X.
THE REAL HERO.
When a pile of wood has been laid upon smouldering embers, a thin curl of smoke crawls lazily up the chimney, another follows with like indolence, and it looks after a while as if the wood would not burn at all. Suddenly a little whiff of air enters the pile, when, presto! up blazes the fire, and soon there is a famous glow.
It was somewhat thus with Mr. Austin Buckingham. He had been toying with the fancy of his story, and especially of this maiden to whom his eyes had become so wonted, and had allowed himself to look at her in so many lights, that she had gradually come to be always before him. The figure of the hero had as gradually disappeared: it was only by an effort that he could revive it. Suddenly he had sat a long quarter of an hour with the girl, he had heard her voice, he had seen her smile, he had felt the graciousness of her near presence when he was not merely at hand, but the direct object of her thought. What a world of difference there was between sitting by her side in a crowded horse-car and sitting even half a room-breadth's away, when they two were the only ones in the room!
By all this experience, as much perhaps by what had gone before as by what had followed suddenly after, Buckingham now stood revealed to himself. He was ablaze with this new, tingling, searching ardor. When he had entered the room and shut the door, he saw lying upon his table his note-book, open as he had left it. He had been amusing himself, just before he went out, with further suggestions for his story. He dipped his pen into the ink and drew a bold, straight line across the page. He stood looking at the leaf,—idle fancy above the line, a blank below it.
A knock at the door, and Henry Wilding entered. Buckingham greeted him with a sudden excess of fervor which puzzled the young man.
"I was sorry to miss finding you," he began, and then checked himself. "Not so very sorry either, since fortune made me acquainted with—your cousin—and with Miss Vila," he added, after an embarrassed pause.
"I don't understand," said Wilding. "Have I missed a call from you?"
"Yes. I just came from your house. Your cousin at first thought you were at home. Now I think of it, she—"
"But I don't live at my cousin's," said Wilding.
"Where do you live, then?"
"Next door to her house."
"Oh! then she sent out for you. That explains it." And so Mr. Buckingham, intent on his own affairs, brushed away the duplicity of the fair hostess. "But I was very glad to hear a piece of news about you from her. Let me congratulate you. I did not know you were engaged." And he shook Wilding's hand warmly. He was not so generous at the moment as he appeared. In reality, he was shaking his own hand in anticipation. Wilding responded with a good-natured laugh.
"I have sometimes wondered, Mr. Buckingham," he said, "how you, who write stories of love and marriage, should remain unmarried."
"Let us put it the other way. How can I who am unmarried write such stories? In truth, I have a dim sense that persons like you, who know the matter by experience, must laugh inwardly at my innocent attempts at realistic treatment."
"Why not, then, have the experience first?" said Wilding lightly.
"God forbid!" said Buckingham, with a somewhat unintelligible seriousness. "If I were ever in love, it seems to me I should stop writing love-stories."
Now, this was just what happened, for a time at least. To any one so dead in love as Buckingham was at this time, all circumstances are favorable. It needs but a given moment, and the hero is on hand ready to seize it. The next night he could not ride out from the city; he must walk. When he got beyond the bridge, he wondered that he saw no horse-cars coming toward him. He remembered that he had seen none for some time, but now he noticed a long line of them standing before him, pointed outward. He heard the puff of a steam fire-engine, and saw that travel by rail was stopped by a fire. The hose crossed the track, and the incoming horse-cars were in a long line beyond it. He looked at the cars which he had over-taken. Midway in the line stood the one he had been accustomed to take. He caught sight of a familiar head bent over a book. He stepped into the car and stood before Miss Vila. He bent forward, and she looked up as he spoke:
"The cars are stopped by a fire. We may be delayed a long while. Why not walk home from here? It is a fine night."
He spoke somewhat hurriedly. He did not know how appealingly he looked. She did, however, and she closed her book and followed him.
The story, then, never was written, even though the heroine had been found. Everything else had disappeared,—the hero, the mystery, the plot. Nothing was left but the heroine and—love.
Horace E. Scudder.
SHADOWS ALL.
Shadows all!
From the birth-robe to the pall,
In this travesty of life,
Hollow calm and fruitless strife,
Whatsoe'er the actors seem,
They are posturing in a dream;
Fates may rise, and fates may fall,
Shadows are we, shadows all!
From what sphere
Float these phantoms flickering here?
From what mystic circle cast
In the dim æonian Past?
Many voices make reply,
But they only rise to die
Down the midnight mystery,
While earth's mocking echoes call,
Shadows, shadows, shadows all!
Paul Hamilton Hayne.
ROSES OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY.
It always seemed to me, as a child, that the birds put their hearts more wholly into their songs in that special little corner of Paradise on the Hudson River than they did anywhere else. Not that it was really so very little a corner, being small only in comparison with an entire Paradise, composed of many such bits, that lines the shore of the beautiful Hudson.
It was so great a delight to the child who knew little of country pleasures to be called away from some task or commonplace "every-day" pastime and to be told that there was an invitation to spend an afternoon, or perhaps several days, at Professor Morse's place, "Locust Grove."
There would be the drive, leaning back in the barouche (with a feeling of easy importance lent by the consciousness of wondrous delights to come) and looking up with a species of admiring awe at the herculean form of the French coachman, who seemed to be concealing romantically brigandish recollections behind his fiery black eyes and wide-spreading, ferocious moustache. Along the dusty "South Road" we would go, under the green lights and shadows of the maple-trees, over the two miles which stretch between Poughkeepsie town and "Locust Grove,"—past "Eastman's Park," with its smart decorations, past the small, unambitious houses, draped with many-hued, old-fashioned roses, that straggled along the dividing-line between the narrow restrictions of town and the fragrant wideness of the country, where the air was cool with the breath of the river, and the breezes brought suggestions of freshly-cut grass, just blown locust-blossoms, and the thousand sweet, indefinable scents of the woods.
On approaching the boundaries of "the Grove," the perfume of the locust-flowers assumed due prominence, as the name of the place implies they should, while their white clusters drooped from the heavily-loaded branches till they fairly touched the high posts of the gate. And then would come the drive up the dim avenue, flecked with patches of sunshine that lay like fallen gold pieces in the dusk shadow, while if one glanced upward or on either side one saw nothing save the arching trees,—pines and locusts, and maples no less stately,—until a space was reached where the grove was less dense and the view widened to a stretch of velvet grass whitened with daisies lying soft on the tops of the blades in a way to make one fancy a summer fall of snow. At the turn of the avenue one caught a glimpse of the house, with its vine-wreathed tower, generous piazzas, and hospitable porte-cochère, and in the background, beyond the lawn, the river, with the blue hills on the opposite shore veiled by a light, lace like haze, just enough of a haze to lend mystery to the distance.
The loud clattering of the horses' shoes on the stone pavement under the porte-cochère, which informed the occupants of the house that visitors had come, seemed always to tell the youngest, most insignificant, yet happiest of those visitors that the anticipated hour of many delights had actually arrived. And of these delights there were to the heart of the child a thousand and one such as could scarcely be realized or even dreamed of at the home in town. There were the broad, shady piazzas to be walked over with dainty footfalls, lest the grown people should be disturbed. There was the mystic retreat within the circle of a group of low-branching pines, the secret of which one penetrated by stepping down from the front piazza at a certain place and there insinuating one's self into a small opening, which only the initiated could discover, among the trees. Here one had a little fragrant sanctum all one's own, carpeted with pine needles, green and brown, and arched over by ceiling and walls of thick branches, from out of which peeped startled robins, who soon, finding that no harm was meant them, went on with their song. Then there was the garden, fragrant and brilliant, which one might explore when one had promised Thomas, the presiding genius, that one would not touch his cherished sweets, for it "went to his heart" to see a single blossom torn from its parent stem. And there were the grape-houses, for which the place was famous far and near,—hot, and odorous of moist soil and growing vines, among which white and purple clusters hung temptingly heavy and low.
One especial pleasure was to walk along the gravelled path that skirted the smooth, level stretch of lawn at the back of the house, and thus to reach the brow of the hill overlooking the "farm" and the river. There were seats on the edge of this bluff, and a large spring-board on which one might ride and jump to one's heart's content. By following this path still farther, and to the left, one soon deserted the well-kept lawn and found one's self on a narrow, winding walk overhanging a deep, wooded ravine, in the depths of which a little brook ran curving about among the ferns and daisies; and presently, far out of sight of the house, in shade so dense as to lend a certain pleasing enchantment, one came upon a rustic summer-house, with odd, three-cornered-seats, and a table surrounding the tree-trunk that supported the centre of the roof.
There were manifold other out-of-door enjoyments, such as visiting the pigeon-house, and, as a rare favor, rioting in the scented hay in the loft over the barn, visiting the gardener's wife (whose home was in that part of the old Livingston mansion which its master and time had allowed to stand), and being permitted to draw water from the ancient well, about which hung so many stories of generations past. How exciting it was, and with what delicious awe one listened, when the little lady who was a fairy grandmamma instead of a fairy godmother in the household told a certain story regarding this well! It was a story before the time of her own birth, when two of her older sisters were very tiny girls. One day, when the mother was busy in superintending some homely task (such as the manufacturing of the "cream cheese," perhaps, for which she was noted), the baby of two years toddled in and began to lisp over and over the same broken words, "Tatie in 'ell, Tatie in 'ell." She had repeated them many times, with increasing insistence, before the busy mother realized that they possessed a meaning. "Tatie in 'ell, Tatie in 'ell," the little one said, pulling at her mother's gown, half crying as she spoke; and then it dawned upon the latter that her baby had something serious to tell. She yielded to the little importunate hands upon her dress, and followed the child out of doors to the well and there looked down. "Katie" was indeed in the well, as the lisping tongue had tried to say, and, gazing into the darkness below, the mother could see the frightened, pitiful little face turned up to her, while two small hands convulsively grasped the edge of the great bucket. The husband and father was away from home, all the men employed about the place were working at a distance, and there was no time to lose: those frail hands must soon relax their hold, and the child was sorely terrified and begging to be saved. As the mother hesitated, in an agony of doubt, out from the house came a stout, elderly serving-woman, who had lived in the family for many years, and who was especially devoted to little Kate. She had heard her mistress's cry, and, running to look into the well, without even waiting to explain, she set about the execution of a hazardous and original plan of rescue. Climbing over the curb, she began to descend by striding the well and planting her feet upon the rough, protruding stones of which the sides were formed. Not one woman in a thousand could or would have done such a thing; but this one was tall and strong, and brave as a lion with the might of her love for little Kate. She saved the child, who had suffered no graver injury than a thorough drenching and a fright which served as a warning for herself and the children of her own and several generations to come.
Interesting as was this story and others told of the past, and delightful as it was to play under the great trees, roaming at one's own sweet will all about "the Grove," better than everything else was it to be admitted into the "sanctum sanctorum" of the place,—Professor Morse's study,—where the master sat among his books and treasures, his kindly, clear-featured face and bright brown eyes, framed in by silver hair and beard, shining out from the curtained dimness of the room. There were many objects fascinating even to a child in that study, which opened out of the family library with its store of books. The library was very good, but the study was still better. There, under a glass case, was the first telegraph-instrument that had ever been made. One or two of Professor Morse's early paintings hung upon the wall, and sometimes he would display a few sketches to the older members of the party, who were naturally regardless of the fact that there was "a chiel amang 'em, takin' notes." The crowning treat offered within the study-walls, however, was to have the marvels of the Professor's immense and powerful microscope displayed before our wondering gaze. There we became acquainted with the rainbow-tinted plumes of the fly's wing and the jewels that lie hidden from ordinary ken in the pollen and petals of the simplest blossoms. And the master of it all, to whom the marvels were as familiar as the common objects themselves, seemed to derive a genuine pleasure from that which he bestowed upon his guests.
When Professor Morse purchased Locust Grove, before his second marriage, he was not aware that it had belonged to the family of the lady who was soon to become his wife. Indeed, it was not until some friend remarked, "How delightful for you to take your bride to the old ancestral place owned by her kindred for so many generations!" that he knew the home would possess any associations, save those to be formed in the future, for his fiancée. But no doubt at the beginning of their life there Locust Grove was thus rendered doubly dear to both. The old Livingston mansion was at that time standing, much nearer to the entrance-gates than the more modern residence inhabited by the owner's family; and the quaint well, with the stone curb, the water of which was so remarkable for its purity that travellers came from a distance to ask the privilege of drinking, formed an object of interest at least, if not of actual beauty, before the old vine-grown porch. Gradually the house fell into decay, and the greater portion was torn down, leaving but five or six rooms, with their odd, hooded windows and strangely-fashioned fireplaces and mantels, the porch, with its broad, shallow seats, and the green-painted, "divided" front doors, to tell the tale of what once had been the home of so much hospitality and happiness.
So all remained painted with unfading colors on the canvas of my memory, each object as I had known and loved it when a child. And then the child went far away and grew to womanhood, having looked on many places and "things of beauty," but, while forgetting much that belonged to the old days, never forgot Locust Grove. The scent of the new locust-blossoms, the songs of the birds, and the beauty of the lights and shadows dancing on the river were as vivid in recollection as they had been in actuality; and after a severe and tedious illness it seemed that no tonic could prove so effectual as a visit to that dear old place, not seen for years, and which I had loved so well.
There is generally experienced a vague yet bitter disappointment in returning to a spot hallowed by associations after an absence of any appreciable length of time. It is wellnigh impossible for the reality to equal what has through the filtering of fancy become scarcely more than a remembered dream.
Nothing can be as it has been;
Better, so call it, only—not the same.
And yet Locust Grove in 1884 looked almost as unchanged as though it had shared the slumbers of the "Sleeping Beauty" since 1871. Only, a certain potent charm had fled with the presence of the departed master. It was now but his pictured eyes and silver hair that lit up the dimness of the room that had been sacred to him. The books and papers covering the desk belonged to a later and more careless generation. The microscope stood unused under its glass case, the sketches were lovingly laid away out of sight, and altogether a subtile change could be detected in the atmosphere. There were things, however, about the house which perhaps had always been there, and yet which I looked upon now with a new and keener appreciation. The picture of Professor Morse when a child of five or six years, standing by his father, who is clad in the quaint robes which then distinguished a Congregationalist divine, seemed to me one that might interest others besides myself. Also the portrait of his mother, with pearls in her puffed and powdered hair, and her beautiful bare arms holding the older child, Sidney (a baby in oddly-fashioned long robes), was charming to look at because of its intrinsic beauty as well as the associations attached to it. And the life-size painting of General Washington's mother,—said to be the only one of the kind in existence,—which looked down from its broad frame over the dining-room mantel, possessed a special fascination for me. One felt rather insignificant with that scornful smile and those languid eyes brooding over one as one sat engaged in the discussion of soup; and it was impossible to keep from imagining that the stiff and stately dame in her mathematically correct white and green draperies was drawing invidious comparisons between the way one did one's hair and the way in which she had considered it proper to arrange her abundant pale-brown locks.
