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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Summerfield, by Day Kellogg Lee
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Summerfield
+       or, Life on a Farm
+
+
+Author: Day Kellogg Lee
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2007  [eBook #23832]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMERFIELD***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+SUMMERFIELD;
+
+or
+
+Life on a Farm
+
+by
+
+DAY KELLOGG LEE
+
+
+  "When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
+  Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
+  Then to thy cornfields thou dost go,
+  Which, though well-soil'd, yet thou dost know
+  That the best compost for the lands
+  Is the wise master's feet and hands."
+      --HERRICK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Second Thousand.
+
+Auburn:
+Derby and Miller.
+1852.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by
+Day K. Lee,
+In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY VENERATED FATHER;
+
+A
+
+PIONEER OF THE LAKE COUNTRY;
+
+WHO
+
+SOWED TRUTH AND GOODNESS IN THE SPRING-TIME,
+
+AND
+
+REAPS PEACE AND HONOR IN THE AUTUMN
+
+OF HIS LIFE;
+
+THIS VOLUME IS WITH LOVE INSCRIBED.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+BY THE AUTHOR OF "GOLDEN STEPS," &c.
+
+Works of fiction are to be approved when
+they subserve the interests of morality and
+religion.  The Scriptures of the Old and New
+Testaments--the ancient classics--the most
+distinguished productions of modern ages--afford
+striking illustrations of the beautiful and
+instructive lessons of virtue and piety, which may be
+conveyed in fabulous narration.  The Parables
+of the Saviour; Milton's Paradise Lost;
+Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, are samples of
+salutary and saving truth exhibited in stories of the
+imagination.
+
+I have made myself familiar with the contents
+of the following tale, from the manuscript
+copy.  The aim of the author is of the highest
+description.  He endeavors to instil into the
+minds of his readers a lesson of the utmost
+practical importance, intimately connected with the
+experience of every-day life.  He would instruct
+them of the wisdom of being contented with a
+useful and productive occupation, which is
+honorable in its character, healthful in its nature,
+and conducive to the welfare of society, rather
+than to aspire to callings, not so laborious
+perhaps, yet more deceptive and uncertain in
+substantial remuneration, and far less calculated to
+promote public good.
+
+This object the author successfully
+accomplishes.  No reader can arise from a perusal of
+his pages, without feeling a higher respect for
+such pursuits as benefit the world, and a stronger
+inclination to avoid the more showy and
+worthless callings into which too many are disposed
+to crowd.  The story is most happily conceived,
+and is narrated in a style highly finished and
+attractive.  There is nothing insipid or
+over-wrought, in the frame-work or filling up; but
+all is natural and lifelike.  The witty, the lively,
+the startling, are finely interwoven with the
+more grave and instructive.  A fertile and vivid
+imagination has enabled the author to bring
+characters upon his stage which represent almost
+every phase in human nature, and to indulge in
+personal and scenic descriptions, whether in
+painting a landscape, or delineating some
+humorous or some noble quality of the heart, of
+the most charming character.  The reader is
+enamored with the quiet enjoyments of rural life,
+and disgusted with the schemes of hackneyed
+sharpers.  A high moral tone runs throughout
+the narrative.  Vice is rebuked and punished--virtue
+is commended and rewarded.  The idle,
+the vicious, the unprincipled schemer and
+deceiver, are painted to the life, and placed in
+such a light, as to act as examples of warning
+to the inexperienced, while the industrious, the
+wise and good, stand forth in the true nobleness
+of their nature, to the admiration of all.
+
+To those who would discountenance the puerile
+and trashy novels, full of debasing and
+licentious tendencies, with which our country is
+flooded, I would earnestly recommend this work.
+It can be placed in the hands of the youthful
+not only with safety, but with the utmost
+confidence that it will exert a highly salutary
+influence upon them.
+
+I understand the present is the first of a series
+of volumes on the various leading Occupations
+of Life.  The author would discountenance the
+frivolous and demoralizing light reading of the
+day, and place in the hand of young men and
+women, works which shall induce and aid them
+to work out a great and noble life.
+
+J. M. AUSTIN.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I.
+
+GOING FROM HOME TO BUILD A HOME
+
+
+II.
+
+HOME IN THE BACKWOODS
+
+
+III.
+
+A BEAR HUNT
+
+
+IV.
+
+A FEAST AND A STORY
+
+
+V.
+
+JULIA WILMER
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE NEW HOME AND SETTLEMENT
+
+
+VII.
+
+A CAPTIVE
+
+
+VIII.
+
+A LAMB LOST
+
+
+IX.
+
+SEEKING THE LOST LAMB IN VAIN
+
+
+X.
+
+THE SUGAR PARTY
+
+
+XI.
+
+FABENS PROMOTED TO HONOR
+
+
+XII.
+
+A LAW SUIT
+
+
+XIII.
+
+HAPPINESS
+
+
+XIV.
+
+THE COLD SEASONS
+
+
+XV.
+
+A WAR OF EXTERMINATION
+
+
+XVI.
+
+THE MINISTER
+
+
+XVII.
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE SECOND MEETING AND ITS FRUITS
+
+
+XIX.
+
+THE HARVEST LUNCH
+
+
+XX.
+
+MERCHANT FAIRBANKS
+
+
+XXI.
+
+THE HUSKING
+
+
+XXII.
+
+GEORGE LUDLOW AND ALMON FRISBIE
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+FAIRBANKS, FRISBIE, AND FABENS
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+A WEEK OF CASTLE BUILDING
+
+
+XXV.
+
+A WEEK OF REALITY
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+ANOTHER WEEK OF REALITY
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+SUNNY SKIES
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+SUMMERFIELD.
+
+
+I.
+
+GOING FROM HOME TO BUILD A HOME.
+
+"Yes, and such a wilderness of game!  My word for it, you would like it
+out there.  The fat deer scamper from thicket and opening; foxes and
+wolves, and bears are plenty; wild turkeys romp and fly in flocks; wild
+ducks dip and skim like swallows on the lakes; trout and sturgeon,
+lusty and sweet; Indians good-natured as the yellow sun:--and such
+hunts as I've had there!--I tell you what, Matthew, they would cure you
+pretty quick of being homesick; and you would hardly look towards the
+Hudson again, if you were only once in the lake country."
+
+"I should like to go there, Uncle Walter.  It must be a very fine
+country, and the encouragements for young men must be great.  I should
+like those grand old forests you speak of; and those pleasant lakes,
+and the hills, and the valleys.  Just so strange I am--I should soon
+have affection for them, and reckon them among my friends.  I should
+bring away their sweet summer fragrance and verdure in my soul.  And
+the deer--how I'd like to see them bounding all about me! and the ducks
+and wild turkeys enjoying their free life.  But to make them
+game,--I'll leave that to you, Uncle Walter, if I cannot soften your
+heart.  If I could leave father and mother, I would go and see what
+sort of a life I could accomplish in a land so free and inviting; and
+what kind of a home I could build.  The thought of this sets my blood
+a-bounding."
+
+"Well, come, make up your mind, and get ready by then I start, and I'll
+be right glad of your company.  I shall start in a fortnight."
+
+"What say you, father and mother?  My heart flutters as I ask you!  But
+what say you to Uncle Walter's invitation?  Can I not make a shift in
+the wild woods of Cayuga, and could you not get along without me
+awhile, in hopes something might be done for the good of us all?"
+
+"It pleases me, Matthew, and it pleases your mother.  We talked it all
+over last night, and concluded, if you would like to venture, we would
+make up our minds to part with you, and comfort ourselves with the hope
+of your doing well.  Yes, go if you want to, and the Lord go with you,
+and help you all the time.  I know by experience it is a good thing to
+learn to live away from home, and shift for one's self, and be
+independent.  It makes a clear head, a ready hand, and a nervy heart.
+My father used to say, an upright mind, with a knack of
+self-assistance, was better for a president's son, than pockets full of
+money.  I have found it true, and I hope you will remember it.
+
+"It will try our old hearts a little to part with you, Matthew.  All
+the rest are gone to the grave, and somehow we cling closer to you now.
+We are trembling on the edge of the grave, and waiting for Death to
+trip us in.  We need to have hold of your hand, and lean on your
+shoulder.  But I know it is for your good to go and build your own home
+and fortune; and if you prosper, as Mr. Mowry thinks you will, may be
+we shall live long enough to sell our little place here, and go into
+the woods again, and clear up a farm.  It is a hard sort of work; but
+then it stoutens the knees, and knits the knuckles, and gives a capable
+soul, and a pleasant, pleasant life."
+
+"That's the thing, Major Fabens.  Tell the boy of the fun of clearing
+land; but don't talk of trying hearts, and old age, and the grave.
+You'll make a baby of him if you do; and he'll get a foolish dread of
+leaving, and want to hang around you all your days.  Stir him up a
+little.  Tell him you'll be glad to get rid of him; and to pack up his
+duds and be off, lickety-cut; and it will not be a great while afore he
+can pop over a deer without whimpering; and a log shanty in Cayuga will
+seem smarter to him than a city spare-room.  Come, Matthew, get ready
+by then I start, and I'll take you to the handsomest country in all
+America!"
+
+"Life is a wilderness journey, that all must go, having many struggles
+and trials; meeting many dangers, enduring many griefs.  But if one
+does right, and keeps acting the noblest and hoping the best, that is
+the main thing; and it matters not so much where we go, nor where we
+build our home, and perform our labors of life.  Hard indeed shall I
+find it, to take my soul away from all I love in Cloverdale: hard to
+leave father and mother, and all my young friends; but it is best I
+should go.  Return in a fortnight, and I will be ready.  God help me to
+be a man, and make my life an honor and a joy.  If I _could_ get a home
+that father and mother would like better than their little one here,
+would we not be happy?"
+
+Such, my dear reader, was the beginning of a manner of life which it is
+the design of this volume to unfold.  Such a conversation occurred at
+Major Fabens' many years ago.  Major Fabens and his wife were very fine
+old people, who lived at Cloverdale, on the banks of the Hudson River.
+Matthew was their only surviving child; the solace and stay of their
+aged years; and Uncle Walter was a neighbor, who had been out to that
+beautiful region of western New York, called the Lake Country; taken up
+a tract of wild land; made a clearing; built a rude home; and returned,
+saying many a good, frank thing, to induce others to "pull up stakes,"
+and follow him.
+
+On the evening with which our story begins, a long conversation had
+been enjoyed at Major Fabens'; much had been said of the western
+country, in description of its climate and soil, its lakes and forests;
+and young Fabens listened in a spell of delight, more and more
+convinced that there was the land for his future home.  He resolved
+upon going to the Lake Country.  He hastened the preparation for his
+departure.  His clothes were put in readiness; he passed around the
+neighborhood on all his farewell visits; and the morning of his exit
+smiled kindly and glad, as if to welcome him on his way.
+
+It was a morning in August.  Recent rains had refreshed all the woods
+and fields; recent thunders had cleared the air and sweetened the
+morning breeze; the pure sky spread like a curtain of clear blue satin
+to the sight; and all nature was afloat with those lofty and tender
+influences which soften the feelings, and induce meditation.  A fit
+season for the scene that ensued at the Major's, when numbers gathered
+in sadness there, to take leave of their favorite.  The sensations of
+the company can be fancied by those only who have joined in similar
+scenes, and shared their affecting interests.  Kindest words had been
+exchanged, and a full flow of love was indulged through an hour
+prolonged, when it came for the father to speak, and give the farewell
+charge and blessing.
+
+"A good son, a very good son, you have been to us, Matthew," said he;
+"and we have little fear that you will forsake the principles you take
+with you, or give us trouble for any unhandsome act of your life.  But
+this world has many temptations; singular and strange events fill up
+our experience; and a little counsel never comes amiss.  I have lived
+longer than you.  I ought to know more of life and its dangers; and be
+able to tell you many things that will do you good.  I have fought my
+way through difficulties, under which many have fell; and I have seemed
+to see a light of heaven rising on the darkness, and have followed it,
+when others like lambs have strayed into troublesome ways.
+
+"Be faithful to the right, and good, and true, my son, and you have
+nothing to fear.  Let no puff of praise, or flush of good fortune lift
+you up with vanity.  Stand erect and keep your balance, if you step on
+ice or walk on wire.  Be a man always.  Keep from castle-building.
+Insist on the honor of your calling; and don't burrow up in the soil
+like a woodchuck, but range abroad like a deer, and soar on high like
+an eagle.  Good-bye."
+
+The last word was spoken; the farewell moment fled; young Fabens was on
+his first long journey; and six weary days were numbered with past
+hours, before the last opening in the forest revealed to his anxious
+eyes the home of his eager guide--the Waldron Settlement.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+HOME IN THE BACKWOODS.
+
+A new home in the backwoods!  Living where the dun deer roam, and wild
+fowl flock!  Sleeping a-nights where waters murmur, wolves howl, and
+panthers scream in your hearing; and whip-poor-wills sing till morning
+comes, and Nature appears in her gladness and pride!  Who would not
+enjoy a scene like that for a season, forgetting the tame monotony of
+towns, and imprisonment of cities?  Who would not forsake a room amid
+walls of brick for a green woodland parlor?  And leave velvet cushion
+and costly carpet, for a cushion of moss, and a carpet of flowers in
+the virgin wilderness?  Follow me, then, to the Land of Lakes, and
+ramble abroad with my hero, while he explores the Waldron Settlement.
+
+A rare and yellow August evening it was, and about fifty years ago,
+when Matthew Fabens arrived in the Lake Country.  As he rose the first
+morning, and went forth to survey the region of his new home, thoughts
+of his distant abode awakened feelings of sadness, but other sensations
+very soon succeeded, and balanced his mind into satisfaction.  A
+wilderness indeed it was that waved around him; and the manners of the
+settlers partook as much of its wildness, verdure, freedom, and wealth,
+as if they had sprung like the oaks and chestnuts, from the soil; and
+he found it a region opening upon him, at every step, some new delight
+or interest.
+
+That particular section was called the Lake Country, from the
+occurrence of seven lakes, that shine out from their green borders like
+mirrors reflecting the face of heaven.  That beautiful sisterhood of
+little inland seas lie along in lines nearly parallel, with ten and a
+dozen miles of lovely woodland waving between them; and they vary in
+length from ten to forty miles; and discharge their waters, through the
+Oswego River, into Lake Ontario.  Their names are, Otisco, Skaneateles,
+Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, Wawumkee, and Canandaigua, each name of them
+sounding the rich, wild music of the Indian tongue.
+
+On the banks of the Cayuga Fabens found the settlement, and language
+cannot describe the charms of its fine scenery.  Few were the
+clearings, and small, which as yet had been made, and tall and grand
+were the beeches and maples, the oaks and chestnuts, that tossed their
+arms on high.  Fabens gave way to the excitement cast upon his
+sensitive nature, and allowed himself little rest for a fortnight.
+Each day was too brief to accomplish all he purposed.  He took long
+rambles in the woods, sensing the sanctity of their venerable shade,
+enjoying the views they spread to his gaze, and tasting the fragrance
+of hemlock, birch, and pine, that floated to him in mingled odors.  All
+he had heard was more than true.  The trees were noble beyond
+description.  There were narrow openings and plains, in places, where
+the sumac lifted its blood-red plumes, and bee-balm waved its crimson
+blossoms; while generally the woods were dense and magnificent.
+
+Through opening and thicket the wild deer bounded like forms of beauty
+in a dream; squirrels were chattering, robins and thrushes were singing
+in gladness and pride; and wild fowl were sporting in water and air.
+he went out to the fallows, and they were covered with Indian corn, or
+gilded with yellow stubble; with here and there a garden studded with
+cool and lusty melons, almost bursting with delicious sweets.  He
+descended the low valleys, and there, as on the hills, sprang
+thickly-clustering bushes of large and melting blackberries, inviting
+him to taste and enjoy.  He followed the courses of the creeks, and
+found them teeming with trout and pickerel, as playful as the
+scampering fawns, all mottled with gold and silver, and royal as the
+peacock's plumes in the running changes of their lustre.  He stood on
+the margin of the lake that lay placidly sleeping in the embrace of
+hills; and the willow waved on its borders, and wild ducks and herons
+wantoned on its breast.  The waters were so transparent he could count
+the white pebbles and shells at the depth of thirty feet; and they were
+pure and sweet as the dew that lay all night on the wild honeysuckles
+and roses, which graced the upland plains.
+
+There was the hunting-ground of the Indians, and wigwams dotted the
+shore; while on its waters, floating and ducking like the wild fowl,
+sported the Indian canoes.  He visited the rude homes of the settlers,
+and was welcomed to each hearth with that rough and liberal
+hospitality, which leaps from the soul of forest life.  Several of them
+had known his father on the Hudson, and all were soon his heartiest
+friends.  A frolic in the greenwood chase was proposed for every day in
+two weeks to come; and gatherings and feasts were had without number.
+All were near neighbors, though dwelling five miles apart; all carried
+the spirit of the country, with the breath of its free air, and the
+image of its woods and lakes in their hearts; and one flowing soul of
+brotherhood was shared, while one ardent feeling of honest kindness,
+and jocund spirit, bound them in a fellowship fast and warm.
+
+The autumn passed; the winter came, and retired; and spring succeeded,
+casting abroad her blooms and blessings; and the woodlands echoed with
+music, and nature smiled like a garden gay.  And more sensible of
+sights and influences of beauty, Fabens enjoyed the genial season with
+new satisfaction, and determined that there should be his future home.
+He bargained for a farm of a hundred acres, and commenced its
+improvement, cutting the first tree with his own hands, and selecting,
+on an opening he had made, the site for a log house.  On the approach
+of summer, by a neighbor who returned to the Hudson, he sent his
+parents the following letter:--
+
+
+"DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--
+
+"Mr. Wilson starts to-morrow for Cloverdale, and I take this
+opportunity to write to you.  Of course, you will hear from him all
+about me; but still it may gratify you to hear from me by letter.  I am
+happy and well as I can be in a new home of promise without you.
+
+"I have seen many happy hours, and some that were gloomy since I came
+here.  Uncle Walter told the truth about this country; it is a land of
+promise, handsome now in the state of nature.  But you know that he who
+comes here must labor hard, and endure many privations, before he
+succeeds as he desires.  God has blessed the Lake Country with a fine
+soil and great advantages.  Still, as I expected, money does not grow
+on the bushes here, nor are the softest couches gathered from the
+ground.  Labor, honest, resolute labor alone can secure the objects of
+good desire.  For this I am ready with a strong hand and an ardent
+heart; and trusting in God to prosper me, I mean to have a home and
+farm that I can call mine.  And while clearing a farm, and bringing
+field after field to culture and beauty, will I not be clearing my
+life, and bringing mind and heart to culture, fertility, light and
+bloom?
+
+"I know you would like it out here, and feel your young years rolling
+back, and your hearts growing green again on the banks of the Cayuga.
+The country is _very_ handsome.  The deer are so tame they will almost
+eat out of my hand.  Fish and fowl are plenty.  Each homely cabin is
+the shelter of large and hopeful hearts, and the Indians are all
+kindness to the settlers.  O, when you can come and enter my home, will
+we not take comfort?  My love to all.
+
+"Your affectionate son,
+
+  "M. FABENS."
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+A BEAR HUNT.
+
+Fabens was pleased with his neighbors, and warmly reciprocated the
+interest they took in him.  There was old Moses Waldron, the first
+settler, an out-and-out backwoodsman; smart with an axe, sure with a
+gun, free with a bowl of metheglin, open in hospitality, and an enemy
+only to owls, and blackbirds, wolves, thieves, tories and the British.
+He chased the tories and redcoats in his dreams, and talked to himself
+while walking alone awake.  The owls annoyed him sorely.  Not because
+they killed his pretty chickens, but because there was so little of
+them beside their feathers, and their eyes were so monstrous white and
+large, and they had such a ghostly halloo.  Whenever he caught an owl's
+hollow voice in ominous boomings from the woods, he stopped and cursed
+him, and cried, "Ah hoo, hoo, ah hoo-ah; ah hoo, you pesky torment! if
+I had you by the neck, I'd wring it for you, I'll warrant you I would,
+ah-hoo-ah!"
+
+Aunt Polly Waldron was a match for her husband; and while she was an
+actual woman in chaste and single heart, in motherly loves, in the
+tenderest sympathies and most unselfish feelings, she was a large,
+square-shouldered and hard-handed woman; she could split oven-wood,
+hunt bees, skin deer, and hoe corn; and she loved to tell "how she shot
+a tory in the Revolution, who came while Moses was away in the wars,
+and fired their barn, and took her best feather-bed out door and ripped
+it, and scattered the feathers to the sky: how the tory whooped and
+keeled as she dropped him, and how three other tories and an Indian
+legged it like Jehu away."
+
+Uncle Walter Mowry was younger by ten years than Mr. Waldron, and his
+wife Huldah was five years younger than he, and they were specimens of
+thrifty and noble, but uncultivated nature, such as we love to find in
+the backwoods, and such as furnish materials for the richest and finest
+city life.  Uncle Walter was of a medium stature, a well-moulded face,
+and fair skin, and he was hardy as a bear and athletic as a panther.
+There was never a farmer who kept cleaner fields, or handsomer
+stake-and-rider fence than he; or had earlier corn, or a larger
+woodpile; yet he did love a hunt more dearly than a venison pie; he
+caught fish from pools where others received not a nibble; and he
+enjoyed a leisure day, and a feast, and a fine story.
+
+Aunt Huldah was a little swarthy woman, weighing only ninety pounds at
+forty years of age; but she was free and generous, and all who had her
+heart and its overflowing love, had all, and there was nothing left of
+her.  She had the whitest linens, the clearest maple sugar, and the
+smoothest and cleanest white maple floor in all the settlement; and she
+loved scrubbing and scouring as well as Uncle Walter loved hunting.  A
+stranger would have thought her a real firer of a scold; but she was
+never in a passion; and Uncle Walter used to say, he found her the
+best, if anything, when seeming to scold the hardest, and she had that
+way of expressing her interest in him, and making her work go on more
+briskly.
+
+There were Thomas Teezle and his wife, who were valued acquisitions to
+the settlement.  Thomas was stocky and muscular, frank, fearless and
+free-hearted; and he kept a keen and ringing broad axe, and could hew a
+beam or a sleeper as straight as a bee-line.
+
+There were Jacob Flaxman and his wife Phoebe, and they were cousins;
+and both had yellow hair and freckled faces; both weighed in one notch;
+both sang in one song; both craved a fine farm and happy home, and were
+prospered in their craving.
+
+There was Abram Colwell, who gloried in never having cyphered beyond
+the rule of three, or read any book but his almanac through; but who
+was upright as an oak; shrewd as a black fox; hearty as a beaver, and
+jocund as a jay.
+
+And there was Bela Wilson, a farmer, a chairmaker, a shoemaker,
+carpenter and blacksmith, all in one, as Uncle Walter declared; and
+while he was close and exacting in a bargain, and stinted in his gifts,
+he had many streaks of kindness, and added usefulness, honor, interest
+and life to the settlement.
+
+And among these people Fabens found pleasure and good fortune.  The
+summer that followed the date of his letter, was warm and fruitful, and
+he went forth clearing and planting with a forward heart; and when
+September came, he looked back on his labors with pride, and felt a
+sense of comfort and content, for the beginning he had made of a home.
+By dint of extreme diligence he made a larger clearing in the spring
+than he had hoped, and succeeded in planting it all to corn; and now in
+the autumn, he had a wide field, bearing the promise of a bountiful
+harvest.
+
+But he had not expected increase without tax, nor joy without
+annoyance.  His corn-hills supported a liberal yield of well-filled,
+glistening ears; but foreign feeders that had not planted, nor hoed,
+came in for a share of his abundance.
+
+The bears invaded his cornfield, trampled down the stalks, devoured
+much, and carried away more than he felt like sparing.  He consulted
+his neighbors, and found that others were annoyed in the same way, and
+all they could do, was to guard their fields as well as they could, and
+hunt down and slay some of the ravening forest prowlers.
+
+"We told you, Fabens, you'd have to come to that at last," said
+Colwell.  "Wild beasts are thick as spatter around here; and you must
+down with some of 'em.  It's no use to talk baby; you must kill the
+critters, or they'll eat you out of house and home."
+
+"But they have a right to live, and I haven't a heart to kill 'em,"
+said Fabens.
+
+"It does look kindy cruel to drag down a handsome buck and cut his
+glossy throat; and see a harmless fawn spout blood, and strangle and
+die; and I used to shut my eyes when I bit a pigeon's neck,[1] and took
+little quails' heads off; but now I can do't without winkin'; and as
+for them infarnal bears, I'd ruther kill 'em than to eat.  And you'll
+have to kill 'em, if you want any corn."
+
+"But I hate to see them hunted, and wounded, and killed, they suffer so
+much."
+
+"_Suffer?_--Suffer to be _killed!_--_Bears_ suffer to be killed?  By
+hokey, they don't indeed!  Not they, they're used to it as eels are to
+bein' skinned.  And haint you heern of the bear-hunt we're goin' to
+have to-night?"
+
+"No, I have not."
+
+"Wal, make ready with your birch candle and your axe; and come over and
+get my old queen's-arm musket, and go with us.  I tell you what, it's
+no small fun to hunt bears.  We'll have a smart time, and finish off at
+Waldrons's with a supper of bear's meat washed down with metheglin.
+Come, none of your chicken feelins in this country.  You must kill and
+quarter the wolves and bears."
+
+"I suppose I must.  They are carrying away all my corn.  In whose field
+do you meet?"
+
+"In yourn, Fabens, if you'll jine us.  Come, we'll give your little
+patch a sweepin."
+
+"Well, I'll be with you.  They cannot suffer much if shot through the
+head or heart; and I may as well begin a hunter's life killing bears
+and wolves; but the deer I'll never trouble."
+
+Arrangements were made for the bear hunt, and a bear hunt they had; and
+all declared they were glad Fabens was along, for it gave him something
+not to be found on the Hudson.  Torches were prepared, guns and axes
+were ready, dogs and men assembled at an early hour, and Fabens,
+Colwell, and Wilson were sent on a scout into the field to listen for
+the ravagers, and give the signal of attack.  The full, bright moon
+beamed down from the sky, and every movement had to be stealthy and low
+to avoid alarm; and as Fabens crept into the field, and hid himself in
+the hollow of a stump, and listened, his very heart frightened him, for
+it beat so loudly, he waited in fear that it would alarm the bears, or
+betray him into their clutches.  Beat, beat, went his heart; tang,
+tang, went the insects; hoot, hoot, went the owls; and on, and on rode
+the moon.  Again his flint was examined; again his tinder-box felt for,
+and his torch fixed for lighting when it might be needed in the woods;
+and his eager ear opened wider and wider to catch a rustling noise.
+
+At last the corn rustled, and footfalls sounded faintly in his ear, and
+Colwell crept up and whispered, "The bears are in! don't you hear 'em?
+They're movin' this way.  There! hear 'em rattle the corn!--There,
+there again, hear 'em snuffle and chank!"
+
+"I hear something," said Fabens.
+
+"That's 'um!  Old Bruin has come with his wife and children.  We'll
+give 'em a belly full.  Stay here, Fabens, and I'll sly away, and start
+up the company.  Hear that! and that!--they're snorters!  Slink down
+into the stump; and if our comin' scares 'em, jump out and keep track a
+little.  Don't be scart.  We'll be along in a jiffy, and nab the
+varmints."
+
+Colwell crept away, and exchanged a word with Wilson, and then stole
+off to rally the company.  But Fabens began to shudder in his
+sentry-box.  He had grown to be quite a backwoodsman; he had taken the
+strength and courage of the wild forest life; he was usually calm and
+self-possessed; but here was a new venture entirely, and while beat,
+beat, went his heart in rising alarm, the loud and louder rattle of the
+corn informed him of the closer coming of the animals.  Now he hears
+them tear off an ear!  Now they craunch it, and crowd snuffling along
+through the corn-hills!  Now they cough, and his wildest fears are up;
+and now they breathe in hearing, and move as if for the place of his
+concealment, strip down a stalk, and rend off an ear, as he thinks,
+where Colwell just lay!
+
+What shall he do?  If he stirs, they may grasp him.  If he remains,
+they will surely scent him out, and take him.  O, terrible moment!
+Where in the world are the company, that they do not run to his relief?
+His hair stands on end, lifting his hat so high, the bears _must_ see
+him now!--Shall he rise and shoot?  He would be likely to miss, he is
+so awkward with a gun.  Why did he consent to lie there?  Why don't
+they come, as they said they would?--There! there! a step nearer, and
+the grate of their teeth sets him shivering!  Now, now he must
+die!--Must he not? or what other sound is that more distant?
+Footsteps--a whisper, and--they come, they come! and away jump the
+bears, and away with dogs, axes, guns, and torches after them go the
+men of the hunt!
+
+"Now, Fabens, up and away; the fun's afoot, the fun's afoot!" cried
+Colwell.
+
+"Yes; but _such_ fun!" faltered Fabens.
+
+"Come on, come on!  Mr. Bruin and his cubs shall have a good visit at
+their home!" cried Wilson.
+
+"Nothing could be more in the nick of time!" cried Uncle Walter.
+
+"We git 'em now!" said the Indians.
+
+"Seek 'em, Bose! seek 'em, Spanker! seek 'em Nig! seek 'em, Watch!"
+shouted Flaxman; and with flaring lights, and clatter, and howl, and
+laugh, and halloo, away they pursued the bounding game.  Now they take
+the woods.  Now the bears rush down the hill, cross the stream, run in
+the gully, and race away; and dogs and men follow close and closer on
+their track.  Now they worry up a difficult bank, and scuttle and
+wheeze away, away.  But the dogs gain upon them; the torches alarm
+them; the ground is not safe, and they climb the trees, as the hunters
+all wish, and seek concealment in the shadow of closely covering leaves.
+
+"Up a tree, be you, Mr. Bruin, eh?" cried Colwell.
+
+"What can you do now?" asked Fabens.
+
+"Down with the tree!" shouted Flaxman.
+
+"No, let me see if I can't fetch the fellow with my old gun," cried
+Uncle Walter.  "I reckon I can reach him.  I've picked bears out of
+taller trees than that."
+
+"What's there?" shouted Flaxman.  "There's two on 'em treed.  See the
+dogs tear away at the foot of yon maple!  Let's slash down the trees,
+and give the dogs a little more fun.  Old Spank's ready to jump out of
+his skin, he's so fairse.  And see Nig on his hind legs, and Watch jump
+up and nip the bark from the tree.  Down with them, and give the dogs a
+little more fun."
+
+"No, no; I'll see first if I can't tickle 'em with quicker fun," said
+Uncle Walter; and all agreed that he should give a try.  So the torches
+were held away, that they might not blind him; and clear eyes searched
+to spy them by a few broken beams of the moon.
+
+"You'll have to cut the trees, or give 'em up," shouted Flaxman.
+
+"It's dark as Egypt up in them thick leaves," said Colwell.  "Skin your
+keenest eye, Uncle Walt, and then I guess you won't spy your game."
+
+"Hold, boys! hold on, hold on!" cried Uncle Walter.  "I spy one!  Here,
+Colwell! you see that big limb, don't you? run a sharp look up that,
+and tell us what that black bunch is, eh?"
+
+"'S a bear, 's a bear, give him gowdy!" cried Colwell; and Uncle Walter
+laid his best eye on his old queen's-arm, and fired.  Rustle, rustle,
+went the leaves; a limb snapped; a growl exploded; a rattling wheeze
+ran shuddering on the still air; a shower of bark, scratched front the
+tree, clattered down on the leaves; and then a groan--then
+thrash--bound came a bear against the earth; and a torch at his nose
+gave Uncle Walter to cry, "Dead--he's dead's a nit!  Now, Miss Moon,
+hang your lantern in t'other tree, and I'll bring down Bruin's wife to
+sleep by his side, I will."
+
+"No, you've had fun enough for one night, Uncle Walt, and now let
+Fabens try," said Colwell.
+
+The gun was re-loaded, and soon the moonlight through the leaves
+betrayed the other bear; and after a little hesitation, Fabens took aim
+and fired.  But his hand shook, and his shot was lost in the air; and
+Uncle Walter fired, and snap--crash--bound--came the other bear.  The
+dogs rushed upon her, and flew back in full shriek.  Then Fabens showed
+courage, and made up to her, before knowing the danger, and the wounded
+bear uttered a horrible growl, and gave him chase!
+
+Terror was up in a moment, and leaped from heart to heart.  Away
+bounded Fabens, and closely on his heels bounded the grim and
+open-mouthed bear.  Over a rock he leaped, round a tree he ran, and the
+bear bounded after.  Then came dogs and men, and were repulsed with
+shrieks and ejaculations.  Then they renewed the attack; and as old
+Spanker caught her by the leg, and she turned upon the dog in fury,
+Colwell put a ball through her head, and the fearful chase was over.
+
+"A narrow squeak for you, Fabens," said Wilson, "a very narrow squeak."
+
+"Too narrow, I declare," said Uncle Walter.  "I cannot stand that, I
+must set down.  I thought Matthew was a gonner, and the fright takes
+the tuck out o' my old knees."
+
+"I never was so scart afore," said Flaxman; and, "You'll not call me
+fool, if I sit down too," said Fabens, with white lips.  "I am not used
+to this as you are.  It is too rough, too rough for a new settler;" and
+down he threw himself by Uncle Walter; while the others, declaring two
+were enough for that night, gathered up the guns and axes, and, when
+the bears were dressed and hung up on trees, the company left the
+woods, declaring they would have a grand feast, and pay Fabens for his
+fright, if he would meet them at Mr. Waldron's the next evening.
+
+Recovering a little from his fainting terror, Fabens joined their
+conversation, as they returned to their homes; and long before his eyes
+found the first wink of sleep, his mind wandered in perilous
+adventures, and in pleasant and unpleasant thoughts of the wild forest
+life.  He would attend the supper at Mr. Waldron's; he would try to
+contribute his share of talk and enjoyment; but on another bear-hunt he
+resolved never to go.
+
+
+
+[1] A barbarous way of killing pigeons caught in a net.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A FEAST AND A STORY.
+
+Morning returned; the day rolled away; and the appointed evening found
+the hunting party at Mr. Waldron's, and the sweet metheglin went round
+in flowing bowls; and all were jovial and ready with talk, and wit, and
+glee.  The table was spread with luxuries.  The savory viands smoked
+from multiplied motherly platters; and there were Indian bread, potato
+and turnip sauce, cranberry and wild plum sauce, a stack of wild honey
+in the snow-white comb, and cakes and pumpkin pies.
+
+The bear's meat was discussed with fairness and spirit, and pronounced
+right fat and fine; and the supper, washed down before and after with
+metheglin of Aunt Polly's happiest mix, was taken with good relish.
+
+"You get nothing better'n this on the Hudson, I reckon," said Uncle
+Walter to Fabens.  "Give me a new country after all for elbow-room, a
+sharp appetite and a good pick o' game.  I guess the Major wouldn't
+loathe such a bite as this."
+
+"Aunt Polly for a supper of bear's meat, I say," added Colwell.
+
+"Aunt Polly for the fixins too," added Wilson.
+
+"Such fixins don't come afore every gang o' hungry hunters," added
+Flaxman.  "Is't sage, or savory sprinkled on this meat?  This plum
+sauce don't cly my appetite a bit; nor these fried scutlets; and I love
+to gnash my shovel-teeth on a clean comb o' honey; and honey, they say,
+is healin'."
+
+"If you eat any more honey, Flaxman," said Wilson, "Uncle Mose 'll have
+to take you up.  He'll make more'n he would to take up a bee-hive.  But
+did ever anybody else get up a lusciouser pumpkin-pie?  Aunt Polly
+always makes 'em deep enough to swim in; and she don't spare the maple
+sugar at all, nor the ginger, nor the shortnin' in the crust.  And she
+crimps the edges so curious."
+
+"How do _you_ like a batin' like this, Fabens?" asked Colwell.  "What
+makes you so mum? aint home-sick, be you?"
+
+"I like it well, I assure you.  I didn't think bear's meat was so
+fine," answered Fabens.  "I am not homesick; I was just thinking how
+she chased me, and how narrowly I escaped."
+
+"It was much as ever," said Teezle, "much as ever that the critter
+didn't mutton you.  She skipped like a painter, and whet up her teeth
+for a whalin' bite.  But don't think on it now.  Here, who'll tell a
+good story, and cheer up Fabens a little?  Uncle Walt, tell one of your
+painter stories.  That 'll wean him of his fright."
+
+"O, yes, tell a painter story," said Colwell.
+
+"Yes, that's the thing," added Wilson.
+
+"Fabens's run was only a jolly game o' gool, compared with your pull
+and squeeze with a painter," added Mr. Waldron.
+
+"The one on the tree, that watched me half a day, cat-fashion? or the
+one that dogged me through the Owasco woods? or the one that chased me
+home to the chips?" asked Uncle Walter.
+
+"Any one will answer to wean Fabens of his fright," said Teezle.
+
+"Well, I'll tell the first that comes up in my mind," said Uncle
+Walter, "and may be another one still will come.  Another bowl of
+metheglin, and then for the story."  He took the metheglin and began.
+"It was the second year after we come here, and a day in November: the
+day after I finished husking.  Huldah reckoned a wild turkey wouldn't
+go with a bad relish, and so I shouldered the old gun in the morning,
+and letting Bose follow slyly along behind, I put away out into the
+woods.  I killed three or four pigeons, and a squirrel, and snipe; but
+on and on, and round, I ranged, afore I could get a single crack at a
+turkey.  But a flock flew up at last, and one proud old Tom taking a
+tall maple in sight, and swinging his red gorget as if to dare a shot,
+I fired, and plump he come to the ground, while the rest flew away.
+
+"Well, after all, this aint bad doings, thought I, and shouldered my
+game on my gun, and set my sails for home.  I got a little puzzled
+about the pint o' compass; still I thought I was right, and putting
+ahead pretty good shin; when all at once Bose howled out, and the
+leaves rattled, and the ground rumbled, and up a shagbark walnut leapt
+a yellow painter like a cat, making the bark all fly again, and dashing
+her way to the tiptop limb o' the tree.  Thinks I, my fellow, you
+wouldn't be very small game, and your yellow jacket wouldn't be bad for
+a winter wescot; so I took a close, quick aim and fired.  Down tumbled
+the painter, with a hole through her liver 'n lights, and no time to
+breathe her last.  It was a she painter, and I stripped off her hide in
+a hurry, slung it on my shoulder, and budged on again, as I reckoned,
+towards home.
