Pencil Sketches: or, Outlines of Character and Manners

He next came to the old well-known meeting-house, embosomed in large elms of aboriginal growth. He saw it as in former days, with its long range of stalls for the horses of the congregation, and its square horse-blocks at the gate with steps ascending on all their four sides, to which the country beaux gallantly led up the steeds of the country belles. Just beyond the meeting-house, he looked in vain for a well-known little brook, distinguished of old as "Blue Woman's Run," and which had formerly crossed the road, murmuring over its bed of pebbles. It had derived this cognomen from the singular apparition of a woman in a blue gown, with a pail of water on her head, which had on several Sundays boldly appeared even in the brightness of the noon-day sun, and was seen walking fearlessly among the "meeting folks," and their horses, as they stopped to let them drink at the brook; coming no one knew from whence, and going no one knew where; but appearing and disappearing in the midst of them. But the streamlet was no longer there, diverted perhaps to some other channel, and the hollow of its bed was filled up and made level with the road.

About two miles further, our hero looked out for a waste field at some distance from the road, and distinguished by an antique persimmon tree of unusual size. This field he had always known of a wild and desolate aspect, bristled with the tall stalks of the mullein. Here, according to tradition, had once lived a family of free negroes, probably runaways from the south. They had lost their children by an epidemic, buried them at the foot of the persimmon tree, and soon after quitted the neighbourhood. All vestiges of their hut had vanished long before Edward Lindsay had known the place, but the graves of the children might have been traced under the grass and weeds. The deserted field had the reputation of being haunted, because whoever had the temerity to cross it, even in broad daylight, never failed, that is if they had faith, to see the faces of two little black boys looking out from behind the tree, and laughing merrily. But on approaching the tree no black boys were there.

There is considerable variety in American ghosts. In Europe these phantoms are nearly all of the same stamp: either tall white females that glide by moonlight among the ruined cloisters of old abbeys; or pale knights, in dark armour, that wander, at midnight, about the turrets and corridors of feudal castles. In our country, apparitions go as little by rule as their living prototypes; and are certainly very prosaic both in looks and ways.

The old persimmon tree was still there; but the field had been cultivated, and was now in red clover, and Lindsay knew that mind had marched over it.

He now came to a well-remembered place, the low one-story school-house under the shade of a great birch tree, whose twigs had been of essential service in the hands of Master Whackaboy, and whose smooth and paper-like bark was fashionable in the seminary for writing-pieces. The door and windows were open, and Lindsay expected as formerly, to hear the master say to his scholars, at the sound of horses' feet – "Read out – read out – strangers are going by – ;" which order had always been succeeded by a chorus of readers as loud and inharmonious as what children call a Dutch Concert. As Lindsay passed the school-house, he could not forbear stopping a moment to look in; and instead of Bumpus Whackaboy in his round jacket, he saw a young gentleman in a frock coat, seated at the master's desk, with an aspect of great satisfaction, while a lad stood before him frowning and stamping desperately, and reciting Collins's Ode on the Passions.

Our traveller now perceived by certain well-remembered landmarks, that he was approaching the mill in whose scales he had frequently been weighed: a ceremony never omitted at the close of his annual visit to Oakland, that he might go home rejoicing in the number of pounds he had gained during his sojourn in the salubrious air and homely abundance of the farm. When he came to the place, he found three mills; and he was, for a while, puzzled to recollect which of them was his old acquaintance. On the other side of the road were now a tavern, a store, and a blacksmith's shop, with half a dozen dwelling-houses. "This, I suppose, is an incipient city," thought Lindsay – and so it was, as he afterwards found: the name being Candyville, in consequence, perhaps, of the people of the neighbourhood having left off tobacco and taken to mint-stick, for which, and other bonbons of a similar character, the demand was so great that the storekeeper often found it necessary to take a journey to the metropolis chiefly for the purpose of bringing out a fresh supply.

At length our hero came to a hill beyond which he recollected that a turn in the road would present to his view the house of Abraham Hilliard, as it stood on the very edge of the farm. It was a lovely afternoon. The sunbeams were dancing merrily on the creek, whose shining waters beautifully inverted its green banks, overshadowed with laurel bushes now in full bloom and covered with large clusters of delicate pink flowers.

