Chapter III: Part 3

This suggestion was a bitter one to prudent Benny, who expected to have those boots for Sunday wear for the next ten years, just as he had for the past ten; and he knew well what a hard day’s work he had before him, and how destructive it would prove to shoe-leather. But Debby was firm, and, seizing the great boots from the nail on which they hung, she poured out the flax-seed with which they were always kept filled when they were not on Benny’s feet. The old man pulled them on his shrivelled legs with a groan at Debby’s extravagance, and then proceeded to dig out a path in the snow. Benny had not seen such a snow-storm since the great “Hessian snow-storm” in the winter of 1778, when so many Hessian soldiers perished of cold and exposure. When he reached the surface and could look around him, he saw with satisfaction that the snow and wind had blown during the previous night _away_ from the water, hence his sheep would hardly be drowned. He quickly discovered a strange-shaped bank of snow by the side of one of the great hay-ricks, so common throughout Narragansett, and he shrewdly suspected that some of his sheep were underneath the great drift. When carefully searched with a rake-stale this proved to be the case, and when he shovelled them out all in the mound were alive and well. In a snow-drift, by the side of a high stone wall, he found the remainder of his flock, save one, a fine little ewe of the creeper breed, the rarest and most valued of all his stock. As sheep-sheds at that time were unknown in Narragansett, the loss of sheep was great in the Christmas storm, and many cattle were frozen in the drifts; and one shepherd noted two weeks later that the hungry cattle he foddered never touched a full lock of hay that he had thrown on the top of a little hillock of snow near his rick. So he thrust at it with his hay-tines, and in so doing he lifted off a great shell of snow-crust, and there peered out of the whiteness the bronze, wrinkled face of the old squaw Betty Aaron, who was sitting bolt upright, frozen stiff and dead, her chin resting on both hands, her elbows on her knees. Hence Benny was justly proud of his rescued flock, though he mourned the one sheep that was lost, and blamed himself for sleeping so late, saying, he “wouldn’t have minded spilin’ his roast-meat boots if he could have found the creeper.”

On the fourteenth day of January Benny Nichols chanced to see in the snow, by the side of a hay-rick which stood a mile away from his home, a small hole about half an inch in diameter, which his practised eye recognized at once as a “breathing-hole,” and which indicated that some living thing had been snowed in and was lying underneath. He broke away the covering of icy crust, and to his amazement saw a poor creature of extraordinary appearance, which he at first hardly could believe was his own lost creeper sheep. She was alive, but alas! in such a sorry plight.

The hungry sheep, in her three weeks’ struggle against starvation, had eaten off every fibre of her own long wool that she could reach, and she lay bare and trembling in the cold air, too weak to move, too feeble to bleat either in distress or welcome. Old Benny wrapped the half-dead creature in the corner of his cloak and carried her home to Debby, who fairly shed tears at the sight of the poor naked skeleton of a sheep. Tenderly did the kind woman wrap the frozen ewe in an old flannel petticoat and feed her with warm milk, a few drops only at first, and then with much caution until the sheep was able to digest her ordinary food. In a week the creeper seemed as strong as ever, quickly gained the lost flesh, and could bleat both loud and long. And with returning health she grew active and mischievous, and was constantly thrusting her long black nose into the most unexpected and most unsuitable places, to the great distress of careful Debby, who longed to put her out of doors.

But the sheep’s lost wool could not grow as quickly as did the fat on her ribs, and she could not be thrust out thus, naked and bare, in the winter air, so Debby decided to make for the little creature a false fleece. For this purpose she took an old blue coat which had once been worn by her son, and cut off the sleeves until they were the right length to cover the ewe’s forelegs. She then sewed at the waist of the coat two sleeves from an old red flannel shirt; these were to cover Nanny’s hind legs. And when Debby drew on the gay jacket and buttoned it up over the sheep’s long backbone with the large brass coat-buttons, there never was seen such a comical, stunted, hind-side-foremost caricature of what is itself a caricature--an organ-grinder’s monkey.

When Benny carried the gayly dressed Nanny out to the enclosed yard, it was hard to tell which exhibition of feeling was the keenest--poor, unconscious, and absurd Nanny’s delight in her freedom and her eager desire to take her place with her old companions, or the consternation and terror of the entire flock at the strange wild beast which was thus turned loose among them.

They ran from side to side, and crowded each other against the paling so unceasingly and so wildly, that Benny carried the unwilling ewe back to the kitchen.

At nightfall, however, Benny again placed Nanny in the open field with the sheep, thinking that they would gradually, throughout the darkness, become used to the presence of her little harlequin jacket, and allow her to graze by their side in peace.

That night two cronies of Benny’s came from a neighboring farm to talk over that ever-interesting topic, the great snowstorm, and to buy some of his lambs. The three old men sat by the great fireplace in the old raftered kitchen in the pleasant glow from the blazing logs, each sipping with unction a mug of Benny’s famous flip, while Debby rubbed with tallow the sadly stiffened long-boots that had been worn in the Christmas snow. Suddenly a loud wail of distress rang in their ears, the door was thrust violently open, and in stumbled the breathless form of the tall, gaunt old negress Tuggie Bannocks. She was a relic of old slavery times, who lived on a small farm near the old Gilbert Stuart Mill, on Petaquamscut River. They all knew her well. She had bought many a pound of wool from Benny to wash and card and spin into yarn, and she always helped Debby in that yearly trial of patience and skill--her soap-making. The old negro woman had double qualifications to make her of use in this latter work: her long, strong arms could stir the soap untiringly for hours, and then she knew also how to work powerful charms--traditional relics of Voodooism--to make the soap always turn out a success.

