To Troy and Portland went some winter commerce, but Boston, Portsmouth, and Salem took far the greatest amount. On the old Cohos Turnpike trains of these farm sleighs were often a half mile long. The tavern-keepers might well have grown rich, had all these winter travellers paid for board and lodging, but nearly all, even the wealthiest farmers, carried their own provender and food. Part of their oats and hay for their horses sometimes was deposited with honest tavern-keepers on the way down to be used on the way home; and there was also plenty of food to last through the journey: doughnuts, cooked sausages, roast pork, “rye and injun” bread, cheese, and a bountiful mass of bean porridge. This latter, made in a tub and frozen in a great mass, was hung by loops of twine by the side of the sleigh, and great chunks were chopped off from time to time. This itinerant picnic was called in some vicinities tuck-a-nuck, an Indian word; also mitchin. It was not carried from home because tavern-fare was expensive,—a “cold bite” was but twelve and a half cents, and a regular meal but twenty-five cents; but the tavern-keeper did not expect to serve meals to this class or to such a great number of travellers. His profits were made on liquor he sold and sleeping room he gave. The latter was often simple enough. Great fires were built in barroom and parlor; each driver spread out a blanket or fur robe, and with feet to the fire, the semicircle slept the sleep of the healthy and tired and cider-filled. Ten cents this lodging cost; but the sale of rum and cider, toddy and flip, brought in dimes and dollars to the tavern-keeper. Many a rough story was told or old joke laughed at before the circle was quiet; quarrels, too, took place among so many strong and independent men.
Old Passenger Pung.
It can readily be seen how important the tavern must have been in such a town as Haverhill, what a news centre, what an attraction, what an education. Newspapers were infrequent, but none were needed when newcomers from all points of the compass brought all there was to tell from everywhere. Mine host was the medium through which information was spread; he came into close contact with leaders in law, politics, and business, and dull he must have been if he did not profit in mental growth. But he could not be dull, he had to be companionable and intelligent; hence we find the tavern-keeper the leading man in town, prominent in affairs, and great in counsel, and it was to the stage-coach he owed much of his intelligence and influence.
CHAPTER XV
THE STAGE-DRIVER
In a home-library in an old New England town there were for half a century two sets of books which seemed strangely alien to the other staid occupants of the bookshelves, which companions were chiefly rows of encyclopædias, Scott’s novels, the Spectator and Tatler, a large number of books of travel, and scores of biographies, autobiographies and memoirs of pious “gospellers,” English and American, chiefly missionaries. These two special sets of books were large volumes, but were not placed primly and orderly with others of their own size; they were laid on their sides thrust high up among the smaller books on the upper shelves as if to escape notice under the frames of the glazed doors. They were strictly tabooed to all the younger members of the family, and were, indeed, well out of our reach; but Satan can find library steps for idle and very inquisitive little souls to climb, and we had read them eagerly before we were in our teens. One set was that inestimable and valuable work London Labour and London Poor, which was held to be highly improper reading for the young, but which I found very entertaining, as being of folk as remote from my life as if they were gnomes and elves. The other volumes were Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports; and one, a prince of wicked books, entitled Life in London: or the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorne, Esq., and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis. This also was by Pierce Egan.
