Peter Parley's Own Story. From the Personal Narrative of the Late Samuel G. Goodrich, («Peter Parley»)

"You've worked with me thirty days, I think, Mr. Kellogg?"

"Yes, Granther," was the reply.

"At a dollar a-day: that makes thirty dollars, I think?"

"Yes, Granther."

"Mr. Kellogg, I am sorry to observe that you have a very bad habit of taking the Lord's name in vain."

"Yes, Granther."

"Well, you know that's agin the law."

"Yes, Granther."

"And there's a fine of one dollar for each offence."

"Yes, Granther."

"Well – here's the account I've kept, and I find you've broken the law twenty-five times; that is, sixteen times in April, and nine in May. At a dollar a time, that makes twenty-five dollars – don't it?"

"Yes, Granther."

"So, then, twenty-five from thirty leaves five; it appears, therefore, that there is a balance of five dollars due to you. How'll you take it, Mr. Kellogg? In cash, or in my way – say in 'taters, pork, and other things?"

At this point the carpenter's brow lowered, but with a prodigious effort at composure he replied, —

"Well, Granther, you may keep the five dollars, and I'll take it out in my way – that is, in swearing!"

Upon this he hurled at the old gentleman a volley of oaths, too numerous and too profane to repeat.

One sketch more, and my gallery of eccentricities is finished. Men hermits have been frequently heard of, but a woman hermit is of rare occurrence. Nevertheless, Ridgefield could boast of one of these among its curiosities. Sarah Bishop was, at the period of my boyhood, a thin, ghostly old woman, bent and wrinkled, but still possessing a good deal of activity. She lived in a cave, formed by nature, in a mass of projecting rocks that overhung a deep valley or gorge in West Mountain, about four miles from our house.

The rock, bare and desolate, was her home, except that occasionally she strayed to the neighborhood villages; seldom being absent more than one or two days at a time. She never begged, but received such articles as were given to her. She was of a highly religious turn of mind, and at long intervals came to our church, and partook of the sacrament. She sometimes visited our family – the only one thus favored in the town – and occasionally remained overnight. She never would eat with us at the table, nor engage in general conversation. Upon her early history she was invariably silent; indeed, she spoke of her affairs with great reluctance. She neither seemed to have sympathy for others, nor to ask it in return. If there was any exception, it was only in respect to the religious exercises of the family: she listened intently to the reading of the Bible, and joined with apparent devotion in the morning and evening prayer.

My excursions frequently brought me within the wild precincts of her solitary den. Several times I have paid a visit to the spot, and in two instances found her at home. A place more desolate, in its general outline, more absolutely given up to the wildness of nature, it is impossible to conceive. Her cave was a hollow in the rock, about six feet square. Except a few rags and an old basin, it was without furniture; her bed being the floor of the cave, and her pillow a projecting point of the rock. It was entered by a natural door about three feet wide and four feet high, and was closed in severe weather only by pieces of bark. At a distance of a few feet was a cleft, where she kept a supply of roots and nuts, which she gathered, and the food that was given her. She was reputed to have a secret depository, where she kept a quantity of antique dresses; several of them of rich silks, and apparently suited to fashionable life: though I think this was an exaggeration. At a little distance down the ledge there was a fine spring of water, near which she was often found in fair weather.

There was no attempt, either in or around the spot, to bestow upon it an air of convenience or comfort. A small space of cleared ground was occupied by a few thriftless peachtrees, and in summer a patch of starveling beans, cucumbers, and potatoes. Up two or three of the adjacent forest-trees there clambered luxuriant grape-vines, highly productive in their season. With the exception of these feeble marks of cultivation, all was left ghastly and savage as nature made it. The trees, standing upon the tops of the cliff, and exposed to the shock of the tempest, were bent and stooping towards the valley: their limbs contorted, and their roots clinging, as with an agonized grasp, into the rifts of the rocks upon which they stood. Many of them were hoary with age, and hollow with decay; others were stripped of their leaves by the blasts; and others still, grooved and splintered by the lightning. The valley below, enriched with the decay of centuries, and fed with moisture from the surrounding hills, was a wild paradise of towering oaks, and other giants of the vegetable kingdom, with a rank undergrowth of tangled shrubs. In the distance, to the east, the gathered streams spread out into a beautiful expanse of water called Long Pond.

