USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 43
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This awakened an angry spirit in the bridal party, and threats from without were answered by menace from within, while in- quiries were made of our host what arms could be furnished for
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the defence of the castle. At this instant a window sash behind the Miss Ladybooks was cautiously raised from without, and be- fore I could step thither to hold down the sash, in leaped a musician-a four footed swine, some six months of age, and weighing some fifty pounds! Master Grunter had evidently en- tered unwillingly : and although in his descent he availed himself of one lady's shoulder, and another's lap, he trod elastically as an essenced exquisite, and scarcely deranged a collar or soiled a frock !
The feat was cheered by piggy's associates; and the more, as our ladies in avoiding the unclean gentleman, had sprung upon chairs, sofas, and even tables, where their alarmed countenances were visible above the curtains to the bipedalic hogs without. Young Squeal, however, behaved himself just like a pig in a parlour-he sneaked with a tight-twisted tail and a vulgar grunt under the grand bridal sofa: and thence, I forget how, he was unceremoniously turned out among his former friends, where he felt himself more at home.
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Virginia and Kentucky blood was now approaching the boiling point ; and a rush was made by some of us towards the door- but there Dr. Sylvan had, with great wisdom, already taken post to prevent if possible, either ingress or egress. Still the door could not be kept wholly closed; and we thus caught glimpses of performers mounted on the backs of performers-the super- human ones being large four-footed hogs, which were held on human backs, by their front legs, advanced hugging fashion, each side a human neck! As the rational creatures capered up and down with their riders, those irrational ones, in terror and fierce indignation, were sending forth those long, woful, keen, nerve- shaking appeals for release, that we in simplicity had till now imagined masterly imitations of some squeaking even better than piggy himself ! Nothing like the true hog after all !
Meanwhile, two thus doing piggy-back in reverse order, had gradually advanced to the door; when the horse-pig essayed to force a wider aperture, intending to incline forward and thus allow the mounted animal to leap into the entry, and thence into the dining room to upset and demolish the table with its goodies and silver. But no sooner had the hog-ridden serenader thrust
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his hand into the aperture than Dr. S. aided by Harwood, forced the door against the member, and so held the gentleman that he cried out not wholly unlike Mr. Snout but a moment before on his back, yet now let fall! It is wonderful how hard a fellow can pull when his hand is thus caught! Why, spite of all the force against him, he did jerk his hand out-and left nothing behind except the skin of a thumb with a nail attached !- a scalp for the victors !
'At the instant word came to the author, that his darling little girl had gone into fits from fright! And when I beheld the blood gushing from her nose, and her face pale and death-like- * * -yes, I rushed out bare-headed and weaponless, followed by a few bold friends with lights, Dr. S. having left the door to attend to the babe! Our design was to catch some in the act of riot, and make them answer at a legal tribunal. Aware of this, the rabble fled às our lights advanced : but soon rallying in a dark corner, they began to salute us with groans, hisses and stones- and then rose the cry, "Knock 'em down !- drag the big-bug Yankees through the creek!" And so our situation was momen- tarily becoming more and more critical, when a well-known voice thus arose in our behalf :-
"Bust my rifle-if I'm goin to stand by and see that ither, I say, or my name's not Ned Stanley-no! no! I tel'd you to put off a hour ago, when me and Domore kim up, arter they give us the fust dram. Them folks ain't to my idee, no how, but they've got rites as well as the best on us-and I ain't agoin for to see 'em trampled on no further no how. I say Bob Carltin's a powerful clever feller, arter all, albeit he's thick with big-bugs --- and, bust my rifle, if any man knocks him down to-night, or drags him in the water, till he tries hisself fust on Ned Stanley !"
"Them's my idees, Ned," -- responded the well known voice of Domore,-"and it tain't us Woodill fellers no how, what's car- ried it so fur-its them darn'd blasted chaps from the Licks and Nobs. And I'm not goin ither to go agin a man what was with us in Bill's cave-and if that leetle gal a hissin is gone in a fit, I'm most powerful teetotal sorry I had any thing to do with the fun any how. Come, come, darn my leggins, let's make ourselves skerse-come, fellers, let's be off !"