About the place itself were more changes than at first would strike the eye. The old Livingston homestead had been razed to the ground, and smooth, emerald grass thrived upon its site, while the chief gardener, Thomas, had been promoted to a new æsthetic cottage of the latest approved colors and style. Even the famous well was no more; for a small and inconspicuous pump had been put in its stead, to save unwary children from instituting a too curious search for the "truth" popularly supposed to lie within its depths. The graperies were gone, and in their stead nourished rose-houses,—visiting the interior of which seemed fairly to transport one into the famous "Vale of Cashmere." Roses of all colors and all descriptions here found an ideal home, and with their beauty served the purses of their two young masters, who superintended their culture. It was in the early summer that I saw the place again after my long absence, and the rose-houses of course could not be seen at their best, as they can in winter. There are four large houses, opening into a long, narrow frame building, at one end of which is the office where the young gentlemen managers transact their business. Here all was—and still is, no doubt—immaculately neat, the walls adorned with colored prints and paintings of flowers, an array of books, papers, and ledgers carefully arranged in their exact places on the desk, and everything kept free from dust, swept and garnished. In the long, bare room from which the office opens are stored gardening-tools, watering-cans of all shapes and descriptions (some of which to an untutored eye present a striking resemblance to coffee-pots such as the Brobdingnag giants might have used), baskets for packing the roses, with all their paraphernalia, earthen pots for plants great and small, and many other utensils such as those unlearned in gardening lore would consider uncouth in the extreme. On one side of the room stands the big table upon which the baskets are set, and above this are ranged numerous rows of shelves. Four doors open into the rose-houses, and at the east end is the one devoted exclusively to the culture of Jacqueminots,—the "Jack"-house it is irreverently, if not slangily, styled. Here the glass roof stands open all the summer long, for the breezes to blow and the soft rains to fall upon the petted plants; and here the sunshine holds high revel, bronzing the intricate tracery of stem and branch and turning half the leaves to shining emeralds.
It was in the "Jack"-house that I one morning found Thomas Devoy, the gardener, at work with his great oddly-shaped shears or scissors, and detained him long enough to make a little sketch of him among his flowers; and while I worked with pencils and paper he told me divers anecdotes of the twenty-eight years he had spent in Professor Morse's service. "I entered service in the old country when I was very young," he said; "and even as a little boy I was fond of gardening. One time, when I was a child, I was going through some splendid greenhouses with the head-gardener who took care of them. There was one very rare plant of which he was exceedingly proud, and I begged him for a tiny slip to take home with me. But he refused; and so, in passing by, I quietly broke off one little leaf. Some time afterward I was able to show him a plant as fine as his own which I had raised from that one leaf, and then I told him its story."
All the fine, large Jacqueminots in the "Jack"-house were raised from one parent plant with cuttings made about four years or so before, the gardener told me, while I, gazing in amazement at their high-reaching branches, thought, with "Topsy," it was something to boast of that they had "jest growed."
In the winter the rose-houses become things of beauty and a joy forever, seeming to have imprisoned the very heart of summer within their walls, while outside—shut away from the warmth and glowing tints of red and pink, yellow and lustrous rosy pearl—lie the snow and the ice, and through the bare branches of the trees the wind whistles drearily.
But in the summer the aspect of the rose-houses is very different. All then is preparation and making over for the coming autumn and winter. Some of the houses are planted with tiny cuttings just lifting little tender sprays above the warm, moist soil. Men are at work here and there with hammers and nails, repairing any slight damage that may have been done in previous months. Hose-pipes coil over the floors, and one must walk by them daintily. In other houses one would exclaim with pleasure at finding one's self in a wilderness of roses, pink, yellow, and white, only to be told, rather contemptuously, "That is nothing. There are no roses here now. You must wait till winter if you want something worth seeing. We have roses as large as tea-saucers then, and any quantity of them."
Outside the buildings, and fairly surrounding them, are large square beds of hybrid roses of many varieties, each sort planted in separate rows by itself. There are beds of cuttings also, and one long, narrow bed of red hybrids running the entire length of the greenhouse. "Catherine Mermet," "La Reine," "Adam," "Paul Neyron," the exquisite "La France," "John Hopper," the "Duke of Connaught," "Niphetos," and "Perle des Jardins" are here in profusion, with others of every shade and tint, too numerous almost to count, and the perfume arising from beds and hot-houses is intoxicating in its strength and sweetness. Some bushes are merely set in earthen pots out of doors; and these are supposed to be in a dormant state, undergoing the process of "drying off," or "hardening," receiving very little water, and are to be so kept until September, when they will be repotted and "started" for growing,—thus illustrating the truth of the saying that there is a blessing for those who only stand and wait. But one could not help pitying them, when one thought how their more fortunate companions with their uncramped roots were exploring underground passages and enjoying all the freedom and moisture of the rich soil.
"During the fall and winter we are very busy in a different way," said Thomas Devoy, as he displayed his treasures. And then he told me how every day in the later months all hands are occupied in tending, cutting, and packing the roses which are daily expressed to a certain New York florist. The beautiful half-blown buds are carefully cut, with long, leafy stems, and laid in the great market-baskets standing on the table ready to receive them. Row after row and layer after layer are laid in, sprinkled until leaves and petals sparkle with a diamond dew. Only buds at a certain stage of unfolding are used, and the most exquisite roses with their petals opening one pink or pearly crease too far are discarded as unfit to send away. Tissue-paper covers the flowers as they lie ready in their baskets, then oiled paper is placed on top, and finally a thin red oilcloth is fastened over all.
Thus from two to four hundred roses of almost every variety are daily put upon the New York train and expressed to the florist, at whose establishment they arrive, after a few hours, as fresh, dewy, and fragrant as when they left their parent plants.
And yet, with all these that are sent away, the home is not forgotten. Gorgeous blooms in exquisite foreign vases adorn table, cabinet-shelf, and mantel in every inhabited room in the house, where, among relics of the old time, the roses of yesterday and to-day meet in a rivalry so lovely that one is at a loss in deciding the merits of their separate claims. The roses of to-day are freshest, and it may even be fairest; yet there is a little poem which asks,—
What's the rose that I hold to the rose that is dead?
And thus, to one who has known and loved the place in days gone by, when what has become a mere association and memory now made its very life and soul, there is something in the suggestion of that verse which at least lets itself be readily understood.
Alice King Hamilton.
A HOOSIER IDYL.
It was a part of the Great West which in the past fifty or seventy-five years has been transformed from unbroken forests, the home of the red Indian and the deer, to a thickly-settled farming-country, dotted with comfortable homes and traversed by railways and wagon-roads. Here and there in retired districts the log cabins of the pioneers remained, and wherever one looked an horizon of woods met his eye; but the numerous towns and villages gave evidence of a higher and ever-increasing degree of civilization.
It was a land of rich soil and lush natural growth, without rocks or hills or swiftly-running streams, a region of corn- and wheat-fields and orchards, of clover-pastures and melon-patches.
The human physique showed good development and abundant nourishment, but the dwellers along the sluggish creeks sometimes had a tinge of yellow beneath the sunburn of their faces. Caste distinctions, pride of station, were unknown here; all the people, whether their possessions were great or small, drew their nurture from the soil, and greeted each other with a friendly "Howdy?" when they met, conscious of perfect equality. It was much better to be poor in a place like this than in a great city,—to have at least physical abundance if one could not have other advantages. Elvira Hill was not conscious of being poor, though just now she was anxious to get a country school to teach. All her life had been spent amid these familiar scenes, her condition in life was neither worse nor better than that of her acquaintances, and it never occurred to her to be discontented with her lot and rebel against fate. She had been brought up on a farm, had known what it was to go after the cows of an evening, to drive them to the barn-lot bars and milk them, to catch a horse in the pasture and saddle and ride it, to hunt hens' nests in the hay-mow, to churn, and wash dishes, and get vegetables from the garden, and pick the raspberries and blackberries that ripened in the fence corners along the fields and woods. But just now she was living with her grandmother in a little brown house in the cluster of houses called Hill's Station. There were two stores, a post-office, a blacksmith's shop, and a mill; the mail-trains stopped here, and a daily hack carried passengers northward two miles and a half to a larger village, Sassafrasville, where there was an excellent academy. The national pike ran through Hill's Station, and there was a great deal of travel on this road,—local travel of various kinds, peddlers' wagons which stopped in every town, and long rows of white-covered movers' wagons going West to Illinois or Iowa or Kansas. What wonder, then, that with all these advantages the people of Hill's Station thought themselves centrally located, and watched with complaisant interest the passing trains, the daily hack, and the teams going along the pike? That they were pleasantly located there was no doubt. Tall beech- and sugar-maple-trees, part of the original forest, stood singly here and there and cast pleasant islands of shade upon the expanse of sunshine, and from the fields which bordered the road came the scent of clover-blooms.
Elvira Hill had gone to the little country schools, sometimes to the one a mile west of town, sometimes to the one a mile east, and for the past three years had attended the Sassafrasville Academy: so that now, at seventeen, she was considered to have a good education, and expected to follow the example of many of the young people of that section and go to teaching. She talked it over with her grandmother, and decided that she had better try a subscription school in the country first; then, if she succeeded in giving satisfaction, she would apply in the winter for the position of assistant in the Hill's Station school.
Her grandmother, placid and fair, with a cap of sheer white muslin resting on her yet brown hair, and a pair of gold-bowed spectacles pushed up on her forehead above her kindly blue eyes, was considered a handsome old woman, and showed few traces of the life of toil through which she had passed. She read a great deal in a New Testament with large print, and often sat a long time in thought, with it open on her knees. Another work which she frequently perused was Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution," in two volumes, containing steel engravings of stately dames in laced bodices and powdered hair.
Elvira borrowed a horse of one of the neighbors, put her grandmother's much-worn red plush side saddle upon it, and started out in search of a school. She rode east and she rode north; but in the first district they had a teacher already engaged, and in the second they had concluded they wouldn't have any school that summer. Did they know of any other school where a teacher was wanted? she inquired. No, they couldn't say they did; but she might hear of one by inquiring further, the honest district trustees said. So she rode homeward again, in no wise discouraged, and asked the postmaster to inquire of the farmers who came in from other neighborhoods in regard to this matter.
He promised that he would, and a week later called her in as she was passing, and said, "There was a man here yesterday from Buck Creek district who said they wanted a teacher in their school this summer. You might try there. His name is Sapp, and he lives right by the school-house. You go two miles and a half south till you come to a mud road, then two miles and a half east till you come to a pike. You can't miss the place."
Elvira thanked him, and a little while later, when her accommodating neighbor was not using his horse, she borrowed it again and rode forth on her quest. It had been raining, the mud road was muddy, and clouds still hung in the sky; but the country through which she passed was a rich, fresh green, and the fruit-orchards were in bloom. From solitary farm-houses big dogs and little dogs issued forth to bark at the sound of her horse's feet, and bareheaded children at this signal ran out to the gate to see who was passing.
The school-house of Buck Creek district, a neat wooden building, painted white, stood in a grassy acre lot, bordered on two sides by thick woods, on the other two by the roads which crossed here. In the corner diagonally across from it stood a snug cabin, with a garden around it, a well-sweep in the rear, and a log stable not far distant. She alighted in front of it, and was proceeding to hitch her horse, when the door opened, and a man stepped out, greeting her with a friendly "Howdy?"
She responded, and asked if Mr. Sapp lived here.
"My name is Sapp," he said, and, tying her horse, invited her in.
There she found the rest of the family,—the mother, a grown daughter, and two half-grown sons: they seemed friendly, but a little shy, and stood in the background while she transacted her business.
"Yes," Mr. Sapp said, in answer to her question, "they wanted a three-months' school, but had no teacher engaged. Had she ever taught before?"
No, she had had no experience in teaching; but she had attended the Sassafrasville Academy several terms, and was qualified to teach the common branches,—arithmetic, grammar, and geography, reading, writing, and spelling.
Well, he would bring her application before the other two trustees, and guessed they would elect her: there was no other applicant. Now, about the terms: three dollars a scholar for the term of twelve weeks was the usual rate. If she would draw up a subscription-paper, he would take it round himself and get as many names as he could; thought he could get twelve scholars signed, and knew that more would be sent. The children had to be kept at home in busy times, and the farmers didn't like to bind themselves to pay the full amount for all that they would send. He himself would sign one and send two. Charley could go all the time; but Jack would have to help about mowing and reaping and threshing, and couldn't attend regularly.
So Elvira drew up the paper according to his dictation, and, leaving it with him, rode home in the dusk of the evening, feeling happy over her prospects.
Her grandmother had supper ready in the little kitchen; and it tasted so good, the salt-rising bread and butter and hash, the little tea-cakes, and the preserved pears. While the grandmother drank her cup of tea, Elvira told her the incidents of the afternoon; and the night closed around them as they sat secure and content in their humble home.
The great world was full of great problems which wearied and perplexed men's brains and seemed wellnigh unsolvable, but she had solved her own little problem in her own little way, and was at peace.
In a few days Mr. Sapp called with the subscription-paper. He had got sixteen scholars signed,—more than he expected. That was a good prospect for a summer school. They wanted her to begin on the following Monday; which she promised to do. Then she asked him if she could board at his house a week or two, until she could make some arrangements to ride from home. Yes, she could; he guessed a dollar and a half a week for board would be about the fair thing.
So, early Monday morning she bade her grandmother good-by, and, with her books under her arm, set forth to walk to Buck Creek district. The school-house door was locked when she got there, but a few timid country-children were sitting on the door-steps or on the fence, with their school-books and dinner-buckets. Mr. Sapp came over and unlocked the door; then, as it was half-past eight, Elvira rang the little bell which she found on the teacher's desk, and school began. After taking down the children's names and ages and assigning desks to them, she heard them read in their first, second, or third readers, and questioned them about the progress they had made in other branches. Other children came in from time to time, until there were twenty-two present. And when Mr. Sapp went home at "little recess," as the intermission of fifteen minutes in the middle of the forenoon was called, he told her that her school opened very well. "Big recess" was the intermission from twelve o'clock till half-past one. In that time the children ate their dinners and then scattered to play in the large grassy yard or in the shade of the adjoining woods. Elvira won their hearts by going out and playing prisoners' base and two or three other games with them. When she rang the bell again, the children said, "It's books now," meaning the time allotted to study and recitation, came in red and panting, and, with the energy generated by violent exercise, got out their books and turned to their lessons as if they meant to learn everything there. But as their blood cooled their efforts relaxed, and they were soon looking idly around the school-room for some source of entertainment. When Elvira called up a class to recite, the children at their seats looked and listened with absorbed interest, till reminded by their teacher that they had lessons of their own to learn. There was another "little recess" in the afternoon; then, at half-past four, school closed, or "broke," as the children called it, and they rushed forth with their empty dinner-buckets in hand, laughing and shouting and chasing each other as they started home. Some of the little girls waited to say good-by to the school-ma'am and to kiss her, and one of them said, in a shamefaced way, "I like you real well."
When all had gone, Elvira sprinkled and swept the floor and put her own desk in order. Then, locking the door, she went over to Sapp's cabin, which was to be her home for a while.
Mrs. Sapp rose up from the quilt she was quilting, and, greeting Elvira cordially, invited her to lay off her things—meaning her hat and cloak—and take a chair. Mary was in the kitchen, a small shed-room attached to the cabin, getting supper. Elvira looked around her. The hewn logs which formed the walls were well chinked in the cracks, and neatly whitewashed. A home-made rag carpet covered the floor. Two beds stood foot to foot in the back part of the room, and a third in the corner by the fireplace. On the wall, over the beds, hung various articles of clothing,—a dozen calico dresses, several pairs of pantaloons, and coats, turned wrong side out. In the corner, between the window and the fireplace, stood a bureau, covered with a white muslin cloth, the borders ornamented with open-work made by drawing out the horizontal threads in narrow strips and knotting the others together in various patterns. Over the mantel hung an almanac, and two highly-colored pictures representing a brunette beauty and a blonde, named Caroline and Matilda. Mrs. Sapp, meantime, was giving a biographical account of the school-children and their parents,—saying how Mrs. Brown was bound her two little girls should get some schooling, if she had to pay for it herself out of money she got by selling eggs and butter, and how the Sanders children didn't have any clothes in the world besides those they wore to school, except some old ragged ones, and how they had to change them at night as soon as they got home.
