A conundrum was given out,—"What is the way to slip into Heaven easy?" Miss Mitchell protested, sure that the answer must be something denominational or Calvinistic. On hearing the answer,—"Make frequent use of the church ile," she exclaimed quickly, "Oh, that's Episcopal! The orthodox people think it is no matter what you do if you only think right; the Unitarians think it is no matter what you believe if you only do right; and the Episcopalians think it is no matter what you do or what you believe if you only go to church."
The Faculty table in the dining-room was also for students' guests, no separate table then. Miss Mitchell often came in late and tired, resenting, as she put it, "to be polite." One day she came in to dinner to find a warm student friend there with a young man as her guest. As he had been placed by Miss Mitchell, he endeavored to enter into conversation with her, introduced by the student, receiving for his pains very scant courtesy and notice. Suddenly some remark he made to his student friend arrested her attention. She turned to him, "Young man, I did not catch your name." "Chadwick." The student spoke then,—"Reverend Doctor Chadwick, Miss Mitchell. You remember you told me to bring him over to the observatory, when he should come?" But he had a royal welcome and visit later. She knew his writings, had a warm admiration for him and made ample amends for his first cold reception.
She disliked extremely to have attention called to anything out of order in her dress, and the person who innocently ventured to tell her was sure to get pungent reproof. Once as she stood in the college office by the counter waiting for the mail, a teacher passing, unaware of this peculiarity, picked off with a good deal of manner and great unnecessary deliberation a long white thread from Miss Mitchell's grey shawl. "Please put that back just where you took it from! I consider it an impertinence!"
She had to accept, though, and laugh in spite of herself, at her predicament in Main Street one afternoon. Forty years ago a leghorn bonnet was not a thing to be treated lightly and thrown aside at the end of a season, but reappeared, year after year, to be bleached, pressed and rejuvenated generally. Miss Mitchell was taking one of this sort to her milliner, swinging carelessly the huge paper bag in which the denuded bonnet reposed. Suddenly her name was called several times, and turning she was aware of a fastidious little old gentleman of her acquaintance, his own hat in one hand and her unsightly headgear in the other, bowing before her, breathless in his pursuit,—"Miss Mitchell, when you alighted from the street car back there, I happened to be passing just as this dropped out of your bag," presenting, as he spoke, the unfortunate bonnet of whose loss she had been entirely unaware. The courtly grace of his action amused her immensely, and she delighted to tell this story often.
She had many other stories against herself that she liked to tell. One was of being on an ocean steamer and hearing a man among a group of passengers near say,—"Maria Mitchell, daughter of General O. M. Mitchell, the astronomer, is on board." Attention being called to her proximity, and that it was thought she belonged to another branch of the name, he crossed over to Miss Mitchell's chair, and put the question to her direct. She answered quietly,—"No, my father is William Mitchell of Nantucket. He is also an astronomer." "All the same," she heard him say in a low tone as he regained his party, "I can't help what she says, but Maria Mitchell, the astronomer, is the daughter of General Mitchell of Ohio."
Again she was on a steamer bound for Nantucket, and as the passage was rough, was lying half asleep on a couch in the ladies' cabin. Two women belonging to Nantucket were chatting together in the farthest corner of the room, and she suddenly became faintly conscious that she was the subject of their conversation. "I suppose Maria Mitchell has done some pretty big things—people say so—but she is awful homely!" "Well, yes," hesitated the other, "I s'pose she is, but you must admit she has fine eyes."
She shared a cottage one summer with Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, whom she much admired and liked, though no greater contrast can be imagined than existed between the two women in temperament and tastes. Some of Miss Mitchell's college girls paid her a visit there one day, and she got Mrs. Burnett's permission to introduce the students to her. They had a delightful call in her room, made beautiful with antique furniture, pictures, rugs, cushions—everything that could appeal to cultivated eyes and aesthetic sense. Returning with them to her own quarters across the hall from the author's suite, Miss Mitchell waved her hand to the room just left:—"Girls, that is Paris, and this," ushering them into her rather bare parlor, "this is—Cape Cod."
How fond she was of a good story! She always rejoiced in a fresh anecdote, and made you feel her debtor by contributing one. One Monday the Rev. Dr. Charles Robinson dined with a few of us at Miss Mitchell's private table, having been at the college over Sunday. He was a famous story-teller, and she challenged him to tell more in three minutes than she could. He began instantly in all seriousness a breathless string of nonsense rhymes and couplets after this style,—"The—bell—rings—when—it—is—tolled—but—the—organ—says —I'll—be—blowed—first—Mary—had—a—little—lamb—its—fleas— were—white—as—snow—how—can—that—be—since—fleas—you—know— are—black—as—any—crow—" and so on till his time was up. He won, for Miss Mitchell was laughing—as we all were—and unable to go on with the contest.
Her humor and quickness at repartee—"capping"—she called it, showed in her last illness, even when articulation was difficult and her words hardly understandable. Her sister, Mrs. Kendall, came in one morning and stood by the bedside with cheerful greeting, "Thee looks well this morning, Maria." In a flash, the invalid responded brokenly and weakly,—"My—face—is—my—fortune," "sir—she said," finished Mrs. Kendall for her.
Her unexpectedness was delightful, if often a little embarrassing. One never could predict what she would do next. She would beckon a teacher in passing out of the dining-room to stop at the Faculty table, and before those assembled there, ask her some question such as,—"Have you a silk dress? And how many?" "There!" dejectedly. "I was afraid you had! It was said at this table just now that not a teacher in the college but had a silk dress. I said I didn't believe it, that there must be somebody here that couldn't afford one," adding in friendly dismissal, "Well, I'm glad you have one." Another time she called out, "I hear you are engaged to be married. I denied the report, as you had not told me first." The teacher, used to Miss Mitchell's way, showed no confusion, carried out the joke by saying, "I have hardly had a chance to tell you yet," and laughingly made her escape. A student who had just entered college met her shortly after arrival. Miss Mitchell stopped her. "You have a dimple in your chin. Well, so has George William Curtis, but still it is a deformity."