THE LOG CABIN.
“A summer lodge amid the wild.”—_Bryant._
“Judge! your plunder’s come—landed from the ‘Sachem’ this morning!” were
the words with which the landlord greeted Mark Sutherland, as the
latter, with Rosalie, descended to breakfast.
“Judge!” echoed Rosalie, looking inquiringly from one to the other.
Mark Sutherland laughed, and pinched her arm; and when their host had
moved off in another direction, said:
“Nonsense, Rose. Yes, it was _I_ whom he addressed as Judge—of course it
was. Every one gets an honorary title of distinction here. I don’t know
what it is given for; certainly not to confer honour, but rather, I
suppose, for the sake of civil brevity, as it is easier to say ‘Judge’
than ‘Mr. Thompson.’ Now, if I had ever belonged to any military
company—if only as private in militia, they’d dub me here ‘Cap’n,’ if
not ‘Major,’ or ‘Gen’l:’ and if I were county constable, instead of law
student, they must still call me ‘Judge.’”
And just then, as if in illustration of Mr. Sutherland’s words, several
men entered, eagerly inquiring for “the Colonel,” meaning the landlord.
And when the host came forward to know their will, several speaking
equally together, exclaimed:
“Colonel, we want your guns, and your dogs, and your company, this
morning, to hunt a pack of wolves that chased Jones’s boy almost into
the village!”
“A pack of wolves!” exclaimed the boarders, gathering around.
“Jones’s boy!” ejaculated the landlord, in amazement.
“Riding from McPherson’s mill;”
“So close, they caught at the boy’s boots;”
“Foremost one hung upon the horse’s flanks;”
“Wounded;”
“Nothing but the animal’s speed saved him;”
“Wet with sweat;”
“Miraculous ’scape;”
“Jones’s boy,” &c., were the broken sentences with which the tale was
told by the several informants, all speaking at once.
“Well, friends, long as there’s no damage done, I don’t see any use in
being so excited. As to my guns and dogs, you can have them in welcome;
but as to my company, I have promised the Judge here to drive him and
his wife over to see their house. And I expect they will want me to haul
the plunder over too—won’t you, Judge?”
Mark Sutherland bowed.
After a little discussion, they urged “the Judge” to join their hunt,
and Rosalie privately squeezed Mark’s arm in disapproval. Mark declined;
and, after a little more altercation, the visitors at length departed,
with three or four of the bachelor boarders, who quaffed each a “hasty”
cup of coffee and followed.
When this little disturbance was over—
“I did not know,” said Mr. Sutherland, “that the wild denizens of the
forest ever ventured so near the settlements.”
“No more they don’t,” replied the host; “only this go, I s’pose, the
Injuns have been hunting of ’em and druv ’em close on to the village.
We’ll git shut of ’em agin after a bit.”
When breakfast was over, “the Colonel” geared up the carryall to take
his young guests across the prairie to Wolf’s Grove. It was a fresh,
bright, blithe morning, scarcely seven o’clock, when they set out, and
the prairie still glistened with dew. There was no road to Wolf’s Grove;
but the driver took a beeline over the level ground, and the wheels of
the carryall tracked deep through the sedgy grass and gorgeous wild
flowers.
“It looks strange to me,” said Rosalie, “to see these glorious
flowers—which, if they were in our eastern gardens, we should cherish
with so much care—driven down and crushed by thousands under our
wheels.”
“It is but the sign of the fall of the forest before the advancing march
of immigration,” observed Mark.
“It reminds me, somehow, of the triumphal entries of the sanguinary old
conquerors of ancient times, whose chariot wheels passed ruthlessly over
the fallen, the dead, and the dying.”
Mark smiled at her fancy, and the driver took his pipe out of his mouth,
and turned and looked at her in perplexity.
“But, Rose, when you look around you at the countless millions of
flowers left blooming—nay, I mean to say, when you think of the
countless millions of trees left standing—does it not give you an
exultant sense of the exhaustless wealth, the boundless resources of our
prairies and forests?”
“I know _something_ inspires me with unlimited hope just now. There is,
certainly, as far as the comforts and elegances of civilized life are
concerned, a look of great privation in the village and among the people
we have just left. And yet—and yet—whether it is because the inhabitants
are mostly young and full of health and hope, or that the houses are all
new, or that the primeval wealth and exuberance of nature is not only
undiminished, but almost untouched; whether it is any or _all_ of these
causes, I do not know, but certainly to me there is about this country
an air of youth, vigor, hope, promise, unlimited, indescribable! I feel
its influence, without being able to explain it. It seems to me that
here, the age, the weariness, and the sorrow of the old world has been
left behind. That this is a breaking out in a new place, or rather that
this country and people, and we ourselves, are a new creation, fresh
from the hand of God, and with a new promise! Let us be faithful to our
part of the covenant. Oh, let us be faithful; let no sin, selfishness,
injustice of ours cause us to lose the glorious promise!”
A pressure of the hand, at once approving, kind, and warning, from Mark
Sutherland, reminded Rosalie that they were not alone.
A little farther on, the sprightly eyes of the girl lighted upon a
large, speckled bird, standing still, almost in their road.
“What a beautiful bird! What is it?” inquired Rosalie.
“It’s a prairie chicken. Now, I want you just to take notice o’ that
creetur; it won’t take the trouble to move—you’ll see,” said the man,
driving slowly past, and leaving the bird behind them, standing still.
“They must be very tame,” said Rosalie.
“No, they ain’t nyther, but they’ve got a heap o’ sense. We are driving.
