Poganuc People: Their Loves and Lives

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  And now rose Colonel Davenport to read the Declaration of Independence. Standing square and erect, his head thrown back, he read in a resonant and emphatic voice that great enunciation upon which American national existence was founded.

  Dolly had never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what was meant by some parts of it; but she gathered enough from the recital of the abuses and injuries which had driven her nation to this course to feel herself swelling with indignation, and ready with all her little mind and strength to applaud that concluding Declaration of Independence which the Colonel rendered with resounding majesty. She was as ready as any of them to pledge her "life, fortune and sacred honor" for such a cause. The heroic element was strong in Dolly; it had come down by "ordinary generation" from a line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it swelled her little frame and brightened her cheeks and made her long to do something, she scarce knew what; to fight for her country or to make some declaration on her own account.

  But now came the oration of the day, pronounced by a lively young Virginia law student in the office of Judge Gridley. It was as ornate and flowery, as full of patriotism and promise, as has been the always approved style of such productions. The bird of our nation received the usual appropriate flourishes, flew upward and sun−ward, waved his pinions, gazed with undaunted eye on the brightness, and did all other things appointed for the American Eagle to do on the Fourth of July. It was a nicely−written classical composition, and eminently satisfactory to the audience; and Dolly, without any very direct conception of its exact meaning, was delighted with it, and so were all the Poganuc People.

  Then came the singing of an elaborate anthem, on which the choir had been practicing for a month beforehand and in which the various parts ran, and skipped, and hopped, and chased each other round and round, and performed all sorts of unheard−of trills and quavers and musical evolutions, with a heartiness of self−satisfaction that was charming to witness.

  Then, when all was over, the procession marched out the magnates on the stage to a dinner, and the Poganuc military to refresh themselves at Glazier's, preparatory to the grand review in the afternoon.

  Dolly spent her six cents for ginger−bread, and walked unwearyingly the rounds of sight−seeing with Nabby, her soul inly uplifted with the grandeur of the occasion.

  In the afternoon came the military display; and Colonel Davenport on his white horse reviewed the troops; and just behind him, also mounted, was old Cato, with his gold−laced hat and plume, his buff breeches and long−tailed blue coat. On the whole, this solemn black attendant formed a striking and picturesque addition to the scene. And so there were marching and counter−marching and military evolutions of all kinds, and Hiel, with his Poganuc Rangers, figured conspicuously in the eyes of all.

  CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY'S "FOURTH."

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  It was a dangerous sight for Nabby. She really could not help feeling a secret awe for Hiel, as if he had been wafted away from her into some higher sphere; he looked so very determined and martial that she began to admit that he might carry any fortress that he set himself seriously to attack. After the regular review came the sham fight, which was in fact but an organized military frolic. Some of the West Poganuc youth had dressed themselves as Indians, and other companies, drawn by lot, were to personate the British, and there was skirmishing and fighting and running, to the wild and crazy delight of the boys. A fort, which had been previously constructed of bushes and trees, was furiously attacked by British and Indians, and set on fire; and then the Americans bursting out scattered both the fire and the forces, and performed prodigies of valor.

  In short, it was a Day of days to Dolly and the children, and when sober twilight drew on they came home intoxicated with patriotism and sight−seeing.

  On her way home Dolly was spied out by her old friend Judge Gridley, who always delighted to have a gossip with her.

  "Ha, my little Dolly, are you out to−day?"

  "To be sure, sir," said Dolly; "indeed I'm out. Oh, hasn't it been glorious! I've never been so happy in my life.

  I never heard the Declaration of Independence before."

  "Well, and what do you think of it?" asked the Judge.

  "I never heard anything like it," said Dolly. "I didn't know before how they did abuse us, and wasn't it grand that we wouldn't bear it! I never heard anything so splendid as that last part."

  "You would have made a good soldier."

  "If I were a man I would. Only think of it, Colonel Davenport fought in the war! I'm so glad we can see one man that did. If we had lived then, I know my papa and all my brothers would have fought; we would have had 'liberty or death.'"

  Dolly pronounced these words, which she had heard in the oration, with a quivering eagerness. The old Judge gave her cheek a friendly pinch.

  "You'll do," he said; "but now you must let Nabby here get you home and quiet you down, or you won't sleep all night. Good by, Pussy."

  And so went off Dolly's Fourth of July.

  But Hiel made an evening call at the parsonage in his full regimentals; and stayed to a late hour unreproved.

  There were occasions when even the nine o'clock bell did not send a young fellow home. This appeared to be one of them.

  CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

  SO passed Dolly's Fourth of July; a confused dream of glory and patriotism, of wonderful sights and surprises but, like a dream, it all melted away.

