined in issue, and the
strength and prowess of the several neighborhoods were
marshalled under the respective standards of the Pond and
Breakneck. It was proposed to adjust the difficulty by a
champion from each side in a wrestling match. A rain,
however, separated the combatants, and broke up the ring.
At the supper-table in the evening, the subject was renewed.
Again at this late hour of the night, there were not
wanting causes to stimulate the feud in such as remained.
Mr. Smith, the tavern-keeper, brought forward a fresh

supply of liquors, of which both gentlemen and ladies
freely drank; and the two young men from the village had
no other business than to foment and egg on the rivalships
or the several districts. A final dance was called for; but
there appeared little self-possession either in respect of
temper or limb. Chilion played a while, and then relinquished
his instrument. Zenas Joy seized Hash by the
collar; Joseph Whiston tripped Obed, who, poor youth,
was already nearly down with liquor; Abel Wilcox spurred
Rufus Palmer to tread on Beulah Ann Orff's trail; Grace
Joy taunted Nimrod with a false step Margaret had taken;
Sibyl Radney rushed into the fray, pounced upon Zenas
Joy, and sent him whirling about the room, as she would a
spinning wheel. So one and another were engaged. Margaret,
who had left the floor, was standing by the side of
Chilion. She looked at the quarrellers, and then at her
brother. He snapped his viol strings, and was silent.

“Sing, Margery,” at length he said. He began a
familiar tune, “Mary's Dream,”—he played and she sang.
This twofold melody, sweet and plaintive, seemed to touch
the hearts of those excited people. They stopped to hear,
they heard to be won. They moved towards the music;
they were hushed if not subdued, they parted in peace if
not in harmony. Thus ended their Thanksgiving, and we
must end ours, and turn to other times and scenes.

11. CHAPTER XI.
A REVISED ACCOUNT OF NIMROD AND HIS DOINGS.

We shall omit the wild-turkey hunt of a bright autumnal
moonlight night in the woods, exciting and engaging though
it was, and the race with Streaker, in which Margaret bore
no part, while we proceed to enumerate some particulars of
her eldest brother, that have a relation to herself. Nimrod
evinced a volatile, roving, adventure-seeking habit from
his boyhood. The severe waspish temper of his mother he
could not abide, the coarse, dogged despotism of Hash he
resented; Chilion was only a boy, and one not sufficiently
social and free; with his father he had more in common.
At the age of fourteen he became an indented apprentice to
Mr. Hatch, the blacksmith at No. 4. But of the different
kind of blows of which he was capable, he relished those
best that had the least to do with the anvil. He liked
horses well enough, but preferred their hides to their hoofs;
and became more skilful with the fleam than the butteris.
He left his master in a rage, himself in good humor. He
next let himself at the Crown and Bowl in the village,
where one might fancy he would find his element. He was
hostler, bar-tender, errand-boy, farrier, mistress'-man, waiting-maid's
man and every body's man by turn. He entertained
traveller's at the door, girls in the kitchen and boys
on the stoop. He was quick but he always loitered, he was
ingenious yet did nothing well. It would not seem strange
that he should prove a better auxiliary to every one's taste
and fancy, than to his employer's interest. He hung a

flint stone on the barn-door to keep the devil from riding
the horses in the night; but this did not prevent indications
of their having been used at unlawful times and in
unlawful ways. He was dismissed. While he served
others at the bar he must needs help himself, and he became
at an early age an adept in what an old writer denominates
the eighth liberal art. At the close of the Revolutionary
war, it became more difficult to fill vacancies
in the army than it had been originally to form companies.
There were “Classes” in Livingston, as every where else,
instituted to furnish a certain number of soldiers, as exigency
required. By one of these, Nimrod, not yet fifteen
years of age, but of due physical proportion and compliance,
was hired. He joined a detachment ordered on the
defence of our northern frontier.

But even military discipline was insufficient to correct
his propensities, or reform his habits. He deserted, and
crossed the Canada line. He joined a band of smugglers
that swarmed in those quarters, and during the spring of
the year 1784, we find him in New York city aboard a
sloop from up river. The vessel was anchored in the
stream not far from the Albany Basin. She had a deck-load
of lumber, and wheat in her hold, the ordinary supply
of the country at the time; her contraband goods were
stowed in proper places. Government, both state and national,
was pressed for means; the war, taxes, suspension
of productive labor, had heightened necessity and diminished
resource. Duties were great, but legislation was
irregular. The city held in its bosom many who had suffered
during the late contest. The general amnesty, while
it retained the disaffected, failed in some cases to reconcile
them. Hence smuggling, while it grew to be a most vexatious
practice, was one of tolerably easy accomplishment.

Late in the evening the cabin of the sloop was visited by
an elderly gentleman in buff coat and breeches, having an
eagle holding an olive branch wrought on his left breast.
He was addressed by the Captain as Mr. Girardeau. He
complained bitterly of the times, the rise of taxes, financial
depressions, the decline of real estate and sundry misfortunes.
He said that his clerk, meaning thereby his daughter,
had eloped, and that his old servant Samuel was dead.
He had evident connection with the private objects of the
vessel, and under his supervision preparations were made
for carrying the contraband articles to his own store in the
city. These, consisting of silks, ribbons, laces, &c., were
laid in coffin-shaped boxes, and Nimrod with another of the
crew was detached as porter. They rowed in a small
boat as far as the beach in Hudson Square, threaded a
lane along the woods and hills of Grand Street, came down
through the marshes and fields of Broadway, till they
reached a small wooden house lying under a hill back of the
City Hall, the residence of Mr. Girardeau. They encountered
several of the police stationed on the skirts of the city,
one of whom they frightened by intimations of the small-pox;
another they avoided by slinking into the shadows of
trees; a third they stupefied by drafts of rum, a supply of
which they carried in their pockets. Nimrod recounted
his adroit passages to Mr. Girardeau, who seemed pleased
with the success if not with the character of the youth;
and, in fine, hearing him highly recommended by the Captain,
he the next day engaged him, under the assumed
name of Foxly, to fill the place recently held by his deceased
servant.

Nimrod was nothing loth to exchange masters and
enter upon new scenes. Mr. Girardeau's quarters comprised
both his store and dwelling-house. The building
was one of the old style, having its gable to the

street. In the rear of the shop-room was a kitchen, and
above were sleeping apartments. In the first instance, Mr.
Girardeau intimated to Nimrod the necessity of a change
of apparel, and that he must wear one of a color like his
own. He himself had been a resident in the city during
the war, while the British had possession, and at that time
wore a scarlet coat, with the arms of the king. At the
peace, he changed his hue and badge. In the next place,
he undertook to indoctrinate his new servant in the secrets
of his business, and to impress upon him a sense of the responsibleness
of his vocation. “I—I should say we—'tis
all one concern, one interest,” so his employer unfolded
himself, “we are poor, we are embarrassed. You, Mr.
Foxly, perhaps know how awful a thing poverty is. You
can understand me. We are opposed, we are maltreated,
we are vilified. Enemies beset us night and day; even
now they may be listening to us through the walls.”

Nimrod, who was not without a tincture of the superstition
of his times, notwithstanding his ordinary display of
fearlessness and daring, started. “They won't take us off
in the night, will they?” exclaimed he.

“Yes, in the night,” replied Mr. Girardeau.

“Then I may as well be a packing,” said Nimrod. “I
can't stay here. I thought you hadn't any of them in the
city.”

“Why the city is full of them,” replied Mr. Girardeau,
“hence we see the necessity of care, confederation and
secrecy.”

“But they come in any where,” answered Nimrod.
“They'll whisk you right out of your bed. Aunt Ravel
had seven pins stuck into her in one night. Old uncle
Kiah, that used to live at Snake Hill, was trundled down
hill three nights agoing, and his skin all wore off, and he
grew as lean as a gander's leg.”

“Mr. Foxly!” interrupted Mr. Girardeau, “you misunderstand
me,—I see you are from the country, a good
place,—but you misunderstand me. It is men I mean, not
spirits. We have no witches here, only hard-hearted, covetous,
ignorant, griping, depraved, desperate men.”

“Sho! it's humans you are speaking of,” replied Nimrod;
“I an't no more afraid of them than a cat is of a wren.
I like them, I could live among them as well as a fish in
water.”

“Mr. Foxly!” continued Mr. Girardeau, solemnly,
“we have something to fear from men. Here likewise
you mistake. I fear you are too rash, too headstrong.”

“Any thing, Sir,” answered Nimrod, “I will do any
thing you wish,” he added more soberly. “I will serve
you, as they did the troops in the war, work for nothing
and find myself.”

“You may well say so,” added Mr. Girardeau, Samuel
was faithful, he spared himself to provide for me. We are
in straits, we must live frugally. Persecution surrounds us.
We have enemies who can do us a great injury. I can be
made to injure you, and you to injure me. We need circumspection;
we are, if I may so say, in one another's
power. There are those who might take advantage of my
necessities, to compel me to surrender you to the rigor of
unjust laws, and you might end your days in a prison. My
whole life has been one of exposure and want, labor and
toil.” Thus was Nimrod addressed. In the third place,
added Mr. Girardeau, “I must admonish you, Mr. Foxly,
and most rigidly enjoin, that on no account are you to have
conference, or hold any relations with a certain young
woman, that sometimes comes here, whom I will point out
to you.”

Nimrod found upon the premises a little black-eyed
boy eight or nine years of age, whom he took for the

grandson of his employer. This boy was sent to school,
and when at home played on the hill back of the house,
and slept in a room separate from Nimrod's, with whom
Mr. Girardeau did not seem anxious that he should have
much intercourse. These three constituted the entire
family. Nimrod became cook, washerman, porter, and
performed with alacrity whatever duty was assigned him.
How Nimrod relished his new service and new master for
a while, we need not relate. He could not fail however
to be sensible that his food was not quite as good as that to
which he had been accustomed, and to see that his master
did not prove exactly what he expected. He found Mr.
Girardeau to be, to say the least, harsh, arbitrary, exacting;
he began to suspect something worse than this; he
believed he told him falsehoods; that he had money, and
that in abundance. As he lay on the counter, where he
usually slept at night, he was sure he heard the sound of
coin in the room overhead. Of the young woman, respecting
whom he had been cautioned, he saw nothing, till one
day he heard voices in the chamber. He listened at the
foot of the stairs, and distinguished a female's voice. There
were sharp works, severe epithets. Presently a woman
came hurriedly down, and passed into the street.

“Did you see that girl?” asked Mr. Girardeau, descending
immediately afterwards.

“Yes, Sir,” replied Nimrod.

“She is my daughter,” added Mr. Girardeau. “Yes,
my own flesh and blood. You know not the feelings of a
father. She has been guilty of the greatest of crimes, she
has disobeyed me, she has violated my will, she has endangered
my estate. She has married to her own shame, and
my grief. I have borne with her, till forbearance becomes
a sin. She would strip me of my possessions. The author

of her degradation she would make the pander to her cruelty.
I am doubly beset, they are in a conspiracy against
me. Heed her not, listen not to her importunity, let her
suffer. I have no feelings of a father; they have been
wrenched and torn away; I cannot own a viper for a
child.”

Nimrod thrust his fists in his waistcoat pockets, where
he clenched them angrily. He was silent. He listened as
to an unanswerable argument; he believed not a word.
In the mean time let us refer to some events wherein his
own interest began to be awakened; and which we shall
embody in a new chapter, with a new title.

12. CHAPTER XII.
THE STORY OF GOTTFRIED BRÜCKMANN AND JANE GIRARDEAU.

Among the Mercenaries, popularly known as Hessians,
employed by England against America during the war of
our Revolution, was Gottfried Brückmann. He was,
properly speaking, a Waldecker, having been born in Pyrmont,
an inconsiderable city of that principality. From
what we know of his history, he seems to have shared
largely in the passion for music, which distinguishes many
of his country. To this also he added a thirst for literary
acquisition. But a peasant by caste, he encountered
not a few obstacles in these higher pursuits. He became
bellows-boy for the organ in the church of his native town,
and availing himself of chance opportunities, attained some
skill on that instrument. He played well on the harpsichord,
flute and violin. In the French language, at that
time so much in vogue among the Germans, he became a
proficient. Nevertheless, he fretted under the governmental
yoke that lay so oppressively and haughtily upon
the necks of that class of people to which he belonged.
His conduct exposing him to suspicion, he fled into the
region of country described as the Hartz Mountains.
Whatever of romance, literature, poetry, descended into
the mass of the population; whatever of legendary tale or
cabalistic observance was cherished by the common heart;
whatever of imaginative temper, ideal aspiration, or mystic
enthusiasm has ever characterized any portion of his countrymen,

Brückmann possessed; and in the vicinity where
he now found himself, there was a supply of objects fitted
to animate the strongest sentiments of his being, and scenes
and associations that were congenial with his inclinations;
—forests of oak and beech, fir and pine; every kind and
conformation of rock; birds of all descriptions; cloud-piercing
hills, unfathomable chasms; lakes embosomed in mountains;
waterfalls; mines and smelting-houses, with the
weird and tartarean look of the workmen and their operations;
gorgeous sunsets; dense and fantastic fogs; perennial
snows: points of local and traditionary interest; the
Altar and Sorcerer's Chair, the seat of the festival of the
Old Saxon idol, Crotho; the grottoes Baumanshole and
Bielshole; a cave reputed at the time to have no termination;
wildness, irregularity, terror, grandeur, freedom and
mystery, on every side. In addition, were little villages
and clusters of houses in valleys embowered in forests and
overshadowed by mountains, into one of which Brückmann's
wanderings led him, that of Rubillaud, through which runs
the Bode. Here in the midst of almost inaccessible rocks
and cold elevations, he found fruit-trees in blossom, fields
green with corn, and a small stone church surmounted
with a crucifix, a May-pole hung with garlands, around
which the villagers were having their Whitsun dances. In
this place he remained a while, and was engaged as a school
teacher for children, the parents of whom were chiefly
miners. Here he became warmly attached to one of his
pupils, Margaret Bruneau, daughter of the Pastor of Rubillaud,
who was a Lutheran. In her he found tastes and
feelings like his own. With her he rambled among mountains,
penetrated caves, sang from rocks; and had such an
intercourse as tended to cement their affection, and prosecuted
whatever plans were grateful to their natures.

But in the midst of his repose came that cruel and barbarous
draft of the British Crown on the German States. Some
of the inhabitants of Rubillaud, who were subjects of the
King of Hanover, were enlisted in this foreign service.
Requisition was made on several provinces then in alliance
with England, Brunswick, Hesse Cassel, Hanau, Anhalt
and Waldeck; and on Brückmann's native town, Pyrmont.
The general league formed among these princes against the
peace and liberty of their people, would not suffer that
Brückmann should escape. He was seized, as if he had
been a felon, and forcibly taken to Rotterdam, the place of
embarkation. The reluctance with which this body of
levies contemplated the duty to which they were destined,
will be understood when it is told that they were obliged
to be under guard on their march to the sea-coast; that
many of them bound hand and foot were transported in
carts; some succeeded in deserting; others making the
attempt were shot. Brückmann, for some instance of
insubordination, received a wound at the hand of his own
Captain, from which he never entirely recovered. Swords
ruled souls. Their avaricious and tyrannical lords let
them out as slaves, and had them scourged to their tasks.
Brückmann and Margaret parted in uttermost bitterness of
spirit, and with the fondest expressions of love. They
wafted their adieus and prayers to each other across the
bridge of the Bode, over which he was rudely snatched to
see her in this world no more forever.

We shall not follow him through the fortunes of the war;
but hasten to its close, when he was stricken and overwhelmed
by the news of Margaret's death. A strong bond,
and perhaps the only one that attached him to his native
country, was broken; and in common with many of his
countrymen, he chose to remain in America after the peace.

These Germans, such as survived,—more than eleven thousand
of their number having perished during the war,—disposed
of themselves as they could; some joined the settlements
of their brethren in Pennsylvania, others pushed
beyond the Ohio, a few sought the New England States.
Brückmann took up his abode in New York. Those who
returned to Germany he bade plant Margaret's grave with
narcissus, rosemary and thyme, and visit it every Whitsun
Festival with fresh flowers; while he would hallow her
memory with prayers and tears in his own heart. He was
disappointed in purpose, forsaken in spirit, broken in feeling.
Contrary to the usual maxim, he loved those whom
he had injured, and was willing that whatever of life or
energy remained to him should be given to the Americans,
while he remembered the land of his birth with sorrow,
upbraidings and despair.

Owing to our numerous and profitable relations with
France at this time, the French language had arisen in the
popular estimation, and was in great request. He would
teach it, and so earn a livelihood, and serve the land of his
adoption. Music too, the musical spirit of Margaret and
of his native country, that which survives in the soul when
every thing else is prostrate, came over him. He would
live again in song. He would recall the scenes of the past.
Margaret would reappear in the tones of their love and
their youth; her spirit would echo to the voice of his flute;
in song, like night, they would meet again; by an invisible
pathway of melody they would glide on to the grave. Poor
Brückmann! Poor America! What with his deficiency
in our tongue, and his former services against our liberties,
he obtained but few scholars. Superior and more agreeable
Frenchmen were his rivals. Music! How could we
pay for music, when we could not pay our debts? The

crescendo and diminuendo were other than of sound our
people had to learn. He grew sicker at heart, his hopes
had all fled, and his spiritual visions seemed to grow dimmer
and dimmer. He sat by the narrow window of the
small unlighted room he rented, in the night, and played
on his flute to the darkness, the air, the groups of idle
passers by, to memory and to the remote future whither his
visions were flying and the fair spirit of his reveries had
betaken itself. Yet he had one and not an unconcerned
listener, and perhaps another. These were Jane Girardeau
and her father. Mr. Girardeau had discovered the sound
of the music proceeding from the hill behind his house, and
his daughter listening to it. He called her in; she would
go up to the chamber window, and repeat her curiosity.
He ordered her to bed; she would creep from her room,
and sly into the street that she might hear it. He detected
her, rebuffed her, and locked her into her room. “Can
you indulge such extravagance?” was the language of Mr.
Girardeau to his daughter. “Can you yield to such weakness?
Will you waste your time in this way? Shall I
suffer in you a repetition of all your mother occasioned
me? Will you hazard your reputation? Why will you
so often break my commands? I will have none of this.
You are impudent, beastly.”

His daughter ill brooked such treatment. To the mind
of her father, she was rash, turbulent, inordinate, selfish,
lavish, insensible. She was lavish, but only of her heart's
best affections; she was rash, not in head, so much as in
impulse; she was insensible, but only to the demands of
lucre; she was troubled, not turbulent; she was inordinate,
for no want of her heart had ever been supplied; she was
selfish in the sense of obeying her nature, while she disregarded
the behests of stupidity and meanness.

Jane had rebelled under the iron jurisdiction of her
father. Like the hidden fires of the earth she broke out
wherever she could find vent. She was held down, not
subdued. She was too elastic to flatten, too spiritual to
stagnate. She rebounded with a wild recoil. Her fits of
anger, or sallies of spirit, whatever they might be called,
were frequent and energetic. As she grew older, she became
more sensible of her degradation and wrongs, as well
as more capable of redressing them.

She was the only child of an ill-assorted marriage. She
became of some service to her father. Her personal beauty
was an attraction to customers, and he valued her aid as
shop-girl. She presided over the department of the store
devoted to the sale of fancy goods, which, obtained in various
ways, afforded enormous profits, and became an item
of trade, that, notwithstanding her father's extensive and
multifarious business, he could not well forego. She was
also a good accountant and book-keeper. Brückmann was
straitened for means. His quarterly rent was due. He
would make one effort more; and that perhaps the most
dangerous for a poor man; he would borrow money. He
knew of the broker near by, and his reputation for wealth.
He had no friend, no backer. He obtained a certificate
ftom the parents of one of his scholars, to the effect that he
was believed to be an honest man. He presented himself
at the store of Mr. Girardeau. Jane was there; she recognized
in him the flute-player, whom she had sometimes
seen in the streets, or at his window. Brückmann was a
Saxon throughout; his eyes were full blue, his complexion
was light and fair, his hair was of a sandy brown, thick and
bushy. Dejection and disappointment were evidently doing
their work upon him. His face had grown thin, his eyes
were sunk, and his look was that of a sick man. He

addressed Mr. Girardeau in broken English. “Speak in
your own language,” said the latter gentleman, “I can
understand you.” He stated briefly his object. Mr. Girardeau
looked at the note, and replied in German, “Hard
times, sir, hard times; securities scarce, liabilities uncertain,
business dull, great losses abroad, foreigners do not
appreciate our condition.” He then proceeded to interrogate
Brückmann on his business, circumstances, prospects.
There were two listeners to the answer, father and daughter,
both intent, but in a different manner. The old gentleman
ordered Jane away while he transacted a little private
business. She retreated to the back part of the store
where she persistingly stood; and it was obvious, although
the stranger spoke in his own tongue, she comprehended
what he said. From one thing to another, Brückmann
was led to recite his entire history; his birth, his retreat to
Rubillaud, his interest in Margaret, his enlistment, his service
in the war, Margaret's death, his present method of
support. Mr. Girardeau replied, in brief, that it was not in
his power to accommodate him. The agitation of Brückmann
was evidently intense at this repulse; and there
seemed to be aroused a corresponding sympathy of distress
in the heart of Jane. The story of the stranger interested
her, it took strong possession of her imagination. As he
left, her thoughts followed him with that most agonizing
sense of powerless compassion. Could she but see him,
could she but speak with him, she would bestow upon him
her condolences, if she could offer him no more substantial
aid.

Jane studied day and night how she might encounter the
unhappy stranger, the enchanting musician. To perfect
her for his purposes, her father allowed her to do a little
business in her own name. These earnings, ordinarily

devoted to some species of amusement or literary end, she
now as sedulously hoarded as increased. She discovered
where Brückmann had some pupils in a private family.
Thither, taking her private purse, she went; sought her
way to his room, and seated herself among the scholars.
She heard the recitation, and the remarks that accompanied
it. She discerned the originality of Brückmann's mind,
as she had formerly been interested in the character of his
sensibilities. He spoke in a feeble tone, but with a suggestive
emphasis. She knew well the causes of his depression.
He sang also to his pupils one of his native hymns;
she admired its beauty and force, and perhaps more the
voice of the singer. She staid behind when the scholars
left. He spoke to her. She replied, to his surprise, in his
own language, or something akin to it. She told him who
she was, that she had heard his story, and she compassionated
his wants, that her father was abundantly rich, and
that from her own earnings she had saved him some money.
She pressed upon him her purse, which neither delicacy
demanded, nor would necessity allow that he should refuse.
She told him how much she had been interested in his
history; she desired him to repeat it.

She was reproached and maledicted by her father, on
her return, although he knew not where she had been. An
idea had seized her, and for that she was willing to sacrifice
every thing. It had neither shape, nor color, nor definition,
nor end. She thought of it when she went to bed,
she dreamed of it, she awoke with it. She would see the
stranger. She went again to his school-room. She walked
with him on the Parade. “Tell me,” she would say, “more
about Margaret. How old was she? How did she look?
How did you love her? Why did you love her?” He
would rehearse all he had said before, and discover new
particulars each time.

