Some vanishing types as portrayed in American literature; (a collection of material to be used as the basis for a junior high school textbook)

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Authors Thiel, Olga Berta

Publisher The University of Arizona.

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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553214 Some Vanishing Types as Portrayed in

American Literature

(A collection of material to be used as the

basis for a Junior high school textbook)

by

Olga Berta Thiel

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts in the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, of the

University of Arizona

1 9 3 3

Approved: ^— Majdr adviser ) 6 ? ? ? / Contents Page c~*yO,2~ I • Introduction 1

Meaning of the term, vanishing types

Value of a study of these characters

Purpose of this thesis

II. The vanishing type as material for literature . • • 3

Brief history of the vanishing type in literature

Value of various types to literature

Manner of treatment

III. Discussion of types and selections

Lumberjack •••*...... 6

Stagecoach driver , ...... 18

Spinster...... ••.*..••29

Blacksmith ...... • .41

Schoolmaster ...... 49

Circuit rider ...... 59

Lime burner ...... • 69

Drummer boy • • ...... 74

Country doctor ...... 82

Peddler ...... •••••91

Bibliography • ...... 103

Appendix A. Additional list of books in which the

types discussed areportrayed ...... 107

Appendix B. Additional list of types, and books

and poems in which they are described • • • • • 109

90845 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION

Living in an age that is scientifically and mechanically minded, we have adjusted ourselves readily to each new comfort

or convenience that has been provided for us. It is interest-

■ • ' ■ ■ : ■ - ' ■ - : ■ • ' . • .. , / : _ ing to look ahead and make conjectures regarding new scientific marvels, but it is equally interesting to face about and exam­

ine the background of some of our highly systematized and effi­

cient institutions. Here are many quaint and picturesque fig­

ures. Behind our great metropolitan department stores with

' 'i their infinite variety of merchandise, their deliveries to

homes, and their credit systems, there is the peddler with his

pack, a miniature department store, delivering to homes and

frequently taking his pay in kind. Behind our well-organized

clinics with their highly trained specialists and uniformed

nurses, there is the country doctor jogging along over dusty

roads, the major part of his equipment in one or two battered

leather cases. Behind, the airplanes droning overhead and

carrying mail with incredible speed there are the riders of the ■ ■ ■ ■ : r - ; ■ ■■ ■ . :■ ■ ' ' ' .. • ■■■: ■ pony express upon their mustangs covering the dangerous miles

between St. Joseph and San Francisco in eight days.

So there are countless other figures, some of them steps

in the evolution of our modern institutions, others, however,

of such nature that modern progress has not seen fit to build

upon them. But all of them are gradually fading into the past

There are those whose outlines are already faint and dim; -8-

othere are still definite in form and bright in color; atill others in an attempt to survive are changing in character as the old form vanishes. As they disappear, their quaintness and picturesqueness become more apparent, and we sense their value as embodiments of an age when life moved more slowly, but less comfortably.

Fortunately the poet, the novelist, and the short story writer saw them in their prime and have left us lifelike portrayals of them, to which we must turn for a complete conception of the peddler, the lumberjack, the stagecoach driver, and their con­

temporaries. Literature reveals them to us as human beings, real and alive, with problems and feelings similar to ours.

History gives the facts about them, but literature makes them human. Familiarity with one of these disappearing figures

usually Invites acquaintance with others until the background

of our institutions becomes filled with vital beings as real as

the people around us.

The purpose of my thesis is to examine the portrayals of

some of these vanishing types, and to collect a number of ex­

tracts describing them, together with historical facts and sup­

plementary reading lists. My intention in making the collec­

tion is to use the whole as a basis for a textbook for junior

high school English classes. CHAPTER II

THE VANISHING TYPE AS MATERIAL FOR LITERATURE THE VANISHING TYPE AS MATERIAL FOR LITERATURE

The vanishing type as a character In American literature is closely associated with the use of local color, a term which implies the presentation of a setting in such manner as to bring out the distinctive features of a certain group of peo­ ple in a certain section of the country or of a definite occu­ pation . Local color shows the peculiarities of people and their differences from the ordinary and has an interest in place only so far as it helps to bring out human characterist­ ics. Irving, making use of local color in his stories of the

Hudson River valley, produced his famous Knickerbockers and the unforgettable schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow. Cooper created the scout, Leatherstocking, a man of simple life and elemental passions. A few decades later the famous New Eng­ land group, Hawthorne, Holmes, Whittier, and Longfellow, added to the list of vanishing types. But it was Bret Herte, the creator of John Oakhurst and Yuba Bill, who headed the list of distinotively local color writers that began in the 1860*s and have continued to the present day. Almost contemporary with Harte, Edward Eggleston wrote of the circuit rider and the Hoosier schoolmaster, while Mark Twain described the river captain and the stagecoach driver.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a num­ ber of writers made special characters their own, among *4

them Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins who wrote of their

neighbor* in Hew England, George W. Cable of the Louisiana

Creoles, Mary M# Murfree of the Tennessee mountaineers, Thomas

Helson Page and Joel Chandler Harris of the Southern negro,

Hamlin Garland of certain types in the Middle West, and Owen

V/ister of those in the Southwest. Some drew upon definite

occupations for their characters as Stewart Edward White upon

-lumbering and Will James upon cattle ranching. The search by the story-teller for local color has led to the exploitation of almost every distinctive community and mode of life, but a-

mong the later writers some have forgotten that external tags

and catalog!eh details do not produce true character anti that

they must penetrate beneath the surface to portray real people.

Hot all types present the same appeal to the story-teller,

even as not all attract the popular fancy. There is always

admiration for the physically strong, the skillful, the re­

sourceful in danger| and to the extent that this is true,

characters like the cowboy, the lumberman, and the stagecoach

driver have found a place in literature. On the other hand

while the blacksmith has muscular strength and skill, his life lacks movement anti the element of danger; consequently interest

in him is not sustained. The attraction of the peddler lies chiefly in his quick wit, his infallible good nature, and his skill in bargaining. He touched life in such a variety of

ways that he never ceases to be interesting. If the life of

the circuit rider had had more of romance and color, the itin­

erant preacher would be a more popular figure in literature. -5.

While his life called for great courage and self-eaerifice, it was filled with too much that is not obviously heroic.

Sometimes a type, uninteresting in itself, attracts at­ tention because of a certain personality behind it. It is not the lime burner that attracts us; it is Ethan Brand, and he would be an arresting figure in any occupation. In a similar manner it is David Ritchie and Sam Cruder that interest us in the drummer boy.

If realism is a showing of people and conditions as we know them, then most of these types have been portrayed in & realistic manner. With the exception of certain Southern wri­ ters all wrote of their own time; Cable, Harris, and Page, turning back, chose their characters from the period preceding the Civil War, and, as is usual in the portrayals of the past, have invested their characters with a certain amount of roman­

ticism.

Caricature is scarce, the only striking example being

Irving's famous schoolmaster. Ho particular type of treat­ ment can claim Paul Bunyan, the folk hero of the nation; he

is the product of the exuberant spirit and exaggeration of the

American people. CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION OF TYPES WITH SELECTIONS 6

THE LUMBERJACK When the colonists came to America, they were obliged to take up lumbering as their first Industry, not only that they might have material with which to build their homes, but also that they might have cleared land for their crops. Lumber, too, was the one commodity at hand which could be sent back across

the ocean in exchange for necessities from the mother country.

This industry accompanied the spread of population westward; however, as one section after another became settled, it was no longer left to each man to hew down trees as he pleased.

Individuals and companies accepted the cutting down of timber

as their calling and found a gainful occupation in supplying their

country with material for houses and ships. The supremacy in lumber production moved from New England to New York and on to

Pennsylvania. By the middle of the nineteenth century the ma­

jestic pine forests of the Lake States were being attacked;

and for thirty years fortunes fell into the hands of far-sighted

men, as billions upon billions of giant pines crashed to the

earth and the land was sown with stumps.

It was this period that produced the true lumberjack,

picturesque, strong, fearless, and elemental. His work was

the chopping, skidding, rolling, hauling, and driving of the

great logs. He loved the sound of the axe, the singing of the

saw, and the thundering down of the proud crest of his victim.

Hard work, simple food, and primitive accomodations hardened 7

him* and the presence of constant danger made him oool, re­ sourceful, and agile. Hie wonderful energy carried him far in his work* but when the pressure of toil was released, it carried him equally far in his excesses.

The modern age of machinery and efficiency has robbed him of his romance,

"for that romance was made by the contrasts in his life, the high vivid spots among the darkness of shadows. He no longer suffers miserably in a life of bleak toil, and he no longer riots in a tumultuous blow-in, or dreams purple fancies of a logger's heaven ruled by a beneficent god such as the good and great Paul Bunyan. He is no longer the outcast, the timber beast* he is the everyday skilled American workman, prosperous and proud.

In The Blazed Trail 2there is the lumberjack true to life.

He refused to work for the foreman who was vacillating in his commands* but he sacrificed hia winter»s pay for Harry Thorpe,

the boss who loved him and drove him. He respected stern auth­

ority and fought with staunch loyalty for the rights of his

company. He gladly gave up a week's earnings to fill a purse

for the young widow of an unfortunate comrade, and with cool

resourcefulness he saved the life^of a fellow workman. When

the day's work was over, he relaxed around the camp fire* and

his shanty-boy songs mingled with the discordant notes of the

fiddle and with the wind in the pines.

The Rivenaan.8 devoted entirely to one phase of lumbering,

the drive, is filled with pictures of lege, jams, booms, feuds,

1 James Stevens, "The Passing of the Timber Beast," in Western Prose and Verse, edited by Rufus A. Coleman, p, 357. 2 By Stewart Edward White . -e-

and underhanded plots,. The rivermn was Intensely loyal to a leader who showed authority and demanded obedience# tile

"constant heavy lifting made him as hard as nails and as strong as a horse; the continual demand on his agility In riding the lode kept him active and prevented him from be­ coming muscle-bound; in his wild heart was not the least trace of fear of anything that walked, crawled, or flew# And he was as tireless as machinery, and apparently as indif­ ferent to punishment as a man case in Iron#"34

Following the main drive was the rear-crew, which was about "forty in number and had been picked from the best- a hard­ bitten, touch band of veterans weather-beaten, scarred in numer­ ous fights or by the backwoods scourge of small-pox, compact, muscular, fearless, loyal, cynically aloof from those not of their cult, outspoken and free to criticise- in short, men to do great things under the strong leader, and to mutiny at the end of three days under the weak".

Among those whose labor Whittier wished to dignify he chose the lumberman and included in his picture the Isolation of the woodsman's life.

"Make me here our camp of winter; And, through sleet and enow, Pitchy knot and beechen splinter On our hearth shall glow, tiers, with mirth to lighten duty, 'uo shall lack alone Woman's smile and girlhood's beauty, Childhood's lisping tone.

Not for us the measured ringing From the village spire, Not for us the Sabbath singing Of the sweet-voiced choir; Ours the old, majestic temple, Where God's brightness shines Down the dome so grand and ample, Propped by lofty pinesI"5

3 Stewart Edward White, The Riverman, p. 61. 4 • . Ibid, p. 196.

5 "The Lumbermen" in Poetical Works, Yol. Ill, p, 299. 9

An unusual reflection of the lumberjack's life is found in the shanty-boy songs collected by Franz Riokaby. Al­ though the songs sung in the camp included some about the sea, the battlefield, and the prize-ring, much the larger number was concerned with life in the woods. Handed on ©rally these songs were inevitably changed as the men shifted from camp to camp, and an interesting number of variants arose. Mr.

Riokaby has included some of these variants as well as the music written on a single staff. The subjects include such as the faithlessness of a maiden, death in a log jam, the shanty-man' s alphabet, advice to save money, and the shanty- man's life. The general characteristics of the songs are

illustrated in a ballad of thirteen stanzas, "The Banks of

the Little Eau Pleine.,,s A young school-ma'am is mourning

the departure of her lover.

"Alas, my dear Johnny has left me, I'M afraid I shall see him no more. He's down on the lower Wisconsin, He's pulling a fifty-foot oar. He went off on a fleet with Ross Gamble And has left me in sorrow and pain* And 'tis over two months since he started From the banks of the Little Eau Pleine."

The pathos in this stanza is followed by bite of humor in

three stanzas of description, of which the first is typical.

"His pants were made out of two meal-sacks, \7ith a patch a foot square on each knee. His shirt and his jacket were dyed with The bark of a butternut tree.

6 Franz Riokaby, Ballade and Songs of the Shanty-Boy, pp. 25- 33. -10

•He wore a large open-faced ticker With almost a yard of steel chain, When he went away with Ro b ® Gamble From the banks of the Little ®au Plains.•

When the poor school ma'am learns that Johnny has been drown­ ed she hopes for vengeance upon hie bos®.

"My curses light on you, Ross Gamble, For taking ay Johnny away. I hope that the ague will seize you, And shake you down into the clay. May yoiir lumber go down to the bottom, And never rise to the surface again. You had no business taking John Murphy Away from the Little Eau Pleine."

Of all lumbermen none is dearer to the American heart than Paul Runyan, the gargantuan logger and magnificent here of the Worth woodc, whose legend, developed in the lumber oampo, had it® origin in Paul Bunyon, the Frenoh-O&nadian of the Papineau Rebellion. The American® took him from the

Canadians*

"they gave him Babe, the blue ox who measured forty-two ax handles and a plug of chewing tobacco between the horns; they created the marvelous mythological logging camp, with its cookhouse of mountainous size and history of Olympian feats; and they made Paul Bunyan an inventor, an orator, and an industrialist, whose labors surpassed those of herculeo." 7

James Stevens collected the legends afloat in the lumber oamps and wove them into a story full of high Imagination, great fantasy, and humorous detail. He has followed Paul Bunyan from the days when he, as a solitary student, did his figur­

ing with the charred end of a pine trunk, to the time when he

turned away from Ford Fordsen with the conviction that he had

7 James Stevens, Paul Bunyan. p. 4. -11

no place in a life that contained, donkey engine! and a ten- hour working day. 12

The Lumberjack at Work®

Meantime the euwyere were busy. "ach pair of men ##- looted a tree, the first they encountered over the blazed line of their "forty"• After determining in which direction it was to fall, they set to work to chop a deep gash in that side of the trunk.

Tom Brosdhe&d and Henry Paul picked out a tremendous pine which they determined to throw across a little open space in proximity to the travoy road. One stood to right, the other to left, and alternately their axes bit deep. It warn a beautiful sight this, of experts wielding their tools. The craft of the woodsman means incidentally much a free swing of the shoulders and hips, such a directness of stroke as the blade of one sinks accurately in the gash made by the other, that one never tires of watching the grace of it. Tom glanced up as a silor looks aloft.

"She’ll do, Hank," he said.

The two then with a dozen half clips of the ax removed the inequalities of the bark from the saw’s path. The long, flexible ribbon of steel began to sing, bending so adaptably to the hands and motions of the men manipulating, that it did not seem possible so mobile an instrument could cut the rough pine. In a moment the song changed timber. Without a word the men straightened their backs. Tom flirted along the blade a thin stream of kerosene oil from a bottle in his hip pocket, and the sawyer’s again bent to their work, swaying back and forth rythmieally, their muscles rippling under the texture of their woolens like those of a panther under its skin. The cuter edge ef the saw-blade disappeared.

"Better wedge her, Tom," advised Hank.

They paused while, with a heavy sledge, Tom drove a tri­ angle of steel into the crack made by the sawing, This pre­ vented the weight of the tree from pinching to the saw, which is a ruin at once to the instrument and the temper of the filer. Then the rhythmical z-z-zi z-z-si again took up its song.

When the trunk was nearly severed, Tom drove another and thicker wedge.

"Timberi" hallooed Hank in a long-drawn melodious call

8 Stewart Edward White, The Blazed Trail, pp. 10-15. 13

that melted through the woods into the distance. The sweepers ceased work and withdrew to safety.

But the tree stood obstinately upright. So the saw leap­ ed back and forth a few strokes more.

nCrackt" called the tree.

Hank cooly unhooked his saw handle, and Tom drew the blade through and out the other side.

The tree shivered, then leaned ever so slightly from the perpendicular, then fell, at first gently, afterwards with a crescendo rush, tearing through the branches of other trees, bending the small timber, breaking the smallest, and at last hitting with a tremendous crash and bang which filled the air with a fog of small twigs, needles, and the powder of snow, that settled but slowly. There is nothing more Impressive than thie rush of a pine top, excepting it be a charge of cavalry or the fall of Eiagara. Old woodsmen sometimes shout aloud with the mere excitement into which it lifts them.

Then the swampers, who had by now finished the travoy road, trimmed the prostrate trunk clear of all protuberances. It required fairly skillful ax work. The branches had to be shaved close and clear, and at the same time the trunk must not be gashed. And often a man was forced to wield his in­ strument from a constrained position.

The chopped branches and limbs had now to be dragged clear and piled. While this was being finished, Tom and Hank mark­ ed off and sawed the log lengths, paying due attention to the necessity of avoiding knots, forks, and rotten places. Thus some of the logs were eighteen, some sixteen, or fourteen, and some only twelve feet in length.

Hext appeared the teamsters with their little wooden sledges, their steel chains, and their tonga. They had been helping the skiddero to place the parallel and level beams, or skids, on Which the logs were to be piled by the side of the road. The tree which Tom and Hank had just felled lay upon a gentle slope from the new travoy read, so little Fa­ bian Laveque, the teamster, olamped the bito of his tongs to the end of the largest, or butt, leg.

"Alles, Molly1" he cried.

The horse, huge, elephantine, her head down, nose close to her chest, Intelligently spying her steps, moved. The log half rolled over, olid three feet, and menaced a stump.

