Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/239

. 22, 1863.] when anybody is talking,” said Mrs. Baldwin, as she laid an old, well-worn Bible in large print on the table before her. Reuben also sat down to read, and for the time, I hoped, the danger was over.

I took up “Good News from England,” which I found to be a curious journal of the doings and sufferings of the first settlers who went from England in the May Flower, written by one of them, Mr. Winslowe, whose name is still held in reverence in New England. It was he, I read, that imported into that country the first neat cattle that were ever seen there. After reading with great attention for about half an hour, Reuben closed his book, and asked if I were inclined to go to bed. I was quite willing to do so, for, besides that I had been upon my feet for a great many hours, and began to feel the want of rest, I knew that it would be expected that I should be ready for breakfast by four, or, at latest, by five o’clock the next morning. I had not far to go to my sleeping-room, which was separated merely by boards from the room in which we had been sitting, and was just half its width; the other half formed the bedroom of my host and hostess. As we were about to leave the room, I noticed that there was neither lock nor bolt on the outer door, a deficiency that I had frequently observed in the country parts of America.

“I guess you can’t very well do without them things in your country,” said Mr. Baldwin, with a sly smile of superiority.

“Not in the part that I come from, certainly,” replied I,—an answer not quite free from prevarication; but I confess that I felt then, as I had often done before, somewhat ashamed of the want of common honesty in my own country, which makes it so absolutely necessary for us to look carefully to the fastenings of our doors and windows every night.

I have often slept in rooms in which there was a most troublesome superabundance of furniture, where conveniences were multiplied till they became inconveniences, and where every “coign of vantage” was occupied by a useless knicknack. A bed, a small table and basin, one chair, and a few wooden pegs to hang my clothes on, were all that graced Reuben Baldwin’s spare room—and it was sufficient: everything was clean and comfortable, and I never slept better in my life.

At five next morning we sat down to a breakfast of the same profuse description as our supper of the preceding night. Fried bacon, omelets, Johnny-cake, two or three kinds of preserved fruits, and excellent coffee were on the table, all prepared by the indefatigable Esther: her husband milked the cow and sawed the wood for the stove, and probably helped her with the heaviest work, but she kept no servant of any kind to assist her. It has often been a mystery to me to imagine how these American women get through all the multifarious business that falls to their share with so little apparent effort or fatigue. In one or two instances in which I felt myself upon sufficiently familiar terms to allow of my asking the question, the answer has been, “Well, I guess it is just what we’ve been used to.” What would our English farmers’ daughters think of such work? I think I may venture to answer for them, ’Tis what we have never been used to!”

After breakfast, I went with Mr. Baldwin to look at his farm, of which he was not a little proud. He told me that he had had it only two years, and that his were the first crops that were ever grown on the land. Though so small in extent, he and his wife could get a good living out of the farm, the soil of which was rich and deep, and very easily worked, and when there was nothing particular to be done on the land, he caught fish in some of the neighbouring streams, which he could always find a ready sale for at Steubenville.

The prohibitions which I had received from Mrs. Baldwin, or I should rather say, the hasty conclusion that I had drawn from them, had prevented my asking Reuben many questions which occurred to me respecting New England and its farming, and the comparative advantages and disadvantages to be found in Ohio; the former, if I might at all trust my own judgment, greatly preponderating. Yet the man seemed to be communicative, and much more open in his manner than the generality of his countrymen whom I had conversed with; and in whom, indeed, the want of openness is so common, as fairly to be called a national characteristic. This morning, too, he seemed to be in good spirits, and I had not once observed the gloomy, or unhappy expression of countenance which I saw the day before.

I had seen enough of New England in merely travelling through it, to be aware of the general inferiority of its soil; for, with some notable exceptions, the land is absolutely encumbered with rocks, which can be got rid of by the farmer only at a vast expense of capital and labour; the climate, too, is severe, and the winter long and cold. I knew also that there had been for many years past, a tide of emigration from the New England States into Ohio, and even to the far west; therefore it did not appear strange to me that Reuben Baldwin should leave the sterile soil and bleak climate of New Hampshire, for the fertile land he had chosen, and I said something to that effect.

I saw his countenance change immediately, and he walked on for a minute or two before he made any reply to my observation.

“What you say about our rough climate and stony farms in New England is quite true, but as I was raised there I did not think much of them things—we don’t when we have been used to them all our life, any more than you think of all the fogs and dull dark days you get in England. No, sir, I should have lived there happy enough, and died there, if it had not pleased God to recall the greatest blessing he had bestowed upon us, and in such an awful way! It well nigh took away my senses, but thanks be to the Lord who comforteth those that are cast down. For our affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

Here Reuben again made a long pause, which I did not think fit to interrupt, as I still felt uncertain whether he was suffering from any great calamity,