USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 26
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My other vision was as solemn to me as ever can be the very ยท article of death. Methought I lay in a little narow frail canoe
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and with power neither to move nor speak-yet with as keen perceptions as if I were all senses. The canoe itself was at the head of a gulf, tied to its bank with a twine of thread and tremb- ling on its violent waves; the gulf being between walls of rock towering away up smooth and perpendicular for many hundred feet, and running with dark and dismal waters very swiftly to- ' wards a narrow opening through an adamantine rock. That open- ing was an egress into an unknown, bottomless, shoreless, chaotic and wildly tumultuating ocean !- I felt myself quivering on the current of time just as it was sweeping into Eternity !- I saw strange sights !- I heard unearthly sounds! Oh! the unutterable anguish and despair as I lay helpless and awaited the sundering of my cobweb tie-in the twinkling of an eye should I pass into that vast and dread unknown!
Reader ! was this really sleep-and did I only dream ?- or was it the summoning of the spirit to see in a trance what awaits us all? 'Aye! be assured our dreams are not always dreams! A spirit-world is round us-and it is perhaps in such visions God designs we should catch faint glimpses of that other state? Sneer vile Athiest 1-the hour is coming when we shall sneer at thee !- for the "wicked shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt!"
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When Glenville returned from Woodville, he was accompanied not by Doctor Sylvan, but by the Doctor's nephew-one of the two young gentlemen of Indian grave memory. And he brought a long paper of written and minute directions; and among others, the Doctor's favourite plan of changing the character of agues --- for making a dumb ague speak or shake. It answered well, I believe, with all patients of vigorous constitution : at all events, if one could endure it, nothing could so warily make a dumb ague not only shake, but speak, ay, and scream right out. But when that part of the prescription was read to me, I most obstinately refused to have my ague thus converted: and yet as the bare reading made me shiver, doubtless, the operation itself would have made me shake like an earthquake! Sticking, therefore, to my refusal, my dumb ague as Doctor Sylvan predicted, stuck to me ; and for twelve long cheering months! Yet, here is an extract
+ Not the reader, we hope-yet in these irreligious days it might be.
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from the Doctor's paper, so that it can be better judged whether my refusal was altogether owing to obstinacy :-
-and then, as the shaking ague is altogether tractable, ~ his dumb ague must be immediately changed into the other. Carry then your patient into the passage between the two cabins, or into the open air, and strip off all his clothes that he may lie naked in the cold air and upon a bare sacking-and then and there pour over and upon him successive buckets of cold spring water, and continue until he has a decided and pretty powerful smart chance of a shake."
Ohhoo! ooh !- (double oo in moon, with very strong aspira- tion)-it makes me shake now!
Well !- at long last the dumb thing left me; so that I lived to write more books than two: but we shall not say how often we "put on a damp night-cap and relapsed," nor how apparently near what began in laughing came to ending in tears. Only let my reader draw from this case two practical resolutions :-
First-to cultivate a fixed determination never to get any kind of an ague-if he can help it : and
Secondly, to indulge no unseeming pleasantry when he sees a neighbour shiver or shake-unless that neighbour insist manfully that you shall laugh rather than cry with him.
Shortly after my convalescence, the Hon. John Glenville de- parted for the House; and there, among other matters, he assisted in having Robert Carlton, Esq., appointed one of the Trustees of the College at Woodville; with orders to procure as soon as possible competent professors and teachers. For this I wrote to my friend, Charles Clarence, then in the Theological, School at Princeton, New Jersey ; but his reply belongs to our next year, and, indeed, to a new era of the Purchase, and hence, we may very appropriately end here-a Chapter-a Year-and a Volume.2
2 In this as in other passages Hall's statement is inconsistent with the "Key" to the characters and with the order of events. Young (Glenville) did not become a member of the House till 1828, fully five years after Hall came to Indiana and four years after the Seminary was opened and eight years after the act providing for its foundation. "Carl- ton" is here represented as writing to "Clarence" both of whom Hall rep- resents. This "Carlton," if he became a Trustee of the Seminary, must have been some other man than Hall. See pp. 158-159. Rev. Isaac Reed, who married Mrs. Hall's sister probably wrote to Hall while the latter was completing his Seminary course at Princeton, suggesting Hall's coming to the New Purchase with a view to his obtaining an appointment as a teacher in the newly founded Seminary. See Introduc- tion, p. vi.
