With a celerity which showed the effect of habit, Jonathan Whitlaw produced a horn from his pocket, and skilfully applying it to the little cask, drew forth what he considered as a fitting portion for each, and presented it in succession to the two females. This generous and gallant office performed, he swallowed a treble dose himself, and instantly set to work.
His prophecy was speedily fulfilled — the poisonous inspiration did its work, and under its feverish influence the young women dragged and pulled, and pushed and carried, according to his orders, with a degree of strength and perseverance greatly beyond what their age and appearance promised.
The increase of vigour which he had himself acquired from the draught showed itself not only in the activity with which he laboured, but by a more than ordinary degree of loquacity — a part of which may serve to explain his future plans.
“This here tree must come down smack and them there three small ones into the bargain; then this one, and that one, and they two t’ others, shall have their heads and branches cut off slick; and there’s the four corners of the house as clean as a whistle, and we must roll up the logs round them. I say, gals, don’t I know the river? I expect this will prove the most profitable privilege of a wooding-station of any ‘twixt New Orlines and Cincinnati. What with that there elegant creek, and this here handsome elevation, (the spot selected for his house was at this time at least six or seven inches above the level of the river;) and what with them there capital hickories, and this dreadful beautiful sweep in of the river, that will bring the steamers up to me whether they, will or no; — I say, gals, that if things do but go on at New Orlines as bravely as they do now, I’ll make dollars enough, by wooding their boats for ’em, to open a store for all the notions in creation at Natchez, before ten years are out. Why, since we’ve landed I’ve see half a dozen first-rate timbers shoot the creek; but I’ll soon see if I can’t find a way to stop ’em short, as soon as I’ve got a pair of hands to spare.”
While his tongue was thus active however, the hands he talked of were by no means idle. The rapidity and apparent ease with which trees were felled, and the allotted space cleared, might have been mistaken for an effort of more than mortal skill by any but a back-woodsman. What was to Jonathan Whitlaw the work of one stroke of the axe, would to any unused to the mystery have required a dozen; and where the unskilled would have raised the instrument, on high, and brought its edge and weight to bear with a violent exertion of strength, he achieved the object with an easy dexterity, which seemed not to require one half the power that the brawny arm which wielded the axe could well have bestowed had it been needed.
Notwithstanding, all that skill and perseverance could do however, the sturdy woodsman and his tottering assistants were overtaken by darkness ere they had completed such a shelter as might permit them to sleep securely on the spot they had chosen.
A shed on the banks of the Mississippi, twenty miles above Natchez, may now perhaps be considered as tolerably secure, except from the occasional visits of an exploring bear, or the rambling propensities of an hungry alligator: but in the year 18 — it was much less so; and as the leaden gloom of the short twilight settled upon the woods, the bold squatter was fain to suspend his labour, with no better comfort for his weary companions than a confession that, after all, they should not be able to get a spell of sleep except turn and turn about, because they might be waked by the varment, with half a leg eaten off, before they had done dreaming.
“I expect I must die then, Jonathan,” said the poor young wife, in a voice so feeble as somewhat to alarm her companions, “I expect I must die before morning.”
“You a back-woodman’s lady, Porchy,” said her husband, approaching her, “and talk of dying the first night that you gets to the bush! Come come, gal, no faints, or my dander will be up pretty considerable. Here, Cli, shake down the straw bed upon that there lot of boughs, and give her that sack of notions for her head, and she will be fast and snoring in no time; and then you and I will be after kindling an elegant blaze to scare them devils the varment — bears, painters, wolves, alligators, and all.”
Poor Clio promptly set about performing this new task, and with much tenderness assisted the over-worn young wife to lay herself as much at her ease as her rude couch might permit: but while thus engaged, another whisper was exchanged between the sisters, which produced exactly the same petition as the former one, some five or six hours before.
“But I say, Bub, — I expect Porchy will never sleep a wink unless you give her a morsel to eat first.”
“One word for Porchy, and two for yourself, eh, Cli? Howsomever, you have been considerable good gals both of ye; so you shan’t ax for nothing, this time.”
If the hungry Clio was alert before, she now became doubly so, as she sought and found the bag containing the treasured corn-cakes.
“Well now! — wouldn’t a herring grilled over a handful of sticks be first-rate?” said the poor girl coaxingly, and holding up the tempting morsel she had found, before the eyes of her brother.
“Why, I can’t say but what I expect it would be eatable,” replied the autocrat, producing flint and steel; “so pick up your sticks, Cli, and set about it.”
With zealous activity, the now happy Clio prepared to obey the welcome mandate, and showed almost as much skill and dexterity in selecting and kindling the boughs which lay scattered round her, as her brother had done in strewing them.
