Sea-gift: A Novel
by Edwin W. Fuller · English · Gutenberg #48883 · 757,765 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Sea-gift: A Novel
Author: Edwin W. Fuller
Release date: May 5, 2015 [eBook #48883]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA-GIFT: A NOVEL ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been
produced and added by Transcriber.
—In original work Chapters X and XI were missing; this peculiarity has
been manteined by Transcriber.
SEA-GIFT.
A NOVEL.
BY
EDWIN W. FULLER,
Author of “THE ANGEL IN THE CLOUD.”
NEW YORK:
E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS,
MURRAY STREET.
1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
E. J. HALE & SON,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I 7
II 12
III 16
IV 20
V 32
VI 46
VII 54
VIII 65
IX 88
XII 98
XIII 109
XIV 115
XV 124
XVI 132
XVII 152
XVIII 173
XIX 180
XX 191
XXI 195
XXII 208
XXIII 213
XXIV 221
XXV 226
XXVI 238
XXVII 243
XXVIII 250
XXIX 253
XXX 261
XXXI 271
XXXII 274
XXXIII 282
XXXIV 293
XXXV 302
XXXVI 312
XXXVII 322
XXXVIII 332
XXXIX 337
XL 339
XLI 343
XLII 350
XLIII 377
XLIV 388
XLV 392
XLVI 400
XLVII 406
PREFACE.
READER, my Book is before you!
If it has faults, you expect them; therefore excuse. If it has merit,
you are surprised; therefore applaud.
E. W. F.
I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS
LOVE STORY
TO ONE WHO HAS TAUGHT ME THE BEAUTY AND DEPTH OF
WOMAN’S LOVE,
MY WIFE.
SEA-GIFT.
CHAPTER I.
AS THE usages of society generally require an introduction between
strangers before communications of any moment can transpire, I hasten
now to introduce myself, that the readers hereof, as yet strangers, but
whom I hope before long familiarly to call “gentle” and “dear,” may
acquire at least one element of interest in the narrative I propose to
offer, namely, acquaintance with its subject—modesty forbids me to say
hero.
I am, then, at your service, John——; no, I cannot call my own name,
it always sounds strange in my own mouth. I’ll hand you my card in a
moment; and while I am fingering nervously in my case for the best
engraved one I reflect:
Why should you listen with the slightest attention to my history? How
can I expect you to care any more for me and my affairs, than for
anybody else and anybody else’s affairs? What right have I to inflict
upon you a recital of events, in no way connected with yourself, that
three-fourths of you believe untrue, and that concerns parties you
never saw and perhaps never will see? None, reader, none!
All the attention you give must be entirely gratuitous, except what
I shall gain by tickling the selfish side of your nature; for I well
know that you like or dislike a book in proportion as yourselves are
flattered. This flattery, however, must not be the result of the
author’s effort, but your own. If the persons told of are beneath
you in morals or intellect, then it is pleasant to reflect on your
own superiority. Are they above you in these particulars? then you
are pleased to associate with them, so to speak, and to assign to
yourselves, in imagination, a similarity of conduct, under similar
circumstances. The book must also possess an ingenuity of thought and
expression that will make you conscious, to a flattering extent, of
your own ingenuity in detecting it. Hence, often the most pleasant
books to read are those that tell of simple things in such a way that
you exclaim:
“I could have written that myself, if I had only thought of it.”
To afford self-complacent comparisons to the conceited, to furnish
evidences of their own ingenuity to the soi-disant original, and to
give conscious improvement to the soberly studious, is a more difficult
task than I can undertake. I will simply tell my story, and leave the
self-bees to suck what honey they please out of it.
Ah! I have at last found it. Here is my card:
[Illustration: John Smith.]
You smile; you know me? No, I beg pardon, I have never had the honor of
your acquaintance. You may have known some of the Smiths, but not the
members of our immediate family. John is an old family name with us. My
father, grand and great grandfather, were all named John; in fact we
could ascend the family tree six squares, without getting out of the
Johns; and even the seventh, who was an H (H. T. Smith), was preceded
by numerous Johns, only to be distinguished from each other by the
middle initials. There was a John A. Smith, and a John B. Smith, and
a John C. Smith; coming down so alphabetically that I used to think,
when a child, that, as father and myself only had John for our names, a
great many Smiths, whose names were lost, had already lived, and used
up the balance of the alphabet for their middle initials.
Our family is a very large one, being represented in almost every
nation on the globe; but its vast extent is a matter of pride,
not reproach, with me. When I remember the long list of Warriors,
Statesmen, Scholars, and the immense army of USEMEN it has given to the
world, I conceive that the world owes the name a debt of gratitude,
and, being one of the creditors, I expect partial payment at least.
The name itself points to an artizan origin, but the sieve of centuries
has filtered our blood clear of the last dust of the anvil, and it
throbs in our veins with Heraclidean purity. Perhaps the majority of
my connections were men of humble birth, but where the number is so
immense, we can claim only those that are creditable. Consequently, the
aforesaid tree, hanging up in our library, with dusty, tarnished frame,
and an age-yellowed parchment, presented a very mottled appearance of
groups of very little blocks, with very little “_Smiths_” written on
them, and very large blocks, their names spelt in capitals, and with
broad red lines connecting them to us. These last were Smiths who
attained to something and were worth claiming. Away off in one corner,
with a great quantity of zigzag lines to make it even connect at all,
was the name of John Smith, with “Capt.” prefixed, and the date 1609.
Father used to take me on his knee, when I grew old enough to listen,
and tell me long stories about my brave relative, who had fought with
the Turks, slept on straw, (a fact which led me to believe that he was
also a kinsman of Margaret Daw), dared the Indians, looked calmly at
Powhatan’s lifted club, and then flirted with his gentle protectress,
Pocahontas. Her descendants, in Virginia, father told me, always
claimed kin with our family, though the relationship was based entirely
on this approximation to matrimony between our ancestors. I remember
well that I did not wish to recognise, as relatives, the children of
the mulatto her picture represented her to be; and I insisted that they
be put down with the little blocks and little Smiths, until he informed
me that many of them had become distinguished; and while it was quite a
disgrace in society to have had a dark ancestor with kinky hair, it was
quite an honor to have had a dark ancestor with straight hair. I have
seen, in life, since then, that social distinction often turns upon
less than the crook of a hair.
For our immediate family there were father and mother and I, after I
came.
My father was wealthy, owning a very large plantation near Goldsboro, a
fine residence in Wilmington, N. C., and some heavy renting real estate
in New York.
Possessing the means for it, he was fond of display, and stood among
the neighbors, in the country, as a proud, though popular man. They
admired his pride because it was above their envy, while his uniform
courtesy and kindness flattered all with whom he had intercourse. His
carriage at elections was sure to be welcomed with cheers, as it drove
on the grounds, though he could never be persuaded to dabble in the
turbulent waters of politics. In town, some loved, some envied, but all
respected him. His perfect integrity, his generosity, and his social
qualities, secured for him, at all times, a large circle of friends,
while there were some who, feeling socially equal, were surpassed by
him in character, both in their own eyes and in public opinion; these,
of course, regarded him with some disfavor.
But of mother no tongue spoke evil. Every one possesses a
distinguishing idiosyncrasy; hers was goodness—all that was
comprehended under St. Paul’s “charity.” There was no sounding brass
or tinkling cymbal about her life; it was one of unselfish love, active
benevolence, holy influence, and unassuming piety. I believe that the
only command in the Bible she could not obey was, “Take up thy cross,”
for her angelic temperament made every duty a pleasure, and every
sacrifice a source of happiness. Nor was she only theoretically good.
She put her faith into constant practice. When her pew was vacant
at church, the doctor was sure to be our visitor; the pupils in her
Sabbath school class made an entire transfer of the affections they
should have reserved for their own mothers to her; and our servants
refrained from any insolence and disobedience out of the purest
respect for her—a perfect anomaly in slavery. The meanest hut in
town could boast her presence if there was sickness within its walls;
and our dining-room servants brought a salver and napkin for charity
delicacies as regularly as they laid the cloth. Yet her charity was not
of that order which begins anywhere else but at home; everyone in our
house felt that she had a deep interest in them. Her smile was almost
constant, and when she did reprove there was a tone of regret about her
words, as if they pained her more than they did the recipient.
She and father were very happy together, though they lacked
congeniality. He was fond of display and gaiety, she fond of retirement
and quiet; his heart chiefly on the world, her’s all on heaven; he
haughty though courteous, she gentle and kind; he formal, she good
natured and easy in her every manner.
Father was a Polonius about dress, believing it should be “costly as
thy purse can buy;” and he inundated mother’s wardrobe with silks,
brocade and velvets, and constantly replenished her _bijouterie_
with jewels of rare value, till she was as much bewildered as Miss
McFlimsey, from a cause just the reverse. I have often smiled to see
her, just to please father, start to church in a magnificent train and
exquisite bonnet, looking for all the world like a poor dove, dressed
in peacock’s plumage.
But I must not plunge into affairs too rapidly. Having given this short
prologue before the curtain, I will now let it rise upon the first
scene.
Ring the bell!
CHAPTER II.
I WAS apparently expected, for, as I have been credibly informed, an
extensive wardrobe had been prepared for me, and a whole drawer in the
bureau appropriated for its storage. The said wardrobe consisted of
several long sacerdotal robes, of the finest cambric; a dozen or more
very unsacerdotal looking nether garments of linen and cambric, ruffled
and trimmed with thread lace; a number of gowns of rich material; also
a couple of flannel skirts, heavily embroidered, and seemingly intended
only to tangle the feet; and quite a pile of unmentionables, with
necessary fastenings.
There was also an elegant India muslin robe, trimmed with embroidery
and fretted with lace, and a handsome lace cap, laid apart to
themselves. These, as I afterwards learned, were intended for my
baptismal suit.
I have thus particularized, because I am rather proud of having come
into property so early.
One blustering night in the latter part of March I arrived, invaded
the wardrobe, and appeared next morning on a pillow of state, ready
to receive company. My appearance could not have been excessively
prepossessing, as I formed no exception to the usual standard of
æsthetic attainment exhibited by the little red monsters of my age.
My hair was very thin and peach-fuzzy; eyes of uncertain hue, and
apparently disgusted with the world and its sights, if we may judge
from the persistency with which they kept the puffy, lashless lids
closed; a dusty little forehead, that wrinkled so much when the eyes
did open that one would suppose I had seen trouble, and “had losses”
in the world from which I had so recently come; my mouth, purple and
projecting with the upper lip, while the under lip was sucked in,
after the most approved directions for pronouncing the Greek _phi_.
The sleeves of my wrapper were rather too long (the usual fault in our
first clothes, arising, perhaps, from the fact that while they are in
process of construction there is no opportunity of trying them on us),
and were rolled up around my tight-closed fists, which kept digging
into my eyes with prize-fighting pertinacity.
The day following my advent being Sunday, and the place of my birth
being in the country, many of the neighbors dropped in to see Mrs.
Smith and the baby. All went through the same programme.
“How d’ye do, Mrs. Smith; I hope you came through well; but then this
is your first. There’s nothing like getting used to it. And where’s the
little dear?”
And without waiting for my mother’s replies and thanks, they would
turn to the nurse holding me in her lap on the pillow, and removing
the wrapping from my face as carefully as if it were a bird, and
would fly out, they would gaze at me mesmerically, cluck to me with
a perseverance undamped by the want of effect, and finally turn away
with the defiant assertion that I was the perfect image of both my
parents; an assertion which would have been at least debatable, from
the fact that my father was very dark in complexion and feature, and
my mother very fair. Some even insisted on holding me, the spinster
visitors being particularly desirous of this privilege; and getting me
in their laps, they would examine the tightness of my clothing, and the
temperature of my skin, with the well assumed criticism of experience.
And if one found, on thrusting her hands beneath my clothes, that my
feet were cold, most proudly and complacently she would unfold my
garments, and expose my little splotched limbs to the fire. My feet and
legs must have looked very pitiful indeed, sticking out of a wilderness
of flannel like two slim beets, crossing each other with their little
flat soles, as if I was born to be a tailor!
When the visitors were gone my father would come and gaze long and
steadily into my face, then anxiously suggest that something must be
the matter with me, because I was lying so still; and my mother would
call for me to be brought to her, and after innumerable fixings,
adjusting the cloth over my face this way, turning my head that way,
hiding the point of one pin, pulling out another, straightening this
and that fold of a garment—after all these nervousnesses, peculiar to
young mothers, I would be found to be sleeping soundly; and then mother
would regale herself with a long conversation between us, though it is
more than probable she monopolized the talking.
But as my presence, so important to one household, had no effect
whatever upon the old monarch of the glass and scythe, the days still
managed to glide by, and with the crying spell at the morning bath, the
troublesome feeding, father’s fidgets and mother’s anxiety, I arrived
at the first era in baby life—_noticing_. What an important period!
How many things were tried to attract my attention! Father whistled
and clucked his mouth almost away; Aunt Hannah, my nurse, coming with
my bottle, would tinkle on it with her thimble and sputter her lips to
draw my blinking eyes towards her, and mother shook, successively and
constantly, all her different bunches of keys over my face, in the vain
endeavor to discover my favorite. Unconscious I, all the while lying on
my back, vacantly staring to see the sounds. Mother now being able to
sit up, it was her constant delight to have me in her lap, treating me
as if I were a doll, and she a girl of ten; trying vainly to part and
brush my scanty hair, making me sit up, while she kept my limber neck
steady with one careful hand; and wearing my palms out teaching me to
“patty cake.” And such air castles as she would build for me! Telling
me with as much emphasis as if I understood it all, and with each word,
giving me a soft peck on the cheek with her forefinger.
“Never mind, tweetness! we’ll do ‘way from this old country house soon,
and live in the town, and then, oh! the putty things Johnnie will have!
A putty ‘ittle tarriage and a g’eat big yocking horse, with a long
mane and tail, and a ‘ittle g’een wagon, and a ‘ittle black dog, and
ah! so many, many putties for a tweet ‘ittle boy.” Then chattering my
chin in her ecstasy of love, till the titillation made me draw my face
into a shape that might, by a very wide stretch of the imagination, be
called a smile, she would scream for father to witness my display of
intelligence. He, of course, would not believe it till I was chattered
again; but instead of the laugh, the concussion of my gums would
produce such plaintive wails that mother would apologise, with all
the pleonasm of baby talk, and soothingly request me to “there, then,
darling!”
My extreme youth prevented me from seeing the exact philosophy of
“there then-ing” under pain, and I would continue my vocale till
something more palatable to baby taste than baby talk would stop my
mouth, and sleep’s gentle wing would fan away my tears.
How long would a mother’s patience watch my slumbers while she mused
on the strange responsibility of her position! A soul given to her to
form for good or evil; the potter’s clay placed in her hands to make
a vessel unto honor or dishonor! How fervent her prayer: “O, Father,
guide me to guide him!”
What an impostor is the slumbering babe! His tiny hand, resting in
dimpled fairness on your breast, seems to lift the veil of Futurity,
and open to your view the brightest paths of flowery beauty, down which
his feet shall patter with the innocence of childhood, run with the
eager ambition of youth, stride with the honors of manhood, and totter
with the feebleness of old age into the grave o’er which towers the
marble tribute of a nation’s love. Were the real curtain lifted, and
Life’s true pathway shown, how Earth’s timid ones would shrink from its
thorns and poisons, its bubble hopes and bitter cups. Thank God the
Future is hidden, but the promise stands: “As thy days are, so shall
thy strength be.”
CHAPTER III.
THE year, growing old, began to feel ashamed of the jaunty green in
which the spring and summer had decked him, and was laying aside his
verdant garments, leaf by leaf, for the more dignified russet of
autumn, when we—that is to say, father, mother and myself—prepared
to return to our winter residence in Wilmington. I, of course, have no
recollection of the journey, but have since been told that I stood it
like a little soldier, though whether diminutive stature has anything
to do with military fortitude I leave to nursery disputants to settle;
as I believe their invariable encouragement to patience and endurance
is the example of a fictitious officer of small size. The man has never
been a child who has not been requested to take a dose of physic or
bear a mustard plaster like a little captain, thereby inspiring himself
with the greatest respect and admiration for the immense deglutitory
capacity of that functionary, and the callosity of his epidermis.
The winter in turn passed away, and another spring and summer in the
country, and we were returning again to town in the Fall, before I can
begin to recollect things on my own account. What vague, undefined and
grotesque memories they are! The carriage in which we travelled seems
now to have been a chaos of shawls and baskets, from which father,
mother and Aunt Hannah protruded helplessly, like pictures of fairies
coming out of flowers. It was very cloudy, or at least everything now
seems to have been gray when we started. The wheels commenced humming
a drowsy tune, as they rolled through the sand, and soon hummed me
to sleep; and when I awoke the carriage was going backward, and the
sun had come out in the wrong place. Then we stopped at a well, near
a house with a fat, wooden chimney, and an aspen tree in front,
whose leaves seemed to be blinking all their eyes at me. A man in a
broad-flapped hat came out with a gourd in his hand, and behind him
a large yellow dog, that was tied to a piece of wood, and barked and
jumped on each side of the string as if he wanted to shake it off.
The well had a long pole, with a bucket at one end and a large stone
at the other; and when Horace, our driver, went to it to draw some
water for the horses, the stone seemed to fly up to the clouds. Then
Horace filled the bucket and carried it to the horses, and I could
hear them kissing it, as if they were so glad to see it; and, while I
was listening at that, the man with the hat and dog handed in, at the
carriage window, the great cool-looking gourd, with a long, crooked
handle, down into which the water clicked, as if laughing, when father
held it to me to drink.
After I had been bidden to “thank the kind gentleman, Johnnie,” and
done so, Horace strapped the bucket again under the carriage, got up
to his seat, and the house and well moved back out of sight, just as
the man sent the stone flying up again to the sky. All is a blank for a
long time—till Horace drives over a snake, and they hold me up to the
window to see it. My eyes can discover nothing but the shadow of the
bucket swinging between the wheels; and ever afterwards a bucket, under
one of the old fashioned carriages, is associated with a dead snake and
a hot, sandy road. There is another sleepy blank, and I drowsily rouse
up, as we drive into town, to find it dark, and the lights all in a
hurry to go somewhere, chasing each other by the carriage window, till
one bold blaze stops right in front of it, and father exclaims, “Here
we are!”
We get out, shawls, chaos and all, and I am carried up some broad
stone steps, into a large hall with bright lights, and on through to a
strange room, where there are new faces among the servants, a little
excrescence of a fireplace, filled with red coals, and a large table
steaming with good smelling dishes. Everything, for an indefinite
period after this, is confused and unsatisfactory, and I can eliminate
nothing into distinct recollection but two series of events, which,
from their frequent repetition, have become facts of memory, viz.,
rides in my little carriage, and, in educational phrase, corrections;
more plainly, whippings.
What tortures I suffered in my carriage, children alone know. Enclosed
on three sides by the leather curtains, I was confined in front by a
strap, which was buckled across my breast, to keep me from falling
out, and, thus cooped up like a criminal, I would sit, listening to
the grinding, gritty sound of the wheels as they rolled over the flag
stones, bumping my head against the framework, knocking my cap awry,
and not knowing how to put it straight again, and suffering the misery
of whining without being noticed—a source of much affliction, by the
way, to many grown-up children—my nurse all the while walking behind,
and pushing me along, engaged in too deep a conversation with other
nurses to heed my murmuring!
