ADVICE TO A BRIDE.
I BEG to remind my daughter that the husband has a thousand elements of disturbance in his daily avocations to which his wife is an utter stranger; and it will be her privilege, and her title to the respect of all whose respect is worth having, to make his own fireside the most attractive place in the universe for the calm repose of a weary body or excited mind. The minor comforts, which are the most valuable, because the most constantly in requisition, will depend more upon her look, her manner, and the evidence of her forethought, than upon all the other occurrences of life.—Parental Precepts.
"TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION."
MR. GODEY: Miss Snipe left my house in great haste on the second day of April, forgetting, in her precipitation, several articles of her wardrobe and her portfolio. While waiting an opportunity to forward them to Wimpleton, a natural impulse of curiosity induced me to examine the contents of the portfolio, when, lo and behold, a letter, directed to yourself, fell on the floor. Being loosely folded and unsealed, I ventured to open it, supposing it merely a business communication. Imagine my surprise on discovering the nature of its contents, for I had been unable to penetrate the reasons of her hurried departure; but do not, I pray you, accuse me of having read it through.
Finding, as far as I proceeded, nothing very heinous laid to myself, nor any insinuations against my table, I judge proper to forward it without delay, according to the address. However, I can with difficulty forgive her for calling my boy a "cub," and think, moreover, that her dislike towards my Irish inmate is unreasonable. As to Mr. Sparks—I do not blame her so much—he has not yet paid me those gloves. And as to the writer herself, I am really astonished—we all thought her such a quiet and unobservant little body—on becoming acquainted with this spirited volley from her pen. Will there not be both laughing and wry faces in my household, if you publish it? And, though April is gone (I am sorry the letter was not sooner found), do give the world the benefit of her experience, to oblige and amuse
Yours, faithfully,
HELEN MASHUM.
April 1, 1854.
MY DEAR MR. EDITOR: Such a tumult as we have all day been in, by reason of that abominable practice of "fooling," has been enough to destroy the patience of a saint. I am nearly out of my wits. Here have I come, at my niece's invitation, to spend a fortnight with her, in a boarding-house. "She was lonely," she said; "Mr. Sparks was so much at the office; and it would be such a favor if I could stay with her a few days."
So I have come from my quiet country home, fifteen miles off, to this noisy town that calls itself a city, to visit Ann Sophia; and, between you and me, I was an April fool from the beginning. There are several other young married women boarding in the same house, who, like my flighty niece, have apparently nothing under the sun to do but go shopping and pop in and out of each other's rooms. Some of them are in her parlor every evening when she is not out at parties or lectures, and, as she spins street yarn every morning, I cannot for the life of me see what opportunity she takes to be lonesome. But I do see that she gives herself no time to keep her husband's shirts made up and in order; and I find that I have no lack of employment, for she has kept me sewing ever since I came.
"Sophy, dear," says I, the morning after my arrival, "give me some sewing; I cannot be idle, and have nothing but this knitting to do for myself."
Whereupon she brought out a whole piece of fine bleached cloth, and proposed that we should amuse ourselves by making it into shirts for her husband.
"Holton needs them so much," said she, "and you are so kind as to offer your services, aunty; it would cost so much to hire them done, and his salary is so small now, you know, and boarding so expensive."
And to work we began; but the truth is that it is very little which Ann Sophia has done thus far. Well, what is a single woman good for unless to make herself generally useful? A precious sight of twaddle have I read first and last in the papers and magazines about the delights and privileges of old-maidery. Delights of a fiddlestick! Pulled hither and thither, perhaps—as I have been—at the beck of married brothers and sisters, and a score of idle nephews and nieces; if you have a home of your own, not allowed to stay at it in peace for more than one week together. Sister Julia's children have all got the measles, and Aunt Abigail must go and take care of them; or brother Peter's wife is dead, and Abigail must pack up and go to keep house for him till she becomes attached to the motherless tribe, and feels quite at home among them, when he gets a new wife, and Abigail departs just as she begins to be happy. To crown all, when she puts her own house in order, and has a nice lot of sweetmeats and pickles made up, along comes a troop of relations, male and female, young and old, to visit dear Aunt Abigail and eat up all her stores, to say nothing of completely kicking out the stair carpet. But I am wandering from my subject—a thing which I am apt to do.
