 Introduction to the Pioneers or the Sources of the Sasquahana, a descriptive tale by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Introduction As this work professes in its title page to be a descriptive tale, they who will take the trouble to read it may be glad to know how much of its contents is literal fact and how much is intended to represent a general picture. The author is very sensible that had he confined himself to the latter, always the most effective as it is the most valuable mode of conveying knowledge of this nature, he would have made a far better book. But in commencing to describe scenes, and perhaps he may add characters, that were so familiar to his own youth, there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known, rather than that which he might have imagined. This rigid adhesion to truth, an indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys the charm of fiction. For all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mind by the latter, had better be done by delineations of principles, and of characters in their classes, than by too fastidious attention to originals. New York having but one county of Otsego, and the Susquehanna but one proper source, there can be no mistake as to the sight of the tale. The history of this district of country, so far as it is concerned with civilized men, is soon told. Otsego, in common with most of the interior of the province of New York, was included in the county of Albany previously to the war of the separation. It then became, in a subsequent division of territory, a part of Montgomery, and finally having obtained a sufficient population of its own, it was set apart as a county by itself shortly after the peace of 1783. It lies among those low spurs of the Alleghenes, which cover the midland counties of New York, and is a little east of a meridional line drawn through the center of the state, as the water of New York flow either southerly into the Atlantic, or northerly into Ontario and its outlet, Otsego Lake being the source of the Susquehanna is of necessity among its highest lands. The face of the country, the climate as it is found by the whites, and the manners of the settlers are described with a minuteness for which the author has no other apology than the force of his own recollections. Otsego is said to be a word compounded of ought, a place of meaning, and sego, or saggo, the ordinary term of salutation used by the Indians of this region. There is a tradition which says that the neighboring tribes were accustomed to meet on the banks of the lake to make their treaties and otherwise to strengthen their alliances, and which refers the name to this practice. As the Indian agent of New York had a log dwelling at the foot of the lake, however, it is not impossible that the appellation grew out of the meetings that were held at his council fires. The war drove off the agent, in common with the other officers of the crown, and his rude dwelling was soon abandoned. The author remembers it a few years later, reduced to the humble office of a smokehouse. In 1779 an expedition was sent against the hostile Indians who dwelt about a hundred miles west of Otsego on the banks of the Cayuga. The whole country was then in wilderness, and was necessary to transport the baggage of the troops by means of the rivers, a devious but practicable route. One brigade ascended the Mohawk until it reached the point nearest to the sources of the Susquehanna. Once it cut a lane through the forest to the head of the Otsego, the boats and baggage were carried over this portage, and the troops proceeded to the other extremity of the lake, where they disembarked and encamped. The Susquehanna, a narrow though rapid stream at its source, was much filled with floodwood or fallen trees. And the troops adopted a novel expedient to facilitate their passage. The Otsego is about nine miles in length, varying in breadth from half a mile to a mile-and-a-half. The water is of great depth, limpid, and supplied from a thousand springs. At its foot the banks are rather less than thirty feet high, the remainder of its margin being in mountains, intervals, and points. The outlet, or the Susquehanna, flows through a gorge in the low banks just mentioned, which may have a width of two hundred feet. This gorge was dammed, and the waters of the lake collected. The Susquehanna was converted into a rill. When all was ready the troops embarked, the dam was knocked away, the Otsego poured out its torrent, and the boats went merrily down with the current. General James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton, then governor of New York, and the father of D. Witt Clinton, who died governor of the same state in 1827, commanded the brigade employed on this duty. During the stay of the troops at the foot of the Otsego, a soldier was shot for desertion. The grave of this unfortunate man was the first place of human internment that the author ever beheld, as the smokehouse was the first ruin. The swivel alluded to in this work was buried and abandoned by the troops on this occasion, and it was subsequently found in digging the cellars of the author's paternal residence. Even after the close of the war, Washington, accompanied by many distinguished men, visited the scene of this tale, it is said, with a view to examine the facilities for opening a communication by water with other points of the country. He stayed by a few hours. In 1785, the author's father, who had an interest in extensive tracts of land in this wilderness, arrived with a party of surveyors. The manner in which the scene met his eye is described by Judge Temple. At the commencement of the following year the settlement began, and from that time to this the country has continued to flourish. It is a singular feature of American life that at the beginning of this century, when the proprietor of the estate had occasion for settlers on the new settlement and in a remote county, he was enabled to draw them from among the increase of the former colony. Although the settlement of this part of Otsego, a little preceded the birth of the author, it was not sufficiently advanced to render it desirable that an event so important to himself should take place in the wilderness. Perhaps his mother had a reasonable distrust of the practice of Dr. Todd, who must then have been in the novitiate of his experimental requirements. Be that as it may, the author was brought an infant into this valley, and all his first impressions were here obtained. He has inhabited it ever since, at intervals, and he thinks he can answer for the faithfulness of the picture he has drawn. Otsego has now become one of the most populous districts of New York. It sends forth its immigrants, like any other old region, and it is pregnant with industry and enterprise. Its manufacturers are prosperous, and it is worthy of remark that one of the most ingenious machines known in European art is derived from the keen ingenuity which is exercised in this remote region. In order to prevent mistake, it may be well to say that the incidents of this tale are purely a fiction. The literal facts are chiefly connected with the natural and artificial objects and the customs of the inhabitants. Thus, the academy and the courthouse and jail and inn and most similar things are tolerably exact. They have all long since given place to other buildings of a more pretending character. There is also some liberty taken with the truth in the description of the principal dwelling. The real building had no firstly and lastly. It was a bricks and not a stone, and its roof exhibited none of the peculiar beauties of the composite order. It was erected in an age too primitive for that ambitious school of architecture. But the author indulged his recollections freely when he had fairly entered the door. Here all is literal, even to the severed arm of wolf and the urn which held the ashes of Queen Dito. Footnote. The forest still crowned the mountains of Itsego. The bear, the wolf, and the panther are nearly strangers to them. Even the innocent deer is rarely seen bounding beneath their arches, for the rifle and the activity of the settlers have driven them to other haunts. To this change, which in some particulars is melancholy to one who knew the country in its infancy, it may be added that the Itsego is beginning to be a nigger of its treasures. And footnote. The author has elsewhere said that the character of leather stocking is a creation, rendered probable by such exhilaries as were necessary to produce that effect. When he drawn still more upon fancy, the lovers of fiction would not have so much cause for their objections to his work. Still, the picture would not have been in the least true without some substitutes for most of the other personages. The great proprietor resident on his lands, and giving his name to instead of receiving it from his estates as in Europe, is common over the whole of New York. The physician, with his theory rather obtained from than corrected by experiments on the human constitution, the pious self-denying laborious and ill-paid missionary, the half-educated litigous, envious, and disreputable lawyer, with his counterpoise, a brother of the profession, of better origin, and of better character. The shiftless bargaining discontented seller of his betterments, the plausible carpenter, and most of the others are more familiar to all who have ever dwelt in a new country. It may be well to say here, a little more explicitly, that there was no real intention to describe with particular accuracy any real characters in this book. It has been often said, and in published statements, that the heroine of this book was drawn after the sister of the writer, who was killed by a fall from a horse, now near half a century since. So ingenious is conjecture that a personal resemblance has been discovered between the fictitious character and the deceased relative. It is as scarcely possible to describe two females of the same class in life, who would be less alike personally, than Elizabeth Temple and the sister of the author, who met with the