Produced by Anne Soulard, Eric Eldred, Robert Shimmin and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE DUKE OF STOCKBRIDGE
A ROMANCE OF SHAYS' REBELLION
By Edward Bellamy
CHAPTER FIRST
THE MARCH OF THE MINUTE MEN
The first beams of the sun of August 17, 1777, were glancing down
the long valley, which opening to the East, lets in the early rays of
morning, upon the village of Stockbridge. Then, as now, the Housatonic
crept still and darkling around the beetling base of Fisher's Nest, and
in the meadows laughed above its pebbly shoals, embracing the verdant
fields with many a loving curve. Then, as now, the mountains cradled the
valley in their eternal arms, all round, from the Hill of the Wolves,
on the north, to the peaks that guard the Ice Glen, away to the far
south-east. Then, as now, many a lake and pond gemmed the landscape, and
many a brook hung like a burnished silver chain upon the verdant slopes.
But save for this changeless frame of nature, there was very little, in
the village, which the modern dweller in Stockbridge would recognize.
The main settlement is along a street lying east and west, across the
plain which extends from the Housatonic, northerly some distance, to the
foot of a hill. The village green or “smooth” lies rather at the western
end of the village than at the center. At this point the main street
intersects with the county road, leading north and south, and with
divers other paths and lanes, leading in crooked, rambling lines to
several points of the compass; sometimes ending at a single dwelling,
sometimes at clusters of several buildings. On the hill, to the north,
somewhat separated from the settlement on the plain, are quite a number
of houses, erected there during the recent French and Indian wars, for
the sake of being near the fort, which is now used as a parsonage by
Reverend Stephen West, the young minister. The streets are all very wide
and grassy, wholly without shade trees, and bordered generally by rail
fences or stone walls. The houses, usually separated by wide intervals
of meadow, are rarely over a story and a half in height. When painted,
the color is usually red, brown, or yellow, the effect of which is a
certain picturesqueness wholly outside any design on the part of the
practical minded inhabitants.
Interspersed among the houses, and occurring more thickly in the south
and west parts of the village, are curious huts, as much like wigwams
as houses. These are the dwellings of the Christianized and civilized
Stockbridge Indians, the original possessors of the soil, who live
intermingled with the whites on terms of the most utter comity, fully
sharing the offices of church and town, and fighting the battles of the
Commonwealth side by side with the white militia.
Around the green stand the public buildings of the place. Here is the
tavern, a low two-story building, without porch or piazza, and entered
by a door in the middle of the longest side. Over the door swings a
sign, on which a former likeness of King George has, by a metamorphosis
common at this period, been transformed into a soldier of the
revolution, in Continental uniform of buff and blue. But just at this
time its contemplation does not afford the patriotic tipler as much
complacency as formerly, for Burgoyne is thundering at the passes of
the Hoosacs, only fifty miles away, and King George may get his red coat
back again, after all. The Tories in the village say that the landlord
keeps a pot of red paint behind the door, so that the Hessian dragoons
may not take him by surprise when they come galloping down the valley,
some afternoon. On the other side [of] the green is the meeting-house,
built some thirty years ago, by a grant from government at Boston,
and now considered rather old-fashioned and inconvenient. Hard by the
meeting-house is the graveyard, with the sandy knoll in its south-west
corner, set apart for the use of the Indians. The whipping-post, stocks,
and cage, for the summary correction of such offences as come within the
jurisdiction of Justice Jahleel Woodbridge, Esquire, adorn the middle of
the village green, and on Saturday afternoon are generally the center of
a crowd assembled to be edified by the execution of sentences.
On the other side [of] the green from the meeting-house stands the
store, built five years before, by Timothy Edwards, Esquire, a structure
of a story and a half, with the unusual architectural adornment of a
porch or piazza in front, the only thing of the kind in the village. The
people of Stockbridge are scarcely prouder of the divinity of their
late shepherd, the famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards, than they are of his
son Timothy's store. Indeed, what with Dr. Edwards, so lately in their
midst, Dr. Hopkins, down at Great Barrington, and Dr. Bellamy, just over
the State line in Bethlehem, Connecticut, the people of Berkshire are
decidedly more familiar with theologians than with storekeepers, for
when Mr. Edwards built his store in 1772, it was the only one in the
county.
At such a time it may be readily inferred that a commercial occupation
serves rather as a distinction than otherwise. Squire Edwards is
moreover chairman of the selectmen, and furthermore most of the
farmers are in his debt for supplies, while to these varied elements of
influence, his theological ancestry adds a certain odor of sanctity.
It is true that Squire Jahleel Woodbridge is even more brilliantly
descended, counting two colonial governors and numerous divines among
his ancestry, not to speak of a rumored kinship with the English noble
family of Northumberland. But instead of tending to a profitless
rivalry the respective claims of the Edwardses and the Woodbridges
to distinction have happily been merged by the marriage of Jahleel
Woodbridge and Lucy Edwards, the sister of Squire Timothy, so that in
all social and political matters, the two families are closely allied.
The back room of the store is, in a sense, the Council-chamber, where
the affairs of the village are debated and settled by these magnates,
whose decisions the common people never dream of anticipating or
questioning. It is also a convivial center, a sort of clubroom. There,
of an afternoon, may generally be seen Squires Woodbridge, Williams,
Elisha Brown, Deacon Nash, Squire Edwards, and perhaps a few others,
relaxing their gravity over generous bumpers of some choice old Jamaica,
which Edwards had luckily laid in, just before the war stopped all
imports.
In the west half of the store building, Squire Edwards lives with his
family, including, besides his wife and children, the remnants of his
father's family and that of his sister, the widowed Mrs. President
Burr. Young Aaron Burr was there, for a while after his graduation at
Princeton, and during the intervals of his arduous theological studies
with Dr. Bellamy at Bethlehem. Perchance there are heart-sore maidens
in the village, who, to their sorrow, could give more particular
information of the exploits of the seductive Aaron at this period, than
I am able to.
