Chapter 3

Julia Wilmer loves them, for they took her when an orphan, gave her a comfortable home, and reared her to womanhood with virtue, intelligence and hope.

And we see that Julia carries a crimson face, and smiling look; although she stoops considerably, and her long arms and loping gait, make her appear to many, ungainly; she is ruddy as a rareripe peach, and smiles from her forehead and eyes, and face and mouth.

But a feeling of sadness agitates our heart as we glance at Julia's history. Orphanage presents, in the brightest relief, one of the saddest sights that our weeping eyes behold; and hers was especially sad. Her father, mother and two sisters were all carried off to the grave in the space of one week, which she was spending abroad with a poor relative; and she was left without the comfort of a parting word or kiss, and cast upon the world at a tender and almost helpless age, with no provision for her welfare. Her poor sobbing heart came well nigh breaking, and though her pitiful condition, and her sweet and attracting manners, ensured her much sympathy, and many friends; yet none could think to offer her a home, and take the place of her family, but the Masons, of whom we speak. They took her home at last, and gave her shelter from the storms. They engaged to rear her to womanhood, and shield her from harm and need. They were always kind to her, and she never received a harsh word or look from them. They cultured her fine sense, and gave her a knowledge of books and things. They trained her against deceptions. They gave her entire person, the reason, the will, affections and form, as finished an education, as one often found at that day among intelligent farmers.

And yet they did not do right by Julia. She was large of her age, and all the more tender for being large; and they tasked her too severely, and exacted too much of her. She performed boy's work too often; she was dropping potatoes or pulling weeds, or spreading hay in the field, when she ought to have been sewing or doing house-work; she milked too many cows; she carried too many pails of sap in the sugar bush; she gleaned too much wheat; she sewed on hard sewing too long at a time; she spun too much wool and flax, and turned too many cheeses. The consequence was, that while she retained much of a superabundant cheerfulness, she was stoop-shouldered, and looked narrow over the chest; her form was less elastic, and her hands were hard and homely.

But if Matthew Fabens had searched the wide world over, he would not have found a better bride than she. He had known her from a child, and could well appreciate her intelligence and worth. He chose her in a love, whose affiance was sanctioned in heaven; and after three years' absence in the Lake Country, he and Julia met again at his father's house.

The joy of that home, at that meeting, you may well imagine, was hearty and high. The young people feared it was too much to enjoy long. The old people wept and smiled, and pressed and fondled their son in childish delight, and asked if it could be he, or did they not dream? and how he had been, and if he still set his heart on his western home. They rejoiced till midnight, and hurried each other with questions, and wearied each other with talk.

"It looks pleasant as ever in Cloverdale," said Matthew. "Home is home, after all. The old hills looked so good, I wanted to kiss 'em, when they hove in sight. Nothing appears altered; the old church looks good as ever; and the old elm-tree seemed to know me, and welcome me back with its waving limbs; and the house here--every room is just as I left it; and the water from the well tastes as cold and sweet; and I cannot see but you all look about as you did, when I went away. I knew father would hold his age; but I expected mother would look a little older. Julia, if she's altered at all, her hair is more of a chestnut, her cheeks are rounder, and a little more ruddy, and she is straighter than she was. But none of you can tell how I feel to see you all once more, and sit down under this old roof again. Home is home, after all!"

"You'll hate to go back again, won't you, Matthew?" asked Major Fabens.

"I shall grieve to leave you and mother again, but I am not quite ready to have you go on with me this time. I want to do more to my farm; I want to build an addition to my log-house for you, and prepare a little more to make you comfortable. Yes, I shall always feel sad to leave Cloverdale, though I like the Waldron Settlement quite as well."

"Think you can get a living, and build up a manhood there then, do you?"

"A good living, I am sure I can get; I hope I may build up a manhood. I like the country well; it is a rich soil, and very easy to cultivate. My cornfield is as mellow as a bed of ashes this year; I had a fine field of red-chaff wheat, with full heads, a plump berry, and straw as bright as a dollar; and I wish I could have brought down some of my big pumpkins and melons."

