Here again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme antagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the diagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one, and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy. These wonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We require such a solitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we are in the street and in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, and say good things to you in private, but will not stand to them in public. But let us not be the victims of words. Society and solitude are deceptive names. It is not the circumstance of seeing more or fewer people, but the readiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound mind will derive its principles from insight, with ever a purer ascent to the sufficient and absolute right, and will accept society as the natural element in which they are to be applied.
[AKIN BY MARRIAGE.]
[Continued.]
CHAPTER III
When little Helen was not far from nine years old, her mother, (as she had learned to call Mrs. Bugbee,) whose health for a long time had been failing, fell sick and took to her bed. Sometimes, for a brief space, she would seem to mend a little; and a council of doctors, convened to consider her case,—though each member differed from all the others touching the nature of her malady,—unanimously declared she would ultimately recover. But her disease, whatever it was, proved to be her mortal illness; for the very next night she came suddenly to her end. Her loss was a heavy one, especially to her own household. She had always been a quiet person, of rather pensive humor, whose native diffidence caused her to shrink from observation; and after Amelia's death she was rarely seen abroad, except at meeting, on Sundays, or when she went to visit the poor, the sick, or the grief-stricken. It was at home that her worth was most apparent; for plain domestic virtues, such as hers, seldom gain wide distinction. Her children's sorrow was deep and lasting, and the badge of mourning which her husband wore for many months after her death was a truthful symbol of unaffected grief. From the beginning, he was warmly attached to his wife, whose affection for him was very great indeed. It would have been strange if he had been unhappy, when she, who made his tastes her study, also made it the business of her life to please him. Besides, his cheerful temper enabled him to make light of more grievous misfortunes than the getting of a loving wife and thrifty helpmeet ten years older than himself.
When a widower, like the Doctor, is but fifty, with the look of a much younger man, people are apt to talk about the chances of his marrying again. Before Mrs. Bugbee had been dead a twelve-month, rumors were as plenty as blackberries that the Doctor had been seen, late on Sunday evenings, leaving this house, or that house, the dwelling-place of some marriageable lady; and if he had finally espoused all whom the gossips reported he was going to marry, he would have had as many wives as any Turkish pasha or Mormon elder. It was doubtless true that he called at certain places more frequently than had been his custom in Mrs. Bugbee's lifetime. This, he assured Cornelia, to whom the reports I have mentioned occasioned some uneasiness, was because he was more often summoned to attend, in a professional way, at those places, than he had ever been of old; which was true enough, I dare say, for more spinsters and widows were taken ailing about this time than had ever been ill at once before. Be that as it may, certain arrangements which the Doctor presently made in his domestic affairs did not seem to foretoken an immediate change of condition.
Miss Statira Blake, whom the Doctor engaged as housekeeper, was the youngest daughter of an honest shoemaker, who formerly flourished at Belfield Green, where he was noted for industry, a fondness for reading, a tenacious memory, a ready wit, and a fluent tongue. In politics he was a radical, and in religion a schismatic. The little knot of Presbyterian Federalist magnates, who used to assemble at the tavern to discuss affairs of church and state over mugs of flip and tumblers of sling, regarded him with feelings of terror and aversion. The doughty little cobbler made nothing of attacking them single-handed, and putting them utterly to rout; for he was a dabster at debate, and entertained as strong a liking for polemics as for books. Nay, he was a thorn in the side of the parson himself, for whom he used to lie in wait with knotty questions,—snares set to entrap the worthy divine, in the hope of beguiling him into a controversy respecting some abstruse point of doctrine, in which the cobbler, who had every verse of the Bible at his tongue's end, was not apt to come off second best.
But one day, Tommy Blake, being at a raising where plenty of liquor was furnished, (as the fashion used to be,) slipped and fell from a high beam, and was carried home groaning with a skinful of broken bones. He died the next day, poor man, and his bedridden widow survived the shock of witnessing his dreadful agonies and death but a very little while. Her daughters, two young girls, were left destitute and friendless. But Major Bugbee, to whom the cobbler's wife had been remotely akin, and who was at that time first selectman of the town, took the orphans with him to his house, where they tarried till he found good places for them. Roxana, the elder girl, went to live with a reputable farmer's wife, whose only son she afterwards married. Statira remained under the shelter of the good Major's hospitable roof much longer than her sister did, and would have been welcome to stay, but she was not one of those who like to eat the bread of dependence. With the approval of the selectmen, she bound herself an indentured apprentice to Billy Tuthill, the little lame tailor, for whom she worked faithfully four years, until she had served out her time and was mistress of her trade, even to the recondite mystery of cutting a double-breasted swallow-tail coat by rule and measure. Then, at eighteen, she set up business for herself, going from house to house as her customers required, working by the day. Her services were speedily in great demand, and she was never out of employment. Many a worthy citizen of Belfield well remembers his first jacket-and-trowsers, the handiwork of Tira Blake. The Sunday breeches of half the farmers who came to meeting used to be the product of her skilful labor. Thus for many years (refusing meanwhile several good offers of marriage) she continued to ply her needle and shears, working steadily and cheerfully in her vocation, earning good wages and spending but little, until the thrifty sempstress was counted well to do, and held in esteem according. Sometimes, when she got weary, and thought a change of labor would do her good, she would engage with some lucky dame to help do housework for a month or two. She was a famous hand at pickling, preserving, and making all manner of toothsome knick-knacks and dainties. Nor was she deficient in the pleasure walks of the culinary art. Betsey Pratt, the tavernkeeper's wife, a special crony of Statira's, used always to send for her whenever she was in straits, or when, on some grand occasion, a dinner or supper was to be prepared and served up in more than ordinary style. So learned was she in all the devices of the pantry and kitchen, that many a young woman in the parish would have given half her setting-out, and her whole store of printed cookery-books, to know by heart Tira Blake's unwritten lore of rules and recipes. So, wherever she went, she was welcome, albeit not a few stood in fear of her; for though, when well treated, she was as good-humored as a kitten, when provoked, especially by a slight or affront, her wrath was dangerous. Her tongue was sharper than her needle, and her pickles were not more piquant than her sarcastic wit. Tira, the older people used to remark, was Tommy Blake's own daughter; and truly, she did inherit many of her father's qualities, both good and bad, and not a few of his crotchets and opinions. In fine, she was a shrewd, sensible, Yankee old maid, who, as she herself was wont to say, was as well able to take care of 'number one' as e'er a man in town.
Statira never forgot Major Bugbee's kindness to her in her lonely orphanhood. She preserved for him and for every member of his family a grateful affection; but her special favorite was James, the Doctor's brother, who was a little younger than she, and who repaid this partiality with hearty good-will and esteem. When he grew up and married, his house became one of Statira's homes; the other being at her sister's house, which was too remote from Belfield Green to be at all times convenient. So she had rooms, which she called alike her own, at both these places, in each of which she kept a part of her wardrobe and a portion of her other goods and chattels. The children of both families called her Aunt Statira, but, if the truth were known, she loved little Frank Bugbee, James's only son, better than she did the whole brood of her sister Roxy's flaxen-pated offspring. Nay, she loved him better than all the world besides. Statira used to call James her right-hand man, asking for his advice in every matter of importance, and usually acting in accordance with it. So, when Doctor Bugbee invited her to take charge of his household affairs, Cornelia joining in the request with earnest importunity, she did not at once return a favorable reply, though strongly inclined thereto, but waited until she had consulted James and his wife, who advised her to accept the proffered trust, giving many sound and excellent reasons why she ought to do so.