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•—— •—l • »»■ — I > —— i..—g _ _ *— 7^p
VOL. 1.
[Written for the Southern Field and Fireside.]
THE YOUNG CHEISTIAN’S DEPASTURE.
Lines suggested by the death of Miss FlorCnct Jones,
at Greenville, South Carolina.
Leave me, dear friends, the Saviour calls.
I would not disobey;
But I may tremble as,l go—
There’s darkness on my way!
The vale of Shadows, even now.
Is deepening on my view ; ,
I do not fear its terrors yet,
But when I’m passing through,
The weakness of this mortal flesh
May shudder in the gloom,
And ye might deem the “willing soul"
Had quailed before the tomb.
Leave me, beloved! 'tis for your sakes
I would not have you here;
The Anal conflict is at hand—
It draweth very near;
I hear the dash of the cold stream.
Where “ the deep waters flow
I do not shiver on the brink—
But when I’m called to go,
My heart may faint, as Peter's did.
Though Christ himself doth stand.
To guide me o’er the swelling flood.
To Glory’s golden strand.
Then, father—mother—leave me now
To gird my armor on ;
I would not have ye see the strife—
Ye cannot see the crown—
The crown that on my fading sight
With light immortal gleams.
Chasing the darkness of the grave
With its celestial beams!
I feel the flutter in the air
Os the death-angels' wing!
I hear the inasie of the skies —
The hymns that angels sing!
Glory to God ! Oh, do not weep—
| The last great vict’ry’s won !
Earth's troubled dream in past—tJu lift
Os Paradise begun l H.
Kavenswood, 8. C., July, 1859.
—-»•-
[Written for the Southern Field and Fireside.]
Entered, according to the Act of Congress. Ac., Ac.
by the Author.
MASTER WILLIAM MITTEN;
OR,
A YOUTH OF BRILLIANT TALENTS,
WHO WAS RUINED BY BAD LUCK.
BY THE AUTHOR OP THE GEORGIA SCENES, ETC.
The jurisdictions of each were early defined
after the marriage: to the madam was assigned
the house, the kitchen, the smoke-house, and the
garden, in absolute sovereignty ; to himself, all
other interests were accorded. After children
were bom to them, all fell under her jurisdic
tion up to the age of six; then, the Captain as
sumed a little authority over the males, up to
ten, when he seftersed the order of things he
becoming principal and she secondary. As to
the females, he claimed no privileges, but the
very humble ones of grunting and turning up
his nose occasionally at their flounces, and of
grumbling annually ( vide supra,) at their store
bills. Small as these things wore, they were
unconstitutional encroachments, for which he
received the due retributions, to which he sub
mitted with no other signs of impatience than
perpetrating a joke, or a witticism, in the midst
of them, always under the pain of double punish
ment —yes, he was guilty at times of other en
croachments in the way of certain significant
“ Humphs t" at pale coffee, undone biscuits,
burnt meat, and the like, at meals; to which
she responded in the following apologetic terms:
“ When your negroes cease to be masters and
mistresses of the family, maybe you’ll get some
thing fit to eat.’’ To which, at the earliest con
venient opportunity, she added an amendment,
in manner and form following, to-wit:
“ I suppose you (little Sueky.) think that because
the grown niggers are allowed to run over me, and
do as they please, you can do so too: but I’ll
teach you better, Miss. lean manage you, myself,
Miss Empress Josephine!” Meaning, tliereby, that
the aforesaid David Thompson had been guilty
of crassa negligentia, and divers non-feasances,
to the great detriment of the said Mary, and
highly unbecoming the Chief Executive officer
of the Thompsonian Government. By means
whereof the most insignificant subjects of said
Government] had come to regard themselves
Emperors and Empresses, and to deport them
selves to the said Mary accordingly.
To these impeachments, the Captain filed no
plea; “ sometimes pretending” that he was too
deaf, and at others too busy to hear them.
