Now we have settled all that, I hope, and there's nothing left but to toss my traps into my trunk, and lock it. I don't care much whether there is anything inside of it or not, for I'm desperate. These few last hot days have finished me. I'm almost afraid to trust myself to "write a character" for my departing chamber-maid, I feel so savage. You can take her, though; the only crime she will have to "carry to confession" is, that when she puts my room "to rights," she invariably turns the table which has a drawer in it, the drawer-side next the wall. To a person of my feeble intellect, this is distracting, especially in the dark; and I have so many distractions, and am so much in the dark, that really, Father Malooney, or some other nice priest, ought to jog her elbow on this point. They who will may abuse Roman Catholic priests—every sensible housekeeper knows their value. Long life to the like of 'em, I say.
Good-by! If I am smashed on the railroad, weep over my pieces. I think you told me you had already done that—on less provocation.
Geography never could find a lodgement in my head; but this I will assert, without fear of being sent to "the foot of the class," that granite, fish, and sand, are the principal products of Cape Ann. When you go down Broadway and see those square stone blocks in process of being pounded down for our mutual benefit, know that I am up here, a self-constituted superintendent of the work. Said a Cape-Ann-der the other day, "When you see six hundred ton of granite taken out of a quarry every week for the whole summer, you'd not-erally think that 'twould leave a hole there, but it don't." I mention this remark to you as a proof of the fertility of the soil.
Needle and thread are not to be despised any more than the deft fingers which ply them; but you should sit on a big stone at one of the quarries, and watch four or five of these stalwart fellows, each muscular hand grasping the hammer, coming down rhythmically, surely, powerfully, at the same instant, hour after hour, on the same huge granite block, till it is shaped for its purpose. It was a grand and suggestive sight to me. The men who did it were heroes; shaping—who can tell what?—monuments for history—public buildings—that will stand long after you and I are forgotten. And the other side of these exhaustless stone caverns rolled the broad ocean, waiting to float off on its mighty bosom these huge masses of granite to any desired port. And close by were woods, so filled with song, and perfume, and deep, cool shadows, and soft hum of insect life, and ancient trees, moss-coated, where the swell of the ocean and the sound of all this labor came with muffled breath, as if fearful to bring jarring discord to all that harmony. This granite, thought I, may stand for our pilgrim fathers; these woods, with their song and perfume, for their wives and daughters, who brought to this "rock-bound coast" the softening influence of their sweet, holy presence.
Away from all this, over the hill, down in the village, are the stores, and, more important to me, the post-office. I don't know what our pilgrim fathers did, but I know that to-day their descendants close them when they go to tea or dinner, while expectant customers patiently roost on the neighboring fences till their places reopen. But I am happy to state that the Cape-Ann-ders make up for this placidity when they get hold not only of granite, but of horse-flesh. It is their stereotyped rule to race up-hill, at break-neck speed. It is therefore needless to state how they go down-hill and how perfectly immaterial to them it is whether the horse fetches up in a stone-quarry or in the ocean. I ought to know, for I have danced often enough into the wet grass and dust, and over stone walls, in order to save my neck, to know. You see the Cape-Ann-ders, being born with oars in their hands, have not studied horse-flesh like Mr. Bonner. The ocean is their hunting-ground. One can't excel in all the virtues; but such fish as they coax out of it, and such chowder as they make of it, would go far to make one forget their equestrianism. I've seen about every kind of fish on the table except whales, of which I had my first astonished view yesterday. That bulk can be frisky was the first lesson they taught me. As to their spouting, a political meeting is nothing to it! When they came up out of water to breathe, you might have heard them in New York—that is, if the rag-man, with his six infernal jangling cow-bells, hadn't been going through your street.
There is nothing I have sighed for in those streets since I left them, except some digestible bread. I suppose you know that commodity is seldom furnished out of the city. If you don't, you may read it in the faces of nearly every woman, and child too, after a certain age, in the country. The men, by virtue of working in the open air, worry through with it better. Saleratus, soda, shortening, grease, and sugar! these are as infallibly married to pills, and castor-oil, and rhubarb, and bitters, as are the sexes to each other. All over New England, in these lovely leafy homes, with the blessing of sweet, pure, untainted air, with literally no excuse for sickness, vile bread vitiates and neutralizes God's best gifts.
The cupboards and closets of these naturally healthy homes are stuffed full of "physic;" and the country doctor, who ought, in these lovely villages, to be a pauper, thrives on the disastrous consumption of fried everything, and clammy bread. Meantime my excellent country friends put up pounds and quarts of "jell" every fall. Now, let them know that half, or a quarter of the time spent in making these indigestible sugary concoctions, if spent in learning to make good bread, would obliterate all traces of dyspepsia both under their belts and in their faces. If I seem to speak unkindly, I do not feel so; only it seems to me such a useless waste of material, and what is infinitely worse, such a criminal waste of health, that I cannot help entering my earnest protest against it.
I boldly assert that dyspepsia in the country is a disgrace. The birds' song is not heard by a dyspeptic. The flowers by the road-side throw out no incense for him. There may be fish in his ocean, but there is no beauty there. How can there be with that fiend plucking at his suspenders?