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Mobs, like other flocks and herds, follow their leaders by in- stinct. After all Virgil's poetical great man's power to smoothe down popular swells, this night showed he could have done nothing that way in the Purchase.2 For though the grave and reverend Clarence was with us, no subsidence in the boiling sea was visible, till Ned and Domore rose in their majesty; and while two or more schoolmasters were abroad in the land that night, the quelling of riot and preventing of violence and blood- shed, was by radical leaders destitute of learning and gravity, but full of courage, manly feeling, and muscular power !
Man may be known from books, but men and boys are different matters ; and the phases of the genus Homo in the Purchase were then different from the phases elsewhere. Even a genuine Hoosier mob is totally unlike a scum mob in an Atlantic city : generosity may be found in the former, none in the latter. The first loves rather the fun, the latter, the plunder and blood, of a riot. Fear of the military scatters the city mob, an appeal to manliness disperses the Hoosier one.
Our retreat was left, of course, unimpeded; nor was the an- noyance renewed. Yet the spirit of frolic was up; and aided by the spirit of the still. Hence, away rolled the tumult to the forest ; where the prowling panther and other denizens of the lairs, were appalled by a tempest of sounds, such as never before had dis- turbed the solemnities of the grand old shades. And the orgies of the drunken-god were celebrated as in primitive times, when Orpheus was hired to lead home the raving wives and daughters of his townsmen.
Next day, Dr. Sylvan and others dreading future results of the Shiver-ree3 made inquisition for leading rioters. None, of course, could be identified, save the man without the thumb-skin ; and he, taking the alarm, became "so skerse" as never again to be seen in
2 Unless he had a cart whip like a priest-and drove tame jackasses - ours were wild ones.
3 The "Shiverree" here described was at a house still standing in Bloomington at the south west corner of College Avenue and 4th Street. For many years it was the property of the Maxwell family. The vulgar "shiver-ree," as a country custom in Southern Indiana, has survived to within recent years, but it has become a rare occurrence. It has been superseded by miscellaneous methods of annoying bridal parties,-the teasing always being devised by the special friends of the bride and groom.
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Woodville. For a while, therefore, the Shiver-ree was disused ; but by degrees it was again introduced, and when we left the Purchase it was there as popular and noisy as ever.
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CHAPTER LVI.
SIXTH YEAR.
"MAR. Alas my lord I have but killed a Fly!
TIr. But how, if that fly had a father and mother? How would he hang his slender gilded wings, And buzz lamenting doings in the air? Poor harmless fly !
That with his pretty buzzing melody, Came here to make us merry-And thou hast killed him!"
BY a recent charter of our college, it was appointed that the Faculty should oversee the Students; the Trustees, oversee the Faculty ; the Board of Visitors, the Trustees; and the Legislature the Visitors ;- the people in general engaging to oversee the Legis- lature, and the people of Woodville, the entire whole! The cause of education was, then, well overseen! And yet our circle was as vicious as that of the Church Militant and Insultant; which keeps its antagonist foundations in perpetual somerset-top and bottom being always at bottom and top-and yet so circumferential as to be alike destitute of top or bottom, or bottom or top-and bound by its infallibility to roll on for ever in its absurdities !
And now was to be found the rara avis-the white crow-a good President. Distant and learned gentlemen had answered our first inquiries, by an earnest recommendation of Mr. Clarence ; but so widely did that personage differ in opinion, that he sup- pressed a letter written to himself urging him by all means to be a candidate. He plead his youth ; and his wish to remain in a sub- ordinate post to perfect himself in his favourite studies,-lan- guages, history, and mathematics. He insisted, also that good professors were as important as a good president; and with a little allowable vanity, he added, if he should make so good a
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president, as his friends' partiality led them to suppose, it would be quite a loss to deprive the college of so good a professor! He, therefore, did,-(unwisely as Mr. Carlton thinks)-decline a nomination, and earnestly entreat the Board to look out for "an older man!"
Professor Harwood then suggested the Reverend Constant Bloduplex, D.D., of Wheelabout ; and a committee was appointed to open a correspondence with that gentleman. But as his reply was not received till after my return from collecting certain debts, &c., we shall for the present, take our reader on an excursion.
