Chapter I: HATE a match. I feel sure that brimstone matches were never made in (1)

heaven; and it is sad to think that, with few exceptions, matches are all of them tipped with brimstone.

But my taper having burned out, and the coals being all dead upon the hearth, a match is all that is left to me.

All matches will not blaze on the first trial, and there are those that with the most indefatigable coaxings never show a spark. They may indeed leave in their trail phosphorescent streaks; but you can no more light your cigar at them than you can kindle your heart at the covered wife-trails which the infernal gossiping old match-makers will lay in your path.

Was there ever a bachelor of seven and twenty, I wonder, who has not been haunted by pleasant old ladies and trim, excellent, good-natured married friends, who talk to him about nice matches—“very nice matches,” matches which never go off? And who, pray, has not had some kind old uncle to fill two sheets for him (perhaps in the time of heavy postages) about some most eligible connection—“of highly respectable parentage!”

What a delightful thing, surely, for a withered bachelor to bloom forth in the dignity of an ancestral tree! What a precious surprise for him, who has all his life worshiped the wing-heeled Mercury, to find on a sudden a great stock of preserved and most respectable Penates!

—In God’s name—thought I, puffing vehemently—what is a man’s heart given him for, if not to choose, where his heart’s blood, every drop of it is flowing? Who is going to dam these billowy tides of the soul, whose roll is ordered by a planet greater than the moon—and that planet—Venus? Who is going to shift this vane of my desires, when every breeze that passes in my heaven is keeping it all the more strongly, to its fixed bearings?

Besides this, there are the money matches, urged upon you by disinterested bachelor friends, who would be very proud to see you at the head of an establishment. And I must confess that this kind of talk has a pleasant jingle about it; and is one of the cleverest aids to a bachelor’s day-dreams, that can well be imagined. And let not the pouting lady condemn me, without a hearing.

It is certainly cheerful to think—for a contemplative bachelor—that the pretty ermine which so sets off the transparent hue of your imaginary wife, or the lace which lies so bewitchingly upon the superb roundness of her form—or the graceful bodice, trimmed to a line, which is of such exquisite adaptation to her lithe figure, will be always at her command—nay, that these are only units among the chameleon hues, under which you shall feed upon her beauty! I want to know if it is not a pretty cabinet picture for fancy to luxuriate upon—that of a sweet wife, who is cheating hosts of friends into love, sympathy and admiration, by the modest munificence of her wealth? Is it not rather agreeable, to feed your hopeful soul upon that abundance which, while it supplies her need, will give a range to her loving charities—which will keep from her brow the shadows of anxiety, and will sublime her gentle nature by adding to it the grace of an angel of mercy?

Is it not rich, in those days when the pestilent humors of bachelorhood hang heavy on you, to foresee in that shadowy realm, where hope is a native, the quiet of a home, made splendid with attractions; and made real by the presence of her who bestows them? Upon my word—thought I, as I continued puffing—such a match must make a very grateful lighting of one’s inner sympathies; nor am I prepared to say that such associations would not add force to the most abstract love imaginable.

Think of it for a moment—what is it that we poor fellows love? We love, if one may judge for himself, over his cigar—gentleness, beauty, refinement, generosity and intelligence—and far above these, a returning love, made up of all these qualities, and gaining upon your love, day by day, and month by month, like a sunny morning gaining upon the frosts of night.

But wealth is a great means of refinement; and it is a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing anxieties; and it is a pretty promoter of intelligence, since it multiplies the avenues for its reception; and it is a good basis for a generous habit of life; it even equips beauty, neither hardening its hand with toil, nor tempting the wrinkles to come early. But whether it provokes greatly that returning passion—that abnegation of soul—that sweet trustfulness, and abiding affection, which are to clothe your heart with joy, is far more doubtful. Wealth, while it gives so much, asks much in return; and the soul that is grateful to mammon, is not over ready to be grateful for intensity of love. It is hard to gratify those who have nothing left to gratify.

Heaven help the man who having wearied his soul with delays and doubts, or exhausted the freshness and exuberance of his youth—by a hundred little dallyings with love—consigns himself at length to the issues of what people call a nice match—whether of money, or of a family!

Heaven help you (I brush the ashes from my cigar) when you begin to regard marriage as only a respectable institution, and under the advices of staid old friends, begin to look about you for some very respectable wife. You may admire her figure, and her family; and bear pleasantly in mind the very casual mention which has been made by some of your penetrating friends—that she has large expectations. You think that she would make a very capital appearance at the head of your table; nor, in the event of your coming to any public honor, would she make you blush for her breeding. She talks well, exceedingly well; and her face has its charms; especially under a little excitement. Her dress is elegant, and tasteful, and she is constantly remarked upon by all your friends, as a “nice person.” Some good old lady, in whose pew she occasionally sits on a Sunday, or to whom she has sometime sent a papier maché card-case, for the show-box of some Dorcas benevolent society, thinks—with a sly wink—that she would make a fine wife for—somebody.

