Chapter IX: Part 9

Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks,
Of busy mills and floury sacks;
Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads,
Hard curving down their iron roads;
Of barges grounding on their way
Down winding streams to reach the bay;
Of vessels spreading to the breeze
Their snowy sails in stormy seas,
While bearing to some foreign strand
The products of this golden land.

Ye come again with cereal brows,
And crescent blade, to fill the mows;
And never fall thy feet too soon,
Oh, ever welcome, sunny June.

Once more I see your banner spread
Across the evening sky,
I see your trace in shallow brooks
That feebly ripple by.
I see your face in mirror-lakes,
In fields and forests old,
And in the gardens all arrayed
In crimson, blue and gold.

I hear your voice in twittering birds,
That round the gables wheel,
And in the humming monologues
Which from the meadows steal.
Oh, month of Love and plighted faith,
And airy castles high!
I hear you in the lover’s song
And in the maiden’s sigh.

And in the breeze that gently wakes
The leaves upon the bough,
I feel your soothing mother-touch
Caressing cheek and brow.
Oh, sweet as sunrise to the lark,
As noonday to the bee,
Or evening to the nightingale,
Is June’s return to me.

THE ANNIVERSARY.

This is the anniversary of my departure from my native fields. As I sit gazing by the fire, pondering over the event, thoughts of friends far away and foes who are near, come crowding upon me numerous as spirits around some favored medium.

Many years ago I turned my back upon all I loved and setting my face against the sinking sun, cried:—

“Ho, sailors! spread your widest sails,
And court the strong impellent gales,
Until the stout and stubborn mast
Bends like a sapling to the blast;
And westward let your bearing be;
My fortune lies beyond the sea.”

What a ruinous rent fifteen or twenty years make in a person’s lease of life. Why, bless my benighted understanding! the seal, the signature and the better portion of the parchment are gone. There’s hardly enough document remaining upon which to hinge a hope. Now, that I think of it, what have the departed years neglected to bring me? No flaxen heads cluster around my board; no nose is flattened against the window pane; no eye strained to mark my coming, when the granite pave is chafed by the homeward hastening feet.

No jute or mohair chignons lie around my room in rich profusion, adding charms to the apartment that pictures cannot give.

When I muse upon the many blessings that the past years have failed to furnish, I am inclined to sadness. But when I turn to contemplate what they _have_ brought, my heart sinks down into its lowest recess and for a time lies still. Aye! that’s the rub that makes me wince.

There is but little satisfaction in the thought that I am not alone in this. I look around and I see others drifting down the stream as rapidly as I. Time is cutting furrows in fairer brows than mine. He has brought many a person during the last ten years—

A scattered sight, a limping gait,
Toothless gums and a shining pate.

Why should I squeal because I feel his hands? But where are those full cheeks, those hopeful smiles, those luxuriant locks, and firm-set grinders that once were mine?

Gone, like the life from a busted balloon,
Gone, like the soul from a ruptured bassoon,
Gone, like the sheen from a pock-pitted cheek,
Gone, like our change at the close of the week,
Gone!

But what has that to do with my sore heel, peeled to-day by the hoof of a clergyman’s horse before I could get out of the way? The event called forth the following lines, written while laboring under great mental excitement:

How blest is he above the many
Who turns to-day a handsome penny,
By stating to the drowsy throng
The line dividing right and wrong!
Far richer pickings he commands
Than ears of corn rubbed in the hands.
How different now from days of yore,
When sandal-shod and spirit sore,
With stiffened joints and limber thews,
And garments damp with midnight dews,
The poor Apostles, staff in hand,
Went limping through a stranger’s land.

Now charge they up and down the way,
Like jockeys on the “Derby day;”
And we poor wights must waltz aside,
And let the pulpit princes glide;
Or have a phaeton o’er us wheeled,
Or have our heels adroitly peeled.

Oh, money! money! root and start
Of every sin, ’tis claimed thou art;
But let them doubt the fact who will,
’Tis money spreads the gospel still.

