CHAPTER I.
Puddleford.--Eagle Tavern.--Mr. and Mrs. Bulliphant.--May Morning.--Birds.--Venison Styles.--General Character of Society.--The Colonel.--Venison Styles' Cabin.
The township of Puddleford was located in the far west, and was, and is,unknown, I presume, to a large portion of my readers. It has never beenconsidered of sufficient importance by atlas-makers to be designated bythem; and yet men, women, and children live and die in Puddleford. Itspopulation helps make up the census of the United States every ten years;it helps make governors, congressmen, presidents. Puddleford does, andfails to do, a great many things, just like the "rest of mankind," and yetwho knows and cares anything about Puddleford?
Puddleford was well enough as a township of land, and beautiful was itsscenery. It was spotted with bright, clear lakes, reflecting the trees thatstooped over them; and straight through its centre flowed a majestic river,guarded by hills on either side. The village of Puddleford (there was avillage of Puddleford, too) stood huddled in a gorge that opened up fromthe river; and through it, day and night, a little brook ran tinklingalong, making music around the "settlement." The houses in Puddleford werevery shabby indeed; I am very sorry to be compelled to make that factpublic, but they were very shabby. Some were built of logs, and some ofboards, and some were never exactly built at all, but came together througha combination of circumstances which the "oldest inhabitant" has never beenable to explain. The log-houses were just like log-houses in every placeelse; for no person has yet been found with impudence enough to suggest animprovement. A pile of logs, laid up and packed in mud; a mammothfireplace, with a chimney-throat as large; a lower story and a garret,connected in one corner by a ladder, called "Jacob's ladder," are itsessentials. A few very ambitious persons in Puddleford had, it is true,attempted to build frame-houses, but there was never one entirely finishedyet. Some of them had erected a frame only, when, their purses havingfailed, the enterprise was left at the mercy of the storms. Others hadcovered their frames; and one citizen, old Squire Longbow, had actuallyfinished off two rooms; and this, in connection with the office of justiceof the peace, gave him a standing and influence in the settlement almostomnipotent.
The reader discovers, of course, that Puddleford was a verymiscellaneous-looking place. It appeared unfinished, and ever likely to be.It did really seem that the houses, and cabins, and sheds, and pig-sties,had been sown up and down the gorge, as their owners sowed wheat. The onlyharmony about the place was the harmony of confusion.
Puddleford had a population made up of all sorts of people, who had been,from a variety of causes, thrown together just there; and every personowned a number of dogs, so that it was very difficult to determine whichwere numerically the strongest, the inhabitants or the dogs. There weregreat droves of cows owned, too, which were in the habit of congregatingevery morning, and marching some miles to a distant marsh to feed to thejingle of the bells they wore on their necks.
There was one public house at Puddleford. It was built of logs, with a longstoop running along its whole front, supported by trunks of trees roughlycut from the woods, and bark and knots were preserved in the full strengthand simplicity of nature. Its bar-room was the resort of all the leadingmen of Puddleford, besides several ragged boys and these self-same dogs. Itstood in the centre of the village, and announced itself to the publicthrough a sign, upon which were painted a cock crowing and a spread eagle.The bar was fenced off in one corner of the room, and was supplied withthree bottles of whiskey, called, according to their color, brandy, rum,and gin; but fly-tracks and dust had so completely covered them, that thekind of liquor was determined by the pledge of the landlord, that alwayspassed current. There were also about a dozen mouldy crackers laid away onthe shelf in a discarded cigar-box, intended more particularly for thetravelling public. The walls of the bar-room were illuminated by a largemenagerie advertisement, which was the only real display of the fine artsthat ever entered the place. Upon a table, near the centre of the room,stood a backgammon and checker-board, which were in use from the risingsun to midnight. Pipes, crusted thick with soot, lay scattered about on thewindow-stools and chimney-shelf--old stubs that had seen service--and allover the floor rolled great quids of tobacco, ancient and modern, thecreatures of yesterday and years ago; for the floor of the "EagleTavern"--such it was called--of Puddleford was never profaned by a broom,nor its windows with water. He who attempted to look out would havesupposed there was an eternal fog in the streets.
