Top
Old man with a cape and walking stick.
Ding, Dong, Bell!Little children, down the turnpike goes the year,Down through every dell,All the bells of all the country in its ear:Ding, Dong, Bell!Ding, Dong, Bell!Through the meadows and the woods, o'er the plain,Past where children dwell,All the children, some in joy and some in pain:Ding, Dong, Bell!Ding, Dong, Bell!Is it from a belfry, or the beating heartOf the year, this swell,Solemn like the steps of friends who have to part?Ding, Dong, Bell!Ding, Dong, Bell!Little children's homes in heaven and on earth,All have hearts to tellHow good actions overflow the year with mirth:Ding, Dong, Bell!Ding, Dong, Bell!And it needeth not a steeple's voice to say,What a dreary knellHearts are ringing as their goodness flies away:Ding, Dong, Bell!Ding, Dong, Bell!Down the turnpike for you comes another year;Children, treat it well:Naught but goodness brings to homes right jolly cheer:Ding, Dong, Bell!John Weiss.
Ding, Dong, Bell!Little children, down the turnpike goes the year,Down through every dell,All the bells of all the country in its ear:Ding, Dong, Bell!
Ding, Dong, Bell!Through the meadows and the woods, o'er the plain,Past where children dwell,All the children, some in joy and some in pain:Ding, Dong, Bell!
Ding, Dong, Bell!Is it from a belfry, or the beating heartOf the year, this swell,Solemn like the steps of friends who have to part?Ding, Dong, Bell!
Ding, Dong, Bell!Little children's homes in heaven and on earth,All have hearts to tellHow good actions overflow the year with mirth:Ding, Dong, Bell!
Ding, Dong, Bell!And it needeth not a steeple's voice to say,What a dreary knellHearts are ringing as their goodness flies away:Ding, Dong, Bell!
Ding, Dong, Bell!Down the turnpike for you comes another year;Children, treat it well:Naught but goodness brings to homes right jolly cheer:Ding, Dong, Bell!
John Weiss.
Top
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM AND GARDEN,—HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM AND GARDEN,—HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.
Thereis an old farm-house in the State of New Jersey, not a hundred miles from the city of Trenton, having the great railroad which runs between New York and Philadelphia so near to it that one can hear the whistle of the locomotive as it hurries onward every hour in the day, and see the trains of cars as they whirl by with their loads of living freight. The laborers in the fields along the road, though they see these things so frequently, invariably pause in their work and watch the advancing train until it passes them, and follow it with their eyes until it is nearly lost in the distance. The boy leans upon his hoe, the mower rests upon his scythe, the ploughman halts his horses in the furrow,—all stop to gaze upon a spectacle that has long ceased to be either a wonder or a novelty. Why it is so may be difficult to answer, except that the snorting combination of wheels, and cranks, and fire, and smoke, thundering by the quiet fields, breaks in upon the monotonous labor of the hand who works alone, with no one to converse with,—for the fact is equally curious, that gangs of laborers make no pause on the appearance of a locomotive. They have companionship enough already.
This old wooden farm-house was a very shabby affair. To look at it, one would be sure that the owner had a particular aversion to both paint and whitewash. The weather-boarding was fairly honeycombed by age and exposure to the sun and rain, and in some places the end of a board had dropped off, and hung down a foot or two, for want of a nail which everybodyabout the place appeared to be too lazy or neglectful to supply in time. One or two of the window-shutters had lost a hinge, and they also hung askew,—nobody had thought it worth while to drive back the staple when it first became loose.
Then there were several broken lights of glass in the kitchen windows. As the men about the house neglected to have them mended, or to do it themselves by using the small bit of putty that would have kept the cracked ones from going to pieces, the women had been compelled to keep out the wind and rain by stuffing in the first thing that came to hand. There was a bit of red flannel in one, an old straw bonnet in another, while in a third, from which all the glass was gone, a tolerably good fur hat, certainly worth the cost of half a dozen lights, had been crammed in to fill up the vacancy. The whole appearance of the windows was deplorable. Some of them had lost the little wooden buttons which kept up the sash when hoisted, and which anybody could have replaced by whittling out new ones with his knife; but as no one did it, and as the women must sometimes have the sashes raised, they propped them up with pretty big sticks from the wood-pile. It was not a nice sight, that of a rough stick as thick as one's arm to hold up the sash, especially when, of a sultry day, three or four of them were always within view.
