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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 23, 1936)
, PATTERNS OE1 WOLFPEN Harlan Haicker^ llluHratiorv/ ^ OJr»iiv?ly*r»-> < •, B.m.MrrrUI c» ■ W /V 1/ scnvct SYNOPSIS In the year 1785 Saul Pattern of Virginia came into the beautiful vir gin country of the Big Sandy valley In Kentucky. Chief of the perils were the Shawnees, who sought to hold their lands from the ever-encroach ing whites. From a huge pinnacle Saul gazed upon the fat bottoms and the endless acres of forest In Us pri meval quietude at the mouth of the Wolfpen, and felt an eagerness to possess It, declaring it a place tit for a man to LIVE in! Five years later he returned with Barton, his fifteen-year-old son, and built a rude cabin. In Saul's absence the In dians attacked Barton and wounded him so badly Saul was forced to re turn with him to Virginia. In 1796, when It was reasonably safe, Saul returned with his family and a pat ent for 4,000 acres, this time to stay. He added to the cabin, planted crops and fattened his stock on the rich meadows. Soon other settlers arrived. A century later, in the spring of 1885, we find Cynthia Pat tern, of the fifth generation follow ing S^iul, perched on the pinnacle from which her great-great-grand father had first viewed Wolfpen Bot toms. The valleys, heretofore un touched by the waves of change sweeping the Republic, are at last beginning to feel that restless surge. Her dad, Sparrel, and her brothers, Jesse, Jasper and Abral, have been busy converting the old water wheeled mill to steam power. CHAPTER I—Continued Now It was finally set up and ad- j Justed, this evening it would be set in motion, and Cynthia was there on the ledge, by the overhanging bushes, to witness the triumph of her father. She was near enough to hear the talk of the onlookers who knew that this mad contrap tion of Sparrel’s couldn’t possibly ^ work, and even if it did (which It wouldn’t) the meal wouldn't be so good. One group was particularly in terested In the boiler where Jesse and Abral were working. "Lie sure ain’t aimin’ to turn them big grist stones with that puny black lard kittle now you don’t reckon.” "Don’t look near big enough.” "Who ever heard of a feller work ing a mill with a kittle of b'ilin water?” f "it sure beats me how It could." "What do you fellers know about a steam-engine when you never saw one in your lives. 1 don't reckon,” Doug Mason said. Cynthia, recognizing Doug’s voice, liked him more because of the way he had spoken. She heard Sparrel laugh at their incredulity and watched 1dm go on with his work, inspecting the boiler as it began to exhaust little putfs of steam. Abral was putting more wood under the fire-box; the pale blue smoke curling over the mill was thinned into the air before it could reach the rock where Cynthia sat; hut the gentle bite of its smell came into her nose. She could feel light puffs of hot air on her face from the column set up from the boiler. Sparrel watched the steam gage while Jasper and Abral attached the belt. There was excitement in the crowd in the mill yard as the holler began to spank and sputter under the expansion. Then Sparrel tooted the whistle. Site saw It first as a puff of vapor which melted instantly into a sound which roared in her ears. All the horses, mules and oxen jumped and cavorted about One of the Darten hoys splashed ncross the creek to safety. The crowd moved hack from the mill. Sparrel was full of a great pride as he turned the steam into the cyl inder of his new engine, it hissed and spewed, the piston began to move; then the belt jerked, ttie new timbers creaked, the-old millstones began to whirl twenty revolutions faster than ever before; a monster from the outside had finally got in to the mountains. "Well, boys, there she Is," Spar rel shouted to the crowd which was now pressing about the mill and peeking through the doors and win dows. A stream of yellow meal slid down the chute into a sack. “Well, now, I’ll be dogged," the skeptical neighbor said. "Who’d ev er study up a contraption like that to turn a millstone with, anyhow?” “It runs all right, but it makes a sight of fuss about It," Cynthia said, and arose from the ledge , where she sat. "I guess I better get back now.” As she started clown the path, she looked across the bottom to the weathered stone slab at the head of old Grandfather Saul's grave on the Cranesnest Shelf, and she felt that something out of the old life had now to be buried with him. Down the winding contours of the path to the creek, through the peach orchard, over the Long Bottom, up Sheepfold Hollow a few paces, then along tbs path and she was at Cranesnest Shelf. There was for Cynthia something intimate and old about these place-names which had grown out of the very stud of her family’s life. What was spread about In the bot tom-land wus united In the small plot within the ruils on Cranesnest Shelf where lay at rest the earlier makers of the land. Cynthia leaned forward with her chin in her left hand and Iter eyes on Stack Bot tom. hut she was looking at nothing outside of herself. Site made worlds of Iter own and went there to live when site wished. For site was much alone, without being lonely. Jesse seemed nearer than her other two brothers, but ev en lie was a man. Both of her sis ters were gone. Lucy, the oldest of the family, was married years ago and lived over on the Sandy farm at the Pattern Landing; and Jen ny, who was next to Jasper, already hud two children and seemed miles away on the liorsepen Branch farm. But to Cynthia they were no far ther away now than before their marriage because they had always been of another generation front herself, the youngest of tlie ch'l dren, save Abrul. Grandfather Saul seemed as close to Iter as