The ladies' parlor, belonging to the Eagle Tavern of Puddleford, was a verychoice spot, and had been fitted up without regard to expense. Its floorwas covered with a faded rag-carpet, and its walls were enlivened with ashilling print, showing forth Noah's Ark, and the animals entering therein.Any person who had an eye for the practical, could see just how Noah loadedhis craft, as the picture brought out clearly a long plank thrown ashore,up which the animals were climbing. I have often thought that I never sawit rain so tremendously as it did in that picture. Near by hung a six-pennylikeness of Washington, somewhat defaced, as some irreverent Puddleford boyhad run his finger through the old general's eye, which detracted very muchfrom the dignity of his expression. He looked rather funny with one eyecocked; and he felt, I presume--that is, if pictures can feel--just asfunny as he looked.
One advantage which the lodging-rooms of this tavern possessed ought not tobe overlooked. They were lit up by the everlasting stars, and the tiredtraveller could go to sleep by the dancing rays that shot down through thecrevices of the roof above.
"Old Stub Bulliphant," as he was called, was, and had been for years,landlord of the "Eagle." He was about five feet high, and nearly as many incircumference. His eyes were of no particular color, although they wereonce. His eye-lashes had been scorched off by alcoholic fire; and nature,to keep up appearances, in a fit of desperation, substituted in their steada binding of red, which looked like two little rainbows hanging upon astorm, for a rheumy water was continually running between them. His nosewas very red, and his face was always in blossom, winter and summer. A pairof tow breeches and a red flannel shirt composed his wardrobe two thirds ofthe year. The truth is, the old fellow drank, and always drank, and hebecame, finally, preserved in spirits.
Puddleford was not destitute of a church, not by any means. The"log-chapel," when I first became acquainted with the place, was an ancientbuilding. It was erected at a period almost as early as the tavern--notquite--temporal wants pressing the early settlers closer than spiritual.
This, precious reader, is a skeleton view of Puddleford, as it existed whenI first knew it. Just out of this village, some time during the last tenyears, I took possession of a large tract of land, called "Burr-oakOpening," that is, a wide, sweeping plain, thinly clad with burr-oaks. Fewsights in nature are more beautiful. The eye roams over these parksunobstructed by undergrowth, the trees above, and the sleeping shadows onthe grass below.
The first time I looked upon this future home of mine, it lay calm andbright, bathed in the warm sun of a May morning, and filled with birds. Thebuds were just breaking into leaf, and the air was sweet with the wildwoodfragrance of spring. Piles of mosses, soft as velvet, were scattered about.Wild violets, grouped in clusters, the white and red lupin, the mountainpink, and thousands of other tiny flowers, bright as sparks of fire,mingled in confusion. It was alive with birds; the brown thrasher, therobin, the blue-jay, poured forth their music to the very top of theirlungs. The thrasher, with his brown dress and very quizzical look,absolutely revelled in a luxury of melody. He mocked all the birds abouthim. Now he was as good a blue-jay as blue-jay himself, and screamed asloud; but suddenly bouncing around on a limb, and slowly stretching out hiswings, he died away in a most pathetic strain; then, darting into anothertree, and turning his saucy eye inquisitively down, he rattled off a chorusor two, that I might know he was not so sad a fellow after all. Now, hissoft, flute-like notes fairly melted in his throat; then he drew out along, violin strain the whole length of his bow; then a
blast on histrumpet roused all the birds. He was "everything by turns, and nothinglong." After completing his performance, away he went, and his place, in amoment almost, was occupied by another, repeating the medley, for the wholewood was alive with them.
Scores of blue-jays, in the tops of the trees, were picking away at thetender buds. The robin, that household bird, first loved by our children,was also here. Sitting alone and apart, in a reverie, and blowingoccasionally his mellow pipe, he seemed to exist only for his own comfort,and to forget that he was one of the choristers of the wood. Woodpeckerswere flitting hither and thither; troops of quails whistled in thedistance; the oriole streamed out his bright light through the greenbranches; there was a winnowing of wings, a dashing of leaves, as birdscame rushing in and out. It was their festival.
This scene was heightened by the appearance of a hunter. He was a noblespecimen of the physical man. Tall, brawny--a giant in strength--his formloomed up in the distance. He was attired with a red flannel "wamus," aleathern belt girt around his waist, deer-skin leggins and moccasons, and awhite felt hat that ran up to a peak. His rifle and shot-pouch were slungaround him, and a few fox-squirrels hung dangling on his belt. His wholefigure exhibited a harmony of proportion, a majesty of combination,sometimes seen in Roman statues. As I approached him, his face fairlybeamed with rustic intelligence and good nature, and the old man grasped meby the hand, and shook it as heartily as if he had known me a thousandyears.