Tuggie Bannocks sank upon the table by the fire, murmuring: “Tanks be to Praise! Tanks be to Praise!” and closed her eyes in speechless exhaustion. Debby took a half-crushed basket of eggs from the old woman’s arm, drew off her red woollen mittens, and rubbed briskly her long cold claws of hands. Benny had a vague remembrance of the old-time “emergency” saying, “feathers for fainters,” and seized a turkey’s wing that was in daily use as a hearth-brush, thrust it into the flames, and then held the scorching feathers under the old negress’s nose until all in the room were coughing and choking with the stifling smoke.

Spluttering and choking at the dense feather-smoke, Tuggie gasped out: “I ain’t dead yit--I specks I shall be soon, dough--kase I seen de ole witch a-ridin’--I’se most skeered to death” (then in a fainter voice)--“gib me a mug of dat flip.” Startled, Benny quickly drew a great mug of home-brewed beer and gave it a liberal dash of Jamaica rum and sugar, then seized from the fire the red-hot “loggerhead” and thrust it seething into the liquid until the flip boiled and bubbled and acquired that burnt, bitter flavor that he knew Tuggie dearly loved. The old woman moaned and groaned as she lay on the table-top, but watched the brewing of the flip with eager eye, and sat up with alacrity to drink it.

With many a shuddering sigh and many a glance behind her at the kitchen door, and crossing her fingers to ward off evil spirits she began: “Ye know, Miss Nickkels, I telled ye I was witch-rid by ole Mum Amey, an’ dis how I know I was. Ye see I was a-goin’ to wuk a charm on her first off--not to hurt her none, jess to bodder her a leetle--an’ I jess put my project on de fire one night, an’ it jess a-goin’ to boil, an’ in come her ugly, ole grinnin’ black face at de door, an’ say she a-goin’ to set wid me a spell.” Mum Amey was a wrinkled half-breed Indian of fabulous age and crabbed temper, a “squaw-nurse,” who was, of course, not half as black as negro Tuggie. “She walk ober to de chimbly to light her pipe an’ ask me what I a-cookin’, an’ I say Ise a-makin’ glue, cause Ise afeard she see de rabbit’s foot in de pot, an’ I say it all done, an’ yank de pot offen de crane so she can’t see into it. An’ ob course when I take de project offen de fire afore it’s wukked, it break de charm; an’ wuss still, I can’t nebber try no project on her no more. Ole Mum Amey larf, an’ say, a-leerin’ at me, dat pot ob glue won’t nebber stick nothin’ no more. An’ ebber sence dat night I ben witch-rid. Mornin’s when I wakes up I sees marks ob de bit in de corners ob my mouf, where Mum Amey ben a-ridin’ me all ober Boston Neck an’ up de Ridge Hill till I so tired and stiff I can’t hardly move. Ise ben pinched in de night an’ hab my ha’r pulled. An’ my butter won’t come till I drops a red-hot horseshoe in de cream to dribe her out. One day I jess try her to see ef she a witch (dough I know she one, ’cause I see her talkin’ to a black cat); I drop a silber sixpence in her path, an’ jess afore she get to it she turn an’ go back, jess I know she would. No witch can’t step ober silber. An’ now, Benny Nickkels, I know for shore she’s a witch, I see her jess now in de moonlight a-chasin’ an’ ridin’ your sheep; an’, shore’s yer bawn, yer’ll find some on ’em stone dead in de mornin’--all on ’em, mebbe!”

Benny looked wretched enough at this statement. Dearly as he loved his sheep and ready as he was to face physical discomfort and danger in their behalf, he was too superstitious to dare to go out in the night to rescue them and brave the witch.

“How did she look, Tuggie? And what did she do?” whispered awe-struck Debby.

“Oh, she was mons’ous fearsome to see! Witches don’t nebber go in deir own form when dey goes to deir Sabbaths. She was long an’ low like a snake. She run along de groun’ jess like a derminted yeller painter, a-boundin’, an’ leapin’, an’ springin’, a-chasin’ dem pore sheeps--oh, how dey run! Wid her old red an’ blue blanket tied tight aroun’ her--dat’s how I knowed her. An’ she had big sparklin’ gold dollars on her back--wages ob de debbil, I ’specks. Sometimes she jump in de air an’ spread her wings an’ fly awhile. Smoke an’ sparks come outen her mouf an’ nostrums! Big black horns stick outen her head! Lash her long black tail jess like de debbil hisself!”

At this dramatic and breathless point in Tuggie’s flip-nourished and quickly growing tale, credulous Debby, whose slow-working brain had failed to grasp all the vivid details in the black woman’s fervid and imaginative description, interjected this gasping comment: “It must ha’ been the devil or the creeper.”

Benny jumped from his chair and stamped his foot, and at once burst into a loud laugh of intense relief, and with cheerful bravado began to explain animatedly to his open-mouthed cronies that of course anyone could see that Tuggie’s sheep-chasing witch was only the creeper sheep in her new fleece, and he offered swaggeringly to go out alone to the field to bring the ewe in to prove it.

The old negress sprang to her feet, insulted and enraged at the jeering laughter and rallying jokes, and advanced threateningly toward him. Then, as if with a second thought, she stopped with a most malicious look, and in spite of Debby’s conciliatory explanations and her soothing expressions “that it might have been Mum Amey after all,” she thrust aside Benny’s proffered mollification of a fresh mug of flip, seized her crushed basket, stalked to the door, and left the house muttering, vindictively: “High time to stop such unrageous goin’s-on--dressin’ up sheeps like debbils--scarin’ an ole woman to death an’ breakin’ all her aigs! Ole Tuggie Bannocks ain’t forgot how to burn a project! Guess dey won’t larf at witches den!”