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CHAPTER XXXII.
"Our dying friends, come o'er us, like a cloud, To damp our brainless ardor, and abate That glare of life which often blinds the wise, Our dying friends are pioneers, to smooth Our rugged paths to death."
THE commencement of our third summer was marked by an event very sad to our little self-exiled company in the woods -- the death of Mrs. Glenville.
Were all here said affection prompts and truth warrants, a volume might be easily written, interesting to most, but specially to that comparatively small yet most excellent class known as religious people: for never had such a brighter ornament or safer pattern. No one, except the inspired person who first gave the exhortation, could more truly have said with her lips to her friends as she did by her life-"Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ." But none ever was so unwilling to appropriate that or similar expressions : she was too pious, too humble and meek, and childlike ever to think her lovely temper, resigned spirit, and dis- interested goodness to be, as they were, a bright and burning light.
In early life she was said to be surpassingly beautiful. But danger and temptation from beauty were soon prevented; in the midst of her bloom her enchanting face was forever marred by the fearful traces of the small-pox. Yet spite of this, and even in advanced life, rare was it to behold a countenance more agree- able than hers; in which was the blended expression of pleasing features, benevolent feeling, pure sentiment, and heavenly temper. The original beauty of the countenance had seemingly been trans- ferred to the heart; whence it beamed afresh from the face, re- fined, chastened, renovated. Her person was tall and finely pro- . portioned ; and so imposing her mien, from a native dignity of soul, that had her original beauty remained, Mrs. Glenville must have always appeared a Grace.
She was well educated and extensively read in history, and many other important secular subjects, but her chief reading had always been that best of books-the Bible: indeed, to this, during
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the last few years of her sorrowful life, her whole attention was given. She, however, read now one other book-a book we name, although with no expectation of its obtaining favour in an unre- flecting age-"Ambrose's looking unto Jesus." And these two books, in the latter months of her life, owing to the nature of her disease, she read on her knees! That disease was an aneurism of the femoral artery, of long continuance, and towards the last exceedingly painful-and which, from an early period of its ex- istence had been pronounced fatal. Yet all this created in her no alarm, produced not the slightest murmur, and abated not her cus- tomary cheerfulness and playful vivacity. Nay, she tried even to comfort and encourage our little settlement-being really more joyous in anticipation of a removal to the better land, than we could have been in returning from exile to vast temporal posses- sions and a beauteous earthly home!
Reason was unimpaired till within a very few moments of death; and we all stood around her bed in the rude cabin, while she, placing her hands on the heads of her grandchildren, offered a solemn prayer for their welfare ;- and then, with an inter- rupted voice of the utmost tenderness, she, looking on us for the last, and smiling said-"I am dying-all-peace!" The king of terrors was there-to her an Angel of beauty-to us dark and frightful !- and he rudely shook that dear frail tabernacle with a severe, perhaps a painful convulsion! But that loved heart, after one throe of agony, was still !- a deep sigh breathed from the quivering lips-and she was not, for God had taken her! A blood ransomed and sanctified spirit was in its true home !
Two days after we laid her in a lone and forest grave. And there all were mourners; none walked in that procession of the dead but the people of Glenville-brothers, sisters, children! In that solitary spot we laid her, far away from consecrated ground and the graves of our fathers!
*
But what! though night after night around that spot was heard the melancholy howl of the wild beast !- what ! though the great world knows not, cares not to know of that leaf-covered grave! The dust that slumbers there shall live again-and die no more! Better far lie in an unknown grave and rise to the resurrection of
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the just, than under a sculptured monument amid the lofty mausoleums of kings, if one thence must rise to die the endless death !
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in albaster?"
"Where should this music be? i' the air, or the earth?"
IMPORTANT changes to the Glenville settlement soon followed the death of Mrs. Glenville. It was found necessary to connect a store with the tannery; and hence, after due deliberation, it was decided that Mr. Carlton should now remove to Woodville and open the store ;- the ex-legislator, J. Glenville, to remain and con- duct the leather department with old Dick, and also buy no pro- duce for the Orleans market, and all along shore there. He- (not Dick, but Glenville)-was now also a candidate for Pro- thonotary ; although not from elevated and pure patriotism, as in his other campaign; the fact is we had had honour enough and- loss. An eye was now fixed on the salary ; we wished to serve the people, provided like other great patriots, we could also serve ourselves ; bad men serve only themselves, good ones both them- selves and the people.
