CHAPTER XXXIX. "Tree! why hast thou doffed thy mantle of green Of a long arrear, for the transient pride."-SIGOURNEY. UNCLE John and I, being now very near Illinois, where resided a distant relative of ours, determined to pay him a visit. This person was much like uncle Tommy in his leather-stocking propensities, but in no other respects; except that he was, at first, a squatter, and had escaped on some occasions, being scalped by the Indians. Once, too, he escaped an ambuscade as he descended the Ohio river with several other young men in a boat. Incautiously approaching too near the bank, our relative was saved from death by being in the act of bending to his oar at the flash of the Indian rifles; for their balls, barely passing over his back, struck the breast of a comrade, who fell dead at his side. But, before the enemy could reload, the boat was rowed beyond their reach. And so our friend lived, and ever since had kept on growing till he now had become a venerable and patriarchal Sucker, counting some sixty-five concentric circles in his earthly vegetation. Our way led through successive and beautiful little prairies, separated by rich bottom lands of heavy timber and other interposing woody districts—the trees being all magnificently glorious in the autumnal colours of their dense foliage. No artificial dyes rival the scarlet, the crimson, the orange, the brown, of the sylvan dresses-giant robes and scarfs, hung with indescribable grandeur and grace, over the rough arms and rude trunks of the forest! And voices enough of bird, and beast, and insect, and reptile, rose at our approach from the bosom of the wavy grass, to break the solitude of the treeless plains; but, on entering a district of wood, the uproar of tones, voices, shrieks, hisses, barkings, and a hundred other nameless cries, was deafening! It was bewildering! How like the enchanted hills and groves of the Arabian Tales! Indeed, had a penalty awaited our looking around, we should have become stone, or stump, or paroquet, or squirrel, a thousand times over and over, much to our surprise and mortification! The bewildering tumult assailing him, on entering the solemn dark of primitive oriental forests, must have suggested to the Magician of the Thousand and One Nights, some of the charms and witcheries and incantations that entranced our first years of boyhood and dreams! To the elfish notes of four-footed and creeping goblins and winged and gay sprites, were added the rustle of fresh fallen leaves, the crackling of brush-wood, the rattling of branch and bush, the strange creaking of great trees, rubbing in amity their arms and boughs, and the wailing and moaning of fitful winds; and this formed our sinless Babel. Under the most favourable arrangement of lungs, and larynx and ears, conversation is a labour in such groves and meadows; but, ah! my dear friend, if one's comrade is deaf or still worse if he is a modest man of the muttery and whispery genus! and hearing uncommonly sharp himself, takes for granted you hear ditto! True, if you like to do talking, and the other hearing, that is the very thing; but alas! our escort in this episodial trip, who was a Mr. Mealymouth, was even more desirous of talking than hearing! And what made it more awful, it was not possible to answer him in the " Amen-at-a-venture" mode; for most of Mr. Mealymouth's queries, which were numerous as a pedlar's from the land of guesses, admitted not the mere answer yes or no, but demanded explanatory replies like those of Professor Didactic. He asked to find out what you knew, and not to be answered. Uncle John quickly contrived to shuffle out of this scrape, and with a most unchristian design to take revenge for the razor affair; but then he ought not to have paid back with so terrible an interest. Nay, he lagged just in our rear, every now and then switching my creature, till the huzzy(a lady horse)-feared to quit the side of the escort's horse -(a horse-horse)-and so kept on even a head with him, pace for pace, trot for trot, shuffle for shuffle ; her eyes strained backward, her ears pointed and tremulous, and her heels in the panlo-ante-future tense of being-nearlyabout-a-going-to-kick ;-while I, completely snared and in-for-it, could be seen, all eye and ear, with my neck away out forward to catch the sense of Mr. Mealymouth muttering and whispering some half-articulate question direct or indirect, thus: "Well-Carlt-powerful-don't-allow ?" "Si-i-i-r?" at the top of my voice to provoke him to a higher pitch. "Most powerful good meet-reckon-dont-?" "Oh! yes, rather lean, however, it wasn't stall fedthink it was?"