And surely enough--as days passed it could plainly be seen that the old negress had carried out her threat--for the chimney was “conjured”--was “salted.” On windy nights the shepherd and his wife were sure they could hear Tuggie dancing and stamping on the roof, and she blew down smoke and threw down soot, and she called down the chimney in a fine, high, shrieking voice: “I’ll project ye, Benny; I’ll project ye.” And she burnt the cakes before the fire, and the roast upon the spit, and thrice she snapped out a blazing coal and singed a hole in Debby’s best petticoat, though it was worn wrong side out as a saving-charm. And Benny could see, too, that the old ram was bewitched. The remainder of the flock soon became accustomed to the sight of Nanny’s funny false fleece, but he always fled in terror at her approach. He grew thin and pale (or at any rate faded), and he would scarcely eat when Nanny was near. Debby despairingly tried a few feeble counter-charms, or “warders,” but without avail. When sheep-shearing time came, however, and Nanny, shorn of her uncanny fleece and clothed in her own half-inch snowy wool, took her place with the other short-clipped members of the flock, he ceased to be “witch-rid”--the “project,” the “conjure” was worked out. He grew fat and fiercely brave, and became once more the knight of the field, the lord of the domain, the patriarch, the potestate of his flock.

The story of Tuggie Bannocks’s fright and her revengeful “project” spread far and wide on every farm from Point Judith to Pottawomat, and was told in later years by one generation of farmers to another. And as time rolled on and Nanny reared her lambs and they her grand-lambs, the creeper sheep were known and sold throughout Narragansett by the name of witch-sheep.

THE CRUSOES OF THE NOON-HOUSE

In a grass-grown graveyard by the side of an old Presbyterian church in Narragansett, the warm, midday sun shone brightly down one spring Sabbath in the year 1760 upon two boys twelve years of age, two cousins, named Elam Noyes and Cotton Fayerweather. They stood by the side of their grandfather’s grave, which bore a new blue slate headstone, inscribed with his name and age, and the verses:

“You children of ye name of Noyes
Make Jesus Christ yo’r oleny choyse.”

The boys had gone into the church-yard with the apparent design of examining this fine, though misspelled, token of the stone-cutter’s art, but were really speaking and thinking of a very different subject. They would never have been allowed to wander in the church-yard to indulge in idle talk, and even now could spend but a few minutes in conversation together. It was their only meeting-time during the week, for they lived at extreme ends of the town, and Elam recited his lessons to the Baptist minister, who lived near him, while Cotton attended the village school. They were two well-built, healthy boys, both dressed in clumsy, homespun suits of clothes, with full knee-breeches, long-flapped coats and waistcoats, coarse yarn stockings and buckled shoes, and great gray beaver hats several sizes too large for them. Elam was as solemn and serious in his appearance as was his father, but in his brain was a current of keen romance rarely found in the head of any elderly colonist. As he left the church-yard with his cousin he said, with much impressiveness, “Remember, Cotton, if you are not here by candle-light I shall tarry no longer, but shall go home.”

For several Sundays, as the boys had walked among the graves, and while they had been busy with the care of their fathers’ horses, Elam had occupied every moment in telling to Cotton all that he could remember of a wonderful story he had read in New Haven. Two months previously he had ridden with his father to that town, and in the tap-room of the “ordinary” at which they had “put up” during their stay there had lain a pile of about forty books, which a sea-captain had left to be sold to any chance traveller, or to townspeople who might be inclined to purchase them. There were several copies of Tate and Brady’s new Psalms, which some of the New England Puritans wished to use instead of the loved old Bay Psalm-book, two or three Bibles, half a dozen volumes of sermons, a Dutch Psalm-book, which was not Dutch at all, but a collection of English songs and ballads, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” a few prayer-books, and then there was a wonderful book which Elam did not have time to finish, though he had not wasted a moment. It thrilled and filled him with adventurous longings, and was called “Robinson Crusoe.” This was the first and only story-book he had ever seen, and as he retold the wonderful tale to Cotton, the desire to run away out into the great world, to cross the ocean and see some strange sights and lead a different life from that on a Narragansett farm, grew strong in both boys’ breasts.

At last Elam, having a fertile though unexercised imagination, developed a plan of action. They would leave home and meet at the old meeting-house, where they would spend several weeks of idleness, roaming the woods by day and sleeping in the noon-house by night, and when everyone in town was tired of searching for them, then they would make their way to the sea-shore without fear of capture, and get on board a ship and sail off somewhere. They could hide in the wood on the Sabbath days, and as the meeting-house stood on a lonely road in a great wood on the top of a high hill, there would be but few passers-by on week-days, and hence few chances of discovery. And now I must explain about the noon-house, which was to be their sleeping-place, for none of those queer old buildings now exist in New England.