Then the wooden step at the kitchen door, instead of being nailed fast to the house, was not only loose, but it rested on the ground so unevenly as to tilt over whenever any one stepped carelessly on its edge. As the house contained a large family, all of whom generally lived in the kitchen, there was a great deal of running in and out over this loose step. When it first broke away from the building, it gave quite a number of severe tumbles to the women and children. Everybody complained of it, but nobody mended it, though a single stout nail would have held it fast. One dark night a pig broke loose, and, snuffing and smelling around the premises in search of forage, came upon the loose step, and, imagining that he scented a supper in its neighborhood, used his snout so vigorously as to push it clear away from the door. One of the girls, hearing the noise, stepped out into the yard to see what was going on; but the step being gone, and she not observing it, down she went on her face, striking her nose on the edge of a bucket which some one had left exactly in the wrong place, and breaking the bone so badly that she will carry a very homely face as long as she lives. It was a very painful hurt to the poor girl, and the family all grieved over her misfortune; but not one of the men undertook to mend the step. Finally, the mother managed to drive down two sticks in front of it, which held it up to the house, though not half so firmly as would have been done by a couple of good stout nails.
Things were very much in the same condition all over the premises. The fence round the garden, and in fact all about the house, was dropping to pieces simply for want of a nail here and there. The barn-yard enclosure was strong enough to keep the cattle in, but it was a curious exhibition of hasty patch-work, that would hurt the eye of any mechanic to look at. As to the gates, every one of them rested at one end on the ground. It was hard work even for a man to open and shut them, as they had to be lifted clear up before theycould be moved an inch. For a half-grown boy to open them was really a very serious undertaking, especially in muddy weather. The posts had sagged, or the upper staples had drawn out, but nobody attended to putting them to rights, though it would not have been an hour's job to make them all swing as freely as every good farm-gate ought to. The barn-yard was a hard place for the boys on this farm.
No touch of whitewash had been spread over either house, or fence, or outbuilding, for many years, though lime is known to everybody as being one of the surest preservers of wood-work, as well as the very cheapest, while it so beautifully sets off a farm-house to see its surroundings covered once a year with a fresh coat of white. The hen-house was of course equally neglected, though whitewash is so well known to be an indispensable purifier of such places, materially helping to keep away those kinds of vermin that prevent poultry from thriving. In fact, the absence of lime was so general, that the hens could hardly pick up enough to make egg-shells. Had they laid eggs without shells, the circumstance would have mortified the hens as much as it would have surprised the family. As it was, their only dependence was on the pile of lime rubbish which was left every spring after whitewashing the kitchen. The women who presided there did manage to fix up things once a year. They thought lime was good to drive away ants and roaches, and so they and the hens were the only parties on the premises who used it.
There were many other things about this farm-house that were quite as much neglected,—more than it is worth while at present to mention, unless it be the wood-pile. Though there were two men on the farm, and several well-grown boys, yet the women could rarely prevail on any of them to split a single stick of wood. The wood for the house caused great trouble,—it was difficult to get it at all. Then when it did come, it was crooked and knotty, much of it such as a woman could not split. Yet whenever a stick or two was wanted, the females of the family must run out into the shed to chop and split it. They never could get an armful ahead, such was the strange neglect of one of the most indispensable comforts of housekeeping. If the female head of the family had only thought of letting the male portion go a few times without their dinners, it is more than likely they would have brought them to terms, and taught them that it was quite as much their duty to split the wood as it was hers to cook their dinners. But she was a good, easy creature, like most of the others. They had all been brought up in the same neglectful way, just rubbing along from day to day, never getting ahead, but everything getting ahead of them.
This farmer's name was Philip Spangler, and he was unlucky enough to have a hundred acres in his farm. The wordunluckyis really a very proper one; because it was unlucky for such a man as Philip that he should have so much more land than he knew how to manage, and it was equally unlucky for the land that it should have so poor a manager. The man was perfectly sober, and in his own way was a very industrious one. He worked hard himself, and made every one about him do the same. He was what is known as a “slaving farmer,”—up by daylight, having all hands up and outof doors quite as early as himself, and he and they stuck to it as long as they could see to work. With him and them it was all work and no play. He had no recreations; he took no newspaper, had no reading in the house except the children's school-books, the Bible, and an almanac,—which he bought once a year, not because he wanted it, but because his wife would have it.
What was very singular in Mr. Spangler's mode of managing things, when a wet day came on, too rainy for out-of-door work, he seemed to have no indoor employments provided, either for himself or hands to do, having apparently no sort of forethought. On such occasions he let everything slide,—that is, take care of itself,—and went, in spite of the rain, to a tavern near by on the railroad, where he sat all day among a crowd of neighboring idlers who collected there at such times; for although it might be wet enough to stop all work in the fields, it was never too wet to keep them away from the tavern. There these fellows sat, drinking juleps, smoking pipes, or cigars that smelt even worse, and retailing among each other the news of their several neighborhoods.
What Spangler thus picked up at the tavern was about all the news he ever heard. As to talking of farming, of their crops, or what was the best thing to raise, or how best to carry on this or that branch of their business,—such matters were rarely spoken of. They came there to shake off the farm. Politics was a standing topic,—who was likely to be nominated on their ticket,—whether he would be elected,—and whether it was true that so-and-so was going to be sold out by the sheriff. It was much to Spangler's credit, that, if at this rainy-day rendezvous he learned nothing useful, he contracted no other bad habit than that of lounging away a day when he should have been at home attending to his business. It was much after the same fashion that he spent his long winter's evenings,—dozing in the chimney-corner,—for the tavern was too far away, or he would have spent them there.