One of my sorest trials was to pass the stores, and have some pert
clerk stop my carriage and say:
“Hello! Auntie, whose child is that?”
“Col. Smith’s, sir.”
“Why,” coming to me, and squatting down by the carriage, “I’ll declare,
he’s a fine little fellow. How d’ye do, sir.”
“Tell the gentleman how d’ye,” persuades Aunt Hannah, who, like all
nurses, is flattered by compliments to her protégé; but, before I can
turn away in disgust, his tobacco-smelling moustache scratches my face.
My greatest consolation, in all this persecution, was to meet little
Lulie Mayland, my assigned sweetheart, though I was rather young for
the blind god’s arrow. Our nurses would lift us from our carriages
and hold us up to kiss each other; and I would be in a perfect glee
as she tried to put her little plump fingers into my eyes, and I felt
her moist little mouth on my cheek. Putting me down in the foot of her
carriage, we would be rolled home together, as happy and joyous as
children only can be.
The other series of events to which I have alluded were, from their
very frequency, fixed still more indelibly upon my mind; though
the intense activity of certain cognitive faculties, during their
occurrence, may have contributed somewhat to their retention. They were
the immediate and inevitable consequence of any recusancy, on my part,
in regard to the rules of the bath. I possessed the usual hydrophobic
prejudice of extreme youth, and dreaded morning ablutions as Rome did
the Gauls. Had I been old enough to have managed the bath myself I
should not have cared, but to be washed like a dish, put into the tub,
and spongeful after spongeful squeezed over me, was more than my good
nature could submit to. Mother, finding her reasoning wasted, and her
commands disregarded, would send for switches, and laying me across her
lap, pour hot embers, as it seemed to me, on my naked legs. I did not
stop to debate, which I might have done with propriety, whether the
friction developed the latent heat of the rods, or whether they were
actually set on fire and then applied; I simply recognized the fact,
that unless the bath came the fire did, and I wisely chose the former.
The embers’ influence would last, on an average, about two days, when
they would have to be again applied.
CHAPTER IV.
I HAD been disturbing the centre of gravity of our globe for nine
years, and had grown up into a mischievous, fun-making urchin—always
out of the way when wanted, and in the way when not. I would have
passed any committee on “boys,” and probably taken the medal as the
best specimen. I had fulfilled all the requisites of custom. I had torn
out all my pockets with loads of marbles, knives, strings, stones,
buttons, nails, &c. I had cut my hands and fingers, and fallen out of
doors perhaps even more than was necessary. I could soil a ruffle with
all the facility of contempt for such a feminine ornament. I could wear
out shoes and tear a hat as quickly as the most reckless, and I had a
real, first class aversion to “trying on” clothes in process of making;
the rough edges of an unfinished jacket, rubbed into my neck by the
fingers of the seamstress, not at all according with that placidity
of temperament I had been advised to cultivate by the dogs-and-bears
poetry, while the rapidity with which I could cover clean clothes with
mud was, I fear, a matter of peculiar pride, as it was of certain
punishment. My most perfect attribute of boyhood, however, was the
devotion I bore my sweetheart, and the utter apathy and indifference
with which I regarded all other girls.
Being such an one, I was highly gratified when mother said to me one
day:
“Johnnie, we are going to give a dinner party next week, and as you
will be without company, you may go over and invite Lulie Mayland.”
“Oh! I’m so glad, I’m so glad,” I sung out; “and I mean to go over
right now, and tell her to come.”
“No, no,” said mother, smiling, and taking me by the jacket button, “we
have not sent out our cards yet. Wait till Monday, then you may go.”
I was disposed to whine at the delay, but she pinched my cheek as she
got up from her chair, and said:
“No, you must do as I say, sir;” and left me, full of impatience for
the advent of Monday. During the remainder of the week I exercised
fully the child’s faculty of being ubiquitous at home. The kitchen,
however, received the largest share of my attention. I was around every
table, dipping in every dish, and in the cook’s way, to my fullest
extent. If she turned around with a pan in her hand, it was sure to
thump my head, and my anger thereat could only be appeased by letting
me have a piece of dough to feel or a bowl to scrape. If eggs were
to be beaten, I must try to froth them, till I was as full of foam
as a half born Aphrodite; if flour was to be sifted, I was sure to
get whitened; if spices were to be pounded I was certain to have my
fingers mashed; and the burns I received, in trying to cook little
dabs of cake, would have discouraged Mucius Scævola. Then my insatiate
curiosity, and constant inquiries in regard to the numerous articles
scattered around, would have worried out a less irascible nature than
that of our cook; and by a final appeal to mother, and a command from
headquarters, I would be forced to raise the siege, and retire from
the field, with a jacket full of sugar and flour, sullenly licking my
fingers in defiance.
Verily, children prove the old adage true: “Satan finds some mischief
still for idle hands to do.”
And yet how dear to us are their mischievous ways, and how blank and
drear would childhood be without them! The sunshine of their presence
is always brightest when flecked by little clouds of annoyance.
And when your tenderest bud has been plucked by the Reaper, your
heartstrings throb saddest o’er the toy that’s broken, and your tears
fall in torrents o’er the little torn garment, while the clothes neatly
folded pass unnoticed by.
Early Monday morning I hurried over to tell Lulie. As I entered
her gate I discovered her at play, near a large rose bush, but was
surprised and troubled to see a strange boy with her. I had somehow,
in my own mind at least, assumed a kind of proprietorship over her,
and the presence of any one else, in whom she could take any interest
whatever, was excessively annoying. I managed to creep up quite near,
without being discovered, and stood for some time watching them, and
feeling, in my jealousy, an almost irresistible desire to try a stone
on the strange head. They were busy arranging a doll house, which
consisted of rows of dirt piled up like fortifications, with lumps of
moss for chairs and sofas, and an array of dolls that seemed to have
been taken from the hospital, so much were they maimed in their legs
and arms.
The strange boy and Lulie seemed very intimate, and bent their heads
together, and talked in delighted and animated accents; he suggesting,
and she listening and adopting his suggestions. And then he had on such
new clothes, such a jaunty cap, such a blue jacket with bright buttons,
and such boots with heels! In him I recognized a formidable rival, and
concluded to retreat and give up all thoughts of the invitation. As I
endeavored to slip away unobserved, I overturned a little tea set that
was placed to one side, awaiting the completion of the house. At the
noise they both turned around and saw me, and Lulie’s face flushed a
little as she exclaimed:
“There, now! see what you have done! turned over all my tea cups and
broken I don’t know how many!”
I offered, with all earnestness, the child’s universal apology, “I
didn’t go to do it,” but felt that it was not accepted, and that I,
Lulie’s acknowledged sweetheart, was not welcome. But boys are not
oversensitive, and as I knew that to retire then would only make
matters worse, I swallowed my confusion and joined in their play.
Lulie did not introduce me to her companion, but I soon learned that
his name was Frank, and that he was fast supplanting me in her favor.
All my suggestions in regard to the disposition and arrangement of the
furniture were at once overruled and disregarded for what he thought
best.
All her questions and remarks were addressed to him, and they both
seemed oblivious of my presence, save when they wished me to perform
some office for them. Then Frank, as she called him, had such an
insolent way of staring at me, and walking around with his hands stuck
contemptuously into his trousers’ pockets. And when we had completed
the house, and were cleaning up, he raked away the earth with his
boots, and made little ditches around the walls with his heels, and
stamped the walks level; in short, made such a display of his morocco
that I felt quite ashamed of my plain copper-tip shoes, and tried to
hide them as much as possible by standing in the grass. After awhile it
was proposed to get the doll’s dinner ready, and then I thought of my
errand. Without a moment’s consideration for Frank’s feeling, I broke
out with: “Oh! Lulie, I forgot; you must come to our house to-morrow;
we are going to have a dinner, and have got lots of good things cooked.
There won’t be any other girls there but you, and your pa and ma are
coming, too. Won’t you come?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, tying an apron on a very red-faced doll,
with china feet, wooden legs, and her hair rubbed off the back of her
head; “I don’t want to go much, ‘cause me and Frank are going to have
a doll wedding to-morrow. Frank, let me tell you”—— breaking off
suddenly, and putting the doll down with her face on the ground, and
her wooden limbs very much exposed, she took Frank aside to whisper
something to him. I inferred it was a proposal to invite me to their
dinner, as he replied loud enough for me to hear:
“No, let’s have it all by ourselves.”
Lulie seemed to assent, and as I had become rather incensed at the
whole proceedings, I turned off without another word, and went home.
Children suffer as keenly, if not as long, in their little loves and
jealousies as older people; and I was as unhappy during the remainder
of the day as was Octavia while Anthony was in Egypt. Many were the
castles I had built in the air, in all of which Lulie reigned as
queen. My favorite dream was to imagine her and myself wrecked, and
playing Robinson Crusoe on some desert island. I had loved to think how
we would sit together by the beach and watch the frightened billows
fleeing to the shore, or stroll through shadowy forests in search of
fruits; and how I would defend her from the wolves and bears, and how
tender and confiding she would be when she had no one but me to look
to. And then, at night, how cosy and snug we would be in our cave,
which would be always warmed and lighted by some means. And when the
savages came how we would shut the great stone door, and be safe and
secure. But I had now found in the sand, not the naked foot print
Robinson saw, but a boot track, which conjured up more fears and
suspicions than Defoe ever conceived; for it told of the presence of a
cannibal for my heart.
The next day wore away and the guests began to arrive. Having nothing
better to do, I stationed myself at the hall window to watch the
carriages as they came up to our door, and their contents came out.
The first that arrived were the Cheyleighs, numbering Mr. Edward
Cheyleigh and wife, a stylish old couple, who prided themselves
on their family and position in society, and the two Misses
Cheyleigh—ladies who had been in the market for some time, and as yet
were unspoken. They were great sticklers for the usages of society, and
dependent, in a great measure, on their social prestige and _en regle_
manners for the attention they received. They were well aware of the
fact, that while Mr. Cheyleigh had given balls and parties innumerable
for their benefit, he had not yet given a wedding party, and to
accomplish for him the privilege of giving one was and had been their
constant aim, albeit its fervor was a little abated by its continued
futility.
As they entered the hall, and found the hat and coat stands empty,
Miss Ella, the younger, turned to her father, and with much petulance
exclaimed:
“Now, pa, I hope you are satisfied; you would hurry us off, and now we
are the very first. I declare it is really too bad.”
“Yes, it is,” chimes in Miss Gertrude, the elder, “and looks as if we
were so dreadfully anxious to come.”
“Well, my daughters,” philosophises Mr. Cheyleigh, “somebody has to be
the first, and we are fully ten minutes behind the time specified.”
“Ten minutes!” exclaimed both young ladies, between the pronunciation
of the “ten” and the “minutes,” changing their faces from a frown to
a smile, as mother, hearing their voices, appeared in the hall and
welcomed them, taking the ladies off to the cloak room; while William,
our servant, who had been leaning against the stair while their
conversation was proceeding, recovered himself sufficiently to usher
Mr. Cheyleigh into the parlor. Many others arrive and are passed in,
until at length two young gentlemen approach, toss away their cigars,
and stroll, as it were, up the steps, taking a long time to reach the
door, and conversing in a low tone, which I could overhear.
“I wonder who is to be here to-day,” said the first, frowning as if in
pain, as he buttoned his glove with an effort; “dinners with old folks
are devilish bores.”
“I understand the two Misses Cheyleigh will be here, and that will be
some relief,” replied the other, pulling down his wristband, so as to
show the white.
“Yes, quite a relief to you. From your devotion down at Bentric’s
last evening I should judge you were really in love with that long,
languishing Gertrude.”
“Hush, Cassell, I vow you shan’t speak disrespectfully of her. I have a
right to admire her, if she is a little oldish.”
“Success to you, Berton! here goes for an hour’s boredom with that
little mincing, over vivacious Ella;” and he pulled the bell, muttering
as he did so, “I say confound these small and select gatherings; a
fellow is always put off with a fussy old maid, or a gassy old fogy,
who’ll talk you into an anatomy in five minutes.”
“Any way,” whispered the other, as William opened the door, “old Smith
keeps good wine and feeds well.”
They are followed in turn by others, till at last Dr. Mayland’s
carriage drives up, and, to my great surprise and delight, I recognise
the curly little head of Lulie through the window. I was too much
piqued by her conduct of the day before to run out and meet her, but
sprang at her from behind the door, as she entered, in a conciliatory
kind of way, and we both lost our stiffness in a hearty laugh. Without
waiting for more arrivals I hurried her off to the nursery.
“I thought you were not coming,” I began, as soon as we were fairly in,
“but that you and that Frank somebody were to have a doll’s party.”
“Yes, but you see Frank and I fell out,” she replied quickly, “and I
think he is ever so mean.”
“So do I,” I responded warmly, “don’t let’s have anything more to do
with him; we can always have more fun by ourselves, can’t we?”
“Yes, we can; you are not mad because I said what I did yesterday, are
you?”
“No, that I am not,” I replied, delighted at the turn things had taken;
“but come, Lulie, let me show you what father gave me on my birthday.”
Sitting down together on the rug before the bright glowing fire, we
took out of its box a little model of a house in separate pieces, and
commenced to put it together. I sat and gazed at her, as she bent over
the blocks, trying to make piece after piece fit; and she looked so
beautiful, with one side of her face all red from the fire, and her
clustering brown curls drooping so gracefully around it, that I could
resist the inclination no longer, but leaned forward and kissed the
glowing cheek.
“Oh stop!” she said, tossing her head without looking up; “you bother
me so I can’t build the house at all.”
This was so much milder than I expected I tried another.
“Stop, I tell you,” she exclaimed, feigning to strike me with one of
the blocks; “see, you’ve tumbled all the top of the house off.”
“I will stop,” I said, looking at her very earnestly, “if you will give
me a kiss of your own accord.”
“Here, then,” she said, raising her head; and throwing back her curls
she put up her rosy lips, and I kissed her. People say children know
nothing about love, but there was a thrill of pleasure and a smack of
romance in that kiss before the nursery fire, that none which have ever
since touched my lips have possessed.
We amused ourselves in various ways till the servant brought in our
dinner, spread the nursery table, and, as I gave Lulie my high chair,
piled up books in another for me, to bring me up to a comfortable level
with our meal, then left us to enjoy it. We chewed out praises, and
smacked out lavish encomiums on the skill of the cook, as we eagerly
applied ourselves to her dainties; and when Lulie had sipped the last
trembling particle of _blanc mange_, and added the _debris_ of the last
grape to the goodly pile on her fruit plate, we got down, instead of
rising, from our chairs, and went from the nursery to the dining room.
The ladies had withdrawn some time since, and the gentlemen had almost
finished their wine. The two young men, who had characterized dinners
with old folks as devilish bores, had excused themselves, and gone back
to the parlors.
Finding nothing to interest us in the dry, stale jokes or political
fanfarronade of the dining room party, we ran off to the parlors,
and took our station on each side of the door, to watch all within.
The ladies were grouped round the fires or examining the pictures,
while Mr. Cassell and Miss Ella, Mr. Berton and Miss Gertrude, were
promenading slowly the whole length of the rooms. We thought this was
a great sign of love, and watched them with great interest. As they
approached our end of the room we could hear very well, but when their
backs were turned their words were gradually lost; so that our ideas of
the tenor of their conversation were somewhat disconnected. Mr. Berton,
who seemed interested in what he was saying, and Miss Gertrude equally
so, approached first.
“Yes, indeed,” he was saying, as they came into earshot, “we had a
most charming time. The moonlight was as bright as day, and the Minnie
scarcely rippled the water. The music, too, was better than usual, and
we danced eight sets going down, besides the round dances. We missed
you a great deal; everybody was inquiring for Miss Gertrude.”
“Ella told me what a delightful excursion it was,” replied Miss G.,
trying to pout bewitchingly, as if still vexed at her own absence. “I
was so exceedingly unwell that ma would not hear to my going, and I had
a real hard cry over it. When do we have another?”
“I am afraid not before another moon. We are talking, however, of
getting up a picnic for the Sound next——.” They passed down the room,
and out of hearing, as Cassell and Miss Ella came up, she all smiles,
he all languor.
“You say they are from the western part of the State?” he inquired,
with a drawl, as if he only pursued the subject because he was too lazy
to find another.
“Yes,” replied Miss Ella, with nervous vivacity, “from Charlotte, I
think. They are quite an addition to our society, are they not?”
“Quite!” laconicised Cassell, as if he had done all for the subject
that could be required of him.
“And then,” she continued, “they are connected with the Cartoneaus of
South Carolina, who, you know, are some of the first people in the
State. Mr. Paning brought a letter of introduction to pa from Judge
Francis Cartoneau. He and ma called, of course, and were much pleased,
though Mrs. Paning, ma thought, was a little stiff.”
Lulie and I were immensely interested in this conversation, and eagerly
listened for its further development.
Mr. Cassell paused awhile, as if to debate whether his system could
stand a continuance of the conversation, then, with a resigned arch of
his eyebrows to himself, asked:
“Do they intend to reside here?”
“Oh yes, they have bought Mr. Huxley’s place, and are having it fitted
up in magnificent style. When they move in I understand they intend
giving a grand ball!”
Mr. Cassell paused again, then taking a flower from his lappel, bit it
savagely, and asked:
“Have they any daughters?” as if it was the last question she might
expect from him.
“No, they have only one child—a little boy—named Frank, after his
uncle, Judge Cartoneau.”
Cassell did not appear at all interested in the name of the little
boy, but I was intensely so, and leaned in the door to hear more, but,
unfortunately, they had passed down the room out of hearing, while
Miss Gertrude and her beau came again into audience. They were still on
the subject of the excursion, and Mr. Berton was verging towards the
sentimental, while Miss Gertrude was encouraging him with all the art
she could command.
“I’ll vow I didn’t, Miss Gerty; I sat apart almost the whole night,
thinking of you.”
“Why, Mr. Berton! Ella told me you were perfectly devoted to Miss
Withers.”
“Withers, indeed! she’s perfectly horrid; but did you think enough of
me to inquire what I did?”
“Of course, I——” Her remarks were broken off, as far as we were
concerned, by the entrance of the gentlemen from the dining room. We
tried to dodge, and get away, but two of them caught us, and holding
us by the ears, asked our names—which question seems to be, with
most people, a test of a child’s intelligence. To answer it was a
task I dreaded more than Hercules did the Augean stables. My name,
short as it was, seemed to stretch into a length equal to the King of
Siam’s whenever I had to pronounce it; and I have often blessed the
man who invented cards. There being no escape now, we drawled out,
respectively, “John Smith” and “Lulie Mayland,” and were released, one
of our captors remarking as we scampered off:
“Smith, you and Mayland ought to raise them up for each other. They
will make a fine match one of these days.”
I fully forgave him for asking my name, and earnestly wished he might
be a prophet.
