Chapter II: Part 2

I see you, in imagination, at a party, standing in the middle of the room, plate in hand, regarding your peach as if it were some great natural curiosity. A sudden jog of your elbow compels you to a succession of most dexterous balancings as your heavy peach rolls from side to side, knocks down your knife, and threatens to plunge after it when you stoop to regain it. You look distractedly round for a table, but all are occupied. Even the corner of the mantel-shelf holds a plate, and you enviously see the owner thereof leaning carelessly against the chimney, and looking placidly round upon his less fortunate companions. You glance at the different groups to see if any one else is in your most unenviable predicament. Ah, yes! Yonder stands a gentleman worse off yet, for, in addition to your perplexities, he is talking with a young, laughing girl, who is watching his movements, with a merry twinkle in her bright eyes. He evidently wishes to astonish her by his dexterity, and disappoint her roguish expectations. He holds his plate firmly in his left hand, and proceeds, at once, to cut his peach in halves. Deuce take the blunt silver knife! The tough skin resists its pressure. The knife and plate clash loudly together; the peach is bounding and rolling at the very feet of the young lady, who is in an ecstasy of laughter. Ah! she herself has no small resemblance to a peach, fair, beautiful, and attractive without, and, I sadly fear, with a hard heart beneath.

Are you yet more miserable than before? Turn then to yonder sober-looking gentleman, who certainly seems sufficiently composed to perform the difficult manoeuvre. He has the advantage of a table to be sure; but that is not every thing. He begins right, by deliberately removing the woolly skin. Now he lays the slippery peach in his plate, and makes a plunge at it with his knife. A sharp, prolonged screech across his plate salutes the ears of all the bystanders, and a fine slice of juicy pulp is flung unceremoniously into the face of the gentleman opposite, who certainly does not look very grateful for the unexpected gift.

Every one, of course, has seen the awkward accident. O no! That pretty, animated girl upon the sofa is much too pleasantly engaged, that is evident, to be watching her neighbors. Playing carelessly with her fan, and casting many sparkling glances upward at the two gentlemen who are vying with each other in their gallant attentions, she has enough to do without noticing other people. She is happily unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her, or wilfully shuts her eyes to the peril. Alas! Her hand is resting, even now, upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment, the beautiful, fragrant, treacherous peach. With a nonchalance really shocking to the anxious beholder, she raises it, and breaks it open, talking the while, and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about. Dexterously done; but--O luckless maiden!--the fruit is ripe, and rich, and juicy, and the running drops fall, not into her plate, but upon the delicate folds of her dress.

The merry repartee dies away upon her lips, as she becomes conscious of the catastrophe. It is with a forced smile that she declares, "It is nothing; O, not of the slightest consequence!" That unlucky peach! How many blunders, how many pauses, how many absent-minded remarks it occasions! She makes the most frenzied attempts to regain her former gayety, but in vain. Her gloves are stained and sticky with the flowing juice, and she is oppressed by the conviction that all her partners for the rest of the evening will hate her most heartily. An expression of real vexation steals over her pretty face, and she gives up her plate to one of the attendant beaux, with not so much as a wish that he will return to her. Where are the arch smiles, the lively tones, the quick and ready responses now? Her spirit is quenched. Her manner has become subdued, depressed,--shall I say it?--yes, even sulky.

Ah! I see your courage will not brave laughter. You steal to the table, half ashamed of yourself as you set down your untasted peach. Your sudden zeal to relieve those ladies of their plates serves as a very good excuse for the relinquishment of your own. You have rescued yourself very well from your dilemma this time. Remember my advice for the future. Never accept a peach in company.

MISERIES.

No. 2.

A DARK NIGHT.

There are some people who seem to have the faculty which horses and dogs are said to possess,--of seeing in the dark. But I, alas! am blind and blundering as a beetle; I never can find my way about house in the evening, without a lamp to illumine my path. Many smarting remembrances have I of bruised nose and black eyes, the consequences of attempting to run through a partition, under the full conviction that I have arrived at an open door. My most prominent feature has been rudely assailed, also, by doors standing ajar, unexpectedly, which I have embraced with both outstretched arms. Crickets, tables, chairs (especially chairs with very sharp rockers), and other movable articles of furniture, have stationed themselves, as it would seem, with malicious intent to trip me up. Some murderous contusion makes me suddenly conscious of their presence. Then a feeling of complete bewilderment and helplessness and timidity comes over me. I have not the least idea in what part of the room I am. I am oppressed with a sense of chairs, scattered about in improbable places. I long most ardently for a lamp, or only for one gleam from a neighbor's window. It is no rare thing for me to discover, by a thrilling touch upon the cold glass, that I have been feeling my way exactly in the opposite direction from what I imagined. Strange how ideas of direction and distance are lost when the sight is powerless! _Touch_ may find out mistakes, but cannot always prevent them. Touch may convince me that I have arrived at my bureau, but it is too careless to perceive (what the poor, straining eyes would have discovered at a glance) the open upper drawer that salutes my forehead as I stoop hastily to grasp the handles beneath. Touch is clumsy. It only serves to upset valuable plants, inkstands, solar lamps, &c., with an appalling crash, and then leaves me standing aghast, in utter uncertainty as to the extent of the catastrophe. In such emergencies a rush for the stairs is the first impulse. Ah! but those stairs!

