Chapter II: Street-Music in Rome (3)

All this while, a movement of a most extraordinary character was being carried on, which had commenced before the Governor entered the Valley. The people of the northern settlements, along the base of the Wahsatch Mountains, including Salt Lake City, were deserting their homes, abandoning houses, crops, and their heavier furniture, and migrating southward. Long wagon-trains were sweeping through the city every day, accompanied by hundreds of families, and droves of horses and cattle. A fair estimate of the entire Mormon population of Utah is about forty-five thousand. Of this number, ten thousand is the proportion of the towns north of Salt Lake City, and upward of fifteen thousand that of the city itself and the settlements in its immediate neighborhood. Considerably more than half the people of the Territory, therefore, shared in this emigration. What was its object and what its destination are still mysteries; but it was probably directed toward the mountain-ranges in the southwestern portion of the Great Basin, of the topography of which region--hitherto unvisited by Federal explorers--the Mormons undoubtedly possess accurate information. At any rate, it was initiated and conducted under the direction of the Church, and Young and Kimball were among the first to lead the way. Commencing late in March, it continued until June, and before the beginning of May more than thirty-five thousand people were concentrated on the western shore of Lake Utah, chiefly in the neighborhood of Provo, fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. Such a scene of squalid misery, such a spectacle of want and distress, was never before witnessed in America. More than half this multitude could not be accommodated in the towns, and lodged in board-shanties, wigwams, mud-huts, log-cabins, bowers of willow-branches covered with wagon-sheets, and even in holes dug into the hill-sides. The most common quarters, however, were made by removing a wagon-body from its wheels, placing it upon the ground, and erecting in front of it a bower of cedars. It is needless to dwell on the exasperation which animated all who submitted to these sacrifices. In the history of the Albigenses hunted through Languedoc, or of the Jews writhing under the Spanish Inquisition, a record of similar bitterness of feeling may be found, but its parallel does not exist outside the annals of religious persecution.

Governor Cumming returned to Fort Bridger during the second week in May, still accompanied by Mr. Kane, and also by a party of Mormons who intended to escort the latter to Missouri. Upon his arrival, he addressed a letter to General Johnston, stating, officially, that the people of Utah had acknowledged his authority, and that the roads between the camp and Salt Lake City were free for the transit of mails and passengers, the Mormon forces having withdrawn from the cañons, and none of the Territorial militia remaining under arms except with his consent and approbation. A day or two later, Mr. Kane bade him farewell and started toward the States, his mission having been completed.

It may be well to pause here and estimate its precise results. It had secured delay. The herds on Henry's Fork had thriven better than was expected, and toward the close of April the number of mules in working condition was sufficient to have dragged a train of two hundred wagons. The dragoon-horses which survived could have been assigned to the artillery-batteries, and the regiment have served as infantry. With this equipment, slight though it may appear, a rapid movement upon the Valley was possible; and whatever may have been the opinion during the previous autumn, it was the universal opinion in the spring that the force at Camp Scott could have routed any body of militia that might have opposed its advance, although, perhaps, it was not sufficient to subjugate the Territory, in case the Mormons should flee to the mountains. Provisions, also, were running low in the camp. The ration of flour had been further reduced. All the cattle had been slaughtered, and there was every prospect of recourse to mule-meat before the first of June. Everything, therefore, favored the plan of an early march toward the city; and it is certain that it would have been commenced without awaiting reinforcements from the States, had not the Governor's scheme for pacification intervened. Distrustful of its expediency or propriety though General Johnston might have been, he deemed it his duty to await its result. Neither he nor the Governor being supreme in the direction of affairs, it was the duty of each to defer so far as might be to the action of the other.

In the next place, Mr. Kane's interposition had produced an irreconcilable difference of opinion between the civil and the military authority. This is evident from what has already been stated, and there is no need to confirm the fact by argument. The Governor returned to Fort Bridger in May, believing the Mormons to be an injured people, whose cause was in the main just. But his position was full of difficulties. He had been recognized in his official character, it is true; but he was conscious that every Mormon acknowledged a political influence superior to his own, which was directing the emigration southward, and leaving him Governor of empty villages and deserted fields. The only hope he entertained of checking this exodus was by quashing the indictments for treason which had been found against the Mormon leaders, and by insuring them against contact with the troops. The first he was powerless to effect; it was a matter beyond his control,--solely within the cognizance of the courts. The second he had assumed to be within his power, and had so assured the Mormons; but there he was at variance with General Johnston, who denied his claim to absolute authority over the movements of the army.