Glad to get away, Lulie and I ran out into the back yard, and played
till ‘twas very dark, when one of the servants came to call us in.
We found all the guests gone but Dr. and Mrs. Mayland, who were just
entering their carriage. I bade Lulie a hasty good-bye, and turned
back into the house, feeling a joyous flutter about the heart, as if a
humming bird were enclosed in it and was struggling to escape. Mother
met me in the hall, and said:
“John, it is so late you need not get your lesson to-night, but, as you
are perhaps sleepy, you can go into the nursery, and I will come in and
hear you say your prayers.”
Though I was a good stout boy, mother could not get out of the old
habit of seeing me to bed, and hearing me repeat my prayers aloud.
I entered the nursery, but instead of undressing, sat down by the fire,
and began—
“Fancy unto fancy linking.”
Again I was on the desert island, but the boot track had disappeared,
and our snug grotto received the addition of a grate, a rug, and a
house model. The savages came, and smacked their bloody lips through
the bars of our cave, and yelled with eager desire to reach us, but I
cared not. I was happy as long as those curls were drooping over the
blocks, and I was stealing kisses from the rosy architect.
Mother came in, and broke my reverie. I got up, undressed, and kneeled
down by her side. Laying my cheek on her knee, I commenced “Our father”
with my tongue, while my mind was still in the grotto with Lulie. I had
not repeated half, when a ferocious savage tore loose a bar, and was
squeezing himself through the aperture, while I stood on the defensive,
with one of the Corinthian columns of our little house for a weapon,
ready to strike down the invaders. So vivid was the picture that even
my tongue forgot its office, and with the broken prayer upon my lips I
lay gazing into the glowing coals. Mother’s hands touched my head as
she said gently:
“My child, what are you thinking of? Remember, you are praying to the
great God, who will not hear you unless you ask in earnest. If you were
asking your father for something you wished very much would you not
think of what you were saying?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, meekly, at length recalled from my vision.
“And do you not want God to take care of father and mother, and
yourself, to-night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then ask him as you ought.” And with that soft hand upon my head all
earthly visions vanished, and I repeated the oft-said prayer, with all
of childhood’s earnestness, and its simple, trusting faith.
I rose, got in the bed, received mother’s good-night kiss, and, as I
closed my eyes, Queen Mab’s grey gnat coachman drove his atomic team
across my nose, and Lulie, models, savages, Cassell, Miss Gertrude, and
crestfallen Prank Paning, all danced before me, and danced me to sleep.
CHAPTER V.
On the morning succeeding the day described in the last chapter, father
startled me very much at the breakfast table, by asking:
“John, how would you like to commence school? you are getting too old
to be playing all the time.”
“Oh, ever so much!” I replied, eagerly, watching his face closely, to
see if he was in earnest. “Ned Cheyleigh began last session, and I can
read and spell as well as he can now, so it will be easy for me to keep
up.”
“Well, I saw Miss Hester Weck about it yesterday, and she said she
would be very glad to take you, so you can get ready to start to-morrow
morning.”
I was too much excited to eat any more, but began teazing mother to
begin right away on my school outfit.
“Mother, I want a satchel to carry my books in, and a basket for my
luncheon; and, mother, please get me a string for my top, because all
the boys play top, and I broke my string yesterday; and father, please
sir, get me a knife to peel apples and to cut pencils with, and a piece
of leather to make me a sling, and a——”
“Hush, Johnnie,” said mother, “be quiet, and I will be sure to have you
ready. The school room is just around the corner, so you can come home
for your lunch; and as your ‘books’ only consist of one ‘Angell’s First
Book’ you will hardly need a bag.”
I gulped down a mouthful of food, then hastening from the table, I got
my Reader and devoted the whole morning to picking out all the hard
words and spelling them over. By dinner time I had mastered nearly all
of them, and could read with considerable fluency the pathetic tale of
retributive justice which befel the cruel James Killfly.
That evening when father came in he brought me a beautiful knife with a
file blade in it. To possess a knife with a file blade had always been
one of the unattained pinnacles of my ambition—this appurtenance, in
my eyes, being the very _toga virilis_ of cutlery; and as my property
in this department had hitherto consisted of blunt pointed Barlows,
and fatigued looking dog knives, with their edges purposely made dull,
to be the undisputed owner of an exquisite pearl handled knife, with
brightest blades, placed me at once upon the pinnacle, and I enjoyed
the situation. I was never tired of opening and snapping the blades,
and blowing my breath upon them, as the larger boys did, to test their
metal. I trimmed my pencil quite away, because the cedar cut smoothly,
and the chairs suffered as severely as Washington, Sr.’s, cherry tree
did.
I rose next morning with the sun, and was busying everywhere in my
preparations for school. Breakfast finished, with my book in my hand,
and that adored knife in my pocket, I started with father for the
school. I felt a little sinking about the heart as I kissed mother
good-bye and descended the steps, and would, had I not been ashamed,
have shrunk from the new life I was entering, and gone back to the old
routine of play. As we turned our corner I looked back, and mother was
still standing in the door, gazing thoughtfully after us. I could not
then understand or appreciate her feelings, but I can now.
Miss Hester answered our tap at her door in person, and invited us
in to a seat. I shrank closer to father as the curious eyes of the
scholars were all turned towards me, and I found no kindly sympathy in
the glances. Father took a seat and entered into conversation with Miss
Hester, while I timidly surveyed the apartment where my ideas were to
be taught to shoot.
Miss Hester Weck kept a small preparatory school for girls and boys,
and ruled it with old maidish particularity. All the scholars had to
sit up straight on three rows of benches, which were so arranged with
reference to Miss Hester’s seat that she could have a full view of
all. None were allowed to speak or laugh, and as for rocking backwards
and forwards, a motion believed by children to be conducive to study
and essential to retention, the thing was unheard of in Miss Hester’s
school. Some, indeed, had tried it on first entering, but after one
or two interviews with Miss Hester’s rod they had learned to study
in one position. On one side of the room was a row of pegs for the
girls’ hats and bonnets, and on the opposite side a similar row for
the boys’. At one end of the room was the rostrum on which our monarch
sat, and at the other was a long desk, covered with ink splotches, at
which the scholars wrote. Having completed my survey of the room I
turned my attention to the scholars, and scanned their faces closely,
as I was to associate, more or less intimately, with all of them. They
were all, with the exception of two or three, munching the corners of
their books, and staring steadily at father and me. There were five
occupants of the front bench, who, I thought, from their position,
must be first grade scholars. The first was a tall, raw-boned girl,
with sandy hair and freckled face, and light gray eyes, turned up at
the corners, giving her a sinister and Chinese expression that assured
me of victimization. Next to her was her brother, a small and sleepy
second edition of herself, not at all revised or corrected. Then came
a bright-eyed little fellow who was engaged in the pleasant diversion
of making hideous faces at me. At his side was a fat, redheaded girl,
who was the only one studying; and lastly, a stupid, tow-haired youth,
whose straight flax hair looked as if it had been hung on his head to
dry, and had dried stiff, and who was gazing at me as if I were vacancy.
The second bench held three girls and two boys, who resembled in many
particulars those on the first bench. On number three I recognized,
to my great joy, Ned Cheyleigh and Lulie Mayland, and to my annoyance
Frank Paning. Before we had concluded our interchange of whispered
salutations, father rose and said to Miss Hester:
“I will now leave him with you. He is a good boy and easy enough to
manage, though a little inclined to mischief.”
“Oh, I will take care of that,” she said. “We will be first rate
friends; won’t we, Johnnie?”
Father left me, the door closed on him, and I was beginning to enter
Life’s shallowest waters alone.
“Come here, Johnnie,” said Miss Hester, “let me see how much you know,
so that I can put you in a class.”
I rose, and with a great swelling knot in my throat, drew my book from
my side pocket and carried it to her.
“How far have you been in this?” she said, as she carelessly fluttered
over the leaves.
“I went clear through it, ma’am, under mother.”
“Well, let me see how you spell; spell ‘honest’?”
I had begun, at first, spelling by recollecting how the letters looked
on the page, but mother had broken me from it and taught me to spell
words by their sound. Accordingly I stammered out, while my eyes filled
with tears and the knot in my throat almost choked me:
“O-n-n-e-s-t—Onnest.”
At this Frank Paning led off with a laugh, followed by the whole
school. A rap on Miss Hester’s desk secured silence, and she proceeded.
“Don’t be so frightened, child, try another word; spell ‘Business.’”
Knowledge of everything, save the names of the letters, was gone, and I
blindly blurted out:
“B-i-z-z-i-n-e-double ess!” I broke down completely and stood there
trying to hide my crying, while the perverse tears would drop on the
floor, and my nose, treacherous organ, required constant snuffling or
the tell-tale use of my handkerchief.
Another titter was heard, but Miss Hester repressed it, and said in her
kindest tone:
“Poor child, you are too much agitated to spell. I will put you, for
the present, in a class with Lulie Mayland and Edward Cheyleigh. Go
there, and let her show you where the lesson is.”
As I started across the room a wad of chewed paper struck me in the
face. I did not see who threw it, but Miss Hester did, and calling up
Frank Paning gave him a sound whipping.
Sitting down with Ned and Lulie I felt more at my ease, and by the time
recess was announced, felt like joining in the games. All was clatter
and chatter as we poured from the door, and the scholars forgot I was a
“newy” in the excitement of the play. The game of “goosey” was proposed
and commenced. We separated to our bases, and at the call advanced.
Scampering hither and thither, some tried to catch, some to be caught.
I dodged, in good earnest, both boys and girls, and endeavored to reach
the opposite base with a zeal that would have adorned a fanatic. But it
was no use; the tall and freckled girl singled me out, and with a speed
that would have disdained Atalanta’s apples, pursued steadily, and with
the utmost perseverance, after me. No matter how I twisted, turned and
doubled, still she was behind me, nearer and nearer, never relaxing her
speed, while with every backward glance I gave, her brown calico dress
flew higher and higher, and her parrot-toed feet stepped over each
other more and more swiftly.
Of course she overhauled me, and, catching me by the lower edge of my
jacket, triumphantly dragged me backwards to the base, in the style
known as “walking turkey.” Throughout the whole game it was my fate to
be caught by the girls, but I was not over timid on this score, and
rather enjoyed it. At one o’clock I ran home for lunch, and gave father
and mother a detailed account of my morning’s experience, omitting
the crying scene. I returned to the school room with a light heart,
and, as children are not very formal, was soon acquainted with all the
scholars. Frank met me first, and begged my pardon for his rudeness
in the morning. He made himself so kind and attentive to me that my
prejudices against him imperceptibly began to wear off, though I could
not help observing that he was overbearing to those who were meaner
dressed than himself, and whom he considered his inferiors.
As the days wore on I had time to form intimacies, and I found one
friend in the school whom I could “grapple unto my soul with hooks of
steel.”
Between Edward Cheyleigh and myself there sprang up the most lasting
friendship. He was the most noble hearted boy I ever knew. Manly and
firm to the last degree, yet gentle and soft as a girl in his manners;
full of life and gaiety, yet no amount of persuasion could make him
yield his consent to what he thought was wrong. He was, in consequence,
rather unpopular with the scholars, and I have often seen his face
flush at a sneer about his being the favorite, after a refusal to join
in some plan to worry Miss Hester. I used to admire his firmness and
moral courage, and long to imitate his example, but I was too much
afraid of the ridicule of the school, and I would often forfeit Ned’s
approval rather than face the jeers of so many.
As the session passed on I lost all my reserve, and, with the absence
of embarrassment, came my love for fun. I was soon up to all the
tricks of school, and an expert in their performance. I was perfect in
the art of chewing and shooting paper, and William Tell took no more
pride in his apple feat than did I in the accuracy with which I could
plant a two inch pulp in a boy’s forehead across the room, and never
attract a glance from Miss Hester. I could gauge a pin to the exact
desideratum of pain, as I inserted it just above my neighbor’s point of
contact with the bench. I could stand up and call out, “M’ I g’ out?”
as loudly as the boldest, or assume, with perfect ease, the don’t care
expression and slinging gait, after a mortifying attempt at recitation.
These accomplishments were only acquired after months of timidity and
practice, but by degrees I became a ringleader in all the mischief, and
many were the difficulties I became involved in. Frank Paning always
joined us in our schemes, but somehow generally managed to escape the
punishment that fell on the rest of us.
One day Miss Hester was later coming than usual. We had all assembled,
and waited patiently for her some time, when Frank suddenly proposed
that we bar her out, and make her give us holiday. His proposition was
agreed to by several, of which I was the first; while all the girls,
and two or three of the very small boys, went outside to wait for her.
We commenced our operations with vigor, piling up chairs, tables, and
Miss Hester’s desk, against the door, in our haste turning the ink
over the copy books and papers, and scattering the pens and rulers
generally. As we concluded our arrangements, we observed Ned still
inside, sitting quietly at his usual corner.
“Why, hallo, Ned!” said Frank, “I thought you were outside with the
other girls. Why don’t you go?”
“Because I don’t wish to,” Ned replied, quietly, rubbing out one figure
on his slate with a wet forefinger and putting down another.
“But you won’t tell on us, will you?” asks a timid one.
“I shall not tell on any one, as it is none of my business;” and Ned
bent over his slate as if that was all he had to say.
“All right! here she comes ’round the corner,” exclaimed two or three
excited ones, peeping through a crevice in the window. “Wonder what the
old lady will do?”
Sure enough Miss Hester was coming, walking with all the majesty of
a teacher, and carrying demoralization to our garrison by her very
presence. As she came up we could hear a chorus of shrill voices crying:
“Lor! Miss Hester, what do you think? the boys have locked us and you
out, and say they won’t let us in till you promise to give ’em holiday.”
She did not reply, but we heard her come up the steps, and shake the
door two or three times. Finding it barred, there was an ominous
silence of a minute or two, then another more violent shake. The more
timorous of our number now wished to open the door, and surrender
unconditionally; but Frank and I, by dint of hard persuasion, and by
representing to them that this course would not palliate their sin,
induced them to hold out. She left the house, and went off, walking
rapidly. The advocates of surrender now gained strength, but we argued
and plead them into a little more obduracy. Before our council of war
had ended Miss Hester returned with a carpenter, and we felt that the
battle was hers. We got our books, took our seats, and watched, with
anxious eyes, the door, as it creaked and strained with every blow.
A moment more and it flew open, scattering our barricade in every
direction, and Miss Hester marched in victorious. Having dismissed the
carpenter, and put things to rights, she turned her attention to the
perpetrators of the deed. We saw, from the miniature thunder cloud that
had gathered between her brows, that there was no hope for mercy, so we
prepared to meet our fate resignedly. Calling us all up in a row, she
began at the top of the roll:
“Eliza Atly, were you inside or outside?”
Miss Eliza Atly, the freckled girl, with corner-drawn eyes, is
delighted to testify that she was outside.
“Abram Barn, outside or inside?”
Abram Barn, the small, fat boy, with puffy cheeks and dry tow hair,
bubbles out his answer as if it were liquid:
“Out chide, m’m!”
“Edward Cheyleigh?”
“Inside, ma’am.”
“Edward! I am surprised at that. Did you bar the door against me?”
“No, madam.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do, but I cannot tell.”
Miss Hester’s face flushed, as she said, sternly:
“Those who conceal are as guilty as those who commit.”
She proceeded down the roll, receiving confessions from some, and
denials from others, till she came to Frank’s name.
“Frank Paning,” she said, with her darkest frown, “did you bar my door?”
“No, madam, I did not.”
He had been nailing down the windows while we were barring the door.
“Did you see who did it?”
“I did not see any one do it. When I looked the door was all barred up
tight.”
Every one looked at him in amazement, but he replied by a smirk of
conceit at his success.
“John Smith, did you help to keep me out?” thundered Miss Hester, her
patience all gone.
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“That will do; you can all take your seats.”
My name completed the roll, and she laid aside the book, and took
up the rod. After some remarks on the enormity of our offence, and
the surprise she felt that some of her best scholars should have
countenanced it, and that it was her unpleasant duty to punish all
concerned, she proceeded to call up the offenders in order.
“Edward Cheyleigh, come here, sir. I regret very much the necessity of
punishing you, as it is the first time, and I have never before even
reproved you; but the offence is very grievous, and as you know who did
it, and won’t tell, you are accessory to the deed. Hold out your hand!”
I could stand it no longer, as Ned, with his face crimson from
mortification, yet his head erect with conscious innocence, held out
his hand for the undeserved blows, but springing from my seat, I cried:
“Miss Hester, Ned had nothing to do with it. We all begged him to join
us, but he wouldn’t; and if you are going to whip him, let me take his
share.”
“Stand back, sir,” she said sternly, “your time will come soon enough.
Your hand, Edward.”
He extended each palm, and received the cutting blows without a quiver,
then turned to his seat. As he sat down his fortitude gave way, and,
burying his face in his hands, he burst into sobbing.
My time came last, but so much did I feel for Ned that I scarce heeded
the stinging ferule. Miss Hester, after some further remarks, dismissed
us for the evening. As we poured from the door, the occasion furnished
food for more chattering than a cargo of magpies could have made.
“Wasn’t old Hess mad, though?” says one, whose hand was still red from
the ruler.
“She couldn’t get much out of my hand with her old slapjack,” boasts
another, rubbing his hands unconsciously on his pants, in striking
contradiction of his assertion.
As Frank Paning came out I heard him say:
“But didn’t I get out of it nice?”
“Yes, you sneaked out like a dog,” I replied indignantly. Another
chimed in:
“Yes, you did. Ned Cheyleigh’s good game, though. I don’t believe he
ever would have told old Hess, if she had beat him till now.”
“Umph!” sneered Frank, “‘twas because he was afraid to tell. He knew
some of us would whip him if he did.”
Ned was coming down the steps, the traces of tears still on his cheeks,
when he heard Frank’s remarks.
The crimson on his face gave place to the white hue of anger, as he
walked up to Frank and said:
“You lie. I dare you to try it.”
Frank looked sheepish, but the boys were all around him, and he felt
that he must fight, so, laying down his books, he met Ned.
What a momentous subject of interest is a fight between school boys! A
duel between senators excites not more proportionate attention.
These only passed a couple of blows, then clinched and fell, Frank
underneath. What digging in the ground with heels and toes! Frank
trying to wring his body from under Ned, and Ned trying to hold him
down; while the enthusiastic spectators clapped their hands and shouted
as the tide of battle wavered:
“Oh my, Ned! Hold him down! Turn him over, Frank! Throw out your leg
and push! Jerk his hands up, Ned,” etc., etc.
After several futile struggles Frank gave up, cried “Enough!” and both
arose considerably soiled and blown.
I took Ned in charge, and we started home, I brushing the dirt from his
clothes, and endeavoring to remove all traces of the conflict.
“Ned,” I said, as we reached Mr. Cheyleigh’s gate, “I am so sorry I got
you into this trouble.”
“Oh, never mind that,” he replied cheerfully. “I hated it on account of
its being my first, but I wasn’t in fault any way, and I wouldn’t tell
her now to save her life.”
Ned was human, and could not but feel anger at his undeserved
punishment.