"Gee!" cried Laveque 14-

Molly stepped twice directly sideways, planted her fore foot on a root she had seen and pulled sharply. The end of the log slid around the stump,

"Allez!" commanded Laveque.

And Molly started gingerly down the hill. She pulled the timber, heavy as an iron safe, here and there through the brush, missing no steps, making no false moves, backing, end finally getting out of the way of an unexpected roll with the ease and intelligence of Laveque himself, In five min­ utes the burden lay by the travoy road. In two minutes more one end of it had been rolled on the little flat wooden sledge and, the other end dragging, it was winding majestically down through the ancient forest. The little Frenchman stood high on the forward end. Holly stepped ahead carefully, with the strange intelligence of the logger’s horse. Through the tall, straight, decorative trunks of trees the little convoy moved with the massive pomp of a dead warrior’s cortege. And lit­ tle Fabian Laveque, singing, a midget in the vantneee, typi­ fied the indomitable spirit of these conquerors of a wilderness.

J When Molly and Fabian had travoyed the log to the skid­ way, they drew it with a bump across the two parallel skids, and left it there to be rolled to the top of the pile.

Then Mike HcCrOvern and Bob Stratton and Jim Gladys took charge of it. Hike and Bob were running the oant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the great pile of logs already deck­ ed . A slender, pliable steel chain, like a gray snake, ran over the top of the pile and disappeared through a pulley te an invisible horse,- Jenny, the mate of Holly. Jim threw the end of this chain down. Bob passed it ever and under the log and returned it to Jim, Who reached down after it with the hook of his implement. Thus the stick of the tim­ ber rested in a long loop, one end of which led to the invisi­ ble horse, and the other Jim made fast to the top of the pile. He did so by jamming into another log the steel swamp-hook with which the chain was armed. When all was made fact, the horse started.

"She’s a bumper!" said Bob. "Look out, Mike I "

The log slid to the foot of the two parallel poles laid slanting up the face of the pile. Then it trembled on the ascent. But one end stuck for an instant, and at once the log took on a dangerous slant, tyiick as light Bob and Mike sprang forward, gripped the hook# of the cant-hooks, like great thumbs and forefingers, and, while one held with all his power, the other gave a sharp twist upward. The log straightened. It was a master feat of power, and the knack -15- of applying atrengtb Justly*

At the top of the little Incline, the timber hovered for a second.

"One morel" sang out Jim to the driver. He poised, stepped lightly up ahd over, and avoided by the safe hair's breadth being crushed when the log roiled. But it did not lie quite straight and even. So Hike cut a short thick block, and all three stirred the heavy timber sufficiently to admit of the billet's insertion.

Then the chain was thrown down for another.

Jenny, harnessed only to a straight short bar with a hook in it, leaned to her collar and dug in her hoofs at the word of command. The driver, close to her tail, held fast the slender steel chain by an ingenious hitch about the ever- useful swamp-hook. When Jim shouted "whoa!" from the top of the skidway, the driver did not trouble to stop the horse,- he merely let go of the hook. So the power was shut off suddenly, as is meet and proper in such ticklish business. He turned and walked back, and Jenny, like a dog, without the necessity of command, followed him in slow patience.

How name Dyer, the sealer, rapidly down the logging road, a small slender man with a little, turned-up mustache. The men disliked him because of hie affectation of a city smartness, and because he never ate with them, even when there was plenty of room. Badway had confidence in him because he lived in the same shanty with him. This one fact a good deal explains Radway's character. The sealer's duty at pre­ sent was to measure the diameter of the legs in each skidway, and so compute the number of board feet. At the off ice he tended van, kept the books, and looked after supplies.

He crossed the skidway swiftly, laid his flexible rule across the face of each log, made & mark on his pine tablets in the column to which the log belonged, thrust the tablet in the pocket of hie coat, seised a blue crayon, in a long holder, with which he made an 8 as indication that the log had been scaled, and finally tapped several times strongly with a sledge hammer. On the face of the hammer in relief was an M inside of a delta. This was the company's brand, and so the log was branded as belonging to them. He swarmed all over the skidway, rapid and absorbed, in strange contrast of activity to the slower power of the actual skid­ ding. In a moment he moved on to the next scene of opera­ tions without having said a word to any of the men.

"A fine t'ingt" said Mike spitting.

So day after day the work went on. Radway spent his •IS*

time tramping through the woods, figuring on new work, shew­ ing the men how to do things better or differently, disouss- ing minute expedients with the blacksmith, the carpenter, the ooek.

, He was not without hie troubles. First he had not enough men; the snow lacked, and then came too abundantly; horses fell sick of colic or caulked themselves; supplies ran low unexpectedly; trees turned out ”punk"| a certain bit of ground proved soft for travoying, and so on. At eleotion-time, of course, a number of the men went out.

And one evening, two days after election-time, another and important character entered the north woods and our story.

Supplementary Reading List

Riekaby, Franz, Ballads and Songs of the Shanty-Boy. This

collection of songs which the lumberjack sang in the

evening around the camp stove describes his life as

he saw it. Some of the songs are funny, others sad.

The music for many of them is given,

Stevens, James, Paul Runyan. Paul Bunyan was a giant who

started the lumbering industry in America and carried

it clear aoroee the continent. He used a pine tree to

brush hie beard, and charred the end of a tree trunk to

use as a pencil. One of his achievements was logging

the Mountain That Stood On Its Head. Babe, the blue

ox, helped him in his work.

White, Stewart Edward, The Blazed Trail. In this story of

life in the Michigan lumber camps, Harry Thorpe succeeds

in making his way in the lumber business in spite of

the opposition of the unscrupulous firm of Morrison and

Daly. -17-

White, Stewart Edward. The Rlveraaa. Jack Orde, a rivemaa,

and Joe Hewm&rk, a lawyer, organize a company for driving

log# down the river* When Bewmark work® against his

partner, Orde forces him to leave. The story present#

a good picture of the dangers and difficulties of the

drive.

Whittier, John Oreenleaf, The Lumbermen. A short poem.

Whittier describe# the work of the lumbermen and the beauty of the forest. - 18-

THE STAOECOACH DRIVER

The modern motor bus seeming along over broad oonorete highways is an enlarged, improved descendant of the rattling, picturesque old stagecoach that onoe afforded the only swift means of road transportation. The old stage had to give way to the faster, more comfortable railroad, but traffic on

the highway is returning to its own again with the ease and

convenience of motor travel.

Stagecoach traffic when at its height covered the coun­

try with its short local lines and its long overland routes.

Shortly before the coming of the railroad one hundred six

coach lines ran out of Boston,1 2 and the famous Butterfield

stages traveled across the continent. These ran eight times

a month from St. Louis to San Francisco, charging two hundred

dollars per person for the outgoing trip and one hundred and

fifty dollars for the return.^ Ben Holliday, the Jim Hill

of the stagecoach business, as manager cf transcontinental

linee> built up an astonishing volume of traffic which was

gradually absorbed by the railroad inevitably threading its

lines westward.

The traveler was always interested in the driver who

on the local lines was usually a rubicund prosperous fellow,

often owner or part owner of the stage which he drove,

1 Richardson Wright, Hawkers and Walkers, p. 132. 2 Rufus A. Coleman, ed., Western Prose and Poetry, p. 222. Since he covered the same territory every day, he acquired a close personal acquaintance with the people living along his route and carried out many commission# for them. He became a bearer of messages and money, a collector and payer of bills. Any papers or messages entrusted to his safe-keeping or delivery were usually carried about in his large felt hat.

Uncle Jo Cheatle^ and Jeremiah Cobb4 are representative of this group. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century Uncle Jo drove the Alderbury, Vermont, stage. Hie kindly interest centered in lonely Twiddle Lewis and crippled

Hugh Armstrong living in isolation on the top of ’Lympue. He was their only means of communication with the outside world and was of such importance in Twiddle’s life that no matter what the weather she never failed to walk down the Penthouse

Road to see the stage and greet Uncle Jo. He in turn never failed to let her know that he was coming and sounded his horn four times as he climbed the winding road. One afternoon in fall a solitary passenger, having just descended from the stage, turned back for a picture of Uncle

Jo and the Hornet.

"The driver of the Alderbury stage for a quarter of a century, slowly removed his straw hat, and drawing from its orewn a new bandana, wiped and polished the bald, pink dome of his skull till it shone like a billiard ball; then he carefully folded and replaced it, put on his hat, and gathering up the

5 Mary E. Waller, The Wood-Carver of 'Lymous. 4 Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Stmnybrook Farm. 80

clack of the reins, gave vent to a series of sputtering wheezes which were accompanied by varied and curious contor­ tions of his rotund body. They might have continued indef­ initely, had not the leader on the off side chosen that in­ opportune moment to make known his equine displeasure at the pretensions of a mammoth turkey that, appearing around the corner of the house, suddenly claimed the whole road, and dis­ played the full circle of his tail and the entire register of his powerful gobble.

"Amid imprecations full and free, the frenetic crack­ ings of the whip, the all-pervasive gobble of the terrified turkey, and the gymnastics of the leader on the off side, the yellow-bodied Hornet disappeared in a whirl of dust down the road."6

Jeremiah Cobb was the faithful friend of Rebeoea Randall from the time he brought the little ten-year-eld girl from

Maplewood to Riverboro in the dusty old stageooaoh, to the time of her graduation from Wareham Academy six years later.

When she first saw him on that eventful day in May he "was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing eight of the fact that he carried mail. The hills were many, and the reins lay loosely in his hands as he lolled back in his scat and extended one foot and leg luxuriously over the dashboard. His brimmed hat of worn felt was pulled over his eyes, and he revolved a quid of tobacco in his left cheek."*

Through all Rebeooa1s difficulties with her Aunt Miranda he understood and advised her and knew how to sympathise with her on the last trip to the brlokhouse for Aunt Miranda's funeral.

The driver, particularly of the Western stage, was fond

of whipping up M s horses and entering a town with a clatter

------Mary E. Waller, 2&e Wood-Carver of 'Lympus. p. 14. 6 Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of aunnrbrook Farm, p.3. X

-al­

and daoh that drew all people to doors and windows to see his approach.

"We always ran out when we heard it come- The ohuflk-a-leok of the ooaeh and the thrum Of hooves - barnboya, drummers, ohaabermaid- For it was a sight as it swooped down the grade At the end of the old Calapooia trail$ The yellow-wheeled stage of the Limited Mail, Harness and buckles and doubletrees spun Of silver and jet in the setting sun; The three pairs of horses as galloping-whits As foam on a mountain torrent at night. We could soon see the driver - he was belted to place On the high rocking seat of the theroughbraee- Rising to give them the silk; heard him shout As the length of his thirty-foot lash cracked out Over the withers and haunchest How the pebbles sprayed From the pounding feet at the fusillade! As if they were shod, not with iron, but with wings. The leads skimmed the road, the lather-flecked swings Pressing them close, and riding their hocks The lumbering wheels striking fire from the rooks. And always we cheered when they whirled through the gate To the steps of the station with never a wait For lessening of speed - the sudden stop peeling Half moons in the sod, the brakeshoe squealing, Barnboye already unhooking the traces • Before the passengers stepped from their places. While the guard leapt off the boot with a gun Packing the mailsacks and "dust" on the run, The driver lighting a big black cigar. Mustaches a-twirl, strode in to the bar. And the keeper with many a jovial sally Boomed out a welcome to Umpqua valley. Then the station door slammed to on the din- The Six-Horse Limited Kail was in!"'

The Yuba Bill stories of Bret Hete leave unforgettable

impressions of the early stage and its driver. "Profane

Bill" appears frequently, but nowhere does one get such a

7 Ethel Homing Fuller, "The Six-Horse Limited Mail",in Western Prose and Poetry, edited by Rufus A. Coleman, p. 823. 22

8 varied glimpse of him as in "Higgles". The stage which he had been driving skilfully through a storm had been stopped by high water both in the front and the rear. To reach a hotel was impossible and Bill was advised by a voice out of the wet darkness to try Higgles1s. When their knocking at the barred and boarded gate was unanswered, Bill, angry and determined, battered down the structure with a stone. Ho answered any ob­ jections to this proceeding with fine irony. When Higgles, a handsome young woman, appeared, poor Bill was completely de­ moralized. He fetched and carried for her and like Caliban

bore in logs for this Miranda. During the night when they

rolled up in their blankets and slept in the one long room,

Bill, reclining on his elbow, with savagely patient eyes kept

watch.

Hark Twain supplies us with an excellent picture of the

driver of the overland coach.

"Next in real and official rank and importance, after the conductor, came my delight, the driver - next in real but not in apparent importance- For we have seen that in the eyes of the common herd the driver was to the conductor as an admiral is to the captain of the flag ship. The driver's beat was pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations pretty short, sometimes; and so, but for the grandeur of hia posi­ tion hie would have been a sorry life, as well as a hard and a wearing one. We took a new driver every day or every night (for they drove backward and forward over the same piece of road all the time), and therefore we never got as well acquaint ed with them as we did with the conductors; and besides, they would have been above being familiar with euoh rubbish as passengers, anyhow, as a general thing. Still, we were al­ ways eager to get a sight of each and every new driver as soon as the watch changed, for each and every day we were

8 Bret Harte, "Higgles",in The Luck of Roaring Camp and *3

either anxious to get rid of an unpleasant one, or loath to part with a driver we had learned to like and had come to be sociable and friendly with. And so the first question we asked the eondtaetor whenever we got to where we were to ex­ change drivers, was always, “Which is him?" The grammar was faulty, maybe, but we could not know, then, that it would go into a book some day. As long as everything went smoothly, the Overland driver was well enough situated, but if a fellow driver got sick suddenly it made trouble, for the coach must ge on, and so the potentate who was about to climb down and take a luxurious rest after his long night's siege in the midst of wind and rain and darkness, had to stay where he was and do the sick man's work. Ones in the Rocky Mountains, when I found a driver sound asleep on the box, and the mules going at the usual break-neck pace, the conductor said never mind him, there was no danger, and he was doing double duty- had driven seventy-five miles on one coach, and was now going back over it on this without rest or sleep. A hundred and fifty miles of holding back of six vindictive mules and keep­ ing them from climbing the trees I It sounds Incredible, but I remember the statement well enough." *

9 Samuel L. Clemens, Roughing, It, pp. 66-6*. 24-

tlnclo Jo Cheatle and the Hornet 10

The yellow glory of the stage-coach still illumines some of the valley reads in rural Hew England, and still by means of it, if one bestir himself betimes, he may overtake that Past which is fleeing from us with accelerated speed.

This is especially true of the larger river valleys of our Horth Country. Here the feur-horse coach still swings oumbersomely on its antiquated leathers and, rolling and pitching like a lumberman’s lugger in the La Chine rapids, lunges along the post-roads ef northern end Central Vermont.

At regular intervals the horses stop to water at some roadside trough of hollowed log, or stone, or iron in the shape of a huge sap-kettle. At noon there is always the hour’s halt at some wayside tavern- two thirds horse-sheds and one third dilapidated dwelling, of which the greater part on the ground floor is given over to the barn-like of­ fice, the colorless monotony of its sanded floor relieved here and there by accidence of reds and browns in wooden chairs and earthen spittoons, in a pot or two of hardy blos­ soming geranium, and the leaping flame in the depths of a cavernous fireplace.

Here and there during the thirty miles of posting the stage stops at a farmhouse, and mystifying packages are left at the gate or door. Here and there in a woods’-road or on a hilltop the driver draws rein and winds a blast on his tin horn that wakens a sevenfold echo among the green heights, and summons the dwellers on the •’back farms" to the rough box nailed.to guide-post, cross-roads’ tree, or fence that still serves for the rural post.

On an afternoon in mid-September, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred.and ninety-, the state from Alderbury was slowly climbing from terrace to terrace of the overlap­ ping foot-hills of the Green Mountains, with now and then a galloping spurt on the short levels. The Hornet, yellow­ bodied, banded with black, was empty save for a heterogeneous collection of bags, boxes, and packages piled higgledy- piggledy on the floor and seats. Several plethoric sacks of burlap leaned their top-heavy weight against the old-fash­ ioned back strap of the middle seat, and lurched and lunged

10 Mary Ella Waller, The Wood-Carver of ’Lyiapus. pp. 3-9. with the ohop-eea motion of the lumbering vehicle, but always righted themselves at the critical moment of unstable equili­ brium.

It was so late in the season, and the passengers so rare, that the outside coats- that vantage ground for travellers- had been removed and the space filled with freight, among which were two orates of Rhode Island Red pullets, a woven- wire cot of peculiar construction, and a newly weaned pig in a grocery box. There was but one passenger, who sat on the seat by the driver.

They had been several hours on the road, following the White Branch of the Connecticut upwards to its source in the still uninvaded forest belt. The hill-slopes behind the val­ ley farms, through which they passed, were gay with hundreds of hop-pickers in their red and white head-kerchiefs, their plaid shoulder-shawls or blue-jean blouses. To the traveler, looking upward to the slopes from the road, the poles with their largess of rioting vine and delicate green blossoms seem­ ed to lean from out the clear, sun-filled sky of deep blue. Shout, and laughter, and waving of kerchiefs and eunbonnets greeted the passing of She Hornet.

Farther On, the entire population of the small factory village of Seowsville swarmed at the noon hour before the one store in the place- “department" on a small scale, and post- office and barber's shop to boot- to await the arrival of the AJL&erbury stage. Five miles beyond, on the elope that rises behind the Bend,- that sharp turn of the mighty White Branch at right angles to the north, where it rushes downwards through the straight five miles of mountain gorge,- lay the deserted hem- let of the Old Church Settlement: a half dozen of dilapidat­ ed houses clustered about the hbandoned House of Cod and its well-filled graveyard. The white walls and white headstones dominated the valley below, east and west, for miles.