  New England life was too practical and laborious to give more than one day to holiday performances, and with the night of the Fourth the whole pageant vanished. Hiel's uniform, with its gold lace and feathers, CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

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  returned to the obscurity of Mother Jones's pillow−cases and camphor−gum, and was locked away in secret places; and Hiel was only a simple stage−driver, going forth on his route as aforetime. So with the trappings of the Poganuc Rangers who the day before had glittered like so many knights−errant in the front of battle all were laid by in silent waiting, and the Poganuc Rangers rose at four o'clock and put on their working clothes and cow−hide shoes, and were abroad with their oxen. The shoe−maker and the carpenter, who yesterday were transfigured in blue and gold, to−day were hammering shoe−soles and planing boards as if no such thing had happened. In the shadows of the night the cannon had vanished from the village green and gone where it came from; the flag on the Court−house was furled, and the world of Poganuc Center was again the same busy, literal, work−a−day world as ever. Only Liph Kingsbury, who had burned his hand with gunpowder in consequence of carrying too much New England rum in his head, and one or two boys, who had met with a sprain or bruise in the excitement of the day, retained any lasting memorials of the celebration.

  It is difficult in this our era of railroads and steam to give any idea of the depths of absolute stillness and repose that brooded in the summer skies over the wooded hills of Poganuc. No daily paper told the news of distant cities. Summer traveling was done in stages, and was long and wearisome, and therefore there was little of that. Everybody staid at home, and expected to stay there the year through. A journey from Poganuc to Boston or New York was more of an undertaking in those days than a journey to Europe is in ours. Now and then some of the great square houses on the street of Poganuc Center received a summer visitor, and then everybody in town knew it and knew all about it. The visitor's family, rank, position in life, probable amount of property, and genealogy to remote ancestors, were freely discussed and settled, till all Poganuc was fully informed. The elect circle of Poganuc called on them, and made stately tea−parties in their honor, and these entertainments pleasantly rippled the placid surface of society. But life went on there with a sort of dreamy stillness. The different summer flowers came out in their successive ranks in the neatly−kept garden; roses followed peonies, and white lilies came and went,
and crimson and white phloxes stood ranged in midsummer ranks, and the yellow tribes of marigolds brought up the autumnal season. And over on the woody hills around the town the spring tints deepened and grew dark in summer richness, and then began breaking here and there into streaks and flecks of gold and crimson, foretelling autumn. And there were wonderful golden sunsets, and moonlight nights when the street of Poganuc seemed overshot with a silver network of tracery like the arches of some cathedral. The doors and windows of the houses stood innocently open all night for the moon to shine in, and youths and maidens walked and wandered and sentimentalized up and down the long, dewy street, and nobody seemed to know how fast the short, beautiful summer of those regions was passing away.

  As to Dolly, summer was her time of life and joy; but it was not by any means a joy unmixed. Dolly's education was conducted on the good old−fashioned principle that everyone must do his little part in the battle of life, and that nobody was pretty enough or good enough to be kept merely for ornamental purposes.

  She was no curled darling, to be kept on exhibition in white dresses and broad sashes, and she had been sedulously instructed in the orthodoxy of Dr. Watts, that

  "Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do."

  It was the duty of the good house−mother of those days to be so much in advance of this unpleasant personage that there should be no room for his temptations. Accordingly, any part of the numerous household tasks of the Parsonage that could be trusted to a little pair of hands were turned over to Dolly. In those days were none of the thousand conveniences which now bridge the labors of the housekeeper. Everything came in the rough, and had to be reduced to a usable form in the household.

  The delicate, smooth white salt which filled the cellars at the table was prepared by Dolly's manipulation from coarse rock−salt crystals, which she was taught to wash and dry, and pound and sift, till it became of CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

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  snowy fineness; and quite a long process it was. Then there were spices to be ground, and there was coffee to be browned to the exact and beautiful shade dear to household ideality; and Dolly could do that.

  Being a bright, enterprising little body, she did not so much object to these processes, which rather interested her, but her very soul was wearied within her at the drill of the long and varied sewing lessons that were deemed indispensable to her complete education. Pounding salt, or grinding spice, or beating eggs, or roasting coffee, were endurable; but darning stockings and stitching wristbands, and "scratching" gathers, were a weariness unto her spirit. And yet it was only at the price of penances like these, well and truly performed, that Dolly's golden own hours of leisure were given.

  Most of her household tasks could be performed in the early morning hours before school, and after school Dolly measured the height of the afternoon sun with an avaricious eye. Would there be time enough to explore the woody hills beyond Poganuc River before sundown? and would they let her go?

  For oh, those woods! What a world of fairyland, what a world of pure, untold joy was there to Dolly! When she found her face fairly set towards them, with leave to stay till sundown, and with Spring at her heels, Dolly was as blissful, as perfectly happy, as a child can ever be made by any one thing. The sense of perfect freedom, the wonder, the curiosity, the vague expectation of what she might find or see, made her heart beat with pleasure. First came the race down through the tall, swaying meadow−grass and white−hatted daisies to the Poganuc River a brown, clear, gurgling stream, wide, shallow, and garrulous, that might be easily crossed on mossy stepping−stones. Here was a world of delight to Dolly. Skipping from stone to stone, or reclining athwart some great rock around which the brown waters rippled, she watched the little fishes come and go, darting hither and thither like flecks of silver. Down under the shade of dark hemlocks the river had worn a deep pool where the translucent water lay dark and still; and Dolly, climbing carefully and quietly to the rocky side, could lean over and watch the slim, straight pickerel, holding themselves so still in the water that the play of their gossamer fins made no ripple, so still, so apparently unwatchful and drowsy, that Dolly again and again fancied she might slily reach down her little hand and take one out of the water; but the moment the rosy finger−tips touched the wave, with a flash, like a ray of light, the coveted prize was gone.