Now it somehow happens that there are quite as many rainy days in the country as in the city. But those who live in the latter never think of quitting work because it snows deep or rains hard. The merchant never closes his counting-house or store, nor does the mechanic cease to labor from such a cause; they have still something on hand, whether it rain or shine. Even the newsboys run about the streets as actively, and a hundred other kinds of workers keep on without interruption.
If the laboring men of a large city were to quit work because of a hard rain, there would be a loss of many thousand dollars for every such day that happened. So also with a farmer. There is plenty of rainy-day work on a farm, if the owner only knew it, or thought of it beforehand, and set his men or boys to do it,—in the barn, or cellar, or wood-shed. If he had a bench and tools, a sort of workshop, a rainy day would be a capital time for him to teach his boys how to drive a nail, or saw a board, or push a plane, to make a new box or mend an old one, to put a new handle in an axe or hoe, or to do twenty such little things as are always wanted on a farm. Besidessaving the time and money lost by frequent running to the blacksmith or wheelwright, to have such trifles attended to, things would be kept always ready when next wanted, and his boys would become good mechanics. There is so much of this kind of light repairing to be done on a farm, that, having a set of tools, and knowing how to use them, are almost as indispensable as having ploughs and harrows, and the boys cannot be too early instructed in their use. Many boys are natural mechanics, and even without instruction could accomplish great things if they only had a bench and tools. The making of the commonest bird-box will give an ambitious boy a very useful lesson.
It seemed that Mr. Spangler was learning nothing while he lived. His main idea appeared to be, that farming was an affair of muscle only,—that it was hands, not heads, that farmers ought to have; and that whoever worked hardest and longest, wasted no time in reading, spent no money for fine cattle or better breeds of pigs, or for new seeds, new tools or machines, and stuck to the good old way, was the best farmer. He never devoted a day now and then to visiting the agricultural exhibitions which were held in all the counties round him, where he would be sure to see samples of the very best things that good farmers were producing,—fine cattle, fine pigs, fine poultry, and a hundred other products which sensible men are glad to exhibit at such fairs, knowing that it is the smart men who go to such places to learn what is going on, as well as to make purchases, and that it is the agricultural drones who stay at home. The fact was, he had been badly educated, and he could not shake off the habits of his early life. He had been taught that hard work was the chief end of man.
Of course such a farmer had a poor time of it, as well as the hands he employed. He happened to be pretty well out of debt, there being only a small mortgage on his farm; but he was so poor a manager that his hard work went for little, in reality just enough to enable his family to live, with sometimes very close shaving to pay interest. As to getting rich, it was out of the question. He had a son whose name was Joe, a smart, ambitious boy of sixteen years old; another son, Bill, two years younger; and an orphan named Tony King, exactly a year younger than Joe; together with a hired man for helper about the farm.
Mr. Spangler had found Tony in the adjoining county. On the death of his parents, they being miserably poor, and having no relations to take care of him, he had had a hard time among strangers. They kept him until old enough to be bound out to a trade. Mr. Spangler thinking he needed another hand, and being at the same time in such low repute as a farmer and manager that those who knew him were not willing to let their sons live with him as apprentices, he was obliged to go quite out of the neighborhood, where he was not so well known, in order to secure one. In one of his trips he brought up at the house where Tony was staying, and, liking his looks,—for he was even a brighter boy than Joe Spangler,—he had him bound to him as an apprentice to the art and mystery of farming.
In engaging himself to teach this art and mystery to Tony, he undertookto impart a great deal more knowledge than he himself possessed,—a thing, by the way, which is very common with a good many other people. Altogether it was a hard bargain for poor Tony; but when parents are so idle and thriftless as to expose their children to such a fate as his, they leave them a legacy of nothing better than the very hardest kind of bargains.
In addition to this help, about a year after Tony took up his quarters with Mr. Spangler, there came along an old man of seventy, a sort of distant relation of the Spanglers, who thenceforward made the farm his home. Mr. Spangler and his wife called him “Benny,” but all the younger members of the family, out of respect for his age, called him “Uncle,” so that in a very short time he went by no other name than that of “Uncle Benny,” and this not only on the farm, but all over the neighborhood.
Uncle Benny turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls had ever been acquainted with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he was very fond of children, and like generally begets like. He was a very different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been well educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting disposition, he had travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude of strange men and strange things, and had such a way of telling what he had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who heard him. Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of foreign countries, or how people lived in our great cities, or how they carried on farming in other parts of our country, he talked so pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his chair in the chimney corner, and once or twice actually tipped over quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny got fairly under way, there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.
Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both men and boys, and even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much, that he had something appropriate for every event that turned up. Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides this, he was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed able to make any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.
In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an old man, and not strong enough to do a full day's work at mowing or hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a hundred broken places that had been neglected for years before he came to live there. If he saw anything out of order, a gate with no latch, a picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling defect about the premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to look at.
It was Uncle Benny who nailed up the loose door-step which the pig had rooted away from its place, causing Lucy Spangler to fall on the edge of a bucket and break her nose. Lucy came out to thank him for doing the thing so nicely; for ever since the accident to her nose, she had been very skittish about putting her foot on the step.
“Ah, Lucy,” said Uncle Benny, “I wish I could mend your nose as easily.”
“Indeed I wish so too,” replied Lucy.
Inside of the house were numerous things that wanted looking after in the same way. There was not a bolt or a latch that would work as it ought to. All the closet locks were out of order, while one half the doors refused to shut. In fact there were twenty little provocations of this kind that were perpetual annoyances to the women. Uncle Benny went to work and removed them all; there was no odd job that he was not able to go through with. Indeed, it was the luckiest day in the history of that farm when he came to live upon it, for it did seem that, if the farm were ever to be got to rights, he was the very man to do it. Now, it was very curious, but no one told Uncle Benny to do these things. But as soon as he had anchored himself at Mr. Spangler's he saw how much the old concern was out of gear, and, providing himself with tools, he undertook, as one of his greatest pleasures, to repair these long-standing damages, not because he expected to be paid for it, but from his own natural anxiety to have things look as they ought.
The boys watched the old man's operations with great interest, for both Joe and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus gave them a miserably weak decoction for breakfast. Now, Uncle Benny had been used to strong coffee, and couldn't stand what Mrs. Spangler gave him. So he unshipped the mill, took it to pieces, with a small file sharpened up the grinders, which by long use had become dull, oiled its joints, and screwed it up in a new place, where it was impossible for the knuckles to be bruised. It then worked so beautifully, that, instead of every one hating to put his hand on the crank, the difficulty was to keep the children away from it,—they would grind on it an hour at a time. Such a renovation of damaged goods had never before been seen on Spangler's premises.
Author of “Ten Acres Enough.”
Top
Twentyyears ago, not twenty miles from the Land's End, there lived a Cornish gentleman named Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died, leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose mother all three had mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.
“Squire” Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his ancestors for hundreds of years before him had dispensed hospitality. None of them, however, had entertained so profusely as he; or rather improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after his death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to it, passed into the hands of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless. One thousand pounds apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality theirs, but had been given to them by thevery respectablesolicitor who had managed their father's affairs, and had furthermoremanagedto succeed him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three thousand a year.
Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions received their two thousand pounds must have believed it to be a gift, since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor with the private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes elsewhere,—anywhere except in Cornwall!
The land-pirate who had plucked them—for in reality had they been plucked—did not wish them to stay at home, divested, as they were, of their valuable plumage. He had appropriated their fine feathers, and cared not for the naked bodies of the birds.
There were those in Cornwall who suspected foul play in the lawyer's dealings with the young Trevannions,—among others, the victims themselves. But what could they do? They were utterly ignorant of their late father's affairs,—indeed, with any affairs that did not partake of the nature of “sports.” A solicitor “most respectable,”—a phrase that has become almost synonymous with rascality,—a regular church-goer,—accounts kept with scrupulous exactness,—a man of honest face, distinguished for probity of speech and integrity of heart,—what could the Trevannions do? What more than the Smiths and the Browns and the Joneses, who, notwithstanding their presumed greater skill in the ways of a wicked lawyer world, are duped every day in a similar manner. It is an old and oft-repeated story,—a tale too often told, and too often true,—that of the family lawyer and his confiding client, standing in the relationship of robber and robbed.
The two children of Squire Trevannion could do nothing to save or recover their paternal estate. Caught in the net of legal chicanery, they were forced to yield, as other squire's children have had to do, and make the best of a bad matter,—forced to depart from a home that had been held by Trevannions perhaps since the Phœnicians strayed thitherward in search of their shining tin.
It sore grieved them to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the secret understanding with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By staying at home a still greater might be called for,—subsistence in penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for, notwithstanding the open house long kept by their father, his friends had disappeared with his guests. Impelled by these thoughts, the brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune wherever it seemed most likely they should find it.
They were at this period something more than mere children. Ralph had reached within twelve months of being twenty. Richard was his junior by a couple of years. Their book-education had been good; the practice of manly sports had imparted to both of them a physical strength that fitted them for toil, either of the mind or body. They were equal to a tough struggle, either in the intellectual or material world; and to this they determined to resign themselves.