“Were her parents rich or poor?” asked Jane.

“Poor,” replied Brückmann.

“Happy, happy Margaret! O if my father was poor as
the sheerest mendicant I should be happy.”

“You may be able to do much good with your money,
sometime or another.”

“I see nothing before me but darkness and gloom,” replied
Jane. “My father,—you know what he is. My dear,
dear mother, too fond of her child, too opposed to her husband,
too indulgent, too kind,—she has gone from my love
and my approach forever. I may be in the midst of affluence,
I am cursed, blighted by a destitution such as you
know nothing of. Gold may be my inheritance, my prospects
are all worthless, fearful, sombre. You say you will
meet Margaret in heaven!”

“Speak freely with me,” said Brückmann, “I love to
hear, if I cannot answer. Margaret and I often talked of
what we could not comprehend. We strove to lift each
other up, even if we made no advance. She had a deep
soul, an unbounded aspiration. We sang of heaven, and
then we began to feel it. We were more Sphinxes than
Œdipuses. Yet she became heaven to me, when there
was none in the skies. She was a transparent, articulate
revelation of God.”

“How I should love Margaret!” said Jane to him one
day. “What was the color of her hair? like yours?”

“No,” replied Brückmann; “as I have told you, she was
not of German origin. Her ancestors came from Languedoc
in the Religious Wars. She was more tropical in her
features, and perhaps in her heart, than I. She had black
hair and eyes; she resembled you, Miss Girardeau, I think.”

“How I wish I could see her!” replied Jane. “You
say she does come to you sometimes?”

“Yes,” said Brückmann,” and since I have known you
she comes more frequently, more clearly. My perishing
heart had scarce power to evoke her. My song became
too faint a medium. You have revived those visions, and
refreshing communions.”

“Then I am happy,” said Jane; “I knew not that I
had such a power. You, sir, know not the misery of being
able to make no one happy. I torture my father, I plague
Samuel. I am of use to no one. And my poor self answers
not for itself!”

“How could you fight against our poor country?” she
one day asked him.

“I never did,” he said; “my heart was with the Americans.
I was forced into the work. I was bayoneted to
the lines. My musket shared the indisposition of its owner,
and shot at random. Wounds that had been spared by those
against whom I was arrayed were anticipated by my own
officers. At this moment I am sensible of the pain.”

“Yet you might have been killed in battle,” said she,
“and I, poor, ridiculous, selfish me! should never have
seen you.”

“Nor I you,” he rejoined; “I know not which is the most
indebted.”

These interviews could not be repeated without coming
to the knowledge, or kindling the indignation of Mr. Girardeau.
He noticed the frequent, and sometimes protracted
absences of his daughter; he traced them to the indigent
German, whose application for money he denied, to the
villanous musician that had given him so much annoyance.
His passion had no bounds. He ceased to expostulate;
he raved, he threatened; he shut Jane into her chamber,
he barred the door and declared he would starve her. As
Jane had never learned filial obedience, so she had not

disciplined herself to ordinary patience. Even in matters
that concerned her interest and happiness most vitally, she
was impetuous and inconsiderate. She could bear imprisonment,
she could bear starvation, she could bear invective
and violence; she could not endure separation from
Brückmann. She experienced, in respect of him, new and
joyous sensations that enchained her existence. She looked
on him as a superior being. She felt that he alone could
understand her, appreciate or sympathize with her. She
felt that of the mass about her, he only seemed to have a
common nature with her. She thought not of his poverty
or his dejection. She thought only of his soul into which
she could pour her own. She was eager for him, as a child
for its mother's breast. His love for Margaret Bruneau
only heightened his value in her eyes. He seemed for his
devotion to Margaret Bruneau, purer, greater, diviner.
He and Margaret constituted to her mind a delightful company.
She entered a magic circle when she came into
their communion. She became one of a glorious trio. Then
she saw herself interpreted and symbolized in Margaret;
and she acted as a conjuration to bring that delightful vision
from the shades. Brückmann she assisted, encouraged,
enlivened; she rendered him more hopeful, more happy.
And she herself had no life, except as he was able to explain
that life. His soul seemed to respond to hers, and
her own grew serner and stiller as it received that response.
“He, too, will suffer,” she said to herself, “if he
sees me not. His own heart will break again Margaret
Bruneau will come to him no more;” and every thought
of his uneasiness or suspense vibrated, like a fire, through
her sensations.

Mr. Girardeau waited to see some tokens of his daughter's
repentance and amendment, but none appeared. The

more completely to secure his purposes, he instigated a
prosecution against Brückmann, on the score of debt, and
had him thrown into the City Jail. The old gentleman
then approached his daughter, apprised her of what had
befallen her friend, and announced his final decision. He
told her if ever she saw Brückmann again, if ever she
communicated with him by word or letter, he would turn
her into the streets, close his doors upon her forever, and
cast her out to utter shame and wretchedness. With whatever
tone or spirit this sentence may have been distinguished,
and there could be no mistake as to its general purport,
its effect on Jane was scarcely perceptible. Her die
was cast, her resolution taken. She undid the fastenings
of her room and escaped into the street.

Going to the jail, she obtained access to the cell and was
locked in with Brückmann. Through his drooping heart and
wasting frame he received her with a bland, welcome smile.
She fell at his feet, and vented herself in a torrent of tears.
His kindness reassured her, and she told him what had
transpired. “But,” she continued, “Gottfried, I must see
you, I must be with you, I cannot live away from you, I
die without you. Existence has not the faintest charm,
not a solitary point of interest, if I am separated from you.
You have awakened within me every dormant and benumbed
faculty. You have spread over time the hues of
a higher being. You have given back to my soul the only
answer it ever received; with your eyes I have looked into
myself and discovered some beauty there, where before
was only a deep and frightful chaos. In a world of shallowness
and stupidity you alone have anticipated, understood
and valued me. I repose on you as on the breast of
God. You have introduced me to an elevated communion;
you have welcomed me to the participation of yourself and

Margaret; you have inspired me with a desire to know
more of the laws of the spirit's life. For all this I have
made you no return. I am little, how little! to you. You
owe me nothing, I owe you every thing.”

“Jane,—” said he.

“Do not interrupt me now,” she continued. “Let my
poor soul have its say. It may be its last. I have now
no home on earth but you. May I remain with you? May
I hear your voice, look into your eyes, be blessed and illumined
by your spirit?”

“Is it possible,” asked Brückmann, “that your father will
never relent? He needs you, his own fortune is under
obligations to you.”

“You know not my father,” was the decisive reply.
“He is fixed, inexorable, as the God he serves. I look to
you, or to vacancy, to nought, to the sepulchral abyss of my
own soul, to the interminable night of my own thoughts
To be poor is nothing, to be an outcast is nothing; to be
away from you is worse than all calamities condensed in
one blow. Do not be distressed, my good Gottfried. I
will not embarrass you. Gottfried—I will marry you—I
do embarrass you. I do distress you—I will not. No!
I go away—I leave you.—Farewell, Gottfried!”

“Stay!” replied he, “do not go away.”

“Speak to me,” she said. “Chide me, spurn me. I
can bear any thing. I will not stir, nor wince, nor weep.
I can stiffen myself into insensibility. I will sit here unmoved
as a curb-stone. Speak, Gottfried, speak, if you
kill me.”

“Jane,” said he, very kindly, “you have nothing to fear
from me, we have nothing to fear from each other. We
know each other too well to be alarmed by surprises, or
perplexed at disclosures. We have no secrets to keep or

to reveal, no hopes to indulge or disappoint. Our natures
are bared to each other; our several destinies too well understood;
a word, the faintest expression of a wish is sufficient.
You know Margaret, I need not—”

“No, Mr. Brückmann, you need not—”

“Call me Gottfried. Margaret called me Gottfried.
You must never call me any thing else.”

“O,” said she, “if I could do Margaret's least office for
you, if I could ever remind you of her! And this assimilates
me nearer to her. It gives me a prerogative, which,
with all my rashness, I should hardly otherwise dare to
claim. But you need not speak to me of her. I know all
about it, and you, and her. Yet not as a beggar, not as a
friend, not as one who has the slightest demand on your
notice, yet I say, obeying an impulse which I know how
neither to control nor define, but which is deep as the central
fires of my being, I ask for entrance, for a home, in
that which you are, for fellowship with you and all your
life. Tell me more of Margaret; I will grow up into her
image; I will transmute myself to her nature. You shall
have a double Margaret; no, not double, but one. Nay,
if needs be, I will go out of myself; I will be the servant
of you both. Call me your child, your and Margaret's
child, your spirit-child, and so love me. And when we get
to Heaven, you may do what you will with me. Sure I
am, I shall never get there if you do not take me. I cannot
sing, as you say she could. But my soul sings. I can
describe with my sensations as many octaves and variations
as you on your flute; and with your nice ear perhaps you
could hear some pleasant strains. Away from you, I am
all discord, a jangling of broken and bewildered emotion.”

“Have you thought,” asked Gottfried, “how we should
be situated. This prison is my home now, and I have no
better prospect for the future.”

“I have enough in my purse,” said Jane, “to release
you. You can teach as you have done. I perhaps could
give instruction in the more popular branches.”

“Dear Jane!” said he, “you are dearer to me than all
on earth beside. But how fade all earth scenes from my
thought! I feel myself vanishing into the spirit-world.
Daily I perceive the hand of destiny lying more heavily
upon me. Hourly invisible cords are drawing me away.
The echoes of my song sound louder and louder from the
shadowy shore.”

“Ah, dearest Gottfried! if you die, I will die too. I
cannot live without you; I cannot survive you; I perish
with you. I will be absorbed with you into the Infinite.
All your presentiments I share.”

“We will be married,” answered Gottfried. “I have
loved you; I will still love you; you deserve my love.
Margaret Bruneau too will love you; and the heaven-crowned
shall bestow her blessing on the earth-worn.”

Jane procured his release from prison, by paying debts
and costs of suit. They went to the house of the Rev. Dr.
—, a kind and benevolent old clergyman, by whom the
marriage ceremony was performed, the wife and daughter
of the rector being present as witnesses. They knelt on a
couch for an altar; the long black hair of the bride gathered
loosely about her temples and skirting a clear marble
neck, and her dark eyes, contrasting the light thick hair,
deep blue eyes, and flickering pale face of the groom, produced
a subdued and sad impression in the mind of the
observer; yet the evening light of their souls, for such it
seemed to be, coming out at that hour, shed over them a
soft, sweet glow. The old man blessed them, and they
departed.

They sought lodgings in a quarter of the city at some

distance from their former abode. Brückmann was enabled
to form a small class in French. If female education
or the employment of female instructors had been as common
in those days as at the present time, Jane might have
directed the powers with which Nature had enriched her
to some advantage. She secured, in fact, but a solitary
pupil, and that one more anxious to be taught dancing and
dressing than to advance in any solid acquisition. She
found a more satisfactory as well as promising task in perfecting
Brückmann in the English language. This difficulty
once surmounted, she fancied he would be able to pursue
his practice to any desirable extent. So five or six months
passed away.—Whether it was the seeds of disease constitutionally
inherited, the effect of disappointment, want,
heartache, he had been called to endure, the internal progress
of his wound, or his own presentiments acting upon
an imagination sufficiently susceptible—Brückmann fell
sick. He lay upon his bed week by week. Jane abandoned
every thing to take care of him.

“Jane,” said he, “I must die.”

“I know it,” she replied, “you told me you should soon
die. I believed it then, I am prepared for it now.”

“Voices,” he added, “are calling me away.”

“I know that too,” she rejoined; “I hear them.”

“An inward force propels my spirit from me.”

“Yes,” said she, “I feel it.”

She bent over him, not as over a sick and dying man,
but a convalescing angel. He seemed to her not to be
wasting to skin and bones, but to spirit and life. His eye
brightened, his smile was sweeter, as he grew paler and
thinner.

“I wish you would sing to me, Jane.”

“I am full of music and song,” she said, “can you not
hear me? All that you have ever played or sung, or

spoken, leaps, trills, is joyous, within me. Do you not
hear a soft chanting?”

“Yes,” he replied; “it sounds like the voice of Jesus
and Margaret.”

“How glad I am our little Margaret is to have her birthplace
in song!” said Jane. “She feeds on melodies. Yet
if I should die before her birth, will she die too? Tell
me, Gottfried.”

“I think her spirit will go with ours,” he answered.

“Then we could nourish and mould the undeveloped,
unformed spirit in heaven. And our other Margaret
will be there to help us bring up the little Margaret. Will
Jesus bless our child, as you say he blessed the children of
olden times?”

“Yes,” replied Gottfried. “He died for all, and lives
to give all life.”

“I shall not need to make her clothes?”

“You had better do that, Jane, we may both survive her
birth.”

Acting upon this hint, their private funds having become
well nigh exhausted, she repaired to her father's house to
procure some articles of her own, out of which suitable
garment's might be prepared. By a back entrance she
ascended to her old chamber, where, as the event should
prove, Mr. Girardeau detecting her, drove her off. At
this moment, as she retreated through the store, Nimrod,
who in the mean time had succeeded to the deceased Samuel,
saw her, as has been related in the previous chapter.
Here, also, the two episodical branches of this memoir
unite.

When Nimrod learned from Mr. Girardeau who the
woman was, how she stood related to him, and what were
her fortune and condition, we may naturally imagine

his curiosity, always restive, always errant, would be more
than usually aroused. A new object presented itself; he
must pry into it. Having ascertained the place of Jane
and Gottfried's residence, being out of an errand, he made
bold to enter the house, and knock at the door.

“Ax your pardon, marm,” he said, shuffling into the
room, as Jane opened the door, and the sick man lay on
the bed before him; “hope I don't intrude. I sarve at
Master Girarder's, since Samuel's dead. I am the fellow
what see you running out of the store like a duck arter
a tumble-bug. What was you so skeered for? I wouldn't
a hurt you any more than an old shoe. I guess the old gentleman
ain't any better than he should be—”

“Young man!” said Jane, breaking in upon him, “whoever
you are, we have no connection with Mr. Girardeau.”

“Yes—marm,” said Nimrod, who, nothing daunted, approached
the bed. Gottfried rose a little, with his wan,
beautiful face. Jane, paler if possible, and more beautiful,
held her arm under his head, and her dark, loving eyes
brimmed with tears, the nature of which Nimrod could not
understand.

“I vum,” said he, “what is the matter? If the Widder
was here she could cure him in a wink. Won't your Dad
let you go home? Won't he give you a limb to roost on!
I tell you what it is, he's close as a mink in winter; he's
hard as grubbing bushes. I don't guess he's so poor.”

Jane, remembering her father's servants in Samuel, who
was a perfect creature of his master, if at first she was
annoyed by the familiarity of Nimrod or was suspicious
of his motives, soon perceived that his manner was undisguised
and rusticity sincere. She was led to question him
as to himself and who he was. He gave her his real name,
and that of his parents. In fact he became quite communicative,

and rendered a full description of his family, their
residence and mode of life. He was pleased with his visit,
which he promised to repeat, and whenever he had a chance,
he dropped in to see his new found friends. As our readers
will have anticipated the result of this story of Gottfried
Brückmann and Jane Girardeau, we shall hasten to its
close. When Mr. Girardeau became apprised of the real
situation of his daughter, he manifested deep disturbance
of spirit. He addressed himself anew to Nimrod. “That
girl,” said he, “is a runaway, a spendthrift, a wanton. She
is about to have a child, the fruit of her reckless, ruinous
misconduct. That child may do me an injury, a great
injury. The offspring of that viper may turn upon me
with the malignity of the mother. That child must be
watched. You know, Mr. Foxly, we are identified in
interest. You know if I let you go, or you me, we both
fall. That child must be watched. Do you understand?”

“That wa'nt in the bargain when I came to live with
ye,” replied Nimrod. “I must have a little more, a little
of the ready.”

Nothing could be more opportune for Nimrod. He was
now at liberty to prosecute his visits to Jane and Gottfried
at his leisure. Whatever money he obtained from Mr.
Girardeau, eked out by his own scant purse, he applied to
their necessities. He felt himself to be of more consequence
than he had ever been before, and although exercising
his function rather pragmatically, he made himself
greatly useful. Brückmann grew more feeble; Jane approached
the period of her child's birth.

“Nimrod,” said she a few days before that event, “we
are going to die.”

“No, no,” he rejoined. “He'll give up the ghost as sure
as wild geese in cold weather. But you will come out as
bright as a yaller bird in spring.”

“We must die—I shall die,” she continued, hardly noticing
what he said, having become quite used to his manner.
“We have loved, tenderly loved, if you know what
that means.”

“Yes—marm,” replied Nimrod. “If I am a Ponder
and you live in the city, you need'nt think we are as dull
as millers that fly right into your links and never know
whether they are singed or not. When I have been by
uncle Bill Palmer's, that lives at the Ledge, as you go up
to Dunwich, and seen his Rhody out there, jolly! she has
gone right through me like an earwig; it sticks to me like
a bobolink to a saplin in a wind. I an't afeered of the old
Harry himself, but I say for't! I never dare speak to
Rhody. But you great folks here don't care any thing
about us, no more than Matty Gisborne and Bet Weeks
down among the settlers.”

“Yes I do care for you,” said Jane; “you have been
very kind to us. I know not what we should have done
without you. But we are really going to die. It has been
foretold that we should.”

“O yes,” said Nimrod, relapsing into a more thoughtful
mood, “I remember. I heard a dog howl in the streets
the other night, and I dreamed of seeing monkeys, and that
is sartin death.”

“You must bury us, Nimrod,” continued Jane. “And
you must promise one thing, to take care of our child. Its
name is Margaret, you must call it by no other. You will
contrive means to take it to your own home, the Pond.
You are poor, you say, that is the greatest of blessings.
Your house is apart from the world. Your little brother
Chilion you think would love it as his own sister. Now
promise us, Nimrod, that you will do all we desire.”

Nimrod not only promised, but volunteered a declaration

having the full weight of an oath, that her wishes regarding
the child should be studiously fulfilled. At this crisis they
were also visited by a daughter of the clergyman who married
them; she having become informed of their state, sought
to minister to their needs. Brückmann died as he had presaged.
“Farewell, Jane!” he said. “Yet not farewell,
but, follow me. I kiss you for the night, and you shall see
me in the morning. The sun fades, the stars glow, brighter
worlds await us. We go to those who love us.” Nimrod
bent reverently over the dead form, that did perhaps what
life itself could never have done, it made of the strong man a
child, and tears gushed from his eyes. Jane knelt calmly,
hopefully by his side, kissed his lips, and smoothed the
bright curling locks of his hair. Nimrod, assisted by the
clergyman before mentioned, and some of Brückmann's
countrymen that remained in the city as servants, bakers,
or scavengers, and could do little more for their old friend
than bear him to his grave, saw him decently buried. The
wife and daughter of the clergyman were with Jane at the
period she had anticipated with so much interest. Her
hour came, and as she had predicted, a girl, the “little
Margaret,” was born. She lingered on a few days, without
much apparent suffering or anxiety, blessed her child, and
melted away at last in the clouds of mortal vision. The
child was taken in charge by those ladies who had kindly
assisted at its birth.

Mr. Girardeau, who had exhibited ceaseless anxiety, as
well as glimpses of some unnatural design, during these
events, the progress of which he obliged Nimrod carefully
to report, ordered the child to be brought to his house.
His language was, “it must be put out of the way.”
It was a dark night; Mr. Girardeau, availing himself of a
weakness of his servant, plentifully supplied him with
liquor. He also threatened him, in case of disobedience,

with a legal prosecution on the score of his smuggling connections.
Nimrod, sufficiently in drink to make a rash
promise, started for the child. But apprehensions of some
dark or bloody deed came over him; the recollection of his
solemn vows to the mother of the child upbraided him; the
spectral shadows cast by the street-lamps startled him. He
remembered the smuggling vessel which had made another
trip, and was about to return. The child was delivered to
him, and in place of going back to his master, he made
directly for the sloop, which was even then on the point of
sailing. The captain and crew, however serviceable they
might be to Mr. Girardeau's interest, cherished little respect
for his character, and Nimrod had no difficulty in enlisting
their aid for his purposes. We need not follow him all the
way to the Pond, or recite the methods he adopted to sustain
and nourish the child. On his way up the river he
found plenty of milk in the cabin. Leaving the vessel, he
spent one night in the shanty of an Irishman, whose wife
having a nursling at her side, cheerfully relinquished to
Margaret one half of her supply. One night he slept with
his charge in a barn. On the third evening he reached his
home. The family were all abed; his father and mother,
however, were soon ready to welcome their son. Surprise
was of course their first emotion when they saw what he
had with him. He recounted the history of the child, and
his purpose to have it adopted in the family. The course
of his observations on the subject was such, as to allay
whatever repugnance either of his parents may have felt
to the project, and they became as ready to receive the
little stranger as they might have been originally averse.

“Call up Hash and Chilion,” said Pluck. “The child
must be baptized to-night.”

“Wait till to-morrow, do Dad,” said Nimrod. “I guess

she needs something to wet her stomach more than her
head.”

“Fix her something, woman, can't wait.”

His wife prepared a drink for the child, while Nimrod
aroused his brothers. Chilion, then a boy, seven or eight
years old, held a pine-torch that streamed and smoked
through the room. Mistress Hart supported the child,
while Nimrod and Hash stood sponsers. The old man
called her Mary. “No, Dad,” interposed Nimrod, “it must
be Margaret.”

“No! Mary,” replied his father, “in honor of my
esteemed wife. Besides, that's a Bible name, and we can't
liquor up on Margaret. Yours is a good name, and you
never will see cause to repent it; and there is Maharshalalhashbaz,—that
I chose because it was the longest in the
Bible; I wanted to show my reverence for the book by
taking as much of it as I could; and Chilion's is a good
one too; all Bible names in this family.”

“I tell you no, Dad, she must be called Margaret,” repeated
Nimrod.

“Do call her Margaret,” said Chilion.

“Well, well,” replied Pluck, “we will put it to vote.—
Three for Margaret, I shall call her Mary, and Hash goes
for Peggy. We won't break heads about it, if we do we
shan't the bottle. So here goes for Margaret and Mary.”

The family, severally and collectively, laid themselves
under strict injunctions to keep the history of the child a
secret, and cherish it as their own. Mr. Hart and his little
son Chilion were glad enough to receive it on its own
account; Mistress Hart, if for no other reason, in consideration
of the money Nimrod represented he would get from
its grandfather, a reflection that prevailed with Hash also.
The secluded position of the family rendered it possible

indeed for children to be born and die without exciting
observation. Their neighbor, the Widow Wright, was the
only person from whom they had cause of apprehension.
It was presumed however to be an easy matter to bring
her into the arrangement of secrecy, which was accordingly
done by an oath sealed with a small douceur. In behalf of
the child were enlisted both the Widow's superstition and
her avarice. What might befall her son Obed, then six or
seven years of age, she knew not. So Margaret was only
spoken of as a child of the Pond. When Obed asked his
mother where the little baby came from, she said it dropped
from an acorn-tree.