The house is quiet now, and, having finished one of Holton Sparks's shirts this evening, I embrace the respite to retire to my own room. After all, I do not feel like scolding about Ann Sophia. The pleasant-tempered girl looks so much like her mother, brother Peter's first wife; I brought her up, too, at least till she was ten years old, when her father married again. Her chief fault is her youth, and she will get over that, dear child.
However, to return, I cannot sleep till I have expressed my indignation at the follies that have been perpetrated in honor—rather should I say, in dishonor—of All Fools' Day, hoping that you, Mr. Editor, will lift your voice in favor of putting a stop to such absurdities. In the first place, I had scarcely risen, when I was myself made the victim of imposition; for, while I was dressing, there was a rap at the door, and I heard Sparks's voice—
"Aunt Abigail, are you up? Here is a letter postmarked Wimpleton. It came by the night train, probably."
"As sure as fate," thought I, "there has something dreadful happened at home." And, being much agitated, I tore open the envelop in great haste, without observing that the superscription was not in brother Sam's hand, and wondering why Sparks did not wait to learn the nature of its tidings. As truly as I am a living woman, there was nothing inside but a great foolscap sheet, and on it these words, in staring capitals—
"APRIL FOOL."
I could have cried, so vexed was I at first. Then I felt thankful that no bad news had actually reached me; for, during the brief moment occupied in opening the letter, you can scarcely imagine the many terrible things that passed through my head. Mother had had a fit, fallen down and broken her leg, though brother Sam had promised me faithfully not to leave her alone while I was gone; or that stupid Dutch boy, who takes care of the cow and the fires, had left live coals in the ash-box, and the house was burned to the ground. Or Sam himself had got one of those severe attacks of inflammatory rheumatism, and nobody there but mother to take care of him, and take his fretting into the bargain, and she almost eighty years old. When I recovered myself a little, I took that wretched sheet of paper, and was on the point of penning a dignified expression of my sentiments below the odious words, and handing it in silent scorn to my nephew-in-law at the breakfast-table. But better feelings prevailed; I smoothed it nicely in my portfolio, and am now scratching this hasty epistle upon its surface, intending in the morning to write it more legibly on some of my own fair sheets of Bath.
A few among the follies of this tiresome day have, I must acknowledge, given me a certain sort of satisfaction. Holton Sparks has been come up with himself; not by any means of mine, I earnestly assure you, for, besides heartily despising it, I cannot in any shape perpetrate "April fooling." Sam often says that this is because I am so matter-of-fact; but, matter-of-fact or not, I trust that there is not enough matter-of-folly in my composition to attempt such performances. I always did abominate practical jokes, and Sam knows that; yet the jokes which that boy still puts upon me, though I am three years older than himself, would be deemed improbable.
