USA > Iowa > Marion County > Down on the ridge : reminiscences of the old days in Coalport and down on the ridge, Marion County > Part 2
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As I look back on those happy days I realize how little I knew then of life. The world was here with all its sin, but I saw it not. And no one could have shown it to me then. One of the saddest facts in life is that each one of us must go down into its dark depths and taste its bitter waters for himself. The great sea of human prejudice and passion surged at my feet as it does now, and I heard the lashing of its waves, but their discordant sounds were so blended with the symphonies of a happy youth that I thought it all entrancing music.
As I stand to-day on Life's mountain peak and look back upon the scenes of the years that are gone, my eyes are wet with tears because in a world of such overwhelm- ing need I have done so little. In a world that is sick unto death for the bread of life I have not raised a voice above the clash and din and bedlam of the world's sad strife. I have lingered on the shore of the world's great sea of want and woe and picked up here and there a pebble with which I have slain no giant of error. I have stemmed the world's sinful tide, but have never plunged into its raging waters to save even one of the millions that go down each year to rise no more.
If it shall be mine in future years to leave some token here and there to guide wandering feet to paths of right, and cheer the fainting hearts of those who grow weary in the heat of life's fierce battle, I shall be glad.
CHAPTER II
THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF THE BOYS OF FIFTY YEARS AGO.
I do not believe that a person who is constantly look- ing back, a life which is content to live over and over again all of the yesterdays of its existence, ever fills that place in the activities of human usefulness intended by the master hand which moulds and shapes the destinies of individuals and nations. But, I do believe that an occasional glance over the scenes of other days, that a little note whispered here and there on the breezes that come from away over the hill, bring to us a softening and restraining influence. I believe the good things in the days away back yonder, crystallized by time, have very much to do with making the heart more tender, more kind, and life sweeter and the old world better.
As Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and all the scenes of Bible lands have been the mecca of the Christian world for years and years, so the old home and the old scenes have in the long, long past pulled and will continue to pull on the threads of memory and to thrill and throb the heart of some one, everywhere and every day, so long as humanity lives.
Don't you know that to the most of us these memories of other days away down on the old farm, where the cream was so thick and rich, the fruit so juicy, all tinted with the summer sunbeam and flavored with nature's
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extract fresh from the laboratory of the unseen world ; where every home held sacred its household gods; where no domestic altars were thrown down and destroyed by the slimy touch of an "affinity ; " where young manhood was rugged and honest and true ; where the girls were taught in the art of domestic economy, and their willing hands could make and serve hot biscuits that would tempt the taste of the most fastidious ; whose rosy cheeks and winning manners ravished the heart of every young man-don't you know that through all these things and over that great stretch of time we cling only to the good things that come to us here and there like streams of sunshine, only the kindly words here and there pointing us through the cypress branches of despair to the bright star of hope ? The evil things have from us only a pass- ing thought; memory's wardrobe has room only for the good and the beautiful.
To-night, while I am writing-to-night, when the old world is still-I find the chords of memory tugging away at my very heartstrings as I run over the paths of the past, as I call up the familiar, kindly faces, and trace the names on memory's page of the pioneer mothers, who, down on the Ridge, labored and loved and builded in the long ago.
On memory's photograph I can see here and there their humble but contented, happy homes-the hewn log house, with only one room, a bed ( sometimes two ) closely fitted in the farther end, and a "trundle bed " under one, and in the other end a great big fireplace. I can see the old "backlog " and the blazing "forestick." In the corner is a ladder by which the attic was reached, where the popcorn and nuts were kept, and where sometimes the children slept. Near the fire stands a little table on which a tallow candle, molded by mother's hands, is struggling its very best to penetrate the gloom. A
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pioneer father is reading Ayer's Almanac, because books were scarce, and, besides, he must know what kind of weather the morrow will bring forth, or in its fruitful pages discover a remedy for every ill to which man is subject. Just across the table is mother, her tired and weary fingers dancing to the tune of her smooth, bright knitting needles with which stitch by stitch she shapes and builds the little stocking for Nannie or the mitten for John from the yarn her own busy hands have carded and spun. It seems I can see her now, as she goes forward and back again alongside the flying wheel, and can hear her softly humming an accompaniment to the music of the buzzing spindle on which the yarn piles higher and higher with each forward and backward move. The children have tired of cracking nuts and have thrown some popcorn in the hot ashes under the "forestick " and are witnessing with delight the snow-white caps jump- ing hither and yon on the old stone hearth. And then when all is still the cricket under the big warm stone sends forth his rasping song. The little tallow-dip is still struggling away, while in the farther recesses of that little room all is darkness and desolation. But don't you know we thought it was light because it beat the grease lamp and old pine-knot ?
