To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write
and read comes by nature.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
Little could be done in the winter. The days were short and
full of employment; all the more for Will's absence. What with
threshing wheat and oats, foddering cattle, and dressing flax,
driving to mill, cutting wood, and clearing snow, there was no
time for Virgil during the few hours of daylight; hardly time
to repeat a Latin verb. The evenings were long and bright, and
the kitchen cosy. But there were axe-helves to dress out, and
oars, and ox-yokes; and corn to shell, and hemp to hackle; and
at which ever corner of the fireplace Winthrop might set
himself down, a pair of little feet would come pattering round
him, and petitions, soft but strong, to cut an apple, or to
play jackstraws, or to crack hickory nuts, or to roast
chestnuts, were sure to be preferred; and if none of these, or
if these were put off, there was still too much of that sweet
companionship to suit with the rough road to learning. Winnie
was rarely put off, and never rejected. And the little garret
room used by Winthrop and Will when the latter was at home,
and now by Winthrop alone, was too freezing cold when he went
up to bed to allow him more than a snatch at his longed-for
work. A few words, a line or two, were all that could be
managed with safety to life; and the books had to be shut up
again, with bitter mortification that it must be so soon. The
winter passed and Virgil was not read. The spring brought
longer days, and more to do in them.
"Father," said Winthrop one night, "they have got no one yet
in Mr. Dolts' place."
"What, at Mountain Spring? I know they haven't. The foolish
man thought twelve dollars a month wa'n't enough for him, I
suppose."
"Why was he foolish, Mr. Landholm?"
"Because he greatly misstated his own value -- which it isn't
the part of a wise man to do. _I_ know he wasn't worth twelve
dollars."
"Do you think I am worth more than that, sir?"
"I don't know what you're worth," said his father good-
humouredly. "I should be sorry to put a price upon you."
"Why, Winthrop?" -- his mother said more anxiously.
"Will you let me take Mr. Dolts' place, father?"
"His place? What, in the schoolhouse?"
"Yes, sir. If I can get it, I mean."
"What for?"
"The twelve dollars a month would hire a man to do my work on
the farm."
"Yes, and I say, what for? What do you want it for?"
"I think perhaps I might get more time to myself."
"Time? -- for what?"
"Time to study, sir."
"To study! -- Teach others that you may teach yourself, eh?"
said Mr. Landholm, with a breath that was drawn very much like
a sigh; and he was silent and looked grave.
"I am afraid you wouldn't like it, Winthrop," said his mother
seriously.
"I should like the time, mamma."
"I wish I were a little richer," said Mr. Landholm, drawing
his breath, -- "and my sons should have a better chance. I am
willing to work both _my_ hands off -- if that would be of any
avail. You may do as you please, my dear, about the school.
I'll not stand in your way."
"The twelve dollars would pay a man who would do as much work
as I could, father."
"Yes, yes, -- that's all straight enough."
"Is Winthrop going to teach school?" exclaimed Asahel.
"Perhaps so."
"Then I should go to school to Winthrop," said the little boy
clapping his hands, -- "shouldn't I, mamma? Wouldn't it be
funny?"
"I too?" cried Winifred.
"Hush, hush. Hear what your father says."
"I am only sorry you should have to resort to such
expedients."
"Do you think they would take me, father?"
"Take you? yes! If they don't, I'll make them."
"Thank you, sir."
Winthrop presently went with the children, who drew him out
into the kitchen. Mr. Landholm sat a few moments in silent and
seemingly disturbed thought.
"That boy'll be off to College too," he said, -- "after his
brother."
"He'll not be likely to go after anything wrong," said Mrs.
Landholm.
"No --that's pretty certain. Well, I'll do all I can for him!"
"Whatever he undertakes I think he'll succeed in," the mother
went on remarking.
"I think so too. He always did, from a child. It's his
character. There's a sharp edge to Rufus's metal, -- but I
think Winthrop's is the best stuff. Well I ain't ashamed of
either one on 'em!"
