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Title: Shadows and sunbeams: Being a second series of Fern leaves from Fanny’s portfolio
Author: Fern, Fanny
Language: English
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[Illustration: AUNT HEPSY’S COURTSHIP.]
[Illustration: FERN LEAVES FROM FANNY’S PORTFOLIO SECOND SERIES]
SHADOWS AND SUNBEAMS:
Being a Second Series
OF
FERN LEAVES FROM FANNY’S PORTFOLIO.
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE THOMAS.
LONDON:
WM. S. ORR AND CO., AMEN CORNER,
PATERNOSTER ROW;
SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND CO.,
LUDGATE HILL.
MDCCCLIV.
Published first in England by International Arrangement with the
American Proprietors, and Entered at Stationers’ Hall.
PREFACE.
The author addresses her readers in these words, by way of Preface to
the Second Volume of FERN LEAVES:—
“Six months since, I was in a deplorable state of ignorance as to the
most felicitous style in which I could address my readers; at this lapse
of time I find myself not a whit wiser. You will permit me, therefore,
in pressing again your kindly hands, simply to say, that I hope my
second offering of FERN LEAVES will be more worthy of your acceptance
than the first.”
To this the Publishers of the English edition need only add, that the
great popularity which this and the preceding series of FERN LEAVES have
attained, both in England and America, has induced them to enter into
arrangements with the proprietors of the copyright, whereby the present
edition of this work might obtain the benefit of the author’s sanction
and revision. To say anything by way of recommending so well-known a
writer as the sister of N. P. Willis is quite unnecessary—the acute
knowledge of the world, the womanly pathos and sympathy for the poor and
neglected, the genial, almost masculine, sense of humour and force of
language, the fearless expression of opinion, and the true wit and
genius displayed in these Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio, cannot fail to
ensure for them a large and sympathising audience among the British
public.
AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW,
_August, 1854_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Shadows and Sunbeams 1
Aunt Hepsy 18
Thoughts at Church 21
The Brothers 23
Curious Things 28
The Advantage of a House in a Fashionable Square 29
Winter is Coming 36
The other Sex 38
Soliloquy of Mr. Broadbrim 40
Willy Grey 41
Tabitha Tompkins’ Soliloquy 54
Soliloquy of a Housemaid 57
Critics 59
Forgetful Husbands 60
Summer Friends 61
How the Wires are Pulled 62
Who would be the Last Man? 65
Only a Cousin 66
The Calm of Death 68
Mrs. Adolphus Smith sporting the Blue Stocking 69
Cecile Vray 70
Sam Smith’s Soliloquy 71
Love and Duty 75
A False Proverb 79
A Model Husband 80
How is it? 81
A Morning Ramble 83
Hour-Glass Thoughts 86
Sober Husbands 87
Boarding-House Experience 88
A Grumble from the (H) altar 93
A Wick-ed Paragraph 94
Mistaken Philanthropy 95
Insignificant Love 97
A Model Married Man 99
Meditations of Paul Pry, jun. 100
Sunshine and Young Mothers 102
Uncle Ben’s attack of Spring Fever, and How Cured 103
The Aged Minister voted a Dismission 106
The Fatal Marriage 108
A Matrimonial Reverie 112
Frances Sargeant Osgood 113
A Punch at “Punch” 116
Best Things 117
The Vestry Meeting 119
A Broadway Shop Reverie 122
The Old Woman 124
Sunday Morning at the Dibdins 126
Items of Travel 128
Newspaper-dom 130
Have we any Men among us? 132
How to cure the Blues 134
Rain in the City 136
Mrs. Weasel’s Husband 138
Country Sunday _v._ City Sunday 140
Our Street 142
When you are Angry 147
Little Bessie 148
The Delights of Visiting 151
Helen Haven’s Happy New Year 153
Dollars and Dimes 157
Our Nelly 158
Study Men, not Books 161
Murder of the Innocents 163
American Ladies 166
The Stray Sheep 167
The Fashionable Preacher 170
Cash 172
Only a Child 174
Mr. Pipkin’s idea of Family Retrenchment 175
A Chapter for Nice Old Farmers 177
Madame Rouillon’s Mourning Saloon 179
Fashion in Funerals 180
Household Tyrants 182
Women and Money 184
The Sick Bachelor 186
A Mother’s Influence 188
Mr. Punch mistaken 193
Fern Musings 194
The Time to Choose 196
Spring is Coming 197
Steamboat Sights and Reflections 199
A Gotham Reverie 201
Sickness in the City and Country 202
Hungry Husbands 205
Light and Shadow 207
What Love will Accomplish 209
Mrs. Grumble’s Soliloquy 212
Henry Ward Beecher 214
An Old Maid’s Decision 217
Father Taylor, the Sailor’s Preacher 219
Signs of the Times 222
Whom does it concern? 225
Who Loves a Rainy Day? 230
A Conscientious Young Man 233
City Scenes and City Life, No. 1 234
Do. do. 2 238
Do. do. 3 242
Do do. 4 245
Two Pictures 248
Feminine Waiters at Hotels 250
Letter to the Empress Eugenia 252
Music in the Natural Way 254
For Ladies that go Shopping 255
The Old Merchant wants a Situation 259
A Moving Tale 261
This Side and That 267
Mrs. Zebedee Smith’s Philosophy 270
A Lance Couched for the Children 272
A Chapter on Housekeeping 273
A Fern Reverie 275
A Brown Study 278
Incidents at the Five Points House of Industry 280
Apollo Hyacinth 286
Spoiled Little Boy 288
Barnum’s Museum 289
Nancy Pry’s Soliloquy 292
For Little Children 293
[Illustration]
SHADOWS AND SUNBEAMS;
Being a Second Series of “Fern Leaves.”
CHAPTER I.
I can see it now: the little brown house, with its sloping roof, its
clumsy old chimneys, and its vine-clad porch; where the brown bee hummed
his drowsy song, and my silver-haired old father sat dozing the sultry
summer noons away, with shaggy Bruno at his feet. The bright earth had
no blight or mildew then for me. The song of the little birds, resting
beneath the eaves, filled my heart with a quiet joy. It was sweet, when
toil was over, to sit in the low door-way, and watch the golden sun go
down, and see the many-tinted clouds fade softly away (like a dying
saint) into the light of heaven, and evening’s glittering star glow,
like a seraph’s eye, above them. ’Twas sweet, when Autumn touched the
hill-side foliage with rainbow dyes, to see the gorgeous leaves come
circling down on the soft Indian summer breeze. ’Twas sweet, when the
tripping, silver stream lay still and cold in Winter’s icy clasp, and
the flowers fainted beneath his chilly breath, and the leafless trees
stretched out their imploring arms, and shook off, impatiently, their
snowy burthen, and the heavy waggon-wheels went creaking past, and the
ruddy farmer struck his brawny arms across his ample chest, for warmth,
and goaded the lazy, round-eyed oxen up the icy hill. Even then it was
sunshine still in the little brown house: in the ample chimney glowed
and crackled the blazing faggots; rows of shining pans glittered upon
the shelves; the fragrant loaf steamed in the little oven; the friendly
tea-kettle, smoking, sang in the chimney corner, and by its side still
sat the dear old father, with the faithful newspaper, that weekly
brought us news from the busy world, from which our giant forest-trees
had shut us out.
Ah! those were happy days: few wants and no cares! the patriarch’s head
was white with grave blossoms, yet his heart was fresh and green. Alas!
that, under the lowliest door-way, as through the loftiest portal, the
Guest unbidden cometh. The morning sun rose fair, but it shone upon
silver locks that stirred with no breath of life; upon loving lips for
ever mute; upon a palsied, kindly hand that gave no returning pressure.
Soon, over the heart so warm and true, the snow lay white and cold; the
winter wind sang its mournful requiem, and from out the little brown
house the orphan passed with tearful gaze and lingering footstep.
CHAPTER II.
Oh, the bitter, bitter bread of dependence! No welcome by the
hearth-stone: no welcome at the board: the mocking tone, the cutting
taunt, the grudged morsel. Weary days, and sleepless, memory-torturing
nights.
“Well, Josiah’s dead and gone,” said my uncle, taking down his
spectacles from the mantel, to survey me, as I sank on the settle, in
the chimney corner. “Take off your bonnet, Hetty. I suppose we must give
you house-room. Josiah never had the knack of saving anything—more’s the
pity for _you_. That farm of his was awfully mismanaged. I could have
had twice the produce he did off that land. Sheer nonsense, that shallow
ploughing of his, tiring the land all out; he should have used the
sub-soil plough. Then he had no idea of the proper rotation of crops, or
how to house his cattle in winter, or to keep his tools where they
wouldn’t rust and rot. That new barn, too, was a useless extravagance.
He might have roofed the old one. It’s astonishing what a difference
there is in brothers, about getting beforehand in the world. Now, I’ve a
cool thousand in the bank, all for taking care of little things. (There,
Jonathan! Jonathan! you’ve taken the meal out of the wrong barrel: it
was the damaged meal I told you to carry to Widow Folger.)
“Well, as I was saying, Hetty, in the first place, your father didn’t
know how to manage; then he didn’t know how to say No. He’d lend money
to anybody who wanted it, and pay his workmen just what they took it
into their heads it was right to ask. Now, there’s Jonathan, yonder; a
day or two since, he struck for higher wages. Well, I _let_ him strike,
and got an Irishman in his place. This morning he came whining back,
saying that his wife was sick, and his youngest child lay dead in the
house, and that he was willing to work on at the old wages. That’s the
way to do, Hetty. If Jonathan chose to saddle himself with a wife and
babies before he was able to feed them, I don’t see the justice of my
paying for it! But it’s time for family prayers; that will be something
new to you, I suppose. I don’t want to judge _any_ body; I hope your
father has gone to Heaven, but I’m afraid he didn’t let his light shine.
Don’t whimper, child; as the tree falls, so it must lie. You must see
that you do _your_ duty: make yourself useful here in my house, and try
to pay your way. Young people of your age consume a great deal in the
way of food and clothes.”
Oh, the monotony of those weary days! how memory lingered over the sunny
past: how thought shrank back affrighted from the gloomy future: how
untiringly and thanklessly I strove to cancel the debt for daily bread,
and how despairingly I prayed for relief from such bitter thraldom.
CHAPTER III.
“Make up the bed in the north room, Hetty,” said my aunt; “it’s our turn
to board the schoolmaster this week. You needn’t put on the best sheets:
these book-learning folks are always wool-gathering. He never’ll know
the difference. What a hungry set these schoolmasters are, to be sure:
it keeps a body all the time cooking. A bushel of doughnuts is a mere
circumstance. When the last master was here, our winter barrel of cider
went off like snow in April. I hope Jonathan learned enough at school to
pay for it, but I have my doubts; he trips in the multiplication table
yet. Your uncle and I think that this boarding schoolmasters is a poor
business—a losing bargain. He says I must put less on the table, but it
is no use to try that game with George Grey. He’s as independent as Adam
in Eden, before the serpent and his wife got in. He’d just as lief call
for anything he wanted as not; and somehow or other, when he does, I
always feel as if I had no choice about bringing it. That eye of his
always makes me think of forked lightning; and yet he’s kindly spoken,
too. He is as much of a riddle to unravel, as one of Parson Jones’
doctrinal sermons. But, go make his bed, Hetty, and mind you stuff a few
rags in that broken pane of glass over it. I spoke to your uncle about
getting it mended, but he said warm weather would be along in three
months, and that’s very true, Hetty. Hist! your uncle is calling you. He
says he is going out in the barn to thresh, and if Peter Tay comes up
the road, and stops in here again, for him to subscribe towards the
minister’s new cloak, you must say that he has gone to Jifftown, and
will not be home for a week at least. Now don’t forget, Hetty; people
seem to think one earns money now-a-days on purpose to give away. A new
cloak! humph! I wonder if the Apostle Paul’s hearers ever gave him a new
cloak? I wonder if John the Baptist ever had a donation party? Don’t the
minister have his salary, two hundred dollars a year—part in produce,
part in money; paid regularly, when the times ain’t too hard? Go make
the schoolmaster’s bed now, Hetty. One pillow will do for him. Goodness
knows he carries his head high enough when he is awake. I shouldn’t
wonder if he had been captain or colonel, or something, some muster
day.”
The schoolmaster! Should I be permitted to go to school? or should I be
kept drudging at home? Would this Mr. Grey think me very ignorant? I
began to feel as if his forked-lightning eyes were already on me. My
cheeks grew hot at the idea of making a blunder in his awful presence.
What a miserable room my aunt had provided for him! If I could but put
up some nice white curtains at the window, or get him a cushioned chair,
or put in a bureau, or chest of drawers. It looked so comfortless—so
different from the welcome my dear old father was wont to give to “the
stranger within the gates;” and now memory pictured him, as he sat in
the old arm-chair, and I knelt again at the low footstool at his feet,
and his hand strayed caressingly over my temples, and I listened to old
continental stories, till the candle burned low in the socket, and only
the fire-light flickered dimly on the old portrait of General
Washington, and on my father’s time-worn face.
My aunt’s shrill voice soon roused me from my reverie. Dinnertime had
come, and with it Mr. Grey—a gentlemanly young man, of about two and
twenty, with a bright, keen, blue eye, and a frank, decided, off-hand
manner, that seemed to me admirably in keeping with his erect, imposing
figure and firm step. Even my uncle reefed in a sail or two in his
presence, and my aunt involuntarily qualified her usual bluntness of
manner. I uttered a heartfelt thanksgiving when dinner was over.
CHAPTER IV.
“Hetty,” said my uncle, as the door closed upon Mr. Grey, “I suppose you
must go to school, or the neighbours will say we don’t treat you well.
You ought to be very thankful for such a home as this, Hetty; women are
poor, miserable creatures, left without money. I wish it had pleased
Providence to have made you a boy. You might then have done Jonathan’s
work just as well as not, and saved me his wages and board. There’s a
piece of stone wall waiting to be laid, and the barn wants shingling.
Josiah, now, would be at the extravagance of hiring a mason and a
carpenter to do it.
“Crying? I wonder what’s the matter now? Well, it’s beyond me to keep
track of anything in the shape of a woman. One moment they are up in the
attic of ecstasy; the next, down in the cellar of despondency, as the
almanac says; and it is as true as if it had been written in the
Apocrypha. I only said that it is a thousand pities that you were not a
boy; then you could graft my trees for me, and hoe, and dig, and plant,
and plough, and all that sort of thing. This puttering round, washing
dishes a little, and mopping floors a little, and wringing out a few
clothes, don’t amount to much toward supporting yourself. Let me see:
you have had, since you came here”—and my uncle put on his spectacles,
and pulled out a well-thumbed pocket memorandum—“You’ve had t-w-o
p-a-i-r-s of shoes, at t-h-r-e-e s-h-i-l-l-i-n-g-s a pair, and nine
yards of calico, for a dress, at s-i-x c-e-n-t-s a yard. That ’mounts
up, Hetty, ’mounts up. You see it costs something to keep you. I earned
_my_ money, and if you ever expect to have any, you must earn yours”—and
my uncle took out his snuff-box, helped himself to a pinch, and, with
the timely aid of a stray sunbeam, achieved a succession of very
satisfactory sneezes.
The following day, under the overwhelming consciousness of my feminity
and consequent good-for-nothingness, I made my debut at Master Grey’s
school.
It was a huge barn of a room, ill-lighted, ill-warmed, and worse
ventilated, crowded with pupils of both sexes, from the little, chubby A
B C D-arian, to the gaunt Jonathan of thirty, who had begun to feel the
need of a little ciphering and geography, in making out his accounts, or
superscribing a business letter. There were rows of awkward, mop-headed,
freckled, red-fisted boys; and rosy-cheeked, buxom lasses, bursting out
of their dresses, half-shy, half-saucy, who were much more conversant
with “apple bees,” and “husking frolics,” than with grammar or
philosophy. There was the parson’s son, and the squire’s and the
blacksmith’s son, besides a few who hadn’t the remotest idea whose sons
they were, having originally been indentured to their farming masters by
the overseers of the county alms-house.
Amid these discordant elements Master Grey moved as serenely as the
August moon of a cloudless night; now patting some little curly head,
cruelly perplexed by “crooked S;” now demonstrating to some slow, older
brain, a stumbling-block in Euclid; now closing the creaking door after
an ill-mannered urchin; now overlooking the pot-hooks and hangers of an
unsophisticated scribe, who clutched the pen as if it were a hoe-handle;
now feeding the great, draftless Behemoth of a stove with green hickory
knots, and vainly attempting to thaw out his own congealed fingers.
In a remote corner of the school-room sat Zeb Smith, the village
blacksmith’s son, who came into the world with his fists doubled up, and
had been pugilist-ing ever since. It was Zeb’s proud boast that “he had
whipped every schoolmaster who had ever appeared in Frog-town,” and in
his peaceful retreat from under his bent brows, he was now mentally
taking the measure of Master Grey, ending his little reverie with a
loud, protracted whistle.
Master Grey turned quickly round, and facing his overgrown pupil of
thirty, said, in a voice clear as the click of a pistol, “You will be
pleased not to repeat that annoyance, Mr. Smith.” Zeb bent his
gooseberry eyes full upon the master, and gave him a blast of “Yankee
Doodle.”
All eyes were bent on Master Grey. The gauntlet of defiance was thrown
in his very teeth. Zeb had a frame like an ox, and a fist like a
sledge-hammer, and he knew it. Master Grey was slight, but panther-y; to
their unscientific eyes he was already victimized.
Not a bit of it! See! Master Grey’s delicately white fingers are on
Zeb’s check shirt-collar; there is a momentary struggle; lips grow
white; teeth are set; limbs twist, and writhe, and mingle, and now Zeb
lies on the floor, with Master Grey’s handsome foot on his brawny chest.
Ah, Master Grey! science is sometimes a match for bone and muscle. Your
boxing-master, Monsieur Punchmellow, would have been proud of his pupil.
Peace restored, Master Grey shakes back from his broad forehead his
curly locks, and summons the first class in geography. A row of country
girls, round as little barrels and red as peonies, stand before him,
their respect and admiration for “the master” having been increased ten
per cent. by his victory over Zeb. Feminity pardons anything in a man
sooner than lack of courage. The recitation goes off very well, with the
exception of Miss Betsey Jones, who persists in not reciting at all.
Master Grey looks at her: he has conquered a _man_, but that’s no reason
why he should suppose he can conquer a _woman_. He sees that written in
very legible characters in Miss Bessie’s saucy black eye. Miss Bessie is
sent to her seat, and warned to stay after school, till her lesson is
learned and recited perfectly. With admirable nonchalance, she takes her
own time to obey, and commences drawing little caricatures of the
master, which she places in her shoe, and passes round under the desk,
to her more demure petticoat neighbours.
School is dismissed: the last little straggler is kicking up his heels
in the snow drifts, and Master Grey and Miss Bessie are left alone.
Master Grey inquires if the lesson is learned, and is told by Miss
Bessie, with a toss of her ringlets, that she has no intention of
learning it. Master Grey again reminds her that the lesson must be
recited before she can go home. Bessie looks mischievously at the
setting sun, and plays with the master’s commands and her apron strings.
An hour passes, and Bessie has not opened the book. Master Grey consults
his watch, and reminds her “that it is growing dark.” Bessie smiles till
the dimples play hide-and-seek on her cheek, but she says nothing.
Another hour: Master Grey bites his lip, and, replacing his watch in his
pocket, says, “I see your intention, Miss Betsey. It is quite
impossible, as you know, for us to remain here after dark. To-morrow
morning, if your lesson is not earned, I shall punish you in the
presence of the whole school. You can go.”
“Thank you, sir,” says Bessie, with mock humility, as she crushes her
straw hat down over her bright ringlets.
“Mischief take these women,” Master Grey was heard to utter, as he went
through the snow by starlight to a cold supper. “Shall I conquer Zeb, to
strike my colours to a girl of sixteen?”
There was plenty to talk about over the brown bread and milk at the
farmers’ tea-tables that night; the youngsters all made up their minds
that if there was “a time to play,” it was not in Master Grey’s
school-room; and the old farmers said they were glad the District had a
schoolmaster at last that was good for something, and that they should
think better of city chaps in future for his sake. Even Zeb himself
acknowledged, over his father’s forge, as he mended his broken
suspenders, that Master Grey was a “trump.”
The nine o’clock bell summoned again the Frog-town pupils to the
District School. Master Grey in vain looked in Bessie’s face for any
sign of submission. She had evidently made up her mind to brave him.
After the usual preliminary exercises, she was called up to recite.
Fixing her saucy black eyes upon him, she said, “I told you I would
_not_ learn that lesson, and I have not learned it.” “And I told _you_,”
said Master Grey (a slight flush passing over his forehead), “that I
should punish you if you did not learn it. Did I not?” Bessie’s red lip
quivered, but she deigned him no reply.
“You will hold out your hand, Betsey,” said Mr. Grey, taking up a large
ferule that lay beside him. The colour left Bessie’s cheek, but the
little hand was extended with martyr-like determination; and amid a
silence that might be felt, the ferule came down upon it, with justice
as unflinching as if it were not owned by a woman. Betsey was not proof
against this humiliation; she burst into tears, and the answering tear
in Master Grey’s eye showed how difficult and repugnant had been the
task.
From that day, Master Grey was “monarch of all he surveyed;” and truth
compels me to own, by none better loved or more implicitly obeyed than
by Miss Bessie.
Master Grey’s “boarding week” at my uncle’s had now expired. What a
change had it effected in me! Life was no longer aimless: the old, glad
sparkle had come back to my heavy eye; I no longer dreaded the solitude
of my own thoughts. The dull rain dropping on my chamber roof had its
music for my ears; the stars wore a new and a glittering brightness, and
Winter, with his snowy mantle, frosty breath, and icicle diadem, seemed
lovelier to me than violet-slippered Spring, with roses in her hair. I
still saw Master Grey each day at school. How patiently he bore with my
multiplied deficiencies, and with what a delicate and womanly
appreciation of my extreme sensitiveness he soothed my wounded pride. No
pale-eyed flower fainting beneath the garish noonday heat, ever so
thirsted for the cool dews of twilight, as did my desolate heart for his
soothing tones and kindly words.
CHAPTER V.
“Hetty,” said my uncle, “we shall want you at home now. It will be
impossible for me to get along without you, unless I hire a hand, and
times are too hard for that: so you must leave school. You’ve a good
home here, for which you ought to be thankful, as I’ve told you before;
but you must work, girl, work! Some how or other the money goes” (and he
pulled out the old pocket-book). “Here’s my grocer’s bill—two shillings
for tea, and three shillings for sugar; can’t you do without sugar,
Hetty? And here’s a dollar charged for a pair of India rubbers. A dollar
is a great deal of money, Hetty; more than you could earn in a month.
And here’s a shilling for a comb; now that’s useless; you might cut your
hair off. It won’t do—won’t do. I had no idea of the additional expense
when I took you in. Josiah ought to have left you something; no man has
a right to leave his children for other people to support; ’tis n’t
Christian. I’ve been a professor these twenty years, and I ought to
know. I don’t know as you have any legal claim on me because you are my
niece. Josiah was thriftless and extravagant. I suppose ’tis in your
blood, too, for I can’t find out that you have begun to pay your way by
any chores you have done here. If you must live on us (and I can’t say
that I see the necessity), I repeat, I wish you had been born a boy.”
“But as I am not a boy, uncle, and as I do not wish to be a burthen to
you, will you tell me how to support myself?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m sure I don’t know. That is your business. I have my
hands full to attend to my own affairs. I am deacon of the church,
beside being trustee of the Sandwich Island Fund. I don’t get a copper
for the office of deacon; nobody pays _me_ for handing round the
contribution box; not a cent of the money that passes through my hands
goes into my till; not a _mill_ do I have, by way of perquisite, for
doling it out to bed-ridden Widow Hall, or asthmatic Mr. Price. Not a
penny the richer was I, for that twenty dollars I collected in the
contribution box at last communion: no, I am a poor man, comparatively
speaking. I may die yet in the alms-house; who knows? You must work,
girl, work; can’t have any drones in my hive.”
A shadow just then passed the window. I should know that retreating
footstep! Could it be that Master Grey had come to the door with the
intention of calling, and overheard my uncle? At least, then, I was
spared the humiliation of exposing his parsimony.
CHAPTER VI.
It was the night for the weekly vestry lecture. I was left quite alone
in the old kitchen. My uncle had extinguished the lamp in leaving,
saying that it was “a waste to burn out oil for me.” The fire, also, had
been carefully taken apart, and the brands laid at an incombustible
distance from each other. The old clock kept up a sepulchral,
death-watch tick, and I could hear the falling snow drifting gloomily
against the windows.
I drew the old wooden settle closer between the tall andirons, and sat
sorrowfully gazing into the dying embers. What was to become of me? for
it seemed impossible to bear longer the intolerable galling of my yoke.
Even the charity of strangers seemed to me preferable to the grudging,
insulting tolerance of my kindred. But, with my sixteen years’
experience of quiet valley-life, where should I turn my untried
footsteps? To Him who guideth the little bird through the pathless air,
would I look.
Weeping, I prayed.
“My poor child,” said a voice at my side; and Master Grey removed my
hands gently from my tear-stained face, and held them in his own. “My
poor Hetty, life looks very dark to you, does it not? I know all you
suffer. Don’t pain yourself to tell me about it. I overheard your
uncle’s crushing words. I know there are none to love you—none to care
for you—none on whom you can lean. It is a bitter feeling, my poor
child. I, too, have passed through it. You would go from hence, but
where? Life is full of snares, and you are too young and too
inexperienced to brave them.
“Hetty,” and Master Grey drew me gently towards him,—“Hetty, could you
be happy with me?”
Is the shipwrecked mariner happy, who opens his despairing eyes at
length in the long looked for, long prayed for, home?
Is the little bird happy, who folds her weary wings safe from the
pursuer’s talons, in her own fleece-lined nest?
Is the little child happy, who wakes, sobbing, in the gloomy night, from
troubled dreams, to find his golden head still safely pillowed on the
dear, maternal bosom?
CHAPTER VII.
It was very odd and strange to me, my new home in the great busy city;
with its huge rows of stores and houses, its myriad restless feet, and
anxious, care-worn faces; its glittering wealth, its squalid poverty;
the slow-moving hearse, and the laughing harlequin crowd; its noisy
Sabbaths, and its gorgeous churches, with its jewelled worshippers, and
its sleepy priests; its little children, worldly-wise and old; and its
never-ceasing, busy hum, late into the day’s pale light. I had no
acquaintances: I needed none; for I moved about my pretty little home as
in a glad dream. My husband was still “Master Grey,” but over a private
school of his own, bounded by no “District,” subject to the despotic
dictation of no “Committee.” In his necessary absence, I busied myself
in arranging and re-arranging his books, papers and wardrobe, thinking
the while such _glad_ thoughts! And when the little mantel clock chimed
the hour of return, my cheek flushed, my heart beat quick, and my eyes
grew moist with happy tears, at the sound of the dear, loved footstep.
How very nice it seemed to sit at the head of that cheerful little
table—to make, with my own hands, the fragrant cup of tea—to grow merry
with my husband, over crest-fallen Zeb, and poor, stubborn little
Bessie, and my uncle’s time-worn bugbear of a memorandum book!
And how proud I was of him, as he sat there correcting some school-boy’s
Greek exercise, while I leaned over his shoulder, looking attentively at
his fine face, and at those unintelligible hieroglyphics, and blushing
that he was so much wiser than his little Hetty.
This thought sometimes troubled me. I asked myself, will my husband
never weary of me? I even grew jealous of his favourite authors, of whom
he was so fond. Then I pondered the feasibility of pursuing a course of
reading unknown to him, and astonishing him some day with my profound
erudition. In pursuance of my plan, I would sit demurely down to some
great, wise book; but I saw only my husband’s face looking out at me
from every page, and my self-inflicted task was sure to end in some
blissful dreamy reverie, with which Cupid had much more to do than
Minerva.
CHAPTER VIII.
“A proposition, Hetty!” said my husband, throwing aside his coat and
hat, and tossing a letter in my lap. “It is from a widow lady, who
desires that I should take charge of her little boy, and give him a home
in my family, while she goes to the continent, to secure some property
lately left her by a foreign relative. It will be advantageous to us, in
a pecuniary way, to have him board with us, unless it should increase
your cares too much. But, as you are so fond of children, it may,
perhaps, after all, prove a pleasant care to you. She is evidently a
superior woman. Every line in her letter shows it.”
My husband immediately answered in the affirmative, and the child
arrived a week after. He was a fine, intelligent, gentlemanly boy of
eight years, with large hazel eyes, and transparently beautiful temples:
disinclined to the usual sports of childhood, sensitive, shy, and
thoughtful beyond his years—a human dew-drop, which we look to see
exhale. He brought with him a letter from his mother, which powerfully
affected my husband. During its perusal he drew his hand repeatedly
across his eyes, and sat a long while after he had finished reading it,
with his eyes closed, in a deep reverie. By-and-by he said, handing me
the letter, “There is genius there, Hetty. I never read anything so
touchingly beautiful. Mrs. West must be a very talented and superior
woman.”
I glanced over the letter. It fully justified my husband’s encomiums. It
was a most touching appeal to him to watch with paternal care over her
only child; but while she spoke with a mother’s tenderness of his
endearing qualities, she wished him taught implicitly, that first of all
duties for the young, _obedience_. Then followed allusions to dark days
of sorrow, during which the love of that cherished child was the only
star in her sky.
I folded the letter and sat very still, after my husband left, in my
little rocking-chair, thinking. Such a gifted woman as that my husband
should have married. One who could have sympathised with him and shared
his intellectual pursuits; who would have been something besides a toy
to amuse an idle hour, or to minister to his physical necessities.
Perhaps it was of this that my husband was thinking, as he sat there
with his eyes closed over the open letter. Perhaps he had wed me only
from a generous impulse of pity, and that letter had suddenly revealed
to him the happiness of which he was capable with a kindred spirit. I
was very miserable. I wished the letter had never reached us, or that I
had declined the care of the child. Other letters, of course, would
come, and the boy would keep alive the interest in the intervals. I wept
long and bitterly. At length I was aroused by the entrance of little
Charley. A bright flush mounted to his forehead, when he saw my swollen
eyes. He hesitated a moment, then gliding up to my side he said,
sweetly, “Are you sick? Shall I bathe your head? I used to bathe mamma’s
head when it pained her.”
I stood abashed and rebuked in the child’s angel presence, and taking
the boy, _her_ boy, in my arms, I kissed him as tenderly as if I had
been his mother; while in his own sweet way he told me with childish
confidence of his own dead papa; how much he loved mamma; how many, many
beautiful things he used to bring her, saying that they were not half
good, or half handsome enough for her; how distressed he used to be if
she were ill; how carefully he closed the shutters, and tip-toed about
the house, with his finger on his lip, telling the servants to close the
doors gently; and how he promised him little toys, if he would not
disturb mamma’s slumbers; and then, how like diamonds his eyes shone,
when she got well; and what beautiful flowers he brought her for her
vases; and what a nice, soft-cushioned carriage he brought for her to
take the air; and how tenderly he wrapped the shawls about her, and how
many charges he gave the coachman, to drive slowly and carefully. And
then, how dear papa, at last, grew sick himself; and how mamma watched
day and night beside his bed, forgetting to sleep, or eat, or drink; and
how nobody dared to tell her that the doctor said he must die; and how
papa grew fainter and weaker, and how he said, “Kiss me, Mary, and lay
your cheek to mine; I can’t see you.” And then how mamma fainted and was
carried out, and for many, many long days didn’t know even her own
little Charley;—and how dreadful it was when she first waked, and tried
to remember what had happened; and how nobody could comfort her but
Charley; and how he used often to wake up in the night, and find her
with a lamp looking at him, because when he was asleep he looked so much
like dear, dead papa; and how bitterly she would sob when she was sick,
because papa was not there to pity her, and bathe her aching head; and
how he (Charley) meant, when he grew up to be a man, to get a nice house
for her, and put everything she wanted in it, and make her just as happy
as he could.
Well has the Saviour said, “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” That
night I bent over little Charley’s bed, blessing the little sleeper for
his angel teachings, with a heart as calm and peaceful as the mirrored
lake, reflecting only the smile of Heaven.
Time passed on. Life became earnest; for a little heart pulsated beneath
my own, and a strange, sweet, nameless thrill sent to my chastened lips
a trembling prayer. Tiny caps and robes, with many a hope and fear
interwoven in their delicate threads, lay awaiting the infant’s advent.
I, myself, should know the height, and breadth, and depth of a mother’s
undying love. What could come between me and _this_ new-found treasure?
Meantime, letters continued to come from Charley’s mother to her boy,
and my husband. It was impossible for me to blind myself to his growing
interest in them. On the days they were expected (for she wrote at
regular intervals), he would be absent and abstracted, or if any delay
occurred, almost irritable. When they were received, his eye kindled,
his step became elastic, and his whole face grew radiant with happiness.
As the time drew near for the birth of my infant, I grew timid with sad
forebodings. I was sitting, one evening at twilight, watching the
setting sun, and thinking of the quiet grave it was gilding, where my
silver-haired father slept, in the old churchyard, when my husband
entered. An expression of pain flitted over his features, as he looked
at me; and taking my hand, he said, gently, _almost tenderly_, “You are
less well than usual, Hetty; you must not sit here, moping, by
yourself.”
I laid my head upon his shoulder with a happiness I had not known for
many months. “Listen to me, dear Grey,” said I; “I have a confidence to
repose in you that will ease my heart.
“It was pity, only, that drew your heart to mine; you do not love me. I
have known it a long while since. At first, the discovery gave me a pang
keener than death; but I have had a long and bitter struggle with
myself, and have conquered. It is not your fault that you cannot love
me. To the many voices of your heart, which cry, ‘Give, give,’ my
response is weak and unsatisfying. Your wife should be gifted. She
should sympathise with you in your intellectual pursuits. She should
stimulate your pride, as well as your love. Such a one is Charley’s
mother. Your _heart_ has already wed her, and as God is my witness, I
have ceased to blame you. We cannot help our affections. I cannot help
loving you, though I know her mysterious power over your heart. I have
seen your struggles, your generous self-reproaches, in some sudden
outburst of kindness toward me, after the indulgence of some bright
dream, in which I had no share. Dear Grey, she is worthy of your love.
She has a heart, noble, good and true; a heart purified by suffering. I
see it in every line she writes. Should I not survive the birth of my
infant, I could give your happiness into her keeping without a
misgiving, though I have never looked upon her face.”
Little Hetty’s noble heart has long since ceased to throb with joy or
pain. To her husband’s breast is folded the babe, for whose little life
her own was yielded up. Threads of silver prematurely mingle amid his
ebon locks; for memory writes only on bereaved hearts the virtues of the
dead, while, with torturing minuteness, she pictures our own
short-comings, for which, alas! we can offer no atonement but our tears.
AUNT HEPSY.
It was a comical little old shop, “Aunt Hepsy’s,” with its Lilliputian
counter, shelves and stove, and its pigmy assortment of old-fashioned
ginghams, twilled cambrics, red flannels, factory cotton and homespun
calicoes; its miniature window, with its stock of horn-combs and candy,
tin horses and peppermint drops, skeins of yarn and Godfrey’s Cordial,
gaudy picture books, and sixpenny handkerchiefs, from whose centre
Lafayette and George Washington smiled approbatively upon the big A’s
and little A’s printed round the border.
“Aunt Hepsy;” so every brimless-hatted urchin in the neighbourhood
called her, though it would have puzzled them worse than the
multiplication table, had you asked them why they did so. Year in and
year out, her ruddy English face glowed behind the little shop window.
Sometimes she would be knitting a pair of baby’s socks, sometimes
inventing most astonishing looking bags out of rainbow fragments of silk
or ribbon. Sometimes netting watch-guards, or unravelling the yarn from
some old black stocking, to ornament the “place where the wool ought to
grow,” on the head of some Topsy doll she was making. Sometimes
comforting herself with a sly pinch of snuff, or, when sunbeams and
customers were scarce, nodding drowsily over the daily papers.
Aunt Hepsy _had_ been a beauty, and her pretty face had won her a
thriftless husband, of whom champagne and cigars had long since kindly
relieved her. And though Time had since forced her to apply to the
perruquier, he had gallantly made atonement by leaving her in the
undisputed possession of a pair of very brilliant black eyes. Add to
this a certain air of coquetry, in the fanciful twist of her
gay-coloured turban, and the disposal of the folds of her lace kerchief
over her ample English bust—and you have a faithful daguerreotype of
“Aunt Hepsy.”
From the window of her little shop she could look out upon the blue
waters of the bay, where lay moored the gallant ships, from whose tall
masts floated the stars and stripes, and whose jolly captains might
often be seen in Aunt Hepsy’s shop, exchanging compliments and snuff,
and their heavy voices heard, recounting long Neptune yarns, and
declaring to the buxom widow that nothing but the little accident of
their being already spliced for life, prevented their immediately
spreading sail with her for the port of Matrimony. Aunt Hepsy usually
frowned at this, and shook her turbaned head menacingly, but immediately
neutralized it by offering to mend a rip in their gloves, or replace a
truant button on their overcoats.
It was very odd, how universally popular was Aunt Hepsy. She had any
number of places to “take tea,” beside a standing invitation from
half-a-dozen families, to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and to
New-Year’s suppers. She had an eligible seat in church, gratis; an
inexhaustible bottle of sherry for her often infirmities, fresh pies on
family baking days, newspapers for stormy day reading; tickets to
menageries, and invitations to picnics.
She always procured lodgings at a cheaper rate than anybody else; had
the pleasantest room in the house at that, the warmest seat at table,
the strongest cup of coffee, the brownest slice of toast, the latest
arrival of buckwheats, the second joint of the turkey, and the only
surviving piece of pie. To be sure, she always praised ugly babies,
asked old maids why they _would_ be so cruel as to persist in remaining
unmarried, entreated hen-pecked husbands to use their powerful influence
over their wives to secure to her their custom, begged the newly-fledged
clergyman to allow her a private perusal of his last Sunday’s able
discourse; complimented ambitious Esaus on the luxuriant growth of their
very incipient and microscopically perceptible whiskers; asked
dilapidated, rejected widowers, when they intended taking their choice
of a wife out of a bevy of rosy girls; and declared to editors that she
might as well try to get along without her looking-glass, as without
their interesting newspapers.
One day the little shop was shut up. Nine o’clock came—eleven o’clock,
and the shutters were still closed, and Aunt Hepsy so punctual, too!
What _could_ it mean? Old Mrs. Brown was ready to have fits because she
couldn’t get another skein of yarn to finish her old man’s stockings.
Little Pat Dolan had roared himself black in the face, because he
couldn’t spend his cent to buy some maple sugar; and the little match
girl stood shivering at the corner for a place to warm her poor benumbed
fingers, while the disappointed captains stamped their feet on the snow,
stuffed their cheeks with quids, and said it was “deuced funny;” and an
old maid opposite, who had long prayed that Aunt Hepsy’s reign might be
shortened, laid her skinny forefinger on her hooked nose, and rolled up
the whites of her eyes like a chicken with the pip.
It was no great enigma (at any rate, not after you found it out!). Rich
old Mr. Potts ventured into Aunt Hepsy’s shop one day to buy a
watch-ribbon. He was very deaf; so Aunt Hepsy had to come round the
counter to wait upon him, and the upshot of it was, that she and Cupid
together hailed him through an ear-trumpet; and all I know about it is,
that they have now a legalized right to a mutual pillow and snuff-box,
and that the little shop window still remains unopened, while the old
maid hisses between her teeth, as Aunt Hepsy rolls by in her carriage,
“How do you suppose she did it?”
THOUGHTS AT CHURCH.
I have an old-fashioned way of entering church before the bells begin to
chime. I enjoy the quiet, brooding stillness. I love to think of the
many words of holy cheer that have fallen there, from heaven-missioned
lips, and folded themselves like snow-white wings over the weary heart
of despair. I love to think of the sinless little ones, whose pearly
temples have here been laved at the baptismal font. I love to think of
the weak, yet strong ones, who have tearfully tasted the consecrated
cup, on which is written, “Do this in remembrance of me.” I love to
think of those self-forgetting, self-exiled, who, counting all things
naught for Gethsemane’s dear sake, are treading foreign shores, to say
to the soul-fettered Pagan, “Behold the Lamb of God.” I love to think of
the loving hearts that at yonder altar have throbbed, side by side,
while the holy man of God pronounced “the twain one.” I love to think of
the seraph smile of which death itself was powerless to rob the dead
saint, over whose upturned face, to which the sunlight lent such mocking
glow, the words, “Dust to dust,” fell upon the pained ear of love. I
love, as I sit here, to list, through the half open vestry door, to the
hymning voices of happy Sabbath scholars, sweet as the timid chirp of
morn’s first peeping bird. I love to hear their tiny feet, as they
patter down the aisle, and mark the earnest gaze of questioning
childhood. I love to see the toil-hardened hand of labour brush off the
penitential tear. I love—“_our_ minister.” How very sad he looks to-day.
Are his parishioners unsympathetic? Does the labourer’s “hire” come
tardily and grudgingly to the overtasked faithful servant? Do
censorious, dissatisfied spirits watch and wait for his halting?
Now he rises and says, slowly—musically, “The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want.” Why at such sweet, soul-resting words, do his tears
overflow? Why has his voice such a heart-quiver? Ah! there is a vacant
seat in the pastor’s pew. A little golden head, that last Sabbath
gladdened our eyes like a gleam of sunlight, lies dreamlessly pillowed
beneath the coffin lid; gleeful eyes have lost their brightness; cherry
lips are wan and mute, and beneath her sable veil the lonely mother
sobs. And so the father’s lip quivers, and for a moment nature triumphs.
Then athwart the gloomy cloud flashes the bow of promise. He wipes away
the blinding tears, and with an angel smile, and upward glance, he says,
“_Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him._”
[Illustration]
THE BROTHERS.
Close the door. One would scarcely think, in this luxurious atmosphere,
that we had left mid-winter behind us. The warm air is heavy with the
odour of blossoming greenhouse plants, over whose fragrant clusters a
tiny fountain tosses its sparkling spray: bright-winged, sweet-voiced
canaries dart, like flashes of sunlight, through the dark green foliage:
beautiful are those sculptured infants, cheek to cheek, over whose
dimpled limbs the crimson drapery throws such a rosy glow: beautiful is
that shrinking Venus, with her pure, chaste brow, and Eve-like grace:
lovely those rare old pictures to the artistic eye: beautiful that
recumbent statuette of the peerless, proud “Pauline.”
Hush! tread softly; on yonder couch a gentleman lies sleeping. His
crimson velvet cap has fallen back from his broad white forehead, his
long curving lashes droop heavily upon his cheek, and his Grecian
profile is as faultless as a sculptor’s dream. Pity that the stain of
sensuality should have left so legible an impress there.
A servant enters, hearing a note upon a silver tray. His master
languidly opens a pair of large dark eyes, and beckons him to approach.
As he breaks the seal, a contemptuous sneer disfigures his handsome lip,
and an angry flush mounts to his brow. Motioning the servant away, he
crushes the note between his fingers, muttering, “No—no; as he has made
his bed, so let him lie in it.” Then walking once or twice rapidly
across the room, he takes up a small volume, and throws himself again
upon the velvet couch. He does not turn the leaves; and if you peep over
his shoulder, you will see that the book is upside down. His thoughts
are far away. He remembers a bright-eyed, open-browed, guileless-hearted
brother, whom early orphanage had thrown upon his fraternal care; whose
trusting nature he had perverted; whose listening ear he had poisoned
with specious sophistries and worldly maxims; whom he had introduced to
the wine party, where female virtue was held in derision, and to the
“green room,” where the foreign _danseuse_ understood well how to play
her part; whom he had initiated into modern follies and dissipations,
and then launched upon the Charybdis of fashionable society, without
chart, or rudder, or compass, other than his own headstrong passions and
unbridled will.
Soon came a rumour—at first vague and undefined, and then voraciously
seized upon and circulated by Paul Pry penny-a-liners (who recked
little, in their avidity for a paragraph, of broken-hearted mothers or
despairing gray-haired fathers), of a true heart that had been betrayed,
of a disgraced household, of a fair brow that must henceforth walk the
earth shame-branded. Then from his avenging pursuers the rash boy fled
for refuge to him who had first turned his youthful steps aside from
truth and honour. He was repulsed with scorn; not because he had wronged
his own soul and hers whose star had for ever set in night, but because
he had not more skilfully and secretly woven the meshes for his victim.
Across the seas, amid the reckless debauchery of God-forgetting Paris,
the miserable boy sought oblivion; welcoming with desperate eagerness
the syren Pleasure, in every chameleon shape that could stifle
conscience or drown torturing memory. Sometimes by a lucky throw of the
dice he was enabled to shine as the Adonis of some ball, or theatre, or
gay saloon: sometimes destitute as the humblest chiffonier, who suns
himself in the public square, to solicit charity of the indifferent
passer-by. In the rosy glow of morning, the bright stars paled while
Harry sat at the enticing gaming table, till even those accustomed to
breathe the polluted atmosphere of those gates of perdition, turned
shuddering away from the fiendish look of that youthful face.
Nature revenged herself at last. Wearisome days of sickness came, and he
who was nurtured in luxury was dependent upon the charity of grudging
strangers.
Oh! what a broad, clear beam eternity throws upon the crooked by-paths
of sin! how like swift visions pass the long-forgotten prayer at the
blessed mother’s knee; the long-forgotten words of Holy Writ; the
soothing vesper hymn of holy time; the first cautious, retrograding
step—the gradual searing of conscience, till the barrier between right
and wrong is ruthlessly trampled under foot; the broken resolutions, the
mis-spent years, the wasted energies; the sins against one’s own soul,
the sins against others; the powerless wish to pray, ‘mid paroxysms of
bodily pain; the clinging hold on life—the anxious glance at the
physician—the thrilling question, “Doctor, is it life or death?”
Poor Harry! amid the incoherent ravings of delirium, the good little
grisette learned his sad history. Her little French heart was touched
with pity. Through her representations, on his partial restoration to
health, a sufficient sum was subscribed by the American consul, and some
of his generous countrymen, to give him the last chance for his life, by
sending him to breathe again his native air. Earnestly he prayed that
the sea might not be his sepulchre.
Tearfully he welcomed the first sight of his native shore. Tremblingly
he penned those few lines to the brother whose face he so yearned to
see—and on whose fraternal breast it would seem almost easy to die.
Anxiously he waited the result, turning restlessly from side to side,
till beaded drops of agony started from his pallid temples. Walter would
not refuse his _last_ request. No—no, The proud man would at least, at
the grave’s threshold, forget that “vulgar rumour” had coupled his
patrician name with disgrace. Oh, why had the messenger such leaden
footsteps? when life and strength, like hour-glass sands, were fleeting!
A step is heard upon the stairs! A faint flush, like the rosy tinting of
a sea-shell, brightens the pallid face.
“No answer, sir,” gruffly says the messenger.
A smothered groan of anguish, and Harry turns his face to the wall, and
tears, such only as despair can shed, bedew his pillow.
“_Do_ go, dear Walter; ’tis your own brother who asks it. If he has
sinned, has he not also suffered? We all so err, so need forgiveness.
Oh, take back those hasty words; let him die on your breast, for _my_
sake, Walter,” said the sweet pleader, as her tears fell over the hand
she pressed.
“That’s my own husband,” said the happy Mary, as she saw him relent. “Go
_now_, dear Walter. Take away the sting of those cruel words, while yet
you may, and carry him these sweet flowers, he used to love, from me.
Quick, dear Walter.”
* * * * *
“This way, sir, this way. Up another flight,” said the guide, gazing
admiringly at the fine figure before him, enveloped in a velvet Spanish
cloak. “Second door to the left, sir. Maybe the gentleman’s asleep now;
he’s been very quiet for some time. Seen trouble, sir, I reckon. ’Tis
not age that has drawn those lines on his handsome face. He’s not long
for this world, God rest his soul. That’s right, sir; that’s the door.
Good day, sir.”
Walter stood with his finger on the latch. He had at all times a nervous
shrinking from sickness—a fastidious horror of what he termed
“disagreeables.” He half repented that he had suffered a woman’s tears
to unsettle his purpose. Perhaps Harry would reproach him. (His own
conscience was prompter to that thought.) There he stood, irresolutely
twirling Mary’s lovely flowers in his nervous grasp.
If Harry should reproach him!
Slowly he opened the door. The flowers fell from his hand! Was that
attenuated, stiffened form, his own, warm-hearted, bright-eyed, gallant
young brother?
“Reproach?”
Oh, Walter, there is no “reproach” like that passionless upturned face;
no words so crushing as the silence of those breathless lips; no misery
like the thought that those we have injured are for ever blind to our
gushing tears, and deaf to our sobs of repentance.
CURIOUS THINGS.
CURIOUS: The exaggerated anxiety of wives to see the women who were
formerly loved by their husbands.—_Exchange._
Well, yes—rather curious; there are a great many curious things in this
world. Curious, your husband always perceives that you are “sitting in a
draft,” whenever one of your old lovers approaches you in a concert
room; curious he insists upon knowing who gave you that pretty gold ring
on your little finger; curious that you can never open a package of old
letters, without having his married eyes peeping over your shoulder;
curious he never allows you to ride on horseback, though everybody says
you have just the figure for it; curious he always sends his partner on
all the little business trips of the firm; curious such an ugly frown
comes over his face when he sees certain cabalistic marks, in a
masculine hand, in the margin of your favourite poet; curious that he
will not let you name your youngest boy Harry, unless you tell him your
confidential reasons; curious he is almost most gracious to the most
uninteresting men who visit the house; and _very_ curious, and decidedly
disagreeable, that whenever you ask him for money, he is so busy reading
the newspaper that he can’t hear you.
[Illustration]
THE ADVANTAGES OF A HOUSE IN A FASHIONABLE SQUARE.
“Whom did you say wished to see me, Bridget?”
The broad-faced Irish girl handed her mistress a card.
“‘Mrs. John Hunter!’ Was there _ever_ anything so unfortunate? Had she
called on any other day in the week, I should have been prepared to
receive her, but on a ‘washing day,’ when nothing but a calico wrapper
stands Master George’s clawings and climbings; when the nursery maid is
in the kitchen, and the baby on my hands for the day; when my ‘Honiton
collar’ is in soak, the parlour-window curtains in the wash-tub, and the
dimensions of the whole family, big and little, are flapping on the
clothes line, displaying their rents and patches in full view of the
parlour windows! Was there ever anything so unfortunate? What _could_
induce Mrs. John Hunter to call on a washing day?”
But what was a “washing day” to Mrs. John Hunter, who lived in St.
John’s Square, kept four servants, and patronized a laundry? What did
she know of Monday’s picked up dinners and littered parlours, cluttered
china closet, and untidied nurseries? Mrs. John Hunter, who came down to
breakfast every morning in a fawn-coloured silk morning dress, trimmed
with cherry, over an elaborately embroidered white skirt; in a cobweb
lace cap, silk stockings, and the daintiest of Parisian toilette
slippers; how could _she_ see the necessity of going down into the
cellar, after breakfast, to see if the pork was under brine, the pickle
jar covered, and the preserves unfermented? What did _she_ know about
washing up breakfast-cups, polishing the silver sugar-bowl, filling the
astral lamp, counting up the silver forks and spoons, or mending that
little threadbare place in the carpet, that would soon widen into an
ugly rent, if neglected? What did she know about washing children’s
faces for school, or finding their missing mittens, or seeing that
Webster’s spelling-book and a big apple were safely stowed away in their
satchels? How did she (whose family broadcloth the tailor mended) know
that Monday was always the day when husbands threw their coats into
wives’ lap “for just one stitch,” which, translated, means new
sleeve-linings, new facings for the flaps, a new set of buttons down the
front, and a general resuscitation of dilapidated button-holes? How did
she know that the baby always got up a fit of colic on washing days, and
made it a point to dispense with its usual forenoon nap?—that all the
collectors for benevolent societies, and bores in general, preferred it
to any other day in the calendar?—that school teachers always selected
it to ferule children for sneezing without permission—that milkmen never
could spare you, on that day, your usual share of milk by two
quarts—that the coal, potatoes, starch, soap, molasses, and vinegar
always gave out on Monday—that “the minister” always selected it for his
annual call, and country cousins for a “protracted meeting?” How should
the patrician, Mrs. John Hunter, know all that?
There she sat in the parlour taking notes, after the usual fashion of
lady-callers, while Mrs. John Smith hurriedly tied on her bonnet, to
hide her dishevelled tresses, threw on a shawl, and made her appearance
in the parlour as if “just returned from a long walk.”
