the pomace which was shoveled out there year after year.
The loft, over the part where the cider-mill was, was the corn-house. I
went up over the wide plank stairs and looked around.
Traces of snapping-corn and of white-pudding corn were hanging over a
pole at one end. A large chest, filled with different kinds of beans,
stood at one side. On the plates which supported the rafters, marks made
in this wise--[Symbol: Tally mark of 5]--told of the bushels of corn
carried up there and spread on the clean, white floor.
These marks had been made by many hands, and I wondered where they were
now. Some undoubtedly were sleeping the
"Sleep that knows not breaking:
Morn of toil, nor night of waking."
Others, perhaps, were making their mark somewhere else.
"Independence Day," as Mr. Wetherell called it, was observed in a very
liberal manner on the farm. A lamb was slaughtered, green peas were
picked, and a plum-pudding made.
Lemonade, made of sparkling spring water, was a common drink. Mr.
Wetherell told me how his father always kept the day. He brought out the
large blue punchbowl and square cut-glass decanters, which his father
used on such occasions.
The next morning after the Fourth, I started out through the field for
the pasture. The grass was tall, and it waved gently in the morning
breeze. The whiteweed and clover sent forth an agreeable perfume. In the
low ground buttercups were shining like gold dollars, sprinkled through
the tall herdsgrass. Yellow-weed, the farmer's scourge, held up its
brown and yellow head in defiance.
On a knoll, a little before I reached the graveyard, I passed over a
piece of ground where the winter had killed the grass roots. Here I
found sorrel, cinque-foil, and a few bunches of blue-eyed grass growing.
Nature seemed to try to conceal the barrenness of the spot with beauty.
It was a grave, decorated.
Off to my right, in a piece of rank grass, where branches of dock had
sprung up, bobolinks were swinging the pale, green sprays, filling the
air with melody. "Bobolink, bobolink, spirk, spank, spink, chee, chee,
chee!"
I knew that "Mrs. Robert of Lincoln" was sitting contentedly on her
little round nest, under a tuft of grass, very near the sweet singer. I
paused at the graveyard, and looked over the wall. I read: "Margaret and
Frances Wetherell, daughters of John and Hannah Wetherell, aged 18 and
20 years." I knew these were the girls who had died of the fever; a twin
gravestone had been put up to their graves. Another stone told of a
little girl, two and a half years old--Catherine. I reckoned up the
date, and had she been living, she would have been over forty years old.
Many other stones stood there, but I left them without reading the
inscriptions, and hastened on to the pines.
I stepped over the low wall between the field and pasture and walked
down by the brook until I came to the Stony Bridge. This I crossed and
followed up on the broad wheelpath. The pines smelled so sweet: the
grass was short and green: everything seemed calm and cool. I sat down
by a large Norway pine and watched the birds. Right below me I saw a
fox-hole, with the entrance so barricaded with sticks and stones, that I
felt very sure poor Reynard must have been captured unless he dug out
somewhere else. I began to walk around. Six or seven feet to the south
of the besieged door, I discovered another entrance. I don't know
whether some animal was still living in the old house, or no: but this
hole looked as if it were used. A little pine grew in front, a juniper
made its roof and spread its fine branches over the door, squaw vines
and checkerberry leaves grew on either side.
I walked on in the wheelpath. On the north side many tall Norway pines
were growing, with white pines scattered here and there. Crimson
polygalas were carpeting the ground in open spaces; pale anemones and
delicate star-flowers were still blooming under the protection of small
pines; wild strawberries were blossoming in cold places; and I wondered
when they would fruit.
Finally I came to an open field, or what looked like land that had been
cultivated. Hosts of bluets and plots of mouse-ear everlasting, had
taken possession of the land. Small pines were scattered here and there,
like settlers in a new country. Junipers were creeping stealthily in, as
if expecting the axe. There were traces of where a fence had run along.
I concluded that this was years ago a field, but now the cows roamed
over it at will.
Going around in the edge of the woods I came to four pines growing from
one root; two grew on each side close together, and left a fine seat
between the pairs. I sat down there, and felt thankful that I was
living, and that my abiding-place was among the granite hills of New
England.