Winthrop took the school. He found it numbering some thirty
heads or more. That is, it would count so many, though in some
instances the heads were merely nominal. There were all sorts,
from boys of fifteen and sixteen that wanted to learn the
Multiplication table, down to little bits of girls that did
not know A, B, and C. Rough heads, with thoughts as matted as
their hair; lank heads, that reminded one irresistibly of
_blocks;_ and one fiery red shock, all of whose ideas seemed to
be standing on end and ready to fly away, so little hold had
they upon either knowledge, wit, or experience. And every one
of these wanted different handling, and every one called for
diligent study and patient painstaking. There were often fine
parts to be found under that rough and untrained state of
nature; there were blocks that could be waked into life by a
little skill and kind management and a good deal of time; and
even the fly-away shock could be brought down to order and
reason by a long course of patience and firmness. But the
younger heads that had no thoughts at all, -- the minds that
were blank of intelligence, -- the eyes that opened but to
stare at the new teacher! What amount of culture, what
distance of days and months, would bring something out of
nothing!
It was hard, hard work. There was nobody to help the new
teacher; he wrought alone; that the teacher always did. The
days were days of constant, unintermitted labour; the nights
were jaded and spiritless. After spelling a great deal in the
course of the day, and making up an indefinite number of sums
in addition and multiplication, Winthrop found his stomach was
gone for Latin and Virgil. Ears and eyes and mind were sick of
the din of repetitions, wearied with confusions of thought not
his own; he was fain to let his own rest. The children "got
on," the parents said, "first-rate;" but the poor teacher was
standing still. Week passed after week, and each Saturday
night found him where he was the last. He had less time than
on the farm. Fresh from the plough, he could now and then
snatch a half hour of study to some purpose; there was no
"fresh from the school." Besides all which, he still found
himself or fancied himself needed by his father, and whenever
a pinch of work called for it he could not hold back his hand.
"How does it go, Winthrop?" said his mother when she saw him
wearily sitting down one summer night.
"It doesn't go at all, mother."
"I was afraid that it would be so."
"How does what go?" said Asahel.
"The school."
"_How_ does it go?"
"Upon my head; and I am tired of carrying it."
"Don't you like being school-teacher?"
"No."
"_I_ do," said Asahel.
"I wouldn't stay in it, Winthrop," said his mother.
"I will not mamma, -- only till winter. I'll manage it so long."
Eight months this experiment was tried, and then Winthrop came
back to the farm. Eight months thrown away! he sadly said to
himself. He was doubly needed at home now, for Mr. Landholm
had again been elected to the Legislature; and one of the
first uses of Winthrop's freedom was to go with his father to
Vantassel and drive the wagon home again.
One thing was gained by this journey. In Vantassel, Winthrop
contrived to possess himself of a Greek lexicon and a Graeca
Majora, and also a Greek grammar, though the only one he could
get that suited his purse was the Westminster grammar, in
which the alternatives of Greek were all Latin. _That_ did not
stagger him. He came home rich in his classical library, and
very resolved to do something for himself this winter.
The day after his return from Vantassel, just as they had done
supper, there was a knock at the front door. Winthrop went to
open it. There he found a man, tall and personable, well-
dressed though like a traveller, with a little leathern valise
in his hand. Winthrop had hardly time to think he did not look
like an American, when his speech confirmed it.
"How-do-you-do?" he said, using each word with a ceremony
which shewed they were not denizens of his tongue. "I am
wanting to make some résèrche in dis country, and I was
directet here."
Winthrop asked him in, and then when he was seated, asked him
what he wanted.
"I am wishing to know if you could let me live wiz you a few
days -- I am wanting to be busy in your mountains, about my
affairs, and I just want to know if you can let me have a bed
to sleep on at night, and a little somet'ing to eat -- I would
be very much obliged and I would pay you whatever you please -- "
"Mother," said Winthrop, "can you let this gentleman stay here
a few days? he has business in the mountains, he says, and
wants to stop here?"
"I do not wish to be no trouble to no person," he said
blandly. "I was at a little house on de ozer side of de river,
but I was told dere was no room for me, and I come to an ozer
place and dey told me to come to dis place. I will not trouble
no person -- I only want a place to put my head while my feet
are going all over."
