USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > More chronicles of a pioneer school, from 1792 to 1833, being added history on the Litchfield Female Academy kept by Miss Sarah Pierce and her nephew, John Pierce Brace > Part 23
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pleasures, as fleeting as they are beautiful! Would that time could roll back in its course and bring to the heart again that same joyousness !
The soil along the brook, as we have said, is cold and poor. There are valleys formed on its banks that furnish good pasturage and by attention excellent crops of grass. As the stream descends and ap- proaches the valley of the Connecticut the soil becomes better and more cultivation marks its banks, but the brook loses much of its romantic character and dropping the cheerfulness and freedom of the early existence, soon becomes the mere servant of man, to turn his machinery and perform his labor.
At about three miles from its source in the parish of East- bury, it crosses the high road that leads from Glastenbury Corner to Hebron, furnishing on its slopes a number of fine fields and sites for farm houses. On the road stood the house and shop of a well known Deacon, who at an advanced age, continued to work patiently and actively at his trade, the water of the rapid stream turning his small trip hammer to assist him at his labors. This was the place of rendezvous and refreshment to the weary fisherman.
Here, in one of these recesses, after the contents of the dinner basket had been consumed, and we were stretched under the apple trees loaded with their fragrant blossoms, we learnt the fol- lowing tale, as we were making our enquiries respecting the earlier residents of the place. Our informant was one of those itinerant clock menders that roam around the country and col- lect all the traditionary history of the inhabitants. They appear to know every man's genealogy and can give you an extended information of all the changes that have taken place in the family.
"Here," said he, "just below where we are sitting, between us and the present house, stood the old dwelling, facing the South and almost on the road. On the Northwest, yon hill protected it from the wind and the thick wood stretched down to the very borders of the orchard. From yon eastern hill beyond the Brook were often heard the howl of the wolf or the scream of the panther: the bears prowled around where now that cross road runs to the north beyond the school house. The slope to the brook beyond the road, was early cleared for corn would sometimes ripen on its warm exposure; and the distance between the house and the brook on the east was early stript of its alders and employed as mowing ground."
From this old man I learnt the particulars of the tale which I now wish to present to my readers.
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CHAPTER II Let not ambition mock their useful toil Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.
- Gray.
The period of our story is about the year 1720 when Glastenbury had been settled more than thirty years, and its second generation had come on the stage. Its earlier inhabitants were a hardy race of farmers, tilling the soil with their whole strength and seeking their luxuries from the large river in shad and salmon. The settlers on the Roaring Brook had still a more difficult task to cultivate their cold soil than those who occupied the light sands of the lower grounds. They could surround themselves with fewer comforts and no luxuries. They grew up therefore a hardy race changing but little from the early, Puritan habits, and preserving uncontaminated their religion and their love of freedom.
They raised some rye in favored places but their granite soil in its freedom from lime prevented the growth of wheat. Turnips was a common and nutritious crop - potatoes being rarer and of an almost uneatable variety which was rank and coarse to the taste. Their principle dependence for food of the grain kind was upon Indian corn which was cultivated in small patches in the warm valleys and on the southern slopes of the hills. Early autumn frosts sometimes cut off this crop, and when they did so, the hardy inhabitants trembled for their winter food. Some subsistance was obtained from hunting and the skins thus procured were necessary to purchase their salt so impor- tant an article in their households. Of meat they seldom failed a supply; their swine were suffered to go at large through the summer, and, as autumn advanced, they were collected into some enclosure near the house and fed with all the corn that could be spared. They were then butchered and barrelled for winter use, a small number only being kept over for the supply of the next year.
By this time, cattle and sheep had become comparatively plenty among the colonists, and distinctions of poor and rich depended more upon the possession or the want of them, than upon money and real es- tate. The lands of this part of Glastenbury were well adapted to pastur- age and the valley of the Roaring Brook supported many a sheep and cow.
The flax fields too were seen by the side of the cornfields, looking so beautiful in their bright green in early spring and then so charming in the blue dress of the flowering season. A pretty essential article in the goodman's household - its manufacture furnishing abundant employment for the females of his family.
Of fruit there was little except apples and here and there a pear tree. The apples were small and principally employed in the making of cider.