By the side of the barn-like church were three long, low, mean, stable-like log buildings, which could hardly be stables, since at one end of each hut was a rough stone chimney. These were noon-houses, or “Sabba-day houses.” One had been built by Elam and Cotton’s grandfather, and was used by the families of his children. Until the early years of this century, only two or three meeting-houses throughout New England contained stoves. All through the long, bleak, winter weeks, through fierce “nor’-westers” and piercing frosts, the lonely churches stood, growing colder and colder, until when they were opened upon the Sabbath the chill and damp seemed almost unbearable. The women brought to church little iron foot-stoves filled with hot coals. Upon these stoves they placed their feet, and around them the shivering children sat at their mothers’ feet and warmed their chilled hands. But by the time the long service was over--for often the minister preached two hours and prayed an hour, and some of the Psalms took half an hour to sing--you can easily see that the warmth would all have died out of the little foot-stove, and the mothers and children would be as cold as the fathers, which is saying a great deal.

Now these half-frozen Baptists and Puritans and Episcopalians could hardly have remained to attend an afternoon service and lived through it, so they built houses with chimneys and fireplaces near the church where they could go and make a fire and get warm and eat their lunch, and when they asked permission to put up such a building they said it was to “keep their duds and horses in.”

And, surely enough, at one end of the noon-house were usually several stalls for the horses, who doubtless also enjoyed the warmth that came from the fireplace at the end of the room. The “duds” were the saddles and pillions on which the church attendants had been seated on their ride to church, and the saddle-bags which were full of good things to eat. Sometimes a few cooking-utensils to warm the noonday food were kept in the noon-house, and often hay for the horses and a great load of logs to burn in the fireplace, and sometimes a barrel of “cyder,” to drink at the nooning.

Frequently a large noon-house was built by several farmers in company, and I am afraid the children did not then enjoy their Sunday noontimes, for some old deacon or elder usually read a sermon to them between the morning and afternoon services, and they had to sit still and listen.

So you see that Elam and Cotton had very comfortable quarters to sleep in when they ran away to the noon-house on the Monday following the opening of my story. Each arrived about an hour before sunset, laden with all the food that he had been able to capture before leaving home. Cotton had a great piece of salt-pork and a dozen eggs, some of which had had a rather disastrous journey in his coat-pockets. Elam had a great crushed mass of dough-nuts and brown bread. This was not all of their provisions for their sojourn, for on each successive Sunday for five weeks previously both boys had crowded their great pockets with russet apples and their saddle-bags with cold corn-bread and brown bread, and they had starved themselves at each nooning in order to save their food and thus provide for the coming day of need; and they had concealed their treasures in an empty corn-bin at the horses’ end of the house. Cotton felt sure that they had food enough to last them for three weeks--rather dry and conglomerated, to be sure, but still good enough for boys of healthy appetites and simple Puritan tastes. Elam also had brought a flint and tinder-box with him, and with their aid and that of some light “candle-wood” he soon had a blazing fire upon the hearth, the coals of which he carefully covered up to save till morning, and then the two Robinson Crusoes climbed upon the hay and fell asleep.

The story of the first day spent by the runaways in their retreat would be the story of all the days, which were not as pleasure-filled as they had hoped. They had no hut to build, no goats to tame, no savages to fight and dread. They rose early in the morning, for the habits of their daily life were strong, and they did not dare have a fire much after daybreak, lest the smoke from the chimney should be discovered by some rare passer-by. They ate their breakfast of brown bread and cheese and apples and drank a little of the hard cider. As the weather was fortunately warm, they lolled on the stones behind the noon-house while Elam told over and over again the story of Robinson Crusoe and tales of the Indians that he had heard from his grandfather. They fished, with some success, in a little brook which ran through the woods, and one day they caught a rabbit in a trap which Cotton had set, and which he had learned how to make from old Showacum, a “praying Indian” who lived in the village. These trophies of their skill they of course skinned and cleaned and cooked, and though they were hungry--for they were hungry all the time--the unsalted fish and game did not seem very appetizing to them. They found a treasure one day in the woods--a store of nuts which had been forgotten or neglected or reserved until spring by some kindly squirrels--and with a few cakes of toothsome maple-sugar they had some variety of diet.

But alas, they also had healthy young appetites, and on Saturday night Cotton awakened to a fact whose approach had been plainly looming up before Elam for some time--that their three weeks’ supply of food was all gone. A half-decayed apple was their sole supper. A drink of the sour cider seemed only to make their hunger harder to bear, but at last they fell asleep. Perhaps the pangs of his gnawing stomach made Elam sleep more lightly than on previous nights, perhaps the equally keen pangs of his awakened conscience may have made him restless, but at midnight he suddenly sprang to his feet with an exclamation of horror at a sound which he recognized at once as the howl of a wolf. He jumped to the fire, wakening Cotton, who tumbled out of his nest of hay with a bewildered and wretched expression and an impatient cry of, “Oh, why did you wake me up when I am so hungry; pray let me sleep if you do or not,” when nearer and louder still rose the mournful howl of the wolf. With trembling hand Cotton heaped the light wood on the blaze which Elam had started with the old leather bellows, and then threw log after log on the hearth until the blaze roared up the chimney. Of course, the wolves--for they could hear more than one--could not get into the noon-house, as window and shutter were fast, but the boys were so wretched with hunger, so homesick, so lonesome, that they hardly stopped to reason, and, trembling with fear, Cotton seized an iron “loggerhead” which his father kept in the noon-house, and thrust it into the coals to heat to a red-hot pitch, when it could be used as a weapon. A “loggerhead” was a bar of iron which was used as a stirring-stick in making “flip.” Deacon Fayerweather always brought to church each winter Sunday in his saddle-bags three or four bottles of home-brewed beer and a bottle of Jamaica rum, from which, with the aid of the loggerhead, he made a famous jug of flip for the minister and deacons at the nooning.

