Chapter VII (1)

AS little Henry, after parting with his mother, hurried on by the side of Mr. Sharp, who took his way directly across the bridge leading over to Charleston, where he had left the chaise in which he had ridden from Lexington, a handsome carriage, containing a mother and three happy children, about the age of himself, Emma, and the sister who had just died, drove rapidly by. The children were full of spirits, and, in their thoughtless glee, called out gayly, but with words of ridicule, to the poor, meanly clad child, who was hurrying on at almost a run beside the man who had become his master. Their words, however, were heeded not by the full-hearted boy. His thoughts were going back to his home, and to his much-loved mother.

This incident is mentioned here, as a striking illustration of the practical working of that system of grinding the poor, especially poor females, by which many men make fortunes, or at least acquire far more than a simple competence for life. That carriage belonged to Berlaps, and those happy children were his. But how could he buy a carriage and horses, and build fine houses, and yet not be able to pay more than the meagre pittance for his work that the reader has seen doled out to his half-starving workwomen? How could his children be fed and clothed sumptuously every day, and the widow, who worked for him from early dawn until the silent watches of midnight, not be able to get wholesome bread and warm garments for her little ones, _unless he took more than his just share_ of the profits upon his goods? If he could only afford to pay seven cents for coarse shirts, and so on, in proportion, up through the entire list of articles made, how came it that the profits on these very articles enabled him to live in elegance, build houses, and keep his own carriage and horses?

Such questions apply not alone to the single instance of Berlaps, here introduced. They are pertinent in their application to all who add to their profits for the purpose of a grand aggregate, at the expense of reducing the pay, even a few cents, upon the hard toiling workwoman whose slender income, at best, is barely sufficient to procure the absolute necessaries of life. This cutting down of women's wages, until they are reduced to an incompetent pittance, is a system of oppression too extensive, alas! in this, as well as many other countries. It is one of the quiet and safe means by which the strong oppress the weak--by which the selfish build themselves up, cruelly indifferent to the sufferings of those who are robbed of a just compensation for their labor. The record of a conversation overheard between two of the class alluded to will illustrate this matter. They were tailors--or, rather, what are sometimes called slop-shop or clothing men. Let it not be supposed that tailors alone are the oppressors of workwomen. In most of the employments at which females engage, especially such as admit of a competition in labor, advantage is taken of the eager demands for work, and prices reduced to the lowest possible standard. In the eager scramble for monopolizing more than a just share of custom, or to increase the amount of sales by the temptation of extremely moderate rates, the prices of goods are put down to the lowest scale they will bear. If, in doing this, the dealer was content with a profit reduced in some proportion to the increase of his sales, no one would have a right to complain. He would be free to sell his goods at cost, or even below cost, if that suited his fancy. Instead of this, however, the profits on his articles are often the same that they were when prices were ten or fifteen per cent. higher, and he reaps the advantage of a greatly increased sale, consequent upon the more moderate rates at which he can sell. The evil lies in his cutting down his operatives' wages; in taking off of them, while they make no party to his voluntary reduction of prices, the precise amount that he throws in to his customer as a temptation to buy more freely. But to the promised dialogue:--

"Money don't come in hand-over-fist, as it ought to come," remarked Grasp, of the flourishing firm of Grasp & Co., Merchant Tailors, of Boston, to the junior partner of the establishment. "The nimble sixpence is better than the slow shilling, you know. We must make our shears eat up cloth a little faster, or we sha'n't clear ten thousand dollars this year by one-third of the sum."

"Although that would be a pretty decent business these times."

"I don't call any business a decent one that can be bettered," replied Grasp, contemptuously.

"But can ours be bettered?"

"Certainly!"

"How?"

"By selling more goods."

"How are we to do that?"

"By putting down the prices, and then making a confounded noise about it. Do you understand?"

"I do. But our prices are very low now."

"True. But we may reduce them still further, and, by so doing, increase our sales to an extent that will make our business net us beyond the present income quite handsomely. But, to do this, we must cut down the prices now paid for making up our clothes. In this way, we shall be able to greatly increase our sales, with but a slight reduction upon our present rates of profit."

"But will our workmen stand it? Our needle-women, particularly, work very low now."

"They'll have to stand it!" replied Grasp; "most of them are glad to get work at any price. Women, with half a dozen hungry mouths around them, don't stand long to higgle about a few cents in a garment, when there are so many willing to step in and take their places. Besides, what are three or four cents to them on a vest, or pair of pants, or jacket? The difference in a week is small and will not be missed--or, at the worst, will only require them to economize with a little steadier hand; while upon the thousands of garments we dispose of here, and send away to other markets, it will make a most important aggregate on the right side of profit and loss."

"There is no doubt of that," replied the partner, the idea of the aggregate of three or four cents on each garment occupying his mind, and obscuring completely, for a time, every other idea. "Well, I'm with you," he said, after a little while, "in any scheme for increasing profits. Getting along at the rate of only some two or three thousand a year is rather slow work. Why, there's Tights, Screw, & Co., see how they're cutting into the trade, and carrying everything before them. Tights told me that they cleared twenty thousand dollars last year."

