[Sam P. Davis, Pine Nutmegs and Bass-wood Hams, from Short Stories (1886)]

 

Pine Nutmegs and Bass-wood Hams.

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            Pride for one's country is one of the commonest weaknesses of the human heart ; and where can a man be met who does not glory in the fact that he was born exactly where he was, and inwardly despise everybody born anywhere else? State pride is the crowning weakness of an American, and this feeling is carried to such an extent that I have known people to boast of having been born in Missouri. I had the excellent fortune to first see the light of day in Connecticut ; which, combined with the reflection that the rapidity of traveling facilities thirty-three years ago enabled me to escape coming into existence in Rhode Island, has always been a source of pride and self-congratulation. These crude recollections of old Connecticut, seen as through a glass darkly, will, I am sure, be dear to every reader of the Argonaut—who has expended ten cents for a copy of the paper. My first recollection of the country and its people was a row with my honest ancestors. My father looked upon me in the light of a growing nuisance, and time fully demonstrated the correctness of his surmises. That the family might be spared the humiliation and inconvenience of bringing me up, I was apprenticed to a farmer for one year. I was not foisted upon the agriculturist as one would effect the sale of an incorrigible horse—with his faults kept carefully in

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the background. On the contrary, my candid and truthful sire threw my failings, weaknesses, and vices to the fore, as if he was letting me out to the devil, instead of turning me over to a staid and respectable tiller of the soil in a country noted more for the steady habits of its inhabitants than the size of its corn crop. I still call to mind the dialogue :

            " Can he work steady?"

            " Can do nothing but fish."

            " Early riser ?"

            " Would never get up at all if he didn't feel hungry."

            " Truthful?"

            " I never caught him in a lie. He lies faster than I can follow him up."

            Somewhat to my astonishment, the farmer accepted me bodily. And it was with him that I learned what I know about the agricultural, educational, and manufacturing resources of Connecticut. He was a thrifty, industrious man with a large family, and earned a good living, raising corn and manufacturing pine nutmegs and bass-wood hams. It was with him that I learned my trade. He made me begin at the rudiments, and initiated me step by step into the mysteries of his craft. I was roused up at four o'clock in the morning, and, after milking a dozen or two of cows, was asked to shoulder an axe and follow the farmer to the forest, the old farmer walking at least a quarter of a mile ahead, so that the snakes which he disturbed just about realized that there was an occasion for a row by the time I neared them. When we reached the bass-wood trees, he would remark:

            " This is the sort of wood for hams—soft, easy to work, and a clear grain."

            Here I learned to fell trees and dodge them when they

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crashed to the ground, and soon became such an expert with the axe that I ceased altogether to chop my toes off. This fact increased my enthusiasm. The forest was about two miles from the house, and the logs were drawn home by a yoke of plodding oxen. It generally required two days for the transit of the logs, and when they reached the old farm we had the raw material for our hams.

            The wood was cut into blocks about eighteen inches long, and the old farmer—who was something of a draughtsman—marked the outlines of the ham. I soon began to throw considerable enthusiasm into the work, and there was hardly an hour in the day that I was not shaping the graceful proportions of a ham for the Western market. The whole family worked at the sculpturing of the home productions, and I call to mind now how, as the honest old farmer read the family prayers in a deep, devotional voice, we sat about the cheery hearthstone, whittling the swelling necks of the hams, and drinking in the inspirations of the gospel, with its wealth of sacred wisdom and comforting truths of revelation.

            After the hams were reduced to the proper proportions, a place was cut out, into which a good-sized rock was inserted. This gave them weight. They were then encased with a canvas covering, which was duly painted yellow, and lettered as follows :

PRIME HOME-CURED HAMS. XXX WARRANTED.

            The word " warranted " had a dozen vague meanings to me, but I finally settled upon the conclusion that it meant, " warranted all bass-wood." The three X's on the trade-mark always reminded me of the saw-bucks through which the hams passed in their transitory stages

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from their native forests to the tables of their Western consumers.