deplorable fate mentioned. In a word, they are as unlike in this respect as in history, character, and fortunes. Circumstances rendered the sister singularly dear to the author. After laps of half a century, he is writing this paragraph with a pain which would induce him to cancel it, were it not still more painful, to have it believed that one whom he regarded with a reverence, that surpassed the love of a brother, was converted by him into the heroine of a work of fiction. From circumstances which, after this introduction, will be obvious to all, the author has had more pleasure in writing the pioneers, than the book will probably ever give any of its readers. He is quite aware of its numerous faults, some of which he has endeavored to repair in this edition, but as he has an intention at least done his full share of amusing the world, he trusts to its good nature for overlooking this attempt to please himself. End of introduction. This reading by Gary W. Sherwin of Yukon, Pennsylvania, in the Spring of 2008, Chapter 1 of The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna, a descriptive tale by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 1. See winter comes to rule the varied years, sullen and sad, with all his rising train, vapors and clouds and storms. Near the center of the state of New York lies an extensive district of country whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or to speak with greater difference to geographical definitions of mountains and valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise, and flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region, the numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys, until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers of the United States. The mountains are generally arable to the tops, although instances are not wanting where the sides are jutted with rocks that aid greatly in giving the country that romantic and picturesque character, which it so imminently possesses. The veils are narrow, rich and cultivated, with a stream uniformly winding through each. People in thriving villages are found interspersed among the margins of the small lakes, or situated at those points of the streams which are favorable for manufacturing. And neat and comfortable farms, with every indication of wealth about them, are scattered profusely through the veils, and even to the mountaintops. Roads diverge in every direction from the even and graceful bottoms of the valleys to the most rugged and intricate passes of the hills. Academies and minor edifices of learning meet the eye of the stranger at every few miles as he winds his way through this uneven territory, and places for the worship of God abound with that frequency which characterized a moral and reflecting people, and with that variety of exterior and canonical government which flows from unfettered liberty of conscience. In short, the whole district is hourly exhibiting how much can be done in even a rugged country with a severe climate under the dominion of mild laws, and where every man fills a direct interest in the prosperity of a commonwealth of which he knows himself to form a part. The expedience of the pioneers who first broke ground in the settlement of this country are seceded by the permanent improvements of the yeoman who intends to leave his remains to molder under the sod which he tills, or perhaps of the son who, born in the land, piously wishes to linger around the grave of his father. Only forty years have passed since this territory was a wilderness. Footnote, our tale begins in 1793, about seven years after the commencement of one of the earliest of those settlements which have conduced to affect that magical change in the power and condition of the state to which we have eluded. And footnote, very soon after the establish of the independence of the states by the piece of 1783 the enterprise of their citizens was directed to a development of the natural advantages of their widely extended dominions. Before the war of the revolution the inhabited parts of the colony of New York were limited to less than a tenth of its possessions. A narrow belt of country extending a short distance on either side of the Hudson with a similar occupation of 50 miles on the banks of the Mohawk, together with the islands of Nassau and Staten, and a few insulated settlements on chosen land along the margins of streams composed the country, which was then inhabited by less than 200,000 souls. Within the short period we have mentioned the population has spread itself over five degrees of latitude and seven of longitude and has swelled to a million and a half inhabitants who are maintained in abundance and can look forward to ages before the evil day must arrive when their possessions shall become unequal to their wants. It was near the setting of the sun on a clear cold day in December when a sleigh was moving slowly up one of the mountains in the district we have described. The day had been fine for the season and but two or three large clouds whose colors seemed brightened by the light reflected from the mass of snow that covered the earth floated in a sky of the purest blue. The road wound along the brow of a precipice and on one side was upheld by a foundation of logs piled one upon the other while a narrow excavation in the mountain in the opposite direction had made a passage of sufficient width for the ordinary traveling of that day. But logs, excavation, and everything that did not reach several feet above the earth lay alike buried beneath the snow. A single track barely wide enough to receive the sleigh denoted the route of the highway and this was sunk nearly two feet below the surrounding surface. Footnote, sleigh is the word used in every part of the United States to denote a trinneau. It is of local use in the west of England once it is most probably derived by the Americans. The ladder draw a distinction between a sled or sledge and a sleigh. The sleigh being shod with metal. Slays are also subdivided into two horse and one horse sleighs. Of the ladder there are the cutter with thill so arranged as to permit the horse to travel in the sidetrack. The pong or toe pong which is driven with a pole and the gumper a rude construction used for temporary purposes in the new countries. Many of the American sleighs are elegant though the use of this mode of conveyance is much lessened with the mealyeration of the climate consequent to the clearing of the forest and footnote. In a veil which lay at a distance of several hundred feet lower there was what in the language of the country was called a clearing and all the usual improvements of a new settlement. These even extended up the hill to the point where the road turned short and ran across the level land which lay on the summit of the mountain but the summit itself remained in the forest. There was glittering in the atmosphere as if it was filled with innumerable shining particles and the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered in many parts of their coat of whore frost. The vapor from their nostrils was seen to issue like smoke and every object in the view as well as every arrangement of the travelers denoted the depth of winter in the mountains. The harness which was of a deep dull black differing from the glossy varnishing of the present day was ornamented with enormous plates and buckles of brass that shone like gold in those transient beams of the sun which found their way obliquely through the tops of the trees. Huge saddles studded with nails and fitted with cloth that served as blankets to the shoulders of the cattle supported four high square top turrets through which the stout rains led from the mouths of the horses to the hands of the driver who was a negro of apparently twenty years of age. His face which nature had colored with a glistening black was now modeled with the cold and his large shining eyes filled with tears a tribute to its power that the keen frost of those regions always extracted from one of his African origin. Still there was a smiling expression of good humor in his happy countenance that was created by the thoughts of home and a Christmas fireside with its Christmas frolics. The sleigh was one of those large comfortable old-fashioned conveyances which would admit a whole family within its bosom but which now contained only two passengers besides the driver. The color of its outside was a modest green and that of its inside a fiery red. The latter was intended to convey the idea of heat in that cold climate. Large buffalo skins trimmed around the edges with red cloth cut into festoons covered the back of the sleigh and were spread over its bottom and drawn up around the feet of the travelers one of whom was a man of middle age and the other a female just entering into womanhood. The former was of large stature but the precautions he had taken to guard against the cold left but little of his person exposed to view. A great coat that was abundantly ornamented by a perfusion of furs and velled the whole of his figure accepting the head which was covered with a cap of martin skins lined with Morocco the sides of which were made to fall if necessary and were now drawn close over the ears and fastened beneath his chin with a black ribbon. The top of the cap was surmounted with the tail of the animal whose skin had furnished the rest of the materials which fell back not ungracefully a few inches behind the head. From beneath this mask were to be seen part of a fine manly face and particularly a pair of expressive large blue eyes that promised extraordinary intellect, covert humor and great benevolence. The form of his companion was literally hid beneath the garments she wore. There were furs and silks peeping from under a large camelot cloak with a thick flannel lining that by its cut in size was evidently intended for a masculine wearer. A huge hood of black silk that was quilted with down concealed the whole of her head except that a small opening in front for beneath through which occasionally sparked a pair of animated jet black eyes. Both the father