At sight of it the driver, whose loquacity was spasmodic, grew reminiscent. He shifted the quid of tobacco from hie right cheek to his left and, turning to the passenger, pointed with his whipstock upwaras to the church.

"Ther ain't been er weedin' th&r sense I was knee high t'er grasshopper, 'n' the las' bur*al but one wuz er double one.* He slowly gathered up the slack of the reins to give the man a chance to put a question. He had not miscalculated.

"When was that?” sail the stranger, but indifferently.

"Twenty-two year ago come Chris'muc - two on 'em ter -S6-

enoil Beat all how Si Priadle»a fam’ly petered out: Jest as nice er set er boya «n» gals ez er man oould raise, *n‘ all on 'em, 'oept one, layin' five foot under ground. Ain't but two young una left, 'a' they're kinder oollat'rals; one's er grandson, 'n* t'other's his youngest gal's niece-in- law, or, I guess, out-er-the-law."

Again he jerked hie whipstock, but backwards to the slope below them, for the horses were pulling up a steep rise to an upper mountain terrace.

"Jule was Si's oldest gal, smarter'n er steel trap, 'a* harnsome too. She married er feller over'a York state- oity chap I heerd, «n' lived in Troy; xmz studyin' tor be er minister, 'n« went inter er decline arter they'd been mar­ ried nigh enter two year. Jule hid ter do the supportin'- likely 'nough she wus willin'; fer I heerd 'em tell down ter Scoweville, that she said she warn't goin' ter marry nobody but er perfeseional ef she hed ter work for her livin’ ter do it.” He paused for another question, but it was not forth­ coming.

"Guess likely she done it fast enough; 'cos *t warn't more'a two months arter he died that they brought 'em both up here ter bury, him 'n' her. He'd been in er tomb t'll then. \7e Hain't got no receivin' tomb up here," he added as an afterthoughta Then suddenly seizing the post-horn from its leathern socket, he sent forth so powerful a note that the green heights rang with prolonged echoes, and the leader on the off side showed his heels above the traces and pulled bravely up on the bits.

"This is the fourth time since we left Scoweville that this instrument of yours has rivalled the last Trumpet in sound, and yet I haven't seen a living soul nor a living thing but that old crow on the fence that those swallows are tor­ menting. Where is everybody?* said the stranger.

The man chuckled. "Thet's ay special fer Soaebody- ye'll see in er minute." He handed the reins to the stran­ ger. - "Jest hold enter them ribbons, will yer? It'll take mo quite a spell ter git the thing ter be hauled up the Pent Road; but she's alius on han'- look er thar! What'd I tell ye?"

The state had drawn up beneath a butternut tree that stood in the angle formed by the highway and the Pent Road that trailed its grass-grown, rooky length over the undulat­ ing pasture slopes, through acres of sweet fern and ground- hemlock, around dense growths of spruce-bush, but up, ever up, to the dark forest belt on the mountain top, where it was lost to sight in a narrow clearing. Between the turn- 86

"Don't ye b ’lieve it, Twiddle; ef 'taint fer your folks * taint fer nobody on 'Lympus. " He took the reins from the stranger, and swung the whiplash at arm's length with such professional skill that the one sharp crack sounded like the report of a pistol and, at the same moment, the leader on the off side felt the stinging clip of the cracker on the tip of his right ear. The horses strained to the steep bill before them, and the stranger, looking back, saw the child still standing motionless beneath the butternut tree, gaming, as if fascinated, at the envelope in her hand.

Supplementary Reading List

Clemens, Samuel L., Roughing It. fcark Twain tells of hie ear­ ly experiences in Nevada.

Harte, Bret, "Higgles", A short story. The passengers of a

stageooaeh, unable to go on because ef high water, re­

main over night with Wiggles, a young woman living la

the wilderness, taking care of a paralytic old man, and

having as a companion Joaquin, a half-grown bear.

Waller, Mary 311a, The Wood-Carver of 'Lympus. Hugh Armstrong,

a young man of twenty-one, is permanently injured by a

falling tree and the lower part of hi® body is paralyzed.

He becomeo interested in wood carving, makes many friends

through his work, and helps to pay for the farm.

Wiggln, Kate Douglas, Rebecca of Sunavbrook Farm. One Sept­

ember morning Rebecca Randall went to live with two

maiden aunts. There she caused many disturbances,

for she was no more accustomed to strict discipline

than the aunts were to care-free little girls. pike and these woodlands the Pent Road, where it intersected fences or stone walls, was crossed by four sets of bars. As the passenger's eyes followed the direction indicated by the driver's whipstock, he was aware of a little figure that lightly leaped the bare nearest the road, and cane racing down the long, steep slope to the butternut tree with the unshod se­ curity of a fawn *

"Jest in time * Twiddle," said the driver, as the child, stemming herself against her own impetus and extending both hands to break the force of the impact, brought up rather sud­ denly against the tree. “Here's the truck ye've been lookin' fer more'n or month- who*8 coinin' down for it?"

"Uncle Shim; - be them all ourn?"

She passed her lean, freckled hands rapidly along the in­ valid's adjustable cot the driver of the Hornet had just placed against the tree, and of which the stranger took note for the first time; she tugged impotently at the piece of sheep-twine that tied the mouth of one of the bulging bags deposited near it; then suddenly hoppety-skipping to the opposite aide of tie trunk she sprang with outstretched hrms at the sturdy bole, and, clasping it close, with the agility of a monkey shinned up to a limb that, at the reach of a man's arm, projected at a right angle to it. Thereon she balanced herself, swinging her bare, brown sticks of legs, and laughing gleefully in a clear, high voice at finding herself so nearly on a level with the astonished passenger on the box. He responded to her mirth with an en­ couraging smile and by lifting his hat* " 'N♦ that ain't all," said the stage-driver, as he climb­ ed to the top of the yellow-bodied Hornet,- "Ye fergot ter look inter yer poet-office- "

Hardly had he spoken the words before the child hung by her hands from the limb and dropped to the ground. The swift grace of the movement would have claimed the stranger's admir­ ation, even if M s attention had not been arrested by the sud­ den transfiguration of the peaked, yet healthily tinted face that, seen from above, looked like a vast freckle beneath a thatch of dark red hair, faded and sunburned.

Thrusting her arm into the opening of a narrow squirrel- bole in the trunk just above her head, she drew forth one yel­ low envelope. .

" 'Taint fer us?" she exclaimed in an awed, questioning voice, half-breathless In her sudden excitement. 89

fHE SPISSTIR

We of the twenttetii eentury have grown accustomed to see­ ing women engaged in business and professional life and realise with difficulty that a few generations ago only one vocation was considered proper for women, that of marriage. Every young woman was prepared from childhood for married life. She learned to perform the innumerable tasks included in home­ making and spent busy hours collecting a store of linens and household materials. In colonial times her ideal was that of

Evangeline, who had

"a olothee-prees Ample and high, on whose sp&oious shelves were carefully folded Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven. This was the preeioue dower she would bring to her husband in marriage, Better than flooks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife." 1

Later when commercial manufacture made spinning and weav­ ing unnecessary, her skill was manifested in fine hemming and embroidery. Whatever her work, she wove into it happy dreams of the future and a wish for their early fulfillment. Some­ times, unfortunately, these dreams were never realised, and

the poor maiden remained a spinster. Then her affection of­

ten centered upon her nieces and nephews. Lacking these,

she sometimes devoted herself to the needs of others or more

selfishly found contentment in some material thing.

,------'------— :------:------Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Evangeline", in Complete Poetical Works, p. 78. - 30-

The spiaeters in literature compose a varied group hav­

ing only two characteristics in common, their unmarried state and their devotion to some single object. Most famous, per­ haps, are the aunts of Whittier and Holmes, two woman as differ­

ent as the men who describe them. Whittier writes of his

aunt with tender affection and regrets her lonely condition.

"The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, And welcome wheresoe'er she went, A oalm and gracious element. Whose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home." 2

A perverse Fate was not responsible, however, for "the

one ungathered rose" on Holmes's ancestral tree. It was his

grandfather who, having made his daughter into the finest girl

possible, pretested her with his gun from desperate men. Only

the beet should have her, but even the best dared not approach.

The poor aunt continued to hope although her hair turned gray

and her eyeeight failed. The poem exemplifies the ability

of Holmes to mix tenderness and fun.3

Mias Hanoy Sawyer, "the old m i d who was everybody's

blessing", appears in The Hoosier School-Master. As Ralph

Hartsook's Sunday school teacher she taught him little as far

as information was concerned, but he learned from her the

great lesson of Christianity. When in need of a refuge for

John dreenleaf Whittier, "Snow-Bound", in Poetical Works, Vol. 11, p. 146. 3 Oliver Wendell Holmes, "My Aunt", in Poetical Works, pp 4-6. Shooky, the little orphan in his school, he turned to Kiss

Haney and was not disappointed. She

"was a providence, one of those old maids that are benedic­ tions to the whole town; one of those in wham the mother- love, wanting the natural objects on which to spend itself, overflows all bounds and lavishes itself on every needy thing, and grows richer and more abundant with the spending, a foun­ tain of inexhaustible blessing." 4

Using her as a standard, Eggleston concludes that, "There is

no nobler life possible to anyone than to an unmarried woman." 4

H. C . Banner1s little seemstress "lived in the story over

the top story of a great brick tenement house" in New York.

Although she was scarcely thirty years old she was such an old-

fashioned little thing Banner "almost spelled her sempstress

after the fashion of our grandmothers".5 She sewed during the day, but hurried home in the evening to enjoy her six pots

of geraniums blossoming bravely and to dream of her home in

the country. She received with trembling the mugs of porter

and the brief notes from the man next door. An effort to

correct hie spelling met with the am.wer that

"a bare is a mens animle any way you spel him."0

She desisted from further attempts and finally decided that

poor spelling is no drawback in a husband. 6*

Edward Eggleston, p. 192.

H. C . Banner, "The Love Letters of Smith", in Short Sixes. P. 71. 6 Ibid.,P. 82. Rebeeoa of Sunnybrook Farm had two aunts, Miranda and

Jane, who although between fifty and sixty years old were

still known to Riverboro as the Sawyer girls.

"Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of eourse, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and biroma­ ting of blood. She was just, conscientious, economical, and industrious| a regular attendant at ohuroh and Sunday- sohool, and a member of the State Missionary and Bible so­ cieties, but in the presence of all these chilly virtues you longed for one warm little fault, or lacking that,one likable failing, something to make you sure she was tho­ roughly alive." "

She concealed her affections always, and devoted her time to

a perfect performance of household trifles. Even when dis­

abled by a stroke and near death she worried about the scald­

ing of the ooffee-pot and the condition of Rebecca* a cash­ mere dress. But her sense of duty was deep, and having sent

Rebeeoa to sohoolj she kept her there uncomplainingly, although

her finances scarcely allowed it. Her affection manifested

itself in her bequest of the "briekhouse" to Rebeeoa.

Aunt Jane’s lover had been killed in the Civil War, and

this sorrow helped to make her kind,gentie, and understanding.

It is not surprising that Rebeeoa loved her, and Aunt Jane

returned this affection without reserve. The young girl

supplied her life with a motive which had been utterly lack­

ing before, and Jane found herself reliving her own youth

in the grswing child.

The Hew England spinster is brought to life in several

of Mary E. Wilkins’s stories. Louisa Ellis in "The Hew 7 Kate Douglas Wiggle, Rebeeoa of Sunnybrook Farm, p. 33. ** 35“

England Hun" waited fourteen years for her lever to return from Australia where he had gene to make his fortune. Dur­ ing thlo time she took pride in her immaculate home and de­ lighted in polishing, dusting, sewing fine seams, and dis­ tilling roses, When Joe Dagget returned, she dreaded any change in her smooth uneventful days. By accident she learn­ ed of his love for his mother’s housekeeper and in a diploma­ tic manner broke off her engagement.

"If louisa Ellis had sold her birthright, she did not know it; the taste of the pottage was so delicious, and had been her sole satisfaction for so long. Serenity and placid narrow­ ness had become to her as the birthright itself. She gazed ahead through a long reach of future days strung together like pearls in a rosary, every one like the others, and all smooth and flawless and innocent, and her heart went up in thankful­ ness. Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an un­ cloistered nun." 8

Candace Whitcomb who had been the soprano soloist in the ohureh choir for forty years was dismissed beoauee her voice was no longer true.

"To this obscure woman, kept relentlessly by circumstances in a narrow track, singing in the village choir had been as much as Italy was to Hapoleon . . . and now on her island of exile she was still showing fight." 9

In her anger she avenged herself upon her successor.

Haroissa Stone,10 past middle age, had been kept as a

drudge upon the farm by her tyrannical father, while her

lover, William Crane, waited patiently for her. After her

8 The Best Stories of Itarv E. Wilkins. Selected by Henry Upeham Lanier, p. 79. 9 Ibid., "The Village Singer", p. 161. 1(5 Ibid., "One Good Time", pp. 80-102. 34

father’e death, taking her mother and $1500, the insurance money, she went to Hew York for "one good time", the thing she had always craved. In six days she spent all she had, and more, on fine clothes, jewelry, and theaters. the big desire of her life fulfilled, she returned to her lever een- tent to spend the rest of her life upon the farm. ?

- 35-

A Hew England Hun11

It was late in the afternoon, and the light wao waning. There was a difference in the lock of the tree shadows out in the yard. Somewhere in the distance cows were lowing and a little bell was tinkling; now and then a farm wagon tilted by, and the dust flew; some blue-ehirted laborers with shovels over their shoulders plodded past; little swarms of flies were dancing up and down before the people's faces in the cdft air. There seemed to be a gentle stir arising over everything for the mere sake of subsidence- a very premonition of rest and hush and night. /

This soft diurnal commotion was over Louisa Ellis also. She had been peacefully sewing at her sitting-room window all the afternoon. How she quilted her needle carefully into her work, which she folded precisely, and laid in a basket with her thimble and thread and scissors. Louisa Ellis could not re­ member that ever in her life she had mislaid one of these little feminine appurtenanoee, which had become, from long use and con­ stant association, a very part of her personality.

Louisa tied a green apron round her waist, and got out a flat straw hat with a green ribbon. Then she went into the fo0 garden with a little blue crockery bowl to pick some currants for her tea. After the currants were picked she sat on the back doorstep and stemmed them, collecting the stems carefully in her apron and afterward throwing them into the hencoop. She looked sharply at the grass beside the step to see if any had fallen there.

Louisa was slow and still in her movements; it took her a long time to prepare her tea; but when ready it was set forth with as much grace as if she had been a veritable guest to her own self. The little square table stood exactly in the center of the kitchen, and was covered with a starched linen cloth whose border pattern of flowers glistened. Louisa had a damask napkin on her tea tray, where were arranged a cut- glass tumbler full of teaspoons, a silver cream pitcher, a china sugar bowl, and one pink china cup and saucer. Louisa used ohina every day- something which none of her neighbors did. They whispered about it among themselves. Their daily tables were laid with common crockery, thd-r sets of best china stayed in the parlor closet, and louisa Ellis was no richer nor better bred than they. Still she would use the

H Mary E. Wilkins, "A Hew England Hun", in The Best Stories, pp 65-69. — 36—

china. She had. for her supper a glass dish full of sugared currants, a plate of little cakes, and one of light white bis­ cuits. Also a leaf or two of lettuce, which she cut up daint­ ily. Louisa was very fond of lettuce, which she raised to per­ fection in her little garden. She ate quite heartily, though in a delicate, pocking way; it seemed almost surprising that any considerable bulk of the food should vanish.

After tea she filled a plate with nicely baked thin c o m oakee, and carried them out into the back yard. "Caesar!" she called. •Caeearl Caesarl" There was a little rush and the clank of a chain, and a large yellow-aad-white dog appeared at the door of his tiny hut, which was half hidden among the tall grasses and flevers. Louisa patted him and gave him the torn cakes. Then she re­ turned to the house and washed the tea things, polishing the china carefully. The twilight had deepened; the chorus of the frogs floated in at the open window wonderfully loud and shrill, and ones in a while a long sharp drone from a tree toad pierced it. Louisa took off her green gingham apron, disclosing a shorter one of pink-and-white print. She light­ ed her lamp, and sat down again with her sewing.

In about half an hour Joe Dagget Came. She heard his heavy step on the walk, and rose and took off her pink-and- white apron. Under that was still another- white linen with a little cambric edging on the bottom; that was Louisa's com­ pany apron. She never wore it without her ealloo sewing a- pron over it unless she had a guest. She had barely folded the pink-and-white one with methodical haste and laid it in a table drawer when the door opened arid Joe Dagget entered.

He seemed to fill up the whole room. A little yellow eanary that had been asleep in his green cage at the south win­ dow woke up and fluttered wildly, beating his little yellow wings against the wires. He always did so when Joe Dagget came into the room.

"Good evening," said Louisa. She extended her hand with a kind of solemn cordiality.

"Good evening, Louisa," returned the man in a loud voice. She placed a chair for him, and they sat facing each other, with the table between them. He sat bolt upright, toeing out his heavy feet squarely, glancing with a good- humored uneasiness around the room. She sat gently erect. 57

folding her slender hands in her white-linen lap.

"Been a pleasant day," remarked Dagget.

"Real pleasant," Louisa assented, softly. "Have you been haying?" she asked after a while.

"Yes, I've been haying all day, down in the ten-sore lot. Pretty hot work."

"It must be."

"Yes, it's pretty hot work in the sun."

"Is your mother well today?" "Yes, mother's pretty well."