Nor did ‘the madam always keep within her
legitimate domain. She would, with malice afore
thought, stop a plow to send Sarah to a quilting;
and then, the Captain’s foot would como down in
earnest, and he’d “wonder whether there was a
woman in the world that wouldn't lose a crop to
give her daughter a sugar-tit!” All which, and
much more like it, Mrs. T. l>orc with lamb-like
I JAMES GARDNER, I
I Proprietor. |
AUGUSTA. GA., SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1859.
meekness, and speechless submission, her eyes
looking out meantime, as though she was con
templating evening clouds. The equilibrium was
beautifully preserved in the Captain's family.
From all this, it appears that Captain Thomp
son was no farther under petticoat government
than most husbands are, and all good husbands
ought to be. He was a very happy man in his
family, and his wife was as happy as he was.
Before his wife returned from the visit of
consolations, the Captain had finished a short
letter to T «.m, reporting Doctor Waddel’s
opinion of him', the gratification it afforded his
mother in particular, and his connections in
general—urging him not to disappoint the high
expectations which had been raised of him—to
be studious—not to mind the taunts of the boys
about his fine clothes—to wear them out as
quick as possible with lightwood-knots, and get
plain, coarse ones. “Let the boys see," said the
Captain, “ that if you do not know how to work,
you can soon learn. Beat them in every thing.
Beat them in learning, in working, in running,
in jumping, in wrestling, in athletic sports of
every kind. That is the way to make them re
spect you.” We must not let the reader suppose
that the Captain omitted the important matter
of diet, though he expressed himself upon it in
very coarse terms—withal, they are characteris
tic: “ Don’t let your head be always running
upon what is to go into your paunch.”
The Captain was just folding his letter, when
his wife returned. “Well, Mar),” said he, “and
how did Anna seem when you left her ?”
“Why, poor dear soul, it's enough to make one’s
heart bleed to sec her. She does try her very
best to become reconciled to William's lot, but
it seems impossible. If you could Lave heard
her when she talked about your kindness to her,
and how it increased her griefs to know how
they afflicted you, it would have filled your eyes
with tears. Do, my dear husband, be as kind
and tender to her as you can. She says that she
will strive to overcome her feelings for your
sake ”
“Well,that is allTcan expect of her,” said
the Captain, with suffused eyes—“visit her every
day. Mary, and keep her as much as possible
trom brooding over William's fate. See if you
can't persuade her to take a trip of a month or
two from home, as soon as the weather breaks
—I must away to the post-office.
CH APTER XU.
Xew troubles, and new issues, give the reader a
peep into the Thompson ancestry, and the mode
of the Captain's bringing up.
At the very time when Doctor Waddel was
penning his letter to Captain Thompson, teem
ing with compliments to William Mitten, the
same William Mitten was writing another to his
mother, teeming with philippics against Doctor
Waddel; but as good luck would have it,
William’s letter was about a month in reaching
his mother. This may seem strange to the
reader of the present day, when communications
pass between New York and New Orleans in a
few minutes, and letters pass between them by
the due course of mail in five or six days. But the
matter is easily explained. In the good old days
of President Jefferson, people were not as much
like the Atheneans as they are now—that is, so
greedy of news that they could think of noth
ing else; and had they been, they would have
deemed it utterly impracticable to send a letter
by public conveyance over sixty miles, in less
than two days, excluding stoppages. And if
Dogfight post office lay on the way, and rain
fell between times, the post-boy was commend
ed if he came up to schedule time. But if Dog
fight and Possum-town post offices both lay on
the way, and a storm intervened, three days to
sixty miles was considered but a scant allow
ance. No mails were carried in Georgia by
vehicles, but the mails between Augusta and
Savannah—none in South Carolina, we believe,
but between Charleston and Columbia. All
others were horse mails, commonly in charge of
boys under nineteen years of age. These took
their rest at night, and took shelter from rain
in the day, as their health required. The ve
hicles called stages carried passengers as well
as mails. They, too, stopt for the night, and well
for the passengers that they did; for Waddel’s
shaking of Brace was a comfort compared to
the shaking and bouncing of passengers in these
vehicles, when going over rooty, rutty, and stony
ground.
