The Puddleford Papers Part 23

Rough tombstones--mere ragged slugs, torn from some quarry--rounded and smoothed a little by a pious hand--stand half buried in the earth, pointing to the silent sleeper below. And then there are marble slabs, of a more modern date--yet very old--leaning this way and that, and nodding at each other. Preachers and congregations lie side by side, and it is one eternal Sabbath now. There are quaint pictures, and holy pictures, and horrible pictures chiselled out on these slabs. Skeleton Death, triumphantly marching with his scythe! Skulls, angels--and occasionally a figure that looks like his Satanic Majesty! Epitaphs full of theology, wit, and practical wisdom, are strewn around with an unsparing hand.

There are a few genuine specimens of the Puritan stock lingering in this village--great boulders that lie around in society, like granite blocks on the earth, dropped by Time in his flight, and overlooked or forgotten.

Deacon Smith is one of them. He and his father, and his father's father, were born and lived in the house he now occupies. He has almost reached fourscore and ten years. He wears the costume of 'seventy-six, inside and out. His habits are as uniform and regular as the swing of the pendulum. He retires at nine, rises at four, breakfasts at six, and dines at twelve; and this is done to a fraction--no allowance is made for circ.u.mstances--what are circ.u.mstances in the way of one of his rules? He marches to bed at the time, and would, if he left the President of the Republic behind him--he sits down to his table at the time, whether there is a dish on it or not.

Law is law with him.

The Deacon hates royalty and the British--he never overlooked the blood they shed in the Revolution. He seldom speaks to an Englishman. He hates interlopers, innovations, modern improvements; and I recollect well how he poured out his vials of wrath upon the first buggy wagon that he saw. He said it was a "very nice thing to sleep in." He left the church for some months when stoves were first put up, and declared that it was "as great a sacrilege as was ever committed, and enough to overthrow the piety of a saint. Religion would keep a man warm anywhere." He says he "thinks the Puritan blood is running down into slops! folks are rushing headlong to perdition! that there hasn't been a man in the village for twenty years who ought to be intrusted with himself"--and it seems to him that the world is winding up business.

When the Deacon rises, he goes around his house, hawking, spitting, slamming doors, tumbling down wood, just to cast a slur on the lazy habits of modern days. Sometimes he tramps up and down the village, two hours before day, a-hemming, hawing, and sneezing, for the purpose of letting the sluggards understand he is stirring. He has been known, on more than one occasion, to give vent to his feelings, at this early hour, by blowing the family dinner-horn, and declaring, as the blast echoed away, "that no Christian man could sleep, after such a call."

The Deacon has a few helpers about him, who think as he thinks--but they are very few. When they meet, the world takes a most inhuman raking--they spare neither "age, s.e.x, nor condition."

But the leading business men of the village are of a different stamp--not Puritans, but Puritanical--the same rock with the corners knocked off--of less strength, but more polish. They reverence their fathers, keep the religious and political altar they have raised burning, but are not so regardless of temporal comforts; in a word, they are Yankees.

Major Simeon Giles is a specimen. It is difficult to draw his portrait. He has a hard, dry face, which looks as though it had been turned out from a seasoned white-oak knot. He wears a grievous expression, lying somewhere between sobriety and melancholy. His money, character, and family have made him a great man--he is a leading personage in church and state, and exercises a wonderful influence in every department of society. The deacon is full of dry expressions, and many of his cool, sly remarks have become proverbs; but the hardest thing he ever said was after his pious soul had been very much vexed, when he observed, "that if Providence should see fit to remove Mr. ---- from this vale of tears, he would endeavor to resign himself to the stroke."

Major Simeon has many severe struggles within him, between the flesh and the spirit. His avarice and piety are both strong, and the former sometimes gains a temporary advantage. All his movements are governed by method. He remains so long at his store, so long at his house, "takes a journey" with his family once a year, "has a place for everything, and everything in its place,"--a peg for his hat, a corner for his boots--and he is almost as rigid in observing and enforcing his laws as Deacon Smith.

Major Simeon is supreme, of course, over his own family. He never trifles with his children. A cold shadow falls around him, which often silences their voice of mirth and ringing laugh--the effect of reverence, however, more than fear.

