Chapter VIII (8)

God bless your sweet helplessness! creep into my arms, Charley. My darling, you are never alone!—mamma’s sweet, tender eyes look lovingly on Charley out of Heaven; mamma’s bright angel wings ever overshadow little Charley’s head; mamma and the holy stars keep watch over Charley’s slumbers. Mamma sings a sweeter song when little Charley says a prayer. Going?—well, then, one kiss; for sure I am, the angels will want you before long.

What is that? A sick gentleman, borne in on a litter, from shipboard. Poor fellow! how sunken are his great dark eyes! how emaciated his limbs! What can ail him? Nobody knows; not a word of English can he speak; and the captain is already off, too happy to rid himself of all responsibility. Lucky for the poor invalid that our gallant host has a heart warm and true. How tenderly he lifts the invalid to his room; how expeditiously he despatches his orders for a Spanish doctor and nurse; how imploringly the sufferer’s speaking eyes are fastened upon his face. Ah! Death glides in at yonder door with the sick man; his grasp is already on his heart; the doctor stands aside and folds his hands—there’s no work for _him_ to do; dark shadows gather round the dying stranger’s eyes; he presses feebly the hand of his humane host, and gasps out the last fluttering breath on that manly heart. Strange hands are busy closing his eyes; strange hands straighten his limbs; a strange priest comes all too late to shrive the sick man’s soul; strange eyes gaze carelessly upon the features, one glimpse of which were worth Golconda’s mines to far-off kindred. Now the undertaker comes with the coffin. Touch him gently, man of business; lay those dark locks tenderly on the satin pillow; hear you not a far-off wail from sunny Spain, as the merry song at the vintage feast dies upon the lip of the stricken-hearted?

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER FOUR—BARNUM’S POULTRY SHOW.

Defend my ears! Do you suppose Noah had to put up with such a cackling and crowing as this in his ark? I trust ear-trumpets are cheap, for I stand a chance of becoming as deaf as a husband, when his wife asks him for money.

I have always hated a rooster; whether from his perch, before daylight, he shrilly, spitefully, and unnecessarily, recalled me from rosy dreams to stupid realities; or when strolling at the head of his hang-dog looking seraglio of hens, he stood poised on one foot, gazing back at the meek procession with an air that said, as plain as towering crests and tail feathers could say it, “Stir a foot if you dare, till I give you the signal!”—at which demonstration I looked instinctively about, for a big stone, to take the nonsense out of him!

Save us, what a crowd! There are more onions here than patchouli, more worsted wrappers than Brummel neck-ties, and more brogans than patent leather. Most of the visitors gaze at the perches through barn-yard spectacles. For myself, I don’t care an egg-shell, whether that old “Shanghai” knew who her grandfather was or not, or whether those “Dorkings” were ever imprudent enough to let their young affections rove from their native roost. Yankee eyes were made to be used, and the first observation mine take is, that those gentlemen fowls seem to have reversed the order of things here in New York, being very superior in point of beauty to the feminines. Of course they know it. See them strut! There never was a masculine yet whom you could enlighten on such a point.

Now, were I a hen (which, thank the parish register, I am not), I would cross my claws, succumb to that tall Polander, with his crested helmet of black and white feathers, and share his demonstrative perch.

Oh, you pretty little “carrier doves!” I _could_ find a use for _you_. Do you ever tap-tap at the wrong window, you little snow-flakes? Have you learned the secret of soaring above the heads of your enemies? Are you impregnable to bribes, in the shape of food?

There’s an eagle, fierce as a Hospodar. Bird of Jove! that _you_ should stay caged in the tantalizing vicinity of those little fat bantams! Try the strength of your pinions, grim old fellow; call no man jailer; turn your back on Barnum, and stare the sun out of countenance!

Observe with what aristocratic _nonchalance_ those salmon-coloured pigeons sit their perch! See that ruffle of feathers about their dignified Elizabethan throats. I am not at all sure that I should have intruded into their regal presence, without being heralded by a court page.

Do you call those two moving bales of wool, sheep? Hurrah for “Ayrshire” farming! Fleece six inches deep, and the animals not half grown. Comfortable looking January-defiers, may your shearing be mercifully postponed till the dog days.

Pigs, too? petite, white and frisky; two hundred dollars a pair! P-h-e-w! and such pretty little gaiter boots to be had in Broadway! Disgusting little porkers, don’t wink your pink eyes at my Jewish resolution.

Puppies for sale? long-eared and short-eared, shaggy and shaven, bobtailed—curtailed—and to be re-tailed! Spaniel terrier and embryo Newfoundland. Ho! ye unappropriated spinsters, with a superfluity of long evenings—ye forlorn bachelors, weary of solitude and boot-jacks, listen to these yelping applicants for your yearning affections, and “down with the dust.”

“Nelly for sale, at twenty dollars.” Poor little antelope! The gods send your soft, dark eyes an appreciative purchaser. I look into their human-like depths, and invoke for you the velvety, flower-bestrewn lawn, the silver lake, in which your graceful limbs are mirrored as you stoop to drink, the leafy shade of fret-work leaves in the panting none-tide heat, and the watchful eye and caressing hand of some bright young creature, to whom the earth is one glad anthem, and whose sweet young life (like yours) is innocent and pure.