And now the peaceful loggerhead was the only weapon the two wretched boys possessed, and, indeed, all they needed, for in a short time the howls of the wolves grew fainter and fainter and at last were no longer heard. All thought or power of sleep had, however, vanished from the brains of the terrified young Crusoes at this experience of the pleasures of adventure. All wish for final escape to the sea-shore had also disappeared, and now their only longing was to return home. All the remaining hours of the night they sat by the fire, while Elam, romantic in spite of hunger, fright, and disappointment, made known his plans for the following day. Toward morning they let the fire die down and expire, and when the sun was fully risen they left their sheltering noon-house and hid in the woods not far from the meeting-house, trembling, however, at every sound as they thought of their dread night-visitors.

As nine o’clock drew near there approached the church on every side, on foot and on horseback, the members of the congregation. All knew of the mysterious disappearance of Cotton and Elam, for the country had been widely and quickly scoured for them. Among the worshippers came Deacon and Mistress Fayerweather and Goodman Noyes and his wife, for all felt it a godly duty, even in time of deep affliction, not to neglect the public worship of God on the Sabbath. Despairingly did the sad parents hope to hear some news of their lost boys, who had apparently vanished from the face of the earth, for neither in farm-house nor in field, neither on the road nor at the toll-gate, neither by traveller nor by hunter, had they been seen. The very simplicity of their plan had been its safety. Forty years previously the whisper of kidnapping by the Indians would have added terror to the parents’ grief, but those days were happily over.

After sad greetings had been exchanged and the minister had entered the pulpit, the congregation seated itself for its usual Sunday-morning service. The opening half-hour prayer was ended, the church attendants had let down their slamming pew-seats (for the seats in those old New England meeting-houses always turned up on hinges to allow the pew occupants to lean against the walls of the pew during the long prayer), the minister had read with trembling voice a note which had been sent to him, “desiring the prayers of the congregation for two families in great inconveniency and distress,” when a door on the leeward side of the church slowly opened and two pale, dishevelled, and most wretched-looking youngsters crept slowly and shamefacedly in. The habit of constant self-repression and self-control, characteristic of the times, was all-powerful, even in this intense moment of crisis for the families of Fayerweather and Noyes. The deacon flushed scarlet, but did not move from his raised seat in front of the congregation. A faint murmur swept over the entire assembly at the appearance of Cotton and Elam, but was at once repressed. The boys walked calmly on to their accustomed seats on the gallery stairs, under the supervision of the tithingman. That zealous officer rapped sharply on the head with his long staff two or three of the occupants of one of the “boys’ pews,” who had turned around and stared, and whispered noisily at the appearance of the runaways. The old minister, being slightly deaf, had heard no ripple of commotion, and, not having glanced at the late comers, proceeded to offer a pathetic prayer for the lost ones, “whom God held in the hollow of his hand,” a prayer that brought to Elam and Cotton a realizing sense of their selfishness and wickedness, and which worked a lesson that influenced them through life. The parson then gave out his text: “He will have charge over thee concerning thee,” and worked his way on in his accustomed and somewhat monotonous fashion, though with many allusions to the two wanderers, until at fourteenthly came the long-deferred end. Nor was there any murmur of feeling heard (though the mothers’ eyes were filled with tears), when Deacon Fayerweather, in a slightly trembling voice, lined out the Psalm:

O give yee thanks unto the Lord
because that good is hee,
Because his loving-kindness lasts
in perpetuitee.

I’th’ desart in a desart way
they wandered: no towne finde
to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty
their Soul within them pinde.

Then did they to Jehovah cry
when they were in distresse
Who did them set at liberty
out of their anguishes.

In such a way as was most right
he led them forth also
That to a citty which they might
inhabit they might go.

I wish I could say that the boys’ parents, being so glad to get the wanderers home, permitted them to go unpunished, but alas! early New Englanders believed firmly that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child,” and never spared the rod; and, as “sloathefulnes” and disobedience to parents were specially abominated, such high-handed rebellion as this of Elam and Cotton could hardly be allowed to pass by without being made a public example. Then, too, unfortunately for the boys, the warmth of joy at recovering the lost ones had time through the two hours of sermon to cool down and change into indignation. So at the close of the service Deacon Fayerweather, after rather coldly greeting his son and nephew, asked the advice of the minister upon so important a subject, who gave as his opinion that the gravity of the offence, the necessity of the lesson to other youths in the congregation, and the conveniency of circumstances seemed to point out plainly, and was furthermore upheld by Scripture, that public chastisement should be given upon the spot, and that Elder Rogers was best fitted, both by age, dignity, and strength, to administer both rebuke and punishment. And with promptness and despatch and thoroughness the decree was carried out; both boys were “whipped with birchen rods” while standing upon the horse-block before the church.

But though the colonial fathers were stern and righteously disciplinarian, the colonial mothers were loving and tender, as are mothers everywhere and in all times, and Mistress Fayerweather and Mistress Noyes each bore off her weeping boy to the noon-house and filled his empty stomach well with dough-nuts and pork and peas and pumpkin-bread, until, with comfort and plenty within, external woes and past terrors were forgotten.

THE DOCTOR’S PIE-PLATES

Many of my cherished china treasures, having no historical association and being of comparatively coarse ware, would be of little value on the shelves of a collector, and also of little interest to the general observer; but they are endeared to me by the remembrance of the circumstances under which they were found, or by some story connected with their past owner or their past history.

