USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 29
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But important changes almost destructive of Glenville Settle- ment, were now on the eve of accomplishment. Mr. Hilsbury had, his health being ruined, resigned his bishopric with all its emoluments, and was about returning to the far east; and Uncle Tommy from an irrepressible spirit of wandering, was just start- ing to go and build a cabin on Lake Michigan.1 And so, we had come in time to bid farewell!
1 If still there, somebody out there can make a book. .
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How melancholy the houses already, seemed so soon to be ten- antless, and then so soon to moulder and fall into ruins ;- a deserted cabin quickly changes, like a body left by the vital spark ; Ah! how dreary the forest would be without friends! I had no spirits to hunt; although I wandered away and sat down on the bank of the creek opposite the little islet where the deer lay down to die-but without my rifle-it was to weep! Reader ! if you have a soul you will not laugh at me ;- and if you have none, then laugh away, poor creature, why should you not enjoy yourself your own way ?- but dear reader with a soul, I after that went and sat down in the old bark-mill. And there I recalled the morn- ing we stumbled down the opposite cliff into Uncle John's open arms-I saw the very spot where the mother had clasped the daughter to her bosom, and "lifted up her voice and wept"-and the sad spot too where that mother now rested in the lonely grave! I remembered the fresh revival of early dreams and visions real- ized in the novelty of a wild forest life !- ay! I recalled the oddity of my labours-and even that poor mute, but wholly irra- tional companion !- and when I felt in my soul that changes had come and were yet coming, and that I never, no, never, could be in these woods as I had been-I even wept there, too, reader !- not loud indeed, but bitterly !
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In a few days we took a mournful farewell of the two families going from Glenville; and with no expectation of ever meeting again in this life. True, some of these persons, wanderers like ourselves, we did meet for a brief space in other parts of the United States again; but others we have never seen since the morning of our separation. And at this hour we know not where Uncle Tommy lives-or if dead, where his grave is! In this work, however, there will be no further mention of these two families.
During the past summer Uncle John had been appointed a lay delegate from the Welden Diocese to attend an ecclesiastical con- vention about to meet early this fall at Vincennes ; and he now, before our return to Woodville, obtained my promise to accom- pany him. Accordingly, a few days after our return, he, and
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with him Bishop Shrub, called on me, and we three set out for the Convention, or as all such gatherings are there called-the Big Meeting.
The weather was luxurious, and the ride across the small prairies was to me, who now for the first time saw these natural meadows, indescribably bewitching; indeed, this first glimpse of the prairie world was like beholding an enchanted country! The enchanted land in that most transcendently enchanting book, the Pilgrim's Progress, came so naturally to one's mind, that surely Bunyan must have imagined a world like this meadowy land of wild and fragrant scents wafted by balmy airs from countless myriads of blossoms and flowers ! Nothing is like the mellow light, as the sun sinks down far away behind the cloudless line of blended earth and sky-as if there one could, at a step, pass from the plane of this lower world through the hazy concave into the world of the ransomed! The bosoms of these grassy lakes undulate at the slighest breeze, and are sprinkled with picturesque islets of timber, on which the trees are fancifully and regularly disposed, suggesting an arrangement by the taste of an unrecorded people of bygone centuries for pleasure and religion. The whole brought back delusive dreams-we felt the strange and half- celestial thrill of a fairy scene!
But pass we to a more earthly one. Eight miles from Vincennes we stopped at a friend's house to shave and preach; for among western folks a bishop is supposed to be made for preaching and we use him accordingly-and not infrequently we use him entire- ly up. The preaching was in due season easily performed, but the shaving, ah! there's the-scrape! Bishop Shrub was for- tunately shaved close enough to last to Vincennes ; not so Uncle John and myself. And when the old gentleman examined his saddlebags, alas ! alas! by an unaccountable negligence our razors and concomitants had been left at Woodville! But this forget- fulness was promptly supplied, I may add; and punished also by our host ; for he offered his own razor-a curious cutting tool in a wooden handle nearly as large and quite as rough as a corn-cob! The bone handle, or make-believe-turtle one, had, in the course of ages, been worn away by the handling of grandsires and grand- sons; and so had the edge itself by the ferocious stubble on the
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DR. DAVID H. MAXWELL One of the Founders of Indiana University 1820
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chins of woodsmen! Or perhaps it had been tritered away on a grindstone-the thing so much resembled a farmer's knife done up for hog-killing !
