Dwellers in Arcady Part 8

This day made all even betwixt Ezekial Jackson and myself.

B. M.

Captain Ben's accounts close in 1829, but the shoemaking records had long since begun. They are more prosaic, but they have an interest, too.

A book with charges against Joel Barlow and Aaron Burr could hardly fail of that, though the said Joel Barlow is not the poet-diplomat who wrote the "Columbiad" and shone in European courts, nor Aaron Burr the corrupter of Blennerha.s.sett and the slayer of Alexander Hamilton. At least, I judge they were not, for this Barlow and this Burr had cobbling charges against them as late as 1840, when the intriguing Aaron and the gifted Joel no longer needed earthly repairs. Nevertheless, they were of the same families, for Joel Barlow, the poet, was born just over the hill from us, and the name of Aaron Burr was known in Connecticut long before it found doubtful distinction in New Jersey.

The shoemaker's accounts reflect a life that is now all but gone. Some of the charges were offset with potatoes, some with rye, some with labor, a few of them with cash. A pair of boots in 1828 brought two dollars and fifty cents. Repairs ranged from six cents up, many of the charges being set down in half-cents. Those were exact, frugal days.

II

_We often cooked by our fireplace_

One hundred and fifty Thanksgivings must have preceded ours in the old house, but I think out of them all you could not have picked a better one. I would not like to say a more bountiful one, for I suppose in the earlier day they had great wild turkeys and perhaps a haunch of venison, braces of partridges and other royal fare. Even so, they could hardly have eaten it all, and I think their n.o.ble turkey did not taste any better than ours. Moreover, we were glad that our deer and partridges were still running free.

We did not lack of native dishes. Our mince and pumpkin pies were home products, as well as our apple-b.u.t.ter and a variety of other preserves.

Also, I had discovered a bed of wild cress in the brook and our brown turkey was garnished with that piquant green. Certainly there was an old-fas.h.i.+oned feeling about our first New England holiday--something precious and genuine, that made all effort and cost worth while.

The Pride and the Hope had come home for a week's vacation and were reveling in the house, which they now for the first time saw in order.

Of course their rooms had to be personally adjusted, their own special belongings inspected and put away. Their treasures, after two months of absence, were all new and fresh to them. The Pride, reveling in her own "cozy corner," or curled up in a big chair by the log fire, reread her favorite books; the Hope and the Joy played paper-doll "ladies" on the deep couch, cutting out a whole new generation with up-to-date wardrobes from the costume pages of some marvelous new fas.h.i.+on magazines.

Oblivious to the grosser world about them, they caused their respective families to telephone and give parties and visit back and forth, and to discuss openly their most private affairs and move into new houses and make improvements and purchases that would have wrecked Rockefeller if the bills had ever fallen due. That is the glory of make-believe--one may go as far as he likes, building his castles and his kingdoms, with never a cent to pay. It is only when one tries to realize in acres and bricks and s.h.i.+ngles that the accounts come in. A spiritistic friend of mine told me recently that the latest communications from the shadow world indicate the life there to be purely mental, that each spirit ent.i.ty creates its own environment and habitation by thought alone. In a word, it is a world, he said, where imagination is reality and all the dreams come true. Ah me! I hope he is not mistaken! What dreams of empires we have all put away, what air-castles we have seen melt and vanish because of the cost! A place where one may build and plant and renew by the processes of thought alone, unchecked by acreage boundaries or any sordid limitations of ways and means! I cannot think of a better or more reasonable hereafter than that. We get a glimpse of it here in the play of children--little children who perhaps have left the truth not so far behind.

"Fas.h.i.+on ladies" must relax now and then. Even in late November there were pleasant sunny days when the Hope and the Joy roamed the fields or laid a long board across a tumbled wall and teetered away vacation hours to the tune of

Seesaw, Marjory Daw, Sold her bed and laid on straw,

which was probably first sung a good way back--by Cain and Abel, maybe, in some corner of Eden. No, it would be outside of Eden, for their parents had moved, as I remember, before their arrival. And I wonder if little Cain and Abel had a fire to gather around when the fall evenings began to close in, before the lamps were lit, and if they ever had cakes and toast and sandwiches, with hot chocolate, from an old blue china set from a corner cupboard, and were as hungry as bears, and rocked while they ate and drank and watched the firelight dance on the tea-things and table-legs. If not, I am afraid they missed something, and perhaps it is not to be wondered at that little Cain became gloomy and savage and outcast when he grew up. A fireplace with a cozy cup of chocolate and a bite of something filling will civilize children about as quickly as anything I know of, and would, I am sure, have been good for Cain.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We often cooked by our fireplace. We hung a kettle over it for tea and toasted bread on Captain Ben Meeker's long iron toasting-fork. Then at supper-time we would rake out the coals, and on one of the old gridirons brought down from the attic would broil a big steak, or some chops, and if they did not taste better than any other steak or chops we certainly imagined they did, and I am still inclined to think we were right. Then there was popcorn, and potatoes roasted in the ashes, and apples on sticks, though this was likely to be later in the evening, when the tribe was hungry again, for children in vacation are always hungry, just little savages, and the best way to civilize them is to feed them, as I have said. It was too bad they must go back to school, and sometimes we wished there were never any such things as schools; and then again, when the house was one wild riot and hurrah, just at a moment when I wanted to reflect, I could appreciate quite fully the beauties of education and certain remote places where under careful direction it could be acquired. But how silent and lonely the house seemed when the Pride and the Hope were gone! How glad we were that Christmas was only a month away!