How their tongues ran! how fashions and gossip were discussed; how Mrs.
Smith admired Mrs. Hunter’s new dress hat; how the latter lady advised
Mrs. Smith to “insist on her husband’s moving from such an undesirable
neighbourhood into a more aristocratic locality;” and how Mrs. Smith
wondered that the idea had never struck her before; and how Mrs. Hunter
told her that of course Mr. Smith would refuse at first, but that she
must either worry him into it, or seize upon some moment of conjugal
weakness to extort a binding promise from him to that effect; and how
the little wife blushed to find herself conniving at this feminine piece
of diabolism.
Mrs. John Smith’s husband commenced life in a provision store. He was
well acquainted with cleavers, white aprons, and spare-ribs—was on hand
early and late to attend to business—trusted nobody—lived within his
income, and consequently made money.
Miss Mary Wood kept a dressmaker’s establishment just over the way. Very
industriously she sat through the long summer days, drooping her pretty
golden ringlets over that never-ending succession of dresses. Patiently
she “took in,” and “let out,” bias-ed, flounced, tucked, gathered,
plaited, at the weathercock option of her customers. Uneasily she leaned
her head against her little window at sun-down, and earnestly Mr. John
Smith wished he could reprieve for ever from such drudgery those taper
little fingers. Very tempting was the little basket of early
strawberries, covered with fresh green leaves, that went over the way to
her one bright summer morning—and as red as the strawberries, and quite
as tempting, looked Miss Mary’s cheek to Mr. John Smith, as she sat at
the window, reading the little billet-doux which he slily tucked into
one corner.
The milkman wondered why Mr. Smith had grown so particular about the
flowers in the bouquets his little grand-daughter plucked for sale, and
why there must _always_ be “a rose-bud in it.” Miss Rosa Violet couldn’t
imagine what ailed her dressmaker, Miss Wood (who was always so
scrupulous in executing orders), to make her bodice round, when she told
her so particularly to make it pointed. The little sewing-girls employed
in Miss Wood’s shop were “afraid she was getting crazy,” she smiled so
often to herself, broke so many needles, and made so many mistakes in
settling up their accounts on pay-day; and very great was their
astonishment one day, after finishing a pretty bridal dress, to find
that Miss Wood was to wear it herself to church the very next Sunday!
One bright June morning found the little dressmaker in a nice, two-story
brick house, furnished with every comfort, and some luxuries; for the
warm-hearted John thought nothing half good enough for his little
golden-haired bride. As time passed on, other little luxuries were
added; including two nice, fat, dimpled babies; and within the last year
John had bought the house they lived in, and at Mary’s suggestion
introduced gas, to lighten the labours of the servant, and also added a
little bathing-room to the nursery. His table was well provided—the
mother’s and children’s wardrobes ample, and not a husband in
Yankee-land was prouder or happier than John Smith, when on a sunshiny
Sunday, he walked to church with his pretty wife, whose golden curls
still gleamed from beneath her little blue bonnet, followed by Katy and
Georgy with their shining rosy faces, and pretty Sunday dresses.
It was quite time the honeymoon should wane, but still it showed no
signs of decrease. Little bouquets still perfumed Mary’s room. John
still sprung to pick up her handkerchief, or aid her in putting on her
cloak or shawl. The anniversary of their wedding day always brought her
a kind little note, with some simple remembrancer. Trifles, do you call
these? Ah, a wife’s happiness is made or marred by just such “trifles.”
* * * * *
“Katy will make somebody’s heart ache one of these days,” said John
Smith to his wife. “Katy will be a beauty. Did you hear me, Mary?”
“Yes,” said Mary, drooping her bright ringlets till they swept John’s
cheek, “and I was thinking how I hoped she would marry well, and whether
it would not be better for us to move into a more genteel neighbourhood,
and form a new set of acquaintances.”
“_My_ little wife getting ambitious!” said John, smoothing her ringlets
back from her white forehead; and “where would you like to live, Mary?”
“St. John’s Square is a nice place,” said the little wife, timidly.
“Yes; but, my dear Mary, rents there are enormous, and those large
houses require a greater outlay of money than you have any idea of. The
furniture which looks pretty and in good taste here, would be quite
shabby in such an elegant establishment. The pretty de laine, which fits
your little round figure so charmingly, must give place to a silk or
brocade. Katy and Georgy must doff their simple dresses, for velvet and
embroidery; broad-faced, red-fisted Bridget must make way for a French
cook. The money which I have placed in the bank for a nest-egg for you
and the children in case of my death must be withdrawn to meet present
demands. But we will talk of this another time: good-by, Mary dear; not
even your dear face must tempt me away from business; good-by,” and he
kissed his hand to her, as he walked rapidly out the door.
But somehow or other Mary’s words kept ringing in John’s ears. It was
very true Katy must be married some day, and then he ran over the circle
of their acquaintance; the Stubbses, and the Joneses, and the
Jenkinses—good enough in their way, but (he confessed to himself) _not
just the thing for his Katy_. John was ambitious too: Mary was right;
they ought to consider that Katy would soon be a woman.
It is not to be supposed because John Smith never sported white kids,
save on his wedding day, that he was not a man of taste; by no means.
Not an artistic touch of Mary’s feminine fingers, from the twist of a
ringlet or ribbon to the draping of a curtain, the judicious disposal of
a fine engraving, or the harmonious blending of colours in a mantel
bouquet, escaped him. It was his joy and pride to see her glide about
his home, beautifying almost unconsciously everything she touched; and
then, he remembered when she was ill, and Bridget had the oversight of
the parlours—what a different air they had; how awkwardly the chairs
looked plastered straight against the wall—how ugly the red cloth all
awry on the centre table; what a string-y look the curtains had, after
her clumsy fingers had passed over them Yes, Mary would grace a house in
St. John’s Square; and if it would make her any happier to go there (and
here he glanced at his ledger) —why, go she should—for she was just the
prettiest, and dearest, and most loving little Mary who ever answered to
that poetical name. What would full coffers avail him, if Mary should
die?—and she might die first. His health was good—his business was good.
Mary and Katy _should_ live in St. John’s Square.
Mary and Katy _did_ live in St. John’s Square. The upholsterer crammed
as many hundreds as possible into the drawing-rooms, in the shape of
_vis-a-vis_ antique chairs, velvet sofas, damask curtains, mirrors,
tapestry, carpets, and a thousand other nick-nacks, too numerous to
mention: then the blinds and curtains shut out the glad sunlight, lest
the warm beams should fade out the rich tints of the carpets and
curtains, and left it us fine and as gloomy as any other fashionable
drawing room. There was a very pretty prospect from Mary’s chamber
windows, but she never allowed herself to enjoy it after Mrs. John
Hunter told her that it was considered “decidedly snobbish to be seen at
the front window.” The Smiths took their meals in a gloomy basement,
where gas was indispensable at mid-day. Mary was constantly in fear that
the servants would spoil the pictures and statues in the parlour, so she
concluded to sweep and dust it herself, before there was any probability
of Mrs. John Hunter’s being awake in the morning. As this was something
of a tax, she and Mr. Smith and the children kept out of it, except on
Sundays and when company called, burrowing under ground the residue of
the time in the afore-mentioned basement.
Directly opposite Mrs. Smith lived Mrs. Vivian Grey, the leader of the
aristocracy (so Mrs. Hunter informed her) in St. John’s Square. It was a
great thing to be noticed by Mrs. Vivian Grey. Mrs. Hunter sincerely
hoped she would patronise Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Hunter, after a minute
survey, pronounced Mrs. Smith’s establishment quite _comme il faut_, but
suggested that a _real_ cachemire should be added as soon as possible to
Mrs. Smith’s wardrobe, as Mrs. Grey considered that article quite
indispensable to a woman of fashion. She also suggested that Mrs. Smith
should delicately hint to her husband the propriety of his engaging a
man servant, which appendage was necessary to give a certain _distingué_
finish to the establishment; an Irishman would do, if well trained, but
a _black_ man was more fashionable, provided he was not _green_—and Mrs.
Hunter smiled at her own wit.
The cachemire was added—so was the black servant man. Katy no longer
skipped and jumped, but minced in corsets and whalebone. She never _ate_
unless at a private lunch with mamma. Mr. John Smith staid late at his
counting-room, and looked anxious, and two ugly lines made their
appearance on Mrs. Mary’s fair forehead. The French cook gave away
provisions enough to feed an entire family of French emigrants. The
black man-servant pulled up his dicky and informed Mrs. Smith that it
was at the price of his reputation to live with a family who dispensed
with the use of finger-bowls; and the house-maid (who had the honour of
being descended from the establishment of Mrs. Vivian Grey) declined
remaining with a family who didn’t keep a private carriage.
Mrs. Vivian Grey was _not_ baited by the real cachemire, and her son,
little Julius Grey, a precocious youth of ten, told little George Smith
that his mamma had forbidden him playing marbles with a boy whose father
had kept a provision store.
A scurrilous penny paper published a burlesque of Mrs. Smith’s first
grand party, on the coming out of Miss Katy, in which, among other
allusions to Mr. Smith’s former occupation, the ball-room was said to be
“elegantly festooned with sausages.” This added “the last ounce to the
camel’s back;” even Mrs. Hunter’s tried friendship was not proof against
such a test.
A council of war was called. Mrs. Smith begged her husband, as her
repentant arms encircled his waistcoat, to buy a place in the country.
John very gladly consented to turn his plebeian back for ever on the
scene of their humiliation; and, what with strawberries and cherries,
peaches, picnics, early rising and light hearts, the Smith family have
once more recovered their equanimity, and can afford to laugh when “St.
John’s Square” and Mrs. John Hunter are mentioned.
[Illustration]
WINTER IS COMING.
Welcome his rough grip! welcome, the fleet horse with flying feet, and
arching throat, neck-laced with merry bells! welcome, bright eyes, and
rosy cheeks, and furred robes, and the fun-provoking sleigh-ride;
welcome, the swift skater who skims, bird-like, the silvery pond;
welcome, Old Santa Claus with his horn of plenty; welcome, the “Happy
New Year,” with her many-voiced echoes, and gay old Thanksgiving, with
his groaning table, old friends and new babies; welcome, for the bright
fireside, the closed curtains, the dear, unbroken home-circle, the light
heart, the merry jest, the beaming smile, the soft “good-night,” the
downy-bed, and rosy slumbers.
Alas for his rough grip! the barrel of meal is empty, and the cruse of
oil fails. Sharp winds flutter thin rags ‘round shivering limbs. There
are pinched features, and benumbed feet, and streaming eyes, and
repulsed hands, and despairing hearts; there are damp corners, and straw
pallets, and hollow coughs, and hectic cheeks! there are dismantled
roofs, through which the snow gently drops its white, icy pall over the
wasted limbs of the dying; there are babes whose birthright is poverty,
whose legacy is shame, whose baptism is tears, _whose little life is all
winter_.
“THE OTHER SEX.”
“Let cynics prattle as they may, our existence here, without the
presence of the other sex, would be only a dark and cheerless void.”
_Which_ “other sex?” Don’t be so obscure. Dr. Beecher says, “that a
writer’s ideas should stand out like rabbits’ ears, so that the reader
can get hold of them.” If you allude to the female sex, I don’t
subscribe to it. I wish they were all “translated.” If there is anything
that gives me the sensations of a landsman on his first sea voyage, it
is the sight of a bonnet. Think of female friendship! Two women joining
the Mutual Admiration Society; emptying their budget of love affairs;
comparing baits to entrap victims; sighing over the same rose leaf;
sonnetizing the same moonbeam; patronizing the same milliner, and
_exchanging female kisses_! (Betty, hand me my fan!)
Well, let either have one bonnet or one lover more than the other—or, if
they are blue stockings, let either be one round the higher on Fame’s
ladder—bodkins and darning needles! what a tempest! Caps and characters
in such a case are of no account at all. Oh, there never should be but
one woman alive at a time. Then the fighting would be all where it
belongs—in the masculine camp. What a time there’d be, though! Wouldn’t
she be a belle? Bless her little soul! how she would queen it. It makes
me clap my hands to think of it! _The only woman in the world!_ If it
were I, shouldn’t they all leave off smoking, and wearing those odious
plaid continuations? Should they ever wear an outside coat, with the
flaps cut off, or a Kossuth hat, or a yellow Marseilles vest?—or a
mammoth bow on their neck-ties; or a turnover dickey; or a watch-chain;
or a ring on the little finger?—or any other abomination or off-shoot of
dandyism whatsoever? Shouldn’t I politely request them all to touch
their hats, instead of jerking their heads, when they bowed? Wouldn’t I
coax them to read me poetry till they had the bronchitis? Wouldn’t they
play on the flute, and sing the soul out of me? And then if they were
sick, wouldn’t I pet them, and tell them all sorts of comicalities, and
make time fly like the mischief? Shouldn’t wonder!
SOLILOQUY OF MR. BROADBRIM.
“There’s another of Miss Fiddlestick’s articles! She’s getting too
conceited, that young woman! Just like all newly-fledged
writers—mistakes a few obscure newspaper puffs for the voice of the
crowd, and considers herself on the top round of the literary ladder. It
will take _me_ to take the wind out of her sails. I’ll dissect her,
before I’m a day older, as sure as my name is Ezekiel Broadbrim. I don’t
approve her style; never did. It’s astonishing to me that the editor of
the Green Twig dare countenance it, when he knows a man of my influence
could annihilate her with one stroke of my pen. She has talent of a
certain inferior order, but nothing to speak of. She’s an unsafe model
to follow; will lead her tribe of imitators into tremendous mistakes.
It’s a religious duty for a conspicuous sentinel, like myself, on Zion’s
walls, to sound the blast of alarm;—can’t answer it to my conscience to
be silent any longer. It might be misconstrued, The welfare of the world
in general, and her soul in particular, requires a very decided
expression of my disapprobation. I’m sorry to annihilate her, but when
Ezekiel Broadbrim makes up his mind what is the path of duty, a bright
seraph couldn’t stop him. Perhaps I may pour a drop of the balm of
consolation afterwards, but it depends altogether upon whether I succeed
in bringing her into a penitential frame of mind. It is my private
opinion she is an incorrigible sinner. Hand me my pen, John. Every
stroke of it will tell.”
[Illustration]
WILLY GREY.
A stern, unyielding, line-and-plummet, May-flower descendant, was old
Farmer Grey, of Allantown, Connecticut. Many a crop had he planted, many
a harvest had he garnered in, since he first became owner of Glen Farm.
During that time, that respected individual, “the oldest inhabitant,”
could not remember ever to have seen him smile. The village children
crept close to the stone wall, and gave him a wide berth when he passed.
Even the cats and dogs laid their ears back, and crept circumspectly by
him, with one eye on his whip-lash.
Farmer Grey considered it acceptable to the God who painted the rainbow,
and expanded the lily, and tinted the rose, to walk the bright earth
with his head bowed like a bulrush, and his soul clad in sackcloth. No
mercy fell from the lips of _his_ imaginary Saviour; no compassion
breathed in His voice; no love beamed in His eye; His sword of justice
was never sheathed.
The old farmer’s wife was a gentle, dependent creature, a delicate vine,
springing up in a sterile soil, reaching forth its tendrils vainly for
some object to cling to. God, in his mercy, twined them lovingly around
a human blossom. Little Willy partook of his mother’s sensitive,
poetical nature: A yearning spirit looked out from the fathomless depths
of his earnest eyes. Only eight short summers the gentle mother soothed
her boy’s childish pains, and watched his childish slumbers. While _he_
grew in strength and beauty, _her_ eye waxed dim, and her step grew slow
and feeble.
And so sweet memories were only left to little Willy,—dear, loving eyes,
whose glance ever met his on waking; a fair, caressing hand, that wiped
away his April tears; a low, gentle voice, sweet to his childish ear as
a seraph’s hymning.
Willy’s father told him that “his mother had gone to Heaven;” John, the
plough-boy, said, “she was lying in the churchyard.” Willy could not
understand this. He only knew that the house had grown dark and empty,
and that his heart ached when he stayed there; and so he wandered out in
the little garden (his mother’s garden); but the flowers looked dreary,
too; and her pretty rose-vine lay trailing its broken buds and blighted
blossoms in the dust.
Then Willy crept up to his father’s side, and looked up in his face, but
there was something there that made him afraid to lay his little hand
upon his knee, or climb into his lap, or in any way unburden his little
heart; so he turned away, more sorrowful than before, and wandered into
his mother’s chamber, and climbed up in her chair, and opened her
drawer, to look at her comb and hair brush; and then he went to the
closet, and passed his little hand, caressingly, over her empty dresses,
and leaning his little curly head against them, sobbed himself to sleep.
By and by, as years passed on, and the child grew older, he learned to
wander out in the woods and fields, and unbosom his little yearning
heart to Nature. Reposing on her breast, listening to the music of her
thousand voices, his unquiet spirit was soothed as with a mother’s
lullaby. With kindling eye, he watched the vivid lightnings play; or saw
the murky east flush, like a timid bride, into rosy day; or beheld the
shining folds of western clouds fade softly into twilight; or gazed at
the Queen of Night, as she cut her shining path through the cloudy sky;
or questioned with earnest eyes the glittering stars.
All this but ill pleased the old farmer. He looked upon the earth only
with an eye to tillage; upon the sloping hill, with its pine-crowned
summit, only with an eye to timber; upon the changeful skies, only as
reservoirs for moistening and warming his crops; upon the silvery
streams, that laced the emerald meadows, only as channels for
irrigation; upon the climbing vine, as an insidious foe to joists, and
beams, and timbers; and upon flowers only as perfumed aristocrats,
crowding and over-topping the free-soil democracy of cabbage, onions,
and potatoes.
In vain poor Will tried to get up, “to order,” an enthusiasm for
self-acting hay-cutters, patent ploughs, rakes, hoes, and harrows. In
vain, when Sunday came, and he was put “on the limits,” did the old
farmer, with a face ten-fold more ascetic than the cowled monk, strive
to throw a pall of gloom over that free, glad spirit, by rehearsing in
his ear a creed which would for ever close the gate of heaven on every
dissenter, or inculcate doctrines, which, if believed, would fill our
lunatic asylums with the frantic wailings of despair.
Restlessly did Will, with cramped limbs and fettered spirit, sit out the
tedious hours of that holy day, which should be the “most blessed of all
the seven,” and watch, with impatient eye, the last golden beam of the
Sabbath sun sink slowly down behind the western hills.
Oh, well-meaning, but mistaken parent! let but one loving smile play
over those frigid lips; let but one tear of sympathy flood that stony
eye: let but _one drop_ from that overflowing fountain of love that
wells up in the bosom of the Infinite, moisten the parched soil of that
youthful heart! Open those arms but once, and clasp him to the paternal
heart; for even now, his chafed spirit, like a caged bird, flutters
against its prison bars; even now, the boy’s unquiet ear catches the
far-off hum of the busy world: even now, his craving heart beats wildly
for the voice of human love!
* * * * *
Weary feet, houseless nights, the scant meal, and the oft-repulsed
request: what are _they_ to the strong nerve, and bounding pulse, and
hopeful heart of the young adventurer? Laurel wreaths, dizzy places on
Ambition’s heights—have not its aspirants reached them by just such
rugged steps?
“Will” is in the city. Will sits upon the steps of the New York City
Hall, reading a penny paper: he has begged it from a good-natured
newsboy, who has also shared with him a huge slice of gingerbread. As
Will’s eye glances over the sheet, it falls upon the following
paragraph:—
“PROSPECTUS OF THE WEEKLY CHRONICLE.
“The Weekly Chronicle is a paper founded on the demands of the age for
a first-class journal. It soars above all sectional and personal
considerations, and fearlessly proffers its feeble aid, in developing
the natural resources of the country, fostering the genius of the
people, rewarding meritorious effort in every department of art,
exalting virtue, however humble, and confounding vice, however
powerful, The editor and proprietor of the Chronicle is Mr.
Philanthropas Howard; office, No. 199 Cloud Street.
“Boy wanted immediately at the above office: one from the country
would be preferred.”
Will threw down the paper, and started to his feet: “199 Cloud Street?”
He asked orange-women; he asked image-boys; he asked merchants; he asked
clerks; he asked lawyers; he asked clients; he investigated cellars; he
explored attics; he travelled through parks and through alleys; till,
finally, he coaxed a graceless, bare-footed urchin to show him the way.
Mr. John Howard, editor and proprietor of the Weekly Chronicle, went
upon the principle of paying nothing where nothing would pay, and paying
as little as possible where he could get something for next to nothing.
It was a fixed principle and confirmed practice with him, never to pay
anything for contributions to the Chronicle. He considered that the
great advantage that would accrue to an author from having his or her
articles in his paper, would be ample remuneration. At the moment Will’s
eye first fell upon him, he was reposing in a huge leathern arm-chair,
in the corner of his sanctum. His proportions very much resembled an
apoplectic bag of flour, surmounted by an apple. His head was ornamented
with sparse spires of fiery red hair; on his cheeks, a pair of
cream-coloured whiskers were feebly struggling into life; and sundry
tufts of the same colour, under his chin, shadowed forth his editorial
sympathy with the recent “Beard Movement.” Before him was a table of
doubtful hue and architecture, laden with manuscripts, accepted,
rejected, and under consideration; letters of all sizes, opened and
unopened, prepaid and unpaid, saucy and silly, defiant and deprecatory.
There was also an inkstand, crusted with dirt and cobwebs; a broken
paper weight, pinning down some had money paid by distant subscribers, a
camphine lamp with a broken pedestal, propped up by a directory on one
side, and Walker’s Dictionary on the other; sundry stumps of cigars; a
half eaten apple; a rind of an orange; a lady’s glove; and a box of
bilious pills.
Will stepped before him, and made known his errand. Mr. John Howard
looked at him with a portentious scowl, inspected him very much as he
would a keg of doubtful mackerel, and then referred him to the foreman
of the office, Mr. Jack Punch. Jack had been victimized, in the way of
office boys, for an indefinite period with precocious city urchins, who
smoked long nines, talked politics, discussed theatricals, and knew more
of city haunts than the police themselves. Of course he lost no time in
securing a boy to whose verdant feet the plough-soil was still clinging.
Will’s business was to open the office at half-past six in the morning,
sweep it out, make the fires, go to the post-office for letters and
exchanges, wrap up papers for new subscribers, carry them to the post,
and see that the mail was properly “got off.” To all these requirements,
Will immediately subscribed.
On Will’s daily tramps to and from the office, he was obliged to pass
Lithe and Co’s magnificent show window, where the choicest pictures and
engravings were constantly exposed for sale. There he might be seen
loitering, entranced and spell-bound, quite oblivious of the Chronicle,
hour after hour, weaving bright visions—building air castles, with which
his overseer, Mr. Jack Punch, had little sympathy. Yes; Will had at
length found out what he was made for. He knew _now_ why he had lain
under the trees, of a bright summer day, watching the fleecy clouds go
sailing by, in such a dreamy rapture; why the whispering leaves, and
waving fields of grain, and drooping branches of graceful trees, and the
mirror-like beauty of the placid lake, reflecting a mimic heaven; why
the undulating hills, and mist-wreathed valleys, with their wealth of
leaf, and bud and blossom, filled his eyes with tears and his soul with
untold joy, and why, when slumber sealed each weary lid under the
cottage eaves, he stood alone, hushing his very breath, awe-struck,
beneath the holy stars.
Poor Will, his occupation became so distasteful! Poor Will, winged for a
“bird of paradise,” and forced to be a mole, burrowing under the earth,
when he would fain try his new-found pinions! To Jack’s intense disgust,
he soon detected Will drawing rude sketches on bits of paper, stray
wrappers, and backs of letters; even the walls were “done in crayons,”
by the same mischievous fingers. His vision was so filled “with the
curved line of beauty,” that he was constantly committing the most
egregious blunders. He misplaced the bundles of newspapers which he
carried to the post-office; placing the “north” packages on the “south”
table, the east on the north, the south on the east, &c.; mixing them up
generally and indescribably and inextricably, so that the subscribers to
the “Weekly Chronicle” did not receive their papers with that precision
and regularity which is acknowledged to be desirable, particularly in
small country places, where the blacksmith’s shop, the engine house, and
“the newspaper” form a trio not to be despised by the simple-hearted
primitive farmers.
Jack, whose private opinion it was that he should have been christened
Job, being obliged to shoulder all the short-comings of his assistants,
and being worked up to a pitch of frenzy by letters from incensed
subscribers, which Mr. Howard constantly thrust in his face, very
unceremoniously ejected Will from the premises, one morning, by a
vigorous application of the toe of his boot.
The world was again a closed oyster to Will. How to open it? that was
the question. Our hero thought the best place to consider the matter was
at “Lithe & Co’s.” shop window. Just as he reached it, a gentleman
passed out of the shop, followed by a lad bearing a small framed
landscape. Perhaps the gentleman was an artist! Perhaps he could employ
him in some way! Will resolved to follow him.
Up one street and down another, round corners and through squares—the
gentleman’s long legs seemed to be shod with the famed seven-leagued
boots. At length he stopped before the door of an unpretending looking
building, and handing the lad who accompanied him a bit of money, he
took from him the picture, and was just springing up the steps, when he
lost his balance, and the picture was jerked violently from his hand,
but only to be caught by the watchful Will, who restored it to its owner
uninjured.
“Thank you, my boy,” said the gentleman, “you have done me a greater
service than you think for;” at the same time offering him some money.
“No, I thank you,” said Will proudly. “I do not wish to be paid for it.”
“As you please, Master Independence,” replied the gentleman, laughing;
“but is there no other way I can serve you?”
“Are you an artist?” asked Will.
The gentleman raised his eyebrows, with a comical air, and replied,
“Well, sometimes I think I am; and then, again, I don’t know; but what
if I were?”
“I should _so_ like to be an artist,” said Will, the quick flush
mounting to his temples.
“You!” exclaimed the gentleman, taking a minute survey of Will’s
nondescript _toute ensemble_. “Do you ever draw?”
“Sometimes,” replied Will, “when I can get a bit of charcoal, and a
white wall. I was just kicked out of the Chronicle office for doing it.”
“Follow me,” said the gentleman, tapping him familiarly on the cheek.
Will needed no second invitation. Climbing one flight of stairs, he
found himself in a small studio, lined on all sides by pictures; some
finished and framed, others in various stages of progression. Pallets,
brushes, and crayons, lay scattered round an easel; while in one corner
was an artist’s lay figure, which, in the dim light of the apartment,
Will mistook for the artist’s wife, whose presence he respectfully
acknowledged by a profound bow, to the infinite amusement of his patron.
Mr. Lester was delighted with Will’s _naive_ criticisms on his pictures,
and his profound reverence for art. A few days found him quite
domesticated in his new quarters; and months passed by swift as a
weaver’s shuttle, and found him as happy as a crowned prince; whether
grinding colours for the artist, or watching the progress of his pencil,
or picking up stray crumbs of knowledge from the lips of connoisseurs,
who daily frequented the studio; and many a rough sketch did Will make
in his little corner, that would have made them open their critical eyes
wide with wonder.
* * * * *
“What a foolish match!” Was an engagement ever announced that did not
call forth this remark, from some dissenting lip? Perhaps it _was_ a
“foolish match.” Meta had no dower but her beauty, and Will had no
capital but his pallet and easel. The gossips said she “might have done
much better.” There was old Mr. Hill, whose head was snow white, but
whose gold was as yellow and as plentiful as Meta’s bright ringlets; and
Mr. Vesey, whose father made a clergyman of him, because he didn’t know
enough to be a merchant; and Lawyer Givens, with his carrotty head and
turn-up nose, and chin that might have been beat; and Falstaff-ian
Captain Reef, who brought home such pretty China shawls and grass cloth
dresses, and who had as many wives as a Grand Turk. Meta might have had
any one of these by hoisting her little finger. Foolish Meta! money and
misery in one scale, poverty and love in the other. Miserable little
Meta! And yet she does not look so _very_ miserable, as she leans over
her husband’s shoulder, and sees the landscape brighten on the canvas,
or presses her rosy lips to his forehead, or arranges the fold of a
curtain for the desired light and shade, or grinds his colours with her
own dainty little fingers; no, she looks anything but miserable with
those soft eyes so full of light, and that elastic step, and voice of
music, that are inspiration to her artist husband. No; she thinks the
“old masters” were fools to her young master, and she already sees the
day when his studio will be crowded with connoisseurs and patrons, and
his pictures bring him both fame and fortune; and then they will travel
in foreign countries, and sleep under Italia’s soft blue skies, and see
the Swiss glaciers, and the rose-wreathed homes of England, and the grim
old chateaux of France, and perhaps even the Emperor himself. Who knows?
Yes; and Will should feast his eyes on beauty, and they’d be as happy as
if care and sorrow had never dimmed a bright eye with tears, since the
seraph stood, with flaming sword, to guard the gate of Eden. Hopeful,
happy, trusting Meta! the bird’s carol is not sweeter than yours;—and
yet the archer takes his aim, and with broken wing it flutters to the
ground.
Yes: Meta was an angel. Will said it a thousand times a day, and his
eyes repeated it when his tongue was silent. Meta’s brow, and cheek, and
lips, and tresses were multiplied indefinitely, in all his female heads.
Her dimpled hand, he rounded arm, her plump shoulder, her slender foot,
all served him for faultless models.
Life was so beautiful to him now; his employment so congenial, his heart
so satisfied. It _must be_ that he should succeed. The very thought of
failure—“but then, he _should not_ fail!” Poor Will! he had yet to learn
that garrets are as often the graves as the nurseries of genius, and
that native talent goes unrecognized until stamped with _foreign_
approbation. Happily—hopefully—heroically he toiled on; morning’s
earliest beam, and day’s last lingering ray finding him busy at his
easel. But, alas! as time passed, though patrons came not, creditors
did; and one year after their marriage, Meta might have been seen
stealthily conveying little parcels back and forth to a small shop in
the neighbourhood, where employment was furnished for needy fingers. It
required all her feminine tact and diplomacy to conceal from Will her
little secret, or to hide the tell-tale blush, when he noticed the
disappearance of her wedding ring, which now lay glittering in a
neighbouring pawnbroker’s window; yet never for an instant, since the
little wife first slept on Will’s heart, had she one misgiving that she
had placed her happiness unalterably in his keeping.
Oh, inscrutable womanhood’! Pitiful as the heart of God, when the dark
cloud of misfortune, or shame, bows the strong frame of manhood;
merciless—vindictive—implacable as the Prince of Darkness, towards thy
tempted, forsaken, and sorrowing sisters!
* * * * *
The quick eye of affection was not long in discovering Meta’s secret;
and now every glance of love, every caress, every endearing tone of
Meta’s, gave Will’s heart a sorrow-pang.
Meta! who had turned a deaf ear to richer lovers, to share _his_ heart
and home; Meta! whoso beauty might grace a court, whoso life should be
all sunshine: that Meta’s bright eyes should dim, her cheek pale, her
step grow prematurely slow and faltering, for him!—the thought was
torture.
* * * * *
“To-morrow, Will—you said to-morrow,” said Meta, hiding her tears on her
husband’s shoulder; “the land of _gold_ is also the land of _graves_,”
and she gazed mournfully into his face.
“Dear Meta,” said her husband, “do dot unman me with your tears; our
parting will be brief, and I shall return to you with gold—gold! Meta;
and you shall yet have a home worthy of you. Bear up, dear Meta—the sun
will surely break through the cloud-rift. God bless and keep my darling
wife.”
Poor little Meta! for hours she sat stupefied with sorrow, in the same
spot where Will had left her. The sun shone cheerfully in at the little
window of her new home, but its beams brought no warmth to Meta’s heart.
The clinging clasp of Will’s arms was still about her neck: Will’s kiss
was still warm upon her lips, and yet—_she was alone_.
She thought, with a shudder, of the treacherous sea; of the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; of a sick-bed, on a foreign shore; of the
added bitterness of the death pang, when the eye looks vainly for the
_one loved face_; and bowing her face in her hands, she wept
convulsively.
* * * * *
“Dear heart! Goodness alive!” said Meta’s landlady, peeping in at the
door. “Don’t take on so; bless me, how long have you been married?
you’re nothing better than a child _now_. Why didn’t you go to Californy
with your husband? Where’s your folks?—whose picter is that? Ah! I see
now, it is meant for you. But why didn’t you have on a gown, dear,
instead of being wrapped up in them clouds? It makes you look like a
spirit. Come now, don’t sit moping here; come down stairs and see me
work; it will amuse you like. I’m going to make some brown bread. I dare
say you never made a bit of brown bread in your life. I put a power of
ingin in mine. I learned that in the country. I was brought up in the
country. I hate city folks; they’ve no more heart than a sexton; much as
ever they can stop frolicking long enough to bury one another. They’ll
sleep, too, like so many tops, while the very next street is all of a
blaze, and their poor destitute fellow-creatures are turned naked into
the streets. They’ll plough right through a burying ground, if they take
a notion, harrowing up dead folks, and _live_ ones, too, _I_ guess. And
as to Sunday—what with Jews, and Frenchmen, and down Easters, and other
foreigners, smoking and driving through the streets, ’tisn’t any Sunday
at all. Well, I never knew what Sodom meant till I came to the city. Why
Lot’s wife turned round to take a second look at it, is beyond me. Well,
if you won’t come downstairs I must leave you, for I smell my bread
burning; but do cheer up—you look as lonesome as a pigeon on a spout of
a rainy day.”
A letter from the best beloved! How our eye lingers on the well-known
characters. How we torture the words to extract hidden meanings. How
tenderly we place it near the heart, and under the pillow. How
lingeringly comes the daylight, when our waiting eyes would re-peruse
what is already indelibly written on the heart!
Will’s voyage had been prosperous—his health was good—his hope and
courage unabated. Meta’s eye sparkled, and her cheek flushed like a
rose, as she pressed the letter again and again to her lips; but, after
all, it was _only_ a letter, and time dragged _so_ heavily. Meta was
weary of sewing, weary of reading, weary of watching endless pedestrians
pass and repass beneath her window, and when _twilight_ came, with its
deepening shadows—that hour so sweet to the happy, so fraught with gloom
to the wretched—and Meta’s eye fell upon the little house opposite, and
saw the little parlour lamp gleam like a beacon light for the absent
husband, while the happy wife glided about with busy hands, and
lightsome step, and when, at last, _he_ came, and the broken circle was
complete, poor Meta turned away to weep.
Joy, Meta, joy! dry your tears! Will has been successful. Will is coming
home. Even now the “Sea-Gull” ploughs the waves, with its precious
living freight. Lucky Will! he _has_ “found gold,” but it was dug from
“the mine” of the artist’s brain. Magical Will! the liquid eyes and
graceful limbs of Senor Alvarez’s only daughter are reproduced on
canvas, in all their glowing beauty, by your magic touch! The Senor is
rich—the Senor is liberal—the Senor’s taste is as unimpeachable as his
credit—the Senor has pronounced Will “a genius.” Other Senors hear it;
other Senors have gold in plenty, and dark-eyed, graceful daughters,
whose charms Will perpetuates, and yet _fails to see_, for _a sweeter
face which comes between_.
Dry your tears, little Meta—smooth the neglected ringlets—don _his_
favourite robe, and listen with a flushed cheek, a beating heart, and a
love-lit eye, for the long absent but well remembered footstep.
Ah! Meta, there _are_ meetings that o’erpay the pain of parting. But,
dear Reader, you and I are _de trop_.
* * * * *
You should have seen how like a little brigand Will looked, with his
bronzed face and fierce beard and moustache—so fierce that Meta was half
afraid to jump into his arms; you should have seen Meta’s new home to
know what a pretty little nest love and taste may weave for a cherished
bird; you should have seen with what a Midas touch Will’s gold suddenly
opened the eyes of people to his wonderful merit, as an artist; how
“patrons” flocked in, now that he lived in a handsome house in Belgrave
Square; how Mr. Jack Punch repented, with crocodile tears, that he had
ever kicked him out of “the Chronicle office,” and how Will immortalized
him on canvas, in the very act; not forgetting to give due prominence,
in the foreground, to the figure of his philanthropic employer, Mr. John
Howard, who, in the touching language of his Prospectus, always made it
a point to “exalt virtue, however humble!”
TABITHA TOMPKINS’ SOLILOQUY.
Have I, Tabitha Tompkins, a right, to my share of fresh air
uncontaminated? or have I not? I ask the question with my arms akimbo. I
might as well say what I’ve got to say, pop-gun fashion, as to tiptoe
round my subject, mincing and curtsying when I’m all ablaze with
indignation.
I ask again: Have I a right to my share of fresh air uncontaminated? or
have I not?
Do I go out for a walk? Every man I meet is a locomotive chimney.
Smoke—smoke—smoke—smoke:—great, long tails of it following in their
wake, while I dodge, and twist, and choke, trying to escape the coils of
the stifling anaconda, till I’m black in the face. I, Tabitha Tompkins,
whose grandfather was one of the “signers” of the Declaration of
Independence! I feel seventy-six-y! I have borne it about as long as I
can without damage to hooks and eyes.
If I try to escape it, by getting into an omnibus, there it is again! If
it does not originate inside, some “gentleman” on the box or top wafts
it into the windows. If I take refuge in a ferry-boat, I find “gentlemen
requested not to smoke” (as usual) a dead letter,—no more regarded than
is the law against gaming, or the Sunday liquor traffic. Do I go to a
concert at Castle Garden, and step out on the balcony between the
performances for a breath of fresh air?—myriads of lighted Havannas send
me dizzy and staggering back into the concert room. Does a gentleman
call to see me of an evening?—the instant he shakes his “ambrosial
curls,” and gives “a nod,” I have to run for my vinaigrette.
Do I advertise for lodgings; and after much inspection of rooms and wear
and tear of patience and gaiter boots, make a final selection? Do I
emigrate with big trunk, and little trunk, and a whole nest of
bandboxes? Do I get my rocking-chair, and work-table, and writing-desk,
and pretty little lamp, all safely transported and longitudinized to my
fancy? Do I, in a paradisaical state of mind (attendant upon said
successful emigration) go to my closet some fine morning, and take down
a pet dress?—asafœtida and onions! what an odour! All the “pachouli” and
“new mown hay” in New York wouldn’t sweeten it. Six young men the other
side of that closet, and all smokers!!! Betty, you may have that
dress;—I wouldn’t touch it with a pair of tongs.
Do I lend a masculine friend my copy of Alexander Smith’s Poems?—can I
ever touch it again till it has been through quarantine? Does he, by
mistake, carry home my tippet in his pocket after a concert?—can I
compute the hours it must hang dangling on the clothes line before it
can be allowed to resume its place round my neck?
Do I go to church on Sunday, with a devout desire to attend to the
sermon?—my next neighbour is a young man, apparently seated on a nettle
cushion: he groans and fidgets, and fidgets and groans; crosses his feet
and uncrosses them; kicks over the hassock; knocks down his cane; drops
the hymn-book; and finally draws from his coat pocket a little case,
takes out one cigar after another, transposes them, applies them to the
end of his nose, and pats them affectionately; then he examines his
watch; then frowns at the pulpit; then glancing at the door, draws a
sigh long enough and strong enough to inflate a pair of bellows, or
burst off a vest button.
With a dolorous whine this same young man deplores (in public) his
inability to indulge in the luxury of a wife, “owing to the extravagant
habits of the young ladies of the present day.” I take this occasion to
submit to public inspection a little bit of paper found in the vest
pocket of this fumigated, cork-screwed, pantalooned humbug, by his
washerwoman:—
NEW YORK, October 1st, 1853.
MR. THADDEUS THEOPHILUS STUBBS,
TO JUAN FUMIGO, Dr.
To Cigars for Sept., 1853. Dols.
Cents.
Sept. 1—To 20 Trabucos, at 5c. 1 00
„ To 12 Riohondas, at 6d. 75
„ 3—To 12 Los Tres Castillos, at 6d. 75
„ To 12 La Nicotiana, at 6d. 75
„ 4—(Sunday—for Cigars for a party) 10 Palmettoes, 10
Esculapios, 12 La Sultanos, 12 El Crusados, 20 Norriegos,
16 L’Alhambros, at 4c. 3 20
„ 6—To 50 L’Ambrosias, at 4c. 2 00
„ 10—To 30 Cubanos, at 8c. 2 40
„ 12—To 50 Londres, at 4c. 2 00
„ 15—To 30 Jenny Linds (for concert party), at 8c. 2 40
„ 24—To 50 Figaros (for party to see Uncle Tom, at the
National), at 8c. 4 00
„ 26—To 100 Mencegaros (for party of country relations and
friends), at 2c. 2 00
„ 30—To 40 Imperial Regalias, at 1s. 5 00
—————
26 25
_Received Payment_——
(Mr. Stubbs is earnestly requested to call and settle the above at his
earliest convenience. J. F.)
Consistent Stubbs! But, then, his cigar bill is not receipted!
SOLILOQUY OF A HOUSEMAID.
Oh, dear, dear! Wonder if my mistress _ever_ thinks I am made of flesh
and blood? Five times, within half an hour, I have trotted up stairs, to
hand her things, that were only four feet from her rocking-chair. Then,
there’s her son, Mr. George—it does seem to me, that a great able-bodied
man like him, need n’t call a poor tired woman up four pair of stairs to
ask “what’s the time of day?” Heigho!—its “_Sally_ do this,” and
“_Sally_ do that,” till I wish I never had been baptized at all; and I
might as well go farther back, while I am about it, and wish I had never
been born.
Now, instead of ordering me round so like a dray horse, if they would
only look up smiling-like, now and then; or ask me how my “rheumatiz”
did; or say “Good morning, Sally;” or show some sort of interest in a
fellow-cretur, I could pluck up a hit of heart to work for them. A kind
word would ease the wheels of my treadmill amazingly, and would n’t cost
_them_ anything, either.
Look at my clothes, all at sixes and sevens. I can’t get a minute to sew
on a string or button, except at night; and then I’m so sleepy it is as
much as ever I can find the way to bed; and what a bed it is, to be
sure! Why, even the pigs are now and then allowed clean straw to sleep
on; and as to bed-clothes, the less said about them the better; my old
cloak serves for a blanket, and the sheets are as thin as a charity
school soup, Well, well; one would n’t think it, to see all the fine
glittering things down in the drawing-room. Master’s stud of horses, and
Miss Clara’s diamond ear-rings, and mistresses rich dresses. I _try_ to
think it is all right, but it is no use.
To-morrow is Sunday—“day of _rest_,” I believe they _call_ it.
H-u-m-p-h!—more cooking to be done—more company—more confusion than on
any other day in the week. If I own a soul I have not heard how to take
care of it for many a long day. Wonder if my master and mistress
calculate to pay me for _that_, if I lose it? It is a _question_ in my
mind. Land of Goshen! I aint sure I’ve got a mind—there’s the bell
again!
CRITICS.
“Bilious wretches, who abuse you because you write better than they.”
Slander and detraction! Even I, Fanny, know better than that. _I_ never
knew an editor to nib his pen with a knife as sharp as his temper, and
write a scathing criticism on a book, because the authoress had declined
contributing to his paper. I never knew a man who had fitted himself to
a promiscuous coat, cut out in merry mood by taper fingers, to seize his
porcupine quill, under the agony of too tight a _self-inflicted_ fit, to
annihilate the offender. I never saw the bottled-up hatred of years
concentrated in a single venomous paragraph. I never heard of an
unsuccessful masculine author, whose books were drugs in the literary
market, speak with a sneer of successful literary feminity, and
insinuate that it was by _accident_, not _genius_, that they hit the
popular favour!
By the memory of “seventy-six,” No! Do you suppose a _man’s_ opinions
are in the market—to be bought and sold to the highest bidder? Do you
suppose he would laud a vapid book, because the fashionable authoress
once laved his toadying temples with the baptism of upper-tendom? or, do
you suppose he’d lash a poor, but self-reliant wretch, who had presumed
to climb to the topmost round of Fame’s ladder, without _his_ royal
permission or assistance, and in despite of his repeated attempts to
discourage her? No—no—bless your simple soul; a man never stoops to do a
mean thing. There never was a criticism yet, born of envy, or malice, or
repulsed love, or disappointed ambition. No—no. Thank the gods, _I_ have
a more exalted opinion of masculinity.
FORGETFUL HUSBANDS.
“There is a man out west so forgetful, that his wife has to put a
wafer on the end of her nose, that he may distinguish her from the
other ladies; but this does not prevent him from making occasional
mistakes.”
Take the wafer off your nose, my dear, and put it on your lips! Keep
silence, and let Mr. Johnson go on “making his mistakes;” you cannot
stop him, if you try; and if he has made up his mind to be near-sighted,
all the guide-boards that you can set up will only drive him home the
longest way round!
So trot your babies, smooth your ringlets, digest your dinner, and—agree
to differ! Don’t call Mr. Johnson “my dear,” or he will have good reason
to think you are going to quarrel with him! Look as pretty as a poppet;
put on the dress he used to like, and help him to his favourite bit at
table, with your accustomed grace, taking care not (?) to touch him
_accidentally_ with your little fat hand when you are passing it. Ten to
one he is on the marrow bones of his soul to you in less than a week,
though tortures couldn’t wring a confession out of him. Then, if he’s
worth the trouble, you are to take advantage of his silent penitence,
and go every step of the way to meet him, for he will not approximate to
you the width of a straw! If he has not frittered away all your love for
him, this is easily done, my dear, and for one whole day after it he
will feel grateful to you for sparing him the humiliation (?) of making
an acknowledgment. How many times, my dear “Barkis,” you will be
“willing” to go through all this depends upon several little
circumstances in your history with which I am unacquainted.
SUMMER FRIENDS.
“If every pain and care we feel
Could burn upon our brow,
How many hearts would move to heal
That strive to crush us now.”
Don’t you believe it! They would run from you as if you had the plague.
“Write your brow” with anything else but your “troubles,” if you do not
wish to be left solus. You have no idea how “good people” will pity you
when you tell your doleful ditty! They will “pray for you,” give you
advice by the bushel, “feel for you”—everywhere but in their
pocket-books; and wind up by telling you to “trust in Providence;” all
of which you feel very much like replying, as the old lady did when she
found herself spinning down hill in a wagon,—“I trusted in Providence
till the tackling broke!” Now, listen to me. Just go to work, and hew
out a path for yourself; get your head above water, and then snap your
fingers in their pharisaical faces! Never ask a favour until you are
drawing your last breath; and never forget one. “Write your troubles on
your brow?” That man was either a knave, or, what is worse, a fool. I
suppose he calls himself a poet; if he does, all I have to say is, it’s
high time the city authorities took away his “license.”
HOW THE WIRES ARE PULLED:
OR,
WHAT PRINTER’S INK WILL DO.
“Isn’t it extraordinary, Mr. Stubbs, how Mr. Simpkins can always be
dressed in the last tip-top fashion? Don’t you and I, and all the world
know, that old Allen has a mortgage on his house, and that he never has
a dollar by him longer than five minutes at a time. Isn’t it
extraordinary, Mr. Stubbs?”
“Not at all—not at all—my dear,” said Mr. Stubbs, knocking the ashes
from his Havana; “to an editor all things are possible;” and he unfolded
the damp sheets of the _Family Gazette_, of which Mr. Simpkins was
editor, and commenced reading aloud the following paragraph:—
“‘We yesterday had the gratification of visiting the celebrated
establishment of the far-famed Inman & Co., Hatters, No. 172 Wideway. We
pronounce their new style of spring hat, for lightness beauty, and
durability, to be unrivalled; it is aptly designated the ‘Count D’Orsay
hat.’ The gentlemanly and enterprising proprietors of the establishment
are unwearied in their endeavours to please the public. There is a _je
ne sais quoi_ about _their_ hats which can be found nowhere else in the
city.’”
“Well, I don’t see,” said Mrs. Stubbs, “I——”
“Sh—! sh—! Mrs. Stubbs; don’t interrupt the court—here’s another:
“‘Every one should visit the extensive ware-rooms of Willcut and Co.,
Tailors, 59 Prince Albert Street. There is science wagging in the very
tails of Mr. Willcut’s coats; in fact, he may be said to be the only
tailor in the city who is a thorough _artist_. His pantaloons are the
_knee_-plus ultra of shear-dom. Mr. Willcut has evidently made the
anatomy of masculinity a study—hence the admirable result. The most
casual observer, on noticing Mr. Willcut’s fine phrenological
developments, would at once negative the possibility of his making a
_faux pas_ on broadcloth.’
“Keep quiet, Mrs. Stubbs; listen:”
“‘The St. Lucifer Hotel is a palatial wonder; whether we consider the
number of acres it covers, the splendour of its marble exterior, the
sumptuousness of its drawing-rooms, or the more than Oriental
luxuriousness of its sleeping apartments, the tapestry, mirrors and
gilding of which remind one forcibly of the far-famed Tuileries. The
host of the St. Lucifer is an Apollo in person, a Chesterfield in
manners, and a Lucullus in _taste_; while those white-armed Houris, the
female waiters, lap the soul in Elysium.’”
Mr. Stubbs lifted his spectacles to his forehead, crossed his legs, and
nodded knowingly to Mrs. Stubbs.
“That’s the way it’s done, Mrs. Stubbs. That last notice paid his six
months’ hotel bill at the St. Lucifer, including wine, cigars, and other
little editorial perquisites. Do you want to know,” said Stubbs
(resuming the paper), “how he gets his carriages repaired, and his
horses shod for nothing, in the village where his country seat is
located? This, now, is a regular stroke of genius. He does it by two
words. In an account of his visit to the Sybil’s Cave, in which he says,
‘MY FRIEND, the blacksmith, and I soon found the spot,’ &c., (bah!).
Then here is something that will interest you, my dear, on the other
page of the Gazette. Mr. Simpkins has used up the dictionary in a
half-column announcement of Miss Taffety (the milliner’s) ‘magnificent
opening at —— street.’ Of course she made his wife a present of a new
Paris bonnet.”
“Well, I never—” said the simple Mrs. Stubbs. “Goodness knows, if I had
known all this before, I would have married an editor myself. Stubbs,
why don’t _you_ set up a newspaper?”
“M-r-s. S-t-u-b-b-s!” said her husband, in an oracular tone, “to conduct
a newspaper requires a degree of tact, enterprise, and ability to which
Jotham Stubbs unfortunately is a stranger. The _Family Gazette_ or its
founder is by no means a fair sample of our honourable newspapers, and
their upright, intelligent, and respected editors. Great Cæsar!—no!”
said Stubbs, rising from his chair, and bringing his hand down
emphatically on his corduroys, “no more than you are a fair sample of
feminine beauty, Mrs. Stubbs!”
WHO WOULD BE THE LAST MAN?
“Fanny Fern says, ‘If there were but one woman in the world, the men
would have a terrible time.’ Fanny is right; but we would ask her what
kind of a time the _women_ would have if there were but _one man_ in
existence?”
What kind of time would they have? Why, of course no grass would grow
under their slippers! The “Wars of the Roses,” the battles of Waterloo
and Bunker Hill would be a farce to it. Black eyes would be the rage,
and both caps and characters would be torn to tatters. I imagine it
would not be much of a millenium, either to the moving cause of the
disturbance. He would be as crazy as a fly in a drum, or as dizzy as a
bee in a ten-acre lot of honeysuckles, uncertain where to alight. He’d
roll his bewildered eyes from one exquisite organization to another, and
frantically and diplomatically exclaim—“How happy could I be with
either, were t’ other dear charmer away!”
“What kind of time would the women have, were there only one man in the
world?”
What kind of time would they have? What is that to _me_? They might
“take their own time,” every “Miss Lucy” of them, for all _I_ should
care; and so might the said man himself; for with me, the limited supply
would not increase the value of the article.
“ONLY A COUSIN.”
How the rain patters against the windows of your office! How sombre, and
gloomy, and cheerless it looks there! Your little office-boy looks more
like an imp of darkness than anything else, as he sits crouched in the
corner, with his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands.
You button your overcoat tight to your chin, cut possible clients, and
run over to see your cousin Kitty. Ah! that is worth while! A bright,
blazing fire; sofa wheeled up to it, and Kitty sitting there, looking so
charming in her pretty _negligé_. She looks up sweetly and tranquilly,
and says: “Now, that’s a good Harry; sit down by me and be agreeable.”