A moment's hesitation, and Mrs. Landholm agreed to this very
moderate request; and Mr. Herder, as he gave his name, and his
valise, were accommodated in the 'big bedroom.' This was the
best room, occupying one corner of the front of the house,
while the 'keeping-room' was at the other; a tiny entry-way,
of hardly two square yards, lying between, with a door in each
of three sides and a steep staircase in the fourth.
Winthrop presently came to ask if the stranger had had supper.
"I have not! But I will take anysing, what you please to give
me."
Mr. Herder did not belie his beginning. He made himself much
liked, both by the children and the grown people; and as he
said, he gave as little trouble as possible. He seemed a
hearty, genial nature, excessively devoted to his pursuits,
which were those of a naturalist and kept him out of doors
from morning till night; and in the house he shewed a
particular simplicity both of politeness and kind feeling; in
part springing perhaps from his German nature, and in part
from the honest truthful acquaintance he was holding with the
world of nature at large. "He acted like a great boy," old
Karen said in wondering ridicule, -- "to be bringing in leaves,
and sticks, and stones, as he was every night, and making his
room such a mess she never saw!"
He had soon a marked liking and even marked respect for his
young host. With his usual good-humour Winthrop helped him in
his quest; now and then offered to go with him on his
expeditions; tracked up the streams of brooks, shewed the
paths of the mountains, rowed up the river and down the river;
and often and often made his uncommon strength and agility
avail for something which the more burly frame of the
naturalist could not have attained. He was always ready; he
was never wearied; and Mr. Herder found him an assistant as
acute as he was willing.
"You do know your own woods -- better than I do!" -- he remarked
one day when Winthrop had helped him out of a botanical
difficulty.
"It's only the knowledge of the eye," Winthrop replied, with a
profound feeling of the difference.
"But you do seem to love knowledge -- of every kind," said the
naturalist, -- "and that is what I like."
"I have very little," said Winthrop. "I ought to love what I
can get."
"That is goot," said Mr. Herder; -- "that is de right way. Ven
I hear a man say, 'I have much knowledge,' -- I know he never
will have much more; but ven I hear one say, 'I have a
little,' -- I expect great things."
Winthrop was silent, and presently Mr. Herder went on.
"What kind of learning do you love de best?"
"I don't know, sir, really."
"What have you studied?"
Winthrop hesitated.
"A little Latin, sir."
"Latin! -- How much Latin have you read?"
"The Gospel of John, and nearly the first book of the Aeneid.
But I have very little time."
"The Evangel of St. John, and the Aeneid. Are you going on to
study it now?"
"Yes sir, -- as much as I can find time."
"Greek too?"
"No sir. I am only beginning."
"I ask, because I saw some Greek books on de table de ozer
night and I wondered -- excuse me -- who was reading them. You
do not know nothing of German?"
"No sir."
"Ah, you must learn de German -- dat is _my_ language."
"I don't know my own language yet," said Winthrop.
"Vat is dat?"
"English."
"English! -- But how do you do, here amongst de hills -- is
there somebody to learn you?"
"No sir."
"And you go by yourself? -- Vell, I believe you will climb
anything," said Mr. Herder, with a little smile; "only it is
goot to know what place to begin, -- as I have found."
"I must begin where I can, sir."
"But you should get to de Université; from dere it is more
easy."
"I know that, sir; that is what I am trying to fit myself
for."
"You do not need so much fitting -- you will fit yourself
better there. I would get away to de Université. You will go
up -- I see it in your face -- you will go up, like you go up
these rocks; it is pretty steep, but you know, vere one person
cannot stand, anozer will mount. And what will you do wiz
yourself when you get to de top?"
"I don't know yet, sir," Winthrop said laughing.
"It is just so goot not to know," said Mr. Herder. "What thing
a man may wish to make himself, no matter what, he should fit
himself for some ozer thing. Or else, he may be just one thing
-- he might be poet, or mathématicien, or musicien maybe, -- and
not be a whole _man_. You understand?"
"Very well, sir."
"I did not know no more what I would be, when I first went to
de Université of Halle I have been to seven Universités."