Unknown, however, to the parties who were agitating these perplexing questions, a superior power had already intervened and solved the difficulty. On the 6th of April, the President had signed a Proclamation, at Washington, rehearsing to the people of Utah Territory, at considerable length, their past offences, and particularly those which immediately preceded and followed the outbreak of the rebellion, and declaring them traitors; but, "in order to save the effusion of blood, and to avoid the indiscriminate punishment of a whole people for crimes of which it is not probable that all are equally guilty," offering "a free and full pardon to all who will submit themselves to the authority of the Federal Government." This document was intrusted to two Commissioners for conveyance to the Territory;--one of them, Mr. L.W. Powell, lately Governor, and at the time Senator-elect, of the State of Kentucky; the other, Major Ben M'Culloch, of Texas, who had served with distinction in Mexico. In their appointment, Mr. Buchanan imitated the example of President Washington, who designated a similar commission to convey his proclamation to the whiskey-insurgents in Pennsylvania.

The reinforcements and supply-trains for the army were at this time concentrating at Fort Leavenworth, Major-General Persifer F. Smith was assigned to the command-in-chief, and it was intended that the whole force, after concentration in Utah, should be divided into two brigades, one to be commanded by General Harney, the other by General Johnston. Leaving the columns preparing to advance over the Plains, the Commissioners started from the Fort on the 25th of April. On the same day, Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann advanced from Fort Laramie with several companies of infantry and cavalry, escorting the supply-trains which were parked there through the winter, and on the speedy arrival of which at Camp Scott the subsistence of General Johnston's command depended, unless it should force its way into the Valley. On the 1st of May, he had reached La Bonté, a tributary of the North Platte, fifty miles from the Fort. There he encountered the severest storm that had occurred in that region for many years. The snow fell breast-deep, and was followed by a pelting rain which killed his mules by scores. He was forced to remain stationary more than a week, and when he renewed the march the trains were clogged by mud foot-deep.

The Commissioners reached Camp Scott on the 29th of May. The President's Proclamation had been received the day before. With the exception of a few persons who were prepared for such a document by reflection on Mr. Kane's mission, everybody was astonished at its purport. It seemed incredible that a lenity should have been extended to the Mormon rebels which was refused to the Free-State men in Kansas, who were once indicted for treason and sedition,--and equally incredible that all the advantages for the solution of the Utah problem which had been gained by the rising of the Mormons in arms should be thrown away. There was none of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was reported in the States to have prevailed there, but there was a feeling of infinite chagrin, a consciousness that the expedition was only a pawn on Mr. Buchanan's political chess-board; and reproaches against his folly were as frequent as they were vehement. Had he excepted from the amnesty the Mormon leaders, who alone had been indicted, the Proclamation might have been considered an act of judicious clemency; for that exception would have accomplished every object that could be desired. As it was, it annihilated all that had been gained by the enormous expenditures and the toils and sufferings of the past year, and it sentenced the army to an indefinite term of imprisonment in an American Siberia. For the sake of ridding the Administration of immediate trouble, it turned the Church leaders loose again upon the community, purged of all offence, and postponed to a future day a terrible issue, the ultimate avoidance of which is impossible. "After us the deluge," was still the motto of the President and his Cabinet.

At the camp the Commissioners remained only three days, which they employed in obtaining accurate information concerning the transactions of the last three months; for when they started from Missouri, no news of the result of Mr. Kane's mission had reached the frontier.

On the 2d of June, they started for the Valley, intending to summon the leading Mormons to an interview, and receive their formal acceptance of the terms of the Proclamation,--of which, of course, there could be no doubt. They were accompanied by the postmaster of Salt Lake City, with the mails for the Mormons, which had been detained at the camp since the commencement of the rebellion. The Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs followed them the next day. The rest of the Federal officers refused to join the party, or to make any movement based on a supposed capitulation of the Mormons, until their submission should be perfected. There were many circumstances attending the departure of the Governor which showed that he was doubtful of the stability of the positions he had been led by Mr. Kane to assume. He expressed himself distrustful of the cooperation of the Commissioners in his plan for pacifying the Territory; and he protested vehemently against allowing persons to accompany the party in order to report for the press the proceedings at the expected conferences. Every day made it more and more evident that he had committed himself to the Mormons farther than he cared to acknowledge.

