THE HOUSE OF ERRING.
The friend and companion of my boyhood was Jo Erring, my mother’s only
brother, who had been in the family since before I was born. He was five
years my senior, and a stout and ambitious fellow I greatly admired; but
as he was regularly flogged when I was, this circumstance gave rise to
his first ambition to become a man and whip my father, whom he regarded
with little favor.
There was a kind of tradition that when he became of age he was to have
a horse and ten dollars in money, but whether this was really the price
of his work I never knew. More likely he came to our house with my
mother, as he was not wanted at home, and had lived there until other
disposition could be made of him. He usually had a horse picked out as
the one he desired, and gave it particular attention, but as each of
these in turn was disposed of at convenient opportunity, he became more
than ever convinced that he was related by marriage to a very
unscrupulous man.
I remember him at this period as an overgrown boy always wearing
cast-off clothing either too large or too small for him, and the hero
and friend of every boy on Fairview prairie. Although he was the
stoutest boy in the neighborhood, and we often wondered that he did not
sometimes whip all the others simply because he could, he never
quarrelled, but was in every dispute a mediator, announcing his
decisions in a voice good-natured and hoarse; and as he was honest and
just, and very stout, there were no appeals from his decisions. In our
rough amusements, which were few enough, he used his strength to secure
to the smaller ones their share, and gave way himself with the same
readiness that he exacted from the others; therefore he was very popular
among the younger portion of the population, and there was great joy at
school when it was announced--which pleasure I usually had--that Jo
Erring had finished his winter’s work, and was coming the next day, for
all forms of oppression must cease from that date. Sometimes he came by
the school on a winter evening with a rude sled, to which he had young
horses attached to break them, and if the larger boys climbed on to ride
home, or as far as he went, he made them all get off, and loading up
with those too small to look after their own interests in the struggle,
drove gaily away with me by his side.
There were few men more trusty than Jo, and he always made a round in
the plough-field after my father had turned out, as if to convince him
that he was mistaken in the opinion that boys were good for nothing.
When there was corn to gather, he took the slowest team and the lazy
hired man, and brought in more loads than my father and I, and if I
found any way to aid him in this I always did it. They seemed to hate
each other in secret, for the master disliked a boy who was able to
equal him in anything, as if his extra years had availed him nothing;
and I confess that my sympathies were always with Jo, for the grown
people picked at him because of his ambition to become a man, in all
other respects than age, a few years sooner than was usual. While nobody
disputed that he was a capable fellow, he was always attempting
something he could not carry out, and thus became a subject of ridicule
in spite of his worth and ability; if he was sent to the timber for
wood, he would volunteer to be back at an impossible time, and although
he returned sooner than most men would have done, they laughed at him,
and regarded him as a great failure.
It was said of him that he exaggerated, but I think that he was only
anxious that it be known what he could do if he had an opportunity; and
as every one thought less of him than he deserved, he kept on talking of
himself to correct a wrong impression, and steadily made matters worse.
His activity kept him down, for another thing, for thereby he raised an
opposition which would not have existed had he been content to walk
leisurely along in the tracks made by his elders. He accepted none of
the opinions of the Fairview men, and it was said of him that he was a
skeptic for no other reason than that everybody else was religious, and
I am not certain but that there was some truth in this.
If the truth of a certain principle was asserted, he denied it, not by
rude controversy, but by his actions; and by his ingenuity he often made
a poorer one seem better, if the one proposed happened to be right, as
was sometimes the case--for the Fairview people had but two ways to
guess, and occasionally adopted a right method instead of a wrong one,
by accident.