Such are the mountains and rivers, the streets and the houses of
Stockbridge as the sun of this August morning in the year 1777,
discloses them to view. But where are the people? It is seven, yes,
nearly eight o'clock, and no human being is to be seen walking in the
streets, or travelling in the roads, or working in the fields. Such lazy
habits are certainly not what we have been wont to ascribe to our
sturdy forefathers. Has the village, peradventure, been deserted by the
population, through fear of the Hessian marauders, the threat of whose
coming has long hung like a portentous cloud, over the Berkshire valley?
Not at all. It is not the fear of man, but the fear of God, that has
laid a spell upon the place. It is the Sabbath, or what we moderns call
Sunday, and law and conscience have set their double seal on every door,
that neither man, woman nor child, may go forth till sunset, save at the
summons of the meeting-house bell. We may wander all the way from the
parsonage on the hill, to Captain Konkapot's hut on the Barrington road,
without meeting a soul, though the windows will have a scandalized face
framed in each seven by nine pane of glass. And the distorted, uncouth
and variously colored face and figure, which the imperfections of
the glass give the passer-by, will doubtless appear to the horrified
spectators, but the fit typical representation of his inward depravity.
We shall, I say, meet no one, unless, as we pass his hut by Konkapot's
brook, Jehoiachim Naunumpetox, the Indian tithing man, spy us, and that
will be to our exceeding discomfiture, for straightway laying implacable
hands upon us, he will deliver us to John Schebuck, the constable, who
will grievously correct our flesh with stripes, for Sabbath-breaking,
and cause us to sit in the stocks, for an ensample.
But if so mild an excursion involve so dire a risk, what must be the
desperation of this horseman who is coming at a thundering gallop along
the county road from Pittsfield? His horse is in a foaming sweat, the
strained nostrils are filled with blood and the congested eyes protrude
as if they would leap from their sockets to be at their goal.
It is Squire Woodbridge's two story red house before which the horseman
pulls rein, and leaving his steed with hanging head and trembling knees
and laboring sides, drags his own stiffened limbs up the walk and enters
the house. Almost instantly Squire Woodbridge himself, issues from
the door, dressed for church in a fine black coat, waistcoat, and
knee-breeches, white silk stockings, a three-cornered black hat and
silver buckles on his shoes, but in his hand instead of a Bible, a
musket. As he steps out, the door of a house further east opens also,
and another man similarly dressed, with brown woolen stockings, steps
forth with a gun in his hand also. He seems to have interpreted the
meaning of the horseman's message. This is Deacon Nash. Beckoning him to
follow, Squire Woodbridge steps out to the edge of the green, raises
his musket to his shoulder and discharges it into the air. Deacon Nash
coming up a moment later also raises and fires his gun, and e'er the
last echoes have reverberated from the mountains, Squire Edwards, musket
in hand, throws open his store door and stepping out on the porch, fires
the third gun.
A moment ago hundreds of faces were smiling, hundreds of eyes were
bright, hundreds of cheeks were flushed. Now there is not a single smile
or a trace of brightness, or a bit of color on a face in the valley.
Such is the woful change wrought in every household, as the successive
reports of the heavily-charged pieces sound through the village, and
penetrate to the farthest outlying farmhouse. The first shot may well
be an accident, the second may possibly be, but as the third inexorably
follows, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and sons,
look at each other with blanched faces, and instantly a hundred scenes
of quiet preparation for meeting, are transformed into the confusion
of a very different kind of preparation. Catechisms are dropped for
muskets, and Bibles fall unnoticed under foot, as men spring for their
haversacks and powder-horns. For those three guns summon the minute men
to be on the march for Bennington. All the afternoon before, the roar of
cannon has faintly sounded from the northward, and the people knew that
Stark was meeting Baum and his Hessians, on the Hoosac. One detachment
of Stockbridge men is already with him. Does this new summons mean
disaster? Has the dreaded foe made good his boasted invincibility? No
one knows, not even the exhausted messenger, for he was sent off
by Stark, while yet the issue of yesterday's battle trembled in the
balance.
“It's kinder suddin. I wuz in hopes the boys wouldn' hev to go, bein as
they wuz a fightin yisdy,” quavered old Elnathan Hamlin, as he trotted
about, helplessly trying to help, and only hindering Mrs. Hamlin, as
with white face, but deft hands, and quick eyes, she was getting her two
boys ready, filling their haversacks, sewing a button here, tightening a
buckle there, and looking to everything.
“Ye must tak keer o' Reub, Perez. He ain't so rugged 'zye be. By rights,
he orter ha stayed to hum.”
“Oh, I'm as stout as Perez. I can wrastle him. Don't fret about me,”
said Reuben, with attempted gayety, though his boyish lip quivered as he
looked at his mother's face, noting how she did not meet his eye, lest
she should lose her self-control, and not be able to do anything more.
“I'll look after the boy, never fear,” said Perez, slapping his brother
on the back. “I'll fetch him back a General, as big a man as Squire
Woodbridge.”
“I dunno what 'n time I shall dew 'bout gittin in the crops,” whimpered
Elnathan. “I can't dew it 'lone, nohow. Seems though my rheumatiz wuz
wuss 'n ever, this las' spell o' weather.”
“There goes Abner Rathbun, and George Fennell,” cried Perez. “Time we
were off. Good-bye mother. There! There! Don't you cry, mother. We'll be
back all right. Got your gun, Reub? Good-bye father. Come on,” and the
boys were off.
