The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861

So he sat on this drear Thanksgiving-Day despondent beside his hearth. With a hundred hard lines furrowing his pale face, telling of the work of time and struggle and misfortune, he looked the incarnation of silent sorrow and hopelessness, waiting in quiet meekness for the coming of Death,—without desire, but without dread.

It was not strange that on this day there should come into the hearts of both Jacob and Ruth, his wife, sad and dismal memories. Still his gaze wandered silently about the room, and she plied unceasingly her stiff, bright knitting-needles. One would have thought her a figure of stone, sitting so pale and bolt upright, but for the activity of the patiently industrious fingers.

Presently Jacob spoke.

"Ruth," he said, "it is a bitter time for us, and we are sore oppressed; but what does the Psalmist say to such poor, worn-out creatures as we are? 'The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.' Wife, we are not forsaken of the Lord, although all earthly things seem to go wrong with us."

She made no verbal reply; but there was a nervous flutter in the poor, wan fingers, as she still plied the needles, and two large tears rolled silently down her checks and fell upon the white kerchief she wore over her shoulders.

"We have still a house over our heads," continued Jacob, "and wherewithal to keep ourselves fed and clothed and warmed; we have but a few years more to live; let us thank God for what blessings He has yet vouchsafed us."

She arose without a word, stiff, angular, ungainly, and they knelt together on the floor.

Meanwhile the snow fell thicker and faster without, and blew in fierce clouds against the windows. The wind was rising and gaining power, and it whistled wrathfully about the house, howling as in bitter mockery at the scene within. Sometimes it swelled into wild laughter, and again dropped into low and plaintive wailings. It was very dismal out in the cold, and hardly more cheerful in the warm sitting-room, where those two jaded souls knelt in earnest prayer.

* * * * *

A railway-train was fast in a snow-bank. There it had stuck, unable to move either backward or forward, since nine o'clock on Wednesday evening; it was now Thursday morning, the snow was still falling, and still seemed likely to fall, blocking up more and more the passage of the unfortunate train. There were two locomotives, with a huge snow-plough on the forward one, a baggage and express-car, and four cars filled with passengers. Two hundred people, all anxious, most of them grumbling, were detained there prisoners, snow-bound and helpless. It was a hard case, for they were more than two miles distant—with three feet depth of snow between—from the nearest house. The nearest village was five miles away at least.

It was Thanksgiving-Day, too, and they had almost all of them "lotted" upon a New-England Thanksgiving-dinner with old friends, brothers, fathers, mothers, and grandparents. And there they were, without so much as a ration of crackers and cheese.

It was noticeable that the women on the train—and there were quite a number, and most of them with children in their arms or by their sides—made, as a general rule, less disturbance and confusion than the men. The children, however, were getting very hungry and noisy by this Thanksgiving-morning.

In one of the cars were clustered as fine a family-group as the eye would desire to rest upon. It consisted of a somewhat large and florid, but firmly and compactly built man of thirty years or thereabout, a woman, evidently his wife and apparently some two or three years younger, and three beautiful children.

The man was large in frame, without being coarse, with a chest broad and ample as a gymnast's, and with arms whose muscular power was evident at every movement. His hair and beard (which latter he wore full, as was just beginning to be the custom) were dark brown in color, and thick and strong almost to coarseness in texture; his eye was a clear hazel, full, quick, and commanding, sometimes almost fierce; while an aquiline nose, full, round forehead, and a complexion bronzed by long exposure to all sorts of weather, gave him an aspect to be noted in any throng he might be thrown into. There was a constant air of pride and determination about the man, which softened, however, whenever his glance fell upon wife or children. At such times his face lighted up with a smile of peculiar beauty and sweetness.

The woman was of middle size, with fair hair, inclining towards auburn, blue eyes, and a clear red and white complexion. Her expression was one of habitual sweetness and good-humor, while a continual half-smile played about her rosy mouth. She was plump, good-natured, and cozy,—altogether a most lovable and delicious woman.

This pair, with their bright-looking children, occupied two seats near the stove, and were in constant pleasant converse, save when an occasional anxious and impatient shadow flitted across the face of the husband and father. On the rack over their heads reposed a small travelling-bag, which the day before had been filled with luncheon for the children. Upon its bottom was painted in small white letters the name, "Samson Newell."

It was, indeed, the long-lost son, returning on this day to answer, so much as in him lay, the prayers repeated for fifteen years by his father and mother,—returning to see his former home once more, and here, nearly on the threshold, stopped by a snow-storm almost unprecedented at that season. There was occasional bitterness in his impatience at the wearying detention, but he controlled it as well as he was able.

