USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 34
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The horses in the meanwhile had been stripped, and three or four trustworthy ones released from their bridles to swim over by themselves: and so we made ready to ferry over the remain- ing animals and all the baggage, not, indeed at one, but several trips. The trust-worthy and more sensible creatures were led by the mane, or the nose, or driven with switches, and pelted with clods to the edge of the creek; where they were partly coaxed, and partly pushed into the flood, whence rising from the plunge, they swam snorting to the far side, and landing, con- tinued cropping about till wanted.
The less accommodating creatures were one at a time managed thus : Mr. Blank, senr. took a station at that end of the canoe, which when dragged round by the horse would become the stern, to guide and steer; and Mr. C. twice, and Mr. Frank and young Blank each once, was seated in the prow that was to be, and held the rope or bridle attached at the other end to the horse's head : then, all ready, the creature pulled by the person in the canoe and pelted, beat, slapped and pushed by the two on land took the "shoote;"-in this case a plunge direct over head and ears into water a little over nine feet deep! If this did not drag under or upset the log, that was owing to the-(hem!) dexterity and presence of mind and so forth, of the steersman- and the man at the bridle end! But when the animal arose and began to snort and swim ahead !- oh ! sirs, then was realized and enjoyed all ever fabled about Neptune and his dolphins! or Davy Crockett and his alligators! What if you have a qualm at first !- that is soon lost in the excitement of this demi-god sailing! It is even grand! to cross a perilous flood on a log harnessed to a river horse! and with the rapidity of a comet, and the whirl and splash of a steamer! No wonder our Western people do often feel contempt for the tender nurslings of the East! And is it
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not likely that the fables about sea-cars, and water-gods, orig- inated when men lived in the woods, dieted on acorns, and re- created themselves with this horse and log navigation? The hint may be worth something to the editors of Tooke's Pantheon.
- In an hour and a half we reached our second night's lodging place; and next day, at noon, the girls being committed to the junior gentlemen to escort to Sugartown, the residence of Mr. Blank, he and the author took the episodial journey, described in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XLV.
"Shaking his trident, urges on his steeds, Who with two feet beat from their brawny breasts The foaming billow; but their hinder parts Swim, and go smooth against the curling surge."
WE parted from our young folks, at an obscure trace, leading Mr. B. and Mr. C. away to the left towards Big Possum Creek ; along which, somewhere in the woods, Mr. Blank expected to meet an ecclesiastical body, of which he was a member.
The spot was found late that night ; but as yet no delegates had appeared, and when next day at three o'clock P. M., a single clergyman appeared, jaded and muddy, and reported the waters as too high for members in certain directions to come at all, the whole affair was postponed till the subsidence of the flood; or, it was adjourned till dry weather!
Mr. Blank being an officer of the general government, and having important matters demanding his immediate attention, now took me aside, and began as follows :-
"Mr. Carlton, do you want to try a little more backwood's life?"
"Why?"
"Because, if possible, I should like to reach my house to-night."
"To-night !!- why 'tis half-past three! and your house is at least thirty-five miles-"
"Yes, by the trace, up Big Possum-but in a straight line through the woods 'tis not over twenty-five miles."
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"But there is no road?"
"I don't want any; the sun is bright, and by sun-down, we shall strike a new road laid out last fall; and that I can fol- low in the night."
"I have never, Mr. B. swum a horse; and I confess I'm a leetle timid; and we cannot expect even canoes where there are no settlements-"
"Oh! never fear, I'll go ahead; beside, Big Possum is all that is very seriously in the way; and I think it will hardly swim us now-come, what do you say-will you go?"
"Well-let's see; twenty-five miles-no road, no settlement, won't quite swim, maybe-new road in the dark-pretty fair for a tyro, Mr. Blank; but I can't learn sooner ; I'll go, sir-let us be . off at once then."
