We learn how much a sound stomach has to do with
human felicity; that a bride may make her husband happy, though her
whole outfit consist of two cups and saucers, two knives and forks, and
two spoons; that a man may be hospitable in a cabin, twelve by fifteen,
with only the forest for his larder; and that an American needs only an
axe, a rifle, and _nary red_, for his start in life. Meshach Browning
finds in his Paradise very much what our first parents found outside of
theirs. At nineteen he is the husband of pretty Mary McMullen, and
joint-proprietor with the rest of mankind of all-outdoors,--it being an
eccentricity of McMullen _pere_ to prefer a back to a front view of his
sons-in-law. Meshach, who is sure of a comfortable fireside wherever
there are trees, moves into the nearest bit of wilderness, builds a
house with the timber felled to make a clearing, plants his acre or
two, and forthwith shoots a bear, whose salted flesh will keep him and
his wife alive till harvest. Thus in 1800 was a family founded, which
fifty years later had increased to one hundred and twenty-two, of whom
sixty-seven, as their progenitor says proudly, were "capable of bearing
arms for the defence of their country,"--though, to be sure, the
Harper's Ferry affair leaves us in some doubt as to the direction in
which they would bear them.
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