+
+"It was getting well on to night, and as it grew darkish in the woods,
+and the pint o' compass still pestered me, and I didn't know but my old
+head had got backside to, I confess I begun to feel a little skittish,
+and throwed away all my game but the turkey and painter skin, to
+lighten my load, and took a spryer step through the staddles.  It
+wasn't the best o' walking, for logs were thick, and the grape-vines
+tript me some; and I had to nod and squirl for the staddles and limbs.
+I went, I should reckon, about three miles from where I shot and
+skinned the painter, and the last half-mile was clearer of logs and
+underwood; and let in a flash of sunshine now and then, and I thought I
+was coming to an opening.
+
+"All at once I heard a halloo, and hauled up, and listened.  I heard it
+again more distinct, and it sounded sharper 'n a halloo, and yet I
+reckoned somebody was calling.  I bellowed back an answer, and an
+answer flew back like a woman calling.  It was closer by than at first,
+and it trembled, and swelled in the screeching echo.  I reckoned surely
+I warn't fur from home, and it was Huldah after me, calling.  Away I
+shouted again; and back flew an answer full scream, and now it was a
+good 'eal nearer.  It couldn't be Huldah.  It sounded a little like her
+voice, but it screamed sharper than she ever did in a call or a scold.
+Louder, and sharper, and nearer come another singe-er of a scream, and
+I knew in a trice what it was.  It was a painter; and the mate of the
+one I had killed!
+
+"I thought of my gun, but I hadn't re-loaded.  I felt for aminition,
+and there was only one single charge left!  Scream--yell, come the
+sound oftener and nearer, and there I was, as you may say, a-most
+destitute of all means of battle.  I turned cold all over, and my hair
+stood up like a hedgehog's.  But not a second was to be lost; for the
+scream shook the staddles, and rung and rolled.  So I loaded my gun
+with the last little charge, and legged it like Jehu, as Aunt Polly
+says, for several rods; then throwed down my game and jumped as fur as
+I could any way spring out sideways from my track; and a few jumps took
+me about six rods from my painter skin and turkey; and there I waited
+on my last legs, with my gun cocked, and butcher-knife slung, and Bose
+at my feet for a battle.
+
+"The sun was just sliding down west o' my aim; so I had the advantage
+of all the light there was, and a big sugar-maple for a cover and rest.
+It was all done in a jiffy, while yell-ety-yell, scream-ety-scream come
+the sound, and the wild old woods rung again, and shuddered and shook
+with the echo!  A thousand thoughts darted through my head as if
+lightning had chased 'em.  I thought of poor Huldah; how she would
+feel, and what she would do, and what would become of her, away off
+here in the wilderness, if I was killed.  I thought of her, and wanted
+to see her, and bid her good-bye at least; and would a give money for
+that little comfort.
+
+"But scream-ety-scream come the sound, and my flesh crawled all over as
+if in a nightmare, and I sweat like rain.  Now the scream was
+continual, and I heard every bound the fury made!  Now it stopped.  It
+was back only half a mile, where I throwed down my squirrel and birds!
+Two minutes more would bring him afore me;--yes, one,--for on he
+bounded and yelled more dreadful than ever; and Bose cuddled closer to
+my feet, and brustled up his hair all over; showed me his sharp teeth
+were in, and give a look that said, 'Keep your gun ready, and I'll nab
+him as quick as you fire.'
+
+"Them last yells fairly crazed me from top to toe, with courage; and
+now he jumped in full sight--over logs and through bushes, with head
+down, snuffing close on my track!  Leap-ety-leap, he bounced to the
+skin and turkey; and O, such fiery eyes as then glared and blazed! and
+such yells as he give!  Then up started the hair on his ridgy back, and
+thrash, thrash, to and fro, like a mad cat's, throbbed his tail! and he
+snuffed for my track again.  I raised my old gun, and partly getting
+the scent, he turned his head upwards, and his eyes flashed fire in my
+face!  But afore he could spring on me, I plumped a charge into his
+face and eyes, and dropped him, as Aunt Polly did the tory.  Then Bose
+made a lunge on the critter; but he warn't dead yet, and in they
+grappled for life or death!  Then dog's hair and painter's hair flew
+like flax in the brake, I tell you.  And then there was growling and
+craunching, I reckon.  I see Bose was going to be worsted, and I closed
+in to give him a lift.  My sleeves were scratched off in a jiffy, and
+the skin striddled from my arms.  And such flashes of fire from them
+blazing eyes, and such a growl as I got for my pains!  I jumped back
+behind a tree; the painter jumped after me, and just missed my legs,
+tearing away my old leather breeches from the knees, where I patched
+'em with a stocking the day afore.  Then Bose sprung on the painter,
+and I closed in again; and just as the beast made for a bigger bite of
+me, as luck would have it, I stuck my old butcher-knife through his
+heart, and he fell down dead on my feet.
+
+"When that was done, and I was safe, I felt pale, you may depend!  I
+set down, and poor Bose laid his bloody head in my lap, and licked my
+hands, and whined for joy; and I was so thankful to the old fellow, I
+kissed him, I did, and cried like a baby.
+
+"But it was getting dark, and more painters might come, or a pack of
+howling wolves be on me; so taking only my turkey and gun, I drawed a
+bee line homeward.  I went about a mile, and heard wolves howl a good
+ways off; but now I knew I was pretty near home, and my fears left me;
+while soon my log shanty hove in sight, and Huldah met me on the edge
+of the clearing, and said, 'I begun to be concerned about you.  What!
+only one turkey?  Well, that is better'n none.  The chores are all
+done, and supper is waiting.'"
+
+"That was a narrow escape, indeed," said Fabens.
+
+"That makes your bear-chase a clever game o' tag," said Wilson.
+
+"That's a good ending for a hunting-feast," said Mr. Waldron; and the
+company drew back from the table, and thanking Aunt Polly for her fine
+supper, they all went away to their homes.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+JULIA WILMER.
+
+A delightful ride of a single day, and most of the distance on the
+rail-way, will carry us now through a grand succession of waving
+harvests and verdant woods, of swarming hamlets and splendid towns,
+from the Cayuga to the Hudson, and set us down in Cloverdale, whose
+lovely homes nestle like a brood of milk-white doves in the covert of
+the Rensselaer hills.  And then performing a journey of thought a
+little more rapid and long, we return to the time of our story,
+recalling the year and season, and admit another character to our scene.
+
+We find it a pleasant afternoon for a walk.  The blue Indian summer
+opens blandly around, and imbibing beauty and gladness through every
+sense and pore, we walk a good while, and then turn our steps to the
+mansion of the Masons; enjoy a free talk and a cozy cup of tea, and get
+a glance at Julia Wilmer.
+
+The Masons have a lower and narrower mansion than they mean to have in
+a very few years; and their family grows, and crowds it too much; but
+it has a neat appearance, and the elms and maples in front, and the
+apples and peaches on the sides and rear, give it pleasant shades and
+delicious comforts.  And the moral and mental scenery within, has many
+lights, and verdures and fruits.
+
+The Masons are very good people.  They are honest and industrious; they
+often relieve distress; and they have a few fine volumes on the dresser
+that most of them know by heart.  The principal fault that any one
+finds with the Masons is, that they are too exacting in a bargain, too
+grasping for money and lands, and expect and demand, too much of their
+servants.
+
+Julia Wilmer loves them, for they took her when an orphan, gave her a
+comfortable home, and reared her to womanhood with virtue, intelligence
+and hope.
+
+And we see that Julia carries a crimson face, and smiling look;
+although she stoops considerably, and her long arms and loping gait,
+make her appear to many, ungainly; she is ruddy as a rareripe peach,
+and smiles from her forehead and eyes, and face and mouth.
+
+But a feeling of sadness agitates our heart as we glance at Julia's
+history.  Orphanage presents, in the brightest relief, one of the
+saddest sights that our weeping eyes behold; and hers was especially
+sad.  Her father, mother and two sisters were all carried off to the
+grave in the space of one week, which she was spending abroad with a
+poor relative; and she was left without the comfort of a parting word
+or kiss, and cast upon the world at a tender and almost helpless age,
+with no provision for her welfare.  Her poor sobbing heart came well
+nigh breaking, and though her pitiful condition, and her sweet and
+attracting manners, ensured her much sympathy, and many friends; yet
+none could think to offer her a home, and take the place of her family,
+but the Masons, of whom we speak.  They took her home at last, and gave
+her shelter from the storms.  They engaged to rear her to womanhood,
+and shield her from harm and need.  They were always kind to her, and
+she never received a harsh word or look from them.  They cultured her
+fine sense, and gave her a knowledge of books and things.  They trained
+her against deceptions.  They gave her entire person, the reason, the
+will, affections and form, as finished an education, as one often found
+at that day among intelligent farmers.
+
+And yet they did not do right by Julia.  She was large of her age, and
+all the more tender for being large; and they tasked her too severely,
+and exacted too much of her.  She performed boy's work too often; she
+was dropping potatoes or pulling weeds, or spreading hay in the field,
+when she ought to have been sewing or doing house-work; she milked too
+many cows; she carried too many pails of sap in the sugar bush; she
+gleaned too much wheat; she sewed on hard sewing too long at a time;
+she spun too much wool and flax, and turned too many cheeses.  The
+consequence was, that while she retained much of a superabundant
+cheerfulness, she was stoop-shouldered, and looked narrow over the
+chest; her form was less elastic, and her hands were hard and homely.
+
+But if Matthew Fabens had searched the wide world over, he would not
+have found a better bride than she.  He had known her from a child, and
+could well appreciate her intelligence and worth.  He chose her in a
+love, whose affiance was sanctioned in heaven; and after three years'
+absence in the Lake Country, he and Julia met again at his father's
+house.
+
+The joy of that home, at that meeting, you may well imagine, was hearty
+and high.  The young people feared it was too much to enjoy long.  The
+old people wept and smiled, and pressed and fondled their son in
+childish delight, and asked if it could be he, or did they not dream?
+and how he had been, and if he still set his heart on his western home.
+They rejoiced till midnight, and hurried each other with questions, and
+wearied each other with talk.
+
+"It looks pleasant as ever in Cloverdale," said Matthew.  "Home is
+home, after all.  The old hills looked so good, I wanted to kiss 'em,
+when they hove in sight.  Nothing appears altered; the old church looks
+good as ever; and the old elm-tree seemed to know me, and welcome me
+back with its waving limbs; and the house here--every room is just as I
+left it; and the water from the well tastes as cold and sweet; and I
+cannot see but you all look about as you did, when I went away.  I knew
+father would hold his age; but I expected mother would look a little
+older.  Julia, if she's altered at all, her hair is more of a chestnut,
+her cheeks are rounder, and a little more ruddy, and she is straighter
+than she was.  But none of you can tell how I feel to see you all once
+more, and sit down under this old roof again.  Home is home, after all!"
+
+"You'll hate to go back again, won't you, Matthew?" asked Major Fabens.
+
+"I shall grieve to leave you and mother again, but I am not quite ready
+to have you go on with me this time.  I want to do more to my farm; I
+want to build an addition to my log-house for you, and prepare a little
+more to make you comfortable.  Yes, I shall always feel sad to leave
+Cloverdale, though I like the Waldron Settlement quite as well."
+
+"Think you can get a living, and build up a manhood there then, do you?"
+
+"A good living, I am sure I can get; I hope I may build up a manhood.
+I like the country well; it is a rich soil, and very easy to cultivate.
+My cornfield is as mellow as a bed of ashes this year; I had a fine
+field of red-chaff wheat, with full heads, a plump berry, and straw as
+bright as a dollar; and I wish I could have brought down some of my big
+pumpkins and melons."
+
+"I think I shall like it pretty well, if I live to get there; I love a
+new country; it gives you more space to breathe in.  The air is
+sweeter, the woods are grander, the grass is greener, crops are more
+perfect, neighbors are freer-hearted, and a man prospers faster there.
+You have good neighbors, and I hear that you have some good times in
+the settlement.  Think you will like a home in the wild, wild woods,
+Julia?"
+
+"I think I shall.  Cousin John lives where it is quite new, and I am
+delighted to go there.  I know I shall like it on the Cayuga.  I will
+be in my joy, setting my table for a hunting party, or a harvest feast."
+
+"I know you will all like it, and when we all get there, if Heaven
+smiles, my joy will be complete."
+
+They retired, and attempted to sleep; the morning came, and Matthew
+rose and completed the circuit of his calls and visits.  A week flew
+away, and his visiting was done, and Julia Wilmer was Julia Fabens, and
+with the blessings of fond parents, they departed for their far forest
+home.
+
+The journey was long and difficult for Julia to undertake.  They could
+not then journey as now, on the rapid railway, winding green valleys,
+ascending great hills, and gliding through cities and towns, with as
+gentle a whirl, and as jocund a clack as if spinning skeins of silk.
+They mounted the tardy wagon, and rattled and jounced along behind a
+loitering team.  But Julia had fortitude and spirit, to meet fatigues
+and discouragements bravely.  Her early experience now furnished the
+fruits that could most refresh her heart; the fruits of courage, hope,
+and self-assistance.  She expected the journey of life would not always
+be smooth, and she hoped it would not have more to buffet her joy, or
+jostle, or weary, than the road to the Waldron Settlement.
+
+They came to the land of lakes.  Emerging from a dense forest, on the
+last morning of the journey, they welcomed the light of an opening, and
+the sweet Skaneateles glowed upon their eyes.  They were moving along
+its foot, and it glimmered and waved like a lake of quicksilver, in
+reply to the smiles of a splendid sky.
+
+"Is this your Cayuga?  How lovely!--What! are we in the settlement so
+soon?" asked Julia, with joy flashing from her eyes, and hope
+rekindling on her cheeks.
+
+"No, we are near the settlement," said Matthew.  "This is the
+Skaneateles.  Have courage, my dear.  I have brought you over a long,
+rough way.  You are weary, I know, but have courage now.  We shall
+reach home to-night."
+
+They refreshed themselves with luncheon from their basket, and cool,
+sweet water from the lake, and rode on a few hours longer, and another
+lake saluted them with a bright smile of welcome.
+
+"Then, this is your Cayuga?"
+
+"No, this is the Owasco; but we have not far to go.  Cheer up, Julia,
+cheer up, now, and prepare your dainty eyes for a peep at the loveliest
+Eden."
+
+They rode awhile longer, and another lake burst in beauty on their
+gaze.  "I know that is it, and here we come to the settlement.  I
+declare it is a lovely spot, worth coming to see!  What waters, and
+woods, and fields!  I shall love this place, I know I shall.  Ho! there
+comes Uncle Walter to meet us now!"
+
+And Uncle Walter was followed by Aunt Huldah, and Matthew and Julia
+were heartily shaken, questioned and kissed, and led into the house,
+and served to hospitalities, that would flatter and refresh the
+proudest mortal's heart.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE NEW HOME AND SETTLEMENT.
+
+Matthew and Julia rose in the morning and went into their new home.  It
+was a great change for Julia, and nothing but contrasts reminded her of
+her home at Mr. Mason's.  But somehow it suited her heart the moment
+she entered its doorway, and she took charge of its interests with
+pride and joy; and hours, and days, and weeks, and months, and years
+passed by with a much more rapid flight than before she was a bride.
+
+And following the steps of Time through a few more rounds of his race,
+and omitting to note the common events that rise up on the way, we will
+now pause at a new stage of action, and attempt to recall the scenes.
+The house remains yet before us, the same as when Julia first saw it,
+except that a small addition has been built and furnished; a partition
+takes off a bedroom from one end, and another window has been cut and
+set in the chamber.  It is a handsome log house as one would find in
+all the Waldron Settlement.  It is long and wide.  The logs are hewn on
+the inside; it has a white maple floor below, and a white basswood
+floor above; it has a large open fireplace, and a stick chimney,
+through which, as through a telescope, the stars may be counted at
+night; and, whitewashed above and around, it presents a neat and
+pleasant appearance.
+
+The house stands on an eminence which overlooks nearly every field on
+the farm, and admits you to sights as distant as the blue mountain
+fringes lifted away beyond Ithaca in the south.  There are maples,
+ashes, and elms in the door-yard; there is a beautiful garden on the
+east, and a cool and delightful spring of water on the west.  There is
+a log barn, thatched with straw, on the right; and barracks for wheat
+and hay, and cribs for corn, on the left.  There is already a fine
+meadow of timothy, with white-ash shade trees, waving on the north; a
+pasture beyond the garden on the east, and a wheat-field on the south.
+Then a cornfield greets you west, and your eyes enjoy the scene.
+
+Around this lovely spot, the distance of a field on either side of the
+house, the woods still wave their crowns of majesty, and hide the
+Owasco, and most of the Cayuga from view.
+
+As master of this little rural domain, you behold Matthew Fabens, now
+grown to ample manhood; and he would make a fine bust for Powers to cut
+in marble.  He stands six feet one without his shoes; he is straight as
+the white-ash shade tree that honors the north meadow; and his body,
+and arms, and legs, are round, and hard, and clean.  He has a fine
+turned head, deficient most in caution; high in benevolence,
+veneration, and conscientiousness; and full in the regions that show he
+can construct his own implements and comforts; arrange his farm with
+order and taste; estimate values at a glance, and cast up accounts
+without a slate and pencil.  He has a fine turned Roman nose of the
+cleanest and fairest skin; he has a well-shaped ear, rounded, and
+separate at the bottom from the head; he has brown hair, and dark gray
+eyes; he has a noble face and brilliant countenance; he has teeth
+standing straight, and square and separate, and though they never were
+brushed, they glisten with the cleanest and smoothest ivory polish; he
+has a good-sized mouth, not too compressed, like a skin-flint's, nor
+too open or lax like a fool's.  He has a chin, throat, and chest,
+showing energy of soul and body combined; and if twenty years older, he
+would do fine honors to a president's chair.
+
+Yonder, in the garden, arranging beds for winter vegetables, and
+tending a few simple flowers, you behold Julia Fabens, and she has
+quite outgrown the bend in her good form, which hard work brought on at
+Mason's, and looks more mature, and hardy; and she is diligent as a
+parent robin, and rosy and glad as the sweet summer morn.
+
+Wiping the sweat from their frank foreheads and faces, there in the
+cool, fresh current of air, sit Major Fabens and his venerable wife,
+come on to this new country to draw freer breath, taste fairer fruit,
+see greener thrift, and make a good son happy; and they are just
+returned from a ramble by the lake.
+
+Out near the well curb, toward the green maple on the right, plays our
+loved little Clinton, the plump and laughing idol of the place; tossing
+his ball out of sight into that cluster of golden mullens, and then
+scampering full tilt after the broods of young chickens and turkeys
+that peep about the door.  Clinton is a promising boy, and the worst of
+it is, he begins to find it out.  But everybody likes him.  He has most
+of his father's look, with his mother's force and caution added, he
+laughs all over his cunning little face; his yellow locks crinkle all
+over his head; and his hands are so soft, and his neck so fat and
+clean, you love to catch him to your heart, and hug him, and chuckle
+beneath his chin, and carry away his sweetest strawberry kisses.
+
+And stretched on the grass-plat before the door, sleeps the good dog
+Jowler; shaggy and rough as a wolf; yet faithful and kind; resting from
+a range in the woods, and dreaming of squirrels and coons.
+
+Look around you a little, and tell us where is a handsomer spot!  True,
+it has not the ornament and regularity of an old estate.  Handsome
+buildings, and the smoothest meadow-lands are nowhere to be seen.  The
+stir and strife of a village are not here, nor the signs of ancient
+opulence, except what Nature boasts; nor the voice of cultivated music.
+But walk about, and view the scene.
+
+The woods are arrayed in all their pomp and splendor; the fields have
+the warmest and richest light to kindle their royal verdures; along the
+trails, and in every little tract of sunshine, the flowers of the
+forest hold forth their sweet and modest blooms; and while birds of
+every wing and song, continue their full concert from twilight to
+twilight, you may hear, if you listen, the chime of the cheering
+cowbell, made mellow by the distance, wakening the music of contentment
+in the heart, tolling the steps of the tripping hours, and sounding the
+notes of rural bliss.
+
+We set out in company to visit the settlers, and the birds salute us on
+our way, and the air comes cool and fragrant to our lips.  We pause and
+survey the sugar camp, and a herd of fleet deer caper by, leading a
+troop of frolicking fawns, and seeming to send back the word, "see our
+darlings."  Casting your eyes aloft to the top of that tall maple, you
+discover a bee tree, and behold numberless diligent little beings going
+and coming on the business of a miniature state.  Then you hear the
+chip-squirrels chirrup, and the red squirrels mock; then the hen-hawks
+chatter and shriek in the air, and the crows caw and clamor; the
+thrushes and swamp robins bandy their boasts in challenges of music;
+the blue jay gossips, and the cuckoo cries.
+
+"Whose cabin is this?" do you inquire?  Tilly Troffater's.  A
+swaggering, boisterous little body too, is he, and his legs are short
+and bandy, as you have seen a creeper cockerel's: he has one eye black
+and one eye blue, and both are glazed and dull as the knobs on earthen
+tea-pot covers.  His ears are round, and stick forward like a weasel's;
+his form is square and supple, and he stands more than perpendicular.
+Ready and sharp is he for a joke, cold and unfeeling in manner, and
+troublesome as the varlet blackbirds that sit on a tree and gabble and
+moot, while other birds give you music.
+
+There sits his wife, milking the late-found cow.  She has a ludicrous
+look.  An old rag of linsey-woolsey hugs her spindle form; her teeth
+are shovels, and cleave down her nether lip; her eyes catch every point
+of the compass across each other's glance; her forehead is low, her
+hair, a smoky white, and her voice, now flat, now treble, and now
+sharp.  But a kinder, or more guileless heart never warmed a human
+breast, than that which lies in Dinah Troffater's; and whoever were in
+fault regarding her strange looks, they cannot criminate her as
+accessary.  She milks the cow, and yonder come leaping like vagrant
+foxes, her half-wild children, with a few dry sticks for the cabin fire.
+
+Going on two miles farther, we come to Mr. Waldron's, and find him
+nestled quietly under a hill in his double log-house, with a view of
+the lake on the west, and with comforts all around him.  We find Aunt
+Polly too, and she lays down her distaff, welcomes us in, tells us a
+story of the backwoods, and gives us a taste of her new metheglin.
+
+Then we come to Uncle Walter Mowry's, and hear he is off on a hunt in
+the woods, while Aunt Huldah excuses the soap and sand on her hands,
+and welcomes us in with joy.
+
+Then we give Teezle a visit; then we see Wilson, and enter the shop on
+the stream, where he makes chairs, shoes, and carpenter-work on a rainy
+day; and he reminds us of the bear hunt.  Then we see Flaxman, and hear
+him and Phoebe sing the same old nasal song, and observe their thrift
+and comfort.  Then we visit Colwell, and the wives and children of all
+greet us with kindness, and a frank good-will in all their words and
+looks.  Upon every heart among them, excepting the heart of Troffater,
+fraternity, courage and hope, luxuriate in harvests as rank and rich,
+as the woods and fields around; and through their clear eyes, we can
+see the honest thoughts of their free and guileless souls, as we see
+the shells and pebbles through the waters of the lake.
+
+We find it a goodly settlement, and you can picture in your mind the
+happiness Fabens enjoys, as he brings each new acre to the harrow, and
+reaps the rewards of his manly toils.  You remain a whole month in his
+hospitable home.
+
+You miss many comforts and luxuries, found in country and town, at the
+present day.  You remark the absence of all outward polish and
+ornament, which get names for refinement in established society.  There
+are no capacious parlors, or splendid lamps to attract you; no sofas
+but moss-cushioned logs in the woods; no ottomans unless a green bank
+of wood-grass will serve you, and neither harp nor piano but the
+distaff and wheel.  All is simple; all is arranged for convenience and
+comfort, as new homes in the backwoods ever are found; and to you it
+may seem odd enough to live so.
+
+You may fancy how simple a lad from this region would appear as he
+might pass your city streets, with his long arms and loping gait;
+reading signs and staring at all the city wonders.  You may fancy the
+backwoods maiden would look verdant and soft in her rustic frock and
+clumsy calf-skin shoes, leaning well to her way as she walked, and
+seeming to devour all city sights and sounds.  But think you, they have
+not drank great spirit and beautiful sense from the breasts of Nature?
+Is it nothing that the backwoods boy lies down in clover meadows, and
+rambles in maple woods, and hears the bobolink and swamp robin sing;
+starts at the sound of Logan's cuckoo, and imitates her lay?
+
+And is it less that the backwoods maiden spins flax and wool; makes the
+fields and woods her flower garden; washes the freckles from her face
+in Aurora's rosiest dew; romps like a wild doe in the valleys; brings
+apples from the orchard, and berries from the hills; and like Lavinia,
+gleans Palemon's fields?
+
+But your heart imbibes the lovely simplicity; your voice falls into
+tune with voices around you; and more and more do you love that rural
+little home, and all its verdant views.
+
+Happier and purer are you made by the wise words of Major Fabens and
+his wife.  Kindly and more free-hearted you grow in the sphere of Julia
+Fabens, whose innocent, womanly nature breathes in unison with all that
+is joyful and pure; whose presence is the life and smile of the place.
+If you have in your soul one sympathy that takes to children, you must
+also love that rosy miniature Fabens, the idolized Clinton, as he vies
+in his sports with the birds and squirrels; gives chase to butterflies
+and bees; and races around the house drawing smiles on his antics;
+darting from sight now and then like a spirit, and making house, and
+fields and woods resound with his merry warble and glee.
+
+A month goes away so pleasantly, you conclude to spend the summer with
+them; and a bright and blissful summer it is as your young heart has
+ever enjoyed.  You cannot stand idle, despising labor.  You catch the
+impulse of the place and people, and none are more ready than you for
+tasks that test courage and strength, and make the warm sweat flood the
+glowing face.  You are up and away in the morning before the
+whippoorwill closes her song; and are breathing the fragrant air, and
+enjoying the brisk exercise that gives the best sauce for breakfast.
+
+You would hunt the stray cow, but you fear being lost, or devoured by
+wild beasts.  You are out on the fallow as they prepare to burn it; and
+you carry fire to a dozen brush heaps, while Fabens and his father fire
+the rest; and behold, the flames meet together in a curtain, and run
+and roar like the waves of a burning sea.
+
+You count the ages of the trees by the rings on the stumps, and say,
+here is a walnut that flourished with Washington; there is a maple of
+Milton's age; and this old oak was a brave young tree when Columbus was
+born.  This ring records a dry season, and that a wet season; this a
+warm one, and that a cold.  What made this elm so stocky and firm and
+high, and gave it such mighty roots and massive limbs?  It grew quite
+alone on the hill, took the storm with the sunshine, and battled the
+blast while others slept in peace.  What made this poplar so weakly?
+It grew in the thicket, and was sheltered from sun and storm.  You see
+in the trees fine types of human life.
+
+You lead rosy Clinton on many a glad ramble.  Your strength increases,
+and you assist in the labors of the field.  You plant corn and weed it;
+and in that act you sow the seeds of energy and hope in your soul, and
+weed it of vices and weakly shoots.  You cut down fireweeds and
+thistles; and still dress your soul withal, more and more.  You set
+deadfalls for corn-pulling squirrels; and entrap with the squirrels
+your follies and fears.  You watch with a watering mouth the growing
+melons and blackening berries; and find sweeter than all, the melons of
+health, arid berries of rural bliss.
+
+Through wood and through opening you wander free; are now on the lake
+in a birchen canoe, and again on the shore in an Indian wigwam.  Your
+time runs out at last, and you return to society with a lagging heart,
+preferring the hale and cheery comforts of backwoods life, hard and
+homely as are its labors, to a life where the multitude gather, and
+Pride and Luxury rule, and Self seeks all honors, and Fashion stands a
+god.  Your memory remains pictorial with the waters, fields and woods
+of the Waldron Settlement; your dreams are illuminated with its lights
+and verdures; and its pleasant times and seasons roll their rounds in
+music through your mind.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+A CAPTIVE.
+
+Another year passes over our little wood-bordered world, and summer
+again smiles on the settlement.  The achievements of labor are
+exhibited in the progress of each new plantation, in the thrift,
+comfort, and hope of each pleasant estate.  A few more families have
+joined the neighborhood; a few more clearings are given to the area of
+civilization; a few more homes and joys.  A new pledge of love is added
+to the Fabens family, and a troop of blissful and tender interests
+succeed.
+
+The hanging woods flourish in full foliage.  Cowslips and pond-lilies
+star the green marshes.  Wild strawberries, large, fragrant, and sweet,
+redden all the knolls, crimson the horses' fetlocks, and cluster in the
+corners of the fences.  Herd's grass and clover struggle into bloom
+along the trails and wagon roads in the forest; and the native grasses
+grow scattering and small.  Young orchards have shed their snowy
+blossoms.  Corn is past its first hoeing; wheat approaches the ear;
+flax holds up to the light and dew the bowls of its clear blue blooms.
+Silver suckers and ruby mullets still linger in the inlets and
+valley-streams.  The horns of the deer are in the velvet.  Fallows look
+clean and mellow, as if ready now for the seed.  Signs of promise wave;
+symbols of blessing bloom on all that gladdens the eye; and Fabens
+thanks God both morning and night for the bounties of his love.
+
+A morning of June tinges the reddening east with its first delicate
+blushes, while the cold pale moon still rides on her lonely way.
+Whippoorwills leave the neighboring boughs and retire to the heart of
+the woodlands; and robins and bluebirds, and thrushes and sparrows, in
+a grand hallelujah chorus, salute the sun on his flaming way.  The howl
+of the wolf ceases; the voice of the water-fowl swells softly and sadly
+from the lake; and the cowbell's chime, and house-dog's bark, make
+harmony in the general song of Nature.  Foxes are home from their felon
+excursions; squirrels are astir; deer are on the upland, feeding.
+Mother Fabens abandons her pillow, and is out from the door, enjoying
+her usual draught of sweet morning air.  The home of her son looks good
+to her as any that the round world can show; and her heart warms with
+joy as she gazes on all the signs of thrift around.
+
+But what object is that which attracts her attention, just bursting
+from the distant thicket?  The meadow is between them, enclosed on
+three sides.  It moves toward her.  It enters the meadow from the
+woods.  It is lithe as a fox; and the sun, just peering above the
+tree-tops, reveals more and more of its beauty.  A felon fox it cannot
+be, out at this bold hour in quest of poultry; nor a panther, nor a
+wolf.  O!  We see now; it is a fairy fawn, looking innocent as a baby;
+and its round sides are dappled as the trout and pickerel in the lake.
+What a sight of the lovely!
+
+She hastens into the house and calls to Matthew, now rising, and he is
+out in a twinkling, back side of the meadow.  The gentle creature
+observes him, and still is not afraid.  He approaches nearer, and the
+fawn makes slowly for a corner, then, fearing captivity, it tries to
+escape between the rails.  "Attempt that again, my beauty," says
+Fabens, "and I'll have you in my arms."  Again goes its head between
+the rails, and Fabens clasps it, struggling and panting like a captive
+bird, to his breast, and bears it in triumph to Julia in the house.
+
+"Beautiful creature!" "lovely lamb of the greenwood!" are the
+exclamations that go round, as the family stand and view it.
+
+"It has strayed from its dam," says one; and, "How it must feel at this
+moment!"  "How soft and sleek its speckled coat!" adds another.  "And
+how mild are its little eyes, and gentle as a sperit's," exclaims
+Mother Fabens.
+
+"Will they kill it?" do you inquire.  Kill it?  No!  How could they lay
+a knife on that delicate throat?  Its tender looks would soften a heart
+of stone, and insure its safety.  But what will they do with the
+panting prisoner?  Not let it go!  Little Clinton would put in his
+decided "No, no!" if they motioned to do such a thing.  See how he
+dances and jabbers around it; touching its cool dewy nose with his
+little fat palms, clasping its velvet neck, soothing it, kissing it,
+and driving old Jowler out of the house, lest he may have a savage
+heart, which he proudly disdains, and offer to bite the beauty.  A
+darling prize is that trembling fawn, as ever graced a dwelling.  "And
+we must keep it," say they all.  Some warm milk is offered it; but it
+turns its head from the basin.  It is placed in a roofless corn-crib,
+on a bed of hay, with food before it; and Fabens works briskly for half
+a day, building a house for it.  The time now is of leas value, as no
+crop is suffering, and he had designed a leisure day of this.  About
+one o'clock the house is completed, and the lovely captive is removed
+to its new home, as gently as you would lay a meek babe in its bed.
+
+They sat down to dinner, and the fawn was the subject of all
+conversation.  "It shall be Clinton's pet and playmate," said Julia;
+"and it shall have a bell on its neck, and eat bread and berries
+shortly out of his hand.  I wish little Fanny was big enough to notice
+the pretty thing, and put her hand on it."
+
+"Dear thing!" said Mother Fabens, "it would seem like my pet lamb, in
+Cloverdale, and I should love it, myself, as I would a child, I'll
+warrant.  But there, it does seem too hard to keep its nimble feet from
+the wild woods, whore it was made to caper?"
+
+"So I think," added the Major.  "I go for giving all their liberty.  I
+would not keep a saucy squirrel shut up in a cage; it would be better
+to kill it."
+
+After a hasty dinner had been taken, they all went out again to see the
+pretty captive, and found it lolling in the hot sun, and looking sad
+and forlorn.  A fresh dish of milk was placed before it, and crumbs of
+sweet Indian bread were offered, but it laid down its poor head on the
+ground, and refused all food and comfort.  Fabens was melted to a tear
+of pity by the sight.
+
+"The poor thing is too sad to eat, I suppose," said he, "and longs for
+a frolic in the forest."
+
+"I would say, down with the bars, and let it away, if it was not
+Clinton's," replied Julia.  "It looks really hard to see it shut up
+here, when its very life is liberty.  But how can we spare it now?"
+
+"See how meek and wishful it looks up to Clinton, when he pats and
+strokes its neck," said Major Fabens.  "I'd like to have the pretty
+fellow around well enough; but it is not right to keep it from the
+woods.  There, it seems to sink into the ground as if all hope was gone
+from its heart."
+
+"The flies buzz about its milk, and bite its tender sides, and still it
+don't mind 'em at all.  It is too hard to keep it, so there!" added
+Matthew.
+
+"But, wouldn't it be better for it to keep it with us, than let it go
+into the dangerous woods to be killed?" asked Julia.
+
+"We div it more to eat," said Clinton, "and I'll tum and seep with it,
+and cuddle up to its back, and Dowler shan't touch it."
+
+"Do what you think best," said Julia; "but I _should_ like to keep it
+for Clinton!"
+
+"But how should we like to be in its place?" asked Matthew, "away from
+our family, confined from our native sports, shut up from the free air
+and hills, though they would feed us well and fuss over us?  I want to
+let down the bars now, and see how quickly it will scamper from its
+prison."
+
+"I feel for it as much as you can," answered Julia.  "I feel for its
+poor mother; and what would I do if Clinton had strayed like the fawn,
+and we knew not where he was?  But do keep it one day longer.  Its
+gentle looks may make Clinton more tender.  I'll pull fresh clover, and
+make its bed softer, and it shall be shaded more coolly from the sun."
+
+"Let it away," said Major Fabens.  "It looks so sad, may be it'll die
+before morning if you keep it penned up here;" and down went the bars,
+and into the house they hastened, and turned, and looked to see it leap
+to the woods.  But it was not away in such a hurry.  It rose, and
+walked gently into the house after them, so tame had it become already,
+and remained a few moments, looking thanks for their kindness; Clinton
+patted its soft shoulders, and kissed it tenderly, and then it walked
+gently away, and vanished in the woods; leaving the beholders more
+tender and kind for the visit, more in love with liberty, and more
+admiring the beautiful creatures of God.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+A LAMB LOST.
+
+The autumn time had come, and fields, and woods, and waters were lit
+with its yellow beams.  The blooms of spring, the splendors of summer
+had departed, or were sobered for the dust.  Still a beauty was on the
+world.  A pure, ethereal mildness breathed as from heaven, and the sun
+was so kindly and glad as he rode on in glory, he gave a sweet glance
+to every suppliant, whether plant or flower, or tree or man; and you
+could have looked into his warm face and felt regaled by his gracious
+smile.  And the holy sky seemed now to stoop down and poise its breast
+on the bending hills, and again in majesty retire to a loftier archway
+of the fair blue Infinite, and glimmer and glow like a sea of glass.
+Eloquent type of the face of that Father whose glory lights the
+heavens, whose spirit breathes, and whose love abounds in every world.
+
+The year had not been all sunlight or joy.  Clouds had gathered and
+dissolved, and disappointments now and then occurred to our manly
+farmer, and called for more faith and courage.  In the summer, the
+rains were so frequent, and superfluous, his crops were damaged, and
+the slopes on his fallows were cut into gullies, and swept of their
+soil.  Premature frosts had nipped his corn slightly, and his buckwheat
+was not worth harvesting.  A tolerable crop of wheat and other grains;
+and a harvest of loves, and lights, and strengths, however, were
+yielded him, to supply all his natural and spiritual needs, and the
+Lord was praised for his gracious care.
+
+Fabens was now advanced to years of more grave reflection, and every
+object in Nature and Life addressed his mind with more suggestive and
+serious words.  His religious impressions were deepened; and his
+religious sentiments, active and susceptible.  He had studied a few
+fine books, and transferred their wisdom to his heart; he had studied
+Nature and Scripture; and he walked in light and peaceful ways.  He
+relied on God as the Infinite Friend; and never a cloud was brought
+over the earth, whether of storm or grief, but he called to mind the
+promise of the Father, "the bow shall be seen in the cloud."
+
+A few frugal comforts were added to his stores, and though he labored
+early and late at tasks that demanded strong arms and rusty raiment,
+where a gentleman in straps and ruffles would have met mortifications
+without number, still he was happy; and like the man of faith described
+in the Scripture, he abounded in blessings.
+
+His parents remained to bless him.  His wife responded to all his
+sympathies, and rendered his home a perennial joy.  Clinton had been
+told of his fourth bright birthday, and the gladness of life budded on
+his heart, and bloomed on his face.  Fanny unfolded the graces of
+childhood as you have seen water-lilies unfold leaf after leaf.  Fabens
+tore himself away from his lambs at seven in the morning, and taking
+his luncheon in a basket, he proceeded to a distant clearing to work
+till night.  At ten o'clock Clinton was presented a new coat and
+trowsers, which his mother had just finished, and he bounded about as
+proudly as a young deer with his first pair of antlers.  Nothing would
+do but he must trip away to the clearing and show them to his father.
