_Our debt to William C. Westbury_
Before going deeper into this history I think I ought definitely to
introduce William C. Westbury, who sold us the place. How few and
lagging would have been our accomplishments without Westbury; how
trifling seems our repayment as I review the years. Not only did he sell
us the house, but he made its habitation possible; you will understand
this as the pages pass.
Westbury was a native of natives. By a collateral branch he, like his
wife, had descended from our original owners, the ancient and honorable
Meeker stock, who had acquired from the Crown a grant of one of the long
lots (so called because, although of limited width, they had each a
shore front on Long Island Sound) a fifteen-mile stretch of wood and
hill and running water. His own homestead at the foot of the hill--the
old-fashioned white house already mentioned--had been built a generation
or two after ours, when with prosperity, or at least the means of easier
accomplishment, the younger stock had gone in for a more pretentious
setting.
Whatever there was to know about Brook Ridge, Westbury knew--an all-wide
Providence could scarcely know more. He knew every family, its history
and inter-relationships. His favorite diversion was to take up and
pursue some genealogical thread, to follow its mazy meanderings down the
generations, dropping in curious bits of unwritten history--some of it
spicy enough, some of it boisterously funny, some of it somber and
gruesome, but all of it alive with the very color and savor of the land
that was a part of himself, his inheritance from the generations of
sturdy pioneers. Possibly Westbury's history was not always authentic,
but if at times he drew on his imagination he tapped a noble source, for
his narrative flowed clear, limpid, refreshing, and inexhaustible. When
the days grew cooler and a fire was going in the big chimney, Westbury
would drop in and, pulling up a big chair, would take out his knife and,
selecting a soft, straight-grained piece of pine kindling, would whittle
and look into the fire while he unwound the skein that threaded through
the years from Azariah Meeker, or Ahab Todd, down to the few and
scattering remnants that still flecked the huckleberry hills.
But I run ahead of my story--it is a habit. It was Westbury's practical
knowledge that first claimed our gratitude. It was complete and
infallible. He knew every horse and horned beast and vehicle in the
township, and had owned most of them, for he was an inveterate trader.
He knew their exact condition and capabilities, and those of their
owners--where we could get just the right man and team to do our fall
plowing; where we could hire a yoke of oxen if needed; where, in the
proper season, we could buy a cow. He introduced me to a man whose
specialty was cutting brush, because he had heavy, stooped shoulders and
preternaturally long, powerful arms--a sort of anthropoid specimen who
wielded a keen one-handed ax that cut a sizable sapling clean through
at one stroke. He produced a carpenter properly qualified for repairs on
an old house, because he had always lived in one and had been repairing
it most of the time since childhood. He found us the right men to clean
our well, to do our painting, to trim and rehabilitate our frowsy
door-yard. He took me in his buggy to see some of these men; the rest he
sent for. If you have ever undertaken a job like ours you have a pretty
good idea of our debt to William C. Westbury.
And this was not all--oh, by no means! Westbury kept cows, in those
days, and made an almost daily trip with milk to the nearest sizable
town, by virtue of which he became the natural purchasing agent of the
thousand and one things we needed in that day of our beginning, and the
most reliable and efficient I have ever known. Nothing was too small or
too big for Westbury to remember, and I can see him now swing his team
up to the front step and hear him call out, "Hey, there!" as a
preparation to unloading crockery and tinware, dry-goods and notions,
garden tools and food-stuff, his wagon full, his pockets full, without
ever an oversight or a poor selection. If you have ever lived in the
country you know what a thing like that is worth. It was my opinion that
Westbury was a genius, and he has since proved it.
But I am still going too fast. The family did not immediately come to
Brook Ridge, and perhaps I should say here that the "family," besides
Elizabeth, consisted of three hardy daughters, whom I shall name as the
Pride, the Hope, and the Joy, aged twelve, seven, and two, respectively.
They were boarding at a pleasant farm some twenty miles away, and it was
thought advisable for them to remain there with Elizabeth a week or such
a matter while I came over and stopped with Westbury and his capable
wife, to get things started.