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Chanticleer: A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family, a fiction by Cornelius Mathews |
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CHAPTER 3. THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST |
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_ CHAPTER 3. THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST With the following day, (which was calm, gentle, and serene as its predecessor,) a little after the dispatch of dinner, the attention of the household was summoned to the clatter of a hurrying wagon, which, unseen, resounded in the distant country. Old Sylvester was the first to hear it--faintly at first, then it rose on the wind far off, died away in the woods and the windings of the roads, then again was entirely lost for several minutes, and at last growing into a portentous rattle, brought to at the door of the homestead, and landed from its ricketty and bespattered bosom Mr. Oliver Peabody, of Ohio; Jane his wife, a buxom lady of fair complexion, in a Quaker bonnet; and Robert, their eldest son, a tall, flat-featured boy, some thirteen years of age. The countryman in a working shirt, who had the control of the wagon, and who had been beguiled by Oliver some five miles out of his road home, (to which he was returning from the market town,) under pretence of a wish to have his opinion of the crops--the poor fellow being withal a hired laborer and never having owned, or entertained the remotest speculation of owning, a rood of ground of his own,--with a commendation from Oliver, delivered with a cheerful smile, that "his observations on timothy were very much to the purpose," drove clattering away again. Mr. Oliver Peabody, farmer, who had come all the way from Ohio to spend thanksgiving with his old father--of a ruddy, youthful and twinkling countenance--who wore his hair at length and unshorn, and the chief peculiarity of whose dress was a grey cloth coat, with a row of great horn-buttons on either breast, with enormous woollen mittens, brought his buxom wife forward under one arm with diligence, drawing his tall youth of a son after him by the other hand--threw himself into the bosom of the Peabody family, and was heartily welcomed all round. He didn't say a word of half-horses and half-alligators, nor of greased lightning, although he was from the West, but he did complain most bitterly of the uncommon smoothness of the roads in these parts, the short grass, and the 'bominable want of elbow-room all over the neighborhood. It was with difficulty he could be kept on the straitened stage of the balcony long enough to answer a few plain questions of children and other matters at home; and immediately expressed an ardent desire to take a look at the garden. "We got somefin' to show thar, Mas'r Oliver," said Mopsey, who had stood by listening, with open mouth and eyes, to the strong statements of the western farmer, "we haint to be beat right-away no how!" Old Sylvester rose with his staff, which he carried more for pleasure than necessity, and led the way. As they approached there was visible through all the plants, shrubs and other growths of the place, whatever they might be--a great yellow sphere or ball, so disposed, on a little slope by itself, as to catch the eye from a distance, shining out in its golden hue from the garden, a sort of rival to the sun himself, rolling overhead. "Dere, what d'ye tink of dat, Oliver," Mopsey asked, forgetting in the grandeur of the moment all distinctions of class or color, "I guess dat's somefin." "That's a pumpkin," said Mr. Oliver Peabody, calmly. "Yes, I guess it is--_de tanksgivin punkin_!" She looked into the western farmer's face, no doubt expecting a spasm or convulsion, but it was calm--calm as night. Mopsey condescended not another word, but walking or rather shuffling disdainfully away, muttered to herself, "Dat is de very meanest man, for a white man, I ever did see; he looked at dat 'ere punkin which has cost me so many anxious days and sleepless nights--which I have watched over as though it had been my own child--which I planted wid dis here hand of my own, and fought for agin the June bugs and the white frost, and dat mouse dat's been tryin to eat it up for dis tree weeks and better--just as if it had been a small green cowcumber. I don't believe dat Oliver Peabody knows it is tanksgivin'. He's a great big fool." "I see you still keep some of the old red breed, father," said Oliver when they were left alone in the quiet of the garden, pointing to the red rooster, who stood on the wall in the sun. "Yes," old Sylvester answered, "for old times' sake. We have had them with us now on the farm for better than a hundred years. I remember the day the great grandfather of this bird was brought among us. It was the day we got news that good David Brainard, the Indian missionary, died--that was some while before the revolutionary war. He died in the arms of the great Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton; their souls are at peace." "I recollect this fellow," Oliver continued, referring to the red rooster, "When I was here last he was called Elbridge's bird, that was the year before last." "There is no Elbridge now," said the old grandfather. "I know all," said Oliver, "I had a letter from Margaret, telling me the story and begging me to keep a watch for her boy." "A wide watch to keep and little to be got by it, I fear," old Sylvester added. "Not altogether idle, perhaps; we have sharp eyes in the West and see many strange things. Jane is confident she saw our Elbridge, making through Ohio, but two months after he left here; he was riding swiftly, and in her surprise and suddenness she could neither call nor send after him." "You did not tell us of that," said the old man. "No, I waited some further discovery." "Be silent now, you may easily waken hopes to be darkened and dashed to the ground. Which way made the boy?" "Southward." During this discourse, as though he distinguished the sound of his young master's name and knew to what it related, Chanticleer walked slowly, and as if by accident or at leisure, up and down the garden-wall, keeping as near to the speakers as was at all seemly. When they stopped speaking he leaped gently to the ground and softly clapped his wings. A moment after there came hurrying into the garden, in a wild excitement, and all struggling to speak first, little Sam Peabody in the lead, Robert, the flat-featured youth of thirteen, and Peabody Junior, (who, it should be mentioned, having found his way into a pantry a couple of minutes after his arrival with the Captain, and appropriated to his own personal use an entire bottle of cherry brandy, had been straightway put to bed, from which he had now been released not more than