UNCLE LAWRENCE
A wit’s a feather, and a chief a rod,
An honest man’s the noblest work of God. —Pove.
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life,
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. —Gray.
The rank is but the guinea stamp,
A man’s a man for a’ that. —Burns.
The room into which Mr. Herman ushered his guests apparently occupied
about half of the lower floor, and was employed indiscriminately for a
kitchen, sitting-room and parlor. A huge fire-place, with a high-backed
settle inside, occupied a considerable portion of one side of the
apartment, the rest of the space being filled up with a cupboard to the
right and a staircase to the left. There was no carpet on the floor, but
the boards were scrubbed to a snowy whiteness; and a pine dough-trough
which stood under one of the windows, was also as white as rubbing could
make it. The whole aspect of the place indicated, in fact, the most
scrupulous neatness. The good wife herself was a pattern of tidiness.
Although it was not yet noon, and her day’s work, therefore, was but
half over, she advanced to receive her visitors in a clean apron and
cap, which, in the single minute left her for preparation, she had
managed to snatch from their repose in one of her lavender-scented
drawers. A cheerful, motherly face was that of Mrs. Herman, such a one
as made a visitor feel at home immediately.
Her husband was of medium height and strongly built, but looked smaller
than he really was, in consequence of a slight stoop which he had
contracted. In sitting, however, this partial deformity added to the
habitual thoughtfulness of his aspect. The head, covered with thin,
patriarchal gray hair, in which a few threads of a darker color still
remained, was large and squarely shaped, with a jaw indicative of a
great decision of character, and expanding above into a square, solid
brow, in which the reflective faculties were largely developed. It was
not without meaning, so Major Gordon thought, that Kate had called him a
natural-born philosopher. His face in repose looked severe to sternness,
especially as age had begun to wrinkle it; but when he spoke, his blue
eye brightened, and a pleasant cheerfulness, which yet rarely amounted
to a smile, diffused itself over his countenance. His manner, in
acknowledging his introduction to the Major, partook something of
shyness. But before the interview was over, his guest decided that,
though a man of reserved habits, he was nevertheless quick to observe
and reflect, and that a warm heart beat within his bosom, full of genial
benevolence to his race, and glowing with sweet domestic affections.
“I declare,” said his good dame, dusting a split-bottomed chair,
which Major Gordon thought already clean to a miracle, and looking
apologetically towards Kate, while she tendered it to the handsome
officer, “if I had known anybody had been coming, I’d a had things
more in sorts.”
“There, mother,” said the husband, quizzically, “Miss Katie knows
you well enough not to need an apology. It’s true,” he continued,
with dry humor, glancing about the scrupulously neat apartment, “if we
had a shovel here, we might pitch some of the dirt out; but since that
can’t be done, our friends will make the best of things, I hope, and
not be too severe on us.”
“Father will talk,” said the dame, apologetically, a little
disconcerted; “he’s no better, Miss Katie, than when yon left, you
see.”
“No, I really come into my own house sometimes,” rejoined Mr.
Herman, his eye twinkling with laughter, though still good-humoredly,
“without taking off my shoes. I’d like to see the boys do it,
however,” he added, with a pleasant laugh.
“Mrs. Herman makes me always ashamed of our housekeeping at
Sweetwater,” said Kate, with tact.
“Don’t say that now,” replied the gratified housekeeper, whose
whole face glowed with delight at the compliment, than which Kate knew
no other could possibly have been more agreeable.
The conversation now became more general. After awhile, Kate said,
addressing Mr. Herman by the familiar name she had been accustomed to
use when a child—
“How are the deer now, Uncle Lawrence? I think I remember something of
having heard, when in England, that a very severe winter had destroyed
large numbers. Mr. Herman,” she continued, turning to the Major, “is
the best hunter we have in all West Jersey.”
“They are getting pretty plenty again,” answered her host. “That
is, for one who knows where to look for ‘em. But for others, they’re
as scarce as ever. I took several loads of venison to town last winter,
and got good prices—the war don’t seem to make much difference,”
he added, slyly, “to the nabobs.”
“You farm this place also?” said Major Gordon, interrogatively.
“Yes! we farm a little. Enough for our own use, raising a bit of rye,
a few potatoes, and some corn. The boys do most of it, though, to give
them justice. We don’t want much, we simple folk,” he continued,
“so that we easily manage to live on what I bring from the woods and
what the boys raise. Mother there keeps us pretty well supplied with
linsey-wolsey. Whenever I go to town with venison, I bring back a few
nice things for her in return; and I shouldn’t wonder now, if we could
look into some dark corner of her closet, if we wouldn’t find even
some tea, whigs as we all are. How is it, mother? Is the tea there? And
did I buy it for you, or did it come from this saucy tory, Katie.