She certainly _has_ an elegant figure; and the marriage of some half dozen of your old flames warns you that time is slipping and your chances failing. And in the pleasant warmth of some after-dinner mood, you resolve—with her image in her prettiest pelisses drifting across your brain—that you will marry. Now comes the pleasant excitement of the chase; and whatever family dignity may surround her only adds to the pleasurable glow of the pursuit. You give an hour more to your toilette, and a hundred or two more, a year, to your tailor. All is orderly, dignified, and gracious. Charlotte is a sensible woman, everybody says; and you believe it yourself. You agree in your talk about books, and churches, and flowers. Of course she has good taste—for she accepts you. The acceptance is dignified, elegant, and even courteous.

You receive numerous congratulations; and your old friend Tom writes you—that he hears you are going to marry a splendid woman; and all the old ladies say—what a capital match! And your business partner, who is a married man, and something of a wag—“sympathizes sincerely.” Upon the whole, you feel a little proud of your arrangement. You write to an old friend in the country, that you are to marry presently Miss Charlotte of such a street, whose father was something very fine, in his way; and whose father before him was very distinguished; you add, in a postscript, that she is easily situated, and has “expectations.” Your friend, who has a wife that he loves, and that loves him, writes back kindly—“hoping you may be happy;” and hoping so yourself, you light your cigar—one of your last bachelor cigars—with the margin of his letter.

The match goes off with a brilliant marriage; at which you receive a very elegant welcome from your wife’s spinster cousins—and drink a great deal of champagne with her bachelor uncles. And as you take the dainty hand of your bride—very magnificent under that bridal wreath, and with her face lit up by a brilliant glow—your eye, and your soul, for the first time, grow full. And as your arm circles that elegant figure, and you draw her toward you, feeling that she is yours—there is a bound at your heart, that makes you think your soul-life is now whole, and earnest. All your early dreams, and imaginations, come flowing on your thought, like bewildering music; and as you gaze upon her—the admiration of that crowd—it seems to you, that all that your heart prizes is made good by the accident of marriage.

—Ah—thought I, brushing off the ashes again—bridal pictures are not home pictures; and the hour at the altar is but a poor type of the waste of years!

Your household is elegantly ordered; Charlotte has secured the best of housekeepers, and she meets the compliments of your old friends who come to dine with you with a suavity that is never at fault. And they tell you—after the cloth is removed, and you sit quietly smoking in memory of the olden times—that she is a splendid woman. Even the old ladies who come for occasional charities, think madame a pattern of a lady; and so think her old admirers, whom she receives still with an easy grace, that half puzzles you. And as you stand by the ball-room door, at two of the morning, with your Charlotte’s shawl upon your arm, some little panting fellow will confirm the general opinion, by telling you that madame is a magnificent dancer; and Monsieur le Comte will praise extravagantly her French. You are grateful for all this; but you have an uncommonly serious way of expressing your gratitude.

You think you ought to be a very happy fellow; and yet long shadows do steal over your thought; and you wonder that the sight of your Charlotte in the dress you used to admire so much, does not scatter them to the winds; but it does not. You feel coy about putting your arm around that delicately-robed figure—you might derange the plaiting of her dress. She is civil toward you; and tender toward your bachelor friends. She talks with dignity—adjusts her lace cap—and hopes you will make a figure in the world, for the sake of the family. Her cheek is never soiled with a tear; and her smiles are frequent, especially when you have some spruce young fellows at your table.

You catch sight of occasional notes, perhaps, whose superscription you do not know; and some of her admirers’ attentions become so pointed, and constant, that your pride is stirred. It would be silly to show jealousy; but you suggest to your “dear”—as you sip your tea—the slight impropriety of her action.

Perhaps you fondly long for some little scene, as a proof of wounded confidence; but no—nothing of that; she trusts (calling you “my dear”), that she knows how to sustain the dignity of her position.

You are too sick at heart for comment, or for reply.

—And is this the intertwining of soul of which you had dreamed in the days that are gone? Is this the blending of sympathies that was to steal from life its bitterness; and spread over care and suffering, the sweet, ministering hand of kindness, and of love? Ay, you may well wander back to your bachelor club, and make the hours long at the journals, or at play—killing the flagging lapse of your life! Talk sprightly with your old friends—and mimic the joy you have not; or you will wear a bad name upon your hearth and head. Never suffer your Charlotte to catch sight of the tears which in bitter hours may start from your eye; or to hear the sighs which in your times of solitary musings may break forth sudden and heavy. Go on counterfeiting your life, as you have begun. It was a nice match; and you are a nice husband!

But you have a little boy, thank God, toward whom your heart runs out freely; and you love to catch him in his respite from your well-ordered nursery, and the tasks of his teachers—alone; and to spend upon him a little of that depth of feeling, which through so many years has scarce been stirred. You play with him at his games; you fondle him; you take him to your bosom.

But papa—he says—see how you have tumbled my collar. What shall I tell mamma?

