Chapter XII: Gossip

UNREQUITED LOVE--POPPING THE QUESTION--PRACTICAL JOKING--SATAN LET LOOSE--RHEA, BUT NOT RHEA--TEACHINGS OF NATURE--H.S. SMITH.

This must be a gossiping chapter, of many persons and many things, running through many years.

I love to dwell upon the years of youth. They are the sweetest in life; and these memories constitute most of the happiness of declining life. Incidents in our pilgrimage awaken the almost forgotten, and then how many, many memories flit through the mind, and what a melancholy pleasure fills the soul! We think, and think on, calling this and that memory up from the grave of forgetfulness, until all the past seems present, and we live over the bliss of boyhood with a mimic ecstasy of young life and its gladdening joys.

Like every young man, I suppose, I loved a fair girl with beautiful blue eyes, and lips so pouting and plump, so ruddy and liquid, that the words seemed sweetened as they melted away from them; but my love was unpropitious, and another was preferred to me. I have ever been curious to know why. Vanity always in my own soul made me greatly the superior of the favored one, in all particulars. But she did not think so, and chose as she liked. I saw her but once a bride. I went away, and found, as others do, another and dearer love. Sitting on my horse by her side, as she held in her beautiful palfrey, upon the summit of a cliff, which rises grandly above, and brows the drab waters of the great Mississippi, she pointed to the river, which resembled a great, white serpent, winding among green fields and noble forests, for twenty miles below. Her eyes were gray, and large, and lovely; her form was towering, and her mien commanding. She grew with the scene. She was born only a mile away, in the midst of a wild forest of walnut and magnolia, amid towering hills, and cherished them and this mighty river in childhood, until she partook of their grandeur and greatness. I thought she was like the love of my youth, and I loved her, and told her of it. The sun was waning--going down to rest, and, like a mighty monarch, was folding himself away to sleep in gorgeous robes of crimson and gold. In his shaded light, outstretching for fifty miles beyond the river, lay, in sombre silence, the mighty swamp, with its wonderful trees of cypress, clothed in moss of gray, long, and festooning from their summits to the earth below, and waving, like banners, in the passing wind. The towering magnolia, in all the pride of foliage and flower, shaded us. The river, in silent and dignified majesty, moved onward far below, and evening breezes bathed, with their delicious touch, our glowing cheeks. The scene was grand, and my feelings were intense. In the midst of all this beauty and grandeur, she was the cynosure of eye and heart. I loved her; and yet, my conscience rebuked me for forgetting my first love, and I asked myself if, in all this wild delirium of soul, there was not some little ingredient of revenge. No, it was for herself--all for herself; and, chokingly, I told her of it, when she drooped her head, and, in silence, gave me her hand. We went away in silence. There was too much of feeling to admit of speech. Delicious memory! Of all our ten children, four only remain. The willow's tears bedew her grave, and her sons fill the soldier's grave, and, wrapped in the gray, sleep well.

Yesterday I met her who first kindled in my bosom affection for woman--a widowed woman, withered and old. She smiled: the lingering trace of what it was, was all that was left. The little, plump hand was lean and bony, and wrinkles usurped the alabaster brow. Fifty years had made its mark. But memory was, by time, untouched. We parted. I closed my eyes, and there she was, in her girlhood's robes and her girlhood's beauty. The lip, the cheek, the glorious eye, were all in memory garnered still; and I loved that memory, but not the woman now. Another was in the niche she first cut in my heart, whose cheek and eye and pouting lip were young and lovely. Still these memories awoke out of this meeting, and, for hours, I forgot that I was wrinkled, old, and gray.

I wonder how many's history I am writing now? The history of the heart, at last, is all the endearing history of waning life. Recur as we may to every success, to every sorrow, and they whisper a chapter of the heart. We struggle to make happy those we love. The gratifications of wealth, ambition, and feeling, all refer to the heart. There could be no pleasure from these memories if those we loved had not participated in them. We build a home for her we love, and those who sprout around us. We win wealth and a name for these, and but for them, all that is innate would be only alloy. They must reflect the bliss it brings, or it has no sweetness. Can there be a soul so sordid as to riot in pleasure and triumphs all alone--to shun companionship, and hate participation in the joys that come of successful life?