Such is the origin of Margaret, who a few months later
has been phantasmagorically introduced to our readers.

We might add, in conclusion of this chapter, that Nimrod,
the next year, made a visit to New York, and sought an
interview with his old master. The disappointment, chagrin
and displeasure of the latter were evidently great. Their
conference was long and bitter. In the result, Nimrod
declared in cant phrase that he would “blow” on the old
gentleman, not only as a smuggler, but as a murderer, unless
he would settle on the child a small annual sum, to be
delivered at sight. To such a bond Mr. Girardeau was
obliged to give his signature. He asked where the child
was, but on this point Nimrod kept a rigid silence.

13. CHAPTER XIII.
RETURNS TO MARGARET, WHO ADVANCES IN CHILDHOOD AND
KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD.

Military Trainings we have alluded to as a sort of
New England holiday. Pluck, taking with him Margaret,
Hash, Chilion and the dog, went down to the village at an
early hour. The Green flowed with people, soldiers, men,
women and children. Portions of the horse-sheds were
converted into booths for the sale of liquors, fruits and
bread; wheelbarrows and carts were converted to the same
use. An angle of the Meeting-house, Mr. Smith, the Tavern
Keeper at No. 4, appropriated for his peculiar calling.
Pluck engaged himself as tapster in one of the horse-sheds.
Margaret, having orders not to go home, till her father
returned at night, sat with Bull on the grass near the
Meeting-house by the side of some other boys and girls,
who all moved away when she approached. Tony's beat
of the troop was the signal for the soldiers to assemble
They were first marched to the front of the church, when
prayer, as usual, was offered by Parson Welles, standing
on the steps. “O Lord God,” thus he prayed, “we thank
thee that thou hast raised up a defence to Israel, whereby
thou hast cut off the mighty men of valor, and the leaders
and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. We
humbly beseech that thou wouldst send prosperity, that
thou wouldst be an enemy to our enemies, and destroy all
them that afflict our soul. Let the gates be lifted up, and
the Lord, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in

battle, come in. And now, O God, we fall down upon our
knees before thee, for and in behalf of thy cause, name,
people and interest, that in this day are so deeply designed
against by the serpent and his seed, and from this black
cloud of tumult and confusion among the nations, wilt thou
bring forth the accomplishment of those promises thy people
are so earnestly looking after and waiting for?”

The old man was fervid and earnest. His massive white
wig fluttered in the wind, his venerable form bent over his
ivory-headed cane. Some of the people were moved to
tears.

The soldiers were then drawn into a line for inspection.
Their equipment presented hardly so uniform and symmetrical
an aspect as appears in the militia of our day. There
had been however a gradual improvement from the primitive
array of Colonial times; when the troops were made
up of pikemen, bowmen, and musketeers with match-locks.
Miles Standish was dressed in a coat of mail, on his left
arm he bore a target, in his right a rapier or broadsword,
iron gloves shielded his hands, an iron helmet with a visor
covered his head and face, his breast was plated with iron.
In this Livingston Company many wore three-cornered
hats, shad-bellied coats, shoe and knee buckles. Some
retained the identical dress of the late war. The children
who may read this memoir, and we hope there are many
such, do not fancy that the Revolution was fought in cocked-hats
and small-clothes!

Among the spectators, seated on the grass under the eaves
of the Meeting-house, were several, whose wounds and
infirmities contracted during the war, rendered them
muster-free. There were six or eight of this description;
one had lost a leg, another an arm, one had survived a shot;
through the groin, one had pined away on insults, blows,

hunger and cold in the Jersey prison-ships, and bringing
home his stark skeleton, became a town pauper. Another
one, whose name was Alexis Robinson, having the side of
his face shot away, and with one eye and ear losing a
moiety of his senses, and failing besides in his earnings, the
certificates of which he always carried, by the depreciation
of the currency, was also provided for by the town. These
severally had hobbled out to see the training.

To these must be added certain soldiers of an earlier
date. Prominent among whom was lame Deacon Ramsdill,
leaning with his left hand on a smooth crooked mountainlaurel
cane, and having his right folded over his narrow
wrinkled face, perpetually endeavoring to suppress a good-natured
but somewhat undiaconal smile, a risible labitur et
labetur, that spirted out like water between his fingers, and
ran through the channels of his cheeks, all around his eyes,
and even back to his ears. At the age of sixteen, in 1755
he was engaged in what is known as the expulsion of the
Acadians, or French neutrals, from Nova Scotia; in 1757
he was at the surrender of Fort William Henry; 1759
found him with Gen. Wolfe at the battle on the Plains of
Abraham, where he received a wound in his leg. There
was also his brother Deacon, Hadlock, of a more Pythagorean
temper, who was engaged in the Spanish war, and
served under General Wentworth in the attack on Carthagena,
1740, and afterwards was in the defeat of General
Braddock, 1755.

Nor would one forget to notice the children on this occasion,
whose chief business consisted in buying ginger-bread,
pitching coppers, watching the drill and following the steps
of the soldiers; or fail to be reminded of a difference in
their habits between this and “good Old Colony times,”
when the Legislature conceiving “that the training up of

youth to the art and practice of arms will be of great use;
do therefore order that all youths within this jurisdiction,
from ten years old to the age of sixteen years, shall be instructed
by some one of the officers of the band, upon the
usual training days, in the exercise of arms, as small guns,
half pikes, bows and arrows.”

Captain Hoag was an accomplished disciplinarian, esteemed
such at least by his contemporaries. His hair was
powdered, his coat faced with blue, on his hat glistened a
large white cockade, his waist was ornamented with a scarlet
sash, his shoulder rounded off with a silver epaulette,
and silver lacings graced his yellow buck-skin breeches.
But what more peculiarly distinguished him was the badge
of the order of the Cincinnati, a gold medal with the spread
eagle, and blue ribbon hanging from his coat buttons.
“Attention! At this word,” said he, giving instructions
designed for the younger members of the company, “you
must be silent, moving neither hand nor foot. To the left,
dress! You will turn your heads briskly to the left, so as
to bring your right eye in the direction of your waistcoat
buttons. At the word Fire!” continued he, “you will pull
the trigger briskly, then return to the priming position, the
muzzle of your firelock directly in front, the left hand just
forward of the feather-spring, seize the cock with the
thumb and forefinger of the right hand.” After the inspection
and manual drill, the soldiers were marched and
countermarched across the Green.

There came also to the training Master Elliman, who,
exempt by his profession from arms, and rated always as a
Tory, nevertheless made it a point to appear at these times,
as it would seem to air his antipathies. If he encountered
Pluck, well; but this morning he saw one whom he liked
better, Margaret, sitting with her dog.

“How do you enjoy it?” said he.

“Very well,” was the reply. “I love to see them.”

“Sævit toto Mars impius orbe.”

“I do not understand that.”

“I know you do not. You will by and by.”

“Chilion plays so on his fife, and Tony drums so well,—
it is almost as good as dancing; only the girls and women
don't go with them. See how they follow Chilion round
just like the dancers! Why don't they dance? How slow
they step!”

“It is not Chilion they follow,” replied the Master, “it
is that little laced android with a long knife in his hand,
and a lackered bunch on his shoulder. But here are Deacons
Ramsdill and Hadlock, ἂξιοῖ πϱεσϐῦτεϱοι ἐϰϰλησῖαζ τοῦ ϑεοῦ ϰαὶϰΛίϋιγγστὸν
and our broad-brimmed nay nay and yea
yea android, Anthony Wharfield Salvete, Deacons; God
bless thee, Friend Anthony. Miss Margaret Hart, Friend
Anthony.”

“How does thee; sister Margaret?” said the latter.

“A Pond gal!” poh'd Deacon Hadlock.

“What on arth is the Master doing with that little critter?”
laughed Deacon Ramsdill. “Larnin' the young
pup new tricks?”

“The dog that trots about will find a bone,” quoth Deacon
Hadlock.

“Qui vult cædere canem, facile invenit fustem,” responded
the Master.

Bull, whether that his name was used too freely, or from
an old habit in the presence of strangers, began to growl.

“Lie still,” said Margaret.

“There, you see the Scripture fulfilled. Soft words
turn away wrath,” remarked Deacon Ramsdill, with his
right hand on his mouth striving in vain to curb his laughter.

“So Friend Anthony gets rid of the wars, and trainings,
by his soft answers, I suppose,” said the Master.

“Not of paying the fines,” responded the Quaker.
“Ruth and I were stripped of most we had, to support the
troops.”

“See how God has blessed you! What an army he is
raising for our defence,” exclaimed Deacon Hadlock, pointing
to the soldiers.

“What is that little man, with a long knife, doing to the
men?” asked Margaret.

“He is preparing them for war; he will prove a Joshua
to us,” said Deacon Hadlock, not so much however in reply
to Margaret, as to illustrate sentiments which he feared did
not sufficiently prevail with his friends.

“I ruther guess he's larnin' them bagonets and hatchets
to make pretty free work with our legs,” said Deacon
Ramsdill, pressing down upon his cane.

“He is teaching the science of puppetry,” said the
Master.

“He is teaching them to break the commandments of
Christ,” said the Quaker.

“What is it for? what for!” exclaimed Margaret, starting
up with some surprise.

“I can tell you all,” said Deacon Hadlock. “It is, under
God, the defence of our lives, liberties and fortunes.”

“How many of our people were killed in the French
war, and in the last war,” said Deacon Ramsdill.

“How many of us were shut in the Jail yonder,” said
the Master.

“How many farms in this town were ruined,” said the
Quaker.

“What blunders are ye all making,” answered Deacon
Hadlock. “It is our enemies that we expect to kill.”

“Who?” asked Margaret.

“Our enemies, I say.”

“Who are our enemies?”

“Those that injure us.”

“What, kill them!” said Margaret. “Now I wish
Chilion would bring his violin and make them dance. They
wouldn't kill one another then. Why don't he play Chorus
Jig, and set them a dancing.”

“Clear nater,” said Deacon Ramsdill; “I make no
doubt the gal feels just so.”

“O, Brother Ramsdill,” sighed Deacon Hadlock, “how
can you! What are we coming to! I was informed
you countenanced mixed dancing; that you told Bethia
Weeks, a church member, there was no harm in it if she
didn't carry it too far. Here you are encouraging that sinful
amusement and opposing our military preparations! I
do believe the Lord has forsaken us indeed.”

“Behold your defenders, pro aris et focis,” sneered
the Master, directing attention to the soldiers. A difficulty
had arisen. The Captain was seen running towards the
rear of the company.

It will be remembered that Hash, the brother of Margaret,
had a difference with Zenas Joy, a Breakneck at the
Turkey Shoot. We would also state that Zenas was engaged
to Delinda Hoag, a daughter of the Captain. On
the parade this morning, Hash's conduct had been very
unmannerly towards Zenas, so much so as to offend Captain
Hoag, both officially and personally; and he changed
Hash's place, transferring him to a platoon under command
of Corporal Joseph Whiston, also a Breakneck. Hash could
not brook this, and carried his resentment to the extent of
striking his superior on the march; an offence that Joseph
sought to punish by a blow in return. Obed, also, who was

this day doing his first military duty, became somehow
involved in the affray. The music ceased; order was lost.
Several voices called for Deacon Hadlock to interfere in
his capacity as Justice of the Peace. The soldiers speedily
resolved themselves into a civil tribunal, and Hash and
Obed were equitably tried and sentenced, the former to
twenty-four hours' imprisonment in the Jail, and a fine of
twenty shillings; the latter to twenty-nine lashes at the
whipping-post.

The culprits were immediately taken to their respective
dooms, followed by the populace. Margaret, not comprehending
precisely the nature of events, lingered on the
steps of the crowd. The screams of Obed aroused her,
and she dashed through the press of people, as she would
through a field of bushes, to the point whence they proceeded.
A half dozen blows of the formidable cat had
sufficed to fetch blood on the naked back of the youth.
Margaret flew toward her suffering friend and folded her
arms about him, as it were, in the way at once of pity and
protection. The constable tried to wrench her off; she clung
with an almost preternatural grasp. He threatened to lay
the lash upon her. She told him he should not whip Obed.
Judah Weeks, brother of Isabel, set up a cry “For shame!”
Isabel herself, who was playing near by, began to utter a
loud lament, all the children raised piteous moans, the older
people became confused; in fine, Deacon Hadlock himself,
hearing Obed's entreaties, consented to remit the balance
of the penalty. Margaret walked through the people, who
drew off on either side, her face and clothes dabbled with
blood. She went with Isabel to the brook and washed;
Isabel going into her house, which was near by, brought a
towel to wipe her, and asked her to walk in and see her
mother. Margaret said she must go back to her brother
Hash.

The Jail yard, constructed of high posts, was close upon
the street, and when Margaret returned she found boys and
girls looking through the crevices; an example that she
imitated. Deacon Ramsdill approaching, asked her if she
wanted to go in; she replied that she did. After considerable
parleying, the Deacon was able to obtain of the Jailer,
Mr. Shooks, permission for her to enter, with Bull, whom
it was not an easy matter to keep out. She found Hash in
a small, dimly lighted cell, rolling and blubbering on the
floor. She aroused him, and he took her in one arm, and
held the head of the dog by the other, and seemed very much
pleased to have them with him. She said she would stay all
night, but he told her that would not be allowed. She saw
another man in the cell, who, Hash whispered to her, was
a murderer. This person sat in silence, muffled like an owl,
in his black beard, tangled hair, begrimed face, and ragged
clothes. She went to him, he took her in his lap, pressed
her hard to his breast, and stroked her hair. She called
Bull, and he patted the dog's head. He said he had a little
boy about as old as she was, whom he had not seen for a long
time, and never expected to see again. She gave him some
gingerbread which she had in her pocket, and he munched
it greedily. Hash offered him a quid of tobacco, whereat
he seemed greatly delighted, and tears ran down his cheeks.
Margaret said she would fetch him flowers the next time
she came to the village. He thanked her and said he should
be glad to see them, that he had not seen a flower for two
years. The Jailor presently entered, and ordered Margaret
to leave. She went to the Horse-sheds, where her
father was selling liquors. Seating her on a cider barrel,
he gave her more gingerbread and cheese, which she ate
with a relish.

The day approached its close, and the soldiers drew up
to ballot for officers, Captain Hoag's term of service having

expired. In the result, Lieutenant Eliashib Tuck was
chosen Captain, and all the subaltern officers advanced
their respective grades, excepting Corporal Joseph Whiston,
whose name, for some reason, disappeared from the canvass.
Captain Tuck replied as follows: “Fellow-soldiers, I lack
words to express my sense of the honor conferred upon
me, as unexpected as it is undeserved. We live in a glorious
era, one that eclipses all past time, and will be a model
for future ages. The close of the eighteenth century is as
sublime as its meridian was grand. It were an honor for
a man to be born in this period, how much more so to be
honored by it! My brave compatriots! military life is the
path to distinction, and the means of usefulness. An immortal
crown awaits the head of the hero! The Lion of
Britain we have bound, and the Unicorn of France shall
ere long bite the dust! Livingstonians! my blood is
aroused, my ambition fired to be at the head of such a
corps! Your fame has spread from Bunker Hill to Saratoga,
from Genessee to King's Mountain. I will lead
wherever you will follow, I will dare all dangers with your
support.”

Agreeably to custom, he then announced a treat. The
company was marched to the Crown and Bowl, and dismissed.
The citizens, old and young, thronged to the scene.
Pluck, leaving Margaret and his tapstership, joined in the
general exhilaration. Pails of toddy were brought from
the bar-room. The men drank freely, gave huzzas, and
sang patriotic songs. Ex-Corporal Whiston, however, and
his particular friends, dignifiedly indignant, withdrew, and
went to the store for their entertainment. The old men
drank, and the young men; boys crept under the legs of
the soldiers, and lifting the pails, tugged at the slops.

The sun went down, clouds gloomed in the sky, and

heavy vapors drifted over the town. Solomon Smith, son
of the Tavern-keeper from No. 4, erected pine torches in
his booth. Lights burst forth from wheelbarrows and
carts throughout the Green. But an excessive use of alcoholic
stimulants aggravates the ordinary symptoms of good
cheer, and produces effects which the most considerate do
not always foresee. Intoxication supervenes, accompanied
by a paralysis of the physical, or an inflammation of the
nervous, system. Captain Tuck was borne dead drunk by
his reeling troops to the Tavern. Ex-Corporal Whiston
with his friends sallied from the store well sprung, and
encountering their enemies at all points, a medley of brawls
ensued. The Horse-shed becoming scenes of varied disorder,
Margaret was compelled to retreat.

It had begun to rain, the clouds emptying themselves in
bulk as it might seem to animate and refreshen the people,
but really to superadd a burthen on such as already had
more than they could carry, and bury those who were fallen
deeper in the soil. Margaret hurried she knew not where;
Solomon Smith, leaving his own now deserted and useless
stand, discovering her standing in the rain, kindly took her
with him into the house to the kitchen; where was a parcel
of persons, including boys and girls, some drying themselves
by the fire, some waiting for the rain to hold up,
others singing, laughing and drinking. Here also was
Tony with his fiddle playing to a company of dancers;
and Pluck, sitting on the hearth, with his full-orbed cabbage-head,
swaying to and fro, beating time with his arms and
legs, and balancing in one hand a mug of flip. “Ha! my
little lady!” said he, catching Margaret with a bounce into
his lap, and holding her near the fire, “won't you drink a
little, now do drink a little. See how it creams; don't be
snuffy, Molly, none of your mulligrubs. Here's blood now,

Obed's blood, on your pinafore. A brave deed that; you
must take something. It's training day, and that don't
come only four times a year. There's Beulah Ann, she
loves it as well as a calf likes to be licked. Sweet pinkeyposy,
it is as good for your wet clothes, as the Widder's
horse-raddish for dropsy. Ha! ha!”

As he proffered the mug to Margaret's lips, Tony, reaching
over with his fiddle-bow, struck it from his hand into
the fire. The blue blaze whirred up the chimney and
flashed into the room. There was a cry of fire, and Mr.
Stillwater, summoning himself, lifted Pluck to his feet,
and shoved him into the street. The old toper anticipating
some such issue of the day, agreeably to custom, had
taken Margaret with him to the village to be conducted
home by her at night.

They ascended the West Street, crossed the pasture, and
entered the woods. The clouds hung low, and their floating
skirts seemed to be pierced and hetcheled by the trees.
The rain had thinned into a fine close mist. The path, to
inexperienced eyes, would have been absolutely indistinguishable.
They had threaded it before in similar darkness.
They came to the Brook, which, increased by the rain,
flowed with a dismal sound; they groped along its banks,
and arrived at the Tree Bridge. Pluck seemed terrified,
and hesitated to cross. He sat down, then extended his
length on the grass, and ere long fell asleep. Margaret
would have been unwilling that her father should go over,
and was not sorry to have him stop; though it was night,
and rainy, and they were alone, and still a mile from home.
The trees dripped on her head, the grass was wet underneath
her, and her clothes were drenched. But of this she
hardly thought; what she more feared was the ways of
her father in his drunken sleep, his mysterious sufferings,
his frenzied utterance, and spasmodic agitation.—

This, and for this she feared; she looked for it, and it came.
She tried to quiet him, and as she rubbed his arm he said
she was a dove feeding him with milk; and then he
scratched and tore at his breast, which she soothed with
her hand, hot and rough as it was; then he said he was
boiling in the still, and Solomon Smith was holding the cap
on; he shrieked and yelled till his roar exceeded that of the
Brook. Then he began to laugh wildly. “Old Nick is
turning the North Pole. There comes out of the sea a
whale walking on his tail; Parson Welles has got astride
of his gills with a riding stick, ha! ha! Ho! a star rolling
on its five points! Grind away, old fellow. Round, round
they go over the mountains, splash, splash across rivers.
Can't you hear the pismires laugh! There's St. Paul with
a cat-o'-nine-tails, and Deacon Hadlock going to take me to
the whipping-post. I'll be poxed, if you do. Ho! Molly,
Molly, help!” He leaped from the ground, Margaret clung
to the skirt of his coat. Breaking from the arm that
detained him, he cried, “The Tree Bridge,” and ran
towards that slippery structure, as if he could thereby
escape his invisible pursuers.

Ere the child had time to exclaim against this rashness,
or interpose any obstacle to the peril upon which the old
man rushed, a plash in the water announced his fall, while
the darkness and the swollen state of the stream appalled
her with the feeling of his certain destruction. Then
Margaret, for the first time in her life, experienced, what is
often overwhelming in the onset and is not wont to sit
lightly on the memory, a sense of danger.—What could
be done? She hurried down the ravine, was enabled to
seize an arm of the struggling man, and assist him to regain
the bank. In silence, sickness and weariness, she toiled
homewards; in darkest dead of night she went to her bed,
when that good angel, sleep, came and comforted her.

14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE SABBATH.—MARGARET GOES TO MEETING FOR THE FIRST
TIME.—HER DREAM OF JESUS.

It was a Sabbath morning, a June Sabbath morning, a
June Sabbath morning in New England. The sun rose
over a hushed, calm world, wrapt like a Madonna in prayer.
It was The Day, as the Bible is The Book. It was an
intersection of the natural course of time, a break in the
customary order of events, and lay between, with its walls
of Saturday and Sunday night on either side, like a chasm
or a dyke, or a mystical apartment, whatever you would
please liken it to. It was such a Sabbath to the people of
Livingston as they used to have before steam, that arch
Antinomian, “annihilated time and space,” and railroads
bridged over all our valleys. Its light, its air, its warmth,
its sound, its sun, the shimmer of its dawn on the brass
cock of the steeple, the look of the Meeting-house itself, all
things, were not as on other days. And now when those
old Sabbaths are almost gone, some latent indefinable
impression of what they were comes over us, and wrenches
us into awe, stillness and regret.

Margaret had never been to Meeting; the family did not
go. If there were no other indisposing causes, Pluck
himself expressly forbade the practice, and trained his
children to very different habits and feelings. They did not
work on the Sabbath, but idled and drank. Margaret had
no quilling, or carding, or going after rum to do; she was
wont to sally into the woods, clamber up the Head and tend
her flowers; or Chilion played and she sang, he whittled

trellises for her vines, mended her cages, sailed with her
on the Pond. She heard the bell ring in the morning, she
saw Obed and his mother go by to meeting, and she had
sometimes wished to go too, but her father would
never consent; so that the Sabbath, although not more
than two miles off, was no more to her than is one half the
world to the other half.

From the private record of Deacon Hadlock we take the
following:—

State vs. Didymus Hart.

“Stafford, ss. Be it remembered, that on the nineteenth
day of August, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight,
Didymus Hart of Livingston, in the County of Stafford,
shoemaker and laborer, is brought before me, Nathan
Hadlock, Esq., a Justice of Peace for and within the aforesaid
county, by Hopestill Cutts, Constable of Livingston
aforesaid, by warrant issued by me, the said Justice, on the
day aforesaid, against the said Didymus Hart, at Livingston
aforesaid, on the twelfth day of May last, being the Lord's
day, did walk, recreate and disport himself on the south
side of the Pond lying in the West District, so called, of
Livingston aforesaid; which is contrary to the law of this
State made and provided in such cases, and against the
peace of this State, all which is to the evil example of all
others in like case offending.

