under the shade of a great birch tree, whose twigs had been of essential
service in the hands of Master Whackaboy, and whose smooth and
paper-like bark was fashionable in the seminary for writing-pieces. The
door and windows were open, and Lindsay expected as formerly, to hear
the master say to his scholars, at the sound of horses' feet--"Read
out--read out--strangers are going by--;" which order had always been
succeeded by a chorus of readers as loud and inharmonious as what
children call a Dutch Concert. As Lindsay passed the school-house, he
could not forbear stopping a moment to look in; and instead of Bumpus
Whackaboy in his round jacket, he saw a young gentleman in a frock coat,
seated at the master's desk, with an aspect of great satisfaction, while
a lad stood before him frowning and stamping desperately, and reciting
Collins's Ode on the Passions.
Our traveller now perceived by certain well-remembered landmarks, that
he was approaching the mill in whose scales he had frequently been
weighed: a ceremony never omitted at the close of his annual visit to
Oakland, that he might go home rejoicing in the number of pounds he had
gained during his sojourn in the salubrious air and homely abundance of
the farm. When he came to the place, he found three mills; and he was,
for a while, puzzled to recollect which of them was his old
acquaintance. On the other side of the road were now a tavern, a store,
and a blacksmith's shop, with half a dozen dwelling-houses. "This, I
suppose, is an incipient city," thought Lindsay--and so it was, as he
afterwards found: the name being Candyville, in consequence, perhaps, of
the people of the neighbourhood having left off tobacco and taken to
mint-stick, for which, and other _bonbons_ of a similar character, the
demand was so great that the storekeeper often found it necessary to
take a journey to the metropolis chiefly for the purpose of bringing out
a fresh supply.
At length our hero came to a hill beyond which he recollected that a
turn in the road would present to his view the house of Abraham
Hilliard, as it stood on the very edge of the farm. It was a lovely
afternoon. The sunbeams were dancing merrily on the creek, whose shining
waters beautifully inverted its green banks, overshadowed with laurel
bushes now in full bloom and covered with large clusters of delicate
pink flowers.
He saw the top of the enormous oak that stood in front of the house, and
which had been spared for its size and beauty, when the ground was first
redeemed from the primeval forest by the grandfather of the present
proprietor.
Lindsay turned into the lane. What was his amazement when he saw not, as
he expected, the well-known farm-house and its appurtenances!--It was no
longer there. The dilapidated ruins of the chimney alone were standing,
and round them lay a heap of rubbish. He stopped his horse and gazed
long and sadly, on finding all his pleasant anticipations turned at once
to disappointment. Finally he dismounted, and securing his bridle to a
large nail which yet remained in the trunk of the old tree, having been
placed there for that purpose, he proceeded to take a nearer view of
what had once been the Oakland Farm-House.
There were indications of the last fire that had ever gladdened the
hearth, the charred remains of an immense backlog, now half hidden
beneath a luxuriant growth of the dusky and ragged-leaved Jamestown
weed. In a corner of the hearth grew a sumach that bid fair in a short
time to overtop all that was left of the chimney. These corners had once
been furnished with benches on which the children used to sit and amuse
themselves with stories and riddles, in the cold autumnal evenings, when
fires are doubly cheerful from being the first of the season.
Of the long porch in which they had so often played by moonlight,
nothing now remained but a few broken and decaying boards with grass and
plantain-weeds growing among them; and some relics of the rough stone
steps that had ascended to it, now displaced and fallen aside by the
caving in of the earth behind.
The well that had supplied the family with cold water for drinking, had
lost its cover--the sweep had fallen down, and the bucket and chain were
gone. The dark cool cellar was laid open to the light of day, and was
now a deep square pit, overgrown with thistles and toad-flax.
From the cracks of the old clay oven that had belonged to the chimney
(and which was now half hidden in pokeberry plants), issued tufts of
chick-weed; and when Lindsay looked into the place which he had so often
seen filled with pies and rice-puddings, the glare of bright eyes and a
rustling noise denoted that some wild animal had made its lair in the
cavity. Suddenly a large gray fox sprung out of the oven-mouth, and ran
fearfully past him into the thicket. Lindsay thought in a moment of the
often-quoted lines of Ossian.
