V
Deer—wild deer—on our own farm!
Animal life is still plentiful in New England—far more so than in the newer states of the Middle West. With the decrease of population in many districts the wild things have wandered back to their old haunts. They are not very persistently hunted, and some of them, like the deer, are protected. Now and again in our walks we saw a fox, wary and silent-footed, and often on sharp nights, on the hill above the house, one barked anxiously at the moon. At least that is the poetic form, though I really think he was barking for the same reason that I often sing when others of the family are not present. The others claim they do not care for it—I often wonder why. I suppose that fox's family was the same way, so he went out there alone in a dark, safe place to enjoy his music unrestrained. Yet no place seems entirely safe when one wants to sing, and I fear something happened to that fox, for by and by we did not hear him any more. Very likely one of his relatives crept up on him with a brick. We were sorry, for we had learned to like his music—it gave us a wild, primeval feeling.
I think there were no wolves or bears in our immediate neighborhood, though there came reports of them, now and then—exaggerated, I dare say—from adjoining ridges. The nearest thing we had to bears were some very fat and friendly woodchucks, who at a little distance, sitting on their haunches, looked very much like small grizzlies. They dug their holes a few yards from the house and sometimes came quite to the back door, probably intending to call, but when we approached them their courage failed and they went "galumphing" back to their houses. There they would sit up for a moment, staring at us, then, if we approached suddenly, would dive to lower recesses. I explained to the Joy that they most likely had cozy little houses down there, with chairs and tables and a nice stove to cook their food things on. She was sure it was all true, except about the stove, which seemed doubtful, because no smoke ever came from their chimneys.
Most of the animals were friendly to us, and I think made our house a sort of center. I remember one pleasant Sunday afternoon, when we were sitting outside, we noticed simultaneously two woodchucks playing in the field just across the road; a red squirrel pursuing a gray one along our stone wall, almost within arm's-reach; a blue heron among the willows by the brook, probably prospecting for trout; some bob-whites running along by the roadside; while in the woods just beyond a partridge was drumming up further recruits for the exhibition.
The deer did not call as soon as the others. They were reserved and aristocratic and would seem to have looked us over a good while before they accepted us. We frequently saw their tracks, and hoped for one of the glimpses reported by our neighbors.
It came one morning, very early. A cow in an adjoining field was making an unusual sound. Elizabeth looked out and beckoned me to the window. There they were, at last! two reddish-tan, shy creatures—a doe and a half-grown fawn—stepping mincingly down to the brook to drink. We could have hugged ourselves with the delight of it—deer—wild deer—on our own farm, drinking from our own brook, here in this old, old land!
I wonder if they heard us, or perhaps sensed us. Or they may not have liked the noise of greeting, or protest, made by the neighbor's cow. Whatever the reason, they suddenly threw up their heads, seemed to look straight at us, turned lightly, and simply floated away. What I mean by that is that their movement was not like that of any other animal, or like a bird's—it suggested thistledown. They drifted over the stone wall and clumps of bushes without haste and seemingly without weight. It was as if we had seen phantoms of the dawn.
We saw them often, after that. Sometimes at evening they grazed in our lower meadow. Once, three of them in full daylight crossed the upland just above the house. They were not fifty yards away, moving deliberately, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
We felt the honor of it—they had admitted us to their charmed circle.
CHAPTER FIVE
I
But Sarah was biding her time
have not mentioned, I think, a small building that, when we came, stood just across the road from our house—a rather long, low structure with sliding windows, called "the shop." Red raspberries of a large, sweet variety were ripening about it, and within was a short box counter, a shoemaker's work-bench, a cutting-board, a great bag of wooden shoe-pegs, and a quantity of leather scraps, for it had, in fact, been a shop during the two generations preceding our ownership. Before that it appeared to have served as a sort of office for Captain Ben Meeker, who also had been not merely a farmer, as certain records proved. Captain Ben may have built the shop, though I think it was older, for when we examined the picturesque little building, with a view to restoration, it proved to be too far gone—too much a structure of decay. So we tore down "the shop," and, incidentally, Old Pop, who did the tearing, found a Revolutionary bayonet in the loft; also a more recent, and particularly hot, hornets' nest which caused him to leap through the window and spring into the air several times on the way to the bushes by the brook. But that is another story. We have already had the bee history; hornets would be in the nature of a repetition.
We found something of still greater interest in the old shop. One day, digging over the leather scraps, we uncovered the records above mentioned—that is to say, the old account-books of Captain Ben Meeker and the two generations of shoemakers who had followed him. These ancient folios, stoutly made and legibly written, correlate a good deal of Brook Ridge history for a hundred years. The names of the dead are there, and the items of their forgotten activities.
From Westbury and others we already knew that Benjamin Meeker and Sarah, his wife, had occupied our house at the beginning of the last century—young married folks then—and that there had been a little girl (owner of the small brass-nailed trunk, maybe) who in due time had grown up and married the young shoemaker, Eli Brayton, of "distant parts," he being from eastern New York, as much as fifty miles away. Brayton had remained in the family, set up his bench in one end of the building across the road, and there for a generation made the boots of the countryside, followed in the trade by his son, the "Uncle Joe" who at eighty-five had laid down the hammer and the last a year prior to our coming. This was good history in outline, and Westbury had supplied episodes, here and there, embellished in his improving fashion. The old books came now as a supplement—an extension course, as it were, in the history of Captain Ben and his successors.
