Part 2
For the information of readers not acquainted with the average “droveyer” of forty and fifty years ago, it is necessary to record that he was not the sort of an individual calculated to adorn refined society, and the language used by those in charge of this particular “drove” was more characteristic for its strength than for its elegance or politeness. I tried to appease their wrath, apologized for the unseemly conduct of dog and horse, alleged sudden fright, marshalled a fine array of other excuses, and finally succeeded in neutralizing the flow of their ire—just a little. But the chief spokesman was not satisfied with excuses and soft words; he was a materialist, and wanted to know, then and there, who was to put up the fence and pay for the damage done by the trampling down of growing crops. Under the circumstances the query did not seem to be an unreasonable one, and I suggested that the better course to pursue would be for the authors of the mischief to make terms with the owner of the crops, state facts, and await his decision.
The season happened to be between planting and harvest, and “the men-folks,” we were told, “are up on yender hill mending fence, and won’t be down till dinner.” The head “droveyer,” impatient to keep with his “drove,” would not wait, and informed me, in a rather emphatic sort of way, that I would have to wait and “settle up.” There was no appeal in sight from his decision. So he went and I waited.
The hot part of the day had arrived, and it was within about two hours “till dinner.” After “hitchin’” the horse in the barn, away from the flies, I suggested the loan of an axe. This excited surprise, and the question came from the head of the interior of that particular domestic establishment: “What are _you_ going to do with an axe?” I answered: “I’m going to mend the fence where those cattle broke through.” This feather came very near breaking the back of the housewife, and her sense of the ridiculous was excited up to the point of explosion, but she was too well bred to give the laugh direct, full in the face, and contented herself by making an acute mental survey of my physical points. She measured with her eye the hands and girth of chest, and made a close calculation as to the amount of biceps assigned to each arm, and after some reflection, said: “You’ll find an old axe in the woodshed; you can take it and try and patch up the places, and, when you hear the horn, you can come in and eat with the rest of the folks.” I started off, filled with the pride born of knowledge, and confident of a coming success, but the even flow of my happiness was soon disturbed by a sound from the upper register of a very loud, shrill voice, saying, “Don’t split your feet open with that are axe.” This was like a small streak of ice water down the spinal column, but I was on my mettle and not to be discouraged. The vacant spaces in the broken fence were encountered and yielded to superior force, and a fairish amount of success was accomplished about the time the welcome tones of the sonorous horn announced the hour for feeding.
I was introduced to the “men-folks” as the stranger whose dog and horse had “scart the cattle inter the oats.” At first it was easy to see that I was not regarded with favor, but, as the dinner proceeded, and as anecdotes succeeded each other about men, things and far-off countries I had seen, the Green Mountain ice began to melt, and, by the time the “Injun puddin’” was emptied out of its bag, cordial relations were established. The two bright-faced boys had become communicative, and the older members of the family had forgotten for the time the damage to the oats.
The dinner ended, I requested a board of survey and an estimate. The first relevant observation in relation to the case before the court came from the grandfather: “Well, I declare, I couldn’t done it better myself. I didn’t know you city folk could work so. Where did you l’arn to mend fences?” This first witness for the defence produced a marked effect upon the jury. The next point of observation was the field of damaged oats. The eldest son, a Sunday-school-sort of boy, exclaimed: “By pepper, they are pretty well trampled down, ain’t they? No cradle can git under ’em; guess’ll have ter go at ’em with the sickle, but we can save the heft of ’em by bending our backs a little.”
During the investigation not a word was uttered about compensation, and, after leaving the field, the conversation ran into generalities; but before we reached the house the grandfather’s curiosity got the better of his timidity, and he asked: “Where did you l’arn to mend fences?” When I told him that my name was ——, that I was a grandson of ——, was born at the “Old H. Place at the crotch of the roads in the town of P——,” learned to mend fences there, etc., etc., he had great difficulty in suppressing the dimensions of the proud satisfaction my information had produced. In his mind I was a degenerate Vermonter, living in the great City of New York, but had not forgotten the lessons learned at the old farm. I knew how to mend a fence, and that, for him, was my certificate of character.
