In the afternoon there came a fresh bevy of students onward from
Williamstown; but they made only a transient visit, though it was still
raining. These were a rough-hewn, heavy set of fellows, from the hills
and woods in this neighborhood,--great unpolished bumpkins, who had grown
up farmer-boys, and had little of the literary man, save green spectacles
and black broadcloth (which all of them had not), talking with a broad
accent, and laughing clown-like, while sheepishness overspread all,
together with a vanity at being students. One of the party was six feet
seven inches high, and all his herculean dimensions were in proportion;
his features, too, were cast in a mould suitable to his stature. This
giant was not ill-looking, but of a rattier intelligent aspect. His
motions were devoid of grace, but yet had a rough freedom, appropriate
enough to such a figure. These fellows stayed awhile, talked uncouthly
about college matters, and started in the great open wagon which had
brought them and their luggage hither. We had a fire in the bar-room
almost all day,--a great, blazing fire,--and it was pleasant to have this
day of bleak November weather, and cheerful fireside talk, and wet
garments smoking in the fireside heat, still in the summer-time. Thus
the day wore on with a sort of heavy, lazy pleasantness; and night set
in, still stormy.
In the morning it was cloudy, but did not rain, and I went with the
little clergyman to Hudson's Cave. The stream which they call the North
Branch, and into which Hudson's Brook empties, was much swollen, and
tumbled and dashed and whitened over the rocks, and formed real cascades
over the dams, and rushed fast along the side of the cliffs, which had
their feet in it. Its color was deep brown, owing to the washing of the
banks which the rain had poured into it. Looking back, we could see a
cloud on Graylock; but on other parts of Saddle Mountain there were spots
of sunshine, some of most glorious brightness, contrasting with the
general gloom of the sky, and the deep shadow which lay on the earth.
We looked at the spot where the stream makes its entrance into the marble
cliff, and it was (this morning, at least) the most striking view of the
cave. The water dashed down in a misty cascade, through what looked like
the portal of some infernal subterranean structure; and far within the
portal we could see the mist and the falling water; and it looked as if,
but for these obstructions of view, we might have had a deeper insight
into a gloomy region.
After our return, the little minister set off for his eighteen miles'
journey across the mountain; and I was occupied the rest of the forenoon
with an affair of stealing--a woman of forty or upwards being accused of
stealing a needle-case and other trifles from a factory-girl at a
boarding-house. She came here to take passage in a stage; but Putnam, a
justice of the peace, examined her and afterwards ordered her to be
searched by Laura and Eliza, the chambermaid and table-waiter. Hereupon
was much fun and some sympathy. They searched, and found nothing that
they sought, though she gave up a pair of pantalets, which she pretended
to have taken by mistake. Afterwards, she being in the parlor, I went
in; and she immediately began to talk to me, giving me an account of the
affair, speaking with the bitterness of a wronged person, with a
sparkling eye, yet with great fluency and self-possession. She is a
yellow, thin, and battered old thing, yet rather country-lady-like in
aspect and manners. I heard Eliza telling another girl about it, under
my window; and she seemed to think that the poor woman's reluctance to be
searched arose from the poorness of her wardrobe and of the contents of
her bandbox.
At parting, Eliza said to the girl, "What do you think I heard somebody
say about you? That it was enough to make anybody's eyes start square
out of their head to look at such red cheeks as yours." Whereupon the
girl turned off the compliment with a laugh, and took her leave.
There is an old blind dog, recognizing his friends by the sense of smell.
I observe the eager awkwardness with which he accomplishes the
recognition, his carefulness in descending steps, and generally in his
locomotion. He evidently has not forgotten that he once had the faculty
of sight; for he turns his eyes with earnestness towards those who
attract his attention, though the orbs are plainly sightless.
Here is an Englishman,--a thorough-going Tory and Monarchist,--upholding
everything English, government, people, habits, education, manufactures,
modes of living, and expressing his dislike of all Americanisms,--and
this in a quiet, calm, reasonable way, as if it were quite proper to live
in a country and draw his subsistence from it, and openly abuse it. He
imports his clothes from England, and expatiates on the superiority of
English boots, hats, cravats, etc. He is a man of unmalleable habits,
and wears his dress of the same fashion as that of twenty years ago.
