The Puddleford Papers Part 1

The Puddleford Papers.

by H. H. Riley.

PREFACE.

Everybody who writes a book, is expected to introduce it with a preface; to hang out a sign, the more captivating the better, informing the public what kind of entertainment may be expected within. I am very sorry that I am obliged to say that many a one has been wofully deceived by these outside proclamations, and some one may be again.

I am unable to apologize to the public for inflicting this work upon it. It was not through "the entreaty of friends" that it was written. It is not the "outpourings of a delicate const.i.tution." (I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds.) I was not driven into it "by a predestination to write, which was beyond my control." It is not "offered for the benefit of a few near relatives, who have insisted upon seeing it in print;" nor do I expect the public will tolerate it simply out of regard to my feelings, if their own feelings are not enlisted in its favor.

The book is filled with portraits of Puddleford and the Puddlefordians.

The reader may never have seen the portrait of a genuine Puddlefordian.

Bless me, how much that man has lost! If the reader does not like the painting after he _has_ seen it, I cannot help it; it may be the fault of the original, or it may be from a want of skill in the painter.

Like the carrier-pigeon, let it go, to return with glad tidings, or none at all.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Many years have pa.s.sed since Puddleford was first published. In the meanwhile the world has turned round and round, and so has Puddleford. The book, too, has been growing in size, from time to time, and some new "matter" has been now introduced.

The object of the book was not merely humor. It was hoped by the author that the reader would discover an undercurrent, showing strong points of human nature in the rough, and how at last the rugged rock becomes rounded and polished into the smooth stone--the iron cleaver turned into the tempered sword. How stern, honest men, who are driven to grapple and struggle with the hardships of a new country, meet and dispose of them in an irregular and home-made way, by striking at the root of the question, disregarding mere form. How the foundation of law, religion, and order is laid in strength, if not in beauty. How other generations build thereon the temple with its pillars and spire.

I cannot attempt to describe the Puddleford of to-day. Ike Turtle is old and gray, but his children hold high positions in society and state. Some of them have Ike's th.o.r.n.y, sharp genius, but toned down by education and cultivation into method and power. Squire Longbow totters around on his staff, tries over his old cases with anybody who will listen to him, repeats his decisions of fifteen years ago, quotes Ike's jokes, and sums up all the testimony for the fortieth time to his weary listeners. Aunt Sonora has gone to her reward. Other courts are held in Puddleford now.

Technicalities are observed. Law is law. How much more justice is administered, it is not for me to say.

The book is once more before the public. The public have received it in the past quite as well as it deserved, perhaps. Its future is now committed to the public again.

H. H. R.

SEPTEMBER 8, 1874.

CHAPTER I.

Puddleford.--Eagle Tavern.--Mr. and Mrs. Bulliphant.--May Morning.--Birds.--Venison Styles.--General Character of Society.--The Colonel.--Venison Styles' Cabin.

The township of Puddleford was located in the far west, and was, and is, unknown, I presume, to a large portion of my readers. It has never been considered of sufficient importance by atlas-makers to be designated by them; and yet men, women, and children live and die in Puddleford. Its population helps make up the census of the United States every ten years; it helps make governors, congressmen, presidents. Puddleford does, and fails to do, a great many things, just like the "rest of mankind," and yet who knows and cares anything about Puddleford?

Puddleford was well enough as a township of land, and beautiful was its scenery. It was spotted with bright, clear lakes, reflecting the trees that stooped over them; and straight through its centre flowed a majestic river, guarded by hills on either side. The village of Puddleford (there was a village of Puddleford, too) stood huddled in a gorge that opened up from the river; and through it, day and night, a little brook ran tinkling along, making music around the "settlement." The houses in Puddleford were very shabby indeed; I am very sorry to be compelled to make that fact public, but they were very shabby. Some were built of logs, and some of boards, and some were never exactly built at all, but came together through a combination of circ.u.mstances which the "oldest inhabitant" has never been able to explain. The log-houses were just like log-houses in every place else; for no person has yet been found with impudence enough to suggest an improvement. A pile of logs, laid up and packed in mud; a mammoth fireplace, with a chimney-throat as large; a lower story and a garret, connected in one corner by a ladder, called "Jacob's ladder," are its essentials. A few very ambitious persons in Puddleford had, it is true, attempted to build frame-houses, but there was never one entirely finished yet. Some of them had erected a frame only, when, their purses having failed, the enterprise was left at the mercy of the storms. Others had covered their frames; and one citizen, old Squire Longbow, had actually finished off two rooms; and this, in connection with the office of justice of the peace, gave him a standing and influence in the settlement almost omnipotent.

