Soon after came the evening procession of Democrats. The army of horses; temples of Liberty, with figures in women’s dress to represent the goddess; raccoons hung, and guillotined, and swallowed by alligators; the lone star of Texas everywhere glimmering over their heads; the whole shadowy mass occasionally illuminated by the rush of fire-works, and the fitful glare of lurid torches; all this made a strange and wild impression on the mind of Alice, whose nervous system had suffered in the painful internal conflicts of her life. It reminded her of the memorable 10th of August in Paris; and she had visions of human heads reared on poles before the windows, as they had been before the palace of the unfortunate Maria Antoinette. Visitors observed their watches, and said it took this procession an hour longer to pass than it had for the Whig procession. “I guess Polk will beat after all,” said one. George was angry and combated the opinion vehemently. Even after the company had all gone, and the street noises had long passed off in the distance, he continued remarkably moody and irritable. He had more cause for it than his wife was aware of. She supposed the worst that could happen, would be defeat of his party and loss of office. But antagonists, long accustomed to calculate political games with a view to gambling, had dared him to bet on the election, being perfectly aware of his sanguine temperament; and George, stimulated solely by a wish to prove to the crowd, who heard them, that he considered the success of Clay’s party certain, allowed himself to be drawn into the snare, to a ruinous extent. All his worldly possessions, even his watch, his books, and his household furniture, were at stake; and ultimately all were lost. Alice sympathized with his deep dejection, tried to forget her own sorrows, and said it would be easy for her to assist him, she was so accustomed to earn her own living.
On their wedding day, George had given her a landscape of the rustic school-house, embowered in vines, and shaded by its graceful elm. He asked to have this reserved from the wreck, and stated the reason. No one had the heart to refuse it; for even amid the mad excitement of party triumph, everybody said, “I pity his poor wife.”
She left her cherished home before the final breaking up. It would have been too much for her womanly heart, to see those beloved household goods carried away to the auction-room. She lingered long by the astral lamp, and the little round table, where she and George used to read to each other, in the first happy year of their marriage. She did not weep. It would have been well if she could. She took with her the little vase, that used to stand on the desk in the old country school-house, and a curious Wedgewood pitcher George had given her on the day little Alice was born. She did not show them to him, it would make him so sad. He was tender and self-reproachful; and she tried to be very strong, that she might sustain him. But health had suffered in these storms, and her organization fitted her only for one mission in this world; that was, to make and adorn a home. Through hard and lonely years she had longed for it. She had gained it, and thanked God with the joyfulness of a happy heart. And now her vocation was gone.
In a few days, hers was pronounced a case of melancholy insanity. She was placed in the hospital, where her husband strives to surround her with every thing to heal the wounded soul. But she does not know him. When he visits her, she looks at him with strange eyes, and still clinging to the fond ideal of her life, she repeats mournfully, “I want my home. Why don’t George come and take me home?”
* * * * *
Thus left adrift on the dark ocean of life, George Franklin hesitated whether to trust the chances of politics for another office, or to start again in his profession, and slowly rebuild his shattered fortunes from the ruins of the past. Having wisely determined in favor of the latter, he works diligently and lives economically, cheered by the hope that reason will again dawn in the beautiful soul that loved him so truly.
His case may seem like an extreme one; but in truth he is only one of a thousand similar wrecks continually floating over the turbulent sea of American politics.
TO THE TRAILING ARBUTUS.
Thou delicate and fragrant thing!
Sweet prophet of the coming Spring!
To what can poetry compare
Thy hidden beauty, fresh and fair?