The Wigwam and the Cabin W
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Settler Literature Archive Department of English 1882 The wigwam and the cabin W. (William) Gilmore Simms Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/settler-literature Recommended Citation Simms, W. (William) Gilmore, "The wigwam and the cabin" (1882). Settler Literature Archive. 41. https://commons.und.edu/settler-literature/41 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Settler Literature Archive by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Mrs. Stephen E. Whicher Cornell University Library PS 2848.W4 1856 The wigwam and the cabin 3 1924 022 165 124 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240221 651 24 DATE DUE THt H:r^ v^ C*. 'X ^f--^ HJ |f ,1-st ,a f\ THE WIGWAM AND THE CABIN By W. G^ILM0RE_SJMMS, Esq. AUTHOR OF "THE YEMASSEe'' "tHJE FORAYERs'' " F.DTAw" "KATHARINE Walton"—"thk scout"—"richard hur.dis" —*' vasconselos," etc. ' Tho anck'nt tali'S Which first I learned , Will I relate." Edda of Saemund. NEW AND REVISED EDITION * REDPIELD 34 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK 1856 KntereJ, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, Br J. S. REDFIELD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of Kew York. SAVAGE & MOCREA, STEREOTYPERS, J3 Cbamberfl Street, N. Y. CONTENTS. Geatung; or, "Muedek Will Out" paob . The Two Camps, a Legend of the Old North State . The Last Wager, or the Gamester of the 'Mississippi . The Akm-Chair of Tustenuggee, a Tradition of the Cata- WABA ] The Snake op the Cabin ] Oakatibbe, or the Choctaw Sampson 1 L JocASSEE, A Cherokee Legend S The Giant's Coffin; 5r, the Feud of Holt and Houston . S Sergeant Barnacle ; ok, the Raftsman of the Edisto . 2 Those Old Ltines ! or, Which is the Madman 1 ..... 3 The Lazy Crow; a Story of the Cornfield 3 Calota ; OR, the Loves op the Driver 3 Lucas de Atllon 4 ; TO NASH ROACH,* ESQ., OF SOUTH CAEOLINA. Mt Deak Sir: When, many years ago, the stories in this volume were first collected and brought together in one body, I then inscribed their contents to you, as in proof "of an affection which had steadily advanced with the progress of my acquaintance with your integ- rity and gentleness of character," as displayed during a long period of the most delicate and intimate relationship and inter- course. Time has since then greatly lengthened this ternl of our intercourse, and still I have no reason to alter this inscription but, on the opntrary, to deepen it rather, and to clothe its lines in warmer hues and colors, and, if possibly, to fix the • insorfptioti in yet more imposing characters. * * • It may be permitted me, through" you, to say to the general reader, that the tales in this collection have been the accumulation of many years, ranging backward to the dawn of my earhest manhood. It is more easy, I "find, to acknowledge their faults, than to amend or to excuse them. But, to be apologetic where it is not possible to atone, is only a sort of humiliation which one need not gratuRously incur. Enough, that, if I could bring my- self to the task, I might improve and amend my short-comings, and prune my excesses — I feel this — yet know not whether the IV DEDICATION. The relations existing between the reader and the author, do not render this essential to the intercourse between the parties. The one writes, the other reads — approvingly or not — and why either employs himself in this fashion, is, I take it,va matter upon which neither need to ask any unnecessary questions. This book, at aU events, like all other books, was, from the first, required to make its way alone, irrespective entirely of publisher and author. • Gratuitously, however, I beg to mention one subordinate par- ticular. The romance of " Vasconselos" was begun, and a score of chapters written, several years jgo, when tKe subject was set aside, to give place to other performances of more pressing claim, though scarcely of more absolute attraction. The work was re- sumed, finally, with as much eagerness as it had been originally begun : for the romantic history which the subject involved, had lost none of its beauty in my eyes, and none of its hold upon my imagination. As a drama, embodying a most ctirious and interesting progress, during a singularly-attractive 'period in our ante-colonial history, the invasion (not the conquest — very far from