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Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1864,
BY JAMES REDPATH,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. GEO. C. RAND & AVERY,
STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS,
BOSTON. Main text

ON PICKET DUTY.

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WHAT air you thinkin' of, Phil?

“My wife, Dick.”

“So was I! Aint it odd how fellers fall to thinkin' of
thar little women, when they get a quiet spell like this?”

“Fortunate for us that we do get it, and have such gentle
bosom guests to keep us brave and honest through the trials
and temptations of a life like ours.”

October moonlight shone clearly on the solitary tree, draped
with gray moss, scarred by lightning and warped by wind,
looking like a venerable warrior, whose long campaign was
nearly done; and underneath was posted the guard of four.
Behind them twinkled many camp-fires on a distant plain,
before them wound a road ploughed by the passage of an
army, strewn with the relics of a rout. On the right, a sluggish
river glided, like a serpent, stealthy, sinuous, and dark,
into a seemingly impervious jungle; on the left, a Southern
swamp filled the air with malarial damps, swarms of noisome
life, and discordant sounds that robbed the hour of its repose.
The men were friends as well as comrades, for though gathered
from the four quarters of the Union, and dissimilar in
education, character, and tastes, the same spirit animated all;
the routine of camp life threw them much together, and
mutual esteem soon grew into a bond of mutual good fellowship.

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Thorn was a Massachusetts volunteer; a man who seemed
too early old, too early embittered by some cross, for though
grim of countenance, rough of speech, cold of manner, a keen
observer would have soon discovered traces of a deeper,
warmer nature hidden behind the repellent front he turned
upon the world. A true New Englander, thoughtful, acute,
reticent, and opinionated; yet earnest withal, intensely patriotic,
and often humorous, despite a touch of Puritan austerity

Phil, the “romantic chap,” as he was called, looked his
character to the life. Slender, swarthy, melancholy eyed,
and darkly bearded; with feminine features, mellow voice,
and alternately languid or vivacious manners. A child of
the South in nature as in aspect, ardent, impressible, and
proud; fitfully aspiring and despairing; without the native
energy which moulds character and ennobles life. Months
of discipline and devotion had done much for him, and some
deep experience was fast ripening the youth into a man.

Flint, the long-limbed lumberman, from the wilds of
Maine, was a conscript who, when government demanded his
money or his life, calculated the cost, and decided that the
cash would be a dead loss and the claim might be repeated,
whereas the conscript would get both pay and plunder out
of government, while taking excellent care that government
got precious little out of him. A shrewd, slow-spoken,
self-reliant specimen, was Flint; yet something of the fresh
flavor of the backwoods lingered in him still, as if Nature
were loath to give him up, and left the mark of her motherly
hand upon him, as she leaves it in a dry, pale lichen, on the
bosom of the roughest stone.

Dick “hailed” from Illinois, and was a comely young fellow,
full of dash and daring; rough and rowdy, generous
and jolly, overflowing with spirits and ready for a free fight
with all the world.

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Silence followed the last words, while the friendly moon
climbed up the sky. Each man's eye followed it, and each
man's heart was busy with remembrances of other eyes and
hearts that might be watching and wishing as theirs watched
and wished. In the silence, each shaped for himself that
vision of home that brightens so many camp-fires, haunts
so many dreamers under canvas roofs, and keeps so many
turbulent natures tender by memories which often are both
solace and salvation.

Thorn paced to and fro, his rifle on his shoulder, vigilant
and soldierly, however soft his heart might be. Phil leaned
against the tree, one hand in the breast of his blue jacket, on
the painted presentment of the face his fancy was picturing
in the golden circle of the moon. Flint lounged on the
sward, whistling softly as he whittled at a fallen bough.
Dick was flat on his back, heels in air, cigar in mouth, and
some hilarious notion in his mind, for suddenly he broke into
a laugh.

“What is it, lad?” asked Thorn, pausing in his tramp,
as if willing to be drawn from the disturbing thought that
made his black brows lower and his mouth look grim.

“Thinkin' of my wife, and wishin' she was here, bless her
heart! set me rememberin' how I see her fust, and so I
roared, as I always do when it comes into my head.”

“How was it? Come, reel off a yarn and let's hear houw
yeou hitched teams,” said Flint, always glad to get information
concerning his neighbors, if it could be cheaply done.

“Tellin' how we found our wives wouldn't be a bad game,
would it, Phil?”

“I'm agreeable; but let us have your romance first.”

“Devilish little of that about me or any of my doin's. I
hate sentimental bosh as much as you hate slang, and should
have been a bachelor to this day if I hadn't seen Kitty jest

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as I did. You see, I'd been too busy larkin' round to get
time for marryin', till a couple of years ago, when I did up
the job double-quick, as I'd like to do this thunderin' slow
one, hang it all!”

“Halt a minute till I give a look, for this picket isn't
going to be driven in or taken while I'm on guard.”

Down his beat went Thorn, reconnoitring river, road, and
swamp, as thoroughly as one pair of keen eyes could do it,
and came back satisfied, but still growling like a faithful mastiff
on the watch; performances which he repeated at intervals
till his own turn came.

“I didn't have to go out of my own State for a wife,
you'd better believe,” began Dick, with a boast, as usual;
“for we raise as fine a crop of girls thar as any State in or
out of the Union, and don't mind raisin' Cain with any man
who denies it. I was out on a gunnin' tramp with Joe Partridge,
a cousin of mine, — poor old chap! he fired his last
shot at Gettysburg, and died game in a way he didn't dream
of the day we popped off the birds together. It ain't right
to joke that way; I won't if I can help it; but a feller gets
awfully kind of heathenish these times, don't he?”

“Settle up them scores byme-by; fightin' Christians is
scurse raound here. Fire away, Dick.”

“Well, we got as hungry as hounds half a dozen mile
from home, and when a farm-house hove in sight, Joe said
he'd ask for a bite and leave some of the plunder for pay. I
was visitin' Joe, didn't know folks round, and backed out of
the beggin' part of the job; so he went ahead alone. We'd
come up the woods behind the house, and while Joe was
foragin', I took are connoissance. The view was fust-rate,
for the main part of it was a girl airin' beds on the roof of a
stoop. Now, jest about that time, havin' a leisure spell, I'd
begun to think of marryin', and took a look at all the girls I

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met, with an eye to business. I s'pose every man has some
sort of an idee or pattern of the wife he wants; pretty and
plucky, good and gay was mine, but I'd never found it till
I see Kitty; and as she didn't see me, I had the advantage
and took an extra long stare.”

“What was her good pints, hey?”

“Oh, well, she had a wide-awake pair of eyes, a bright,
jolly sort of a face, lots of curly hair tumblin' out of her net,
a trig little figger, and a pair of the neatest feet and ankles that
ever stepped. `Pretty,' thinks I; `so far so good.' The way
she whacked the pillers, shooked the blankets, and pitched into
the beds was a caution; specially one blunderin' old featherbed
that wouldn't do nothin' but sag round in a pig-headed
sort of way, that would have made most girls get mad and give
up. Kitty didn't, but just wrastled with it like a good one, till
she got it turned, banged, and spread to suit her; then she
plumped down in the middle of it, with a sarcy little nod and
chuckle to herself, that tickled me mightily. `Plucky,'
thinks I, `better 'n' better.' Jest then an old woman came
flyin' out the back-door, callin', `Kitty! Kitty! Squire Partridge's
son's here, 'long with a friend; been gunnin', want
luncheon, and I'm all in the suds; do come down and see to'
em.'

“`Where are they?' says Kitty, scrambling up her hair
and settlin' her gown in a jiffy, as women have a knack of
doin', you know.

“`Mr. Joe's in the front entry; the other man's somewheres
round, Billy says, waitin' till I send word whether
they can stop. I darsn't till I'd seen you, for I can't do
nothin', I'm in such a mess,' says the old lady.

“`So am I, for I can't get in except by the the entry window,
and he'll see me,' says Kitty, gigglin' at the thoughts of
Joe.

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“`Come down the ladder, there's a dear. I'll pull it
round and keep it stiddy,' says her mother.

“`Oh, ma, don't ask me!' says Kitty, with a shiver.
`I'm dreadfully scared of ladders since I broke my arm off
this very one. It's so high, it makes me dizzy jest to
think of.'

“`Well, then, I'll do the best I can; but I wish them
boys was to Jericho!' says the old lady, with a groan, for
she was fat and hot, had her gown pinned up, and was in a
fluster generally. She was goin' off rather huffy, when
Kitty called out, —

“`Stop, ma! I'll come down and help you, only ketch me
if I tumble.'

“She looked scared but stiddy, and I'll bet it took as
much grit for her to do it as for one of us to face a battery.
It don't seem much to tell of, but I wish I may be hit if it
wasn't a right down dutiful and clever thing to see done.
When the old lady took her off at the bottom, with a good
motherly hug, I found myself huggin' my rifle like a fool, but
whether I thought it was the ladder, or Kitty, I ain't clear
about. `Good,' thinks I; `what more do you want?'

“A snug little property wouldn't a ben bad, I reckon.
Well she had it, old skin-flint, though I didn't know or care
about it then. What a jolly row she'd make if she knew I
was tellin' the ladder part of the story! She always does
when I get to it, and makes believe cry, with her head in my
breast-pocket, or any such handy place, till I take it out and
swear I'll never do so ag'in. Poor little Kit, I wonder what
she's doin' now. Thinkin' of me, I'll bet.”

Dick paused, pitched his cap lower over his eyes, and
smoked a minute with more energy than enjoyment, for his
cigar was out and he did not perceive it.

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“That's not all, is it?” asked Thorn, taking a fatherly
interest in the younger man's love passages.

“Not quite. 'Fore long, Joe whistled, and as I always
take short cuts everywhar, I put in at the back-door, jest as
Kitty come trottin' out of the pantry with a big berry-pie in
her hand. I startled her, she tripped over the sill and down
she come; the dish flew one way, the pie flopped into her lap,
the juice spatterin' my boots and her clean gown. I thought
she'd cry, scold, have hysterics, or some confounded thing or
other; but she jest sat still a minute, then looked up at me
with a great blue splosh on her face, and went off into the
good-naturedest gale of laughin' you ever heard in your life.
That finished me. `Gay,' thinks I; `go in and win.' So
I did; made love hand over hand, while I stayed with Joe;
pupposed a fortnight after, married her in three months, and
there she is, a tip-top little woman, with a pair of stunnin'
boys in her arms!”

Out came a well-worn case, and Dick proudly displayed
the likeness of a stout, much bejewelled young woman, with
two staring infants on her knee. In his sight, the poor picture
was a more perfect work of art than any of Sir Joshua's
baby-beauties, or Raphael's Madonnas, and the little story
needed no better sequel than the young father's praises of his
twins, the covert kiss he gave their mother when he turned as
if to get a clearer light upon the face. Ashamed to show the
tenderness that filled his honest heart, he hummed “Kingdom
Coming,” while relighting his cigar, and presently began
to talk again.

“Now, then, Flint, it's your turn to keep guard, and
Thorn's to tell his romance. Come, don't try to shirk; it
does a man good to talk of such things, and we're all mates
here.”

“In some cases it don't do any good to talk of such

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things; better let 'em alone,” muttered Thorn, as he reluctantly
sat down, while Flint as reluctantly departed.

With a glance and gesture of real affection, Phil laid his
hand upon his comrade's knee, saying, in his persuasive voice,
“Old fellow, it will do you good, because I know you often
long to speak of something that weighs upon you. You've
kept us steady many a time, and done us no end of kindnesses;
why be too proud to let us give our sympathy in return,
if nothing more?”

Thorn's big hand closed over the slender one upon his
knee, and the mild expression, so rarely seen upon his face,
passed over it as he replied, —

“I think I could tell you almost anything if you asked me
that way, my boy. It isn't that I'm too proud, — and you're
right about my sometimes wanting to free my mind, — but it's
because a man of forty don't just like to open out to young
fellows, if there is any danger of their laughing at him,
though he may deserve it. I guess there isn't now, and I'll
tell you how I found my wife.”

