Master Treadwell
WHIST still has its lovers and chess its admirers, but does anybody play backgammon now, I wonder ? or has that fine aristocratic old game, like ombre and quadrille, become a thing of the past, played only by the shades of our grandfathers and grandmothers ? In my time, — in the days of candles, comfort, and woodfires,— backgammon was very fashionable, and was thought by fine ladies and line gentlemen to be a more elegant as well as a more pleasant kill-time than checkers or draughts. The nabobs of Richport even preferred it to whist itself. These “ nabobs ” were a number of mahogany-faced shipmasters of much wealth and prodigious self-importance. They lived in big houses in the polite and genteel world of “ India Square.” They drank the best old port, and dined on the fattest beef and the juiciest mutton. They went bravely garbed in the finest broadcloth, and their wives and daughters rustled in the richest silks. Aboard ship these grim and grizzled monarchs of the quarter-deck were as brisk as the breeze and as restless as the sea ; but on shore they were the idlest and most useless men outside of an almshouse or a custom-house. Had it not been for backgammon, they would have died of the spleen or ennui ere their ships were ready for new voyages. Doctor Johnson said that a tavern chair was preferable to a throne. Addison liked Button’s humble coffee-house better than magnificent Holland House. And the nabobs of “India Square” preferred Plummer Wedgwood’s shop to their own handsome parlors and comfortable sitting-rooms ; and when at home from sea they passed most of their time in that favorite loafing-place, enveloped in tobacco-smoke, telling Munchausen-like stories, and playing backgammon.
Plummer Wedgwood, although he stood behind a counter, and weighed out sugar, tea, and spices, was a gentleman. He never insulted his customers — as the little-souled, twopenny grocer of the present day does — by hanging up in his store such foolish and offensive placards as these: “No SMOKING,” “ TERMS CASH,” “ No ROOM FOR LOAFERS.” Though not a smoker himself, he was no enemy of the “great plant.” In fact, he rather liked the smell of burning tobacco, and loved to see his friends enjoying their cigars. As for giving credit,—that was his weakness. He trusted everybody. He was proud of having the names of so many of his townspeople in his books. And although he dealt mostly with those who could pay and who did pay, he had quite a fortune owing him when he gave up business. During the last month or two of his life, when you will say he had better have been reading his Bible and weaning himself from the world, Plummer Wedgwood whiled away many an hour in looking over his old day-books and ledgers. The pages which he examined with the most pleasure and satisfaction were not those whereon were written in his beautiful business hand the aristocratic names of Hough and Dale and Trask, but those which contained the unsettled accounts of the widows, superannuated sailors, etc., whom he had supplied with many of the necessaries of life, knowing at the time that there was not the least probability of his ever being paid. The amount of those unsettled accounts, O noble Wedgwood ! let us hope was placed upon the credit side of thy page in the great ledger above.
And loafers ! Plummer Wedgwood loved them, and gave up his back shop to them. This back shop had two large sunny windows that looked upon the busy wharves and the beautiful harbor. Its walls were covered with faded, quaint old house-paper, on which were depicted beasts and birds unknown to natural history. In truth, it was a pleasant, comfortable, goodsized room, once the kitchen of Madam Whittemore; there was the very oven in which madam’s bread and beans were baked a half-century ago, and the deep, roomy closet in which she kept her
Even after Captain Ben Northwood (who used to play backgammon at sea with his cabin-boys) lost his sight, he made his accustomed visits to Wedgwood’s grocery-store. If he could not play backgammon, he could listen to the congenial conversation which was always carried on there, and gladden his heart by the dear familiar sound of the shaking dice. It was both a pitiful and a pleasant sight to see cherry-lipped Fanny Adams escorting her blind, blithe old grandfather to Plummer Wedgwood’s door. How fondly the little maid clung to grandpapa’s arm, and how merrily she chattered all the way ! Fanny prospered in life, let me parenthetically inform the reader, and is now a comely elderly lady, with I know not how many loving grandsons and granddaughters.
Rich and grouty Captain Edward Currier (vulgarly called Ned Kyer), who married the beautiful West-Indian heiress, used to ride in his coach to this resort of the backgammon-players of Richport. At about ten of the clock in the forenoon during the summer solstice (the Captain passed his winters in Havana), his elegant plain carriage, drawn by two fine coal-black steeds, would drive grandly up in front of Wedgwood’s shop. The bowing, smiling, white-aproned grocer would help the purse-proud loafer to alight, and then conduct him very politely to the back shop, where he was warmly welcomed by the backgammon-players.