In a few minutes a thick column of smoke rose through the still air, the faggots crackled, and the herring, as it hung suspended over the flame from the ingenious machine erected for it, sent forth an odour so powerful and enticing, that when it reached the nostrils of the half-famished Portia, she rose with renovated strength, and approached the manifold comforts of the blazing fire. The three weary and hungry wanderers then sat down around it, and devoured their repast with as great a degree of enjoyment as it is possible for the act of eating to bestow; and even the dog, though in general expected to provide his own meals, was not forgotten. To complete the luxury of the banquet, Jonathan dipped their one precious iron crock into the muddiest but sweetest of streams, and having boiled it, permitted the ladies, in compliance with the delicacy of their ordinary habits, to mix it, in the proportion of half and half, with the one and only liquid which he deemed worthy to enter the lips of a free-born man. In his own case, therefore, he suffered not the vital stream from his beloved whisky-keg ended, the weary Portia once more stretched herself upon her welcome bed of straw; while her companions were employed, first, in removing the thickly-scattered branches from the immediate neighbourhood of the fire, to guard against that most fatal of forest disasters, a conflagration amongst thick underwood, where there is no outlet for escape; and then in collecting together, at safe distance, such a quantity of them as might supply their watch-fire during the night. This done, the residue of the corn-cakes carefully tied up and slung upon a bough, and the invaluable crock as scrupulously attended to as if it had been a silver casserole, the gracious Jonathan told to be contaminated by the admixture of any alloying Mississippi whatever; and the portion he permitted himself to swallow was, as he said, in just proportion to the work he had done.
The repast his yawning sister that she too might lay herself down beside his sleeping wife; adding, that when daylight came, he would wake them both, and turn in to take a spell himself.
In less than five minutes Clio was as deeply asleep as her friend Portia; and Jonathan, seated on the hearth with his dog beside him, and supporting his back against a tree, prepared to endure his weary watch, which the low long howl of wolves in the distance already showed to be no unnecessary precaution; and so strong is the instinct of self-preservation, that the united influence of labour and whisky failed to overpower the feeling which kept the aching eyes of the wanderer open through the long hours of that painful night.
However miserable beyond endurance the fatigues and privations above described may appear to the European reader, they form no exag
gerated picture of that tremendous enterprise, the first “settling in the bush” on the Mississippi, at the period at which my tale commences. The undertaking is even now one both of danger and difficulty; though both are greatly lessened by the comparatively near neighbourhood that the new settler is likely to find, let him place himself at what point of the river he may, below its junction with the Ohio. Whenever a new squatter arrives, it is now the custom for about a dozen of the nearest residents to assemble at the spot he has chosen, for the purpose of assisting him to rear his log-hut; the only payment expected for this timely service being a “pretty considerable” allowance of whisky, to be socially swallowed before the party separates: so that it generally happens that the first sleep taken by the stranger in his new abode is long and sound, though perhaps not particularly refreshing.
Such is the custom of the present time; but two or three-and-twenty years ago, the stouthearted pioneer of population on the dismal and unhealthy banks of this singular river must have perished for want of a shelter, if incapable of providing one for himself.
The laborious but very profitable employment of supplying the innumerable steamboats with fire-wood, which now bribes so many to brave ague and privation of all kinds, was then in the hands of very few; and none who ventured to embrace it could hope to do so without encountering at least as much of danger and difficulty as Jonathan Whitlaw.
CHAPTER II.
IT is not my intention to enter upon a lengthened detail of the “get along” process of Jonathan Whitlaw in his new abode: the events I wish to dwell upon are of more recent date. It will therefore be sufficient for my purpose to state, that a spirit of industry which even intemperance could not conquer, enabled him to raise, unaided by any hands but those of his female companions, such a shelter as appeared completely to satisfy the wishes of those for whose use it was constructed. What praise could the most skilful architect desire more? Nor were their daily necessities less fully answered: Clio had often the supreme enjoyment of banqueting on a grilled herring; Portia had never yet seen the bottom of her meal-tub; and Jonathan’s shanty soon came to be so well known to the flat-boat traders going down, and the steamboat traders going up the river, that there was no need of his taking a journey to Natchez to ensure the replenishing of his whisky-cask.
He had, in truth, chosen his location well. With a species of skill and exertion peculiar to himself and his class, he contrived to abstract from his elegant Mohana Creek so many uprooted trees, that till the dry summer months stopped the supply, he had rarely occasion to fell one for the construction of the well-packed piles of wood, which it was the especial province of the strong-armed Clio to arrange upon the river’s bank. To use his own language “Natur was in partnership-like with him,” and being a partner that never slept, he not unfrequently found leisure himself to take a spell in the bush with his rifle, an instrument which he used as skilfully as the axe. The result of this agreeable variety of occupation was, that Clio was almost as often employed to roast a turkey, as to grill a herring; and the table constructed of the timbers of his flat boat not unfrequently smoked with a service of game which an European board might have been proud to boast.
Meanwhile that hour, important alike in the palace or the hut — at least to the individual most concerned in it — overtook poor Portia; and on returning one evening from a “gunning frolic” in the forest, Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw was greeted with the intelligence that he was the father of a thriving boy.
