but for the sound reason that her rotten timbers and unsound planks were cut in the moon’s waning weeks. By the by, who ever saw a ship that was not rigged with curses, and navigated, too, for that matter? What is there about salt water that predisposes one to swear so? No wonder that the sea is “deep blue!” If all the oaths that sailors ever swore fell overboard, the ocean must be fourth proof “liquid d—nation” by this time! Rum is dove’s milk in comparison.
No farmer of the old school plants his corn, cuts his hay, or, especially, kills his pork in the moon’s wane. Therefore swine in his pen are safe for a fortnight after “the full o’ the moon,” lest, perchance, when the summer heats shall have come again, and six stout, hungry “men folks” assemble round his board, waiting with moist brows and watering lips, impatient for the wonted unctuous noon-day meal, the mighty slab of “strange flesh” which, erewhile, was with difficulty forced into the capacious pot, be found, upon the raising of the lid, shrunken, withered, boiled away, curtailed of its fair proportions; all that remains a little “nub,” scarce half enough for one of the voracious, disappointed crew.
At such a time, sore is the mortification of the farmer’s buxom wife. Thrifty she means to be, but never stingy. She blusheth as she deposits on the table a huge pewter platter, covered, apparently, with naught but turnips, potatoes and other “garden sauce.” She answereth deprecatingly to her husband’s wondering inquiry, if she has “forgotten the pork.” Forgotten it! no! nor ever will! The ghost of the vanished meat now stareth her in the face! Fork in hand, she wipeth her flushed brow with her plump, bare arm, and pointeth to the pile of smoking potatoes, beneath which is buried the shrivelled abortion of a meal. She telleth, while her husband makes a Barmecidical show of carving the bit, how that “pork killed in the old o’ the moon is sure to shrink in the pot.” She glanceth furtively around the board, to see whether any churlish or waggish hind smiles skeptically or disdainfully, or winketh at his neighbor. She calleth hastily to Jane to bring the cider-pitcher, forgotten in the trouble, and hurrieth away to the kitchen to pack up an unusually munificent and toothsome afternoon’s luncheon. There we leave her, and invoke in her behalf the sympathy of Mr. Gliddon. Who so well as he knoweth the embarrassments and disappointments which sometimes follow the taking off the cover?
An inexperienced housewife, sometimes, will, for once, adventure upon soap-making “in the old of the moon.” Albeit such an attempt is but an unavailing expenditure of grease and patience. The incredulous tyro is forced to remember sadly the precepts, receipts, and warnings of her wiser and less philosophical mother. She repenteth her folly in apron of tow-cloth and ashes. Satan seemeth, indeed, to be the father of all lyes. Death is in the potash. The carefully preserved contents of the soap-grease barrel disdain an alliance with such bedevilled trash. The potash, in its turn, has lost its Russian-like appetite for grease, and turns up its nose at the odorous drippings and unctuous pot-scum. The vexed young matron mingles her sweat and tears with the boiling, steaming, ill savored, ill assorted mass, which does, indeed, seem to “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” in a bewitched caldron. All is in vain. Crying wont help it. Coaxing wont do. Stirring is unavailable. For once agitation is ineffectual. Invocation is useless. The soft soap wont come. Human nature gives way. The compost heap receives the ingredients which were intended for the soap barrel.
Gentle reader, didst ever go on a sleigh-ride in the full of the January moon? We speak not now of one of your city rides, half the way over almost naked pavements, to some suburban hotel—but a regular-built, old-fashioned country sleigh-ride, with a supper and ball at the end of it. No? Can we depict such a scene to you? With many doubts and fears we undertake the work—a pleasant task if it can be well accomplished.
Imagine then, a small, New England, country village; one of those that are formed by a cluster of white houses about a shaded square, and rows of similar dwellings on each side of a long, wide street, lined with elms and buttonwoods. The time is seven o’clock; the round full moon has risen above the distant eastern hills—all over the square, and adown the broad street stretches an expanse of dazzling snow. The sleigh paths are yet almost as purely white as the untrodden snow on either side. Save where the steel-shod runners have left gleaming stripes, and the shadows of the snow banks fall, these tracks are hardly distinguishable. The deep snow fell only last night, and the roofs of the houses, the fences, and the dark fir trees in the front-door yards are yet covered with heavy, glittering, sparkling burdens. The houses on the east side cast long shadows across the street. Those on the other side glow in the moonbeams only less white than the snow itself. Columns of pale, gray smoke ascend from every chimney, straight and steadily, until they mingle with the dark blue sky. One chimney alone emits a rushing crowd of fiery sparks; and all around the low, wide portal of the rude shed it overtops, a ruddy gleam shines out upon troops of men and startled horses, and casts a fierce glare upon the trampled snow around. Then the cheerful ring of hammer and anvil is heard. The sturdy smiths work half the night at such a time, for smooth-shod horses are not the nags for a sleigh ride.