Our friends expressed some surprise, and used some dehorta- tion; but the bold, energetic, and cautious character of Mr. B. was well known, and hence no great fears were either expressed or felt for our safety. Accordingly, after a hasty kind of din- ner-supper, we were mounted, and started away in the fashion of boys' foot races, prefaced by the formula-"are you saddled? -are you bridled ??- whip !- start !- and Go-o !! "
Big Possum was soon reached; and as there was no ford es- tablished by law or custom, it was to be forded at a venture. My friend sought, indeed, not for a place less deep apparently, but for one less impeded by bushes and briars, and then in he plunged, "accoutred as he was, and bade me follow." And so, indeed, I did boldly, and promptly ; for my courage was really so modest as to need the stimulus of a blind and reckless conduct. Hence, all I knew was a "powerful heap" of water in my boots again, and an uneasy wet sensation in the saddle-seat1-with a curious sinking of the horses "hinder parts," as if he kicked at something and could not hit it-and then a hard scramble of his fore legs in the treacherous mud of a bank; and then this outcry of Mr. Blank, as he turned an instant in his saddle to watch my emersion :-
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"Well done! Carlton ! well done! You'll be a woodsman yet ! Come, keep up-the worst is over."
1 I hope the Magazines won't be hard on the grammar here-it is so great a help to our delicacy-a double intender like.
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Reader! I do think praise is the most magical thing in nature! In this case it nearly dried my inexpressibles ! And on I followed, consoling myself for the other water in the boots, by singing- "possum up a gum tree !"
"Hulloo! Mr. B. how are you steering? by the moss?"
"No-by the shadows."
"Shadows! how's that?"
"Our course is almost North East-the sun is nearly West-so cutting the shadows of the trees at the present angle, we'll strike the road, this rate, about sun-set."
I had travelled by the moss, a good general guide, the north and north-west sides of trees, having more and darker moss than the others; I had gone by a compass in a watch key-by blazes- by the under side of leaves recently upturned, a true Indian trace, as visible to the practiced eye as the warm scent to a hound's nose -and by the sun, moon, or stars; I had, in dark days, gone with comrades, who by keeping some fifty yards apart in a line, could correct aberrations ; but never had I thought of our present simple and infallible guide !
Man maybe, as some think, very low in the intellectual scale, and yet he has one mark of divine resemblance-he always is in search of simple agents and means, and when found, he uses them in producing the greatest effects. Witness here man's con- trivances for navigating through the air and the waters, and for crossing deserts and solitudes! Laugh if you will, but I do con- fess that as we bounded along that beautiful sunny afternoon and evening, I felt how like gods we availed ourselves of reason, in that wilderness without squatters, without blazes, without dry leaves, having no compass, and indifferent to moss; ay, and I smiled at the grim trees, while we cut athwart their black shadows at the proper angle, and heard from den and ravine and cliff the startled echoes crying out in amazement, in answering clat- ter and clang of hoofs and clamour of human voices !
For many miles the land was low and level, and mostly cov- ered with water in successive pools, seeming, at a short distance, like parts of one immense lake of the woods! These pools were rarely more than a few inches deep, unless in cavities where trees had been torn up by their roots, and such holes were easily avoided by riding around the prostrate tops. My friend had
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not expected quite so much water; for he now called out at intervals-
"Come on! Carlton! we mustn't be caught here in the dark- the sun's getting low-can you keep up?"
"Ay-ay-go on !- go on !"
And then, after every such exhortation and reply, as if all past trotting had been walking, away, away we splashed, not kicking up a dust, but a mimic shower of aqueous particles, and many a smart sprinkle of mud, that rattled like hail on the leaves above, and the backs and shoulders below! Never did I believe how a horse can go !- at least through mud and water! True, I did often think of "the merciful man, merciful to his beast !"- but I thought in answer, that hay and oats were as scarce in the swamp as hog and hominy; and hence, that for all our sakes we had better bestir matters a little extra for an hour or two, that all might get to "entertainment for man and horse."
Hence, finally, we gave up all talking, singing humming, and whistling, and all conjecturing and wishing; and set in to plain, unostentatious hard riding, kicking and whipping, our respective "critturs" so heartily as to leave no doubt somewhere under their hides, of our earnestness and haste; and, therefore, about half an hour after sunset, we gained or struck the expected road, where, although not yet free from the waters, we had no more appre- hension of losing the course.
This road was, in truth, a new new road; and not like some new new roads, new theatres and so forth that have had a patent for immortality and been fresh with youth for half a century.2 And, happily, our road had never been cut up by a wagon, being only an opening twelve yards wide, full of stumps, and for a few miles ahead, full of water. Without a fixed pur- pose, therefore, we could not wander from the partially illumi- nated and comparatively unimpeded way; and hence twilight as it was, on we splattered and splashed in all the glory and pleni- tude of mud-hail, and dirt-coloured rain.
