How a Stately Name Was Shortened and Sweetened.
It was on the morrow after my birthday that we became finally convinced of
the French retreat. Mr. Stewart had returned from his journeys, contented,
and sat now, after his hot supper, smoking by the fire. I lay at his feet
on a bear-skin, I remember, reading by the light of the flames, when my
aunt brought the baby-girl in.
During the week that she had been with us, I had been too much terrified
by the menace of invasion to take much interest in her, and Mr. Stewart
had scarcely seen her. He smiled now, and held out his hands to her. She
went to him very freely, and looked him over with a wise, wondering
expression when he took her on his knee. It could be seen that she was
very pretty. Her little white rows of teeth were as regular and pearly as
the upper kernels on an ear of fresh sweet corn. She had a ribbon in her
long, glossy hair, and her face shone pleasantly with soap. My aunt had
made her some shoes out of deer-hide, which Mr. Stewart chuckled over.
"What a people the Dutch are!" he said, with a smile. "The child is
polished like the barrel of a gun. What's your name, little one?"
The girl made no answer, from timidity I suppose.
"Has she no name? I should think she would have one," said I. It was the
first time I had ever spoken to Mr. Stewart without having been addressed.
But my new position in the house seemed to entitle me to this much
liberty, for once.
"No," he replied, "your aunt is not able to discover that she has a
name--except that she calls herself Pulkey, or something like that."
"That is not a good name to the ear," I said, in comment.
"No; doubtless it is a nickname. I have thought," he added, musingly, "of
calling her Desideria."
I sat bolt upright at this. It did not become me to protest, but I could
not keep the dismay from my face, evidently, for Mr. Stewart
laughed aloud.
"What is it, Douw? Is it not to your liking?"
"Y-e-s, sir--but she is such a very little girl!"
"And the name is so great, eh? She'll grow to it, lad, she'll grow to it.
And what kind of a Dutchman are you, sir, who are unwilling to do honor to
the greatest of all Dutchmen? The Dr. Erasmus upon whose letters you are
to try your Latin this winter--his name was Desiderius. Can you tell what
it means? It signifies 'desired,' as of a mother's heart, and he took a
form of the Greek verb _erao_, meaning about the same thing, instead. It's
a goodly famous name, you see. We mean to make our little girl the truest
lady, and love her the best, of all the women in the Valley. And so we'll
give her a name--a fair-sounding, gracious, classical name--which no
other woman bears, and one that shall always suggest home love--eh, boy?"
"But if it be so good a name, sir," I said, gingerly being conscious of
presumption, "why did Dr. Erasmus not keep it himself instead of turning
it into Greek?"
My patron laughed heartily at this. "A Dutchman for obstinacy!" he said,
and leaned over to rub the top of my head, which he did when I specially
pleased him.
Late that night, as I lay awake in my new room, listening to the whistling
of the wind in the snow-laden branches outside, an idea came to me which I
determined to put into action. So next evening, when the little girl was
brought in after our supper, I begged that she might be put down on the
fur before the fire, to play with me, and I watched my opportunity. Mr.
Stewart was reading by the candles on the table. Save for the singing of
the kettle on the crane--for the mixing of his night-drink later on--and
the click of my aunt's knitting-needles, there was perfect silence. I
mustered my bravery, and called my wee playmate "Daisy."
I dared not look at the master, and could not tell if he had heard or not.
Presently I spoke the name again, and this time ventured to steal an
apprehensive glance at him, and fancied I saw the workings of a smile
repressed in the deep lines about his mouth. "A Dutchman for obstinacy"
truly, since two days afterward Mr. Stewart himself called the girl
"Daisy"--and there was an end of it. Until confirmation time, when she
played a queenly part at the head of the little class of farmers' and
villagers' daughters whom Dominie Romeyn baptized into full communion,
the ponderous Latin name was never heard of again. Then it indeed emerged
for but a single day, to dignify a state occasion, and disappeared
forever. Except alone on the confirmation register of the Stone Church at
Caughnawaga, she was Daisy thenceforth for all time and to all men.
