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 26
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small Bible and hymn book were in her husband's capacious pockets or in her own. The slow progress of the tired farm horses that had been laboring all the week prevented any disarrangement of the folds of the chintz or the silk dress kept only for the Sabbath's uses. As they jogged along, the old man would shake his head at the frolicsome children by the side of the road, who stopped to chase the goslings into the pond, or pick the berries or young winter greens as they passed - the kindest of the boys handing up to the elder sister, who so often took care of him, a large bunch of that spicy vegetable for her to chew in the singer's seat. This was the primitive style. We are richer and more refined now; are we any happier?
As soon as an elevation in the road left James Hinsdale leisure for conversation beyond the mere ordinary remarks that had been made, he commenced a cheerful and almost triumphant tone, which sadly belied the real fear that was gnawing at his heart:
"Well, dear Martha, I hope you will be ready by the time the new year comes in, to allow me to call you mine. My new house is all prepared and the new fashioned loom placed in the weaving room, so situated that while I am at work, I can look in on your cheerful kitchen, and see you busy there. The farm, too, is in first rate order, and I am strong" - he stretched himself up in his stirrups as if conscious of his personal strength, and struck the horse slightly with the little willow twig he carried in his hand - "I can earn enough in both employments to amply support us and whatever God may send us. Moses too has promised, and so has Uncle Sim, to come and help me on the farm when weaving business presses. So, dear Martha, you have only to say the word. I shall go to Hartford to buy all the store things I need."
He could not see Martha's face or he would have perceived the struggle on her countenance that was going on in her bosom. The tear started into her eye and slowly stole down her cheek as she replied with a sigh:
"Indeed dear James, you must not urge me. My duty is elsewhere, and God knows how difficult it is to say what I have said, that I cannot leave my home and the care of my father and the little ones there. My mother as you well know, is feeble. Her weakness had increased with her last three children, and each year she grows less able to bear the weight of the cares of her large family. Grandmother's bodily strength has all gone. She cannot work, although she can take mother's place in the moral training of the children. Somebody must do the work of such a family. Is it not my duty as the eldest? Say, dear James, is it right and proper for me to leave my father's family now? When Prudence is older, or Mother recovers her health, the case will be different. Much as I wish to be the mistress of your new
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house, and labor for your happiness in one room, while you are labor- ing for my support in another, I cannot feel that it is my duty to leave my father's house at present."
James spoke rather angrily: "Does your father think it right to keep you as a slave forever?"
"Do not speak in that tone, dear James. It is my own estimate of my own duty that governs me. Who shall labor in the house for that dear father who has labored so hard for me - or for that sick mother to whom I owe all that I know which is worth knowing - or for those brothers who are ever ready to assist me - or for those little children who look up to me to do for them what a mother can do? No, no, James, my duty is at home."
"Martha, Martha, you do not love me or you would not so decide."
"James, you know I love you. I have said that to you which I can never say to another man. You have had the first kiss from my lips which man ever took - no one else will ever have the like. It is sad to see you feel so, and to hear you say so to one who loves you as I do" - and she pressed closer to him as she spoke, and the arm which encircled his waist trembled as it grasped him tighter -"I could sacrifice life to you but not duty. I beg of you not to pain me by any such wrong thoughts."
"Well, Martha," said James, in a cold, hard tone, "there is a world of adventure before me in these unsettled times, in which I can forget your decision."
Martha made no reply, but the tears silently rolled over her cheeks as she rode on in the darkness and amid the silence of her companion.
The singing school was little enjoyed by either. The new Solfawing taught them by their master could not interest them, and they blun- dered at the questions he put to them, and added but little to the music of the choir as the notes and intervals were sung and repeated. Near the close of the evening, the master gave out a new tune to be learnt, of a simple plaintive minor air, to the words,
'How vain are all things here below; How false, and yet how fair' Each pleasure hath its poison too! And every sweet, a snare!