From the moment of my disclosures, I was admitted to the inner family circle, and there was no more farm-work for the rest of the day, while the afternoon hours were devoted to reminiscences of the olden times: “Ah,” said the old grandfather, “when I first laid eyes on ye, I thought I’d seen somebody like ye afore, and I remember it was your grandfather on yer father’s side. He was a soldier of the Revolutionary War in one of the Rhode Island ridgiments, and my father belonged to one from Massachusetts; both served till the end of the war, and then emigrated to Vermont, together. My father settled on this farm, where I was born in 1790; your grandfather took up some land in P——, and till the end of his days was the best schoolmaster and surveyor anywhere round these parts. He was a master-hand at poetry, and used to write sarcastical varses agin the lop-sided cusses he hated. There’s allus some mean critters in these country towns, who take advantage of poor folks that ain’t very smart and cheat ’em outer their property. They used to feel mighty mean, I tell ye, when they read your grandfather’s varses about ’em. I heerd old Si Simmons, up to town meeting only last year, telling about a mean old critter down in P—— by the name of Podges and how your grandfather writ a varse for his gravestun, and I remember it was about like this:
“‘Here lies the body of Podges Seth, The biggest knave that e’er drew breath; He lived like a hog and died like a brute, And has gone to the d——l beyond dispute.’”
I was able to respond in kind, for I happened to remember about another local poet, who hated a surviving son of this rural vampire, who quite worthily perpetuated the detestable qualities of his defunct parent, and, when he died, as he did not many years after his father, the other local poet, not to be outdone by my grandfather, composed the following verse as a fitting epitaph:
“Here lies the body of Podges Ed, We all rejoice to know he’s dead; Too bad for Heaven, too mean for Hell, And where he’s gone no one can tell.”
In the “Old Times” there were strong, honest, rugged characters among the Vermont hills. The majority of them were men of plain speech and unyielding contempt for meanness in any form. A goodly number of the early settlers in the eastern counties were soldiers of the Revolution who had emigrated to the new State soon after its close, and they brought with them the simple, manly habits and ways of thinking which are characteristic of service in the field. Many were the anecdotes told of them that day—the day of the accident to the oats—very much to the edification of the juniors, who were all eyes and ears, at least for that occasion.
The old house at the “crotch of the roads,” when I was a boy, was the Saturday and Sunday halting-place for the old soldiers of my own and several of the neighboring towns. The larder was always well-supplied, and the barrels of cider that lined a capacious cellar were ready to respond to every call. Under the influence of an abundant supply of that exhilarating beverage, the fighting over of old battles was always vigorous and sometimes vividly realistic.
The most famous of the local veterans, of my time, was known among his neighbors as “Uncle Daniel V——.” He was a Lexington-Bunker Hill man, who had served till the end of the war. As I remember him, he was a most interesting character, humorous, with a good memory, a famous drinker of hard cider, and a notable singer of the patriotic soldier songs of the “Seventy-six” period. I can recall, in his showing “how the Yankee boys flaxed the Britishers,” how he would shoulder one of his canes—he was a rheumatic and walked with two—and march up and down the broad kitchen of the old house, going through the motions of loading, aiming and firing at an imaginary enemy, greatly to my childish delight, for those were the first fierce war’s alarms I had ever witnessed, and I can never forget how my imagination was fired; nor how ardently I wished I had been at Lexington and Bunker Hill, where “we gave it to the Red Coats.” Uncle Daniel was far too good a patriot to say anything about the return compliments, “How the Red Coats gave it to us,” upon one of those historic fields. Since his day I have learned that one of his glorification songs, which professed to give a correct account of one particular Yankee victory, was not in strict accord with the truths of history. I could recall for my host but a single verse of all the songs he used to sing, and it savors so much of the camp that I had some misgivings about repeating it before Christians, but upon being hard pressed by the boys and seeing approving glances from other directions, concluded to go ahead.
The verse I remember is one from a song supposed to have been sung by British soldiers who were in the retreat after the defeat at Concord, April 19, 1775, and runs thus:
“From behind the hedges and the ditches. And every tree and stump. We would see the sons of —— And infernal Yankees jump.”
I also remember, vaguely, something of another Revolutionary camp song which depicted the grief of the soldiers of Burgoyne’s army. The refrain was like this:
“We have got too far from Canada, Run, boys, run.”
When we had exhausted the Revolution, it was time for an afternoon start. For more than an hour Rover had manifested his impatience by numerous waggings and by pawing vigorously at the legs of my trousers whenever I looked his way, and from the barn there came sounds of hoof-poundings and impatient whinnerings—loud and plain calls for a move. So, after many protests against the going, a move to go was made.