"No doubt of it. And I'll make our house do the same before three years roll over, or I'm no prophet."

"If we are going to play this cutting down game, we had better begin at once."

"Oh, certainly. The sooner the better. But first, we must arrange a reduced scale of prices, and then bring our whole tribe of workwomen and others down to it at once. It will not do to hold any parley with them. If we do, our ears will be dinned to death with trumped-up tales of poverty and distress, and all that sort of thing, with which we have no kind of concern in the world. These are matters personal to these individuals themselves, and have nothing to do with our business. No matter what prices we paid, we would have nothing but grumbling and complaint, if we allowed an open door on that subject."

"Yes, there is no doubt of that. But, to tell the truth, it is a mystery to me how some of these women get along. Very few make over two dollars a week, and some never go beyond a dollar. Many of them are mothers, and most of them have some one or more dependent upon them. Food, rent, clothes, and fuel, all have to come out of these small earnings. By what hocus-pocus it is done, I must confess, puzzles me to determine."

"Oh, as to that," returned Grasp, "it is, no doubt, managed well enough. Provisions, and everything that poor people stand in need of, are very cheap. The actual necessaries of life cost but little, you know. How far above the condition of the starving Irish, or the poor operatives in the manufacturing portions of England, is that of the people who work for us! Think of that for a moment."

"True--very true," replied the partner. "Well," he continued, "I think we had better put the screws on to our workwomen and journeymen at once. I am tired of plodding on at this rate."

"So am I. To-night, then, after we close the store, we will arrange our new bill of prices, and next week bring all hands down to it."

And they were just as good as their word. And it happened just as they said--the poor workmen had to submit.

* * * * *

But we must return from our digression.

The child who, under the practical operation of a system of which the above dialogue gives some faint idea, had to go out from his home at the tender age of ten years, because his mother, with all her hard toil early and late, at the prices she obtained for her labor, could not earn enough to provide a sufficiency of food and clothes for her children--that child passed on, unheeding, and, indeed, unhearing the jibes of the happier children of his mother's oppressor, and endeavored, sad and sorrowful as he felt, to nerve himself with something of a manly feeling. At Charlestown, Mr. Sharp got into his chaise, and, with the lad he had taken to raise, drove home.

"Well, here is the youngster, Mrs. Sharp," he said, on alighting from his vehicle. "He is rather smaller and punier than I like, but I have no doubt that he will prove willing and obedient."

"What is his name?" asked Mrs. S., who had a sharp chin, sharp nose, and sharp features throughout; and, with all, rather a sharp voice. She had no children of her own--those tender pledges being denied her, perhaps on account of the peculiar sharpness of her temper.

"His name is Henry," replied her husband.

"Henry what?"

"Henry Gaston, I believe. Isn't that it, my boy?"

Henry replied in the affirmative. Mr. Sharp then said--

"You can go in with Mrs. Sharp, Henry. She will tell you what she wants you to do."

"Yes, come along." And Mrs. Sharp turned away as she spoke, and retired into the more interior portion of the house, followed by the boy.

"Mrs. Sharp will tell you what she wants you to do!" Yes, that tells the story. From this hour the child is to become the drudge--the hewer of wood and drawer of water--for an unfeeling woman, whose cupidity and that of her husband have prompted them to get a little boy as a matter of saving--one who could do the errands for the shop and the drudgery for the house. There was no thought for, and regard towards, the child to be exercised. He was to be to them only an economical little machine, very useful, though somewhat troublesome at times.

"I don't see that your mother has killed you with clothes," said Mrs. Sharp to him, after taking his bundle and examining it, and then surveying him from head to foot. "But I suppose she thinks they will do well enough; and I suppose they will. There, do you see that wooden pail there? Well, I want you to take it and go to the pump across the street, down in the next square, and bring it full of water."

Henry took the pail, as directed, and went and got the water. This was the beginning of his service, and was all well enough, as far as it went. But from that time he had few moments of relaxation, except what the night gave him, or the quiet Sabbath. All through the first day he was kept busy either in the house or shop, and, before night, had received two or three reprimands from Mrs. Sharp, administered in no very affectionate tones.