Well, when the breakfast-bell rang this morning, I went down stairs with an air as erect and dignified as a woman of fif——no matter—with such a demeanor as one who has outlived the fooleries of early youth should make habitual. Holton Sparks is very fond of eggs, and invariably takes the biggest on the dish. I observed that our landlady directed the servant to hand them first to Mr. Sparks, who was too intent on securing his egg to notice her action. Indeed, he never hesitates to help himself first, quite regardless of the ladies who sit near, and even of Ann Sophia. Holton is a tremendous eater, seeming to think of nothing at table but disposing of his food as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. The manner of this gentleman is to place a large piece of nicely buttered toast on his plate, pour the egg over it, pepper the whole thoroughly, and swallow it as if the preparation were some unpleasant dose that it is his duty to dispatch. Mrs. Mashum, who is altogether too much given to laughing, and too volatile for her station, sat behind the coffee urn shaking violently with suppressed mirth. He broke the shell of his egg as usual, when, behold, his plate was flooded with a dingy-looking liquid, which proved to be warm dish-water. On comprehending the joke, he sent it away with an offended air, and made his breakfast on beefsteak, without deigning to join in the universal laugh. It seems that last evening he laid a wager with Mrs. Mashum that she could not succeed in playing him a trick, he should be so constantly upon his guard during All Fools' Day. The affair of the egg has put him out of humor to such an extent that we have been saved the infliction of any more jokes at his hands. He has worn his dignity all day, not even Ann Sophia succeeding in laughing or coaxing him into laying it aside. I rather think that he grudges the dollar which he will have to lay out for the gloves, as Mrs. Mashum has won the bet, and Ann Sophia assures him that a pair of her own will not do by any means. He proposed that expedient to settle the matter. Holton is stingy. But his wife declared that such a good joke deserved a pair of Alexander's best. It is not because I approve of betting that I mention this, for I hold the practice in great abhorrence. It was only of a piece with the other follies of the day, and shows up Holton Sparks a little.
A small fire of fooling was kept up throughout the morning. If the door-bell has been rung once, it has forty times, by Mrs. Mashum's cub of a boy, who would jerk the handle or toss up his ball at the wire, and then run out of sight. In going from my own room to my niece's, I saw a sixpence on the floor, and, stooping down to pick it up, found it fast. Congratulating myself on not having been observed, I was passing on, when that disagreeable urchin shouted, from behind a door—
"April fool, old lady!"
He deserves to be sent to the House of Refuge.
Ann Sophia herself has put me out of all manner of patience by saying, as I sat sewing at the front window in her parlor, "Pray, Aunt Abigail, whose carriage do you suppose that is?" when no vehicle was in view but the milkman's. Or, suddenly, she would exclaim, "What ladies are those crossing the street?" when none were anywhere to be seen.
But the meanest of all was a very rude thing, which she repeated several times upon different persons, apparently delighted with its efficacy. This was to rush up suddenly, and screaming out, "See there!" throw her arm directly across one's nose with so much force as to oblige that organ to follow the direction of her outstretched finger, whether or no. Such a sort of fooling by compulsion struck me as particularly reprehensible.
"I'd try it on you, aunty," said the volatile child, "if I were not afraid of scoring my arm."
Such an insinuation against my nose! Had it been any one besides Sophy, I could not have forgiven the speech. She is such a highty-tighty.
But one trick which she played was really good, especially as its object was a man to whom I have taken a huge dislike. He is an Irish gentleman connected with some legal firm in town, most desperately polite, with a very long round nose and fiery red hair. He is continually poking dishes at me across the table, and is fairly oppressive with his attentions. Moreover, he calls me "Mrs." perpetually. "Mrs.," indeed! Intimating that I am old enough to be a "Mrs.," if not one in fact. As he rises very late, he never appears at breakfast with ourselves; but at dinner we have the misery of his presence. To-day, when we were almost through with the first course, he entered with an air much flushed and uncomfortable.
"Are you ill, Mr. O'Killigan?" asked Mrs. Mashum.
"No, thank you, madam," said he, with one of his customary efforts at politeness. "But I have been trying for a long while to shave, till forced in despair to give up the attempt. The deuce has got into my soap."
"You have forgotten that it is the first of April. The day may have had some influence upon your dressing-case," remarked one of the ladies present.
"I declare, I have not thought of that," said he, and, springing from the table, he ran to his room, returning with something which he begged the ladies to examine. It proved to be a thick, fair slice of a raw potato, in size and color so much like his own soap, which had been removed, that he had detected no difference, except that it refused to form a lather. This was the work of my mischievous niece, who looked at it very gravely, and remarked, with much demureness—
"I always knew that you Irish were fond of potatoes, but was not aware that you carried it to such an excess as to shave with that vegetable."