Winthrop looked at him, as if to see whether he were cased in
sevenfold learning.
"I am not so very wise, neizer," he said laughing. "And now I
am in de eight Université -- in Mannahatta -- and if you will
come dere I will be very glad to see you."
"Thank you, sir; --but I am afraid Mannahatta would be too
expensive for me."
"Perhaps. -- But vere will you go?"
"I don't know sir, yet."
"But ven you get through, you will come to Mannahatta and let
me see what you have made of yourself?"
Winthrop shook his head. "I don't know when that will be, Mr.
Herder."
They were walking through a tangled woodland, along one of the
deep mountain gorges; the naturalist stopping frequently to
give closer notice to something. He stood still here to
examine a piece of rock.
"Will you let me give you one little direction," said he
producing his little hammer, -- "_two_ little direction, or I
should call them big direction, which may be of some goot to
you?"
"I wish you would, sir."
"In de first place den, don't never go half way through
nozing. If some thing you want to know is in de middle of dat
rock," said he striking it, "knock de rock all to pieces but
what you will have it. I mean, when you begin, finish, and do
it goot."
"That is what I think, Mr. Herder."
"In de second place," continued Mr. Herder, illustrating part
of his former speech by hammering off some pieces of rock from
the mass, -- "don't never think that no kind of knowledge is of
no use to you. Dere is _nozing_ dat it is not goot to know. You
may say, it is no use to you to know dat colour of de outside
of dis rock, and dis colour of de inside; you are wrong; you
ought to learn to know it if you can; and you will find de use
before you die, wizout you be a very misfortunate man. Dere is
nozing little in dis world; all is truth, or it will help you
find out truth; and you cannot know too much."
"I believe that, sir; and I will remember it."
"And when you have learned English and Latin and Greek, you
will learn German?" said the naturalist, putting the fragments
of rock in his pocket.
Winthrop laughed at his expression.
"Promise me dat you will. You will find it of use to you too."
"But all useful things are not possible," said Winthrop.
"I wish it was possible for you to bring down that bird," said
the naturalist, gazing up towards a pair of huge wings above
them; -- "It would be very useful to me." The creature was
sailing through the distant ether in majestic style, moving
its wings so little that they seemed an emblem of powerful
repose.
"That is a white-headed eagle," said Winthrop.
"I know him!" said the naturalist, still gazing. "I wish I had
him; -- but _dat_ is a thing in which is no goot; as he is too
far off for me to reach him. Better for him! And it will be
better for us to go home, for the day is not very long."
Neither was Mr. Herder's stay in the mountains after that. At
parting he assured Winthrop "he should be very glad to do him
all the goot he could do, if he would only let him know how."
This was just after the fall of the leaf. The winter was a
mild one, and so fruitful in business belonging to the farm
that Winthrop's own private concerns had little chance. Latin
was pushed a little, and Greek entered upon; neither of them
could be forwarded much, with all the stress that hope or
despair could make. Snowstorm, and thaw, and frost, and sun,
came after and after each other, and as surely and constantly
the various calls upon Winthrop's time; and every change
seemed to put itself between him and his books. Mr. Landholm
was kept late in Vantassel, by a long session, and the early
spring business came all upon his son's hands.
Letters were rather infrequent things in those days, waiting,
as they usually did, for private carriage. It was near the end
of March that the rare event of two letters in one day
happened to the quiet little household.
Winthrop got one at the post-office, with the Vantassel mark;
and coming home found his mother sitting before the fire with
another in her hand, the matter of which she was apparently
studying.
"A letter, mamma?"
"Yes -- from Will."
"How did it come?"
"It came by Mr. Underhill."
"What's the matter? what does he say?"
"Not much -- you can see for yourself."
"And here's one from papa."
Mrs. Landholm took it, and Winthrop took Rufus's.
"Little River, March 18, 1809.
"What does papa mean to do? Something must be done, for I
cannot stay here for ever; neither in truth do I wish it. If I
am ever to make anything, it is time now. I am twenty-one, and
in mind and body prepared, I think, for any line of enterprise
to which fortune may call me. Or if nothing can be done with
me, -- if what has been spent must be thrown away -- it is
needless to throw away any more; it would be better for me to
come home and settle down to the lot for which I seemed to be
born. Nothing can be gained by waiting longer, but much lost.