Oh, you mushy boys of the twentieth century ! Oh, you soft doughsticks! Born and reared in your modern houses, with every comfort the inventive mind of man can bring forth to comfort and please and soothe, you don't know what high life is; you don't know what toughens and hardens the sinews and prepares one for the fierce heat of life's struggle unless you have lived in a log house down on the farm, chopped the wood and rolled in the big "backlogs," eaten big white "corn dodgers," country sausage and spareribs and backbones that have never been submitted to the sandpapering process ; and besides, with all these modern conveniences
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you think you must bathe every day, while we kids, who lived convenient to the river, bathed only in the swimming season, and those who lived at an inconvenient distance from the river came forth like a flower and in the fulness of time were cut down, having but one real bath, which was not of their own choosing, and which was given at a time when they in their weak and helpless condition could not prevent.
But let us back to the night scene in the old log house, down on the Ridge. Aye, there was more than one log house down there, yet they were all much alike, and the scenes around those old firesides were very much the same. The little tallow candle has burned low. Father has learned when the next change in the moon occurs and the type of weather we are to have during the following month. Mother has "narrowed " off the toe of the stocking and securely locked the stitches. The crickets under the hearth have screeched Johnnie and Nannie into drowsy land. Papa prepares Johnnie and mamma slips the clean " nightie " on Nannie. The low " trundle " is pulled out from its hiding place under the bed, then come the good-night kisses, and those four life-lamps are handed into the keeping of their God while the sleepers go out and out on the great ocean of sweet, peaceful sleep, undisturbed by the prices on the stock market. The fire has burned low and is covered to preserve it for the morning. All is dark and still within, save the soft and gentle breathing of the sleepers, secure in that rest which comes to those who are at peace with God and all mankind.
Then when the morning sun comes and all nature is astir I see a pioneer father go forth to do his " chores. " The hogs are in the woods, the sheep and cattle in the brush. I hear the clear ringing bell on the trusty old cow. I hear the familiar call, "Suke, Blackie !" "Suke,
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Blackie !" and it is "Poohooie !" "Poohooie !" until the stock are all fed.
In those old days all stock had to be marked, every man having hisown and distinctly different mark. If one cropped the right ear no one else in the township could use the same mark. One had a crop off the right ear and a hole in the left. My father's stock mark was a crop off the right ear and an under bit, or notch, in the left. It would have been an easy matter to have changed some of these marks on a hog or sheep found astray in the forest, but I am not sure that such a thing was ever attempted in those good old days. Why, if you had mentioned "graft " to those of God's noble men and women who laid the foundation so deep and sure under the social and religious life down on the Ridge, they would have taken from their resting place over the door their old tried and trusty long-barreled muzzle-loading rifles, thinking all the while you were speaking of a species of wild game.