When night came, at last--it had seemed a very long day to him--and he was sent to bed alone, in the dark, he put off his clothes and laid himself down, unable, as he did so, to restrain the tears and sobs. Poor child! How sadly and yearningly did his heart go back to the narrow apartment, every nook and corner of which were dear to him, because his mother's presence made all sunshine there! And how earnestly did he long to be with her again! But he soon sank away to sleep, from which he did not awaken until the half angry voice of Mrs. Sharp chided him loudly for "lazing it away" in bed until after sunrise. Quickly getting up and dressing himself, he went down and commenced upon a new day of toil. First he had to bring in wood, then to grind the coffee, afterwards to bring water from the pump, and then to scour the knives for breakfast. When these were done, he was sent into the shop to see if Mr. Sharp didn't want him, where he found plenty to occupy his attention. The shop was to be sprinkled and swept out, the counter to be dusted, and various other little matters to be attended to, which occupied him until breakfast-time. After he had finished this meal, Mrs. Sharp managed to find him plenty to do for some hours, and then her husband laid out work for him, at which he devoted himself all the rest of the day, except when he was wanted in the kitchen for some purpose or other. And so it continued, day after day, from morning until night. Not an hour's relaxation was allowed the child; and if, from weariness or disheartened feeling, he sometimes lingered over a piece of work, a severe scolding or some punishment from Mrs. Sharp was sure to follow.

Thus things went on, every day adding to the cold of a rapidly advancing northern winter. But Mrs. Sharp still thought, according to her first conclusions in regard to Henry's clothes, that "they would do." They were not very warm, it is true--that she could not help admitting. "But then he is used to wearing thinner clothes than other children," she reasoned, "or else his mother would have put warmer ones on him. And, any how, I see no use in letting him come right down as a dead expense upon our hands. He hasn't earned his salt yet, much less a suit of winter clothes."

But the poor little fellow was no more used to bearing exposure to the chilling winds of winter than she had been when a child. He therefore shrunk shiveringly in the penetrating air whenever forced to go beyond the door. This did not fail to meet the eye of Mrs. Sharp--indeed, her eye was rarely off of him when he was within the circle of its vision--and it always irritated her. And why? It reproved her for not providing warmer clothes for the child; and hurt her penurious spirits with the too palpable conviction that before many weeks had passed they would be compelled to lay out some money for "the brat," as she had begun frequently to designate him to her husband, especially when she felt called upon to complain of him for idleness, carelessness, dulness, stupidity, wastefulness, uncleanliness, hoggishness, or some other one of the score of faults she found in a child of ten years old, whom she put down to work as steadily as a grown person.

A single month made a great change in his external appearance; such a change as would have made him unfamiliar even to his mother's eye. While under her care, his clothes, though poor, had always been whole and clean--his skin well washed, and his hair combed smoothly. Now, the color of his thin jacket and trowsers could scarcely have been told for the dust and grease which had become imbedded in their texture. His skin was begrimed until it was many shades darker, and his hair stood stiffly about his head, in matted portions, looking as if a comb had not touched it for weeks. One would hardly have imagined that so great a change could have passed upon a boy in a few weeks as had passed over him. When he left his mother's humble abode, there was something about him that instantly attracted the eye of almost any one who looked at him attentively, and won for him favorable impressions. His skin was pure and white, and his mild blue eyes, with their expression of innocent confidence, looked every one in the face openly. Now there was something repulsive to almost every one about the dirty boy, who went moping about with soiled face and hands, a cowed look, and shrinking gait. Scarcely any one seemed to feel a particle of sympathy for him, either in or out of the house where he dwelt.

Time passed on, and New Year's day rapidly approached, that anxiously longed-for time, to which Henry had never ceased to look forward since he left his mother's presence. Every passing day seemed to render his condition more and more uncomfortable. The air grew colder and colder, and the snow lay all around to the depth of many inches. A suit of cloth clothes had been "cooked up" for him out of an old coat and trowsers that had long since been worn threadbare by Mr. Sharp. Thin though they were, they yet afforded a most comfortable substitute for those their welcome appearance had caused him to throw aside. But the pair of shoes he had worn when he left Boston were still considered good enough, if thought of at all, notwithstanding they gaped largely at the toes, and had been worn so thin in the soles that scarcely the thickness of a knife-blade lay between his feet and the snow-covered ground. In regard to sleeping, he was not much better off. His bed was of straw, upon the floor, in a large, unplastered garret, and but scantily supplied with covering. Here he would creep away alone and in the dark every night, on being driven away to bed from crouching beside the warm kitchen fire after his daily toil was done, and get under the thin covering with all his clothes on. There he would lie, all drawn up into a heap to keep warm, and think of his mother, and long for New Year's day to come, until sleep would lock up his senses in unconsciousness.

At last it was New Year's eve, but the poor child had heard no word about going home. He could sleep but little through that night for thinking about the promised return to his mother on the next day, and for the dread he felt lest Mr. Sharp had forgotten, or would disregard his promise. The bright morning of another new year at length arose, clear and piercingly cold, and Henry crept early from his bed, and went down stairs to make the fires as usual. When Mr. Sharp at length made his appearance, he looked wishfully and inquiringly into his face, but no notice whatever was taken of him, except to give him some order, in the usual short, rough tone in which he always addressed him.

"Ain't I going home to see my mother to-day, sir?" was on his tongue, but he feared to utter it.