A place at once so secluded and so wild was, of course, the chosen haunt of birds, beasts and reptiles. The eagle built her nest and reared her young in the clefts of the rocks; foxes found shelter in the caverns; and serpents revelled alike in the dry hollows of the cliffs and the dark recesses of the valley. The hermitess had made companionship with these brute tenants of the wood. The birds had become so familiar with her, that they seemed to heed her almost as little as if she had been a stone. The fox fearlessly pursued his hunt and his gambols in her presence. The rattlesnake hushed his monitory signal as he approached her. Such things, at least, were entertained by the popular belief. It was said, indeed, that she had domesticated a particular rattlesnake, and that he paid her daily visits. She was accustomed – so said the legend – to bring him milk from the villages, which he devoured with great relish.

It will not surprise you that a subject like this should have given rise to one of my first poetical efforts; the first verses, in fact, that I ever published. I gave them to Brainard, then editor of the Mirror, at Hartford; and he inserted them, probably about the year 1823.

The facts in respect to this Nun of the Mountain were, indeed, strange enough, without any embellishment of fancy. During the winter she was confined for several months to her cell. At that period she lived upon roots and nuts, which she had laid in for the season. She had no fire; and, deserted even by her brute companions, she was absolutely alone. She appeared to have no sense of solitude, no weariness at the slow lapse of days and months. When spring returned, she came down from her mountain a mere shadow; each year her form more bent, her limbs more thin and wasted, her hair more blanched, her eye more colorless. At last, life seemed ebbing away, like the faint light of a lamp sinking into the socket. The final winter came; it passed, and she was not seen in the villages around. Some of the inhabitants went to the mountain, and found her standing erect, her feet sunk in the frozen marsh of the valley. In this situation, being unable to extricate herself, she had yielded her breath to Him who gave it!

The early history of this strange personage was involved in some mystery. So much as this, however, was ascertained, that she was of good family, and lived on Long Island. During the Revolutionary war, in one of the numerous forays of the British soldiers, her father's house was burned, and she was infamously treated. Desolate in fortune, blighted at heart, she fled from human society, and for a long time concealed her sorrows in the cavern which she had accidentally found. Her grief – softened by time, perhaps alleviated by a veil of insanity – was at length so far mitigated, that, although she did not seek human society, she could endure it. She continued to occupy her cave till the year 1810 or 1811, when she departed in the manner I have described; and we may hope, for a brighter and happier existence.

CHAPTER IX

FAREWELL TO HOME – DANBURY – MY NEW VOCATION – MY BROTHER-IN-LAW – HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH LAWYER HATCH – CLERICAL ANECDOTES.

In the autumn of the year 1808, a sudden change took place in my prospects. My eldest sister had married a gentleman by the name of Cooke, in the adjacent town of Danbury. He was a tradesman, and being in want of a clerk, offered me the place. It was considered a desirable situation by my parents, and, overlooking my mechanical aptitudes, they accepted it at once, and at the age of fifteen I found myself installed in a country store.

This arrangement gratified my love of change; and at the same time, as Danbury was a much more considerable town than Ridgefield, going to live there naturally suggested the idea of advancement, especially as I was to exchange my uncertain prospects for a positive profession. However, I little comprehended what it meant to say, "Farewell to home: " I have since learned its significance. In thus bidding adieu to the paternal roof, we part with youth for ever. We part with the spring-tide of life, which strews every path with flowers, fills the air with poetry, and the heart with rejoicing. We part with that genial spirit which endows familiar objects – brooks, lawns, play-grounds, hill-sides – with its own sweet illusions; we bid adieu to this and its fairy companionships. Even if, in after life, we return to the scenes of our childhood, they have lost the bloom of youth, and in its place we see the wrinkles of that age which has graven its hard lines upon our hearts.