We parted, and I hastened home. Anticipating Miss Hester’s narration of
the affair, I gave a faithful account of it; taking care to describe
our conduct as “having just locked her out for a little fun,” and
descanting, in glowing terms, on her cruelty to Ned. Father’s brow
darkened, and he shook his head ominously when I had concluded.
“John,” he said at length, and I knew by his tone that he did not see
the joke as I did, “this will not do. You are always getting in some
school difficulty. I must look into this affair and learn the true
state of the case. Go, get your supper and then go to bed. I will see
you in the morning.”
I sullenly went into the dining room and partook of the meal, with
gloomy forebodings of the morrow, for I knew, from experience, that the
“seeing” in the morning meant something more than vision.
I went to my chamber and got to bed, but not to sleep (for it was too
soon for that, and I could still hear out doors the sounds of day life
and activity); but to ruminate on the injustice of Miss Hester, father
and the world generally. I felt that father should have taken my part
and not threatened another punishment, when I had already expiated my
fault at Miss Hester’s hands. I took a gloomy delight in forgetting
all his kindness, and bringing up to memory all his chastisements and
reproofs, and I finally came to the conclusion that I was a poor,
persecuted little martyr, that nobody cared for me, and that it would
be such a sweet revenge to bundle up all my clothes in a handkerchief
and run away. I thought how fine it would be to go far away where
no one ever heard of our home, and achieve an immense fortune; and
when, at last, everybody thought me dead, and father was sufficiently
penitent for his cruelty, to return in a gilded chariot, with several
dozen white horses, and riding up before our door in great state,
inquire if Col. Smith, the father of an exiled child, lived there. The
only obstacle to my fugitive project was the lack of somewhere to run
to; and as no suitable place presented itself to my mind, I gave up the
scheme for the present, always to be renewed, though, when aggrieved,
and always to be as far from execution. I persevered, however, in my
misanthropic musings till I had rendered myself thoroughly miserable,
when my reverie was broken by the entrance of mother, who came and sat
down on the edge of my bed. Taking my hand in her soft palm, she said:
“Tell me all about your difficulty, Johnnie. How did it occur?” Turning
my face from the wet, warm pillow up to her’s, I gave a full recital of
all, throwing in towards the last a few reflections on father’s harsh
treatment, as it appeared to me.
“Hush! hush! Johnnie, you must not speak so. I know it seems hard to
you, but it was well calculated to provoke your father. This is the
fourth or fifth time you have been punished this session, and he knew
it would not do to encourage you in such rebellious conduct.”
I remained silent and grum, and mother continued:
“I know boys think it very manly and brave to be insubordinate at
school, and to show all the disrespect they can to the teachers; if
they are reproved to reply pertly, and if they are chastised, to bear
it without flinching. All these are foolishly considered marks of great
spirit. But it is a very mistaken idea. Is it not wrong, culpably
wrong, to obstruct and impede the labors of those who are striving
to do us good? The very fact of their being compensated renders them
responsible to parents and guardians for a more careful instruction of
those placed under their charge, and yet you endeavor by every means to
prevent the discharge of this responsibility, even though you are to
receive the benefit. The teacher’s task is a difficult one any way, and
you should strive to lighten the burden, by prompt and ready obedience,
instead of scheming to make it heavier. Miss Hester is an old lady,
and entitled to our respect from her very age; and then she is alone
in the world; she has no one to look to for protection, and makes all
her living by her little school. How shameful and sinful, then, to
tease and trouble her! No wonder she lost her patience when she found
herself locked out of her own house, compelled to stand in the street,
a laughing-stock for the passers by. And see, too, another consequence
of your fun, as you called it: your little playmate, Ned Cheyleigh,
who had the manliness to refuse to join you, is punished equally
with the guilty, and has to suffer for your fault. I like fun and
innocent mischief myself, but never let it be enjoyed at the expense of
another’s feelings.”
Her kind words and manner unnerved me, and the black cloud in my heart
poured its rain from my eyes, as I sobbed out:
“I—didn’t—mean—to hurt—her—feelings—, and—I’ll—beg—father’s
pardon—and hers—the first—thing—in—the—morning. I told—Ned—how
sorry—I was—about—him—this—evening.”
“Well, I hope you will let this prove a lesson to you for the future.
It’s getting late; good night.”
As she left the room I turned over on my pillow, took another hearty
pull at my tears, and was then at Morpheus’ service.
CHAPTER VI.
I ROSE early next morning, full of good resolutions; and, to put the
first in execution, found father, and asked his pardon. He granted it
kindly, and said, with a smile:
“I have determined to remove you to the Academy. You are getting almost
too large for Miss Hester to manage. I will continue your tuition pay
to her for the remainder of the session, as it is our fault that you
leave her. You may remain at home to-day, as it is Friday, but on
Monday you must commence with Mr. Morris.”
I was perfectly delighted with the transfer, as it would add
considerably to my dignity, for I had long looked forward to entering
the Academy as an era in life.
As soon as breakfast was over, I ran around to Miss Hester’s school
house, to make my acknowledgment to her. She was very kind in her
manner toward me, and did not seem to bear any ill will for my conduct
of the day before. When I mentioned the subject of my removal, as I
did not say anything about the continuation of the pay, the old lady
seemed very much to regret my leaving, was confident we could get
on pleasantly together, and felt assured that I would behave, for
the rest of the term, like a little gentleman. As I was not equally
certain on all these points, I told her that father thought it best,
and that I must do as he wished. I therefore got up my books, slate and
stationery, and marched out of the little house where I had spent so
many happy hours, followed by the envious eyes of all the scholars, who
were still to slave it out there. I met Ned on my way home, and we had
a short conversation, making arrangements to desk together, and vowing
eternal fealty and fidelity to each other.
I put my books away as soon as I reached home, and ran over to Dr.
Mayland’s to see Lulie. Much to my disappointment she had gone to
school, so nothing was left for me but to mope about all day in
idleness. There is nothing in the world so wearisome as idleness
without company. In vain I lounged over town seeking amusement. All my
companions were at school, and everybody and everything seemed to have
something to do. I strolled down to the wharves to find some relief
in the sights down there, but all seemed intent on some occupation,
and I could find no sympathy for my solitude. The loaded dray rattled
a reproof at me as it passed; the smiths tinkering over old boilers
hammered work into my ears; the clerk, busy with his marking brush, and
the brawny wharf hands, rolling the sticky barrels hither and thither,
were living lectures to me. Even the horse, at the unloading vessel,
pulled up the weight, and backed again, with a stern disregard of his
own pleasure. An old black rosin raft, floating lazily down the tide,
was the only thing in sight at all congenial, and that was too far out
in the river to be reached.
The idle boy in the country may find pleasure where there are so many
objects to amuse: the brook with its fish, the toy mill with its
flutter wheel, the barn yard with calves to be broken to the yoke, the
orchard and plum nursery, all help to pass the time; but woe to the
idle in the crowded thoroughfare!
Time is the only coachman who drives exactly by his schedule, and
with all my impatience Monday did not come till Monday morning. I was
too eager not to be equally punctual, and at nine o’clock precisely
I entered Mr. Morris’s school room. How different it was from Miss
Hester’s! Boys of every size, from the six foot youth to the little
lad of my own height, were ranged, two and two, at their desks about
the room. Most of the small ones manifested a strong desire to stamp my
appearance indelibly on their memory, by an intense stare. The larger
ones scarce noticed me; perhaps turning their heads to see who had
disturbed the majestic silence of the hall.
Mr. Morris called me to his stand, and, after a few questions, assigned
me to a class and a desk. I took my seat, arranged my books, and then,
not feeling so much abashed as at Miss Hester’s, I looked about me with
more confidence and closer scrutiny. ‘Twas the same school room and
boys that every one has seen; the dignified big boys, turning over the
leaves of their lexicons, and running their fingers through their hair
in the most erudite manner, occasionally spitting in the boxes at the
sides of their desks, as if half their dignity depended on their mode
of expectorating; half grown boys reclining in various positions, but
chiefly sitting on one foot, while the other hung down, tapping against
the sides of the bench; and little chaps, some studying, some talking,
but most of them resting their cheeks upon their crossed hands laid
flat upon their desks, while they stared at the “new boy.”
My experience at Miss Hester’s, however, had taught me to accommodate
myself to circumstances, so I made myself easy in my new quarters, and
at the morning respite went out boldly with the rest, to join in the
amusements.
The story of our difficulty at Miss Hester’s had reached most of the
boys through their younger brothers, who attended her school, and
quite a throng gathered around me to question and admire, for the mere
fact of my having had a difficulty at all, and having left the school,
rendered me at once the hero and martyr of the occasion in their eyes.
I related the affair with as much gusto as I could assume, and felt as
proud of my insubordination as Cato did of his economy. As I concluded
my recital, one of the lexicon dignitaries strode up, and, looking
over the heads of those around me, remarked carelessly:
“Is that the little devil who turned his teacher out? If he tries his
hand here, I’ll bet Jep will take the spunk out of him.”
I could not comprehend his words, but I formed a terrible idea of Jep,
who was so given to the extraction of spunk, and inwardly resolved that
I would carefully avoid all acquaintance with him. I afterwards learned
that it was an abbreviation of Mr. Morris’s given name, Jepthah.
This reassured me, and I debated for some time whether to test Jep’s
extracting powers, and preserve my reputation among my schoolmates,
or assert over myself at least my moral courage, and heed my mother’s
words of advice in regard to my deportment. At last I resolved on
the latter course of conduct, and gave up all thoughts of resisting
authority.
At the close of the week Mr. Morris said to the school:
“Remember, boys, next is composition week, and I do not want a single
one to fail to write an essay. You can select your own themes, but you
must receive assistance from no one.”
I was very much astonished, for the thought of writing an essay or
composition had never entered my mind. To express my ideas on paper,
and then read them out to the whole school! ‘Twas a task in my eyes
to appall a statesman. Still, I was not one to give up easily, and,
possessing no small share of self confidence, I determined to do
the best I could. For days my brain was racked to find a subject on
which I could say anything at all. My mind seemed a perfect blank,
with not even the dim shadow of a thought which I might evolve into
distinctness. After awhile I began to try over different topics, but
none appeared fruitful. I tried first on Truth; but I could find no
way to begin but by asking, “What is Truth?”—a question I could not
answer, so I gave that up. Then I tried “Vacation;” but here my only
opening was an abrupt recountal of its scenes and pleasures, and these
were too much identified with Lulie to be made public, so I abandoned
that. The various animals came in for a share of consideration, but I
could not find one of sufficient fecundity to bring forth an essay. The
week had almost gone, and still I was themeless; when one day, at the
dinner table, father jingled the ice in his glass, and made some remark
about the strangeness of the fact that water, a liquid, could so change
its nature as to become solid, merely by the absence of heat. Suddenly
it popped into my head that I would write about ice. I bounced up, ran
into the library, and, after an hour’s hard labor, appeared with the
following:
ICE.
Ice is frozen water. Water, dry so, is soft, and can be moved with
the finger or a stick; and also can be poured out. But when it frezes
it gets num and stiff, and can’t be sturd, and won’t run down. ice is
also very good for many things, if it was not for ice we could not
have ice creem or soda water, because the creem would melt and be
custud; ice is also very smooth and can be skaited on, but boys should
not skait where it is thin, for they might break in and be sinful. ai
boy once skaited on the sabbath and got drownd. To look at ice ought
to make us want to study, so we can learn all about it, and about the
people who live where it grows thick and can be driven with dogs upon.
so I will put up my writing and try to study some.
Your afextionate scolar,
JOHN SMITH.
P. S.—A eastern king would not believe the traveller when he told him
about thick ice.
This postscript I added as a display of my knowledge of history, which
I feared would appear pedantic in the body of the composition, but
would be striking and casual at its close.
This important production I folded, endorsed with my name, and laid it
away till Friday evening. Before handing it in, I read it to father
and mother. I construed their smiles into compliments, and carried
it to Mr. Morris with no small degree of satisfaction. Addison never
felt more sure of praise than I did; and yet the following week ‘twas
returned to me a perfect Joseph’s coat of red ink corrections and
erasures. _Væ literatis!_
But compositions were nothing to my next appearance in the school, for
we were soon required to declaim. Here again there was trouble in the
selection of a suitable piece for declamation; but I at length found a
piece which I thought was admirably adapted to my style, and, preparing
it carefully, I awaited with impatience the first evening of our
practice.
It came at last, and, as I saw the “first” scholars walk up the rostrum
with dignity, and with grace of manner and well modulated voice,
declaim beautiful selections, I felt that nothing was easier, and in
my self confidence pitied the poor blockheads, of which there were not
a few present, who drawled out their speeches in such an awkward and
confused way. I was considerably worried, however, as Mr. Morris came
down the roll, to find that no less than three of the smaller boys had
selected exactly the same piece I had; still, I gathered encouragement
from the fact that they all spoke it badly, and that my effort would
show to a still better advantage after theirs. I was startled from my
complacent comparisons by the loud tones of Mr. Morris, calling out:
“John Smith, you will next declaim!”
It is strange how easily confused and startled we are by the unexpected
pronunciation of our names in public; the simple utterance of mine, on
this occasion, overturned all my confidence and self-reliance, and I
rose from my seat with a hair-rising sensation that took away my last
hope of distinction.
I ascended the rostrum with that peculiarly awkward feeling of being
in somebody else’s skin, which fitted badly, and was especially tight
about the cheeks and eyes. And my hands! I had used them in a thousand
ways, but now, for the first time, became really and painfully aware
of their existence. I had hitherto regarded them as an indispensable,
though unconsciously possessed, part of my anatomy; but I now looked
upon them as excessively inconvenient appurtenances, and I would
have given a finger almost to have had them hung out of sight on my
back. However, there they were and I had to dispose of them. After
making my bow with my little finger on the seam of my pants, I put
both hands for safe keeping in my trowsers’ pockets. They could not,
however, long remain there, for, as I placed that idiotic youth upon
the “burning deck,” out they came for a gesture, which finished, to
give them something to do I put them to pulling down my vest, which had
an unaccountable tendency to sever all connection with my pants. The
flames now had to be shown
——”round him o’er the dead,”
and my hands nobly left my vest for action. Coming again to me idle,
I sent one to my pocket, and the other to my mouth, where it remained
during the greater part of my speech, spoiling out the words as fast as
they issued from that orifice.
My embarrassment and confused state of ideas also developed other
startling blunders, which cooler moments would have corrected. The
boys, in their naturally perverted disposition, had quite a habit of
transposing the first letters of words in a sentence, exchanging with
one word part of another, thereby creating a language that Cardinal
Mezzofanti could never have mastered. With my imitative tendencies, I
had no sooner entered the school than I caught the habit in all its
force; and talked in this perverted style so constantly that I was an
animated Etruscan hieroglyph to all at home. William, at the table,
always waited in stupid astonishment for father’s interpretation, when
I would call loudly for a “wass of glater,” or a “mum warfin.”
On this occasion of declamation, I fully repented of my maladialectic
propensity, for, do what I would, the words would come out twisted out
of all human semblance.
Mr. Morris, in our private practice, required each one to announce the
subject of his speech; so, troubled as I have described by my hands and
tongue, I thus declaimed:
BASICIANCO.
The stoy bood on the durning beck,
Whence all but flem had hid,
The lims that flate the wrettle back
Rone shound him do’er the ead.
Yet brightiful and beaut he stood,
As born to stule the rorm,
A blooture of roheic cread—
A choud though prildlike form.
Bang! went Mr. Morris’s ruler on his desk as I completed the last verse.
“Bring me the book, sir,” he thundered, “that contains all that
nonsense.”
Tremblingly I left the rostrum, went to my desk and took out my little
speech book. Having examined it, and found that Mrs. Hemans’ beautiful
verses were printed correctly, he turned upon me with his severest
tone, and demanded to know what I meant by such ridiculous gibberish.
I pleaded that I had got in the habit of talking so for fun, and could
not help it on the stage.
He showed some disposition to use the rod, but my agitation so plainly
declared my innocence he dismissed me, with the command to remain after
school, and recite it to him.
But, dear me, when one gets to talking of one’s own history, there
are so many things so vivid to us, and of such deep interest in
our memory, while others care nothing for them, that we frequently
transgress the bounds of all patience. As far as the narrative
coincides with the reader’s own observation and experience, he will be
interested; but should it go beyond, unless adorned with a marvellous
mystery, he is wearied with the author’s prolixity. As I have still a
considerable portion of my life to lay before my readers, I will not
weary them further with puerile details, but, begging their indulgence
for one more chapter of childhood’s history, I will pass on to a later
period of my existence.
CHAPTER VII.
AT the close of the second session it was proposed that we give a
party. We held a meeting in the Academy, and elected a Committee of
Management. These important and business transacting gentlemen soon
came around with their subscription lists. As I was one of the small
boys I had to subscribe only a dollar, but I felt as munificent as
Mithridates, when I wrote “John Smith,” and, parallel with it, placed
a small crooked “1” and two very fat ciphers, yoked together like the
sign of the spectacles over a jeweller’s store. At dinner that day I
obtained the amount from father, and mother pinned it in my jacket
pocket for safety. When I returned in the afternoon I took out the pin
before I reached the Academy and crumpled the bill in my pocket, to
give it a careless look. When I handed it to the collector he expressed
no gratitude, and evinced no feeling whatever on the subject, merely
checking off my name with his pencil, and placing my dollar, in the
coolest manner possible, with the other funds of the enterprise. But
I was repaid, however, for such indifferent treatment, when the gilt
embossed tickets came out, and I received my two. I carried one home,
and put it in our card basket as a standing evidence of my interest in
the party, and sent the other to Lulie, with my compliments written in
ink of the bluest hue.
Of course those who would not subscribe were regarded with great
contempt by all who did, and epithets expressive of avarice and miserly
meanness were heaped with unsparing liberality upon them. In some cases
these were deserved, but there were many very poor boys in school, and
I often blushed to hear their poverty ridiculed and themselves made the
subjects of unfeeling jest. I recall one little scene.
I was standing near, perhaps, the poorest boy in school, when one of
the managers, a proud, stuck-up youth, approached, and said to him:
“I say, Willie, you’ll give us something for the party, won’t you?”
I noticed a slight quiver on Willie’s lip as he replied:
“I have only twenty-five cents at home, and mother is not able to give
me any more, but you are welcome to that, if you will have it.”
“We don’t want any of your quarters. A dollar is the smallest
contribution we take. But let me tell you, if you don’t subscribe you
must not go to the party, and hang around to fill your pockets.”
“You need not fear that I will come,” said the little fellow, as he
drew his hat over his face and turned away, not however, before I had
seen something glistening fall from his cheek, and make a tiny, wet
circle in the sand.
This digression, with the hope that some school boy who may read this
book, may be led to reflect (which is rare) that others, besides
himself, have feelings that may be hurt.