Avaunt, pretentious peacocks, flaunting your gaudy plumage before our sated eyes. See that beautiful “Golden Pheasant,” on whose plump little body, clad in royal crimson, the sunlight lingers so lovingly. See the silky fall of those flossy, golden feathers about his arching neck. Glorious pheasant! do you know that “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever?” Make your home with me, and feast my pen-weary eyes: flit before me when the sunlight of happiness is clouded in, and the gray, leaden clouds of sorrow overcast my sky; perch upon my finger; lay your soft neck to my cheek; bring me visions of a happier shore, where love is written on the rainbow’s arch, heard in the silver-tripping stream, seen in the blossom-laden bough and bended blade, quivering under the weight of dewy gems, and hymned by the quiet stars, whose ever-moving harmony is unmarred by the discord of envy, hate, or soul-blasting uncharitableness. Beautiful pheasant! come, bring thoughts of beauty and peace to me!

—Loving Jenny Lind smiles upon us from yonder canvas. Would that we might hear her little Swedish chicken-peep! Not a semiquaver careth the mother-bird for the homage of the Old World or New. The artless clapping of little Otto’s joyous hands drowns all the ringing plaudits wafted across the ocean. A Dead Sea apple is fame, dear Jenny, to a true woman’s heart. Happy to have hung thy laurel wreath on Otto’s little cradle.

TWO PICTURES.

You will always see Mrs. Judkins in her place at the sunrise prayer-meeting. She is secretary to the “Moral Reform,” “Abolition,” “Branch Colporteur and Foreign Mission” Societies. She is tract distributor, manager of an “Infant School,” cuts out all the work for the Brown Steeple Sewing Circle; belongs to the “Select Female Prayer Meeting!” goes to the Friday night church meeting, Tuesday evening lecture, and the Saturday night Bible Class, and attends three services on Sunday, Everybody says, “What an eminent Christian is Mrs. Judkins!”

Mrs. Judkins’ house and servants take care of themselves. Her little boys run through the neighbourhood, peeping into grocery and provision stores, loitering at the street corners, and throwing stones at the passers-by. Her husband comes home to a disorderly house, eats indigestible dinners, and returns to his gloomy counting-room, sighing that his hard earnings are wasted, and his children neglected; and sneering at the _religion_ which brings forth such questionable fruits.

* * * * *

Mrs. Brown is a church-member. Mrs. Judkins has called upon her, and brought the tears into her mild blue eyes, by telling her that she in particular, and the church in general, have been pained to notice Mrs. Brown’s absence from the various religious gatherings and societies above mentioned; that it is a matter of great grief to them that she is so lukewarm; and does not enjoy religion as much as they do.

Mrs. Brown has a sickly infant; her husband (owing to sad reverses) is in but indifferent circumstances; they have but one inexperienced servant. All the household outgoings and incomings must be carefully watched and looked after. The little wailing infant is never out of the maternal arms, save when its short slumbers give her a momentary reprieve. Still, the little house is in perfect order. The table tasteful and tempting, although the bill of fare is unostententatious; the children are obedient, respectful, happy and well cared for. Morning and evening, amid her varied and pressing cares, she bends the knee in secret, to Him whom her maternal heart recognizes as “My Lord and my God.” No mantle of dust shrouds the “Holy Book.” The sacred _household_ altar flame never dies out. Little dimpled hands are reverently folded; little lips lisping say, “Our Father.” Half a day on each returning Sabbath finds the patient mother in her accustomed place in the sanctuary. At her hearth and by her board the holy man of God hath smiling welcome. “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her;” while on high, the recording angel hath written, “_She hath done what she could_.”

FEMININE WAITERS AT HOTELS.

“Some of our leading hotel-keepers are considering the policy of
employing female waiters.”

Good news for you, poor pale-faced seamstresses! Throw your thimbles at the heads of your penurious employers; put on your neatest and _plainest_ dress; see that your feet and fingers are immaculate, and then rush _en masse_ for the situation, ousting every white jacket in Yankeedom. Stipulate with your employers for leave to carry in the pocket of your French apron a pistol loaded with cranberry sauce, to plaster up the mouth of the first coxcomb who considers it necessary to preface his request for an omelette with “_My dear_.” It is my opinion that one such hint will be sufficient; if not, you can vary the order of exercises, by anointing him with a “HASTY plate of soup” at dinner.

Always make a moustache wait twice as long as you do a man who wears a clean, presentable lip. Should he undertake to expedite your slippers by “a fee,” tell him that hotel bills are _generally_ settled at the clerk’s office, except by _very_ verdant travellers.

Should you see a woman at the table, digging down to the bottom of the salt cellar, as if the top stratum were two plebeian; or ordering ninety-nine messes (turning aside from each with affected airs of disgust), or rolling up the whites of her eyes, declaring that she never sat down to a dinner-table before minus “finger glasses,” you may be sure that her aristocratic blood is nourished, _at home_, on herrings and brown bread. When a masculine comes in with a white vest, flashy neck-tie, extraordinary looking plaid trousers, several yards of gold chain festooned over his vest, and a mammoth seal ring on his little finger, you may be sure that his tailor and his laundress are both on the anxious seat; and whenever you see travellers of _either_ sex peregrinating the country in their “best bib and tucker,” you can set them down for unmitigated’ “snobs,” for high-bred people can’t afford to be so extravagant!

I dare say you’ll get sick of so much pretension and humbug. Never mind; it is better than to be stitching yourselves into a consumption over sixpenny shirts; you’ll have your fun out of it. This would be a horribly stupid world if everybody were sensible. I thank my stars every day for the share of fools a kind Providence sends in my way.

LETTER TO THE EMPRESS EUGENIA.