"I think I shall like it pretty well, if I live to get there; I love a new country; it gives you more space to breathe in. The air is sweeter, the woods are grander, the grass is greener, crops are more perfect, neighbors are freer-hearted, and a man prospers faster there. You have good neighbors, and I hear that you have some good times in the settlement. Think you will like a home in the wild, wild woods, Julia?"

"I think I shall. Cousin John lives where it is quite new, and I am delighted to go there. I know I shall like it on the Cayuga. I will be in my joy, setting my table for a hunting party, or a harvest feast."

"I know you will all like it, and when we all get there, if Heaven smiles, my joy will be complete."

They retired, and attempted to sleep; the morning came, and Matthew rose and completed the circuit of his calls and visits. A week flew away, and his visiting was done, and Julia Wilmer was Julia Fabens, and with the blessings of fond parents, they departed for their far forest home.

The journey was long and difficult for Julia to undertake. They could not then journey as now, on the rapid railway, winding green valleys, ascending great hills, and gliding through cities and towns, with as gentle a whirl, and as jocund a clack as if spinning skeins of silk. They mounted the tardy wagon, and rattled and jounced along behind a loitering team. But Julia had fortitude and spirit, to meet fatigues and discouragements bravely. Her early experience now furnished the fruits that could most refresh her heart; the fruits of courage, hope, and self-assistance. She expected the journey of life would not always be smooth, and she hoped it would not have more to buffet her joy, or jostle, or weary, than the road to the Waldron Settlement.

They came to the land of lakes. Emerging from a dense forest, on the last morning of the journey, they welcomed the light of an opening, and the sweet Skaneateles glowed upon their eyes. They were moving along its foot, and it glimmered and waved like a lake of quicksilver, in reply to the smiles of a splendid sky.

"Is this your Cayuga? How lovely!--What! are we in the settlement so soon?" asked Julia, with joy flashing from her eyes, and hope rekindling on her cheeks.

"No, we are near the settlement," said Matthew. "This is the Skaneateles. Have courage, my dear. I have brought you over a long, rough way. You are weary, I know, but have courage now. We shall reach home to-night."

They refreshed themselves with luncheon from their basket, and cool, sweet water from the lake, and rode on a few hours longer, and another lake saluted them with a bright smile of welcome.

"Then, this is your Cayuga?"

"No, this is the Owasco; but we have not far to go. Cheer up, Julia, cheer up, now, and prepare your dainty eyes for a peep at the loveliest Eden."

They rode awhile longer, and another lake burst in beauty on their gaze. "I know that is it, and here we come to the settlement. I declare it is a lovely spot, worth coming to see! What waters, and woods, and fields! I shall love this place, I know I shall. Ho! there comes Uncle Walter to meet us now!"

And Uncle Walter was followed by Aunt Huldah, and Matthew and Julia were heartily shaken, questioned and kissed, and led into the house, and served to hospitalities, that would flatter and refresh the proudest mortal's heart.

VI.

THE NEW HOME AND SETTLEMENT.

Matthew and Julia rose in the morning and went into their new home. It was a great change for Julia, and nothing but contrasts reminded her of her home at Mr. Mason's. But somehow it suited her heart the moment she entered its doorway, and she took charge of its interests with pride and joy; and hours, and days, and weeks, and months, and years passed by with a much more rapid flight than before she was a bride.

And following the steps of Time through a few more rounds of his race, and omitting to note the common events that rise up on the way, we will now pause at a new stage of action, and attempt to recall the scenes. The house remains yet before us, the same as when Julia first saw it, except that a small addition has been built and furnished; a partition takes off a bedroom from one end, and another window has been cut and set in the chamber. It is a handsome log house as one would find in all the Waldron Settlement. It is long and wide. The logs are hewn on the inside; it has a white maple floor below, and a white basswood floor above; it has a large open fireplace, and a stick chimney, through which, as through a telescope, the stars may be counted at night; and, whitewashed above and around, it presents a neat and pleasant appearance.

