FEMALE COLLEGES.
After Sorrow had retired, we lighted our cigars, and turned to for a
chat, if chat it can be called one, where I did most of the talking
myself.
“Doctor,” said I, “I wish I had had more time to have examined your
collection of minerals. I had no idea Nova Scotia could boast of such
an infinite variety of them. You could have taught me more in
conversation in five minutes than I could have learned by books in a
month. You are a mineralogist, and I am sorry to say I ain’t, though
every boarding-school miss now-a-days in our country consaits she is.
They are up to _trap_ at any rate, if nothing else, you may depend,”
and I gave him a wink.
“Now don’t, Slick,” said he, “now don’t set me off, that’s a good
fellow.”
“‘Mr Slick,’ said a young lady of about twelve years of age to me
wunst, ‘do you know what gray wackey is? for I do.’
“‘Don’t I,’ sais I; ‘I know it to my cost. Lord! how my old master used
to lay it on!’
“‘Lay it on!’ she said, ‘I thought it reposed on a primitive bed.’
“‘No it don’t,’ said I. ‘And if anybody knows what gray wackey is, I
ought; but I don’t find it so easy to repose after it as you may.
_Gray_ means the gray birch rod, dear, and _wackey_ means layin’ it on.
We always called it gray whackey in school, when a feller was catching
particular Moses.’
“‘Why, how ignorant you are!’ said she. ‘Do you know what them mining
tarms, _clinch, parting,_ and _black bat_ means?’
“‘Why, in course I do!’ sais I; ‘clinch is _marrying,_ parting is
getting _divorced,_ and black bat is where a fellow _beats_ his wife
black and blue.”
“‘Pooh!’ said she, ‘you don’t know nothing.’
“‘Well,’ sais I, ‘what do you know?’
“‘Why,’ said she, ‘I know Spanish and mathematics, ichthiology and
conchology, astronomy and dancing, mineralogy and animal magnetism, and
German and chemistry, and French and botany. Yes, and the use of the
globes too. Can you tell me what attraction and repulsion is?’
“‘To be sure I can,’ said I, and I drew her on my knee and kissed her.
‘That’s attraction, dear.’ And when she kicked and screamed as cross as
two cats, ‘that, my pretty one,’ I said, ‘is repulsion. Now I know a
great many things you don’t. Can you hem a pocket-handkerchief?’
“‘No.’
“‘Nor make a pudding?’
“‘No.’
“‘Nor make Kentucky batter?’
“‘No.’
“‘Well, do you know any useful thing in life?’
“‘Yes, I do; I can sing, and play on the piano, and write valentines,’
sais she, ‘so get out.’ And she walked away, quite dignified, muttering
to herself, ‘Make a pudding, eh! well, I _want to know!’_
“Thinks I to myself, my pretty little may-flower, in this everlastin’
progressive nation of ourn, where the wheel of fortune never stops
turning day or night, and them that’s at the top one minute are down in
the dirt the next, you may say, “‘I _want_ to know’ before you die, and
be very glad to change your tune, and say, ‘Thank heaven I _do_ know!’”
“Is that a joke of yours,” said the doctor, “about the young girl’s
geology, or is it really a fact?”
“Fact, I assure you,” said I. “And to prove it I’ll tell you a story
about a Female College that will show you what pains we take to spoil
our young ladies to home. Miss Liddy Adams, who was proprietor and
‘dentess (presidentess) of a Female College to Onionville, was a
relation of mother’s, and I knew her when she was quite a young shoat
of a thing to Slickville. I shall never forget a flight into Egypt I
caused once in her establishment. When I returned from the embassy, I
stopped a day in Onionville, near her university—for that was the name
she gave hern; and thinks I, I will just call and look in on Lid for
old acquaintance’ sake, and see how she is figuring it out in life.
Well, I raps away with the knocker as loud as possible, as much as to
say, Make haste, for there is somebody here, when a tall spare gall
with a vinegar face opened the door just wide enough to show her
profile, and hide her back gear, and stood to hear what I had to say. I
never see so spare a gall since I was raised. Pharaoh’s lean kine
warn’t the smallest part of a circumstance to her. She was so thin, she
actilly seemed as if she would have to lean agin the wall to support
herself when she scolded, and I had to look twice at her before I could
see her at all, for I warn’t sure _she warn’t her own shadow_.”
“Good gracious!” said the doctor, “what a description! but go on.”
“‘Is the mistress to home?’ said I.
“‘I have no mistress,’ said she.
“‘I didn’t say you had,’ sais I, ‘for I knew you hadn’t afore you
spoke.’
“‘How did you know that?’ said she.
“‘Because,’ sais I, ‘seein’ so handsome a lady as you, I thought you
was one of the professors; and then I thought you must be the mistress
herself, and was a thinking how likely she had grow’d since I seed her
last. Are you one of the class-teachers?’
