IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO A MAD HERO, A RECKLESS LOVER, AND A
RUNAWAY HUSBAND--BACKWOODS JUVENILE TRAINING DESCRIBED--THE PRINCIPLES
OF FIGHTING FULLY DISCUSSED, AND SOME VALUABLE HINTS THROWN OUT.
March Marston was mad! The exact state of madness to which March had
attained at the age when we take up his personal history--namely,
sixteen--is uncertain, for the people of the backwoods settlement in
which he dwelt differed in their opinions on that point.
The clergyman, who was a Wesleyan, said he was as wild as a young
buffalo bull; but the manner in which he said so led his hearers to
conclude that he did not think such a state of ungovernable madness to
be a hopeless condition, by any means. The doctor said he was as mad as
a hatter; but this was an indefinite remark, worthy of a doctor who had
never obtained a diploma, and required explanation, inasmuch as it was
impossible to know _how_ mad he considered a hatter to be. Some of the
trappers who came to the settlement for powder and lead, said he was as
mad as a grisly bear with a whooping-cough--a remark which, if true,
might tend to throw light on the diseases to which the grisly bear is
liable, but which failed to indicate to any one, except perhaps
trappers, the extent of young Marston's madness. The carpenter and the
blacksmith of the place--who were fast friends and had a pitched battle
only once a month, or twice at most--agreed in saying that he was as mad
as a wild-cat. In short, every one asserted stoutly that the boy was
mad, with the exception of the women of the settlement, who thought him
a fine, bold, handsome fellow; and his own mother, who thought him a
paragon of perfection, and who held the opinion (privately) that, in the
wide range of the habitable globe there was not another like him--and
she was not far wrong!
Now, the whole and sole reason why March Marston was thus deemed a
madman, was that he displayed an insane tendency, at all times and in
all manners, to break his own neck, or to make away with himself in some
similarly violent and uncomfortable manner.
There was not a fence in the whole countryside that March had not bolted
over at full gallop, or ridden crash through if he could not go over it.
There was not a tree within a circuit of four miles from the top of
which he had not fallen. There was not a pond or pool in the
neighbourhood into which he had not soused at some period of his stormy
juvenile career, and there was not a big boy whom he had not fought and
thrashed--or been thrashed by--scores of times.
But for all this March had not a single enemy. He did his companions
many a kind turn; never an unkind one. He fought for love, not for
hatred. He loved a dog--if any one kicked it, he fought him. He loved
a little boy--if any one was cruel to that little boy, he fought him.
He loved fair play--if any one was guilty of foul play, he fought him.
When he was guilty of foul play himself (as was sometimes the case, for
who is perfect?) he felt inclined to jump out of his own body and turn
about and thrash himself! And he would have done so often, had it been
practicable. Yes, there is no doubt whatever about it March Marston was
mad--as mad, after a fashion, as any creature, human or otherwise, you
choose to name.
Young Marston's mother was a handsome, stout, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired
woman, of a little over thirty-five summers. She was an English
emigrant, and had, seventeen years before the time we write of settled
at Pine Point, on the banks of the Yellowstone River, along with her
brother, the blacksmith above referred to. At that time she was the
sweetest maiden in all the village, and now she was the handsomest
matron. Indeed, the bloom of her youth remained on her cheeks so little
impaired that she was often mistaken by strangers for March Marston's
elder sister. The men of the place called her pretty widow Marston; but
she was not a widow--at least, they had as little ground for saying that
she was as they had for asserting that her son was mad. Mrs Marston
was peculiarly circumstanced, but she was not a widow.
The peculiar circumstances connected with her history are soon told.
Immediately after the arrival of the blacksmith and his pretty sister at
Pine Point settlement, a tall stout young stripling--a trapper--about a
year older than herself, fell deeply in love with Mary West--that being
Mrs Marston's maiden name. The young trapper's case was desperate. He
sank at once so deep into the profundities of love, that no deep-sea
lead, however ingeniously contrived, could reach him.
Although just emerging from boyhood, Louis the trapper was already a
tall, strong, handsome man, and Mary felt flattered by his attentions.
