The Puddleford Papers: or, Humors of the West

Perhaps you know, and perhaps you don't know, reader, that deer, at certain seasons of the year, have "run-ways" – that they have great highways – thoroughfares that follow mountains, thread morasses, cross lakes and streams, up and down which they travel. I cannot say who first laid them out. It may be they can tell. If I ever find out, I will let you know.

I was next overhauled by a fleet of white butterflies, who came winding down the brook in a very loitering sort of a way. They anchored in front of me, near the water's edge, and amused themselves by opening and shutting their huge sails – huge for butterflies. Their wings were all bedropped with gold, and powdered with silver dust. Then another fleet, arrayed in chocolate velvet, came up the stream. They were large and showy. Their chocolate wings were ribbed with lines of blue and green; and a few plain, yellow plebeians followed on after, train-bearers, probably, to their lordly superiors. What brush touched those rich and delicate wings? What alchemist wrought those magical colors? Who put on those gorgeous uniforms? Were they equipped for the beauty and glory of the world, or their own? For what purpose was this winged mystery sent upon the earth? Just here a large frog, who had been sitting on a stone near the water, wrapped up to his eyes in his green surtout, looking as taciturn and gloomy as the Pope, went down with a "jug-a-ro," and spoiled my reflections.

It was just after the first frost, and the wasps were hard at work, preparing, or repairing their mansions for winter. The mason-wasp, as he is called, was digging up the mud, which he carried to a hollow log, where he lived. He was "plastering up a little." The "paper-wasp" was gathering wild cotton and flax, and manufacturing it, for his palace that hung, half furnished, swinging in a tree like a top. Strange that man should have so long remained without the secret of making paper – when the wasp had made and hung it up high before his eyes, for so many thousand years!

Thus, reader, the great wilderness was alive – and away down the chain of animated being, beyond the reach of the eye or ear, there was life – busy life – all links in a great chain held and electrified by the hand of the Almighty.

What sermons there were all around me – Nature preaching through her works! What cathedral like this, with its living pillars – its dome of sun, and moon, and stars? Morn swings back its portals with light and song, and evening gently closes them again amid her deepening shadows – and the worship and work goes on like the swell of an anthem; but the great high-priest that worshipped at its altars, and burnt incense to the spirit that pervades this solitude, where is he? Where are his fires now? The temple still stands, and the anthem is still heard, but the worshippers are gone "Lo! the poor Indian."

CHAPTER XIX

The Old New England Home. – The Sheltered Village. – The Ancient Buildings. – Dormer Windows. – An Old Puritanical Home. – The Old Puritan Church. – The Burying-Ground. – Deacon Smith, his Habits and his Helpers. – Major Simeon Giles, his Mansion and his Ancestry. – Old Doctor Styles. – Crapo Jackson, the Sexton. – "Training Days." – Militia Dignitaries. – Major Boles. – Major General Peabody. – Preparations and Achievements. – Demolition of an Apple Cart. – "Shoulder Arms!" – Colonel Asher Peabody. – The Boys, and their World. – My Last Look at my Native Village.

Reader, there are mental pictures in the wilderness, as vivid as any in nature. They are the pictures of the past. They haunt the pioneer by day and by night. They go with him over the fields – sit down with him by the streams – linger around his evening hearth, and rise up in his dreams.

I was born in New England. The village was very old, and had received and discharged generations of men. Some two centuries ago, a troop of iron-sided old pilgrims, full of theology and man's rights, an offshoot of a larger body, with their pastor at their head, founded the place, and gave it tone and direction.

This village is very beautiful now. It stands sheltered between two mountains that cast their morning and evening shadows over it. A long stretch of meadow land lies between, through which a river, fringed with willows, lazily lingers and twists in elbows and half circles. The mountains sometimes look down very grim at the valley, and in places have advanced almost across it. There are a great many profiles detected by the imagination in their outline. Cotton Mather's face has been discovered in one huge rock – and the old fellow's head seems to withstand the storms of nature about as successfully as it did the storms of life. The "Devil's Pulpit" – a group of splintered shafts of Gothic appearance – is near by, and superstitious persons used to think that during every thunder-storm his majesty entered it, arrayed in garments of fire, and gave the Puritan a sound lecture.

