USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 18
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Combustion-(hem!) was supported during the day on the most philosophic principles ; by supplying fuel; not a small bladder of gas ; not even an old fashioned Philadelphia iron fore stick and stone black log; but real backwood's fuel, chips, brush, bits of saplings and miniature timber. The fire was constructed regu- larly once only in twenty-four hours ; although some back logs will last nearly twice that period.
Each firemaker had a tong of green timber an inch thick and six feet long ; hence two persons lifting or poking in concert were equivalent to a pair of tongs. Usually we operated with only one tong ; but by dexterity all can be accomplished with that one, that in here is commonly done with "tongses" and shovel to boot. True, our practice was incessant ; since no man, woman, nor child in the Purchase ever stood, sat, or lay near a fire without poking at it! Hence my determined and ineradicable hostility to a fire of coal, bituminous or anthracite-the thing won't be poked ! And what's a fire for, if it aint to be poked? Our young woman now, in here, keeps every thing in the shape of poker, and scraper, and
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tong, single or double, out of my way; and, when the grate or stove needs a little tussling, in comes she with some iron article or other: but always on going out takes the article with her- "for fear Mr. Carlton will spile her fire !! "
Bah !- don't lecture me about furnaces and flues, and patent grates and ranges, and no-burns and all-saves, of this pitiful age! Give me my all-burn and no-save fire of beech and sugar and chip and brush-hand back my tong-let me poke once more! Oh ! let me hear and see once more before I die a glorious flame roaring up a stick-chimney ! There let me, on this celebrated cold Thurs- day, thermometer two and a half inches below zero, there let me stand by my cabin fire and be heated once more through and through ! Oh! the luxury of lying in bed and looking from behind our Scotch wall on that fire!
Oh ! ye poor frozen, starving wretches of our blind and horrible alleys, and dark and loathsome cellars; ye, I now see buying two- penneth of huckstered sticks to heat your water gruel for one more mouthful before ye die; ye, that are shivering in rags, beg- ging of that red-faced carter in the pea jacket a small, knotty, four-foot-stick of sour, sappy scrub oak just fallen from his cart, to hear it sob, sob, on the foodless hearth of your dungeon like holes-away! for heaven's sake, if you starve not before, away next summer to the woods!
Go; squat on Congress land! Go; find corn and pork and turkeys and squirrels and opossums and deer to eat! Go; and in the cold, cold, cruel winter like to day, you shall sit and lie and warm you by such a fire !- Go; squalid slaves! beg an axe-put out-make tracks for the tall timber-Go; taste what it is to be free ! Away !- run !- leap !- and shout-"Hurraw-aw! the ranges for-ever !! "
CHAPTER XXI.
"Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them, And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth."
WE had this year a very merry Christmas. For first and fore- most we devoted the holidays to-hog killing and all its accom- paniments, lard rendering, spare-rib cooking, sausage making, and the like. And secondly, our cow Sukey performed a very wonderful thing in the eating and drinking line :- she devoured a whole sugar trough full of mast-fed rendered lard! The blame, at first, attached to Dick; but he could clearly prove an alibi, and besides Sukey had very greasy chops, and got horrid sick, as much so as she had swallowed a box of Quackenborg's pills : and when she did again let us have milk it was actually oily! And then, thirdly, there was aunt Kitty's mishap about the sausages.
Aunt Kitty was intended by nature for a dear delightful old maid; and she greatly mistook her vocation by marrying, although nothing but her being a great favourite with the beaux of the last century hindered the fulfilment of her destiny. She was the most amiable and kind-hearted woman-but a leetle too modest ; so that, in her circumlocutions and paraphrases to get round the tough places of plain English, she often made us uneasy lest she stump, or, perhaps light on some unlucky word or phrase worse than the one she shyed at. She denominated the chanticleer-chickbidde -or, he-bidde-or, old-rooster; and the braying gentleman she styled-donkey; although she would venture as far as-Jack. Ancle, with her, was any part from the knee downward, and limbs were of course, her what-y callums. She milked the cow's dugs, and greased, not her bag, but her-udder. From all which it maybe conjectured what ingenious contrivances in strange cab- ins were necessary before Aunt Kitty could get into bed or out of it : indeed, setting all backwood scorn and ridicule at defiance, she would take the very coverlet and fork it up for a curtain !