“Wherefore,” witnesses being heard, &c., “it doth appear
to me, the said Justice, that the said Didymus Hart sit in the
stocks for two hours.”

Pluck was disposed of in the manner prescribed, very
much to the entertainment of the boys, who spattered him
with eggs, the disturbance and exasperation of his wife, who
preferred that all inflictions her husband received should
come from herself, and quite resented the interference of

others, and his own chagrin and vexation; especially as the
informer in the case was Otis Joy, father of Zenas, a breakneck,
whose friendship he did not value, and Cutts, the
executive officer, was the village shoemaker, and no agreeable
rival, and the Justice was Deacon Hadlock. By way
of redress, he chose to keep from meeting entirely, and suffer
none under his control to go.

But Chilion and Nimrod both urged that Margaret might
attend church at least once in her life, and her father at
length consented. This morning she heard the bell ring;
she saw Obed and his mother on a pillion behind him riding
by; the latter dressed in a small shining black satin bonnet,
and gown of similar material, with a white inside handkerchief;
the former in sky-blue coat and ruffled sleeves, white
neck-stock, white worsted vest, yellow buckskin breeches,
white stockings, and silver-plated buckles, which had all belonged
to his father, whose form was both shorter and
thicker than his son's, and whose garments it certainly
showed great filial reverence in the young man to wear
without essential alteration. Obed had an old look, his face
was furrowed as well as freckled, and his mother to remedy
this disproportion and graduate her son that consideration
which naturally attached to his appearance, had adopted the
practice of powdering his hair and gathering it in a sack
behind; and for his near sightedness, she provided him with
a pair of broad horn-bowed bridge spectacles. The entire
structure was capped by a large three-cornered hat. Whatever
might have been the effect of Obed's recent whipping,
there was nothing apparent. His mother, unlike Pluck,
would not suffer any thing of that kind to disturb the good
understanding she ever wished to retain with the people of
Livingston.

But let us, if the reader is willing, anticipate these

persons a little, and descend to the Village. The people are
assembling for Meeting; they come on all the four roads,
and by numerous foot-paths, cross-lots, and through the
woods. Many are on horses, more on foot, and a very few
in wagons. The horses' heads are garnished with branches
of spruce and birch, a defence against flies; most of the
boys and some of the men are barefoot, divers of them in
their shirt-sleeves, carrying their coats on their arms; some
of the young ladies have sprigs of roses, pinks, sweet-williams,
and larkspurs; others both old and young bring
bunches of caraway, peppermint, and southern wood;
some of the ladies who ride leap from their horses with the
agility of cats, others make use of horse blocks that stand
about the Green. You would perhaps particularly notice
old Mr. Ravel and his wife from the North Part of the
town, on horseback, the former straight as an arrow, the
latter a little crooked, and both more than eighty years of
age. For sixty years they have come in that way, a distance
of seven miles; for sixty years, every Sabbath morning,
have they heated their oven and put in an iron pot of
beans and an earthen dish of Indian pudding, to bake in
their absence, and be ready for dinner when they return.
To meet exigencies of this nature, in the mean time, you will
observe that Mistress Ravel, in common with many other
women, has on her arm a large reddish calico bag filled
with nut-cakes and cheese. You will also see coming down
the West Street Mr. Adolphus Hadlock, nephew of the
Deacon's, with his wife and six children, and Mr. Adolphus
will contrive in some way or other to give you the names
of all his children without your asking, even before he
reaches the steps of the Meeting-house; Triandaphelda
Ada, Cecilia Rebecca, Purintha Cappadocia, Aristophanes,
Ethelbert, and a little boy he carries in his arms, Socrates;
and you will hear the young men and boys that are lolloping
on the steps repeat these names as the parties to whom
they belong severally arrive.

The sexton, Philip Davis, now strikes the second bell, and
those who live immediately on the Green begin to turn out,
and when he commences tolling, it is a sign Parson Welles has
started from his house, which is in plain sight an hundred rods
or so down the South road. There are Mr. Stillwater, the
tavern-keeper, Esq. Weeks, Judge Morgridge, Mr. Gisborne,
the joiner, Lawyer Beach, Dr. Spoor, and other villagers,
with their families. Tony, the barber, with his powdered
hair and scarlet coat, is conspicuous. There is Mom Dill, a
negro servant of Parson Wells, once a slave, fat, tidy and
serene. The Widow Luce, who lives near the Brook,
passes on leading her little hunchback son Job; then you
see the Parson and his wife accompanied by their daughter,
Miss Amy.

This venerable couple have nearly attained the allotted
age of man, and are verging towards that period which is
described as one of labor and sorrow; yet on the whole they
seem to be renewing their youth, their forms are but slightly
bent, and the step of the old minister is firm and elastic.
He is dressed in black, the only suit of the color in town—
if we except that of the sexton, which is known to be an offcast
of the Parson's—kerseymere coat, silk breeches and
stockings; he has on a three-cornered hat, a fleece-like
wig, white bands and black silk gloves. His wife's dress is
black satin, like that of the Widow Wright's. Finally, as it
were composing part of the sacerdotal train, riding slowly
and solemnly behind, appears the Widow Wright, who always
contrives to arrive at the Parsonage just as the bell
begins to toll. The Parson and his wife with dignity and
gravity ascend the steps of the church, the crowd meekly

opens to let them pass, then all enter and take their appropriate
seats within the sacred precincts. The bell ceases
tolling; the sexton hangs the bell-rope on a high peg where
the boys cannot reach it, shuts the inner porch doors, goes
to the outer door and hem's twice quite loud to the vacant
air, and all is still.

This morning, in church, considerable sensation was
created—no more indeed than usual on such occasions—by
Deacon Pemrose, the clerk of the town, reading the banns
of marriage between Zenas Joy and Delinda Hoag.—
Leaving these people, let us go back to the Pond.

Brown Moll, with unpretending yet deep satisfaction in
the good looks of the child, carefully dressed Margaret's
hair,—which in tendency to curl resembled that of Gottfried
Brückman, while in color it fell between the flaxen of her
German and jet of her Gallic but all unknown lineage,—
put on her white muslin tunic and pink skirt and red-bead
moccasons. For hat, the little novice had nothing more
suitable than the green rush.

Margaret started away with a dreamy sense of mystery
attaching to the Meeting, like a snow storm by moonlight,
and a lively feeling of childish curiosity. On the smooth
in front of the house, her little white and yellow chickens
were peeping and dodging under the low mallows with its
bluish rose-colored flowers, the star-tipped hedge-mustard,
and pink-tufted smart-weed, and picking off the blue and
green flies that were sunning on the leaves; and they did
not seem to mind her. Hash had taken Bull into the
woods, and Chilion told her she would not need him. Dick,
her squirrel, and Robin, were disposed to follow, but her
mother called them back. A little yellow-poll, perched in
the Butternut, whistled after her, “Whooee whee whee
whee whittiteetee—as soon as I get this green caterpillar,

I will go too.” A rusty wren screamed out to her,
“Os's's' chipper w' w' w' wow wow wow—O shame, Molly,
I am going to rob an oriole's nest, I would'nt go to Meeting.”
She entered the Mowing; a bobolink clung tiltering to
the breezy tip of a white birch, and said, “Pee wuh' wuh'
ch' tut, tut, tee tee wuh' wuh' wdle wdle pee wee a a wdle
dee dee—now Molly here are red clover, yellow buttercups,
white daisies, and strawberries in the grass; ecod!
how the wind blows! what a grand time we shall have, let
us stay here to day.” A grass-finch skippered to the top of
a stump, and thrusting up its bill, cried out, “Chee chee
chee up chip' chip' chipperway ouble wee—glad you are
going, you'll get good to-day, don't stop, the bell is tolling.”
She thought of the murderer, snatched a large handful of
flowers, and hurried on, driven forward as it were by a
breeze of gladness in her own thoughts and of vernal
aroma from the fields. She gathered the large bindweed,
that lay on its back floating over the lot, like pond-lilies,
with its red and white cups turned to the sun; and also,
the beautiful purple cran's bill, and blue-eyed grass. She
came to the shadows of the woods that skirted the Mowing,
where she got bunch-berries, and star-of-Bethlehem's. She
entered a cool grassy recess in the forest, where were beds
of purple twin-flower, yellow star-grass, blue-violets, and
mosses growing together family-like, under the stately
three-leaved ferns that overhung them like elm-trees, while
above were the birches and walnuts. A black-cap k' d'
chanked, k' d' chanked over her head, and a wood-thrush
whoot whoot whooted, ting a ring tinged in earnest unison,
“We are going to have a meeting here to-day, a little
titmouse is coming to be christened, won't you stop?” But
a woodpecker rapped and rattled over among the chestnuts,
and on she went. She crossed the Tree-Bridge, and followed
the brook that flowed with a winsome glee, and while she
looked at the flies and spiders dancing on the dark water,
she heard a little yellow-throated fly-catcher, mournfully
saying. “Preeo, preea preeeeo preeeea—Pray, Margaret,
you'll lose your soul if you don't;” and she saw a woodpewee
up among the branches, with her dark head bowed
over plaintively singing, “P' p' ee ee ou wee, p' p' ee ee
ou wee'—Jesus be true to you Margaret, I have lost my
love, and my heart is sad, a blue angel come down from the
skies, and fold us both in his soft feathers.” Here she got
the white-clustering baneberry, and little nodding buff
cucumber root.

The Via Dolorosa became to Margaret to-day a via
juncundissima, a very pleasant way. Through what some
would consider rough woods and bleak pasture land, in a
little sheep-track, crooked and sometimes steep, over her
hung like a white cloud the wild thorn tree, large golddusted
cymes of viburnums, rose-blooming lambkill, and
other sorts, suggested all she knew, and more than she
knew, of the Gardens of Princes. The feathery moss on
the old rocks, dewy and glistering, was full of fairy
feeling. A chorus of fly-catchers, as in ancient Greek
worship, from their invisible gallery in the greenwood,
responded one to another;—“Whee whoo whee, wee woo
woo wee, whee whoo, whoo whoo wee—God bless the little
Margaret! How glad we are she is going to Meeting at
last. She shall have berries, nutcakes and good preaching.
The little Isabel and Job Luce are there. How do you
think she will like Miss Amy?”

Emerging in Dea. Hadlock's Pasture, she added to her
stock red sorrel blossoms, pink azaleas, and sprigs of pennyroyal.
Then she sorted her collection, tying the different
parcels with spears of grass. The Town was before her

silent and motionless, save the neighing of horses and
squads of dogs that trapsed to and fro on the Green. The
sky was blue and tender; the clouds in white veils like
nuns, worshipped in the sunbeams; the woods behind
murmured their reverence; and birds sang psalms. All
these sights, sounds, odors, suggestions, were not, possibly,
distinguished by Margaret, in their sharp individuality, or
realized in the bulk of their shade, sense and character.
She had not learned to criticise, she only knew how to feel.
A new indefinable sensation of joy and hope was deepened
within her, and a single concentration of all best influences
swelled her bosom. She took off her hat and pricked
grass-heads and blue-bells in the band, and went on. The
intangible presence of God was in her soul, the universal
voice of Jesus called her forward. Besides she was about
to penetrate the profoundly interesting anagogue of the
Meeting, that for which every seventh day she had heard
the bell so mysteriously ring, that to which Obed and his
mother devoted so much gravity, awe, and costume, and
that concerning which a whole life's prohibition had been
upon her. Withal, she remembered the murderer, and
directed her first steps to the Jail.

She tried to enter the Jail House, but Mr. Shooks drove
her away. Then she searched along the fence till she
found a crevice in the posts of which the enclosure was
made, and through this, on the ground floor of the prison,
within the very small aperture that served him for a window,
she saw the grim face of the murderer, or a dim
image of his face, like the shadow of a soul in the pit of
the grave.

“I have brought the flowers,” said she; “but they
won't let me carry them to you.”

“We know it,” replied the imprisoned voice. “There

is no more world now, and flowers don't grow on it; it's
hell, and beautiful things, and hearts to love you, are
burnt up. There was blood spilt, and this is the afterwards.”

“I will fasten a bunch in this hole,” she said, “so you
can see them.”

“It is too late,” rejoined the man. “I had a child like
you, and she loved flowers—but I am to be hanged—I
shall cry if you stay there, for I was a father—but that is
gone, and there are no more Angels, else why should not
my own child be one? Go home and kiss your father, if
you have one, but don't let me know it.”

She heard other voices and could see the shadows
of faces looking from other cells, and hear voices where
she could see no faces, and the Jail seemed to her to be full
of strange human sounds, and there was a great clamoring
for flowers.

“I will leave some in the fence for you to look at,” she
said, in rather vague answer to these requests.

Now the faithful guardian of the premises, overhearing
the conversation, rushed in alarm from his rooms, and presented
himself firmly in the midst of what seemed to be a
conspiracy. “What piece of villany is this?” he exclaimed,
snatching the flowers from the paling. “In communication
with the prisoners!—on the Lord's day!” Flinging
the objects of Margaret's ignorant partiality with violence
to the ground, Mr. Shooks looked as if he was about to
fall with equal spirit upon the child in person, and she fled
into the street.

Climbing a horse-block, from which could be seen the
upper cells of the Jail, she displayed her flowers in sight
of the occupants, holding them up at arm's length. The
wretched men answered by shouting and stamping. “If

words wont do, we'll try what vartue there is in stones,”
observed the indignant jailor, and thereupon suiting the
action to the word, the persevering man fairly pelted the
offender away.

She turned towards the Meeting-house and entered the
square, buttress-like, silent porch. Passing quietly through,
she opened the door of what was to her a more mysterious
presence, and paused at the foot of the broad aisle.

She saw the Minister, in his great wig and strange dress,
perched in what looked like a high box; above hung
the pyramidal sounding-board, and on a seat beneath were
three persons in powdered hair, whom she recognized as
the Deacons Hadlock, Ramsdill and Penrose. Through
the balustrade that surrounded the high pews, she could
see the heads of men and women; little children stood on
the seats, clutching the rounds, and smiled at her. The
Minister had given out a hymn, and Deacon Hadlock, rising,
read the first line. Then, in the gallery over head, she
heard the toot toot of Master Elliman on the pitch pipe,
and his voice leading off, and she walked farther up the
aisle to discover what was going on. A little toddling girl
called out to her as she passed, and thrust out her hand as
if she would catch at the flowers Margaret so conspicuously
carried. The Sexton hearing the noise, came forward and
led her back into the porch. Philip was not by nature a
stern man, he let the boys play on the steps during the
week, and the young men stand about the doors on the
Sabbath. He wore a shredded wig, and black clothes, as
we have said, and was getting old, and had taken care of
the Meeting-house ever since it was built, and though
opposed to all disturbance of the worship, he still spoke
kindly to Margaret.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I want to go to Meeting,” she replied.

“Why don't you go?”

“I don't know how,” she answered.

“I should think so, or you would not have brought all
these posies. This is no day for light conduct.”

“May'nt they go to Meeting too?”

“I see—” he added. “You are one of the Injins, and
they don't know how to behave Sabber days. But I'm
glad you have come. You don't know what a wicked thing
it is to break the Sabbath.”

“Mr. Shooks said I broke it when I went to give the
murderer some flowers, and threw stones at me, and you
say I break it now. Can't it be mended again?”

“You should'nt bring these flowers here.”

“I saw the Widow and Obed bring some.”

“Not so many. You've got such a heap!”

“I got a bigger bunch one day.”

“Yes, yes, but these flowers are a dreadful wicked thing
on the Lord's day.”

“Then I guess I will go home. It an't wicked there.”

“I don't want to hurt your feelings if you have had a
bad bringing up. Be a good gal, keep still, and you may
sit in that first pew along with me.”

“I don't want to be shut up there.”

“Then you may go softly up the stairs, and sit with the
gals.”

She ascended the stairs, which were within the body of
the house, and in a pew at the head she saw Beulah Ann
Orff, Grace Joy, and others that she had seen before; they
laughed and snubbed their noses with their handkerchiefs,
and she, as it were repelled by her own sex, turned away,
and went to the other side of the gallery, occupied by the
men. But here she encountered equal derision, and Zenas

Joy, a tithing man, moved by regard to his office and perhaps
by a little petulance of feeling, undertook to lead her
back to her appropriate place in the church. She resisted,
and what might have been the result we know not, when
Mom Dill, who was sitting in one corner with Tony, asked
her in. So she sat with the negroes. Parson Welles had
commenced his sermon. She could not understand what
he said, and told Mom Dill she wanted to go out. She
descended the stairs, moving softly in her moccasons, and
turning up the side-aisle, proceeded along under the high
pews till she came to the corner where she could see the
minister. Here she stood gazing steadfastly at him.
Deacon Hadlock motioned her to be gone. Deacon Ramsdill
limped almost smiling towards her, took her by the
arm, opened the pew where his wife sat, and shut her in.
Mistress Ramsdill gave her caraway and dill, and received
in return some of the childs pennyroyal and lamb-kill, and
other flowers. The old lady used her best endeavors to
keep Margaret quiet, and she remained earnestly watching
the Preacher till the end of the service.

Noon-time of a Sunday in a New England country
town used to be, and even now is, a social and re-unitive
epoch of no small interest. Brothers, uncles, cousins, from
the outskirts, accompanied their relatives to their homes on
the green. A certain class of men and boys, with a meek look
and an unconscious sort of gait, would be seen wending their
way to the stoops of the tavern. Some sat the whole hour
on the Meeting-house steps talking of good things in a quiet
undertone, others strolled into the woods in the rear; several
elderly men and women retired to what was called a
“Noon House,” a small building near the School-house, where
they ate dinner and had a prayer; quite a number went to
Deacon Penrose's. Of the latter, the Widow Wright.

Mistress Ramsdill, who lived a little off the Green, offered
to take Margaret to her house, but the Widow interfered,
saying it was too long a walk, and all that, and prevailed
with Margaret to go with her. This going to Deacon Penrose's
consisted in having a seat in his kitchen Sunday
noons, and drinking of his nice cool water. Seats were
brought into the room, the floor was duly sanded, the pewter
in the dresser was bright and glistening. The Deacon's
own family and his particular relations occupied the parlor.
To this place came Mistress Whiston, and Old Mistress
Whiston, Mistresses Joy and Orff, Breaknecks; Mistress
Ravel, from the North Part of the town; Widows Brent
and Tuck, from the Mill; Paulina and Mercy Whiston,
and others. They ate nutcakes and cheese, snuffed snuff,
talked of the weather, births, deaths, health, sickness,
engagements, marriages, of friends at the Ohio, of Zenas
and Delinda's publishment, and would have talked about
Margaret, save that the Widow protected the child, assured
them of her ignorance, and hoped she would learn better
by and by. Mistress Whiston asked Margaret how she
liked the Meeting. She replied that she liked to hear
them sing. “Sing!” exclaimed Paulina Whiston. “I
wish we could have some singing. I was up to Brandon
last Sunday, and their music is enough sight better than
ours; they have introduced the new way almost every
where but here. We must drag on forty years behind the
whole world.”

“For my part,” said Mistress Orff, “I don't want any
change; our fathers got along in the good old way, and
went to Heaven. The Quakers use notes and the Papists
have their la sol me's, and Deacon Hadlock says it's a
contrivance to bring all those pests into the land. Then
it makes such a disturbance in the meetings; at Dunwich

two of the best deacons could'nt stand it, and got up and
went out; and Deacon Hadlock says he won't stay to hear
the heathenish sounds. It's only your young upstarts, lewd
and irregular people, and the like of that, that wants the
new way.”

“If our hearts was only right,” said Mistress Tuck,
“we should'nt want any books; and the next thing we
shall know, they will have unconverted people singing.”

“We have better leaders,” rejoined Paulina, “than
Deacon Hadlock and Master Elliman; their voices are old
and cracked, and they drawl on, Sunday after Sunday, the
same old tunes in the same old way.”

“If we once begin to let in new things, there is no knowing
where they will stop,” replied Mistress Orff.

“Just so,” said the Widow Tuck. “They begun with
wagons and shays, and the horses wan't used to it, and got
frightened at the noise, and run away; and our Eliashib
came nigh spraining his ancle.”

“I remember,” said the elder Mistress Whiston, “when
old Parson Bristead down in Raleigh, used thirty bushels
of sand on his floors every year, and I don't believe Parson
Welles uses five.”

“Yes, yes,” said her daughter-in-law, “great changes,
and nobody can tell where it will end.”

“When I was a gal,” continued the senior lady, “they
didn't think of washing but once a month—”

“And now washing days come round every Monday,”
added Paulina. “If you will let us have some respectable
singing, I will agree to go back to the old plan of washing,
Grandma, ha ha!”

“It's holy time, child,” said her mother.

“I remember,” said the Widow Brent, who was a little

deaf, “milking a cow a whole winter for half a yard of
ribbin.”

“I remember,” said Mistress Ravel, “the Great Hog up
in Dunwich, that hefted nigh twenty score.”

“If you would go to the Pond to-day,” said Margaret,
“I guess Chilion would play you a better tune on his fiddle
than they sing at the Meeting.”

“Tush, Tush!” said the Widow Wright.

“There, there! You see what we are coming to;” said
Mistress Orff. “Booly Ann, where was the Parson's text
this forenoon?”

The Widow Wright assumed the charge of Margaret in
the afternoon. The child kept quiet till the prayer, when
the noise of the hinge-seats, or something else, seemed to
disconcert her, and she told her protectress she wished to
go home. The Widow replied there was to be a christening,
and prevailed with her to stop, and lifted her on the seat,
where she could witness the ceremony. The Minister
descended from the pulpit, and Mr. Adolphus Hadlock
carried forward the babe, enveloped in a long flowing
blanket of white tabby silk, lined with white satin, and
embroidered with ribbon of the same color. The Minister
from a well-burnished font sprinkled water in the face of
the child, and after the usual formula baptized it “Urania
Bathsheba.” Margaret was not alone in the number of
causes that disturbed the serenity of the Meeting that day;
there was an amount of mirth in the minds of the people at
large, touching Mr. Adolphus Hadlock's children, which as
a matter of course must spend itself on what seemed to be
their annual reappearance at the altar.

Finally Mistress Ramsdill insisted on Margaret's remaining
to the catechizing. Margaret at first demurred, but
Deacon Ramsdill supported the request of his wife with

one of his customary smiles, remarking that “catechising
was as good arter the sermon to the children as greasing
arter shearing, it would keep the ticks off,” which, he said,
“were very apt to fly from the old sheep to the lambs.”
The class, comprising most of the youths in town, was
arranged in the broad aisle, the boys on one side, and the
girls on the other, with the Minister in the pulpit at the
head.

