“Well, the governor made a long speech to him, read him a chapter in the Bible, and then expounded it, and told him they must put him in the stocks. All this time the Dutchman went on smoking, and blowing out great long puffs of tobacco. At last he paused, and said:
“‘You be tamned. Stockum me—stockum teivel.’ And he laid down his pipe, and with one hand took hold of their governor by the fore-top, and with the other drew a line across his forehead and said, ‘Den I declare war, and Gooten Himmel! I shall scalp you all.’
“After delivering himself of that long speech, he poured out two glasses of Schiedam, drunk one himself, and offered the Yankee governor the other, who objected to the word Schiedam, as it terminated in a profane oath, with which, he said, the Dutch language was greatly defiled; but seeing it was also called Geneva, he would swallow it. Well, his high mightiness didn’t understand him, but he opened his eyes like an owl and stared, and said, ‘Dat is tam coot,’ and the conference broke up.
“Well, it was the first visit of the Dutch governor, and they hoped it would be the last, so they passed it over. But his business was important, and it occupied him the whole week to settle it, and he took his leave on Saturday evening, and was to set out for home on Sunday again. Well, this was considered as adding insult to injury. What was to be done? Now it’s very easy and very proper for us to sit down and condemn the Duke of Tuscany, who encourages pilgrims to go to shrines where marble statues weep blood, and cataliptic galls let flies walk over their eyes without winking, and yet imprisons an English lady for giving away the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ It’s very wrong, no doubt, but it ain’t very new after all. Ignorant and bigoted people always have persecuted, and always will to the end of the chapter. But what was to be done with his high mightiness, the Dutch governor? Well, they decided that it was not lawful to put him into the stocks; but that it was lawful to deprive him of the means of sinning. So one of the elders swapped horses with him, and when he started on the Sabbath, the critter was so lame after he went a mile, he had to return and wait till Monday.
“No, I don’t understand these puritan folks; and I suppose if I had been a preacher they wouldn’t have understood me. But I must get back to where I left off. I was a talkin’ about the difference of life in town and in the country, and how in the world I got away, off from the subject, to the Dutch governor and them puritans, I don’t know. When I say I love the country, I mean it in its fullest extent, not merely old settlements and rural districts, but the great unbroken forest. This is a taste, I believe, a man must have in early life. I don’t think it can be acquired in middle age, any more than playin’ marbles can, though old Elgin tried that game and made money at it. A man must know how to take care of himself, forage for himself, shelter himself, and cook for himself. It’s no place for an epicure, because he can’t carry his cook, and his spices, and sauces, and all that, with him. Still a man ought to know a goose from a gridiron; and if he wants to enjoy the sports of the flood and the forest, he should be able to help himself; and what he does he ought to do well. Fingers were made afore knives and forks; flat stones before bake-pans; crotched sticks before jacks; bark before tin; and chips before plates; and it’s worth knowing how to use them or form them.
“It takes two or three years to build and finish a good house. A wigwam is knocked up in an hour; and as you have to be your own architect, carpenter, mason, and labourer, it’s just as well to be handy as not. A critter that can’t do that, hante the gumption of a bear who makes a den, a fox who makes a hole, or a bird that makes a nest, let alone a beaver, who is a dab at house building. No man can enjoy the woods that ain’t up to these things. If he ain’t, he had better stay to his hotel, where there is one servant to clean his shoes, another to brush his coat, a third to make his bed, a fourth to shave him, a fifth to cook for him, a sixth to wait on him, a seventh to wash for him, and half a dozen more for him to scold and bless all day. That’s a place where he can go to bed, and get no sleep—go to dinner, and have no appetite—go to the window, and get no fresh air, but snuff up the perfume of drains, bar-rooms, and cooking ranges—suffer from heat, because he can’t wear his coat, or from politeness, because he can’t take it off—or go to the beach, where the sea breeze won’t come, it’s so far up the country, where the white sand will dazzle, and where there is no shade, because trees won’t grow—or stand and throw stones into the water, and then jump in arter ’em in despair, and forget the way out. He’d better do anything than go to the woods.