Uncle John and Aunt Kitty were to stay with Glenville in the patriarchal cabin; but Miss Emily Glenville was to go with us to Woodville, where she and Mrs. Carlton would set up an Institute for Young Ladies !- the very first ever established in the New Purchase.
In due season, and after innumerable dividings and packings of goods and chattels, off we set; a good two horse wagon and its owner and driver, a robust youth of the timber world, having been hired to take us and "the plunder." Aunt Kitty insisted on going over to see us safe at our new home and to help fix; and old Dick, poor fellow! looked so wistfully at me, that I agreed to ride the honest creature to Woodville, if he would consent to come back tied to the tail of the wagon; and to that he made no objection whatever. And so he went along too.
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Nothing important occurred on the journey, only a curious complimentary mistake of the bustling hostess during the night we were compelled to pass on the road. This sagacious lady, seeing a baby in the party, inferred, in Pillbox's style, that some- body was married; and as Aunt Kitty carried the little "crittur," and made an awful deal of fuss, and Mr. C. used once or twice nursery diminutives, the landlady concluded that if I was "faddy- waddy," Aunt Kitty must be "mammywammy." Hence, about bed time, she considerately said-"I want to 'commodate near about as well as we can fix it, and so him-(pointing to Mr. Carlton)- and you ma'am-(speaking to Aunt Kitty)-kin have the room up loft thare; and them young folks-(Mrs. Carlton, Emily C. and the driver)-kin have this room down here all alone to 'emselves !"
Now, reader, had I a very grave and solemn countenance in ' my youth, or was Aunt Kitty then just thirty-five years and six months my senior, a very pretty, youthful, looking woman? And what could have deceived our Hoosierina? that when informed of her error, she should have exclaimed :-
"Well! now! I never seed the like on it! Why if I didn't senti- mentally allow you was the two old folkses, and them two likely young gals, your two oldenmost daters-and that leetle critter, you look'd like you was a nussin your last and youngenest !"
Awh ! came now, reader, act fair; for Aunt Kitty was after all a right down good looking body, and as lively as a young lady of plus-twenty. And do not fine, handsome young fellows sometimes marry good looking aged ladies very rich ?
However, spite of this, next day we came safe to Woodville. But now, alas! was to be the parting with old Dick! True, he let them tie him to the tail of the wagon-but evidently, he was trotted off contrary to his secret wishes, and a good deal faster than he was accustomed to go; for our driver, desirous of reaching the river by night, and having no return load, drove away at a Jehu gait. I, standing at our upper story back window, cried out, as he wheeled into his retrograde position-"Good-bye, Dick, good bye! and, would you have believed it? He cocked back his ears !- rolled up his eyes !- and with head and neck almost hori- zontal, he made not only desperate efforts not to trot, but to slip
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his halter! In vain! The brute horses in front, were too many for the poor fellow, and away, away they jerked him; till the party, entering the woods, turned suddenly into the road to Glenville, and he was forced round with an ample sweep of his rear quar- ters ; and the last I ever saw of my poor dear old comrade was a most indignant flourish of his venerable tail ! For, before my visit to the former home, Dick who would not grind back alone, and John could not be constantly with him, was sold to a neighbouring teamster; and then, in about a year after, he ended his earthly career as he had begun it-a wheel-horse to a wagoner! Whether from the infirmity of age, or heart-broken at quitting our family, he dropped dead, holding back in his place, on the descent of a precipitous hill !! * Poor Dick ! poor Dick !- Don't pshaw at me, reader ! I'm not crying, any such thing-yes, he's dead now! I shall never see him again! and you will never hear of him. If he has plagued you some in this work, he will not, like some bipedalic and quadruple heroes in certain other books, plague you all through!
Behold us, then, one step back towards the worldly world. And so now we shall have a little backwoods town life, with an occa- sional excursion to our country seat at Glenville, like great shop- keepers of eastern cities.1
Our first step at Woodville was to write and fasten up at the post-office, court-house, jail, doctor's office and other public places, copies of our prospectus for the Woodville young ladies' institute. This was necessary for sixteen reasons ; firstly, there was no print- ing office nearer (then) than one hundred miles ;2 secondly,-Oh !