He saw the top of the enormous oak that stood in front of the house, and which had been spared for its size and beauty, when the ground was first redeemed from the primeval forest by the grandfather of the present proprietor.

Lindsay turned into the lane. What was his amazement when he saw not, as he expected, the well-known farm-house and its appurtenances! – It was no longer there. The dilapidated ruins of the chimney alone were standing, and round them lay a heap of rubbish. He stopped his horse and gazed long and sadly, on finding all his pleasant anticipations turned at once to disappointment. Finally he dismounted, and securing his bridle to a large nail which yet remained in the trunk of the old tree, having been placed there for that purpose, he proceeded to take a nearer view of what had once been the Oakland Farm-House.

There were indications of the last fire that had ever gladdened the hearth, the charred remains of an immense backlog, now half hidden beneath a luxuriant growth of the dusky and ragged-leaved Jamestown weed. In a corner of the hearth grew a sumach that bid fair in a short time to overtop all that was left of the chimney. These corners had once been furnished with benches on which the children used to sit and amuse themselves with stories and riddles, in the cold autumnal evenings, when fires are doubly cheerful from being the first of the season.

Of the long porch in which they had so often played by moonlight, nothing now remained but a few broken and decaying boards with grass and plantain-weeds growing among them; and some relics of the rough stone steps that had ascended to it, now displaced and fallen aside by the caving in of the earth behind.

The well that had supplied the family with cold water for drinking, had lost its cover – the sweep had fallen down, and the bucket and chain were gone. The dark cool cellar was laid open to the light of day, and was now a deep square pit, overgrown with thistles and toad-flax.

From the cracks of the old clay oven that had belonged to the chimney (and which was now half hidden in pokeberry plants), issued tufts of chick-weed; and when Lindsay looked into the place which he had so often seen filled with pies and rice-puddings, the glare of bright eyes and a rustling noise denoted that some wild animal had made its lair in the cavity. Suddenly a large gray fox sprung out of the oven-mouth, and ran fearfully past him into the thicket. Lindsay thought in a moment of the often-quoted lines of Ossian.

At the foot of the little eminence on which the house was situated, there had formerly been what its inhabitants called the harbour (probably a corruption of arbour), a shed rudely constructed of poles interwoven with branches, and covered with a luxuriant gourd-vine. Here the milk-pans and pails were washed, and much of the "slopping-work" of the family done in the summer. A piece of rock formed the back-wall of a fire-place in which an immense iron pot had always hung. A slight water-gate opened from this place on a branch of the creek, over which a broad thick board had been laid as a bridge, and a short distance below there was a miniature cascade or fall, at which Edward, in his childhood, had erected a small wooden tilt-hammer of his own making; and the strokes of this tilt-hammer could be heard, to his great delight, as far as the house, particularly in the stillness of night, when the sound was doubly audible.

The cauldron had now disappeared, leaving no trace but the blackened stone behind it; the remains of the water-gate were lying far up on the bank; the board had fallen into the water; the rude trellis was broken down; and masses of the gourd-vine, which had sprung from the scattered seeds, were running about in wild disorder wherever they could find anything to climb upon.

Lindsay turned to the spot "where once the garden smiled," and found it a wilderness of tall and tangled weeds, interspersed with three or four degenerate hollyhocks, and a few other flowers that had sowed themselves and dwindled into insignificance. And in the division appropriated to culinary purposes, were some straggling vegetables that had returned to a state worse than indigenous – with half a dozen rambling bushes that had long since ceased to bear fruit.

Lindsay had gazed on the gigantic remains of the Roman Coliseum, on "the castled crag of Drachenfels," and on the ivy-mantled arches of Tintern, but they awakened no sensation that could compare with the melancholy feeling that oppressed him as he explored the humble ruins of this simple farm-house, where every association came home to his heart, reminding him not of what he had read, but of what he had seen, and known, and felt, and enjoyed.

As he stood with folded arms contemplating the images of desolation before him, his attention was diverted by the sound of footsteps, and, on looking round, he perceived an old negro coming down the road, with a basket in one hand, and in the other a jug corked with a corn-cob. The negro pulled off his battered wool-hat, and making a bow and a scrape, said: "Sarvant, masser – " and Lindsay, on returning his bow, recognised the unusual breadth of nose and width of mouth that had distinguished a free black, well known in the neighbourhood by the name of Pharaoh, and in whom the lapse of time had made no other alteration than that of bleaching his wool, which was now quite white.