I will pass over the startling plunge which begins my descent, the frantic snatch for the banisters, and the strange, momentary doubt as to which foot must move first, like what a child may feel when learning to walk. All this only serves to render me so over-careful, that, when I actually arrive at the foot of the staircase, I cannot believe it, until a loud scuff, and the shock that follows the interruption of my expected descent, assure me beyond a doubt. There is nothing more exasperating than this, unless it may be the corresponding disappointment in running up stairs, when you raise your foot high in air, and bring it down with an emphatic stamp exactly upon a level with the other.

But these are mere household experiences. Sad though they are, I esteem them as nothing in comparison with my adventures out of doors. In a dark night, and especially in a night both dark and stormy, I feel myself one of the most wretched beings in existence. Imagine a vessel lost in the wide ocean, and without a compass, and you will have some faint idea of my perplexity, discouragement, and loneliness at such a time. I have a strange propensity for shooting off into the gutter, or for shouldering the fences, under the impression that I am pursuing a straight course. I go quite out of my way to trip over chance stones, or to pick out choice bits of slippery ice. I splash recklessly through deep puddles, stumble over unfortunate scrapers, walk unexpectedly into open cellars, and lay my length upon wet stone doorsteps. I start back at visions of posts looming up in the darkness, and whitewashed fences and trees, all of which would be quite unlikely to be standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and which disappear at the first reasonable thought. I run into harmless passengers as if I would knock the breath of life out of them, and tangle our umbrellas together so fearfully that they spin round and round some time after their separation. O that umbrella of mine! Sometimes I hook it in the drooping branches of trees, and, losing my hold in the suddenness of the shock, have the gratification of feeling it tip up, and go down over my shoulder into the mud behind me. Its bone tips tap and scratch at the windows as I go by, and scrape against the tall fences, like fingers trying to catch at something to hold on by, and stop my progress. It hits a low branch, and its varnished handle slips through my woollen gloves, knocking my hat over my eyes, and extinguishing me for the time being. As if the night were not dark enough without!

My friends, I could go on much longer with my complaints, but I feel that I have drawn upon your sympathies sufficiently for the present. You will be as glad to leave me at my own house-door, as I am to find it.

MISERIES.

No. 3.

TWINE.

Under the general head of _string_, I might enumerate a long list of this world's miseries. Shoe-strings alone comprehend an amount of wretchedness, which is but feebly described in the tragical story of Jemmy String. Bonnet-strings and apron-strings, dickey-strings and watch-guards, curtain-cord, bed-cord, and cod-line, each and all have furnished enough discomfort to make out a long grumbling article. But I cannot linger to describe their treacherous desertions when their services are most needed, their unexpected weakness, and their obstinate entanglements when time presses. A certain pudding-bag string is commemorated in one of the beautiful couplets of Mother Goose's Melodies. I am sure you cannot have forgotten it, nor the staring spotted cat that is there represented racing away with her booty. That lamented pudding-bag string is but a type of strings in general. They are fleeting possessions, always hiding, always misplaced, never in order. You fit up a string-drawer, perhaps, with a fine assortment, and pride yourself upon its nice arrangement. Go to it a week after, and see if you can find one ball where you left it! Can you lay your hand upon a single piece that you want? No, indeed! Twine is considered common property. If any one has a use for it, he takes it without leave or license, without even inquiring who is the owner, and you may be sure he will never bring any of it back again. O the misery endured for the want of an errant piece of twine, when you are in a nervous hurry to do up a parcel, some one waiting at the door meanwhile! After an immense deal of pains, you have it at last folded to your liking, with every corner squared and even, every wrinkle smoothed. Then, clasping tightly with one hand the stiff wrapper, you search distractedly with the other for a ball of twine, which you distinctly remember tossing into the paper-drawer only the day before. In vain you surround yourself with newspaper and brown paper, and useless rubbish, tumbling your whole drawer into confusion. In vain you relinquish your nicely packed parcel, and see its contents scattered in all directions. In vain you grumble and scold. The ball is not forthcoming. Your little brother has seized it to fly his kite, or your sister is even now tying up her trailing morning-glories, or sweet peas, with the stolen booty. You plunge your hand exploringly into the drawer, and bring up a long roll wound thickly with twine of all kinds and colors. Your eyes sparkle at the prize; but, alas! the first energetic pull leaves in your hand a piece about four inches long, and a quantity of dangling ends and rough knots convince you that you have nothing to hope in that quarter. A second plunge brings up a handful of odds and ends, strong pieces clumsy and rough, coarse red quill-cord, delicate two-colored bits far too short, cotton twine breaking at a touch, fine long pieces hopelessly tangled together, so that not even an end is visible. The more you twitch at the loops, the more desperate is the snarl. Poor mortal! Your pride gives way before the urgency of haste. You send off your nice packet miserably tied together by two kinds of twine.