Fortunately, for the last forty-eight hours were collecting rev- erend gentlemen at Woodville to form a travelling party towards the south to a famous council, of which Clarence was also a mem- ber; and I was furnished with the most agreeable associates. Regalists may sneer at dissenting and republican clergy; but I repeat, what can never be repeated too often, that such clergy, when evangelical and intelligent, aside from a spice of sec- tarianism-(and a man without a spice is no man, but a sneaking time-server)-are the most benevolent, instructive, entertaining, cheerful, and liberal of men. They condense and concentrate most qualities, too, essential to good fellowship. Ay! they are usually men of greatest courage. And when and where duty calls, whether into jeopardy of property, or character, or ease, or limb, or life itself, no men more fearlessly or resolutely encounter it. A good man fears God-and that absorbs or counteracts all other fears.
Exceptions occur ; yet of intelligent and learned folks the true clergy can and do, most easily and naturally, accommodate them- selves to opposite lives; and, not to acquire fame or money or power, or do penance-but to do good. Influence is, indeed, thus acquired, yet not more than is right and desirable. Far from my beloved land be that hour, when her own republican ministers shall have no literary, moral and spiritual influence! God shield her from the Egyptian darkness threatening from yonder ominous cloud rising above the distant horizon-shaped not like a man's hand, and pregnant with refreshing rains, but like a man's toe pretending contempt, spurning overthrow and subjugation. But I smell faggots !- and I court not martyrdom-and none can tell what Hugheous attempts may next be made nor when ! Sneer on!
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antipuritan ! if you fear not for us, it is high time, as Cato told Cæsar in the Roman Senate, we should fear for ourselves! Bow your own base neck-we will never bow ours !1
Our party was increased at every ferry and cross path till it numbered twenty-two; enough to hold meeting on horseback. The time was mid Spring; and the old woods were glorying in the sylvan splendours of new dresses and decorations. The sun was, indeed, ardent, and rejoicing like one to run a race; but then the dense foliage spread a screen over the pathway, while the balmy breath of zephyrs, rich with perfume of wild flower and blossom, fanned our faces and sported with the forest leaf and spray. Beauteous birds and tribes of unseen animals and insects from every branch, and every bushy lair or cavern, were pouring forth choral symphonies of praise.
Was it wonderful, then, that Christians going to a spiritual congress, should be unable to restrain hymns of praise? Out upon rationalism, or any pseudo-ism that makes men dumb like-like- "beasts?" No; "insects?" No ;- these in the woods God planted and nurtured for ages are vocal. "Like what then?" Like a German or a French Atheist.
Hymns then, as we rode, were sung; and, with heart and voice, in the solemn and joyous words of king David. God was felt to be there! His grand temple was around us! How like sons and daughters going home rejoicing! How like the Church in the wilderness! We have before said, what in religion begins in poetry often ends in prose ;- and so would be the result now, if fanaticism should get up a system of protracted and locomotive meetings on horseback! The poetry belongs only to the accidental occurrence.
Arrived in due time at the place of the council, I was induced to remain a day and witness its proceedings. The weather being favourable, and no cabin large enough to accommodate the hun- dreds of spectators, many of whom had come more than a hun- dred miles, it was arranged to hold the sessions in the woods. Among the accommodations was a large wagon body placed on
1 This volume was published in 1843. Nativism, preceding Knownoth- ingism, appeared in American politics in 1844. This passage suggests a hint at "anti-Popery." Hall was evidently a "sectarian" with a good deal of vim, if not of venom.
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suitable timbers, to serve for a pulpit; and here, during the re- ligious exercises, were seated all the clerical members-making with their aggregate weight a half a ton of theologians, if not of divinity. Here, also, during the secular business, was seated the President,-and supported by his scribes on the right and left.
But I was soon hurried from this Nice council, by the stress of worldly business; and that accomplished, it was necessary for me to return alone to Woodville, and by a route then very rarely taken by any person, and never before nor since by myself.
On my first day, I was fortunately overtaken by a large com- pany, unlike my religious friends, and yet by no means unaccept- able comrades in the vast wilderness I had just entered. It was a Surveyor and his assistants, going to run some line, or lay out some road. In genuine Western style they welcomed me not only to ride with them, but to participate in their dough-biscuits and jerked venison. We beguiled the way, of course, with anec- dote and story of adventures and mishaps till tired of telling and hearing; and then, recreation came on wings, in the shape of horse-flies !