“What is the chief end of man?” was the first question;
to which a little boy promptly and swiftly gave the appropriate
answer—“How many persons are there in the Godhead?”
“There are four persons in the Godhead—”
began a boy, quite elated and confident. There was an
instant murmur of dissent. The neophite, as it were challenged
to make good his ground, answered not so much to
the Minister as to his comrades. “There is God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God
Buonaparte—Tony Washington said the Master said so.”
This anti-Gallicism and incurable levity of the pedagogue
wrought a singular mistake; but it was soon rectified, and
the Catechism went on. “Wherein consists the sinfulness
of that state wherein man fell?” “The sinfulness of that
state wherein man fell, God having out of his mere good
pleasure elected some to everlasting life, is the fault and
corruption of the nature of every man that is naturally
engendered in him, and deserveth God's wrath and damnation,”
was the rapid and disjointed answer. The question
stumbling from one to another, was at length righted
by Job Luce, the little hunchback. The voice of this
child was low and plaintive, soft and clear, and he quite
engaged Margaret's attention. There were signs of dissatisfaction
on the faces of others, but his own was unruffled
as a pebble in a brook. Shockingly deformed, the arms of

the lad were long as an ape's, and he seemed almost to rest
on his hands, while his shoulders rose high and steep above
his head. “That's Job Luce,” whispered Mistress Ramsdill
to Margaret; “and if there ever was a Christian, I
believe he is one, if he is crooked. Don't you see how he
knows the Catechism; he has got the whole Bible eeny
most by heart, and he is only three years old.” Margaret
forgot every thing else to look at a creature so unfortunate
and so marvellous.

When the Catechism was over and the people left the
church, she at once hastened to Job and took one of his
hands; little Isabel Weeks too, sister-like, took his other
hand, and these two girls walked on with the strange boy.
Margaret stooped and looked into his eye, which he turned
up to her, blue, mild, and timid, seeming to ask, “Who are
you that cares for me?” In truth, Job was we will not
say despised, but for the most part neglected. His mother
was a poor widow, whose husband had been a shoemaker,
and she got her living binding shoes. The old people
treated her kindly, but rather wondered at her boy; and
what was wonder in the parents degenerated into slight,
jest, and sometimes scorn, in the children; so that Job
numbered but few friends. Then he got his lessons so
well the more indolent and duller boys were tempted to
envy him.

“You didn't say the Catechism,” said he to Margaret.

“No,” she replied, “I don't know it; but I have a Bird
Book and can say Mother Goose's Songs.” Their conversation
was suddenly interrupted by an exclamation and
a sigh from Miss Amy and the Widow Luce, who were
close behind.

“Woe, woe to a sinful mother!” was the language of
the latter.

“Child, child!” cried the former, addressing herself to
Margaret, “don't you like the Catechism?”

“I don't know it,” replied Margaret.

“She isn't bad, if she is an Injin,” interposed Isabel.

“Does she understand Whipporwill?” abstractedly asked
Job.

“God's hand is heavily upon us! 'mournfully ejaculated
the Widow.

“Can any thing be done?” anxiously asked Miss Amy.

They stopped. Miss Amy was moved to take Margaret
by the hand, and with some ulterior object in view she
detached the child from Job, and went with her up the
West Street—the natural rout to the Pond.

“Did you never read the Primer?” she asked.

“No, Ma'am,” was the reply.

“Have you never learned how many persons there are
in the Godhead?”

“One of the little boys said there were four, the others
that there were but three. I should love to see it.”

“How dare you speak in that way of the Great Jehovah!”

“The great what?”

“The Great God, I mean.”

“I thought it was a bird.”

“Can it be there is such heathenism in our very midst!”
said the lady to herself. Her interest in the state of
Margaret was quickened, and she pushed her inquiry with
most philanthropic assiduity.

“Do you never say your prayers?” she asked.

“No, Ma'am,” replied Margaret. “I can say the Laplander's
Ode and Mary's Dream.”

“What do you do when you go to bed?”

“I go to sleep, Ma'am, and dream.”

“In what darkness you must be at the Pond!”

“We see the Sun rise every morning, and the snowdrops
don't open till it's light.”

“I mean, my poor child, that I am afraid you are very
wicked there.”

“I try to be good, and Pa is good when he don't get rum
at Deacon Penrose's; and Chilion is good; he was going to
mend my flower bed to-day to keep the hogs out.”

“What, break the Sabbath! Violate God's holy day!
Your father was once punished in the Stocks for breaking
the Sabbath. God will punish us all if we do so.”

“Will it put our feet in the Stocks the same as they did
father?”

“No, my child. He will punish us in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone.”

“What, the same as Chilion and Obed and I burnt up
the bees?”

“Alas! alas!” sorrowed the lady.

“We were so bad,” continued Margaret, “I thought I
should cry.”

“Deacon Penrose and the rest of us have often spoken
of you at the Pond; and we have thought sometimes of
going up to see you. In what a dreadful condition your
father is!”

“Yes, Ma'am, sometimes. He rolls his eyes so, and
groans, and shakes, and screams, and nobody can help him.
I wish Deacon Penrose would come and see him, and I think
he would not sell him any more rum.”

“Poor little one!—don't you know any thing of the
Great God who made you and me?”

“Did that make me? I am so glad to know. The little
chickens come out of the shells, the beans grow in the pods,
the dandelions spring up in the grass, and Obed said I
came in an acorn, but the pigs and wild turkeys eat up the

acorns, and I can't find one that has a little girl in it like
me.”

“Would you like to come down to Meeting again?”

“I don't know as I like the Meeting. It don't seem so
good as the Turkey Shoot and Ball. Zenas Joy didn't hurt
my arm there, and Beulah Ann Orff and Grace Joy talked
with me at the Ball. To-day they only made faces at me,
and the man at the door told me to throw away my flowers.”

“How deceitful is the human heart, and desperately
wicked!”

“Who is wicked?”

“We are all wicked.”

“Are you wicked? then you do not love me, and I don't
want you to go with me any farther.”

“Ah! my dear child, we go astray speaking lies as soon
as we be born.”

“I never told a lie.”

“The Bible says so—do not run away; let me talk with
you a little more.”

“I don't like wicked people.”

“I wish to speak to you about Jesus Christ, do you
know him?”

“No, Ma'am—Yes, Ma'am, I have heard Hash speak
about it when he drinks rum.”

“But did you not hear the Minister speak about him in
the pulpit to-day?”

“Yes, Ma'am,—does he drink rum too?”

“No, no, child, he only drinks brandy and wine.”

“I have heard Hash speak so when he only drank that.”

“The Minister is not wicked like Hash,—he does not get
drunk.”

“Hash wouldn't be wicked if he didn't drink. I wish he
could drink and not be wicked too.”

“O, we are all wicked, Hash and the Minister, and you
and I; we are all wicked, and I was going to tell you how
Christ came to save wicked people.”

“What will he do to Hash?”

“He will burn him in hell-fire, my child.”

“Won't he burn the Minister too? I guess I shall not
come to Meeting any more. You and the Minister and all
the people here are wicked. Chilion is good, I will stay at
home with him.”

“The Minister is a holy man, a good man I mean, he is
converted, he repents of his sins. I mean he is very sorry
he is so wicked.”

“Don't he keep a being wicked? You said he was
wicked.”

“Why, yes, he is wicked. We are all totally depraved.
You do not understand. I fear I cannot make you see it
as it is. My dear child, the eyes of the carnal mind are
blind, and they cannot see. I must tell you, though it may
make you feel bad, that young as you are, you are a mournful
instance of the truth of Scripture. But I dare not speak
smooth things to you. If you would read your Bible, and
pray to God, your eyes would be opened so you could see.
But I did want to tell you about Jesus Christ, who was both
God and Man. He came and died for us. He suffered
the cruel death of the cross. The Apostle John says, he
came to take away the sins of the world. If you will
believe in Christ he will save you. The Holy Spirit, that
came once in the form of a dove, will again come, and
cleanse your heart. You must have faith in the blood of
Christ. You must take him as your Atoning Sacrifice.
Are you willing to go to Christ, my child?”

“Yes, Ma'am, if he won't burn up Hash, and I want to
go and see that little crooked boy too.”

“It's wicked for children to see one another Sundays.”

“I did see him at Meeting.”

“I mean to meet and play and show picture-books, and
that little boy is very apt to play; he catches grasshoppers,
and goes down by the side of the brook, before sundown;
—that is very bad.”

“Are his eyes sore, like Obed's, sometimes, and the
light hurts him?”

“It is God's day, and he won't let children play.”

“He lets the grasshoppers play.”

“But he will punish children.”

“Won't he punish the grasshoppers too?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess I am not afraid of God.”

Miss Amy, whether that she thought she had done all
she could for the child, or that Margaret seemed anxious to
break company with her, or that she had reached a point
in the road where she could conveniently leave her, at this
instant turned off into Grove Street, and Margaret pursued
her course homeward. She arrived at the water a little
before sunset; she fed her chickens, her squirrel and
robin; her own supper she made of strawberries and milk
in her wooden bowl and spoon. She answered as she best
could the inquiries and banterings of the family touching
the novel adventures of the day. She might have been
tired, but the evening air and the voices of the birds were
inviting, and her own heart was full of life; and she took a
stroll up the Indian's Head.

Along a tangled path, trod by sheep, more by herself,
and somewhat by visitors to the Pond, she wound her way
to the summit. This, as we have said, was nearly one
hundred feet above the level of the water; on the top were
the venerable trunk of the Hemlock before referred to, a

small cluster of firs, a few spears of yellow orchard grass
and brown sorrel, sparse tufts of harebells and buttercups,
bunches of sweet-fern, and mosses growing on the rocks.
From the south front projected a smooth shelving rock
directly over the water, forming the brow of the so called
Head. This elevation commanded points of extensive and
varied interest; the Pond below, its dark waters dotted
with green islands, its forest-skirted shore, the outlet, the
dam, the deep and perpetual gurgle of the falling water.
Beyond the dam was a broken congeries, the result of wild
diluvial force; horrid gulfs, high rocky pinnacles, trees
aslant, green dingles; to the west, the hills crept along by
gentle acclivities, and swelling upwards, formed, to an untrained
eye, the apparent boundaries of this nether world.
On the north was a continuation of the ridge of mountains
of which the Head itself seemed to be the close, proceeding
indefinitely till they met and melted into the sky. On the
north-west, buried like a cloud in the dimmest distance,
appeared the round, bald, but soft and azure crown of Old
Umkiddin. Beyond the Pond, on the south, was a forest,
sweeping onwards to the heavens without break or bound.
Turning to the east one beheld the River, its meadows, and
portions of the village. In every direction, here and there,
on side hills, in glades of the forest, among orchard-groves,
appeared the roofs of houses and barns, dappling the scene,
and reflecting in the middle of the day a gray, silvery light,
like mica in granite. To this place Margaret ascended;
hither had she often come before, and here in her future
life she often came.

She went up early in the morning to behold the sun rise
from the eastern hills, and to be wrapped in the fogs that
flowed up from the River; at noon, to lie on the soft grass
under the murmuring firs, and sleep the midtide sleep of all

nature; or ponder with a childish curiosity on the mystery
of the blue sky and the blue hills; or, with a childish dread,
to brood over the deep dark waters that lay chasmed below
her. She came up in the Fall to pick bramble berries and
gather the leaves and crimson spires of the sumach for her
mother to color with.

She now came up to see the sun go down. Directly on
the right of the sunsetting was an apparent jog or break
at the edge of the world, having on one side something
like a cliff or sharp promontory, jutting towards the
heavens, and overlooking what seemed like a calm clear
sea beyond; within this depression lay the top of Umkiddin,
before spoken of; here also, after a storm, appeared
the first clear sky, and here at midday the white clouds, in
long ranges of piles, were wont to repose like ships at
anchor. Near at hand, she could see the roads leading to
Dunwich and Brandon, winding, like unrolled ribbons,
through the woods. There were also pastures covered
with gray rocks that looked like sheep; the green woods in
some places were intersected by fields of brown rye, or soft
clover. On the whole, it was a verdant scene, Greenness,
like a hollow ocean, spread itself out before her; the
hills were green and the depths also; in the forest,
the darkness, as the sun went down, seemed to form
itself into caverns, grottoes, and strange fantastic shapes,
out of solid greenness. In some instances she could see
the tips of the trees glancing and frolicing in the light,
while the greedy shadows were crawling up from their
roots, as it were out of the ground to devour them. Deep
in the woods the blackcap and thrush still whooted and
clang unweariedly; she heard also the cawing of crows, and
scream of the loon; the tinkle of bells, the lowing of cows,
and bleating of sheep were distinctly audible. Her own

Robin, on the Butternut below, began his long, sweet, many-toned
carol; the tree-toad chimed in with its loud trilling
chirrup; and frogs, from all the waters around, crooled,
chubbed and croaked. Swallows skimmered over her, and
plunged into the depths below; swarms of flies in circular
squadrons skirmished in the sunbeams before her eye;
at her side, in the grass, crickets sung their lullabies to the
departing day; a rich, fresh smell from the water, the
woods, wild-flowers, grass-lots, floating up over the hill,
regaled her senses. The surface of the Pond, as the
sun declined, broke into gold-ripples, deepening gradually
into carmine and vermilion; suspended between her eye
and the horizon was a table-like form of illuminated mist,
a bridge of visible sunbeams shored on pointed shining
piers reaching to the ground.

Margaret sat, we say, attentive to all this; what were
her feelings we know not now, we may know hereafter;
and clouds that had spent the Sabbath in their own way,
came with her to behold the sunsetting; some in long
tapering bands, some in flocky rosettes, others in broad,
many-folded collops. In that light they showed all colors,
rose, pink, violet and crimson, and the sky in a large circumference
about the sun weltered in ruddiness, while the
opposite side of the heavens threw back a purple glow.
There were clouds, to the eye of the child, like fishes; the
horned-pout, with its pearly iridine breast and iron-brown
back: floating after it was a shiner with its bright golden
armory; she saw the blood-red fins of the yellow-perch, the
long snout of the pickerel with its glancing black eye, and
the gaudy tail of a trout. She beheld the sun sink half
below the horizon, then all his round red face go down;
and the light on the Pond withdraw, the bridge of light
disappear, and the hollows grow darker and grimmer. A

stronger and better defined glow streamed for a moment
from the receding depths of light, and flashed through the
atmosphere. The little rose-colored clouds melted away in
their evening joy, and went to rest up in the dark unfathomable
chambers of the heavens. The fishes swam
away with that which had called them into being, and
plunged down the cataract of light that falls over the other
side of the earth; the broad massive clouds grew denser
and more gloomy, and extended themselves, like huge-breasted
lions couchant which the Master had told her
about, to watch all night near the gate of the sun. She sat
there alone with no eye but God's to look upon her; he
alone saw her face, her expression, in that still, warm,
golden sunsetting; she sat as if for her the sun had gone
down, and the sky unloosed its glory; she sat mute and
undisturbed, as if she were the child-queen of this great
pageant of Nature.

While at the Pond the birds were closing their strains
and Margaret was taking her parting look of the sky, in the
village, at the same moment, broke forth the first song of the
day, and was indulged the first unembarrassed vision.
When the last shimmer of blue light vanished from the top
of the mountain beyond the River, whither tenscore eyes
were turned, there exploded the long twenty-four hours
pent and swollen emotion of tenscore hearts and voices.
“Sun's down!” sun's down!” was the first unrestrained
voice the children had uttered since the previous afternoon.
This rang out in every family and echoed from house to
house. The spell was broken, the tether cut, doors and
gates flew open, and out the children dashed into the
streets, to breathe a fresh feeling, clutch at the tantalizing
and fast receding enjoyment, and give a minute's free play
to hands, feet and tongues. An avalanche of exuberant

life seemed to have fallen from the glacier summits of the
Sabbath, and scattered itself over the Green. The boys
leaped and whooped towards the Meeting-house, flung their
hats into the air, chased one another in a sort of stampede,
and called for games with all possible vociferation.

Little Job Luce alone seems to have no share in the
general revel. He has been sitting by the Brook under a
willow, and as the boys come trooping by, he shrinks into
the house; his mother holds him a while in her lap at the
window, when he, as the grasshoppers have already done,
goes to bed.

The villagers, husbands and wives, grave and venerable
men, beaux and sweethearts, appear in the streets, walk up
the different roads, and visit from house to house.

The Indian's Head meanwhile is folded in shadows and
silence, and Margaret is hushed as the sky above her; the
cool fresh evening wind blows upon her, thrills through
her brown curls and passes on. Her mother appeared on
the top of the hill, and without words or noise sat down
beside her. She folded her arm about Margaret's neck,
and with one hand grasped that of the child, and with the
other dallied with the locks of her hair;—but abstractedly,
and with her eye wandering over the misty expanse. Her
own grizzled hair was swept by the wind, and her bared
swarthy bosom seemed to drink in life from the twilight
world. In calm sternness, in mute brownness she sat, and
apparently thoughtful, and as it were unconsciously she
pressed Margaret hard to her breast. Was it an old memory,
some old hope, some recollection of her own childhood,
some revival of her own mother's image?—was it some
feeling of despair, some selfish calculation, a dim glimpse
into eternity, an impulse of repenting sin, a visitation of
God's spirit?—was it a moment of unavowed tenderness?

Presently Chilion came up with his viol, and going to the
projecting rock, sat with his feet dangling over the precipice.
Margaret withdrawing from her mother went to her
brother, leaned on his shoulder, and looked down into the
mysterious depth below. Her brother began to play, and
as if he had imbibed the dizziness, dread and profundity of
that abyss, he seemed to play with a similar impulse, and
she shuddered and started; then relieving the impression, he
played the soft, starry, eternal repose of the heavens, and
chased away that abyss-music from her soul. Her father,
too, joined them, his red face glistening even in the shadows;
he had with him a flask of rum which he drank; he
laughed, too, and repeated many passages of the Bible, and
imitated the tones, expression and manners of all the religious
persons whom Margaret had seen in the village;
then making a pappoose of her, he carried her down to the
house.

That night Margaret dreamed a dream, and in this wise
dreamed she. She was in a forest, and the sun was going
down among the trees. Its round red disk changed to
yellow, as she looked, and then to white; then it seemed
to advance towards her, and the woods became magically
luminous. She beheld her old familiar birds flying among
the branches with a singularly lustrous plumage, the wild-flowers
glowed under her feet, and the shrubbery was all
a-flame. The ball of light come forward to a knoll about
a dozen rods before her, and stopped. A gradual metamorphosis
was seen to go on to it, till at last it came out in
the form of a man, like a marble statue, dressed not as
Margaret had been accustomed to see, but in a simple robe
that descended to his feet, and leaning upon a milk-white
cross. Near this appeared another form of a man,
clothed in a similar manner, but smaller in size, and perched

on his hand was a milk-white dove. Margaret looked at
these men, or forms of men, in silent wonder. Presently
she saw a suffusion and outflowing of animal life in them.
The face of the first was pale but very fair, and a hidden
under-tinge of color seemed to show through an almost
transparent skin, as she had seen the blush of the white
goosefoot shining through a dew drop. In the preternatural
light that filled the place, Margaret saw that his eyes
were dark blue, and his hair, parted on the crown, flowed
in dark-brown curls down his neck. The appearance of
the other was similar, only the glow on his cheeks seemed
to be more superficial, and his look was more youthful.
The cross on which the elder leaned, Margaret now saw
set in the ground, where it grew like a tree, budded and
bore green leaves and white flowers, and the milk-white
dove, becoming also endowed with life, flew and lit upon
the top of it. She then saw the younger of the two men
pick flowers from the blooming cross-tree, and give them
to the other, who seemed pleased with their beauty and
fragrance. She found herself moving towards these two
persons who had so singularly appeared to her, and when
she saw one of them pick off the flowers, she was secretly
impelled to do the same. So she gathered quite a bunch
of calico bush, Solomon's seal, Iambkill and others similar
to those she found in the woods on her way to the Meeting,
which she tied with a grass string. Then she got a parcel
of checkerberries. All at once the milk-white dove flew
from the green cross-tree and alighted upon her shoulder,
thus seeming to establish a communication between herself
and these two persons, and as she moved on, all the birds
in the woods, the same as she had heard in the morning,
sung out right merrily. When she stopped, they ceased
to sing, and when she started, they began again. As she
was going on, suddenly issuing from behind a tree, appeared
to her in her dream the same lady who had talked with her
after meeting, Miss Amy.

“Where are you going?” said the lady.

“I am going to see those men, and give that beautiful
one those flowers and berries.”

“That is Jesus Christ that I told you about this afternoon,
and the other is the Apostle John,” rejoined the
lady.

“Is it?” queried Margaret, “then I think he won't want
my flowers.”

“He is God, the second person in the Godhead. He
does not want flowers. He wants you to believe in him;
you must have faith in that cross.”

“I was going to carry him flowers, I saw him smell of
some. He looks as if he would love me.”

“Love you?” rejoined the lady. “What does the
Creed say? That you deserve everlasting destruction.”

While they were talking, the birds ceased to sing, and
the dove leaving Margaret's shoulder flew back to the
cross. She started impulsively and said, “I will go.” As
she proceeded slowly along, in the shifting and multiform
phenomena of the dream, Deacon Hadlock stood before her,
and asked where she was going, to whom she made the
same reply as before.

“You cannot go,” said he, “unless you are effectually
called. You are wholly disabled by reason of sin.”

“It is only a little ways,” replied she, “and I went clear
down to the village to-day alone. He looks as if he wanted
me to come.”

“Yes,” rejoined the Deacon, “if you were in a right
frame of mind, if you were duly humbled. You are vain,
proud, deceitful, selfish and wholly depraved.”

“I guess I am not.”

“Even there you show the blindness of the carnal
mind.”

“He is beckoning to me,” cried Margaret, with childish
earnestness.

“If he should appear to you as he truly is, a just God,
who hates sin, and should gird on his sword, then your
rebellious heart would show itself, then you would hate
him.”

While Deacon Hadlock detained Margaret, the Widow
Luce went by leading her crooked boy Job, also Mistress
Hatch and her little boy Isaiah, and Helen Weeks with her
brother and sister Judah and Isabel, and several elderly
people.

“He does'nt hang on the cross as he does in the Primer,”
said Isaiah.

“Blessed Savior! by faith I behold thee!” exclaimed
Mistress Palmer, coming through the woods.

“I thought he was coming to judgment, in clouds and
flaming fire, taking vengaance on them that know not
God,” said the Camp-Preacher looking from behind a
tree.

John the disciple and companion of Jesus was now seen
approaching. “Welcome to Jesus!” he said, as he came
near to the people. “The good shepherd welcomes his
flock! as saith the old Prophet, `He will take the lambs in
his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.' He
is the Eternal Life now manifested unto you; come to him
that he may give you some of his life; he is the truth, he
will impart to you that truth; approach him that his own
divine image may be reflected in you; love him, and so
become possessed of his spirit.” The crowd drew back as
the holy Apostle approached. Children snuggled to their

parents, and the elderly people seemed disconcerted.
“Christ bids me say,” continued the Apostle, “Suffer the
little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom
of heaven.”

“I know not how many of us may be included in this
invitation,” said Deacon Hadlock, as the senior officer of
the church, and more prominent man, speaking on behalf
of the company.