Now, if I had o’ been afoot with a gun, or anything that looks like a
gun to _it_—say a stick—why, it would a-taken wing in a minute. I’ve
took notice of it often and often. Same case with a deer—it’ll stand
right still and look at you going past with your team; but only just let
it catch its eyes on you when you’re walking ’long o’ your gun, and it’s
off in an instant. Well knowing of that, you see, I often just quietly
lays my gun down in the bottom of the wagon, to be ready for the
creeturs.”
In desultory talk like this, which nevertheless gave our young
immigrants some little insight into the manners of the country, they
passed over the three miles of intervening prairie land, and entered
Wolf’s Grove.
Wolf’s Grove was not what its name indicated—an isolated piece of wood,
similar to those that at wide intervals dotted the prairie; it was
rather a portion of that vast, unbroken, interminable forest, projecting
here into the open prairie like a point of land into the sea, but
stretching back and back hundreds of miles, and even to the banks of
Lake Superior. Here the old primeval forest trees were of gigantic,
almost fabulous size, but thinly scattered, and standing singly apart,
like the outposts of a vast army.
Half a mile within the Grove, where the trees were thicker, stood the
cabin originally built for a school and meeting-house, by the first
settlers. There was not a wood-shed, a fence, a fruit tree, nor a foot
of cultivated ground, around it; nor a house, nor a field, within three
miles of it.
Mark Sutherland and Rosalie alighted, and entered the house, while the
driver secured his horses and gave them water. The cabin was unusually
large and well built, being nearly thirty feet square, and constructed
of huge logs, well hewn, and well cemented. The cabin fronted south,
where one door admitted into the only room; opposite this door, in the
north wall, stood the large, open fire-place. The room was lighted by
two windows, fronting each other, east and west. The floor was well
laid, and a step-ladder in the corner, between the fire-place and the
east window, led up to a loft. The house was in good repair, with the
single exception of the broken windows.
“A very different abode from that you have left, for my sake, dear
Rosalie; and yet, if you only knew, as I do, how much better this is
than any other log cabin to be found anywhere! Why, Rose, it is a
palace, compared to some.”
“I know it is; and I only wonder that it has been left so long
untenanted, while the meanest hovels have been all taken up.”
“Why, you see, my dear, this house is too remote from the village for
any one but a farmer, and as it stands upon the reserved school lands,
of course, no farmer can cultivate the ground.”
“Will it not be too far for _you_?”
“With me it is different. I like to walk, and do not grudge my steps.
The three miles’ walk, morning and evening, will do me good. Nay, more;
that exercise will be a necessary relief from the sedentary life of the
office. My only anxiety will be in leaving you here alone, all day. Will
you be very lonesome, dear?”
“Lonesome? I don’t know. I should be lonesome _anywhere_ without _you_,
Mark. But that is a very foolish weakness, and must be overcome, of
course.”
“But you will be afraid to stay here all day long alone?”
“Afraid? Of what? Why should I be? Is there any cause of fear?”
“No, dear; no cause for fear; but, as Emilia said of jealousy, one might
say of fear:
‘That fearful souls will not be _answered_ so;
They are not ever fearful for a _cause_,
But fearful for they are fearful’”——
“Well, I am not afraid with or without a cause. A child would not be
afraid in this quiet place,” said Rosalie, going to one of the windows,
and looking out into the waving woods.
“How still—how very still—no sound to be heard but the rustle of the
leaves and the ripple of water, that must be near!” she continued,
looking from the window, while Mark walked about the room and made notes
of glass, putty, a door latch, and such little matters that would be
needed to be brought out with their furniture. Then they went out where
the driver stood watering his horses, and where the only sign of
previous human presence was afforded by the narrow grass-grown path,
leading down into a deep dingle, where the ripple of water was heard.
“If you’d like a drink, there’s one of the finest springs in the whole
country down there,” said the landlord, taking a tin cup from the wagon
and handing it to Mark. Rosalie was already going down the path. They
reached the spring, and found the water cold and clear as crystal. They
drank, and congratulated themselves upon this great blessing, and then
went up to the cabin, and, as their host was in a hurry to be off they
entered the carryall to return to the village.
“Well, are you going to take it?” asked the driver, looking around as he
took the reins and started.
“Why, of course. I had _already_ taken it.”
“I knowed _that_; but I thought when _she_ saw how lonesome it was,
she’d object. ’Tain’t many women—I can tell you _that_—who’d agree to
live out there, by themselves, in _that_ lonesome place, and you gone
all day long.”
“I am sure my wife prefers it to an inferior cabin nearer the village.”
“Yes, indeed, I do,” said Rosalie.
“Well, every one to their taste,” observed the landlord, cracking his
whip, and making his horses fly.
They reached home in good time for dinner.
The afternoon was employed by Mark Sutherland in collecting together
necessary provisions, to be taken with their furniture to the cabin; and
by Rosalie—seated by the window of _her_ part of the upper chamber—in
hemming napkins, preparatory to her housekeeping, and in looking out
upon the prairie basking in the afternoon sun, and upon her distant
home, Wolf’s Grove.
In the evening the hunters returned from an unsuccessful expedition; and
fatigued and mortified, and inclined to be silent upon the subject of
their defeated enterprise, they gathered around the supper-table. But
the curiosity of the hostess, and the perseverance of the host, at last
elicited from them the fact that they had not even hit upon the track of
the wolves.
The next day was fixed upon by Mark Sutherland and his wife for their
removal to Wolf’s Grove.