—Tell her, my boy, that I love you!

Ah, thought I—my cigar was getting dull, and nauseous—is there not a spot in your heart that the gloved hand of your elegant wife has never reached: that you wish it might reach?

You go to see a far-away friend: his was not a “nice match;” he was married years before you; and yet the beaming looks of his wife and his lively smile are as fresh and honest as they were years ago; and they make you ashamed of your disconsolate humor. Your stay is lengthened, but the home letters are not urgent for your return; yet they are marvelously proper letters, and rounded with a French _adieu_. You could have wished a little scrawl from your boy at the bottom, in the place of the postscript, which gives you the names of a new opera troupe; and you hint as much—a very bold stroke for you.

Ben—she says—writes too shamefully.

And at your return there is no great anticipation of delight; in contrast with the old dreams, that a pleasant summer’s journey has called up, your parlor as you enter it—so elegant, so still—so modish—seems the charnel-house of your heart.

By and by you fall into weary days of sickness; you have capital nurses—nurses highly recommended—nurses who never make mistakes—nurses who have served long in the family. But alas for that heart of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded with your pain—like a soft landscape with flying clouds—you have none of them! Your pattern wife may come in, from time to time, to look after your nurse, or to ask after your sleep, and glide out—her silk dress rustling upon the door—like dead leaves in the cool night breezes of winter. Or, perhaps, after putting this chair in its place, and adjusting to a more tasteful fold that curtain—she will ask you, with a tone that might mean sympathy, if it were not a stranger to you—if she can do anything more.

Thank her—as kindly as you can, and close your eyes, and dream—or rouse up, to lay your hand upon the head of your little boy—to drink in health and happiness from his earnest look as he gazes strangely upon your pale and shrunken forehead. Your smile even, ghastly with long suffering, disturbs him; there is no interpreter, save the heart, between you.

Your parched lips feel strangely to his flushed, healthful face; and he steps about on tip-toe, at a motion from the nurse, to look at all those rosy-colored medicines upon the table—and he takes your cane from the corner, and passes his hand over the smooth ivory head; and he runs his eye along the wall from picture to picture, till it rests on one he knows—a figure in bridal dress—beautiful, almost fond—and he forgets himself, and says aloud—“There’s mamma!”

The nurse puts her finger to her lip; you waken from your doze to see where your eager boy is looking; and your eyes, too, take in much as they can of that figure—now shadowy to your fainting vision—doubly shadowy to your fainting heart!

From day to day you sink from life: the physician says the end is not far off; why should it be? There is very little elastic force within you to keep the end away. Madame is called, and your little boy. Your sight is dim, but they whisper that she is beside your bed; and you reach out your hand—both hands. You fancy you hear a sob—a strange sound! It seems as if it came from distant years—a confused, broken, sigh, sweeping over the long stretch of your life: and a sigh from your heart—not audible—answers it.

Your trembling fingers clutch the hand of your little boy, and you drag him toward you, and move your lips, as if you would speak to him; and they place his head near you, so that you feel his fine hair brushing your cheek—“My boy, you must love—your mother!”

Your other hand feels a quick, convulsive grasp, and something like a tear drops upon your face. Good God! Can it be indeed a tear?

You strain your vision, and a feeble smile flits over your features as you seem to see her figure—the figure of the painting—bending over you; and you feel a bound at your heart—the same bound that you felt on your bridal morning; the same bound which you used to feel in the springtime of your life.

—Only one—rich, full bound of the heart—that is all!

—My cigar is out. I could not have lit it again if I would. It was wholly burned.

“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, as I finished reading—“may I smoke now under your rose tree?”

Aunt Tabithy, who had laid down her knitting to hear me—smiled—brushed a tear from her old eyes, said—“Yes—Isaac,” and having scratched the back of her head with the disengaged needle, resumed her knitting.

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FOURTH REVERIE
MORNING, NOON AND EVENING

IT is a spring day under the oaks—the loved oaks of a once cherished home—now, alas, mine no longer!

I had sold the old farmhouse, and the groves, and the cool springs, where I had bathed my head in the heats of summer; and with the first warm days of May, they were to pass from me forever. Seventy years they had been in the possession of my mother’s family; for seventy years they had borne the same name of proprietorship; for seventy years, the Lares of our country home, often neglected, almost forgotten—yet brightened from time to time by gleams of heart-worship, had held their place in the sweet valley of Elmgrove.

And in this changeful, bustling, American life of ours seventy years is no child’s holiday. The hurry of action, and progress may pass over it with quick step; but the footprints are many and deep. You surely will not wonder that it made me sad and thoughtful to break the chain of years that bound to my heart the oaks, the hills, the springs, the valley—and such a valley!

A wild stream runs through it—large enough to make a river for English landscape—winding between rich banks where, in summer time, the swallows build their nests and brood by myriads.

