from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839) — Chapter XVI
from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839) — Chapter XVII
from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839)
by Caroline Kirkland (AKA Mary Clavers)
CHAPTER XVII.
the house’s form within was rode and strong; Like an huge save hewn out of rocky clift; From whose rough vault the ragged breaches being;—
And over them Arackne high did lift Her coming web, and spread her subtle net, Enwrapped is fool smoke, sad clouds mere black than jet. Farry Guren.
It were good that men, in their Innovations, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth generally, but quietly, and by depress scare to be perceived. Bacon.
It was on one of our superlatively doleful ague days, when a cold drizzling rain had sent mildew into our unfortunate bones; and I lay in bed burning with fever, while my stronger half sat by the fire, taking his chill with his great-cost, hat, and boots on, that Mr. Rivers came to introduce his young daughter-in-law. I shall never forget the utterly disconsolate sir, which, in spite of the fair lady’s politeness, would make itself visible in the pauses of our conversation. She did try not to cast a curious glance round the room. She fixed her eyes on the fire-place-but there were the clay-filled sticks, instead of a chimney-piece— the half consumed wooden orans, which had, more than once, let our dinner fall—the Rocky-Mountain hearth, and the reflector baking biscuits for tea—so she thought it hardly polite to appear to dwell too long there. She turned towards the window; there were the shelves, with our remaining crockery, a grotesque assortment! and, just beneath, the unnameable iron and tin affairs, that are reckoned among the indispensables, even of the half-civilized state. She tried the other side, but there was the ladder, the flour-barrel, and a host of other things—rather odd parlor furniture—and she cast her eyes on the floor, with its gaping cracks, wide enough to admit a massasauga from below, and its inequalities, which might trip any but a sylph. The poor thing looked absolutely confounded, and I exerted all the energy my fever had left me, to try to say something a little encouraging.
‘Come to-morrow morning, Mrs. Rivers,’ said I, ‘and you shall see the aspect of things quite changed; and I shall be able to tell you a great deal in favor of this wild life.’
She smiled faintly, and tried not to look miserable, but I saw plainly, that she was sadly depressed, and I could not feel surprised that she should be so. Mr. Rivers spoke very kindly to her, and filled up all the pauses in our forced talk with such cheering observations as he could muster.
He had found lodgings, he said, in a farm-house, not far from us, and his son’s house would, ere long, be completed, when we should be quite near neighbors.
I saw tears swelling in the poor girl’s eyes, as she took leave, and I longed to be well for her sake. In this newly-formed world, the earlier settler has a feeling of hostess-sh