I believe there was nothing he could not do. He shingled hair in a
superb manner for any one who applied, and charged nothing for the
service. And I helped him learn the art, for he practised on me so much
that I was nearly always bald. He made everything he took a fancy for,
and seemed to possess himself of the contents of a book by looking
through it; for though I seldom found him reading, he was about as
well-informed as the books themselves. When the folks were away at
camp-meeting, he added my mother’s work to his own, and got along very
well with it. I never heard of anything a Fairview boy could do better
than Jo Erring, and he did a great many things in which he had no
competition; therefore I have often wondered that the only young man
there who really amounted to anything was for some reason rather
unpopular. Jo was unfortunate in the particular that he seemed to have
inherited all the poorer qualities of both his father and mother instead
of the good qualities of either one of them, or a commendable trait from
one, and an undesirable one from the other. I have heard of men who
resembled the less worthy of their parents--I believe this is the
rule--but never before have I known a boy to resemble both his parents
in everything they tried to hide. His tendency to exaggeration he got
honestly from his mother, who was a fluent talker, but Jo was not like
her in that. In this Jo was like his father, who would not say a half
dozen words without becoming hopelessly entangled, and making long
pauses in painful effort to extricate his meaning.
Jo was often sent to a water-mill in the woods with a grist, and while
waiting for his wheat or corn to be ground, he regarded the machinery
with the closest attention, and at length became impressed with the idea
that after he had become a man, and whipped my father, he would like to
follow milling for a business. The miller, an odd but kindly man of whom
but little was known in our part of the country, admired Jo’s manly way,
and made friends with him by good-naturedly answering his questions, and
occasionally inviting him to his house for dinner; and Jo talked so much
of his ambition and his friend, that he came to be called “The Miller,”
and spent his spare time in making models, and trying them in the
rivulets which ran through the fields after a rain.
His father’s farm was skirted by Big Creek, and here he picked out a
site for his mill when he should be able to build it, at a place called
Erring’s Ford (the location really did credit to his judgment), and
having hauled a load of stones there one Saturday afternoon for a dam,
the circumstance gave rise to the only pleasantry ever known in
Fairview. When any one spoke of an event not likely to happen, he said
it would probably come about when the sky rained pitchforks on the roof
of Jo Erring’s mill; but Jo paid little attention to this banter, and
hauled more stones for the dam whenever he had opportunity, in which
work I assisted, in preference to idleness without him. He hoped to
become apprenticed to his friend the miller to learn the business, and
to complete his own enterprise by slow degrees from his small savings.
And he never lost sight of this purpose, pursuing it so steadily that a
few of those who at first laughed at him spoke at length encouraging
words, and said they believed he would finally succeed, although it
would be a long time in coming about.
I was secretly very fond of the mill enterprise, and admired Jo more
than ever, that he was bold enough to attempt carrying it out. Our plan
to run away was altered by this new interest, and we agreed that it
would be better to wait patiently until the mill was complete, and buy
our liberty from its profits; for Jo had generously agreed to ransom me
as well as himself as soon as he was able.
Jo’s mother, a very large woman who was the acknowledged head of the
House of Erring, and doctor for half that country, lived four miles from
Fairview church, on Big Creek, in a house of hewn logs, the inside of
which was a marvel for neatness. Of her husband the people knew nothing
except that he was a shingle-maker, and that he was probably a very
wicked man, for he was about the only one in the settlement who did not
profess religion, and attend the gatherings at the church. The calling
of shingle-making he followed winter and summer and he never seemed to
raise anything on his farm except a glassy kind of corn with a great
many black grains in every ear, which he planted and cultivated with a
hoe. After it was gathered, he tied most of it in bunches, and hung it
up to dry on the kitchen rafters, where it was understood to be for sale
as seed; although I never heard that it was good for anything except to
parch, and the only use he ever made of it, that I knew anything about,
was to give it to Jo and me with the air of a man conferring a great
favor.
My father liked nothing about Dad Erring except his one virtue of
attending to his own business, such as it was; and said of him that he
selected his piece of land because it was near a spring, whereas the
exercise of a little energy would have dug a well affording an equally
good supply of water on vastly superior land.