At last we re-entered the dry world-a high and rolling coun- try. As it was, however, then profoundly dark, our concluding
2 However, new books now-a-days are exempt from the remark-being no more than literary fungi. Our fathers liked stale new things-the sons prefer new things that have a smell and die.
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five miles were done in a walk, slow, solemn, and funereal; till at half past ten o'clock that night we dismounted or disembarked, wet, weary, and hungry, at Mr. B.'s door: and there we were more than welcomed by his family and all our boys and girls snug and safe from the late perils of woods and waters.
CHAPTER XLVI.
"Slowly and sadly we laid him down From the field of his fame, fresh and gory; We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory."
AT the end of a week's visit we left Sugartown for Tippe- canoe: but with a very diminished party. It consisted of one young lady, the two young gentlemen, myself, and other four, horses. The lady, Miss Charille, lived twenty-five miles to the north, and within ten miles of Tippecanoe. The young fellows accompanied out of gallantry, and to visit with me the field.
Being in a hurry, I shall not say how, in fording and swim- ming Sweet Creek, my head became dizzy, till my horse seemed to rush sideways up the stream-and how, spite of all practice and contrary resolutions, I felt sick and let down my limbs into the water, while Mr. B., who came to see us safe over, kept crying out, "Stick to your horse-don't look at the water-look at the bank !" Nor shall I tell how, in crossing a prairie, we saw, oh! I don't know how many deer !- nor how we started up prairie fowls, hens and roosters, and wished we had guns !- yes, and saw prairie wolves too, a cantering from us over the plain! And I shall not narrate how in crossing one wet prairie, we were decoyed by some pretty, rich, green grass, into a morass !- and how Miss Charille's horse stuck fast, and struggling, pitched her into the mire !- and how she was more scared than hurt, and worse muddied than either! I should like to tell about the tall grass in places, but I hasten to say, that early in the evening we arrived at Mr. Charille's; that we were cordially received; that we got supper in due season, and then went to bed in western style, all in one room: the beds here nearly touching in places,
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but ingeniously separated by extemporary curtains of frocks and petticoats, and on a side of my bed, by two pairs of modest and respectable corduroy breeches. Fastidious folks, that smell at essences and flourish perfumed cambric, I know would have laid awake, curling their noses at the articles, but sensible ones in such cases go quietly to sleep; while men of genius are even cap- tivated with the romance.
"Romance !- what, a curtain of corduroy thinging-bobs ?"
Yes, corduroy breeches modestly hung as wall between ladies and gentlemen, reposing amid the solemn vastness of a prairie ! If that is not romance, pray what is? To sleep alone in a plastered chamber, with a lock on the door, blinds to the windows, wash- stand, toilette, and so on, is very comfortable-very civilized- but surely not very romantic. And if strangeness is a consti- tuent of romance, could any fix and fixtures be contrived stranger than ours?
However like a sensible body, I went soon and quietly to sleep, and was quickly in spirit lost in the land of shadows and dreams : and having a fine capacity for dreaming, I had many visions, till at last came one of my pet dreams-a winged dream! Then, lifted on pinions fastened some where about me, I went sailing in the air over the wide expanse of the meadow world; then, ca- reering in a black tempest and hurricane, far above the bowing and crashing trees of the forest-and then suddenly descending near a mighty swollen river, I was deprived in some mysterious way of the wings! Here I lay stretched on a bed, while the form of that venerable quadruped, my dear nameless old friend, a little larger than life, backed up and became harnessed to the foot of the couch, and the dwarf pony began with his hinder parts to push against the head-board and I was just a-launching into the waters, when down dropped both the steeds, and commenced to snort with so tremendous a tempest of noise as to wake me! I rubbed my eyes and smiled-but is it possible ?- hark !- am I still dreaming? What is that beyond the corduroys in the ad- joining bed ? Dear, oh dear! can that be Dr. Charille snoring ?
During the week spent at Mr. Blank's his lady had once said to me,-
"Mr. Carlton, you will not sleep any at Dr. Charille's."
"Not sleep any-why?"
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"His snoring will keep you awake."
"Never fear-I can sleep in a thunder storm."
"So I thought. But when lately he visited here, he insisting on sleeping alone in the passage, which we not permitting, when his snoring began, sure enough, as he himself pleasantly predicted, nobody else could sleep."