The tame or civilized horse-fly of the Atlantic States, is well enough as to size; and, when half starved, can bite reasonably well ;- but the ill-bred, barbarian horse-fly, or rather flies, for the sorts are countless,-can't they bite! Like all hoosiery and woolverine things, they are regardless of dignities ; and hence suck blood from the rider as well as the horse! They even make no distinction between merchants2 and men! or between the "brethren" and "the misters !! " Very probably they would suck blood from the President of the United States !- the greatest of all earthly potentates-(in breeches, of course!) Ay! from Uncle Sam, and Brother Jonathan :- although their blood so much excels that of the Russian Bear, or John Bull! Nothing like the Great-Grand-North-American-Republican Horse-Fly !3-ten of them can kill a dandy !
Now, a man can endure a single fly : but a cloud pitching at once on him and his horse, requires some patience and no small
2 Perhaps they regard such as shopkeepers.
3 Except the Great-Grand Humbugs, and other buzzing fooleries, of our country.
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activity and diligence. The best antidote is a duck's bill., This, however, is inconvenient to administer, as it requires a cessation of motion and a recumbent posture. Indeed, to be fully bene- fitted, one must lie down, as we saw a cow to-day at a squatter's cabin, and permit, as she did, six active ducks and one drake, to traverse the whole body, and gobble up and down the flies at the instant of alighting, and make repeated successful snaps at them on the wing!
The best defensive armour would doubtless be to have one's whole skin tanned-(leatherwise) :- and next, are boots and leg- gins, as far as they go: but summer coat and inexpressibles are as good as-nothing. Some advantage is found by inserting tops of broken bushes into every crevice of the horse-trappings ; into the hat-band and button holes; and at the tops of boots and leggins: yet, with all these, will be lots of work both for the man's hands and the horse's tail.
I do wish Mrs. Trollope had been with us to-day. If she had seen nothing to amuse and interest her, I am certain we should- although we had enough as it was. To a student of nature, how interesting our appearance-all bestuck with bushes-a grove on horse-back! whence issued human hands slapping hard, as a Catholic self-inflicting penance! Then the madness of a bushman missing a fly ! and his triumph and malicious joy in mashing one ! The horses, now stopping with one side to stamp and bite! now springing away, to rub off the torment in the bushes! and then their tails !- it did seem they would, sooner or later, switch and swing loose, and fall off !
The grand exhibition, however, was by a poor brute of a horse, with a short tail and a tipsy rider. As to the tail, that had been partly amputated by some barbarian-(there being a fashion in horse-tails as in whiskers)-and, added to that inhumanity, was the inconsiderate behaviour of a silly colt, into whose mouth the tail-stump had fallen-the hair being all eaten away by the said colt, till the denuded thing stuck out six inches only, like a wooden article of the same name, glued to a toy-horse, to show which end is not the head. Think !- to be with such a make- believe tail, in a flock of horse-flies! And the drunken rider had arranged no grove of bush-tops !!
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Had the flies infested the human beast! but these sagacious flocks knew what was for their health, and, therefore, stuck to the horse; thus causing the animal to endure a thousand fold for the sin of his master. In vain, then, did he wag that stump of a naked tail! in vain halt to stamp, bite, and kick! in vain vibrate his hide and the tip of the ears, till he seemed all over like a church full of moving fans !- there stuck the flies! At every halt, the rider kicked and basted; but never moved the horse away till convinced halting, and biting, and kicking could not dislodge his foes, and then he moved to be sure-but not ahead. He did it sideways, till he reached some tree or bush, along which he rubbed, crushing and sweeping off the flies; and often, very much to our inward delight, barking the skin from his vile master's legs !
At last, the flies, understanding the brevity of the tail, and the defenceless state of the nag, attacked his quarters, head and rear, covering, but not protecting, his entire flanks! What could he do? He reiterated his stamp-bite-vibration ; he sidled against trees, rubbing and kicking; and then, under the combined attacks of whip, heels and flies, seizing the bit between his teeth, he, on a sudden, darted away as if borne on wings himself! Pencil of Hogarth ! paint that sight! Set forth the trembling spice-bushes divided, broken, crushed, by a tornado borne on horse-heels! Draw that nag emerging, ever and anon, from thickets of thorn and briar !- a human leg, despoiled of leggin, rising horizontal, this side now, now that, and instinctively, like the scales of justice, keeping the equilibrium of a body recumbent, with head nodding and jerking, amid the dishevelled and raggy mane of a horse-neck !- hands therein clenched! Depict the flocks of sur- viving flies hanging over in the air, and waiting for the race to end! And, oh! last, yet not least, though so very little, do that tail !