Tall elms rise here and there along the margin, and with their uplifted arms and leafy spray throw great patches of shade upon the meadow. Old lion-like oaks, too, where the meadow-soil hardens into rolling upland, fasten to the ground with their ridgy roots; and with their gray, scraggy limbs make delicious shelter for the panting workers, or for the herds of August.

Westward of the stream, where I am lying, the banks roll up swiftly into sloping hills, covered with groves of oaks and green pasture lands dotted with mossy rocks. And farther on, where some wood has been swept down, some ten years gone, by the ax, the new growth, heavy with the luxuriant foliage of spring, covers wide spots of the slanting land; while some dead tree in the midst still stretches out its bare arms to the blast—a solitary mourner over the wreck of its forest brothers.

Eastward the ridgy bank passes into wavy meadows, upon whose farther edge you see the roofs of an old mansion, with tall chimneys and taller elm-trees shading it. Beyond, the hills rise gently, and sweep away into wood-crowned heights that are blue with distance. At the upper end of the valley the stream is lost to the eye in a wide swamp-wood, which in the autumn time is covered with a scarlet sheet, blotched here and there by the dark crimson stains of the ash-tops. Farther on the hills crowd close to the brook, and come down with granite boulders, and scattered birch-trees, and beeches—under which, upon the smoky mornings of May, I have time and again loitered, and thrown my line into the pools which curl dark and still under their tangled roots.

Below, and looking southward, through the openings of the oaks that shade me, I see a broad stretch of meadow, with glimpses of the silver surface of the stream, and of the giant solitary elms, and of some old maple that has yielded to the spring tides, and now dips its lower boughs in the insidious current—and of clumps of alders, and willow tufts—above which, even now, the black-and-white coated Bob-o’-Lincoln is wheeling his musical flight, while his quieter mate sits swaying on the topmost twigs.

A quiet road passes within a short distance of me, and crosses the brook by a rude timber bridge; beside the bridge is a broad glassy pool, shaded by old maples and hickories, where the cattle drink each morning on their way to the hill pastures. A step or two beyond the stream a lane branches across the meadows to the mansion with the tall chimneys. I can just remember now, the stout, broad-shouldered old gentleman, with his white hat, his long white hair, and his white-headed cane, who built the house, and who farmed the whole valley around me. He is gone, long since; and lies in a graveyard looking upon the sea! The elms that he planted shake their weird arms over the mouldering roofs; and his fruit garden shows only a battered phalanx of mossy limbs, which will scarce tempt the July marauders.

In the other direction, upon this side the brook, the road is lost to view among the trees; but if I were to follow the windings upon the hillside, it would bring me shortly upon the old home of my grandfather; there is no pleasure in wandering there now. The woods that sheltered it from the northern winds are cut down; the tall cherries that made the yard one leafy bower are dead. The cornice is straggling from the eaves; the porch has fallen; the stone chimney is yawning with wide gaps. Within, it is even worse; the floors sway upon the mouldering beams; the doors all sag from their hinges; the rude frescos upon the parlor wall are peeling off; all is going to decay—And my grandfather sleeps in a little graveyard by the garden wall.

A lane branches from the country road, within a few yards of me, and leads back, along the edge of the meadow, to the homely cottage, which has been my special care. Its gray porch and chimney are thrown into rich relief by a grove of oaks that skirts the hill behind it; and the doves are flying uneasily about the open doors of the granary and barns. The morning sun shines pleasantly on the gray group of buildings; and the lowing of the cows, not yet driven afield, adds to the charming homeliness of the scene. But alas for the poor azaleas, and laurels, and vines that I had put out upon the little knoll before the cottage door—they are all of them trodden down: only one poor creeper hangs its loose tresses to the lattice, all disheveled and forlorn!

This by-lane which opens upon my farmhouse, leaves the road in the middle of a grove of oaks; the brown gate swings upon an oak tree—the brown gate closes upon an oak tree. There is a rustic seat, built between two veteran trees that rise from a little hillock near by. Half a century ago there was a rustic seat on the same hillock—between the same veteran trees. I can trace marks of the old blotches upon the bark, and the scars of the nails upon the scathed trunks. Time and time again it has been renewed. This, the last, was built by my own hands—a cheerful and a holy duty.

Sixty years ago, they tell me, my grandfather used to loiter here with his gun, while his hounds lay around under the scattered oaks. Now he sleeps, as I said, in the little graveyard yonder, where I can see one or two white tablets glimmering through the foliage. I never knew him; he died, as the brown stone table says, aged twenty-six. Yesterday I climbed the wall that skirts the yard, and plucked a flower from his tomb. I take out now from my pocket-book that flower—a frail, first-blooming violet—and write upon the slip of paper, into which I have thrust its delicate stem—“From my grandfather’s tomb—1850.”

But other feet have trod upon this knoll—far more dear to me. The old neighbors have sometimes told me how they have seen, forty years ago, two rosy-faced girls idling on this spot, under the shade, and gathering acorns, and making oak-leaved garlands for their foreheads—Alas, alas, the garlands they wear now are not earthly garlands!