Indeed, no one seemed to like him, and the dislike was mutual, for if he
was familiar with any one except Jo, my mother, and myself, I never knew
of it. He seldom spoke even to my grandmother when I was about, and I
think only very rarely at any other time, for they seemed never to have
recovered from some old trouble. There was this much charity for him,
however--the people said no more than that he was an exceedingly odd
sort of a man (a verdict true of his appearance as well as disposition,
for he was very large, very raw-boned, and clean shaven), and let him
alone, which of all things he probably most desired.
The people frequently met him walking along the road swinging a stout
stick, and taking tremendous strides (he never owned a horse, but took
long journeys on foot, refusing a ride if offered him by a wagon going
in the same direction), but he did not speak to them unless compelled
and apparently had no other desire than to be let alone.
He never went anywhere except to the timber to make shingles, and off on
excursions afoot nobody knew whither, from which he always returned in a
few days in exactly the same mood as that in which he had started. I
have heard that he had relatives living in a settlement south of us, but
whether he went to visit them on his journeys, or spent the money he
earned in shingle-making in walking about for his health, paying for his
entertainment where-ever night overtook him, I did not know then, nor do
I know now.
Once in a long while he came to our house, always when my father was
away; and, after watching my mother awhile as she went about her work,
went away again, sometimes without saying a word, although she always
talked kindly to him, and was glad to see him. Occasionally he would
accept her invitation to refresh himself with food, but not often; and
when he did he would be offended unless she took a present of money to
buy something to remember him by. If she was dangerously ill--which was
often the case, for she was never strong--he was never sent for. Nobody
thought of him as of any use or as caring much about it; but when she
had recovered, he would come over, and, after looking at her curiously,
return home satisfied. I think that had she died, he would not have been
invited to the funeral, but I am certain that after it was all over, he
would often have visited her grave, and looked at it in quiet
astonishment.
On returning from her visits to the sick, my grandmother usually stopped
at our house, and sometimes I was lifted up behind to go home with her
to take care of the horse she rode, for my grandfather disliked horses.
Arriving at the house of hewn logs in the edge of the woods, she
dismounted and went in, and I went on to the stables. Returning after I
had finished my work, I found my grandfather on one side of the
fire-place, and my grandmother on the other, looking into the fire, or,
if it was summer, into the cavernous recess where the backlog would have
been blazing in winter. If it was evening, which was usually the case, I
was soon sent out to make the fire for the evening meal, but after this
was eaten, we resumed our places at the hearth. Sometimes I told them
what I knew was going on in the neighborhood, and caused them to ask
questions, and replied to them, and tried to lure them into a
conversation, but I never succeeded. If my grandmother told me that one
of her patients had died, the information was really intended for her
husband; and if he did not fully understand it, he directed his
questions to me, and she replied in the same way. In this way they also
discussed household affairs of which it was necessary for each to know,
storing them up until I came, but never speaking directly to each other.
After I had sat between them for an hour or more, it would suddenly
occur to my grandmother that I had been up too long already, and after
divesting me of clothing, I was thrown into the centre of a great
feather-bed, three of which stood in a row at the back end of the room.
I was put into the middle one, as if to keep my grand-parents as far
apart as possible again, for I was certain that my grandmother slept in
one, and my grandfather in the other. The one which I occupied was also
the company bed, for my grandmother evidently desired me to know that my
mother, excellent woman though she was, could not hope to learn
perfectly the art of making up a feather-bed for many years yet. If I
raised my head quietly, and looked out, I found the strange couple
sitting by the fire as I had left them, and, in wondering whether they
would remain there all night, I fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning they were up before me, waiting for
daylight, as people were early risers in those days; and I never knew
certainly that they went to bed at all, but always wondered whether they
did not sit beside the fire throughout the long night.
After a while my grandmother came to the bed, pulled me out and into my
clothes, and sent me to the spring to wash my face for breakfast, which
was soon thereafter ready. When this was over I was started for home,
usually carrying a present of butter or eggs for my mother, and a box on
the ears for myself.