In seeming sympathy with the sudden grief that has fallen on the
village, the bright promise of the morning has given place in the last
hour to one of those sudden rain storms to which a mountainous region
is always liable, and a cold drizzle is now falling. But that does
not hinder every one who has friends among the departing soldiers, or
sympathy with the cause represented, from gathering on the green to
witness the muster and march of the men. All the leading men and the
officials of the town and parish are there, including the two Indian
selectmen, Johannes Metoxin and Joseph Sauquesquot. Squire Edwards,
Deacon Nash, Squire Williams and Captain Josiah Jones, brother-in-law of
Squire Woodbridge, are going about among the tearful groups, of one of
which each soldier is a centre, reassuring and encouraging both those
who go, and those who stay, the ones with the promise that their wives
and children and parents shall be looked after and cared for, the others
with confident talk of victory and speedy reunions.
Squire Edwards tells Elnathan, who with Mrs. Hamlin has come down to the
green, that he needn't fret about the mortgage on his house, and Deacon
Nash tells him that he'll see that his crops are saved, and George
Fennell, who, with his wife and daughter, stands by, is assured by the
Squire, that they shall have what they want from the store. There is
not a plough-boy among the minute men who is not honored today with a
cordial word or two, or at least a smile, from the magnates who never
before have recognized his existence.
And proud in her tears, to-day, is the girl who has a sweetheart among
the soldiers. Shy girls, who for fear of being laughed at, have kept a
secret of their inclinations, now grown suddenly bold, cry, as they talk
with their lovers, and refuse not the parting kiss. Desire Edwards, the
Squire's daughter, as she moves among the groups, and sees these things,
is stirred with envy and thinks she would give anything if she, too,
had a sweetheart to bid good-bye to. But she is only fifteen, and Squire
Edwards' daughter, moreover, to whom no rustic swain dares pretend. Then
she bethinks herself that one has timidly, enough, so pretended. She
knows that Elnathan Hamlin's son, Perez, is dreadfully in love with
her. He is better bred than the other boys, but after all he is only a
farmer's son, and while pleased with his conquest as a testimony to her
immature charms, she has looked down upon him as quite an inferior order
of being to herself. But just now he appears to her in the desirable
light of somebody to bid good-bye to, to the end that she may be on
a par with the other girls whom she so envies. So she looks about for
Perez.
And he, on his part, is looking about for her. That she, the Squire's
daughter, as far above him as a star, would care whether he went or
stayed, or would come to say good-bye to him, he had scarcely dared to
think. And yet how deeply has that thought, which he has scarcely
dared own, tinged all his other thinking! The martial glory that has so
dazzled his young imagination, how much of its glitter was but reflected
from a girl's eyes. As he looks about and not seeing her, says, “She
does not care, she will not come,” the sword loses all its sheen, and
the nodding plume its charm, and his dreams of self-devotion all their
exhilaration.
“I came to bid you good-bye, Perez,” says a voice behind him.
He wheels about, red, confused, blissful. Desire Edwards, dark and
sparkling as a gypsy, stands before him with her hand outstretched. He
takes it eagerly, timidly. The little white fingers press his big brown
ones. He does not feel them there; they seem to be clasping his heart.
He feels the ecstatic pressure there.
“Fall in,” shouts Captain Woodbridge, for the Squire himself is their
captain.
There is a tumult of embraces and kisses all around. Reuben kissed his
mother.
“Will you kiss me, Desire?” said Perez, huskily, carried beyond himself,
scarcely knowing what he said, for if he had realized he never would
have dared.
Desire looked about, and saw all the women kissing their men. The air
was electric.
“Yes,” she said, and gave him her red lips, and for a moment it seemed
as if the earth had gone from under his feet. The next thing he knew he
was standing in line, with Reub on one side, and George Fennell on the
other and Abner Rathbun's six feet three towering at one end of the
line, while Parson West was standing on the piazza of the store, praying
for the blessing of God on the expedition.
“Amen,” the parson said, and Captain Woodbridge's voice rang out again.
The lines faced to the right, filed off the green at quick step, turned
into the Pittsfield road, and left the women to their tears.
CHAPTER SECOND
NINE YEARS AFTER
Early one evening in the very last of August, 1786, only three years
after the close of the Revolutionary war, a dozen or twenty men and
boys, farmers and laborers, are gathered, according to custom, in the
big barroom of Stockbridge tavern. The great open fireplace of course
shows no cheery blaze of logs at this season, and the only light is the
dim and yellow illumination diffused by two or three homemade tallow
candles stuck about the bar, which runs along half of one side of the
apartment. The dim glimmer of some pewter mugs standing on a shelf
behind the bar is the only spot of reflected light in the room, whose
time-stained, unpainted woodwork, dingy plastering, and low ceiling,
thrown into shadows by the rude and massive crossbeams, seems capable
of swallowing up without a sign ten times the illumination actually
provided. The faces of four or five men, standing near the bar, or
lounging on it, are quite plainly visible, and the forms of half a dozen
more who are seated on a long settle placed against the opposite wall,
are more dimly to be seen, while in the back part of the room, leaning
against the posts or walls, or lounging in the open doorway, a dozen or
more figures loom indistinctly out of the darkness.
The tavern, it must be remembered, as a convivial resort, is the social
antipodes of the back room of Squire Edwards' “store.” If you would
consort with silk-stockinged, wigged, and silver shoe-buckled gentlemen,
you must just step over there, for at the tavern are only to be found
the hewers of wood and drawers of water, mechanics, farm-laborers, and
farmers. Ezra Phelps and Israel Goodrich, the former the owner of the
new gristmill at “Mill Hollow,” a mile west of the village, the other
a substantial farmer, with their corduroy coats and knee-breeches, blue
woolen hose and steel shoe buckles, are the most socially considerable
and respectably attired persons present.
