In addition to this, Portia and Clio were, at the very instant the young Steinmarks entered, labouring to stretch their minds to the comprehension, that the seven chairs, four tables, three crocks, two spiders, six plates, four cups, &c. &c. &c., which Jonathan senior and Jonathan junior were unloading from a cart at the door, were really and truly all for their own use and benefit. So that, instead of a moment of distress, it was a moment of triumph; and when Fritz, in an accent of kindness, and almost of compassion, said, addressing Whitlaw, “Can we help you, sir?” Clio burst into an irresistible chuckle of delight at this first opportunity of display, and exclaimed with one of her happiest and broadest grins, “Look here, boys!” The two lads, however, altogether mistook her meaning; but looking in the direction she pointed, at the comfortless confusion which surrounded her, and believing, that they were called upon to pity it, replied at the same moment, “It must be very bad for you indeed; but if you will tell us what to do, we can soon help to make it better.”
“Bad!” exclaimed Clio; “now that beats the union! But you look dreadful good-natured, and will give me a hand with the meal-tub anyhow, for I must be after baking a morsel to eat, I expect; and t’other, maybe, will be looking up a few sticks for me, while my man Jonathan here seasons one of them fine new spiders with a little fresh water and a good rubbing.”
At this mention of bread-making, the young Karl displayed the treasures of his basket, saying, “My mother thought you would be too busy to bake directly, and so she sent me over with this.”
“Does your mother keep store, my lad?” said Whitlaw, coming forward. “I was told there was no store within five miles of Mount Etna.”
“I do not believe there is, sir,” returned Fritz, who, suddenly recollecting that the person he was speaking to was himself about to commence storekeeper for the whole region, comprehended in an instant the sort of alarm which his voice indicated; and the laughing blue eyes of the young German exchanged a furtive glance with his brother as lie added, “But though we do not keep a store, sir, we mike bread; and we shall be very happy if you will accept a loaf of it, to save you the trouble of baking till you are a little settled.”
“Accept the loaf?” said Whitlaw, taking it in his hands and examining its texture. “Why, it’s wheat, and weighs a matter of ten pounds. We shan’t have no such bread for a while, maybe, to pay it back, my lad.”
“Oh! we shall not want it,” said the young. Karl gaily; “for we are not going into a new house, you know.”
“Well, that’s considerable civil of them that sent you, my lads, anyhow — and we must do a turn for it, I expect, when it’s wanted.”
While this conversation was going on, the young Jonathan had been occupied by diving into the basket, and at length produced two half-pounds of Lotte’s dainty butter, one in each hand, held with a tight grasp by his not very delicate fingers. The German boys again looked at each other and prepared to depart.
“And is that there elegant butter a free gift too?” exclaimed the delighted Clio, receiving it on a wooden platter from her nephew’s hands.
“Yes, surely,” replied Fritz courteously, “if you will do my little sister the favour to accept it.”
“If that don’t beat all natur!” exclaimed Clio again. “Well now, I do expect that we be come among lovely clever people. What do you say to this, Porchy? — isn’t it one thing to come to Mohana Creek, and another to come to Mount Etna? If we don’t have an elegant coffering to-night, I expect it will be our own fault.”
The good-humoured boys had at least the pleasure of perceiving that their embassy was productive of great satisfaction to the party for whose benefit it was intended; and with this report they returned home, though in the delivery of it a little propensity to smile at the oddities of the newcomers displayed itself and produced a reproof from their mother.
“I will be revenged of you for suspecting me of being inclined to laugh at ‘poor hard-working country folks,’ mother mine,” said the saucy Fritz, “for I will be present when you first see them yourself, and I know how you will try to look grave and kind — and yet be ready to laugh too.”
Fritz, however, was quite wrong. His mother felt not the least disposition to laugh when introduced to her new neighbours. It took her but a short time to understand them all very thoroughly, except the boy — and she confessed that the little Jonathan produced an unpleasant effect upon her, because his young head ever seemed t’ have within it more than he appeared willing to display; a peculiarity at his age which gave her, as she avowed, a sort of instinctive fear of the boy, though she knew not exactly why.
