[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

“What is God?” said Margaret one morning to the
Master, who in his perambulations encountered her just
as she was driving the cow to pasture, and helped her put
up the bars.

“God, God—” replied he, drawing back a little, and
thrusting his golden-headed cane under his arm, and blowing
his nose with his red bandanna handkerchief. “You shut
your cow in the pasture to eat grass, don't you, mea discipula?”
added he after returning his handkerchief to his
pocket, and planting himself once more upon his cane.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What if she should try to get out?”

“We put pegs in the bars sometimes.”

“Pegs in the bars! ahem. Suppose she should stop eating,
and leaning her neck across the bars, cry out, `O you, Mater
hominum bovumque! who are you? Why do you wear a
pinafore?' In other words, should ask after you, her little
mistress; what would you think of that, hey?”

“I don't know what I should,” replied Margaret, “it would
be so odd.”

“Cows,” rejoined the Master, “had better eat the grass,
drink the water, lie in the shade, and stand quietly to be
milked, asking no questions.”

“But do, sir,” she continued, “tell me what God is.”

The Master folded back both his ruffle cuffs, lifted his golden-headed
cane into the air, and cleared at one bound the road-side
ditch, whereby his large three-corned hat fell into the
water. Margaret picked it up, and wiping it, handed it to
him, which circumstance seemed to recall him to the thread
of her feelings; and he replied to her by saying,

“Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. God, child, is
Tetragrammative, a Four-wordity; in the Hebrew [figure description] Hebrew text.[end figure description]

, the
Assyrian Adad, the Egyptian Amon, the Persian Syre, Greek

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

Θεος, Latin Deus, German Gott, French Dieu; Τον πταρμον
Θεον ηγουμεθα, says Aristole; `God is the Divine Being,' says
Bailey; `Jupiter Divum Pater,' says Virgil.”

“Christ the Beautiful One, I saw in my dream, said if I loved
I should know God,” replied Margaret.

“Verily, as saith the Holy Apostle, God is Love.”

“Did Love make me?”

“Mundum fecit Amor; or as Jamblicus has it, `God produced
matter by separating materiality from essentiality,' or as
Thomas writes, `Creation is extension produced by the Divine
power.' ”

“Is God Latin?”

“He is in Latin. Deus is Latin for God.”

“I don't know anything about it. I had rather go into the
woods, or up to Obed's. His mother wants to see you; she
told me to ask you to call there, the next time you came to the
Pond.”

“I thought she did not like me.”

“But she wants to see you very much.”

“I hope she has no designs upon me?”

“I don't know. — It is something she wants.”

“She don't purpose to marry me?”

“I guess that is it. Hash said Miss Amy was going to
marry you.”

“What, both? You are a ninny. You never heard of the
Knights of the Forked Order. There is the old song:

Malum est mulier, women are an evil.”

Thus talking, they approached the Widow's. To the road
up which they went, the Master gave the name of Via Salutaris,
the stile by which they crossed the stump-fence into the
herb-garden or front yard, he called Porta Salutaris, as the
Leech herself he had already honored by the title of Diva
Salus.

“The child said you wanted me,” outspoke the Master, as
he entered the house, in a tone that savored of irritated
dignity.

“Please Ma'am,” interposed Margaret, both to explain and
appease, “he says he won't marry you.”

“Mehercule! What are you about, my little Beadswoman?”

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

exclaimed he, endeavoring to impose silence upon the child.
“In what way, capacity, office, character, can I do you service,
Mistress Wright?”

“Gummy!” retorted the woman. “He has been a talkin'
about me, and a runnin' of me down. I wouldn't stoop so
much as teu pick him up. I wouldn't crack my finger jints
for him.”

“He didn't mean you,” replied Margaret. “He said women
were an evil.”

“Not widows, child,” added the Master.

“Yes,” said the woman, “we are evil, but not evils, I
trust. No offence, I hope, sir,” she added in a softened tone.

“None in the world,” answered the Master. A widow the
good Fuller enumerates in his Holy State.”

“Ah yes, they would try teu make us think we are sutthin
when we are nothin, as the Parson says.”

“She is one, as that old writer observes, whose head hath
been cut off, yet she liveth, and hath the second part of virginity!”

“The Lord be praised,” said the woman, with a curtsey,
wiping her mouth with the corner of her apron; “I do
survive as good a husband, as ever woman had.”

“Her grief for her husband,” continues the Worthy to
whom I refer, “though real, is moderate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She loveth to look on the picture of her husband, in the
children he hath left her, as adds our reverend Author,”
subjoined the Master turning his eye towards Obed, who stood
in the door, twitching up his breeches.

The manner of the Master was too pointed not to be felt,
and when he had succeeded in smarting the good Widow's sensibilities,
his object was attained. But she, on the other hand,
had the faculty, by a smile that was peculiar to her, of disguising
her emotions, and always contrived to cover up her
sense of humiliation with the airs of victory. These two
persons, as we have formerly remarked, did not like each other
very well, and in whatever respects they stood mutually beholden,
it was the object of each to make it appear that
favors were given without grace, and received without gratitude.
We will not follow their diplomatic banterings, but
join them when they have concluded to go peaceably about
their business. The Widow had invented a new medicine
which would cure a great variety of diseases. But she wanted
a scientific name for it, and also the scientific names of its

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

several specific virtues. Her own vocabulary supplied her
with an abundance of common appellations, but her purposes
aspired to something higher, and the Master's aid was brought
in requisition. The Leech sat by a table, holding a pen, with
a pewter inkstand, and some scraps of dingy paper before her,
and endeavored to avail herself of every suggestion of the
Master's by committing it immediately to writing.