For a time they debated between themselves where they should go, and what do. The army and navy came under their consideration. With such patronage as their father's former friends could command, and might still exert in favor of their fallen fortunes, a commission in either army or navy was not above their ambition. But neither felt much inclined towards a naval or military life; the truth being, that a thought had taken shape in their minds leading them to a different determination.
Their deliberations ended by each of them proclaiming a resolve,—almost sealing it with a vow,—that they would enter into some more profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil—with their hands, if need be—until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done,—with time, patience, and industry to aid them in the execution.
“Where shall we go?” inquired Richard, the younger of the two. “To America, where every poor man appears to prosper? With a thousand each to begin the world with, we might do well there. What say you, Ralph?”
“America is a country where men seem to thrive best who havenothingto begin the world with. You mean North America,—the United States,—I suppose?”
“I do.”
“I don't much like the United States as a home,—not because it is a republic, for I believe that is the only just form of government, whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object to it simply because I wish to gosouth,—to some part of the tropical world, where one may equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune.”
“Is there such a place?”
“There is.”
“Where, brother?”
“Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus of Panama. As Cornish men we should adopt the specialty of our province, and become miners. The Andes mountains will give us that opportunity, where, instead of gray tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say you to South America?”
“I like the thought of South America,—nothing would please me better than going there. But I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for the occupation you speak of. I had rather be a merchant than a miner.”
“Don't let thatpenchantprevent you from selecting Peru as the scene of mercantile transactions. There are many Englishmen who have made fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow their example. We may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One thousand pounds each may give both of us a start,—you as a merchant of goods, I as a digger for gold. Peru is the place for either business. Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered celebrated by Pizarro?”
“If you will it—I'm agreed.”
“Thither then let us go.”
In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward from the Land's End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao,—en routefirst for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,—vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks.
Thisbook is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years—after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco—would have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid.
Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner's life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest,—the “montaña,” as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving “city” of Gran Pará.
Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, hadestablished commercial relations at Pará. In a few years after, several sweet children called him “father,”—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of their mother.
Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two children,—respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary affairs,—rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,—“otium cum dignitate.”
Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that, having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this design. He only awaited his brother's answer to a communication he had made to him on this very subject.
He had no doubt that Ralph's desire would be in unison with his own,—that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return to their native land,—perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that had sheltered them as children.
The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means,—independent, if not wealthy.
Like his brother, he got married at an early period,—in fact, within the first year after establishing himself in Cerro Pasco. Unlike the latter, however, he chose for his wife one of the women of the country,—a beautiful Peruvian lady. She too, but a short while before, had gone to a better world, leaving motherless two pretty children, of twelve and fourteen years of age,—the elder of the two being a daughter.
Such was the family of Ralph Trevannion, and such the condition of life in which his brother's epistle reached him,—that epistle containing the proposal that they should wind up their respective businesses, dispose of both, and carry their gains to the land that had given them birth.
The proposition was at once accepted, as Richard knew it would be. It was far from the first time that the thing had been discussed, epistolary fashion, between them; for letters were exchanged as often as opportunity permitted,—sometimes twice or thrice in the year.
In these letters, during the last few years of their sojourn in South America, the promise made on leaving home was mutually mentioned, and as often renewed on either side. Richard knew that his brother was as eager as himself to keep that well-remembered vow.
So long as the mother of Ralph's children was alive, he had not urged his brother to its fulfilment; but now that she had been dead for more than a year, he had written to say that the time had come for their return to their country and their home.
His proposal was, that Ralph, having settled his affairs in Peru,—which, of course, included the selling out of his share in the mines,—should joinhim, Richard, at Pará, thence to take ship for England. That instead of going round by Cape Horn, or across the isthmus, by Panama, Ralph should make the descent of the great Amazon River, which traverse would carry him latitudinally across the continent from west to east.
Richard had two reasons for recommending this route. First, because he wished his brother to see the great river of Orellana, as he himself had done; and secondly, because he was still more desirous that hisown sonshould see it.
How this last wish was to be gratified by his brother making the descent of the Amazon, may require explanation; but it will suffice to say that the son of Richard Trevannion was at that time residing with his uncle at the mines of Cerro Pasco.
The boy had gone to Peru the year before, in one of his father's ships,—first, to see the Great Ocean, then the Great Andes,—afterwards to become acquainted with the country of the Incas, and last, though not of least importance, to make the acquaintance of his own uncle and his two interesting cousins, the elder of whom was exactly his own age. He had gone to the Pacific side bysea. It was his father's wish he should return to the Atlantic side by land,—or, to speak more accurately, byriver.
The merchant's wish was to be gratified. The miner had no desire to refuse compliance with his proposal. On the contrary, it chimed in with his own inclinations. Ralph Trevannion possessed a spirit adventurous as his brother's, which fourteen years of mining industry, carried on in the cold mountains of Cerro Pasco, had neither deadened nor chilled. The thought of once more returning to the scenes of his youth quite rejuvenated him; and on the day of receiving his brother's challenge to go, he not only accepted it, but commenced proceedings towards carrying the design into execution.