Major Giles lives in the Old Giles Mansion. I will not pretend to say how many Gileses have occupied it. Their portraits are hanging upon its walls, and their bodies lie in the burying-ground; a long row of them, all the way across it, and half back again--bud, blossom, and gathered fruit. There is the portrait of the celebrated Elnathan Giles, who died during the reign of Queen Anne. He looks very stern. He had pa.s.sed through the scenes of the Salem witchcraft, and had been personally connected with the excitement--had attended several of the trials as a witness; was bewitched once himself--and, according to family tradition, saw one witch hung--an out-and-out witch--who had bridled many innocent people at midnight, sailed through chamber windows, and hurry-scurried off with them, astride a broomstick.

Next to him hangs the face of his son, Colonel Ethelbert, as he was called, who lived just long enough to fight at Bunker Hill. He had been a militia colonel before the Revolution, and militia colonels were something in those days. He made a ferocious-looking portrait, certainly. One can almost smell gunpowder in the room. He is dressed up in his military coat, standing collar, an epaulet on his shoulder; and there are strewn around him, in the background, armies, artillery, drums, and banners. No wonder the Americans were victorious. And then came the face of Major Simeon, whom I have described.

The wives of these men are also done up in oil, and hang meekly and submissively by the side of their lords, as all wives should, or rather as all wives did, in those days--and actually died without knowing how much they were oppressed.

There are other things besides portraits, to remind Major Simeon of his ancestry. There is a tree still standing (strange that a tree should outlive generations of men), that Elnathan planted with his own hand, on the day Ethelbert was born--a stately elm, whose branches, in their magnificent curve, almost sweep the ground. This tree shadowed the cold face of both Elnathan and Ethelbert, when their coffins were closed for the last time beneath it. There is the spring, more than half a century old, that bubbles from the hill, and goes trickling, leaping, and flashing down the green slope, singing away to itself as sweetly as ever. The old lilac-bush, too, has outlived thousands whose hands have plucked its blossoms, and yet it bursts out in the spring, and looks as fresh as the children who play beneath it.

It has been thought that Major Simeon and his family were aristocratic.

There is a stately air about them, when they enter church, that smacks of blood. And the Major himself has often declared that, while "stock isn't everything, it is a great consolation to know, in his case, that the name of Giles has never been stained."

There are several other families in the village whose ancestry runs back as far as the Gileses'; and they have about them as many heirlooms to remind them of it.

The village is filled with other characters, quite as original as any I have described. They are important personages, and have lived in it a long time; but they have no family history to fall back upon. There is Major Follett, who still lingers on the sh.o.r.es of time, and sustains a vast dignity amid his declining years. His head is very white, his hat very sleek, and his silk vest is piled very full of ruffles. He carries a gold-headed cane, and when he marches through the streets, it rises and falls with great emphasis, in harmony with his right foot. Now and then he gives out an a-hem!--one of the lordly kind--that fairly awes down his inferiors. He is a remarkable talker, too, among his equals--uses words having a great many syllables. He never spits, but "expectorates"--his pains are all "paroxysms"--talks about the "foreshadowing of events"--and all his periods are as round and stately as the march of a Roman army. The Major has actually made his a.s.sumed dignity pave his way in life--it has given him wealth and influence among those who are intrinsically his superiors, but who do not know how to put on the airs of consequence.

Old Doctor Styles is living yet. He has survived two or three crops of customers--helped them in and out of the world--balanced their accounts--and his face is as ruddy, his laugh as hearty, his stories as ludicrous, his nose as full of snuff, as though nothing melancholy had ever happened in his practice. Eighty odd and more, he stands as straight as a staff. Death has been so long a business with him, and he has stared it for so many years in the face, that he really does not know, or care, how near he is to it himself.

c.r.a.po Jackson, the s.e.xton, is one of the characters. He has announced the end of Doctor Styles's labor a great many hundred times through the belfry, and helped cover up what remained. c.r.a.po is black, but he has a fine heart.

He is a perfect master of his work. He puts on an air of melancholy and circ.u.mspection at a funeral, that becomes the occasion. He sings, from door to door, a hymn on Christmas mornings, with cap in hand extended for his "quarter"--peddles gingerbread on training days--and aids the female portion of the community on festival occasions, and does a great many more things, "too numerous to mention."