Upon that spot, and upon that rustic seat, I am lying this May morning. I have placed my gun against a tree; my shot-pouch I have hung upon a broken limb. I have thrown my feet upon the bench, and lean against one of the gnarled oaks, between which the seat is built. My hat is off; my book and paper are beside me; and my pencil trembles in my fingers as I catch sight of those white marble tablets gleaming through the trees, from the height above me, like beckoning angel faces. If they were alive! two more near and dear friends, in a world where we count friends by units.

It is morning—a bright spring morning under the oaks—these loved oaks of a once cherished home. Last night I slept in yonder mansion, under the elms. The cattle going to the pasture are drinking in the pool by the bridge; the boy who drives them is making his shrill halloo echo against the hills. The sun has risen fairly over the eastern heights, and shines brightly upon the meadow-land and brightly upon a bend of the brook below me. The birds—the blue-birds sweetest and noisiest of all—are singing over me in the branches. A woodpecker is hammering at a dry limb aloft; and Carlo pricks up his ears, and looks at me—then stretches out his head upon his paws in a warm bit of the sunshine—and sleeps.

Morning brings back to me the past; and the past brings up not only its actualities, not only its events and memories, but—stranger still—what might have been. Every little circumstance which dawns on the awakened memory is traced not only to its actual, but to its possible issues.

What a wide world that makes of the past! a great and gorgeous—a rich and holy world! Your fancy fills it up artist-like; the darkness is mellowed off into soft shades; the bright spots are veiled in the sweet atmosphere of distance; and fancy and memory together make up a rich dreamland of the past.

And now, as I go on to trace upon paper some of the visions that float across that dreamland of the morning—I will not—I can not say how much comes fancywise, and how much from this vaulting memory. Of this, the kind reader shall himself be judge.

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I
THE MORNING

ISABEL AND I—she is my cousin, and is seven years old, and I am ten—are sitting together on the bank of the stream, under an oak tree that leans half way over to the water. I am much stronger than she, and taller by a head. I hold in my hands a little alder rod, with which I am fishing for the roach and minnows that play in the pool below us.

She is watching the cork tossing on the water, or playing with the captured fish that lie upon the bank. She has auburn ringlets that fall down upon her shoulders; and her straw hat lies back upon them, held only by the strip of ribbon that passes under her chin. But the sun does not shine upon her head; for the oak tree above us is full of leaves; and only here and there a dimple of the sunlight plays upon the pool, where I am fishing.

Her eye is hazel and bright; and now and then she turns it on me with a look of girlish curiosity, as I lift up my rod—and again in playful menace, as she grasps in her little fingers one of the dead fish and threatens to throw it back upon the stream. Her little feet hang over the edge of the bank; and from time to time she reaches down to dip her toe in the water; and laughs a girlish laugh of defiance, as I scold her for frightening away the fishes.

“Bella,” I say, “what if you should tumble in the river?”

“But I won’t.”

“Yes, but if you should?”

“Why then you would pull me out.”

“But if I wouldn’t pull you out?”

“But I know you would; wouldn’t you, Paul?”

“What makes you think so, Bella?”

“Because you love Bella.”

“How do you know I love Bella?”

“Because once you told me so; and because you pick flowers for me that I can not reach; and because you let me take your rod, when you have a fish upon it.”

“But that’s no reason, Bella.”

“Then what is, Paul?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Bella.”

A little fish has been nibbling for a long time at the bait; the cork has been bobbing up and down—and now he is fairly hooked, and pulls away toward the bank, and you can not see the cork.

—“Here, Bella, quick!”—and she springs eagerly to clasp her little hands around the rod. But the fish has dragged it away on the other side of me; and as she reaches farther, and farther, she slips, cries—“Oh, Paul!” and falls into the water.

The stream they told us, when we came, was over a man’s head—it is surely over little Isabel’s. I fling down the rod, and thrusting one hand into the roots that support the overhanging bank, I grasp at her hat, as she comes up; but the ribbons give way, and I see the terribly earnest look upon her face as she goes down again. Oh, my mother—thought I—if you were only here!

But she rises again; this time I thrust my hand into her dress, and struggling hard, keep her at the top until I can place my foot down upon a projecting root; and, so bracing myself, I drag her to the bank, and having climbed up, take hold of her belt firmly with both hands, and drag her out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon the grass.

I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the fields hear me, and come down. One takes Isabel in his arms, and I follow on foot to our uncle’s home upon the hill.

—“Oh, my dear children!” says my mother; and she takes Isabel in her arms; and presently, with dry clothes and blazing wood fire, little Bella smiles again. I am at my mother’s knee.

“I told you so, Paul,” says Isabel—“aunty, doesn’t Paul love me?”

“I hope so, Bella,” said my mother.

“I know so,” said I; and kissed her cheek.

And how did I know it? The boy does not ask; the man does. Oh, the freshness, the honesty, the vigor of a boy’s heart! how the memory of it refreshes like the first gush of spring, or the break of an April shower!