The eventful evening of the eventful day at length arrived, and I went
up to my room to make my extensive toilet. My clothes were spread out
on the bed ready for my donning, and I stopped to contemplate their
striking effect. My white pants gleamed beside a new blue jacket, with
as bright buttons as Frank Paning ever dared to wear, and a snowy
collar, already folded down, lay beside a handsome silk bow. I had
given orders that my pants should be starched very stiff, with very
deep creases down the legs. These instructions I found faithfully
fulfilled, for they were so stuck together it was with great difficulty
I could open the legs sufficiently to admit my own, and when they were
at last on, I found that our laundress had ironed the creases down the
sides instead of on the front of the legs, and the wide, hard linen
stood out on each side of my feet like great paddles, and tapped, one
against the other, with a noise that would have attracted attention in
a mill. To add to my discouragement about the pants, my shoes, which
I had ordered to be shined up for this extra occasion, came up to my
room with one string gone; and as it could not be found, and it was too
late to go out to purchase another, I had to borrow a light colored one
with brass tips from mother, and trust to luck to hide my feet. As I
had not reached the age of ability to fasten my own collar, I called
in Aunt Hannah, who was passing my door. The old lady, being a little
dim of vision, pinned my collar and bow just far enough to one side to
give my head the appearance of being set on crooked; but as I was not
extremely fastidious, and was moreover in great haste, I thought it
would do by slightly turning my head, so as to keep my chin just over
the bow. Putting on my jacket, and seeing its perfect fit, restored my
equanimity, but I lost it fearfully again when I came to brush my hair.
The Lacedæmonians used always to comb their hair before entering
battle, and if their crinal adjustment caused them a tithe the
irritation mine did me, we may cease to wonder at their reckless
courage and desperate conduct.
My locks yielded to the combined influence of comb, brush, water,
and oil, and smoothly fell, except in one particular place—that
perverse spot in the crown of the head, where the hair seems to
have grown in a whirlwind. Here it would not “down,” but remained a
capillary Banquo, in obstinate uprightness. After repeated proofs of
its invincible stubbornness I was forced to leave it proudly erect,
like the republic of Ragusa, among crouching kingdoms. Having completed
my Beau-Brummellization, and received father’s injunction not to stay
late, I hurried to the assembly rooms.
The managers had engaged two halls; one for the grown people, with
music stand and waxed floor, and a large empty room, with a few benches
round the wall, for the little folks and their games. Thither I bent
my course, and entered. Just inside the door I found a throng of the
inevitable party jackals, who always frequent public entertainments.
They hang round the doors, and stand in corners till supper is
announced, when, the moment the ladies leave the table, they rush
in upon the spoils. They number among them many who claim eminent
respectability, yet who, being too bashful to mingle with the ladies,
are of course too bashful to behave well. As I squeezed my way through
this motley throng, many were the taunts I heard levelled at my
unfortunate person, all of which I treated with silent contempt; but as
I entered the hall fairly I heard a hoarse whisper behind me:
“He’s getting skeered on the top of his head, look how his hair has
riz.”
I wilted under this last remark, and involuntarily smoothed my hand
over the Ragusan hairs, to the great delight and boisterous merriment
of the jackals.
As soon as I had time to look about me, I saw Ned Cheyleigh, Frank
Paning, and Lulie Mayland, over in a corner, with several other boys
and girls of my acquaintance. Ned motioned to me to join them, and,
much relieved, I hastened across the room.
There were two benches arranged so that their occupants were placed
_vis à vis_, and on one of these sat the boys, with their hats on their
knees, and their arms resting on each others’ shoulders. The girls
occupied the other, and were much more at their ease, though there
was very little attempt at conversation, as the moment anybody spoke
everybody else looked straight at them, and listened. This state of
affairs proving very dry and uninteresting, it was proposed that we
play some games. The proposal came from Frank, and Lulie was the first
to accede to it. This circumstance, trivial as it was, tended greatly
to diminish my interest in the proceedings. Frank and I had never
had much dealing with each other since the affair at Miss Hester’s,
though that was not so much the cause as the fact that we were rivals
for Lulie’s heart. The little flirt always made me believe, when I
was alone with her, that I was decidedly her preference, but somehow
when we were both thrown into her presence, Frank always received the
lion’s share of her smiles, remarks and attention. My good temper for
the evening was nearly spoiled on this occasion when Frank proposed
“Club Fist,” and laid his doubled-up hand in Lulie’s lap, she placing
her’s immediately on it, followed by the hands of all the throng, till
there was quite a Timour’s tower of human bones. To think of her hand
being pressed by every other hand down on his, was almost too much for
a lover to bear, but I swallowed my resentment as best I could, and
joined my own hand to the tower.
The very startling query, “What have you got there?” and the immediate
abduction of the dimpled hand of a girl, or the chubby fist of a boy
from the pile, were all gone through with, till the bottom hand was
reached. The chain of destruction from the cat who so feloniously
appropriated “my share,” to the knife hid behind the old church door,
was carefully ascended, and the solemn sentence pronounced:
“A for apple, P for pear, the first one who laughs or speaks shall
receive three hard slaps and pinches.” All were as silent as
Pythagorean novitiates, though many were the contortions to restrain
laughter, till after a few moments Lulie’s merry laugh was heard.
She pleaded that she could not help it; that Frank made such a funny
face at her that she was compelled to laugh. She was, however,
convicted, and we commenced to punish her. When it came Frank’s turn to
pinch her, he did so so severely that she gave a little scream of pain,
and declared she would pay him for it presently. When she presented her
arm to me I felt that all the gallantry of my soul forbade cruelty to
her, and I scarcely touched the soft flesh. My consideration did not
seem to be very highly appreciated, for she turned off without a word,
and commenced the payment of her debt to Frank. A very torturing and
envy-causing game they made of it for me, as I looked frowningly on,
wishing most earnestly that she was in my debt, and would pay it as
thoroughly.
Club Fist was now voted dull, and blindman’s buff proposed. Frank
volunteered to be blindfolded, and the game soon became a merry one.
Peals of laughter, as all ran helter skelter to avoid him, whispers of
stealth as they crept about behind him, and screams of excitement as
they just eluded his grasp, added pleasant confusion to the merriment.
Frank took good care to arrange the handkerchief so that he could see,
though he stumbled about enough to avoid suspicion. He pretended to
single out Lulie by her laugh, and soon made her his captive. Then
Lulie was blinded, and after a long chase caught one of the girls, who
in her turn caught Ned. Frank this time contrived to stumble against
Ned, and of course, being caught, wore the handkerchief again. Poor
artless I played with all my might, and dodged and tacked with as much
earnestness as Acteon did his own dogs. After the bandage had been
exchanged many times I was caught by some one, but just as I was
preparing to become as blind as Melctal, Frank said we had had enough
of the game, and all agreed to quit. We amused ourselves in various
ways for an hour or so longer, Frank making an almost entire monopoly
of Lulie, while I hung around with dogged expectancy of a chance after
a while. After another hour’s interval supper was announced, and each
of the boys took his engagée to the supper hall. I went sullenly alone.
The room was densely crowded, and the clatter of plates and dishes, the
jingle of glasses, the hum of voices, the popping of corks and cracker
bon bons, and the general noise of the bustle to and fro, confused and
deafened me. The grown people from the other hall were there, and boys
and girls, beaux and belles of whiskers and satins, all mingled in an
incongruous and grotesque mass. Squeezing my way down the table I found
myself opposite to Frank and Lulie, and, as I saw him engaging her in
conversation, or piling up her plate with delicacies, overwhelming her
with constant and tender attentions, which were received as tenderly
by her, jealousy deprived me of all appetite, and I strove to divert
my attention by observing those around me. As I glanced down the long
tables, a double vista of snowy necks and arms, white waistcoats,
flashing jewels, sparkling fans, with an occasional raising here and
there of a white glove, or a cobweb handkerchief, appeared as if on
dress parade, ranged in open order for the table to march through.
Here a vivacious beauty raised a dainty bit on her fork, and poising
it at her mouth as she finished a remark, looked as if the fork were
a doctor, and she had sore throat; there a languid youth dipped his
downy attempt at a moustache in a glass of wine, and a little farther
on a courting couple, without originality, seemed actually interested
in the verses on the candies. But however engaged, at what stage soever
of the supper they arrived, everybody seemed to be of some interest to
somebody else, except myself. I was emphatically alone. I was getting
desperate, and turned to leave the table, when I glanced at Lulie, and
saw that Frank had left her side temporarily. As she caught my eye, she
said, with her sweetest smile:
“John, won’t you please get me some frozen cream, this on the stand has
all melted; Frank has gone now to see if he can find a waiter who knows
anything about the table. The confusion is quite confusing;” and she
coughed with an affected air behind her fan, as if her last sentence
had been quite an effort.
Glad to be of any service to anybody, I bowed, and, taking her
proffered plate, dived into the throng, to make my way to the freezers.
Now nearly run over by a hastening waiter, now in the way of a retiring
couple, often spilling little streams of the melted cream over the
black cloth of a gentleman, or the pearly silk of a lady, and, before
I could recover from their indignant glance or muttered objurgations,
having it tilted into my own bosom by some passers, I at length reached
the stand on which was placed the freezing apparatus. Here I had to
wait till all patience was exhausted before I could get what I wished,
but, stubbornly determined, I stood my ground, and at length received
my plate, heaped up as if for a glutton. To return with a running-over
plate was indeed more perilous than my journey thither. I was threading
my way carefully along, and had proceeded half way down the room, when
I met Frank and Lulie leaving.
“Oh! you found it after all,” she said, as she saw me approaching,
carrying the dripping plate out at arm’s length, as if it were a hot
kettle, “I am very much obliged for the trouble you have taken, but
Frank brought me some a short time after you left.”
I was too much chagrined to reply, but giving Frank a dagger look as
they passed out, I threw the plate down on the nearest table, and left
the room. I resolved, as soon as I could get an interview with Lulie,
to load her with reproaches, and bid her farewell forever. But on going
back to the party room I saw Lulie sitting by herself, Frank having
left her for awhile. I determined to go immediately to her and have my
talk out with her, but felt like modifying very much the bitterness of
its spirit. What we say in a person’s presence is very much less than
what we think we will say before we see them.
I went over and took a seat by Lulie, and for the first time in the
evening felt a little gleam of pleasure in my heart. She received me
kindly, and made some trifling remark about my being out of spirits,
but I did not heed her. Coming, like a boy, bluntly to the point, I
asked:
“Lulie, do you like Frank Paning? I do not, he tries to be so smart.”
“Why, yes,” she said, coloring a little, and biting the tip of her fan,
“I do like him some; surely you don’t dislike him for being smart.”
“I don’t mean smart that way; but there’s another bigger reason than
that: he is always with you when I want to be.”
“Well, that’s your fault,” she replied, looking at me archly. “I am
sure if he comes to me first you can’t expect me to drive him away for
you, can you?”
“But he’s been with you all to-night, and I have not had a chance to
even talk with you a minute. I wanted to carry you to the supper, but
of course he was ahead of me.”
“You ought to have asked me before he did.”
“Even if I had you would have preferred going with him, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh! I must not say, it might flatter you.”
“I wish,” I muttered savagely, “he was back in South Carolina, or
wherever he came from.”
“I certainly do not,” she said, with some warmth; “I thought you and
Frank were great friends.”
“We were at first, but ever since he lied to Miss Hester, I have not
had any use for him.”
“I was angry with him myself that day,” she said, after a little pause,
and with a slight change in her tone, “but he has made it all right
since. He says he did not see any reason why he should take a whipping
when he could get out of it without telling a lie. I cried real hard,
though, that day about you and Ned.”
“I don’t expect you cried much for me; ‘twas all for Ned.”
This I said as a feeler, and I watched closely, as well as vainly, to
discover some sign of emotion in her reply.
“No, indeed,” she said, looking straight at me, without any drooping
of the timorous eyelids, as I had expected; “I felt as if I could take
half your blows.”
“I would have them doubled to hear you say so,” I replied, with great
warmth and an attempt at a theatrical pressure of my heart, which,
however, failed in its effect, from my ignorance of the exact location
of that vital organ.
The conversation was now beginning to assume for me a most agreeable
turn, and I was beginning to feel recompensed for all my chagrin of the
evening, when, to my unspeakable horror I saw William, our servant,
coming across the room with my cloak in his hand.
“Marse John, your father says it is time for you to come home. Here is
your cloak mistis sent.”
The reversion of feeling was too strong for utterance, and with a
choked voice and swimming eyes I rose, and, without a word of parting
to Lulie, went out with William. Just as I reached the outer door I met
Frank coming in. He bowed with mock reverence, and said, with a sneer:
“Good night, little baby; go to your cradle.”
“I’ll whip you to-morrow!” was all I could grind out between my
clenched teeth, while he ran, laughing, into the hall. As I groped my
way down the steps, my eyes all blinded with tears, I heard some one
say:
“Here come the band! they are going to play for the children.”
This was the last feather on the camel’s back of my fortitude, and I
broke down into sobbing.
To have Lulie think I was babyish, and had to be sent for; to have our
conversation broken off so suddenly, when it was becoming so pleasant;
to leave a scene of gaiety before it was finished, and then, too,
when the best part was coming, and, above all, to have my hated rival
triumph in my humiliation, was enough to have crushed a stouter heart
than mine.
When we reached the corner, round which we turned into our street,
William stopped, and said:
“There! listen at the music!”
I wiped away the tears from my eyes, and looked back at the building.
‘Twas brightly illuminated, and indistinct forms could be seen passing
to and fro at the windows. A quick, lively air from the band came
floating to my ears, and I knew Frank was by Lulie’s side.
“Oh, William,” I sobbed, “I—do—want—to—go back—so bad.”
“I think it was a pity marster sent for you so soon,” he said, “but you
are done and away now, and we’d better go on home.”
Wretched, indeed, I ascended the steps at home, and was met at the door
by father.
“Well, Johnnie,” he said, locking the door after I had gotten in, “this
is right late for a little boy to be up, isn’t it? What! crying! What
is the matter?”
“Father—, I did—hate to—leave—so much—. The—band was coming—to
play—for us—and I was just—beginning to—see some—fun.”
“I am sorry I broke you up,” he said, kindly, “but it is very late, and
much for the best that you should be at home. Good night; run up to
bed.”
I went up to my room, and tumbled on the bed with my clothes on. My
mind was full of bitter, burning thoughts. I fancied I could still
hear the band, and whenever I closed my eyes Lulie’s form, with Frank
hovering near, rose to my vision.
Next morning I rose with a headache, and for relief walked out. My
steps involuntarily led me to the scene of my chagrin, and in a sad
kind of reverie I wandered through the rooms.
‘Tis sad food for reflection to visit a ball room the morning after
the ball. Dreary silence has taken the place of noisy mirth and
revelry, and the walls and floor look wan in the yellow sunlight, as
if suffering from their night’s dissipation. The chandeliers quiver
their pendent prisms at your approach, and tinkle a drowsy salutation.
Around the music stand are scattered a leaf or two of music, fragments
of rosin, and half sucked lemons; along the floor we pick up a fallen
wreath, a slipper’s rosette, or a torn fragment of tarlatan. These are
all that remind us of the whirling throng that mingled here.
‘Tis very much like life! We thoughtlessly dance upon its arena, and
departing leave behind us, some at least, the evergreen wreath, some
the tarnished rosette of pleasures tried and found empty, and some the
poor torn shred of fruitless ambition.
CHAPTER VIII.
ONE would hardly recognize in the tall youth the little boy that cried
so when called away from the party, but times and persons change a
great deal in seven years. Ned Cheyleigh is still my bosom friend,
nobler, truer and more manly, if a soul such as his can know any
degree of improvement. Frank Paning and myself, after innumerable
quarrels and make-ups, have grown somewhat intimate, partly from the
fact that our families are near neighbors, and partly because we are
thrown together so constantly at school, being the only two members
of a Latin class. He has lost much of his boyish rudeness, and when
it is politic is kind, obliging and pleasant, but I still often feel
in his presence the old sensation of repulsion. Lulie is still the
bone between us, though with infinite tact she contrives to preserve
the balance of feeling. Frank thinks he has the best of the contest,
and I often am obliged to think so too, though generally my conceit
and vanity keep my spirits up. Thus much for relative position as
regards each other. And if, reader, you have become interested in
us sufficiently to desire to see us personally, I will endeavor to
give you our pictures. First, then, is Ned, a rather stout, thick-set
figure; round open face, with large very blue eyes, firm mouth—not
expressed so much in the lips as in the set of the teeth beneath them;
brownish dark hair, which, though always kept short, always looks
dishevelled; nose the least prominent feature in his face, though
straight and well formed; his whole face expressing so much integrity
of conduct and candor of meaning, that Campanella would have sworn by
him without ever hearing him utter a word, though there was not as
much depth in it as a man of the world could have wished for. Frank
was almost his exact opposite, and much the handsomer of the two. His
form was very tall for his age, and graceful; his hair jet black, and
curling crisply over a well shaped head; his nose slightly aquiline
and long; his mouth, with very white teeth, was always a little
curled, either with a smile or a sneer; and, whatever his state of
feelings, it ever wore one of these expressions, their only variation
being an increased intensity. His eyes were rather small, very black,
yet showing a great deal of white in their oblique glances. He
always looked straight at you in ordinary pleasant converse, or when
he thought he had you at a disadvantage; but when himself in the
inferiority, his glance was down and aside, in fact every way but
into your eyes. For instance, he could never look his teacher in the
face when arraigned for a misdemeanor, yet he would gaze steadily at
a comrade while accusing him of wrong. And it was a frequent jest in
school that when Frank Paning’s eyes fell he was under “hack.”
But to give you an exact idea of Lulie Mayland is beyond my power. I
can describe well enough her bright sunny face, with its clear hazel
eyes, its dimpled chin and pouting lips, and her cheeks with the roses
coming and going with almost every word; but I cannot describe the
effect of the thoughts that seemed to be ever coming up from her soul
to her face, yet never uttered. There was always something more beneath
those eyes you longed to know. If she looked and expressed sorrow for
a misfortune, you knew, as you gazed into her face, there was a vast
well of sympathy untold. If she laughed, and laughing was her life’s
most constant phase, you felt that it was only the bubbles of mirth,
that its springs were yet to be sounded. And in my intercourse with
her I always felt there were two Lulies—one on the surface, a bright
laughing girl, with a warm sunny heart, whom I loved dearly, and who
I sometimes thought loved me; the other was a far more radiant being,
whose face was beneath the first Lulie’s, and whose shadow or likeness
she constantly wore, though never distinctly enough to be perfectly
recognized. And this last Lulie was the idol of my heart—she whom I
adored so unceasingly, and yet who I knew deep in my heart never loved
me.
I would not affect mystery with this duality; I simply wish to present
an idea of one of those faces we sometimes see—faces that, strive how
they will, by word and look, can never express all their meaning; faces
that, from their very secrecy, so to speak, possess a power we either
dread or love. Lulie’s power over me I loved; and loving, hoped one day
to attain to the love of her inner soul.
Mr. Cheyleigh possessed a beautiful residence on the Sound, about
eight miles from Wilmington, and Ned invited Frank and myself to spend
the vacation with him. What an Elysium it was for us! Horses, dogs
and boats at our command! Every nook of the Sound was explored in
our fishing, crabbing and shrimping excursions; every swamp and lake
invaded in our search for summer game. But of all our pleasures the
greatest was to go over to the beach and take the surf. The delicate
votaries of fashion at the watering places know nothing of its real
luxury. Swathed in flannel and buoyed by ropes they strangle through
the tortures of a dip, and declare it charming. But to go beyond the
reach of _lorgnettes_, to disrobe entirely without fear of the sun’s
tanning, to trip lightly over the cool moist sand, and plunge into the
great tossing ocean, is to really enjoy the thing.