Speaking of "training days"--dear me!--there used to be a military spirit in this village, in times past. I can recollect the names of scores of generals, majors, colonels, captains, and even corporals--yes, corporals--every man couldn't be a corporal in those times. Why, bless your soul, reader! there was General Peabody, and General Jones, and Major Goodwin, and Major Boles, and any quant.i.ty of colonels. And then "training day"--n.o.body worked--the village was upside down--"'Seventy-six" was in command, and martial law declared.

Major Boles I recollect, when in the active discharge of his duty. He always grew serious as the great militia muster drew on. He went away off by himself, into the chamber, where he could be alone with the spirits of his forefathers, and burnished up his sword, shook out the dust from his regimentals--warned his children to stand out of the way--and looked ferociously at his wife. He knew he was _Major_ Boles, and he knew every other respectable man knew it.

But Major-General Peabody was the greatest general _I_ ever saw. When a boy, I looked upon him as a very blood-thirsty man, and nothing would have induced me to go near him. He was a little fellow in stature, had a hard round paunch that looked like an iron pot, and short, thick, dropsical legs. (Major Boles, who was a little envious, said they were stuffed, which produced a coldness between them.) His face was freckled, and his hair gray. He wore two ma.s.sive epaulets, an old Revolutionary cap, shaped like the moon in its first quarter, from which a white and red feather curved over his left ear. He had a sword--and such a sword! n.o.body dared touch it; for it was the General's sword!

"Training day" usually opened with a boom from the field-piece, at sunrise, that shook the hills. About ten in the morning the soldiers began to pour in from all quarters. Drums and fifes, and muskets and rifles, filed along in confusion,--ambitious companies in uniform--common militia, who were out according to law. Uncle Joe Billings, who had played the ba.s.s-drum for more than twenty years (poor old man, he is dead now!) was seen gravely marching along all by himself, his drum slung about his neck, his head erect, his step firm, pushing on to head-quarters at the measured beat of his own music, now and then cutting a flourish with his right hand, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the children who were capering around him. Knots of soldiers gathered about the tavern, and made a circle for the music to practise, preparatory to the great come-off. Then came the good old continental tunes that were full of fight, played by old fifers and drummers that had been through the wars; men who made a solemn and earnest thing of martial music--who reverenced it as the sacred voice of liberty, not to be trifled with, who thought of Bunker Hill until the tears started from their eyes. Those old airs, that used to echo among the mountains of New England--where are they?

But the captains, and colonels, and generals did not mix with the common soldiers on training day--no! nor speak to them. Rank meant something. They felt as though they were out in a war. They kept themselves covered from the public gaze away off in a secluded corner of the tavern, and were waited upon with great respect by those of inferior grade. Sometimes a guard was stationed at the door to prevent a crowd upon their dignity.

Occasionally, one of them would bustle out among the rank and file on some momentous duty, fairly blazing with gold and silver, lace and feathers; but there was never an instance of one of these characters recognizing even his own brother while in military costume. Major Boles has often said that "no officer can be expected to see small things when in the active discharge of his duty."

At about eleven o'clock the solemn roll of the drums was heard, and loud voices of command followed; and swords flashed, and feathers danced, in the organization of the companies; and then came the training--real training--a mile down street; a mile back again; a perfect roar of music; and flags flying--horses prancing. What was rain, or dust, or mud with such an army!

They marched straight through it; it was nothing to war. The sweat poured down, but the army moved on for hours and hours in its terrible march.

The great sight of the day, however, was the Major-General and his staff--I mean, of course, Major-General Peabody. They were not seen until about three o'clock in the afternoon; it being customary for them to withdraw from public observation the day prior to the muster. When the army was drawn up in the field, preparatory to inspection, there was usually a pause of an hour--a pause that was deeply impressive. We never knew exactly where the General and his staff were concealed. Some persons said they were housed in one place, some in another; but, upon the discharge of a cannon, they burst upon us, glittering like the sun, and came cantering down the road with perfect fury, in a cloud of dust, followed by a score of boys who were on a sharp run to "keep up."