In the village houses lights are rapidly flitting from chamber to chamber, and if we pass along the side paths we shall hear gay laughs, and merry screams, and the sounds of hurried preparation. At each door stands a gayly adorned sleigh, a perfect nest of bear-skins and buffalo-robes. The impatient horses stamp and chafe, and the merry sound of sleigh-bells chimes in with the ring of the blacksmith’s anvil. Around the piazzas of the hotel a crowd of the villagers is assembled. The boys and loafers are in a state of extreme excitement. Hark! A whoop—a hurrah from the stable-yard in the rear!—a sharp, clear crack of a whip! Hi! hi! Then a plunging and trampling. Another hurrah, and a fierce jangling of a hundred varied toned bells! Around the corner it comes! The boys and loafers shout again—six horses, rearing, pitching, plunging, rush with a wide sweep from out the lane, dragging after them a huge, open, omnibus sleigh. As the great ark ranges in front of the hotel, and its mad team subsides into comparative quiet, forth issue from the thronged piazzas crowds of village belles and beaux. Can it be that so many may find room aboard the sleigh, capacious as it is? Leave that to the Genius who presides over expeditions of this sort. In a sleigh, large or small, there is always room for one more. In the meantime the doors of the private dwellings have been opened, and from each emerges a beshawled, bemuffed, behooded, and overshod damsel—or two or three perhaps. Their happy beaux, clad in overcoats of pilot-cloth, in seal-skin caps, red worsted leggings, and buckskin gloves, escort them to the sleighs. The procession is formed in front of the hotel. Twenty sleighs, besides the teeming omnibus. The last in the line is a crockery crate, mounted upon a rude pair of runners and hitched behind a tandem team. The leader is a three-year old colt, wild and but half broken, and now, crazy with the noise, he is kicking and plunging like mad. In the crate stands the dare-devil of the village; a rich, handsome, graceless, good-natured scamp—the darling of the girls, the marvel of the boys, the terror of the piously disposed, and the favorite of all. He prefers to ride alone. Now all is ready—the band strikes up—the driver of the omnibus stands erect and tightens his reins—crack, goes the long whiplash—the horses plunge and start, the snow creaks, the bells jingle, the boys and loafers hurrah, the beaux laugh as the girls scream, and away flies the long caravan, like an express train, down the broad street, thundering, cracking, screaming, laughing. They turn the corner, all but the daredevil and his crockery crate, they are upset in a snow-drift, but before the army of boys and loafers can reach the scene of the mishap, all is right side up again, and the last seen of dare-devil he is driving by the whole train, his frantic leader touching the snow only once in a rod.
Two hours afterward six reeking horses drag the omnibus up to the hotel piazzas again—a string of sleighs come in behind—one by one the stragglers arrive. Dare-devil and his team are among the missing, and on inquiry are reported as seen last, the one kissing the landlady at a tavern ten miles away, and the other engrossing the attention, and calling into active exercise all the strength and agility of the landlord and his negro hostler.
In the meantime twenty miles of snow path have been scoured over by the merry, frost-covered throng disembarking on the steps. Thousands of merry speeches have been said—a whole jest-book full of funny stories have been told. Every pretty hand in the company has been squeezed. Every pretty cheek has been kissed, and, we doubt not, almost every pretty lip. At least nine flirtations have been commenced. The moon has drawn together three pairs of twin hearts, and set them throbbing in unison—and one little question has been put and answered, very satisfactorily to the absorbed couple in yonder sleigh, which is arriving late, closely pursued by the shouting dare-devil and his prancing team.
All night the glaring windows of the ball-room shake and rattle. The inspiring music, to which they keep time, the sound of the dancers’ feet, the merry ringing of lamps, and the buzz of conversation are heard by the sleepy watchers in the bar-room below, who while away the hours, except when disturbed by eruptions of the beaux from above, in quest of confectionary and lemonade, or perhaps stronger beverages, by playing checkers, drinking flip, smoking cigars, and endlessly discussing the points and merits of divers horses of the neighborhood.