Of the other members of the family her judgment was quickly and correctly formed. She considered Whitlaw as respectable for his active and persevering industry; Portia as pitiable for the hopeless languor of ill health which constantly oppressed her; and Clio as estimable and even admirable in no common degree, from the devotion of her attachment to her family, and the rare and complete absence of every species of selfishness. The coarse breeding of the’ whole party was no annoyance to her whatever.
The refinement of Mary Steinmark lay not on the surface; and in this, as well as in a multitude of other instances which had occurred since her residence in Louisiana, she fell without distaste into frequent and familiar intercourse with neighbours whose minds she knew could not comprehend the language of hers, and to whom therefore her mind never spoke, except in those few sentences of universal dialect which relate to domestic usefulness and household cares. The rest was for her husband and her children: nor did she ever lament that the circle in which she was known, and valued at her worth, was not a larger one.
It was some days before Frederick Steinmark chanced to see either of his new neighbours, and it was longer still before he perceived anything about them sufficiently interesting to greatly awaken his attention. When Whitlaw first took possession of the place, his whole attention was directed to the arrangement and management of his large store; and perhaps the only affair of great and important interest to man on which Frederick Steinmark found it impossible to fix his attention was the business of a retail store. He had therefore in fact almost forgotten his new neighbour, when Whitlaw himself made a visit to Reichland, and desired to speak to “the master.”
He was immediately ushered into a room exceedingly unlike any he had ever before entered; so much so indeed, that, contrary to his usual habits, his business was for a moment forgotten as he looked around him.
The room was large and lofty; the walls were neither papered nor plastered, but arranged neatly enough, with smooth deal boards, laid one over the other in the manner that shipwrights call clinker-built. The floor was covered with peculiarly fine Indian matting; and the four large windows, which opened upon a long glade of the forest, well cleared, but still retaining a few scattered groups of fine trees, were furnished with blinds of the same beautiful manufacture, but of a still finer fabric. One side of the room was covered from the floor nearly to the ceiling with books; on another hung an admirable portrait of the Baron Steinmark; and on a table beneath it, lay sundry unintelligible objects — mathematical instruments, models of agricultural implements, and several articles belonging to a chemical apparatus which Steinmark had been using. On one side stood an electrical machine, on the other a pair of large globes; while a variety of tables of all sorts and sizes in different parts of the room, some covered with needlework, others with implements for drawing, some prepared for writing and some for reading, would have told a stranger more initiated into such mysteries than Whitlaw, that the room was the usual habitation of a large family accustomed to occupation.
The whole aspect of the apartment was, however, such as might very naturally surprise a back-woodsman, who fancied he was come to visit a man of his own class. Had the intruder been less intelligent, he would have been less puzzled; but Whitlaw plainly perceived that there was present before his eye much more than had ever been dreamed of in his philosophy; and, as before stated, a short space
was occupied, ere he entered upon the business which brought him there, in looking round upon these objects, which were alike new and incomprehensible.
At length, however, he recovered the bold and pithy abruptness of his usual manner.
“I expect maybe that you arn’t much of a cultivator after all; but what I comed for, neighbour, was to ask which side of the hollow that lies in the bush between your lands and mine I should run my zig-zag? But maybe you arn’t competent to tell?”
“Mr. Whitlaw, I presume?” said Frederick Steinmark, rising to meet him.
“The same sir,” was the reply.
“I believe, sir, I shall be able to show you where your fence should be placed,” resumed the German — whose union with an Englishwoman had made the language of America as familiar to him as his own; and going to one of the numerous tables, he took thence a small roll, which being opened, displayed a map of the estate of Reichland; the hollow, which was in fact an important water-course, being very distinctly marked as within its boundary.
“Where my property ends, Mr. Whitlaw, I imagine that yours must begin; and therefore, as you perceive, your fence must run at the distance of one hundred yards on the western side of “the water-course.’”
