doubtless, to an English paradise. His browbeaten wife had given up
the struggle many years before. The daughters, now elderly women, with
a long-concealed but unsubdued hatred born of years of tyrannical
browbeating and oppression, at once made a triumphal holocaust of many
of the cherished treasures of the British tyrant; and the first victim
doomed to destruction was the old English coach in which their English
grandmother had ridden in state through the country. This broken-down,
moth-eaten, rat-nibbled, cobweb and dirt-filled relic had stood unused
for fifty years--an abominable nuisance, an inconvenient obstruction,
a hated eyesore, in the carriage-house connected with their dwelling.
The Doctor had cherished it on account of its English birthplace; but
now its fate was sealed. As the first heavy blow of the destroying
iconoclastic axe struck the hated coach, a loud rattle as of falling
crockery was heard, and the executioner paused. A careful investigation
discovered an unknown compartment under the driver’s seat which had
been constructed for the purpose of hiding despatch-boxes and, perhaps,
the bride’s jewel-cases--and in this hiding-place were twenty-six
dirt-covered, dark-blue Staffordshire plates. A sudden light of
comprehension and recognition came into the faces of the sisters--here
were the long-lost pie-plates! The cantankerous old Doctor had craftily
arisen in the night, hobbled out silently, in spite of his gout,
thrown the carefully and daintily made Thanksgiving pies to the pigs,
stealthily packed the plates in the old coach, watched maliciously
the unsuccessful plate-search, kept silence throughout the despoiled
Thanksgiving dinner and through nearly forty pieless years, and died
triumphant.
Half of this treasure-trove, which the Doctor could hide, but, happily,
could not take with him, were the Dr. Syntax plates; and from that
half came my share. The other plates were of well-known English
views--Payn’s Hill, the City of Liverpool, Blenheim Castle, Fulham
Church-yard, Windsor Castle--no American views were on any of his
crockery; no landing of Lafayette, no State plates, were ever allowed
to grace that rank old Tory’s pantry.
Thus, one good, one noble result came from this “ugly trick”--the
hidden pie-plates were all saved unscratched, unbroken, for the
Doctor’s kinsfolk to-day, who, in gratitude for his unintentional
posthumous favor, suitably reward him by telling the story of his
spiteful midnight theft whenever we show the plates. And, moreover,
we wantonly and openly insulted and jeered at his memory and his
gastronomic laws by formally and derisively naming the dark-blue
salvage from the coach the Doctor’s Pie-plates.
MY DELFT APOTHECARY JARS
The circumstances under which I first saw my old Delft apothecary jars
were so painful, so mortifying, that for a long time I could not bear
even to think of them; but now, as years have passed and softened the
sharp lines, I will write account of that unique adventure.
We were one day, as was our wont, hunting in old Narragansett for
ancient china and colonial furniture, but even on that historic and
early-settled ground had met with scant success. At last, on an
out-of-the-way road, was found a clew.
We were driving slowly along, when the door of a long, low wood-shed
opened, and an elderly man walked out on the single broad stone step
and stood, in the lazy country fashion, staring openly and sociably at
us as we passed by. He had in one hand a piece of dark wood which he
was slowly rubbing with sand-paper. We had driven past his door when
my companion suddenly exclaimed: “That man had a claw-foot.”
“A claw-foot!” I answered in astonishment; “what do you mean?--a cloven
foot or a club-foot, perhaps?”
“No, you goose; that man had in his hand a claw-foot--the leg of a
chair, I am sure, and I am going back to see to what it belongs.”
So we whisked the pony around and drove to the door where the
claw-footed man still stood, and we then saw in the one dingy window a
small sign bearing the words
+------------------+
| ELAM CHADSEY |
| GENERAL REPAIRER |
+------------------+
“Are you Mr. Chadsey?” my fellow china-hunter asked. “We saw you with
something that looked old-fashioned in your hand, and we thought you
might have or know of some antique furniture or old crockery that the
owners would be willing to sell.”