Farewell to home implies something even yet more serious: we relinquish, and often with exultation, the tender care of parents, in order to take upon ourselves the responsibilities of independence. What seeming infatuation it is, that renders us thus impatient of the guidance of those who gave us being, and makes us at the same time anxious to spread our untried sails upon an untried sea, to go upon a voyage which involves all the chances, evil as well as good, of existence! And yet it is not infatuation – it is instinct. We cannot always be young; we cannot all remain under the paternal roof. The old birds push the young ones from the nest, and force them to a trial of their wings. It is the system of nature that impels us to go forth and try our fortunes, and it is a kind Providence, after all, which endues us with courage for the outset of our uncertain career.

I was not long in discovering that my new vocation was very different from what I had expected, and very different from my accustomed way of life. My habits had been active, my employments chiefly in the open air. I was accustomed to be frequently on horseback, and to make excursions to the neighboring towns. I had also enjoyed much personal liberty, which I failed not to use in rambling over the fields and forests. All this was now changed. My duties lay exclusively in the store, and this seemed now my prison. From morning to night I remained there, and, as our business was not large, I had many hours upon my hands with nothing to do but to consider the weariness of my situation. My brother-in-law was always present, and being a man of severe aspect and watchful eyes, I felt a sort of restraint, which, for a time, was agonizing. I had, consequently, pretty sharp attacks of homesickness; a disease which, though not dangerous, is one of the most distressing to which suffering humanity is exposed.

This state of misery continued for some weeks, during which time I revolved various plans of escape from my confinement: such as stealing away at night, making my way to Norwalk, getting on board a sloop, and going as cabin-boy to the West Indies. I believe that a small impulse would have set me upon some such mad expedition. By degrees, however, I became habituated to my occupation, and as my situation was eligible in other respects, I found myself ere long reconciled to it.

The father and mother of my brother-in-law were aged people, living with him in the same house, and as one family. They were persons of great amiability and excellence of character: the former, Colonel Cooke, was eighty years of age, but he had still the perfect exercise of his faculties, and though he had ceased all business, he was cheerful, and took a lively interest in passing events. Never have I seen a more pleasing spectacle than this reverend couple, at the age of fourscore, both smoking their pipes in the evening, with two generations of their descendants around them.

My brother-in-law was a man of decided character, and his portrait deserves a place in these annals. He had graduated at Yale College, and had been qualified for the bar; but his health was feeble, and therefore, chiefly for occupation, he succeeded to the store which his father had kept before him. Being in easy circumstances, he made no great efforts in business. Though, as I have said, he was of stern aspect, and his manners were somewhat cold and distant, his character was that of a just and kind man. In business he treated people respectfully, but he never solicited custom: he showed, but never recommended his goods. If his advice were asked, he offered it without regard to his own interest. He gave me no instructions, but left me to the influence of his example. He was of a religious turn of mind, not merely performing the accustomed duties of a Christian, but making devotional books a large part of his study. Perhaps he was conscious of failing health, and already heard the monitory voice of that disease which was ere long to terminate his career.

Nevertheless, he was not insensible to the pleasures of cultivated society, and however grave he might be in his general air and manner, he was particularly gratified with the visits of a man, in all things his opposite, Moses Hatch, then a leading lawyer in Danbury.

This person was a frequent visitor to the store, and the long winter which commenced soon after I entered upon my apprenticeship was not a little enlivened by his conversations with my master. It frequently happened during the deep snows, that the day passed without a single customer, and on these occasions Lawyer Hatch was pretty sure to pay us a visit. It was curious to see these two men, so opposite in character, attracted to each other as if by contradiction. My brother-in-law evidently found a pleasant relaxation in the conversation of his neighbor, embellished with elegant wit and varied learning, while the latter derived equal gratification from the serious, manly intellect of his friend. In general the former was the talker, and the latter the listener; yet sometimes the conversation became discussion, and a keen trial of wit versus logic ensued. The lawyer always contended for victory; my brother-in-law for the truth.