August 18th.--There has come one of the proprietors, or superintendents,
of a caravan of animals,--a large, portly paunched, dark-complexioned,
brandy-burnt, heavy-faced man of about fifty; with a diminutive nose in
proportion to the size of his face,--thick lips; nevertheless he has the
air of a man who has seen much, and derived such experience as was for
his purpose. Also it is the air of a man not in a subordinate station,
though vulgar and coarse. He arrived in a wagon, with a span of handsome
gray horses, and ordered dinner. He had left his caravan at Worcester,
and came from thence and over the mountain hither, to settle
stopping-places for the caravan. The nearest place to this. I believe,
was Charlemont; the penultimate at Greenfield. In stopping at such a
village as this, they do not expect much profit, if any; but would be
content with enough to pay their travelling expenses, while they look to
gather gain at larger places. In this village, it seems, the selectmen
had resolved not to license any public exhibition of the kind; and it was
interesting to attend to the consultations whether it were feasible to
overcome the objections, and what might be the best means. Orrin S------
and the chance passers-by took part in the discussion. The scruple is
that the factory-girls, having ready money by them, spend it for these
nonsenses, quitting their work; whereas, were it a mere farming-town, the
caravan would take little in proportion to their spendings. The opinion
generally was that the license could not be obtained; and the portly
man's face grew darker and downcast at the prospect; and he took out a
travelling-map, and looked it carefully over, to discover some other
station. This is something like the planning of the march of an army.
It was finally resolved to enlist the influence of a brother-in-law of
the head selectman, and try to gain his consent. Whereupon the
caravan-man and the brother-in-law (who, being a tavern-keeper, was to
divide the custom of the caravan people with this house) went to make the
attempt,--the caravan-man stalking along with stiff, awkward bulk and
stature, yet preserving a respectability withal, though with somewhat of
the blackguard. Before he went, he offered a wager of "a drink of rum to
a thaw of tobacco" that he did not succeed. When he came back, there was
a flush in his face and a sparkle in his eye that did not look like
failure; but I know not what was the result. He took a glass of wine
with the brother-in-law,--a grave, thin, frosty-haired, shrewd-looking
yeoman, in his shirt-sleeves,--then ordered his horses, paid his bill,
and drove off, accompanied still by the same yeoman, perhaps to get the
permission of the other two selectmen. If he does not get a license
here, he will try at Cheshire.
A fellow appears with a pink guard-chain and two breast-pins in his
shirt,--one a masonic one of gold, with compass and square, and the other
of colored glass, set in filigree brass,--and the shirt a soiled one.
A tendency to obesity is more common in this part of the country than I
have noticed it elsewhere.
August 19th.--I drove with Orrin S------ last evening to an old farmer's
house to get some chickens. Entering the kitchen, I observed a fireplace
with rough stone jambs and back, and a marble hearth, cracked, and
otherwise contrasting a roughness of workmanship with the value of the
material. There was a clock without a case, the weights being visible,
and the pendulum swinging in air,--and a coffee-mill fixed against the
wall. A religious newspaper lay on the mantel-piece. The old farmer was
reluctant to go after the fowls, declaring that it would be impossible to
find them in the dark; but Orrin insisting, he lighted a lamp, and we all
went together, and quickly found them, roosted about the wood-pile;
whereupon Orrin speedily laid hands on five, and wrung their necks in a
twinkling, they fluttering long after they should have been dead. When
we had taken our departure, Orrin remarked, "How faint-hearted these old
fellows are!" and it was a good observation; for it was the farmer's
timorous age that made him doubt the practicability of catching the
chickens, and it contrasted well with the persevering energy of the
middle-aged Orrin. But Orrin inquired, somewhat dolefully, whether I
should suppose that he himself bewailed the advances of age. It is a
grievous point with him.
