USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 8
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Nor was the cabin a fac-simile of those built in dreams and
2 In the second edition this is spelled "rity-dity cabin,"-a true back- woods cabin, "all right."
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novels and magazines. Mine were of bark, and as neat as a little girl's baby house! This had, indeed, bark enough about, but still not put up right. It was in truth a barbarous rectangle of unhewed and unbarked logs, and bound together by a gigantic dove-tailing called notching. The roof was thick ricketty shingles, called clapboards; which when clapped on were held down by longitudinal poles kept apart by shorter pieces placed between them perpendicularly. The interstices of the log-wall were "chinked"-the "chinking" being large chips and small slabs dipping like strata of rocks in geology; and then on the chinking was the "daubing"-viz. a quant. suff. of yellow clay ferociously splashed in soft by the hand of the architect, and then left to harden at its leisure. Rain and frost had here, how- ever, caused mud daubing to disappear; so that from without could be clearly discerned through the wall, the light of fire and candle, and from within, the light of sun, moon and stars-a very fair and harmless tit for tat.
The chimney was outside the cabin and a short distance from it. This article was built, as chaps, in raining weather, make on the kitchen hearth stick houses of light wood,-it consisted of layers of little logs reposing on one another at their corners and topped off when high enough with flag stones :- it was, morever, daubed, and so admirably as to look like a mud stack! That, however, was, as I afterwards found inartistical-the daubing of chimneys correctly being a very nice task, although just as dirty as even political daubing.
The inside cabin was one room below and one loft above -to which, however, was no visible ascent .- I think the folks climbed up at the corner. The room contained principally beds, the other furniture being a table, "stick chairs" and some stools with from two to three legs apiece. Crockery and calabashes shared the mantel with two dangerous looking rifles and their powder horns. The iron ware shifted for itself about the fire place, where awkward feet feeling for the fire or to escape it, pushed kettle against pot and skillet against dutch oven.
What French cook committed suicide because something was not done "to a turn?" Ample poetic justice may be done to his wicked ghost by some smart writer, in chaining him with an
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iambic or two to the jamb of that cabin hearth-there for ever to be a witness of its cookery. Here came first the pettish out- cries of two matron hens dangled along to a hasty execution; then notes of preparation sung out by the tea-kettle; then was jerked into position the dutch oven straddling with three short legs over the burning coals; and lastly the skillet began sputtering forth its boiling lard, or grease of some description. The in- struments ready, the hostess aided by a little barefooted daughter, and whose white hair was whisped at the top of the head with a string and horn comb, the hostess put into the oven, balls of wet corn meal, and then slapped on the lid red hot and covered with coals, with a look and motion equal to this sentence-"Get out of that, till you're done." Then the two fowls, but a moment since kicking and screeching at being killed, were doused into the skillet into hot oil, where they moved around dismembered, as if indignant now at being fried.
We travellers shifted quarters repeatedly during these solemn operations, sometimes to get less heat, sometimes more, and sometimes to escape the fumes direct ; but usually, to get out of the way. That, however, being impracticable, we at length sat extempore, and were kicked and jostled accordingly. In the meanwhile our landlady, in whom was much curiosity, a little reverence, and a misty idea that her guests were great folks, and towards whom as aristocrats it was republican to feel enmity, our landlady maintained at intervals a very lively talk, as for ex- ample :
"From Loo'ville, I allow !"
"No-from Philadelphia."
A sudden pause-a turn to look at us more narrowly, while she still affectionately patted some wet meal into shape for the oven.
"Well !- now !- I wonder !- hem !- Come to enter land, 'spose -powerful bottom on the Shining-heavy timber, though. He's your old man, mam?"
Mrs. C. assented. The hostess then stooped to deposit the perfect ball, and continued :
"Our wooden country's mighty rough, I allow, for some folks -right hard to get gals here, mam-folks has to be their own niggurs, mam-what mought your name be?"
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Mrs. C. told the lady, and then in a timid and piteous sort of tone inquired if girls could not be hired by the year? To this the landlady replied at first with a stare-then with a smile -and then added:
"Well! sort a allow not-most time, mam, you'll have to work your own ash-hopper"-(viz. a lie-cask, or, rather, an inverted pyramidical box to contain ashes, resembling a hopper in a mill) -"Nan"-(name of little flax head)-"Nan, sort a turn them thare chickins."