Soon I saw something move a few rods beyond me in the woods. I looked
again and saw the finest woodchuck I ever saw. He stood in a listening
attitude. I suppose he had heard me, but had not seen me. His fur was
yellow and brown mixed; his nose and feet were black; his countenance
was expressive of lively concern. He disappeared and I left my sylvan
seat, and walked up where the woodchuck had been standing. I found his
home and numerous little tracks around the door. I hastened off, because
I feared my presence would worry him.
I knew it must be near noontime, so I began to retrace my way. I walked
up through the pasture and passed the "Great Ledge." This ledge was on
the side of a steep hill. One side of it was perpendicular thirty feet.
It was covered with crisp, gray moss. In the chinks and crannies on the
top, short grass was growing in little bunches.
As I followed down in the lane which led from the pasture to the
cow-yard, striped squirrels were playfully skipping through the
dilapidated wall, coming out, and disappearing; sitting down and putting
their forefeet up to their faces as if they were convulsed with laughter
to think how the old black-and-white cat had gone to sleep lying on the
wall in the sun, only a few rods below them.
Dinner was ready, as I expected. I told Mrs. Wetherell of my walk over
the Stony Bridge.
"Yes," she said. "Years ago, when I kept geese, one night I went out to
feed them and I found that they hadn't come. I knew something must be
the matter. I started for the brook. When I got out on the hill by the
graveyard, I heard the gander making an awful noise. I hurried on, and,
when I got to the corner of the field, I found a fox jumping at the old
gander as he was walking back and forth in front of the geese and
goslings. I screeched and the fox run. The geese came right up to me. I
was pretty pleased to save them. I had two geese and thirteen goslings
beside the gander."
I said: "Is that a ledge out in the field where sumachs and birches are
growing?"
Mrs. Wetherell said: "Yes; and that piece of ground is where Father
Wetherell raised the last piece of flax. I don't suppose you ever saw
any growing?"
"No," I said. "Only in gardens. A field must be very handsome."
"Yes, the flower is a bluish purple, with a little yellow dot in the
middle."
I asked her when they cut it.
"O, they never cut it; they pulled it after the seeds got ripe; then
they would beat the seeds out of the pods. These pods look like little
varnished balls. When the seed was out, the flax was laid in a wet place
in the field for weeks; occasionally the men would turn it over. When it
was well rotted they dried it and put it up in the barn until March.
Then Father Wetherell would take it down and brake it in the brake.
After that he would swingle it over a swingling-board, with a long
knife; then he made it into hands of flax. The women used to take it
next and comb it through a flax-comb; this got out all the shives and
tow. There was a tow which came out when it was swingled, called swingle
tow. Mother Wetherell said that, years before, when she was young she
used to use this to make meal-bags and under-bedticks of. But I never
used any of it."
I asked her how they used the flax after it was combed.
"Then it was wound onto the distaff."
"What was that?" Mrs. Wetherell smiled at my ignorance, but proceeded
kindly to explain.
"A distaff was made of a small pine top. They peeled off the bark, and
when it was dry, tied down the ends, and put the other end onto the
standard of the wheel. Then they would commence and wind on the flax. A
hand of flax would fill it. I used to be a pretty good hand to spin tow
on a big wheel, but I never could spin linen very even. Old Aunt Joanna
used to spin linen thread; and Mother Wetherell used to buy great skeins
of her. She said it was cheaper to buy than to spend so much time
spinning."
Mrs. Wetherell told me that I should go up in the garret and see the
wheels and all the old machinery used so long ago.
That evening I asked Mr. Wetherell: "Has there ever been a field beyond
the pines?"
"Yes," he said: "Father cleared that piece nigh onto eighty year ago. We
always called it 'the field back of the pines.' When father got old, and
I kinder took the lead, I said we better turn that field out into the
paster. He felt bad about it at first, but when I told him how much work
it was to haul the manure over there, and the crops back, he gave in.
Them Norrerway pines are marster old; I s'pose they'd stood there a
hundred and fifty year."