it!) of the empire of the Eloridian (Apalachian) savage, by Hernan de Soto, affords a vast and fertile region for him who works in the province^ of art in fiction. ' It is, in brief, one of the most magnificent of episodes in the history of progress aijd discovery in the' western world. Your well-known tastes, my dear sir, for the material of the antiquarian ; your enthusiasm, that so quickly expands to the spells of the art-necromanCer ; will unite, I trust, to incline you to the work ; while I feel very sure that your personal sympathies will all contribute to secure for it that degree of favor, from your judg- ment, which, possibly, its own merits would utterly fail to coerce. Very truly, my deaf Br., Your obhge^. friend anid servant, .'''..'tW. GiLMORE SlMMS. Woodlands, S. C, Octoicr 20, 1856. THE ¥IG¥AM AND THE CABIN GRAYLING; OR, "MURDER WILL OUT." CHAPTER I. The world has become monstrous matter-of-fact in latter days. We can no longer get a ghost story, either for love or money. The materialists have it all their own way j and even the little urchin, eight years old, instead of deferring with deceflt reverence to t]ie opmions of his grandmamma, no^w stands up stoutly for his own. He believes in every "ology" but, pneumatology. "Faust" and the " Old Woman of Berkeley" move his deiision only, and he would laugh incredulously, if. he dared, at the Witch of En- reasoning is his side dor. The whole armoury of modern on ; and, however he may admit at seasons that belief can scarcely be counted a matter of will, he yet puts his veto on all sorts of credulity. That cold-blooded demon called Science has taken the place of all the other demons. He has certainly cast out in- numerable devils, however he may still spare the principal. Whether we are the better for his intervention is another ques- tion. There is reason to apprehend that in disturbing our human faith in shadows, we have lost some of those wholesome moral re- straints which might have kept many of us virtuous, where the laws could not. The effect, however, is much the more seriously evil in all that concerns the romantic. Our story-tellers are so resolutq to deal in the real, the actual only, -that they venture on no subjects the details of which are not equally vulgar and susceptible of proof. With' this end in view, indeed, they too commonly choose their 2 . — 2 THE WIGWAM AND THE CABIN. subjects among convicted felons, in order that they may avail them- prove selves of the evidence which led .to their conviction ; ^n,d, to more conclusively their devoted adherence to nature and the truth, they depict the former not only in her condition of nakedness, but long before she has found out the springs of running water.- It is to be feared that some of the coarseness of modern taste arises from the too great lack of that veneration which belonged to, and elevated to dignity, even the errors of preceding ages. A love of the marvellous belongs, it appears to me, to all tljose who love and cultivate either of the fine arts. I very much doubt whether the poet, the painter, the sculptor, or the romancer,. ever yet lived, who had not some strong bias—a leaning, at least, to a belief in the wonders of the invisible world. Certainly, the higher orders of poets and painters, those who create and invent, must have a strpng taint of the superstitious in their composition. But this is digressive, and leads us from our purpose. It is so long since we have been suffered to see or hear of a ghost, that a visitation at this time may have the effect pf novelty, and I propose to narrate a story which I heard more than once in my boyhood, from the lips of an aged relative, who succeeded, at tfme, in word of it perhaps, for the tBe making me believa every ; simple reason that she Convinced me she beliesed every word of it herself. My grandmother was an old lady who had been a res- ident of the seat of most frequent war in Carolina during the Rev- olution. She had fortunately survived the numberless atrocities wjiich she was yet compelled to witness ; and, a keen observer, with a strong memory, she had in store a thousand legends of that stirring peyod, which served to beguile me from sleep many and many a long winter night. The story which I propose to tell was one of these ; and when I say that she not only devoutly believed it herself, but that it was believed by sundry of her contempora.