round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from rampart
to rampart. When it abated, the clouds in all parts of the visible
heavens were tinged with glory from the west; some that hung low being
purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender curve of
the new moon was also visible brightening amidst the fading brightness of
the sunny part of the sky. There are marble-quarries in and near
Pittsfield, which accounts for the fact that there are none but marble
gravestones in the burial-grounds; some of the monuments well carved; but
the marble does not withstand the wear and tear of time and weather so
well as the imported marble, and the sculpture soon loses its sharp
outline. The door of one tomb, a wooden door, opening in the side of a
green mound, surmounted by a marble obelisk, having been shaken from its
hinges by the late explosion of the powder-house, and incompletely
repaired, I peeped in at the crevices, and saw the coffins. It was the
tomb of Rev. Thomas Allen, first minister of Pittsfield, deceased in
1810. It contained three coffins, all with white mould on their tops:
one, a small child's, rested upon another, and the other was on the
opposite side of the tomb, and the lid was considerably displaced; but,
the tomb being dark, I could see neither corpse nor skeleton.
Marble also occurs here in North Adams, and thus some very ordinary
houses have marble doorsteps, and even the stone walls are built of
fragments of marble.
Wednesday, 26th.--Left Pittsfield at about eight o'clock in the
Bennington stage, intending to go to Williamstown. Inside passengers,--a
new-married couple taking a jaunt. The lady, with a clear, pale
complexion, and a rather pensive cast of countenance, slender, and with a
genteel figure; the bridegroom, a shopkeeper in New York probably, a
young man with a stout black beard, black eyebrows, which formed one line
across his forehead. They were very loving; and while the stage stopped,
I watched them, quite entranced in each other, both leaning sideways
against the back of the coach, and perusing their mutual comeliness, and
apparently making complimentary observations upon it to one another. The
bride appeared the most absorbed and devoted, referring her whole being
to him. The gentleman seemed in a most paradisiacal mood, smiling
ineffably upon his bride, and, when she spoke, responding to her with a
benign expression of matrimonial sweetness, and, as it were, compassion
for the "weaker vessel," mingled with great love and pleasant humor. It
was very droll. The driver peeped into the coach once, and said that he
had his arm round her waist. He took little freedoms with her, tapping
her with his cane,--love-pats; and she seemed to see nothing amiss. They
kept eating gingerbread all along the road, and dined heartily
notwithstanding.
Our driver was a slender, lathe-like, round-backed, rough-bearded,
thin-visaged, middle-aged Yankee, who became very communicative during
our drive. He was not bred a stage-driver, but had undertaken the
business temporarily, as a favor to his brother-in-law. He was a native
of these Berkshire mountains, but had formerly emigrated to Ohio, and had
returned for a time to try the benefit of her native air on his wife's
declining health,--she having complaints of a consumptive nature. He
pointed out the house where he was married to her, and told the name of
the country squire who tied the knot. His wife has little or no chance
of recovery, and he said he would never marry again,--this resolution
being expressed in answer to a remark of mine relative to a second
marriage. He has no children. I pointed to a hill at some distance
before us, and asked what it was. "That, sir," said he, "is a very high
hill. It is known by the name of Graylock." He seemed to feel that this
was a more poetical epithet than Saddleback, which is a more usual name
for it. Graylock, or Saddleback, is quite a respectable mountain; and I
suppose the former name has been given to it because it often has a gray
cloud, or lock of gray mist, upon its head. It does not ascend into a
peak, but heaves up a round ball, and has supporting ridges on each side.
Its summit is not bare, like that of Mount Washington, but covered with
forests. The driver said, that several years since the students of
Williams College erected a building for an observatory on the top of the
mountain, and employed him to haul the materials for constructing it; and
he was the only man who had driven an ox-team up Graylock. It was
necessary to drive the team round and round, in ascending. President
Griffin rode up on horseback.
Along our road we passed villages, and often factories, the machinery
whirring, and girls looking out of the windows at the stage, with heads
averted from their tasks, but still busy. These factories have two,
three, or more boarding-houses near them, two stories high, and of double
length,--often with bean-vines running up round the doors, and with
altogether a domestic look. There are several factories in different
parts of North Adams, along the banks of a stream,--a wild, highland
rivulet, which, however, does vast work of a civilized nature. It is
strange to see such a rough and untamed stream as it looks to be so
subdued to the purposes of man, and making cottons and woollens, sawing
boards and marbles, and giving employment to so many men and girls. And
there is a sort of picturesqueness in finding these factories, supremely
artificial establishments, in the midst of such wild scenery. For now
the stream will be flowing through a rude forest, with the trees erect
and dark, as when the Indians fished there; and it brawls and tumbles and
eddies over its rock-strewn current. Perhaps there is a precipice,
hundreds of feet high, beside it, down which, by heavy rains or the
melting of snows, great pine-trees have slid or fallen headlong, and lie
at the bottom, or half-way down, while their brethren seem to be gazing
at their fall from the summit, and anticipating a like fate. And then,
taking a turn in the road, behold these factories and their range of
boarding-houses, with the girls looking out of the windows as aforesaid!
And perhaps the wild scenery is all around the very site of the factory,
and mingles its impression strangely with those opposite ones. These
observations were made during a walk yesterday.
I bathed in a pool of the stream that was out of sight, and where its
brawling waters were deep enough to cover me, when I lay at length. A
part of the road along which I walked was on the edge of a precipice,
falling down straight towards the stream; and in one place the passage of
heavy loads had sunk it, so that soon, probably, there will be an
avalanche, perhaps carrying a stage-coach or heavy wagon down into the
bed of the river.
I met occasional wayfarers; once two women in a cart,--decent,
brown-visaged, country matrons,--and then an apparent doctor, of whom
there are seven or thereabouts in North Adams; for though this vicinity
is very healthy, yet the physicians are obliged to ride considerable
distances among the mountain towns, and their practice is very laborious.
A nod is always exchanged between strangers meeting on the road. This
morning an underwitted old man met me on a walk, and held a pretty long
conversation, insisting upon shaking hands (to which I was averse,
lest his band should not be clean), and insisting on his right to
do so, as being "a friend of mankind." He was a gray, bald-headed,
wrinkled-visaged figure, decently dressed, with cowhide shoes, a coat on
one arm, and an umbrella on the other, and said that he was going to see
a widow in the neighborhood. Finding that I was not provided with a
wife, he recommended a certain maiden of forty years, who had three
hundred acres of land. He spoke of his children, who are proprietors of
a circus establishment, and have taken a granddaughter to bring up in
their way of life; and he gave me a message to tell them in case we
should meet. While this old man is wandering among the hills, his
children are the gaze of multitudes. He told me the place where he was
born, directing me to it by pointing to a wreath of mist which lay on the
side of a mountain ridge, which he termed "the smoke yonder." Speaking
of the widow, he said: "My wife has been dead these seven years, and why
should not I enjoy myself a little?" His manner was full of quirks and
quips and eccentricities, waving his umbrella and gesticulating
strangely, with a great deal of action. I suppose, to help his natural
foolishness, he had been drinking. We parted, he exhorting me not to
forget his message to his sons, and I shouting after him a request to be
remembered to the widow. Conceive something tragical to be talked about,
and much might be made of this interview in a wild road among the hills,
with Graylock, at a great distance, looking sombre and angry, by reason
of the gray, heavy mist upon his head.
The morning was cloudy, and all the near landscape lay unsunned; but
there was sunshine on distant tracts, in the valleys, and in specks upon
the mountain-tops. Between the ridges of hills, there are long, wide,
deep valleys, extending for miles and miles, with houses scattered along
them. A bulky company of mountains, swelling round head over round head,
rises insulated by such broad vales from the surrounding ridges.
I ought to have mentioned that I arrived at North Adams in the forenoon
of the 26th, and, liking the aspect of matters indifferently well,
determined to make my headquarters here for a short time.
On the road to Northampton, we passed a tame crow, which was sitting on
the peak of a barn. The crow flew down from its perch, and followed us a
great distance, hopping along the road, and flying, with its large,
black, flapping wings, from post to post of the fence, or from tree to
tree. At last he gave up the pursuit with a croak of disappointment.