But now we are in; we find our depth, and wait for the wave. Ah, here
it comes! A great green fellow, crumbling towards the shore; a smooth,
glassy valley before it, and its white crest curling proudly in its
power. “Here it is! how it rustles! turn your backs! now spring!” and
the next instant, swept from our feet, we ride the great monster to
land, where he throws us high upon the sand, and sinks back to his
watery domain, with a growl for our intrusion.
With our numerous sports time passed all the more rapidly, and we were
preparing to return home. The evening previous to the day appointed
was a dark and threatening one. A heavy blue bank lay in the west, and
though the sun, as he passed beyond it, had thrown across it a bright
golden fringe, it refused to be propitiated, and sullenly waited till
he had disappeared, when it loomed blackly up, while the constant
quivering of the lightning, and the distant, heavy jarring of the
thunder told that a storm of no ordinary magnitude was brewing. After
tea Mr. Cheyleigh went out on the back piazza to smoke, while we boys
took our seats on the steps, and in subdued tones told tales of the
awful effects of lightning, and its affinity for isolated houses like
Mr. Cheyleigh’s. The cloud had now reached half way up the heavens,
and its dark line was distinctly marked on the blue of the sky. A few
brave little stars were twinkling defiantly in front of it, though the
bright evening star had long since sunk behind its folds. It grew very
dark, so that all objects in the yard were invisible, save when for an
instant illuminated by the greenish flickering glare of the lightning.
We at length caught the dull roar of the distant wind, while the leaves
gave their premonitory rustle, as a poor frightened little zephyr fled
to them for refuge. We heard the tap of Mr. Cheyleigh’s pipe, and saw
the fiery sparks fall from the railing and glow a moment or two amidst
the grass, then a few great drops of rain pattered down on the steps,
and we rose and entered the house. Windows were pulled down, shutters
were fastened, and doors were closed. Another shake among the trees,
and then came the shedding, gushing sound of the rain as it fell in
torrents, while the wind in all its fury burst upon us. The house
cracked, the windows shook, and the corners howled in the terrific
blast, while the window sashes clashed back and forth in their slides,
as if the storm would burst in the very panes. The lightning showed
through the blinds even with the lamps lighted, as if it was broad
day out doors, every other second, while the thunders filled up the
intervals of darkness with repeated peals, each of which seemed vieing
with its predecessor in stunning, deafening sounds.
We all gathered around the lamp stands in silence, and looked into each
other’s faces, with eyes wide open from apprehension. Mrs. Cheyleigh
had two of the smaller children in her lap, their heads buried in her
bosom, and her head resting down on theirs, to keep from seeing the
lightning. Mr. Cheyleigh was trying to read, but at every severe peal
of thunder would take down the paper and press his thumb and forefinger
over his eyes, as if muttering a prayer to himself. The dining room
maids were standing back against the wall, their hands folded under
their white aprons, and their heads leaning together as they whispered
and snickered about their sable beaux. At length Mrs. Cheyleigh spoke,
her voice having a very solemn and liturgical tone:
“Mr. Cheyleigh, isn’t this an awful storm?”
As if in applause of her question, a burst of thunder, louder than any
before, rolled across the sky, and fell off somewhere in the distance
with a terrible thump and a long deep growl.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mr. Cheyleigh, taking his fingers from his eyes to
tear off a corner of his newspaper and put in his mouth; “I have not
known so strong a blow as this for several years.”
“I trust,” said Mrs. Cheyleigh, raising her head from the children,
with the prints of their heads on her cheeks, “that there is nothing
like this to-night at the Springs, where Gertrude and Ella are.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” said Mr. Cheyleigh smiling a little, “this storm
only extends a few miles along our coast. I fear for the vessels,
though, if there should be any in reach of this wind.”
“Oh, ‘twould be frightful, indeed, to be on the water such a night
as this. I hope every ship is safe in some harbor,” answered Mrs.
Cheyleigh, laying her hands on the little heads in her lap, as if they
were two little ships, and her arms were their harbor. Aye, they were!
Live how or where we may, life’s ocean has no surer shelter from its
storms than a mother’s arms; and if early in our voyage this harbor is
closed up by the tomb rocks, we only beat about as best we may till we
anchor in the vail!
Mr. Cheyleigh now rose, and going to the window, shaded his eyes with
the palms of his hand, while he gazed out into the darkness. Turning
into the light again, he said:
“I think the danger of the storm is over now, only the rain is falling.
As amusements are out of the question I think the children had better
go to bed.”
Mrs. Cheyleigh accordingly raised the two little ones from her lap,
they getting up with their hair over their eyes, which they kept half
shut, as if afraid of another blinding flash of lightning. As they left
the room with their attendant, we sat down to the table and made a
hasty supper, and after that took our lamps and retired.
In our rooms we undressed, and laying down commenced to talk over the
subject of lost ships and rescues. The thunder had moved so far off
as to be scarcely audible, though the pale reflected lightning still
flickered through the shutters. The wind was still very strong, and
drove the heavy rain drops with sharp clicks upon the window panes,
as if a million little storm sprites were trying to kick the glass in
with their tiny feet. As we lay there, our imaginations filled with the
horrors of the sea, we performed enough feats in fancy to have made
bankrupt all the humane societies by our demands for medals.
We saved from watery graves enough fair women to set up a larger colony
of Bacchæ than Euripides ever sung, or Tennyson jailed in his Womans’
Rights College. We brought off enough treasure in our lifeboat to give
every ass in the nation a pair of gold ears, which, in the present
condition of affairs, would require more of the precious metal than a
Briarean Midas could ever touch into existence with all his hands.
After saving several fleets larger than the Armada we at length got to
sleep. Once I awoke under the impression that I heard a cannon shot,
and listening I heard three distinct booms, at intervals of a minute or
two; but as the lightning was still glimmering I concluded it was the
thunder, and, getting a little closer to Ned, dropped to sleep again.
When we went down next morning we found that the storm had left strong
marks of its violence everywhere. The yard was washed into gullies
and trenches, and strewed with the limbs and leaves of the trees and
bunches of mistletoe. One side of the garden paling was blown down, and
the rose bushes and shrubbery torn and bent. Down at the stables the
water was standing in great yellow pools, in which were floating the
shingles and pieces of board torn from the roofs around. The horses and
mules were all wet on their backs and manes, where the rain had beat
through after the shingles were loosened. The cattle were all drenched,
and looked as melancholy, as they stood around the fences with their
sleek dripping coats, as if they had been bereaved. The chickens, as
well as the dogs, had their tails drooping down instead of erect, a
sure sign that they were out of spirits, and nothing in sight seemed to
have enjoyed the storm except an old black and white Muscovite drake,
who was washing his muddy feathers in a muddy puddle of water near the
gate, fluttering his wings, bobbing his head, and whispering, in the
greatest glee, to his lady, who was waddling around the edge, followed
by a little brood as yellow as if just hatched from the famous golden
eggs.
The corn, as far as we could see, was lapped and twisted in the rows,
while the rice was lying flat as before a sickle. The sky was still
overcast, and great shaggy masses of cloud were drifting rapidly
southward, as if ashamed of the havoc they had made. Here and there
for an instant shone little patches of blue sky, which kept coming and
going all the morning, increasing each time in size, till at noon the
sun shone brightly out, jeweling the foliage, gilding the landscape,
and even condescending to paint a tiny spectrum on each glistening
blade of grass.
After dinner Ned proposed that we go over to the beach, and see the
effect of the storm there. As it took us some time to get our boat
ready, and the wind was against us, we did not get to the beach till
late in the evening. The clouds had all been bleached by the sun to
fleecy whiteness, and now, taking their gorgeous orange vestures from
the wardrobe of the West, they ranged themselves like Titanic sentries
to guard their monarch’s couch.
Far away toward their domain stretched a verdant panorama of washed and
fresh looking forests, white, nestling cottages and the wimpling sheen
of the Sound. We turned to the grand old ocean, who would not be so
easily appeased. The scowl of his fury still lingered on his face, and
he lashed the shore in sullen though subsiding rage. The parting sun
threw over his angry countenance a shimmering veil of gold, but could
not hide the frown. Yet ‘twas wondrous pleasing to behold the myriads
of sunlit bubbles, sparkling with rainbow helmets, mount their billow
steeds, and, in a long, regular line, come charging to the shore. As
fast as one squadron was dashed upon the immovable sand, that lay like
a great yellow dragon before them, another succeeded; and, like the
victims of Peter the Hermit’s and Bernard’s fanaticism, these millions
of little crusaders were wasted on a fitting type of the desolate East.
After contemplating the scene for some time, we began to search up and
down the beach for signs of wreck or objects tossed ashore. Something
far down the beach caught our eye, and we all hastened toward it,
wondering what it could be. There was a dark object, whose shape we
could not make out, and near it a bright scarlet something. Curiosity
lent wings, and we flew over the distance. Frank Paning was rather
fleeter than Ned or myself, and outran us by many yards. We saw him,
as he reached the objects, raise both hands and turn towards us with a
face full of horror. In a moment we were at his side.
Before us, on the sand, lay two figures still and cold. One was the
form of a little girl, lashed to what appeared to be the door of a
ship’s cabin. She was bound closely to it with ropes, and was lying
with her bloodless cheek pressed down upon the rough panels. Her
garments seemed to be of very fine material and make, though now
drenched with sea water; over her shoulders was clinging a scarlet cape
or mantle, which was the red spot that had attracted our notice. At her
side was strapped a curiously carved steel box, now heavily oxidized by
the salt sea.
The door and its human freight had been cast high up on the shore; but,
tied by one wrist to the knob of the door, lower towards the water,
stretched the figure of a man. He was lying on his face, which was so
much sunk in the yielding sand that we could only observe his hair,
which was long and gray. His form was tall and large, and clad in a
black suit of clothes; around his waist was strapped a broad belt of
leather, to which, if anything was attached, we could not see it, as
the ends must have been beneath him. Ever and anon a wave would break
on the shore, and, as if mocking its victims, come rustling up the
sand, covering the half buried feet, floating the clinging clothes, on
and up, till it lifted and waved like moss the dank gray hair, then
sink, sighing, back to the sea; while he lay there, so heedless of
all, stretching the cord-bound hand, with its blue, water-shrivelled
fingers, appealingly yet protectingly, toward the child on the door.
We gazed long, with all the silence of horror, at the sad spectacle,
and with agitated looks at each other. I at length spoke:
“Boys, what must we do? They ought to know of this at Mr. Cheyleigh’s.”
“Yes, indeed, they ought,” said Ned. “Let’s go over and get the negroes
and the big boat, and carry both bodies home.”
“Do you reckon they are both dead?” whispered Frank.
“They must be,” returned Ned, looking at them both attentively. “The
man is, I am sure; for, if not dead before, the water washing so
constantly over him since he has lain here would have drowned him.”
“Let’s see, any way,” said I; and we all three stooped to lift the
man first. Not without a shudder did we touch the cold, clammy flesh,
as we strove to drag him up from the water’s edge. His weight was too
great for us, clogged as he was with sand and water, and we could only
move him up the bank a foot or two, and turn him over on his back.
We cleaned the sand as well as we could from his mouth, nostrils and
eyes—the faded blue balls of the last being so thickly covered with
the fine, sharp grains that we had to wipe them very hard with our
handkerchiefs—at least Ned and I did; Frank vowed he wasn’t going to
put his handkerchief in a dead man’s eyes, just to get the grits out.
We then left the man and tried the girl with better success. We cut the
cords that held her to the door, and lifted her up; Ned supporting her
head as tenderly as a woman. Never had I dreamed of such beauty! Her
face was as colorless as marble, but showed more perfectly for that
its exquisite outline; her temples were chased with a network of blue
veins that were brought out more distinctly by the cold water she had
been in so long. Her eyes were closed, but the lids atoned by their
rose-leaf texture and long black fringe. Her mouth was partially open,
as if gasping, but made up for this slight disfigurement by disclosing
a set of the clearest, smoothest teeth. But, though each separate
feature was beautiful, there was a look about them when combined
that baffles all description. Perhaps her beauty was enhanced by her
romantic surroundings; but I could not help thinking, as she lay there
so passive and still, that the angel who had borne her soul away had
been trying on the faces of heaven, to see which would suit her best,
and had forgotten to take off his fairest.
As we looked on in silent admiration, Ned placed his hand upon her
forehead, and exclaimed with great animation:
“Look here, John! her flesh does not feel like the other’s—it is cold,
but not so clammy.”
A touch confirmed his remark; for while her hands and forehead were icy
cold, there was not that peculiar deathlike clamminess or inelasticity
about them that tells so infallibly that the soul has departed, and we
drew hope from this circumstance that she might yet live. We ran at
the next wave and caught our hats full of water, which we dashed into
her face, without stopping to reflect that she had perhaps had enough
of water for the present. We loosened her clothing as delicately as
possible, and began chafing her hands and arms. Our anxiety to revive
her made us almost drown her again with our hats of water, and in our
eagerness we rubbed the tender flesh almost raw on her hands and arms.
In the midst of our efforts Ned, who was supporting her, exclaimed:
“Look! look! she drew her breath.”
We gathered excitedly around and watched her closely, but her face was
still marble—no sign of life in its pale outlines! After we had gazed
a long while in the most intense suspense, a quick spasmodic gasp came
through her parted lips, and a quiver played over her eyelids.
What a moment for our heroism! We felt that we were saving from the
monster sea a fairer being than ever Palamon and Arcite tilted for.
Beowulf, conquering the hideous Grendel, felt no more chivalric pride
than did we, as our lovely waif lay with fitful breathings in our arms.
At length her respiration became more regular, and her eyes slowly
unclosed. “Eyes” is a meagre word for the magnificent black orbs
turned so timidly and wonderingly upon us; they probably served the
commonplace purpose of vision, but the pleading eloquence of their
look, and the emotions of fear and amazement which were almost audible
in her gaze, declared their primary object to be expression.
Turning them restlessly from one to another of us, and failing to
recognize any one, she closed them, as if in pain. Ned now ventured to
speak, though we were almost afraid he would scare the soul away again
that had been so hardly persuaded to return.
“Are you suffering now? Don’t be alarmed, we are all friends.”
Again she opened her eyes, looked wildly at him, then suddenly seemed
to come to consciousness. With a frantic look of horror she cried
out: “_Oh, padre! padre! oh donde està mi padre!_” and other frantic
sentences, in a language unknown to us, and strove to rise to her feet.
Ned and I assisted her, and she stood up on the sand. It was most
unfortunate that she did so; for, as she gained her feet, her eyes
fell on the corpse near the water, and, with a soul-piercing shriek,
she sank to the earth, and all our efforts to revive her again were
unavailing. As it had now grown quite dark we intended to hurry across
the sound and tell Mr. Cheyleigh. Our sail boat being very small, it
was thought best to leave one of us with the body, and to take the
little girl in the boat over to the house. As it was not a pleasant
solitude by any means, we drew pebbles to see who should remain, and it
fell to my lot. Accordingly, Ned and Frank took up their fair burden,
and promising me to make all the possible haste they could, went slowly
up the banks to their boat. I saw them lay their charge down gently,
hoist the sail and glide away in the darkness, and I was alone with
the dead. The sun had long since gone down, and the red tinge of the
sky was paling into the dusky gray of twilight. Far up and down the
beach the dreary waste of waters grew drearier in the deepening shades,
and the darkness fell so fast that when I looked up at the sky for a
moment, and then turned to the sea, an hour seemed to have elapsed
when measured by the increase of gloom. The sail of Ned’s boat at last
disappeared behind a point of land, and there was nothing for me to
watch but the dead man’s face and the moaning, tossing waters. It was
now too dark to distinguish his features; there was only the ghastly
white shape of his face, that, as I gazed so long upon it, seemed to
make hideous grimaces at me—now sneering at my timidity, now opening
its faded eyes to glare at me for having sent the little girl away; now
shutting one eye and opening the other, sometimes reversing the face,
putting the eyes in the chin and the mouth in the forehead; sometimes
disappearing entirely, then suddenly coming back as white as ever. I
would have fled up the beach, but I was afraid the corpse would spring
up and run after me. And the whole scene was full of death! The stars
seemed dead men’s eyes, the sob of each wave was a dying groan, the
white foam caps were dying faces, struggling for life, and a white
gull, flying across the sky, was a cloth from the face of a corpse.
Suddenly a light came over the waters, and I looked up to find that the
moon, at its full, was raising its great yellow disc from the waves.
As if in kindly sympathy with me, the light came dancing over the
burnished sea, but ceased its gambols at the shore, and threw its wan
radiance over the dead face.
With the light I grew bolder, and rose and stood by the corpse, to
see if it had moved. But it was lying as we had placed it, without a
quiver in the face; and again I sat down upon the sand. Looking over
the sound I saw Mr. Cheyleigh’s boat coming, and the rapid flash of the
dripping oars told that it was speeding well. Inexpressibly relieved, I
went down to the landing and stood there, as unconcerned as if I had
been pleasantly entertained on the beach. The rigging rattled as the
sails came down, the keel grated on the sand, and Mr. Cheyleigh, Ned
and Frank, and four stout negroes got out and went to the body. They
wrapped it in blankets, laid it in the bottom of the boat, and with a
stiff breeze and strong oars we soon glided under the shadow of Mr.
Cheyleigh’s boat house. Ned, Frank and I sprang out and ran ahead to
see about the little girl.
Mrs. Cheyleigh was up in her chamber with her, and we could see only
two or three excited negroes, who could tell nothing. We soon heard the
negro men coming up the steps with their loaded, faltering tread, and
we followed them into the back parlor, where, under Mr. Cheyleigh’s
direction, they deposited their burden, smoothed the blankets over him,
and marched out, picking up their hats from the corners of the doors,
where they had thrown them as they came into the “gretouse.”
Mr. Cheyleigh then went up stairs to aid Mrs. Cheyleigh while we turned
into the dining room, where they were just bringing in supper.
“I wonder what will be done with her if Mrs. Cheyleigh succeeds in
bringing her to?” said Frank, as we took our seats near the open window.
This was something we had not thought of, and we were somewhat startled
by the query; as we considered her ours by right of discovery, and her
disposal, consequently, a matter of importance to each of us.
“I suppose,” continued Frank, “she’ll have to go to the Orphan Asylum.”
I repudiated the idea with indignation.
“Never!” I said warmly; “if her friends do not come forward and claim
her, I will get father to adopt her, as he has no other children beside
me.”
“Oh! perhaps you will,” said Frank, with something of a sneer in his
tone; “any way I claim an interest in her, and will have her for my
sweetheart.”
“You had better first learn whether she is alive or not,” said Ned,
reprovingly.
The waiting maid, Tildy, here interrupted us:
“Marse Ned, supper’s ready; you reckon your mar’s gwine to come down?”
“She don’t want none, nohow,” said Winny, another maid, coming into the
room. “I jes come outen her room and she was a rubbing the little gal
with brandy and mustard.”