A COUNTRY TOUR.

Yesterday I took a trip to a quiet country resort. On entering the town I was surprised at the scarcity of men in the place. There were plenty of women—fashionably dressed and otherwise—to be seen in the houses or gardens, but I rarely encountered one of the male sex in my travels through the streets. This, I at first supposed, was owing to the number of gentlemen residing there who carry on business in the city by the sea, and are consequently in the latter place during the day. I was informed, however, by the proprietor of the hotel at which I stopped, that such was not the case. He assured me it was mainly owing to the fact that the County Court commenced that morning, and most of the male inhabitants, as was their custom on such occasions, had taken to the surrounding woods and mountains to escape jury duty.

The place is beautifully situated between high green hills, and said to possess the healthiest climate of any town in the State. During the summer months people flock there from all parts of the country. Healthy people pay high prices at the hotels for the privilege of living there, and sickly people do likewise, for the privilege of dying there.

The peculiarities of the town, and the distinctive manners and customs of the inhabitants, have been ably described by a poet whose effusions have not yet been translated into the foreign languages. Following is a part of the poem which bears directly on the town in question:—

“Here rest we now by sulphur well,
Where invalids and nurses dwell;
Where yelping dogs run through the street
Like wolves across a prairie wide,
And cattle wild as bison meet
You face to face, on every side;
With tails in air, and frothy nose,
And leveled horns, they round you close.

“Where people sit around the door,
In lazy groups of three or four,
And still their chronic thirst abate
With copious draughts of ‘sulphur straight.’”

There was quite an excitement in the town before I left. A fire broke out in an ash barrel situated in the rear yard of the house at which I was stopping, and for a time threatened to destroy the ashes. There is no estimating the amount of damage the citizens might have suffered if the fire had spread to a wash-tub that stood close by, and which at the time contained a portion of the town’s washing. Business was generally suspended, and stock in the insurance companies went down immediately. The citizens breathed more freely, however, when the efficient and energetic Fire Department turned out promptly as one man, and hastened to the city water-works, situated on a slight eminence in the centre of the town, and, turning on the water, succeeded in extinguishing the flames. The only damage done was the partial burning of the barrel and the scorching of the wash-tub and five dog-houses. The dogs were lying under the kitchen stove at the time, and escaped injury.

A TRIP ACROSS THE BAY.

I took a trip across the water this afternoon. The bay was so rough the ferry-boat could scarcely make her trips. The passengers were nearly all sea-sick, and, elbow to elbow, leaned over the side of the vessel. One gentleman, while gazing into the sea, lost his hat overboard, but he was so taken up with internal affairs that he cared little for outward appearances, as one could readily observe.

I reached my destination, and was convinced that all the sorrows are not on the sea. I saw a poor old woman thrown into terrible disorder by a kick from the cow she was milking in her own yard. Judging by the quantity of milk lying around loose, she must have been nearly through her task, and was probably in the very act of complimenting the cow for her generosity, when the spiteful animal gave the pail a hoist completely over the woman’s head, like a huge helmet, while the lacteal fluid ran down her body. The pail seemed to stick, despite her efforts to remove it.

As I looked back, I could see her groping toward the house, her visage still concealed in the blue bucket. She did look odd enough, as she felt her way up the steps, decorated with that novel head-dress.

There is a youth in this suburban town who bids fair to be a second Landseer. As I passed his father’s residence, I saw the young aspirant at work sketching from nature.

He had the foot of a little cur fast in the jaws of a steel-trap staked in the orchard. The artist sat at a short distance sketching the poor beast, as it stood on three legs gazing at the heavens and crying piteously. He was eagerly striving to get the expression of pain upon the dog’s face, and by the grin upon his own countenance I judged he was succeeding.

There was something in the pair that reminded me of Parrhasius and the Captive; and being in somewhat of a sketching mood myself at the time, I produced my book and pencil, and leaning over the fence, sketched the painter and his howling model.