“Widder or woman,” said she, “I knows what I knows,
and I know what is in this ere medicine, how many yarbs, and
how I gathered um, and how I dried um, and how I pounded
um, and how I mixed um, and I kalkelate there is a vartue in
it. It'll dill fevers, dry up sores, stop rumatiz, drive out rattle-snake's
bite, kill worms — there an't a disorder you can mention
that won't knock under to't.

“Except one.”

“What is that?”

“Cacoethes Feminarum.”

“Up-a-daisy! What a real soundin' one! Bile me up for
soap, if that an't a pealer,” exclaimed the delighted woman,
giving a kind of chuckling grin both to the Master and Margaret.
“Deu tell us what it is?” she added. “Is it round
hereabouts much? Has any died on't?”

“I know,” said Margaret, “it is something about women.
Femina is Latin for woman.”

“Oh forever! I dussay,” rejoined the Widow, “it's some
perlite matter, and he would'nt like to speak it out before a
body. How vallible is sientifikals and larnin'! Prehaps he'd
tell what brings it — lor me, what a booby I be teu ask. My
skull for a trencher, if I can't cure it, if it's as bad as the itch
itself.”

“Humors —” said the Master.

“Humors! Humors in wimmin — now don't say no more.
I knew 'twas some perlite matter. But I can cure it, or any
thing else; only give us the sientifikals and larnin'. There's
elderblows in my new medicine, and they'll drive out humors
as clean as a whistle. Only if I had the name. A name that
has the sientifikals and larnin' in't. Diseases dont take now-a-days
without they have the pecoolar; and you can't cure 'em
without the pecoolar. I've studied the matter out and out,
and I knows, what I knows, Widder or no Widder. I an't teu
be befooled by nobody, not I. I don't ask no favors of nobody.
But the Master knows so much, and here's our little Molly,
she's as smart and pecoolar as the best on um. The Master
knows there's a good deal in a name, if he'd only say so. There

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

was four cases up to Snake Hill, and I got two of um, and
should have got the rest bein Dr. Spoor hadn't a come in,
with his larnin' words, and that took. They'll all go teu the
dogs if they can't have the sientifikals and the larnin'. If he
would only be so kind as to give a poor woman a name for
her medicine — but I won't beg, no I won't.”

“Nominis stat umbra,” said the Master slowly and solemnly,
while with assumed gravity and inward impatience he had
been listening to the balderdash of the woman.

“Is that it?” asked she hastily.

“Verily,” he replied, “Nominis stat umbra.”

“Nommernisstortumbug,” said the Leech. “Why now, I
vum, I could a thought of that myself. Obed here, see how
easy tis, Nommernisstortumbug, remember, Obed, and you'll
be as larnt as Miss Molly. Git Molly some honey, prehaps
the Master would like teu taste on't. We'll go it into um
now. My husband made a great push in the sientifikals, and
his pills did amazin' stout; but he didn't live in my day. I
ought by good rights to make sutthin out of it, for I've took
pains and studied long enough teu git it through. Jest
give us the names, and we'll go right among the upper crust
anywheres, and Dr. Spoor may hang his saddle-bags in his
garret. There's Deacon Penrose's gally pots and spattles, and
Nigger Tony's prinked up Patents, I an't afeered of none of
um, no, nor of old Death himself. He daren't show his white
jaws where the larnin' is. A box of my Nommernisstortumbug
would give the saucy rascal an ague fit, and he'd be glad
teu put on some skin and flesh, and dress up like a man, and
not be round skeerin' people so with his old bones. There's
Parkins's Pints has been makin' a great pudder over to England,
but they an't knee high to a toad to't. The thing of it
is, people has got teu be so pesky proud and perlite, they will
have the very best of names. They'd all die every one on um,
before they'd touch the Widder's stuff, as they call it; but the
Nommernisstortumbug they'll swallow down box and all, and
git well teu, ha, ha! I knows what I knows, I've seen how the
cat has been a jumpin'. The ministers try to save their souls,
and have to preach sich things as 'll take; I mean to save
their bodies, and I must fix it so it 'll take; — I han't a grain
of interest in the matter, not I. As soon as Obed gits a leetle
older, I mean teu send him teu Kidderminster, and Hartford,
and Boston, and all about the country, with my medicines, and
there won't be a spice of disease left. The Pints is a pound
sterling, and I shall put my Nommernisstortumbug right up,
and when you ax a good round price, it 'll sell all the quicker.”

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

The Master, secretly amused at the Widow's self-complacence,
was not disposed to give her any interruption, at least
so long as he ate of her clear white honey, which Obed supplied
in liberal quantities, and of which he was thoroughly
fond. Nay he went farther, and at her request wrote down
for her, in scientific terms, the several and various properties
of her nostrum, which she described to him. The Widow's
bad feelings towards the Master were likewise so overcome by
the thought of her good fortune, as for the moment to throw
her off her guard, and she forgot her usual self-possessed
spitefulness. Their interview was in fair progress towards an
amicable termination, when the Master happened to say he
wanted Margaret to do a service for him that day. But the
Widow in the mean time had been concocting plans in her
own brains which included the aid of the child. Their difficulties
broke out anew, there were taunts on the one side, and
feminine objurgations on the other. How far the matter may
have been carried we know not, when Margaret took the decision
into her own hands, by running off. Both started for
her, and came to the stile nearly at the same moment. Margaret
had already got into the road. The Master, having a
little advantage in point of time, mounted the stile first, but
his course was checked by the skirts of his coat catching in
one of the roots that composed the fence. The lady in excess
of strong feeling pounced upon his ankles, and held him fast,
while Obed hovered near with a look that threatened to facilitate
his mother's purposes. The Master flourished his long
golden-headed cane in the air, greatly to the consternation of
Obed, and the merriment of the Widow, who dared him to
strike. Margaret hastened forward, intercedingly, and begged
the Master off, under such conditions as the woman chose
to stipulate, to wit, that she should come and help her some
other day.

