After a long deliberation among the jurors, during which almost everything was discussed but the evidence, it was announced by our foreman, on "coming in," that "we could not agree, four on 'em being for fifty dollars for the defendant 'cording to law, and one on 'em for no cause of action (myself), and he stood out, 'cause he was a-feared, or wanted to be pop'lar with somebody."
And thus ended the trial between Filkins and Beadle.
CHAPTER III
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.
Venison Styles and myself, as I have stated, had now become intimate. Together we scoured the woods and streams, in pursuit of fish and game. There was a kind of rustic poetry about the old man that fascinated my soul. His thoughts and feelings had been drawn from nature, and there was a strange freshness and life about everything he said and did. He was as firm and fiery as a flint; and the sparks struck out of him were as beautiful. Winds and storms, morn's early dawn, the hush of evening, the seasons and all their changes, had become a part of him – they had moulded and kept him. They played upon him like a breeze upon a harp. How could I help loving him?
Before daybreak, one morning in October, Venison, myself, his honey-box, and axes, set out "a bee-hunting," as he called it. It was in the beautiful and inspiring season of Indian summer, a season that lingers long and lovely over the forests of the west. There had been a hard, black frost during the night, and the great red sun rose upon it, shrouded in smoke. We were soon deep in the heart of the wilderness, tramping over the fallen leaves, and pushing forward to where the "bees were thick a-workin'," according to Venison.
As the sun rose higher and higher, the leaves began, all around, to thaw, and detach themselves from the trees, and silently settle to the ground. There stood the yellow walnut, the blood-red maple, side by side with the green pine and the spruce. Ten thousand rainbows were interlaced through the tops of the trees, and now and then a sharp peak shot up its pile of mosaic into the sky.
Not a sound was heard around us till morning's dawn. The tranquillity was oppressive. The mighty wilderness was asleep. Everything felt as fixed and awful as eternity. The vast extent of the wooded waste, reaching thousands of miles beyond, on, and on, and on, filled with mountains, lakes, and streams, lying in solitary grandeur, as unchanged as on the day the Pyramids were finished, overwhelmed the imagination. And then the future arose upon the mind, when all this will be busy with life – when the present will be history, referred to, but not remembered – when the present population of the globe will have been swept from the face of it, and another generation in our place, playing with the toys that so long amused, and which we, at last, left behind us.
But as day dawned, and morning began to throw in her arrows of gold about our feet, the wilderness began to wake up. A fox-squirrel shot out from his bed in a hollow tree, where he had been lodging during the night; and scampering up a tall maple, he sat himself down, threw his tail over his back, and broke forth with his chick-chick-chickaree, chickaree, chickaree! – making the woods ring with his song.
"Look at him," exclaimed Venison; "he's as sassy as ever. If I had my rifle, I'd knock the spots off that check coat of his'n; I'd larn him to chickaree old Venison."
This squirrel, very common in some of the north-western states, is one of the largest and most beautiful of its species. He is dressed in a suit of light-brown check, and may be seen, in warm, sunny days, cantering over the ground, or running through the tree-tops. He is a very careful and a very busy body. I have often watched him, as he sat bolt upright in a hickory, eating nuts, and throwing the shucks on the ground, with all the gravity of a judge. During the fall, he hoards up large quantities of stores. He hulls his beech-nuts, selects the fairest walnuts, picks up, here and there, a few chestnuts, and packs everything away in his castle with the utmost care; and, as Venison says, "the choppers in the winter have stolen bushels on 'em!"
While our squirrel was singing his morning psalm, a crow, just out of his bed, went sailing along above us, with his "caw! caw!" and settled on a tree nearby. "Caw! caw!" he screamed again, looking down curiously at the squirrel, as much as to say, "Who cares for your music!" Then out hurried another squirrel, and another, breaking forth with joy, until the crow, fairly drowned out, spread his wings and soared away. Venison says, "Them crows can smell gunpowder, and that fellow know'd we hadn't any, when he lit so near us."