Perhaps about half the men and boys are barefooted, according to
the economical custom of a time when shoes in summer are regarded as
luxuries not necessities. The costume of most is limited to shirt and
trousers, the material for which their own hands or those of their
women-folk have sheared, spun, woven and dyed. Some of the better
dressed wear trousers of blue and white striped stuff, of the kind
now-a-days exclusively used for bed-ticking. The leathern breeches which
a few years before were universal are still worn by a few in spite of
their discomfort in summer.
Behind the bar sits Widow Bingham, the landlady, a buxom, middle-aged
woman, whose sharp black eyes have lost none of their snap, whether she
is entertaining a customer with a little pleasant gossip, or exploring
the murky recesses of the room about the door, where she well knows
sundry old customers are lurking, made cowards of by consciousness
of long unsettled scores upon her slate. And whenever she looks with
special fixity into the darkness there is soon a scuttling of somebody
out of doors.
She pays little or no attention to the conversation of the men around
the bar. Being largely political, it might be expected to have the less
interest for one of the domestic sex, and moreover it is the same old
story she has been obliged to hear over and over every evening, with
little variation, for a year or two past.
For in those days, throughout Massachusetts, at home, at the tavern, in
the field, on the road, in the street, as they rose up, and as they sat
down, men talked of nothing but the hard times, the limited markets, and
low prices for farm produce, the extortions and multiplying numbers of
the lawyers and sheriffs, the oppressions of creditors, the enormous,
grinding taxes, the last sheriff's sale, and who would be sold out next,
the last batch of debtors taken to jail, and who would go next, the
utter dearth of money of any sort, the impossibility of getting work,
the gloomy and hopeless prospect for the coming winter, and in general
the wretched failure of the triumph and independence of the colonies to
bring about the public and private prosperity so confidently expected.
The air of the room is thick with smoke, for most of the men are smoking
clay or corncob pipes, but the smoke is scarcely recognizable as that of
tobacco, so largely is that expensive weed mixed with dried sweet-fern
and other herbs, for the sake of economy. Of the score or two persons
present, only two, Israel Goodrich and Ezra Phelps, are actually
drinking anything. Not certainly that they are the only ones disposed
to drink, as the thirsty looks that follow the mugs to their lips,
sufficiently testify, but because they alone have credit at the bar.
Ezra furnishes Mrs. Bingham with meal from his mill, and drinks against
the credit thus created, while Israel furnishes the landlady with
potatoes on the same understanding. There being practically almost
no money in circulation, most kinds of trade are dependent on such
arrangements of barter. Meshech Little, the carpenter, who lies
dead-drunk on the floor, his clothing covered with the sand, which it
has gathered up while he was being unceremoniously rolled out of the
way, is a victim of one of these arrangements, having just taken his pay
in rum for a little job of tinkering about the tavern.
“Meshech hain't hed a steady job sence the new meetin-haouse wuz done
las' year, an I s'pose the critter feels kinder diskerridged like,” said
Abner Rathbun, regarding the prostrate figure sympathetically. Abner has
grown an inch and broadened proportionally, since Squire Woodbridge made
him file leader of the minute men by virtue of his six feet three, and
as he stands with his back to the bar, resting his elbows on it, the
room would not be high enough for his head, but that he stands between
the cross-beams.
“I s'pose Meshech's fam'ly 'll hev to go ontew the taown,” observed
Israel Goodrich. “They say ez the poorhouse be twicet ez full ez't orter
be, naow.”
“It'll hev more intew it fore 't hez less,” said Abner grimly.
“Got no work, Abner? I hearn ye wuz up Lenox way a lookin fer suthin
to dew,” inquired Peleg Bidwell, a lank, loose-jointed farmer, who was
leaning against a post in the middle of the room, just on the edge of
the circle of candlelight.
“A feller ez goes arter work goes on a fool's errant,” responded Abner,
dejectedly. “There ain' no work nowhar, an a feller might jess ez well
sit down to hum an wait till the sheriff comes arter him.”
“The only work as pays now-a-days is pickin the bones o' the people. Why
don't ye turn lawyer or depity sheriff, an take to that, Abner?” said
Paul Hubbard, an undersized man with a dark face, and thin, sneering
lips.
He had been a lieutenant in the Continental army, and used rather better
language than the country folk ordinarily, which, as well as a
cynical wit which agreed with the embittered popular temper, gave him
considerable influence. Since the war he had been foreman of Colonel
William's iron-works at West Stockbridge. There was great distress among
the workmen on account of the stoppage of the works by reason of the
hard times, but Hubbard, as well as most of the men, still remained
in West Stockbridge, simply because there was no encouragement to go
elsewhere.
“Wat I can't make aout is that the lawyers an sheriffs sh'd git so dern
fat a pickin our bones, seein ez ther's sech a dern leatle meat ontew
us,” said Abner.
“There's as much meat on squirrels as bears if you have enough of em,”
replied Hubbard. “They pick clean, ye see, an take all we've got, an
every little helps.”
“Yas,” said Abner, “they do pick darned clean, but that ain't the wust
on't, fer they sends our bones tew rot in jail arter they've got all the
meat orf.”
“'Twas ony yesdy Iry Seymour sole out Zadkiel Poor, ez lives long side
o' me, an tuk Zadkiel daown tew Barrington jail fer the res' what the
sale didn't fetch,” said Israel Goodrich. “Zadkiel he's been kinder
ailin like fer a spell back, an his wife, she says ez haow he can't live
a month daown tew the jail, an wen Iry tuk Zadkiel orf, she tuk on reel
bad. I declare for't, it seemed kinder tough.”
“I hearn ez they be tew new fellers a studyin law intew Squire
Sedgwick's office,” said Obadiah Weeks, a gawky youth of perhaps twenty,
evidently anxious to buy a standing among the adult circle of talkers by
contributing an item of information.