Well, Aunt Kitty called things prepared for the reception of sausages, skins; and so this Christmas having prepared the skins by the scraping process, she laid them away in salt and water till the stuffing was to take place; but when the hour for that
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curious metamorphose of putting swine into their own skins came, behold! the skins could not be found-
"What ! had Dick devoured them?"
Oh ! no,-the girl had accidentally thrown them all away. And this, indeed, was too bad; and no housekeeper can blame Aunt Kitty for being greatly provoked: but alas! for delicacies, anger permitted no choice of words :- (and by that it may be seen how angry Aunt Kitty was;) for on learning the cause and manner of the irreparable loss she exclaimed :-
"Why, you careless-you! Have you really gone and thrown out all my g-ts! that I was keeping for skins !! "
Fourthly, we had a deer hunt, not only somewhat remarkable in itself, but memorable for the change it caused in the relations of Brutus and Cæsar-the dogs of Glenville. Of these, Brutus was the elder, and hence, though smaller and weaker, he managed to govern Cæsar : proof that among brutes opinion has much to do with mastership and reverence. An intimate acquaintance with old Dick and the two canine gentlemen has unsettled my early theories about instinct and reason: and as to the first-named worthy, the theory that the power of laughing is distinctive of human beings must be received with limitation; for Dick, if he never indulged in a rude boisterous horse-laugh, could and did most decidedly and repeatedly grin-and that is all some very sober and sensible persons ever attain to.
As to the others, Brutus had possession of the premises before Cæsar was even a whelp; and though only Cæsar's foster-sire, he had trained him in his puppyhood in all the arts of doggery ; show- ing him how to worry infant pigs, then saucy shoats, and finally true hogs, and without regard of size or sex. He taught him how to chase poultry, and suck eggs; how to hang at a cow's tail and yet avoid both horn and heel; how to hunt squirrels, opossums and racoons; and how even to shake a venomous snake to death and not be bit. And to his indefatigable care and example was owing the loss of our original bacon-skin hinges, and the ruin of sundry raw hides.
But when the cold meat, or potatoes, or buttermilk, &c., was set out in the dogs' sugar-trough, how instructive the dignity of Brutus as he walked up solus, and with no ravenous and indelicate
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haste to eat his fill! And how revereful the mammoth and lub- berly Cæsar, standing at a distance till his step-father had finished and retired! Cæsar, when very hungry or smelling something extra, would indeed crawl up with an imploring eye and piteous whine : but then the awful look and cautionary growl he received from the wiser dog sent him away in a moment with a trailed tail and even to a greater distance than ever! And yet Cæsar was equal in strength and size to one Brutus and a half! Carlyle's theory of opinion, must be extended to dogs: and our deer hunt will confirm it.
One day during Christmas week Uncle John went a hunting. About two o'clock, however, he returned, having wounded a deer a mile beyond our clearing, and wishing after dinner-(now on the table)-to take the two dogs to put on its trail; when we should soon find the deer and in all probability dead. Accord- ingly, on reaching the spot, and blood being here and there visible, the dogs were placed on the trail, and we soon came in sight of the poor deer. It was not dead, as had been conjectured, but was lying down sorely wounded, on a little island in the creek, hoping there, after baffling pursuit by the intervening water, to sob away its life unseen and undisturbed by its relentless enemies ! Poor creature ! mere accident led us to look towards its retreat ; where, alarmed, it had incautiously moved, and no moving thing ever is unseen by the wary and stationary hunter-and then, at our shouts, up sprang the terrified animal, wounded, but bounding away as though unharmed! And away in pursuit leaped the yelping dogs; but in the excitement Cæsar, forgetful of all rever- ence, in the lead.
Following the uproar, I ran up on this side the creek about two hundred yards ; and then the deer was seen recrossing the water a few rods higher, Cæsar close on the flank, the most noble Brutus panting far enough in the rear !