The reader discovers, of course, that Puddleford was a very miscellaneous-looking place. It appeared unfinished, and ever likely to be.

It did really seem that the houses, and cabins, and sheds, and pig-sties, had been sown up and down the gorge, as their owners sowed wheat. The only harmony about the place was the harmony of confusion.

Puddleford had a population made up of all sorts of people, who had been, from a variety of causes, thrown together just there; and every person owned a number of dogs, so that it was very difficult to determine which were numerically the strongest, the inhabitants or the dogs. There were great droves of cows owned, too, which were in the habit of congregating every morning, and marching some miles to a distant marsh to feed to the jingle of the bells they wore on their necks.

There was one public house at Puddleford. It was built of logs, with a long stoop running along its whole front, supported by trunks of trees roughly cut from the woods, and bark and knots were preserved in the full strength and simplicity of nature. Its bar-room was the resort of all the leading men of Puddleford, besides several ragged boys and these self-same dogs. It stood in the centre of the village, and announced itself to the public through a sign, upon which were painted a c.o.c.k crowing and a spread eagle.

The bar was fenced off in one corner of the room, and was supplied with three bottles of whiskey, called, according to their color, brandy, rum, and gin; but fly-tracks and dust had so completely covered them, that the kind of liquor was determined by the pledge of the landlord, that always pa.s.sed current. There were also about a dozen mouldy crackers laid away on the shelf in a discarded cigar-box, intended more particularly for the travelling public. The walls of the bar-room were illuminated by a large menagerie advertis.e.m.e.nt, which was the only real display of the fine arts that ever entered the place. Upon a table, near the centre of the room, stood a backgammon and checker-board, which were in use from the rising sun to midnight. Pipes, crusted thick with soot, lay scattered about on the window-stools and chimney-shelf--old stubs that had seen service--and all over the floor rolled great quids of tobacco, ancient and modern, the creatures of yesterday and years ago; for the floor of the "Eagle Tavern"--such it was called--of Puddleford was never profaned by a broom, nor its windows with water. He who attempted to look out would have supposed there was an eternal fog in the streets.

The ladies' parlor, belonging to the Eagle Tavern of Puddleford, was a very choice spot, and had been fitted up without regard to expense. Its floor was covered with a faded rag-carpet, and its walls were enlivened with a shilling print, showing forth Noah's Ark, and the animals entering therein.

Any person who had an eye for the practical, could see just how Noah loaded his craft, as the picture brought out clearly a long plank thrown ash.o.r.e, up which the animals were climbing. I have often thought that I never saw it rain so tremendously as it did in that picture. Near by hung a six-penny likeness of Washington, somewhat defaced, as some irreverent Puddleford boy had run his finger through the old general's eye, which detracted very much from the dignity of his expression. He looked rather funny with one eye c.o.c.ked; and he felt, I presume--that is, if pictures can feel--just as funny as he looked.

One advantage which the lodging-rooms of this tavern possessed ought not to be overlooked. They were lit up by the everlasting stars, and the tired traveller could go to sleep by the dancing rays that shot down through the crevices of the roof above.