"I saw 'Tildy White at school to-day," she continued, "but I guess she won't get to come much. Her step-mother keeps her at home and makes her work, while her own children can go all the time. The three Mays children were there too, but you needn't care whether they come regular or not: Mr. Mays is mighty poor pay, and I suppose you won't ever get your dues from him; but maybe Mr. Sapp can collect it off of him some way. And Bert Mowrer was there: he's a sassy boy. His folks don't make him mind at home at all, and 'most every teacher has trouble with him. Mr. Redding, the teacher we had last winter, licked him with a beech gad, and he behaved hisself after that. And there's Maggie Loper; her mother needs her at home real bad, but she'll get to come all summer. She's the only girl, and there are six grown boys; and the family set a heap o' store by Maggie."
This stream of talk was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Sapp and the two boys; and soon after Mary called them all to supper. There was hardly space to pass between the stove and the table in the kitchen, and several splint-bottomed chairs had to be brought from the front room; but at last all were seated, and, after Mr. Sapp said grace, conversation began in a loud and cheerful tone. The plate of hot biscuits was first passed to Elvira, then the platter of fried ham, then the butter, the young radishes and onions, and later the blue bowl containing stewed dried apples. Mrs. Sapp poured out the hot coffee, saying, "Our folks want coffee three times a day, and want it pretty strong." The sugar-bowl, containing brown sugar, was passed around, that each one might sweeten his coffee according to his taste; then the cream-pitcher, full of rich cream. Mr. Sapp drank three cups of coffee, and ate in proportion, and frequently passed the meat and bread to Elvira, hospitably urging her to eat more.
After supper, Mrs. Sapp invited Elvira to come out and see her little chickens. She had sixty, all hatched within the last two or three weeks, and another hen would come off next week with a brood. "I've got some young turkeys, too," she said, "but they hain't done very well this spring, because it was so rainy. Two died, and I have to look after the others to keep 'em out of the wet grass." Then they looked at the garden, and Mrs. Sapp remarked that the boys must stick the peas right off, went on to the milk-house,—a log shanty beyond the well,—and finally came back to the sitting-room, where, as there was yet an hour of daylight, Mrs. Sapp sat down to the quilting-frame. Elvira borrowed a thimble and assisted her, having only to ply her needle and listen. The stream of talk ran on the subject of quilts, the various patterns in which they were pieced and quilted, the Rising Sun, the Lion's Paw, and the Star of Bethlehem being Mrs. Sapp's favorites. From the pile resting on a chair between the two beds at the back of the cabin, quilts representing these patterns were brought and unfolded for Elvira to admire; and each one had reminiscences connected with it which she must hear. One was pieced when Jack was a baby, one was Mary's work and property, and another was quilted in one day by the neighbor women on the occasion of a quilting-bee, which Mrs. Sapp proceeded to describe in all its particulars.
As darkness settled down, the other members of the family came in from their various chores, and, as the evenings were yet cool, a fire was made in the fireplace. Then, seating himself by one of the jambs, Mr. Sapp opened the spelling-book, and, calling Charley into the middle of the floor, pronounced one row of words after another for him to spell, until several pages had been gone over and not a single word missed, greatly to the pride and admiration of the father. But by nine o'clock the fire got low, and the family began to yawn. It was time to go to bed, and, without saying good-night, the different members retired to their allotted quarters,—Mr. and Mrs. Sapp to the bed by the fireplace, Jack and Charley to one bed in the back part of the room, and Mary and the school-ma'am to the other.
Thus, with few variations, the days passed until the first week of school had gone. Elvira became better acquainted with her pupils, with the Sapp family, and, through them, with the news and gossip of the neighborhood. One evening she found Mary, who was a young woman grown and older than herself, standing outside the back door, crying bitterly, while her mother stood by, talking to her with the air of one who could be liberal in some views and yield many points, but who felt that a firm stand must be made somewhere. On explanation, it appeared that Mary wanted to go to the nearest station on the railroad and ride to the next station east, a distance of thirteen miles, for the purpose of making a visit; but Mrs. Sapp was not willing that she should do so, giving as her objection that there was so much danger in riding on the cars, adding that if Mary would wait till corn-planting was over, her father would take her through in a wagon. She had never been on the cars herself, and could not give her consent for one of her family to enter upon such risks. So Mary, with much disappointment, had to give up her proposed visit for the time.
When Friday evening came, Elvira walked home to Hill's Station, feeling that she had made a good beginning in her new work, and related to her grandmother all the incidents of the week. On Saturday she went about among the neighbors, who were most of them farmers, to see if she could hire a horse for the summer. All the good horses, however, were in constant use, and could not be spared by their owners. At last, one farmer said that he had a horse which wasn't worth much at its best, and just now had a sore head, so that he had put it out to pasture for the summer on a farm several miles distant. She could have it to use, and be welcome, if she would provide pasturage for it and give it now and then a few ears of corn. Elvira accepted the offer gratefully, and he promised to have it at Hill's Station for her by another Saturday. She boarded at Sapp's another week, and after that rode from home every morning and back every night. Her steed did not seem to have an arch or curve in its whole body, but to be made up of straight lines and angles. It reminded her of the corn-stalk horses she used to make when a little girl. Its favorite gait was a slow walk, with its head in a drooping dejected attitude, and sometimes it came to an entire stand-still, as if it had reached its journey's end. When she was about to meet some one, or heard wheels coming behind her, she tried to urge it into a spirited trot, and to rein it in so that its neck would have some slight appearance of a curve; but it only threw its nose into the air, presenting a longer straight line than before, and, after trotting a little way, it came to a sudden pause about the time the people passed or met her. More than once she heard them laugh and felt her face burn. If she had not known better days, she had at least known better horses, and was aware that her steed presented a sorry appearance. The only time it displayed any life was in the morning, when she came to catch and saddle it. Then it trotted repeatedly around the pasture-lot, occasionally sticking its head over the top rails, as if it had a notion to jump the fence and run away. During the day it fed on the grass in the school-house yard, and every day at noon she took it over to Sapp's, drew water from their well, and gave it as many bucketfuls as it would drink. Elvira carried her dinner, consisting generally of bread and butter, cold meat, and pie, in a little basket hung on the horn of the saddle, and sometimes, when she had been trotting, found on reaching school that part of it had fallen out on the way.
The road over which she passed every morning and evening grew familiar to her, even to the individual trees, the mossy old stumps, the fence-corners over-grown with wild vines. The life of the farm-houses, as daily presented to her, furnished perpetual entertainment. She came to know every member of every family by sight, and to associate certain traits of character with them. Some two-story white houses stood back from the road in the retirement of fruit- and shade-trees, and seemed reserved and dignified; other smaller houses were only a few steps removed, and had their wood-piles on the side of the road. One little new cabin in the corner of a strip of woods especially interested Elvira. It was the home of a lately-married pair, young folks full of energy and ambition. The husband chopped down trees, ploughed, or ditched his land, as if he were working for a wager, and the wife was equally active and industrious. Her bright tin milk-pans were out sunning early every morning, her churning and ironing were done in the cool part of the forenoons, her front yard was always neatly swept, and the borders were bright with balsams, petunias, and other flowers.
Then the world of nature unfolded every day something fresh to the solitary rider,—the blue depths of summer sky in which great masses of dazzling white clouds were heaped, the thick beech woods, where it was always cool and pleasant, the swamps, with their spicy fragrance, their variety of growth, and their slow-running streams of clear brown water. The blossoming blue-flags of May gave way in June to the fragrant wild roses, and these were followed in July and August by ripe raspberries and blackberries, which grew plentifully along the fence-corners and could be had for the picking.
Toward the latter part of the term, Elvira was frequently invited by her pupils to go home with them on Friday night and spend Saturday at their house, now one girl, now another, saying, "Miss Hill, mother said ask you to come home with us to-night." And when she went, she found that the farmer's wife had prepared something extra for supper in expectation of her coming,—fried chicken, and honey, and other home luxuries,—and seemed glad of the little break in the monotony of farm-life which the school-ma'am's visit afforded. The faded family photographs and old daguerreotypes were brought out for her entertainment, and she was told that "This is Aunt Lizzie Barnwell: she lives in Grant County, and this is her husband, and these are her children. This is Grandpa and Grandma Brown, and this is grandma's brother, ma's uncle. For a long time he thought that was a cancer on his nose, but it turned out to be only a wart. And this is Mr. and Mrs. Holmes: they used to live neighbors to us, but now they have moved to Kansas. And this is Johnnie and Sarah and Nelson Holmes. Nelson used to be real mean: he pulled our hair at school, and threw clods of dirt at us when we were coming home of nights, and we always thought he stole our watermelons, and we were glad when he moved away; but we liked Sarah and Johnnie." And so on through the list of relatives and acquaintances. On these visits Elvira generally slept on a high feather bed in the best room, or in a little bedroom opening from the parlor,—for not all the homes were as humble as Sapp's,—and the oldest daughter of the family slept with her. On Saturday forenoon she often went berry-picking with the children, crossing the corn-fields in the hot sun, climbing fences, and so gaining the thickets or woods where the blackberry-vines grew wild, with gallons of ripe berries ready for nimble finders. "Look out for snakes!" the children used to call to each other when deep in the bushes, but they never saw anything more than a harmless garter-snake, or perhaps a water-snake in the swamp. Saturday afternoons she sat and talked with the farmer's wife, assisting in the sewing or quilting or whatever work of this kind was on hand; and when she rode home in the cool of the evening it was always with some little delicacy in her basket for her grandmother,—a glass tumbler of honey, a cake, some pickles or preserves, or a quart bottle of maple syrup, which her hostess had given her at parting.
Near the end of the term, Maggie Loper invited Elvira to go home with her Friday night and spend Saturday. "Mother says for you to come. We're going to thrash, Saturday, and we'll have a big dinner and lots of fun." She meant that they were to thresh wheat, and it was the stir and excitement of this event which she called fun. Elvira accepted the invitation, and went home with Maggie at the time appointed. She felt at home among these farm festivals, and enjoyed them, the work included, for she had as yet acted only as assistant, and had not felt the responsibility of "cookin' for thrashers" which weighs so heavily on housewives. It is not alone the fact that they must provide dinner and supper for fifteen or twenty hungry men, but the knowledge that their viands will be compared, favorably or unfavorably, with those of other women in the neighborhood. So they exert themselves to provide a variety, and load their tables with rich food, insomuch that "goin' with the thrashers" means to farm-workers in this section a round of sumptuous living. The Loper family rose Saturday morning while the east was red, and did the milking and despatched breakfast earlier than usual. The threshers were coming at eight o'clock, and they hoped to get the engine and threshing-machine in order and be well under way at nine. Two neighbor women came over to help Mrs. Loper, and Elvira assisted Maggie in all her tasks. Together they cleaned and scraped a tub half full of potatoes, plucked the feathers of two fat hens, gathered a lot of beets and summer squashes, and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes into dishes of vinegar, adding pepper and salt; they brought eggs from the barn, rousing a protesting cackle among the hens by scaring some of them off their nests, and milk and butter from the spring-house.
In the mean time Mrs. Loper and her two assistants, warm and red, but sustained by the importance of the occasion, were at work in the kitchen, beating eggs and stirring sugar and butter together for cakes, making pies, and roasting, baking, boiling, and stewing. When their other tasks were done, Maggie and Elvira were deputed to set the table. Two long tables were placed end to end in the shade of some maple-trees which stood near the house, and covered with white cloths, then the plates, knives and forks, and drinking-glasses were placed in order. The Loper supply of dishes was not sufficient, but there were two large basketfuls which had been borrowed from neighbors for the occasion, and, by having recourse to these, the tables were furnished. Chairs were brought from kitchen and parlor and every room in the house, but even then two were lacking. "Never mind," said Maggie: "Joe and Will can sit on nail-kegs," referring to two of her brothers.
The men and machinery and wagons had come early in the day, the engine drawn by two oxen, the threshing-machine by four horses. The oxen swayed hither and thither as they were driven through the gates and into the barn-lot, and the driver cracked his whip and cried, "You Buck! You Berry! Gee! Haw! Whoa!" till one was ready to wonder that the bewildered animals did anything right. At last the engine was in the desired position, and the oxen were released from their yoke, to stand with panting sides in the shade of the barn. Then the threshing-machine was stationed in its place, and the broad band put on which connected it with the engine. In the mean time, those whose duty it was to haul water from the creek had brought three or four barrelfuls to the boiler, fire had been built in the engine, and the engineer "got up steam." Two wagons were off to the field, where the wheat still stood in shocks, and as soon as they returned, piled high with yellow sheaves, the work began in earnest. Two men—cutters and feeders, as they were called—received the sheaves tossed to them from the wagons, cut the withes of straw which bound them, and pushed them evenly into the thresher. Farmer Loper himself and one of his sons stood at the place where the grain ran out, and as fast as one bushel-measure was filled another one was set in its place and the wheat poured into a sack. When a sack was full it was tied up and set back out of the way. Other laborers stood at the back part of the thresher, where the straw came out, and, with pitch-forks in hand, tossed it about until the foundation for a stack was formed. Then they stood on the stack, rising higher as it rose, trampling the straw and pitching it into place. The chaff and dust flew upon them until their faces, their hat-brims, and the shoulders of their colored shirts were covered, and the perspiration streamed from every pore. No wonder that the wives and mothers of these farmers dreaded the wash-days after a week of threshing. There was noise and excitement enough in connection with the dust and work,—the puffing of the engine, the whir and shake and rattle of the threshing-machine, and the raised voices of the men calling to each other or giving orders. The engineer and the feeders and cutters were conceded to have the most responsible positions, but the duties of the other workers were also important. There must be water for the boiler, and the wheat must be brought from the field fast enough to keep a constant supply on hand, the straw must be stacked well, and the grain accurately measured. At exactly twelve o'clock the engineer blew a long loud whistle, the band was thrown off, the wheels of the thresher ceased to revolve, and the work came to a stand-still. Comments were exchanged on the progress made during the forenoon and the quality of the wheat, then the tired horses were unharnessed and fed, and Farmer Loper led the way toward the house. Here on a bench by the well were all the wash-pans and wash-bowls the house afforded, and clean towels hung on the roller and on nails outside the door. The men washed their hands and faces, and, by the aid of a small looking-glass hung by the towels, and a comb attached to a string, combed their hair. To the women it was the most exciting moment of the day. They were dishing up the dinner and putting the finishing-touches to the table. Finally all was ready. Mrs. Loper spoke to her husband, and he said, "Come, men, dinner's ready," and led the way to the table. He took the chair at one end, his oldest son that at the other, and the others ranged themselves at will between.
Mrs. Loper poured out coffee in the kitchen, the neighbor women carried the cups and saucers, Maggie waited on the table, passing the bread around first, and Elvira stood with a bunch of peacock's feathers in her hand and kept off the flies. A boiled ham was at the head of the table, a pair of roast fowls at the foot; between stood a long row of vegetables,—potatoes, string-beans, squash, beets, and others,—and near the large tureens were smaller dishes,—cold-slaw, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles and preserves of various kinds. A large cake stood on a glass cake-stand in the middle of the table, flanked on one side by a deep glass dish full of canned peaches, on the other by a similar one of floating island, while all the available remaining space was occupied by pies,—apple-pies, custard, berry-pies, cream-pies. To have a variety of pies on a festal occasion was the ambition of every housewife, seven different kinds of pies and three kinds of cake being not uncommon. If a map of the region where pie prevails is ever drawn up and printed, this section of the country will be shaded unusually dark. To have company to dinner and not set pie before them would be considered a breach of an ancient and well-grounded custom: the best of puddings or other forms of dessert would be regarded only as an evasion. Pie was not out of place at supper; and the instance of one family comes to mind where steamed mince-pie for breakfast was eaten, and considered both appropriate and delicious.