Dick sat up, and Phil drew nearer, for the earnestness that
was in the man dignified his plain speech, and inspired an
interest in his history, even before it was begun. Looking
gravely at the river and never at his hearers, as if still a
little shy of confidants, yet grateful for the relief of words,
Thorn began abruptly, —

“I never hear the number eighty-four without clapping
my hand to my left breast and missing my badge. You know
I was on the police in New York, before the war, and that's
about all you do know yet. One bitter cold night, I was
going my rounds for the last time, when, as I turned a corner,
I saw there was a trifle of work to be done. It was a bad
part of the city, full of dirt and deviltry; one of the streets
led to a ferry, and at the corner an old woman had an

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applestall. The poor soul had dropped asleep, worn out with the
cold, and there were her goods left, with no one to watch 'em.
Somebody was watching 'em, however; a girl, with a ragged
shawl over her head, stood at the mouth of an alley close by,
waiting for a chance to grab something. I'd seen her there
when I went by before, and mistrusted she was up to some
mischief; as I turned the corner, she put out her hand and
cribbed an apple. She saw me the minute she did it, but
neither dropped it nor ran, only stood stock still with the apple
in her hand till came up.

“`This won't do, my girl,' said I. I never could be
harsh with 'em, poor things! She laid it back and looked up
at me with a miserable sort of a smile, that made me put my
hand in my pocket to fish for a ninepence before she spoke.

“`I know it won't,' she says. `I didn't want to do it,
it's so mean, but I'm awful hungry, sir.'

“`Better run home and get your supper then.'

“`I've got no home.'

“`Where do you live?'

“`In the street.'

“`Where do you sleep?'

“`Anywhere; last night in the lock-up, and I thought
I'd get in there again, if I did that when you saw me. I
like to go there, it's warm and safe.'

“`If I don't take you there, what will you do?'

“`Don't know. I want to go over there and dance again,
as I used to; but being sick has made me ugly, so they won't
have me, and no one else will take me because I have been
there once.'

“I looked where she pointed, and thanked the Lord that
they wouldn't take her. It was one of those low theatres
that do so much damage to the like of her; there was a
gambling den one side of it, an eating saloon the other, and

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at the door of it lounged a scamp I knew very well, looking
like a big spider watching for a fly. I longed to fling my
billy at him; but as I couldn't, I held on to the girl. I was
new to the thing then, but though I'd heard about hunger
and homelessness often enough, I'd never had this sort of
thing, nor seen that look on a girl's face. A white, pinched
face hers was, with frightened, tired-looking eyes, but so innocent;
she wasn't more than sixteen, had been pretty once
I saw, looked sick and starved now, and seemed just the most
helpless, hopeless little thing that ever was.

“`You'd better come to the Station for to-night, and we'll
see to you to-morrow,' says I.

“`Thank you, sir,' says she, looking as grateful as if I'd
asked her home. I suppose I did speak kind of fatherly. I
ain't ashamed to say I felt so, seeing what a child she was;
nor to own that when she put her little hand in mine, it hurt
me to feel how thin and cold it was. We passed the eatinghouse
where the red lights made her face as rosy as it ought
to have been; there was meat and pies in the window, and
the poor thing stopped to look. It was too much for her;
off came her shawl, and she said in that coaxing way of hers, —

“`I wish you'd let me stop at the place close by and sell
this; they'll give a little for it, and I'll get some supper.
I've had nothing since yesterday morning, and maybe cold is
easier to bear than hunger.'

“`Have you nothing better than that to sell?' I says, not
quite sure that she wasn't all a humbug, like so many of 'em.
She seemed to see that, and looked up at me again with
such innocent eyes, I couldn't doubt her when she said, shivering
with something beside the cold, —

“`Nothing but myself.' Then the tears came, and she
laid her head down on my arm, sobbing, — `Keep me! oh,
do keep me safe somewhere!”'

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Thorn choked here, steadied his voice with a resolute hem!
but could only add one sentence more:

“That's how I found my wife.”

“Come, don't stop thar? I told the whole o' mine, you
do the same. Whar did you take her? how'd it all come
round?”

“Please tell us, Thorn.”

The gentler request was answered presently, very steadily,
very quietly.

“I was always a soft-hearted fellow, though you wouldn't
think it now, and when that little girl asked me to keep her
safe, I just did it. I took her to a good woman whom I
knew, for I hadn't any women belonging to me, nor any
place but that to put her in. She stayed there till spring
working for her keep, growing brighter, prettier, every day,
and fonder of me I thought. If I believed in witchcraft, I
shouldn't think myself such a cursed fool as I do now, but I
don't believe in it, and to this day I can't understand how I
came to do it. To be sure I was a lonely man, without kith
or kin, had never had a sweetheart in my life, or been much
with women since my mother died. Maybe that's why I was
so bewitched with Mary, for she had little ways with her that
took your fancy and made you love her whether you would
or no. I found her father was an honest fellow enough, a
fiddler in some theatre, that he'd taken good care of Mary
till he died, leaving precious little but advice for her to live
on. She'd tried to get work, failed, spent all she had, got
sick, and was going to the devil, as the poor souls can hardly
help doing with so many ready to give them a shove. It's no
use trying to make a bad job better; so the long and short of
it was, I thought she loved me; God knows I loved her, and I
married her before the year was out.”

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“Show us her picture; I know you've got one; all the
fellows have, though half of 'em won't own up.”

“I've only got part of one. I once saved my little girl,
and her picture once saved me.”

From an inner pocket Thorn produced a woman's housewife,
carefully untied it, though all its implements were missing
but a little thimble, and from one of its compartments
took a flattened bullet and the remnants of a picture.

“I gave her that the first Christmas after I found her.
She wasn't as tidy about her clothes as I liked to see, and I
thought if I gave her a handy thing like this, she'd be willing
to sew. But she only made one shirt for me, and then got
tired, so I keep it like an old fool, as I am. Yes, that's the
bit of lead that would have done for me, if Mary's likeness
hadn't been just where it was.”

“You'll like to show her this when you go home, won't
you?” said Dick, as he took up the bullet, while Phil examined
the marred picture, and Thorn poised the little thimble
on his big finger, with a sigh.

“How can I, when I don't know where she is, and camp
is all the home I've got?”

The words broke from him like a sudden cry, when some
old wound is rudely touched. Both of the young men
started, both laid back the relics they had taken up, and
turned their eyes from Thorn's face, across which swept a
look of shame and sorrow, too significant to be misunderstood.
Their silence assured him of their sympathy, and, as if that
touch of friendlessness unlocked his heavy heart, he eased it
by a full confession. When he spoke again, it was with the
calmness of repressed emotion; and calmness more touching
to his mates than the most passionate outbreak, the most
pathetic lamentation; for the coarse camp-phrases seemed to

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drop from his vocabulary; more than once his softened voice
grew tremulous, and to the words “my little girl,” there
went a tenderness that proved how dear a place she still retained
in that deep heart of his.

“Boys, I've gone so far; I may as well finish; and you'll
see I'm not without some cause for my stern looks and ways;
you'll pity me, and from you I'll take the comfort of it. It's
only the old story, — I married her, worked for her, lived
for her, and kept my little girl like a lady. I should have
known that I was too old, too sober, for a young thing like
that; the life she led before the pinch came just suited her.
She liked to be admired, to dress and dance and make herself
pretty for all the world to see; not to keep house for a quiet
man like me. Idleness wasn't good for her, it bred discontent;
then some of her old friends, who'd left her in her
trouble, found her out when better times came round, and
tried to get her back again. I was away all day, I didn't
know how things were going, and she wasn't open with me,
afraid, she said; I was so grave, and hated theatres so. She
got courage, finally, to tell me that she wasn't happy; that
she wanted to dance again, and asked me if she mightn't. I'd
rather have had her ask me to put her in a fire, for I did
hate theatres, and was bred to; others think they're no
harm. I do; and knew it was a bad life for a girl like mine,
It pampers vanity, and vanity is the Devil's help with such;
so I said No, kindly at first, sharp and stern when she kept
on teasing. That roused her spirit. `I will go!' she
said, one day. `Not while you're my wife,' I answered
back; and neither said any more, but she gave me a look
I didn't think she could, and I resolved to take her away
from temptation before worse came of it.

“I didn't tell her my plan; but I resigned my place, spent
a week or more finding and fixing a little home for her out in

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the wholesome country, where she'd be safe from theatres and
disreputable friends, and maybe learn to love me better when
she saw how much she was to me. It was coming summer,
and I made things look as home-like and as pretty as I
could. She liked flowers, and I fixed a garden for her;
she was fond of pets, and I got her a bird, a kitten, and a
dog to play with her; she fancied gay colors and tasty little
matters, so I filled her rooms with all the handsome things I
could afford, and when it was done, I was as pleased as any
boy, thinking what happy times we'd have together and how
pleased she'd be. Boys, when I went to tell her and to
take her to her little home, she was gone.”

“Who with?”

“With those cursed friends of hers; a party of them left
the city just then; she was wild to go; she had money now,
and all her good looks back again. They teased and tempted
her; I wasn't there to keep her, and she went, leaving a
line behind to tell me that she loved the old life more than
the new; that my house was a prison, and she hoped I'd
let her go in peace. That almost killed me; but I managed
to bear it, for I knew most of the fault was mine; but
it was awful bitter to think I hadn't saved her, after all.”

“Oh, Thorn! what did you do?”

“Went straight after her; found her dancing in Philadelphia,
with paint on her cheeks, trinkets on her neck and
arms, looking prettier than ever; but the innocent eyes
were gone, and I couldn't see my little girl in the bold, handsome
woman twirling there before the foolights. She saw me,
looked scared at first, then smiled, and danced on with her
eyes upon me, as if she said, —

“`See! I'm happy now; go away and let me be.'

“I couldn't stand that, and got out somehow. People
thought me mad, or drunk; I didn't care, I only wanted to

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see her once in quiet and try to get her home. I couldn't
do it then nor afterwards by fair means, and I wouldn't try
force. I wrote to her, promised to forgive her, begged her
to come back, or let me keep her honestly somewhere away
from me. But she never answered, never came, and I have
never tried again.”

“She wasn't worthy of you, Thorn; you jest forgit her.”

“I wish I could! I wish I could!” in his voice quivered
an almost passionate regret, and a great sob heaved
his chest, as he turned his face away to hide the love and
longing, still so tender and so strong.

“Don't say that, Dick; such fidelity should make us
charitable for its own sake. There is always time for penitence,
always certainty of pardon. Take heart, Thorn, you
may not wait in vain, and she may yet return to you.”

“I know she will! I've dreamed of it, I've prayed for
it; every battle I come out of safe makes me surer that I
was kept for that, and when I've borne enough to atone for
my part of the fault, I'll be repaid for all my patience, all
my pain, by finding her again. She knows how well I love
her still, and if there comes a time when she is sick and
poor and all alone again, then she'll remember her old John,
then she'll come home and let me take her in.”

Hope shone in Thorn's melancholy eyes, and long-suffering
all-forgiving love beautified the rough, brown face, as he
folded his arms and bent his gray head on his breast, as if
the wanderer were already come.

The emotion which Dick scorned to show on his own account
was freely manifested for another, as he sniffed audibly,
and, boy-like, drew his sleeve across his eyes. But
Phil, with the delicate perception of a finer nature, felt that
the truest kindness he could show his friend was to distract
his thoughts from himself, to spare him any comments, and

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lessen the embarrassment which would surely follow such
unwonted confidence.

“Now I'll relieve Flint, and he will give you a laugh.
Come on Hiram and tell us about your Beulah.”

The gentleman addressed had performed his duty by sitting
on a fence and “righting up” his pockets, to beguile
the tedium of his exile. Before his multitudinous possessions
could be restored to their native sphere, Thorn was himself
again, and on his feet.

“Stay where you are Phil; I like to tramp, it seems like
old times, and I know you're tired. Just forget all this I've
been saying, and go on as before. Thank you, boys! thank
you!” and with a grasp of the two hands extended to him,
he strode away along the path already worn by his own restless
feet.

“It's done him good, and I'm glad of that; but I'd like
to see the little baggage that bewitched the poor old boy,
wouldn't you, Phil?”

“Hush! here's Flint.”

