in the old wagon; after which Mitty's father and eldest brother pulled
off their coats, stripped up their shirt-sleeves, and went to work to
make a "clearing," as they called it, for a log house--felling the
trees, and cutting and burning the underbrush.
It took them a long while to hew down those fine old trees. I'm glad I
didn't see it done, for I should have sung out, with General Morris,
"Woodman! spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough,"--
for, a house, you know, can be put up by any carpenter who owns a set
of tools, but it takes many a long year of dew and sunshine to make
those grand old trees tower up to heaven.
However, it was all fine fun for Mitty, who sat on an old stump, with
her chin resting in her hands, watching to see the stout old trunk
stand like a rock against their heavy blows; then lean a little; then
creak, as if it were groaning with pain that its green branches must so
soon wither; then totter; then fall, crashing to the earth, like the
"giant" before little "David." Mitty liked it, though it was rather
dangerous sport; for, if the tree had fallen upon her pretty little
head, she never would have tossed back _her_ bright curls again.
Mitty was just the right sort of a Mitty for a little frontier girl.
She seemed to know just when to hand her father the axe, or the
hatchet, or the pick-axe; and just when they could rest a minute to
take a drink of water, or a mouthful of bread and cheese. She didn't
talk to them when they were busy, but amused herself making little log
houses, with chips, for her dolly. She didn't scream or run, if a snake
or a rabbit went over her foot; she was not all the time conjuring up
bears, and tigers, and raccoons, or catching hold of her father every
time she heard a little squirrel squeal;--not she--she loved
everything; and her soul looked out as fearlessly from her sweet blue
eyes, as if pain and danger and death had never followed the Serpent
into Eden.
Now, I suppose you are wondering what people so buried in the woods did
for stores, and shops, in which to buy things, and for meeting-houses
and newspapers.
In the first place, when they went there, they made up their minds that
silk dresses and ice-creams didn't grow on frontier bushes! and they
soon became astonished to find how many things there were that were not
at all necessary to their happiness, which they had always felt they
_could not do without_.
They kept a cow, and she found them in milk; they kept hens, and the
hens kept _them_ in eggs; they kept a pig, and the pig made no
objection to being cut up, whenever they got ready to eat him; then,
they brought meal and flour enough with them, to last till they could
plough the land, and raise corn and wheat of their own, which they
intended doing as soon as the log house should be raised over their
heads.
Oh, they got on famously. It was good, healthy work, this digging, and
hewing, and ploughing. It made the muscles on their arms stand out like
whip cords; it bronzed their pale faces, and made their eyes bright,
and gave them a good appetite for their bread and milk; and when they
went to bed, they didn't stop to see if the seam of the sheet was
exactly in the middle, or to count the feathers in the pillows under
their heads. They had neighbors (off in different directions); some
four miles away; some two; some six, and some eight. Not city neighbors
who shut themselves up in their great jails of houses, and wouldn't
care if a hearse stood before your door every day in the year. No,
indeed! They were warm-hearted country folks, with hearts as big as
their pumpkins. If you were out of meal, or molasses, or sugar, or tea,
you were welcome to borrow of them till you could spare time to send to
"the settlement" for some. That's the way _they_ lived. The men folks
had too many trees to cut down to keep tackling up the old oxen every
five minutes, and go "gee-hawing" over to the stores, every time the
women wanted an Indian cake. No; they borrowed of each other till
somebody had time to go to the store or to mill; and then, whoever
went, took all their errands and did them up in a bunch, to save time.
_They_ went by the "golden rule."
People who live in the woods, where the trees are all the time
whispering of God, and the little birds singing of Him, don't feel like
being quarrelsome, and disobliging, and ugly; no, they leave that to
city people, who live in such a whirl that they never remember they
have a soul till Death comes after it.
Well, as I was saying, they helped one another. Orphy Smith, Mr.
Moore's next neighbor, took his bag of corn one day, to carry it to
mill. Mitty was very glad, because they had been out of meal some days,
and she was rather tired of potatoes. So she made up her mind, and her
mouth, that when Orphy came back, they would all have "a prime supper."
But Orphy didn't _come_ back that night, or the next morning, either;
but, late the next afternoon, he came crawling back, with the meal, and
told them that "he should have been home with it long ago, if that
pesky wheel hadn't come off his wagon, and it hadn't taken such a
powerful long time to blacksmith it on again."