I am in the midst of the scenes of my childhood, with here and there one friend left, who shared with me the school-hours, Saturday rambles, and sports of early boyhood. With these the memories come fresh and vigorous of the then occurring incidents--the fishings, the Saturday-night raccoon hunts, the forays upon orchards and melon-patches, and the rides to and from the old, country church on the Sabbath; the practical jokes of which I was so fond, and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to be a white one.

I am near the old mill my father built, and, if I remember all connected with my boyhood there, I trust there will be few or none to sneer or blame. The flouring-mill, or mill for grinding grain, and the saw-mill were united under the same roof; and it was the business of father to give his attention, as overseer, not only to the mills, but to his planting interest. He employed a North Carolina Scotchman--that is, a man descended of Scotch parents, but born in North Carolina--to superintend his saw-mill, who had all the industry, saving propensities, and superstitions of his ancestry. He was a firm believer in spells, second-sights, and ghosts. Taking advantage of these superstitions, my brother and myself made him the sufferer in many a practical joke. Upon one occasion, we put into circulation, in the neighborhood, a story full of wonder. A remarkable spectre had been seen near the mill on dark nights, and especially on those misty nights of murky gloom, common in early spring to this latitude. Its form was unique and exaggerated, with flaming eyes, and mouth of huge proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip. Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage, had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing his thousand years of wandering up and down the earth.

I had procured from a vine in the plum-orchard a gourd of huge dimensions, such as in that day were used by frugal housewives for the keeping of lard for family use. It would hold in its capacious cavity at least half a bushel. This was cut one-third of its circumference for a mouth, and this was garnished with teeth from the quills of a venerable gander, an especial pet of my mother. The eyes were in proportion, and were covered with patches of red flannel, purloined from my mother's scrap-basket. A circle, an inch in diameter, made of charcoal, formed an iris to a pupil, cut round and large, through the flannel. A candle was lighted, and introduced through a hole at the bottom of the gourd, and all mounted upon a pole some ten feet long. In the dark it was hideous, and, on one or two occasions, had served secretly to frighten some negroes, to give it reputation. It was designed for Rhea, the Carolinian. On Saturday night it was his uniform practice to come up to the house, cleanly clad, to spend the evening. There was a canal which conveyed the water from the head above to the mill. This ran parallel with the stream, and was crossed, on the public road, by a bridge, one portion of which was shaded by a large crab-apple bush. Though fifty years ago, it still remains to mark the spot. Beyond the creek (which was bridged, for foot-passengers, with the trunk of a large tree,) was a newly cleared field, in which the negroes were employed burning brush on the Saturday night chosen for my sport. Here, under this crab-tree, I awaited the coming of Rhea. It was misty, and densely dark. Presently the footsteps of my victim were heard approaching; he was on the bridge. He came on cautiously, to be secure of a safe footing in the dark. Suddenly I turned the grinning monster full in his face. A scream and a leap followed. Down the muddy creek-bank rushed my victim, plunged through the tumbling waters waist-deep, and, as soon as the opposite shore was reached, a vociferous call was made for Tom, the negro foreman. Horror of horrors! it was my father's voice. In an instant my candle was out, and I was running.

I passed unconcernedly through the house and took a seat in the back passage, and awaited events. It was not long before the sloppy noise of shoes full of water, heard in walking, came through the yard, and into the house. It was my dear old frightened father, all reeking from his plunge into the creek. "Why, husband," asked mother, "how did you get so wet?" He slung the damp from his hat as he cleared his throat, and said: "I slipped off that cursed log, in crossing the creek." Reflection had told him he had been foolishly frightened, and he was ashamed to acknowledge it. My conscience smote me, but I laughed, and trembled--for had he made discovery of the trick, it would have been my time to suffer.

Memory brings back the features, the kind and gentle look of that dear and indulgent parent, and the unbidden tear comes. The last time I ever saw him was at the terminus of the railroad, on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain; he placed his aged arms about my shoulders, and, pressing me to his bosom, bid me "Farewell," as, trembling with emotion, he continued: "we are parting forever, my child." He had met misfortunes in his latter days, and was poor, but I had filled his purse with the means which smoothed his way the remnant of his life. The prediction was but too true; in less than one year after that parting, he slept in death.

And now, when war and death have swept from me children, fortune, all, and I am old and needy, it is a consolation known only to my own bosom that I plucked the thorn from my parent's path.

These are childish memories, and may be too puerile for record; but I am sure most of my readers will find in them something of their own childhood's memories. It is my memories of men and things, I am writing, and I would be faithful to them.