+It would be something of a venture to permit him; but he had been there
+several times with his father, and knew the way, and he was allowed to
+go.  A kiss to sweet mother, and a kiss to Fanny were given, and one
+left for grandmother when she returned with her basket of green corn
+for dinner, and away he glided, and Julia looked after and smiled on
+his glee, little suspecting what might spring up and harm him on the
+path.  Hour after hour expired, and Julia's mind ran after the boy; and
+she asked her mother again and again if anything would be likely to
+befall him.  A slight fear occasionally rose, to be suppressed on a
+second thought; and evening advanced while yet their hearts were
+cheerly and at rest.
+
+A fair and jocund day departed, and suddenly a dark cloud mantled the
+heavens, and the moonless night was falling dismal and drear.  Fabens
+was expected by sunset, and at the usual hour, Julia tripped to the
+wood-path with a light heart to meet him, and take his swinging hand in
+her own, as she was accustomed to do, and talk all the way to the
+house.  Hastening on half a mile or more, she spied her husband rising
+over a distant eminence, but he came alone!  Her fears were all roused
+in a moment; she hurried, out of breath, to meet him, and approaching
+him, called in a broken voice--"Where is Clinton? where have you left
+him?"
+
+"Clinton?" replied Fabens in surprise; "I have not seen him since
+morning."
+
+"Not seen him?" ejaculated Julia; "O dear, he started to go to you this
+forenoon.  I'm afraid he's lost, or the wild beasts have caught him!"
+
+"Started to come to me this forenoon?"
+
+"Yes, I finished his new clothes, and he was so pleased, he wanted to
+go and show them to you.  'Twas all done without thinking a moment of
+any danger."
+
+"Mercy, Julia! what shall we do?  He is gone; here it is coming dark as
+pitch,--what _shall_ we do?"
+
+"What can we do?  O Lord, help us!--help us!--Dear me, I can never
+forgive myself if he's lost or hurt!--Why _did_ I let him go?"
+
+"Hurry home, Julia, and tell father and mother, and I'll run over to
+Troffater's; he may be there; Tilly is always teasing children and
+coaxing 'em; he may have seen Clinton and coaxed him home with him.  He
+was chopping by the road when I went along this morning, he may have
+coaxed him home: but O, if he is not there!"
+
+Fabens started on a run for Troffater's, and met two neighbors who had
+just come from his house; they had seen no Clinton; and assured him
+Clinton could not be there.  They all hastened to Fabens', and met
+Julia and the parents; but no Clinton could be heard from.  Darkness
+extinguished the last gleam of heaven, and they shuddered and wept in
+agonies of grief for the lost boy.
+
+"How can we let the night pass without our lamb?" cried Mother Fabens.
+
+"Dear, dear boy!--why _did_ I let him go, when I cannot bear to have
+him out of my sight?  Why _did_ I let him go?" sobbed Julia frantically.
+
+"Will not God be gracious?  O will he not be gracious?" cried Fabens.
+
+"There!  I thought that little fawn was a forerunner of something!"
+exclaimed Mother Fabens.  "That little fawn that came here last June.
+It has haunted my mind ever since.  O I fear it did not come here
+without a warning?"
+
+"But we let it go again," cried Julia; "and will not my pretty, pretty
+fawn be given back to his mother again?  O!  O!"
+
+"An Indian shot a fawn the same day we let that go, and in the same
+direction he went.  I always thought it was that handsome fellow," said
+Major Fabens.
+
+"Mercy! it cannot be the fawn was a forerunner!  O it cannot be that I
+shall not get my Clinton again!" cried Matthew, looking as if ready to
+reel to the ground.  "O friends, do rouse the neighbors! if he's only
+lost, I'm afraid the wolves or panthers will catch him.  You know how
+the wolves have howled of late; and I heard a panther scream last
+night, I thought.  Do rouse the neighbors to advise and help!"
+
+The friends seized torches and were away to the first dwelling.  The
+news flew around as fast as distance would permit; and by nine o'clock
+the whole neighborhood were together with throbbing hearts and anxious
+looks.
+
+"I fetched my horn and cow-bell," said Mr. Waldron; "I made a noise on
+the way.  Horns will scare off painters, and wolves don't like tootin'
+or clatter a mite."
+
+"And I brought mine," added Uncle Walter.
+
+"And I mine," added Teezle.
+
+"We'll blow horns and ring bells," said Teezle; "and you, Colwell and
+Troffater, go and call out the Indians.  They're dreadful good to scare
+off animals and look for lost children."
+
+"Do, for Heaven's sake,--do what you can, if it is dark!" ejaculated
+Julia fainting with grief.
+
+"O, I know you'll not leave a thing undone!" added Matthew,
+beseechingly.  "God give us strength to bear our trouble!  It is
+hard--it is hard to bear trouble like this!"
+
+Colwell and Troffater started for the lake to call up the Indians from
+their wigwams on the shore.  But they were hardly out of sight before
+an ominous change passed lowering over the scene.  A low moaning wind
+swept through the woods and fields, and round the house; and the leaves
+rustled, and the well-sweep swayed and creaked in the blast.  Then a
+drearier dusk succeeded; a fierce and freezing gust from the lake shot
+by; and a long and rending roll of thunder announced the rising of a
+violent storm.  A fleet of ghastly vapors sailed over the zenith; and
+feathery clouds floated after, opening and shutting with the thunder
+and silence, and showing and hiding the stars as they flew.  Then a
+long rift of lightning leaped forth and trailed its blazing banners of
+white, red, and purple in loops and festoons round the sky; and the
+thunder redoubled its might, and closed in, and labored and roared, as
+if wrestling down the world.  Flame after flame, and peal on peal,
+succeeded, and the storm halted over the lake and ran along its course,
+as if bridled for a time, and struggled, and rolled, and roared; then a
+wild thunder rent the rein, and it ran and rested over the settlement,
+and spent its fury, and spun its fire.  The wind blew a hurricane; the
+rain dashed in cataracts; and every electric bolt seemed to shiver the
+cisterns of heaven, and empty rivers of rain.  Then the lightning was
+uninterrupted, and you could have read a book, or counted the trees, or
+viewed the lake by its constant blaze; while now and anon a wilder
+volley exploded, and a more furious flash flew its zigzag flight from
+the zenith to the ground.
+
+It lasted a long hour, and you may imagine the terror and gloom it
+poured on hearts already faint with grief.  You may imagine the shrieks
+and cries of the household; how they called on God to guard and save;
+how the wild, wailing mother rushed out into the storm to recover her
+precious boy, and was beaten back by the wind and flood; what were
+their thoughts of his situation; what were their sobs and sighs.
+
+At last the storm rolled away, and Colwell and Troffater returned, and
+led in a band of Indians.  Counsel was had, and arrangements were made
+for the night.  Horns were sounded; bells were rattled; tin pans and
+hammers were clashed together; and the dark woodlands wailed with the
+echoing sound.  Fires were kindled, and torches flamed on every hand;
+and for one long night, sleep sought no pillow in the settlement.  And
+to thrill all hearts with keener agony, and strain each nerve and cord
+to its utmost tension, a little before daybreak, not a mile from the
+desolate home, the fierce, wild scream of a panther was heard,
+startling the very air to a violent shudder, and receiving angry
+answers from the low lakeshore.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+SEEKING THE LOST LAMB IN VAIN.
+
+Darkness retired.  The twilight glimmered on the tallest trees.
+Morning, so wearily watched-for, came.  The clouds broke in masses, and
+rolled tardily down the sky.  Day gilded the heavens, and the tranquil
+bosom of the low Cayuga mantled in his beams, and reflected the glory
+of his face.  But to the Waldron Settlement that smiling day brought
+little hope, and no enjoyment.  A favorite child was lost from a goodly
+family, and ill feelings were agitated, and all hearts ran after him
+through thicket and field, over hill and valley, like shepherds after a
+lost lamb.  Comfortless and faint, the family assembled at the morning
+altar, and one general sob of grief, and one leaping pulse of anxiety
+went round.  They kneeled for prayer; and the venerable father bore
+their petitions before the Lord.  He prayed for grace to sustain them
+in the trial.  He acknowledged their errors; but bending at the feet of
+Infinite Kindness, he was encouraged to ask for a Father's blessing.
+He prayed for more faith in Providence.  He prayed that they might have
+resignation, and that comfort might come to their hearts in the
+recovery of their little boy.
+
+Grief brooded not over that altar alone.  It sat upon every face; it
+occupied every home; it assailed every heart in the settlement.  Tilly
+Troffater even seemed to share somewhat of the general sorrow, though
+seldom shedding a sympathetic tear.
+
+"I never tuck a great likin' to childern," said he; "but I kindy liked
+little Clint; his cheeks was so soft, and smooth, and his eyes snapped
+sich funny fire; and he was olers so full o' his cunnin' jabber.  I
+hope the painters haint ketched him.  They yelled despotly last night;
+but I hope they haint ketched him yit.  I'd like to see him agin, and
+baird his dimple face for him; the pretty mischief."
+
+"He's worth a long hunt," said Colwell, "and my farm won't suffer if I
+search a month."
+
+"I did not see how I could leave my work," said Wilson; "but I must
+give one hunt for Clinton; I must."
+
+"We mustn't give him up yet.  O, we can't give him up," added Uncle
+Walter; "we couldn't spare a soul from the settlement; we couldn't
+spare the leastest of your little brats, Troffater!  But where are
+Matthew and the Major?"
+
+"They followed Julia to the woods, very early, to see if they could
+find a trace of the boy," replied Mother Fabens.
+
+"Then we must follow them in a trice," said Uncle Walter; and a general
+council was had, and it was agreed that they should form a line of all
+the men and women, four rods apart, and sweep the woods for a distance
+round; and with horns and bells to give salutes, and luncheon to
+refresh them when hungry, they marched through the moaning woods.
+
+Night overtook them while they looked still for day, and they returned
+heavy-hearted and weary to their homes.  Large and diligent had been
+the search, and all the kind Indians were out with them, but no trace
+could be found of the lost boy.  The Indians shook their heads
+dolefully, and gave signs of despair, though little was said in
+discouragement, and all volunteered to continue the search the next
+day.  No fires were kindled that night, and only once, in an hour, the
+horn was sounded, from each house, to give signs of watchfulness, and
+keep the wild beasts in their distant dens.  Morning returned, and
+another council convened to compare suggestions, and commence another
+search.  Mother Fabens related a dream of the last night, and all
+gathered around, to hear it.  She dreamed that Clinton was passing near
+the sugar camp, and a creature standing on his hind legs, rushed upon
+the boy, and bore him off to a multitude that looked like the creature,
+and let him go free among them.  That Clinton wept at first, and tried
+to get away, but after awhile he looked cheerful again, and stayed with
+them till she awoke.
+
+"Dreadful!" cried poor comfortless Julia; "can it, say, can it be true?"
+
+"But that does not show he's killed; and I will not give him up yet,"
+said Uncle Walter.
+
+"The wolves hev muttoned him afore this, you may depend," said
+Troffater.
+
+"I don't believe that," said Colwell.
+
+"And I don't believe you do aither," said Mr. Waldron, to Troffater.
+"There's a good 'eal in that dream, I say now; and it gives me hope.
+Come, let's give another good hunt."
+
+"Hugh!" groaned an Indian, dolefully; "he gone, he dead; we no find
+'im."
+
+"So I b'lieve," added Troffater.  "I dremp las night tew, as wal as
+Granny Fabens; but then our dreams don't agree azackly.  I dremp a
+shaggy wolf ketched 'im.--O, _don't_ cry so, Miss Fabens!--as I was
+goin' to say--I dremp a shaggy wolf ketched 'im, and craunched the
+little feller down, as ye'd eat a tender quail.  Miss Fabens, _don't_
+cry now!--he was all out o' misery perty quick.  I dremp he was dead
+afore he was stript, or his little dimple hands was chanked to
+mince-meat; don't cry _now_."
+
+"You good-for-nothing torment, hold your lying tongue!" said Uncle
+Walter, in a rage; "who wants to hear your dream?  I'd call for a
+polecat's dream as quick.  Shut your lips.  _You_ talk about crying!
+Why, your very words tear open the woman's heart.  I'm struck with what
+Mother Fabens tells."
+
+"It seemed as if I must be awake," resumed Mother Fabens, "it was all
+so plain and natural.  How I did feel when the creature sprung and
+catched little Clinton in his paws!--Awful!  But then, I've a little
+more hope from the dream."
+
+"So've I, Miss Fabens," responded Uncle Walter, in a tone of great
+animation.  "So've I.  Come on, boys, let's look awhile longer.  Come,
+Wilson, come, Colwell and Teezle.  Come, Uncle Mose, your eyes are keen
+for a look as they were when you hunted Hessians in the Jarsies.  But
+Troffater may step out, we can very well spare him."
+
+Three or four gave over, and went home.  Troffater winked and crossed
+his black and blue eyes, took in a quid, spit through his teeth, struck
+up a whistle, and departed; and the Indians manifested less zeal than
+yesterday; but a large company took up the march and searched a day
+longer.  As night returned once more with its first faint shadows,
+while yet there was light on the thin carpet of newly-fallen leaves to
+discern colors plainly, a cry of "here's blood!" rang out in a fearful
+shriek on their ears, and they halted, and gathered at the spot to
+which attention was directed.  "It is blood!" said another; and "here's
+more!" cried another.  "See, it is sprinkled all around here!"  "And
+there! see there, it looks as if there had been a scuffle!" added
+another.
+
+A cold thrill of horror ran around from heart to heart, and it was well
+for the Fabenses that they did not arrive, or hear the cry, until a
+glance before the grieving company showed them the remains of a deer,
+and reserved a faint hope for the morrow.
+
+To-morrow came and went, with no tidings of poor Clinton.  Another and
+another day was spent by several, who still insisted that the boy must
+be alive.  Mother Fabens' dream made a strong impression, and it held
+them up from utter despair; while the Indians added a little more to
+their courage by denying that the captive fawn was killed by them; for
+they had not killed a fawn in a great while.  The white people all
+believed more or less in portents, warnings and dreams; and trusting a
+little to their vaticination now, they could not yield the lingering
+hope that he was still alive.  But when they came to reason, that hope
+was quite extinguished.  Had he been alive, and within any reasonable
+distance, he would have been discovered.  But no trace of him could be
+found even by the sharp-sighted Indians; and then the screams of those
+panthers, on the first dismal night, increased the probability of his
+awful fate.  Still a search was continued by three or four, and on the
+fifth day, they discovered a hat about a mile from the path he was
+pursuing, and it was found to be Clinton's, and a present to him from a
+cousin in Cloverdale.  Again was the settlement set in commotion, and
+again many surmises and opinions were expressed regarding the poor
+boy's fate.
+
+But after that, no trace in wood or field was discovered to clear up
+the painful mystery.  The people settled down into the belief that a
+panther had taken him, and after he had carried him that distance, on
+the way to his dark lair in the forest, the hat fell from his drooping
+head, and the loose leaves settled partly over it, and concealed it
+from view on the first day's search.  The parents of the child, and all
+his friends, except Mother Fabens, were forced at last to the dreadful
+conclusion which assured them their little fondling was no more; and
+their grief was deep and lasting.  And Mother Fabens grieved sadly with
+the others; but the impression of her dream still whispered hope to her
+soul; and the liberation of the fawn she had never forgotten.  And when
+she sickened and died a few months after, she said "it was more than
+possible that Matthew and Julia might live long enough to see Clinton
+alive again on earth."
+
+But her kindly-attempted consolations could rally their hopes no more.
+It was a thought that wrung their desolate hearts; but they were forced
+to regard their lost boy as having perished in the grasp of some wild
+beast.  And that was the grief of griefs.  With all the faith and hope
+they could command, it shook them and bowed them down, and all the
+bright world for a while looked dreary and sad on their account.  It
+gave them ghastly dreams.  It burdened their waking reveries.  It
+wailed in the winds, it wound the sunbeams, flowers and trees with
+weeds of melancholy wo.  [Transcriber's note: woe?]
+
+In the darkest day, however, their faith and hope did not quite desert
+them; and after the first heavy stroke, these Christian graces rose up
+and strengthened them; and never were comforts so sweet as those
+received from the Scriptures and from their religious trusts.
+
+"God is good," said Fabens.  "He may give us trials and griefs--and we
+have had a portion.  He may tear our beloved from us when least of all
+it may seem we can spare them.  His Providence may appear in the storm
+and tempest; in anguish, bereavement and death; still he is good, and
+he will bring good out of evil."
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+THE SUGAR PARTY.
+
+Time went on its course like the constant roll of waters, and seasons
+came and went as usual in the Waldron Settlement.  A deep and early
+snow having fallen, and remained with frequent additions, a long and
+rigorous winter reigned in absolute sway.  But now, on the last of
+February, the sun wheeled high on his circuits; thaws and rains ensued,
+and the first robin on the leafless maple sang, sweet harbinger of
+spring.  Winter recalled his tyrant ministers, or restrained them in
+their wrath; and milder days and warmer skies appeared in pleasant
+alternation, with many still of tempest and gloom.
+
+The milder days multiplied; the snow had less depth on the earth, and
+now came on the season of sugar making.  In all our forest region
+magnificent sugar maples abounded like an orchard, and Fabens prepared
+for his spring encampment in the bush.  His shanty was repaired with
+new bark on the roof, and a fresh carpet of clean wheat straw on the
+rough bark floor; his kettles were hung; his troughs were turned up by
+the trees and cleaned of the mould and cobwebs of the last season;
+sleek slanting boxes were cut in the sides of the noble maples in the
+process of tapping, and spouts driven under to conduct the sap to the
+troughs; and quick was his step and diligent his labor, to gather and
+boil so fast that his troughs would not run over.
+
+The camp was within hearing distance of the house, and his father,
+though trembling with age, went out to keep him company, and attend to
+the fire and kettles, while he was away with two pails, gathering the
+delicious flowings of his maples.
+
+And Julia, too, was there on many a pleasant afternoon, plying her busy
+distaff in the shanty; and Fanny lent gladness to the scene; leaping
+like a merry fawn about the little opening, and amid the clustering
+bushes; her face lustrous and soft as a velvet peach; her voice
+blithesome as the pee-wee's, and clear and sweet as the robin's.
+
+"And if Clinton could be here, too!" sighed the bereaved mother.
+"Dear, dear Clinton! if he could be here, O would we not be happy?"
+
+"How I would kiss him, and say, 'Good brother,' and feed him, and
+crinkle his curly hair, if he would come back!" added Fanny.
+
+To one fond of the romance of rural life, a scene like this addresses
+many attractive charms.  The evenings were clear and beautiful; a class
+of the grandest constellations took their course in the sky, and rained
+their holy lights, while the winds were asleep in their caves, and keen
+frosts came down each night to increase the morrow's run; the days were
+warm and agreeable with bracing air and kindly sunshine; and the
+forests were roused from their stillness by the sound of the axe, the
+shrill reports of the frost escaping from the trees, and the notes of a
+few birds that carolled of the coming spring-time.
+
+Fabens had, for some time, felt the advances of spring in his heart;
+and he had a heart in the season and in its manly toils.  He remained
+in the camp over night when his maples had given a copious run, and
+tended his kettles, to boil and save what the bounty of Providence so
+lavishly furnished.  He had no one with him but his dog, and yet he was
+never alone.  His thoughts were his companions, his hopes, his pleasing
+pastimes.  A veil of blinding atmosphere hung over him, and his eyes
+perceived no objects beyond his camp but the solemn trees and the lofty
+stars; and yet his mind was not muffled up in that veil.  When Jesus
+died, the veil of God's temple was rent in twain; the veil between
+earth and heaven; and though that veil would continue to hang in its
+place for a time; and he could not make maps of the heavenly world, or
+locate the constellations of all its starry glories, or gossip with its
+unseen citizens, as with familiars here; still Faith saw light enough
+streaming through the rent in the veil to raise and enlarge his soul;
+and Hope saw light enough to replume her wings and re-adjust her
+vision.  God embosomed him in his spiritual presence; Christ was to him
+not a cold and distant phantasm, but a warm and intimate friend.  Good
+spirits were all about him, he believed, though he heard not their
+voices, and knew not their names; and they were coming and going on
+God's errands of love and light.  A soft breath fanned his forehead; a
+sweet emotion filled his heart; a burst of light broke like morning on
+his mind; and he found it easy to conceive them the touch and gift of
+some guardian being whom God had sent with the answers of his prayers.
+And who could say but it might be the spirit of Clinton, or Matthew's
+ascended mother, whom God had thus employed?
+
+Call it not superstition, if such were his thoughts.  It is a guileless
+heart, and a lofty faith that can thus sense the presence of God, and
+dwell in the blissful assurance that angels guard the inhabitants of
+earth, though we see and hear them not; as we believe, at noonday the
+stars stand sentinels above, although they are veiled from our view.
+
+At times, moreover, that wild encampment was the scene of social
+enjoyment.  It was a custom in the settlement to give parties in the
+bush, and cultivate feelings of love and friendship.  They were rude
+indeed, and there was observed none of the pretence of etiquette which
+passes for refinement in fashionable circles.  Still there was genuine
+sentiment manifested, and an honest and simple refinement of soul,
+superior to any outward elegance.  Some of the settlers, it is true,
+were strangers to those religious sensibilities enjoyed by Fabens and
+his family; and they read Nature and Humanity with a different eye from
+his, and received different impressions.  There was that in the manner
+of the Teezles, the Colwells, the Flaxmans, and others, which at times
+might appear low and vulgar, to persons educated in a different sphere
+of life; but even in their hearts, there was an open truthfulness which
+gave signs of real nobility; and a full flowing sympathy, a solid
+common sense, a love of principle, a love of the good and noble,
+against which mere surface refinement and polite words, empty of soul
+and meaning, would weigh but as feathers in the scale.
+
+They possessed heart and soul in the richest raw material.  They were
+full-grown, ripened specimens of aboriginal life.  They had a plump
+berry, as the farmers say, and came to the sickle without cockle, or
+rust, or weevil, or smut.  They were as thrifty vines, and needed only
+to be trimmed and trained.  They were as virgin gold in the bullion,
+and wanted to be melted and minted into coin.  They were as statues
+rough-hewn at the quarry, and would have ripened to forms of majestic
+beauty, with brows like Jove and Minerva; with bosoms like Venus,
+cheeks like Ceres, and lips like Apollo, had the chisel of art but
+sculptured them out, rounded them off, and polished them down to an
+elegant, ornate life.
+
+During the season in mention, there had been several sugar parties, and
+now came Fabens' turn to reciprocate the compliment.  So, one pleasant
+day, when there was a slight cessation in the run, he received a few
+neighbors to his camp, to spend an afternoon and evening.
+
+Uncle Walter and his wife came over at an early hour; Thomas Teezle and
+his wife, and their bouncing, cherry-lipped daughter, Rebecca Ann, were
+present, confessing to none for a lack of pleasure.  Mr. Wilson and his
+wife were on hand, with kindly word and cheerful face, and tarried to
+share the latest social sweet; and the son and daughter of a new
+family, Lot and Nancy Nimblet, came with them, and expressed much
+delight with a feast so rural and agreeable.
+
+A new carpet of straw was spread on the shanty floor, and the neatness
+of the ground before it, and around the little opening, gave evidence
+of the neatness and interest of Julia Fabens.  All declared it a
+pleasant afternoon, and just in the nick of time for a sugar party.
+Uncle Walter was called on for a story, and he gave one of his best,
+with a witch of a tongue, that fairly reversed the wheels of time, and
+trundled them back to the wild, wild forest again, and tumbled them out
+amid screaming panthers, and howling wolves.  Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman sang
+a merry song, in a merry nasal tune.  Aunt Polly Waldron _had_ to tell
+of the tory that fired her barn and ripped up her feather bed; and how
+he whooped and keeled when she dropped him, and how many tories and
+Indians ran away.  Then, Mr. Waldron told a story, and Major Fabens
+followed.
+
+Fabens the younger, and his sensible wife, contributed their share to
+interest the party, and though they were unusually cheerful and social,
+there was an elevated tone of sobriety in all they uttered, which had
+its happy and refining influence on every heart.
+
+Early in the afternoon, a kettle of sugar was set before them, and
+little banks of the clearest crystal snow were placed around for
+coolers, and then with wooden spoons, and grateful appetites, the feast
+was enjoyed.  As the sugar but increased their relish for the evening
+refreshment, they partook of that when served, with a still better
+zest, and many kind expressions and feelings, and many jets of wit and
+glee, were interchanged at the meal.  A pleasant plant grew in the
+marshes of that country, called evan-root, which, when boiled in sap,
+and tempered with cream, made a delicious beverage, tasting like
+coffee; and their nice broiled venison, and Indian bread, washed down
+with flowing cups of that favorite drink, was a banquet worthy of a
+president.
+
+"A president should go hungry," said Uncle Walter, "if his dainty
+palate didn't relish a supper like this."
+
+"A president should relish any food that is fit for his humblest
+fellow-citizens," answered Fabens.  "And a president worthy of his
+station, would honor our rude occupation as much as his own, and share
+with pleasure the humblest wholesome meal.  What is a president after
+all, but the servant we employ to look after our affairs, to be
+respected according to his competence and faithfulness, and the amount
+of service he does?  And nothing, I am sure, can be found in the
+grandest entertainment to exhibit refinement, and call forth honor, so
+well as the _heart_ with which it is given and enjoyed."
+
+"I guess Troffater would kindy like to be here," said Colwell.  "I seen
+him when I was comin', and he looked sour, and said he wasn't invited.
+Did ye mean to make a bridge o' his nose?"
+
+"I would do Troffater a kindness as soon as anybody," answered Fabens;
+"but his shocking levity, I have often told him, displeases us, and his
+company was not desired.  He is old enough to speak with cleaner lips.
+If I could hope to improve him any, I would invite and visit him often.
+We do mean to visit his family, and ask them to our house."
+
+"He's havin' the sulks the natteral way," said Colwell.
+
+"He's mad as a March hare, and says, he axes no odds o' Mat Fabens,"
+added Teezle.
+
+"Speak low," said Wilson, "I'll warrant, he's near us this very minute;
+he's olers spookin' about, and eaves-droppin'."
+
+"Let him spook about and eaves-drop," said Fabens, "I owe him nothing,
+but pity for his disposition, and I would say all I have said, and
+more, to his face.  There is one comfort!  God has power to give him a
+better heart, and I hope some day he will."
+
+"I dun know about that," said Colwell.  "Mebby he can, but it will take
+more brimstun than the critter's worth to cleanse his rotten sperit."
+
+"And they'll have to break in an egg or two after that, I guess, to
+make it white and clear, as Aunt Polly does her sugar," added Teezle.
+
+"Don't make light of it," said Fabens.  "With God all things good are
+possible.  I would not add a single pain to his misery.  Who of us--"
+
+"There! there, see that light in the bushes yonder!" screamed Nancy
+Nimblet, who had been frightened by the idea that they were watched,
+and had been looking around the camp for sights of alarm.  "That light
+yonder!--what is it?--what is it?"
+
+"A Jack-o'-lantern, may be, and may be somethin' wuss," said Colwell,
+rising.
+
+"A ball of fire!--what can it be? see, it comes towards us!" added
+Uncle Walter.
+
+"It's right where we found little Clinton's hat," cried Mrs. Fabens,
+pale with terror.  "O, dear, what can it be?  He couldn't have been
+murdered, my dear Clinton couldn't have been murdered, and that
+appeared to reveal his fate!"
+
+"I'll warrant that's it!" answered Teezle.  "Square Peasley seen a
+light, and heerd a gugglin' groan where the pedlar had his throat cut
+in Cloverdale, you know."
+
+"See there! see there!--it comes nearer!--look at it now; it has eyes,
+and ears!--see its awful nose and mouth," cried Aunt Polly Waldron.
+
+"What shall we do?" screamed Nancy Nimblet, all in a tremble.  "It will
+hurt us!--it will kill us! where shall I go?"
+
+"Be quiet, be calm, it cannot hurt you," said Fabens soothingly; "it
+can't hurt any one.  God wouldn't let it."
+
+"Awful!" shrieked Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman in one nasal; scream, "let us
+run, let us run!"
+
+"It's an evil spirit," said Wilson.
+
+"The old pot-metal Cuss himself has come for us!" cried Uncle Walter.
+"If I know anything about the Devil, that's him; that's his head and
+ears, and eyes and teeth, I'll bet a turkey they are!"
+
+"No, no, it cannot be an evil spirit or the Devil," said Fabens,
+calmly.  "The Devil would not appear in such a form to us, and God will
+guard us from evil spirits."
+
+An agony of terror shook the whole company.  Stern and brave Uncle
+Walter, who could stand before wolves and bears; who could beard the
+fierce panther in his den, and count his snarling teeth,--even he
+believed in ghosts, and was afraid of sights and apparitions.  It was a
+horrible object, spirit, devil, or whatever it might be.  It looked
+like a ball of fire, and had features of a grim half-human thing, with
+huge ears, a wide mouth and grinning rows of monstrous teeth; and they
+fancied they saw a black body and long tail below it.  As they gazed in
+a transport of terror, Fabens escaped unobserved from the company,
+passed softly around through the woods, and coming up behind the foul
+fiend, he grasped its dark form in his arms, and found as he suspected,
+that it was no other devil than little tantalizing Troffater, with a
+carved squash shell, set out with an ox's ears, on his head, bearing
+his idea of a devil's image, and lighted within by a brilliant candle!
+
+The terror of the company soon subsided, and Fabens admonished them
+against yielding again to such senseless fears; while they all departed
+for their homes, and the poor transgressor was discharged with a
+reprimand so sharpened by kindness that it seemed to cleave his heart.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+FABENS PROMOTED TO HONOR.
+
+In four years more, the Waldron Settlement had grown to quite a colony;
+for the area of civilization extended from the Cayuga to the Owasco,
+and ten miles north and south; and though the population numbered
+several hundred families, and the inroads of fashion and pride began to
+be perceptible there, still it remained a neighborhood; and with few
+exceptions, the people exchanged neighborly offices and loves
+throughout the settlement.
+
+The inhabitants now felt the importance of their flourishing community,
+and made a movement to be organized into a township, and have town
+officers, and better regulations.  That movement was successful, and
+the town took the name of Summerfield, and a warm and summer-green town
+it was as the Lake Country had to show.
+
+Walter Mowry was elected the first Supervisor, and Matthew Fabens, the
+first Justice of the Peace.
+
+At this late period, public offices are so plenty, and so often held by
+persons whose devotion to party, or whose failure in other pursuits is
+their only recommendation, that the plain and humble office of Justice
+of the Peace receives little respect, and would find few candidates,
+but for the lucrative interests which induce many to ask it.  It was
+not so, forty years ago in the Lake Country.  At that primitive period,
+that responsible office was given to no one who had not moral
+qualifications to recommend him; and the person who held it was honored
+as possessing capabilities equal to his duties, and holding along with
+these the affection and faith of the town.
+
+When the organization was first proposed, and the several offices were
+named, the eyes of the settlement, with two or three exceptions, were
+turned to Fabens, as the man best qualified to administer justice and
+peace among them; and to elect him to that station was simply to say
+'thus shall it be with the man whom we delight to honor.'
+
+Of written laws, and their points and subtleties, Fabens confessed
+himself ignorant.  Coke and Blackstone were never on his shelves.  He
+had read a stray leaf from Hooker, and these words were incorporated as
+so many notes of divine music in his soul--"No less can be said of Law,
+than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice is the harmony of the
+world.  All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least,
+as feeling her care; the greatest, as not exempted from her power.
+Both angels and men, and creatures of whatsoever condition, though each
+in different sort and manner; yet each and all with uniform consent
+admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy;"--and this was his
+idea of law, and about all he had gathered on law from books.
+
+And as for the responsibilities committed to his trust, he fain would
+have refused them, and proposed another candidate for the office; but
+knowing the simple principles of justice; having a heart attuned to the
+harmony of earth and heaven; having Peace as an angel dwelling in his
+soul; knowing and loving what was right and lovely between man and man,
+he discharged his duties with distinguished success, and his influence
+went far to lift up his people to the light and sphere of spiritual
+peace.
+
+He still carried on the labors of his fine farm, with the duties of his
+office, and made his own private house the seat of that justice which
+once in a long while he was compelled to search out and sustain.
+
+The manner and spirit of his administration were therefore patriarchal,
+as those which the poet describes of the venerable Albert, of Wyoming;
+and to the present day, traditions are preserved, and incidents related
+in that peaceful town, which prove the practical wisdom and eminent
+justice of "Old Squire Fabens."
+
+Those early and eager pioneers of new countries, the lawyers, found
+their way to Summerfield; that is, two or three unruly members of the
+profession, while yet Squire Fabens held the wand of peace.  They had
+not been long there, however, before they joined Troffater, Adonijah
+Nixon, and Simon Bogle, to oppose his administration; and made very
+desperate efforts to elect another in his stead.
+
+As for the lawyers, we are not at all surprised by their opposition.
+He destroyed their business, and they played as checks and
+interruptions of that harmony to which his life was tuned.  And as for
+the troublesome little bandy Troffater, his ill-will was expected, as a
+real compliment to the wisdom and justice of the magistrate.  We have
+heard of an Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, who was likely to be
+disappointed of his addicted battle, finding no one to answer his
+challenge; and who cried to the crowd, "I'll thank any gentleman, just
+once to tread on the tail o' my coat, that my sport may begin!"  A
+similar character was Tilly Troffater, and never more thankful was he
+than when opportunity encouraged his quarrelsome mood; and never more
+amazed or provoked at the manner in which the laws were administered,
+than when his broils were suppressed while rising, and his litigations
+closed as soon as he began them.
+
+The hardest thing, under heaven, did it seem for a lawsuit to make any
+progress, while Matthew Fabens was Justice of the Peace, in
+Summerfield.  Pestilent Tilly was always scheming to provoke such
+evils, and was always threatening his neighbors with a lawsuit.
+Sometimes he would come post-haste for a warrant, or summons, or
+attachment; again, he would be in hot distress to swear his life was in
+danger, or his squalid character was at stake; or his neighbor's pigs
+had rooted up a few weeds in his garden, or some mischievous boy had
+thrown a stone through a paper pane of his window; or mounted his most
+personable scare-crow on his chimney-top, arrayed in a potato necklace,
+and holding a dead snake in hand; or he had secrets to disclose which
+would reveal astounding villanies, that threatened the peace of the
+town.
+
+But it had always been his misfortune to fail of his designs.  Not a
+scrap of a warrant or other process could he obtain.  Not the lisp of a
+word or oath would the good Squire take from his lying lips.  "Get rid
+of your passion; go home, and work, and help me keep the peace," was
+Fabens' reply to all quarrelsome fellow-citizens.
+
+And yet, the happy fortune to sustain his long administration, without
+having to confess a case of law had been brought to trial before him,
+was not reserved for Squire Fabens.  Numberless little difficulties had
+been dragged into notice by three or four uncomfortable bodies, who
+sought the excitement of a quarrel to rally the lagging pleasures of
+indolence; and a few of these demanded his attention.  But he had ever
+found it for the good of the parties in trouble, as for the general
+welfare, and his own satisfaction, to calm the raging waters of
+passion, by counsel, kind and wise; reconcile the antagonists, and
+bring them to an amicable peace, without the sifting of testimony, and
+the labors of litigation.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+A LAWSUIT.
+
+At length a crime was committed in Summerfield, which a summary process
+could not despatch, and a sense of duty impelled Squire Fabens to
+permit it to be tried before him, that the offender might receive his
+punishment, and be set forth as an example of warning to all
+evil-doers.  One afternoon in August, when farmers had finished their
+wheat harvest, and were enjoying a few days of relaxation before
+seeding their fallows with winter grain, Simon Bogle came all in a hot
+hurry to the Justice, for a warrant against Jared Sculpin, and--"Are
+you certain," asked Fabens, after hearing his long and incoherent
+story, and learning the name of the accused neighbor, "are you certain
+that your log-chain was not mislaid, or dropped in some place where the
+leaves might have covered it?  This is a very serious charge for
+neighbor to bring against neighbor.  You ought to be very certain that
+it was stolen, Mr. Bogle, before you accuse any one."
+
+"Certain!" cried Bogle; "I couldn't be more so, I guess, if I'd seen it
+took, with my own eyes, I guess.  The neighbors all talk about it too,
+I guess.  And there's--"
+
+"But there ought to be no guess-work in this case.  Are you not
+wronging Mr. Sculpin, to charge him with the theft, unless some
+competent witness will say he saw him take it, or you can prove the
+chain found in his possession is yours, while he fails to show, in
+defence, that you did not lend it to him?"
+
+"Lend it to 'im!--Lend it to 'im, eh?  Mercy knows, I wouldn't lend 'im
+a halter to hang himself, since he blunted my iron wedges, and broomed
+up my beetle so!  And I guess, you wouldn't talk about lendin', if the
+chain had been hooked from you!"
+
+"But I don't like this hurry and passion you manifest.  Get rid of this
+before you think of bringing a neighbor to justice.  We become criminal
+ourselves just so far as we harbor passion and vengeance while calling
+criminals to account."
+
+"Wal, will ye give me a warrant? tell me that," said Bogle in a huff.
+"Tell me, Square, if you'll give me a warrant.  Cause I _ken_ go to
+Sempronus, I guess, and git one of Square Moss, if ye don't."
+
+"I tell you this, neighbor Bogle," replied Squire Fabens.  "This is a
+very serious affair you have brought before me.  I want time to
+consider it, and you must go home and think it all over calmly, and
+sleep on it; and then if you think something must be done in law, come
+to me to-morrow with your witnesses, and we'll see what must be done."
+
+"Jest as I expected," cried Bogle, turning on his heel in a swelling
+rage.  "Jest as I expected.  You're as fit for a Square as my dog
+Pomp--jest about!  I'll go to Square Moss.  Ye needn't trouble yourself
+any more.  He'll give me a warrant, I guess.  And if I don't vote agin
+you next year, then my name aint Simon Bogle!"
+
+Away he trudged in a gnashing rage, muttering back his threats and
+reproaches, and Fabens turned into the house and enjoyed his early tea.