Well, you “sit down,” (just as close as you like, too!) tell her all the
down-town male gossip; consult her confidentially about trimming your
whiskers; and desire her candid, unbiased opinion about the propriety
and feasibility, with the help of some Macassar, of _coaxing out_ a
moustache! Then you make a foray into her work-basket, tangling spools
most unmercifully, and reading over all the choice hits of poetry that
women are so fond of clipping from the newspapers. Then you both go into
the china closet, and she gets you a tempting little luncheon; and you
grow suddenly merry, and have a contest which shall make the worst pun;
you earn for yourself a boxed ear, and are obliged, in self-defence, to
imprison the offending hand. Your aunt comes in; let her come! are not
you and Kitty cousins?
There’s a ring at the door, and Mr. Frank —— is announced. You say,
“Unmitigated puppy!” and begin a vehement discussion with your aunt,
about anything that comes handy; but that don’t prevent you from seeing
and hearing all that goes on at the other side of the room. Your aunt is
very oblivious, and wouldn’t mind it if you occasionally lost the thread
of your discourse. Kitty is the least bit of a coquette! and her
conversation is very provocative, racy and sparkling. You privately
determine to read her a lecture upon it, as soon as practicable.
It seems as though Mr. Frank —— never would go. Upon his exit, Kitty
informs you that she is going to Madame ——’s concert with him. You look
serious, and tell her you “should be very sorry to see a cousin of yours
enter a concert room with such a brainless fop.” Kitty tosses her curls,
pats you on the arm, and says, “_Jealous_, hey?” You turn on your heel,
and, lighting a cigar, bid her “good morning,” and for a little eternity
of a week you never go near her. Meantime, your gentleman-friends tell
you how “divine” your little cousin looked at the concert.
You are in a very bad humour; cigars are no sedative—newspapers neither.
You crowd your beaver down over your eyes and start for your office. On
the way you meet Kitty! Hebe! how bright and fresh she looks! and what
an unmitigated brute you’ve been to treat her so! Take care! she knows
what you are thinking about! Women are omniscient in such matters! So
she peeps archly from beneath those long eye-lashes, and says, extending
the tip of her little gloved hand—“Want to make up, Harry?”
There’s no resisting! That smile leads you, like a will-o’-the-wisp,
anywhere! So you wait upon her home; nobody comes in, not even your
respected aunt; and you never call her “cousin,” after that day; but no
man living ever won such a darling little wife, as Kitty has promised to
be to you, some bright morning.
THE CALM OF DEATH.
“The moon looks calmly down when man is dying,
The earth still holds her sway;
Flowers breathe their perfume, and the wind keeps sighing;
Naught seems to pause or stay.”
Clasp the hands meekly over the still breast—they’ve no more work to do;
close the weary eyes—they’ve no more tears to shed; part the damp
locks—there’s no more pain to bear. Closed is the ear alike to Love’s
kind voice, and Calumny’s stinging whisper.
Oh! if in that stilled heart you have ruthlessly planted a thorn; if
from that pleading eye you have carelessly turned away; if your loving
glance, and kindly word, and clasping hand, have come—_all too
late_—then God forgive you! No frown gathers on the marble brow as you
gaze—no scorn curls the chiselled lip—no flush of wounded feeling mounts
to the blue-vein temples.
God forgive you! for _your_ feet, too, must shrink appalled from death’s
cold river—your faltering tongue ask, “Can this be death?”—your fading
eye linger lovingly on the sunny earth—your clammy hand yield its last
faint pressure—your sinking pulse give its last feeble flutter.
Oh, rapacious grave; yet another victim for thy voiceless keeping! What!
no word or greeting from all thy household sleepers? No warm welcome
from a sister’s loving lips? No throb of pleasure from the dear maternal
bosom?
_Silent all!_
Oh, if these broken links were _never_ gathered up! If beyond Death’s
swelling flood there were _no_ eternal shore! If for the struggling bark
there were no port of peace! If athwart that lowering cloud sprang no
bright bow of promise!
Alas for Love, if _this_ be all,
And _naught beyond_—oh earth!
MRS. ADOLPHUS SMITH SPORTING THE “BLUE STOCKING.”
Well, I think I’ll finish that story for the editor of the “Dutchman.”
Let me see; where did I leave off? The setting sun was just gilding with
his last ray—“Ma, I want some bread and molasses”—(yes, dear) gilding
with his last ray the church spire—“Wife, where’s my Sunday pants?”
(_Under the bed, dear_,) the church spire of Inverness, when a—“There’s
nothing under the bed, dear, but your lace cap”—(Perhaps they are in the
coal hod in the closet) when a horseman was seen approaching—“Ma’am, the
_pertators_ is out; not one for dinner” (Take some turnips) approaching,
covered with dust, and—“Wife! the baby has swallowed a button”—(_Reverse
him_, dear—take him by the heels) and waving in his hand a banner, on
which was written—“Ma! I’ve torn my pantaloons”—liberty or death! The
inhabitants rushed _en masse_—“Wife! WILL you leave off scribbling?”
(Don’t be disagreeable, Smith, I’m just getting inspired) to the public
square, where De Begnis, who had been secretly—“Butcher wants to see
you, ma’am”—secretly informed of the traitors’—“Forgot _which_ you said,
ma’am, sausages or mutton chop”—movements, gave orders to fire; not less
than twenty—My gracious! Smith, you haven’t been _reversing_ that child
all this time? He’s as black as your coat; and that boy of YOURS has
torn up the first sheet of my manuscript. There! it’s no use for a
married woman to cultivate her intellect.—Smith, hand me those twins.
CECILE VRAY.
“Died, in ——, Cecile, wife of Mortimer Vray, artist. This lady died in
great destitution among strangers, and was frequently heard to say, ‘I
wish I were dead!’”
A brief paragraph, to chronicle a broken heart! Poor Cecile! We little
thought of this, when conning our French tasks, your long raven ringlets
twining lovingly with mine; or, when released from school drudgery, we
sauntered through the fragrant woods, weaving rosy dreams of a bright
future, which neither you nor I were to see.
I feel again your warm breath upon my cheek—the clasp of your clinging
arms about my neck; and the whispered “Don’t forget me, Fanny,” from
that most musical of voices.
Time rolled on, and oceans rolled between; then came a rumour of an
“artist lover”—then a “bridal”—now the sad sequel!
Poor Cecile! Those dark eyes restlessly and vainly looking for some
familiar face on which to rest, ere they closed for ever; that listening
ear, tortured by strange footsteps—that fluttering sigh, breathed out on
a strange bosom. Poor Cecile!
And _he_ (shame to tell) who won that loving heart but to trample it
under foot, basks under Italy’s sunny skies, bound in flowery fetters,
of a foreign syren’s weaving.
God rest thee, Cecile! Death never chilled a warmer heart; earth never
pillowed a lovelier head; Heaven ne’er welcomed a sweeter spirit.
* * * * *
On foreign shores, from broken dreams, a guilty man shall start, as thy
last sad, plaintive wail rings in his tortured ear, “_Would I were
dead!_”
SAM SMITH’S SOLILOQUY.
By the beard of the Prophet! what a thing it is to be a bachelor! I
wonder when this table was dusted last! I wonder how long since that
mattress was turned, or that carpet swept, or what was the primeval
colour of that ewer and wash-basin.
Christopher Columbus! how the frost curtains the windows; how dirge-like
the wind moans; how like a great, white pall the snow covers the ground.
Five times I’ve rung that bell for coal for this rickety old grate; but
I might as well thump for admittance at the gate of Paradise.
And speaking of Paradise—Sam Smith, you must be married: you haven’t a
button to your shirt, nor a shirt to your buttons either.
Wonder if women are such obstinate little monkeys to manage? Wonder if
they must be bribed with a new bonnet every day to keep the peace?
Wonder if you bring home a friend unexpectedly to dinner, if they always
take to their bed with the sick headache? Wish there was any way of
finding out but by experience. Well, Sam, you are a Napoleonic looking
fellow: if _you_ can’t manage a woman, who can?
How I shall pet the little clipper. I’ll marry a blue-eyed woman; they
are the most affectionate. She must not be too tall: a man’s wife
shouldn’t _look down_ upon him. She must not know too much: the Furies
take your pert, catamount-y, scribbling women, with a repartee always
rolled up under their tongues. She mustn’t be over seventeen; but how to
find that out, Sam, is the question: it is about as easy as to make an
editor tell you the truth about his subscription list. She must be
handsome—no, she mustn’t either. I should be as jealous as Blue Beard.
All the corkscrew, pantalooned, perfumed popinjays would be ogling her.
But then, again, there’s three hundred and sixty-five days in a year,
and three times a day I must sit opposite that connubial face at the
table. What’s to be done? Yes; she _must_ be handsome; that is as
certain as that Louis Napoleon has a Jewish horror of _Ham_.
Wonder if wives are expensive articles? Wonder if their “little hands
were ever made to scratch out husbands’ eyes?” Wonder if Caudle lectures
are “all in your eye,” or—occasionally in your ear? Wonder if babies
invariably prefer the night-time to cry?
To marry or not to marry, Sam? Whether ’tis better to go buttonless, and
to shiver; or marry, and be always in hot water?
There’s Tom Hillot. Tom’s married. I was his groomsman. I would have
given a small fortune to have been in his white satin vest—what with the
music, and the roses, and the pretty little bridesmaid! Didn’t the bride
look bewitching, with the rose-flush on her cheek and the tear on her
eyelash? And how provokingly happy Tom looked, when he whirled off with
her in the carriage to their new home; and what a pretty little home it
was, to be sure. It is just a year to-day since they were married. I
dined there yesterday. It strikes me that Tom don’t joke as much as he
used in his bachelor days; and then he has a way, too, of leaving his
sentences unfinished. And I noticed that his wife often touched his foot
with her slipper under the table. What do you suppose she did that for?
Just as I was buttoning up my coat to come away, I asked Tom if he would
go up to Tammany Hall with me. He looked at his wife, and she said, “Oh,
_go_ by all means, Mr. Hillot;” when Tom immediately declined. I don’t
understand matrimonial tactics; but it seems to me he ought to have
obliged her.
Do you know John Jones and his wife? (peculiar name that—“Jones!”) Well,
they are _another_ happy couple. It is enough to make bachelor eyes turn
green to see them. Mrs. Jones had been four times a widow when she
married John. She knows the value of husbands. She takes precious good
care of John. Before he goes to the office in the morning, she pops her
head out the window to see if the weathercock indicates a surtout,
spencer, cloak, or Tom and Jerry; this point settled, she follows him to
the door, and calls him back to close his thorax button “for fear of
quinsy.” Does a shower come up in the forenoon? She sends him clogs,
India rubbers, an extra flannel shirt, and an oilcloth overall, and
prepares two quarts of boiling ginger tea to administer on his arrival,
to prevent the damp from “striking in.” If he helps himself to a second
bit of turkey, she immediately removes it from his plate, and applying a
handkerchief to her eyes, asks him “if he has the heart to make her for
the fifth time a widow?” You can see, with half an eye, that John must
be the happiest dog alive. I’d like to see the miscreant who dares to
say he is not!
Certainly—matrimony is an invention of ——. Well, no matter who invented
it. I’m going to try it. Where’s my blue coat with the bright brass
buttons? The woman has yet to be born who can resist that; and my buff
vest and neck-tie, too: may I be shot if I don’t offer them both to the
little Widow Pardiggle this very night. “Pardiggle!” Phœbus! what a name
for such a rose-bud. I’ll re-christen her by the euphonious name of
Smith. She’ll _have_ me, of course. She wants a husband—I want a wife:
there’s one point already on which we perfectly agree. I hate
preliminaries. I suppose it is unnecessary for me to begin with the
amatory alphabet. With a widow, I suppose you can skip the rudiments.
Say what you’ve got to say in a fraction of a second. Women grow as
mischievous as Satan if they think you are afraid of them. Do _I_ look
as if _I_ were afraid? Just examine the growth of my whiskers. The
Bearded Lady could n’t hold a candle to them (though I wonder she don’t
to her own). _Afraid?_ h-m-m! I feel as if I could conquer Asia. What
the mischief ails this cravat? It must be the cold that makes my hand
tremble so. There—that’ll do: that’s quite an inspiration. Brummel
himself couldn’t go beyond that. Now for the widow; bless her little
round face! I’m immensely obliged to old Pardiggle for giving her a quit
claim. I’ll make her as happy as a little robin. Do you think I’d bring
a tear into her lovely blue eye? Do you think I’d sit after tea, with my
back to her, and my feet upon the mantel, staring up the chimney for
three hours together? Do you think I’d leave her blessed little side to
dangle about oyster-saloons and theatres? Do I _look_ like a man to let
a woman flatten her pretty little nose against the window-pane night
after night, trying to see me reel up the street.
* * * * *
_Re_fused by a widow! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well; there’s one
comfort: nobody’ll ever believe it. She is not so very pretty after all;
her eyes are too small, and her hands are rough and red-dy:—not so very
_ready_ either, confound the gipsy. What amazing pretty shoulders she
has! Well, who cares?
“If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?”
Ten to one she’d have set up that wretch of a Pardiggle for my model.
Who wants to be Pardiggle second? I am glad she didn’t have me. I
mean—I’m glad I didn’t have _her_!
[Illustration]
LOVE AND DUTY.
The moon looked down upon no fairer sight than Effie May, as she lay
sleeping on her little couch that fair summer night. So thought her
mother, as she glided gently in, to give her a silent, good-night
blessing. The bright flush of youth and hope was on her cheek. Her long
dark hair lay in masses about her neck and shoulders; a smile played
upon the red lips, and the mother bent low to catch the indistinct
murmur. She starts at the whispered name, as if a serpent had stung her;
and as the little snowy hand is tossed restlessly upon the coverlet, she
sees, glittering in the moonbeams, on that childish finger, the golden
signet of betrothal. Sleep sought in vain to woo the eyes of the mother
that night. Reproachfully she asked herself “How could I have been so
blind? (but then Effie has seemed to me only a child!) But he! Oh, no;
the _wine-cup_ will be my child’s rival; it must not be.” Effie was
wilful, and Mrs. May knew she must be cautiously dealt with; but she
knew, also, that no mother need despair who possesses the affection of
her child.
Effie’s violet eyes opened to greet the first ray of the morning sun as
he peeped into her room. She stood at the little mirror, gathering up,
with those small hands, the rich tresses so impatient of confinement.
How could she fail to know that she was fair?—she read it in every face
she met; but there was _one_ (and she was hastening to meet him) whose
eye had noted, with a lover’s pride, every shining ringlet, and azure
vein, and flitting blush. His words were soft and low, and skilfully
chosen, and sweeter than music to her ear; and so she tied, with a
careless grace, the little straw hat under her dimpled chin; and fresh,
and sweet, and guileless, as the daisy that bent beneath her foot, she
tripped lightly on to the old trysting place by the willows.
Stay! a hand is laid lightly upon her arm, and the pleading voice of a a
mother arrests that springing step.
“Effie, dear, sit down with me on this old garden seat; give up your
walk for this morning; I slept but indifferently last night, and morning
finds me languid and depressed.”
A shadow passed over Effie’s face; the little cherry lips pouted, and a
rebellious feeling was busy at her heart; but one look in her mother’s
pale face decided her, and, untying the strings of her hat, she leaned
her head caressingly upon her mother’s shoulder.
“You are ill, dear mother; you are _troubled_;” and she looked
inquiringly up into her face.
“Listen to me, Effie, I have a story to tell you of myself:—When I was
about your age, I formed an acquaintance with a young man, by the name
of Adolph. He had been but a short time in the village, but long enough
to win the hearts of half the young girls from their rustic admirers.
Handsome, frank, and social, he found himself everywhere a favourite. He
would sit by me for hours, reading our favourite authors; and, side by
side, we rambled through all the lovely paths with which our village
abounded. My parents knew nothing to his disadvantage, and were equally
charmed as myself with his cultivated refinement of manner, and the
indefinable interest with which he invested every topic, grave or gay,
which it suited his mood to discuss. Before I knew it, my heart was no
longer in my own keeping. One afternoon he called to accompany me upon a
little excursion we had planned together. As he came up the gravel walk,
I noticed that his fine hair was in disorder; a pang, keen as death,
shot through my heart, when he approached me, with reeling, unsteady
step, and stammering tongue. I could not speak. The chill of death
gathered around my heart. I fainted. When I recovered, he was gone, and
my mother’s face was bending over me, moist with tears. Her woman’s
heart knew all that was passing in mine. She pressed her lips to my
forehead, and only said, ‘God strengthen you to choose the right, my
child.’
“I could not look upon her sorrowful eyes, or the pleading face of my
gray-haired father, and trust myself again to the witchery of that voice
and smile. A letter came to me; I dared not read it. (Alas my heart
pleaded too eloquently, even then, for his return.) I returned it
unopened: my father and mother devoted themselves to lighten the load
that lay upon my heart; but the perfume of a flower, a remembered strain
of music, a straggling moonbeam, would bring back old memories, with a
crushing bitterness that swept all before it for the moment. But my
father’s aged hand lingered on my head with a blessing, and my mother’s
voice had the sweetness of an angel’s, as it fell upon my ear!
“Time passed on, and I had conquered myself. Your father saw me, and
proposed for my hand; my parents left me free to choose—and Effie, dear,
_are we not happy_?”
“Oh, mother,” said Effie (then looking sorrowfully in her face), “did
you _never_ see Adolph again?”
“Do you remember, my child, the summer evening we sat under the piazza,
when a dusty, travel-stained man came up the steps, and begged for ‘a
supper?’ Do you recollect his bloated, disfigured face? Effie, _that was
Adolph_!”
“Not that _wreck_ of a _man_, mother?” said Effie (covering her eyes
with her hands, as if to shut him out from her sight).
“Yes; that was all that remained of that glorious intellect, and that
form made after God’s own image. I looked around upon my happy home,
then upon your noble father—then—upon _him_, and,” (taking Effie’s
little hand and pointing to the _ring_ that encircled it), “in _your_
ear, my daughter, I now breathe my mother’s prayer for me—‘_God help you
to choose the right!_’”
The bright head of Effie sank upon her mother’s breast, and with a gush
of tears she drew the golden circlet from her finger, and placed it in
her mother’s hand.
“God bless you, my child,” said the happy mother, as she led her back to
their quiet home.
A FALSE PROVERB
I wonder who but the “father of lies,” originated this proverb, “Help
yourself and then everybody else will help you.” Is it not as true as
the book of Job that it’s just driving the nails into your own coffin,
to let anybody know you want help! Is not a “seedy” hat, a threadbare
coat, or patched dress, an effectual shower-bath on old friendships?
Have not people a mortal horror of a sad face and a pitiful story? Don’t
they on hearing it, instinctively poke their purses into the furthest,
most remote corner of their pockets? Don’t they wrap their warm garments
round their well-fed persons, and advise you, in a saintly tone, “to
trust in Providence?” Are they not always “engaged” ever after, when you
call to see them? Are they not near-sighted when you meet them in the
street?—and don’t they turn short corners to get out of your way? “Help
yourself,”—of course you will, (if you have any spirit;)—but when
sickness comes, or dark days, and your wits and nerves are both
exhausted, don’t place any dependence on this lying proverb!—or you will
find yourself decidedly humbugged. And then, when your heart is so soft
that anybody could knock you down with a feather, get into the darkest
hole you can find, and cry it out! Then crawl out, bathe your eyes till
they shine again, and if you have one nice garment left, out with it,
put it on! turn your shawl on the brightest side; put your best and
prettiest foot foremost; tie on your go-to-meetin’ bonnet, and smile
under it, if it half kills you; and see how complaisant the world will
be when—you ask nothing of it!
But if (as there are exceptions to all rules), you should chance to
stumble upon a true friend (when you can only render thanks as an
equivalent for kindness) “make a note on’t,” as Captain Cuttle says, for
it don’t happen but once in a life-time!
A MODEL HUSBAND
Mrs. Perry, a young Bloomer, has eloped from Monson, Massachusetts,
with Levins Clough. When her husband found she was determined to go,
he gave her one hundred dollars to start with.
Magnanimous Perry! Had I been your spouse, I should have handed that
“one hundred dollar bill” to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for
his disappointed affections—encircled your neck with my repentant arms,
and returned to your home. Then, I’d mend every rip in your coat,
gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, from that remorseful hour, till the
millennial day. I’d hand you your cigar-case and slippers, put away your
cane, hang up your coat and hat, trim your heard and whiskers, and wink
at your sherry-cobblers, whisky punches, and mint juleps. I’d help you
get a “ten strike” at ninepins. I’d give you a “night-key,” and be
perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours you tumbled into the
front entry. I’d pet all your stupid relatives, and help your country
friends to “beat down” the city shopkeepers. I’d frown at all offers of
“pin money.” I’d let you “smoke” in my face till I was as brown as a
herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and
I’d invite that pretty widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to
do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why, there’s nothing I
_wouldn’t_ do for you—you might have knocked me down with a feather
after such a piece of magnanimity. That “Levins Clough” could stand no
more chance than a woodpecker tapping at an iceberg.
HOW IS IT?
“Well, Susan, what do you think of married ladies being happy?” “Why I
think there are more AIN’T than IS, than IS that AIN’T.”
Susan, I shall apply to the Legislature to have your name changed to
“Sapphira.” You are an unprincipled female.
Just imagine yourself MRS. Snip. It is a little prefix not to be sneezed
at. It is only the privileged few who can secure a pair of corduroys to
mend, and trot by the side of; or a pair of coat-flaps alternately to
darn, and hang on to, amid the vicissitudes of this patchwork existence.
Think of the high price of fuel, Susan, and the quantity it takes to
warm a low-spirited, single woman; and then think of having all that
found for you by your husband, and no extra charge for “gas.” Think how
pleasant to go to the closet and find a great boot-jack on your best
bonnet; or “to work your passage” to the looking-glass every morning,
through a sea of dickeys, vests, coats, continuations, and neck-ties;
think of your nicely-polished toilette table spotted all over with
shaving suds; think of your “Guide to Young Women” used for a razor
strop. Think of Mr. Snip’s lips being hermetically sealed, day after
day, except to ask you “if the coal was out, or if his coat was mended.”
Think of coming up from the kitchen, in a gasping state of exhaustion,
after making a hatch of his favourite pies, and finding five or six
great dropsical bags disemboweled on your chamber floor, from the
contents of which Mr. Snip had selected the “pieces” of your best silk
gown, for “rags” to clean his gun with. Think of his taking a
watch-guard you made him out of YOUR HAIR, for a dog-collar! Think of
your promenading the floor, night after night, with your fretful, ailing
baby hushed up to your warm cheek, lest it should disturb your husband’s
slumbers; and think of his coming home the next day, and telling you,
when you were exhausted with your vigils, “that he had just met his old
love, Lilly Grey, looking as fresh as a daisy, and that it was
unaccountable how much older you looked than she, although you were both
the same age.
Think of all that, Susan.
A MORNING RAMBLE.
What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how
soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and
with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened
heart.
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,
I thank Thee that I live.”
Clouds there are; but, oh, how much of sunshine! Sorrow there is; but,
in every cup is mingled a drop of balm. Over our threshold the
destroying angel passeth; yet, ere the rush of his dark wing sweepeth
past, cometh the Healer.
Here is a poor, blind man basking in the sunshine, silently appealing,
with outstretched palm, to the passer-by. Through his thin, gray locks
the wind plays lovingly. A smile beams on his withered face; for, though
his eyes are rayless, he can feel that chill Winter has gone; and he
knows that the flowers are blossoming—for the sweet west wind cometh,
God-commissioned, to waft him their fragrance. Some pedestrians gaze
curiously at him; others, like the Levite, “pass by on the other side.”
A woman approaches. She is plainly clad, and bears a basket on her arm.
She has a good, kind, motherly face, as if she were hastening back to
some humble home, made brighter and happier by her presence. Life is
sweet to her. She catches sight of the poor old man; her eye falls upon
the label affixed to his breast: “I am blind!” Oh, what if the
brightness and beauty of this glad sunshine were all night to her veiled
lids? What if the dear home faces were for ever shrouded from her
yearning sight? What if she might never walk the sunny earth, without a
guiding hand? She places her basket upon the side-walk, and wipes away a
tear; now she explores her time-worn pocket; finds the hardly-earned
coin, and placing it in the palm of the old man, presses his hand
lovingly, and is gone!
Poor Bartimeus! He may never see the honest face that bent so tenderly
over him; but, to his heart’s core, he felt that kindly pressure, and
the sunshine is all the brighter, and the breeze sweeter and fresher for
that friendly grasp, and life is again bright to the poor blind man.
“Oh God! I thank Thee that I live!”
* * * * *
How swiftly the ferry-boat ploughs through the wave! How gleefully that
little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either
side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business
men, going back to their quiet homes; and pleasure-loving belles,
returning from the city. Pacing up and down the deck is a worn and weary
woman, bearing in her arms a child, so emaciated, so attenuated, that
but for the restless glance of its dark, sunken eyes, one would think it
a little corpse. The mother has left her unhealthy garret in the noisome
lane of the teeming city, and paid her last penny to the ferryman, that
the health-laden sea breeze may fan the sick child’s temples. Tenderly
she moves it from one shoulder to another. Now, she lays its little
cheek to hers; now, she kisses the little slender fingers; but still the
baby moans. The boat touches the pier. All are leaving but the mother
and child; the ferryman tells her to “go too.” She says timidly, “I want
to return again—I live the other side—I came on board for the baby,”
(pointing to the dying child). Poor woman! she did not know that she
could not go back without another fee, and she has not a penny.
Loathsome as is her distant home, she must go back to it; but how?
One passenger beside herself still lingers listening. Dainty fingers
drop a coin into the gruff ferryman’s hand—then a handful into the
weary, troubled mother’s. The sickly babe looks up and smiles at the
chinking coin—the mother smiles, because the baby has smiled again—and
then weeps, because she knows not how to thank the lovely donor.
“Homeward bound.”
Over the blue waters the golden sunset gleams, tinting the snowy,
billowy foam with a thousand iris hues; while at the boat’s prow stands
the happy mother, wooing the cool sunset breeze, which kisses soothingly
the sick infant’s temples.
“This earth is very lovely. Oh, my God,
I thank Thee that I live!”
HOUR-GLASS THOUGHTS.
The bride stands waiting at the altar; the corpse lies waiting for
burial.
Love vainly implores of Death a reprieve; Despair vainly invokes his
coming.
The starving wretch, who purloins a crust, trembles in the hall of
Justice; liveried sin, unpunished, riots in high places.
Brothers, clad “in purple and fine linen, fare sumptuously every day;”
Sisters, in linsey-woolsey, toil in garrets, and shrink, trembling, from
insults that no fraternal arm avenges.
The Village Squire sows, reaps, and garners golden harvests; the Parish
Clergyman sighs, as his casting vote cuts down his already meagre
salary.
The unpaid sempstress begems with tears the fairy festal robe; proud
beauty floats in it through the ball-room like a thing of air.
Church spires point, with tapering fingers, to the rich man’s heaven;
Penitence, in rags, tearful and altarless, meekly stays its timid foot
at the threshold.
Sneaking Vice, wrapped in the labelled cloak of Piety, finds “open
sesame;” shrinking Conscientiousness, jostled rudely aside, weeps in
secret its fancied unworthiness.
The Editor grows plethoric on the applause of the public and mammoth
subscription lists; the _unrecognized_ journalist, who, behind the
scenes, mixes so deftly the newspaporial salad, lives on the smallest
possible stipend, and looks like an undertaker’s walking advertisement.
Wives rant of their “Woman’s Rights” in public; Husbands eat bad dinners
and tend crying babies at home.
Mothers toil in kitchens; Daughters lounge in parlours.
Fathers drive the plough; Sons drive tandem.
SOBER HUSBANDS.
“If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don’t disturb or annoy
him.”
Oh, pshaw! were I married, the soberer my husband looked the more fun
I’d rattle about his ears. _Don’t disturb him!_ I guess so! I’d salt his
coffee—and pepper his tea—and sugar his beef-steak—and tread on his
toes—and hide his newspaper—and sew up his pockets—and put pins in his
slippers—and dip his cigars in water—and I wouldn’t stop for the great
Mogul, till I had shortened his long face to my liking. Certainly, he’d
“get vexed;” there wouldn’t be any fun in teasing him if he didn’t; and
that would give his melancholy blood a good, healthful start; and his
eyes would snap and sparkle, and he’d say, “Fanny, WILL you be quiet or
not?” and I should laugh, and pull his whiskers, and say decidedly,
“_Not!_” and then I should tell him he hadn’t the slightest idea how
handsome he looked when he was vexed; and then he would pretend not to
hear the compliment, but would pull up his dicky, and take a sly peep in
the glass (for all that!); and then he’d begin to grow amiable, and get
off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening _as
if he wasn’t my husband_; and all because I didn’t follow that stupid
bit of advice “to let him alone.” Just as if _I_ didn’t know! Just
imagine ME, Fanny, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my
forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting
till that man got ready to speak to me! You can see at once it would be—
be—. Well, the amount of it is, _I shouldn’t do it_!
BOARDING-HOUSE EXPERIENCE.
Mr. Relph Renoux lived by his wits: _i. e._, he kept a boarding-house;
_taking in_ any number of ladies and gentlemen who, in the philanthropic
language of his advertisement, “pined for the comforts and elegances of
a home.”
Mr. Renoux’s house was at the court-end of the city; his drawing-room
was unexceptionably furnished, and himself, when “made up,” after ten
o’clock in the morning, quite _comme il faut_. Mrs. Renoux never
appeared; being, in the pathetic words of Mr. Renoux, “in a drooping,
invalid state nevertheless, she might be seen, by the initiated,
haunting the back stairs and entries, and with flying cap-strings,
superintending kitchen-cabinet affairs.
Mrs. Renoux was the unhappy mother of three unmarried daughters, with
red hair and tempers to match: who languished over Byron, in elegant
_negligées_, of a morning, till after the last masculine had departed;
then, in curl-papers and calico long-shorts, performed for the absentees
the duty of chamber-maids—peeping into valises, trunks, bureaus,
cigar-boxes and coat pockets, and replenishing their perfumed bottles
from the gentlemen’s toilet stands with the most perfect _nonchalance_.
At dinner they emerged from their chrysalis state into the most
butterfly gorgeousness, and exchanged the cracked treble, with which
they had been ordering round the overtasked maid-of-all-work, as they
affectionately addressed “Papa.”
* * * * *
At the commencement of my story, Renoux was as happy as a kitten with
its first mouse—having entrapped, with the bait of his alluring
advertisement, a widow lady with one child. “The comforts and elegances
of a home;”—it was just what the lady was seeking: how very fortunate!
“Certainly, Madam,” said Renoux, doubling himself into the form of the
letter C. “I will serve your meals in your own room, if you prefer; but
really, madam, I trust you will sometimes grace the drawing-room with
your presence, as we have a very select little family of boarders. Do
you choose to breakfast at eight, nine, or ten, Madam? Do you incline to
Mocha, or prefer the leaves of the Celestial city? Are you fond of eggs,
Madam? Would you prefer to dine at four or five? Do you wish six
courses, or more? There is the bell-rope, Madam. I trust you will use it
unsparingly, should anything be omitted or neglected. I am on my way
down town, and if you will favour me by saying what you would fancy for
your dinner to-day (the market is full of everything—fish, flesh, fowl,
and game of all sorts), you have only to express a wish, Madam, and the
thing is here; I should be miserable, indeed, were the request of a
_lady_ to be disregarded in _my_ house, and that lady deprived of her
natural protector. Which is it; Madam—fish? flesh? or fowl? Any letters
to send to the post-office, Madam? Any commands anywhere? I shall be
_too_ happy to be of service—and bending to the tips of his patent
leather toes, Mr. Renoux, facing the lady, bowed obsequiously and
Terpsichoreally out of the apartment.
The dinner hour came. An Irish servant girl came with it, and drawing
out a table at an Irish angle upon the floor, tossed over it a tumbled
table-cloth, placed upon it a castor, minus one leg, some cracked
salt-cellars and tumblers, then laid some knives, left-handed, about the
table, then withdrew to re-appear with the result of Mr. Renoux’s
laborious research “in the market filled with everything,” viz.: a
consumptive-looking mackerel, whose skin clung tenaciously to its back
bone, and a Peter Schlemel-looking chicken, which, in its life-time,
must have had a vivid recollection of Noah and the forty days’ shower,
This was followed by a dessert of baker’s stale tarts, compounded of
lard and dried apples; and twenty-four purple grapes.
* * * * *
The next morning Mr. Renoux tip-toed in, smirking and bowing, as if the
bill of fare had been the most sumptuous in the world, and expressed the
greatest astonishment and indignation, that “the stupid servant had
neglected bringing up the other courses which he had provided;” then he
inquired “how the lady had rested;” and when she preferred a request for
another pillow (there being only six feathers in the one she had) he
assured her that it should be in her apartment in less than one hour. A
fortnight after, he expressed the most intense disgust that “the
rascally upholsterer” had not yet sent _what he had never ordered_. Each
morning Mr. Renoux presented himself, at a certain hour, behind a very
stiff dickey, and offered the lady the morning papers. Seating himself
on the sofa, he would remark that—it was a very fine day, and that
affairs in France appeared to be _in statu quo_; or, that the Czar had
ordered his generals to occupy the Principalities; that Gortschakoff was
preparing to cross the Danube; that the Sultan had dispatched Omar Pacha
to the frontiers; that the latter gentleman had presented his card to
Gortschakoff, on the point of a yatagan, which courtesy would probably
lead to——something else!
During one of these agreeable calls, the lady took occasion slightly to
object to Betty’s nibbling the tarts as she brought them up for dinner;
whereupon Mr. Renoux declared, on the honour of a Frenchman, that “she
should be pitched out of the door immediately, if not sooner, and an
efficient servant engaged to take her place.”
The next day, the “efficient servant” came in, broom in hand, whistling
“Oh, Susanna,” and passing into the little dressing-room, to “put it to
rights,” amused herself by trying on the widow’s best bonnet, and
polishing her teeth and combing her hair with that lady’s immaculate and
individual head-brush and tooth-brush. You will not be surprised to
learn that their injured and long-suffering owner took-a frantic and
“French leave” the following morning, in company with her big and little
bandboxes, taking refuge under the sheltering roof of Madame Finfillan.
* * * * *
Madame Finfillan was a California widow; petite, plump, and pretty—who
bore her cruel bereavement with feminine philosophy, and slid round the
world’s rough angles with a most eel-like dexterity. In short, she was a
Renoux in petticoats. Madame welcomed the widow with great pleasure,
because, as she said, she “wished to fill her house only with
first-class boarders;” and the widow might be assured that she had the
apartments fresh from the diplomatic hands of the Spanish Consul, who
would on no account have given them up, had not his failing health
demanded a trip to the Continent. Madame also assured the widow, that
(although she said it herself) every part of her house would bear the
closest inspection; that those vulgar horrors, cooking butter, and
diluted tea, were never seen on her Epicurean table; that they
breakfasted at ten, lunched at two, dined at six, and enjoyed themselves
in the _interim_; that her daughter, Miss Clara, was perfectly well
qualified to superintend, when business called her mother away. And that
nobody knew (wringing her little white hands) how _much_ business she
had to do, what with trotting round to those odious markets, trading for
wood and coal, and such like uninteresting things; or what _would_
become of her, had she not some of the best friends in the world to look
after her, in the absence of Mons. Finfillan.
Madame then caught up the widow’s little boy, and, half smothering him
with kisses, declared that there was nothing on earth she loved so well
as children; that there were half-a-dozen of them in the house who loved
her better than their own fathers and mothers, and that their devotion
to her was at times quite touching—(and here she drew out an embroidered
pocket-handkerchief, and indulged in an interesting little sniffle
behind its cambric folds). Recovering herself, she went on to say, that
the manner in which some boarding-house keepers treated children was
perfectly inhuman; that she had a second table for them, to be sure, but
it was loaded with delicacies, and that she always put them up a little
school lunch herself; on which occasion there was always an amiable
little quarrel among them, as to which should receive from her the
greatest number of kisses; also, that it was her frequent practice to
get up little parties and tableaux for their amusement. “But here is my
daughter, Miss Clara,” said she, introducing a fair-haired young damsel,
buttoned up in a black velvet jacket, over a flounced skirt.
“Just sixteen yesterday,” said Madame; “naughty little blossom, budding
out so fast, and pushing her poor mamma off the stage;” (and here Madame
paused for a compliment, and looking in the opposite mirror, smoothed
her jetty ringlets complacently). “Yes, every morning little blossom’s
mamma looks in the glass, expecting to find a horror of a gray hair. But
what makes my little pet so pensive to-day?—thinking of her little
lover, hey? Has the naughty little thing a thought she does not share
with mamma? But, dear me!”—and Madame drew out a little dwarf watch; “I
had quite forgotten it is the hour Mons. Guigen gives me my guitar
lesson. Adieu: dinner at six, remember—and Madame tripped, coquettishly,
out of the room.
Yes; “dinner at six.” Gold salt-cellars, black waiters, and
finger-bowls; satin chairs in the parlour, and pastilles burning on the
side-table; but the sheets on the beds all torn to ribbons; the boarders
allowed but one towel a week; every bell-rope divorced from its bell;
the locks all out of order on the chamber doors; the “dear children’s”
bill of fare at the “second table”—sour bread, watery soup, and cold
buckwheat cakes—and “dinner at six,” only an invention of the enemy, to
save the expense of one meal a day—the good, cozy, old-fashioned tea.
Well, the boarders were all “trusteed” by Madame’s butcher, baker, and
milkman; Miss Clara eloped with the widow’s diamond ring and Mons.
Peneke; and Madame, who had heard that Mons. Finfillan was “among the
things that _were_,” was just about running off with Mons. Guigen, when
her liege lord suddenly returned from California, with damaged
constitution and morals, a dilapidated wardrobe and empty coffers.
Moral.—Beware of boarding-houses; in the words of Shakspere—
“Let those keep house who ne’er kept house before,
And those who have kept house, keep house the more.”
A GRUMBLE FROM THE (H)ALTAR.
This is the second day I’ve come home to dinner, without that yard of
pink ribbon for Mrs. Pendennis. Now we shall have a _broil_ not down in
the bill of fare. Julius Cæsar! if she only knew how much I have to do;
but it would make no difference if she did. I used to think a fool was
easily managed. Mrs. Pendennis has convinced me that _that_ was a
mistake. If I try to reason with her, she talks round and round in a
circle, like a kitten chasing its tail. If I set my arms akimbo, and
look threatening, she settles into a fit of the sulks, to which a
November drizzle of a fortnight’s duration is a millenium. If I try to
get round her by petting, she is as impudent as the——. Yes, just about.
Jerusalem! what a thing it is to be married! And yet, if an inscrutable
Providence should bereave me of Mrs. Pendennis, I am not at all
sure——good gracious, here she comes! Do you know I’d rather face one of
Colt’s revolvers this minute, than that four feet of womanhood? Isn’t it
astonishing, the way they do it?
A WICK-ED PARAGRAPH.
CONNUBIAL.—Mr. Albert Wicks, of Coventry, under date of December 28th,
advertised his wife as having left his bed and board; and now, under
date of March. 26th, he appends to his former notice, the following:—
“Mrs. Wicks, if you ever intend to come back and live with me any
more, you must come now or not at all.
“I love you as I do my life, and if you will come now, I will forgive
you for all you have done and threatened to do, which I can prove by
three good witnesses: and if not, I shall attend to your case without
delay, and soon, too.”
There, now, Mrs. Wicks, what is to be done? “Three good witnesses!”
think of _that_. What the mischief have you been about? Whatever it is,
Mr. Wicks is ready to “love you like his life.” Consistent Mr. Wicks!
Now take a little advice, my dear innocent, and don’t allow yourself to
be badgered or frightened into anything. None but a coward ever
threatens a woman. Put that in your memorandum book. It’s all bluster
and braggadocio. Thread your darning needle, and tell him you are ready
for him—ready for anything except his “loving you like his life;” that
you could not possibly survive that infliction without having your
“wick” snuffed entirely out.
Sew away, just as if there were not a domestic earthquake brewing under
your connubial feet. If it sends you up in the air, it sends him
too—there’s a pair of you! Put _that_ in his Wick-ed ear! Of course he
will sputter away as if he had swallowed a “Roman candle,” and you can
take a nap till he gets through, and then offer him your smelling-bottle
to quiet his nerves.
That’s the way to quench him!
MISTAKEN PHILANTHROPY.
“Don’t moralize to a man who is on his back. Help him up, set him
firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.”
There’s an old-fashioned, verdant piece of wisdom, altogether unsuited
for the enlightened age we live in! Fished up, probably, from some musty
old newspaper, edited by some eccentric man troubled with that
inconvenient appendage, called a heart! Don’t pay any attention to it.
If a poor wretch (male or female) comes to you for charity, whether
allied to you by your own mother, or mother Eve, put on the most
stoical, “get thee behind me” expression you can muster. Listen to him
with the air of a man who “thanks God he is not as other men are.” If
the story carry conviction with it, and truth and sorrow go hand in
hand, button your coat tighter over your pocket-book, and give him a
piece of—good advice! If you know anything about him, try to rake up
some imprudence or mistake he may have made in the course of his life,
and bring that up as a reason why you can’t give him anything more
substantial, and tell him that his present condition is probably a
salutary discipline for those same peccadilloes! Ask him more questions
than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism, about his private history;
and when you’ve pumped him high and dry, try to teach him (on an empty
stomach) the “duty of submission.” If the tear of wounded sensibility
begin to flood the eye, and a hopeless look of discouragement settle
down upon the face, “wish him well,” and turn your back upon him as
quick as possible.
Should you at any time be seized with an unexpected spasm of generosity,
and make up your mind to bestow some worn-out old garment that will
hardly hold together till the recipient gets it home, you’ve bought him,
body and soul; of course you are entitled to the gratitude of a
life-time! If he ever presumes to think differently from you after that,
he’s an “ungrateful wretch,” and “ought to suffer.” As to the “golden
rule,” that was made in old times; everything is changed now; ‘taint
suited to our meridian.
People shouldn’t get poor; if they do, you don’t want to be bothered
with it. It’s disagreeable; it hinders your digestion. You’d rather see
Dives than Lazarus; and it’s my opinion your taste will be gratified in
that particular (in the other world, if it is not in this!)
INSIGNIFICANT LOVE.
“You, young, loving creature, who dream of your lover by night and by
day—you fancy that he does the same of you? One hour, perhaps, your
presence has captivated him, subdued him even to weakness; the next,
he will be in the world, working his way as a man among men,
forgetting, for the time being, your very existence. Possibly, if you
saw him, his outer self, so hard and stern, so different from the self
you know, would strike you with pain. Or else his inner and diviner
self, higher than you dream of, would turn coldly from _your
insignificant love_.”
“Insignificant love!” I like that. More especially when out of ten
couple you meet, nine of the wives are as far above their husbands, in
point of mind, as the stars are above the earth. For the credit of the
men I should be sorry to say how many of them would be minus coats,
hats, pantaloons, cigars, &c., were it not for their wives’ earnings; or
how many smart speeches and able sermons have been concocted by their
better halves (while rocking the cradle), to be delivered to the public
at the proper time, parrot fashion, by the lords of creation. Wisdom
will die with the men; there’s no gainsaying that!
Catch a smart, talented, energetic woman, and it will puzzle you to find
a man that will compare with her for go-a-headativeness. The more
obstacles she encounters, the harder she struggles, and the more you try
to put her down, the more you won’t do it. Children are obliged to write
under their crude drawings, “this is a dog,” or “this is a horse.” If it
were not for coats and pants, we should be obliged to label, “this is a
man,” in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred!
“Insignificant love!” Why does a man offer himself a dozen times to the
same woman? Pity to take so much pains for such a trifle! “Insignificant
love!” Who gets you on your feet again, when you fail in business, by
advancing the nice little sum settled on herself by her anxious pa? Who
cheers you up, when her nerves are all in a double-and-twisted knot, and
you come home with your face long as the moral law? Who wears her old
bonnet three winters, while you smoke, and drive, and go to the opera?
Who sits up till the small hours, to help you find the way up your own
staircase? Who darns your old coat, next morning, just as if you were a
man, instead of a brute? And who scratches any woman’s eyes out, who
dares insinuate that her husband is superior to you!
“Insignificant love!” I wish I knew the man who wrote that article! I’d
appoint his funeral to-morrow, and it should come off, too!
A MODEL MARRIED MAN.
Cobbett says that for two years after his marriage he retained his
disposition to flirt with pretty women; but at last his wife—probably
having lost all hope of his reforming himself—gently tapped him upon
the arm, and remarked—
“Don’t do that. I do not like it.”
Cobbett says:—“That was quite enough. I had never thought on the
subject before; one hair of her head was more dear to me than all
other women in the world; and this I knew that she knew; but now I saw
that this was not all that she had a right to from me. _I saw that she
had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from everything
that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for
whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection._”
Now I suppose most women, on reading that, would roll up their eyes and
think unutterable things of Mr. Cobbett! But, had _I_ borne his musical
name, and had that fine speech been addressed to me, I should
immediately have dismissed the—house-maid!
It is not in any masculine to get on his knees that way, without a
motive! I tell you that man was a humbug! overshot the mark, entirely;
promised ten times as much as a sinful masculine could ever perform. If
he had said about _a quarter part_ of that, you might have believed him.
His affection for Mrs. Cobbett was skin-deep. He would have flirted with
every one of you, the minute her back was turned, to the end of the
electrical chapter!
A man who is magnetized as he ought to be, don’t waste his precious time
making such long-winded, sentimental speeches. You never need concern
yourself, when such a glib tongue makes love to you. Go on with your
knitting; _he’s convalescent_! getting better of his complaint fast. Now
mind what I tell you; that Cobbett was a humbug!
MEDITATIONS OF PAUL PRY, JUN.
Not a blessed bit of gossip have I heard for a whole week! Nobody’s run
off with anybody’s wife; not a _single_ case of “Swartwouting;” no
minister’s been to the theatre; and my friend Tom, editor of the “Sky
Rocket,” (who never cares whether a rumour be true or false, or where it
hits, so that it makes a paragraph), is quite in despair. He’s really
afraid the world is growing virtuous—says it would be a hundred dollars
in his pocket, to get hold of a bit of scandal in such a dearth of news;
and if the accused party gets obstreperous, he’d just as lief publish
one side as the other! The more fuss the better; all he’s afraid of is,
they won’t think it worth noticing!
Ah! we’ve some new neighbours in that house; pretty woman there, at the
window; glad of that! In the first place, it rests my eyes to look at
them; in the next place, when there’s a pretty woman, you may be morally
certain there’ll be mischief, sooner or later, _i. e._ if they don’t
have somebody like me to look after them; therefore I shall keep my eye
on her. That’s her husband in the room, I’m certain of it (for all the
while she is talking to him, she’s looking out of the window!) There he
goes down street to his business—a regular humdrum, hen-pecked, “ledger”
looking Lilliputian. Was not cut out for her, that’s certain! Well, my
lady’s wide awake enough! Look at her eye! No use in pursing up that
pretty mouth!—that eye tells the story! Nice little plump figure;
coquettish turn of the head, and a spring to her step. Well, well, I’ll
keep my eyes open.
Just as I expected! there’s a young man ringing at the door; “patent
leather,” “kid gloves,” white hand, ring on the little finger—hope she
won’t shut the blinds now! There! she has taken her seat on the sofa at
the back part of the room. She don’t escape _me_ that way, while I own a
spy-glass! Jupiter! if he is not twisting her curls round his fingers!
Wonder how old “Ledger” would like _that_!
Tuesday.—Boy at the door with a bouquet. Can’t ring the bell; I’ll just
step out and offer to do it for him, and learn who sent it! “Has orders
not to tell;” umph! _I’ve_ no orders “not to tell;” so here goes a note
to Ledger about it; that little gipsy is stepping RATHER too high.
Wednesday.—Here I am tied up for a month at least; scarcely a whole bone
in my body, to say nothing of the way my feelings are hurt. How did I
know that young man was “her brother?” Why couldn’t Ledger correct my
mistake in a gentlemanly way, without daguerreotyping it on my back with
a horsewhip? It’s true I am not always correct in my suspicions, but he
ought to have looked at my motives! Suppose it hadn’t been her brother,
now! It’s astonishing, the ingratitude of people. It’s enough to
discourage all my attempts at moral reform!
Well, it’s no use attacking that hornet’s nest again; but I’ve no doubt
some of the commandments are broken somewhere; and with the help of some
“opodeldoc” I’ll get out and find where it is!
SUNSHINE AND YOUNG MOTHERS.
FOLLY.—For girls to expect to be happy without marriage. Every woman
was made for a mother; consequently, babies are as necessary to their
“peace of mind,” as health. If you wish to look at melancholy and
indigestion, look at an old maid. If you would take a peep at
sunshine, look in the face of a young mother.
“Young mothers and sunshine!” They are worn to fiddle-strings before
they are twenty-five! When an old lover turns up, he thinks he sees his
grandmother, instead of the dear little Mary who used to make him feel
as if he should crawl out of the toes of his boots! Yes! my mind is
_quite_ made up about _matrimony_; it’s a _one-sided_ partnership.
“Husband” gets up in the morning, and pays his _devoirs_ to the
looking-glass; curls his fine head of hair; puts on an immaculate shirt
bosom; ties an excruciating cravat; sprinkles his handkerchief with
cologne; stows away a French roll, an egg, and a cup of coffee; gets
into the omnibus, looks at the pretty girls, and makes love between the
pauses of business during the forenoon _generally_. Wife must
“hermetically seal” the windows and exclude all the fresh air (because
the baby had “the snuffles” in the night); and sits gasping down to the
table, more dead than alive, to finish her breakfast. Tommy turns a cup
of hot coffee down his bosom; Juliana has torn off the strings of her
school bonnet; James “wants his geography covered;” Eliza can’t find her
satchel; the butcher wants to know if she’d like a joint of mutton; the
milkman would like his money; the iceman wants to speak to her “just a
minute;” the baby swallows a bean; husband sends the boy home from the
store to say _his partner_ will dine with him; the cook leaves “all
flying,” to go to her “sister’s dead baby’s wake,” and husband’s thin
coat must be ironed before noon.
“_Sunshine and young mothers!_” Where’s my smelling-bottle?
UNCLE BEN’S ATTACK OF SPRING FEVER, AND HOW HE GOT CURED.
“It is not possible that you have been insane enough to go to
housekeeping in the country, for the summer? Oh, you ought to hear my
experience,” and Uncle Ben wiped the perspiration from his forehead, at
the very thought.
Yes, I tried it once, with city habits and a city wife: got rabid with
the dog days, and nothing could cure me but a nibble of green grass.
There was Susan, you know, who never was off a brick pavement in her
life, and didn’t know the difference between a cheese and a grindstone.
Well, we ripped up our carpets, and tore down our curtains, and packed
up our crockery, and nailed down our pictures, and eat dust for a week,
and then we emigrated to Daisy Ville.
Could I throw up a window, or fasten back a blind in that house, without
sacrificing my suspenders and waistband button? No, sir! Were not the
walls full of Red Rovers? Didn’t the doors fly open at every wind gust?
Didn’t the roof leak like the mischief? Was not the chimney leased to a
pack of swallows? Was not the well half a mile from the house?
Oh, you needn’t laugh. Instead of the comfortable naps to which I had
been accustomed, I had to sleep with one eye open all night, lest I
shouldn’t get into the city in time. I had to be shaving in the morning
before a rooster in the barn-yard had stirred a feather; swallowed my
coffee and toast by steam, and then, still masticating, made for the
front door. There stood Peter with my horse and gig, for I detest your
cars and omnibuses. On the floor of the chaise was a huge basket, in
which to bring home material for the next day’s dinner. On the seat was
a dress of my wife’s to be left “without fail” at Miss Sewing Silk’s, to
have the forty-seventh hook moved one-sixth of a degree higher up on the
back. Then there was a package of shawls from Tom Fools & Co., to be
returned, and a pair of shoes to carry to Lapstone, who was to select
another pair for me to bring out at night; and a demijohn to be filled
with sherry. Well, I whipped up Bucephalus, left my sleeping wife and
babies, and started for town; cogitating over an intricate business
snarl, which bade defiance to any straightening process. I hadn’t gone
half a mile before an old maid (I hate old maids) stopped me to know if
I was going into town, and if I was, if I wouldn’t take her in, as the
omnibuses made her sick. She said she was niece to Squire Dandelion, and
“had a few chores to do a shopping.” So I took her in, or rather, she
took _me_ in (but she didn’t do it but once—for I bought a sulkey next
day!) Well, it came night, and I was hungry as a Hottentot, for I never
could dine, as your married widowers _pro tem_ do, at eating-houses,
where one gravy answers for flesh, fish, and fowl, and the pudding-sauce
is as black as the cook’s complexion. So I went round on an empty
stomach, hunting up my _expressman parcels_, and wending my way to the
stable with arms and pockets running over. When I got home, found my
wife in despair, no tacks in the house to nail down carpets, and not one
to be had at the store in the village; the cook had deserted, because
she couldn’t do without “her _city privileges_” (meaning Jonathan Jones,
the “dry dirt” man); and the chambermaid, a buxom country girl, with
fire-red hair, was spinning round the crockery (_à la_ Blitz) because
she “couldn’t eat with the family.”