Lucy, per haps closer. For site could recreate him and Ids sons to please her own fancy; could dress him In his old buckskin breeches, handed down through the generations, which she would take from their peg In the wail by the staircase landing, stretching out their long legs as far as she could reach, swelling out her imagination until it brought to life a man seven feet tall, a whole foot iiigher than her own father, great enougli to wear those incredible breeches, and go tramping in long strides over all Dig Sandy, spying it out with sharp eyes, claiming a share of It for himself, planting a family on this particular spot. There was something vital about him which refused to perish. She had always thought of him as living there In a cabin instead of dead in a grave. She fell to thinking of his son, her Great-Grandfather Barton, with the knot in his neck, hollow ing out a poplar log to lay Saul's body in and imagining It being borne up to this Shelf which he had selected for himself, while the great shadow of the Binnacle continued leisurely to space off the hours on the sun-dial of the bottoms which had gone down the river Into the great world and brought back a steam-engine to make smoke and roar because the valley was filling up with people. “I reckon that’s Just what you’d do yourself though If you lived now instead of then; only it seems dif ferent somehow." Then she forgot the smoke of the mill to fancy in the ancient stillness the cloud puff and sharp report of Saul's long fllnt-like rifle which now hung above the fireplace on the ant lers of the first buck he had shot at the mouth of Wolfpen in 17!)G. That gun with its bullet-pouch and pow der-horn which lie had bought from Boone in the autumn of 1785 when they met at Bound Gap, made more human for Cynthia (tie Incorporeal Saul of the poplar log. She tried to imagine Daniel Boone and Saul Batteru sitting around a camp-fire trading stories of their adventures in the Big Sandy country when the Indian* still held it. Neur Saul’s grave but under small er markers, lay her Great-Grandfa ther Barton and her Grandfather Tlvls. They could hope to survive only as Saul’s son and grandson. She wondered what Barton was like behind the legend of his strength, if had really lifted those millstones and what he would think of the new engine. Barton's son Tlvls had built In the late 18‘JO's the central body of the Battern house. It stood there on a gentle rise a half-mile up the Wolfpen Bottom from this Shelf on the site chosen for It by Saul Bat tern under the shelter of a wrinkle in the hill. Julia was still out In her garden below the house. "It Is a good house for a body to live In. And I better he getting back to it Instead of just mooning about here among a lot of grave stones; for Mother will be going in now soon to start supper and the menfolk will be coming home hun gry and after while it will be dark again." The house Cynthia looked at with the feeling that it was time to re turn to it. stood in 1885 as a monu ment to all four generations of Wolfpen I’atterns. The sixteen-by twenty-foot log room which had been Saul's first home, was now the kitchen. Barton tiad fashioned the stone chimney with the wide log fireplace, and had wrought out on his own anvil the crane which still held the boiling pots. Tlvls built on the dining - room, the sitting room, the hallway and the up stairs sleeping-rooms. Three years he la bored to build his house, and, ex cept for the glass windows and the wrought-lron nails brought across the hills from Mount Sterling to Wolfpen on the backs of mules, all the materials came out of the place and were fashioned by hand. The poplar logs and the pine were felled in the hollow above the orchard. Her own father had carried on the tradition of his fathers. When, In 1858, he married the beautiful Julia Stratford from Scioto, lie made tier a wedding present of the weath erboarded wing, the weaving-room overlooking the garden which Cyn thia had left that afternoon, ami the two-story porch with the orna mental banisters across the front of the house, all done by hand on the Wolfpen property. When it was finished there was no better house in the ltlg Sandy Valley, outside of 1'lkeville or l'res tonsburg, and It established for the remainder of the century the archi tecture for that district. CHAPTER II THE half distinct mood of fore boding began to leave Cynthia as she went with easy movement down the steep path and up the hollow to the house. It was almost the same as it had always been In early spring, everything ulert with the feeling that the new year was coming again to these bottoms. A new mill that sprayed soot and smoke at the mouth of the creek would make no difference in the plowing and the planting that would soon join tills spring to all the oth ers that had passed over Wolfpen. Cynthia crossed the wood-lot In to the yard. Julia was still in tier garden behind Hie picket fence mov ing the ear til with her hoe. not working, luff enjoying the smell of the soil, planning her beds, feeling the approach of spring and reluc tant to go back into the house Cyn thia waved to tier. 