The precise form of these conversations has vanished from my mind, but some of the topics remain. I recollect long talks about the embargo, non-intercourse, and other Jeffersonian measures, which were treated with unsparing ridicule and reproach; anecdotes and incidents of Napoleon, who excited mingled admiration and terror; with observations upon public men, as well in Europe as America. I remember also a very keen discussion upon Berkeley's theory of the ideality of nature, mental and material, which so far excited my curiosity, that, finding the "Minute Philosopher" by that author, in the family library, I read it through with great interest and attention. The frequent references to Shakespeare in these conversations led me to look into his works, and, incited by the recommendations of my sister, I read them through, somewhat doggedly, seeking even to penetrate the more difficult and obscure passages.

It frequently happened that my master, owing to the influence of disease, was affected with depression of spirits; and the lawyer's best wit and choicest stories were expended without even exciting a smile. Not discouraged, but rather stimulated by such adversity, he usually went on, and was pretty sure at last to strike the vein, as Moses did the water in the rock, and a gush of uncontrollable laughter was the result. I remember in one instance, Mr. Cooke sat for a long time, looking moodily into the fire, while Squire Hatch went on telling stories, chiefly about clergymen, of which he had a great assortment. I will endeavor to give you a sketch of the scene.

"I know not why it is so," said the lawyer; "but the fact is undeniable, that the most amusing anecdotes are about clergymen. The reason perhaps is, that incongruity is the source of humorous associations; and this is evidently the most frequent and striking in a profession which sets apart its members as above the mass of mankind, in a certain gravity of character and demeanor, of which the black coat is the emblem. A spot upon this strikes every eye, while a brown coat, being the color of dirt, hides rather than reveals what is upon its surface. Thus it is, as we all know, that what would be insipid as coming from a layman, is very laughable if it happens to a parson. I have heard that on a certain occasion, as the Rev. J – M – was about to read a hymn, he saw a little boy sitting behind the chorister in the gallery, who had intensely red hair. The day was cold, and the little rogue was pretending to warm his hands by holding them close to the chorister's head. This so disconcerted the minister, that it was some minutes before he could go on with the services."

The only effect of this was, that my master drew down one corner of his mouth.

"I have heard of another clergyman," said the lawyer, "who suffered in a similar way. One day, in the very midst of his sermon, he saw Deacon B – fast asleep, his head leaning back on the rail of the pew, and his mouth wide open. A young fellow in the gallery above, directly over him, took a quid of tobacco from his mouth, and taking a careful aim, let it drop plump into the deacon's mouth. The latter started from his sleep, and went through a terrible paroxysm of fright and choking before he recovered."

Mr. Cooke bit his lip, but was silent. Lawyer Hatch, although he pretended to be all the while looking into the fire, got a quick side-glance at the face of his auditor, and continued, —

"You know the Rev. Dr. B – , sir? Well, one day he told me, that as he was on his way to New Haven he came to the house of one of his former parishioners, who, some years before, had removed to that place. As he was about to pass it, he remembered that this person had died recently, and he thought it meet and proper to stop and condole with the widow. She met him very cheerfully, and they had some pleasant chat together.

"'Madam,' said he, after a time, 'it is a painful subject – but you have recently met with a severe loss.'

"She instantly applied her apron to her eyes, and said, —

"'Oh yes, doctor; there's no telling how I feel.'

"'It is indeed a great bereavement you have suffered.'

"'Yes, doctor; very great, indeed.'

"'I hope you bear it with submission?'

"'I try tu; but oh, doctor, I sometimes feel in my heart – Goosy, goosy gander, where shall I wander?'"

The lawyer glanced at the object of his attack, and seeming to see a small breach in the wall, he thought it time to bring up his heavy guns. He went on, —

"There's another story about this same Dr. B – , which is amusing. Some years ago he lost his wife, and after a time he began to look out for another. At last he fixed his mind upon a respectable lady in a neighboring town, and commenced paying her his addresses. This naturally absorbed much of his time and attention, and his parish became dissatisfied. The deacons of the church held several conferences on the subject, and it was finally agreed that Deacon Becket, who had the grace of smooth speech, should give the Reverend Doctor a hint of what they deemed his fearful backsliding. Accordingly, the next Sabbath morning, on going to church, the deacon overtook the parson, and the following dialogue ensued, —

"'Good morning, Dr. B – .'