“What's up naow? want me tew address the meetin',
hey? I'm willin', only the laugh's ruther ag'inst me, ef I
tell that story; expect yeu'll like it all the better fer that.”
Flint coiled up his long limbs, put his hands in his pockets,
chewed meditatively for a moment, and then began with his
slowest drawl: —

“Waal, sir, it's pretty nigh ten year ago, I was damster
daown tew Oldtaown, elos't tew Banggore. My folks lived
tew Bethel; there was only the old man, and Aunt Siloam,
keepin' house fer him, seein' as I was the only chick he hed.
I hedn't heared from 'em fer a long spell, when there come
a letter sayin' the old man was breakin' up. He'd said it
every spring fer a number er years, and I didn't mind it no
more'n the breakin' up er the river; not so much jest then;

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

fer the gret spring drive was comin' on, and my hands was
tew full to quit work all tew oncet. I sent word I'd be'
long fore a gret while, and bymeby I went. I ought tew
hev gone at fust; but they'd sung aout `Wolf!' so often I
warn't scared; an' sure 'nuff the wolf did come at last.
Father hed been dead an' berried a week when I got there,
and aunt was so mad she wouldn't write, nor scurcely speak
tew me fer a consider'ble spell. I didn't blame her a mite, and
felt jest the wust kind; so I give in every way, and fetched
her raound. Yeou see I hed a cousin who'd kind er took
my place tew hum while I was off, an' the old man hed left
him a good slice er his money, an' me the farm, hopin' to
keep me there. He'd never liked the lumberin' bizness, an'
hankered arfter me a sight, I faound. Waal, seein' haow'
twas, I tried tew please him, late as it was; but ef there
was ennything I did spleen ag'inst, it was farmin, 'specially
arfter the smart times I'd ben hevin, up Oldtaown way.
Yeou don't know nothin' abaout it; but ef yeou want tew see
high dewin's, jest hitch onto a timber-drive an' go it daown
along them lakes and rivers, say from Kaumchenungamooth
tew Punnobscot Bay. Guess yeou'd see a thing or tew, an'
find livin' on a log come as handy as ef yeou was born a
turtle.

“Waal, I stood it one summer; but it was the longest
kind of a job. Come fall I turned contrary, darned the
farm, and vaowed I'd go back tew loggin'. Aunt hed got
fond er me by that time, and felt dreadful bad abaout my
leavin' on her. Cousin Siah, as we called Josiah, didn't
cotton tew the old woman, though he did tew her cash; but
we hitched along fust-rate. She was 'tached tew the place,
hated tew hev it let or sold, thought I'd go to everlastin'
rewin ef I took tew lumberin' ag'in, an' hevin' a tidy little
sum er money all her own, she took a notion tew buy me off.

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

`Hiram,' sez she, `ef yeou'll stay tew hum, merry some
smart gal, an' kerry on the farm, I'll leave yeou the hull er
my fortin. Ef yeou don't, I'll leave every cent on't tew
Siah, though he ain't done as waal by me as yeou hev.
Come,' sez she, `I'm breakin' up like brother; I shan't wurry
any one a gret while, and 'fore spring I dessay you'll hev
cause tew rejice that yeou done as Aunt Si counselled yeou.'

“Now, that idee kinder took me, seein' I hedn't no overpaourin'
love fer cousin; but I brewdid over it a spell 'fore
I 'greed. Fin'lly, I said I'd dew it, as it warn't a hard nor
a bad trade; and begun to look raound fer Mis Flint, Jr.
Aunt was dreadf'l pleased; but 'mazin pertickler as tew
who was goan tew stan' in her shoes, when she was fetched
up ag'inst the etarnal boom. There was a sight er lovely
women-folks raound taown; but aunt she set her foot daown
that Mis Flint must be smart, pious, an' good-natered; harnsome
she didn't say nothin' abaout, bein' the humliest woman
in the State er Maine. I hed my own calk'lations on that pint,
an' went sparkin' two or three er the pootiest gals, all that
winter. I warn't in no hurry, fer merryin' is an awful
resky bizness; an' I warn't goan to be took in by nobuddy.
Some haouw I couldn't make up my mind which I'd hev,
and kept dodgin', all ready to slew raound, an' hitch on tew
ary one that seemed likeliest. 'Long in March, aunt, she
ketched cold, took tew her bed, got wuss, an' told me tew
hurry up, fer nary red should I hev, ef I warn't safely merried'
fore she stepped out. I thought that was ruther
craoudin' a feller; but I see she was goan sure, an' I'd got
intew a way er considerin' the cash mine, so that it come
hard to hear abaout givin' on't up. Off I went that evenin'
an' asked Almiry Nash ef she'd hev me. No, she wouldn't;
I'd shilly-shallyed so long, she'd got tired er waitin' and
took tew keepin' company with a doctor daown tew

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

Banggore, where she'd ben visitin' a spell. I didn't find that as
hard a rub to swaller, as I'd a thought I would, though
Almiry was the ricliest, pootiest, and good-naterest of the
lot. Aunt larfed waal, an' told me tew try agin; so a
couple er nights arfter, I spruced up, an' went over to Car'line
Miles's; she was as smart as old cheese, an' waal off
intew the barg'in. I was just as sure she'd hev me, as I be
that I'm gittin' the rewmatiz a settin' in this ma'sh. But
that minx, Almiry, hed ben and let on abaout her own sarsy
way er servin' on me, an' Car'line jest up an' said she warn't
goan to hev annybuddy's leavin's; so daown I come ag'in.

“Things was gettin' desper't by that time; fer aunt was
failin' rapid, an' the story hed leaked aout some way, so the
hull taown was gigglin' over it. I thought I'd better quit
them parts; but aunt she showed me her will all done complete, '
sceptin' the fust name er the legatee. `There,' sez
she, `it all depends on yeou, whether that place is took by
Hiram or Josiah. It's easy done, an' so it's goan tew stan'
till the last minnit.' That riled me consid'able, an' I
streaked off tew May Jane Simlin's. She want very waal off,
nor extra harnsome, but she was pious the wust kind, an'
dreadf'l clever to them she fancied. But I was daown on
my luck agin; fer at the fust word I spoke of merryin', she
showed me the door, an' give me to understan' that she
couldn't think er hevin' a man that warn't a church-member,
that hadn't experienced religion, or even ben struck with
conviction, an' all the rest on't. Ef anny one hed a wanted
tew hev seen a walkin' hornet's nest, they could hev done it
cheap that night, as I went hum. I jest stramed intew the
kitchen, chucked my hat intew one corner, my coat intew'
nother, kicked the cat, cussed the fire, drawed up a chair,
and set scaoulin' like sixty, bein' tew mad fer talkin'. The
young woman that was nussin' aunt, — Bewlah Blish, by

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

name, — was a cookin' grewel on the coals, and 'peared tew
understan' the mess I was in; but she didn't say nothin',
only blowed up the fire, fetched me a mug er cider, an' went
raound so kinder quiet, and sympathizin', that I faound the
wrinkles in my temper gettin' smoothed aout 'mazin' quick;
an' 'fore long I made a clean breast er the hull thing.
Bewlah larfed, but I didn't mind her doin' on't, for she sez,
sez she, real sort o' cunnin', —

“`Poor Hiram! they didn't use yeou waal. Yeou ought
to hev tried some er the poor an' humly girls; they'd a' been
glad an' grateful fer such a sweetheart as yeou be.'

“I was good-natered agin by that time, an' I sez, larfin'
along with her, `Waal I've got three mittens, but I guess I
might's waal hev 'nother, and that will make two pair complete.
Say, Bewlah, will yeou hev me?'

“`Yes, I will,' sez she.

“`Reelly?' sez I.

“`Solemn trew,' sez she.

“Ef she'd up an' slapped me in the face, I shouldn't
hev ben more throwed aback, fer I never mistrusted she
cared two chips for me. I jest set an' gawped; fer she was
solemn trew, I see that with half an eye, an' it kinder took
my breath away. Bewlah drawed the grewel off the fire,
wiped her hands, an' stood lookin' at me a minnet, then she
sez, slow an' quiet, but tremblin' a little, as women hev a
way er doin', when they've consid'able steam aboard, —

“`Hiram, other folks think lumberin' has spilt yeou; I
don't; they call yeou rough an' rewd; I know you've got a
real kind heart fer them as knows haow tew find it. Them
girls give yeou up so easy, 'cause they never loved yeou,
an' yeou give them up 'cause yeou only thought abaout
their looks an' money. I'm humly, an' I'm poor; but I've
loved yeou ever sence we went a-nuttin' years ago, an' yeou

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

shook daown fer me, kerried my bag, and kissed me tew the
gate, when all the others shunned me, 'cause my father drank
an' I was shably dressed, ugly, an' shy. Yeou asked me in
sport, I answered in airnest; but I don't expect nothin' unless
yeou mean as I mean. Like me, Hiram, or leave me, it
won't make no odds in my lovin' er yeou, nor helpin' er
yeou, ef I kin.'

“'Tain't easy tew say haouw I felt, while she was goin'
on that way; but my idees was tumblin; raound inside er
me, as ef half a dozen dams was broke loose all tew oncet.
One thing was ruther stiddier 'n the rest, an' that was that I
liked Bewlah morn'n I knew. I begun tew see what kep
me loopin' tew hum so much, sence aunt was took daown;
why I want in no hurry tew git them other gals, an' haow I
come tew pocket my mittens so easy arfter the fust rile was
over. Bewlah was humly, poor in flesh, dreadful freckled,
hed red hair, black eyes, an' a gret mold side er her nose.
But I'd got wonted tew her; she knowed my ways, was a
fust rate housekeeper, real good-tempered, and pious without
flingin' on't in yer face. She was a lonely creeter, — her folks
bein' all dead but one sister, who didn't use her waal, an'
somehow I kinder yearned over her, as they say in Scripter.
For all I set an' gawped, I was coming raound fast, though I
felt as I used tew, when I was goin' to shoot the rapids,
kinder breathless an' oncertin, whether Id come aout right
side up or not. Queer, warn't it?”

“Love, Flint; that was a sure symptom of it.”

“Waal, guess 'twas; anyway I jumped up all er a sudden,
ketched Bewlah raound the neck, give her a hearty kiss,
and sung aout, `I'll dew it sure's my name's Hi Flint!'
The words was scurcely aout er my maouth, 'fore daown
come Dr. Parr. He'd ben up tew see aunt, an' said she
wouldn't last the night threw, prob'ly. That give me a scare

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

er the wust kind; an' when I told doctor haow things was,
he sez, kinder jokin', —

“`Better git merried right away, then. Parson Dill is
tew come an' see the old lady, an' he'll dew both jobs tew
oncet.'

“`Will yeou, Bewlah?' sez I.

“`Yes, Hiram, to 'blige yeou,' sez she.

“With that, I put it fer the parson and the license; got'
em both, an' was back in less'n half an haour, most tuckered
aout with the flurry er the hull concern. Quick as I'd
been, Bewlah hed faound time tew whip on her best gaoun,
fix up her hair, and put a couple er white chrissanthymums
intew her hank'chif pin. Fer the fust time in her life, she
looked harnsome, — leastways I thought so, — with a pretty
color in her cheeks, somethin' brighter'n a larf shinin' in
her eyes, an' her lips smilin' an' tremblin', as she come to
me an' whispered so's't none er the rest could hear, —

“`Hiram, don't yeou dew it, ef yeou'd ruther not. I've
stood it a gret while alone, an' I guess I can ag'in.'

“Never yeou mind what I said or done abaout that; but
we was merried ten minutes arfter, 'fore the kitchen fire, with
Dr. Parr an' oaur hired man, fer witnesses; an' then we all
went up tew aunt. She was goan fast, but she understood
what I told her, hed strength tew fill up the hole in the
will, an' to say, a-kissin' Bewlah, `Yeou'll be a good wife,
an' naouw yeou ain't a poor one.'

“I couldn't help givin' a peek tew the will, and there I
see not Hiram Flint, nor Josiah Flint, but Bewlah Flint,
wrote every which way, but as plain as the nose on yer face.
`It won't make no odds dear,' whispered my wife, peekin'
over my shoulder. `Guess it won't!' sez I, aout laoud;
`I'm glad on't, and it ain't a cent more'n yeou derserve.'