“Whosoever thirsts,” replied the Apostle, “let him come.
Whoever would have the true life, like a well of water
springing up in his soul, let him come to the living source.”

“It is to be hoped that some of us have been made
worthy partakers of the efficacy of Christ's death,” said
Deacon Penrose.

“Whosoever doeth not righteousness,” rejoined the Apostle,
“is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother; every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth
God.”

“I want he should take me in his arms and bless me, as
he did the little children in the Bible,” said Isabel Weeks
to her sister.

“He looks so beautiful and good,” said Helen, “I
should rejoice to go near him. It seems as if my heart
had for a great while longed to meet such gentleness and
purity.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Deacon Hadlock, “that you should
apply again that unction to your lips! You think your
natural amiability will commend you to Christ. You believe
there is something good in your nature,—When,”
added he, turning to the Apostle, “will this young woman
see herself as she is, feel her own sinfulness, her utter
helplessness by nature, and throw herself on the mere mercy
of God?”

“Hold!” said the Apostle. “She is in the way of salvation.
Her natural amiability is pleasing to Christ. He
was amiable in his youth before God and man. No human
being is sinful by nature. If she have deep love in her
soul, that will remove all traces of the carnal mind. Her
love, I see it now, flows out to Jesus, and his love ever
flows out to her, and all the children of men, and in this
union of feeling and spirit will she become perfect in
holiness.”

By this time, little Job Luce, as it seemed in the dream,
forgotten and neglected by the crowd, slipping away unobserved
and creeping through the bushes and trees, had
gone round and come out near the cross, under which he
stood, and began playing with the Dove that offered itself
very familiarly to him. The little crumpled boy appeared
to be cured of his deformity, he walked erect, the hump
had fallen from his back, and his hands no longer touched
the ground.

Jesus himself was now seen to be drawing near. The
tree-cross, green and flowering, moved along with him; the
birds in the woods renewed their song, and even the milk-white
dove flew from tree to tree, as it were to give good
cheer to the timid little birds. Some of the people retreated
and stood afar off in the shade of the forest, others
clustered about Deacon Hadlock.

“Behold him!” outspoke the Apostle John, “the fairest
among the sons of men; our elder Brother; he took upon
himself our nature, and is not ashamed to call us brethren.
He hath loved us, and given himself for us, as the good
Paul said, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet
smelling savor.”

The voice of Jesus himself was heard at last sounding
heavenly sweet and tenderly free among the bewildered

people. “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly of heart.” “The bruised reed he will not
break,” added John, “nor quench the smoking flax.”

“I am not come to condemn you,” continued the voice of
Jesus, “but that by me you may be saved. I give myself
for your life. Through my holiness ye shall sin no more.”

“We will go to him!” exclaimed Helen Weeks earnestly.
“Come Isabel, come Margaret.”

These three interlocked, Margaret still retaining her
berries and flowers, the kind Apostle led forward, and Jesus
smiled upon them as they approached, and took each of
them by the hand, and spake comforting and assuring words
to them, and they looked with a reverential pleasure into
his face. Margaret, who from her own ignorance of the
person she addressed felt less fear of him than the others,
was the first to speak. “Do you love flowers?” said
she, at the same time extending the bunch she had in
her hand. Christ took them, and replied, “God bless you,
my dear child.” “Can he bless and love me?” said Helen,
addressing herself directly to Jesus, but adopting the customary
third person. “I love those that love me,” he
replied. “Keep your heart pure, for out of it are the
issues of life, and I and the Father will come and dwell
with you.”

“Can he have mercy on a poor sinner like me?” asked
Mistress Palmer.

“I forgive you, Daughter,” he answered; “Go and sin
no more.”

“Are you God?” asked Margaret.

“I am not God. But love me, and you will love God,”
he said.

“There is some mistake here,” observed Deacon Hadlock,

as if he was afraid Christ had not fully explained
himself.

“There is no mistake,” interposed the Apostle.

“But are we not saved by the Atoning Sacrifice, and
can that be made except by an infinite being, and is not
that being God?” added the Deacon.

“We are saved by a divine union with God and Christ.
He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in
him. This inter-dwelling is our salvation, and this is the
Atonement.”

“That's nater,” said Deacon Ramsdill, “I understand
that. I am afeered some of us are resting upon a sandy
foundation.”

“I was a poor sinner,” continued the Apostle, “till I
came into this oneness with Christ. I feel safe and happy
now, my soul is elevated and purified. To be with him is
like being with God; to possess his spirit is to bear the
virtues of heaven; to be formed in his image is the blessed
privilege of humanity. To effect such a change is the
object for which he came into the world, and that which I
have seen and heard, and handled and enjoyed, I declare
unto you, that you, beloved friends, may have fellowship
with me; and truly my fellowship is with the Father, and
with his Son Jesus Christ.”

“We are emptied of all self-righteousness,” said Deacon
Hadlock, “we are altogether become filthy.”

“Have you no love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness,
faith?” asked the Apostle.

“Alas, none,” replied the Deacon.

“Say not so, a single look of his will pierce you through
and through.”

“What the gentleman says may be true,” interposed
Deacon Penrose; “but I think it highly inexpedient to

speak of these things. We might adjourn, a few of us, to
my counting-room, or to the Parson's study, and confer
upon the matter; but to talk in this way before all the
people is the worst policy that could have been adopted.”
So saying he disappeared.

“Look at these children,” continued St. John, “the very
flowers and berries they bring are the affectionate tribute
of their hearts to the Infinite Goodness and Divine Beauty
that appear in Christ; it is the outflowing of a pure love;
it is the earnest and foreshadowing of the salvation that
has already begun in their souls. That young lady's
yearning after the love of Jesus is a sign that the Regeneration
has commenced within her, and by it a communication
is opened between her soul and his, which is the
Atonement, and so also she becomes united to God, who is
manifested and resident in Christ.”

“What have we been about all our lives, that we know
not so much of the Gospel as these children!” exclaimed
Deacon Hadlock mournfully and yet resistingly. Whereupon
it came to pass that the crowd withdrew or melted
away like a mist, and Margaret, Helen, Isabel, Judah, and
Job Luce, were left alone with Jesus and John. Helen
fell at the feet of Jesus, and overpowered by emotion wept
with a calm deep weeping; Margaret looked into his face,
and tears came into her eyes also.

“Will you forgive me, Job,” said Judah to the little boy,
“for all that I have done to you?”

“I will,” replied Job.

“Be good children and love one another,” said Jesus to
them, and the two boys disappeared.

“Weep not, child of my love,” said he to Helen, “confide
in me, dwell near my heart, obey the Gospel; I will be the
life of your life, the wellspring of your soul, and in purity

shall Heaven be revealed in you. The little Isabel, she
shall be blest too, I will carry the lamb in my bosom.”
When he had said this, they two vanished from the dream.

“You ask me who is God, child,” said he turning to
Margaret, who now alone remained; “God is Love. Be
pure in heart, and you shall see God. Love much, and he
shall be manifest to you. Your flowers are fair, your spirit
is fairer; I am well pleased with their fragrance, the breath
of your love is sweeter to me.—Margaret!” he continued,
“to you it shall be given to know the mysteries of Heaven.
But the end is not yet. Man shall rise against his fellow;
and many shall perish. The Church has fallen. The Eve
of Religion has again eaten the forbidden fruit. You shall
be a co-worker with me in its second redemption. I speak
to you in parables, you understand not. You shall understand
at another day. You are young, but you may advance
in knowledge and goodness. You must be tempted, blessed
if you can endure temptation. Be patient and earnest,
hopeful and loving. I too was a child like you, and it is
that you must be a child like me. Through the morning
shadows of childhood you shall pass to the perfect day. I
unconsciously grew in favor with God and man, so shall
you. This Cross is the burden of life, which all must bear.
Bear it well, and it shall bring forth flowers and fruit to
you. This Dove stands for the innocency and virtue,
strength and support, that flow from God to all. In a
dream have all these things passed before you. Forget not
your dream. There is much evil in the world, sin not.
You must be afflicted, faint not. Let me kiss you, my
sweet child.”

Thus spake Jesus, and the dream again changed. The
two persons were seen to return to marble-like forms, and

these forms became a round ball of light, which, receding
through the forest, stood on the distant mountains like the
setting sun, and Margaret awoke. The morning light
streamed into her chamber; from her window she saw the
golden sun coming up over the dark woods, and the birds
were pealing their songs through the amber air.

The child went down with bright feelings, light-hearted
and free; she brought water from the cistern for her mother
to wash, spread the clothes on the bushes, and scared the
birds from yarn that was hung out to dry.

15. CHAPTER XV.
MARGARET PASSES A NIGHT AT THE STILL, AND SOLOMON
SMITH MAKES HER USEFUL.

It will be remembered that Hash, the brother of Margaret,
at the Spring training, was punished not only by
imprisonment, but also with an inconsiderable fine, for
disorderly behavior on that occasion. Not being himself
possessed of the money, he had recourse to the Smiths at
No. 4, to whom he pledged his oxen for the necessary sum.
To acquit himself in that quarter, he engaged his services
as night-warden at the Still. In addition—for this seemed
to be a point especially insisted upon—he promised that
Margaret should accompany him in that duty.

The “Still,” or Distillery, was a smutty, clouted, suspicious
looking building, down in a hollow by Mill Brook.
It rose a single story on one side and two on the other, into
the former of which the barrels of cider were rolled, and
emptied into the cauldron below. The latter was the chief
scene of operation; here were the furnace; the boiler with
its cap for collecting the vapor and conveying it into the
worm-pipe or condenser; the refrigerator, an immense cask,
holding the worm, and supplied with fresh water by long
wooden troughs from the Brook above; and the receiver, a
barrel, into which the condensed vapor of the cider, now
having assumed the form called spirits, issuing from the
worm, fell drop by drop.

Here at nightfall were wont to assemble the people of
the neighborhood, including even some young females.

Hither came Margaret with Hash and Bull. A pine
torch blazed from the bunghole of a barrel. Boys were
crouched on the earth playing mumble-the-peg. Old
Isaac Tapley, with both hands in his waistband, leaned
on the boiler critically quaffing jets of steam that a lucky
leak afforded. Little Isaiah Hatch would desperately steal
on his finger's end a drop that fell from the worm. The
neighbors were kind, and seemed to vie with one another
who should be most useful, helping Solomon roll up the
barrels, tier on tier, bring in fuel, and keep the fire in good
countenance.

Damaris Smith politely offered to instruct Margaret in
the game of Fox and Geese, which they played sitting on
a bench with little hollows and lines branded in it.

At length the nine o'clock bell was heard from the village,
a tone mellowed by the distance and the woods; and
which breaking in upon many a scene of idleness, dissipation,
domestic quiet, or friendly visit, admonished the gay
of vanity, the devout of prayer, and all of bedtime. The
neighbors left, and presently the head of the establishment
retired also, leaving Margaret and Hash to their night's
work, that of tending the fire. It was not long before
Hash, whom Solomon had been treating with singular generosity,
exhibited signs of intoxication, and in a few
minutes fell senseless to the ground. Then was Margaret
left alone with a dead-drunk brother, a roaring furnace, a
hot and hissing cauldron, barrels of detestable drink, grotesque
and frightful shadows leaping on the beams; while
through holes in the floor above, from the dark and lonely
upper room, the reflected light seemed to grin at her like a
demon of Despair. When the fire burnt low, she replenished
it with dry hemlock, which snapped like the report
of subterranean musketry; while the sparks pouring out like

hail and falling on her brother's face, she was obliged to
shield it with boards. The gurgling of the water, as it
flowed in and out from the vat, would have been music to
her ears, if she were free to enjoy it; but it was her own
sweet Pond contributing to the wicked business of rummaking;—and
so too was she. Would she finish her work,
and flow away as uncontaminated?

Her father had never troubled her with ghost-stories,
and she was not inclined to yield to unreal alarms. The
night was dark and chilly. She could see nothing out
doors but great tremulous masses—masses of shadow, and
hear nothing save the Brook, which sounded as if it ran
somewhere very deep under ground. Yet it was quite refreshing
to turn from the hot furnance and fetid atmosphere
of the place to the cool and pure door-way, even if it was
dark all round and she seemed to be at the bottom of an infinite
loneliness. Her good angel, the dog, followed her steps
wherever she went; and once he looked so in her face, as
if there was a tear of sympathy in his eye: what, indeed,
she had done before in her life,—she put her arms about his
neck, and wept. She did not complain, or fear, or feel any
wrong or loss, but she wept irresistibly because her dog
loved her; and then she continued to weep as it were mechanically
because there was nothing to occupy her deep
sensitive faculties, and her tears alone remained to flow out;
and so too she fell to laughing, and laughed almost wildly
and incoherently; then chills crept over her, partly from
the increasing and overpowering coldness of the air, and
partly from an irrepressible nature which must always feel
cold if it be not deeply and warmly loved.

She then went and sat on the bench before the fire, and
Bull crouched right in front of her and seemed to be keeping
watch over her countenance; and she fell to gazing into his

eyes; and as she looked the eyes appeared to swell till
they became big as saucers, and the circle spread more and
more till it was like a great sheet of water. She saw in
the water, purple waves, like sunset, and moonlight doings
in the shape of golden fish, fiery lizards, and little young
lightnings at play, such as she had often seen in the Pond.
She seemed to herself to be going into the water, and down
and down she went till she came to a hollow place at the
bottom, where she stood as it were on a plain.

Here she saw a large silver cauldron over a fire,—something
like the arrangement her brothers adopted for boiling
maple sap,—and her first impulse was to go to the fire and
dry her clothes. Refore she could reach it, there passed
her three blooming and fairy-like girls, the like of whom
she had never seen. One of them ran and cast on the fire
an armful of rosebushes, bright autumnal leaves, aromatic
dead ferns, and white cotton grass, which made quite a
blaze. Another one collected wild flowers that were seen
growing every where, and threw into the cauldron eye-brights,
azaleas, rhodoras, and many more. The third girl
stood by the vessel and stirred it with a long silver ladle.

These persons did not speak to Margaret, nor she to
them. Events passed quietly, though every thing was full
of interest. The girls kept at work; they caught the
wriggling moonbeams and threw them into the pot; they
skimmed off the purple twilight to add to the ingredients;
turning a faucet at the end of a silver pipe connecting with
the blue sky, they set that running in; one had a mortar
in which she pounded sweet-scented herbs, as chamomile
and marjoram, for seasoning; two or three rainbows were
picked up and thrown in.

After it was sufficiently boiled, they began to dip out
this singular compound and pour it on the ground. The

liquor congealed as it fell, and the mass increased in an
opal-like human form. As they continued to discharge the
contents of the vessel, feet were formed, and legs, breast,
arms, and the shape of a head. One poured on another
ladle full, and beautiful eyes appeared; a second ladle produced
a delicate lovely color in the face; another covered
the head and neck with long, dark, curling hair. When
the Form, which was that of a woman, was complete, they
wove with their fingers out of the light a sort of drapery,
which they threw over it. Then one began to sing, and
another to play on a harp; while the third led down from
the skies the brilliant Planet Venus, by a bridle of blue
taste tied to one of its rays, and fastened it to a spear of
grass to keep it from running off. While the two first
were singing and playing, the Spirit of Life came into the
Form, filling it with soul, and it stood before them a perfect
human being. The three girls seemed greatly delighted
with the beautiful lady they had created, and were even
transported to such a degree as if they would worship her.
The Beauty, for such the new-formed woman might worthily
be called, did not however long consent to receive
the adulation of the others, but took pains to demonstrate
her equality with them in sundry pleasing ways, and the
four disported together on the green grass; then they all
went to bathe in a stream of clear water that opened near
by. After this the Beauty was seated on the brilliant
Planet Venus, which was unhitched, and seemed very eager
to be off.

Now Margaret had not been able to communicate with
what was going on; but wishing to do something, and
thinking she ought first to dry her clothes before appearing
before such nice people, she went to the fire, when lo!
her dress was not wet, for it instantly took fire, and blazed

right up, and spread a bright iridine-like illumination all
about her. Then such joy as these wonderful creatures
showed when they saw the little Margaret all a-fire was
never seen; and so beautifully flaming! and they all
seemed to be in flame-land and in flame-feeling. The steed,
if such it might be called, the evening star, could stand it
no longer, it leaped away with its fair rider, and these
lovely creations of a dream vanished into the most beautiful
light that ever was.

The growling of the dog waked Margaret, and she found
she had been dreaming; and that with her head pillowed
on the neck of her dumb protector.

The cur had no bad motive in disturbing the fancies of
his little mistress;—like a wise mentor, he wished to call
her attention to impending realities. Somebody was
about the Still. Somebody's footsteps could be heard in
the thick midnight without, and somebody's head was presently
seen looking in at the door. If it had been one of
the beautiful girl's of the dream, we guess Bull would not
have growled as he did, for he was a very partial and discriminating
dog, and always liked every one that Margaret
liked; therefore she was a little frightened when he growled
so strong, and one might almost say she snuggled down in
the dog's lap, so closely did she cling to him.

But this strange Somebody at the door spoke, and then
Margaret knew who it was—that it was Solomon Smith—
and he spoke very kindly. Crossing the threshold, he
looked as if he was more afraid of being hurt, than of
hurting. He seated himself rather timidly on an end of
the bench, and edged towards her. One might see that
this fellow was very much pleased to find Hash so sound
asleep, and that he had no intention of waking him. He
spoke under his breath, and commended the child for

minding the fire so well, and asked her if she wouldn't have
some toddy, which she refused.

“You are a curis creeter,” he continued, “and an't no
moon-calf nuther. You know at the trainin', guess as how
I found you out in the rain, and took you into the Tavern,
and you might have staid there all night for all any body
else lookin' arter you. Now you won't begrutch me a
favor will you, Peggy? Can you tell what makes the
likker come out of that are pipe?”

“I can't,” she replied. “I wish it didn't.”

“What makes dogs howl when you die?”

“I don't know. I think Bull would, if I should die.”

“Didn't you know you could catch a thief by putting a
rooster under a kittle? It'll crow as soon as the rascal
touches it, guess as how.”

“I didn't know that.”

“You found the water up to Mr. Palmer's, didn't you,
Peggy?” he inquired in an increasingly low and earnest
manner.

“The boys found it.”

“You carried the stick, and Nimrod said you found it,
and so did Rhody and the Widder.”

“Did they say so?”

“Now I want you should tell me if you ever found a
four-leaf clover? Speak low; walls have ears.”

“Yes,” she answered, “twenty in the Mowing.”

“Did you ever kill a cricket?”

“They sing so pretty, I couldn't kill one.”

“That's you. I wouldn't kill one. It's dum bad. Do
you put a Bible under your pillow when you go to bed?”

“What, such as Miss Amy told me about? She says
the Bible makes people all wicked; and Pa's Bible makes
us wicked too. I don't like Bibles.”

“Little coot! Don't you know the Bible is the best
book in the world. I always sleep with one, guess as
how. Let me see your finger nails. Is there any black
spots on them?”

“When they are dirty, and I dig roots for Obed.”

“Now keep shy, Peggy, I want to tell you something.
I have had a dream.”

“Do you dream too?”

“I have had a dream three nights a runnin'. I can't tell
you all about it now. But look here, Peg, Hash owes us,
and he'll have to lose his oxen if the money is'nt paid dum
soon. He drinks more than his work comes to, but if you
are willing to do what I want you to, I'll let him off.”

“What shall I do?” asked Margaret, with a slight twinge
of uncertainty and distress.

“I want you to go up with me to-night, to the Fortune-teller's,
Joyce Dooly's.”

To this proposal, the young man, after considerable coaxing
and threatening, succeeded in gaining Margaret's consent;
promising that he would release Hash altogether
from his obligations, if she would do as he wished.

In a few minutes a horse was at the door, and taking
Margaret behind, with the dog of course as sort of king's
guard, Solomon rode off, plunging as it were into bottomless
night and interminable woods. Up the Brandon road
half a mile or so, they dismounted and struck into a thicket.
Margaret had to hold by the skirt of Solomon's coat, while
he felt his way before. They espied at length a light, and
entered a door. In a small, low, ragged room, in what sort
of a house or place it was impossible for Margaret to tell,
she saw an old woman with a dish of coals and two tallow
candles burning before her on a table, both of which she
seemed to be intently watching. She was evidently prepared

for the visit, and showed by her manner that she had
been waiting their arrival. Joyce Dooly, the Fortune-teller,
was of course old, with a peaked and shrivelled face,
and black and sharp eye.—Why should not a fortune-teller
be young and pretty?—Her dress withal was fantastic
as her art. She muttered and peeped, as the Bible says,
like a wizard.

Five cats darted from chairs and the chimney side, when
the dog entered, hissing and spitting, and all raised their
backs together in one corner of the room. This movement
seemed to disturb the magician for a moment, but observing
it more attentively she became quiet, as if all was right.

Her immediate business was with Margaret, whom, after
settling certain preliminaries with the coals of fire, the
candle wicks, the cats, some cards and astrological tracts
that lay on the table, but which we need not describe, she
proceeded to examine.

“In what month were you born?” asked the Fortune-teller.

“I don't know,” replied Margaret.

“What, how!” exclaimed the old woman, in a tone of
surprise and rebuke. “Why have you brought the little
one here? Nativity is the most important. In what
house, Aquarius, Cancer, or Mercury,—we know nothing
about it. Was Jupiter in the ascendant? The Moon in
aspect to what? How can we tell?”

“I don't care for your riggledorums,” retorted Solomon,
with suppressed impatience. “Will she answer my purpose?
You have got your money to find out that, and that
is all I want to know.”

“Hold, Solomon!” she said with an overawing sternness.
“The cats are against you. Keep still. Here, child, let
me look at you. Curled hair,” so she went on. “denoteth

heat and drought; brown, fairness, justice, freedom and
liberality. Your signs are contradictory, child. Venus
must have been in square signs, when you were born. Do
you never have any trouble?”

“Sometimes,” she replied, “when Deacon Penrose and
Mr. Smith sell rum to Pa and Hash.”

“Take note, Solomon,” so the woman admonished the
fellow, “she refers her troubles to you. She prognosticates
disaster, sorrow and death. You had better let her alone.”

Solomon became inwardly greatly excited, but he strove
to control himself, and whispered something in the ears of
the woman, who turned again to the child.

“Lips,” she continued, “fairly set and well colored argue
fidelity, and a person given to all virtue; brow high and
smooth, signifieth a sincere friend and liberal benefactress;
small ears, a good understanding; neck comely and smooth,
a good genius; brown eyes, clear and shining, ingenuity,
nobility and probity. Let me see you laugh. Teeth white
and even, argue sweetness and reverence; dimples, persuasion
and command; hand, soft and clear, hath discretion,
service, delight in learning, peace-loving; palm D in mount
of the Moon,—ha! ha! do you want to know, child! many
and dutiful and fair children,—would you like to have
children?”

“Yes, Ma'am,” replied Margaret.

The old lady seemed to be wandering, and becoming
quite absorbed in the characteristics and tokens of the child,
she gave renewed uneasiness to Solomon, who expressed
his feelings in a loud and somewhat menacing tone.

