Chapter X: Preface (10)

I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a good cry all by myself.

A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket, and chirruping together like birds around a spring.

I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.

"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the Bastille."

I jumped back.

"What!" says I--"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive, without trial?"

"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."

I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb. We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.

"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.

"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."

I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see bare walls than a bedstead _like_ the one he died on. Why don't they take it down?

We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old, coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates and dishes were piled together. That was about all.

I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house, long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.

This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too. It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.

Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.

The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place. If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that disgraces the nation.

The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a mighty small retail market.

Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.

When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell you--to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the corks a-flying about like bullets.

It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.

When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one want to dance with her own grandfather.

They did dance, sisters--I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time what a genuine Virginia reel is.

Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do, especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing, half the way up that beautiful river.

Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in together.

LX.

MR. GREELEY'S NOMINATION.

Dear sisters:--What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now? Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand what she has done lately in the way of literature--in the female line, I mean--and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.

I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter, and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol, but now her time has come.

I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a doubt that a great many other persons feel pretty much as I do about it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of ours--don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make me?--that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just as many faults--no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor and glory in being his friend?

I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above prejudice, and capable of self-judgment--ladies that are ladies, and wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."

I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the world that they want him for President of these United States. This is weak, but natural--natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for ourselves?

After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What man really does govern himself?--either through his brain, or heart, some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a crowd, or by retail to his own family.

In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips like lady-bugs about an open rose.

The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks; but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.

As for me, I felt--yes, as the poet says, "I felt--I felt like a morning star."

"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman, with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the nomination?"

"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think--the sun will rise and set on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."

"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.

"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a question!"

"Then you think it will?"

"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of her own sons?"

"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.

"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"

"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."

"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while? ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new field? First the sword, now the pen."

"Oh! not that; but--but--"

"Well, but what?"

"He's so--so peculiar."

"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense is peculiar--and I begin to think it is."

"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"

I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was a temptation, and--well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to fib a little that comes over me.

"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."

"Ah!" says she.

"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an honored guest at his birthday party."

"You don't say so!" says she.

I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified movement.

"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to me.

"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr. Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his, and of wisdom like his."

"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd that grew thick around me.

"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about politics, but I do know something about the history of my country, and it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled over it; but here is something more--the editor of a great daily journal is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I, warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."

"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the other way.

"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I, opening my fan again.

"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.

"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.

They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered what it was all about.

I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:

"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck to neck, I shan't care much which beats."

LXI.

WOMEN AND THINGS.

Dear sisters:--I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all in a flutter.

"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I know nothing about such subjects."

"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud of."

"I--I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says she, a-coloring up with inward madness.

"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of history more than another?"

"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is expected to take interest in them," says she.

"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing--nothing more. That very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest is guess-work and prophecy," says I.

"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss; "I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."

"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into contemptible men."

"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the good of that if you don't go in for voting?"

"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by woman's influence?" says I, blandly.

"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says she.

"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous work of their strong hands beautiful."

Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express an opinion on this subject--first, because it was my opinion, and again, because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the femininities that belong to the sex.

For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.

We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his creatures.

I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they would rather turn into weak, meddlesome men than work, study, bring up children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but the baser metal for change.

Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.

As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?

If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families nations are made.

"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me. "Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax, morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes, they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men--that of honest respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."

If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an objection. Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.

"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop its infinite capabilities--far from it. There are questions mixed up with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest moral question of these times.

"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her, with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as some of our sex are of being women.

"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the Scripture says, like the leeches--which is a passage of Scripture that I never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck your _blood_ without asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther than a bite in the way of crying out.

"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes master of herself--herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to, just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent of it than the man in the moon.

"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away, or do with as she pleases. If _she_ dies, he cannot touch a red cent. Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her, without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed. Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.

"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State--don't you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work? When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of reputation along the way.

"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin, I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."

"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.

"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all that God intended them to be--the full companions and helpmates of men. We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are humanized, softened, and made better by such help and such companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer, they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman among us can ask."

Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform, lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of myself.

LXII.

A TRIP TO ANNAPOLIS.

Dear sisters:--Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children. She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where home-made writers are concerned.

Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or anything that ought to stand between him and a wife who might carry fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.

Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking heathens of one for the world.

Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.

There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish, almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native Vermonter before he sat down.

Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that--a Japanee isn't likely to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience, but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy chill of Christian reserve, unless--the thing is possible, for, to love, all things are so--that heathen should adopt our religion with the stovepipe hat.

There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being President--a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends, and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which will be unpleasant to those who like them both.

Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence, and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.

It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside. Besides--I own it boldly--in this case duty and a hilarious state of pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old State! I don't care who knows it--from this day out, white is my color.

But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from the Government, which is General Grant?

I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:

"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the Government. That is high patriotism."

I shook my head.

"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter--national in some respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to the back-bone--first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr. Grant should rile up against each other--which I hope they won't--don't you see that I am in an awful mixed position?--the National Government on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"

"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.

"Well, yes--kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."

"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"

"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me; a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."

Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.

With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.

Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and they wilted down before it.

LXIII.

AMONG THE CADETS.

Dear sisters:--The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to take them.

Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered itself to death, and that was the end of it.

Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made it flutter beautifully as we passed along.

The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round. He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.

While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and says he:

"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who distinguished himself on the first Monitor."

Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming eyes covered him with particular admiration. Feeling as if I were the colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a military salute. What I did say was significant.

"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about--I say nothing, but this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean--when these great and luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own immortal statesman will appreciate it."

Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last, and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the sunshine of prosperity.

We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.

Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short, sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.

The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.

"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just behind me.

"It is a salute for us," says he.

"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.

"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.

Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary toil.

Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again, where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the fun died out.

After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live, and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked--which would have been interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.

Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam it--dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity isn't in my nature.

After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to the ship's beams--which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.

Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses, as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day--for that ended in something, and the rest didn't.

It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed, so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We danced with our bonnets and hats on--we ladies, I mean--and the way my white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to wake up the American heart in every bosom present.

LXIV.

AMERICAN AUTHORS.

Dear sisters:--You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to somebody else--who took him up and made an awful time about it before a justice of the peace, who fined him, or something--is another. Then, again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing them cosily together.

The truth is, from the very first--when she got up a series of romping platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last, gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex--her taste ran against the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare--who knows?

Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may shock your religious feelings. _He wrote plays_; _he acted plays too_; and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write some things that might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.

Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him popular, for he wrote some very readable things--very readable, indeed. For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off from his bench:

"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;
'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,
'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that hooketh from me my good name,
Grabs that which don't do him no good,
But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"

"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.

"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress. Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the modern improvements. Shakespeare--"

"_Mr_. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of authorship with my last breath.

"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."

"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for writers?"

"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that encouraging literature?"

I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never having seen any one that had.

"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a President of these United States before his election, been made an ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason that he had written a paltry life of himself?"

"_Mr._ Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.

"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life was taken by that young man?"

"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were alive."

"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park to-morrow."

"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in America may get a chance."

"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was sitting near me.

"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman was born, and has lived and written, is the place where he should be first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women, have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the power God has given them--worked it out, too, with not half the recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."

"Why, Phœmie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know that you are talking like a book?"

"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it," says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and we mean to keep so."

"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors who have been living over his plays years and years--Booth, Wallack, Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.

"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"

It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:

"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."

LXV.

THE STATUE OF SHAKESPEARE.

Well, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding toward one spot.

Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two, were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles, from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums, twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.

There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol, looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way, but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was there.

Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up, and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when others wanted to listen to music.

Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people came out first-best--more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge Daly--a real nice-looking person--got out and reached out his arms toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.

The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted; and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let him speak.