These mighty men of the sea pretended that anybody, rich or poor, captain of a fine ship or skipper of a little contemptible fishing-smack, who could tell a good story, laugh at a good joke, and play backgammon, was welcome to a seat in Plummer Wedgwood’s back shop. There was, however, great commotion among the frequenters of Madam Whittemore’s ancient kitchen, when, one winterly night, rusty little Mr. Crafts, the fishmonger, walked into the room and took a seat at the table. He was an excellent backgammon-player, and had long desired to try his skill with the great players of Richport, and so informed one of his aristocratic customers, who jestingly said he had better go to Wedgwood’s, and let them see what he could do. At this intrusion of the commonality in the person of Mr. Crafts the dice ceased to rattle and the noisy tongues were silent. For a moment or two the company were paralyzed with amazement, and did nothing but stare at the bold intruder, who was evidently considerably surprised at the sensation he had made. He soon took a very unceremonious leave, and whenever thereafter he had occasion to pass Plummer Wedgwood’s shop, he went upon the opposite side of the street.
If these proud and haughty loafers would have nothing to say to the poor fishmonger, they petted and made much of Harbord, the sexton. But Harbord wore a broadcloth coat and had a fashionable wife. He was a politer man than the parson, and could bow nearly as elegantly as the dancingmaster himself. Madam Currier said she had no doubt of his being a gentleman in heaven, —he was almost one on earth. With what an air he would usher a fine lady up the aisle to her pew ! and how gracefully he would trip up the pulpit stairs to hand a note to the clergyman! He was a favorite with the ladies, and always had a bit of fresh gossip or a welcome compliment for them. And—perhaps this was the crowning merit of the man — he dug such beautiful, genteel-looking graves that, as Miss Nancy Pearson once observed, one would never want to leave them to go wandering idly about at night, frightening good people and setting the dogs a howling. Harbord had a deal of leisure time, especially during the healthy season of the year, and passed most of it at Plummer Wedgwood’s. He was an admirable listener, and had a very appreciative smile. With the exception of Master Treadwell, the sexton was perhaps the best backgammon-player in Richport.
This Treadwell was a character, and deserves to be painted in brighter and fresher colors than I have upon my palette. He was the only son of a poor clergyman, who obscurely but contentedly passed the best and ripest years of his life in preaching to a few farmers and mechanics in a little town among the hills of New Hampshire. Besides the consolations of the Gospel and the pious pleasures of his holy calling, this good priest had one worldly delight, one earthly solace, — backgammon, — which he sometimes played with the lawyer and sometimes with one of his own deacons. Do you object to a divine playing backgammon ? It is true that in France the clergy were once forbidden to play chess; and it is equally true that in England they were not permitted to partake of the dessert at dinner. But do you believe it sinful or improper for your pastor to eat a slice of plum-pudding or a piece of mincepie ? Swift called backgammon an ecclesiastical game, and said that a clergyman could play it conscientiously. The great and good Luther used to pass an hour or two after dinner at the backgammon-table. But Parson Treadwell soon had a new player to cope with, — his own son, his darling Jotham, who at the age of nine years (the precocious youth !) actually gammoned his father. From that day forth great things were expected of thee, Jotham Treadwell. It was said — by the envious parents of dull and loutish sons, no doubt — that the minister was so constantly engaged in playing backgammon with his boy, that he found no time to write his sermons, and had to stand up in the pulpit on Sunday and preach old well-remembered discourses. O poor little congregation of Christian worshippers, longing for new truth, hungry for the fresh bread of life, did your good shepherd weary you with stale morality ? Did he feed you with old musty crumbs of theology, the fragments and remains of former repasts ?
When young Treadwell got appointed teacher of the winter term of the district school, his delighted parents believed that the days of their son’s greatness and glory were rapidly approaching, if they had not actually arrived. Undoubtedly Jotham might, like his predecessor, have taught this school till old age had compelled him to lay down the pedagogue’s potent sceptre, the ferrule, had not the meddlesome new committee discovered that he preferred giving his scholars lessons in backgammon to teaching them reading, writing, and arithmetic. And as these men thought that their sons and daughters could better dispense with a knowledge of the art and practice of backgammon-playing than remain ignorant of the multiplication-table and the rule of three, Master Treadwell soon had a successor. laugh at her primitive manners and old-fashioned ways. Through the influence of Captain Godbold, Treadwell was appointed teacher of the Somes School ; but the pupils were so wild and unruly he could do nothing with them, and he begged the committee to choose his successor. Almost immediately after giving up the school Master Treadwell was elected tax-collector, in place of superannuated Mr. Pew. Nowadays, except in little obscure country towns, the collector sits in his office and takes the people’s money. But in Master Treadwell’s time your tax-collector went from house to house after the taxes, and at many of them he had to call again and again and yet again before he got the cash. Of all knocks at the door, from the bang of the well-remembered beggar to the loud, impatient thump of the Yankee Autolycus, the too-well-known rap of the tax-collector was the most unpleasant. From rich and from poor did these “ ink-horn varlets ” receive an uncourteous greeting. Peter Pounce groaned and growled and swore while he reluctantly counted out the amount of his tax ; and Hodge grudgingly and grumblingly paid the trifle (no trifle to him) which the collector demanded. Poor Mr. Pew ! they say he was a wellfleshed man ere the unkind fates made him a tax-collector ; when he resigned the office he was a mere bundle of skin and bones. For years he bore bravely the scoffs and rebuffs of the fierce and fiery Captain John Godbold, who swore he was always outrageously overtaxed. But the stout-hearted collector quailed and cowered before the terrible tonguebatteries of Madam Vinson. Mrs. Vinson was a proud, handsome, high-tempered old woman, the wealthy widow of a Richport shipmaster. She was a mammon-worshipper, and counted her gold (of which she kept a goodly supply in the house) as devoutly as a good Catholic tells her beads. Most people love the spring, and hail its return with delight. But Madam Vinson hated this vernal season of the year, and grew cross and uneasy when she saw the grass growing green in her sunny front yard. For with the birds and flowers of spring came the assessors. They and the tax-collector were the torments of her life. All the winter through she dreaded the advent of the assessors in the spring ; and after their unwelcome visit was over, she began to hoard up her anger against the arrival of the tax-collector in the autumn.