There are all kinds of buildings in this village. These buildings mark the age in which they were erected, and are the real monuments of their founders. They are as they were. They have not been marred or profaned by modern notions. Some are very eccentric piles, hoary with age, full of angles and sharp corners; and some are painfully plain and severe. They all have a face, a cast of countenance, an expression – they almost talk the English of a hundred and fifty years ago. The row of dormer windows on the roof are to me great eyes that frown down upon the frivolity and thoughtlessness of the present – and those eyes are full of theology and civil rights. They look as though they were watching a Quaker, or reading the Stamp Act. The very souls of their architects are transferred to them. I never enter one, even in these fearless times, without feeling nervous and sober, half expecting to run afoul of its original proprietor, with some interrogatory about my business, and the wickedness of his descendants.

There used to stand – there is still standing – one of these queer piles upon a bluff overlooking the river. It was built of stone, and is very much moss-grown. It fairly looks daggers at the ambitious little structures that have sprouted up by its side. It is a heap of Puritanical thoughts – visible thoughts – all hardened into wood and rock. There it has stood, frowning and frowning, for a century and a half. It is full of great massive timbers and stones, and is as stout as the heart of its founder. A weather-cock is attached to one of the chimneys – a sheet-iron angel, lying on his breast, and blowing a trumpet, and the wind shifts him round and round over different parts of the village. This angel has blown away thousands of men; but there he lies, his cheeks puffed, blowing yet, as fresh and healthy as ever.

The internal arrangement of this building is characteristic. A dark, gloomy hall – an enormous fireplace, extending across the whole end of a room – a quaint pair of andirons, which run up very high and prim, and turn back like a hook, with a dog's head growling on each tip. There are strange pictures on the walls, which have been preserved in memory of the past – Moses leading the Children of Israel through the Wilderness – Samson slaying the Lion – David cutting off the head of Goliath – stern shadows of the men who used to study them – not very remarkable works of art, but vivid outlines of the scenes themselves.

This house has been occupied by an illustrious line of men, distinguished as divines, lawyers, and reformers; and it seems to glow with the fires they kindled in it – in fact, I believe it is inhabited by them yet. I believe that Parson – , who lived under its roof for more than half a century, and preached during that time in the church near by, occasionally mounts his low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, round-cornered coat, short breeches, knee-buckles, and heavy shoes, ties on his white neckcloth, and takes his cane, and, in a spiritual way, wanders back to his mansion, sits down again before the capacious fireplace, and meditates an hour or two as he used to do in life. He is one of those who keep the house company and give to it its sober air of determination and defiance.

The old Puritan church stands near by. Time has thrown a mantle of moss over it. When erected, it was shingled from foundation to steeple – and a quaint little pepper-box steeple it was. Square, high, solemn-looking pews may be yet seen inside. The pulpit is perched away up under the eaves, like a swallow's nest. It is reached by a flight of steps almost as long as Jacob's ladder. It is covered with names, inscriptions written by men and women who were dust long ago. It looks like the place where "Old Hundred" was born, lived, and died – sombre, earnest, immovable.

A burying-ground, ancient as the church, closes in on its three sides, and partly encircles it in its arms. There is preaching there yet. The dust of the living and dead congregations are one:

"Part of the host have crossed the flood,

And part are crossing now."

Rough tombstones – mere ragged slugs, torn from some quarry – rounded and smoothed a little by a pious hand – stand half buried in the earth, pointing to the silent sleeper below. And then there are marble slabs, of a more modern date – yet very old – leaning this way and that, and nodding at each other. Preachers and congregations lie side by side, and it is one eternal Sabbath now. There are quaint pictures, and holy pictures, and horrible pictures chiselled out on these slabs. Skeleton Death, triumphantly marching with his scythe! Skulls, angels – and occasionally a figure that looks like his Satanic Majesty! Epitaphs full of theology, wit, and practical wisdom, are strewn around with an unsparing hand.