How glad little Mitty was to see that bag of meal! and what a nice time
she had of it that night, sitting on a little cricket before a blazing
hickory fire, and eating the buttered cakes that her mother handed down
to her from the table. Oh, you city children couldn't get up such a
frontier appetite for your fricassees, and mince-pies, if you tried a
lifetime.
"They didn't have any newspapers there."
Ah! there you have me! More especially as I had as lief go without my
breakfast as without my newspaper; but, then, I can tell you, that
there were things all the time happening there on the frontier, that
many a newspaper editor would have given his scissors and easy chair to
have got hold of, for his paper. I'll tell you about some.
One night Mitty lay in her little bed of straw and husks, almost
asleep, when she heard her father at the door, singing out,
"H-a-l-l-o-o! h-a-l-l-o-o!" as loud as ever he could; and then a faint
voice, way off, caught it up, and echoed back, "H-a-l-l-o-o!
h-a-l-l-o-o!" Then Mitty's father lit a great bright torch, and moved
it, flaming, back and forth before the door; and in a little while a
poor, weary, frightened traveler, who had got lost in the dark woods,
heard the voice that had answered to his, and saw, by the torch, where
to come to find Mr. Moore; and in less than an hour after, he was
snoring away under Mr. Moore's roof, with a good, comfortable supper
tucked under his ribs while the bears had to go without any.
_Bears?_ Certainly!--I didn't mention the gentlemen before, for fear it
would make your mother trouble when it came your bed-time; but,
nevertheless, it is a naked fact that _bears_ live on the frontier.
One day a woman came in to Mr. Moore's, crying and "taking on" in a
most pitiful manner. Mitty couldn't understand (the woman sobbed so
much) what it was all about; but she concluded that something _special_
was to pay, because her mother let her brown bread all burn to a crisp
in the oven, while she was listening to her. Then her mother ran out in
the cornfield, with her cap strings all flying, after her father; and
Mr. Moore dropped his hoe, ran to the house and caught up a great tin
horn, and stood at the door, blowing with all his might;
"Too--hoo--too--hoo--too--hoo;" and then Orphy Smith, the next
neighbor, caught up _his_ horn, and blew, too; and then the next, and
the next; and, in a very short time, all the neighbors knew that Mr.
Moore wanted them to come to his log house, just as fast as their
horses legs could carry them.
So, in they flocked,--Orphy Smith, and Seth Jones, and Pete Parker, and
Jesse Jenkins, and Eph. Ellet, and a whole host more; and Mitty's
father told them that Desire Dibden's child (whose father had been
killed by the Indians,) was lost in the woods; and that was _enough_ to
say;--every man of them started off through the door, as if he had been
shot out of a pop-gun, to help find the child.
Certainly;--didn't I tell you that "_farmers had hearts_?" When a child
gets lost in the city, the fat old town crier (if he is paid for it)
"takes his time" and his bell, and crawls through the street, whining
out sleepily, "C-h-i-l-d l-o-s-t;" and the city folks pay about as much
attention to it, as if you told them that a six-days' kitten had
presumptuously stepped into a wash-tub.
You didn't catch the nice, big-hearted farmers acting that way; they
didn't say it was none of their business,--that their corn wanted
hoeing, and their hay wanted stacking, and their meadows wanted
ploughing! The sight of that poor weeping mother was enough. They
started right off in companies, to scour the woods for the poor,
little, lost boy, hoping to find him before night-fall.
There sat poor Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her
hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good,
kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most
tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice
hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while
sensible little Mitty whispered to her mother to know "if she hadn't
better go out of the way, for fear the sight of her, safe in her
mother's log house, might make poor Desire cry the harder."
Dinner time came; but the men didn't come back. Supper time;--then
evening came on, dark and chilly, and Desire's lips grew paler every
minute: still, no tidings yet of the boy. Through the long night she
listened--listened--listened, till every gust of wind made her tremble
like the leaves. Morning dawned,--noon came again,--then night. Then,
indeed, at last they heard the tramp of heavy feet.
Desire sprang from her chair and ran toward the door, then back again
to her seat, with her hands pressed tightly on her heart; then back to
the door, as if her straining eye could pierce the darkness. It did,
God pity her! What did she see? Her little Willy, quite dead, lying on
a litter, carried by Mr. Moore and Orphy.