Abner groaned. “Great Crypus! More blood-suckers. Why, they be ten
lawyers in Stockbridge taown a'ready, an they warn't but one wen I wuz a
boy, an thar wuz more settlers 'n they be naow.”
“Wal, I guess they'll git nuff to dew,” said Ezra Phelps. “I hearn as
haow they's seven hundred cases on the docket o' the Common Pleas, nex'
week, mos' on em fer debt.”
“I hearn as two hundred on em be from Stockbridge an the iron-works,”
added Israel. “I declare for't Zadkiel 'll hev plenty o' kumpny daown
tew jail, by the time them suits be all tried.”
“By gosh, what be we a comin tew?” groaned Abner. “It doos seem zif we
all on us mout z'well move daown tew the jail to onc't, an hev done with
't. We're baown to come to 't fuss or las'.”
Presently Peleg Bidwell said, “My sister Keziah's son, by her fuss
husban's been daown tew Bosting, an I hearn say ez haow he says ez the
folks daown East mos'ly all hez furniter from Lunnon, and the women
wears them air Leghorn hats as cos ten shillin lawful, let alone
prunelly shoes an satin stockins, an he says as there ain't a ship goes
out o' Bosting harbor ez don' take more'n five thousan paound o' lawful
money outer the kentry. I callate,” pursued Peleg, “that's jess what's
tew the bottom o' the trouble. It's all long o' the rich folks a sendin
money out o' the kentry to git theirselves fine duds, an that's wy we
don' git more'n tuppence a paound fer our mutton, an nex' ter nothin fer
wheat, an don't have nothin to pay taxes with nor to settle with Squire
Edwards, daown ter the store. That's the leak in the bar'l, an times
won't git no better till that's plugged naow, I tell yew.”
“If't comes to pluggin leaks ye kin look nigher hum nor Bosting,”
observed Abner. “I hearn ez Squire Woodbridge giv fifty pound lawful fer
that sorter tune box ez he'z get fer his gal, an they doos say ez them
cheers o' Squire Sedgwick's cos twenty pound lawful in the old kentry.”
“What dew they call that air tune box?” inquired Israel Goodrich. “I've
hearn tell but I kinder fergit. It's some Frenchified soundin name.”
“It's a pianner,” said Obadiah.
“I guess peeanner's nigher right,” observed Peleg critically. “My gal
hearn the Edwards gal call it peeanner.”
“They ain't nuther of ye in a mile o' right. 'Tain't pianner, an 'tain't
peeanner; it's pianny,” said Abner, who on account of having once served
a few weeks in connection with a detachment of the French auxiliaries,
was conceded to be an authority on foreign pronunciation.
“I hain't got no idee on't, nohow,” said Israel shaking his head. “I
hearn it a goin ez I wuz a comin by the store. Souns like ez if it wuz
a hailin ontew a lot o' milk pans. I never suspicioned ez I should live
tew hear sech a n'ise.”
“I guess Peleg's baout right,” said Abner. “Thar won't be no show fer
poor folks, 'nless they is a law agin' sendin money aouter the kentry.”
“I callate that would be a shuttin of the barn door arter the hoss is
stole,” said Ezra Phelps, as he arrested a mug of flip on its way to his
lips, to express his views. “There ain' no use o' beginnin to save arter
all's spent. I callate guvment's got ter print a big stack o' new bills
ef we're a goin to git holt o' no money.”
“Ef it's paper bills as ye're a talkin baout,” said Abner grimly, “I've
got quite a slew on em tew hum, mebbe a peck or tew. I got em fer pay
in the army. They're tew greasy tew kindle a fire with, an I dunno o'
nothin else ez they're good for. Ye're welcome to em, Ezry. My little
Bijah assed me fer some on em tew make a kite outer thuther day, an
I says tew him, says I, 'Bijah, I don' callate they'll do nohow fer a
kite, for I never hearn of a Continental bill a goin up, but ef yer want
a sinker fer yer fish line they're jess the thing.'”
There was a sardonic snicker at Ezra's expense, but he returned to the
charge quite undismayed.
“That ain't nuther here nor there,” he said, turning toward Abner and
emphasizing his words with the empty mug. “What I asses yew is, wan't
them bills good fer suthin wen they wuz fuss printed?”
“They wuz wuth suthin fer a wile,” assented Abner.
“Ezackly,” said the other, “that's the nater o' bills. Allers they is
good fer a wile and then they kinder begins to run daown, an they runs
daown till they ain't wuth nuthin,” and Ezra illustrated the process by
raising the mug as high as his head and bringing it slowly down to his
knees. “Paounds an shillins runs daown tew by gittin wored off till
they's light weight. Every kine o' money runs daown, on'y it's the nater
o' bills to run daown a leetle quicker nor other sorts. Naow I says,
an I ain't the ony one ez says it, that all guvment's got to dew is tew
keep a printin new bills ez fass ez the old ones gits run daown. Times
wuz good long in the war. A feller could git baout what he assed fer his
crops an he could git any wages he assed. Yer see guvment wuz a printin
money fass. Jess's quick ez a bill run daown they up and printed another
one, so they wuz allers plenty. Soon ez the war wuz over they stopped a
printin bills and immejetly the hard times come. Hain't that so?”
“I dunno but yew be right,” said Abner, thoughtfully, “I never thort
on't ezzackly that way,” and Isaiah Goodrich also expressed the opinion
that there was “somethin into what Ezry says.”
“What we wants,” pursued Ezra, “what we wants, is a kine o' bills
printed as shall lose vally by reglar rule, jess so much a month, no
more no less, cordin ez its fixed by law an printed on tew the bills
so'z everybody'll understan an no-body'll git cheated. I hearn that's
the idee as the Hampshire folks went fer in the convenshun daown tew
Hatfield this week. Ye see, ez I wuz a sayin, bills is baoun tew
come daown anyhow ony if they comes daown regler, cordin tew law,
everybody'll know what t'expect, and nobody won' lose nothin.”