After breakfast he watched every movement of Mr. Sharp, expecting each moment to see him go out and get the chaise ready to take him to Boston. But no such idea was in the mind of the thoughtless, unfeeling master. Nine, ten, and eleven o'clock came and went, and the poor child's anxious heart began to fail him. Several times he was on the point of recalling to the mind of Mr. Sharp his promise to his mother that he should be sent home at New Year's, but as often his timid heart caused him to shrink back. At last dinner-time came, and yet nothing was said, nor were there any indications that the boy was to go home. The meal passed, and then Henry was directed to go on some errand about a mile away.

"But ain't I going home to-day, Mr. Sharp?" said he, with a sudden, despairing resolution, looking up with tearful eyes, as he spoke.

"What's that?" eagerly asked Mrs. Sharp, coming forward. "What's that, ha?"

The frightened boy slunk back, and stood with his eyes upon the floor.

"Go where, did he say, Mr. Sharp?"

"Go to see his mammy, to be sure!" replied the hatter, in a half-sneering tone of surprise.

"His mammy, indeed! And pray what put that into his head, I should like to know?"

"Mr. Sharp told mother he would send me home to see her on New Year's day," the child ventured to say, in explanation.

"Clear out! Off with you, Mr. Assurance!" exclaimed Sharp, in an angry voice, at this, half raising his hand to strike the lad. "How dare you!"

Henry started back trembling, at once conscious that all hope of seeing her he had so pined to meet for many long and weary days of suffering and privation, was at an end. Slowly he left the house, shrinking in the cold blast, and went on his errand through the hard frozen snow.

"Did any one ever hear such impudence!" ejaculated Mrs. Sharp, in breathless surprise. "Sent home on New Year's day to his mammy! A pretty how-do-you-do, upon my word! the dirty little ill-conditioned brat!"

"I believe, now I come to think of it," said Sharp, "that I did say something of the kind to his mother, just to pacify her, though I had no thought of doing it; and, indeed, I don't suppose she cares any great deal about seeing him. She didn't look as if she could keep soul and body together long."

"If she wanted to see him so dreadful bad, why didn't she keep him at home with her, tied all the while to her apron-string?" said the unfeeling woman.

"She would have had to work a little harder to have done that. No doubt she was glad enough to get rid of the burden of supporting him."

"Well, all that I can say is, that any mother who is not willing to work to take care of her children, don't deserve to see them."

"So say I," returned the husband.

"And as to Henry's going home, I wouldn't hear to any such thing. He'd not be a bit too good to trump up any kind of stories about not being treated well, so as to prevail upon her not to let him come back. I know just how boys like him talk when they get a chance to run home. Even when they do come back, they're never worth a cent afterwards."

"Oh, no! As to his going home, that is out of the question this winter," replied Sharp. "If his mother cares about seeing him, she'll find her way out here."

With a sadder heart than ever did poor Henry grope his way up into the cold garret that night, with but one thought and one image in his mind, the thought of home and the image of his mother. He dreamed of her all night. He was at home. Her tender voice was in his ear, and his head rested on her bosom. She clothed him in warmer garments, and set him beside her at the table, upon which was tempting food. But morning came at last, and he was awakened from visions of delight to a more painful consciousness of his miserable condition by the sharp, chiding voice of his cruel mistress. Slowly, with stiffened limbs and a reluctant heart, did he arise, and enter upon the repulsive and hard duties of another day.

As he had not been permitted to go home, his next consolatory thought was that his mother would come out at once to see him. This hope he clung to day after day, but he clung to it in vain. It mattered not that, every time the shop door opened when he was in it, he turned with a quickened pulse to see if it were not his mother, or that he would pause and listen, when back in the house, to hear if the strange voice that came suddenly from the shop, were not the voice of her he so longed to see. She came not; nor was any word from her brought to him.

And thus passed the whole of the severe month of January, the long and cold winter adding greatly to his other causes of suffering.

(To be continued.)

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 2: Entered according to Act of Congress, by T. B. PETERSON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.]

LETTERS LEFT AT THE PASTRY-COOK'S:

BEING THE CLANDESTINE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN KITTY CLOVER AT SCHOOL, AND HER "DEAR, DEAR FRIEND" IN TOWN.

EDITED BY HORACE MAYHEW.

THE FOURTH LETTER LEFT.

(_Dated March 9th._)

SHOWING WHAT KITTY THOUGHT OF SOME MORE OF HER SCHOOLFELLOWS.

IN my last letter, I forgot to tell you about the two Miss Suetts, Emilia and Julia. They are fat, and round, and heavy, like (Meggy says) a couple of yeast dumplings. Their parents are in India, and they never go home. No one cares much about that, however; for they are great _teazers_, and the most dreadful _tell-tales_. But they are never without preserves and pickles of some kind, and have such delicious pomegranates and guava jelly sent to them, in such large blue jars, that, after all, I doubt if any two girls would be more missed from the school than the two Suetts--disagreeable things as they are. You should only taste their tamarinds, Nell!