"I suppose Lily Dyer's with her now?"

Dagget colored. "Yes, she's with her," he answered slowly.

He was not very young, but there was a boyish look about his large face. Louisa was not quite so old as he, her face was fairer and smoother, but she gave the impression of being older.

"I suppose she's a good deal of help to your mother," she said, further.

"I guess she is; I don't know how mother'd get along without her," Dagget said with a sort of embarrassed warmth.

"She looks like a real capable girl.. She's pretty-look­ ing, too," remarked Louisa.

"Yes, she is pretty fair looking." Presently Dagget began fingering the books on the table. There was a square red autograph album, and a Young Lady's gift Book which had belonged to Louisa's mother. He took them up one after the other and opened them; then laid them down again, the album on the Gift Book.

Louisa kept eyeing them with mild uneasiness. Finally she rose and changed the position of the books, putting the album underneath. That was the way they had been arranged in the first place. Dagget gave an awkward little laugh. "How what differ­ ence does it make whieh book was on top?" said he.

Louisa looked at him with a deprecating smile. “I al­ ways keep them that way," murmured she. .

"You do beat everything," said Dagget, trying to laugh again. Hie large face was flushed.

He remained about an hour longer, then rose to take leave. Going out, he stumbled over a rug, and trying to recover him­ self, hit Louisa's work basket on the table, and knocked it on the floor.

He looked at Louisa, then at the rolling spools? he duck­ ed himself awkwardly toward them, but she stopped him. "nev­ er mind," said she? "I'll pick them up after you're gone."

She spoke with a mild stiffness. Either she was a little disturbed, or his nervousness affected her and made her sees constrained in her effort to reassure M m .

When Joe Dagget was outside he drew in the sweet evening air with a sigh, and felt much as an innocent and perfectly well-intentioned bear might after his exit from a china shop.

Louisa, on her part, felt much as the kind-hearted owner of the china shop might have done after the exit ef the bear.

She tied on the pink, then the green apron, picked up all the scattered treasures and replaced them in her work bas­ ket and straightened the rug. Then she set the lamp on the floor and began sharply examining the carpet. She even rub­ bed her fingers over it, and looked at them.

"He's tracked in a good deal of dust," she murmured. "I thought he must have."

Louisa got a dustpan and brush, and swept Joe Dagget's tracks carefully. -39-

.Supplementary Reading List

Bunner, H. 0., "The Love-Letters of Smith9, A short story.

Although Smith lives in a room Just beside the one ooou-

pied by the little eeamatrees whom he want# to marry, he

carries on hie entire courtship in writing.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, "My Aunt”, A short humorous poem.

Holmes’s aunt has been brought up so carefully that her

father decides no ordinary man is to marry her. The

consequence is that she is not married at all.

Whittier, John Qreenleaf, "Snow-Bound", A long etory-poem.

Whittier tells what happened to the daily routine on

an old-fashioned farm during a eevere snow storm when

all outside activities had to cease.

Wiggin, Kate Douglas, Rebecca of Sunnvbrook Farm. "On® Sept­

ember morning Rebecca Randall went to live with two maid­

en aunts. There she caused many disturbances, for she

was no more,accustomed to strict discipline than the 12 aunts were to a care-free little girl."

Wilkins, Mary E., "A Hew England Nun," A short story. Al­

though her lover returns to her after an absence of

fourteen years, Louisa Ellis decides that she would

rather live alone keeping house by herself, polishing,

dusting, sewing, and distilling roses.

12 Leisure Reading, a List for Grades Seven, Eight, and Mine. Published by the National Council of Teachers of English, 1932, p. 15. Wilkins, Mary E., “One Good Time", A short story. lardisea

Stone, past middle age, wants "one good time". After

her father’s death she takes the insurance money, #1600

goes to Hew York, and spends it all in six days.

Wilkins, Mary 5., "A Village Singer", A short story. Candace

Whitcomb is asked to give up her position as soloist

in the village choir. In anger and grief she avenges herself upon her successor. - 41-

THK BLACKSMITH From the days when the smoke and cinders of Vulcan’s gigantic forges issued from the volcanic craters of southern

Europe up to the present age of speeding automobiles and cater­ pillar tractors, the skill of the smith has been regarded with admiration, and the man himself accorded a position of respect and influenee in his little community* what was true of

Basil Lajeunesse was true of the majority of blacksmiths. He was " a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men”$ 1

To which Longfellow adds:

"For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people."1

Longfellow evidently did not forsee a time when the

smithy would be replaced by tho filling station, when the

farmers lazily talking in the doorway would have disappeared,

and in their stead the tourist would sweep up to the gas pumps

hurriedly demanding high test or low test or ethyl.

The blacksmith shop with its ringing of iron against iron,

with its spot of flaming light and its shadowy corners, and

with its constant exhibition of muscular strength and skill,

always had its fascination for the passer-by. It attracted

particularly the boy or girl whose way to and from school

led by the open door. Gabriel and Evangeline were

I 1 :------Henry Wadsworth Longfellow."Evangeline^, in Complete Poetical Works, p. 74. 42-

not singular in their response to this attraetion when they

•hurried away to the forge of Basil the blacksmith. There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to behold him Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything. Sailing the shoe in its place$ while near him the tire of the oart-wheel Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the . gathering darkness Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny and. crevice, Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring bellows. And, as its panting oeased, and the sparks expired in the ashes. Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the chapel."* "The Village Blacksmith" was written by Longfellow in praise of one of his ancestors, the first Stephen Longfellow, a resident of Eewbury.

"The suggestion for the poem, how­ ever, came from the smithy which the poet, passed dally, and which stood beneath a horse-chestnut tree not far from his house in Cambridge.*3

Longfellow evidently saw in his blacksmith an ideal character, honest. Industrious, patient, and tender. Haw­ thorne presents a more human picture, for his smith could shake

"hia jolly sides with frequent laughter,1,4 but he could also be bitter against an unfair law. He was a man of property and was secure in his position in his own little world.*

I Ibid.,p. 74. 3 From the note preceding "The Village Blacksmith", in Com­ plete Poetical Works, p. 14. 4 H&tianiel Hawthorne, Passages from American Mote-books.p.142 * 43

Markham, the smith, a minor character in Drums, diaplay- his thin muscular anas and with a grin remarked that a man with

three daughters must keep fit to fight, both for his daughters

smd with them.** Years later he made guns during the Revolu­

tionary War, until the demand for men grew so great that he en­

listed. Although sixty-two years old, he decided that since he was not too old to make rifles, he was not too old to shoot one.® ;

Robert Herrick introduces the blacksmith in Together because he wants to portray a simple life decently lived, a

life that appears easy, human,and natural• Mr. Short did the

same thing day after day and had done it for thirty years.

Margaret Lawton, one of his guests, said of him," You'll hear him building the fires to-morrow before daylight. He is at hie shop at six-thirty, home at twelve, back again at one, milks the cows at five, and supper at six, bed at nine. Why,

it’s an Odyssey, that day,- as Mr. Short lives iti 1,7

Herrick saw something that Longfellow apparently neglect­

ed, the blacksmith as a social figure. Margaret Lawton * a

words must have been applicable to hundreds of smiths and

smithies.

"Mr. Short is the Grosvenor Times. His shop is the cen-5 6

5 James Boyd, Drums, p. 20. 6 IbidmP. 394. 7 Robert Herrick, Together, p. 439. ter of our universe. From It he eeea all that happens In our world - or his oronies tell him what he can't see. He knows what is going on in the remotest corner of the town- ship,- what Hiram Bailey got for his potatoes, where Bill King sold his apples, whether Mrs. Beane's second son has gobs to the Academy at White River. He knows the color and the power of every horse, the number of cows on every farm, the makes of every wagon,- everythingl” 6

■i-

8 Ibid., p. 438. —

The Village Blacksmith 9

Bader a spreading chestnut-tree Tli# village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty ma n is he, With large and sinei^ hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. ,

His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whatever he can, And looks the whole world in the face. For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night, You can hear his bellows blow; You can hear him swing hie heavy sledge, With measured beat a m slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell, When the evening sun is low.

And the children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the ohuroh. And sits among his boys; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter1s voice, Singing in the village choir. And it makes hie heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice. Singing in Paradisel He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes.

Tolling,- rejoicing,- sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; ,

9 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Complete Poetical Works, p.14. •46

Each morning sees some task begun. Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done. Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taughtl Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Baoh burning deed and thought. The Blacksmith!®

A blacksmith of fifty or upwards, a corpulent person, big in the paunch and enormous in the rear# yet there io suoh an appearance of strength and robustness in hie frame, that his corpulence appears very proper and necessary to him. A pound of flesh could not be spared from his abundance, any more than from the leanest man; and he walks about briskly, without any panting or symptom of labor or pain in hia motion. He has a round, jolly face, always mirthful and humorous and shrewd,and the air of a man well-to-do and well respected, yet not oaring much about the opinions of men, because his inde­ pendence is sufficient to itself. Fbbody would take him for a man of some importance in the community, though his summer dress is a tow-oloth pair of pantaloons, a shirt not of the cleanest,open at the breast, and the sleeves rolled up at the elbows, and a straw hat. There is not suoh a vast difference between this costume and that of Lawyer II— above mentioned, yet never was there a greater diversity of appearance than be­ tween these two men; and a glance at them would be sufficient to mark the difference. The blacksmith loves his glass, and Gomes to the tavern for it whenever it seems good to him, not calling for it slyly and shyly but marching steadily to the bar, or calling across the room for it to be prepared. He speaks with great bitterness against the new license law, and vows if it be not repealed by fair means it shall be by violence, and that he will be as ready to oook hie rifle for such a cause as for any other. On this subject his talk is really fierce; but as to all other matters he is good-natured and good hearted, fond of a joke, and shaking his jolly sides with frequent laughter. His conversation has much strong, unlettered sense, imbued with humor, as everybody’s talk io in Hew England.

He takes a queer position sometimes,- queer for his fig­ ure particularly,- straddling across a chair, facing the back, with his arms resting thereon, and his chin on them, for the benefit of conversing closely with some one. When he has spent as much time in the bar-room or under the stoop as he chooses to spare, he gets up at once, and goes off with a brisk, vigorous paoe. He owns a mill, and seems to be prosperous in the world. I know no man who seems more like a man, more in­ describably human, than this sturdy blacksmith.

TO Hathaniel Hawthorne, Passages from the American Hote-books, pp. 141-142. Supplementary Reading List

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Evangeline. A poem. When the

Arcadians were forced to leave Grand Pre, the two levers,

Evangeline and Gabriel, were separated. They spent their

lives in a weary search for one another, finally meeting

Just before Gabriel died. 49

THE SGHOOimSTER

The system of schools during American pioneer days was

exceedingly simple, but it answered the needs of the people.

In the home, the center of education in the earliest days,

some member of the family instructed on winter evenings in

the A B 0 ‘s and the oateohisa. Sometimes there was a school­ master who "boarded round" and set up hie school from place to

place as he went about. There were a few crude eohoolhoueee;

deserted log cabins and gin mills as well as private houses

often served in lieu of more appropriate places. The quali­

fications of the schoolmaster seldom demanded anything beyond reading, writing, and ciphering; this was true particularly

beyond the coast settlements where the teachers were better

known for their muscle than their brains.

Textbooks were few. Often the only one used was either

Dillworth's Guide to the English Tongue or Fennlna's Universal

Swelling Book.1 Later when Hoah Webster’s blueback speller

came into use, marked progress was made. Instead of a text­

book in arithmetic the master had his own "sum book" from

which the children copied their examples. Very few of them

succeeded in ciphering beyond the four fundamentals.

An examination of the daily plan of work reveals the

1 Harold Waldstein Fogt, The Rural Teacher and his Work, p.19. « SO-

limited ourrioulu*. After the opening of school in the morning

"the younger children would he busy keeping still or droning out their A B C ’s after the master, or studying them from an occasional horn book or revolving alphabet. Hext there would be reading from the Testament by the various classes. The rest of the morning period before recess would be devoted to preparing quills and copying, with a few minutes for writing. After recess the time was devoted chiefly to oral spelling. The afternoon was generally given over to more reading and spelling with some work in sums and weights and measures."2

With the closing of the pioneer period there developed the old-time district school which has been celebrated in poe­ try and story and has been idealised by those who harken back to the days of our grandfathers as the good old days. Tbs school to which Jack Dudley went belongs to this period.

"The village school-house was a long one built of red brick. It had taken the place of the old log institution in which one generation of Greembank children had learned reading, writing, and WebsterfB spelling-book. There were long, con­ tinuous writing-tables down the sides of the room, with back­ less benches, so arranged that when the pupil was writing his face was turned toward the wall- there was a door at each end, and a box stove stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a rectangle of four backless benches. These benches were for the little fellows who did not write, and for others when the o d d should drive them nearer the stove#

•The very worshipful master sat at the east end of the room, at one aide of the door; there was a blackboard - a new­ fangled notion in 1850- at the other side of the door. Some of the older scholars, who could afford private desks with lids to them, suitable for concealing smuggled apples and maple su­ gar, had places at the other end of the room from the master. This arrangement was convenient for quiet study, for talking on the fingers by signs, for munching apples or gingerbread, and for passing little notes between the boys and girls."3

Whittier's picture adds some interesting details.

8 Ibid., p. 19. 3 Edward Eggleston, The Hoosior School-Boy, p. 16. •Still sits the school-house by the road, A ragged beggar sleeping; Around it still the sumachs grow, And blackberry vines are creeping.

Within, the master’s desk is seen. Deep scarred by raps official; The warping floor, the battered seats. The jack-knife’s carved initial;

The charcoal freeeee# on the wall; Its door’s worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school. Went storming out to playingi *

Improvements were not confined to the building alone, but the course of study warn extended to include grammar, geog­ raphy, and a smattering of history, as well as reading, writ­ ing, spelling, and arithmetic. The number of daily classes was large, being limited as a rule only by the number and va­ riety of textbooks brought from home for school use. Since more than one hundred pupils were often crowded together in one of these small buildings, the master's problem of working out a satisfactory program was not an easy one.

The golden age of the district school lay between 1850 and the Civil War,6 for it was during this period that strong men teachers could be secured from the newly established col­ leges. They were frequently men of intelligence and culture and a wider vision, whose influence extended beyond the school- house into the community.

They supplied literature with interesting material.

7 •In School Days,” in Poetical Works. Vol. 11, p. 162. 5 Harold Waldstein Foght, The Rural Teacher and his Work. p .28 • -S8

Eggleetoa created two of this type in Ralph Harteook 6 and Mr.

WilliaiaB 7 and in contrast pictured Kr. Ball who, like lohabod

Crane, was a firm believer in frequent though somewhat partial applications of the blreh switch##. Ralph Harteeok, when ap­ plying for the Plat Creek school, made the disheartening dis­ covery that he was being measured by the standard of muscle and that he fell lamentably short. Determined to win over pure physical strength he planned to attack his problem with the tenacity of Bud Means’s bulldog. He contrived to secure the friendship of the leaders among the boys, tc foresee and forestall difficulties, and to cause plotters to fall into their own traps. Through "bearding round" he came upon evidence which led to the conviction of a band of organised robbers.

When young Mr. Williams earns to Greenb&nk, he had not only bullies to deal with, but he had to prove to the commun­ ity that teaching does not mean beating. A strong, quiet per­ sonality won most of the pupils to him; and a faculty for mak­ ing the bullies look rather ridiculous in the eyes of their schoolmates caused them to cease their annoyances. A sense of Justice and genuine interest drew his better pupils to hi* and held them.

Although Holmes’s primary interest in Elsie Venner is not in the country schoolmaster, he describee one situation

typical of that which the district school teacher often faced.

6— :------:— ;— In The Hoosier Schoolmaster. 7 In %he Hoosier School-Boy. Bernard Langdon, the new master, after demonstrating his sup­ erior pbyeieal strength"# e#a%u*ring the chief trouble-maker, found that he had subdued the entire- school.8

Ichabod Crane9 with his green glassy eyes, long spindle neck, and hands dangling a mile out of his sleeves is perhaps

the moot widely known of American schoolmasters, and the story of his encounter with the Headless Horseman has long been a

favorite with boys and girls.

In "Snow-Bound" Whittier describes a different type of

schoolmaster. He is the young university student spending

hie long winter vacation teaching in a country school. Al­

though during school hours he is the "brisk wielder of the

birch and rule", he sheds this dignity when his day's work is

over. During the stormy evening he tells of the world out-

eide and of books, making the scenes of literature familiar

to his unlettered listeners. He enters into the country life around him with zest and enjoyment. Whittier pays him this tribute$

"Large-brained, clear-eyed, of sneh as he Shall Freedom's young apostles be, Who, following in War's bloody trail, Shall every lingering wrong assail." 10

8 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Vezmer, pp 35-39. 9 Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", in Essays from the Sketch-Book, pp.32-73.

John Greenleaf Whittier, WSnow-Bound", in The Poetical Works. Vol. II, p. 149. Mr* Hartaook One morning, as Ralph walked toward the echoolhouoe, he met little Sheeky. What the boy's first name or last name was the teacher did not know. He had given his name as Shcoky and all the teacher knew was that he was commonly call­ ed Shocky, that he was an orphan, that he lived with a family named Pearson over in Rocky Hollow, and that he was the most faithful and affectionate child in the school. On this morn­ ing that I speak of Ralph had walked toward the school early to avoid the company of Hirandy, But not caring to sustain his dignity longer than was necessary, he loitered along the . road, admiring the trunks of the maples, and picking up a beechnut now and then. Just as he was about to go on toward the school, he caught sight of little Shocky running swiftly toward him, but looking from side to Side,, as if afraid of being soen.