"Old Stub Bulliphant," as he was called, was, and had been for years, landlord of the "Eagle." He was about five feet high, and nearly as many in circ.u.mference. His eyes were of no particular color, although they were once. His eye-lashes had been scorched off by alcoholic fire; and nature, to keep up appearances, in a fit of desperation, subst.i.tuted in their stead a binding of red, which looked like two little rainbows hanging upon a storm, for a rheumy water was continually running between them. His nose was very red, and his face was always in blossom, winter and summer. A pair of tow breeches and a red flannel shirt composed his wardrobe two thirds of the year. The truth is, the old fellow drank, and always drank, and he became, finally, preserved in spirits.

Puddleford was not dest.i.tute of a church, not by any means. The "log-chapel," when I first became acquainted with the place, was an ancient building. It was erected at a period almost as early as the tavern--not quite--temporal wants pressing the early settlers closer than spiritual.

This, precious reader, is a skeleton view of Puddleford, as it existed when I first knew it. Just out of this village, some time during the last ten years, I took possession of a large tract of land, called "Burr-oak Opening," that is, a wide, sweeping plain, thinly clad with burr-oaks. Few sights in nature are more beautiful. The eye roams over these parks un.o.bstructed by undergrowth, the trees above, and the sleeping shadows on the gra.s.s below.

The first time I looked upon this future home of mine, it lay calm and bright, bathed in the warm sun of a May morning, and filled with birds. The buds were just breaking into leaf, and the air was sweet with the wildwood fragrance of spring. Piles of mosses, soft as velvet, were scattered about.

Wild violets, grouped in cl.u.s.ters, the white and red lupin, the mountain pink, and thousands of other tiny flowers, bright as sparks of fire, mingled in confusion. It was alive with birds; the brown thrasher, the robin, the blue-jay, poured forth their music to the very top of their lungs. The thrasher, with his brown dress and very quizzical look, absolutely revelled in a luxury of melody. He mocked all the birds about him. Now he was as good a blue-jay as blue-jay himself, and screamed as loud; but suddenly bouncing around on a limb, and slowly stretching out his wings, he died away in a most pathetic strain; then, darting into another tree, and turning his saucy eye inquisitively down, he rattled off a chorus or two, that I might know he was not so sad a fellow after all. Now, his soft, flute-like notes fairly melted in his throat; then he drew out a long, violin strain the whole length of his bow; then a blast on his trumpet roused all the birds. He was "everything by turns, and nothing long." After completing his performance, away he went, and his place, in a moment almost, was occupied by another, repeating the medley, for the whole wood was alive with them.

Scores of blue-jays, in the tops of the trees, were picking away at the tender buds. The robin, that household bird, first loved by our children, was also here. Sitting alone and apart, in a reverie, and blowing occasionally his mellow pipe, he seemed to exist only for his own comfort, and to forget that he was one of the choristers of the wood. Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs were flitting hither and thither; troops of quails whistled in the distance; the oriole streamed out his bright light through the green branches; there was a winnowing of wings, a dashing of leaves, as birds came rushing in and out. It was their festival.

This scene was heightened by the appearance of a hunter. He was a n.o.ble specimen of the physical man. Tall, brawny--a giant in strength--his form loomed up in the distance. He was attired with a red flannel "wamus," a leathern belt girt around his waist, deer-skin leggins and moccasons, and a white felt hat that ran up to a peak. His rifle and shot-pouch were slung around him, and a few fox-squirrels hung dangling on his belt. His whole figure exhibited a harmony of proportion, a majesty of combination, sometimes seen in Roman statues. As I approached him, his face fairly beamed with rustic intelligence and good nature, and the old man grasped me by the hand, and shook it as heartily as if he had known me a thousand years.

"So you are the person," said Venison Styles,--for such I afterwards learned was the name he went by in the neighborhood,--"so you are the person that's come in here to settle, I s'pose--to cut down the trees and plough up this ere ground." I told him I was. "Well," said he, "so it goes; I have moved and moved, and I can't keep out of the way of these ploughs and axes. It was just as much as the deer, and beaver, and otter, _could_ do, to stand them government surveyors that went tramping around among 'em, just as though they were going to be sold out wher-or-no. And then,"

continued Styles, growing warmer, "they tried to form a thing they called a school _de_-strict about my ears; and then came a church, and they put a little bell on it, and that scart out the game. Game can't stand church-bells, stranger, they can't; they clears right out."

