Chapter XXI: Book I: , chap. i. Description of the World.... Book II., chap. i (7)

Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes, the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom of the ocean.

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=_Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819-._=

From The Bay Path.

=_310._= THE WEDDING-PRESENT.

John Woodcock was the first to break the silence. Rising from his seat, and making his way out of the crowd around him, he crossed the room to where his daughter was standing absorbed in, and half bewildered by the scene, and whispering a few words in her ear, took her by the hand, and led her before the married pair. Mary extended her hand to him instantly and cordially, and exclaimed, "I knew that you would come to me and congratulate me."

"That wan't my arrant any way," said Woodcock bluntly, "and I shouldn't begin with you if it was."

"Why John! I am astonished!" exclaimed the bride; "I thought you was one of the best friends I had in the world."

But Mary was somewhat affected with Woodcock's seriousness, and, with no reply to Holyoke, beyond a smile, she asked Woodcock's reasons for the statement he had made.

"I didn't come up here to talk about this, and p'raps it ain't the right time to do it, but there's no use backin' down when you begin. I've got a consait that men and women ain't built out of the same kind of timber. Look at my hand--a great pile o' bones covered with brown luther, with the hair on,--and then look at yourn. White oak ain't bass, is it? Every man's hand ain't so black as mine, and every woman's ain't so white as yourn, but there's always difference enough to show, and there's just as much odds in their doin's and dispositions as there is in their hands. I know what women be. I've wintered and summered with 'em, and take 'em by and large, they're better'n men. Now and then a feller gets hitched to a hedgehog, but most of 'em get a woman that's too good for 'em. They're gentle and kind, and runnin' over with good feelin's, and will stick to a fellow a mighty sight longer'n he'll stick to himself. My woman's dead and gone, but if there wan't any women in the world, and I owned it, I'd sell out for three shillin's, and throw in stars enough to make it an object for somebody to take it off my hands.

"Some time ago," resumed Woodcock. "I heerd the little ones and some of the old ones tellin' what they was goin' to give Mary Pynchon when she got married; and it set me to thinkin' what I could give her, for I knew if anybody ought to give her anything, it was me. But I hadn't any money, and I couldn't send to the Bay for anything, and I shouldn't 'a known what to get if I could, I might have shot a buck, but I couldn't 'a brought it to the weddin', and it didn't seem exactly ship-shape to give her anything she could eat up and forget. So I thought I'd give her a keepsake my wife left me when she died. It's all I've got of any vally to me, and it's somethin' that'll grow better every day it is kep', if you'll take care of it. I don't know what'll come of me, and I want to leave it in good hands."

The bride began to grow curious, and despite their late repulse the group began to collect again.

"It's a queer thing for a present, perhaps, (and Woodcock's lip began to quiver and his eye to moisten,) but I hope it'll do you some service. 'Taint anything't you can wear in your hair, or throw over your shoulders. It's--it's--"

"It's what?" inquired Mary, with an encouraging smile.

Woodcock took hold of the hand of his child, and placing it in that of the questioner, burst out with, "God knows that's the handle to it," and retreated to the window, where he spent several minutes looking out into the night, and endeavoring to repress the spasms of a choking throat. Neither Mary Holyoke nor her husband could disguise their emotions, as they saw before them the living testimonial of Woodcock's gratitude and trust. Mary stooped and kissed the gift-child, who clung to her as if, contrary to her father's statement, she was an article of wearing apparel.

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=_John Esten Cooke,[71] 1830-._=

From "Estcourt, or the Memoirs of a Virginia Gentleman."

=_311._= THE PORTRAIT.

"I see you are prepared now," said the painter; "the thought I endeavored to suggest has entered your mind, for I read the expression in your face like an open book. Well, see if I have deceived you--look!"

And as he spoke, the painter removed a green curtain from the frame of a picture, so arranged that the full light of the middle window fell upon it.

Estcourt almost cried out with astonishment. Here, before him, as though ready to start from the canvas, was the woman who had been, his fate--who had died long years before; there in the full blaze of light, he saw her who had thrown the shadow upon his existence, which still clouded it, fresh, softly smiling, alive almost on the speaking and eloquent canvas. The blue eyes beamed with a tender and subdued sweetness, the delicate forehead, with its soft brown curls, rose airily above the perfectly arched brows, the innocent lips were half parted, and the portrait seemed almost ready to move from its frame, and descend, a living woman, into the apartment.

[Footnote 71: Conspicuous among the younger writers of Virginia, of which State he is a native; author of many novels.]

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=_312._= ASPECTS OF SUMMER.

The glory of the summer deepened and grew more intense, the foliage assumed a darker tint of emerald, the sky glowed with a more dazzling blue, and the songs of the busy harvesters came sad and slow, like the long, melancholy swell of pensive sighs across the hills and fields, dying away finally into the "harvest home," which told that the golden grain would wave no more in the wind until another year. The "harvest moon" looked down on bare fields now, and June was dead. At last came August, the month of great white clouds and imperial sunsets, the crowning hours of the rich summer, soon to fade away into the yellow autumn, the month of reveries and dreams on the banks of shadowy streams, or beneath, the old majestic trees of silent forests.

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=_Sarah A. Dorsey,[72] about 1835-._=

From "Lucia Dare."

=_313._= SCENERY AND SOCIETY AT NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI.