III

_Under the spell of the white touch_

In an earlier chapter I have spoken of our attic as an almost unfailing source of supply. Any sort of vessel or implement we might happen to need was pretty certain to turn up there if we looked long enough. It provided us with jugs and jars, and by and by, when the snow came, a wooden shovel and a bootjack for our rubber boots. I said that probably some day we should find a horse and buggy and harness up there, which was about all that we needed, now. It was just one of those careless remarks we all make on occasion. It never occurred to me that it was tinged with prophecy.

We did not find the horse, harness, and buggy in the attic, but we found them--heired them, to use a good New England word, just as we had heired the other things. The automobile had not yet reached Brook Ridge, but it was arriving in the centers and suburbs, upsetting old traditions, severing old ties. Once we had been commuters on Long Island, and in our happy suburb there still lived a friend to whom the years had brought prosperity and motor-machines. In the earlier, more deliberate years he had found comfort and sufficient speed in an enviable surrey, attached to a faithful family horse which now, alas! was too slow, too deliberate for the pace of wealth and the honk-honk of style. So the old horse stood in the stable, for his owners did not wish to see him go to strangers. But then one day they heard how we had turned ourselves into farmers, and presently word came that if we needed Old Beek (shortened from Lord Beaconsfield), surrey, and harness complete, they were ours to command. They would be delivered to us in the city, the message said, from which point we could drive, or s.h.i.+p, them to the farm. It was a windfall from a clear sky--we said it must be our lucky year. We accepted the quickest way, and were presently in the city to receive Lord Beaconsfield.

Had it been earlier in the year, during those magic days of September, or even in October, when the drifting leaves had turned the highways into thoroughfares of gold, we should have driven by easy stages the sixty miles, across the hills and far away, to Brook Ridge, resting where the night found us. It was too late for that now. The roadsides were no longer flower-decked or golden. An early snowfall had left them in rather a mixed condition, and the air had a chill in it that did not invite extended travel. We could s.h.i.+p by boat to our nearest Sound port, and the fifteen-mile drive from there seemed no great matter.

We admired the dignity with which His Lords.h.i.+p drew up in front of our New York hotel. He was a large, handsome animal, sorrel as to color, and of a manner befitting his station and advanced years. It was evident that we were not of his cla.s.s, but with the gentle tact of true n.o.bility he never, either then or later, permitted this difference in rank to make us uncomfortable. He even allowed us to call him "Beek," "Old Beek," "good Old Beek," especially when there was a lump of sugar in prospect. He was very human.

But I antic.i.p.ate. We were delighted with Lord Beaconsfield and his appurtenances. As for the Joy, she was quite beside herself. Anything with the semblance of a horse would excite the Joy. I got in with the driver, and we made our way to the river-front, where I saw His Lords.h.i.+p to his state-room and the surrey stored away. I don't suppose in all his twenty years he had ever taken a voyage before, but he showed no nervousness or undue surprise, and that night at the port of arrival he came stepping down the gang-plank as unconcernedly as the oldest traveler. We were up and away rather early next morning, for we wished to travel leisurely, and we were not familiar with the road.

On inquiry we learned there were two roads--one to the east and one to the west of a little river, the same that formed a mill-pond in Westbury's door-yard, and here a wide orderly stream flowed into the sea. The "Glen" road--the one to the east--was thought to be the shorter, so we chose that. It was a good selection, so far as scenery was concerned, but if I had the same drive to make again I would go the other way. With the exception of a small box of lunch crackers for the Joy, we had provided no food for the journey, for we said we could stop at a village inn when the time came and get something warm. That was a good idea, only there were no villages. There was not even a country store in that lost land of forest and hill and rocky cliff and desolate open field. Now and then we came to a house, but so dead and forbidding was its aspect that we did not dare even to ask our way. Never a soul appeared in the door-yard, and if smoke came from the chimney it was a thin, blue wisp as from dying embers. The land was asleep, under the spell of the white touch. To knock at one of those houses would have been, as it seemed, to call its occupants from their winter trance.

We traveled slowly, for the roads were sticky, and there were many hills. We could not ask Lord Beaconsfield to do more than walk, which he did st.u.r.dily enough, tugging up the long hills, though they were probably the first he had ever seen, for his part of Long Island had been level ground. What must he have thought of that chaotic desolation, where most of the woods and a good many of the fields were set up at foolish angles against other woods and fields and where there was no sign of food for man or beast?