I have a set of dark-blue Staffordshire plates, known as the “Doctor’s Pie-plates,” which are resplendent with an interest that does not come from their glorious color, rich as it is, nor from the wit of the humorous scenes they represent. The plates, named, respectively, “Dr. Syntax’s Noble Hunting-party,” “Dr. Syntax Upsets the Beehives,” “Dr. Syntax Painting the Portrait of His Landlady,” “Dr. Syntax Taking Possession of His Rectory,” and “Dr. Syntax Star-gazing,” are printed from a set of pictures drawn by Thomas Rowlandson, one of the most celebrated designers of humorous and amusing subjects of his day. They were drawn and engraved to illustrate a book published by William Combe, in 1812, called “Dr. Syntax’s Tour in Search of the Picturesque.” A second tour, “In Search of Consolation,” appeared in 1820. This was also illustrated by Rowlandson. A third tour, “In Search of a Wife,” was printed the following year. These books had an immense and deserving popularity. Not only did these blue Staffordshire plates appear, copying the amusing designs from the Dr. Syntax illustrations, but a whole set of Derby figures were modelled--Dr. Syntax Walking, In a Green-room, At York, At the Bookseller’s, Going to Bed, Tied to a Tree, Scolding the Landlady, Playing the Violin, Attacked by a Bull, Mounted on Horseback, Crossing the Lake, Landing at Calais, etc., and also were sold in large numbers.

The “Doctor’s Pie-plates” did not, however, receive their name on account of the presence of the laughable figure of Dr. Syntax in their design, but from a far different and more serious and deeply felt reason. They were once used as pie-plates; or, rather, I should say more exactly and truthfully, were used _once_ as pie-plates, and the story of that solitary pie-episode in their history, with the succeeding results of their one period of use in that capacity, will explain their fresh, unused condition, and show why I prize them so highly, and reveal also the reason why I call them the “Doctor’s Pie-plates.” The name has a deep significance; the pie-plates are captured trophies of past war, sad emblems of hopeless rebellion, never-fading ceramic proofs and emblems of the selfishness, the tyranny of man.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, an American gentleman married in England an English lady of some wealth. They brought to America with them in a sailing-vessel, as part of the bride’s wedding-outfit, a gayly painted, richly mounted travelling-coach. In this great coach they rode in grand style with four post-horses from Boston to Albany, New York, and Philadelphia, and back to the little town in Narragansett, which was ever after their home. In due time they died, and left to their only son, a physician, all their worldly goods, including the old coach, and the far less desirable inheritance of a high and stubborn temper, and a firm and deep-seated veneration for English customs, manners, traditions, and productions, which would be worthy an Anglomaniac of the present day. He, however, made one unfortunate and incomprehensible deviation from his Anglo-worship when he married an American wife. As years went on, the Doctor grew more and more overbearing and dictatorial, especially in his household (as some English husbands are also said to be), and in the matter of food and of cooking--those unfortunate hobbies of an ill-tempered man--he took, perhaps, the most violent stand. Never did any other wife have to hear so often the words, “as my mother used to cook it,” and “they don’t do it so in England,” or have to listen so frequently to acrimonious expressions of dislike of American cooks and cooking. Pork and beans, “cracker johnny-cake,” Indian-pudding, even the purely Dutch dough-nuts were banished from his board; for not only did he refuse to eat these New England dishes himself, but would not let his wife and daughters, either. He also became unjust enough bumptiously to denounce as “American” and “taboo” any food (no matter of what nationality) which did not suit his fancy or which chanced to disagree with him.

On an unlucky day, having eaten too greedily of mince-pie (for he had a fine English appetite), he passed his universal banishing dictum on that darling of New England hearts and stomachs--_the pie_. From thenceforth on feast-days only English plum-pudding was served for dessert. To the New England wife, accustomed to see at least _four_ kinds of pie offered to “company,” if one made pretence even of being truly hospitable and housewifely, the lonely pudding was a great and almost unbearable source of grief and mortification, and many a struggle did she make (trying to imitate her forefathers of old) against the English yoke, but in vain; pieless and barren for years was her table. But reinforcing troops at last came to her rescue; for three daughters were grown, and, brave and strong with youth, they dared to rebel more openly and recklessly than their browbeaten mother.

In 1830 all the Doctor’s relatives, far and near, were invited to eat “Thanksgiving dinner” with him and his family; for he was hospitable enough, in his own fashion; in all, thirty were to sit down at his board. On the day before Thanksgiving, mother, daughters, and “help” were all busy at work from early morning in the great pantry and kitchen, making careful preparation for the coming dinner, and brisk sounds of chopping and pounding and mixing were heard, and savory smells and spicy vapors filled the house. Toward the close of the day, when their work was nearly done, they suddenly heard, to their terror, the sound of the Doctor’s cane (for he was badly crippled with that typical English disease, the gout) thump, thumping through the halls and rooms to the kitchen, an apartment he seldom visited. With palpitating hearts but firm countenances they stood in a hollow square for strength, as does any determined band, while he walked past them to the “buttery,” where were placed in military rows twenty-six of those hated abominations, pies--mince-pies, pumpkin and apple and cranberry, and, the crowning dainty of all, “Marlboro’” pies. Their only hope of salvation was that in the dull, fading November light the tyrant might not discover the forbidden pastry; and, indeed, he did not appear to do so, for he merely glanced scowlingly around, and, without speaking, hobbled back to his office. Once more they breathed freely, and the eldest daughter said, cheerfully: “Now, girls, nothing can happen; if he had seen them we should have had to give them away; but he won’t know anything about it now until they are brought on the table with the pudding, and he will be most through his bottle of port then--but oh, what shall we do when the company goes?”