and daughter for such was the connection between the two travelers were too much occupied with their reflections to break a stillness that derived little or no interruption from the easy gliding of the sleigh by the sound of their voices. The former was thinking of the wife that had held this their only child to her bosom when four years before she had reluctantly consented to relinquish the society of her daughter in order that the latter might enjoy the advantages of an education which the city of New York could only offer at that period. A few months afterward death had deprived him of the remaining companion of his solitude but still he had enough real regard for his child not to bring her into the comparative wilderness in which he dwelt until the full period had expired to which he had limited her juvenile labors. The reflections of the daughter were less melancholy and mingled with pleased astonishment at the novel scenery she met at every turn in the road. The mountain on which they were journeying was covered with pines that rose without a branch some 70 or 80 feet and which frequently doubled that height by the addition of the tops. Through the innumerable vistas that opened beneath the lofty trees the eye could penetrate until it was met by distant inequality in the ground or was stopped by a view of the summit of the mountain which lay on the opposite side of the valley to which they were hastening. The dark trunks of the trees rose from the pure white of the snow in regularly formed shafts until at a great height their branches shut forth horizontal limbs that were covered with the meager foliage of an evergreen affording a melancholy contrast to the torpor of nature below. To the travelers there seemed to be no wind but these pines wave majestically at their topmost bowels sending forth a dull plane of sound that was quite in consonance with the rest of the melancholy scene. The sleigh had glided for some distance along the even surface and the gaze of the female was bent in inquisitive and perhaps timid glances into the recesses of the forest when a loud and continued howling was heard peeling under the long arches of the woods like the cry of a numerous pack of hounds. The instant the sounds reached the ear of the gentleman he cried aloud to the black hold up Aggie there is old Hector I should know his bay among ten thousand the leather stocking has put his hounds into the hills this clear day and they have started their game there is a deer track a few rods ahead and now best if thou can't muster courage enough to stand fire I will give thee a saddle for thy Christmas dinner the black drew up with a cheerful grin upon his chilled features and began thrashing his arm together in order to restore the circulation of his fingers while the speaker stood erect and throwing aside his outer covering stepped from the sleigh upon a bank of snow which sustained his weight without yielding in a few moments the speaker succeeded in extricating a double-barrowed filing piece from among a multitude of trunks and band boxes after throwing aside the thick mittens which had encased his hands there now appeared a pair of leather gloves tipped with fur he examined his priming and was about to move forward when the light bounding noise of an animal plunging through the woods was heard and a fine buck darted into the path a short distance ahead of him the appearance of the animal was sudden and his flight inconceivably rapid but the traveler appeared to be too keen a sportsman to be disconcerted by either as it came first into view he raised the filing piece to his shoulder and with a practiced eye and steady hand drew the trigger the deer dashed forward undaunted and apparently unhurt without lowering his piece the traveler turned its muzzle toward his victim and fired again neither discharge however seemed to have taken effect the whole scene had passed with a rapidity the confused the female who was unconsciously rejoicing in the escape of the buck as he rather darted like a meteor than ran across the road when a sharp quick sound struck her ear quite different from the full round reports of her father's gun but still sufficiently distinct to be known as the concussion produced by firearms at the same instant that she heard this unexpected report the buck sprang from the snow to a great height in the air and directly a second discharge similar to the sound of the first followed when the animal came to the earth failing headlong and rolling all over on the crust with its own velocity a loud shout was given by the unseen marksman and a couple of men instantly appeared from behind the trunks of two of the pines where they had evidently placed themselves in expectation of the passage of the deer ah natty had I known you were an ambush I should not have fired cried the traveler moving toward the spot where the deer lay near to which he was followed by the delighted black with his sleigh but the sound of old Hector was too exhilarating to be quiet though I hardly think I struck him either no no judge returned the hunter with an inward chuckle and with that look of exaltation that indicates a consciousness of superior skill you burnt your powder only to warm your nose this cold evening did you think to stop a full grown buck with Hector and the slut open upon him within sound with that pop gun in your hand there's plenty of pheasants among the swamps and the snowboards are flying around your own door where you may feed them with crumbs and shoot them at pleasure any day but if you're for a buck or a little bear's beat judge you'll have to take the long rifle with a greased wadding or you'll waste more powder than you'll feel stomachs I'm thinking as the speaker concluded he drew his bare hand across the bottom of his nose and again opened his enormous mouth with a kind of inward laugh the gun scatters well and had he and it's killed a deer before now said the traveler smiling good humbly one barrel was charged with bug shot but the other was loaded for birds only here are two hurts one through the neck and the other directly through the heart it is by no means certain natty that I gave him one of the two let who will kill him said the hunter rather surly I suppose the creature is to be eaten so saying he drew a large knife from a leather and sheath which was stuck through his girdle or sash and cut the throat of the animal if there are two balls through the deer I would ask if there weren't two rifles fired besides whoever saw such a ragged hole from a smoothbore as this through the neck and you own yourself judge that the buck fell at the last shot which was sent from a truer and younger hand than your or mine either but for my part although I am a poor man I can live without the venison but I don't love to give up my lawful dues in a free country though for the matter of that might often makes right here as well as in the old country for what I can see an air of sullen dissatisfaction pervaded the manner of the hunter during the whole of his speech yet he thought it prudent to utter the close of the sentence in such an undertone as to leave nothing audible but the grumbling sounds of his voice name atty rejoined the traveler with undisturbed good humor it is for the honor that I contend a few dollars will pay for the venison but what will require me for the lost honor of the buck's tail in my cap think natty how I should triumph over that quisling dog dick jones who has failed seven times already this season and has only brought in one woodchuck and a few gray squirrels ah the game is becoming too hard to find indeed judge with your clearing's and betterment said the old hunter with a kind of compelled resignation the time was when I have shot thirteen deer without counting the fawns standing in the door of my own hut and for bears meat if one wanted a ham or so he had only to watch a night's and he could shoot one by moonlight through the cracks of the logs no fear of oversleeping himself either for the howling the wolves was certain to keep his eyes open there's old Hector panting with affection a paw hound of black and yellow spots with white belly and legs that just then came in on the scent accompanied by the slut he had mentioned see where the wolves bit his throat the night I drove them from the venison that was smoking on the chimney top that dog is more to be trusted than many a christian man for he never forgets a friend and loves the hand that gives him bread there was a peculiarity in the manner of the hunter that attracted the notice of the young female who had been a close and interested observer of his appearance and equipments from the moment he came into view he was tall and so meager as to make him seem above even the six feet that he actually stood in his stockings on his head which was thinly covered with like sandy hair he wore a cap made of fox skin resembling in shape the one we have already described although much inferior in finish and ornaments his face was skinny and thin almost to emaciation but yet it bore no signs of disease on the contrary it had every indication of the most robust and enduring health the cold and exposure had together given a colorful uniform red his gray eyes were glancing under a pair of shaggy brows that overhung them in long hairs of gray mingled with their natural hue his scraggie neck was bare and burnt to the same tint with his face although a small part of a shirt collar made of the country check was to be seen above the overdress he wore a kind of coat made of dressed deerskin with the hair on was belted close to his lank body by a girdle of colored worsted on his feet were deerskin moccasins ornamented with porcupine squills after the manner of the Indians and his limbs were guarded with long leggings of the same material as the moccasins which garnering above the knees of his tarnished buckskin breeches had obtained for him among the settlers the nickname of leather stocking over his left shoulder was slung a belt of deerskin from which depended an enormous oxhorn so thinly scraped as to discover the powder it contained the larger end was fitted