“It bothered her; she didn’t know whether it was impudence or
admiration; _but when a woman arbitrates on a case she is interested
in, she always gives an award in her own favour._
“‘Walk in, Sir,’ said she, ‘and I will see,’ and she backed and backed
before me, not out of deference to me, but to the onfastened hooks of
her gown, and threw a door open. On the opposite side was a large room
filled with galls, peeping and looking over each other’s shoulders at
me, for it was intermission.
“‘Are these your pupils?’ sais I; and before she could speak, I went
right past into the midst of ’em. Oh, what a scuddin’ and screamin’
there was among them! A rocket explodin’ there couldn’t a done more
mischief. They tumbled over chairs, upsot tables, and went head and
heels over each other like anything, shouting out, ‘A man! a man!’
“‘Where—where?’ sais I, a chasin’ of them, ‘show him to me, and I’ll
soon clear him out. What is he a doing of?’
“It was the greatest fun you ever see. Out they flew through the door
at the other eend of the room, some up and some down-stairs, singing
out, ‘A man! a man!’ till I thought they would have hallooed their
daylights out. Away I flew after them, calling out, ‘Where is he? show
him to me, and I’ll soon pitch into him!’ when who should I see but
Miss Liddy in the entry, as stiff and as starch as a stand-up shirt
collar of a frosty day. She looked like a large pale icicle, standing
up on its broad end, and cold enough to give you the ague to look at
her.
“‘Mr Slick,’ said she, ‘may I ask what is the meaning of all this
unseemly behaviour in the presence of young ladies of the first
families in the State?’
“Says I, ‘_Miss_ Adam,’ for as she used the word _Mr_ as a handle to
me, I thought I’de take a pull at the _Miss_,’ some robber or
housebreaker has got in, I rather think, and scared the young
femi_nine_ gender students, for they seemed to be running after
somebody, and I thought I would assist them.’
“‘May I ask, Sir,’ a drawin’ of herself up to her full height, as
straight and as prim as a Lombardy poplar, or rather, a bull-rush, for
that’s all one size. ‘May I ask, Sir, what is the object of your visit
here—at a place where no gentlemen are received but the parents or
guardians of some of the children.’
“I was as mad as a hatter; I felt a little bit vain of the embassy to
London, and my Paris dress, particularly my boots and gloves, and all
that, and I will admit, there is no use talkin’, I rather kinder sorter
thought she would be proud of the connection. I am a good-natured man
in a general way when I am pleased, but it ain’t safe to ryle me, I
tell you. When I am spotty on the back, I am dangerous. I bit in my
breath, and tried to look cool, for I was determined to take revenge
out of her.
“‘Allow me to say, Sir,’ said she, a perkin’ up her mouth like the end
of a silk purse, ‘that I think your intrusion is as unwelcome as it is
unpardonable. May I ask the favour of you to withdraw? if not, I must
introduce you to the watchman.’
“‘I came,’ sais I, ‘Miss Adam, having heard of your distinguished
college in the saloons of Paris and London, to make a proposal to you;
but, like a bull—’
“‘Oh dear!’ said she, ‘to think I should have lived to hear such a
horrid word, in this abode of learning!’
“‘But,’ I went on without stopping, ‘like a bull in a chiny-shop, I see
I have got into the wrong pew; so nothin’ remains for me but to beg
pardon, keep my proposal for where it will be civilly received, at
least, and back out.’
“She was as puzzled as the maid. But women ain’t throwed off their
guard easily. If they are in a dark place, they can feel their way out,
if they can’t see it. So says she, dubious like:
“‘About a child, I suppose?’
“‘It is customary in Europe,’ sais I, ‘I believe, to talk about the
marriage first, isn’t it? but I have been so much abroad, I am not
certified as to usages here.’
“Oh, warn’t she brought to a hack! She had a great mind to order me
out, but then that word ‘proposal’ was one she had only seen in a
dictionary—she had never heard it; and it is such a pretty one, and
sounded so nice to the ear; and then that word ‘marriage’ was used
also, so it carried the day.
“‘This is not a place, Mr Slick, for foundlings, I’de have you to
know,’ she said, with an air of disgust, ‘but children whose parents
are of the first class of society. If,’ and she paused and looked at me
scrutinisin’, ‘if your proposals are of _that_ nature, walk in here,
Sir, if you please, where our conversation will not be over-heard. Pray
be seated. May I ask, what is the nature of the proposition with which
you design to honour me?’ and she gave me a smile that would pass for
one of graciousness and sweet temper, or of encouragement. It hadn’t a
decided character, and was a non-committal one. She was doin’ quite the
lady, but I consaited her ear was itching to hear what I had to say,
for she put a finger up, with a beautiful diamond ring on it, and
brushed a fly off with it; but, after all, perhaps it was only to show
her lily-white hand, which merely wanted a run at grass on the
after-feed to fatten it up, and make it look quite beautiful.