And thus the cabin lady kept on doing up her small stock of English into Hoosierisms and other figures; now, with the ques- tion direct-now, with the question implied; then, with a solil- oquy-then, an apostrophe: and all the time cleaning and cutting up chickens, making pones, and working and wriggling among pots, skillets and people's limbs (?) and feet, with an adroitness and grace gained by practice only ; and all this, without upsetting any thing, scalding any body, or even spilling any food-except- ing, maybe, a little grease, flour and salt. Nor did she lose time by dropping down curtsey fashion to inspect the progress of things baked or fried; but she bent over as if she had hinges in the hips, according to nature doubtless, but contrary to the Lady's Book; although the necessary backward motion to balance the head projected beyond the base, did render garments short by nature still shorter, as grammarians would say, by position.
Corn-bread takes its own time to bake; and therefore it was late when the good woman, having placed the "chicken fixins" on a large dinner-plate, and poured over them the last drop of unabsorbed and unevaporated oil, set all on the table, and then, giving her heated and perspiring face a last wipe with the corner of her tow-linen apron, and also giving her thumb and finger a rub on the same cleanser, she sung out the ordinary summons : "Well ! come, sit up."
This sit-up we instantly performed-as well, at least, as we could-while she stood up to pour out the tea, complimenting all the time its quality, saying-" 'Tisn't nun of your spice-wood or yarb stuff, but the rele gineine store tea." Nanny remained near the dutch oven to keep us supplied with red-hot pones, or corn-balls-and hard enough by the way, to do execution from
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cannon. The teacups used held a scant pint; and to do exact justice to each cup, the mistress held the teapot in one hand and the water-pot in the other, pouring from both at once till the cup was brim-full of the mixture :- an admirable system of im- partiality, and if the pots had spouts of equal diameters, the very way to make precisely "half and half." But sorry am I to say, that on the present occasion, the water-pot had the best and easiest delivery.
"And could you eat, Mr. Carlton?"
How could we avoid it, Mr. Nice? Besides, we were most vulgarly hungry. And the consequence was, that, at the arrival of the woodman and his two sons, other corn-bread was baked, and, for want of chicken, bacon was fried.
"But how did you do about retiring?"
We men-folks, my dear Miss, went out to see what sort of weather we were likely to have; and on coming in again, the ladies were very modestly covered up in bed-and then we- got into bed-in the usual way. I have no doubt Mr. Carlton managed a little awkwardly: but I fear the reader will discover, that in his attempts at doing as Rome does, and so forth, Mr. Carlton departed finally from the native sweetness and simplicity of eastern and fashionable life; still we seemed to leave rather an unfavorable impression at the cabin, since, just before our setting out in the morning, the landlady told the driver privately -"Well! I allow the stranger and his woman-body thinks them- selves mighty big-bugs-but maybe they aint got more silver than Squire Snoddy across Big Bean creek; and his wife don't think nuthin on slinging round like her gal-but never mind, maybe Mrs. Callten or Crawltin, or somethin or nuther, will larn how too."
CHAPTER X.
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness."
"Really, Mr. Carlton, unless you tell us whither you are travelling we will proceed no further."
And really I could not blame you, friends, since, had it not
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been for very shame and impracticability, we ourselves, on the third morning, would have imitated Sawney of apple-orchard memory, and "crawled back again." But I am on the very point of telling as distinctly as possible about our destination- and as you have got thus far, and have paid' (?) for the book, you may as well finish it.
We are proceeding as slowly as we can in search of the Glen- ville Settlement, a place somewhere in the New Purchase. Among other persons we hope to find there, my wife's mother, my wife's aunt, my wife's uncle, and her sisters and her brother, John Glenville. One of my purposes is to become Mr. Glen- ville's partner in certain land speculations, and with him to es- tablish a store and also a tannery. Of the New Purchase itself we will speak at large when we reach that famous country- famous in itself out there-and to become so elsewhere when its history is published. As to Glenville Settlement itself, lofty opinions of its elegancies began to fall, and misgivings began to be felt, that its houses would be found no better than they ought to be : and in these we were not disappointed, as the reader may in time discover.