But boyhood has its PRIDE as well as its LOVES.

My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man; I fear him when he calls me—“child;” I love him when he calls me—“Paul.” He is almost always busy with his books; and when I steal into the library door, as I sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping basket of nuts to show him—he looks for a moment curiously at them, sometimes takes them in his fingers—gives them back to me, and turns over the leaves of his book. You are afraid to ask him if you have not worked bravely; yet you want to do so.

You sidle out softly, and go to your mother; she scarce looks at your little stores; but she draws you to her with her arm, and prints a kiss upon your forehead. Now your tongue is unloosened; that kiss and that action have done it; you will tell what capital luck you have had; and you hold up your tempting trophies; “are they not great, mother?” But she is looking in your face, and not at your prize.

“Take them, mother,” and you lay the basket upon her lap.

“Thank you Paul, I do not wish them: but you must give some to Bella.”

And away you go to find laughing, playful, cousin Isabel. And we sit down together on the grass, and I pour out my stores between us. “You shall take, Bella, what you wish in your apron, and then when study hours are over, we will have such a time down by the big rock in the meadow!”

“But I do not know if papa will let me,” says Isabel.

“Bella,” I say, “do you love your papa?”

“Yes,” says Bella, “why not?”

“Because he is so cold; he does not kiss you, Bella, so often as my mother does; and, besides, when he forbids your going away, he does not say, as mother does—my little girl will be tired, she had better not go—but he says only—Isabel must not go. I wonder what makes him talk so?”

“Why, Paul, he is a man, and doesn’t—at any rate, I love him, Paul. Besides, my mother is sick, you know.”

“But Isabel, my mother will be your mother, too. Come, Bella, we will go ask her if we may go.”

And there I am, the happiest of boys, pleading with the kindest of mothers. And the young heart leans into that mother’s heart—none of the void now that will overtake it like an opening Korah gulf, in the years that are to come. It is joyous, full, and running over!

“You may go,” she says, “if your uncle is willing.”

“But mamma, I am afraid to ask him, I do not believe he loves me.”

“Don’t say so, Paul,” and she draws you to her side, as if she would supply by her own love the lacking love of a universe.

“Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly; and if he says no—make no reply.”

And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal in at the library door. There he sits—I seem to see him now—in the old wainscoted room, covered over with books and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed spectacles, and is poring over some big volume, full of hard words, that are not in any spelling-book. We step up softly; and Isabel lays her little hand upon his arm; and he turns, and says—“Well, my little daughter?”

I ask if we may go down to the big rock in the meadow?

He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid—“we can not go.”

“But why, uncle? It is only a little way, and we will be very careful.”

“I am afraid, my children; do not say any more: you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at home.”

“But, uncle—”

“You need say no more, my child.”

I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look in her eye—my own half-filling with tears. I feel that my forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella’s tresses—whispering to her at the same time—“Let us go.”

“What, sir,” says my uncle, mistaking my meaning—“do you persuade her to disobey?”

Now I am angry, and say blindly—“No, sir, I didn’t!” And then my rising pride will not let me say that I wished only Isabel should go out with me.

Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother’s bosom. Alas! pride can not always find such covert! There will be times when it will harass you strangely; when it will peril friendships—will sever old, standing intimacy; and then—no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered, as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make whirlpools in the current of your affections—nay, turn the whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed channels.

But boyhood has its GRIEF, too, apart from PRIDE.

You love the old dog, Tray; and Bella loves him as well as you. He is a noble old fellow, with shaggy hair, and long ears, and big paws, that he will put up into your hand, if you ask him. And he never gets angry when you play with him, and tumble him over in the long grass, and pull his silken ears. Sometimes, to be sure, he will open his mouth, as if he would bite, but when he gets your hand fairly in his jaws he will scarce leave the print of his teeth upon it. He will swim, too, bravely, and bring ashore all the sticks you throw upon the water; and when you fling a stone to tease him, he swims round and round, and whines, and looks sorry that he can not find it.

He will carry a heaping basket full of nuts, too, in his mouth, and never spill one of them; and when you come out to your uncle’s home in the spring, after staying a whole winter in the town, he knows you—old Tray does! And he leaps upon you, and lays his paws on your shoulder, and licks your face; and is almost as glad to see you as cousin Bella herself. And when you put Bella on his back for a ride, he only pretends to bite her little feet—but he wouldn’t do it for the world. Ay, Tray is a noble old dog!

But one summer, the farmers say that some of their sheep are killed, and that the dogs have worried them; and one of them comes to talk with my uncle about it.

But Tray never worried sheep; you know he never did; and so does nurse; and so does Bella; for in the spring, she had a pet lamb, and Tray never worried little Fidele.

And one or two of the dogs that belong to the neighbors are shot; though nobody knows who shot them; and you have great fears about poor Tray; and try to keep him at home, and fondle him more than ever. But Tray will sometimes wander off; till finally, one afternoon, he comes back whining piteously, and with his shoulder all bloody.