'Then seeing the empty water pall on the bench by the kitchen floor, she carried it to the well hy the pear tree under the sheltering portico of the cellar house. She leaned over the well box to watch the bucket rise with the end of the pole und to hear the Jostled overflow splashing against tin* stories and echoing with a thin resonuuce as it fell back Into the well. Julia was hanging her eye hoe between two palings by the gate, and looking quietly over the bare ground that was nearly ready for Sparrel’s plow. Cynthia went on into tlie kitchen. A center of tire still smouldered nntong the gray wood ashes in the open fireplace. She put a shovelful of red flukes in to the stove and laid on some dry I "Mix That Up With Your Sour Milk and Soda, Julia.” wood. As the stove grew warm against the cool damp of the April evening, a sense of well - being spread over the kitchen which held in its walls the family Intimacies of the years. Cynthia liked this big room In the evenings and Its feel of having been long lived in. The cen ter of interest was Barton's fire place with the old clock on the shelf above It and the smooth worn hickory chairs gathered around It where the family sat In the eve ning. On the left of the mantel and behind the stove by the window was Sparrell's own corner; a desk and chair, a shelf of books, and the last and box of tools with which he cob bled shoes for the family. On the right of the mantel was Julia’s rock ing chair and work-basket. “I wonder what it Is about a kitchen that makes folks like to sit there Instead of In a regular sit ting-room?" She pushed the chairs from her path to the cupboard. “I reckon It’s because it smells so good where the bread bakes and there is always a warmth on a cool evening." She took down the wood en mixing bowl from the shelf above the table. “I’ll make the bread,” Julia said “You get the things out of the cellar.” Cynthia brought the sour milk from the cellar and went to the smoke-house for the meat. Coming hack with her hands full, she saw Sparrel entering the yard from the barn gate. "You’re early." she called. “Sup j per's Just started.” 1 “You're late. I've got a part of It right here." he said, holding np a white meal sack with blue stripes on It. "I can guess what It ts." Sparrel smiled at her the kindly recognition which seemed to begin out of sight and spread slowly Into the corners of his brown mustache and beard, lie went Into the kitch en, reaching both arms around Ji> Ua from behind and placing the sack on the table beside her. "Mix that up with your sour milk and soda, Julia. There's the first meal out of the first steam-mill In these hills.” Julia was pleased and proud and she showed It In her movements as she poured and mixed the meal while Sparrel and Cynthia looked on. Hut she only said, “The now mill pleased you right well, Sparrel?” "Just about like I figured. Now I can grind any time and 1 can rig up a saw and It’ll he bandy to rip out boards. It’ll be a big help on the place." "1 was wondering how » hit of steam can do things like that," Ju lia said. •TJI have to show you one day for It's not possible 10 tell you with just words.” Julia poured the yellow butter in to the deep skillet and put it Into the oven. Sparrel went out to the wash rock, while Cynthia aid the table, thinking of her lather and all the things lie did that distinguished him in her mind from the other men along the creek and how they always thought his ideas wouldn't work. There was the drying kiln with a fireplace under it so they could dry fruit In cloudy weather and not have to hurry sheetfuls of drying apples Into the house at the first sign of rain. "You’ll spile your fruit that way, Sparrel; takes sun to dry apples." Now most of them had kilns. When he built the tun ning vat, the hark shed, the lye pits, and used opossum oil to soft en the tine leather, they suld, "You’ll sure spile those hides. Spar rel. If you put 'em In that hole with that ground-up stuff." Now he tanned most of their hides in his vat. And when he built the hrlck plant down by the clay barrow, they said, "You can't ever make that kind of clay hold together. Sparrel." Now they got brick from his kiln to put in place of the old cats-nnd-clay chimneys. She heard the three brothers com ing in from tile barn to wash for supper. “Supper Is n nice time. The dusk of evening begins to crowd the day light out of the valley and force it up tlie mountains, bringing every body and everything from nround the place Into the spot where it's warm and the food is cooking." Cynthia was up and down during the meal, waiting on her father and the hoys with buttermilk and fresh hot corn bread while they talked of the big day at the mill, of the men who had come, of the [dans for the spring’s work in the fields: Abral still full of excitement, eating too fast; Jesse alert and Interposing humorous comment; Jasper re served and keeping silence; Spar rel In good spirits after his great success; Julia, still slender and beautiful with her smooth black hair parted In the middle and drawn hack above her fair skin, crumbling the fresl* corn bread into the stewed tomatoes and eating slow ly, watching over the table and listening to her men. “It made a real good run of meal, but I didn’t get a very good do on the corn bread," she said, after her manner; but the bread was beauti fully moist and flaky between the crisp brown crusts. “You never made a better pone of corn bread In your whole life, I reckon," Sparrel said. Julia was full of tier pride be cause he said it, even though she knew he was complimenting her no more than the mill. After supper while the boys were putting things in order for the night at the barn, and Julia was milking tier cow and tending to the crocks in the milk-house over the spring, Cynthia was gathering tile dishes and washing them in the Idg tin pan on the stove and Sparrel sat at ills desk in the corner stretching ids long legs aud writing in ills ledger. “lie always puts everything down in his books," Cynthia thought, wutchiug him having his pleasure at tiie end of the day. “April 10, 1885 — Erected first steam - mill. Wurm. Plenty of suu. Poplar Bot tom ready to plow." The best part of him seemed to her to belong In that corner under the shelf of hooks: the old brown Bible with the family uames in It; the complete files of the Franklin Almanac beginning with Number XX, 1838. 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