I felt a thrill of pity for the old man, now at rest. He must have been
nearly at the base of life's western slope, when he rescued those few
acres from the forest. The little field was his pride, I think it ought
to have been left, while he lived.
One morning when Lucy, as Mrs. Wetherell called her, was washing at the
farm, she said to me: "Did you ever have your fortin told?" I answered,
"No."
"Well," she said, "I dunno as I b'lieve all they say, but some can tell
pretty well. Did you ever try any projects?"
"No. How is that done?" I asked.
"O! there's ever so many! One is, you pick two of them big thistles
'fore they are bloomed out, then you name 'em and put 'em under your
piller; the one that blooms out fust will be the one you will marry.
'Nuther one is to walk down cellar at twelve o'clock at night,
backwards, with a looking-glass in your hand. You will see your man's
face in the glass. But there! I don't know as its best to act so. You
know how Foster got sarved?"
"No. How was it?"
"Why! Didn't you never hear? Well, Foster told the Devil if he would let
him do and have all he wanted for so many year, when the time was out,
he would give himself, soul and body, to the Devil. He signed the
writing with his blood; Foster carried on a putty high hand, folks was
afear'd of him. When the time was up, the Devil came: I guess they had a
tough battle. Folks said they never heard such screams, and in the
morning his legs and arms was found scattered all over the cowyard."
I recognized in this tragic story, Marlowe's Faustus. I was much amused
at Lucy's rendering.
A few weeks afterwards she told me how the house where she lived was
haunted. I asked her, "Who haunts it?"
"Why!" she said, "it's a woman. She walks up and down them old stairs,
dressed in white, looking so sorrowfullike, I know there must have been
foul play. And then such noises as we hear overhead! My man says that
it's rats. Rats! I know better!"
I thought that Lucy wanted to believe in ghosts, so I didn't try to
reason with her,--
"For a man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still."
Lucy was quite an old woman; and I used to think that washing was too
hard work for her; but she seemed very happy. All the while she was
rubbing the clothes over the wooden washboard, or wringing them out with
her hands, she would be singing old-fashioned songs, such as Jimmy and
Nancy, Auld Robin Gray, and another one beginning "In Springfield
mountain there did dwell." It was very sad!
These songs were chanted, all in one tune. If the words had not been
quaint, and suggestive of a century or more ago, I think the
entertainment would have been monotonous,
Lucy brought the news of the neighborhood. One morning she came in, and
said: "John King's folks thinks an awful sight of themselves, sence
Calline has been off. She has sot herself up marsterly. They have gone
to work now and painted all the trays and paint-kags they can find red,
and filled them with one thing another, and set them round the house. No
good will come of that! When you see every thing painted red, look out
for war; it's a sure sign."
One evening late in summer, when I came in from a walk through the
fields, I found in the back porch all the implements for cheese-making.
Mrs. Wetherell said: "It's too warm to make butter, now dog-days have
come in, so I am going to make cheese."
That night all the milk was strained into the large tub. The next
morning this milk was stirred and the morning's milk strained into it.
Then Mrs. Wetherell warmed a kettleful and poured into the tub, and
tried it with her finger to see if it was warm enough. She said: "My
rennet is rather weak, so I have to use considerable."
After she had turned the rennet in, she laid the cheese-tongs across the
tub, and spread a homespun tablecloth over it, and looking up to me, she
said: "In an hour or so that will come."
I made it my business, when the hour was out, to be back in the porch.
Mrs. Wetherell was stirring up the thick white curd, and dipping out the
pale green whey, with a little wooden dish. After she had "weighed it,"
she mixed in salt thoroughly. She asked me to hand her her cheese-hoop
and cloth, which were lying on the table behind me. She put one end of
the cloth into the hoop and commenced filling it with curd, pressing it
down with her hand. When it was nearly full she slipped up the hoop a
little: "to give it a chance to press," she said. After this, she put
the cheese between two cheese-boards, in the press, and began to turn
the windlass-like machine, to bring the weights down.
"Now," said she, "I shall let this stay in press all day, then I shall
put it in pickle for twenty-four hours. The next night I shall rub it
dry with a towel, and put it up in the cheese-room. Now comes the
tug-o'-war! I have to watch them close to keep the flies out."