One morning, a few days after the loss of his pedagogic honors and emoluments, Jotham astonished his parents by saying that he was going out into the world to seek his fortune.
“Fortune,” said his father, “is an arrant coquette, who oftentimes confers her favors upon those who follow not in her train.”
“ Why go among strangers ? ” pleaded the good mother. “ Why leave home and friends ? Be patient, and abide the Lord’s time ; we all shall be rich when the French claims are paid.”
Ah ! how many indigent gentlefolks, the sons, daughters, and widows of ruined sea-captains and bankrupt merchants, lived on from day to day, from year to year, in happy expectation of the immediate settlement of the French claims !
Notwithstanding his parents’ gentle protestations, Jotham left the place of his “ kindly engendure,” and set out upon his expedition in search of that glittering bawble, wealth. At his departure his mother gave him her blessing and a bottle of opodeldoc. His father enriched him with temporal and spiritual advice, and, as a solace for his lonely, idle hours, presented him with six of his longest doctrinal sermons. But silver and gold he had none to give him. Jotham, however, was not an impecunious traveller. He was one of those “close hunks,” who, when they get hold of a dollar, keep it till death or dire necessity compels them to part with it. He had stowed away in some safe and secret pocket every cent of his school-keeping money, and nearly all of the money he had earned by surveying.
From pleasant, breezy little Pippinville (his native town) Treadwell went to Portsmouth and opened a writingschool; but not meeting with much success, he withdrew his specimens of calligraphy from the gaze of an unappreciative public, and voyaged to Bangor in the schooner Susan Jane. There he taught school successfully for several years, and introduced backgammon among the lumbermen of Maine. From Bangor he embarked in the packet for Boston, and narrowly escaped being wrecked upon Norman’s Woe. He said that this rough passage killed in him what little of the sailor he had inherited from his maternal grandfather, who was a famous navigator in his day, and commanded one of Obadiah Chadwell’s ships. In Boston Master Treadwell “clerked it” for three or four years in a flour and grain store on Long Wharf. He boarded in his employer’s family, and played backgammon almost every evening with his employer’s daughter, whom he loved and would have married if she had not died during their courtship. Soon after the loss of his sweetheart, Treadwell left the grain-dealer’s employ and went to Newbury and took a five years’ lease of the mill on the Artichoke. Here, when the grist was all ground, or the water was low, Master Treadwell, now a dusty “meal-cap miller,” played backgammon with his hired man, or with any passing acquaintance whom he could coax to stop and have a game with him. At the expiration of his lease Treadwell returned to Boston prepared to act a new part in the tragi-comedy of life. There he made the acquaintance of Captain John Godbold, a Richport shipmaster, who was peddling out a cargo of molasses among the grocers and distillers. The Captain was so delighted with Master Treadwell that he took him home with him to Richport, and played backgammon with him day and night for a week. And Treadwell was so pleased with Richport and the backgammon - loving shipmasters and ship-owners to whom Godbold introduced him, that he resolved to remain there for the rest of his life, if he could get anything to do. Richport has a wonderful predilection for strangers, and generally prefers them to her own citizens, whom she too often neglects, giving her business to unknown newcomers, who pocket her money and
For Madam Vinson the sea had an irresistible fascination. Many a nipping winter’s day, when the blazing woodfire hardly took the chill out of the room, she would sit at the window, unmindful of the cold, unmindful of the friends that sat by her fire and “ chatted the hours away,” and gaze upon the illimitable ocean. Many a summer morning, ere the robins had breakfasted, she was at the window, watching some distant sail or listening to the melancholy song of the sea. When Master Treadwell called to collect madam’s tax, he found her sitting in her comfortable easy-chair, looking eagerly seaward. He, with a Yankee’s observing eye, glanced round the neat and pleasant apartment, and noticed with pleasure the quaint old pictures upon the walls, the tall, loudly ticking Willard clock in the corner, and the handsome mahogany backgammon-board under the antique work-table. All people, it is said, have their “ blind sides,” their assailable points. Backgammon was Madam Vinson’s weakness, and Treadwell knew it, and hoped to profit by it.
“What! are you the new tax-collector?” exclaimed Mrs. Vinson, rising from her chair, and snatching the tax-bill from the Master’s hand. “You look as if you were too much of a gentleman for such contemptible business as this.”