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The farmers of this hilly country had little to sell, and therefore avoided the purchase of anything they could do without. A few barrels of pork, some furs and skins, a little rye, a fatted ox, poultry, eggs and feathers constituted about all that they could spare to pro- cure their gunpowder, lead, salt, iron and nails, spirits and molasses, used in the family. They made their own sugar, though sparingly; manufactured their own clothing and bedding; exchanged their calf skins with the shoemaker for winter shoes and went barefoot in the summer; constructed their own tools and kitchen utensils; did without the luxuries of life, and lived and died, a hardy, industrious, free and happy race - happy in their freedom from extraneous wants - happy in the purity of their morals, in the activity of their lives in the consola- tion of their deaths. The world and its changes passed by them un- heeded, they were too much intent upon their own duties to regard its fluctuations, or even enquire into its events. If they felt no immediate restraint upon their independence or their religion, they had gained all which an intercourse with the world would have given them.
As we have said before, the house to which we wish to call the atten- tion of our readers, was fronting the South, on a hill side that sloped down towards the brook on the east. It was rather larger than the tenements around it, but was unpainted and covered with rather rough siding and shingles. It had one huge chimney in its centre built of stone to the top. In front there were two rooms, one larger than the other, with a small passage way between them, into which the front door opened and from which the stairs ascended. This one fact would show that the owner was rather above the ordinary class of his neigh- bors, either in wealth or station.
The east room had two windows; one at the front and one at the side. It was the spare room - a step in luxury beyond many of the neighbors. Whatever relics of English luxury had descended to the family were here exhibited. It was used only on extraordinary occa- sions, and contained a handsome curtained bed for the accommodation of friends. The floor was very neatly sanded and the sand marked into various fanciful figures. A small rug made of rags was placed by the bed, the curtains of which were of rich figured chintz of a large pattern.
The west room had two front and one side windows, and was the common sitting and eating room in the summer but not much occu- pied in the winter. The rear was taken up with the large kitchen and a small bedroom set off on the west end. There was an eastern door to this kitchen protected by a rough portico from the North East winds, near which was the well with its moving well-sweep and long well-pole holding the bucket. A north door led to the sheds which were arranged as leantos (or linters) on the back of the house.
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The barn was on the opposite side of the road, on the brow of the hill as it sloped to the South, and under its protection and that of the declivity, the cattle and sheep found their winter shelter.
The second story of the house projected over the lower, necessary, when it was erected, for the Indian warfare. The doors and windows were small and the glass in the latter not more than four inches long.
In the rear of the house to the very verge of the large orchard stretched the long wood piles - for fuel cost nothing then but the labor of get- ting it home prepared to make the house comfortable in the long winter. East and North East was the spacious garden filled with com- mon vegetables, cultivated thriftily though with no taste or ornament.
Such was the residence and the home of Thomas Welles, a hardy, industrious, God-fearing man, who worked diligently and successfully to bring up a large family of children, who, as they grew up, each light- ened their father's burden by their own industry and energy. The mother was a feeble woman - not constitutionally - few women were in those times - but she had children rapidly and could do little more than raise them. Her labors in the domestic circle were shared and in time almost performed by the eldest - a daughter - and the instruction and moral training of the little ones came upon their father's mother who had long resided under her son's roof.
We shall attempt no description of the characters of these various individuals. If they are interesting, the reader will discern it in due time. If they are commonplace, the less said about them, the better.
It was autumn now, and autumn was fast emerging into winter. November's storms were already whitening the ground and filling the roads and forests with snow. The brook as it rushed by, found all but its channel filled with the gathering ice, and the winds howled down its long valley and rustled the bare twigs of its alders and filled up its once sunny glens with the drifting snow. The sheep had been col- lected from the upland and were standing shivering under the high hill behind the barn, in a group, as if they knew they could be warmer by their united heat. The poultry were on the tops of the highest hay- mows in the barn, silent and cowering, and even the geese and the ducks had left the muddy coves of the brook where they dabbled for food, to seek the shelter of the sheds and live on the bounty of man.
