"How I wish I could see them all! There is not a codger in my native town—not a crusty fusty old bachelor—not an envious tattling old maid—not a flirt, sot, pauper, idiot, or sainted hypocrite, but I could welcome with an embrace. But if I could only see my father, or Jimmy, or Lina, dear girl! how much better I should feel! It would make me ten years younger, to have a chat with Lina; and, to tell the truth, I should like to see any woman, just to see how it would seem. I'd go a quarter of a mile, now, to look at a row of aprons hung out to dry. But there! it's no use to talk.
"An evening like this is such an one as might entice me to my mother's grave, were I at home. Oh! if she were but alive—if I could only know that she was still somewhere on the wide earth, to think and pray for me—I might be better, as well as happier. Methinks it must be a blessed thing to be a mother, if all sons cherish that parent's memory as I have mine—and they do. It cheers and sustains the exile in a stranger's land; it invigorates him in trial, and lights him through adversity; it warns the felon, and haunts and harrows the convict; it strengthens the captive, and exhilarates the homeward-bound. Truly must it be a blessed thing to be a mother!"
He stopped—for in the moonlight was distinctly seen the figure of a horseman, emerging from the public road, and galloping across the clearing. He turned towards the office of the young surveyor, and in a few moments the carrier had related the incident by which he obtained the paper, and placed "The Village Chronicle" in Alfred's hand.
He struck a light, tore off the wrapper, and the only written word which met his eye was "Lina." "Dear name!" said he, "I could almost kiss it, especially as there is none to see me. She must have been in a prodigious hurry! and how funny that little rascal, Jimmy, must have looked! Well, 'when he next doth run a race, may I be there to see.'"
He took the paper to read. It was a very late one—he had never before received one so near the date; and even that line of dates was now so pleasing. First was Miss Helena Carroll's poetry. "Dear girl!" said he, "what a beautiful writer she is! Really, this is poetry! This is something which carries us away from ourselves, and more closely connects us with the enduring, high, and beautiful. Methinks I see her now—more thin, pale, and ethereal in her appearance than when we were gay school-mates; but I wonder that, with all her treasures of heart and intellect, she is still Helena Carroll.
"And now here is Miss Simpkin's story of 'The injured One'—beautiful, interesting, and instructive, I am confident; and I will read it, every word; but she italicises too much; she throws too lavishly the bright robes of her prolific fancy upon the forms she conjures up from New-England hills and vales. I wonder if she remembers now the time when she made me shake the old-apple tree, near the pound, for her, and in jumping down, I nearly broke my leg. Well, if I read her story, I will try that it does not break my heart.
"And here is an excellent editorial about 'Our Representatives'—I will read it again, and now for the items."
These were all highly interesting to the absentee, and on each did he expatiate to himself. How different were his feelings from his sister's, as he read of the cracked bell, the burned meeting-house, the dead oxen, the apoplectic old Colonel, the decayed bridge, the hints of the friends of "good order" and "equal rights." Then there was a little scene suggested by every card; he wondered who had their heads examined at the Phrenological lecture; and if the West Parish old farmers were now as stiffly opposed to the science. And how he would like to see Lina's chart, and to know if Jimmy had brains—he was sure he had legs, and a big heart for a little boy; and he wondered what girls ran up to have their heads felt of in public; and what the man said about matrimony—an affair which in old times was thought to have more to do with the heart than the head.
Then his imagination went forward to the fair of the Anti-Slavery Society, and he wondered where it would be, and who would go, and what Lina would make, and whether so much fuss about slavery was right or wrong, and if "father" approved of it. Then the temperance lecture was the theme for another self-disquisition. He wondered who had joined the society, and how the Washingtonians held out, and if Mr. Hawkins was ever coming to the West.
Then he was glad the trustees were determined to resuscitate the old academy. What grand times he had enjoyed there, especially at the exhibitions! and he wondered where all the pretty girls were who used to go to school with his bachelorship. Then they were to have a new alms-house; and forty more things were mentioned, of equal interest—not forgetting Mr. Olden's accident, for which "father would be so sorry." Then there were the Marriages and Deaths—each a subject of deep interest, as was also the list of Bankrupts. The foreign news was news to him; and Congress matters were not passed unheeded by.