The poor hunted victim, blind and expiring, staggered in its last agony towards my station ; and then, as Cæsar leaped to seize its throat, it fell stone dead at my feet; for the rifle ball had passed nearly through its body, and the chase had happily but accelerated death. The two brothers, for Uncle Tommy had joined us, now came up; and then, the feet of the dead deer tied
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in pairs, and a sappling, cut and prepared with a tomahawk, in- serted longitudinally under the thongs, we shouldered our prey and marched homeward triumphant :- i. e. we three rationals and the now opinionated and consequential Cæsar, who (or which?) strutted near, every few paces leaping up and smelling at the carcass. But Brutus, the hitherto lord of the woods and clearing, alas! dejected, lagged away behind, both crest fallen and tail fal- len! yes, both, for he hung his head and kept his tail dangling without one triumphant flourish! He evidently felt his impor- tance lessened, his dignity diminished by such a palpable and utter natural-not to say moral-inability to be in at the death. Yes, opinion was changed! And he saw plain enough that Cæsar entertained notions of dog authority now very inconsistent with peaceable subjection-ay ! as different as when slaves first wake to the full perception of their powers and rights and opportunities ; their masters having injudiciously allowed them to discover them- selves to be really men and to have souls! Yes, yes, opinion had changed; and these dogs read it in one another's eyes,-for that very day the instant the entrails of the slain-deer were thrown out as the dogs' reward, up rushed the unceremonious Cæsar; and when Brutus tried the experiment of the old cautionary growl, Cæsar instead of modestly retiring as usual, leaped ferociously upon his venerated step-father, and so bit and gored and pitched - and rolled and tossed him, that away, away ran the elder dog at the first fair interval howling with rage, vexation and pain! And ever after that memorable deer hunt Cæsar continued to eat at the first trough and Brutus at the second.
Part of the venison fell to Uncle Tommy's share, which I aided him to take home; and, in return, he insisted on my spending the evening at his cabin-and then the reader may be sure we had many a long story on hunting; but he would rather have described the squatteree itself than hear all our stories and adventures. The squatteree was a cabin just fourteen feet-by ten, and most ac- curately built of small round saplings, very much alike in dia- meter and looks, and nicely dressed at the corners. It was, in- deed, a darling little miniature cabin, and would have done to a tittle for rabblerousing in the late presidential campaign.1 Old
1 The notable "log cabin and hard cider" campaign of 1840, so re- markable for its "hullabaloo and claptrap."
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Dick could easily have drawn it, and Uncle Tommy, whose heart was the old General's would have driven!
A large space inside was occupied by a bed-apparatus con- structed as follows :- uprights, at their lower ends, were nailed to cleets on the floor, and on the uprights were pegged a side and foot piece ;- the logs of the cabin making unnecessary a second rail and head piece. Next was a sacking of clapboards pinned down; and then a very thick straw bed, and over that a sumptuous feather bed; the whole very comfortable for the good old folks, especially as Uncle Tommy used to say of themselves, that they were "old and tough."
Opposite the bed stood the bureau; the door opening into the cabin between the two, and a narrow aisle or passage being left to the cooking and eating end of the nest. Adjoining the bureau was the puncheon table with its white oak legs; and which served for eating, sewing, reading, and indeed, all domestic uses ; whilst opposite the table, and at the foot of the bed, were shelves for crockery and every article of squatter house-keeping. Over the fire-place was an extraordinarily wide mantel, sustaining can- ister, and bowl upon bowl, and bags, some of linen and some of paper; and having above itself two racks, one supporting an enormously long duck gun, and the other, "Old Bet"-a black, surly looking rifle, with the appurtenances of horns, pouches, loaders, tomahowks and knives pendant from the hooks. There hung, also, several pairs of moccasins, and two sets of leggings; an old pair of green baize, and a new pair of blue cloth.
Over the table and bureau were shelves, but mainly for the library. The books were principally books of divinity and church history, and also of prayer and devotion; but yet were on the shelves Don Quixotte, Robinson Crusoe, Paradise Lost, Border Tales, Cooper's Works, Thomson's Seasons, and Young's Night Thoughts. The bureau top was consecrated to Bibles and Hymn Books; and here was piled the famous Scott's Commentary, in five volumes quarto, and so often read, from "kiver to kiver!" Indeed, from their appearance, one would almost have judged them to have been read clean through "the kivers!"
The neatness, the quiet, the cleanliness, the comfort, the wild independence of this nest of a cabin ;- the hunt of the day ;-
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the stories ;- all, all were so like the dreams of my boyhood! How happy Uncle Tommy, now more than seventy years old! and Aunt Nancy, now more than sixty! Happy in themselves, in one another, in their home, and in their scriptural hopes of the future life !
But the arangement for getting water, when the old lady should be alone, and in wet weather, without leaving the cabin !- that was the nicety. The nest was a few yards below a beautiful fountain, and over its running stream; then in the floor a light puncheon was fixed as a trap, so that with a calabash at the end of a proper pole Aunt Nancy could dip as from an artificial re -. servoir !- and all without a water tax !