"Well, Shocky, what is it?" and Ralph put his hand kind­ ly on the great bushy head of white hair from which came Shocky * s niokname. Shocky had to pant a minute.

"Why, Mr. Hart sock," he gaepe^, scratching his head, "they*s a pond down under the oehoolhouee," and here Shocky*s breath gave out entirely for a minute, "Yes, Shocky, I know that. What about it? The trustees haven't come to fill it up, have they?"

"Oh! no, sir| but Hank Santa, you know - " and Shocky took another breathing spell, standing as close to Ralph as he could, for poor Shcoky got all his sunshine from the mas­ ter's presence.

"Has Henry fallen in and got a ducking, Shocky?"

"Oh! no, sir; he wants to git you in, you see."

"Well, I won’t go in, though, Shocky."

■But, you see, he's been and gone and pulled back the board that you have to step on to git ahind your desk* he's been and gone and pulled back the board so as you can't help a-tippln' it up, and a-sowsin* right in ef you step there."

"And so you came to tell me." There was a huskiness in Ralph's voice. He had, then, one friend in Flat Creek dis­ trict- poor little Shocky. He put his arm around Shocky just

11 Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster, pp. 62-69. s moment, and then told him to hasten across to the other road, so as to come back to the school-house in a direction at right angles to the master's approach. But the eaution was not need­ ed. Shoeky had taken care to leave in that way, and was al­ together too cunning to be seen coming down the road with Mr, Harteook. But after he got over the fence to go through the "sugar camp" (or sugar orchard, as they say in the last), he •topped and turned baok once or twice, just to catch one more smile from Ralph. And then he hied away through the tall trees a very happy boy, kicking and ploughing the brown leaves be­ fore him in his perfect delight, saying over and over again$ "How he looked at me I How he looked at me! how he did look! " And when Ralph came up to the sohoolhouse door, there was Sheoky sauntering along from the other direction, throwing bits of limestone at fence rails, and smiling still clear down to his shoes at thought of the master's kind words.

"What a quare boy Shoeky is!" remarked Betsey Short, with a giggle. He just likes to wander round alone. I see him cornin' out of the sugar camp just now. He's been in there half an hour." And Betsey giggled again; for Betsey Short could giggle on slighter provocation than any other girl on Flat Creek.

When Ralph Harteook, with the quiet, dogged tread that he was cultivating, walked into the school-room, he took great care not to seem to see the trap set for him; but he careless­ ly stepped over the board that had been so nicely adjusted. The boys who were Hank's confidants in the plot were very busy over their slates, and took pains not to show their disappoint­ ment . The morning session wore on without Incident. Ralph several times caught two people looking at him. One was Mirandy. Her weak and watery eyes stole loving glances over m e top of her spelling-book, which she would not study. Her leeks made Ralph's spirits sink to forty below zero and con­ geal . But on one of the backless little benches that sat in the middle of the school-room was little Shoeky, who also east many love glances at the young master; glances as grate­ ful to his heart as Mirandy*s ogling -he was tempted to call it ogring- was hateful.

"Look at Shoeky," giggled Betsey Short behind her elate. "He looks as if he was goin? to eat the master up, body and soul."

And so the forenoon worn on as usual, and these who laid the trap had forgotten it themselves. The morning session 16'

was drawing to a close. The fire in the great old fire­ place had burnt low. The flames, which seemed to Shooky to be angele, had disappeared, and now the bright coals, which had played the part of men and women in Shocky•s fancy, had taken on a white and downy covering of ashes, and the great half-burnt back-log lay there smouldering like a giant asleep in a snow-drift. Shocky longed to wake him up.

As for Henry Santa, he was too much bothered to get the answer to a "Cum" he was doing to remember anything about his , trap. In fset, he had quite forgotten that half an hour age in the all-absorbing employment of drawing ugly pictures on his slate and coaxing Betsey Short to giggle by showing them slyly across the school-room. Once or twice Ralph had been attracted to Betsey*s extraordinary fits of giggling, and had come bo near to catching Hank that the boy thought it beet not to run any further risk of the beech switches, four or five long, laid up behind the master in sight of the school as a prophylactic. Hence his application just now to his "sum* in long division, and hence his puzzled look, for, Idler that he was, his "sums" did not solve themselves readily. As usual in such cases, he came up in front of the master’s desk to have the difficulty explained. He had to wait a minute until Ralph got through with shewing Betsey Short, who had been Seised with a studying fit, and who could hardly give any at­ tention to the teacher’s explanation, she did want to giggle so muchI Hot at anything in particular, but just at things in general. vmile Ralph was "doing" Betsey’s "sum" for her, ho was solving a much more difficult question. A plan had flashed upon him, but the punishment seemed a severe one. He gave it up once or twice, but he remembered how turbulent the Flat Creek elements were; and had he not inly resolved to be as unrelenting as a bulldog? He fortified himself by recalling again the oft-remembered remarks 6f Bud, "Si Bull wunet takes a holt, heaven and yarth can’t make him let go." And so he resolved to give Hand and the whole school one good leeeon.

"Just step around behind me, Henry, and you can see how I do this," said Ralph.

Hank was entirely off his guard, and, with his eyes fixed upon the slate on the teacher’s desk, he sidled round upon the bread loose board misplaced by his own hand, and in an instant the other end of the board rose up in the middle of the eehool-reom, almost striking Shocky in the face, while Henry Bantu, went down into the ioe-oold water beneath the school-house.

"Why, Henry!" cried Ralph, jumping to his feet with well feigned surprise. "How did this happen?* and he helped the S7

dripping fellow out and seated him by the fire.

Betsey Short giggled.

Shocky was so tickled that he could hardly keep his seat.

The hoys who were in the plot looked very serious indeed.

Ralph made some remarks by way of improving the situa­ tion . He spoke strongly of the utter meanness of the one who eould play so heartless a trick on a schoolmate. He said it was as much thieving to get your fun at the expense of another as to steal his money. And while he talked, all eyes were turned on Hank- all except the eyes of lUrandy Means. They looked simperingly at Ralph. All the rest looked at Hank. The fire had made his face very red. Shocky noticed that. Bet­ sey Short noticed it, and giggled. The master wound up with an appropriate quotation from Scripture. He said that the per­ son who had displaced that board had better not be encouraged by the success- he said success with a curious emphasis- of the present experiment to attempt another trick of the kind. For it was set down in the Bible that if a man dug a pit for the feet of another, he would be very likely to fall in it him­ self. Which made all the pupils look solemn, except Betsey Short, who giggled. And Shocky wanted to. And Mirandy cast an expiring look at Ralph. And if the teacher was not love­ sick, he certainly was sick of Mirandy*s love.

When school was "let out", Ralph gave Hank every caution that he could about taking ©old, and even lent him his over­ coat, very much against Hank’s will. For Hank had obstinate­ ly refused to go home before the school was dismissed.

Then the master walked out in a quiet and subdued way to spend the noon recess in the woods, while Shocky watched hie retreating footsteps with loving admiration. And the pupile not in the secret canvassed the question of who moved the board. Bill Means said he’d bet Hank did it, which set Betsey Short off in am uncontrollable giggle. And Shocky listened innocently.

But that night Bud said slyly: "Thunder and lightning1 what a manager you air. Hr. Hartsookl To which Ralph re­ turned no reply except a friendly smile. Muscle paid tri­ bute to brains that time. Supplementary Reading List

Bggleeton, Edward, The Roomier Sohool-Boy. Jack Dudley enters

eehool in Greenback, Indiana, and has to hold him own a-

gainst the bullies of the school. For a time he attends

school in Kentucky, he and his friends keeping house in

an old log cabin. Here they frighten the bullies with a

skeleton, the bones of which Jack collected from some Ind­ ian graves.

Eggleston, Edward, The Hoosler Schoolmaster. Ralph Hartseok,

new teacher in the Flat Creek district subdues the boys

and wins the friendship of Bud Heano, When Ralph is ac­

cused of robbery, he is freed through Bud’s efforts*

Irving, Washington, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. A humorous

short story. Ichabod Crane, the schoolmaster of Sleepy

Hollow, an enchanted place filled with ghosts, disappear­

ed one night when returning from a party. Ho one knew

what became of him.

Whittier, John Groenleaf, In School Days* A short story-poem.

One wintry afternoon just outside of the schoolhouse a

little girl apologises to a little boy for spelling a word correctly and going above him. THE CIRCUIT RIDER

During the years between the Revolutionary and the Civil

Were the eircuit rider, ae associated with the Methedlet

Churoh, was a figure of importease in our national history•

After John Wesley sent Francis Anbury and Rlehard Wright to

America in 1771, a system of itinerant preaching was organ­

ised.1 Two years after their arrival the first conference was held, the church then consisting of ten ministers and

eleven hundred and sixty members ,8 At the important Christ­

mas conference in Baltimore in 1784 the new American church

was organized, and Francis Asbury was ordained deacon, elder,

and superintendent.3 He perfected in America the circuit

system which John Wesley had devised and put into operation

in England. During the thirty years of Asbury’s labors the

territory served by the church was .extended from: the Andros-

coggin River to the Gulf ef Mexico, and from the Atlantic

to the Mississippi.4 The circuit rider was an important part ef the general

westward movement after the Revolution, both the organisation

and the doctrine Of the Methodists being well suited to the frontier* The territory served by the church was so laid

1 : "Methodism^ The Hew International Encyclopedia.

William Warren Sweet, The Rise of Methodism in the West,p.13.

"Francis Asbury", The Encyclopedia Amerioanna. out into cireuits and districts that even into the most ob­ scure of settlements there would come at stated times ’the cir­ cuit rider, at longer intervals the presiding elder, and once a year the bishop, preaching, ordaining, and holding sacra­ ments. This system of circuits which enabled a preacher to serve not one community, but a group of communities, was an arrangement conducive to mobility. While frontier society was in a state of flux, the ministers of the Methodist church were equally mobile, and equally at home whether society were moving or stationary. Often they followed the settlements immediatelyi sometimes they reached the emigrant before the

roof was on hie cabin or the clay in the stick chimney dry.

Their circuits naturally varied in size. In the newer coun­

tries where the settlements were scattered, they covered so

many square miles of territory that the preacher eeeupied from 6 four to six weeks in making the rounds of the circuit. He

wae not particular where he conducted hie servicest a log

cabin, or the bar-room of a tavern, or a cleared space under

the trees, all were alike to him. He preached whenever and

wherever he found anyone to listen.

The Methodist itinerant preached a doctrine which made

a great appeal to the frontiersman- a gospel of free grace,

free will, and individual responsibility.* He brought home

1 : ~ : — “ : : : ' ■ William Warren Sweet, The Rise of Methodism in the West, p.13. 6 Ihid,,pe14, to the pioneers that they were masters of their own destiny.

The sermons, as a rule of a doctrinal character, were con­ cerned with the fall of man, the conception and birth of all men in sin, and the death of Jesus Christ for all mankind.

The circuit riders stressed the doctrine of regeneration, the theory that character can be completely changed; this was the great Methodist doctrine of "oonvereien". A favorite text on the doctrine of responsibility was, "So then everyone of us mist give an account of himself to God," and many a frontiers­ man quailed under the burning sermons that this text inspired.

The camp meeting was the most potent factor for awakening

communities and countrysides to religion# consciousness. Al­

though its origin was the Presbyterian revival, it became after­

wards a Methodist institution that was employed with great ef­

fectiveness on the frontier.7 It was most picturesque with

Its bench for mourners or penitents. It was always attended

by enormous crowd# that in moments of repentance and ecstasy

shouted and sang, moaned, wept, sobbed, jerked, jumped, ran,

barked, rolled, swayed, and swooned in a way that would strike

us as simple madness.8 The preaching and praying were contin­

uous from morning until evening. Often further excitement

was added by rowdies who would appear and attempt to break up

the meetings.

7 Ibid., p. 21.

Rlohardeon Wright, Hawkers and Walkers, p. 155. The education of the average circuit rider was extreme­ ly limited. If he felt the call, he went to preach, learning whatever he could from more experienced men and from the few books he possessed. These besides the Bible, the Hymn Book, and the Discipline usually included Wesley*s Sermons and

Fletcher's Appeal. In spite of their few books the circuit riders somehow became efficient interpreters of a larger life, and as a class developed a keenness of mind and a readiness of wit that find few equals,9

The income of the circuit rider was small; from 1784

to 1800 the amount of salary allowed each preacher was #04 a year.10 The hardships of constant travel in.the wilderness were many. There were the perils tif Indians, floods, alli­ gators, bad food, ©old beds, robbers, rowdies, and fevers.

But the compensation for all this poverty and toll lay in

the reverence with which a self-denying preacher wac regarded

by the people. "To be a preacher was to be canonised during one's life-time." 11

The circuit rider was distinguished by his dress, which

consisted of a straight-breasted coat, short trousers, long

stockings, and a broad-brimmed white hat. While the coat

and trousers were usually of homespun, some preachers wore

leather oletheo which resisted the briars better than voel-

9 William Warren Sweet, The Rise of Methodism in the West, p. 54. 10 Ibid.,P.46.

Edward Eggleston, The Circuit Rider, p. 122 63

lea gamente. The hair was clipped short from the fore­ head half-way back to the crown. The remainder was allowed to grew eight or ten inches long and hang loosely around the

•boulders.

Although the work of the circuit rider somewhat resem­ bled that of the Jesuit priest in America, he did not make the same literary appeal. Hen, themselves experienced in riding

the circuit, wrote about the itinerant preacher, doing so to

secure for him the recognition which he deserved. Edward

. ... Eggleston in The Oirouit Rider has portrayed the camp meet­

ing, the emotional conversions, and the social side of the yearly conference as well as the hardships and duties of itin­

erant preaching. Morton Goodwin, the here of the story, young, strong, attractive in appearance, and magnetic in per­

sonality, experienced the conversion peculiar to his time.

Abandoning the unquestioned leadership of his evil companion®,

he devoted his abilities to a spread of the gospel. The book

presents also an interesting picture of life in Ohio in the

first quarter of the eigbte#a$h century.

The Two Circuits by J. L. Crane, a'book of inferior lit­

erary value, deals with the hardships of oirouit riding in Ill­

inois in the early nineteenth oentury. In the preface the

author vouchee for the many ludicrous situations which arose

when Philip Force started on his first circuit. However, he

eventually overcame all difficulties and achieved a position

ef influence and leadership. - 64-

The Conversion of Kike Goodwin 12

Eggleston in The Circuit Rider gives a picture of the power of the preacher and the effect of his fiery eloquence# Frail

Kike Goodwin, who has been unfairly treated by his brutal uncle, thinks that death would be the proper punishment for such treat­ ments With thoughts of his uncle's murder in mind he attends the camp meeting where Kagruder's burning sermon makes him feel that he is already a murderer# His great suffering is follow­ ed by his conversion#

Both lower rooms of Wheeler's log house were crowded with people. A little open space was left at the door between the rooms for the preacher, who presently came edging his way in through the crowd. He had been at prayer in that favorite oratory of the early Methodist preacher, the forest.

Magruder was a short, stout man, with wide shoulders, power­ ful arms, shaggy brows, and bristling black hair. He read the hymn two lines at a time, and led the singing himself, tie pray­ ed with the utmost sincerity, but in a voice that shook the cab­ in windows and gave the simple people a deeper reverence for the dreadfulness of the preacher's message# He preyed as a man talking face to face with the Almighty Judge of the generations of men; prayed with am undoubting assurance of hie own accep­ tance with God, and with the sincereet conviction of the infinite peril of his unforgiven hearers. It is not argument that reach­ es men, but conviction; and for immediate, practical purposes, one Tishbite Elijah, that can thunder out of a heart that never doubts, is worth a thousand acute writers of ingenious apologies.

When Magruder read his text which was, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God", he seemed to his hearers a prophet come to lay bare their hearts# Magruder had not been educated for his min­ istry by tears of study of Hebrew and Greek, of Exegesis and Systematica; but he knew what was of vastly more consequence to him- how to read and expound the hearts and lives of the im­ pulsive, simple, reckless race among whom he labored# He was of their very fibre. .

He commenced with a fierce attack on Captain Lumsden's dance, which was prompted, he said, by the devil, to keep men out of heaven. With half a dozen quick, bold strokes, he depicted Lumsden's selfish arrogance and proud meanness so exactly that 15 Edward Eggleston, The Circuit Rider# pp, 108-108. the audience fluttered with sensation• Hagruder had a vi- earious oonsoience, but a vicarious conscience is good for nothing unless it first cuts close at home. Whitefield said that he never preached a sermon to others till he had first preached it to George Whitefield$ and Megruder*s severities had all the more effect that his audience could see that they had full force upon himself.

It is hard for us to understand the elements that pro­ duced such incredible excitements as resulted from the early Methodist preaching. How at a camp-meeting, for instance, five hundred people, indifferent enough to everything of the sort one hour before, should be seized during a sermon with terror- should cry aloud to God for mercy, some of them fall­ ing in trances and cataleptic unconsciousness; and how, out of all this excitement, there should come forth, in very many cases, the fruit of transformed lives- seems to us a puzzle beyond solution. But the early Westerners were as inflamm­ able as tow; they did not deliberate, they were swept into most of their decisions by contagious excitements. And nev­ er did any class of men understand the art of exciting by oratory more perfectly than the old Western preachers• The simple hunters to whom they preached had the most absolute faith in the invisible. The Day of Judgment, the doom of the wicked, and the blessedness of the righteous, were as real and substantial in their conception as any facts In life. They could abide no refinements# The terriblenese of Indian war­ fare, the relentlessness of their own revengefulness, the sud­ den lynohlngs, the abandoned wickedness of the lawless, and the ruthlessness of mobs of ’’regulators” were a background up­ on which they founded the most materialistic conception of hell and the most literal understanding of the Day'of Judgment, Men like Magruder knew how to handle these few positive ideas of a future life so that they were indeed terrible weapons.