In the evening there was a strange fellow in the bar-room,--a sort of
mock Methodist,--a cattle-drover, who had stopped here for the night with
two cows and a Durham bull. All his talk turned upon religion, and he
would ever and anon burst out in some strain of scriptural-styled
eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an exhortation at a
camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and no-religionists sat around
him, making him their butt, and holding wild argument with him; and he
strangely mingled humor with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his
humor, so that it was almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest
or earnest. Probably it was neither, but an eccentricity, an almost
monomania, that has grown upon him,--perhaps the result of strong
religious excitement. And, having been a backslider, he is cursed with a
half-frenzied humor. In the morning he talked in the same strain at
breakfast, while quaffing fourteen cups of tea,--Eliza, all the while, as
she supplied him, entreating him not to drink any more. After breakfast
(it being the Sabbath) he drove his two cows and bull past the stoop,
raising his stair, and running after them with strange, uncouth gestures;
and the last word I heard from him was an exhortation: "Gentlemen, now
all of you take your Bibles, and meditate on divine things,"--this being
uttered with raised hands, and a Methodistical tone, intermingled, as was
his expression, with something humorous; so that, to the last, the puzzle
was still kept up, whether he was an enthusiast or a jester. He wore a
suit of coarse brown cloth, cut in rather a Quaker fashion; and he had a
large nose, and his face expressed enthusiasm and honor,--a sort of smile
and twinkle of the eye, with wildness. He is excellent at a bargain; and
if, in the midst of his ghostly exhortation, the talk were turned on
cattle, he eagerly seized the topic and expatiated on it.
While this fellow was enumerating the Universalists in neighboring towns
who had turned from their errors on their death-beds, some one exclaimed,
"John Hodges! why, he isn't dead,--he's alive and well." Whereat there
was a roar of laughter. While holding an argument at table, I heard him
mutter to himself at something that his adversary said; and though I
could not distinguish what it was, the tone did more to convince me of
some degree of earnestness than aught beside. This character might be
wrought into a strange portrait of something sad, terrific, and
laughable.
The Sabbath wore away lazily, and therefore wickedly. The heavy
caravan-man inquired for some book of light reading, and, having obtained
an old volume of a literary paper, betook himself to the seat of his
wagon, to read. At other times he smoked, and talked sensibly enough
with anybody that offered. He is a man of sense, though not quick, and
seems to be a fair man.
When he walks, he puts the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his
waistcoat, and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk
was chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling,
without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would be
interested in. He spoke of his life as a hard one.
There was a Methodist quarterly meeting here, and a love-feast.
There is a fellow hereabout who refuses to pay six dollars for the coffin
in which his wife was buried. She died about six months since, and I
believe he is already engaged to another. He is young and rather comely,
but has not a straightforward look.
One man plods along, looking always on the ground, without ever lifting
his eyes to the mountain scenery, and forest, and clouds, above and
around him. Another walks the street with a quick, prying eye, and sharp
face,--the most, expressive possible of one on the lookout for gain,--of
the most disagreeable class of Yankees. There is also a sour-looking,
unwholesome boy, the son of this man, whose voice is querulous and
ill-natured, precisely suited to his aspect. So is his character.
We have another with Indian blood in him, and the straight, black hair,--
something of the tawny skin and the quick, shining eye of the Indian. He
seems reserved, but is not ill-natured when spoken to. There is so much
of the white in him, that he gives the impression of belonging to a
civilized race, which causes the more strange sensation on discovering
that he has a wild lineage.
August 22d.--I walked out into what is called the Notch this forenoon,
between Saddle Mountain and another. There are good farms in this Notch,
although the ground is considerably elevated,--this morning, indeed,
above the clouds; for I penetrated through one in reaching the higher
region, although I found sunshine there. Graylock was hidden in clouds,
and the rest of Saddle Mountain had one partially wreathed about it; but
it was withdrawn before long. It was very beautiful cloud-scenery. The
clouds lay on the breast of the mountain, dense, white, well-defined, and
some of them were in such close vicinity that it seemed as if I could
infold myself in them; while others, belonging to the same fleet, were
floating through the blue sky above. I had a view of Williamstown at the
distance of a few miles,--two or three, perhaps,--a white village and
steeple in a gradual hollow, with high mountainous swells heaving
themselves up, like immense, subsiding waves, far and wide around it. On
these high mountain-waves rested the white summer clouds, or they rested
as still in the air above; and they were formed in such fantastic shapes
that they gave the strongest possible impression of being confounded or
intermixed with the sky. It was like a day-dream to look at it; and the
students ought to be day-dreamers, all of them,--when cloud-land is one
and the same thing with the substantial earth. By degrees all these
clouds flitted away, and the sultry summer sun burned on hill and valley.