“ Madam,” replied Treadwell, bowing in a manner that would have done honor to Daniel Webster himself, “ no one can be too much of a gentleman to do his duty.”
“ Duty ! ” she screamed. “ Don’t try to humbug me with that cant ! When men would do the Devil’s dirty work they talk of duty ! ”
Madam Vinson was determined to show Master Treadwell no mercy. She scolded him. She laughed at him. She called him all the ugly names in her copious vocabulary of abuse. After pouring all the vials of her wrath upon the bland and unruffled collector, Mrs. Vinson fumbled awhile in her capacious pocket, and at last fished up from the depths of that wonderful receptacle of conveniences a key, with which she mysteriously unlocked a little closet in the front entry. She soon returned to the sitting-room with an apronful of money, — glittering golden eagles, bright silver dollars, and crisp new bank-bills. After carefully counting this money, she carried it all back to the closet, saying, as she coolly returned the key to her pocket, " I can’t pay your bill to-day, Mr. What’s-yourname.” Then pointing to the door, bade the collector good morning.
“But before I go,” said Treadwell, “ I should like to play a game of backgammon with you, madam.”
“What! you a backgammon-player? ”
“ Yes, madam. I was brought up on theology and backgammon.”
“ Then you are not quite so big a fool as I took you to be.”
“ O, no indeed.”
“Well, Mr. Collector,” said the lady, as Treadwell was placing the men upon the board, “if you gammon me, you shall have the tax to-day.”
They played six games, and Treadwell gammoned Madam Vinson four times.
“ There’s your money,” said madam, handing the collector a roll of bills ; “ but don’t you dare to tell Sam Tarbox that I paid my tax the first time you called.”
But Treadwell did inform Sam Tarbox, the town treasurer, of his success in collecting Madam Vinson’s tax, and that worthy sung the Master’s praise in the ears of all his friends. And Treadwell became the hero of the hour, and for a day his masterly achievement in tax-collecting was the theme of conversation at half the tea-tables in Richport. At Plummer Wedgwood’s shop he was overwhelmed with admiration. The nabobs of “ India Square ” forgot their greatness in his presence, and considered it an honor to be gammoned by Master Treadwell. The ladies were interested in him ; and when they learned that he was a bachelor, there was, believe me, no slight flutter and commotion among the widows and elderly spinsters. Wherever he went to dine or to take tea — and he was now a welcome guest in a score of the first families of Richport — he made himself a prodigious favorite with the women, from miss in her teens to grandmamma in her dotage. Dr. Calkin’s two daughters, who had long been in the matrimonial market, were madly in love with Treadwell, and tried to captivate him with their faded beauty and old-fashioned coquetry. Miss Amelia, the schoolmistress, bought with her hard-earned money a splendid blue silk dress with which to dazzle Master Treadwell into admiration ; and Miss Pamela, the female Papanti, who had inducted two or three generations of children into “ the shapely and salutary art of dancing,” gave up whist, and devoted the time she formerly gave to cards to backgammon, — and all to obtain the smiling approbation of the backgammon-playing tax-collector. In brief, these ancient maidens did all they well could to win this man’s love, but they had neither youth nor wealth, and he passed them by.
The fact was that at the very time when the Misses Calkin were trying so hard to “catch” Master Treadwell, he was courting Mrs. Prindall, the widow of Solomon Prindall, master and owner of the good brig Amazon. Treadwell liked the manners and appearance of Mrs. Prindall, and was greatly in love with her comfortable convenient house and snug little fortune. But he had a rival, — Captain John Godbold. Captain Godbold “ roamed the blue deep ” in the brig Minerva (the ugly old craft! how he loved her), and made in the Surinam trade what was called in his time a handsome fortune. He was a surly, narrow-minded, fierytempered man. Even in his most genial moments his conversation was spiced with profanity and bristled with ill-nature. When angry — and he was angered at anything or at nothing — how he swore ! This human bulldog, — this seafaring Squire Weston, had a marvellously handsome daughter. She was one of those black-eyed girls that, as Quevedo says, carry fire in their eyes. She made many a heart ache in her day. Poor thing ! her triumphs were many, but her reign was short. Some day, perhaps, I may tell the story of Edith Godbold’s life.
