This Dame Grafton is strangely out of place here – fitter for a parlour bird, than a flight into the wilderness; and but that she cometh commended to us as a widow, a name that is a draft from the Lord upon every Christian heart, we might find it hard to brook her light and wordly ways. She raileth, and yet I think not with an evil mind, but rather ignorantly, at our most precious faith, and hath even ventured to read aloud from her book of Common Prayer – an offence that she hath been prevented from repeating by the somewhat profane jest of our son Everell; whose love of mischief, proceeding from the gay temper of youth, I trust you will overlook. It was a few nights ago, when a storm was raging, that the poor lady’s fears were greatly excited. My womanish apprehensions had a hard struggle with my duty, so terrific was the hideous howling of the wolves, mingling with the blasts that swept through the forest; but I stilled my beating heart with the thought, that my children leant on me, and I must not betray my weakness. But Dame Grafton was beside herself. At one moment she fancied we should be the prey of the wild beast, and at the next, that she heard the alarm yell of the savages. Everell brought her, her prayer book, and affecting a well-beseeming gravity, he begged her to look out the prayer for distressed women, in imminent danger of being scalped by North American Indians. The poor lady, distracted with terror, seized the book, and turned over leaf after leaf, Everell meanwhile affecting to aid her search. In vain I shook my head, reprovingly, at the boy – in vain I assured Mistress Grafton that I trusted we were in no danger; she was beyond the influence of reason; nothing allayed her fears, till chancing to catch a glance of Everell’s eye, she detected the lurking laughter, and rapping him soundly over the ears with her book, she left the room greatly enraged. I grieve to add, that Everell evinced small sorrow for his levity, though I admonished him thereupon. At the same time I thought it a fit occasion to commend the sagacity whereby he had detected the shortcomings of written prayers, and to express my hope, that unpromising as his beginnings are, he may prove a son of Jacob that shall wrestle and prevail.
I have something farther to say of Everell, who is, in the main, a most devoted son, and as I believe, an apt scholar; as his master telleth me that he readeth Latin like his mother tongue, and is well grounded in the Greek. The boy doth greatly affect the company of the Pequod girl, Magawisca. If, in his studies, he meets with any trait of heroism, (and with such, truly, her mind doth seem naturally to assimilate) he straightway calleth for her and rendereth it into English, in which she hath made such marvellous progress, that I am sometimes startled with the beautiful forms in which she clothes her simple thoughts. She, in her turn, doth take much delight in describing to him the customs of her people, and relating their traditionary tales, which are like pictures, captivating to a youthful imagination. He hath taught her to read, and reads to her Spenser’s rhymes, and many other books of the like kind; of which, I am sorry to say, Dame Grafton hath brought hither stores. I have not forbidden him to read them, well knowing that the appetite of youth is often whetted by denial; and fearing that the boy might be tempted, secretly, to evade my authority; and I would rather expose him to all the mischief of this unprofitable lore, than to tempt him to a deceit that might corrupt the sweet fountain of truth – the well-spring of all that is good and noble.
I have gone far from my subject. When my boy comes before my mind’s eye, I can see no other object. But to return. I have not been unmindful of my duty to the Indian girl, but have endeavoured to instil into her mind the first principles of our religion, as contained in Mr Cotton’s Catechism, and elsewhere. But, alas! to these her eye is shut and her ear is closed, not only with that blindness and deafness common to the natural man, but she entertaineth an aversion, which has the fixedness of principle, and doth continually remind me of Hannibal’s hatred to Rome, and is like that inwrought with her filial piety. I have, in vain, attempted to subdue her to the drudgery of domestic service, and make her take part with Jennet; but as hopefully might you yoke a deer with an ox. It is not that she lacks obedience to me – so far as it seems she can command her duty, she is ever complying; but it appeareth impossible to her to clip the wings of her soaring thoughts, and keep them down to household matters.
I have, sometimes, marvelled at the providence of God, in bestowing on this child of the forest, such rare gifts of mind, and other and outward beauties. Her voice hath a natural deep and most sweet melody in it, far beyond any stringed instrument. She hath too, (think not that I, like Everell, am, as Jennet saith, a charmed bird to her) she hath, though yet a child in years, that in her mien that doth bring to mind the lofty Judith, and the gracious Esther. When I once said this to Everell, he replied, “Oh, mother! is she not more like the gentle and tender Ruth?” To him she may be, and therefore it is, that innocent and safe as the intercourse of these children now is, it is for thee to decide whether it be not most wise to remove the maiden from our dwelling. Two young plants that have sprung up in close neighbourhood, may be separated while young; but if disjoined after their fibres are all intertwined, one, or perchance both, may perish.
Think not that this anxiety springs from the mistaken fancy of a woman, that love is the natural channel for all the purposes, and thoughts, and hopes, and feelings of human life. Neither think, I beseech thee, that doting with a foolish fondness upon my noble boy, I magnify into importance whatsoever concerneth him. No – my heart yearneth towards this poor heathen orphan girl; and when I see her, in his absence, starting at every sound, and her restless eye turning an asking glance at every opening of the door; every movement betokening a disquieted spirit, and then the sweet contentment that stealeth over her face when he appeareth; – oh, my honoured husband! all my woman’s nature feeleth for her – not for any present evil, but for what may betide.
Having commended this subject to thy better wisdom, I will leave caring for it to speak to thee of others of thy household. Your three little girls are thriving mightily, and as to the baby, you will not be ashamed to own him; though you will not recognise, in the bouncing boy that plays bo-peep and creeps quite over the room, the little creature who had scarcely opened his eyes on the world, when you went away. He is by far the largest child I ever had, and the most knowing; he has cut his front upper teeth, and sheweth signs of two more. He is surprisingly fond of Oneco, and clappeth his hands with joy whenever he sees him. Indeed, the boy is a favourite with all the young ones, and greatly aideth me by continually pleasuring them. He is far different from his sister – gay and volatile, giving scarcely one thought to the past, and not one care to the future. His sister often taketh him apart to discourse with him, and sometimes doth produce a cast of seriousness over his countenance, but at the next presented object, it vanisheth as speedily as a shadow before a sunbeam. He hath commended himself greatly to the favour of Dame Grafton, by his devotion to her little favourite: a spoiled child is she, and it seemeth a pity that the name of Faith was given to her, since her shrinking timid character doth not promise, in any manner, to resemble that most potent of the Christian graces. Oneco hath always some charm to lure her waywardness. He bringeth home the treasures of the woods to please her – berries, and wild flowers, and the beautiful plumage of birds that are brought down by his unerring aim. Everell hath much advantage from the woodcraft of Oneco: the two boys daily enrich our table, which, in truth, hath need of such helps, with the spoils of the air and water.
I am grieved to tell thee that some misrule hath crept in among thy servants in thy absence. Alas, what are sheep without their shepherd! Digby is, as ever, faithful – not serving with eye-service; but Hutton hath consorted much with some evildoers, who have been violating the law of God and the law of our land, by meeting together in merry companies, playing cards, dancing, and the like. For these offences, they were brought before Mr Pynchon, and sentenced to receive, each, “twenty stripes well laid on.” Hutton furthermore, having been overtaken with drink, was condemned to wear suspended around his neck for one month, a bit of wood on which Toper is legibly written: – and Darby, who is ever a dawdler, having gone, last Saturday, with the cart to the village, dilly-dallied about there, and did not set out on his return till the sun was quite down, both to the eye and by the calender. Accordingly, early on the following Monday, he was summoned before Mr Pynchon,