“Wal, I ain’t got any to sell; I only mend furnitoor. I’ve got a couple
of tall clocks in here repairin’, but they ain’t mine, so I can’t sell
’em. N-o--I don’t know of none--except--What furnitoor do you want?”
“Oh, anything, almost, that is old, and china especially; any old blue
pie-plates or such things.”
Elam stood slowly rubbing his claw-foot and at last answered: “I
know some old blue-and-white crockery preserve-jars, or jell-pots,
ye might call ’em, which I ruther think ye could get ef ye want ’em.
Ye see, Abiel Hartshorn, he’s a widower an’ he’s a-goin’ ter marry a
school-marm up ter Collation Corners, an’ she’s got awful highty-tighty
notions, an’ he’s a-goin’ ter sell the farm, an’ she come down ter see
what things she wanted saved out of the house fur her. An’ Abiel’s
fust wife she had all these old blue-an’-white pots with letters on
’em, an’ some had long spouts, an’ she always kep’ her preserves an’
jelly an’ sweet pickles in ’em, an’ mighty handy they was too. An’
when this woman see ’em she was real pleased with ’em, but her brother
was along with her, and he’s a clerk in a drug-store, an’ he bust out
a-larfin’, an’ says he: ‘Them letters on them jell-pots means senna,
an’ jalap, an’ calomel, an’ sweet syrup of buckthorn, an’ lixypro, an’
lixylutis, an’ all sorts of bad-tastin’ medicines.’ An’ then she fired
right up, an’ says she: ‘I won’t have any of my preserves kep’ in them
horrid-tastin’ old medicine-bottles;’ so I guess Abiel would be glad
enough ter sell ’em fur most anything.”
We suspected at once that these “jell-pots” with blue lettering of the
names of drugs were Delft apothecary jars, and that the “ones with
spouts” were the old jars, so rarely seen, that are identical in shape
with the “siroop-pots” of Dutch museums. When the Dutch used these jars
a century or more ago, they covered the open top with tightly tied
oilskin and poured the contents from the spout, which at other times
was kept carefully corked. By what strange, roundabout journey had
these Delft jars strayed to that New England farm? We asked eagerly
where we could see the despised “jell-pots.”
“Abiel’s house is about two mile from here by the road. I tell ye what
ye can do. Ye may as well see ’em now’s ever. I’ll walk cross-lots an’
you drive there. Go on down the road a piece an’ turn the fust road ter
the right. ’Tain’t much of a road--it’s kind of a lane. Go on to the
fust house ye come to. I’d better come, ’cause mebbe Abiel wouldn’t
let ye see ’em ef ye went alone.”
We left him and drove on and down through the narrow, grass-grown lane.
When we reached the old gray farm-house we found it deserted and still,
so we sat down on the stone doorstep and waited for Elam Chadsey, and
soon he climbed over the stone wall before us.
“Ain’t Abiel at hum? All the better! We’ll go in ’n’ see the
preserve-jars, an’ then he won’t know any city folks want ’em an’ won’t
put the price up on ye.”
He prowled around the house, trying in vain to open first the doors and
then the windows, but to his amazement he found all carefully locked.
“The ninny!” he said, indignantly, “he ain’t got nothin’ to steal! What
did he lock up fur? I never heard of such a thing--lockin’ up in the
daytime; it makes me mad. The dresser stan’s right in that room and
them jars is on top of it; ef ye could only see in that window ye could
look right at it, then ye’d know whether ye wanted ’em or not.”
“Isn’t there anything I could climb up on?” doubtfully I asked.
He searched in the wood-shed for a ladder, but with no success. At last
he called out: “I guess ef you two’ll help me a little we can pull this
around fur ye to stand on.”
“This” was a hen-coop or hen-house, evidently in present use as a
hen-habitation. Its sides were about four feet high, and from them ran
up a pointed roof, the highest peak of which was about five feet and a
half from the ground.