At Farmer Loper's harvest-table sweet milk and fresh buttermilk were among the drinks, but most of the men preferred coffee, and drank it hot out of the saucers. Some sets of dishes included tiny cup-plates, in which to set the coffee-cups that they might not stain the table-cloth; but Mrs. Loper had none, and the men scraped their cups on the edge of the saucers before placing them on the clean white cloth. One man drank six cups of coffee, then said he guessed he wouldn't take any more, adding, "It's best to be moderate." At this all the men burst into a roar of laughter, except one, who grew red in the face and ate his dinner in silence. It seemed that while hauling that day one of his horses had balked, and in his anger he had lifted one foot to kick it, but missed it, lost his balance, and fell. He arose from the fall somewhat ashamed, and remarked, "It's best to be moderate." This incident had amused the others very much, and any allusion to it caused laughter.
The women waited on the table, not in the sense of changing plates and bringing fresh courses, for all the dinner was before them, but replenishing cups and glasses when they were empty, refilling the vegetable-tureens and bread-plates, cutting the pies and cake and passing them around, and serving out the canned peaches and the custard in small dishes. They were also careful to see that the pickles and preserves were passed to every one.
With most of the men present Elvira was acquainted: they were the patrons of her school, and found time in the midst of eating and general conversation to ask how Johnnie was a-comin' on in his spellin', or if Annie was gettin' along well in her 'rithmetic, adding, "I'll be wantin' her to calkilate interest for me by and by." Bert Mowrer's father inquired about his boy, then added cheerfully, "If he don't behave, lick him,—lick him: that's what I tell every teacher."
Farmer Loper and the engineer fell to discussing how many bushels of wheat to the acre the neighboring farms had produced, and how many this would probably produce, with various comments on the weather and the soil. A little farther down the table a young farmer was telling of the speed made by his brown mare Kitty,—how she passed every team on the road, and that he wouldn't take a hundred and fifty dollars for her; and farther still, two or three were discussing the affairs of an absent neighbor,—how he had bought the Caldwell place, but, not being able to pay for it, had given a mortgage, and hadn't managed the farm very well, had let the interest run behind, they had heard, so there was a prospect of his losing it.
"I guess he won't have to give it up," said one: "the woman that raised his wife has got plenty of money, and if he can't make it, she'll pay for the place and let them live on it. She's helped them several times already. If he wasn't so lazy and shiftless he might have everything in good shape."
But a conversation which was going on at the lower end of the table interested Elvira most of all. It was about birds, including some of her favorites of the woods and fields which she had noticed a great deal in her solitary rides that summer. The principal speaker was a young farmer whom she had never seen before. He seemed to be acquainted with the names and habits of all the birds which lived in that section, besides many which merely passed through it on their way northward every spring and southward every fall.
"I have kept a record of the time of each arrival," he said, "and notes of rare birds. The bluebird came first, and the humming-bird last. And I discovered two birds that were new to me. One is a Northern bunting. A flock stayed one day in our orchard on their way northward to their summer home, and I succeeded in killing and stuffing a pair. The feathers of the male were a beautiful pink-red. The other strange bird seemed to come with the scarlet tanager, and is much like a pee-wee in shape and size, with feathers of a greenish yellow."
"When do you find time to learn so much about birds?" asked George Loper, who knew only a few of the more common ones,—blackbirds, crows, jays, hawks, and robins,—and had no eyes for the variety of feathered life around him.
"I keep my eyes open as I work and as I go along the road," answered young Farmer Worth; "then I look up their names and read something about them in a book on birds which I have. You've no idea how much enjoyment there is in it. I have quite a collection of birds which I have stuffed, and more than a hundred different kinds of eggs, besides my cabinet of mineral specimens. I nailed two ladders together, and climbed thirty feet above these and got a crow's nest; and this spring we found a hawk's nest in a high tree. We tied a stout twine to a small stone, which we threw over the forks of the tree, and with this drew a large rope over. Then I sat in the noose of the rope, and three boys pulled me up sixty feet to the nest. It was rather scary, I can tell you, and I was glad to get down to the ground again; but I got the hawk's nest."
Then Elvira asked him if he could tell her the name of the bird with a yellow head, but otherwise black plumage, which she had noticed not long before in a flock of common blackbirds; and they were soon in an animated conversation on the subject of birds in general. Elvira had noticed many that summer which she could describe, but whose names she did not know.
Soon the men began to leave the table, for it was not the custom to wait till all had done eating, but for each one to go when he was ready. George Loper went away grumbling that he couldn't see any use in learning about birds: all he wanted was for the crows and blackbirds to keep away from the corn when it was first planted. But Elvira and young Worth talked ten minutes longer, finding more and more that they were interested in the same subjects. Then the women began to clear away the plates and cups and knives, and Elvira turned to assist them, while her new acquaintance joined his companions, who were resting in the shade of the trees. There he encountered some good-natured chaff from the younger members, who began by asking him if he was struck with the school-ma'am. The responsibility of the threshers' dinner being over, Mrs. Loper and her assistants sat down to the table, to eat their own dinner at ease, and exchange remarks with each other, complimenting or criticising their cooking.
"This chicken-stuffin' is real good," said one of the neighbors to Mrs. Loper.
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Loper, tasting some of it on the end of her knife: "'pears to me I put a leetle too much sage in it. But the gravy you made, Mirandy, that couldn't be better. Didn't you see how the men kept askin' for it to be passed? And they've et up all the summer squash and all the cream-pie. Taste some of these plum preserves, Mis' Brown, and don't let me forget to send some to your little girls: I remember how well they like 'em. This cake is real light and good, but I was afraid it would fall. This float would 'a' been better if I'd had a little lemon flavor to put in it. But I guess, on the whole, the dinner went off middlin' well." Then, seeing Elvira and Maggie sitting on the opposite side of the table, some deeper thoughts were stirred in her motherly heart, and she began to talk of the daughter she had lost years before: "If Lucy had lived, she'd 'a' been seventeen this spring,—just your age; and you remind me of her sometimes. She always had such red cheeks, and was never sick a day till she was taken down with the diphtheria."
For a while the affairs of the present were forgotten, as the old and never-wholly-healed wound was opened afresh and she dwelt upon her bereavement; but soon the round of work must be taken up, the dishes must be washed, the victuals set away, and supper for the threshers must be planned and prepared. It was best so. "Time, the healer, and work, the consoler," enable us to bear many things which in the first keen freshness of grief seem unbearable.
The threshers thought they would be done by six o'clock, so they decided not to stop for supper at five, as was the custom, but wait for their evening meal till the work of the day was completed. Elvira started home before this time, and good Mrs. Loper not only filled her own little basket, but made her take a larger one packed with remains of the feast.
There were three weeks more of her school, and during that time she saw young Farmer Worth several times. Twice she met him in the road, and once he stopped at the school-house to bring her Wilson's book on birds, which he had promised to lend her. But the day before school closed he came and helped Jack Sapp and some other boys make a platform in the woods, on which the children could speak their declamations and sing their songs, and on the afternoon of the last day of school was present in the crowd of parents, brothers, sisters, and friends assembled on that important and, to the children, most exciting occasion. There were declamations from the third and fourth readers,—"How big was Alexander, Pa?" and "He never smiled again," and "Lord Ullin's Daughter,"—and Maggie Loper held the audience spell-bound by an entirely new one, which Elvira had selected and copied for her out of a book of poems,—"The Dream of Eugene Aram." Then there were songs, and dialogues, and two compositions, one on "Rats" and one on "Planting Corn," which had been produced by their respective authors after much wear of brain fibre and much blotting of writing-paper. Last of all, Elvira read one of Longfellow's poems, after which she said that the exercises of the school were over, but that remarks from visitors would be gladly received. Then one of the trustees arose, and said that education was a great blessing, that he hoped the children of the present day would appreciate their advantages and grow up to be useful men and women, adding that all the schooling he had received was three winter terms in a log school-house, one entire end of which was occupied by the fireplace, and which had no glass windows, the light being admitted through holes cut in the logs and covered with greased foolscap-paper. No other remarks being offered, the audience was dismissed, and the children began in an excited hurry to collect their possessions, and bid their teacher good-by as if for a life-long parting. Some of them even shed tears, and this occasioned the cynical remark from a by-stander, "Them Mays children needn't to take on so: the school-ma'am will have to call at their house often enough before she gits her money."
Soon the spot was deserted, and the squirrels came down from the trees to retake possession of their old haunts, to scamper across the platform, to sniff at the fallen rose-petals of the bouquets, and to nibble the crumbs of cake and bread dropped from the lunch-baskets.
The next outing for the people of Buck Creek neighborhood was the county fair, which occurred in September. They went in spring-wagons, in farm-wagons, in buggies, and on horseback, starting early in the morning, and taking an ample supply of provisions for themselves as well as feed for their horses.
The sunshine poured down hot upon them, and there was much dust, but they were happy. There were crowds of people from all the surrounding country; there were displays of vegetables, fruit, honey, butter, in tents and sheds,—in short, all the products of a farming region; there were cakes, loaves of bread, glasses of jelly, and jars of pickles and preserves, made by farmers' wives; and in the department allotted to needle-work there were quilts of various patterns and various claims to public notice: one had three thousand five hundred and forty-four pieces in it, and was made by a great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone, the pioneer; another was pieced by an old lady of eighty-one without the aid of glasses. Among the live-stock were fat cattle and prancing three-year-old colts, with red or blue ribbons fastened to their manes, indicating that they had received the first or second prize, and fat hogs; there were various breeds of poultry in coops, and before each stall or pen or coop stood a group of spectators, admiring, commenting, or asking questions of the owner; there were agricultural machines and implements, and patent pumps for stock-yards, and improved cross-cut saws, each strongly recommended to the public by a glib-tongued agent. Then there were stands for the sale of ice-cream, lemonade, and peanuts and candy; and no rural beau felt that he had done the polite thing unless he took his girl up to the counter and treated her. When he had strolled all over the ground with her, and perhaps taken her into one or two side-shows, where there were negro minstrels or the Wild Australian Children, he went and sat in a buggy with her, and they talked, and waited for the horse-race, or balloon-ascension, or wire-walking, which was the especial attraction of the afternoon.
"Why, who's that with Tom Worth?" asked one Buck Creek belle of her escort as they were thus sitting together. "I didn't know that he was goin' with anybody?"
"I didn't, either," was the response; then, after a little pause, "I'll swan, it's Miss Hill, the school-ma'am. Who'd 'a' thought they would be here together? I didn't know they were acquainted."
And this remark was echoed by other Buck Creek people as they saw the couple walking together. But there is a law of affinity by which people are drawn together as lovers or as friends, which is like some of the hidden forces of nature: we cannot see their operation, we can only see their results. Some one has made the paradoxical remark that we are acquainted with our friends before we ever see them; meaning that our tastes for the same pursuits or subjects, traits of character that harmonize, views that coincide, have been ripening apart, and, when at last we meet, that is sufficient; it does not require a long acquaintanceship to reveal one to the other.
Young Farmer Worth was now in the habit of frequently calling to see Elvira Hill, and of taking her out riding in his buggy, that being an approved form of courtship in this section. They talked of their favorite books and studies, their ambitions for the future as regarded mental culture, and their individual plans.
Elvira had applied for the position of assistant in the Hill's Station school, and had been engaged as first assistant instead of second, which was better than she had hoped. She would have to hear some advanced classes from the principal's room, and this would require her to study, which would be a source of improvement.
Young Farmer Worth, whose father had died three years before, had bought the home farm, and was now working to pay his older brothers and sisters for their shares in it and to comfortably support his mother in her declining years.
"There are eighty acres in it, well improved, and with good buildings," he said one day, while unfolding his plans to Elvira, "and I think I can make a good home of it, and a happy one, where I can feel independent, and no one's servant, as I could not at any other business. Farming is a profession, and I intend to work with my head as well as my hands, to read and study on the subject, to take the best agricultural papers, and keep up with the times. My fondness for ornithology and mineralogy can be indulged in connection with my work on the farm and without in any wise interfering with it."
In the winter he came occasionally to take her to lectures at Sassafrasville or another neighboring town, and they always found food for thought in what they heard, and pleasure in discussing it afterward.
The gossips said, "There's a match;" but it was not until spring that they were engaged. Then he took her to see his mother, and showed her the old home, the farm, and the improvements he was making. The old lady received Elvira with mingled dignity and cordiality, but, finding her interested in all she heard and saw, warmed toward her more and more, and told much of her own life, unfolding the store of memories on which her thoughts chiefly dwelt nowadays, talking of her husband, the children she had lost, and bringing forth their pictures, opening closed rooms, and showing dishes, linen, and other household goods which dated back to her own girlhood and early married life.
Elvira felt an attachment for Mrs. Worth which deepened when, in the ensuing autumn, her dear grandmother died after a brief illness, and she experienced the loneliness of bereavement and homelessness. The little brown house in Hill's Station was sold, and Elvira went to board with one of the neighbors: she was still teaching in the village school.
When June came round again, with its beauty of earth and sky, it brought her wedding-day. A very quiet wedding it was; but the home-coming, or the "in-fare," to use a good old-fashioned word, was the occasion of much joy and merry-making. It seemed as if all the Buck Creek neighborhood had assembled to welcome the bride. Two of the farmers' wives had been at the Worth homestead all the preceding day, and many of them brought cakes with them.
In the centre of the table stood a roast pig, with an apple in its mouth, and around it were a great abundance of the substantial viands and delicacies usually provided on such occasions. There were also many presents for the bride from her old friends, not costly or fine, but in keeping with their manner of living. Mrs. Loper brought a sheep-skin for a mat, the wool combed out smoothly and colored crimson, Maggie a white crocheted tidy as big as a cart-wheel, Mrs. Sapp a wooden butter-stamp, Mary Sapp a picture-frame made of pasteboard, with beech-nuts glued together thickly upon it and varnished.
So, amid good wishes and rejoicing, the young married pair entered upon their new life together, contented, yet energetic, and happy in the fact that their own lives afforded fulness and enjoyment, and that in their own efforts lay the fulfilment of their ambitions.
Louise Coffin Jones.
INTO THY HANDS.
Into thy hands, my Father, I commit
All, all my spirit's care,
The sorest burden this dim life can bear,
The sweetest hope wherewith its paths are lit!
Into thy hands, that hold so closely knit
What our blind, aching heart
Calls joy or grief,—we know them not apart!
Into the hands whence leap
The hurling tempest, and the gentle breath
Kissing the babe to sleep,
The flaming bolt that smites with instant death
The giant oak, and the refreshing shower
Whose balmy drops make glad the tender flower.