The Master sometimes employed Margaret to scour the
woods in search of wild flowers, a pursuit for which she was
fitted both by her own lightness of heart and foot, and a familiar
acquaintance with the region. It was his wish that she
should preserve specimens of almost all kinds she encountered,
in the expectation, partly, of discovering some new variety.
He furnished her with a tin case or box to keep the flowers fresh
and sound. Providing herself with a lunch of bread and
cheese, she took a familiar route through the Mowing into the
rich Birch and Walnut woods lying towards the village. Bull
had gone off with Hash in the morning, and she was obliged
to fail of the usual companion of her rambles. The sun shone

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

warm and inviting, and the air was soft and exhilarating. The
olive-backs trolled and chanted among the trees, and in the
shadowy green boughs, innumerable and invisible creepers and
warblers sang out a sweet welcome wherever she came along.
She found varieties of fungus, yellow, scarlet, and blood-colored,
which she tore from the sides of trees, from stumps, and
rails. She gathered the wild columbine, snakeroot, red cohosh,
purple bush-trefoil, flaxbell-flower, the beautiful purple
orchis, and dodder, that gay yellow-liveried parasite; and
other flowers, now so well known and readily distinguished by
every lover of nature, but which, at the period of our Memoir,
had not been fully arranged in the New England Flora. She
turned to the right, or towards South, and came to a spot of
almost solid granite, through the hard chinks and seams of
which great trees had bored their way, and forced themselves
into the light and air. This place was set down in the vocabulary
of the district as the Maples, or Sugar Camp, from its
growth of sugar maple trees. Over these stones she stepped
as on a pavement, or leaped from one to another as one does
on the foam-crags at Nahant. In these dark crevices she
found the bright green bunches of the devil's ear seed, and
the curious mushroom-like tobacco-pipe; all about her, on the
rocks, the bright green polypods and maiden's hair waved in
silent feathery harmony with the round dots of quavering sun
light, that descended through the trees — little daughters of
the sun dallying with these children of the earth, and, like
spiders, spinning a thin beautiful tissue about them, which was
destroyed every night, and patiently renewed every morning.
Here also she found beds of shining white, and rose-colored
crystal quartz stones, large and small, striped and ruffled
with green moss. On the flat top of a large bowlder that was
thrown up from the mass of rocks, she saw growing a parcel
of small polypods, in a circle, like a crown on a king's head.
Up this she climbed, and sat among the ferns, and sang
snatches from old songs she had learned:

She selected some of the fairest of the fronds, and singing —


“Robin and Richard were two pretty men,
They laid in bed till the clock struck ten;
Then up starts Robin, and looks at the sky,
O! Brother Richard, the Sun is very high,”—

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

leaped down again. A humming-bird that she had seen, or
fancied she saw, early in the morning sucking her scarlet bean
flowers, shot by her. She would follow it. It led her towards
the road going from the Pond to No. 4. She pursued
it till she came to its nest on the branch of a tree, which she
was able to reach by means of a high rock. She found the
nest constructed of mosses, and lined with mullein down, and
in it were two tiny white eggs, a second hatching for the season.
Two birds, the male and female, darted angrily at her,
and ruffled their golden-green and tabby-colored feathers, as
if they would fight her. She spoke to them, and discovered
that they were really the same that had fed on honey from her
hand, and one took quietly to the nest, while the other winged
a swift, playful roundelay above her head. Leaving the birds,
she crossed the road, and entered the Pines, where Solomon
Smith took her a few nights before. Here, under the trees
she found a crowd of persons, men and women, boys and girls,
who seemed bent on some mysterious thing, which they pursued
with an unwonted stillness. Among them was a man, whom
she knew to be Zenas Joy, pacing to and fro with a drawn sword,
and keeping the people back. Damaris Smith ran to her, and
whispered her not to speak loud, and said they were after the
gold. Let us explain what Margaret herself had not been apprised
of, that young Smith, after discovering the supposed deposit of
the gold, for two or three nights, went and dug alone there.
Baffled in his search, but not in his expectations, he had recourse
to his neighbors, and so the secret leaked out. There
were five or six men employed in digging, and for more than
a week had they worked there, day and night, without intermission,
relieving one another by turns. They had excavated
the ground to the depth of nearly thirty feet, and with a proportionately
large breadth. A prodigious heap of earth and
stones had been cast up, and great pine-trees had been under-mined,
precipitated, cut off, and thrown out. When Margaret
approached near enough to look in, she saw the men,
noiseless and earnest, at work with might and main; scarcely
did they stop to wipe the sweat that reeked and beaded from
their faces. Among them she saw her brother Hash, and
others, whom she knew to be No. 4's and Breaknecks. It
was a received notion of the times, that if any spoke during
the operation, the charm was destroyed, hence the palpitating
silence Margaret observed, and for this purpose also a sentry
had been appointed to keep order among the people.