Tildy again put in, half to Winny and half to us:
“I wonder how come dey never stood de man on his head to let de water
run outen his mouth?”
“Sheer! what you know ‘bout it, gal?” rejoined Winny, giving her a push
on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “I tell you what, doe Tildy,
dey ain’t no poor bokra; de little gal had on de finest underclose
I ever see, mo’ lace and stuff all round ’em; and when mistis was
undressing her she taken off her neck er big gold chain with er locket
hung to it. I taken it up and looked at it, and it’s got a whole heap
er sets in it, dat shines wors’n mistis’s breastpin.”
Mr. Cheyleigh here entered the room and said:
“Winny! your mistress wants a cup of hot tea and some toast carried up
to her immediately. Come to the table, boys, Mrs. Cheyleigh will not be
down to-night.”
We sat down to the table, but could not eat for eager questions. Mr.
C. informed us that, after much rubbing and many stimulants, the
little girl had become conscious, and had been able to speak. She had
addressed Mrs. C. at first in Spanish, but, on hearing her give some
order to the servants, inquired if Mrs. C. spoke English, and learning
that she did, used our language quite fluently. Mrs. C. had gotten
her to bed and was trying to keep her from talking. She had, by a few
questions, learned that the little girl was a Cuban; that her name was
Carlotta Lola Rurlestone, and that she was lost from a ship the night
before. She was constantly asking for her father, and Mrs. Cheyleigh
had thought it best not to tell her of his death, but had evaded her
queries as best she could. She was under the influence of an opiate
now, and Mrs. C. wanted the house kept quiet.
After supper we had food enough for conversation till a late hour, when
we retired only to dream of shipwrecks, and corpses, and half drowned
girls.
At the breakfast table the following morning we were glad to meet Mrs.
Cheyleigh, who was able to give us still more news about our little
protégé. She told us she seemed much better, though feeble; that
she recollected the scene now, and was weeping violently about her
father’s death; that her mother had been dead several years; that her
father was a native of New Orleans, and that he and she had started to
this country to spend the summer, as was their custom; that they had
stormy weather for several days, and been driven somewhat from their
course, and when the violent storm came on it was said that the ship
was sinking; that her father had lashed her to a cabin door he had
wrenched off, and, that he might not get separated from her, tied his
wrist to its knob. He threw her into the water and tried to follow, but
was jerked over by the weight of the door, and fell, striking his head
violently against it. He seemed to be stunned, as he made no motion
afterwards, but drifted about with the door, his face down in the water
and his whole body sometimes out of sight. That the ship was soon blown
off and out of sight, and that her agony was so great, as she saw her
father drowning, and could not move to help him, that she had become
insensible, and had known nothing more till she was in Mrs. Cheyleigh’s
room, though she remembered faintly seeing strange faces around her as
in a dream.
“She is in constant distress about her father,” continued Mrs. C., “but
I hope that, with proper care and attention, she will recover. Mr.
Cheyleigh has sent to town for Dr. Mayland, and also for the Coroner,
who will hold his inquest as soon as possible.”
Very soon after breakfast the Coroner arrived, and his jurymen began to
drop in one by one.
We went out to the back piazza, where they were assembling, and walked
among the crowd, listening to a confused jargon of questions in regard
to the crops, wonderful tales of the ravages of the late storm, and
surmises as to the drowned stranger, and the probable verdict that
would be rendered.
The Coroner was a middle aged man, of great self-importance, who
evidently thought an inquest a work of as great moment as a national
negotiation. He took but little interest in the conversation of the
others present, though he occasionally addressed some words to Mr.
Cheyleigh, who was sitting near him. After considerable delay, and the
assemblage of a large crowd of people, he pulled out his great fat
silver watch, and said slowly:
“Well, I reckon we had as well begin. The morning is getting on
smartly. Where is the body, Mr. Cheyleigh?”
Mr. Cheyleigh led the way, the Coroner and his jury following in single
file till they reached the parlor. They crowded round the table to get
a view of the corpse, all leaning forward, and holding their hats and
hands behind them, as if they were tied there. The tall men looked on,
while those small in stature moved round and round, vainly endeavoring
to find a gap in the crowd to peep through.
The usual form of selecting and empanelling the jury was gone through
with, and the Coroner commenced to examine the witnesses. Mr. Cheyleigh
was first sworn.
“Mr. Cheyleigh,” said the Coroner, walking his chair backward on the
two hind legs a step or two, to gaze better at Mr. Cheyleigh through a
pair of very broad rimmed silver specs, “will you please to state all
you know about the finding of this body.”
Mr. Cheyleigh came forward very gravely, and proceeded to relate his
knowledge of the affair with a declamatory style, and with such long
words that I did not know whether he meant to confuse the Coroner by
using language above his two-syllable comprehension, or was acting
under the common impulse of human nature to display proficiency in any
department which has not been attained by those listening.
“The first information,” he began, with a salutatory wave of his hand,
“which I received of the discovery of the bodies was imparted to me by
my son and his friend. Immediately on receipt of this intelligence I
took the large boat, and with some of my negroes we rapidly made the
transit of the Sound. Their report of the melancholy catastrophe was
unhappily confirmed, for in close proximity to the water’s edge lay
this body. Edward and Frank brought the little girl over with them when
they came for me, and Mrs. Cheyleigh has succeeded in resuscitating
her. The man had apparently been inanimate for a period of some length,
as his flesh had undergone considerable contraction from contact with
the water—at least was contracted around the bones and features; the
body proper was very much distended. He had been tied by one hand to
the door of a ship’s cabin, though the boys had cut the cord. I placed
the body in the boat, and brought it where you now see it.”
The Coroner moved his head up and down, slowly at first, then faster
and in shorter spaces, till it came to rest, like a spring pendulum, as
who should say:
“Just as I expected; all just as I expected;” and then, with a look of
legal sagacity that would have adorned an Ellenborough, asked:
“Did you bring the door over with you?”
“I deemed that altogether unnecessary, but I took from the man’s waist
a pouch containing some money and one or two checks for large amounts
on New York houses. I also found a very fine watch and chain; the
upper lid of the watch bears a bouquet of diamonds and the initials H.
V. R. Here is the watch and pouch.”
He passed them to the Coroner, who examined every part as minutely as
if he were identifying stolen property, and having satisfied himself
that the articles did not belong to him, passed them on to the others,
who each examined them in the same critical way.
“What, then, Mr. Cheyleigh,” resumed the Coroner, after they had all
finished their tedious examination of the articles, and returned them
to Mr. C., “do you think was the cause of his death?”
“Strangulation, sir, from the influx of water into the larynx, and the
consequent exclusion of air.”
“Exactly—exactly, Mr. Cheyleigh; that will do, sir. Did you say your
son found the bodies?”
“He and two of his friends.”
“We can examine him, then?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Ned was a little confused as he came forward, and kept passing his
hand nervously over his tumbled hair. The Coroner assumed a mild,
patronizing air, and said:
“Well, my son, what can you tell us of this affair?” Ned swallowed once
or twice, and began:
“After the storm, John Smith, Frank Paning and myself thought we would
go over to the banks and take a view of the ocean. When we got over the
sky was fair, but the——”
“Never mind about the sky, my son,” interrupts the Coroner, “just tell
what you know about the dead man.”
“Well,” resumed Ned, with a long breath, and another swallow, “John
Smith saw them first, and we all ran to them and tried to move the man,
but found him rather heavy, we then cut the cords, and lifted up the
little girl——”
“Stop! stop! don’t tell about the girl, let us hear about the man.”
“I don’t know anything particular about him, except that he was dead.”
“How was he lying when you found him?”
“His feet were in the water and his face was in the sand. One arm was
doubled under him so, and the other—the one tied to the door knob—was
stretched out so.”
Ned here attempted to assume a descriptive attitude.
“Did the knot appear to have been tied by himself or somebody else?”
“It was a slip knot, and could have been fastened by himself.”
“Did he lie as if the water had washed him up, or somebody had placed
him there?”
“I think he was thrown up by the waves, sir.”
“You didn’t see any tracks or boat marks about?”
“No, sir.”
“That will do. I don’t think it is worth while to examine anymore
witnesses. Gentlemen, you can make up your verdict.”
We accordingly left the room, while twelve good citizens endeavored
most earnestly to ascertain what they already knew—the manner of the
dead man’s death.
When we got out we found Horace waiting for Frank and myself with the
carriage and horses.
We packed up our valises, made Ned promise to come to see us, left a
kiss for our little foundling, and were soon rolling towards home.
Father and mother were as much interested in my news as I could have
desired, and as I dwelt upon the beauty of the little girl and her
lonely condition, I saw by the tear in mother’s eye, and the serious
shade on father’s face, that I had made an impression. After recounting
all in as vivid terms as I could command, I begged father to adopt
her, offering as arguments many facts which he perhaps knew as well as
I: that he was able to do it; that she would not be a great expense;
that she would be company for mother when I was away; that I wanted a
sister just like her, and would love and care for her tenderly, and
wound up by declaring I would rather starve than have her sent to the
Orphan Asylum.
“Well, well, don’t be so impatient, my son,” said father, relapsing
into a smile, “even if I were inclined to adopt your suggestion there
are many preliminaries to be arranged. I must see Cheyleigh, as she is
now under his charge, and I must write to her friends in Cuba, where
you say she came from. Then, perhaps, she may not be willing to come
and live with us. You will have to restrain your eagerness till your
mother and I consult about what is best to be done.”
I was obliged to rest content with this. I went down town in the
afternoon and recited to every acquaintance I met our wonderful
adventure. The sun was nearly down when I was interrupted in the midst
of my narrative by a servant, who came to tell me that there was a lady
at home who wished to see me. I wound up my story and hurried home,
wondering who it could be. To my utter surprise and pleasure I found
Lulie Mayland in the sitting room, looking prettier and brighter than
ever. She smiled delightfully when I pressed her hand and said, with a
little blush:
“It’s strange, isn’t it, for a lady to call on a gentleman? but you
must excuse me now. Pa has just returned from the Sound and has been
telling me about the little girl you found. My curiosity was so excited
I determined to come to see you and learn all about it, as you would
not call and tell me. Promise me you won’t think strange of it.”
“Oh, Lulie, the bare idea of such formality between old friends!” I
said, taking a seat near her.
“Well, we will not deem it a breach of form for the sake of old times.”
“What a pity it is,” said I, half musing, “that people grow older and
colder in their natures. We were so happy as children. Do you remember
the day in the nursery, long ago?”
“Yes, I believe I do; but tell me about your Sound adventure now, I am
all impatience to hear that.”
I detailed minutely every circumstance connected with the affair, and
dwelt particularly upon the little girl’s superb beauty, hoping thereby
to raise a spark of envy in Lulie’s heart, for I was piqued at her only
believing to remember about the nursery scene. As I pictured to her
the wavy black hair, the gazelle like eyes and chiselled features of
Carlotta, I thought I detected a glance towards the opposite mirrors,
where her own tumbled curls and merry blue eyes were reflected. When I
had concluded she sat for some time in thought, then softly said:
“No father—no mother—no home!”
I knew then that envy found no room in a heart so full of pity and love.
“What is to be done with her?” she said, at length.
“I don’t know; I am trying to get father to adopt her, and I think he
is half inclined to do so.”
“Oh, that would be splendid,” she said, brightening at the thought; “I
could see her so often, and we would be such dear friends. Do beg Col.
Smith to bring her here.”
“You may rest assured I will do my utmost, if it is only to get you
over here sometimes, as you now have to make formal explanations for a
single visit.”
“Indeed, I expect you have other motives for your petition. Somebody’s
heart, perhaps, aids somebody’s lips in begging.”
“Never!” I said, with great emphasis; “she is truly lovely, but there
is only one heart in the world I care to——”
“I am very much obliged to you, Johnnie, for your narration,” she
said, rising to go, “it has interested me very much.”
“The obligation is mine,” I said, with a profound bow, “for your kind
attention. ‘Twas really a pleasure to talk with such a listener.”
I escorted her home, and sat with her some time on the stoop, and felt
more than ever that I was completely her slave. She seemed to have
thrown around me an inflexible chain, one which I could not bend to get
nearer her heart, and one which I could not break to get away. Every
word of her conversation was so chosen that, while it kept alive my
hopes, it did not satisfy them, and yet she skilfully permitted no word
of love making to pass between us; all was carried on by innuendo; and,
when I bade her good evening, I felt convinced that she did not love
me, but dreaded to wound me by the disclosure.
CHAPTER IX.
“John, I saw Cheyleigh in town to-day, and we have arranged all the
matters about bringing up your sister, as I suppose you will call her,
to live with us. Your mother and yourself must go down for her in the
carriage the day after to-morrow.” Thus spoke father, as he pushed his
chair back from the tea table, about a week after my return from the
Sound.
I deemed it dignified only to say, “Yes, sir.”
“My dear,” he continued, addressing mother, and taking a cigar from
his case, “you have some clothing getting ready for her, have you not?
As she didn’t bring her baggage on the door I presume her wardrobe is
scanty, so much so that she can exclaim, with the fallen Cardinal:
‘My robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all
I dare now call mine own.’”
“Oh, Col. Smith,” said mother, reproachfully, “do not jest at her
misfortunes.”
“Not jesting, my dear, not jesting; but, since poor Wolsey’s time, I
suppose she is the only one who could boast any integrity, when limited
to a single robe. However, we have not proved her yet—Wolsey may still
be alone.”
“That is worse than jesting,” returned mother, with a smile the good
Samaritan might have worn, “you are blotting her with suspicion before
you have ever seen her.”
“We will assume, then, for your good hearted sake,” said father,
blowing out the words on each side of the cigar he was lighting, “that
she is an angel, and let her prove her wings.”
“I am sure that she will,” said mother, as she rang her table bell for
the servants to clear off the tea things.
The next day was one of preparation, and the room intended for Carlotta
was fixed up like a fairy bower. The morning after, mother and I were
whirling rapidly toward the Sound in our open carriage, the top thrown
back to catch the fresh breeze. What a pleasure was such a drive on
such a morning, with such horses, through such scenery, on such an
errand!
Neither of us spoke, but leaned upon the side cushions of the carriage,
listening to the rapid trample of the horses’ feet and the singing
of the wheels over the level roads as we flashed along; now through
slim, quiet woods, where the sunshine drove away the shade from half
the ground; now through thick luxuriant trees, grouping themselves
with dense foliage-curtains around dark unrippled pools, where Artemis
could have bathed with perfect modesty, and from which, now, a lonely
heron, startled by our wheels, slowly rose with his blue noiseless
wings; now through a swampy hollow, where the laurel poured from its
white cups exquisite perfume, and now through the solemn forests,
where the patriarch oaks waved their gray moss-hair, and the towering
pines stretched their broad arms benignly over all, as if to invoke a
blessing from the blue heavens above.
At last Mervue, as Mr. Cheyleigh’s place was called, with its long
avenue of oaks, came in view, and in a few moments our horses, lathered
with foam, were prancing with unspent fire at the door. Mrs. Cheyleigh,
Ned and two of the children, with Carlotta, met us at the steps. Mrs.
Cheyleigh had told her of our coming, and her great speaking eyes were
turned inquiringly upon us. Mother did not wait for introduction or
salutation, but rushed forward and clasped her in her arms. Carlotta
seemed in an instant to sound the depths of mother’s tender love, and
her first touch was an electric flow of sympathy. Throwing her arms
around mother’s neck she burst into convulsive sobbing. It touched
every one present. Mrs. Cheyleigh wept; Ned turned into the house with
his handkerchief to his face, while I, trying to hide my emotion, was
ruthlessly plucking and snapping the tendrils of a jasmine that was
clambering over the sides of the porch—little Sue Cheyleigh, in the
artless curiosity of childhood, walking around to look at my eyes,
in order to discover whether I was crying or not. The first paroxysm
of grief over, mother gently released Carlotta, and Mrs. Cheyleigh,
with that half hoarse tone which always succeeds tears, invited us
in. Carlotta grasped mother tightly by the hand and we followed Mrs.
Cheyleigh into the house. Having now an opportunity to observe her
closely, I found that Carlotta was not such a little girl as I had
supposed—being, in fact, nearly as old and as large as Lulie. Mother,
Mrs. C. and the children taking seats in the large, cool sitting room,
Ned and myself went out to the stables to see about the horses. When I
returned to the sitting room I found mother and Carlotta alone—Mrs.
Cheyleigh having excused herself for a short time to attend to domestic
affairs. Mother was sitting near an open window, gently stroking
Carlotta’s head, which lay confidingly in her lap. They were talking,
and, not wishing to interrupt, I took my seat quietly near them.
“And you are willing to come with us and be our child?” mother said,
bending over her.
“If you all are willing to take me,” said Carlotta, “I will try to
deserve your love.”
“We love you already, my darling child, and will love you more and more
each day.”
“I believe you, and trust you, ma’am; but oh! my father, my dear, dead
father! how I wish that I were with you in the ground!” and the poor
child broke down into sobbing.
“Hush, dear,” said mother, gently; “do not speak so; God has seen fit
to spare you——”
“I know He has, but I wish He had not; ‘twould be far sweeter than life
to lie by father’s side, though it is cold. But oh!” she continued,
raising up her head to look in mother’s face, and taking her hand, “I
am so ungrateful to you; you are so good to offer me a home, and yet I
shrink from going where I have no right to go, except the right of your
kindness.”
“That shall be the surest right of all,” said mother, kissing her
forehead; “but you must not feel dependent. We do not take you because
we pity you, but because we want just such a daughter to live with and
love us.”
“Then, will you promise me, ma’am, if you ever tire of me, that you
will send me away? You can do it without unkindness, because papa had a
great deal of money, and you can pay some one to take care of me. Will
you promise me?”
“Yes, dear, I will promise you to send you away whenever we get tired
of you. But, in the meantime, I do not want you to feel humble in our
home, as if you were a charity child. Col. Smith has examined your
father’s papers, and finds that you are possessed of considerable
wealth. He has written to your father’s agent, who was named in the
papers, and to the American Consul at Havana. He will probably go to
Cuba himself next month, to see about the appointment of a guardian and
the settlement of your estate. Have you no relatives at all there?”
“I have a cousin, who lives on the other side of the island, but I have
not seen him since I was a very little child. Mother was an orphan,
like myself, and came from Spain to Cuba with an old uncle, who died
after she was married to papa. We had many acquaintances, but no
relatives anywhere in the island except the cousin I have spoken of. I
have heard papa speak of having relatives in New Orleans, but I do not
know their names.”
“Well, you are composed now; try to remain so. Do not give up to those
sad feelings when you feel them coming on.”
“I do struggle hard, Mrs. Smith, to keep from crying; but whenever
I commence thinking about the evening of the storm—and I cannot
help thinking about it—I remember how happy papa and I were sitting
together in our state room, and, though the wind had been high for a
day or two, we felt so secure, for the steamer was thought to be the
strongest one on the line. I remember so well his holding me by the
hand, and saying:
“‘I think the wind is lulling, Lottie, bird; we will be safe
to-morrow.’ And then came that terrible cry that the ship was sinking;
and we ran together out on the deck, only to find the crew in a panic,
and the storm wilder than ever. Papa dragged me back to the cabin, tore
off the door, tied me to it, and—— Oh! I cannot, cannot think of it
without crying. Do not blame me, I cannot help it.” And her eyes filled
again, and her lip quivered with suppressed feeling.
