CHAPTER I. THE SMITH OF THE WILDERNESS.

With Rich, the chum and friend of Morton, and who, animated by the contagion of a noble example, became his rival in rank as a scholar and in all athletic sports, his companion in labor, and between whom, though neck and neck in the pursuit of those college honors that each most highly prized, there was never a shadow of jealousy or distrust, while their sympathies met and mingled like fibres of a kindred root, drawing their nutriment from a common soil,—with Rich, refined in all his tastes, of delicate sensibilities, and a playful humor that never stung, sunny tempered, generous, companionable, yet firm in principle as a granite shaft, and whom all Radcliffe idolized, our constant readers are already well acquainted; but the exigencies of this story, and the necessity of imparting information both to them and others, render it imperative that we should speak[Pg 10] more definitely respecting his family and home life, to which we have heretofore barely alluded; indeed, we are not aware that we have ever distinguished him by any other name than that of Richardson, and much more frequently made use of the college term, Rich.

His grandfather, with ten other young married men, first broke ground in our hero's native town, then a wilderness, and built their camps on the borders of a stream heavily timbered, soon after the formation of the federal government with Washington as president. They were, with a single exception, poor, having taken up their abode in the wilderness because they wanted a home, and could buy the wild land for ten cents per acre. Full of enterprise, and strong in limb, this little community felt themselves equal to the struggle. They had as yet neither sawmill nor gristmill, though a noble stream fell over the rocks close to their doors, but pounded the corn they raised on burns in large mortars, or went in canoes eleven miles to mill, to a village farther down the stream, where they likewise procured salt. There were neither roads nor horses in the clearing, and at first everything was brought through the woods, in the winter on men's shoulders, walking on snow-shoes, and in summer in canoes or on rafts up the river.

They were accustomed to put the grain and corn belonging to several neighbors into a large canoe,[Pg 11] and thus take it down the river to the mill. At length a road was spotted through the woods to the village—that is, a piece of bark and wood was taken off the side of trees with an axe, for a guide to the traveler. The path was crooked, going through those portions of the forest that were thinnest, and winding around obstacles. Occasionally a tree that stood very much in the way was cut, and a log flung across some gully, brook, or mire.

In the early part of winter, when the brooks and swamps were frozen, and the snow deep enough to cover, in some measure, the windfalls, and fill the ravines, and at other times in the latter part of it, when the crust would bear light cattle, they went through the woods with oxen to mill, improved the occasion to obtain articles of absolute necessity, and whenever their stock of bread-stuff fell short, had recourse to the mortar.

At first it was a bitter struggle for existence; the land was covered with a dense forest, and there was neither pasture for cattle in the summer, nor hay to keep them through the winter. In this condition of things, they managed to keep a few cattle by cutting the wild grass that grew in the swamp and along the banks of the river, and felling yellow birch and maple trees in summer for browse. By dint of patient labor, their circumstances improved from year to year; more land was cleared, their stock of cattle increased with the increase of hay and pasture, and they began[Pg 12] to keep sheep and horses, to make staves and shingles, cut logs and drive them down the river in spring, and beech withes to bind loads and rafts were exchanged for chains.

Cattle and horses were now to be shod, and they began to feel greatly the need of a blacksmith. If a chain or axe was broken, a horse or yoke of oxen to be shod, there was no smith nearer than eleven miles, and no road except a bridle-path through spotted trees. Previous to this, they had worked their oxen without shoes, and horses were only shod forward. But now they wanted to haul logs and shingles on the ice of the river, and they must be shod. They were in great need of a smith, and yet there was not work sufficient to afford a blacksmith constant employment, and consequently, a living. But there was money in the logs and shingles, and necessity sharpens invention. They hired John Drew, the smith at the village, to come in the fall, just before the river shut up, bringing horse-shoes, ox-shoes, nails, and his tools. He went round from house to house, the oxen were cast on the barn floors, and the shoes put on. Thus they managed, feeling more and more the want of a smith. Richardson was possessed of remarkable mechanical ability, and was what is termed a handy man—a great thing in the woods. He had a few carpenters' tools, made ox-yokes, and sleds for himself and neighbors. At length a cart road was made[Pg 13] through the woods, and Richardson built the first, and for some time the only, pair of wheels in the clearing. Surrounded by a young and rapidly increasing family, necessity led him to improve to the utmost every talent he was conscious of possessing.