Our farmer was well prepared for the early inclemency of the season. The partly dried cornstalks were now given out for the subsistence of his young cattle - the milch cows were under shel- ter and were well fed - the few hogs which were left from his late butchering had their share of the shelter of the farm yard. Every thing in house and barn was in readiness for winter, and the family had commenced their winter labors. Let us introduce them to the reader.
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CHAPTER III
But if doom'd In powerless, humble fortune, to repress The ardent risings of the kindling souls; Then, even superior to ambition, we Would learn the private virtues; how to glide
Through shades and plains, along the smoother stream Of rural life.
- Thompson
It is early evening. The snow is falling rapidly on all without, and the wind begins to whistle down the long valley of Roaring Brook and to howl among the tree-tops on the hill. We would introduce the reader to the spacious kitchen of Thomas Welles in the large chimney place of which an immense fire of logs is burning, throwing out its heat over the whole low room and lighting up with its blaze the cheerful group around the fire. The door of the little West bed room was open and the red light struck upon the check curtains of the bed, as they were pulled over the head of a large trundle bed drawn out for its nightly tenants. As the North door opened into the shed, the frame work of the much used loom could be seen, standing where it had been employed during the summer, and ready for its winter service. In the corner of the kitchen stood two large spinning wheels for the spinning of wool, and a smaller one for flax, with a part of the day's work on their spindles, but compactly and orderly placed so as to be out of the way. Everything was neat and well arranged and yet the room was full. Rows of sausages were hanging to dry between the beams of the low roof, alternating with strings of dried apples and pumpkins, and medicinal herbs in bunches, and seeds that were pre- served for the next summer's use.
As the door of the East room occasionally opened, the low wail of a young infant could be heard, and the residents of the kitchen lowered their voices and hushed their merriment.
The group gathered around the great fire was a beautiful one. It consisted of one rather prim looking little girl who sat on a high bench, and two young children in their short woolen night-caps, warming their feet in readiness for bed. They had originally been furnished with little low stools, but they were rolling on the rough stone hearth, with their little toes extended towards the blazing logs, and enjoying a complete abandonment to pleasure before the hour of rest.
An old lady, tall, dignified, and commanding even in her wrinkles, sat in the corner of the fire place engaged in knitting, though evidently on the watch over the youthful group. She had once been handsome. The large, mild hazel eye still remained, dimmed it is true of its bright- ness and looking as it was slowly raised as if it were sorrowing over
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the remembrance of youth and beauty. But old age could not dim, nor sickness put out, nor trouble extinguish, the benevolence that beamed from those orbs, or the trust and confidence in God which shone in their subdued light, or diminish in aught the interest they took in the welfare of those whom they saw. The late beautiful au- tumn ringlets had faded into gray and were neatly and straightly arranged beneath the high-crowned muslin cap. The once blushing cheeks were pale and wrinkled and old - seventy winters had plowed their furrows over them. The pearly teeth had fallen one by one, and the vacant jaw had sunk, and the plump lip and cheek were no more. The late erect form, perfect in the outline of its loveliness, was bent and broken - but still the same warm heart throbbed in the bosom - the same love for humanity and desire for doing good in her day and generation, animated her breast.
This was Thomas Welles's mother, who had been under his roof since his marriage. He was her only child and his father had died in the very spring time of the mother's happiness. The lessons, which she had thus early learnt of the instability of earth's enjoyments, filled her peculiarly for the station which she occupied in her son's household.
"Grandmother," said a little, blue eyed, flaxen haired fairy, who was rolling on the warm hearth, "mayn't Duthe stop trying to put his great toe in my mouth?"
"Grace, my dear, don't call your brother Duthe; give him his full name, 'Jeduthun.' "
"Well, grandmother, may n't Je-du-thun stop?"
"Certainly, Jeduthun, you ought not to take pleasure in vexing your sister."
"She should n't gape so wide then, " laughed out little Jeduthun who was the youngest.
"Well, Je-du-thun, (is that right, grandmother?) I won't help you school another time, or carry the dinner basket."
"Grace, my child, come here and stand before me. Is it right for you to return evil for evil?"
Grace looked a little ashamed and busied herself in trying to keep her little flaxen curls under her straight-bordered night cap.