A PARIS LETTER says:—Lady Montijo has left Paris for Spain. She was
extremely desirous of remaining and living in the reflection of her
daughter’s grandeur, but Louis Napoleon, who shares in the general
prejudice against step-mothers, gave her plainly to understand, that
because he had married Eugenia, she must not suppose he had married
her whole family. She was allowed to linger six weeks, to have the
_entrée_ of the Tuileries, and to see her movements chronicled in the
_Pays_. She has at last left us, and the telegraph mentions her
arrival at Orleans, on her way to the Peninsula.

There Teba! did not I say you would need all those two-thousand-franc pocket-handkerchiefs before your orange wreath had begun to give signs of wilting? Why did you let your mamma go, you little simpleton? Before Nappy secured your neck in the matrimonial noose, you should have had it put down, in black and white, that Madame Montijo was to live with you till—the next revolution, if you chose to have her. Now you have struck your colours, of course everything will “go by the board.” I tell you, Teba, that a fool is the most unmanageable of all beings. He is as dogged and perverse as a broken-down donkey. You can neither goad nor coax him into doing anything he should do, or prevent his doing what he should not do. You will have to leave Nappy and come over here;—and then everybody will nudge somebody’s elbow and say, “That is Mrs. Teba Napoleon, who does not live with her husband.” And some will say it is your fault; and others will say ’tis his; and all will tell you a world more about it, than _you_ can tell _them_.

Then, Mrs. Samuel Snip (who has the next room to yours, who murders the queen’s English most ruthlessly, and is not quite certain whether Barnum or Christopher Columbus discovered America) will have her Paul Pry ear to the key-hole of your door about every other minute (except when her husband is on duty) to find out if you are properly employed;—and no matter what Mrs. Snip learns, or even if she does not learn anything, she will be pretty certain to report, that, in her opinion, you are “no better than you should be.” If you dress well (with your splendid form and carriage you could not but seem well-dressed) she will “wonder how you got the means to do it;” prefacing her remark with the self-evident truth that, “to be sure, it is none of her business.”

If you let your little Napoleon get out of your sight a minute, somebody will have him by the pinafore and put him through a catechism about his mamma’s mode of living, and how she spends her time. If you go to church, it will be “to show yourself;” if you stay at home, “you are a publican and a sinner.” Do what you will, it will all be wrong: if you do nothing, it will be still worse. Our gentlemen (so called) knowing that you are defenceless, and taking it for granted that your name is “Barkis,” will all stare at you; and the women will dislike and abuse you just in proportion as the opposite sex admire you. Of course you will sweep past them all, with that magnificent figure of yours, and your regal chin up in the air, quietly attending to your own business, and entirely unconscious of their pigmy existence.

MUSIC IN THE NATURAL WAY.

How often, when wedged in a heated concert room, annoyed by the creaking of myriad fans, and tortured optically by the glare of gas-light, have I, with a gipsy longing, wished that the four walls might be razed, leaving only the blue sky over my head, that the tide of music might unfettered flow over my soul.

How often, when dumb with delight, in the midst of some scene of surpassing natural beauty, have I silently echoed the poet’s words:—

“Give me music, or I die.”

My dream was all realized at a promenade concert at Castle Garden last night. Shall I ever forget it? That glorious expanse of sea, glittering in the moonbeams; the little boats gliding smoothly over its polished surface; the cool, evening zephyr, fanning the brow wooingly; the music—soothing—thrilling—then quickening the pulse and stirring the blood, like the sound of a trumpet; then, that rare boon, a companion, who had the good taste to be _dumb_, and not disturb my trance.

There was one drawback. After the doxology, I noticed some matter-of-fact wretches devouring ice-creams. May no priests be found to give them absolution. I include, also, in this anathema, those ever-to-be-avoided masculines, who, then and there, puffed cigar smoke in my face, and the moon’s.

FOR LADIES THAT “GO SHOPPING.”

Matrimony and the toothache _may_ be survived, but of all the evils feminity is heir to, defend me from a shopping excursion. But, alas! bonnets, shoes and hose will wear out, and shopkeepers will chuckle over the sad necessity that places the unhappy owners within their dry-goods clutches. Felicitous Mrs. Figleaf! why taste that paradisaical apple?

Some victimised females frequent the stores where soiled and damaged goods are skilfully announced as selling at an “immense sacrifice,” by their public-spirited and disinterested owners. Some courageously venture into more elegant establishments, where the claim of the applicant to notice is measured by the costliness of her apparel, and where clerks poise their eye-glass at any plebeian shopperess bold enough to inquire for silk under six dollars a yard. Others, still, are tortured at the counter of some fussy old bachelor, who always ties up, with distressing deliberation, every parcel he takes down for inspection, before he can open another, and moves round to execute your orders as if Mount Atlas were fastened to his heels; or perhaps get petrified at the store of some snap-dragon old maid, whose victims serve as escape-valves for long years of bile, engendered by Cupid’s oversights. Meanwhile, the vexed question is still unsolved, Where can the penance of shopping be performed with the least possible wear and tear of patience and prunella? The answer seems to me to be contained in six letters—“Stewart’s.”

“_Stewart’s?_” I think I hear some old lady exclaim, dropping her knitting and peering over her spectacles; “Stewart’s! Yes, if you have the mines of California to back you.” Now I have a profound respect for old ladies, as I stand self-pledged to join that respectable body on the advent of my very first gray hair; still, with due deference to their catnip and pennyroyal experience, I conscientiously repeat—“_Stewart’s_.”

You may stroll through his rooms free to gaze and admire, without being annoyed by an impertinent clerk dogging your footsteps; you can take up a fabric and examine it, without being bored by a statement of its immense superiority over every article of the kind in the market, or without being deafened by a detailed account of the enormous sums that the mushroom aristocracy have considered themselves but _too_ happy to expend, in order to secure a dress from that very desirable, and altogether unsurpassed, and unsurpassable, piece of goods!

