The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chanticleer, by Cornelius Mathews

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Title: Chanticleer A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family

Author: Cornelius Mathews

Release Date: April 11, 2008 [EBook #25045]

Language: English

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CHANTICLEER:

A

THANKSGIVING STORY

OF

THE PEABODY FAMILY.

SECOND EDITION.

  BOSTON: B. B. MUSSEY & CO.
  NEW-YORK: J. S. REDFIELD.
            1850.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850.

BY J. S. REDFIELD,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

Shall the glorious festival of Thanksgiving, now yearly celebrated all over the American Union, (said the author to himself one day,) be ushered in with no other trumpet than the proclamations of State-Governors? May we not have a little holiday-book of our own, in harmony with that cherished Anniversary, which, while it pleases your fellow-countrymen, should it have that good fortune, may acquaint distant strangers with the observance of that happy custom of our country? With the hope that it may be so received, and as a kindly word spoken to all classes and sections of his fellow citizens, awakening a feeling of union and fraternal friendship at this genial season, the writer presents this little volume of home characters and incidents.

November, 1850.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY.

CHAPTER II.

ARRIVAL OF THE MERCHANT AND HIS PEOPLE.

CHAPTER III.

THE FARMER-FOLKS FROM THE WEST.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY CONSIDERED.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHILDREN.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FASHIONABLE LADY AND HER SON.

CHAPTER VII.

THE THANKSGIVING SERMON.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DINNER.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NEW-COMERS.

CHAPTER X.

THE CONCLUSION.

CHAPTER FIRST.

THE LANDSCAPE OF THE STORY.

I see old Sylvester Peabody—the head of the Peabody family—seated in the porch of his country dwelling, like an ancient patriarch, in the calm of the morning. His broad-brimmed hat lies on the bench at his side, and his venerable white locks flow down his shoulders, which time in one hundred seasons of battle and sorrow, of harvest and drouth, of toil and death, in all his hardy wrestlings with old Sylvester, has not been able to bend. The old man's form is erect and tall, and lifting up his head to its height, he looks afar, down the country road which leads from his rural door, towards the city. He has kept his gaze in that direction for better than an hour, and a mist has gradually crept upon his vision; objects begin to lose their distinctness; they grow dim or soften away like ghosts or spirits; the whole landscape melts gently into a pictured dew before him. Is old Sylvester, who has kept it clear and bright so long, losing his sight at last, or is our common world, already changing under the old patriarch's pure regard, into that better, heavenly land?

It seemed indeed, on this very calm morning in November, as if angels were busy about the Old Homestead, (which lies on the map, in the heart of one of the early states of our dear American Union,) transforming all the old familiar things into something better and purer, and touching them gently with a music and radiance caught from the very sky itself. As in the innocence of beauty, shrouded in sleep, dreams come to the eyelids which are the realities of the day, with a strange loveliness—the fair country lay as it were in a delicious dreamy slumber. The trees did not stand forth boldly with every branch and leaf, but rather seemed gentle pictures of trees; the sheep-bells from the hills tinkled softly and as if whispering a secret to the wind; the birds sailed slowly to and fro on the air; there was no harshness in the low of the herds, no anger in the heat of the sun, not a sight nor a sound, near by nor far off, which did not partake of the holy beauty of the morning, nor sing, nor be silent, nor stand still, nor move, with any other than a gliding sweetness and repose, or an under-tone which might have been the echo here on earth, of a better sphere. There was a tender sadness and wonder in the face of old Sylvester, when a voice came stealing in upon the silence. It did not in a single tone disturb the heavenly harmony of the hour, for it was the voice of the orphan dependent of the house, Miriam Haven, whose dark-bright eye and graceful form glimmered, as though she were the spirit of all the softened beauty of the scene, from amid the broom-corn, where she was busy in one of the duties of the season. Well might she sing the song of lament, for her people had gone down far away in the sea, and her lover—where was he?

    Far away—far away are they,
      And I in all the world alone—
    Brightly, too brightly, shines the day—
      Dark is the land where they are gone!

    I have a friend that's far away,
      Unknown the clime that bears his tread;
    Perchance he walks in light to-day,
      He may be dead! he may be dead!

Like every other condition of the time, the voice of Miriam too, had a change in it.

"What wonder is this?" said old Sylvester, "I neither hear nor see as I used—are all my senses going?"

He turned, as he spoke, to a woman of small stature, in whose features dignity and tenderness mingled, as she now regarded him, with reverence for the ancient head of the house. She came forward as he addressed her, and laying her hand gently on his arm, said—

"You forget, father; this is the Indian summer, which is the first summer softened and soberer, and often comes at thanksgiving-time. It always changes the country, as you see it now."

"Child, child, you are right. I should have known it, for always at this season, often as it has come to me, do I think of the absent and the dead—of times and hours, and friends long, long passed away. Of those whom I have known," he continued eagerly, "who have fallen in battle, in the toil of the field, on the highway, on the waters, in silent chambers, by