ingeniously and securely with a wooden bottom and the other was stopped tight by a little plug a leather and pouch hung before him from which as he concluded his last speech he took a small measure and filling it accurately with powder he commenced reloading the rifle which as its butt rested on the snow before him reached nearly to the top of his fox skin cap the traveler had been closely examining the wounds during these movements and now without heating the ill humor of the hunter's manner he exclaimed i would feign establish a right maddie to the honor of this death and surely if the hit in the neck be mine it is enough for the shot in the heart was unnecessary what we call an act of supererogation leather stocking you may call it what lord had named you please judge said the hunter throwing his rifle across his left arm and knocking up a brass lid in the breach from which he took a small piece of greased leather and wrapping a bale in it forced them down by main strength on the powder where he continued to pound them while speaking it's far easier to call names than to shoot a buck on the spring but the creature came to his end from a younger hand than either you're in or mine as i said before what say you my friend cried the traveler turning pleasantly to natty's companion shall we toss up this dollar for the honor and you keep the silver if you lose let's say you friend that i killed the deer answered the young man with a little haughtiness as he leaned on another long rifle similar to that of natty here are two to one indeed replied the judge with a smile i am outvoted overruled as we say on the bench there is aggy he can't vote being a slave and best as a minor so i must even make the best of it but you'll send me the vettison and the deuces in it but i make a good story about its death this meat is not mine to sell said leather stocking adopting a little of his companions hotter for my part i've known animals travel for days with shots in the neck and i'm none of them who rob a man of his rightful dues you are tenacious of your rights this cold evening natty return the judge with unconquerable good nature but what say you young man will three dollars pay you for the buck first let us determine the question of right to the satisfaction of us both said the youth firmly but respectfully and with a pronunciation and language vastly superior to his appearance with how many shot did you load your gun with five sir said the judge a little struck with others manner are they not enough to slay a buck like this one would do it but moving to the tree from behind which he had appeared you know sir you fired in this direction here are four of the bullets in the tree the judge examined the fresh marks in the bark of the pine and shaking his head said with the laugh you're making out the case against yourself my young advocate where is the fifth here said the youth throwing aside the rough overcoat that he wore and exhibiting a hole in his undergarment through which large drops of blood were oozing good god exclaimed the judge with horror have i been trifling here about an empty distinction and a fellow creature suffering from my hands without a murmur but a haste and quick get into my sleigh it is but a mile to the village where surgical aid can be obtained all shall be done at my expense and thou shall live with me until my thy wound is healed i and forever afterward i thank you for your good intention but i must decline your offer i have a friend who would be uneasy where he do hear that i am hurt and away from him the injury is but slight and the bullet has missed the bones but i believe sir you will now admit me titled to the venison admit repeated they agitated judge i here give thee a right to shoot deer or bears or anything thou please us in my woods forever leather stalking is the only other man that i have granted the same privilege to and the time is coming when it will be of value but i buy your dear here this bill will pay thee both for thy shot and my own the old hunter gathered his tall person up into an air of pride during this dialogue but he waited until the other had done speaking there's them living who say that Nathaniel bumpo's right to shoot on these hills is of older date than marmaduke temple's right to forbid him he said but if there is a law about it at all though whoever heard all the law that a man shouldn't kill deer where he pleased but if there is a lot all it should keep people from this use of smoothbores a body never knows where his lead will fly when he pulls the trigger on one of them uncertain firearms without attending to the soliloquy of natty the youth bowed his head silently to the offer of the banknote and replied excuse me i have need of the venison but this will buy you many deer said the judge take it i entreat you and lowering his voice to a whisper he added it is for a hundred dollars for an instant only the youth seemed to hesitate and then blushing even through the high color that the cold had given his cheeks as if an idward shame at his own weakness he again declined the offer during this scene the female arose and regardless of the cold air she threw back the hood which concealed her features and now spoke with great earnestness surely surely young man sir you you would not pain my father so much as to have him think that he leaves a poor fellow creature in this wilderness whom his own hand has injured i entreat you we'll go with us and receive medical aid whether his wound became more painful or there was something irresistible in the voice and manner of the fair pleader for her father's feelings we know not but the distance of the young man's manner was sensibly softened by this appeal and he stood an apparent doubt as if reluctant to comply with and yet unwilling to refuse her request the judge for such being his office much in future be his title watched with no little interest the display of this singular contention in the feelings of the youth and advancing kindly took his hand as he pulled him gently toward the sleigh urged him to enter it there is no human aid nearer than Templeton he said and the hut of natty is full three miles from this come come my young friend go with us and let the new doctor look to the shoulder of thine here is natty we'll take the tidings of thy welfare to thy friend and should you thou required thou shall return home in the morning the young man succeeded in extricating his hand from the warm grasp of the judge but he continued to gaze on the face of the female who regardless of the cold was still standing with her fine features exposed which express feeling that eloquently seconded the request of her father leather stocking stood in the meantime leaning upon his long rifle with his head turned a little to one side as if engaged in sagacious musing when having apparently satisfied his doubts by revolving the subject in his mind he broke silence it may be best to go lad after all for if the shot hangs under the skin my hand is getting too old to be cutting into human flesh as i once used to though some 30 years ago in the old war when i was out under sir william i traveled 70 miles alone in the howling wilderness with a rifle bullet in my thigh and then cut it out with my own jackknife old indian john knows the time well i met him with a party of the delawares on the trail the irkoy who had been down and taken five scalps on the shahari but i made a mark on the red skin that i warned he'll carry to his grave i took him on the posterior saving the lady's presence as he got up from the ambushment and rattled three bug shots into his naked hide so close that you might have laid a broad jaw upon them all here natty stretched out his long neck and straightened his body as he opened his mouth which exposed a single tusk of yellow bone while his eyes his face even his whole frame seemed to laugh although no sound was emitted except that kind of thick hissing as he inhaled his breath in quavers i had lost my bullet mold in crossing united outlet and had to make shift with the buck shot but the rifle was true and didn't scatter like your two-legged thing here judge which don't do i find to hunt in company with natty's apology to the delicacy of the young lady was unnecessary for while he was speaking she was too much employed in helping her father to remove certain articles of baggage to hear him unable to resist the kind urgency of the travelers any longer the youth though still with an unaccountable reluctance suffered himself to be persuaded to enter the slay the black with the aid of his master threw the buck across the baggage and entering the vehicle themselves the judge invited the hunter to do so likewise no no said the old ron shaking his head i have worked to do at home this christmas eve drive on with the boy and let your doctor look to the shoulder though if he will only cut out the shot i have yerbs that will heal the wound quicker than all his foreign impments he turned and was about to move off when suddenly recollecting himself he again faced the party and added if you see anything of indian john about the foot of the lake you had better take him with you and let him lend the doctor a hand for old as he is he is curious at cuts and bruises and he is likelier than not he'll be in with brooms to sweep your christmas hearths stop stop cry the youth catching the arm of the black as he prepared to urge his horses forward natty you need to say nothing of the shot nor of where i am going remember natty as you love me trust old leather stocking returned the hunter significantly he hasn't lived 50 years in the wilderness and not learned from the savages how to hold his tongue trust me lad and remember old indian john and natty said the youth equally still holding the black by the arm i will just get the shot extracted and bring you up tonight a quarter of the buck for the christmas dinner he was interrupted by the hunter who held up his finger with an expressive gesture for silence he then moved softly along the margin of the road keeping his eyes steadfastly fixed on the branches of a pine when he obtained such a position