A blue-jay then commenced a loud call from a distant part of the forest. He is one of the birds that lingers behind, and braves the blasts of winter. He was flitting about in a tree-top, and had just commenced his day's work. How gaudily Nature has dressed this bird! How he shines, during spring and summer! All the shades, and touches, and tinges of blue flow over his gaudy mantle; and how orderly and lavishly they are strown over him. But the blue-jay is a dissolute kind of a fellow, after all – "neither more nor less than a thief," Venison says. His shadowy dress fades with the leaf, and after strutting about during the warmer months, making a great display of his finery, he "runs down," at last, into a confirmed loafer. Groups of them may be seen in the winter, drudging around among the withered bushes, and scolding like so many shrews.
Then out popped the little gopher, that finished piece of stripe and check, that miner, who digs deep in the ground. He, too, had left his mansion, and come to greet the morn. A troop of quail marched along, headed by their chief. Who does not love the quail? She is associated with early childhood and household memories. Her voice rings through the past. We heard it sounding over our better years. What a rich brown suit she wears, cut round with Quaker simplicity! what taste and neatness about it! It was she that long ago went forth with the reapers, and piped for them her sunrise psalm, "More wet! More wet!" and she will stay here with us during the winter, and traverse, with her caravan, all day, the desert wastes of snow. Venison says he "don't never kill a quail – it ain't right – but he don't know why."
The partridges, all around, commenced rolling their drums, and every little while, one would whirr past our heads, and die away in the distance. The whole wood-pecker family began their labor. He who wears a red velvet cap, silk shawl, and white under-clothes, was boring away in a rotten tree, to find his breakfast; and he kept hitching around, and hammering, without regarding or caring for our presence. The rabbit, with ears erect, sat drawn up in a heap, quivering with fear, as he gazed upon us.
At last we reached the bank of the river, and Venison said, "We had better sit down, and take our reck'ning." Here was one of the most beautiful pictures of still life ever painted by Nature. The river wound away like a silver serpent, until it was lost in a bank of Indian summer haze, and it gurgled and dashed through the aisles of the forest, like a dream through the silent realms of sleep. It lay, half sunshine, half shadow, and the shadow was slowly creeping up a tall cliff on the opposite shore, as the day advanced, counting, as it were, the moments as they passed. Afar down it, I was amused as I watched a flock of wild geese. They were about a hundred in number, sleeping upon the water, in a glassy cove, their heads neatly tucked under their wings. An old gander, who had been appointed sentinel, to keep watch and guard, was doing the best he could to perform his duty. He stood upon one leg, and he grew so drowsy, several times, that he nearly toppled over, to his great consternation, and the danger of his charge. But rousing up, and taking two or three pompous strides, and stretching his neck to its utmost, with a very wise look, he satisfied himself that all was right, and that he was not so bad a sentinel, after all.
Near by this sleeping community, where a ripple played over a cluster of rocks, a flock of ducks were performing their ablutions. Now they were diving, now combing out their feathers, now rising and flapping their wings, now playing with each other, when the leader blowing a blast on his trumpet, they rose gracefully from their bath, and forming themselves into a drag, went winnowing up the river to their haunts far away.
A sand-hill crane, hoisted up on his legs of stilts, his clothes gathered up, and pinned behind him, was leisurely wading about, spearing fish for his breakfast. A dozy, stupid-looking kingfisher sat upon a blasted limb just over him, looking as grave as a country justice engaged in the same business. A bald eagle came rushing down the stream like an air-ship, his great wings slowly heaving up and down, as if he had set out upon an all-day's journey. A muskrat ferried himself over from one side to the other, urgent upon business best known to himself. A prairie-wolf came down to the water's edge, gave a bark or two, and taking a drink, turned back the way he came.
How many birds had left the wilderness for other climes! The blackbirds, those saucy gabblers, who spent the summer here, feeding upon wild rice, departed a month ago. I saw their bustle and preparation. They were days and days getting ready for their journey. The whole country around was alive with their noise. They sang, and fretted. They seemed to be out of all kind of patience with everybody and everything – to have a kind of spite against Nature for driving them off. All the trees about the marshes were loaded, and some were singing, some complaining, some scolding; but having finally completed their arrangements, all of a sudden they left. And the meadow-lark, that came so early with her spring song – she who used to sit upon the waving grass, and heave herself to and fro, in so ecstatic and polite a manner, as her melody rose and fell – she, too, is gone.
