Read Ebook: The Puddleford Papers; Or Humors of the West by Riley Henry Hiram

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Ebook has 1384 lines and 124661 words, and 28 pages

Puddleford.--Eagle Tavern.--Mr. and Mrs. Bulliphant.--May Morning.--Birds.--Venison Styles.--General Character of Society.--The Colonel.--Venison Styles's Cabin. 17

Lawsuit: Filkins against Beadle.--Squire Longbow and his Court.--Puddleford assembled.--Why Squire Longbow was a Great Man.--Ike Turtle and Sile Bates, Pettifoggers.--Mrs. Sonora Brown.--Uproar and Legal Opinions.--Seth Bolles.--Miss Eunice Grimes.--Argument to Jury, and Verdict. 34

Wanderings in the Wilderness.--A Bee-Hunt.--Sunrise.--The Fox-Squirrel.--The Blue-Jay.--The Gopher.--The Partridges.--Wild Geese, Ducks, and Cranes.--Blackbirds and Meadow-Larks.--Venison's Account of the Bees' Domestic Economy.--How Venison found what he was in Search of.--Honey secured.--After-Reflections. 54

The Log-Chapel.--Father Beals.--Aunt Graves.--Sister Abigail.--Bigelow Van Slyck, the Preacher.--His Entr?e.--How he worked.--One of his Sermons.--Performance of the Choir.--"Coronation" achieved.--Getting into Position.--Personal Appeals.--Effect on the Congregation.--Sabbath in the Wilderness.--Is Bigelow the only Ridiculous Preacher? 66

Indian Summer.--Venison Styles again.--Jim Buzzard.--Fishing Excursion.--Muskrat City.--Indian Burying-Ground.--The Pickerel and the Rest of the Fishes.--The Prairie.--Wild Geese.--The Old Mound.--Venison's Regrets at the degenerating Times.--His Luck, and Mine.--Reminiscences of the Beavers.--Camping out.--Safe Return. 81

Educational Efforts.--Squire Longbow's "Notis."--"The Saterday Nite."--Ike and the Squire.--Various Remarks to the Point.--Mrs. Fizzle and the Temperance Question.--Collection taken.--General Result. 96

Social War.--Longbow, Turtle & Co.--Bird, Swipes, Beagle & Co.--Mrs. Bird.--Mrs. Beagle.--Mrs. Swipes.--Turkey and Aristocracy.--Scandal.--Husking-Bees, and "such like."--The Calathumpian Band.--The Horse-Fiddle.--The Giant Trombone.--The Gyastacutas.--Tuning up.--Unparalleled Effort.--Puddleford still a Representative Place. 105

Puddleford and Politics.--Higgins against Wiggins.--The Candidates' Personale.--Their Platforms.--Delicate Questions.--Stump Speaking.--Wiggins on Higgins.--Impertinent Interruptions.--Higgins on Wiggins.--Ike Turtle not dead yet.--Commotion.--Squire Longbow restores Order.--Grand Stroke of Policy.--The Roast Ox at Gillett's Corners. 115

Winter upon us.--The Roosters in the early Morning.--The Blue-Jays and the Squirrels.--The Improvident Turkey.--The Domestic Hearth, and who occupied it.--The Old Dog.--The Blessed Old Mail-Horse.--The Newspapers.--Our Come-to-Tea.--Mrs. Brown, her Arrival and Experiences.--Entr?e of Bird, Beagles & Co.--Conflicting Elements, and how Ike Turtle assimilated all.--Gratifying Consequences. 128

The Group at "The Eagle."--Entr?e of a Stranger.--His Opinion of the Tavern.--Bulliphant wakes up.--Can't pick Fowls after Dark.--Sad Case of Mother Gantlet and Dr. Teazle.--Mr. Farindale begins to unbend.--Whistle & Sharp, and their Attorney.--Good Pay.--Legal Conversation.--Going Sniping.--Great Description of the Animal.--The Party start, Farindale holding the Bag.--"Waiting for Snipe."--Farindale's Solitary Return.--His Interview with Whistle & Sharp.--Suing a Puddleford Firm.--Relief Laws.--Farindale gets his Execution.--The Puddleford Bank.--The Appraisers.--Proceeds of the Execution. 166

The "Fev-Nag."--Conflicting Theories.--"Oxergin and Hydergin."--Teazle's Rationale.--The Scourge of the West.--Sile Bates, and his Condition.--Squire Longbow and Jim Buzzard.--Puddleford prostrate.--Various Practitioners.--"The Billerous Duck."--Pioneer Martyrs.--Wave over Wave. 182

Uncommonly Common Schools.--Annual School District Meeting.--Accounts for Contingent Expenses.--Turtle and Old Gulick's Boy.--"That are Glass."--The Colonel starts the Wheels again.--Bulliphant's Tactics.--Have we hired "Deacon Fluett's Darter," or not?--Isabel Strickett.--Bunker Hill and Turkey.--Sah-Jane Beagles.--The Question settled. 190