as he wished he stood and caulking his rifle through one leg far behind him and stretching his left arm to its utmost extent along the barrel of his piece he began slowly to raise its muscle in a line with the straight trunk of the tree the eyes of the group in the slay naturally preceded the movement of the rifle and they soon discovered the object of natty's aim on a small dead branch of the pine which at the distance of 70 feet from the ground shot out horizontally immediately beneath the living members of the tree sat a bird that in the vulgar language of the country was indiscriminately called a pheasant or a partridge in size it was but little smaller than a common barnyard file the baying of the dogs and the conversation that had passed near the root of the tree on which it was perched had alarmed the bird which was now drawn up near the body of the pine with a head and neck so erect as to form nearly a straight line with its legs as soon as the rifle bore on the victim natty drew his trigger and the partridge fell from its height with a force that buried it in the snow lie down you old villain exclaimed leather stalking shaking his ramrod at hector as he bounded toward the foot of the tree lie down i say the dog obeyed and natty proceeded with great rapidity though with the nicest accuracy to reload his piece when this was ended he took up his game and showing it to the party without a head he cried here is a tidbit for the old man's christmas never mind the venison boy and remember indian john his yarbs are better than all the foreign impments here judge holding up the bird again do you think a smooth bore would pick game off of their roost and not ruffle a feather the old man gave another of his remarkable laughs which perturbed so largely of exaltation mirth and irony and shaking his head he turned with his rifle at a trail and moved into the forest with steps that were between a walk and a trot at each movement he made his body lowered several inches his knees yielding with an inclination inward but it is the sleigh turned at a bend in the road the youth cast his eyes in quest of his old companion and he saw that he was already nearly concealed by the trunks of the tree while his dogs were following quietly in his footsteps occasionally sending the deer track that they seemed to know instinctively was now of no further use to them another jerk was given to the sleigh and leather stocking was hid from view end of chapter one this reading by gary w sherwin of uconn pennsylvania in the spring of 2008 chapter two of the pioneers or the sources of the susquehanna a descriptive tale by james fenimore cooper this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox dot org chapter two quote all places that the eye of heaven visits are to a wise man ports and happy havens think not the king did banish thee but thou the king unquote from richard the second an ancestor of marmaduke temple had about 120 years before the commencement of our tale come to the colony of pennsylvania a friend and co-religionist of its great patron old marmaduke for this formidable prenum and was a kind of a pellet of to the race brought with him to that asylum of the persecuted an abundance of the good things of this life he became the master of many thousands of acres of uninhabited territory and the supporter of many a score of dependence he lived greatly respected for his piety and not a little distinguished as a secretary was entrusted by his associates with many important political stations and died just in time to escape the knowledge of his own poverty it was his lot to share the fortune of most of those who brought wealth with them into the new settlements of the middle colonies the consequence of an immigrant into these provinces was generally to be ascertained by the number of his white servants or dependents and the nature of the public situations that he held taking this rule as a guide the ancestor of our judge must have been a man of no little note it is however a subject of curious inquiry at the present day to look into the brief records of that early period and observe how regular and with few exceptions how inevitable were the gradations on one hand of the masters to poverty and on the other of their servants to wealth accustomed to ease and unequal to the struggles incident to an infant society the affluent immigrant was barely enabled to maintain his own rank by the weight of his personal superiority and acquirements but the moment that his head was laid in the grave his indolent and comparatively uneducated offspring were compelled to yield presidency to the more active energies of a class whose exertion had been stimulated by necessity this is a very common course of things even in the present state of the union but was peculiarly the fortunes of the two extremes of society in the peaceful and unenterprising colonies of pennsylvania and new jersey the posterity of marmaduke did not escape the common lot of those who depend rather on their hereditary possessions than on their own powers and in the third generation they had descended to a point below which in this happy country it is barely possible for honesty intellect and sobriety to fall the same pride of family that had by itself satisfied indolence conduced to aid their fail now became a principle to stimulate them to endeavor to rise again the feeling from being morbid was changed to a helpful and active desire to emulate the character the condition and per adventure the wealth of their ancestors also it was the father of our new acquaintance the judge who first began to reassent in the scale of society and in this undertaking he was not a little assisted by a marriage which aided in furnishing the means of educating his only son in a rather better manner than the low state of the common schools of pennsylvania could promise or that had been the practice in the family for the two or three preceding generations at the school where the reviving prosperity of his father was enabled to maintain him young marmaduke formed an intimacy with a youth whose years were about equal to his own this was a fortunate connection for our judge and paved the way for most of his future elevation in life there was not only great wealth but high court interest among the connections of edward effingham they were one of the few families then resident in the colonies who thought it a degradation to its members to descend to the pursuits of commerce and who never emerged from the privacy of domestic life unless to preside in the councils of the colony or to bear arms in her defense the latter had from youth been the only employment of edwards father military rank under the crown of britain was attained with much longer probation and by much more toilsome service 60 years ago than at the present time years were passed without murmuring in the subordinate grades of the service and those soldiers who were stationed in the colonies felt when they obtained the command of a company that they were entitled to receive the greatest deference from the peaceful occupants of the soil any one of our readers who has the occasion to cross the Niagara may easily observe not only the self importance but the real estimation enjoyed by the humblest representative of the crown even in that polar region of royal sunshine such and at no very distant period was the respect paid to the military in these states were now happily no symbol of war is ever seen unless at the free and tearless voice of their people when therefore the father of marmaduke's friend after 40 years service retired with a rank of major maintaining in his domestic establishment a comparative splendor he became a man of the first consideration in his native colony which was that of new york he had served with fidelity and courage and having been according to the custom of the provinces entrusted with commands much superior to those to which he was entitled by rank with reputation also when major effingham yielded to the claims of age he retired with dignity refusing his half pay or any other compensation for services that he felt he could no longer perform the ministry proffered various civil offices which yielded not only honor but profit but he declined them all with the chivalrous independence and loyalty that had marked his character through life the veteran soon caused the set of patriotic this interestedness to be followed by another of private magnificence that however little it had courted with prudence was in perfect conformity with the simple integrity of his own views the friend of marmaduke was his only child and to this son on his marriage with a lady to whom the father was particularly partial the major gave a complete conveyance of his whole estate consisting of money in the funds a town and country residents sundry valuable farms in the old parts of the colony and large tracts of wild land in the new in this manner throwing himself upon the final piety of his child for his own future maintenance major effingham in declining the liberal offers of the british ministry had subjected himself to the suspicion of having attained his dot each by all those who thrown the avenues to court patronage even in the remotest corners of that vast empire but when he thus voluntarily stripped himself of his great personal wealth the remainder of the community seemed instinctively to adopt the conclusion also that he had reached a second childhood this may explain the fact of his importance rapidly declining and if privacy was his object the veteran had soon a free indulgence of his wishes whatever views the world might entertain of this act of the major to himself and to his child it seemed no more than a natural gift by a father of whose immunities which he could no longer enjoy or improve to a son who was formed both by nature and education to do both the younger effingham did not object to the amount of the donation for he felt that while his parent reserved a moral control over his actions he was relieving himself of a fatiguing burden such indeed was the confidence existing between them that to neither did it seem