You can independently say that an article does not exactly suit you, though your husband may not stand by you with a drawn sword. You will encounter no ogling, no impertinent cross-questioning, no tittering whispers from the quiet, well-bred clerks, who attend to their own business, and allow you to attend to yours.

’Tis true that you may see at Stewart’s cobweb laces an inch or two wide, for fifty or one hundred dollars a yard, which many a brainless butterfly of fashion is supremely happy in sporting: but at the very next counter you may suit yourself, or your country cousin, to a sixpenny calico or a shilling delaine; and, what is better, be quite as sure that her verdant queries will be as respectfully answered as if a liveried Pompey stood waiting at the door to hand her to her carriage.

You can go into the silk department, where, by a soft descending light you will see dinner dresses that remind you of a shivered rainbow, for _passé_ married ladies who long since ceased to celebrate their birth-days, and who keep their budding daughters carefully immured in the nursery; or, at the same counter, you can select a modest silk for your minister’s wife at six shillings a yard, that will cause no heart-burnings in the most Argus-eyed of Paul Pry parishes.

Then if you patronise those ever-to-be-abominated and always-to-be-shunned nuisances called Parties, where fools of both sexes gather to criticise their host and hostess, and cut up characters and confectionery, you can step into that little room from which daylight is excluded, and select an evening dress, _by gas-light_, upon the effect of which you can, of course, depend, and to which artistic arrangement many a New York belle has probably owed that much prized possession—her “last conquest.”

Now, if you please, you can go into the upholstery-room, and furnish your nursery windows with a cheap set of plain linen curtains; or you can expend a small fortune in regal crimson, or soft blue damask drapery, for your drawing-room; and without troubling yourself to thread the never-ending streets of Gotham for an upholsteress, can have them made by competent persons in the upper loft of the building, who will also drape them faultlessly about your windows, should you so desire.

Now you can peep into the cloak room, and bear away on your graceful shoulders a six, twenty, thirty, or four hundred dollar cloak, as the length of your husband’s purse, or your own fancy (which in these degenerate days amounts to pretty much the same thing) may suggest.

Then there is the wholesale department, where you will see shawls, hosiery, flannels, calicoes, and delaines, sufficient to stock all the nondescript country stores, to say nothing of city consumption.

Now, if you are not weary, you can descend (under ground) into the carpet department, from whence you can hear the incessant roll of full-freighted omnibuses, the ceaseless tramp of myriad restless feet, and all the busy train of out-door life made audible in all the dialects of Babel. Here you can see every variety of carpet, from the homespun, unpretending straw, oil cloth, and Kidderminster, to the gorgeous Brussels and tapestry (above whose traceried buds and flowers the daintiest foot might well poise itself, loth to crush), up to the regal Axminster, of Scottish manufacture, woven without seam, and warranted, in these days of late suppers and tobacco smoking, to _last a life-time_.

Emerging from this subterranean region, you will ascend into daylight; and reflecting first upon all this immense outlay, and then upon the frequent and devastating conflagrations in New York, inquire with solicitude, Are you _insured_? and regret to learn that there is too much risk to effect an _entire_ insurance, although Argus-eyed watchmen keep up a night-and-day patrol throughout the handsome building.

THE OLD MERCHANT WANTS A SITUATION.

“An elderly gentleman, formerly a well-known merchant, wishes a
situation; he will engage in any respectable employment not too
laborious.”—_New York Daily Paper._

I don’t know the old man. I never saw him on ‘change, in a fine suit of broadcloth, leaning on his gold-headed cane; while brokers, and insurance officers, and presidents of banks raised their hats deferentially, and the crowd respectfully made way for him. I never kept account of the enormous taxes he annually paid the city, or saw his gallant ships ploughing the blue ocean with their costly freight, to foreign ports. I never saw him in his luxurious home, taking his quiet siesta, lulled by the liquid voice of his fairy daughter. No: nor did I hear the auctioneer’s hammer in that home, nor see the red flag floating, like a signal of distress, before the door. I didn’t read the letter that recalled his only boy from college, or see the humbled family, as they passed, shrinking, over the threshold into poor lodgings, whose landlord coarsely stipulated for “a week’s rent in advance.”

“Any occupation not _too laborious_.” How mournfully the old man’s words fall upon the ear! Life to commence anew, with the silver head, and bent form, and faltering step, and palsied hand of age! With the first ray of morning light, that hoary head must be lifted from an unquiet pillow, to encounter the drenching rain, and driving sleet, and piercing cold. No reprieve from that wearisome ledger, for the throbbing brow and dimmed eye. Beardless clerks make a jest of “the old boy;” superciliously repeating, in his sensitive ear, their mutual master’s orders. With them he meekly receives his weekly pittance; sighing, as he counts it over, to think of the few comforts it will bring to the drooping hearts at home. Foot-weary, he travels through the crowded streets; his threadbare coat, and napless hat, and dejected face, all unnoticed by the thriving young merchant, whom the old man helped to his present prosperous business position. The birth-days of his delicate daughter come and go, all unmarked by the joy-bestowing gift. With trouble and exposure, sickness comes at last; then the tardy foot, and careless, professional touch of the callous-hearted dispensary doctor; then the poor man’s hearse stands before the door; then winds unheeded through busy streets, to the “Potter’s field,” while his former cotemporaries take up the daily paper, and sipping their wine, say carelessly, as if _they_ had a quit-claim from sorrow, “Well, Old Smith, the broken-down millionaire, is dead.”

