CHAPTER XXVII.
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 etarnal 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."