Poor little Willy! They had tracked him to an old shanty, in the woods,
where he had gathered some dry leaves and slept. There was the mark of
his little form upon the leaves. Then they tracked him out into the
woods, along, along, farther than one would have thought his little
feet could have carried him; and then they found him, with his little
head leaning against a tree, quite dead from exhaustion and hunger.
Poor Desire! There wasn't one of those nice old farmers who wouldn't
have given his farm to bring that little sleeper back to life. They
took his mother's cold hands in theirs, and chafed them, and bathed her
temples, and wept (strong men as they were) to think of the bitter
waking she would have. But God was merciful;--she never _did_ wake in
_this_ world. In Heaven she found her boy.
UNCLE JOLLY.
"Well, I declare! here it is New Year's morning again, and cold as
Greenland, too," said Uncle Jolly, as he poked his cotton night-cap out
of bed--"frost an inch thick on the windows, water all frozen in the
pitcher, and I an old bachelor. Heigho! nobody to give any presents
to--no little feet to come patting up to my bed to wish me 'A happy New
Year.' Miserable piece of business! Wonder what ever became of that
sister of mine who ran off with that poor artist? Wish she'd turn up
somewhere with two or three children for me to love and pet. Heigh-ho!
It's a miserable piece of business to be an old bachelor."
[Illustration: UNCLE JOLLY.]
And Uncle Jolly broke the ice in the basin with his frost-nipped
fingers, and buttoned his dressing gown tightly to his chin; then he
went down stairs, swallowed a cup of coffee, an egg, and a slice of
toast. Then he buttoned his surtout snugly up over them, and went out
the front door into the street.
Such a crowd as there was buying New Year's presents. The toy-shops
were filled with grandpas and grandmas, and aunts and uncles and
cousins. As to the shopkeepers, what with telling prices, answering
forty questions in a minute, and doing up parcels, they were as crazy
as a bachelor tending a crying baby.
Uncle Jolly slipped along over the icy pavements, and finally halted in
front of Tim Nonesuch's toy shop. You should have seen _his_ show
windows! Beautiful English dolls at five dollars a-piece, dressed like
Queen Vic's babies, with such plump little shoulders and arms that one
longed to pinch 'em; and tea sets, and dinner sets, cunning enough, for
a fairy to keep house with. Then, there were dancing Jacks, and jumping
Jennys, and "Topsys," and "Uncle Toms" as black as the chimney back,
with wool made of a raveled black stocking. Then, there were little
work-boxes with gold thimbles and bodkins, and scissors in crimson
velvet cases, and snakes that squirmed so naturally as to make you hop
up on the table to get out of the way, and little innocent looking
boxes containing a little spry mouse, that jumped into your face as
soon as you raised the lid, and music boxes to place under your pillows
when you had drank too strong a cup of green tea, and vinaigrettes that
you could hold to your nose to keep you from fainting when you saw a
dandy. Oh! I can tell you that Mr. Nonesuch understood keeping a toy
shop; there were plenty of carriages always in front of it, plenty of
taper fingers pulling over his wares, and plenty of husbands and
fathers who returned thanks that New Year's didn't come _every_ day!
"Don't stay here, dear Susy, if it makes you cry," said the elder of
two little girls; "I thought you said it would make you happy to come
out and _look_ at the New Year's presents, though we couldn't _have_
any."
"I did think so," said Susy; "but it makes me think of last New Year's,
when you and I lay cuddled together in our little bed, and papa came
creeping up in his slippers, thinking we were asleep, and laid our
presents on the table, and then kissed us both, and said, 'God bless
the little darlings!' Oh! Katy--all the little girls in that shop have
their papa's with them. I want MY papa," and little Susy laid her head
on Katy's shoulder and sobbed as if her heart were breaking.
"Don't, dear Susy," said Katy, wiping away her own tears with her
little pinafore; "don't cry--mamma will see how red your eyes
are,--poor, sick, tired mamma,--don't cry, Susy."
"Oh, Katy, I can't help it. See that tall man with the black whiskers,
(don't he look like papa?) kissing that little girl. Oh! Katy," and
Susy's tears flowed afresh.
Uncle Jolly couldn't stand it any longer;--he rushed into the toy shop,
bought an armful of play-things helter-skelter, and ran after the two
little girls.
"Here, Susy! here, Katy!" said he, "here are some New Year's presents
from Uncle Jolly."
"Who is Uncle Jolly?"