But about hunting bees. Venison informed me that here was the spot where he should "try 'em – that he didn't know nothin' about his luck;" that "bees were the knowingest critters alive" – that they lived in "the holler trees, all around us." He said "they had queens to govern 'em" – that they had "workers and drones" – that "everything about 'em was done just so, and if any of 'em broke the laws, they just killed 'em, and pitched 'em overboard." This, he said, he had "seed himself; he had seed a reg'lar bee funeral." He "seed, once, four bees tugging at a dead body, drawing it on the back, when they throw'd it out of the hive, and covered it over with dirt." And then they have "wars," he says, and "gin'rals," and "captins," and "sogers," and "go out a-fightin', and a-stealin' honey;" they are very "knowin' critters, and there is no tellin' nothin' about 'em."
Venison took the little box he had brought with him, which was filled with honey, and, opening its lid, placed it on a stump. He then rambled around the woods until he found a lingering flower that had escaped the frost, with a honey-bee upon it. This he picked, bee and all, and placed on the honey. Soon the bee began to work and load himself; and finally he rose in circles, winding high in the air, and suddenly turning a right angle, he shot out of sight.
"Where has he gone?" inquired I.
"Gone hum where he lives," answered Venison, "to unload his thighs and tell the news."
In a few moments, three bees returned, filled themselves, and departed; then six; then a dozen, until a black line was formed, along which they were rushing both ways, empty and laden, one end of which was lost in the forest.
Venison and myself then started on a trot, with our eyes upward, to follow this living line; and after having proceeded a quarter of a mile it became so confused and scattered that we gave it up, and returned.
"What now?" I inquired.
"I'll have 'em! I'll have 'em!" he replied. "They can't cheat old Venison. I've hunted the critters mor-nor forty years, and I allers takes 'em when I tries. I'll draw a couple of more sights on 'em."
Venison took two pieces more of honey, and placed one on each side of his box. The bees followed him and commenced their work. Very soon, instead of one, he had three lines established, his line of honey forming the base of a triangle, while the bees were all rushing to its point, on each side of this triangle, and through its middle.
This, of course, was a demonstration. Venison and myself followed up again, and, sure enough, we "had 'em," as he predicted. There they were, roaring in the top of a great oak, like thunder, coming in and going out, wheeling up and down through the air as though some great celebration was going on. It seemed that the whole hive of workers must have broken forth to capture and carry away Venison's honey-box.
"Will they sting?" inquired I.
"Some folks say they will," he replied. "If they hate a man they'll follow him a mile; and nobody knows who they hate and who they don't, until they're tried."
"Where's the honey?" I inquired again.
"Well, that's the next thing I'm arter;" and Venison put his ear to the trunk of the tree to ascertain in what part of it they were "a-workin'." He listened a while, but "they warn't low down, he know'd, for he didn't hear 'em hummin'." He thought the honey was "out the way, high up somewhere." So at the tree he went with his axe, and in half an hour the old oak – older, probably, than any man on the globe – came down with a crash that roused up all the echoes of the wilderness.
Upon an examination, the honey was, probably, Venison thought, packed away in a hollow of the tree, about fifty feet from the ground, as a large knot-hole was discerned, out of which the bees were streaming in great consternation. So he severed the trunk again, at the bottom of the hollow, and there it was, great flakes piled one upon another, some of which had been broken by the fall of the tree, and were dripping and oozing out their wild richness.
"That's the raal stuff," exclaimed Venison; "something 'sides bees-bread."
Venison had brought nothing with him to hold his honey, and I was a little curious to know how he would manage. He cut the tree again above the knot. During his labor the bees had settled all over him. His hands, face, and hair were filled, besides a circle of them that were angrily wheeling about his head. But he heeded them not, except by an occasional shake, which was significant of pity rather than rage.