“Rest thee, young man!” she replied, “thy fortune is
wrapt in that of the child. The hour cometh. Your significator
must apply to a sextile of Mercury and Venus.
I see a coffin in the wick of this candle. Scare the cats,

let me see them jump once more. Now is your moment,
depart.”

Whatever might be the meaning of this visit and this
singular mummery to Margaret, Solomon, it appeared,
had accomplished his object, and was ready to leave. Retracing
their steps through the darkness and wood, they
came back to the Still. Margaret would have gone in to
her brother, but Solomon declared he had something more
for her to do, and insisted that she should go a little farther
with him. They went up the road leading to the Pond,
and arriving at a growth of trees known as the Pines,
Solomon hitched his horse, and led Margaret once more
into the depths of the forest. Reaching a spot which he
seemed previously to have in his mind, he put a hazel-twig
into the child's hand, and bade her go about among the
trees in the same manner as she did at Mr. Palmer's at the
Ledge. She was not long in announcing the movement of
the stick, and the young man identified the magic spot as
well as he could in the darkness, by piling a heap of stones
over it. She asked him what it was for, but he declined
telling; and what he would not do, we must, since in the
sequel the whole affair came out.

This young Smith had a dream, three nights successively,
of gold hid in the Pines. He could not ascertain the precise
locality, and sundry private canvassings of the earth
with a spade had hitherto been fruitless. Hence his anxiety
to secure the services of Margaret, whose success on
a former occasion with the divining rod he had been apprized
of; hence also his visit to Joyce Dooly, the Fortune-teller,
for the purpose of fortifying himself more completely in
his undertaking.

Once more in this night of wanderings and mystery was
Margaret conducted to the Still. Nor did morning dawn

until Solomon had time to dispose of his horse in the stable,
and himself in bed, before any of his family were stirring.
Margaret found Hash yet in his sleep, the fire decayed,
and the Still dark, cold, and dismal as the morning after a
debauch. She rekindled the fire, sufficiently at least for
her own comfort, and lying down before it, sheltering herself
in what never failed either in kindness or support, the
arms of her dog, fell fast asleep.

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.

17. CHAPTER XVII.
WINTER.

It is the middle of winter, and is snowing, and has been
all night, with a strong north-east wind. Let us take a
moment when the storm intermits, and look in at Margaret's
and see how they do. But we cannot approach the
place by any ordinary locomotion; the roads, lanes and
by-paths are blocked up; no horse or ox could make
his way through this great Sahara of snow. If we are disposed
to adopt the means of conveyance formerly so much
in vogue, whether snowshoes or magic, we may possibly
get there. The house or hut is half sunk in the general
accumulation, as if it had foundered and was going to the
bottom; the face of the Pond is smooth, white and stiff as
death; the oxen and the cow in the barnyard, in their storm-fleeces,
look like a new variety of sheep. All is silence and
lifelessness, and if you please to say, desolation. Hens
there are none, nor turkeys, nor ducks, nor birds, nor
Bull, nor Margaret. If you see any signs of a human
being, it is the dark form of Hash, mounted on snowshoes,
going from the house to the barn. Yet there are, what by
a kind of provincial misnomer is called the black growth,
pines and firs, green as in summer, some flanking the hill
behind, looking like the real snowballs, blossoming in midwinter,
and nodding with large white flowers. But there
is one token of life, the smoke of the stunt gray chimney,
which, if you regard it as one, resembles a large, elongated,
transparent balloon; or if you look at it by piecemeal, it is

a beautiful current of bluish-white vapor, flowing upward
unendingly; and prettily is it striped and particolored, as it
passes successively the green trees, bare rocks, and white
crown of Indian's Head; nor does its interest cease, even
when it disappears among the clouds. Some would dwell
a good while on that smoke, and see in it many outshows
and denotements of spiritualities; others would say, the
house is buried so deep it must come from the hot, mischief-hatching
heart of the earth; others still would fancy
the whole region to be in its winding-sheet, and that if they
looked into the house they would behold the dead faces of
their friends. Our own notion is that that smoke is a quiet,
domestic affair, that it even has the flavor of some sociable
cookery, and is legitimately issued from a grateful and pleasant
fire; and that if we should go into the house we should
find the family as usual there; a suggestion which, as the
storm begins to renew itself, we shall do well to take the
opportunity to verify.

Flourishing in the midst of snowbanks, unmoved amid the
fiercest onsets of the storm, comfortable in the extremity
of winter, the family are all gathered in the kitchen, and
occupied as may be. In the cavernous fireplace burns a great
fire, composed of a huge green backlog and forestick, and
a high cob-work of crooked and knotty refuse wood. The
flame is as bright and golden as in Windsor Palace, or Fifth
Avenue, New York. The smoke goes off out-doors with
no more hesitancy than if it was summer time. The wood
sings, the sap drops on the hot coals, and explodes as if it
was Independence Day. Great red coals roll out on the
hearth, sparkle a semibrief, lose their grosser substance, indicate
a more ethereal essence in prototypal forms of white,
down-like cinders, and then dissolve into brown ashes.

To a stranger the room has a sombre aspect, rather

heightened than relieved by the light of the fire burning so
brightly at midday. The only connection with the external
world is by a rude aperture through the sides of the building;—yet
when the outer light is so obscured by a storm,
the bright fire within must any where be pleasant. In one
corner of the room is Pluck, in a red flannel shirt and
leather apron, at work on his kit mending shoes; with long
and patient vibration and equipoise he draws the threads,
and interludes the strokes with snatches of songs, banter
and laughter. The apartment seems converted into a workshop,
for next the shoemaker stands the shingle-maker,
Hash, who with froe in one hand and mallet in the other, by
dint of smart percussion, is endeavoring to rive a three-cornered
billet of hemlock. In the centre sits Brown Moll,
with bristling and grizzly hair, and her inseparable pipe,
winding yarn from a swift. Nearer the fire are Chilion and
Margaret; the latter with the Orbis Pictus, or World Displayed,
a book of Latin and English, adorned with cuts,
which the Master lent her; the former with his violin, endeavoring
to describe the notes in Dr. Byle's Collection of
Sacred Music, also a loan of the Master's, and at intervals
trailing on the lead of his father in some popular air. We
shall also see that one of Chilion's feet is raised on a stool,
bandaged, and apparently disabled. Bull, the dog, lies
rounded on the hearth, his nose between his paws, fast
asleep. Dick, the gray squirrel, sits swinging listlessly in
his wire wheel, like a duck on a wave. Robin, the bird,
in its cage, shrugs and folds itself into its feathers, as if it
were night. Over the fireplace, on the rough stones of the
chimney, which day and night through all the long winter
now cease to be warm, are Margaret's flowers; a blood-root
in the marble pot Rufus Palmer gave her, and in wooden
moss-covered boxes, pinks, violets and buttercups, green
and flowering. Here, also, as a sort of mantletree ornament,
sits the marble kitten that Rufus made, under a cedar
twig. At one end of the crane, in the vacant side of the
fireplace, hang rings of pumpkin rinds drying for beer.
On the walls, in addition to what was there last summer,
are strings of dried apples. There is also a draw-horse,
on which Hash smooths and squares his shingles; and a
pile of fresh, sweet-scented white shavings and splinters.
Through the yawns of the back-door and sundry rents in
the logs of the house filter in, unweariedly, fine particles of
snow, and thus along the sides of the rooms rise little cone-shaped,
marble-like pilasters.

Within doors is a mixed noise of miscellaneous operations;
without is the rushing of the storm. Pluck snipsnaps
with his wife, cracks on Hash, shows his white teeth
to Margaret; Chilion asks his sister to sing; Hash orders
her to bring a coal to light his pipe; her mother gets her to
pick a snarl out of the yarn. She climbs upon a stool and
looks out of the window. The scene is obscured by the
storm; the thick driving flakes throw a brownish mizzly
shade over all things, air, trees, hills, and every avenue the
eye has been wont to traverse. The light tufts hiss like
arrows as they shoot by. The leafless butternut, whereon
the whippoorwill used to sing, and the yellow warbler make
its nest, sprawls its naked arms, and moans pitifully in the
blast; the snow that for a moment is amassed upon it, falls
to the ground like a harvest of alabaster fruit. The peach-tree,
that bears Margaret's own name, and is of her own
age, seems to be drowning in the snow. Water drops from
the eaves, occasioned by the snow melting about the
chimney.

“I should'nt wonder if we had a snow-storm, before it's
over, Molly,” said Pluck, strapping his knife on the edge
of the kit.

“And you are getting ready for it, fast,” rejoined his
wife. “I should be thankful for those shoes any time before
next July. I can't step out without wetting my feet.”

“Wetting is not not so bad after all,” answered Pluck.
“For my part I keep too dry.—Who did the Master tell
you was the god of shoemakers?” he asked, addressing
Margaret.

“St. Crispin,” replied the child.

“Guess I'll pay him a little attention,” said the man,
going to the rum bottle that stood by the chimney. “I feel
some interest in these things, and I think I have some
reason to indulge a hope that I am among the elect.”

“He wouldn't own you,” said his wife, tartly.

“Why, dear?”

“Because you are not a man; you are not the thrum of
one. Scrape you all up, and we shouldn't get lint enough
to put on Chilion's foot.”

“Look at that,” said her husband, exposing his bare arm,
flabby and swollen; “what do you think now?”

“Mutton fat! Try you out, run you into cakes, make a
present of you to your divinity to grease his boots with.
The fire is getting low, Meg; can't you bring in some
wood?”

“You are a woman really!” retorted Pluck, “to send
the child out in such a storm, when it would take three
men to hold one's head on.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed out his spouse. “You must have
stitched your own on; I don't wonder you are afraid.—
That is the way you lost your ear trying to hold on your
head in a storm, ha ha!”

“Well,” rejoined Pluck, “you think you are equal to
three men in wit, learning, providing, don't you?”

“Mayhaps so.”

“And weaving, spinning, coloring, reeling, twisting,
cooking, clinching, henpecking?—I guess you are. Can
you tell, dearest Maria, what is Latin for the Widow's
Obed's red hair?”

“I can for the maggot that makes powder-post of our
whole family, Didymus Hart.”

Pluck laughed, and staggered towards his bench.

“I knew we should have a storm,” said his wife, “after
such a cold spell; I saw a Bull's Eye towards night; my
corns have been pricking more than usual; a flight of
snow-birds went by day before yesterday. And it won't
hold up till after the full, and that's to-night.”

“I thought as much too,” answered Pluck. “Bottle
has emptied fast, glums been growing darker in the face,
windle spun faster, cold potatoes for dinner, hot tongue for
supper.'

“You shall fetch the wood, Meg, or I'll warm your back
with a shingle,” said her mother, flinging out a threat which
she had no intention of executing. “Hash is good for
something, that he is.”

“Yes, Maharshalalhashbaz, my second born,” interjected
Pluck, “sell your shingles to the women; they'll give you
more than Deacon Penrose; it is such a nice thing for
heating a family with. We shan't need any more roofs to
our houses—always excepting, of course, your dear and
much-honored mother, who is a warming-pan in herself,
good as a Bath Stove.”

Hash, spurred on by this double shot, plied his mallet
the harder, and declared with an oath that he would not get

the wood, they might freeze first; adding that he hauled
and cut it, and that was his part.

Chilion whispered to his sister and she went out for the
purpose in question. It was not excessively cold, since the
weather moderated as the storm increased, and she might
have taken some interest in that tempestuous outer world.
The wind blazed and racketed through the narrow space
between the house and the hill. The flakes shaded
and mottled the sky, and fell twirling, pitching, skimblescamble,
and anon, slowly and more regularly, as in a
minuet; and as they came nearer the ground, they were
caught up by the current, and borne in a horizontal line,
like long, quick spun, silver threads, afar across the landscape.
There was but little snow in the shed, although
entirely open on the south side; the storm seeming to
devote itself to building up a drift in front. This drift had
now reached a height of seven or eight feet. It sloped up
like the roof of a pyramid, and on the top was an appendage
like a horn, or a plume, or a marble jet d'eau, or a frozen
flame of fire; and the elements in all their violence, the
eddies that veered about the corner of the house, the occasional
side blasts, still dallied, and stopped to mould it
and finish it; and it became thinner, and more tapering and
spiral; each singular flake adjusting itself to the very tip,
with instinctive nicety; till at last it broke off by its own
weight—then a new one went on to be formed. Under
this drift lay the wood Margaret was after, and she hesitated
to demolish the pretty structure. The cistern was
overrun with ice; the water fell from the spout in an ice
tube, the half barrel was rimmed about with a broad round
moulding of similar stuff, and where the water flowed off, it
had formed a solid wavy cascade, and under the cold

snows the clear cold water could be heard babbling and
singing as if it no whit cared for the weather. From the
corner of the house the snow fretted and spirted in continuous
shower. A flock of snowbirds suddenly flashed
before the eyes of the child, borne on by the wind; they
endeavored to tack about, and run in under the lee of the
shed, but the remorseles elements drifted them on, and they
were apparently dashed against the woods beyond. Seeing
one of the little creatures drop, Margaret darted out through
the snow, caught the luckless or lucky wanderer, and amid
the butting winds, sharp rack, and smothering sheets of
spray, carried it into the house. In her Book of Birds, she
found it to be a snow-bunting; that it was hatched in a nest
of reindeer's hair near the North Pole, that it had sported
among eternal solitudes of rocks and ice, and come thousands
of miles. It was purely white, while others of the species
are rendered in darker shades. She put it in the cage
with Robin, who received the travelled stranger with due
respect.

Night came on and Margaret went to bed. The wind
puffed, hissed, whistled, shrieked, thundered, sighed, howled,
by turns. The house jarred and creaked, her bed rocked
under her, loose boards on the roof clappered and rattled,
snow pelted the window-shutter. In such a din and tustle
of the elements lay the child. She had no sister to nestle
with her, and snug her up; no gentle mother to fold the
sheets about her neck, and tuck in the bed; no watchful
father to come with a light, and see that all was safe.

In the fearfulness of that night, she sung or said to herself
some words of the Master's, which he however must
have given her for a different purpose—for of needs must a
stark child's nature in such a crisis appeal to something

above and superior to itself, and she had taken a floating
impression that the Higher Agencies, whatever they might
be, existed in Latin:—

As she slept amid the passion of the storm, softly did the
snow from the roof distil upon her feet, and sweetly did
dreams from heaven descend into her soul. In her dream
she was walking in a large, high, self-illuminated hall, with
flowers, statues and columns on either side. Above, it
seemed to vanish into a sort of opaline-colored invisibility.
The statues, of clear white marble, large as life, and the
flowers in marble vases, alternated with each other between
the columns, whose ornamented capitals merged in the
shadows above. There was no distinct articulate voice,
but a low murmuring of the air, or sort of musical pulsation,
that filled the place. The statues seemed to be for the
most part marble embodiments of pictures she had seen in
the Master's books. There were the Venus de Medicis;
Diana, with her golden bow; Ceres, with poppies and ears
of corn; Humanity, “with sweet and lovely countenance;”
Temperance, pouring water from a pitcher; Diligence,
with a sickle and sheaf; Peace, and her crown of olives;
Truth, with “her looks serene, pleasant, courteous, cheerful,
and yet modest.” The flowers were such as she had sometimes
seen about houses in the village, but of rare size and
beauty;—cactuses, dahlias, carnations, large pink hydrangeas,
white japonicas, calla lilies, and others. Their
shadows waved on the white walls, and it seemed to her as
if the music she heard issued from their cups.

Sauntering along she came to a marble arch, or doorway,

handsomely sculptured, and supported on caryatides.
This opened to a large rotunda, where she saw nine
beautiful female figures swimming in a circle in the air.
These strewed on her as she passed leaves and flowers of
amaranth, angelica, myrtle, white jasmin, white poppy, and
eglantine; and spun round and round silently as swallows.
By a similar arch, she went into another rotunda, where
was a marble monument or sarcophagus, from which two
marble children with wings were represented as rising, and
above them fluttered two iris-colored butterflies. Through
another door-way she entered a larger space opening to the
heavens. In this she saw a woman, the same woman she had
before seen in her dreams, with long black hair, and a pale
beautiful face, who stood silently pointing to a figure far off
on the rose-colored clouds. This figure was Christ, whom she
recognized. Near him, on the round top of a purple cloud,
having the blue distant sky for a background, was the milk-white
Cross, twined with evergreens; about it, hand in
hand, she saw moving as in a distance four beautiful female
figures, clothed in white robes. These she remembered as
the ones she saw in her dream at the Still, and she now
knew them to be Faith, Hope, Love, and their sister, who
was yet of their own creation, Beauty. Then in her
dream she returned, and at the door where she entered this
mysterious place she found a large green bull-frog, with
great goggle eyes, having a pond-lily saddled to his back.
Seating herself in the cup, she held on by the golden
pistils as the pommel of a saddle, and the frog leaped with
her clear into the next morning, in her own little dark
chamber.

When she awoke the wind and noise without had ceased.
A perfect cone of pure white snow lay piled up over her
feet, and she attributed her dream partly to that. She

opened the window-shutter; it was even then snowing in
large, quiet, moist flakes, which showed that the storm was
nearly at an end; and in the east, near the sunrising, she
saw the clouds bundling up, ready to go away. She descended
to the kitchen, where a dim, dreary light entered from
the window. Chilion, who, unable to go up the ladder to
his chamber, had a bunk of pelts of wild beasts near the
fire, still lay there. Under a bank of ashes and cinders,
smoked and sweltered the remains of the great backlog.

Pluck opened the ashes and drew forward the charred
stick, which cracked and crumbled into large deep crimson,
fine-grained, glowing coals, throwing a ruddy glare over the
room. He dug a trench for the new log, deep as if he were
laying a cellar wall.

After breakfast Margaret opened the front door to look
out. Here rose a straight and sheer breastwork of snow,
five feet or more in height, nicely scarfing the door and
lintels. Pluck could just see over it, but for this purpose
Margaret was obliged to use a chair. The old gentleman,
in a fit of we shall not say uncommon good feeling, declared
he would dig through it. So seizing a shovel he went by
the back door to the front of the house, at a spot where the
whiffling winds had left the earth nearly bare, and commenced
his subnivean work. Margaret, standing in the
chair, saw him disappear under the snow, which he threw
behind him like a rabbit. She awaited in great excitement
his reappearance under the drift, hallooed to him, and
threatened to set the dog on him as a thief. Pluck made
some gruff unusual sound, beat the earth with his shovel;
the dog bow wow'd at the snow; Margaret laughed. Soon
this mole of a man poked his shovel through, and straightway
followed with himself, all in a sweat, and the snow
melting like wax from his hot, red face. Thus was opened

a snow-tunnel, as good to Margaret as the Thames, two or
three rods long, and three or four feet high, and through it
she went.

The storm had died away; the sun was struggling
through the clouds as if itself in search of warmth from
what looked like the hot, glowing face of the earth; there
were blue breaks in the sky overhead; and far off, above
the frigid western hills, lay violet-fringed cloud-drifts. A
bank of snow, reaching in some places quite to the eaves of
the house, buried many feet deep the mallows, dandelions,
rosebushes and hencoops.

The chestnuts shone in the new radiance with their
polished, shivering, cragged limbs, a spectacle both to pity
and admire. The evergreens drooped under their burdens
like full-blown sunflowers. The dark, leafless spray of the
beeches looked like bold delicate netting or linear embroidery
on the blue sky, or as if the trees, interrupted in
their usual method of growth, were taking root in midwinter
up among the warm transparent heavens.

Pluck sported with Margaret, throwing great armfuls of
snow that burst and scattered over her like rocks of down,
then suffering himself to be fired at in turn. He set her
astride the dog, who romped and flounced, and pitched her
into a drift whence her father drew her by her ankles. As
he was going in through the tunnel, a pile of snow that lay
on the roof of the house fell and broke the frail arch,
burying the old man in chilly ruins. He gasped, floundered,
and thrust up his arms through the superincumbent mass,
like a drowning man. Margaret leaped with laughter, and
Brown Moll herself coming to the door was so moved by
the drollery of the scene as to be obliged to withdraw her
pipe to laugh also. Bull was ordered to the rescue, who,
doing the best he could under the circumstances, wallowing

belly-deep in the snow, seized the woollen shirt-sleeve of
his master, and tugged at it, till he raised its owner's head
to the surface. Pluck, unmoved in humor by the coolness
of the drench, stood sunk to his chin in the snow, and
laughed as heartily as any of them, his shining bald pate
and whelky red face streaming with moisture and shaking
with merriment. At length both father and child got into
the house and dried themselves by the fire.

Chilion demanded attention; his foot pained him; it
grew swollen and inflamed. Margaret bathed and poulticed
it, she held it in her lap and soothed it with her hand. A
preparation of the Widow's was suggested. Hash would
not go for it, Pluck and his wife could not, and Margaret
must go. Bull could not go with her, and she must go
alone. She was equipped with a warm hood, martin-skin
tippet, and a pair of snowshoes. She mounted the high,
white, fuffy plain and went on with a soft, yielding, yet
light step, almost as noiseless as if she were walking the
clouds. There was no guide but the trees; ditches by the
way-side, knolls, stones, were all a uniform level. She
saw a slightly-raised mound, indicating a large rock she
clambered over in summer. Black spikes and seed-heads
of dead golden rods and mullens dotted the way. Here
was a grape vine that seemed to have had a skirmish with
the storm and both to have conquered, for the vine was
crushed, and the snow lay in tatters upon it. About the
trunk of some of the large trees was a hollow pit reaching
quite to the ground, where the snow had waltzed round and
round till it grew tired, and left. Wherever there was a
fence, thither had the storm betaken itself, and planted
alongside mountain-like embankments, impenetrable dikes,
and inaccessible bluffs.

Entering thicker woods Margaret saw the deep, unalloyed

beauty of the season; the large moist flakes that fell
in the morning had furred and mossed every limb and
twig, each minute process and filament, each aglet and
thread, as if the pure spirits of the air had undertaken to
frost the trees for the marriage festival of their Prince.
The slender white birches, with silver bark and ebon
boughs, that grew along the path, were bent over; their
arms met intertwiningly; and thus was formed a perfect
arch, voluptuous, dream-like, glittering, under which she
went. All was silent as the moon; there was no sound of
birds, or cows, sheep, dinner-horns, axes or wind. There
was no life, but only this white, shining, still-life wrought
in boreal ivory. No life? From the dusky woods darted
out those birds that bide a New England winter; dove-colored
muthatches quank quanked among the hemlocks;
a whole troop of titmice and woodpeckers came bustling
and whirring across the way, shaking a shower of fine tiny
raylets of snow on the child's head; she saw the graceful
snowbirds, our common bird, with ivory bill, slate-colored
back and white breast, perched on the top of the mulleins
and picking out the seeds. Above all, far above the forest
and the snow-capped hills, caw cawed the great black crow.
All at once, too, darted up from the middle of a snowdrift
by the side of the road a little red squirrel, who sat bolt
upright on his hind legs, gravely folded his paws and
surveyed her for a moment, as much as to say, “How do
you do?” then in a trice, with a squeak, he dove back into
his hole.

