Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

piled on brick, in the walls of a house, in all

this region, when the Wigwam was constructed. It is the Temple of

Neptune of Otsego, if not of all the surrounding counties."

 

Eve pressed to her lips the hand she was holding in both her own, and

they all passed out of the library into another room. As they came in

front of the hall windows, a party of apprentice-boys were seen

coolly making their arrangements to amuse themselves with a game of

ball, on the lawn directly in front of the house.

 

"Surely, Mr. Bragg," said the owner of the Wigwam, with more

displeasure in his voice than was usual for one of his regulated

mind, "you do not countenance this liberty?"

 

"Liberty, sir!--I am an advocate for liberty wherever I can find it.

Do you refer to the young men on the lawn, Mr. Effingham?"

 

"Certainly to them, sir; and permit me to say, I think they might

have chosen a more suitable spot for their sports. They are mistaking

_liberties_ for liberty I fear."

 

"Why, sir, I believe they have _always_ played ball in that precise

locality."

 

"_Always_!--I can assure you this is a great mistake. What private

family, placed as we are in the centre of a village, would allow of

an invasion of its privacy in this rude manner? Well may the house be

termed a Wigwam, if this whooping is to be tolerated before its

door."

 

"You forget, Ned," said John Effingham, with a sneer, "that an

American _always_ means just eighteen months. _Antiquity_ is reached

in five lustres, and the dark ages at the end of a human life. I dare

say these amiable young gentlemen, who enliven their sports with so

many agreeable oaths, would think you very unreasonable and

encroaching to presume to tell them they are unwelcome."

 

"To own the truth, Mr. John, it _would_ be downright unpopular."

 

"As I cannot permit the ears of the ladies to be offended with these

rude brawls, and shall never consent to have grounds that are so

limited, and which so properly belong to the very privacy of my

dwelling, invaded in this coarse manner, I beg, Mr. Bragg, that you

will, at once, desire these young men to pursue their sports

somewhere else."

 

Aristabulus received this commission with a very ill grace; for,

while his native sagacity told him that Mr. Effingham was right, he

too well knew the loose habits that had been rapidly increasing in

the country during the last ten years, not to foresee that the order

would do violence to all the apprentices' preconceived notions of

their immunities; for, as he had truly stated, things move at so

quick a pace in America, and popular feeling is so arbitrary, that a

custom of a twelve months' existence is deemed sacred, until the

public, itself, sees fit to alter it. He was reluctantly quitting the

party, on his unpleasant duty, when Mr. Effingham turned to a

servant, who belonged to the place, and bade him go to the village

barber, and desire him to come to the Wigwam to cut his hair; Pierre,

who usually performed that office for him, being busied in unpacking

trunks.

 

"Never mind, Tom," said Aristabulus obligingly, as he took up his

hat; "I am going into the street, and will give the message to Mr.

Lather."

 

"I cannot think, sir, of employing you on such a duty," hastily

interposed Mr. Effingham, who felt a gentleman's reluctance to impose

an unsuitable office on any of his dependants--"Tom, I am sure, will

do me the favour."

 

"Do not name it, my dear sir; nothing makes me happier than to do

these little errands, and, another time, you can do as much for me."

 

Aristabulus now went his way more cheerfully, for he determined to go

first to the barber, hoping that some expedient might suggest itself,

by means of which he could coax the apprentices from the lawn, and

thus escape the injury to his popularity, that he so much dreaded. It

is true, these apprentices were not voters, but then some of them

speedily would be, and all of them, moreover, had _tongues_, an

instrument Mr. Bragg held in quite as much awe as some men dread

salt-petre. In passing the ball-players, he called out in a wheedling

tone to their ringleader, a notorious street brawler--

 

"A fine time for sport, Dickey; don't you think there would be more

room in the broad street than on this crowded lawn, where you lose

your ball so often in the shrubbery?"

 

"This place will do, on a pinch," bawled Dickey--"though it might be

better. If it warn't for that plagued house, we couldn't ask for a

better ball-ground."

 

"I don't see," put in another, "what folks built a house just in that

spot for; it has spoilt the very best play-ground in the village."

 

"Some people have their notions as well as others," returned

Aristabulus; "but, gentlemen, if I were in your place, I would try

the street; I feel satisfied you would find it much the most

agreeable and convenient."

 

The apprentices thought differently, however, or they were indisposed

to the change; and so they recommenced their yells, their oaths, and

their game. In the mean while, the party in the house continued their

examination of John Effingham's improvements; and when this was

completed, they separated, each to his or her own room.

 

Aristabulus soon reappeared on the lawn; and, approaching the ball-

players, he began to execute his commission, as he conceived, in good

earnest. Instead of simply saying, however, that it was disagreeable

to the owner of the property to have such an invasion on his privacy,

and thus putting a stop to the intrusion for the future as well as at

the present moment, he believed some address necessary to attain the

desired end.

 

"Well, Dickey," he said, "there is no accounting for tastes; but, in

my opinion, the street would be a much better place to play ball in

than this lawn. I wonder gentlemen of your observation should be

satisfied with so cramped a play-ground!"