anything more than removing money from one pocket to another one of the first acts of the young man on coming into possession of his wealth was to seek his early friend with a view to offer any assistance that it was now in his power to bestow the death of marmaduke's father and the consequent division of his small estate rendered such an offer extremely acceptable to the young pennsylvania he felt his own powers and saw not only the excellences but the foibles in the character of his friend effingham was by nature indolent confiding and at times impetuous and indiscreet but marmaduke was uniformly equable penetrating and full of activity and enterprise to the latter therefore the assistance or rather connection that was proffered to him seemed to produce a mutual advantage it was cheerfully accepted and the arrangement of its conditions was easily completed a mercantile house was established in the metropolis of pennsylvania with the avails of mr effingham's personal property all or nearly all of which was put into the possession of temple who was the only ostensible proprietor of the concern while in secret the other was entitled to an equal participation in the profits this connection was thus kept private for two reasons one of which in the freedom of their intercourse was frankly avowed to marmaduke while the other continued profoundly hid in the bosom of his friend the last was nothing more than pride to the descendant of a line of soldiers commerce even in that indirect manner seemed a degrading pursuit but an inseparable obstacle to the disclosure existed in the prejudices of his father we have already said that major effingham had served as a soldier with reputation on one occasion while in command of the western frontier of pennsylvania against the league of the french and indians not only his glory but the safety of himself and his troop were jeopardized by the peaceful policy of that colony to the soldier this was an unpardonable offense he was fighting in their defense he knew that the mild practices of this little nation of practical christians would be disregarded by their subtle and malignant enemies and he felt the injury the more deeply because he saw that the avowed object of the colonists in withholding their supers would only have a tendency to expose his command without preserving the peace the soldier succeeded after a desperate conflict in extricating himself with a handful of his men from their murderous enemy but he never forgave the people had exposed him to a danger which they left him to combat alone it was in vain to tell him that they had no agency in his being placed on their frontier at all it was evidently for their benefit that he had been so placed and it was their quote religious duty unquote so the major always expressed it it was their religious duty to have supported him at no time was the old soldier an admirer of the peaceful disciples of fox their disciplined habits both of mind and body had endowed them with great physical perfection and the eye of the veteran was apt to scan the fair proportions and athletic frames of the colonist with a look that seemed to utter volumes of contempt for their moral imbecility he was also a little addicted to the expression of a belief that where there was so great an observance of the externals of religion there could not be much of the substance it is not our task to explain what is or what ought to be the substance of christianity but merely to record in this place the opinions of major effingham knowing the sediments of the father in relation to this people it was no wonder that the son hesitated to avow his connection with nay even his dependency on the integrity of a quaker it had been said that marmaduke deduced his origin from the contemporaries and friends of pen his father had married without the pale of the church to which he belonged and had in this manner forfeited some of the privileges of his offspring still as young marmaduke was educated in a colony and society where even the ordinary intercourse between friends was tinctured with the aspect of this mild religion his habits and language were somewhat marked by its peculiarities his own marriage at a future day with a lady without not only the pale but the influence of this sect of religionist had a tendency it is true to weaken his early impressions still he retained them in some degree to the hour of his death and was observed uniformly when much interested or agitated to speak in the language of his youth but this is anticipating our tale when marmaduke first became the partner of young effingham he was quite the quaker in externals and it is not too dangerous an experiment for the son to think of encountering the prejudices of the father on this subject the connection therefore remained a profound secret to all those who were interested in it for a few years marmaduke directed the commercial operations of his house with a prudence and sagacity that afforded rich returns he married the lady we have mentioned who was the mother of elizabeth and the visits of his friends were becoming more frequent there was a speedy prospect of removing the veil from their intercourse as its advantages became each hour more apparent to mr effingham when the troubles that preceded the war of the revolution extended themselves to an alarming degree educated in the most dependent loyalty mr effingham had from the commencement of the disputes between the colonist and the crown warmly maintained that he believed to be the just prerogatives of his prince while on the other hand the clear head and independent mind of temple had induced him to espouse the cause of the people both might have been influenced by early impressions for the son of the loyal and gallant soldier bowed in implicit obedience to the will of his sovereign the descendant of the persecuted followers of pen looked back with little bitterness on the unmerited wrongs that had been heaped on his ancestors this difference in opinion had long been a subject of an amical dispute between them but laterally the contest was getting to be too important to admit of a trivial discussions on the part of marmaduke whose acute discernment was already catching faint glimmerings of the important events that were in embryo the sparks of dissension soon kindled into a blaze and the colonies or rather as they quickly declared themselves the states became a scene of strife and bloodshed for years a short time before the battle of lexington mr. effingham already a widower transmitted to marmaduke for safekeeping all his valuable effects and papers and left the colony without his father the war had however scarcely commenced in earnest when he had reappeared in new york wearing the livery of his king and in short time he took the field at the head of a provincial corps in the meantime marmaduke had completely committed himself in the cause as it was then called of the rebellion of course all intercourse between the friends ceased on the part of colonel effingham it was unsought and on that of marmaduke there was a cautious reserve it soon became necessary for the latter to abandon the capital of philadelphia but he had taken the precaution to remove the whole of his effects beyond the reach of the royal forces including papers of his friend also there he continued serving his country during the struggle in various civil capacities and always with dignity and usefulness while however he discharged his functions with credit and fidelity marmaduke never seemed to lose sight of his own interests for when the estates of the adherents of the crown fell under the hammer by the acts of confiscation he appeared in new york and became the purchaser of extensive possessions at comparatively low prices it is true that marmaduke by thus purchasing estates that had been wrestled by violence from others rendered himself obnoxious to the censures of that sect which at the same time that it discards its children from a full participation in the family union seems ever unwilling to abandon them entirely to the world but either his success or the frequency of the transgression in others soon wiped off this slight stain from his character and although there were a few who dissatisfied with their own fortunes or conscious of their own demerits would make dark hints concerning the sudden prosperity of them of the unportioned quaker yet his service and possibly his wealth soon drove the recollection of these vague conjectures from men's minds when the war ended and the independence of the states was acknowledged mr. temple turned his attention from the pursuit of commerce which was then fluctuating and uncertain to the settlement of those tracks of land which he had purchased aided by a good deal of money and directed by the suggestions of a strong and practical reason his enterprise drove to a degree that the climate and rugged face of the country which he selected would seem to forbid his property increased in a tenfold ratio and he was already ranked among the most wealthy and important of his countrymen to inherit this wealth he had but one child the daughter whom we have introduced to the reader and whom he was now conveying from school to preside over a household that had too long wanted a mistress when the district in which his estates lay had become sufficiently populous to be set off as a county mr. temple had according to the custom of the new settlements been selected to fill its highest judicial station this might make a Templar smile but in addition to the apology of necessity there is ever a dignity in talents and experience that is commonly sufficient in any station for the protection of its possessor and Marmaduke more fortunate in his native clearness of mind than the Judge of King Charles not only decided right but was generally able to give a very good reason for it at all times such was the universal practice of the country and the times and Judge Temple so far from ranking among the lowest of his judicial contemporaries in the courts of the new counties felt himself and was unanimously acknowledged to be among the first we shall hear