What though, even as lent jewels passing bright,
That crowned me happy king
For one sweet revel of one night in spring,
I must surrender in the morning light,
That cold and gray breaks on my tearful sight,
Youth, hope, and joy, and love,
And—oh, all other gems, all price, above!—
The deathless certainty
Of the deep life beyond this pallid sun,
That golden shore and sea
Which to my youthful feet seemed wellnigh won,
So fair, so close, so clear, methought I heard
The trees' soft whisper and faint song of bird;
What though this fair dream, too, fled long ago,
And on my straining eyes
There break no more visions of mellow skies
'Neath which dear friends, called dead, move on in low
Sweet converse through wide, happy fields aglow
With heavenly flower and star,—
What though, like some poor pilgrim who from far
Sees, through a slender rift
In the dark rocks that hem his toilsome way,
The clouds an instant lift
From countries bathed in everlasting day,
I stand and stretch my yearning arms in vain
Toward the blest light, too swiftly lost again?
Into thy hands, my Father, I commit
This dearest, last hope too,
Old as the world, and yet forever new,—
The hope wherewith our dimmest paths are lit,
With life itself indissolubly knit!
That too is well, I know,
In thy eternal keeping. Ah! and so
Let my poor soul dismiss
Each fear and doubt, hush every anxious cry,
Forget all thought save this,
Some time,—oh, dream of joy that cannot die!—
In those beloved hands, a priceless store,
All our lost jewels shall be found once more!
Stuart Sterne.
A CHAPTER OF MYSTERY.
Science, as a rule, has avoided the subject of Spiritualism. Its results are too much unlike the hard, visible, tangible facts of scientific research to attract those accustomed to positive investigations. And its methods and conditions are usually of a character to set a scientist beside himself with impatience. Crucial tests do not seem acceptable to spirits in general. They decline to be placed on the microscopic slide or to show their ghostly forms in the glare of the electric light, and prefer to haunt the society of those who do not pester them with too exacting conditions. Thus they have been mainly given over to a class of somewhat credulous and, in some instances, not well-balanced mortals, whose statements have very little weight with the general public, and whose strong powers of digesting the marvellous have originated a plentiful crop of fraud and trickery sufficient to throw discredit on the whole business.
It cannot be said, however, that all the adherents of Spiritualism are of this character, or that science has completely failed to investigate it. It has won over many persons of good sense and sound logic, including several prominent scientists, to a belief in the truth of its claims. Were its adherents all cranks or credulous believers, and its phenomena only such common sleight-of-hand performances as suffice to convince the open-mouthed swallowers of conjurers' tricks, it would be idle to give it any attention. But phenomena sufficiently striking to convert such men as Hare, Crooks, Wallace, Zöllner, and the like are certainly worthy of some attention, and cannot be at once dismissed as results of skilful prestidigitation.
In fact, it is evident to those who have taken the trouble to investigate the question seriously, and who do not dismiss it with an a priori decision, that in addition to the fraudulent mediums who make it their business to trick the public, and are ready to produce a new marvel for every new dollar, and to call "spirits from the vasty deep" of the unseen universe in form and shape to suit every customer, there are some private and strictly honest mediums, and many phenomena which no theory of conjuring will explain. To what they are due is another question, in regard to which no hypothesis is here offered. It may be said here, however, that the work of the Psychic Research Society has demonstrated rather conclusively that certain hitherto unknown and unsuspected powers and laws of nature do exist, and that man's five senses are not the only means by which he gains a knowledge of what is going on in other minds than his own. The facts of thought-transference, of mesmeric control, of apparitions of the living, and the like, as critically tested by the members of this society, seem to indicate clearly that mind can affect, influence, and control mind through some other channel than that of the senses, usually over short distances, but in case of strong mental concentration over long distances. That some psychic medium, some ethereal atmosphere, infiltrates our grosser atmosphere, and is capable of conveying waves of thought as the luminiferous ether conveys waves of light, is the theory advanced in explanation of these phenomena. Spiritualists had long before advanced a like theory in explanation of their phenomena, claiming that disembodied as well as living minds have the power of influencing and controlling other minds, through the agency of such a psychic atmosphere, and also of acting upon and moving physical substances through a like agency. As to the probability of all this, no opinion is here offered.
It is our purpose simply to select some of the more striking instances of spiritualistic phenomena, as recorded by scientific observers. Those placed on record by the numerous unscientific and unknown investigators are not the kind of material to present to the general public. Statements of an unusual character need to be thoroughly substantiated before they can be accepted, and the remarkable phenomena adduced as spiritual demand evidence of the most unquestionable character. There is always the feeling that the observer may have been deceived by some shrewd trickery, or have credulously accepted what others would have readily seen through, or that the senses may have been under some form of mesmeric control. Instances of such phenomena, therefore, need to be attested by the names of persons of well-known honesty, judgment, and discrimination, and attended with an exact statement of the tests applied, before they can be accepted as thoroughly trustworthy accounts. Some instances of this character may be here given.
The phenomena known under the general name of spirit-manifestations vary greatly in different instances. In some cases they take the form of strange dreams, in which some warning or information concerning coming events is given that afterward proves true. In others they occur as seeming apparitions of persons recently or long dead. In others, as in the case of haunted houses, there are noises of great variety, moving of objects, opening and shutting of doors, appearances of unknown forms, and all the phenomena which might be produced by an invisible inhabitant of the house who was able to become visible under certain circumstances. More ordinary manifestations are rapping sounds and lifting of heavy bodies, writing either with or without apparent human agency, and mental communication of facts unknown to or forgotten by the persons present. Other phases are those presented by professional mediums,—the tying and untying of ropes, playing on musical instruments, the production of luminous phenomena, slate-writing under tables, and the like. Performances of this character are usually done in the dark, and the fraud which may be present is therefore not easily detected. It is impossible to apply tests under such circumstances, and nothing can be accepted as positive that cannot be tested. Performances similarly surprising are constantly offered by professional conjurers, and nothing claiming the high origin of spiritual phenomena can be received in evidence where trickery is possible or has not been rendered impossible by the employment of adequate tests.
To the same class belong the cabinet performances and the so-called materialization of spirit forms, which have been the favorite cards of professional mediums of late years. So far as yet offered in public, they may be dismissed in the mass as pure trickery. The fact that stage-performers of sleight-of-hand tricks can repeat the cabinet phenomena in every detail, and that the materialized spirit showmen have been caught in numerous instances in the very act of fraud, throws utter discredit on the business. No repetition by new mediums of other forms of the exposed tricks carries any weight. In fact, in a matter of such importance nothing can be accepted as settled until it has been subjected to the strictest scientific tests and every possible opportunity for deceit or trickery eliminated. We are not ready to believe that the spirits of our departed friends are able and willing to talk with or show themselves to us, or create disturbances in the arrangement of our furniture, unless we are absolutely positive that our eyes, ears, and nerves are not being cleverly fooled by some skilled and unscrupulous show-man, or that we are not self-deceived by some temporary vagary of our brains or senses.
In addition to the purely physical phenomena are others of a more or less mental character. One interesting phase of the latter is that of planchette-writing, which attracted so much attention a few years ago. The planchette, a heart-shaped board moving easily on casters, and with a pencil supporting it at one extremity, moves with great readiness when touched by mediumistic fingers, and is responsible for acres of communications purporting to come from the world of spirits, and conveying the greatest variety of information, alike as to the thoughts and deeds of particular spirits and the general conditions of disembodied spiritual existence. In other instances the planchette is dispensed with, and the writing done by a pencil held in the hand of the medium, or occasionally, as some persons positively declare, by a pencil that is held in no mortal hand. In still other cases the medium, either awake or entranced, gives the communication by word of mouth. And this is asserted to be the case not only in respect to brief messages, but in long addresses, which are given every Sunday in our principal cities before large audiences, and in the writing of books of considerable length, but not, as a rule, of any great profundity or literary value. To all these claims, however, we can simply record the verdict "not proven." When a man writes or says anything we want more than his mere assertion to prove that it does not come from his own mind. And, even if we are satisfied that he is not consciously deceiving, the possibility remains that he is affected by some unconscious mental action. We shall certainly not accept his declaration that spirits of the dead are talking through him unless he gives information that could not possibly have been in his own mind, and could not have been received by thought-transference from the mind of any other person present or in rapport with him at a distance. The discoveries in thought-transference open possibilities of mental influence between living persons which aid to explain many hitherto incomprehensible phenomena.
Clairvoyant and clairaudiant mediums fall into the same category. They profess to see forms which no one else can see, and to hear voices which no one else can hear, and describe these forms, or repeat the words of these voices, often with the effect of recalling the appearance or character of deceased persons whom they could not possibly have known. Yet the fact remains that the persons who recognize these descriptions as accurate must have known the parties described, and it becomes possible that the mental impression of the medium may have been received by thought-transference from them. We do not assert that it has been so received. We assert nothing. In fact, phenomena are claimed to occur which it is difficult or impossible to explain on any such theory, or on any other theory yet promulgated. Among these is the conveyance of matter through matter, as of an object from the interior to the exterior of a corked and sealed bottle, of other objects from a distance into locked rooms, of writing by a sliver of pencil in the interior of a double slate firmly screwed together, of the placing of close-fitting steel rings in one solid piece around human necks, and their subsequent removal, of writing and speaking in languages unknown to some or all of the persons present, and a considerable variety of similar performances, declared to have occurred under strict test-conditions. Yet if we cannot explain we retain the right to doubt, and such statements cannot be received as facts except on the strongest substantiation.
The phenomena whose main forms we have here given, but whose actual variety we cannot attempt to give, are offered on the testimony of a great variety of persons, many of whom are plainly too credulous for their evidence to be of any value whatever, while others, who seem to have exercised great caution and cool judgment, are unknown to the general public, and therefore not likely to be accepted as witnesses in such a critical case. Others, again, who are well known and highly respected, have invalidated their testimony by clearly letting themselves be deceived. Such was the case with Robert Dale Owen, one of the main historians of spiritual phenomena, who permitted himself to be pitifully humbugged in Philadelphia by the somewhat famous spirit of Katie King, whose spirit face was afterward discovered on the sturdy shoulders of a very decidedly incarnate young lady. This was one of the first instances of that throng of materialized frauds with which this country has ever since been well supplied.
But there have been numerous investigators of spiritualism who cannot be placed in any such category, many of them men of high standing in the scientific world, whose word is still taken as positive evidence in support of very surprising scientific statements, since they are known to examine and test phenomena with the closest and most accurate scrutiny. This class of observers is particularly abundant in the London scientific world, and includes in its list such noted names as Alfred Russel Wallace, the celebrated naturalist, Dr. William Crooks, whose discoveries in chemistry and physics have been of a remarkable character, and Dr. Huggins, the equally celebrated astronomer. In America the most noted scientific observer was the late Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, a chemist of world-wide fame. Of those who, if not professed scientists, have been otherwise of high standing, Professor Wallace names, in a recent communication to the "Times," Dr. Robert Chambers, Dr. Elliotson, and Professor William Gregory, of Edinburgh, Dr. Gully, a scientific physician of Malvern, and Judge Edmonds, one of the best known American lawyers. Names of similar reputation in the scientific and professional world might be adduced from Germany and France, prominent among them the late Professor Zöllner, of Leipsic, a well-known astronomer; but the above-given will suffice as evidence that the investigation of spiritualism has not been confined to the unknown, unlearned, and credulous, but has been pursued by men of the very highest standing for probity, learning, sound judgment, and critical discrimination.
The results reached by these men are therefore of great weight, and go far to fix the status of the phenomena examined. We may say here that several of them have become acknowledged converts to the spiritual theory. More generally, however, they have declined to express positive opinions as to the cause of these phenomena, while positively testifying that they are not the result of trickery, but that they indicate the existence of some power or energy in nature which is able to suspend or overcome the operation of nature's ordinary forces. Only two prominent scientists, who have made any pretence to examine these phenomena, have declared that they are in toto the result of fraud. These two are Professor Faraday and Dr. Carpenter. But the investigations made by these noted personages were too trivial to render their decision of any value. Faraday briefly examined the phenomena of table-tipping, and decided that it was due to involuntary muscular movement. Dr. Carpenter reasserted the same, years after this explanation had been shown to be entirely inadequate, and declared that the mental phenomena were due only to unconscious cerebration, or the action of memories and ideas long since stored in the mind, when the consciousness is otherwise engaged and the person is unaware of the activity of his mental stores. This theory, we may also say, is utterly inadequate to explain all the phenomena, and only applies by a strained interpretation to the instances which Dr. Carpenter gives in illustration.
One of the most striking of these instances we may here append. A student relates that a professor had said to his class in mathematics, of which this student was a member, "'A question of great difficulty has been referred to me by a banker, a very complicated question of accounts, which they themselves have not been able to bring to a satisfactory issue, and they have asked my assistance. I have been trying, and I cannot resolve it. I have covered whole sheets of paper with calculations and have not been able to make it out. Will you try?' He gave it as a sort of problem to his class, and said he would be extremely obliged to any one who would bring him the solution on a certain day. This gentleman tried it over and over again. He covered many slates with figures, but could not succeed in resolving it. He was a little put on his mettle, and very much desired to attain the solution. But he went to bed on the night before the solution, if attained, was to be given in, without having succeeded. In the morning, when he went to his desk, he found the whole problem worked out in his own hand. He was perfectly sure that it was his own hand. And this was a curious part of it, that the result was attained by a process very much shorter than any he had tried. He had covered three or four sheets of paper in his attempts, and this was all worked out on one page, and correctly worked, as the result proved. He inquired of the woman who attended to his room, and she said that she was certain no one had entered it during the night. It was perfectly clear that this had been worked out by himself."
Instances of this kind are certainly very curious, and seem to show that the mind, when set in any train of thought by intense concentration, may pursue it after consciousness has been withdrawn. And the result indicates that the mind acts with innate logic when not disturbed by distracting considerations, and can be trusted to do more correct work when thus set going and left to run of itself than when consciously held to its work. Yet an examination of every recorded instance of this kind strongly indicates that no such unconscious mental action ever takes place except when the consciousness has been earnestly directed to the subject in advance, that no marked instances of this activity ever occur except in the unconsciousness of sleep or trance, and that it ceases when the mental excitement that started it has gradually subsided. There is not an instance on record to show that the mind ever originates unconscious action, or that any of its remote stores or powers ever spring into activity without being aroused by sensation or conscious thought. Thus the doctrine of unconscious cerebration has been carried much further than the facts warrant. It need hardly be said that it is utterly inapplicable as a theory to many of the facts adduced by the Society for Psychic Research.
In the year 1869 the London Dialectical Society, an association of cultured liberals, embracing many well-known personages, appointed a committee to examine "the asserted phenomena of Spiritualism." The committee divided itself into six sub-committees, each of which submitted a report, and according to a general report, published in 1871, "these reports substantially corroborated each other." We may therefore quote the more interesting points from the report of one of the sub-committees:
"All of these meetings were held at the private residences of members of the committee, purposely to preclude the possibility of prearranged mechanism or contrivance. The furniture of the room in which the experiments were conducted was on every occasion its accustomed furniture. The tables were in all cases heavy dining-tables, and required a strong effort to move them. The smallest of them was five feet nine inches long and four feet wide, and the largest nine feet three inches long and four and a half feet wide, and of proportionate weight. The rooms, tables, and furniture generally were repeatedly subjected to careful examination, before, during, and after the experiments, to ascertain that no concealed machinery, instrument, or other contrivance existed, by means of which the sounds or movements hereinafter mentioned could be caused. The experiments were conducted in the light of gas, except on the few occasions specially noted in the minutes.