Then Charley was taken with the croup in the night, and in my fright I
put my feet into my coat sleeves, and my arms into my pants, and put on
one of my wife’s ruffles instead of a dicky, and rode three miles in a
pelting rain, for some “goose grease” for his throat.
Then we never found out till cherries, and strawberries, and peaches
were ripe, how many _friends_ (?) we had. There was a horse hitched at
every rail in the fence, so long as there was anything left to eat on a
tree in the farm; but if my wife went in town shopping, and called on
any of them, they were “out, or engaged;”—or, if at home, had “just done
dinner, and were going to ride.”
Then there was no school in the neighbourhood for the children, and they
were out in the barn-yard feeding the pigs with lump sugar, and chasing
the hens off the nest to see what was the prospect for eggs, and making
little boats of their shoes, and sailing them in the pond, and milking
the cow in the middle of the day, &c.
Then if I dressed in the morning in linen coat, thin pants, and straw
hat, I’d be sure to find the wind “dead east” when I got into the city;
or if I put on broadcloth and fixins to match, it would be hotter than
Shadrach’s furnace, all day—while the dense morning fog would extract
the starch from my dicky and shirt-bosom, till they looked very like a
collapsed flapjack.
Then our meeting-house was a good two miles distant, and we had to walk,
or stay at home; because my factotum (Peter) wouldn’t stay on the farm
without he could have the horse on Sundays to go to Mill Village to see
his affianced Nancy. Then the old farmers leaned on my stone wall, and
laughed till the tears came into their eyes, to see “the city
gentleman’s” experiments in horticulture, as they passed by “to
meetin’.”
Well, sir, before summer was over, my wife and I looked as jaded as
omnibus horses—she with chance “help” and floods of city company, and I
with my arduous duties as _express man_ for my own family in particular,
and the neighbours in general.
And now here we are—“No. 9 Kossuth Square.” Can reach anything we want,
by putting our hands out the front windows. If, as the poet says, “_man
made the town_,” all I’ve got to say is—he understood his business!
THE AGED MINISTER VOTED A DISMISSION.
Your minister is “superannuated,” is he? Well, call a parish meeting,
and vote him a dismission; hint that his usefulness is gone; that he is
given to repetition; that he puts his hearers to sleep. Turn him adrift,
like a blind horse, or a lame house dog. Never mind that he has grown
gray in your thankless service—that he has smiled upon your infants at
the baptismal font, given them lovingly away in marriage to their
heart’s chosen, and wept with you when Death’s shadow darkened your
door. Never mind that he has laid aside his pen, and listened many a
time, and oft, with courteous grace, to your tedious, prosy
conversations, when his moments were like gold dust; never mind that he
has patiently and uncomplainingly accepted, at your hands the smallest
pittance that would sustain life, because “the Master” whispered in his
ear, “Tarry here till I come.” Never mind that the wife of his youth,
whom he won from a home of luxury, is broken down with privation and
fatigue, and _your_ thousand unnecessary demands upon her strength,
patience, and time. Never mind that his children, at an early age, were
exiled from the parsonage roof, because there was not “bread enough and
to spare” in their father’s house. Never mind that his library consists
only of a Bible, a Concordance, and a Dictionary; and that to the luxury
of a religious newspaper, he has long been a stranger. Never mind that
his wardrobe would be spurned by many a mechanic in our cities; never
mind that he has “risen early and sat up late,” and tilled the ground
with weary limbs, for earthly “manna,” while his glorious intellect lay
in fetters—_for you_. Never mind _that_; call a parish meeting, and vote
him “superannuated.” Dont’ spare him the starting tear of sensibility,
or the flush of wounded pride, by delicately offering to settle a
colleague, that your aged pastor may rest on his staff in grateful,
gray-haired independence. No! _turn the old patriarch out_; give him
time to go to the moss-grown churchyard, and say farewell to his
unconscious dead, and then give “the right hand of fellowship” to some
beardless, pedantic, noisy college boy, who will save your sexton the
trouble of pounding the pulpit cushions; and who will tell you and the
Almighty, in his prayers, all the political news of the week.
THE FATAL MARRIAGE.
A very pretty girl was Lucy Lee. Don’t ask me to describe her; stars,
and gems, and flowers have long since been exhausted in depicting
heroines. Suffice it to say, Lucy was as pretty a little fairy as ever
stepped foot in a slipper, or twisted a ringlet.
Of course Lucy knew she was pretty; else why did the gentlemen stare at
her so? Why did Harry Graham send her so many bouquets? Why did Mr.
Smith and Mr. Jones try to sit each other out in an evening call? Why
were picnics and fairs postponed, if she were engaged or ill? Why did so
many young men request an introduction? Why did all the serenaders come
beneath her window? Why was a pew or omnibus never full when she
appeared at the door? And last, though not least, why did all the women
imitate and hate her so?
We will do Miss Lucy the justice to say, that she bore her blushing
honours very meekly. She never flaunted her conquests in the faces of
less attractive feminines; no, Lucy was the farthest remove from a
coquette; but kind words and bright smiles were as natural to her as
fragrance to flowers, or music to birds. She never _tried_ to win
hearts; and, between you and me, I think that’s the way she did it.
Grave discussions were often held about Lucy’s future husband; the old
maids scornfully asserting that “beauties generally pick up a crooked
stick at last,” while the younger ones cared very little whom she
married, if she only _were_ married and out of _their_ way. Meanwhile,
Lucy smiled at her own happy thoughts, and sat at her little window on
pleasant, summer evenings, watching for Harry (poor Harry), who, when he
came, was at a loss to know if he had over given her little heart one
flutter, so merrily did she laugh and chat with him. Skilful little
Lucy, it was very right you shouldn’t let him peep into _your_ heart
till he had opened a window in _his own_.
Lucy’s papa didn’t approve of late hours or lovers; moonlight he
considered but another name for rheumatism. At nine o’clock, precisely,
he rang the bell each evening for family prayers; and when the Bible
came in, lovers were expected to go out. In case they were obtuse—chairs
set back against the wall, or an extra lamp blown out, or the fire taken
apart, were hints sufficiently broad to be understood; and they
generally answered the purpose. Miss Lucy’s little lamp, glowing
immediately after from her bed-room window, gave the _finale_ to the
“Mede and Persian” order of Mr. Lee’s family arrangements.
Still, Lee house was not a hermitage, by any means. More white cravats
and black coats passed over “Deacon” Lee’s threshold, than into any
hotel in Yankeedom. Little Lucy’s mother, too, was a modern Samaritan,
never weary of experimenting on their dyspeptic and bronchial
affections; while Lucy herself (bless her kind heart) knew full well
that two-thirds of them had large families, empty purses, and more
Judases and Paul Prys than “Aarons and Hurs” in their congregations.
Among the _habitués_ of Lee house, none was so acceptable to Lucy’s
father as Mr. Ezekiel Clark, a bachelor of fifty, an ex-minister, and
now an agent for some “Benevolent Society.” Ezekiel had an immensely
solemn face; and behind this convenient mask he was enabled to carry
out, undetected, various little plans, ostensibly for the “society’s”
benefit, but privately for his own personal aggrandizement. When
Ezekiel’s opinion was asked, he crossed his hands and feet, and fastened
his eyes upon the wall in an attitude of the deepest abstraction, while
his questioner stood on one leg, awaiting, with the most intense
anxiety, the decision of such an oracular Solomon. Well, not to weary
you, the long and short of it was, that Solomon was a stupid fool, who
spent his time trying to humbug the religious public in general, and
Deacon Lee in particular, into the belief that had _he_ been consulted
before this world was made, he could have suggested great and manifold
improvements. As to Deacon Lee, no cat ever tossed a poor mouse more
dexterously than he played with the deacon’s free will; all the while
very demurely pocketing the spoils in the shape of “donations” to the
“society,” with which he appeased his washerwoman and tailor, and
transported himself across the country on trips to Newport, Saratoga,
&c., &c.
His favourite plan was yet to be carried out: which was no more or less
than a modest request for the deacon’s pretty daughter, Lucy, in
marriage. Mr. Lee rubbed his chin, and said, “Lucy was nothing but a
foolish little girl;” but Ezekiel overruled it, by remarking that that
was so much the more reason she should have a husband some years her
senior, with some knowledge of the world, qualified to check and advise
her; to all of which, after an extra pinch of snuff, and another look
into Ezekiel’s oracular face, Deacon Lee assented.
Poor little Lucy! Ezekiel knew very well that her father’s word was law;
and when Mr. Lee announced him as her future husband, she knew she was
just as much Mrs. Ezekiel Clark as if the bridal ring had been already
slipped on her fairy finger. She sighed heavily, to be sure, and patted
her little foot nervously, and when she handed him his tea, thought he
looked older than ever: while Ezekiel swallowed one cup after another,
till his eyes snapped and glowed like a panther’s in ambush. That night
poor Lucy pressed her lips to a faded rose, the gift of Harry Graham;
then cried herself to sleep.
Unbounded was the indignation of Lucy’s admirers, when the sanctimonious
Ezekiel was announced as the expectant bridegroom. Harry Graham took the
first steamer for Europe, railing at “woman’s fickleness.” (Consistent
Harry! when never a word of love had passed his moustached lip.)
Shall I tell you how Ezekiel was transformed into the most ridiculous of
lovers? how his self-conceit translated Lucy’s indifference into maiden
coyness? how he looked often in the glass, and thought he was not so
_very_ old after all? how he advised Lucy to tuck away all her bright
curls, because they “looked so childish?” how he named to her papa an
“early marriage day”—not that he felt nervous about losing his prize—oh,
no (?)—but because “the society’s business required his undivided
attention.”
Well, Lucy, in obedience to her father’s orders, stood up in her
snow-white robe, and vowed “to love and cherish” a man just her father’s
age, with whom she had not the slightest congeniality of taste or
feeling. But papa had said it was an excellent match, and Lucy never
gainsaid papa; still her long lashes drooped heavily over her blue eyes,
and her hand trembled, and her cheek grew deadly pale, as Ezekiel handed
her to the carriage that whirled them rapidly away.
Shall I tell you how long months and years dragged wearily on? how Lucy
saw through her husband’s mask of hypocrisy and self-conceit? how to
indifference succeeded disgust? how Harry Graham returned from Europe,
with a fair young English bride? how Lucy grew nervous and hysterical?
how Ezekiel soon wearied of his sick wife, and left her in one of those
_tombs_ for the wretched—an insane hospital? and how she wasted, day by
day—then _died_, with only a hired nurse to close those weary blue eyes?
In a quiet corner of the old churchyard, where Lucy sleeps, a
silver-haired old man, each night at dew-fall, paces to and fro, with
remorseless tread, as if by that weary vigil he would fain atone to the
unconscious sleeper for turning her sweet young life to bitterness.
A MATRIMONIAL REVERIE.
“The love of a spirited woman is better worth having than that of any
other female individual you can start.”
I wish I had known that before! I’d have plucked up a little spirit, and
not gone trembling through creation like a plucked chicken, afraid of
every animal I ran _a-fowl_ of. I have not dared to say my soul was my
own since the day I was married; and every time Mr. Jones comes into the
entry and sets down that great cane of his, with a thump, you might hear
my teeth chatter down cellar! I always keep one eye on him, in company,
to see if I am saying the right thing; and the middle of a sentence is
the place for me to stop (I can tell you) if _his_ black eyes snap! It’s
so aggravating to find out my mistake at this time o’ day. I ought to
have carried a stiff upper lip long ago. Wonder if _little_ women _can_
look dignified? Wonder how it would do to turn straight about now? I’ll
try it!
Harry will come home presently, and thunder out, as usual, “Mary, why
the deuce isn’t dinner ready?” I’ll just set my teeth together, put my
arms akimbo, and look him right straight——oh, _mercy_! I can’t. I should
dissolve! Bless your soul, he’s a six-footer; _such_ whiskers—none of
your _sham settlements_! Such eyes! and such a nice mouth! Come to think
of it, I really believe I _love him_! Guess I’ll go along the old way!
FRANCES SARGEANT OSGOOD.
“I’m passing through the eternal gates,
Ere June’s sweet roses blow.”
So sang the dying poetess. The “eternal gates” have closed upon her.
Those dark, soul-lit eyes beam upon us no more. “June” has come again,
with its “sweet roses,” its birds, its zephyrs, its flowers and
fragrance. It is such a day as her passionate heart would have revelled
in—a day of Eden-like freshness and beauty. I will gather some fair,
sweet flowers, and visit her grave.
“Show me Mrs. Fanny Osgood’s monument, please,” said I to the rough
gardener, who was spading the turf in Mount Auburn.
“In Orange Avenue, Ma’am,” he replied, respectfully indicating, with a
wave of the hand, the path I was to pursue.
Tears started to my eyes, as I trod reverently down the quiet path. The
little birds she loved so well were skimming confidingly and joyously
along before me, and singing as merrily as if my heart echoed back their
gleeful songs.
I approached the enclosure, as the gardener had directed me. There were
five graves. _In which_ slept the poetess? for there was _not even a
headstone_! The flush of indignant feeling mounted to my temples; the
warm tears started from my eyes. _She was forgotten!_ Sweet, gifted
Fanny! _in her own family burial place she was forgotten!_ The stranger
from a distance, who had worshipped her genius, might in vain make a
pilgrimage to do her honour. I, who had personally known and loved her,
had not even the poor consolation of decking the bosom of her grave with
the flowers I had gathered; I could not kiss the turf beneath which she
is reposing; I could not drop a tear on the sod, ‘neath which her
remains are mouldering back to their native dust. I could not tell
(though I so longed to know), in which of the little graves—for there
were several—slept her “dear May,” her “pure Ellen;” the little, timid,
household doves, who folded their weary wings when the parent bird was
stricken down, by the aim of the unerring Archer.
Though allied by no tie of blood to the gifted creature, who,
_somewhere_, lay sleeping there, I felt the flush of shame mount to my
temples, to turn away and leave her dust so unhonoured. Oh, God! to be
so soon forgotten by all the world!—How can even _earth_ look so glad,
when such a warm, passionate heart lies cold and pulseless? Poor,
gifted, forgotten Fanny! She “still lives” in _my_ heart; and, Header,
glance your eye over these touching lines, “written during her last
illness,” and tell me, Shall she not also live in thine?
A MOTHER’S PRAYER IN ILLNESS.
BY MRS. OSGOOD.
Yes! take them first, my Father! Let my doves
Fold their white wings in Heaven safe on thy breast,
Ere I am called away! I dare not leave
Their young hearts here, their innocent, thoughtless hearts!
Ah! how the shadowy train of future ills
Comes sweeping down life’s vista, as I gaze.
My May! my careless, ardent-tempered May!
My frank and frolic child! in whose blue eyes
Wild joy and passionate woe alternate rise;
Whose cheek, the morning in her soul illumes;
Whose little loving heart, a word, a glance,
Can sway to grief or glee; who leaves her play,
And puts up her sweet mouth and dimpled arms
Each moment for a kiss, and softly asks,
With her clear, flute-like voice, “Do you love me?”
Ah! _let_ me stay! ah! let me still be by,
To answer her, and meet her warm caress!
For, I away, how oft, in this rough world,
That earnest question will be asked in vain!
How oft that eager, passionate, petted heart
Will shrink abashed and chilled, to learn, at length,
The hateful, withering lesson of distrust!
Ah! let her nestle still upon this breast,
In which each shade that dims her darling face
Is felt and answered, as the lake reflects
The clouds that cross yon smiling Heaven.
And thou,
My modest Ellen! tender, thoughtful, true,
Thy soul attuned to all sweet harmonies;
My pure, proud, noble Ellen! with thy gifts
Of genius, grace and loveliness half-hidden
‘Neath the soft veil of innate modesty:
How will the world’s wild discord reach thy heart,
To startle and appal! Thy generous scorn
Of all things base and mean—thy quick, keen taste,
Dainty and delicate—thy instinctive fear
Of those unworthy of a soul so pure,
Thy rare, unchildlike dignity of mien,
All—they will all bring pain to thee, my child.
And oh! if ever their grace and goodness meet
Cold looks and careless greetings, how will all
the latent evil yet undisciplined
In their young, timid souls forgiveness find?
Forgiveness and forbearance, and soft chidings,
Which I, their mother, learn’d of love, to give.
Ah! let me stay! albeit my heart is weary,
Weary and worn, _tired of its own sad beat,
That finds no echo in this busy world
Which cannot pause to answer_—tired, alike,
Of joy and sorrow—of the day and night!
Ah! _take them_ FIRST, _my Father! and then me_;
And for their sakes—for their sweet sakes, my Father!
Let me find rest beside them, at thy feet.
A PUNCH AT “PUNCH.”
“What is the height of a woman’s ambition? Diamonds.”—_Punch._
Sagacious Punch! Do you know the reason? It is because the more
“diamonds” a woman owns, the more _precious_ she becomes in the eyes of
your discriminating sex. What pair of male eyes ever saw a “crow’s
foot,” gray hair, or wrinkle, in company with a _genuine diamond_? Don’t
you go down on your marrow bones, and vow that the owner is a Venus, a
Hebe, a Juno, a sylph, a fairy, an angel? Would you stop to look
(_connubially_) at the most bewitching woman on earth, whose only
diamonds were “_in her eye_?” Well, it is no great marvel, Mr. Punch.
The race of _men_ is about extinct. Now and then you will meet with a
specimen; but I’m sorry to inform you that the most of them are nothing
but coat tails, walking behind a moustache, destitute of sufficient
energy to earn their own cigars and “Macassar,” preferring to dangle at
the heels of a _diamond_ wife, and meekly receive their allowance, as
her mamma’s prudence and her own inclinations may suggest.
BEST THINGS.
I have a horror of “best” things, come they in the shape of shoes,
garments, bonnets, or rooms. In such a harness my soul peers restlessly
out, asking “if I be I.” I’m puzzled to find myself. I become stiff and
formal, and artificial as my surroundings.
But of all the best things, spare me the infliction of a “best room.”
Out upon a carpet too fine to tread upon, books too dainty to handle,
sofas that but mock your weary limbs, and curtains that dare not face a
ray of sunlight!
Had I a house, there should be no “best room” in it. No upholsterer
should exorcise comfort or children from my door-sill. The free, fresh
air should be welcome to play through it; the bright, glad sunshine to
lighten and warm it; while fresh mantel-flowers should woo for us visits
from humming-bird and drowsy bee.
For pictures, I’d look from out my windows upon a landscape painted by
the Great Master—ever fresh, ever varied, and never marred by envious
“cross lights;” now, wreathed in morning’s silvery mist; now, basking in
noon’s broad beam; now, flushed with sunset’s golden glow; now, sleeping
in dreamy moonlight.
For statuary, fill my house with children—rosy, dimpled, laughing
children; now, tossing their sunny ringlets from open brows; now,
veiling their merry eyes in slumbrous dreams, ‘neath snow-white lids;
now, sweetly grave, on bended knee, with clasped hands, and lisped words
of holy prayer.
Did I say I’d have nothing “best?” Pardon me. Sunday should be the best
day of all the seven—not ushered in with ascetic form, or lengthened
face, or stiff and rigid manners. Sweetly upon the still Sabbath air
should float the matin hymn of happy childhood, blending with the early
songs of birds, and wafted upward, with flowers’ incense, to Him whose
very name is LOVE. It should be no day for puzzling the half-developed
brain of childhood with gloomy creeds, to shake the simple faith that
prompts the innocent lips to say, “Our Father.” It should be no day to
sit upright on stiff-backed chairs, till the golden sun should set. No;
the birds should not be more welcome to warble, the flowers to drink in
the air and sunlight, or the trees to toss their lithe limbs, free and
fetterless.
“I’m _so sorry_ that to-morrow is Sunday!” From whence does this sad
lament issue? From under _your_ roof, oh mistaken but well-meaning
Christian parents—from the lips of _your_ child, whom you compel to
listen to two or three unintelligible sermons, sandwiched between Sunday
schools, and finished off at nightfall by tedious repetitions of creeds
and catechisms, till sleep releases your weary victim! No wonder your
child _shudders_ when the minister tells him that “Heaven is one eternal
Sabbath.”
Oh, mistaken parent! relax the over-strained bow—_prevent the fearful
rebound_, and make the Sabbath what God designed it, not a weariness,
but the “_best_” and happiest day of all the seven.
THE VESTRY MEETING.
The clock had just struck seven. The sharp-nosed old sexton of the
Steeple Street Church had arranged the lights to his mind, determined
the proper latitude and longitude of Bibles and hymn-books, peeped
curiously into the little black stove in the corner, and was now
admonishing every person who passed in of the propriety of depositing
the “free soil” on his boots upon the entry door-mat.
In they crept, one after another—pale-faced seamstresses, glad of a
reprieve; servant girls, who had turned their backs upon unwashed
dishes; mothers, whose “crying babies” were astounding the neighbours;
old maids, who had nowhere to spend their long evenings; widowers, who
felt an especial solicitude lest any of the sisters should be left to
return home unprotected; girls and boys, who came because they were bid,
and who had no very clear idea of the performances; and last, though not
least, Ma’am Spy, who thought it her duty to see that none of the
church-members were missing, and to inquire every Tuesday night, of her
friend Miss Prim, if she did n’t consider Mrs. Violet a proper subject
for church discipline, because she always had money enough to pay her
board bills, although her husband had deserted her.
Then there were the four Misses Nipper, who crawled in as if the vestry
floor were paved with live kittens, and who had never been known, for
four years, to vary one minute in their attendance or to keep awake from
the first prayer to the doxology.
Then there was Mrs. John Emmons, who sang the loudest, and prayed the
longest, and wore the most expensive bonnets, of any female member in
the church—whose name was on every committee, who instituted the _select
praying circle_ for the more _aristocratic_ portion of the parish, and
whose pertinacious determination to sit next to her husband at the
Tuesday night meeting, was regarded by the uninitiated as a beautiful
proof of conjugal devotion; but which, after patient investigation
(between you and me, dear reader), was found to be for the purpose of
arresting his coat-flaps when he popped up to make mental shipwreck of
himself by making a speech.
Then there was Mr. Nobbs, whose remarks were a re-hash of the different
religious periodicals of the day, diversified with misapplied texts of
Scripture, and delivered with an intonation and gesticulation that would
have given Demosthenes fits.
Then there was Zebedee Falstaff, who accomplished more for the
amelioration of the human race, according to his own account, than any
man of his aldermanic proportions in the nation, and who delivered (on a
hearty supper) a sleepy exhortation on the duties of self-denial and
charity, much to the edification of one of his needy relatives, to whose
tearful story he had that very day turned a deaf ear.
Then there was brother Higgins, who was always “just going” to make a
speech, “if brother Thomas hadn’t so exactly anticipated his sentiments
a minute before.”
Then there was Mr. Addison Theophilus Shakspere Milton, full of poetical
and religious inspiration, who soared so high in the realms of fancy,
that his hearers lost sight of him.
Then there was little Dr. Pillbox, who gave us every proof, in his
weekly exhortations, of his knowledge of “drugs;” not to mention young
Smith, who chased an idea round till he lost it, and then took shelter
behind a bronchial difficulty which compelled him “unwillingly (?) to
come to a close.”
Then there were some sincere, good-hearted Christians—respectable
citizens—worthy heads of families; but whose lips had never been
“touched with a live coal from off the altar.”
Where was the pastor? Oh, he was there—a slight, fragile, scholar-like
looking man, with a fine intellectual-looking face, exquisitely refined
tastes and sensibilities, and the meek spirit of “the Master.” Had those
slender shoulders no cross to bear? When chance sent some fastidious
worldling through that vestry door, did it cost him nothing to watch the
smile of contempt curl the stranger’s lip, as some uneducated, but
well-meaning layman, presented with stammering tongue, in ungrammatical
phrase, distorted, one-sided, bigoted views of great truths which _his_
eloquent tongue might have made as clear as the noonday, and as cheering
and welcome as heaven’s own blessed light, to the yearning, dissatisfied
spirit? Oh, is there _nothing_ in religion, when it can so subdue the
pride of intellect as to enable its professor to disregard the
stammering tongue, and sit meekly at the feet of the ignorant disciple
because he _is_ a disciple?
A BROADWAY SHOP REVERIE.
Forty dollars for a pocket-handkerchief! My dear woman! you need a
strait-jacket, even though you may be the fortunate owner of a dropsical
purse.
I won’t allude to the legitimate use of a pocket-handkerchief; I won’t
speak of the sad hearts _that_ “forty dollers,” in the hands of some
philanthropist, might lighten; I won’t speak of the “crows’ feet” that
will he pencilled on your fair face, when your laundress carelessly
sticks the point of her remorseless smoothing iron through the flimsy
fabric, or the constant _espionage_ you must keep over your treasure in
omnibuses, or when promenading; but I _will_ ask you how many of the
lords of creation, for whose especial benefit you array yourself, will
know whether that cobweb rag fluttering in your hand cost forty dollars
or forty cents?
Pout if you like, and toss your head, and say that you “don’t dress to
please the gentlemen.” I don’t hesitate to tell you (at this distance
from your finger nails) that is a downright——mistake! and that the
enormous sums most women expend for articles, the cost of which few,
save shopkeepers and butterfly feminines, know, is both astounding and
ridiculous.
True, you have the sublime gratification of flourishing your
forty-dollar handkerchief, of sporting your twenty-dollar “Honiton
collar,” or of flaunting your thousand-dollar shawl, before the envious
and admiring eyes of some weak sister, who has made the possible
possession of the article in question a profound and life-time study;
you may pass, too, along the crowded _pavé_, labouring under the
hallucination, that every passer-by appreciates your dry-goods value.
_Not a bit of it!_ Yonder is a group of gentlemen. You pass them in your
promenade; they glance carelessly at your _tout ensemble_, but their
eyes rest admiringly on a figure close behind you. It will chagrin you
to learn that this locomotive loadstone has on a seventy-five cent hat
of simple straw, a dress of lawn one shilling per yard, a twenty-five
cent collar, and a shawl of the most unpretending price and fabric.
All these items you take in at a glance, as you turn upon her your
aristocratic eye of feminine criticism, to extract, if possible, the
talismanic secret of her magnetism. What is it? Let me tell you. Nature,
wilful dame, has an aristocracy of her own, and in one of her
independent freaks has so daintily fashioned your rival’s limbs that the
meanest garb could not _mar_ a grace, nor the costliest fabric _add_
one. Compassionating her slender purse, nature has also added an
artistic eye, which accepts or rejects fabrics and colours with unerring
taste; hence her apparel is always well chosen and harmonious, producing
the _effect_ of a rich toilet at the cost of “a mere song;” and as she
sweeps majestically past, one understands why Dr. Johnson pronounced a
woman to be “perfectly dressed when one could never remember what she
wore.”
Now, I grant you, it is very provoking to be eclipsed by a star _without
a name_—moving out of the sphere of “upperten”-dom—a woman who never
wore a “camel’s hair shawl” or owned a diamond in her life; after the
expense you have incurred, too, and the fees you have paid to Mesdames
Pompadour and Stewart for the first choice of their Parisian fooleries.
It is harrowing to the sensibilities. I appreciate the awkwardness of
your position; still, my compassion jogs my invention vainly for a
remedy—unless, indeed, you consent to crush such democratic presumption,
by _labelling_ the astounding price of the dry-goods upon your
aristocratic back.
“THE OLD WOMAN.”
Look into yonder window! What do you see? Nothing _new_, surely; nothing
but what the angels have looked smilingly down upon since the morning
stars first sang together; nothing but a loving mother hushing upon her
faithful breast a wailing babe, whose little life hangs by a slender
thread. Mortal lips have said, “The boy must die!”
A mother’s _hope_ never dies. She clasps him closer to her breast, and
gazes upwards;—food, and sleep, and rest are forgotten, so that that
little flickering taper die not out. Gently upon her soft, warm breast
she woos for it baby slumbers; long, weary nights, up and down the
cottage floor she paces, soothing its restless moaning. Suns rise and
set—stars pale—seasons come and go;—she heeds them not, so that those
languid eyes but beam brightness. Down the meadow—by the brook—on the
hill-side—she seeks with him the health-restoring breeze.
God be praised!—health comes at last! What joy to see the rosy flush
mantle on the pallid cheek!—what joy to see the shrunken limbs grow
round with health!—what joy to see the damp, thin locks grow crisp and
glossy!
What matter though the knitting lie neglected, or the spinning-wheel be
dumb, so that the soaring kite or bouncing ball but please his boyish
fancy, and prompt the gleeful shout? What matter that the coarser fare
be _hers_, so that the daintier morsel pass _his_ rosy lips? What matter
that _her_ robe be threadbare, so that _his_ graceful limbs be clad in
Joseph’s rainbow coat? What matter that _her_ couch be hard, so that
_his_ sunny head rest nightly on a downy pillow? What matter that _her_
slender purse be empty, so that _his_ childish heart may never know
denial?
Years roll on. That loving mother’s eye grows dim; her glossy locks are
silvered; her limbs are sharp and shrunken; her footsteps slow and
tottering. And the boy?—the cherished Joseph?—he of the bold, bright
eye, and sinewy limb, and bounding step? Surely, from his kind hand
shall flowers be strewn on the dim, downward path to the dark valley;
surely will her son’s strong arm be hers to lean on; his voice of music
sweeter to her dull ear than seraphs’ singing.
No, no!—the hum of busy life has struck upon his ear, drowning the voice
of love. He has become a MAN! refined, fastidious—and to his forgetful,
unfilial heart (God forgive him), the mother who bore him is only—“_the
old woman!_”
SUNDAY MORNING AT THE DIBDINS.
“Jane,” suddenly exclaims Mrs. Dibdin, “do you know it is nearly time
for your Sabbath School to commence? I hope you have committed your
hymns and commandments to memory. Put on your little jet bracelet, and
your ruffled pantalettes. Now, say the third commandment, while I fix
your curls. It does seem to me as if your hair never curls half as well
on Sundays as on week days. Mind, you ask Letty Brown where her mother
bought that cunning little straw hat of hers—not in Sabbath School, of
course—that would be very wicked—but after it is over, as you walk along
to church.
“Jane, what’s the chief end of man? Don’t know? Well, it’s the most
astonishing thing that that Assembly’s Catechism don’t stay in your head
any better! It seems to go into one ear and out of the other. Now pay
particular attention while I tell you what the chief end of man is. The
chief end of man is—is—well—I—why don’t you hold still?—you are always
putting a body out! You had better run up stairs and get your book.
Here, stop a minute, and let me tie your sash straight. Pink is very
becoming to you, Jane; you inherit your mother’s blonde beauty. Come
away from that glass, Jane, this minute; don’t you know it is wicked to
look in the glass on Sunday? See if you can say your ‘creed’ that your
Episcopal teacher wants you to learn. Come; ‘I believe’—(In less than
one week your toes will be through those drab gaiters, Jane). Goodness,
if there isn’t the bell! Why did n’t you get your lesson Saturday
evening? Oh! I recollect; you were at dancing school. Well—you needn’t
say anything about that to your teacher; because—because there’s ‘a time
to dance,’ and a time to go to meeting, and _now_ it is meeting time;
so, come here, and let me roll that refractory ringlet over my finger
once more, and then, do you walk _solemnly_ along to church, as a
baptised child should.
“Here! stop a bit!—you may wear this coral bracelet of mine, if you
won’t lose it. There; now you look _most_ as pretty as your mother did,
when she was your age. Don’t toss your head so, Jane; people will call
you vain; and you know I have always told you that it makes very little
difference how a little girl _looks_, if she is only a little Christian.
There, good-bye;—repeat your catechism going along; and don’t let the
wind blow your hair out of curl.”
SUNDAY NOON AT THE DIBDINS.
(_Mr. Dibdin reading a pile of business letters, fresh from the
post-office; Mrs. Dibdin, in a pearl-coloured brocade and lace
ruffles, devouring “Bleak House.”_)
_Mrs. Dibdin._—“Jane, is it possible I see you on the holy Sabbath day,
with Mother Goose’s Melodies? Put it away, this minute, and get your
Bible. There’s the pretty story of Joseph building the ark, and Noah in
the lion’s den, and Isaac killing his brother Cain, and all that.”
_Jane._—“Well, but, mamma, you know I can’t spell the big words. Won’t
you read it to me?”
_Mrs. Dibdin._—“I am busy reading now, my dear; go and ask your papa.
_Jane._—“Please, papa, will you read to me in my little Bible? mamma is
busy.”
_Mr. Dibdin._—“My dear, will you be kind enough to pull that bell for
Jane’s nursery maid?—she is getting troublesome.”
* * * * *
Exit Miss Jane to the nursery, to listen to Katy’s and her friend
Bridget’s account of their successful flirtations with John O’Calligan
and Michael O’Donahue.
ITEMS OF TRAVEL.
“All the world and his wife” are travelling; and a nice day it is to
commence a journey. How neat and tasteful those ladies look in their
drab travelling dresses; how self-satisfied their cavaliers, freshly
shaved and shampooed, in their brown linen over-alls. What apoplectic
looking carpet-bags; full of newspapers, and oranges, and bon-bons, and
novels, and night-caps! Saratoga, Newport, Niagara, White Hills, Mammoth
Cave—of these, the ladies chatter.
Well, here come the cars. Band-boxes, trunks, baskets and bundles are
counted, and checks taken; a grave discussion is solemnly held, as to
which side of the cars the sun shines on; seats are chosen with due
deliberation, and the locomotive does its own “puffing” to the
bystanders, and darts off.
It is noon! How intense the heat; how annoying the dust; how crowded the
cars; how incessant the cries of that poor tired baby! The ladies’
bonnets are getting awry, their foreheads flushed, and their smooth
tresses unbecomingly _frowsed_ (_See_ Fern Dictionary). Now their little
chattering tongues have a reprieve, for Slumber has laid her leaden
finger on each drooping eyelid; even Alexander Smith’s new poem has
slided from between taper fingers. Dream not lovingly of the author,
fair sleeper: poets and butterflies lose their brilliancy when caught.
How intensely ugly men look asleep! doubled up like so many
jack-knives—sorry looking “blades”—with their mouths wide open, and
their limbs twisted into all sorts of Protean shapes. Stay; there’s one
in yonder corner who is an exception. That man knows it is becoming to
him to go to sleep. He has laid his head against the window and taken
off his hat, that the wind might lift those black curls from his broad
white brow;—he knows that his eye-lashes are long and dark, and that his
finely chiselled lips need no defect-concealing moustache;—he knows that
he can afford to turn towards us his fine profile, with its classical
outline;—he knows that his cravat is well tied, and that the hand upon
which he supports his cheek is both well-formed and daintily white.
Wonder if he knows anything else?
We halt suddenly. “Back! back!” says the conductor. The sleepers start
to their feet; the old maid in the corner gives a little hysterical
shriek; brakemen, conductor, and engineer jump off, push back their
hats, and gaze nervously down the road. “What’s the matter?” echo scores
of anxious voices. “What’s the matter?” Oh, nothing; only a mother made
childless: only a little form—five minutes ago bounding with happy
life—lying a mangled corpse upon the track. The engineer says, with an
oath, “that the child was a fool not to get out of the way,” and sends
one of the hands back to pick up the dismembered limbs and carry them to
its mother, who forbade even the winds of heaven to blow too roughly on
her boy; then he gives the “iron horse” a fresh impetus, and we dash on;
imagination paints a scene in yonder house which many a frantic parent
will recognize; and from which (even in thought) we turn shuddering
away—while the weary mother in the corner covers her fretful babe with
kisses, and thanks God, through her tears, that her loving arms are
still its sheltering fold.
NEWSPAPER-DOM.
It is beyond my comprehension how Methuselah lived nine hundred and
sixty-nine years without a newspaper; or, what the mischief Noah did,
during that “forty days” shower when he had exhausted the study of
Natural History. It makes me yawn to think of it. Or what later
generations did, the famished half-hour before meals; or, when,
travelling, when the old stage-coach crept up a steep hill, some dusty
hot summer noon. Shade of Franklin! how they must have been _ennuyed_!
How did they ever know when flour had “riz”—or what was the market price
of pork, small tooth-combs, cotton, wool, and molasses? What
christianized gouty old men and snappish old ladies? What kept the old
maids from making mince-meat of pretty young girls? What did love-sick
damsels do for “sweet bits of poetry” and “touching continued stories?”
Where did their papas find a solace when the coffee was muddy, the toast
smoked, and the beef-steak raw, or done to leather? What did cab-drivers
do, while waiting for a tardy patron? What did draymen do, when there
was “a great calm” at the dry-goods store of Go Ahead and Co? What
screen did husbands dodge behind, when their wives asked them for money?
Some people define happiness to be one thing, and some another. I define
it to be a room “carpeted and furnished” with “exchanges,” with a place
cleared in the middle for two arm-chairs—one for a clever editor, and
one for yourself. I say it is to take up those papers, one by one, and
laugh over the funny things and skip the stupid ones; to admire the
ingenuity of would-be literary lights, who pilfer one half their
original (?) ideas, and steal the remainder. I say it is to shudder a
thanksgiving that you are not in the marriage list, and to try, for the
hundredth time, to solve the riddle: How can each paper that passes
through your hands be “the best and cheapest periodical in the known
world?”
I say it is to look round an editorial sanctum, inwardly chuckling at
the forlorn appearance it makes without feminine fingers to keep it
tidy: to see the looking-glass veiled with cobwebs; the dust on the desk
thick enough to write your name in; the wash-bowl and towel mulatto
colour; the soap liquified to a jelly (editors like soft soap!); the
table covered with a heterogeneous mass of manuscripts, and paper
folders, and wafers, and stamps, and blotting-paper, and envelopes, and
tailors’ bills, and letters complimentary, belligerent, and pacific.
I say it is to hear the editor complain, with a frown, of the heat and
his headache; to conceal a smile, while you suggest the _probability_ of
relief if a window should be opened; to see him start at your superior
profundity; to hear him say, with a groan, how much “proof” he has to
read before he can leave for home; to take off your gloves and help him
to correct it; to hear him say, there is a book for review, which he has
not time to look over; to take a folder and cut the leaves, and affix
guide-boards for notice at all the fine passages; to see him kick over
an innocent chair, because he cannot get hold of the right word for an
editorial; to feel (while you help him to it) very much like the mouse
who gnawed the lion out of the net, and then to take up his paper some
days after, and find a paragraph endorsed by him, “deploring the
intellectual inferiority of women.”
That’s what I call happiness!
HAVE WE ANY MEN AMONG US?
Walking along the street the other day, my eye fell upon this placard—
┌~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~┐
∫ MEN WANTED ∫
└~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~┘
Well; they have been “wanted” for sometime; but the article is not in
the market, although there are plenty of spurious imitations. Time was,
when a lady could decline writing for a newspaper without subjecting
herself to paragraphic attacks from the editor, invading the sanctity of
her private life. Time was, when she could decline writing without the
editor’s revenging himself, by asserting falsely that “he had often
refused her offered contributions!” Time was, when, if an editor heard a
vague rumour affecting a lady’s reputation, he did not endorse it by
republication, and then meanly screen himself from responsibility by
adding, “we presume, however, that this is only an _on dit_!” Time was,
when a lady could be a successful authoress, without being obliged to
give an account to the dear public of the manner in which she
appropriated the proceeds of her honest labours. Time was, when
whiskered braggadocios in railroad cars and steamboats did not assert
(in blissful ignorance that they were looking the lady authoress
straight in the face!) that they were “on the most intimate terms of
friendship with her!” Time was, when _milk-and-water husbands and
relatives_ did not force a defamed woman to unsex herself in the manner
stated in the following paragraph.—
“MAN SHOT BY A YOUNG WOMAN.—One day last week, a young lady of good
character, daughter of Col. ——, having been calumniated by a young
man, called upon him, armed with a revolver. The slanderer could not,
or did not deny his allegations; whereupon she fired, inflicting a
dangerous, if not a fatal, wound in his throat.”
Yes; it is very true that there are “MEN wanted.” Wonder how many 1854
will furnish?
HOW TO CURE THE BLUES.
And so you have “the blues,” hey? Well, I pity you! No I don’t, either;
there’s no need of it. If one friend proves a Judas, never mind! plenty
of warm, generous, nice hearts left for the winning. If you are poor,
and have to sell your free agency for a sixpence a week to some
penurious relative, or be everlastingly thankful for the gift of an old
garment that won’t hang together till you get it home, go to work like
ten thousand evil spirits, and make yourself _independent_! then see
with what a different pair of spectacles you’ll get looked at! Nothing
like it! You can have everything on earth you want, when you don’t
_need_ anything.
Don’t the Bible say, “To him that hath shall be given?” No mistake, you
see. When the wheel turns round with you on the top (saints and angels!)
you can do anything you like—play any sort of a prank—pout or smile, be
grave or gay, saucy or courteous, it will pass muster! you never need
trouble yourself—can’t do anything wrong if you try. At the most it will
only be an “eccentricity!” But you never need be such a fool as to
expect that anybody will find out you are a _diamond_ till you get a
_showy setting_. You’ll get knocked and cuffed around, and roughly
handled, with paste and tinsel, and rubbish, till that auspicious moment
arrives. Then! won’t all the sheaves bow down to your sheaf?—not one
rebellious straggler left in the field! But stay a little.
In your adversity, found you one faithful heart that stood firmly by
your side and shared your tears, when skies were dark, and your pathway
thorny and steep, and summer friends fell off like autumn leaves? By all
that’s noble in a woman’s heart, give that one the first place in it
now. Let the world see _one_ heart proof against the sunshine of
prosperity. You can’t repay such a friend—all the mines of Golconda
couldn’t do it. But in a thousand delicate ways, prompted by a woman’s
unerring tact, let your heart come forth gratefully, generously,
lovingly. Pray heaven he be on the shady side of fortune—that your heart
and hand may have a wider field for gratitude to show itself. Extract
every thorn from his pathway, chase away every cloud of sorrow, brighten
his lonely hours, smooth his pillow of sickness, and press lovingly his
hand in death.
RAIN IN THE CITY.
Patter, patter, patter! down comes the city shower on dusty and heated
pavements; gleefully the willow trees shake out their long green
tresses, and make their toilettes in the little mirror pools beneath.
The little child runs out, with outspread palm, to catch the cool and
pearly drops. The weary labourer, drawing a long, grateful breath, bares
the flushed brow of toil; boyhood, with bare and adventurous foot, wades
through gutter rivers, forgetful of birch, and bread and butter. Ladies
skutter tiptoe, with uplifted skirts, to the shelter of some friendly
omnibus; gentlemen, in the independent consciousness of corduroys, take
their time and umbrellas, while the poor jaded horses shake their sleek
sides, but do not say neigh to their impromptu shower-bath.
The little sparrows twitter their thanks from the dripping eaves,
circling the piazza, then laving their speckled breasts at the little
lakelets in the spout. Old Towser lies with his nose to the door-mat,
sniffing “the cool,” with the philosophy of Diogenes. Petrarch sits in
the parlour with his Laura, too happy when some vivid lightning flash
gives him an excuse for closer quarters. Grandpapa puts on his
spectacles, walks to the window, and taking a look at the surrounding
clouds, says, “How this rain will make the corn grow.” The old maid
opposite sets out a single geranium, scraggy as herself, invoking some
double blossoms. Forlorn experimenter! even a spinster’s affections must
centre somewhere.
See that little pinafore mariner stealing out, with one eye on the
nursery window, to navigate his pasteboard boat in the street pools.
There’s a flash of sunshine! What a glorious rainbow! The little fellow
tosses his arms aloft, and gazes at it. Ten to one, the little Yankee,
instead of admiring its gorgeous splendour, is wishing he could invert
it for a swing, and seizing it at both ends, sweep through the stars
with it. Well, it is nothing new for a child to like “the _milky way_.”
Fair weather again! piles of heavy clouds are drifting by, leaving the
clear blue sky as serene as when “the morning stars first sang
together.” Nature’s gems sparkle lavishly on glossy leaf and swaying
branch, on bursting bud and flower; while the bow of peace melts gently
and imperceptibly away, like the dying saint into the light of heaven.
Oh, earth is gloriously fair! Alas! that the trail of the serpent should
be over it all!
MRS. WEASEL’S HUSBAND.
“A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,
The more they are beaten the better they be.”
“Any man who believes that, had better step into my shoes,” said little
Mr. Weasel. “I suppose I’m what you call ‘the head of the family;’ but I
shouldn’t know it if somebody didn’t tell me of it. Heigho! who’d have
thought it five-and-twenty years ago? Didn’t I stifle a tremendous
strong _penchant_ for Diana Dix (never smoked, I remember, for four
hours after it), because I had my private suspicions she’d hold the
reins in spite of my teeth? And so I offered myself to little Susey Snow
(mistake in her name, by the way). You might have spanned her round the
waist, or lifted her with one hand. She never looked anybody in the face
when they spoke to her, and her voice was as soft as —— my brains! I
declare it’s unaccountable how deceitful female nature is! Never was so
taken in in my life; she’s a regular Vesuvius crater! Her will? (don’t
mention it!) Try to prize up the Alps with a cambric needle! If she’d
only fly into a passion, I think I could venture to pluck up a little
spirit; but that cool, determined, never-say-die look would turn Cayenne
pepper to oil. It wilts _me_ right down, like a cabbage leaf. I’d as
lief face a loaded cannon! I wish I could go out evenings; but she won’t
let me. Tom Jones asked me yesterday why I wasn’t at Faneuil Hall the
night before. I told him I had the bronchitis. He saw through it! Sent
me a pair of reins the next day—‘said to be a certain cure!’ Ah! it’s
very well for _him_ to laugh; but it’s no joke to me. I suppose it’s
time to feed that baby; Mrs. Weasel will be home pretty soon from the
‘Woman’s Rights Convention.’ No, I won’t, either; I’ll give it some
paregoric, and run up garret and smoke one cigar. I feel as though I
_couldn’t look a humming-bird in the eye_! Nice cigar!—_very_ nice! What
a fool I am to be ordered round by a little blue-eyed woman, three feet
high! I’m a very good-looking fellow, and I won’t stand it! Isn’t that
little Weasel as much her baby as it is mine? Certainly.”
“M-r. W-e-a-s-e-l!”
“Hem—my—dear—(oh! that eye of hers!)—you see, my dear (there, I won’t do
it again, Mrs. Weasel). How’s ‘the Convention,’ dear? Carried the day, I
hope?—made one of your smart speeches, hey? ’Tis n’t every man owns such
a chain-lightning wife; look out for your rights, dear (deuce knows _I_
dare not)!”
COUNTRY SUNDAY _v._ CITY SUNDAY.
’Tis Sunday in the city.
The sun glares murkily down, through the smoky and stench-laden
atmosphere, upon the dirty pavements; newsboys, with clamorous cries,
are vending their wares; milkmen rattle over the pavements, and startle
drowsy sleepers by their shrill whoopings; housemaids are polishing door
knobs, washing sidewalks, and receiving suspicious-looking baskets and
parcels from contiguous groceries and bakeshops.
The sun rolls on his course; purifying the air and benignly smiling upon
all the dwellers in the city, as though he would gently win them from
unholy purposes to heavenly meditations and pursuits.
And now the streets are filled with a motley show of silks, satins,
velvets, feathers, and jewels—while carriages and vehicles of every
description roll past, freighted with counter-freed youths and their
Dulcineas, bent upon a holiday. Hundreds of “drinking saloons” belch
forth their pestiferous breath, upon which is borne, to the ear of the
passer-by (perhaps a lady or tender child), the profane curse and
obscene gibe; and from their portals reel intoxicated brutes, who once
were men. Military companies march to and fro; now at slow and solemn
pace, to the mournful strains of a dead-march; now (having rid
themselves of the corpse of their dead comrade) they gaily “step out,”
blithe and merry, to the cheering strains of an enlivening quickstep,
based on an Ethiopian melody; the frivolous tones blending discordantly
with the chimes of the Sabbath bells. And stable-keepers, oyster and
ice-cream vendors, liquor sellers, _et id omne genus_, are reaping a
golden harvest, upon which the “Lord of the Sabbath” shall, sooner or
later, send “a blight and a mildew.”
* * * * *
’Tis Sunday in the country.
Serene and majestic, in the distance, lie the blue, cloud-capped hills;
while, at their base, the silver stream winds gracefully, sparkling in
the glad sunlight. Now the fragrant branches stir with feathered life;
and one clear, thrilling carol lifts the finger from the dumb lip of
Nature, heralding a full orchestra of untaught choristers, which plume
their wings, and soaring, seem to say, Praise Him! praise Him!
Obedient to the sweet summons, the silver-haired old man and rosy child,
along grassy, winding paths, his to the little village church. On the
gentle maiden’s kindly arm leans the bending form of “four score years
and ten,” gazing, with dimmed but grateful eye, on leafy stem, and
bursting bud, and full-blown flower; or, listening to the wind dallying
with the tall tree-tops, or kissing the fields of golden grain, which
wave their graceful recognition, as it sweeps by on its fragrant path.
And now, slowly the Sabbath sun sinks beneath the western hills in gold
and purple glory. Gently the dew of peace descends on closed eyes and
flowers; while holy stars creep softly out, to keep their tireless watch
o’er happy hearts and Sabbath-loving homes.
[Illustration]
OUR STREET.
Sing away, little bird! only you, the trees, and myself, are stirring;
but you have an appreciative audience. Your sweet carol and the graceful
waving of yonder tree, as the soft wind turns up its silver-lined leaves
in the sunlight, fill my heart with a quiet gladness.
Whom have we here? with ragged skirt, bare mud-begrimed feet and ankles,
tattered shawl, and tangled masses of hair fluttering round a face
ploughed deep with time and trouble. See—she stoops, and, stretching her
skeleton fingers towards the gutter, grasps some refuse rags and paper,
and thrusts them greedily into the dirty sack she bears upon her
shoulders. Good heavens! that dirty mass of rags a _woman_? How wearily
she leans against yonder tree, gazing upward into its branches! Perhaps
that little bird’s matin song has swept some chord for long years
untouched in that callous heart; telling her of the shelter of a happy
home, where Plenty sat at the board and Love kept guard at the
threshold. Oh! who can tell? One more song, my little bird, ere she
goes; not so _mockingly_ joyous, but sweet, and soft, and low—a requiem
for blighted youth and blasted hopes; for know that the blue sky to
whose arch you soar, bends over misery enough to make the bright seraphs
weep.
Bless me! what yell is that? “Yeei—ho—oe—yeei—ho.” It is only a milkman,
and that horrid cry simply means, “Milk for sale.” What a picture of
laziness is the vendor! Jump off your cart, man, thump on the kitchen
door with your milk-dipper, and rouse that sleepy cook who is keeping
you waiting her pleasure; that’s the way to do business: pshaw! your
manliness must have been diluted with your milk. One by one they emerge,
the dead-and-alive looking housemaids, dragging their brooms after them
lazily and helplessly, and bandy words with the vexed milkman, and
gossip with each other, as they rest their chins on their broom-handles,
on “kitchen-cabinet” affairs.
Here comes an Italian, balancing a shelf-load of plaster Cupids and
Venuses, and dove-circled vases. How mournfully his dark eyes look out
from beneath his tasseled cap, as he lifts his burden from his head for
a momentary reprieve. They tell of weary feet, a heavy heart, and a
light purse. They tell, with a silent reproach, that our hearts are as
cold as our clime. Oh! not _all_, good Pietro! For your sake, I’ll make
myself mistress of that sleeping child; though, truth to say, the
sculptor who moulded it has most wofully libelled Nature. Would I could
see the sunny skies upon which your dark eyes first opened, and all the
glorious forms that beauty wears in your vine-clad home beyond the seas.
How the pedestrians hurry along!—merchants to their cares and their
counting-rooms, and shop-girls and seamstresses to their prisons. Here
comes a group of pale-faced city children, on their way to school. God
bless the little unfortunates! Their little feet should be crushing the
strawberries, ripe and sweet, on some sunny hillslope, where breath of
now-mown hay and clover blossoms would give roses to their cheeks and
strength and grace to their cramped and half-developed limbs. Poor
little creatures! they never saw a patch of blue sky bigger than their
satchels, or a blade of grass that dared to grow without permission from
the mayor, aldermen, and common council. Poor little skeletons! tricked
out like the fashion-prints, and fed on diluted skim-milk and big
dictionaries—I pity you.