The house stands on an eminence which overlooks nearly every field on the farm, and admits you to sights as distant as the blue mountain fringes lifted away beyond Ithaca in the south. There are maples, ashes, and elms in the door-yard; there is a beautiful garden on the east, and a cool and delightful spring of water on the west. There is a log barn, thatched with straw, on the right; and barracks for wheat and hay, and cribs for corn, on the left. There is already a fine meadow of timothy, with white-ash shade trees, waving on the north; a pasture beyond the garden on the east, and a wheat-field on the south. Then a cornfield greets you west, and your eyes enjoy the scene.

Around this lovely spot, the distance of a field on either side of the house, the woods still wave their crowns of majesty, and hide the Owasco, and most of the Cayuga from view.

As master of this little rural domain, you behold Matthew Fabens, now grown to ample manhood; and he would make a fine bust for Powers to cut in marble. He stands six feet one without his shoes; he is straight as the white-ash shade tree that honors the north meadow; and his body, and arms, and legs, are round, and hard, and clean. He has a fine turned head, deficient most in caution; high in benevolence, veneration, and conscientiousness; and full in the regions that show he can construct his own implements and comforts; arrange his farm with order and taste; estimate values at a glance, and cast up accounts without a slate and pencil. He has a fine turned Roman nose of the cleanest and fairest skin; he has a well-shaped ear, rounded, and separate at the bottom from the head; he has brown hair, and dark gray eyes; he has a noble face and brilliant countenance; he has teeth standing straight, and square and separate, and though they never were brushed, they glisten with the cleanest and smoothest ivory polish; he has a good-sized mouth, not too compressed, like a skin-flint's, nor too open or lax like a fool's. He has a chin, throat, and chest, showing energy of soul and body combined; and if twenty years older, he would do fine honors to a president's chair.

Yonder, in the garden, arranging beds for winter vegetables, and tending a few simple flowers, you behold Julia Fabens, and she has quite outgrown the bend in her good form, which hard work brought on at Mason's, and looks more mature, and hardy; and she is diligent as a parent robin, and rosy and glad as the sweet summer morn.

Wiping the sweat from their frank foreheads and faces, there in the cool, fresh current of air, sit Major Fabens and his venerable wife, come on to this new country to draw freer breath, taste fairer fruit, see greener thrift, and make a good son happy; and they are just returned from a ramble by the lake.

Out near the well curb, toward the green maple on the right, plays our loved little Clinton, the plump and laughing idol of the place; tossing his ball out of sight into that cluster of golden mullens, and then scampering full tilt after the broods of young chickens and turkeys that peep about the door. Clinton is a promising boy, and the worst of it is, he begins to find it out. But everybody likes him. He has most of his father's look, with his mother's force and caution added, he laughs all over his cunning little face; his yellow locks crinkle all over his head; and his hands are so soft, and his neck so fat and clean, you love to catch him to your heart, and hug him, and chuckle beneath his chin, and carry away his sweetest strawberry kisses.

And stretched on the grass-plat before the door, sleeps the good dog Jowler; shaggy and rough as a wolf; yet faithful and kind; resting from a range in the woods, and dreaming of squirrels and coons.

Look around you a little, and tell us where is a handsomer spot! True, it has not the ornament and regularity of an old estate. Handsome buildings, and the smoothest meadow-lands are nowhere to be seen. The stir and strife of a village are not here, nor the signs of ancient opulence, except what Nature boasts; nor the voice of cultivated music. But walk about, and view the scene.

The woods are arrayed in all their pomp and splendor; the fields have the warmest and richest light to kindle their royal verdures; along the trails, and in every little tract of sunshine, the flowers of the forest hold forth their sweet and modest blooms; and while birds of every wing and song, continue their full concert from twilight to twilight, you may hear, if you listen, the chime of the cheering cowbell, made mellow by the distance, wakening the music of contentment in the heart, tolling the steps of the tripping hours, and sounding the notes of rural bliss.