During the night the passengers had been quiet and uncomplaining. Wood taken from the tenders of the two locomotives in small quantities, and, when the engineers stopped the supplies in that quarter, rails torn from neighboring fences and broken up for firewood, kept them warm; but after the day had dawned, when the little treasures of luncheon were exhausted, and all began to feel the real pangs of hunger, things assumed a more serious aspect. Children in all the cars were crying for breakfast, and even the older passengers began to feel cross and jaded.

One pleasant fellow, with an apparently inexhaustible flask of whiskey in his pocket, and good-humor oozing from every pore of his jolly countenance, passed from car to car, retailing a hundred jokes to every fresh batch of listeners. But presently the passengers began to tire of his witticisms, and one after another "poohed" and "pshawed" at him as he approached. Then with infinite good-nature and philosophy he retired to one of the saloons and peacefully fell asleep.

Almost equally amusing was a wizened, bent, and thin old man, draped from head to foot in coarse butternut-colored homespun, and called "Old Woollen" by the funny fellow, who walked from car to car bewailing his hard lot.

"I've left the old woman to home," he whined, "with all the things on her hands, an' more 'n fifty of our folks comin' to eat dinner with us to-day; an' I've got a note of a hundred an' fifty dollars to pay,—to-morrow's the last day of grace,—an' I've been sixty-five mile to get the money to pay it. Now look here!" suddenly and sharply to the Funny Man, "what do you think o' that?"

"Old Woollen," said the Funny Man, with a tremulous voice and tears in his eyes, "it's a hard case!"

"So't is! That's a fact! Call an' see us, when you come round our way!"

And the old gentleman, greatly mollified by the sympathy of his new friend, moved on to find fresh auditors for his tale of woe.

It came to be nine o'clock on the morning of Thanksgiving-Day, and still the snow fell with unabated violence, and still drifts piled higher and higher about the captive train. The conductor and one of the firemen had started off on foot at early dawn in search of food for the passengers, and now there arrived, ploughing nearly breast-high through the snow, a convoy from one of the nearest farm-houses carefully guarding a valuable treasure of bread, cheese, bacon, eggs, and pumpkin-pies; but so many were the mouths to fill that it scarcely gave a bite apiece to the men, after the women and children had been cared for.

Then the passengers began to grow clamorous. Even the Funny Man had his woes, for some rogue entered the saloon where he slept and stole the whiskey-flask from his pocket. When he awoke and discovered his loss, he remarked that he knew where there was more of the same sort, and turned over to sleep again. But all were not so philosophical as he. Some cursed the railroad company, some cursed the fate that had placed them there, some cursed their folly in leaving comfortable quarters in order to fast in the snow on Thanksgiving-Day.

Presently the impatiently-pulled-out watches showed ten o'clock, and still it snowed. Then a rumor ran through the train that there were a couple of barrels of chickens, ready-dressed for market, in the express-car, and a general rush in that direction followed. One of the first to hear of it, and one of the first to be on the spot, was Samson Newell.

"Stand back, gentlemen," he cried to the foremost of the throng that poured eagerly into the car,—"stand back a moment. This poultry is in charge of the express messenger, and we have no right to take it without his license."

As he spoke, he placed himself beside the messenger. There was a determination in his eye and manner that held the crowd back for a short time.

"The chickens are mine," the messenger said; "I bought them on speculation; they will spoil before I can get anywhere with them, and they are now too late for Thanksgiving. You may have them for what I gave."

"I will give five dollars towards paying for them"; and Samson Newell drew out his pocket-book.

"Here's a dollar!" "I'll give a half!" "Count me in for two dollars!" cried the crowd, favorably struck with the notion of paying for their provender.

But one hulking fellow, with a large mock diamond in his shirt-front, and clumsy rings on his coarse and dirty fingers, stepped forward and said that he was a hungry man, that he had lost money by the– company already, waiting a day and a night in that blamed snow-bank, and that he was going to have a chicken,—or two chickens, if he wanted them,—and he was decidedly of the opinion that there was no express messenger on the train who would see the color of his money in the transaction.

Samson Newell was evidently a man of few words in a case of emergency. He paused for only an instant to assure himself that the man was in earnest, then he slid open one of the side-doors of the express-car, and stretched forth a hand whose clutch was like the closing of a claw of steel. He seized the bejewelled stranger by the coat-collar, shook him for an instant, and dropped him,—dropped him into a soft snow-drift whose top was level with the car-floor. Whether the unfortunate worked a subterranean passage to one of the passenger-cars and there buried himself in the privacy of a saloon is not known; he certainly was not seen again till after relief came to the imprisoned train.

There was neither noise nor confusion in the matter of paying for and dividing the poultry. Samson Newell had already made himself prominent among the captive travellers. He had eaten nothing himself, that he might the better provide, so far as his limited provision went, for his wife and children; he had even gone through the cars with his scanty luncheon of cakes and apples, and economically fed other people's little ones, besides administering to the wants of an invalid lady upon the train, who was journeying alone. He was, therefore, a favorite with all on board. His action, enforcing payment for the provision that would very likely, but for him, have been taken by force, caused the passengers to defer to him as a leader whose strength and courage fitted him for the post, and so he presided at the distribution of the chickens without dispute.