Mrs. Prindall was an old flame of Godbold’s, and would, it was said, have married him in preference to Captain Prindall, had not the turbulent wooer frightened and disgusted her with his profanity. Through all the years of his wedded life Captain Godbold had never forgotten his comely youthful love ; and when informed that Captain Prindall was lost at sea he clapped his hands for joy, and told poor Mrs. Godbold, who was then in the last stages of consumption, that Kate Prindall should be his second wife. Had he dared he would have made love to Mrs. Prindall at his wife’s funeral. After waiting impatiently nearly three weeks for decorum’s sake,—for even this hasty suitor admitted that it would not look well for a gentleman to go a-courting till his wife had been dead a proper time, — he determined to defer the business no longer, but to propose to the widow at once, “ Else,” as he said to his housekeeper, “some d—d fellow or other will snap her up.” Accordingly the Captain dressed himself in his best, and went and offered himself to Mrs. Prindall. She refused him, and declared that she had no intention of ever marrying again. Captain John believed, with Mr. Collins, in one of Miss Austen’s novels, that it is usual with ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, and therefore he was not at all discouraged by the widow’s " No.” He gave her a good many chances of becoming Mrs. Godbold. For the next eight or ten years he called upon Mrs. Prindall as often as once in every six months, and renewed his offer. He became such a tremendous bore at last, and offended her so much with his violent and profane protestations of love, that Mrs. Prindall resolved to put an end to his visits by espousing Treadwell. The Captain, in his numerous calls upon the widow, had frequently found Treadwell at her house, playing backgammon ; but he never seriously thought that the tax-collector was making love to the lady. When told that Mrs. Prindall was going to marry Master Treadwell, Godbold was a dreadfully angry man, and said to his informant: “ You lie, sir! She will never have the d—d beggar ! ” The Captain then took his hat, and left the house. In a few minutes after there was a portentous knock at Mrs. Prindall’s door, and Dorcas, the ancient serving-woman, ushered Captain John Godbold into the parlor.
“ Madam,” said he to the widow, as he entered the room, “ do you know what devilish lies folks are telling about you ? They say you are going to wed that vagabond of a tax-collector ! ” The widow, flushing with anger, replied : “ If you have been told that I am going to marry Jotham Treadwell, you had better believe it, for ’t is the truth!” For a few moments passion rendered Godbold speechless, and he went spinning round the room like a humming-top. He spun himself out of the parlor into the entry, and out of the entry into the yard, where, partly recovering his speech, he sputtered out a number of oaths and curses. At the tea-table that afternoon Captain John raved profanely about the fickleness and perfidy of woman, and told the story of his wrongs to his housekeeper, Miss Polly Younger. Polly sympathized with the Captain, and unhesitatingly declared that the Widow Prindall was a fool.
“ D—n it, Polly,” said Godbold, clasping her in his arms, and kissing her, “ you are a sensible girl, and by —, I ’ll marry you ! ” And marry her he did, and a good and loving wife she made him.
Godbold and Treadwell were married in the same week, though not on the same day. Godbold and his “ blooming, blushing bride” made a wedding tour to Boston, and lived in luxury and grandeur at the Elm Street Hotel for three whole days. Treadwell thought wedding tours a humbug, and passed his honeymoon at home, happily and industriously employed in examining his wife’s papers and carefully ascertaining the value of his matrimonial prize. Indeed, so busy was he for a while with plans for the economical management of Mrs. Treadwell’s property, that he only had time to devote a single brief hour each day to backgammon. He was a believer in the old miserly maxim, “ A penny saved is a penny earned.” Mrs. Treadwell, he discovered, had, considerably to the detriment of her health and wealth, lived too extravagantly hitherto. But now all luxuries and superfluities must be dispensed with, he said. The grocer’s bill should be reduced, and the butcher need not call oftener than twice or thrice a month.
Master Cabra, in the true and diverting history of Paul the Sharper, pretended to prefer turnips to partridges, and Master Treadwell professed to like fish better than poultry or butcher’s meat.
“ Surely, my dear,” argued Treadwell with his wife, who dearly loved her beefsteak and mutton-chop ; “’t is a shameful extravagance to have meat three or four times a week. Now, fish is good and nutritious and cheap, and, in the opinion of a great French philosopher and epicure, its taste is more delicate than that of the flesh of animals.” Therefore, save when fish were scarce and dear, Treadwell and his spouse luxuriated on cod and haddock and mackerel. The tattling neighbors said it was Friday every day in the week in the tax-collector’s family. But they knew better, those meddlesome, calumniating neighbors. The Treadwell family did not dine upon fish more than four days out of the seven, except when the Master, who was “a brother of the angle,” caught a mess of “ cunners ” on some non-fish day.
Mrs. Treadwell used “ loaf sugar ” in her tea, whereat her economical husband shook his head disapprovingly. “ Brown sugar is good enough for me, and I trust, my dear, that what’s good enough for me will do for you.” But Mrs. Treadwell, who was a great lover of the “ China luxury,” and thought that brown sugar would destroy the delicate flavor of her choice Hyson, declared, with no little warmth, that she could afford to have “ loaf sugar,” and should not give it up to please anybody. She did give it up, however, and was even induced to drink an inferior quality of tea in place of her favorite Hyson.
Mrs. Treadwell was likewise fond of fine clothes, and loved to appear at church on Sunday in handsome, fashionable attire. One day, a few months after her marriage, she took a number of patterns of dress stuff from her workbasket, and spreading them out upon the table, asked her husband which of them would make her the most becoming garment.
“Is it possible,” exclaimed Treadwell, with surprise, “that you are thinking of buying another new dress ? Why ! you have dresses enough to last you your lifetime.”
“ ’T is no such thing, Mr. Treadwell,” rejoined his wife. “ I’ve hardly a decent gown to my back, and must have a dress off this beautiful green silk. Will you give me the money to pay for it or shall I have it charged ?”