There is also Ada Steele, the poetess, who writes verses, some of which have actually appeared in print (in the "Family Page," I think), and you cannot imagine how conceited she is about it. I am told she knows every line of poetry that ever was written. She is such a dreadful plague, that I never go near her if I can avoid it. You cannot ask her what's the day of the month, but she'll give you a hundred lines of poetry right off from some poet or other. Meggy calls her "a tap of poetry," which once turned on, will go on running till you stop it. Byron is her especial favorite, and she always calls him "dear." His works are not allowed in the college; but Ada Steele has got a copy of them, and she puts it under her pillow every night.

But the girl I dislike most is Susan Carney. Fancy a tall, thin creature, with hair the color of blotting-paper, and with eyes like an owl's, that cannot look at you, and you have her standing before you. She is the "_sneak_" of the school; and moves about like a cat. When we are talking secrets, and turn round, there she is--pretending to look for something, but in reality listening. Or, if a girl has comfortably got one of James's delicious novels inside her grammar, and looks up to see that it is all right and snug, there is Carney's cold, fishy eye sure to be fixed sideways upon her. Meggy says her eye is so sharp, she's confident that, like a needle's, _it would cut thread_. We cannot have a bit of fun but Miss Carney is sure to spoil it. We cannot read or write a letter in class without her knowing it. We cannot talk to the masters, or have a comfortable bit of gossip about the filthy dinners and the lady principal, without our being requested, before the day is half over, "to step to Mrs. R.'s boudoir," after which you will see the girls coming back with red eyes and burning cheeks.

The oddest thing is, no one is sure that it is Carney who tells, though every one is convinced that she does. She manages it so cleverly that she is never found out. We tease her as much as we dare, calling her "policeman," "spy," "tell-tit," and everything we can think of; but it takes no effect upon her. She turns a little pale, talks morality in a whining tone, and leaves it to Mrs. Rodwell to redress her wrongs.

Another curious thing is the way in which she wheedles a secret out of you. Though on your guard, she flatters and fawns, and coaxes and lectures till you have parted with your secret long before you are aware of it. You would imagine she was chloroform, so cleverly does she extract it, without the smallest consciousness on your part. The fact is, _she crawls over you_, Nelly; and as for talking, it is my firm belief she would talk a letter out of a letter-box. She is exceedingly neat and clean, with not a single hair out of bounds; and, somehow, her dresses do not rustle, nor her shoes creak, as other persons' do. She is down upon you, like a shower at the horticultural _fête_, before you have time to run for it. What with her crawling, and her sleek appearance, and her gliding so noiselessly about the room, she looks like a big lizard, or some slippery serpent, that was advancing towards you; and I always feel inclined to scream, or to put up my parasol, when she comes near me, to frighten her away.

Nor is she much a favorite with the remainder of the school. The little girls bribe her with oranges and cakes, and lend her small sums of money, to prevent her telling. But the big girls know it's no use, and waste nothing upon her; they know well enough she will take the bribe one minute, and go and _blab_ the next. The governesses are even afraid of her, and begin talking of the weather whenever she approaches.

But what shocks me the most, Nelly, is that she is righteous. She moans and groans, and turns up the whites (or the yellows, rather) of her eyes, and is _so_ pious at church, and is always inveighing against "the shameful wickedness" of the school. Then she reads hymns, and is embroidering a _prie-dieu_ for her godpapa, who is something in the church, and exceedingly rich; and she writes such insufferably long sermons, twice the length of anybody else's; and after service she begs to see Mrs. Rodwell, _pour confier son cœur_ as she calls it, but we all know what that means, for as sure as plum-pudding on Sunday, some one is sure to be punished that same afternoon! I only wish we could find her out in anything. I really believe the entire school would rush up to the lady principal, and tell of her. But Miss Carney is far too cautious to be caught tripping! They tell me she even sleeps with her eyes open.

Let us turn from this hateful creature (I can't help hating her, Nelly) to some more agreeable subject. I will not tire you with descriptions of Miss Smiffel, the butcher's daughter, or Miss Embden, the baker's daughter, except to tell you that they have a sad time of it, and are called rare ugly names, because their papas happen to be butchers and bakers, just as if they could help it. I need not tell you, either, about Lizzy Spree, a little, merry, fidgety, laughing thing, with black eyes, who is the romp--the "bad girl" of the school. She is always playing tricks, making apple-pie beds, or sewing up the tops of our stockings, or hiding the dancing-master's shoes, or tying the cat's tail to the parrot's leg, or filling Miss Blight's bed with bread-crumbs and cockchafers, or breaking a window, or tearing her dress every day. The consequence is, she is always in punishment; but she cares no more for it than a duck cares for an umbrella. She spends all her pocket-money on crackers and detonating balls and valentines, and is always going to be expelled; only Mrs. Rodwell relents, and gives her "one chance more." The maid fell down stairs with the soup-tureen yesterday, from the fact of her strewing the kitchen-steps with marbles and orange-peel. It was too bad. We had to go without soup in consequence.