On the 10th of January, some two years before the road was made, he went, in behalf of himself and the little community, to the village, through the woods, with an ox-team, carrying corn and grain to be ground. He also carried plough-irons to be new laid, chains to be mended, axes to be new "laid" or "upset," and orders for some to be manufactured. In order to get the large grist ground, and the iron work done, he was obliged to remain three days. While watching the smith at his work, the idea occurred to him that he could work with iron as well as wood. All the way home he brooded over it, till the idea took entire possession of him, and that long wilderness road never seemed so short before. After a while he opened his mind to his wife, who encouraged him to make the attempt. But he had no money to buy either iron or tools, and iron in those days was difficult to obtain, and high in price, being nearly all imported. It seemed a hopeless undertaking; still he could not banish the thought from his mind. It haunted him; lay down with him at night, and rose up with him in the morning. One day he broke a chain in the woods; he had but[Pg 14] two. The next day came a snow storm, affording leisure. The smith was eleven miles off. He could not do his work without the chain, and resolved to try to mend it by welding again the broken link he had saved. He made a great fire in the kitchen, and put in the iron. The kitchen tongs served to hold, a nail hammer to work it, and a flat stone for an anvil. To his great mortification, he found that although he could heat it to redness, he could not make it hot enough, with a wood fire, to weld. He put wood in the oven, stopped the draft, and burnt it to coal; but even with charcoal he did not succeed at first in obtaining a welding heat. His wife, who was looking on with the greatest interest, suggested the use of the kitchen bellows, and by their aid he partially succeeded.

His next attempt was to mend the staple of an ox-yoke. This was much more difficult, as the iron was larger, and he had nothing to bend it over. But after several trials, he at length accomplished his purpose. It was supper time when William Richardson struck the last blow upon the staple, and put it into the yoke. When the meal was finished, and Mrs. Richardson had washed the dishes, and put the children to bed, she sat down to her cards, with a basket of wool beside her, while the father of the family, having taken off his shoes, and hung his buskins in the corner to dry, sat with folded arms, looking intently[Pg 15] upon the glowing coals. No sound was heard save the crackling of the fire, the rasping of a solitary wood-worm that was boring into a log of the walls, and the sound of the cards as the good wife plied her labor.

"Well, wife," said Richardson, at length, starting from his reverie, and flinging fresh fuel on the fire, "what do you think of it?"

"Think of what, William?"

"Why, of my day's work, and this blacksmithing. Don't you think I'd better fling the stone into the river and give it up? All I have done this blessed day, besides taking care of the cattle, is to mend that staple—a thing John Drew would have done in fifteen minutes."

"No, he wouldn't, for if he had no better tools than you, he wouldn't have thought he could do it at all. I think it is the best day's work you ever did in your life."

"O, Susan, how do you make that out? You just say that because you know I feel a little down in the mouth; not because you really think so."

"Yes, husband, I really think so; and you will, if you look at it right. You must expect to creep before you can walk. You couldn't have got along without that chain, and would have been obliged to travel twenty-two miles through the woods on snow-shoes, with that chain on your back, in order to get it mended, and a half bushel of corn besides on your shoulder to pay John[Pg 16] Drew for doing it; for we've got no money. It would have been the same with the staple. You couldn't have worked your oxen without it, and would have been forced to leave your work in fair weather, for you could not have gone in a storm. Now, you have done it yourself, in stormy days, when you couldn't have done much else, saved your corn, yourself all that travel, and, more than that, found out that you can work iron whenever you can get the tools to do it with."

"I don't know but you are right, wife; but how am I to get either the tools or the iron without money? I can't barter corn for iron, and John Drew has so much produce brought to him now that he is loath to take any more; says his house is full of corn, grain, meat, potatoes, and cloth, butter and eggs, and he can't get money enough to pay his taxes."

"I think there will be some way provided. We had nothing when we came here but the clothes on our backs and twenty dollars in money; had to run in debt for our land. Now we've nearly paid for the land, we cut hay, keep quite a stock of cattle and sheep, have but seldom been put to it for bread, and have a warm, comfortable house, if it is a log one, and the children are warm clothed."

"You always look on the bright side, Sue."

"I think that's the best side to look on."

We would inform our readers that the house[Pg 17] Sue thought so comfortable was built of rough logs, the crevices stuffed with moss and clay, had but two rooms in it, the partition between them being blankets hung up. The fireplace and oven were built of rough stones, and the chimney of sticks of wood laid in clay (to prevent their taking fire from sparks), that, as it fell off, was renewed from time to time.

"I could buy tools with the money I shall get for logs that I cut this winter, didn't I want every cent of it to turn in towards paying for the land. I'm half a mind to take a little. If I only had a hammer, a punch, something to cut iron with, and a pair of tongs to hold it, I could mend my own chains and other things, save something, be learning all the time, and, after we pay for the land, I could get more tools."

"I never would do that, husband. If we must take that money for anything, let us take it for the school. They are going to have a school at Montague's the latter part of the winter."

This man had three rooms in his house, and it was built of hewn timber, in one of which the school was to be kept. Richardson and his wife had received a good common school education, and were anxious that their children should not grow up in ignorance.