Jonathan Whitlaw knew this perfectly well before he made the present inquiry; but having, with his usual sagacity, perceived that this “hollow,” as he chose to term it, might by a little ingenuity be converted into a very valuable water “privilege,” he thought it was at least worth while to try if he could not persuade his neighbour either that it belonged to him, or at any rate that, being a matter of no consequence, it could make no difference whether he included it within his fence or not. He now saw that upon the question of boundary his neighbour was a match for him; but it did not follow that he must know the value of “the bit” upon which he had set his heart, and accordingly he proceeded to state his wishes, but with an air of the most perfect indifference.
“Ah, well, that rough bit don’t matter much, I expect, nor a yard or two of bush neither, to such a large tract as yours — or mine either, for that matter; so if it don’t make no difference to you, neighbour, I calculate that I’ll run the zig-zag on this side the gap, just for the sake of two or three sugar maples that are scanty with me — but you’ve got bushels of ’em.”
“It is plain, Mr. Whitlaw,” replied the German with a good-humoured smile, “that you are a stranger here as yet, or you would not consider my water-course as so trifling a concern. In cultivating so large an estate as this with a small capital, it is necessary to do things by degrees; but I fully intend in about two years, when my boy will be old enough to undertake the business of a mill, to turn the drains of my plantations into that watercourse, and erect a mill over it, which, if I am not deceived in the quantity of water I expect to obtain, will be able to work nine months out of twelve.”
This unreserved exposure of plans and projects, in which it was by no means the custom of the country to indulge even to familiar friends, struck Whitlaw as a proof, that however ably his neighbour might have conceived the scheme (which was in truth exactly the same as he had himself imagined), he was nevertheless but a soft man, who could not be very difficult to manage.
When Steinmark ceased speaking, his visitor shook his head, and smiled with a look of much intelligence. “You’re counting a little too fast there, master, I expect,” he said. “No man as knows the country well would ever think of laying out good dollars in such a wild scheme as building a mill over that bit of a dry hollow. Howsomever, that’s no business of mine, and I hope the ground will change its nature in time to accommodate your son; but if so be as this scheme isn’t to be tried for two years to come, I calculate that you won’t have no objection to my having the sugar maples till such time as you sets about your mill?”
“The sugar maples are certainly not of much consequence, being in great abundance all round us,” replied Steinmark; “but do you propose to enclose those you mention within your zig-zag?”
“Well, then, I think I may as well — and at any rate a zig-zag is easy moved at any time,” returned Jonathan Whitlaw.
There was such a fund of deep-seated genuine frankness and honour in the character of Frederick Steinmark, that it was not very easy to awaken suspicion within him; but Whitlaw’s cool assumption of his consent to enclose a valuable part of his property within his own fence was too plain an indication of his spirit to be mistaken, and it was therefore with equal promptness and decision that the master of the house replied: “No, Mr. Whitlaw, your fence must not enclose my property, but only your own, sir.”
Whitlaw, as we have seen, was a shrewd, and in most things which regarded his interest, a right-judging man; but on this occasion he had found himself at fault, and then blundered most egregiously. Accustomed, as all men must be whose lives are spent in turning everything to profit, to judge quickly and act promptly, the wits of the proprietor of Mount Etna had not been idle during the interval in which he was occupied in taking note of the singular phenomena which surrounded him on entering Frederick Steinmark’s apartment. He knew little, it is true, of the use and destination of most of the objects he saw there; but he immediately concluded that the man whose hours were spent in occupations, of which he himself knew nothing, was likely enough to be ignorant, in his turn, of those points of human wisdom of which he knew a great deal.
“What should he know of a water privilege?” was the reflection that occurred to him, as he contemplated the various gimcracks, which to him had greatly the appearance of playthings, with which the room was filled— “no more than a piccaninny nigger, I’ll be bound for it:” and thereupon followed the short conversation that has been related.
Frederick Steinmark rose as he spoke the concluding words; and there was that in his aspect which showed Whitlaw, however little he had been accustomed to study such a one, that the conference was ended, and nothing to be hoped from the ignorance or folly of the owner of Reichland.