But, Nelly, you would quite love little Jessie Joy; she is the wee'st little thing you ever saw. You might hang her to your _châtelaine_. You would declare that she was not more than ten, and yet she was sixteen last birthday. She has a rosy round face, and little flaxen curls, exactly like a pretty doll, if you could only keep her still for a moment to look at her. She plays about the room like the sun on a looking-glass, and her whole body seems to quiver with light. I defy you to catch her, unless, perhaps, it was in the dark. We call her "pet" and "tiny."

I don't know how it is Jessie cannot be taught; and yet she is far from being an idiot, for the little thing understands; nor is she stupid, for she is quick enough to outwit us all. Still, they have never been able to teach her anything. Her eyes (I don't know what color they are) fly away like butterflies directly you attempt to catch them, and settle on all places but on her book. We think she can read, but no one is sure of it. If told to learn, she pouts her lips like cherries, until you feel inclined to bite them; and her little head swings to and fro, Nelly, like the bells on a fuchsia when set a dancing by the wind. The lady principal cannot scold her. The utmost she can do is to call her to her in an angry tone, when she takes up her little head in her two hands as if it were a bowl of milk, and kisses her gently on the forehead. This is all her punishment; and the little culprit runs back into her place as quick as a rabbit.

But if she can't read, or spell, or learn, you should only hear her sing, Nell! It is like a wild bird. She warbles every air she hears. Music seems to gush from her like water from a fountain. Once she was caught playing, and they say it sounded like the rejoicing of good spirits; but she cried when they wanted her to do it again, and has never touched the instrument since. She dances more like a fairy than a human being. And yet when Monsieur Viaulon (the French dancing-master) attempted to teach her the polka, she ran away and hid herself behind the great globe in the music-room. The truth is, her dancing has nothing of the ball-room in it. She flits about so restlessly, it makes your eyes wink to look at her. Her feet never seem happy on the ground, and I always have a curious fear when the window is opened that Jessie will fly out of it.

The girls are rather frightened at her restless ways and her strange beauty, which seem to belong more to the air than to the earth. They declare that she is a fairy changeling; and that the tale which is told of her father being shot in a duel, and of her mother dying when Jessie was born, is all a story. Jessie rarely goes home. The only person who comes to see her is an aged aunt, with a face all over lines, like a railway map. She brings her plenty of toys and plenty of sweeties; but Jessie, apparently, does not care the least about her. The only person her flighty disposition stops in its giddy career to alight upon is Amy Darling. She listens to no one else without impatience--she will play with no one else, except it is a young kitten that belongs to the cook--she will obey no one else. But then I believe, if Amy spoke to the lightning, that she would stop it.

I am so tired of scribbling, dear Nelly, that I can't write any more to-day, though I could fill a whole band-box with particulars about this place. So no more at present from your dear affectionate.

KITTY.

SOME THOUGHTS ON TRAINING FEMALE TEACHERS.

BY MISS M. S. G.

IN a former communication, we sought to awaken the more lively and _practising_ interest of ladies generally (especially those possessed of large means and influence), in the subject of teacher-training to an extent and thoroughness of method which have hitherto been scarcely deemed requisite, especially in those portions of the country where education has been conducted too much, if we may say so, at _hap-hazard_. Such of our readers as have traversed various sections of our wide-spread land will realize what we mean, as they recall juvenile groups, collected or _bustled_ together, because something must be done with them, to be coaxed, awed, or driven by a leader who occupied the post as a _pis aller_, or as a mere half-way house to some less wearisome or more lucrative avocation. We are not fearful here of wounding the self-love or better feelings of any truly estimable or conscientious teacher, for such we have ever found the most prompt to welcome improvement, the most open to suggestions of amendment. But perceiving, as we do, throughout the community, marked signs of a willingness, a desire to assign to instructors a more elevated position, a post of honor among the benefactors of the race, and knowing, by experience, the readiness of many to meet the requisite claims of expenditure, it is to teachers themselves, to young teachers especially, and to those aspiring to that high and responsible office, that we would now offer a few earnest, and we trust heart-stirring questions and remarks.

We would ask on whom and on what must _mainly_ rest the position they are to hold, the _character_ of the work to be effected? Surely, in themselves and in the disinterested and docile spirit with which it is entered on and pursued. Short of high aims and pure motives, no course can leave its valuable impress, and it is an acknowledged, even if too little credited, maxim, that they who best learn to obey and submit to lawful rule, best know how to govern. Let us therefore be permitted to persuade the young and high-spirited to remember that _their time will come_ to take the lead, and that no premature assumption of authority or airs of control will avail for half the benefit to be derived from a teachable spirit, and quiet observing and waiting for opportunity. We know full well and practically that this simple method is capable of eliciting the most harmonious and beautiful results, and that between teachers of experience and those seeking preparation for the work, a friendship will grow of a character the most extended and the most varied in its points of interest. We will not pause to enlarge on the sad contrast to this state of things, its multiform evils--for we do not like looking on the dark side of subjects which should bring out every latent grace and virtue of the soul. Moreover, we are fully persuaded of better things, so far at least as intention and desire are concerned, yet a friendly hand may offer some warning hints of evils which are wont to creep in and mar the benefit and beauty of fulfilment.