“We get along, too, as well as the rest, so far as I can see,”
continued Mr. Herman; “At least I often think so when I’m in
Philadelphy. We haven’t as much money, to be sure; but then we’ve no
vessels at sea, like Mr. Morris and others there I know, and can sleep
soundly, in spite of storms and British frigates. Then we’ve fresher
air than they can have, let them build as big houses as they will. I
never cross the ferry but I don’t for awhile think the air’s
pisened, for what with the vegetables rotting in the market, and the
sewers that empty on the river front, the whole place smells dreadfully,
leastways to a man from the woods. Before the war broke out, some of my
acquaintances there, rich men, you know, used to come down here to hunt
awhile, once a year. It was a sight to see ‘em eat,” he continued,
with a low, chuckling laugh. “I’ve known ‘em, after a tramp in the
woods all day, when there’s been no luck, sit down to a piece of cold
pork, that they wouldn’t look on at home, and eat it as if it had been
the best saddle that was ever sarved up. Then, to see ‘em drink our
water! When they’ve had a hot run in the woods, they’d kneel right
down by the side of the road, and lap up like a dog the water running
from a cedar-swamp; and they’ve told me they never drank Madeery, not
Port, that was half as good.”
“Yours is the true philosophy,” said Major Gordon, “and the world
would be all the better if there were more who followed it. I
confess,” he continued, turning to Kate, “that there is an
independence and content about it, which strongly tempts a soldier.”
“Yet yours is a grand profession,” said Uncle Lawrence, “at least
in times like these. The trade of a soldier is the meanest alive; think
of the Hessians coming over to murder at so much a day; but when a man
takes up arms for his country, and to drive out an invader, he’s doing
a brave deed.” And the old man’s eye gleamed. “I was out in the
Trenton campaign myself, for that was a time when even age couldn’t
excuse staying at home, unless to them as were tired of liberty. I’ve
one son now in the army, and another will ‘list as soon as he’s big
enough, if it’s the Lord’s will,” and he looked up reverently,
“that the war should last that long.”
In similar conversation nearly an hour passed, by which time the rain
ceased, and the sun shone out again brightly: and Kate now rose to go.
As she stood at the door, while the horses were being brought around,
the birds sang merrily in the orchard, and the rain-drops sparkled in
the grass.
“That’s a music I never get tired of,” said Uncle Lawrence. “It
beats the best playing I ever heerd on the spinet, even Katie’s
here,” and his face relaxed as he looked at her. “Then those
spangles in the grass are handsomer than any diamonds. I’ve heerd
that, after one of them grand parties in town, where the music plays and
jewels sparkle, that people go home worn out and often ill-humored; but
I thank God that I never listen to the birds, or see the rain-drops
shine in this way, without feeling glad.”
When Major Gordon, having placed Kate in the saddle, offered his hand to
the old man, preparatory to mounting, Uncle Lawrence said—
“If you stay in our parts long, Major, and would like to hunt, I’ll
go out with you a’most any time. I think we may be certain of a fine
doe, or even a buck, if you’d rather.”
Thanking his host heartily for the offer, which was evidently a sincere
one, Major Gordon bowed to the good dame, and cantered after Kate.
“What a grand specimen of an honest, simple-hearted old Nestor that
is,” he said, addressing his companion, as soon as they were out of
hearing.
“I knew you would like him,” answered Kate, highly pleased. “And
he has taken a fancy to you, or he wouldn’t have asked you to hunt
with him. Father always said, in any difficulty, ‘I wonder what Uncle
Lawrence thinks,’ for though he has read few books, except his Bible,
he has ten times the wisdom of many a lettered man. I don’t know what
the neighborhood would do without Uncle Lawrence. He is the general
peace-maker; yet no man can be firmer, when a great principle is at
stake.”
“He has the air of one who could become a martyr, if need were, even
to dying at the stake.”
“And he would,” said Kate, her fine eyes glistening with enthusiasm,
for in this her own character sympathized with that of the old man.
“He told you he was out in the Trenton campaign, but he was too modest
to add that he walked to head-quarters in little more than twenty-four
hours. There are few men over sixty years of age, who could or would
have done that.”
The conversation continued till they parted at Sweetwater, for Major
Gordon had to return to the Forks to dinner, and could not accept Mrs.
Warren’s invitation to alight.