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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.