Margaret seeing Hash, was inconsiderate enough to speak

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to him, and ask after Bull. For this Zenas Joy, since words
were out of the question, administered a corporeal admonition
with the flat side of his sword, and Damaris Smith, with the
other girls, seconding his endeavors, fairly drubbed her from
the place. She went off, singing as she went,

She had not gone far when Bull, who had been asleep in
the shade of a rock, awakened by the sound of her voice, came
leaping out to her, and continued in her company. In the
Pines she gathered such flowers as, for the most part, are
proper to that description of soil;—the sleepy catchfly that is
wide awake nights, pennyroyal with its purple whorls, yellow
bent spikes of the gromwell, the sweet-scented pettymorrel,
the painted cup with its scarlet-tipped bractes, yellow-horned
horse balm, peach-perfumed waxen ladies tresses, nodding
purple gay feather; she climbed after the hairy honey-suckle,
and the pretty purple ground-nut, which, despising its name,
overmounts the tallest shrubs. She encountered in her way a
“clearing,” now grown up to elecampane, mullein, fire-weed,
wild-lettuce. She forced herself through a thicket of brakes,
blackberries and thistles, and clambered upon a fence, where
she sat to look at the tall lettuces that shot up like trees above
the other weeds. The seeds disengaging themselves from the
capsule at the top, and spreading out their innumerable long
white filaments, but still hovering about the parent stalk, gave
the plant an appearance as if it had instantaneously put forth
in huge gossamer inflorescence. Then a slight agitation of
wind would disperse these flowers or egrets and send them
flying through the air, like globes of silver light, or little burred
fairies, some of them vanishing in the white atmosphere, others
brought into stronger relief as they floated towards the green
woods beyond. Descending towards the Brook, she gathered
the beautiful yellow droops of the barberry-bush, white wall-cress,
yellow none-such, flowers of the sweet-briar. She came
to the stream, Mill Brook, that flowed out from her Pond;
near it grew the virgin's bower or traveller's joy, bedstraw, the

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

nightshades, yellow spearwort, button-bush, purple thoroughwort,
the beautiful cardinal flower or eye-bright just budding,
and the side-saddle flower. On its grassy margin she took her
seat under the shade of a large white birch. She ate her
bread and cheese, sharing her morsel with the dog. She
kneeled and drank from the swift sparkling waters, where they
ran between two stones. It was now past noon; her box was
full, and quite heavy enough for one so young to carry, and
she might have returned home. The woods beyond, or to the
west of the Brook, were close and dark, hardly did the sun
strike through them, but the birds were noisy there, and she
must perforce enter them, as a cavern, and walk on the smooth
leaf-strewed floor. The ground ascended, then rounded over
into a broad interval below, down into which she went. Here
a giant forest extended itself interminably, and she seemed to
have come into a new world of nature. Huge old trees, some
white pines and white oaks, looked as if they grew up to the
skies. Birds that she had never seen before, or heard so near
at hand, hooted and screamed among the branches. A dark
falcon pierced the air like an arrow, in pursuit of a partridge,
just before her eyes. An eagle stood out against the sky on
the blasted peak of a great tree; a hen-harrier bore in his
talons a chicken to his young; large owls in hooded velvety
sweep flew by her; squirrels chattered and scolded one
another; large snake-headed wild-turkeys strutted and gobbled
in the underbrush; a wild-cat sprang across her path and she
clung closer to her dog. Resting herself at the foot of a large
pine-tree, she picked and ate the little red checker-berries
that grew in profusion on the spot. The birds fluttered,
rioted and shrieked, in strange confusion, among the trees, and
she entertained herself watching their motion and noise. The
low and softened notes of distant thunder she heard, and felt
no alarm; or she may have taken it for the drum-like sound of
partridges that so nearly resembles thunder, and which she had
often heard, and thought no more of the matter. Had she
been on the tops of the trees, where the birds were, she would
have seen a storm gathering, cloud engendering cloud, peaks
swelling into mountains, the entire mass sagging with darkness,
and dilating in horror. The air seemed to hold in its
breath, and in the hushed silence she sat, looking at the rabbits
and woodchucks that scampered across the dry leaves, and
dived into their burrows. She broke into a loud laugh, when
she saw a small brown-snouted martin in smart chase after the
bolt-upright, bushy, black-tipped tail of a red fox, up a tree,

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

and spat her hands, and stamped her feet, to cheer the little
creature on. She sung out, in gayest participation of the
scene, a Mother Goose Melody, in a Latin version the Master
had given her;—

While she was singing, hail-stones bounded at her feet, and
the wind shook the tops of the trees. Suddenly it grew dark,
then, in the twinkling of an eye, the storm broke over her,
howling, crashing, dizzying it came. The whole forest seemed
to have given way—to have been felled by the stroke of some
Demiurgic Fury, or to have prostrated itself as the Almighty
himself passed by. The great pine, at the root of which she
was sitting, was broken off just above her head, and blown to
the ground; and by its fall, enclosing her in an impenetrable
sconce, under which alone, in the general wreck, could her
life have been preserved. A whirlwind, or tornado, such as
sometimes visits New England, had befallen the region. It
leaped like a maniac from the skies, and, with a breadth of
some twenty rods, and an extent of four or five miles, swept
everything in its course; the forest was mown down before it,
orchard-trees were torn up by the roots, large rocks unearthed,
chimneys dashed to the ground, roofs of houses whirled into
the air, fences scattered, cows lifted from their feet, sheep
killed, the strongest fabrics of man and nature driven about
like stubble. In bush and settlement, upland and interval,
was its havoc alike fearful. When Margaret recovered from
the alarm and bewilderment of the moment, her first impulse
was to call for the dog;—but he, at the instant having been
caught off by the apparition of the wild-cat, was overtaken by
the storm, and borne down by the falling trees, losing all sense
of duty, wounded and frightened, he fled away. She herself
was covered with leaves, fragments of bark, hail-stones and
sand; blood flowed from her arm, and one of her legs was
bruised. The end of a bough had penetrated her box of flowers
and pinned it to the earth. The sun came out as the storm
went by; but above her the trees with their branches piled one
upon another on the great pine that had been her salvation,
formed an almost impervious thatch that enveloped her in
darkness. Making essays at self-deliverance, she found her
path in every direction closed, or at least distorted. The