Before the Commissioners left the camp, they urged General Johnston not to delay the advance of the army one moment beyond the time when he should be ready and desire to march. On the 8th of June, Captain Marcy arrived at the Fort with a herd of nearly fifteen hundred mules and horses, and an escort of five companies of infantry and mounted riflemen. He left the village of Rayado, on the Canadian River, in New Mexico, on the 17th of March, and, instead of retracing the route pursued on his winter journey, which had led him near the sources of Grand River, one of the great forks of the Colorado, he returned along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountain range past Long's and Pike's Peaks. When he had reached Fontaine-qui-bouille Creek, an express overtook him from General Garland, who commanded the Department of New Mexico, enjoining him to halt and await reinforcements. There he camped more than three weeks. Renewing his progress, he was overtaken, on the 29th of April, by the same snowstorm which was so disastrous to Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann on La Bonté. It was accompanied by a furious wind, the force of which there was nothing to break. Snow fell to the depth of three feet, and, at the very height of the storm, a part of the mule herd stampeded and ran fifty miles before the wind, for shelter. When the march was resumed, after an interval of several days, hundreds of antelopes were found frozen and buried in the drifts,--a circumstance almost unparalleled among the mountains. With this exception, nothing occurred to obstruct the march. Captain Marcy brought with him specimens of sand from many of the tributaries of the South Platte, which were found, on analysis, to contain particles of gold; and within two months after he gathered them, the same discovery, confirmed by others, originated the emigration to that region, the progress of which now promises the speedy birth of another Free State in the very heart of the continent. On the 9th and 10th, Colonel Hoffmann reached the camp with all his supply-trains; and on the following day, General Johnston issued the welcome order to prepare for the march to Salt Lake City. A strong detachment of infantry and artillery was detailed to garrison Fort Bridger.

On the 13th of June, the long camp was broken up, and the army moved forward in three columns on the route through the cañons. Although the season was so far advanced, snow had fallen at the Fort only three days before. The streams were swollen and turbulent with spring floods, and difficulty was anticipated in crossing the Bear and Weber Rivers. Material for bridging had, therefore, been prepared, and accompanied the first column. Southwest of the Fort, at the distance of four or five miles, a singular _butte_, the top of which is as level as the floor of a ball-room, rises to the height of eight hundred feet above the valley of Black's Fork, and commands a view of the entire broad plateau between the Wind River and the Uinta and Wahsatch Ranges. Little parties of horsemen could be seen spurring up the gullies on its almost precipitous sides, to witness from its summit the departure of the army. The scene was in the highest degree picturesque. Almost at their feet lay the camp, the few tents which remained unstruck glittering like bright dots on the wing of an insect, the whitewashed wall of the Fort reflecting the sunshine, while stacks of turf chimneys, lodge-poles, and rubbish marked the spots where the encampment had been abandoned. The whole valley was in commotion. Along the strips of road were winding clumsy baggage-trains; the regiment of dragoons was trailing in advance; the gleam of the musket-barrels of the infantry was visible on all sides; and every puff of the breeze that blew over the bluff was freighted with the rumble of artillery-carriages and caissons. Here and there were groups of half-naked Indians galloping to and fro, with fluttering blankets, gazing at the show with the curiosity and delight of children.

The traveller who terminates his westward journey at Fort Bridger has entered only the portal of the Rocky Mountains. Along the interval between there and the Valley of the Great Lake, there is a panorama of mountain-scenery that cannot be surpassed in the Tyrol. For miles and miles in the gorges, at the season of the year when they were traversed by the army, the road winds through thickets of alders and willows and hawthorn-bushes, whose branches interlace and hang so low, under their load of leaves and blossoms, as to sweep the backs of horsemen. Through the interstices of the foliage, the sandstone cliffs that bound the cañons are seen surrounded by flocks of twittering birds which build their nests in the crevices of the rock. The ridges which the road surmounts between cañon and cañon are covered with fields of luxuriant grass and flowers, in the midst of which patches of snow still linger. From them, in the clear noon sunshine, the broken line of the Wahsatch and Uinta Ranges is visible along the horizon; but through the morning and evening haze, only the tracery of their white crests can be discerned. The valleys of the Bear and Weber Rivers are peculiarly beautiful, the latter almost realizing the dream of the Valley of Rasselas. Corrugated and snow-capped ridges slope backward from the spectator, on whichever side he turns, until he wonders how and where the swift river, rushing under its canopy of rustling cotton-woods, finds a pathway through them.

It was into scenery like this that the troops advanced, speculating, along each day's march, upon what obstacles they would have encountered, had they attempted to reach the Valley during the winter. On the 14th, an express from the Commissioners arrived at the camp on Bear River, announcing that no resistance would be made by the Mormons, who pledged themselves to submit to Federal authority. It was suggested, at the same time, to General Johnston, that they apprehended ill-treatment from the army, which might feel an exasperation natural after the privations to which it had been subjected during the winter. To reassure them, the General immediately issued and forwarded to Salt Lake City a proclamation, informing them that no one should be "molested in his person or rights, or in the peaceful pursuit of his avocations." On the same day, Governor Cumming issued a proclamation announcing the "restoration of peace to the Territory."