The third night of the Searching now approached; and we had come to a very miserable hut, a ferry-house, on the top of a high bluff, and fully a quarter of a mile from the creek below. An ill-natured young girl was apparently the sole occupant; and she, for some reason, refused to ferry us over the water, stating, indeed, that the creek could as yet be forded, but giving us no satisfactory directions how to find or keep the ford. Judge our feelings, then, on getting to the bank, to find a black, sullen and swollen river, twenty yards wide-a scow tied at the end of the road-and that road seeming to enter upon the ford, if indeed, any ford was there! I stepped into the boat and, with its "set- ting-pole," felt for the ford; and happily succeeded in finding the bottom when the pole was let down a little beyond six feet!
No house, except the ferry-hut on the bluff above, was on this side of the water for many a long and weary mile back; and
1 Persons that borrow this work, and all who rent it of some second rate book-establishment at a fippenny-bit a volume, will of course read it through.
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beyond the water was a low, marshy and, at present, a truly terrific beech-wood, and, from its nature, known to be necessarily uninhabited : so that, unless we could help ourselves, nobody else was likely to help. With great difficulty, therefore, and no small danger from our want of skill and hands enough, we "set" our- selves over in the scow: and when safely landed in the mud be- yond, we at first determined to let the boat go adrift as a small punishment to the villany of the ferry people; but reflecting pos- sibly some benighted persons might suffer by this vengeance, we tied the scow-(but of course on the wrong side of the river) and splattered on. In half a mile, strange enough, we met a large party of women and children, to whom we told what had happened and what had been done with the scow: on which they cordially thanked us, it being necessary for them to cross the river, and in return assured us of a better road not very far forward, and which led to "a preacher's" house, where we should find a comfortable home and a welcome for the night.
What the oasis of dry deserts is, all know; but the oasis of waste woods and waters is-a clearing with its dry land and sunlit opening. Such was now before us, not indeed sunlit,- for the sun was long since set-such was before us; and in the midst of a very extensive clearing was not a cabin, but a veritable two-story house of hewn and squared timbers, with a shingle roof and smoke curling gracefully upward from its stone chim- ney! Yes, and there were corncribs, and smoke-house, and barn and out-houses of all sorts: and removed some distance from all, was the venerable cabin in a decline,-the rude shell of the family in its former chrysalis state!
But our reception -it was a balm and a cordial. We found, not indeed the parade and elegant variety of the East, but neat apartments, refreshing fire after the chill damps of the forest, a parlour separate from the kitchen, and bedrooms separate from both and from one another. There, too, if memory serves right, were six pretty, innocent girls-(no sons belong to the family)- coarsely but properly dressed ; and who were all modest and re- spectful to their elders and superiors-a very rare thing in the New Purchases, and, since the reign of Intellect, a rarer thing than formerly in most Old Purchase countries. The mere dif-
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fusion of "knowledges," without discipline of mind in their at- tainment, is not so favourable to virtue and good manners as Lyceum men think. Our six little girls were mainly educated on Bible principles-living fortunately in that dark age when every body's education was not managed by legislatures and taxes. The law administered by irreligious or infidel statesmen, or by selfish and sullen demagogues, is always opposed to the Gospel.
No pains were spared by the whole family in our entertain- ment : and all was done from benevolence, as if we were chil- dren and relatives. The Rev. William Parsons and his lady, our hosts, had never been in the East, or in any other school of the Humanities; and yet with exceptions of some prejudices, · rather in favour, however, of the West than, against the East, this gentlemen and lady both beautifully exemplified the innate power of Christian principles to make men not only kind and generous, but courteous and polite.
In my dreams no oasis of this kind had appeared-yet none is so truly lovely as that where religion makes the desert and the wilderness blossom as the rose. I have been much in the com- pany of clergy and laity both, and in many parts of the Union, and my settled belief in consequence is, that the true ministers of the Gospel, in spite of supposed characteristical faults and de- fects, and prejudices, are, as a class, decidedly the very best and noblest of men.
We discovered that Mr. Parsons, like most located and per- manent pastors of a wooden country, received almost literally nothing for ecclesiastical services. Nay, Mrs. Parsons incidentally remarked to Mrs. C. that for seven entire years she had never seen together ten dollars either in notes or silver! Hence, al- though suspecting he would refuse, and fearing that the offer might even distress him, I could not but sincerely wish Mr. P. would accept pay for our entertainment: and the offer was at last made in the least awkward way possible. But in vain was every argument employed by me, that decorum would allow, to induce his acceptance-he utterly refused, only saying :- "My dear young friend, pay it to some preacher of the Gospel, and in the same way and spirit the present service is rendered to
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you." And here, in justice to ourselves, we must be permitted to record that we did most gladly, and on many more occasions than one, repay our debt to Mr. Parsons in the way. enjoined.
