|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 9
Benjamin Younker was a man about fifty-five years of age--tall,
raw-boned and very muscular--and although now past the prime, even the
meridian of life, was still possessed of uncommon strength. His form,
never handsome, even in youth, was now disfigured by a stoop in the
shoulders, caused by hard labor and rheumatism. His face corresponded
with his body--being long and thin, with hollow cheeks, and high cheek
bones,--his eyes were small and gray, with heavy eye-brows; his nose
long and pointed; his mouth large and homely, though expressive; and his
forehead medium, surmounted by a sprinkling of brown-gray hair. In
speech he was deliberate, generally pointed, and seldom spoke when not
absolutely necessary. He was a good farmer--such being his occupation; a
keen hunter, whenever he chose to amuse himself in that way; a sure
marksman; and, although ignorant in book learning, possessed a sound
judgment, and a common-sense understanding on all subjects of general
utility. He was a native of Eastern Virginia, where the greater portion
of his life had been spent in hunting and agricultural pursuits--where
he was married and had been blessed with two children--a son and a
daughter--of whom the former only was now living, and has already been
introduced to the reader as Isaac--and whence, at the instance of his
wife and son, he removed, in the spring of 1779, into the borders of
Kentucky--finally purchased and settled where he now resided; and where,
although somewhat exposed, he and his family had thus far remained
unmolested.
The dame, Mrs. Younker, was a large, corpulent woman of forty-five, with
features rather coarse and masculine, yet expressive of shrewdness and
courage, and, withal, a goodly share of benevolence. She was one of that
peculiar class of females, who, if there is any thing to be said, always
claim the privilege of saying it; in other words, an inveterate talker;
and who, if we may be allowed the phrase, managed her husband, and all
around her, with the length of her tongue. In the country where she was
brought up and known, to say of another, that he or she could compete
with Ben Younker's wife in talking, was considered the extreme of
comparison; and it is not recorded that any individual ever presumed on
the credulity of the public sufficient to assert that the vocal powers
of the said Mrs. Younker were ever surpassed. Unlike most great talkers,
she was rarely heard to speak ill of any, and then only such as were
really deserving of censure; while her rough kind of piety--if we may so
term it--and her genuine goodness of heart, known to all with whom she
came in contact, served to procure her a long list of friends. She
possessed, as the reader has doubtless judged from the specimen we have
given, little or no education; but this deficiency, in her eyes, as well
as in most of those who lived on the frontiers, was of minor
consequence--the knowledge of hunting, farming, spinning and weaving,
being considered by far the more necessary qualifications for
discharging the social duties of life.
Of Isaac, with whom the reader is already, acquainted, we shall not now
speak, other than to say, he could barely read and write--rather
preferring that he develop his character in his own peculiar way. But
there is another, and though last, we trust will not prove least in
point of interest to the reader, with whom we shall close, this
episodical history--namely--Ella Barnwell.
The mother of Ella--a half sister to the elder-Younker--died when she
was very young, leaving her to the care of a kind and indulgent father,
who, having no other child, lavished on her his whole affections. At the
demise of his wife, Barnwell was a prosperous, if not wealthy merchant,
in one of the eastern cities of Virginia; and knowing the instability of
wealth, together with his desire to fit his daughter for any station in
society, he spared no expense necessary to educate her in all the
different branches of English usually studied by a female. To this was
added drawing, needle-work, music and dancing; and as Ella proved by no
means a backward scholar in whatever she undertook, she was, at the age
of fifteen, to use a familiar phrase, turned out an accomplished young
lady. But alas! she had been qualified for a station which fate seemed
determined not to let her occupy; for just at this important period of
her life, her father became involved in an unfortunate speculation, that
ended in ruin, dishonor, and his own bodily confinement in prison for
debts he could never discharge. Naturally high spirited and proud, this
misfortune and persecution proved too much for his philosophy--and what
was more, his reason--and in a state of mental derangement, he one night
hung himself to the bars of his prison window--leaving his daughter at
the age we have named, a poor, unprotected, we might almost add
friendless, orphan; for moneyless and friendless are too often
synonymous terms, as poor Ella soon learned to her mortification and
sorrow.
Ella Barnwell, the young, the beautiful, and accomplished heiress,
was a very different personage from poor Ella Barnwell the bankrupt's
daughter; and those who had fawned upon and flattered and courted the
one, now saw proper to pass the other by in silent contempt. It was a
hard, a very hard lesson for one at the tender age of Ella, who had been
petted and pampered all her life, and taught by her own simplicity of
heart to look upon all pretenders as real friends--it was a hard lesson,
we say, for one of her years, to be forced at one bold stroke to learn
the world, and see her happy, artless dreams vanish like froth from the
foaming cup; but if hard, it was salutary--at least with her; and
instead of blasting in the bud, as it might have done a frailer flower,
it set her reason to work, destroyed the romantic sentimentalism usually
attached to females of that excitable age, taught her to rely more upon
herself, and less upon others, more upon actions and less upon words,
and, in short, made a strong minded woman of her at once. Yet this was
not accomplished without many a heart-rending pang, as the briny tears
of chagrin, disappointment, and almost hopeless destitution, that
nightly chased each other down the pale cheeks of Ella Barnwell to the
pillow which supported her feverish head, for weeks, and even months
after the death of her father, could well attest.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|