THE FIRST LETTER.
“Where do you suppose they are now, mother?” Hannah Gilman kept her
finger on the map, as she looked up to ask the question. She was tracing
out for the twentieth time, the track of the vessel, by the aid of an
Olney’s Atlas.
“Let me see,” answered the mother musingly, waxing the linen thread more
slowly, as she dwelt on the thought of her absent ones. It was almost
the only pleasure Mrs. Gilman allowed herself, a stolen respite from her
never-ending daily labor. “What day of the month is it, Abby?”
“Twenty-ninth—Hannah, you won’t get your hat done—Mother, just see
Hannah’s short straws scattered all ’round.”
“Perhaps it would be just as well if you would attend to your own work,
Abby,—how often must I tell you, that I don’t like to see children,
sisters especially, interfering with each other. Yes, it’s April 29th,
Hannah, and they expected to get into San Francisco the middle of May,
or first of June. You must look in the Pacific for them now, near
Valparaiso, I hope. It will be a long, long time before we hear.”
Four months, a long New Hampshire winter, had gone slowly by. How slowly,
only those who count days, and weeks, and months of absence can tell. At
night Mrs. Gilman’s last thought was one of thankfulness, that another
day was gone. In the morning she woke with a wish that it was night
again. They were living in a small house near the end of the village, to
which they removed the week after New-Years. Squire Merrill had begged
Mrs. Gilman to stay in the homestead all winter at least, but this she
could not consent to. Since she must leave it, it was best to go at once,
and she could warm the hired house, the only empty one in the village,
much more economically. It was one of those so often seen on a country
road-side, standing in a little door-yard, low and unpainted. There were
but two rooms on the ground floor, and an unfinished attic above; but
it was all they would really need, and the rent was very low. Abby’s
pride was greatly hurt when she first heard of the arrangement, and she
declared very plainly, that she “never would, _never_ go to that little
mean place, where old Lyman had lived.” Abby’s threats were generally
the extent of her disobedience, and after all, she proved the greatest
help in moving, and getting settled again. The two girls divided the
house-work between them now, even the baking; for which Abby began to
show a decided genius, and Mrs. Gilman sat at her needle from morning
till night. It was all she had to depend upon, but the first year’s house
rent which she put aside.
She had a plan for the girls, which she expected Abby would rebel at,
that might in the end be a great deal of assistance to her. When at
the store she had seen piles of coarse palm-leaf hats brought in and
exchanged for dry goods or groceries. She did not see why Abby’s nimble
fingers could not braid these as well as knit stockings, for which there
was little sale. The young lady for once proved reasonable, and even
Hannah’s emulation was excited, when her sister entered into a precise
calculation of what their gains might be before the end of the winter.
The palm-leaf came home, looking so fair and even in the long bundles,
and the two sisters plunged into the mysteries of “setting up,” and
“adding in,”—“double turns,” “binding off”—and “closing up.” While the
fever lasted, Abby could scarcely be persuaded to take time for eating
and sleeping; and when the novelty began to wear off, she had acquired
a mechanical skill and dexterity that made her new profession quite as
easy as knitting. It was harder for Hannah, until she discovered that she
could read while she braided down the crown, so in her hurry to get to
this favorite part of the work, her hat was completed almost as soon as
her sister’s.
And how much do you suppose, my little city ladies, who are always in
debt when allowance-day comes,—these industrious Yankee girls received,
as the sum of a week’s hard work; rising at five o’clock, and never
ceasing but for household duties until the sun went down? Eighteen and
three-quarter cents at first, not half as much as you have wasted at the
confectioner’s and the worsted stores in the same length of time! Three
cents a piece for braiding a whole hat, and Abby thought herself very
rich when she could do one and a half a day! So it is—but do not pity
them too much—they had twice your enjoyment in spending it.
Abby was on the last round of the brim, when Hannah laid her hat down
to look for the atlas. They had all been talking of father and Sam,—and
wishing the captain had been going to stop at Rio.
“We should have heard of him before this if he had,” Hannah said, “for
I looked in the ship list, the place that tells all about vessels, in
Squire Merrill’s paper, the last time I was up there; and I saw some
vessel had come in forty days from Rio. That’s less than six weeks, and
it will be four months Thursday since they sailed.”
“Here comes Squire Merrill now,” remarked Abby from her post at the front
window. She always took possession of it, and kept them informed of every
passer-by, if it was only a boy driving a yoke of oxen. “I guess he
doesn’t find it very good wheeling, his wagon is all spattered with mud.
