Near to one of these shaded recesses, our hostess drew her chair, and left the conversation, for a long time, to her husband.
He inquired, with an interest, seemingly as intense as a statesman, into the politics of the East, with the tenor of which he had contrived to keep pace astonishingly, when his isolated position is considered. I was curious to know how he managed to obtain such accurate information as to men and measures at the seat of government, in the midst of so many obstacles and such untiring agricultural efforts as his rapid improvements must have demanded. His reply furnished a melancholy proof of the natural disputatiousness of our species, while it illustrated the pertinacity with which a mind, once awakened to party feelings, will cling to its old friendships and antipathies when all interests in the result have ceased.
“Why,” said he, “for a while it was easy enough; for the Post rides through here once a week, and leaves a New York paper to Squire Tomkins—so the winter I first came to these clearings, I used to walk over to read the paper every other Saturday afternoon, except when the snow was too deep, and came back on Sunday after dinner—so I learned what was going on pretty well. And sometimes one or other of the old blacksmith’s boys—that’s his grand-children!—for his two sons have gone off to Illinois—would come over of odd Saturdays, a horse-back—for the old soldier kept a horse—he’s been many years in these parts, and has cleared and sold three farms, before he fixed where he is—and he’d take up Mary behind him, and ride over to the squire’s—for one of us had to stay and tend the cow and feed the pigs; so we could not both go together—and bring her back again the next day.—And a great treat it was to Mary!—for sometimes she would see something in the paper about Connecticut.—She used to teach school in Connecticut for a while.—Poor Mary! she had a better education than I had—though mine wasn’t a bad one, for a common school, the way the world goes; and I used to be able to say my say with any body; but somehow these woods are so lonely, that I’m out of practice.
“Poor Mary! her heart’s in Connecticut still, though she never tells me so,—but she looks it sometimes—except may-be about Thanks-giving day,—and then she can’t help saying it too! I’m sometimes a’most sorry she ever married such a wild and wandering fellow as me.”
“Why, John!”—in a tone of the tenderest expostulation, sounded from the corner. Almost unconsciously, I threw a pine knot on the fire, and the sudden flame lighted up a countenance, which would have reassured the most desponding husband. All traces of the inanity of solitude were gone; and over the cloud of sorrow, in which early recollections had veiled the features,—even while the tears of memory were starting from the eye,—the moon-beam of unalterable love poured its silvery light, and the pride of the wife spoke plainly in the curve of a lip already raised and trembling with affectionate reproach. The moisture lingered threateningly upon the lids, but did not fall!—It paused a moment, as in doubt, what emotion called it there, and then retreated to its source.
The husband’s face was wreathed in smiles; his voice became firmer; his language lost its parenthetic confusion on the instant, and he resumed his discourse.
“Well! well! It’s all my fault, if fault there be. She never had a fault! and she’s a blessing that would pay for twenty thousand faults of mine! There, Mary! Put the little ones to bed in the loft, and hear them say their prayers.” He dismissed them with a parting kiss, and when his wife retired—continued his narrative.
“The squire and I were friends, all through the winter and spring. He and his two sons, with the blacksmith’s boys, and three men from the furnace ten miles down the stream, assisted me to build my house; and I borrowed a horse from the smith and a wagon in town, to bring my lime for the plastering; so, when my new house was finished, we turned the old one, that I told you of as we came along, into a right good stable. I had laid up a full supply of provisions in the old house, the fall before,—bought me a plough and some tools,—felled a good deal of valuable pine timber, and put the four acres of clearing into winter grain. With the first spring-floods, I floated the pines, by the help of the squire’s oxen, and carried enough down to the saw-mill, (it’s only twelve miles,) to bring me a good round sum; and then I had money enough to pay my first instalment, buy me another cow and a pair of oxen, and pay my way till harvest, without draining all the savings I brought out with me. In the winter, I had also got three acres girdled, and the meadow half cleared; for it wanted but little attention; so, as my potatoes turned out uncommon well, and every thing prospered—I bought me a horse and wagon in the fall, and saved just enough to pay the second instalment;—trusting to Providence and the stores for the little we should want to buy next season.
“But this is not what I was talking of—I had like to have forgot the squire!—We got along very well till June or July—when we were mowing the meadow.—Yes! it was in July.—And the squire was a churchman and a democrat, but I was a federalist and a congregationalist—I did not much mind his jokes about the pilgrim fathers, though he said the Piquots were better men than those that planted the state; and laughed at them for hanging the Quakers in Boston. For the squire was a well read man before he came to the west—and he hated Connecticut, because he came from Lancaster county, and his father was killed in a quarrel with the settlers in Wyoming, long after the troubles were over. But when he said that Jefferson was a better man than General Washington, I could not stand it, and we quarrelled. I said what no Christian should say, and what I wont repeat;—so the squire and I have never spoken since, except when poor Mary was taken down! and then I had to speak; for there was no other woman within ten miles, and no doctor but a quack, within twenty-five. But Mrs. Tomkins is a nurse and a doctor both—God bless her!
“I’m getting to be very comfortable now, for I’ve got every thing around me that a man can desire in the woods, except money; and I’ve little use for that except to pay the last instalment; but I can’t bear to keep that woman so lonely and sad for want of company! The old soldier’s daughter comes over to see us once a month; but that is little for one who used to have a dozen young friends always around her in Connecticut, even if she was poor. To tell the truth, though the woods are full of venison and wild turkies, and quails and squirrels to be had for the shooting, and though Tom can catch a mess of trout in the milk trough at any time,—for he lets his line run into the tunnel and there seems to be no end to them—yet I can’t help thinking that if I had laid out my three hundred dollars of hers and my savings in old Connecticut—if I had worked half as hard there as I have done here, and she had gone on teaching school, we should both have been happier and richer than we are now. So I think I shall soon pull up stakes, sell out, and go to the prairies, where God makes the clearings, as you said, on the road—and it’s real hard work for a man, I can tell you!”