THE WHITMAN FAMILY.
The starting of a boy in the right direction, and the imparting of that
bent he will retain through life, is a work the importance of which
cannot be overrated. That our readers may appreciate the force of these
influences about to be invoked to shape the future,—to fling a ray of
hope upon the briar-planted path of this pauper boy, and quicken to life
a spirit in which the germs of hope and the very aroma of youth seem to
have withered beneath the benumbing pressure of despair,—we desire to
acquaint them with the character of Bradford Whitman, to whose guiding
influence so shrewd a judge of character as Robert Wilson wished to
surrender his charge (and moreover resolved to leave no method untried
to effect it), and in no other way can this object be so effectually
accomplished as by our relating to them a conversation held by Whitman
and his wife in relation to the building of a new dwelling-house on the
homestead.
Several of Whitman’s neighbors had pulled down the log-houses their
forefathers built and replaced them with stone, brick, or frame
buildings, but Bradford Whitman still lived in the log-house in which he
was born; it was, however, one of the best of the kind, built of
chestnut logs, with the tops and bottoms hewn to match, and the ends
squared and locked.
Whitman was abundantly able to build a nice house, and only two days
before the event we are about to narrate occurred, mentioned the subject
to his wife, saying that several of the neighbors had either built or
were about to build new houses, and perhaps she felt as though they
ought to build one, but she replied,—
“Bradford, you cannot build a better house than the old one, a warmer or
one more convenient for the work, nor could you find a lovelier spot to
set it on than this. It is close to the spring from which your father
drank when he first came here a strong lusty man, stronger, I have heard
you say, than any child he ever had. There’s many a bullet in these old
logs that were meant for him or some of his household.”
“True enough, Alice, for Peter dug a bullet out last fall that came from
an Indian rifle, and made a plummet of it to rule his writing-book; but
the same may be said of many other houses in this neighborhood that have
been taken away to make room for others, for there are but few on which
the savage did not leave his mark.”
“But I fear it would give the good old man a heartache to miss the house
in which his children were born, his wife died, all his hardships and
dangers were met and overcome, and his happiest days were spent.
“A little jar will throw down a dish that is near the edge of the shelf;
the least breath will blow out a candle that’s just flickering in the
socket, and though I know he would not say a word, I am sure it would
make his heart bleed, and I fear hurry him out of the world. Besides,
husband, while your father lives your brothers and sisters will come
home at New Years, and I have not a doubt they would miss the old house
and feel that something heartsome and that could never be replaced, had
dropped out of their lives. I hardly think you care to do it yourself,
only you think that as we are now well to do, I have got ashamed of the
log-house, and want a two-story frame, or brick, or stone one, like some
of the neighbors.”
“It would be very strange if you didn’t, wife.”
“No, husband; I am not of that way of thinking at all. We have worked
too long and too hard for what we have got together to spend it on a
fine house. Here are some of our neighbors whom I could name who were
living easy, had a few hundred dollars laid by that were very convenient
when they had a sudden call for money, or wanted to buy stock, or hold a
crop of wheat over for a better market, but their wives put them up to
build a fine house. It cost more than they expected, as it always does,
and when they got the house, the old furniture that looked well enough
in the old house, didn’t compare at all with the new one, they had to be
at a great expense to go to the old settlements to buy fine things; it
took all the money they had saved up, and now those same people, when
they want to buy cattle or hire help, have to come to you to borrow the
money.”
“That is true; for only yesterday a man who lives not three miles from
here, and who lives in a fine house, came to me on that same errand.”
“No, husband; you and I are far enough along to be thinking less of mere
appearances than we might have done once. We have three children to
school and start in the world; a new house won’t do that, but the money
it would cost will.”
“May the Lord bless you,” cried Bradford Whitman, imprinting a fervent
kiss on the lips of his wife, “and make me as thankful as I ought to be
for the best wife a man ever had. You have just spoken my own mind right
out.”
Alice Whitman blushed with pleasure at the commendation of her husband
so richly deserved, and said,—
“Husband, that is not all. If we have something laid by we can open our
hearts and hands to a neighbor’s necessities as we both like to do, and
I am sure I had much rather help a poor fatherless child, give food to
the hungry, or some comfort to a sick neighbor, than to live in a fine
house and have nice things that after all are not so comfortable nor
convenient as the old-fashioned ones.”