“Praps the convenshun what's a sittin up tew Lenox'll rekummen them
bills,” hopefully suggested a farmer who had been taking in Ezra's
wisdom with open mouth.
“I don' s'pose that it'll make any odds how many bills are printed as
far's we're concerned,” said Hubbard, bitterly. “The lawyers'll make out
to git em all pretty soon. Ye might's well try to fat a hog with a tape
worm in him, as to make folks rich as long as there are any lawyers
round.”
“Yas, an jestices' fees, an sheriff fees is baout ez bad ez lawyer's,”
said Israel Goodrich, whose countenance was beginning to glow from the
influence of his potations. “I tell you wesh'd be a dern sight better
off 'f'all the courts wuz stopped. Most on ye is young fellers, 'cept
you Elnathan Hamlin, thar. He'll tell ye, ez I tell ye, that this air
caounty never seen sech good times, spite on'ts bein war times, ez long
fur '74 to '80, arter we'd stopped the King's courts from sittin an
afore we'd voted for the new constitution o' the state, ez we wuz durn
fools fer doin of, ef I dew say it. In them six year thar warn't nary
court sot nowhere in the caounty, from Boston Corner tew ole Fort
Massachusetts, an o' course thar warn't no lawyers an no sheriffs ner
no depity sheriffs nuther, tew make every debt twice as big with ther
darnation fees. They warn't no sheriffs sales, nuther, a sellin of a
feller outer house'n hum an winter comin on, an thar warn't no suein an
no jailin of fellers fer debt. Folks wuz keerful who they trusted, ez
they'd orter be allers, for ther warn't no klectin o' debts nohow, an
ef that warn't allers jestice I reckin 'twas as nigh jestice as 'tis
to klect bills swelled more'n double by lawyers' and sheriffs' and
jestices' fees ez they doos naow. In them days ef any feller wuz put
upon by another he'd jess got tew complain tew the slectmen or the
committee, an they'd right him. I tell yew rich folks an poor folks
lived together kinder neighborly in them times an 'cordin tew scripter.
The rich folks warn't a grindin the face o' the poor, an the poor they
wuzn't a hatin an a envyin o' the rich, nigh untew blood, ez they is
naow, ef I dew say it. Yew rekullec them days, Elnathan, warn't it jess
ez I say?”
“Them wuz good times, Israel. Ye ain't sayin nothin more'n wuz trew,”
said Elnathan in a feeble treble, from his seat on the settle.
“I tell you they wuz good,” reiterated Israel, as he looked around upon
the group with scintillating eyes, and proceeded to hand his mug over
the bar to be refilled.
“I hearn ez haow the convenshun up tew Lenox is a go in tew 'bolish the
lawyers an the courts,” said a stalwart fellow of bovine countenance,
named Laban Jones, one of the discharged iron-works men.
“The convenshun can't 'bolish nothin,” said Peleg Bidwell, gloomily. “It
can't do nothin but rekommen the Gineral Court way daown tew Bosting.
Bosting is too fer orf fer this caounty, nor Hampshire nuther, tew git
no considerashin. This eend o' the state ull never git its rights till
the guvment's moved outer Bosting tew Worcester where't uster be in war
times.”
“That's so,” said Ezra Phelps, “everybody knows as these tew counties be
taxed higher nor the other eend o' the state.”
“Hev yew paid up ye taxes fer las' year, Peleg?” inquired Abner.
“No, I hain't, nor fer year afore, nuther. Gosh, I can't. I could pay
in pertaters, but I can't pay in money. Ther ain't no money. Klector
Williams says as haow he'd hafter sell me out, an I s'pose he's goin
ter. It's kinder tough, but I don' see zi kin dew nothin. I callate to
be in the jail or poorhouse, afore spring.”
“I dunno o' nobody roun here, as haz paid ther taxes fer las year, yit,”
said Israel. “I callate that more'n half the farms in the caounty 'll be
sole fer taxes afore spring.”
“I hearn as how Squire Woodbridge says taxes is ten times what they wuz
afore the war, an its sartain that they ain't one shillin intew folks'
pockets tew pay em with whar they wuz ten on em in them days. It seems
dern curis, bein as we fit agin the redcoats jest tew git rid o' taxes,”
said Abner.
“Taxes is mosly fer payin interest ontew the money what govment borrowed
tew kerry on the war. Naow, I says, an I ain't the on'y one in the
caounty as says it, nuther, ez debts orter run daown same ez bills does,
reglar, so much a month, till they ain't nuthin leff,” said Ezra Phelps,
setting down his mug with an emphatic thud. “S'poosn I borrers money
of yew, Abner, an built a haouse, that haouse is boun tew run daown
in vally, I callate, 'long from year tew year. An it seems kinder
rees'nable that the debt sh'd run daown's fass as the haouse, so's wen
the haouse gits wored aout, the debt 'll be, tew. Them things ez govment
bought with the money it borrered, is wore aout, an it seems kinder
rees'nable that the debts should be run daown tew. A leetle orter a been
took orf the debt every year, instead o' payin interes ontew it.”
“I guess like's not ye hev the rights on't, Ezry. I wuzn't a thinkin
on't that air way, ezzactly. I wuz a thinkin that if govment paid one
kine o' debts 't orter pay t'other kine. I fetched my knapsack full o'
govment bills hum from the war. I callate them bills wuz all on em debts
what the govment owed tew me fur a fightin. Ef govment ain't a goin tew
pay me them bills, an 'tain't, 'it don' seem fair tew tax me so's it kin
pay debts it owes tew other folks. Leastways seems's though them bills
govment owes me orter be caounted agin the taxes instead o' bein good
fer nothin. It don't seem ez if 'twas right, nohaow.”
