Chanticleer Part 3

"Thank G.o.d, we have," Oliver rejoined with emphasis, "and we love it!"

"I thank G.o.d for that too," old Sylvester replied, striking his staff firmly on the ground, "I remember well, my son, when your great state was a wilderness of woods and savage men, and now this common sky--look at it, Oliver--which s.h.i.+nes so clearly above us, is yours as well as ours."

"I fear me, father, one day, bright, beautiful, and wide-arched as it is, the glorious Union may fall," said Oliver, laying his hand upon an aged tree which stood near them, "may fall, and the states drop, one by one away, even as the fruit I shake to the ground."

As though he had been a tower standing on an elevation, old Sylvester Peabody rose aloft to his full height, as if he would clearly contemplate the far past, the distant, and the broad-coming future.

"The Union fall!" he cried. "Look above, my son! The Union fall! as long as the constellations of evening live together in yonder sky; look down, as long as the great rivers of our land flow eastward and westward, north and south, the Union shall stand up, and stand majestical and bright, beheld by ages, as these shall be, an orb and living stream of glory unsurpa.s.sable."

The children were gathered about, and watched with eager eyes and glowing cheeks, the countenance of the grandfather as he spoke.

"No, no, my son," he added, "there's many a true heart in brave Ohio, as in every state of ours, or they could not be the n.o.ble powers they are."

While old Sylvester spoke, Oliver Peabody wrenched with some violence, from the tree near which they stood, a stout limb, on the end of which he employed himself with a knife in shaping a substantial k.n.o.b.

"What weapon is that you are busy with, Oliver?" old Sylvester asked.

"It's for that nasty bull," Oliver replied. "I would break every bone in his body rather than let him remain for a single minute on my land; the furtherance of law and order demands the instant enforcement of one's rights."

"You are a friend of law and order, my son."

"I think I am," Oliver answered, standing erect and planting his club, in the manner of Hercules in the pictures, head down on the ground.

"I hope you are, Oliver; but I fear you forget the story I used to tell of my old friend Bulkley, of Danbury, who, being written to by some neighboring Christians who were in sore dissension, for advis.e.m.e.nt, gave them back word:--Every man to look after his own fence, that it be built high and strong, and to have a special care of the old Black Bull; meaning thereby no doubt, our own wicked pa.s.sions;--that is the true Christian way of securing peace and good order."

Oliver threw his great trespa.s.s-club upon the ground, and was on the point of asking after an old sycamore, the largest growth of all that country, which, standing in a remote field had, in the perilous times sheltered many of the Peabody family in its bosom--when he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Mopsey in a flutter of cap-strings, shuffling shoes, and a flying color in her looks of at least double the usual depth of darkness. It was just discovered that the poultry-house had been broken into over night, and four of the fattest hens taken off by the throat and legs, besides sundry of the inferior members of the domicile; as wicked a theft, Mopsey said, as ever was, and she hadn't the slightest hesitation in charging it on them n.i.g.g.e.rs in the Hills, (a neighboring settlement of colored people, who lived from hand to mouth, and seemed to be fed, like the ravens by some mystery of providence.)

Oliver Peabody watched closely the countenance of the patriarch, not a little curious to learn what effect this announcement would have upon his temper.

"This is all our own fault," said old Sylvester, promptly. "We should have remembered this was thanksgiving time, and sent them something to stay their stomachs. Poor creatures, I always wondered how they got along! Send 'em some bread, Mopsey, for they never can do anything with fowls without bread!"

"Send 'em some bread!" Mopsey rejoined, growing blacker and more ugly of look as she spoke: "Send 'em whips, and an osifer of the law!--the four fattest of the coop."

"Never mind," said old Sylvester.

"Six of the ten'drest young'uns!"

"Never mind that," said old Sylvester.

"I'd have them all in the county jail before sundown," urged Mopsey.

"Oliver, we will go in to tea," continued the patriarch. "We have enough for tea, Mopsey?"

"Yes, quite enough, Mas'r."

"Then," cried the old man, striking his staff on the ground with great violence, rising to his full height, and glowing like a furnace, upon Mopsey, "then, I say, send 'em some bread!"

This speech, delivered in a voice of authority, sent Mopsey, shuffling and cowering, away, without a word, and brought the sweat of horror to the brow of Oliver, which he proceeded to remove with a great cotton pocket-handkerchief, produced from his coat behind, on which was displayed in glowing colors, by some cunning artist, the imposing scene of the signers of the Declaration of Independence getting ready to affix their names. Mr. Oliver Peabody was the politician of the family, and always had the immortal Declaration of Independence at his tongue's end, or in hand.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED.

When Oliver and old Sylvester entered the house they found all of the family gathered within, save the children, who loitered about the doors and windows, looking in, anxious-eyed, on the preparations for tea going forward under the direction of the widow Margaret, and Mopsey. The other women of the household were busy with a discussion of the merits of Mrs.

Carrack, of Boston, the fas.h.i.+onable lady of the family.