“You are right wife, for when John Gillespie was killed by a falling
tree last winter and all the neighbors helped his widow and family,
William Vinton said his disposition was to do as much as any one, but he
hadn’t the means, and the reason was that the cost of his new house had
brought him into difficulties. I knew it gave him a heartache to refuse,
and I believe he would have much rather have had the old chest of
drawers and the log-house and been able to give something to the
fatherless, than to have the new house and the nice furniture and not be
able to help a neighbor in distress. I hope Alice you won’t object to
having the old house made a little better and more comfortable,
providing it can be done without much expense.”
“If you will promise not to make it look _unnatural_, like an old man in
a young man’s clothes and wig, and if you meddle with the roof (as most
like you will) not to disturb the door that bears to-day the gash cut by
the Indian’s tomahawk who chased your mother into the house, and that
took the blow meant for her, nor meddle with the overhang above it,
through which your father fired down and shot him.”
Bradford Whitman put a new roof on the house and ceiled the wall up
inside with panel work, thus hiding the old logs. He also laid board
floors instead of the old ones that were laid with puncheons (that is,
sticks of timber hewn on three sides) that were irregular, hard to sweep
over and to wash. But in his father’s bedroom he disturbed nothing, but
left both the walls and the floors as they were before. The grandfather,
though he made no remark, yet manifested some trepidation in his looks
when the roof was taken off, and the floors taken up, and seemed very
much relieved when he found that the walls on the outside were not
disturbed, that the old door with its wooden latch, hinges and huge
oaken bar, the former scarred with bullets and chipped with the
tomahawks of the savages, remained as before. And when he found that his
son, with a thoughtfulness that was part of his nature, had, after
ceiling up the kitchen, replaced in its brackets of deer’s horns over
the fireplace, the old rifle with which he had fought the savage and
obtained food for his family in the bitter days of the first hard
struggle for a foothold and a homestead, not only expressed decided
gratification with the change but to the great delight of Alice Whitman
desired that his bedroom might be panelled and have a board floor like
the rest of the house. And the delighted daughter-in-law covered it with
rugs, into the working of which were put all the ingenuity of hand and
brain she possessed.
This was the family in which Robert Wilson desired to place James
Renfew, for notwithstanding in his passion, he had wished that James had
stuck the axe into his neck instead of his leg, he was really interested
in, and felt for, the lad, and wanted to help him.
He knew Bradford Whitman well, knew that he was as shrewd as
kindly-affectioned, and that he was bitterly prejudiced against the
business of soul-driving in which he was engaged, as Wilson had for
years vainly endeavored to persuade him to take a redemptioner; but he
had heard from the miller that Mr. Whitman was coming to the mill in a
few days with wheat, and he resolved to make a desperate effort to
prevail upon him to take James.
“He’s a kindly man,” said Wilson to the miller, “perhaps he’ll pity the
lad when he comes to see him.”
“Yes, he is a kindly man but if he could be brought to think that it was
his _duty_ to take that boy, your work would be already done, and if he
_should_ take him, the boy is made for life, that is, if there’s
anything in him to make a man out of.”
“Can’t you help me old acquaintance?”
“I would gladly, Robert, but I don’t feel free to, for this reason.
Bradford Whitman is a kindly man as you say, and an upright man, and a
man of most excellent judgment, a man who knows how to make money and to
keep it and is able to do just as he likes. We have always been great
friends, but he is a man quite set in his way, and if I should influence
him to take this boy, about whom I know nothing, and he should turn out
bad (or what I think is most likely, to be stupid and not worth his
salt) he never would forget it.”
But notwithstanding the backwardness of the miller to aid his friend,
the Being who is wont to shape the affairs of men and bring about events
in the most natural manner, and one noticed only by the most thoughtful,
was all unbeknown to the soul-driver preparing instrumentalities and
setting in operation causes a thousand times more effective than the
efforts of the miller (had he done his best), to bring about the purpose
Wilson had at heart.