Yes, I was glad to have seen Niagara, but I was not sorry to leave it. Its rushing torrent threw a shadow over my spirit. Its monster jaws seemed hungry for some victim, other than the unconscious leaves which it whirled so impatiently and disdainfully out of sight. Its never-ceasing roar seemed like the trumpet-challenge to battle, telling of mangled corpses and broken hearts. No;—dearer to me is the silvery little brook, tripping lightly through green meadows, singing low and sweet to the nodding flowers, bending to see their own sweet beauty mirrored in its clear face. I like not that all Nature’s gentle voices should be tyrannically hushed to silence, drowned by a despot’s deafening roar. Give me the low murmur of the trees; I like the hum of the bee; I like the flash of the merry little fish; I like the little bird, circling, darting, singing, skimming the blue above, dipping his blight wings in the blue below; I like the cricket which chirps the tired farmer to sleep; I like the distant bleat of the lamb, the faint lowing of the cow; I lay my head on Nature’s breast, in her gentler moods, and tell her all my hopes and fears, and am not ashamed of my tears. But she drives me from her when she roars and foams, and flashes fierce lightning from her angry eyes; I close my ears to her roaring thunder. But when, clearing the cloud from her brow, she hangs a rainbow on her breast, throws perfume to the pretty flowers, and smiles caressingly through her tears—ah, then I love her; then she is all my own again.
Here I have been running on! and all this while you have been waiting to know the rest of my story. Well, Nelly and I started to go back to New York. Nelly did not like the idea of trusting herself in the cars, nor, to tell the truth, did I; but there was no help for it: besides, it is not wise to be a slave to one’s fears. So we tried to forget all about it. A girl who lived with me once remarked, there is always something happening most days. So we soon found amusement. An old lady in the cars, when she had smelled up all her camphor and eaten all her lozenges, commenced asking me questions faster than I could answer, and looking at Nelly through her spectacles. Some of her questions were very funny, and, from any body but an old lady, would have been impertinent; but we answered them all, for it was very evident she did not ride in the cars every day, and was determined to get her money’s worth. Poor old lady! I suppose she had lived all her life in some small village where there was only a blacksmith’s shop and a meeting-house, and where every body knew what time every body got up, and what they had for breakfast. Nice old lady! I hope somebody gave her a good cup of tea, and a rocking-chair, when she got home, which, I regret to say, was the first stopping-place after we left Niagara.
From the car-windows Nelly and I saw the Catskill Mountains. O the lovely changing hues of their steep and misty sides; the billowy clouds that rolled up, and rolled over, and rolled off;—then the far-off summit, now hidden, now revealed, lying against the sky, tempting us to see from thence the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them. And so we will, some day. I will tell you what we see.
Night came, and we had not yet reached New York. Nelly was dusty, and hungry, and tired; but she was a good traveler, and made no complaint. The cars were dashing along through the darkness, close by the edge of the Hudson River, and Nelly clasped my hand more closely as she looked out of the windows upon its dark surface, and sighed as if she feared some accident might tip us all over into it. But no such accident occurred, and by-and-by the bright gas-lights of New York shone and sparkled; and the never-failing gutter odor informed us that we were back again upon its dusty streets.
THE MORNING-GLORY.
“How did Luly look?” Her eyes were brown, her hair was brown, too; she was very pale, and slender, and had a soft, sweet voice, just such a voice as you would expect from such a fragile little girl. Luly did not like to be noticed: she was fond of being by herself, and would often sit for an hour at a time, quite still, with her slender hands crossed in her lap, thinking; her cheek would flush, and her eye moisten, but no one knew what Luly was thinking about. Luly did not love to play; she did not care for dolls, or baby-houses; she never jumped rope, or drove hoop, or played hunt the slipper; this troubled her mother, who knew that all healthy young creatures love to play and frolic; and so she brought Luly all sorts of pretty toys, and Luly would say very sweetly, “Thank you, dear mamma,” and put them on the shelf, but she never played with them, and seemed quite to forget that they were there. Luly’s grandmother shook her head, and said, “Luly will die; Luly will never live to grow up.”
If Luly heard any one speak in a harsh, cross voice, she would shiver all over, as if some cold wind were blowing upon her; and if she saw two persons quarreling, she never would be satisfied till she had made peace between them. One day, before she could speak plain, her mother sent her down to the kitchen on an errand; when she got to the door, she stood still, for the cook and the chambermaid were very angry with each other; one was saying “You did,” and the other “I didn’t,” in very loud tones, and their faces were very red with passion. Luly stood in the door-way, looking, listening, and trembling, as she always did at any such sight. Tears gathered slowly in her eyes, and unable to bear it any longer, she stepped between them, and clasping her little hands, said in her broken way, with her sweet, musical voice, “Oh, don’t condict, please don’t condict.” So the girls stopped contradicting, ashamed before a little child, “for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Luly never disobeyed her mother—never—never. If her mother told her not to go out in the garden without her leave, and then went away for an hour, she was just as sure that Luly had obeyed her, as if she had been there to see; and yet, every night when this little girl went to bed, she would say, as she laid her head upon the pillow, “Mother, do you think God will forgive all my sins to-day? I hope he will, I hope I haven’t made God sorry, mother;” and when her mother said, “Yes, I know he will forgive you, Luly,” she would smile so peacefully, and say: “Now you can go down stairs, mother.” Luly never was afraid of God; she never thought or spoke of His “punishing” her; but she loved Him so much that it was a great grief to her to think that she might have “made Him sorry,” as she called it. One morning when she woke, one beautiful summer morning, when the scent of the roses came in at the open window, when the dew-drops were glistening, and the green trees waving, and the birds singing, she crept out of her little crib, and stood at her window looking out on the fair earth, with her little hands clasped, her eyes beaming, and her cheek glowing.
“What is it, Luly?” said her mother, as tears rolled slowly down Luly’s cheeks.
“I want to see Him,” whispered Luly.