“Oh yes,” she replied, “this is life. This is freedom.”
“Suppose we dine here,” I said.
“Oh yes,” she replied, “I should like it above all things. Let us dine on the grass, the table the great Spirit spreads for his children;” and the transient cloud passed away, and we sped back to the lawn as if the bark that carried us was a bird that bore us on its wings.
Poor Jessie, how well I understood her emotions. Home is a word, if there is one in the language, that appeals directly to the heart. Man and wife, father and mother, brothers and sisters, master and servant, with all their ties, associations, and duties, all, all are contained in that one word. Is it any wonder, when her imagination raised them up before her, that the woman became again a child, and that she longed for the wings of the dove to fly away to the tents of her tribe in the far west? I am myself as dry, as seasoned, and as hard as the wood of which my clocks are made. I am a citizen of the world rather than of Slickville. But I too felt my heart sink within me when I reflected that mine, also, was desolate, and that I was alone in my own house, the sole surviving tenant of all that large domestic circle, whose merry voices once made its silent halls vocal with responsive echoes of happiness. We know that our fixed domicile is not here, but we feel that it is and must continue to be our home, ever dear and ever sacred, until we depart hence for another and a better world. They know but little of the agency of human feelings, who in their preaching attempt to lessen our attachment for the paternal roof, because, in common with all other earthly possessions, it is perishable in its nature, and uncertain in it’s tenure. The home of life is not the less estimable because it is not the home of eternity; but the more valuable perhaps as it prepares and fits us by its joys and its sorrows, its rights and its duties, and also by what it withholds, as well as imparts, for that inheritance which awaits us hereafter. Yes, home is a great word, but its full meaning ain’t understood by every one.
It ain’t those who have one, or those who have none, that comprehend what it is; nor those who in the course of nature leave the old and found a new one for themselves; nor those who, when they quit, shut their eyes and squinch their faces when they think of it, as if it fetched something to their mind that warn’t pleasant to recollect; nor those who suddenly rise so high in life, that their parents look too vulgar, or the old cottage too mean for them, or their former acquaintances too low. But I’ll tell you who knows the meaning and feels it too; a fellow like me, who had a cheerful home, a merry and a happy home, and who when he returns from foreign lands finds it deserted and as still as the grave, and all that he loved scattered and gone, some to the tomb, and others to distant parts of the earth. The solitude chills him, the silence appals him. At night shadows follow him like ghosts of the departed, and the walls echo back the sound of his footsteps, as if demons were laughing him to scorn. The least noise is heard over the whole house. The clock ticks so loud he has to remove it, for it affects his nerves. The stealthy mouse tries to annoy him with his mimic personification of the burglar, and the wind moans among the trees as if it lamented the general desolation. If he strolls out in his grounds, the squirrel ascends the highest tree and chatters and scolds at the unusual intrusion, while the birds fly away screaming with affright, as if pursued by a vulture. They used to be tame once, when the family inhabited the house, and listen with wonder at notes sweeter and more musical than their own. They would even feed from the hand that protected them. His dog alone seeks his society, and strives to assure him by mute but expressive gestures that he at least will never desert him. As he paces his lonely quarter-deck (as he calls the gravel-walk in front of his house), the silver light of the moon, gleaming here and there between the stems of the aged trees, startles him with the delusion of unreal white-robed forms, that flit about the shady groves as if enjoying or pitying his condition, or perhaps warning him that in a few short years he too must join this host of disembodied spirits.
Time hangs heavily on his hands, he is tired of reading, it is too early for repose, so he throws himself on the sofa and muses, but even meditation calls for a truce. His heart laments its solitude, and his tongue its silence. Nature is weary and exhausted, and sleep at last comes to his aid. But, alas! he awakes in the morning only to resume his dull monotonous course, and at last he fully comprehends what it is to be alone. Women won’t come to see him, for fear they might be talked about, and those that would come would soon make him a subject of scandal. He and the world, like two people travelling in opposite directions, soon increase at a rapid rate the distance between them. He loses his interest in what is going on around him, and people lose their interest in him. If his name happens to be mentioned, it may occasion a listless remark, “I wonder how he spends his time?” or, “The poor devil must be lonely there.”
Yes, yes, there are many folks in the world that talk of things they don’t understand, and there are precious few who appreciate the meaning of that endearing term “home.” He only knows it as I have said who has lived in one, amid a large family, of which he is the solitary surviving member. The change is like going from the house to the sepulchre, with this difference only, one holds a living and the other a dead body. Yes, if you have had a home you know what it is, but if you have lost it, then and not till then do you feel its value.
[CHAPTER X.]
A DAY ON THE LAKE.—PART I.
When we reached the grove, I left Jessie in the canoe, and went up to the house in search of her sister. Jackson and Peter were sitting on the wood-pile; the latter was smoking his pipe, and the other held his in his hand, as he was relating some story of his exploits in Spain. When I approached, he rose up and saluted me in his usual formal manner.
“Where is the doctor,” said I, “and the rest of the party?”