A hand-organ! ground by a modern Peter Schlemel, and accompanied by a
woman whose periphery it would be vain to compute by inches, singing,
“I’d be a butterfly.”
Ye gods and graces! if ye heed her prayer, grant that she alight not on
my _two-lips_! Now she is warbling,
“Home! sweet home,”
as if she wasn’t making it for me, this minute, a perfect place of
torment! Avaunt! thou libel upon feminity!—creep into corduroys, and
apply for the office of town crier.
A funeral! That is nothing uncommon in a densely populated city; so,
nobody turns to look, as it winds along, slowly, as will the sad future
to that young husband—that father of an hour. Sad legacy to him, those
piles of tiny robes, and dainty little garments, whose elaborate and
delicate embroidery was purchased at such a fearful price. Nature will
have her revenge for a reckless disregard of her laws; so, there she
lies, the young mother, with the long looked for babe upon her girlish
breast. Sad comment upon a foolish vanity.
What have we here?—A carriage at the door? Ah! I recollect; there was a
wedding at that house last night—lights flashing, music swelling—white
arms gleaming through tissue textures, and merry voices breaking in upon
my slumbers late in the small hours.
Ah, yes—and this is the bride’s leave-taking. How proud and important
that young husband looks, as he stands on the steps, with the bride’s
travelling shawl upon his arm, giving his orders to the coachman! Now he
casts an impatient glance back through the open door into the hall, half
jealous of the tear sparkling in the young wife’s eye, as the mother
presses her tenderly to her breast, as the father lays the hand of
blessing on her sunny head, and brothers and sisters, half glad, half
sad, offer their lips for a good-bye kiss.
Hurry her not away! Not even the heart she has singled out from all the
world to lean upon, can love so fondly, so truly, as those she leaves
behind. Dark days may come, when love’s sunshine shall be o’erclouded by
cares and sickness, from which young manhood, impatient, shrinks. _Let
her linger_: so shall your faith in her young wifely love be
strengthened by such strong filial yearning for these, her cradle
watchers. Let her linger: silver hairs mingle in the mother’s tresses;
the father’s dark eye grows dim with age, and insatiate Death heeds nor
prayer, nor tear, nor lifted eye of supplication. Let her linger.
New York! New York! who but thyself would have tolerated for twelve
mortal hours, with the thermometer at 90 degrees, that barrel of refuse
fish and potatoes, sour bread and damaged meat, questionable vegetables
and antique puddings, steaming on that sunny side-walk, in the forlorn
hope that some pig’s patron might be tempted, by the odoriferous hash,
to venture on its transportation. Know, then, O pestiferous Gotham, that
half a score of these gentry, after having sounded it with a long pole
to the bottom, for the benefit of my olfactories, have voted it a
nuisance to which even a pig might make a _gutter_-al remonstrance. Oh!
Marshal Tukey, if California yet holds you, in the name of the Asiatic
cholera, and _my_ “American constitution,” recross the Isthmus and
exorcise that barrel!
Look on yonder door-step. See that poor, worn creature seated there,
with a puling infant at her breast, from whence it draws no sustenance:
on either side are two little creatures, apparently asleep, with their
heads in her lap. Their faces are very pallid, and their little limbs
have nothing of childhood’s rounded symmetry and beauty. “Perhaps she is
an impostor,” says Prudence, seizing my purse-strings, “getting up that
tableau for just such impressionable dupes as yourself.” “Perhaps she is
_not_,” says Feeling; “perhaps at this moment despair whispers in her
tempted ear ‘curse God and die!’ Oh! then, how sad to have ‘passed her
by, on the other side!’” Let _me_ be “duped,” rather than that wan face
should come between my soul and Heaven.
WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY.
“When you are angry, take three breaths before you speak.”
I couldn’t do it, said Mrs. Penlimmon. Long before that time I should be
as placid as an oyster. “Three breaths!” I could double Cape Horn in
that time. I’m telegraphic,—if I had to stop to reflect, I should never
be saucy. I can’t hold anger any more than an April sky can retain
showers; the first thing I know, the sun is shining. You may laugh, but
that’s better than one of your foggy dispositions, drizzling drops of
discomfort a month on a stretch; no computing whether you’ll have
anything but gray clouds overhead the rest of your life. No: a good
heavy clap of thunder for me—a lightning flash; then a bright blue sky
and a clear atmosphere, and I am ready for the first flower that springs
up in my path.
“Three breaths!” how absurd! as if people, when they get excited, ever
_have_ any breath, or if they have, are conscious of it. I should like
to see the Solomon who got off that sage maxim. I should like better
still to give him an opportunity to test his own theory! It’s very
refreshing to see how good people can be when they have no temptation to
sin; how they can sit down and make a code of laws for the world in
general, and sinners in particular.
“Three breaths!” I wouldn’t give a three-cent piece for anybody who is
that long about anything. The days of stage coaches have gone by.
Nothing passes muster now but comets, locomotives, and telegraph wires.
Our forefathers and foremothers would have to hold the hair on their
heads if they should wake up in 1854. They’d be as crazy as a cat in a
shower-bath, at all our whizzing and rushing. Nice old snails! It’s a
question with me whether I should have crept on at their pace, had I
been a cotemporary. Christopher Columbus would have discovered the New
World much quicker than he did, had I been at his elbow.
LITTLE BESSIE;
OR,
MISS PRIM’S MODEL SCHOOL.
School is out! What stretching of limbs; what unfettering of tongues and
heels; what tossing-up of pinafores and primers; what visions of
marbles, and hoops, and dolls, and apples, and candy, and gingerbread!
How welcome the fresh air; how bright the sunshine; how tempting the
grassy play-ground! Ah, there’s a drop of rain—there’s another; there’s
a thunder clap! “Just as school is out—how provoking!” echo a score of
voices; and the pouting little prisoners huddle together in the
school-house porch, and console themselves by swapping jack-knives and
humming-tops, and telling marvellous stories of gipsies and giants;
while Miss Prim, the dyspeptic teacher, shakes her head and the ferule,
and declares that the former will “fly into fifty pieces;” upon which
some of the boys steal out of doors and amuse themselves by sounding the
puddles with their shoes, while others slily whittle the desks, or draw
caricatures on their slates of Miss Prim’s long nose.
Drip, drip—spatter, spatter! How the rain comes down, as if it couldn’t
help it; no prospect of “holding up.”
Here come messengers from anxious mothers, with India rubbers, extra
tippets, and umbrellas; and there’s a chaise at the door for Squire
Lennox’s little rosy daughter; and a waggon for the two Prince girls;
and a stout Irish girl, with a blanket shawl, to carry home little lame
Minnie May, who is as fragile as a lily, and just as sweet. And there’s
a servant man for Master Simpkins, the fat dunce with the embroidered
jacket, whose father owns “the big Hotel, and wishes his son to have a
seat all by himself.”
And now they are all gone;—all save little Bessie Bell, the new
scholar—a little four-year-older, who is doing penance over in the
corner for “a misdemeanour.”
Bessie’s mother is a widow. She has known such bright, sunny days, in
the shelter of a happy home, with a dear arm to lean upon! Now her sweet
face is sad and care-worn, and when she speaks, her voice has a
heart-quiver in it: but, somehow, when she talks to you, you do not
notice that her dress is faded, or her bonnet shabby and rusty: You
instinctively touch your hat to her, and treat her very courteously, as
if she were a fine lady.
As I said before, this is little Bessie’s first day at school; for she
is light, and warmth, and sunshine to her broken-hearted mother. But
little Bessie must have bread to eat. A shop-woman offered her mother a
small pittance to come and help her a part of every day; but she is not
to bring her child; so Bessie must go to school to be out of harm’s way,
and her mother tells Miss Prim, as she seats her on the hard bench, that
“she is very timid and tender-hearted;” and then she kisses Bessie’s
little quivering lip, and leaves her with a heavy heart.
Bessie dare not look up for a few minutes;—it is all very odd and
strange, and if she were not so frightened she would cry aloud. By and
by she gains a little courage, and peeps out from beneath her drooping
eye-lashes. Her little pinafore neighbour gives her a sweet smile—it
makes her little heart so happy, that she throws her little dimpled arms
about her neck and says (out loud), “I love you!”
Poor, affectionate little Bessie! she didn’t know that that was a
“misdemeanour;” had she ever seen that bugbear, a “School Committee.”
Miss Prim had;—and Miss Prim never wasted her lungs talking; so she
leisurely untied her black silk apron from her virgin waist, and
proceeded to make an African of little Bessie, by pinning it tightly
over her face and head—an invention which herself and “the Committee”
considered the _ne plus ultra_ of discipline. Bessie struggled, and said
she “never would kiss anybody again—never—never;” but Miss Prim was
inexorable; and as her victim continued to utter smothered cries, Miss
Prim told her “that she would keep her after the other children had gone
home.”
One class after another recited; Bessie’s sobs became less loud and
frequent, and Miss Prim flattered herself, now that they had ceased
altogether, that she was quite subdued, and congratulated herself
complacently upon her extraordinary talent for “breaking in new
beginners.”
And now, school being done, the children gone, her bonnet and India
rubbers being put on, and all her spinster “fixings” settled to her
mind, visions of hot tea and buttered toast began to float temptingly
through her brain, and suggest the propriety of Bessie’s release.
“Bessie!”—no answer. “Bessie!”—no reply. Miss Prim laid the ferule
across the little fat shoulders. Bessie didn’t wince. Miss Prim unpinned
the apron to confront the face that was bold enough to defy her and “the
Committee.” Little Bessie was _dead_!
Well; there was a pauper funeral, and a report about that a child had
been “frightened to death at school;” but Bessie’s mother was a poor
woman, consequently the righteous Committee “didn’t feel called upon to
interfere with such idle reports.”
THE DELIGHTS OF VISITING.
What is it to go away on a visit? Well, it is to take leave of the
little velvet rocking-chair, which adjusts itself so nicely to your
shoulders and spinal column; to cram, jam, squeeze, and otherwise
compress your personal effects into an infinitesimal compass; to be
shook, jolted, and tossed, by turns, in carriage, railroad and
steamboat; to be deafened with the stentorian lungs of cab-drivers,
draymen, and porters; to clutch your baggage as if every face you saw
were a highwayman (or to find yourself transported with rage, at finding
_it_ transported by steam to Greenland or Cape Horn). It is to reach
your friend’s house, travel-stained, cold and weary, with an unbecoming
crook in your bonnet; to be utterly unable to get the frost out of your
tongue, or “_the beam into your eye_,” and to have the felicity of
hearing some strange guest remark to your friend, as you say an early
good-night, “Is it possible THAT is your friend, Miss Grey?”
It is to be ushered into the “best chamber” (always a _north_ one) of a
cold January night; to unhook your dress with stiffened digits; to find
everything in your trunk _but_ your nightcap; to creep between polished
_linen_ sheets, on a congealed _mattress_, and listen to the chattering
of your own teeth until daylight.
It is to talk at a mark twelve hours on the stretch; to eat and drink
all sorts of things which disagree with you; to get up sham fits of
enthusiasm at trifles; to learn to yawn circumspectly behind your
finger-tips; to avoid all allusion to topics unsuited to your _pro tem_.
latitude; to have somebody for ever at your nervous elbow, _trying to
make you “enjoy yourself;”_ to laugh when you want to cry; to be
loquacious when you had rather be taciturn; to have mind and body in
unyielding harness, for lingering, consecutive weeks; and then to invite
your friends, with a hypocritical smile, to play the same farce over
with you, “whenever business or pleasure calls them” to Frog-town!
HELEN HAVEN’S “HAPPY NEW YEAR.”
“I’m miserable; there’s no denying it,” said Helen. “There’s nothing in
this endless fashionable routine of dressing, dancing, and visiting,
that can satisfy me. Hearts enough are laid at my feet, but I owe them
all to the accidents of wealth and position. The world seems all
emptiness to me. There _must_ be something beyond this, else why this
ceaseless reaching of the soul for some unseen good? Why do the silent
voices of nature so thrill me? Why do the holy stars with their burning
eyes utter such silent reproaches? Have I nothing to do but amuse myself
with toys like a child? Shall I live only for _myself_? Does not the sun
that rises upon my luxury, shine also upon the tear-stained face of
sorrow? Are there not slender feet stumbling wearily in rugged, lonely
paths? Why is _mine_ flower-bestrewn? How am I better? Whose sorrowful
heart have I lightened? What word of comfort has fallen from my lips on
the ear of the grief-stricken? What am I here for? What is my mission?”
* * * * *
“And you have only this wretched place to nurse that sick child in?”
said Helen; “and five lesser ones to care for? Will you trust that sick
child with me?”
“She is not long for this world, my lady; and I love her as well as
though I had but one. Sometimes I’ve thought the more care I have for
her, the closer my heart clings to her. She is very patient and sweet.”
“Yes, I know,” said Helen; “but I have it in my power to make her so
much more comfortable. It may preserve, at least lengthen, her life.”
When little Mary opened her eyes the next morning, she half believed
herself in fairy-land. Soft fleecy curtains were looped about her head,
her little emaciated hand rested upon a silken coverlet, a gilded table
stood by her bed-side, the little cup from which her lips were moistened
was of bright silver, and a sweet face was bending over her, shaded by a
cloud of golden hair, that fell like a glory about her head.
“Where am I?” said the child, crossing her little hands over her
bewildered brain.
Helen smiled. “You are _my_ little bird now, dear. How do you like your
cage?”
“It is very, _very_ pretty,” said Mary, with childish delight; “but
won’t you get tired of waiting upon a poor little sick girl? Mamma was
used to it. _You_ don’t look as if you could work.”
“Don’t I?” said Helen, with a slight blush; “for all that you’ll see how
nicely I can take care of you, little one. I’ll sing to you, I’ll read
to you, I’ll tell you pretty stories, and when you are weary of your
couch, I’ll fold you in my arms, and rock you so gently to sleep. And
when you get better and stronger, you shall have so many nice toys to
play with, and I’ll crown your little bright head with pretty flowers,
and make you nice little dresses; and now I’m going to read to you.
Betty has been out, and bought you a little fairy story about a
wonderful puss; and here’s ‘Little Timothy Pip;’ which will you have?”
“Mamma used to read to me out of the Bible,” said little Mary, as her
long lashes swept her cheek.
Helen started; a bright crimson flush passed over her face, and bending
low, she kissed the child’s forehead reverentially.
“About the crucifixion, please,” said Mary, as Helen seated herself by
her side.
That Holy Book! Helen felt as if her hands were “unclean.” She began to
read: perhaps the print might not have been clear; but she stopped
often, and drew her small hand across her eyes. Her voice grew
tremulous. Years of worldliness had come between her, and that sad,
touching story. It came upon her now with startling force and freshness.
Earth, with its puerile cares and pleasures, dwindled to a point. Oh,
what “cross” had her shoulders borne? What “crown of thorns” had pierced
her brows? How had her careless feet turned aside from the footsteps of
Calvary’s meek sufferer!
“Thank you,” said little Mary, rousing Helen from her reverie: “mamma
used to pray to God to make me patient, and take me to Heaven.”
Tears started to Helen’s eyes. How could she tell that sinless little
one she _knew not how to pray_? Ah! _she_ was the pupil, Mary the
teacher! Laying her check to hers, she said in a soft whisper, “Pray for
_us both_, dear Mary.”
With sweet, touching, simple eloquence that little silvery voice floated
on the air. The little emaciated hand upon which Helen’s face was
pressed, was wet with tears—_happy_ tears! Oh, this was what that
restless soul had craved! Here at “the cross,” that world-fettered
spirit should plume itself for an angel’s ceaseless flight. Ay, and a
little _child had led her there_!
* * * * *
Adolph Grey wandered listlessly through that brilliant ball-room. There
were sweet voices and sweeter faces, and graceful, floating forms; but
his eye rested on none of them.
“Pray where is Lady Helen?” said he, wandering up to his gay hostess
with a slight shade of embarrassment.
“Ah, you may well ask that! I’m _so_ vexed at her! Every man in the room
is as savage as a New Zealander. She has turned Methodist, that’s all.
Just imagine; our peerless Helen thumbing greasy hymn-books at vestry
meetings, listening to whining preachers, and hunting up poor dirty
beggar children. I declare I thought she had too much good sense. Well,
there it is; and you may as well hang _your_ harp on the willows. She’ll
have nothing to say to you _now_; for you know you are a sinner, Grey.”
“Very true,” said Grey, as he went into the ante-room to cloak himself
for a call upon Helen; “I _am_ a sinner; but if any woman can make a
saint of me, it is Lady Helen. I have looked upon women only as toys to
pass away the time; but under that gay exterior of Helen’s, there was
always something to which my better nature bowed in reverence. ‘A
Methodist,’ is she? Well, be it so. She has a soul above yonder
frivolity, and I respect her for it.”
* * * * *
If in after years the great moral questions of the day had more interest
for Adolph Grey than the pleasures of the turf, the billiard room, or
the wine party, who shall say that Lady Helen’s influence was not a
blessed one?
Oh, if woman’s beauty, and power, and witchery were oftener used for a
high and holy purpose, how many who now bend a careless knee at her
shrine, would hush the light laugh and irreverent jest, and almost feel,
as she passed, _that an angel’s wing had rustled by_!
DOLLARS AND DIMES.
“Dollars and dimes, dollars and dimes,
An empty pocket is the worst of crimes.”
“Yes; and don’t you presume to show yourself anywhere until you get it
filled.” “Not among good people?” No, my dear Simplicity, not among
“good people.” They will receive you with a galvanic ghost of a smile,
seared up by an indistinct recollection of the “ten commandments;” but
it will be as short-lived as their stay with you. You are not
welcome—that’s the amount of it. They are all in a perspiration lest you
should be delivered of a request for their assistance before they can
get rid of you. They are “very busy,” and, what’s more, they always will
be busy when you call, until you get to the top of fortune’s ladder.
Climb, man! climb! Get to the top of the ladder, though adverse
circumstances and false friends break every round in it! and see what a
glorious and extensive prospect of human nature you’ll get when you
arrive at the summit! Your gloves will be worn out shaking hands with
the very people who didn’t recognize your existence two months ago. “You
must come and make me a long visit;” “you must step in at any time;”
“_you’ll_ always be welcome;” it is such a _long_ time since they had
the pleasure of a visit from you, that they begin to fear you never
intended to come; and they’ll cap the climax by inquiring, with an
injured air, “if you are near-sighted, or why you have so often passed
them in the street without speaking.”
Of course, you will feel very much like laughing in their faces, and so
you can. You can’t do anything wrong, now that your “pocket is full.” At
the most, it will only be “an eccentricity.” You can use anybody’s neck
for a footstool, bridle anybody’s mouth with a silver bit, and have as
many “golden opinions” as you like. You won’t see a frown again between
this and your tombstone!
OUR NELLY.
“Who is she?” “Why, that is our Nelly, to be sure. Nobody ever passed
Nelly without asking, ‘Who is she?’ One can’t forget the glance of that
blue eye; nor the waving of those golden locks; nor the breezy grace of
that lithe figure; nor those scarlet lips; nor the bright, glad sparkle
of the whole face; and then, she is not a bit proud, although she steps
so like a queen; she would shake hands just as quick with a horny palm
as with a kid glove. The world can’t spoil ‘our Nelly;’ her heart is in
the right place.
“You should have seen her thank an old farmer, the other day, for
clearing the road, that she might pass. He shaded his eyes with his hand
when she swept by, as if he had been dazzled by a sudden flash of
sunlight, and muttered to himself, as he looked after her, ‘Won’t she
make somebody’s heart ache!’ Well, she has; but it is because from among
all her lovers she could marry but one, and (God save us!) that her
choice should have fallen upon Walter May. If he don’t quench out the
love-light in those blue eyes my name is not John Morrison. I’ve seen
his eyes flash when things didn’t suit him; I’ve seen him nurse his
wrath to keep it warm till the smouldering embers were ready for a
conflagration. He’s as vindictive as an Indian. I’d as soon mate a dove
with a tiger as give him ‘our Nelly.’ There’s a dozen noble fellows,
this hour, ready to lay down their lives for her, and yet out of the
whole crowd she must choose Walter May! Oh, I have no patience to think
of it. Well-a-day! mark my words, he will break her heart before a
twelvemonth! He’s a pocket edition of Napoleon.”
* * * * *
A year had passed by, and amid the hurry of business and the din of the
great city, I had quite forgotten Glenburn and its fairy queen. It was a
time to recall her to mind, that lovely June morning—with its soft
fleecy clouds, its glad sunlight, its song of birds, and its breath of
roses; and so I threw the reins on Romeo’s neck, that he might choose
his own pace down the sweet-briar path, to John Morrison’s cottage. And
there sat John, in the door-way, smoking his pipe, with Towser crouched
at his feet, in the same old spot, just as if the sun had never gone
down behind the hills since I parted with him.
“And ‘our Nelly?’” said I, taking up the thread of his year-old
narrative as though it had never been broken—“and ‘our Nelly?’”
“Under the sod,” said the old man, with a dark frown; “under the sod. He
broke her heart, just as I told you he would. Such a bridal as it was!
I’d as lief have gone to a funeral. And then Walter carried her off to
the city, where she was as much out of her element as a humming-bird in
a meeting-house; and tried to make a fine lady of her, with stiff city
airs, and stiff city manners. It was like trying to fetter the soft west
wind, which comes and goes at its own sweet will; and Nelly—who was only
another name for _Nature_—pined and drooped like a bird in a darkened
cage.
“One by one her old friends dropped off, wearied with repeated and rude
repulses from her moody husband, till he was left, as he desired, master
of the field. It was astonishing the ascendancy he gained over his sweet
wife, contemptible as he was. She made no objection to his most absurd
requirements; but her step lost its spring, her eye its sparkle; and one
might listen long for her merry-ringing laugh. Slowly, sadly to Nelly
came that terrible conviction from which a wife has no appeal.”
Ah! there is no law to protect woman from negative abuse!—no mention
made in the statute book (which _men frame for themselves_), of the
constant dropping of daily discomforts which wear the loving heart
away—no allusion to looks or words that are like poisoned arrows to the
sinking spirit. No! if she can show no mark of brutal fingers on her
delicate flesh he has fulfilled his legal promise to the letter—to love,
honour, and cherish her. _Out_ on such a mockery of justice!
“Well, sir; Nelly fluttered back to Glenburn, with the broken wing of
hope, to die! So wasted! so lovely! The lips that blessed _her_, could
not choose but curse _him_. ‘She leaned on a broken reed,’ said her old
gray-haired father, as he closed her blue eyes for ever. ‘May God
forgive him, for I never can,’ said an old lover, whose heart was buried
in her grave.
‘NELLY MAY, _aged 18_.’
“You’ll read it in the village churchyard, sir. Eighteen! Brief years,
sir, to drain all of happiness Life’s cup could offer!”
“STUDY MEN, NOT BOOKS.”
Oh! but books are such safe company! They keep your secrets well; _they_
never boast that they made your eyes glisten, or your cheek flush, or
your heart throb. You may take up your favourite author, and love him at
a distance just as warmly as you like, for all the sweet fancies and
glowing thoughts that have winged your lonely hours so fleetly and so
sweetly. Then you may close the book, and lean your cheek against the
cover, as if it were the face of a dear friend; shut your eyes and
soliloquise to your heart’s content, without fear of misconstruction,
even though you should exclaim in the fulness of your enthusiasm, “What
an _adorable soul that man has_!” You may put the volume under your
pillow, and let your eye and the first ray of morning light fall on it
together, and no Argus eyes shall rob you of that delicious pleasure, no
carping old maid, or strait-laced Pharisee shall cry out, “_it isn’t
proper_!” You may have a thousand petty, provoking, irritating
annoyances through the day, and you shall come back again to your dear
old book, and forget them all in _dream land_. It shall be a friend that
shall be always at hand; that shall never try you by caprice, or pain
you by forgetfulness, or wound you by distrust.
“Study _men_!”
Well, try it! I don’t believe there’s any _neutral territory_ where that
interesting study can be pursued as it should be. Before you get to the
end of the first chapter, they’ll be making love to you from the mere
force of habit—and because silks, and calicoes, and delaines, naturally
suggest it. It’s just as natural to them as it is to sneeze when a ray
of sunshine flashes suddenly in their faces. “Study men!” That’s a game,
my dear, that _two_ can play at. Do you suppose they are going to sit
quietly down and let you dissect their hearts, without returning the
compliment? No, indeed! that’s _where they differ slightly from
“books!”—they always expect an equivalent_.
Men are a curious study! Sometimes it pays to read to “the end of the
volume,” and then again, it don’t—mostly the latter!
“MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS;
OR,
HOME THE PLACE FOR MARRIED FOLKS.
Happy Mrs. Emily! Freed from the thraldom of housekeeping, and duly
installed mistress of a fine suite of rooms at —— Hotel. No more
refractory servants to oversee, no more silver or porcelain to guard, no
more cupboards, or closets, or canisters to explore; no more pickles or
preserves to make; no more bills of fare to invent—and over and above
all, mistress of a bell-wire which was not “tabooed” on washing and
ironing days.
Time to lounge on the sofa, and devour “yellow-covered literature;” time
to embroider caps, and collars, and chemisettes; time to contemplate the
pretty face where housekeeping _might_ have planted “crows-feet,” had
she not fortunately foreseen the symptoms, and turned her back on dull
Care and all his croaking crew.
Happy Mrs. Emily! No bird let loose from a cage was ever more joyous;
not even her own little children—for she had two of them, and pretty
creatures they were too, with their cherry lips, and dimpled limbs, and
flaxen ringlets; and very weary they grew of their gloomy nursery, with
its one window, commanding a view of a dingy shed and a tall,
spectral-looking distil-house chimney, emitting clouds of smoke and
suffocating vapour. Nannie, the nurse, didn’t fancy it either, so she
spent her time in the lobbies and entries, challenging compliments from
white-jacketed waiters, while the children peeped curiously into the
half open doors, taking draughts of cold air on their bare necks and
shoulders. Sometimes they balanced themselves alarmingly on the spiral
ballustrade, gazing down into the dizzy Babel below, inhaling clouds of
cigar smoke, and listening, with round-eyed wonder, to strange
conversations, which memory’s cud should chew, for riper years to
digest.
“No children allowed at the _table d’hôtel_”—so the “hotel
regulations” pompously set forth—the landlord’s tablecloths,
gentlemen’s broadcloth, and ladies’ silk dresses being sworn foes to
_little Paul Pry fingers_. Poor little exiles! they took their
sorrowful meals in the servants’ hall, with their respective nurses,
the bill of fare consisting of a re-hash of yesterday’s French dishes
(spiced for the digestion of an ostrich). This was followed by a
dessert of stale pastry and ancient raisins, each nurse _at the
outset_ propitiating her infant charge with a huge bunch, that she
might regale herself with the substantials!—mamma, meanwhile,
blissfully ignoring the whole affair, absorbed in the sublime
occupation of making German worsted dogs.
Papa, too, had _his_ male millenium. No more marketing to do; no more
coal, or wood, or kindling to buy; no cistern, or pump, or gas-pipe to
keep in repair. Such a luxury as it was to have a free pass to the
“smoking-room” (alias _bar-room_), where the atmosphere was so dense
that he couldn’t tell the latitude of his nose, and surrounded by “hale
fellows well met.” His eldest boy accompanied him, listening, on his
knee, to questionable jokes, which he repeated at bed-time to pert
Nannie, the nurse, who understood their significance much better than
his innocent little lordship.
Papa, to be sure, had _some_ drawbacks, but they were VERY trifling—for
instance, his shirts were quite buttonless, his dickeys stringless, and
his stockings had ventilator toes; but then, how could mamma be seen
patching and mending in such an aristocratic atmosphere? She might lose
caste; and as to Nannie, _her_ hands were full, what with babies and
billet-doux.
You should have seen Mrs. Emily in the evening; with sparkling eyes and
bracelets, flounced robe and daintily-shod feet, twisting her Chinese
fan, listening to moustached idlers, and recollecting, with a shudder,
the long Caudle evenings, _formerly_ divided between _her_ husband,
_his_ newspaper, and _her_ darning needle.
Then the _petite soupers_ at ten o’clock in the evening, where the
ladies were enchanting, the gentlemen _quite entirely_ irresistible;
where wit and champagne corks flew with equal celerity; and headaches,
and dyspepsia, and nightmare, lay _perdu_ amid fried oysters, venison
steaks, chicken salad, and _India-rubber, anti-temperance jellies_.
Then followed the midnight reunion in the drawing-room, where
promiscuous polkaing and waltzing (seen through champagne fumes) seemed
not only proper, but delightful.
It was midnight. There was hurrying to and fro in the entry-halls and
lobbies; a quick, sharp cry for medical help; the sobs and tears of an
agonized mother, and the low moan of a dying child; for nature had
rebelled at last at impure air, unwholesome food, and alternate heats
and chills.
“No hope,” the doctor said; “no hope,” papa mechanically repeated; “_no
hope!_” echoed inexorable Death, as he laid his icy finger on the
quivering little lips.
It was a dearly bought lesson. The Lady Emily never forgot it. Over her
remaining bud of promise she tearfully bends, finding her quiet
happiness in the healthful, sacred and safe retreat of the _home
fireside_.
AMERICAN LADIES.
“The American ladies, when promenading, cross their arms in front, and
look like trussed turkeys.”
Well, you ought to pity us, for we have no such escape-valves for our
awkwardness as you have—no dickeys to pull up—no vests to pull down—no
breast pockets, side pockets, flap pockets to explore—no cigars between
our teeth—no switch canes in our hands—no beavers to twitch, when we
meet an acquaintance. Don’t you yourselves oblige us to reef in our
rigging, and hold it down tight with our little paws over our belts,
under penalty of being dragged half a mile by one of your buttons, when
you tear past us like so many comets?
Is it any joke to us to stand _vis-a-vis_, with a strange man, before a
crowd of grinning spectators, while you are disentangling the “Gordian
knot,” instead of whipping out your penknife and sacrificing your
offending button, as you ought to do?
Is it any joke to see papa scowl, when we ask him for the “needful,” to
restore the lace or fringe you tore off our shawl or mantilla?
Do you suppose we can stop to walk _gracefully_, when our minds have to
be in a prepared state to have our pretty little toes crushed, or our
bonnets knocked off, or our skirts torn from our belts, or ourselves and
our gaiter hoots jostled into a mud-puddle?
Do you _ever_ “keep to the right, as the law directs?” Don’t you always
go with your heads hindside before, and then fetch up against us as if
we were made of cast-iron? Don’t you put your great lazy hands in your
pockets, and tramp along with a cane half a mile long sticking out from
under your arm-pits, to the imminent danger of our optics? “_Trussed
turkeys_,” indeed! No wonder, when we are run a-_fowl_ of every other
minute.
THE STRAY SHEEP.
“He’s going the wrong way—straying from the true fold; going off the
track,” said old Deacon Green, shaking his head ominously, as he saw
young Neff enter a church to hear an infidel preacher. “Can’t understand
it; he was taught his catechism and ten commandments as soon as he could
speak; he knows the right way as well as our parson; I can’t understand
it.”
Harry Neff had never seen a day pass since his earliest childhood that
was not ushered in and closed with a family prayer. He had not partaken
of a repast upon which the divine blessing was not invoked; the whole
atmosphere of the old homestead was decidedly orthodox. Novels, plays,
and Byronic poetry were all vetoed. Operas, theatres, and the like most
decidedly frowned upon; and no lighter literature was allowed upon the
table than missionary reports and theological treatises.
Most of his father’s guests being clergymen, Harry was early made
acquainted with every crook and turn of orthodoxy. He had laid up many a
clerical conversation, and pondered it in his heart, when they imagined
his thoughts on anything but the subject in debate. At his father’s
request, they had each and all taken him by the button, for the purpose
of long, private conversations—the old gentleman generally prefacing his
request by the remark that “his heart was as hard as a flint.”
Harry listened to them all with respectful attention, manifesting no
sign of impatience, no nervous shrinking from the probing process, and
they left him, impressed with a sense of his mental superiority, but
totally unable to affect his feelings in the remotest degree.
Such a pity! they all said, that he should be so impenetrable; such
wonderful argumentative powers as he had; such felicity of expression;
such an engaging exterior. Such a pity! that on all these brilliant
natural gifts should not have been written, “Holiness to the Lord.”
Yes, dear reader, it _was_ a pity. Pity, when our pulpits are so often
filled with those whose only recommendation for their office is a good
heart and a black coat. It was a pity that graceful gesticulation, that
rare felicity of expression, that keen perception of the beautiful, that
ready tact and adaptation to circumstances and individuals, should not
have been effective weapons in the _gospel armoury_. Pity, that voice of
music should not have been employed to chain the worldling’s fastidious
ear to listen to Calvary’s story.
Yet it was a pity that glorious intellect had been laid at an unholy
shrine; pity “he had strayed from the true fold.” How was it?
Ah! the solution is simple. “Line upon line, precept upon precept,” is
well—but _practice is better_! Religion _must not be all lip-service_;
the “fruits of love, meekness, gentleness, forbearance, long-suffering,”
must follow. Harry was a keen observer. He had often heard the harsh and
angry word from lips upon which the Saviour’s name had just lingered. He
had felt the unjust, quick, passionate blow from the hand which a moment
before had been raised in supplication to Heaven. He had seen the
purse-strings relax at the bidding of worldliness, and tighten at the
call of charity. He had seen principle sacrificed to policy, and duty to
interest. He had himself been misappreciated. The shrinking
sensitiveness which drew a veil over his most sacred feelings had been
harshly construed into hard-heartedness and indifference. Every duty to
which his attention was called was prefaced with the supposition that he
was averse to its performance. He was cut off from the gay pleasures
which buoyant spirits and fresh young life so eloquently plead for; and
in their stead no innocent enjoyment was substituted. He saw Heaven’s
gate shut most unceremoniously upon all who did not subscribe to the
parental creed, outraging both his own good sense and the teachings of
the Bible; and so religion (which should have been rendered so lovely)
put on to him an ascetic form. Oh, what marvel that the flowers in the
broad road were so passing fair to see? that the forbidden fruit of the
“tree of knowledge” was so tempting to the youthful touch?
Oh, Christian parent! be consistent, be judicious, be _cheerful_. If, as
historians inform us, “no smile ever played” on the lips of Jesus of
Nazareth, surely _no frown marred the beauty of that holy brow_.
Dear reader, _true_ religion is _not_ gloomy. “Her ways _are_ ways of
pleasantness, her paths _are_ peace.” No man, no woman, has chart, or
compass, or guiding star, without it.
Religion is not a _fable_. Else why, when our household gods are
shivered, do our tearful eyes seek only Heaven?
Why, when disease lays its iron grasp on bounding life, does the
startled soul so earnestly, _so_ tearfully, _so_ imploringly, call on
its forgotten Saviour?
Ah! the house “built upon the sand” may do for sunny weather; but when
the billows roll, and the tempests blow, and lightnings flash, and
thunders roar, _we need the_ “_Rock of Ages_.”
THE FASHIONABLE PREACHER.
Do you call _this_ a church? Well, I heard a prima donna here a few
nights ago: and bright eyes sparkled, and waving ringlets kept time to
moving fans; and opera glasses and ogling, and fashion and folly reigned
for the nonce triumphant. _I_ can’t forget it; I can’t get up any
devotion _here_, under these latticed balconies, with their fashionable
freight. If it were a good old country church, with a cracked bell and
unhewn rafters, a pine pulpit, with the honest sun staring in through
the windows, a pitch-pipe in the gallery, and a few hobnailed rustics
scattered round in the uncushioned seats, I should feel all right: but
my soul is in fetters here; it won’t soar—its wings are earth-clipped.
Things are all too fine! Nobody can come in at that door, whose hat and
coat and bonnet are not fashionably cut. The poor man (minus a Sunday
suit) might lean on his staff, in the porch, a long while, before he’d
dare venture in, to pick up _his_ crumb of the Bread of Life. But, thank
God, the unspoken prayer of penitence may wing its way to the Eternal
Throne, though our mocking church spires point only with _aristocratic
fingers_ to the _rich man’s heaven_.
—That hymn was beautifully read; there’s poetry in the preacher’s soul.
Now he takes his seat by the reading-desk; now he crosses the platform,
and offers his hymn-book to a female who has just entered. What right
has _he_ to know there is a woman in the house? ’Tisn’t clerical! Let
the bonnets find their own hymns.
Well, I take a listening attitude, and try to believe I am in church. I
hear a great many original, a great many _startling_ things said. I see
the gauntlet thrown at the dear old orthodox sentiments which I nursed
in with my mother’s milk, and which (please God) I’ll cling to till I
die. I see the polished blade of satire glittering in the air, followed
by curious, eager, youthful eyes, which gladly see the searching “Sword
of the Spirit” parried. Meaning glances, smothered smiles, and approving
nods follow the witty clerical sally. The orator pauses to mark the
effect, and his face says, That stroke _tells_! and so it did, for “the
Athenians” are not all dead, who “love to see and hear some new thing.”
But he has another arrow in his quiver. Now his features soften—his
voice is low and thrilling, his imagery beautiful and touching. He
speaks of human love; he touches skilfully a chord to which every heart
vibrates; and stern manhood is struggling with his tears, ere his smiles
are chased away.
Oh, there’s intellect there—there’s poetry there—there’s genius there;
but I remember Gethsemane—I forget not Calvary! I know the “rocks were
rent,” and the “heavens darkened,” and “the stone rolled away;” and a
cold chill strikes to my heart when I hear “Jesus of Nazareth” lightly
mentioned.
Oh, what are intellect, and poetry, and genius, when with Jewish voice
they cry, “_Away with_ HIM!”
With “Mary,” let me “bathe his feet with my tears, and wipe them with
the hairs of my head.”
And so, I “went away sorrowful,” that this human preacher, with such
great intellectual possessions, should yet “lack the _one thing
needful_.”
“CASH.”[1]
Don’t think I’m going to perpetrate a monetary article. No fancy that
way! I ignore anything approaching to a _stock_! I refer now to that
omnipresent, omniscient, ubiquitous, express-train little victim so
baptized in the dry-goods stores, who hears nothing but the everlasting
word cash dinned in his juvenile ears from matin to vespers; whose
dangerous duty it is to rush through a crowd of expectant and impatient
feminines, without suffering his jacket buttons to become too intimately
acquainted with the fringes of their shawls, or the laces of their
mantillas! and to dodge so dexterously as not to knock down, crush under
foot, or otherwise damage the string of juveniles that said women are
bound to place as obstructions in said “Cash’s” way!
Footnote 1:
The boy employed in stores to fetch and carry change.
See him double, and turn, and twist, like a rabbit in a wood, while that
word of command flies from one clerk’s lip to another. Poor, demented
little Cash! Where is your anxious maternal? Who finds you in patience
and shoe leather? Does your pillow ever suggest anything to your weary
brain but pillar-less quarters, and crossed sixpences, and faded bank
bills? When do you find time, you poor little victim, to comb your hair,
digest your victuals, and say your catechism? Do you ever look back with
a sigh to the days of peppermints, peanuts and pinafores? Or forward, in
the dim distance, to a vision of a long-tailed coat, a high standing
dickey, and no more “_Cash_,” save in your pantaloons’ pocket? Don’t you
ever catch yourself wishing that a certain rib of Adam’s had never been
subtracted from his paradisiacal side?
Poor, miserable little Cash! you have my everlasting sympathy! I should
go shopping twenty times, where I now go once, didn’t it harrow up my
feelings, to see you driven on so, like a locomotive! “Here’s hoping”
you may soon be made sensible of more than _one_ meaning to word CHANGE!
ONLY A CHILD.
“Who is to be buried here?” said I to the sexton. “Only a child, ma’am.”
_Only_ a child! Oh! had you ever been a mother—had you nightly pillowed
that little golden head—had you slept the sweeter for that little velvet
hand upon your breast—had you waited for the first intelligent glance
from those blue eyes—had you watched its cradle slumbers, tracing the
features of him who stole your girlish heart away—had you wept a widow’s
tears over its unconscious head—had your desolate, timid heart gained
courage from that little piping voice, to wrestle with the jostling
crowd for daily bread—had its loving smiles and prattling words been
sweet recompense for such sad exposure—had the lonely future been
brightened by the hope of that young arm to lean upon, that bright eye
for your guiding star—had you never framed a plan, or known a hope or
fear, of which that child was not a part; if there was naught else on
earth left for you to love—if disease came, and its eye grew dim; and
food, and rest, and sleep were forgotten in your anxious fears—if you
paced the floor, hour by hour, with that fragile burden, when your very
touch seemed to give comfort and healing to that little quivering
frame—had the star of hope set at last—had you hung over its dying
pillow, when the strong breast you should have wept on was in the grave,
where your child was hastening—had you caught _alone_ its last faint cry
for the “_help_” you could not give—had its last fluttering sigh been
breathed out on _your_ breast—Oh! could you have said—“’Tis _only_ a
child?”
MR. PIPKIN’S IDEAS OF FAMILY RETRENCHMENT.
Mrs. Pipkin, I am under the disagreeable necessity of informing you,
that our family expenses are getting to be enormous. I see that carpet
woman charged you a dollar for one day’s work. Why, that is positively a
man’s wages;—such presumption is intolerable. Pity you did not make it
yourself, Mrs. Pipkin; wives ought to lift their end of the yoke; that’s
my creed.
_Little Tom Pipkin._—Papa, may I have this bit of paper on the floor? it
is your tailor’s bill—says, “400 dollars for your last year’s clothes.”
_Mr. Pipkin._—Tom, go to bed, and learn never to interrupt your father
when he is talking. Yes, as I was saying, Mrs. Pipkin, wives should hold
up their end of the yoke; and it is high time there was a little
retrenchment here; superfluities must be dispensed with.
_Bridget._—Please, sir, there are three baskets of champagne just come
for you, and four boxes of cigars.
_Mr. Pipkin._—Will you please lock that door, Mrs. Pipkin, till I can
get a chance to say what I have to say to you on this subject? I was
thinking to-day, that you might dispense with your nursery maid, and
take care of baby yourself. He don’t cry much, except at nights; and
since I’ve slept alone up stairs, I don’t hear the little tempest at
all. It is really quite a relief—that child’s voice is a perfect
ear-splitter.
I think I shall get you, too, to take charge of the marketing and
providing (on a stipulated allowance from me, of course), it will give
me so much more time to —— attend to _business_, Mrs. Pipkin. I shall
take my own dinners down town at the —— House. I hear Stevens is an
excellent “caterer;” (though that’s nothing to me, of course, as my only
object in going is to meet business acquaintances from different parts
of the Union, to drive a bargain, &c., &c.)
Well—it will cost you and the children little or nothing for your
dinners. There’s nothing so disgusting to a man of refinement, like
myself, as to see a _woman_ fond of eating; and as to children, any fool
knows they ought not to be allowed to stuff their skins like little
anacondas. Yes, our family expenses are enormous. My partner sighed like
a pair of bellows at that last baby you had, Mrs. Pipkin; oh, it’s quite
ruinous—but I can’t stop to talk now, I’m going to try a splendid horse
which is offered me at a bargain—(too frisky for you to ride, my dear,
but just the thing for me).
You had better dismiss your nursery girl this afternoon; that will begin
to look like retrenchment. Good-bye; if I am not home till late, don’t
sit up for me, as I have ordered a supper at —— House for my old friend,
Tom Hillar, of New Orleans. We’ll drink this toast, my dear: “Here’s
hoping the last little Pipkin may never have his nose put out of joint.”
A CHAPTER FOR NICE OLD FARMERS.
Can anybody tell why country people so universally and pertinaciously
persist in living in the _rear of the house_? Can anybody tell why the
front door and windows are never opened, save on Fourth of July and at
Thanksgiving time? Why Zedekiah, and Timothy, and Jonathan, and the old
farmer himself, must go _round_ the house in order to get _into_ it? Why
the whole family (oblivious of six empty rooms) take their “vapour bath”
and their meals, simultaneously, in the vicinity of a red-hot cooking
range, in the dog days? Why the village artist need paint the roof, and
spout, and window frames bright crimson, and the doors the colour of a
mermaid’s tresses? Why the detestable sunflower (which I can never
forgive “Tom Moore” for noticing) must always flaunt in the garden? Why
the ungraceful prim poplar, fit emblem of a stiff old bachelor, is
preferred to the swaying elm, or drooping willow, or majestic
horse-chestnut?
I should like to pull down the green paper window curtains, and hang up
some of snowy muslin. I should like to throw wide open the hall door,
and let the south wind play through. I should like to go out into the
woods, and collect fresh, sweet wild flowers to arrange in a vase, in
place of those defunct dried grasses, and old-aid “everlastings,” I
should like to show Zedekiah how to nail together some bits of board,
for an embryo lounge; I should like to stuff it with cotton, and cover
it with a neat “patch.” I should like to cushion the chairs after the
same fashion. Then I should like, when the white-haired old farmer came
panting up the road at twelve o’clock, with his scythe hanging over his
arm, to usher him into that cool, comfortable room, set his bowl of
bread and milk before him, and after he had discussed it, coax him
(instead of tilting back on the hind legs of a hard chair) to take a
ten-minutes’ nap on my “model” sofa, while I kept my eye on the clouds,
to see that no thunder shower played the mischief with his hay.
I should like to place a few common sense, practical books on the table,
with some of our fine daily and weekly papers. You may smile; but these
inducements, and the comfortable and pleasant air of the apartment,
would bring the family oftener together after the day’s toil, and by
degrees they would lift the covers of the books, and turn over the
newspapers. Constant interchange of thought, feeling, and opinion, with
discussions of the important and engrossing questions of the day, would
of course necessarily follow.
The village tavern-keeper would probably frown upon it; but I will
venture to predict for the inmates of the farm-house a growing love for
“home,” and an added air of intelligence and refinement, of which they
themselves might possibly be unconscious.
MADAME ROUILLON’S “MOURNING SALOON.”
“You needn’t make that dress ‘deep mourning,’ Hetty; the lady who
ordered it said it was only her sister for whom she was to ‘mourn.’ A
three-quarter’s length veil will answer; and I should introduce a few
jet bugles round the bonnet trimmings. And, by the way, Hetty, Mrs. La
Fague’s husband has been dead now nearly two months, so that new dress
of hers will admit of a little alleviation in the style of trimming—a
few knots of love-ribbon on the bodice will have a softening effect; and
you must hem a thin net veil for her bonnet; it’s almost time for her to
be out of ‘mourning.’
—“And, Hetty, run down to Stewart’s, right away, and see if he has any
more of those grief-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs. Mr. Grey’s servant
said the border must be full an inch deep, as his master wished it for
his wife’s funeral, and it is the eighth time within eight years that
the poor afflicted man has suffered a similar calamity. Remember,
Hetty—an inch deep, with a tombstone and a weeping willow embroidered on
the corner, with this motto: ‘Hope never dies;’—and, Hetty, be sure you
ask him what is the latest style for ‘_half_-mourning’ for grandmothers,
mothers-in-law, country cousins, and poor relations. _Dépèchezvous_,
Hetty, for you have six ‘weepers’ (weeds) to take off the six Mr.
Smiths’ hats. Yes, I know you ‘only put them on last week;’ but they are
going to Philadelphia, where nobody knows them, and, of course, it isn’t
necessary to ‘mourn’ for their mother there!
—“What are you staring at, child? You are as primitive as your
fore-mother Eve. This ‘mourning’ is probably an invention of Satan to
divert people’s minds from solemn subjects, but that’s nothing to me,
you know; so long as it fills my pocket, I’m in league with his
Majesty.”
FASHION IN FUNERALS.
“It has become _unfashionable_ in New York for ladies to attend funerals
to the grave. _Even the mother may not accompany the little lifeless
form of her beloved child beyond the threshold, without violating the
dread laws of Fashion._”
Are there such mothers? Lives there one who, at Fashion’s bidding,
stands back, nor presses her lips to the little marble form that once
lay warm and quivering beneath her heart-strings?—who with undimmed eye
recals the trusting clasp of that tiny hand, the loving glance of that
veiled eye, the music of that merry laugh—its low, pained moan, or its
last, fluttering heart-quiver?—who would not (rather than strange hands
should touch the babe) _herself_ robe its dainty limbs for burial?—who
shrinks not, starts not, when the careless, business hand would remove
the little darling from its cradle-bed, where loving eyes so oft have
watched its rosy slumbers, to its last, cold, dreamless pillow?—who
lingers not, _when all have gone_, and vainly strives, with straining
eye, to pierce _below_ that little fresh laid mound?—who, when a merry
group go dancing by, stops not, with sudden thrill, to touch some sunny
head, or gaze into some soft blue eye, that has oped afresh the fount of
her tears, and sent to the troubled lips the murmuring heart-plaint,
“Would to God I had died for thee, my child—my child?”—who, when the
wintry blast comes eddying by, sleeps not, because she cannot fold to
her warm breast the little lonely sleeper in the cold churchyard? And
oh! is there one who, with such “treasure laid up in Heaven,” clings not
the less to earth, strives not the more to keep her spirit undefiled,
fears not the less the dim, dark valley, cheered by a cherub voice,
inaudible save to the dying _mother_? Oh, stony-eyed, stony-hearted,
relentless Fashion! turn for us day into night, if thou wilt; deform our
women; half clothe, with flimsy fabric, our victim children; wring the
last penny from the sighing, overtasked, toiling husband; _banish to the
backwoods thy country cousin_, Comfort; reign supreme in the banquet
hall; revel undisputed at the dance;—but when that grim guest, whom none
invite—whom none dare deny—strides, with defiant front across our
threshold, stand back, thou heartless harlequin, and leave us alone with
our dead: so shall we list the lessons those voiceless lips should teach
us—
“All is vanity!”
HOUSEHOLD TYRANTS.
“A HUSBAND may kill a wife gradually, and be no more questioned than the
grand seignor who drowns a slave at midnight.”—_Thackeray, on
Household Tyrants._
Oh! Mr. Thackeray! I ought to have known, from experience, that beauty
and brains never travel in company—but I _was_ disenchanted when I first
saw your nose, and I _did_ say that you were too stout to look
intellectual. But I forgive you in consideration of the above paragraph,
which, for truth and candour, ought to be appended to the four Gospels.
I’m on the marrow bones of my soul to you, Mr. Thackeray. I honour you
for “turning State’s evidence” against your own culprit-sex. If there’s
any little favour I can do for you, such as getting you naturalized (for
you are a sight too ‘cute and clever for an Englishman), I’ll fly round
and get the documents made out for you to-morrow.
I tell you, Mr. Thackeray, the laws over here allow husbands to break
their wives’ _hearts_ as much as they like, so long as they don’t break
their _heads_. So the only way we can get along, is to allow them to
scratch our faces, and then run to the police court, and show “his
Honour” that Mr. Caudle can “_make his mark_.”
Why—if we were not _cunning_, we should get circumvented all the time by
these domestic Napoleons. Yes, indeed; we sleep with one eye open, and
“get up early in the morning,” and keep our arms akimbo.
—By the way, Mr. Thackeray, what do you think of us, _as a
people_?—taking us “by and large,” as our honest farmers say.
P-r-e-t-t-y tall nation for a _growing_ one; don’t you think so? Smart
men—smarter women—good broad streets—no smoking or spitting allowed in
’em—houses all built with an eye to architectural beauty-newspapers
don’t tell how many buttons you wear on your waistcoat—Jonathan never
stares at you, as if you were an imported hyena, or stirs you up with
the long pole of criticism, to see your size and hear your roar. Our
politicians never whip each other on the floor of Congress, and grow
black in the face because their _choler_ chokes them! No mushroom
aristocracy over here—no “coats of arms” or liveried servants: nothing
of that sham sort, in our “great and glorious country,” as you have
probably noticed. If you are “round takin’ notes,” I’ll jog your English
elbow now and then. Ferns have eyes—and they are not green, either.
WOMEN AND MONEY.
“A wife shouldn’t ask her husband for money at meal-times.”—_Exchange._
By no manner of means; _nor at any other time_; because, it is to be
hoped, he will be gentlemanly enough to spare her that humiliating
necessity. Let him hand her his _porte-monnaie_ every morning, with
_carte-blanche_ to help herself. The consequence would be, she would
lose all desire for the contents, and hand it back, half the time
without abstracting a single _sou_.