 

"I tell you, Squire Bragg, this will do," roared Dickey; "we are in a

hurry, and no way particular; the bosses will be after us in half an

hour. Heave away, Sam."

 

"There are so many fences hereabouts," continued Aristabulus, with an

air of indifference; "it's true the village trustees say there _shall

be no ball-playing in the street_, but I conclude you don't much mind

what _they_ think or threaten."

 

"Let them sue for that, if they like," bawled a particularly amiable

blackguard, called Peter, who struck his ball as he spoke, quite into

the principal street of the village. "Who's a trustee, that he should

tell gentlemen where they are to play ball!"

 

"Sure enough," said Aristabulus, "and, now, by following up that

blow, you can bring matters to an issue. I think the law very

oppressive, and you can never have so good an opportunity to bring

things to a crisis. Besides, it is very aristocratic to play ball

among roses and dahlias."

 

The bait took; for what apprentice--American apprentice, in

particular--can resist an opportunity of showing how much he

considers himself superior to the law? Then it had never struck any

of the party before, that it was vulgar and aristocratic to pursue

the sport among roses, and one or two of them actually complained

that they had pricked their fingers, in searching for the ball.

 

"I know Mr. Effingham will be very sorry to have you go," continued

Aristabulus, following up his advantage; "but gentlemen cannot always

forego their pleasures for other folks."

 

"Who's Mr. Effingham, I would like to know?" cried Joe Wart. "If he

wants people to play ball on his premises, let him cut down his

roses. Come, gentlemen, I conform to Squire Bragg, and invite you all

to follow me into the street."

 

As the lawn was now evacuated, _en masse_, Aristabulus proceeded with

alacrity to the house, and went into the library, where Mr. Effingham

was patiently waiting his return.

 

"I am happy to inform you, sir," commenced the ambassador, "that the

ball-players have adjourned; and as for Mr. Lather, he declines your

proposition."

 

"Declines my proposition!"

 

"Yes, sir; he dislikes to come; for he thinks it will be altogether a

poor operation. His notion is, that if it be worth his while to come

up to the Wigwam to cut your hair, it may be worth your while to go

down to the shop, to have it cut. Considering the matter in all its

bearings, therefore, he concludes he would rather not engage in the

transaction at all."

 

"I regret, sir, to have consented to your taking so disagreeable a

commission, and regret it the more, now I find that the barber is

disposed to be troublesome."

 

"Not at all, sir. Mr. Lather is a good man, in his way, and

particularly neighbourly. By the way, Mr. Effingham, he asked me to

propose to let him take down your garden fence, in order that he may

haul some manure on his potato patch, which wants it dreadfully, he

says."

 

"Certainly, sir. I cannot possibly object to his hauling his manure,

even through this house, should he wish it. He is so very valuable a

citizen, and one who knows his own business so well, that I am only

surprised at the moderation of his request."

 

Here Mr. Effingham rose, rang the bell for Pierre, and went to his

own room, doubting, in his own mind, from all that he had seen,

whether this was really the Templeton he had known in his youth, and

whether he was in his own house or not.

 

As for Aristabulus, who saw nothing out of rule, or contrary to his

own notions of propriety, in what had passed, he hurried off to tell

the barber, who was so ignorant of the first duty of his trade, that

he was at liberty to pull down Mr. Effingham's fence, in order to

manure his own potato patch.

 

Lest the reader should suppose we are drawing caricatures, instead of

representing an actual condition of society, it may be necessary to

explain that Mr. Bragg was a standing candidate for popular favour;

that, like Mr. Dodge, he considered every thing that presented itself

in the name of the public, as sacred and paramount, and that so

general and positive was his deference for majorities, that it was

the bias of his mind to think half-a-dozen always in the right, as

opposed to one, although that one, agreeably to the great decision of

the real majority of the entire community, had not only the law on

his side, but all the abstract merits of the disputed question. In

short, to such a pass of freedom had Mr. Bragg, in common with a

large class of his countrymen, carried his notions, that he had

really begun to imagine liberty was all means and no end.

Chapter XII. ("In sooth, thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou)

spokest of Pigrogromotus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of

Queubus; 't was very good i' faith."--SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK.

 

The progress of society, it has just been said, in what is termed a

"new country," is a little anomalous. At the commencement of a

settlement, there is much of that sort of kind feeling and mutual

interest, which men are apt to manifest towards each other, when they

are embarked in an enterprise of common hazards. The distance that is

unavoidably inseparable from education, habits and manners, is

lessened by mutual wants and mutual efforts; and the gentleman, even

while he may maintain his character and station, maintains them with

that species of good-fellowship and familiarity, that marks the

intercourse between the officer and the soldier, in an arduous

campaign. Men, and even women, break bread together, and otherwise

commingle, that, in different circumstances, would be strangers; the

hardy adventures and rough living of the forest, apparently lowering

the pretensions of the man of cultivation and mere mental resources,

to something very near the level of those of the man of physical

energy, and manual skill. In this rude intercourse, the parties meet,

as it might be, on a sort of neutral ground, one yielding some of his

superiority, and the other