Venison Styles again.--Sermon on Nature.--Funeral Songs of the Birds.--Their Flight and Return.--His Theory of Government.--Sakoset.--The Indians. 198

Some Account of John Smith.--Nicknames.--Progress of the Age.--The Colonel's Opinion of Science.--John Smith's Dream.--Ike Turtle's Dream.--Ike takes the Boots. 206

Ike Turtle in his Office.--The Author consults him on Point of Law.--Taxes of Non-Residents.--Law in Puddleford.--Mr. Bridget's Case.--Legal Discussion.--The Case settled. 222

The Wilderness around Puddleford.--The Rivers and the Forests.--Suggestions of Old Times.--Footprints of the Jesuits.--Vine-covered Mounds.--Visit to the Forest.--The Early Frost.--The Forest Clock.--The Woodland Harvest.--The Last Flowers.--Nature sowing her Seed.--The Squirrel in the Hickory.--Pigeons, their Ways and their Haunts.--The Butterflies and the Bullfrog.--Nature and her Sermons.--Her Temple still open, but the High-priest gone. 230

The Old New England Home.--The Sheltered Village.--The Ancient Buildings.--Dormer Windows.--An Old Puritanical Home.--The Old Puritan Church.--The Burying-Ground.--Deacon Smith, his Habits and his Helpers.--Major Simeon Giles, his Mansion and his Ancestry.--Old Doctor Styles.--Crapo Jackson, the Sexton.--"Training Days."--Militia Dignitaries.--Major Boles.--Major General Peabody.--Preparations and Achievements.--Demolition of an Apple Cart.--"Shoulder Arms!"--Colonel Asher Peabody.--The Boys, and their World.--My Last Look at my Native Village. 239

Mrs. Bird gets in a Rage.--Starve a Child.--Mrs. Bird blows off at Mrs. Beagle.--Takes Breath.--Blows off again.--Mrs. Beagle gives a Piece of her Mind.--Aunt Sonora drops in.--She has no Faith in Second Wives.--All adjourn to the House of Mrs. Swipes.--General Fight of Tongues.--Mrs. Swipes gives her Opinion.--A Dead Set by all upon Mrs. Longbow.--Mrs. Longbow raps at the Door.--The Scene changes.--Final Wind-up. 272

Amusements in Puddleford.--The Highland Fling.--A Fire-eater comes next.--Runs a Sword down his Throat.--Starts his Ribbon Factory.--Borrows Squire Longbow's Hat.--Boils Eggs in it.--The Squire gets into a Passion.--The Grand Caravan is posted.--Squire Longbow lectures on the Lion.--Bigelow Van Slyck follows on the Ichneumon.--The Caravan arrives.--Great Excitement.--Jim Buzzard still himself.--Aunt Sonora in Trouble.--The Band blows away.--The Canvas is raised.--Terrible Press of Puddlefordians.--The Keeper shows up the Lion.--Explains why he has no Hair.--The Ichneumon is found at last.--The Monkey Ride.--Breaking up. 309

The Tinkhams arrive.--Great Stir.--Miss Lavinia Longbow's Head is turned.--Everybody in Love with the Tinkhams.--Wind changes.--The Tinkhams fall.--The whole Pack out on them.--They abandon the Settlement. 337

Spring at the West.--"Sugar Days."--Performances of the Cattle.--April.--Advent of the Blue-Jays and the Crows.--The Bluebirds, Phebes, and Robins.--April and its Inspiring Days.--The Frogs and their Concerts.--Gophers, Squirrels, Ants; Swallows, Brown-Threshers, and Blackbirds.--The Swallows, the Martins, and the Advent of May. 357

A Railroad through Puddleford.--The Effect on Squire Longbow.--Bright Prospects of Puddleford.--Change.--"The Styleses."--The New Justice.--Aunt Sonora's Opinions.--Ike Turtle grows too.--Venison disappears from among Men.--His Grave and his Epitaph. 368

THE PUDDLEFORD PAPERS.

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 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 circumstances 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 cock 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 passed 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 advertisement, 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 ashore, 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 cocked; 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 circumference. 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, substituted 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 destitute 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 unobstructed by undergrowth, the trees above, and the sleeping shadows on the grass 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 clusters, 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. Woodpeckers 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 noble 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.

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.

"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 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?"

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," as the phrase is. A somewhat broken fortune and breaking health had driven me from it, with a moderate family, to seek a spot elsewhere; and I resolved to try the Great West, that paradise where the surplus population of a portion of the world have found a home.