All the rest of the day you are tormented by a superfluity of the very thing you needed so much. It was impossible to get it when you wanted it; but now it is pertinaciously in your way when you do _not_ want it. You almost break your neck tripping over a long, firm cord, which proves to be a pair of reins left hanging on a chair by some careless urchin. The carpet and furniture are strewed with long, straggling pieces of packthread. You find a white end dangling conspicuously from your waistcoat pocket. As you walk the streets you see twine flying from fences, or lying useless on the sidewalk, black with dust and age. To crown the whole, a friend comes with a piece of twine extending across two rooms, and asks you to help him twist and double it into a cord. It is a very entertaining process. You amuse yourself with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round, stops with a jerk, turns hesitatingly one side and the other, then, yielding to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought _almost_ to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers, scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your grasp, springs away across the room, curls itself into a succession of snarls and twisted loops, and then lies motionless. Your friend looks thunderstruck. With a hasty apology, you step forward and tightly clasp the recreant end. You are in nervous expectation of dropping it again. Your fingers are benumbed at the tips with their tight compression, and the constant twitching. They give a sudden jerk. You make an involuntary clutch for the cord, but in vain. It is rapidly untwisting at the very feet of your companion, who looks at it in despair. Again you make an attempt with no success at all, the refractory twine eluding your utmost endeavors to hold it. Once more! Your fellow-twister walks off at last, with a wretchedly rough affair, which he good humoredly says "will do very well."

MISERIES.

No. 4.

I believe the world has gone quite crazy on the subject of fresh air. In the next century people will think they must sleep on the house-tops, I suppose, or camp out in tents in primitive style. Nothing is talked about but ventilators, and air-tubes, and chimney-draughts. One would suppose that fire-places were invented expressly for cooling and airing a room, instead of heating it. There was no such fuss when I was young; in those good old times these airy notions had not come into fashion. Where the loose window-sashes rattled at every passing breeze, and the wind chased the smoke down the wide-mouthed chimney, nobody complained of being stifled. There were no furnaces then to spread a summer heat to every corner of the house. No, indeed! We ran shivering through the long, windy entries, all wrapped in shawls, and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly warmth of the fire as long as possible. Far from devising ways of letting _in_ the air, we tried hard to keep it _out_ by stuffing the cracks with cotton, and closely curtaining the windows and bed. Even then, the ice in the wash-basin, and the electricity which made our hair literally stand on end in the process of combing, and the gradual transformation of fingers into thumbs, showed but too plainly that the wintry air had penetrated our defences. When we crowded joyfully round a crackling, sparkling wood-fire, even while our faces glowed with the intense heat, cold shivers were creeping down our backs, and sudden draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering. I often wished myself on a spit, to revolve slowly before the fire until thoroughly roasted. Not from any want of air, I assure you, we children were always breaking panes of glass on the bitterest days, and the glazier was never known to come under a week to replace them. Why people should wish to revive, and live through again, the miseries of such a frost-nipped childhood, I cannot imagine.

I, for one, love a snug house, even a warm house. I am of a chilly temperament, and subject to rheumatism, horrible colds, &c. Fresh air is my bane. I banish all books on the subject from my table. I studiously avoid all notorious fresh-air lovers, or try in every way to bring over the poor, misguided mortals to my views; but it is of no use. Fresh air is the fashion, and is run to extremes, as all fashions must be. I call in a physician; lo! _fresh air_ is recommended as a tonic. I give a party; of course my windows are all thrown open, and foolish young girls, in the thinnest of white muslins, are standing in the draught; and such a whirlwind is raised by the flirting of fans, and the rush of the dancers, that I am blown, like a dry leaf, into a corner, where I stand shivering, and making rueful attempts to appear smiling and hospitable. I go out to pass a social afternoon with a friend, and am set down in a room just above the freezing-point, with a little crack opened in the window, and all the doors flying, to _change the air_. I ride in the omnibus, and am almost choked with my bonnet-strings, such a furious draught meets me in the face, and when, with infinite pains, I have secured the only tolerably warm corner, my next neighbor becomes very faint, and must have the window open. Even the poor babies are not safe from this popular insanity. You may see the little victims any day, taking an airing, with their little red noses and watery eyes peeping forth from under the cap and feathers. The old-fashioned blanket, in which the baby was done up head and all, like a bundle, is thrown aside. The child is not quite so often carried upside down. I suppose, under the new system, but what difference does it make whether the poor thing is smothered or frozen to death?