General Peabody and his staff always rushed headlong into the field, without looking to the right or left. I recollect that on one occasion he demolished an apple-cart, and absolutely turned everything topsy-turvy, besides creating great consternation among the by-standers; but it did not disturb him, and it was only upon information the next day that he knew that anything serious had happened.

Pa.s.sing the ruins of the apple-cart, and entering within the guarded lines, he halted, and took a survey of his troops. Then the music saluted him, and the companies waved their flags. He rode a little nearer, rose in his stirrups, jerked out his sword spitefully, and, looking ferociously, cried out, "Shoulder arms!" This cry was just as spitefully repeated by the subordinate officers; and, after a while, the privates, one after another, lazily raised their "pieces" to their shoulders. The General was in the act of rising again, and was drawing in his breath for a command of thunder, when his horse wheeled at the report of a musket that went off in the lines, and came near upsetting him, feathers and all; but he fell into the arms of one of his aids, and--swore, as I was at the time credibly informed, though I could hardly believe it.

The General very soon righted himself, and, striking his horse several violent blows across his rump, cut a great many flourishes on the field, to the utter astonishment of the lookers-on. He then rushed through the orders of the day like a madman, and was manifestly utterly fearless of consequences.

I hope my readers are satisfied that Major-General Peabody was a great military character. I recollect, when a boy, that I heard him say, "that he was very sure _he_ would be the last man to run in a fight,"--"that he was afraid to trust himself in a battle, for he never could lay down his sword until the last enemy was ma.s.sacred!"

The old man was laid under the turf one autumnal afternoon, many years ago, but his prowess is not forgotten to this day. His son, Colonel Asher Peabody, who inherited his father's spirit, erected a stately monument over his remains, which was covered with drums, and fifes, and swords, and waving banners, and big-mouthed guns, intermixed with texts of Scripture, the virtues of the deceased, admonitions to the living, &c. This monument was always as terrific to me as the General himself; and, in my boyish days, I always contemplated it from a distance, not knowing but that it might blow up a piece of juvenile impertinence like myself on the spot.

Yes, reader, these were training days in New England; but the military glory has now actually died out. The last gathering I saw I shall never forget. It was, indeed, a sorry group, made up of a rusty captain, two or three faded corporals, and a handful of dare-devil privates, who cared no more for their country than so many heathen. The officers looked cowed and heart-broken, and loitered about in a very melancholy way; and it was evident that the spirit of '76 was on its last legs. I afterwards learned, I am sorry to say, that the captain, in a fit of patriotic rage, broke his sword across his knee, and declared "that he never would turn out again as long as his name was Jones!"

And then, reader, this village was full of boys when I was a boy. Every village is, you say. Very likely; but _such_ boys! there have never been anything like them since. They wandered with me Sat.u.r.day afternoons through the meadows, where the lark was flitting and singing; and we related wonderful stories about the future. We cut red-willow canes, made whistles, and dammed mountain rivulets. Life opened to us with a chant: it was melody, melody everywhere. There was the mountain gorge, down which we rolled stones with the voice of thunder; the "big rock," in the river, from which we fished; the pond, that we thought had "no bottom;" the mountain cliff, with its "den of snakes:" _where_ are those boys now?

Everywhere--nowhere! Citizens of the world, some; and some of that other world. They will never be all gathered but once more.

But what has all this to do with Puddleford? Much. They are so many pictures that I carry around with me, and they form a part of my existence.

They color life, thought, action; they mould the man; they are continually inviting contrasts, and making suggestions; and I cannot omit to notice them in my sketch of that famous village.

When I last saw my native village--it was but a little while ago--it lay sleeping in its amphitheatre as beautiful and tranquil as ever among the shadows of its elms. It was summer, and the air was rich with music and flowers. The highest peaks of the mountain were draped in blue, and the valley beneath was a waving sea of green, down which the sunshine chased the shade. The quail was blowing his simple pipe among the fields of grain; the drone of the locust, the clanging of the mower's scythe, and the shout and the song, were heard in the fields in the still afternoon. When the sun went down, and its last flash leaped from the vane of the church-steeple to a lofty mountain-peak three miles away, the whippoorwill began her plaintive song, and the night-hawks went wheeling through the sky. Then the evening bells broke forth, and their echoes sobered the twilight; and, as their last vibration expired along the valley, the river stood golden beneath the rays of the moon.