To show them the character of the melody, he sang it over himself in a low tone, and the air and the words went directly to Martha's heart. All through the night and the next day, did that simple melody find its echo in her bosom and seemed to be sung by angel voices in her ear. She sang it at her domestic work in the morning. It mingled with the hum at her spinning wheel. She could hear it repeated in the sigh of the November wind through the leafless trees. It was
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chanted to her in the distant murmur of the swollen brook, and her own voice echoed it as she dipped her pail in the stream. She felt that, hereafter, all nature would sing it to her, until the winds moaned it over her grave. But she never swerved from the regular line of her duty : and so it went on from day to day and week to week through the long winter. James called no more, and Martha felt that his love was dying away. No one seemed to see the sacrifice she was making but Moses, and he redoubled his kindness and his attentions. He rode with her to singing school, where James came no longer, and to meet- ing, and was all that an affectionate brother could be, but with no allusion to the cause of her depression.
"Grandmother," says Grace, one night, when preparing for bed, "why don't we see now, as we did once, the little holes in Martha's cheeks? They looked so cunning when she smiled that I always wanted to kiss them. She was always good natured when I saw them, and I often thought when I was littler than I am now, as little as 'Duthe, that they were the prints of the angels' fingers that kissed her when she was asleep, for never being cross. Why don't we see them now?"
CHAPTER X
During the month of December there came on one of those long, terrific snow-storms which occasionally visit New England and last, with all their changes of wind, for three days. The day had been bright and pleasant, and the male inmates of our farm by Roaring Brook had been employed in cutting wood in the forest and sledding it home for the family supply. As the afternoon advanced, the sky began to be overcast and the sun to wade through a mass of vapor. A large circle or halo in the leaden sky soon surrounded that luminary, and, as night approached, two mock suns, one on each side of the true sun, were marked distinctly in the sleety vapor, each with its own small halo. The children gazed at the phenomenon with wonder not unmixed with fear. Even Aaron asked whether it indicated war, and Grace enquired whether they were young suns just hatched out, and whether they would shine in the night time. The father answered Aaron abruptly by saying that all such appearances indicated a violent storm, while the grandmother endeavored to explain to Grace the philosophical cause of the appearance but we fear with little success.
In the evening, the wind began to blow from the North East and the snow to fall; and, in the morning, it was evident that a violent snow storm had commenced. Thanks to his rigid supervision and fore- thought, Thomas Welles was prepared for the storm, and ready to assist his neighbors. His stock was all housed, but had to be driven
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to the Brook in the forenoon for water - a job in which the boys delighted. Their spirits seemed to rise with the storm, and, though the day was intensely cold and the snow blinding, they were active in their own duties, and were soon prepared to see that some of their poor neighbors were properly cared for. So violent was the wind and so heavy the fall of snow that the air was full and there was no view even as far as the Brook.
The storm lasted two days from the North East. Towards evening of the second day, the wind lulled, and, in the night changed to the North West, from which point it blew violently all the next day and changed the direction and situation of all the huge snow banks which the storm had formed.
On the evening of the second day, as all the family after supper were gathered around the huge kitchen fire, the men rather sleepy from their violent exertions during the day, Grace, who was warming her feet preparatory to going to bed, burst out with "Grandmother, does God send the snow?"
"Certainly, Grace, God sends every thing."
"But what does God send the snow for? It is cold and makes Aaron and Moses work hard, and covers up Mr. Smith's sheep, and blows into Mr. Saunders barn and kills his little calf. The snow does not do any body any good, what does God send it for? Does God love to make us unhappy? I could n't go out doors today, and could n't go to school, and it seemed as if I should freeze."
"Such kind of evils are sent into the world as punishment for sin, dear Grace. Had there been no sin, there would have been no snow, and no freezing cold, but it would have been always spring."
"Oh how delightful! Sin, sin," said she, after a pause. "Adam made us all sin, father says - how naughty Adam was."
The father aroused himself at this allusion to one of his favorite doctrines: "Yes, Grace," said he, " Adam sinned, and we are all totally depraved through his sin. I am glad to see you remember your re- ligious instructions so well."