We set out in company to visit the settlers, and the birds salute us on our way, and the air comes cool and fragrant to our lips. We pause and survey the sugar camp, and a herd of fleet deer caper by, leading a troop of frolicking fawns, and seeming to send back the word, "see our darlings." Casting your eyes aloft to the top of that tall maple, you discover a bee tree, and behold numberless diligent little beings going and coming on the business of a miniature state. Then you hear the chip-squirrels chirrup, and the red squirrels mock; then the hen-hawks chatter and shriek in the air, and the crows caw and clamor; the thrushes and swamp robins bandy their boasts in challenges of music; the blue jay gossips, and the cuckoo cries.

"Whose cabin is this?" do you inquire? Tilly Troffater's. A swaggering, boisterous little body too, is he, and his legs are short and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen tea-pot covers. His ears are round, and stick forward like a weasel's; his form is square and supple, and he stands more than perpendicular. Ready and sharp is he for a joke, cold and unfeeling in manner, and troublesome as the varlet blackbirds that sit on a tree and gabble and moot, while other birds give you music.

There sits his wife, milking the late-found cow. She has a ludicrous look. An old rag of linsey-woolsey hugs her spindle form; her teeth are shovels, and cleave down her nether lip; her eyes catch every point of the compass across each other's glance; her forehead is low, her hair, a smoky white, and her voice, now flat, now treble, and now sharp. But a kinder, or more guileless heart never warmed a human breast, than that which lies in Dinah Troffater's; and whoever were in fault regarding her strange looks, they cannot criminate her as accessary. She milks the cow, and yonder come leaping like vagrant foxes, her half-wild children, with a few dry sticks for the cabin fire.

Going on two miles farther, we come to Mr. Waldron's, and find him nestled quietly under a hill in his double log-house, with a view of the lake on the west, and with comforts all around him. We find Aunt Polly too, and she lays down her distaff, welcomes us in, tells us a story of the backwoods, and gives us a taste of her new metheglin.

Then we come to Uncle Walter Mowry's, and hear he is off on a hunt in the woods, while Aunt Huldah excuses the soap and sand on her hands, and welcomes us in with joy.

Then we give Teezle a visit; then we see Wilson, and enter the shop on the stream, where he makes chairs, shoes, and carpenter-work on a rainy day; and he reminds us of the bear hunt. Then we see Flaxman, and hear him and Phoebe sing the same old nasal song, and observe their thrift and comfort. Then we visit Colwell, and the wives and children of all greet us with kindness, and a frank good-will in all their words and looks. Upon every heart among them, excepting the heart of Troffater, fraternity, courage and hope, luxuriate in harvests as rank and rich, as the woods and fields around; and through their clear eyes, we can see the honest thoughts of their free and guileless souls, as we see the shells and pebbles through the waters of the lake.

We find it a goodly settlement, and you can picture in your mind the happiness Fabens enjoys, as he brings each new acre to the harrow, and reaps the rewards of his manly toils. You remain a whole month in his hospitable home.

You miss many comforts and luxuries, found in country and town, at the present day. You remark the absence of all outward polish and ornament, which get names for refinement in established society. There are no capacious parlors, or splendid lamps to attract you; no sofas but moss-cushioned logs in the woods; no ottomans unless a green bank of wood-grass will serve you, and neither harp nor piano but the distaff and wheel. All is simple; all is arranged for convenience and comfort, as new homes in the backwoods ever are found; and to you it may seem odd enough to live so.

You may fancy how simple a lad from this region would appear as he might pass your city streets, with his long arms and loping gait; reading signs and staring at all the city wonders. You may fancy the backwoods maiden would look verdant and soft in her rustic frock and clumsy calf-skin shoes, leaning well to her way as she walked, and seeming to devour all city sights and sounds. But think you, they have not drank great spirit and beautiful sense from the breasts of Nature? Is it nothing that the backwoods boy lies down in clover meadows, and rambles in maple woods, and hears the bobolink and swamp robin sing; starts at the sound of Logan's cuckoo, and imitates her lay?