While not recorded, we may assume that Captain Ben belonged to the militia, hence his title. That he had another official position we learn from certain items of entry:
| To serving one summon on S. Davis | 3 shillin | |
| To serving one tachment on J. Fillow | 2 shillin | |
| To fees: execushun Eli Sherwood | 2 shillin 6 pnc. |
Evidently a constable or deputy sheriff, and I think we may assume that the last item records a process, and not a performance. The fees are reassuring. Eli could hardly have been dismissed mortally for two and six.
Captain Ben had still other activities. He owned teams for hire; he dealt in livestock; in addition to his farm he owned a sawmill on the brook; he even went out at day's labor—certainly a busy man, requiring carefully kept accounts, and an office.
The accounts begin in 1797 and are sometimes kept in dollars and cents, sometimes in the English fashion, as above. Sometimes the charges are made in one form, the credits in another. It was just as he got started, I suppose, both moneys being in about equal circulation.
Captain Ben's spelling is interesting. He was by no means illiterate. His writing is trim, his accounts in good form and correctly figured. But it was more a fashion in that day to spell as pronounced, and his orthography gives us a personal sense of the period.
"To plowin garding ... 2 shillin." You can almost hear him say that, while "To haulin stun" likewise carries the fine old flavor.
We have heard much of the "good old times when things were cheap," but Captain Ben's book proves that not all commodities were cheap in his day. Calico, for instance, is set down at three and six a yard—that is, eighty-five cents. Handkerchiefs at two shillings thrippence each, sugar at a shilling per pound, which is more than double our war-time prices. It is not well to complain, even to-day, remembering those rates, especially when we note that in 1805 Captain Ben's labor brought him only four shillings a day (six with team), and his sawing, in small lots, but a trifle. Labor was, in fact, cheap at that period; also unfortunately for Captain Ben—rum and brandy.
The book does not say where Ezekial Jackson kept his general store, but that was where Captain Ben dealt, and his items of purchase are faithfully set down. A good many men "swear off" on the New Year, but Captain Ben didn't. He bought a "decantur," price two and six (ah me! it would be an antique, now), and promptly started in having it filled. Behold the startling credits to Ezekial Jackson during the first ten days of 1806:
| Jan. 1, By 2 lb. sugar | 2 shillin | |
| " 1, " 1 qt. brandy | 2 shillin | |
| " 5, " 1 qt. brandy | 2 shillin | |
| " 6, " 1 qt. brandy | 2 shillin | |
| " 10, " 1 qt. brandy | 2 shillin |
But perhaps this was too costly a pace, for the next entry is, "Jan. 15, 1 jug, 1 shillin," and on the same date, "One gallon of rum, 6 shillin." That, you see, was somewhat cheaper and required fewer trips to town. On January 20th the jug was filled again, and on the same date we find set down "four and a half yards of chintz and one scane of silk." That chintz and "scane" of silk look suspicious—they look like tranquilizers for Sarah, his wife.
Through that month and the three following the liquid items follow with alarming monotony, only separated here and there by entries of "tee" and sugar and certain yards of "cotting" and "scanes" of silk for Sarah.
But Sarah was biding her time. The book does not say that the minister was asked to call, or that he came. It does not need to. We may guess it from the next entry:
May 2, By 1 famly bible 1 poun, 13 shillin
That ended the rum chapter. There is not another spirituous entry in all of Ezekial Jackson's credits. "By one mometer" comes next, May 6th. Probably Captain Ben felt himself cooling down pretty rapidly for the season, and wanted to take the temperature. Then follows "two combs"—he was going to keep slicked up—also earthenware, indigo, "cotting," and more scanes of silk, mainly for Sarah, no doubt, and so on to the end, when the account is closed and underneath is written:
This day made all even betwixt Ezekial Jackson and myself.
B. M.
Captain Ben's accounts close in 1829, but the shoemaking records had long since begun. They are more prosaic, but they have an interest, too. A book with charges against Joel Barlow and Aaron Burr could hardly fail of that, though the said Joel Barlow is not the poet-diplomat who wrote the "Columbiad" and shone in European courts, nor Aaron Burr the corrupter of Blennerhassett and the slayer of Alexander Hamilton. At least, I judge they were not, for this Barlow and this Burr had cobbling charges against them as late as 1840, when the intriguing Aaron and the gifted Joel no longer needed earthly repairs. Nevertheless, they were of the same families, for Joel Barlow, the poet, was born just over the hill from us, and the name of Aaron Burr was known in Connecticut long before it found doubtful distinction in New Jersey.
The shoemaker's accounts reflect a life that is now all but gone. Some of the charges were offset with potatoes, some with rye, some with labor, a few of them with cash. A pair of boots in 1828 brought two dollars and fifty cents. Repairs ranged from six cents up, many of the charges being set down in half-cents. Those were exact, frugal days.