The Prairie. James Fenimore Cooper
the whole, were pegged to the earth in such a manner as to form a tolerably capacious and an exceedingly convenient tent. After surveying their work with inquisitive, and perhaps jealous eyes, arranging a fold here, and driving a peg more firmly there, the men once more applied their strength to the wagon, pulling it, by its projecting tongue, from the centre of the canopy, until it appeared in the open air, deprived of its covering, and destitute of any other freight, than a few light articles of furniture. The latter were immediately removed, by the traveller, into the tent with his own hands, as though to enter it, were a privilege, to which even his bosom companion was not entitled.
Curiosity is a passion that is rather quickened than destroyed by seclusion, and the old inhabitant of the prairies did not view these precautionary and mysterious movements, without experiencing some of its impulses. He approached the tent, and was about to sever two of its folds, with the very obvious intention of examining, more closely, into the nature of its contents, when the man who had once already placed his life in jeopardy, seized him by the arm, and with a rude exercise of his strength threw him from the spot he had selected as the one most convenient for his object.
“It's an honest regulation, friend,” the fellow, drily observed, though with an eye that threatened volumes, “and sometimes it is a safe one, which says, mind your own business.”
“Men seldom bring any thing to be concealed into these deserts,” returned the old man, as if willing, and yet a little ignorant how to apologize for the liberty he had been about to take, “and I had hoped no offence, in examining your comforts.”
“They seldom bring themselves, I reckon; though this has the look of an old country, to my eye it seems not to be overly peopled.”
“The land is as aged as the rest of the works of the Lord, I believe; but you say true, concerning its inhabitants. Many months have passed since I have laid eyes on a face of my own colour, before your own. I say again, friend, I meant no harm; I did not know, but there was something behind the cloth, that might bring former days to my mind.”
As the stranger ended his simple explanation, he walked meekly away, like one who felt the deepest sense of the right which every man has to the quiet enjoyment of his own, without any troublesome interference on the part of his neighbour; a wholesome and just principle that he had, also, most probably imbibed from the habits of his secluded life. As he passed towards the little encampment of the emigrants, for such the place had now become, he heard the voice of the leader calling aloud, in its hoarse tones, the name of—
“Ellen Wade.”
The girl who has been already introduced to the reader, and who was occupied with the others of her sex around the fires, sprang willingly forward at this summons; and, passing the stranger with the activity of a young antelope, she was instantly lost behind the forbidden folds of the tent. Neither her sudden disappearance, nor any of the arrangements we have mentioned, seemed, however, to excite the smallest surprise among the remainder of the party. The young men, who had already completed their tasks with the axe, were all engaged after their lounging and listless manner; some in bestowing equitable portions of the fodder among the different animals; others in plying the heavy pestle of a moveable homminy-mortar[*]; and one or two in wheeling the remainder of the wagons aside, and arranging them in such a manner as to form a sort of outwork for their otherwise defenceless bivouac.
[*] Homminy, is a dish composed chiefly of cracked corn, or maize.
These several duties were soon performed, and, as darkness now began to conceal the objects on the surrounding prairie, the shrill-toned termagant, whose voice since the halt had been diligently exercised among her idle and drowsy offspring, announced, in tones that might have been heard at a dangerous distance, that the evening meal waited only for the approach of those who were to consume it. Whatever may be the other qualities of a border man, he is seldom deficient in the virtue of hospitality. The emigrant no sooner heard the sharp call of his wife, than he cast his eyes about him in quest of the stranger, in order to offer him the place of distinction, in the rude entertainment to which they were so unceremoniously summoned.
“I thank you, friend,” the old man replied to the rough invitation to take a seat nigh the smoking kettle; “you have my hearty thanks; but I have eaten for the day, and am not one of them, who dig their graves with their teeth. Well; as you wish it, I will take a place, for it is long sin' I have seen people of my colour, eating their daily bread.”
“You ar' an old settler, in these districts, then?” the emigrant rather remarked than enquired, with a mouth filled nearly to overflowing with the delicious homminy, prepared by his skilful, though repulsive spouse. “They told us below, we should find settlers something thinnish, hereaway, and I must say, the report was mainly true; for, unless, we count the Canada traders on the big river, you ar' the first white face I have met, in a good five hundred miles; that is calculating according to your own reckoning.”
“Though I have spent some years, in this quarter, I can hardly be called a settler, seeing that I have no regular abode, and seldom pass more than a month, at a time, on the same range.”
“A hunter, I reckon?” the other continued, glancing his eyes aside, as if to examine the equipments of his new acquaintance; “your fixen seem none of the best, for such a calling.”
“They are old, and nearly ready to be laid aside, like their master,” said the old man, regarding his rifle, with a look in which affection and regret were singularly blended; “and I may say they are but little needed, too. You are mistaken, friend, in calling me a hunter; I am nothing better than a trapper.”[*]
[*] It is scarcely necessary to say, that this American word means one
who takes his game in a trap. It is of general use on the
frontiers. The beaver, an animal too sagacious to be easily
killed, is oftener taken in this way than in any other.
“If you ar' much of the one, I'm bold to say you ar' something of the other; for the two callings, go mainly together, in these districts.”
“To the shame of the man who is able to follow the first be it so said!” returned the trapper, whom in future we shall choose to designate by his pursuit; “for more than fifty years did I carry my rifle in the wilderness, without so much as setting a snare for even a bird that flies the heavens;—much less, a beast that has nothing but legs, for its gifts.”
“I see but little difference whether a man gets his peltry by the rifle or by the trap,” said the ill-looking companion of the emigrant, in his rough manner. “The 'arth was made for our comfort; and, for that matter, so ar' its creatur's.”
“You seem to have but little plunder,[*] stranger, for one who is far abroad,” bluntly interrupted the emigrant, as if he had a reason for wishing to change the conversation. “I hope you ar' better off for skins.”
[*] The cant word for luggage in the western states of America is
“plunder.” The term might easily mislead one as to the character
of the people, who, notwithstanding their pleasant use of so
expressive a word, are, like the inhabitants of all new
settlements, hospitable and honest. Knavery of the description
conveyed by “plunder,” is chiefly found in regions more civilised.
“I make but little use of either,” the trapper quietly replied. “At my time of life, food and clothing be all that is needed; and I have little occasion for what you call plunder, unless it may be, now and then, to barter for a horn of powder, or a bar of lead.”
“You ar' not, then, of these parts by natur', friend,” the emigrant continued, having in his mind the exception which the other had taken to the very equivocal word, which he himself, according to the custom of the country, had used for “baggage,” or “effects.”
“I was born on the sea-shore, though most of my life has been passed in the woods.”
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