CHAPTER XX.

First Militia Law in Puddleford.--Aunt Sonora opposed to it.--Turtle sets her right.--Meeting to choose Officers.--Longbow electioneers for Captain; Takes the Chair.--Turtle objects.--P'ints of Order.--_Vivy Vocy_ Vote won't do.--Legally authorized Boxes must be had.--Longbow's Speech.--Turtle fined for Contempt.--Longbow elected Captain.--Great Military Turn-out.--Company turn a Circle; Break down.--Turn an Angle; Break down again.--Address to Troops.--Adjourn _sine die_.

This great republic has ever been notorious for its patriotism, and this patriotism used to break out everywhere, in days past, into a volcanic eruption on days of general militia muster. Puddleford began very early to feel the necessity of a spontaneous expression of its devotion to our common country. When it was very new, and before any law had been pa.s.sed by the legislature organizing its people into companies, regiments, battalions, and divisions, very strong premonitory symptoms of war were frequently manifested. Beagle brought into the country an old snare drum, which gave out a very crazy sound. Swipes owned a fife that squeaked most hideously; and this fife and drum, with their owners tied to them, often went on one of the most public corners of the village, on moonlight nights, and roused up the war spirit of the whole neighborhood. They seemed to put the very furies into the dogs, who barked and howled from every quarter.

By and by, a law was pa.s.sed by the legislature of the state, compelling every man to do militia duty, under fines and penalties that were really frightful; and Turtle most solemnly declared, upon the strength of a fee of one dollar to him paid for his advice thereon, "that the act was const.i.tutional, and accordin' to the common la' and the staterts, and that it must be lived up to, fodder or no fodder!"

Aunt Sonora said, "she didn't see what under heavens an' airth anybody wanted of a war la'; they'd allers got along well 'nough in Puddleford mindin' their own business. Somebody allers got killed when there were so many guns and sogers, and so much powder; and for her part, she'd not stay round any such gath'rings, if she starv'd in jail. She'd quit the settlement fust!"

Turtle informed the old lady that "wimin wouldn't have-ter turn out; it was only the men over eighteen years of age--and that there was no fighting done, only in case of actual invasion of the country, when wimin and all would have-ter fight like blazes, or the whole settlement would be laid in ashes."

Aunt Sonora still insisted that "guns were _dang_-rous, any way; that they _would_ go off, n.o.body knew when, and she shouldn't be s'prised to hear of a dozen men bein' killed at every trainin'; if men would only be ker-ful, but then they wouldn't; they'd all get as crazy as March hares, and as wild as loons!"

By the law, every company was permitted to choose its own officers, and Puddleford counted just about people enough to make a respectable organization of one company in numbers. It was resolved to hold a meeting for organization, and to immediately choose officers at the tavern of Bulliphant, no man under eighteen years of age to be present, because, as Longbow declared, "that would be agin the la', and the proceedin's would be all squashed."

In truth, Longbow had no doubt in his mind, from the very first, that he would be captain from the very necessity of the case. He was, he thought, the military pillar of the whole township, as well as the civil; and as he had generalled everything so far, he did not believe any one would dare to dispute his inalienable right to that eminent position. So the Squire began very early to talk learnedly about the last war, and the blood and fury which accompanied it; and he put on a very ferocious look when in public, and was frequently seen practising with his old fusee at a mark, which discharged like a funnel, wrong end foremost. "He had a brother," he said, "who fit at Lunder's Lane, and who was shot in the back, by savage Injuns in the rear, jest as he was a-bagnettin' some of the British!"

Turtle, who was a little ambitious for the office, and who saw the drift of the Squire's bravado, said, "he guessed he was a-runnin' when he got that are shot."

The Squire replied, that "he shouldn't sit still and hear such talk from any man. He didn't care 'bout his brother--it warn't that--but to hear the patriots of our country slandered was a species of high treason, and that was agin the const.i.tution; and that 'ere insterment couldn't be violated in his presence by no man--_he_ was a sworn officer--and the glorious blood of the great wars was a sacred thing in his eye--and it _should_ be protected."