Ah, there are tragedies of which editors and printers little dream, woven in their daily advertising sheets; the office boy feeds the fire with many a tear-blotted manuscript, penned by trembling fingers, all unused to toil.

A MOVING TALE.

The Smiths have just been moving. They always move “for the last time,” on the first of May. “Horrid custom!” exclaims Smith, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and pulling up his depressed dickey. “How my blood curdles and my bones ache at the thought!” It was on Tuesday, the third of May, that the afflicting rite was celebrated. Cartmen—four of them—were engaged the Saturday previous, to be on hand at six o’clock on Tuesday morning, to transport the household goods from the habitation of ’52–3 to that of ’53–4. Smith was to pay them three dollars each—twelve dollars in all. They would not come for a mill less; Smith tried them thoroughly.

On Monday, Smith’s house is turned into a sort of bedlam, minus the beds. They are tied up, ready for the next morning’s Hegira; the Smiths sleeping on the floor on Monday night. Smith can’t sleep on the floor; he grows restless; he receives constant reminders from Mrs. Smith to take his elbow out of the baby’s face; he has horrid visions, and rolls about; therefore, he is not at all surprised, on waking at cock-crow, to find his head in the fire-place, and his hair powdered with soot. The occasion of his waking at that time, was a dream of an unpleasant nature. He dreamed that he had rolled off the world backwards, and lodged in a thorn-bush. Of course, such a thing was slightly improbable; but how could Smith be responsible for a dream?

On Tuesday morning the Smiths are up with the dawn. The household being mustered, it is found that the servant girl, who had often averred that, “she lived out just for a little exercise,” had deserted her colours. The grocer at the corner politely informs Smith (whom Mrs. S. had sent on an errand of inquiry), that, on the night previous, the servant left with him a message for her employers, to the effect that “she didn’t consider moving the genteel thing at all; and that a proper regard for her character and position in society had induced her to get a situation in the family of a gentleman who owned the house he lived in.”

This is severe: Smith feels it keenly; Mrs. Smith leans her head against her husband’s vest pattern, and says “She is quite crushed,” and “wonders how Smith can have the heart to whistle. But it is always so,” she remarks. “Woman is the weaker vessel, and man delights to trample on her.” Smith indignantly denies this sweeping assertion, and says “he tramples on nothing;” when Mrs. Smith points to a bandbox containing her best bonnet, which he has just put his foot through. Smith is silent.

The cartmen were to be on the premises at six o’clock. Six o’clock comes—half-past six—seven o’clock—but no cartmen. Here is a dilemma! The successors to the Smiths are to be on the ground at eight o’clock; and being on the ground, they will naturally wish to get into the house; which they cannot well do, unless the Smiths are out of it.

Smith takes a survey of his furniture, with a feeling of intense disgust. He wishes his cumbrous goods were reduced to the capacity of a carpet-bag, which he could pick up and walk away with. The mirrors and pianoforte are his especial aversion. The latter is a fine instrument, with an Eolian attachment. He wishes it had a sheriff’s attachment; in fact, he would have been obliged to any officer who should, at that wretched moment, have sold out the whole establishment, at the most “ruinous sacrifice” ever imagined by an auctioneer’s fertile “marvellousness.”

—Half-past seven, and no cartmen yet. What is to be done? Ah! here they come, at last. Smith is at a loss to know what excuse they will make. Verdant Smith! _They make no excuse._ They simply tell him, with an air which demands his congratulations, that they “picked up a nice job by the way, and stopped to do it.” “You see,” says the principal, “we goes in for all we can get, these times, and there’s no use of anybody’s grumbling. Kase, you see, if one don’t want us, another will; and it’s no favour for anybody to employ us a week either side the first of May.” The rascal grins as he says this; and Smith, perceiving the strength of the cartman’s position, wisely makes no reply.

They begin to load. Just as they get fairly at work, the Browns (the Smiths’ successors) arrive, with an appalling display of stock. Brown is a vulgar fellow, who has suddenly become rich, and whose ideas of manliness all centre in brutality. He is furious because the Smiths are not “clean gone.” He “can’t wait there, all day, in the street.” He orders his men to “carry the things into the house,” and heads the column himself with a costly rocking-chair in his arms. As Brown comes up with his rocking-chair, Smith, at the head of his men, descends, with a bureau, from the second floor.

“They met, ’twas in a crowd”—

on the stairs, and Smith

“Thought that Brown would shun him,”

—but he didn’t! The consequence was, they came in collision: or, rather, Smith’s bureau and Brown’s rocking-chair came in collision. Now, said bureau was an old-fashioned, hardwood affair, made for service, while Brown’s rocking-chair was a flimsy, showy fabric, of modern make. The meeting on the stairs occasions some squeezing, and more stumbling, and Brown suddenly finds himself and chair under the bureau, to the great injury of his person and his furniture. (Brown has since recovered, but the case of the rocking-chair is considered hopeless.) This discomfiture incenses the Browns to a high degree, and they determine to be as annoying as possible; so they persist in bringing their furniture into the house, and upstairs, as the Smiths are carrying theirs out of the house, and down stairs. Collisions are, of course, the order of the day; but the Smiths do not mind this much, as they have a great advantage, _viz.: their furniture is not half so good as Brown’s_. After a few smashes, Brown receives light on this point, and orders his forces to remain quiet, while the foe evacuates the premises; so the Smiths retire in peace—and much of their furniture in pieces.