A trite motto tells us that "manners make the man!" It is, at least, by all conceded that they are the outward garb and indication of that which is within, and that to a degree of which the actor is often unaware and unconscious. Can the young teacher then deem unimportant any measure of care in deportment, or regard as too severe a self-sacrifice the gentle and habitual control of those ebullitions of spirits, those out-of-place familiarities which we have oftentimes seen sweeping away the outguards of reverence by action, word, or look? If these are in an isolated individual annoying or unseemly, how great are their effect and potency when a sympathetic influence pervades a number met for the same purpose, and that avowedly one of the highest improvement and culture! A little true _reflection_ on this point would, we are assured, convert many a well-meaning, but unpolished, and therefore ill-prepared young woman into the well-mannered lady, the true helper of her presiding teacher, and, in time, the consistently dignified instructress of others.

Again, we know that _simplicity_ is ever the expression of the highest truth, of elegance, and of purity. We need not rake up classical authority, or quote the poets, to prove what makes its own way to every unsophisticated mind and heart. But would indeed that the "daughters of the land" might consider this, and reflect on St. Paul's caution, "Not the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, or of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel," ere they present themselves as examples to the young, so especially, on _this_ point, prone to imitation and emulation. Far higher, we feel assured, would they then rise in the _true_ esteem of their juniors, far more secure would they be of reaching and maintaining that position to which _every_ teacher should aspire, that of feeling that in a _real_ superiority none has the claim or the power to surpass them.

Our time and space are limited, and we do not desire to crowd on our readers too much of our own practical experience, and "notes taken from life by the way." If welcomed, however, with the sincere good-will with which they are offered, other "thoughts" may yet find utterance, and, we would fondly trust, find their counterpart in the efficient action of many an unknown young teacher, and their reflection in many a childish scholar.

DON'T OVERTASK THE YOUNG BRAIN.

THE minds of children ought to be little, if at all, tasked, till the brain's development is nearly completed, or until the age of six or seven years. And will those years be wasted? or will the future man be more likely to be deficient in mental power and capability, than one who is differently treated? Those years will not be wasted. The great book of nature is open to the infant's and the child's prying investigation; and from nature's page may be learned more useful information than is contained in all the children's books that have ever been published. But even supposing those years to have been absolutely lost, which is anything but the case, will the child be eventually a loser thereby? We contend, with our author, that he will not. Task the mind during the earlier years, and you not only expose the child to a greater risk of a disordered brain--not only, it may be, lay the foundation for a morbid excitability of brain, that may one day end in insanity--but you debilitate its bodily powers, and by so doing, to all intents and purposes, the mind will eventually be a loser in its powers and capabilities.--_Dr. Robertson._

THE SOUVENIR; OR, THE ARRIVAL OF THE "LADY'S BOOK."

A SKETCH OF SOUTHERN LIFE.

BY PAULINE FORSYTH.

(_See Plate._)

"You may train the eagle
To stoop to your fist,
Or you may inveigle
The Phœnix of the East;
The lioness, you may move her
To give up her prey;
But you'll ne'er stop a lover,
He will find out the way."--_Old Song._

A SOUTHERN plantation lying, as so many of them do, at some distance from any town or village, presents a phase of life peculiar to itself, and very singular to one unaccustomed to it from childhood. It has not the loneliness of isolation, for each planter's house is in its way a sort of a palace, the residence of the superior authority, while at a little distance are clustered together the cabins of his retainers, sometimes in such numbers as to form almost a little village of their own. Yet the members of the family are often separated for weeks or months from all congenial companionship, excepting what they can find in each other; for, besides the distance, the state of the roads is often an insuperable obstacle to all intercourse with their far-off neighbors. Eminently social as Southerners usually are, this is no slight drawback to their enjoyment, and the arrival of the post is looked forward to as the one great weekly event to relieve the monotony of "the leaden-footed hours."

Bessie Egerton was in this respect more fortunate than many of her companions, her father's plantation being but about five miles from the village of Oxford, in South Carolina. This was only a pleasant ride when the roads were good; but there were weeks during the winter and early spring when even Bessie Egerton, general belle and favorite as she was throughout the surrounding country, had nothing but the mails to remind her that there were other interests and more stirring events in the world than those of which her home was the centre.

Mr. Egerton was not one of those wealthy planters whose income rivals that of the merchant princes of the North, and would be a pretty fortune for a person of moderate wants; but he was in comfortable circumstances, and Bessie's home was a very pleasant one. The house stood on a gentle slope, and with its wide verandas covered with roses, jessamine, and honey suckles, and overhung by live-oak trees, from whose gnarled branches hung drooping long fringes of the gray moss, giving them the venerable appearance of age, it suggested ideas of coolness and shade, the peculiar comforts of that part of the country.

