CHAPTER XXVII.
A Railroad through Puddleford.--Effect on Squire Longbow.--Bright Prospects of Puddleford.--Change.--"The Styleses."--The New Justice.--Aunt Sonora's Opinions.--Ike Turtle grows too.--Venison disappears from among Men.--His Grave, and his Epitaph.
Reader, I have written for you the history of a year's residence atPuddleford. But the place is changed now--very much changed. It is not whatit used to be--its people, its habits, are very different. This change wasthe result of a variety of causes. The first thing that happened to it--astartling event it was--a railroad was built plump through its heart. Itwas a road running a great distance, and it took Puddleford in its waymerely because it happened to fall in its line. I shall never forget SquireLongbow's frenzied excitement the first time the locomotive came puffingand whistling in. He actually lost his dignity for the moment. He ran andwheezed after the steam-horse like a madman, lost his green eye-shade, andcommitted a very serious breach in the rear part of his pantaloons. He didnot venture very near the machine at first, but sheltered himself behind atree, where he could watch its panting and spitting without danger.
I recollect how pompously the Squire talked on this occasion. He said "allnater couldn't stop Puddleford having ten thousand inhabitants 'fore'nother census--she'd be one of the _ex_-poriums (emporiums) of theWest--it was nothing on airth that made Greece and Rome but these greatetarnal improvements"--and as he was a kind of oracle among a large class,he infused a spirit of consequence and importance into those around himthat was quite ludicrous. Ike Turtle, Sile Bates, the Beagles, and Swipes,and many others, actually mounted their Sunday clothes, and wore them everyday--but whether Ike himself was in fun or earnest, no person could tell.
The building of this road was the cause of a great change certainly; yet itchanged not the population itself, but substituted another in its stead. Itbrought in a class of persons who had money, and money is omnipotenteverywhere. It brought different habits, thoughts, and feelings. The"Styles family" first purchased a large farm near the village. There was anair about them that fairly awed the Puddlefordians. They were petted, runafter, imitated. One could hear nothing but "Young Mr. Styles," "Old Mr.Styles," "The elderly Mrs. Styles," "Miss Arabella Styles," "Miss FlorindaStyles." Miss Florinda and Arabella wore flaring under-clothes in thosedays, and this fashion fairly upset the heads of the Puddleford ladies; andin less than a month I could not identify half the women of the place.Their shrunken forms, stuffed with skirts, were about the shape of littlepyramids.
Purchases of farms and village property went on, year after year, untilnearly every true Puddlefordian was ousted. The place has now, like thesnake, cast its skin; and the old pioneers, they who hewed down theforest, and "bore the heat and burden of the day," are living around theoutskirts of the village, with hardly a competence, or have emigrated towilds still farther west.
Squire Longbow, however, still holds his own. He still lives on the oldspot--is just as wise and happy as ever. Time has not affected hisintellect, or impaired his self-consequence. He is no longer justice of thepeace, but in his place we have a pert, dapper, little fellow, who wears alarge ring on his little finger, and gives very scholastic opinions. TheSquire professes to hold him in contempt, and says he "runs agin thestaterts and common law mor'n half the time"--that "he don't know a _fieryfactus_ from a common execution"--that "he never looks inter the undyingStory for 'thority, but goes on _squashing_ papers, right straight agin theconstitution and the _etar_nal rights of man."
Aunt Sonora was dissatisfied, too, with the revolution in society. She toldme, the last time I saw her, that Puddleford was "made up of a hull passelof flip-er-ter-_gib_-its, and she couldn't see what in created natur' theplace was a-comin' to--she never see'd such works in all her born days,"that "the men wore broadcloth, and the women silks, and flar'd and spreadabout like pea-cocks. Nobody does nuthin'," said she. "The dear massy! Theyare getting so hoity-toity! I _do_ wonder who pays!"
Ike Turtle is about the only person who has grown with the place. There wasno such thing as keeping _him_ under. He is just as humorous as ever, but alittle more polished. Ike says "it won't do to let his natur' out as heused to, when the bushes were thick, and Squire Longbow was gov'ner"--that"he feels himself almost a-bustin' with one of his speeches, sometimes;but the folks wouldn't understand him if he made it--and as for law, he'dgin it all up--it had got to be so nice and genteel an article, therewarn't a grain of justis' in it--everything was 'peal'd up, and 'peal'd up,until both parties themselves were 'peal'd to death." Ike has turned hisattention to land and saw-mills, and is getting rich.
Poor Venison Styles! Dear old hunter! Venison is dead, and his children arescattered in the wilderness. He was found, one May morning, stretched outunder a large maple, his dog and gun by his side, stiff and cold. Thebrown-threshers and bluebirds were singing merrily above him, and thesquirrels were chattering their nonsense in the distance. His dog lay withhis nose near his master's face, his fore paw upon his shoulder. How hedied, no one could tell. He is buried on a bluff that overlooks the river;and I have fenced his grave, and erected a stone over his remains, withthis inscription--"Nature loved him, if man did not."