"Now," said Venison, when his work was finished, the tree cut, the knot-hole stopped, and the whole turned upside down, "that's what I call a nat'ral bee-hive, and we'll just stuff in a little dry grass on the top, and then I'll be ready to move."
"Move!" I exclaimed, "move! You don't expect ue will carry home a tree, do you?"
"Two or three on 'em, I s'pect. Venison allers gets as much as that."
Venison was right. Before noon, half a dozen hives were captured and ready for removal. I confess, after the excitement was over, that I began to grow quite serious over my forenoon's labor. I sat down to rest myself, and the very solemnity of the wilderness produced a sober train of thought. A south-west breeze sprang up loaded with the dying breath of the fall-flowers. It was blowing down the leaves around me, and piling them up in gorgeous drifts. Like an undertaker around the remains of the dead, it was quietly tearing down the drapery, and preparing the year for its burial. A haze overspread everything, and the distance was mellow, the objects indistinct, and the whole landscape seemed swimming, as we sometimes see it in a dream. The trees were covered with haze; and a canoe, on its way down, appeared to be hung up in the air; the birds were hazy; and, looking about me, I appeared to be sitting in a great tent of haze. The squirrels were clattering through the trees, and throwing down the nuts; the partridges were drumming; the rabbits rustling through the dry leaves; the water-fowl hurrying through the air; and the crickets, those melancholy musicians, were piping a low, dirge-like strain to the golden hours of autumn as they passed away.
I thought I could hear the great heart of Nature beat with measured and palpitating strokes; could feel the pendulum of Time swinging back and forth.
But I said I was rather sober. There stood our six bee-hives, and clinging to each in large clusters were its inhabitants, who had been driven forth by us to brave a pitiless winter. We had destroyed six cities, and banished their people; six cities, six governments of law and order. Cities laid out in lanes, and streets, and squares; cities of dwelling-houses and castles; cities filled with all sorts of people; all castes in society. There were the queen and her palace; the drones and their castles; and the serf, or day-laborer, and his hut; and there, sitting upon her throne, the sovereign swayed as mighty a sceptre, tyrannized over as great a people, in her opinion, as any human despot. She undoubtedly bustled about, talked large, swelled up herself with her importance, boasted of her blood, of her divine right to rule (certainly divine in her case), just as all earthly princes do. There she projected plans of war, marshalled her forces, and stimulated their courage with inflammatory appeals. She talked about her house as the royal line, as the French used to about the Bourbons. And then a lazy aristocracy had been broken up by us; we had turned hundreds of drones adrift, and according to the modern definition, drones must be aristocrats; that is, they did no work, and lived upon the labor of others. They were, in all probability, just like all other aristocratic drones. They lounged about the hive in each other's company; had an occasional uproar at each other's table; turned out to take the morning air, and slept after dinner. They probably advised in all matters of public policy, and cried every day, "Long live the Queen." I did not care much about the drones, however. But we had turned the poor day-laborer out of doors; he who rose with the sun, and went forth to work while the dew was yet tying on the flowers. We had humbled the pride of six cities, and brought it to the dust. Is it strange that I felt sober?
But Venison broke my musing by informing me that it was "about time to cakalate a little about getting our honey home, and he guessed he'd go and rig up a raft, and float the cargo down."
And soon a raft was constructed of flood-wood, and bound together with green withes, the honey rolled aboard, two long poles prepared to be used to guide the craft, and away we glided, followed by a long train of bees, who had been despoiled, and who streamed along after us, until the shadows of evening arrested their flight, and parted them and their treasure forever.
CHAPTER IV
The Log-Chapel. – Father Beals. – Aunt Graves. – Sister Abigail. – Bigelow Van Slyck, the Preacher. – His Entrée. – 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?
Puddleford was not altogether a wilderness, although it was located near a wilderness. It was located just on the outskirts of civilization, and, like Venison Styles, it caught a reflection of civilized life from the east, and of savage life from the west. It was an organized township, and was a part of an organized county. There were hundreds and thousands of men who were busy at work all over this county, cutting down the trees and breaking up the soil. Law and religion had found their way among them, just as they always accompany the American pioneer. It could not be otherwise; because these obligations grow up and weave themselves into the very nature of the people of our republic. They are written on the soul. So that judicial circuits, a court-house and jail, Methodist circuits and circuit-riders, and meeting-houses, were established. All this was rough, like the country itself.