“There,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, as he pushed it under the
window, “ef ye can git up an’ stan’ on that ye can see in.
Then”--vindictively--“we’ll leave it here fur Abiel to drag back
himself, to pay him fur bein’ such a gump as to lock his doors. I guess
it’ll hold ye, ef ye are pretty hefty.”
I may as well state the annoying fact that to be “pretty hefty” is
a great drawback in searches after “antiques.” You cannot climb up
narrow, steep ladders and through square holes into treasure-holding
attic-lofts, as may a slender antique-hunter. You must remain patiently
below and let her shout down, telling and describing what is above. It
is such a trial to an explorer to have to explore by proxy, especially
when you know you could discover more than anyone else could. I
determined that “heft” should be no obstacle to me in this case, though
the hen-house did look rather steep and high; and I bravely started to
climb. I placed one knee, then the other, and then my feet upon the
ledge at the edge of the roof, while Elam Chadsey pushed. He weighed
about one hundred pounds, and was thin, wizened, and wrinkled to the
last New England degree. He braced his feet firmly in the ground, set
his teeth, and pushed with might and main. Alone I scaled the second
height. I had barely set my feet firmly on the peak of the roof, had
shaded my eyes from the sunlight with one hand, while I clung to
the window-frame with the other, had caught one glimpse of a row of
blue-and-white apothecary jars, when--crack!--smash! went the frail
roof under my feet, and down I went--down into the hen-house!
In spite of my distress of mind and my discomfort of body, one
impression overwhelmed all others--the anguish and consternation of
Elam Chadsey. He darted from side to side, exactly like a distracted
hen; he literally groaned aloud.
“Darn that gump of an Abiel Hartshorn! He’s the biggest fool in Rhode
Island--lockin’ up his house jest ’cause he’s goin’ away, an’ gettin’
us in this fix. Wait, miss, keep still, an’ I’ll see if I can find an
axe to chop ye out.”
Wait! keep still!--indeed I would--I couldn’t do otherwise. Off he
ran to the wood-shed, and soon came back madder than ever; he fairly
sizzled.
“Oh, the ninny! the big donkey! his axe is in the house. What do you
s’pose he locked it up fur? He’s a reg’lar wood-chuck! I’ll tell him
what I think on him. Ye ain’t hurted much, be ye, miss?”
“Oh, no,” I answered, calmly, “I’m all right as long as I keep still.
But if I try to move there are several big and very sharp splinters
that stick into me, and nails, too, I think--rusty nails, without
doubt, which will probably give me the lock-jaw. Oh, Mr. Chadsey, do
you suppose there are many eggs in this house?”
“Not many hull ones, I’ll bet. Oh, no”--very scornfully--“I s’pose
Abiel took ’em into the house to lock ’em up--the ninny. He’s the
biggest ninny I ever see. Do ye think, miss, if we could manage to tip
the hen-house over, that we could drag you out?”
“No,” I answered, vehemently, “the splinters are all pointing downward,
and if you try to pull me out they will all stick into me worse than
they do now. I have got to be chopped out of this trap, and you must
go home, or somewhere, or anywhere, and get an axe to do it. Take
our horse, and drive there, and do be careful when you go around the
corners, or the cart will upset--and do, oh, do hurry. You must both
go, our pony is so queer and tricky, and Mr. Chadsey might have trouble
with him. Now, don’t object, nothing can happen to me in my fortress.”
So, rather unwillingly, they drove off, Elam Chadsey muttering to
himself, “that Abiel Hartshorn’s the biggest ninny in Rhode Island.”
I was alone in my hen-house. I was not at all uncomfortable--while
I kept still--though I was “cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.” The true
china-hunting madness filled my brain as I thought of the row of fine
blue-and-white apothecary jars which would soon be mine, and other
thoughts were crowded out. The calm and quiet of the beautiful day also
soothed and cheered me in spite of myself. The wind sighed musically
through the great ancient pine-tree that stood near the house.