As I was walking home, an old man came down the mountain-path behind me
in a wagon, and gave me a drive to the village. Visitors being few in
the Notch, the women and girls looked from the windows after me; the men
nodded and greeted me with a look of curiosity; and two little girls whom
I met, bearing tin pails, whispered one another and smiled.
North Adams, August 23d.--The county commissioners held a court; in the
bar-room yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of letting out the making
of the new road over the mountain. The commissioners sat together in
attitudes of some dignity, with one leg laid across another; and the
people, to the number of twenty or thirty, sat round about with their
hats on, in their shirt-sleeves, with but little, yet with some
formality. Several had come from a distance to bid for the job. They
sat with whips in their hands. The first bid was three dollars,--then
there was a long silence,--then a bid of two dollars eighty-five cents,
and finally it was knocked down at two eighteen, per rod. A disposition
to bid was evidenced in one man by his joking on the bid of another.
After supper, as the sun was setting, a man passed by the door with a
hand-organ, connected with which was a row of figures, such as dancers,
pirouetting and turning, a lady playing on a piano, soldiers, a negro
wench dancing, and opening and shutting a huge red mouth,--all these
keeping time to the lively or slow tunes of the organ. The man had a
pleasant, but sly, dark face; he carried his whole establishment on his
shoulder, it being fastened to a staff which he rested on the ground when
he performed. A little crowd of people gathered about him on the stoop,
peeping over each other's heads with huge admiration,--fat Otis Hodge,
and the tall stage-driver, and the little boys, all declaring that it was
the masterpiece of sights. Some few coppers did the man obtain, as well
as much praise. He had come over the high, solitary mountain, where for
miles there could hardly be a soul to hear his music.
In the evening, a portly old commissioner, a cheerful man enough, was
sitting reading the newspaper in the parlor, holding the candle between
the newspaper and his eyes,--its rays glittering on his silver-bowed
spectacles and silvery hair. A pensive mood of age had come upon him,
and sometimes he heaved a long sigh, while he turned and re-turned the
paper, and folded it for convenient reading. By and by a gentleman came
to see him, and he talked with him cheerfully.
The fat old squire, whom I have mentioned more than once, is an odd
figure, with his bluff, red face,--coarsely red,--set in silver hair,--
his clumsy legs, which he moves in a strange straddle, using, I believe,
a broomstick for a staff. The breadth of back of these fat men is truly
a wonder.
A decent man, at table the other day, took the only remaining potato out
of the dish, on the end of his knife, and offered his friend half of it!
The mountains look much larger and more majestic sometimes than at
others,--partly because the mind may be variously disposed, so as to
comprehend them more or less, and partly that an imperceptible (or almost
so) haze adds a great deal to the effect. Saddleback often looks a huge,
black mass,--black-green, or black-blue.
The cave makes a fresh impression upon me every time I visit it,--so
deep, so irregular, so gloomy, so stern,--part of its walls the pure
white of the marble,--others covered with a gray decomposition and with
spots of moss, and with brake growing where there is a handful of earth.
I stand and look into its depths at various points, and hear the roar of
the stream re-echoing up. It is like a heart that has been rent asunder
by a torrent of passion, which has raged and foamed, and left its
ineffaceable traces; though now there is but a little rill of feeling at
the bottom.
In parts, trees have fallen across the fissure,--trees with large trunks.
I bathed in the stream in this old, secluded spot, which I frequent for
that purpose. To reach it, I cross one branch of the stream on stones,
and then pass to the other side of a little island, overgrown with trees
and underbrush. Where I bathe, the stream has partially dammed itself up
by sweeping together tree-trunks and slabs and branches, and a thousand
things that have come down its current for years perhaps; so that there
is a deep pool, full of eddies and little whirlpools which would carry me
away, did I not take hold of the stem of a small tree that lies
opportunely transversely across the water. The bottom is uneven, with
rocks of various size, against which it is difficult to keep from
stumbling, so rapid is the stream. Sometimes it bears along branches and
strips of bark,--sometimes a green leaf, or perchance a dry one,--
occasionally overwhelmed by the eddies and borne deep under water, then
rushing atop the waves.