            The sale of these hams was effected with peculiar tact. A genuine hog-born ham, cured in the highest style of the art, and invoiced at an astonishingly low price, was sent to some Western house as a sample, accompanied by a letter, which read something as follows:

NEWTOWN, CONN., April 1.

MESSRS. JONES & SMITH.--GENTLEMEN: I send you by to-day's freight a sample of our celebrated home-cured hams, which I sell at wholesale at two and one-half cents per pound, cash on delivery, as I am closing out my business preparatory to taking a trip to Europe. If the sample gives satisfaction, you can send your order by return mail. Yours,

JOHN NETTLETON.

            The order craved came in due form, and the hams were consigned. Of course, one shipment of this kind was all that any mercantile establishment could reasonably be expected to stand, while the firm which was bitten always preferred to say as little as possible about the matter, and if they got half a chance would palm the goods off on some other house. Nettleton's home-cured hams soon achieved a national reputation without the least advertising on his part, and I flatter myself to this day that the way in which they worked their way into public favor was due to no inconsiderable extent to my patience, taste, and skillful handiwork in the different stages of their manufacture.

            The nutmegs were generally made by him, and in their formation the three daughters of the old man displayed wonderful aptitude. After being made they were soaked in spiced-water, and few people west of New England could tell them from the genuine article. All the

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talk about wooden oats being made in Connecticut I hold to be a foul libel upon the industries of the State. The story that shoe-pegs were utilized by making both ends sharp has no foundation in fact. In refutation of this slander I have but to remark that shoe-pegs brought a higher price than oats all over Yankee land thirty years ago. Need I say more ?

            Let no one imagine that the farmer's time was wholly taken up with manufacture. Although he took a vast deal of pride in his hams, as did we all, he did not shrink from the tribulations and active responsibilities of agriculture. We conquered the soil by sheer force of determination and muscle. It was somewhat rocky—in fact, more rocks than soil, and the rocks on top. We blended mining with agriculture, and drilled holes in the rocks, where we planted our corn. I held the drill, and every time the old sledge-hammer made its half-circle in the air I expected one of my hands, or perchance a leg, would be smashed to pieces. Of course this was nearly thirty years ago, before the Burleigh or Ingersoll drills had been introduced, to lighten the farmer's labors, widen his field of industry, and revolutionize the profession of agriculture in the Nutmeg State. We were obliged to blast the corn out in the fall, and when the harvest was ripe, the dull boom of the giant-powder cartridge, mingled with the clatter of falling fragments of rock, proclaimed to the passing traveler the energy and industry of the sturdy Yankee farmer. These fragments of rock were carefully collected and made into stone walls, the stone supply being practically inexhaustible. Potatoes were often planted in real soil, which was found in patches here and there on the rocks. Potatoes required much care, and had to be watched as well as corn. Often by falling

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asleep alongside of a potato-hill I have caused the loss of the entire crop, and nearly thrown my employer into bankruptcy. Still it was not much of a task to save the potato crop, if proper care and vigilance were used ; and the same might be said of the corn. Two boys with shotguns could keep the crows and potato-bugs from a dozen stalks of corn and as many hills of potatoes with but little trouble. Good, active men, with reliable weapons, could do double the work if they were adepts at wing-shooting. Dr. Carver was the man for that country. I was seldom allowed to guard a corn-field, as I never had the nerve to shoot until the crows had settled, and then I brought down more corn than crow. If the farmer raised enough corn to make a gallon of whisky he felt that his labors had not been in vain. The farmer I lived with was always happy on account of the annual crop failure. It gave him a wholesome excuse for repudiating his honest debts.