"Of the members of your sub-committee about four-fifths entered upon the investigation wholly sceptical as to the reality of the alleged phenomena, firmly believing them to be the result either of imposture, or of delusion, or of involuntary muscular action. It was only by irresistible evidence, under conditions that precluded the possibility of either of these solutions, and after trials and tests many times repeated, that the most sceptical of your sub-committee were slowly and reluctantly convinced that the phenomena exhibited in the course of their protracted inquiry were veritable facts. The result of their long-continued and carefully-conducted experiments, after trial by every delicate test they could devise, has been to establish conclusively,—
"First. That under certain bodily and mental conditions of one or more of the persons present a force is exhibited sufficient to set in motion heavy substances, without the employment of any muscular force, and without contact or material connection of any kind between such substances and the body of any person present.
"Second. That this force can cause sounds to proceed, distinctly audible to all present, from solid substances not in contact with nor having any visible or material connection with the body of any person present, and which sounds are proved to proceed from such substances by the vibrations which are distinctly felt when they are touched.
"Third. That this force is frequently directed by intelligence."
Of the many experiments described in this report we will quote here but one:
"On one occasion, when eleven members of your sub-committee had been sitting around one of the dining-tables above described for forty minutes, and various sounds and motions had occurred, they, by way of test, turned the backs of their chairs to the table, at about nine inches from it. They all then knelt upon their chairs, placing their arms upon the backs thereof. In this position their feet were of course turned away from the table, and by no possibility could be placed under it or touch the floor. The hands of each person were extended over the table, at about four inches from the surface. Contact, therefore, with any part of the table could not take place without detection. In less than a minute the table, untouched, moved four times,—at first about four inches to one side, then about twelve to the other side, and then, in like manner, four and six inches respectively."
The committee further remarks that after this experiment "the table was carefully examined, turned upside down, and taken to pieces, but nothing was discovered to account for the phenomenon. Delusion was out of the question. The movements were in various directions, and were witnessed simultaneously by all present. They were matters of measurement, and not of opinion or fancy. Your sub-committee have not collectively obtained any evidence as to the nature and source of this force, but simply as to the fact of its existence."
Mr. Sergeant Cox, a member of this sub-committee and a prominent member of the English bar, relates that he experimented elsewhere in the same manner as that above described, and with similar results, a heavy dining-table being employed. Afterward, when all the party stood in a circle round the table, holding hands, at first two and then three feet distant, the table lurched four times, once more than two feet and with great force, and moved to such an extent as to become completely turned round. After the party had broken up, and were standing in groups about the room, the table, which was about two feet from its original position, swung violently back to its proper place and set itself exactly square with the room, with such force as literally to knock down a lady who was standing in the way putting on her shawl for departure.
Mr. Cox, after a close examination of these phenomena, offered a theory in explanation somewhat differing from that already mentioned. He believes that they are due to the action of some psychic force, originating in the nervous system and analogous in character to magnetic attraction. He relates several instances of heavy bodies moving toward the mediums, as if attracted, and remarks, "In another experiment in my own lighted drawing-room, as the psychic [the medium] was entering the room with myself, no other person being there, an easy-chair of great weight that was standing fourteen feet from us was suddenly lifted from the floor and drawn to him with great rapidity, precisely as a heavy magnet will attract a mass of iron."
Another phase of these phenomena, as observed by the committee, was the sudden and considerable change of weight in the table, it becoming light or heavy as desired. To prove this scientifically, a weighing-machine was attached, and the change of weight clearly proved. "One instance will suffice. Weighed by the machine, the normal weight of a table raised from the floor eighteen inches on one side was eight pounds. Desired to be light, the index fell to five pounds; desired to be heavy, it advanced to eighty-two pounds. And these changes were instantaneous and repeated many times."
The most remarkable evidence adduced by scientific observers is that presented by Professor Crooks. He is a chemist of high reputation, the editor of the "Chemical News" and for many years of the "Quarterly Journal of Science," the discoverer of the metallic element thallium, and of recent years noted for his remarkable discoveries in the conditions of matter in highly-exhausted vacuum-tubes. In 1870 he undertook the investigation of Spiritualism, with the full expectation of exposing it as a compound of trickery on the one side and of credulity and self-deception on the other. In January, 1874, he published, in the "Quarterly Journal of Science," a brief compend of the notes of his investigations during the four years preceding. Some of the phenomena here recorded are so extraordinary that they would not be worthy an instant's attention but for the attestation of a witness of such standing, and one accustomed to the employment of the severest scientific tests.
The phenomena recorded, as he declares, with few exceptions, all took place in his own house and in full light, at times appointed by himself, "and under conditions that absolutely precluded the employment of the very simplest instrumental aid." In all cases only private friends were present besides the medium. The mediums employed were the noted D. D. Home and Miss Kate Fox, of Rochester-rappings notoriety. Of the simpler phenomena observed were the movement of heavy bodies with contact, but without mechanism or exertion, percussive and other sounds, etc. He remarks,—
"I have had these sounds proceeding from the floor, walls, etc., when the medium's hands and feet were held, when she was standing on a chair, when she was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, when she was enclosed in a wire cage, and when she had fallen fainting on a sofa. I have had them on a glass harmonicon. I have felt them on my own shoulder and under my own hands. I have heard them on a sheet of paper held between the fingers by a piece of thread passed through one corner. I have tested them in every way that I could devise; and there has been no escape from the conviction that they were true objective occurrences, not produced by trickery or mechanical means." Intelligence is manifested by these sounds, "sometimes of such a character as to lead to the belief that it does not emanate from any person present."
He records numerous instances of the movement of heavy bodies when not touched: "My own chair has been twisted partly round while my feet were off the floor. A chair was seen by all present to move slowly up to the table from a far corner when all were watching it; on another occasion an arm-chair moved to where we were sitting, and then moved slowly back again (a distance of about three feet) at my request."
"On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table rose between a few inches and one and a half feet off the floor, under special circumstances which rendered trickery impossible.... On another occasion the table rose from the floor, not only when no person was touching it, but under conditions which I had prearranged so as to assure unquestionable proof of the fact."
As to the power of overcoming gravity, he tested it by the use of a weighing-machine specially constructed and very delicate in its operation, being so arranged that its extremity could not possibly move downward without external pressure. Yet it did so move downward when the medium's fingers were held over it without touching it. This experiment was conducted in a way that renders it absolutely certain that some force beyond those visible to the persons present was in operation.
He also describes the lifting of human bodies without visible external aid: "On one occasion I witnessed a chair, with a lady sitting on it, rise several inches from the ground.... At another time two children, on separate occasions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full daylight, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions; for I was kneeling and keeping close watch upon the feet of the chair, and observing that no one might touch them."
Among other strange manifestations, he positively declares that his library-bell was brought into a room in which he was sitting with the medium, with locked doors, both he and his children having seen and handled the bell a short time before in the library. Also a piece of China grass was taken from a vase on the table, and before his eyes seemed to pass through the substance of the table. Observation showed that there was a crack in the table through which it had apparently passed. But this crack was much narrower than the diameter of the grass, yet the latter showed no signs of abrasion or change of shape.
As to the intelligence manifested by this strange power he gives the following instance. A lady was writing with a planchette. "I asked, 'Can you see the contents of this room?' 'Yes,' wrote the planchette. 'Can you see to read this newspaper?' said I, putting my finger on a copy of the 'Times' which was on the table behind me, but without looking at it. 'Yes,' was the reply of the planchette. 'Well,' I said, 'if you can see that, write the word that is now covered by my finger, and I will believe you.' The planchette commenced to move. Slowly and with great difficulty the word 'however' was written out. I turned round, and saw that the word 'however' was covered by the tip of my finger. I had purposely avoided looking at the newspaper when I tried this experiment, and it was impossible for the lady, had she tried, to have seen any of the printed words, for she was sitting at one table, and the paper was on another table behind, my body intervening."
The most remarkable phenomena attested by Professor Crooks, however, are those classed as luminous appearances, and particularly as luminous hands. Some of the most striking of those may be here quoted:
"Under the strictest test-conditions I have seen a self-luminous body, the size and nearly the shape of a turkey's egg, float noiselessly about the room, at one time higher than any one present could reach standing on tiptoe, and then gently descend to the floor. It was visible more than ten minutes, and before it faded away struck the table three times with a sound like that of a hard, solid body. During this time the medium was lying back, apparently insensible, in an easy-chair."
"I have had an alphabetic communication given by luminous flashes occurring before me in the air while my hand was moving about among them. I was sitting next to the medium, Miss Fox, the only other persons present being my wife and a lady relative, and I was holding the medium's two hands in one of mine, while her feet were resting on my feet. Paper was on the table before us, and my disengaged hand was holding a pencil. A luminous hand came down from the upper part of the room, and, after hovering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the pencil down, and then rose up above our heads, gradually fading into darkness."
"In the night I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry the sprig to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud visibly condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about."
These hands he claims to have frequently seen, sometimes in darkness, sometimes in light. On one occasion "a beautifully-formed small hand rose up from an opening in a dining-table and gave me a flower; it appeared and then disappeared three times at intervals: this occurred in the light, in my own room, while I was holding the medium's hands and feet."
The hand often seemed to form from a luminous cloud. "It is not always a mere form, but sometimes appears perfectly life-like and graceful, the fingers moving, the flesh appearing as human as that of any in the room. At the wrist or arm it becomes hazy and fades off into a luminous cloud.... I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved not to let it escape. There was no struggle or effort made to get loose, but it gradually seemed to resolve itself into vapor, and faded in that manner from my grasp."
We should not venture to quote these most remarkable statements but for the fact that they are made by a gentleman of such high standing for accuracy of observation, who knew perfectly well that he was imperilling his position in the scientific world and exposing himself to the contumely and accusation of loss of sanity that followed. In regard to this point it need only be said that his most valuable scientific work has been done since that period, and that his statements on scientific subjects are received everywhere to-day as unquestionably accurate and important. That he saw what he believed to be luminous hands there can be no doubt. Whether he was deceived is another question.
As to the producing cause of these manifestations Professor Crooks offers no theory. Whether the power and the intelligence displayed came from some one present or from some disembodied spirit he makes no suggestion, but simply presents the facts as evidence that there are mysteries in nature transcending any that have yet been weighed and measured, and which must engage the attention of the science of the future.
Of the other scientists named, Professor Wallace openly accepts the spiritualistic explanation of these phenomena. He has not, so far as we are aware, published any detailed statement of his investigations, though we have been told that they consisted in part in what is known as "spirit photography," or the taking of photographs of persons known to be dead, by his own private apparatus and in his own private rooms. As to the character of the results obtained by him, however, we are unable to make any statement.
Professor Zöllner also became a believer in Spiritualism, mainly through experiments with the American medium Mr. Slade. He published a work on the subject, in which he advances the theory, which has of late attracted so much attention, of a fourth dimension in space; that is, that, in addition to length, breadth, and thickness, bodies may have a fourth dimension, beyond the powers of human observation. The untying of knots in sealed ropes, passage of matter through matter, etc., he attempts to explain as possibly done by agents capable of working in this fourth dimension of matter. Science, however, is as little inclined to accept this theory as to accept that of spirit communication.
Of the American scientific observers Professor Hare is far the most noted for his critical discernment, his accuracy of observation, and his obstinate determination not to be convinced that there was anything occult in these phenomena. He was remarkably skilful in the making of scientific apparatus, and he tested the phenomena received by a series of instruments of delicate construction and capable of exposing the least attempt at fraud. Those who were present at the circles with him declare that he would frequently make his appearance with a new instrument and a face full of grim expectancy that he would now baffle the powers that had baffled him on previous occasions, and that he would retire with a countenance of settled despondency as the unseen something set at nought his deep-laid plans and secret hopes. It will suffice to say here that his experiments ended in his accepting the spiritual explanation of the phenomena and publishing a work on the subject.
The same was the case with Judge Edmonds, from whose published work we may make a few quotations, as his high standing as a jurist and reputation for veracity and legal shrewdness make him a witness whose word would be accepted without question on any ordinary subject. He gives the following strange experience: "During the last illness of my revered old friend Isaac T. Hopper I was a good deal with him, and on the day when he died I was with him from noon till about seven o'clock in the evening. I then supposed he would live yet for several days, and at that hour I left to attend my circle, proposing to call again on my way home. About ten o'clock in the evening, while attending the circle, I asked if I might put a mental question. I did so, and I know that no person present could know what it was, or to what subject even it referred. My question related to Mr. Hopper, and I received for answer through the rappings, as from himself, that he was dead. I hastened immediately to his house, and found that it was so. That could not have been from any one present, for they did not know of his death, nor did they understand the answer I received. It could not have been the reflex of my own mind, for I had left him alive, and thought that he would live several days."
Of his statements in regard to physical phenomena the following may be quoted: "I have known a pine table with four legs lifted bodily up from the floor in the centre of a circle of six or eight persons, turned upside down, and laid upon its top at our feet, then lifted up over our heads and put leaning against the back of the sofa on which we sat. I have seen a mahogany table, having only a centre leg, and with a lamp burning upon it, lifted from the floor at least a foot, in spite of the efforts of those present, and shaken backward and forward as one would shake a goblet in his hand, and the lamp retain its place, though its glass pendants rung again. I have seen the same table tipped up with the lamp upon it, so that the lamp must have fallen off unless retained there by something else than its own gravity; yet it fell not, moved not. I have known a mahogany chair thrown on its side and moved swiftly back and forth on the floor, no one touching it, through a room where there were at least a dozen persons sitting; and it was repeatedly stopped within a few inches of me, when it was coming with a violence which, if not arrested, must have broken my legs."
Of the phenomena classed under the head of spiritualistic three explanations have been offered. One is that they are purely the result of fraud in the mediums and self-delusion in the believers. A second is that they are due to some unknown law and force of nature, the physical manifestations being ascribed to a psychic energy of nervous origin, the mental to unconscious cerebration. A third explanation is that they are due to the action of disembodied spirits, who are able to return to the earth and make their presence manifest in all the methods above recounted. Of these explanations the first is that given by the general public, and particularly by those who know nothing practically about the subject, but have reached their opinions by their own inner consciousness and without troubling themselves to investigate the facts. That it does apply, however, to much of what is known as spiritual manifestations there can be no doubt. Of frauds under the name of mediums there has been an abundance. Of dupes under the name of Spiritualists there has been an equal abundance. And the tricks of false mediums have been so often detected as to throw a shadow of doubt over everything connected with the asserted phenomena. Yet that it is not all fraud has been abundantly proved by the testimony of the men above named and many others of equal powers of discrimination, and by the occurrence of numerous phenomena under circumstances that absolutely precluded deception, either in medium or audience. To these cases one or other of the second and third explanations must be given. Acceptance of the third, that they are really the work of spirits, would of course settle the whole business and explain all the phenomena in a word. But the great body of critical observers are disinclined to accept this theory, for the reason that many of the scientific class doubt the existence of any spirit beyond the earth-life, that many of the religious class question the possibility of freed spirits returning to earth, and that many of an intermediate class consider the manifestations too puerile and the mental communications given too unsatisfactory and too far below the mental calibre of the professed speakers to be worthy of assignment to any such source. These communications seem usually painted by the mind of the medium, and are often notably feeble, absurd, and valueless.
To the members of this class the second explanation is the only tenable one,—namely, that there are certain extraordinary powers resident in the nervous organism which are capable of acting in opposition to the ordinary energies of nature; that an intangible material exists outside the body and penetrates physical objects, through whose aid the nerve-power somehow operates to produce sounds and motions of bodies; that this nerve-power may act unconsciously to the person who possesses it in even a highly-developed state; that its action may be controlled by the mind, acting either consciously or unconsciously; that old and long-forgotten stores of the memory may take part in this action; and that other minds may act through the medium's mind and set in action his psychic powers unconsciously to himself.