Flickering rays of glowing sunlight shone down on my head through the
feathery foliage of the locust-trees that filled the door-yard. A great
field of blossoming buckwheat wafted fresh balm in little puffs of
pure perfume. Bees hummed and buzzed around me, and a meadow-lark sung
somewhere near, sung and sung as if summer were eternal. A flood of
light and perfume and melody and warmth filled me with sensuous delight
in spite of my awkward imprisonment, and I fairly laughed aloud, and
frightened the hens and chickens that had come clucking round me in
inquisitive wonder at the removal and invasion of their home.
But my ill-timed and absurd sense of being in a summer paradise did
not last long, for I heard in a few minutes the loud clatter of wheels
coming down the lane from the opposite direction to that which had
been taken by the hurrying pair. Of course, I could not see, for I had
fallen with my face toward the house, and I did not like to try to turn
around--it inconvenienced the splinters so. The sound came nearer and
nearer, and at last I managed to move my head enough to see a country
horse and wagon with two men. Then I leaned my face on my folded arms,
and I hoped and prayed that they might drive past. But, to my horror,
to my intense mortification, they turned and came up the driveway and
underneath the shed of the Hartshorn house.
A great dog bounded around and stared at me. I heard around the corner
the murmuring sounds of suppressed laughter and eager questioning, of
which one sentence only came distinctly to my ears: “Queer sort of hens
you keep, Hartshorn;” and then the two men came round the house.
I hardly know what I said; I think it was this: “If you are Mr.
Hartshorn, I must beg your pardon for my sudden, impertinent, and most
unexpected intrusion on the privacy of your--hen-house” (here we all
three burst out laughing), “and I must ask if you will please get your
axe and chop up your own hen-house in order to get me out.”
Never speak to me again of Yankee inquisitiveness! Without asking one
question, Hartshorn ran into the house, brought out his hidden axe,
and while the boards were firmly held by the other man (who, alas! was
young and well-dressed, and who proved to be the city purchaser of
the farm), Abiel carefully chopped and split. I heroically bore this
undignified ordeal in silence, until at last I was released.
“Come into the house,” said Abiel, with wonderful hospitality to so
impertinent an intruder; “ye must be a leetle tired of standin’; come
in and sit down. Ye ain’t hurt much, air ye?”
“Oh, no,” I answered, “only some deep scratches; but let me explain to
you”--and I did explain with much self-abasement how I came to be fixed
in my absurd position.
In the meantime the distracted pair had obtained the axe and were on
their way back to the scene of disaster. As soon as they were within
a full view of the house my companion china-hunter burst forth: “Why,
she is gone! Where can she be? Do you suppose she has fainted and
sunk into the hen-house? No, I can see, it is empty; she has got out
of it somehow.” Then she jumped out of the cart, ran up the path and
through the open door, and found me sitting calmly talking with the
well-dressed young man.
From the kitchen we soon heard sounds of violent and vituperative
altercation.
“Abiel Hartshorn, yer the biggest fool I ever see. What did ye lock
yer house up in the daytime fur?”
“To keep out jest such pryin’ haddocks as you and them be.”
“Ye ain’t got nothin’ in it, anyway.”
“Then what did you and her want to peek in fur?”
“Such a rotten old hen-house I never see.”
“’Tain’t made as a platform fur to hold a woman of her size.”
“She don’t weigh much.”
“She do, too. Ye ain’t no judge of heft, Elam; ye don’t weigh enough
yerself.”
“What did yer lock up yer axe fur?”
“Ef I’d a-knowed yer’d a-wanted it so bad, I’d a-perlitely left it out
fur ye.”
“Wal, I never heard of sech a thing as lockin’ up a house in the
daytime, and yer axe, too--how could ye be such a fool? Say, Abiel, she
looked funny though, didn’t she?”