Boyhood's memories crowd the after-life with half the joys its destiny demands; associations which revive them come as pleasant showers to the parched herbage when autumn's sun withers its flush, and yellows the green of spring-time. Oh! the zest of early sports--of boyhood's mischief; so free from selfishness, so untouched with meanness, so full of joyous excitement, so loved for itself. Every man has been a boy; every woman has been a girl; and all alike have felt and enjoyed the sweets of young life; and when years and cares and tears have stolen away the green from the soul, and the blossoms of the grave whiten about the brow, and the unbidden sigh breaks away from the grief of the heart, and memory startles with what was when we were young, the contrast would be full of misery did not a lingering of the joys which filled our frolics and our follies come to dull the edge of sorrow.

When the cravings of the mind, taught by time to be unrealizable, are driven from hope; when the purity of youthful feelings are soiled by contact with the world's baseness; when the world's passing interests harden the sensibilities, and we have almost forgotten that we were ever young, or had a youthful joy, some little story, some little incident will startle the memory, and touch and tone the heart to the music of its spring, and the desert waste which time has made green again with memories which grew from bliss budding in our youth; and, though they never come to fruitage, are cherished with a joy.

Oh! the heart, the heart--what are all its joys of youth, and all its griefs of age? Is it that youth has no apprehensions, and we enjoy its anticipations and its present without alloy? or does its _all_ belong to love and joy when life and the world is new? Are these too bright, too pure for time? and the griefs of later life the Dead Sea apples which grow from them. And is it so with all? Is there one, whose years have brought increase of happiness, and who has lived on without a sorrow?

In God's economy must all experience misery, to dull the love of life, and kindle hope for a blissful future, to steal from the heart its cherished _here_, to yield it all in its _hereafter_. Ah! we know what a world this is, but what a world is to come we know not. Is it not as reasonable to believe we lived before our birth into this, as to hope we shall live after death in another world? Is this hope the instinct of the coming, or does it grow from the baser instinct of love for the miserable life we have? It is easy to ask, but who shall answer? Is it the mind which remembers, and is the mind the soul? or is the soul independent of the mind, surviving the mind's extinction? and do the memories of time die with time? or,

Do these pursue beyond the grave?
Must the surviving spirit have
Its memories of time and grief?
Then, surely, death is poor relief.
Shall it forget the all of time,
When time's with all her uses gone,
And be a babe in that new clime?
Then death is but oblivion.

Youth's happiness is half of hope; all that of age is memory--and yet these memories more frequently sadden than gladden the heart. Then what is life to age? Garrulity, and to be in the way. Our household gods grow weary of our worship, and the empty stool we have filled in gray and trembling age in the temple we have built, when we are gone is kicked away, and we are forgotten; our very children regret (though they sometimes assume a painful apprehension) we do not make haste to die--if we have that they crave, and inherit when we shall have passed to eternity. But if the gift of raiment and food is imposed by poverty on those who gave them birth, they complain, and not unfrequently turn from their door the aged, palsied parent, to die, or live on strangers' charity. Sad picture, but very true, very true; poor human nature! And man, so capable in his nature of this ungodliness, boasts himself made after God's own image. Vanity of vanities!

Nature's harmony, nature's loveliness, nature's expansive greatness and grandeur teaches of God, and godliness. The inanimate and unthinking are consistently harmonious and beautiful; man only mars the harmony, and makes a hell for man in time. Then, is time his all? or, shall this accursed rabidness be purged away with death, and he become a tone in accord with inanimate things? or, shall this but purify as fire the yielding metal, the inner man, which hope or instinct whispers lives, and animates its tenement of time, to view, to know, and to enjoy creation through eternity? Wild thoughts are kindling in my brain, wild feelings stir my heart.

This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, the blazing sun wades through the blue ether, and space seems redolent of purity and beauty. The breeze is as bland as the breath of a babe, coming through my casement with the light, and bathing my parched cheek; and the sere summer is warming away the gentle, genial spring. This is her last day; and to how many countless thousands is it the last day of life? Oh! could I die as gently, as beautifully as dies this budding season of the year, and could I know my budding hopes, like these buds of spring, would, in their summer, grow to fruit as these are growing, how welcome eternity! But I, as well, have my law, and must wait its fulfilment. It is the Sabbath wisely ordained to rest, and in its quiet and beauty obviating care and sorrow. Would it were to the restless mind as to the weary limbs, and as to these, to this give ease and repose!