            But I have other recollections of the old Nutmeg State which can, under no possible sort of circumstances, be wholly effaced. Here I first learned about girls and catfish, spending considerable time studying the habits and peculiarities of both. There was a big pond not far from the farm—a weird old sheet of water which lay in the hollow of four hills. The streams which centered in it passed through swamps, where they took a color from the red roots of a tree, the name of which I have forgotten. It was only a mile long, and half as wide, yet to me it was an immense deal of water ; and when I was unable to find it on the map of Connecticut, I lost all confidence in the geographies. In the day-time it looked like rich wine, but in the night its silent surface was as black as ebony, and its reflections intensified the sombreness of the dark

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woods which lined its shores. Sometimes the storms would stir the deposits of the lower depths, and the water, thickening up with a stronger red, would seem a vast pool of blood. This gave it the name of Bloody Pond—an appellation which made the spot particularly attractive to the boys of the neighborhood. After these storms I gave myself credit for considerable courage in visiting the place after sunset. When night crept over it, the ghastly slopes of the hills and sky gathered on the surface, grotesque, distorted and horrible. At unexpected intervals the brutal croak of the bull-frog would insult the stillness, and its echoes would incite the owl to compose a melancholy symphony to the moon, not yet up. Occasionally, the pent-up vegetable gases at the bottom of the pond would escape and cause a commotion on the surface of the water, which I always imagined to be the corpse of some murdered man rising with important evidence for the coroner's jury. It was not these nocturnal noises that made the night so savage and terrible, but the dreadful intervals which followed them.

            The pond furnished the motive power for an old mill, and the miller's daughter was the motive power which caused me to take such an interest in fishing excursions. In the sultry afternoons and the still summer nights we angled for catfish. We soon found a nook where a log projected out over the rocks, just clear of the water. Above was a canopy of tangled vines and sugar maples. By day the maples glowed with gorgeous color-harmonies of red and gold, and in the night the leaves clashed softly together, while the forest behind us was filled with the indistinguishable murmurings and breathings which seem to come from nothing, and yet are everywhere. It was then that the air

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was laden with the soul-enslaving fragrance of the wild grapes, which hung in clusters above us, and made us drunk with a mental intoxication. As we sat on the log one pole was enough for both. Our bare legs—hers so white and symmetrical, mine so brown and clumsy—hung partly immersed in the water as a protection from the mosquitoes. Thus we sat for hours in the subdued haze of the moonlight. I held the pole—and the girl. There was no watch-pocket in those homespun trowsers, hauled over a cotton shirt with one suspender, and time was not measured. Sometimes a fish would be on the hook for ten minutes before we would discover it, and the agony of the fish at one end of the pole, and the sweet tranquillity of the pair at the other, afforded what might be called a strong contrast. Often we sat on that log until the moon sank behind the hills, and the frogs bellowed their "good-night" to it. After these protracted angling delights, I was always warmly received at home by the parental slipper.

            One day I was allowed to take a trip to New York with my uncle. I was so excited at the idea that I neglected to bid the miller's daughter good-bye ; and when I returned, two week's later, I strolled down to the pond to renew our old associations. I saw the nook where we had passed so many happy hours, and peered through the foliage to see if the girl was there. She was. The hues of the yellow sunset were imprisoned in her hair, and the blood-red waters kissed her feet as before. Alongside her, however, sat a sandy-haired boy, who drove cows for a rival farmer, and was a notorious robber of hen-roosts.

            No more fish for me. I didn't care a cent for the girl's wanting somebody to angle with, but her execrable

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taste was what bothered me. It cut deeper still to reflect that this youngster once whipped me in a fair fight.

__________

            Ten years later I passed the same spot on horseback. The same dark and mysterious pond was there, for those old sheets of water in New England are ever changeless. But the old mill was a mossy ruin. The wheel over which the waters had once danced and splashed so musically, had not revolved for years, and its mighty frame-work was coated with a slimy green. Pausing to contemplate the not unfamiliar picture of the sunlight fading away from the surface of the red pond, I wondered if the big boss frog of the place would send forth his bestial croak to the sun when its under edge dropped below the horizon. It was close on to the time, and I had but a few minutes to wait. As I half expected, he was there ; and as the sun sank from sight, he sent forth his hoarse farewell. The same echoes as of old penetrated the motionless woods, and the same antiquated owl made melancholy reply. Having completed his astronomical labors, the frog betook himself to bed with a " kerchug," that, as he struck the water, sounded natural as ever. As for his parting croak, I would have recognized it among a thousand.