+By the time Bogle was home, however, he had altered his mind, and went
+and consulted his witnesses, and ascertained more definitely what was
+surmised, and what could be proved.  Passing Troffater's on his way,
+that incarnate mischief came out, and hailed him, saying, "Here, ho!
+Bogle--hello there!  How d'ye dew? come back, come back, and see a
+feller!  Don't be scornful!"
+
+"I aint scornful.  I'm in a hurry," grumbled Bogle.
+
+"Wal, come back a minute--a man broke his neck in a hurry.  What you
+goin' to dew with Sculpin, eh?  He hooked your log-chain, I heern,"
+said Troffater.
+
+"I'm goin' to see Square Fabens agin to-morrow, and try and fetch the
+feller to justice.  Sculpin _may_ be sorry for this.  I know what I ken
+prove," said Bogle.
+
+"I don't b'lieve the Square will try 'im.  I never could git a hearin'
+of 'im.  He's stiff as steelyards, and short as pie-crust since he got
+in office.  But mebby he'll knuckle a little to you.  If he will, put
+Sculpin through a course of sprouts, and larn 'im better'n to hook
+log-chains.  But I'm sorry I know anything about it; _I_ don't want to
+go to court," said Troffater, with a mysterious elongation of his
+little monkey face, and significant rollings and crossings of his black
+and blue eyes.
+
+"But what do you know, Troffater?" asked Bogie, with new light
+animating his anxious eye and cheek.  "What do you know?  There's
+somethin' to help me on a bit, I guess."
+
+"O, I'm sorry I spoke," said Troffater, and spit through his teeth.  "I
+don't know nothin' about it.  I don't want to go afore Fabens, and be
+obleeged to look 'im in the face.  I wish I'd never seen Sculpin, nor
+his little thievin' capers."
+
+"Don't bother me, now," said Bogle.  "If ye know anything--and I bleeve
+ye dew--out with it, and be my witness.  I'm afraid it'll give me a
+sweat to beat 'im arter all.  Out with it, Tilly."
+
+"O, go long! go long!" said Troffater.  "I hope you'll lick the rascal.
+He's guilty's a dog.  But don't ax _me_, now, what _I_ know!  I
+wouldn't go afore Fabens for a fat turkey, I wouldn't.  And then agin,
+why should I want to hurt Sculpin, or lay a straw in his way?  Mebby
+he'll dew better, sense the trap liked to ketch 'im; and I'm sure I
+don't want to expose him."
+
+"But tell me what you know, if you stay away from court," said Bogle.
+"Tell me, and relieve my mind."
+
+"Go long, I say, and don't ax me agin, for I don't know nothin'--that
+I'd like to tell in court."
+
+"I shall suppeeny you!" cried Bogle, departing in a huff.
+
+"Don't ye dew it, Bogle!  O, don't ye dew it for all the world, Bogle!
+I shall hev a caniption fit if ye dew!" shouted Troffater after him.
+
+The next day Bogle came before the justice with evidence against
+Sculpin, which Fabens regretted to believe was but too well founded;
+and he issued a warrant, and a week from that day the action was
+brought to trial.
+
+The crowd of spectators was large, and the interest felt by all, at
+least, curious and wakeful.  Squire Fabens took his magisterial seat
+with an air of unaffected gravity, glanced around the assembly with a
+mild, intelligent eye, and presented before them a noble form and
+reverend mien, which inspired the virtuous, with new admiration for
+goodness, and filled the vicious with secret remorse and apparent shame
+for the evil of their doings.
+
+Cicero Bray, Esq., appeared as counsel for the plaintiff, and C. Fox
+Faddle, Esq., was counsel for the prisoner.
+
+Lawyer Bray was a mountainous man, about thirty-five years old; and he
+had impudence ingrained with his brawny meat and muscles, and his
+tongue, let loose, would run like a mill-stream.  His head rose a
+little above his ears, and was huge of girth in a horizontal measure.
+His hair was a sort of wolf's gray, was clipped all over within an inch
+of his head, and stood up like the bristles on a wild boar's back.  His
+brows were bushy, and jutted, roof-like, over his deeply-sunken eyes;
+his nose was bluff as a bull-dog's; his cheek-bones were rough and
+high; his eyes were wide-set; his mouth was cut square across almost
+from ear to ear; his chin was square and massy; he had an Adam's apple
+as large as a gilly-flower ripening on his throat; his hands were large
+and bony, and his voice "grated harsh thunder," as Milton said of the
+gates of hell.
+
+Lawyer Bray was prompt and saucy in court, and often won his case in
+other towns by the thunder of his voice and the force of his action
+while on the floor.  He could always read an abundance of law to
+sustain any point he argued, although the law quoted might not be found
+written in the book.  He was a capital shot, and kept a pair of the
+fleetest hounds, and often hauled in his shingle and hunted week in and
+week out, leaving business to follow suit.  He made light of religious
+and sacred things; he could curse the sky when it thundered, and swear
+the lights blue with the boldest voluble tongue; and yet he would
+appeal to God to judge him in a plea, and silence, and exclude a
+witness for any unpopular religious belief.  He rose to an extensive
+business in the towns about, at last; and is quoted at this day, for
+some wild gale of a speech, or some saucy joke, or strange adventure.
+
+Lawyer Faddle was equally original.  He was as tall as Bray, whenever
+he straightened up in an animated speech; but his long form commonly
+bent over, and described a segment of a rainbow.  His head was small,
+and his hair long and thin, and light and shiny as flax; his eyes were
+almost white, and were set obliquely; his nose was long, aquiline, and
+pinched together in the nostrils; his teeth were long and broad, and
+those above shut over upon his lower lip and kept it in a constant
+chafe.  His voice was clear enough, and it never failed in a speech;
+but it seemed to reside in his little thirsty throat, and it piped like
+a killdeer's in its proudest swell.
+
+Lawyer Faddle excited some mirth for his originalities, and more
+contempt for his vices among the farmers of Summerfield.  The opinion
+of the town at that time may be given in the language of Uncle Walter,
+who declared he was "hollow and foul as a sooty stove-pipe."
+
+Lawyer Faddle however succeeded in creating an extensive business in
+time, though most of his cases an honorable lawyer would have scorned;
+and he reared a large family, and wanted to figure in later times as
+one of the aristocracy of Summerfield.
+
+Cicero Bray opened the case by a lengthened speech of very ambitious
+eloquence, paying several unfelt compliments to the 'justice' and
+'wisdom' of the 'worthy magistrate;' while he glanced through the
+course of the trial, with an air and tone of triumph, stating in
+thunder what he should undertake to sustain in evidence; and after a
+most exhausting peroration, he hauled in his ragged voice, and arrested
+its rumbling echoes, and gave way for a brief remark from the counsel
+for the prisoner.  A son of the plaintiff, Welcome Bogle, was then
+introduced to the stand, and testified that his father had owned a
+log-chain with the initials of his name, "S. B." marked on one of the
+hooks; and the chain in court being shown him, he said with audible and
+honest emphasis, "Yes, that's the article."  He was cross-examined,
+with considerable tact and much severity by C. Fox Faddle, Esq.; but he
+stood the trial with remarkable composure and consistency, making no
+variation of the facts testified, although he gave them in different
+connections and words.
+
+'Becca Ann Teezle was next introduced.  She had again and again
+declared she was not afraid of a lawyer, and on this occasion her words
+proved true.  Without the slightest diffidence, but with a boldness
+rather which encouraged the other witnesses, and with a toss of the
+head that Lawyer Faddle did not like, she said, "she had been out in
+the woods pasture picking blackberries, and saw Mr. Sculpin pass that
+way from the direction of Mr. Bogle's barn, with a chain on his back."
+
+When cross-examined, she stated that "it was slung over his right
+shoulder, and under his left arm, and it was _not_ a trace chain, nor a
+halter chain, nor a breast chain, as Mr. C. Fox Faddle endeavored to
+have it appear, but a log-chain; yes, _sir_, a log chain, for I saw it
+with my own eyes."
+
+"Then you sometimes see with eyes not your own, do you, Miss Teezle?"
+said Lawyer Faddle with a comical leer, and a peculiar pipe of that
+killdeer voice.
+
+"Yes, I take owl's eyes when I want to look at a lawyer."
+
+"Why do you do that, Miss Teezle? what can owls see that you cannot see
+with your _own_ eyes, Miss Teezle?" asked the lawyer, attempting to
+turn the laugh back from himself upon her.
+
+"They can see _low fowl_ creatures in the dark," replied the blooming
+maiden.
+
+"Enough of this," said the lawyer; "and if Miss Rebecca Ann saw these
+things with her own eyes, can she name any circumstances?  Did you
+notice Mr. Sculpin very particularly?  Did he seem confused and
+agitated when you met him? or was he calm,--was he possessed?"
+
+"He was _possessed_--at least of the chain."
+
+"Indeed, Miss Teezle, and you are certain of this; and now can you tell
+me if it was when you were going _after_ the berries, that you saw him;
+or _after_ you had picked them, and had started _after_ home?"
+
+"It was _after_ we had been _after_ the berries, and _after_ we had
+started _after_ home."
+
+"Yes; and did you notice the _gait_ in which he moved along; notice it
+with your own eyes, Rebecca?"
+
+"He was in the _gate_ of the woods pasture south of Mr. Bogle's when we
+saw him last."
+
+"Yes, and you are so wise and discerning, you can tell whether his
+course across the field, was straight or crooked?"
+
+"Crooked, sir."
+
+"About how crooked? can you tell this court, Miss Teezle?"
+
+"Crooked as your questions, sir," the confident girl replied; and
+though the lawyer appealed to the court several times to "silence the
+insolence" of this witness before she was through; the court protected
+the witness and rebuked the lawyer for impertinent questions, and the
+insolence he charged upon her.
+
+Nancy Nimblet was called, and she testified that "She was with 'Becca
+Ann Teezle, on the time specified, and she remembered it too, as if it
+was yesterday; and the prisoner came from the direction of the
+complainant's barn, with a log-chain round him, over his right
+shoulder, and under his left arm."  Lawyer Faddle declining her
+cross-examination, Adonijah Nixon was called.  He testified that Mr.
+Bogle and he were second cousins.  Cicero Bray objected to this as not
+relevant; C. Fox Faddle insisted that it was relevant, and after some
+arguing and sparring, the justice ruled it out.  Then Mr. Nixon said,
+"on Simon's having expressed to me a suspicion that Jared had taken the
+chain, I went with him to Jared's house and found the chain which you
+see before you."
+
+Seneca Waldron and Crispus Flaxman were called; but their evidence was
+challenged and ruled out for non-age.
+
+G. W. Pugg was called, and no one answered.  G. W. _Pugg_, repeated the
+magistrate, slighting the initials and laying most emphasis on the
+name.  No one answered; but two persons in the corner, a father and
+son, exchanged significant glances and looked very acute and wise.  The
+Squire raised his voice, and let it fall like an auctioneer's hammer on
+the name.
+
+"G. W. _Pugg_--is Mr. _Pugg_ in the room?"
+
+At that imperative question, the gray-skirted, bushy-headed,
+grog-bruising hunter of a father in the corner, rose and said, "Call
+'im George _Washintun_, then I guess he'll cum!"
+
+"_George_ WASHINGTON PUGG; will you come and testify?" said the Squire
+with an emphasis on all the names, but rising and fairly hammering the
+last; when a greedy-eyed, brockle-faced, over-grown blade of seventeen
+opened up like a flax-brake, and loped forward over chairs and benches,
+responding in a houndish flat-and-treble voice, "_I_ reckon I'll
+_doo't_!  O yis, I reckon I _will_, Square Fabens."
+
+The business of the court then proceeded, and when his evidence was
+taken, Tilly Troffater mounted the stand, with an affected hesitancy,
+and a genuine restlessness of his little earthen eyes; eager to indulge
+his meddlesome humor, anxious for revenge upon, he little cared whom,
+and yet awed to a look of shuffling shame, by the commanding mien of
+the justice.  Clambering to his place, he was questioned by the court.
+
+"Well, friend Troffater, what do you know of the action pending?"
+
+"I telled Bogle I was sorry _I_ knew anything for I didn't want to come
+to court," said the witness.
+
+"But, what do you know, Mr. Troffater, that would tend to convict the
+prisoner?  Tell us _that_," said the court.
+
+"I don't want to tell," said the witness.  "Let the critter go clear,
+for all me.  I wouldn't lay a straw afore im.  Mebby that's the last o'
+his thievin' capers.  If 'tis, _I_ wouldn't tell what I know for all on
+airth."
+
+"You do know something, Mr. Troffater," interrupted Cicero Bray, Esq.,
+obstreperously; "you know something, upon which we greatly depend to
+convict the prisoner, and vindicate the majesty of law, and I insist
+upon your evidence, sir."
+
+"_Insist_, then, dew ye!" asked Troffater, gathering up into a comical
+attitude; crossing and flashing his black and blue eyes, spitting
+through his teeth, and ranging the stand, like a dancing bear.
+"_Insist_, dew ye, eh?  Wal, I spose then I must free my mind; but,
+think I'd ruther not."
+
+"Go on, go on, Mr. Troffater, and bother us no longer in this way,"
+said the court.
+
+"Wal, I spose I must, if Mr. _Cis-a-roe_ there raily _insists_.  All I
+know about Sculpin is, one night I went down there, and we got to
+playin' cairds, and he acted green as a mess o' cowslops at fust, and
+then he cheated; and--O, I can't, I can't tell the story.  I wouldn't
+hurt Sculpin for the world.  Carry me off, and stick me in jail, if you
+want to.  I _won't_ tell, so there!  I'll go to jail fust, and let the
+pismires carry me out o' the keyhole!--But what's this, I say?  Mister
+_Cis-ai-roe_ Bray, Esquare, insists that I _shall_ tell.  Wal, then, as
+I was goin' to say, he cheated, and so, so, I cheated a little tew, and
+by'n by, he got mad, and knocked me into a next-week sleep, and in that
+sleep I seen a dream, and in that dream I seen him steal the log-chain.
+And now, if ye'll hand over my witness fee, I'll be out o' this
+quicker'n ye ken say Jack Robison."
+
+Needless, indeed, were the task, if possible, to describe the sensation
+created by this amazing disclosure; and we may only add in conclusion,
+that the prisoner was convicted on other testimony; and after an
+earnest admonition from the justice, on the turpitude of crime and its
+dreadful miseries, Jared Sculpin was sentenced to give Simon Bogle one
+good day's work, and one good fleece of wool for his time lost in
+hunting the chain, and in bringing the offender to justice; to carry
+the chain on his back through the main travelled road, in open
+daylight, and humbly ask Simon Bogle's pardon.
+
+The terms of the sentence were promptly and fully complied with, and it
+was ever afterward said of Jared Sculpin, that he was an altered man,
+and a virtuous citizen.
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+HAPPINESS.
+
+For agreeable cares, and solid interests and pleasures, the life of the
+farmer is one of the first to choose.  It is indeed a labor, but a
+labor peculiarly blest for its manly pursuits and ennobling mental
+exercises.  Every farmer should be educated in useful knowledge, and
+elevated tastes and sentiments: every farmer should have a religion of
+the head, and heart, and life.
+
+The farmer goes out upon his fertile fields and plants, and stands by
+his own work to behold the growing increase which the Lord waters and
+gives.  Surrounded by symbols of the Father, he has but to open his
+eyes, and read the signs of His wisdom, providence, power and love.  He
+stands in a temple of beauty and worship.  His subjects of thought are
+the sky and mountain, the woods and waters, the genial fallow, the
+growing crop, the ripening grain.  His companions are legion, for all
+things in Nature flock to his fellowship; his orchestra is the air and
+forest; his singers, the bobolink, bluebird and robin, who may be
+fancied incarnate with spirits from the next region, paradise, come
+down to gladden his heart with God's hallelujahs, and cheer his mind in
+the rural toils.  God may appear most intimately with him all his days;
+he may plough God's fallows; he may plant sweet affections, and harvest
+ripe graces and joys; and every step on the green hills, and through
+the warbling groves, may seem a step toward heaven.
+
+Matthew Fabens was a farmer in genuine heart and soul.  Of mere book
+learning, he did not speak, although he was quite a reader; and in many
+acquirements which the world calls knowledge, he was limited as a
+child.  But for acquaintance with a few fine histories and stories, and
+with the ways and wonders of God; for a knowledge of Nature and
+Scripture; for an enlightened reading of the lessons of Providence and
+human life, he might have been accounted wiser than many who possessed
+the wisdom of the schools, and looked down with vain contempt on his
+humble sphere.  One of the few lovers of learning he was, who could
+say, with the shepherd David, "O, God, Thou hast taught me from my
+youth, and hitherto have I declared thy wonders!"
+
+Nature surrounded him with symbols, and by the light of Christianity he
+sought their interpretation.  And to his admiring mind, the presence,
+the beauty, and sublimity of God continually addressed their
+revelations; and he discovered in the water a mirror of this form; in
+the sun, a symbol of His light; in the thunder, an echo of His voice;
+in the wind, a delegate of His spirit and power; in the mountain, a
+ladder to His sanctuary; and in the rain and dew, the medium of His
+favor, and the means of His love.
+
+Yet, with all his faith, wisdom, and virtue, he was by no means
+perfect.  Several of the frailties of humanity he had failed to
+overcome, and a few of its sinful impulses he found the discipline of
+life no more than competent to rule.  He was honest and upright to a
+nice conviction, and a large and gracious heart lay beating in his
+breast; but brief moments would now and then take him by surprise, in
+which he sighed for another and more pretending sphere; and he
+regretted to feel growing almost imperceptibly upon him, an
+unwarrantable love of show and praise.  Still, perhaps we should regard
+these and other little errors more as misfortunes than sins, and
+attribute them measurably to the effect of growing fortune, and the
+influence of the world with which he had more and more to do.
+
+Nor did such a faith in the Father, nor such an estate of beauty and
+affluence, render his life a perpetual or unqualified joy.  Men would
+not be men if perfect joy and peace were theirs, and the glowing robes
+of angels dressed them.  He had never prayed to be taken out of the
+world of trials and griefs; but to be kept from iniquity.  Religion had
+not power to remove all sorrows from his life; but he prayed it might
+aid him to overcome them; to rise above them stronger and better, for
+the strength and courage required and employed to quell their stout
+assaults.  That early, and most trying, unaccountable sorrow of his
+life, the loss of his beloved Clinton, still chastened his joy, and
+returned at times in all the freshness of its agony: and it was
+rendered more poignant and lasting by the painful mystery which
+concealed his fate, and fed suspense, and excited solicitous thoughts
+and cares.
+
+But faith had a power so to lift and sustain the troubled spirit, and
+draw it away from communion with its griefs, he enjoyed a preponderance
+of elevated bliss.  He had loved his parents with an affection which
+could endure the loss of their society only with the hope of having
+them restored to him hereafter; and many of his pleasures had been
+sobered, and life itself became more serious, and at times more
+desolate, since they both had been gathered to the grave.  But there
+was a serene and unsubduable joy of the spirit abiding all the assaults
+of sorrow, that shone forth like gold from the fire of the refiner, and
+glowed like cheerful sunshine through the dusky wings of a storm.
+
+His home had still remaining much solid happiness, for Julia lived to
+participate his fortune, to share his affliction, and strengthen his
+hopes; and the genial ardors of her youth, with love of Nature, and
+delight in rural fellowships, though calmed and refined by suffering,
+were yet her being's light and joy.  Her simple home, and its peaceful
+scenes, and lovely enjoyments, were symbols to her mind, not
+unprophetic of the home of the soul on high.
+
+It was a simple home, for their new frame house was not then commenced,
+except in the piles of boards and shingles that were gathering around
+the barn; but what if there was no embroidered muslin, or garish damask
+at the windows, and they looked through little narrow panes of blue and
+blistered glass?  Did not their eyes find a recompense in the twinkling
+wings and warbling songs that flitted and floated in the air around?
+and in glorious landscapes of fields, and waters, and woods, that a
+glance could catch and hold through the smallest light!  Did not the
+curtains of verdure beneath and about, and the infinite canopy of
+splendid sky above, make the bravest of all ambitious ornaments hung by
+man or woman's hands, look little and coarse as a rag of baize?
+
+One only sorrow remained for Julia to conquer; and how could the
+triumph be won?  She sorrowed still for the loss of her lovely
+first-born.  She could not doubt but God permitted it in love.  Perhaps
+had Clinton been spared, he might have imbibed some sentiment of evil,
+which would have poisoned his beautiful nature and prompted him away
+into paths of sin.  Young Walter Mowry was a prodigal, and likely to
+bring down his poor old mother in sorrow to the grave.  George Richmond
+had no idea of the value of the money left him as a father's
+hard-earned legacy; no self-reliance; and was likely to die miserable
+and poor.  Perhaps, had Clinton lived to enjoy the blessings of such a
+home, he had been a poor prodigal, or met misfortunes and griefs.
+
+Then she must acknowledge, that while her heart had been afflicted, it
+had been softened and refined; while her faith had been tried, it had
+grown strong and buoyant as an eagle's wings.  Heaven seemed all about
+her now, as it had not seemed before her bereavement; the lights of its
+holy joy came gleaming through the veil; and its pure inhabitants were
+felt to range around, and sympathize, and bless.
+
+As a central bliss of existence, Fanny had grown to early womanhood,
+while her mother seemed still young to be her companion, and Fanny was
+blooming as the flowers and trees that had been her communicants, pure
+as the fountains that mirrored her loveliness, and blithe as the birds
+that welcomed her rural walks.  Fanny stood above a medium height, and
+though she stooped a little at the wool-wheel, and in a ramble on the
+hills, she presented a comely figure and interesting mien.
+
+She was too white to please all tastes; her hair was almost a
+cream-color; yet it was long, abundant and glossy, and was greatly
+admired by some.  Her eyes were the lightest sky-blue, yet they were
+full and quick, and flashed the fire of a luminous soul; and not glassy
+and languid, as blue eyes often are.  She had a nose, mouth and teeth,
+like her father's, with her mother's cheeks, all ruddy-red with her
+mother's maiden blushes.  She had hands and feet for a Bloomer, had
+Bloomers bloomed in her time.  She had a round, clear, hilarious voice,
+that gave the birds lessons in melody, softened and sweetened the
+gentlest gales, and gladdened the day and the night on the farm.  She
+loved her home and friends; she loved Irving, and Scott, and Goldsmith;
+she loved Beattie's Minstrel, Milton's Comus, and Campbell's Wyoming;
+she loved the garden and fields; she loved the woods, and lake, and
+sky; she loved bee-balm and clover; she loved double-pinks, and
+double-roses; she tasted the fragrance of peaches and apples, with a
+purer zest than that which relished their pleasant pulps; and every
+lovely and tender creature found in her a friend.
+
+In Fanny, her mother found more joy--upon Fanny her mother centered
+more lavish affection than she could have afforded or realized, had
+another grown by her tide, to divide the endearments of the household.
+But, O, the agony she would sometimes feel at the recollection of that
+year of sorrow!  How it would bow her spirit, and run thrilling along
+the delicate fibres of her heart!  That night of woe!  That panther
+scream!  That dream of Troffater!  That recovered hat, now sacredly
+treasured to remind her of her idol!  That lingering, sad suspense!
+Those sleepless nights, and comfortless days!  How could she forget
+them, nor shudder in convulsions of anguish, as often as they rolled
+back like lava-floods on her soul?
+
+And the suspense which still haunted her!  The dream and dying words of
+her mother breathed hope to struggling desire, but reason banished
+assurance as soon as it rose, and how dreadful the suspense that
+supported the mystery!  Could she have known that he was devoured by a
+wolf or panther, and suffered no more, what an occasion of joy it had
+been! what relief to sorrow, what an end to disappointments, compared
+with this dreary and brooding uncertainty, which preyed upon her nature
+like a never-dying worm!  How precious must have been the faith which
+could mitigate a sorrow like that, and introduce the suffering heart to
+seasons of joy and intervals of peace!
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+THE COLD SEASONS.
+
+For a good, long period, fruitful seasons and liberal blessings came on
+the Lake Country.  The last was a year of unusual abundance.  Plenty
+poured her horn at every happy farmer's.  Barns looked as if ready to
+burst with fulness, and stacks of hay and grain studded the pleasant
+fields.  Cribs were piled full of corn, and cellars were stowed with
+provisions.
+
+But earth would be heaven too soon if all evil and vicissitude were
+ended.  Checks upon our prosperity must fall, and changes tax and
+interrupt our gains; and he is not most of a man who meets least evil,
+and loses least of the reward of toil; but he who endures with the
+manliest courage, the mightiest will to overcome, and most dexterous
+hand to manage for decided good, all troubles that assail him.
+
+In the autumn of that abundant year, it was predicted that cold seasons
+were near at hand.  The Indians saw their approach in the fur of the
+foxes, and the masonry of beavers.  Farmers were confirmed in the
+prophecy by the extra stores of the bees, and extra husks on the ears
+of corn.  A cold and snowy winter would certainly come, and they were
+but too truly assured that a cold spring and summer would follow.
+Several people heeded the warning, and hauled extra supplies of
+fire-wood, kept larger stores of provisions, and lived more
+thoughtfully and saving.  Fabens took forethought, and prepared for the
+winter.  He sold but little of his abundance, saying, "If cold seasons
+were to follow, stores of provisions were better to lay up than money
+or notes."  He talked with his neighbors on the subject, and a number
+heeded his advice.  He proposed making wood bees for several of the
+poor, and succeeded in seeing ample piles of beech and maple at their
+doors.  He got up a committee to visit the poor throughout the winter,
+and see that no child of God suffered in so bountiful a world.  Some
+people thought he was taking a great deal of trouble on his hands,
+without the prospect of any reward; but he assured them that, with
+every fire of comfort he built on a poor man's hearth, he built a new
+fire of pleasure in his own cheerful heart; and in the thing itself
+which they called trouble, he received such full and flowing tides of
+bliss, as made him think heaven could begin on earth.  "It is not the
+crusty turtle," said he one day to Wilson, "it is not the crusty
+turtle, that slinks into his selfish shell, and twinkles so coldly his
+little haughty eye, that receives or communicates most pleasure or
+delight.  No, it is the kindly lamb, that gives you his fleece for a
+winter garment; it is the sweet-hearted robin, that carries the seeds
+of abundance over God's plantations, and sings of His love by the poor
+man's cabin, and feeds and covers the babes in the woods."
+
+There were some who laughed at his superstition for believing things in
+nature could warn men of the weather a month ahead; and they made no
+preparation for a change.  But he remained confident, and believed God
+was speaking to him in symbols to set his house in order.
+
+"God must stoop a good 'eal, I reckon, to become an almanic maker,"
+said Colwell.
+
+"God forges the snow-flake, and sprinkles down every drop of rain,"
+said Fabens.  "God teaches the squirrels to prepare for winter, and
+instructs the ant, and beaver, and bee; and why would it be stooping
+for him to teach as, by signs in nature, to be ready for the changes he
+may bring?  He does his own work, and speaks his own mind on this world
+every single day; and if we look for his signs we shall be acquainted
+with his ways."
+
+The prediction began to fulfil.  On the last day of October a
+snow-storm fell, and Gloom cast her shadow on the chilling scene.
+Fabens called Fanny to the window to gaze at the scudding clouds and
+driving snow.  With wondering eyes and open mouth, she stared and
+sighed on the dreary, howling winter.  "We must train you, my dear,"
+said he, "to court the winter blast, and laugh, and be thankful amid
+storms.  That goodness of our Father which pours in the rain, blooms in
+the flowers of summer, and smiles in the sweet spring mornings, speaks
+also in the wind, floats on the clouds, and sifts softly down in the
+white, white snows of winter."
+
+That is called the cold winter to this day.  It was deep, and long, and
+dreary.  Snow that fell in October was not melted away till the last
+April rains dissolved it.  Wild animals died of cold and hunger; sheep
+and cattle perished in numbers in the warmest pens; tame and wild fowls
+were killed by the cutting frosts; and several families suffered
+extremely, notwithstanding the committee kept astir on the busiest
+labors of love.  Fabens' woods were easiest to enter, and by the
+exertions of many, a road was every week opened to them, and the
+destitute were furnished free with new supplies.  Yet, such was the
+pinch of one long storm, that Dickey Shymer burned up the bark he
+designed to sell for grog; and the poor mischief of a Troffater, having
+not so much as bark, burned his best bedstead, then burned his
+eel-rack, and was unstocking his musket for a last lonely fagot, when
+Fabens drove up with a towering load of green maple wood.  Grog-dealers
+were kept from freezing and starving, but they did no business to speak
+of that winter.  Even Tilly, with his desperate bandy legs, could not
+lead his gang to worry a way often to a tavern.  They were forced to
+live soberly.
+
+The spring at last came on, and by the tenth of May it was quite warm;
+and many believed the cold season story was told; and some laughed at
+Fabens and others, for sowing the last fall so many acres of wheat, and
+putting into the ground now such crops of peas, potatoes, and oats.
+Some sold off grain they had laid up in store for a famine, and the May
+sun shone so warmly, they planted considerable corn, expecting
+speculation.
+
+The corn came up finely, and looked thrifty and dark.  The forests were
+heavy with foliage.  Fruit trees and meadows contended for the fairest
+blossoms.  Dairies were diminished, so great was the prospect of summer
+grain; and Hope smiled sweetly on Summerfield.  But clouds came over
+when the corn was at the first hoeing, and terror and disappointment
+stormed upon the land.  Snow fell three feet deep on a level, and the
+cold stung all nature with a chill, that seemed blown from the lips of
+February.
+
+The sun again shone, and the snow went off; but the corn drooped, and
+the leaves of the trees withered, as if a fire had scorched them.  And
+the season proved a cold and frosty one; and many there were that
+wished they had sown winter grain, and oats, and peas; ploughed up less
+green sward, and kept larger dairies.  Another cold winter and summer
+followed, and drearier days were never seen in the Lake Country.  A few
+speculators thrived, and the forehanded had chances to make much money;
+but the poor, and those who had laid up small supplies before, and
+lived sparingly, were overtaken as by a wild storm on a moor, and
+suffered greatly.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Fabens made every exertion in their power to mitigate the
+griefs of the neighborhood; and they influenced several to join them in
+missions and labors of relief and love.  Agreements were made, that
+they would sell all they could spare at the lowest possible prices, be
+lenient about pay, inculcate and practise the sternest economy, and
+regard speculators, in that time, as foes and oppressors of the people.
+
+More forethought was exercised, and the last of the cold seasons was
+met with preparations that mitigated and cheered the grievous glooms.
+Dairies were enlarged, corn was abandoned, and the hardier grains
+supplied; and though suffering and anxiety abounded, the people were
+enabled to escape a famine; and with hearts poured out in thanks, they
+welcomed the return of seasons warm and fruitful.
+
+There were many good people staggered by that stern and afflictive
+vicissitude.  They could not conceive why it came.  They could not
+reconcile it with the goodness of God.  They saw not why, if He was
+good, there should be winter and storms at all; and not perpetual
+sunshine and summer.  They questioned Fabens on the subject.  Mr.
+Nimblet questioned him, and Colwell asked him to "clear up the
+character of his God."  Mr. Nimblet had heard Fabens express a hope
+that God would overrule evil for good, questioned him on that hope, and
+adduced the cold seasons as illustrations.
+
+"And how can you explain these things in accordance with such a hope,
+Squire Fabens?" asked he.  "And why are there so many sufferings in
+which we can see no good?"
+
+"Because with our blind eyes we cannot see the result of all that
+happens," said Fabens, "does it follow that we never shall behold them
+issuing in good?"
+
+"O no; but why should we have winter at all, when continual summer
+would be so much more pleasant?"
+
+"To me perpetual summer would not be more pleasant.  We are so
+constituted that diversity of air, weather and prospects, is
+indispensable to our enjoyment, and progress.  Would you appreciate the
+beauty and blessing of spring, summer and autumn, you must experience
+in their unfailing turn, the gloomy rigors of winter."
+
+"But why have these last been colder than others, causing so much
+suffering and need?"
+
+"I cannot see all the Divine design, but I can see a lesson of good in
+the cold seasons.  We learn wisdom, and get strength and breadth of
+life by suffering.  These last winters have taught many of us wisdom
+and forethought; made us prudent; showed us how dependent we are, and
+yet learned us self-dependence.  After this I'll warrant, the people of
+Summerfield will do and save more in the summer, to lay up comforts for
+the winter; and provide for unseen needs.  And I feel in my heart a
+warmer sympathy for suffering, and know a little of the satisfaction
+one enjoys assisting his neighbors; while I see our neighborhood bound
+together in stronger bonds of love, by the concern which those bitter
+cold storms forced us to take of one another.  What would become of
+charity if there were no wants to relieve? or hope, if we could not
+keep looking for pleasanter springs and more fruitful summers?"
+
+"But, cold summers came, and the corn was all cut off, giving nobody
+good for the labor of ploughing and planting."
+
+"Good was done to our lands, neighbor Nimblet, good was certainly done
+to our lands.  We had run our corn lands too hard; fruitful seasons
+tempted us to imprudence, and we were running them all out.  They have
+had a long rest now and will be more productive.  Beside, we have found
+out that there are many honest ways to get a living, and have learned
+how to shift from right hand to left.  A knack like that is well worth
+learning."
+
+"From lessons of evil?"
+
+"Yes, from lessons of evil.  Would the maples stand the storms as they
+do, and grow all the more; would the oaks get so great, if they sprung
+from a city hot-house?"
+
+"Are you as happy as you would be, Squire, if you could remember no
+affliction?"
+
+"I enjoy happiness of a higher, sweeter and solider kind, I assure you,
+as I think of all past sorrows.  Who can have so sweet an enjoyment of
+health, as one that has recovered from sickness, and walks out in the
+animating air and light?  Yes, some of my best joys come and cheer me
+and strengthen me, after I have suffered.  From anguish and bereavement
+the brightest views of God have shone on my soul, as you have seen
+rainbows shine brightest in the darkest skies."
+
+"I cannot see everything as you do," said Mr. Nimblet, and went his
+way, while Fabens was preparing to speak of several more blessings,
+that would follow the cold seasons.
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+A WAR OF EXTERMINATION.
+
+The people of Summerfield were never so thankful or happy as in the
+beautiful year that followed the Cold-Seasons.  Plenty returned to
+abide there, and Prosperity re-appeared, leading Hope, Comfort, Peace,
+and Joy in her jocund train.  Still that continued a land of the earth,
+bearing the thorn as well as the rose, having briers as well as berries.
+
+The people were greatly offended.  Wolves and foxes still infested the
+woods, and many of their lambs and fowls were killed and eaten by the
+animals.  They were hated with increased hatred.  Not because they were
+any worse than they ever had been before; but the people grew impatient
+of annoyance, and found it more and more difficult to see why wolves
+and foxes were made; and why they were suffered to live, and prowl
+about the abodes of men.
+
+The birds too were very troublesome.  Woodpeckers pecked the trees, and
+robins plucked the first ripe cherries.  Hawks pounced upon the
+chickens, and crows and blackbirds pulled the corn.  What were they all
+made for, and poised upon wings, with an omnipresence to annoy our
+race?  Robins were good to eat, and they were more harmless, than
+others; but why were blackbirds let loose on earth? and for what did
+crows and hawks take flight in our air?  Why were the brutal beasts and
+troublesome fowls, saved out of the things that were drowned in Noah's
+flood?
+
+Fabens confessed he could not see for what good purpose wolves and
+foxes were made; farther than the vagabond sort of happiness they might
+enjoy, and the discipline they gave to man in griefs and vexations.
+The predatory birds he thought were made equally in vain.  He was tired
+all out with their felon ravages.  He judged at last that wolves and
+foxes, and the blackbirds, and birds of prey, ought to be exterminated.
+Nothing now could so benefit the town, as a war of extermination, He
+could not raise a perfect crop of corn; he could not enjoy his ox-heart
+cherries; he could not raise a full brood of chickens, nor keep what
+were raised; he could not trust his geese from his door, nor turn his
+sheep and lambs into his fresh woods pasture, without suffering
+depredations; and something must be done to destroy the evil beasts and
+birds.
+
+"We told you the first winter you was here, Fabens, that you would have
+to come to that," said Colwell.  "It is high time a town meeting was
+called, and a general plan hit on to kill off the critters.  I have my
+plan about it, and I have told it to a good many who fall in with me."
+
+"What is your plan?  The woods are alive with foxes, and there are a
+great many wolves yet away back in the swamps and hills, while the air
+is black with crows and blackbirds.  How can we lessen their numbers
+much?"
+
+"Club together and buy at the apothecaries a hundred dollars worth of
+pison; fix it in scraps of meat, and scatter it through and through the
+woods; and if it don't make the animals scarce, I'll quit a guessin'.
+Then git up a hunt for the birds--a univarsal hunt, and have judges and
+give premiums to them that count the most game; continue the hunt a
+week or fortnight for two or three years runnin', and the birds won't
+pester us much after that."
+
+"The plan is a good one, and I'll do my part to carry it into
+execution.  I am all out of patience with the creatures.  If we do not
+kill more of them, they will get to be worse than Egypt's plagues."
+
+A town meeting was called, and Colwell's plan was adopted.  A large sum
+was contributed to procure poison; and bird hunts were arranged.  The
+poison was scattered abroad, and hundreds of foxes and wolves lay dead
+all over the woods and swamps; while the money was returned with
+interest to the people, by the sale of furs gathered from their bodies.
+The bird hunts came off with equal success, and there followed a marked
+cessation of annoyance.
+
+Only now and then a robin molested a fruit tree; and the tap of the
+woodpecker was seldom heard.  Hawks and crows that were left, looked so
+wistful and lonely they were not begrudged the little they ventured at
+times to take.  Blackbirds troubled the corn but little, and were more
+reserved of their mannerless clack.  The fowls could repose at night
+without fear of foxes; and lambs might wander in the wide woods
+pasture, and lie down unharmed by wolves.
+
+It could not be denied however that the fields and Woods were less
+cheerful, if they were more safe.  Some could not sense the change,
+except in an increase of harvests, cattle and fowls; others again, more
+spiritual in feeling, hearing and sight, discerned a gloom in the air,
+and a gloom on every scene, that seemed ominous of woe.  Fanny Fabens
+took all that gloom to her heart, and she seemed another being.  Her
+nature was glad and joyous, as a grove full of robins; but now she grew
+sad, and wept and moaned, where once she laughed and sang.  She could
+hardly account for all her grief; she seemed to inhale it from the air,
+imbibe it from the light, and taste it in the breath of the woods, and
+the odor of the flowers.