I have been dreaming, and my boyhood days revive with busy memories. My gentle mother, ever tender and kind, seems busy before me; the old home, the old servants, as they were; the old school-house in the woods by the branch, and many a merry face laughing and beaming around; and my own old classmate, my solitary classmate, so loved, ah! so loved even unto this day. It was only yesterday I saw him, old and care-worn, yet in all the nobility of his soul, bearing with stern philosophy the miseries of misfortune inflicted by the red hand of merciless war, yielding with dignity and graceful resignation to the necessities imposed by unscrupulous power, conscious of no wrong, and sustained by that self-respect the result of constant and undeviating rectitude which has marked his long life. From childhood our hearts have been intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat together long hours, and talked of the past--alternately, as their memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?" and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all who were with us at school when we were boys. We alone are left!

In my strife with the world, I can never forget
The scenes of my childhood, and those who were there
When I was a child. I remember them yet;
Their features, their persons, to memory so dear,
Are present forever, and cling round my heart--
On the plains of the West, in the forest's deep wild,
On the blue, briny sea, in commerce's mart,
'Mid the throngs of gay cities with palaces piled.

The bottle of milk, and the basket of food,
Prepared by my mother, at dawning of day,
For my dinner at school; and path through the wood:
How well I remember that wood and that way,
The brook which ran through it, the bridge o'er the brook,
The dewberry-briers which grew by its side,
My slate, and my satchel, and blue spelling-book,
And little white pony father gave me to ride!

The spring by the hill, where our bottles were placed
To bathe in its waters, so clear and so cool,
Till dinner-time came! Oh! then how we raced
To get them, and dine in the shade by the pool!
The spring, and the pool, and the shade are still there,
But the dear old school-house has rotted and gone,
And all who were happy about it are--where?
Go--go to the church-yard, and ask the grave-stone!

A few there are left, old, tottering, and gray,
Apart and forgotten, as those who are dead;
Yet sometimes they meet on life's thorny way,
And talk, and live over the days that have fled.
Oh! how I remember those faces so bright,
Which beamed in their boyhood with honesty's ray!
And oft, when alone, in the stillness of night,
We're all at the school-house again, and at play!

Of all those who were there with me, the best loved was H.S. Smith, now of Mobile; and he, with perhaps one or two more, are all that are now living. Our ages are the same, within a week or two, I am sure; and we are of the same height and same weight; and our attachment was mutual: it has never been marred through threescore years and ten, and to-day we are, as brothers should be, without a secret hidden in the heart, the one from the other. As a friend, as a husband, as a father, as a man, I know none to rival H.S. Smith. He never aspired to political distinction: content to pursue, through life, the honorable and responsible business of a merchant, he has distinguished himself for energy, capacity, probity, and success; and in his advanced years enjoys the confidence and esteem of all honest men. Our years have been, since 1826, spent apart--communication, however, has never ceased between us, and the early friendship, so remarked by all who knew us, continues, and will until one is alone in life.

I know this narrative will not be interesting to those unacquainted with Smith and myself. To such I say, close the book, nor read on, but turn to that which may interest more, because more known. I could not pen the memories of fifty years, and forbear those the sweetest now, because their fruit to me has ever been the sweetest; and the noble virtues of the private gentleman cannot be the less appreciated because they have only adorned a circle where they shone in common with those around him. These are the men who preserve the public morals, and purify the atmosphere polluted by the corruptions of men prominent before the world for distinguished abilities, and equally distinguished immoralities. From these radiate that open-hearted honesty which permeates society, and teaches by example, and which so often rebukes the laxity of those who, from position, should be an example and an ornament. The purling stream murmuring its lowly song beneath the shading forest and modest shrubs may attract less attention than the turbid, roaring river, but is always purer, sweeter, more health-giving and lovely.

The romance of youth is the sugar of life, and its sweets to memory, as life recedes, augment as "distance lends enchantment to the view." We make no account of the evanescent troubles which come to us then but for a moment, and are immediately chased away with the thickening delights that gild young life and embalm it for the memories of age. The gravity of years delights to recount these; and few are indisposed to listen, for it is a sort of heart-history of every one, and in hearing or reading, memory awakes, and youth and its joys are back again, even to tottering, palsied age. Then, gentle reader, do not sneer at me: these are all I have left; my household gods are torn away, my boys sleep in bloody graves, my home is desolate, I am alone, with only one to comfort me--she who shares the smiles and tears which lighten and soothe the weary days of ebbing life.