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

fallen trees, mingled and matted with the shrubbery, obscured
and opposed her way, while the chasms made by the upturned
roots rendered progress devious and dangerous; and when at
last she reached the edge of the ruins, and stood in the open
woods, she knew not where she was, or in what direction lay
her home. There were no cart-tracks, or cow-paths, no spots
or blazes on the trees, that she could discover. The sun was
setting, but its light was hidden by the denseness of the forest.
As she advanced, hoping for the best, every step led her deeper
in the wood and farther from the Pond. She mounted knolls
and rocks, but could discern nothing; she crossed brooks,
explored ravines, but to no purpose. At last despairing, exhausted,
her sores actively painful, she sunk down under the
projecting edge of a large rock. She had not been sitting long
when she beheld, approaching the same place, a large, shaggy,
black bear, with three cubs. The beast came close to her,
smelt about her; she looked into its eyes, scratched its forehead,
as if it had been her own Bull. Possibly satisfied with
what it had eaten during the day, the bear was not disposed to
make a meal of the child. The mother-bear stretched herself
on the ground, partly crowding Margaret from her seat, and
the three cubs applying themselves to their supper with all
infantile zest, set an example that proved contagious, and our
other cub, with curiously wrought head, took possession of an
unoccupied dug, and was refreshed and soothed thereby. The
mother-bear and her young, cuddling themselves together,
went to sleep; Margaret pillowing herself in the midst of them,
went also to sleep.

Meanwhile the noise of the storm reached the Pond, where
its effects came not, and distressed the family with agonizing
apprehensions. Hash had not returned; after finishing his
bout in the Pines, he went with his comrades to see the results
of the wind at No. 4, and have a drunken carouse. The
Widow and her son came down both to seek news of the
storm, and inflame the impression of its terror. The ruddy
and wanton face of Pluck became pale and thoughtful. The
dry and dark features of his wife were even lighted up with
alarm. Chilion coming in from the Pond where he had been
fishing, when he learned the absence of his sister, seemed
smitten by some violent internal blow. He paced to and fro
in front of the house, listening to every sound, and starting at
every glancing leaf. The ordinary intercourse of the family,
if it were not positively rude and rough, was more frequently
of a light and trivial character, and, unaccustomed to the

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

expression of deeper sentiments, now in the moment of their
calamity, they said but little. Yet they watched one another's
looks and slightest words with an attention and reverence,
which showed how strongly interested they were in one
another's feelings, as well as in the common object of their
thoughts. They watched and waited, and waited and watched,
uncertain what course the child had taken, not knowing
where to go for her, and hoping each successive instant she
might appear from some quarter of the woods. The sun was
going down. Obed was despatched in the direction of the
dam, or north end of the Pond; Pluck went over into the
Maples; Chilion seizing the tin dinner-horn, ran to the top of
Indian's Head, and blew a loud blast. No response came
from the far glimmering sound but its own empty echo. Descending
he beheld Bull returning alone, lame and bloody.
The dog was at once questioned, and as if convicted of weakness
and infidelity to his mistress, or with that native instinct
which is proper to the animal, he pulled at Chilion's trousers
and made as if he would have him follow him in search of the
child. Chilion took the lead of the dog, who despite his
wounds pursued his way strenuously. They came to the place
of the gold-digging in the Pines. The sentry and the people
were gone; two men, the relay for the night, alone remained.
Suspended on the trees, and fastened in stone sockets below,
blazed pitch-knot torches. Deep in the hole toiled the two
men, in sturdy silence, and with most religious steadfastness.
Intercommunication was impossible; Chilion spoke to them,
but they answered not. Bull urged him onwards, he had
found the track of the child, and would abide no delay. They
took the same course Margaret had gone in the morning.
They crossed the Brook, they entered the thick woods. It
was now night and dark, but Chilion was familiar with each
vein, recess and loop-hole of the forest, and had often traversed
it in the night. They followed the footsteps of the child till
they came to the line of the storm. Here the prostrate trees,
upturned roots, vines and brush, knitted and riven together,
interrupted the track. A barrier was presented which baffled
the sagacity of the dog. He ran alongside the ruins, up and
down, tried every avenue, wound himself in among the compressed
and perplexed fissures of the mass, but, failing to
recover the scent, he returned to his master, and set up a loud
howl. What could Chilion do? He called his sister's name
at the top of his voice, he rung out the farthest-reaching alarm-cry.
He then repeated the attempt of his dog to gain an