The Master, you must know, collected his wife’s rents and dividends, and kept the key of her cash-box in his pocket, and whenever she wanted any money she had to apply to him. In this particular instance, knowing that Mrs. Treadwell’s wardrobe was rich in silks that “stood on end,” he refused to give her a cent, and forbade her to run in debt at the mercer’s. She was indignant, and talked, as Pepys would say, “ huge high.” She said things had come to a fine pass indeed, if she, who was worth twenty thousand dollars, could not have a new gown when she pleased. Then she cried, saying between the sobs that her husband was a mean, contemptible man, and she a very fool for marrying such a curmudgeon. Then, wiping her eyes, and shaking her head angrily, she vowed she would cease to attend public worship on the Sabbath, unless she could make as good an appearance as her neighbors. To this last assertion Treadwell, who was amusing himself at the backgammon-table by seeing how many times he could thrown doublets, replied by saying that if his wife was not going to church any more he would sell her pew and put the money at interest. And the pew would have been sold, had not Mrs. Treadwell continued to occupy it as heretofore, or rather a small part of it, for her husband had, much to her displeasure, let all the seats but two. Dorcas, the old servant, who, on stormy Sundays as well as on fine, had, for I know not how many years, modestly filled the little corner seat of the big, old-fashioned family pew, was driven to the gallery, among the poor and penniless Christians from the almshouse. If her new master could have had his way, she herself would have been sent to the workhouse, — that purgatory of the indigent and friendless. Like Scott’s Jenny Dennison, like Mary Milford’s Mrs. Mosse, Dorcas was of the antique world,
Mrs. Treadwell appreciated her old domestic, and was tenderly attached to the faithful creature, and said that if Dorcas went to the poorhouse she went with her. Finding that his wife was really in earnest, and bethinking him that possibly Dorcas, though aged and infirm, was worth the pittance it cost to feed and clothe her, Treadwell thought it best to let his helpmate do as she liked in this matter. So, as long as her kind mistress lived, Dorcas went pottering round among the pans and kettles in Master Treadwell’s kitchen.
Although Mrs. Treadwell did not appreciate her husband’s economical management of her property, and grievously felt the loss of her accustomed liberty of spending her money as freely and foolishly as she pleased, she never complained of his parsimony to anybody save one or two of her bosom friends, who of course did not violate her confidence by talking of the matter with their compeers. Yet, somehow or other, the several reforms in the lady’s household economy were known, not only to all the neighborhood, but to half the town. Indeed, Treadwell’s name grew to be a synonyme for penuriousness ; and it used to be said that many an extravagant young housekeeper was frightened almost into prudence and thrift by her husband threatening to adopt the tax-collector’s system of frugality. The women of course pitied Mrs. Treadwell, and said she was a fool to submit so tamely to her husband’s tyrannical usurpations. Madam Vinson, however, declared that Master Treadwell was doing a wise and commendable thing in repressing his wife’s love of fashionable apparel and high living. Madam Vinson, to be sure, was a covetous person herself, and, like Shenstone’s Abbess, added profuseness to the seven deadly sins. But even I myself, who hold with Burke that all parsimony is of a quality approaching to unkindness, believe that the tax-collector, notwithstanding his close-fisted prudence and Elwes-like frugality, was a better husband than most of his female censors drew in the lottery of marriage. Though he spoke many an unwelcome truth to his wife, and generally answered her applications for money with an emphatic “ No,” he never abused her with foul language, or even scolded her otherwise than in a gentlemanly manner. And when she was ill, how kind, how deferential, how attentive he was ! He did not believe in doctors, however, and never willingly permitted one to enter his house. He disliked their drugs and their bills, and preferred to save his wife’s money by doctoring her himself with a few simple roots and herbs, which, if they did no good, certainly did no harm. And when she was convalescent, how careful he was that her diet should be light and spare! How learnedly he expatiated on the nutritive and sanative qualities of oat-meal ! How eloquent he grew in praise of meal-porridge and water-gruel! How admirably he discoursed upon “ shells,” proving beyond a peradventure that they were better and wholesomer than chocolate, which Mrs. Treadwell was excessively fond of! But his masterpiece of learning, eloquence, and Jesuitical reasoning was his attempt to convince his wife, who was just recovering from a severe fit of indisposition, and was craving some appetizing morsel, some relishing tidbit, that a smoked herring was superior to a broiled chicken. At the Master’s panegyric on herring John Bachalen would have wept for joy, and Father Prout have laughed with delight. But her husband’s rhetoric was lost upon Mrs. Treadwell, who at the conclusion, as at the beginning of his speech, clamored for chicken. I believe the matter was settled by a compromise in the form of a slice of not too tender beefsteak.