close this brief explanation of the history and character of some of our personages leaving them in future to speak and act for themselves end of chapter two this reading by Gary W. Sherwin of Yukon Pennsylvania in the spring of 2008 chapter three of the pioneers or the sources of the Susquehanna a descriptive tale by James Fenimore Cooper this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org chapter three quote all that thou seest is nature's handiwork these rocks that upward throw their mossy brawl like castle pinnacles of elder times these venerable stems that slowly rock their towering branches in the wintry gale that field of frost which glitters in the sun mocking the whiteness of a marble breast yet man can mar such works with his rude taste like some sad spoiler of a virgin's fame unquote duo some little while elapsed air marmaduke temple was sufficiently recovered from his agitation to scan the person of his new companion he now observed that he was a youth of some two or three and twenty years of age and rather above the middle height further observation was prevented by the rough overcoat which was belted close to his form by a worsted sash much like the one worn by the old hunter the eyes of the judge after resting a moment on the figure of the stranger were raised to a scrutiny of his countenance there had been a look of care visible in the features of the youth when he first entered the slay that had not only attracted the notice of elizabeth but which she had been much puzzled to interpret his anxiety seemed the strongest when he was enjoying his old companion to secrecy and even when he had decided and was rather passively suffering himself to be conveyed to the village the expression of his eyes by no means indicated any great degree of self-satisfaction at the step but the lines of an uncommonly prepossessing countenance were gradually becoming composed and he now sat silent and apparently musing the judge gazed at him for some time with earnestness and then smiling as if at his own forgetfulness he said i believe my young friend that terror has driven you from my recollection your face is very familiar and yet for the honor of a score of bucks tails in my cap i could not tell your name i came into the country but three years since return the youth coldly and i understand you have been absent twice that time it will be five tomorrow yet your face is one that i have seen though it would not be strange such has been my fright should i see thee in thy winding sheet walking past my bed tonight what say is thou best am i composimentous or not fit to charge a grand jury or what is this now of more pressing necessity able to do the honors of christmas eve in the hall of templeton more able to do either my dear father said a playful voice from under the ample enclosures of the hood then to kill a deer with a smooth bore a short pause followed in the same voice but in a different accent continued we shall have good reasons for our thanksgiving tonight on more accounts than one the horses soon reached a point where they seemed to know by instinct that the journey was nearly ended and bearing on the bits as they tossed their heads they rapidly drew the slay over the level land which lay on top of the mountain and soon came to the point where the road descended suddenly but circuitously into the valley the judge was roused from his reflections when he saw the four columns of smoke which floated above his own chimneys as house village and valley burst on his site he exclaimed cheerfully to his daughter see best there's the arresting place for life and i'm too young man if you will consent to dwell with us the eyes of his auditors involuntarily met and if the color that gathered over the face of elizabeth was contradicted by the cold expression of her eye the ambiguous smile that again played about the lips of the stranger seem equally to deny the probability of his consenting to form one of this family group the scene was one however which might easily warm a heart less given to philanthropy than that of marmaduke temple the side of the mountain on which our travelers were journeying though not absolutely perpendicular was so steep as to render great care necessary in descending the rude and narrow path which in that early day wound along the precipices the negro reigned in his impatient steeds and time was given elizabeth to dwell on a scene which was so rapidly altering under the hands of man that it only resembled in its outlines the picture she had so often studied with delight in childhood immediately beneath them lay a seeming plane glittering without inequality and buried in mountains the latter were precipitous especially on the side of the plane and chiefly in forest here and there the hills fell away in long low points and broke the sameness of the outline or setting to the long and wide field of snow which without house tree fence or any other fixture resembled so much spotless clouds settled to the earth a few dark and moving spots were however visible on the even surface which the eye of elizabeth knew to be so many slays going there several ways to or from the village on the western border of the plane the mountains though equally high were less precipitous and as they receded opened into irregular valleys and glens or were formed into terraces and hollows that admitted of cultivation although the evergreen still held domain over many of the hills that rose on this side of the valley yet the undulating outlines of the distant mountains covered with forest of beach and maple gave a relief to the eye and the promise of a kinder soil occasionally spots of white were discoverable amidst the forest of the opposite hills which denounced by the smoke that curled over the tops of the trees the habitations of man and the commencement of agriculture these spots were sometimes by the aid of united labor enlarged into what were called settlements but more frequently were small and insulated though not so rapid were the changes and so persevering the labors of those who had cast their fortunes on the success of the enterprise that it was not difficult for the imagination of elizabeth to conceive they were enlarging under her eye while she was gazing in mute wonder at the alterations that a few short years had made in the aspect of the country the points on the western side of this remarkable plane on which no plant had taken root were both larger and more numerous than those on its eastern and one in particular thrust itself forward in such a manner as to form beautifully curved bays of snow on either side on its extreme end and oak stretch forward as if to oak for shadow with its branches a spot which its roots were forbidden to enter it had released itself from the faldron that a growth of centuries had imposed on the branches of the surrounding forest trees and through its gnarled and fantastic arms abroad in the wildness of liberty a dark spot of a few acres and extent at the southern extremity of this beautiful flat and immediately under the feet of our travelers alone showed by its rippling surface and vapors which excelled from it that what at first might seem a plane was one of the mountain lakes locked in frost of winter a narrow current rushed impetuously from its bosom at the open place we have mentioned and was to be traced for mile as it wound its way toward the south through the real valley by its borders of hemlock and pine and by the vapor which arose from its warmer surface into the chill atmosphere of the hills the banks of this lovely basin at its outlet or southern end were steep but not high and in that direction the land continued far as the eye could reach a narrow but graceful valley along which the settlers had scattered their humble habitations with a perfusion that bespoke the quality of the soil and the comparative facilities of intercourse immediately on the bank of the lake and at its foot stood the village of templeton it consisted of some 50 buildings including those of every description chiefly built of wood and which in their architecture were no great marks of taste but which also by the unfinished appearance of most of the dwellings indicated the hasty manner of their construction to the eye they presented a variety of colors a fewer white in both front and rear but more bore that expensive color on their fronts only while their economical but ambitious owners had covered the remaining sides of the edifices with a dingy red one or two were slowly assuming the russet of age while the uncovered beams that were to be seen through the broken windows of their second stories showed that either the taste or the vanity of their proprietors had led them to undertake a task which they were unable to accomplish the whole were grouped in a manner that ate the streets of a city and were evidently so arranged by the directions of one who looked to the ones of posterity rather than to the convenience of the present incumbents some three or four of the better sort of buildings in addition to the uniformity of the color were fitted with green blinds which at that season at least were rather strangely contrasted to the chill aspect of the lake the mountains the forest and the wide fields of snow before the doors of these pretending dwellings were placed a few saplings either without branches or possessing only the feeble shoots of one or two summers growth that looked not unlike tall grandeurs on posts near the threshold of princes in truth the occupants of these favored habitations were the nobles of templeton as marmaduke was its king they were the dwellings of two young men who were cunning in the law an equal number of that class who chafed to the ones of the community under the title of storekeepers and a disciple of vasculopias who for a novelty brought more subjects into the world than he sent out of it in the midst of this incongruous group of dwellings rose the mansion of the judge towering above all its neighbors it stood in the center of an enclosure of several acres which was covered with fruit trees some of the latter had been left by the indians and began