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

entrance into the gnarled forest-wreck. He crept under trunks
of trees, he tore a passage through vines and brambles, he
climbed to the end of a tree and lowered himself down into
the centre of the mass; he groped his way in utter darkness
wherever he could move his hand. When he found a space
large enough to kneel or stand erect in, he again called aloud;
but no answer came. “She's dead, she's dead, she's crushed
under a tree”—such was the dreadful reflection that began to
ebb in upon his heart, and form itself in distincter imagery to
his thoughts. Armed with fresh energy he renewed his efforts.
He explored with his hand every vacant spot, trembling on the
one hand lest he should lay it upon her dead and mangled
body, hoping on the other that the vital spark would not be
entirely extinct; wishing at least to find her before the animal
warmth had wholly subsided in one for whom he evinced so
strong an attachment. A large limb, broken off in the storm,
which he was endeavoring to remove, fell upon his foot, bruising
the flesh, and nearly severing the cords; but of this he
took no notice. In uttermost despair, he exclaimed, “she is
dead, she is dead.” He, the moody and the silent, gave utterance
to the wildest language of distress. That deaf and dismal
darkness was pierced with an unwonted cry. “O my
sister! my dear, dear sister, sweet Margery, dead, dead!”
He fell with his face to the earth, his spirit writhed as with a
most exquisite sense of torture; from his stimulated frame
dropped hot sweat. “O Jesus, her Beautiful One, how couldst
thou let the good Margery die so? My music shall die, my
hopes shall die, all things die; sweet sister Margery, your
poor brother Chilion will die too.” His frenzy seemed to
assume the majesty of inspiration, as in all simplicity of earnest
love he gave vent to his emotions. Pain and weariness
combined with hopelessness of success to divest him of the
idea of finding her that night. He extricated himself from the
fallen wood, and not without extreme difficulty and much suffering,
both bodily and mental, accompanied by the dog, he
returned to his home. His father and mother were still up,
restless and anxious. His foot was immediately dressed and
bandaged, and he was obliged to be laid in his parents' bed.
Obed was also there, strongly moved by an unaffected solicitude.
As soon as it was light, he was sent to the village to
have the bell rung and the town alarmed; Pluck himself immediately
went down to No. 4. In the course of two or three
hours the entire population of Livingston received the exciting
and piteous intelligence of `A child lost in the woods, and

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supposed to have perished in the storm!' At No. 4 Hash was
aroused from his boosy stupor to something like fraternal
activity, and the four families composing the hamlet, the
Smiths, Hatches, Gubtails and Tapleys, more or less of them,
started off for the scene of the disaster, under the direction of
Pluck, whom Chilion had advised as to the course probably
taken by the child. The village was deeply and extensively
moved. Philip Davis, the sexton, ran to the Meeting-house
and pulled swiftly and energetically a loud and long fire-alarm,
on the bell. The people flocked about Obed to learn the news,
and hurried away to render succor.

The Master, who was on his way to the barber's, hearing of
the sad probability respecting his little pupil, was like a man
beside himself; perfectly bemazed, he made three complete
circles in the road, drew out his red bandanna handkerchief,
and returned it without blowing his nose, poised his golden-headed
cane in the air, then leaped forward, like a hound upon
its prey, ran down the South Street, and disappeared, at full
speed, up the Brandon road. Judge Morgridge and his black
man Cæsar, rode off in a swift gallop, on two horses. They
overtook the Master, who had fainted and fallen, and lay beating
his breasts and abstractedly moaning. Cæsar and the
Judge helped lift him to the saddle of one of the horses, and
the Negro mounting behind and holding him on, they galloped
forward. Men with ox-carts, crossing the Green for their
work in the Meadows, stopped, threw out their ploughs,
scythes, rakes, pitchforks, or whatever they had, into the
street, turned their carts about, took in a load of old men
women and children, and drove for No. 4. Deacon Penrose
shut up his store, Tony his shop; Mr. Gisborne the joiner,
and Mr. Cutts the shoemaker, left their benches respectively.
Lawyer Beach, Esq. Weeks and Dr. Spoor started off with
axes and bill-hooks in their hands. Boys seized tin dinner-horns
and ran. A multitude of people, old and young, men
and women, hastened down the South street. At the corner
or forks of the road they were joined by others, who came
from the Mill. They shoaled up the Brandon road, like a
great wave of the sea, rapidly, urgently, solemnly. The Pottles
and Dunlaps, from Snake Hill and Five-mile-lot, came down
to the Pond, on foaming horses, and receiving their directions
from Chilion, hastened into the woods. A messenger had
been posted to Breakneck, and those families, the Joys,
Whistons and Orffs, turned out. Of all those engaged in the
hunt, were absent the two most interested in it, to wit, Chilion

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

and Bull, whose wounded and stiffened limbs rendered it impossible
for them to go out. Dr. Spoor rode up to see Chilion,
and little Isabel Weeks, her sister Helen and brother Judah
also came, and brought him cordials and salves. It was
his irrepressible conviction that Margaret was dead, and he
was slow to be comforted. Successively, as the several parties
arrived at that spot in the woods where Chilion had gone
the night before, they set themselves at work clearing away
the trees. It seemed to be the universal impression that the
child lay buried somewhere under the wind-fall. Capt. Eliashib
Tuck, and Anthony Wharfield, the Quaker, took the general
superintendence of the operations. The melancholy
silence of the workmen singularly contrasted with the vehemence
of their action. The forest resounded with the blows
of axes, and the crashing of limbs. Broad openings were
made in the compact mass. Little boys crept under the close-welded
vines prying about in anticipation of the men. Beulah
Ann Orff and Grace Joy helped one another bear away
the heavy branches. Abel Wilcox and Martha Madeline Gisborne
lifted large billets of wood. Deacon Penrose executed
lustily with a bill-hook. Pluck, Shooks, the Jailor, Lawyer
Beach, Sibyl Radney, Mr. Cutts, Solomon Smith and Hash,
rolled over a great tree, roots and all, while Judge Morgridge
and Isaac Tapley stood with shovels, ready to dig into the
mound of earth and stones which the roots had formed in their
sudden uprise. Zenas Joy and Seth Penrose rode off to get
refreshments. The Master alternatively worked with the
others, and sat on a stump, covering his eyes with his hands,
foreboding each moment some dreadful sight. In the midst of
all, kneeling on the damp leaves in the open wood, might be
heard the voice of the Camp-preacher, in loud and importunate
prayer, beseeching the Most High to spare, if possible, the
life of the child, and restore her to her afflicted friends and
family.