That there is such a supersensible substance, and that the human mind has such hitherto unknown powers, is not easy to admit. And yet when we consider all the facts bearing upon the case it becomes equally hard to deny. The history of mankind is full of stories of occult operations and so-called supernatural performances. Those recorded are, of course, but the merest fraction of those that have been observed. At the present day this world of mystery seems everywhere around us. Outside of what is put on record, almost every person one meets can relate some such mysterious occurrence which has happened to himself or some of his acquaintances. That a very great proportion of this has been self-deception must be admitted. But all mankind is not blind and gullible; and if we strain these stories of the marvellous through the sieve of criticism, some considerable residuum will remain, which must be accounted for by another theory than that of delusion.
The theory above given accounts in some degree for most of the facts, though there are others which it is not easy to make fit in. Such are the instances in which information unknown to any person present has been given. We may instance the writing of the word covered by Professor Crooks's finger, and the answer to Judge Edmonds's mental question concerning his dying friend. Other striking instances of the same character might be given, some of which have happened within the knowledge of the writer. We may give in illustration the case of one gentleman, a prominent businessman of Philadelphia, who received from a medium a statement of the date of the death of a child that had occurred many years before. The gentleman denied the correctness of the date, and gave what he believed to be the correct one. But the medium insisted on the date given. On going home and consulting his family record, to his surprise the gentleman found that the medium was right and he wrong,—that the child had died on the date stated, not on that which had been impressed upon his memory.
Taking the case of mentality as a whole, it is certain that we are yet far from being acquainted with all the powers and mysteries of the human mental and nervous organism, despite all the researches of late years. Nor do we know all the conditions and capabilities of the world of matter which surrounds us, or the possibilities of intercommunication of minds without the aid of the senses. On the other hand, Spiritualists assert that we are equally far from knowing all the possibilities of spirit existence or of communication between embodied and disembodied mind. As to all this, it is perhaps best to remain in a state of suspended decision and await the results of accurate observation to settle the question definitely on one side or other. The investigation now being carried on by a committee appointed by the University of Pennsylvania, under the conditions of a bequest from the late Mr. Seybert, will, it may be hoped, tend to clear up the mystery.
Charles Morris.
THE STORY OF AN ITALIAN WORKWOMAN'S LIFE.[B]
Si, signora, there are four of us,—Fausta, and Flavia, and Marc Antonio, and I. La Mamma was left a widow when Marc Antonio was twelve years old and Fausta ten, Flavia was eight, little Teresina (who died in childhood) six, and I was only sixteen months old. All the rest can remember Babbo [daddy], and many's the time, when I was a little one, I have cried my eyes out with anger and jealousy because I couldn't remember him too. Babbo was a good man, signora. Never an angry word, La Mamma says,—not one,—in all the fifteen years they were married, and allegro, allegro (cheerful). He was a carrier, and he had only a little time at home; but then he always played with the little ones and made them happy. La Mamma loved him with all her heart; and often she says, "Ah, if I ever come to Paradise, I pray our Lord to make me find my Pietro again." Si, signora, I know our Lord said there was no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven; La Mamma knows it too; but we shall know each other, you know, up there, and our Blessed Lord is merciful, and won't part those who love each other. La Mamma says so; and I hope so, too. If ever I gain the rest of Paradise,—may our Blessed Lord and the Madonna and all the saints grant it!—I want to find my Luigi there too. Well, but I promised to tell the signora how the Mamma brought us all up on only a franc a day. As I said already, Babbo was a carrier. He did well, and sent Marc Antonio and Fausta and Flavia to school, and me to a balia in the country, and put something by besides. La Mamma was a silk-weaver,—one of the best in Florence then,—and she put by something too; for she worked hard every day. Everything went well with them until the day that I came home from the baliatico (period of nursing in the country). I was well weaned, and a strong, fine baby, and the balia was proud of me; and Babbo was so pleased to find me so well and lively that he gave the balia two francs more than he had agreed to do. But Babbo was always generous. Well, the next day La Mamma took me in her arms and went to the silk-shop where she had been at work, to see about selling her loom; for the master of the shop was old and was giving up his business and selling everything: it was just at that time that the silk-trade began to go down in Florence. When the loom was sold, La Mamma put the money in her purse, and then she went to put it in the bank, and then home. When she got into the Borgo degli Santi Apostoli she saw several people standing before our door; but she thought nothing of that, for we lived on the top floor, and there were several other families in the house. But when La Mamma came up to the door, she saw old Martia, her aunt, and Miniato, her brother, there. They were both crying.
"Oh, poverina, poverina! here she is," says Miniato.
"Madonna santissima! how shall we ever tell her?" says Aunt Martia.
"For the love of God, tell me what it is!" said poor mamma, and her heart died in her.
Well, in a few minutes, adagio, adagio, little by little, they told her how it was. Near the Porta San Niccolò a heavy load of bricks had been overturned, and poor Babbo, who was passing at the time, had been badly hurt. His fine gray mule Giannetta was killed. So two troubles came together. After a little the Misericordia brought Babbo home, and they put him in bed, and one of the Brethren stayed to watch him that night. He was badly hurt, and he never took a step again, though he lived for six months. La Mamma did her best: the weaving was over,—she could not have found much more weaving to do, even if Babbo had been able to bear the noise of the loom,—but she knitted, and sewed, and did what she could. Still, the money melted away. Babbo might have been put into a hospital, but La Mamma couldn't bear to part with him, even though he said often, as the days went on and he got no better, that he would rather go into a hospital than lie there and feel that he was eating up the little money he had put away for his wife and children. "Povera Leonora," he used to say,—"povera Leonora, who must work so hard while I lie here and play the signore!" And once or twice he cried a little. But for the most part he was cheerful and bore his pain with patience.
All the time la povera Mamma kept up her courage, and made Babbo believe that the money went three times as far as it did. But it melted away; and, the day before Babbo died, when she counted it over she knew that she had a hard struggle before her. She did not let him know it, however. He thought she had money to last for two or three months. So Easter came round, and still Babbo lay helpless and full of pain. The priest came to confess and communicate him, as he does all the bedridden at Easter-time, and that afternoon Babbo had less pain than for many a day. He kissed and blessed us as usual at bedtime, and then he told La Mamma to call him in the morning, so that he might light the lamp for her. This was because the table with the lamp stood by his side of the bed, and often La Mamma, who had to get up early, used to strike the light without waking him. "But now that I have no pain," says Babbo, "I'll strike a light for you, cara mia, so that you may have that comfort." Easter fell early that year, in March, and the weather was cold and stormy. When La Mamma woke up at four o'clock, the bells were ringing for first mass, but it was cold and dark, and a storm was raging. She could not bear to wake Babbo up, but she had promised to do so, and she had a long day's work before her and no time to lose. So she called him, very gently at first, and then louder. There was no answer, and she touched his shoulder and shook him a little. Still there was no answer, and, being frightened, she leaned over and touched his face. Povera mamma! it was cold as ice, and stiff. Then she put her hand on his heart, but it was still. She jumped up quickly, but, in her fright and grief, she could not find the matches. At last she did so, and then she saw that he was dead. Little Teresa slept between them, and he had her hand in his, clasped so tightly that it was many minutes before La Mamma could set it free. She did so without waking the child, and then she put her into bed with Flavia and Fausta, and woke Marc Antonio and sent him for the doctor. When he was gone she lighted the fire and did what she could to warm Babbo and bring the life back, though her heart told her, as did the doctor when he came, that all was over. By and by the children woke and cried, and La Mamma wondered that she could find words to quiet them, and yet she did. When everything was over and the house quiet, the poor soul felt her heart die in her breast, and would have been glad to lie down and die too; but no, she could not. She had to take out the purse and count the money again, and then she found that after buying a reserved grave for Babbo at the Campo Santo at Trespiano she would have just enough to pay the rent for the next six months. You know, signora, that if a reserved grave is not bought at Trespiano the bodies are put into the fossa comune, and that is the end. The graves are not marked. La Mamma could not bear the thought of that, and so she bought a reserved grave. Then came the funeral; and she called the children together and told them that if they each wanted to carry a taper for Babbo they would have to go without their supper that night. They were very hungry, every one, for, what with the trouble, and the care, and the sorrow of that last day, La Mamma had not been able to cook the dinner, and they had had nothing all day but a piece of bread. Ah, they were hungry! They had cried until they were tired out, and they were as empty as organ-tubes. Marc Antonio has told me many a time about it. "God forgive me," says he, "but when La Mamma said that, I felt the hunger grip me like a tiger, and the devil tempted me, and I said to myself, 'Babbo's gone to the world over there, and what good will a taper do him? He was never the one to want us to go to bed hungry as well as with a sore heart.'" But even while he thought the wicked thoughts the love for Babbo came into his heart again. He burst out crying and sobbing, and cried out, "Mamma, mamma, I don't want any supper to-night; I don't! I don't!" Poverino! he was growing and strong, and so hungry. Fausta and Flavia and little Teresa said the same, but it hurt them less, and they did not cry. And then little Teresa spoke up,—she was always as wise as a little angel:
"Mamma," says she, "the baby must have her supper, mustn't she?"
"Poverina! what would you have?" says La Mamma. "Yes, the poor baby must have her supper, indeed. She knows nothing, poor little one, of the sorrow in the house, or she would not grudge Babbo a taper any more than the rest of you."
Little Teresa smiled, "Then, mamma, I've baby's supper for her," says she. "I did not eat my bread all day, and you can have it now to make a pappa for her."
So La Mamma took me in her arms and went into the kitchen, and then Marc Antonio held me while she and Fausta and Flavia and Teresa made the pappa; and then each one took it in turn to feed me. You cannot know, signora, how often I have lain awake and cried to think that I should have been the only one of us all to eat like a pig that night, while dear Babbo lay dead in the house and the rest were sad and hungry. Pazienza! we need patience in this world, even with ourselves sometimes.
When the funeral was over, La Mamma put the house in order, and then she took out all her papers and accounts and counted over all she had. Just a little of the money that Babbo had saved was left,—enough, if she never touched it, to bring in seventy-three francs a year,—that is, twenty centimes [four cents] a day. She made up her mind that she would never touch it, so that each day, as long as we lived, we might have at least a piece of bread bought with Babbo's money. Then there was the parish, which gave her some help. The guardians of the poor widows appointed a guardian for us,—the Conte Bertoli, a good man, God rest his soul,—and he applied to the poor widows' fund for La Mamma and got her an allowance of fifty centimes [ten cents] a day until Marc Antonio should be fifteen and able to work; and then the Signor Conte himself added to that twenty centimes more, so that altogether La Mamma had a franc a day. But there were six of us. Thankful enough she was to have the franc; but still, as you may suppose, signora, she had to think a good deal and work hard to keep us. The elder children had all been put to a school near by, a nice school, but where Babbo had had to pay for them; now that was changed. Fausta and Flavia and Teresa were sent to the convent of the Doratei Sisters, and Marc Antonio to the Frate Scalopi. There was nothing to pay at either place, and the children were taught well and taken good care of. The convent of the Doratei is in the Via dei Malcontenti, and that of the Frate Scalopi in the Piazza Santa Croce. Marc Antonio and Fausta and Flavia and Teresa used to set off at seven every morning, winter and summer, and La Mamma walked with them, carrying me in her arms. She gave all the children a good breakfast of hot pappa before they set out for school, and some bread and apple, or bread and onions, in a basket, to eat at dinner-time. At night, when they came home, they had a good supper of casalingo [household, i.e., black] bread and milk. Then they were washed and put to bed; for La Mamma was very strict, and never allowed any one out of bed after eight o'clock. As soon as I was two years old I was sent to the Doratei too; and the big dark convent, with the great garden behind, is the first thing I ever remember. The good sisters were very kind to us. They taught all the older girls to read and write, and sew and knit, not only plain sewing, but fine stitching, and open-work, and fine darning, and button-holes, and lace-work, and so on. They also taught them to make beds, and sweep, and dust, and cook a little,—that is, how to make broth, and pappa, and such simple things. From twelve to two every day there was recreation. At twelve all the children, big and little, sat down to dinner in the refectory with the nuns. The nuns had their own dinner,—a very plain one always, for their rule is severe,—and the children had whatever they brought with them. If anything was brought that could be warmed over and made more nourishing, Sister Cherubina never grudged the trouble. When dinner was over we sang a grace, and then we all ran into the garden and had a good game of play. Of course the very little ones did nothing all day but play and sleep. Sister Arcangela took care of them. Sometimes on fine days the sisters used to take us all out for a walk in the country. Twice every week we had religious instruction. Padre Giovanni, our confessor, taught us everything, our Credo and Pater Noster, and our holy religion, and the holy gospel, and all the beautiful stories in the Bible, and the legends of the saints. Which of our Lord's miracles does the signora think the finest? For myself, I always liked the story of the night in which our Blessed Redeemer came to his disciples walking on the water. And then of the older stories I liked the one of poor Joseph and his brethren. What bad devils the brothers were! But God brought good out of evil, and rewarded poor Joseph, who was an angel, by making him a great king. Well, still I am babbling on and telling you about our school, and forgetting La Mamma. I told you she had a franc a day. Our rent cost a hundred francs a year. That was a little more than twenty-five centimes a day, and that left La Mamma about seventy centimes a day for food, and clothing, and lights, and so on. La Mamma worked day and night. Whenever she could, she used to sit up at night with sick people, for that was paid well,—a franc a night; sometimes in grand houses as much as two francs,—and then she could rest in the day-time when we were at school. But, whatever she did, or wherever she went, she always managed to be at the convent gate every evening at half-past five to bring us home. If by any chance she could not do that, Marc Antonio always waited for us and brought us home very carefully. He was a good, steady boy, and never stopped to play when we were with him, and always shut himself in with us at home and did his best to take care of us until La Mamma came back. God forgive me! but I used to think La Mamma very hard in those days. She would never let us go the length of a yard alone; and once when she caught me running out on the stairs to play hide-and-seek with some girls and boys who lived on the floor below us, she gave me such a slap that my ears rang again. Well, to tell truth, we had so much playing in the convent garden, and such a long walk home in the evening, that we were generally rather tired and glad to get quickly to bed as mamma bade us. She, poverina! always sat up, patching and darning, long after we were in bed, so that we might go decently to school.