Poor souls! they slept for one night the happy, unconscious sleep of the victorious, the hospitable, and awoke on Thanksgiving morn to find every pie vanished from the pantry-shelf. Every pie? Yes, and every pie-plate, too!--twenty-six of the new English blue-and-white stone-ware plates. At first they really believed, in their simplicity, that a thief must have entered from outside and stolen them; but why should the marauder take pies, and no other food? Then, too, there was not a foot-print on the light snow which had fallen early in the evening. No; the Doctor must have stolen his wife’s pies! But where could he have hidden the pie-plates? For weeks, yes, for years, they searched in every nook and corner; through the hay in the barns, behind the logs of wood in the sheds, in old barrels and boxes in the cellar, in closets, in trunks, under the eaves in the attic; and they even peered out on the roof behind the peaks of the gable-windows, but no pie-plates could they find. The grim old Doctor kept his silence, until his daughters grew at last to think that some thief must have entered in spite of apparent impossibility.

Thirty-six years later, in 1866, the aged Doctor died, and went, doubtless, to an English paradise. His browbeaten wife had given up the struggle many years before. The daughters, now elderly women, with a long-concealed but unsubdued hatred born of years of tyrannical browbeating and oppression, at once made a triumphal holocaust of many of the cherished treasures of the British tyrant; and the first victim doomed to destruction was the old English coach in which their English grandmother had ridden in state through the country. This broken-down, moth-eaten, rat-nibbled, cobweb and dirt-filled relic had stood unused for fifty years--an abominable nuisance, an inconvenient obstruction, a hated eyesore, in the carriage-house connected with their dwelling. The Doctor had cherished it on account of its English birthplace; but now its fate was sealed. As the first heavy blow of the destroying iconoclastic axe struck the hated coach, a loud rattle as of falling crockery was heard, and the executioner paused. A careful investigation discovered an unknown compartment under the driver’s seat which had been constructed for the purpose of hiding despatch-boxes and, perhaps, the bride’s jewel-cases--and in this hiding-place were twenty-six dirt-covered, dark-blue Staffordshire plates. A sudden light of comprehension and recognition came into the faces of the sisters--here were the long-lost pie-plates! The cantankerous old Doctor had craftily arisen in the night, hobbled out silently, in spite of his gout, thrown the carefully and daintily made Thanksgiving pies to the pigs, stealthily packed the plates in the old coach, watched maliciously the unsuccessful plate-search, kept silence throughout the despoiled Thanksgiving dinner and through nearly forty pieless years, and died triumphant.

Half of this treasure-trove, which the Doctor could hide, but, happily, could not take with him, were the Dr. Syntax plates; and from that half came my share. The other plates were of well-known English views--Payn’s Hill, the City of Liverpool, Blenheim Castle, Fulham Church-yard, Windsor Castle--no American views were on any of his crockery; no landing of Lafayette, no State plates, were ever allowed to grace that rank old Tory’s pantry.

Thus, one good, one noble result came from this “ugly trick”--the hidden pie-plates were all saved unscratched, unbroken, for the Doctor’s kinsfolk to-day, who, in gratitude for his unintentional posthumous favor, suitably reward him by telling the story of his spiteful midnight theft whenever we show the plates. And, moreover, we wantonly and openly insulted and jeered at his memory and his gastronomic laws by formally and derisively naming the dark-blue salvage from the coach the Doctor’s Pie-plates.

MY DELFT APOTHECARY JARS

The circumstances under which I first saw my old Delft apothecary jars were so painful, so mortifying, that for a long time I could not bear even to think of them; but now, as years have passed and softened the sharp lines, I will write account of that unique adventure.

We were one day, as was our wont, hunting in old Narragansett for ancient china and colonial furniture, but even on that historic and early-settled ground had met with scant success. At last, on an out-of-the-way road, was found a clew.

We were driving slowly along, when the door of a long, low wood-shed opened, and an elderly man walked out on the single broad stone step and stood, in the lazy country fashion, staring openly and sociably at us as we passed by. He had in one hand a piece of dark wood which he was slowly rubbing with sand-paper. We had driven past his door when my companion suddenly exclaimed: “That man had a claw-foot.”

“A claw-foot!” I answered in astonishment; “what do you mean?--a cloven foot or a club-foot, perhaps?”

“No, you goose; that man had in his hand a claw-foot--the leg of a chair, I am sure, and I am going back to see to what it belongs.”

So we whisked the pony around and drove to the door where the claw-footed man still stood, and we then saw in the one dingy window a small sign bearing the words

+------------------+
| ELAM CHADSEY |
| GENERAL REPAIRER |
+------------------+

“Are you Mr. Chadsey?” my fellow china-hunter asked. “We saw you with something that looked old-fashioned in your hand, and we thought you might have or know of some antique furniture or old crockery that the owners would be willing to sell.”

“Wal, I ain’t got any to sell; I only mend furnitoor. I’ve got a couple of tall clocks in here repairin’, but they ain’t mine, so I can’t sell ’em. N-o--I don’t know of none--except--What furnitoor do you want?”

“Oh, anything, almost, that is old, and china especially; any old blue pie-plates or such things.”