-(I thought he alluded to the beefsteak at breakfast.) "Meetin-meetin-convoc-hard heerin-allow?" "The leaves rattle so-oh! yes, noble set of good men." "Mr. Carlton-allow-Mr. Seymour-ain't he?" "Yes!-no!" And turning round I bellowed out;Hullow! Uncle John, ride up, Mr. Mealymouth wants you!" "Road too narrow-'fraid of things getting rubbed in my saddle-bags,"--replied Uncle J. Here I politely made a movement to fall in the rear and give up my privilege; but my skittish jade, catching sight of Uncle John's upraised switch, snorted, and cocking back her ears trotted me up again to the place of punishmentwhile from Uncle John's face, it was plain enough he was indulging in a malicious inward laugh. Nay, although I hate to tell it, he actually put up his finger against his cheek and made signs of shaving!-a pretty way for a pious man of returning good for evil! I shall not detail all my misapprehensions nor contrivances to avoid answering at hazard, as for instance, suddenly crying out, when expected to reply to a query"See! see! that deer!"-or-"Hurraw! for the turkeys there!"-or-" Smell cowcumbers-guess a rattlesnake's near?" Nor shall I relate how, at last, I did get behind Uncle John; and how Mr. M. fell back and rode with him i I ever and anon admonishing Mr. Seymour to take care of his saddle-bags;-nor how Uncle John was attacked with a very uncommon and alarming stiffness, rendering it necessary for him to dismount and walk a whole mile; and how he over took us at the ford of the Wabash, Mr. M. fortunately volunteering to lead his horse; but I hasten to say that about evening we reached the house of a friend who had invited us to call on him, and that here, to crown the pleasures of the day, we found our host Mr. Softspeech was even more inarticulate in speech than Mr. Mealymouth himself. Uncle John now proposed to bury the hatchet, and form a league of offence and defence; hence, after due deliberation while out washing and wiping, it was concluded that we both sit together, and always in front of the fire ; thus keeping our innocent tormentors each at opposite sides of the chimney place. For first, this would do them a service by compelling them to talk out, it seeming impossible, if they designed speaking to one another at all, to do it long in a mutter; and secondly, if we were assailed by either enemy right or left, we should have four ears to defend and aid us, instead of two, and so we could together compound a pretty fair answer :-this judicious arrangement made us nearly equal to a Siamese twins. And yet, one important matter was found to have been overlooked-the effect on our risibility. For when the two cousins of Simongosoftly began a gentle stir of murmuring lips, and both found, in despite of keen ears, that articulate language must be used; and when evident vexation from their reciprocal mutters and mistakes arose, and they looked at one another in a style like saying, "Blast you, why don't you speak louder”- Oh! dear reader,' would you have believed it. Uncle John all at once laughed right out!—and then you know I couldn't help it--could I? But then, the old gentleman turned it so adroitly, thus: "Mr. Carlton," said he" whenever I think of that trick you served me about the razor I can't help laughing.” And of course that affair was narrated; and we had the satisfaction of finding our two friends could laugh like Christians, if they could not talk like them. And truly man is pretty much of a laughing animal--and certainly none deserves to be more laughed at; although for this vile sin of muttering, and grumbling, and whispering out words with a fixed jaw, and eyes half-shut up like a dreamy cat in the sunshine, words, that should be articulated in the sweet vocality of human speech, the whole abominable tribe of Mealymouths deserves not only to be laughed and hooted at, but actually well scourged. Well, we paid our visit to our Sucker relative; and then, after the two worthy old gentlemen had exhausted their reminiscences, and edified one another with adventures in hunting, and fishing, and camping out, and voyaging, and so on, we bade farewells; and Uncle John and myself, but without an escort, took the homeward trail. The accidents in the path belong to the next chapter. |