"So you are the person," said Venison Styles,--for such I afterwardslearned was the name he went by in the neighborhood,--"so you are theperson that's come in here to settle, I s'pose--to cut down the trees andplough up this ere ground." I told him I was. "Well," said he, "so it goes;I have moved and moved, and I can't keep out of the way of these ploughsand axes. It was just as much as the deer, and beaver, and otter, _could_do, to stand them government surveyors that went tramping around among 'em,just as though they were going to be sold out wher-or-no. And then,"continued Styles, growing warmer, "they tried to form a thing they called aschool _de_-strict about my ears; and then came a church, and they put alittle bell on it, and that scart out the game. Game can't standchurch-bells, stranger, they can't; they clears right out."
I tried to soothe the old man's feelings, and among other things, advisedhim to give up his hunting and fishing, and settle down, and till the soilfor a living.
"What on airth does anybody want to till the soil for?" replied Styles."What does the soil want _tilling_ for? Warn't the airth made right in thefirst place? The woods were filled with beast and bird, warn't they? andthe whole face of natur covered with grass and wild fruits? and streams andlakes were scattered everywhere? Ain't there enough to eat, and drink, andwear, growing nat'ral in the woods? and what else does anybody want,stranger?"
"Yes, but you are growing old, and your sight is dim, my friend," said I.
"Old! dim! eyes bad! no! no! Venison Styles is good for twenty years yet. Idon't take physic. There ain't no more use of taking such stuff, than thereis of giving it to my dogs. 'Tain't nat'ral to take it, not no how. All aman wants in sickness is a little saxafax-tea, or something warmin' of thatsort. Children are all spi'lt nowadays. Their heads and inards are crammedwith physic and larning, and they ain't good for nothing. For my part, Ihate physic, books, newspapers, and even the mail-carrier. None of my folkswere troubled with larning; for, as near as I can tell, the old man (hisfather) died hunting game and furs down on the 'Hios, when it 'twas allwoods there, and I never know'd of his writing or reading any."
"Well, Venison," said I, "how long have you been around in these parts?"
"Not mor-nor four or five years, or so about," answered Styles. "The gameand I have kept running westard and westard, from civilization, as theycall it, till I have travelled nigh on a thousand miles, or so. I used tohunt and trap way down on Erie, before them steamboats came a-snorting up,but when they came, they scart all the deer and everything out of the woodsand streams; and then I left, too. This rifle," continued Styles, "thisrifle has been along with me for forty years. I have eat and slept with it.I have worn out mor-nor twenty dogs--fairly _worn_ 'em out, and buriedevery one with a tear; and byme-by old Venison himself will go, but he isgood on the track yet."
I assented to much that was said by old Styles, and growing warmer the moreinterest I took in him, he rattled on about civilization--its effects, &c.,&c.; and, finally, looking into a tree, where a cluster of spring birdswere singing, he turned to me, and pointing upward--"Do you hear that?" heexclaimed; "that music was made when the world was--them throats warn'ttuned by any singing-master; they always keep in order. If men would onlyjist let natur alone, we could get along well enough. 'Tain't right to makeany additions to natur. 'Tain't right to invent music, nor to mock thebirds, nor cut down the woods, nor dam up the streams. It's all agin natur,the whole on't. The birds can't be improved on, and the streams and woodsbelong to the fish and game. They are their houses as much as my house is_my_ house. I always hated a saw-mill," continued Styles; "its very soundmakes me mad. I never know'd a deer to stay within hearing of one. Theyroar away just as though they were going to tear down the whole forest,and pile it up into boards. I always try to keep out of their way." But Icannot give all the conversation of this eccentric genius of the forest,with me. He was one of a class of men who are hurried along by immigration,like clouds before the tempest. When the rays of improvement warmed Styles,he had pushed farther back into the shade. He was a connecting link betweenbarbarism and civilization. One half of him was lit up with the light ofthe sturdy pioneers, who crowded in upon him from the east, and the otherhalf stood dark and gloomy in savage solemnity. With all his antipathy tothe society of the whites, he was their stanch friend, and in many ways wasof great service. He became, as we shall see, one of my pleasantestcompanions, and I cannot help now declaring, that few men have taken suchstrong hold upon my affections as this same Venison Styles.
The old man shouldered his rifle, and inviting me to "drop into his cabin,up the creek," bid me "good morning, stranger."
Reader, such was the scene presented to my eye the day I first looked uponthe piece of wild land upon which I finally settled and improved. I hadjust arrived from an eastern village, where I was born, and "brought up,"as the phrase is. A somewhat broken fortune and breaking health had drivenme from it, with a moderate family, to seek a spot elsewhere; and Iresolved to try the Great West, that paradise (if the word of people whonever saw it is to be taken) where the surplus population of a portion ofthe world have found a home.