Although Mrs. Treadwell was a true and faithful wife, and loved her husband almost as much as she did her bankstock and real estate, she was not one of those foolish fond women who think it necessary to their happiness to have their lord forever at their side. The truth was, both she and Dorcas were happier and more at their ease when Treadwell was away than when he was at home, kindly overlooking their labors and giving them an occasional word of instruction in the frugal management of their domestic concerns, as, for instance, how to heat the Dutchoven with the least wood, and how to sweep the room in a way not to wear the broom out. And after putting his wife’s pecuniary affairs in excellent condition, and reducing her personal and household expenditures to the smallest possible sum, he passed nearly all his time in circumambulating the streets in his official character, and in playing backgammon at Plummer Wedgwood’s grocery. Treadwell, after amusing himself with hunting up delinquent tax-payers, and dunning his wife’s tenants for rent, would fall to work at backgammon with wonderful energy and industry. In truth, backgammon was to Master Treadwell what whist was to Mrs. Battle: it was “his business, his duty, the thing he came into the world to do.” He played backgammon — as Cavanagh played “fives,” or as Josie D. plays croquet—in its perfection. His lucky throws and masterly moves were the wonder and admiration of all bystanders. Except in the winter-time, when, in commiseration of his woodpile, he indulged himself in a long morning nap, Treadwell was an early riser, and often went down to the store before breakfast and had a game or two of backgammon with Plummer Wedgwood’s shop-boy. After playing busily all day —as he commonly did in those seasons of the year when he had little or nothing to do as a tax-collector — he always felt like playing all night, and dreaded to hear the nine-o’clock bell, for at its clamorous peal the stores in Richport were closed, and the backgammon-players were driven from their comfortable loafing-place. Treadwell occasionally invited some one or other of his friends to his house after the shop was shut; and there, by the dim light of a tallow candle, they played backgammon till midnight or later.
In politics Master Treadwell was a Whig, not because he believed in the principles and professions of that party, but for the good and sufficient reason that, as far as his observation went, the Whigs played backgammon and the Democrats played checkers. But the tax-collector was so little of a partisan that he lit his fire with loco-foco matches, and offended some of his Whig friends by voting now and then with the Democrats at March meeting. The fact was, Treadwell was indefatigable in his attempts to prevent the least increase of taxation, and therefore when the Whigs of Richport advocated the making of new roads and the building of new school-houses, he, with the Democrats, who of course opposed everything their antagonists contended for, voted, to quote from one of his own town-meeting speeches, “against these shameful and outrageous projects for the depletion of the town treasury and the enlargement of the town debt.” For a few years the Democrats, reinforced by the tax - collector and a few wealthy Whigs who cared more for their pockets than for their principles, were, in the language of Dr. Ellery Bray, “ successful in their attempts to stop the march of improvement and stay the progress of civilization.” At last, however, the people, without distinction of party, believing in the words of their champion Dr. Bray, “ that the time had come for them to vindicate their rights and redress their wrongs,” rose in their might and, in spite of Master Treadwell’s influence and Master Treadwell’s eloquence, voted to build two new roads and erect three new school-houses. “ Well,” said Treadwell to himself, as he left the hall after the adjournment of that memorable March meeting, “if these paltry poll-tax payers, who now outnumber and outvote the men of wealth and sense, are going to squander away other folks’ money at this rate, I may as well get a little of it while ’t is going myself.”
At the next town meeting he said he could not afford to collect the taxes another year for the compensation he had hitherto received. His townsmen, however, practising in this instance the economy he had so often preached to them, refused to give him any additional remuneration. Whereat Master Treadwell, surprisingly angry for so mild-tempered a man, jumped up and gave the people a piece of his mind. To his hasty and unwise remarks Dr. Bray replied by nominating Zachariah Chard for tax-collector. And before Treadwell had fairly recovered his usual serenity, Chard was chosen as his successor.
Master Treadwell professed that he was glad to be rid of the toils and troubles of his ill-paying office, although at heart vexed that it had slipped from his grasp. He missed his official dignity and self-importance. He even missed the angry looks and unkind words of those who had as lief receive a call from the Devil as from the tax-gatherer. And he missed the money the most of all. It is true his emoluments were provokingly small, but they were much too large for any pocket save his own.
It was solely for the public good and the gratification of his natural, inborn love of frugality, that Master Treadwell had labored so strenuously hitherto to keep the town expenses down. Now, however, being a tax-payer himself, and having a pecuniary interest in the matter, he was more bitterly opposed than ever to all such costly superfluities as new roads and new schoolhouses. It was laughable, it was pitiable, and reminded one of Don Quixote’s heroic encounter with the unchivalrous windmills, and Mrs. Partington’s brave but unequal contest with the Atlantic Ocean, to see how vigorously and valiantly Treadwell and a few opulent graybeards fought, at each semi-annual town-meeting, against the liberal and progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. But the citizens of Richport, disregarding the ex-tax-collector’s protestations and denunciations, continued to vote liberal appropriations of money for such idle and extravagant purposes as taking care of the poor, keeping the streets in a passable condition, and providing schools for the children.