"Why, Pharaoh – my old fellow!" exclaimed Lindsay, "is this really yourself?"

"Can't say, masser," replied Pharaoh. "All people's much the same. Best not be too personal. But I b'lieve I'm he."

"Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?" inquired our hero.

"Lawful heart, masser!" exclaimed the negro. "I do b'lieve you're little Neddy, what used to come from town and stay at old Abram Hilliard's of summers, and what still kept wisiting there, by times, till you goed over sea."

"I am that identical Neddy," replied Lindsay, holding out his hand to the old negro, who evinced his delight by a series of loud laughs.

"Yes – yes," pursued Pharaoh, "now I look sharper at you, masser, I see plain you're 'xactly he. You've jist a same nose, and a same eyes, and a same mouth, what you had when you tumbled down the well, and fall'd out the chestnut tree, and when you was peck'd hard by the big turkey-cock, and butted by the old ram."

"Truly," said Lindsay, "you seem to have forgotten none of my juvenile disasters."

"To be sure not," replied Pharaoh, "I 'member every one of them, and a heap more, only I don't want to be personal."

"And now," said Lindsay, "as we have so successfully identified each other, let me know, at once, what has happened to my good friends the Hilliards, who I thought were fixed here for life. Why do I see their house a heap of ruins? Have the family been reduced to poverty?"

"Lawful heart, no," exclaimed the negro: "Masser Neddy been away so long in foreign parts, he forget how when people here in 'Merica give up their old houses, it's a'most always acause they've got new ones. Now old Abram Hilliard he got richer and richer every minute – though I guess he was pretty rich when you know'd him, only he never let on. And so he build him fine stone house beyont his piece of oak-woods, and there he live this blessed day. – And we goes there quite another road. – And so he gove this old frame to old Pharaoh; and so I had the whole house carted off, all that was good of it, and put it up on the road-side, just beyont here, in place of my old tumble-down cabin what I used to live in, that I've altered into a pig-pen. So now me and Binkey am quite comfabull."

"Show me the way," said Lindsay, "to the new residence of Mr. Hilliard. I have come from Philadelphia on purpose to visit the family."

"Bless your heart, masser, for that," said the old negro, as he held the stirrup for Lindsay to mount; and walking by his side, he proceeded with the usual garrulity of the African race, to relate many particulars of the Hilliards and their transit.

"Of course, Masser Neddy," said Pharaoh, "you 'member old Abram's two boys Isaac and Jacob, what you used to play with. You know Isaac mostly whipped you when you fout with him. Well, when they growed up, they thought they'd help'd their father long enough, and as they wanted right bad to go west, the old man gove 'em money to buy back land. So each took him horse – Isaac took Mike, and Jacob took Morgan, and they started west, and went to a place away back – away back – seven hundred thousand miles beyont Pitchburg. And they're like to get mighty rich; and word's come as Jacob's neighbours is going to set him up for congress, and I shouldn't be the least 'prized if he's presidump. You 'member, Masser Neddy, Jacob was always the tonguiest of the two boys."

"And where are Mr. Hilliard's daughters?" asked Lindsay.

"Oh, as to the two oldest," replied Pharaoh, "Kitty married Billy Pleasants, as keeps the store over at Candyville, and Betsey made a great match with a man what has a terrible big farm over on Siskahanna. And old Abram, after he got into him new house, sent him two youngest to the new school up at Wonderville, where they teaches the gals all sorts of wit and larning."

"And how are your own wife and children, Pharaoh?" inquired Lindsay; "I remember them very well."

