Summerfield / or, Life on a Farm

by Day Kellogg Lee

Out near the well curb, toward the green maple on the right, plays our loved little Clinton, the plump and laughing idol of the place; tossing his ball out of sight into that cluster of golden mullens, and then scampering full tilt after the broods of young chickens and turkeys that peep about the door. Clinton is a promising boy, and the worst of it is, he begins to find it out. But everybody likes him. He has most of his father's look, with his mother's force and caution added, he laughs all over his cunning little face; his yellow locks crinkle all over his head; and his hands are so soft, and his neck so fat and clean, you love to catch him to your heart, and hug him, and chuckle beneath his chin, and carry away his sweetest strawberry kisses.

And stretched on the grass-plat before the door, sleeps the good dog Jowler; shaggy and rough as a wolf; yet faithful and kind; resting from a range in the woods, and dreaming of squirrels and coons.

Look around you a little, and tell us where is a handsomer spot! True, it has not the ornament and regularity of an old estate. Handsome buildings, and the smoothest meadow-lands are nowhere to be seen. The stir and strife of a village are not here, nor the signs of ancient opulence, except what Nature boasts; nor the voice of cultivated music. But walk about, and view the scene.

The woods are arrayed in all their pomp and splendor; the fields have the warmest and richest light to kindle their royal verdures; along the trails, and in every little tract of sunshine, the flowers of the forest hold forth their sweet and modest blooms; and while birds of every wing and song, continue their full concert from twilight to twilight, you may hear, if you listen, the chime of the cheering cowbell, made mellow by the distance, wakening the music of contentment in the heart, tolling the steps of the tripping hours, and sounding the notes of rural bliss.

We set out in company to visit the settlers, and the birds salute us on our way, and the air comes cool and fragrant to our lips. We pause and survey the sugar camp, and a herd of fleet deer caper by, leading a troop of frolicking fawns, and seeming to send back the word, "see our darlings." Casting your eyes aloft to the top of that tall maple, you discover a bee tree, and behold numberless diligent little beings going and coming on the business of a miniature state. Then you hear the chip-squirrels chirrup, and the red squirrels mock; then the hen-hawks chatter and shriek in the air, and the crows caw and clamor; the thrushes and swamp robins bandy their boasts in challenges of music; the blue jay gossips, and the cuckoo cries.

"Whose cabin is this?" do you inquire? Tilly Troffater's. A swaggering, boisterous little body too, is he, and his legs are short and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen tea-pot covers. His ears are round, and stick forward like a weasel's; his form is square and supple, and he stands more than perpendicular. Ready and sharp is he for a joke, cold and unfeeling in manner, and troublesome as the varlet blackbirds that sit on a tree and gabble and moot, while other birds give you music.

There sits his wife, milking the late-found cow. She has a ludicrous look. An old rag of linsey-woolsey hugs her spindle form; her teeth are shovels, and cleave down her nether lip; her eyes catch every point of the compass across each other's glance; her forehead is low, her hair, a smoky white, and her voice, now flat, now treble, and now sharp. But a kinder, or more guileless heart never warmed a human breast, than that which lies in Dinah Troffater's; and whoever were in fault regarding her strange looks, they cannot criminate her as accessary. She milks the cow, and yonder come leaping like vagrant foxes, her half-wild children, with a few dry sticks for the cabin fire.

Going on two miles farther, we come to Mr. Waldron's, and find him nestled quietly under a hill in his double log-house, with a view of the lake on the west, and with comforts all around him. We find Aunt Polly too, and she lays down her distaff, welcomes us in, tells us a story of the backwoods, and gives us a taste of her new metheglin.

Then we come to Uncle Walter Mowry's, and hear he is off on a hunt in the woods, while Aunt Huldah excuses the soap and sand on her hands, and welcomes us in with joy.

Then we give Teezle a visit; then we see Wilson, and enter the shop on the stream, where he makes chairs, shoes, and carpenter-work on a rainy day; and he reminds us of the bear hunt. Then we see Flaxman, and hear him and Phoebe sing the same old nasal song, and observe their thrift and comfort. Then we visit Colwell, and the wives and children of all greet us with kindness, and a frank good-will in all their words and looks. Upon every heart among them, excepting the heart of Troffater, fraternity, courage and hope, luxuriate in harvests as rank and rich, as the woods and fields around; and through their clear eyes, we can see the honest thoughts of their free and guileless souls, as we see the shells and pebbles through the waters of the lake.