The four carts form quite a respectable procession; but there is no disguising the fact that the furniture looks very shabby (and whose furniture does not look shabby, piled on carts?); so the Smiths prudently take a back street, that no one may accuse them of owning it. Smith has to carry the baby and a large mirror, which Mrs. S. was afraid to trust to the cartmen, there being no insurance on either. It being a windy day, both the mirror and Smith’s hat veer to all points of the compass, while the baby grows very red in the face at not being able to possess himself of them. Between the wind, the mirror, his hat and the baby, Smith has an unpleasant walk of it.

About ten o’clock, they arrive at their new residence, and find, to their horror, that their predecessors have not begun to move. They inquire the reason. The feminine head of the family informs them, with tears in her eyes, that her husband (Mr. Jonas Jenkins) has been sick in Washington for five weeks; that, in consequence of his affliction, they have not been able to provide a new tenement; that she is quite unwell, and that one of her children (she has six) is ill, also; that she don’t know what is to become of them, &c., &c. Smith sets his hat on the back of his head, gives a faint tug at his neck-tie, and confesses himself—quenched! His furniture looks more odious every minute. He once felt much pride it, but he feels none now: he feels only disgust. The cartmen begin to growl out that they “can’t stand here all day,” and request to be informed “where we shall drop the big traps.” Hereupon, Smith ventures, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, to inquire of Mrs. Jenkins why she didn’t tell him, when he called, on Saturday, of her inability to procure a house? To which that lady innocently replies that she “didn’t wish to give him any unnecessary trouble!” which reply satisfies him as to Mrs. Jenkins’ claim to force of intellect.

At this juncture Smith falls into a profound reverie. He thinks that, after all, Fourier is right—“that the Solidarity of the human race is an entity;” that “nobody can be happy until everybody is happy.” He agrees with the great philosopher, that the “series distributes the harmonies.” He realizes that “society is organized (or rather disorganized) on a wrong basis;” that it is an “amorphous condition,” whereas it should be “crystallized.” With our celebrated “down east” poet, Ethan Spike, Esq., he begins to think that,

“The etarnal bung is loose,”

and that, unless it be soon tightened, there is danger that

“All natur’ will be spilt.”

He comes to the conclusion, finally, that “something must be done,” and that speedily, to “secure a home for every family.”

At this point he is aroused by his tormentors, the cartmen, who inform him that they are in a “Barkis” state of mind (willin’) to receive their twelve dollars. Smith pays the money, and turns to examine the premises. He finds that Mrs. Jenkins has packed all her things in the back basement and the second-floor sitting-room. Poor thing! she has done her best, after all. She is in ill health; her husband is sick, and away from home; and her children are not well. God pity the unfortunate who live in cities, especially in the “moving season.” But Smith is a kind-hearted man. With a few exceptions, the Smiths are a kind-hearted race—and that’s probably the reason they are so numerous.

Smith puts on a cheerful countenance, and busies himself in arranging his furniture. Mrs. Smith, kind soul, forgets the destruction of her bandbox and bonnet, and cares not how long or how loud Smith whistles. Suddenly the prospect brightens! Mrs. Jenkins’ brother-in-law appears, and announces that he has found rooms for her, a little higher up town. Cartmen are soon at the door, and the Jenkinses are on their “winding way” to their new residence.

—But the Smiths’ troubles are not yet over. The painters, who were to have had the house all painted the day before, have done nothing but leave their paint-pots in the hall, and a little Smithling, being of an investigating turn of mind, and hungry withal, attempts to make a late breakfast off the contents of one of them. He succeeds in eating enough to disgust him with his bill of fare, and frighten his mamma into hysterics. A doctor is sent for: he soon arrives, and, after attending to the mother, gives the young adventurer a facetious chuck under the chin, and pronounces him perfectly safe. The parents are greatly relieved, for Willy is a pet; and they confidently believe him destined to be President of the United States, if they can only keep paint-pots out of his way.

It takes the Smiths some ten days to get “to rights.” The particulars of their further annoyances—how the carpets didn’t fit; how the cartmen “lost the pieces;” how the sofas couldn’t be made to look natural; how the pianoforte was too large to stand behind the parlour door, and too small to stand between the front windows; how the ceiling was too low, and the book-case too high; how a bottle of indelible ink got into the bureau by mistake and “marked” all Mrs. Smith’s best dresses—I forbear to inflict on the reader. Suffice it to say, the Smiths are in “a settled state;” although their apartments give signs of the recent manifestation of a strong disturbing force—reminding one, somewhat, of a “settlement” slowly recovering from the visitation of an earthquake. Still, they are thankful for present peace, and are determined, _positively_, not to move again—until next May.

THIS SIDE AND THAT.

I am weary of this hollow show and glitter—weary of fashion’s stereotyped lay-figures—weary of smirking fops and brainless belles, exchanging their small coin of flattery and their endless genuflexions: let us go out of Broadway—somewhere, anywhere. Turn round the wheel, Dame Fortune, and show up the other side.

“The Tombs!”—we never thought to be there! nevertheless, we are not to be frightened by a grated door or a stone wall, so we pass in; leaving behind the soft wind of this Indian summer day, to lift the autumn leaves as gently as does a loving nurse her drooping child.

We gaze into the narrow cells, and draw a long breath. Poor creatures, tempted and tried. How many to whom the world now pays its homage, who sit in high places, _should_ be in their stead? God knoweth. See them, with their pale faces pressed up against the grated windows, or pacing up and down their stone floors, like chained beasts. There is a little boy not more than ten years old; what has _he_ done?

“Stolen a pair of shoes!”

Poor child! he never heard of “Swartout.” How should he know that he was put in there not for _stealing, but for doing it on so small a scale_?