Grace took no notice of the commendation for something else seemed working in her mind.
"Father, how came Adam to sin? Why did n't God make him stop, and then the world would n't have been so wicked and so unhappy? Could n't God have done it?"
"God is all powerful and could do anything, my child."
"Why did n't he then?"
Welles paused for a while. At first, he was about to answer in Paul's words, "but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" but he remembered the peculiar character of Grace's enquiring mind and replied:
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"God surely could have hindered Adam from sinning, but he per- mitted or allowed it for wise purposes connected with the exhibition of his glory in the salvation of man."
"Permitted - allowed -" said Grace to herself, as if pondering on the meaning of the terms, for that was her habit when she heard a word she did not quite understand; "but why did God permit it? Is God wicked?"
"God allowed sin to enter the world that he might show forth his glory in his indignation against it and his mercy in pardoning it."
Grace appeared unsatisfied with this answer. She did not under- stand its purport at all, and she felt herself yet unanswered. Most children would have dismissed it from their minds under the feeling, "I shall know what it means when I am older." But Grace was differently constituted and remained pondering the whole subject, and, as the wind whistled without, wondered whether God was good.
Prayers were attended, in which Thomas Welles took occasion to go over the grounds of the introduction of sin into the world as the means of the greater glory to God.
The children were then sent to bed; Martha also retired, and the wife, yet feeble from her confinement, went into the East room with her infant, leaving Welles alone with his mother. That excellent woman never interfered in the religious teaching of the father, or ever opposed them when the children were present, though from her superior education she had advantages over him. She now mildly said:
"Thomas, does not your theory make God the author of sin?"
"Is it not the teaching of our church and of the Bible, that God, though all powerful to prevent it, permitted sin to enter the world as the best means for the exhibition of his own glory? I make God the author of sin no farther than this. But what is your opinion?"
"I have an objection to that doctrine, even if the church does teach it. It makes God willing to introduce misery into the world, because it will redound eventually to his glory. Does it not impeach his benev- olence? Does it not present him in a selfish light to children?"
"How do you account for it, then?"
"I suppose that the Deity had no other choice than to govern man as a mere machine or as a free agent. If he chose the former alterna- tive, man would never be a moral being or capable of appreciating the moral excellencies of Jehovah. If he took the latter, he must, of necessity, when he made him a free agent, give him the power of choice between sin and holiness. If man chooses sin it is under that voluntary freedom which he possesses as an independent though created being. Man could not be free without this power. The
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choice is a voluntary one, and he is therefore punishable for it, and benevolence as well as the glory of God is manifested in the plan of salvation."
"Well, mother," said Welles, rising and taking his candle to go into the East room, "if my doctrine attacks the benevolence of God, yours seems equally to attack his power."
Before retiring, the grandmother, as was her custom, opened the door of the little West bed room, where the children slept, to see that they were both quiet, when she found Grace wide awake and her pillow wet with tears.
"Grandmother," said Grace, "God is not wicked, is he?"
"No, my dear child. It is God that gives you this warm bed, while the wind is howling over the hills. It is from his goodness that you have all that you want."
"I know it, grandmother, and I have been thinking how naughty I have been to him to feel that he could be wicked. But Grandmother, why does he make it snow?"
"There are many things, Grace, about his arrangement of the seasons, and his government by general laws, that you cannot yet understand. As the world now moves, if there were no winter, there could be no summer. Besides, God sends snow to rouse us up to industry. Are not Moses and Aaron in better health, to-night, for ranging about in the snow-storm and breasting its fury, than they would have been if they had been shut up?
" How bright they looked as they came in, and how sound they will sleep to-night. They went to help their neighbors and enjoyed the luxury of doing good. God sends many evils upon us to teach us how to help each other, and our own hearts are thus made better, and we are more like Christ who 'went about doing good.' The snow too is needed to cover up the grain and the roots of the grass from the cold. These deep banks will lie late in the spring upon your violet bed and will protect the tender plants from the cold air, all winter. But the great object of all these occurrences which seem to produce misery is to show us that our happiness is not on this earth. We would become too much attached to this world if we had no trials or misfortunes and would forget the heaven where Christ dwells, where there is no cold or snow, no tears or death. God is good even in those dealings with us which we call evil."