There are a few genuine specimens of the Puritan stock lingering in this village – great boulders that lie around in society, like granite blocks on the earth, dropped by Time in his flight, and overlooked or forgotten. Deacon Smith is one of them. He and his father, and his father's father, were born and lived in the house he now occupies. He has almost reached fourscore and ten years. He wears the costume of 'seventy-six, inside and out. His habits are as uniform and regular as the swing of the pendulum. He retires at nine, rises at four, breakfasts at six, and dines at twelve; and this is done to a fraction – no allowance is made for circumstances – what are circumstances in the way of one of his rules? He marches to bed at the time, and would, if he left the President of the Republic behind him – he sits down to his table at the time, whether there is a dish on it or not. Law is law with him.

The Deacon hates royalty and the British – he never overlooked the blood they shed in the Revolution. He seldom speaks to an Englishman. He hates interlopers, innovations, modern improvements; and I recollect well how he poured out his vials of wrath upon the first buggy wagon that he saw. He said it was a "very nice thing to sleep in." He left the church for some months when stoves were first put up, and declared that it was "as great a sacrilege as was ever committed, and enough to overthrow the piety of a saint. Religion would keep a man warm anywhere." He says he "thinks the Puritan blood is running down into slops! folks are rushing headlong to perdition! that there hasn't been a man in the village for twenty years who ought to be intrusted with himself" – and it seems to him that the world is winding up business.

When the Deacon rises, he goes around his house, hawking, spitting, slamming doors, tumbling down wood, just to cast a slur on the lazy habits of modern days. Sometimes he tramps up and down the village, two hours before day, a-hemming, hawing, and sneezing, for the purpose of letting the sluggards understand he is stirring. He has been known, on more than one occasion, to give vent to his feelings, at this early hour, by blowing the family dinner-horn, and declaring, as the blast echoed away, "that no Christian man could sleep, after such a call."

The Deacon has a few helpers about him, who think as he thinks – but they are very few. When they meet, the world takes a most inhuman raking – they spare neither "age, sex, nor condition."

But the leading business men of the village are of a different stamp – not Puritans, but Puritanical – the same rock with the corners knocked off – of less strength, but more polish. They reverence their fathers, keep the religious and political altar they have raised burning, but are not so regardless of temporal comforts; in a word, they are Yankees.

Major Simeon Giles is a specimen. It is difficult to draw his portrait. He has a hard, dry face, which looks as though it had been turned out from a seasoned white-oak knot. He wears a grievous expression, lying somewhere between sobriety and melancholy. His money, character, and family have made him a great man – he is a leading personage in church and state, and exercises a wonderful influence in every department of society. The deacon is full of dry expressions, and many of his cool, sly remarks have become proverbs; but the hardest thing he ever said was after his pious soul had been very much vexed, when he observed, "that if Providence should see fit to remove Mr. – from this vale of tears, he would endeavor to resign himself to the stroke."

Major Simeon has many severe struggles within him, between the flesh and the spirit. His avarice and piety are both strong, and the former sometimes gains a temporary advantage. All his movements are governed by method. He remains so long at his store, so long at his house, "takes a journey" with his family once a year, "has a place for everything, and everything in its place," – a peg for his hat, a corner for his boots – and he is almost as rigid in observing and enforcing his laws as Deacon Smith.

Major Simeon is supreme, of course, over his own family. He never trifles with his children. A cold shadow falls around him, which often silences their voice of mirth and ringing laugh – the effect of reverence, however, more than fear.

Major Giles lives in the Old Giles Mansion. I will not pretend to say how many Gileses have occupied it. Their portraits are hanging upon its walls, and their bodies lie in the burying-ground; a long row of them, all the way across it, and half back again – bud, blossom, and gathered fruit. There is the portrait of the celebrated Elnathan Giles, who died during the reign of Queen Anne. He looks very stern. He had passed through the scenes of the Salem witchcraft, and had been personally connected with the excitement – had attended several of the trials as a witness; was bewitched once himself – and, according to family tradition, saw one witch hung – an out-and-out witch – who had bridled many innocent people at midnight, sailed through chamber windows, and hurry-scurried off with them, astride a broomstick.