All’s well that ends well. Abiel, having sold the farm, was glad to
sell the roofless hen-house for two dollars, and he eagerly gave me the
drug-pots. The former antique was never claimed, and the blue-and-white
jars proved for many months too painful and too hateful a reminder to
have in sight. Now they stand on table and shelf--pretty posy-holders,
but severe and unceasing monitors. Their clear blue letters--“Succ: E,
Spin: C,” and “U: Althæ,” and “C: Rosar: R,” etc.--speak not to me of
drugs and syrups, of lohocks and electuaries; they are abbreviations
of various Biblical proverbs such as “Every fool will be meddling,”
“He taketh the wise in their own craftiness,” “Boast not thyself of
to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” “Let him
that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” etc. And the little
ill-drawn blue cherubs that further decorate the drug-pots seem always
to wink and to smirk maliciously at me, and to hold their fat sides
as though they were thinking of the first time they peeped at me and
jeered at me out of the window of the gray old farm-house as I stood
entrapped in my meddlesome folly in the sunlight under the beautiful
locust-trees in old Narragansett.
I cannot tell a romantic story of a further acquaintance with the
good-looking young man; I never saw him again, and I am sure I never
want to. Still, I know, ah, too well I know, that he often thinks of
me. On that susceptible masculine heart I made an impression at first
sight. When he welcomes visitors to his country-home I know he often
speaks of his first glimpse of the house--and of me. ’Tis pleasant
to feel my memory will ever bring to one face a cheerful smile, and
furnish a never-failing “good story”--nay, to three, for I know that
Elam Chadsey and Abiel Hartshorn both keep my memory green; that to
them my mishap was “argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a
good jest forever.”
THE DANCING TURKEY
In the States Papers office in London is a “propper ballad” entitled a
“Sommons to New England,” which was written about 1680. It alluringly
recites natural conditions in the colonies. One verse runs thus:
“There flights of foules doe cloud the light,
Of turkies three score pound in weight
As bigg as ostridges.”
All the early travellers in America confirm the vast weight of
these wild turkeys--Josselyn said sixty pounds. The turkey has not
grown larger by domestication, the wild birds are still finer and
more beautiful than the tame ones. All foreign epicures agree that
American turkeys are the best in the world. In America we make
fine distinctions, even in American turkeys; tastes differ with
localities. In some northern States no turkey is perfect unless
stuffed with chestnuts--that is, as food. In Louisiana he is gorged
with pecan-nuts. In South Carolina raw rice is your only prime
turkey-food. In Virginia wild persimmons give the turkey a tang that
gilds refined gold. The President of the United States, whoever he may
be, feasts every Thanksgiving Day on a Narragansett turkey fattened on
Narragansett grasshoppers--and I approve the President’s taste.
These Presidential turkeys, though great and fat, are not “as bigg as
ostridges;” but a Narragansett turkey with whom I was acquainted--as
Rosa Bonheur would say--fairly rivalled his ancestors of colonial days.
His name was Launcelot Gobbo; he was born, or rather hatched, on a
Narragansett farm. He was the joint property of Bill and Ralph Prime,
two farmer’s sons, fourteen and fifteen years of age, who, according
to the good old fashion in the Prime family, were given each year some
portion of the farm stock--a cosset lamb, a brood of chickens, a pig,
a cote of pigeons--to rear and sell, or keep as their very own. This
year their share of the farm-products was Launcelot Gobbo and his mate.
His name was given him by the village school-teacher, a young college
student who chanced to come frequently to call on the boy’s sister,
Mary Prime. Gobbo was chosen as their handsel because he was such a
mammoth turkey-chick, a nine-days’-old wonder; and by tender cherishing
he had fulfilled the great promise of his youth.