Now Uncle John's countenance (?) was tender as a lamb's. Hence his razors were always in prime order; and when he and I shaved with his articles in company, he always insisted on the -first shave. But to-day, the excellent old gentleman most con- descendingly gave me the precedence, internally resolving to watch my performance and success, and then to shave or not accordingly. Well, duly appreciating this unusual condescension, and thinking it a pity Uncle John should enter Vincennes with such a crop as his chin now held, we also secretly purposed-viz. to go through the whole affair without one audible or visible sign of torture! For certain was it, that if Mr. Carlton whose face was just as lamb-like as Mr. Seymour's, shaved without wincing, certain was it, Uncle John, long before my complete abrasion, would be so in the suds that, for consistency's sake, he must go through the whole scrape before he would get out of it.
Hence I strapped the oyster-knife, first on the instep of my boot, making there, however, an ominous scratch or two; then on the cover of a leaven-bit Testament done up in freckled leather ; and finally, although very lightly, on the palm of my hand secun- dum artem: after which I made a feint at a hair, and then laid down the tormentor with so complacent compression of my lips as to say, that notwithstanding looks, the razor after all was "jeest" the very thing! Next, with a small bundle of swine's bristles tied in the middle with a waxed thread, I applied, out of a broken blue tea-cup, as much brown soap lather to my face as would stick; and then with a genuine far-east barber's flourish, . touched the vile old briar-hook to my cheek, boldly and-lightly as possible.
Reader! I did not swear in those days, but I could not avoid saying mentally-"O-o-o-h! go-o-od! gramine !! "-and thinking of Job and the barrel of ale. Some profane wretches would have cursed right out as horribly as Pope Pius or Innocent, the vice-god damning and blackguarding a Calvinistic heretic; and for which malignancy the said Pope deserves to be scraped over his whole divine carcass twice a-day with the above razor, and without the
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alleviation of the brown soap. "Happily for the success of my benevolent stratagem I kept in; for at the moment I caught a glimpse of uncle John's face peeping over my shoulder into the tiny bit of looking-glass, and with his spectacles on! But if he did detect the involuntary fear in my eye, and take the alarm, he became instantly calm again by seeing the smile on my lip! Blood he discerned not ; the tool was guiltless of all cutting, and brought away no beard save what it pulled out by the roots. Hence uncle John was most esentially bamboozled; and long before my beard was all plucked up, he had laid aside his coat and cravat, and according to custom and to soften his beard, he was lathering away with the hog bristles and brown soap.
Had the old gentleman taken a peep now, he must have smelled the rat; for, spite of pain and tears, my laugh was too broad for mere delectability from a good shave-there was mischief and, I fear, some hypocrisy in the scarcely suppressed chuckle. However, being done, or scraped, I put down the eradicator with the air of one willing to shave all day with such a razor; upon which Uncle John advanced and took up the thing, manifesting, indeed, a little suspicion on glancing at its edge, and yet with very com- mendable confidence too; and then after the usual strappings and flourishings, he seized his nose with the left hand, and with the right laid the scraper sideways on a cheek, and essayed a rapid and oblique sweep towards his ear.
Ah! me !- if I live a thousand more years, I shall ever be haunted by the dear old gentleman's look! Such a compound of surprise, and vexation, and pain, and fun, and humour! Such a "Carlton-you-rascal-you !- if I don't-never mind !" expres- sion as met my view while I peeped over his shoulder into the frag- ment of glass against the wall! And then as he espied me therein grinning, when he turned, and with eyes swimming in tears, uttered in a whisper, and between a cry and a laugh, his favourite expression of benevolence and amazement-"Oh !- cry !- out !"
Yes! yes! if one could have cried out, or even laughed out ! But there was our host and all his family ; and the father kept on at very judicious intervals with praise of that razor, thus :- "Powerful razor that, Mr. Carlton! Grandaddy used to say he'd shaved with it when he was young, Mr. Seymour! and his face
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was near on about as saft as yourn I allow. However its getting oldish now, and don't cut near as sharpish as it once did-allow it wants grinding: still I wouldn't give it for are another two I ever seen."