It was in the latter part of February; the early spring was already coming on with the laggard steps of one sure of its dominion, and therefore in no haste to assert it. The rose-bushes, that had but a few weeks before shaken off their summer's burden of leaves and flowers, gave tokens that they were about to take it up once more, and the yellow jessamine in the woods, with those many beautiful, but as yet unnamed vines and flowers that adorn the swamps and marshes of the South, had already begun to awaken from their winter's slumber.

Bessie had been busy all the morning. Her mother was a confirmed invalid, and upon the eldest daughter of the house were devolved all the active duties that belong to the mistress of a plantation--much heavier and more arduous than those of a Northern housekeeper, requiring the exercise of more thought and discretion. After breakfast, with her basket of keys, that invariable accompaniment of a Southern housekeeper, she went to the store-room to give out the dinner for the family. There, after having measured out the flour and spices, and counted the eggs, and portioned off the vegetables required, she stood to see that everything was replaced in its proper order. Her next visit was to the smoke-house for the meat, and there she was often required to superintend the distribution of certain portions of it, both to the house and field-servants on her father's place. Then giving a scrutinizing glance at the poultry-yard as she passed, she sought the spring-house, which was a dairy also, and remained there for an hour overlooking the operations of the dairy-woman. From thence she bent her steps to the negro-quarter, where there were two or three sick servants, of whose condition her mother wished to have a particular account. To obtain an idea of their ailments and their needs was the work of no little time, for to be sparing of words is not a characteristic of either the ignorant or the suffering. She ended her duties here by a visit to her nurse, now a bedridden old woman, and, after talking with her for a little while, and reading to her, as was Bessie's daily practice, she returned to what was called, _par excellence_, "the house."

When she entered her mother's room to give a detailed account of all that she had done, she was greeted with--

"Bessie, dear, I want you to cut out directly a shirt and a pair of trowsers for Peter. He has just been in to say that his old ones are not fit to wear to church, and, if he don't have some new ones, he cannot go next Sunday; and, as it is communion-day, I do not like to have him compelled to stay away by any neglect of mine."

"But he ought to have given us a little more time, I think," said Bessie. "To-day is Friday."

"Yes, dear; but Dinah can make the shirt, and you can have Elsie, your little maid, to help you with the trowsers. She is quite a neat seamstress."

"But I told Elsie to sew on my new dress to-day. I intended to wear it next Sunday."

"You have plenty of old ones that you can wear, my dear. Peter must be attended to first in this case, I think."

Bessie was so accustomed to be the hands to do the bidding of her mother's thoughtful and considerate head and heart, that she made no farther objection to complying with Mrs. Egerton's suggestion. Since she was fifteen, she had been in the habit of cutting out, under her mother's supervision, not only nearly all her own clothing, including her dresses, that very abstruse and difficult portion of female attire, but also the clothing for all the servants, men, women, and children, on her father's place; so that the particular portion of the work assigned her was quickly and skilfully performed. But, pressed for time as they were, she had also to assist in the sewing, and she was busily employed with her needle, preparing for Peter his Sunday habiliments, when the noise of a carriage driving up to the door attracted her attention.

"It is Nannie and Virginia Lanning," said Bessie to her mother, after a glance from the window, and she ran to welcome her guests.

"Now, I hope you have come to stay with me two or three days," said Bessie, after the first greetings were over, with the hospitable warmth common to the class to which she belonged; an invitation to pass the night at their houses being usually the shortest time to which a Southern planter restricts his invitations, equivalent to the "Stay and take tea with us," of the Northerners.

"Yes," replied Nannie, "we have come to pass Sunday with you, and the idea of going to church once more is quite a treat; it is three months since we have been off our place. The roads have been so bad, and Prince got lame, and pa, who thinks almost as much of his horses as he does of us, would neither sell him and buy another, nor allow him to be used till he was quite well; so that we have really been prisoners. It is a great favor that he allowed us to drive with him so far, but we promised to come very slowly. We have been nearly six hours coming these ten or eleven miles."

"Don't you often feel very lonely?" asked Bessie.

"Yes, indeed. Sometimes for two or three weeks we do not see a human being out of our own family; and it comes very hard at first, after we have been travelling about all summer; but it is astonishing how soon we get accustomed to it. We have occasional visitors, though, that break in on the monotony, if they do nothing else. You know we have no tavern within twelve or fifteen miles of us, and, as father has the largest house in the neighborhood, travellers are often directed there to pass the night, and sometimes they prove to be very agreeable people."

"Yes," said Virginia, "there was a lawyer from Philadelphia travelling through the country on business, that Nannie declares she fell in love with; and then there was a Yankee quack doctor that stayed with us nearly a week, and amused us very much. He took our house for a tavern, and ordered the servants about, and made himself quite at home. He told father that he thought that he had rather a tumble-down sort of a place, but, if he would just spry up a little and go to work, he might fix up considerable."