This great size had been aided by careful feeding, on a composite
diet, of Narragansett fashion, extended by Oriental suggestion. His
first food was such as all well-reared Narragansett turkeys have, milk
curdled with rennet, by which the gasps and stomach-ache so fatal to
turkey infancy were avoided. Then came the natural food-supply of
grasshoppers and Rhode Island whole corn. The Prime boys had few books
to read; among them were several dry and colorless memoirs of sainted
missionaries to the East. There was one nutritious kernel, however,
in one of these rustling husks of books; it was an account of the
preparation of locusts as food, the roasting, frying, and drying them
for grinding them into meal. Bill Prime was an inventive genius, a true
Yankee, ever ready to take a hint; moreover, he was animated by sincere
affection for his pet, and pride in his size; and as he read the
meagre missionary accounts he conceived the notion of supplying Gobbo
with his dearly loved grasshoppers after autumnal winds had chilled and
cleared the fields of vegetable and insect life.
It was not as easy a task to catch and dry these American grasshoppers
as Oriental locusts, but love laughs at limitations; just as Gobbo
laughed when his daily dole of grasshoppers was dealt out to him on
chill October and November mornings, with the Tallman sweetings that
formed his dessert. “Laugh and grow fat” is the old saying; and as
Gobbo laughed he also grew fat, and he waxed taller and taller. Ralph
thought Gobbo weighed thirty pounds; Bill set the weight at least five
pounds higher. As the turkey was full and rich of feather he looked to
me twice as large as any other I had ever seen; really big enough to
reach the seventeenth-century standard of “three score pound in weight.”
But Gobbo had other claims to consideration besides his size or his
distinguished name; he was an accomplished turkey--a trick-performer.
Like Shakespeare’s famous Gobbo for whom he was named, he “used his
heels at his master’s commands.” When Bill struck the ground near him
with a stick and called out “Dance, Gobbo, dance for the ladies,” and
set up a shrill fife-like whistle, Gobbo spread his great fan-like
tail, and nodded and bowed his head, and circled and hopped around
in exact time with the rapping of the stick, in the most pompous,
ridiculous, mirth-provoking caricature of a dance that ever was footed
or clawed. He posed before the whole town as a show-bird. Stolid
Narragansett farmers and fishermen for miles around came to see him,
and roared aloud at his dancing, which he had to exhibit every day in
the week. Even on Sunday, at the nooning, Bill proudly but secretly led
the neighbors’ boys home to the farm and behind the barn; though the
deacon sternly frowned on a Sunday dance, even by a turkey who had no
soul to be saved.
It was the second week of November; Gobbo was still growing and still
dancing, when one day a gayly painted vehicle with a smart horse came
dashing into town. The wagon had an enclosed box behind the chaise
front. It might be taken for a peddler’s cart or a patent-medicine
coach, but it was neither; it was the collecting-van of a Boston
“antique-man.” Persuasive, smiling, flattering, peering into every
kitchen, cupboard, and dresser, in every parlor closet, in every
bedroom and gabled attic, he gathered in his lucrative autumnal
harvest of brass andirons and candlesticks, of old blue dishes and
copper lustre pitchers, of harp-back chairs and spinning-wheels. He
débonnairly purchased two pewter porringers, a sampler, and an old
mirror of Mrs. Prime, while he effusively praised the farm and the
cattle. And as he partook of the apples and cider generously set
before him, he shouted with laughter at Gobbo, who proudly danced
for him again and again. As the early twilight began to lower, the
“antique-man” called out a cheerful good-night and drove away. Gobbo
also stalked off--and forever--from the Prime door-yard, for in the
morning he had vanished from the farm as completely as if he had
evaporated.
How the boys stormed and mourned! how fiercely they descended
on the “colored” Johnsons, more than suspected in the past of
chicken-stealing! how they hunted the woods and meadows! how they
fretted and fumed!--but to no avail. To check their worry and anger,
their mother sent them off to Boston to spend Thanksgiving week with
their married sister.
With the sea-loving curiosity of all boys, they haunted the wharves
and lower portions of the city, and on the day before Thanksgiving, as
they wandered up from the docks through a crowded and noisy street,
they joined a little group gathered around the show-window of a “dime
musee,” for in the window stood as a lure, a promise of treasures and
wonders within, an enormous turkey, penned in a wire coop, drooping of
feather, and listlessly feeding.