At the foot of the little eminence on which the house was situated,
there had formerly been what its inhabitants called the _harbour_
(probably a corruption of arbour), a shed rudely constructed of poles
interwoven with branches, and covered with a luxuriant gourd-vine. Here
the milk-pans and pails were washed, and much of the "slopping-work" of
the family done in the summer. A piece of rock formed the back-wall of a
fire-place in which an immense iron pot had always hung. A slight
water-gate opened from this place on a branch of the creek, over which a
broad thick board had been laid as a bridge, and a short distance below
there was a miniature cascade or fall, at which Edward, in his
childhood, had erected a small wooden tilt-hammer of his own making; and
the strokes of this tilt-hammer could be heard, to his great delight, as
far as the house, particularly in the stillness of night, when the sound
was doubly audible.
The cauldron had now disappeared, leaving no trace but the blackened
stone behind it; the remains of the water-gate were lying far up on the
bank; the board had fallen into the water; the rude trellis was broken
down; and masses of the gourd-vine, which had sprung from the scattered
seeds, were running about in wild disorder wherever they could find
anything to climb upon.
Lindsay turned to the spot "where once the garden smiled," and found it
a wilderness of tall and tangled weeds, interspersed with three or four
degenerate hollyhocks, and a few other flowers that had sowed themselves
and dwindled into insignificance. And in the division appropriated to
culinary purposes, were some straggling vegetables that had returned to
a state worse than indigenous--with half a dozen rambling bushes that
had long since ceased to bear fruit.
Lindsay had gazed on the gigantic remains of the Roman Coliseum, on "the
castled crag of Drachenfels," and on the ivy-mantled arches of Tintern,
but they awakened no sensation that could compare with the melancholy
feeling that oppressed him as he explored the humble ruins of this
simple farm-house, where every association came home to his heart,
reminding him not of what he had read, but of what he had seen, and
known, and felt, and enjoyed.
As he stood with folded arms contemplating the images of desolation
before him, his attention was diverted by the sound of footsteps, and,
on looking round, he perceived an old negro coming down the road, with a
basket in one hand, and in the other a jug corked with a corn-cob. The
negro pulled off his battered wool-hat, and making a bow and a scrape,
said: "Sarvant, masser--" and Lindsay, on returning his bow, recognised
the unusual breadth of nose and width of mouth that had distinguished a
free black, well known in the neighbourhood by the name of Pharaoh, and
in whom the lapse of time had made no other alteration than that of
bleaching his wool, which was now quite white.
"Why, Pharaoh--my old fellow!" exclaimed Lindsay, "is this really
yourself?"
"Can't say, masser," replied Pharaoh. "All people's much the same. Best
not be too personal. But I b'lieve I'm he."
"Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?" inquired our hero.
"Lawful heart, masser!" exclaimed the negro. "I do b'lieve you're little
Neddy, what used to come from town and stay at old Abram Hilliard's of
summers, and what still kept wisiting there, by times, till you goed
over sea."
"I am that identical Neddy," replied Lindsay, holding out his hand to
the old negro, who evinced his delight by a series of loud laughs.
"Yes--yes," pursued Pharaoh, "now I look sharper at you, masser, I see
plain you're 'xactly he. You've jist a same nose, and a same eyes, and a
same mouth, what you had when you tumbled down the well, and fall'd out
the chestnut tree, and when you was peck'd hard by the big turkey-cock,
and butted by the old ram."
"Truly," said Lindsay, "you seem to have forgotten none of my juvenile
disasters."
"To be sure not," replied Pharaoh, "I 'member every one of them, and a
heap more, only I don't want to be personal."
"And now," said Lindsay, "as we have so successfully identified each
other, let me know, at once, what has happened to my good friends the
Hilliards, who I thought were fixed here for life. Why do I see their
house a heap of ruins? Have the family been reduced to poverty?"
"Lawful heart, no," exclaimed the negro: "Masser Neddy been away so long
in foreign parts, he forget how when people here in 'Merica give up
their old houses, it's a'most always acause they've got new ones. Now
old Abram Hilliard he got richer and richer every minute--though I guess
he was pretty rich when you know'd him, only he never let on. And so he
build him fine stone house beyont his piece of oak-woods, and there he
live this blessed day.--And we goes there quite another road.--And so he
gove this old frame to old Pharaoh; and so I had the whole house carted
off, all that was good of it, and put it up on the road-side, just
beyont here, in place of my old tumble-down cabin what I used to live
in, that I've altered into a pig-pen. So now me and Binkey am quite
comfabull."
"Show me the way," said Lindsay, "to the new residence of Mr. Hilliard.