I never shall forget a long journey I took once with a friend who was raving mad on the subject of fresh air and cold water. Every morning the windows were thrown wide open, and the blinds flung back with an energetic bang, while a stiff wintry wind whirled every thing about the room, and flapped the curtains against the ceiling. And there she stood, declaring herself exhilarated, while her nose and lips turned from red to blue, and the tears ran down her cheeks. I always took to flight. Afterwards the poor auto-martyr went out to walk before breakfast, scornfully rejecting all offers of furs and extra wrappings. O dear, no! _She_ never thought of muffs, tippets, snow-boots, but as encumbrances fit for extreme old age and infirmity. She always walked fast, and the more the wind blew, the warmer she felt, I might be assured. As soon as she had gone, I established myself in comfort by the side of a glowing grate, happy but for dreading her return. She came in dreadfully fresh and breezy from the outer air, very energetic, very noisy, and fully bent upon stirring me up and making me take exercise. After snapping the door open and slamming it behind her with a clap that greatly disturbed my nerves, she exclaimed in a stentorian voice, "O dear me! I shall _die_ in such an oven! My dear child, you have no idea how hot it is!" And the first thing I knew, up would go a window with a crash that made the weights rattle. It might rain or shine; weather made no difference to this inveterate air-seeker. Many a time has she come in all dripping, and tracking the carpet, brushed carelessly against me with her wet garments, and finally enveloped me with the steam arising from them as they hung around my fire. It roused my indignation that she should make herself and every body else so uncomfortable, and then glory in the deed as if it were indubitably and indisputably praiseworthy. She was so good-natured, however, and so happy in her delusion, that I could not find it in my heart to remonstrate very vehemently, except when she would make me listen to her interminable lectures upon the importance, the _necessity_, of fresh air, and the effect of a snug, cosy room upon the blood, the heart, the lungs, the head, and (as I verily believe she hinted) _the temper_. I know I lost all control of _mine_ long before she finished; but whether it was the want of fresh air in practice, or too much of it in theory, I leave you to imagine.

My friend always carried a small thermometer in her trunk, which she consulted a dozen times an hour, in order to regulate the temperature of the room. Alas for me if the quicksilver rose above 60! I devoutly hoped she would leave it behind in some of our numerous stopping-places, and with an eye to that possibility, I must confess, I hung it in the most out-of-the-way corners I could find; but it seemed to be on her mind continually. She never forgot it, and always packed it very carefully, too. I asked her two or three times to let me put it in _my_ trunk, where I had slyly arranged a nice little place full of hard surfaces and sharp corners, but she always had plenty of room.

I believe my zealous friend is now residing at the sea-shore, freezing in the cold sea-winds, and losing her breath every morning in the briny wave, under the strange illusion that she is improving her health.

FAREWELL.

They tell me my hat is old!
I scarce believe it so;
But since I'm uncivilly told
The dear old thing must go,
I bid thee farewell, old hat,
Good hat!
Farewell to thee, good old hat!

I must soon to the city his,
And trudge to some horrid store,
A smart new tile to buy,
With a heart exceedingly sore,
For I cast off a long-tried friend,
A close friend,--
I'm ashamed of a trusty old friend.

Ah, let me remember with tears
The day thou wast first my own,
When I settled thee over my ears,
Then with soap-locks overgrown.
"Hurra for a beaver hat,
A sleek hat!
A cheer for a sleek beaver hat!"

That day is in memory green
Among those that were all of that hue;
Sweet days of my youth! Ah! I've seen
But too many since that were _blue_.
How smooth was our front, my hat,
My first hat!
Unbent were our brows, my first hat!

The first dent,--what a sorrow it was!
Were it only my skull instead!
Indignant I think on the cause,
And pommel my stupid head.
I was new to the care of a hat,
A tall hat,--
Unworthy to wear a tall hat.

The omnibus portal, low-browed,
Had ne'er grazed my humble cap,
But it knocked off my beaver so proud,
Which into a puddle fell slap.
Alas for my dignified hat,
My proud hat!
Woe to my lofty-crowned hat!

It survived, but it had a weak side,
And so had its wearer, perchance,
Since I left it on stairs to abide,
At a house where I went to a dance.
A lady ran into my hat,
My poor hat!
She demolished my invalid hat!

INNOCENT SURPRISES.

I am somewhat inclined to the opinion, that, if positive legislation could be brought to bear upon this subject, making it a criminal offence for one person deliberately to concoct and designedly to spring a surprise upon another, society would derive incalculable benefit from the act. For the ordinary and inevitable surprises of every-day life are sufficiently frequent and startling to content even the most romantic disposition; entirely dispensing with the necessity of those artfully contrived, embarrassing little plots which one's friends occasionally set in motion, greatly to their own diversion and the extreme discomfort of the surprised unfortunate. For he who has ever broken his skull on a treacherous sidewalk, or received from the post a dunning missive when he expected a love-letter, or arrived one minute late at the car-station, or taken a desperately bad bill in exchange for good silver, or been caught in a thunderstorm with white pantaloons and no umbrella, knows that the unavoidable surprises of life are in themselves staggerers of quite frequent occurrence, and require not the aid of human invention. But the surprises which we most dread are not those which _naturally_ fall to us as part of the misfortune we are born to inherit; not those which result from unforeseen accidental circumstances, from carelessness on our own part or from the folly of others, from revolutions in the elements or in the affairs of nations; these we _can_ bear, by using against them the best remedies we possess, or by viewing and enduring them as wisdom and philosophy teach us to do. No; our only prayer, in this connection, is that we may be saved from our friends; not from their carelessness, but from their deliberate schemes against our security.

In order to reconcile this apparent contradiction in terms, take the following instance of a friendly propensity. You walk into your house at dusky twilight, at that particular hour of evening at which your _own brother_, if he be a reasonable being, would not expect you to recognize him; one of your family extends his (or her) head from the parlor, and calls upon you at once to enter, and greet "an old friend." You obey, and are immediately confronted with an individual whose countenance wears an expression associated with some reminiscences of your youth, but so dim and undefined is it, that you cannot, for the life of you, give it its appropriate name or place. What is to be done? The recollections of early childhood are expected spontaneously to burst forth from under a heap of later and more vivid associations, and the name, residence, business, and whole history of the unwelcome guest are called upon to suggest themselves within a second's time.