Approaching the Widow's, she crossed the Porta Salutaris
and all the scrawls of the stump fence, without touching
them, on a mound of snow that extended across the
garden, half covering the side of the house, wholly hiding
Obed's savory beds, and nearly enveloping the beehive,

where, on the pardoxical idea that snow keeps out cold, the
bees must have been cozy and warm. Reaching the door,
she stooped to find the handle, but Obed, who espied her
coming, was already on the spot, and handed her down
from the drift as he would from the back of a horse. The
Goddess of the Temple very cordially received her in her
adytum, that is to say, the kitchen.

What with the deep snowbanks without, the great fire
within, and the deft and accurate habits of the lady of the
house, every thing was neat, snug and comfortable as heart
could wish. A kettle over the fire simmered like the livelong
singing of crickets in a bed of brakes in summer time,
and there was a pleasant garden perfume from numerous
herbs dispersed through the room.

The Widow asked her son to read sundry scraps of
writing she had, for Margaret's particular edification. “You
see,” she said, “he's as smart and perlite as any on um.
His nat'ral parts is equal to the Master's, and he only needs
a little eddecation teu be a great man. There's a good
deal in the way of bringing children up Peggy; you'll
know when you have been a mother as long as I have.
How much have I sold, think, sen the Master was here?
Nigh forty boxes.”

After having sufficiently enlightened Margaret in these
matters, she promised her the salve of which she was in
quest, provided she would help Obed a while in pasting
labels on the boxes. These she had sent to Kidderminster
to be printed, black type on a red ground.

When Margaret left for home, the sun had gone down,
and the moon rose full, to run its high circuit in these winter
heavens. The snow that had melted on the trees during
the day, as the cool air of evening came on, descended
in long wavy icicles from the branches, and the woods in

their entire perspective were tricked with these pendants.
It was magic land to the child, almost as beautiful as her
dream, and she looked for welcome faces up among the glittering
trees, and far off in the white clouds. It was still as
her dream, too, and her own voice as she went singing
along, echoing in the dark forest, was all she could hear.
The moon tinged the icicles with a bright silver lustre, and
the same pure radiancy was reflected from the snow. Anon
she fell into shade of the Moon on her left; while at her
right, through the dark boughs of the evergreens, she saw
the planet Venus, large and brilliant, just setting on the
verge of the horizon in the impearled pathway of the sun.
She thought of her other dream at the Still, of Beauty, fair
sister of three fair sisters, and she might have gone off in
waking dreams among the fantasies of real existence, when
she was drawn back by the recollection of her brother, to
whose assistance she hastened. It was very cold, her breath
showed like smoke in the clear atmosphere, and the dew
from her mouth froze on her tippet. All at once there was
a glare of red light about her, the silver icicles were transformed
to rubies, and the snowfields seemed to bloom with
glowing sorrel flowers. It was the Northern Lights that shot
up their shafts, snapped their sheets, unfurled their flaming
penons, and poured their rich crimson dies upon the enamelled
earth. She thought the Winter and the World were
beautiful, her way became more bright, and she hurried on
to Chilion;—for whom, day by day, hour by hour, she
labored and watched, assiduously, tenderly; still his foot
mended apace, though it never got entirely well.

One morning Obed called for Margaret to go with him
to the village. There had been a rain the day before, followed
by a cold night, and the fields were glazed with a
smooth hard crust. They both took sleds, Margaret her

blue-painted Humming Bird, which she received as a
Thanksgiving present a while before. Obed had on a bright
red knit woollen cap, that came down over his ears, and
fitted close to his head, having a spiral top surmounted with
a tassel.

It was a clear day, and the sun and the earth seemed to
be striving together which should shine with the greatest
strength; and they served as mirrors respectively in which
to set off one another's charms. As Margaret and Obed went
on, the light seemed to blow and glow through the forest like
a blacksmith's forge, and the traveller would almost be afraid
of encountering fiery flames if he went on. Now riding
down pitches, now dragging their sleds up acclivities, they
emerged so far from the woods as to overlook the village
and open country beyond. A steam-like vapor arose from
the frozen River, diffused itself through the atmosphere,
and hung like a blue thin veil over the snowy summit of the
Mountain. A long band of white mackerel-back clouds
garnished the sky. They came at length to Deacon Hadlock's
Pasture. Here the scattered trees were all foaming
with ice, and the rain having candied them over, trunk and
branch, they shone like so many great candelebras; and
the surface of the lot, in all its extent, burnt and glared in
the singeing sunbeams. Here also they encountered a troop
of boys and girls coasting. Some were coming up the hill,
goring and scranching the crust with their iron corks, others
wheeling about and skimmering away through the bright
air, the ups and downs forming a perfect line of revolution.
Margaret and Obed, joining the current, mounted their
sleds, and scudded away down the glassy slope, with a
rapidity that would almost take one's breath away.

At the bottom of the Pasture, surmounting the fence, was
a high envelope of snow; over which some of the sleds

passed into the road beyond, some came to top and halted,
some with a graceful recurve turned off aslant, while others
with less momentum going up half way ran backwards, and
haply striking an obstruction, reared, and threw their riders
heels over head. Margaret elevated in feeling, and supported
withal by a very spirited sled, rushed into the thickest
of the sport, dashed down the hill, made a graceful return
on this terrace and mingled with the moiling merry-hearted
ups. There were trees scattered through the lot,
and small rocks just rounded off with snow, and larger ones
with a pitch in front, and diversities of soil that gave a wavy
huckle-backed character to the entire field. The boys wore
steeple-crowned caps like Obed's; the girls were dressed
both in short and long gowns. Their sleds were adorned
with brave and emulous names,—Washington, Napoleon,
Spitfire, Racer, Swallow. The downs whooped by, curvetting
among the trees, leaping from rocks, jouncing over
hollows. They took it in all ways, astride, kneeling, breastwise,
haunch-wise. It was a youthful, exhilarating, cock-brained
winter, New England dytharimb.

“This is music,” said one boy.

“Something of the broomstick order—a fellow gets
thwacked most to death,” replied a second.

“There goes Judah Weeks, his trotters are getting up
in the world,” cried a third.

“Old Had is hard upon him,” rejoined the second speaker.

“He always is upon the boys, but we get some fun out
of him, don't we?” added the first.

“Spitfire is as skittish as the Deacon's sorrel colt; Jude
might have known he would have got cast,” interposed the
third.

“I declare, how they ache,” said Judah, blowing his red
snow-dripping fingers, as he joined the ups.

“Clear the coop!” cried all hands, “here comes a straddle-bug.”
But the rider, it happened to be Obed, losing
his balance, his sled bolted, raking and hackling the crust,
and scattering the glittering dust on every side, while the
luckless lad himself tumbled headlong to the ground.

“Hurt, Obed?” asked Margaret.

“No,” replied the youth, trying to appear brave.

“Does your Marm know you are out?” asked one of the
large boys.

“She said I might come!”

“Do you know what will cure cold fingers?” said Judah.

“Take garlic and saffron blows, and bile um an hour
and drink it just as you are gittin' into bed, and it 'll cure
any cold that ever was, Marm says,” replied Obed.

“There go Washington and Napoleon!” cried several
voices; “Old Bony 'll beat as true as guns; she's all-fired
swift.”

“Peggy's Hummin' Bird 'll beat any thing,” said Obed.
“She 'll go like nutcakes,” an allusion he was in the
habit of making, founded on a favorite dish his mother
cooked for him every Saturday night.

“Guess Racer 'll give her a try, or any thing there is on
the ground,” answered one of the larger boys, Seth Penrose,
son of the Deacon's. “Pox me! if these Injins put their
tricks on me as they do on daddy.”

“Sh'! sh'! Seth,” whispered Judah, “you didn't talk so
when you was digging her out of the woods. We don't
have such a time as this every day. Let us make the best
of it.”

“Ho ho, hoop ho!” rang along the ranks as they reached
the top of the hill. Something was in prospect. Below
were seen two collections of boys, each hauling with might
and main at an outlandish structure. “A race! a race!”

“Hoora for the Old Confederation!” shouted some, “Hoora
for the Federal Constitution!” echoed others, as the objects
of their attention drew near. These were rude sapling
runners, surmounted by crockery crates.

The boys, in whom the strong political feeling of the
time could not well fail to develop itself, had planned an
adventure, and were about to test and signalize their
respective merits and capabilities by a race in which grotesqueness
and temerity, more than anything else, seemed
to be the combatants. Their ark-like chariots being duly
disposed, were soon filled, some of the boys sitting in front
to steer, while others performed like office behind. They
started off in high spirits and amidst a general enthusiasm.
They skewed, brustled and bumped along, the crates wabbled
and warped from side to side, the riders screamed,
cross-bit, frumped and hooted at each other; they lost
control of their crazy vehicles, their bows struck and parted
with a violent rebound; one went giddying round and
round, fraying and sputtering the snow, and dashed against
a tree; the other whirling into the same line was plunged
headlong into the first. It was a new style of salmagundi;
some of the boys were doused into each other, some were
jolled against the tree, some sent grabbling on their faces
down the hill; here one was plumped smack on the ice,
there another, after being sufficiently whisked and shaken,
was left standing. There was a shout from the top of the
hill, and a smothered response from below, then a clearer
shout, and at last a full-toned hoora. None were seriously
hurt; who was ever hurt sliding down hill? Yet what
with their lumbering gear staved to atoms, splinters, nails,
and the violence of the concussion, it was a wonder some
were not killed.

The call was now for a single race. Twenty or more of

the sleds were drawn into a line, Margaret's and Obed's
among the rest. The fence at the foot of the Pasture was
the ordinary terminus of their slides; but they sometimes
went farther than this. Crossing Grove Street, and an
orchard in the neighborhood, they could even reach the
Green;—to gain, by methods unimpeachable, the farthest
point on which was the stake, and comprised a distance of
nearly half a mile. The girls sat with their skirts trussed
about their ankles, and the boys took postures as they liked
best. The signal was made, and they flushed away. Falling
into all sorts of order, some went crankling and sheering,
some described somersets, others were knocked sternforemost;
but on, on, they flew, skittering, bowling, sluicelike,
mad-like; Margaret glided over the mounds, she
leaped the hollows, going on with a ricochet motion,
pulsating from swell to swell, humming, whizzing, the fine
grail glancing in her eyes and fuzzing her face; her hood
fell back over her shoulders, her hair streamed bandrols in
the wind; she reined her sled-rope as if it had been the
snaffle of a high-spirited horse: she passed the first fence,
and the second—others were near her—some lodged on the
fences, some dropped in the street. Three or four sleds
were in full chase through the orchard, they gained the
Green, where momentum exhausted itself. Margaret was
evidently foremost and farthest.

“She hitched,” said Seth Penrose, somewhat angrily.

“I didn't,” said Margaret, somewhat excited.

“She didn't hitch,” observed little Job Luce, who had been
hovering about the hill all the morning watching the sport,
and now crept to the Green to see them come in.

“I thought Spitfire was up to anything,” out spoke Judah
Weeks, jumping from his snow-bespattered sled; “but she
is beat.”

Margaret had indeed won the race, and that without a
miracle. Chilion, her mechanical genie, had constructed
her sled in the best manner of the best materials, and shod
it with steel. In her earliest years he inured her to the
weather, hauled her on the snows before she could walk,
made her coast as soon as she could sit a sled, graduated
her starting points up Indian's Head, so that she became
equal to any roughness or steepness, and could accomplish
all possible distances.

“Who beat? who beat?” asked a score of breathless
voices rushing to the spot.

“Little Molly Hart,” roundly answered Judah.

“The wicked Injin didn't beat nuther,” rejoined Seth.

“She did beat teu,” interposed Obed. “I know she
did.”

“How do you know she did, Granny?” thundered Seth.

“'Cause Hummin' Bird can beat any thing, and I know
she did,” replied Obed.

“You are done for,” said one or another to Seth.

“I an't done for—she hitched,” persisted the sturdy
rival.

“I guess she didn't hitch,” argued little Isabel Weeks,
“'cause Ma says good children don't cheat; and she is good,
'cause Ma says good children helps their ma's, and she
helps her ma.”

“I know she didn't,” repeated Job, “'cause I was here
and saw it.”

“Bawh! Ramshorn!” blurted the indignant Seth, thrashing
about and by a side-trick knocking Job on the hard
crust.

“He must pick him up; he's a poor lame boy,” said
Isabel; “Jude, take hold of his feet.”

“I'll help you,” said Margaret.

“Don't touch him!” exclaimed Obed, addressing Margaret.
“He's—he's—he'll kill ye, he'll pizen ye, he'll give
ye the itch. He's a ghost.”

“He won't hurt you,” replied Isabel, “its only little Job
Luce with a crook in his back, Ma says; and it's handy to
lift by. Up with him.”

They placed the unfortunate lad on Margaret's sled, and
the two girls drew him to his mother's. They went on the
crust, with the road two or three feet below them, straight
and narrow, fluted through the solid plane of the snow.
They passed sleighs or cutters that were what we should
now call large and heavy, with high square backs like a
settle, and low square foot-boards, and looking naked
and cold, without buffalo, bearskin or blanket. They
carried Job into the house and deposited him in a low
chair by the fire. Mistress Luce, a wan, care-worn, ailing
looking woman, yet having a gentle and placid tone of
voice, was binding shoes. The bright sunlight streamed
into the room, quite paling and quenching flames and coals
in the fireplace. A picture hung on the walls, an embroidery,
floss on white satin, representing a woman leaning
mourningly on an urn, and a willow drooping over her.
The woman did not appear to be at all excited by her
boy's misfortune, only the breeze of her prevailing sorrow,
that sometimes lulled, seemed to blow up afresh a little, as
she resumed her seat after attending to his wants.

“He gets worse and worse,” she sighed,—“we did all we
could.”

“Won't he grow straight and stout?” asked Margaret.

“Alas!” she answered, “a whippoorwill sung on the
willow over the brook four nights before he was born;—
we had him drawn through a split tree, but he never got
better.”

“Whippoorwills sing every night most at the Pond in the
summer,” said Margaret.

“I have heard them a great many times,” added Isabel.
“Ma says they won't hurt us if we are only good.”

“I know, I know,” responded the woman, with a quick
shuddering start.

“Ma says that they only hurt wicked people,” continued
Isabel.

“I always knew it was a judgment on account of my
sins.”

“What have you done?” asked Margaret anxiously.

“I cannot tell,” answered the Widow, “only I am a
great sinner; if you could hear the Parson preach you
would think so too. I just read in my Bible what God
says, `Because you have sinned against the Lord, this is
come upon you.'”

“I saw Job at the Meeting one day,” said Margaret;
“he recited the catechism so well. Do you know what it
meant?” she continued, turning to the boy.

“If I do not, Mammy does,” replied the latter. “But
I know the whippoorwill's song.”

“Do you?” asked Margaret; “can you say it?”

“No, only I hear it every night.”

“In the winter time?”

“Yes, after I go to bed.”

“Do you have dreams?”

“I don't know what it is,” replied the boy, “only I hear
whippoorwill. It sings in the willow over the urn, and
sings in here,” he said, pointing to his breast. “I shall die
of whippoorwill.”

“O Father in heaven!” groaned the mother bitterly,
yet with an air of resignation, “it is just.”

“It sings,” added the boy, “in the moonshine, I hear it

in the brook in the summer, and among the flowers, and the
grasshoppers sing it to me when the sun goes down, and it
sings in the Bible. I shall die of whippoorwill.”

“How he talks!” said Isabel. “I guess Ma wouldn't
like to have me stay, only Job is a good boy, he says his
prayers every night, and don't kill the little birds, like the
other boys, and Ma says he will go to heaven when he
dies. I wish they wouldn't tease him so.”

A horn was heard, and Isabel said it was her dinner
time, and Margaret must go with her.

“Good-by, Job,” said Margaret, “in the summer I will
come and see you again, and you must come up to the
Pond, I will show you my bird-book, and you shall sail on
the water.”

Esquire Weeks, who lived nearly opposite the Widow
Luce's, was an extensive farmer. Mistress Weeks was the
mother of fourteen children, all born within less than twice
that number of years, and living and cherished under the
same roof.

“A new one to dinner, hey, Miss Bell?” said her mother.
“So, so; just as your Pa always said, one more wouldn't
make any difference. Take your places—I don't know
how to cut the pudding downwise, crosswise—one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Eleven,
where are they all? Don't I count straight?”

“John, Nahum, and the men have gone into the woods,
Ma,” said Bethia.

“I am sure I had fifteen plates put on,” remarked the
mother.

“Washington hurt his hand, and Dolly you said wasn't
old enough to come yet,” said Bethia.

“I like to have forgotten the dear innocent,” answered
the mother, laughing. “I don't remember any thing since
we had so many children. Lay to—”

“Mabel hasn't a piece,” observed Helen.

“Can't I get it right?” said the mother. “Girls I tell
you all, study arithmetic. If I had known what a family I
was going to bring up, I should have learnt mine better.
Arithmetic is the best thing in a family, next to the Bible.”

“And a good husband,” interposed Esq. Weeks.

His wife laughed assent. “But,” she added, “I recommend
to my children to take up arithmetic, numeration,
addition, subtraction, division and all the compounds, practice,
tare and trett, loss and gain.—You've come all the
way from the Pond, Miss Margery. How is your Ma'am?
I really forgot to ask. It's pretty cold weather, good deal
of snow, comes all in a bunch, just like children. And you
liked to have been killed in the tornado? If it had been
our little Belle how we should have felt.”

“And me too?” asked the little Mabel.

“Yes, you too, can't spare any of you. Only be good
children, be good children, eat all you want.”

After dinner Margaret said she would go and see Master
Elliman, and Isabel went with her. At the Widow
Small's, the Master's boarding house, they were told he
was over the way, at the Parson's; whither they directed
their steps. The house of Parson Welles stood on the corner,
as you turned from South Street up the Brandon, or
No. 4, road. Isabel leading the way, they entered without
knocking, and made directly for the Parson's study. The
Parson and the Master were sitting over the fire, with their
backs towards the door, smoking pipes with very long tails,
and engaged in earnest conversation, so much so that the
Master only nodded to the girls, and the Parson, who was a
little deaf, did not notice them at all. Isabel held her
breath, and made a low courtesy to the Parson's back,
while Margaret stood motionless, and casting curious glances

about the room. The Parson, whose hair was shaved
close to his head, wore a red velvet cap, and had on in
place of his public suit of black, a long, bluish brown linen
dressing-gown, which his wife had probably wove for him
at some by-gone period. The room had small windows,
was wainscotted and painted a dark green, and rendered
still darker by tobacco smoke. There was a bookshelf
on the wall, and small portraits in black frames similar
to those Margaret saw at the Master's; the sand on the
floor was streaked in whimsical figures, and on a black
stout legged table lay paper, ink, and some manuscript sermons
of a size we should now call diminutive, not bigger
than this book.

“Touching objections, Master Elliman,” continued the
Parson, laying his pipe on his hand, “fourteenthly, it is
calumniously asserted by the opposers of divine truth that
on this hypothesis God made men to damn them; but we say
God decreed to make man, and made him neither to damn
him nor to save him, but for his own glory, which end is
answered in them some way or another.”

“Whether they are damned or not?” answered the
Master.

“Yes,” said the Parson, “inasmuch as that is not the
thing considered, but rather the executing of his own
decrees, and the expression of his proper sovereignty, who
will be glorified in all things. The real question is, whether
man was considered in the mind of God, as fallen or unfallen,
as to be created or creatable, or as created but not fallen.
But the idea of things in the divine Mind is not as in ours.
God understands all things per genesin, we understand
them per analysin. Hence going back into the divine
Mind, a borigine, we first seek the status quo of the idea.
In that idea came up a vast number of individuals of the

human specie as creatable, some as fallen, others as
unfallen. He did not create them to cause them to fall—”

“But he made them fall that they might be created—”

“Now this idea considered as an active volition is God's
decree, and this decree going into effect creates man on the
earth; some predestined to everlasting life, some to everlasting
death. And here the Universalists do greatly err,
not perceiving that God is equally glorified in the damnation
as the salvation of his creatures: so, St. Paul to the
Romans, ix. 17, 18, 19. My pipe is out, and we must
apply to King Solomon to help us in this matter.”

“Yea, verily,” responded the Master.

This King Solomon, we should explain, was a large silver
snuff-box, with a mother-of-pearl lid, on which was
carved the interview of the Queen of Sheba and the aforementioned
king, a utensil that Parson Welles carried in his
deep waistcoat pocket, and the contents of which he and
the Master partook freely in the intervals of smoking.

“Why should man reply against God?” pursued the
Parson.

“A very unreasonable thing indeed,” quoth the attentive
auditor.

“The riches of God's mercy do alone save us from the
infernal designs of reprobate men. Those who oppose the
divine decrees would soon have Satan in our midst—as
truly whom do I now behold?”

The worthy minister surely did not mean to call Margaret
the Evil One,—yet this exclamation, coupled as it was with
a startled recognition of the face and sudden sense of the
presence of the child, seemed to imply as much.

But the affectionate pedagogue, quick to notice and to
arrest any insinuation of this sort, with a quiet adroitness,
instantly brought Margaret to the Parson's knee, and formally
introduced her.

“I understand,” answered the venerable man. “Of the
Hart family in Lichfield; I knew her grandfather well.
He was an able defender of the truth.”

“She is from the Pond, sir,” added the Master. “Didymus
Hart, alias Pluck's daughter.”

“Indeed! of the Ishmaelitish race,” responded the
Parson, laughing. “If she could be baptized and jine the
catechizing class; appinted means whereby the Atonement
is made efficacious. Isabel,” he continued, addressing
the companion of Margaret, “you are sprung of a
godly ancestry, and the blood of many holy persons runs
in your veins. See that ye despise not the Divine goodness.”

The Master took Margaret about the room, and showed
her the books and pictures. Of the former were the
writings of the most distinguished Divines on both Continents;
there were “Prey taken from the Strong, or an
Account of a Recovery from the Dangerous Errors of
Quakerism;” “Thatcher's Sermons on “the Eternal Punishment
of the Finally Impenitent;” “An Arrow against
Profane and Promiscuous Dancing, drawn out of the Quiver
of the Scriptures;” “Owen on Sin;” “Randolph's Revision
of Socinian Arguments;” &c., &c. The latter were
chiefly faces of the old clergy; in large wigs, long flowing
curls, skull-caps, some with moustaches and imperials, all
in bands and robes.

Parson Welles was the contemporary of Bellamy, Chauncey,
Langdon, Cooper, Byles, Hopkins, West, Styles and
others; with some of whom he was on terms of familiar
acquaintance. He was a pupil of Edwards, and afterwards
the friend and correspondent of that divine. Whitefield
and his labors, the latter especially, he never brooked,
and would not suffer him to preach in Livingston.

The Master presently retired with Margaret to his rooms,
where she accomplished her errand, that of getting his advice
respecting something she was studying, and where he
also gave her some books. Parting with her little friend,
Isabel, she went back to the Green for Obed, and returned
home;—where for the present we leave her.