Few persons have ever attempted to define the piety of just such a community as this; and yet it has a form, tone, and character peculiarly its own. The portraits of the Puddlefordians were just as clearly reproduced in their religion, as if they had been drawn by sunlight.
The "log-chapel," as it was called at Puddleford, was filled each week, with one or two hundred rough, hard-featured, unlearned men and women, who had come in from all parts of the country; some for devotional exercises, some for amusement; some to look, and some to be looked at. This congregation shifted faces each week, like the colors in a kaleidoscope. It was never the same. The man in the pulpit must have felt as though he were preaching to a running river, whose parts were continually changing. Yet there was a church at Puddleford, in the strict sense of the word; it was organized, and had, at the time I refer to, ten regular members in good standing; all the rest was "floating capital," that drifted in from Sunday to Sunday, and swelled the "church proper."
There was "Father Beals," and old "Aunt Graves," and "Sister Abigail," who were regular attendants at all times and seasons. They were, beyond all doubt, the pillars of the Puddleford church. Father Beals was the church, before any building for worship was erected. He was looked upon as a living, moving, spiritual body; a Methodist organization in himself; and wherever he went to worship on the Sabbath, whether in a private house, a barn, or in the forest, all the followers of that order were found with him, drawn there by a kind of magnetism. The old man had been one of the faithful from a boy; had carried his principles about him from day to day; was indeed a light in the world; and he was, by some plan of Providence, flung far back into the wilderness, all burning, to kindle up and set on fire those about him. His influence had built the log-chapel, and, like a regulator in a watch, he kept it steady, pushing this wheel a little faster, and checking that. Sometimes he had to command, sometimes entreat, sometimes threaten, sometimes soothe.
"Father Beals" was a good man; and no higher compliment can be paid to any person. His head was very large, bald, and his hair was white. There was an expression of great benevolence in his face, and a cold calmness in his blue eye that never failed to command respect. He used to sit, on Sundays, just under the pulpit, with a red cotton handkerchief thrown over him, while his wide-brimmed hat, that he wore into the country, stood in front, on a table, and really seemed to listen to the sermon.
"Aunt Graves" was a very useful body in her way, and the Puddleford church could not have spared her any more than "Father Beals." She was an old maid, and had been a member of the log-chapel from its beginning. She was one of those sincere souls that really believed that there was but one church in the world, and that was her own. She felt a kind of horror when she read of other denominations having an actual existence, and wondered "what kind of judgment would fall upon them." She didn't know very much about the Bible, but she knew a great deal about religion; she knew all about her own duty, and quite a good deal about the duty of her neighbors.
Now "Aunt Graves" was useful in many ways. She kept, in the first place, a kind of spiritual thermometer, that always denoted the range of every member's piety except her own. Every slip of the tongue; every uncharitable remark; every piece of indiscretion, by word or deed; all acts of omission, as well as of commission, were carefully registered by her, and could at any time be examined and corrected by the church. This was convenient and useful. Then, she was a choice piece of melody; there was not another voice like hers in the settlement. It had evidently been pitched "from the beginning" for the occasion. It possessed great power, was quite shaky (a modern refinement in music), and could be heard from a half to three quarters of a mile. She has been known to sweep away on a high note, and actually take the Puddleford choir off their feet. She rode through the staff of music headlong, like a circus-rider around the ring; and could jump three or four notes at any time, without lessening her speed, or breaking the harmony. She would take any piece of sacred music by storm, on the very shortest notice. In fact, she was the treble, aided by a few others who had received their instruction from her; and she was just as indispensable to worship, she thought, as a prayer or a sermon.