I have come from Philadelphia on purpose to visit the family."
"Bless your heart, masser, for that," said the old negro, as he held the
stirrup for Lindsay to mount; and walking by his side, he proceeded with
the usual garrulity of the African race, to relate many particulars of
the Hilliards and their transit.
"Of course, Masser Neddy," said Pharaoh, "you 'member old Abram's two
boys Isaac and Jacob, what you used to play with. You know Isaac mostly
whipped you when you fout with him. Well, when they growed up, they
thought they'd help'd their father long enough, and as they wanted right
bad to go west, the old man gove 'em money to buy back land. So each
took him horse--Isaac took Mike, and Jacob took Morgan, and they started
west, and went to a place away back--away back--seven hundred thousand
miles beyont Pitchburg. And they're like to get mighty rich; and word's
come as Jacob's neighbours is going to set him up for congress, and I
shouldn't be the least 'prized if he's presidump. You 'member, Masser
Neddy, Jacob was always the tonguiest of the two boys."
"And where are Mr. Hilliard's daughters?" asked Lindsay.
"Oh, as to the two oldest," replied Pharaoh, "Kitty married Billy
Pleasants, as keeps the store over at Candyville, and Betsey made a
great match with a man what has a terrible big farm over on Siskahanna.
And old Abram, after he got into him new house, sent him two youngest to
the new school up at Wonderville, where they teaches the gals all sorts
of wit and larning."
"And how are your own wife and children, Pharaoh?" inquired Lindsay; "I
remember them very well."
"Bless your heart for that, masser!" replied the negro; "why Rose is
hired at Abram Hilliard's--you know they brungt her up. And Cato lives
out in Philadelphy--I wonders masser did not see him. And as for old
Binkey, she holds her own pretty well. You know, masser, Binkey was
always a great hand at quiltings, and weddings, and buryings, and such
like frolics, and used to be sent for, high and low, to help cook at
them times. But now she's a getting old,--being most a thousand,--and
her birthday mostly comes on the forty-second of Feberwary--and so she
stays at home, and makes rusk and gingerbread and molasses beer. This is
molasses I have in the jemmy-john; I've jist come from the store. So she
sells cakes and beer--that's the reason we lives on the road-side--and I
works about. We used to have a sign that Sammy Spokes the wheelwright
painted for us, for he was then the only man in these parts that had
paints. There was two ginger-cakes on it, and one rusk, and a coal-black
bottle with the beer spouting up high, and falling into a tumbler
without ever spilling a drap. We were desperate pleased with the sign,
for folks said it looked so nateral, and Sammy Spokes made us a present
of it, and would not take it out in cakes and beer, as we wanted him,
and that shewed him to be very much of a gemplan."
"As no doubt he is," remarked Lindsay; "I find, since my return to
America, that gentlemen are 'as plenty as blackberries.'"
"You say very true, masser," rejoined the negro; "we are all gemplans
now-a-days, and has plenty of blackberries. Well, as I was saying, we
liked the sign a heap. But after Nelly Hilliard as was--we calls her
Miss Ellen now--quit Wonderville school, where she learnt everything on
the face of the yearth, she thought she would persecute painting at
home, for she had a turn that way and wanted to keep her hand in. So she
set to, and painted a new sign, and took it all out of her own head; and
gove it to old Binkey and axplaned it to us. There's a thing on it that
Miss Ellen calls a urn or wase--_that_ stands for beer--and then there's
a sugarcane growing out of it--_that_ stands for molasses. And then
there's a thick string of green leaves, with roots twisted amongst
'em--_that_ answers for ginger, for she told us that ginger grows like
any other widgable, and has stalks and leaves, but the root is what we
uses. Yet, somehow, folks doesn't seem to understand this sign as well
as the old one. A great many thinks the wase be an old sugar-dish with a
bit of a corn-stalk sticking out of it, and some passley and hossreddish
plastered on the outside, and say they should never guess cakes and beer
by it."
"I should suppose not," said Lindsay.