Next to him hangs the face of his son, Colonel Ethelbert, as he was called, who lived just long enough to fight at Bunker Hill. He had been a militia colonel before the Revolution, and militia colonels were something in those days. He made a ferocious-looking portrait, certainly. One can almost smell gunpowder in the room. He is dressed up in his military coat, standing collar, an epaulet on his shoulder; and there are strewn around him, in the background, armies, artillery, drums, and banners. No wonder the Americans were victorious. And then came the face of Major Simeon, whom I have described.

The wives of these men are also done up in oil, and hang meekly and submissively by the side of their lords, as all wives should, or rather as all wives did, in those days – and actually died without knowing how much they were oppressed.

There are other things besides portraits, to remind Major Simeon of his ancestry. There is a tree still standing (strange that a tree should outlive generations of men), that Elnathan planted with his own hand, on the day Ethelbert was born – a stately elm, whose branches, in their magnificent curve, almost sweep the ground. This tree shadowed the cold face of both Elnathan and Ethelbert, when their coffins were closed for the last time beneath it. There is the spring, more than half a century old, that bubbles from the hill, and goes trickling, leaping, and flashing down the green slope, singing away to itself as sweetly as ever. The old lilac-bush, too, has outlived thousands whose hands have plucked its blossoms, and yet it bursts out in the spring, and looks as fresh as the children who play beneath it.

It has been thought that Major Simeon and his family were aristocratic. There is a stately air about them, when they enter church, that smacks of blood. And the Major himself has often declared that, while "stock isn't everything, it is a great consolation to know, in his case, that the name of Giles has never been stained."

There are several other families in the village whose ancestry runs back as far as the Gileses'; and they have about them as many heirlooms to remind them of it.

The village is filled with other characters, quite as original as any I have described. They are important personages, and have lived in it a long time; but they have no family history to fall back upon. There is Major Follett, who still lingers on the shores of time, and sustains a vast dignity amid his declining years. His head is very white, his hat very sleek, and his silk vest is piled very full of ruffles. He carries a gold-headed cane, and when he marches through the streets, it rises and falls with great emphasis, in harmony with his right foot. Now and then he gives out an a-hem! – one of the lordly kind – that fairly awes down his inferiors. He is a remarkable talker, too, among his equals – uses words having a great many syllables. He never spits, but "expectorates" – his pains are all "paroxysms" – talks about the "foreshadowing of events" – and all his periods are as round and stately as the march of a Roman army. The Major has actually made his assumed dignity pave his way in life – it has given him wealth and influence among those who are intrinsically his superiors, but who do not know how to put on the airs of consequence.

Old Doctor Styles is living yet. He has survived two or three crops of customers – helped them in and out of the world – balanced their accounts – and his face is as ruddy, his laugh as hearty, his stories as ludicrous, his nose as full of snuff, as though nothing melancholy had ever happened in his practice. Eighty odd and more, he stands as straight as a staff. Death has been so long a business with him, and he has stared it for so many years in the face, that he really does not know, or care, how near he is to it himself.

Crapo Jackson, the sexton, is one of the characters. He has announced the end of Doctor Styles's labor a great many hundred times through the belfry, and helped cover up what remained. Crapo is black, but he has a fine heart. He is a perfect master of his work. He puts on an air of melancholy and circumspection at a funeral, that becomes the occasion. He sings, from door to door, a hymn on Christmas mornings, with cap in hand extended for his "quarter" – peddles gingerbread on training days – and aids the female portion of the community on festival occasions, and does a great many more things, "too numerous to mention."

Speaking of "training days" – dear me! – there used to be a military spirit in this village, in times past. I can recollect the names of scores of generals, majors, colonels, captains, and even corporals – yes, corporals – every man couldn't be a corporal in those times. Why, bless your soul, reader! there was General Peabody, and General Jones, and Major Goodwin, and Major Boles, and any quantity of colonels. And then "training day" – nobody worked – the village was upside down – "'Seventy-six" was in command, and martial law declared.