"I should like to see Mrs. Carrack above all things," said the Captain's pretty little wife, "she must be a fine woman from all I have heard of her."

"Thee will have small chance, I fear, child," said Mrs. Jane Peabody, sitting buxomly in an easy arm chair, which she had quietly a.s.sumed, "she is too fine for the company of us plain folks in every point of view."

"It's five years since she was here," the widow suggested as she adjusted the chairs around the table, "she said she never would come inside the house again, because the best bed-chamber was not given to her--I am sorry to say it."

"She's a heathen and wicked woman," Mopsey said, shuffling at the door, and turning back on her way to the kitchen--"your poor boy was lying low of a fever and how could _she_ expect it."

"In one point of view she may come; her husband was living then,"

continued Mrs. Jane Peabody, "she has become a rich woman since, and may honor us with a visit--to show us how great a person she has got to be--let her come--it need'nt trouble thee, nor me, I'm sure." Mrs. Jane Peabody smoothed her Quaker vand.y.k.e, and sat stiffly in her easy chair.

Old Sylvester entering at that moment, laid aside his staff and broad-brimmed hat, which little Sam Peabody ran in to take charge of, and took his seat at the head of the table; the Captain, who was busy at the back-door scouring an old rusty fowling-piece for some enterprise he had in view in the morning, was called in by his little wife; the others were seated in their places about the board.

"Where's William?" old Sylvester asked.

He was at a window in the front room, where he had sat for several hours, with spectacles on his brow, poring over an old faded parchment deed, which related to some neighboring land he thought belonged to the Peabodys, (although in possession of others,) and which he had always made a close study of on his visits to the homestead. There was a dark pa.s.sage, under which he made their t.i.tle, which had been submitted to various men learned in the law; it was too dark and doubtful, in their opinion, to build a contest on, and yet William Peabody gave it every year a new examination, with the hope, perhaps, that the wisdom of advancing age might enable him to fathom and expound it, although it had been drawn up by the greatest lawyer of his day in all that country. His wife Hannah, grieving in spirit that her husband should be toiling forever in the quest of gain, sat near him, pale, calm and disheartened, but speaking not a word. He could not look at her with that fearful green shade on her face, but kept his eyes always fixed on the old parchment. When his aged father had taken his seat, and began his thanks to G.o.d for the bounties before them, as though the old Patriarch had brought a better spirit from the calm day without, he thrust the paper into his bosom and glided to his place at the table. It would have done you good to hear that old man's prayer. He neither solicited forgiveness for his enemies nor favors for his friends; for schools, churches, presidents or governments; neither for health, wealth, worldly welfare, nor for any single other thing; all he said, bowing his white old head, was this:

"May we all be Christian people the day we die--G.o.d bless us."

That was all; and his kinsfolk lost no appet.i.te in listening to it--for it was no sooner uttered than they all fell to--and not a word more was spoken for five minutes at least, nor then perhaps, had not little Sam Peabody cried out, with breathless animation, and delight of feature,

"The pigeons, grandfather!" at the same time pointing from the door to the evening sky, along which they were winging their calm and silent flight in a countless train--streaming on westward as though there was no end to them; which put old Sylvester upon recalling the cheerful sports of his younger days.

"I have taken a couple of hundred in a net on the Hill before breakfast, many a time," he said. "You used to help me, William."

"Yes, I and old Ethan Barbary," said the merchant, "used to spring the net; you gave the word."

"Old Ethan has been dead many a day. Ethan," continued old Sylvester, in explanation, "was the father of our Mr. Barbary. He was a preacher too, and carried a gun in the revolution. I remember he was accounted a peculiar man. I never knew why. To be sure he used to spend the time he did not employ in prayers, preaching and tending the sick, in working on the farms about, for he had no wages for preaching. When there was none of that to be had, he took his basket, and sallying through the fields, gathered berries, which he bestowed on the needy families of the neighborhood. In winter he collected branches in the woods about, as fire-wood for the poor."

"That was a capital idea," said Oliver the politician. "It must have made him very popular."

"Wasn't he always thought to be a little out of his head?" asked the merchant. "He might have sold the wood for a good price in the severe winters."

"I remember as if it were yesterday," old Sylvester went on in his own way, not heeding in the slightest the suggestions of his sons, "he and black Burling, who is buried in the woods by the Great Walnut tree, near the pond, both fought in the American ranks, and had but one gun between them, which they used turn about."

"You saw rough times in those days, grandfather," said the Captain.

"I did, Charley," old Sylvester answered, looking kindly on the Captain, who had always been something of a favorite of his from the day he had married into the family; "and there are but few left to talk with me of them now. I am one of the living survivors of an almost extinguished race. The grave will soon be our only habitation. I am one of the few stalks that still remain in the field where the tempest pa.s.sed. I have fought against the foreign foe for your sake; they have disappeared from the land, and you are free; the strength of my arm delays, and my feet fail me in the way; the hand which fought for your liberties is now open to bless you. In my youth I bled in battle that you might be independent--let not my heart, in my old age, bleed because you abandon the path I would have you follow."