How high wagons look, after seeing sleighs all winter. Why I do believe
he’s going to stop here! He is, just as sure as I’m alive. I’ll go to the
door, Hannah—he’s beckoning with a letter or something, as if he didn’t
want to get out.”
Mrs. Gilman, usually so calm, felt her heart give a sudden bound, as she
hurried to the window in time to see Squire Merrill give the letter to
Abby, and drive off again, with a smiling nod to herself, as if he shared
in the pleasure it would give her. No doubt he did, knowing very well,
when he found that heavy brown envelope lying at the post office, what a
rejoicing it would make.
It was Sam’s coarse, but very plain school-boy hand, in the direction,
and if there had been the least doubt in the matter, the ship-mark on
it would have told who it came from. Abby thought her mother was the
greatest while getting it open, and wondered what made her hands tremble
so. Mrs. Gilman could not command her voice to read the very first lines,
before Abby had made out half the first page, looking over her shoulder.
To be sure she had a right to—for it commenced:
“_Dear mother and the girls._” It was dated Rio Janeiro, March 4th, and
must have cost Sam a week’s hard work at least, covering three large
sheets of foolscap, and full of “scratching out” and interlining.
“Here we are at last,” was the boy-like and abrupt commencement, “where
I never expected to be last Thanksgiving Day, did I? The Captain doesn’t
want to be here now; but I’ve told Ben all about that in my letter. What
an awful storm that was, though! I never expected to see land, I can tell
you, and old Jackson says (Jackson is the sailor I like best, you will
see all about it in Ben’s letter) he never saw such a blow as that, and
he never wants to see another. I don’t, I’m sure. I’ve got so much to
tell you I don’t know where to begin. I suppose I ought to say ‘we are
all well, and hope you are the same.’ Well, we are—father and me. Jackson
says I’m a regular ‘lubber,’ that means very fat, with him. I shouldn’t
like to have him call me a ‘land lubber,’ though. Dear mother, you don’t
know how much I want to see you and the girls; I could talk to you all
night, but I’m afraid I can’t tell half I want to, on paper.
“We got here two weeks ago. The Captain thought he was going right off
again, but you never saw such a lazy set, as the people are here. Jackson
says he and I could do as much as twenty Portuguese. I go on shore
almost every day. _She_ doesn’t lie at a dock as she did in New-York,
for they do not have any docks. It seemed so queer at first, to see all
the vessels anchored out in the bay, and the little boats pulling around
them. Just think—there have been twenty-two vessels put in here this last
month, from the United States, to refit. The reason is, so many were like
ours, not fit to go to sea at all, they say, and too much loaded. I think
the owners must be bad men to risk people’s lives for the sake of making
a little more money. Don’t you?
“Father knows a great many people here, he’s got acquainted with them
off the different vessels, and _keeps very busy_.” Good hearted Sam! he
had puzzled half an hour over that sentence, lest he should betray his
father’s faults, but Mr. Gilman well knew with all his caution, what he
intended to conceal.
“I do not know whether he will find time to write home by this ship, but
he means to”—the letter went on to say; for Sam had seen how writing
had been put off from day to day, and wished to soften his mother’s
disappointment, if no letter came.
“So I go round by myself, and see enough curious things. Why I could
not tell you half in ten years. Just think! they are all Catholics in
Rio; and have great big churches, that you could put two or three of our
meeting-houses right inside! They don’t have any pews, but anybody kneels
right down on the stone floor, and says their prayers. I guess our girls
wouldn’t like it, with their Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses on! The ladies
here don’t seem to mind it at all, but they don’t wear the same kind of
clothes. Abby could tell you more about their rigging in ten minutes,
than I could in a whole week, so I guess I won’t try. The priest (that’s
like our minister) _sings_ all the prayers, in Latin. I guess the folks
don’t know much what he means. There are pictures all round some of the
churches, and I like to go to hear the music—not singing, like our
choir, but real bands of music, that play lively tunes.
I got acquainted with another boy, a real _splendid_ fellow, last week;
he came from Boston in the Mermaid, and the Captain is his father. We
have great times. There isn’t many boys, going to California. _His_ name
is _John_. Well, John and me did think it was so queer to see _real
slaves_ at first. There’s hundreds, and hundreds of them in the streets,
and the streets aren’t a bit like what I thought they were going to
be—more like little narrow alleys, such as I saw in New-York. (I’m all
out of breath with such a great long sentence, so I guess I’ll stop and
rest a while.)”