Formerly it was indeed rare, that anyone in the Far West, however, poor, a ferryman or a tavern keeper, would ask or take if offered, a cent for his services from any man known as a preacher. True, the immunity existed in a few places under a belief that preachers ought not to expect or receive the smallest salary ; and sometimes a preacher was actually questioned on that point, and treated according to his answer, but still in the primitive times, especially of the New Purchase, the vast majority of woodsmen would have indignantly scouted the thought of de- manding pay from a preacher, and that whether he received a small stipend for his own services, or as was the common case, nothing. Once a clerical friend of the author's travelled nearly one thousand miles in woods and prairies, and brought back in his inexpressibles-pocket, the identical pecunia carried with him for expenses-viz. Fifty Cents! That, on leaving home, he had supposed would be enough ;- it proved too much !
During my Western sojourn, I was powerfully impressed with the importance and necessity of forming a new Society ; nor has the notion been abandoned since leaving that country. I have been indeed always deterred from making the attempt, from its internal difficulty, from its entire novelty, and a deep settled conviction of its great unpopularity the moment it is an- nounced. Indeed, I fear the thing is wholly impracticable in an age when all kinds of public instruction is gratuitous-and it is deemed enough to be honored with a hearing in public, and to hear the criticisms of audiences that all know all things, and even something to boot, as well and maybe a little better than the literati themselves ; but so much would my scheme, if adopt- ed, do to alleviate the great distresses, anxieties and privations of many very worthy clergymen, that I will venture to give a hint of the plan, even though I may be deemed a visionary. The Society I propose is to bear this title :-
"The-make-congregations-PAY-what-they-voluntarily-PROMISE- Society." For which I shall only now name one reason-viz. that most clergymen do perform all they ever promise-and of-
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ten a very great deal more. If the Society is now ever formed by others, I must here once for all, however, positively decline the honour of being one of the travelling agents-I can stand some storms, but not all.
Certain wits sneer here, and reversing the Indian's remark, say "poor preach-poor pay;" and please themselves with draw- ing contrasts between the Western and the Eastern styles of preaching. But take away libraries from our preachers, take away the sympathy and the applause; make such work, not with small and very often incompetent stipends as is the case pretty generally here, but with no salary whatever; make them work, chop wood, plough, ride day after day, and night after night in dim, perilous, endless wilds; bid them preach in the open air or between two cabins, or in an open barn, or even bar-room, with- out notes or preparation, and all this weary, sick, jaded; smoke and suffocate them in a cold, cheerless day, with a fire not within but without the house, to which the congregation repair during the sermon in committees both for heat and gossip-do all this and we shall hear no more of the contrast. And yet within those grand old woods you shall often hear bursts of eloquence- stirring appeals-strains of lofty poetry-ay, the thundering of resistless speech, that would move and entrance through all their length and breadth the cushioned seats of our bedizzened churches! True, as a whole, even such discourses may not do to print. What then? Is a sermon the best adapted to be spoken, always the best to be printed? Does, not the patent steam press squeeze the very life and soul out of most sermons ? Granted that the notes of a preacher may be printed as the notes of a musician-still that preacher himself must be present to makes his notes speak forth the latent sense-and if he find not the sense and spirit there he expected-to put them there at the impulse of the moment. The very Reverend Lord Bishop Bal- timore-
"Mr. Carlton !- we are impatient to continue the search for Glenville."
Oh! yes-true-true !- advance we then to a new chapter.
CHAPTER XI.
Cùm subitò è sylvis, macie confecta suprema Ignoti nova forma viri, miserandaque cultu. Respicimus : dira illuvies, immissaque barba, Consertum tegmen spinis.
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On the morning of the fourth day, about ten o'clock, A. M., we emerged from the forest upon a clearing one mile in length, and a half mile in breadth : and nearly in its centre stood Wood- ville, the capital of the New Purchase-a village just hewed and hacked out of the woods, fresh, rough and green. And this iden- tical town, reader, is, we are informed, somewhere about twenty miles from Glenville-unless in the contraction of the roads in dry seasons, when the distance is variously estimated at from sixteen to nineteen miles. And as we have a letter of introduc- tion to Dr. Sylvan of the capital, and shall remain here an hour, it seems the very time to describe Woodville, in and about which, as the centre of our orbit, we moved for nearly eight years.