“That pleased aunt. `Riz me, Hiram,' sez she; an'

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

when I'd got her easy, she put her old arms raound my
neck, an' tried to say, `God bless you, dear —,' but died a
doin' of it; an' I ain't ashamed tew say I boo-hooed real
hearty, when I laid her daown, fer she was dreadf'l good
tew me, an' I don't forgit her in a hurry.”

“How's Bewlah?” asked Dick, after the little tribute of
respect all paid to Aunt Siloam's memory, by a momentary
silence.

“Fust-rate! that harum scarum venter er mine was the
best I ever made. She's done waal by me, hes Bewlah;
ben a grand good haousekeeper, kin kerry on the farm better'n
me, any time, an' is as dutif'l an' lovin' a wife as, —
waal as annything that is extra dutif'l and lovin'.”

“Got any boys to brag of?”

“We don't think much o' boys daown aour way; they're'
mazin resky stock to fetch up, — alluz breakin' baounds, gittin'
intew the paound, and wurry your life aout somehaow'
nother. Gals naow doos waal; I got six o' the likeliest
the is goin', every one on 'em is the very moral of Bewlah,—
red hair, black eyes, quiet ways, an' a mold side the nose.
Baby's ain't growed yet; but I expect tew see it in a consid'able
state o' forrardness, when I git hum, an' wouldn't
miss it fer the world.”

The droll expressions of Flint's face, and the satisfied
twang of his last words, were irresistable. Dick and Phil went
off into a shout of laughter; and even Thorn's grave lips relapsed
into a smile at the vision of six little Flints with their
six little moles. As if the act were an established ceremony,
the “paternal head” produced his pocket-book, selected a
worn, black and white paper, which he spread in his broad
palm, and displayed with the air of a connoisseur.

“There, thets Bewlah! we call it a cuttin'; but the proper
name's a silly-hoot I b'leeve. I've got a harnsome big

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

degarrytype tew hum but the heft on't makes it bad tew
kerry raound, so I took this. I don't tote it abaout inside
my shirt as some dew, — it aint my way; but I keep it in my
puss long with my other valleu'bles, and guess I set as
much stoxe by it as ef it was all painted up, and done off to
keell.”

The “silly-hoot” was examined with interest, and carefully
stowed away again in the old brown wallet which was
settled in its place with a satisfied slap, then Flint said
briskly, —

“Naouw, Phil, yeou close this interestin' and instructive
meeting; and be spry, fer time's most up.”

“I haven't much to tell, but must begin with a confession
which I have often longed but never dared to make before,
because I am a coward.”

“Sho! who's goan to b'leeve that o' a man who fit like
a wild cat, wuz offered fer permotion on the field, and wuz
reported tew headquarters arfter his fust scrimmage. Try
ag'in, Phil.”

“Physical courage is as plentiful as brass buttons, nowadays,
but moral courage is a rarer virtue; and I'm lacking in
it, as I'll prove. You think me a Virginian; I'm an Alabamian
by birth, and was a reb three months ago.”

This confession startled his hearers, as he knew it would,
for he had kept his secret well. Thorn laid his hand involuntarily
upon his rifle, Dick drew off a little, and Flint illustrated
one of his own expressions, for he “gawped.”
Phil laughed that musical laugh of his, and looked up at
them with his dark face waking into sudden life as he
went on: —

“There's no treason in the camp, for I'm as fierce a Federalist
as any of you now, and you may thank a woman for
it. When Lee made his raid into Pennsylvania, I was a

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

lieutenant in the — well, never mind what regiment, it
hasn't signalized itself since, and I'd rather not hit my old
neighbors when they are down. In one of the skirmishes
during our retreat, I got a wound and was left for dead. A
kind old Quaker found and took me home; but though I was
too weak to talk, I had my senses by that time, and knew
what went on about me. Everything was in confusion, even
in that well-ordered place; no surgeon could be got at first,
and a flock of frightened women thee'd and thou'd one another
over me, but hadn't wit enough to see that I was bleeding
to death. Among the faces that danced before my dizzy
eyes was one that seemed familiar, probably because no cap
surrounded it. I was glad to have it bending over me, to
hear a steady voice say, `Give me a bandage, quick!' and
when none was instantly forthcoming to me, the young lady
stripped up a little white apron she wore, and stanched the
wound in my shoulder. I was not as badly hurt as I supposed,
but so worn-out, and faint from loss of blood, they believed
me to be dying, and so did I, when the old man took
off his hat and said,—

“`Friend, if thee has anything to say, thee had better say
it, for thee probably has not long to live.'

“I thought of my little sister, far away in Alabama,
fancied she came to me, and muttered, `Amy, kiss me,
good-by.' The women sobbed at that; but the girl bent
her sweet compassionate face to mine, and kissed me on the
forehead. That was my wife.”

“So you seceded from Secession right away, to pay for
that lip-service, hey?”

“No, Thorn, not right away, — to my shame be it spoken.
I'll tell you how it came about. Margaret was not old
Bent's daughter, but a Virginia girl on a visit, and a long
one it proved, for she couldn't go till things were quieter.

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

While she waited, she helped take care of me; for the good
souls petted me like a baby when they found that a Rebel
could be a gentleman. I held my tongue, and behaved my
best to prove my gratitude, you know. Of course, I loved
Margaret very soon. How could I help it? She was the
sweetest woman I had ever seen, tender, frank, and spirited;
all I had ever dreamed of and longed for. I did not speak
of this, nor hope for a return, because I knew she was a
hearty Unionist, and thought she only tended me from pity.
But suddenly she decided to go home, and when I ventured
to wish she would stay longer, she would not listen, and
said, “I must not stay; I should have gone before.”

“The words were nothing, but as she uttered them the
color came up beautifully over all her face, and her eyes
filled as they looked away from mine. Then I knew that
she loved me, and my secret broke out half against my will.
Margaret was forced to listen, for I would not let her go, but
she seemed to harden herself against me, growing colder,
stiller, statelier, as I went on, and when I said in my desperate
way, —

“`You should love me, for we are bid to love our enemies,'
she flashed an indignant look at me and said, —

“`I will not love what I cannot respect! Come to me a
loyal man, and see what answer I shall give you.'

“Then she went away. It was the wisest thing she could
have done, for absence did more to change me than an ocean
of tears, a year of exhortations. Lying there, I missed her
every hour of the day, recalled every gentle act, kind word,
and fair example she had given me. I contrasted my own belief
with hers, and found a new significance in the words
honesty and honor, and, remembering her fidelity to principle,
was ashamed of my own treason to God and to herself.
Education, prejudice, and interest, are difficult things to

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

overcome, and that was the hottest fight I ever passed through,
for, as I tell you, I was a coward. But love and loyalty
won the day, and, asking no quarter, the Rebel surrendered.”

“Phil Beaufort, you're a brick!” cried Dick, with a
sounding slap on his comrade's shoulder.

“A brand snatched from the burnin'. Hallelujah!”
chanted Flint, seesawing with excitement.

“Then you went to find your wife? How? Where?”
asked Thorn, forgetting vigilance in interest.

“Friend Bent hated war so heartily that he would have
nothing to do with paroles, exchanges, or any martial process
whatever, but bade me go when and where I liked, remembering
to do by others as I had been done by. Before I
was well enough to go, however, I managed, by means of
Copperhead influence and returned prisoners, to send a letter
to my father and receive an answer. You can imagine what
both contained; and so I found myself penniless, but not poor,
an outcast, but not alone. Old Bent treated me like a prodigal
son, and put money in my purse; his pretty daughters
loved me for Margaret's sake, and gave me a patriotic salute
all round when I left them, the humblest, happiest man in
Pennsylvania. Margaret once said to me that this was the
time for deeds, not words; that no man should stand idle, but
serve the good cause with head, heart, and hand, no matter in
what rank; for in her eyes a private fighting for liberty was
nobler than a dozen generals defending slavery. I remembered
that, and, not having influential friends to get me a
commission, enlisted in one of her own Virginia regiments,
knowing that no act of mine would prove my sincerity like
that. You should have seen her face when I walked in upon
her, as she sat alone, busied with the army work, as I'd so
often seen her sitting by my bed; it showed me all she had
been suffering in silence, all I should have lost had I chosen

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

darkness instead of light. She hoped and feared so much
she could not speak, neither could I, but dropped my cloak,
and showed her that, through love of her, I had become a
soldier of the Flag. How I love the coarse blue uniform!
for when she saw it, she came to me without a word and
kept her promise in a month.”

“Thunder! what a harnsome woman!” exclaimed Flint,
as Phil, opening the golden case that held his talisman, showed
them the beautiful, beloved face of which he spoke.

“Yes! and a right noble woman too. I don't deserve
her, but I will. We parted on our wedding-day, for orders
to be off came suddenly, and she would not let me go until
I had given her my name to keep. We were married in
the morning, and at noon I had to go. Other women wept
as we marched through the town, but my brave Margaret
kept her tears till we were gone, smiling, and waving her hand
to me, — the hand that wore the wedding-ring, — till I was
out of sight. That image of her is before me day and night,
and day and night her last words are ringing in my ears,—

“`I give you freely, do your best. Better a true man's
widow than a traitor's wife.'

“Boys, I've only stood on the right side for a month;
I've only fought one battle, earned one honor; but I believe
these poor achievements are an earnest of the long atonement
I desire to make for five and twenty years of blind
transgression. You say I fight well. Have I not cause to
dare much? — for in owning many slaves, I too became a slave;
in helping to make many freemen, I liberate myself. You
wonder why I refused promotion. Have I any right to it
yet? Are there not men who never sinned as I have done,
and beside whose sacrifices mine look pitifully small? You
tell me I have no ambition. I have the highest, for I desire
to become God's noblest work, — an honest man, — living,

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

to make Margaret happy, in a love that every hour grows
worthier of her own, — dying, to make death proud to take
me.”

Phil had risen while he spoke, as if the enthusiasm of
his mood lifted him into the truer manhood he aspired to
attain. Straight and strong he stood up in the moonlight,
his voice deepened by unwonted energy, his eye clear and
steadfast, his whole face ennobled by the regenerating power
of this late loyalty to country, wife, and self, and bright
against the dark blue of his jacket shone the pictured face,
the only medal he was proud to wear.

Ah, brave, brief moment, cancelling years of wrong! Ah,
fair and fatal decoration, serving as a mark for a hidden foe!
The sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness of the night,
and with those hopeful words upon his lips, the young man
sealed his purpose with his life.

THE KING OF CLUBS AND THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. A STORY FOR YOUNG AMERICA.

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

FIVE and twenty ladies, all in a row, sat on one side of the
hall, looking very much as if they felt like the little old
woman who fell asleep on the king's highway and awoke with
abbreviated drapery, for they were all arrayed in gray tunics
and Turkish continuations, profusely adorned with many-colored
trimmings. Five and twenty gentlemen, all in a
row, sat on the opposite side of the hall, looking somewhat
subdued, as men are apt to do when they fancy they are in
danger of making fools of themselves. They, also, were en
costume, for all the dark ones had grown piratical in red
shirts, the light ones nautical in blue; and a few boldly appeared
in white, making up in starch and studs what they lost
in color, while all were more or less Byronic as to collar.