The facetious Oliver H. Prince, who was
toothless in front, upon being asked how he lost
his teeth, replied, “ that they were jolted out by
travelling over Georgia roads in a stick sulky.”
If this were true, teeth must have been scarce
among the stage passengers between Augusta
and Savannah, sandy as the road was for the
most part.*
Besides the tardiness of the mails, there was
another more serious obstacle to ready commu
nication between the students and their parents
at a distance. The nearest post office to Wil
lington was, as we have intimated, at Vienna,
♦Post Coaches were introduced In South Carolina and
Georgia by Eleazer Early, in 1825, wo think, and ice
know that the first passengers In one of them were
Oen. Thomas Glascock, Major Freeman Walker, and
the writer, of Georgia, and CoL Christian Brcitlianpt,
of South Carolina.
six miles from the Academy; and in all Wil
lington proper or common there was but one
horse that could always be had for hire, and that
wa3 Southerland’s old Botherum. Now, for a
student to wait the revolution of fifty or sixty
Saturdays before his turn to hire old Botherum
rolled round, would have been distressingly dil
atory. Withal, to hire him just to mail a letter,
was “ rather fatiguing to the finances” of the
youth of this Institution, which were exceeding
ly reduced in those days. To walk six miles to
mail a letter, was out of the question. The only
alternative L.., Uuu vtiw. tVmcii was universally
adopted, was to take the chance of a visit—or
to the village on business, or pleasure, and the
chance of hearing of his intended departure be
fore it occurred, and the chance of seeing the
visitor ad interim , and the chance of his being
willing to bear the letter, and the chance of his
not forgetting to mail it after he took charge of
it. It might be, therefore, especially with a new
comer to the school, several weeks before all
these contingencies would result favorably to
the writer, and so it was with William. His
letter to his mother made his flue even worse
than it was, by a total omission of wheat biscuit
at least once in three weeks, and sometimes
oftener, and butter “semi-occasionally,” and fresh
pork for middling, every now and then; chicken
pie twice or thrice a year: and turkey as often
as old Manor* could kill a wild one, which hap
pened about once in two years: and venison
as often as old Maner coultc'f'i/t a deer, which
happened once in three years, j Os course, master
Mitten was not to blame tor,omitting all these
things, for even biseuit-tlmehad not rolled round
when he wrote; but it is due to the kind-heart
ed landlord and landlady, that Mitten's report
should receive the just qualifications. After des
canting upon his board and lodging, lie proceed
ed as follows: "All I ever heard about old Wad
del. is true. He whips ten times as much as
Mr. Markham does, and twice as hard, and
laughs and chuckles all the time lie is doing it,
like it made his heart glad to cut boys' legs all
to pieces.
“ Last Monday morning, one boy named Ned
Brace made him mad, and he caught him by the
throat with both hands, and lifted him up, and
slammed him down, and jerked him all about
among the boys, till I thought he would have
killed him; and I wish he had, for he does
nothing but torment me every chance he gets.
Uncle had hardly left here before he came up to
me, and asked me how long I thought it would
be before I would blossom ? I told him I did
not know what he meant. I mean, says he,
how long will it be before your shirt begins to
peep out of your breeches and jacket ? Then
lie tells me lam the prettiest boy'he ever laid
his eyes on, and have got the prettiest little
hands and feet that ever he did see, and that it
almost makes him cry his eyes out to think that
my pretty hands wifi havo to touch light-wood
knots; and that I never shall do it, for he will
get a nice little pair of tongs for me to piefc up
the knots with, and a pretty little hand-box for me
to carry them in. The other day he squalled
out to me, right before all the boys: ‘ Oh, Bill
Mitten, I have found you out, have I ? I sus
pected it as soon as I saw you, but I thought no
body would do such a thing.’
“ ‘What do you mean,’ said I ? ‘What have I
done ?’