I tried to soothe the old man's feelings, and among other things, advised him to give up his hunting and fishing, and settle down, and till the soil for a living.

"What on airth does anybody want to till the soil for?" replied Styles.

"What does the soil want _tilling_ for? Warn't the airth made right in the first place? The woods were filled with beast and bird, warn't they? and the whole face of natur covered with gra.s.s and wild fruits? and streams and lakes were scattered everywhere? Ain't there enough to eat, and drink, and wear, growing nat'ral in the woods? and what else does anybody want, stranger?"

"Yes, but you are growing old, and your sight is dim, my friend," said I.

"Old! dim! eyes bad! no! no! Venison Styles is good for twenty years yet. I don't take physic. There ain't no more use of taking such stuff, than there is of giving it to my dogs. 'Tain't nat'ral to take it, not no how. All a man wants in sickness is a little saxafax-tea, or something warmin' of that sort. Children are all spi'lt nowadays. Their heads and inards are crammed with physic and larning, and they ain't good for nothing. For my part, I hate physic, books, newspapers, and even the mail-carrier. None of my folks were troubled with larning; for, as near as I can tell, the old man (his father) died hunting game and furs down on the 'Hios, when it 'twas all woods there, and I never know'd of his writing or reading any."

"Well, Venison," said I, "how long have you been around in these parts?"

"Not mor-nor four or five years, or so about," answered Styles. "The game and I have kept running westard and westard, from civilization, as they call it, till I have travelled nigh on a thousand miles, or so. I used to hunt and trap way down on Erie, before them steamboats came a-snorting up, but when they came, they scart all the deer and everything out of the woods and streams; and then I left, too. This rifle," continued Styles, "this rifle has been along with me for forty years. I have eat and slept with it.

I have worn out mor-nor twenty dogs--fairly _worn_ 'em out, and buried every one with a tear; and byme-by old Venison himself will go, but he is good on the track yet."

I a.s.sented to much that was said by old Styles, and growing warmer the more interest I took in him, he rattled on about civilization--its effects, &c., &c.; and, finally, looking into a tree, where a cl.u.s.ter of spring birds were singing, he turned to me, and pointing upward--"Do you hear that?" he exclaimed; "that music was made when the world was--them throats warn't tuned by any singing-master; they always keep in order. If men would only jist let natur alone, we could get along well enough. 'Tain't right to make any additions to natur. 'Tain't right to invent music, nor to mock the birds, nor cut down the woods, nor dam up the streams. It's all agin natur, the whole on't. The birds can't be improved on, and the streams and woods belong to the fish and game. They are their houses as much as my house is _my_ house. I always hated a saw-mill," continued Styles; "its very sound makes me mad. I never know'd a deer to stay within hearing of one. They roar away just as though they were going to tear down the whole forest, and pile it up into boards. I always try to keep out of their way." But I cannot give all the conversation of this eccentric genius of the forest, with me. He was one of a cla.s.s of men who are hurried along by immigration, like clouds before the tempest. When the rays of improvement warmed Styles, he had pushed farther back into the shade. He was a connecting link between barbarism and civilization. One half of him was lit up with the light of the st.u.r.dy pioneers, who crowded in upon him from the east, and the other half stood dark and gloomy in savage solemnity. With all his antipathy to the society of the whites, he was their stanch friend, and in many ways was of great service. He became, as we shall see, one of my pleasantest companions, and I cannot help now declaring, that few men have taken such strong hold upon my affections as this same Venison Styles.

The old man shouldered his rifle, and inviting me to "drop into his cabin, up the creek," bid me "good morning, stranger."

Reader, such was the scene presented to my eye the day I first looked upon the piece of wild land upon which I finally settled and improved. I had just arrived from an eastern village, where I was born, and "brought up,"