Little Bella cries loud; and you almost cry, as nurse dresses the wound; and poor old Tray whines very sadly. You pat his head, and Bella pats him; and you sit down together by him on the floor of the porch, and bring a rug for him to lie upon; and try and tempt him with a little milk, and Bella brings a piece of cake for him—but he will eat nothing. You sit up till very late, long after Bella has gone to bed, patting his head, and wishing you could do something for poor Tray; but he only licks your hand, and whines more piteously than ever.

In the morning you dress early and hurry downstairs; but Tray is not lying on the rug; and you run through the house to find him, and whistle, and call—Tray—Tray! At length you see him lying in his old place, out by the cherry tree, and you run to him; but he does not start; and you lean down to pat him—but he is cold, and the dew is wet upon him—poor Tray is dead!

You take his head upon your knees, and pat again those glossy ears, and cry; but you can not bring him to life. And Bella comes, and cries with you. You can hardly bear to have him put in the ground; but uncle says he must be buried. So one of the workmen digs a grave under the cherry tree, where he died—a deep grave, and they round it over with earth, and smooth the sods upon it—even now I can trace Tray’s grave.

You and Bella together put up a little slab for a tombstone; and she hangs flowers upon it, and ties them there with a bit of ribbon. You can scarce play all that day; and afterward, many weeks later, when you are rambling over the fields, or lingering by the brook, throwing off sticks into the eddies, you think of old Tray’s shaggy coat, and of his big paw, and of his honest eye; and the memory of your boyish grief comes upon you; and you say with tears, “Poor Tray!” And Bella, too, in her sad sweet tones, says—“Poor old Tray—he is dead!”

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SCHOOL DAYS

THE morning was cloudy and threatened rain; besides, it was autumn weather, and the winds were getting harsh, and rustling among the tree-tops that shaded the house most dismally. I did not dare to listen. If, indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and pile up the falling leaves to make great bonfires, with Ben and the rest of the boys, I should have liked to listen, and would have braved the dismal morning with the cheerfullest of them all. For it would have been a capital time to light a fire in the little oven we had built under the wall; it would have been so pleasant to warm our fingers at it, and to roast the great russets on the flat stones that made the top.

But this was not in store for me. I had bid the town boys good-by the day before; my trunk was all packed; I was to go away—to school. The little oven would go to ruin—I knew it would. I was to leave my home. I was to bid my mother good-by, and Lilly, and Isabel, and all the rest; and was to go away from them so far that I should only know what they were all doing—in letters. It _was_ sad. And then to have the clouds come over on that morning, and the winds sigh so dismally; oh, it was too bad, I thought!

It comes back to me as I lie here this bright spring morning as if it were only yesterday. I remember that the pigeons skulked under the eaves of the carriage-house, and did not sit, as they used to do in summer, upon the ridge; and the chickens huddled together about the stable doors, as if they were afraid of the cold autumn. And in the garden the white hollyhocks stood shivering, and bowed to the wind, as if their time had come. The yellow musk-melons showed plain among the frost-bitten vines, and looked cold and uncomfortable.

—Then they were all so kind, indoors! The cook made such nice things for my breakfast, because little master was going; Lilly _would_ give me her seat by the fire, and would put her lump of sugar in my cup; and my mother looked so smiling, and so tenderly, that I thought I loved her more than I ever did before. Little Ben was so gay, too; and wanted me to take his jackknife, if I wished it—though he knew that I had a brand new one in my trunk. The old nurse slipped a little purse into my hand, tied up with a green ribbon—with money in it—and told me not to show it to Ben or Lilly.

And cousin Isabel, who was there on a visit, would come to stand by my chair, when my mother was talking to me; and put her hand in mine, and look up into my face; but she did not say a word. I thought it was very odd; and yet it did not seem odd to me that I could say nothing to her. I dare say we felt alike.

At length Ben came running in, and said the coach had come; and there, sure enough, out of the window, we saw it—a bright yellow coach, with four white horses, and band-boxes all over the top, with a great pile of trunks behind. Ben said it was a grand coach, and that he should like a ride in it; and the old nurse came to the door, and said I should have a capital time; but, somehow, I doubted if the nurse was talking honestly. I believe she gave me an honest kiss though—and such a hug!

But it was nothing to my mother’s. Tom told me to be a man, and study like a Trojan; but I was not thinking about study then. There was a tall boy in the coach, and I was ashamed to have him see me cry; so I didn’t, at first. But I remember, as I looked back and saw little Isabel run out into the middle of the street to see the coach go off, and the curls floating behind her, as the wind freshened, I felt my heart leaping into my throat, and the water coming into my eyes, and how just then I caught sight of the tall boy glancing at me—and how I tried to turn it off by looking to see if I could button up my greatcoat a great deal lower down than the buttonholes went.