"'Good morning, Deacon Becket.'

"'Well, Doctor, I'm glad to meet you; for I wanted to say to you as how I thought of changing my pew!'

"'Indeed! And why so?'

"'Well, I'll tell you. I sit, as you know, clear over the backside of the meeting-house; and between me and the pulpit there's Judy Vickar, Molly Warren, Experience Pettibone, and half-a-dozen old maids, who sit with their mouths wide open, and they catch all the best of your sarmon; and when it gets to me, it's plaguy poor stuff!'"

My brother-in-law could hold out no longer: his face was agitated for a moment with nervous spasms; and then, bending forward, he burst into a round, hearty laugh. The lawyer – who made it a point never to smile at his own jokes – still had a look upon his face as much as to say, "Well, sir, I thought I should get my case."

It may be easily imagined that I was greatly interested by these conversations and discussions; and always felt not a little annoyed, if perchance, as sometimes happened, I was called away in the midst of a good story, or a keen debate, to supply a customer with a gallon of treacle, or a paper of pins. I know not if this disgusted me with my trade; but it is very certain that I conceived for it a great dislike, nearly from the beginning. Never, so far as I can recollect, did I for one moment enter heartily into its spirit. I was always, while I continued in it, a mere servile laborer; doing my duty, perhaps, yet with a languid and reluctant heart. However, I got through the winter; and when the summer came, Mr. Cooke nearly gave up personal attention to business in consequence of ill health; and we had a new clerk, who was older than myself, and took the responsible charge of the establishment. He was an excellent merchant, and to me was a kind and indulgent friend. He afterwards settled in Troy, where he is still living, in the enjoyment of an ample fortune, and in excellent reputation as a father, friend, Christian, and neighbor; the natural fruit of good sense, good temper, and good conduct.

CHAPTER X

NEW HAVEN – DISTINGUISHED MEN – WHITNEY'S COTTON-GIN – DURHAM – MY GRANDMOTHER'S INDIAN PUDDINGS – IN SEARCH OF A DOCTOR – RETURN TO DANBURY – THE COLD FRIDAY – FACTORY WORKMEN – MATHEMATICS.

In the summer of 1809 I made a short tour with my brother-in-law and my sister, for the health of the former. This, to me, was a grand expedition; for among other places we visited was New Haven, then a sort of Jerusalem in my imagination; a holy place containing Yale College, of which Dr. Dwight was president. Besides all this, one of my uncles and some of my cousins lived there; and, better still, my brother was there, and then a member of the college. Ah, how my heart beat when we set out! Such was the vividness of my perceptions, that I could fill a book with recollections of that short, simple journey; the whole circuit not exceeding one hundred and twenty miles.

I was duly impressed with the beauty of New Haven; for then, as now, it was celebrated for a rare union of rural freshness and city elegance. I have recently, in passing through it, had a transient view of its appearance; and may safely affirm that, after pretty large observation in the Old World as well as in the New, I know of no town or city more inviting; especially to one whose judgment is cultivated by observation and study, and whose feelings are chastened by reflection and experience. There is something of the activity and bustle of commerce in a part of the town, and at one point, all the spasm of a railway station. In other portions of the place, and over three-fourths of its area, there is the quietude and repose proper to a seat of learning. Here the houses seem suited to the city, each with a garden breathing the perfumes of the country.

At the period of the visit I am describing, New Haven had not one-half its present population; and many of the institutions which now adorn it did not exist. The College, however, was then as now, a leading literary institution in the country. To me it was an object of special reverence, as my grandfather and his five sons had all graduated there. My brother and two of my cousins were at this time among its inmates. Of course, I looked with intense curiosity at the several buildings that belonged to it. Many things here excited my admiration. I looked with particular interest – I may add, with some degree of envy – at the students, who seemed to me the privileged sons of the earth. Several were pointed out as promising to be the master-spirits of their age and generation; in some cases, I have since seen these anticipations fulfilled.