Chapter III.
SATURDAY MORNING.
The settlers at Briery Creek followed the old custom of the mother country, of holding their market on a Saturday. Saturday was an anxious day to some, a joyous day to others, and a busy day to all. Many a mother bent her steps to the market-house, doubting whether she should be able to meet with the delicate food she desired for her baby just weaned, or for her invalid husband, getting up from the fever, and following her cookery with eager eyes. Many a child held its mother’s apron, and watched her bargaining, in the hope that some new and tempting article of food would be carried home, after a long sameness; or that the unexpected cheapness of her purchases would enable her to present him with the long-promised straw hat, or, at least, a pocket-full of candy from the Brawnees’ sugar pans. The whole village was early astir; and Dr. Sneyd, when he preferred a stroll along the bank of the creek to a turn in the market-house with his lady, could distinguish from a distance the solitariness of the farm-yards and dwellings, and the convergence of driver, drover, rider, and walking trader, towards the point of attraction.
Arthur was the centre of all observation. He offered more for sale than anybody else: he bought more; and he had the largest division of the market-house, excepting always the corner reserved for the passing trader, who could spread out riches far transcending what even Arthur could boast. To such, the young farmer left it to exhibit bear and beaver skins, leather, and store of salted venison, if he came from the North or West; and hardware, cotton, cloth and silk goods, books and stationery, if he was on his way from the East. Any of these, or all in their turn, Arthur bought; but his sales, various as they were considered, were confined to a few articles of food. He traded, not for wealth of money, but of comfort. His purchases were of two kinds, neither of which were destined for sale, as were those of the trader to whom he yielded precedence in the market-house. He bought implements to replace those which were worn out; and this kind of purchase was a similar sort of expenditure to that of the seed-corn which was put into the ground, and the repairs bestowed upon his fences and barn;—it was an expenditure of capital—capital consumed for purposes of reproduction with increase. With the surplus left after thus replacing his former capital, and perpetually adding to it, Arthur purchased articles of unproductive consumption; some for his house, which was becoming so much prettier than a bachelor could want, that the gossips of Briery Creek began to speculate on whom he had chosen to share the occupancy; some for his table, as the sugar of the Brawnees; some for his person, as the stout leggings which Dods occupied himself in making in rainy weather; and some for his friends, as when he could lay hold of a political journal for his father, or of a fur tippet for his mother, or of a set of pencils for Temmy to sketch with when he came to the farm. (Arthur seldom went to Mr. Temple’s; but he found time to give Temmy many a drawing-lesson at the farm.) Now that Arthur had not only a growing capital, but a surplus after replacing it—a revenue, which furnished him with more comforts perpetually, he was unwilling that his sister should feel so hurt as he knew she did at her husband not having assisted him with capital, from the time that he took his farm in the shape of a patch of prairie. In the early days of his enterprise, he would have been truly thankful for such an addition to his small stock of dollars as would have enabled him to cultivate a larger extent of ground, and live less hardly while his little property was growing faster; but now that he had surmounted his first difficulties, and was actually justified in enlarging his unproductive expenditure, he wished Mrs. Temple to forget that her husband had declined assisting her brother, and be satisfied that the rich man had not been able to hinder the prosperity he would not promote.
The prosperity of the whole village would have increased more rapidly than it did, if all the inhabitants had been as careful in their consumption as Arthur. Not only did Temple expend lavishly in caprices as well as luxuries, and the surgeon-tavern-keeper tempt many a labourer and small proprietor to spend that in whisky which ought to have been laid out (if not productively) in enjoyments that were innocent,—but there was a prevalence of wasteful habits, against which Arthur and his establishment might have served as a sufficient example. The merit of the order which was observable on his farm was partly due to himself, partly to Mrs. Sneyd, (who kept a maternal eye on all his interests,) and partly to Isaac’s wife, who superintended his dairy and dwelling-house.
On this market morning,—after a day of extraordinary fatigue,—the slate of the place at six o’clock might have shamed many a farm-house in a region where there is a superabundance instead of a dearth of female service. Isaac’s wife had no maid to help her but her own little maidens of four and three years old; yet, by six o’clock, when her employer was driving his market-cart to the place of traffic, the milk was duly set by in the pans, the poultry were fed, the tallow with which she was about to make candles was preparing while she made the beds, and the little girls were washing up the breakfast things in the kitchen—the elder tenderly wiping the cups and basins which the younger had washed in the wooden bowl which her mother had placed and filled for her in the middle of the floor, as the place whence it was most certain that it could fall no lower. The pigs were in their proper place, within a fence, which had a roof in one corner for their shelter in bad weather. The horses and cattle were all properly marked, and duly made musical with bells, when turned out into the woods. There was a well of pure water, so guarded, that the children and other young animals could not run into it unawares; and all the wild beasts of the forest had tried the strength of the fences in vain. Arthur had not, therefore, had to pay for the luxurious feasts of his enemies of the earth or air, or for any of that consumption which may, in a special sense, be called unproductive, since it yields neither profit to the substance nor pleasure to the mind. If a similar economy had pervaded the settlement, its gross annual produce would have more rapidly increased, and a larger revenue would have been set at liberty to promote the civilization of the society in improving the comfort of individuals.