The driver said, perhaps correctly, that the crow had scented some salmon
which was in a basket under the seat, and that this was the secret of his
pursuing us. This would be a terrific incident if it were a dead body
that the crow scented, instead of a basket of salmon. Suppose, for
instance, in a coach travelling along, that one of the passengers
suddenly should die, and that one of the indications of his death would
be this deportment of the crow.
July 29th.--Remarkable characters:--A disagreeable figure, waning from
middle age, clad in a pair of tow homespun pantaloons, and a very soiled
shirt, barefoot, and with one of his feet maimed by an axe; also an arm
amputated two or three inches below the elbow. His beard of a week's
growth, grim and grisly, with a general effect of black; altogether a
disgusting object. Yet he has the signs of having been a handsome man in
his idea, though now such a beastly figure that probably no living thing
but his great dog would touch him without an effort. Coming to the
stoop, where several persons were sitting, "Good morning, gentlemen,"
said the wretch. Nobody answered for a time, till at last one said, "I
don't know whom you speak to: not to me, I'm sure" (meaning that he did
not claim to be a gentleman). "Why, I thought I spoke to you all at
once," replied the figure, laughing. So he sat himself down on the lower
step of the stoop, and began to talk; and, the conversation being turned
upon his bare feet by one of the company, he related the story of his
losing his toes by the glancing aside of an axe, and with what great
fortitude he bore it. Then he made a transition to the loss of his arm,
and, setting his teeth and drawing in his breath, said that the pain was
dreadful; but this, too, he seems to have borne like an Indian; and a
person testified to his fortitude by saying that he did not suppose there
was any feeling in him, from observing how he bore it. The man spoke of
the pain of cutting the muscles, and the particular agony at one moment,
while the bone was being sawed asunder; and there was a strange
expression of remembered anguish, as he shrugged his half-limb, and
described the matter. Afterwards, in a reply to a question of mine,
whether he still seemed to feel the hand that had been amputated, he
answered that he did always; and, baring the stump, he moved the severed
muscles, saying, "There is the thumb, there the forefinger," and so on.
Then he talked to me about phrenology, of which he seems a firm believer
and skilful practitioner, telling how he had hit upon the true character
of many people. There was a great deal of sense and acuteness in his
talk, and something of elevation in his expressions,--perhaps a studied
elevation,--and a sort of courtesy in his manner; but his sense had
something out of the way in it; there was something wild and ruined and
desperate in his talk, though I can hardly say what it was. There was a
trace of the gentleman and man of intellect through his deep degradation;
and a pleasure in intellectual pursuits, and an acuteness and trained
judgment, which bespoke a mind once strong and cultivated. "My study is
man," said he. And looking at me, "I do not know your name," he said,
"but there is something of the hawk-eye about you, too."
This man was formerly a lawyer in good practice; but, taking to drinking,
was reduced to the lowest state. Yet not the lowest; for after the
amputation of his arm, being advised by divers persons to throw himself
upon the public for support, he told them that, even if he should lose
his other arm, he would still be able to support himself and a servant.
Certainly he is a strong-minded and iron-constitutioned man; hut, looking
at the stump of his arm, he said that the pain of the mind was a thousand
times greater than the pain of the body. "That hand could make the pen
go fast," said he. Among people in general, he does not seem to have any
greater consideration in his ruin because of his former standing in
society. He supports himself by making soap; and, on account of the
offals used in that business, there is probably rather an evil odor in
his domicile. Talking about a dead horse near his house, he said that he
could not bear the scent of it. "I should not think you could smell
carrion in that house," said a stage agent. Whereupon the soap-maker
dropped his head, with a little snort, as it were, of wounded feeling;
but immediately said that he took all in good part. There was an old
squire of the village, a lawyer probably, whose demeanor was different,--
with a distance, yet with a kindliness; for he remembered the times when
they met on equal terms. "You and I," said the squire, alluding to their
respective troubles and sicknesses, "would have died long ago, if we had
not had the courage to live." The poor devil kept talking to me long
after everybody else had left the stoop, giving vent to much practical
philosophy, and just observation on the ways of men, mingled with rather
more assumption of literature and cultivation than belonged to the
present condition of his mind. Meantime his great dog, a cleanly looking
and not ill-bred dog, being the only decent attribute appertaining to his
master,--a well-natured dog, too, and receiving civilly any demonstration
of courtesy from other people, though preserving a certain distance of
deportment,--this great dog grew weary of his master's lengthy talk, and
expressed his impatience to be gone by thrusting himself between his
legs, rolling over on his back, seizing his ragged trousers, or playfully
taking his maimed, bare foot into his mouth,--using, in short, the kindly
and humorous freedom of a friend, with a wretch to whom all are free
enough, but none other kind. His master rebuked him, but with kindness
too, and not so that the dog felt himself bound to desist, though he
seemed willing to allow his master all the time that could possibly be
spared. And at last, having said many times that he must go and shave
and dress himself,--and as his beard had been at least a week growing, it
might have seemed almost a week's work to get rid of it,--he rose from
the stoop and went his way,--a forlorn and miserable thing in the light
of the cheerful summer morning. Yet he seems to keep his spirits up, and
still preserves himself a man among men, asking nothing from them; nor is
it clearly perceptible what right they have to scorn him, though he seems
to acquiesce, in a manner, in their doing so. And yet he cannot wholly
have lost his self-respect; and doubtless there were persons on the stoop
more grovelling than himself.