The Commissioners had reached the city on the 7th. They were received there by the Mormon officers who commanded the few companies of militia which constituted the garrison, and were conducted to a restaurant, where meals were provided for them, but no lodgings; and accordingly they slept in their ambulances. The place was deserted by everybody except the garrison and a few individuals who were busily removing their property. Besides these, the only beings visible in the streets were here and there groups of half-naked Indian boys paddling in the gutters. Almost the only sound audible was the gurgling of the City Creek. Through the chinks of the heavy wooden portal of the Temple square, workmen were to be seen engaged in demolishing the roofs of the buildings within the inclosure. Over the windows of all the houses boards were nailed; the doors were locked; the gates closed; and in many of the gardens, crops of weeds were beginning to choke the flower-beds. From some of the houses of the more enthusiastic Saints all the wood-work was removed, leaving nothing standing except the bare _adobe_ walls, while a few had been burned to the ground. In front of the tithing-office, a train of wagons was loading with grain for removal to Provo.

The Governor arrived on the 8th, and was conducted at once to the quarters he had occupied on his previous visit. The next day, he, together with the Commissioners, held an interview with the two messengers who had been sent up from Provo by Brigham Young. They returned to Lake Utah that same night, and on the 10th, about noon, Young, Kimball, and Wells, together with the Twelve Apostles, and twenty or thirty Bishops, High Priests, and Elders, embracing almost all the influential characters in the Church, rode into the city. Brigham's mansion was thrown open and the party dined there. They called afterwards in a body upon the Governor and the Commissioners, and made arrangements for a conference on the following day.

The President's pardon had reached the Mormon settlements along Lake Utah on the 6th, and the manner in which it was received by the populace showed that they were not satisfied with the position of their leaders. It was read from the steps of the tithing-offices, and at the street-corners, to crowds who denounced in the fiercest language the recital of facts set forth in its preamble. The excitement, which had been steadily fostered by Young and Kimball ever since the commencement of the rebellion, had amounted to a frenzy which no authority less potent than such a hierarchy as theirs could possibly have controlled. Nevertheless, the morning Brigham rode into Salt Lake City, the capitulation had been preordained.

The conferences lasted through the 11th and 12th, the inflexibility of the Commissioners securing decency of language from the Mormons, if not decency of demeanor. All the participants, including Young himself, expressed their sentiments in turn. The opening speech was made by one of the Apostles, named Erastus Snow, who forgot for the moment that he was not addressing a congregation of his brethren on a Sunday morning, and indulged in a strain of obscene and profane remark which was checked at once by Senator Powell. Some of the speakers broke into savage tirades like those with which Governor Cumming was once greeted in the Tabernacle; but these were checked by Young. There were two subjects on which the Mormon leaders were particularly anxious, all fear of their own trial for treason being removed. They dreaded that the army should be quartered upon their settlements, and that the policy inaugurated by Judge Eckels in his recent charge to the grand jury at Fort Bridger should be pursued against polygamy. No assurances were given by the Commissioners upon either of these subjects. They limited their action to tendering the President's pardon, and exhorting the Mormons to accept it. Outside the conferences, however, without the knowledge of the Commissioners, assurances were given on both these subjects by the Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, which proved satisfactory to Brigham Young. The exact nature of their pledges will, perhaps, never be disclosed; but from subsequent confessions volunteered by the Superintendent, who appears to have acted as a tool of the Governor through the whole affair, it seems probable that they promised explicitly to exert their influence to quarter the army in Cache Valley, nearly a hundred miles north of Salt Lake City, and also to procure the removal of Judge Eckels. The news of the issue of the order for the advance of the army reached the city on the 12th, and accelerated the result of the conferences, which concluded that evening with a pledge on the part of Young and his associates to submit unconditionally to the Federal authority. During the next few days, the Commissioners, accompanied by the Governor, travelled southward, and addressed large audiences at Provo and Lehi, specially exhorting the people to return to their homes in the northern settlements, assuring them that the troubles were ended, and that they need fear no molestation of person or property.

Whether all these proceedings--which were legitimate results of Mr. Buchanan's policy--were consistent with the honor of the country, the public can judge for themselves. The Commissioners certainly conducted themselves with dignity and credit; but it is doubtful whether they ever would have accepted their appointment, had they anticipated the nature of the duties they would be required to perform.