Well, the feeding is all done, and here come mother and Mary and Martha, dressed in home made "linsey- woolsie," and calico bonnets, armed with buckets and gourds, for the milking must be done. Then it is "So, Blackie !" "So, Brindle !" and " Whackchebang !" and up with the gourd and after Blackie, over the hill and away to the woods, for it is fly time, you know. While all this is going on father is yoking up the cattle. He has gone cautiously up to old Buck and slipped the bow on the neck, inserted it into the yoke and turned the key, made of seasoned hickory wood. Buck stands like a lamb bound for the slaughter while father steps back and calls to Berry, Buck's old mate, "Come under, Berry !" and the gentle old ox sadly but patiently marches under the yoke that was not always light nor its burden easy. But the strong arm of this sturdy pioneer in the very midst of rugged manhood had grubbed out the hard, knotty "jack-
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oaks," had cut, piled and burned the thick mass of hazel brush. With the same strong arms he had made the rails and builded his fence, six rails high, with stakes and riders, and now the virgin soil must be disturbed, the sod must turn its blackened face full up to the world's bright sunshine. Then God and the pioneer ( who, I firmly believe, lived and walked together then more than men and God do now in man's mad race for gold and power ), one sowing the seed and tilling the ground, the other sending the sunshine and the rain: one giving the other a home and love and life and strength and the har- vest time, the other sowing in hope and faith, and then thrusting his shining sickle into the golden grain with a heart overflowing with praise to the God of love.
Then, when the sun had "reclined behind yon jut- ting knoll, " the boys must go and drive home the cows. Their location must be determined by the familiar sound of the old cow bell, and
When the summer days grew cool and late,
We went for the cows when the work was done: Down in the woods where the paths were straight, We saw them coming, one by one.
Brindle and Blackie, Speckle and Bess, Shaking their horns in the evening wind ;
Cropping the buttercups out of the grass While we followed them close behind.
I only wish I had space to tell of all these pioneers, naming them one by one. I wish I might tell of their struggles for home and country and men ; of how some of them left their temples unfinished and went forth to grim old war; of how the shot and shell way down yonder under the southern skies shattered the altars in the home of the northland, and how, through all these years, scalding tears have never ceased to flow because of the temple unfinished.
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Listen : I will tell you this much, if no more, that many and many a soul has been torn with grief as one by one these goodly people who walked with God every day went down into that quiet, narrow home in God's lonely acre. Of all that goodly company, the early pioneers down on the Ridge, all have answered the roll call of heaven save three: one of these now resides in a neighboring state : the other two have grown old and gray, and still live amidst the scenes of old days gone, only waiting and listening for the calling voice of God.
There were times in the history of the Ridge when it was. and with some reason, called a " tough old place." Indeed, there were seasons in the life of that community when it seemed that the ark of the covenant had fallen into the hands of the Philistines. There were times when it appeared that the fires which had heretofore burned on Christian altars had been forever quenched : that the fury of war had destroyed the pillars of peace and torn heart from heart and men from God. Even though at times it seemed that our Heavenly Father had with- drawn every visible symbol of his pleasure from the old place, yet after all it may be that some gentle guiding hand led its people on and on, that some master boatman safely anchored each little craft in the deep, silent waters of honest living and rectitude of conduct, for, during all the three score years that have come and gone, the coming and going of more than two generations of people, a people subject to all the trials and hardships, labor and toil and disappointments that come to vex humanity, though there have been times down there when the voice of prayer was no longer heard, when the songs of praise that in other days went up to the throne on high had died away in the stillness of night, yet in all this long, long time that good old Ridge has furnished the Marion County court no murder trial, produced no train robbers, no slander or breach-of-promise suits, and no divorce or
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THE STRENUOUS LIFE
blighting betrayal cases have been recorded against her. No one has been lynched, no one has been tarred and feathered or carried out of the neighborhood "straddle of a rail." While there may have been hearts severely cracked, yet there has never been an elopement, nor has anybody's wife ran away with another man, down on the Ridge.