Woodville was now almost three years old; large, however, for its age, and dirty as an undisciplined, neglected urchin of the same years, and rough as a motherless cub. It was the destined seat of a University : hence when Mind whose remarkable tramp was now being-(hem!)-heard, halted here in its march some years after, in the shape of sundry learned and great men, we were all righted up, licked into shape and clarified. But to day, never were strange animals so stared at, walked around and remarked upon near at hand by the brave, and peeped at by the modest and timid, from chinks and openings, as were we, tame and civilized bipeds, Mr. and Mrs. C., by our fellow-creatures of Woodville. Why, we could not then conjecture-unless be- cause Mr. C. wore a coat and was shaved-or because Mrs. C. had on no cap, and a cap there was worn by all wives old and, young-a sign in fact of the conjugal relation-and so it was "suspicioned" if Mrs. C. was not my wife, she ought to be. N. B. The caps most in vogue then were made of dark, coarse, knotted twine, like a cabbage net-and were worn expressly as the wives themselves said-"to save slicking up every day, and to hide dirt !"
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But here comes Dr. Sylvan, and we must introduce him. First, however, be it understood that Woodville even then, had two classes, the superior and the inferior; the former shaved once a week, the latter once in two weeks, or thereabouts. At our first meeting, which was accidental, I was at a loss where to class my friend ; and had we not already acquired some art in decyphering character by studying the countenance and the mien, and not by looking at the dress, or rather the want of it, we should have fallen into a great mistake about this true Christian and gentleman.
Shoes he wore, it is true-but one a coarse cow-hide laced boot, the other a calf-skin Jefferson, or some other presidential name. And this latter was well blacked, though not shiney; but the cow-hide had been too stiff, stubborn and greasy, to receive its portion. Above the Jefferson was a stockingless ancle- presumptive, and even à fortiori evidence that the ancle in the boot was in a natural condition. Coat he wore none; but he had on a Kentucky-jean vest, open to its lowest button, and al- lowing the display of a reddish-yellow flannel shirt bosom, his arms being encased in sleeves of thick cotton something, and all ùnembroidered. As a rare extravagance, and which placed him in the aristocratic class of democrats, the Doctor wore, not carried, a pocket-handkerchief ; and he wore it circumambient, - the cotton bandana going over one shoulder, and under the op- posite arm, and then both ends met and were tied just above his os femoris. This luxury, however, was used only as "a sweat rag," and not as "a nose-cloth,"-delicate names applied appropriately to a handkerchief, as it was employed to wipe off perspiration or to blow the nose. As to the Doctor's nose, it was, in its necessities, most cruelly pinched and twisted between his finger and thumb; and these were then wiped on the rag just mentioned-on the plan of the man that topped the candle with his fingers, and then deposited the burnt wick in the snuffers. The operation was certainly performed with great skill, yet it seemed unnatural at the time; and it was not till I had seen the governor himself in a stump speech, and the judge on the bench, perform the same instinctively and involuntarily, that I came to regard the affair as natural, and to conclude that, after all, hand- kerchiefs were nothing more than civil conveniences.
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Such was the leaden casket-the outer man; but reader, within was a rare jewel. With a little fixing, this gentleman would easily have adorned and delighted the best company in the best places. He was a brave soldier, an able statesman, and a skilful physician ; and if not learned, he was extensively and even pro- foundly read in his favourite studies, medicine and politics. His person, disfigured even by his dress, was uncommonly fine, his countenance prepossessing, and his conversation easy, pleasant, and instructive. In the legislative assemblies he was highly re- spected, and often his influence there was unbounded; and hap- pily that influence was usually well directed. The Doctor, in short, would have graced the halls at Washington. As a hus- band and a father, no man was ever more affectionate; and as a physician, none more kind, tender, and anxious-indeed he not only prescribed for a patient, but, as far as possible, nursed him. A little more moral courage would have made Dr. Sylvan a still more valuable friend. It was strange, however, that so brave a man in the field, should have been occasionally cowed in the presence of political foes-but so it was; and this was the only material blemish in a man otherwise good, noble, and generous.1
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