The forerunners of autumn had already touched the hillsides, and my
thoughts were turning homeward, when one Saturday morning Mr. Wetherell
came in and said: "Miss Douglass, don't you want to ride up to the
paster? I'm going up to salt the steers."
Mrs. Wetherell hastened to add: "Yes, you go; you hain't had a ride
since you been here. Old Darby ain't fast, but he's good."
Eagerly I accepted the invitation, and in a few minutes we set off.
Darby was a great strong white horse, with minute brown spots all over
him. Mr. Wetherell told me stories of all the people, as Darby shuffled
by their houses, raising a big cloud of dust.
When we came to a sandy stretch of road, Mr. Wetherell said: "This is
what we call the Plains. Here is where we used to have May trainings,
years and years ago. Once they had a sham-fight, and I thought I should
have died a-laughing. I was nothing but a boy. We always thought so much
of the gingerbread we got at training; I used to save my money to spend
on that day. Once, when I was about thirteen year old, a _passel_
of us boys got together to talk over training. Jim Barrows said that old
Miss Hammet (she lived over behind the hill there) had got a cake baked,
with plums in it, for training, and was going to have five cents a slice
for it. He said: 'Now, if the rest of you will go into the house and
talk with her, I will climb into the foreroom window, and hook the cake
out of the three-cornered cupboard.' We all agreed. I went in, and
commenced to talk with the old woman; some of the boys leaned up against
the door that opened into the foreroom. After a little while we went out
and met Jim, down by the spring, and we ate the cake. Some way a-nother
it didn't taste so good as we expected. There was an awful outscreech
when she found it out. Jim was a mighty smart fellar. He married a girl
from Cranberry Medder, and they went down East. I have heard that they
were doing fust-rate."
After riding for some time through low, woody places, where the grass
grew on each side of the horse's track, we came to the main traveled
road. Thistles were blooming and going to seed, all on one stock.
Flax-birds were flying among them filling the air with their sweet
notes. Soon we turned into a lane, and came to the pasture-bars, Mr.
Wetherell said: "You stay here with Darby, and I will drive the steers
up to the bars, and salt them."
I got out of the wagon, and unchecked Darby's head, and led him up to a
plot of white clover, to get a lunch. Nature seemed to have made an
uneven distribution of foretop and fetlock in Darby's case, his foretop
was so scanty and his fetlocks so heavy. A fringe of long hairs stood
out on his forelegs from his body to his feet, giving him quite a savage
look. As I looked down at his large flat feet, I felt glad that he
didn't have to travel over macadamized roads.
I sat down on some logs which were lying at one side, and listened to
the worms sawing away, under the bark.
Soon Mr. Wetherell came back with the steers, and dropped the salt down
in spots. We watched them lick it up.
I asked Mr. Wetherell why those logs were left there.
"O, Bascom is a poor, shiftless kind of a critter. I s'pose the snow
went off before he got ready to haul them to the mill; but if he had
peeled them in June or July, they would have been all right; but now
they will be about sp'iled by the worms."
Mr. Wetherell got Darby turned around after much backing and getting up,
for the lane was narrow, and we started homeward.
As we rode slowly along, Mr. Wetherell asked me: "Have you ever been to
the beach?"
I told him, "Yes, and I enjoyed it."
He said: "I always liked to go, but Mis' Wetherell has a dread of the
water, ever since her brother Judson was drowned."
"Was he a sailor?" I asked.
"Yes, he was a sea-capt'n. He married a Philadelphy woman, and they
sailed in the brig Florilla. She was wrecked on the coast of Ireland.
She run on a rock, and broke her in two amidships. Her cargo was cotton,
the bales floated in ashore, and formed a bridge for a second or so. The
first mate and one of the sailors ran in on this bridge, but the next
wave took them out and scattered them, and there was no way to save the
rest. Judson and his wife, and all the crew, except the mate and one
sailor, were all drowned. The mate stayed there for some time, and
buried the bodies which washed ashore. He found Judson's body first, and
had most given up finding his wife's, when one day she washed into a
little cove, and he buried them side by side. He came here to our house,
and told us all about it. It was awful. It completely upsot Mis'
Wetherell. Her health has been poor for a good many year. She has bad
neuralgy spells."