Could one dare venture to complain about such a razor ! against which no dog had even wagged a tongue or a tail for a hundred years! So we cried in and laughed in then-but when we got out of sight and hearing in the prairie! Nobody, I fear, would have conjectured we were going to the big meeting. Poor dear, old Uncle John! I am laughing even now at thy beloved face in that most furious lather of brown soap! and with that grand swathe cut through towards thy ear by that venerable briar-hook! -ay! and at that concentration of kindness, surprise, and joke- taking embodied in-"Oh! cry out!"
"But, la! me! Mr. Carlton, where's the moral of this story?"
My dear madam, some stories have no moral; but the design is to warn you never to travel in new settlements if your face is tender without your own shaving apparatus.
"For shame !- ladies never shave."
Oh! my-the sentence is carlessly constructed; but none can say where beards may not grow next. Certainly they are now found, if not on girls' chins, yet on very girlish faces. And agriculture of all kinds is now better understood, and the most unpromising soils produce the most astonishing crops: and be- sides, we are evidently in the Hairy Age, and tobacco is puffed and spurted from hairy lips like black mud from a quagmire-
"Sir! this is offensive !"
Very; therefore let us quit it.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"When holy and devout religious men Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them hence."
"Love and meekness, lord, Become a churchman better than ambition."
ON reaching Vincennes our party, as others, were quartered upon the citizens; and such kindness as belongs pre-eminently to the West and South was bestowed upon us during the week of the convention.
Vincennes has been the scene of many meetings, civil, political, ecclesiastical, and military; to say nothing about Frenchified- Indian-councils and Indianised-French-dances, and other odd · things produced by this amalgamation of the red and white sav- ages. But now it was the theatre of two remarkable exhibitions, -the gathering of a Protestant council, and the erection of a Papistical cathedral !- strange meeting of light and darkness. And both professed to be for the propagation of the religion of Jesus Christ.
Now, whether the simple shining of truth in the reading and preaching of a vernacular Bible, and in the good lives and ex- amples of puritanic Christians, and without aid from the civil arm, and without a base indulgence of men's evil passions and pro- pensities, shall be more potent than a tradition, dark, bewildering, and uncertain, delivered by doctors and professors of the fagot and the thumb-screw, admits a question; but, judging from the success that has always attended the affectionate embraces of the old woman with the scarlet mantle and especially when seated amid "the wimples and crisping-pins," the roasters, and boilers, and toasters of the Inquisition,-from the efficacy of sweet doses and sugared cups and intoxicating bowls of indulgen- ces granted to the saints and holy ones, it is more than likely that the great crowd of such as "love darkness" and "the wages of unrighteousness," and "prefer the pleasures of sin for a sea- son," will-(and are not such the οι πολλοι) will become militant, and on earth triumphant members of the Holy (?) Catholic ( ?? ) Church ( ??? )
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In vain, while looking at the sacred walls of the cathedral ris- ing brick by brick, did I severely chide my antagonist feelings as heretical pravity; in vain recall the oft-repeated remark, that we were in the nineteenth century, the age of courtesy, and charity, and light, and wisdom, and oh! of ever so many first chop good things beside; in vain remember that human nature had been gradually refining ever since the days of Judas Iscariot, till it was now ten per cent. per annum better and more spiritual and heavenly-minded ; yea, poor sinner that I was, in vain I said this is the march of mind, and that I was, poor sneaking doubter, in danger of falling into the rear of my age! Nothing would do- but my historic readings kept intruding in the most impertinent and unbecoming manner; and I was abominably harassed with the fables of the Vaudois-and Huguenots-and Jerome-and Huss -St. Bartholomew's, and Irish, and other massacres, and all such ridiculous things! Nay, I was plunged most unreasonably into nasty dungeons, and saw racks, and halters, and augers,-and, silly creature, I imagined an auto da fe! and heard shouts and groans! and smelled incense, faggots and gunpowder! and even Te Deums for the death of ungodly heretics wickedly killed by the state, contrary to the entreaties of the Holy Church! 'Alas! reprobate that I was, for reading books proscribed by that Church ! -and all those books got up by folks worthy of no credit-ene- mies of the Church and of the Pope,-and who would wickedly tell when they were tortued, and refused to be damned for ever by escaping from prison, gibbets and stakes !
And then I said, Oh! you unreasonable man, has not the Holy Catholic Church long since given up her bloody persecuting prin- ciples, and resolved never to do so again, if we will only take on her yoke-until she gets the power? Alas! I thought of political mottos used as ornaments1 to secular newspapers, such as "Power steals from the many to the few;" and of that narrow, bigotted puritanical sentiment, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ;" and so I turned to contemplate.