But when, a month afterwards, he boldly offered her his hand and fortune
(which latter consisted of a trapper's costume and a western rifle), she
was taken aback and flatly refused him. Louis was hare-brained and
passionate. He told her he would give her one day and a night to think
of it. At the end of that time he came back and was again refused, for
Mary West had no notion of being taken by storm in that fashion. But
she trembled and grew pale on observing the storm of angry passion that
gleamed from the young trapper's eyes and caused his broad chest to
heave violently. He did not speak. He did not even look at Mary--had
he done so, years of sorrow and suffering might have been spared them
both. He stood for one moment with his eyes fixed upon the ground--then
he turned, sprang through the doorway, vaulted on his horse, and went
off from her cottage door as an arrow leaps from a bow. The fences and
ditches that lay in his way were no impediment. His powerful steed
carried him over all and into the forest beyond, where he was quickly
lost to view. Mary tried to resume her household occupations with a
sigh. She did not believe he was gone. But he was!
At first Mary was nettled; then she grew sad; as weeks passed away she
became nettled again, and at this juncture another suitor appeared in
the shape of a young immigrant farmer, whose good looks and insinuating
address soothed her irritation at the strange abrupt conduct of her
lover. She began to think that she must have been mistaken in supposing
that she cared for the wild trapper--and, in order to prove the
correctness of her supposition, she married Obadiah Marston, the farmer.
Alas! poor Mary discovered her error too late. Marston turned out a
profligate drunkard. At first he did not come out in his true colours.
A son was born, and he insisted on calling him March, for no other
reason than that he was born in the month so named. Mary was obliged to
consent, and at last came to congratulate herself that the child had
been born in March, and not in April or October, or any other month
equally unsuitable for a Christian name. After the first year, Obadiah
Marston treated his wife badly, then brutally, and at last he received a
sound drubbing from his brother-in-law, the blacksmith, for having
beaten poor Mary with a stick. This brought things to a climax.
Marston vowed he would forsake his wife, and never set eyes on her
again; and he kept his vow. He embarked one day in a boat that was
going down to the Missouri with a cargo of furs, and his poor wife never
saw him again. Thus was Mary West forsaken, first by her lover and then
by her husband.
It was long before she recovered from the blow; but time gradually
reconciled her to her lot, and she devoted herself thenceforth to the
training of her little boy. As years rolled on, Mrs Marston recovered
her spirits and her looks; but, although many a fine young fellow sought
her heart and hand, assuring her that she was a widow--that she _must_
be a widow, that no man in his senses could remain so long away from
such a wife unless he were dead--she turned a deaf ear to them all.
March Marston's infancy was spent in yelling and kicking, with the
exception of those preternaturally calm periods when he was employed in
eating and sleeping. As he grew older the kicking and yelling
decreased, the eating increased, and the sleeping continued pretty much
the same. Then came a period when he began to learn his A, B, C. Mrs
Marston had been well educated for her station in life. She had read
much, and had brought a number of books to the backwoods settlement; so
she gave her boy a pretty good education--as education went in those
days--and certainly a much better one than was given to boys in such
out-of-the-way regions. She taught him to read and write, and carried
him on in arithmetic as far as compound division, where she stuck,
having reached the extreme limits of her own tether.
Contemporaneously with the cessation of squalling and kicking, and the
acquirement of the A, B, C, there arose in little March's bosom
unutterable love for his mother; or, rather, the love that had always
dwelt there began to well up powerfully, and to overflow in copious
streams of obedience and considerate attention. About the same time the
roving, reckless "madness," as it was styled, began to develop itself.
And, strange to say, Mrs Marston did not check that! She was a
large-minded, a liberal-minded woman, that semi-widow. She watched her
son closely, but very few of his deeds were regarded by her in the light
of faults. Tumbling off trees was not. Falling into ditches and horse
ponds was not. Fighting was, to some extent; and on this point alone
did mother and son seem to entertain any difference of opinion, if we
may style that difference of opinion where the son fell into silent and
extreme perplexity after a short, and on his part humble, discussion on
the subject.
"Why, mother," said March in surprise (having attained the mature age of
eight when he said it), "if a grisly bear was to 'tack me, you'd let me
defend myself, wouldn't you?"