+
+But the death of the birds she knew was the beginning of her sorrows.
+She wept the loss of her favorite robin, from the ash tree in the
+middle meadow; and it was no longer a bliss, but a grief, to lie in
+that lovely shade, and sing her jocund songs, and scent the clover
+blooms.  She missed the little sparrow that had come three years in
+succession, and reared three broods in a season, from a nest in the
+honeysuckle that curtained her window.  She missed the robins from the
+cherry-trees, and the cherries palled on her tongue.  She missed the
+bluebirds from the cornfield, and the yellow-birds from the flax; she
+missed the meadow-larks from the lawns, and the quails from the oats
+and wheat; she missed the bobolinks from the hayfields, and the jays
+from the girdling; she missed the ground-birds from the pastures, and
+thrushes and sweet swamp-robins from the woods; and the poor girl
+wandered about for months very sad and lonely, singing no songs and
+sharing no delights.
+
+Mrs. Fabens felt the bereavement quite as keenly as Fanny, and she
+declared, if the ox-heart cherries were fairer and more abundant now,
+their sweetness was bitter to her taste, and it seemed like devouring
+so much beauty and song to eat them; for beauty had been banished and
+song silenced, to bring them to such a yield.  Fabens could not deny
+that the gloom invaded his heart also, and he took no comfort in the
+cherries, while he missed the music of the birds, and missed the songs
+of joy that the birds prompted Fanny to sing.
+
+Yet, to him it seemed a just and victorious warfare, and he exchanged
+congratulations with his neighbors.  He was pleased to get free from
+plagues, and he thought that relief was a good achieved of a real evil.
+His next argument with Mr. Nimblet, was less confidently urged, while
+Mr. Nimblet brought new illustrations to his aid.  Fabens, indeed,
+staggered at the reasons that now opposed his view.  Prowling beasts of
+prey were evil as anything that had started up to devour his idea, and
+good to all must come, he thought, for sweeping them away.
+
+Another season bloomed, and the birds were very few, and the bark of
+the fox, and the howl of the wolf, were very seldom heard.  But now was
+the beginning of plagues more appalling.  Flies that had served the
+robins for food, swarmed forth unmolested, and stung the cherry-trees,
+so that they bore little fruit at all, and that little was wormy and
+worthless.  And worms that had served all the birds of the air with
+meat, now multiplied greatly, and cut down all the vines, and destroyed
+double the corn that the fowls had taken; while caterpillars and
+locusts trimmed the orchards, and plagued the oats and wheat.
+
+"I begin to think that the poor birds were our friends, after all, and
+we shall now get our pay for killing them," said Fabens to Colwell, one
+day, while talking of the new annoyance.
+
+"Prospects for crops never looked so squally afore," said Colwell.  "I
+can stand crows and blackbirds, I can stomach wolves and foxes,
+better'n them nasty worms."
+
+"We called that evil which God sent for good," said Fabens.
+
+"I know not what we are coming to," sighed neighbor Nimblet.
+
+"But, we done some good, our lambs and geese are safe, sense we pisoned
+the animals," said Colwell, cheering up his heart.
+
+"I have noticed that the woods looked very yellow of late," said
+neighbor Nimblet.  "What can be the cause of that?  My maple orchard,
+my chestnut woods, my cedar swamp and pine groves, look as though they
+were dying."
+
+"I have noticed it," said Fabens; "but I did not think to examine till
+yesterday.  My most valuable pines and cedars, and my chestnuts and
+sugar maples are dying.  And come to examine them, I find the wood-mice
+and rabbits have girdled them.  This is something I never saw before.
+The woods fairly crawl with creatures that are destroying them.  And we
+are at fault for it all, neighbor Nimblet.  Say what you will, wolves
+and foxes were our friends.  They destroyed vermin and rabbits, and
+protected our woods.  But because they took a goose, and a lamb, once
+in a while, in part payment for the good they did, we saw in them
+nothing but evil, we hated them and killed them.  Now, creatures more
+destructive come forth, destroying all before them."
+
+"It cannot be quite so bad, Squire," replied Mr. Nimblet.
+
+"It is the solemn truth, bad as it is, and I know it, and we are having
+our punishment for our error," rejoined Squire Fabens.
+
+"I must go and see," said Mr. Nimblet; and the conversation ended.
+
+He went to see his woods, and found it even so; and he was greatly
+grieved, for much valuable property was wasting as in a fire.  It
+proved a greater calamity than the cold seasons.  It was long before
+the fine forests of Summerfield recovered from their wounds.
+
+But that scourge was a good lesson, from which all took profit in the
+end.  Men learned more of the designs of God, saw more good in all His
+works, let the birds and animals live, valued more preciously what was
+left them, enjoyed more wisely and sweetly such blessings as came, and
+were more thankful.
+
+There were none who took more instruction from that lesson than Mr. and
+Mrs. Fabens.  It elevated their views, it increased their faith, it
+enlarged the sphere of their spirits, and cleared up more of the
+mystery of evil.  All of that mystery they did not expect to see
+unveiled below.  It was not a possible thing to make mortal men see and
+understand it.  But if the dark cloud still spread its dubious dusk on
+the sky, more and more of it melted into the rainbow as they gazed; and
+while part of that bow was still involved in the cloud, and part hidden
+away far below the horizon, enough was still glowing in glory on their
+sight, and enough gleaming and breaking through the darkness, to enable
+them to know it would burst at last on their blessed eyes, in a perfect
+circle of the light of love.
+
+"We should all be happier and more fortunate," said Mrs. Fabens, "if we
+had faith to see a blessing of God in more of the things we regard as
+evil.  It requires great faith, I know, to be reconciled under all
+griefs, and see a good design in all that afflicts us.  It has been
+hard for me to see why God made wolves and foxes, and how they could
+minister good to man.  They may be evil, for all I know, but if they do
+not fulfil a good design, why has it proved an evil to kill them?"
+
+"It does, indeed, require great faith to accept your suggestion; but
+that faith must be the true one after all," said the Squire.  "They
+made incursions on our folds.  They took now and then a lamb, or fowl;
+but how much less have they taken than enough to pay them for the good
+they did.  How few of us would do the same good to them for the same
+small reward.  We are impatient of griefs and vexations.  We chafe, and
+foam, and champ the bit that curbs in our passions, and reins us around
+the wisest way.  We think it hard that wolves should sometimes bring us
+a disguised blessing.  We find it difficult to discover the good design
+of apparent ill.  But at last we shall see how evil may issue in good.
+The end will reveal the good design of all.  As I understand it, evil
+is the imperfection which necessarily follows our nature.  The moral
+difference between an imperfect world and a perfect God.  The shadow of
+the Tree of Life.  The cloud that veils the Mercy-Seat.  The sad and
+the bitter, the dark and dreary, that serve but to reveal the joyful
+and sweet, the bright, and glad, and beautiful.
+
+"And we know by experience, Julia, that the evils of this world may be
+turned into a high and fruitful discipline; and from that discipline we
+may rise to a life of maturer powers, and more ample and energetic
+character; with thriftier faith and greener hope; and clustering graces
+all around the heart, of juicier pulp and rarer flavor."
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+THE MINISTER.
+
+It was now past the middle of September, and the farmers of Summerfield
+had finished their fall seeding; most of them had spread their flax;
+some, cut their corn, gathered their pumpkins, and dug their potatoes:
+and all were enjoying a September of the soul.
+
+Fabens was enjoying it out on his accustomed seat, beneath a favorite
+shade-tree, in the green mown meadow before his home; and indulging one
+of those golden reveries that rise in the autumn time.  The June-like
+lustre of the glowing sky; the beauty of the fields now blooming in
+second verdure, like aged souls with new hopes and loves in the light
+of Christianity; the affluence of orchards, dropping the burden,
+diffusing the fragrance of their mellow fruit; the opulence of
+woodlands, exhibiting signs of the first frost, yet still withholding
+the wealth of their bright foliage; the pride of his gallant horses,
+liberated from the plough, and galloping here and there, on sports of
+majesty in the upland pasture; the appearance of fine cattle grazing on
+the distant mead; the sight of yellow stubble-fields, sleeping in
+remoter view; the neatness and abundance of his farm-yard, proclaimed
+by the lordly cock in a rousing and resonant crow; the odor of hay and
+grain from his barn near by; the quiet and cosy comfort of his home;
+the presence of Julia and Fanny, the one reading David from that noble
+old ode called the Sixty-fifth Psalm, and the other at his side,
+embracing his neck in a clasp of leaning affection: those pleasant
+sights that regaled his gaze, and those ardent emotions of gratitude
+that thrilled him through and through in the sweet contemplation,
+directed his thoughts to the God who gave them, and he thanked him for
+his bounty; attained still more lofty conceptions of his love; and, as
+Julia concluded the psalm, repeated the words, "Praise waiteth for
+Thee, O God!  Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths
+drop fatness.  They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the
+little hills rejoice on every side.  Praise waiteth for Thee!"
+
+As he concluded the pious apostrophe, a stranger, till then unobserved,
+stepped before him, and inquired if it was Squire Fabens of Summerfield
+whom he had the honor to address.  Being answered in the affirmative,
+the stranger continued--"I know one Daniel Fabens on the Hudson, at
+whose house I have often tarried, and aware that I was about to visit
+the Lake Country, he informed me of you, sir, and insisted on my giving
+you a call."
+
+"Daniel Fabens?--Daniel Fabens;--Let me see.  O, it must be my Uncle
+Abraham's son; he had a Daniel; the only one of the name I know of.  It
+must be he."
+
+"I think he called you Uncle, sir."
+
+"No, cousin.  Our fathers were brothers.  I am often called Uncle by
+cousins and neighbors.  But it's of no consequence, sir.  You are just
+as welcome.  I was only casting in my mind what Fabens it could be.  I
+am glad to see a friend from the Hudson, sir; and what may I call your
+name?"
+
+"My name is Lovelight.  I am a minister of Christ.  I have a message to
+your country."
+
+"I took you for a minister.  You are welcome to Summerfield; and to a
+home with us while you tarry.  This is my wife, sir, and that is my
+daughter.  Walk into the house, walk in; and I will take care of your
+horse: you both look weary."
+
+The horse was unsaddled, and washed with cool water from the well, and
+turned into a field of fresh clover; and the stranger followed Mrs.
+Fabens and Fanny into the house; and, after resting and bathing, a good
+supper, with a dessert of peaches and cream, was taken.  Evening came
+on, and with it a long conversation, and before they retired, the hour
+was approaching midnight.
+
+"As you are a minister, sir, will you tell me of what persuasion?"
+asked Fabens, while they conversed.
+
+"The persuasion of Christmas I believe," said the minister with a
+gentle affability.  "I think little of sects.  They are too exclusive
+and formal.  I love the church of Christ.  That is catholic and real;
+that embraces the good of all sects, and is the mother of us all."
+
+"I agree with you there.  A sect is a body too little and low for the
+spirit of Christ.  But I didn't know but you held to one of the
+particular creeds of Christians."
+
+"The Bible is my creed and counsel."
+
+"That is right.  But you preach a doctrine peculiar to some one of the
+Christian denominations, I suppose?  I am not particular to know,
+however.  It was only my curiosity."
+
+"I am not particular to conceal my views.  I would be glad to preach in
+your neighborhood, and allow you to judge of my doctrine.  I would be
+glad to preach next Sunday."
+
+"The only meeting-house in town, I am sorry to say, is occupied every
+Sunday.  I have no doubt but Mr. Darling, our minister, would be glad
+to have the people hear you.  He is a good man; and, if he is a
+sectarian, he is not so exclusive as many."
+
+"I would not ask him to give up his pulpit to a stranger.  It would not
+be best, I think, to apply to him.  Have you not a school-house, or
+barn, that would convene the people with comfort?  I am used to such
+temples of worship."
+
+"Our school-house is small, and our barns are full; and I am sorry it
+happens so, for I want to hear your message."
+
+"Then I will preach in the open air.  Fix me a stand under your
+shade-tree, and I'll want no better place.  I'll be in God's free
+temple then--a fit place for God's free gospel."
+
+"It shall be done for you; and I will send around notice far and near.
+And shall we hear something against the sects, and their cant and
+dogmas?"
+
+"No, not at present, from me.  Truth will wage its own warfare when
+given fair play; and while I leave truth to conquer, I denounce less,
+and invite the more.  Set the Infinite Good before the people, and
+invite them to rise and accept it; and they are very sure, sooner or
+later, to come.  This was Christ's way.  He opened heaven on earth, and
+invited men to prepare and receive its light and joy to their mourning
+souls.  'Repent,' said he, 'for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"
+
+"If the people heard more of this preaching," said Fabens, "they would
+rouse from their indifference, and live a heavenly life."
+
+"The world has been denounced for indifference," said the Minister;
+"but the world is not all to blame.  The gospel it hears is too seldom
+of the inviting kind, adapted to its wants, addressed to its affections
+and reason.  Men have been fed on the letter, while needing the spirit
+and truth which the letter conceals.  Preachers have spun too much
+gossamer and tinsel; and woven too little solid bang-up and beaver for
+wear and comfort.  The people have been served with too many custards
+and candies of entertainment, while hungering hotly for the bread of
+life."
+
+"Very true," said Fabens.  "I have felt this hunger myself, though our
+preacher here has given us very good fare."
+
+"In consequence of this error," said the Minister, "many good people
+have taken the impression that there is nothing in religion worthy of
+their first concern.  That it has not a spirit which will act on a week
+day; and neither food nor clothing for the soul can be found among its
+provisions.--Why, sir, religion is a legacy of infinite love to a world
+groaning in sin.  It has power to change this earth to a paradise, and
+transfigure its inhabitants to angels.  It is the one thing needful for
+every-day life; the principal requisite for a true integrity and honor;
+the actual virtue; the legitimate hope; the perfect charity; the
+paramount peace; the kingdom of heaven at hand.  As men permit its warm
+influence to stream down into their hearts, they will kindle and rise
+to a new and noble life, and walk and live in heaven."
+
+"I am confident of that," said Fabens, "and I am glad you are out on a
+mission of this gospel.  I am sure we need it enough in this
+neighborhood."
+
+"Christians should be all on fire with the spirit of this religion
+now," said the Minister.  "They should give it forth to the world as a
+vital heat warming up the temple of the heart like a furnace; a light,
+flooding every niche and cranny of that temple with full illumination;
+a fountain, watering all its sanctities and graces; and music, filling
+it to overflow with the voice of heavenly song."
+
+"Give me that religion," said Fabens, "and I shall be rich and high
+indeed.  But I cannot hope to enjoy it in such full and actual life."
+
+"The world is like you," said the Minister.  "It wants hopefulness.  It
+wants hope in God, and faith in his providence.  Here is the grand
+want; hope in God and faith in his providence.  God is doing his work
+in this world at this hour; his spirit moves on the waters now,
+bringing peace out of discord, and light out of darkness; and the
+people should know and feel it as a vital truth.  When they do, they
+will rely on his love, and enjoy his religion."
+
+"I wish you would give us a sermon on this subject," said Fabens.
+
+"I will," said the Minister, and they concluded the conversation,
+attended prayers and retired to rest.
+
+Arrangements were made, and notice, circulated for the meeting.  The
+hour of the meeting came, and it was a placid and splendid hour as ever
+gilded a country Sabbath.
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+THE MEETING.
+
+A country Sabbath! who can go out of the city and enjoy that even in
+imagination, without bringing the day, and all its placid light, and
+all its green and tranquil blessings home with him in his soul?  It
+steals upon you like the floating raptures of a trance, and O! there
+are such smiles and splendors of God in the sky; there is such a spirit
+of worship in the hushed and reverent air; there are such songs of
+praise from all the temples of Nature rising on wings of holy melody to
+heaven; and you behold such comely forms and faces descending the green
+hills, and emerging from the woods and lanes: you forget this
+prison-durance, and seem to walk in a higher sphere.
+
+The Minister was a little man, of perfect form, lithe as a spirit;
+ardent, open, affable; with a high and swelling forehead; a deep, warm,
+lustrous eye that darted forth the living fire of intelligence and
+love; a long thin nose, winding in a slight and not ungraceful curve
+toward the right shoulder; an eloquent gesture, a clarion voice, and a
+face benignant and bland as the mild morning star.
+
+A large concourse of people assembled to hear him, and after the usual
+service of introduction, he rose, and casting those kindling eyes
+around on the audience a moment, in a voice round and clear as a forest
+warbler's, he said, "_The Spirit of God moved on the face of the
+waters._"  This was his text, and,--"I suppose it is commonly
+conceded," said he, "that the book of Genesis is the most ancient, if
+not most sublime of all the writings that enrich the world.  The
+learned have cited the first verses of this book as specimens of
+sublimity unequalled by any language.  And though the prophets, and the
+gospel authors outsoar Moses, I think, in the morally sublime; yet
+there are two or three touches in Genesis that roll and roar like
+Niagara before me, and stir me so strongly, fill me so full, and lift
+me so high, I find it an effort to rise to any grander conception than
+they give.
+
+"The verse on creation; the void and formless earth rolling off in
+darkness; the Spirit of God on the waters; the mandate for light; the
+dividing of the floods; the fixing of the firmaments; the lifting of
+the sun and moon to the heavens; the arrangement of day and night; the
+bringing of the seasons; the making of man: all sweep before our mind
+in visions of awe, and might, and gloom; magnificence, glory, peace and
+love; and we may study the chapter till we shall seem to be there in
+the midst of the awful scene, and find ourselves throbbing and swaying
+with a rapt spirit, and a bounding heart.
+
+"'The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.'  This, my
+friends, is an assurance of God's Providence, only surpassed by the
+highest announcements of Christ.  And the text has moved me profoundly,
+and come in a thousand times to exalt my faith amid trials, and sooth
+my griefs, and calm my solicitudes, when anguish has pierced me, and
+storms have raged.  The text finds a thousand illustrations.  The world
+was called from chaos, and warring elements, and confused and
+conflicting principles have not yet been restrained from their fury, or
+soothed to perfect peace.  There are wars among the waters of nature;
+there are wars among the waters of the moral world; there are wars of
+passion in our souls, and we lose our confidence often, and often our
+peace and rest.  But 'the Spirit of God moves on the face of the
+waters;' and they who believe this, will never feel forsaken, or lose
+their balance or their hope.
+
+"_The Spirit of God moves on the waters as they flow in the course of
+Nature_; and at this very hour He is present in all her stirring
+scenes, commanding her mighty forces, preserving her general harmony,
+and leading all her rushing rivers of motion, power and life, into one
+wide ocean of purity and peace.  And this is that gracious Providence
+asserted in the text, and announced so often by the Savior.  It
+requires a lofty faith to discover that Providence, at all times; to
+detect its personal presence, and rest in its parental love.  What a
+time it was in the beginning, while the earth was formless and void,
+and darkness brooded over the seas that embosomed her--if we could have
+witnessed the scene--what a time to shake and shatter this faith!  And
+during long ages afterward, while the land was forming in little
+islands above the waters, how impossible it would have been for one of
+us to see the Divine Presence on the waters, look for harmony, beauty,
+life and peace to be brought out of all!
+
+"And then in times of confusion, we have seen, when storms have fallen,
+when winds have howled, and the waters roared with trouble; what an
+effort was required to believe the Lord was in the storm speaking
+peace; and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters!
+
+"Then, there are storms we know of, but cannot see at all times.
+Electric and magnetic storms, when all the vital forces of nature are
+in commotion, and wars are waged from pole to pole: when the thunders
+growl, and lightnings flash, and the ruddy aurora dances and flames.
+What apparent confusion reigns!  You think the thunder, lightning and
+aurora, are announcements of war and commotion scarcely yet begun, and
+you fear and tremble.
+
+"But how will knowledge and faith disperse these terrors, and reduce
+their confusion to harmony and rest!  The very war of waters at the
+creation was their effort after peace.  When the world stood in islands
+above the lonely seas, the Spirit of God was on the waters, bringing
+forth continents in order and beauty, and preparing for these times of
+wide-spread lands, and gay-green verdures; and nations on all, with
+intelligence, commerce and joy.  And the terrible storms we have
+witnessed, were the movement of God's Spirit, restoring equilibrium in
+nature; while, instead of announcing conflict and trouble to come, the
+lightning and aurora were the reports of peace; saying, the electric
+and magnetic storms were over, and their forces were at rest.
+
+"Again; '_the Spirit of God moves on the waters as they flow in the
+course of History._'
+
+"We study history with trifling purpose, if its high philosophy does
+not raise us behind the scenes of strife and peace, advance and
+retreat, rest and revolution, to discover that God moves on the waters
+controlling their general course."
+
+The Minister cited a few great epochs and movements of history, as
+illustrations.  Some were secular, and some were sacred.  He pointed to
+the wars of Alexander, in which the oriental nations must have seen
+nothing but chaos, desolation, and woe.  Yet, over all those warring
+waters the Spirit of God moved, and the races of men rose ennobled from
+them.  Horrible sins were committed by that warrior, and God brought
+him and them to a terrible judgment.  Yet God turned the curses to
+blessings.  The young, warm, vigorous blood of Greece, and her splendid
+literature, and magnificent arts were carried into the heart of Asia,
+and raised those old dotard nations to a second youth; inspired them
+with power and light; flooded their lands with new and noble ideas, and
+brought sluggish and unsocial peoples into commerce, unity, progress,
+and hope.
+
+"And pass to another scene," said the Minister, rising with his subject
+and kindling to a glow.  "Pass to another scene.  Enter Jerusalem.  Go
+about Judea after the martyrdom of Stephen, and see what chaos, terror,
+and despair succeed.  Even the Jews are divided into cliques and
+juntos, at war with each other, and enraged at their rulers.  And where
+are the poor trembling Christians, that on the day of Pentecost flocked
+in such thousands and such joy to the lifted banner of the Cross?  And
+how stands their faith in this terrible hour?  It is sorely tried and
+belabored.  Persecution kindles her fiery torches, and a wild tumult of
+warring evils reigns.  They are scattered abroad.  They flee for their
+lives to distant cities, and many lie down in despair and death.
+
+"And yet what seeds of blessing were blown about by those wicked winds;
+and what love was brought from persecution!  The Christians were
+scattered all over the Roman empire, and every one became a missionary
+to the Gentiles, to give the word, and diffuse the power of eternal
+life.  And thus was Divine Providence manifested in defeating the
+designs of evil; in commanding the waters of rage and fury, and
+bringing harmony, truth, and blessing out of all.  And signs of a like
+Providence have been repeated throughout the whole course of history,
+and man has risen from every conflict wiser, stronger, and more mature
+in the graces of many-sided life.
+
+"The period succeeding the fall of the Roman empire was another chaos
+of upheaval, confusion, war, and night.  The Christian element had been
+poured into the Roman, which had long effervesced with the leaven of
+Greece and the oriental world.  Then wave after wave of barbarian
+power, fury, and life, came pouring into all, and threatening to drown
+the world, like another flood, and sweep away the monuments,
+institutions, and ideas of all past time.  The rolling in of those
+savage waves was like pouring rivers of acid into seas of alkali, and
+the waters of society rose and roared in foaming strife.  Yet, black as
+was the sky, through all the dark ages, the light of the Lord shone
+above the darkness; and wild and terrible as was the war of waters, the
+Spirit of the Lord moved upon them, and brought to our times the social
+life, liberty, and harmony we see.
+
+"And some of the grandest characters of history have been called out in
+times of conflict and revolution; and this shows the revelation of the
+Lord in all.  Milton, Washington, Patrick Henry, were not the weakly
+blossoms of a hot-house, nor the stately flowers that decked a velvet
+lawn, or blushed in a sunny garden.  No! they were live, indomitable
+oaks, that grew amid rocks, and from warring winds, and dashing waters,
+received strength to deepen their hardy roots, and lift to heaven their
+green and magnificent branches.
+
+"And as in Nature and History," said the Minister, "_so in Individual
+Life we may say the same_.  The Providence of God regards the sparrow's
+flight and the insect's joy; it clothes the grass, and arrays the
+lilies in glory, and therefore is mindful of you and me, and works for
+our good.  'The Spirit of God moves on the waters,' as they flow in the
+course of Individual Life.
+
+"We often see darkness above us.  We often hear the powers of apparent
+chaos roaring like hungry dragons around.  We are often the sport of
+whirling eddies, and the rage of furious rapids and falls.  We wind our
+cold, dark way at times, as if passing under the falls of Niagara,
+roofed over with roaring waters, and startled with bursts of spray, and
+shrieks and whistlings of sound from chasms and gulfs beneath; where
+one false step would send us to destruction.
+
+"And yet, as we have trusted our faith and hope, we have heard the
+voice of the Lord above the noise of waters; and felt that his Spirit
+moved near us, breathing love and speaking peace.  We have said with
+George Fox, 'There is an ocean of darkness and death; but withal an
+infinite ocean of light and love flows over the darkness.'
+
+"And what if we cannot always behold the light above the clouds?  What
+if the time frequently comes in trials, bereavements and disasters,
+when all around and above, is dark, dark; and we see not how our
+prayers for light can be answered, or in what way God can educe a good
+from evil?  Experience and faith assure us that the light will come,
+and the good be made manifest.
+
+"I may safely assert," said the Minister, "that the highest and
+sweetest of all the blessings God his poured upon me, have rained down
+in storms of affliction.  That the brightest days have dawned on the
+darkest nights.  That the roundest and ruddiest rainbows have beamed
+from the gloomiest clouds.  I have had the profoundest sense of the
+love of God, and the nearness of His Spirit, not in days of sunshine
+and pleasure, when the waters have flowed in placid, tranquillity, and
+there were slumber and rest on the world.  But in hours of trial and
+trouble, I have felt most of His love, and seemed most lovingly folded
+in His Spirit; in hours of sickness, in hours of need, afar from all my
+kindred, cut off from the staff and stay of worldly pleasure and joy.
+Then, O, then, the Spirit of God has moved on the waters, and spoken
+peace!  And from afflictions, I have risen to higher faith, and more
+strength of character, and broader aims and views of life.
+
+"And this has been the experience of others I have visited and heard.
+It has not been amid affluence, it has not been on the smoothly-rolling
+current of worldly prosperity, that I have found people most keenly
+alive to a sense of God's goodness, or the presence of His Spirit.  I
+have found great faith and gratitude; I have found warm and devoted
+Christians amid affluence; but I think on the whole, I have found the
+profoundest sense of the Divine Goodness and Presence among the humble,
+among the poor and afflicted; and I am often reminded of an apostle's
+words; 'God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith.'  *  *  *
+
+"And this reminds me of Job, and the faith that led him to hear the
+voice of the Divine Spirit in the whirlwind, and on the stormy flood;
+and from whirlwinds and floods, to get messages of love and peace.
+
+"But with the aid of all these illustrations," said the Minister,
+closing his sermon, "what _can_ we conceive of God's providential love?
+It is a thought beyond conception, it is a light transcending vision.
+There is no object on earth or in heaven, that can well represent the
+truth of its wisdom, the touch of its tenderness, or the attraction of
+its power.  The sun is but a taper, reflecting its glory; the sea is
+but a globule, describing its breadth and depth.  It runs the circle of
+the universe, without interruption, and without end.  It is particular
+as it is impartial; it is melting and sweet, as it is mighty and
+sublime; and it holds you and me, and it holds the littlest babe, and
+the littlest bird and flower, in an infinite Father's heart!"
+
+He pronounced the benediction, and the audience went their way to
+rejoice in the light that seemed sent down from heaven.
+
+He gave another message in Summerfield, and departed on another call of
+his mission.  His visit to the Lake Country was an era in the life of
+Matthew Fabens.  His views and illustrations suggested new trains of
+thought and reflection; but they only confirmed his faith in Christ's
+doctrine of Providence, and opened his ear to loftier and more
+melodious notes of that infinite harmony, in which he believed the
+universe of God was bound.  Mrs. Fabens had joys that flowing tears
+expressed, and Fanny was not an unsympathizing hearer.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE SECOND MEETING AND ITS FRUITS.
+
+In his second sermon, the Minister set forth one or two practical views
+of Christianity, and dwelt upon them with an earnest soul, and a happy
+selection of illustrations from the Scriptures.  He cited incidents
+from history also; and appealed to his audience with such persuasive
+eloquence, he left a deep impression on their minds and hearts.
+
+Fabens had before thought of those things, and endeavored to rule his
+conduct by such a spirit.  He had studied the example of Joseph with
+his brethren; of Elisha with the Assyrians, of David with Saul, of
+Christ with his enemies, of Schuyler with Burgoyne, and Washington with
+the Tory.  In numberless instances of his life, the power of such
+examples had been exhibited in his private conduct, and in his
+decisions as a magistrate.
+
+Still his faith in the power of kindness as applied to the vicious and
+criminal, was not so strong or perfect as he would desire.  Some cases
+of offence there were, in the treatment of which, for a good effect
+upon others, he held doubted the success of that principle.  The
+teachings of God, he confessed, had a lesson to strengthen that faith.
+All his own little errors had been treated with kindness from Heaven.
+True, he had always been miserable as often as he had sinned; but then
+the gracious rains were not withheld, nor the kind sunlight
+extinguished; nor the harvests blighted, nor the bloom of woods, nor
+the fragrance of flowers denied, because he had been sinful and
+unthankful.  God had chastened him in kindness; and he loved virtue all
+the more, and increased in the ardors of devotion.  He prayed for more
+faith in the power of benevolent principles and deeds; and hoped at
+length for a perfection, in which he could actually turn the left
+cheek, when the right had been smitten.  The words of the Minister
+increased his confidence in moral power, and rendered more lovely than
+ever he regarded them before, many of the Saviour's precepts.
+
+The subject engrossed his thoughts and feelings, when, one evening,
+going to his barn with a lantern to close the door, he found a neighbor
+in his granary measuring wheat!  A second glance assured him it was
+Tilly Troffater, his enemy; the mysterious, meddlesome, lying little
+bandy Troffater, and he was stealing wheat!
+
+Some of the neighbors had long surmised that Tilly owed the Squire a
+groundless and secret grudge, as he did many others in the town.  He
+always seemed to be cooking spleen and getting up grudges.  He enjoyed
+apparent slights, and fancied insults, as a hungry dog his dinner; they
+helped him so much in hatching quarrels and perpetrating spites and
+revenges.  But he always seemed to fear the Squire, and drop his
+cockerel crest, whenever he met his glances; and no one suspected he
+would dare to step so far upon his premises, even to execute revenge,
+much less, to rob or steal.  He had often said he would never stand
+before Squire Fabens, and be obliged to look him in the face.  But
+alas, here he was overtaken in a crime!  And what on earth could the
+creature do?  He would have given the apple of his eye to be anywhere
+else at that moment.
+
+He had an enormous bag, but as yet, there was only a little in it.
+Fabens approached him, called him _neighbor_ Troffater, got hold of his
+hiding hand, and shook it with a frank and earnest grasp, that would
+have hurt a tenderer palm, and inquired after his health and that of
+his family.  Troffater straightened, and swelled, and blowed; and
+cocked and crossed his black and blue eyes; but answered not a word.
+Now was the time to test the power of kindness, and he gave it a trial.
+
+He was glad, he said, that he happened to come with a light, for it was
+very difficult to measure wheat in the dark; and began himself to fill
+up the bag.  Troffater looked more sullen and evil for a while, but he
+soon began to wilt, and open his mouth with apologies.  He declared, as
+true as he lived, he would not have taken over half a bushel, and would
+have returned again every kernel he borrowed.  Fabens replied that it
+would grieve him to know that any neighbor of his was in need of what
+he could so easily spare; and for fear Troffater might suffer, and be
+tempted again to do what must be so painful to his heart, he filled the
+large bag and tied it, saying, "There neighbor Troffater, you are very
+welcome to that bag-full."
+
+He insisted, however, that Troffater should go into the house, and see
+his folks, and take supper with them.  The bolt of a galvanic battery
+could not have convulsed the little culprit with a more terrible shock
+than such a word; he looked as though he would slink through the floor,
+and actually craved a blow to brace up his nerves, and knit his joints,
+and rally his skulking spirit.  He begged permission to be gone
+immediately.  But no, he could not get off with so light a punishment.
+He must go in and see Mrs. Fabens and Fanny, and take supper with them.
+He dared not disobey, and he trudged sneakingly in like a whipped
+spaniel.
+
+"O, it is Mr. Troffater come to see us!" said Mrs. Fabens, smiling a
+kind welcome as he entered the door.  "We were wondering who it could
+be with Mr. Fabens in the barn-yard.  How do you do, Mr. Troffater?
+How is Mrs. Troffater? and how are the family?  It is such a pleasant
+evening, why did not Mrs. Troffater come over with you and spend the
+evening?  She has not made me a visit in a long, long while."
+
+"How are Ruth and Josephine?  Did I not see them crossing our pasture
+towards Mr. Teezle's to-day?  I hope they have not forgotten that they
+owe me a visit," said Fanny, with a voice more musical than the
+meadowlark's, and a smile more gentle and subduing than the moonlight
+melting on the wall.
+
+But Troffater was silent.  His throat was so dry, and his tongue so
+thick, he could utter nothing in return.  His silence surprised them,
+and they feared he had been injured, or was in a fit, until a glance
+from Fabens checked their surprise and inquiries; and then they treated
+him as if he had joined in conversation, and nothing unusual had
+happened.  A good supper was set before him, and a good family took
+seats around him, and Mrs. Fabens and Fanny more than once expressed
+the wish that Mrs. Troffater and the girls had come along.  But
+Troffater enjoyed neither conversation, nor comfort, nor supper.  He
+tried to eat, but he made a pig's mess of the fine and bountiful dishes
+they set before him.  He crossed and recrossed his earthen eyes.  He
+sweat, and hitched, and wheezed: he dropped his knife on the floor, and
+stuck his elbow in Fanny's butter; he attempted to sever a cold
+chicken's wing, and upset a plate full of biscuit and butter, apple,
+honey, and pie, in his lap; he blew his tea long after it was cool, and
+blew hot and cold drops into Mrs. Fabens' face; and mixed everything
+together as he ate.  And then he ate but little; his throat was so dry
+he found it difficult to swallow.
+
+After supper they returned to the barn, and there Fabens told him in
+private what he thought of his crime.  He talked very frankly.  He used
+neither oil nor honey with his words.  He warned him against the
+wickedness of crime, and against its awful punishments.  He cited a few
+warnings of the Scriptures against the wicked and the sinner.  Yet he
+spoke kindly, and admonished him as a friend and brother.
+
+Troffater went into convulsions of agony.  Streams of fire seemed
+surging through all his arteries, burning up his heart, and covering
+his head and face with blisters.  He hung his head, and knocked his
+knees together.  He gasped, and hemmed, and groaned.  Tears at last
+came to his relief, and he wept like a child.  Fabens assured him, if
+he would promise upon honor, that he would, from that time, abandon
+criminal desires and acts, he would always treat him kindly, and never
+expose him.  A pledge was given with more soul in its declarations than
+had ever before been extorted from the mischief.
+
+Troffater, however, still begged for one mitigation of his
+punishment--a single one.  He begged to empty the bag of wheat into the
+granary, and go home without a quart.  But Fabens was inexorable.
+Troffater said it would choke him to eat the flour, after what had
+happened.  But Fabens expressed no fear or pity.  Troffater said he
+would give up trapping and hunting, and go right to work and earn some
+wheat.  Fabens advised him to do it; but said he must take home that
+bag full, to keep them in bread till he could earn more.  Troffater
+replied that they had enough for two or three bakings, and asked if he
+might not let the bag stand, and come to-morrow, and work till he had
+earned it, and then take it home.  But Fabens was still inexorable.  If
+Troffater would come to-morrow and help him three or four days, he
+would pay him in wheat; but that bag-full he was welcome to, and he
+must take it home that night.
+
+"I ken not carry it," cried Tilly; "there's three bushels and a haff;
+and it'll break my back, if I try to tuck it hum."
+
+"I did not think of that.  It will be too heavy for one load; but I
+will tell you how you can manage it," said Fabens.  "We will turn half
+of it into your other bag, that lies out there by the fence, and you
+can carry it half at a time, and then get it home before eleven
+o'clock."
+
+Then came another scourge like molten lead upon him.  He had hoped that
+Fabens would not discover the other bag; but now the worst was known;
+and taking the fiery chastisement, he submitted, insisting on coming to
+work, and declaring he would take no more pay for his work; while the
+Squire declared if he worked he should have his pay.  He carried away
+the wheat, and never again was detected in crime committed after that
+night.  It could hardly be expected by any man that his character would
+be completely changed, or his punishment entirely remitted at once.
+But he was a better neighbor, and more inclined to employment; and he
+abandoned his love of lying, law, and litigation.
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+THE HARVEST LUNCH.
+
+Bearing witness of prospering hopes and growing joys, nearly a
+twelvemonth passed away, and Fabens commenced his wheat harvest.  The
+last fall seeding was more extensive than that of any former year; the
+snows came on early, and in kindly coverings, protected the tender
+blades through the winter.  Spring rains fell in timely showers to wash
+it from mould, and revive it from the withering of frost and wind.  The
+summer appeared early, as one of Nature's most genial and gentle, and
+he looked around on harvests large and white.
+
+He went forth to his fields, with many men, and great preparations.
+The songs of the reapers were never more cheerful.  The melting hours
+of July were never more manfully met.  The home of our farmer had
+seldom less shadow with its light.  Laborers found rarely a more
+liberal employer than he.  He was generous in the wages he gave; he
+allowed more resting hours than any of his neighbors; he was less
+exacting in his demands; he always reserved the finest lambs and
+chickens to supply his table in that season; he had the best of spruce
+beer in Summerfield, and the clearest crystal water.  And while with
+these mitigations, the toils of the harvesters were still hot and heavy
+to be borne, there was that in their fare, in their songs, and
+animation, which told of as much happiness, as may crown the tasks of
+labor.
+
+To all his sympathies for the laborers, to all his efforts to cheer
+them, and temper their fatigues, and give them relief and refreshment,
+Mrs. Fabens and Fanny responded with expressions, more meaning than
+words.  From the midst of the forenoon labors, they invited their help
+to refreshments under some green shade tree in the field; and in the
+long afternoon, three hours before supper, a refreshing lunch was again
+set before them, which would have answered well for supper; and it
+brought vigor once more to weary arms, and vigor to weary hearts; and
+called forth thanks from minds that abounded in gratitude, as in labor.