1 It appears to have been during his third year in Indiana in the summer of 1824, that Hall moved to Bloomington. This would fix his arrival in Indiana in the spring of 1822 instead of 1823. See note p. 70.
2 It was not until 1825 when the Indiana capital was moved from Corydon to Indianapolis that Jesse Brandon who had been an editor and public printer at Corydon moved his printing materials to Bloomington. Brandon then established the Bloomington Republican which lived until about 1829. The Indiana Gazette and Literary Advocate, was founded by Gen. Jacob Lowe in opposition to Brandon's paper and to aid the Jackson- ian party. When Jackson was elected President, Dr. David H. Maxwell was removed from the Bloomington post office and Lowe was appointed. When Hall moved to Bloomington in 1823 or '24 Bloomington printing was probably done at Louisville .- Esarey's Indiana Journalism.
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I see you are satisfied-I'm not going on. Wonderful care, how- ever, had been used to make our notice a specimen, both of pen- manship and patriotism; and hence more was accomplished in our favour than could have been done by sixteen line pica and long primer. For instance, heading the foolscap was a superb American eagle, in red ink flourish, and holding in his bill, a rib- bon, inscribed-"Young Ladies Institute." Then came the mis- tresses' names in large round hand-then the location in letters, inclining backward, like old Dick when wheel-horse-Oh! pardon, he shall not hold back for us again-I was off my guard ; and then the word PROPOSE that introduced the page-like matter, in capitals of German text, with heads and tails curled and crankled and inter- laced, so as nearly to bewilder the reader about the meaning! And yet, so adroitly was this word contrived, that if one perti- naciously and judiciously kept on through all the windings, he would emerge safe enough at the final flourish of the E; and be not a little triumphant at twisting unhurt and unscared through the labyrinth of "sich a most powerful hard and high larn'd hand write !"
Leaving this prospectus to produce its own effects, I set out for Louisville to lay in goods, and also to bring out for our school- purposes, a piano. Now this was the very first that "was ever heern tell of in the Purchus !" 3 and hence no small sensation was created, even by the bare report of our intention. Nay, from that moment, till the instrument was backed up to our door to be removed from the wagon, expectation was on tip-toe, and conjec- ture never weary. "A pianne! what could it be? Was it a sort a fiddle-like-only bigger, and with a powerful heap of wire strings? What makes them call it a forty pianne ?- forty-forty-ah! yes, that's it-it plays forty tunes !"
Some at Woodville knew well enough what a piano was, for there, as elsewhere, in the far west, were oddly congregated, a few intelligent persons from all ends of the earth: but these did all in their power to mislead conjecture, enjoying their neighbour's mis-
3 This small piano was for many years in the home of Mr. and Mrs. James M. Howe, South College Ave., Bloomington. It was still there in 1892 when Dr. John M. Coulter, President of the University, lived in the Howe home.
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takes. After a narrow escape of being backed, wagon and all, into the creek, already mentioned, as having the ford just seven feet deep, and notwithstanding the roughness, or as my friend, lawyer Cutswell used to say, "the asperities" of the road, the in- strument reached us, and in tune,-unless our ears were lower than concert pitch. At all events, we played tunes on it, and vastly to the amazement and delight of our native visitors; who, con- sidering the notes of the piano as those of invitation, came by day or night, not only around the window, but into the entry, and even into the parlour itself, and in hosts; Nor did such ever dream of being troublesome, as usually it was a "sorter wantin to hear that powerful pianne tune agin!" But often the more curious "a sort o' wanted the lid tuk up like to see the tune a playin, and them little jumpers (dampers) dance the wires so most mighty darn'd powerful smart!"
All this was, indeed, annoying, yet it was amusing. Beside, we might as well have bolted the store, and left the Purchase, as to bolt our door, or quit playing : and beyond the ill-savour of such conduct in a backwood's republic, it would have been cynical not to afford so many simple people a great pleasure at the cost of a little inconvenience and some rusting of wires from the touches of perspiring fingers. An incident or two on this head, and our music may, for the present, be dismissed.
One day, a buxom lass dismounted, and after "hanging her crittur" to my rack, walked not, as was usual, into the store first, but direct into our parlour, where she made herself at home, thus :-
"Well! ma'am, I'm a sort a kim to see that 'are thing thare- (pointing to the piano)-Jake says its powerful-mought a body hear it go a leetle ma'am ?"