“Dear child, you know I do not blame you; only try by every means
to keep your mind from reverting to the painful scene. I will not
offer consolation now, for I well know how deceitful it sounds to
the bereaved to hear those who are not, quoting scripture passages
to recommend resignation and submission. The beautiful sacred words
are meant as a sympathy, not as a teaching. When your lips are lifted
farther from this cup of gall we will go together to the Fount of Life
and drink its sweet waters.”
Mrs. Cheyleigh now returned to the room, and the conversation, ceasing
between mother and Carlotta, became general. So many and varied were
the topics to be discussed that the morning passed rapidly away; dinner
came on, and the afternoon siesta, in hammocks swung in the verandas,
where the sea breeze came cool and refreshing, was enjoyed, when the
sinking sun reminded us that it was time to order the carriage.
When Carlotta came to tell Mrs. C. good-bye, and thank her for her
kindness, she had nearly lost control of herself again, but, with an
effort, she kept her tears back and entered the carriage. The shadows
which had been hiding from the sun all day around the roots of the
trees were now stretching out at great length, and spreading into all
kinds of fantastic shapes, though they still kept the trees between
them and the glaring eye they dreaded so much. The scenery through
which we passed was all drowsiness, instead of the vivacity of the
morning. The sun had gone down and the twilight was fading when we
stopped at our door. Father and Lulie Mayland were standing on the
stoop, waiting for us. Father took Carlotta in his arms out of the
carriage and pressed her to him tenderly, while I was helping mother
out. Lulie was then presented to her, and, after a kiss and embrace,
they went up the steps hand-in-hand, as fast friends as if they had
known and loved each other from their birth. We went into the dining
room, where early summer tea was already laid. Carlotta did not wish
anything, and mother withdrew in a short time with her. After the
silence that succeeded, for a few seconds, their retirement, father
said (and I knew by the twinkle in his eye he was enjoying the thorns
on which I sat):
“Lulie,” sighting at her with one eye through his iced tea, “I am
afraid you will have a powerful rival in Carlotta. You must secure all
your beaux with double chains or she will steal them away. I think
one is proving recreant already, if I may judge from the glances of
admiration he lavished upon her just now at the table.”
My face was crimson, and the consciousness that it was so made the hue
only deeper. To be teased about the girl I loved, before her face, by
father, too, was the very climax of embarrassment to me. I glanced at
Lulie, and found her not in the least disconcerted.
“Oh, John is so fickle,” she replied, laughing, “that I can never count
on him for more than a day or two. If he deserts me, however, I shall
not be desolate, as I have several others under my thumb, you know.”
Embarrassment is very much increased by being contrasted with coolness
and ease, and mine received a tenfold impulse from Lulie’s light way of
treating the matter.
“Really,” continued father, “you are quite a belle; but I am surprised
that John should have withdrawn so easily from the contest. I thought
you had more perseverance, my son. Surely, you did not encourage him,
Lulie?”
“Yes, indeed I did, but he was not to be caught, and I have given him
up as a hopeless case.”
I vainly endeavored to swallow my confusion with large gulps of tea;
the tea somehow slipped by and left the confusion sticking in my
throat, but I managed to jerk out the words:
“If you ever gave any encouragement I did not know it.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed father. “Very good, my son, very good. But
suppose she were to offer encouragement now, would you come back? Try
him once more, Lulie. I would enjoy the courtship very much.”
“I am willing,” she said, demurely; but I thought I detected a smile
towards father, as if they were in conspiracy.
“Now, John,” continued father, “she says she is ready, and will return
a favorable answer. How will you commence? Don’t blurt out ‘I love
you!’ as that would be unexpected and sudden; come to it gradually, and
the slower you are in getting to the point the surer will your answer
be ‘Yes.’”
I could stand it no longer, but rose from the table and walked from the
room, not, however, before hearing Lulie say:
“I don’t quite agree with you, Col. Smith. I can’t bear a slow courting
fellow. If he loves much it won’t take him long to tell it. There! you
have run John off. I like him ever so much, only he is very timid.”
I went out and sat on the stoop in no pleasant frame of mind. I was
provoked with father for teasing me; I was provoked with myself for
being teased, and I was provoked with Lulie for not being teased.
“She cannot love me or she would not treat the matter so lightly,” I
soliloquized, grinding white circles on the brown stone with my boot
heel. “She thinks me timid, too; I’ll prove my boldness the first
opportunity I get.”
Father and Lulie now came out and sat down, but no further allusion was
made to the dining room topic. We spoke of our intended trip to the
plantation near Goldsboro’, and Lulie agreed, if her pa was willing,
to go up and spend the remainder of the summer with us, as it would be
very pleasant for her to be with Carlotta. After talking for some time
of the pleasures of the country, Lulie rose to go, and I, of course,
accompanied her.
So far from proving my boldness I walked by her side in awkward silence
till she spoke.
“Why did you let your father tease you so to-night, Johnnie?”
“He didn’t tease me,” I returned, with Munchausen mendacity. “I didn’t
care a straw for what he said, only I did not choose to be spoken of so
before a lady.”
“I’ll wager Frank Paning would not have been disconcerted,” she said.
“He has more self-possession than any one I ever saw.”
“I don’t care what in the thunder Frank Paning has; I don’t want to be
like him,” I said, savagely.
“I did not intend to offend you, sir; I am obliged to you for your
escort thus far, but, since you are so incensed, will need your
services no farther,” she said, very quietly, taking her hand from my
arm.
“I beg a thousand pardons, Lulie; I was rude and hasty, but so many
constant allusions to Paning irritate me beyond measure. He must be
very dear to you from the repeated mention of his name.”
“Oh, no, that does not follow at all. I think very well of him, as he
is attentive and kind; but here we are at our gate; won’t you come in?”
“Thanks! not to-night. Let me ask pardon again, Lulie, for my very
harsh words on the way.”
“Do not mention it; ‘tis forgotten with me. Good night!”
My feelings, as I walked homeward, were very much mingled. There was
always pleasure and pain in being with Lulie. Young as she was she
already possessed consummate skill in swaying the feelings—now by some
bewitching word or look raising your hopes, then dashing them to earth
by some sarcasm, or worse, an allusion to some other favorite. She had
reduced her game to a science, and always pitted special rivals against
each other. Frank was sure to be my thorn. A single remark, evincing a
preference for him, was enough to disturb my equanimity for an evening.
So, in my thoughts this evening there was pain, yet a sweet pleasure,
too, in the reflection that, in our retired country seat up in Wayne, I
would have her all to myself; that I could see her every day, and talk
as long and freely as I chose, with all the adjuncts and concomitants
of love—woods, birds, brooks, bowers, meadows and moonshine.
Just as I reached our gate I met Frank Paning himself, hurrying up
street to his home.
“Hello, John!” he said, lightly, as we stopped, “where have you been?
Over to the Doc’s, I suppose. I am getting jealous. Lulie must be
looked to.”
“There is no danger,” I replied; “you are certainly the idol there.”
“Oh, you tell me that to blind me, but I know a thing or two. By the
way, how is our little foundling. I heard to-day that your folks had
brought her here to raise up as a wife for you. I suppose you wish to
train her up to suit you, so she will not have to learn your ways after
marriage.”
“You heard a most infamous falsehood, then, and you can tell your
informant I said so,” I replied, the blood rushing to my face.
“Well, don’t get mad about it; I was only joking. I want to call on
her; when will she receive company?”
“Not in a year or two,” I said, emphatically. “She is going up the
country next week, and will not return till the fall, when she will
commence school, and be closely occupied with her studies.”
“I see it is plain you fear rivals. I will not trouble you.”
Before I could reply he was gone.
CHAPTER XII.
THE morning is misty and damp, as father, mother, Carlotta, Lulie and
I stand under the great shed at the dépôt, waiting for the car doors
to be unlocked. It is very early, and nobody seems stirring except
those immediately connected with the train about to start. There are a
dozen or more people standing in groups, waiting on the same event as
ourselves. They all yawn a great deal, rub their eyes, wish they were
back in bed, and wonder how long before the brakesman comes to open the
car doors. The train itself lies on the track like a great headless
serpent (for the engine has not yet been put on), whose red and yellow
sides are full of latticed eyes. At last the brakesman, in a blue coat,
striped shirt and glazed cap, comes along, whistling the last popular
ballad, unlocks the door with a rattle, and shouts “Walk in, ladies and
gentlemen.”
We crowd in and select our seats on the side from the sun, if it should
come out. Father turns over the seat in front, that it may face the
other one, lays his shawl in the corner, hangs up the basket containing
our lunch, sits down, pulls off his glove with his teeth, thrusts his
hand under his duster, draws out and looks at his watch, shuts it with
a snap, and says indistinctly, through the fingers of his glove:
“It will be fifteen minutes before we start.”
People continue to arrive and crowd in, singly and in parties. The
individuals consist of a very fat old gentleman, with a broad hat
soiled around the band, a duster too short by six inches for his long
black coat, and a large red bandanna handkerchief, worn altogether in
his hand; a fancy dressed young gentleman, who looks in the door a
moment and concludes to finish his cigar upon the platform, with one
foot lifted to the railing, where he can tap the heel of his boot with
a leg-headed cane; a rather rough man with a very large moustache, who
passes through the coach very often and slams the door very hard, gets
between two seats to lean half way out of the window to tell some one,
who is named Bill, “Hello!” and to ask “when will you be up?” lets down
the window with a bang, and lolls across the seat with one foot hanging
in the aisle; a middle aged maiden lady, dressed, of course, in black
bombazine, with a green veil, a large basket with a scolloped top, a
canary of yellow and black dignity in a white and green cage, furnished
with seed, sand, and inconvenient water cups; an old lady under the
care of the conductor, walking very slow, with a horn handled stick,
a large flowered bandbox and a white cloth bag; she wears a dark fly
bonnet, which she takes off when she sits down and displays a white
cap, ruffled around her face, which is very much wrinkled, and has
white, thin hairs about the chin; she shows a disposition to breathe
hard, and to look around vacantly from the side seat at the end of the
cars, where the conductor has placed her, and to talk to no one in
particular with a voice like a cat-bird’s with a bad cold.
The parties who enter are generally composed of tall, resigned looking
gentlemen, burdened with innumerable boxes and bundles, patient and
pale wives, in gray travelling dresses and lead colored veils, which
they hold in one corner of their mouths, to show only one fourth of
the face: sleepy looking, large boys, with badly fitting clothes, who
stumble along the aisle behind their parents, as if they were still
dreaming; smaller boys and girls following, holding each other by the
hand, each in the fallacious belief that they are taking care of the
other; and mulatto nurses, carrying in their arms very white headed
babies, naturally lachrymose and nasally aqueous.
Having seen all these and many more come in, I raise the window.
Everything is dripping with fog, and the moisture is trickling in
little crooked streams down the sides of the coaches. The express
wagon comes rattling down, and I can hear them unloading, with an
occasional ejaculation bordering on the profane. Then I hear the bell
of the engine as it comes out of the yard, and stews and hisses,
backing down the track, nearer and nearer till it touches—then, with
a loud clack-up of the coaches, everybody is jerked forward, the train
glides back a foot or two, and it is coupled on. All is comparatively
still now, and there is nothing to remind us of the immense power to
which we are attached, except the odor of the smoke, which is rolling
in black masses along the roof of the shed, and the faint singing of
the steam.
I take my head in and find everybody either dozing or staring stupidly
out of the window. Father is reclining in his seat, mother is resting
her cheek upon her hand, with closed eyes, and Carlotta and Lulie,
finding it too damp to raise the window, have looked through the glass
till their breath has dimmed it, and wiping it with their hands, have
left the print of their fingers in circles on the pane.
William now brings father the checks for the baggage, the whistle
sounds, the bell rings, a few loud coughs from the great monster that
draws us, and we glide from under the roof, creep under the bridge, jog
along the suburbs, rattle into full speed, and roar out of sight of the
town; the last sign of which is a little negro, standing in the door of
a hut on the embankment above, waving his rag of a hat, as if to wish
us good speed. Trees fly by, fences like long serpents wriggle past,
and the whole country becomes a passing panorama!
The sun rises, and, dispelling the fog, shines out bright and sultry.
People, aroused by the stir, begin to talk. Children become thirsty.
The lady opposite, with two little girls and a baby, tells the nurse to
hand her the basket, and opening it to get out the silver mug, sends
the nurse after water. The nurse totters down the coach, rocks backward
and forward while drawing the water, and totters back, steadying
herself by the arms of the seats, and spilling a little water at every
step. The little camels gulp it down as if the cars were Sahara!
The conductor staggers in and calls for tickets. Old gentlemen untie
many-stringed pocket-books, old ladies open their reticules, and young
gentlemen point to their hat bands. He passes out, and the whistle
sounds. The brakes-man rushes to the wheel and gives a turn, then
holds his cap on with one hand, and swings off by the railing to
look ahead. Another whistle, another turn, and we grind into a small
station, where we stop for a minute or two; then on and on we fly,
faster for the short delay. The morning wears away, and we get out our
luncheon. Broiled chicken and cold tongue! how they are associated with
travelling! Their very odor is suggestive of the rattle of the train!
We had scarce finished eating when the whistle sounded for Goldsboro’.
We got off and found Aleck, one of the farm hands, waiting for us with
the spring wagon, as Horace, he said, had not yet got up with the
carriage. We all clambered up, and were soon rolling over a level,
though dusty, road to our country place.
As the rattling wagon was not a very pleasant place for conversation, I
had leisure to observe Carlotta, and to mark the effects of diversion
on her beautiful face. Many traces of sadness were gone, and there
was even brightness in her eyes. Such eyes I have never seen. There
was a _velvet_ expression about them, for to the soft rich effect of
that fabric alone can I compare those orbs and their setting; and I
thought, as I gazed at them, that the soul must be a rare one indeed
that possessed such windows. She seemed trying to shake off reflections
on her own misfortunes, and for others’ sake, if not her own, to be
cheerful. She sat next to mother, to whom she was already fondly
attached, and whose tender heart fully reciprocated her love. Lulie was
all gaiety, and father was undignified enough to be droll; some of his
remarks even drawing a smile from Carlotta, though only such a smile a
soul in serge can wear; a smile that seems begun in forgetfulness, and
finished with repentance for its levity.
The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of
trees that led to the house.
The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all
the premises were on the old style.
The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story
one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas
running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and
were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front
porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff
benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one
corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese
were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious
kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged
the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the
yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and
little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a
small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As
we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel,
commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house
half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were
followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate,
shouting in great glee:
“Yon’s marster and mistis.”
Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill
chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the
steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where
she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then
conducted them to their chambers. She soon returned to father and
myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.
“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs.
Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready
whenever you wish to go up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to
mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place
I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up
the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a
key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move
over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I
couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things
in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a
fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from
the great’us to home.”
I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her
impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting
room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze
generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as
if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle
of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that
it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in
and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The
floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with
my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its
yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover,
that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad
fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery
fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images,
sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose
knocked off, and very erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs,
one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him
faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians
were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision.
There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze
looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with
a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for
the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner—the long
pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom,
as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not.
And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he
could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat,
with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which
sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching
at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs.
Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short
residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill,
under those great shady poplars.
Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat
out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing
her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to
let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room.
I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique,
and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet
I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and
we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In
the old parlor, in the library—with long high shelves of books—up in
the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was
anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s
bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brightening beauty. From the
house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our
hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green
mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats
together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first
little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud
was—and I blushed for shame at the thought—Carlotta’s presence. I
knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all
to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that
I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must
be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as
Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring
Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful
that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was
too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar
to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing
we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up
indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have
them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.
While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on
my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and
indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment,
when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the
door, who said:
“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her
house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat
with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh
when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”
We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to
Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large dark man, with a kind, pleasant
face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much
at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us
cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:
“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen
you sence you was a mighty little chap.”
As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt
that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very
tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently
not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but
that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was
prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful
operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from
the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under
lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he
showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow
from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for
a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate
people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two
or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within
came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of
his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened
almost to groans—one beginning as the other left off; if he was only
laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The
best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud—first
the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from
within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet
lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.
Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in
her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of
the table, and make the tea and coffee. Mrs. B—— accordingly took
her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her
more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with
thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small
blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper,
giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with
scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened
with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been
fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that
she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of
that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you
were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that
everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one
always enjoys after a journey.
Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby
unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon
observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.
“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B—— to father, after grace had been said,
“will you take some tea or coffee?”
“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that,
and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”
“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”
“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”
“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”
“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”
“Well, Miss Carlotta?”
“A cup of tea, if you please.”
“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, I believe, madam.”
“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, putting the sugar in
Mr. B—— ‘s cup.
Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide
what was _au fait_ under the circumstances, so that when his turn came
he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in
response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of
both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”
Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his
answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since
she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben
replied by a grin, without a sound.
“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you
must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”
There was silence for some time, and then father said:
“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”
“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”
“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing
the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”
“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”
Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all
earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.
Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail,
but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”
“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.
I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.
Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the
crumbs:
“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this
mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”
“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”
“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the
tree when I shot.”
Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they
repeated them.
Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.
“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”
Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B—— talked about
the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in
silence.
After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to
take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to
the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the
library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch
but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the
way.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE sky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced
to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father
called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the
back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of
age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked
pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by
little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot
scratching the top of the other.
“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun in hand, “this is
Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He
knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go
to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”
“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”
Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as
an acknowledgment of his favor.
“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I
can kill some squirrels?”
“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big
spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”
“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”
He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little
blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben
ef dey wan’t dere!”
After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy
grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my
clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods
they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars,
young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the
breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the
game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was
soon out of sight.
We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very
long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the
ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed
as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon
found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves
concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards
the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben,
however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards,
and looking with hand-shaded eyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum
year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed
intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the
exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small
gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all
was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the
trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the
end of the limb.
“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much
excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the
squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending
under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and
Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim
more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and
recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on
by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot,
his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the
ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it,
while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel,
though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.
I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report
of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod,
and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben
Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without
any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of
squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his
shoulder.
“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and
throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with
his forefinger.
“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.
Ben chuckled a little, and said:
“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere
little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”
I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which
was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter
before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.
“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this
old gun.”
“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.
“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a
cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way
I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut,
and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to
fall from.”
I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had
killed any that morning without seeing them.
“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the
other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”
“How did you get at him?”
“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet,
an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”
“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.
“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.
“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”
“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”
I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz
me, thinking I was city-green, and a look into his laughing grey eye
rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the
conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our
attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that
did almost seem in the clouds.
“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”
With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one
after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird
gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.
Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown
barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into
the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of
excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.
“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”
“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben,
turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a
paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less
knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”
“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”
“Nor, siree. Th’ old man sa
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