This conversation now recurred, when that amazing snoring formed and then destroyed my dream! What a relief, if young Mr. Frank and I, who slept together, could have laughed! One might have ventured, indeed, with impunity, during any paroxysm of snoring, if one could have quit when it subsided; for the most honest cachination must have been unheard in the uproar of the Doctor's nasal trumpetings.
How shall we so write as to give any correct idea of the per- formance? Pitiful, indeed, it began, like a puppy's whine; but directly its tone passed into an abrupt, snappish, mischievous, and wicked snort; and then into a frightful tornado of windy sleep; after which, in a few minutes, it subsided, and suddenly ceased, as if the doctor had made a successful snap and swal- lowed it! If this description be not satisfactory, I hope the reader will send for Robert Dale Owen, who, knowing how to represent morals and circumstances by diagrams, may succeed in the same way at setting forth snoring; but such is beyond our power.
The doctor evidently worked by the job, from his earnestness and haste: and certainly he did do in any five minutes of a paroxysm, vastly more and better than all of us combined could have done the whole night. Happily any sound, regularly re- peated, becomes a lullaby; and hence he that had snored me awake, snored me asleep again; but never can I forget that amazing, startling, and exhilatory nasal solo! That nose could have done snoring parts in a somnambula, and would have roused up the drowsy hearers better than the clash of brass instruments!
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After an early breakfast, the two youngsters and myself set off on horse-back for Tippecanoe; intending, as the field was only ten miles, to return, if possible, in the evening to Dr. Charille's.
The day was favorable, and our path led usually through prairies, where awe is felt at the grandeur of the wild plains
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stretching away sometimes with undulations, but oftener with unbroken smoothness, to meet the dim horizon. Yet.one is fre- quently surprised and delighted there, with views of picturesque meadows, fringed with thickets intervening, and separating the primitive pasturages as in the golden age! The green and flowery meads seemed made for flocks and herds: and imagina- tion easily created, under the shade of trees, shepherds and shep- herdesses, with crooks and sylvan reeds! It heard the sound of pipes !- the very tones of thrilling and strange voices !
Then we seemed to approach a country of modern farms, where the gopher hills resembled hay-cocks awaiting the wagon! and countless wild plums laden with rich and fragrant fruit recalled the Eastern orchards! Alas! our inconsistency! then I, who a while since looked with rapture to the sun-set and longed for the West, now looked to the sun-rise and sighed for the East-the far East! And why not? There was the home of my orphan boy- hood ! there had I revelled, and without care in the generous toils of the harvest !- the binding of sheaves !- the raking of hay-the hay-mow !- the stack-yard! There had I snared rabbits-trapped muskrats-found hen's nests-laid up walnuts and shell barks! Ay! there had I fished with pin-hooks, and caught in a little, dark, modest brook, more roach and gudgeon than the fellow with his store-hook with a barbed point! And then the sliding down hills of ice on our own home-made sleds !- and upsetting !- and rolling to the bottom! Yes! yes ! after all, those were the halcyon days! And so for a time how keen that morning the pangs of a desolate heart as I realized the immense solitudes around me !
We had been directed to cross the river at a new town, which, on reaching, was found to contain one log-house half finished, and one tent belonging to a Canadian Frenchman, and some Indians. And yet, before we left the New Purchase, this Sproutsburgh 1 had become a village to be seen from a distance, and not many years after contained fourteen retail stores !- a specimen of our whole- sale growth in the West. But to me an object of great interest was a tall young Indian, dressed in a composite mode, partly bar- barian, partly civilized. His pantaloons were of blue cloth, and he wore a roundabout of the same; while his small feet were
1 This city was probably La Fayette.
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tastefully clad with sumptuously wrought moccasins, and his head encircled with a woollen or rain-beaver hat, banded with a broad tin belt, and garnished with a cockade! He was seemingly about eighteen years old; and by way of favour he consented to ferry us over the water. And now, reader, here hast thou a fair token that this work is true as-most history; and not more extravagant than our puerile school histories for begin- ners:2 I resist the temptation of having ourselves skiffed over in a bark canoe! For, alas! we crossed in an ugly scow; and it moved by a pole !
Yet was it nothing, as I held my horse, to look on that half reclaimed son of the forest, while he urged our rude flat-boat across the tumultuating waters of a river with an Indian name- Wabash! and we on our way to an Indian battle field-Tippe- canoe !