Of course, Mrs. Carlton let it "go a leetle," and then it was rapturously encored, rubbed, patted, wondered at, asked about, &c. for one good solid hour, when our familiar made the follow- ing speech and retired :-
"Well !- pianne tunes is great! I allow that pianne maybe perhaps cost near on to about half a quarter section, (forty acres, valued at fifty dollars.) I wish Jake and me was rich folks, and I'd make him go half as high as yourn, however, I plays the
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fiddle, and could do it right down smart, only some how or nuther I can't make my fingers tread the strings jist ezactly right !"
A very respectable woman, wife of a wealthy farmer seven miles from Woodville, having been one day in town till towards evening, thought she would step over, and for the first time hear the famous piano; and that, although she was to ride home by herself, and by a very long and lonesome road. Our best tunes were accordingly done, and with flute accompaniments ; at which our honest-hearted neighbour, raising both hands, and with a peculiar nod of the head and wonderful naivete, exclaimed :-
"Compton-(her husband)-Compton said it was better. nor the fiddle !- but I'm sentimentally of opinion it's as fur afore a fiddle, as a fiddle's afore a jusarp !! " 4
Illustrious shade of Paganini! what say'st thou to that?
Once, however, a fine, yet unpolished young man came, but evidently with an impression that some invitation was necessary, as he rapped at the parlour door, and would not enter till in- vited by Mrs. Carlton. She was playing at the time, and well knowing the cause of the visit, she soon asked if he was fond of music, to which he answered :
"Oh! most powerful fond, ma'am; and as I heern tell of the pianne, I made a sort a bold to step in and maybe perhaps you'd play a tune."
Tune after tune was accordingly played; while the young man, who, abashed at his entrance, remained near the door, now arose and advancing, as if drawn by some enchantment, little by little, he stood at the end of the instrument, absorbed in the music, and his eyes fixed with an intense gaze on the lady's coun- tenance-and at last, when the music ceased at the conclusion of some piece of Beethoven's, he heaved a profound sigh, and thus fervently said :-
"If I had a puttee wife and such a fixin, I'd never want nothing no more no how!"
Reader ! that man had a soul! Sweet sounds and a fair face- (my mother-in-law had been a very beautiful woman,-now touched chords in his heart never before so vibrated; and there
4 This was Mrs. Mary Ann Ketchem, according to a letter of Hall, 1855.
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came ill-defined but enrapturing visions-so lofty! so aerial! so unlike his cabin, his sisters, and, perhaps, his sweetheart! Wo to the fop who then should even have looked impertinence towards the musician! Ah! sweetheart! for an instant thy image was away! Thy lover had caught a dim glimpse of a region and at- mosphere where a more refined lady-love only could live!
'And so we were now fully under weigh at Woodville, selling, buying, keeping school, and playing the piano-the last important affair being sadly interrupted by the duties of house-keeping. Mrs. C. began more clearly to understand an elegant phrase, addressed to her at our entrance into the wooden country-"the working of one's own ash-hopper." A girl was indeed caught, (although the creatures were shy as wild turkeys) about once a month; but the success was only small relief to the mistress. It might be a kind of relief from rough scrubbing and washing; from little else, how- ever, as other work must be rectified and often re-cleaned. Did a girl fancy, too, herself undervalued ?- was she not asked to the first table with company ?- not included in invitations sent us from "big bug" families ?- not called Miss Jane or Eliza ?- she was off in a moment! Real malice is often mixed with the dud- geons ; dough half kneaded is deserted by the young lady-clothes abandoned in the first suds-batter left, and that at the instant you invite your company to sit up, and expect "the young woman that goes out to help her neighbours in a pinch" to be coming in with the first plate of flannel cakes !
But if one unfortunately catches a girl who is a mad devotee to some false form of the Christian religion, the employer will be systematically cheated, under the vile plea of higher obligations to attend the thousand and one meetings got up by self-righteous revival makers. We have by such been left on a sick-bed, and when it was by some supposed we were actually dying !- her spiritual advisers held a fanatical meeting that hour, and off she hurried, though paid to nurse! Such a thing would not now be thought worthy record, if we were not too well apprised that even in here, girls, gals, helps, servants, and apprentices, are but poorly instructed by some flaming religionists as to the sacred duties of their offices; and that some of these helps, although paid, fed, clothed, and nursed in sickness by the employers, are,
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