On this evening he seized upon the particular sins of the people as things by which they drove away the spirit of God. The audience trembled as he moved on in his rude speech and solemn indignation. is very man found himself in turn call­ ed to the bar of bis own conscience. There was excitement throughout the house* Some were angry, some sobbed aloud, as he alluded to "promises made to dying friends", "vows offered to God by the new-made graves of their children”, for pioneer people are very susceptible to all such appeals as sensibility.

When at last he came to speak of revenge, Kike, who had listened intently from the first, found himself breathing hard. The preacher showed how the revengeful man was "as much a mur­ derer as if be had already killed bis enemy and hid. hie mangled body in the leaves of the woods where none but the wolf could ever find him2” At these words he turned to the part of the room where Kike sat, white with feeling, fc'agruda, looking always for the effect of his arrows, noted Kike *s emotion and paused. The house was utterly still save now and then a sob from some an­ guish-smitten soul. The people were sitting as if waiting their doom. Kike already saw in his imagination the mutilated form of his uncle Enoch hidden in the leaves and scented by hun­ gry wolves. He waited to hear his own sentence. Hitherto the preacher had spoken with vehemence. How, he stopped and be­ gan again with tears, and in a tone broken with emotion, look­ ing in a general way toward where Kike sat: "0, young man, there are stains of blood on your handsI How dare you hold them up before the Judge of all? You are another Cain, and God sends his messenger to you to-day to inquire after him whom you have already killed in your heart. YOU ARE A MURDER­ ER*’ Nothing but God’s mercy can snatch you from heilT" No doubt all this is rude in refined ears. But is it nothing that by these rude words he laid bare Kike’s sins to Kike’s conscience? That in this moment Kike heard the voice of God denouncing his sins, and trembled? Can you do a man any higher service than to make him know himself, in the light of the highest sense of right that he is capable of? Kike, for his part, bowed to the rebuke of the preacher as to the rebuke of God. His frail frame shook with fear and penitence, as it had before shaken with wrath. "Oh, GodI what a wretch I ami" cried he, hiding his face in his hands.

"Thank God for showing it to you, my young friend," responded the preacher. "What a wonder that your sins did not drive away the Holy Ghost, leaving you with your day of grace sinned away, as good as damned alreadyl" And with this he turned and appealed yet more powerfully to the rest, already excited by the fresh contagion of Kike’s penitence, until there were cries and sobs in all parts of the house. Some left in haste to avoid yielding to their feeling, while many fell upon their knees and prayed.

The preacher now thought it time to change, and offer some consolation. You would say that his view of the atone­ ment was crude, conventional and commercial} that he mistook figures of speech in Scripture for general and formulated post­ ulates. But however imperfect his symbols, he succeeded in making known to his hearers the mercy of God. And surely that is the main thing. The figure of speech is but the vessel} the great truth that God is merciful to the guilty, what is this but the water of life? not less refreshing because the jar in which it la brought is rudel The preacher’s whole manner changed. Many weeping and sobbing people were swept mow to the other extreme, and cried aloud with joy. Perhaps Magruder exaggerated the change that had taken place in them. But is it nothing that a man has bowed his soul in penitence before God's juetloe, and then lifted his face in childlike trust to God's mercy? It is hard for one who has once passed through this experience not to date from it a revolu­ tion# There were many who had not much root in themselves, doubtless, but among Magruder's hearers this day were those who, living a half century afterward, counted their better living from the hour of his forceful presentation of God's antagonism to sin, and God's tender mercy for the sinner#

It was not in Kike to change quickly# Smitten with a sense of his guilt, he rose from his seat and slowly knelt, quivering with feeling# When the preacher had finished preaching, amid cries of sorrow and joy, he began to sing, to an exquisitely pathetic tune. Watts' hymn;

"Show pity, Lord, 01 Lord,forgive, Let a repenting rebel live. Are not thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in thee?"

The meeting was held until late. Kike remained quietly kneeling, the tears trickling through his fingers. He did not utter a word or cry. In all the confusion he was still. What deliberate recounting of his own misdoings took place then, no one can know. Thoughtless readers may scoff at the poor backwoods boy in his trouble. But who of us would not be better if we could be brought thus face to face with our own souls? His simple penitent faith did more for him than all our philosophy has done for us, maybe.

At last the meeting was dismissed.

Supplementary Reading List

Crane, J.L., The Two Circuits. A Story of Western Life.

Philip Force, a circuit rider in Illinois, has many queer

experiences the first year of his work. After he is

firmly established on his own circuit he aids in the con­

version of Bob soates, and in the solution of the murder

of Mr, sighgold.

Eggleston, Edward, The Clrouit Rider, A Tale of the Heroic

Age. Morton Goodwin, a wild young man becomes converted to Methodism. As a circuit rider, he succeeds in over­ coming a hand of rowdies that threaten to disturb a meet­ ing, and be breaks up a den of robbers* THE LIME BURNER Until the middle of the nineteenth century the lime burner with his kiln was a familiar figure in New England in regions where limestone and marble were easily procured. The hills near the kiln supplied the burner with the hard stone which he converted into soft white lime that served to cement the bricks and stones in the walls of New England homes and to whitewash their interior*

The kiln with its sides of sandstone or granite resem­ bled a huge inverted bowl set against the side of a hill* When it was charged, alternate layers of wood and stone were dump­ ed Into its wide-open top until it was filled* It was then covered with a layer of turf or sod, and a flame was kindled in the opening left at one side below* The work of the burner was to replenish the fuel and to keep the intense heat as even as possible. Through experience he learned when the glowing mass was ready to cool.

Gradually new uses for lime were discovered: it was used by the tanner in removing hair from hides $ by the paper maker

in the preparation of pulp; by the manufacturer in the mak-

ing of soda, and by the farmer in fertilizing his fields.^ As

the demands for lime grew, the methods of burning improved,

and large,mechanically-operated kilns were constructed. The

I "Lime", American Cyclopaedia* 70

lima burner disappeared, and the walls of M s kiln, crumbling away, were overgrown with weeds.

The solitary, monotonous life of the lime burner suggest­ ed no promising literary material. As a rule he was uninterest­ ing, for to be successful he needed only to have some muscular strength and a little skill, ”An obtuse middle-aged clown",2 who had no thoughts except those connected with his work, could burn lime well. However, the man who spent his long solitary hours in solemn contemplation could produce equally good lime, and could at the same time evolve a strange and interesting philosophy. Hawthorne created a man of this type in Ethan

Brand, whose strange meditations sent him out into the world in search of his old kiln only to hurl himself into the burn­ ing pit. The effects of his search were manifested when a heart-shaped lump of most excellent lime was discovered encir­ cled by the white ribs of his skeleton.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Ethan Brand", in Ethan Brand and Other Stories, p. 5, - 71-

Bar tram, the Lime Burner 5

Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, be­ grimed with ohareoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scat­ tered fragments of marble, when, on the hillside below them, they hoard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.

"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving hie play, and pressing betwixt his father’s knees#

"0, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-bur­ ner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors, lest he should blow the roof of the house off* So here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylook."

"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the noise frightens met "

"Don’t be a fool, childI" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. HarkI Here comes the merry fellow now. You shall see that there is no harm in him."

Bertram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand’s solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin. Many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed since that portentous night when the idea was first developed. The kiln, however, on the mountain side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed, since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its fur­ nace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. It was a rude, round, tower­ like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the large part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture; and provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chink® and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hill­ side, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims.

5 Nathaniel Hawthorne,"Ethan Brand? in Ethan Brand and Other Stories, pp. 5-9. There are many such lime-kilns in this tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.

The man who now watched the fire was of a different or­ der, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business* At frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turn­ ing his faco from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole, with­ in the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the fore­ ground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside the door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lima-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father’s shadow. Anfll when again the Iron door was closed, then re-appeared thr tender light of the halt- full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and in the upper sky, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago, there was a flitting congregation of clouds.

The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the trees. Supplementary Reading List

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Ethan Brand. A. short story. Ethan

Brand, a lime burner,' left his kiln to go in search of

the Unpardonable Sin. Tho effect upon him was such

that he caused his orm death by hurling himself into

the burning mass in the kiln. -74

T m DRUMMER BOY The drummer hoy calls to mind "The Spirit of *76" with its three valiant figures immortalized by the artiste Al­

though the drummer made his appeal to the painter as well as

to the novelist and to the poet, the historian apparently - dis­

regards him as a distinctive character•

In the earlier wars of our country he was an interesting young figure, whose chief duty in the daily routine of barrack and camp life was to announce the various duties of the day

with his drum* He also led his company during reviews and

beat hie drum for drilling and marching* To-day there is no

longer an official grade of drummer in the United states army,

and his duties have been largely assumed by the bugler. Some­

times there is a drum and fife corps, organized by a regimen­

tal commander, and instructed and drilled by a drum major who

leads and controls its movements.

The drummer boy is described in several stories. Kauff­

man in Mad Anthony * s Drummer pictures Sam Cruder leading the

troops in review before Washington, "Automatically, his fingers tightened ever so little over the drumsticks, and began their task* The drum itself swayed at his left hip, responding to his beats with a stirring quickstep, Some twenty paces be­ hind, the rank and file were swinging into what modern drill books call. * company front * * The color guard preceded them; before it marched a man of middle ager bearing the flag, and there, a yard or two in advance, strode Sam- a gray-haired veteran playing the fife on his right," 1

I ' ' ; Reginald Wright Kauffman, Mad Anthony«s Drummer, p. 41. -75-

Sam. a Pennsylvania Dutohean, with red hair and freck­ les on his hands, had newly enlisted. He discovered that his duties need not be limited to the beating of the drum, . and he decided, without consulting Mad Anthony, to enter

Stony Point as a spy and to secure the necessary information concerning an unfinished bastion. It is this self-delegated duty that makes him an interesting character.

David Ritchie, the hero of Churchill*s The Crossing, al so found tasks for himself beyond the camp routine. Having first endeared himself to the men, the Long Knives led by

George Rogers Clark, he became attached to the commander, cheered him when he was despondent, and proved an example to

the soldiers in his submission to all camp discipline. His wit was timely. As the company approached Kaskaskia an e-

olipse of the sun produced terror in the hearts of the brave

Kentuckians. David referred to the shadow as Governor Ham­

ilton’s soalp hanging by a look# Immediately the darkness

took on a different significance for the soldiers, and they

advanced confidently.

In Drums, a Revolutionary war story, there is a

glimpse of the drummer boys advancing with the army into

North Carolina. True to the general tone of the book even

this brief picture emphasizes the hardships of war, not its

glories,

3 — ' ; : ' Winston Churchill, The Crossing, p. 147. "Four young drummer boys toiled in the rear of the last regiment. Strapped high on their thin shoulders, their big, deep drums seemed burdens as much too great for their youthfulness as the war itself. But they, too, like the troops were driven forward by a force still greater than that which pressed them down." 5

5 James Boyd, Drums, p. 407. -77-

On-to-ylaoenne s

Monsieur Vigo of Kaskaskia had just returned from Vin­ cennes which was held by the British under Governor Hamilton, the hair-buyer. Hamilton's plans were to march upon Kaskas­ kia and Cahokia as soon as possible and then to sweep over

Kentucky. Colonel George Rogers Clark, who with his Long

Knives held Kaskaskia, decided to attack Vincennes before

Hamilton could leave.

"Monsieur le Colonel was grave,,but this was his usual manner. He did not tear his hair, but the ways of the Long Knives were past understanding. He asked many questions. How was it with the garrison at Vincennes? Monsieur Vigo was exact, as a business man should be. They were now reduced to eighty men, and five hundred savages had gone out to ra­ vage . There was nb chance, then, of Hamilton moving at present? Monsieur Vigo threw up his hands. Never had he made such a trip, and he had been forced tb come back by a northern route. The Wabash was as the Great Lakes, and the forests grew out of the water. A fox could not go to Vin­ cennes in this weather. A fish?_ Monsieur Vigo laughed heartily. Yes, a fish might.

"Then," said the colonel, "we will be fish,"

Monsieur Vigo stared, and passed his hand from his ’ forehead backwards over his long hair. I leaned forward in my corner by the hickory fire.

"Then we will be fish," said Colinel Clark. "Better that than food for the crows. For if we stay here, we shall be caught like bears in a trap, and Kentucky will be at Ham­ ilton's mercy."

"Saorel" exclaimed Monsieur Vigo, "you are mad, mon ami, I know what this country is, and you cannot get to Vincennes."

"I will get to Vincennes," said Colonel Clark, so gent­ ly that Monsieur Vigo knew he meant it. "I will swim to Vincennes."

4 Winston Churchill, The Crossing, pp, 211-216. -*78 -

Monsieur Vigo raised his hands to heaven* The three of us went out of the door and walked* There was a snowy place in front of the church all party-colored like a clown's coat,- soarlet capotes, yellow capotes, and blue capotes, end bright silk handkerchiefs* They surrounded the Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor and his sav­ ages were coming to take revenge on them betiause, in their necessity, they had declared for congress* colonel Clark went silently on his way to the gate; hut Monsieur Vigo stopped, and Kaeltaekia heard:, with a shock that this man of iron was to march against Vincennes*

The gates of the fort were shut, end the captains sum­ moned* Undaunted woodsmen as they were, they were lukewarm, at first, at the idea of this march through the floods. Who can blame them? They had, indeed, sacrificed much. But in ten minutes they had caught his enthusiasm (which is one of the mysteries of genius). And the men paraded in the snow likewise caught it, and swung their hats at the notion of tak­ ing Hair Buyer,

"'Tie no news to me," said Terence, stamping his feet on the flinty ground; "wasn't it Davy that pointed him out to us and the hair liftin' from his head six months since?"

"Und you like eohwimmin', yes?" said Swein Poulsson, his face like the rising sun with the cold,

"Swlrasin' is it?" said Terence; "sure, the divil made worse things than wather* And Hamilton's beyant."

"I reckon that'll fetch us through," Bill Cowan put in grimly.

It was a blessed thing that none of us had a bird's eye view of that same water. No man of force will listen when his mind is made up, and perhaps it is just as well. For in that way things are aeoompliehec. Clark would not listen to Monsieur Vigo, and hence the financier had, perforce, to lis­ ten to Clark. There were several miracles before we left. Monsieur Vigo, for instance, agreed to pay the expenses of the expedition, though in his heart he thought we should never get to Vincennes* Incidentally, he was never repaid. Then there were the French- yesterday, running hither and thither in paroxysms of fear; to-day, enlisting in whole companies, though it were easier to get to the wild geese of the swamps than to Hamilton* Their ladies stitched colors day and night, and presented them with simple confidence to the Colonel in the church. Twenty stands of colors for one hundred and seventy men, counting those who had come from Cahokia. Think of the industry of it; Twenty stands of colors! Clark took them all, and in due time it will be told how the colors took Vincennes# This was because Colonel Clark was a man of destiny# Furthermore, Colonel Clark was off the next morning at dawn to buy a Mississippi keel-boat. He had her rigged up with two four-pounders and four swivels, filled h er with pro­ visions, and called her the Willing. She was the first gun­ boat on the Western waters. A great fear came into my heart, and at dusk I stole back to the Colonel1s house alone# The snow had turned to rain, and Terence stood guard within the doorway.

"Arrah,11 he said, "what ails ye, darlin1?"

I gulped and the tears sprang into my eyes; whereupon Terence,; in defiance of all military laws, laid his gun a- gainst the doorpost and put his arms around me, and I confided my fears. It was at this critical juncture that the door o- pened and colonel Clark cam# out.

"What's to do here?" he demandedi gazing at us sternly#

"Savin’ your Honor’s prison©®," said Terence, "he’s afraid your Honor will be sending him on the boat. Sure, he wants to go swimmin* with the rest of us."

Colonel Clark frowned, bit his lip, and Terence seized his gun and stood at attention#

"It were right to leave you in Kaskaekla," said the Colonel; "the water will be over your head."

"The King’s drum would be floatin’ the likes of him," said the irrepressible Terence, "and the b ’ys would be that lonesome."

The Colonel walked away without a word. In an hour’s time he came back to find me cleaning his accoutrements by the fire. For a while he did not speak, but busied himself with his papers, I having lighted the candles for him. Pre­ sently he spoke my name, and I stood before him, "I will give you a piece of advice, Davy," said he. "If you want a thing, go straight to the man that has I t * McChesney has spoken to mo about this wild notion of yours of going to Vineennes, and Cowan and McCann and Ray and a dozen others have dogged my footsteps."

"I only spoke to Terence because he asked me, sir," I answered# "I said nothing to anyone else." -80-

He laid down his pen and looked at me with an odd ex­ pression#

"What a weird little piece you areI” he exclaimed; "yon seem to have wormed your way into the hearts of these men. Do you know that you will probably never get to Vincennes alive?"

"Idon*t care, sir," I said. A happy thought struck me. "If they see a boy going through the water, sir-" I hesitated, abashed.

"What then?" said Clark shortly.

"It may keep some from going back," I finished.

At that he gave a sort of gasp,.and stared at me the more.

"Egad," he said, "I believe the good Lord launched you wrong end to* Perchanee you will be a child when you are fif­ ty."

He was silent a long time, and fell to musing. And I' thought he had forgotten*

"May I go, sir?" I asked at length.

He started.

"Come here," said ha. But when I was close to him he merely laid his hand on ray shoulder, "Yes, you may go, Davy."

He sighed, and presently turned to his writing again, and I went back to ray cleaning.

