Henry Riley - The Puddleford Papers - or, Humors of the West

The Colonel resided in the village of Puddleford. His family was composed of a wife and two daughters, a couple of dashing girls, who looked like birds of fine plumage that had been driven by a storm beyond their latitude. His household furniture was made up of the fag-ends of this and that, which had somehow escaped a half a dozen sheriff's sales. His family wardrobe had been rescued in the same way, and contained all the fashions of the last twenty-five years. Here and there were scattered some plain articles of western manufacture, by way of contrast. Three shilling chairs stood on a faded Brussels carpet; an unpainted white-wood table supported a silver tea-set; thus, the faded splendor of the past contrasted with the rustic simplicity of the present. One thing I must not overlook: the Colonel had an old tattered carriage that had followed him through good and evil report, his ups and downs of life. I have often been amused to see it roll along with a melancholy air of superiority, putting on the face of a good man in affliction. It was drawn by two diminutive Indian ponies, who would turn and look wildly at the antiquated thing, as if apprehensive of danger.

The Colonel kept an office, and pretended to act as a kind of land agent, and agent for insurance companies, and so on. He was never known to pay a debt; it being against his principles, as he used to say: besides, he said "his note would last a man ten times as long as the money; and they were not very uncurrent neither; for the justice of the peace at Puddleford had taken a very great many of them, and passed his judgment upon them for their full face."

But I will not go into particulars with the Puddlefordians at present. During the summer my acquaintance with Venison Styles had ripened into a deeper affection for the old hunter. I accepted his invitation to visit him, and found him sheltered in the depths of the forest, and nestled in a valley, his hut, overshadowed by great trees, which were filled with birds pouring forth their songs. A little brook tinkled down the slope by his hut, singing all kinds of woodland tunes, as the breeze swelled and died along its banks. The squirrels were chatting their nonsense, and the rolling drum of the partridge was heard almost at his very door.

Venison was a hunter, a fisher, and a trapper. The inside walls of his cabin were hung about with rifles, shot-guns, and fishing-rods, which had been accumulating for years. Deer-horns and skins lay scattered here and there, the trophies of the chase. Seines for lakes, and scoop-nets for smaller streams, were drying outside upon the trees.

Venison kept around him a brood of lazy, lounging, good-for-nothing boys, of all ages, about half-clothed, who followed the business of their father. This young stock were growing up as he had grown, to occupy somewhere their father's position, and lead his life. They lived just as well as the hounds, for all stood on an equality in the family. These ragamuffins were perfect masters of natural history. There was not an instinct or peculiarity belonging to the denizens of the woods and streams which they did not perfectly understand. They seemed to have penetrated the secrecy of animal life, and fathomed it throughout. Birds, and beasts, and fish were completely within their power; and there was a kind of matter-of-course success with them in their capture that was absolutely provoking to a civilized hunter.

It was of no importance where Venison Styles' boys made their home, or under what particular roof. Their home was mainly a depot for their fishing-tackles, guns, and game. They roamed away weeks at a time, fifty miles off, up this stream and that, over many a lake, and camped out nights, feeding upon their plunder; and Venison felt no more concern about them than he did about the deer, who indeed were not much wilder than they. They were as hard as flints, sharp on the chase, happy in their wild, wayward-life, and generally managed to trap and kill just enough to be self-supporting, and keep soul and body together.

Lawsuit: Filkins against Beadle. – Squire Longbow and his Court. – Puddleford assembled. – Why Squire Longbow was a Great Man. – Ike Turtle and Sile Bates, Pettifoggers. – Mrs. Sonora Brown. – Uproar and Legal Opinions. – Seth Bolles. – Miss Eunice Grimes. – Argument to Jury, and Verdict.

My intercourse with the inhabitants of Puddleford had been frequent during the summer, and my acquaintance with them had now become quite general. One morning, in the month of September, I was visited by a constable, who very authoritatively served upon me a venire, which commanded me to be and appear before Jonathan Longbow, at his office in the village of Puddleford, at one o'clock P. M., to serve as a juryman in a case, then and there to be tried, between Philista Filkins, plaintiff, and Charity Beadle, defendant, in an action of slander, etc. The constable remarked, after reading this threatening legal epistle to me, that I had better "be up to time, as Squire Longbow was a man who would not be trifled with," and then leisurely folding it up, and pushing it deep down in his vest-pocket, he mounted his horse, and hurried away in pursuit of the balance of the panel. Of course, I could not think of being guilty of a contempt of court, after having been so solemnly warned of the consequences, and I was therefore promptly on the spot, according to command.

Squire Longbow held his court at the public house, in a room adjoining the bar-room, because the statute prohibited his holding it in the bar-room itself. He was a law-abiding man, and would not violate a statute. I found, on my arrival, that the whole country, for miles around, had assembled to hear this interesting case. Men, women, and children had turned out, and made a perfect holiday of it. All were attired in their best. The men were dressed in every kind of fashion, or, rather, all the fashions of the last twenty years were scattered through the crowd. Small-crown, steeple-crown, low-crown, wide-brim, and narrow-brim hats; wide-tail, stub-tail, and swallow-tail, high-collar, and low-collar coats; bagging and shrunken breeches; every size and shape of shirt-collar were there, all brought in by the settlers when they immigrated. The women had attempted to ape the fashions of the past. Some of them had mounted a "bustle" about the size of a bag of bran, and were waddling along under their load with great satisfaction. Some of the less ambitious were reduced to a mere bunch of calico. One man, I noticed, carried upon his head an old-fashioned, bell-crowned hat, with a half-inch brim, a shirt-collar running up tight under his ears, tight enough to lift him from the ground (this ran out in front of his face to a peak, serving as a kind of cutwater to his nose), a faded blue coat of the genuine swallow-tail breed, a pair of narrow-fall breeches that had passed so often through the wash-tub, and were so shrunken, that they appeared to have been strained on over his limbs: this individual, reader, was walking about, with his hands in his pockets, perfectly satisfied, whistling Yankee Doodle, and other patriotic airs. Most of the women had something frizzled around their shoes, which were called pantalets, giving their extremities the appearance of the legs of so many bantam hens.

The men were amusing themselves pitching coppers and quoits, running horses, and betting upon the result of the trial to come off, as every one was expected to form some opinion of the merits of the case.

The landlord of the Eagle was of course very busy. He bustled about, here and there, making the necessary preparations. Several pigs and chickens had gone the way of all flesh, and were baking and stewing for the table. About once a quarter "Old Stub" "moistened his clay," as he called it, with a little "rye," so as to "keep his blood a-stirring." Mrs. "Stub Bulliphant" was busy too. She was a perfect whirlwind; her temper was made of tartaric acid. Her voice might be heard above the confusion around giving directions to one, and a "piece of her mind" to another. She was the landlady of the Eagle beyond all doubt, and no one else. Better die than doubt that.