The change was great. But great as it was, I resolved to endure it. So, at it I went. I procured "help," girdled the trees, put a breaking team of twelve yoke of cattle on the ground, tore it up, fenced the land, raised a log-house, and in the fall I had a crop of wheat growing, the withered oak trees standing guard over it. My family, consisting of a wife and three children, a boy of eight, and two girls of twelve and ten, were removed to their new quarters, and I had thus fairly begun the world again, and all things were as new about me as if I had just been born into it.

The Colonel resided in the village of Puddleford. His family was composed of a wife and two daughters, a couple of dashing girls, who looked like birds of fine plumage that had been driven by a storm beyond their latitude. His household furniture was made up of the fag-ends of this and that, which had somehow escaped a half a dozen sheriff's sales. His family wardrobe had been rescued in the same way, and contained all the fashions of the last twenty-five years. Here and there were scattered some plain articles of western manufacture, by way of contrast. Three shilling chairs stood on a faded Brussels carpet; an unpainted white-wood table supported a silver tea-set; thus, the faded splendor of the past contrasted with the rustic simplicity of the present. One thing I must not overlook: the Colonel had an old tattered carriage that had followed him through good and evil report, his ups and downs of life. I have often been amused to see it roll along with a melancholy air of superiority, putting on the face of a good man in affliction. It was drawn by two diminutive Indian ponies, who would turn and look wildly at the antiquated thing, as if apprehensive of danger.

The Colonel kept an office, and pretended to act as a kind of land agent, and agent for insurance companies, and so on. He was never known to pay a debt; it being against his principles, as he used to say: besides, he said "his note would last a man ten times as long as the money; and they were not very uncurrent neither; for the justice of the peace at Puddleford had taken a very great many of them, and passed his judgment upon them for their full face."

But I will not go into particulars with the Puddlefordians at present. During the summer my acquaintance with Venison Styles had ripened into a deeper affection for the old hunter. I accepted his invitation to visit him, and found him sheltered in the depths of the forest, and nestled in a valley, his hut, overshadowed by great trees, which were filled with birds pouring forth their songs. A little brook tinkled down the slope by his hut, singing all kinds of woodland tunes, as the breeze swelled and died along its banks. The squirrels were chatting their nonsense, and the rolling drum of the partridge was heard almost at his very door.

Venison was a hunter, a fisher, and a trapper. The inside walls of his cabin were hung about with rifles, shot-guns, and fishing-rods, which had been accumulating for years. Deer-horns and skins lay scattered here and there, the trophies of the chase. Seines for lakes, and scoop-nets for smaller streams, were drying outside upon the trees.

Venison kept around him a brood of lazy, lounging, good-for-nothing boys, of all ages, about half-clothed, who followed the business of their father. This young stock were growing up as he had grown, to occupy somewhere their father's position, and lead his life. They lived just as well as the hounds, for all stood on an equality in the family. These ragamuffins were perfect masters of natural history. There was not an instinct or peculiarity belonging to the denizens of the woods and streams which they did not perfectly understand. They seemed to have penetrated the secrecy of animal life, and fathomed it throughout. Birds, and beasts, and fish were completely within their power; and there was a kind of matter-of-course success with them in their capture that was absolutely provoking to a civilized hunter.

It was of no importance where Venison Styles' boys made their home, or under what particular roof. Their home was mainly a depot for their fishing-tackles, guns, and game. They roamed away weeks at a time, fifty miles off, up this stream and that, over many a lake, and camped out nights, feeding upon their plunder; and Venison felt no more concern about them than he did about the deer, who indeed were not much wilder than they. They were as hard as flints, sharp on the chase, happy in their wild, wayward-life, and generally managed to trap and kill just enough to be self-supporting, and keep soul and body together.

Lawsuit: Filkins against Beadle.--Squire Longbow and his Court.--Puddleford assembled.--Why Squire Longbow was a Great Man.--Ike Turtle and Sile Bates, Pettifoggers.--Mrs. Sonora Brown.--Uproar and Legal Opinions.--Seth Bolles.--Miss Eunice Grimes.--Argument to Jury, and Verdict.

My intercourse with the inhabitants of Puddleford had been frequent during the summer, and my acquaintance with them had now become quite general. One morning, in the month of September, I was visited by a constable, who very authoritatively served upon me a venire, which commanded me to be and appear before Jonathan Longbow, at his office in the village of Puddleford, at one o'clock P. M., to serve as a juryman in a case, then and there to be tried, between Philista Filkins, plaintiff, and Charity Beadle, defendant, in an action of slander, etc. The constable remarked, after reading this threatening legal epistle to me, that I had better "be up to time, as Squire Longbow was a man who would not be trifled with," and then leisurely folding it up, and pushing it deep down in his vest-pocket, he mounted his horse, and hurried away in pursuit of the balance of the panel. Of course, I could not think of being guilty of a contempt of court, after having been so solemnly warned of the consequences, and I was therefore promptly on the spot, according to command.

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