To return to Margaret. The night had passed, she had
slept and waked, and taken her breakfast with the cubs. She
felt her strength revive, and her hopes rise. She offered her
bruised and bloody arm to the bear, who licked the blood,
and soothed and fomented the wound with her tongue. She
attempted to walk, but her benumbed limbs refused their
office, and she sat down again. She dug out with her fingers
the roots of the polypods which she ate with good relish.
Then with her voice she raised the signal of distress, and
tried to make her situation known; but she had wandered far

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

from any neighborhood, and out of the ordinary haunts of
men. Dreary feelings and oppressive thoughts came over her,
and tears flowed freely, which the kind motherly bear wiped
away with her tongue. Then the three little bears began to
play with their dam, one climbed up her back, another hugged
her fore leg, and the third made as if it would tweak her nose,
and the one upon her back began to bandy paws with the one
that was hugging the leg, like kittens; and Margaret was
forced to be amused despite herself. Then she fell to singing,
and as she sang, the animals seemed to be moved thereby, and
the old bear and the three little bears seated themselves on
their haunches all in a row before her, to hear her; and they
appeared to her so much pleased with her performance, that
neither of them spoke a word during all the time she was
singing.

Where the people were at work, they made satisfactory examination
of a pretty large space of ground. One of the
boys, Isaiah Hatch, who was burrowing mole-like under the
ruins, raised an exclamation that brought several to the spot.
He had discovered the flower-box, which was soon recognised
as having been carried by the child. The limb that held it
was cut away, and battened and perforated it was borne to the
Master, who, clutching it in his hands, uttered a mixed sound
of pleasure, apprehension and regret. It was concluded that
she might have escaped from the storm, and while a few remained
and continued the search, they agreed that the main
body should distribute themselves in squads, and range the
forest. They took the horns wherewith to betoken success,
if success should attend them.

Margaret, who, as the hours wore away, could no more than
resign herself to passing events, was startled from her reveries
by the rustling of footsteps, and the sound of a human voice.
At the same instant she saw the Master running precipitously
across the woods, and crying out, “Bear, Bear! Ursa
major, Ursæ minores”—his arms extended, his cane dropped,
his hat and wig fallen off, his big coat tearing itself to tatters
in the brush, himself stumbling over roots and bestriding
daddocks in extremest consternation. Close at his heels was
the bear with her young, running with similar velocity, but
more afraid of her pursuers than the Master was of her, and
whose track she pursued only for the instant that it happened
to identify itself with the direct course to her lair, whither the
animal betook herself, while the Master, thinking he had
dodged her fury, disappeared among the distant trees; and all

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

this before Margaret, who called to him, could make herself
heard. But in the same moment men and boys appeared
storming and rattling through the brush, with uplifted axes,
clubs and stones, in wild hue and cry after the bear, whom
happening to alight upon, they had given chase to, and drove
to her retreat. Their shouts after the bear were changed into
exclamations of a very different character when they beheld the
child. They sprang forward to Margaret, caught her in their
arms, and asked her a thousand questions. Speedily the horns
were blown, and presently there came up from hill and hommoc,
wood and bosket, rock and dingle, all around an answering
volley. A loud trine reciprocating blast conveyed the
glad intelligence wherever there were those interested to hear
it. The Master at length ventured forward. What were his
emotions or his manners at finding the lost one alive, we will
not detail. To show feeling before folks mortified him greatly;
the received mode of expression he did not follow; nor were
his contradictions performed by any rule that would enable us
to describe them. “We have found the child, let us now kill
the bear,” became the cry; — the animal in the mean time
having slunk, trembling to the death, under the low dark
eaves of her den.

“No, no!” was the urgent response of Margaret, and she
recounted again the passages between herself and the animal.

“Wal,” said the boys, “if she has been so good to the gal,
we won't touch her.”

It was a question how the child should be got home. For
her to walk was impossible. Some proposed carrying her in
their arms, but the general voice was for a litter, which, of
poles and green boughs, was quickly made, and borne by four
men. The hat and wig of the Master were replaced, and his
tattered garments mended by some of the women, who, leaving
their homes in haste, carried away scissors, wax, thread and
needle, in their pockets. Their best course to the Pond was
through Breakneck, and so down the Brandon road by No. 4.
A fearful gorge, terminating, however, in a rich bottom, gave
the name Breakneck to what was in reality a pleasant neighborhood,
consisting of the three families before mentioned,
the Orffs, Joys and Whistons, who were all substantial farmers.
Joseph Whiston conducted the people and bearers of
the child directly to his father's. Margaret was carried into
the house, laid on a bed, where Mistress Whiston and the
other ladies examined and dressed her wounds, and had some
toast made for her, and a cup of tea, adding also quince