But it was of no use; I put my head out of the coach window, and looked back, as the little figure of Isabel faded, and then the house, and the trees; and the tears did come; and I smuggled my handkerchief outside without turning; so that I could wipe my eyes before the tall boy should see me. They say that these shadows of morning fade, as the sun brightens into noonday; but they are very dark shadows for all that!

Let the father or the mother think long before they send away their boy—before they break the home-ties that make a web of infinite fineness and soft silken meshes around his heart, and toss him aloof into the boy-world, where he must struggle up amid bickerings and quarrels, into his age of youth! There are boys, indeed, with little fineness in the texture of their hearts, and with little delicacy of soul; to whom the school in a distant village is but a vacation from home; and with whom a return revives all those grosser affections which alone existed before; just as there are plants which will bear all exposure without the wilting of a leaf, and will return to the hot-house life as strong and as hopeful as ever. But there are others to whom the severance from the prattle of sisters, the indulgent fondness of a mother, and the unseen influences of the home altar, gives a shock that lasts forever; it is wrenching with cruel hand what will bear but little roughness; and the sobs with which the adieux are said are sobs that may come back in the after years, strong, and steady, and terrible.

God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob early! Condemn it as sentiment, if you will; talk as you will of the fearlessness, and strength of the boy’s heart—yet there belong to many, tenderly strung chords of affection which give forth low and gentle music that consoles and ripens the ear for all the harmonies of life. These chords a little rude and unnatural tension will break, and break forever. Watch your boy then, if so be he will bear the strain; try his nature, if it be rude or delicate; and, if delicate, in God’s name, do not, as you value your peace and his, breed a harsh youth spirit in him that shall take pride in subjugating and forgetting the delicacy and richness of his finer affections!

—I see now, looking into the past, the troops of boys who were scattered in the great play-ground, as the coach drove up at night. The school was in a tall, stately building, with a high cupola on the top, where I thought I would like to go up. The schoolmaster, they told me at home, was kind; he said he hoped I would be a good boy, and patted me on the head; but he did not pat me as my mother used to do. Then there was a woman, whom they called the matron; who had a great many ribbons in her cap, and who shook my hand—but so stiffly that I didn’t dare to look up in her face.

One boy took me down to see the school-room, which was in the basement, and the walls were all moldly, I remember; and when we passed a certain door, he said: there was the dungeon; how I felt! I hated that boy; but I believe he is dead now. Then the matron took me up to my room—a little corner room, with two beds, and two windows, and a red table, and closet; and my chum was about my size, and wore a queer roundabout jacket with big bell buttons; and he called the schoolmaster “Old Crikey”—and kept me awake half the night, telling me how he whipped the scholars, and how they played tricks upon him. I thought my chum was a very uncommon boy.

For a day or two, the lessons were easy, and it was sport to play with so many “fellows.” But soon I began to feel lonely at night after I had gone to bed. I used to wish I could have my mother come and kiss me; after school, too, I wished I could step in and tell Isabel how bravely I had got my lessons. When I told my chum this, he laughed at me, and said that was no place for “homesick, white-livered chaps.” I wondered if my chum had any mother.

We had spending money once a week, with which we used to go down to the village store, and club our funds together, to make great pitchers of lemonade. Some boys would have money besides; though it was against the rules; and one, I recollect, showed us a five-dollar bill in his wallet—and we all thought he must be very rich.

We marched in procession to the village church on Sundays. There were two long benches in the galleries, reaching down the sides of the meeting-house; and on these we sat. At the first, I was among the smallest boys, and took a place close to the wall, against the pulpit; but afterward, as I grew bigger, I was promoted to the lower end of the first bench. This I never liked, because it was close by one of the ushers, and because it brought me next to some country women, who wore stiff bonnets, and eat fennel, and sung with the choir. But there was a little black-eyed girl, who sat over behind the choir, that I thought handsome; I used to look at her very often; but was careful she should never catch my eye.

There was another down below, in a corner pew, who was pretty; and who wore a hat in the winter trimmed with fur. Half the boys in the school said they would marry her some day or other. One’s name was Jane, and that of the other, Sophia; which we thought pretty names, and cut them on the ice, in skating time. But I didn’t think either of them so pretty as Isabel.

Once a teacher whipped me: I bore it bravely in the school: but afterward, at night, when my chum was asleep, I sobbed bitterly as I thought of Isabel, and Ben, and my mother, and how much they loved me: and laying my face in my hands, I sobbed myself to sleep. In the morning I was calm enough: it was another of the heart-ties broken, though I did not know it then. It lessened the old attachment to home, because that home could neither protect me nor soothe me with its sympathies. Memory, indeed, freshened and grew strong; but strong in bitterness, and in regrets. The boy whose love you can not feed by daily nourishment will find pride, self-indulgence, and an iron purpose coming in to furnish other supply for the soul that is in him. If he can not shoot his branches into the sunshine, he will become acclimated to the shadow, and indifferent to such stray gleams of sunshine as his fortune may vouchsafe.