The forest, bordering the stream, produces its effect by a complexity of
causes,--the old and stern trees, with stately trunks and dark foliage,--
as the almost black pines,--the young trees, with lightsome green
foliage,--as sapling oaks, maples and poplars,--then the old, decayed
trunks, that are seen lying here and there, all mouldered, so that the
foot would sink into them. The sunshine, falling capriciously on a
casual branch considerably within the forest verge, while it leaves
nearer trees in shadow, leads the imagination into the depths. But it
soon becomes bewildered there. Rocks strewn about, half hidden in the
fallen leaves, must not be overlooked.
August 26th.--A funeral last evening, nearly at sunset,--a coffin of a
boy about ten years old laid on a one-horse wagon among some straw,--two
or three barouches and wagons following. As the funeral passed through
the village street, a few men formed a short procession in front of the
coffin, among whom were Orrin S----- and I. The burial-ground (there are
two in the town) is on the sides and summit of a round hill, which is
planted with cypress and other trees, among which the white marble
gravestones show pleasantly. The grave was dug on the steep slope of a
hill; and the grave-digger was waiting there, and two or three other
shirt-sleeved yeomen, leaning against the trees.
Orrin S------, a wanton and mirth-making middle-aged man, who would not
seem to have much domestic feeling, took a chief part on the occasion,
assisting in taking the coffin from the wagon and in lowering it into the
grave. There being some superfluous earth at the bottom of the grave,
the coffin was drawn up again after being once buried, and the obstacle
removed with a hoe; then it was lowered again for the last time. While
this was going on, the father and mother stood weeping at the upper end
of the grave, at the head of the little procession,--the mother sobbing
with stifled violence, and peeping forth to discover why the coffin was
drawn up again. It being fitted in its place, Orrin S------ strewed some
straw upon it,--this being the custom here, because "the clods on the
coffin-lid have an ugly sound." Then the Baptist minister, having first
whispered to the father, removed his hat, the spectators all doing the
same, and thanked them "in the name of these mourners, for this last act
of kindness to them."
In all these rites Orrin S------ bore the chief part with real feeling
and sadly decorous demeanor. After the funeral, I took a walk on the
Williamstown road, towards the west. There had been a heavy shower in
the afternoon, and clouds were brilliant all over the sky, around
Graylock and everywhere else. Those over the hills of the west were the
most splendid in purple and gold, and, there being a haze, it added
immensely to their majesty and dusky magnificence.
This morning I walked a little way along the mountain road, and stood
awhile in the shadow of some oak and chestnut trees,--it being a warm,
bright, sunshiny morning. The shades lay long from trees and other
objects, as at sunset, but how different this cheerful and light radiance
from the mild repose of sunset! Locusts, crickets, and other insects
were making music. Cattle were feeding briskly, with morning appetites.
The wakeful voices of children were heard in a neighboring hollow. The
dew damped the road, and formed many-colored drops in the grass. In
short, the world was not weary with a long, sultry day, but in a fresh,
recruited state, fit to carry it through such a day.
A rough-looking, sunburnt, soiled-skirted, odd, middle-aged little man
came to the house a day or two ago, seeking work. He had come from Ohio,
and was returning to his native place, somewhere in New England, stopping
occasionally to earn money to pay his way. There was something rather
ludicrous in his physiognomy and aspect. He was very free to talk with
all and sundry. He made a long eulogy on his dog Tiger, yesterday,
insisting on his good moral character, his not being quarrelsome, his
docility, and all other excellent qualities that a huge, strong, fierce
mastiff could have. Tiger is the bully of the village, and keeps all the
other dogs in awe. His aspect is very spirited, trotting massively
along, with his tail elevated and his head likewise. "When he sees a dog
that's anything near his size, he's apt to growl a little,"--Tiger had
the marks of a battle on him,--"yet he's a good dog."