After a long moment of painful hesitation, during which you have in vain tried to _stare_ his name out of him, you clutch at a struggling idea, and blurt out the name of one of your former associates. You do this, not by any means because common sense or conviction suggest the course, but simply because something must instantly be done. The result, of course, is, that you hit upon the wrong name; and now your kind friends can do no more for you; even if they rush to the rescue, and formally introduce the stranger, it is of no avail. The deed is done; you are placed in a position of awkward mortification, which both the stranger and yourself will never forget, and never cease to regret.

Why it is that the feeling of shame which follows upon such mishaps attaches itself exclusively to the innocent sufferers, rather than to those who are the cause of the suffering, I never could understand. This kind of diversion betrays a want of humane consideration in the contriver. It is infinitely more cruel and unamiable than Spanish bull-baitings, or the gladiatorial shows of the ancients, inasmuch as a shock to the finest feelings of human nature is harder to bear, and longer in duration, than the momentary pang induced by witnessing a merely physical suffering.

THE OLD SAILOR.

In my school vacations I used occasionally to visit an old sailor friend, a man of uncommon natural gifts, and that varied experience of life which does so much to supply the want of other means of education. He must have been a handsome man in his youth, and though time and hardship had done their utmost to make a ruin of his bold features, and had made it needful to braid his still jetty black locks together to cover his bald crown, his was a fine, striking head yet, to my boyish fancy. I loved to sit at his feet, and hear him tell the events of sixty years of toil and danger, suffering and well-earned joy, as he leaned with both hands upon his stout staff, his body swaying with the earnestness of his speech. His labors and perils were now ended, and in his age and infirmity he had found a quiet haven. He had built a small house by the side of the home of his childhood, and his son, who followed his father's vocation, lived under the same roof. This son and two daughters were all that remained to him of a large family.

"An easterly bank and a westerly glim are certain signs of a wet skin!" said the fisherman, pointing to the heavy black masses of cloud that hung over the eastern horizon, one morning when I had risen at sunrise for a day's fishing. "'T won't do; don't go out to-day! There's soon such a breeze off shore, as, with the heavy chop, would make you sick enough! Besides, the old dory won't put up with such a storm as is coming. No fishing, my boy, to-day."

His old father said, "Stephen is right. There is a blow brewing." And he came to look, leaning on his cane. "Stay in to-day."

I yielded, and the sky during the morning slowly assumed a dull, leaden hue. The storm came on in the afternoon, heavily pattering, and pouring, and blowing against the windows, and obscuring the little light of an autumn twilight. I wandered through the few small rooms of the cottage, endeavoring to amuse myself, while the light lasted, with two funeral sermons and an old newspaper. Then I sat down at a window, and I well remember the gloomy landscape, seen through the rain, in the dusk:--the marsh, with the creek dividing it, the bare round eminence between the house and the beach, or rather the rocky cliffs, and on either side the wide, lonely sands, with heavy foam-capped breakers rolling in upon the shore, with a sound like a solemn dirge. At a distance on the left, half hidden by the walnut-trees, lay the ruins of a mill, which had always the air of being haunted. A high, rocky hill, very nearly perpendicular on the side next the house, was covered on the sides and top with junipers, pines, and other evergreens. As the darkness thickened, I left the lonely "best room" for the seat in the large chimney-corner, in the kitchen. The old wife tottered round, making preparations for the evening meal, and muttered recollections of shipwrecks which the storm brought to her mind. Now and then she would go to a window, turn back her cap-border from her forehead, put her face close to the glass, shading off the firelight with her hand, and gaze out into the darkness.

"Asa did not go out either, thank the good Father!" she said. The dog whined piteously. "St! St! Poor Scip! Here, shall have a piece! Good dog! A fearful night indeed it is."

The two men came in from the barn, shook off the wet, and drew near the fire.

"Just such a night, twenty-nine years ago come August, we ran afoul of Hatteras. You remember, old woman, how they frighted ye about me, don't ye?"

Amidst such reminiscences we were called to supper. I remember being solemnly impressed when that old man, bent with hardship and the weight of years, clasped his hands reverently, and in rude terms, but full of meaning, asked a blessing upon their humble board. I remember the flickering light from the logs burning on the hearth, and how it showed, upon the faces of those who sat there, a strong feeling of the words in which rose an added petition in behalf of those on the mighty deep.

Supper being ended, the old man took down the tobacco-board, and, when he had cut enough to fill his pipe, handed it to his son, who, having done the same, restored it to its nail in the chimney-corner. Then they smoked, and talked of dangers braved and overcome, of pirates, and shipwrecks, and escapes, till I involuntarily drew closer into my corner, and looked over my shoulder. Suddenly the dog under the table gave a whining growl.

"I never seed the like o' that dog," exclaimed the fisherman, turning to me. "I thought he was asleep. But if ever a foot comes nigh the house at night, he gives notice. Depend on it, there's some one coming."