Major Boles I recollect, when in the active discharge of his duty. He always grew serious as the great militia muster drew on. He went away off by himself, into the chamber, where he could be alone with the spirits of his forefathers, and burnished up his sword, shook out the dust from his regimentals – warned his children to stand out of the way – and looked ferociously at his wife. He knew he was Major Boles, and he knew every other respectable man knew it.

But Major-General Peabody was the greatest general I ever saw. When a boy, I looked upon him as a very blood-thirsty man, and nothing would have induced me to go near him. He was a little fellow in stature, had a hard round paunch that looked like an iron pot, and short, thick, dropsical legs. (Major Boles, who was a little envious, said they were stuffed, which produced a coldness between them.) His face was freckled, and his hair gray. He wore two massive epaulets, an old Revolutionary cap, shaped like the moon in its first quarter, from which a white and red feather curved over his left ear. He had a sword – and such a sword! Nobody dared touch it; for it was the General's sword!

"Training day" usually opened with a boom from the field-piece, at sunrise, that shook the hills. About ten in the morning the soldiers began to pour in from all quarters. Drums and fifes, and muskets and rifles, filed along in confusion, – ambitious companies in uniform – common militia, who were out according to law. Uncle Joe Billings, who had played the bass-drum for more than twenty years (poor old man, he is dead now!) was seen gravely marching along all by himself, his drum slung about his neck, his head erect, his step firm, pushing on to head-quarters at the measured beat of his own music, now and then cutting a flourish with his right hand, for the amusement of the children who were capering around him. Knots of soldiers gathered about the tavern, and made a circle for the music to practise, preparatory to the great come-off. Then came the good old continental tunes that were full of fight, played by old fifers and drummers that had been through the wars; men who made a solemn and earnest thing of martial music – who reverenced it as the sacred voice of liberty, not to be trifled with, who thought of Bunker Hill until the tears started from their eyes. Those old airs, that used to echo among the mountains of New England – where are they?

But the captains, and colonels, and generals did not mix with the common soldiers on training day – no! nor speak to them. Rank meant something. They felt as though they were out in a war. They kept themselves covered from the public gaze away off in a secluded corner of the tavern, and were waited upon with great respect by those of inferior grade. Sometimes a guard was stationed at the door to prevent a crowd upon their dignity. Occasionally, one of them would bustle out among the rank and file on some momentous duty, fairly blazing with gold and silver, lace and feathers; but there was never an instance of one of these characters recognizing even his own brother while in military costume. Major Boles has often said that "no officer can be expected to see small things when in the active discharge of his duty."

At about eleven o'clock the solemn roll of the drums was heard, and loud voices of command followed; and swords flashed, and feathers danced, in the organization of the companies; and then came the training – real training – a mile down street; a mile back again; a perfect roar of music; and flags flying – horses prancing. What was rain, or dust, or mud with such an army! They marched straight through it; it was nothing to war. The sweat poured down, but the army moved on for hours and hours in its terrible march.

The great sight of the day, however, was the Major-General and his staff – I mean, of course, Major-General Peabody. They were not seen until about three o'clock in the afternoon; it being customary for them to withdraw from public observation the day prior to the muster. When the army was drawn up in the field, preparatory to inspection, there was usually a pause of an hour – a pause that was deeply impressive. We never knew exactly where the General and his staff were concealed. Some persons said they were housed in one place, some in another; but, upon the discharge of a cannon, they burst upon us, glittering like the sun, and came cantering down the road with perfect fury, in a cloud of dust, followed by a score of boys who were on a sharp run to "keep up."

General Peabody and his staff always rushed headlong into the field, without looking to the right or left. I recollect that on one occasion he demolished an apple-cart, and absolutely turned everything topsy-turvy, besides creating great consternation among the by-standers; but it did not disturb him, and it was only upon information the next day that he knew that anything serious had happened.