On a certain dark 4th of February, picture the village of Kaskaskia assembled on the river-bank in capote and hood. Ropes are cast off, the keel-boat pushes her blunt nOse : ‘ through the cold muddy water, the oars churn up dirty, yellow foam, and cheers shake the sodden air. So the Willing left on her Journey; down the Kaskaskia, into the flood of the Mississippi, against many weary leagues of the Ohl**# current, and up the swollen Wabash they were to come to the mouth of the White River near Vincennes. There they were to await us. / ... Should we ever see them again? I think that this was the unspoken question in the hearts of the many who were to go by land.

The 5th was a mild, gray day, with the melting snow lying in patches on the brown bluff, and the sun making shift to pierce here and there. We formed the regiment in the fort,- backwoodsman and creole now to fight for their common country, Jacques and Pierre and Alphonse; end mother and father, sweet­ heart and wife, waiting to wave a last good-by. Bravely we marched out of the gate and into the church for Father Gi- Bault*s blessing. And then, forming once more, we filed away on the road leading northward to the ferry, our colors flying, leaving the weeping, cheering crowd behind. In front of the tall men of the column was a wizened figure, beating madly on a drum, stepping proudly with head thrown back. It was Cowan*s voice that snapped the strain.

"Go it, Davy, my little gamecock I” he cried, and the men laughed and cheered. And so we came to the bleak ferry land­ ing where we had crossed on that hot July night six months be­ fore.

Supplementary Reading List

Boyd, James, Drums. "James Fraser, a North Carolinian of

Scotch descent, was sent to England to escape the Revolu-

- tionary War. There he met Paul Jones and later took an

active part in the war." ®

Churchill, Winston, The Crossing. David Ritchie, brought up

in the mountains of South Carolina by his father, is left

an orphan at ten. He goes to Kentucky and serves as a

drummer boy under George Rogers Clark. After the war

he becomes a lawyer and settles in Louisville.

Kauffman, Reginald Wright, Mad Anthony*s Drummer. Sam Oruger,

headquarter*s drummer boy with Anthony Wayne, enters

Stony Point as a spy and secures the necessary informa­

tion concerning an unfinished bastion.

Leisure Reading, published by The National Council of fcachers of fnglieh, 1932, p. 84. THE COtJSTHT DOOTOB

The modern specialist surrounded by elaborate equipment can trace his professional ancestry back to the first physician trudging out of a primitive settlement to an isolated hut in a forest clearing# In that long line of descent the main figures are the country doctor and the general practitioner of the city, men who were not only physicians but also family advisers and friends.

The earliest doctors came with the first settlers to Ply­ mouth and Jamestown. The Swedes in Delaware had their barber 1' surgeon; and Penn brought two doctors with him. Almost every settlement had its physicians,

Doctoring in colonial days was seldom practiced as a pro­ fession by itself. Sometimes men of affairs took it up as a gentleman's side-line; and again the physician was also store-keeper, teacher, or parson. Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut practiced medicine as an avocation and rode about treating patients in Massachusetts and Rhode Island as 2 well as in his own province. Bishop Seabury, the first

Anglican Bishop of America, studied medicine as part of the missionary's equipment for Holy Orders.2

During the first hundred years of our history there were no medical schools, no great medical libraries, and no hospi­

tals in which young aspiring doctors could study. A youth

I ; ^Richardson Wright, Hawkers and walkers, p. 117. Ibid.. p. 118. -es»

who wanted to follow the calling was accredited to a Scotch or English university, or else he went to reside with a doctor, read such books as he had and visited about with him on hie

sick calls. Eventually he picked up enough knowledge to ven­

ture practicing alone.3 4 The, first equipped hospital was open­ ed in Philadelphia in 1752 and the first medical school in

1765,* Although education and research centered here, many

country youths who were medically inclinea continued to re­

ceive their instruction from local physicians.

Since in many localities there was no pharmacist, the

doctor served in that capacity also, making up his own drugs

and carrying them about with him in especially arranged eases.

The fee demanded by specialists to-day would have over­

whelmed the practicing physician of early America, In Bos­

ton prior to 1782 the charge for ordinary visits was from

thirty-five to fifty cents; night calls were double these a-

mounts.5 The country doctor usually took his fees in kind.

The doctor of the earliest days trudged on foot from

one patient to another and later with him drugs stored in his

saddlebags made his rounds on horseback. But we know the

country doctor best as the "wheel-animal" of Oliver Wendell

Holmes.

5 — Ibid., p. 118. 4 Ibid,, p. 119. 5 . . -84

"If that primitive physician, Chiron, K.D., appears as a centaur, as we look at him through the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern country-doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, could not be distinguished from a wheel-animalcule« He inhabits a wheel-carriage* He thinks of stationary dwellings as long Tom Coffin did of land in general; a house may be well enough for incidental purposes, but for a •stiddy* residence give him a ♦kerridge1. If he is classified in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus: Genus Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius,- the wheel- animal of infusions." 6 *

Thrust.into the background by an age of specialization

this picture disappears. Because of a multiplication of in­

terests in even remote country districts, the doctor is rapid­

ly losing his position of influence* The specialist with his

greater knowledge and skill can never occupy this place, part­

ly because his interest is chiefly in the physical health of

hie patients. The old country doctor administered to both

body and spirit*

The emotional appeal of this self-sacrificing character

is great, and it is not surprising that he appears repeatedly

in our literature as the ideal figure that we like to think

him. In Dr. Leslie7 there is typified the personality that

made itself felt as a benefaction by everyone in the sick­

room. "One felt that he was the wielder of great powers over the enemies, disease and pain, and that his brave hazel eyes showed a rare thoughtfulness and foresight. There was that about him which gave certainty, not only of his sagacity and skill, but of his true manhood and mastery of himself." 8

*------— ------—:------— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Venner, p, 159* 7 Sarah O m e Jewett, A Country Doctor. 8 ------Ibid*, p. 33. People trusted him because "he was naturally a man of uncommon reserve, and most loyal in keeping his patients* se­ crets." 9

From his great knowledge of human nature he could under­ stand and help many of his patients whose ailments were not wholly physical. When ho called upon Captain Finch, an old sailor, disabled and suffering, he took along by way of a spe cial prescription "a generous handful of his best cigars, and wrapped them somewhat clumsily in one of the large sheets of letter-paper which lay on his study table near by. Also he had stopped before the old sideboard in the carefully dark­ ened dining-room, and taken a bottle of wine from one of its cupboards. *This will do him more good than anything, poor old fellow,* he told himself with a sudden warmth in his own heart." 10

The old doctor*s wisdom, beginning with the knowledge

found in books, was augmented by his intimate acquaintance

with people and with the truths of life. Bernard Langdon

in Elsie Tenner learned this from Dr# Eittredge. "Why, no,"

said the old Do©tor, "I haven * t got a great many printed books; and what I have I don’t read quite as often as I might I ’m afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, when I was in the midst of the young men who were all at work with their books; but it’s a mighty hard matter, when you go off alone into the country, to keep up with all that’s going on in the Societies and Colleges. I ’ll toll you though, Mr. Langdon, when a man that * g once started right lives among sick folks five-and-thirty years, as I ’ve done, if he hasn’t got a libra­ ry of five-and-thirty volpmes bound up in his head at the end of that time, he’d better stop driving round and sell his horse and sulky. I know the bigger part of the families with in a dozen miles’ ride. I know the families that have a way of living through everything, and I know the other set that have the trick of dying without any kind of reason for it, I 5

5------Ibid., p. 33. 10 Ibid#, p# 55# -.86-

know the years when the fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when they're only making believe. I know the folks that think they're dying as soon as they're sick, and the folks that never find out they * re sick till they're dead. I dont want to undervalue your science, l/.r, Langdon. There are things I never learned, beeause they came in after ray day, and 1 am very glad to send my patients to those thet do know them, when I am at fault; but 1 know these people about here, fa­ thers and mothers, and children and grandchildren, so as all the science In the world can't know them, without it takes time about it, and sees them grow up and grow old, and how the wear and tear of life comes to them. You can't tell a horse by driving him once.Kr. Langdon, nor a patient by talking half an hour with him.” •u-

Whittier devotes a fow lines in "Snow-Boundw to the doc­

tor's obedience to duty and to his bending all energies to his

work. He rides ever religious differences as calmly as over

the newly broken roads. On the morning after the storm

"following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the sufferer's sight The Quaker matron's inward light, The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed?" 12

"K"^by Mary Roberts Rinehart, while of much slighter

literary merit than the books mentioned above, contains a good

picture of the general practitioner. Dr. Ed. Wilson, who has

the characteristics of a country doctor, serves "the street",

a section of a Middle Western city. He knows its people, and

they consult him on all matters. When Sidney Page seeks ad-

11 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Tenner, p. 210. 12 Poetical works, VolII, p. 156. v > -8V»

▼ice about going into nurse *s training and when Mrs# Boeenfeld wants her husband sent to the workhouse again, they see Dr. Dd.

His life is one of kindness and self-sacrifice. Doctor Kittredge 13

Elsie went at once to her own room, and did not come from it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began to be alarmed about her, wont to her apartment, and, finding the door unlock­ ed, entered cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, her brows strangely contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great suffering. , Her first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm by some deadly means or other. But Elsie saw her fear and reassured her.

"Ho," she said, "there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of$ I am not dying. You may send for the Doctorj perhaps he can take the pain from my head. That is all I want him to do. There is so use in the pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him,"

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners. He always came into the siok-room with a quiet cheerful look, as if he had a consciousness that he was bringing some sure re­ lief with him. The way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor’s face, to see whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it. It is only to be met by an im­ perturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and every­ thing in a patient’s aspect. The physician whose face re­ flects his patient’s condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not be­ long to the sickroom. The old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,- the patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable oper­ ation which he himself Is by-end-by to hear of.

He was in Elsie’s room almost before she knew he was in the house. He came to her bedside in such ft natural, quiet way, that it seemed as if he were only a friend who had drop­ ped in for a moment to say a pleasant word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie until he had seen her; he never knew what might happen to her or those about her, and earn® prepared for the worst.

13 ' ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elsie Tanner, pp. 484-426, "Sick, ray ehil4?" he said, in a very soft, low voice*

Elsie nodded, without speaking.

The doctor took her hand,- whether with professional views, or only in a friendly way, it would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind of fatherly interest, but with it all noting how she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression, all that teaches the practised eye so much without a single ques­ tion being asked* Ho saw she was in suffering, and said presently,-

«You have pain somewhere; where is it?"

She put her hard to her head*

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched her for a while, questioned Old Sophy shrewdly a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to the probable cause of disturbance and the proper remedies to be used.

Some very silly people thought the old Doctor did not believe in medicine, because he gave less than certain poor half-taught creatures in the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage of people*s sickness to disgust and disturb them with all manner of til-smelling and ill-behaving drugs. In truth, he hated to give anything noxious or loathsome to those who were uncomfortable enough already, unless he was sure it would do good,- in which case, he never played with drugs, but gave good, honest, efficient doses. sometimes he lost a family of the more boorish sort, because they did not think they got their money * s worth out of him, unless they had something more than a taste of everything he carried in his saddle-bags*

He ordered some remedies which he thought would relieve Elsie, and left her, saying he would call the next day, hop­ ing to find her better* But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed,** feverish, restless, wakeful, silent. At night she tossed about and wandered, and it be­ came at length apparent that there was a settled attack, something like what they called, formerly, a "nervous fever".

On the fourth day she was more restless than common. One of the women of the house came in to help to take care of her{ but she showed an aversion to her presence.

"Send me Helen Barley," she said, at last*

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they must indulge this fancy of hers* The caprices of sick people were never to be dispised, least of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered Irritable and exacting by pain and weakness.

Supplementary Reading List

Holmos, Oliver Wendell, Elsie Tenner. Elsie Vernier is a

strange girl who has many of the characteristics of a

rattlesnake• With the disappearance of these character­

istics she dies.

Jewett, Sarah Orne, A Country Doctor. Han Prince, a tiny

orphan, lives at first on her grandmother's farm. Later

her guardian, Dr. John Leslie, takes her into bis home

where she has an interesting girlhood. Han, whose fa­

ther was a physician, decides to take up the study of

medicine.

Rinehart, Mary Roberts, K., Through the treachery of a nurse

Dr. Edwards has several operations prove fatal. He gives

up his work, and, as K., becomes a clerk in a gas plant.

Later he is discovered by a friend and forced to resume

his position as a leading surgeon. The peddler, during the first century of his history, always received the addition*! appellation of Yankee because he hailed from New England, most often from Connecticute It was natural that he should come from there# Geography, cli­ mate, and hostile Indians united in compelling the settlers to gather in compact villages where they soon turned to manufac­

turing as an occupation. Each home became a miniature fac»

tory, producing for itself the great variety of articles need­

ed. Sometimes a home produced a surplus of a certain article

or was particularly skilled in a certain type of manufacture.

Thus small factories arose, and the peddler supplied the wider

market which became a necessity. With his trunks slung on

his back he travelled on foot from village to village, usual­

ly going south along the coast, for he found his best markets

outside New England. As a peripatetic merchant he appeared

in country homes, in the town# on market days, at auction

sales, and at country fairs. Because of the demand for his

merchandise and because people in the outlying districts were

ignorant of its real value, his profits varied, ranging from

thirty to three hundred per cent. As roads improved and as

the peddler*s stock increased, he was forced to abandon his

old method of travel, and after the first quarter of the nine­

teenth century he made him rounds with horse and cart. By

1635 the trade of the Yankee pack peddler was seriously invaded by the German Jew. He had also fallen into disfavor with the marohants of the cities, and there was legislation against him. Furthermore, he was the gradual victim of the progress and development of his country. As the steamboat and the railroad increased his market, they also contributed to his downfall. Slowly he was replaced by travelling re­ pair men, such as tinkers and clock menders. To-day some of his descendants are found taking orders for magazines or for various household appliances* The early Yankee peddler was usually a young man, bright and reckless, with grit and virility. He faced the hardship of travel through the wilderness, with the danger of wild ani­ mals and hostile Indians always threatening. He needed physi­ cal endurance, for the miles were long, and shelter and food uncertain# As he grew older he frequently settled down as a village merchant or as a small manufacturer of those wares which he had been hawking. With the increasing safety of

the roads older men for whom the highway held an irresistible fascination took up the occupation.

Peddling appealed to the young and venturesome, and it

is not surprising that many Americans, famous In other fields,

spent part of their youth vending goods up and down the Atlan­

tic seaboard. Among this group there is Bronson Aleott*. the

Traneoendentalist and father of Louisa May Alcott, who as a

"trunk peddler" sold tinware and almanacs in New Jersey and - 93-

In the South#1 Benedict Arnold at one time was a vender of woolen goods#2 And Parson Weems, to whom we owe the story of

George Washington and the cherry tree, was a famous book pedd­ ler.3

The wares carried over the weary miles by the Yankee peddler were infinite in variety. Chief among them were

"Yankee notions", including pins, needles, hooks and eyes,

scissors, rqzors, combs, coat and vest buttons, spoons, small

hardware, children's books, cotton goods, lace and perfume.

Besides there were the specialized itinerant peddlers- tin-

peddlers, clock peddlers, chair peddlers, peddlers of spices,

essences, dyes, woodware, pottery, brooms, books, and a host

of other items} and even these specialists, as we shall see,

often carried several side lines of goods and did many other

things beside selling their wares. Sometimes they vended

very cumbersome articles- washing machines, spinning wheels, A cabinet organs, and winnowing machines and corn shellers•

The true Yankee peddler was a mercenary fellow, with a

rare understanding and a ready tongue. His was a thorough

knowledge of the psychology of salesmanship, although the term

itself was, of course, unknown to him. Since bartering was r~— ------:------Richardson Wright, Hawkers and walkers, pp. 17-18. 2 Ibid#, p, 23# 3 Ibid*, p. 53*

Ibid*, p • 18. - 94-

the only feasible method of trading, he soon learned the art of deception and usually got the better of the bargain. It Is not surprising that he early developed a reputation for cunning and deceit, which expressed Itself In the designation of his wares as "wooden nutmegs". With the quick wit of his kind a certain hawker, turning this reputation to account, would ap­ proach the prospective purchaser with the following greeting:

"Madam, are you In need of any pocket saw-mills? Horn gun flints? Basswood hams? Wooden nutmegs? White oak cheeses?

Or calico hog troughs?" 5 Naturally the woman approached would smile and be in a much more receptive mood for a recital of the real articles. The attitude toward the peddler was not always so tolerant, and the reputation which he built up ' for himself in the Middle West was scarcely enviable. In the early nineteenth century many "Western people had never heard of Tale College or any other glory of Connecticut or Mew England. To them it was hut a land that bred pestilent peripatelio pedd­ lers of tin-ware and wooden clocks. Western rogues would cheat you out of your horse or farm if a good chance offered; but this vile vender of Yankee tins, who called a bucket a "pall*, and said *noo* for new, and talked nasally, would work an hour to cheat you out of a ‘fifenny bit** °

Hawking his wares was only one of the occupations of the peddler. Frequently during the winter when travel was Im­ possible, he manufactured the articles which he vended during

the summer. As the frontier moved westward, he moved with it; preceding the main stream of migration, he served as a scout

into the new country, a forerunner of the big movement into

b 1 ’■ • :"T ' Ebid., p. 28. 6 Edward Eggleston, The Circuit Rider, p. 214. •95-

the West. Naturally he was a bearer of news, a delightful occupation for him, for he was inherently curious and meddling.