“ ‘Why,’ says he, ‘you have come here in boy's
clothes, and you know very well that you are a
girl; and I believe you are the very girl that
looked so hard at me in church last vacation. I
knew you loved me, but I never thought you
would follow me here in that plight. What do
you expect me to do ? Do you think I would
marry any girl in the world that acts that way Y
“Here, I ordered the monitor to set him down
for making game of me, and telling lies; and I
do hope old Waddel will give him twice the
choking and jerking he gave him last Monday.
He is everlastingly tormenting me, and setting all
the boys to laughing at me. *****
The boys here are the smartest boys I ever
saw; and they study the hardest of any boys I
ever saw; but they do not seem to like me, and
therefore, I keep away from them, except a few
good boys, who are very kind to me. All their
amusements are running, jumping, wrestling,
playing town-ball, and bull-pen. The big boys
hunt squirrels, turkeys, Ac., of Saturdays, and
possums and coons of nights. Mr. Waddel does
not require them to study at their boarding
houses, though they almost all do it.”
This was true from 1805 to 1808, but about
tho latter period, a shoal of city youths entered
the school, who abused their privileges so much
that they were curtailed one by one, until at
length the students were forbidden the use of
fire-arms, were required to retire to rest at 0
o’clock P. M., if not engaged in study beyond
that hour, to consume but fifteen minutes at
their meals, and to rise with the sun every morn
ing. It is a remarkable fact that, with two or
three exceptions, no student who entered this
school between the years 1806 and 1810, from
the largest cities of Georgia and South Carolina,
ever became greatly distinguished; while the
period including those dates was the most fruit*
*A fancy shoemaker and grreat hunter, who boarded at
Newby’s.
ful of great men of any of the same length, dur
ing the whole time of Doctor Waddel’s instruc
torship.*
Master Mitten closed his letter with a most
earnest appeai to his mother “ to do all that she
could to get his uncle to remove him from this
school.” She forthwith dispatched a messenger
to the Captain, who was soon at her side. He
found her weeping, of course. The letter was
handed to him, and he commenced reading it
gravely; but when he reached the complaints
against Ned Brace, he began to laugh, and
laughed more and more immoderately as he pro
gressed.
‘‘Brother David,” said his sister, "what do you
find in the letter to amuse you so much ?”
“Why, this odd fish, Ned Brace 1”
“It seems to me very strange, that you can
find anything laughable in such vulgar, unpro
voked rudeness as he shows to your nephew.”
“Oh, Anna. I wouldn’t mind these little boy
ish frolics, There are always some Braces in a
school whom the boys soon get used to, and be
come amused with, rather than angry with. As
soon as Bill blossoms, no doubt Ned will let him
alone—■”
“Brother David, I shall take it as a great fa
vor, if you will not obtrude the refined Mr.
Brace’s wit on my ear. how much soever you
may relish it.”
“Well, now, Anna, you have a great deal of
the blame of all this to take to yourself. You
have raised your child in a band-box
Oh, come back Anna! I give you my word and
honor I had no allusion to Brace's fun. I told
you not to rig William out in finery for that
school, but you would; and now, he is verify
ing my prediction. But do not take such trifles
so much to heart. William tells you the boys
there are the smartest and the most studious
boys he ever saw: and Waddel tells you that he is
among the most promising of them all. Now,
think of these things, and do not let the fun or
folly of his schoolmates distress you. He seems
to have a fine protector front Brace, at least, in
Mr. Waddel. If "William does his duty he will
soon command the respect of all his school-fel
lows, even of Brace himself. As to his leaving
that school, it is out of the question. There
are but two contingencies upon which it can be
done. His sickness is one, and the other, I shall
keep to ntyself, for the present at least.”
“ Did you net say that you left it optional
with him to board at Mr. Newby’s, or else
where ?”