The winter of 1757-58 is still spoken of by us old people as a season of
great severity and consequent privation. The snow was drifted over the
roads up to the first branches of the trees, yet rarely formed a good
crust upon which one could move with snow-shoes. Hence the outlying
settlements, like Cherry Valley and Tribes Hill, had hard work to
get food.
I do not remember that our household stood in any such need, but
occasionally some Indian who had been across the hills carrying venison
would come in and rest, begging for a drink of raw rum, and giving forth a
strong smell like that of a tame bear as he toasted himself by the fire.
Mr. Stewart was often amused by these fellows, and delighted to talk with
them as far as their knowledge of language and inclination to use it went,
but I never could abide them.
It has become the fashion now to be sentimental about the red man, and
young people who never knew what he really was like find it easy to extol
his virtues, and to create for him a chivalrous character. No doubt there
were some honest creatures among them; even in Sodom and Gomorrah a few
just people were found. It is true that in later life I once had occasion
to depend greatly upon the fidelity of two Oneidas, and they did not fail
me. But as a whole the race was a bad one--full of laziness and lies and
cowardly ferocity. From earliest childhood I saw a good deal of them, and
I know what I say.
Probably there was no place on the whole continent where these Indians
could be better studied than in the Mohawk Valley, near to Sir William's
place. They came to him in great numbers, not only from the Six Nations,
but often from far-distant tribes living beyond the Lakes and north of the
St. Lawrence. They were on their best behavior with him, and no doubt had
an affection for him in their way, but it was because he flattered their
egregious vanity by acting and dressing in Indian fashion, and made it
worth their while by constantly giving them presents and rum. Their liking
seemed always to me to be that of the selfish, treacherous cat, rather
than of the honest dog. Their teeth and claws were always ready for your
flesh, if you did not give them enough, and if they dared to strike. And
they were cowards, too, for all their boasting. Not even Sir William could
get them to face any enemy in the open. Their notion of war was midnight
skulking and shooting from behind safe cover. Even in battle they were
murderers, not warriors.
In peace they were next to useless. There was a little colony of them in
our orchard one summer which I watched with much interest. The men never
did one stroke of honest work all the season long, except to trot on
errands when they felt like it, and occasionally salt and smoke fish
which they caught in the river.
But the wretched squaws--my word but _they_ worked enough for both! These
women, wrinkled, dirty, sore-eyed from the smoke in their miserable huts,
toiled on patiently, ceaselessly, making a great variety of wooden
utensils and things of deer-hide like snow-shoes, moccasins, and shirts,
which they bartered with the whites for milk and vegetables and rum. Even
the little girls among them had to gather berries and mandrake, and, in
the fall, the sumach blows which the Indians used for savoring their food.
And if these poor creatures obtained in their bartering too much bread and
milk and too little rum and tobacco, they were beaten by their men as no
white man would beat the meanest animal.
Doubtless much of my dislike for the Indian came from his ridiculous and
hateful assumption of superiority over the negro. To my mind, and to all
sensible minds I fancy, one simple, honest, devoted black was worth a
score of these conceited, childish brutes. I was so fond of my boy Tulp,
that, even as a little fellow, I deeply resented the slights and cuffs
which he used to receive at the hands of the savages who lounged about in
the sunshine in our vicinity. His father, mother, and brothers, who herded
together in a shanty at the edge of the clearing back of us, had their
faults, no doubt; but they would work when they were bid, and they were
grateful to those who fed and clothed and cared for them. These were
reasons for their being despised by the Indians--and they seemed also
reasons why I should like them, as I always did.
There were other reasons why I should be very fond of Tulp. He was a
queer, droll little darky as a boy, full of curious fancies and comical
sayings, and I never can remember a time when he would not, I veritably
believe, have laid down his life for me. We were always together, indoors
or out. He was exceedingly proud of his name, which was in a way a badge
of ancient descent--having been borne by a long line of slaves, his
ancestors, since that far-back time when the Dutch went crazy over
collecting tulip-bulbs.