I remember well the first real dolls we ever had. It was at the Feast of the Assumption, and there was a fair outside the Roman gate. Marc Antonio was to be apprenticed the next day to a very decent vetturino, and he had begged La Mamma to treat us all to some fried dumplings. We were all day at the fair, though of course we bought nothing; but it was a great pleasure to us to walk about and look at the booths full of gay things. We were nearly ready to come home, when Teresina spied some dolls and began to beg for one. She was such a sweet, good, gentle child that La Mamma could not bear to refuse her, especially as she scarcely ever asked for anything. And she seemed to have a passion for that doll, so pretty it was, all in pink and spangles. At last, as she begged so hard, La Mamma gave her ten centimes, and told her that if she could get it for that she might have it; and Teresina bargained so well that she got it for eight centimes; and then nothing would satisfy her but that we all should have dolls. It was in vain that La Mamma said no; Teresina would have her way. And so at last we all had dolls, and La Mamma, poor soul! spent thirty-six centimes! It seemed a mortal sin to her; and she has told me many a time how she lay awake that night and cried, and prayed to God and the saints to forgive her for that wicked extravagance. And yet she could not but feel glad to see how happy we all were with our dolls. And she was glad afterward for another reason, which I will explain presently. Little Teresina never went out again after the Feast of the Assumption. She was the first to fall ill, but before ten days were over we were all (all the girls, I mean,—Marc Antonio was not at home) struck down with smallpox. Teresina suffered most. I remember it well, how strange it seemed to me to hear her calling constantly for water and other things,—strange, because she was always the one who waited on the others, and never before thought of herself. La Mamma did everything for her that could be done, but she grew daily worse. Once mamma brought her doll and put it in her hands. I can see now—my bed was opposite to hers—how mamma watched Teresina, and how Teresina looked at the doll. In my own heart I thought, "Surely she will get better, now that she has her pretty doll." It seemed to me that she must do so. But in a moment she heaved a deep sigh, and said, "Too tired! too tired!" And then she threw the doll away from her and closed her eyes. La povera Mamma picked up the doll and put it away in a drawer, and then she sat still and looked at Teresina, with the tears rolling down her face. Whenever I woke up in the night it was always the same, mamma fanning Teresina or putting bits of ice in her mouth, and never moving her eyes from her, and Teresina no longer restless, but quite still,—so still that I had never seen anything like it. Quite early the next day the archbishop came to confirm her, and while I was looking at the grand robes he wore, and at the priests who came with him, and watching the lighted tapers blow about in the wind, for the window was open and there was a strong draught, suddenly I felt a pain in my head which was worse than anything I had felt before,—a dreadful pain, which made me feel giddy and confused. I felt myself sinking, and I suppose I must have cried out, for I remember that some one lifted me and put a wet cloth on my head. The last thing I saw was Teresina's pale, quiet face, with the white and gold confirmation ribbon bound about her brows. I never saw her again. When I came to myself, days afterward, the corner where her bed used to stand was empty, and I knew, without asking, that she was in Paradise.
Flavia and Fausta and I got well over it, but much disfigured, as you see; and yet God is good, and has sent me as kind and loving a husband as if I had been the most beautiful person in the world.
Well, the time went on, just as before, until Flavia was old enough to be apprenticed to Madama Castagna, the grand dressmaker. She had always been a good, steady, hard-working girl, and, thanks to the good Doratei Sisters, she sewed so beautifully that very soon Madama allowed her twenty centimes a day. She had to work from eight till eight; but of course she could not expect more than twenty centimes while she was learning.
Fausta was not so fortunate. She was a good girl, and the cleverest and quickest of us all,—yes, indeed, cleverer than I am, although the signora does think so well of me,—but she changed too often. First, she wanted to learn how to bind shoes (I forgot to say that they taught that in the convent), and so, while the rest of us were learning to sew and knit, she was binding shoes. Then, suddenly, she thought she would like to learn to weave, and she went to her godmother, the Contessa Minia, and told her so. The contessa was good and generous, and she gave her a loom, and Sister Annunziata taught her to weave. But just at the time that Fausta ought to have been apprenticed, the silk-trade, which, as I said before, had been going down for several years, failed altogether, and Fausta had to sell her loom for what it would bring. Then she thought that she would like to learn lace-mending: so the contessa got her a lace-cushion, and apprenticed her to a lace-mender for four years. Just as her time was out, poor Fausta had a bad fall, broke her right arm and injured her leg, so that for many months she was confined to her bed, and was unable to walk for more than a year. Then, as if the poor girl were destined to trouble, she must needs fall in love, and with a bad, good-for-nothing fellow. La Mamma would not consent, and we all begged and prayed her not to have him, but Fausta was obstinate, and married him. Poverina! she has had one trouble after another, and will have to the end.
As soon as I had passed my fourteenth birthday I was apprenticed to Madama. Flavia was one of her best workwomen then, as she has been ever since. After the first six months I received twenty centimes a day, and at the end of the first year thirty centimes. We went away from home every morning at seven o'clock. La Mamma gave us a good breakfast of black bread and coffee before we set out, and black bread and onions or apples for our dinner. Sometimes, instead of onions or apples, she would give us ten or fifteen centimes; and that we liked better, because then we could make a bank. Making a bank we called it when we put all our money together. Madama had then twenty-five apprentices, and at dinner-time we used to put all our money together and send out and buy something. One would buy anchovies, another ham, another olives, another cheese, and so on. There was one apprentice who always did the marketing for us. Then we used to clear the work-table and set out our food, and dine merrily enough. I was an apprentice at Madama's for five years, and then began to work for myself. If Madama had been willing to pay me a franc a day and give me my dinner besides, I dare say that I might have been there now; but she would not, and so I plucked up my courage and tried my hand alone. For some time before I left her I had been working so well, at cutting out and fitting, finishing, and so on, that she used to give me all the finest and most difficult work to do; but still she never did and never would pay me more than eighty centimes [sixteen cents] a day. None of us got more than that. What we always liked to do was to carry the dresses home, because then the ladies usually gave us something. And at Christmas, when we went to wish our patrons all happiness, we got very nice presents. One Christmas we received thirty francs. When we carried dresses home we generally got twenty or thirty centimes. That made fifteen centimes for each of us, because we always did errands in couples. One night at ten o'clock we had to go quite across Florence in a driving rain to carry a lady a ball-dress. We were dripping wet when we reached her palace, but the dress was in good order, and we hoped, considering the lateness of the hour, and the bad weather, and so on, that the lady would give us something handsome, perhaps as much as half a franc. Well, she was very glad to see us, and, after putting on the dress, she said that she must give us something. And so she did,—five centimes [one cent] to each of us! I swallowed my anger, and put the coin into my pocket, but my companion fitted hers nicely into the key-hole of the hall door as soon as it was closed behind us. "There!" says she; "now my lady miser will have to send for a locksmith, and that will teach her not to be so stingy another time." So we both ran home laughing, in spite of our disappointment. But we were not so fortunate as to get off without a scolding. The next day the lady came to Madama and complained of our impertinence. Madama scolded us a little; but when she heard what a pitiful buona mano the lady had given us, she could not help laughing herself.
Still, she never thought of raising our pay, and as I improved, and felt myself quite mistress of my trade, I began to work over hours, at one or two houses where La Mamma had patrons, and in that way I got on very quickly. It was a proud day for me, signora, when I first began to give La Mamma something toward the housekeeping. I wanted to give her two-thirds of all I earned, but she would not let me. When I began to earn a franc and a half a day, she accepted half a franc, but she made me put away the franc for my dote. La Mamma always walked with me to the houses where I went to work, and in the evening either came for me herself or sent Marc Antonio. And she bade me be very careful and watchful and keep myself to myself. Often I thought her severe and suspicious, but now I thank God for the mother he gave us. We owe all the happiness of our lives to her.
I had been working for myself, as I have said, for more than five years. I had plenty of patrons, and was well thought of. Plain as I am, signora, I had not wanted for opportunities to go wrong; but, thank God, I never did. Once, too, I had thought of being married, but, happily for me, I found out in time that I had set my love on a bad man, so I broke off my engagement, and put the thought of marriage away from me. Fausta had been married a long time, and so had Marc Antonio. Flavia said that she never would leave La Mamma, and I thought that I would do the same. But it was not to be. One morning La Mamma, who had been sitting up with a sick baby at the Albergo della Stella, came home and told me that I was born to good fortune,—that Signorina Teodora, the landlord's daughter, was going to be married, and that I was wanted to work at the trousseau. It was all to be made at home, and the signorina engaged me for three months. It was the first time that I had ever gone to an hotel to work; and La Mamma gave me a great many counsels about my behavior. Signorina Teodora was very kind, and the work was just exactly what I liked to do. I used to sew in the guarda-roba (linen-room), where the linen-keeper, a very respectable woman, was busy all day, mending and arranging the linen. That was all well enough, but at meal-times I was very uncomfortable. I used to go down to the servants' dining-room, and there the talk, and the manners too, were coarse and rude. I did not like to complain, but my position was a very hard one. I had taught the men to keep their distance, and they did so, but they were cross and disagreeable to me, and nicknamed me "La Superba" (the proud one). The women-servants all said that I gave myself airs, and if they could do anything to annoy me they did. At last I proposed to Signorina Teodora that I should be allowed to take my meals in the guarda-roba, so that I might be nearer my work. But she said no, that would not do, but that I might have them in a little room next the padrone's dining-room, and that she would say that this was because I was wanted for trying on her dresses just at the time that the servants' dinner was served. The first time I went down to dinner alone I felt very much frightened; but my dinner was put on the table very nicely, and one of the men-servants, whom I had never spoken to before, waited on me. He did so just as politely as if I had been a lady, but he was very quiet. The next day he began to talk a little, and told me about his mother (who was dead), and about his childhood, and the customs of the Abruzzi, because he came from that part of Italy. We used to talk together so, day after day, while he waited on me, and we became very good friends. At last, when the time of my engagement was nearly run out, Luigi—that was the waiter's name—became very silent, but he served my dinner as nicely and carefully as ever. I was a little afraid that I had offended him, because every evening he used to say, as I rose from the table, "Are you coming back to-morrow?" And every time I said yes, he would answer, "Well, then, I can say what I have to say to-morrow," At last one night, when he said as usual, "Are you coming back to-morrow, sarta [dressmaker]?" I answered no,—that my work was over. "Well, then," says Luigi, "I must find courage to tell you to-night, sarta, that I love you, and I want you to be my wife!"
I sat still a moment, quite thunder-struck, and then I jumped up and ran out of the room. "I can say not a word," I said, as I passed him, "You know you ought to have spoken to La Mamma first."
"If that's all," says he, following me to the foot of the stairs, "I can speak to La Mamma to-morrow night."
"And then I may say no," I called out as I ran up-stairs.
Well, the next night he came to see La Mamma, and brought his uncle with him. This uncle was a very decent man, who had been gardener for thirty years in Count Gemiani's family. He was the only relation Luigi had in the world, and he gave him an excellent character. But I would not say a word. I told Luigi I could not tell whether I liked him or not until I saw him in borghese [i.e., dressed in ordinary clothes], because you know, signora, I had only seen him dressed in black, with a white cravat. Well, he was very patient, and, as soon as he was at liberty, he came again, dressed in borghese, and then he pleased me, and I made up my mind to have him.
But then came another trouble. The match was not well looked upon by La Mamma and my brother and sisters, because Luigi was a person in service, and that had never happened in our family before. Babbo, as I have said, was a carrier; Mamma, a silk-weaver; Marc Antonio had married a cucitrice di bianco [shirt-maker]; Fausta, a candle-maker,—but, to be sure, her marriage did not matter, because her husband was a bad man. However, I was obstinate, and La Mamma liked Luigi in her heart, and so at last we were engaged. He used to come and see me two evenings in the week. Sometimes La Mamma sat with us, and sometimes Flavia. When it was Flavia's turn Luigi used to laugh and say the sentinel was changed. We had to keep our engagement very quiet, because you know that the men-servants at Italian hotels are not allowed to marry, and, though most of them are in reality married men, they always pretend to be bachelors. Gradually we made our preparations. Luigi had nearly eight hundred francs saved, and I had about four hundred. We spent about three hundred in getting our furniture and linen and so on, and Luigi took an apartment in the Borgo Santo Jacopo. I chose the house because it is directly opposite the Albergo della Stella, and I knew that I should feel happier if I could look across the river to the hotel lights and think that my Luigi was there. We were married on the morning of the 30th of August, and when we had been promessi sposi for six months. The religious marriage was just after the early mass [five o'clock], and we all walked over together to the church. I felt quite calm,—not frightened at all; but when, four hours later, we had to go over to the Palazzo Vecchio for the civil marriage, I was all tears and trembling. However, that passed, like other things. We had quite a fine wedding breakfast. Marc Antonio had brought a friend of his, a nice, quiet man, who was a very good cook. He was out of place just then, and he had offered to cook for us if we would give him his breakfast. We had a mixed fry, and macaroni, and ravaioli, and a melon, one course after another, just like signori. Everybody had a good appetite, except Luigi and me, and La Mamma said that it did her soul good to hear the sound of frying in the house. Poverina! she did not often hear it. Well, after breakfast we all took a walk in the country, and when we came home again Flavia began to prepare supper, but Luigi said no, we must go home, that our supper was waiting for us there. So I put my bonnet on, and then, when we were ready to say good-by, every one burst into tears,—La Mamma, and Flavia, and Fausta, and Marc Antonio and his wife, and I, and even Luigi, though he said afterward he was sure he did not know why. And how we all embraced! The signora would have thought that we were going over the sea, instead of just across the Ponte Vecchio. At last we went away arm in arm, and when we got to our own home there I found that Luigi had arranged the table so nicely, just as he used to do at the albergo, and had put a bunch of flowers in the centre. So we sat down to supper, and pretended to be signori just for that one evening.
The next day, being Sunday, we all went to high mass at the Duomo, and I wore my new wedding-gown of black cashmere. In the afternoon we went out to Certosa; and that was the end of my wedding-journey, for the next morning Luigi had to go back to his work at the albergo, and I had to take up my sewing again. It seemed so strange to be sitting down to work in my own house, and to look across the Arno at the great albergo and think that I had a husband there. Luigi could not come home as often as he longed to do, because he had but two free nights in the week. And he dared scarcely look out of the window, for fear some one should suspect that he was married, and then he would have lost his place. However, everything went well. We have been married eight years now, and, what with Luigi's fifty francs a month, and the incerti [pour-boires] and my work, we do pretty well. Luigi, thank God, is a good man, faithful and true and kind. I have never heard an angry word from him yet. And then he has no faults,—he does not smoke, or drink wine, or gamble; and regularly every month he brings me all his money to take care of. He is such a good son to La Mamma, too. He would never take a mouthful of food until he had helped her; and if a famine came to Florence, and there was but a piece of bread between Luigi and La Mamma, he would make her eat it, I know. Si, signora, we all live together now; La Mamma takes care of our little boy, and Flavia is head-woman in Madama Castagna's workroom, while I go out by the day, as I always did. It is a little harder for us this winter than usual, because there are so few forestieri. It really seemed as if the alberghi would never open. Luigi said that every evening there would be a crowd of people—waiters, and facchini, and so on—waiting at the door of the albergo and begging for work. And the padrone [landlord] used to say, "Find me the forestieri, and I'll find you the work." My Luigi is such a good servant that the padrone keeps him employed all the year round; but he felt very anxious this winter when he saw how few forestieri there were, and tried to save in every possible way. But, thank God, he never grudges La Mamma anything, and she often says that these are her happiest days. She still works at knitting stockings, and braiding straw, and such light work; and she takes our baby boy out to walk twice a day, and every day at noon, rain or shine, she goes to mass. Many a quiet hour she has now in church to pray for Babbo, whom she never forgets, and for all of us. Then when we all come home from our work we have such pleasant evenings. I tell about the fine gowns I make for my ladies, and Luigi has so many stories about the grand forestieri and all their strange caprices, and then Marc Antonio and his wife come in, and he tells us about the ladies and gentlemen he drives out in his vettura, and she describes the fine linen she makes for her ladies. Well, if signori live for nothing else, they give us a great deal of pleasure.
Si, signora, we still live in the same apartment in the Borgo Santo Jacopo, on the south side of the Arno. I would not go away, because when my husband is at the albergo I can look across the river and think that he is there. Very often when I sit up late at my work, and all the rest are asleep and Luigi at the albergo, I look over the river, and the lights at the "Stella" seem to keep me company. Luigi, too, watches my light. I always sit by my window and keep my lamp there, so that he may know how late I work. Well, here is the signora's gown quite finished, and the end of my poor story. So good-night, signora, and may the good Lord send the signora a happy New Year!
Marie L. Thompson.