“Leastways,” said Peleg, “if the Gineral Court hain't a goin ter print
more bills 't orter pass a lor, seein thar ain't no money in the kentry,
so 'z a feller's prop'ty could be tuk by a fair valiation fer what he
owes, instead o' lettin the sheriff sell it fer nothin and sendin a
feller tew jail fer the balince. Wen I giv Squire Edwards that air
leetle morgidge on my farm, money wuz plenty, an I callated tew pay it
up easy; an naow thar ain't no money, an I can't git none, if I died
for't. It's jess zif I 'greed tew sell a load o' ice in January, an a
thaw come an thar wan't no ice leff. Property's wuth's much 'z ever I
callate, an't orter be good fer debts instead o' money, 'cordin to a far
valiation.”
“Mr. Goodrich, how did you go to work to stop the King's courts in '74?
Did you hang the justices?” inquired Paul Hubbard, arousing from a fit
of contemplation.
“Nary bit,” replied Isaiah, “there warn't no need o' hangin nobody.
'Twas a fine mornin in May, I rekullec jess zif 'twas yes'day, wen the
court was a goin tew open daown tew Barrington, an abaout a thousan men
on us jess went daown an filled up the court haouse, an woudn' let the
jedges in, an wen they see 'twan't no use, they jess give in quiet's
lambs, an we made em sign their names tew a paper agreein not tew hold
no more courts, an the job wuz done. Ye see the war wuzn't farly begun
an none o' the King's courts in th' uther caounties wuz stopped, but we
callated the court mout make trouble for some o' the Sons o' Liberty, in
the caounty if we let it set.”
“I callate 't ain't nothin very hard tew stop a court, 'cordin tew
that,” said Peleg Bidwell.
“No, 'tain't hard, not ef the people is gen'ally agin' the settin on
it,” said Isaiah.
“I s'pose ef a thousan men sh'd be daown tew Barrington nex' week
Tewsday, they could stop the jestice fr'm openin the Common Pleas, jess
same ez yew did,” said Peleg, thoughtfully.
“Sartain,” said Isaac, “sartain; leastways's long ez the militia warn't
aout, but gosh, they ain't no sense o' talkin baout sech things! These
hain't no sech times ez them wuz, an folks ain't what they wuz, nuther.
They seems kinder slimpsy; hain't got no grit.”
During this talk, Elnathan had risen and gone feebly out.
“Elnathan seems tew take it tew heart baout leavin the ole place. I
hearn ez how Solomon Gleason's goin ter sell him aout pooty soon,” Abner
remarked.
“I guess t'ain't so much that as 'tis the bad news he's heerd baout Reub
daown tew Barrington jail,” said Obadiah Weeks.
“What's abaout Reub?” asked Abner.
“He's a goin intew a decline daown to the jail.”
“I wanter know! Poor Reub!” said Abner, compassionately. “He fout side
o' me tew Stillwater, an Perez was t'other side. Perez done me a good
turn that day, ez I shan't furgit in a hurry. Gosh, he'd take it hard
ef he hearn ez haow Reub wuz in jail! I never seed tew fellers set more
store by another 'n he did by Reub.”
“Wonder ef Perez ain't never a comin hum. He hain't been back sence the
war. I hearn his folks had word a spell ago, ez he wuz a comin,” said
Peleg.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Abner, his rough features softening with a pensive
cast, “I rekullec jess zif 'twar yes'dy, that rainy mornin wen we
fellers set orf long with Squire Woodbridge fer Bennington. Thar wuz me,
'n Perez, an Reub, an Abe Konkapot, 'n lessee, yew went afore, didn't
ye, Peleg?”
“Yas, I went with Cap'n Stoddard,” replied that individual.
“Thar we wuz; all a stannin in line,” pursued Abner, gazing right
through the ceiling, as if he could see just the other side of it the
scene which he so vividly recalled, “an Parson West a prayin, an the
wimmin a whimperin, an we nigh ontew it; fer we wuz green, an the
mothers' milk warn't aouter us. But I bet we tho't we wuz big pertaters,
agoin to fight fer lib'ty. Wall, we licked the redcoats, and we got
lib'ty, I s'pose; lib'ty ter starve, that is ef we don' happin to git
sent tew jail fus,” and Abner's voice fell, and his chin dropped on his
breast, in a sudden reaction of dejection at the thought of the bitter
disappointment of all the hopes which that day had made their hearts so
strong, even in the hour of parting.
“I callate we wuz a dern sight better orf every way under the King, 'n
we be naow. The Tories wuz right, arter all, I guess. We'd better a
let well nuff l'one, an not to a jumped aouter the fryin-pan intew the
fire,” said Peleg, gloomily.
As he ended speaking, a medium sized man, with a pasty white, freckled
complexion, bristly red hair, a retreating forehead and small, sharp
eyes, came forward from the dark corner near the door. His thin lips
writhed in a mocking smile, as he stood confronting Peleg and Abner, and
looking first at one and then at the other:
“Ef I don' furgit,” he said at length, “that's 'baout the way I talked
wen the war wuz a goin on, an if I rekullec, ye, Peleg, an ye, Abner
Rathbun and Meshech Little, thar on the floor, tuk arter me with
yer guns and dorgs caze ye said I wuz a dum Tory. An ye hunted me on
Stockbridge mounting like a woodchuck, an ye'd a hed my skelp fer sartin
ef I hadn't been a durn sight smarter 'n ye ever wuz.”
“Jabez,” said Abner, “I hope ye don' hev no hard feelin's. Times be
changed. Let by gones be by gones.”