"Bless your heart for that, masser!" replied the negro; "why Rose is hired at Abram Hilliard's – you know they brungt her up. And Cato lives out in Philadelphy – I wonders masser did not see him. And as for old Binkey, she holds her own pretty well. You know, masser, Binkey was always a great hand at quiltings, and weddings, and buryings, and such like frolics, and used to be sent for, high and low, to help cook at them times. But now she's a getting old, – being most a thousand, – and her birthday mostly comes on the forty-second of Feberwary – and so she stays at home, and makes rusk and gingerbread and molasses beer. This is molasses I have in the jemmy-john; I've jist come from the store. So she sells cakes and beer – that's the reason we lives on the road-side – and I works about. We used to have a sign that Sammy Spokes the wheelwright painted for us, for he was then the only man in these parts that had paints. There was two ginger-cakes on it, and one rusk, and a coal-black bottle with the beer spouting up high, and falling into a tumbler without ever spilling a drap. We were desperate pleased with the sign, for folks said it looked so nateral, and Sammy Spokes made us a present of it, and would not take it out in cakes and beer, as we wanted him, and that shewed him to be very much of a gemplan."

"As no doubt he is," remarked Lindsay; "I find, since my return to America, that gentlemen are 'as plenty as blackberries.'"

"You say very true, masser," rejoined the negro; "we are all gemplans now-a-days, and has plenty of blackberries. Well, as I was saying, we liked the sign a heap. But after Nelly Hilliard as was – we calls her Miss Ellen now – quit Wonderville school, where she learnt everything on the face of the yearth, she thought she would persecute painting at home, for she had a turn that way and wanted to keep her hand in. So she set to, and painted a new sign, and took it all out of her own head; and gove it to old Binkey and axplaned it to us. There's a thing on it that Miss Ellen calls a urn or wase —that stands for beer – and then there's a sugarcane growing out of it —that stands for molasses. And then there's a thick string of green leaves, with roots twisted amongst 'em —that answers for ginger, for she told us that ginger grows like any other widgable, and has stalks and leaves, but the root is what we uses. Yet, somehow, folks doesn't seem to understand this sign as well as the old one. A great many thinks the wase be an old sugar-dish with a bit of a corn-stalk sticking out of it, and some passley and hossreddish plastered on the outside, and say they should never guess cakes and beer by it."

"I should suppose not," said Lindsay.

"But, Masser Neddy," pursued the old negro, "all this time, we have been calling Abram Hilliard 'Abram,' instead of saying squire. Only think of old Abram; he has been made a squire this good while, and marries people. After he move into him new house, he begun to get high, and took to putting on a clean shirt and shaving every day, which Rose says was a pretty tough job with him at first; but he parsewered. And he's apt to have fresh meat whenever it's to be got, and he won't eat stale pies: and so they have to do small bakings every day, instead of big ones twice a week. And sometimes he even go so far as to have geese took out of the flock, and killed and roasted, instead of saving 'em all for feathers. And he says that now he's clear of the world, he will live as he likes, and have everything he wants, and be quite comfabull. And he made his old woman leave off wearing short gownds, and put on long gownds all the time, and quit calling him daddy, which Rose says went very hard with her for a while. The gals being young, were broke of it easy enough; and now they says pappy."

"Pshaw!" ejaculated Lindsay, whose regret at the general change which seemed to have come over the Hilliard family now amounted nearly to vexation.

"Now, Masser Neddy," continued Pharaoh, "we've got to the new house – there it stands, right afore you. An't you 'prised at it? I always am whenever I sees it. So please a jump off, and I'll take your hoss to the stable, and put him up, and tell the people at the barn that Masser Neddy's come; and you can go into the house and speak for you'mself."

Lindsay, at parting, put a dollar into the hand of the old negro. "What for this, Masser Neddy?" asked Pharaoh, trying to look very disinterested.

"Do whatever you please with it," answered Lindsay.

"Well, masser," replied the negro, "I never likes to hurt a gemplan's feelings by 'fusing him. So I'll keep it, just to 'blige you. But, I 'spect, to be sure, Masser Neddy'll step in some day at negor-man's cabin, and see old Binkey, and take part of him dollar out in cakes and beer. I'll let masser know when Binkey has a fresh baking."

Pharaoh then led off the horse, and Lindsay stood for a few moments to take a survey of the new residence of his old friends. It was a broad, substantial two-story stone house. There was a front garden, where large snow-ball trees and where the conical clusters of the lilac, and the little May roses, were bursting into fragrance and beauty, and uniting their odours with those of the tall white lily, and the lowly but delicious pink. Behind the house ascended a woodland hill, whose trees at this season exhibited every shade of green, in tints as various as the diversified browns of autumn.