Before the advance upon the barn was fairly under way the youngster, who had been an attentive listener, decided upon a search for information, and, commanding a halt, informed me that “Old Jim Noyes, who lived over in the Snow neighborhood, has two boys in Boston; the oldest was up here in June and told us there was a steeple down in Boston as high as that old ‘Jackson Hill’ of ours, but I didn’t b’leve a word of it. Hosea Doten, the biggest man at figgers and surveying in this part of Vermont, told mother last year that Old Jack was 1,200 feet above the sea and more than five hundred above where we are standing; now, there ain’t no such steeple in Boston nor anywhere else. What do folks want such a high steeple for, anyway? And if meetin’ houses must have steeples, why won’t fifty feet do as well as five hundred? Some folks say that bells are hung up in steeples so God can hear them ring for folks to go to meetin’ Sunday mornin’. What odds would two or three hundred feet make to God? He can hear a bell just as well in a fifty-foot steeple as in one five hundred feet high. Meetin’ folks could save a lot of money by building low steeples. And besides, they ain’t no use; nobody could live in ’em five hundred feet up, and it would be too high to hang a thermometer on unless you had a spy-glass to look at it with. I don’t b’leve in such high steeples; they cost lots of money and ain’t of no use.”
I assured the young philosopher of my approval of his ideas about the uselessness of high steeples, and told him that Boston was not the owner of one five hundred feet high. This information was a source of immense satisfaction. “I was right all the time,” he added, “and knew that Jim Noyes was giving us lies just as fast as his tongue could work ’em out. Do all Vermont boys that go to Boston learn to talk like him? There’s a lot gone down there from about here. Some of ’em are up on a visit every once in a while, and spend the most of their spare time in telling such silly stories. I guess they think they can stuff us country folks just like Thanksgiving turkeys. What makes ’em lie so? The boys round here, if they talked like they do, would get licked a dozen times a week and no decent folks would have anything to do with ’em. I suppose it’s all right. Boys, when they git to Boston, have got to lie to keep their places and git a living. Grandfather don’t take it to heart so much as the rest of us. He says lying is the biggest part of the show, and the longer we live the more on’t we’ll see.”
The day was well along, and the sun showed a decided intention of soon disappearing behind the top of “Old Jack,” before I insisted on departing. Then the calico horse was watered, saddled and bridled, and brought out for inspection and admiration. His appearance elicited expressions of unbounded admiration, his great, soft, brown, and beautifully expressive eyes, his amiability and active intelligence coming in for no end of complimentary remarks. The boys were especially enthusiastic and proposed a “swap for a four-year-old raised on the place.”
The oats question was again brought up for adjudication, and, after considerable argument, the party owning the injured crop determined to leave the amount of damage an open question until the individual responsible for it could “come around agin.”
The moment had arrived for the reluctant good-by, the grasp of hands, the mount and the start, amid great excitement and noise on the part of the animals; and then commenced a most exhilarating run of more than fifteen miles over a softish dirt road, through a series of lovely valleys, to the little village of D——, where we called a halt for the night, which was destined to be prolonged into the orthodox Sunday rest of the place and period.
By this time the organization of three had crystallized into exact form, and without effort had settled into an habitual daily routine, and the incidents of to-day were quite certain to be repeated to-morrow. There was always plenty of time, evenings and middle parts of days, for talking with the “folks”—oracles about the village taverns—who, like the old-time bar-room Major and Judge of the Slave States, were always on hand and on tap for a copious outpouring of village gossip and political information. In justice to the Major and Judge of the old days of the South, it must be written that they were usually waiting for another sort of a tap-flow to be turned on, from a tap not of their own.
It is doubtful if the happy trio ever appreciated the greatness of this three weeks’ manifestation of themselves, through which they were unambitious but undoubted involuntary heroes among the country folk. John Gilpin could not have been more fortunate in the way of attracting attention from all beholders; and “the more they gazed the more the wonder grew,” and the puzzle of forty years ago, in the villages through which we passed, of “What is it, anyway?” remains as profound a mystery as ever.
In some places I was regarded as a very considerable personage on a secret mission of great import; at other times the saddle-valise was accused of containing a supply of a newly discovered life-saving pill; but, generally, we were mistaken by the wise know-it-alls of the village as the advance agents of a coming circus; if not, why the calico horse? which to the rural mind, from the most remote period, has been associated with the gorgeous, gilded bandwagon, spangles, and sawdust. The fortunate suspicion of circus affiliations brought to us a measure of attention far beyond our merits; both animals were treated with the greatest respect, as possible performers of high standing, and upon several occasions I was asked to “make ’em show off.”
The summer Saturday afternoon and evening in Vermont is always the same. At the “stores” business flourishes, and profitable activity reigns supreme until late into the evening hours. On the farm the opposite is the rule, a general “slicking up for Sunday” and the doing of “odd chores” around the house and barn is the order of the day, the whole being a fitting prelude to the coming Sunday, which is always what it ought to be, not the Lord’s any more than another day, nor anybody else’s day, but a day of rest, pure and simple, for all the creatures of the Creator. Ever since I can remember, Vermonters, without asking leave of this or that authority have chosen their own way of Sunday resting.
