Clinton

by Walter Aimwell

“I thought you said you built this house with an axe; but how did you make your boards for the doors, and partitions, and floors?”

“Boards? Why, bless you, there isn’t a board in the house. These things are splints, not boards. I made them by splitting spruce logs. The roof is covered with them, too, and I’m going to clapboard the house with the same things afore next winter.”

Clinton’s mistake was very natural, for the floor and partitions were almost as smooth and straight as though made of sawed and planed boards. Clinton noticed in the floor, however, a great number of small holes, which Uncle Tim told him were made by the spikes that the drivers fix upon their boots to prevent their slipping off the logs. This led Clinton to another discovery. The river, to whose head waters they were going, passed through Uncle Tim’s clearing; but as it was frozen over, and the ice partially covered with snow, Clinton had not noticed it before. It was down this river that the logs and their iron-shod drivers came, and the latter were in the habit of stopping at uncle Tim’s for supplies.

Seeing a noble looking dog asleep in the chimney-corner, Clinton inquired if that was one of the two that came with him when he first settled in the woods.

“No,” said Uncle Tim, “but he’s a son of theirs, and a worthy successor he is, too,—aint you, Hunter?” Hunter, at the mention of his name, started from his doze, and wagged his bushy tail, which said “Yes,” as plain as tail could speak. “He considers the poultry under his charge,” continued Uncle Tim, “just as his father and mother did afore him, and he wont suffer a hawk or any big bird to come within twenty rods of the chickens. He’s great on Ingins, too,—he smells ’em a mile off, and barks long afore they’re in sight.”

“Do you have many Indians about here?” inquired Clinton.

“Not many; a few stragglers come along once in a while. Red-skins aint so plenty as they were when I first came here, nor half so saucy either. They know it’s their fate to give way to their betters, and it makes them sort of humble like.”

Clinton now went out to the barn, where he found two stout, hearty lads, larger than himself, giving the cattle their suppers. These were Uncle Tim’s sons. “Bill” and “Jim” were the only names by which he heard them called. Their faces were brown, their hands large and rough, and their clothing was of the coarsest description; but their bodies were finely developed, and, like their father, they were shrewd and intelligent, though they had never enjoyed a day’s schooling. Clinton took hold and helped them about their work, and soon he felt very well acquainted with them. They asked him a great many questions about Brookdale, and he, in return, was quite as inquisitive about their home. He was astonished to learn, as he did, in the course of the conversation, that Bill, the eldest of these great, broad-shouldered, wide-chested, and long-legged boys, was only about a year older than himself, while Jim was actually his junior by three months. Hard work, constant exposure to the air, and hearty food, had hastened their growth to a remarkable degree.

The barn was larger than the house, and was built in much the same way, though there were only wooden shutters to the windows instead of glass, and the wood generally was not so smoothly finished as it was in the house. The stock consisted of horses, cows, oxen, pigs and hens. The ground served as a floor, in the lower story; but overhead there was a loft, in which hay, straw, and other articles were stored. Clinton learned from the boys, that their father raised all the hay and grain necessary for the stock. Potatoes, grass, and oats, were their principal crops, but they generally had small patches of wheat and Indian corn. There were a few apple trees, which Uncle Tim had raised from the seed, but the boys said the fruit was sour and crabbed, fit only for “sarse,” or the pigs.

When Clinton returned to the house, he found preparations making for supper. The fire-place,—the only one the house could boast,—was almost large enough to admit of roasting an ox whole; and the heap of burning logs, four feet long and unsplit, looked as if Mrs. Lewis was intending to accomplish some such feat. But it was only her ordinary fire, such as she always had to boil the tea-kettle, and bake a pan of cakes. The fire-place was built of stone, and there was a hearth of the same material before it. An iron crane swung over the fire, from which the tea-kettle and baking kettle were suspended, by hooks shaped like the letter S. Near the ceiling, over the hearth, a string was stretched across the room, on which a few stockings were drying.