Another character:--A blacksmith of fifty or upwards, a corpulent figure,
big in the paunch and enormous in the rear; yet there is such an
appearance of strength and robustness in his frame, that his corpulence
appears very proper and necessary to him. A pound of flesh could not be
spared from his abundance, any more than from the leanest man; and he
walks about briskly, without any panting or symptom of labor or pain in
his motion. He has a round, jolly face, always mirthful and humorous and
shrewd, and the air of a man well to do, and well respected, yet not
caring much about the opinions of men, because his independence is
sufficient to itself. Nobody would take him for other than a man of some
importance in the community, though his summer dress is a tow-cloth pair
of pantaloons, a shirt not of the cleanest, open at the breast, and the
sleeves rolled up at the elbows, and a straw hat. There is not such a
vast difference between this costume and that of Lawyer H------ above
mentioned, yet never was there a greater diversity of appearance than
between these two men; and a glance at them would be sufficient to mark
the difference. The blacksmith loves his glass, and comes to the tavern
for it, whenever it seems good to him, not calling for it slyly and
shyly, but marching steadily to the bar, or calling across the room for
it to be prepared. He speaks with great bitterness against the new
license law, and vows if it be not repealed by fair means it shall be by
violence, and that he will be as ready to cock his rifle for such a cause
as for any other. On this subject his talk is really fierce; but as to
all other matters he is good-natured and good-hearted, fond of joke, and
shaking his jolly sides with frequent laughter. His conversation has
much strong, unlettered sense, imbued with humor, as everybody's talk is
in New England.
He takes a queer position sometimes,--queer for his figure particularly,
--straddling across a chair, facing the back, with his arms resting
thereon, and his chin on them, for the benefit of conversing closely with
some one. When he has spent as much time in the bar-room or under the
stoop as he chooses to spare, he gets up at once, and goes off with a
brisk, vigorous pace. He owns a mill, and seems to be prosperous in the
world. I know no man who seems more like a man, more indescribably
human, than this sturdy blacksmith.
There came in the afternoon a respectable man in gray homespun cloth, who
arrived in a wagon, I believe, and began to inquire, after supper, about
a certain new kind of mill machinery. Being referred to the blacksmith,
who owned one of these mills, the stranger said that he had come from
Vermont to learn about the matter. "What may I call your name?" said he
to the blacksmith. "My name is Hodge," replied the latter. "I believe I
have heard of you," said the stranger. Then they colloquied at much
length about the various peculiarities and merits of the new invention.
The stranger continued here two or three days, making his researches, and
forming acquaintance with several millwrights and others. He was a man
evidently of influence in his neighborhood, and the tone of his
conversation was in the style of one accustomed to be heard with
deference, though all in a plain and homely way. Lawyer H------ took
notice of this manner; for the talk being about the nature of soap, and
the evil odor arising from that process, the stranger joined in. "There
need not be any disagreeable smell in making soap," said he. "Now we are
to receive a lesson," said H------, and the remark was particularly
apropos to the large wisdom of the stranger's tone and air.