Passing the ruins of the apple-cart, and entering within the guarded lines, he halted, and took a survey of his troops. Then the music saluted him, and the companies waved their flags. He rode a little nearer, rose in his stirrups, jerked out his sword spitefully, and, looking ferociously, cried out, "Shoulder arms!" This cry was just as spitefully repeated by the subordinate officers; and, after a while, the privates, one after another, lazily raised their "pieces" to their shoulders. The General was in the act of rising again, and was drawing in his breath for a command of thunder, when his horse wheeled at the report of a musket that went off in the lines, and came near upsetting him, feathers and all; but he fell into the arms of one of his aids, and – swore, as I was at the time credibly informed, though I could hardly believe it.

The General very soon righted himself, and, striking his horse several violent blows across his rump, cut a great many flourishes on the field, to the utter astonishment of the lookers-on. He then rushed through the orders of the day like a madman, and was manifestly utterly fearless of consequences.

I hope my readers are satisfied that Major-General Peabody was a great military character. I recollect, when a boy, that I heard him say, "that he was very sure he would be the last man to run in a fight," – "that he was afraid to trust himself in a battle, for he never could lay down his sword until the last enemy was massacred!"

The old man was laid under the turf one autumnal afternoon, many years ago, but his prowess is not forgotten to this day. His son, Colonel Asher Peabody, who inherited his father's spirit, erected a stately monument over his remains, which was covered with drums, and fifes, and swords, and waving banners, and big-mouthed guns, intermixed with texts of Scripture, the virtues of the deceased, admonitions to the living, &c. This monument was always as terrific to me as the General himself; and, in my boyish days, I always contemplated it from a distance, not knowing but that it might blow up a piece of juvenile impertinence like myself on the spot.

Yes, reader, these were training days in New England; but the military glory has now actually died out. The last gathering I saw I shall never forget. It was, indeed, a sorry group, made up of a rusty captain, two or three faded corporals, and a handful of dare-devil privates, who cared no more for their country than so many heathen. The officers looked cowed and heart-broken, and loitered about in a very melancholy way; and it was evident that the spirit of '76 was on its last legs. I afterwards learned, I am sorry to say, that the captain, in a fit of patriotic rage, broke his sword across his knee, and declared "that he never would turn out again as long as his name was Jones!"

And then, reader, this village was full of boys when I was a boy. Every village is, you say. Very likely; but such boys! there have never been anything like them since. They wandered with me Saturday afternoons through the meadows, where the lark was flitting and singing; and we related wonderful stories about the future. We cut red-willow canes, made whistles, and dammed mountain rivulets. Life opened to us with a chant: it was melody, melody everywhere. There was the mountain gorge, down which we rolled stones with the voice of thunder; the "big rock," in the river, from which we fished; the pond, that we thought had "no bottom;" the mountain cliff, with its "den of snakes: " where are those boys now? Everywhere – nowhere! Citizens of the world, some; and some of that other world. They will never be all gathered but once more.

But what has all this to do with Puddleford? Much. They are so many pictures that I carry around with me, and they form a part of my existence. They color life, thought, action; they mould the man; they are continually inviting contrasts, and making suggestions; and I cannot omit to notice them in my sketch of that famous village.

When I last saw my native village – it was but a little while ago – it lay sleeping in its amphitheatre as beautiful and tranquil as ever among the shadows of its elms. It was summer, and the air was rich with music and flowers. The highest peaks of the mountain were draped in blue, and the valley beneath was a waving sea of green, down which the sunshine chased the shade. The quail was blowing his simple pipe among the fields of grain; the drone of the locust, the clanging of the mower's scythe, and the shout and the song, were heard in the fields in the still afternoon. When the sun went down, and its last flash leaped from the vane of the church-steeple to a lofty mountain-peak three miles away, the whippoorwill began her plaintive song, and the night-hawks went wheeling through the sky. Then the evening bells broke forth, and their echoes sobered the twilight; and, as their last vibration expired along the valley, the river stood golden beneath the rays of the moon.