It’s astonishing men have no more diplomacy about such matters. _I_
should like to be a husband! There _are_ wives whom I verily believe
might be trusted to make way with a ten dollar bill without risk to the
connubial donor. I’m not speaking of those doll-baby libels upon
womanhood, whose chief ambition is to be walking advertisements for the
dressmaker; but a rational, refined, sensible woman, who knows how to
look like a lady upon small means; who would both love and respect a man
less for requiring an account of every copper; but who, at the same
time, would willingly wear a hat or garment that is “out of date,”
rather than involve a noble, generous-hearted husband in unnecessary
expenditures.
I repeat it—“It _isn’t every man who has a call to be a husband_.” Half
the married men should have their “licences” taken away, and the same
number of judicious bachelors put in their places. I think the attention
of the representatives should be called to this. They can’t expect to
come down to town and peep under all the ladies’ bonnets the way they
do, and have all the newspapers free gratis, and two dollars a day
besides, without “paying their way!”
It’s none of _my_ business, but I question whether their wives, whom
they left at home, stringing dried apples, know how spruce they look in
their new hats and coats, or how facetious they grow with their
landlady’s daughter; or how many of them pass themselves off for
bachelors, to verdant spinsters. Nothing truer than that little couplet
of _Shakspeare’s_—
“When the cat’s away
The mice _will_ play.”
THE SICK BACHELOR.
Here I am, a doomed man—booked for a fever, in this gloomy room, up four
flights of stairs; nothing to look at but one table, two chairs, and a
cobweb; pulse racing like a locomotive; head throbbing as if it were
hooped with iron; mouth as parched as Ishmael’s in the desert; not a
bell-rope within reach; sun pouring in through those uncurtained
windows, hot enough to singe off my eye-lashes; all my confidential
letters lying loose on the table, and I couldn’t get up to them if you
held one of Colt’s revolvers to my head. All my masculine friends(?) are
parading Broadway, I suppose; peeping under the pretty girls’ bonnets,
or drinking “sherry-cobblers.” A sherry-cobbler! Bacchus! what a luxury!
I believe Satan suggested the thought to me.
Heigh-ho! I suppose the Doctor (whom they have sent for) will come
before long; some great, pompous Æsculapius, with an owl phiz, a
gold-headed cane, an oracular voice, and callous heart and hands; who
will first manipulate my wrist, and then take the latitude and longitude
of my tongue; then he will punch me in my ribs, and torment me with more
questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism; then he’ll bother
me for writing materials, to scratch off a hieroglyphic humbug
prescription, ordering five times as much medicine as I need; then I
shall have to pay for it; then, ten to one, the apothecary’s boy will
put up poison, by mistake! Cæsar! how my head spins round; Hippodrome
racing is nothing to it.
Hist! there’s the Doctor. No! it is that little unregenerate cub, my
landlady’s pet boy, with a bran new drum (as I’m a sinner), upon which
he is beating a crucifying tattoo. If I only had a boot-jack to throw at
him! No! that won’t do: his mother wouldn’t make my gruel. I’ll bribe
him with a sixpence, to keep the peace. The little embryo Jew! he says
_he won’t do it under a quarter_! Twitted by a little pinafore! _I_, Tom
Haliday, six feet in my stockings! I shall go frantic.
“Doctor is coming!” Well, let him come. I’m as savage as if I’d just
dined off a cold missionary. I’ll pretend to be asleep, and let old
Pillbox experiment.
How gently he treads—how soft his hand is—how cool and delicious his
touch! How tenderly he parts my hair over my throbbing temples! His
magnetic touch thrills every drop of blood in my veins: it is marvellous
how soothing it is. I feel as happy as a humming-bird in a lily cup,
drowsy with honey-dew. Now he’s moved away. I hear him writing a
prescription. I’ll just take a peep and see what he looks like. Cæsar
Aggripina! if it isn’t a _female physician_! dainty as a Peri—_and my
beard three days old_! What a bust! (Wonder how my hair looks?) What a
foot and ankle! What shoulders; what a little round waist. Fever? I’ve
got _twenty_ fevers, and the heart-complaint besides. What the mischief
sent that little witch here? She will either kill or cure me, pretty
quick.
Wonder if she has any more _masculine_ patients? Wonder if they are
handsome? Wonder if she lays that little dimpled hand on _their_
foreheads, as she did on mine? Now she has done writing, I’ll shut my
eyes and groan, and then, may be, she will _pet_ me some more; bless her
little soul!
She says, “poor fellow!” as she holds my wrist, “his pulse is too
quick.” In the name of Cupid, what does she _expect_? She says, as she
pats my forehead with her little plump fingers, “’Sh—sh! Keep cool.”
Lava and brimstone! does she take me for an iceberg?
Oh, Cupid! of all your devices, this feminine doctoring for a bachelor
is the _ne plus ultra_ of witchcraft. If I don’t have a prolonged “run
of fever,” my name is n’t Tom Haliday!
She’s gone! and—I’m gone, too!
[Illustration]
A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.
“And so you sail to-morrow, Will? I shall miss you.”
“Yes; I’m bound to see the world. I’ve been beating my wings in
desperation against the wires of my cage these three years. I know every
stick, and stone, and stump in this odious village by heart, as well as
I do those stereotyped sermons of Parson Grey’s. They say he calls me ‘a
scapegrace’—pity I should have the name without the game,” said he,
bitterly. “I haven’t room here to run the length of my chain. I’ll show
him what I can do in a wider field of action.”
“But how did you bring your father over?”
“Oh, he’s very glad to be rid of me; quite disgusted because I’ve no
fancy for seeing corn and oats grow. The truth is, every father knows at
once too much and too little about his own son; the old gentleman never
understood me; he soured my temper, which is originally none of the
best, roused all the worst feelings in my nature, and is constantly
driving me _from_ instead of _to_ the point he would have me reach.”
“And your mother?”
“Well, there you have me; that’s the only humanized portion of my
heart—the only soft spot in it. She came to my bed-side last night,
after she thought I was asleep, gently kissed my forehead, and then
knelt by my bed-side. Harry, I’ve been wandering round the fields all
the morning, to try to get rid of that prayer. Old Parson Grey might
preach at me till the millennium, and he wouldn’t move me any more than
that stone. It makes all the difference in the world when you know a
person _feels_ what they are praying about. I’m wild, and reckless, and
wicked, I suppose; but I shall never be an infidel while I can remember
my mother. You should see the way she hears my father’s impetuous
temper; that’s _grace_, not _nature_, Harry; but don’t let us talk about
it—I only wish my parting with her was well over. Good-bye; God bless
you, Harry; you’ll hear from me, if the fishes don’t make a supper of
me;” and Will left his friend and entered the cottage.
Will’s mother was moving nervously and restlessly about, tying up all
sorts of mysterious little parcels that only mothers think of, “in case
he should be sick,” or in case he should be this, that, or the other,
interrupted occasionally by exclamations like this from the old
farmer:—“Fudge—stuff—great overgrown baby—making a fool of him—never be
out of leading strings;” and then turning short about and facing Will as
he entered, he said—
“Well sir, look in your sea-chest, and you’ll find gingerbread and
physic, darning needles and tracts, ‘bitters’ and Bibles, peppermint and
old linen rags, and opodeldoc. Pshaw! I was more of a man than you are
when I was nine years old. Your mother always made a fool of you; and
that was entirely unnecessary, too, for you were always short of what is
called _common sense_. You needn’t tell the captain you went to sea
because you didn’t know enough to be a landsman; or that you never did
anything right in your life, except by accident. You are as like that
_ne’er do well_ Jack Halpine as two pease. If there is anything in you,
I hope the salt water will fetch it out. Come, your mother has your
supper ready, I see.”
Mrs. Low’s hand trembled as she passed her boy’s cup. It was his last
meal under that roof for many a long day. She did not trust herself to
speak—her heart was too full. She heard all his father so injudiciously
said to him, and she knew too well from former experience the effect it
would have upon his impetuous, fiery spirit. She had only to oppose to
it a mother’s prayers, and tears, and all-enduring love. She never
condemned, in _Will’s hearing_, any of his father’s philippics; always
excusing him with the general remark that he didn’t understand him.
_Alone_, she mourned over it; and when with her husband, tried to place
matters on a better footing for both parties.
Will noted his mother’s swollen eyelids; he saw his favourite little
tea-cakes that she had busied herself in preparing for him, and he ate
and drank what she gave him, without tasting a morsel he swallowed,
listening for the hundredth time to his father’s account of “what _he_
did when he was a young man.”
“Just half an hour, Will,” said his father, “before you start; run up
and see if you have forgotten any of your duds.”
It was the little room he had always called his own. How many nights he
had lain there listening to the rain pattering on the low roof; how many
mornings awakened by the chirp of the robin in the apple-tree under the
window. There was the little bed with its snowy covering, and the
thousand and one little comforts prepared by his mother’s hand. He
turned his head—she was at his side, her arms about his neck. “God keep
my boy!” was all she could utter. He knelt at her feet as in the days of
childhood, and from those wayward lips came this tearful prayer—“Oh God!
spare my mother, that I may look upon her face again in this world!”
Oh, in after days, when that voice had died out from under the parental
roof, how sacred was that spot to her who gave him birth! _There was
hope for the boy! he had recognized his mother’s God._ By that invisible
silken cord she still held the wanderer, though broad seas rolled
between.
Letters came to Moss Glen—at stated intervals, then more irregularly,
picturing only the bright spots in his sailor-life (for Will was proud,
and they were to be scanned by his father’s eye). The usual temptations
of a sailor’s life when in port were not unknown to him. Of every cup
the syren Pleasure held to his lips, he drank to the dregs; but there
were moments in his maddest revels, when that angel whisper, “God keep
my boy,” palsied his daring hand, and arrested the half-uttered oath.
Disgusted with himself, he would turn aside for an instant, but only to
drown again more recklessly “that still small torturing voice.”
* * * * *
“You’re a stranger in these parts,” said a rough farmer to a sunburnt
traveller. “Look as though you’d been in foreign parts.”
“Do I?” said Will, slouching his hat over his eyes. “Who lives in that
little cottage under the hill?”
“Old Farmer Low—and a tough customer he is, too; it’s a word and a blow
with him. The old lady has had a hard time of it, good as she is, to put
up with all his kinks and quirks. She bore it very well till the lad
went away; and then she began to droop like a willow in a storm, and
lose all heart, like. Doctor’s stuff did n’t do any good, as long as she
got no news of the boy. She’s to be buried this afternoon, sir.”
Poor Will stayed to hear no more, but tottered in the direction of the
cottage. He asked no leave to enter, but passed over the threshold into
the little “best parlour,” and found himself alone with the dead. It was
too true! Dumb were the lips that should have welcomed him; and the arms
that should have enfolded him were crossed peacefully over the heart
that beat true to him to the last.
Conscience did its office. Long years of mad folly passed in swift
review before him; and over that insensible form a vow was made, and
registered in Heaven.
* * * * *
“Your mother should have lived to see this day, Will,” said a
gray-haired old man, as he leaned on the arm of the clergyman, and
passed into the village church.
“Bless God, my dear father, there is ‘_joy in Heaven_ over one sinner
that repenteth;’ and of all the angel band, there is one seraph hand
that sweeps _more rapturously_ its harp to-day, ‘for the lost that is
found.’”
MR. PUNCH MISTAKEN.
“A man will own that he is in the wrong—a woman never; she is only
_mistaken_.”—_Punch._
Mr. Punch, did you ever see an enraged American female? She is the
expressed essence of wild cats. Perhaps you didn’t know it, when you
penned that incendiary paragraph; or, perhaps, you thought that in
crossing the “big pond,” salt water might neutralize it; or, perhaps,
you flattered yourself we should not see it over here; but here it is,
in my clutches, in good strong English: I am not even “_mistaken_!”
Now, if you will bring me a live specimen of the _genus homo_ who was
ever known “to own that he was in the wrong,” I will draw in my horns
and claws, and sneak ingloriously back into my American shell. But you
can’t do it, Mr. Punch! You never saw that curiosity, either in John
Bull’s skin, or Brother Jonathan’s. ’Tis an animal which has never yet
been discovered, much less captured.
A man own he was in the wrong! I guess so! You might tear him in pieces
with red-hot pincers, and he would keep on singing out “I didn’t do it;
I didn’t do it.” No, Mr. Punch, a man never “owns up” when he is in the
wrong; especially if the matter in question be one which he considers of
no importance; for instance, the non-delivery of a letter which may have
been entombed in his pocket for six weeks.
No sir; he just settles himself down behind his dickey, folds his
belligerent hands across his stubborn diaphragm, plants his antagonistic
feet down on terra-firma as if there were a stratum of loadstone beneath
him, and thunders out—
“Come one, come all; this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.”
FERN MUSINGS.
I never was on an august school committee; but, if I _was_, I’d make a
_sine-qua-non_ that no school-marm should be inaugurated who had not
been a married mother; I don’t believe in old maids; they all know very
well that they haven’t fulfilled their female destiny, and I wouldn’t
have them wreaking their bilious vengeance on _my_ urchins (if I had
any). No woman gets the acid effectually out of her temper, till she has
taken matrimony “the natural way.”
No; I don’t believe in spinster educational teaching any more than I do
in putting dried up old bachelors on the school committee. What bowels
of mercy have either, I’d like to know, for the poor little restless
victims of narrow benches and short recesses? The children are to “hold
up their hands” (are they?) if they have a request to make? What good
does that do if the teacher won’t take any notice of the Freemason sign?
“They are not to enter complaints.” So some poor timid little girl must
be pinched black and blue by a little Napoleon in jacket and trousers,
till she is forced to shriek out with pain, when _she_ is punished by
being kept half an hour after school for “making a disturbance!” They
are “not to eat in school,” are they? Perhaps they have made an
indifferent breakfast (perhaps they are poor, and have had none at all,
and A, B, C, D, doesn’t digest well on an empty stomach); but the
spinster teacher can hear them recite with a tempting bunch of grapes in
her hand, which she leisurely devours before their longing eyes.
They “must not smile in school,” must they? Not when “Tom Hood” in a
pinafore, cuts up some sly prank that brings “down the house;” yes—and
the ferule too, on everybody’s hand but his own (for he has a way of
drawing on his “deacon face,” to order).
They may go out in recess, but they must speak in a whisper out of
doors, as if they all had the bronchitis! No matter if Queen Victoria
should ride by, no little brimless hat must go up in the air till “the
committee had set on it!”
_Oh_, fudge! I should like to keep school myself. I’d make “rag babies”
for the little girls, and “soldier caps” for the boys; and I _don’t
think_ I would make a rule that they should not sneeze till school was
dismissed; and when their little cheeks began to flush, and their little
heads droop wearily on their plump shoulders, I’d hop up and play “hunt
the slipper;” or, if we were in the country we’d race over the meadow,
and catch butterflies, or frogs, or toads or _snakes_, or anything on
earth except a “school committee.”
THE TIME TO CHOOSE.
“The best time to choose a wife is early in the morning. If a young lady
is at all inclined to sulks and slatternness it is just before
breakfast. As a general thing, a woman don’t get on her temper, till
after 10 A.M.”—_Young Man’s Guide._
Men never look slovenly before breakfast; no, indeed. They never run
round in their stocking feet, vestless, with dressing-gown inside out;
soiled handkerchief hanging out of the pocket by one corner. Minus
dickey—minus neck-tie; pantaloon straps flying; suspenders streaming
from their waistbands; chin shaved on one side, and lathered on the
other; hair like porcupine quills; face all in a snarl of wrinkles
because the fire won’t kindle, and because it snows, and because the
office boy don’t come for the keys, and because the newspaper hasn’t
arrived, and because they lost a bet the night before, and because
there’s an omelet instead of a broiled chicken for breakfast, and
because they are out of sorts and shaving soap, out of cigars and
credit, and because they can’t “get their temper on” till they get some
money and a mint julep.
Any time “before ten o’clock,” is the time to choose a
husband——_perhaps!_
SPRING IS COMING.
Tiny blades of grass are struggling between the city’s pavements.
Fathers, and husbands, sighing, look at the tempting shop windows,
dolefully counting the cost of a “spring outfit.” Muffs, and boas, and
tippets, are among the things that _were_; and shawls, and “Talmas,” and
mantles, and “_little loves of bonnets_,” reign supreme, though maiden
aunts, and sage mammas, still mutter—“East winds, east winds,” and
choose the sunnier side-walk.
Housekeepers are making a horrible but necessary Babel, stripping up
carpets, and disembowelling old closets, chests, and cupboards.
Advertisements already appear in the newspapers, setting forth the
superior advantages of this or that dog-day retreat. Mrs. Jones drives
_Mr._ Jones distracted, at a regular hour every evening, hammering about
“change of scene, and air,” and the “health of the dear children;”
which, translated, means a quantity of new bonnets and dresses, and a
trip to Saratoga, for herself and intimate friend, Miss Hob-Nob; while
Jones takes his meals at a _restaurant_—sleeps in the deserted house,
sews on his missing buttons and dickey strings, and spends his leisure
time where _Mrs._ Jones don’t visit.
_Spring is coming!_
Handsome carriages roll past, freighted with lovely women (residents of
other cities, for an afternoon ride). Dash on, ladies! You will scarcely
find the environs of Boston surpassed, wherever you may drive. A
thousand pleasant surprises await you; lovely winding paths and pretty
cottages, and more ambitious houses with groups of statuary hidden amid
the foliage. But forget not to visit our sweet Mount Auburn. Hush the
light laugh and merry jest as the gray-haired porter throws wide the
gate for your prancing horses to tread the hallowed ground. The dark old
pines throw out their protecting arms above you, and in their dense
shade sleep eyes as bright, forms as lovely, as your own—while “the
mourners go about the streets.” Rifle not, with sacrilegious hand, the
flowers which bloom at the headstone—tread lightly over the beloved
dust! Each tenanted grave entombs bleeding, _living_ hearts; each has
its history, which eternity alone shall reveal.
_Spring is coming!_
The city belle looks fresh as a new-blown rose—tossing her bright curls
in triumph, at her faultless costume and beautiful face. Her lover’s
name is Legion—for she hath also _golden charms_! Poor little butterfly!
bright, but ephemeral! You were made for something better. Shake the
dust from your earth-stained wings and—_soar!_
_Spring is coming!_
From the noisome lanes and alleys of the teeming city, swarm little
children, creeping forth like insects to bask in God’s sunshine—so _free
to all_. Squalid, forsaken, neglected; they are yet of those to whom the
Sinless said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.” The disputed
crust, the savage curse, the brutal blow, their only patrimony! One’s
heart _aches_ to call THIS _childhood_! No “spring!” no summer, to them!
Noisome sights, noisome sounds, noisome odours! and the leprosy of sin
following them like a curse! One longs to fold to the warm heart those
little forsaken ones; to smooth those matted ringlets; to throw between
them and sin the shield of virtue—to teach their little lisping lips to
say “_Our Father!_”
_Spring is coming!_
Yes, its blue skies are over us—its soft breezes shall fan us—the
fragrance of its myriad flowers be wafted to us. Its mossy carpet shall
be spread for our careless feet—our languid limbs shall be laved at its
cool fountains. Its luscious fruits shall send health through our
leaping veins—while from mountain top, and wooded hill, and
flower-wreathed valley, shall float one glad anthem of praise from
tiniest feathered throats!
_Dear_ reader! From that human heart of thine shall no burst of grateful
thanks arise to Him who _giveth all_? While nature adores—shall _man be
dumb_? God forbid!
STEAMBOAT SIGHTS AND REFLECTIONS.
I am looking, from the steamer’s deck, upon as fair a sunrise as ever
poet sang or painter sketched, or the earth ever saw. Oh, this broad
blue, rushing river! sentinelled by these grand old hills, amid which
the silvery mist wreaths playfully; half shrouding the little eyrie
homes, where love wings the uncounted hours; while looming up in the
hazy distance is the Babel city, with glittering spires and burnished
panes—one vast illumination. My greedy eye with miserly eagerness
devours it all, and hangs it up in Memory’s cabinet, a fadeless picture;
upon which dame Fortune (the jilt) shall never have a mortgage.
Do you see yonder figure leaning over the railing of the boat, gazing on
all this outspread wealth of beauty? One longs to hear his lips give
utterance to the burning thoughts which cause his eye to kindle and his
face to glow. A wiry sister (whose name should be “Martha,” so careful,
so troubled looks her spinstership) breaks the charmed spell by asking
him, in a cracked treble, “if _them_ porters on the pier can be safely
trusted with her bandbox and umberil.” My stranger eyes meet his, and we
both laugh involuntarily—(pardon us, oh ye prim ones,)—_without an
introduction!_
Close at my elbow sits a rough countryman, with so much “free soil”
adhering to his brogans they might have been used for beet-beds, and a
beard rivalled only by Nebuchadnezzar’s when he experimented on a grass
diet. He has only one word to express his overpowering emotions at the
glowing panorama before us, and that is “_pooty_”—houses, trees, sky,
rafts, railroad cars and river, all are “_pooty_;” and when, in the
fulness of a soul craving sympathy, he turned to his dairy-fed Eve to
endorse it, that matter-of-fact feminine showerbath-ed his enthusiasm,
by snarling out “pooty enough, I ’spose, but _where’s my breakfast_?”
Ah! here we are at the pier, at last. And now they emerge, our
night-travellers, from state-room and cabin, into the fresh cool air of
the morning. Venus and Apollo! what a crew. Solemn as a hearse, surly as
an Englishman, blue as an indigo-bag! There’s a poor shivering babe,
twitched from a warm bed by an ignorant young mother, to encounter the
chill air of morning, with only a flimsy covering of lace and
embroidery—there’s a languid southern belle, creeping out, _à la
tortoise_, and turning up her little aristocratic nose as if she sniffed
a pestilence—there’s an Irish bride (green as Erin) in a pearl-coloured
silk dress surmounted by a coarse blanket shawl—there’s a locomotive
hour-glass (alias a dandy), a blue-eyed, cravat-choked, pantaloon
be-striped, vest-garnished, disgusting “institution!” (give him and his
quizzing glass plenty of sea-room)—and there’s a clergyman, God bless
his care-worn face, with a valise full of salted-down sermons and the
long-coveted “leave of absence”—there’s an editor, kicking a newsboy for
bringing “coals to Newcastle” in the shape of “extras”—and there’s a
good-natured, sunshiny “family man,” carrying the baby, and the
carpet-bag, and the travelling shawl, lest his pretty little wife should
get weary—and there’s a poor bonnetless emigrant, stunned by the Babel
sounds, inquiring, despairingly, the name of some person whom nobody
knows or cares for—and last, but not least, there’s the wiry old maid
“Martha,” asking “_thim_ porters on the pier,” with tears in her faded
green eyes, to be “keerful of her bandbox and umberil.”
On they go. Oh, how much of joy—how much of sorrow, in each heart’s
unwritten history.
A GOTHAM REVERIE.
Babel, what a place!—what a dust—what a racket—what a whiz-buzz! What a
throng of human beings! “Jew and Gentile, bond and free;” every nation
the sun ever shone upon, here represented. What pampered luxury—what
squalid misery, on the same _pavé_. What unwritten histories these
myriad hearts might unfold. How much of joy, how much of sorrow, how
much of crime. Now, queenly beauty sweeps past, in sin’s gay livery.
Cursed be he who first sent her forth, to walk the earth, with her
woman’s brow shame-branded. Fair mother—pure wife—frown scornfully at
her if you can; _my_ heart aches for her. I see one who once slept sweet
and fair on a mother’s loving breast. I see one whose bitterest tear may
never wash her stain away. I see one on whom mercy’s gate is for ever
shut, by her own unrelenting, unforgiving sex. I see one who was young,
beautiful, poor and friendless. They who make long prayers, and wrap
themselves up in self-righteousness, as with a garment, turn a deaf ear,
as she pleads for the bread of honest toil. Earth looks cold, and dark,
and dreary; feeble feet stumble wearily on life’s rugged, thorny road.
Oh, judge her not harshly, pure but frigid censor; who shall say that
with her desolation—her temptation—your name too might not have been
written “Magdalen.”
SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE CITY.
How unmercifully the heavy cart-wheels rattle over the stony pavements;
how unceasing the tramp of busy, restless feet; how loud and shrill the
cries of mirth and traffic. You turn heavily to your heated pillow,
murmuring, “Would God it were night!” The pulse of the great city is
stilled at last; and balmy sleep, so coveted, seems about to bless
you—when hark! a watchman’s rattle is sprung beneath your window,
evoking a score of stentorian voices, followed by a clanging bell, and a
rushing engine, announcing a conflagration. Again you turn to your
sleepless pillow; your quivering nerves and throbbing temples sending to
your pale lips this prayer, “Would to God it were morning!”
Death comes, and releases you. You are scarcely missed. Your next-door
neighbour, who has lived within three feet of you for three years, may
possibly recollect having seen the doctor’s chaise before your door, for
some weeks past; then, that the front blinds were closed; then, that a
coffin was carried in; and he remarks to his wife, as he takes up the
evening paper, over a comfortable dish of tea, that “he shouldn’t wonder
if neighbour Grey were dead,” and then they read your name and age in
the bill of mortality, and wonder “what disease you died of;” and then
the servant removes the tea-tray, and they play a game of whist, and
never think of you again, till they see the auctioneer’s flag floating
before your door.
The house is sold; and your neighbour sees your widow and little ones
pass out over the threshold in tears and sables (grim poverty keeping
them silent company); but what of that? The world is _full_ of widows
and orphans; one can’t always be thinking of a charnel-house; and so he
returns to his stocks and dividends, and counting-room, and ledger, in a
philosophical state of serenity.
Some time after, he is walking with a friend; and meets a lady in rusty
mourning, carrying a huge bundle, from which “slop work” is seen
protruding (a little child accompanies her, with its feet out at the
toes). She has a look of hopeless misery on her fine but sad features.
She is a _lady still_ (spite of her dilapidated wardrobe and her
bundle). Your neighbour’s companion touches his arm, and says, “Good
God! isn’t that Grey’s widow?” He glances at her carelessly, and
answers, “Should n’t wonder;” and invites him home to dine on trout,
cooked in claret, and hot-house peaches, at half a dollar a-piece.
SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE COUNTRY.
On the fragrant breeze, through your latticed window, come the twitter
of the happy swallow, the chirp of the robin, and the drowsy hum of the
bee. From your pillow you can watch the shadows come and go, over the
clover meadow, as the clouds go drifting by. Rustic neighbours lean on
their spades at sunset at your door, and with sympathising voices “hope
you are better.” The impatient hoof of the prancing horse is checked by
the hand of pity; and the merry shout of the sunburnt child (musical
though it be) dies on the cherry lip, at the uplifted finger of
compassion. A shower of rose-leaves drifts in over your pillow, on the
soft sunset zephyr. Oh, earth _is_ passing fair; but _Heaven is fairer_!
Its portals unclose to you! Kind, neighbourly hands wipe the death-damp
from your brow; speak words of comfort to your weeping wife, caress your
unconscious children. Your fading eye takes it all in, but your tongue
is powerless to speak its thanks. They close your drooping lids, they
straighten your manly limbs, they lay your weary head on its grassy
pillow, they bedew it with sympathetic tears; they pray God, that night,
in their cottage homes, to send His kind angel down, to whisper words of
peace to the broken hearts you have left behind.
_They do something besides pray._ From unknown hands, the widow’s “cruse
of oil,” and “barrel of meal,” are oft replenished.
On your little orphans’ heads many a rough palm is laid, with tearful
blessing. Many a dainty peach, or pear, or apple is tossed them, on
their way to school. Many a ride they get “to mill,” or “hay-field,” or
“village,” while their mother shades her moistened eyes in the door-way,
quite unable to speak. The old farmer sees it; and knowing better how to
bestow a kindness than to hear such expressive thanks, cuts Dobbin in
the flanks, then starting tragically at the _premeditated rear_, asks
her, with an hysterical laugh, “_if she ever saw such an uneasy beast_!”
Wide open fly their cottage doors and hearts at “Christmas” and
“Thanksgiving,” for your stricken household. There may be little city
etiquette at the feast, there may be ungrammatical words
and infelicitous expressions—but, thank God, unchilled by
selfishness, unshrivelled by avarice, human hearts throb warmly
there—_loving_—_pitiful_—_Christ-like_!
HUNGRY HUSBANDS.
“The hand that can make a pie is a continual feast to the husband that
marries its owner.”
Well, it is a humiliating reflection, that the straightest road to a
man’s heart is through his palate. He is never so amiable as when he has
discussed a roast turkey. Then’s your time, “Esther,” for “half his
kingdom,” in the shape of a new bonnet, cap, shawl, or dress. He’s too
complacent to dispute the matter. Strike while the iron is hot; petition
for a trip to Niagara, Saratoga, the Mammoth Cave, the White Mountains,
or to London, Rome, or Paris. Should he demur about it, the next day
cook him another turkey, and pack your trunk while he is eating it.
There’s nothing on earth so savage—except a bear robbed of her cubs—as a
hungry husband. It is as much as your life is worth to sneeze till
dinner is on the table, and his knife and fork are in vigorous play.
Tommy will get his ears boxed, the ottoman will be kicked into the
corner, your work-box be turned bottom upwards, and the poker and tongs
will beat a tattoo on that grate that will be a caution to dilatory
cooks.
After the first six mouthfuls you may venture to say your soul is your
own; his eyes will lose their ferocity, his brow its furrows, and he
will very likely recollect to help you to a cold potato! Never mind—_eat
it_. You might have to swallow a worse pill—for instance, should he
offer to kiss you!
Well, learn a lesson from it—keep him well fed and languid—live yourself
on a low diet, and cultivate your thinking powers; and you’ll be as spry
as a cricket, and hop over all the objections and remonstrances that his
dead-and-alive energies can muster. Yes, feed him well, and he will stay
contentedly in his cage, like a gorged anaconda. If he was my husband,
wouldn’t I make him heaps of _pison_ things! Bless me! I’ve made a
mistake in the spelling; it should have been _pies and things_!
LIGHT AND SHADOW;
OR, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
It was a simple dress of snowy muslin, innocent of the magic touch of a
French _modiste_. There was not an inch of lace upon it, nor a rosette,
nor a flower; it was pure, and simple, and unpretending as its destined
wearer. A pair of white kid gloves, of fairy-like proportions, lay
beside it, also a pair of tiny satin slippers. There was no bridal
_trousseau_; no—Meta had no rich uncles, or aunts, or cousins,—no
_consistent_ god-parents who, promising at her baptism that she should
“renounce the pomp and vanities of the world,” redeemed their promise by
showering at her bridal feet diamonds enough to brighten many a starving
fellow-creature’s pathway to the tomb.
Did I say there was no bridal _trousseau_? There was _one_ gift, a
little clasp Bible, with “Meta Grey” written on the fly-leaf, in the
bridegroom’s bold, handsome hand. Perchance some gay beauty, who reads
this, may curl her rosy lip scornfully; but well Meta knew how to value
such a gift. Through long dreary years of orphanage “God’s Word” had
been to her what the star in the East was to Bethlehem’s watching
shepherds. Her lonely days of toil were over now. There was a true
heart, whose every pulsation was love for her—a brave arm to defend her
helplessness, and a quiet, sunny home where Peace, like a brooding dove,
should fold his wings, while the happy hours flew uncounted by.
Yes; Meta was looked for, every hour. She was to leave the group of
laughing hoydens (before whom she had forbidden her lover to claim her),
and thereafter confine her teachings to one pupil, whose “reward of
merit” should be the love-light in her soft, dark eyes. Still, it was
weary waiting for her; her last letter was taken, for the hundredth
time, from its hiding-place, and read, and refolded, and read again,
although he could say it all, with his eyes shut, in the darkest corner
in Christendom. But you know all about it, dear reader, if you own a
heart; and if you don’t, the sooner you drop my story the better.
Well; he paced the room up and down, looked out the window, and down the
street: then he sat down in the little rocking-chair he had provided for
her, and tried to imagine it was tenanted by _two_: then, delicious
tears sprang to his eyes, that such a sweet fount of happiness was
opened to him—that the golden morn, and busy noon, and hushed and starry
night, should find them _ever_ side by side. Care?—he didn’t know it!
Trouble?—what trouble could _he_ have, when all his heart craved on
earth was bounded by his clasping arms? And then, Meta was an orphan—he
was scarcely sorry—there would be none for her heart to go out to now
but himself; he must be brother, sister, father, mother—_all_ to her;
and his heart gave a full and joyful response to each and every claim.
—But what a little loiterer! He was half vexed; he paced the room in his
impatience, handled the little slippers affectionately, and caressed the
little gloves as if they were filled by the plump hand of Meta, instead
of his imagination. Why _didn’t_ she fly to him? Such an angel should
have wings—he was sure of that.
—Wings? God help you, widowed bridegroom! Who shall have the heart to
read you this sad paragraph?
“ONE OF THE NORWALK VICTIMS.—The body of a young lady, endowed with
extraordinary personal beauty, remains yet unrecognized. On her
countenance reposes an expression of pleasure, in striking and painful
contrast to the terrible scene amid which she breathed her last. She
was evidently about twenty years old, doubtless the glory of some
circle of admiring friends, who little dream where she is, and of her
shocking condition.”
WHAT LOVE WILL ACCOMPLISH.
“This will never do,” said little Mrs. Kitty; “how I came to be such a
simpleton as to get married before I knew how to keep house, is more and
more of an astonisher to me. I _can_ learn, and I _will_! There’s
Bridget told me yesterday there wasn’t time to make a pudding before
dinner. I had my private suspicions she was imposing upon me, though I
didn’t know enough about it to contradict her. The truth is, I’m no more
mistress of this house than I am of the Grand Seraglio. Bridget knows
it, too; and there’s Harry (how hot it makes my cheeks to think of it!)
couldn’t find an eatable thing on the dinner-table yesterday. He loves
me too well to say anything, but he had such an ugly frown on his face
when he lit his cigar and went off to his office. Oh, I see how it is:
“‘One must eat in matrimony,
And love is neither bread nor honey,
And so, you understand.’”
* * * * *
“What on earth sent you over here in this dismal rain?” said Kitty’s
neighbour, Mrs. Green. “Just look at your gaiters.”
“Oh, never mind gaiters,” said Kitty, untying her “rigolette,” and
throwing herself on the sofa. “I don’t know any more about cooking than
a six weeks’ kitten; Bridget walks over my head with the most perfect
Irish _nonchalance_; Harry looks as solemn as an ordained bishop; the
days grow short, the bills grow long, and I’m the most miserable little
Kitty that ever mewed. Do have pity on me, and initiate me into the
mysteries of broiling, baking, and roasting; take me into your kitchen
now, and let me go into it while the fit is on me. I feel as if I could
roast Chanticleer and all his hen-harem!”
“You don’t expect to take your degree in one forenoon?” said Mrs. Green,
laughing immoderately.
“Not a bit of it! I intend to come every morning, if the earth don’t
whirl off its axle. I’ve locked up my guitar, and my French and Italian
books, and that irresistible ‘Festus,’ and nerved myself like a female
martyr, to look a gridiron in the face without flinching. Come, put down
that embroidery, there’s a good Samaritan, and descend with me into the
lower regions, before my enthusiasm gets a shower-bath,” and she rolled
up her sleeves from her round white arms, took off her rings, and tucked
her curls behind her ears.
Very patiently did Mrs. Kitty keep her resolution; each day added a
little to her store of culinary wisdom. What if she did flavour her
first custards with peppermint instead of lemon? What if she did “baste”
a turkey with saleratus instead of salt? What if she did season the
stuffing with ground cinnamon instead of pepper? Rome wasn’t built in a
day;—cooks can’t be manufactured in a minute.
* * * * *
Kitty’s husband had been gone just a month. He was expected home that
very day. All the morning the little wife had been getting up a
congratulatory dinner in honour of the occasion. What with satisfaction
and the kitchen fire, her cheeks glowed like a milkmaid’s. How her eyes
sparkled, and what a pretty little triumphant toss she gave her head
when that big trunk was dumped down in the entry! It isn’t a bad thing,
sometimes, to have a secret even from one’s own husband.
“On my word, Kitty,” said Harry, holding her off at arm’s length, “you
look most provokingly ‘well-to-do’ for a widow ‘_pro tem_.’ I don’t
believe you have mourned for me the breath of a sigh. What have you been
about? who has been here? and what mine of fun is to be prophesied from
the merry twinkle in the corner of your eye? Anybody hid in the closet
or cupboard? Have you drawn a prize in the lottery?”
“Not since I married you,” said Mrs. Kitty; “and you are quite welcome
to that sugar-plum to sweeten your dinner.”
“How Bridget has improved,” said Harry, as he plied his knife and fork
industriously; “I never saw these woodcocks outdone, even at our
bachelor club-rooms at —— House. She shall have a present of a pewter
cross, as sure as her name is McFlannigan, besides absolution for all
the detestable messes she used to concoct with her Catholic fingers.”
“Let me out! let me out!” said a stifled voice from the closet; “you
can’t expect a woman to keep a secret for ever.”
“What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Green?” said Harry, gaily shaking her
hand.
“Why, you see, ‘Bridget has improved;’ _i. e._ to say, little Mrs. Kitty
there received from my hands yesterday a diploma, certifying her
Mistress of Arts, Hearts and Drumsticks, having spent every morning of
your absence in perfecting herself as a housekeeper. There now, don’t
drop on your knees to her till I have gone. I know very well when three
is a crowd, or, to speak more fashionably, when I am ‘_de trop_,’ and
I’m only going to stop long enough to remind you that there are some
_wives_ left in the world, and that Kitty is one of ’em.”
And now, dear reader, if you doubt whether Mrs. Kitty was rewarded for
all her trouble, you’d better take a peep into that parlour, and while
you are looking, let me whisper a secret in your ear confidentially. You
may be as beautiful as Venus, and as talented as Madame de Stael, but
you will never reign supreme in your liege lord’s affections till you
can roast a turkey.
MRS. GRUMBLE’S SOLILOQUY.
“There’s no calculating the difference between men and women boarders.
Here’s Mr. Jones, been in my house these six months, and no more trouble
to me than my gray kitten. If his bed is shook up once a week, and his
coats, cravats, love-letters, cigars, and patent-leather boots left
undisturbed in the middle of the floor, he is as contented as a
pedagogue in vacation time.
“Take a woman to board, and (if it is perfectly convenient) she would
like drapery instead of drop-curtains; she’d like the windows altered to
open at the top, and a wardrobe for her flounced dresses, and a few more
nails and another shelf in her closet, and a cricket to put her feet on,
and a little rocking-chair, and a big looking-glass, and a pea-green
shade for her gas-burner.
“She would like breakfast about ten minutes later than your usual hour;
tea ten minutes earlier, and the gong, which shocks her nerves _so_,
altogether dispensed with.
“She can’t drink coffee, because it is exhilarating; broma is too
insipid, and chocolate too heavy. She don’t fancy cocoa. ‘English
breakfast tea’ is the only beverage which agrees with her delicate
spinster organization.
“She can’t digest a roast or a fried dish; she might _possibly_ peck at
an egg, if it were boiled with one eye on the watch. Pastry she never
eats, unless she knows from what dairy the butter came which enters into
its composition. Every article of food prepared with butter, salt,
pepper, mustard, vinegar, or oil; or bread that is made with yeast,
soda, milk, or saleratus, she decidedly rejects.
“She is constantly washing out little duds of laces, collars,
handkerchiefs, chemisettes and stockings, which she festoons up to the
front windows, to dry; giving passers-by the impression that your house
is occupied by a _blanchesseuse_;—then jerks the bell-wire for an hour
or more, for relays of hot smoothing irons, to put the finishing stroke
to her operations.
“She is often afflicted with interesting little colds and influenzas,
requiring the immediate consolation of a dose of hot lemonade or ginger
tea; choosing her time for these complaints when the kitchen fire has
gone out and the servants are on a furlough. Oh! nobody knows, but those
who’ve tried, how immensely troublesome women are! I’d rather have a
whole regiment of men boarders. All you have to do is, to wind them up
in the morning with a powerful cup of coffee, give them _carte-blanche_
to smoke, and a night-key, and your work is done.”
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
What a warm Sunday! and what a large church! I wonder if it will be
half-filled! Empty pews are a sorry welcome to a pastor. Ah! no fear;
here come the congregation in troops and families; now the capacious
galleries are filled; every pew is crowded, and seats are being placed
in the aisles.
The preacher rises. “What a young David!” Still, the “stone and sling”
will do their execution. How simple, how child-like that prayer; and yet
how eloquent, how fervent. How eagerly, as he names the text, the eye of
each is riveted upon the preacher, as if to secure his individual
portion of the heavenly manna.
Let us look around upon the audience. Do you see yonder gray-haired
business man? Six days in the week, for many years, he has been Mammon’s
most devoted worshipper. According to time-honoured custom, he has slept
comfortably in his own pew each Sunday, lulled by the soft voice of the
shepherd who “prophesieth smooth things.” One pleasant Sabbath chance (I
would rather say an overruling Providence) led him here. He settles
himself in his accustomed Sunday attitude; but sleep comes not at his
bidding. He looks disturbed. The preacher is dwelling upon the permitted
but fraudulent tricks of business men, and exposing plainly their
turpitude in the sight of that God who holds “evenly the scales of
justice.” As he proceeds, Conscience whispers to this aged listener,
“Thou art the man!” He moves uneasily on his seat; an angry flush mounts
to his temples. What right has that boy-preacher to question the
integrity of men of such unblemished mercantile standing in the
community as himself? He is not accustomed to such a spiritual probing
knife. _His_ spiritual physician has always “healed the hurt of his
people slightly.” He don’t like such plain talking, and sits the service
out only from compulsion. But when he passes the church porch, he does
not leave the sermon there, as usual. No. He goes home perplexed and
thoughtful. Conscience sides with the preacher; self-interest tries to
stifle its voice with the sneering whisper of “priest-craft.” Monday
comes, and again he plunges into the maelstrom of business, and tries to
tell the permitted lie with his usual _nonchalance_ to some ignorant
customer, but his tongue falters, and performs its duty but awkwardly; a
slight blush is perceptible upon his countenance; and the remainder of
the week chronicles similar and repeated failures.
Again it is Sunday. He is not a church-member: he can stay at home,
therefore, without fear of a canonical committee of Paul Prys to
investigate the matter: he can look over his debt and credit list if he
likes, without excommunication: he certainly will not put himself again
in the way of that plain-spoken, stripling priest. The bells peal out,
in musical tones, seemingly this summons: “Come up with us, and we will
do you good.” By an irresistible impulse he finds himself again a
listener. “Not that he _believes_ what that boy says!” Oh, no; but,
somehow, he likes to listen to him, even though he attack that
impregnable pride in which he has wrapped himself up as in a garment.
Now, why is this? Why is this church filled with such wayside listeners?
Why, but that all men—even the most worldly and unscrupulous—pay
involuntary homage to earnestness, sincerity, independence and Christian
boldness, in the “man of God?”
Why? Because they see that he stands in that sacred desk, not that his
lips may be tamed and held in, with a silver bit and silken bridle: not
that because preaching is his “trade,” and his hearers must receive
their _quid pro quo_ once a week—no, they all see and feel that his
_heart_ is in the work—that he _loves_ it—that he comes to them fresh
from his closet, his face shining with the light of “the Mount,” as did
Moses’.
The preacher is remarkable for fertility of imagination, for rare
felicity of expression, for his keen perception of the complicated and
mysterious workings of the human heart, and for the uncompromising
boldness with which he utters his convictions. His earnestness of
manner, vehemence of gesture and rapidity of utterance, are, at times,
electrifying; impressing his hearers with the idea that language is too
poor and meagre a medium for the rushing tide of his thoughts.
Upon the lavish beauty of earth, sea, and sky he has evidently gazed
with the poet’s eye of rapture. He walks the green earth in no monk’s
cowl or cassock. The tiniest blade of grass with its “drap o’ dew,” has
thrilled him with strange delight. “God is love,” is written for him in
brilliant letters on the arch of the rainbow. Beneath that black coat,
his heart leaps like a happy child’s to the song of the birds and the
tripping of the silver-footed stream, and goes up, in the dim old woods,
with the fragrance of their myriad flowers, in grateful incense of
praise, to Heaven.
God be thanked, that upon all these rich and rare natural gifts,
“Holiness to the Lord” has been written. Would that the number of such
gospel soldiers was “legion,” and that they might stand in the forefront
of the hottest battle, wielding thus skilfully and unflinchingly the
“Sword of the Spirit.”
AN OLD MAID’S DECISION.
“I can bear misfortune and poverty, and all the other ills of life, but
to be an _old maid_—to droop and wither, and wilt and die, like a
single pink—I can’t _endure_ it; and _what’s more, I won’t_!”
Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart. There
she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room—sofa big
enough for _two_; _two_ arm-chairs, _two_ bureaus, _two_
looking-glasses—everything hunting in couples except herself! I don’t
wonder she’s frantic! She read in her childhood that “matches were made
in Heaven,” and although she’s well aware there are some _Lucifer
matches_, yet she has never had a chance to try either sort. She has
heard that there “never was a soul created, but its twin was made
somewhere,” and she’s a melancholy proof that ’tis a mocking lie. She
gets tired of sewing—she can’t knit for ever on that eternal
stocking—(besides, _that_ has a _fellow_ to it, and is only an
aggravation to her feelings). She has read till her eyes are half
blind—there’s nobody to agree with her if she likes the book, or argue
the point with her if she don’t. If she goes out to walk, every woman
she meets has her husband’s arm. To be sure, they are half of ’em ready
to scratch each other’s eyes out; but that’s a little business matter
between themselves. Suppose she feels devotional, and goes to evening
lectures?—some ruffianly coward is sure to scare her to death on the
way. If she takes a journey, she gets hustled and boxed round among
cab-drivers, and porters, and baggage-masters; her bandbox gets knocked
in, her trunk gets knocked off, and she’s landed at the wrong
stopping-place. If she wants a load of wood, she has to pay twice as
much as a man would, and then she gets cheated by the man that saws and
splits it. She has to put her own money into the bank and get it out,
hire her own pew, and wait upon herself into it. People tell her
“husbands are often great plagues,” but she knows there are times when
they are indispensable. She is very good looking, black hair and eyes,
fine figure, sings and plays beautifully; but she “can’t be an old maid,
and _what’s more_—SHE WON’T.”
FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER.
You have never heard FATHER TAYLOR, the Boston Seaman’s preacher?
Well—you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the
court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighbourhood are guiltless of
shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at the
corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of
Africa—checked off with “dough faces.”
Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows—no richly
draperied pulpit—no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your sleepy
conscience. No odour of patchouli, or _nonpareil_, or _bouquet de
violet_ will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin and
broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the
synagogue—they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”
Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed faces.
It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The seas
they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the lonely,
dismal, weary nights they have kept watch!—the harpies in port who have
assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the sheeted
dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre!—what stirring thoughts and emotions
do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the sailor! Here
they come; sure of a welcome—conscious that they are no intruders on
aristocratic landsmen’s soil—sure that each added face will send a
thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who folds them all,
as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.
There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent
prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his
spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here,
brother;” pointing to a seat _in the pulpit_. Jack don’t know about
_that_! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest
blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking
timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the _pulpit_!—Jack doubts
his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough
brother!” again reassures him; and, with a little extra fumbling at his
tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as
though he were on his vessel’s deck.
The hymn is read with a _heart-tone_. There is no mistaking either the
poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a
“scientific musical ear” (which, thank heaven, I have not), you may
criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal
down my face, as I mark the effect of good _Old Hundred_ (minus trills
and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.
—The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickeys, or
bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions, the
last prima donna, and that your neighbour is not one of the “upper ten,”
as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away from
worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest eloquence.
You marvel that these uttered truths of his never struck your
thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of
expression on that earnest face—those emphatic gestures—the starting
tear or the thrilling voice—but they all _tell_ on “Jack.”
And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on one
arm. Oh, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised so
gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty, and
says, “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day, its
right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous _No!_ bursts from
Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples. Lovingly
the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the heart of
the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it.
Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? _He_ was once as
pure as that blessed innocent! His _mother_—the sod now covers her—often
invoked heaven’s blessing on _her_ son; and well he remembers the touch
of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving voice, as she murmured
the imploring prayer for him: and how has her sailor boy redeemed his
youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding tears, with his horny
palm; but, please God, that Sabbath—that scene—shall be a talisman upon
which memory shall ineffaceably inscribe,
“Go, and sin no more.”
SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
E-Q-U-I—equi, D-O-M-E—dome, “Equidome.” Betty, hand me my dictionary.
Well, now, who would have believed that I, Fanny Fern, would have
tripped over a “stable?” That all comes of being “raised” where people
persist in calling things by their right names. I’m very certain that it
is useless for me to try to circumnavigate the globe on stilts. There’s
the “Hippodrome!” I had but just digested that humbug: my tongue kinked
all up trying to pronounce it; and then I couldn’t find out the meaning
of it; for Webster didn’t inform me that it was a place where vicious
horses broke the necks of vicious young girls for the amusement of
vicious spectators.
“Jim Brown!” What a relief. I can understand that. I never saw Jim, but
I’m positively certain that he’s a monosyllable on legs—crisp as a
cucumber. Ah! here are some more suggestive signs.
“Robert Link—Bird Fancier.” I suggest that it be changed to Bob-o’ Link;
in which opinion I shall probably be backed up by all musical people.
Here we are in Broadway junior, alias the “Bowery.” I don’t see but the
silks, and satins, and dry-goods generally, are quite equal to those in
Broadway; but, of course, Fashion turns her back upon them, for they are
only half the price.
What have we here, in this shop window? What are all those silks, and
delaines, and calicoes, ticketed up that way for?—“Superb,” “Tasty,”
“Beautiful,” “Desirable,” “Cheap for 1_s._,” “Modest,” “Unique,”
“Genteel,” “Grand,” “Gay!” It is very evident that Mr. Yardstick takes
all women for fools, or else he has had a narrow escape from being one
himself. There’s a poor, distracted gentleman in a milliner’s shop,
trying to select a bonnet for his spouse. What a _non compos_! See him
poise the airy nothings on his great clumsy hands! He is about as good a
judge of bonnets as I am of patent ploughs. See him turn, in despairing
bewilderment, from blue to pink, from pink to green, from green to
crimson, from crimson to yellow. The little witch of a milliner sees his
indecision, and resolves to make a _coup d’état_; so, perching one of
the bonnets (blue as her eyes) on her rosy little face, she walks up
sufficiently near to give him a magnetic shiver, and holding the strings
coquettishly under her pretty little chin, says:
“Now, I’m sure, you can’t say _that_ isn’t pretty!”
Of course he can’t!
So, the bonnet is bought and band-boxed, and Jonathan (who is sold with
the bonnet) takes it home to his wife, whose black face looks in it like
an overcharged thunder-cloud set in a silver lining.
Saturday evening is a busy time in the Bowery. So many little things
wanted at the close of the week. A pair of new shoes for Robert, a
tippet for Sally, a pair of gloves for Johnny, and a stick of candy to
bribe the baby to keep the peace while mamma goes to “meetin’” on
Sunday. What a heap of people! What a job it must be to take the census
in New York. Servant girls and their beaux, country folks and city
folks, big boys and little boys, ladies and women, puppies and men!
There’s a poor labouring man, with his market basket on one arm and his
wife on the other. He knows that he can get his Sunday dinner cheaper by
purchasing it late on Saturday night, when the butchers are not quite
sure that their stock will “keep” till Monday. And then it is quite a
treat for his wife, when little Johnny is asleep, to get out to catch a
bit of fresh air, and a sight of the pretty things in the shop windows,
even if she cannot have them; but the little feminine diplomatist knows
that husbands always feel clever of a Saturday night, and that then’s
the time “_just to stop and look_” at a new ribbon or collar.
See that party of country folks, going to the “National” to see “Uncle
Tom.” Those pests, the bouquet sellers, are offering them their
stereotyped, cabbage-looking bunches of flowers with,
“Please buy one for your lady, sir.”
Jonathan don’t understand dodging such appeals; beside, he would scorn
to begrudge a “quarter” for _his lady_! So he buys the nuisance, and
scraping out his hind foot, presents it, with a bow, to Araminta, who
“walks on thrones” the remainder of the evening.
There’s a hand-organ, and a poor, tired little girl, sleepily playing
the tambourine. All the little ragged urchins in the neighbourhood are
grouped on that door-step, listening. The connoisseur might criticise
the performance, but no Cathedral _Te Deum_ could be grander to that
unsophisticated little audience. There is one little girl who, spite of
her rags, is beautiful enough for a seraph. _Poor and beautiful!_ God
help her.