"Aunt Graves" always made it her business to "keep a sharp lookout" after the morals of the preacher. "Men are but men," she used to say, "and preachers are but men; and they need some person to give 'em a hunch once in a while." Sometimes she would lecture him of the log-chapel for hours upon evidences of piety, acts of immorality, the importance of circumspection, the great danger that surrounded him – her tongue buzzing all the while like a mill-wheel, propelled as it was by so much zeal. She said it almost made her "crazy to keep the Puddleford church right side up; for it did seem as though she had everything on her shoulders; and she really believed it would have gone to smash long ago, if it hadn't been for her."
Now, "Sister Abigail" wasn't anybody in particular – that is, she was not exactly a free agent. She was "Aunt Graves's" shadow – a reflection of her; a kind of person that said what "Aunt Graves" said, and did what she did, and knew what she knew, and got angry when she did, and over it when she did. She was a kind of dial that "Aunt Graves" shone upon, and any one could tell what time of day it was with "Aunt Graves," by looking at "Sister Abigail."
Besides these lights in the church, there were about (as I have said) ten or a dozen members, and a congregation weekly of one or two hundred.
But I must not pass over the preacher himself. I only speak of one, although many filled the pulpit of the Puddleford church during my acquaintance with it. Bigelow Van Slyck was at one time a circuit-rider on the Puddleford circuit; and I must be permitted to say, he was the most important character that had filled that station prior to the time to which I have reference. He was half Yankee, half Dutch; an ingenious cross, effected somewhere down in the State of Pennsylvania. He was not yet a full-blown preacher, but an exhorter merely. He was active, industrious, zealous, and one would have thought he had more duty on his hands than the head of the nation. His circuit reached miles and miles every way. He was here to-day, there to-morrow, and somewhere else next day; and he ate and slept where he could.
Bigelow's appointments were all given out weeks in advance. These appointments must be fulfilled; and he was so continually pressed, that one would have thought the furies were ever chasing him.
I have often seen him rushing into the settlement after a hard day's ride. He wore a white hat with a wide brim, a Kentucky-jean coat, corduroy vest and breeches, a heavy pair of clouded-blue yarn stockings, and stogy boots. He rode a racking Indian pony, who wore a shaggy mane and tail. Bigelow usually made his appearance in Puddleford just as the long shadows of a Saturday evening were pointing over the landscape. The pony came clattering in at the top of his speed, panting and blowing, as full of business and zeal as his master, while Bigelow's extended legs and fluttering bandana kept time to the movement. The women ran to the doors, the children paused in the midst of their frolic, as his pony stirred up the echoes around their ears; and it is said that the chickens and turkeys, who had often witnessed the death of one of their number when this phantom appeared, set up a most dismal hue-and-cry, and took to their wings in the greatest consternation.
We hope that none of our readers will form an unfavorable opinion of Bigelow, after having read our description of him. He was the man of all others to fill the station he occupied. He was as much a part of, and as necessary to, the wilderness he inhabited, as the oak itself. He belonged to the locality. He was one of a gallery of portraits that nature and circumstances had hung up in the forest for a useful purpose, just as Squire Longbow was another. The one managed the church, the other the courts; and all this was done in reference to society as it was, not what it ought to be, or might be. There was a kind of elasticity about Bigelow's theology, as there was about the Squire's law, that let all perplexing technicalities pass along without producing any friction. They were graduated upon the sliding-scale principle, and were never exactly the same.
Bigelow was a host in theology in his way. He could reconcile at once any and every point that could be raised. He never admitted a doubt to enter into his exhortations, but he informed his hearers at once just how the matter stood. He professed to be able to demonstrate any theological question at once, to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind; and it was all folly to labor with the unreasonable, he said, for they would "fight agin the truth as long as they could, any way."
I used occasionally to hear him exhort, and he was in every respect an off-hand preacher. He worked like a blacksmith at the forge. Coat, vest, and handkerchief, one after the other, flew off as he became more and more heated in his discourse. At one time he thundered down the terrors of the law upon the heads of his hearers; at another he persuaded; and suddenly he would take a facetious turn, and accompany the truth with a story about his grandfather down on the Ohio, or an anecdote that he had read in the newspapers. He wept and he laughed, and the whole assembly were moved as his feelings moved; now silent with grief, and now swelling with enthusiasm.