In no state west of the Rocky Mountains do the beauties of nature make a stronger appeal for human appreciation than in Vermont, and never are they seen to better advantage than upon a quiet summer Sunday morning, when the brilliant blue sky is filled with light, and all the world seems to be at peace. The clear, limpid streams move silently on as though controlled by the all-pervading spirit of rest; the leaves of the trees, yielding to the universal feeling of repose, keep silence with the rest of nature, and over all there is the fascinating power of wondrous beauties abounding not made by the hands of man. Such days are made for rest and reflection, when nature invites us to commune with her works, that we may know more of them and be able to rise to a higher and more ennobling appreciation of her beauties. The quiet, suggestive New England summer Sunday morning’s appeal is nature’s most beneficent call to her children to come to her and search for knowledge of things which lead through untrodden paths, where, at every step, new pleasures unfold to the view for our instruction and enjoyment.
Upon such occasions we yield to the influence of the silent voice and the unseen hand, and unconsciously follow the beckonings of a wingless fairy, Nature’s ever-present handmaid, who, without our knowledge, leads us to a new Fairyland, where new beauties abound, and where countless joys are within the reach of the most humble subjects of the Creator.
Such a typical Sunday as the one I have attempted to describe followed the Saturday after our arrival at the little village of D——. The first duties of the day were to our four-footed friends, and then came the standard breakfast of the place and period for the superior being. Fifty years ago this was very much more of a living Yankee institution than now. In those days the French _menu_, much to the satisfaction of those practitioners in the dental line, had not penetrated within the borders of the New England rural districts. I remember distinctly the color and taste of the native bean-coffee, the solidity of the morning pie-crusts, the crumble after the crash of the cookey, and the greasy substantiality of the venerated doughnut. All these we had in abundance, with the incidental “apple sass” thrown in between courses that lovely Sunday morning, forty-one years ago this writing.
The town of D——, happened to be the shire-town of the county in which it was situated. At the time of my brief sojourn there, the Supreme Court was in session and one of the judges had the head of the table at the hotel, while I, being a supposed distinguished stranger, with “boughten clothes” and a fair expanse of starched shirt-front, was given the seat of honor at his right hand. I found him a regulation specimen of the real original Yankee judge, quaint of speech, humorous, and intelligent, and not a profound believer in the oft-alleged superior qualities of the animal said to have been made in the image of his maker.
Our conversation started and continued for some time in the usual way; the weather and condition of crops being used as an excuse for the opening sentences, but, before the breakfast was over, a shrewd series of inoffensive direct questions, deftly put, brought to the surface the fact that I had travelled in strange and far-away countries.
Punctually at the usual hour and minute, the Sunday bells commenced their weekly call to the faithful, and the Judge interrupted the easy flow of his entertaining conversation to ask how I usually spent Sunday. I told him I had no particular way of doing that day, but usually permitted original sin to take its course. That idea seemed to strike him favorably and brought out a proposition that we should take to the woods and see which could tell the biggest story, he at the same time remarking: “You have travelled so much that by this time you ought to be an interesting liar. On such a beautiful day as this there is no excuse for bothering the parson. Sometimes on a cold chilly day he is a real comfort; he warms us up with the heat of the brimstone to come.”
That Sunday made its mark. It was a red-letter day never to be forgotten. My new acquaintance proved to be a philosopher and thinker of no ordinary dimensions. He was saturated with the teachings of Socrates, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Gibbon, and I suspected he had taken a sly glance or two at Lucretius and Voltaire. He had ready for use, at command, the essence of the entire teachings of his favorite authors, and could quote whole pages from their works.
While we were stretched out upon a bed of dead leaves, looking up through the living ones to the open sky above, my faithful companions, feeling the quieting influence of the day, were near us, tranquilly enjoying the shade, and acting as though taking in a conversation which they seemed to understand. As with men we often meet, this silence was passing them off for being wiser than they were. My canine companion was close to my side with my hand gently resting upon his head, while my calico equine friend was enjoying the grateful shade of a broad spreading maple, and busying himself with switching away at speculative flies in search of opportunities for luxurious dinners.
The satisfactory contentment of the two animals attracted the attention of my judicial companion, and he asked me to explain the secret of our close companionship. He was surprised when I told him there was no secret about it, that I treated my four-footed friends as I would human beings; looked after their general welfare, saw that they were sufficiently fed with the proper food, talked to them in kindly tones of voice, gave them tid-bits now and then that I knew they were fond of, patted them approvingly, never scolded or used a whip, and, finally, spent a great deal of my time in their company. I further explained that intellectually I regarded them as being on a plane with children—to be looked after, to be kindly treated, and to have their mental faculties developed to the full extent of the separate capacity of each, and, that by pursuing such a course, we could obtain the best service and an amount of affection and companionship that would amply recompense us for all of our trouble.