Clio, whose genius for usefulness seemed universal, performed the duties of a nurse both to mother and child as successfully as if she had studied the profession at the Hospice de la Maternité at Paris; and when she presented the new-born babe to her brother, she felt as much pride in the office as if conscious that she held in her arms a latent President.
Jonathan too, though not particularly susceptible of the tenderer feelings of our nature, looked on the boy with considerable satisfaction.
“That’s jam, gal,” said he, addressing his wife. “Boys be the right sort for the bush, mind that. Not but what Cli is up to a thing or two, too. But boys is most profitable, that’s a fact. I calculate now that this younker will be fit to turn a dollar one way or another by the time ten years is gone done; and if we can keep him from starting for five more—”
But here our hero gave so prodigious a squall, that Clio started off with him to his mother, and the remainder of the prediction was left unspoken.
However favourable it might have been, however, the years which followed gave the provident father no cause to think that his first impressions respecting his heir were in any degree too favourable. Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, for so was the young backwoodsman named, testified innumerable qualities that might have justified the hopes of the most sanguine father in America. Spite of occasional “shaking,” he was stout in limb; and considering the rather restricted nature of his position as compared to society at large, his knowledge and intelligence increased with surprising rapidity.
Never certainly did any child, even among the most precocious wonders of the European world, display a more eager desire of profiting by every opportunity of acquiring information and experience than the young Jonathan Jefferson. No steam-boat ever approached his father’s station from the time he completed his third year, without finding him standing at the very extremity of the log platform that projected from the bank for the convenience of the engine-men who took their fuel there; and happy was Jonathan Jefferson when it chanced, which was not unfrequently, that his keen black eyes and curly head tempted some good-humoured idler to give him a hand, that he might spring on board and gaze upon the wonders to be seen within her. These favours were requited by so knowing and fearless a nod on the part of the young explorer, that the first playful act was often followed by very active patronage as long as the operation of “wooding” lasted; and the bold boy generally returned to his sickly mother, or his much better loved aunt Cli, with nearly all his scanty garments held up in a most firm and careful grasp, lest the biscuits, raisins, apples, and cents, bestowed on him by the passengers) should escape.
At the age of five, if any old acquaintance held out the accustomed hand to aid his boarding, it was thrust aside by a saucy action of the little sturdy elbow, and Jonathan Jefferson was on the deck, in the cabin, beside the engine, or in the inmost recesses of the steward’s pantry, before anyone knew where he came from.
It will be readily supposed that a man like Jonathan Whitlaw did not suffer the abilities of such a boy as this to remain idle. He was early given to understand that all he ate, he must earn; and as he soon manifested a family affinity to his good aunt in his love of a savoury morsel, the prudent father failed not to turn this discriminating palate to advantage, selling every shot of his own rifle for a due proportion of labour performed in building up the cords of wood, or in exploring the creek, by his active boy.
Not only one, but many dollars had the child earned or turned in some way or other, before the ten years named in his father’s prediction had elapsed. Nor had the stalwart woodman gone half as far in his daring hopes for the future, formed for himself when first he stood houseless and hungry on the swampy bank which he had selected, as the result justified. No wood was so well cut and so well “sawed” as Whitlaw’s; no woodsman was so ready in counting, so quick in settling, and so every way convenient for men in a hurry to deal with, as this our fortune-favoured squatter. Ague and fever seemed to keep clear of him lest they should be baffled in the strife, and turning from his close-knit iron frame, poured all their vengeance on his poor shrinking wife. But Clio, whose constitution bore a close resemblance to his own, still continued his zealous and most efficient fellow-labourer. After “shaking a spell” during the autumn of the first year or two, she too defied the foul fiend that haunts the western world in the shape of ague, and thenceforward appeared to suffer no more from the climate than the wolves and the bears, which the busy noises of their active establishment had driven back into the woods.
WHITLAW’S WHISKY STORE.
The cents, fips, picciunes, bits, levys, quarters, halves and dollars, which in the course of four years were left within this shed, very greatly exceeded the most sanguine calculations of Whitlaw; and as “Prime Bacon”— “Capital Chewing Tobacco”— ‘First-rate Domestic,” and “Fine Meal,” were successively added to the announcements, the store soon became the resort of every squatter within ten miles, as well as the favourite stopping-place of all the craft on the river.
The son and heir of this prosperous settler had just completed his tenth year, when an accident occurred to him, the consequences of which entirely changed the position and circumstances of his family.
Early in the month of August 18 — , one of the noblest and largest steamboats ever launched on the Mississippi was seen to bend gracefully round the projecting swell of the bank below Mohana Creek, and approach the landing-place in front of the store.
Young Whitlaw was occupied, at the moment she came in sight, in poking a long pole into a hole in the bank, in which he fancied he should find some “crocodile’s eggs.” Struck by her splendid appearance, he left his employment, and placing himself at his accustomed post on the edge of the platform, impatiently awaited her arrival.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 2