"Well, he's uncle to all the poor little children who have no kind
papa."
"Now, where do you live, little pigeons?--got far to go?--toes all out
your shoes here in January? Don't like it,--_my_ toes ain't out my
shoes;--come in here, and let's see if we can find anything to cover
them. There, now, (fitting them both to a pair,) that's something like;
it will puzzle Jack Frost to find your toes now. Cotton clothes on? _I_
don't wear cotton clothes;--come in here and get some woolen shawls.
Which do you like best, red, green, or blue?--plaids or stripes, hey?
"'Mother won't like it?' Don't talk to me;--mother's don't generally
scratch people's eyes out for being kind to their little ones. I'll
take care of that, little puss. Uncle Jolly's going home with you. 'How
do _I_ know whether you have got any dinner or not?' _I've_ got a
dinner--_you_ shall have a dinner, too. Pity if I can't have my own
way--New Year's day, too.
"_That_ your home? p-h-e-w! I don't know about trusting my old bones up
those rickety stairs,--old bones are hard to mend; did you know that?"
Little Susy opened the door, and Uncle Jolly walked in,--their momma
turned her head, then with one wild cry of joy threw her arms about his
neck, while Susy and Katy stood in the door-way, uncertain whether to
laugh or cry.
"Come here, come here," said Uncle Jolly; "I didn't know I was so near
the truth this morning when I called myself your _Uncle_ Jolly; I
didn't know what made my heart leap so when I saw you there in the
street. Come here, I say; don't you ever shed another tear;--you see I
don't,"--and Jolly tried to smile, as he drew his coat sleeve across
his eyes.
Wasn't that a merry New Year's night in Uncle Jolly's little parlor?
Wasn't the fire warm and bright? Were not the tea cakes nice? Didn't
Uncle Jolly make them eat till he had tightened their apron strings?
Were their toes ever out of their shoes again? Did they wear cotton
shawls in January? Did cruel landlords ever again make their mamma
tremble and cry?
In the midst of all this plenty, did they forget "papa?" No, no!
Whenever little Susy met in the street a tall, princely man with large
black whiskers, she'd look at Katy and nod her little curly head
sorrowfully, as much as to say--"Oh, Katy, I never--never can forget
_my own dear papa_."
A PEEP UNDER GROUND.
THE RAFFERTYS AND THE ROURKES.
I have made up my mind, that there is nothing lost in New-York. You
open your window and toss out a bit of paper or silk, and though it may
be no bigger than a sixpence, it is directly snatched up and carried
off, by a class of persons the Parisians call, "Chiffoniers"
(rag-pickers)! You order a load of coal, or wood, to be dropped at your
door;--in less than five minutes a whole horde of ragged children are
greedily waiting round to pick up the chips, and bits, that are left
after the wood or coal is carried in and housed; and often locks of
hair are pulled out, and bloody noses ensue, in the strife to get the
largest share. You will see these persons round the stores, looking for
bits of paper, and silk, and calico, that are swept out by the clerks,
upon the pavement; you will see them watching round provision shops,
for decayed vegetables, and fruits, and rinds of melons, which they
sell to keepers of pigs; you will see them picking up peach stones to
sell to confectioners, who crack them and use the kernels; you will see
them round old buildings, carrying off, at the risk of cracked heads,
pieces of decayed timber, and old nails; you will see them round new
buildings, when the workmen are gone to meals, scampering off with
boards, shingles, and bits of scaffolding. I thought I had seen all the
ingenuity there was to be seen, in picking up odds and ends in
New-York, but I hadn't then seen Michael Rafferty!
Michael Rafferty, and Terence Rourke, who was a wood sawyer by
profession, lived in a cellar together; the little Raffertys, and
little Rourkes, with their mammas, filling up all the extra space,
except just so much as was necessary to swing the cellar door open. A
calico curtain was swung across the cellar for a boundary line, to
which the little Rourkes and little Raffertys paid about as much
attention, as the whites did to the poor Indians' landmarks.
At the time I became acquainted with the two families, quite a jealousy
had sprung up on account of Mr. Rafferty's having made a successful
butter speculation. Mrs. Rourke, in consequence, had kept the calico
curtain tightly drawn for some weeks, and boxed six of the little
Rourkes' ears (twelve in all,) for speaking to the little Raffertys
through the rents in the curtain.