A month afterwards and he might have been seen descending the eastern slope of the Cordilleras on mule-back, and accompanied by his family and followers; afterwards aboard abalsa,—one of those curious crafts used in the descent of the Huallaga; and later still on themontaria, upon the bosom of the great river itself.
With the details of his mountain travels, interesting as they may be, we have naught to do. No more with his descent of the Huallaga, nor his long voyage on the Amazon itself, in that up-river portion of the stream where it is called the “Marañon.” Only where it becomes the stupendous “Solimoës” do we join Ralph Trevannion on his journey, and remain with him as long as he is “Afloat in the Forest,”or making a voyage among the tree-tops.
Onan evening in the early part of December, a craft of singular construction might have been seen descending the Solimoës, and apparently making for the little Portuguese port of Coary, that lies on the southern side of the river.
Floating down the river in a boat.
Floating down the river in a boat.
When we say of singular construction, we mean singular to one unaccustomed to the navigation of Amazonian waters. There the craft in question was too common to excite curiosity, since it was nothing more than agalatea, or large canoe, furnished with mast and sail, with a palm-thatched cabin, ortolda, rising over the quarter, a low-decked locker running from bow to midships,—along each side of which were to be seen, half seated, half standing, some half-dozen dark-skinned men, each plying, instead of an oar, a paddle-blade.
Perhaps the most singular sight on board this embarkation was the group of animated beings who composed its crew and passengers. The former, as already stated, were dark-skinned men, scantily clad,—in fact, almost naked, since a single pair of white cotton drawers constituted the complete costume of each.
For passengers there were three men, and a like number of individuals of younger age. Two of the men were white, apparently Europeans; the otherwas as black as soot could have made him,—unquestionably an African negro. Of the young people two were boys, not much differing in size, and apparently not much in age, while the third was a half-grown girl, of dark complexion, raven-colored hair, and beautiful features.
One of the white men appeared to be, and was, the proprietor of the montaria, and the employer of its swarthy crew. He was Ralph Trevannion.
The young girl was his daughter, and bore her Peruvian mother's name, Rosa, more often pronounced by its diminutive of endearment, Rosita. The younger of the two boys—also of dark complexion—was his son Ralph, while the older, of true Saxon physiognomy and hue, was the son of his brother, also bearing his father's Christian name, Richard.
The second white man was unmistakably of European race,—so much so that any one possessing the slightest knowledge of the hibernian type, would at once have pronounced him a “Son of the Sod.” A pure pug nose, a shock of curled hair of the clearest carrot color, an eternal twinkle in the eye, a volume of fun lying open at each angle of the mouth,—were all characteristics by which “Tipperary Tom”—for such was hissobriquet—might be remembered.
About the negro there was nothing special, more than that he was a pure negro, with enormously thick lips, flattened nose, long protruding heels, teeth white as hippopotamus ivory, and almost always set in a good-humored grin. The darkey had been a sailor, or rather ship-steward, before landing in Peru. Thither had he strayed, and settled at Cerro Pasco after several years spent aboard ship. He was a native of Mozambique, on the eastern coast of Africa, to which circumstance was he indebted for the only name ever given him,—Mozey.
Both he and the Irishman were the servants of the miner, or rather his retainers, who served him in various ways, and had done so almost ever since his establishing himself among the rocks of Cerro Pasco.
The other creatures of the animated kingdom that found lodgment upon the craft, were of various shapes, sizes, and species. There were quadrupeds, quadrumana, and birds,—beasts of the field, monkeys of the forest, and birds of the air,—clustering upon the cabin top, squatted in the hold, perched upon the gangway, the tolda, the yard, and the mast,—forming an epitomized menagerie, such as may be seen on every kind of craft that navigates the mighty Amazon.
It is not our design to give any description of the galatea's crew. There were nine of them,—all Indians,—four on each side acting as rowers, or more properly “paddlers,” the ninth being the pilot or steersman, standing abaft the tolda.
Our reason for not describing them is that they were a changing crew, only attached to the craft for a particular stage of the long river voyage, and had succeeded several other similar sets since the embarkation of our voyagers on the waters of the Upper Amazon. They had joined the galatea at the port of Ega, and would take leave of her at Coary, where a fresh crew of civilized Indians—“tapuyos”—would be required.
And theywererequired, but not obtained. On the galatea putting into the port of Coary, it was found that nearly every man in the place was off upon a hunting excursion,—turtle and cowfish being the game that had called them out. Not a canoe-man could be had for love or money.
The owner of the galatea endeavored to tempt the Ega crew to continue another stage. It was contrary to their habit, and they refused to go. Persuasion and threats were tried in vain. Coaxing and scolding proved equally unavailable; all except one remained firm in their refusal, the exception being an old Indian who did not belong to the Ega tribe, and who could not resist the large bribe offered by Trevannion.