It would have better pleased me had O'Killigan been angry; but the Irishman took the joke, and all the speeches made at his expense, with entire good-humor, laughingly assuring the ladies that he would be revenged before night. And, as he knew not whom to suspect, he adopted a course which involved most of us in its consequences. When we retire for the night, those who are not better provided equip themselves with a candle, of which a supply stands ready in the lower hall. Such a fuss as I had with my light this evening! It went out as soon as I reached my own door; and, after relighting it several times by means of matches, the tallow was exhausted, and I discovered that the blackened remnant of wick was stuck into a carrot. That miserable Irishman had enlisted Biddy Flyn, the chambermaid, in his service, and this afternoon they spent two whole hours in the basement at their nefarious work, trimming off carrots and giving them a very thin coating of grease. Mrs. Mashum herself did not escape, for, just as she began taking her usual rounds to see that all was safe for the night, her treacherous light went out, leaving her in total darkness—in the lower regions, too, for she was on the point of inspecting a keg of mackerel in the cellar.
At this identical moment, having used up all my matches in vain endeavors to light a candle, which, like its manufacturer's locks, I had found to be carroty, I was on my way to the kitchen in pursuit of a more reliable means of illumination, when I heard Mrs. Mashum scream out—
"Bring a light, Biddy, for goodness sake! I shall step into this rat-trap that you've set, if I stir an inch in the dark."
And all the while the shameful Biddy stood holding her sides, and laughing in a most unreasonable way. Several persons were running along the upper hall calling for lights, the ladies in a sort of demi-toilet, and one of the young men, a dry-goods clerk, who dresses his hair with a curling-tongs, having on a black silk night-cap. But the real culprit did not suffer, after all, for Ann Sophia has her own solar lamp.
While these distressing events were transpiring, that mean Irishman, with his big nose and red head, sat in the parlor, as cool as possible, reading the "London News" by the light of a brilliant camphene lamp. I wonder his hair did not ignite and cause an explosion. It would have served him quite right.
Strange to say, Mrs. Mashum is not at all offended either at O'Killigan or his accomplice, but has enjoyed their mischief in a way to me utterly unaccountable. I suppose Sam would say that she knows how to take a joke; for my part, they are things which I do not wish to know how to take myself; I wash my hands of all participation in such knowledge.
I have obtained a lamp that shall last till I have finished this narrative of to-day's outrageous proceedings. On passing the parlor-door, I heard that disagreeable O'Killigan say to his landlady, in reply to some of her pretended threats of punishment—
"At any rate, my good Mrs. Mashum, you cannot arrest me for incendiary attempts; I have made such laudable exertions to put out the flames in the house."
Impudent fellow! I had a mind to say something about the blaze on his own head; but I forbore, passing on in offended silence.
Now, my dear Mr. Godey, set a good example, and lead the way in a reform of these abuses, as you have in so many other praiseworthy undertakings. Frown upon these April fooleries, especially as levelled at the peace and quiet of respectable single women. If my letter is too late to take effect this present season, please give it due notice before a twelvemonth hence. You will thus oblige and gratify your friend and constant reader,
ABIGAIL SNIPE.
Postscript. I shall go home to-morrow, and finish Holton Sparks's last new shirt in the pleasant seclusion afforded by my own hearthstone. I cannot endure the thought of sitting at the table in this house any longer, opposite that dreadful O'Killigan, hearing him crack his dry jokes while he rubs his chin with his thumb and forefinger. To be obliged to listen when he comments on the mishaps of this evening would surely set me into a nervous fit. It strikes me that I have read in one of Sam's old books—"Sal" somebody's writings—of an elderly lady who "died of a Frenchman." If I were to stay here much longer, I should assuredly die of this middle-aged Irishman.
Depend upon it, I shall not breathe a word to Sam of my trials at Sophy's boarding-house, in consequence of the inmates all making fools of themselves and me on the FIRST OF APRIL.