The news he carried, however, was not always trivial, for he knew the roads, could locate relatives, and through his know­ ledge of national affairs he could rally the isolated country people to national support# He may be thought of as the first dealer in antiques. Often he bartered for an article of furniture or a piece of pewter, the true value of which was not recognized by the owner. The peddler, through his acquaintance with dealers in larger cities, was able to estimate its worth, but was clever enough to leave the purchaser highly pleased with his own part of the bargain.

In actual service to his country the Yankee peddler de­

serves more recognition than is usually accorded him. He light­

ened the burden of domestic manufacture; he brought comforts

and conveniences into the home; he served as a social figure

in the existence of the common people; and as a walking direc­

tory he spread valuable information# Altogether ho was an

important figure in the social and economic life of the Revolu­

tionary and the poet-Revolutionary periods.

It is not surprising that ho appears again and again in

our literature. In fact one wonders how the literature be­

tween the Colonial and Civil War periods could have been pro­

duced without him. Sometimes he serves as a principal char­

acter; again, he is subordinate but necessary, for example,

as the bearer of information# Cooper finds that the most

successful disguise for his spy is that of the peddler; there- -96-

fore Harvey Biroh is presented in that occupation* In a re­ cent Revolutionary War novel, Drums, James Boyd has the pedd­ ler fulfill his mission by spreading news of the tumult in y Boston through the country districts of North Carolina. La­ ter in the book Caesoway G. Jenney with characteristic greed 8 and unscrupulousness turns war profiteer. Munson, the Yankee tin peddler in Edward Eggleston*s The Circuit Rider * is em­ ployed as a purveyor of news between two small Ohio towns.

With the usual ingenuity of the peddler, he discovers his oppor­ tunity when he chances upon a Methodist camp meeting. He is

converted. The good Methodist sisters, believing that the new convert should be encouraged, purchase his entire stock.

Munson, pleased with his own cleverness, moves on ready to for­

get all about Methodism and remembers the event only as an ex- 9 ample of his own shrewdness. Washington Irving also found

it convenient to Introduce the peddler, and in Rip Van winkle

we find Dame Van Winkle "had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler."10

Hawthorne, besides making the vender the chief character

in one of his short stories, presents four interesting thumb

7 ------p. 33. 8 p. 314 9 p. 214-216. 10 p. 87. nail sketches In Passages from the American Note-Books.

There is the essence vender returning home. He is a good- natured fellow who displays his few remaining wares to his companion on the stage. These wares, although of domestic manufacture, bear foreign labels.^ An old man sells but­ ter nuts and maple sugar under the stoop of a hotel. Ee smokes 1? a pipe. His sales amount to a dollar and more a day. The peddler from New York sells his wares at auction. He is quick-witted and good-natured, when asked if there is steel in a certain article, he replies, "Steel in it? My brother stole, it:"^The fourth sketch, the least interesting, mentions a pack peddler trying to sell neckerchiefs and combs to the servant girls.1 "

The Jewish peddler appears in Edna Ferber's Cimarron, a story of Oklahoma from the opening of the strip to the dis­

covery of oil. Sol Levy lacks the aggressiveness and the quick wit of the Yankee. Although he is ridiculed when he appears in Osage with his pack, he finally cornea into posses­

sion of the city’s largest department store. His importance

in the story is as a friend-in-need to Sabra cravat. ix— ---- :------p . 126. 121314

12 P. 157. 13 p. 158. 14 p. 187 Doeittieus Pike 15

In Doainicus Pike Hawthorne portrays a good-natured young tobacco peddler with an insatiable curiosity and a tre­ mendous eagerness to spread news j however, in true peddler

fashion he never forgets to drive a shrewd bargain.

A young fellow, a tobacco pedlar by trade, was on his way home from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Dea­ con of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker*s Falls, on Salmon Hiver* He bad a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side panel, and an Ind­ ian chief, holding a pipe and a - golden tobacco stalk, on the rear. The pedlar drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Con­ necticut , whose favor he used to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lasses of Hew England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the ped­ lar was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itch­ ing to hear the news and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco ped­ lar, whoso name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little gray marc. It being near­ ly seven o'clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up, and perceived a man coming over the brow of the hill, at the foot of which the pedlar had stopped his green cart. Dominions watched him as ho descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day.

"Good morning, mister," said Dominions, when within epeaking distance. "You go a pretty good jog. What*s the latest news at Parker’s Falls?"

ib : Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe", in Twlce-Told-Tales, pp. 127-151* -* 9 § ~

The man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes, and answered, rather suddenly,that he did not come from Parker's Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day's Journey, the pedlar had naturally mentioned In his In­ quiry.

"Well, then," rejoined Dominions Pike, "let's have the latest news where you did come from. I'm not particular a- bout Parker's Falls. Any place will answer."

Being thus Importuned, the traveller- who was as 111 looking a fellow as one would desire to meet In a solitary piece of woods- appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expe­ diency of telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the oart, he whispered in the ear of Dominions, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him.

"I do remember one little trifle of news", said he. "Old MT. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o'clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear-tree, where nobody would find him till the morning."

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger betook himself to his journey again, with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when Dominions in­ vited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the parti­ culars. The pedlar whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr, Higginbotham whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines, and a great deal of pigtail, lady's twist, and fig tobacco• He was rather astonished at the rapadity with which the news had spread, Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clock the preceding might; yet Dominions had heard of it at seven in the morning, when, in all probability, Mr. Higginbotham's own family had but just discovered his corpse, hanging on the St. Michael's pear-tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots to travel at such a rate.

"Ill news flies fast, they say," thought Dominions Pike; "but this beats railroads* The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President's Message."

The difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made the mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among the least twenty horri­ fied audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer 90845 106-

of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall, with the money and val­ uable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk manifest­ ed but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham's catastrophe, hinting, what the pedlar had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece who was now keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good, and dri­ ving bargains for his own, Dominions was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker's Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell* There were as many as twen­ ty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer, who had ar­ rived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a corner smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded, he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominions, and stared at him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco smoke the pedlar had ever smelt.

"Will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a country justice taking an examination, ’-that old Squire Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his great pear-tree yesterday morning?n

"I tell the story as I heard it, mister," answered Dominions, dropping his half burnt oigar; "I dont say that I saw the thing done. So I cant take my oath that he was mur­ dered exactly in that way."

"But 1 can take mine," said the farmer, "that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered night before last, I drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbor of mine, he called me into his store, as I was riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He didn't seem to know any more about his own murder than I did."

"Why, then, it can't be a fact*" exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

"I guess he'd have mentioned it, if it was," said the old •101

farmer; and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominions quite down in the mouth*

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr* Higginbotham!

Strange to relate, Dominions heard the same story the following day from a negro whom he met on the road. Again he spread the story and again it was proved untrue. The pedd­ ler was driven from Parker’s Falls followed by threats and mud- balls . To solve the mystery he drove to Kimball ton where he arrived just in time actually to save Mr. Higginbotham from hanging.

Supplementary Reading List

Boyd, James, Drums. MJames Fraser, a North Carolinian of Scottih descent, was sent to England to escape the Revo- tionary War. There he met Paul Jones and later took an active part in the war." 16

Chambers, Robert W., Cardigan. "Michael Cardigan, nephew of Sir William Johnson, the Commissioner of Indian affairs, found himself at eighteen entrusted with a serious mis­ sion to outwit intrigues of the notorious Butler, enemy of the Indians. His Indian adventures, hie struggle between his inherited loyalty to the Crown and his grow­ ing sympathy for the Colonists , and his love for a beautiful maiden make an absorbing story."

Cooper, James Fennimore, The Spy. Harvey Birch, a spy in the

Revolutionary war, disguises himself as a peddler.

George V/ashington confers with him.

16 Leisure Reading, published by National Council of Teachers of English, X§32, p. 24. 17 Ibid•, p. 22* 10*.

Furber, Edna, Cimarron. The story of Oklahoma Is told from

the opening of the strip to the discovery of oil with

laney Cravat as the hero.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, "Mr. Higginbotham1s Catastrophe," in

Twice Told Tales, A tobacco peddler, inquisitive and

tattling, saves the. life of Mr, Higginbotham,

Baweon, Marion Nioholl, From Here to Yonder.' This book

gives a charming aoeount of old roads, life upon these

roads and to either side of them,

Wright, Richardson, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America. This

is a history of the trades and professions carried on on

the road, and it includes peddlers, preachers, lawyers,

doctors, and actors. BIBLIOGiUPHT < ^ 03~

BIBLIOGRITET

Boyd, Jams, Drums, Charles Scribner*s Sons, New York, 1928.

Banner, H.C., Short Sixes, Sappier and Sohwarzman, New York, 1891.

Cairns, William B.,

i m .

Chambers, Robert W., Cardigan, - Harperand Brothers, New York, 1901.

Churchill, Winston, The Crossing, Srosoet and Dunlap, New York, 1903.

Clemens, Samuel L«,

Harper and™Brothers, New York, 1899,

Coleman, Rufus A., ed., Western Prose and Poetry, Harper andBrothers, New York, 1932,

Cooper, James Fenimoro, The Spy, Putnams * Sons, New York, 1904*

Crane, J»Xi», The Two Circuits, a Story of Western Life, Jansen, licClurg and Company, Chicago, 1683*

Eggleston, Edward, i s rles^ScrrSnaf^s lol^ K iS Y ^ 'fx ssi.” Eggleston, Edward,

f ^ r l e F ^ i l n e r V a ’Iras, Hew York, 1682

Eggleston, Edward, The Hoosier Schoolmaster, ferosset and Dunlap, New York, 1913. -104-

Ftirber, Edna, Cimarron# Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1950.

*1 A V7n 1 4

Fuller, Ethel Doming, "The Six-Horse Limited Mail", in Western Prose and Poetry ' edited by Rufus A. Coleman, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1932.

Hallburton, Thomas Chandler, The Clockmaker; or S a j r i n M j y ^ o f ^ |U=|a=|er ^

George E. Doran Company, New York, 1923.

Harte, Bret, The Luok of Boaring Camp and Other Tales, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1920.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Ethan Brand and Other Stories, Self or d Clarke”"and Company,.New York, 1888#

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Passages from the American Note-Books# Houghton Mifflin"'and Company, Hew York, 1892•

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, Twice-Told Tales, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1892.

Herrick, Robert, Together. 'the Macmillan Company, New York, 1910.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell,

lin Company, New York, 1891.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, The Poetical works of, (Household Edition), Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1890. ia#~

Jewett, Sarah Ora#,

company, Hew.York, 1888.

Kauffman, Reginald Wright, # # HOW York, 1 ^ .

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Complete Poetical Works, Houghton MifflinCompany, New York, 1895.

Riokahy, Franz, od.,

& # # ^ 4 r l # , S Z % 1928.

Rinehart, Mary Roberts,

^rosset and Dunlap, New York, 1915.

Stevens, James, Paul Bunyan. Garden City Publishing Company,Inc., Garden City, New York,1925.

Sweet, William Warren, H i E&#o#e^l^-gynilr^He#4ork, 1920.

Waller, Mary Ella, The Wood-Carver of 'Lympus, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1907.

White, Stewart Edward, The Blazed Trail, Doubleday, page, and Company, New York, 1902.

White, Stewart Edward, The Rlverman. fhe McClure Company, New York, 1908.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, Poetical Works, Volumes II and III, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1894.

Wiggin, Kate Douglas, Rebeooa of sunnybrook Farm. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1904. *106

Wilkin®, Mary E., The Best Stories of, edited by Henry Wysham Lanier, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1927.

Wright, Blehardson, Hawkers and Walkers in Early America, ^.B.Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1927•

Miscellaneous Leisure Heading for Grades seven. Eight and Nine, published by The National council of Teachers of English, Chicago, 1938.

"Drum Major", The New International Encyclopaedia, Second edi tion ,1916.'

"Drummer", TW:New International Encyclopaedia, Second edition,"TSlh.

"Francis Asbury", The Encyclopaedia Americana, edition of 193to.

"Lime", The American Cyclopaedia, edition "of 1683.

"Lumber Industry", The New International Encyclopaedia, Second edition, 1916.

"Methodism", The New International Encyclopaedia, . Second edition, 1916. APPENDIX A - 107-

APPEllDH A

Additional List of Books in which the Types

Discussed Above are Portrayed

The books listed below were not procurable or were discov­ ered too late to be included in the main body of this thesis.

Circuit rider

Harris, Cora, The Circuit Elder's Wife Sweet, W.W., circuit folder Days in Indiana

Country doctor

Allen, James Lane, The Doctor's Christmas Eve . Lincoln, Joseph, Doctor Hye

Drummer boy

Coffin, Charles C., Recollections of a Drummer Boy (Biography) Trowbridge, Drummer Boy

Lumberjack i

Aldrich, Peter Good-for-Nothlng Bassett, Sara ware, The Story of Lumber Bindloss, Harold, Green Timber Garland, Hamlin, Tralimakers of the Middle Border Day, Holman, King Spruce Kyne, Peter, Yalleyo f the Giants Meigs, Cornelia, Swift Rivers Stevens, James, The Frontier Shepherd, Paul Bunyan stories White, Stewart Edward, Rules of the Game Wadsworth, Paul Bunyan andhis Great Blue Ox

Peddler

Field, Rachel, Hitty, her First Hundred Years Wilkins, Mary E.* A Humble Romance" (a short story)

Schoolmaster

Butterworth, Hezekiah, patriot Schoolmaster - 108-

Stageooaoh driver

Bennett, iSstelline, Old Ueadwood Days Earle, Alice Morse, Sta^ecoachand Tavern Days Hafen, L»R», Stone, Strahan, C.A., . stage APPENDIX B —109 —

APPENDIX B

Additional List of Types, and Books and Poems

In which They are Portrayed

Captain on a Sailing Vessel

Dana, Richard Henry, Two Years Before the Hast Field, Rachel, Bitty, her First hundred Years Holland, Rupert S., captaiiTfrlpp Lincoln, Joseph, Cap'nKrX Lincoln, Joseph, Meigs, Cornelia, Pease, Pease, Riesenberg, Felix,

Cowboy

Barnes, Will C., Carr, Richard V., Clark, Badger, e Leather Coburn, Walt, faannyfians Doubleday, Russell, College Hough, Emerson, W cowBgy James, Will, James, Will, tBe Cowhorse James, Will, s of the Cow Camps Lewis, Alfred Henry, Lomax, John A., _____ .lads Miller, Joaquin, racuerro" (a short poem) Rolt-wheeler, F., owboj^s Russell, Charles M . , er Sarett, Lew, ncKos" (poem) in

Siring©, Charles A*, lister, Owen,

Gambler

Breakenridge, W.M«, Helldorado Devol, Gs, Forty Years a Gambler on the Missis#^

Berber, Edna, Berber, Edna Harte, Bret, t __ Calaveras (a short story) Harte, Bret, utcasts of Poker Flat (a short storyj Hoyt, Henry F., mil er Doctor Lewis, Alfred Henry, White, Stewart Edward, - 110-

Oentleaem of the South

Adams, Julia D., Cabell, James Branch, Cable, George W., Davis, R«He, Hopkinson-Saith, Knox, Rose B., Knox, Rose Be,

Homesteader

Allen, Marjorie Hill, Bojar, Johan, Bush, Bertha E., Garland, Hamlin, Prairie Inaan, Henry, Longhead,, FitLora A#, MoNeely, 1%, , Piper, Edwin Ford, ______'ayfarers (poems) Stewart, Elinors Pruitt,Letters of a woman Homesteader

Pirate

Bennett, John, Header, Stephen, Header, Stephen, Pyle, Howard, Stockton, Frank Re,

Prospector

Brooks, Noah, Connor, Ralph, Garland, Hamlin, Barte, Bret

Harte, Bret, Tennessee's Partner (a short story) Thompson, Arthur Ripley , Gold Seeding onthe Dalton Trail White, Stewart Edward, GoTH '

Rider of the Pony Express

Bradley, G.D., The 8 to the Pony Express Cody, William F., r $Ti Bgfalo Bill Eauok, Louise Platt, £r, a story. sOgei

Vissoher, W.Le, 111-

Rirer Captain

ILskovi f G«L» f Pageant of the Packets quick, Herbert, Mississippi ateamboatin♦ Husso11, C »E•, on" the Mississippi Twain, Mark, buckleberryFinn Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi Scout in Indian Warfare

Brooke, Noah, Boy Emigrants Cody, Helen, Buffalo B U T "" Cooper, James Fenimore, leatherstocking Tales Morrow, Honore Wilsie, On to Oregon ' Parkman, Francis, oregon~~frail Sabin, On the Plains with Custer Skinner, Constance Lindsay,Silent Scot, Frontier Scout White, Stewart Edward, Daniel Boone, Wilderness""scout

Trader

Lovelace, Maud, Early Candle Light Malkus, Alida Sims, Caravans t o Santa Fe Meigs, Cornelia, New ibon Meigs, Cornelia, silver sixpence Morrow, Honors Wilsie, Morrow, Honors Wilsie, Skinner, Constance Lind es. Trader Thompson, Maurice, d Vincennes

Trapper

Abbott, J,S•C•, Life of Kit Carson Alter, J#C•, JamosTBrldger Branch, E,D., Hunting the Buffalo Bright, Verne, Meek of Oregon (poem) Coates, Grace Stone, La Gignolle Tpoem) Grinnell, G.B., Jack, the toung Trapper Munro, Kirk, Buxton, G.F., Mountsins Skinner, Constance Lindsay, Betty*Tanaers, frontier Warrior

Whale Fisherman

Sullen, Frank T«, Cruise of the Cachalot Gardiner, Father Goes a whaling ' Hopkins, Melville, Herman, or the White Vrhal< Tucker, George Fox, Boy Whalemen Verril, Alphaus Hyatt, healStory of the Whaler — J---- L

1 11

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