While looking away down the long line of neighbors and friends who furnished the activities in the old home place I see no angels. but I see a people, though some- times estraved from him whom Peter said he loved yet after all had not forgotten God. and every one, save those who are waiting in the silent vestibule that links earth to heaven, have made gallant soldiers in the wide, wide world's warfare. To-night while I write of the old days on the Ridge. I know, my friendly reader, that you with me are thinking of the old times and the old friends down there, or somewhere in this wide old world. To-night. while the winds outside beat against the walls of my city home. I am thinking of the scenes of by-gone days and months and years which with time's mighty tempest have made up all the yesterdays in our short lives. I think of those kindred souls who shared our joys and sorrows down in the country home when life was new and hope was as fresh and pure as the dewdrop on the rosebud kissed by the morning sunbeam ; those pioneer fathers and mothers whose kindly cheer and wholesome advice pointed our young feet to the paths of right, paths that lead to God and heaven : those old pioneers down in the land of the old log house and the high rail fence, the blazing logs in the old fireplace, all come to me as a joyous starting place in life's strenuous race. They are to me like the "shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
But where are those pioneers? They fought a good fight. Pioneer life put iron in their blood and muscle in
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their arms. No wonder, then, they returned from a victorious fight against oppression, wrong and human suffering, and at last lay down in their narrow homes, where the ever-returning rosebuds tell of a life beyond. "After life's fitful fever they sleep well."
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1
فراء .
GEORGE W. AND MRS. MARTIN.
CHAPTER III
"SQUIRE" GEORGE W. MARTIN AND "UNCLE" JOHN EVERETT NOTABLE PIONEER CHARACTERS
The sun has sunk beneath the distant hills. Toiling men have been called away from their accumulated labors, and all the kingdom of nature seems hushed in the still- ness of night. The bright old sun that rules the day is now shining on another land and on other people. Even the old moon has hid its smiling face, and the curtains of night are securely pinned down by the stars.
Now, while nature sleeps and dreams the hours away, while the old world is gradually but surely swing- ing away from the grasp of the old winter king into the zone of beautiful flowers, green fields and singing birds, let us draw our chairs close together and in the deep silence of the night listen to the story of the pioneer fathers and mothers who labored and toiled and builded, down on the Ridge in the long ago.
I would tell in simple words how they wrought with skill, industry and zeal; how these men and women builded for time and eternity and men. I would whisper into willing, listening ears something of their character- istics, and even at this far distant day catch the echo of a kindly word and take up the refrain of a cheering song as they come floating down and through the years.
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Every one of that goodly company of men and women down there told you and me, in word and act and deed, how to live and think and do, but life was new with us then and we heeded them not. But after all, now that the swift current has carried us down the stream of life, how our thoughts go leaping and bounding back through the years until we stand in full view of the kindly hands that sowed here and there in the soil of our young hearts the seeds of the ever-blooming acacia which speaks so eloquently of that life that never dies.
They lived the simple life. Life though strenuous was to them a duty and not a task. Their implements were crude, their wants easily supplied. They shunned the mad, fierce race for gold. Then love's kiss fell light on every brow, and every home was strongly fortified against the siege of an affinity's wicked fight.
In this short story, telling of those who furnished the activities down on the Ridge in the long years ago, I shall speak more particulary of those who first came into the morning twilight of my life, the first of whom, with per- haps one exception, impressed my young life more than all the rest. This was George W. Martin, who had pre- ceded my father a year or two into what was then the "far west, " having come from the same neighborhood in what is now Mason County, West Virginia.
More than fifty years ago I lived with my parents in the very dooryard of my father's old friend, Mr. Martin, in a little log house about twelve feet wide and fourteen feet long, the first cabin built at the head or upper end of what was known as the Coalport Bottom, then a dense forest of magnificent timber, and known for years as the Day Everett place. This little " shanty " had been deserted by the Martin's for a more commodious and palatial residence builtof hewn logs all "pointed " with lime mortar. It was about eighteen by twenty feet, with a little dark attic
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NOTABLE PIONEERS
lighted only by streams of light stealing through the knot holes and cracks in the daytime, and a tallow candle in the stillness of the night, when the boys, sometimes my- self in the bunch, would take possession of this little dor- mitory by the ladder route which stood in the corner.
So the little "hut" was billed "For Rent," and into it we went, father, mother, and four children. It, like King Solomon's temple, was situated due east and west. A chimney and fireplace graced the east so that the morning sun could dart no rays into it. In the west end was a door, in the north a window. A table and a bed with a trundle bed underneath stood along the south wall. There may have been a small window in the south through which could have been seen the sun at its meridian height. which is the glory and beauty of the day ; I do not know. Even if there was we could not have seen it, for then we had the ague so much we could not look anything in the face. In this little house we lived that cold winter of 1856. The snow was more than two feet deep.