+Long and affectionately were they remembered by their men, as the
+bringers of joy and ministers of comfort, where joy and comfort were
+often craved in vain.
+
+On one sweet afternoon, toward the last of the month, and the last of
+the harvest, a cool bland breeze swept over from the north, and
+rendered the time delightful.  The sun still shone, and it was large
+and yellow as in October, but the breath of the north stole the sting
+of fire from its beams, and rallied a thrill of life and joy through
+the drooping hearts of beasts and men.
+
+It was a pleasant hour to be enjoyed out of door, and it was welcomed
+as a blessing, by those who had kept in the shade; and Mrs. Fabens and
+her daughter hurried their preparations to be early in the field, with
+the evening meal.
+
+"The men want to finish if they can, this week," said Mrs. Fabens, "and
+they have worked hard, very hard, since morning, and we must give them
+a good luncheon this time."
+
+"We will take extra pains," responded Fanny, "and see how cheerful we
+can make them.  It is so cool and pleasant out now, they will enjoy it,
+and we shall enjoy it better than usual, as Cousin William will be with
+us; and let it be something more than bread and butter.  I feel so
+sorry for them, while they work so hard in the scorching sun to make us
+happy!  Too much care cannot be done to refresh them, and warm up their
+hearts."
+
+"Then, William has returned from Auburn, has he?  Well, he shall see
+that country people can be happy and free-hearted, if they have _not_
+the city refinements.  And we shall again find that the greatest good
+and joy on earth, we take in the good we do to others.  They shall have
+something that will do them good."
+
+"George Ludlow looked up to me so thankful, when I turned his bowl of
+coffee," said Fanny, "and it seemed to taste so good, and revive him
+so, I felt more than paid; I was myself refreshed by my trouble."
+
+"It does them all good, not only to be refreshed with what nature
+requires, but to know that we care for them.  These little acts of
+kindness can never be felt, except in pleasure by us, while they will
+direct a stray feeling of happiness to more than one deserving heart.
+It is a refreshment of the soul, to poor and rich, to know that others
+care for them.  What should we live for, if not to lighten each other's
+labors, and make each other happy?"
+
+"If what father believes is true, and it looks quite rational, we
+praise God most, when we are most like him, and are faithful and
+free-hearted to his children.  And who of us desires more praise from
+those we wait on, than a look of gratitude, and the assurance that we
+have given a blessing?  But, George _did_ look so thankful!  Poor
+George, how hard he has worked to be somebody in the world!"
+
+"They all looked thankful, and what was better, they rose and went to
+work again with a lighter step, as though they felt younger and
+stronger.  But, George has given you several such looks of late, and
+sometimes when your eyes were another way.  I begin to think he means
+something."
+
+"How you talk, mother!--What, looked at me several times?  And when my
+eyes were another way?" returned Fanny, blushing like a quince blossom.
+
+"Well, he cannot mean anything more than thanks for our small
+attentions."
+
+"George is a fine young man," said Mrs. Fabens, "if the Cressey girls,
+and Desdemona Faddle do feel above him.  They will set their caps in
+vain for Merchant Fairbanks, for he detests their foolish pride and
+finery as much as any one, and laughs in his sleeves, I'll warrant, at
+their dangling curls, and their silly lisping talk, when they try to
+speak polite to him; although he likes to flirt with them, and make
+them think he is ready to die for them."
+
+"And why should _they_ feel themselves better than George?" asked
+Fanny.  "They don't astonish the world with good looks, or refinement
+of manners or mind.  Their fathers are rich I know, and they have
+nothing to do but dress, and study etiquette.  They can hardly stoop to
+what they call common people.  But I don't envy them at all.  They were
+always disliked at school, and were always at the foot of their class.
+If I were going to feel large and boast, I would want something besides
+wealth to feel large about.  I am sure I would sooner envy George
+Ludlow, if he is not handsome, and is poor, and works out to support
+his father and mother.  He knows something, and has riches of the heart
+I believe.  But I cannot think why he should look at me, as you say,
+mother."
+
+"I like your ideas of greatness, Fanny," replied Mrs. Fabens, "I like
+your ideas of greatness, and am glad you do not join those foolish
+girls in a pride that would despise such a young man.  True greatness
+is of the mind, and riches are of the heart.  But let us hurry with our
+refreshments, for it is beautiful out now, and they must be hungry, and
+we will enjoy it with them."
+
+They plied themselves briskly, and about four o'clock the white cloths
+were laid under a cool maple shade-tree, and on them was spread a
+sumptuous lunch of fricasseed chickens, to be taken leisurely with
+flowing cups of coffee, and followed with saucers of raspberries and
+cream, and large and luscious pieces of blackberry pie.  The look of
+thankfulness and cheer which the men all returned for such a
+refreshment, more than rewarded them, and sweet was the gratification
+with which they themselves and the good-hearted Fabens partook of the
+rural meal.
+
+The presence of William Fabens also, enhanced the interest of the hour,
+and furnished conversation which all were glad to hear.  William Fabens
+was a cousin of the Squire's, whom he had not seen before that month,
+since they were boys in Cloverdale.  William had gone to New York city
+about the time Matthew went to Summerfield; and was now an intelligent
+merchant still in trade, and was out on his first visit to the Lake
+Country.  He appeared much like the Squire, only a little more stately
+and active, and he possessed great practical wisdom and fine common
+sense.  He carried a rich country nature to the city, and he had
+cultured it finely, and it was bearing fair and mellow fruit.  He had a
+double life in consequence, and country life _citified_, perfected his
+capabilities and joys.
+
+He had found that life in the country and town, was life in very
+different spheres, with different manifestations, and each a different
+set of lights and shadows.  Life in the country was more natural,
+spontaneous and quiet; life in the town was more artistic, ambitious,
+and flushed with fever heats.  Life in the country was picturesque,
+like the green, lovely landscapes in which it bloomed; life in the town
+was statuesque, like the flocking forms that pressed upon its sight and
+jostled it on its crowded way.  Life in the country breathed in music;
+life in the town abounded in incidents and actions.
+
+He remembered with grateful pleasure the noble occupations and
+amusements of country life.  But he had profited well, and not lost, by
+the change.  If it was a noble theme to study material nature in the
+landscape and sky, he found it still more noble to study moral nature
+in man; and man as he moved in the town, and acted in the drama of life
+that was daily brought before him.  If it was delightful to read Milton
+or Beattie in a cornfield, in a clover meadow, under a tree, or on the
+haymow; it was more delightful to his mind to read the same author in a
+city, where, seeing more of men, he could understand him better.  And
+whatever was beautiful in country life he carried with him to the town,
+with its green and radiant pictures still glowing on his heart, and its
+morning melodies still murmuring through his soul.  And he could act
+out in deeds, what once he meditated in ideas.  He was constantly
+called, by irresistible voices, to go out of himself, and out of his
+fixed and finite conceits and opinions, and mix with other souls; and
+transform his conceits to comprehensive conceptions, and enlarge his
+opinions to universal views.
+
+From this rich and varied experience, and from these elevated ideas,
+William Fabens spoke, as he conversed with his cousin and the
+harvesters, while taking the harvest lunch.
+
+"I suppose by this time, William, you are pretty well weaned of the
+country," said the Squire, after a changing conversation on several
+themes.
+
+"O no, not at all," said William, "not at all.  My love of the country
+is fresh and warm as ever.  It is a singular fact, that almost all my
+dreams are laid in the country, on the old farm.  I am often in the
+country in my mind, and receive much of my mental, as my physical
+sustenance, from country stores."
+
+"I thought you would turn your back on the country and never think of
+its homely scenes again," said the Squire.
+
+"I like the city in many respects better," said William; "so much
+better, that I prefer living there nine months in the year.  But give
+me the country in the summer.  In night dreams and day dreams, I return
+to the old homestead, to renew my youth, and refresh my sympathies and
+tastes.  I think of the pride of the summer landscapes; and the pomp of
+summer sunsets.  I sit in the shade of my old favorite trees and woods;
+I bathe my heart once more in the moonlight; my ears seem to tell me
+again of all the melodies of morning; the babbling brook; the lowing
+herd; the cowbell's simple chime; the murmur of bees and insects; the
+choral concerts that ring through the woods; and I am there, young and
+blooming as ever, and what Beattie's 'Minstrel' saw and heard, I seem
+to see and hear once more."
+
+"I know not how it may be in cities," said the Squire; "but I have
+often noticed in our villages, that the countryman gets laughed at for
+his greenness.  This never disturbed me.  I have felt that we were
+inferior to none of their village bloods.  Better be green on the
+surface than rotten at the core.  And I have remembered how many great
+men of the world were bred in the country."
+
+"The cities are often guilty of the same," said William, "forgetting
+how many angels they entertain unawares.  Did ever a mortal man look
+more of the rustic clown than the country boy, Sam Johnson, when he
+first went to London?  And could he not make dictionaries, and write
+Rasselas?"
+
+"And who can imagine a more ludicrous object," asked the Squire, "than
+shabby, and chubby, and warty little Oliver Goldsmith, when he first
+waddled, staring and gaping, through Green-Arbor Court, and up
+Fishstreet Hill?  And has he not given us prose and poetry that will
+live as long as the English tongue is known?"
+
+"We might have laughed at Shakspeare," added William, "when, a green
+country runaway, he first entered the metropolis; we might have laughed
+at Dryden, coming up from the provinces in his coarse Norwich drugget
+and wooden shoes--over thirty years old, and not yet aware that he
+could write a line of verse.  But for all that, did not Shakspeare
+write Hamlet? and Dryden give laws and models for English heroic verse?"
+
+"And some might have thanked the Dumfries gentry for putting the rustic
+Burns in the kitchen with the servants to eat," added the Squire; "but
+did not Burns make a song there, to shame his proud insulters; and did
+he not sing--
+
+  'A man's a man for a' that.'
+
+The temptations of the city are the most that I should fear."
+
+"They are many and great," said William; "and I do not wonder that so
+many perish in the ordeal.  Yet I know that people need not fall, if
+they will open their eyes, and act out their country nature.  Evil
+affords a high and noble discipline when we meet it like men, and
+overcome its onsets.  When men and women from the country have finished
+a course of city life, with warm hearts remaining in them, unsullied by
+corruptions they have seen, they are found to possess all the more
+strength of will, elevation of mind, and grace and grandeur of life,
+from the school from which they graduate.  Each exercise of strength we
+take in resisting temptation, is the moral gymnastics that redoubles
+that power against the next encounter, and adds muscle and fire to all
+the capabilities of life.  Each exercise of sense we take to
+discriminate between true and false life, true and false pleasure, true
+and false charmers, is a training of the intellect and judgment to more
+delicate discernments, and more virtuous and vital joys.  A man enters
+the city as Hercules entered the world; the characters that go forth to
+meet him are like the true and false goddesses that met that hero and
+determined his choice; and that fine old fable shows that even the
+exercise of mind which is impelled by the two voices, will add new
+strength to one's being, cut out the blurs from his eyes, and make the
+judgment more active and perception more keen."
+
+"That is all very true," said the Squire; "and your own life is an
+illustration.  But if I should enter a city to live, I fear it would
+cool off my sympathies, and harden my heart."
+
+"I should not fear that of you, Matthew," said William; "although it is
+the case with thousands.  We need not be cooled or hardened.  We see
+more of the evil side of life, to be sure; but it does not harden all.
+John Howard and Elizabeth Fry saw more of the evils of life than most
+city people.  They visited the very dens of suffering want and
+imprisoned crime; but to them such sights were nobly instructive, and
+they grew great-hearted and noble while reading the lessons.  Their
+sympathies were softened and warmed; their interest in humanity was
+redoubled, and their love for our race quickened and expanded, until
+they found no rest so sweet, as after long rounds of philanthropic
+labor; no delight so pure as kindness; no beauty so divine as charity;
+and no riches so ample and enjoyable as those laid up for benevolence,
+and those received back to the generous soul in return for gifts and
+deeds of good."
+
+"You delight me, William," said the Squire; "and if you will go around
+lecturing the country people, you will see them all flocking to the
+town."
+
+"The more, the better for us," said William.  "They are the best
+materials of which the town can replenish its numbers and forces.
+Their great good sense; their healthy and generous instincts; their
+large and throbbing hearts; their picturesque minds and memories need
+only the discipline and finish of city life, to round them up into
+robust men and women of sweet and symmetrical characters, and fair and
+full-blooming souls."
+
+On this occasion George Ludlow seemed to regard Fanny Fabens with
+increased attention; and as their glances more than once met, an
+artless, innocent blush would express on each face the timidity of
+their natures, if not the emotions of their hearts.
+
+The truth to tell, George had contracted for Fanny an affection which
+he dared to disclose no more significantly, than by those expressions
+of the eye and face, which would not be concealed; and since the
+conversation in the house, he had scarcely been absent from her
+thoughts.  She considered his pure life and enlightened mind, and
+inquired, "Where is the young man that has more nobleness than he?"
+She thought of his kindness to his parents, and admired the example.
+She called to mind his love of nature, and books, his efforts of
+improvement, even amid tasks of diligent toil; and she honored him in
+her soul; honored him the more for his own honor of his calling; and
+began to return a kindling flame of that affection, which she conceived
+he might indulge for her.  But a few words were exchanged between them,
+however, and it remains for some future chapter to relate the result of
+those growing loves.
+
+The men rose from their luncheon, when a cool and reviving hour had
+been taken, and while the women were departing with William to the
+house, and while Fabens remained under the maple, Merchant Fairbanks
+came up, and after the usual salutations, he talked a moment with the
+ladies, and then made Fabens an offer for his wheat crop, and commenced
+a pleasant talk.
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+MERCHANT FAIRBANKS.
+
+Merchant Fairbanks sold goods in Summerfield, and undertook large
+dealings with the farmers there; buying their crops and bartering in
+smaller transactions, for butter and cheese, wool and feathers, wood
+and ashes, eggs and paper rags.  He had tarried in town only two or
+three years, and few were intimately acquainted with him, although many
+supposed that they knew him well; and few men enjoyed more confidence
+or love.
+
+He possessed a tall and imposing person; a face that all declared
+"fine," and "noble;" a large and glowing chestnut eye; a serene and
+inspiring presence; and hair so dark, that it reflected at times stray
+tints of purple, and was lustrous and smooth as a blackbird's wing, He
+was scrupulous in the arrangement of his attire, and still there was a
+studied contrivance of modest dignity about it all, that attracted
+attention, and set off his honors.
+
+He was an instant and accurate judge of character; he discerned by a
+glance of his quick perceptions the lights and shadows of the human
+mind, and was accomplished in manners that won the esteem of the
+people, and enlisted them warmly in his favor.  He remembered little
+things, to accomplish great ones; he would call to your recollection
+some trifling fact of which you supposed all beside yourself
+unconscious, that would flatter your self-esteem in spite of you, and
+win for himself your approbation.  He remembered the names of his
+customers and acquaintances, and called them emphatically, if he had
+seen them never but once before; he was particular to salute each man
+with his title, and whether that title was military, religious or
+judicial, if he was in any doubt of its particular elevation, he would
+be sure and get it so high that, when mistaken, a captain could answer
+to the appellation of major; a justice to that of judge; a meek
+disciple to that of deacon, and a preacher to that of doctor.
+
+He knew many children in town, he spoke all their names, and told of
+some good-looking relative or friend of his on the Hudson, whom they
+strikingly resembled.  He distinctly professed private religious and
+political opinions of his own, while he knew there were the best of
+people in all parties and persuasions, and put every one at perfect
+ease with whom he conversed, convincing them that controversy was
+unprofitable, and the slight difference between them, after all, would
+be more in talk than in truth.  He was a popular merchant, and the
+central attraction of several gay circles in the town.
+
+With her searching discernment, Mrs. Fabens had discovered in him more
+than one design which she pronounced artful; she studied his character,
+and told her husband and daughter in confidence, she believed him a
+cunning flatterer, and a cheat; and that he would not always sail in
+smooth water in Summerfield.
+
+But Fabens would hardly listen for a moment to her surmises.  He had
+dealt with Merchant Fairbanks considerably; he had always believed him
+honest and manly, and he joined the multitude in much of the praise
+which they bestowed upon him.
+
+As for Fanny, though she had not given the gentleman a great many
+thoughts, she regarded him favorably, and found him a most mannerly
+salesman, an affable and gallant man.  She thought him far better than
+many who ran after him, and she was in no wise averse to consider him
+her friend.
+
+"But you may depend upon it," said Mrs. Fabens to her husband,
+seriously--"depend upon it, he is not so particular and loud, in
+calling you 'Squire' for nothing; and it cannot be always a mistake,
+when he says 'Judge Fabens;' nor does he consult your opinion on so
+many things, because the opinion has the value of a straw in his
+estimation.  He may never injure you, and I will not fear that he can;
+but it will be well to reserve a little confidence till he is better
+known, and not be too quickly carried away with him."
+
+But Fabens was still confident that Fairbanks was honorable and worthy
+of respect and trust; he was often at his store; he often relied on his
+integrity for important considerations; and he was well assured that he
+was a man of merit and justice, and entitled to his enviable name.  And
+so marked was his confidence, it had induced Fairbanks to come without
+hesitation again to buy all the wheat he could sell, and ask to have
+credit till January.  He offered a fairer price than Fabens had hoped
+to obtain that season, and he engaged it on the desired time.
+
+Fairbanks was unusually social and winning that afternoon, when he
+found them rising from the lunch in the field; and he conversed freely
+and pleasantly with Mrs. Fabens and her daughter, as they departed for
+the house; and then turned to Fabens and conversed a long while, saying
+at last--"That is your _only daughter_, I believe, Judge?"
+
+"Yes, and only child, now, I suppose, that we have on earth," answered
+Fabens.
+
+"You may think I am too free, comparative stranger as I am, in my
+conversation with her," said Fairbanks.
+
+"O, no; I like to see folks familiar and friendly.  Familiarity is the
+life of company, while stiffness and formality give it a chill which is
+quite disagreeable to me," said Fabens.
+
+"Perhaps I should not be so familiar to her; but she reminds me so much
+of a dear sister of mine on the Hudson, that I feel attracted towards
+her; and it seemed every moment as if my sister was going to speak to
+me.  She is a good sister, too, and quite intelligent, if I am her
+brother; and I think I have a right to say it.  And there is that same
+trembling modesty, that same blushing innocence and blooming beauty, to
+remind me of my sister; and had her hair been a shade or two darker,
+and her teeth not so ivory white; I believe I should have forgotten I
+was talking to a stranger.  You will pardon my frankness, Squire, I
+know you will.  I am apt to talk right out just as I happen to feel."
+
+"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Fairbanks.  I always admired frankness.
+Perhaps you say too much of our daughter; but she is a very good sort
+of a girl; and we tried, as far as we were able, to give her a
+common-sense view of things, and have her respectable.  I am thankful
+that she is not as brazen as some girls; and good health has flushed
+her face with fresh and blooming looks."
+
+"You needn't fear for _that_ girl--pardon my freedom, Squire.  No young
+lady of such a turned forehead, and such eyes and address, ever came
+short of what good parents desired."
+
+"Then you are a phrenologist, Mr. Fairbanks?"
+
+"I have studied such things considerably, and am not often mistaken.
+High and full in all the frontal and coronal regions--such heads are
+never given to flirts or fools."
+
+"She is just as the Lord has permitted her to be; and we are thankful
+that she has filled our home with so much light and joy."
+
+"I know she must be dutiful; and at the same time wishing to know the
+whys and wherefores of things, she asks a few questions, I suspect,
+that she may know something, and have an opinion of her own."
+
+"She never did a thing, as I recollect, that caused us an hour's
+regret; but, as you say, she wishes to know things for herself; and
+sometimes, when we have been tired and dull, she has wearied us with
+questions.  She has a great mind to acquire knowledge, and have an
+intelligent opinion; and we ought never to be impatient with her, or
+refuse an answer."
+
+"She may thank father and mother for that disposition, I suspect.  How
+much she looks like her mother!  And still she has your forehead, and
+eyes, _almost_--if I remember right; and I should know she was your
+daughter, if I met her in France."
+
+"Her eyes are much lighter and bluer than mine; but they may resemble
+them in shape and size.  As for her hair--"
+
+"I was just a-going to ask where she got that fairy flaxen hair?"
+
+"We cannot tell where the color came from, except from our white blood.
+My hair was light when a boy."
+
+"That then accounts for hers."
+
+"But never so milk-white as hers."
+
+"Hers will grow dark, you may depend; it will be dark as yours when as
+old.  But what if it is not?  I should like it all the better as it is;
+it is handsome _enough_, and it is not so common as brown or black."
+
+"But here it is nearly dark, and I have not had the manners to invite
+you to the house.  Come, go in with me, and take a dish of tea."
+
+"O Squire, I beg you to excuse me.  I have some business at home that I
+must attend to to-night, and I must go.  But that is the way with me,
+always!  When I am in good company, I never know how time flits by, nor
+where to break off my talk.  Come over and see me, Squire!  Do come and
+see me.  Good night."  And as Fairbanks went for his horse to go home,
+Fabens ordered his men to quit work, and they all returned to the house
+in excellent spirits for supper and sleep.
+
+Fabens had made it the effort of his life to resist flattery, and
+preserve a decent self-respect without a vain emotion; but it never
+grieved him to call him Squire; and there was much in what Fairbanks
+said and suggested, which he thought evinced uncommon discernment, and
+a clear and discriminating mind; and he was happy in the belief that it
+came right up from his heart, warm and sincere.  He determined that he
+would not allow his own heart to take any flattery from what he had
+heard; yet what was said of Fanny--and her father and mother
+also!--could not be displeasing, coming as it did from one of an
+elevated station and mind: and he concluded that it was right for him
+to be encouraged by the compliments, and congratulated himself on the
+happiness of such a family and such a friend.
+
+He enjoyed a fine conversation with his cousin William that evening;
+and showed him his farm, and visited with him all he could, the next
+day; and the day following, William departed for the city, leaving many
+warm regards behind, and carrying home a large supply of sweet country
+summer in his soul.
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+THE HUSKING.
+
+In modern times the Husking Party has gone out of fashion in
+Summerfield; but in ancient times, while the manners of the people
+remained primitive and pure, this festival (for festival it was)
+continued of great account.  It was sometimes held in barns, and
+sometimes in the open fields; and the attendance of good wives and
+maidens, and the occurrence of music and dancing at the close, was no
+unusual joy.  We may call it a 'movable feast,' for every autumn it
+moved the rounds of the Settlement; and now in rare October, and near
+the wane of the month, it came Fabens' turn to hold it again.
+
+It was one of those golden weeks when the pleasantest house seems a
+prison, and you feel as if you must live day and night out of doors.
+The breeze from the cool Cayuga never fanned the brow nor tingled the
+blood with a more hilarious spirit; and the orchards were never more
+fragrant, nor the silver moon more round or fair.
+
+Fabens marshalled his corn 'stouts,' like a legion of soldiers in a
+hollow square, on the green mown meadow in front of his house, a
+quarter of a mile away; and sent invitations far and near for a very
+large gathering.  He was particular even to invite Tilly Troffater and
+his family; and a great number came.  They came at half-past six; and
+as the last sat down to the husking, the mild and majestic moon rose
+smiling over the Owasco woods, and flooded the skies, and kindled the
+dews with her mellow beams.  Uncle Walter and Mr. Waldron were the
+first on the ground; and Wilson and Troffater did not linger long
+behind.  A number of women were present; and a whole bevy of jocund
+boys enjoyed it.  The greetings were warm and brief, and the songs and
+stories commenced quite early.  Colwell had been on a bee hunt, he
+said, that day, in the Richmond Openings, and discovered three swarms,
+and almost traced another.  Uncle Walter had been husking the corn he
+had topped and left on the hill.  Mr. Nimblet had harrowed in a
+late-sown fallow.  Troffater had looked to his traps, and spent the
+rest of the day fishing on the lake.  Most of the women had been drying
+apples and coloring flannel.
+
+Fanny Fabens and Nancy Nimblet sang the 'Silver Moon;' and all
+confessed it was never sung better.  Uncle Walter told a panther story,
+with thrilling additions they never had heard before; sent cutting
+little tremors of terror trembling through their hearts, and made them
+thank their stars that those perilous days were over.  Troffater told
+his "Jemmy Harvey" story, saying "Jemmy was green as a mess o' cowslops
+and the priest tuck forty dollars for pardoning his sins, and left him
+without a shiner to tuck himself hum agin;" then he crossed and cocked
+his black and blue eyes and laughed in convulsions at the story, while
+they laughed at the manner in which the story was told.  Teezle told a
+story about the Indians and Tories "that cut up such didoes in the
+revolution down there in the Diliway."  Colwell repeated the story of
+Milo Dale, the money-digger.
+
+Then Squire Fabens told a story of a man who was caught in his
+neighbor's granary borrowing wheat, and who was given a bag full and
+his supper in the bargain, and sent home, promising he'd never do the
+like again.
+
+"A sap-headed fool, I guess it was, that found him, and let him slip
+off in that way," said Colwell.
+
+"That may be; but he did one wise act of his life, in his treatment to
+the borrower, and I dare say that man will never violate his vow,"
+answered Fabens.
+
+"I don't know about that," said Teezle.  "I should be afraid on't, and
+lock up my grainery olers after."
+
+"The person did not lock his granary, and no borrower I dare say has
+set foot in it since."
+
+"_Thief_, why didn't ye say?" inquired Colwell.
+
+"O, he did not mean to steal," answered Fabens.  "His family were
+hungry, and he was too bashful to ask for it, and was taking the wheat
+only till after the next year's harvest.  The exposure of his error
+might have ruined him; and he might have been driven to a desperate
+life of crime.  Now I think he must be a better man than before
+overtaken by temptation."
+
+"Yes,--but--the scamp orto've been punished," rejoined Colwell.  "I
+don't b'lieve in lettin' such scamps off without their punishment."
+
+By this time the company were enlisted in the discussion, and more than
+one remarked that he ought to have been punished; yet no one surmised
+that the culprit sat in their midst, and was tortured by their words.
+Troffater knew not where to turn his little earthen eyes, for fear of
+encountering accusers; and he fixed them on the moon, and whistled a
+snatch or two of his addicted music; then bit his lips, and blowed, and
+hitched around on his seat, and blushed like a jack-o'-lantern.
+
+"Yes, the scamp orto've been punished, I say," repeated Colwell.
+
+"Think he was not punished then?" asked Fabens.  "I think he was a
+little!  If I had stood in his shoes, I am sure I should rather have
+been basted, or anything else, than served as he was."
+
+"But he got away from the law," said Colwell.
+
+"Not the living law, let me tell you," answered Fabens.  "Not away from
+God's law written on his heart, and threading the bone and marrow of
+his being.  To get away from that law, he had first to escape the reach
+of God's hand, and run away from his own body and spirit.  That was not
+so easy a feat, Mr. Colwell.
+
+"For the sake of our good social law, it may have been the person's
+duty to drag the poor man to light, and give him open justice; but he
+probably judged in that case, that the social law was better served and
+guarded in its spirit, if not in its letter, than if the offender had
+been exposed and imprisoned, to be let loose again with vengeance
+against the law, and against mankind.
+
+"I venture to assert that the treatment cured the error, and the
+borrower will not violate the law again; while he might have run riot
+in open crime, had he been openly dealt with.  The majesty of the law
+then was vindicated, and the injury done the system was repaired.
+
+"And all that while he was amenable to God's living law traced all over
+and around his heart; and supposing he runs abroad and treads the green
+earth, and tastes the free air, and sees the bright sky; he is a
+prisoner still if he lives, and has not risen in goodness beyond sight
+of his sin; his body is his prison, his veins bind him down and his
+nerves bar him in.  He senses his punishment keenly; it cuts to the
+quick, and he grieves, and trembles and gasps, whenever his fault comes
+to mind.  Let him run at large; that law of God will follow him,
+watching with eyes from which no night can hide him; scourging with
+whips from which no shield defends."
+
+"Squire Fabens is a very forgiving man," said Mrs. Teezle.  "He's
+_very_ forgiving, and I think he's right."
+
+"I claim no merit for that," said Fabens.  "It is easy and right to
+forgive others.  God himself forgives very freely.  But the man has one
+enemy who may never forgive him in this world, and may not forgive him
+at Judgment till long after God has forgiven him.  Though this will
+depend somewhat on his indolence or diligence in cultivating goodness
+and truth.  That enemy is himself, and self-forgiveness is the most
+difficult, as it is the last to obtain."
+
+"That may be all so, but I'd a given him _some_, I swanny, if I had a
+ketched him in my grainery," said Colwell.
+
+"I never see it in Fabens's light afore," interrupted Teezle.
+
+"Nor I," "nor I," added others; and the discussion ended.
+
+Then a song was called for, and Colwell sang the 'Tea Song;' and Fanny
+Fabens sang the 'Whippoorwill,' and the very air attended, to hear the
+happy girl, and the insects were hushed to silence, and the moon leaned
+and listened, and the woods and the lake bandied back and to the
+chorus, and repeated, and prolonged her full and silvery sounds.
+
+Then they talked old times over, and rehearsed a few personal
+histories, while the yellow corn glistened in rising hills before them.
+Mr. Waldron related scenes he witnessed at Bennington and Saratoga, and
+told of the Captain's commission and forty dollars in silver, he
+received for taking six Hessians at the battle of Trenton.  Troffater
+wanted to tell what his father did in the Revolution, but he had not
+courage to speak; and perhaps if he had, some one would have hinted the
+current tradition, that his father was a cowboy, and stole cattle from
+the Americans, and drove and sold them to the British, and then stole
+them from the British and drove them back again.  The conversation soon
+turned on the settlement, and the history of the oldest inhabitants.
+
+"I tell ye what, they were rather tough times after all," said Uncle
+Walter.  "I remember when I cut the first tree on my farm, and stuck
+the first stake for my shanty.  I had come a good ways from home, and
+it was going on night, and the wolves howled in hearing, and I begun to
+feel dubious.  Uncle Waldron heard me chopping, and come, and took me
+home to his little hemlock hut.  Remember it, Uncle Mose?  I slep on
+the softest corner of your black muck-floor, and you said I snored like
+an alligator."
+
+"The Stringers kept bachelors-hall, they say, over on the Owasco Flats,
+and baked nine crusts to one jonny cake," added Colwell.
+
+"O, my stars!" cried Nancy Nimblet, "that must have been long before we
+came here; and, pray tell, Mr. Colwell, how they managed their dough."
+
+"Why, they wet their pounded corn in water (there was no mill in these
+parts then), tossed up a hunker of a loaf, laid it down on a flat stone
+by the fire, and baked a crust, then peeled it off and eat it, while
+another was bakin', and so on to the ninth crust of the same smokin'
+cake."
+
+"And it was thought a scrumtious kind of a thing to visit the gals in
+our buff-leather breeches in them days," said Colwell.
+
+"O, the _buff_ breeches came long after that," said Fabens.  "We had
+grown quite civilized and fashionable when we wore the yellow buffs.
+Besides, in those times there were not many girls in the country to
+visit.  But if the times were tough, they gave us a great deal of
+comfort.  I came here with my axe on my shoulder; I cut the first tree
+on my farm, too, and paid for my farm, chopping for others.  I made my
+first bedstead.  There was an auger in the settlement--it was yours,
+Uncle Walter, and I borrowed that and framed me a bedstead of maple
+saplings, and laced in elm-bark in lieu of a cord, and it gave me many
+pleasant sleeps.
+
+"After a while, I wanted a carriage of some kind to bring in my grain,
+and draw away my ashes.  So I blocked off the wheels with my axe, from
+the butt of a black oak tree, and backed home boards for a box, three
+miles, from the nearest saw-mill.  It did me good service, and I sold
+it for a price when I bought my first wagon.  But we all took a world
+of comfort; and what was pleasanter work than putting up log heaps and
+brush heaps in the cool of the night, and seeing them blaze again on
+our clean sweet fallows?"
+
+"A feast on bear's meat and metheglin, at Aunt Polly's," cried Colwell.
+
+"Picking bushels of wild strawberries, big as your thumb," added Mrs.
+Colwell.
+
+"And going four miles to raisins," added Thomas Teezle.
+
+"And five miles to weddins, once in a while," added Mrs. Teezle.
+
+"To those very times we are indebted," said Fabens; "to its tugging
+labors and hard privations, its trials, and griefs, we are indebted for
+much of the fulness of heart, and breadth of character we now possess,
+and the comforts we are taking on our handsome farms.  We took muscle
+and might from nature; we rounded out our life; we learned to shift for
+ourselves, and feel for our neighbors; and the earth crowned our labors
+with such harvests, we grew hopeful and brave.  We all of us learned
+things that cannot be found in books.  Books have their value, and it
+is very great.  They teach us to take the hip-lock of nature, and lead
+us cross-lots to success; they increase and elevate the pleasures of
+our vocation; a taste for them, is itself a blessing that sweetens our
+leisure hours, attracts us from temptations, and will gladden our old
+age.  But of the two, a large and wise experience is better, and comes
+well before them."
+
+As he concluded these words, the hour of the clock was told, and the
+company were served to warm pumpkin-pie, that was a luxury to taste,
+and refreshment to remember.  Then the young people had a play and a
+dance on the green, and the old people exchanged good wishes, and all
+went their ways, leaving the Fabenses happier for that reunion of
+neighborly hearts, than for the multiplied piles of corn they left
+glowing in the moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+GEORGE LUDLOW AND ALMON FRISBIE.
+
+George Ludlow was introduced in a former chapter; Mrs. Fabens and her
+daughter discussed his character and life.  They spoke of him as poor,
+and dependent on his own hands for a living for the family; as despised
+by certain young people in Summerfield who happened to stand above
+need; and yet as manly and capable; a lover of nature and books.  I
+need say nothing of his person, except that he was homely to a stranger
+and handsome to a friend.  I need say little more of his past history
+than this; he had labored for Fabens for a few weeks, and now a mutual
+regard quite ripened to affection, was rising between him and Fanny.
+
+George well knew her worth and happy fortune; he remembered that he was
+poor in what the world called riches; yet, possessing a manly
+self-respect, he considered himself as made in no way inferior on
+account of his poverty; and observing that she reciprocated freely any
+regard he gave her, he had the boldness at last to declare his
+affection, and intimate the happiness it would pour into his heart and
+life, some day to possess her as his wife; and it was not in her will,
+nor in that of her parents, to return one word of discouragement;
+although it was an opinion of theirs, to which he freely responded,
+that the final decision should be deliberately weighed, and the union
+set over to a time at which they would be better prepared for a happy
+bridal and a happy life.
+
+But the impressions left by Fairbanks on the mind of Fabens, after the
+conversation in the harvest field, tended only to strengthen the Squire
+in the opinion that his wife had misjudged the gentlemanly merchant;
+and to elevate Fairbanks the more in his confidence and esteem.  And
+returning to the house that evening, Fanny remarked to her mother, that
+she must have judged, too hastily: "for much as I have tasked my powers
+of discernment," said she, "I cannot detect the first design or word,
+which would lead me to suspect that Mr. Fairbanks is deceptive.  True,
+he rather addresses himself to one's self-esteem, and is open, and
+ardent for a comparative stranger; but it must be a manly way of his,
+which he forgets to hold in reserve; and I believe he is a gentleman.
+I am sure, too, mother, that I have not allowed myself to feel
+flattered by his words; nor could I ever regard him as nearer than a
+friend.  A true friend to us I believe he is.  A face expressing so
+much open goodness; a bearing so instinctively affable, could not
+belong to a bad man."
+
+Fairbanks was too clear-sighted not to read and know the hearts with
+which he was making acquaintance; and his well-considered plans
+suffered nothing for want of diligence on his part, in being brought to
+a fulfilment.  Nor did he stand or act alone.
+
+Almon Frisbie was his clerk and confidant, and talked of a friendship
+that began long before they left the Hudson; and he was prompt at any
+moment to receive his counsels in sacred trust, and go on all his
+errands.  He was ardent and unreserved in expressing his love for
+Fairbanks; and Fairbanks was free and fond in the good things he said
+of Frisbie; and the people of Summerfield were very happy with such
+valued acquisitions to their society; and enjoyed the pleasantest hours
+whenever they numbered the merchant and clerk among their guests.
+
+Promptly at the time agreed on, Frisbie came with the money to pay for
+the delivered wheat-crop; paid the entire sum in Spanish milled
+dollars; and spent an agreeable evening, discussing character, hearing
+Fabens's history from before the time of his settlement there; and
+giving incidents of his own life, and his adventures and experiences,
+with Fairbanks.
+
+It was a pleasant hour.  This was the second winter they were enjoying
+their new house, and the change and contrast could not be forgotten.
+The new house stood on a gentle eminence, a quarter of a mile from the
+road, and within a distant view of the lake, which was beautiful in
+summer.  There was a fine selection of all the forest trees that once
+flourished on the farm, in front of the house, which had been
+transplanted there twelve years before, in preparation of shade and
+beauty for the dooryard; and though their verdant honors had been shed
+in autumn, they reminded the hearts within of their guardian presence,
+by the whisperings of love they blent with the winter blast.
+
+The house was a high story and a half, and stood thirty-five by thirty
+on the ground.  It had a north room and south room, with bedrooms
+attached; it had four chambers, two large and two small, above; and a
+kitchen, a tea-room, and wood-house in the rear.  It was painted white
+without, with a coal-black border on the tops of the chimneys, and had
+blinds of Paris green.  It had white walls and oak-grained doors and
+casings in the south room, and white walls, doors and casings in the
+north room.  The north room was Fanny's, and the spare bed was spread
+with a blue and white carpet-coverlet, spun with her own hand, and
+woven in Auburn prison; and it was hung with snow-white curtains, which
+she spun and wove.  She had a stove in the north room, and a fire-board
+behind, covered with trees, watered with a silver lake, and stocked
+with a herd of deer, three of which were drinking from the lake.
+
+In the south room was another bed; and that was hung with checkered
+curtains; and there was an ample fireplace; and that was the family
+room.  There sat the company when Frisbie made his call.
+
+Fabens was advanced in life, and yet he looked young, as if time had
+taken a ten years' rest.  Mrs. Fabens had grown round and robust; but
+had not shed her blooms; while Fanny had become perfectly straight, and
+her hair was two shades darker; her eyes had still more lustre; her
+countenance still more life, and her voice still more music; while her
+step was more elastic, and her form was more nature.