And is it less that the backwoods maiden spins flax and wool; makes the fields and woods her flower garden; washes the freckles from her face in Aurora's rosiest dew; romps like a wild doe in the valleys; brings apples from the orchard, and berries from the hills; and like Lavinia, gleans Palemon's fields?

But your heart imbibes the lovely simplicity; your voice falls into tune with voices around you; and more and more do you love that rural little home, and all its verdant views.

Happier and purer are you made by the wise words of Major Fabens and his wife. Kindly and more free-hearted you grow in the sphere of Julia Fabens, whose innocent, womanly nature breathes in unison with all that is joyful and pure; whose presence is the life and smile of the place. If you have in your soul one sympathy that takes to children, you must also love that rosy miniature Fabens, the idolized Clinton, as he vies in his sports with the birds and squirrels; gives chase to butterflies and bees; and races around the house drawing smiles on his antics; darting from sight now and then like a spirit, and making house, and fields and woods resound with his merry warble and glee.

A month goes away so pleasantly, you conclude to spend the summer with them; and a bright and blissful summer it is as your young heart has ever enjoyed. You cannot stand idle, despising labor. You catch the impulse of the place and people, and none are more ready than you for tasks that test courage and strength, and make the warm sweat flood the glowing face. You are up and away in the morning before the whippoorwill closes her song; and are breathing the fragrant air, and enjoying the brisk exercise that gives the best sauce for breakfast.

You would hunt the stray cow, but you fear being lost, or devoured by wild beasts. You are out on the fallow as they prepare to burn it; and you carry fire to a dozen brush heaps, while Fabens and his father fire the rest; and behold, the flames meet together in a curtain, and run and roar like the waves of a burning sea.

You count the ages of the trees by the rings on the stumps, and say, here is a walnut that flourished with Washington; there is a maple of Milton's age; and this old oak was a brave young tree when Columbus was born. This ring records a dry season, and that a wet season; this a warm one, and that a cold. What made this elm so stocky and firm and high, and gave it such mighty roots and massive limbs? It grew quite alone on the hill, took the storm with the sunshine, and battled the blast while others slept in peace. What made this poplar so weakly? It grew in the thicket, and was sheltered from sun and storm. You see in the trees fine types of human life.

You lead rosy Clinton on many a glad ramble. Your strength increases, and you assist in the labors of the field. You plant corn and weed it; and in that act you sow the seeds of energy and hope in your soul, and weed it of vices and weakly shoots. You cut down fireweeds and thistles; and still dress your soul withal, more and more. You set deadfalls for corn-pulling squirrels; and entrap with the squirrels your follies and fears. You watch with a watering mouth the growing melons and blackening berries; and find sweeter than all, the melons of health, arid berries of rural bliss.

Through wood and through opening you wander free; are now on the lake in a birchen canoe, and again on the shore in an Indian wigwam. Your time runs out at last, and you return to society with a lagging heart, preferring the hale and cheery comforts of backwoods life, hard and homely as are its labors, to a life where the multitude gather, and Pride and Luxury rule, and Self seeks all honors, and Fashion stands a god. Your memory remains pictorial with the waters, fields and woods of the Waldron Settlement; your dreams are illuminated with its lights and verdures; and its pleasant times and seasons roll their rounds in music through your mind.

VII.

A CAPTIVE.

Another year passes over our little wood-bordered world, and summer again smiles on the settlement. The achievements of labor are exhibited in the progress of each new plantation, in the thrift, comfort, and hope of each pleasant estate. A few more families have joined the neighborhood; a few more clearings are given to the area of civilization; a few more homes and joys. A new pledge of love is added to the Fabens family, and a troop of blissful and tender interests succeed.