The army moved slowly forward during the progress of these negotiations. In Echo Cañon, it had an opportunity to inspect the bugbear of the previous autumn,--the Mormon fortifications. As the cañon--which is more than twenty miles long--approaches the Weber River, it dwindles in width from five or six hundred yards to as many feet. Its northern side becomes a perfect wall of rock, which rises perpendicularly to the height of several hundred feet above the road. The southern side retains the character of a steep mountain-slope covered with grass and stunted bushes. Echo Creek, a narrow streamlet, with its dense fringe of willows, fills the whole bottom between the road and the bluffs. The first indication of approach to the fortifications was the sight of piles of stones heaped into walls four or five feet high, pierced with loopholes, and visible on every projecting point of the cliffs along the northern side, from most of which a pebble could be snapped down upon the road. Just beyond, after turning a bend in the cañon, all the willows along the creek had been cut away, and through the cleared space a ditch five or six feet wide and ten feet deep was dug across the bottom. The dirt thrown from it was packed so as to form an embankment, on which logs were so arranged that it would answer for a breastwork, behind which riflemen could be posted under cover. At intervals of about a hundred yards were two similar lines of ditch and breastwork, by the first of which the road was forced to skirt the very base of a cliff which had probably been mined. The other line was constructed just above the mouths of two narrow gorges which enter the cañon, nearly opposite one another, from the north and south. By the aid of these dams the cañon might possibly have been overflowed for half a mile to the depth of several feet, but the water would have accumulated slowly on account of the insignificant size of the creek. Several dirt walls stretched also across the gorges, commanding the whole of the fortifications below. This whole system of defences possessed as little strength as merit. It served only to confirm the impression, which by this time had become general, that the capacity of the Mormons to resist the army had been greatly overrated, and that a vigorous effort to penetrate to the Valley early in the spring would inevitably have succeeded.

For nearly a mile beyond the two gorges, a chain of low hills, over which the road runs, extends below the loftier summits on the southern side of the cañon. The northern side becomes, in consequence, a deep glen, as the cliffs which form its wall rise abruptly from the level of the creek. This glen is filled with bushes, and in it, thus protected from the wind, the Mormon militia had their winter-quarters. The huts they occupied had been constructed by digging circular holes in the ground, over which were piled boughs in the same manner as the poles of an Indian lodge. Around these boughs willow-twigs were plaited, and the entire hut was finally thatched with straw, grass, or bark. Many of them had chimneys built of sod and stones, like those which had been improvised at Camp Scott. An open spot, a few hundred feet below the beginning of the glen, was the site of the head-quarters of the command. Here the huts were built around a square, in the centre of which was planted a tall pine flag-pole. The scenery at this point is exceedingly picturesque. Out of a tangle of willows, alders, hawthorn, and wild cherry-trees spring the bold sandstone cliffs, in every crevice of which cedars and fir-trees cling to the jagged points of rock. On the other side of the cañon a sheet of rich verdure, all summer long, rolls up the mountain to its very summit. Down the glen ripples the little creek underneath an arch of fragrant shrubs twined with the slender tendrils of wild hop-vines. The whole number of huts was about one hundred and fifty, and they could accommodate, on an average, fifteen men apiece.

The troops did not emerge from Emigration Cañon into the Salt Lake Valley until the morning of the 26th. In the mean while, thirty or forty civilians had reached the city from the camp, and were quartered, like the Commissioners, in their own vehicles. The Mormons favored no one, except the Governor and his intimate associates, with any species of accommodation. Their demeanor was in every respect like that of a conquered people toward foreign invaders. During the week preceding the 26th, two or three hundred of those on Lake Utah received permission to go up to the city, and they alone, of the whole Mormon community, witnessed the ingress of the army.

It was one of the most extraordinary scenes that have occurred in American history. All day long, from dawn till after sunset, the troops and trains poured through the city, the utter silence of the streets being broken only by the music of the military bands, the monotonous tramp of the regiments, and the rattle of the baggage-wagons. Early in the morning, the Mormon guard had forced all their fellow-religionists into the houses, and ordered them not to make their appearance during the day. The numerous flags, which had been flying from staffs on the public buildings during the previous week, were all struck. The only visible groups of spectators were on the corners near Brigham Young's residence, and consisted almost entirely of Gentile civilians. The stillness was so profound, that, during the intervals between the passage of the columns, the monotonous gurgle of the city-creek struck on every ear. The Commissioners rode with the General's staff. The troops crossed the Jordan and encamped two miles from the city on a dusty meadow by the river-bank.