All this I learned from Mrs. Rafferty, as I sat on an old barrel in the
north-west corner of her cellar. "It was always the way," she said, "if
a body got up in the world, there were plenty of envious spalpeens,
sure, to spite them for it;" which I took occasion to remark to Mrs.
Rafferty, was as true, as anything I had ever had the pleasure of
hearing her say.
Just then the cellar door swung open, and the great butter speculator,
Mr. Michael Rafferty, walked in. He nodded his head, and gave an uneasy
glance at the curtain, as much as to say "calicoes have ears." I
understood it, and told him we had been very discreet. Upon which he
said, "You see, they'll be afther staling my thrade, your ladyship, if
they know how I manage about the butther."
"Tell me how you do it, Michael," said I; "you know women have a right
to be curious.
"Well," said he, speaking in a confidential whisper, "your ladyship
knows there are plenty of little grocery shops round in these poor
neighborhoods, where they sell onions, and combs, and molasses, and
fish, and tape, and gingerbread, and rum. Most of them sell milk, (none
of the best, sure, but it does for the likes of us poor folks.) It
stands round in the sun in the shop windows, your ladyship, till it
gets turned, like, and when they have kept it a day or two, and find
they can't sell it," (and here Michael looked sharp at the calico
curtain,) "I buys it for two cents a quart, and puts it in that churn,"
(pointing to a dirty looking affair in the corner,) "and my old woman
and I make it into butter." And he stepped carefully across the cellar,
and pulled from _under the bed_, a keg, which he uncovered with a proud
flourish, and sticking a bit of wood in it, offered me a taste, "just
to thry it."
I couldn't have tasted it, if Michael had shot me; but I told him I
dare say he understood his trade and hoped he found plenty of
customers.
"I sell it as fast as I can make it," said he, putting on the cover and
shoving it back under the bed again.
"What do you do with the buttermilk?" said I.
He looked at Mrs. Rafferty, and she pointed to the bright, rainbow
ribbon on her cap.
"Sell it?" said I.
"Sure," said Michael, with a grin; "we are making money, your ladyship;
we shall be afther moving out of this cellar before long, and away from
the likes of them," (pointing in the direction of the curtain); "and,
savin' your ladyship's presence," said he, running his fingers through
his mop of wiry hair, "Irish people sometimes understhand dhriving a
thrade as well as Yankees;" and Michael drew himself up as though
General Washington couldn't be named on the same day with _him_.
Just then a little snarly headed boy came in with two pennies and a
cracked plate, "to buy some butther."
"Didn't I tell your ladyship so?" said Michael. "Holy Mother!" he
continued, as he pocketed the pennies, and gave the boy a short
allowance of the vile stuff, "how I wish I had known how to make that
butther when every bone in me body used to ache sawin' wood, and the
likes o' that,--to say nothing of the greater respictability of being
in the mercantile profession."
Well, well, thought I, as I traveled home, this is high life under
ground, in New-York.
"BALD EAGLE;"
OR,
THE LITTLE CAPTIVES.
Do you like Indians? Our forefathers didn't admire them much. They had
seen too many scalps hanging at their belts, and had heard their war
whoops rather too often, to fancy such troublesome neighbors. They
never felt as if they were safe, and wouldn't have thought ever of
going to meeting without a loaded musket. I suppose that's the way the
fashion originated for men to sit at the bottom of the pews, and women
and children up at the other end. The men wanted to get on their feet
quickly if a posse of Indians yelled at the door. Ah! men were _men_,
then, from the tips of their noses to their shoe-ties; they didn't wear
plaid pants, and use perfume and Macassar, as they do now-a-days.
And the women, too! they were not ashamed to be seen in calico dresses,
and did not go about the country making orations and wearing dickeys. I
had rather see an Indian, any time, than such a woman.
Sometimes the men were obliged to go away from home, and then they left
a loaded gun where their wives could use it, in case the Indians came
while they were absent. The Indians are very cunning. They used to
watch their chance; and often, when a man came back to his home, he
would find it a pile of smoking ruins, and his wife and children
killed, or, what was worse, carried away captives.
You wouldn't have relished living in those days, would you? What do you
think you would have done had the Indians come into your
door?--scampered under the bed, or seized the gun and defended your
mother? It is hard telling, isn't it? I'm very glad you are not obliged
to live in such days. The poor Indians had also their story of wrong to
tell. God will judge both rightly.