The fuel in the stoves was replenished, and quite a large space was cleared to the leeward of the locomotive, where a fire was built from the neighboring fences, so that in an hour's time from the finding of the poultry the entire body of passengers were busy picking the bones of roasted and broiled fowls. It was not so bad a dinner! To be sure, it was rather chilly, now and then, when the opening of a car-door, to let in a half-frozen gentleman with a half-cooked chicken in his hand, admitted with him a snow-laden blast from without; and then the viands were not served à la Soyer, but there was an appetite for sauce and a certain gypsy-like feeling of being at a picnic that served as a relish. And so, in the year of our Lord 18—, two hundred strangers sat down together at a most extraordinary Thanksgiving-dinner, of which no account has hitherto been published, if I except a vote of thanks, "together with an exceedingly chaste and richly chased silver goblet," (so the newspaper description read,) which were presented to the conductor by "the surviving passengers," after he had procured help and rescued them from their perplexing predicament.

But dinners end. Twelve o'clock came, and still the snow was falling thick and fast, and still the white plain about them mounted slowly and surely towards the skies. Then the passengers became yet more weary and unhappy. Old Woollen, the unfortunate, detailed his woes to more and more appreciative audiences. Even the Funny Man—with a fresh flask of whiskey—sighed almost dismally between frequent uneasy "cat-naps." And Samson Newell, first seeing his wife comfortably settled, and his little ones safely disposed about her, strode up and down, from car to car, with a gloom of disappointment on his face that was almost ferocious. "Too bad!" he muttered, "too bad! too bad! too bad!"

One o'clock came, and the snow held up! At first the passengers noticed that the flakes fell less thickly. Then, gradually and ever slowly decreasing, they finally ceased falling altogether. The clouds drifted from before the face of the heavens, and the sun came out. It shone over a broad surface of glistening snow, with here and there a fence-post obtruding into notice, but otherwhere a cold, blank expanse of whiteness. One or two remote farm-houses, with blue smoke rising in thin, straight columns from their chimneys, a wide stretch of woodland to the right, distant hills bounding all the prospect,—and everywhere snow. No fences, no roads, no paths,—but only snow!

The passengers gazed out of the windows or stood upon the platforms,—drawn thither by the warmth of the sun,—with feelings almost akin to despair. Presently it was proposed to make for the farm-houses, and fifteen of the more adventurous started. A few struggled through and arrived in something over an hour at the nearest house, wet to the skin with melted snow, and too much fatigued to think of returning,—but most of them gave out at the end of the first half-mile, and came back to the train.

So the prisoners sat down and whiled away the time as best they might, in the relation of anecdotes, telling stories, and grumbling. A few slept, and a large number tried to do so, without success.

The slow hand of Time, moving more slowly for them than they remembered it to have ever moved before, crept on to three o'clock, and still there was no prospect of relief and no incident of note save the arrival through the snow of a dozen men sent by the conductor. They brought word that help was approaching from the nearest station where a sufficiently powerful locomotive could be obtained, and that they would probably be started on their way during the next forenoon. These messengers also brought a small supply of provisions and a number of packs of cards, with the latter of which many of the passengers were soon busy. They now resigned themselves to another night in the drift.

But at half after three occurred an incident that restored hope of a more speedy deliverance to a few of the captives.

Through the low pine-lands to the right ran a road which was very thoroughly protected from drifting snow by the overhanging trees, and along this road there now appeared two pair of oxen. In front of the oxen were five men armed with wooden snow-shovels, with which they beat down and scattered the snow. Behind all was a small, square box on runners. It was very small and contained only one board seat. Three persons could sit and three stand in it: no more.

Upon the appearance of this squad of road-breakers with their team, three hearty cheers went up from the train. They were immediately answered by the approach of the apparent leader of the expedition. He was a small, active, spare old fellow, so incrusted with frozen snow, which hung all over him in tiny white pellets, as to resemble more an active, but rather diminutive white bear, than anything else known to Natural History. He scrambled and puffed through the snow till he found a mounting-place upon an unseen fence, when he arose two or three feet above the surrounding surface, and spoke,—

"There's five on us, an' two yoke."

A pause.

"Two yoke yender, an' five on us."

"Well! supposing there is?" from the train.

"Five mile to town," continued the White Bear, "an' been sence nine this mornin' gittin' here. Five times five is twenty-five, but, seein' it's you, I'll call it twelve 'n' 'arf."

"Call what 'twelve 'n' 'arf,' Sheep-Shanks?" from the train.