The Chainbearer: or, The Littlepage Manuscripts. Cooper James Fenimore

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      The hut, or huts of Chainbearer, had far more comfort in and around them, than I was prepared to find. They were three in number, one having been erected as a kitchen, and a place to contain the male slaves; another for the special accommodation of Ursula and the female black; and the third to receive men. The eating-room was attached to the kitchen; and all these buildings, which had now stood the entire year, were constructed of logs, and were covered with bark. They were roughly made, as usual; but that appropriated to Dus was so much superior to the others in its arrangements, internal and external, as at once to denote the presence and the influence of woman. It may have some interest with the reader briefly to describe the place.

      Quite as a matter of course, a spring had been found, as the first consideration in "locating," as it is called by that portion of our people who get upon their conversational stilts. The spring burst out of the side of a declivity, the land stretching away for more than a mile from its foot, in an inclined plane that was densely covered with some of the noblest elms, beeches, maples, and black birches, I have ever seen. This spot, the Chainbearer early assured me, was the most valuable of all the lands of Mooseridge. He had selected it because it was central, and particularly clear from underbrush; besides having no stagnant water near it. In other respects, it was like any other point in that vast forest; being dark, shaded, and surrounded by the magnificence of a bountiful vegetation.

      Here Chainbearer had erected his hut, a low, solid structure of pine logs, that were picturesque in appearance, and not without their rude comforts, in their several ways. These buildings were irregularly placed, though the spring was in their control. The kitchen and eating-room were nearest the water; at no great distance from these was the habitation of the men; while the smaller structure, which Frank Malbone laughingly termed the "harem," stood a little apart, on a slight spur of land, but within fifty yards of Andries's own lodgings. Boards had been cut by hand, for the floors and doors of these huts, though no building but the "harem" had any window that was glazed. This last had two such windows, and Frank had even taken care to provide for his sister's dwelling rude but strong window shutters.

      As for defences against an enemy, they were no longer thought of within the limits of New York. Block-houses, and otherwise fortified dwellings, had been necessary so long as the French possessed Canada; but after the capture of that colony, few had deemed any such precautions called for, until the war of the revolution brought a savage foe once more among the frontier settlements; frontier, as to civilization, if not as to territory. With the termination of that war had ceased this, the latest demand for provisions of that nature; and the Chainbearer had not thought of using any care to meet the emergencies of violence, in "making his pitch."

      Nevertheless, each hut would have been a reasonably strong post, on an emergency; the logs being bullet-proof, and still remaining undecayed and compact. Palisades were not thought of now, nor was there any covered means of communicating between one hut and another. In a word, whatever there might be in the way of security in these structures, was the result of the solidity of their material, and of the fashion of building that was then, and is still customary everywhere in the forest. As against wild beasts there was entire protection, and other enemies were no longer dreaded. Around the huts there were no enclosures of any sort, nor any other cleared land, than a spot of about half an acre in extent, off of which had been cut the small pines that furnished the logs of which they were built. A few vegetables had been put into the ground at the most open point; but a fence being unnecessary, none had been built. As for the huts, they stood completely shaded by the forest, the pines having been cut on an eminence a hundred yards distant. This spot, however, small as it was, brought enough of the commoner sort of plants to furnish a frugal table.

      Such was the spot that was then known in all that region by the name of the "Chainbearer's Huts." This name has been retained and the huts are still standing, circumstances having rendered them memorable in my personal history, and caused me to direct their preservation, at least as long as I shall live. As the place had been inhabited a considerable time that spring and summer, it bore some of the other signs of the presence of man; but on the whole, its character as a residence was that of deep forest seclusion. In point of fact, it stood buried in the woods, distant fully fifteen miles from the nearest known habitation, and in so much removed from the comfort, succor, and outward communications of civilized life. These isolated abodes, however, are by no means uncommon in the State, even at the present hour; and it is probable that some of them will be found during the whole of this century. It is true, that the western, middle, southern, southwestern, northwestern and northeastern counties of New York, all of which were wild, or nearly so, at the time of which I am writing, are already well settled, or are fast filling up, but there is a high mountainous region, in middle-northern New York, which will remain virtually a wilderness, I should think, for quite a century, if not longer. I have travelled through this district of wilderness very lately, and have found it picturesque and well suited for the sportsman, abounding in deer, fish and forest birds, but not so much suited to the commoner wants of man, as to bring it very soon into demand for the ordinary purposes of the husbandman. If this quarter of the country do not fall into the hands of lawless squatters and plunderers of one sort and another, of which there is always some danger in a country of so great extent, it will become a very pleasant resort of the sportsman, who is likely soon to lose his haunts in the other quarters of the State.

      Jaap had brought over some horses of mine from the 'Nest as sumpter-beasts, and these being sent back for want of provender, the negro himself remained at the "Huts" as a general assistant, and as a sort of hunter. A Westchester negro is pretty certain to be a shot, especially if he happen to belong to the proprietor of a Neck; for there is no jealousy of trusting arms in the hands of our New York slaves. But Jaap having served, in a manner, was entitled to burn as much gunpowder as he pleased. By means of one of his warlike exploits, the old fellow had become possessed of a very capital fowling-piece, plunder obtained from some slain English officer, I always supposed; and this arm he invariably kept near his person, as a trophy of his own success. The shooting of Westchester, however and that of the forest, were very different branches of the same art. Jaap belonged to the school of the former, in which the pointer and the setter were used. The game was "put up," and "marked down," and the bird was invariably shot on the wing. My attention was early called to this distinction, by overhearing a conversation between the negro and the Indian, that took place within a few minutes after our arrival, and a portion of which I shall now proceed to relate.

      Jaap and Sureflint were, in point of fact, very old acquaintances, and fast friends. They had been actors in certain memorable scenes, on those very lands of Mooseridge, some time before my birth, and had often met and served as comrades during the last war. The known antipathy between the races of the red and black man did not exist as between them, though the negro regarded the Indian with some of that self-sufficiency which the domestic servant would be apt to entertain for a savage roamer of the forest; while the Onondago could not but look on my fellow as one of the freest of the free would naturally feel disposed to look on one who was content to live in bondage. These feelings were rather mitigated than extinguished by their friendship, and often made themselves manifest in the course of their daily communion with each other.

      A bag filled with squabs had been brought from the roost, and Jaap had emptied it of its contents on the ground near the kitchen, to commence the necessary operations of picking and cleaning, preparatory to handing the birds over to the cook. As for the Onondago, he took his seat near by on a log very coolly, a spectator of his companion's labors, but disdaining to enter in person on such woman's work, now that he was neither on a message nor on a war-path. Necessity alone could induce him to submit to any menial labor, nor do I believe he would have offered to assist, had he seen the fair hand of Dus herself plucking these pigeons. To him it would have been perfectly suitable that a "squaw" should СКАЧАТЬ