"I am not desponding, but seriously this transition life I am
leading at present is not very enlivening. I am neither one
thing nor the other; I am in a chrysalis state, which is
notoriously a dull one; and I have the further aggravation,
which I suppose never occurs to the nymph _bona fide_, of a
miserable uncertainty whether my folded-up wings are those of
a purple butterfly or of a poor drudge of a beetle. Besides,
it is conceivable that the chrysalis may get weary of his
case, and mine is not a silken one. I have been here long
enough. My aunt Landholm is very kind; but I think she would
like an increase of her household accommodations, and also
that she would prefer working it by the rule of _subtraction_
rather than by the more usual and obvious way of _addition_. She
is a good soul, but really I believe her larder contains
nothing but pork, and her pantry nothing but -- pumpkins! She
has actually contrived, by some abominable mystery of the
kitchen, to keep some of them over through a period of frost
and oblivion, and to-day they made their appearance in _due
form_ on the table again; my horror at which appearance has I
believe given me an indigestion, to which you may attribute
whatever of gloominess there may be contained in this letter.
I certainly felt very _heavy_ when I sat down; but the sight of
all your faces through fancy's sweet medium has greatly
refreshed me.
"Nevertheless answer me speedily, for I am in earnest,
although I am in jest.
"I intend to see you at all events soon.
"Love to the little ones and to dear ma and pa from
"Rufus."
"What does father say, mother?" was all Winthrop's commentary
on this epistle. She gave him the other letter, and he yielded
his brother's again to her stretched-out hand.
"Vantassel, March 22, 1809.
"My dear Orphah,
"I am really coming home! I never knew any months so long, it
seems to me, as these three. The business will be finished I
believe next week, and the Session will rise, and the first
use I shall make of my recovered freedom will be -- can you
doubt it? -- to hasten home to my family. My dear family -- they
are closer to me all the time than you think, and for some
weeks past it seems to me they have had half of every thought.
But I will be with you now, Providence willing, by the middle
of the week, I hope, or as soon after as I can.
"The last fortnight has been spent in talking -- we have had a
very stormy discussion of that point I spoke to you of in my
last. The opposition of parties has run very high. It is
gaining fearful ground in the country. I tremble for what may
be the issue.
"I am quite well again. Mr. Haye has been very attentive and
kind, and the Chancellor has shewn himself very friendly.
"I expect Will will be at home as soon as I am myself. I wrote
to him that he had better do so. I cannot afford to keep him
any longer there, and there seems nothing better for him to do
at present but to come home. I hope for better days.
"Love to all till I see you, my dear wife and children,
"W. Landholm.
"My son Winthrop, this word is for you. I am coming home soon
I hope to relieve you of so much care. Meanwhile a word. I
want Sam to go into the north hill-field with the plough, as
soon as he can; I think the frost must be out of the ground
with you. I intend to put wheat there and in the big border
meadow. The bend meadow is in no hurry; it will take corn, I
guess. You had better feed out the turnips to the old black
cow and the two heifers."
The letters were read at last, and folded up, by the
respective hands that held them.
"Well, Will's coming home," the mother said, with half a sigh.
Winthrop did not answer; he made over to her hand the letter
he held in his own.
"The north hill-field is pretty much all ploughed already," he
remarked.
"You're a good farmer, Governor," said his mother. "But I am
afraid that praise doesn't please you."
"Yes it does, mamma," he answered smiling a little.
"But it don't satisfy you?"
"No more than it does you, mamma. It helps my hope of being a
good something else some day."
"I don't care much what you are, Governor, if it is only
something _good_," she said.
He met her grave, wistful eyes, but this time he did not
smile; and a stranger might have thought he was exceedingly
unimpressible. Both were silent a bit.
"Well, it will be good to see them," Mrs. Landholm said, again
with that half sighing breath; "and now we must make haste and
get all ready to welcome them home."