The next page was written with blue ink, and dated two days later.
“Dear mother, I’ve seen such beautiful things this morning, that I must
sit right down to tell you before I forget it. I wish Abby had been with
John and me this morning. His father took him there yesterday, and he
took me there to-day. I mean to the great flower-shop, which is enough
handsomer than Squire Merrill’s garden. I thought just as much as
could be they were all _real_ flowers, and wondered how they kept them
so fresh, without any water; and John laughed, and laughed when I said
so! John is most as good a fellow as Ben—he knows all about navigation,
his father is teaching him; I told Jackson yesterday I wish I had known
him before I finished Ben’s letter. Just tell Ben that the sun _doesn’t
stop_, when it’s just noon,—I thought it did a minute; but it begins to
go down the minute it gets in the middle of the sky, and then the Captain
knows when it’s exactly noon. Ben’s letter tells about it, if you want to
know.
Oh, about the flowers. They were _artificials_. Abby would go out of
her senses to have a bunch for her straw bonnet. If father and me stops
here on our way home, I will bring her and Hannah, and Julia Chase, _a
bushel_. They are made out of feathers, bird’s feathers, and colored
shells—the _littlest things_! you ever saw, the shells are; and a good
deal brighter and handsomer than real flowers are. I mean New Hampshire
flowers. Rio flowers are splendid—tulips and dahlias ain’t _nothing_ to
them, tell Abby. Why, geraniums grow right along the road, as high and
big as a great mustard bush—and that prickly, green-looking thing like a
snake, Julia used to have in a flower pot. The cactuses are nothing but
weeds here—not half so scarce as white clover in a hay-field.
Then they have whole farms out back of the city, where nothing but
coffee grows! I haven’t seen it growing, but John has, he rode out with
his father and some gentlemen. The slaves, (there, I meant to tell you
about the slaves,) they bring it in on their heads in great bags, and
trot along like old Prince, singing something or other, way down in
their throats, and one of them has a rattle, something like Mrs. Chase’s
baby’s. I don’t mind the slaves at all now,—it seems just as natural to
see them all along the streets, or curled up going to sleep in their big
baskets, on the door-steps. John says he’d rather be a nigger than go to
sea before the mast, tell Ben. There are great high mountains all around
Rio, not like the White Mountains look from our house, but right up sharp
and steep, as a bare rock. They don’t have wells here, with buckets and
a sweep, the acqueducts (I believe I’ve spelt it right) brings the water
along in pipes from one of the mountains, and it spouts up in fountains
all over the city. Then the slaves come and get it, and carry it home on
their heads, like the coffee.—John says that _he_ thinks they must have
_wooden heads_, or very thick skulls to stand it. I should think so too.
I told Jackson, and _he_ said they didn’t have any feeling; any way,
Jackson can’t learn ’em anyhow, he says he’d show ’em how to step ’round!
I guess, now, I must tell you about what we are going to do. Just as
soon as the vessel is ready, we are going to sea, and bear right down
for the Cape. Jackson has been round the Horn twice, and says we must
look out for squalls. We are going right down to Staten Land, that’s an
island, and perhaps through the strait, Le Maire, not Magellan. Our ship
is too large for them. Then we come up to Valparaiso, and hope to get to
San Francisco, the middle of June. I expect I shall be glad enough by
that time. Father has just come on board, and says he will write by the
“Racer” that goes out next week. He says he supposes I told all the news,
and sends his love to you and the girls. I wish—well, I do wish _that
Colcord_ was in Jericho, and I can’t help it, _there_, if it is wicked.
I’ve told John about my sisters, and Julia Chase, and he’s told me about
his. We have real good times. Give my love to Mrs. Chase and Julia, and
all inquiring friends. No more at present, from your affectionate son—
SAM’L GILMAN.”
Sam had added “Esq.” to the above flourish, but afterwards scratched it
out, as if he concluded it was not quite proper. There was a lengthy
postscript, in which several messages for Ben were included, and ending—
“I try to do as I know you want me to, mother. I have read my Bible every
Sunday, and keep my promise, so far.” Blotted and hurried as were the
lines, it was the most precious part of that long, and carefully-written
and boyishly egotistical letter; dear as it all was to his mother.
Ben came over the next day with the Sea Journal, which was as good as
hearing again from the travellers, and though Mr. Gilman’s promised
letter by the “Racer,” never arrived, his wife felt that she ought to
be only too thankful for this. The precious letter was kept between the
leaves of the family Bible, and every fold was worn long before another
came.