from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839) — Chapter I
from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839) — Chapter I
from A New Home–Who’ll Follow? or, Glimpses of Western Life (1839)
by Caroline Kirkland (AKA Mary Clavers)
CHAPTER I
Here are seen No traces of man’s pomp and pride; no silks Rustle, nor jowels shine, nor envious eyes Encounter. * * * * *
Oh, there is not lost One of earth’s charms; upon her bosom yet After the flight of untold centuries The freshness of her far beginning lies. Bryant.
Our friends in the ‘settlements’ have expressed so much interest in such of our letters to them as happened to convey any account of the peculiar features of western life, and have asked so many questions, touching particulars which we had not thought worthy of mention, that I have been for some time past contemplating the possibility of something like a detailed account of our experiences. And I have determined to give them to the world, in a form not very different from that in which they were originally recorded for our private delectation; nothing doubting, that a veracious history of actual occurrences, an unvarnished transcript of real characters, and an impartial record of every-day forms of speech (taken down in many cases from the lips of the speaker) will be pronounced ‘graphic’ by at least a fair proportion of the journalists of the day.
It is true there are but moagre materials for anything that might be called a story. I have never seen a cougar—nor been bitten by a rattlesnake. The reader who has patience to go with me to the close of my desultory sketches, must expect nothing beyond a meandering recital of common-place occurrences—mere gossip about everyday people, little enhanced in value by any fancy or ingenuity of the writer; in short, a very ordinary pen-drawing; which, deriving no interest from coloring, can be valuable only for its truth.
A home on the outskirts of civilization—habits of society which allow the maid and her mistress to do the honors in complete equality, and to make the social tea visit in loving conjunction—such a distribution of the duties of life as compels all, without distinction, to rise with the sun or before him—to breakfast with the chickens—then,
“Count the slow clock, and dine exact at soon”— to be ready for tea at four, and for bed at eight—may certainly be expected to furnish some curious particulars for the consideration of those whose daily course almost reverses this primitive arrangement—who ‘call night day and day night, and who are apt occasionally to forget, when speaking of a particular class, that the ‘those creatures’ are partakers with themselves of a common nature.
I can only wish, like other modest chroniclers, my respected prototypes, that so fertile a theme had fallen into worthier hands. If Miss Mitford, who has given us such charming glimpses of Aberleigh, Hilton Cross, and the Loddon, had, by some happy chance, been translated to Michigan, what would she not have made of such materials as Tinkerville, Montacute, and th