"Come, Darby, get up! you are slower than a growth of white oaks."
After several vigorous jerks, Darby started off at a long, swinging
gait, and we soon reached home.
Only once more did I watch the sun go down behind the western hills,
lighting them up with a flood of crimson light; while a tender, subdued
gleam rested for a moment on the eastern summits, like the gentle kiss a
mother gives her babe, when she slips him off her arm to have his nap.
* * * * *
THE BELLS OF BETHLEHEM.
[On hearing them in the hill country of New Hampshire, September, 1880.]
"The far-off sound of holy bells."
How the sweet chimes this Sunday morn,
'Mid autumn's requiem,
Across the mountain valleys borne,--
The bells of Bethlehem!
"Come join with us," they seem to say,
"And celebrate this hallowed day!"
Our hearts leap up with glad accord--
Judea's Bethlehem strain,
That once ascended to the Lord,
Floats back to earth again,
As round _our_ hills the echoes swell
To "God with us, Emanuel!"
O Power Divine, that led the star
To Mary's sinless Child!
O ray from heaven that beamed afar
And o'er his cradle smiled!
Help us to worship now with them
Who hailed the Christ at Bethlehem!
_James T. Fields, in The Granite Monthly._
* * * * *
[Illustration: Boston and Vicinity. _Compiled and Drawn by
Col. Carrington_]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON DEVELOPED.
BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U.S.A., LL.D.
[Author of The Battles of the American Revolution, etc.]
By order of the President of the United States, a national salute was
fired, at meridian, on the twenty-fourth day of December, 1883, as a
memorial recognition of the one hundreth anniversary of the surrender by
George Washington, on the twenty-third day of December, 1783, at
Annapolis, of his commission as commander-in-chief of the patriotic
forces of America. This official order declares "the fitness of
observing that memorable act, which not only signalized the termination
of the heroic struggle of seven years for independence, but also
manifested Washington's devotion to the great principle, that ours is a
civil government, of and by the people."
The closing sentence of Washington's order, dated April 18, 1783, may
well be associated with this latest centennial observance. As he
directed a cessation of hostilities, his joyous faith, jubilant and
prophetic, thus forecast the future: "Happy, thrice happy! shall they be
pronounced, hereafter, who have contributed anything, who have performed
the meanest office, in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and
empire, on the broad basis of independence,--who have assisted in
protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an asylum for
the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."
The two acts of Washington, thus associated, were but the fruition of
deliberate plans which were formulated in the trenches about Boston. The
"centennial week of years," which has so signally brought into bold
relief the details of single battles and has imparted fresh interest to
many localities which retain no visible trace of the scenes which endear
them to the American heart, has inclined the careless observer to regard
the battles of the War for Independence as largely accidental, and the
result of happy, or even of Providential, circumstances, rather than as
the fruit of well-considered plans which were shaped with full
confidence in success.
Battles and campaigns have been separated from their true relation to
the war, as a systematic conflict, in which the strategic issue was
sharply defined; and too little notice has been taken of the fact that
Washington took the aggressive from his first assumption of command. The
title "Fabius of America" was freely conferred upon him after his
success at Trenton; but there was a subtle sentiment embodied in that
very tribute, which credited him with the political sagacity of the
patriot and statesman, more than with the genius of a great soldier. All
contemporaries admitted that he was judicious in the use of the
resources placed at his command, that he was keen to use raw troops to
the best possible disposal, and took quick advantage of every
opportunity which afforded relief to his poorly-fed and poorly-equipped
troops, in meeting the British and Hessian regulars; but there were few
who penetrated his real character and rightly estimated the scope of his
strategy and the sublime grandeur of his faith.
The battles of that war (each is its place) have had their immediate
results well defined. To see, as clearly their exact place in relation
to the entire struggle, and that they were the legitimate sequence of
antecedent preparation, requires that the preparation itself shall be
understood.