On the platform appeared a pile of dumb-bells, a regiment
of clubs, and a pyramid of bean-bags, and stirring nervously
among them a foreign-looking gentleman, the new leader of
a class lately formed by Dr. Thor Turner, whose mission it
was to strengthen the world's spine, and convert it to a belief
in air and exercise, by setting it to balancing its poles
and spinning merrily, while enjoying the “Sun-cure” on a
large scale. His advent formed an epoch in the history of
the town; for it was a quiet old village, guiltless of bustle,
fashion, or parade, where each man stood for what he was;
and, being a sagacious set, every one's true value was pretty
accurately known. It was a neighborly town, with gossip

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

enough to stir the social atmosphere with small gusts of interest
or wonder, yet do no harm. A sensible, free-and-easy
town, for the wisest man in it wore the worst boots, and no one
thought the less of his understanding; the belle of the village
went shopping with a big sun-bonnet and tin pail, and
no one found her beauty lessened; oddities of all sorts
ambled peacefully about on their various hobbies, and no one
suggested the expediency of a trip on the wooden horse upon
which the chivalrous South is always eager to mount an irrepressible
abolitionist. Restless people were soothed by the
lullaby the river sang in its slow journey to the sea, old people
found here a pleasant place to make ready to die-in,
young people to survey the world from, before taking their
first flight, and strangers looked back upon it, as a quiet nook
full of ancient legends and modern lights, which would keep
its memory green when many a gayer spot was quite forgotten.
Anything based upon common sense found favor with
the inhabitants, and Dr. Turner's theories, being eminently
so, were accepted at once and energetically carried out. A
sort of heathen revival took place, for even the ministers and
deacons turned Muselemen; old ladies tossed bean-bags till
their caps were awry, and winter roses blossomed on their
cheeks; school-children proved the worth of the old proverb,
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” by
getting their backs ready before the burdens came; pale girls
grew blithe and strong swinging their dumb namesakes; and
jolly lads marched to and fro embracing clubs as if longevity
were corked up in those wooden bottles, and they all took
“modest quenchers” by the way.

August Bopp, the new leader of the class, was a German
possessing but a small stock of English, though a fine gymnast;
and, being also a bashful man, the appointed moment
had no sooner arrived than he found his carefully prepared

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

sentences slipping away from his memory as the ice appears
to do from under unhappy souls first mounted upon skates.
An awful silence reigned; Mr. Bopp glanced nervously
over his shoulder at the staring rows, more appalling in their
stillness than if they had risen up and hooted at him, then
piling up the bags for the seventh time, he gave himself a
mental shake, and, with a crimson visage, was about to
launch his first “Ladees und gentlemen,” when the door
opened, and a small, merry-faced figure appeared, looking
quite at ease in the novel dress, as, with a comprehensive
nod, it marched straight across the hall to its place among
the weaker vessels.

A general glance of approbation followed from the gentlemen's
side, a welcoming murmur ran along the ladies', and
the fifty pairs of eyes changed their focus for a moment.
Taking advantage of which, Mr. Bopp righted himself, and
burst out with a decided, —

“Ladees und gentlemen: the time have arrived that we
shall begin. Will the gentlemen serve the ladees to a wand,
each one, then spread theirselves about the hall, and follow
the motions I will make as I shall count.”

Five minutes of chaos, then all fell into order, and nothing
was heard but the leader's voice and the stir of many
bodies moving simultaneously. An uninitiated observer would
have thought himself in Bedlam; for as the evening wore on,
the laws of society seemed given to the winds, and humanity
gone mad. Bags flew in all directions, clubs hurtled
through the air, and dumb-bells played a castinet accompaniment
to peals of laughter that made better music than
any band. Old and young gave themselves up to the universal
merriment, and, setting dignity aside, played like happy-hearted
children for an hour. Stout Dr. Quackenboss
gasped twice round the hall on one toe; stately Mrs.

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

Primmins ran like a girl of fifteen to get her pins home before
her competitor; Tommy Inches, four feet three, trotted
away with Deacon Stone on his shoulder, while Mr. Steepleton
and Miss Maypole hopped together like a pair of lively
young ostriches, and Ned Amandine, the village beau, blew
arrows through a pop-gun, like a modern Cupid in pegtops
instead of pinions.

The sprightly young lady whose entrance had been so opportune
seemed a universal favorite, and was overwhelmed
with invitations to “bag,” “hop,” and “blow” from the
gentlemen who hovered about her, cheerfully distorting themselves
to the verge of dislocation in order to win a glance of
approbation from the merry black eyes which were the
tapers where all these muscular moths singed their wings.
Mr. Bopp had never seen such a little piece of earnestness
before, and began to think the young lady must be training
for a boat-race or the ring. Her dumb-bells flew about till a
pair of white arms looked like the sails of a windmill; she
hit out from the shoulder with a vigor that would have done
execution had there been anything but empty air to “punish;”
and the “one, two, three!” of the Zouave movement
went off with a snap; while the color deepened from pink
to scarlet in her cheeks, the black braids tumbled down upon
her shoulders, and the clasp of her belt flew asunder; but
her eye seldom left the leader's face, and she followed every
motion with an agility and precision quite inspiring. Mr.
Bopp's courage rose as he watched her, and a burning desire
to excel took possession of him, till he felt as if his muscles
were made of India-rubber, and his nerves of iron. He
went into his work heart and soul, shaking a brown mane
out of his eyes, issuing commands like a general at the head
of his troops, and keeping both interest and fun in full blast
till people laughed who had not laughed heartily for years;

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

lungs got their fill for once, unsuspected muscles were suddenly
developed, and, when the clock struck ten, all were
bubbling over with that innocent jollity which makes youth
worth possessing, and its memory the sunshine of old age.

The last exercise was drawing to a close, and a large ring
of respectable members of society were violently sitting
down and rising up in a manner which would have scandalized
Miss Wilhelmina Carolina Amelia S. Keggs to the last
degree, when Mr. Bopp was seen to grow very pale, and
drop in a manner which it was evident his pupils were not
expected to follow.

At this unexpected performance, the gentlemen took advantage
of their newly-acquired agility to fly over all obstacles
and swarm on to the platform, while the ladies successfully
lessened their unusual bloom by staring wildly at one
another and suggesting awful impossibilities. The bustle
subsided as suddenly as it arose; and Mr. Bopp, rather damp
about the head and dizzy about the eye, but quite composed,
appeared, saying, with the broken English and appealing
manner which caused all the ladies to pronounce him “a
dear” on the spot, —

“I hope you will excoose me for making this lesson to be
more short than it should; but I have exercise nine hours
this day, and being just got well from a illness, I have not
recover the strength I have lost. Next week I shall be able
to take time by the hair, so that I will not have so much engagements
in one day. I thank you for your kindness, and
say good-efening.

After a round of applause, as a last vent for their spirits,
the class dispersed, and Mr. Bopp was wrestling with a
vicious pin as he put on his collar (“a sure sign he has no
ma to see to his buttons, poor lamb!” thought Mrs. Fairbairn,
watching him from afar); when the sprightly young lady,

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

accompanied by a lad the masculine image of herself, appeared
upon the platform, saying, with an aspect as cordial
as her words, —

“Good-evening, Professor. Allow me to introduce my
brother and myself, Dick and Dolly Ward, and ask you in
my mother's name, to come home with us; for the tavern is
not a cosy place, and after all this exertion you should be
made comfortable. Please come, for Dr. Turner always
stayed with us, and we promised to do the honors of the
town to any gentleman he might send to supply his place.”

“Of course we did; and mother is probably freezing her
blessed nose off watching for us; so don't disappoint her,
Bopp. It's all settled, the sleigh's at the door, and here's
your coat; so, come on!”

Dick was a fine sample of young America in its best aspect,
and would have said “How are you?” to Louis Napoleon
if he had been at hand, and have done it so heartily
that the great Frenchman would have found it hard to resist
giving as frank an answer. Therefore no wonder that Mr.
Bopp surrendered at once; for the young gentleman took
possession of him bodily, and shook him into his coat with
an amiable impetuosity which developed a sudden rent in the
well-worn sleeve thereof, and caused an expression of dismay
to dawn upon the owner's countenance.

“Beg pardon; never mind; mother'll sew you up in two
seconds, and your overcoat will hide the damage. Where is
it? I'll get it, and then we'll be off.”

Mr. Bopp colored distressfully, looked up, looked down,
and then straight into the lad's face, saying simply,—

“Thank you; I haf no coat but one.”

Dick opened his eyes, and was about opening his mouth
also, for the exit of some blunderingly good-natured reply,
when a warning poke from his sister restrained him, while

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

Dolly, with the innocent hypocrisy which is as natural to
some women as the art of tying bows, said, as she led the
way out,—

“You see the worth of gymnastics, Dick, in this delightful
indifference to cold. I sincerely hope we may reach a
like enviable state of health, and look upon great-coats as
effeminate, and mufflers a weakness of the flesh. Do you
think we shall, Mr. Bopp?”

He shook his head with a perceptible shiver as the keen
north wind smote him in the face, but answered, with a look
half merry, half sad,—

“It is not choice, but what you call necessitee, with me;
and I truly hope you may never haf to exercise to keep life
in you when you haf sold your coat to pay a doctor's bill, or
teach the art of laughing while your heart is heavy as one
stone. You would not like that, I think, yet it is good, too;
for small things make much happiness for me, and a kind
word is often better than a rix dollar.”

There was something in the young man's tone and manner
which touched and won his hearers at once. Dolly secretly
resolved to put an extra blanket on his bed, and shower kind
words upon him, while Dick tucked him up in buffalo robes
where he sat helplessly beaming down upon the red hood at
his side.

A roaring fire shone out hospitably as they came, and
glorified the pleasant room, dancing on ancient furniture and
pictured walls till the jolly old portraits seemed to wink a
visible welcome. A cheery-faced little woman, like an elder
Dolly, in a widow's cap, stood on the threshold, with a
friendly greeting for the stranger, which warmed him as no
fire could have done.

If August Bopp had been an Englishman, he would have
felt much, but said less on that account; if he had been an

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

American, he would have tried to conceal his poverty, and
impress the family with his past grandeur, present importance,
or future prospects; being a German, he showed exactly
what he was, with the childlike frankness of his race.
Having had no dinner, he ate heartily of what was offered
him; being cold, he basked in the generous warmth; being
homesick and solitary, he enjoyed the genial influences that
surrounded him, and told his story, sure of sympathy; for
even in prosaic Yankeedom he had found it, as travellers
find Alpine flowers among the snow.

It was a simple story of a laborious boyhood, being early
left an orphan, with a little sister dependent on him, till an
opening in America tempted him to leave her and come to
try and earn a home for her and for himself. Sickness, misfortune,
and disappointment had been his companions for a
year; but he still worked, still hoped, and waited for the happy
hour when little Ulla should come to him across the sea.
This was all; yet as he told it, with the magical accompaniments
of gesture, look, and tone, it seemed full of pathos
and romance to his listeners, whose faces proved their interest
more flatteringly than their words.

Mrs. Ward mended the torn coat with motherly zeal, and
gave it many of those timely stitches which thrifty women
love to sew. The twins devoted themselves to their guest,
each in a characteristic manner. Dick, as host, offered every
article of refreshment the house afforded, goaded the fire to a
perpetual roar, and discussed gymnastics, with bursts of boyish
admiration for the grace and skill of his new leader,
whom he christened King of Clubs on the spot. Dolly made
the stranger one of them at once by talking bad German, as
an offset to his bad English, called him Professor in spite of
all denials, and unconsciously symbolized his future bondage

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

by giving him a tangled skein to hold for the furtherance of
her mother's somewhat lengthened job.

The Cupid of the present day was undoubtedly “raised”
in Connecticut; for the ingenuity and shrewdness of that
small personage could have sprung from no other soil. In
former times his stratagems were of the romantic order.
Colin bleated forth his passion in rhyme, and cast sheep's
eyes from among his flock, while Phyllis coquetted with her
crook and stuck posies in his hat; royal Ferdinand and
Miranda played at chess; Ivanhoe upset his fellow-men like
ninepins for love of lackadaisical Rowena; and “sweet
Moll” turned the pages while her lover, Milton, sang. But
in our day the jolly little god, though still a heathen in the
severe simplicity of his attire, has become modernized in his
arts, and invented huskings, apple-bees, sleigh-rides, “dropins,”
gymnastics, and, among his finer snares, the putting on
of skates, drawing of patterns, and holding skeins, — the
last-named having superior advantages over the others, as all
will testify who have enjoyed one of those hand-to-hand skirmishes.

August Bopp was three and twenty, imaginative, grateful,
and heart-whole; therefore, when he found himself sitting opposite
a blooming little damsel, with a head, bound by a
pretty red snood, bent down before him, and very close to his
own a pair of distracting hands, every finger of which had a
hit to make, and made it, it is not to be denied that he felt
himself entering upon a new and very agreeable experience.
Where could he look but in the face opposite, sometimes so
girlishly merry and sometimes so beautifully shy? It was a
winning face, full of smooth curves, fresh colors, and sunshiny
twinkles, — a face every one liked, for it was as changeful as
an April day, and always pleasant, whether mischievous,
mournful, or demure.

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

Like one watching a new picture, Mr. Bopp inspected
every feature of the countenance so near his own; and, as
his admiration “grew by what it fed on,” he fell into a
chronic state of stammer and blush; for the frank eyes were
very kind, the smooth cheeks reflected a pretty shade of his
own crimson, and the smiling lips seemed constantly suggesting,
with mute eloquence, that they were made for kissing,
while the expressive hands picked at the knots till the Professor
felt like a very resigned fly in the web of a most enticing
young spider.

If the King of Clubs saw a comely face, the Queen of
Hearts saw what observing girls call a “good face;” and
with a womanly respect for strength, the manliest attribute of
man, she admired the broad shoulders and six feet one of her
new master. This face was not handsome, for, true to his
fatherland, the Professor had an eminent nose, a blonde beard,
and a crop of “bonny brown hair” long enough to have been
gathered into a ribbon, as in the days of Schiller and Jean
Paul; but Dolly liked it, for its strength was tempered with
gentleness; patience and courage gave it dignity, and the
glance that met her own was both keen and kind.

The silk was wound at last, the coat repaired. Dick with
difficulty concealed the growing stiffness of his shoulders,
while Dolly turned up the lamp, which bluntly hinted bed-time,
and Mrs. Ward successfully devoured six gapes behind
her hand, but was detected in the seventh by Mr. Bopp, who
glanced at the clock, stopped in the middle of a sentence,
and, with a hurried “goot-night,” made for the door without
the least idea whither he was going. Piloted by Dick, he
was installed in the “best chamber,” where his waking
dreams were enlivened by a great fire, and his sleeping ones
by an endless succession of skeins, each rapturously concluded

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

in the style of Sam Weller when folding carpets with the
pretty maid.

“I tell you, Dolly, it won't do, and I'm not going to have
it.”

“Oh, indeed; and how will you help it, you absurd boy?”

“Why, if you don't stop it, I'll just say to Bopp, —
`Look here, my dear fellow; this sister of mine is a capital
girl, but she will flirt and' ”—

“And it's a family failing, Dick,” cut in Dolly.

“Not a bit of it. I shall say, `Take care of your heart,
Bopp, for she has a bad habit of playing battle-door and
shuttle-cock with these articles; and, though it may be very
good fun for a time, it makes them ache when they get a last
knock and are left to lie in a corner.' ”

“What eloquence! But you'd never dare to try it on Mr.
Bopp; and I shouldn't like to predict what would happen to
you if you did.”

“If you say `dare,' I'll do it the first minute I see him.
As for consequences, I don't care that for 'em;” and Dick
snapped his fingers with an aspect of much disdain. But
something in his sister's face suggested the wisdom of moderation,
and moved him to say, less like a lord of creation,
and more like a brother who privately adored his sister, but
of course was not going to acknowledge such a weakness, —

“Well, but soberly, now, I wish you wouldn't plague
Bopp; for it's evident to me that he is hit; and from the way
you've gone on these two months, what else was to be expected?
Now, as the head of the family, — you needn't
laugh, for I am, — I think I ought to interfere; and so I put
it to you, — do you like him, and will you have him? or are

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

you merely amusing yourself, as you have done ever since
you were out of pinafores? If you like him, all serene.
I'd rather have him for a brother than any one I know, for
he's a regular trump though he is poor; but if you don't, I
won't have the dear old fellow floored just because you like to
see it done.”

It may here be remarked that Dolly quite glowed to hear
her brother praise Mr. Bopp, and that she indorsed every
word with mental additions of double warmth; but Dick had
begun all wrong, and, manlike, demanded her confidence before
she had made up her mind to own she had any to bestow;
therefore nothing came of it but vexation of spirit; for it is a
well-known fact that, on some subjects, if boys will tease,
girls will fib, and both maintain that it is right. So Dolly
whetted her feminine weapon, and assumed a lofty superiority.

“Dear me! what a sudden spasm of virtue; and why, if
it is such a sin, has not the `head of the house' taken his
sister to task before, instead of indulging in a like degeneracy,
and causing several interesting persons to tear their
hair, and bewail his forgetfulness, when they ought to have
blessed their stars he was out of the way?”

Dick snowballed a dozing crow and looked nettled; for he
had attained that age when “Tom Brown at Oxford” was
the book of books, the twelfth chapter being the favorite,
and five young ladies having already been endowed with the
significant heliotrope flower; all of which facts Dolly had
skilfully brought to mind, as a return-shot for his somewhat
personal remarks.

“Bah! they were only girls, and it don't amount to anything
among us young folks; but Bopp is a grown man, and
you ought to respect him too much to play such pranks with
him. Besides, he's a German, and more tender-hearted than
we rough Yankees, as any one can see by the way he acts

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

when you snub him. He is proud, too, for all his meekness,
and waits till he's sure you like him before he says anything;
and he'll need the patience of a family of Jobs at the rate
you're going on, — a honey-pot one day and a pickle-jar the
next. Do make up your mind, and say yes or no, right off,
Dolly.”

“Would you have me meet him at the door with a meek
courtesy, and say, `Oh, if you please, I'm ready to say
Yes, thank you, if you'll be good enough to say, Will you'?”

“Don't be a goose, child; you know I mean nothing of
the kind; only you girls never will do anything straight
ahead if you can dodge and fuss and make a mess of it. Just
tell me one thing: Do you, or don't you, like old Bopp?”

“What an elegant way to put it! Of course I like him
well enough as a leader; he is clever, and sort of cunning,
and I enjoy his funny ways; but what in the world should I
do with a great yellow-haired laddie who could put me in his
pocket, and yet is so meek that I should never find the heart
to henpeck him? You are welcome to him; and since you
love him so much, there's no need of my troubling myself on
his account; for with you for a friend, he can have no earthly
wish ungratified.”

“Don't try to be cutting, Dolly, because you look homely
when you do, and it's a woman's business to be pretty always.
All I've got to say is, you will be in a nice state of
mind if you damage Bopp; for every one likes him, and will
be down upon you for a heartless little wretch; and I shan't
blame them, I promise you.”

“I wish the town wouldn't put its fingers in other people's
pies, and you may tell it so, with my compliments; and all I
have to say is, that you men have more liberty than you know
what to do with, and we women haven't enough; so it's perfectly
fair that we should show you the worth of the thing by

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

taking it away now and then. I shall do exactly as I please;
dance, walk, ride, and flirt, whenever and with whomever I
see fit; and the whole town, with Mr. Dick Ward at their
head, can't stop me if I choose to go on. Now, then, what
next?” After which declaration of independence, Dolly
folded her arms, wheeled about and faced her brother, a
spirited statuette of Self Will, in a red hood and mittens.

Dick sternly asked, —

“Is that your firm decision, ma'am?”

“Yes.”

“And you will not give up your nonsense?”

“No.”

“You are quite sure you don't care for Bopp?”

“I could slap him with all my heart.”

“Very good. I shall see that you don't get a chance.”

“I wouldn't try a skirmish, for you'll get beaten, Dick.”

“We'll prove that, ma'am.”

“We will, sir.”

And the belligerents loftily paced up the lawn, with their
purpose so well expressed by outward signs that Mrs. Ward
knew, by the cock of Dick's hat and the decided tap of
Dolly's heels, that a storm was brewing, before they entered
the door.

This fraternal conversation took place some two months
from the evening of Mr. Bopp's advent, as the twins were
strolling home from school, which school must be briefly alluded
to in order to explain the foregoing remarks. It was
an excellent institution in all respects; for its presiding genius
stood high in the townfolks' esteem, and might have served
as an example to Dr. Watts' “busy bee,” in the zeal with
which he improved his “shining hours,” and laid up honey
against the winter, which many hoped would be long in coming.
All manner of aids were provided for sprouting souls

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

and bodies, diversions innumerable, and society, some members
of which might have polished off Alcibiades a la Secrates,
or entertained Plato with “æsthetic tea.” But, sad
to relate, in spite of all these blessings, the students who resorted
to this academy possessed an Adam-and-Eve-like proclivity
for exactly what they hadn't got and didn't need; and,
not contented with the pleasures provided, must needs play
truant with that young scamp Eros, and turn the ancient
town topsy-turvy with modern innovations, till scandalized
spinsters predicted that the very babies would catch the fever,
refuse their panada in jealous gloom, send billet-doux in their
rattles, elope in wicker-carriages, and set up housekeeping in
dolls' houses, after the latest fashion.

Certain inflammable Southerners introduced the new game,
and left such romantic legends of their loves behind them that
their successors were fired with an ambition to do the like,
and excel in all things, from cricket to captivation.

This state of things is not to be wondered at; for America,
being renowned as a “fast” nation, has become a sort of hotbed,
and seems to force humanity into early bloom. Therefore,
past generations must not groan over the sprightly
present, but sit in the chimney-corner and see boys and girls
play the game which is too apt to end in a checkmate for one
of the players. To many of the lookers-on, the new order of
things was as good as a puppet-show; for, with the enthusiasm
of youth, the actors performed their parts heartily, forgetting
the audience in their own earnestness. Bless us! what revolutions
went on under the round jackets, and what love-tokens
lay in the pockets thereof. What plots and counterplots occupied
the heads that wore the innocent-looking snoods, and
what captives were taken in the many-colored nets that would
come off and have to be taken care of. What romances blossomed
like dandelions along the road to school, and what tales

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

the river might have told if any one could have learned its
musical speech. How certain gates were glorified by daily
lingerings thereat, and what tender memories hung about
dingy desks, old pens, and books illustrated with all manner
of symbolical designs.

Let those laugh who will; older and wiser men and women
might have taken lessons of these budding heroes and heroines;
for here all was honest, sincere, and fresh; the old
world had not taught them falsehood, self-interest, or mean
ambitions. When they lost or won, they frankly grieved or
rejoiced, and wore no masks except in play, and then got them
off as soon as possible. If blue-eyed Lizzie frowned, or went
home with Joe, Ned, with a wisdom older lovers would do well
to imitate, went in for another game of foot-ball, gave the rejected
apple to little Sally, and whistled “Glory Hallelujah,”
instead of “Annie Laurie,” which was better than blowing
a rival's brains out, or glowering at woman-kind forever after.
Or, when Tom put on Clara's skates three successive days,
and danced with her three successive evenings, leaving Kitty
to freeze her feet in the one instance and fold her hands in
the other, she just had a “good cry,” gave her mother an extra
kiss, and waited till the recreant Tom returned to his allegiance,
finding his little friend a sweetheart in nature as in
name.

Dick and Dolly were foremost in the ranks, and expert in
all the new amusements. Dick worshipped at many shrines,
but most faithfully at that of a meek divinity, who returned
charming answers to the ardent epistles which he left in her
father's garden wall, where, Pyramus and Thisbe-like, they
often chatted through a chink; and Dolly was seldom seen
without a staff of aids who would have “fought, bled, and
died” for her as cheerfully as the Little Corporal's Old

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

Guard, though she paid them only in words; for her Waterloo
had not yet come.

With the charming perversity of her sex in such matters,
no sooner had Dolly declared that she didn't like Mr. Bopp,
than she began to discover that she did; and so far from desiring
“to slap him,” a tendency to regard him with peculiar
good-will and tenderness developed itself, much to her own
surprise; for with all her coquetry and seeming coldness,
Dolly had a right womanly heart of her own, though she had
never acknowledged the fact till August Bopp looked at her
with so much love and longing in his honest eyes. Then she
found a little fear mingling with her regard, felt a strong desire
to be respected by him, discovered a certain something
which she called conscience, restraining a reckless use of her
power, and, soon after her lofty denial to Dick, was forced to
own that Mr. Bopp had become her master in the finer species
of gymnastics that came in with Adam and Eve, and have
kept all creation turning somersets ever since. Of course
these discoveries were unconfessed, even to that best bosom
friend which any of us can have; yet her mother suspected
them, and, with much anxiety, saw all, yet held her peace,
knowing that her little daughter would, sooner or later, give
her a fuller confidence than could be demanded; and remembering
the happiest moments of her own happy past, when an
older Dick wooed another Dolly, she left that flower, which
never can be forced, to open at its own sweet will.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bopp, though carrying his heart upon his
sleeve, believed his secret buried in the deepest gloom, and
enjoyed all the delightful miseries lovers insist upon making
for themselves. When Dolly was quiet and absent, he

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

became pensive, the lesson dragged, and people fancied they
were getting tired of the humbug; when Dolly was blithe
and bland, he grew radiant, exercised within an inch of his
life as a vent for his emotions, and people went home declaring
gymnastics to be the crowning triumph of the age;
and when Dolly was capricious, Mr. Bopp became a bewildered
weathercock, changing as the wind changed, and dire
was the confusion occasioned thereby.

Like the sage fowl in the story, Dick said nothing, but
“kept up a terrible thinking,” and, not having had experience
enough to know that when a woman says No she is very
apt to mean Yes, he took Dolly at her word. Believing it
to be his duty to warn “Old Bopp,” he resolved to do it
like a Roman brother, regardless of his own feelings or his
sister's wrath, quite unconscious that the motive power in the
affair was a boyish love of ruling the young person who
ruled every one else.

Matters stood thus, when the town was electrified by a
general invitation to the annual jubilee at Jollyboys Hall,
which this spring flowered into a masquerade, and filled the
souls of old and young with visions of splendor, frolic, and
fun. Being an amiable old town, it gave itself up, like a
kind grandma, to the wishes of its children, let them put its
knitting away, disturb its naps, keep its hands busy with
vanities of the flesh, and its mind in a state of chaos for
three mortal weeks. Young ladies were obscured by tarletan
fogs, behind which they concocted angels' wings, newspaper
gowns, Minnehaha's wampum, and Cinderella's slippers. Inspired
but incapable boys undertook designs that would have
daunted a costumer of the first water, fell into sloughs of
despond, and, emerging, settled down from peers and paladins
into jovial tars, friar waterproofs, and officers in miscellaneous
uniforms. Fathers laughed or grumbled at the

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

whole thing and advanced pecuniary loans with good or ill
grace, as the case might be; but the mothers, whose interest
in their children's pleasure is a sort of evergreen that no
snows of time can kill, sewed spangles by the bushel, made
wildernesses of tissue-paper blossom as the rose, kept tempers
sweet, stomachs full, and domestic machinery working
smoothly through it all, by that maternal magic which makes
them the human providences of this naughty world.

“What shall I go as?” was the universal cry. Garrets
were taken by storm, cherished relics were teased out of old
ladies' lavendered chests (happy she who saw them again!),
hats were made into boots, gowns into doublets, cloaks into
hose, Sunday bonnets despoiled of their plumage, silken cauliflowers
sown broadcast over the land, and cocked-up caps
erected in every style of architecture, while “Tag, Rag, and
Bobtail” drove a smashing business, and everybody knew
what everybody else was going to be, and solemnly vowed
they didn't — which transparent falsehood was the best joke
of the whole.

Dolly allowed her mates to believe she was to be the
Queen of Hearts, but privately laid hold of certain brocades
worn by a trim grandmother half a century ago, and one
evening burst upon her brother in a charming “Little BoPeep”
costume, which, for the benefit of future distressed
damsels, may be described as a white silk skirt, scarlet overdress,
“neatly bundled up behind,” as ancient ladies expressed
it, blue hose with red clocks, high-heeled shoes with
silver buckles, a nosegay in the trucker, and a fly-way hat
perched in this case on the top of black curls, which gave
additional archness to Dolly's face as she entered, singing
that famous ditty.

Dick surveyed her with approval, turning her about like a
lay figure, and expressing his fraternal opinion that she was

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

“the sauciest little turn-out he ever saw,” and then wetblanketed
the remark by adding, “Of course you don't call
it a disguise, do you? and don't flatter yourself that you
won't be known; for Dolly Ward is as plainly written in
every curl, bow, and gimcrack, as if you wore a label on
your back.”

“Then I shan't wear it;” and off went the hat at one
fell blow, as Dolly threw her crook in one corner, her posy in
another, and sat down an image of despair.

“Now don't be a goose, and rip everything to bits; just
wear a domino over all, as Fan is going to, and then, when
you've had fun enough, take it off and do the pretty. It
will make two rigs, you see, and bother the boys to your
heart's content.”

“Dick, I insist upon kissing you for that brilliant suggestion;
and then you may run and get me eight yards of
cambric, just the color of Fan's; but if you tell any one,
I'll keep her from dancing with you the whole evening;”
with which bribe and threat Dolly embraced her brother, and
shut the door in his face, while he, putting himself in good
humor by imagining she was somebody else, departed on his
muddy mission.

If the ghosts of the first settlers had taken their walks
abroad on the eventful Friday night, they would have held
up their shadowy hands at the scenes going on under their
venerable noses; for strange figures flitted through the quiet
streets, and instead of decorous slumber, there was decidedly, —

“A sound of revelry by night.”

Spurs clanked and swords rattled over the frosty ground,
as if the British were about to make another flying call;
hooded monks and nuns paced along, on carnal thoughts
intent; ancient ladies and bewigged gentlemen seemed

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

hurrying to enjoy a social cup of tea, and groan over the tax;
barrels staggered and stuck through narrow ways, as if temperance
were still among the lost arts, while bears, apes,
imps, and elves pattered or sparkled by, as if a second Walpurgis
Night had come, and all were bound for Blocksberg.

“Hooray for the rooster!” shouted young Ireland, encamped
on the sidewalk to see the show, as Mephistopheles'
red cock's feather skimmed up the stairs, and he left a pink
domino at the ladies' dressing-room door, with the brief
warning, “Now cut your own capers and leave me to mine,”
adding, as he paused a moment at the great door, —

“By Jove! isn't it a jolly sight, though?”

And so it was; for a mammoth boot stood sentinel at the
entramce; a Bedouin Arab leaned on his spear in one corner,
looking as if ready to say, —

“Fly to the desert, fly with me,”

“The honey of his music vows.”

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

Jack tars, and dukes danced with dairy-maids, while Brother
Jonathan whittled, Aunt Dinah jabbered, Ingomar flourished
his club, and every one felt warmly enthusiastic and vigorously
jolly.

“Ach himmel! Das ist wunder sehön!” murmured a tall,
gray monk, looking in, and quite unconscious that he spoke
aloud.

“Hullo, Bopp! I thought you weren't coming,” cried
Mephistopheles in an emphatic whisper.

“Ah, I guess you! yes, you are well done. I should
like to be a Faust for you, but I haf no time, no purse for a
dress, so I throw this on, and run up for a hour or two.
Where is — who is all these people? Do you know them?”

“The one with the Pope, Fra Diavolo; the telegraph,
and two knights asking her to dance, is Dolly, if that's what
you want to know. Go in and keep it up, Bopp, while you
can; I am off for Fan;” and Mephistopheles departed over
the banisters with a weird agility that delighted the beholders;
while the gray friar stole into a corner and watched the
pink domino for half an hour, at the end of which time his
regards were somewhat confused by discovering that there
were two pink damsels so like that he could not tell which
was the one pointed out by Dick and which the new-comer.

“She thinks I will not know her, but I shall go now and
find out for myself;” and, starting into sudden activity, the
gray brother strode up to the nearest pink lady, bowed, and
offered his arm. With a haughty little gesture of denial to
several others, she accepted it, and they joined the circle of
many-colored promenaders that eddied round the hall. As
they went, Mr. Bopp scrutinized his companion, but saw only
a slender figure shrouded from head to foot, and the tip of a
white glove resting on his arm.

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

“I will speak; then her voice will betray her,” he
thought, forgetting that his own was undisguisable.

“Madame, permit me that I fan you, it is so greatly
warm.”

A fan was surrendered with a bow, and the masked face
turned fully toward his own, while the hood trembled as if
its wearer laughed silently.

“Ah, it is you, — I know the eyes, the step, the laugh.
Miss Dolly, did you think you could hide from me?”

“I did not wish to,” was the whispered answer.

“Did you think I would come?”

“I hoped so.”

“Then you are not displease with me?”

“No; I am very glad; I wanted you.”

The pink head drooped a little nearer, and another white
glove went to meet its mate upon his arm with a pretty, confiding
gesture. Mr. Bopp instantly fell into a state of bliss,—
the lights, music, gay surroundings, and, more than all,
this unwonted demonstration, put the crowning glory to the
moment; and, fired with the hopeful omen, he allowed his
love to silence his prudence, and lead him to do, then and
there, the very thing he had often resolved never to do at all.

“Ah, Miss Dolly, if you knew how much, how very
much you haf enlarged my happiness, and made this efening
shine for me, you would more often be a little friendly, for
this winter has been all summer to me, since I knew you and
your kind home, and now I haf no sorrow but that after the
next lesson I come no more unless you gif me leaf. See
now I must say this even here, when so much people are
about us, because I cannot stop it; and you will forgif me
that I cannot wait any longer.”

“Mr. Bopp, please don't, please stop!” began the pink

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

domino in a hurried whisper. But Mr. Bopp was not to be
stopped. He had dammed up the stream so long, that now
it rushed on fast, full, and uncontrollable; for, leading her
into one of the curtained recesses near by, he sat down
beside her, and, still plying the fan, went on impetuously, —

“I feel to say that I lofe you, and tho' I try to kill it, my
love will not die, because it is more strong than my will,
more dear than my pride, for I haf much, and I do not ask
you to be meine Frau till I can gif you more than my heart
and my poor name. But hear now; I will work, and save,
and wait a many years if at the end you will take all I haf
and say, `August, I lofe you.' Do not laugh at me because
I say this in such poor words; you are my heart's dearest,
and I must tell it or never come again. Speak to me one
kind yes, and I will thank Gott in himmel for so much joy.”

The pink domino had listened to this rapid speech with
averted head, and, when it ended, started up, saying eagerly,
“You are mistaken, sir, I am not Dolly;” but as she spoke
her words were belied, for the hasty movement displaced her
mask, and Mr. Bopp saw Dolly's eyes, a lock of dark hair,
and a pair of burning cheeks, before the screen was readjusted.
With redoubled earnestness he held her back,
whispering, —

“Do not go mitout the little word, Yes, or No; it is not
much to say.”

“Well then, No!”

“You mean it? Dolly! truly mean it?”

“Yes, let me go at once, sir.”

Mr. Bopp stood up, saying slowly, — “Yes, go now;
they told me you had no heart; I beliefe it, and thank you
for that No;” then bowed, and walked straight out of the
hall, while the pink domino broke into a fit of laughter,
saying to herself, —

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

“I've done it! I've done it! but what a piece of work
there'll be to-morrow.”

“Dick, who was that tall creature Fan was parading with
last night? No one knew, and he vanished before the masks
were taken off,” asked Dolly, as she and her brother lounged
in opposite corners of the sofa the morning after the masquerade,
“talking it over.”

“That was old Bopp, Mrs. Peep.”

“Gracious me! why, he said he wasn't coming.”

“People sometimes say what they don't mean, as you may
have discovered.”

“But why didn't he come and speak to a body, Dick?”

“Better employed, I suppose.”

“Now don't be cross, dear, but tell me all about it, for I
don't understand how you allowed him to monopolize Fan
so.”

“Oh, don't bother, I'm sleepy.”

“No you're not; you look wicked; I know you've been
in mischief, and I insist upon hearing all about it, so come
and `fess' this instant.”

Dolly proceeded to enforce her command by pulling away
his pillow and dragging her brother into a sitting posture in
spite of his laughing resistance and evident desire to exhaust
her patience; for Dick excelled in teasing, and kept his sister
in a fidget from morning till night, with occasional fits of
penitence and petting which lasted till next time. Therefore,
though dying to `fess,' he was undecided as to the best
method of executing that task in the manner most aggravating
to his listener and most agreeable to himself, and sat
regarding her with twinkling eyes, and his curly pate in a

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

high state of rumple, trying to appear innocently meek, but
failing signally.

“Now, then, up and tell,” commanded Dolly.

“Well, if you won't take my head off till I'm done, I'll
tell you the best joke of the season. Are you sure the pink
domino with Bopp wasn't yourself, — for she looked and
acted very like you?”

“Of course I am. I didn't even know he was there, and
think it very rude and ungentlemanly in him not to come and
speak to me. You know it was Fan, so do go on.”

“But it wasn't, for she changed her mind and wore a
black domino; I saw her put it on myself. Her Cousin Jack
came unexpectedly, and she thought if she altered her dress
and went with him, you wouldn't know her.”

“Who could it have been, Dick?”

“That's the mystery, for, do you know, Bopp proposed to
her.”

“He didn't!” and Dolly flew up with a startled look that,
to adopt a phrase from his own vocabulary, was “nuts” to
her brother.

“Yes he did; I heard him.”

“When, where, and how?”

“In one of these flirtation boxes; they dropped the curtain,
but I heard him do it, on my honor I did.”

“Persons of honor don't listen at curtains and key-holes.
What did they say?”

“Oh, if it wasn't honorable to listen, it isn't to hear; so I
won't tell, though I could not help knowing it.”

“Merey! don't stop now, or I shall die with curiosity. I
dare say I should have done the same; no one minds at such
a place, you know. But I don't see the joke yet,” said
Dolly dismally.

“I do,” and Dick went off into a shout.

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

“You idiotic boy, take that pillow out of your mouth, and
tell me the whole thing, — what he said, what she said, and
what they both did. It was all fun of course, but I'd like
to hear about it.”

“It may have been fun on her part, but it was solemn earnest
on his, for he went it strong I assure you. I'd no idea
the old fellow was so sly, for he appeared smashed with you,
you know, and there he was finishing up with this unknown
lady. I wish you could have heard him go on, with tears in
his eyes” —

“How do you know if you didn't see him?”

“Oh, well, that's only a figure of speech; I thought so
from his voice. He was ever so tender, and took to Dutch
when English was too cool for him. It was really touching,
for I never heard a fellow do it before; and, upon my word,
I should think it was rather a tough job to say that sort of
thing to a pretty woman, mask or no mask.”

“What did she say?” asked Dolly, with her hands pressed
tight together, and a curious little quiver of the lips.

“She said, No, as short as pie-crust; and when he rushed
out with his heart broken all to bits apparently, she just burst
out laughing, and went and polked at a two-forty pace for
half an hour.”

Dora unclasped her hands, took a long breath, and cried
out, —

“She was a wicked, heartless hussy! and if I know her,
I'll never speak to her again; for if he was really in earnest,
she ought to be killed for laughing at him.”

“So ought you, then, for making fun of poor Fisher when
he went down on his knees behind the huckleberry bushes
last summer. He was earnest enough, for he looked as
black-and-blue as his berries when he got home. Your
theory is all right, ma'am, but your practice is all bosh.”

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

“Hold your tongue about that silly thing. Boys in college
think they know everything, can do everything, have
everything, and only need beckon, and all womankind will
come and adore. It made a man of him, and he'll thank me
for taking the sentimental nonsense and conceit out of him.
You will need just such a lesson at the rate you go on, and I
hope Fan will give it to you.”

“When the lecture is over, I'll go on with the joke, if you
want to know it.”

“Isn't this enough?”

“Oh, bless you, no! the cream of it is to come. What
would you give to know who the lady was?”

“Five dollars, down, this minute.”

“Very good, hand 'em over, and I'll tell you.”

“Truly, Dick?”

“Yes, and prove it.”

Dolly produced her purse, and, bill in hand, sat waiting
for the disclosure. Dick rose with a melo-dramatic
bow, —

“Lo, it was I.”

“That's a great fib, for I saw you flying about the whole
evening.”

“You saw my dress, but I was not in it.”

“Oh! oh! who did I keep going to, then? and what
did I do to make a fool of myself, I wonder?”

Purse and bill dropped out of Dolly's hand, and she looked
at her brother with a distracted expression of countenance.
Dick rubbed his hands and chuckled.

“Here's a jolly state of things. Now I'll tell you the
whole story. I never thought of doing it till I saw Bopp and
told him who you were; but on my way for Fan I wondered
if he'd get puzzled between you two; and then a grand idea
popped into my head to puzzle him myself, for I can take you

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

off to the life. Fan didn't want me to, but I made her, so
she lent me hoops and gown and the pink domino, and if
ever I thanked my stars I wasn't tall, I did then, for the
things fitted capitally as to length, tho' I kept splitting something
down the back, and scattering hooks and eyes in all directions.
I wish you could have heard Jack roar while they
rigged me. He had no dress, so I lent him mine, till just
before the masks were taken off, when we cut home and
changed. He told me how you kept running to him to tie up
your slippers, find your fan, and tell him funny things, thinking
it was me. I never enjoyed anything so much in my
life.”

“Go on,” said Dolly in a breathless sort of voice, and the
deluded boy obeyed.

“I knew Bopp, and hovered near till he came to find out
who I was. I took you off in style, and it deceived him, for
I'm only an inch or two taller than you, and kept my head
down in the lackadaisical way you girls do; I whispered, so
my voice didn't betray me; and was very clinging, and
sweet, and fluttery, and that blessed old goose was sure it
was you. I thought it was all over once, for when he came
the heavy in the recess, I got a bit flustered, he was so serious
about it, my mask slipped, but I caught it, so he only saw my
eyes and forehead, which are just like yours, and that finished
him, for I've no doubt I looked as red and silly as you would
have done in a like fix.”

“Why did you say No?” and Dolly looked as stern as
fate.

“What else should I say? You told me you wouldn't
have him, and I thought it would save you the bother of saying
it, and him the pain of asking twice. I told him some
time ago that you were a born flirt; he said he knew it; so I
was surprised to hear him go on at such a rate, but supposed

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

that I was too amiable, and that misled him. Poor old Bopp,
I kept thinking of him all night, as he looked when he said,
`They told me you had no heart, now I believe it, and I
thank you for that No.' It was rather a hard joke for him,
but it's over now, and he won't have to do it again. You
said I wouldn't dare tell him about you; didn't I? and
haven't I won the” —

The rest of the sentence went spinning dizzily through
Dick's head, as a sudden tingling sensation pervaded his left
ear, followed by a similar smart in the right; and, for a moment,
chaos seemed to have come again. Whatever Dolly
did was thoroughly done: when she danced, the soles of her
shoes attested the fact; when she flirted, it was warm work
while it lasted; and when she was angry, it thundered, lightened,
and blew great guns till the shower came, and the
whole affair ended in a rainbow. Therefore, being outwitted,
disappointed, mortified, and hurt, her first impulse was to find
a vent for these conflicting emotions, and possessing skilful
hands, she left them to avenge the wrong done her heart,
which they did so faithfully, that if ever a young gentleman's
ears were vigorously and completely boxed, Dick was that
young individual. As the thunder-clap ceased, the gale began
and blew steadily for several minutes.

“You think it a joke, do you? I tell you, it's a wicked,
cruel thing; you've told a lie; you've broken August's
heart, and made me so angry that I'll never forgive you as
long as I live. What do you know about my feelings? and
how dare you take it upon yourself to answer for me? You
think because we are the same age that I am no older than
you, but you're mistaken, for a boy of eighteen is a boy, a
girl is often a woman, with a woman's hopes and plans; you
don't understand this any more than you do August's love for
me, which you listened to and laughed at. I said I didn't

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

like him, and I didn't find out till afterward that I did; then
I was afraid to tell you lest you'd twit me with it. But now
I care for no one, and I say I do like him, — yes, I love him
with all my heart and soul and might and I'd die this minute
if I could undo the harm you've done, and see him happy.
I know I've been selfish, vain, and thoughtless, but I am not
now; I hoped he'd love me, hoped he'd see I cared for him,
that I'd done trifling, and didn't mind if he was poor, for I'd
enough for both; that I longed to make his life pleasant after
all his troubles; that I'd send for the little sister he loves so
well, and never let him suffer any more; for he is so good, so
patient, so generous, and dear to me, I cannot do enough for
him. Now it's all spoilt; now I can never tell him this,
never comfort him in any way, never be happy again all my
life, and you have done it.”

As Dolly stood before her brother, pouring out her words
with glittering eyes, impetuous voice, and face pale with passionate
emotion, he was scared; for as his scattered wits returned
to him, he felt that he had been playing with edge
tools, and had cut and slashed in rather a promiscuous manner.
Dazed and dizzy, he sat staring at the excited figure before
him, forgetting the indignity he had received, the mistake
he had made, the damage he had done, in simple wonder at
the revolutions going on under his astonished eyes. When
Dolly stopped for breath, he muttered with a contrite look, —

“I'm very sorry, — it was only fun; and I thought it
would help you both, for how the deuce should I know you
liked the man when you said you hated him?”

“I never said that, and if I'd wanted advice I should have
gone to mother. You men go blundering off with half an
idea in your heads, and never see your stupidity till you have
made a mess that can't be mended; we women don't work so,
but save people's feelings, and are called hypocrites for our

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

pains. I never meant to tell you, but I will now, to show
you how I've been serving you, while you've been harming
me: every one of those notes from Fan which you admire so
much, answer so carefully, and wear out in your pocket,
though copied by her, were written by me.”

“The devil they were!” Up flew Dick, and clapping his
hand on the left breast-pocket, out came a dozen pink notes
tied up with a blue ribbon, and much the worse for wear. He
hastily turned them over as Dolly went on.

“Yes, I did it, for she didn't know how to answer your
notes, and came to me. I didn't laugh at them, or make fun
of her, but helped her silly little wits, and made you a happy
boy for three months, though you teased me day and night,
for I loved you, and hadn't the heart to spoil your pleasure.”

“You've done it now with a vengeance, and you're a pair
of deceitful minxes. I've paid you off. I'll give Fan one
more note that will keep her eyes red for a month; and I'll
never love or trust a girl again as long as I live, — never!
never!”

Red with wrath, Dick flung the treasured packet into the
fire, punched it well down among the coals, flung away the
poker, and turned about with a look and gesture which would
have been comically tragic if they had not been decidedly
pathetic, for, in spite of his years, a very tender heart beat
under the blue jacket, and it was grievously wounded at the
perfidy of the gentle little divinity whom he worshipped with
daily increasing ardor. His eyes filled, but he winked resolutely;
his lips trembled, but he bit them hard; his hands
doubled themselves up, but he remembered his adversary was
a woman; and, as a last effort to preserve his masculine dignity,
he began to whistle.

As if the inconsistencies of womankind were to be shown
him as rapidly as possible, at this moment the shower came

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

on, for, taking him tenderly about the neck, Dolly fell to
weeping so infectiously, that, after standing rigidly erect till a
great tear dropped off the end of his nose, ignominiously announcing
that it was no go, Dick gave in, and laying his head
on Dolly's shoulder, the twins quenched their anger, washed
away their malice, and soothed their sorrow by one of those
natural processes, so kindly provided for poor humanity, and
so often despised as a weakness when it might prove a better
strength than any pride.

Dick cleared up first, with no sign of the tempest but a
slight mist through which his native sunshine glimmered pensively.

“Don't dear, don't cry so; it will make you sick, and
won't do any good, for things will come right, or I'll make'
em, and we'll be comfortable all round.”

“No, we never can be as we were, and it's all my fault.
I've betrayed Fan's confidence, I've spoiled your little romance,
I've been a thoughtless, wicked girl, I've lost August;
and, oh, dear me, I wish I was dead!” with which funereal
climax Dolly cried so despairingly that, like the youngest
Miss Pecksniff, she was indeed “a gushing creature.”

“Oh, come now, don't be dismal, and blame yourself for
every trouble under the sun. Sit down and talk it over, and
see what can be done. Poor old girl, I forgive you the notes,
and say I was wrong to meddle with Bopp. I got you into
the scrape, and I'll get you out if the sky don't fall, or
Bopp blow his brains out, like a second Werther, before to-morrow.”

Dick drew the animated fountain to the wide chair, where
they had sat together since they were born, wiped her eyes,
laid her wet cheek against his own, and patted her back, with
an idea that it was soothing to babies, and why not to girls?

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]