“ I did, and so he may. By going to another
boarding house, lie will get rid of Brace of nights
and mornings, but not of noons. I have no idea
that the fare is any better at the other houses
than it is at Newby's. He is now convenient to
the ‘Academy,’ with pleasant room-mates, ac
quainted with the boarde rs, his landlord and
landlady, and, doubtless, better satisfied upon the
whole than he will be any where else. Now,
would you put him among strangers, with what
kind of a room-mate you know not, and have
him walk from one to three miles every night
and morning, through winter storm, and sum
mer heat, just to have him a little better fed than
he is, and to remove him from the taunts of one
waggish boy ?”
Mrs. Mitten pondered over these sayings sad
ly fora time, and then rejoined : “Now, brother,
you’re always ascribing William's misfortunes
to my folly or weakness ; tell me candidly, isn’t
it bad luck, and nothing but bad luck, that Mr.
Waddel's school happens to fall in the woods ?
That William should be compelled to endure
such rough fare ? And that he should have
fallen into the same boarding house with that
tantalizing Ned Brace ?”
“ Well, as Bill is—that is, as you have made
him—l don’t know but that his falling in with
Brace may be considered rather unlucky ; but
if he had been raised as he should have been,
he would probably have been able to stop
Brace’s mouth without appealing to Mr. Wad
del. But as he is, why doesn’t he give Brace
as good as he sends ? If Brace ridicules his
fine clothes, why doesn’t he ridicule Brace’s
coarse and dirty ones! If he admires Bill’s
pretty face, why does not Bill laugh at his ugly
one! If he calls Bill a pretty girl, why does
not Bill call him an ugly wench! That’s the
way to meet such larks as Brace: not to play
the girl before him, sure enough.
“As to the fare, I consider that sheer good
luck. It’s high time that Bill had the cakes,
and the sugar-plums with which you have been
stuffing him all his life purged out of him ■”
“Why, brother 1 where did you learn your
coarse language? Not from your father or
mother, I know.”
“I learned it from William’s bringing up; the
like of which you never saw in your mother’s
family, I know. She taught me, God bless her!
to work, to move quick at her bidding, to eat
just wliat was set before me—and she generally
set before me for breakfast, as you know, a pew
*We name the following: Win. 1). M.-utin, M. C., Jud.
Clr't Ct 8. C.; George R. Gilmer, M. C„ Gov. Ga.; Geo.
Carey, M. C.; Jas. L. Petigrn, Att’y Gen. S. C., Dist.
Judge; Andrew Goran, M. C.; Henry W.Collier, Cn. Jus.
Sup. Ct, Gov. Ala.; Hugh 8. Legare. M. C\, Att y Gen.
U. 8. Dist Just, and classical scholar; Geo. McDuffie,
M. C., Got. 8.C.; Senator Lewis Word law, Jud. Sup. Ct
8, C.; Francis Wardlaw, Chan. 8. C. and Jnd. Ct. Ap.;
and many officers of lower rank.
I Two Dollars Per Annum, I
| Always In Advance. |
, ter-bnsin of clabber, and a pone of corn-bread, a
pewter tumbler of milk or butter-milk, and a
pewter plate of fried apples, ’most floating in sop,
with three little pieces of clear, curled middling
[ perched up on top of them, like dried bean-pods.
My dinner was just the same, with an occasion
al change of msat to squirrel, possum, venison,
and very rarely beef. For supper, 1 had wind
and water, and nothing else. When I was thir
teen or fourteen years old, I have no doubt I
should have considered Newby’s fare perfectly
luxurious—certainly, it is quite as good as I was
| raised on.”
“You surely don't think of what you are
saying, brother. Mother had both china and
crockery ware, and some silver ware; and she
was one of the nicest house-keepers and best
pastry-cooks in the world.”
“Oh yes, she had a set of china I remember
it well; though I never got but three fair looks at
it in all my life; and I remember quite as well
having got twice three fair licks, when about
seven years old, for trying to climb up to the
upper story of the old to ascertain what
those shining things were that peeped out of the
dark garret every time that mother opened the
door of the buffet. How many pieces there
were at this period Ido not know; but I know
that just seven (counting a cup and saucer as
one,) survived the Revolution. They came in
full view before me, when three officers of the
army stopt at our house for a night. The nip
per, I had not the pleasure of seeing, as mother
invited me over to Uncle John's to spend the
evening^but the breakfast w'as prodigious!