"But, Masser Neddy," pursued the old negro, "all this time, we have been
calling Abram Hilliard 'Abram,' instead of saying squire. Only think of
old Abram; he has been made a squire this good while, and marries
people. After he move into him new house, he begun to get high, and took
to putting on a clean shirt and shaving every day, which Rose says was a
pretty tough job with him at first; but he parsewered. And he's apt to
have fresh meat whenever it's to be got, and he won't eat stale pies:
and so they have to do small bakings every day, instead of big ones
twice a week. And sometimes he even go so far as to have geese took out
of the flock, and killed and roasted, instead of saving 'em all for
feathers. And he says that now he's clear of the world, he _will_ live
as he likes, and have everything he wants, and be quite comfabull. And
he made his old woman leave off wearing short gownds, and put on long
gownds all the time, and quit calling him daddy, which Rose says went
very hard with her for a while. The gals being young, were broke of it
easy enough; and now they says pappy."
"Pshaw!" ejaculated Lindsay, whose regret at the general change which
seemed to have come over the Hilliard family now amounted nearly to
vexation.
"Now, Masser Neddy," continued Pharaoh, "we've got to the new
house--there it stands, right afore you. An't you 'prised at it? I
always am whenever I sees it. So please a jump off, and I'll take your
hoss to the stable, and put him up, and tell the people at the barn that
Masser Neddy's come; and you can go into the house and speak for
you'mself."
Lindsay, at parting, put a dollar into the hand of the old negro. "What
for this, Masser Neddy?" asked Pharaoh, trying to look very
disinterested.
"Do whatever you please with it," answered Lindsay.
"Well, masser," replied the negro, "I never likes to hurt a gemplan's
feelings by 'fusing him. So I'll keep it, just to 'blige you. But, I
'spect, to be sure, Masser Neddy'll step in some day at negor-man's
cabin, and see old Binkey, and take part of him dollar out in cakes and
beer. I'll let masser know when Binkey has a fresh baking."
Pharaoh then led off the horse, and Lindsay stood for a few moments to
take a survey of the new residence of his old friends. It was a broad,
substantial two-story stone house. There was a front garden, where large
snow-ball trees
"Threw up their silver globes, light as the foamy surf,"
and where the conical clusters of the lilac, and the little May roses,
were bursting into fragrance and beauty, and uniting their odours with
those of the tall white lily, and the lowly but delicious pink. Behind
the house ascended a woodland hill, whose trees at this season exhibited
every shade of green, in tints as various as the diversified browns of
autumn.
Lindsay found the front door unfastened, and opening it without
ceremony, he entered a wide hall furnished with a long settee, a large
table, a hat-stand, a hanging lamp, a map of the United States, and one
of the world. There was a large parlour on each side of the hall, and
Lindsay looked into both, the doors being open. One was carpeted, and
seemed to be fitted up for winter, the other had a matted floor, and was
evidently the summer sitting-room. The furniture in both, though by no
means showy, was excellent of its kind and extremely neat; and in its
form and arrangement convenience seemed to be the chief consideration.
Lindsay thought he had never seen more pleasant-looking rooms. In the
carpeted parlour, on the hearth of the Franklin stove, sat a blue china
jar filled with magnolia flowers, whose spicy perfume was tempered by
the outer air that came through the venetian blinds which were lowered
to exclude the sunbeams. One recess was occupied by a mahogany
book-case, and there was a side-board in the other. The chimney-place of
the summer parlour was concealed by a drapery of ingeniously cut paper,
and the various and beautiful flowers that adorned the mantel-piece had
evidently been cultivated with care. Shelves of books hung in the
recesses, and in both rooms were sofas and rocking-chairs.
"Is it possible," thought Lindsay, "that this can be the habitation of
Abraham Hilliard?" And he ran over in his mind the humble aspect of
their sitting-room in the old farm-house, with its home-made carpet of
strips of listing; its tall-backed rush chairs; its walnut table; its
corner cupboard; its hanging shelves suspended from the beams that
crossed the ceiling, and holding miscellaneous articles of every
description.
Having satisfied his curiosity by looking into the parlours, he
proceeded through the hall to the back door, and there he found, in a
porch canopied with honeysuckle, a woman busily engaged in picking the
stems from a basket of early strawberries, as she transferred the fruit
to a large bowl. Time had made so little change in her features, that,
though much improved in her costume, he easily guessed her to be his old
hostess Mrs. Hilliard. "Aunt Susan!" he exclaimed; for by that title he
had been accustomed to address her in his boyhood. The old lady started
up, and hastily snatched off her strawberry-stained apron.
"Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?" continued our hero,
heartily shaking her hand.
She surveyed him from head to foot, till his identity dawned upon her,
and then she ejaculated--"It is--it must be--though you are a gentleman,
you _must_ be little Neddy--there--there, sit down--I'll be back in a
moment."