It had played its part before; now it was worked with more than one-horse power! It spun round as on a patent gudgeon! It multiplied itself-now, a dozen tails-now, no tail at all !- nothing appearing, save a white circumference, a streak made by the bone where the article had been amputated! Its motion was no longer to switch away flies; it was instinctive, and to steer by :
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yet whether it failed as a helm, or steered as was designed, on our galloping up, there was the fly-bitten pony, wallowing pig-like in a delicious stream of spring water; and the rider wading out about ankle deep, and dripping! And so ends about the tail.
The tender-hearted will rejoice to know, however, that upon this poetical justice administered by the horse, the master, now a cold-water man and sobered, kept a whole wilderness of bushes about both; and, that he abstained, that day at least, from his whiskey bottle-partly, I believe though, because it was broken in the fall.
Shortly after this, I left the Surveyor's company, and, pursuing a solitary trace, reached, late in the evening, my lodging place ; where I learned I had yet forty miles to travel to reach Woodville.
"Stranjer,"-said my host-"it's a most powerful woody coun- try, and without no road, nor even blind trace worth naming- it being, a sort a kiver'd with ole leaves; and thar's no cabin nearer nor King's-and that's more nor 15 miles. Howse-er, I'll set you over the river afore sun-up-and if you don't miss the trace, then you kin git to King's for breakfast."
Almost devoured by flies, and then frightfully flea-bitten in bed, my dreams were naturally fantastic; and I had visions of howling wildernesses, tangled thickets, prowling panthers, and great swollen fiery serpents. Woodsmen, also, I knew had been lost in that unsettled region; and even last summer two persons had wandered about three days. Yet, I longed to be on my journey, and to know the worst; and, with a hope my case would be differ- ent. Beside, I had a secret ambition to appear well as a woods- man in Domore's and Ned's eyes ; and I was aware Sylvan would even think better of me, if I crossed such a wilderness alone. It was something of a task with such men.
Accordingly, by early dawn, I was ferried over, the river, and sat in my saddle, while my host, standing in his scow and ready to pole back, thus issued his final directions :
"Ride strate up-bank whare you be-then keep spang a-head, across the bottim, without no turn at all, and, in a short quarter, you'll strike the d'sarted cabin. It's burnt now-but the logs are some on 'em a-layin' in a heap- that's whare the poor squatter
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was murdered and skulp'd in the war time, by the Injins. Well- arter you git thare, ride round to the west ind of the ole clerein, and you'll find the trace, sich as it is, if ain't kivered-and, if you get once fair on it-I sort a think you'll go safe enough to King's."
That said, good byes were shouted; while the scow swung from the shore, and my noble creature ascended the bank; and we began to go a-head for the burnt cabin. Some declination was, indeed, necessary to get round unleapable logs, impassable thick- ets, and the like; yet, prior to such deviations, having placed myself in a line with several objects before and behind, I easily regained my course, and, in a short time, came to the cabin ruins. Here we paused an instant, to contemplate the scene-so like what I had pictured in reading border tales! But, haste and anxiety allowed only short delay, and I rode quickly round to the west . of the clearing; where, after a narrow search along the edge of the forest I discerned the only semblance of a trace; and, into this, dashing with trembling confidence, I was soon hid in the shades of a true wilderness.
However romantic such a wild may be in print, my thoughts - in the wilderness itself, were all concentrated on one object- the path. And long what seemed the path, dim always and sometimes obliterated, as it led far away into the gloom of im- pervious shades, now turning almost back to skirt an impassable thicket, now tumbling almost perpendicularly into a deep ravine, and now scaling its opposite side, then mounting a ridge, then circling a pond of dark and dangerous looking water, and then vanishing for a few moments as of necessity it passed through patches of weeds and briars-long time this trace occupied all my meditations and excited my intensest watchings and kept me asking in a mental and often an audible voice-"I do wonder, if this is the way?" To which, as nobody else replied, I would answer myself-"Well, I guess it must be-if this is not, I'm sure I don't see any other !"
And then, as though poor Kate shared my anxiety, would I say "Come! Kate !- cheer up, you shall soon have your breakfast -let's hurry on to King's!" When gaily tossing her fine head, and shaking her flowing mane, she would with her hoofs redouble
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