Our supper to-night was of coffee, corn bread, butter, eggs, short-cakes, and venison steaks! Yes, venison steaks !- Away with your Astor House, and Merchants' Hotel, and Dandies' Tav- erns ; if you do want to know how venison steaks do taste-go to Aunt Nancy ! We feel tempted to give Uncle Tommy's "murakalus" escape in fire-hunting! how he levelled his rifle at a "beasts's eyes," and found in time it was light streaming through a negro hut, where, on Christmas eve, the merry rascals were dancing away to a cornstalk fiddle and a calabash banjo. But we must hasten to our
Fifth and last amusement during the holidays. Usually on the Sabbath we attended our own meeting in the Welden Settlement; but bad roads and some other accidents often kept us at home; when our three families assembled at Uncle John's, where he read the Scriptures, and made or read a prayer with occasional help from Uncle Tommy, while Glenville and Carlton conducted the choir and read sermons and tracts.
Sometimes, however, we attended meeting at Mr. Sturgis', out of compliment to our neighbour and Uncle Tommy ; never, indeed, for fun, although we usually were more amused than profited; and always came back more and more convinced that a learned, talented and pious ministry was, after all, not quite so great a curse as many deem it. But of this the reader may, after reading the ecclesiastical parts and chapters of this History, judge for himself. And here we beg leave to affirm that our
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accounts of certain sacred matters is reduced and very much below the truth; for while truthfulness is important in some writings, if on these matters ours were truth-full, we should hardly be credited. We dare not do our pictures up to life: and hence, while they are by no means truthless, they are yet less than the truth.
Neighbour Sturgis, it will be remembered, lived opposite the tannery, and on the top of a bluff rising from our creek. Com- pared with most cabins his was good and spacious; and to ac- commodate some pet swine and a flock of tame geese, openings under his house were left, whither the favourites could retire for sleep, or as a retreat from unusual sun, rain, or wind. Here, whilst swine and geese were content with their several limits, gruntings and cacklings were modest and expressive of enjoy- ment : although joy itself would often squeal and scream too boisterously for some congregations. But if wantonness induced either piggy or goosy to pass the border ; or if the dogs playfully ran in nosing up the pigs, slapping a tail against a strutty gander or a silly goose, then would the commingled din of bark, howl, grunt, squawk, squeal and cackle, furnish a better answer than the jest book itself to the question, "What makes more noise than a she-swine caught in a gate?"-Answer, "Old man Sturgis' pet- pen in a riot."
Now, in the room exactly over the pet-pen, "meetins was held !" The seats were long benches with very ricketty limbs, expanded two a piece at each end, and double planks resting on rude chunks-all wishing to obey at once the great law of gravity, but prevented by their own inequalities, and those of the floor .. Hence during "sarvice," as folks were constantly shifting centres of motion and gravity, no despicable noise of chunks and bench-legs was maintained, in addition to all other noises rational and instinctive.
The pulpit was neither marble nor mahogany, being a tough chair with two upright back pieces like plough handles, and cross bars to suit : and its seat was (or were) laced hickory withes, and wonderfully smooth and glistening from the attrition of linsey garments, tow inexpressibles, and oily buckskin unmentionables. And not in, but behind this pulpit stood the preacher, placing his
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hymn book on its polished seat, and holding on to the two handles to squeeze by, in his energy or embarrassments. Hence he never thumped his pulpit in the manner of the Rev. Doctor Slapfist ; but when necessary he raised the pulpit itself, and with it thumped the floor-making of course just four times the impression with its four legs that the Doctor does with his single hand.
The Rev. Diptin Menniwaters usually preached here; but on New-Year's Sabbath all Glenville went by invitation to hear a new preacher : although in the Purchase, where preachers of a sort are plenty as acorns or beach nuts, a new one frequently held forth, and held on too, greatly to the wonder of the hearers, and the disturbance of the pet-pen, at our neighbour's of the bluff. The new preacher to-day, doubtless apprised of the strangers' coming, in order to create confidence, and ward off any false shame and unworthy fear of man, struck off, after prayer and singing, with an open avowal of enmity to all learning and learned preachers, thus :---
"Brethurn and sisturn, it's a powerful great work, this here preaching of the gospel, as the great apostul hisself allows in them words of hissin what's jist come into my mind; for I never know'd what to preach about till I riz up-them words of hissin, 'who is sufficient for all these here things,' as near about as I recollect them.
