I am not unaware that there are men whom the tailor makes, and women who are manufactured by the dress-maker, and that they often marry each other. Let such fulfill their august destiny—to dress. I know that there are women much more intelligent than their husbands; let such show their intelligence by appearing not to know it. Still, it remains as I have said, that there exist the wives and mothers whose cause I now plead, fulfilling each day, not hopelessly—God forbid! but sometimes with a sad sinking of heart, the duties which no true wife or mother will neglect, even under circumstances rendered so disheartening by the husband and father, of whose praise, perhaps, the world is full. Let the latter see to it, that while the momentous question, "What shall I get for dinner?" may never, though the heavens should fall, evade her daily and earnest consideration, that he would sometimes, by his intelligent conversation, when there is no company, recognize the existence of the soul of this married housekeeper.
GRANDMOTHER'S CHAT ABOUT CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD.
HAT can fascinate you in that ugly beast?"
This question was addressed to me, while regarding intently a camel in a collection of animals. "Ugly?" To me he was poetry itself. I was a little girl again. I was kneeling down at my little chair at family prayers. I didn't understand the prayers. "The Jews" were a sealed book to me then. I didn't know why "a solemn awe" should fall upon me either; or what was a solemn awe, anyhow. For a long time, I know, till I was quite a big girl, I thought it was one word—thus, solemnor—owing to the rapid manner in which it was pronounced. Where the heathen were going to be "brought in," or what they were coming for, I didn't understand; and as to "justification," and "sanctification," and "election," it was no use trying. But the walls of the pleasant room where family prayers were held, were papered with "a Scripture paper." There were great feathery palm-trees. There were stately females bearing pitchers on their heads. There were Isaac and Rebecca at the well; and there were camels, humped, bearing heavy burdens, with long flexile necks, resting under the curious, feathery trees, with their turbaned attendants. I understood that. To be sure, the blue was, as I now recollect it, sometimes on their noses as well as on the sky; and the green was on their hair as well as on the grass; but at the pinafore-age we are not hypercritical. To me it was fairy-land; and often when "Amen" was said, I remained with my little chin in my palms, staring at my beloved camels, unconscious of the breakfast that was impending, for our morning prayers were said on an empty stomach.
I hear, now, the soft rustle of my mother's dress, as she rose after the "Amen." I see the roguish face of my baby brother, whose perfect beauty was long since hid under the coffin lid. I see the servants, disappearing through the door that led down to the kitchen, whence came the fragrant odor of coming coffee. I see my mother's flowering plants in the window, guiltless of dust or insect, blossoming like her virtues and goodness, perennially. I see black curly heads, and flaxen curly heads, of all sizes, but all "curly," ranged round the breakfast table; the names of many of their owners are on marble slabs in Mount Auburn now.
So you understand why I "stood staring at that ugly beast," in the collections of animals, and thinking of the changes, in all these long years, that had passed so swiftly; for now I am fifty-four, if I am a minute. And how wonderful it was, that after such a lapse of time, and so thickly crowded with events, that this family-morning-prayer-hour should come up with such astonishing vividness, at sight of that camel. Oh! I shall always love a camel. He will never look "ugly" to me. I am not sorry, nor ever have been, that I was brought up to "family prayers," unintelligible though they then were to me.
I hunted up those "Jews" after I got bigger, and many other things, too, the names of which got wedged crosswise in my childish memory, and stuck there. They never did me any harm, that ever I found out. I have sent up many a prayer, both in joy and sorrow, since then, but not always "on my knees," which was considered essential in those days. As to the "solemn awe," I don't understand it now any better than when I was a child. I can't feel it, in praying, any more than I should when running to some dear, tried friend, with a burdened heart, to sob my grief away there, till I grew peaceful again. And all this came of a Camel.