“But if he can help himself like a man, oh, it’s a glorious place. The ways of the forest are easy to learn, its nature is simple, and the cooking plain, while the fare is abundant. Fish for the catching, deer for the shooting, cool springs for the drinking, wood for the cutting, appetite for eating, and sleep that waits no wooing. It comes with the first star, and tarries till it fades into morning. For the time you are monarch of all you survey. No claimant forbids you; no bailiff haunts you; no thieves molest you; no fops annoy you. If the tempest rages without, you are secure in your lowly tent. Though it humbles in its fury the lofty pine, and uproots the stubborn oak, it passes harmlessly over you, and you feel for once you are a free and independent man. You realize a term which is a fiction in our constitution. Nor pride nor envy, hatred nor malice, rivalry nor strife is there. You are at peace with all the world, and the world is at peace with you. You own not its authority. You can worship God after your own fashion, and dread not the name of bigot, idolater, heretic, or schismatic. The forest is his temple—he is ever present, and the still small voice of your short and simple prayer seems more audible amid the silence that reigns around you. You feel that you are in the presence of your Creator, before whom you humble yourself, and not of man, before whom you clothe yourself with pride. Your very solitude seems to impress you with the belief that, though hidden from the world, you are more distinctly visible, and more individually an object of Divine protection, than any worthless atom like yourself ever could be in the midst of a multitude—a mere unit of millions. Yes, you are free to come, to go, to stay; your home is co-extensive with the wild woods. Perhaps it is better for a solitary retreat than a permanent home; still it forms a part of what I call the country.
“At Country Harbour we had a sample of the simple, plain, natural, unpretending way in which neighbours meet of an evening in the rural districts. But look at that house in the town, where we saw the family assembled at breakfast this morning, and see what is going on there to-night. It is the last party of the season. The family leave the city in a week for the country. What a delightful change from the heated air of a town-house, to the quiet retreat of an hotel at a watering-place, where there are only six hundred people collected. It is positively the very last party, and would have been given weeks ago, but everybody was engaged for so long a time a-head, there was no getting the fashionable folks to come. It is a charming ball. The old ladies are fully dressed, only they are so squeezed against the walls, their diamonds and pearls are hid. And the young ladies are so lightly dressed, they look lovely. And the old gentlemen seem so happy as they walk round the room, and smile on all the acquaintances of their early days; and tell every one they look so well, and their daughters are so handsome. It ain’t possible they are bored, and they try not even to look so. And the room is so well lighted, and so well filled, perhaps a little too much so to leave space for the dancers; but yet not more so than is fashionable. And then the young gentlemen talk so enchantingly about Paris, and London, and Rome, and so disparagingly of home, it is quite refreshing to hear them. And they have been in such high society abroad, they ought to be well bred, for they know John Manners, and all the Manners family, and well informed in politics; for they know John Russell, who never says I’ll be hanged if I do this or that, but I will be beheaded if I do; in allusion to one of his great ancestors who was as innocent of trying to subvert the constitution as he is. And they have often seen ‘Albert, Albert, Prince of Wales, and all the royal family,’ as they say in England for shortness. They have travelled with their eyes open, ears open, mouths open, and pockets open. They have heard, seen, tasted, and bought everything worth having. They are capital judges of wine, and that reminds them there is lots of the best in the next room; but they soon discover they can’t have it in perfection in America. It has been nourished for the voyage, it has been fed with brandy. It is heady, for when they return to their fair friends, their hands are not quite steady, they are apt to spill things over the ladies dresses (but they are so good-natured, they only laugh; for they never wear a dress but wunst). And their eyes sparkle like jewels, and they look at their partners as if they would eat ’em up. And I guess they tell them so, for they start sometimes, and say:
“‘Oh, well now, that’s too bad! Why how you talk! Well, travellin’ hasn’t improved you?’
“But it must be a charming thing to be eat up, for they look delighted at the very idea of it; and their mammas seem pleased that they are so much to the taste of these travelled gentlemen.