+
+A prodigal walnut fire glowed gloriously before them; butternuts and
+chestnuts were tasted, and a large dish of rosy Spitzenbergs passed
+around; and while Fabens and Frisbie kept up a running talk, Mrs.
+Fabens and Fanny enjoyed the hour, as one sat knitting fringe-mittens
+in the corner, and the other plied her dexterous needle piecing a
+bed-quilt in snow-balls by the stand; and seeming to contend with the
+walnut fire, which should give forth the liveliest, warming smile, and
+fill up all the room with the most comfort, joy, and peace.
+
+"Yes, I have known Fairbanks, known him like a brother, since we were
+little boys at school," said Frisbie.  "We began our A B C's together,
+when Mary Sanford taught school; and I remember we said, 'A,' 'B,' 'C,'
+'D,' and so on, in a loud voice, both at a time.  And that Mary
+Sanford--you did not know her, did you, Squire?  She taught in the same
+district five years; and it was said, she impressed much of her own
+noble heart on her pupils (though of this, perhaps, it does not become
+_me_ to speak;) but she married a false villain at last, and now she
+lives poor and deserted, they say, away out on the White Woman's Tract,
+beyond the Genesee river, with a family of children to support.
+
+"And my heart has ached for many lovely girls who have thrown
+themselves away to such scoundrels.  Her husband was brought up in the
+neighborhood too, and everybody thought George Lowry was a very pink of
+virtue.  That made it seem so strange.  Well, as I was going to say,
+Fairbanks always seemed a brother to me; and if there could be any
+fault in his treatment, he has trusted me too largely, and given me to
+share too many of his gifts and gains.  But there, you never saw such a
+fellow in your life!"
+
+"In what particular?" asked Fabens; while Mrs. Fabens took a quicker
+rock in her chair and scratched her forehead with her knitting needle;
+and Fanny paused from her piecing to hear.
+
+"I mean in his confidence in men, and his free-heartedness, giving away
+what he has.  He would share his last crust with an enemy, and he is so
+up and down honest himself, he believes the whole world honest and pure
+also."
+
+"But he seems to be a good judge of character," said Fabens, "and I
+should think he would not be often deceived.  I see he notices heads
+and dispositions pretty narrowly."
+
+"He _is often_ deceived," said Frisbie, "and he has met losses and
+crosses enough to make a few of his black hairs turn white.  But I tell
+him it's owing to his putting too much confidence in men.  He thinks
+everybody is honest because he is.  His mother used to tell him, when
+he was a little boy, that he would always be poor, he was so confiding
+and free-hearted."
+
+"There is a good deal in that," said Fabens, "and it is very true, as I
+have found it.  Men that can be trusted most, are commonly most
+trusting, while the false and guilty are always on the lookout for
+rogues.  How is Fairbanks' business now?  He has met no losses in
+Summerfield, I hope."
+
+"O, no, no!  I did not refer to anything that had taken place since he
+came to this town," said Frisbie.  "Of all the world, this is just the
+place for Fairbanks, and I tell him so.  Where all are honest as one's
+self, there can be no trouble.  He never was doing so well, by half, as
+now, I dare say.  His business is large already, and his collections
+are remarkably prompt.  They seem here to like him, about as well as he
+likes them."
+
+"He seems to attend to his business pretty closely; I like that in
+him," said Fabens.
+
+"Attend to business?  Ay! if you could see all the time, how he attends
+to business, Squire; how he searches and foots his legers every day,"
+said Frisbie; "how he keeps things moving and straight, and pays his
+notes before they come due, you would say he could not help prospering,
+and you would back him for any amount he would ask.  But, here, it is
+nine o'clock, already, and I must face this cold storm, that has come
+up since I came."
+
+"Don't hurry away yet," said Fabens.  "There is nothing to call you
+home.  Stay all night, we will be glad to have you, and you shall have
+an early start in the morning."
+
+"O, I _must go to-night_," said Frisbie, and he took his cloak, and
+concluded the conversation--"_I must go to-night_.  I told Fairbanks, I
+would be home before ten, and he knows what to depend on.  We keep our
+word with each other.  Come over and see us, Squire.  We have a fine
+room fitted up now, in the store, where we can entertain our friends.
+Fairbanks is _always_ glad to see you.  He thinks Squire Fabens about
+east, and his family too!  He would feel more freedom to visit you, if
+you would call on him oftener.  I never saw a man who thought more of
+seeing his friends.  And so far from home as we are, you must remember
+that our friends here stand in the place of the absent and dear."
+
+Frisbie departed, and Fabens expressed the liking he had taken to the
+fellow, and the increased esteem he must confess for Fairbanks.
+
+"I am sure," said Fanny, laying aside her work, but not her smiles,
+that outshone the walnut fire, nor that presence of blissful life, that
+filled up all the warm room; "I am sure, there cannot be much deception
+in them.  We would detect it in some way, if there was."
+
+"Do you esteem either of them as you do George Ludlow?" asked Mrs.
+Fabens.
+
+"No, I do not in all respects," answered Fanny.  "My esteem for him, as
+for them, increases.  And the way the Faddle girls treat George, makes
+me think all the more of him, and desire to make him happy.  Then I
+admire his sentiments and tastes, and his love of labor.  Still I would
+be glad to number Mr. Fairbanks and Mr. Frisbie among my friends.  Was
+the man named Lowry or Ludry that he said married his teacher?  It
+sounded so much like Ludlow, it startled me."
+
+"It was Lownsly, Lowry, or something like it," answered Mrs.
+Fabens.--"There are some things which seem fair, and even generous in
+them, it is true.  And Fairbanks has a way of looking very meek and
+innocent; and one of two things is certain: he must be unacquainted
+with the world, and incapable of a thought of deception, or else he is
+an arch and dissembling rogue.  But there are some expressions about
+his eyes that I cannot like; and I think there is a little blarney
+about them both.  I may be wrong; I hope I am, and if I am, that I may
+be forgiven.  It is unpleasant to be haunted by these suspicions.  But
+there, I could help breathing as well."
+
+Upon this, Fabens went to his barn to look after his cattle and see if
+any would be likely to suffer in the storm; and finding all in
+comfortable quarters, he returned, saying, "I wish I could know that
+everybody in the world had as happy a home as we have to-night.  I
+could then rest more warmly and sweetly.  It is bitter cold night, and
+I fear many will suffer.  I am glad I made the wood-bee for poor
+Troffater.  His family can have the comfort of warm fires this winter.
+The neighbors turned out well, and a good big pile of beech and maple
+lies at his door.  I shall sleep better for that."
+
+They enjoyed their devotions, Fabens praying that God would bless His
+beloved poor, and all who were suffering and needy; while He kept their
+own hearts from unjust judgments, from deception and evil; and they
+were soon wrapped warmly and well in the slumbers of the night.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+FAIRBANKS, FRISBIE, AND FABENS.
+
+Not another month expired before Fairbanks paid a visit to Squire
+Fabens, and conversed a whole evening on topics that could not but
+interest the family; and Mrs. Fabens confessed he had never appeared so
+well to her mind before; and that if there were art and insinuation in
+his manner that time, it was so skilfully managed and deeply concealed
+she could not discover it.
+
+Still something impressed her with the conviction that it would be
+quite as well not to rely too much on his integrity, until he was
+better known; and by no large trusts committed to his honor, to tempt
+him to an act of vice.  But Fabens and Fanny could harbor no
+suspicions; while for the latter, Fairbanks showed more regard on this
+occasion than would have been compatible with a knowledge of her
+engagement to Ludlow, and respect for the sanctity of plighted love.
+Still, it appeared his unthinking way of indulging hearty friendship;
+and indeed it rather augmented than diminished Fanny's regard for him.
+
+When about to return, Fairbanks remarked that he had been engaged
+beyond present preparations in the purchase of produce of late, and had
+expended more of his money than he calculated in the beginning; and if
+the Squire would lend him fifty dollars he should have it back again in
+a fortnight.  The money was handed him without hesitation; and just a
+week from that time, Frisbie came and paid it, saying that Fairbanks
+always felt distressed when he could not take up his notes, and pay
+borrowed money before he agreed to.  He spent another evening; and
+among other questions, he inquired, in an innocent way, if they knew
+George Ludlow.
+
+"We know him very well.  Why, what of him?" returned Fabens.
+
+"O, nothing," answered Frisbie; "nothing.  I happened to think of him
+just now; that is all.  I believe Fairbanks saw him for the first time
+in your harvest-field last summer.  He would not have remembered it, if
+Ludlow had not had occasion to mention the circumstance in connection
+with another affair the other day."
+
+"Then you have seen something of him, have you?" inquired Fabens.
+
+"O, but little, sir, very little indeed," said Frisbie.  "He came the
+other day to trade out a due-bill, and--I believe Fairbanks is well
+enough satisfied about him now.  We were not certain that you knew him
+very well."
+
+"There was no difficulty with him, I presume?" said Fabens, not
+indifferently.
+
+"O, no, nothing of any consequence whatever; nothing that we would
+breathe abroad, or wish to remember," said Frisbie, with a meekened
+look.
+
+"May I ask if anything dishonorable on his part?" inquired Fabens.  "We
+have supposed him one of our best young men--one of the _very_ best in
+town; and we have known him from a child."
+
+"I am sorry I mentioned his name: I see it disturbs you," said Frisbie.
+"I would not weaken one's confidence in another for anything in the
+world--unless I had the weightiest reason.  And this was nothing of
+importance, for one of his friends to know."
+
+"But may _we_ not know it, and be relieved of our anxiety?" asked
+Fabens, with rising emotion.
+
+"Why,--yes, I would as lief _you_ would know it as not," said Frisbie.
+"_You_ will say it was a trifling affair, and little worth minding
+after all.  Hundreds of young men do the same, and never repeat it, and
+are just as well thought of, too, by a good many people.  Temptations
+lie in wait to ensnare us all; and the greatest wonder is, not that now
+and then one becomes criminal, but that so many people, good as you and
+I, Squire Fabens, do not oftener step aside from virtue's way."
+
+"But we thought George Ludlow the last to be tempted.  He is certainly
+a most respectable young man.  His very looks bespeak an innocent
+heart.  I seldom meet him without desiring to exclaim as Jesus did at
+the approach of young Nathanael--'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom
+there is no guile!'  And then he is so industrious and regular," said
+Fabens warmly.
+
+"I am very glad you think and feel as you do.  It is truly refreshing
+to witness such confidence in men.  And I told Fairbanks that George
+looked as though he worked hard, and wanted to be respected."
+
+"But tell me, what of his error, Mr. Frisbie?  I insist upon knowing."
+
+"You shall know, Squire Fabens.  I would as lief _you_ would know as
+not; you will not breathe it where it can hurt Ludlow.  You know we are
+bound to lift up the fallen--not to crush them."
+
+"But he has not fallen, I hope!  What was his error?"
+
+"Do not let it trouble you, Squire, do not let it trouble you at all.
+I think just as much of him, far's I know, as ever I did.  The
+crime--if crime _you_ would call it, is this: he came to our store to
+trade out a due-bill, as I said, and after he had gone, we missed a
+pocket-handkerchief."
+
+"He or some one else may have taken it by mistake," interrupted Mrs.
+Fabens, rocking her chair in agitation.
+
+"That is very likely, as I told Fairbanks," said Frisbie.  "And it is
+best for us to think so.  We had better judge ten guilty persons
+innocent, than condemn one innocent man.  It was a _silk_
+pocket-handkerchief; and as it lay on the counter just before he left,
+Fairbanks thought Ludlow must have taken it; and following him over to
+the tailor's shop, where he left his bundle, I opened it, and found a
+handkerchief, just like ours, wadded up and tucked into one end of the
+wrapping paper.  _Little_ things sometimes indicate more than we wish
+to believe.  But then he looked a little honest, when he came in, and
+said he knew not how on earth it got there."
+
+"I don't believe he did know," said Fabens.  "How easy it would have
+been for you; or whoever put up the goods, to have put that in by
+mistake."
+
+"Just so I told Fairbanks," said Frisbie; "and it must have got there
+in some such way.  It was crumpled up so, my first thought was that it
+was tucked in by stealth.  I inquired of our new customer, Captain
+Troffater--I believe they call him Captain, I very confidentially named
+the circumstance to him, and he said it _might_ be a mistake of ours;
+but he did not know about it, and it was best for merchants to keep a
+sharp lookout, when they did not know who was in their store.  But
+there, as--"
+
+"I will not believe George stole it," interrupted Fabens earnestly.
+"He is incapable of such an act; and it is much more reasonable to
+believe it was done up by mistake."
+
+"I have brought home things several times in that way, and nobody
+suspected _I_ meant to steal," said Mrs. Fabens.  "The clerks confessed
+their hurry, and their liability to make mistakes, when I returned
+them."
+
+"We do make such mistakes too often, as I told Fairbanks; and it must
+be he took it in that way," concluded Frisbie.  "At any rate, I had
+rather believe so, and have you _all_ believe so, than believe him
+guilty.  I am sure I would not harm the fellow; and I would not weaken
+your confidence in him.  I am always so grieved myself to know that a
+person is not as good as I believed him to be, I would not attempt to
+convince any one of confidence misplaced for the world--unless I had
+the weightiest reason.  Yet, I confess it grieves me still more to see
+confiding people deceived, they feel so bad after it."
+
+Upon this, Frisbie rose and repeated his invitation to Fabens, to go
+over and see them, saying, as he left the door, that "he hoped
+Fairbanks would not be an old bachelor always, but get him a good wife,
+and have a home, and live like somebody, that ladies and gentlemen
+might visit him.  But what do you think he says, when I jog him on the
+subject?  That there is only one girl in Summerfield he could like well
+enough to marry, and I point in a certain direction, and tell him I can
+guess who he means!
+
+"Fairbanks is getting notional like all old bachelors.  His mother
+taught him some of it.  She thought so much of him when she kept house
+for him on the Hudson, she dared not let him stay away from home over
+night, for fear he would have the croup.
+
+"He grows more and more particular in his choice of friends, and sets a
+higher and higher mark for the young lady of his choice.  I tell him he
+is too particular.  But he must have his notions; and I will say this
+for Fairbanks, whoever gets him, will get a prize worth setting her cap
+for.  His mother always said, if he hadn't a happy and loving home, it
+wouldn't be his fault."
+
+Frisbie left, and while Fanny's quince-blossom blushes all rallied to
+her cheeks and mounted to her forehead at the allusion in his last
+words, they all wondered why any one could suspect George Ludlow of
+crime, on evidence so trivial; and they thought none the less of him,
+or the merchant, or the clerk.
+
+In the course of a few weeks, Fairbanks and Frisbie came again, and
+Fairbanks borrowed a hundred dollars, spent a pleasant evening, and
+evinced a still warmer regard for Fanny Fabens.  A week before the
+money was to be paid, he returned and said, he had it all with him, and
+if the Squire wished to make immediate use of it he would insist on
+paying it over; at the same time intimating the great obligation it
+would confer on him to permit him the use of it a few weeks longer;
+getting an extension of time till he could return from New York, and
+obtaining the loan of Fabens' note, payable to his order at the bank,
+for a hundred and fifty dollars.
+
+Before the time of extension expired, the borrowed money was paid, with
+interest urged, and a few handsome presents to Fanny and Mrs. Fabens,
+for the accommodation.  And on being well assured that the note at the
+bank had been taken up, and the signature cancelled, Fabens loaned him
+another note for two hundred and fifty dollars.
+
+In two months more, other elegant presents were made to Fanny and Mrs.
+Fabens, and Fairbanks and Frisbie, together, as a token of their
+particular and high esteem, presented Fabens a superb cane, of a limb
+from the Liberty Tree, as they said, then waving on Boston Common;
+richly mounted with silver, bearing his name, and the names of the
+generous donors, on a silver eagle, set in the ivory head; with
+appropriate inscriptions, and all polished like the smoothest glass.
+
+"This gift," said Squire Fabens, so touched with emotion, he faltered
+and hemmed in his speech, "this gift kindles a warm spot under my vest
+here," laying his hand on his heart.  "A gift always affects me, if it
+is ever so small.  And this, gentlemen, is _really_ a handsome gift
+_indeed_.  I have no words to express my thanks."
+
+"Thanks would only burden us the more, as we have been the most
+obliged," said Fairbanks, with his blandest bow, and meekest smile; and
+other kind words were spoken, and confident assurances repeated; and
+another note obtained for three hundred dollars.  During that
+delightful visit, in words employed with the most winning selection,
+Fairbanks and Frisbie said so much to the Squire about his credit
+abroad, about the favorable development of his head for a mercantile
+life, about the advantages which he knew merchants always had over
+farmers, about the pleasures of store-keeping, the opportunity of
+visiting New York frequently, and making honorable acquaintances there
+and elsewhere, and several other desirable objects, that when alone in
+the field, they proposed to him to come with them into a grand
+copartnership of the name of "Fairbanks, Frisbie and Fabens," and
+assume all the business of Summerfield; he was actually taken with
+agreeable surprise, his head growing giddy, as by some irresistible
+charm; and he looked upon the farmer's life and labor, as the life and
+labor of a drudge; glanced forth upon visions of opulence, honor and
+ease; and hoped to put away, without too much sacrifice, his stony
+acres, and enter upon that high and tempting course.
+
+His mind wandered and returned, as between sleeping and waking.  He
+remembered, at last, what Julia would be likely to say, if informed
+immediately, and in full, of the scheme.  He remembered how diligently
+she had wrought, how prudently managed, to help him to his handsome
+property.  He knew with what affection she regarded that home and farm,
+and every fruit-tree, and shade-tree and sugar-maple; every flower-bed,
+and herb-bank, and rose-tree and vine; every comfort and convenience
+around them; and how it might wring her heart, and how Fanny might weep
+to see the old homestead go to another; and he concluded, it was best
+on the whole, to take time for reflection, and if at last he determined
+to sell, and become a merchant, he would let his family know but little
+of his plan at a time, and prepare them gradually, as Fairbanks
+considerately advised, to incline to his will, and consent to try the
+change.
+
+Before the end of another week, and before Fabens had decided on their
+proposition, Frisbie came again for the loan of another note, of three
+hundred dollars, and left, saying, "they were perfectly willing he
+should take his own time, to make up his mind about coming into the new
+firm; that this note should be looked after and paid as promptly as all
+the others had been, and he would find that John Fairbanks as clever a
+fellow as ever dealt with him."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+A WEEK OF CASTLE BUILDING.
+
+The last assurance of Frisbie was indeed very kind, but unnecessary;
+for Squire Fabens was well convinced before the last visit, that
+Fairbanks was all he had been represented to be; and that conviction
+rose from a simple and cool opinion to a warm and loving faith, when he
+considered all the gifts they gave; the generous solicitations, which
+merchants but seldom extended to farmers; and the liberty they allowed
+him, to take his own time and look the matter carefully over.
+
+It was a mean suspicion, he thought, which could longer fear deception.
+Had it been their design to deceive, why all that frankness; that fair
+and candid proposing; that trusting to his own mind to weigh, and his
+own time to return an answer?  Villains would have been more exacting
+in their terms, and briefer in their plans and proposals.  Villains
+would have talked in a lower tone, attempted to hurry him to
+agreements, and hastened the signing and sealing.  With those
+gentlemen, all was generous, candid, moderate, indulgent; and even if
+he concluded not to accept their magnanimous offer, he should always
+remember the kindness in which it was made.
+
+A whole week was before him; yes, two or three weeks if he wanted it,
+to weigh the proposal and return an answer.  He gave his whole mind to
+it, and a week was found sufficient for the deliberation.  During that
+week he seemed to live many years of a life, wide and wonderful;
+stirring and instinct with actions, incidents and scenes; a life and
+possessions, progressive as the rise of day, and rapid as the bloom of
+springtime.  It was a week of Castle Building.  The days of the week
+introduced a succession of views that swept in action and speech before
+him like the scenes of a thrilling drama.
+
+Scene first was opened.  It pleased his eyes, and sent blissful
+sensations running around his heart.  It showed him the store of the
+company, enlarged and renovated, with a capacious counting-room, and a
+pleasant door in the rear, beneath a piazza opening to the cool air and
+placid smile of the sweet Cayuga, as it slept or stirred, embosomed
+among the lovely hills.
+
+In that store, he saw himself, now moving in the press of business; now
+examining their posted legers; and now seated in the comfortable
+counting-room, counselling on their growing concerns, or conversing
+with an old friend, or neighbor, as the smooth pine whittlings rolled
+like ribbons from his hand; and now on the back piazza, enjoying the
+air and prospect.
+
+It was a happy change.  It was all shaded sweetly from the intolerable
+sun; it was more stirring than farm work; it was more gentle, and
+suited to his years.  It was cleanly; and his cool linen wristbands
+would keep all the week as snowy white as Julia had done them; while
+she would have lighter washings, and more leisure time.
+
+It was a profitable change.  Money was made faster there, Not that his
+soul was on fire with a passion for money; he loved money less than
+most of his neighbors; he was free and manly with his money as you
+would not find ten in a thousand.  Still, honest gains were pleasant to
+him; the amount he had accumulated somehow prompted a desire for more;
+and in a store he could gain faster, and in larger amounts, and perhaps
+retire in a few years, from all business, more independent than now,
+enjoy the satisfaction of giving more gracious charities, and
+dispensing sweeter reliefs; and settling a handsomer sum on Fanny when
+she married, and again when he died.
+
+It was an honorable change.  Say what they would, farmers looked up to
+merchants, and considered their own avocation inferior.  Many farmers
+honored merchants more than those of their own sphere, and would be
+glad to be merchants themselves.  As he moved about that store, or
+whittled in that counting-room, or sat on that back piazza, and took of
+the cool summer breeze, fresh kisses of beauty borne up from the
+laughing lake, he would still be called Squire Fabens, but it would
+come with more emphasis and meaning than now, while delving in the
+vulgar soil.
+
+Scene second was opened.  The store was the same, but the business
+extended, calling another clerk to the counter; the seats were there,
+and the pleasant views around; the company sulky, polished like a
+razor, danced on its light elliptics, behind a proud pawing horse at
+the post; and the sun literally revelled in the yellow gold that flamed
+on the sanded sign over the door.
+
+His eyes were still more pleased, and there flocked around his heart
+sensations of more exalted bliss.  The chances of his fortune were very
+large, and sure; but he would feel rich on a quarter of what would be
+required in older sections, and in cities.  If he could have ten
+thousand dollars, and a clear conscience and good name left, he would
+feel richer than many with a million.  He would be rich enough, and
+thank no man for more.  No man ought to accumulate more.  With that
+fortune he could settle down, in the pleasantest home.
+
+That home rose before him in the scene.  It stood fronting the village
+green.  It supported its piazza and Paris green blinds, and was white
+and modest in all appearance.  It was a two-story house of course, for
+a story and a half would look too much like a squatter's home, in a
+village; yet it was not over large.  A large house would give Mrs.
+Fabens too much care and work, and she would not have a servant to wait
+on her.  The house was just suited to his family.  It was furnished
+neatly but prudently; having a sofa indeed, and one large mirror; but
+brick fireplaces, frugal lamps, a plain carpet in the parlor, and maple
+chairs with simple flag-seats.
+
+In that home, how much comfort he could take when his friends gave him
+calls; when Fanny and her children came home on a visit, and when some
+poor weary mendicant entered for shelter, alms and rest!  To that home
+he could retire in a few years, free from the cares of business,
+anxious for nothing, but the good of his neighbors, still young in his
+heart, and fresh in all his feelings to enjoy life's blessing and peace.
+
+Scene third was opened.  The store remained, with an increase of
+business, and an enlargement of the building.  He still continued in
+business; but it was from choice, and not necessity; for all of his ten
+thousand was made; and it was made so easily, and in so much less time
+than he anticipated, and so pleasantly withal, he might just as well
+keep on to twenty thousand; if a clear conscience might remain, and he
+might be a little more happy.
+
+Mrs. Fabens could be lady of a handsomer home, and perhaps persuaded to
+keep a servant or two, and take some comfort in her old age.  His first
+object should be to force happiness on her; for a better wife never
+blest a devoted husband.  Mrs. Fabens should be urged to extend the
+sphere of her enjoyments, and Fanny should be well provided for.  He
+would try for twenty thousand.  Then a larger house could be built, and
+a good horse and carriage attend at the door.
+
+That sum was accumulated, and that home and its opulent comforts and
+equipage rose in the scene.  He was glad he possessed it.  The poorest
+of his friends, the most humble of his fellows were welcome as ever
+there, and he was happier, showing how a rich man could unbend, and how
+much more was in his power to bless them.
+
+Now he could travel some.  Neither he nor his family has seen anything
+of the world at all, and he would take them around to see it.  They
+should go to Saratoga a week, thence to Albany, thence to New York, and
+Philadelphia.  Perhaps they would go through the country in their own
+private carriage, taking all the comfort of the journey.  It would be
+grand to visit Niagara, and bring home in their souls the sublimity of
+the falls.  May be they would go to Boston, and set their feet on
+Bunker-hill, where his father fought in the Revolution; and if he
+should ever be honored with a seat in the Legislature, or in Congress,
+he would take his family with him, for he could do it as well as not.
+
+Scene fourth was opened, and that was pleasanter than all the rest.
+But he found that even twenty thousand would not be sufficient to
+accomplish all his plans.  Yet, he was in no dilemma.  Fairbanks,
+Frisbie and Fabens, had grown up into a mammoth business, and it would
+be as easy to make his thirty thousand, as to turn his hand over.  Make
+it honestly too: and the money was all made, and he said now he had
+enough in all conscience, for one man to possess.  Now his comfort
+would be complete.
+
+He wondered why he should have taken it into his head to build his
+house in the village, where he could not turn himself without knocking
+his elbows, and where he could get no good views of nature, and hardly
+land enough for a patch of green grass to spread-out washings on.
+
+Judge Garlock had a country-seat overlooking the Cayuga, scarcely a
+bow-shot from the pebbly shore, and he must have one too.  He sells his
+village home, purchases ten acres on a gentle and beautiful slope,
+builds him a splendid house, with polished marble mantels, with
+cornices, centre-pieces, and folding-doors, furnished in several rooms
+with mahogany chairs and sofas, with ottomans and divans; the large
+parlor graced with a fine piano, for Fanny and her sweet daughters,
+when they shall come home; and his lovely acres are made more lovely by
+a profusion of trees, circles and lines of white pebble walk, pink-beds
+and tulips; and flourish not long without a deer-park and duck-pond, as
+symbols of ancient times.
+
+And how his heart leaps with delight as he beholds that home in
+contrast with the old ones, and imagines the comfort they will find
+there.  Not the wet grass, or slumping soil of a farm, but the white
+pebble path of a villa will he now tread, as he goes forth to enjoy the
+morning and the night.  And while he is out, if he chooses not to sit
+down in his summer-house, and read, or look over his last paper, under
+one of his maples, and has nothing else to busy his thoughts, and no
+one to share his company, he can fling corn to his ducks in the pool,
+and feed his gentle deer, delighting to see them enjoy his care.
+
+Who has not a right to build as handsome a house as money will buy?  He
+cannot withdraw his eyes from the charming scene!  He retires and
+returns again and again, to linger and look upon it.  The clear and
+cool Cayuga shines beyond, as if hung for a mirror to reflect it; and
+he sees the whole magnificent estate, the house and its terraces, the
+grounds and trees, the walks and waters, the ducks and deers; even the
+tulips and pinks, as plainly in its placid splendor, as you can see the
+sun in the silver sky.
+
+But he must turn, at least to breathe, for the fifth scene opens.
+Still he remains a member of the firm of Fairbanks, Frisbie and Fabens.
+Still at times he is seen in the store, waiting on customers, when the
+others are absent, sitting now and then in the counting-room to counsel
+or converse, or enjoying a cool hour on the back piazza.  Still he is
+very happy, yet not quite satisfied.
+
+He has run upon the idea that a high-school is wanted in Summerfield,
+and that he cannot more nobly enhance his happiness than by
+establishing a school of the first class, in a building erected for the
+purpose, endowing it amply, and making a present of it to the town.
+Ten thousand dollars more could easily be made, and it would enable him
+to do that very handsome thing for Summerfield.
+
+In comes the money without effort, and without delay; the school is
+established on a pleasant eminence, in full view of his mansion, and it
+makes a fine ornament to the place; while he finds it a pleasant sight
+indeed, to see talented young men, and accomplished young women, going
+forth from Fabens' Academy, to improve society, and ennoble their own
+life with learning, and graceful manners and ways.
+
+And while revelling in this new source of joy, his fortune continues to
+grow, and the sixth scene opens.  It will be thought a novel enterprise
+in that community, and he is prepared for it, and even for a few sneers
+and witticisms; but these will not move him at all, and he resolves to
+build a meeting-house, and call a pastor, and settle a salary upon him.
+He has always supported Elder Darling's meeting--the Elder is an
+excellent man, and he will continue to support him; but he is not
+perfectly suited with the Elder's preaching; it wants heartier life,
+and a more evangelical power and effect; and he knows of many who
+hunger for a gospel of larger faith and charity; which shall feed and
+refresh the people, and raise their aims and views; which shall
+identify religion more with a pure and benevolent character; which
+shall not be sectarian; and, free from cant and vain pretension, shall
+enter into every-day life, and make smiles its hymns, and deeds of good
+its prayers.  Such a minister can be procured, such a church
+established.  He can establish it himself, and not mind the cost.  He
+will do it, and ask no man's assistance.  Up goes a beautiful church as
+there is in all the country, and on comes the eloquent preacher; and
+full meetings, and joyful seasons follow.  If ever he was a man of
+perfect happiness, it is now.
+
+And what can prevent the continuance of his bliss?  The evangelical
+gospel sounds sweeter than ever in his ears.  New interpretations of
+Scripture enlighten him, and higher views of God and heaven open like
+elysium around.  And can anything, out of heaven, flood his heart with
+a fuller satisfaction, than on a still, bright, silent Sunday, such as
+God gives in holiest beauty only to the country, to ride in his
+carriage to that lovely church, which nestles like a white dove in
+among the hills, and hear preaching that will fatten his soul with
+celestial manna-dew, exchange warm greetings with hundreds who thank
+him for the privilege they enjoy at his hand, and ride home, rejoicing
+all the way, to be the agent by which a door is opened for light and
+truth in a new region?
+
+His happiness continues to flow.  All his reasonable expectations are
+fulfilled, and he seems to live longer in a single day, on a single
+Sunday now, than he once did in a twelvemonth; it makes him so happy to
+know he has made many others happy.  But with the increase of fortune,
+comes the increase of desire, and he finds another thing lacking; a new
+project leaps into his mind, and the last scene opens.
+
+There are a great many poor people in Summerfield.  Several causes have
+combined to make them poor.  Most of them are very worthy, and have
+interesting children.  All of them are God's sons and daughters, and
+should not pine in want and grief amid so much wealth and country.  If
+a Poor Man's Home were established on a large and productive farm, and
+put under judicious management, how much suffering might be alleviated!
+How many aged heads lie down on soft pillows of peace!  How many aged
+hearts, unburdened of grief, and made to run over with flowing tears of
+gratitude!  How many of the disabled and unfortunate, placed beyond
+reach of want and misery!  How many bright children snatched from the
+errors and temptations that lurk in the way of poverty, and clothed and
+educated in virtues and lessons, that would place them on a footing
+with rich men's children, and lead them to lives of usefulness and
+honor!  How many orphans provided for, and how many widows made to sing
+in their hearts for joy!
+
+He has means sufficient to do most of the building himself, and endow
+the Home; and with a little help from others, the institution is
+completed; and he sees bright glancing wings of joy hovering at doors
+where grief has been a constant guest; Comfort wiping tears from eyes
+long accustomed to weep; and Virtue and Knowledge leading large
+processions of rescued children on their heavenward way.  He is rich
+and happy as he can hope or desire to be on earth, and he lies down to
+sweet dreams on the last night of his Week of Castle Building, and with
+those dreams the visions of affluence close.
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+A WEEK OF REALITY.
+
+During that memorable week, while those splendid scenes of fortune
+passed his view as on a rolling panorama, there were moments when
+Fabens felt that the scheme was too magnificent to contemplate alone,
+and Mrs. Fabens and Fanny ought at once to be admitted to the blissful
+secret, and participate his joy.  Then again, he happened to remember
+Julia's love for the old home, and her questioning, slow-footed
+caution, and he refrained from a disclosure.
+
+But he could not refrain from sounding her mind a little, as he
+returned from the field for his meals, to ascertain if his own dreams
+could possibly be too extravagant, and if there were any hope of a
+consent from her, provided in the end he should have an earnest desire
+to accept the tempting offer.  He asked her several questions of
+considerable meaning to himself, which she answered, with little
+suspicion of the thoughts that lay concealed beneath the surface of the
+words.
+
+"Our fields never looked more beautiful to me, not even in June, than
+they have for a few days now of this lovely weather," said Mrs. Fabens,
+gazing from her favorite window upon the rich landscape in view, on the
+first day of the Week of Reality.
+
+"We are somewhat retired, and cannot see a great distance north or east
+from the house, but what we can see is so bound up with all my dearest
+feelings and pleasantest thoughts, I would not change it away for more
+pretending views from new situations.  I love to look at our east woods
+very well; and the hill pasture; and the orchard in blossom is a
+charming sight, and more charming still when tossing the yellow pippins
+to the sun, as in this pleasant breeze."
+
+"You think the old farm is pretty near the centre of the world, I
+suppose," said Fabens.
+
+"It holds my heart as if balanced on the world's centre," replied Mrs.
+Fabens.
+
+"And nothing would tempt you to leave it? not even a larger house, or
+nearer sights of lovely water, or pleasanter walks?"
+
+"No, indeed!"
+
+"But, you always thought Judge Garlock's place very handsome."
+
+"O, it is handsome to look at as you pass; it is nearer the lake than
+ours; and no doubt it is the dearest spot on earth to Mrs. Garlock, she
+has lived there so long; but I would not leave this place for that."
+
+"But you forget her splendid house, her white pebble walks, her grounds
+looking like an Eden; and--"
+
+"No doubt they are very dear to her, but I would not exchange houses,
+or grounds, or gardens, or sights with her."
+
+"Not if we had more money, to live as they do!"
+
+"No! not for a house full of silver dollars."
+
+"Not to have such a splendid view from your door and windows of the
+silver-breasted lake, and the grand old hills beyond?"
+
+"Hardly, if the river Jordan rolled there, and Canaan bloomed opposite;
+though I always thought that would be the loveliest sight on earth.
+But what are you talking about, Matthew? do we not see the lake from
+our house, and the hills, too, beyond?"
+
+"Only from a distance."
+
+"'Distance lends enchantment to the view,' as Fanny's poet sings."
+
+"Only in little patches; and they are dull, and without interest,
+unless the sun happens to shine.  But would you not like to live there
+if I was a merchant or lawyer; and had given a school, a church, and
+hospital to the town, and grand folks were flocking from all quarters
+to visit us?"
+
+"No, I would not, as true as I live and breathe; not if you were King
+George, and kings and queens were flocking to see you.  Nothing but
+Heaven would tempt me to change away the old home; we have taken so
+much comfort here.  It seems a part and parcel of myself.  I would as
+soon think of changing you off for Merchant Fairbanks, because he may
+be called a little handsomer, and goes dressed up like a lord every day
+about his dainty store.  I would as soon think of selling Fanny, and
+buying Desdemona Faddle to fill Fanny's place, just because she has a
+mess of dangling curls, and paints her face, and wears more rings and
+flounces."
+
+"How you do talk!  That would be quite a different thing; wouldn't it,
+Fanny?"
+
+"No, father, I think mother is right.  I'm sure I never can love
+another home as I love this.  I should feel dreadfully to hear you talk
+of selling.  I never could love another home."
+
+"Not if you had George there, to increase your happiness?"
+
+"Another home to call father's and mother's I mean; where I could
+return and enjoy all the old things that are grown so fast to my heart.
+But why do you talk so, father?"
+
+"That I was going to ask.  You have no intention of leaving here, I
+hope, and why _do_ you talk so?  You act wild."
+
+"You began the talk, Julia, and I was seeing to what a stretch you
+would carry your feelings.  But here, it is time I was out in the field
+at the plough again, and I will leave you now, to think it all over,
+and see if there is nothing on earth that would tempt you to sell the
+old home."
+
+A drop of cold water, or the slightest shake will interrupt the
+reallest seeming dream; and half of this conversation would have
+brought Fabens out of what but a day before seemed a splendid reality.
+He went to his plough in the light of his awakened senses, and walked
+all the way on the actual, sober ground.  His gorgeous air castles
+vanished like a train of fleeting clouds.  A walk in the dirty furrow
+seemed long before night, a very pleasant and refreshing pastime; and
+he shuddered with shame more than once to think he had been so
+extravagant in many of the thoughts, that were set afloat by the
+merchant's offer.  He came to himself that afternoon; and sitting down
+to tea, with a glance first at the north meadow and the white ash
+shade-trees blooming there; then at the east woods and orchard; then at
+the blue fringes of the mountains lifted sublimely before him in the
+south; then at the crystal Cayuga in the west and the green hills
+sleeping beyond; he exclaimed, "I must agree with you, Julia; we have
+views from our doors and windows as handsome as any I know of, and the
+old farm still looks very good to me."
+
+During that afternoon, however, Mrs. Fabens had been thinking of
+Fairbanks and Frisbie, and it occurred to her that they might have said
+something to her husband about selling his farm; and from that, her
+mind returned to the borrowed notes.  It had been her expressed desire
+that he would not contract a liability for any one, of more than fifty
+dollars, without security; and now she felt painfully curious to know,
+if the former notes loaned had been all taken up, why they had not been
+brought to her husband, that he might positively know that his
+liability had ceased.  But Fabens was so magnanimous he had thought it
+unmanly to ask security of the merchant, or distrust the assurances of
+men who had dealt so handsomely as they.
+
+She wondered she had not remembered to inquire about the old notes
+before, and was troubled till she could ask the question.  At night she
+introduced the subject.  "It may be all right," said she, "but
+something keeps whispering to me, that trouble awaits us.  We have a
+comfortable property, as much as anybody ought to desire I know, but we
+have all worked hard and honestly to get it, and it would be hard to be
+defrauded of a hundred dollars.  I would rather give all we can spare
+to the poor and needy, than to be defrauded of it."
+
+"I confess to you, mother, what till this week I never felt," said
+Fanny with emotion; "I begin to lose confidence.  I fear father is
+deceived.  I don't like their coming so often.  I don't like the way
+they make so many presents.  I don't like their asking for so many
+notes, and I have heard too much of what begins to sound like flattery.
