A Son of the Middle Border | Page 8

you
shall learn, was the finest fiddler of them all. Grandad himself was able
to play the violin but he no longer did so. "'Tis the Devil's instrument,"
he said, but I noticed that he always kept time to it.
Grandmother had very little learning. She could read and write of
course, and she made frequent pathetic attempts to open her Bible or
glance at a newspaper-- all to little purpose, for her days were filled
from dawn to dark with household duties.
I know little of her family history. Beyond the fact that she was born in
Maryland and had been always on the border, I have little to record.
She was in truth overshadowed by the picturesque figure of her
husband who was of Scotch-Irish descent and a most singular and
interesting character.
He was a mystic as well as a minstrel. He was an "Adventist" that is to
say a believer in the Second Coming of Christ, and a constant student
of the Bible, especially of those parts which predicted the heavens
rolling together as a scroll, and the destruction of the earth.
Notwithstanding his lack of education and his rude exterior, he was a
man of marked dignity and so briety of manner. Indeed he was both
grave and're mote in his intercourse with his neighbors.
He was like Ezekiel, a dreamer of dreams. He loved the Old Testament,
particularly those books which consisted of thunderous prophecies and
passionate lam entations. The poetry of Isaiah, The visions of The
Apocalypse, formed his emotional outlet, his escape into the world of
imaginative literature. The songs he loved best were those which
described chariots of flaming clouds, the sound of the resurrection
trump or the fields of amaranth blooming "on the other side of Jordan."
As I close my eyes and peer back into my obscure childish world I can
see him sitting in his straight-backed cane-bottomed chair, drumming
on the rungs with his fingers, keeping time to some inaudible tune or

chanting with faintly-moving lips the wondrous words of John or
Daniel. He must have been at this time about seventy years of age, but
he seemed to me as old as a snow-covered mountain.
My belief is that Grandmother did not fully share her husband's faith in
The Second Coming but upon her fell the larger share of the burden of
entertainment when Grandad made "the travelling brother" welcome.
His was an open house to all who came along the road, and the fervid
chantings, the impassioned prayers of these meetings lent a singular air
of unreality to the business of cooking or plowing in the fields.
I think he loved his wife and children, and yet I never heard him speak
an affectionate word to them. He was kind, he was just, but he was not
tender. With eyes turned inward, with a mind filled with visions of
angel messengers with trumpets at their lips announcing "The Day of
Wrath," how could he concern himself with the ordinary affairs of
human life?
Too old to bind grain in the harvest field, he was occasionally intrusted
with the task of driving the reaper or the mower and generally forgot to
oil the bearings. His absent-mindedness was a source of laughter
among his sons and sons-in-law. I've heard Frank say: "Dad would stop
in the midst of a swath to announce the end of the world." He seldom
remembered to put on a hat even in the blazing sun of July and his
daughters had to keep an eye on him to be sure he had his vest on
right-side out.
Grandmother was cheerful in the midst of her toil and discomfort, for
what other mother had such a family of noble boys and handsome girls?
They all loved her, that she knew, and she was perfectly willing to
sacrifice her comfort to promote theirs. Occasionally Samantha or
Rachel remonstrated with her for working so hard, but she only put
their protests aside and sent them back to their callers, for when the
McClintock girls were at home, the horses of their suitors tied before
the gate would have mounted a small troop of cavalry.
It was well that this pioneer wife was rich in children, for she had little
else. I do not suppose she ever knew what it was to have a comfortable

well-aired bed-room, even in child-birth. She was practical and a good
man ager, and she needed to be, for her husband was as weirdly
unworldly as a farmer could be. He was indeed a sad husbandman.
Only the splendid abundance of the soil and the manual skill of his sons,
united to the good management of his wife, kept his family fed and
clothed. "What is the use of laying up a store of