1 Ornaments-since most such papers watch only their Protestant friends who do not need it.
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THE PROTESTANT CONVOCATION.
And I could not but feel grateful to the rightful Head of the spiritual Church, that here was a little band hated of Rome and Oxford.2 For with the men of this conference the true light had travelled thus far westward, and we hoped it might shine out far and wide over the noble plains, and dispel the gloom of the grand forests-since the march of the mind is only an evil without the march of the Bible.
This Protestant assembly was a gathering of delegates princi- pally from the land of Hoosiers and Suckers; but with a smart sprinkling of Corn-crackers, and a small chance of Pukes & from beyond the father of floods, and even one or two from the Buck- eye country. These were not all eminent for learning, and polish, and dress, wearing neither gowns nor cocked-hats; although some there were worthy seats in the most august assemblies any where, and however distinguished for wit, learning, and good- ness. Most of them, indeed, carried to excess a somewhat false and dangerous maxim: "better wear out than rust out."-since it is better to do neither. And worn truly were they, both in apparel and body, as they entered the town on jaded horses, after many days of hard and dangerous travelling away from their cabin-homes, left far behind in dim woods beyond rivers, hills and prairies.
And what came they together for? Mainly, I believe, to preach, to pray, to tell about their successes and disappointments and en- couragements-their hopes, and fears, and sorrow-to rectify past errors, and form better plans for doing good for the future-to see, and encourage, and strengthen one another. Business, in the semi-politico-ecclesiastical sense, they did little-for of that was but little to do. And there were few causes of heart-burning and jealousy. No richly endowed professorships, no à la mode con- gregations were found in all their vast extent of dioceses-no world's treasures or places to tempt to divide, to sour!
Truly it was a House of Bishops, if not of Lords: if by a bishop is meant one that has the care of many congregations, an
2 The Oxford movement, 1831-33, was taking eminent divines of the English Church toward Rome shortly before Hall wrote, Cardinals Man- ning and Newman among them.
8 "Corn crackers" were Kentuckians, "Pukes" were Missourians.
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enormous parish, abundant religious labours, and a salary of one or two hundred dollars above nothing. In the midst of so fra- ternal and cheerful a band of misters and brothers, I was con- stantly reminded of an old saying; "Behold ! how these Christians love one another !" What could exceed their cordial and reciprocal greetings at each arrival! What their courtesy in debate? What the deep interest in each other's welfare ?- the. lively emotions excited by their religious narratives and anecdotes? And then their tender farewells! To many the separation was final as to this life-but why should that make us sad? They who find heaven begun on earth, meet beyond the grave, and there find heaven consummated !
Brother Shrub and myself were entertained, during the con- vention week, at the house of a medical gentleman, eminent in his profession, but addicted, it was said, to profanity in ordi- nary conversation. Without premonition, no suspicion of so blameworthy a practice could have arisen in our minds; for no real Christian ever showed guests greater courtesy, or seemed so far from profaneness than our gentlemanly host. He did not even annoy us with lady-like mincings, putting forth the buddings of profanity in "la ! me !- good gracious !" and the like.
But on Sabbath night, our conversation taking a religious turn, the subject of profane swearing was incidentally named, when I could not resist the temptation of drawing a bow at a venture ; and so I said :
"Doctor, we leave you to-morrow ; and be assured we are very grateful to Mrs. D. and yourself ; but may I say dear sir, we have been disappointed here ?"
"Disappointed !"
"Yes, sir, but most agreeably-"
"In what, Mr. Carlton?"
"Will you pardon me, if I say we were misinformed, and may I name it?"
"Certainly, sir, say what you wish."
"Well, my dear sir, we were told that Doctor D. was not guarded in his language-but surely you are misrepresented-"
"Sir," interrupted he, "I do honour you for candour ; yet, sir, I regret to say you have not been misinformed. I do, and,
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perhaps, habitually use profane language; but, sir, can you think I would swear before religious people, and one of them a clergyman ?" :
Tears stood in my eyes (the frank-heartedness of a gentleman always starts them) as I took his hand, and replied:
"My dear sir, you amaze us! Can it be that Doctor D., so courteous and so intelligent a man, has greater reverence for us than for the venerable God!"
"Gentlemen," replied the Doctor, and with a tremulous voice, "I never did before see the utter folly of profane swearing. I will abandon it for ever."