  There was no catching a pickerel asleep, however quiet he might appear. Yet, time after time, Dolly tried the experiment, burning with the desire to win glory among the boys by bringing home an actual and veritable pickerel of her own catching.

  But there were other beauties, dryad treasures, more accessible. The woods along the moist margin of the river were full of the pink and white azalea, and she gathered besides the fragrant blossoms stores of what were called "honeysuckle apples" that grew upon them fleshy exudations not particularly nice in flavor, but crisp, cool, and much valued among children. There, too, were crimson wintergreen berries, spicy in their sweetness, and the young, tender leaves of the wintergreen, ranking high as an eatable dainty among little folk. Dolly's basket was sure to fill rapidly when she set herself to gathering these treasures, and the sun would be almost down before she could leave the enchanted shades of the wood and come back to real life again.

  But Saturday afternoon was a sort of child's Paradise. No school was kept, and even household disciplinarians recognized a reasonably well−behaved child's right to a Saturday afternoon play−spell.

  "Now, Dolly," had Nabby said to her the week before, "you be sure and be a good girl, and do up all your stitching and get the stockings mended afore Saturday comes, and then we'll take Saturday afternoon to go a−huckleberrying up to Pequannock Rock; and we'll stop and see Mis' Persis."

  This, let it be known, was a programme to awaken Dolly's ambition. Pequannock Rock was a distance which she never would be permitted to explore alone, and Mis' Persis was to her imagination a most interesting and stimulating personage. She was a widow, and the story ran that her deceased husband had been an Indian a CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

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  story which caused Dolly to regard her with a sort of awe, connecting her with Cotton Mather's stories of war−whoops and scalping−knives, and midnight horrors when houses were burned and children carried off to Canada.

  Nevertheless, Mis' Persis was an inoffensive and quite useful member of society. She had her little house and garden, which she cultivated with energy and skill. She kept her cow, her pig, her chickens, and contrived always to have something to sell when she needed an extra bit of coin. She was versed in all the Indian lore of roots and herbs, and her preparations of these for medicinal purposes were much in request. Among the farming population around, Mis' Persis was held in respect as a medical authority, and her opinions were quoted with confidence. She was also of considerable repute among the best families of Poganuc as a filler of gaps such as may often occur in household economy. There was nothing wanted to be done that Mis' Persis could not do. She could wash, or iron, or bake, or brew, or nurse the sick, as the case might require. She was, in fact, one of the reserved forces of Poganuc society. She was a member of Dr. Cushing's church, in good and regular standing, and, in her way, quite devoted to her minister and church, and always specially affable and gracious to Dolly.

  This particular Saturday afternoon all the constellations were favorable. Dolly was pronounced a good girl, her week's tasks well performed; and never were dinner−dishes more rapidly whirled into place than were Nabby's on that same afternoon; so that before three o'clock the pair were well on their way to the huckleberry−field. There, under the burning August sun, the ground shot up those ardent flower−flames well called fire−lilies, and the wild roses showered their deep pink petals as they pushed through the thickets, and the huckleberry−bushes bent low under the weight of the great sweet berries; and Dolly's cheeks were al
l a−flame, like the fire−lilies themselves, with heat and enthusiasm as she gathered the purple harvest into her basket. When the baskets were filled and Dolly had gathered fire−lilies and wild roses more than she knew how to carry, it was proposed to stop a little and rest, on the homeward route, at Mis' Persis's cottage. They found her sitting on her door−step, knitting. A little wiry, swart, thin woman was she, alert in her movements, and quick and decided of speech. Her black eyes had in them a latent fiery gleam that suggested all the while that though pleased and pleasant at the present moment Mis' Persis might be dangerous if roused, and Dolly was always especially conciliatory and polite in her addresses to her.

  On the present occasion Mis' Persis was delightfully hospitable. She installed Dolly in a small splint−bottomed rocking−chair at the door, and treated her to a cup of milk and a crisp cooky.

  "Why, what a little girl you are to be so far from home!" she said.

  "Oh, I don't mind," said Dolly; "I am never tired. I could pick berries all day."

  "But, sakes alive! ain't you afraid of snakes?" said Mis' Persis. "Why, my sister got dreadfully bit by a rattlesnake when she wa'n't much older'n you," and Mis' Persis shook her head weirdly.

  "Oh, dear me! Did it kill her?" said Dolly, in horror.

  "No; she lived many a year after," said Mis' Persis, with a reticent air, as one who could say more if properly approached.

  "Do, do tell us all about it; do, Mis' Persis. I never saw a rattlesnake. I never heard one. I shouldn't know what it was if I saw one."

  "You wouldn't ever forget it if you did," said Mis' Persis, oracularly.

  "Oh, please, Mis' Persis, do tell about it," said Dolly, eagerly. "Where were you, and how did it happen?"