already to assume the moss and inclination of age they're in performing a very market contrast to the infant plantations that peered over most of the picketed fences of the village in addition to this show of cultivation were two rows of young lombardi poppers a tree but lately introduced into america formally lining either side of a pathway which led from a gate that opened on the principal street to the front of the building the house itself had been built entirely under the superintendents of a certain mr. richard jones who we have already mentioned and who from his cleverness in small manners and an entire willingness to exert his talents added to the circumstances of their being sister's children ordinarily superintendent all the minor concerns of marmaduke temple richard was fond of saying that this child of invention consisted of nothing more nor less than what should form the groundwork of every clergyman's discourse visa firstly and lastly he had commenced his labor in the first year of their residence by erecting a tall gaunt edifice of wood with its gable toward the highway in this shelter for it was little more the family resided three years by the end of that period richard had completed his design he had availed himself in his heavy undertaking of the experience of a certain wandering eastern mechanic who by exhibiting a few soil plates of english architecture and talking learnedly of frisades and tablatures and particularly of the composite order had obtained a very undue influence over richard's taste in everything that pertain to that branch of the fine arts not that mr. jones did not affect to consider hirem do little a perfect empiric in his profession being the constant habit of listening to his treatises on architecture with a kind of indulgent smile yet either from an inability to oppose them by anything plausible from his own stores of learning or from secret admiration richard generally submitted to the arguments of his co-adjector together they had not only erected a dwelling for marmadude but they had given a fashion to the architecture of the whole country the composite order mr. do little would contend was an order composed of many others and was intended to be the most useful of all for it admitted into its construction such alterations as convenience or circumstances might require to this proposition richard usually assented and when rival geniuses who monopolize not only all the reputation but most of the money of a neighborhood are out of a mind it is not uncommon to see them lead the fashion even in grave matters in the present instance as we have already hinted the castle as judge temple to the dwelling was termed in common parlance came to be the model in some one or other of its numerous excellences for every aspiring edifice within 20 miles of it the house itself or the lastly was a stone large square and far from comfortable these were four requisites on which marmadude had insisted with a little more than his ordinary pernacity but everything else was peaceably assigned to richard and his associate these were these found the material a little too solid for the tools of their workmen which in general were employed on a substance no hotter than the white pine of the adjacent mountains a wood so proverbially soft that is commonly chosen by hundreds for pillows but for this awkward dilemma it is probable that the ambitious taste of our two architects would have left us more to do in the way of description driven from the faces of the house by the obduracy of the material they took refuge in the porch and on the roof the former it was decided should be severely classical and the latter a rare specimen of the merits of the composite order a roof richard contended was a part of the edifice which the ancients always endeavored to conceal it being an excrescence in architecture that was only to be tolerated on account of its usefulness besides as he wouldly added a chief merit in a dwelling was to present a front on whichever side it might happen to be seen for as it was exposed to all eyes in all weathers there should be no weak flank for envy or unneighborly criticism to a sale it was therefore decided that the roof should be flat and with four faces to this arrangement marmaduke objected the snows that lay for months frequently covering the earth to a depth of three or four feet happily the facilities of the composite order presented themselves to affect a compromise and the rafters were lengthened so as to give a descent that would carry off the frozen element but unluckily some mistake was made in the ad measurement of these material parts of the fabric and one of the greatest recommendations of harm was his ability to work by the square rule no opportunity was found of discovering the effect until the massive timbers were raised on the four walls of the building then indeed it was soon seen that in defiance of all rule the roof was but far the most conspicuous part of the whole edifice richard and his associate consoled themselves with the relief that the covering would aid in concealing this unnatural elevation but every single that was laid only multiplied objects to look at richard essayed to remedy the evil with paint and four different colors were laid on by his own hands the first was a sky blue in the vain expectation that the eye might be cheated into the belief it was the heavens themselves that hung so impossibly over marmaduke's dwelling the second was what he called a cloud color being nothing more or less than an imitation of smoke the third was what richard term an invisible green an experiment that did not succeed against a background of sky abandoning the attempt to conceal our architects drew from their invention for means to ornate the offensive shingles after much deliberation and two or three essays by moodlight richard ended the affair by boldly covering the whole beneath a color that he christened sunshine a cheap way as he assured his cousin the judge of always keeping fair weather over his head the platform as well as the caves of the house were surmounted by godly painted railings and the genius of hyrum was exerted in the fabrication of divers urns and moldings which were scattered profusely around this part of their labors richard had originally a cunning expedient by which the chimneys were intended to be so low and so situated as to resemble ornaments on the balustrades but comfort required that the chimneys should rise with the roof in order that smoke might be carried off and thus that became for extremely conspicuous objects in the view as this roof was much the most important architectural undertaking in which mr jones was ever engaged his failure produced a correspondent degree of mortification at first he whispered among his acquaintance that it preceded from ignorance of the square rule on the part of hyrum but as his eye became gradually accustomed to the object he grew better satisfied with his labors and instead of apologizing for the defects he commenced praising the beauties of the mansion house he soon found hears and as wealth and comfort are at all times attractive it was as has been said made a model for imitation on a small scale in less than two years from its erection he had the pleasure of standing on the elevated platform and of looking down on three humble imitators of its beauty thus it is ever with fashion which ever renders the faults of the great subjects of admiration marmaduke bore his deformity in his dwelling with great good nature and soon contrived by his own improvements to give an air of respectability and comfort to his place of residence still there was much of incongruity even immediately about the mansion house although poplars had been brought from europe to ornament the grounds and willows and other trees were gradually springing up nigh the dwelling yet many a power of snow betrayed the presence of the stump of a pine and even in one or two instances unsightly remnants of trees that had been partly destroyed by fire were seen rearing their black listening columns 20 or 30 feet above the pure white of the snow these which in the language of the country are termed stubs abounded in the open fields adjacent to the village and were accompanied occasionally by the ruin of a pine or a hemlock that had been stripped of its bark and which waved in melancholy grandeur its naked limbs to the blast a skeleton of its former glory but these and many other unpleasant additions to the view were unseen by the delighted elizabeth who as the horses moved down the side of the mountain saw only in gross the cluster of houses that lay like a map at her feet the 50 smokes that were curling from the valley to the clouds the frozen lake as it lay embedded in mountains of evergreen with the long shadows of the pine on its white surface lengthening in the setting sun the dark ribbon of water that gushed from the outlet and was winding its way toward the distant chesapeake the altered though still remembered scenes of her childhood five years had brought greater changes than a century would produce in countries where time and labor have given permanency to the works of man to our young hunter and the judge the scene had less novelty though none ever emerged from the dark forest of that mountain and witnessed the glorious scenery of that beautyous valley as it burst unexpectedly upon them without a feeling of delight the former cast one admiring glance from north to south and sank his face again beneath the folds of his coat while the ladder contemplated with philanthropic pleasure the prospect of affluence and comfort that was expanding around him the result of his own enterprise and much of it the fruits of his own industry the cheerful sound of sleigh bells however attracted the attention of the whole party as they came jingling up the sides of the mountain at a rate that announced a powerful team and a hard driver the bushes which lined the highway interrupted the view and the two slays were close upon each other before either was seen end of chapter three this reading by gary w of uconn pennsylvania in the spring of 2008