"Thare's some folks-(glancing towards us)-howsomever, what thinks preachers must be high larn'd, afore they kin tell sinners as how they must be saved or be 'tarnally lost; but it ain't so I allow-(chair thumped here and answered by a squawk below)-no, no! this apostul of ourn what spoke the text, never rubbed his back agin a collige, nor toted about no sheepskins-no, never !- (thump! thump ! squawk and two grunts.) No, no, dear brethurn and sisturn-(squeak)-larnin's not sufficient for them things; as the apostul says, 'who is sufficient for them.' Oh worldlins ! how you'd a perished in your sins if the fust preachers had a stay'd till they got sheepskins. No! no! no! I say, gim me the sperit. (Squeals and extra gruntings in the swine's territory, and more animated squawks and cackles, as the preacher waxed warmer.) No! I don't pretend to no larnin whatsomever, but de- pends on the sperit like Poll; (squee-e-el;) and what's to hinder
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me a sayin, oh! undun worldlins! that you must be saved or 'tarnally lost-yes, lost for ever an dever !- (things below evi- dently getting on to their legs and flapping.) No! no! no! oh! poor lost worldlins, I can say as well as the best on them sheepskins, if you don't git relijin and be saved, you'll be lost, teetolly and 'tarnally forever an deverah! I know's I'm nuthen but poor Philip, and that I only has to go by the sperit-ah! but as long as I live, I kin holler out; (voice to the word)-and cry aloud and spare not, (squ-aw-awk.) O! no, brethurn and sisturn-ah! and all evin high larn'd folks that's in the gaul, and maybe won't thank me for it no how-ah! O! ho! o-ah! I poor Philip-ah, what's moved to cry out and spare not-ah !- (sque-e-el;) what was takin from tendin critturs like David-ah, and ain't no prophet, nor no son of a prophet-ah. O! ho-o-ah, how happy I am to raise my poor feeble-ah, rying-ah, voice-ah, and spendin my last breath, in this here blessed work; a warnin, and crying aloud; o-oh !- o-ah ! repent, repent, poor worldlins and be saved, or you'll all be lost, and perish for-ever-an-dever-ah."
Here the storm above was getting to its height, although poor Philip kept on ten minutes more, waxing louder and hoarser, with endless repetitions and strong aspirations in a hundred places occasioned by his catching breath, and which we have several times marked with an -ah! 2
He also began spanking one thigh with a hand, and ever and anon battering the floor with his pulpit, until he was compelled at last to place one hand under his jaw, and partly up his cheek to support his "jawing tackle." And, in the meanwhile, the fra- ternity below, after much irregular outcrying, had at length joined all their instruments and voices, and to so good a purpose as at times nearly to overwhelm the preacher. Two dogs also, half wolf and half cur, now presented themselves at the door, and with elevated brows and cocked ears, stood wistfully looking at the parson, to know what he wished them to attack or hunt: but on finding he was not halloing for them, and being now too excited
2 The more frequent this syllable or such aspiration occurs in a torrent of boisterous words, the more is the preaching supposed to be from the heart, and, therefore, inspired: for nobody, it is supposed, would make such a fool of himself if he could help it.
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to be still, away they sprang towards the forest yelping and howling and determined to hunt for themselves. And shortly after the first hurricane ending, Poor Philip hitting a favorite vein, went on with a train of reasoning (designing to show that native wit was as good as college logic) about cause and effect : but while he was again cheered from below in the manner of an English audience clapping an abolitionist, we shall not, by re- cording the applause, interrupt the narrative.
"No-no: nobody can make nuthin. Thare's only one what makes, and he made these here woods; he made these here trees ; and them bushes ; he made wonders sun-and yonders moon-and all them 'are stars what shines at night in the firmanint above our heads like fires ;- and-and-he-made-yes-he made them powerful big rivers a runnin down thare to Orleans-and the sea, and all the fishes, and the one what a sorter swallowed the prophit what was chuck'd out and swallered-and-and-yes- and all them 'are deer, and them 'are barr, and them hossis what's tied out thare. (Had Dick been there he would now unquestion- ably have slipped his bridle.) And so you understand, worldlins, how no man could a ever made anything. And haven't we proof from nater that they are made, and didn't come as high larn'd folks' sez, and grow of theirselves out of forty atims by chance.
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