But if we were timid about making inquiries, His Lords.h.i.+p was not. When his appet.i.te became urgent he forgot that he had come of a proud race, and soon after noon-time began to trumpet his demands, and his alarm, like an ordinary horse. His stable at home must have been red, for at every barn of that friendly color--and most of them were of that hue--he sent a clarion neigh across the echoing hills. The Joy, bundled warmly, munched her crackers and made little complaint. Her elders diverted themselves by admiring the winter scenery--the bared woods, lightly dressed with snow, the rocky cliffs and ledges, the tumbling black river that now and again came into view.

As the afternoon wore on and we arrived nowhere, we became disturbed by doubts as to our direction. It was true that we seemed to be following the general course of the river, but was it the right river? Hadn't we gone trailing off somewhere on a second-cla.s.s tributary that had been leading us all day through a weird, bedeviled territory that probably wasn't on the map at all? The brief daylight was fading and it was important that we arrive somewhere, pretty soon. We must make inquiry.

It would be better to rouse even one of the seven sleepers than to wander aimlessly into the night. At the next house, I said, we would knock.

But at the next house we actually discovered something moving--something outside. As we came nearer it took the form of a man, a sad man, dragging a crooked limb from a wood-pile. I drew up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Good afternoon," I said. "Can you tell us where we are?"_]

"Good afternoon," I said. "Can you tell us where we are?"

"Why, yes," he grunted, as he worked and pulled at the limb. "You're at Valley Forge."

Valley Forge! Heavens! We were within twenty miles of Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill. At the pace we had been going it did not seem reasonable. This must be enchantment, sure enough.

"Look here," I said, "you don't mean that this is Valley Forge where Was.h.i.+ngton was quartered."

"Don't know anything about that," he said, still grunting over the crooked limb, "but I've been quartered here for more 'n sixty years, an'

it's always been the same Valley Forge in my time."

"Is--is this Connecticut?"

"That's what it is."

I breathed easier. If he had said Pennsylvania it would have meant that we were a hundred and fifty miles from home.

"Do you know of any place called the Glen?"

"Of course; right up ahead a few miles. Where'd you folks come from, anyway? You don't appear to know much about locations."

I side-stepped, thanking him profusely. We were all right, then, but it seemed a narrow escape.

At last we entered the Glen and recognized certain landmarks. It was a somber place now--its aspect weirdly changed since the first days of our coming. Then it had been a riot of summer-time, the cliffs a mat and tangle of green that had shut us in. On this dull December evening, with its vines and shrubs and gaunt trees bare, its pointed cedars and hemlocks the only green, its dark water swirling under overhanging rocks, it had become an entrance to Valhalla, the dim abode of the G.o.ds.

How friendly Westbury's lights looked when we crossed the bridge by the mill and turned into the drive, and what gracious comfort there was in his bright fire and warm, waiting supper. We did not go up the hill that night. Good Old Beek found rest and food and society in Westbury's big red barn.

IV

_The difficulty was to get busy_

I have referred more than once, I am sure, to my study behind the chimney, a tiny place of about seven by nine feet, once, no doubt, the "parlor bedroom." I selected it chiefly because of its size. I said one could condense his thoughts so much better in a limited area. I shelved one side and end of it to the ceiling, put dull-green paper on the walls, padded its billowy floor with excelsior, put down dull-green denim as a rug basis, and painted the woodwork to match. Then I set my work-table in the center, where I could reach almost anything without getting up; and certainly with its capable fireplace it was as cozy and inviting a work-room as one would find in a week's travel.

The difficulty was to get busy at the condensing process. Work was pressing. Not exactly the work, either, but the need of it. No, I mean the necessity of it. It was the need of funds that was pressing--that is what I have been trying to convey. With all the buying and improving, and the loads of new indispensables that Westbury was constantly bringing from the nearest town of size, the exchequer was running low. I am not really so lazy, once I get started, but I have a const.i.tutional hesitancy in the matter of getting started. My will and enthusiasm are both in good supply, but my ability to sit down and really begin is elusive.

It was especially so that winter; there were so many excuses for not getting started. Mornings I would rise firm in the resolve that the day and hour were at hand. After breakfast I would determinedly start for the room behind the chimney. Unfortunately I had to pa.s.s through our "best room" to get there. There was certain to be a picture or something a little out of place in that room. Whatever it was, it must be attended to. It would annoy me to leave a thing like that unremedied. One's mind must be quite untrammeled to condense. Sometimes I had to rearrange several of the pictures, and straighten the books, and pull the rugs around a little, before I felt ready for the condensing process. But then I would be certain to notice something out in the yard that was not in place. We took a pride in our yard. Once outside, one thing generally led to another, and in the course of time I would be pawing over stuff in the barn. Then it was about luncheon-time--it would hardly be worth starting the condensing business till afterward.

Perhaps I would actually get into the room behind the chimney after luncheon, but one could not begin work until the fire was replenished and a supply of wood brought. Then while one was at it one might as well get in a supply of fuel for the other fires, so as to have a clear afternoon for a good substantial beginning.