The village of Natchez, under the hill, was clustered close to the water's edge; the bluffs rose precipitously, garnished with pine trees, and locusts, and tufted grasses; the vista here terminated in Brown's beautiful gardens, gay with flower-beds and closely-clipped hedges. Far away over the river stretched the broad emerald plain of Louisiana, level with the stream, extending for many, many miles, its champaign checkered with groups of white plantation-houses, spotted with groves of trees, rich in autumnal beauty, glowing with crimson, gold, and green, softened by veils of long, gray moss. This plain was dotted with lovely lakes, whose waters shone in the slanting rays of the declining sun.... The sun went down quickly, as he does at sea, a round, red fire-ball, while light, splendid clouds of purple, pink, lilac, and gray, on the blue, blue heavens, refracted the ascending, slender, quivering rays of the disappearing orb, the type of Deity in all natural religions, the Totem of the Natchez Indians. Beloved city--bright "city of the Sun"! How often have I paced with restless child's feet, the road that Lucian was now traveling over, and listened, as he did, but more lingeringly, to the sounds of gentle human life, stirring within thy peaceful homes! How often have I thanked God for my beautiful childhood's home--for my precious Southern Land--for its sunshine, its verdure, its forests, its flowers, its perfume; but oh! above all, for the loving, refined, intelligent, gentle race of people it was my great, my priceless privilege, to be born amongst--a people worthy to live with, yes, _worthy to die for_! The stern besom of war has wept over you, beloved Natchez--your fairest homes have been desolated, your lovely gardens are now only remembrances--your family circles are broken up--your bravest sons are sleeping in the dust of death, or weeping tears of bitterness in exile--your daughters, bowed down with penury and grief, are mourning beside their darkened firesides--your joyous households transferred to other and kindlier lands. The forms of my kindred faded into phantoms of the past--strangers sit now in the place that once was mine; but yet, thou art lovely, still beloved in thy ruin, in thy desolation--city of my heart--city of my love--city of my childish joy! Oh! city of my dead!

[Footnote 72: Prominent among the living authors of Louisiana.]

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=_Anne Moncure Crane.[73]_=

From "Opportunity;" a Novel.

=_314._= IMPRESSION OF A SEA SCENE.

The tide had been out, but it was now rising; and they stood silently watching the long, low waves dissolve in foam, whose white edges each time crept nearer and nearer their feet. No one was conscious of the duration of the silence. The sea's monotony of motion and sound seemed to fill the void, and lull them to quietude. But beautiful as was the scene that lay before her, Harvey gradually forgot it ...

The two women had been nearly facing each other; and in a moment or two Harvey put his hand upon Rose's shoulder, and with the other, motioned her to look out upon the sea at her side. As she obeyed, her faint, inarticulate expression of surprise and pleasure made both men follow her example. It was only a coasting vessel, which had come rather close to the shore, and was sailing swiftly by, before the freshening breeze; but Its broad, white sails, with the moonlight upon them, and its gliding, soundless motion, gave it an unearthly effect, as of a phantom of light floating between the dark sea and sky, or a great white-winged spirit sweeping past. When it had vanished into the distance and darkness, Rose turned, and looked up at Harvey with mute but half-parted lips, with eyes dilating with light, only this for a moment, but Miss Barney knew she had accomplished her wish.

The others also did not speak. But Grahame made an involuntary angry movement of his foot upon the sand.

[Footnote 73: A young authoress of Maryland: has written two novels of unusual promise.]

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=_Mary Clemmer Ames,[74] about 1837-._=

From "A Woman's Right."

=_315._= A RAILWAY DEPOT IN THE COUNTRY.

... Yet this depot was the centre of attraction for miles around. It was the grand hall of re-union for all the people of the scattered town, not second in importance even to the meeting-house. Here, twice a day, stopped the great Western and Eastern trains, the two fiery arteries through which flowed all the tumultuous life of the vast outer world that had ever come to this secluded hamlet. Its primitive inhabitants in their isolated farm-houses, under the hills and on the stony mountain-moors, could never have realized the existence of another world than the green, grand world of nature around them and above them, and would have been as oblivious of the great god "News" as the denizens of Greenland, if it had not been for the daily visits of this Cyclops with the burning eye. Now twice a day, the shriek of his diabolical whistle pierced the umbrageous woods and hilly gorges for miles away, and its cry to many a solitary household was the epoch of the day. Hearing it, John mounted his nag and scampered away to the station for the Boston journals of yesterday. Seth harnessed Peggy, and drove off in the buggy in all possible haste, to see if the mail had brought a letter from Amzi who was in New York, or from Nimrod who had gone to work in "Bosting," or if the train had brought Sally and her children from the city, who were expected home on a visit. Here, under pretext of waiting for the cars, congregated the drones and supernumeraries of the different neighborhoods, lounging on the steps, hacking the benches with their jack-knives for hours together, while they discussed politics, and talked over their own and their neighbors' affairs.

A walk to the station on a summer evening, was more to the boys and girls of this rural region, than a Broadway promenade to a metropolitan belle. Their day's task done, here they met in pairs, comparing finery and indulging in flirtations, with an impunity which would not have been tolerated by their elders at the Sunday recess in the meeting-house. Then, besides, it was such an exciting sight to see the cars come in, to see the long rows of strange faces, and to catch glimpses of the new fashions at their open windows. Besides, at rare intervals, a real city lady would actually alight at the rustic station of Hilltop, followed by an avalanche of trunks, "larger than hen-houses," the girls would afterwards affirm to their astonished mothers, when it was discovered that the city-lady, in her languishing necessity for country-air, had really condescended to come in search of a remote country-cousin. Besides the fine lady, sometimes small companies of dashing young gentlemen, with fishing-rods and retinues of long-eared dogs, or a long-haired artist with a portfolio under his arm, all lured by the mountains and woods and streams, to seek pleasure in far different ways, would alight at the station, and ask of some staring rustic where they could find the hotel.

[Footnote 74: An active writer, chiefly known as a newspaper correspondent from Washington; a native of Vermont, has published a novel of much descriptive vigor.]