[Illustration]
WHOM DOES IT CONCERN?
“Stitch—stitch—stitch! Will this _never_ end?” said a young girl,
leaning her head wearily against the casement, and dropping her small
hands hopelessly in her lap. “Stitch—stitch—stitch! from dawn till dark,
and yet I scarce keep soul and body together;” and she drew her thin
shawl more closely over her shivering shoulders.
Her eye fell upon the great house opposite. There was comfort there, and
luxury, too; for the rich satin curtains were looped gracefully away
from the large windows; a black servant opens the hall door: see, there
are statues and vases and pictures there: now two young girls trip
lightly out upon the pavement, their lustrous silks, and nodding plumes,
and jewelled bracelets glistening, and quivering, and sparkling in the
bright sunlight. Now poising their silver-netted purses upon their
daintily gloved fingers, they leap lightly into the carriage in waiting,
and are whirled rapidly away.
That little seamstress is as fair as they: her eyes are as soft and
blue; her limbs as lithe and graceful; her rich, brown hair folds as
softly away over as fair a brow; her heart leaps, like theirs, to all
that is bright and joyous; it craves love and sympathy, and
companionship as much, and yet she must stitch—stitch—stitch—and droop
under summer’s heat, and shiver under winter’s cold, and walk the earth
with the skeleton starvation ever at her side, that costly pictures, and
velvet carpets, and massive chandeliers, and gay tapestry, and gold and
silver vessels may fill the house of her employer—that _his_ flaunting
equipage may roll admired along the highway, and India’s fairest fabrics
deck his purse-proud wife and daughters.
* * * * *
It was a busy scene, the ware-room of Simon Skinflint & Co. Garments of
every hue, size, and pattern, were there exposed for sale. Piles of
coarse clothing lay upon the counter, ready to be given out to the
destitute, brow-beaten applicant who would make them for the smallest
possible remuneration; piles of garments lay there, which such victims
had already toiled into the long night to finish, ticketed to bring
enormous profits into the pocket of their employer: groups of dapper
clerks stood behind the counter, discussing, in a whisper, the pedestals
of the last new _danseuse_—ogling the half-starved young girls who were
crowding in for employment, and raising a blush on the cheek of humble
innocence by the coarse joke, and free, libidinous gaze; while their
master, Mr. Simon Skinflint, sat, rosy and rotund, before a bright
Lehigh fire, rubbing his fat hands, building imaginary houses, and
felicitating himself generally, on his far-reaching financial foresight.
“If you could but allow me a trifle more for my labour,” murmured a low
voice at his side; “I have toiled hard all the week, and yet—”
“Young woman,” said Mr. Skinflint, pushing his chair several feet back,
elevating his spectacles to his forehead, and drawing his satin vest
down over his aldermanic proportions, “young woman, do you observe that
crowd of persons besieging my door for employment? Perhaps you are not
aware that we turn away scores of them every day, perhaps you don’t know
that the farmers’ daughters, who are at a loss what to do long winter
evenings, and want to earn a little dowry, will do our work for less
than we pay you? But you feminine operatives don’t seem to have the
least idea of trade. Competition is the soul of business, you see,” said
Mr. Skinflint, rubbing his hands in a congratulatory manner.
“Tut—tut—young woman; don’t quarrel with your bread and butter; however,
it is a thing that don’t concern me at all; if you _won’t_ work, there
are plenty who _will_,” and Mr. Skinflint drew out his gold repeater,
and glanced at the door.
A look of hopeless misery settled over the young girl’s face, as she
turned slowly away in the direction of home. _Home_ did I say? The word
was a bitter mockery to poor Mary. She had a home once, where she and
the little birds sang the live-long day: where flowers blossomed, and
tall trees waved, and merry voices floated out on the fragrant air, and
the golden sun went gorgeously down behind the far-off hills; where a
mother’s loving breast was her pillow, and a father’s good-night
blessing wooed her rosy slumbers. It was past now. They were all
gone—father, mother, brother, sister. Some with the blue sea for a
shifting monument; some sleeping dreamlessly in the little churchyard,
where her infant footsteps strayed, Rank grass had o’ergrown the cottage
gravel walks; weeds choked the flowers which dust-crumbled hands had
planted; the brown moss had thatched over the cottage eaves, and still
the little birds sang on as blithely as if Mary’s household gods had not
been shivered.
Poor Mary! The world was dark and weary to her: the very stars, with
their serene beauty, seemed to mock her misery. She reached her little
room. Its narrow walls seemed to close about her like a tomb. She leaned
her head wearily against the little window, and looked again at the
great house opposite. How brightly, how cheerfully the lights glanced
from the windows! How like fairies glided the young girls over the
softly carpeted floors! How swiftly the carriages whirled to the door,
with their gay visitors! Life was such a rosy dream to _them_—such a
brooding nightmare to _her_! Despair laid its icy hand on her heart.
Must she _always_ drink, unmixed, the cup of sorrow? Must she weep and
sigh her youth away, while griping Avarice trampled on her
heart-strings? She could not weep—nay, worse—she could not pray. Dark
shadows came between her soul and heaven.
* * * * *
The little room is empty now. Mary toils there no longer. You will find
her in the great house opposite: her dainty limbs clad in flowing silk;
her slender fingers and dimpled arms glittering with gems: and among all
that merry group, Mary’s laugh rings out the merriest. Surely—surely,
this is better than to toil, weeping, through the long weary days in the
little darkened room.
Is it, Mary?
* * * * *
There is a ring at the door of the great house. A woman glides modestly
in; by her dress, she is a widow. She has opened a small school in the
neighbourhood, and in the search for scholars has wandered in here. She
looks about her. Her quick, womanly instinct sounds the alarm. She is
not among the good and pure of her sex. But she does not scorn them. No;
she looks upon their blighted beauty with a Christ-like pity; she says
to herself, haply some word of mine may touch their hearts. So she says
gently, “Pardon me, ladies, but I had hoped to find scholars here; you
will forgive the intrusion, I know; for, though you are not mothers, you
have all _had_ mothers.”
Why is Mary’s lip so ashen white? Why does she tremble from head to
foot, as if smitten by the hand of God? Why do the hot tears stream
through her jewelled fingers? Ah! Mary. That little dark room, with its
toil, its gloom, its _innocence_, were Heaven’s own brightness now to
your tortured spirit.
* * * * *
Pitilessly the slant rain rattled against the window panes: awnings
creaked and flapped, and the street lamps flickered in the strong blast:
full-freighted omnibuses rolled over the muddy pavements: stray
pedestrians turned up their coat-collars, grasped their umbrellas more
tightly, and made for the nearest port. A woman, half-blinded by the
long hair which the fury of the wind had driven across her face,
drenched to the skin with the pouring rain—shoeless, bonnetless,
_homeless_, leans unsteadily against a lamp-post, and in the maudlin
accents of intoxication curses the passers-by. A policeman’s strong
grasp is laid upon her arm, and she is hurried, struggling, through the
dripping streets, and pushed into the nearest “station-house.” Morning
dawns upon the wretched, forsaken outcast. She sees it not. Upon those
weary eyes only the resurrection morn shall dawn.
No more shall the stony-hearted shut, in her imploring face, the door of
hope; no more shall gilded sin, with Judas smile, say, “Eat, drink, and
be merry;” no more shall the professed followers of Him who said,
“Neither do I condemn thee,” say to the guilt-stricken one, “Stand
aside—for I am holier than thou.” No, none may tempt, none may scorn,
none may taunt her more. A pauper’s grave shall hide poor Mary and her
shame.
God speed the day when the Juggernaut wheels of Avarice shall no longer
roll over woman’s dearest hopes; when thousands of doors, now closed,
shall be opened for starving Virtue to earn her honest bread; when he
who would coin her tears and groans to rear his palaces, shall become a
hissing and a bye-word, wherever the sacred name of Mother shall be
honoured.
“WHO LOVES A RAINY DAY?”
The bored editor; who, for one millennial day, in slippered feet,
controls his arm-chair, exchanges, stove, and inkstand; who has time to
hunt up delinquent subscribers; time to decipher hieroglyphical
manuscripts; time to make a bonfire of bad poetry; time to kick out
lozenge boys and image vendors; time to settle the long-standing quarrel
between Nancy the type-setter, and Bill the foreman, and time to write
complimentary letters to himself for publication in his own paper, and
to get up a new humbug prospectus for the dear, confiding public.
Who loves a rainy day?
The little child of active limb, reprieved from bench, and book, and
ferule; between whom and the wire-drawn phiz of grim propriety, those
friendly drops have drawn a misty veil; who is now free to laugh, and
jump, and shout, and ask the puzzling question—free to bask in the sunny
smile of her, to whom no sorrow can be trivial that brings a cloud over
that sunny face, or dims the brightness of that merry eye.
Who loves a rainy day?
The crazed clergyman, who can face a sheet of paper, uninterrupted by
dyspeptic Deacon Jones, or fault-finding brother Grimes; or cautious Mr.
Smith; or the afflicted Miss Zelia Zephyr, who, for several long years,
has been “unable to find out the path of duty or the zealous old Lady
Bunce, who hopes her pastor will throw light on the precise locality
fixed upon in the future state for idiots, and those heathen who have
never seen a missionary.
Who loves a rainy day?
The disgusted clerk, who, lost in the pages of some care-beguiling
volume, forgets the petticoat destiny which relentlessly forces him to
unfurl endless yards of tinsel lace and ribbon, for lounging dames, with
empty brains and purses, whose “chief end” it seems to be to put him
through an endless catechism.
Who loves a rainy day?
The tidy little housewife, who, in neat little breakfast-cap and
dressing-gown, overlooks the short-comings of careless cook and
house-maid; explores cupboards, cellars, pantries, and closets;
disembowels old bags, old boxes, old barrels, old kegs, old firkins;
who, with her own dainty hand, prepares the favourite morsel for the
dear, absent, toiling husband, or, by the cheerful nursery fire, sews on
the missing string or button, or sings to soothing slumbers a pair of
violet eyes, whose witching counterpart once stole her girlish heart
away.
Who loves a rainy day?
_I do!_ Let the rain fall; let the wind moan; let the leafless trees
reach out their long attenuated fingers and tap against my casement;
pile on the coal; wheel up the arm-chair; all hail loose ringlets and
loose dressing-robe. Not a blessed son or daughter of Adam can get here
to-day! Unlock the old writing-desk; overlook the old letters. There is
a bunch tied with a ribbon blue as the eyes of the writer. Matrimony
quenched their brightness long time ago.
Irish _help_ (!) and crying babies,
I grieve to say, are ’mong the may-be’s!
And here is a package written by a despairing Cœlebs—once intensely
interested in the price of hemp and prussic acid; now the rotund and
jolly owner of a princely house, a queenly wife, and six rollicksome
responsibilities. Query; whether the faculty ever dissected a _man_ who
had died of a “broken heart?”
Here is another package. Let the fire purify them; never say you _know_
your friend till his tombstone is over him.
What Solomon says, “handwriting is an index of character?” Give him the
cap and bells, and show him those bold pen-marks. They were traced by no
Di Vernon! Let me sketch the writer:—A blushing, smiling, timid, loving
little fairy, as ever nestled near a true heart; with a step like the
fall of a snow-flake, and a voice like the murmur of a brook in June.
Poor little Katie! she lays her cheek now to a little cradle sleeper’s,
and starts at the distant footstep, and trembles at the muttered curse,
and reels under the brutal blow, and, woman-like—loves on!
And what have we here? A sixpence with a ribbon in it! Oh, those
Saturday and Wednesday afternoons, with their hoarded store of nuts and
candy—the broad, green meadow, with its fine old trees—the crazy old
swing, and the fragrant tumble in the grass—the wreath of oak leaves,
the bunch of wild violets, the fairy story book, the little blue jacket,
the snowy shirt-collar, the curly, black head, with its soft, blue eyes.
Oh, first love, sugar-candy, torn aprons, and kisses! where have ye
flown?
What is this? Only a pressed flower; but it tells me of a shadowy
wood—of a rippling brook—of a bird’s song—of a mossy seat—of whispered
leaf-music—of dark, soul-lit eyes—of a voice sweet, and low, and
thrilling—of a vow never broken till death chilled the lips that made
it. Little need to look at the pictured face that lies beside me. It
haunts me sleeping or waking. I shall see it again—life’s trials passed.
A CONSCIENTIOUS YOUNG MAN.
“There is no object in nature so beautiful as a conscientious young
man.”—_Exchange._
Well; I’ve seen the “Sea-Dog,” and Thackeray; and Tom Thumb and Kossuth;
the “Bearded Lady,” and Father Matthew; the whistling Canary, and
Camille Urso; the “white negro,” and Mrs. Stowe; “Chang and Eng,” and
Jenny Lind; and Miss Bremer and Madame Sontag. I have been to the top of
the State House, made the tour of the “Public Garden,” and crossed the
“Frog Pond.” I’ve seen Theodore Parker, and a locomotive. I’ve ridden in
an omnibus, heard a Fourth-of-July oration, and I once saw the sun rise;
but I never, never never saw “a conscientious young man.”
If there is such an “organization” on the periphery of this globe, I
should like to see him. If he _is_, _where_ is he? Who owns him? Where
did they raise him? What does he feed on? For whom does he vote? On what
political platform do his conscientious toes rest? Does he know the
difference between a Whig and a Democrat? between a “Hunker” and a
“Barn-burner?” between a “hard-shell” and a “soft-shell?” between a
“uniform national currency” and a “sound constitutional currency?” Does
he have chills or a fever when he sees a bonnet? Does he look at it out
of the sides of his eyes, like a bashful, barn-yard bantam, or dare he
not look at all? Does he show the “white feather,” or crow defiance?
Does he “go to roost” at sun-down? and does he rest on an aristocratic
perch? I’m all alive to see the specimen. My opera-glass is poised. Will
he be at the World’s Fair? Might I be permitted to shake hands with, and
congratulate him? I pause for a reply.
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER ONE.
“Each to his taste,” somebody says: so say I: so says Gotham. Look at
that splendid house, with its massive door-way, its mammoth plate-glass
windows, its tasteful conservatory, where the snowy Orange-blossom, and
clustering Rose, and crimson Cactus, and regal Passion-flower, and
fragrant Heliotrope breathe out their little day of sweetness. See that
Gothic stable, with its faultless span of horses, and liveried coachman,
and anti-republican carriage, whose coat of arms makes our National
Eagle droop his fearless pinions. Then cast your eye on that tumble-down
wooden grocery adjoining, sending up its reeking fumes of rum, onions,
and salt fish, into patrician nostrils! Go where you will in New York,
you see the same strong contrasts. Feast your eyes on beauty, and a
skeleton startles you at its side. Lazarus sitteth ever at the Gate of
Dives.
Here is a primary school: what a host of little ragged urchins are
crowding in! Suppose I step in quietly among them. Now, they take their
places in seats terraced off one above another, so that each little face
is distinctly visible. What a pretty sight! and how Nature loves to
compensate! sending beauty to the hovel, deformity to the hall. There’s
a boy, now, in that ragged jacket, who is a study for an artist. See his
broad, ample forehead; mark how his dark eyes glow: and that little girl
at his side, whose chestnut curls droop so gracefully over her
soft-fringed eyes and dimpled shoulders. And that dream-child in yonder
corner, with blue-veined transparent temples, whose spiritual eyes even
now can see that fadeless shore to which bright angels beckon him. Deal
gently with him—he is passing away!
Here comes the teacher, brisk, angular, and sharp-voiced. Heaven pity
the children! She’s a human icicle—pasteboard-y and proper! I already
experience a mental shiver. Now she comes up and says (apologetically to
my new satin cloak), “You see, madam, these are _only_ poor children.”
The toadying creature! Lucky for her that I’m not “a committee.” Can’t
her dull eyes recognise God’s image in lindsey-woolsey? Can she see no
genius written on yonder broad forehead? No poetry slumbering in yonder
sweet eyes? Did Franklin, Clay, and Webster study _their_ alphabet in
silk and velvet? Now she hands me a book in which visitors’ names are
inscribed, and requests me to write mine. Certainly. “Mrs. John Smith
there it is. Hope she likes it as well as I do.
Speaking of names, I read on a sign yesterday that “Richard Haas:”
to-day I saw, down street, that “John Haas.” I’m sure I’m glad of it. I
congratulate both those enterprising gentlemen. There goes a baker’s
cart, with “Ernest Flog-er” painted on the side. It is my impression
that if you do it, Ernest, “_your_ cake will be dough;” 1854 being
considered the millennium of “strong-minded women.” Here we are, almost
to the Battery. “_Fanfernot_ & Dulac:” that must be a chain-lightening
firm. Wonder if “Fanfernot” is the _silent_ partner?
Here’s a man distributing tracts. Now, if he hands me one, I’ll throw it
down. See how meekly he picks it up, and hands me another. “That’s
right, friend Colporteur. I only wanted to see if you were in earnest:
glad to see you so well employed.”
“Yes Ma’am,” he says, much relieved; “sinners here in New York need
waking up”—which sentiment I endorse, and advise him to call at the _N.
Y. Tribune_ office.
Down comes the rain: had I taken my umbrella not a drop would have
fallen. “I ’spect” I was born on a Friday; but as that can’t be helped
now, I’ll step into that book-store till the shower is over. The owner
politely gives me a chair, and then hands me, for my edification, the
_last fashion-prints_! F-a-n-n-y F-e-r-n! can it be possible that you
look so frivolous? Tracts and fashion-prints, both offered you in one
forenoon: Wonder if there’s a second-hand drab Quaker bonnet anywhere
that will subdue your “style?”
See that little minstrel in front of the store, staggering under the
weight of a hand-organ. What a crowd of little beggar-boys surround him,
petitioning “for _just one tune_.” Now, I wonder if the rough school
that boy has been in, has hardened his heart? Has he grown prematurely
worldly-wise and selfish? Will he turn, gruffly away from that
penniless, Tom Thumb audience, or will he give them a _gratuitous_ tune?
God be thanked, his childish heart yet beats warm and true under that
tattered jacket. He smiles sweetly on the eager group, and strikes up
“Lang Syne.” Other than mortal ears are listening! That deed, unnoticed
by the hurrying Broadway throng, is noted by the Recording Angel.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have
done it unto Me.”
Sunshine again! dripping awnings and sloppy pavements. There’s a man
preaching an out-door temperance sermon: what a bungling piece of work
he makes of it! If he would lend me that _pro tem_ barrel-pulpit, I’d
astonish _him_, and take the feather out of “Miss Lucy Stone’s” bonnet.
Let us cross the Park. There’s an Irishman seated on the withered grass,
with his spade beside him, leaning wearily against that leafless tree. I
wonder is he ill? I must walk that way and speak to him. What a sudden
change comes over his rough face! it looks quite beautiful. Why do his
eyes kindle? Ah, I see: a woman approaches from yonder path; now she
seats herself beside him on the grass, and drawing the cover from a
small tin kettle, she bends over the steaming contents, and says with a
smile that is a perfect heart-warmer, “_Dear_ Dennis!” Oh, what a wealth
of love in those two simple words; what music in that voice! Who says
human nature is _all_ depravity? Who says this earth is but a
charnel-house of withered hopes? Who says the “Heart’s Ease” springs
never from the rock cleft? Who says it is only on _patrician_ soil the
finer feelings struggle into leaf, and bud and blossom? No—no—that
humble, faithful creature has travelled weary miles with needful food,
that “Dennis” may waste no unnecessary time from labour. And there they
sit, side by side, happy and blessed in each other, deaf to the
ceaseless tide of business and pleasure flowing past, blind to the
supercilious gaze of the pompous _millionaire_, the curious stare of
pampered beauty, the derisive laugh of “Young America,” and the little
romances they have set my brain a-weaving! What a pretty episode amid
all this Babel din! What a delicious little bit of nature amidst this
fossil-hearted Gotham!
How true—how beautiful the words of Holy Writ! “Better is a dinner of
herbs _where love is_, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”
* * * * *
What an immensely tall man! he looks like a barber’s pole in those
serpentine pants. Why does he make those gyrations? Why does he beckon
that short man to his side? Well, I declare! everything comical comes to
my net! He has taken out a slip of paper, and using the short man’s head
for a writing-desk, is scribbling off some directions for a porter in
waiting! The lamb-like non-resistance of the short man is only equalled
by the cool impudence of the scribe! What a picture for Hogarth!
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER TWO.
The fashionables are yet yawning on their pillows. Nobody is abroad but
the workies. So much the better. Omnibus drivers begin to pick up their
early-breakfast customers. The dear little children, trustful and rosy,
are hurrying by to school. Apple women are arranging their stalls, and
slily polishing their fruit with an old stocking. The shopkeepers are
placing their goods in the most tempting light, in the store windows;
and bouquet vendors, with their delicious burdens, have already taken
their stand on the saloon and hotel steps.
Here come that de-socialized class, the New York business men, with
their hands thrust moodily into their coat pockets, their eyes buttoned
fixedly down to the side-walk, and “the almighty dollar” written legibly
all over them. If the automatons would but show _some_ sign of life;
were it only by a whistle. I’m very sure the tune would be
“I know a—_Bank_!”
See that pretty little couple yonder, crouched upon the side-walk? What
have you there, little ones? Five little, fat, roly-poly puppies, as I
live, all heads and tails, curled up in that comical old basket! And you
expect to get “a dollar a-piece” for them? Bless your dear little souls,
Broadway is full of “puppies,” who never “bring” anything but odious
cigar smoke, that ever I could find out. Puppies are at a discount, my
darlings. Peanuts are a safer investment.
Here we are at Trinity Church. I doubt if human lips within those walls
ever preached as eloquently as those century gravestones. How the sight
of them involuntarily arrests the bounding footstep, and the
half-developed plan of the scheming brain, and wakes up the slumbering
immortal in our nature. How the eye turns a questioning glance from
those moss-grown graves, inward—then upward to the soft, blue heavens
above us. How for a brief moment the callous heart grows kindly, and we
forget the mote in our brother’s eye, and cease to repulse the outspread
palm of charity, and recognise the claims of a common brotherhood; and
then how the sweeping tide comes rolling over us, and the clink of
dollars and cents drowns “the still small voice;” and Eternity recedes,
and Earth only seems tangible, and Mammon, and Avarice, and Folly rule
the never returning hours.
Now glance over the churchyard yonder into the street below. Cholera and
pestilence, what a sight! flanked on one side by the charnel-house, on
the other by houses whose basements are groggeries and markets, and at
whose every pane of glass may be seen a score of dirty faces; the middle
of the street a quagmire of jelly-mud, four inches deep, on which are
strewn, _ad infinitum_, decayed potatoes and cabbage stumps, old bones
and bonnets, mouldy bread, salt fish, and dead kittens. That pussy-cat
New York corporation should be put on a diet of peppered thunder and
gunpowder tea, and harnessed to a comet for six months. I doubt if even
then the old poppies would wake up.
Do you see that piece of antiquity playing the bagpipe? He is as much a
fixture as your country cousin. There he sits, through heat and cold,
squeezing out those horrible sounds with his skinny elbow, and keeping
time with his nervous eyewinkers. He gets up his own programme, and is
his own orchestra, door-keeper, and audience; nobody stops to listen,
nobody fees him, nobody seems to enjoy it so hugely as himself.
Who talks about wooden nutmegs in the hearing of Gotham? Does a shower
come up? Men start up as if by magic, with all-sized India rubbers for
sale, and ragged little boys nudge your elbows to purchase “cheap cotton
umbrellas.” Does the wind veer round south? A stack of palm-leaf fans
takes the place of the umbrellas. Have you the misfortune to trip upon
the side-walk? a box of Russia salve is immediately unlidded under your
nose. Do you stop to arrange your gaiter boot? whole strings of
boot-lacings are dangled before your astonished eyes. Do your loosened
waistbands remind you of the dinner hour? before your door stands a man
brandishing “patent carving knives,” warranted to dissever the toughest
old rooster that ever crowed over a hen-harem.
Speaking of hens—see that menagerie, in one of the handsomest parts of
Broadway, defaced by that blood and murder daub of a picture,
representing every animal that ever flew or trotted into Noah’s ark,
beside a few that the good old gentleman never undertook to perpetuate.
See them lashing their tails, bristling their manes, ploughing the air
and tossing high above their incensed horns, that distracted gory biped,
whose every individual hair is made to stand on end with horror, and his
coat-tail astonishingly to perpendicularize. Countrymen stand agape
while pickpockets lighten them of their purses; innocent little
children, with saucer eyes, shy to the further edge of the side-walk,
and hurry home with an embryo nightmare in their frightened craniums.
“Jonathan” pays his “quarter,” and is astonished to find upon entering a
very tame collection of innocent beasts and beastesses, guiltless of any
intention to growl, unless poked by the long pole of curiosity.
Dissatisfied, he descends to the cellar, to see the elephant, who holds
a sleepy levee, for all who feel inclined to pack his trunk with the
apples and cakes, which a shrewd stall-keeping Yankee in the corner
disinterestedly advises them to buy, “just to see how the critter eats.”
Well; two-headed calves, one-eyed buffaloes, skeleton ostriches, and
miles of serpents, are every day matters; but yonder is an announcement
that “Two Wild Men from Borneo” may be seen within. Now that interests
me. “They have the faculty of speech, but are deficient in memory.”
Bless me, you don’t mean to say that those little Hop-o’-my-Thumbs have
the temerity to call themselves “_Men_?” little humbugs, pocket
editions. But what pretty little limbs they have, and how they shiver in
this cold climate, spite of the silk and India-rubber dress they wear
under those little tights. “The youngest weighs only twenty-seven, the
oldest thirty-four pounds;” so the keeper says, who, forming a circle,
lays one hand on the head of each, and commences his stereotyped,
menagerie exordium, oblivious of commas, colons, semicolons, periods, or
breath; adding at the close, that the Wild Men will now shake hands with
any child who may be present, but will _always bite an adult_. Nothing
like a barrier to make femininity leap over. I’m bent upon having the
first “adult” shake. The keeper says, “Better not, Ma’am” (showing a
scar on his finger), “they bit that een-a-most to the bone.” Of course,
snapping at masculinity is no proof to me of their unsusceptibility to
feminine evangelization; on the contrary. So, taking a cautious patrol
around the interesting little savages, I hold out my hand. Allah be
praised! they take it, and my five digits still remain at the service of
printers and publishers!
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER THREE.
What a never-ceasing bell-jingling, what a stampede of servants, what a
continuous dumping down of big trunks; what transits, what exits, what a
miniature world is a hotel! Panorama-like, the scene shifts each hour;
your _vis-a-vis_ at breakfast, supping, ten to one, in the Rocky
Mountains. How delightful your unconsciousness of what you are
fore-ordained to eat for dinner; how _nonchalantly_ in the morning you
handle tooth-brush and head-brush, certain of a cup of hot coffee
whenever you see fit to make your advent. How scientifically your fire
is made, without any unnecessary tattooing of shovel, tongs and poker.
What a chain-lightning answer to your bell summons; how oblivious is
“No. 14” of your existence; how indifferent is “No. 25” whether you
sneeze six or seven times a day; how convenient are the newspapers and
letter-stamps, obtainable at the clerk’s office; how digestible your
food; how comfortable your bed, and how never-to-be-sufficiently-enjoyed
the general let-aloneativeness.
Avaunt, ye lynx-eyed “private boarding-houses,” with your two slip-shod
Irish servants; your leaden bread, leather pies, ancient fowls, bad
gravies, omnium gatherum bread puddings, and salt fish, and
cabbage-perfumed entries; your washing-day “hashes,” your ironing-day
“stews,” and all your other “comforts of a home” (?) not _explicitly_
set forth in your advertisements.
Rat-tat, rat-tat-tat! what a fury that old gentleman seems to be in.
Whoever occupies No. 40, must either be deaf or without nerves. Rat-tat!
what an obstinate human; there he goes again! ah, now the door opens,
and a harmless-looking clergyman glides past him, down the stairs. Too
late—too late, papa,—the knot is tied; no use in making a fuss. Just see
that pretty little bride, blushing, crying, and clinging to her
boy-husband. Just remember the time, sir, when the “auld wife” at home
made _you_ thrill to the toes of your boots; remember how perfectly
oblivious you were of guide-boards or milestones, when you went to see
her; you how you used to hug and kiss her little brother Jim, though he
was the ugliest, mischievous est little snipe in Christendom; how you
used to read books for hours upside down, and how you wondered what
people meant by calling the moon “cold;” how you wound up your watch
half-a-dozen times a-day, and hadn’t the slightest idea whether you were
eating geese or grindstones for dinner; how affectionately you nodded to
Mr. Brown, of whom her father bought his groceries; how complacently you
sat out the minister’s seventh-lie by her side at church; how wolfy you
felt if any other piece of broadcloth approached her; how devoutly you
wished you were that little bit of blue ribbon round her throat; and
how, one moonlight night, when she laid her head against your vest
pattern, you——didn’t care a mint julep whether the tailor ever got paid
for it or not! Now, just imagine her papa, stepping in and deliberately
turning all _that_ cream to vinegar; wouldn’t _you_ have effervesced?
Certainly.
See that little army of boots in the entry outside the doors. May I need
a pair of spectacles, if one of their owners has a neat foot! No. 20
turns his toes in, No. 30 treads over at the side; No. 40 has a pedestal
like an elephant. Stay!—there’s a pair now—Jupiter what a high instep!
what a temper that man has! wonder if those! are married boots? Heaven
help _Mrs._ Boots, when her husband finds a button missing! It strikes
me that I should like to _mis-mate_ all those boots, and view, at a
respectful distance, the young tornado in the entry, when the gong
sounds!
Oh, you cunning little curly-headed, fairy-footed, dimple-limbed pet!
Who is blessed enough to own you? Did you know, you little human
blossom, that I was aunt to all the children in creation? Your eyes are
as blue as the violets, and your little pouting lip might tempt a bee
from a rose. Did mamma make you that dainty little kirtle? and papa find
you that horsewhip?
“Papa is dead, and mamma is dead, too. Mamma can’t see Charley any
more.”
God bless your sweet helplessness! creep into my arms, Charley. My
darling, you are never alone!—mamma’s sweet, tender eyes look lovingly
on Charley out of Heaven; mamma’s bright angel wings ever overshadow
little Charley’s head; mamma and the holy stars keep watch over
Charley’s slumbers. Mamma sings a sweeter song when little Charley says
a prayer. Going?—well, then, one kiss; for sure I am, the angels will
want you before long.
What is that? A sick gentleman, borne in on a litter, from shipboard.
Poor fellow! how sunken are his great dark eyes! how emaciated his
limbs! What can ail him? Nobody knows; not a word of English can he
speak; and the captain is already off, too happy to rid himself of all
responsibility. Lucky for the poor invalid that our gallant host has a
heart warm and true. How tenderly he lifts the invalid to his room; how
expeditiously he despatches his orders for a Spanish doctor and nurse;
how imploringly the sufferer’s speaking eyes are fastened upon his face.
Ah! Death glides in at yonder door with the sick man; his grasp is
already on his heart; the doctor stands aside and folds his
hands—there’s no work for _him_ to do; dark shadows gather round the
dying stranger’s eyes; he presses feebly the hand of his humane host,
and gasps out the last fluttering breath on that manly heart. Strange
hands are busy closing his eyes; strange hands straighten his limbs; a
strange priest comes all too late to shrive the sick man’s soul; strange
eyes gaze carelessly upon the features, one glimpse of which were worth
Golconda’s mines to far-off kindred. Now the undertaker comes with the
coffin. Touch him gently, man of business; lay those dark locks tenderly
on the satin pillow; hear you not a far-off wail from sunny Spain, as
the merry song at the vintage feast dies upon the lip of the
stricken-hearted?
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER FOUR—BARNUM’S POULTRY SHOW.
Defend my ears! Do you suppose Noah had to put up with such a cackling
and crowing as this in his ark? I trust ear-trumpets are cheap, for I
stand a chance of becoming as deaf as a husband, when his wife asks him
for money.
I have always hated a rooster; whether from his perch, before daylight,
he shrilly, spitefully, and unnecessarily, recalled me from rosy dreams
to stupid realities; or when strolling at the head of his hang-dog
looking seraglio of hens, he stood poised on one foot, gazing back at
the meek procession with an air that said, as plain as towering crests
and tail feathers could say it, “Stir a foot if you dare, till I give
you the signal!”—at which demonstration I looked instinctively about,
for a big stone, to take the nonsense out of him!
Save us, what a crowd! There are more onions here than patchouli, more
worsted wrappers than Brummel neck-ties, and more brogans than patent
leather. Most of the visitors gaze at the perches through barn-yard
spectacles. For myself, I don’t care an egg-shell, whether that old
“Shanghai” knew who her grandfather was or not, or whether those
“Dorkings” were ever imprudent enough to let their young affections rove
from their native roost. Yankee eyes were made to be used, and the first
observation mine take is, that those gentlemen fowls seem to have
reversed the order of things here in New York, being very superior in
point of beauty to the feminines. Of course they know it. See them
strut! There never was a masculine yet whom you could enlighten on such
a point.
Now, were I a hen (which, thank the parish register, I am not), I would
cross my claws, succumb to that tall Polander, with his crested helmet
of black and white feathers, and share his demonstrative perch.
Oh, you pretty little “carrier doves!” I _could_ find a use for _you_.
Do you ever tap-tap at the wrong window, you little snow-flakes? Have
you learned the secret of soaring above the heads of your enemies? Are
you impregnable to bribes, in the shape of food?
There’s an eagle, fierce as a Hospodar. Bird of Jove! that _you_ should
stay caged in the tantalizing vicinity of those little fat bantams! Try
the strength of your pinions, grim old fellow; call no man jailer; turn
your back on Barnum, and stare the sun out of countenance!
Observe with what aristocratic _nonchalance_ those salmon-coloured
pigeons sit their perch! See that ruffle of feathers about their
dignified Elizabethan throats. I am not at all sure that I should have
intruded into their regal presence, without being heralded by a court
page.
Do you call those two moving bales of wool, sheep? Hurrah for “Ayrshire”
farming! Fleece six inches deep, and the animals not half grown.
Comfortable looking January-defiers, may your shearing be mercifully
postponed till the dog days.
Pigs, too? petite, white and frisky; two hundred dollars a pair!
P-h-e-w! and such pretty little gaiter boots to be had in Broadway!
Disgusting little porkers, don’t wink your pink eyes at my Jewish
resolution.
Puppies for sale? long-eared and short-eared, shaggy and shaven,
bobtailed—curtailed—and to be re-tailed! Spaniel terrier and embryo
Newfoundland. Ho! ye unappropriated spinsters, with a superfluity of
long evenings—ye forlorn bachelors, weary of solitude and boot-jacks,
listen to these yelping applicants for your yearning affections, and
“down with the dust.”
“Nelly for sale, at twenty dollars.” Poor little antelope! The gods send
your soft, dark eyes an appreciative purchaser. I look into their
human-like depths, and invoke for you the velvety, flower-bestrewn lawn,
the silver lake, in which your graceful limbs are mirrored as you stoop
to drink, the leafy shade of fret-work leaves in the panting none-tide
heat, and the watchful eye and caressing hand of some bright young
creature, to whom the earth is one glad anthem, and whose sweet young
life (like yours) is innocent and pure.
Avaunt, pretentious peacocks, flaunting your gaudy plumage before our
sated eyes. See that beautiful “Golden Pheasant,” on whose plump little
body, clad in royal crimson, the sunlight lingers so lovingly. See the
silky fall of those flossy, golden feathers about his arching neck.
Glorious pheasant! do you know that “a thing of beauty is a joy for
ever?” Make your home with me, and feast my pen-weary eyes: flit before
me when the sunlight of happiness is clouded in, and the gray, leaden
clouds of sorrow overcast my sky; perch upon my finger; lay your soft
neck to my cheek; bring me visions of a happier shore, where love is
written on the rainbow’s arch, heard in the silver-tripping stream, seen
in the blossom-laden bough and bended blade, quivering under the weight
of dewy gems, and hymned by the quiet stars, whose ever-moving harmony
is unmarred by the discord of envy, hate, or soul-blasting
uncharitableness. Beautiful pheasant! come, bring thoughts of beauty and
peace to me!
—Loving Jenny Lind smiles upon us from yonder canvas. Would that we
might hear her little Swedish chicken-peep! Not a semiquaver careth the
mother-bird for the homage of the Old World or New. The artless clapping
of little Otto’s joyous hands drowns all the ringing plaudits wafted
across the ocean. A Dead Sea apple is fame, dear Jenny, to a true
woman’s heart. Happy to have hung thy laurel wreath on Otto’s little
cradle.
TWO PICTURES.
You will always see Mrs. Judkins in her place at the sunrise
prayer-meeting. She is secretary to the “Moral Reform,” “Abolition,”
“Branch Colporteur and Foreign Mission” Societies. She is tract
distributor, manager of an “Infant School,” cuts out all the work for
the Brown Steeple Sewing Circle; belongs to the “Select Female Prayer
Meeting!” goes to the Friday night church meeting, Tuesday evening
lecture, and the Saturday night Bible Class, and attends three services
on Sunday, Everybody says, “What an eminent Christian is Mrs. Judkins!”
Mrs. Judkins’ house and servants take care of themselves. Her little
boys run through the neighbourhood, peeping into grocery and provision
stores, loitering at the street corners, and throwing stones at the
passers-by. Her husband comes home to a disorderly house, eats
indigestible dinners, and returns to his gloomy counting-room, sighing
that his hard earnings are wasted, and his children neglected; and
sneering at the _religion_ which brings forth such questionable fruits.
* * * * *
Mrs. Brown is a church-member. Mrs. Judkins has called upon her, and
brought the tears into her mild blue eyes, by telling her that she in
particular, and the church in general, have been pained to notice Mrs.
Brown’s absence from the various religious gatherings and societies
above mentioned; that it is a matter of great grief to them that she is
so lukewarm; and does not enjoy religion as much as they do.
Mrs. Brown has a sickly infant; her husband (owing to sad reverses) is
in but indifferent circumstances; they have but one inexperienced
servant. All the household outgoings and incomings must be carefully
watched and looked after. The little wailing infant is never out of the
maternal arms, save when its short slumbers give her a momentary
reprieve. Still, the little house is in perfect order. The table
tasteful and tempting, although the bill of fare is unostententatious;
the children are obedient, respectful, happy and well cared for. Morning
and evening, amid her varied and pressing cares, she bends the knee in
secret, to Him whom her maternal heart recognizes as “My Lord and my
God.” No mantle of dust shrouds the “Holy Book.” The sacred _household_
altar flame never dies out. Little dimpled hands are reverently folded;
little lips lisping say, “Our Father.” Half a day on each returning
Sabbath finds the patient mother in her accustomed place in the
sanctuary. At her hearth and by her board the holy man of God hath
smiling welcome. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband
also, and he praiseth her;” while on high, the recording angel hath
written, “_She hath done what she could_.”
FEMININE WAITERS AT HOTELS.
“Some of our leading hotel-keepers are considering the policy of
employing female waiters.”
Good news for you, poor pale-faced seamstresses! Throw your thimbles at
the heads of your penurious employers; put on your neatest and
_plainest_ dress; see that your feet and fingers are immaculate, and
then rush _en masse_ for the situation, ousting every white jacket in
Yankeedom. Stipulate with your employers for leave to carry in the
pocket of your French apron a pistol loaded with cranberry sauce, to
plaster up the mouth of the first coxcomb who considers it necessary to
preface his request for an omelette with “_My dear_.” It is my opinion
that one such hint will be sufficient; if not, you can vary the order of
exercises, by anointing him with a “HASTY plate of soup” at dinner.
Always make a moustache wait twice as long as you do a man who wears a
clean, presentable lip. Should he undertake to expedite your slippers by
“a fee,” tell him that hotel bills are _generally_ settled at the
clerk’s office, except by _very_ verdant travellers.
Should you see a woman at the table, digging down to the bottom of the
salt cellar, as if the top stratum were two plebeian; or ordering
ninety-nine messes (turning aside from each with affected airs of
disgust), or rolling up the whites of her eyes, declaring that she never
sat down to a dinner-table before minus “finger glasses,” you may be
sure that her aristocratic blood is nourished, _at home_, on herrings
and brown bread. When a masculine comes in with a white vest, flashy
neck-tie, extraordinary looking plaid trousers, several yards of gold
chain festooned over his vest, and a mammoth seal ring on his little
finger, you may be sure that his tailor and his laundress are both on
the anxious seat; and whenever you see travellers of _either_ sex
peregrinating the country in their “best bib and tucker,” you can set
them down for unmitigated’ “snobs,” for high-bred people can’t afford to
be so extravagant!
I dare say you’ll get sick of so much pretension and humbug. Never mind;
it is better than to be stitching yourselves into a consumption over
sixpenny shirts; you’ll have your fun out of it. This would be a
horribly stupid world if everybody were sensible. I thank my stars every
day for the share of fools a kind Providence sends in my way.
LETTER TO THE EMPRESS EUGENIA.
A PARIS LETTER says:—Lady Montijo has left Paris for Spain. She was
extremely desirous of remaining and living in the reflection of her
daughter’s grandeur, but Louis Napoleon, who shares in the general
prejudice against step-mothers, gave her plainly to understand, that
because he had married Eugenia, she must not suppose he had married
her whole family. She was allowed to linger six weeks, to have the
_entrée_ of the Tuileries, and to see her movements chronicled in the
_Pays_. She has at last left us, and the telegraph mentions her
arrival at Orleans, on her way to the Peninsula.
There Teba! did not I say you would need all those two-thousand-franc
pocket-handkerchiefs before your orange wreath had begun to give signs
of wilting? Why did you let your mamma go, you little simpleton? Before
Nappy secured your neck in the matrimonial noose, you should have had it
put down, in black and white, that Madame Montijo was to live with you
till—the next revolution, if you chose to have her. Now you have struck
your colours, of course everything will “go by the board.” I tell you,
Teba, that a fool is the most unmanageable of all beings. He is as
dogged and perverse as a broken-down donkey. You can neither goad nor
coax him into doing anything he should do, or prevent his doing what he
should not do. You will have to leave Nappy and come over here;—and then
everybody will nudge somebody’s elbow and say, “That is Mrs. Teba
Napoleon, who does not live with her husband.” And some will say it is
your fault; and others will say ’tis his; and all will tell you a world
more about it, than _you_ can tell _them_.
Then, Mrs. Samuel Snip (who has the next room to yours, who murders the
queen’s English most ruthlessly, and is not quite certain whether Barnum
or Christopher Columbus discovered America) will have her Paul Pry ear
to the key-hole of your door about every other minute (except when her
husband is on duty) to find out if you are properly employed;—and no
matter what Mrs. Snip learns, or even if she does not learn anything,
she will be pretty certain to report, that, in her opinion, you are “no
better than you should be.” If you dress well (with your splendid form
and carriage you could not but seem well-dressed) she will “wonder how
you got the means to do it;” prefacing her remark with the self-evident
truth that, “to be sure, it is none of her business.”
If you let your little Napoleon get out of your sight a minute, somebody
will have him by the pinafore and put him through a catechism about his
mamma’s mode of living, and how she spends her time. If you go to
church, it will be “to show yourself;” if you stay at home, “you are a
publican and a sinner.” Do what you will, it will all be wrong: if you
do nothing, it will be still worse. Our gentlemen (so called) knowing
that you are defenceless, and taking it for granted that your name is
“Barkis,” will all stare at you; and the women will dislike and abuse
you just in proportion as the opposite sex admire you. Of course you
will sweep past them all, with that magnificent figure of yours, and
your regal chin up in the air, quietly attending to your own business,
and entirely unconscious of their pigmy existence.
MUSIC IN THE NATURAL WAY.
How often, when wedged in a heated concert room, annoyed by the creaking
of myriad fans, and tortured optically by the glare of gas-light, have
I, with a gipsy longing, wished that the four walls might be razed,
leaving only the blue sky over my head, that the tide of music might
unfettered flow over my soul.
How often, when dumb with delight, in the midst of some scene of
surpassing natural beauty, have I silently echoed the poet’s words:—
“Give me music, or I die.”
My dream was all realized at a promenade concert at Castle Garden last
night. Shall I ever forget it? That glorious expanse of sea, glittering
in the moonbeams; the little boats gliding smoothly over its polished
surface; the cool, evening zephyr, fanning the brow wooingly; the
music—soothing—thrilling—then quickening the pulse and stirring the
blood, like the sound of a trumpet; then, that rare boon, a companion,
who had the good taste to be _dumb_, and not disturb my trance.
There was one drawback. After the doxology, I noticed some
matter-of-fact wretches devouring ice-creams. May no priests be found to
give them absolution. I include, also, in this anathema, those
ever-to-be-avoided masculines, who, then and there, puffed cigar smoke
in my face, and the moon’s.
FOR LADIES THAT “GO SHOPPING.”
Matrimony and the toothache _may_ be survived, but of all the evils
feminity is heir to, defend me from a shopping excursion. But, alas!
bonnets, shoes and hose will wear out, and shopkeepers will chuckle over
the sad necessity that places the unhappy owners within their dry-goods
clutches. Felicitous Mrs. Figleaf! why taste that paradisaical apple?
Some victimised females frequent the stores where soiled and damaged
goods are skilfully announced as selling at an “immense sacrifice,” by
their public-spirited and disinterested owners. Some courageously
venture into more elegant establishments, where the claim of the
applicant to notice is measured by the costliness of her apparel, and
where clerks poise their eye-glass at any plebeian shopperess bold
enough to inquire for silk under six dollars a yard. Others, still, are
tortured at the counter of some fussy old bachelor, who always ties up,
with distressing deliberation, every parcel he takes down for
inspection, before he can open another, and moves round to execute your
orders as if Mount Atlas were fastened to his heels; or perhaps get
petrified at the store of some snap-dragon old maid, whose victims serve
as escape-valves for long years of bile, engendered by Cupid’s
oversights. Meanwhile, the vexed question is still unsolved, Where can
the penance of shopping be performed with the least possible wear and
tear of patience and prunella? The answer seems to me to be contained in
six letters—“Stewart’s.”
“_Stewart’s?_” I think I hear some old lady exclaim, dropping her
knitting and peering over her spectacles; “Stewart’s! Yes, if you have
the mines of California to back you.” Now I have a profound respect
for old ladies, as I stand self-pledged to join that respectable body
on the advent of my very first gray hair; still, with due deference to
their catnip and pennyroyal experience, I conscientiously
repeat—“_Stewart’s_.”
You may stroll through his rooms free to gaze and admire, without being
annoyed by an impertinent clerk dogging your footsteps; you can take up
a fabric and examine it, without being bored by a statement of its
immense superiority over every article of the kind in the market, or
without being deafened by a detailed account of the enormous sums that
the mushroom aristocracy have considered themselves but _too_ happy to
expend, in order to secure a dress from that very desirable, and
altogether unsurpassed, and unsurpassable, piece of goods!
You can independently say that an article does not exactly suit you,
though your husband may not stand by you with a drawn sword. You will
encounter no ogling, no impertinent cross-questioning, no tittering
whispers from the quiet, well-bred clerks, who attend to their own
business, and allow you to attend to yours.
’Tis true that you may see at Stewart’s cobweb laces an inch or two
wide, for fifty or one hundred dollars a yard, which many a brainless
butterfly of fashion is supremely happy in sporting: but at the very
next counter you may suit yourself, or your country cousin, to a
sixpenny calico or a shilling delaine; and, what is better, be quite as
sure that her verdant queries will be as respectfully answered as if a
liveried Pompey stood waiting at the door to hand her to her carriage.
You can go into the silk department, where, by a soft descending light
you will see dinner dresses that remind you of a shivered rainbow, for
_passé_ married ladies who long since ceased to celebrate their
birth-days, and who keep their budding daughters carefully immured in
the nursery; or, at the same counter, you can select a modest silk for
your minister’s wife at six shillings a yard, that will cause no
heart-burnings in the most Argus-eyed of Paul Pry parishes.
Then if you patronise those ever-to-be-abominated and
always-to-be-shunned nuisances called Parties, where fools of both sexes
gather to criticise their host and hostess, and cut up characters and
confectionery, you can step into that little room from which daylight is
excluded, and select an evening dress, _by gas-light_, upon the effect
of which you can, of course, depend, and to which artistic arrangement
many a New York belle has probably owed that much prized possession—her
“last conquest.”
Now, if you please, you can go into the upholstery-room, and furnish
your nursery windows with a cheap set of plain linen curtains; or you
can expend a small fortune in regal crimson, or soft blue damask
drapery, for your drawing-room; and without troubling yourself to thread
the never-ending streets of Gotham for an upholsteress, can have them
made by competent persons in the upper loft of the building, who will
also drape them faultlessly about your windows, should you so desire.
Now you can peep into the cloak room, and bear away on your graceful
shoulders a six, twenty, thirty, or four hundred dollar cloak, as the
length of your husband’s purse, or your own fancy (which in these
degenerate days amounts to pretty much the same thing) may suggest.
Then there is the wholesale department, where you will see shawls,
hosiery, flannels, calicoes, and delaines, sufficient to stock all the
nondescript country stores, to say nothing of city consumption.
Now, if you are not weary, you can descend (under ground) into the
carpet department, from whence you can hear the incessant roll of
full-freighted omnibuses, the ceaseless tramp of myriad restless feet,
and all the busy train of out-door life made audible in all the dialects
of Babel. Here you can see every variety of carpet, from the homespun,
unpretending straw, oil cloth, and Kidderminster, to the gorgeous
Brussels and tapestry (above whose traceried buds and flowers the
daintiest foot might well poise itself, loth to crush), up to the regal
Axminster, of Scottish manufacture, woven without seam, and warranted,
in these days of late suppers and tobacco smoking, to _last a
life-time_.
Emerging from this subterranean region, you will ascend into daylight;
and reflecting first upon all this immense outlay, and then upon the
frequent and devastating conflagrations in New York, inquire with
solicitude, Are you _insured_? and regret to learn that there is too
much risk to effect an _entire_ insurance, although Argus-eyed watchmen
keep up a night-and-day patrol throughout the handsome building.
THE OLD MERCHANT WANTS A SITUATION.
“An elderly gentleman, formerly a well-known merchant, wishes a
situation; he will engage in any respectable employment not too
laborious.”—_New York Daily Paper._
I don’t know the old man. I never saw him on ‘change, in a fine suit of
broadcloth, leaning on his gold-headed cane; while brokers, and
insurance officers, and presidents of banks raised their hats
deferentially, and the crowd respectfully made way for him. I never kept
account of the enormous taxes he annually paid the city, or saw his
gallant ships ploughing the blue ocean with their costly freight, to
foreign ports. I never saw him in his luxurious home, taking his quiet
siesta, lulled by the liquid voice of his fairy daughter. No: nor did I
hear the auctioneer’s hammer in that home, nor see the red flag
floating, like a signal of distress, before the door. I didn’t read the
letter that recalled his only boy from college, or see the humbled
family, as they passed, shrinking, over the threshold into poor
lodgings, whose landlord coarsely stipulated for “a week’s rent in
advance.”
“Any occupation not _too laborious_.” How mournfully the old man’s words
fall upon the ear! Life to commence anew, with the silver head, and bent
form, and faltering step, and palsied hand of age! With the first ray of
morning light, that hoary head must be lifted from an unquiet pillow, to
encounter the drenching rain, and driving sleet, and piercing cold. No
reprieve from that wearisome ledger, for the throbbing brow and dimmed
eye. Beardless clerks make a jest of “the old boy;” superciliously
repeating, in his sensitive ear, their mutual master’s orders. With them
he meekly receives his weekly pittance; sighing, as he counts it over,
to think of the few comforts it will bring to the drooping hearts at
home. Foot-weary, he travels through the crowded streets; his threadbare
coat, and napless hat, and dejected face, all unnoticed by the thriving
young merchant, whom the old man helped to his present prosperous
business position. The birth-days of his delicate daughter come and go,
all unmarked by the joy-bestowing gift. With trouble and exposure,
sickness comes at last; then the tardy foot, and careless, professional
touch of the callous-hearted dispensary doctor; then the poor man’s
hearse stands before the door; then winds unheeded through busy streets,
to the “Potter’s field,” while his former cotemporaries take up the
daily paper, and sipping their wine, say carelessly, as if _they_ had a
quit-claim from sorrow, “Well, Old Smith, the broken-down millionaire,
is dead.”
Ah, there are tragedies of which editors and printers little dream,
woven in their daily advertising sheets; the office boy feeds the fire
with many a tear-blotted manuscript, penned by trembling fingers, all
unused to toil.