His father had started in life with this name, too, but, passing into the
possession of an unromantic Yankee at Albany, had been re-christened
Eli--a name which he loathed yet perforce retained when Mr. Stewart bought
him. He was a drunken, larcenous old rascal, but as sweet-tempered as the
day is long, and many's the time I've heard him vow, with maudlin tears in
his eyes, that all his evil habits came upon him as the result of changing
his name. If he had continued to be Tulp, he argued, he would have had
some incentive to an honorable life; but what self-respecting nigger could
have so low-down a name as Eli, and be good for anything? All this
warranted my boy in being proud of his name, and, so to speak, living
up to it.
I have gossiped along without telling much of the long winter of 1757. In
truth, there is little to tell. I happen to remember that it was a season
of cruel hardship to many of our neighbors. But it was a happy time for
me. What mattered it that the snow was piled outside high above my head;
that food in the forest was so scarce that the wolves crept yelping close
to our stockade; that we had to eat cranberries to keep off the scurvy,
until I grew for all time to hate their very color; or that for five long
months I never saw my mother and sisters, or went to church? It was very
pleasant inside.
I seem still to see the square, home-like central room of the old house,
with Mr. Stewart's bed in one corner, covered with a great robe of pieced
panther skins. The smoky rafters above were hung with strings of onions,
red-peppers, and long ears of Indian corn, the gold of which shone through
pale parted husks and glowed in the firelight. The rude home-made table,
chairs, and stools stood in those days upon a rough floor of hewn planks,
on projecting corners of which an unlucky toe was often stubbed. There
were various skins spread on this floor, and others on the log walls, hung
up to dry. Over the great stone mantel were suspended Mr. Stewart's guns,
along with his sword and pistols. Back in the corners of the fireplace
were hung traps, nets, and the like, while on the opposite side of the
room was the master's bookcase, well filled with volumes in English,
Latin, and other tongues. Three doors, low and unpanelled, opened from
this room to the other chambers of the house--leading respectively to the
kitchen, to my room, and to the room now set apart for my aunt and
little Daisy.
No doubt it was a poor abode, and scantily enough furnished, judged by
present standards, but we were very comfortable in it, none the less. I
worked pretty hard that winter on my Latin, conning Caesar for labor and
Dr. Erasmus for play, and kept up my other studies as well, reading for
the first time, I remember, the adventures of Robinson Crusoe. For the
rest, I busied myself learning to make snow-shoes, to twist cords out of
flax, to mould bullets, and to write legibly, or else played with
Daisy and Tulp.
To confess how simply we amused ourselves, we three little ones, would be
to speak in an unknown tongue, I fear, to modern children. Our stock of
playthings was very limited. We had, as the basis of everything, the
wooden works of the old clock, which served now for a gristmill like that
of the Groats, now for a fort, again for a church. Then there were the
spindles of a discarded spinning-wheel, and a small army of spools which
my aunt used for winding linen thread. These we dressed in odd rags for
dolls--soldiers, Indians, and fine ladies, and knights of old. To our
contented fancy, there was endless interest in the lives and doings of
these poor puppets. I made them illustrate the things I read, and the
slave boy and tiny orphan girl assisted and followed on with equal
enthusiasm, whether the play was of Alexander of Macedon, or Captain Kidd,
or only a war-council of Delaware Indians, based upon Mr. Colden's book.
Sometimes, when it was warm enough to leave the hearth, and Mr. Stewart
desired not to be disturbed, we would transport ourselves and our games to
my aunt's room. This would be a dingy enough place, I suppose, even to my
eyes now, but it had a great charm then. Here from the rafters hung the
dried, odoriferous herbs--sage, summer-savory, and mother-wort; bottles of
cucumber ointment and of a liniment made from angle-worms--famous for cuts
and bruises; strings of dried apples and pumpkins; black beans in their
withered pods; sweet clover for the linen--and I know not what else
besides. On the wall were two Dutch engravings of the killing of Jan and
Cornelis de Wit by the citizens of The Hague, which, despite their hideous
fidelity to details, had a great fascination for me.
My childhood comes back vividly indeed to me as I recall the good old
woman, in her white cap and short gown (which she had to lift to get at
the pocket tied over her petticoat by a string to her waist), walking up
and down with the yarn taut from the huge, buzzing wheel, crooning Dutch
hymns to herself the while, and thinking about our dinner.