The door of the little entry opened, with a rush of the whistling wind, and a man stepped in. The dog half rose, and though he wagged his tail, in token that he knew the step to be that of a friend, he kept up a low whine. A young man, muffled to the eyes, and with the water dripping from his huge pea-jacket, opened the kitchen-door.

"William Crosby, why, what brings you out in such a storm as this? Strip off your coat, and draw up to the fire, can't ye? Where are you bound, then, and the night as dark as a wolf's throat?"

The young fisherman made no answer, unless by a motion of his hand. As he turned back the collar from his face, we saw by the waving light that it was pale as death. The long wet locks already lay upon his cheeks, making them more ghastly as he struggled to speak. "O Stephen Lee, it's no time to be sitting by the fire, when old Asa Osborn is rolling in the waters. A man's drownded; and who's to get the body for the wife and the children--God pity them!--afore the ebb carries it out to sea?"

The old man drew his hand across his forehead, and rose. I looked at him as he drew up his tall figure, and looked the young messenger full in the eye. In a low, deep whisper, he said, "Who, William, did ye say? You said a man's drownded,--but tell me the name again."

"Yes, Gran'sir, I did say it. Old Uncle Ase Flemming, he and the minister went out a fishing in the morning. The minister got his boots off in the water, and after a long time he's swum ashore. But poor Uncle Ase--. Stephen, come along. His poor wife's gone down to the beach, now."

They left the house, and I shut the door after them, and came back softly to my seat by the old man's knee.

Once before I had seen him, when a heavy sorrow fell upon him. It was on a beautiful summer's day, and the open window let in the cool breeze from the sea. He was sitting by it in his arm-chair, looking out upon the calm water, buried in thought. His favorite daughter had long been very low, and might sink away at any moment. The old dog was at his feet asleep. The clock ticked in the corner, and the sun was shining upon the floor. Some friends sat by in silence, with sorrowful countenances. His little grandchild came to his side, and said, "Mother says, tell Grandpa Aunt Lucy's gone home."

The old man did not alter his position. For some time he sat in deep thought, looking out with unseeing gaze, and winding his thumbs, as before. Of five fair daughters, three had before died by the same disease, consumption. He had seen them slowly fade away, one by one, and had followed his children to the grave in the secluded burying-ground, where the green sod was now to be broken to receive the fourth.

Rising slowly, he walked across the room, and, taking the well-worn family Bible, returned with it to his seat; and, as he turned the leaves, he said in a low tone to himself, "There's only one left now!" Then he sat entirely silent, with his eyes fixed upon the sacred page. He did not utter one word of lamentation, he did not shed a tear, but as he turned his eye on me, in passing, its expression went to my heart. Stealing softly out, I left him to the silent Comforter whose blessing is on the mourner.

Now the scene was changed. One was suddenly taken from his side who had been a companion from boyhood to old age. They had played and worked in company; together they had embarked on their first voyage, and their last; and they had settled down in close neighborhood in the evening of their days. Each had preserved the other's life in some moment of peril, but took small praise to himself for so simple an act of duty. Few words of fondness had ever passed between them. They had gone along the path of life, without perhaps being conscious of any peculiarly strong tie of friendship binding them together, till they were thus torn asunder. The death of a daughter, long and slowly wasting away before his eyes, could be calmly borne. But this blow was wholly unforeseen, and his chest heavily rose and fell, and by the bright firelight I saw tears rolling over his weather-beaten cheeks.

"A child will weep a bramble's smart,
A maid to see her sparrow part,
A stripling for a woman's heart;
Talk not of grief, till thou hast seen
The hard-drawn tears of bearded men."

The fury of the storm being abated, I resolved to follow Stephen down to the shore. He was not in sight, and I knew not what direction to take. It was a gloomy night, the transient glimpses of the moon between driving masses of clouds only making the scene more wild and appalling. I could see the tops of the tall trees bending under the fury of the blast, ere it came to sweep the beach. The heaving billows were covered with foam, far as the eye could reach, and, rising and tumbling, seemed striving with each other as they rolled on towards the sands. I had seen storms upon the ocean before, but never had it presented so awful and majestic an appearance. As the breakers struck upon the shore, and sent a huge mass of water upon the sands, their sullen roar mingled with the howling and rushing of the wind, and filled me with awe.

There were torches upon the beach, and as I drew near, I saw the fishermen run together to one point. The body had just been washed ashore, and lay stretched upon the sands. The head was bare, and long locks of white hair streamed down upon the shoulders. The heavy pea-jacket was off from one arm, as if he had endeavored to extricate himself from it in the water. The sinewy arms lay powerless and free from tension then, but they told me that, when they first drew him from the surf, both hands were grasping a broken oar with such strength that they were unable to loose his hold, till suddenly the muscles relaxed, and the arms fell upon the ground. They turned the body, and a little water ran from the mouth. Then, gently raising it upon their shoulders, they bore it home.

LAUGHTER.

In some individuals the risibles lie so near the surface that you may tickle them with a feather. In others, they are so deeply imbedded in phlegm, or so protected by the crust of ill-humor, that a strong thrust and a keen weapon are required to reach them.