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preserves. Refreshments were also sent out to the people, who
in addition received liberal supplies from the other houses.
While Margaret was resting, the young men busied themselves
in putting together a more convenient carriage than the litter,
and Paulina Whiston brought thick comfortables to cover it
with, and pillows and bolsters to put under the child's head.
On this Margaret was placed, reclining, and borne off, as before,
on the shoulders of four young men. For the Master, we would
remark, a horse was kindly provided. They entered the high-way,
and went down the hill through the woods; the boys
and younger portion of the company whooping, capering,
and sounding their horns. Passing the side-path that led to
Joyce Dooly the Fortune-teller's, there, at the entrance of the
woods, on a high rock, stood the mysterious woman herself,
holding by strings her five cats. At sight of her the people
were silent. She enacted sundry grimaces, uttered mumming
sentences, declared she foresaw the day previous the loss and
recovery of the child, pronounced over her some mystic congratulations,
waved her hand and departed, and the people renewed
their shouts. Over fences, through the woods, up from
ravines, came others who had been hunting in different directions,
and when the party reached No. 4, its numbers were
swelled to more than a hundred. Here they found another
large collection of people, some of whom came up at a later
hour from the village, and others were just returned from the
search. Here also were desolating marks of the storm, in roofs,
chimneys, windows, trees, fences, fields. Deacon Ramsdill,
lame as he was, with his wife, had walked from their home
beyond the Green. Parson Welles and the Preacher were
engaged in familiar conversation, the first time they had ever
spoken together. “The Lord be praised!” ejaculated the
Preacher.” “We see the Scripture fulfilled,” said the Parson.
“There is more joy over one that is brought back, than
over the ninety and nine that went not astray.” “Amen,”
responded the Preacher.

“You come pretty near having considerable of a tough
time, didn't you, dear?” said deacon Ramsdill, advancing and
shaking Margaret's hand; “but like to never killed but one
man, and he died a laughin. It'll do you good, it is the best
thing in the world for calves to lie out of nights when the dew
is on.”

“Our best hog was killed in the pen,” said Mistress Gubtail;
“but here's some salve, if it'll be of any service to the
child.”

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

“Salve!” retorted the Widow Wright, indignantly, and
elbowing her way through the crowd. “Here's the Nommernisstortumbug,
none of your twaddle, the gennewine tippee, caustic
and expectorant, good for bruises and ails in the vitals.”

“I've got some plums that Siah picked under the tree that
blowd down in the storm,” said Mistress Hatch; “I guess the
gal would like them, and if any body else would eat, they are
welcome.”

“Bring um along, Dorothy,” said Mistress Tapley to her
little daughter. “A platter of nutcakes. The chimney tumbled
in while I was frying um, and they is a little sutty, but if
the gal is hungry, they'll eat well.”

Provisions of a different description were furnished from
the Tavern, of which the multitude partook freely. People
from the village also sent up quantities of fruit, cakes, &c.
But they could not tarry, they must hasten to the child's
home. They went up the hill, Margaret erected on the shoulders
of the young men, escorted as it would seem by half the
town, all wild with joy. Pluck was in transports; Obed
laughed and cried together all the way up the hill; Hash was
so much delighted, that he drank himself nearly drunk at the
Tavern. When they came in sight of the house, a new
flourish of the horns was made, three cheers given, hats and
green twigs swung. Chilion, whom the good news had already
reached, was seated in a chair outside the door; Bull,
unable to move, lay on the grass, wagging his joy with his tail;
Brown Moll took to spinning flax as hard as she could spin, to
keep her sensations within due bounds; the little Isabel leaped
up and down spatting her hands. Margaret was conveyed to
her mother's bed. Dr. Spoor examined her wounds, and pronounced
them not serious, and all the women came in and examined
them and gave the same decision. Parson Welles
suggested to the Preacher the opportuneness of a prayer of
thanksgiving, which the latter offered in a becoming manner.
A general collation was had in which the family who had
tasted of nothing since the noon before, were made glad participants.
Chilion, to express his own transport, or to embody
and respond to the delight of the people, called for his violin.
Playing, he wrought that effect in which he took evident pleasure,
moving the parties in a kind of subservient unison, and
gliding into a familiar reel, he soon had them all dancing.
On the grass before the house, old and young, grave and gay,
they danced exuberantly. Parson Welles, the Preacher and
Deacon Hadlock looked on smilingly. Deacon Ramsdill's

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wife declared Margaret must see what was going on, had her
taken from the bed, and held her in her lap on the door-sill.
There had been clouds over the sun all day, and mists in the
atmosphere, nor did the sun yet appear, only below it, while it
was now about an hour high, along the horizon, cleared away
a long narrow strip of sky flushing with golden light. Above
the people's heads still hung grey clouds, about them were
green woods, underneath them the green grass, and within
them were bright joyous sensations, and through all things
streamed this soft colored light, and in all shone a pavonine
irradiancy, and their faces glowed more lustrously, and their
hearts beat more rapturously. Deacon Hadlock, stirred irresistibly,
gave out, as for years he had been accustomed to do in
Church, the lines of the Doxology —


“To God the Father, Son,
And Spirit, glory be,
As 't was, and is, and shall be so,
To all eternity.”
which Chilion pitching on his violin and leading off, they sung
with great emphasis. When they were about breaking up,
Deacon Ramsdill said, “Shan't we have a collection? We
have had pretty nice times, but strippins arter all is the best
milk, and I guess they'll like it as well as any thing now.
We shall have to feather this creeter's nest, or the bird will
be off agin. Here's my hat if some of these lads will pass it
round.”

A contribution was made, and thus the night of the morning
became a morning at night to the Pond and the people of
Livingston.