The voyagers must either suspend their journey till the Coary turtle-hunters should return, or proceed without paddlers. The hunters were not expected for a month. To stay a month at Coary was out of the question. The galatea must go on manned by her own people, and the old Indian, who was to act as pilot. Such was the determination of Ralph Trevannion. But for that resolve,—rash as it was, and ending unfortunately for him who made it,—we should have no story to tell.
Thecraft that carried the ex-miner, his family and following, once more floated on the broad bosom of the Solimoës. Not so swift as before, since, instead of eight paddlers, it was now impelled by only half the number,—these, too, with less than half the experience of the crew who had preceded them.
The owner himself acted as steersman, while the paddles were plied by “Tipperary Tom,” Mozey, the old Indian,—who, being of the Mundurucú tribe, passed by the name of “Monday,”—and Richard Trevannion.
The last, though by far the youngest, was perhaps the best paddler in the party. Brought up in his native place of Gran Pará, he had been accustomed to spend half his time either in or upon the water; and an oar or paddle was to him no novelty.
Young Ralph, on the contrary, a true mountaineer, knew nothing of either, and therefore counted for nothing among the crew of the galatea. To him and the little Rosa was assigned the keeping of the pets, with such other light duties as they were capable of performing.
For the first day the voyage was uninterrupted by any incident,—at least any that might be called unpleasant. Their slow progress, it is true, was a cause of dissatisfaction; but so long as they were going at all, and going in the right direction, this might be borne with equanimity. Three miles an hour was about their average rate of speed; for half of which they were indebted to the current of the river, and for the other half to the impulsion of their paddles.
Considering that they had still a thousand miles to go before reachingGran Pará, the prospect of a protracted voyage was very plainly outlined before them.
Could they have calculated on making three miles an hour for every hour of the twenty-four, things would not have been bad. This rate of speed would have carried them to their destination in a dozen days,—a mere bagatelle. But they knew enough of river-navigation to disregard such data. They knew the current of the Solimoës to be extremely slow; they had heard of the strange phenomenon, that, run which way the river might, north, south, east, or west,—and itdoeskeep bending and curving in all these directions,—the wind is almost always met with blowingup stream!
For this reason they could put no dependence in their sail, and would have to trust altogether to the paddles. These could not be always in the water. Human strength could not stand a perpetual spell, even at paddles; and less so in the hands of a crew of men so little used to them.
Nor could they continue the voyage at night. By doing so, they would be in danger of losing their course, their craft, and themselves!
You may smile at the idea. You will ask—a little scornfully, perhaps—how a canoe, or any other craft, drifting down a deep river to its destination, could possibly go astray. Does not the current point out the path,—the broad water-way not to be mistaken?
So it might appear to one seated in a skiff, and floating down the tranquil Thames, with its well-defined banks. But far different is the aspect of the stupendous Solimoës to the voyager gliding through itsgapo.
I have made use of a word of strange sound, and still stranger signification. Perhaps it is new to your eye, as your ear. You will become better acquainted with it before the end of our voyage; for into the “Gapo” it is my intention to take you, where ill-luck carried the galatea and her crew.
On leaving Coary, it was not the design of her owner to attempt taking his craft, so indifferently manned, all the way to Pará. He knew there were several civilized settlements between,—as Barra at the mouth of the Rio Negro, Obidos below it, Santarem, and others. At one or other of these places he expected to obtain a supply oftapuyos, to replace the crew who had so provokingly forsaken him.
The voyage to the nearest of them, however, would take several days, at the rate of speed the galatea was now making; and the thought of being delayed on their route became each hour more irksome. The ex-miner, who had not seen his beloved brother during half a score of years, was impatient once more to embrace him. He had been, already, several months travelling towards him by land and water; and just as he was beginning to believe that the most difficult half of the journey had been accomplished, he found himself delayed by an obstruction vexatious as unexpected.
The first night after his departure from Coary, he consented that the galatea should lie to,—moored to some bushes that grew upon the banks of the river.
On the second night, however, he acted with less prudence. His impatience to make way prompted him to the resolution to keep on. The night was clear,—a full moon shining conspicuously above, which is not always the case in the skies of the Solimoës.
There was to be no sail set, no use made of the paddles. The crew were fatigued, and wanted rest and repose. The current alone was to favor their progress; and as it appeared to be running nearly two miles an hour, it should advance them between twenty and thirty miles before the morning.
The Mundurucú made an attempt to dissuade his “patron” from the course he designed pursuing; but his advice was disregarded,—perhaps because ill-understood,—and the galatea glided on.
Who could mistake that broad expanse of water—upon which the moon shone so clearly—for aught else than the true channel of the Solimoës? Not Tipperary Tom, who, in the second watch of the night,—the owner himself having kept the first,—acted as steersman of the galatea.