She went into the house, and returned almost immediately, bringing with
her a small coquelicot waiter, with cakes and wine, which she pressed
Lindsay to partake of. He smiled as he recollected that one of the
customs of Oakland Farm was to oblige every stranger to eat and drink
immediately on his arrival. And while he was discussing a cake and a
glass of wine, the good dame heaped a saucer with strawberries, carried
it away for a few minutes, and then brought it back inundated with cream
and sugar. This was also presented to Lindsay, recommending that he
should eat another cake with the strawberries, and take another glass of
wine after them.
On Edward's inquiring for her husband, Mrs. Hilliard replied that he was
somewhere about the farm, and that the girls were drinking tea with some
neighbours a few miles off; but she said she would send the carriage for
them immediately, that they might be home early in the evening.
In a short time Abraham Hilliard came in, having seen Pharaoh at the
barn, who had informed him of the arrival of "Master Neddy." The meeting
afforded equal gratification to both parties. The old farmer looked as
if quite accustomed to a clean shirt and to shaving every day; and
Lindsay was glad to find that his manner of expressing himself had
improved with his circumstances. Aunt Susan, however, had not, in this
respect, kept pace with her husband, remaining, to use her own
expression--"just the same old two and sixpence." Women who have not in
early life enjoyed opportunities of cultivating their minds are rarely
able at a late period to acquire much conversational polish.--With men
the case is different.
Mrs. Hilliard now left her husband to entertain their guest, and, "on
hospitable thoughts intent," withdrew to superintend the setting of a
tea-table abounding in cakes and sweetmeats; the strawberry bowl and a
pitcher of cream occupying the centre. This repast was laid out in the
wide hall, and while engaged in arranging it, Mrs. Hilliard joined
occasionally in the conversation which her husband and Lindsay were
pursuing in her hearing, as they sat in the porch.
"Well, Edward," proceeded Mr. Hilliard, "you see a great alteration in
things at the farm: and I conclude you are glad to find us in a better
way than when you left us."
"Certainly," replied Lindsay.
"Now," said the penetrating old farmer, "that 'certainly' did not come
from your heart.--Tell me the truth--you miss something, don't you?"
"Frankly, then," replied Lindsay, "I miss everything--I own myself so
selfish as to feel some disappointment at the entire overthrow of all
the images which during my long absence had been present to my mind's
eye, in connexion with my remembrances of Oakland Farm. Thinking of the
old farm house and its inhabitants, precisely as I had left them, and
believing that time had passed over them without causing any essential
change, I must say that I cannot, just at first, bring myself to be glad
that it is otherwise. The happiness that seemed to dwell with the old
house and the old-fashioned ways of its people, had been vividly
impressed upon my feelings. And I fear--forgive me for saying so--that
your family cannot have added much to their felicity by acquiring ideas
and adopting habits to which they so long were strangers."
"There you are mistaken, my dear boy," answered the farmer. "I
acknowledge that if, in removing to a larger house, and altering our way
of living, we had in any one instance sacrificed comfort to show, or
convenience to ostentation--which, unfortunately, has been the error of
some of our neighbours--we should, indeed, have enjoyed far less
happiness than heretofore. But we have not done so. We have made no
attempts at mimicking what in the city is called style; and I have
forbidden my daughters to mention the word fashion in my presence."
"Yes--yes," said Mrs. Hilliard, "I hope we have been wiser than the
Newman family over at Poplar Plains. As soon as they got a little up in
the world, they built a shell of a house that looks as if it was made of
white pasteboard; and figured it all over with carved work inside and
out; and stuck posts and pillars all about it with nothing of
consequence to hold up; and furnished the rooms with all sorts of
useless trumpery."
"Softly--softly--wife!" interrupted old Abraham--and turning to our
hero, he proceeded--"well, as I was telling you, Edward, I endeavour to
enjoy what I have worked so hard to acquire, and to enjoy it in a manner
that really improves our condition, and renders it in every respect
better. You know, that in former times, though I had very little leisure
to read, I liked to take up a book whenever I had a few moments to
spare, if I was not too tired with my work; and when I went to town with
marketing, I always bought a book to bring home with me. Also, I took a
weekly paper. As soon as I could afford it, I brought home more than one
book, and took a daily paper. I gave my children the benefit of the best
schooling that could be procured without sending them to town for the
purpose; but at the same time, I was averse to their learning any showy
and useless accomplishments."