On my way back to the city the bay seemed even rougher than in the morning. There was hardly a passenger on board the ferry-boat but showed symptoms of trouble. Although most of them would have been excellent subjects for the artist of a comic pictorial, my attention was specially directed towards an elderly lady who sat with folded arms, the elbows resting upon her knees, and a most woe-begone expression upon her wrinkled visage. Some passengers who were sick were able partly to conceal their emotions; _she_ was not; every muscle of her face betrayed her. She was sick and couldn’t help but show it.

If any individual amongst that crowd of disquieted passengers knocked louder at the door of human sympathy than did the old lady referred to, it was unmistakably that woman who was sick and had to show it at the vessel’s rail.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas Eve! I sit idly by my window, listening to the rapid patter of the rain upon the shingles and the wild whistle of the wind as it plays around the gables, or draws weird music from the telegraph wires stretched between the house tops, and upon which dangles the ghost of many a schoolboy’s kite. Christmas Eve! and I am not yet invited out to dinner! what can this mean? Am I then left to wither for want of attention, like some poor shrub plucked from a garden and planted in a graveyard? Well, let it be so. Alone though I am, I nevertheless enjoy myself hugely, and it requires considerable to enliven me now. There was a time when I could be moved to mirth by very little. The desperate efforts of a one-legged grasshopper describing circles while endeavoring to leap straight ahead, would amuse me for hours together. But it is not so now; I turn from such scenes to bury my eyes in the pages of profound works, and it is meet and proper I should.

For the last half hour I have been watching an old washerwoman stealing, as I think, a neighbor’s wood. It is barely possible that she is taking this method of paying herself for services rendered at the tub. Be this as it may, the wood is going. There is no mistake about that.

It is interesting to me, as it furnishes food for comment, and keeps the mind from lagging too long around the saddening fact that Time is writing lines upon my brow “with his antique pen.” Besides it is holiday season, and though I am not able to be charitable to a great degree, I can at least afford to be indifferent in this case.

The washerwoman is doubtless a hard-working and deserving old body, who perhaps has sunk her whole week’s earnings in a Christmas turkey, that her children’s hearts may be made glad and their stomachs full; and it would be a great pity if it should be spoiled i’ the cooking for the want of fuel.

I waive the crime, and speak of the facts from a disinterested stand-point. I have been such a diligent scholar in the severe school of experience, that I have learned to look upon my own misfortunes lightly, and certainly can behold—with an unmoistened eye—my neighbor’s choicest sticks noiselessly slipping into an adjoining yard. Besides, my neighbor can afford to lose a few. To make my position good, I entrench myself behind the following fact: To be in the fashion, he pays the price of a good-sized farm for seats at the opera, where the language is as foreign to his understanding as South Sea Island gibberish. While he indifferently beholds such a wasteful running at the bung, why should I assume the busybody’s _rôle_ and clap my finger on the dripping spigot?

Besides, I saw his wife last evening with fully four yards of expensive satin trailing in the dust. It was my misfortune to be walking directly behind her. As the crowd was pressing me onward, I was obliged to dance a sailor’s hornpipe around the hall, in order to keep from treading upon her skirts. It needed not the grins of lookers-on to assure me that I was cutting a ridiculous figure.

I am now enjoying my revenge! Indirectly though it comes, it is none the less sweet or acceptable. On the contrary, it is rather more gratifying, as it calls for no action on my part, but simply to keep my mouth hermetically sealed. The poet truly sings:—

“Time at last sets all things even.”

It has been in this case much quicker than I expected. As the skinny white arm stretches up out of the gloom of the washerwoman’s yard, and another billet shoots from the pile and disappears like a star from the firmament of heaven, I feel that a load is lifted from my heart, and I am reaping revenge.

Stay! what is this? a note, that all the evening escaped my notice. Lo! an aroma issues from it, sweet as Cytherea’s breath! It is an invitation, as I live, to help dissect a Christmas turkey! Sound the timbrel, beat the tom-tom. I am not forgotten yet!

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 319, changed “shovin’ of it” to “shovin’ all of it”. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 4. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the chapter. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.