Brawn and his daughters could never be made to attend to this. The resources which they wasted would have tilled many an acre of good land, or have built a school-house, or have turned their habitation of logs into a respectable brick tenement, with grassy field and fruitful garden. They preferred what they called ease and liberty; and the waste they caused might be considered as revenue spent on a pleasure,—a very unintelligible pleasure,—of their own choice. As long as they supported themselves without defrauding their neighbours, (and fraud was the last thing they could have been made to understand,) no one had a right to interfere with their methods of enjoyment any more than with Temple’s conservatory, or Dr. Sneyd’s library, or Mrs. Dods’s passion for mirrors and old china; but it was allowable to be sorry for so depraved a taste, and to have a very decided opinion of its injuriousness to society, and consequent immorality. This very morning there was dire confusion in their corner of the settlement. For some days the girls had been bee-hunting, being anxious to bring the first honey of the season into the market. In order to make up for the time spent on the new bridge, they were abroad at sunrise this day to track the wild bees in their earliest flight; but after such a fashion, that it would have answered better to them to be at home and asleep. Yet they succeeded in their object. The morning was just such as to tempt all things that fly from the hollow tree, from which the mists had drawn off, leaving a diamond token on every leaf. The sun began to shine warm through the summer haze, and the wild flowers of the prairie to look up and brighten at his presence. As the brown sisters threaded the narrow ways of the woods, bursting through the wild vines, and bringing a shower of dew on their heads from sycamore and beech, many a winged creature hummed, or buzzed, or flitted by,—the languid drone, or the fierce hornet, or white butterflies in pairs, chasing one another into the loftiest and greenest recess of the leafy canopy. Presently came the honey-bee, winging its way to the sunny space—the natural herb-garden, to which the girls were hastening; and when there, what a hovering, and buzzing, and sipping, and flitting was going on! The bee-women laughed in anticipation of their sport as they drew on their leathern mittens, and applied themselves to catch a loaded bee in each hand. They agreed on their respective stations of experiment, and separating, let fly their prisoners, one by one, tracking the homeward course of each, with a practised eye, through a maze of boughs, and flickering lights and shadows, and clustered stems, which would have perplexed the vision of a novice. The four bees being let fly from different stations, the point at which their lines of flight must intersect each other was that at which the honeycomb might be surely found; and a rich store it was,—liquid, clear, and fragrant,—such as would assuredly make the mouth water of every little person in the village who had advanced beyond a milk diet. Another and another hollow tree was found thus to give forth sweetness from its decay, till the bee-women shook back the lank hair from before their eyes, gathered up such tatters of their woollen garments as they had not left on the bushes by the way, and addressed themselves to return. On their walk it was that they discovered that they had lost more this morning than many such a ramble as theirs could repay.
A vast cluttering and screaming of fowls was the first thing that drew off their attention from their fragrant load. Some of the poor poultry that their father had been plucking alive (as he was wont to do six times a year) had evidently made their escape from his hands half plucked, and were now making short flights, higher and farther from home, so that it was more probable that they would join their wild acquaintance, the turkeys or the prairie fowl, than return to roost among the logs. Next appeared,—now entangling its hind legs among the vines, now poking its snout into a ground-squirrel’s nest, and now scuttling away from pursuit,—a fine young porker, which had been shut up from its rambles for some time past. The sisters gave chase to their own property; but all in vain: their pursuit only drove the animal farther into the wood, and they hastened home to give notice of the disaster. They could see nothing of Brawn about the house, but could not look farther for him till they had discovered the meaning of the light smoke which issued from the door and the crevices of the log-wall. Black Brawnee’s best gown was burning before the fire,—the splendid cotton gown, with a scarlet ground and a pattern of golden flowers, which, to the astonishment of every body, she had taken a fancy to buy of a passing trader, and which she had washed and hung up to dry in preparation for the market: it was smouldering away, leaving only a fragment to tell the tale. Next came a moan from an enclosure behind the cottage, and there lay a favourite young colt with two legs so broken that it was plain the poor animal would never more stand. How it happened could not be learned from the dumb beast, nor from the two or three other beasts that were huddled together in this place, where they had no business to be. It seemed as if, in some grand panic, the animals had tumbled over one another, leaving the colt to be the chief sufferer. But where was Brawn himself? He was moaning, too, in a hollow place in the wood, where he had made a false leap, and fallen so as to sprain his ankle, while in pursuit of the runaway porker.
“What brought ye here?” asked the brown damsel, as she raised her father with one application of strength.
“What carried the porker into the forest?” he asked, in reply.