The change was great. But great as it was, I resolved to endure it. So, atit I went. I procured "help," girdled the trees, put a breaking team oftwelve yoke of cattle on the ground, tore it up, fenced the land, raised alog-house, and in the fall I had a crop of wheat growing, the withered oaktrees standing guard over it. My family, consisting of a wife and threechildren, a boy of eight, and two girls of twelve and ten, were removed totheir new quarters, and I had thus fairly begun the world again, and allthings were as new about me as if I had just been born into it.
During the summer, I had an opportunity of studying the general characterof the inhabitants of Puddleford, and its surrounding country population.Like most western settlements, it was made up of all kinds of materials,all sorts of folks, holding every opinion. More than a dozen states hadcontributed to make up its people. Society was exceedingly miscellaneous.The keen Yankee, the obstinate Pennsylvanian, and the reckless Southernerwere there. Each one of these persons had brought along with him his earlyhabits and associations--his own views of business, law, and religion. Whenthrown together on public questions, this composition boiled up like amixture of salts and soda. Factions, of course, were formed among thosewhose early education and habits were congenial; divisions were created,and a war of prejudice and opinion went on from month to month, and year toyear. The New England Yankee stood about ten years ahead of thePennsylvania German in all his ideas of progress, while the latter stoodback, dogged and sullen,
attached to the customs of his fathers. Anothergeneral feature consisted in this, that there was no permanency to society.The inhabitants were constantly changing, pouring out and in, like thewaters of a river, so that a complete revolution took place every four orfive years. Everybody who remained in Puddleford expected to removesomewhere else very soon. They were merely sojourners, not residents. Therewas no attachment to, or veneration for, the past of Puddleford, becausePuddleford had no past. The ties of memory reached to older states. Therestood the church that sheltered the infant years of Puddleford'spopulation, and there swung the bell that tolled their fathers and fathers'fathers to the tomb. There was the long line of graves, running back ahundred years, where the sister of yesterday, and the ancestor whosevirtues were only known through tradition, were buried. There tottered theold homestead which had passed through the family for generations, filledwith heirlooms that had become sacred. The school-house was there, wherethe village boys shouted together. Looking back from a new country, whereall is confusion, to an old one, where figures have the stability of apainting, objects which were once trivial start out upon the canvas inbolder relief. The venerable, gray-headed pastor, who appeared regularly inthe village pulpit for half a century, to impart the word of life, rises inthe memory, and stands fixed there, like a statue. The quaint cut of hiscoat, the neat tie of his neckcloth, the spectacles resting on the tip ofhis nose, his hums and haws, his eye of reproof, his gestures of vengeance,are now living things--are preaching still. We see again the changingcrowd, that year after year went in and out of that holy place; the spotwhere the old deacon sat, his head resting on a pillar, his tranquil faceturned upward, his mouth open, enjoying a doze as he listened to thesermon. We recollect the gay bridal, the solemn funeral, the buoyant faceof the one, the still, cold one of the other. We even remember the lame oldsexton, who rang the bell and went limping up to the burying-ground, with aspade upon his shoulder. Even _he_, of no consequence when seen every day,is transformed by distance, and mellowed by memory, into a real being. Andthen there are the hills, and streams, and waterfalls, that shed theirmusic through our boyish souls, until they became a part of our veryexistence. No man ever lived who entirely forgot these things, suppressedthough they might be by the cares and anxieties of maturer years. And nocircumstance so likely to bring them all up, glowing afresh, as a removalto a new country. Of course, no one was attached to Puddleford, as alocality, any more than the wandering Arab is attached to the particularspot where he pitches his tent and feeds his camels.
Another general feature seemed to be the _strange character_ of a largepart of the population. Puddleford was filled with bankrupts, who had fledfrom their eastern creditors, anxious for peace of mind and bread enough toeat. Like decayed vessels, that had been tempest-tossed and finallycondemned, these hulks seemed to be lying up in ordinary in the wilderness.Puddleford was to that class a kind of hospital. This man, upon inquiry, Ifound had rolled in luxury, but a turn in flour one day blew him sky-high.Another failed on a land speculation. Another bought more goods than hepaid for. Another had been mixed up in a fraud. Another had been actuallyguilty of crime. The farming community were generally free from thesecharges; but Puddleford proper was not.
The "Colonel," as we called him, was a fair specimen of the bankrupt class.He was one of those unfortunate beings who was well enough started in theworld; but after having been tossed and buffeted around by his ownextravagance, he was finally driven into the forest. He was educated,polished, proud, and poor. He had sunk two or three fortunes, earned bysomebody else, chasing pleasure around the world. His reputation havingbecome soiled, and his pockets emptied, he concluded--to use his ownlanguage--to "hide himself from his enemies and die a kind of civil death.""Men," said the Colonel, "are naturally robbers, and it is safer to runthan fight with them." I have heard him declare, in a jocose way, that hewas the most "injured man living; for the whole human family," he said,"set to and picked his pockets, and now the public ought to support him."He said, "he couldn't see why the government didn't pass laws for therelief of cases like his; for a government is good for nothing that failsto support its people. Starvation in a republic would be a disgrace, andought not to be permitted." The Colonel said "there was no use in fightingdestiny--no one man _can_ do it--and it was his destiny to be poor." Hesaid he "had no place to remove to, and that he couldn't get there if hehad;" that he was "like an old pump that needs a pail of water thrown inevery time it is used to set it a-going."
The Colonel resided in the village of Puddleford. His family was composedof a wife and two daughters, a couple of dashing girls, who looked likebirds of fine plumage that had been driven by a storm beyond theirlatitude. His household furniture was made up of the fag-ends of this andthat, which had somehow escaped a half a dozen sheriff's sales. His familywardrobe had been rescued in the same way, and contained all the fashionsof the last twenty-five years. Here and there were scattered some plainarticles of western manufacture, by way of contrast. Three shilling chairsstood on a faded Brussels carpet; an unpainted white-wood table supported asilver tea-set; thus, the faded splendor of the past contrasted with therustic simplicity of the present. One thing I must not overlook: theColonel had an old tattered carriage that had followed him through good andevil report, his ups and downs of life. I have often been amused to see itroll along with a melancholy air of superiority, putting on the face of agood man in affliction. It was drawn by two diminutive Indian ponies, whowould turn and look wildly at the antiquated thing, as if apprehensive ofdanger.
The Colonel kept an office, and pretended to act as a kind of land agent,and agent for insurance companies, and so on. He was never known to pay adebt; it being against his principles, as he used to say: besides, he said"his note would last a man ten times as long as the money; and they werenot very uncurrent neither; for the justice of the peace at Puddleford hadtaken a very great many of them, and passed his judgment upon them fortheir full face."
But I will not go into particulars with the Puddlefordians at present.During the summer my acquaintance with Venison Styles had ripened into adeeper affection for the old hunter. I accepted his invitation to visithim, and found him sheltered in the depths of the forest, and nestled in avalley, his hut, overshadowed by great trees, which were filled with birdspouring forth their songs. A little brook tinkled down the slope by hishut, singing all kinds of woodland tunes, as the breeze swelled and diedalong its banks. The squirrels were chatting their nonsense, and therolling drum of the partridge was heard almost at his very door.
Venison was a hunter, a fisher, and a trapper. The inside walls of hiscabin were hung about with rifles, shot-guns, and fishing-rods, which hadbeen accumulating for years. Deer-horns and skins lay scattered here andthere, the trophies of the chase. Seines for lakes, and scoop-nets forsmaller streams, were drying outside upon the trees.
Venison kept around him a brood of lazy, lounging, good-for-nothing boys,of all ages, about half-clothed, who followed the business of their father.This young stock were growing up as he had grown, to occupy somewhere theirfather's position, and lead his life. They lived just as well as thehounds, for all stood on an equality in the family. These ragamuffins wereperfect masters of natural history. There was not an instinct orpeculiarity belonging to the denizens of the woods and streams which theydid not perfectly understand. They seemed to have penetrated the secrecy ofanimal life, and fathomed it throughout. Birds, and beasts, and fish werecompletely within their power; and there was a kind of matter-of-coursesuccess with them in their capture that was absolutely provoking to acivilized hunter.
It was of no importance where Venison Styles' boys made their home, orunder what particular roof. Their home was mainly a depot for theirfishing-tackles, guns, and game. They roamed away weeks at a time, fiftymiles off, up this stream and that, over many a lake, and camped outnights, feeding upon their plunder; and Venison felt no more concern aboutthem than he did about the deer, who indeed were not much wilder than they.They were as hard as f
lints, sharp on the chase, happy in their wild,wayward-life, and generally managed to trap and kill just enough to beself-supporting, and keep soul and body together.