But strange of structure and device,
Of such materials as around
The workman’s hand had readiest found.
—Scott.
The place selected by Magnus Hardcastle as the field of his life labor was that grandly picturesque portion of Maryland now known as Alleghany County, but then called indifferently the Mountains, the Wilderness, or the Backwoods. The site chosen for his home was a wildly beautiful spot in the midst of a deep, narrow valley lying between two ridges of the Alleghany Mountains, and watered by a branch of the Potomac River. Although Magnus Hardcastle’s first idea of a home in the backwoods presented nothing but a log cabin, and although his young and lovely bride was quite ready to dare and share the unmitigated rudeness and privations of such a home and life, yet Providence, who “tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb,” mercifully ameliorated the hardships of the condition for the delicately nurtured girl, who, however willing, was, notwithstanding all her health and strength, scarcely able to bear the shock of such a sharp and sudden change. The contents of that casket—the bridal gift of Alice Garnet to her daughter—amounted to nearly five thousand dollars, and though the whole of this sum would go but a very little way toward supplying the superfluities of a fashionable bride’s trousseau, yet the half of it went very far toward completing and furnishing a comfortable backwoods home for our young couple. Their house was a log cabin indeed, but one of “ample size” and commodious appointments.
It was near the close of a fine winter day that Alice and Elsie were together in the family rooms of the cabin. This apartment was large, and supplied with all needful furniture. The walls were lathed and plastered, but not whitewashed, and retaining the original stone color, gave a sober tone to the air of the room. There was no carpet on the floor, but the broad hearth was a notable specimen of the fine arts, by Hugh Hutton, who declared, in his pride, that it was an interesting, instructive, and endless study, to anyone fond of tracing the individuality and infinite variety of natural form and color. The hearth was, in fact, a fine mosaic of fragments of rocks, of divers forms, sizes, and colors, perfectly filled in, leveled and chinked with a hard, white composition, that formed an irregular boundary line between the pieces. Each side the ample fireplace were dressers, constructed of strong plank, and at once laden and ornamented with crockery ware. From the lowest and broadest shelves hung dark calico curtains, reaching to the floor, and concealing “the humble little household gods,” as Elsie called them. There were chairs and tables, made more for strength than beauty, ranged along the walls. The windows were curtained with dark calico. There was no article of luxury, no superfluity in the room, but everything was convenient, orderly, and immaculately clean.
A fine fire blazed in the broad chimney, and though the hour was growing dark, it illuminated the room, so as to render a lighted candle unnecessary. The tea-kettle hung over the blaze, an oven lid sat upon the logs by its side, and the oven was turned up against the front of the fire to heat for baking.
Elsie stood at a deal-table, making out biscuits—busy, healthful, and happy as ever.
A little to the left of the blazing, too-hot fire, sat Alice, in a rocking-chair, and—a reverie. There was but one change in Alice since we saw her last. The sunny ringlets of her unfaded hair (be it remembered that she was but thirty-five), the sunny ringlets of her hair were turned around her cheek, and their end twisted around with her back braid. A little lace cap which she wore, because she said a cap was proper for her at her time of life, and in her relations, sat gracefully upon her still beautiful head, and gave a softness to the outline of her delicate and spiritual face, making her seem even more youthful and beautiful than before. She had been embroidering an infant’s dress, but the work had dropped into her lap, and her hand had fallen upon the little snow-white heap of muslin, and the richly-chased gold thimble glittered idly in the firelight; but the tiny foot, in the delicate slipper, was not idle—it turned upon the rockers of a cradle, where, amid downy pillows and soft white drapery, reposed a lovely babe of about two months of age. Altogether this beautiful and graceful group was a little out of keeping with the log cabin, to which it nevertheless lent a charm. But then, Elsie had always laughingly said that her mother was an ingrain “lady,” while she herself, for her own part, was “only a woman.”
Elsie having finished making out her biscuits, brought the tray to the fire to put them on to bake. While kneeling with one knee upon the hearth to arrange her bread in the oven, she looked up at her mother’s pensive face, and said, sympathetically: