Account of Mrs. Beecher Stowe and her Family.
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BY AN ALABAMA MAN.
The family to which Mrs. Stowe belongs, is
more widely and favourably known than almost
any other in the United States. It consists of
the following persons:
1. Rev. Lyman Beecher, the father, Doctor of
Divinity, ex-President of Lane Theological Seminary,
and late pastor of a Presbyterian Church
at Cincinnati, Ohio.
2. Rev. William Beecher, pastor at Chilicothe,
Ohio.
3. Rev. Edward Beecher, pastor at Boston,
Massachusetts.
4. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor at Brooklyn,
Long Island.
5. Rev. Charles Beecher, pastor at Newark,
New Jersey.
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6. Rev. Thomas Beecher, pastor at Williamsburg,
New Jersey.
7. Rev. George Beecher, deceased several
years since. His death was caused by the accidental
discharge of a gun. At the time he
was one of the most eminent men in the Western
Church.
8. Mr. James Beecher, engaged in commercial
business at Boston.
9. Miss Catharine Beecher.
10. Mrs. Harriet B. Stowe.
11. Mrs. Perkins.
12. Mrs. Hooker.
Twelve! the apostolic number. And of the
twelve, seven apostles of the pulpit, and two of
the pen, after the manner of the nineteenth century.
Of the other three, one has been swept
into commerce by the strong current setting that
way in America; and the other two, wives of
lawyers of respectable standing, and mothers of
families, have been absorbed by the care and
affections of domestic life. They are said to be
no way inferior, in point of natural endowments,
to the nine who have chosen to play their parts
in life before a larger public. Indeed, persons
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who know intimately all the twelve, are puzzled
to assign superiority to any one of them. With
the shades of difference which always obtain
between individual characters, they bear a striking
resemblance to each other, not only physically,
but intellectually and morally. All of them are
about the common size—the doctor being a trifle
below it, and some of the sons a trifle above it—
neither stout nor slight, but compactly and ruggedly
built. Their movements and gestures have
much of the abruptness and want of grace common
in Yankee land, where the opera and dancing
school are considered as institutions of Satan.
Their features are large and irregular, and though
not free from a certain manly beauty in the men,
are scarcely redeemed from homeliness in the
women by the expression of intelligence and wit
which lights them up, and fairly sparkles in their
bluish gray eyes.
All of them have the energy of character,
restless activity, strong convictions, tenacity of
purpose, deep sympathies, and spirit of self-sacrifice,
which are such invaluable qualities in the
character of propagandists. It would be impossible
for the theologians among them to be
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members of any other church than the church militant.
Father and sons, they have been in the thickest
of the battles fought in the church and by it;
and always have moved together in solid column.
To them questions of scholastic theology are
mummeries, dry and attractionless; they are practical,
living in the real present, dealing with questions
which palpitate with vitality. Temperance,
foreign and home-missions, the influence of commerce
on public morality, the conversion of young
men, the establishment of theological seminaries,
education, colonization, abolition, the political
obligations of Christians; on matters such as
these do the Beechers expend their energies.
Nor do they disdain taking an active part in public
affairs; one of them was appointed at New
York City to address Kossuth on his arrival.
What is remarkable is that, though they have
come in violent collision with many of the abuses
of American society, their motives have never
been seriously attacked. This exemption from
the ordinary lot of reformers is owing not only
to their consistent disinterestedness, but to a certain
Yankee prudence, which prevents their advancing
without being sure of battalions behind
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them; and also to a reputation the family has
acquired for eccentricity. As public speakers
they are far above mediocrity; not graceful, but
eloquent, with a lively scorn of the mean and
perception of the comic, which overflow in pungent
wit and withering satire; and sometimes, in
the heat of extemporaneous speaking, in biting
sarcasm. Their style of oratory would often
seem, to a staid, church-going Englishman, to
contrast too strongly with the usual decorum of
the pulpit.
Nine of the Deechers are authors. They are
known to the reading and religious public of the
United States, by reviews, essays, sermons, orations,
debates, and discourses on a great variety
of subjects, chiefly of local or momentary interest.
All of these productions are marked by
vigorous thought; very few by that artistic excellence,
that conformity to the laws of the ideal,
which alone confer a lasting value on the creations
of the brain. Many of them are controversial,
or wear an aggressive air which is unmistakable.
Those which are of durable interest, and of a
high order of literary merit, are six temperance
sermons by Dr. Beecher; a volume of practical
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sermons by the same; the “Virgin and her Son,”
an imaginative work by Charles Beecher, with an
introduction by Mrs. Stowe; some article on
Biblical literature, by Edward Beecher; “Truth
stranger than Fiction,” and other tales, by Miss
Catharine Beecher; “Domestic Economy,” by
the same; “Twelve Lectures to Young Men,” by
Henry Ward Beecher; “An Introduction to the
Works of Charlotte Elizabeth,” by Mrs. Stowe,
being a collection of stories originally published
in the newspapers; and “Uncle Tom's Cabin.”
I am sorry not to be able to place in this category
many letters, essays, and addresses on Education,
and particularly those from the pen of Catharine
Beecher. Before Mrs. Stowe's last book, her
celebrity was hardly equal to her maiden sister's.
Catharine had a wider reputation as an authoress,
and her indefatigable activity in the cause of
education had won for her very general esteem.
I may add in this connection that it is to her the
United States are indebted for the only extensively
useful association for preparing and sending
capable female teachers to the west. She
had the energy and the tact to organize and put
it in successful operation.
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Such is the family, in the bosom of which Mrs.
Stowe's character has been formed. We cannot
dismiss it without pausing before the venerable
figure of the father, to whom the honour of determining
the bent of the children properly belongs.
Dr. Lyman Beecher is now seventy-eight
years old. Born before the American Revolution,
he has been, until recently, actively and
ably discharging duties which would be onerous
to most men in the prime of life. He was the
son of a New England blacksmith, and was
brought up to the trade of his father. He had
arrived at mature age when he quitted the anvil,
and began his collegiate studies at Yale College,
New Haven. Ten years later, we find him pastor
of the church at Litchfield, and rising into fame
as a pulpit orator. His six sermons on temperance
extended his reputation through the United
States; I might say through Europe, for they
ran rapidly through several editions in England,
and were translated into several languages on the
Continent. Being now favourably known, he was
called to the pastoral charge of the most influential
Presbyterian Church at Boston, where he remained
until 1832. In that year, a project long
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entertained by that portion of the Presbyterian
Church, whose active and enlightened piety and
liberal tendencies had gained for it the name of
New School, was put into execution; the Lane
Theological and Literary Seminary was founded.
Its object being to prepare young men for the
gospel ministry, such facilities for manual labour
were offered by it, as to make it feasible for any
young man of industry to defray, by his own
exertions, a large part of the expenses of his
own education. Dr. Beecher had long been regarded
as the only man competent to direct an
institution which, it was fondly hoped, would demonstrate
the practicability of educating mind
and body at the same time, infuse new energy
into the work of domestic and foreign missions,
and revolutionize the Presbyterian church. A
large corps of learned and able professors was
selected to aid him. The Doctor removed to his
new home in the immediate neighbourhood of
Cincinnati, and remained there until 1850, and
with what success in his chief object we shall
hereafter see.
A certain eccentricity of manner and character,
and sharpness of repartee, have given rise to
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hundreds of amusing anecdotes respecting Dr.
Beecher. Some of them paint the man.
His lively sense of the comic elements in everything,
breaks out on the most unlikely occasions.
One dark night, as he was driving home with his
wife and Mrs. Stowe in the carriage, the whole
party was upset over a bank about fifteen feet
high. They had no sooner extricated themselves
from the wreck, than Mrs. Beecher and Mrs.
Stowe, who were unhurt, returned thanks for their
providential escape. “Speak for yourselves,”
said the doctor, who was feeling his bruises, “I
have got a good many hard bumps, any how.”
In many matters he is what Miss Olivia would
have called “shiftless.” None of the Goldsmith
family were more so. No appeal to him for
charity, or a contribution to a good cause, ever
goes unresponded to, so long as he has any money
in his pockets. As the family income is not unlimited,
this generosity is sometimes productive
of inconvenience. One day his wife had given
him from the common purse twenty-five or thirty
dollars in bills, with particular instructions to buy
a coat, of which he stood in need. He went
down to the city to make the purchase, but
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stopping on the way to a meeting in behalf of foreign
missions, the box was handed round, and in went
his little roll of bills. He forgot his coat in his
anxiety for the Sandwich Islanders.
Well do I remember the first time I heard him
preach. It was seventeen years ago. From early
childhood I had been taught to reverence the name
of the great divine and orator, and I had long
promised myself the pleasure of listening to him.
My first Sunday morning in Cincinnati found me
sitting with his congregation. The pastor was
not as punctual as the flock. Several minutes
had elapsed after the regular hour for beginning
the service, when one of the doors opened, and I
saw a hale looking old gentleman enter. As he
pulled off his hat, half a dozen papers covered
with notes of sermons fluttered down to the floor.
The hat appeared to contain a good many more.
Stooping down and picking them up deliberately, he
came scuttling down, along the aisle, with a step
so quick and resolute as rather to alarm certain
prejudices I had on the score of clerical solemnity.
Had I met him on a parade ground, I
should have singled him out as some general in
undress, spite of the decided stoop contracted in
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study; the iron-gray hair brushed stiffly towards
the back of the head; the keen, sagacious eyes,
the firm, hard lines of the brow and wrinkled
visage, and the passion and power latent about
the mouth, with its long and scornful under-lip,
bespoke a character more likely to attack than to
defend, to do than to suffer. His manner did not
change my first impression. The ceremonies preliminary
to the sermon were dispatched in rather
a summary way. A petition in the long prayer
was expressed so pithily I have never forgotten
it. I forget now what reprehensible intrigue our
rulers were busy in at the time, but the doctor,
after praying for the adoption of various useful
measures, alluded to their conduct in the following
terms: “And, O Lord! grant we may not
despise our rulers; and grant that they may not
act so, that we can't help it.” It may be doubted
whether any English Bishop has ever uttered a
similar prayer for King and Parliament. To deliver
his sermon, the preacher stood bolt upright,
stiff as a musket. At first, he twitched off and
replaced his spectacles a dozen times in as many
minutes with a nervous motion, gesturing meanwhile
with frequent pump handle strokes of his
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right arm; but as he went on, his unaffected
language began to glow with animation, his simple
style became figurative and graphic, and flashes
of irony lighted up the dark groundwork of his
Puritanical reasoning. Smiles and tears chased
each other over the faces of many in the audience.
His peroration was one of great beauty and power.
I have heard him hundreds of times since, and he
has never failed to justify his claim to the title of
“the old man eloquent.”
Harriet Beecher was born in Litchfield, about
the year 1812. After the removal of the family
to Boston, she enjoyed the best educational advantages
of that city. With the view of preparing
herself for the business of instruction, she
acquired all the ordinary accomplishments of
ladies, and much of the learning usually reserved
for the stronger sex. At an early age she began
to aid her eldest sister, Catharine, in the management
of a flourishing female school, which had
been built up by the latter. When their father
went West, the sisters accompanied him, and
opened a similar establishment in Cincinnati.
This city is situated on the northern bank of
the Ohio. The range of hills which hugs the
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river for hundreds of miles above, here recedes
from it in a semi-circle, broken by a valley and
several ravines, leaving a basin several square
miles in surface. This is the site of the busy
manufacturing and commercial town which, in
1832, contained less than forty thousand inhabitants,
and at present contains more than one hundred
and twenty thousand — a rapid increase,
which must be attributed, in a great measure, to
the extensive trade it carries on with the slave
States. The high hill, whose point, now crowned
with an observatory, overhangs the city on the
east, stretches away to the east and north in a
long sweep of table-land. On this is situated
Lane Seminary—Mrs. Stowe's home for eighteen
long years. Near the Seminary buildings, and
on the public road, are certain comfortable brick
residences, situated in yards green with tufted
grass, and half concealed from view by accacias,
locusts, rose-bushes, and vines of honeysuckle
and clematis. These were occupied by Dr.
Beecher, and the Professors. There are other
residences more pretending in appearance, occupied
by bankers, merchants and men of fortune.
The little village thus formed is called Walnut
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Hills, and is one of the prettiest in the environs
of Cincinnati.
For several years after her removal to this
place, Harriet Beecher continued to teach in connection
with her sister. She did so until her
marriage with the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, Professor
of Biblical Literature in the Seminary of
which her father was President. This gentleman
was already one of the most distinguished ecclesiastical
savans in America. After graduating
with honour at Bowdoin College, Maine, and
taking his theological degree at Andover, he had
been appointed Professor, at Dartmouth College,
New Hampshire, whence he had been called to
Lane Seminary. Mrs. Stowe's married life has
been of that equable and sober happiness so common
in the families of Yankee clergymen. It
has been blessed with a numerous offspring, of
whom five are still living. Mrs. Stowe has known
the fatigues of watching over the sick bed, and
her heart has felt that grief which eclipses all
others—that of a bereaved mother. Much of her
time has been devoted to the education of her
children, while the ordinary household cares have
devolved on a friend or distant relative, who has
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always resided with her. She employed her
leisure in contributing occasional pieces, tales and
novelettes to the magazines and newspapers. Her
writings were of a high moral tone, and deservedly
popular. Only a small portion of them are comprised
in the volume—“The Mayflower”—already
mentioned. This part of Mrs. Stowe's life spent
in literary pleasures, family joys and cares, and
the society of the pious and intelligent, would
have been of as unalloyed happiness as mortals
can expect, had it not been darkened at every instant
by the baleful shadow of slavery.
The “peculiar institution” was destined to
thwart the grand project in life of Mrs. Stowe's
husband and father. When they relinquished
their excellent positions in the East in order to
build up the great Presbyterian Seminary for the
Ohio and Mississippi valley, they did so with
every prospect of success. Never did a literary
institution start under finer auspices. The number
and reputation of the professors had drawn
together several hundred students from all parts
of the United States; not sickly cellar-plants of
boys sent by wealthy parents, but hardy and intelligent
young men, most of whom, fired by the
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ambition of converting the world to Christ, were
winning their way through privations and toil, to
education and ministerial orders. They were the
stuff out of which foreign missionaries and revival
preachers are made. Some of them were known
to the public as lecturers: Theodore D. Weld
was an oratorical celebrity. For a year all went
well. Lane Seminary was the pride and hope of
the church. Alas for the hopes of Messrs.
Beecher and Stowe! this prosperity was of short
duration.
The French Revolution of 1830, the agitation
in England for reform, and against colonial slavery,
the fine and imprisonment by American courts of
justice, of citizens who had dared to attack the
slave trade carried on under the federal flag, had
begun to direct the attention of a few American
philanthropists to the evils of slavery. Some
years before, a society had been formed for the
purpose of colonizing free blacks on the coast of
Africa. It had been patronized by intelligent
slaveholders, who feared the contact of free
blacks with their human chattels; and by feeble
or ignorant persons in the North, whose consciences
impelled them to act on slavery in some
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way, and whose prudence or ignorance of the
question led them to accept the plan favoured by
slaveholders. However useful to Africa the emigration
to its shores of intelligent, moral, and
enterprising blacks may be, it is now universally
admitted that colonization, as a means of extinguishing
slavery, is a drivelling absurdity. These
were the views of the Abolition Convention,
which met at Philadelphia in 1833, and set on
foot the agitation which has since convulsed the
Union.
The President of that Convention, Mr. Arthur
Tappan, was one of the most liberal donors of
Lane Seminary. He forwarded its address to the
students; and in a few weeks afterwards the
whole subject was up for discussion amongst them.
At first there was little interest. But soon the
fire began to burn. Many of the students had
travelled or taught school in the slave States; a
goodly number were sons of slaveholders, and
some were owners of slaves. They had seen
slavery, and had facts to relate, many of which
made the blood run chill with horror. Those
spread out on the pages of “Uncle Tom's Cabin,”
reader, and which your swelling heart and
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overflowing eyes would not let you read aloud, are
cold in comparison. The discussion was soon
ended, for all were of accord; but the meetings
for the relation of facts were continued night
after night and week after week. What was at
first sensibility grew into enthusiasm; the feeble
flame had become a conflagration. The slave
owners among the students gave liberty to their
slaves; the idea of going on foreign missions
was scouted at, because there were heathens at
home; some left their studies and collected the
coloured population of Cincinnati into churches,
and preached to them; others gathered the young
men into evening schools, and the children into
day schools, and devoted themselves to teaching
them; others organized benevolent societies for
aiding them, and orphan asylums for the destitute
and abandoned children; and others again,
left all to aid fugitive slaves on their way to Canada,
or to lecture on the evils of slavery. The
fanatacism was sublime; every student felt himself
a Peter the hermit, and acted as if the abolition
of slavery depended on his individual exertions.
At first the discussion had been encouraged by
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the President and Professors; but when they saw
it swallowing up everything like regular study,
they thought it high time to stop. It was too
late; the current was too strong to be arrested.
The commercial interests of Cincinnati took the
alarm—manufacturers feared the loss of their
Southern trade. Public sentiment exacted the
suppression of the discussion and excitement.
Slaveholders came over from Kentucky, and urged
the mob on to violence. For several weeks there
was imminent danger that Lane Seminary, and
the houses of Drs. Beecher and Stowe, would be
burnt or pulled down by a drunken rabble. These
must have been weeks of mortal anxiety for Harriet
Beecher. The board of trustees now interfered,
and allayed the excitement of the mob by
forbidding all further discussion of slavery in the
Seminary. To this the students responded by
withdrawing en masse. Where hundreds had
been, there was left a mere handful. Lane Seminary
was deserted. For seventeen years after
this, Dr. Beecher and Professor Stowe remained
there, endeavouring in vain to revive its prosperity.
In 1850 they returned to the Eastern
States, the great project of their life defeated.
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After a short stay at Bowdoin College, Maine,
Professor Stowe accepted an appointment to the
chair of Biblical literature in the Theological
Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, an institution
which stands, to say the least, as high as any
in the United States.
These events caused a painful reaction in the
feelings of the Beechers. Repulsed alike by the
fanaticism they had witnessed among the foes,
and the brutal violence among the friends of slavery,
they thought their time for action had not
come, and gave no public expression of their abhorrence
of slavery. They waited for the storm
to subside, and the angel of truth to mirror his
form in tranquil waters. For a long time they
resisted all attempts to make them bow the knee
to slavery, or to avow themselves abolitionists.
It is to this period Mrs. Stowe alludes, when she
says, in the closing chapter of her book: “For
many years of her life the author avoided all
reading upon, or allusion to, the subject of slavery,
considering it as too painful to be inquired
into, and one which advancing light and civilization
would live down.” The terrible and dramatic
scenes which occurred in Cincinnati, between 1835
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and 1847, were calculated to increase the repugnance
of a lady to mingling actively in the melee.
That city was the chief battle-ground of freedom
and slavery. Every month there was something
to attract attention to the strife; either a press
destroyed, or a house mobbed, or a free negro
kidnapped, or a trial for freedom before the
courts, or the confectionary of an English abolitionist
riddled, or a public discussion, or an
escape of slaves, or an armed attack on the
negro quarter, or a negro school-house razed to
the ground, or a slave in prison, and killing his
wife and children to prevent their being sold to
the South. The abolition press, established there
in 1835 by James G. Birney, whom, on account
of his mildness, Miss Martineau called “the gentleman
of the abolition cause,” and continued by
Dr. Bailey, the moderate and able editor of the
National Era, of Washington city, in which Uncle
Tom's Cabin first appeared in weekly numbers,
was destroyed five times. On one occasion, the
Mayor dismissed at midnight the rioters, who had
also pulled down the houses of some colored people,
with the following pithy speech: “Well, boys,
let's go home; we've done enough.” One of these
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mobs deserves particular notice, as its victims
enlisted deeply the sympathies of Mrs. Stowe.
In 1840, the slave catchers, backed by the riffraff
of the population, and urged on by certain
politicians and merchants, attacked the quarters
in which the negroes reside. Some of the houses
were battered down by cannon. For several days
the city was abandoned to violence and crime.
The negro quarters were pillaged and sacked;
negroes who attempted to defend their property
were killed, and their mutilated bodies cast into
the streets; women were violated by ruffians, and
some afterwards died of the injuries received;
houses were burnt, and men, women, and children
were abducted in the confusion, and hurried into
slavery. From the brow of the hill on which she
lived, Mrs. Stowe could hear the cries of the victims,
the shouts of the mob, and the reports of
the guns and cannon, and could see the flames of
the conflagration. To more than one of the
trembling fugitives she gave shelter, and wept
bitter tears with them. After the fury of the
mob was spent, many of the coloured people
gathered together the little left them of worldly
goods, and started for Canada. Hundreds passed
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in front of Mrs. Stowe's house. Some of them
were in little wagons; some were trudging along
on foot after the household stuff; some led their
children by the hand; and there were even mothers
who walked on, suckling their infant, and
weeping for the dead or kidnapped husband they
had left behind.
This road, which ran through Walnut Hills,
and within a few feet of Mrs. Stowe's door, was
one of the favourite routes of “the under-ground
railroad,” so often alluded to in Uncle Tom's
Cabin. This name was given to a line of Quakers
and other abolitionists, who, living at intervals of
10, 15 or 20 miles between the Ohio river and
the Northern lakes, had formed themselves into a
sort of association to aid fugitive slaves in their
escape to Canada. Any fugitive was taken by
night on horseback, or in covered wagons, from
station to station, until he stood on free soil, and
found the fold of the lion banner floating over
him, and the artillery of the British empire between
him and slavery. The first station north
of Cincinnati was a few miles up Mill Creek, at
the house of the pious and honest-hearted John
Vanzandt, who figures in chapter nine of Uncle
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Tom's Cabin,
as John Van Trompe. Mrs. Stowe
must have often been roused from her sleep by
the quick rattle of the covered wagons, and the
confused galloping of the horses of constables
and slave-catchers in hot pursuit. “Honest
John” was always ready to turn out with his team,
and the hunters of men were not often adroit
enough to come up with him. He sleeps now in
the obscure grave of a martyr. The “gigantic
frame,” of which the novelist speaks, was worn
down at last by want of sleep, exposure, and
anxiety and his spirits were depressed by the
persecutions which were accumulated on him.
Several slave owners, who had lost their property
by his means sued him in the United States
Courts for damages; and judgment after judgment
stripped him of his farm, and all his property.
During her long residence on the frontier of
the slave States, Mrs. Stowe made several visits
to them. It was then, no doubt, she made the
observations which have enabled her to paint noble,
generous, and humane slaveholders, in the
characters of Wilson, the manufacturer, Mrs.
Shelby and her son George, St. Clair and his
daughter Eva, the benevolent purchaser at the
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New Orleans auction sale, the mistress of Susan
and Emeline, and Symes, who helped Eliza and
her boy up the river bank. Mrs. Stowe has observed
slavery in every phase; she has seen
masters and slaves at home, New Orleans markets,
fugitives, free coloured people, pro-slavery politicians
and priests, abolitionists, and colonizationists.
She and her family have suffered from it; seventeen
years of her life have been clouded by it.
For that long period she stifled the strongest emotions
of her heart. No one but her intimate
friends knew their strength. She has given them
expression at last. Uncle Tom's Cabin is the agonizing
cry of feelings pent up for years in the
heart of a true woman.
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Uncle Sam's Emancipation.
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A SKETCH.
It may be gratifying to those who desire to
think well of human nature, to know that the leading
incidents of the subjoined sketch are literal
matters of fact, occurring in the city of Cincinnati,
which have come within the scope of the
writer's personal knowledge—the incidents have
merely been clothed in a dramatic form, to present
them more vividly to the reader.
In one of the hotel parlors of our queen city, a
young gentleman, apparently in no very easy
frame of mind, was pacing up and down the room,
looking alternately at his watch and out of the
window, as if expecting somebody. At last he
rang the bell violently, and a hotel servant soon
appeared.
“Has my man Sam come in yet?” he inquired.
The polished yellow gentleman to whom this
was addressed, answered with a polite, but
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somewhat sinister smirk, that nothing had been seen
of him since early that morning.
“Lazy dog! full three hours since I sent him
off to B— street, and I have seen nothing of
him since.”
The yellow gentleman remarked with consolatory
politeness, that “he hoped Sam had not run
away,” adding, with an ill-concealed grin, that
“them boys was mighty apt to show the clean
heel when they come into a free State.”
“Oh, no; I'm quite easy as to that,” returned
the young gentleman; “I'll risk Sam's ever being
willing to part from me. I brought him because
I was sure of him.”
“Don't you be too sure,” remarked a gentleman
from behind, who had been listening to the conversation.
“There are plenty of mischief-making
busybodies on the trail of every southern gentleman,
to interfere with his family matters, and decoy
off his servants.”
“Didn't I see Sam talking at the corner with
the Quaker Simmons?” said another servant, who
meanwhile had entered.
“Talking with Simmons, was he?” remarked
the last speaker, with irritation; “that rascal
-- 032 --
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Simmons does nothing else, I believe, but tote
away gentlemen's servants. Well, if Simmons
has got him, you may as well be quiet; you'll not
see your fellow again in a hurry.”
“And who the deuce is this Simmons?” said
our young gentleman, who, though evidently of a
good natured mould, was now beginning to wax
wroth; “and what business has he to interfere
with other people's affairs?”
“You had better have asked those questions a
few days ago, and then you would have kept a
closer eye on your fellow; a meddlesome, canting,
Quaker rascal, that all these black hounds run to,
to be helped into Canada, and nobody knows
where all.”
The young gentleman jerked out his watch with
increasing energy, and then walking fiercely up
to the coloured waiter, who was setting the dinner
table with an air of provoking satisfaction, he
thundered at him, “You rascal, you understand
this matter; I see it in your eyes.”
Our gentleman of colour bowed, and with an
air of mischievous intelligence, protested that he
never interfered with other gentlemen's matters,
while sundry of his brethren in office looked unutterable
things out of the corners of their eyes.
-- 033 --
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“There is some cursed plot hatched up among
you,” said the young man. “You have talked
Sam into it; I know he never would have
thought of leaving me unless he was put up to it.
Tell me now,” he resumed, “have you heard Sam
say anything about it? Come, he reasonable,” he
added, in a milder tone, “you shall find your account
in it.”
Thus adjured, the waiter protested he would be
happy to give the gentleman any satisfaction in
his power. The fact was, Sam had been pretty
full of notions lately, and had been to see Simmons,
and in short, he should not wonder if he
never saw any more of him.
And as hour after hour passed, the whole day,
the whole night, and no Sam was forthcoming, the
truth of the surmise became increasingly evident.
Our young hero, Mr. Alfred B—, was a good
deal provoked, and strange as the fact may seem,
a good deal grieved too, for he really loved the
fellow. “Loved him!” says some scornful zealot;
“a slaveholder love his slave!” Yes, brother;
why not? A warm-hearted man will love his
dog, his horse, even to grieving bitterly for their
loss, and why not credit the fact that such a one
-- 034 --
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may love the human creature whom custom has
placed on the same level. The fact was, Alfred
B— did love this young man; he had been appropriated
to him in childhood; and Alfred had
always redressed his grievances, fought his battles,
got him out of scrapes, and purchased for him,
with liberal hand, indulgences to which his comrades
were strangers. He had taken pride to
dress him smartly, and as for hardship and want,
they had never come near him.
“The poor, silly, ungrateful puppy!” soliloquized
he, “what can he do with himself? Confound
that Quaker, and all his meddlesome tribe—
been at him with their bloody-bone stories, I suppose—
Sam knows better, the scamp—halloa,
there,” he called to one of the waiters, “where
does this Simpkins—Simon—Simmons, or what
d'ye call him, live?”
“His shop is No. 5, on G. street.”
“Well, I'll go at him, and see what business he
has with my affairs.”
The Quaker was sitting at the door of his shop,
with a round, rosy, good-humoured face, so expressive
of placidity and satisfaction, that it was
difficult to approach in ireful feeling.
-- 035 --
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“Is your name Simmons?” demanded Alfred,
in a voice whose natural urbanity was somewhat
sharpened by vexation.
“Yes, friend; what dost thou wish?”
“I wish to inquire whether you have seen anything
of my coloured fellow, Sam; a man of
twenty-five, or thereabouts, lodging at the Pearl
street House?”
“I rather suspect that I have,” said the Quaker,
in a quiet, meditative tone, as if thinking the matter
over with himself.
“And is it true, sir, that you have encouraged
and assisted him in his efforts to get out of my
service?”
“Such, truly, is the fact, my friend.”
Losing patience at this provoking equanimity,
our young friend poured forth his sentiments
with no inconsiderable energy, and in terms not
the most select or pacific, all which our Quaker
received with that placid, full-orbed tranquillity of
countenance, which seemed to say, “Pray, sir, relieve
your mind; don't be particular, scold as hard
as you like.” The singularity of this expression
struck the young man, and as his wrath became
gradually spent, he could hardly help laughing at
-- 036 --
[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]
the tranquillity of his opponent, and he gradually
changed his tone for one of expostulation. “What
motive could induce you, sir, thus to incommode a
stranger, and one who never injured you at all?”
“I am sorry thou art incommoded,” rejoined
the Quaker. “Thy servant, as thee calls him,
came to me, and I helped him, as I would any
other poor fellow in distress.”
“Poor fellow!” said Alfred, angrily; “that's
the story of the whole of you. I tell you there
is not a free negro in your city so well off as my
Sam is, and always has been, and he'll find it out
before long.”
“But tell me, friend, thou mayest die as well as
another man; thy establishment may fall into
debt, as well as another man's; and thy Sam may
be sold by the Sheriff for debt, or change hands
in dividing the estate, and so, though he was bred
easily, and well cared for, he may come to be a
field hand, under hard masters, starved, beaten,
overworked—such things do happen sometimes, do
they not?”
“Sometimes, perhaps they do,” replied the
young man.
“Well, look you, by our laws in Ohio, thy Sam
-- 037 --
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is now a free man; as free as I or thou; he hath
a strong back, good hands, good courage, can earn
his ten or twelve dollars a month—or do better.
Now taking all things into account, if thee were
in his place, what would thee do—would thee go
back a slave, or try thy luck as a free man?”
Alfred said nothing in reply to this, only after
a while he murmured half to himself, “I thought
the fellow had more gratitude, after all my kindness.”
“Thee talks of gratitude,” said the Quaker,
“now how does that account stand? Thou hast
fed, and clothed, and protected this man; thou
hast not starved, beaten, or abused him—that
would have been unworthy of thee; thou hast
shown him special kindness, and in return he has
given thee faithful service for fifteen or twenty
years; all his time, all his strength, all he could
do or be, he has given thee, and ye are about
even.” The young man looked thoughtful, but
made no reply.
“Sir,” said he at last, “I will take no unfair
advantage of you; I wish to get my servant once
more; can I do so?”
“Certainly. I will bring him to thy lodgings
-- 038 --
[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]
this evening, if thee wish it. I know thee will do
what is fair,” said the Quaker.
It were difficult to define the thoughts of the
young man, as he returned to his lodgings. Naturally
generous and humane, he had never dreamed
that he had rendered injustice to the human beings
he claimed as his own. Injustice and oppression
he had sometimes seen with detestation, in
other establishments; but it had been his pride
that they were excluded from his own. It had
been his pride to think that his indulgence and
liberality made a situation of dependence on him
preferable even to liberty.
The dark picture of possible reverses which the
slave system hangs over the lot of the most favoured
slaves, never occurred to him. Accordingly,
at six o'clock that evening, a light tap at
the door of Mr. B.'s parlor, announced the Quaker,
and hanging back behind him, the reluctant Sam,
who, with all his newly-acquired love of liberty,
felt almost as if he were treating his old master
rather shabbily, in deserting him.
“So, Sam,” said Alfred, “how is this? they
say you want to leave me.”
“Yes, master.”
-- 039 --
[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]
“Why, what's the matter, Sam? haven't I always
been good to you; and has not my father
always been good to you?”
“Oh yes, master; very good.”
“Have you not always had good food, good
clothes, and lived easy?”
“Yes, master.”
“And nobody has ever abused you?”
“No, master.”
“Well, then, why do you wish to leave me?”
“Oh, massa, I want to be a free man.”
“Why, Sam, ain't you well enough off now?”
“Oh, massa may die; then nobody knows who
get me; some dreadful folks, you know, master,
might get me, as they did Jim Sanford, and nobody
to take my part. No, master, I rather be
free man.”
Alfred turned to the window, and thought a few
moments, and then said, turning about, “Well,
Sam, I believe you are right. I think, on the
whole, I'd like best to be a free man myself, and I
must not wonder that you do. So, for ought I
see, you must go; but then, Sam, there's your
wife and child.” Sam's countenance fell.
“Never mind, Sam. I will send them up to
you.”
-- 040 --
[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]
“Oh, master!”
“I will; ut you must remember now, Sam,
you have got both yourself and them to take care
of, and have no master to look after you; be
steady, sober, and industrious, and then if ever
you get into distress, send word to me, and I'll
help you.” Lest any accuse us of over-colouring
our story, we will close it by extracting a passage
or two from the letter which the generous young
man the next day left in the hands of the Quaker,
for his emancipated servant. We can assure our
readers that we copy from the original document,
which now lies before us:
Dear Sam—I am just on the eve of my departure
for Pittsburg; I may not see you again
for a long time, possibly never, and I leave this
letter with your friends, Messrs. A. and B., for
you, and herewith bid you an affectionate farewell.
Let me give you some advice, which is,
now that you are a free man, in a free State, be
obedient as you were when a slave; perform all
the duties that are required of you, and do all
you can for your own future welfare and respectability.
Let me assure you that I have the same
-- 041 --
[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]
good feeling towards you that you know I always
had; and let me tell you further, that if ever you
want a friend, call or write to me, and I will be
that friend. Should you be sick, and not able to
work, and want money to a small amount at different
times, write to me, and I will always let you
have it. I have not with me at present much
money, though I will leave with my agent here,
the Messrs. W., five dollars for you; you must
give them a receipt for it. On my return from
Pittsburg, I will call and see you if I have time;
fail not to write to my father, for he made you a
good master, and you should always treat him
with respect, and cherish his memory so long as
you live. Be good, industrious, and honourable,
and if unfortunate in your undertakings, never
forget that you have a friend in me. Farewell,
and believe me your affectionate young master
and friend.
Alfred B—.
That dispositions as ingenuous and noble as that
of this young man, are commonly to be found
either in slave States or free, is more than we dare
to assert. But when we see such found, even
among those who are born and bred slaveholders,
-- 042 --
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we cannot but feel that there is encouragement
for a fair, and mild, and brotherly presentation
of truth, and every reason to lament hasty and
wholesale denunciations. The great error of controversy
is, that it is ever ready to assail persons
rather than principles. The slave system, as a
system, perhaps concentrates more wrong than
any other now existing, and yet those who live
under and in it may be, as we see, enlightened,
generous, and amenable to reason. If the system
alone is attacked, such minds will be the first
to perceive its evils, and to turn against it; but
if the system be attacked through individuals,
self-love, wounded pride, and a thousand natural
feelings, will be at once enlisted for its preservation.
We therefore subjoin it as the moral of our
story, that a man who has had the misfortune to
be born and bred a slaveholder, may be enlightened,
generous, humane, and capable of the most
disinterested regard to the welfare of his slave.
-- 043 -- p708-048
Earthly Care, a Heavenly Discipline.
[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]
Nothing is more frequently felt and spoken
of as a hindrance to the inward life of devotion,
than the “cares of life;” and even upon the
showing of our Lord himself, the cares of the
world are the thorns that choke the word, and
render it unfruitful.
And yet, if this is a necessary and inevitable
result of worldly cares, why does the providence
of God so order things that they form so large
and unavoidable a part of every human experience?
Why is the physical system of man framed
with such daily, oft-returning wants? Why has
God arranged an outward system, which is a constant
diversion from the inward—a weight on its
wheels—a burden on its wings—and then commanded
a strict and rigid inwardness and spirituality?
Why has he placed us where the things
that are seen and temporal must unavoidably have
so much of our thoughts, and time, and care, and
yet told us, “Set your affections on things above,
-- 044 --
[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]
and not on things on the earth;” “Love not the
world, neither the things in the world?” And
why does one of our brightest examples of Christian
experience, as it should be, say, “While we
look not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen: for the things which
are seen are temporal, but the things which are
not seen are eternal?”
The Bible tells us that our whole existence here
is disciplinary; that this whole physical system,
by which our spirit is connected with all the joys
and sorrows, hopes, and fears, and wants which
form a part of it, is designed as an education to
fit the soul for its immortality. Hence, as worldly
care forms the greater part of the staple of every
human life, there must be some mode of viewing
and meeting it, which converts it from an enemy
of spirituality into a means of grace and spiritual
advancement.
Why, then, do we so often hear the lamentation,
“It seems to me as if I could advance to
the higher stages of Christian life, if it were not
for the pressure of my business, and the multitude
of my worldly cares?” Is it not God, O Christian!
who, in his providence, has laid these cares
-- 045 --
[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]
upon thee, and who still holds them about thee,
and permits no escape from them? If God's
great undivided object is thy spiritual improvement,
is there not some misapprehension or wrong
use of these cares, if they do not tend to advance
it? Is it not even as if a scholar should say, I
could advance in science were it not for all the
time and care which lessons, and books, and lectures
require?
How, then, shall earthly care become heavenly
discipline? How shall the disposition of the
weight be altered so as to press the spirit upward
towards God, instead of downward and away?
How shall the pillar of cloud which rises between
us and Him, become one of fire, to reflect upon
us constantly the light of his countenance, and to
guide us over the sands of life's desert?
It appears to us that the great radical difficulty
lies in a wrong belief. There is not a genuine
and real belief of the presence and agency of God
in the minor events and details of life, which is
necessary to change them from secular cares into
spiritual blessings.
It is true there is much loose talk about an
overruling Providence; and yet, if fairly stated,
-- 046 --
[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]
the belief of a great many Christians might be
thus expressed: God has organized and set in
operation certain general laws of matter and mind,
which work out the particular results of life, and
over these laws he exercises a general supervision
and care, so that all the great affairs of the world
are carried on after the counsel of his own will:
and, in a certain general sense, all things are
working together for good to those that love God.
But when some simple-minded and child-like
Christian really proceeds to refer all the smaller
events of life to God's immediate care and agency,
there is a smile of incredulity—and it is thought
that the good brother displays more Christian
feeling than sound philosophy.
But as the life of every individual is made up
of fractions and minute atoms—as those things,
which go to affect habits and character, are small
and hourly recurring, it comes to pass, that a
belief in Providence so very wide and general is
altogether inefficient for consecrating and rendering
sacred the great body of what comes in contact
with the mind in the experience of life.
Only once in years does the Christian, with this
kind of belief, hear the voice of the Lord
-- 047 --
[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]
speaking to him. When the hand of death is laid on
his child, or the bolt strikes down the brother by
his side; then, indeed, he feels that God is drawing
near; he listens humbly for the inward voice
that shall explain the meaning and need of this
discipline. When, by some unforeseen occurrence,
the whole of his earthly property is swept
away, and he becomes a poor man, this event, in
his eyes, assumes sufficient magnitude to have
come from God, and to have a design and meaning;
but when smaller comforts are removed,
smaller losses are encountered, and the petty
every-day vexations and annoyances of life press
about him, he recognises no God, and hears no
voice, and sees no design. Hence John Newton
says, “Many Christians, who bear the loss of
a child or the destruction of all their property
with the most heroic Christian fortitude, are entirely
vanquished and overcome by the breaking
of a dish, or the blunders of a servant, and show
so unchristian a spirit, that we cannot but wonder
at them.”
So when the breath of slander, or the pressure
of human injustice, comes so heavily on a man,
as really to threaten loss of character, and
-- 048 --
[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]
destruction of his temporal interests, he seems
forced to recognise the hand and voice of God
through the veil of human agencies, and in timehonoured
words to say—
When men of spite against me join,
They are the sword, the hand is thine.
But the smaller injustice, and fault-finding, which
meets every one more or less in the daily intercourse
of life—the overheard remark—the implied
censure—too petty perhaps to be even spoken of—
these daily-recurring sources of disquietude and
unhappiness are not referred to God's providence,
nor considered as a part of his probation and discipline.
Those thousand vexations which come
upon us through the unreasonableness, the carelessness,
the various constitutional failings or ill
adaptedness of others to our peculiarities of character,
from a very large item of the disquietudes
of life, and yet how very few look beyond the
human agent, and feel that these are trials coming
from God. Yet it is true, in many cases, that
these so-called minor vexations form the greater
part, and, in some cases, the only discipline of
life; and to those who do not view them as
-- 049 --
[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]
individually ordered or permitted by God, and coming
upon them by design, their affliction really
“cometh of the dust,” and their trouble springs
“out of the ground;” it is sanctified and relieved
by no Divine presence and aid, but borne alone,
and in a mere human spirit, and by mere human
reliances; it acts on the mind as a constant diversion
and hindrance, instead of moral discipline.
Hence, too, arises a coldness, and generality,
and wandering of mind in prayer. The things
that are on the heart, that are distracting the
mind, that have filled the heart so full that there
is no room for anything else, are all considered
too small and undignified to come within the pale
of a prayer: and so, with a wandering mind and a
distracted heart, the Christian offers up his prayer
for things which he thinks he ought to want, and
makes no mention of those which he really does
want. He prays that God would pour out his
Spirit on the heathen, and convert the world, and
build up his kingdom everywhere, when perhaps
a whole set of little anxieties and wants and vexations
are so distracting his thoughts, that he
hardly knows what he has been saying. A faithless
servant is wasting his property, a careless or
-- 050 --
[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]
blundering workman has spoiled a lot of goods, a
child is vexatious or unruly, a friend has made
promises and failed to keep them, an acquaintance
has made unjust or satirical remarks, some new
furniture has been damaged or ruined by carelessness
in the household; but all this trouble forms
no subject matter for prayer, though there it is
all the while lying like lead on the heart, and
keeping it down so that it has no power to expand
and take in anything else. But were God in
Christ known and regarded as the soul's familiar
Friend; were every trouble of the heart, as it
rises, breathed into His bosom; were it felt that
there is not one of the smallest of life's troubles
that has not been permitted by Him, and permitted
for specific good purpose to the soul, how
much more heart-work would there be in prayer;
how constant, how daily might it become, how it
might settle and clear the atmosphere of the soul,
how it might so dispose and lay away many anxieties
which now take up their place there, that
there might be room for the higher themes and
considerations of religion!
Many sensitive and fastidious natures are worn
away by the constant friction of what are called
-- 051 --
[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]
little troubles. Without any great affliction, they
feel that all the flower and sweetness of their life
is faded; their eye grows dim, their cheek careworn,
and their spirit loses hope and elasticity,
and becomes bowed with premature age; and in
the midst of tangible and physical comfort, they
are restless and unhappy. The constant undercurrent
of little cares and vexations, which is
slowly wearing out the finer springs of life, is seen
by no one; scarcely ever do they speak of these
things to their nearest friends. Yet were there
a friend, of a spirit so discerning as to feel and
sympathize in all these things, how much of this
repressed electric restlessness would pass off
through such a sympathizing mind.
Yet among human friends this is all but impossible,
for minds are so diverse that what is a trial
and a care to one, is a matter of sport and amusement
to another, and all the inner world breathed
into a human ear, only excites a surprised or contemptuous
pity. To whom then shall the soul
turn—who will feel that to be affliction, which
each spirit knows to be so? If the soul shut
itself within itself, it becomes morbid; the fine
chords of the mind and nerves, by constant wear,
-- 052 --
[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]
become jarring and discordant: hence fretfulness,
discontent, and habitual irritability steal over the
sincere Christian.
But to the Christian who really believes in the
agency of God in the smallest events of life, confides
in his love and makes his sympathy his
refuge, the thousand minute cares and perplexities
of life become each one a fine affiliating bond
between the soul and its God. Christ is known,
not by abstract definition, and by high-raised
conceptions of the soul's aspiring hours, but
known as a man knoweth his friend; he is known
by the hourly wants he supplies—known by every
care with which he momentarily sympathises,
every apprehension which relieves, every temptation
which he enables us to surmount. We learn
to know Christ as the infant child learns to know
its mother and father, by all the helplessness and
all the dependence which are incident to this
commencement of our moral existence; and as we
go on thus year by year, and find in every changing
situation, in every reverse, in every trouble,
from the lightest sorrow to those which wring our
soul from its depths, that he is equally present,
and that his gracious aid is equally adequate, our
-- 053 --
[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]
faith seems gradually almost to change to sight,
and Christ's sympathy, his love and care, seem to
us more real than any other source of reliance;
and multiplied cares and trials are only new avenues
of acquaintance between us and Heaven.
Suppose, in some bright vision unfolding to our
view, in tranquil evening or solemn midnight, the
glorified form of some departed friend should
appear to us with the announcement, “This year
is to be to you one of special probation and discipline,
with reference to perfecting you for a heavenly
state. Weigh well and consider every incident
of your daily life, for not one is to fall out
by accident, but each one shall be a finished and
indispensable link in a bright chain that is to draw
you upward to the skies.”
With what new eyes should we now look on our
daily lot! and if we found in it not a single
change—the same old cares, the same perplexities,
the same uninteresting drudgeries still—with what
new meaning would every incident be invested,
and with what other and sublimer spirit could we
meet them! Yet, if announced by one rising
from the dead with the visible glory of a spiritual
world, this truth could be asserted no more clearly
-- 054 --
[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]
and distinctly than Jesus Christ has stated it
already. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground
without our Father—not one of them is forgotten
by him; and we are of more value than many
sparrows—yea, even the hairs of our head are all
numbered. Not till belief in these declarations,
in their most literal sense, becomes the calm and
settled habit of the soul, is life ever redeemed
from drudgery and dreary emptiness, and made
full of interest, meaning, and Divine significance.
Not till then do its grovelling wants, its wearing
cares, its stinging vexations, become to us ministering
spirits—each one, by a silent but certain
agency, fitting us for a higher and perfect sphere.
-- 055 --
[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]
HYMN.
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
Though like a wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness comes over me,
My rest a stone,
Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,—
Nearer to Thee!
There let my way appear
Steps unto heav'n;
All that Thou sendest me
In mercy giv'n;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to Thee,—
Nearer to Thee!
-- 056 -- p708-061
A Scholar's Adventures in the Country.
[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]
“If we could only live in the country,” said my
wife, “how much easier it would be to live.”
“And how much cheaper!” said I.
“To have a little place of our own, and raise
our own things!” said my wife: “dear me! I am
heart-sick when I think of the old place at home,
and father's great garden. What peaches and
melons we used to have—what green peas and
corn! Now one has to buy every cent's worth of
these things—and how they taste! Such wilted,
miserable corn! Such peas! Then, if we lived
in the country, we should have our own cow, and
milk and cream in abundance—our own hens and
chickens. We could have custard and ice cream
every day!”
“To say nothing of the trees and flowers, and
all that,” said I.
The result of this little domestic duet was
that my wife and I began to ride about the city of—
to look up some pretty interesting cottage
-- 057 --
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where our visions of rural bliss might be realized.
Country residences near the city we found to
bear rather a high price; so that it was no easy
matter to find a situation suitable to the length of
our purse; till, at last, a judicious friend suggested
a happy expedient—
“Borrow a few hundred,” he said, “and give
your note—you can save enough very soon, to
make the difference. When you raise everything
you eat, you know it will make your salary go a
wonderful deal further.”
“Certainly it will,” said I. “And what can be
more beautiful than to buy places by the simple
process of giving one's note—'tis so neat, and
handy, and convenient!”
“Why,” pursued my friend, “there is Mr. B.,
my next door neighbour—'tis enough to make one
sick of life in the city to spend a week out on his
farm. Such princely living as one gets; and he
assures me that it costs him very little—scarce
anything, perceptible, in fact!”
“Indeed,” said I, “few people can say that.”
“Why,” said my friend, “he has a couple of
peach trees for every month, from June till frost,
that furnish as many peaches as he and his wife
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and ten children can dispose of. And then he has
grapes, apricots, &c.; and last year his wife sold
fifty dollars worth from her strawberry patch, and
had an abundance for the table besides. Out of
the milk of only one cow they had butter enough
to sell three or four pounds a week, besides abundance
of milk and cream; and madam has the butter
for her pocket money. This is the way country
people manage.”
“Glorious!” thought I. And my wife and I
could scarce sleep all night, for the brilliancy of
our anticipations!
To be sure our delight was somewhat damped
the next day by the coldness with which my good
old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, who happened
along at precisely this crisis, listened to our
visions.
“You'll find it pleasant, children, in the summer-time,”
said the hard-fisted old man, twirling
his blue checked pocket handkerchief; “but I'm
sorry you've gone in debt for the land.”
“Oh! but we shall soon save that—it's so much
cheaper living in the country!” said both of us
together.
“Well, as to that, I don't think it is to citybred
folks.”
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Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of
Mr. B.'s peach trees, and Mrs. B.'s strawberries,
butter, apricots, &c., &c.; to which the old gentleman
listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved
quietude of visage as quite provoked me, and gave
me the worst possible opinion of his judgment. I
was disappointed too; for, as he was reckoned one
of the best practical farmers in the county, I had
counted on an enthusiastic sympathy with all my
agricultural designs.
“I tell you what, children,” he said, “a body
can live in the country, as you say, amazin' cheap;
but, then, a body must know how”—and my uncle
spread his pocket handkerchief thoughtfully out
upon his knees, and shook his head gravely.
I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body,
and wondered how I had always entertained so
high an opinion of his sense.
“He is evidently getting old!” said I to my
wife; “his judgment is not what it used to be.”
At all events, our place was bought, and we
moved out, well pleased, the first morning in
April, not at all remembering the ill savor of that
day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a
pretty cottage, about two miles from the city, with
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grounds that have been tastefully laid out. There
was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders,
and rose-bushes, with which my wife was
especially pleased. There was a little green lot,
strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove
of trees at the end, where our cow was to be
pastured.
The first week or two went on happily enough
in getting our little new pet of a house into trimness
and good order; for, as it had been long for
sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs
that had been left to amuse the leisure
hours of the purchaser. Here a door-step had
given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter
hung loose, and wanted a hinge; abundance of
glass needed setting; and, as to the painting and
papering, there was no end to that; then my wife
wanted a door cut here, to make our bed-room
more convenient, and a china closet knocked up
there, where no china closet before had been.
We even ventured on throwing out a bay window
from our sitting-room, because we had luckily
lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it
was an actual saving of money to employ him.
And to be sure our darling little cottage did lift
-- 061 --
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up its head wonderfully for all this garnishing
and furbishing. I got up early every morning,
and nailed up the rose-bushes, and my wife got
up and watered the geraniums, and both flattered
ourselves and each other on our early hours and
thrifty habits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in
Paradise, we found our little domain to ask more
hands than ours to get it into shape. “So,” says I
to my wife, “I will bring out a gardener when I
come next time, and he shall lay it out, and get
it into order; and after that, I can easily keep it
by the work of my leisure hours.”
Our gardener was a very sublime sort of a
man—an Englishman, and, of course, used to laying
out noblemen's places, and we became as grasshoppers
in our own eyes, when he talked of Lord
this and that's estate, and began to question us
about our carriage-drive and conservatory, and we
could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to
any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations—
merely to dress out the walks and lay
out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes, turnips,
beets, and carrots, was quite a descent for him.
In fact, so strong were his æsthetic preferences,
that he persuaded my wife to let him dig all the
-- 062 --
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turf off from a green square opposite the bay window,
and to lay it out into divers little triangles,
resembling small pieces of pie, together with circles,
mounds, and various other geometrical ornaments,
the planning and planting of which soon
engrossed my wife's whole soul. The planting of
the potatoes, beets, carrots, &c., was intrusted to
a raw Irishman; for, as to me, to confess the
truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree
with me. It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous
at first, and actually planted with my own
hands two or three long rows of potatoes; after
which I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder
which lasted me a week. Stooping down to plant
beets and radishes gave me a vertigo, so that I
was obliged to content myself with a general superintendence
of the garden; that is to say, I charged
my Englishman to see that my Irishman did his
duty properly, and then got on to my horse and
rode to the city. But about one part of the matter
I must say I was not remiss—and that is, in
the purchase of seed and garden utensils. Not a
day passed that I did not come home with my
pockets stuffed with choice seeds, roots, &c., and
the variety of my garden utensils was unequalled.
-- 063 --
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There was not a pruning-hook of any pattern, not
a hoe, rake, or spade, great or small, that I did
not have specimens of; and flower seeds and bulbs
were also forthcoming in liberal proportions. In
fact, I had opened an account at a thriving seed
store; for when a man is driving a business on a
large scale, it is not always convenient to hand out
the change for every little matter, and buying
things on account is as neat and agreeable a mode
of acquisition as paying bills with one's note.
“You know we must have a cow,” said my wife,
the morning of our second week. Our friend the
gardener, who had now worked with us at the
rate of two dollars a day for two weeks, was at
hand in a moment in our emergency. We wanted
to buy a cow, and he had one to sell—a wonderful
cow, of a real English breed. He would not
sell her for any money, except to oblige particular
friends; but as we had patronized him, we should
have her for forty dollars. How much we were
obliged to him! The forty dollars were speedily
forthcoming, and so also was the cow.
“What makes her shake her head in that
way?” said my wife, apprehensively, as she observed
the interesting beast making sundry
-- 064 --
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demonstrations with her horns. “I hope she's mild
and gentle.”
The gardener fluently demonstrated that the
animal was a pattern of all the softer graces, and
that this head-shaking was merely a little nervous
affection consequent on the embarrassment of a
new position. We had faith to believe almost
anything at this time, and therefore came from
the barn-yard to the house as much satisfied with
our purchase as Job with his three thousand
camels and five hundred yoke of oxen. Her quondam
master milked her for us the first evening,
out of a delicate regard to her feelings as a
stranger, and we fancied that we discerned forty
dollars' worth of excellence in the very quality of
the milk.
But alas! the next morning our Irish girl came
in with a most rueful face: “And is it milking
that baste you'd have me be after?” she said;
“sure, and she won't let me come near her.”
“Nonsense, Biddy!” said I, “you frightened
her, perhaps; the cow is perfectly gentle;” and
with the pail on my arm I sallied forth. The
moment madam saw me entering the cow-yard,
she greeted me with a very expressive flourish of
her horns.
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“This won't do,” said I, and I stopped. The
lady evidently was serious in her intentions of
resisting any personal approaches. I cut a cudgel,
and putting on a bold face, marched towards her,
while Biddy followed with her milking-stool. Apparently,
the beast saw the necessity of temporizing,
for she assumed a demure expression, and
Biddy sat down to milk. I stood sentry, and if
the lady shook her head, I shook my stick, and
thus the milking operation proceeded with tolerable
serenity and success.
“There!” said I, with dignity, when the frothing
pail was full to the brim. “That will do,
Biddy,” and I dropped my stick. Dump! came
madam's heel on the side of the pail, and it
flew like a rocket into the air, while the milky
flood showered plentifully over me, in a new
broadcloth riding-coat that I had assumed for the
first time that morning. “Whew!” said I, as
soon as I could get my breath from this extraordinary
shower-bath; “what's all this?” My wife
came running toward the cow-yard, as I stood
with the milk streaming from my hair, filling my
eyes, and dropping from the tip of my nose! and
she and Biddy performed a recitative lamentation
-- 066 --
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over me in alternate strophes, like the chorus in
a Greek tragedy. Such was our first morning's
experience; but as we had announced our bargain
with some considerable flourish of trumpets
among our neighbours and friends, we concluded
to hush the matter up as much as possible.
“These very superior cows are apt to be cross;”
said I; “we must bear with it as we do with the
eccentricities of genius; besides, when she gets
accustomed to us, it will be better.”
Madam was therefore installed into her pretty
pasture-lot, and my wife contemplated with pleasure
the picturesque effect of her appearance reclining
on the green slope of the pasture-lot, or
standing ancle-deep in the gurgling brook, or reclining
under the deep shadows of the trees—she
was, in fact, a handsome cow, which may account,
in part, for some of her sins; and this consideration
inspired me with some degree of indulgence
toward her foibles.
But when I found that Biddy could never succeed
in getting near her in the pasture, and that
any kind of success in the milking operations required
my vigorous personal exertions morning
and evening, the matter wore a more serious
-- 067 --
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aspect, and I began to feel quite pensive and apprehensive.
It is very well to talk of the pleasures
of the milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness
of the purple dawn; but imagine a poor fellow
pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning, and
equipping himself for a scamper through a wet
pasture-lot, rope in hand, at the heels of such a
termagant as mine! In fact, madam established
a regular series of exercises, which had all to be
gone through before she would suffer herself to
be captured; as, first, she would station herself
plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at the
lower part of the lot, and look very innocent and
absent-minded, as if reflecting on some sentimental
subject. “Suke! Suke! Suke!” I ejaculate
cautiously, tottering along the edge of the marsh,
and holding out an ear of corn. The lady looks
gracious, and comes forward, almost within reach
of my hand. I make a plunge to throw the rope
over her horns, and away she goes, kicking up
mud and water into my face in her flight, while I,
losing my balance, tumble forward into the marsh.
I pick myself up, and, full of wrath, behold her
placidly chewing the cud on the other side, with
the meekest air imaginable, as who should say,
-- 068 --
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“I hope you are not hurt, sir.” I dash through
swamp and bog furiously, resolving to carry all
by coup de main. Then follows a miscellaneous
season of dodging, scampering, and bo-peeping
among the trees of the grove, interspersed with
sundry occasional races across the bog aforesaid.
I always wondered how I caught her every day,
when I had tied her head to one post and her
heels to another, I wiped the sweat from my brow
and thought I was paying dear for the eccentricities
of genius. A genius she certainly was, for
besides her surprising agility, she had other talents
equally extraordinary. There was no fence
that she could not take down; nowhere that she
could not go. She took the pickets off the garden
fence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily
as I could use a claw hammer. Whatever she has
a mind to, whether it were a bite in the cabbage
garden, or a run in the corn patch, or a foraging
expedition into the flower borders, she made herself
equally welcome and at home. Such a scampering
and driving, such cries of “Suke here” and
“Suke there,” as constantly greeted our ears
kept our little establishment in a constant commotion.
At last, when she one morning made a
-- 069 --
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plunge at the skirts of a new broadcloth frock
coat, and carried off one flap on her horns, my patience
gave out, and I determined to sell her.
As, however, I had made a good story of my
misfortunes among my friends and neighbours, and
amused them with sundry whimsical accounts of
my various adventures in the cow-catching line,
I found when I came to speak of selling, that
there was a general coolness on the subject, and
nobody seemed disposed to be the recipient of my
responsibilities. In short, I was glad, at last, to
get fifteen dollars for her, and comforted myself
with thinking that I had at least gained twenty-five
dollars' worth of experience in the transaction,
to say nothing of the fine exercise.
I comforted my soul, however, the day after, by
purchasing and bringing home to my wife a fine
swarm of bees.
“Your bee, now,” says I, “is a really classical
insect, and breathes of Virgil and the Augustan
age—and then, she is a domestic, tranquil, placid
creature! How beautiful the murmuring of a
hive near our honeysuckle of a calm summer
evening! Then they are tranquilly and peacefully
amassing for us their stores of sweetness,
-- 070 --
[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]
while they lull us with their murmurs. What a
beautiful image of disinterested benevolence!”
My wife declared that I was quite a poet, and
the bee-hive was duly installed near the flowerpots,
that the delicate creatures might have the
full benefit of the honeysuckle and mignonette.
My spirits began to rise. I bought three different
treatises on the rearing of bees, and also one
or two new patterns of hives, and proposed to rear
my bees on the most approved model. I charged
all the establishment to let me know when there
was any indication of an emigrating spirit, that I
might be ready to receive the new swarm into my
patent mansion.
Accordingly, one afternoon, when I was deep
in an article that I was preparing for the North
American Review, intelligence was brought me that
a swarm had risen. I was on the alert at once,
and discovered on going out that the provoking
creatures had chosen the top of a tree about thirty
feet high to settle on. Now, my books had carefully
instructed me just how to approach the
swarm and cover them with a new hive, but I had
never contemplated the possibility of the swarm
being, like Haman's gallows, forty cubits high.
-- 071 --
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I looked despairingly upon the smooth-bark tree,
which rose like a column, full twenty feet, without
branch or twig. “What is to be done?” said I,
appealing to two or three neighbours. At last, at
the recommendation of one of them, a ladder was
raised against the tree, and, equipped with a shirt
outside of my clothes, a green veil over my head,
and a pair of leather gloves in my hand, I went
up with a saw at my girdle to saw off the branch
on which they had settled, and lower it by a rope
to a neighbour, similarly equipped, who stood below
with the hive.
As a result of this manœuvre the fastidious little
insects were at length fairly installed at housekeeping
in my new patent hive, and, rejoicing in
my success, I again sat down to my article.
That evening my wife and I took tea in our honeysuckle
arbour, with our little ones and a friend
or two, to whom I showed my treasures, and expatiated
at large on the comforts and conveniences
of the new patent hive.
But alas for the hopes of man! The little ungrateful
wretches, what must they do but take advantage
of my oversleeping myself the next morning,
to clear out for new quarters without so much
-- 072 --
[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]
as leaving me a P. P. C. Such was the fact; at
eight o'clock I found the new patent hive as good
as ever; but the bees I have never seen from that
day to this!
“The rascally little conservatives!” said I; “I
believe that they have never had a new idea from
the days of Virgil down, and are entirely unprepared
to appreciate improvements.”
Meanwhile the seeds began to germinate in our
garden, when we found, to our chagrin, that, between
John Bull and Paddy, there had occurred
sundry confusions in the several departments.
Radishes had been planted broadcast, carrots and
beets arranged in hills, and here and there a
whole paper of seed appeared to have been planted
bodily. My good old uncle, who, somewhat to my
confusion, made me a call at this time, was greatly
distressed and scandalized by the appearance of
our garden. But, by a deal of fussing, transplanting,
and replanting, it was got into some shape and
order. My uncle was rather troublesome, as careful
old people are apt to be—annoying us by perpetual
inquiries of what we gave for this, and that,
and running up provoking calculations on the
final cost of matters, and we began to wish that
-- 073 --
[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]
his visit might be as short as would be convenient.
But when, on taking leave, he promised to send
us a fine young cow of his own raising, our hearts
rather smote us for our impatience.
“'Taint any of your new breeds, nephew,” said
the old man, “yet I can say that she's a gentle,
likely young crittur, and better worth forty dollars
than many a one that's cried up for Ayrshire or
Durham; and you shall be quite welcome to her.”
We thanked him, as in duty bound, and thought
that if he was full of old-fashioned notions, he was
no less full of kindness and good will.
And now, with a new cow, with our garden beginning
to thrive under the gentle showers of
May, with our flower-borders blooming, my wife
and I began to think ourselves in Paradise. But
alas! the same sun and rain that warmed our fruit
and flowers brought up from the earth, like sulky
gnomes, a vast array of purple-leaved weeds, that
almost in a night seemed to cover the whole surface
of the garden beds. Our gardeners both being
gone, the weeding was expected to be done by
me—one of the anticipated relaxations of my leisure
hours.
-- 074 --
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“Well,” said I, in reply to a gentle intimation
from my wife, “when my article is finished, I'll
take a day and weed all up clean.”
Thus days slipped by, till at length the article
was dispatched, and I proceeded to my garden.
Amazement! who could have possibly foreseen that
anything earthly could grow so fast in a few days!
There were no bounds, no alleys, no beds, no distinction
of beet and carrot, nothing but a flourishing
congregation of weeds nodding and bobbing
in the morning breeze, as if to say,—“We hope
you are well, sir—we've got the ground, you see!”
I began to explore, and to hoe, and to weed. Ah!
did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot
or beet bed, or bend his back in a hot sun over
rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feel for
my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and
sighed! till, when high noon came on, as the result
of all my toils, only three beds were cleaned!
And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus
unexpectedly delivered from its sheltering tares,
and laid open to a broiling July sun! Every juvenile
beet and carrot lay flat down, wilted and
drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding
instead of being weeded.
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[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]
“This weeding is quite a serious matter,” said
I to my wife; “the fact is, I must have help about
it!”
“Just what I was myself thinking,” said my
wife. “My flower-borders are all in confusion,
and my petunia mounds so completely overgrown,
that nobody would dream what they were meant
for!”
In short it was agreed between us that we
could not afford the expense of a full-grown man
to keep our place, yet we must reinforce ourselves
by the addition of a boy, and a brisk youngster
from the vicinity was pitched upon as the happy
addition. This youth was a fellow of decidedly
quick parts, and in one forenoon made such a
clearing in our garden that I was delighted—bed
after bed appeared to view, all cleared and
dressed out with such celerity that I was quite
ashamed of my own slowness, until, on examination,
I discovered that he had, with great impartiality,
pulled up both weeds and vegetables.
This hopeful beginning was followed up by a
succession of proceedings which should be recorded
for the instruction of all who seek for help from
the race of boys. Such a loser of all tools, great
-- 076 --
[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]
and small—such an invariable leaver-open of all
gates, and a letter down of bars—such a personification
of all manner of anarchy and ill luck—
had never before been seen on the estate. His
time, while I was gone to the city, was agreeably
diversified with roosting on the fence, swinging on
the gates, making poplar whistles for the children,
hunting eggs, and eating whatever fruit happened
to be in season, in which latter accomplishment he
was certainly quite distinguished. After about
three weeks of this kind of joint gardening, we
concluded to dismiss master Tom from the firm,
and employ a man.
“Things must be taken care of,” said I, “and
I cannot do it. 'Tis out of the question.” And
so the man was secured.
But I am making a long story, and may chance
to outrun the sympathies of my readers. Time
would fail me to tell of the distresses manifold
that fell upon me—of cows dried up by poor
milkers, of hens that wouldn't set at all, and hens
that despite all law and reason wonld set on one
egg, of hens that having hatched families straightway
led them into all manner of high grass and
weeds, by which means numerous young chicks
-- 077 --
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caught premature colds and perished! and how
when I, with manifold toil, had driven one of
these inconsiderate gadders into a coop, to teach
her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her,
and slew every chick in one night! how my pigs
were always practising gymnastic exercises over
the fence of the stye, and marauding in the garden.
(I wonder that Fourier never conceived the
idea of having his garden-land ploughed by pigs, for
certainly they manifest quite a decided elective
attraction for turning up the earth.)
When autumn came, I went soberly to market in
the neighbouring city, and bought my potatoes
and turnips like any other man, for, between all
the various systems of gardening pursued, I was
obliged to confess that my first horticultural
effort was a decided failure. But though all my
rural visions had proved illusive, there were some
very substantial realities. My bill at the seed
store, for seeds, roots, and tools, for example, had
run up to an amount that was perfectly unaccountable;
then there were various smaller items,
such as horse-shoeing, carriage-mending—for he
who lives in the country and does business in the
city must keep his vehicle and appurtenances. I
-- 078 --
[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]
had always prided myself on being an exact man,
and settling every account, great and small, with
the going out of the old year, but this season I
found myself sorely put to it. In fact, had not I
received a timely lift from my good old uncle, I
had made a complete break-down. The old gentleman's
troublesome habit of ciphering and calculating,
it seems, had led him beforehand to
foresee that I was not exactly in the money-making
line, nor likely to possess much surplus revenue to
meet the note which I had given for my place,
and therefore he quietly paid it himself, as I discovered
when, after much anxiety and some sleepless
nights, I went to the holder to ask for an extension
of credit.
“He was right after all,” said I to my wife,
“`to live cheap in the country, a body must know
how.'”
-- 079 -- p708-084
Children.
“A little child shall lead them.”
[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]
One cold market morning I looked into a milliner's
shop, and there I saw a hale, hearty, well-browned
young fellow from the country, with his
long cart whip, and lion shag coat, holding up
some little matter, and turning it about on his
great fist. And what do you suppose it was? A
baby's bonnet! A little, soft, blue satin hood,
with a swan's down border, white as the new fallen
snow, with a frill of rich blonde around the edge.
By his side stood a very pretty woman holding,
with no small pride, the baby—for evidently it
was the baby. Any one could read that fact in
every glance, as they looked at each other, and
then at the large unconscious eyes, and fat dimpled
cheeks of the little one.
It was evident that neither of them had ever
seen a baby like that before.
“But really, Mary,” said the young man, “isn't
three dollars very high?”
Mary very prudently said nothing, but taking
-- 080 --
[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]
the little bonnet, tied it on the little head, and
held up the little baby. The man looked, and
without another word down went the three dollars;
all that the last week's butter came to; and
as they walked out of the shop, it is hard to
say which looked the most delighted with the
bargain.
“Ah,” thought I, “a little child shall lead
them.”
Another day, as I was passing a carriage factory
along one of our principal back streets, I saw
a young mechanic at work on a wheel. The rough
body of a carriage stood beside him, and there,
wrapped up snugly, all hooded and cloaked, sat a
little dark-eyed girl, about a year old, playing
with a great shaggy dog. As I stopped, the man
looked up from his work and turned admiringly
toward his little companion, as much as to say,
“See what I have got here!”
“Yes,” thought I, “and if the little lady ever
gets a glance from admiring swains as sincere as
that, she will be lucky.”
Ah! these children, little witches, pretty even
in all their faults and absurdities. See, for example,
yonder little fellow in a haughty fit; he
-- 081 --
[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]
has shaken his long curls over his deep blue eyes;
the fair brow is bent in a frown; the rose-leaf lip
is pursed up in infinite defiance; and the white
shoulder thrust naughtily forward. Can any but a
child look so pretty, even in their naughtiness?
Then comes the instant change; flashing smiles
and tears, as the good comes back all in a rush,
and you are overwhelmed with protestations, promises,
and kisses! They are irresistible, too, these
little ones. They pull away the scholar's pen;
tumble about his paper; make somersets over
his books; and what can he do? They tear
up newspapers; litter the carpets; break, pull,
and upset, and then jabber unimaginable English
in self-defiance, and what can you do for
yourself?
“If I had a child,” says the precise man, “you
should see.”
He does have a child, and his child tears up
his papers, tumbles over his things, and pulls his
nose, like all other children, and what has the
precise man to say for himself? Nothing; he
is like every body else; “a little child may lead
him.”
The hardened heart of the worldly man is
-- 082 --
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unlocked by the guileless tones and simple caresses
of his son; but he repays it in time, by imparting
to his boy all the crooked tricks and callous
maxims which have undone himself.
Go to the jail—to the penitentiary, and find
there the wretch most sullen, brutal, and hardened.
Then look at your infant son. Such as he is to
you, such to some mother was this man. That
hard hand was soft and delicate; that rough voice
was tender and lisping; fond eyes followed him as
he played, and he was rocked and cradled as
something holy. There was a time when his
heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to
questionings of God and Jesus, and been sealed
with the seal of Heaven. But harsh hands seized
it; fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon
it; and all is over with him forever!
So of the tender, weeping child, is made the
callous, heartless man; of the all-believing child,
the sneering sceptic; of the beautiful and modest,
the shameless and abandoned; and this is what
the world does for the little one.
There was a time when the divine One stood
on earth, and little children sought to draw near
to him. But harsh human beings stood between
-- 083 --
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him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah!
has it not always been so? Do not even we
with our hard and unsubdued feeling, our worldly
and unscriptural habits and maxims, stand like a
dark screen between our little child and its Saviour,
and keep even from the choice bud of our
hearts, the sweet radiance which might unfold it
for paradise? “Suffer little children to come
unto me, and forbid them not,” is still the voice
of the Son of God, but the cold world still closes
around and forbids. When of old, disciples would
question their Lord of the higher mysteries of his
kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the
midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in
Heaven. That gentle teacher remains still to us.
By every hearth and fireside, Jesus still sets the
little child in the midst of us.
Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that faith
which unlocks heaven? Go not to wrangling polemics,
or creeds and forms of theology, but draw
to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear
trusting eye the lesson of eternal life. Be only
to thy God as thy child is to thee, and all is done!
Blessed shalt thou be indeed, “when a little child
shall lead thee!”
-- 084 -- p708-089
The Two Bibles.
[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]
It was a splendid room. Rich curtains swept
down to the floor in graceful folds, half excluding
the light, and shedding it in soft hues over the
fine old paintings on the walls, and over the broad
mirrors that reflect all that taste can accomplish
by the hand of wealth. Books, the rarest and
most costly, were around, in every form of gorgeous
binding and gilding, and among them, glittering
in ornament, lay a magnificent Bible—a
Bible too beautiful in its appearance, too showy, too
ornamental, ever to have been meant to be read—
a Bible which every visitor should take up, and
exclaim, “What a beautiful edition! what superb
binding!” and then lay it down again.
And the master of the house was lounging on a
sofa, looking over a late review—for he was a man
of leisure, taste, and reading—but then, as to
reading the Bible!—that forms, we suppose, no
part of the pretensions of a man of letters. The
Bible—certainly he considered it a very
-- 085 --
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respectable book—a fine specimen of ancient literature,
an admirable book of moral precepts—but then,
as to its divine origin he had not exactly made up
his mind—some parts appeared strange and inconsistent
to his reason, others were very revolting
to his taste—true, he had never studied it
very attentively, yet such was his general impression
about it—but on the whole, he thought it well
enough to keep an elegant copy of it on his drawing-room
table.
So much for one picture, now for another.
Come with us into this little dark alley, and up
a flight of ruinous stairs. It is a bitter night, and
the wind and snow might drive through the crevices
of the poor room, were it not that careful
hands have stopped them with paper or cloth.
But for all this little carefulness, the room is bitter
cold—cold even with those few decaying brands
on the hearth, which that sorrowful woman is trying
to kindle with her breath. Do you see that
pale little thin girl, with large bright eyes, who is
crouching so near her mother? hark! how she
coughs—now listen:
“Mary, my dear child,” says the mother,
“do keep that shawl close about you, you are
-- 086 --
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cold, I know,” and the woman shivers as she
speaks.
“No, mother, not very,” replies the child, again
relapsing into that hollow, ominous cough—“I
wish you wouldn't make me always wear your
shawl when it is cold, mother.”
“Dear child, you need it most—how you cough
to-night,” replies the mother, “it really don't seem
right for me to send you up that long street, now
your shoes have grown so poor; I must go myself
after this.”
“Oh! mother, you must stay with the baby;
what if he should have one of those dreadful fits
while you are gone; no, I can go very well, I have
got used to the cold, now.”
“But, mother, I'm cold,” says a little voice
from the scanty bed in the corner, “mayn't I get
up and come to the fire?”
“Dear child, it would not warm you—it is
very cold here, and I can't make any more fire
to-night.”
“Why can't you, mother? there are four whole
sticks of wood in the box, do put one on, and let's
get warm once.”
“No, my dear little Henry,” says the mother,
-- 087 --
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soothingly, “that is all the wood mother has, and
I haven't any money to get more.”
And now wakens the sick baby in the little cradle,
and mother and daughter are both for some
time busy in attempting to supply its little wants,
and lulling it again to sleep.
And now look you well at that mother. Six
months ago she had a husband, whose earnings
procured for her both the necessaries and comforts
of life—her children were clothed, fed, and
schooled, without thought of hers. But husbandless
and alone, in the heart of a great busy city,
with feeble health, and only the precarious resources
of her needle, she had come rapidly down
from comfort to extreme poverty. Look at her
now, as she is to-night. She knows full well that
the pale bright-eyed girl, whose hollow cough constantly
rings in her ears, is far from well. She
knows that cold, and hunger, and exposure of
every kind, are daily and surely wearing away her
life, and yet what can she do? Poor soul, how
many times has she calculated all her little resources,
to see if she could pay a doctor, and get
medicine for Mary—yet all in vain. She knows
that timely medicine, ease, fresh air, and warmth,
-- 088 --
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might save her—but she knows that all these
things are out of the question for her. She feels,
too, as a mother would feel, when she sees her
once rosy, happy little boy, becoming pale, and
anxious, and fretful; and even when he teases her
most, she only stops her work a moment, and
strokes his poor little thin cheeks, and thinks what
a laughing, happy little fellow he once was, till
she has not a heart to reprove him. And all this
day she has toiled with a sick and fretful baby in
her lap, and her little, shivering, hungry boy at
her side, whom poor Mary's patient artifices cannot
always keep quiet; she has toiled over the last
piece of work which she can procure from the
shop, for the man has told her that after this he
can furnish no more. And the little money that
is to come from this is already proportioned out
in her mind, and after that she has no human
prospect of more.
But yet the woman's face is patient, quiet, firm.
Nay, you may even see in her suffering eye something
like peace; and whence comes it? I will
tell you.
There is a Bible in that room, as well as in the
rich man's apartment. Not splendidly bound, to
-- 089 --
[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]
be sure, but faithfully read—a plain, homely, much
worn book.
Hearken now, while she says to her children,
“Listen to me, my dear children, and I will read
you something out of this book. `Let not your
heart be troubled, in my Father's house are many
mansions.' So you see, my children, we shall not
always live in this little, cold, dark room. Jesus
Christ has promised to take us to a better home.”
“Shall we be warm there, all day?” says the little
boy earnestly, “and shall we have enough to eat?”
“Yes, dear child,” says the mother, “listen to
what the Bible says, `They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more, for the Lamb which is in
the midst of them shall feed them; and God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes.'”
“I am glad of that,” said little Mary, “for
mother, I never can bear to see you cry.”
“But, mother,” says little Henry, “won't God
send us something to eat to-morrow?”
“See,” says the mother, “what the Bible says,
`Seek ye not what ye shall eat, nor what ye shall
drink, neither be of anxious mind. For your Father
knoweth that ye have need of these things.
“But, mother,” says little Mary, “if God is
-- 090 --
[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]
our Father, and loves us, what does he let us be
so poor for?”
“Nay,” says the mother, “our Lord Jesus
Christ was as poor as we are, and God certainly
loved him.”
“Was he, mother?”
“Yes, children, you remember how he said,
`The Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.'
And it tells us more than once, that Jesus was
hungry when there was none to give him food.”
“Oh! mother, what should we do without the
Bible!” says Mary.
Now if the rich man who had not yet made up
his mind what to think of the Bible, should visit
this poor woman, and ask her on what she grounded
her belief of its truth, what could she answer?
Could she give the argument from miracles and
prophecy? Can she account for all the changes
which might have taken place in it through translators
and copyists, and prove that we have a
genuine and uncorrupted version? Not she! But
how then does she know that it is true? How,
say you? How does she know that she has warm
life-blood in her heart? How does she know that
there is such a thing as air and sunshine?
-- 091 --
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She does not believe these things, she knows
them; and in like manner, with a deep heart-consciousness,
she is certain that the words of her
Bible are truth and life. Is it by reasoning that
the frightened child, bewildered in the dark, knows
its mother's voice? No! Nor is it by reasoning
that the forlorn and distressed human heart knows
the voice of its Saviour, and is still.
Go when the child is lying in its mother's arms,
and looking up trustfully in her face, and see if
you can puzzle him with metaphysical difficulties
about personal identity, until you can make him
think that it is not his mother. Your reasonings
may be conclusive—your arguments unanswerable—
but after all, the child sees his mother there,
and feels her arms around him, and his quiet unreasoning
belief on the subject, is precisely of the
same kind which the little child of Christianity
feels in the existence of his Saviour, and the reality
of all those blessed truths which he has told in his
word.
-- 092 -- p708-097
Letter From Maine. —No. 1.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ERA.
[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]
The fashionable complaint of neuralgia has kept
back from your paper many “thoughts, motions,
and revolutions” of the brain, which, could they
have printed themselves on paper, would have
found their way towards you. Don't you suppose,
in the marvellous progress of this fast-living age,
the time will ever come, when, by some metaphysical
daguerreotype process, the thoughts and images
of the brain shall print themselves on paper,
without the intervention of pen and ink? Then,
how many brilliancies, now lost and forgotten before
one gets time to put them through the slow
process of writing, shall flash upon us! Our poets
will sit in luxurious ease, with a quire of paper in
their pockets, and have nothing to do but lean
back in their chairs, and go off in an ecstacy, and
lo! they will find it all written out, commas and
all, ready for the printer. What a relief, too, to
-- 093 --
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multitudes of gentle hearts, whose friends in this
busy age are too hurried to find much time for
writing. Your merchant puts a sheet of paper inside
of his vest—over his heart, of course—and in
the interval between selling goods and pricing
stocks, thinks warm thoughts towards his wife or
lady-love—and at night draws forth a long letter,
all directed for the post. How convenient!
Would that some friend of humanity would offer a
premium for the discovery!
The spiritual rapping fraternity, who are au fait
in all that relates to man's capabilities, and who
are now speaking ex cathedra of all things celestial
and terrestrial, past, present, and to come, can
perhaps immediately settle the minutiæ of such an
arrangement. One thing is quite certain: that
if every man wore a sheet of paper in his bosom,
on which there should be a true and literal version
of all his thoughts, even for one day, in a
great many cases he would be astounded on reading
it over. Are there not many who would there
see, in plain, unvarnished English, what their
patriotism, disinterestedness, generosity, friendship,
and religion actually amounts to? Let us
fancy some of our extra patriotic public men
-- 094 --
[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]
comparing such a sheet with their speeches. We
have been amused, sometimes, at the look of blank
astonishment with which men look for the first
time on their own daguerreotype. Is that me?
Do I look so? Perhaps this inner daguerreotype
might prove more surprising still. “What,
I think that? I purpose so—and so? What
a troublesome ugly machine! I'll have nothing
to do with it!”
But to drop that subject, and start another. It
seems to us quite wonderful, that in all the ecstacies
that have been lavished on American scenery,
this beautiful State of Maine should have been
so much neglected; for nothing is or can be
more wildly, peculiarly beautiful—particularly the
scenery of the sea-coast. A glance at the map
will show one the peculiarity of these shores. It
is a complicated network and labyrinth of islands—
the sea interpenetrating the land in every fanciful
form, through a belt of coast from fifteen to
twenty miles wide. The effect of this, as it lies
on the map, and as it lives and glows in reality,
is as different as the difference between the poetry
of life and its dead matter of fact.
But supposing yourself almost anywhere in
-- 095 --
[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]
Maine, within fifteen miles of the shore, and you
start for a ride to the sea side, you will then be in
a fair way to realize it. The sea, living, beautiful,
and life-giving, seems, as you ride, to be
everywhere about you—behind, before, around.
Now it rises like a lake, gemmed with islands, and
embosomed by rich swells of woodland. Now
you catch a peep of it on your right hand, among
tufts of oak and maple, and anon it spreads on
your left to a majestic sheet of silver, among rocky
shores, hung with dark pines, hemlocks, and
spruces.
The sea shores of Connecticut and Massachusetts
have a kind of baldness and barenness which
you never see here. As you approach the ocean
there, the trees seem to become stunted and few
in number, but here the sea luxuriates, swells, and
falls, in the very lap of the primeval forest.
The tide water washes the drooping branches of
the oak and maple, and dashes itself up into whole
hedges of luxuriant arbor vitæ.
No language can be too enthusiastic to paint the
beauty of the evergreens in these forests The
lordly spruce, so straight, so tall, so perfectly defined
in its outline, with its regal crest of cones,
-- 096 --
[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]
sparkling with the clear exuded gum, and bearing
on its top that “silent finger” which Elliot describes
as “ever pointing up to God”—the ancient
white pine with its slender whispering leaves, the
feathery larches, the rugged and shaggy cedars—
all unite to form such a “goodly fellowship,” that
one is inclined to think for the time that no son
of the forest can compare with them. But the
spruce is the prince among them all. Far or
near, you see its slender obelisk of dark green,
rising singly amid forests of oak or maple, or marshalled
together in serried ranks over distant hills,
or wooding innumerable points, whose fantastic
outlines interlace the silvery sea. The heavy
blue green of these distant pines forms a beautiful
contrast to the glitter of the waters, and affords a
fine background, to throw out the small white
wings of sail boats, which are ever passing from
point to point among these bays and harbors.
One of the most peculiar and romantic features
of these secluded wood-embosomed waters of
Maine is this sudden apparition of shipping and
sea craft, in such wild and lonely places, that they
seem to you, as the first ships did to the simple
savages, to be visitants from the spirit land.
-- 097 --
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You are riding in a lonely road, by some bay that
seems to you like a secluded inland lake; you check
your horse, to notice the fine outline of the various
points, when lo! from behind one of them,
swan-like, with wings all spread, glides in a ship
from India or China, and wakes up the silence, by
tumbling her great anchor into the water. A
ship, of itself a child of romance—a dreamy, cloud-like,
poetic thing—and that ship connects these
piney hills and rocky shores, these spruces and
firs, with distant lands of palm and spice, and
speaks to you, in these solitudes, of groves of
citron and olive. We pray the day may never
come when any busy Yankee shall find a substitute
for ship sails, and take from these spirits of
the wave their glorious white wings, and silent,
cloud-like movements, for any fuss and sputter of
steam and machinery. It will be just like some
Yankee to do it. That race will never rest till
everything antique and poetic is drilled out of the
world. The same spirit which yearns to make
Niagara a mill-seat, and use all its pomp and
power of cloud, and spray, and rainbow, and its
voices of many waters, for accessories to a cotton
factory, would, we suppose, be right glad to
-- 098 --
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transform the winged ship into some disagreeable
greasy combination of machinery, if it would only
come cheaper. The islands along the coast of
Maine are a study for a tourist. The whole sail
along the shores is through a never ending
labyrinth of these—some high and rocky, with
castellated sides, bannered with pines—some richly
wooded with forest trees—and others, again,
whose luxuriant meadow land affords the finest
pasturage for cattle. Here are the cottages of
fishermen, who divide their time between farming
and fishing, and thus between land and water
make a very respectable amphibious living. These
people are simple-hearted, kindly, hardy, with a
good deal of the genial broad-heartedness that
characterizes their old father, the ocean. When
down on one of these lonely islands once, we
were charmed to find, in a small cottage, one of
the prettiest and most lady-like of women. Her
husband owned a fishing-smack; and while we
were sitting conversing in the house, in came a
damsel from the neighborhood, arrayed, in all
points, cap-a-pie, according to the latest city
fashions. The husband came home from a trip
while we were there. He had stopped in Portland,
-- 099 --
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and brought home a new bonnet for his wife, of
the most approved style, and a pair of gaiter
shoes for his little girl. One of our company was
talking with him, congratulating him on his retired
situation.
“You can go all about, trading in your vessel,
and making money,” he said, “and here on this
retired island there is no way to spend it, so you
must lay up a good deal.”
“Don't know about that,” said the young man;
“there's women and girls everywhere; and they
must have their rings, and their pins, and parasols
and ribbons. There's ways enough for money
to go.”
On Sunday mornings, these islanders have out
their sail-boats, and all make sail for some point
where there is a church. They spend the day in
religious service, and return at evening. Could
one wish a more picturesque way of going to
meeting of a calm summer morning?
So beautiful a country, one would think, must
have nurtured the poetic sentiment; and Maine,
accordingly, has given us one of our truest poets—
Longfellow. Popular as his poetry is, on a first
reading, it is poetry that improves and grows on
-- 100 --
[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]
one by acquaintance and study; and more particularly
should be studied under the skies and
by the seas of that State whose beauty first inspired
it. No one who views the scenery of
Maine artistically, and then studies the poems
of Longfellow, can avoid seeing that its hues and
tones, its beautiful word-painting, and the exquisite
variety and smoothness of its cadences, have been
caught, not from books and study, but from a
long and deep heart communion with Nature.
We recollect seeing with some indignation, a few
years ago, what seemed to us a very captious criticism
on Longfellow; and it simply occurred to
us then, that if the critic had spent as much time
in the forest as the poet, and become as familiar
with the fine undertones of Nature, such a critique
never would have appeared. A lady who has
lately been rambling with us among the scenery
of Maine, and reading Longfellow's poems, said,
the other day—“He must have learned his measure
from the sea; there is just its beautiful ripple
in all his verses”—a very beautiful and very just
criticism. There are some fine lines in Evangeline,
that give us the pine forests of Maine like a
painting:
-- 101 --
[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]
“This is the forest primeval—the murmuring pines and
the hemlocks
Bearded with moss and with garments green, indistinct
in the twilight
Stand like Druids of Eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their
bosoms:
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring
ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the
forest.”
Drawn to the very life! We have seen those
very Druids—graybeards, dusky garments and
all, on the shores of Maine, many a time; and if
anybody wants to feel the beauty and grandeur
of the picture, he must go to some of those wild
rocky islands there.
Longfellow's poetry has the true seal of the
bard in this: that while it is dyed rich as an old
cathedral window in tints borrowed in foreign
language and literature—tints caught in the fields
of Spain, Italy, and Germany—yet, after all, the
strong dominant colors are from fields and scenes
of home. So truly is he a poet of Maine, that we
could wish to see his poems in every fisherman's
cottage, through all the wild islands, and among
-- 102 --
[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]
all the romantic bays and creeks of that beautiful
shore.
It would be a fine critical study to show how
this undertone of native imagery and feeling
passes through all that singular harmony which
the poet's scholarcraft has enabled him to compose
from the style of many nations; and some day
we have it in heart to do this in a future letter.
At present we will not bestow any further tediousness
upon you.
Very truly, H. B. S.
-- 103 -- p708-108
Letter From Maine. —No. 2.
[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]
The last letter from Maine! how painful a word
this may be, only those who can fully appreciate
this beautiful, hospitable, noble-hearted State, can
say.
Maine stands as a living disproval of the received
opinion, that Northern latitudes chill the
blood, or check the flow of warm and social feeling.
There is a fullness, a frankness, and freedom,
combined with simplicity, about the social
and domestic life of this State, which reminds
me of the hospitality and generosity of Kentucky,
more than anything else, and yet has added to it
that stability and intelligent firmness peculiar to
the atmosphere of New England. Perhaps it is
because Maine, like Kentucky, is yet but a halfsettled
State, and has still a kind of pioneer,
backwoods atmosphere about it. All impulses
which come from the great heart of nature, from
the woods, the mountains, or the ocean, are
-- 104 --
[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]
always pure and generous—and those influences in
Maine are yet stronger than the factitious secondhand
and man-made influences of artificial life.
Truly, whether we consider the natural beauty
of Maine, or the intellectual clearness and development
of her common people, or the unsophisticated
simplicity of life and manners there, or the
late glorious example which she has set in the eyes
of all the nations of the earth, one must say she
is well worthy of her somewhat aspiring motto—
the North Star! and the significant word,
“Dirigo!”
Dirigo. That word is getting to have, in this
day, a fullness of meaning, that perhaps was not
contemplated when it was assumed into her escutcheon—
for Maine is indeed the North Star,
and the guiding hand in a movement that is to
regenerate all nations—and from all nations the
cry for her guidance begins to be heard.
It is said that the very mention of the State of
Maine, in temperance gatherings in England, now
raises tumults of applause, and that Neal Dow
has been sent for even as far as Berlin, to carry
the light of this new gospel of peace on earth,
and good will to men.
-- 105 --
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The last election in Maine, taken altogether, is
the most magnificent triumph of principle, pure
principle, that the world ever saw. Thousands
and tens of thousands of money had been sent by
liquor dealers in other States to bribe voters—it
had been triumphantly asserted that votes in
Maine could be had for two dollars a head—but
when they came to try the thing practically upon
her sturdy old farmers and fishermen, they then
got quite a new idea of what a Maine man was.
The old aquatic farmers, who inherit all the noble
traits both of sea and land, shook their hands
most emphatically from holding bribes, and the
mountain farmers showed that in the course of
their agricultural life and experiments they had
learned, among other things, the striking difference
between wheat and chaff. No! no! bribing was
plainly “no go” in Maine; the money was only
taken by a few poor, harmless loafers, of the kind
who roost on rail fences on a sunny day, or lean
up against barns, when for obvious reasons they
are in no condition to roost, and who are especially
interested in the question of the rights of
women to saw wood.
The election in Maine is an era in the history
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of elections, because there, for once, men of principle
forsook all party lines and measures, to vote
for PRINCIPLE alone. Whigs voted for Democrats,
Democrats for Whigs, with sole reference to their
relation to the temperance cause, and thus a great
and memorable victory was gained. Party is the
great Anti-Christ of a republican government,
and the discipline of party has hitherto been so
stringent that it really has been impossible to determine
the sentiment of a Christian man by his
vote, except so far as it might signify the opinion
of the party with which they were connected.
Maine, in agreement with her motto, “Dirigo,”
has set the example of two very great and
important things. One is, that this traffic may
be suppressed by law; and the other is, that
men of principle can vote out of their party—and
the second suggestion is quite equal in value with
the first. For if men can vote out of their party
for one great question of right, they can for another;
and the time is not distant, we trust, when
the noble State of Maine will apply the same
liberty to other subjects.
While I have been writing this, an invisible
spirit has been walking in our forests, and lo, the
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change! The serrated ranks of spruces are
lighted with brilliant forms of trees, flame coloured,
yellow, scarlet, all shining out between the unchanged
steel blue of the old evergreens. If one
wants the perfection of American forest scenery,
he must have for the rainbow illumination of autumn,
a background of sombre black green like
ours. Fancy the graceful indentations, the thousand
lake-like beautiful bays of this charming
shore, now reflecting in their mirror this hourly
brightening pageant—fancy the ships gliding in
and out from Jeddo, China, California, England!
and you can fancy the regret and longing of
heart with which I leave a coast so beautiful.
Fancy that you see dwellings, speaking alike of
simplicity and of refinement—imagine families
where intelligence, heartiness, warm hospitality,
and true Christian principle, all conspire to make
your visit a pleasure, and your departure a regret,
and you can fancy a more intimate reason of the
sorrow with which I write myself no longer a resident
of that State. But as I leave it, I cannot
but express the wish that every family, and every
individual may remember the glory which their
State has now, and the character which it has
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now to sustain in the eyes of the whole civilized
world.
The women of Maine have had no small influence
in deciding the triumph of the cause which
sheds such lustre on their State. All women, as
a natural thing, are friends and advocates of the
cause of temperance, a cause involving so much
to sons, brothers, and husbands; and the Maine
women have acted most decidedly and nobly in its
support.
To the “North Star,” now the eyes of all the
world are turning, and we must look to it to guide
us in everything that is right and noble. May
that star be seen as plainly leading the generous
cause of freedom! that cause whose full success
shall wipe from the American escutcheon its only
national stain.
H. E. B. S.
-- 109 -- p708-114
Christmas, or the Good Fairy.
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“Oh, dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight,
and I have got to think up presents for everybody!”
said young Ellen Stuart, as she leaned
languidly back in her chair. “Dear me! it's so
tedious! Everybody has got everything that can
be thought of.”
“Oh, no!” said her confidential adviser, Miss
Lester, in a soothing tone. “You have means of
buying everything you can fancy, and when
every shop and store is glittering with all manner
of splendors, you cannot surely be at a loss.”
“Well, now, just listen. To begin with, there's
mamma! what can I get for her? I have thought
of ever so many things. She has three card-cases,
four gold thimbles, two or three gold chains, two
writing desks of different patterns; and then, as
to rings, brooches, boxes, and all other things, I
should think she might be sick of the sight of
them. I am sure I am,” said she, languidly gazing
on her white and jewelled fingers.
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This view of the case seemed rather puzzling to
the adviser, and there was silence for a few moments,
when Eleanor, yawning, resumed—
“And then there's cousins Ellen and Mary—I
suppose they will be coming down on me with a
whole load of presents; and Mrs. B. will send me
something—she did last year; and then there's
cousins William and Tom—I must get them
something, and I would like to do it well enough,
if I only knew what to get!
“Well,” said Eleanor's aunt, who had been
sitting quietly rattling her knitting needles during
this speech, “it's a pity that you had not such a
subject to practice on as I was when I was a girl—
presents did not fly about in those days as they
do now. I remember when I was ten years old,
my father gave sister Mary and me a most marvellously
ugly sugar dog for a Christmas gift, and
we were perfectly delighted with it—the very idea
of a present was so new to us.”
“Dear aunt, how delighted I should be if I had
any such fresh unsophisticated body to get presents
for! but to get and get for people that have
more than they know what to do with now—to add
pictures, books, and gilding, when the
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centre-tables are loaded with them now—and rings and
jewels, when they are a perfect drug! I wish
myself that I were not sick, and sated, and tired
with having everything in the world given me!”
“Well, Eleanor,” said her aunt, “if you really
do want unsophisticated subjects to practise on, I
can put you in the way of it. I can show you
more than one family to whom you might seem to
be a very good fairy, and where such gifts as you
could give with all ease would seem like a magic
dream.”
“Why, that would really be worth while, aunt.”
“Look right across the way,” said her aunt.
“You see that building.”
“That miserable combination of shanties?
Yes!”
“Well, I have several acquaintances there who
have never been tired of Christmas gifts, or gifts
of any other kind. I assure you, you could make
quite a sensation over there.”
“Well, who is there? Let us know!'
“Do you remember Owen, that used to make
your shoes?”
“Yes, I remember something about him.”
“Well, he has fallen into a consumption, and
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cannot work any more, and he and his wife and
three little children live in one of the rooms over
there.”
“How do they get along?”
“His wife takes in sewing sometimes, and sometimes
goes out washing. Poor Owen! I was over
there yesterday; he looks thin and wistful, and
his wife was saying that he was parched with constant
fever, and had very little appetite. She had,
with great self-denial, and by restricting herself
almost of necessary food, got him two or three
oranges, and the poor fellow seemed so eager after
them.”
“Poor fellow!” said Eleanor, involuntarily.
“Now, said her aunt, “suppose Owen's wife
should get up on Christmas morning, and find at
the door a couple of dozen of oranges, and some of
those nice white grapes, such as you had at your
party last week, don't you think it would make a
sensation?”
“Why, yes, I think very likely it might; but
who else, aunt? You spoke of a great many.”
“Well, on the lower floor there is a neat little
room, that is always kept perfectly trim and tidy;
it belongs to a young couple who have nothing
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beyond the husband's day wages to live on. They
are, nevertheless, as cheerful and chipper as a
couple of wrens, and she is up and down half a
dozen times a day, to help poor Mrs. Owen. She
has a baby of her own about five months old, and
of course does all the cooking, washing, and ironing
for herself and husband; and yet, when Mrs.
Owen goes out to wash, she takes her baby and
keeps it whole days for her.”
“I'm sure she deserves that the good fairies
should smile on her,” said Eleanor; “one baby
exhausts my stock of virtue very rapidly.”
“But you ought to see her baby,” said aunt
E., “so plump, so rosy, and good-natured, and always
clean as a lily. This baby is a sort of household
shrine; nothing is too sacred and too good
for it; and I believe the little, thrifty woman feels
only one temptation to be extravagant, and that
is to get some ornaments to adorn this little divinity.”
“Why, did she ever tell you so?'
“No; but one day when I was coming down
stairs, the door of their room was partly open, and
I saw a pedlar there with open box. John, the
husband, was standing with a little purple cap on
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his hand, which he was regarding with mystified,
admiring air, as if he did'nt quite comprehend it,
and trim little Mary gazing at it with longing
eyes.”
“I think we might get it,” said John.
“Oh, no,” said she, regretfully; “yet I wish
we could, it's so pretty!”
“Say no more, aunt. I see the good fairy must
pop a cap into the window on Christmas morning.
Indeed, it shall be done. How they will wonder
where it came from, and talk about it for months
to come!”
“Well, then,” continued her aunt, “in the
next street to ours there is a miserable building,
that looks as if it were just going to topple over;
and away up in the third story, in a little room
just under the eaves, live two poor, lonely old
women. They are both nearly on to ninety. I
was in there day before yesterday. One of them
is constantly confined to her bed with rheumatism,
the other, weak and feeble, with failing sight and
trembling hands, totters about her only helper;
and they are entirely dependent on charity.”
“Can't they do anything? Can't they knit?”
said Eleanor.
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“You are young and strong, Eleanor, and have
quick eyes and nimble fingers; how long would it
take you to knit a pair of stockings?”
“I!” said Eleanor. “What an idea! I never
tried, but I think I could get a pair done in a
week, perhaps!”
“And if somebody gave you twenty-five cents
for them, and out of this you had to get food, and
pay room rent, and buy coal for your fire, and oil
for your lamp”—
“Stop, aunt, for pity's sake!”
“Well, I will stop, but they can't; they must
pay so much every month for that miserable shell
they live in, or be turned into the street. The
meal and flour that some kind person sends goes
off for them just as it does for others, and they
must get more or starve, and coal is now scarce
and high priced.”
“Oh, aunt, I'm quite convinced, I'm sure;
don't run me down and annihilate me with all
these terrible realities. What shall I do to play
a good fairy to these poor old women?”
“If you will give me full power, Eleanor, I will
put up a basket to be sent to them, that will give
them something to remember all winter.”
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“Oh, certainly I will. Let me see if I can't
think of something myself.”
“Well, Eleanor, suppose, then, some fifty, or
sixty years hence, if you were old, and your
father, and mother, and aunts, and uncles, now so
thick around you, laid cold and silent in so many
graves—you have somehow got away off to a
strange city, where you were never known—you
live in a miserable garret, where snow blows at
night through the cracks, and the fire is very
apt to go out in the old cracked stove; you sit
crouching over the dying embers the evening before
Christmas—nobody to speak to you, nobody
to care for you, except another poor old soul who
lies moaning in the bed—now, what would you
like to have sent you?”
“Oh, aunt, what a dismal picture!”
“And yet, Ella, all poor, forsaken old women
are made of young girls, who expected it in their
youth as little as you do, perhaps!”
“Say no more, aunt. I'll buy—let me see—a
comfortable warm shawl for each of these poor
women; and I'll send them—let me see—oh! some
tea—nothing goes down with old women like tea;
and I'll make John wheel some coal over to them;
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and, aunt, it would not be a very bad thought to
send them a new stove. I remember the other day,
when mamma was pricing stoves, I saw some, such
nice ones,for two or three dollars.”
“For a new hand, Ella, you work up the idea
very well,” said her aunt.
“But how much ought I to give, for any one
case, to these women, say?”
“How much did you give last year for any single
Christmas present?”
“Why, six or seven dollars, for some; those
elegant souvenirs were seven dollars; that ring I
gave Mrs. B— was ten.”
“And do you suppose Mrs. B— was any
happier for it?”
“No, really, I don't think she cared much
about it; but I had to give her something, because
she had sent me something the year before, and I
did not want to send a paltry present to any one
in her circumstances.”
“Then, Ella, give ten to any poor, distressed,
suffering creature who really needs it, and see in
how many forms of good such a sum will appear.
That one hard, cold, glittering diamond ring, that
now cheers nobody, and means nothing, that you
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give because you must, and she takes because she
must, might, if broken up into smaller sums, send
real warm and heart-felt gladness through many
a cold and cheerless dwelling, and through many
an aching heart.”
“You are getting to be an orator, aunt; but
don't you approve of Christmas presents among
friends and equals?”
“Yes, indeed,” said her aunt, fondly stroking
her head. “I have had some Christmas presents
that did me a world of good—a little book mark,
for instance, that a certain niece of mine worked
for me with wonderful secrecy, three years ago,
when she was not a young lady with a purse full
of money—that book mark was a true Christmas
present; and my young couple across the way are
plotting a profound surprise to each other on
Christmas morning. John has contrived, by an
hour of extra work every night, to lay by enough
to get Mary a new calico dress; and she, poor
soul, has bargained away the only thing in the
jewelry line she ever possessed, to be laid out on
a new hat for him.”
“I know, too, a washerwoman who has a poor
lame boy—a patient, gentle little fellow—who has
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lain quietly for weeks and months in his little
crib, and his mother is going to give him a splendid
Christmas present.”
“What is it, pray?”
“A whole orange! Don't laugh. She will pay
ten whole cents for it; for it shall be none of your
common oranges, but a picked one of the very best
going! She has put by the money, a cent at a
time, for a whole month; and nobody knows which
will be happiest in it, Willie or his mother. These
are such Christmas presents as I like to think of—
gifts coming from love, and tending to produce
love; these are the appropriate gifts of the day.
“But don't you think that it's right for those
who have money, to give expensive presents, supposing
always as you say, they are given from real
affection?”
“Sometimes, undoubtedly. The Saviour did
not condemn her who broke an alabaster-box of
ointment—very precious—simply as a proof of
love, even although the suggestion was made,
`this might have been sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor.' I have thought he
would regard with sympathy the fond efforts which
human love sometimes makes to express itself by
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[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]
gifts, the rarest and most costly. How I rejoiced
with all my heart, when Charles Elton gave his
poor mother that splendid Chinese shawl and gold
watch—because I knew they came from the very
fullness of his heart to a mother that he could not
do too much for—a mother that has done and suffered
everything for him. In some such cases,
when resources are ample, a costly gift seems to
have a graceful appropriateness; but I cannot approve
of it, if it exhausts all the means of doing
for the poor; it is better, then, to give a simple
offering, and to do something for those who really
need it.”
Eleanor looked thoughtful; her aunt laid down
her knitting, and said, in a tone of gentle seriousness:
“Whose birth does Christmas commemorate,
Ella?”
“Our Saviour's, certainly, aunt.”
“Yes,” said her aunt. “And when and how
was he born? in a stable! laid in a manger; thus
born, that in all ages he might be known as the
brother and friend of the poor. And surely it
seems but appropriate to commemorate His birthday
by an especial remembrance of the lowly,
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the poor, the outcast, and distressed; and if Christ
should come back to our city on a Christmas day,
where should we think it most appropriate to his
character to find him? Would he be carrying
splendid gifts to splendid dwellings, or would he
be gliding about in the cheerless haunts of the desolate,
the poor, the forsaken, and the sorrowful?”
And here the conversation ended.
“What sort of Christmas presents is Ella buying?”
said cousin Tom, as the waiter handed in a
portentous-looking package, which had been just
rung in at the door.
“Let's open it,” said saucy Will. “Upon my
word, two great gray blanket shawls! These
must be for you and me, Tom! And what's this?
A great bolt of cotton flannel and gray yarn stockings!”
The door bell rang again, and the waiter brought
in another bulky parcel, and deposited it on the
marble-topped centre table.
“What's here?” said Will, cutting the cord!
“Whew! a perfect nest of packages! oolong tea!
oranges! grapes! white sugar! Bless me, Ella
must be going to housekeeping!”
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“Or going crazy!” said Tom: “and on my
word,” said he, looking out of the window, “there's
a drayman ringing at our door, with a stove, with
a tea-kettle set in the top of it!”
“Ella's cook stove, of course,” said Will; and
just at this moment the young lady entered, with
her purse hanging gracefully over her hand.
“Now, boys, you are too bad!” she exclaimed,
as each of the mischievous youngsters were gravely
marching up and down, attired in a gray shawl.
“Did'nt you get them for us? We thought
you did,” said both.
“Ella, I want some of that cotton flannel, to
make me a pair of pantaloons,” said Tom.
“I say, Ella,” said Will, “when are you going
to housekeeping? Your cooking stove is standing
down in the street; 'pon my word, John is
loading some coal on the dray with it.”
“Ella, isn't that going to be sent to my office?”
said Tom; “do you know I do so languish for a
new stove with a tea-kettle in the top, to heat a
fellow's shaving water!”
Just then, another ring at the door, and the
grinning waiter handed in a small brown paper
parcel for Miss Ella. Tom made a dive at it, and
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staving off the brown paper, developed a jaunty
little purple velvet cap, with silver tassels.
“My smoking cap! as I live,” said he, “only I
shall have to wear it on my thumb, instead of my
head—too small entirely,” said he, shaking his
head gravely.
“Come, you saucy boys,” said aunt E—, entering
briskly, “what are you teasing Ella for?”
“Why, do see this lot of things, aunt? What
in the world is Ella going to do with them?”
“Oh! I know!”
“You know; then I can guess, aunt, it is some
of your charitable works. You are going to make
a juvenile Lady Bountiful of El, eh?”
Ella, who had colored to the roots of her hair
at the expose of her very unfashionable Christmas
preparations, now took heart, and bestowed a
very gentle and salutary little cuff on the saucy
head that still wore the purple cap, and then
hastened to gather up her various purchases.
“Laugh away,” said she, gaily; “and a good
many others will laugh, too, over these things. I
got them to make people laugh—people that are
not in the habit of laughing!”
“Well, well, I see into it,” said Will; “and I
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tell you I think right well of the idea, too. There
are worlds of money wasted at this time of the
year, in getting things that nobody wants, and
nobody cares for after they are got; and I am
glad, for my part, that you are going to get up a
variety in this line; in fact, I should like to give
you one of these stray leaves to help on,” said he,
dropping a $10 note into her paper. I like to encourage
girls to think of something besides breastpins
and sugar candy.”
But our story spins on too long. If anybody
wants to see the results of Ella's first attempts at
good fairyism, they can call at the doors of two or
three old buildings on Christmas morning, and
they shall hear all about it.