Elam stood slowly rubbing his claw-foot and at last answered: “I know some old blue-and-white crockery preserve-jars, or jell-pots, ye might call ’em, which I ruther think ye could get ef ye want ’em. Ye see, Abiel Hartshorn, he’s a widower an’ he’s a-goin’ ter marry a school-marm up ter Collation Corners, an’ she’s got awful highty-tighty notions, an’ he’s a-goin’ ter sell the farm, an’ she come down ter see what things she wanted saved out of the house fur her. An’ Abiel’s fust wife she had all these old blue-an’-white pots with letters on ’em, an’ some had long spouts, an’ she always kep’ her preserves an’ jelly an’ sweet pickles in ’em, an’ mighty handy they was too. An’ when this woman see ’em she was real pleased with ’em, but her brother was along with her, and he’s a clerk in a drug-store, an’ he bust out a-larfin’, an’ says he: ‘Them letters on them jell-pots means senna, an’ jalap, an’ calomel, an’ sweet syrup of buckthorn, an’ lixypro, an’ lixylutis, an’ all sorts of bad-tastin’ medicines.’ An’ then she fired right up, an’ says she: ‘I won’t have any of my preserves kep’ in them horrid-tastin’ old medicine-bottles;’ so I guess Abiel would be glad enough ter sell ’em fur most anything.”

We suspected at once that these “jell-pots” with blue lettering of the names of drugs were Delft apothecary jars, and that the “ones with spouts” were the old jars, so rarely seen, that are identical in shape with the “siroop-pots” of Dutch museums. When the Dutch used these jars a century or more ago, they covered the open top with tightly tied oilskin and poured the contents from the spout, which at other times was kept carefully corked. By what strange, roundabout journey had these Delft jars strayed to that New England farm? We asked eagerly where we could see the despised “jell-pots.”

“Abiel’s house is about two mile from here by the road. I tell ye what ye can do. Ye may as well see ’em now’s ever. I’ll walk cross-lots an’ you drive there. Go on down the road a piece an’ turn the fust road ter the right. ’Tain’t much of a road--it’s kind of a lane. Go on to the fust house ye come to. I’d better come, ’cause mebbe Abiel wouldn’t let ye see ’em ef ye went alone.”

We left him and drove on and down through the narrow, grass-grown lane. When we reached the old gray farm-house we found it deserted and still, so we sat down on the stone doorstep and waited for Elam Chadsey, and soon he climbed over the stone wall before us.

“Ain’t Abiel at hum? All the better! We’ll go in ’n’ see the preserve-jars, an’ then he won’t know any city folks want ’em an’ won’t put the price up on ye.”

He prowled around the house, trying in vain to open first the doors and then the windows, but to his amazement he found all carefully locked.

“The ninny!” he said, indignantly, “he ain’t got nothin’ to steal! What did he lock up fur? I never heard of such a thing--lockin’ up in the daytime; it makes me mad. The dresser stan’s right in that room and them jars is on top of it; ef ye could only see in that window ye could look right at it, then ye’d know whether ye wanted ’em or not.”

“Isn’t there anything I could climb up on?” doubtfully I asked.

He searched in the wood-shed for a ladder, but with no success. At last he called out: “I guess ef you two’ll help me a little we can pull this around fur ye to stand on.”

“This” was a hen-coop or hen-house, evidently in present use as a hen-habitation. Its sides were about four feet high, and from them ran up a pointed roof, the highest peak of which was about five feet and a half from the ground.

“There,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, as he pushed it under the window, “ef ye can git up an’ stan’ on that ye can see in. Then”--vindictively--“we’ll leave it here fur Abiel to drag back himself, to pay him fur bein’ such a gump as to lock his doors. I guess it’ll hold ye, ef ye are pretty hefty.”

I may as well state the annoying fact that to be “pretty hefty” is a great drawback in searches after “antiques.” You cannot climb up narrow, steep ladders and through square holes into treasure-holding attic-lofts, as may a slender antique-hunter. You must remain patiently below and let her shout down, telling and describing what is above. It is such a trial to an explorer to have to explore by proxy, especially when you know you could discover more than anyone else could. I determined that “heft” should be no obstacle to me in this case, though the hen-house did look rather steep and high; and I bravely started to climb. I placed one knee, then the other, and then my feet upon the ledge at the edge of the roof, while Elam Chadsey pushed. He weighed about one hundred pounds, and was thin, wizened, and wrinkled to the last New England degree. He braced his feet firmly in the ground, set his teeth, and pushed with might and main. Alone I scaled the second height. I had barely set my feet firmly on the peak of the roof, had shaded my eyes from the sunlight with one hand, while I clung to the window-frame with the other, had caught one glimpse of a row of blue-and-white apothecary jars, when--crack!--smash! went the frail roof under my feet, and down I went--down into the hen-house!

In spite of my distress of mind and my discomfort of body, one impression overwhelmed all others--the anguish and consternation of Elam Chadsey. He darted from side to side, exactly like a distracted hen; he literally groaned aloud.

“Darn that gump of an Abiel Hartshorn! He’s the biggest fool in Rhode Island--lockin’ up his house jest ’cause he’s goin’ away, an’ gettin’ us in this fix. Wait, miss, keep still, an’ I’ll see if I can find an axe to chop ye out.”

Wait! keep still!--indeed I would--I couldn’t do otherwise. Off he ran to the wood-shed, and soon came back madder than ever; he fairly sizzled.

“Oh, the ninny! the big donkey! his axe is in the house. What do you s’pose he locked it up fur? He’s a reg’lar wood-chuck! I’ll tell him what I think on him. Ye ain’t hurted much, be ye, miss?”

“Oh, no,” I answered, calmly, “I’m all right as long as I keep still. But if I try to move there are several big and very sharp splinters that stick into me, and nails, too, I think--rusty nails, without doubt, which will probably give me the lock-jaw. Oh, Mr. Chadsey, do you suppose there are many eggs in this house?”