+Oh, I hope father will not have trouble!"
+
+"_I_ hope too, that I shall not have trouble," said Fabens with rising
+agitation; "but you seem to wake me out of a singular dream.  What
+_have_ I been doing?  Why have I given them power so to deceive and
+defraud me, if they chance to have the wicked will?  I must go and see
+if all is well.  I fear, I fear they deceived me!  What have I done?"
+
+Early the next morning Fabens set off to see Fairbanks.  He designed
+first to inquire if Fairbanks had preserved, and could produce the old
+notes represented as paid, and next ascertain whether the last one left
+him liable; and in his anxiety, and the wakefulness of his reason and
+judgment, he gave no thought to the idea of quitting his fine old farm
+for a merchant's life, except to wonder how such an idea had been
+permitted to enter his head.  A cool hour's ride brought him to the
+village where Fairbanks traded, and his fears were in no wise relieved,
+by finding the store still closed, and failing to obtain an answer to
+his rap and call.
+
+He stepped over to the tailor's shop across the way, and there he was
+informed that the store was closed by a sheriff the day before, on an
+old judgment from New York, and there were not goods enough on hand to
+cancel the liability.  That the neighborhood was all in excitement, for
+astonishing things had come to light.  That Fairbanks had obtained
+money at the banks in considerable amounts on the endorsements of
+several citizens; and still was owing for two or three crops of wheat
+and other produce; besides leaving a large board bill unsettled; horse
+hire, cigar and liquor bills, and hired help unpaid; and with Frisbie
+had left the town, no doubt, never to return!
+
+"What _shall_ I do?--Can it be possible?--Can I believe it?  You amaze
+me!  How they did deceive me!" were the answers of Fabens to each
+unwelcome item of this news.
+
+"Then they run away in your debt, too, did they, Square?" asked the
+tailor, as he finished the hurried tale of recent disclosures.  "If
+he's in debt to you, you've a plenty of company.  A good many were took
+in by the rascals.  I begun to smell the rat after it was too late.
+Each of 'em owes me now for a suit of Sunday clothes.  When I set
+pressing 'em off at midnight, I little thought they would be run-away
+suits, and I was working so hard for nothing.  But I must pocket the
+loss, I suppose, and comfort me, remembering this is the first time a
+rascal has bit me.  How much did they owe you, Square, considerable?"
+
+"I know not as I can say positively, that they owe me anything," said
+Fabens, as soon as he could crowd in a word of reply to the talkative
+tailor's question; "but it must be, I shall lose by them.  I loaned my
+note to Fairbanks, a few weeks agony [Transcriber's note: ago,
+agone?]--my note at the bank for three hundred dollars.  I expect I
+shall have that to pay, and I know not how much more."
+
+"Why, of all things! they've bit you hard, you may depend!" exclaimed
+the astonished tailor.
+
+"Is it possible that they are such deceivers?" asked Fabens, in an
+agony of grief.
+
+"They are dreadful creatures; there's no mistake about that, I guess,"
+said the tailor.
+
+"But they always looked honest and friendly," said Fabens.
+
+"And so can old Bill Shazzar, and old Bill Zebub, look honest and
+friendly too, when they want to come it on a fellow," said the tailor.
+
+"Who next can we trust?" exclaimed Fabens, wounded as deeply by the
+deception as by the loss.  "Where was my reason?  Where were my senses
+all this while?  Why didn't I take my wife's advice, when she gave it
+with tears in her eyes?  I dread to go to the bank and see how matters
+are."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+ANOTHER WEEK OF REALITY.
+
+Before Fabens left town for Auburn, to inquire at the bank, concerning
+his paper, an officer of the bank met him, having been to his house,
+and followed him here, and he disclosed the fact that Fabens was liable
+for a thousand dollars, not one of the old notes having been paid.  "My
+worst fears are realized!" cried Fabens, the cold sweat starting out in
+beads on his forehead.
+
+"Why was I so heedless?  And is this all right, sir?  Could you not
+have warned me of my danger before it went so far?  You must have known
+that something was going wrong in that fellow's affairs; and why was I
+kept in the dark to this hour?"
+
+He was answered that the villains had managed so adroitly, they did not
+suspect deception, till too late.  "But we are not at all alarmed,
+Squire Fabens, concerning the amount for which you are liable to us,"
+said the gentleman.  "We _know_ you are good and honest.  We will give
+you all reasonable time to cancel the notes.  I regret sincerely, that
+you have met such a loss, Squire Fabens.  But there, a farmer should
+never be liable for a trader.  Let farmers endorse each other if they
+will; they know each other's risks and resources.  But they know little
+of the risks and insecurities of trade, and less of the chances of
+deception connected with it, and they should never endorse for traders,
+or loan their notes.  Hundreds of fine farms go in this way to pay
+other people's debts."
+
+"But must my farm go to pay those notes?"  asked Fabens, turning still
+whiter in the face, and sweating almost blood.  "_My_ farm, that I have
+worked so hard for? my comfortable home?  Must it go, and leave us
+destitute now as old age comes in sight?  It is hard to think of these
+things.  And what will my poor wife say? and how can she endure this
+trouble?  I will pay the notes, if it takes all I have, and the coat
+from my back, in the bargain; but I beg you don't sue me.  I never was
+sued in my life.  Don't injure my character, or make me unnecessary
+cost."
+
+Everything proved just as they informed him, and he went home
+heavy-hearted, to relate what he had heard.  Mrs. Fabens and Fanny were
+deeply grieved by the thought, that he stood so largely liable on
+Fairbanks' account.  But they bore the shock with a composure, which
+comforted Fabens greatly; and such hopefulness had ever been the
+blessing of them all, before another week, they had nearly recovered
+from the first agitation, and begun to contrive how they should manage
+to make the best of the misfortune.
+
+It was nothing against their firm religious faith in overruling Good,
+nor against their fortitude, or self-reliance, to say that at first
+they yielded to agitations and griefs.  It would have been unnatural in
+them not to be moved.  For the present it was a calamity which they
+must suffer.  Their old farm was dear to them, every acre of it.  To
+its woods and waters; to its fine pastures and green meadows; its
+generous fruit-trees and grateful shade-trees, they were tenderly
+attached, looking upon them with family affection; and how could an
+item of that sweet home be spared?  They doubted not but God would
+control the event for good; but it could not displease him to behold
+this feeling in his children.  How could they adjust their faith to the
+event and be resigned so suddenly?  It was hard to bear the stroke.  It
+cut to the tender quick, and they shuddered and wept.  It was hard to
+think the unworthy should be agents, to bring the disguised blessing
+which would follow such a woe.  Hard to be deceived by those in whom so
+many confided with such pure and magnanimous trust.
+
+But they were not immoderate in their grief.  The deception might have
+been deeper, and the loss more alarming and great.  And then what was
+their grief at that hour, compared with the misery that must gnaw at
+the hearts of the deceivers, as inseparable from their guilt.  What
+gift in the wide world would tempt them to exchange places with the
+wretched creatures?  What a thorny road of perdition must their way of
+life be!  How they must whiten and gasp, and what poignant pangs must
+thrill them through and through when they remembered their villainous
+deeds!
+
+And then they remembered how thankful they should be, that the designs
+of the criminals on Fanny had failed even of their first success, while
+they wept to hear of the shame in which more than one poor victim had
+been left; that they lost no confidence in George Ludlow; and none of
+their family had been made less virtuous by them.
+
+Fabens remembered his schemes of benevolence, and his project of a new
+church and minister, without regret; but he crimsoned with blushing
+shame, as he confessed the foolish idea to which they forced him to
+listen, in regard to selling the old homestead and becoming a merchant.
+"Just as though it could be possible for us to be as happy as we are,
+in another sphere of life!" said he.  "What in the world do I want to
+make me happy and respectable, except more faith and goodness, and the
+means to confer more good, that I did not possess before the scoundrels
+came?  I wonder that Matthew Fabens allowed them to make him such a
+silly fool!"  But it was long before he told them the dreams he
+indulged in his Week of Castle Building.
+
+They counselled together: with returning resignation and confidence,
+they counselled.
+
+"A thousand dollars!--a _thousand_!" said Fabens, with a long-drawn
+sigh.  "That is a large debt for me to owe--a large one!  I must see
+how I can settle it.  I cannot bear to be in debt, even on another's
+account.  I must not sit down and give up.  I cannot rest very well
+till I do something to square it.  He said they wouldn't sue me.  I
+never was sued, and I could not bear to be.  But I have only about a
+hundred dollars, and where can I raise the rest?  The debt is a round
+thousand in all."
+
+"I do not know.  It really looks dark before us after all," said Mrs.
+Fabens.  "A thousand dollars does not grow on every bush.  I see no
+way, but a slice of the farm must go, and a pretty large slice too; and
+that will be very hard.  How much is the whole farm worth?"
+
+"It ought to fetch six thousand, five hundred," said Fabens.  "Six
+thousand I've been offered for it, time and again."
+
+"I cannot bear to part with an inch of the farm--it is so dear to us,"
+said Mrs. Fabens.
+
+"How can we part with a rood or a tree," asked Fanny, with a sigh.
+"Every tree seems one of the family, and every rood has transferred a
+picture of its beauty to our hearts."
+
+"But something must be done to wipe off the thousand dollars.  The
+hundred on hand will help; and where shall I raise the rest?  They may
+sue me, and sacrifice double the amount, if they have to wait too
+long," said Fabens.
+
+"O well, we shall have enough left after paying the thousand," said
+Mrs. Fabens.  "Any one will loan you nine hundred, and take a mortgage.
+Then we should not have to sell a single rood.  We could all turn to,
+and raise it off from the farm in three or four years."
+
+"I cannot bear to mortgage the farm," said Fabens.  "I should then feel
+in debt.  I hate debts as I do sin and Satan.  Hadn't we better sell
+off a little strip joining Nimblet's, and stand free and clear once
+more?  It is handsome land, I know; my heart leans to it warmly, for I
+have labored along there a good many pleasant days.  But hadn't we
+better let the pretty piece go?  He has been at me these three years to
+sell it; and he can pay for it all down.  Wouldn't the farm be large
+enough without that strip?"
+
+"That may be best," said Mrs. Fabens.  "I dislike debts and mortgages
+as much as you.  But the farm is so handsome with that green border,
+and its lovely shade-trees!"
+
+"That is the most beautiful fringe of fields on the farm," said Fanny.
+"The trees are the finest;--think of those charming chestnuts, and how
+their white blossoms sweeten the air in July!  And the handsomest
+walnuts and maples wave along there.  And there is my lovely linden,
+and mother's balm of Gilead.  And how level the ground is; and how the
+bluebirds and robins love to sing there!--But perhaps it may be best to
+let it go, and be out of debt.  We shall all feel so much better.  You
+cannot sell the loveliness of those fields, and he could no more buy it
+than buy the songs of the birds, or the light of the blue skies.  The
+handsome prospect, the verdure, light, and song, are the property of
+all who have eyes to see and hearts to enjoy them; and Mr. Nimblet will
+take pains, I know, to make the fields more lovely, if he can."
+
+"Then I may say to Mr. Nimblet, he can have the north fields?" asked
+Fabens.
+
+"O, wait a little while," said Fanny, "and see if we cannot keep them.
+It looks so beautiful in the middle field in the spring, when the
+dandelions blow; and the strawberries blossom; and the butter-cups wave
+in the wind; and the bobolinks light on the red clover and sing;--there
+would be more comfort in knowing it was all ours as we enjoyed the
+sight!"
+
+"But we cannot have everything, Fanny, as we wish in this world," said
+Mrs. Fabens.  "Let it go.  I am willing, if you think best.  As Fanny
+says, the landscape will be ours as much as ever.  And after all, how
+much better off are we without that strip of land than many of our
+neighbors!  Think of the poor laborers and mechanics that Fairbanks
+owes for work!  How much more ought we to think of their loss than our
+own!"
+
+"Yes, but, how much good we could have done with that thousand
+dollars," said Fabens; "giving some of it to the poor, and lending the
+rest to worthy young men who are struggling against hope to get
+something, and would be set on their feet by a little lift.  But it is
+of no use to cry for spilt milk."
+
+"And what is this trouble, compared with the loss of poor little
+Clinton, and our grief for him?" asked Mrs. Fabens.
+
+"Dear me,--I would give the beauty of the world to see my brother
+Clinton!" cried Fanny, her blue eyes sparkling with tears.  "I cannot
+remember seeing him; but how could I help loving him when you have said
+so much about him, and wept so many sad hours for his loss?  O what
+would we not give to see Clinton?  And how foolish it will be to mourn
+for a small deception and a thousand dollars!  _Don't_ let us mourn any
+more for that!"
+
+"Clinton!" said Fabens, kindling to a glow, and rising and pacing the
+room.  "Give all the world to see Clinton?  I think we would, and we
+would be rich and happy, if Clinton were alive and here, though we were
+without money and handsome fields, and had no more than a bark shanty
+to shelter our heads."
+
+"Indeed we would!" added Mrs. Fabens, rocking more earnestly in her
+chair.  "And let us pay up the debt, sell the land and pay it, and
+thank the Lord that he has been so good to us, and taught us how to
+bear our troubles."
+
+George Ludlow was present to sympathize and counsel, and he said "Let
+the land go;" and Fanny repeated, "Let it go; we have all its beauty
+pictured on our souls, and will possess it with our estate;" and before
+the week was over, Mr. Nimblet had purchased the row of fields on the
+north side of the farm, and the debt was paid, and happiness became,
+for that misfortune, no stranger to the household.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+SUNNY SKIES.
+
+Time and reflection, mutual sympathy, and a happy knack of always
+hoping for the best, completed their resignation, and prosperity and
+peace once more attended their efforts and desires.  The farm was found
+quite ample in what was left, to employ them all, and satisfy their
+hearts.  In fact there was more land left than Fabens could manage
+without much assistance, and more than a supply of all that heart could
+wish.
+
+They seemed to enjoy home and prosperity, and everything around them
+better than before; for the loss and anxiety given them by Fairbanks
+awakened a new appreciation of all good, and taught them to be more
+thankful for what they could call their own.  They also learned how to
+exercise a will that conquered all misfortune, and rested in a faith
+that overcame the world.  As they looked back to early life, and
+counted all the sorrows they had seen, though some had been heavy as
+humanity can bear, they could not select one and say, it had not seemed
+to soften their hearts, and open to their minds a sense of the goodness
+of God and the mercy of every providence.  "I can cry with David," said
+Fabens, "it is good for me that I was afflicted, although it is
+difficult, at all times to see in what way good out of evil may come."
+
+After this, George Ludlow was employed to assist in managing the farm,
+and the progress of time only quickened the increase of their love for
+him.  He grew manly still more in appearance, though to strangers he
+was homely; he grew intelligent still more in mind, and his society in
+that home was not its smallest joy.
+
+And Fanny Fabens had now attained to full maturity, and she presented a
+person and a mind that all admired and loved.  Her form had a round and
+erect development; and her step was as light, and her carriage as proud
+as the colt's that ranged the hills.  Her hair was a shaded and glossy
+flaxen now, and her eyes were a darker blue.  Her beauty was unchanging
+as the Pleiades, in all situations; for whether she hetchelled flax in
+the kitchen, or spun wool in the barn; whether peeling apples, or
+piecing quilts; whether churning butter or dressing cheese; whether
+gleaning wheat or picking berries; or dancing at a wedding, or singing
+hymns at church; she was the same rosy, brisk and brightly smiling
+creature; the same full, free and glad-hearted life; giving grace and
+honor to labor; light and beauty to nature; joy and virtue to
+amusements; peace and holiness to worship, and love and happiness to
+home.
+
+One day when Fabens happened to stop at the tailor's, in the village,
+he thought to inquire into Frisbie's story, concerning the
+handkerchief, which he would have them believe George Ludlow had
+stolen.  The tailor was positive in denying the truth of the whole
+affair.  It was false, he said, and much like many other lies they had
+told.
+
+The next time Fabens saw Troffater, he inquired if Tilly knew any evil
+of George Ludlow, or if he ever warned Fairbanks and Frisbie against
+him.
+
+"They never said so much as boo, about 'im to me, nor I to them; that's
+honest," said Troffater.  "But I tell you, Fabens, I never thought a
+great 'eal o' them scamps.  I itched to give you a jog, when they come
+so thick around you.  You was green as a mess o' cowslops, or you'd a
+seen what they was arter.  I thought you'd git nipt a grain, or my name
+wasn't Troffater.  But I dasn't tell you what I thought on 'em.  You
+wouldn't a' b'lieved me, I ben such a witch with my word.  I spose you
+know the fellers have been heern from?  They run out of all they
+cabbaged here perty quick.  Frisbie, they say, is jugged up in jail,
+and there's better men sometimes hung than that Jock Fairbanks.  I
+guess some o' the gals are kindy sorry they sot their caps for 'em!
+The Faddle gals, I guess, would give all their old shews, if they'd a'
+kep away from the whelps.  My gals is all in titters about it; and Beck
+Teezle, says she, 'I wonder, says she, if Des and Luce Faddle, says
+she, will feel above us now?'  They couldn't git me to dew their dirty
+Work, with all their ile and palaver.  I bought a pitchfork on 'em,
+once in hayin', and got a platter there when Josephyne was married, and
+I paid 'em tew in mink skins; and that's all I had to dew with 'em.
+You lost a good 'eal by 'em, didn't you, Square?"
+
+"A thousand dollars," said Fabens.  "It seemed a great sum to lose, at
+first.  It _was_ too much for me.  But it has been a good lesson to me,
+in many ways.  The lesson perhaps will give me my money's worth."
+
+"That _is_ a big _sum_ to _luse_, I swanny!  I wish I had a jogged your
+elbow a grain.  I seen threw the cunnin' scamps the fust time.  Didn't
+you know, Square, that Fairbanks was gray as a wharf rat, when he let
+his hair alone?" said Troffater.
+
+"No, I did not.  _He_ was not gray; his hair was a glossy black," said
+Fabens.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! you was _greener 'n_ cowslops, or you'd a seen that was
+all dye-stuff!" said Troffater.  "Why, I seen the gray roots glisten
+for half an inch, the fust time I seen 'im.  But didn't you know 'im,
+Square?  He come from the Hudson."
+
+"I never knew him till he came here," said Fabens.
+
+"But, you've got a clean conscience," said Troffater.  "If I had that,
+I wouldn't lay wake o' nights, nor grow hatchet-faced a great 'eal.  I
+see your cheeks don't fall in, and nobuddy would spose by your looks
+that you had a _great_ grist o' trouble.  Wish I could look as
+cheerful, and had a bit o' your pleasant peace o' mind."
+
+"But you have forgotten one of my questions; I asked if you knew any
+ill of George Ludlow," said Fabens.
+
+"All I know, I can tell perty quick," said Troffater, and cooked his
+quid, and spit through his teeth.  "What do you know, Tilly?" asked
+Fabens.
+
+"I know an awful cuss hangs over the feller," said Troffater.
+
+"How you talk!  Curse! what do you mean?" asked Fabens, with emotion,
+and a searching glance of his large and loving eye: "George Ludlow
+under a _curse_?"
+
+"Yis, under a cuss, an' may it please your honor," said Troffater.
+
+"Who pronounced it?" asked Fabens.
+
+"Scriptur!" said Troffater, drawing down his monkey brows over his
+little, black-and-blue eyes, and looking wise as a magistrate.
+"Scriptur pernounced the cuss."
+
+"The Scripture!" exclaimed Fabens.  "The Scripture pronounced a curse!
+What do you mean?  What does the Scripture say to condemn George
+Ludlow?"
+
+"A good 'eal, I guess," said Troffater.  "The Scripture says--'_Woe_
+unto him that all men speak well of;' and George Ludlow is the man!"
+
+"O, you will be Tilly Troffater, as long as you live!" said Fabens.
+"Why can you not be serious once in a while?  You are getting to be an
+old man, and such levity shocks one's reverence for your gray hairs.
+But if that is all you know, I am sure you never spoke ill of the young
+man."
+
+"Not I, Fabens, not I," said Troffater, sobering down at this mild
+rebuke.  "He's a likely feller.  _He'll_ dew wal enough, I'll warrant.
+Tell Fan, for me, if she gits George Ludlow, _her_ fortin will be
+_fixed_.  A good many young bucks, that feels above him, might thank
+the powers, if they knowed as much as he, and was half as likely.  Wish
+I had ollers did as wal as George, and my mind was peaceful as his'n.
+But I must go hum.  I calkilate to start on a journey to-morror, for
+the Holland Purchase, and I've a little fixin' to dew."
+
+So they separated, and Fabens went home, musing in his heart, and
+inquiring what fresh remorse could have seized on Troffater's
+conscience, and what might be the object of his journey.
+
+Under the joint management of Fabens and George Ludlow, for a period of
+good prices and great prosperity, the farm yielded a return of a
+portion of the sum lost by Fairbanks, and a year or so was anticipated
+as time sufficient to retrieve the entire misfortune, if misfortune it
+might really now be called; and place the family and their young friend
+in very desirable circumstances.  The smaller farm yielded an extra
+increase for receiving the care and culture formerly bestowed on the
+fields that were sold; the seasons seemed more genial; the rains more
+timely, and the sun more liberal in his bland, warm beams, than for
+years gone by.  The beneficence of God was pictured out on all the
+glowing sky; blooming in all the fields and woods, and sung by the
+birds and breezes.  Lessons of grief, quite as much as those of joy,
+had taught them to discover the signs of that beneficence; to rejoice
+in all its light, and repose in its blissful promise.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Fabens had arrived at a period of life when old age was
+approaching, yet most tardy in its advances; and their relation as
+parents was most interesting; and their convictions and sentiments, as
+trusting Christians, gave daily refreshment to their souls.
+
+As one good consequence of the late trial, our excellent farmer
+considered his cure of a love of praise, which had grown insensibly
+upon him, and commenced already to make him unhappy, by warping his
+independence, and making him almost a slave to the vain opinions of
+men.  As another effect in which he discovered a blessing, it weakened
+his worldly cares, and taught him to set his affections on things above.
+
+There was a time of general happiness in Summerfield.  Some of the old
+people had passed away; among whom Mr. Flaxman and old Mr. and Mrs.
+Waldron were much lamented.  Many worthy sons were left behind; and
+several who had been prodigals were now reformed, to render the old
+neighborhood pleasant and happy.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were still alive, and possessed a fine property,
+and rejoiced in the society of several dutiful children.  Colwell and
+his wife were still alive and happy.  The Teezles had not succeeded
+greatly in worldly affairs; but they had a home and a good family, and
+none saw pleasanter days.  Uncle Walter and Aunt Huldah lived in a ripe
+old age; and he loved a hunt and a fine story, and she loved stubbing
+and scouring still; and could boast the whitest linen, the whitest
+floor, and clearest maple sugar.  And these had all learnt wisdom since
+the feast at Aunt Polly Waldron's, and were more refined in thought and
+speech.
+
+Tilly Troffater carried still about him, as he did his scars, a few of
+his early habits and characteristics; as for instance, his love of
+levity slightly corrected; his love of indolence, and an occasional
+glass of whisky; his swaggering loquacity, a little improved; and once
+in a while the mischief of the busybody.  But all regarded him, on the
+whole, as a reformed man, and were quick to give him credit and
+encouragement, where they could see any change for good; expecting that
+he would carry a few peculiarities with him to his grave.
+
+George Ludlow was solidly esteemed and affectionately regarded as a son
+by Mr. and Mrs. Fabens, while Fanny responded to his sentiments, and
+answered his heart with something deeper, and more a principle of her
+soul, than common passional love.  He was esteemed by the neighbors as
+quite a second Fabens; and those few vain youths and maidens who had
+affected contempt for his humble parentage and life, were now compelled
+to blush for their heartless folly, and respect him.  The week arrived
+in which George and Fanny were to be married, and great preparations
+were made for the happy bridal day.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Life in the country has many scenes for pictures.  Its customs and
+festivities, though sometimes rude and homely, are never without their
+romance.  The country courtship may not be conducted by laws laid down
+in books of etiquette, but it is all the more romantic for its frank
+simplicity.  The city courtship may appear the most genteel in the
+splendid parlor, with the lover on a sofa displaying his stocks and
+certificates of wealth to the matron, and through her winning his
+sweetheart; while the maiden at her piano opens absorbing ears to catch
+his wooing words; but all must confess the country courtship makes the
+best picture, with the ruddy maiden in the farm-yard, in her cool
+sun-bonnet and clean checkered frock; the bloom of the season on her
+cheeks, and its fragrance in her breath; making music with sweet
+streams in her milk-pail; while her lover at her elbow, or leaning over
+the wall, as jocund as a bobolink, tells her of his horses and cows;
+his wheat-lands and meadow-lands; his berry-fields; his melon-patch,
+and maple-orchard; his nice little rural home, and his pleasant love of
+her.
+
+The country wedding also makes a charming picture of one of the
+happiest scenes under heaven; and it was determined by the Fabenses
+that Fanny's wedding should lack no joy or enjoyment which they had
+means to give.  The season was never more lovely, and the fruits of the
+garden, orchard, and field were never more abundant.  The commodious
+farm-house had been re-painted, and it looked as well as new; its doors
+could open to a goodly company, and a goodly company came before three
+o'clock to make merry with them.
+
+Neighbor Nimblet and his wife were the first of the wedding-guests who
+entered; and Nancy and her husband entered soon after.  Then came Uncle
+Walter over the fields, a-foot, with his coat on his arm, in his new
+wide-brimmed hat, long Lon'on-brown vest, with gilt buttons and scarlet
+back; his white wristbands turned up, and white collar turned down;
+enjoying, in the tidiest way, a clean little quid of Cavendish, and
+selecting and cooking a story for the feast.  And Aunt Huldah came with
+him in the neatest cap, the nicest dress, and the brightest gold beads
+that any old lady wore.  Then came the Teezles; then came the Colwells,
+followed soon by their young people.  Then came the Wilsons; then came
+the widow Flaxman, thinking how sad it would be to sing one of her old
+nasal songs alone.  Then came Mrs. Troffater and Ruth; and they were
+able to offer no satisfactory excuse for Tilly, who had refused all
+their pleas to come with them, and taken to the woods without his dog
+or gun.  Many remarked that they never saw Mrs. Troffater appear so
+well before.  She wore a brand-new calico frock, of a rich de laine
+appearance; she had a nice cap, and handsome amber beads; and though
+her cap-border was rather too wide, and plaited too thinly for perfect
+taste, and the young people smiled to see it rise and fall with the
+wind; she appeared well enough; and no one attended the wedding with a
+warmer welcome than she.  Then came Seneca Waldron and his wife; and
+soon all the guests were there.
+
+The fathers and mothers were gathered into the white north-room,
+exchanging glad looks and hearty salutations, as if each had been
+autumn itself, smiling in great and abundant heart on the scene; and
+they were discussing the beauty of the day, and the excellence of the
+season; relating each other's history; and recalling incidents of the
+olden time, when the country was new, and neighbors were farther apart
+and more friendly; while the young people, happy as a flock of birds in
+the sunny days of mate-choosing, and freshly blooming as the
+landscape--around them, were out on the mown field adjacent to the
+house, whirling in the sportive ring, bounding in the merry dance,
+chatting in agreeable groups, or chasing one another on flying feet to
+exact or administer some little forfeit, or whisper some mirthful word
+or tale.
+
+Father Lovelight, the travelling Minister, had long been expected on
+another visit to Summerfield, and he came three or four days in advance
+of the appointment, to attend the wedding and perform the ceremony.
+The time drew near for the company to be called in, and the ceremony to
+commence, and Mr. and Mrs. Fabens talked to each other of the joy that
+sat as a guest in their home.
+
+"We feel well for our daughter," said Fabens, "we believe that life to
+her must be a blessing, and we are glad to meet our friends when we
+find it in our power, as in our pleasure, to make them so happy."
+
+"Certainly, this is a happy occasion as I ever attended in my life,"
+said Father Lovelight; "and I wish my good wife could be here.  I know
+her whole heart would enjoy it.  I have attended weddings, where the
+parties were unequally matched, or unprepared for a union so sacred,
+and they have given me funeral thoughts.  May this joy be prophetic of
+the future bliss of the young couple.  May my offices this afternoon be
+always a subject of pleasant thoughts."
+
+"There's nothing at all unpleasant in a time like this," said Uncle
+Walter; "and I tell you what, Fabens, we have had a good many merry
+times in these parts."
+
+"That we have," answered Fabens, "and I do not recollect any party we
+have had among us, that did not more than pay the trouble and expense,
+in the proceeds of joy and love it added to our treasury."
+
+"Uncle Moses and I determined before any of you came, that there
+shouldn't be any hermits in the settlement; but if we could have our
+say, all should be neighbors, and have our joys and griefs together,
+without respect to high or low.  We have kept our word pretty well;
+and, if we have not, like the chipmonks, laid up quite so many nuts in
+our nests, we have had acorns of pleasure in thousands, laid up all the
+more comfort, and held our ages better."
+
+"Ay, ay," answered Fabens; "these neighborly loves, these social
+regards and reunions, have been the life and wealth of our place; and I
+for one have been more blest than Hezekiah, as I am sure that more than
+fifteen years have been added to my life."
+
+"Our lives are greener and wider, as well as longer for these things,"
+said Uncle Walter.  "Men are like corn, growing all to stalk, and
+looking sallow, and scrawny, when standing alone; but branching out in
+broad leaves, abundant silks and lusty ears, when they grow and wave
+together."
+
+"Even the young man who came here last night a stranger, Mr. Sumner, I
+believe he called his name,"--interrupted Mrs. Fabens, glancing out on
+the green where the young people lingered in merriment:--"even he seems
+to enjoy it with the rest.  I am glad we invited him to stay and
+refresh himself, and share our happiness all he can.  And I see he is
+already acquainted with several, and often smiles.  But he frequently
+looks serious and absent, as though his mind was away.  He may be
+reminded of his home, and of some good time like this with hearts near
+and dear."
+
+"A stranger?" asked Mrs. Nimblet, "a stranger! and how could you
+persuade him to stay where all were strangers to him?"
+
+"We urged him considerably," said Fabens, "and thinking it would rest
+and refresh him for finishing his journey, he concluded to tarry and
+enjoy what he could.  See, there he stands talking with Jeanie Waldron,
+near the bee-house on the left,--the girl dressed in white with a
+flower in her hair."
+
+"Near the girl with a flower?  O I see him, I see him," cried Mrs.
+Nimblet.  "And I," cried another, "and I" another.
+
+"Well, he's a real nice-looking fellow, I vow he is, if that's he with
+Jeanie," said Mrs. Wilson.
+
+"I tell you what, he looks like a manly major," added Uncle Walter.
+
+"I call him handsome," said Mrs. Fabens, "and I know he must be a good
+and noble-gifted being; he looks it all from his lovely eyes.  And if
+he is made happy among strangers, surely we have done something for a
+wayfarer, and ought to take pleasure from the deed."
+
+"A deed like that will answer very well in lieu of what the Squire was
+going to do for a young man in 'Fabens Academy,' and for a poor
+homeless heart in 'Fabens Asylum,' when he got rich in the firm of
+'Fairbanks, Frisbie and Fabens!'" said Uncle Walter with a roguish leer.
+
+"None of your nonsense now, Uncle Walter!" answered Fabens with a
+blushing smile.
+
+"I never had a stranger so win upon my heart before," said Mrs. Fabens.
+"He seems a stranger, and not a stranger, in the same look.  I could
+kiss him and call him my son, I could, I feel so towards him!--O there
+is one wish that keeps rising in my heart.  I have tried to repress it,
+for it cannot be right to harbor it so long; but it will rush before
+me, and I sigh for one more blessing.  If Clinton could be here, our
+dear lost Clinton!  Last night I dreamed he came back and made us all
+so happy; and as he sat down to a feast we made for him, a company of
+joys like little smiling cherubs waited on the table, and gave him the
+best of every dainty and treat.  And telling the dream to Fanny this
+morning, the tears filled her eyes, and she said, 'If we could have him
+here, it would be all the heaven we could ask below.  What would I not
+give,' said she, 'to have my brother at my wedding!'--It was such a
+joyful dream, and it was so hard to wake up and find it was nothing but
+a dream, and Clinton was not here!"
+
+"I cannot think of the poor boy for a moment," said Fabens, "without
+grief for his loss and regret for the affliction.  But we cannot have
+everything as we like it now.  We must be resigned, and wait for heaven
+to bring the perfect bliss.  God afflicts in mercy; I am sure we shall
+meet him in heaven, and that will be greater than any blessing earth
+can give.  You would have worshipped an Indian, Julia, if he had
+brought Clinton alive to your arms, on the day of the great search,
+would you not?"
+
+"I should have been tempted to worship him.  Words could not have told
+my gratitude and love," said Mrs. Fabens.
+
+"Then, think what sufficing joy we should take to our souls," said
+Fabens, "and what thanks of worship we should give our God and
+Redeemer, for the assurance that he will be brought to our bosom in all
+the youthful bloom of heaven, never more to wander from us, never more
+to suffer, never more to sorrow, never more to die!"
+
+"But for that blessed hope," said Mrs. Fabens, with a flush of lofty
+feeling lighting all her features--"but for that blessed hope, I should
+be a maniac, I know I should, at this moment."
+
+"What could have become of the pretty precious boy?" asked Fabens, as a
+tear rolled over each cheek.  "Can he be alive?  I often think of the
+little fawn, and mother's dying words.  O, the terrible mystery!  Will
+it never be solved on earth?--The Lord's will be done!"
+
+"I remember just how he looked the last time I saw him," said Uncle
+Walter, wiping his eyes.  "I fingered his crinkling curls, and
+said--'What does Uncle Walter want of Clintie?'  'A kiss,' cried the
+little beauty, and threw his soft arms around my old neck, opened hit
+lips, like sweet-pea blossoms, and planted a rousing smack on my chin.
+Then, I caught him in my arms, kissed his velvet cheeks, chanked his
+fat neck, chuckled under his chin, and called him a bobolink; and he
+made all ring again with his merry bobolink laugh.  That was the last
+time I saw him."
+
+"He was a dear boy," sighed Fabens.
+
+"Too dear, too dear to die as he did.  O, Lord, continue thy comfort!"
+sobbed Mrs. Fabens.
+
+The conversation was then interrupted, for it was announced that the
+couple were ready to appear for the ceremony as soon as the guests
+could be called into the north room.  The guests gathered in, and took
+their seats, more than filling the room.  Then entered the bridegroom,
+leading as bright a blooming beauty of a bride, as your dainty eyes
+would choose to see; and they seated themselves where nearly all the
+company had the blessing of a view of their joyful looks.  Uncle Walter
+declared, that the sight was feast enough for him, and he should have
+no appetite after that for supper.  Colwell thought it was lighter and
+more summer-like in the room than before.
+
+Then, when every breath and pulse were so hushed, that nothing but
+silence itself filled all ears,--Father Lovelight begged leave to
+perform a ceremony before the marriage one.  It would not be a great
+interruption, and he hoped it might heighten, and not dampen their
+joys.  And leading in the stranger, he said, "Mr. and Mrs. Fabens, the
+gentleman I hold by the hand, revealed to me a mystery last night,
+which I am not unhappy now to disclose.  Your prayers are answered.
+Your joy is complete.  Receive your lost son.  Clinton returns in joy
+to your arms!"
+
+"Has heaven been opened so soon?" cried Fabens, standing like a statue.
+
+"It cannot be Clinton, but, only my dream of him!" cried Mrs. Fabens,
+clasping her hands, and looking amazed.
+
+"Believe me, madam, it is your own dear son," said Father Lovelight.
+
+"Father!" cried the stranger.
+
+"Clinton!" cried Fabens, rushing to embrace him.
+
+"My child! my dear, dear child!" cried Mrs. Fabens, falling in his arms.
+
+"O, father!--mother!--sister!" cried the stranger, as the loving three
+contended to clasp him closest to each heart.
+
+"Is it my brother, or my mother's dream I hold!--It must, it must be
+he!  O, we will be happy now!" cried Fanny, embracing all of that
+precious form she could extort from her father and mother.
+
+"I will have at least one hand--my brother's hand!" cried George
+Ludlow, grasping his left hand and pressing it warmly.
+
+"It is he!--it is Clinton!  I know this face--these eyes!  I do not
+dream!  It is not heaven has opened.  Clinton's alive, and mother's
+word fulfilled!" cried Fabens, pressing the stranger closer to his
+heart.
+
+"Merciful heavens! what can this mean?" exclaimed Mrs. Nimblet.
+
+"It is amazing strange!" replied Mr. Nimblet.
+
+"I'll have one grab at him, any way," cried Uncle Walter, making for
+the hand, so warmly clasped by George Ludlow.
+
+"So'll I!  So'll I, and take pay and interest for my four days' hunt,"
+cried Wilson.
+
+"I loved to kiss him, too; and where is my part?" cried Aunt Huldah,
+joining in the group.
+
+"And mine!" "and mine!" cried Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Colwell.
+
+"Gracious alive! what's comin' to pass?--Good! good! good! if it's
+Clintie--but, O, I fear now, that Tillson's in fault--I fear!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Troffater, seeming to be shocked with some new suspicion
+of her husband.
+
+"Bring water! bring water!  Mrs. Fabens is faint!" cried Mrs. Teezle,
+and Mrs. Troffater brought water, and her mind and strength were
+restored, while she exclaimed, "too good! too good, I fear! too good to
+be true!" and "just right! just right in the nick o' time!" replied
+Uncle Walter.
+
+Others attempted to edge in their hand and word of joy, who were
+crowded back by those before them.  It was no dream.  It was their own
+worshipped Clinton in their arms.  And it remains only for the present
+to relate, that the marriage ceremony, though delayed longer than any
+one was aware, till Father Lovelight at last gave the hour, was still
+performed, and rare and high was the joy that made Uncle Walter forget
+his story, and Mrs. Flaxman her song; and was carried on by that
+glorious company full to the very midnight.
+
+Tilly Troffater had bitterly repented the crime of the boy's abduction,
+to which he was accessary, and he received not a moment's respite from
+the tortures of hell, that tore his anguished heart, till he heard
+where Clinton remained; went, and informed him of his parents, and
+home, and directed his steps to that door.  But the young man's story
+is reserved for another volume, on another labor of life.
+
+
+
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