"Don't you remember, Grace," said the little miss who was sitting up very prim on the bench and not preparing for bed, "what Grand- mother told us - that to return good for evil was God-like; to return good for good was man-like; to return evil for evil was beast-like; to return evil for good was devil-like?"
"I wish you would not talk to me, Prudy, you don't do me any good as grandmother does."
"My little Grace will not be beast-like then, in returning evil for evil. She ought to love everything."
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"I do love everybody, grandmother," sitting down once more on her little stool by Jeduthun's side. "I love grandmother, because she always tells me when I do wrong; and I love father because he takes me on his knee; and I love mother because she says 'my dear' so softly to me; and I love sister Martha, because she gives me my bread and milk and puts up my dinner for school; and I love brother Aaron for he feeds my cossit lamb and my little chickens, and I love you, little brother Duthe," and as she said it she patted his little fat face and laid her own tight to it, "and I will carry the dinner basket, and I was naughty to say I would n't. I love every body, grandmother."
The child hesitated for a moment. "No no, I don't love Dave Hubbard - he run after me coming from school, and flung stones at me, and told me if I ever came by his house, he'd set the geese on me. No; I won't love him!"
"But, Grace my dear, the Bible says that we must love our enemies."
"Well, I won't love him; he's a naughty boy."
"Grace, do you remember how our Saviour was treated on earth?"
"Yes, Grandmother, his hands were tie'd and his cloak taken away, and he was spit on, and they stuck thorns in his head, and they killed him by nailing him to a great piece of timber," and the child's eyes filled with tears at the picture which her own memory drew.
"Did he not say, 'Father, forgive them, they know not what they do?' Should you not then forgive those who have injured you?"
"But did Christ love them, as well as forgive them?"
"He certainly loved them in one sense, in the desire to do them good", but the metaphysical distinction, which we doubt whether the child would have comprehended, was interrupted by the elder sister Martha, who came from the West room, and spoke as she entered:
"What! You children not to bed yet! I want you out of the way that I may pick the chickens for Thanksgiving, to-morrow. Aaron has gone out to kill them."
So saying, she lifted a large iron pot to its place over the fire and proceeded to fill it with water. The children jumped up, exclaiming "Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving! How glad!" Even prim Prudence joined in the general joy.
"Grandmother, why do we keep Thanksgiving?"
" To praise God for all the good things he has given us for the summer."
"But why do we eat more that day than any other? Is that prais- ing God?"
"How can you, Gracy, ask such foolish questions!" said Prudence.
"Don't check her," replied her grandmother, "in asking any questions. You know that the feet-warming time is given to you children to say what you please. Your question is a difficult one, Grace, to answer.
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Our Father in Heaven is pleased with seeing us happy, just as your father is pleased with seeing you happy. Our happiness is made up of what we feel in the body, in some part. He, therefore, is willing that the occasional enjoyment of a feast should be added to our other enjoyments, if in it we remember that the good things we eat come from him and we do not abuse them by eating too much."
"But, Prudy said we might eat as much as we could."
"Prudence was wrong and foolish. Thanksgiving is designed to lead us to remember God's blessings by their use not by their abuse, and it is as sinful to eat too much on Thanksgiving day, as it would be on any other day."
"But, grandmother," said Grace, after a pause, "why must I love Dave Hubbard when he is naughty to me? For what must I love him?"
"I do not ask you to love him in your sense of that word, but to be willing to do him good."
A quick step was heard coming to the East kitchen door, and Aaron Welles, a lad of about fourteen, burst into the room in breathless haste, exclaiming loudly, "A wolf! a wolf! He has seized a lamb, that was drinking at the Brook and is eating it under the alders at the corner of the lot!"
The kitchen was at once in commotion. The father came in from the East room, where he had been sitting with his sick wife, a tall stalwart- framed young man, whom Mr. Welles saluted by the name of James Hinsdale, stepped from the West room, where he had been conversing with Martha - and the children all stood up in horror.
"Where's Moses?" said the father, busying himself in detaching the guns from their high hooks.
"He has gone over to Uncle Hale's for him to come with his gun and dogs," said Aaron. "I have not let our dog out of the barn. We can do it as we go along."
"Hinsdale, here is a gun for you. Draw the charges, boys, they are probably loaded with small shot since the squirrel hunt you had this morning, and put in slugs. Be quick!"