First, there was a tabl® doth spread on the
table. This was amazing; and I ventured to
feel it, at the expense of a back-handed lick
right here 1 (pointing to the back of his ear).
Then came forth six crockery plates, laid bot
tom upwards, with knives and forks by their
sides, which I had never seen before. Then
w’as placed at the head of the table a large W’aiter
with something on it covered over with a
shining white napkin. (Here I got lick No. 2, for
peeping under the napkin.) There was set in
the centre of the table a pepper-box, and a salt
cellar, the last after the fashion of a morning
glory on the foot of a wine-glass. On either side
of said salt-cellar, and equidistant from it—say
nine inches —two table-spoons of solid silver,
crossed each other, bowls downward, and two
more lay, the one at father’s plate, and the
other where the fried chicken was to be: on
mother’s side of the first brace, was placed a
little glass bucket, like a doctor's mortar, full of
rich yellow butter, frizzled all over, pine-burr
fashion. Now came in a plate of beautiful bis
cuit ; then an equally beautiful loaf of light bread :
then a plate of new-fashioned corn-bread, par
celed out by the spoonful, and baked in the
shape that the spoon gave it. Then came in a
dish of nice fried ham—then another of fined
chicken, dressed off with cream, and flour doings,
and parsley: then another of broiled chicken,
put up as now, with wings akimbo, and legs
booted in its own skin; then came two bowls
of boiled eggs, the one hard, and the other soft—
not the bowls, but the eggs. All this accom
plished, the napkin was removed, and oh 1 what
a sight was there 1 A china tea-pot, six cups
and six saucers, all real china, and all with red
pictures on them, of things I had never seen,
and have never since seen 1 A proud, dandyish,
pot-bellied, narrow-necked, big-mouthed, thin
skinned silver cream-pot, strutted out among the
china, and turned down its only lip, at every
thing it faced, most insultingly. A silver sugar
dish, shaped like the half of a small muskmelon,
stood modestly by the dapper cream-pot.—
Mother picks up the little dandy, and turns him
bottom upwards, to make him disgorge six silver
tea-spoons that he had swallowed. The handles
appear, but the bowls stick in his throat. She
rights him, gives his seat a pat on the table, and
turns him up again; but he can’t deliver. She
therefore picks out of him one spoon at a time,
and lays it in a saucer by the side of a cup.—
She now orders Silvy to bring in “the little
pitcher of cream.” The little pitcher appears
(pure crockery) with half its lip bit off, and the
handle gone, and an ugly crack meandering from
the upper foot of the handle towards the disfig
ured lip. The little gentleman is carefully filled
from the pitcher, his mouth is wiped clean, and
he is set up to make mouths at me till the com
pany comes. The pitcner goes back to the dairy
privately. Dick is ordered to bring in the coffee,
and it appears in a large tin coffee-pot. The
tea-pot is filled out of it, and it is ordered back
to the tire in the kitchen. All things are now in
order, and I am directed to inform the company
that breakfast is ready. And now, Mrs. Anna
jThe buffet, often called the bofat, was a triangular
cupboard, exaet-fltted to the corner of a room, and ex
tending from the floor nearly to the ceiling. The first
shelf in it was about two ana a half feet from the bottom,
and the space was closed by a door, or folding doors, with
lock and key. This was the depository of the family
groceries. Then, came another shelf and another, and
another, to the top. These were all closed by glass-doors,
or a single door, after the manner of a window-shutter.
The first division was appropriated to the lighter pew
ter-ware. The second to the liquors for the day, with
their needful accompaniments of honey, sometimes
sugar, mint, bowls, mugs, spoons, and occasionally glass
tumblers. The third contained the crockery, and the
fourth, half concealed by the cornice of the bnffet, the
china and silver ware, if any.
NO. 11.