On the far bank we galloped into one of many narrow traces along the river, and running through mazy thickets of under- growth; and shortly, spite of our many directions and cautions, quite as bepuzzling as the paths themselves, we were· lost; having followed some deer or turkey trail till it miraculously disappeared, the animal being there used to jump off, or the bird to fly up! Then, and on like occasions, we put in towards the river, and when in sight or hearing of its waters, sometimes without and sometimes with a "blind path," we kept up stream the best we could. A blind path has that name because it tries the eyes and often requires spectacles to find it; or because one is in constant jeopardy of having the eyes blinded or struck out by uncere- monious limbs, bushes, branches, and sprays.
Recent high water had formed many extemporary lagoons, and quagmires, which forced us often away from the river bank, that we might get round these sullen and melancholy lakes; al- though, after all our extra riding, we commonly appeared to have gone farther and fared worse and hence, at last, we crossed wherever the impediment first offered. Once a muddy ravine presented itself; and as the difficulty seemed less than usual,
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2 The present age is that of beginnings. Hence school-books are usu- ally all for beginners; and it requires a wheel-barrow for a scholar now instead of a satchel. Things are also ended and finished but not con- tinued and done.
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we began our crossing with little or no circumspection,-and yet it was, truly, a most dangerous morass! Happily, we entered a few yards below the worst spot, and had creatures used to floundering through beds of treacherous and almost bottomless mire.
I had small space to notice my comrades, for my noble and spirited animal, finding in an instant the want of a solid spot, by instinct exerted her entire strength in a succession of leaps so sudden and violent as soon to displace the rider from the saddle; and when she gained terra firma, that rider was on her neck instead of back. A leap more would have freed her neck of the incumbrance, and our author would have either sunk or have done his own floundering. He stuck to the neck, not by skill, but for want of sufficient time to fall off! Having now oppor- tunity to look round, we saw one young gentleman wiping the mud from his eyes nose, ears and mouth-proof that all his senses had been open; and the other we saw stand, indeed, but very much like a man that had dismounted hastily and not alto- gether purposely,-he was on all fours! The three horses were sorely panting and trembling; while the bosom of the quagmire was regaining its placidity after the late unusual agitation, and in a few moments had become calm and deceitful as policy itself when for the people it has sacrificed its friends! 3
And yet, where we had crossed, the mire after all was not so very deep-it did not, we were told, average more than five feet! But, two rods above and one below, the quaggery required a pole to touch its bottom some fifteen feet long! And this we ascer- tained by trial, and also from the squatter at whose cabin we halted a moment, just one mile below-the Field.
Our windings, however, brought us to a sight mournful and solemn-a coffin in which rested an Indian babe! This rude coffin was supported in the crotch of a large tree, and secured from being displaced by the wind, being only a rough trough dug out with a tomahawk, and in which was deposited the little one, and having another similar trough bound down over the body with strips of papaw.
Sad seemed the dreamless sleep of the poor innocent so separate
3 A reference to his own displacement in the College to allay popular clamor, as alleged.
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from the graves of its fathers and the children of its people! Mournful the voice of leaves whispering over the dead in that sacred tree! The rattling of naked branches there in the hoarse winds of winter !- how desolate! And yet if one after death could lie amid thick and spicy ever-green branches near the dear friends left-instead of being locked in the damp vault! or trod- den like clay in the deep, deep grave!
But would that be rebellion against the sentence "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return?"-then let our bodies be laid in the silence and the dark tilll the morning and the life! See! what woodland is that yonder? That advanced like the apex of a tri- angle ; and yet as we now approach nearer and nearer, is rising up and has become an elevated plain? That is Tippecanoe!
Yes! this is Tippecanoe, as it stood some twelve years after the battle! 4-Tippecanoe in its primitive and sacred wilderness ! un- scathed by the axe, unshorn by the scythe, unmarked by roads, unfenced! We are standing and walking among the slain war- riors! Can it be that I am he, who but yesterday was roused from sleep to aid in "setting up the declaration of war against Great Britain," to appear as an extra sheet and who, each subsequent week, thrilled as I "composed" in the "iron stick" accounts of battles by land and fights at sea ?- in the days of Maxwell rollers and Ramage presses !- and hardy pressmen in paper aprons and cloth trousers !- long before the invasion of petticoats and check aprons !
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