"The college? Am you're goin' there? I go over there sometimes to see him wallop the boys. We must all have discipline in life, you know, and it is best to begin with the young. Crawford does. They say that Crawford teaches clear to the rule of three, whatever that may be. One added to one is more than one, according to the Scriptur'; now isn't it? One added to one is almost three. Is that what they call high mathematics? I never got further than the multiplication-table, though I am a friend to education. My name is Olive Eastman. What's yourn?"
"Jasper."
"You don't? One of the old patriarchs, like. Well, I live this way—you go that. 'Tain't more'n half a mile to Crawford's—close to the meetin'-'ouse. Mebby you'll preach there, and I'll hear ye. Glad I met ye now, and to see who you be. They call me Aunt Olive sometimes, and sometimes Aunt Indiana. I settled Pigeon Creek, or husband and I did. He was kind o' weakly; he's gone now, and I live all alone. I'd be glad to have you come over and preach at the 'ouse, though I might not believe a word on't. I'm a Methody; most people are Baptist down here, like the Linkuns, but we is all ready to listen to a Tunker. People are only responsible for what they know; and there are some good people among the Tunkers, I've hern tell. Now don't go off into some by-path into the woods. Tom Lincoln he see a bear there the other day, but he wouldn't 'a' shot it if it had been an elephant with tusks of ivory and gold. Some folks haven't no calculation. The Lincolns hain't. Good-by."
The Tunker was a middle-aged man of probably forty-five or more years. He had a benevolent face, large, sympathetic eyes, and a patriarchal beard. His garments had hooks instead of buttons. He carried a leather bag in which were a Bible and a hymn-book, some German works of Zinzendorf, and his cobbling-tools. We can not wonder that the boy stared after him. He would have looked oddly anywhere.
My reader may not know who a Tunker was, as our wandering schoolmaster was called. A Tunker, or Dunker, was one of a sect of German Baptists or Quakers, who were formerly very numerous in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The order numbered at one time some thirty thousand souls. They called themselves Brethren, but were commonly known as "Tunkards," or "Dunkards," from a German word meaning to dip. At their baptisms they dip the body of a convert three times; and so in their own land they received the name of Tunkers, or dippers, and this name followed them into Holland and to America. A large number of the Brethren settled in Germantown, Pa. Thence they wandered into Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, preaching and teaching and doing useful work. Like the Quakers, they have now nearly disappeared.
Their doctrines were peculiar, but their lives were unselfish and pure, and their influence blameless. They believed in being led by the inner light; that the soul was a seat of divine and spiritual authority, and that the Spirit came to them as a direct revelation. They did not eat meat or drink wine. They washed each other's feet after their religious services, wore their beards long, and gave themselves new names that they might not be tempted by any worldly ambitions or rivalries. They thought it wrong to take oaths, to hold slaves, or to treat the Indians differently from other men. They would receive no payment for preaching, but held that it was the duty of all men to live by what they earned by their own labor. They traveled wherever they felt moved to go by the inward monitor. They were a peculiar people, but the prairie States owe much that was good to their influence. The new settlers were usually glad to see the old Tunker when he appeared among them, and to receive his message, and women and children felt the loss of this benevolent sympathy when he went away. He established no church, yet all people believed in his sincerity, and most people listened to him with respect and reverence. The sect closely resembled the old Jewish order of the Essenes, except that they did not wear the garment of white, but loose garments without buttons.
The scene of the Tunker's journey was in Spencer County, Indiana, near the present town of Gentryville. This county was rapidly being occupied by immigrants, and it was to this new people that Jasper the Parable believed himself to be guided by the monitor within.
Early in the afternoon he passed several clearings and cabins, where he stopped to receive directions to the school-house and meeting-house.
The country was one vast wilderness. For the most part it was covered with gigantic trees, though here and there a rich prairie opened out of the timber. There were oaks gray with centuries, and elms jacketed with moss, in whose high boughs the orioles in summer builded and sang, and under which the bluebells grew. There were black-walnut forests in places, with timber almost as hard as horn. The woods in many places were open, like colonnades, and carpeted with green moss. There were no restrictions of law here, or very few. One might pitch his tent anywhere, and live where he pleased. The land, as a rule, was common.
Jasper came at last to a clearing with a rude cabin, near which was a three-faced camp, as a house of poles with one open side was called. Spencer County was near the Kentucky border, and the climate was so warm that a family could live there in a house of poles in comfort for most of the year.