The child's eyes sparkled as her grandmother proceeded. She forgot her theological difficulties as she contemplated that aspect of the Character of God, and laid her head upon the pillow with a renewed love to her Heavenly Father.
The day after the storm was one of business and labor with the men, and Grace fully realized how much a snow storm increased the
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mutual good will of the community. There were paths to be dug, and Moses and Aaron were up at the first light, to finish all their own before breakfast, so that, as soon as the stock was taken care of, they could go and dig out the paths for Widow Wright whose small house lay at the bottom of the hill and was almost covered with the snow. They made her a path to the Brook so that she could go for water, and they bedded and watered and then milked her single cow, and cleared a path for her to her wood pile. As soon as this duty was over, the teams were taken out, and, in connection with the whole neighborhood, the roads were opened in all directions.
The day was a busy and a happy one, and at night Grace thought that God was good in sending snow, if it thus banded together in friendship a whole neighborhood and taught them this mutual de- pendence.
"Benevolence - the love of doing good," said her grandmother, "is God's great characters, and whatever tends to increase this quality in man is acceptable to God."
CHAPTER XI
The early colonists of Connecticut were in the enjoyment of a happier condition than ordinarily falls to the lot of pioneers in a new country. This was particularly true of Hartford and its neighboring towns. The soil of the Connecticut River valley was rich and easily cultivated. The freshets of the rivers had made many meadows without any forest growth on them, and there were many cleared intervals which the Indians had burnt over for their own cultivation and convenience. This remark, though it would not apply to the valley of the Roaring Brook was true of the western slope of the Eastbury hills.
The Hartford colonists were free, likewise, from the hostile incursions of the Indians. The most powerful tribes were at a distance from them, and their villages were never burnt, as was the case higher up the river. There was some individual suffering of course. Many privations had to be endured and many hardships encountered by the early settlers. But their crops were abundant; their cattle met with good pasturage, and they were never threatened with famine as some of the other colonists were. Their government too was the freest then known in the world. Except in the two years of Sir Edmund Andros's rule, there never was a time when the freemen of Connecti- cut did not elect their own rulers, whether executive, judicial or legis- lative. There never was a time when they were not governed by laws of their own formation. No foreign authority was ever extended over them. The Kings of Great Britain seemed to forget their existence, and they presented the anomalous appearance of a colony, perfectly
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free and really independent, while nominally subject to the mother country. The king was looked up to, not as a sovereign but as a pro- tector, and many of the leading politicians went so far as to assert that they owed no allegiance to him, but what was voluntary on their part. They received no favors from his bounty. They repaid him with no taxes or excises. They assisted him in his American wars, more for their own protection than for his benefit, and they sent their troops under their own commanders. Their Governors were citizens of the colony of their own choosing not men sent from England by the sover- eign there, and the authority which these Governors exercised was precisely the same with that now exercised. Indeed, the Revolution made not the least change in the internal polity of Connecticut, and the Colony became the independent State without the slightest altera- tion in her form of government. The Federal authority protected her then, as the King had done before.
One of the greatest causes of the peace, quietness and independence of the Connecticut colony was, that they were not subject to any Proprietary government at any period. This was a source of much trouble to many of the colonies and a drawback to their prosperity. It was otherwise in Connecticut. The inhabitants alone were owners of the soil, with no rents to pay to English proprietors, and no laws to receive from any Board of Control. Hence, the whole history of our beloved state is that of a Republic from its earliest days. But we have digressed too much. We are not writing a history of Connecticut.
The settlers of Hartford County were never much troubled by wild beasts. In Hartford itself, there never was any uneasiness on that topic. In the locality which our tale commemorates, a few bears had been seen, and an occasional panther prowled through the forests. There were no high mountains near enough to shelter these animals, and they were easily hunted down and destroyed. Some wolves re- mained which were often troublesome in their attacks on the sheep and other animals of the farm.
The wolf which had been followed over the neighboring hills on the night when he feasted on poor Clover, had made incursions to almost every farm house and had levied contributions for his living upon the whole settlement. The great snow storm, memorable even in that snowy region, had rather checked his depredations, so that, when he recommenced his ravages, it was with a ravenous appetite. His plunderings called out the indignation of the young men, and an en- gagement was made to follow his tracks and put an end to him at the next incursion he should make. Uncle Sim Hale agreed to join the boys, and James Hinsdale cast the whole of his energetic and impulsive spirit into the enterprise.
An opportunity was soon afforded. A sheep was found, one morning,
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in the Roaring Brook valley, mangled and nearly consumed, and the tracks through the snow were fresh and easily followed.
The company was soon collected and the pursuit led them far to the North East in the mountainous region, near what are now the Balton quarries. Over this ledge the wolf had climbed, and his tracks suddenly ceased in a deep ravine beyond. The dogs were at fault and the men scattered to find the track.
"The critter," said Uncle Sim Hale, "has got a den som'er on the side of that 'ar ledge. Boys, some of you go below and look up, while Jim Hinsdale and I foller the brow of the hill and look down."
A shout from below soon apprised the hunters that the enemy had been seen. He had disappeared behind some huge rocks covered with snow. The den in which he lay was merely a projection of one of the slaty ledges about ten feet from the ground from under which he had pawed away the snow sufficiently to give him a dry place to lie down in and sleep. The snow and some scattered rocks covered the entrance, and thus secured him from a bullet below, where the dogs were bark- ing in vain.
Uncle Hale went round to a path down the ledge and joined the hunters below, but he could find no chance of putting a bullet in the enemy. Several shots were fired at the entrance to frighten him out, but he was too cunning to be aroused from his lair.
James Hinsdale was so far above the ledge that he could not see the entrance or the position of the rocks, and was continually shouting, with much impatience, for a description of the locality. He could not make them hear him, or understand their shouts in reply - all that he could perceive was the direction in which they fired and to which they pointed.
"Well," said he, impatiently, "if they won't tell me where he is, I can find out myself."
Examining the priming and flint of his gun, he strapped it to his back by the belt that held his hunting knife, shot bag and powder horn, and commenced descending the cliff immediately above where he supposed the wolf lay. In vain Uncle Hale called out to him to stay his hasty and perilous descent and beckoned him to go round; in vain were the shouts and gesticulations of the whole party.
The height of the cliff was some eighty feet and the projecting shelf under which the animal lay was some ten feet above the level of the valley and though its top presented a firm foothold, the slope was too steep to allow its easy ascent from beneath.
"Hold on Jim," shouted Hale. "The snow is crusted and slippery and if your foot fails, you'll be among us in a jiffy, with either broken legs or neck, or else pretty considerably smashed. 'T is fool-hardy to venture!"
Jim could not understand the words, but the very gestures and
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anxieties of his companions urged him on to dare something which they considered dangerous, and Uncle Hale's protestations, the sub- stance of which only reached him, produced just the contrary effect intended. The feeling was, "I'll do something that Uncle Sim will call difficult and dangerous."
Grasping the roots of a shrub which hung over the ledge, he let him- self down carefully until his feet touched a slight projection of the rock clear of snow. He then turned partly round with his face away from the cliff, still grasping the roots with one hand. The place where he stood had a width of only the length of his foot; of course, if he stooped he would lose his balance. His eyes scanned the neighboring parts of the ledge with care. The snow was covering most of its pro- jections. The rock - a micaceous slate, famous since for its uses - was in strata making an angle with the surface, and, as it happened, the upper broken edges of the angle projected here on the edge of the ledge. He perceived that the platform on which he stood widened some feet farther on sufficiently to allow free motion, but was still narrower between his present position and the one he had selected.
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