A MOVING TALE.
The Smiths have just been moving. They always move “for the last time,”
on the first of May. “Horrid custom!” exclaims Smith, wiping the
perspiration from his brow, and pulling up his depressed dickey. “How my
blood curdles and my bones ache at the thought!” It was on Tuesday, the
third of May, that the afflicting rite was celebrated. Cartmen—four of
them—were engaged the Saturday previous, to be on hand at six o’clock on
Tuesday morning, to transport the household goods from the habitation of
’52–3 to that of ’53–4. Smith was to pay them three dollars each—twelve
dollars in all. They would not come for a mill less; Smith tried them
thoroughly.
On Monday, Smith’s house is turned into a sort of bedlam, minus the
beds. They are tied up, ready for the next morning’s Hegira; the Smiths
sleeping on the floor on Monday night. Smith can’t sleep on the floor;
he grows restless; he receives constant reminders from Mrs. Smith to
take his elbow out of the baby’s face; he has horrid visions, and rolls
about; therefore, he is not at all surprised, on waking at cock-crow, to
find his head in the fire-place, and his hair powdered with soot. The
occasion of his waking at that time, was a dream of an unpleasant
nature. He dreamed that he had rolled off the world backwards, and
lodged in a thorn-bush. Of course, such a thing was slightly improbable;
but how could Smith be responsible for a dream?
On Tuesday morning the Smiths are up with the dawn. The household being
mustered, it is found that the servant girl, who had often averred that,
“she lived out just for a little exercise,” had deserted her colours.
The grocer at the corner politely informs Smith (whom Mrs. S. had sent
on an errand of inquiry), that, on the night previous, the servant left
with him a message for her employers, to the effect that “she didn’t
consider moving the genteel thing at all; and that a proper regard for
her character and position in society had induced her to get a situation
in the family of a gentleman who owned the house he lived in.”
This is severe: Smith feels it keenly; Mrs. Smith leans her head against
her husband’s vest pattern, and says “She is quite crushed,” and
“wonders how Smith can have the heart to whistle. But it is always so,”
she remarks. “Woman is the weaker vessel, and man delights to trample on
her.” Smith indignantly denies this sweeping assertion, and says “he
tramples on nothing;” when Mrs. Smith points to a bandbox containing her
best bonnet, which he has just put his foot through. Smith is silent.
The cartmen were to be on the premises at six o’clock. Six o’clock
comes—half-past six—seven o’clock—but no cartmen. Here is a dilemma! The
successors to the Smiths are to be on the ground at eight o’clock; and
being on the ground, they will naturally wish to get into the house;
which they cannot well do, unless the Smiths are out of it.
Smith takes a survey of his furniture, with a feeling of intense
disgust. He wishes his cumbrous goods were reduced to the capacity of a
carpet-bag, which he could pick up and walk away with. The mirrors and
pianoforte are his especial aversion. The latter is a fine instrument,
with an Eolian attachment. He wishes it had a sheriff’s attachment; in
fact, he would have been obliged to any officer who should, at that
wretched moment, have sold out the whole establishment, at the most
“ruinous sacrifice” ever imagined by an auctioneer’s fertile
“marvellousness.”
—Half-past seven, and no cartmen yet. What is to be done? Ah! here they
come, at last. Smith is at a loss to know what excuse they will make.
Verdant Smith! _They make no excuse._ They simply tell him, with an air
which demands his congratulations, that they “picked up a nice job by
the way, and stopped to do it.” “You see,” says the principal, “we goes
in for all we can get, these times, and there’s no use of anybody’s
grumbling. Kase, you see, if one don’t want us, another will; and it’s
no favour for anybody to employ us a week either side the first of May.”
The rascal grins as he says this; and Smith, perceiving the strength of
the cartman’s position, wisely makes no reply.
They begin to load. Just as they get fairly at work, the Browns (the
Smiths’ successors) arrive, with an appalling display of stock. Brown is
a vulgar fellow, who has suddenly become rich, and whose ideas of
manliness all centre in brutality. He is furious because the Smiths are
not “clean gone.” He “can’t wait there, all day, in the street.” He
orders his men to “carry the things into the house,” and heads the
column himself with a costly rocking-chair in his arms. As Brown comes
up with his rocking-chair, Smith, at the head of his men, descends, with
a bureau, from the second floor.
“They met, ’twas in a crowd”—
on the stairs, and Smith
“Thought that Brown would shun him,”
—but he didn’t! The consequence was, they came in collision: or, rather,
Smith’s bureau and Brown’s rocking-chair came in collision. Now, said
bureau was an old-fashioned, hardwood affair, made for service, while
Brown’s rocking-chair was a flimsy, showy fabric, of modern make. The
meeting on the stairs occasions some squeezing, and more stumbling, and
Brown suddenly finds himself and chair under the bureau, to the great
injury of his person and his furniture. (Brown has since recovered, but
the case of the rocking-chair is considered hopeless.) This discomfiture
incenses the Browns to a high degree, and they determine to be as
annoying as possible; so they persist in bringing their furniture into
the house, and upstairs, as the Smiths are carrying theirs out of the
house, and down stairs. Collisions are, of course, the order of the day;
but the Smiths do not mind this much, as they have a great advantage,
_viz.: their furniture is not half so good as Brown’s_. After a few
smashes, Brown receives light on this point, and orders his forces to
remain quiet, while the foe evacuates the premises; so the Smiths retire
in peace—and much of their furniture in pieces.
The four carts form quite a respectable procession; but there is no
disguising the fact that the furniture looks very shabby (and whose
furniture does not look shabby, piled on carts?); so the Smiths
prudently take a back street, that no one may accuse them of owning it.
Smith has to carry the baby and a large mirror, which Mrs. S. was afraid
to trust to the cartmen, there being no insurance on either. It being a
windy day, both the mirror and Smith’s hat veer to all points of the
compass, while the baby grows very red in the face at not being able to
possess himself of them. Between the wind, the mirror, his hat and the
baby, Smith has an unpleasant walk of it.
About ten o’clock, they arrive at their new residence, and find, to
their horror, that their predecessors have not begun to move. They
inquire the reason. The feminine head of the family informs them, with
tears in her eyes, that her husband (Mr. Jonas Jenkins) has been sick in
Washington for five weeks; that, in consequence of his affliction, they
have not been able to provide a new tenement; that she is quite unwell,
and that one of her children (she has six) is ill, also; that she don’t
know what is to become of them, &c., &c. Smith sets his hat on the back
of his head, gives a faint tug at his neck-tie, and confesses
himself—quenched! His furniture looks more odious every minute. He once
felt much pride it, but he feels none now: he feels only disgust. The
cartmen begin to growl out that they “can’t stand here all day,” and
request to be informed “where we shall drop the big traps.” Hereupon,
Smith ventures, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, to inquire of Mrs.
Jenkins why she didn’t tell him, when he called, on Saturday, of her
inability to procure a house? To which that lady innocently replies that
she “didn’t wish to give him any unnecessary trouble!” which reply
satisfies him as to Mrs. Jenkins’ claim to force of intellect.
At this juncture Smith falls into a profound reverie. He thinks that,
after all, Fourier is right—“that the Solidarity of the human race is an
entity;” that “nobody can be happy until everybody is happy.” He agrees
with the great philosopher, that the “series distributes the harmonies.”
He realizes that “society is organized (or rather disorganized) on a
wrong basis;” that it is an “amorphous condition,” whereas it should be
“crystallized.” With our celebrated “down east” poet, Ethan Spike, Esq.,
he begins to think that,
“The etarnal bung is loose,”
and that, unless it be soon tightened, there is danger that
“All natur’ will be spilt.”
He comes to the conclusion, finally, that “something must be done,” and
that speedily, to “secure a home for every family.”
At this point he is aroused by his tormentors, the cartmen, who inform
him that they are in a “Barkis” state of mind (willin’) to receive their
twelve dollars. Smith pays the money, and turns to examine the premises.
He finds that Mrs. Jenkins has packed all her things in the back
basement and the second-floor sitting-room. Poor thing! she has done her
best, after all. She is in ill health; her husband is sick, and away
from home; and her children are not well. God pity the unfortunate who
live in cities, especially in the “moving season.” But Smith is a
kind-hearted man. With a few exceptions, the Smiths are a kind-hearted
race—and that’s probably the reason they are so numerous.
Smith puts on a cheerful countenance, and busies himself in arranging
his furniture. Mrs. Smith, kind soul, forgets the destruction of her
bandbox and bonnet, and cares not how long or how loud Smith whistles.
Suddenly the prospect brightens! Mrs. Jenkins’ brother-in-law appears,
and announces that he has found rooms for her, a little higher up town.
Cartmen are soon at the door, and the Jenkinses are on their “winding
way” to their new residence.
—But the Smiths’ troubles are not yet over. The painters, who were to
have had the house all painted the day before, have done nothing but
leave their paint-pots in the hall, and a little Smithling, being of an
investigating turn of mind, and hungry withal, attempts to make a late
breakfast off the contents of one of them. He succeeds in eating enough
to disgust him with his bill of fare, and frighten his mamma into
hysterics. A doctor is sent for: he soon arrives, and, after attending
to the mother, gives the young adventurer a facetious chuck under the
chin, and pronounces him perfectly safe. The parents are greatly
relieved, for Willy is a pet; and they confidently believe him destined
to be President of the United States, if they can only keep paint-pots
out of his way.
It takes the Smiths some ten days to get “to rights.” The particulars of
their further annoyances—how the carpets didn’t fit; how the cartmen
“lost the pieces;” how the sofas couldn’t be made to look natural; how
the pianoforte was too large to stand behind the parlour door, and too
small to stand between the front windows; how the ceiling was too low,
and the book-case too high; how a bottle of indelible ink got into the
bureau by mistake and “marked” all Mrs. Smith’s best dresses—I forbear
to inflict on the reader. Suffice it to say, the Smiths are in “a
settled state;” although their apartments give signs of the recent
manifestation of a strong disturbing force—reminding one, somewhat, of a
“settlement” slowly recovering from the visitation of an earthquake.
Still, they are thankful for present peace, and are determined,
_positively_, not to move again—until next May.
THIS SIDE AND THAT.
I am weary of this hollow show and glitter—weary of fashion’s
stereotyped lay-figures—weary of smirking fops and brainless belles,
exchanging their small coin of flattery and their endless genuflexions:
let us go out of Broadway—somewhere, anywhere. Turn round the wheel,
Dame Fortune, and show up the other side.
“The Tombs!”—we never thought to be there! nevertheless, we are not to
be frightened by a grated door or a stone wall, so we pass in; leaving
behind the soft wind of this Indian summer day, to lift the autumn
leaves as gently as does a loving nurse her drooping child.
We gaze into the narrow cells, and draw a long breath. Poor creatures,
tempted and tried. How many to whom the world now pays its homage, who
sit in high places, _should_ be in their stead? God knoweth. See them,
with their pale faces pressed up against the grated windows, or pacing
up and down their stone floors, like chained beasts. There is a little
boy not more than ten years old; what has _he_ done?
“Stolen a pair of shoes!”
Poor child! he never heard of “Swartout.” How should he know that he was
put in there not for _stealing, but for doing it on so small a scale_?
Hist! Do you see that figure seated in the further corner of that cell,
with his hands crossed on his knees? His whole air and dress are those
of a gentleman. How came such a man as that here?
“For murder?” How sad! Ah! somewhere in the length and breadth of the
land a mother’s heart is aching because she spared the rod to spoil the
child.
There is a coffin, untenanted as yet, but kept on hand; for Death laughs
at bolts and fetters, and many a poor wretch is borne struggling within
these gloomy walls, only to be carried to his last home, while none but
God may ever know at whose fireside stands his vacant chair.
And here is a woman’s cell. There are two or three faded dresses hanging
against the walls, and a bonnet, for which she has little use. Her
friends have brought her some bits of carpeting, which she has spread
over the stone floor, with her womanly love of order (poor thing), to
make the place look _home-like_. And there is a crucifix in the corner.
See, she kneels before it! May the Holy Virgin’s blessed Son, who said
to the sinning one, “Neither do I condemn thee,” send into her stricken
heart the balm of holy peace.
Who is that? No! it _cannot_ be—but, yes, it is he—and what a wreck!
See, he shrinks away, and a bright flush chases the marble paleness from
his check. God bless me! That R—— should come to this! Still,
Intemperance, with her thousand voices, crieth. “Give! give!” and still,
alas! it is the gifted, and generous, and warm-hearted, who oftenest
answer the summons.
More cells?—but there is no bed in them; only a wooden platform, raised
over the stone floor. It is for gutter drunkards—too foul, too loathsome
to be placed upon a bed—turned in here like swine, to wallow in the same
slough. Oh, how few, who, festively sipping the rosy wine, say “_my_
mountain stands strong,” e’er dream of such an end as this.
Look there! tread softly: angels are near us. Through the grated window
the light streams faintly upon a little pallet, where, sweet as a dream
of heaven, lies a sleeping babe! Over its cherub face a smile is
flitting. The cell has no other occupant; angels only watch the slumbers
of the prison-cradled. The place is holy. I stoop to kiss its forehead.
From the crowd of women pacing up and down the guarded gallery, one
slides gently to my side, saying, half proudly, half sadly, “’Tis _my_
babe.”
“It is _so_ sweet, and pure, and holy,” said I.
The mother’s lip quivers; wiping away a tear with her apron, she says in
a choking voice:
“Ah, it is little the likes of you, ma’am, know how hard it is for us to
get the honest bread!”
God be thanked, thought I, that there is one who “judgeth _not_ as man
judgeth;” who holdeth evenly the scales of justice; who weigheth against
our sins the _whirlpool_ of our temptations; who forgetteth never the
countless struggles for the victory, ere the desponding, weary heart
shuts out the light of Heaven.
MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH’S PHILOSOPHY.
Dear me! how expensive it is to be poor. Every time I go out, my best
bib and tucker has to go on. If Zebedee were worth a cool million, I
might wear a coal-hod on my head, if I chose, with perfect impunity.
There was that old nabob’s wife at the lecture, the other night, in a
dress that might have been made for Noah’s great grandmother. She can
afford it! Now, if it rains knives and forks, I must sport a ten dollar
hat, a forty-dollar dress, and a hundred dollar shawl. If I go to a
concert, I must take the highest priced seat, and ride there and back,
just to let “Tom, Dick, and Harry” see that I can afford it. Then we
must hire the most expensive pew in the broad-aisle of a tip-top church,
and give orders to the sexton not to admit any strangers into it who
look snobbish! Then my little children, Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna
Maria Smith, can’t go to a public school, because, you know, we
shouldn’t have to pay anything.
Then if I go shopping, to buy a paper of needles, I have to get a little
chap to bring them home, because it wouldn’t answer for me to be seen
carrying a bundle through the streets. We have to keep three servants
where one might do; and Zebedee’s coats have to be sent to the tailor
when they want a button sewed on, for the look of the thing.
Then if I go to the sea-shore in summer, I can’t take my comfort, as
rich people do, in gingham dresses, loose shoes, and cambric
sun-bonnets. No! I have to be done up by ten o’clock in a Swiss-muslin
dress and a French cap; and my Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria can’t
go off the piazza, because the big rocks and little pebbles cut their
toes so badly through their patent kid slippers.
Then if Zebedee goes a fishing, he dare not put on a linen coat for the
price of his reputation. No, indeed! Why, he never goes to the barn-yard
without drawing on his white kids. Then he orders the most ruinous wines
at dinner, and fees those white jackets till his purse is as empty as an
egg-shell. I declare it is abominably expensive. I don’t believe rich
people have the least idea how much it costs poor people to live!
A LANCE COUCHED FOR THE CHILDREN.
You have a pretty, attractive child; she is warm-hearted and
affectionate, but vivacious and full of life. With judicious management,
and a firm, steady rein, she is a very loveable one. You take her with
you on a visit, or to make a call. You are busy, talking with the friend
you went to see. A gentleman comes in and throws himself indolently on
the sofa. His eye falls upon little Kitty. He is just in the mood to be
amused, and makes up his mind to banter her a little, for the sake of
drawing her out. So he says—
“Jemima, dear—come here!”
The child blushes, and regards him as if uncertain whether he intended
to address her. He repeats his request, with a laugh. She replies, “My
name is Kitty, not Jemima,” which her tormentor contradicts. Kitty looks
puzzled (just as he intended she should), but it is only for a moment.
She sees he is quizzing her. Well, Miss Kitty likes a frolic, if that is
what he wants; so she gives him a pert answer—he laughs uproariously,
and rattles fun round her little ears like a hail storm; Kitty has
plenty of answers ready for him, and he enjoys the sport amazingly.
By-and-by, he gets weary, and says,—“There—run away now, I’m going to
read the newspaper;” but Kitty is wide awake, and has no idea of being
cut short in that summary way; so she continues her Lilliputian attacks,
till finally he gets up and beats a despairing retreat, muttering, “what
a very _disagreeable_ child.”
Mamma sees it all from a distance; she does not interfere—no—for she
believes in “Children’s Rights.” Kitty was quiet, well behaved and
respectful—till the visitor undertook to quiz, and teaze her, for his
own amusement. He wanted a frolic—and he has had it: they _who play with
children must take children’s play_.
A CHAPTER ON HOUSEKEEPING.
I never could see the reason why your smart housekeepers must, of
necessity, be Xantippes. I once had the misfortune to be domesticated
during the summer months with one of this genus.
I should like to have seen the adventurous spider that would have dared
to ply his cunning trade in Mrs. Carrot’s premises! Nobody was allowed
to sleep a wink after daylight, beneath her roof. Even her old rooster
crowed one hour earlier than any of her neighbours’. “Go ahead,” was
written on every broomstick in the establishment.
She gave her husband his breakfast, buttoned up his overcoat, and put
him out of the front door, with his face in the direction of the store,
in less time than I have taken to tell it. Then she snatched up the six
little Carrots; scrubbed their faces, up and down, without regard to
feelings or noses, till they shone like a row of milk pans.
“Clear the track,” was her motto, on washing and ironing days. She never
drew a long breath till the wash-tubs were turned bottom upwards again,
and every article of wearing apparel sprinkled, folded, ironed, and
replaced on the backs of their respective owners. It gave me a stitch in
the side to look at her!
As to her “cleaning days,” I never had courage to witness one. I used to
lie under an apple-tree in the orchard, till she was through. A whole
platoon of soldiers wouldn’t have frightened me so much as that virago
and her mop.
You should have seen her in her glory on “baking days;” her sleeves
rolled up to her arm-pits, and a long, check apron swathed around her
bolster-like figure. The great oven glowing, blazing, and sparkling, in
a manner very suggestive, to a lazy sinner like myself. The interminable
rows of greased pie-plates; the pans of rough and ready gingerbread; the
pots of pork and beans, in an edifying state of progression; and the
immense embryo loaves of brown and wheaten bread. To my innocent
inquiry, whether she thought the latter would “rise,” she set her skinny
arms akimbo, marched up within kissing distance of my face, cocked her
head on one side, and asked “if I thought she looked like a woman to be
trifled with by a loaf of bread!” The way I settled down into my
slippers, without a reply, probably convinced her that I was no longer
sceptical on that point.
Saturday evening she employed in winding up everything that was unwound
in the house—the old entry clock included. From that time till Monday
morning, she devoted to her husband and Sabbatical exercises. All I have
to say is, it is to be hoped she carried some of the fervour of her
secular employment into those halcyon hours.
[Illustration]
A FERN REVERIE.
Dear me, I must go shopping. Shopping is a nuisance; clerks are
impertinent; feminity is victimized. Miserable day, too; mud plastered
an inch thick on the side-walk. Well, if we drop our skirts, gentlemen
cry “Ugh!” and if we lift them from the mud, they level their
eye-glasses at our ankles. The true definition of a gentleman (not found
in incomplete Webster) is—a biped, who, of a muddy day is perfectly
oblivious of anything but the shop signs.
_Vive la France!_ Ingenious Parisians, send us over your clever
invention—a chain suspended from the girdle, at the end of which is a
gold _hand_ to clasp up the superfluous length of our promenading robes;
thus releasing our human digits, and leaving them at liberty to wrestle
with rude Boreas for the possession of the detestable little sham
bonnets, which the milliners persist in hanging on the backs of our
necks.
Well, here we are at Call and Ketchum’s dry-goods store. Now comes the
tug of war; let Job’s mantle fall on my feminine shoulders.
“Have you _blue_ silk?”
Yardstick, entirely ignorant of colours, after fifteen minutes of
snail-like research, hands me down a silk that is as _green_ as himself.
Oh! away with these stupid masculine clerks, and give us _women_, who
know by intuition what we want, to the immense saving of our lungs and
leather.
Here’s Mr. Timothy Tape’s establishment.
“Have you lace collars (in points), Mr. Tape?”
Mr. Tape looks beneficent, and shows me some _rounded_ collars. I repeat
my request in the most pointed manner for _pointed_ collars. Mr. Tape
replies, with a patronizing grin:—
“Points is going out, Ma’am.”
“So am I.”
Dear me, how tired my feet are! nevertheless, I must have some merino.
So I open the door of Mr. Henry Humbug’s dry-goods store, which is about
half a mile in length, and inquire for the desired article. Young
Yardstick directs me to the counter at the _extreme_ end of the store. I
commence my travels thither-ward through a file of gaping clerks, and
arrive there just ten minutes before two by my repeater; when I am told
“they are quite out of merinos; but won’t Lyonnese cloth do just as
well?” pulling down a pile of the same. I rush out in a high state of
frenzy, and, taking refuge in the next-door neighbour’s, inquire for
some stockings. Whereupon the clerk inquires (of the wrong customer),
“What price I wish to pay?” Of course, I am not so verdant as to be
caught in that trap; and, teetotally disgusted with the entire
institution of shopping, I drag my weary limbs into Taylor’s new saloon
to rest.
Bless me! what a display of gilding, and girls, and gingerbread! what a
heap of mirrors! There’s more than one FANNY FERN in the world. I found
that out since I came in.
“What will you be pleased to have?” J-u-l-i-u-s C-æ-s-a-r! look at that
white aproned waiter pulling out his snuff-box and taking a pinch of
snuff right over that bowl of white sugar, that will be handed me in
five minutes to sweeten my tea! And there’s another combing his hair
with a pocket-comb over that dish of oysters.
“What will I have?” Starve me if I’ll have anything till I can find a
cleaner place than this to eat in.
Shade of old Paul Pry Boston! what do I hear? Two—well I declare, I am
not sure whether they are ladies or women; I don’t understand these New
York femininities. At any rate, they wear bonnets, and are telling the
waiter to bring them “a bottle of Maraschino de Zara, some sponge-cake,
and some brandy drops!” See them sip the cordial in their glasses, with
the gusto of old topers. See their eyes sparkle and their cheeks flush,
and just hear their emancipated little tongues go. Wonder if their
husbands know that they—but of course they don’t. However, it is six of
one and half-a-dozen of the other. They are probably turning down
sherry-cobblers, and eating oysters, at Florence’s; and their poor
hungry children (while their parents are dainty-izing) are coming home
hungry from school, to eat a fragmentary dinner picked up at home by a
lazy set of servants.
Heigho! Ladies sipping wine in a public saloon! Pilgrim rock! hide
yourself underground! Well, it is very shocking the number of married
women who pass their time ruining their health in these saloons,
devouring Parisian confectionery, and tainting their children’s blood
with an appetite for strong drink. Oh, what a mockery of a home must
theirs be! Heaven pity the children reared there, left to the chance
training of vicious hirelings.
A “BROWN STUDY”—SUGGESTED BY BROWN VAILS.
“Why _will_ ladies wear those ugly brown veils, which look like the
burnt edge of a buckwheat cake? We vote for green ones.”—_Exchange._
MR. CRITIC: Why don’t you hit upon something objectionable? Such as the
passion which stout ladies have for wearing immense plaids, and whole
stories of flounces! Such as thin, bolster-like looking females-wearing
narrow’ stripes! Such as brunettes, gliding round like ghosts, in pale
blue! Such as blondes blowing out like dandelions in bright yellow! Such
as short ladies swathing up their little fat necks in voluminous folds
of shawls, and _shingle_ women rejoicing in strips of mantles!
_Then the gentlemen!_
Your stout man is sure to get into a frock coat, with baggy trousers;
your May-pole, into a long-waisted body-coat, and “continuations”
unnecessarily compact; your dark man looks like an “east wind”
daguerreotyped, in a light blue neck-tie; while your pink-and-white man
looks as though he wanted a pitcher of water in his face.
Now allow _me_ to suggest. Your thin man should always close the thorax
button of his coat, and the last two at his waistband, leaving the
intermediate open, to give what he needs—more breadth of chest. Your
stout man, who has almost always a nice arm and hand, should have his
coat sleeve a _perfect fit_ from the elbow to the wrist, buttoning
_there tightly_—allowing a nice strip of a white linen wristband below
it.
I understand the architecture of a coat to a charm; know as quick as a
flash whether ’tis all right, the minute I clap my eye on it. As to
vests, I call myself a connoisseur. “_Stocks_” are only fit for Wall
Street! Get yourself some nice silk neck-ties, and ask your wife, or
somebody who knows something, to longitudinize them to your jugular.
Throw your coloured, embroidered, and ruffled shirt-bosoms overboard;
leave your cane and cigar at home; wear a pair of neat, _dark_ gloves;
sport an immaculate pocket-handkerchief and dickey—don’t say naughty
words—give us ladies the _inside_ of the walk—speak of every woman as
you would wish _your_ mother or _your_ sister spoken of, and you’ll do!
INCIDENT AT THE FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY.
To be able to appreciate Mr. Pease’s toils, and sacrifices, and
self-denying labours at the Five Points House of Industry, one must
visit the locality—one must wind through those dirty streets and alleys,
and see the wrecks of humanity that meet him at every step—he must see
children so dirty and squalid that they scarcely resemble human beings,
playing in filthy gutters, and using language that would curdle his
blood to hear from _childhood’s_ lips—he should see men, “made in God’s
own image,” brutalised beyond his power to imagine—he should see women
(girls of not more than twenty years) reeling about the pavements in a
state of beastly intoxication, without a trace of feminity in their
vicious faces—he should pass the rum shops, where men and women are
quarrelling, and fighting, and swearing, while childhood listens and
_learns_!—he should pass the second-hand clothes cellars, where
hard-featured Jewish dealers swing out faded, refuse garments (pawned by
starving virtue for bread), to sell to the needy, half-naked emigrant
for his last penny—he should see decayed fruit and vegetables which the
most ravenous swine might well root twice over before devouring,
purchased as daily food by these poor creatures—he should see _gentlemen
(?)_ threading these streets, not to make all this misery less, God
knows, but to sever the last thread of hope to which many a tempted one
is despairingly clinging.
One must see all this before he can form a just idea of the magnitude
and importance of the work that Mr. Pease has single-handed and nobly
undertaken; remembering that men of wealth and influence have their own
reasons for using that wealth and influence to perpetuate this modern
Sodom.
One should spend an hour in Mr. Pease’s house, to see the constant
draughts upon his time and strength, in the shape of calls and messages,
and especially the applications for relief that _his_ slender purse,
alas! is often not able to answer;—he should see his unwearied patience
and activity, admire the kind, sympathetic heart—unaffected by the toil
or the frowns of temporizing theorists—ever warm, ever pitiful, giving
not only “the _crumbs_ from his table,” but often his own meals to the
hungry—his own wardrobe to the naked;—he should see _this_, and go away
_ashamed_ to have lived so long and done so little to help the maimed,
and sick, and lame, to Bethesda’s Pool.
I will relate an incident which occurred, some time since, at the House
of Industry, and which serves as a fair sample of daily occurrences
there.
One morning an aged lady, of respectable appearance, called at the
Mission House and inquired for Mr. Pease. She was told that he was
engaged, and asked if some one else would not do as well. She said,
respectfully, “No; my business is with him; I will wait, if you please,
till he can see me.”
Mr. Pease immediately came in, when the old lady commenced her story:—
“I come, sir,” said she, “in behalf of a poor, unfortunate woman and
three children. She is living now”—and the tears dropped over her
wrinkled face—“in a bad place in Willet Street, in a basement. There are
rum shops all around it, and many drunken people about the
neighbourhood. She has made out to pay the rent, but has had no food for
the poor little children, who have subsisted on what they could manage
to beg in the daytime. The landlord promised, when she hired the
basement, to put a lock on the door, and make it comfortable, so that
‘the Croton’ need not run in; but he got his rent and then broke his
promise, and they have not seen him since.”
“Is the woman respectable?” inquired Mr. Pease.
“Yes—no—not exactly,” said the poor old lady, violently agitated. “She
was well brought up. She has a good heart, sir, but a bad head, and then
trouble has discouraged her. Poor Mary—yes, sir, it _must_ have been the
_trouble_—for I know her _heart_ is good, sir. I,”—tears choked the old
lady’s utterance. Recovering herself, she continued:—
“She had a kind husband once. He was the father of her two little girls:
six years ago he died, and—the poor thing—oh, sir, you don’t know how
dear she is to _me_!”—and burying her aged face in her hands, she sobbed
aloud.
Mr. Pease’s kind heart interpreted the old lady’s emotion, without the
pain of an explanation. In the weeping woman before him he saw the
_mother_ of the lost one.
Yes, she was “Mary’s” mother. Poverty could not chill her love; shame
and the world’s scorn had only filled her with a God-like pity.
After a brief pause, she brushed away her tears and went on:—
“Yes, sir; Mary was a good child to me _once_; she respected religion
and religious people, and used to love to go to church; but lately, sir,
God knows she has almost broken my heart. Last spring I took her home,
and the three dear children; but she would not listen to me, and left
without telling me where she was going. I heard that there was a poor
woman living in a basement in Willet Street, with three children, and my
heart told me that that was my poor, lost Mary, and there I found her.
But, oh, sir—oh, sir”—and she sobbed as if her heart were
breaking—“_such_ a place! _My_ Mary, that I used to cradle in these arms
to sleep, that lisped her little evening prayer at _my_ knee—_my_ Mary,
_drunk_ in that terrible place!”
She was getting so agitated that Mr. Pease, wishing to turn the current
of her thoughts, asked her if she herself was a member of any church.
She said yes, of the —— Street Baptist Church. She said she was a widow,
and had had one child beside Mary—a son. And her face lighted up as she
said:—
“Oh, sir, he was such a _fine_ lad. He did all he could to make me
happy; but he thought, that if he went to California he could make
money, and when he left he said, ‘Cheer up, dear mother; I’ll come back
and give my money all to _you_, and you shall never work any more.’
“I can see him now, sir, as he stood there, with his eye kindling. Poor
lad! poor lad! He came back, but it was only to die. His last words
were, ‘God will care for you, mother—I know it—when I’m gone to Heaven.’
Oh! if I could have seen my poor _girl_ die as he did, before she became
so bad. Oh, sir, _won’t_ you take her _here_?—_won’t_ you try to make
her good?—_can’t_ you make her good, sir? I _can’t_ give Mary up. Nobody
cares for Mary now but me. Won’t you try, sir?”
Mr. Pease promised that he would do all he could, and sent a person out
with the old lady, to visit “Mary,” and obtain particulars; he soon
returned and corroborated all the old lady’s statements. Mr. Pease then
took a friend and started to see what could be done.
In Willet Street is a rickety old wooden building, filled to overflowing
with the very refuse of humanity. The basement is lighted with two small
windows half under ground; and in this wretched hole lived Mary and her
children. As Mr. Pease descended the steps into the room, he heard some
one say, “Here he comes, grandmother; he’s come—he’s come!”
The door was opened. On a pile of rags in the corner lay Mary, “my
Mary,” as the old lady tearfully called her.
God of mercy! what a wreck of beautiful womanhood! Her large blue eyes
glared with maniac wildness, under the influence of intoxication. Long
waves of auburn hair fell, in tangled masses, over a form wasted, yet
beautiful in its graceful outlines.
Poor, lost Mary!
“_Such_ a place!” as her mother had, weeping, said. Not a table or
chair, or bedstead, or article of furniture in it of any description. On
the mantel-piece stood a beer-bottle, with a half-burnt candle in its
neck. A few broken, dirty dishes stood upon the shelf, and a quantity of
filthy rags lay scattered round the floor.
The grandmother was holding by the hand a sweet child of eight years,
with large, bright eyes, and auburn hair (like poor Mary’s) falling
about her neck. An older girl of twelve, with a sweet Madonna face, that
seemed to light up even _that_ wretched place with a beam of Heaven,
stood near, bearing in her arms a babe of sixteen months, which was not
so large as one of eight months should have been. Its little hands
looked like birds’ claws, and its little bones seemed almost piercing
the skin.
The old lady went up to her daughter, saying, “Mary, dear, this is the
gentleman who is willing to take you to his house if you will try to be
good.”
“Get out of the room, you old hypocrite,” snarled the intoxicated woman,
“or I’ll——(and she clutched a hatchet beside her)—I’ll show you! You are
the worst old woman I ever knew, except the one you brought in here the
other day, and she is a fiend outright. Talk to _me_ about being
_good_!—ha—ha!”—and she laughed an idiotic laugh.
“Mother,” said the eldest child, sweetly laying her little hand upon her
arm,—“_dear_ mother, don’t, please don’t hurt grandmother. She is good
and kind to us: she only wants to get you out of this bad place, to
where you will be treated kindly.”
“Yes, dear mother,” chimed in the younger sister, bending her little
curly head over her, “mother, you said once you _would_ go. Don’t keep
us here any longer, mother. We are cold and hungry. Please get up and
take us away; we are afraid to stay here, mother dear.”
“Yes, Mary,” said the old lady, handing her down a faded, ragged gown,
“here is your dress; put it on, won’t you?”
Mary raised herself on the pile of rags on which she was lying, and
pushing the eldest child across the room, screamed out, “Get away, you
impudent little thing! you are just like your old grandmother. I tell
you _all_,” said she, raising herself on one elbow, and tossing back her
auburn hair from her broad white forehead, “I tell you all, I _never_
will go from here, _never_! I _love_ this place. So many fine people
come here, and we have such good times. There is a gentleman who takes
care of me. He brought me some candles last night, and he says that I
shan’t want for anything, if I will only get rid of these troublesome
children—_my husband’s_ children.” And she hid her face in her hands and
laughed convulsively.
“You may have _them_,” she continued, “just as soon as you like—baby and
all! but I never will go from this place. I _love_ it. A great many fine
people come here to see me.”
The poor old lady wrung her hands and wept, while the children clung
round their grandmother, with half-averted faces, trembling and silent.
Mr. Pease said to her, “Mary, you may either go with me, or I’ll send
for an officer, and have you carried to the station-house. Which will
you do?”
Mary cursed and raved, but finally put on the dress the old lady handed
her, and consented to go with them. A carriage was soon procured, and
Mary helped inside—Mr. Pease lifting in the baby and the two little
girls; and away they started for the Five Points House of Industry.
“Oh, mother!” exclaimed the younger of the girls, “how very pleasant it
is to ride in this nice carriage, and to get away from that dirty place;
we shall be so happy now, mother; and Edith and the baby too: see, he is
laughing: he likes to ride. You will love sister Edith and baby, and me,
_now_, won’t you, dear mother? and you won’t frighten us with the
hatchet any more, or hurt dear grandmother, will you?”
Arriving at Mr. Pease’s house, the delight of the little creatures was
unbounded. They caught hold of their mother’s faded dress, saying,
“Didn’t we _tell_ you, mother, that you would have a pleasant home here?
Only see that nice garden! You didn’t have a garden in Willet Street,
mother!”
Reader, would you know that mother’s after history?
Another “Mary” hath “bathed the Saviour’s feet” with her tears, and
wiped them with the hairs of her head. Her name is no longer written
Mary _Magdalena_. In the virtuous home of her aged mother, she sits
clothed in her right mind, “and her children rise up and call her
_blessed_.”
APOLLO HYACINTH.
“There is no better test of moral excellence than the keenness of
one’s sense, and the depth of one’s love, of all that is
beautiful.”—_Donohue._
I don’t endorse that sentiment. I am acquainted with Apollo Hyacinth. I
have read his prose, and I have read his poetry; and I have cried over
both, till my heart was as soft as my head, and my eyes were as red as a
rabbit’s. I have listened to him in public, when he was, by turns,
witty, sparkling, satirical, pathetic, till I could have added a codicil
to my will, and left him all my worldly possessions; and possibly you
have done the same. He has, perhaps, grasped you cordially by the hand,
and, with a beaming smile, urged you, in his musical voice, to “call on
him and Mrs. Hyacinth;” and you have called: but, did you ever find him
“in?” You have invited him to visit you, and have received a “gratified
acceptance,” in his elegant chirography; but, _did he ever come_? He has
borrowed money of you, in the most elegant manner possible; and, as he
deposited it in his beautiful purse, he has assured you, in the choicest
and most happily chosen language, that he “should never forget your
kindness;” but, _did he ever pay_?
Should you die to-morrow, Apollo would write a poetical obituary notice
of you, which would raise the price of pocket-handkerchiefs; but should
your widow call on him in the course of a month, to solicit his
patronage to open a school, she would be told “he was out of town,” and
that it was “quite uncertain when he would return.”
Apollo has a large circle of relatives; but his “keenness of perception,
and deep love of the beautiful,” are so great, that none of them
_exactly_ meet his views. His “moral excellence,” however, does not
prevent his making the most of them. He has a way of dodging them
adroitly, when they call for a reciprocation, either in a business or a
social way; or if, at any time, there is a necessity for inviting them
to his house, he does it when he is at his _country_ residence, where
their _greenness_ will not be out of place.
Apollo never says an uncivil thing—never; he prides himself on that, as
well as on his perfect knowledge of human nature; therefore, his sins
are all sins of omission. His tastes are very exquisite, and his nature
peculiarly sensitive; consequently, he cannot bear trouble. He will tell
you, in his elegant way, that trouble “annoys” him, that it “bores” him;
in short, that it unfits him for life—for business; so, should you hear
that a friend or relative of his, even a brother or a sister, was in
distress, or persecuted in any manner, you could not do Apollo a greater
injury (in his estimation) than to inform him of the fact. It would so
grate upon his sensitive spirit—it would so “annoy” him; whereas, did he
not hear of it until the friend, or brother, or sister, were relieved or
buried, he could manage the matter with his usual urbanity, and without
the slightest draught upon his exquisitely sensitive nature, by simply
writing a pathetic and elegant note, expressing the keenest regret at
not having known “all about it” in time to have “flown to the assistance
of his dear” —— &c.
Apollo prefers friends who can stand grief and annoyance, as a
rhinoceros can stand flies—friends who can bear their own troubles and
all his—friends who will stand between him and everything disagreeable
in life, and never ask anything in return. To such friends he clings
with the most touching tenacity—as long as he can use them; but let
their good name be assailed, let misfortune once overtake them, and his
“moral excellence” compels him, at once, to ignore their existence,
until they have been extricated from all their troubles, and it has
become perfectly safe and _advantageous_ for him to renew the
acquaintance.
Apollo is keenly alive to the advantages of social position (not having
always enjoyed them); and so, his Litany reads after this wise: From all
questionable, unfashionable, unpresentable, and vulgar persons, Good
Lord deliver us!
SPOILED LITTLE BOY.
“Boo-hoo!—I’ve eaten so—m-much bee-eef and t-turkey, that I can’t eat
any p-p-plum p-p-pudding!”
Miserable little Pitcher! Take your fists out of your eyes, and know
that thousands of grown-up pinafore graduates are in the same Slough of
Despond with your epicurean Lilliputian-ship. Having washed the platter
clean of every crumb of “common fixins,” they are left with cloyed, but
tantalizing desires, for the spectacle of some mocking “plum pudding.”
“_Can’t eat your pudding!_”
Why, you precious, graceless young glutton! you have the start of me, by
many an _ache_-r. I expect to furnish an appetite for every “plum
pudding” the fates are kind enough to cook for me, from this time till
Teba Napoleon writes my epitaph.
Infatuated little Pitcher! come sit on my knee, and take a little
advice. Don’t you know you should only take a nibble out of each dish,
and be parsimonious at that; always leaving off, be the morsel ever so
dainty, before your little jacket buttons begin to tighten; while from
some of the dishes you should not even lift the cover; taking aunt
Fanny’s word for it, that their spicy and stimulating contents will only
give you a pain under your apron. Bless your little soul, life’s “bill
of fare” can be spun out as ingeniously as a cobweb, if you only
understand it; and then you can sit in the corner, in good digestive
order, and catch your flies! But if you once get a surfeit of a dainty,
it takes the form of a pill to you ever after, unless the knowing
_cuisinier_ disguise it under some novel process of sugaring; and sadder
still, if you exhaust yourself in the gratification of gross appetites,
you will be bereft of your faculties for enjoying the pure and heavenly
delights which “Our Father” has provided as a _dessert_ for his
children.
BARNUM’S MUSEUM.
It is possible that every stranger may suppose, as I did, on first
approaching Barnum’s Museum, that the greater part of its curiosities
are on the outside, and have some fears that its internal will not equal
its external appearance. But, after crossing the threshold, he will soon
discover his mistake. The first idea suggested will perhaps be that the
view, from the windows, of the motley, moving throng in Broadway—the
rattling, thundering carts, carriages and omnibuses—the confluence of
the vehicular and human tides which, from so many quarters, come pouring
past the museum—is (to adopt the language of advertisements), “worth
double the price of admission.”
The visitor’s attention will unquestionably be next arrested by the
“Bearded Lady of Switzerland”—one of the most curious curiosities ever
presented. A card, in pleasant juxta-position to the “lady,” conveys the
gratifying intelligence that, “Visitors are allowed to touch the beard.”
Not a man in the throng lifts an investigating finger! Your penetration,
Madame Clofullia, does you infinite credit. You knew well enough that
your permission would be as good as a handcuff to every pair of
masculine wrists in the company. For my own part, I should no more
meddle with your beard, than with Mons. Clofullia’s. I see no feminity
in it. Its shoe-brush aspect puts me on my decorum. I am glad you raised
it, however, just to show Barnum that there is something “new under the
sun,” and to convince men in general that a woman can accomplish about
anything she undertakes.
I have not come to New York to stifle my inquisitiveness. How did you
raise that beard? Who shaves first in the morning—you, or your husband?
Do you use a Woman’s Rights razor? Which of you does the _strap_-ping?
How does your baby know you from its father? What do you think of us,
smooth-faced sisters? Do you (between you and me) prefer to patronize
dress-makers, or tailors? Do you sing tenor, or alto? Are you master or
mistress of your husband’s affections?—Well, at all events, it has been
something in your neutral pocket to have “tarried at Jericho till your
beard was grown.”
—What have we here? Canova’s Venus. She is exquisitely beautiful,
standing there, in her sculptured graces; but where’s the Apollo? Ah,
here’s a sleeping Cupid, which is better. Mischievous little imp! I’m
off, before you wake!—Come we now to a petrifaction of a horse and his
rider, crushed in the prehensile embrace of a monstrous serpent, found
in a cave where it must have lain for ages, and upon which one’s
imagination might pleasantly dwell for hours.—Then, here are deputations
from China-dom, in the shape of Mandarins, ladies of quality, servants,
priests, &c., with their chalky complexions, huckleberry eyes and shaven
polls. Here, also, is a Chinese criminal, packed into a barrel, with a
hole in the lid, from which his head protrudes, and two at the sides,
from whence his helpless paws depend. Poor Min Yung, you ought to
reflect on the error of your ways, though, I confess, you’ve not much
chance to _room_-inate.
Here are snakes, insects, and reptiles of every description, corked down
and pinned up, as all such gentry should be—most of them, I perceive,
labelled in the masculine gender! Then there’s a “bear,” the thought of
whose hug makes me utter an involuntary _pater noster_, and cling closer
to the arm of my guide. I tell you what, old Bruin, as I hope to travel,
I trust you’ve left none of your cubs behind.
—Here is a group of Suliote chiefs, and in their midst Lord Byron, with
his shirt upside down; and here is the veritable carriage that little
Victoria used to ride in before the crown of royalty fretted her fair,
girlish temples. Poor little embryo queen! How many times since, do you
suppose, she has longed to step out of those bejewelled robes, drop the
burdens state imposes, and throw her weary limbs, with a child’s
careless _abandon_, on those silken cushions, free to laugh or cry, to
sing or sigh.
—Then here’s a collection of stuffed birds, whose rainbow plumage has
darted through clustering foliage, fostered in other latitudes than
ours. Nearly every species of beings that crawl, or fly, or walk, or
swim, is here represented. And what hideous monsters some of them are! A
“pretty kettle of fish” some of the representatives of the finny tribe
would make! I once thought I would like to be buried in the ocean, but I
discarded that idea before I had been in the museum an hour. I shouldn’t
want such a “scaly set” of creatures swimming in the same pond with me.
—I had nearly forgotten to mention the “Happy Family.” Here are animals
and birds which are the natural prey of each other, living together in
such pleasant harmony, as would make a quarrelsome person blush to look
upon. A sleek rat, probably overcome by the oppressive weather, was
gently dozing—a cat’s neck supporting his sleepy head in a most
pillow-ly manner. Mutual vows of friendship had evidently been exchanged
and rat-ified by these natural enemies. I have not time to mention in
detail the many striking instances of fraternization among creatures
which have been considered each other’s irreconcileable foes. Suffice it
to say that Barnum and Noah are the only men on record who have brought
about such a state of harmonic antagonisms, and that Barnum is the only
man who has ever made money by the operation.
—Heigho! time fails us to explore all the natural wonders gathered here,
from all climes, and lands, and seas, by the enterprise of, perhaps, the
only man who could have compassed it. We turn away, leaving the greater
portion unexamined, with an indistinct remembrance of what we have seen,
but with a most distinct impression that the “getting up” of Creation
was no ordinary affair, and wondering how it could ever have been done
in six days.
NANCY PRY’S SOLILOQUY.
I wonder if that is the bride over at that window? Poor thing, how I
pity her! Every thing in her house so bran new and fresh and
uncomfortable. Furniture smelling like a mahogany coffin; every thing
set up spick and span in its place; not a picture awry; not a chair out
of its orbit; not a finger mark on the window panes; not a thread on the
carpet; not a curtain fold disarranged; china and porcelain set up in
alphabetical order in the pantry; bureau drawers fit for a Quaker; no
stockings to mend; no strings or buttons missing; no old rag-bags to
hunt over; no dresses to re-flounce, or re-tuck, or re-fashionize; not
even a hook or eye absent. Saucepans, pots, and kettles, fresh from the
“furnishing house;” servants fresh; house as still as a cat-cornered
mouse. Nothing stirring, nothing to do. Land of Canaan! I should think
it would be a relief to her to hear the braying and roaring in
Driesbach’s Menagerie.
Well, there’s one consolation; in all human probability, it is a state
of things that won’t last long.
FOR LITTLE CHILDREN.
“I love God and every little child.”—_Richter._
I wonder if I have any little pinafore friends among the readers of
_Fern Leaves_? any little Nellys, or Katys, or Billys, or Johnnys, who
ever think of Fanny? Do you know that I like children much better than
grown-up people? I should so like to have a whole lapful of your bright
eyes, and rosy cheeks, and dimpled shoulders, to kiss. I should like to
have a good romp with you, this very minute. I don’t always keep this
old pen of mine scratching. If a bright cloud comes sailing past my
window, I throw down my pen, toss up the casement, and drink in the air,
like a gipsy. I feel just as you do, when you are pent up in school,
some bright summer day, when the winds are at play, and the flowers lie
languidly drooping under the blue, arching sky;—when the little
butterfly poises his bright wings on the rose, too full of joy even to
sip its sweets;—when the birds sing, because they can’t help it, and the
merry little swallow skims the ground, dips his bright wing in the lake,
circles over head, and then flies, twittering, back to his cunning
little brown nest, under the eaves. On such a day, _I_ should like to be
your school-mistress. I’d thrown open the old school-room door, and let
you all out under the trees. You should count the blades of grass for a
sum in addition; you should take an apple from a tree, to learn
subtraction; you should give me kisses, to learn multiplication. You
shouldn’t go home to dinner. No; we’d all take our dinner-baskets and go
into the woods; we’d hunt for violets; we’d lie on the moss under the
trees, and look up at the bits of blue sky, through the leafy branches;
we’d hush our breath when the little chipmunk peeped out of his hole,
and watch him slily snatch the ripe nut for his winter’s store. And we’d
look for the shy rabbit; and the little spotted toad, with its blinking
eyes; and the gliding snake, which creeps out to sun itself on the old
gray rock. We’d play hide-and-seek, in the hollow trunks of old trees;
we’d turn away from the gaudy flowers, flaunting their showy beauty in
our faces, and search, under the glossy leaves at our feet, for the
pale-eyed blossoms which nestle there as lovingly as a timid little
fledgling under the mother-bird’s wing; we’d go to the lake, and see the
sober, staid old cows stand cooling their legs in the water, and
admiring themselves in the broad, sheeted mirror beneath; we’d toss
little pebbles in the lake, and see the circles they made, widen and
widen toward the distant shore—like careless words, dropped and
forgotten, but reaching to the far-off shore of eternity.
And then you should nestle ‘round me, telling all your little griefs;
for well I know that childhood has its griefs, which are all the keener
because great, wise, grown-up people have often neither time nor
patience, amid the bustling whirl of life, to stop and listen to them. I
know what it is for a timid little child, who has never been away from
its mother’s apron string, to be walked, some morning, into a great big
school-room, full of strange faces;—to see a little urchin laugh, and
feel a choking lump come in your little throat, for fear he was laughing
at you;—to stand up, with trembling legs, in the middle of the floor,
and be told to “find big A,” when your eyes were so full of tears that
you couldn’t see anything;—to keep looking at the ferule on the desk,
and wondering if it would ever come down on your hand;—to have some
mischievous little scholar break your nice long slate-pencil in two, to
plague you, or steal your bit of gingerbread out of your satchel, and
eat it up, or trip you down on purpose, and feel how little the
hard-hearted young sinners cared when you sobbed out, “I’ll tell my
mother.”
I know what it is, when you have lain every night since you were born,
with your hand clasped in your mother’s, and your cheek cuddled up to
hers, to see a new baby come and take your place, without even asking
your leave;—to see papa, and grandpa, and grandma, and uncle, and aunt,
and cousins, and all the neighbours, so glad to see it, when _your_
heart was almost broken about it. I know what it is to have a great fat
nurse (whom even mamma herself had to mind) lead you, struggling, out of
the room, and tell Sally to see that you didn’t come into your own
mamma’s room again all that day. I know what it is to have that fat old
nurse sit in mamma’s place at table, and cut up your potato and meat all
wrong;—to have her put squash on your plate, when you _hate_ squash;—to
have her forget (?) to give you a piece of pie, and eat two
_herself_;—to have Sally cross, and Betty cross, and everybody telling
you to “get out of the way;”—to have your doll’s leg get loose, and
nobody there to hitch it on for you;—and then, when it came night, to be
put away in a chamber, all alone by yourself to sleep, and have Sally
tell you that “if you wasn’t good an old black man would come and carry
you off;”—and then to cuddle down under the sheet, till you were half
stifled, and tremble every time the wind blew, as if you had an ague
fit. Yes, and when, at last, mamma came down stairs, I know how _long_
it took for you to like that new baby;—how every time you wanted to sit
in mamma’s lap, he’d be sure to have the stomach-ache, or to want his
breakfast; how he was _always_ wanting something, so that mamma couldn’t
tell you pretty stories, or build little blocks of houses for you, or
make you reins to play horses with; or do any of those nice little
things that she used to be always doing for you.
To be sure, my little darlings, I know all about it. I have cried tears
enough to float a steamship, about all these provoking things; and now
whenever I see a little child cry, I never feel like laughing at him;
for I know that often his little heart is just ready to break for
somebody to pet him. So I always say a kind word, or give him a pat on
the head, or a kiss; for I know that though the little insect has but
one grain to carry, he often staggers under it; and I have seen the time
when a kind word, or a beaming smile, would have been worth more to me
than all the broad lands of merrie England.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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COOKERY, CARVING, AND TABLE OBSERVANCES.
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for Purchasing.
ECONOMY OF THE TABLE:
Pottery, Glass, Plate, Cutlery.
SERVANTS AND THEIR DUTIES.
VENTILATION AND WARMING.
ARTIFICIAL LIGHT;
Including Candles and Lamps, Gas, Oil, etc.
LONDON: WM. S. ORR AND CO., AMEN CORNER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 5, changed “put in a bureau, or of drawers” to “put in a
bureau, or chest of drawers”.
2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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