The orders under which General Johnston was acting directed him to establish not more than three military posts within the Territory. One of these was already fixed at Fort Bridger, and the question where the others should be located was now no less important to the Mormons than to the army. The secret of the success of Mormonism is its exclusiveness, and of this fact the leaders of the sect are fully aware. Accordingly, they now put forth most strenuous efforts to secure the removal of the troops to as great a distance as possible from their settlements. But, wholly without regard to any understanding which they might have had with the Governor, General Johnston, after a careful _reconnaissance_, selected Cedar Valley, on the western rim of Lake Utah, separated from it only by a range of bluffs,--about equidistant from Salt Lake City and Provo,--for his permanent camp. The army moved southward from the city on the 29th, but so slowly that it did not reach the Valley till the 6th of July. Not a field was encroached upon, not a house molested, not a person harmed or insulted, by troops that had been so harassed and vituperated by a people now entirely at their mercy. By their strict subordination they entitled themselves to the respect of the country as well as to the gratitude of the Mormons.

[To be continued.]

OUR SKATER BELLE.

Along the frozen lake she comes
In linking crescents, light and fleet;
The ice-imprisoned Undine hums
A welcome to her little feet.

I see the jaunty hat, the plume
Swerve bird-like in the joyous gale,--
The cheeks lit up to burning bloom,
The young eyes sparkling through the veil.

The quick breath parts her laughing lips,
The white neck shines through tossing curls;
Her vesture gently sways and dips,
As on she speeds in shell-like whorls.

Men stop and smile to see her go;
They gaze, they smile in pleased surprise;
They ask her name; they long to show
Some silent friendship in their eyes.

She glances not; she passes on;
Her steely footfall quicker rings;
She guesses not the benison
Which follows her on noiseless wings.

Smooth be her ways, secure her tread
Along the devious lines of life,
From grace to grace successive led,
A noble maiden, nobler wife!

THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.

I don't know whether our literary or professional people are more amiable than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is out of fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit of secret anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind of underground machinery, which manufactures false reputations and genuine hatreds. On the other hand, I should like to know if we are not at liberty to have a good time together, and say the pleasantest things we can think of to each other, when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth or eightieth birthday.

We don't have "scenes," I warrant you, on these occasions. No "surprise" parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, where scenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at the expense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotional excitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings, weddings, and funerals, especially the latter, are the main dependence; but babies, brides, and deceased citizens cannot be had at a day's notice. Now, then, for a surprise-party!

A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of onions, a basket of apples, a big cake and many little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse stuffed with bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, do well enough for the properties in one of these private theatrical exhibitions. The minister of the parish, a tender-hearted, quiet, hard-working man, living on a small salary, with many children, sometimes pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every day to be blest in his "basket and store," but sometimes fearing he asks amiss, to judge by the small returns, has the first _rôle_,--not, however, by his own choice, but forced upon him. The minister's wife, a sharp-eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady; the remaining parts by the rest of the family. If they only had a play-bill, it would run thus:--

ON TUESDAY NEXT

WILL BE PRESENTED

THE AFFECTING SCENE

CALLED

THE SURPRISE-PARTY,

OR

THE OVERCOME FAMILY;

WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS:

_The Rev. Mr. Overcome_, by the Clergyman of this Parish.

_Mrs. Overcome_, by his estimable lady.

_Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Overcome_.

_Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah Overcome_, by their interesting children.

_Peggy_, by the female help.

The poor man is really grateful;--it is a most welcome and unexpected relief. He tries to express his thanks,--his voice falters,--he chokes,--and bursts into tears. _That_ is the great effect of the evening. The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and counts the strings of onions, and the rest of the things, with the other. The children stand ready for a spring at the apples. The female help weeps after the noisy fashion of untutored handmaids.

Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the kind visitors remember they get their money's worth. If you pay a quarter for _dry crying_, done by a second-rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real hot, wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who is not acting, but sobbing in earnest?

All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this was _not_ a surprise-party where I read these few lines that follow:--

We will not speak of years to-night;
For what have years to bring,
But larger floods of love and light
And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise
The kindly thoughts that rise;
If friendship owns one tender phrase,
He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our schoolboy art
To gild this notch of time;
Forgive me, if my wayward heart
Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp
That knits us hand in hand,
And he the bracelet's radiant clasp
That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil!
Peace to his starlit dreams!
Who loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And faith, that sees the ring of light
Round Nature's last eclipse!

----One of our boarders has been talking in such strong language that I am almost afraid to report it. However, as he seems to be really honest and is so very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe anybody will be very angry with him.

It is here, Sir! right here!--said the little deformed gentleman,--in this old new city of Boston,--this remote provincial corner of a provincial nation, that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was fighting before we were born, and will be fighting when we are dead and gone,--please God! The _battle_ goes on everywhere throughout civilization; but here, here, here! is the broad white flag flying which proclaims, first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next to that, the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of each individual immortal soul! The three-hilled city against the seven-hilled-city! That is it, Sir,--nothing less than that; and if you know what that means, I don't think you'll ask for anything more. I swear to you, Sir, I believe that these two centres of civilization are just exactly the two points that close the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! And I believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from Uranus and unseen Neptune,--ay, Sir, from the systems of Sirius and Arcturus and Aldebaran, and as far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent in the distance that we call the nebula of Orion,--looking on, Sir, with what organs I know not, to see which are going to melt in that fiery fusion, the accidents and hindrances of humanity or man himself, Sir,--the stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he is, if the three-hilled city does not ride down and trample out the seven-hilled city!

