A Railroad through Puddleford.--Effect on Squire
Longbow.--Bright Prospects of Puddleford.--Change.--"The
Styleses."--The New Justice.--Aunt Sonora's Opinions.--Ike
Turtle grows too.--Venison disappears from among Men.--His
Grave, and his Epitaph.
Reader, I have written for you the history of a year's residence at
Puddleford. But the place is changed now--very much changed. It is not what
it used to be--its people, its habits, are very different. This change was
the result of a variety of causes. The first thing that happened to it--a
startling event it was--a railroad was built plump through its heart. It
was a road running a great distance, and it took Puddleford in its way
merely because it happened to fall in its line. I shall never forget Squire
Longbow's frenzied excitement the first time the locomotive came puffing
and whistling in. He actually lost his dignity for the moment. He ran and
wheezed after the steam-horse like a madman, lost his green eye-shade, and
committed a very serious breach in the rear part of his pantaloons. He did
not venture very near the machine at first, but sheltered himself behind a
tree, where he could watch its panting and spitting without danger.
I recollect how pompously the Squire talked on this occasion. He said "all
nater couldn't stop Puddleford having ten thousand inhabitants 'fore
'nother census--she'd be one of the _ex_-poriums (emporiums) of the
West--it was nothing on airth that made Greece and Rome but these great
etarnal improvements"--and as he was a kind of oracle among a large class,
he infused a spirit of consequence and importance into those around him
that was quite ludicrous. Ike Turtle, Sile Bates, the Beagles, and Swipes,
and many others, actually mounted their Sunday clothes, and wore them every
day--but whether Ike himself was in fun or earnest, no person could tell.
The building of this road was the cause of a great change certainly; yet it
changed not the population itself, but substituted another in its stead. It
brought in a class of persons who had money, and money is omnipotent
everywhere. It brought different habits, thoughts, and feelings. The
"Styles family" first purchased a large farm near the village. There was an
air about them that fairly awed the Puddlefordians. They were petted, run
after, imitated. One could hear nothing but "Young Mr. Styles," "Old Mr.
Styles," "The elderly Mrs. Styles," "Miss Arabella Styles," "Miss Florinda
Styles." Miss Florinda and Arabella wore flaring under-clothes in those
days, and this fashion fairly upset the heads of the Puddleford ladies; and
in less than a month I could not identify half the women of the place.
Their shrunken forms, stuffed with skirts, were about the shape of little
pyramids.
Purchases of farms and village property went on, year after year, until
nearly every true Puddlefordian was ousted. The place has now, like the
snake, cast its skin; and the old pioneers, they who hewed down the
forest, and "bore the heat and burden of the day," are living around the
outskirts of the village, with hardly a competence, or have emigrated to
wilds still farther west.
Squire Longbow, however, still holds his own. He still lives on the old
spot--is just as wise and happy as ever. Time has not affected his
intellect, or impaired his self-consequence. He is no longer justice of the
peace, but in his place we have a pert, dapper, little fellow, who wears a
large ring on his little finger, and gives very scholastic opinions. The
Squire professes to hold him in contempt, and says he "runs agin the
staterts and common law mor'n half the time"--that "he don't know a _fiery
factus_ from a common execution"--that "he never looks inter the undying
Story for 'thority, but goes on _squashing_ papers, right straight agin the
constitution and the _etar_nal rights of man."
Aunt Sonora was dissatisfied, too, with the revolution in society. She told
me, the last time I saw her, that Puddleford was "made up of a hull passel
of flip-er-ter-_gib_-its, and she couldn't see what in created natur' the
place was a-comin' to--she never see'd such works in all her born days,"
that "the men wore broadcloth, and the women silks, and flar'd and spread
about like pea-cocks. Nobody does nuthin'," said she. "The dear massy! They
are getting so hoity-toity! I _do_ wonder who pays!"
Ike Turtle is about the only person who has grown with the place. There was
no such thing as keeping _him_ under. He is just as humorous as ever, but a
little more polished. Ike says "it won't do to let his natur' out as he
used to, when the bushes were thick, and Squire Longbow was gov'ner"--that
"he feels himself almost a-bustin' with one of his speeches, sometimes;
but the folks wouldn't understand him if he made it--and as for law, he'd
gin it all up--it had got to be so nice and genteel an article, there
warn't a grain of justis' in it--everything was 'peal'd up, and 'peal'd up,
until both parties themselves were 'peal'd to death." Ike has turned his
attention to land and saw-mills, and is getting rich.
Poor Venison Styles! Dear old hunter! Venison is dead, and his children are
scattered in the wilderness. He was found, one May morning, stretched out
under a large maple, his dog and gun by his side, stiff and cold. The
brown-threshers and bluebirds were singing merrily above him, and the
squirrels were chattering their nonsense in the distance. His dog lay with
his nose near his master's face, his fore paw upon his shoulder. How he
died, no one could tell. He is buried on a bluff that overlooks the river;
and I have fenced his grave, and erected a stone over his remains, with
this inscription--"Nature loved him, if man did not."