Littlepage Manuscripts: Satanstoe, The Chainbearer & The Redskins (Complete Edition). James Fenimore Cooper
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have got to be so much used to each other. Their characters are so identical, too, that they are more like brothers than very distant relatives.”
“Dey will like one anot’er all de petter for pein’ a little tifferent, den,” answered the Colonel, drily.
Dirck and I were no more alike than a horse resembles a mule.
“Ay, but Dirck is a lad who will do honour to an education—he is solid and thoughtful, and learning will not be thrown away on such a youth. Was he in England, that sedate lad might get to be a bishop.”
“I want no pishops in my family, Major Evans; nor do I want any great l’arnin’. None of us ever saw a college, and we have got on fery vell. I am a colonel and a memper; my fat’er was a colonel and a memper; and my grand-fet’er woult have peen a colonel and a memper, but dere vast no colonels and no mempers in his time; though Tirck, yonter can be a colonel and a memper, wit’out crosting dat terriple ferry that frightens Matam Littlepage so much.”
There was usually a little humour in all Col. Follock said and did, though it must be owned it was humour after a very Dutch model; Dutch-built fun, as Mr. Worden used to call it. Nevertheless, it was humour; and there was enough of Holland in all the junior generations of the Littlepages to enjoy it. My father understood him, and my mother did not hear the last of the “terriple ferry” until not only I, but the college itself, had quitted Newark; for the institution made another remove to Princeton, the place where it is now to be found, some time before I got my degree.
“You have got on very well without a college education, as all must admit, colonel,” answered Mr. Worden; “but there is no telling how much better you would have got on, had you been an A. M. You might, in the last case, have been a general and a member of the King’s council.”
“Dere ist no yeneral in ter colony, the commander-in-chief and His Majesty’s representatif excepted,” returned the colonel. “We are no Yankees, to make yenerals of ploughmen.”
Hereupon, the colonel and my father knocked the ashes out of their pipes at the same instant, and both laughed,—a merriment in which the parson, my grandfather, my dear mother, and I myself joined. Even a negro boy, who was about my own age, and whose name was Jacob, or Jaap, but who was commonly called Yaap, grinned at the remark, for he had a sovereign contempt for Yankee Land, and all it contained; almost as sovereign a contempt as that which Yankee Land entertained for York itself, and its Dutch population. Dirck was the only person present who looked grave; but Dirck was habitually as grave and sedate, as if he had been born to become a burgomaster.
“Quite right, Brom,” cried my father; “colonels are good enough for us; and when we do make a man that, even, we are a little particular about his being respectable and fit for the office. Nevertheless, learning will not hurt Corny, and to college he shall go, let you do as you please with Dirck. So that matter is settled, and no more need be said about it.”
And it was settled, and to college I did go, and that by the awful Powles’ Hook Ferry, in the bargain. Near as we lived to town, I paid my first visit to the island of Manhattan the day my father and myself started for Newark. I had an aunt, who lived in Queen Street, not a very great distance from the fort, and she had kindly invited me and my father to pass a day with her, on our way to New Jersey, which invitation had been accepted. In my youth, the world in general was not as much addicted to gadding about as it is now getting to be, and neither my grandfather nor my father ordinarily went to town, their calls to the legislature excepted, more than twice a year. My mother’s visits were still less frequent, although Mrs. Legge, my aunt, was her own sister. Mr. Legge was a lawyer of a good deal of reputation, but he was inclined to be in the opposition, or espoused the popular side in politics; and there could be no great cordiality between one of that frame of mind and our family. I remember we had not been in the house an hour, before a warm discussion took place between my uncle and my father, on the question of the right of the subject to canvass the acts of the government. We had left home immediately after an early breakfast, in order to reach town before dark; but a long detention at the Harlem Ferry, compelled us to dine in that village, and it was quite night before we stopped in Queen Street. My aunt ordered supper early, in order that we might get early to bed, to recover from our fatigue, and be ready for sight-seeing next day. We sat down to supper, therefore, in less than an hour after our arrival; and it was while we were at table that the discussion I have mentioned took place. It would seem that a party had been got up in town among the disloyal, and I might almost say, the disaffected, which claimed for the subject the right to know in what manner every shilling of the money raised by taxation was expended. This very obviously improper interference with matters that did not belong to them, on the part of the ruled, was resisted by the rulers, and that with energy; inasmuch as such inquiries and investigations would naturally lead to results that might bring authority into discredit, make the governed presuming and prying in their dispositions, and cause much derangement and inconvenience to the regular and salutary action of government. My father took the negative of the proposition, while my uncle maintained its affirmative. I well remember that my poor aunt looked uneasy, and tried to divert the discourse by exciting our curiosity on a new subject.
“Corny has been particularly lucky in having come to town just as he has, since we shall have a sort of gala-day, to-morrow, for the blacks and the children.”
I was not in the least offended at being thus associated with the negroes, for they mingled in most of the amusements of us young people; but I did not quite so well like to be ranked with the children, now I was fourteen, and on my way to college. Notwithstanding this, I did not fail to betray an interest in what was to come next, by my countenance. As for my father, he did not hesitate about asking an explanation.
“The news came in this morning, by a fast-sailing sloop, that the Patroon of Albany is on his way to New York, in his coach-and-four, and with two out-riders, and that he may be expected to reach town in the course of to-morrow. Several of my acquaintances have consented to let their children go out a little way into the country, to see him come in; and, as for the blacks, you know, it is just as well to give them permission to be of the party, as half of them would otherwise go without asking it.”
“This will be a capital opportunity to let Corny see a little of the world,” cried my father, “and I would not have him miss it on any account. Besides, it is useful to teach young people early, the profitable lesson of honouring their superiors and seniors.”
“In that sense it may do,” growled my uncle, who, though so much of a latitudinarian in his political opinions never failed to inculcate all useful and necessary maxims for private life; “the Patroon of Albany being one of the most respectable and affluent of all our gentry. I have no objections to Corny’s going to see that sight; and, I hope, my dear, you will let both Pompey and Caesar be of the party. It won’t hurt the fellows to see the manner in which the Patroon has his carriage kept and horses groomed.”
Pompey and Caesar were of the party, though the latter did not join us until Pompey had taken me all round the town, to see the principal sights; it being understood that the Patroon had slept at Kingsbridge, and would not be likely to reach town until near noon. New York was certainly not the place, in 1751, it is to-day; nevertheless, it was a large and important town, even when I went to college, containing not less than twelve thousand souls, blacks included. The Town Hall is a magnificent structure, standing at the head of Broad Street; and thither Pompey led me, even before my aunt had come down to breakfast. I could scarcely admire that fine edifice sufficiently; which, for size, architecture and position, has scarcely now an equal in all the colonies. It is true, that the town has much improved, within the last twenty years; but York was a noble place, even in the middle of this century! After breakfast, Pompey and I proceeded up Broadway, commencing near the fort, at the Bowling Green, and walking some distance beyond the head of Wall Street, or quite a quarter of a mile. Nor did the town stop here; though its principal extent is, or was then, along the margin of the East River. Trinity Church I could hardly admire enough either; for, it appeared to me, that it was large enough to contain all the church-people in the colony. 3 It was a venerable structure, which had then felt the heats of summer and the snows of winter on its roofs and walls, near