The others had gone to sleep. Trevannion and the three young people under the tolda; Mozey and the Mundurucú along the staging known as the “hold.” The birds and monkeys were at rest on their respective perches, and in their respective cages,—all was silent in the galatea, and around,—all save the rippling of the water, as it parted to the cleaving of her keel.
Littleexperienced as he was in the art of navigation, the steersman was not inattentive to his duty. Previously to his taking the rudder, he had been admonished about the importance of keeping the craft in the channel of the stream, and to this had he been giving his attention.
It so chanced, however, that he had arrived at a place where there were two channels,—as if an island was interposed in the middle of the river, causing it to branch at an acute angle. Which of these was the right one? Which should be taken? These were the questions that occurred to Tipperary Tom.
At first he thought of awakening his master, and consulting him, but on once more glancing at the two channels, he became half convinced that the broader one must be the proper route to be followed.
“Bay Japers!” muttered he to himself. “Shure I can't be mistaken. The biggest av the two ought to be the mane sthrame. Anyway, I won't wake the masther. I'll lave it to the ship to choose for hersilf.” Saying this he relaxed his hold upon the steering oar, and permitted the galatea to drift with the current.
Sure enough, the little craft inclined towards the branch that appeared the broader one; and in ten minutes' time had made such way that the other opening was no longer visible from her decks. The steersman, confident of being on the right course, gave himself no further uneasiness; but, oncemore renewing his hold upon the steering oar, guided the galatea in the middle of the channel.
Notwithstanding all absence of suspicion as to having gone astray, he could not help noticing that the banks on each side appeared to be singularly irregular, as if here and there indented by deep bays, or reaches of water. Some of these opened out vistas of shining surface, apparently illimitable, while the dark patches that separated them looked more like clumps of trees half submerged under water, than stretches of solid earth.
As the galatea continued her course, this puzzling phenomenon ceased to be a conjecture; Tipperary Tom saw that he was no longer steering down a river between two boundary banks, but on a broad expanse of water, stretching as far as eye could reach, with no other boundary than that afforded by aflooded forest.
There was nothing in all this to excite alarm,—at least in the mind of Tipperary Tom. The Mundurucú, had he been awake, might have shown some uneasiness at the situation. But the Indian was asleep,—perhaps dreaming of some Múra enemy,—whose head he would have been happy to embalm.
Tom simply supposed himself to be in some part of the Solimoës, flooded beyond its banks, as he had seen it in more places than one. With this confidence, he stuck faithfully to his steering oar, and allowed the galatea to glide on. It was only when the reach of water—upon which the craft was drifting—began to narrow, or rather after it had narrowed to a surprising degree, that the steersman began to suspect himself of having taken the wrong course.
His suspicions became stronger, at length terminating in a conviction that such was the truth, when the galatea arrived at a part where less than a cable's length lay between her beam-ends and the bushes that stood out of the water on both sides of her. Too surely had he strayed from the “mane sthrame.” The craft that carried him could no longer be in the channel of the mighty Solimoës!
The steersman was alarmed, and this very alarm hindered him from following the only prudent course he could have taken under the circumstances. He should have aroused his fellow-voyagers, and proclaimed the error into which he had fallen. He did not do so. A sense of shame at having neglected his duty, or rather at having performed it in an indifferent manner,—a species of regret not uncommon among his countrymen,—hindered him from disclosing the truth, and taking steps to avert any evil consequences that might spring from it.
He knew nothing of the great river on which they were voyaging. Theremightbe such a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding. The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on.
The channeldidwiden again; and the galatea once more rode upon open water. The steersman was restored to confidence and contentment. Onlyfor a short while did this state of mind continue. Again the clear water became contracted, this time to a very strip, while on either side extended reaches and estuaries, bordered by half-submerged bushes,—some of them opening apparently to the sky horizon, wider and freer from obstruction than that upon which the galatea was holding her course.
The steersman no longer thought of continuing his course, which he was now convinced must be the wrong one. Bearing with all his strength upon the steering oar, he endeavored to direct the galatea back into the channel through which he had come; but partly from the drifting of the current, and partly owing to the deceptive light of the moon, he could no longer recognize the latter, and, dropping the rudder in despair, he permitted the vessel to drift whichever way the current might carry her!
Before Tipperary Tom could summon courage to make known to his companions the dilemma into which he had conducted them, the galatea had drifted among the tree-tops of the flooded forest, where she was instantly “brought to anchor.”
The crashing of broken boughs roused her crew from their slumbers. The ex-miner, followed by his children, rushed forth from the tolda. He was not only alarmed, but perplexed, by the unaccountable occurrence. Mozey was equally in a muddle. The only one who appeared to comprehend the situation was the old Indian, who showed sufficient uneasiness as to its consequences by the terrified manner in which he called out: “The Gapo! The Gapo!”
Mayne Reid.