" Aaron," said little Grace, "was it my dear lamb?"
"I am afraid it is, Gracy; she always goes down with me when I drive up the milch cows from the Brook to shut them up, and I think it must be her."
Grace made no loud outcries, but hid her face in her grandmother's lap, and sobbed out her sorrow there. The men were soon ready and hurried out in the snow storm to the barn, while Martha went on with her preparations for her evening's labor.
Prudence cried out, "Oh, Martha! how you did blush when Jim Hinsdale came out of the West room! He is your beau."
Martha blushed still more but was silent.
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"You need n't say anything, Prudy," said Grace, lifting her face from her grandmother's lap all bathed in tears, "You've got a beau too. Joel Strong helped you over the ditch yesterday."
"You talk nonsense now, Grace," said the Grandmother, "and had better be in bed. Prudence, do you sit with your mother, until bed time. She may need something."
The other little ones were then led by their sister into their bed room and their little prayers listened to, solemnly, though Grace rather sobbed out than said hers, her lamb dwelling on her thoughts. When Martha was about shutting the door, she lifted her head from the pillow and asked to see her grandmother.
"Grandmother, I will try to love Dave Hubbard and will give him an apple to-morrow. But oh! grandmother, must I love the wolf who has eaten poor little Clover?"
CHAPTER IV
Martha was soon busy in the preparations of her fowls for the morrow's feast, but worked on in silence, while her grandmother, knitting by the fireside, watched her as silently.
We hesitate much at describing our heroine lest she should not be attractive enough to our readers to interest them as much as she does us, and as much as Martha Welles did all that knew her.
In our imaginations about the personal beauty of novel heroines, there are to be taken into consideration all the factitious influences derived from dress and the adjuncts of delicate and refined leisure. We are therefore fearful that our fastidious lady-readers will close the book and never again open it, when we tell them that she was clad in a short gown and petticoat, both of linsey woolsey - the former buttoned up tight to her throat, and the latter without any of the apparatus to expand its proportions which disfigure modern ladies. Her hair, too, was not curled but drawn back from her forehead and face and tied in a knot behind. We must say it too that her hands and her feet were large and the former red with labor. As Alison, in his Essay on Taste, remarks, "They who live for subsistence, cannot live for beauty" - all those accessories, then, which beauty receives from delicacy of body, and those external indications of it that have been praised and valued for so many centuries, must be forever wanting to the laboring class.
Strange that a standard of beauty should be set up framed upon the principles of idleness and freedom from that labor which is man's most dignified employment on earth! Strange, that the estimate of delicacy of mind - of the beauties of the heart - should be excluded
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from the catalogue of female charms, while those qualities are valued that are expressive of gentility of station and idleness of life!
Martha Welles had labored from childhood - had labored hard and constantly, and effectively. She was the great central spring of her father's household. Her hands were not delicate, for she employed them constantly in those labors which were required of all women at that period, and which they esteemed their duty to perform. Her feet were not small, for in summer she often went barefoot about the house, and never thought it a disgrace to wear large coarse thick shoes. What she had lost in beauty by this difference between herself and modern females, she had gained in health and strength and cheer- fulness. There is always a beauty attached to full health and man values much more the florid complexion of the robust constitution, than the delicate white sickly damsel. Martha Welles was healthful and robust, but not of full habit. She possessed the beauty of pro- portion, exquisite in its very ruggedness, mingled with the expression of firm but not florid health. Her face was an enchanting one to her friends. To strangers, she appeared distant, perhaps sad. Her face was round with full cheeks, and small features, each harmonizing with the other. Her eye was a peculiar one. The iris part was small - at times but a mere border, and of a light blue. The pupil was so much larger than we ordinarily see, that it seemed sometimes to occupy the whole eye, and crowd the blue border out of sight. Her eyes there- fore, were not beautiful from their color; but, were replete with truth and feeling. It seemed as they opened upon you, that you could see into her very soul and observe the very feeling which floated there in its intenseness. Such eyes are not praised because they are bright or dark but because they admit you at once into the very presence of the inner man. You feel as you gaze into them that you were gaz- ing at the soul itself.
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