----Steam's up!--said the young man John, so called, in a low tone.--Three hundred and sixty-five tons to the square inch. Let him blow her off, or he'll bu'st his b'iler.

The divinity-student took it calmly, only whispering that he thought there was a little confusion of images between a galvanic battery and a charge of cavalry.

But the Koh-i-noor--the gentleman, you remember, with a very large _diamond_ in his shirt-front--laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if to speak.

Sail in, Metropolis!--said that same young man John, by name. And then, in a lower tone, not meaning to be heard,--Now, then, Ma'am Allen!

But he _was_ heard,--and the Koh-i-noor's face turned so white with rage, that his blue-black moustache and beard looked fearful, seen against it. He grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he would have thrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young Marylander fixed his clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly almost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not move it. It was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle, and in that deadly Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes; --over in five seconds, but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for three-score years and ten;--one trial enough,--settles the whole matter,--just as when two feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, come together,--after a jump or two at each other, and a few sharp kicks, there is the end of it; and it is, _Après vous, Monsieur_, in all the social relations with the beaten party for all the rest of his days.

I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i-noor's wrath. For though a cosmetic is sold, bearing the name of the lady to whom reference was made by the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted in respectable prints that this cosmetic is _not a dye_, I see no reason why he should have felt offended by any suggestion that he was indebted to it or its authoress. I have no doubt that there are certain exceptional complexions to which the purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural. Nature is fertile in variety. I saw an albiness in London once, for six-pence, (including the inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as if she had been boiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my acquaintance had his hair all in little pellets of the size of marrowfat peas. One of my own classmates has undergone a singular change of late years,--his hair losing its original tint, and getting a remarkable discolored look; and another has ceased to cultivate any hair at all over the vertex or crown of the head. So I am perfectly willing to believe that the purple-black of the Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers is constitutional and not pigmentary. But I can't think why he got so angry.

The intelligent reader will understand that all this pantomime of the threatened onslaught and its suppression passed so quickly that it was all over by the time the other end of the table found out there was a disturbance; just as a man chopping wood half a mile off may be seen resting on his axe at the instant you hear the last blow he struck. So you will please to observe that the Little Gentleman was not interrupted during the time implied by these _ex-post-facto_ remarks of mine, but for some ten or fifteen seconds only.

He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, for he started again. The "Sir" of his harangue was no doubt addressed to myself more than anybody else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talking with some imaginary opponent.

----America, Sir,--he exclaimed,--is the only place where man is full-grown!

He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing on the top round of his high chair, I suppose, and so presented the larger part of his little figure to the view of the boarders.

It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. The commentary was so strange an illustration of the text!

I thought it was time to put in a word; for I have lived in foreign parts, and am more or less cosmopolitan.

I doubt if we have more practical freedom in America than they have in England,--I said.--An Englishman thinks as he likes in religion and politics. Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Channing did, and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. Seward.

Sir,--said he,--it isn't what a man thinks or says, but when and where and to whom he thinks and says it. A man with a flint and steel striking sparks over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over a tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born under protest; he lives and dies under protest,--a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is not _free-thinker_ a term of reproach in England? The same idea in the soul of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still holds it _antagonistically_, and in the soul of an American to whom it is congenital and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element blended with _all_ his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting to be on all-fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which he hangs.

----That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it commonly belongs to a female Paddy.

I thought--I will not be certain--that Little Boston winked, as if he had been hit somewhere,--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the _wooden-spoon_ suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked, however, he did not dodge.

A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to do here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with interpretation of prophecies, _we have got_ the new heavens and the new earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should like to know, like a Boston sunset?

----This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost smiled.

Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places, but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different, and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil, from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional races are dying out----

----What do you mean by the _provisional_ races, Sir?--said the divinity-student, interrupting him.

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real manhood were ready.

I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student.

Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the little gentleman.--Cheaper to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red ones. When you can get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can make an enlightened commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race, Sir,--nothing more. Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation, kept down the bears and catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and being scalped, and then passed away or are passing away, according to the programme.

Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate himself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all right by-and-by, Sir,--as sound as a woodchuck,--as sound as a musquash!

A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of 'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been any time these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston,--that it is the thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet.