"Threw up their silver globes, light as the foamy surf,"

Lindsay found the front door unfastened, and opening it without ceremony, he entered a wide hall furnished with a long settee, a large table, a hat-stand, a hanging lamp, a map of the United States, and one of the world. There was a large parlour on each side of the hall, and Lindsay looked into both, the doors being open. One was carpeted, and seemed to be fitted up for winter, the other had a matted floor, and was evidently the summer sitting-room. The furniture in both, though by no means showy, was excellent of its kind and extremely neat; and in its form and arrangement convenience seemed to be the chief consideration. Lindsay thought he had never seen more pleasant-looking rooms. In the carpeted parlour, on the hearth of the Franklin stove, sat a blue china jar filled with magnolia flowers, whose spicy perfume was tempered by the outer air that came through the venetian blinds which were lowered to exclude the sunbeams. One recess was occupied by a mahogany book-case, and there was a side-board in the other. The chimney-place of the summer parlour was concealed by a drapery of ingeniously cut paper, and the various and beautiful flowers that adorned the mantel-piece had evidently been cultivated with care. Shelves of books hung in the recesses, and in both rooms were sofas and rocking-chairs.

"Is it possible," thought Lindsay, "that this can be the habitation of Abraham Hilliard?" And he ran over in his mind the humble aspect of their sitting-room in the old farm-house, with its home-made carpet of strips of listing; its tall-backed rush chairs; its walnut table; its corner cupboard; its hanging shelves suspended from the beams that crossed the ceiling, and holding miscellaneous articles of every description.

Having satisfied his curiosity by looking into the parlours, he proceeded through the hall to the back door, and there he found, in a porch canopied with honeysuckle, a woman busily engaged in picking the stems from a basket of early strawberries, as she transferred the fruit to a large bowl. Time had made so little change in her features, that, though much improved in her costume, he easily guessed her to be his old hostess Mrs. Hilliard. "Aunt Susan!" he exclaimed; for by that title he had been accustomed to address her in his boyhood. The old lady started up, and hastily snatched off her strawberry-stained apron.

"Have you no recollection of Edward Lindsay?" continued our hero, heartily shaking her hand.

She surveyed him from head to foot, till his identity dawned upon her, and then she ejaculated – "It is – it must be – though you are a gentleman, you must be little Neddy – there – there, sit down – I'll be back in a moment."

She went into the house, and returned almost immediately, bringing with her a small coquelicot waiter, with cakes and wine, which she pressed Lindsay to partake of. He smiled as he recollected that one of the customs of Oakland Farm was to oblige every stranger to eat and drink immediately on his arrival. And while he was discussing a cake and a glass of wine, the good dame heaped a saucer with strawberries, carried it away for a few minutes, and then brought it back inundated with cream and sugar. This was also presented to Lindsay, recommending that he should eat another cake with the strawberries, and take another glass of wine after them.

On Edward's inquiring for her husband, Mrs. Hilliard replied that he was somewhere about the farm, and that the girls were drinking tea with some neighbours a few miles off; but she said she would send the carriage for them immediately, that they might be home early in the evening.

In a short time Abraham Hilliard came in, having seen Pharaoh at the barn, who had informed him of the arrival of "Master Neddy." The meeting afforded equal gratification to both parties. The old farmer looked as if quite accustomed to a clean shirt and to shaving every day; and Lindsay was glad to find that his manner of expressing himself had improved with his circumstances. Aunt Susan, however, had not, in this respect, kept pace with her husband, remaining, to use her own expression – "just the same old two and sixpence." Women who have not in early life enjoyed opportunities of cultivating their minds are rarely able at a late period to acquire much conversational polish. – With men the case is different.

Mrs. Hilliard now left her husband to entertain their guest, and, "on hospitable thoughts intent," withdrew to superintend the setting of a tea-table abounding in cakes and sweetmeats; the strawberry bowl and a pitcher of cream occupying the centre. This repast was laid out in the wide hall, and while engaged in arranging it, Mrs. Hilliard joined occasionally in the conversation which her husband and Lindsay were pursuing in her hearing, as they sat in the porch.