My father chopped sawlogs in the timber which was so abundant then for seventy-five cents a day, taking his pay in meat and meal. Thinly clad and unused to the rigors of an Iowa winter, his hands and ears and feet were pierced and bruised by the icy hand of the old win- ter king. If he complained I never heard him ; if in the midst of sickness and wounded by the cruel spear of pov- erty my mother walked in the deep valley of regret I knew it not ; but years and years afterward she told how father longed, and how, when the old world saw it not, she wept and longed, for the old Virginia home where the sky was so blue, the sun so bright and the songs of the birds so sweet and friendships were so many and true. No wonder, then, an ocean shell, a tiny thing, borne miles and miles away, will still whisper into the ear a sad, sad song of its home so far away by the sea.
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My father was also a member of the Coal Ridge Bap- tist Church, for which he served as clerk for a great many years. He was a fine penman and made a most excellent clerk, but he couldn't sing a bit more than a tree toad. However, he was a good father, worked every day, early and late, and nobody had any better to eat and wear than did we. My mother's hands, though weak and always weary until God, forty-six years afterwards, away out in the mountains of Montana, laid them tenderly across her faithful breast, helped my father day by day, and away after the supper hour, down by the old grease lamp, she stitch after stitch made our stockings and our clothes, humming the while some sweet little song telling of heaven and rest in the spring and summer land of God.
During the summer "Squire" Martin, as he was familiarly known far and wide, tended a small field of corn, raised his own vegetables, "hogs and hominy," was always content with the plain and healthful food, and kept a little flocks of sheep which furnished the wool from which his good wife carded and spun the yarn which when woven into cloth she patterned and cut and made, with needle and thread, with her own hands into garments of blue and checked for man and boys and girls.
The "Squire " employed the winter months either in teaching school, or in the capacity of township assessor or justice of the peace. He owed no one, envied no one. He was a self-made man in every sense of the term, and until the very last day of his life he never threw up the job, but kept on making. He burned wood in a great, big fireplace, big backlogs behind, a forestick and a little wood in front, and on a cold winter day one could warm on one side at a time just as many times as he cared to turn around. In the winter time on nights and morn- ings and Saturdays he chopped his wood for the fireplace. There were no cook stoves in those days. The "crane, "
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NOTABLE PIONEERS
with kettle of pork and beans, hominy or big greasy "back bones," or a great covered skillet or oven sitting over a heap of red-hot coals could be seen in nearly every home.
The "Squire" was supremely rich in physical treasures, and his heart and brain were fertile soil for the growth of anything good and beautiful. I used to watch from our little shanty with more than childish delight the big chips go hither and yon as the bright, keen-cutting blade of his axe sank deeper and deeper into the big log on which he stood. And now it almost seems I can hear that old familiar grunt, following each successive stroke of the axe.
And then, when a great big boy, I went to school and he was my teacher, and I heard him grunt again and again, following each successive stroke of a long birch rod, applied where it would do me the most good, for fighting a big overgrown boy named John Johnson, whose father was O. J. J. Johnson, who made axe handles for a living, while the boys, Bill, John and Steve, and "Patsy," the old woman, hunted the young-grown hickory wher- ever dispersed throughout the land, for the world was theirs and all the timber therein. And when the summer had come and the picnic was on, the old handle- maker shaved and scraped away on his clean hickory sticks while "Patsy " and the boys went to picnics, tak- ing a large basket and a "measly " small cake, and returned in the evening bearing enough of the loaves and fishes to last until the next picnic. Well, this big John always licked me to the queen's taste; then, after all that, I had to stand up and take the finishing touches with a rod gathered with my own hands ; and these finish- ing scenes were always intensified by those hearty old grunts. like those I heard from the little old house down under the hill when a little boy.
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