----And the grand emporium of modesty,--said the divinity-student, a little mischievously.

Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered Little Boston,--I'm past that! There isn't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that wasn't thought very indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of commercial and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as this revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over it.--No, Sir,--show me any other place that is, or was since the megalosaurus has died out, where wealth and social influence are so fairly divided between the stationary and the progressive classes! Show me any other place where every other drawing-room is not a chamber of the Inquisition, with papas and mammas for inquisitors,--and the cold shoulder, instead of the "dry pan and the gradual fire," the punishment of "heresy"!

----We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of a village,--said the young Marylander, good-naturedly.--But I suppose you can't forgive it for always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of numbers,--tell the truth now. Are we not the centre of something?

Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolis of the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back duck on the top of the Washington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monument and plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glories when you have soft crabs? No, Sir,--you live too well to think as hard as we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of Cape Ann; rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly; but _you_--if you open your mouths to speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a slice of the breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspirations.

And what of Philadelphia?--said the Marylander.

Oh, Philadelphia?--Waterworks,--killed by the Croton and Cochituate;-- Ben Franklin,--borrowed from Boston;--David Rittenhouse,--made an orrery;--Benjamin Rush,--made a medical system:--both interesting to antiquarians;--great Red-river raft of medical students,--spontaneous generation of professors to match;--more widely known through the Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties;--for geological section of social strata, go to _The Club_.--Good place to live in,--first-rate market,--tip-top peaches.--What do we know about Philadelphia, except that the engine-companies are always shooting each other?

And what do you say to New York?--asked the Koh-i-noor?

A great city, Sir,--replied Little Boston,--a very opulent, splendid city. A point of transit of much that is remarkable, and of permanence for much that is respectable. A great money-centre. San Francisco with the mines above-ground,--and some of 'em under the sidewalks. I have seen next to nothing _grandiose_, out of New York, in all our cities. It makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has many elements of civilization. May stop where Venice did, though, for aught we know.--The order of its development is just this:--Wealth; architecture; upholstery; painting; sculpture. Printing, as a mechanical art,--just as Nicholas Jenson and the Aldi, who were scholars too, made Venice renowned for it. Journalism, which is the accident of business and crowded populations, in great perfection. Venice got as far as Titian and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto,--great colorists, mark you, magnificent on the flesh-and-blood side of Art,--but look over to Florence and see who lie in Santa Croce, and ask out of whose loins Dante sprung!

Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, and her Church of St. Mark, and her Casa d' Oro, and the rest of her golden houses; and Venice had great pictures and good music; and Venice had a Golden Book, in which all the large tax-payers had their names written;--but all that did not make Venice the brain of Italy.

I tell you what, Sir,--with all these magnificent appliances of civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the _jeunesse dorée_ whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble-palaced Venice,--something in the higher walks of literature,--something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers and statesmen,--five for every Boston one, as the population is to ours,--_ten_ to one more properly, in virtue of centralizing attraction as _the_ alleged metropolis,--and not call our people provincials, and have to come begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur Morris!

----The little gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at the expense of every other place. I don't suppose he had been in either of the cities he had been talking about. I was just going to say something to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spoke up.

Come, now,--he said,--what's the use of these comparisons? Didn't I hear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns all America? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks, as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribbling fools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then? I own them both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an American,--and wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home to me!

He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the emblazoned folds crackling over him in the breeze. We all looked up involuntarily, as if we should see the national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy ceiling and the gas-fixture depending therefrom dispelled the illusion.

Bravo! bravo!--said the venerable gentleman on the other side of the table.--Those are the sentiments of Washington's Farewell Address. Nothing better than that since the last chapter in Revelations. Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washington societies, and little boys used to walk in processions, each little boy having a copy of the Address, bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why don't they now? Why don't they now? I saw enough of hating each other in the old Federal times; now let's love each other, I say,--let's love each other, and not try to make it out that there isn't any place fit to live in except the one we happen to be born in.

It dwarfs the mind, I think,--said I,--to feed it on any localism. The full stature of manhood is shrivelled----

The color burst up into my cheeks. What was I saying,--I, who would not for the world have pained our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion?

I will go,--he said,--and made a movement with his left arm to let himself down from his high chair.

No,--no,--he doesn't mean it,--you must not go,--said a kind voice next him; and a soft, white hand was laid upon his arm.

Iris, my dear!--exclaimed another voice, as of a female, in accents that might be considered a strong atmospheric solution of duty with very little flavor of grace.

She did not move for this address, and there was a _tableau_ that lasted some seconds. For the young girl, in the glory of half-blown womanhood, and the dwarf, the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered with Nature's insults, looked straight into each other's eyes.