THE HOUSE IN THE PINE WOODS.
Some four or five miles from that lovely spot, where the Housatonic and
Naugatuc join their waters, stands a large manufacturing village of no
inconsiderable importance. Iron foundries, paper-mills, India rubber and
silk manufactories cluster around one of the finest waterfalls of New
England. That waterfall is picturesque even now, spite of the cottages,
boarding houses, hotels, railroad station, and tanneries, that have
taken the place of green woods, richly clothed hills, and a valley so
fragrant with wild flowers, that it was happiness to breathe its very
air.
But it is hardly worth while to describe this town as it is. Every
thing, even the name, derived from an old Revolutionary officer, is
changed. My object carries me back to a time when it was indeed one of
the loveliest spots in the world--a rich, deep valley, with a noble
waterfall thundering at its heart. High, curving, and broken banks,
almost mountainous in places, looming up or sloping back on either side,
and two lovely brooks pouring their bright, fresh waters into the river
above the falls.
One came winding around Rock Rimmond, softened and shadowed by its grim
heights. The other, pretty, sparkling Bladens Brook, ran laughing and
dancing through the Wintergreen woods, on the opposite shore, with a
gush of cheerfulness that seemed like sunshine, and leaped into the
river just where it began to gather up its waters for a plunge over the
great falls, in one broad, rushing cataract of crystal. From the falls
downward, the valley was choked up with noble forest trees, through
which the river ran slowly and grandly till it swept around the shadowy
base of Castle Rock, and disappeared on its way to join the Housatonic.
This rock, high, precipitous, and picturesque, terminates all that we
have to do with the valley, for its high cliffs cut off the prospect in
that direction, and all the level space between it and the falls was one
vast grove of white pines, which formed the grandest masses of trees I
ever saw in my life.
A few hemlocks, a white poplar or so, with now and then a magnificent
oak variegated the woods, but great pines predominated everywhere. The
earth was littered with their sharp leaves; the wind sighed among their
branches as if it never could win a free passage through their
greenness. As for the sunshine, it only reached the forest turf and
velvet moss in a golden embroidery--seldom with broad gleams. Never were
there such cool, green shadows as hung about those woods. The noises
that floated through them were strangely bewildering; there was the roar
and dash of the falls--the clatter of machinery--for even in that day
one factory, among the first ever established in New England, stood by
the falls, and the sound of flying shuttles and the beat of heavy looms,
held a cheerful rivalry with the flow of the waters and the rush of the
winds. Then came the bird songs, wild, clear, and ringing, lost outside
of the woods, but making heavenly music if you but listened under the
trees.
Just below the falls, so near as almost to be sprinkled with the spray,
and to gather foam wreaths about its timbers, was a long, low, wooden
bridge, linking two villages together.
These villages crowned the two lofty banks overlooking the falls, from
which one took its name. Fall's Hill was rendered most conspicuous by a
pretty, white church, with a tall, symmetrical spire, cutting sharply
against the sky, added to a cluster of superior dwelling houses, and a
country store. In front of this store, just on the fork of the roads,
stands, I hope to this day, a magnificent old willow tree, under which
people who came from afar sometimes tied their horses, while they went
up to worship in the church, which stood on the very highest point of
land to be found till you came to Rock Rimmond on one hand, or Castle
Rock on the other. These crossroads cut in two directions, one led to
the Bungy hills, and the other toward a red school-house and some
straggling dwellings in shrub oaks: beyond this, the geography of the
country is lost in a confusion of green hills and woodlands, which form
a pleasant and prosperous farming country.
From Shrub Oak, the turnpike leads directly down Fall's Hill with
precipitous steepness, across the old bridge, and through a sand hill,
with a wall of white sand thirty feet high on either side, directly into
Chewstown, on the opposite hill.
This cluster of houses took its name from some old Indian, forgotten by
his tribe, who lived and died in a hut somewhere in the neighborhood,
and at this day is probably forgotten in a town where a change of
time-honored names seems to be a political fashion. At any rate, it was
called Chewstown then, and a smart, active little village it was. For it
had two crossroad taverns, a great, barnlike Presbyterian meeting-house,
and a dashing, new Academy, which boasted of a pretentious little cupola
with a bell in it, mounted on the highest point of land that side of the
river, and contrasting itself saucily with the spire of the church on
the opposite bank. Any number of roads crossed and recrossed over the
hill at Chewstown. There was the Derby road, running along the banks of
the river; the New Haven road, cutting through the sand banks in a
parallel line, and crossroads from the farming districts intersecting
them both. The fact is, Fall's Hill had a little more than its share of
the aristocracy. Chewstown made up for that, by broader commercial
opportunities. The taverns were always in a flourishing condition, and
a blacksmith's shop, that looked like a foundry, brought the farmers
from far and near to get their horses and oxen shod. Besides, there was
a country store on the corner, and three white cottages with basements,
built in a line like city houses, and the farmers on that side of the
river were often heard to say that Chewstown could pull an even yoke
with Fall's Hill any time of day, if they had not got a steeple to their
meeting-house.
In this village, Captain Mason had left his wife and child, and here,
also, Thrasher, the mate, was born. Down in the outskirts of the pine
woods, on the Fall's Hill side of the Naugatuc, a river road ran along
the curving base of the hill, and wound seaward with the stream. On this
road, between the bridge and Castle Rock, there was but one house, a
low, white cottage, with peach trees behind it, and lilac bushes in
front. A great tulip tree sheltered the low roof, and behind the garden
rolled the green billows of the pine woods. It was a lonely, but very
beautiful spot, such as a man like Mason would be likely to select as a
home for his beloved ones.
Here, in fact, this good man had left his wife and only child, the
latter a charming little golden-haired creature of four years old, when
he sailed for St. Domingo in the brig Floyd, which we know to have been
left disabled and drifting on the ocean. The vessel had been absent six
weeks beyond its time, and no intelligence had yet reached her owners or
that anxious woman, regarding her fate. This voyage had been Mason's
first experience as captain; his little savings had been invested in a
private venture, out of which he hoped to provide something--beforehand,
to use his own words--for his wife and little one.
Mrs. Mason was both sad and anxious--sad from the gloom of hope
deferred, and anxious because the little provision made for her support
had melted away, leaving her almost in want. She was sitting in her neat
parlor, with one of the little girl's garments in her hands, sighing
heavily with each drawing of the thread, when a knock sounded at the
door.
She stopped, with the needle half through her work, and listened. Of
course, _he_ would never have paused to knock at his own door, but then,
the very thought of this wild possibility suspended her breath.
Again the knock sounded, and the young wife called out with her usual
hospitable voice,
"Come in."
The door opened, and a female entered, wrapped in a dark red cloak--the
hood of which she put modestly back, revealing as fair a face as you
often look upon in an entire lifetime.