Then he gave an account of the process in his domestic establishment,
saying that he threw away the whole offals of the hog, as not producing
any soap, and preserved the skins of the intestines for sausages. He
seemed to be hospitable, inviting those with whom he did business to take
"a mouthful of dinner" with him, and treating them with liquors; for he
was not an utter temperance man, though moderate in his potations. I
suspect he would turn out a pattern character of the upper class of New
England yeomen, if I had an opportunity of studying him. Doubtless he
had been selectman, representative, and justice, and had filled all but
weighty offices. He was highly pleased with the new mill contrivance,
and expressed his opinion that, when his neighbors saw the success of
his, it would be extensively introduced into that vicinity.
Mem. The hostlers at taverns call the money given them "pergasus,"--
corrupted from "perquisites." Otherwise "knock-down money." Remarkable
character:--A travelling surgeon-dentist, who has taken a room in the
North Adams House, and sticks up his advertising bills on the pillars of
the piazza, and all about the town. He is a tall, slim young man, six
feet two, dressed in a country-made coat of light blue (taken, as he
tells me, in exchange for dental operations), black pantaloons, and
clumsy, cowhide hoots. Self-conceit is very strongly expressed in his
air; and a doctor once told him that he owed his life to that quality;
for, by keeping himself so stiffly upright, he opens his chest, and
counteracts a consumptive tendency. He is not only a dentist, which
trade he follows temporarily, but a licensed preacher of the Baptist
persuasion, and is now on his way to the West to seek a place of
settlement in his spiritual vocation. Whatever education he possesses,
he has acquired by his own exertions since the age of twenty-one,--he
being now twenty-four. We talk together very freely; and he has given me
an account, among other matters, of all his love-affairs, which are
rather curious, as illustrative of the life of a smart young country
fellow in relation to the gentle sex. Nothing can exceed the exquisite
self-conceit which characterizes these confidences, and which is
expressed inimitably in his face, his upturned nose, and mouth, so as to
be truly a caricature; and he seems strangely to find as much food for
his passion in having been jilted once or twice as in his conquests. It
is curious to notice his revengeful feeling against the false ones,--
hidden from himself, however, under the guise of religious interest, and
desire that they may be cured of their follies.
A little boy named Joe, who haunts about the bar-room and the stoop, four
years old, in a thin, short jacket, and full-breeched trousers, and bare
feet. The men tease him, and put quids of tobacco in his mouth, under
pretence of giving him a fig; and he gets curaged, and utters a peculiar,
sharp, spiteful cry, and strikes at them with a stick, to their great
mirth. He is always in trouble, yet will not keep away. They despatch
him with two or three cents to buy candy and nuts and raisins. They set
him down in a niche of the door, and tell him to remain there a day and a
half: he sits down very demurely, as if he meant to fulfil his penance;
but a moment after, behold! there is little Joe capering across the
street to join two or three boys who are playing in a wagon. Take this
boy as the germ of a tavern-haunter, a country roue, to spend a wild and
brutal youth, ten years of his prime in the State Prison, and his old age
in the poorhouse.
There are a great many dogs kept in the village, and many of the
travellers also have dogs. Some are almost always playing about; and if
a cow or a pig be passing, two or three of them scamper forth for an
attack. Some of the younger sort chase pigeons, wheeling as they wheel.
If a contest arises between two dogs, a number of others come with huge
barking to join the fray, though I believe that they do not really take
any active part in the contest, but swell the uproar by way of
encouraging the combatants. When a traveller is starting from the door,
his dog often gets in front of the horse, placing his forefeet down,--
looking the horse in the face, and barking loudly, then, as the horse
comes on, running a little farther, and repeating the process; and this
he does in spite of his master's remonstrances, till, the horse being
fairly started, the dog follows on quietly. One dog, a diminutive little
beast, has been taught to stand on his hind legs, and rub his face with
his paw, which he does with an aspect of much endurance and deprecation.
Another springs at people whom his master points out to him, barking and
pretending to bite. These tricks make much mirth in the bar-room. All
dogs, of whatever different sizes and dissimilar varieties, acknowledge
the common bond of species among themselves, and the largest one does not
disdain to suffer his tail to be smelt of, nor to reciprocate that
courtesy to the smallest. They appear to take much interest in one
another; but there is always a degree of caution between two strange dogs
when they meet.