Hist! Do you see that figure seated in the further corner of that cell, with his hands crossed on his knees? His whole air and dress are those of a gentleman. How came such a man as that here?

“For murder?” How sad! Ah! somewhere in the length and breadth of the land a mother’s heart is aching because she spared the rod to spoil the child.

There is a coffin, untenanted as yet, but kept on hand; for Death laughs at bolts and fetters, and many a poor wretch is borne struggling within these gloomy walls, only to be carried to his last home, while none but God may ever know at whose fireside stands his vacant chair.

And here is a woman’s cell. There are two or three faded dresses hanging against the walls, and a bonnet, for which she has little use. Her friends have brought her some bits of carpeting, which she has spread over the stone floor, with her womanly love of order (poor thing), to make the place look _home-like_. And there is a crucifix in the corner. See, she kneels before it! May the Holy Virgin’s blessed Son, who said to the sinning one, “Neither do I condemn thee,” send into her stricken heart the balm of holy peace.

Who is that? No! it _cannot_ be—but, yes, it is he—and what a wreck! See, he shrinks away, and a bright flush chases the marble paleness from his check. God bless me! That R—— should come to this! Still, Intemperance, with her thousand voices, crieth. “Give! give!” and still, alas! it is the gifted, and generous, and warm-hearted, who oftenest answer the summons.

More cells?—but there is no bed in them; only a wooden platform, raised over the stone floor. It is for gutter drunkards—too foul, too loathsome to be placed upon a bed—turned in here like swine, to wallow in the same slough. Oh, how few, who, festively sipping the rosy wine, say “_my_ mountain stands strong,” e’er dream of such an end as this.

Look there! tread softly: angels are near us. Through the grated window the light streams faintly upon a little pallet, where, sweet as a dream of heaven, lies a sleeping babe! Over its cherub face a smile is flitting. The cell has no other occupant; angels only watch the slumbers of the prison-cradled. The place is holy. I stoop to kiss its forehead. From the crowd of women pacing up and down the guarded gallery, one slides gently to my side, saying, half proudly, half sadly, “’Tis _my_ babe.”

“It is _so_ sweet, and pure, and holy,” said I.

The mother’s lip quivers; wiping away a tear with her apron, she says in a choking voice:

“Ah, it is little the likes of you, ma’am, know how hard it is for us to get the honest bread!”

God be thanked, thought I, that there is one who “judgeth _not_ as man judgeth;” who holdeth evenly the scales of justice; who weigheth against our sins the _whirlpool_ of our temptations; who forgetteth never the countless struggles for the victory, ere the desponding, weary heart shuts out the light of Heaven.

MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH’S PHILOSOPHY.

Dear me! how expensive it is to be poor. Every time I go out, my best bib and tucker has to go on. If Zebedee were worth a cool million, I might wear a coal-hod on my head, if I chose, with perfect impunity. There was that old nabob’s wife at the lecture, the other night, in a dress that might have been made for Noah’s great grandmother. She can afford it! Now, if it rains knives and forks, I must sport a ten dollar hat, a forty-dollar dress, and a hundred dollar shawl. If I go to a concert, I must take the highest priced seat, and ride there and back, just to let “Tom, Dick, and Harry” see that I can afford it. Then we must hire the most expensive pew in the broad-aisle of a tip-top church, and give orders to the sexton not to admit any strangers into it who look snobbish! Then my little children, Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria Smith, can’t go to a public school, because, you know, we shouldn’t have to pay anything.

Then if I go shopping, to buy a paper of needles, I have to get a little chap to bring them home, because it wouldn’t answer for me to be seen carrying a bundle through the streets. We have to keep three servants where one might do; and Zebedee’s coats have to be sent to the tailor when they want a button sewed on, for the look of the thing.

Then if I go to the sea-shore in summer, I can’t take my comfort, as rich people do, in gingham dresses, loose shoes, and cambric sun-bonnets. No! I have to be done up by ten o’clock in a Swiss-muslin dress and a French cap; and my Napoleon Bonaparte and Donna Maria can’t go off the piazza, because the big rocks and little pebbles cut their toes so badly through their patent kid slippers.

Then if Zebedee goes a fishing, he dare not put on a linen coat for the price of his reputation. No, indeed! Why, he never goes to the barn-yard without drawing on his white kids. Then he orders the most ruinous wines at dinner, and fees those white jackets till his purse is as empty as an egg-shell. I declare it is abominably expensive. I don’t believe rich people have the least idea how much it costs poor people to live!

A LANCE COUCHED FOR THE CHILDREN.

You have a pretty, attractive child; she is warm-hearted and affectionate, but vivacious and full of life. With judicious management, and a firm, steady rein, she is a very loveable one. You take her with you on a visit, or to make a call. You are busy, talking with the friend you went to see. A gentleman comes in and throws himself indolently on the sofa. His eye falls upon little Kitty. He is just in the mood to be amused, and makes up his mind to banter her a little, for the sake of drawing her out. So he says—

“Jemima, dear—come here!”

The child blushes, and regards him as if uncertain whether he intended to address her. He repeats his request, with a laugh. She replies, “My name is Kitty, not Jemima,” which her tormentor contradicts. Kitty looks puzzled (just as he intended she should), but it is only for a moment. She sees he is quizzing her. Well, Miss Kitty likes a frolic, if that is what he wants; so she gives him a pert answer—he laughs uproariously, and rattles fun round her little ears like a hail storm; Kitty has plenty of answers ready for him, and he enjoys the sport amazingly.

By-and-by, he gets weary, and says,—“There—run away now, I’m going to read the newspaper;” but Kitty is wide awake, and has no idea of being cut short in that summary way; so she continues her Lilliputian attacks, till finally he gets up and beats a despairing retreat, muttering, “what a very _disagreeable_ child.”