A laugh is in itself a different thing in different individuals. Some persons laugh inwardly, unsocially, bitterly. It is a pure grimace on your part when you join in their merriment, unless you are superior to the fear of ridicule. On the other hand, there is a laugh of so contagious a nature, that you are irresistibly moved to sympathy while ignorant of the exciting cause, or out of the sphere of its influence. You will laugh loud and long, and afterwards confess that you had not the least gleam of a funny idea, all the while.

You doubt the power of the sympathetic laugh? Come with me into the nursery. Here is a rosy little horror, a year and a half old. Sit down and take him upon your knees. Hold his dimpled hands in yours, and look steadily into his roguish eyes. Repeat a nursery rhyme, no matter what, in a humdrum recitative; he is sober, and very attentive. Suddenly spring a mine upon him with a "Boo!" His "Hicketty-hick!" follows, and his eyes begin to shine. Repeat the experiment. "Hicketty-hick!" again, more heartily than at first, with the baby encore, "Adin!" The same process awakens the rapturous little pearls again and again, and you are quite in the spirit of the thing yourself. Now for a more ecstatic burst. You purposely prolong his suspense; he is all atilt, expecting the delightful surprise. You drawl out each word; you drone the ditty over and over again, till every tiny nerve is tense with expectation. "Boo!" at last, and over he goes, in the complete _abandon_ of baby glee; his cherry lips are wide asunder, his head hangs powerless back, and the "Hicketty-hicks" burst tumultuously from his little, beating throat. And _you_, sir; what are _you_ doing? Laughing, I declare, in full roar, till the tears run down your cheeks. You catch the boy in your arms, toss him, almost throttle him with kisses, and so enhance the merry spasms, that mamma, who has a philosophical instinct with regard to excited nerves, and dreads the reaction, comes to the rescue.

Let me introduce you to another effective laughter. You shall not hear a sound, yet you cannot choose but laugh, if she does, quiet as she is about it. See how her shoulders shake,--and look at her face! Every feature is instinct with mirth; the color mounts to the roots of the hair; the curls vibrate; the eyes sparkle through tears; the white teeth glisten; the very nose and ears seem to take a part; like Nourmahal, she "laughs all over," and while you wonder what the joke may be, you are laughing too.

Do you feel dismal, or anxious? You should hear L. tell a story. She is one of the very few who can undertake with impunity to talk and laugh at the same time. Look and listen, while she describes some comic occurrence. There is no unladylike, boisterous noise, but musical peals of laughter come thick and fast; and faster and thicker, preternaturally fast and thick, come the words with them. And yet each word is distinct; you do not lose a syllable. And I should like to see the man who can resist her, if she chooses he should laugh, even at his own expense.

There is an odd sort of power, too, in the gravity with which B. tells a humorous anecdote. He invariably maintains a sober face while every body is in an agony of laughter around him. Just as it begins to subside, the echo of his own wit comes back to him, and, as if he had just caught the idea, he bursts into one little abrupt explosion, so genuine, so full of heartiness, that it sets every body off upon a fresh score.

Nothing so melts away reserve among strangers, nothing so quickly develops the affinities in chance society, as laughter. A person might be ever so polite, and even kind, and talk sentiment a whole day, and it would not draw me so near to him as the mutual enjoyment of one heartfelt laugh. It is a perfect bond of union; for the time being, you have but one soul between you.

TO STEPHEN.

I saw thee only once, dear boy, and it may be, perchance,
That ne'er again on earth my eyes shall meet thy gentle glance;
Years have gone by since then, and thou no longer art the child,
With earnest eye, and frolic laugh, and look so clear and mild;
For thee, the smiles and tears and sports of infancy are gone,
And youth's bright promise, gliding into manhood, has come on;--
And yet thine image, as a child, will ever stay with me,
As bright as when, so long ago, I met and welcomed thee.

What was the charm that lay enshrined within thy smiling eyes?
What made me all thy childish, winning ways so dearly prize?
It was thy likeness to another,--one whose looks of love,
No longer blessing earth, were met by angel eyes above.
Yet thou hadst not the golden hair, the brow of radiant white,
Nor the blue eyes so soft and deep, like violets dewy bright;
But the smiles that played about thy mouth, the sweetness in thine
eyes,
The dimpling cheek that said, "Within, a sunny spirit lies,"
The true and open brow, the bird-like voice, so free and clear,
The glance that told, "I have not learned the meaning yet of fear,"
And more than all, the trusting heart, so lavish of its treasure,
In simple faith, its earnest love bestowing without measure;
These, more than lines and colors, made a picture, warm and bright,
Of one whose face no more might cheer and bless my earthly sight.

The nature, beautiful and pure, he carried to the skies,
Has been trained by angel teaching, has been watched by seraph eyes.
Dear boy! through this cold world _thy_ earth-bound feet have trod;
and now,
Is the loving heart still thine? Hast kept that true and open brow?

THE OLD CHURCH.

There are certain old-fashioned people who find fault with the luxuriousness of our churches, and ascribe to the warmth and comfort, which contrast so strongly with the hardships of early times, the acknowledged sleepiness of modern congregations. For my part, I see no necessary connection between discomfort and devotion. _My_ soul, at least, sympathizes so much with its physical adjunct, that, when the latter is uncomfortable, the former is never quite free and active.