“Mos' folks ud say I hed some call to hev hard feelin's. Ye druv me ter
hide in caves, an holes, fer the best part o' tew year. I dass'n come
hum tew see my wife die, nor tew bury on her. Ye confiscated my house
and tuk my crops fer yer derned army. Mos' folks ud sartingly say ez
I hed call tew hev hard feelin's agin' ye. But gosh, I hain't, an wy
hain't I? Gaze ye hev been yer own wust enemies; ye've hurt yerselves
more ner ye hev me, though ye didn't go fer ter dew it. Pooty nigh
all on ye, as fit agen the King, is beggars naow, or next door tew it.
Everybudy hez a kick fer a soldier. Ye'll fine em mosly in the jails an
the poorhaouses. Look at you fellers as wuz a huntin me. Ther's Meshech
on the floor, a drunken, worthless cuss. Thar ye be, Abner, 'thout a
shillin in the world, nor a foot o' lan', yer dad's farm gone fer taxes.
An thar be ye, Peleg. Wal Peleg, they dew say, ez the neighbors sends ye
in things.”
Jabez looked from one to the other till he had sufficiently enjoyed
their discomfiture and then he continued:
“I ain't much better orf'n ye be, but I hain't got nothin ontew my
conscience. An wen I looks roun' an sees the oppresshin, and the poverty
of the people, and how they have none tew help, an the jails so full, an
the taxes, an the plague o' lawyers, an the voice o' cryin as is goin
up from the land, an all the consekences o' the war, I tell ye, it's
considabul satisfacshin to feel ez I kin wash my hans on't.” And, with
a glance of contemptuous triumph around the circle, Jabez turned on his
heel and went out. The silence was first broken by Ezra Phelps, who said
quietly:
“Wal, Jabez ain't fur from right. It's abaout so. Some says the King is
callatin to try to git the colonies back agin fore long. Ef he doos I
guess he'll make aout, fur I don't bleeve ez a kumpny o' men could be
raised in all Berkshire, tew go an fight the redcoats agin, if they wuz
to come to-morrer.” And a general murmur of assent confirmed his words.
“Wal,” said Abner, recovering speech, “live an larn. In them days wen
I went a gunnin arter Jabez, I uster to think ez thar wuzn't no sech
varmint ez a Tory, but I didn't know nothin bout lawyers, and sheriffs
them times. I callate ye could cut five Tories aout o' one lawyer an
make a dozen skunks aout o' what wuz leff over. I'm a goin hum.”
This was the signal for a general break-up. Israel, who had fallen into
a boozy slumber on the settle, was roused and sent home between his
son and hired man, and presently the tavern was dark save for the
soon extinguished glimmer of a candle at the upstairs window of Widow
Bingham's apartment. Meshech was left to snore upon the barroom floor
and grope his way outdoors as best he might, when he should return to
his senses. For doors were not locked in Stockbridge in those days.
CHAPTER THIRD
THE TAVERN-JAIL AT BARRINGTON
Peleg's information, although of a hearsay character, was correct.
Perez Hamlin was coming home. The day following the conversation in the
barroom of Stockbridge tavern, which I have briefly sketched in the
last chapter, about an hour after noon, a horseman might have been seen
approaching the village of Great Barrington, on the road from Sheffield.
He wore the buff and blue uniform of a captain in the late Continental
army, and strapped to the saddle was a steel hilted sword which had
apparently experienced a good many hard knocks. The lack of any other
baggage to speak of, as well as the frayed and stained condition of his
uniform, indicated that however rich the rider might be in glory, he was
tolerably destitute of more palpable forms of wealth.
Poverty, in fact, had been the chief reason that had prevented Captain
Hamlin from returning home before. The close of the war had found him
serving under General Greene in South Carolina, and on the disbandment
of the troops he had been left without means of support. Since then
he had been slowly working his way homewards, stopping a few months
wherever employment or hospitality offered. What with the lack and
insecurity of mails, and his frequent movements, he had not heard from
home for two or three years, though he had written. But in those days,
when the constant exchange of bulletins of health and business between
friends, which burdens modern mail bags, was out of the question, the
fact perhaps developed a more robust quality of faith in the well-being
of the absent than is known in these timid and anxious days. Certain it
is that as the soldier rides along, the smiles that from time to time
chase each other across his bronzed face, indicate that gay and tender
anticipations of the meeting now only a few hours away, leave no room in
his mind for gloomy conjectures of possible disaster. It is nine years
since he parted with his father and mother; and his brother Reub he has
not seen since the morning in 1778, when Perez, accepting a commission,
had gone south with General Greene, and Reub had left for home with
Abner and Fennell, and a lot of others whose time had expired. He smiles
now as he thinks how he never really knew what it was to enjoy the
fighting until he got the lad off home, so that he had not to worry
about his being hit every time there was any shooting going on. Coming
into Great Barrington, he asked the first man he met where the tavern
was.
“That's it, over yonder,” said the man, jerking his thumb over his
shoulder at a nondescript building some way ahead.
“That looks more like a jail.”
“Wal, so 'tis. The jail's in the ell part o' the tavern. Cephe Bement
keeps 'em both.”
“It's a queer notion to put em under the same roof.”
“I dunno 'bout that, nuther. It's mostly by way o' the tavern that
fellers gits inter jail, I calc'late.”
Perez laughed, and riding up to the tavern end of the jail, dismounted,
and going into the barroom, ordered a plate of pork and beans. Feeling
in excellent humor he fell to conversing over his modest meal with the
landlord, a big, beefy man, who evidently liked to hear himself talk,
and in a gross sort of way, appeared to be rather good natured.
“I saw a good many red flags on farmhouses, as I was coming up from
Sheffield, this morning,” said Perez. “You haven't got the smallpox in
the county again, have you?”