a couple of hours), and to announce as clamorously as they respectively could, that Brundage's Bull had just got into "our big meadow." "Nobody hurt?" asked old Sylvester. "Nobody hurt, grandfather, but he's ploughing up the meadow at a dreadful rate," said little Sam Peabody. "Like wild," Peabody Junior added. This statement, strongly as it was made, seemed to have no particular effect on old Sylvester. Oliver Peabody, on the other hand, was exceedingly indignant, and was for proceeding to extremities immediately, the expulsion of the Brundage bull, and the demanding of damages for allowing his cattle to cross the boundary line of the two farms. Old Sylvester listened to his violence with a blank countenance; nor did he seem to comprehend that any special outrage had been committed, for it must be acknowledged that the only indication that the grandfather had come to his second childhood was, that, with his advancing years, and as he approached the shadow of the other world, he seemed to have lost all idea of the customary distinctions of rank and property, and that very much like an old apostle, he was disposed to regard all men as brethren, and boundary lines as of very little consequence. He therefore promptly checked his son Oliver in his heat, and discountenanced any further proceedings in the matter. "Brundage," he said, "would, if he cared about him, come and take his bull away when he was ready; we are all brethren, and have a common country, Oliver," he added, "I hope you feel that in the West, as well as we do here." "Thank God, we have," Oliver rejoined with emphasis, "and we love it!" "I thank God for that too," old Sylvester replied, striking his staff firmly on the ground, "I remember well, my son, when your great state was a wilderness of woods and savage men, and now this common sky--look at it, Oliver--which shines so clearly above us, is yours as well as ours." "I fear me, father, one day, bright, beautiful, and wide-arched as it is, the glorious Union may fall," said Oliver, laying his hand upon an aged tree which stood near them, "may fall, and the states drop, one by one away, even as the fruit I shake to the ground." As though he had been a tower standing on an elevation, old Sylvester Peabody rose aloft to his full height, as if he would clearly contemplate the far past, the distant, and the broad-coming future. "The Union fall!" he cried. "Look above, my son! The Union fall! as long as the constellations of evening live together in yonder sky; look down, as long as the great rivers of our land flow eastward and westward, north and south, the Union shall stand up, and stand majestical and bright, beheld by ages, as these shall be, an orb and living stream of glory unsurpassable." The children were gathered about, and watched with eager eyes and glowing cheeks, the countenance of the grandfather as he spoke. "No, no, my son," he added, "there's many a true heart in brave Ohio, as in every state of ours, or they could not be the noble powers they are." While old Sylvester spoke, Oliver Peabody wrenched with some violence, from the tree near which they stood, a stout limb, on the end of which he employed himself with a knife in shaping a substantial knob. "What weapon is that you are busy with, Oliver?" old Sylvester asked. "It's for that nasty bull," Oliver replied. "I would break every bone in his body rather than let him remain for a single minute on my land; the furtherance of law and order demands the instant enforcement of one's rights." "You are a friend of law and order, my son." "I think I am," Oliver answered, standing erect and planting his club, in the manner of Hercules in the pictures, head down on the ground. "I hope you are, Oliver; but I fear you forget the story I used to tell of my old friend Bulkley, of Danbury, who, being written to by some neighboring Christians who were in sore dissension, for advisement, gave them back word:--Every man to look after his own fence, that it be built high and strong, and to have a special care of the old Black Bull; meaning thereby no doubt, our own wicked passions;--that is the true Christian way of securing peace and good order." Oliver threw his great trespass-club upon the ground, and was on the point of asking after an old sycamore, the largest growth of all that country, which, standing in a remote field had, in the perilous times sheltered many of the Peabody family in its bosom--when he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Mopsey in a flutter of cap-strings, shuffling shoes, and a flying color in her looks of at least double the usual depth of darkness. It was just discovered that the poultry-house had been broken into over night, and four of the fattest hens taken off by the throat and legs, besides sundry of the inferior members of the domicile; as wicked a theft, Mopsey said, as ever was, and she hadn't the slightest hesitation in charging it on them niggers in the Hills, (a neighboring settlement of colored people, who lived from hand to mouth, and seemed to be fed, like the ravens by some mystery of providence.) Oliver Peabody watched closely the countenance of the patriarch, not a little curious to learn what effect this announcement would have upon his temper. "This is all our own fault," said old Sylvester, promptly. "We should have remembered this was thanksgiving time, and sent them something to stay their stomachs. Poor creatures, I always wondered how they got along! Send 'em some bread, Mopsey, for they never can do anything with fowls without bread!" "Send 'em some bread!" Mopsey rejoined, growing blacker and more ugly of look as she spoke: "Send 'em whips, and an osifer of the law!--the four fattest of the coop." "Never mind," said old Sylvester. "Six of the ten'drest young'uns!" "Never mind that," said old Sylvester. "I'd have them all in the county jail before sundown," urged Mopsey. "Oliver, we will go in to tea," continued the patriarch. "We have enough for tea, Mopsey?" "Yes, quite enough, Mas'r." "Then," cried the old man, striking his staff on the ground with great violence, rising to his full height, and glowing like a furnace, upon Mopsey, "then, I say, send 'em some bread!" This speech, delivered in a voice of authority, sent Mopsey, shuffling and cowering, away, without a word, and brought the sweat of horror to the brow of Oliver, which he proceeded to remove with a great cotton pocket-handkerchief, produced from his coat behind, on which was displayed in glowing colors, by some cunning artist, the imposing scene of the signers of the Declaration of Independence getting ready to affix their names. Mr. Oliver Peabody was the politician of the family, and always had the immortal Declaration of Independence at his tongue's end, or in hand. _ |
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