Let me call to remembrance the church my childhood knew, with its capacious square pews, in which half the audience turned their backs upon the minister; the seats made to rise and fall, for the convenience of standing, and which closed every prayer with a clap of thunder; its many aisles, like streets and lanes; the old men's seats, and the queer but venerable figures that were seen in them,--some with black-silk caps to protect their bald heads from the freezing draughts of air from the porchless doors; the old women's seats, on the opposite side; the elevated row of pews round the sides of the church, and the envied position of certain little children who had an extensive prospect through the open pew-top within doors, and a view of the hay-scales and the town-pump through the window besides. Those windows, in a double row, with the gallery between,--how regularly I counted the small panes, always forgetting the number, to make the same weary task necessary every Sunday! The singing-seats, projecting from the central portion of the gallery, furnished me with another hebdomadal study, in large gilt letters of antique awkwardness, which so impressed themselves on my mind that I see them now. This was the golden legend: "BUILT, 1770. ENLARGED, 1795." I remember hearing a wag propose to add as another remarkable fact, "SCOURED, 1818."

Opposite to the singing-seats towered the pulpit, from which the clergyman looked down upon us like a sparrow upon the house-top. He seemed in perpetual danger of being extinguished by a huge sounding-board. Very earnestly I used to gaze at the slender point by which it hung suspended, and wished, if it _must_ come down, that I might make the gilt ornament at the apex, resembling a vase turned upside down, my prize. Under the pulpit was a closet, which some one veraciously assured me was the place where the tithingman imprisoned incautiously playful urchins. The terrors of that dark, mysterious cell had little effect on my conduct, however, as I was not entirely convinced of the existence of any such lynx-eyed functionary.

The largest church in the county, it was, however, well filled, many of the congregation coming five and some even six miles, and remaining there through the noon intermission, which, on their account, was made as short as possible. But in winter the vast airy space had a peculiar and searching chill. No barn could be colder, except that the numerous footstoves made some little change in the air during service. The minister stood upon a heated slab of soap-stone. I used to watch this in its progress up the broad aisle and the pulpit stairs, under the arm of the boy from the parsonage, and the irreverent way in which he made his descent, in view of the assembly, after depositing his burden, was thus rebuked by an old lady who was always droll and quaint. "Why, Matthew, when you come down the pulpit stairs of a Sunday, you throw up your heels like a horse coming out of a stable-door."

Older grew the church, and colder; and if people then staid at home on Sunday afternoons, they had a better excuse for doing so than their successors can muster. The chorister, even, was frequently among the missing, but was charitably supposed to be subject to the ague. Efforts were made to prevail upon the elderly part of the parish to permit the introduction of stoves with long funnels. They scorned the enervating luxury! Their fathers had worshipped in the cold, and their sons might. But ah! how degenerate were the descendants of the noble old Puritan church-goers! The services curtailed to half their proper length, yet finding the patience of the listeners all too short! The degenerate descendants carried the day, however, the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism. The old sexton, resignation to inevitable evils being a lesson he had had much opportunity to learn, submitted with a good grace, though very much of opinion that fires in a church were an absurdity and a waste. The stoves were provided, and an uncommonly full attendance the next Sabbath showed the very general interest the matter had excited. How would it seem? Would any one faint?

There was by no means a superabundance of heat; there was something wrong, but the lack of warmth was a hundred-fold made up in smoke. No one could see across the church, and the minister loomed up, as if in a dense fog; all eyes were fountains of tears. At last the old sexton went with a slow and subdued step up to the pulpit, and, wiping his eyes, respectfully inquired, in a whisper, whether there was not a _little_ too much smoke. This suggestion being very smilingly assented to, he proceeded to extinguish the fires, and for that day the services were not indebted to artificial warmth to promote their effect.

How sad are improvements in places to which our childish recollections cling! The gushing fulness of unchilled love is lavished even on inanimate and senseless things, in a happy childhood. How was my heart grieved when the old-fashioned meeting-house was converted into the modern temple! Time and decay had rendered the tall spire unsafe, yet its fall by force and premeditated purpose seemed a sacrilege. I felt affronted for the huge weathercock, reclining sulkily against a fence, no more to point his beak to the east with obstinate preference. I mourned over the broad, old-fashioned dial, on which young eyes could discern the time a mile off. The old sexton lived to see this change, and at the end of half a century of care under that venerable roof he went to his rest. The beloved minister, and many, many who sat with trustful and devoted hearts under his teachings, are gone to their reward. A board from the old pulpit, a piece of the red-damask curtain, and the long wished-for gold vase, are now in my possession.

"SOMETHING THAN BEAUTY DEARER."

You ask me if her eyes are fair,
And touched with heaven's own blue,
And if I can her cheek compare
To the blush-rose's hue?

Her clear eye sheds a constant gleam
Of truth and purest love,
And wit and reason from it beam,
Like the light of the stars above.
Good-humor, mirth, and fancy throng
The dimples of her cheek,
And to condemn the oppressor's wrong
Her indignant blush doth speak.