Mamma sees it all from a distance; she does not interfere—no—for she believes in “Children’s Rights.” Kitty was quiet, well behaved and respectful—till the visitor undertook to quiz, and teaze her, for his own amusement. He wanted a frolic—and he has had it: they _who play with children must take children’s play_.

A CHAPTER ON HOUSEKEEPING.

I never could see the reason why your smart housekeepers must, of necessity, be Xantippes. I once had the misfortune to be domesticated during the summer months with one of this genus.

I should like to have seen the adventurous spider that would have dared to ply his cunning trade in Mrs. Carrot’s premises! Nobody was allowed to sleep a wink after daylight, beneath her roof. Even her old rooster crowed one hour earlier than any of her neighbours’. “Go ahead,” was written on every broomstick in the establishment.

She gave her husband his breakfast, buttoned up his overcoat, and put him out of the front door, with his face in the direction of the store, in less time than I have taken to tell it. Then she snatched up the six little Carrots; scrubbed their faces, up and down, without regard to feelings or noses, till they shone like a row of milk pans.

“Clear the track,” was her motto, on washing and ironing days. She never drew a long breath till the wash-tubs were turned bottom upwards again, and every article of wearing apparel sprinkled, folded, ironed, and replaced on the backs of their respective owners. It gave me a stitch in the side to look at her!

As to her “cleaning days,” I never had courage to witness one. I used to lie under an apple-tree in the orchard, till she was through. A whole platoon of soldiers wouldn’t have frightened me so much as that virago and her mop.

You should have seen her in her glory on “baking days;” her sleeves rolled up to her arm-pits, and a long, check apron swathed around her bolster-like figure. The great oven glowing, blazing, and sparkling, in a manner very suggestive, to a lazy sinner like myself. The interminable rows of greased pie-plates; the pans of rough and ready gingerbread; the pots of pork and beans, in an edifying state of progression; and the immense embryo loaves of brown and wheaten bread. To my innocent inquiry, whether she thought the latter would “rise,” she set her skinny arms akimbo, marched up within kissing distance of my face, cocked her head on one side, and asked “if I thought she looked like a woman to be trifled with by a loaf of bread!” The way I settled down into my slippers, without a reply, probably convinced her that I was no longer sceptical on that point.

Saturday evening she employed in winding up everything that was unwound in the house—the old entry clock included. From that time till Monday morning, she devoted to her husband and Sabbatical exercises. All I have to say is, it is to be hoped she carried some of the fervour of her secular employment into those halcyon hours.

A FERN REVERIE.

Dear me, I must go shopping. Shopping is a nuisance; clerks are impertinent; feminity is victimized. Miserable day, too; mud plastered an inch thick on the side-walk. Well, if we drop our skirts, gentlemen cry “Ugh!” and if we lift them from the mud, they level their eye-glasses at our ankles. The true definition of a gentleman (not found in incomplete Webster) is—a biped, who, of a muddy day is perfectly oblivious of anything but the shop signs.

_Vive la France!_ Ingenious Parisians, send us over your clever invention—a chain suspended from the girdle, at the end of which is a gold _hand_ to clasp up the superfluous length of our promenading robes; thus releasing our human digits, and leaving them at liberty to wrestle with rude Boreas for the possession of the detestable little sham bonnets, which the milliners persist in hanging on the backs of our necks.

Well, here we are at Call and Ketchum’s dry-goods store. Now comes the tug of war; let Job’s mantle fall on my feminine shoulders.

“Have you _blue_ silk?”

Yardstick, entirely ignorant of colours, after fifteen minutes of snail-like research, hands me down a silk that is as _green_ as himself.

Oh! away with these stupid masculine clerks, and give us _women_, who know by intuition what we want, to the immense saving of our lungs and leather.

Here’s Mr. Timothy Tape’s establishment.

“Have you lace collars (in points), Mr. Tape?”

Mr. Tape looks beneficent, and shows me some _rounded_ collars. I repeat my request in the most pointed manner for _pointed_ collars. Mr. Tape replies, with a patronizing grin:—

“Points is going out, Ma’am.”

“So am I.”

Dear me, how tired my feet are! nevertheless, I must have some merino. So I open the door of Mr. Henry Humbug’s dry-goods store, which is about half a mile in length, and inquire for the desired article. Young Yardstick directs me to the counter at the _extreme_ end of the store. I commence my travels thither-ward through a file of gaping clerks, and arrive there just ten minutes before two by my repeater; when I am told “they are quite out of merinos; but won’t Lyonnese cloth do just as well?” pulling down a pile of the same. I rush out in a high state of frenzy, and, taking refuge in the next-door neighbour’s, inquire for some stockings. Whereupon the clerk inquires (of the wrong customer), “What price I wish to pay?” Of course, I am not so verdant as to be caught in that trap; and, teetotally disgusted with the entire institution of shopping, I drag my weary limbs into Taylor’s new saloon to rest.

Bless me! what a display of gilding, and girls, and gingerbread! what a heap of mirrors! There’s more than one FANNY FERN in the world. I found that out since I came in.

“What will you be pleased to have?” J-u-l-i-u-s C-æ-s-a-r! look at that white aproned waiter pulling out his snuff-box and taking a pinch of snuff right over that bowl of white sugar, that will be handed me in five minutes to sweeten my tea! And there’s another combing his hair with a pocket-comb over that dish of oysters.

“What will I have?” Starve me if I’ll have anything till I can find a cleaner place than this to eat in.