Master Treadwell could not walk the streets without being annoyed at the sight of paupers whom the town had to support and of children whom the town had to educate. He never passed a school-house without shaking his head angrily, and muttering to himself something about the folly and presumption of a certain Mr. Horace Mann. Though married himself, he spoke disrespectfully of the institution of marriage, and said there should be a law to prevent so many young fools from rushing into matrimony and swarming the world with children for the wealthy tax-payers to educate.
Richport was not now the place it was when Treadwell first knew the town. Its foreign commerce was decaying. Its old aristocratic society was dying out. Strangers were seen in the streets, and strange names were upon too many of the signs. Plummer Wedgwood’s name was still over the grocery door, but Plummer Wedgwood himself no longer stood bowing and smiling behind the counter. And new faces were seen and old faces missed in Plummer Wedgwood’s back shop. Democrats and checkers were tolerated now in Madam Whittemore’s old kitchen. When Treadwell saw that veteran Whig and backgammon-player, Captain John Godbold, condescending to puzzle himself with checkers, he felt that the days of the great Whig party were numbered.
While Master Treadwell was fretting at Godbold’s apostasy, Mrs. Treadwell was taken dangerously ill with her old hereditary disease, the erysipelas. The Master, nobly superior to his prejudices against the medical faculty, generously permitted the sick woman to have a physician. But as the doctor came out of the house death went in. Old Dorcas was dreadfully shocked by her mistress’s death, and Treadwell, no doubt, painfully felt his loss. Yet with all his sorrow he kept a close watch upon Dorcas’s strapping grand-niece (who came to help her venerable kinswoman make ready for the funeral), and made, it was said, a shrewd bargain with Harbord the sexton.
The late Mrs. Treadwell had a goodly number of friends and relatives, a crowd of whom came flocking to her funeral. I am afraid their sorrow for the dead lady was changed into anger against her living husband, when they found that there was not a carriage of any sort or description for the mourners. Master Treadwell disliked all funeral pomp and parade, and did not see the necessity nor the propriety of going to the expense of giving his neighbors a free ride, on this melancholy occasion. And he had, perhaps, withal a curiosity to see how many of his late wife’s dear friends cared enough for her to follow her remains to the grave on foot. The day was fine and the walking good, yet of all that houseful of people not quite a score walked with Treadwell and the clergyman to the burial-ground.
Miss Nancy Pearson, who did not turn her back upon the deceased Mrs. Treadwell till she saw her put to bed, and, as it were, comfortably tucked up for the long, last sleep, said that the master shed several quite large tears at his wife’s grave. “Poor man!” continued Miss Nancy, “he had cause to weep, for at Mrs. Treadwell’s death he lost all control of her property.” But when her relatives examined the affairs of the departed lady, they found, to their grief and indignation, that all her wealth was in Treadwell’s possession.
Dorcas, who never had any great love for the Master, declared to her grandniece, as they were putting the house in order after the funeral, that, now her poor dear mistress was gone, she would rather go to the workhouse than have to thank Jotham Treadwell for a home. Whereupon the grand-niece, whose Christian name was Sally, and whose surname was Ober, and who was the wife of a Richport fisherman, kindly gave her ancient kinswoman an invitation to come and live with her. Dorcas gladly accepted the offer, and in a few days she was comfortably and contentedly established in Mrs. Ober’s family.
As the backgammon-players were rapidly decreasing, and the rates of taxation rapidly increasing, in Richport, Master Treadwell, instead of seeking for a housekeeper, resolved to leave the place, and return to his native New Hampshire hills. And before the grass was growing on his wife’s grave he was gone. He found that the breezy little village of his nativity was now a busy, bustling town, with free schools all the year round, and a weekly newspaper, “The New Hampshire Universe.” The next number of the Universe published after Treadwell’s arrival in Pippinville contained a paragraph or two upon that gentleman, in which it was stated, with the remarkable accuracy of a first-class journal, that “ Mr. Treadwell, having accumulated in the sister State of Massachusetts a large fortune in the fishing business, has returned to Pippinville, the place of his birth; and here, let us trust, he will pass the many remaining years of his honorable and useful life in promoting, not only his own comfort and happiness, but the welfare and prosperity of this town.” So well known is the ingratitude of man, that no one will be surprised to learn that Master Treadwell did not thank the editor of the Universe for his complimentary remarks, nor even subscribe for his paper. And yet Treadwell must have known that to the article in the Universe he was indebted for the honor and attentions he received from several of the citizens of Pippinville. He had not been in the place a week, before he was asked to head a subscription for a new church, to join three charitable societies, to contribute to the missionary fund, to give a new banner to the Pippinville Artillery, and a new bell to the Orthodox meeting-house. These “honors and distinctions ” were so little appreciated by the Master that he packed his trunk, paid his hotel bill, and left Pippinville in dismay, and set out in search of some Utopia of conservatism, where public improvements were unknown, and free schools undreamed of, where taxes were fabulously low, and the cost of living fabulously small. Is Master Treadwell still travelling wearily from town to town in quest of his vanishing Utopia? or is he at rest in some quiet graveyard, where the taxcollector never comes with his bill, nor the beggars in broadcloth with their subscription-papers ?