The feeling of vexation and resentment with which this conviction was accompanied might appear greater than the occasion could account for, were the state of Whitlaw’s mind as he left the house to be fully described. That a man should inwardly swear to take vengeance against a neighbour solely because he chose to retain possession of what was his own, might be deemed unnatural — yet so it was; and neither time nor reflection ever removed from Whitlaw’s mind the conviction that he was an oppressed and injured man, that Frederick Steinmark had used him ill, and that he had the right, as well as the will to revenge himself for it at every convenient opportunity.
This schism between the heads of the two families did not, however, in any degree destroy the friendly feeling which the constant performance of kind offices on one side, and the easy acceptance of them on the other, occasioned. After a passing smile at the foolish fellow’s saucy attempt to invade his property, Steinmark remembered it no more; and the only effect which the circumstance left on his feelings was, that he scarcely ever spoke of his new neighbour again.
Clio was indeed the principal link between the two houses. Her excellent qualities were fully appreciated by every individual of the Steinmark family, and in return she would at any time have walked through scorching fire or freezing water to do them service.
During the first few days of their intercourse, the four Steinmark boys made various good-natured advances to propitiate the friendship of Jonathan Jefferson; but the principle of repulsion was too strongly, though unconsciously, at work within the parties to permit anything like friendship to exist between them. The Steinmarks were all of them clever intelligent lads — so, most certainly, was Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw; but it would be more possible for a Newton to feel and to find sympathy with a being of a mind positively imbecile, than for honour, honesty, and sincerity to bind itself to wily cunning and to crafty meanness.
The dislike of the Steinmarks for young Whitlaw only demonstrated itself, however, by a cessation of those little sociabilities with which at
his first arrival he was always greeted by them whenever accident brought them together. Neighbourly civility, and ever-ready cheerful good-will, whenever it was in their power to be useful, were still at the service of the whole Whitlaw family; but unless something of this sort was called for, the intercourse between them was not frequent.
On the part of young Jonathan, the feeling of dislike was both stronger and more definite: he at once feared, envied, and despised the whole family; and he could, had it been necessary or profitable, have given excellent good reasons for each and all of these feelings. As it was, however, he deemed it “wisest, discreetest, best,” to say nothing about it, but to receive in peace and quietness the many little advantages which the good-nature and liberality of their neighbours afforded him.
There was nevertheless one point on which no calculations of interest appeared to interfere with the open and sincere avowal of his sentiments respecting Fritz, Karl, Hermann, and Henrich Steinmark; and this was as to the mode of their education; Jonathan Jefferson had ascertained in his first conversation with Henrich, who was nearly his own age, that neither he nor either of his brothers had ever been at school; and the profound contempt this avowal generated must have had something agreeable and soothing in its nature, for never did young Jonathan sit down after he heard it, with the intention of being particularly comfortable, without alluding to it.
Nor was the pleasant emotion produced by the mere mention of this parental neglect on the part of Frederick Steinmark the only advantage of which it was productive at Mount Etna. No sooner was the fact made known to Whitlaw, than he determined at once upon sending young Jonathan to school, though the doing so would rob him of services which the active business of the store rendered daily more important. Neither was this the only measure which the spirit of rivalship accelerated in the Whitlaw family. Frederick Steinmark’s large estate had not a single negro upon it; the labour it required was performed by himself and his boys, assisted by two German servants who had accompanied them from the Fatherland. This again was a subject of unmitigated contempt and ridicule. In Louisiania, as Whitlaw remarked, nobody that was anybody would ever think of getting along without a slave. It was plain that, with all their big clearings and grand house, the Steinmarks were nothing but a set of beggarly hard-working foreigners, that did not know what it was to live like gentlemen and Americans. So Jonathan Whitlaw sent his son to a school at Natchez, where he was to be taught reading, writing, ciphering, “and the sciences,” for fifteen dollars a quarter; and moreover, he purchased two stout negroes at the first market held for the sale of such commodities in his neighbourhood.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 6