Mrs Marston smiled to see the rotund little object of two-feet-ten
standing before the fire with its legs apart and its arms crossed,
putting such a question, and replied--
"Certainly, my boy."
"And when Tom Blake offered to hit Susy Jefferson, wasn't I right to
fight him for that?"
"Yes, my boy, I think it right to fight in defence of the weak and
helpless."
The object of two-feet-ten began to swell and his eyes to brighten at
the unexpected success of this catechising of its mother, and went on to
say--
"Well, mother, why do you blame me for fightin', then, if it's right?"
"Because fighting is not always right, my boy. You had a fight with
Bill Summers, hadn't you, yesterday?"
"Yes, mother."
Two-feet-ten said this in a hesitating tone, and shrank into its
ordinary proportions as it continued--
"But I didn't lick him, mother, he licked _me_. But I'll try again,
mother--indeed I will, and I'll be sure to lick him next time."
"I don't want you to try again," rejoined Mrs Marston; "and you must
not try again without a good reason. Why did you fight him yesterday?"
"Because he told a lie," said the object promptly, swelling out again,
and looking big under the impression that the goodness of its reason
could not be questioned. It was, therefore, with a look of baffled
surprise that it collapsed again on being told that that was not a
sufficient reason for engaging in warfare, and that it was wrong to take
the law into its own hands, or to put in its word or its little fist,
where it had no right to interfere--and a great deal more to that
effect.
"But, March, my boy," said Mrs Marston, drawing the object towards her
and patting its round little fair head, "what makes you so fond of
fighting?"
"I ain't fond o' fighting, mother, but I can't help it."
"Can't help it! Do you ever try?"
"I--I--no, I don't think that I do. But I feel so funny when I see Bill
Summers cheatin' at play. I feel all over red-hot--like--oh! you've
seen the big pot boilin' over? Well, I just feel like that. An' w'en
it boils over, you know, mother, it must be took off the fire, else it
kicks up _sich_ a row! But there's nobody to take me off the fire when
I'm boilin' over, an' there's no fire to take me off--so you see I
_can't_ help it. Can I?"
As the object concluded these precociously philosophical remarks, it
looked up in its mother's face with an earnest inquiring gaze. The
mother looked down at it with an equally earnest look--though there was
a twinkle in each eye and a small dimple in each cheek that indicated a
struggle with gravity--and said--
"I could stop the big pot from boiling-over without taking it off the
fire."
"How?" inquired Two-feet-ten eagerly.
"By letting it boil over till it put the fire out."
The object opened its eyes very wide, and pursed its mouth very tight;
then it relaxed, grinned a little with an air of uncertainty, and was
about to laugh, but checked itself, and, with a look of perplexity,
said--
"Eh?"
"Ay, my boy," resumed the mother, "just you try the boiling-over plan
next time. When you feel inclined to fight, and know, or _think_, that
you shouldn't, just stand quite still, and look hard at the ground--
mind, don't look at the boy you want to fight with, but at the ground--
and begin to count one, two, three, four, and so on, and I'm quite sure
that when you've counted fifty the fire will be out. Now, will you try,
my son?"
"Mother," replied Two-feet-ten earnestly (and becoming at least two feet
eleven while he spoke), "I'll try!"
This ended the conversation at that time, and we beg leave to apologise
to our reader for having given it in such full detail, but we think it
necessary to the forming of a just appreciation of our hero and his
mother, as it shows one phase of their characters better than could have
been accomplished by a laboured description.
Before March Marston had attained to the age of sixteen he had read
aloud to his mother--not once, but several times--the "Vicar of
Wakefield", "Robinson Crusoe," the "Pilgrim's Progress," and "Tales of a
Grandfather", "Aesop's Fables," and a variety of tales and stories and
histories of lesser note--all of which he stored up in a good memory,
and gave forth in piecemeal to his unlettered companions as opportunity
offered. Better than all this, he had many and many a time read his
Bible through, and was familiar with all its leading heroes and
histories and anecdotes.
Thus, it will be seen that March Marston was quite a learned youth for a
backwoodsman, besides being a hero and a "madman."