Reader, are you profane? Imitate the manly recantation of my estimable friend, Doctor D.
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"To SWEAR-is neither brave, polite, nor wise; You would not swear upon the bed of death- Reflect-your Maker now could stop your breath !"
During the week, in company with some clergymen, we visited the grave of a young man, who, unavoidably exposed to a fatal illness in discharging his missionary duties, had died at Vincennes in early manhood, and far away from his widow-mother's home. Deep solemnity was in the little company of his classmates as they stood gazing where rested the remains of the youthful hero! Dear young man, his warfare was soon ended-and there he lay among the silent ones in the scented meadow-land of the far west! He heard not the voice of the wind, whether it breathed rich with the fragrance of wild sweets, or roared around in the awful tones of the hurricane, sweeping over the vastness of the measureless plains! Nor heard he the sighs of his comrades- nor saw their sudden tears wiped away with the stealthy motion of a rapid hand !
To him that visit was vain; not so to us, for we departed, re- solved ourselves to be ready for an early death. And since then several of that little company of mourners in a strange land have themselves, and before the meridian of life, gone down to the sides of the pit !
. Are you ready, my reader?
Time is a price to buy eternity !
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"Tree! why hast thou doffed thy mantle of green For the gorgeous garb of an 'ndian queen? With the ambered brown and the crimson stain And the yellow fringe on its 'broidered train?
And the autumn gale through its branches sighed
Of a long arrear, for the transient pride."-SIGOURNEY.
UNCLE John and I, being now very near Illinois, where resided a distant relative of ours, determined to pay him a visit. This person was much like Uncle Tommy in his leather-stocking pro- pensities, but in no other respects; except that he was, at first, a squatter, and had escaped on some occasions, being scalped by the Indians. Once, too, he escaped an ambuscade as he descended the Ohio river with several other young men in a boat. Incautiously approaching too near the bank, our relative was saved from death by being in the act of bending to his oar at the flash of the Indian rifles ; for their balls, barely passing over his back, struck the breast of a comrade, who fell dead at his side. But, before the enemy could reload, the boat was rowed beyond their reach. And so our friend lived, and ever since had kept on growing till he now had become a venerable and patriarchal Sucker, counting some sixty-five concentric circles in his earthly vegetation.
Our way led through successive and beautiful little prairies, separated by rich bottom lands of heavy timber and other inter- posing woody districts-the trees being all magnificently glorious in the autumnal colours of their dense foliage. No artificial dyes rival the scarlet, the crimson, the orange, the brown, of the sylvan dresses-giant robes and scarfs, hung with indescribable grandeur and grace, over the rough arms and rude trunks of the forest !
And voices enough of bird, and beast, and insect, and reptile, to break the solitude of the treeless plains ; but, on entering a district of wood, the uproar of tones, voices, shrieks, hisses, barkings, and a hundred other nameless cries, was deafening! It was bewilder- ing! How like the enchanted hills and groves of the Arabian Tales! Indeed, had a penalty awaited our looking around, we should have become stone, or stump, or paroquet, or squirrel, a thousand times over and over, much to our surprise and mortifi-
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cation! The bewildering tumult assailing him, on entering the solemn dark of primitive oriental forests, must have suggested to the Magician of the Thousand and One Nights, some of the charms and witcheries and incantations that entranced our first years of boyhood and dreams! To the elfish notes of four-footed and creeping goblins and winged and gay sprites, were added the rustle of fresh fallen leaves, the crackling of brush-wood, the rattling of branch and bush, the strange creaking of great trees, rubbing in amity their arms and boughs, and the wailing and moaning of fitful winds; and this formed our sinless Babel.
Under the most favourable arrangement of lungs, and larynx and ears, conversation is a labour in such groves and meadows; but, ah! my dear friend, if one's comrade is deaf ! or still worse if he is a modest man of the muttery and whispery genus! and hearing uncommonly sharp himself, takes for granted you hear ditto! True, if you like to do talking, and the other hearing, that is the very thing; but alas! our escort in this episodial trip, who was a Mr. Mealymouth, was even more desirous of talking than hearing! And what made it more awful, it was not possible to answer him in the "Amen-at-a-venture" mode; for most of Mr. Mealymouth's queries, which were numerous as a pedlar's from the land of guesses, admitted not the mere answer yes or no, but demanded explanatory replies like those of Professor Didactic. He asked to find out what you knew, and not to be answered.
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