“‘Certainly,’ sais I, ‘you may ask any question of the kind you like.’
“It took her aback, for she requested leave to ask, and I granted it;
but she meant it different.
“Thinks I, ‘My pretty grammarian, there is a little grain of difference
between, ‘May I ask,’ and, ‘I must ask.’ Try it again.’
“She didn’t speak for a minute; so to relieve her, sais I:
“‘When I look round here, and see how charmingly you are located, and
what your occupation is, I hardly think you would feel disposed to
leave it; so perhaps I may as well forbear the proposal, as it isn’t
pleasant to be refused.’
“‘It depends,’ she said, ‘upon what the nature of those proposals are,
Mr Slick, and who makes them,’ and this time she did give a look of
great complacency and kindness. ‘Do put down your hat, Sir. I have read
your Clockmaker,’ she continued; ‘I really feel quite proud of the
relationship; but I hope you will excuse me for asking, Why did you put
your own name to it, and call it ‘Sam Slick the Clockmaker,’ now that
you are a distinguished diplomatist, and a member of our embassy at the
court of Victoria the First? It’s not an elegant appellation that, of
Clockmaker,’ sais she, ‘is it?’ (She had found her tongue now.) ‘Sam
Slick the Clockmaker, a factorist of wooden clocks especially, sounds
trady, and will impede the rise of a colossal reputation, which has
already one foot in the St Lawrence, and the other in the Mississippi.’
“‘And sneezes in the Chesapeake,’ sais I.
“‘Oh,’ said she, in the blandest manner, ‘how like you, Mr Slick! you
don’t spare a joke even on yourself. You see fun in everything.’
“‘Better,’ sais I, ‘than seeing harm in everything, as them galls—’
“‘Young ladies,’ said she.
“‘Well, young ladies, who saw harm in me because I was a man. What harm
is there in their seeing a man? You ain’t frightened at one, are you,
Liddy?’
“She evaded that with a smile, as much as to say, ‘Well, I ain’t much
skeered, that’s a fact.’
“‘Mr Slick, it is a subject not worth while pursuing,’ she replied.
‘You know the sensi_tive_ness, nervous delicacy, and scrupulous
innocence of the fair sex in this country, and I may speak plainly to
you as a man of the world. You must perceive how destructive of all
modesty in their juvenile minds, when impressions are so easily made,
it would be to familiarise their youthful eyes to the larger limbs of
gentlemen enveloped in pantaloons. To speak plainly, I am sure I
needn’t tell you it ain’t decent.’
“‘Well,’ sais I, ‘it wouldn’t be decent if they wern’t enveloped in
them.’
“She looked down to blush, but it didn’t come natural, so she looked up
and smiled (as much as to say, do get out you impudent critter. I know
its bunkum as well as you do, but don’t bother me. I have a part to
play.) Then she rose and looked at her watch, and said the lecture hour
for botany has come.
“‘Well,’ sais I, a taking up my hat, ‘that’s a charming study, the
loves of the plants, for young ladies, ain’t it? they begin with natur,
you see, and—(well, she couldn’t help laughing). ‘But I see you are
engaged.’
“‘Me,’ said she, ‘I assure you, Sir, I know people used to say so,
afore General Peleg Smith went to Texas.’
“‘What that scallawag,’ said I. ‘Why, that fellow ought to be kicked
out of all refined society. How could you associate with a man who had
no more decency than to expect folks to call him by name!’
“‘How?’ said she.
“‘Why,’ sais I, ‘what delicate-minded woman could ever bring herself to
say Pe-_leg._ If he had called himself Hujacious Smith, or Larger-limb
Smith, or something of that kind, it would have done, but Pe_leg_ is
downright ondecent. I had to leave Boston wunst a whole winter, for
making a mistake of that kind. I met Miss Sperm one day from Nantucket,
and says I, ‘Did you see me yesterday, with those two elegant galls
from Albany?’
“‘No,’ said she, ‘I didn’t.’
“‘Strange, too,’ said I, ‘for I was most sure I caught a glimpse of
you, on the other side of the street, and I wanted to introduce you to
them, but warn’t quite sartain it was you. My,’ sais I, ‘didn’t you see
a very _unfashionable_ dressed man’ (and I looked down at my Paris
boots, as if I was doing modest), ‘with two angeliferous females? Why,
I had a _leg_ on each arm.’
“She fairly screamed out at that expression, rushed into a milliner’s
shop, and cried like a gardner’s watering-pot. The names she called me
ain’t no matter. They were the two Miss Legges of Albany, and cut a
tall swarth, I tell you, for they say they are descended from a govenor
of Nova Scotia, when good men, according to their tell, could be found
for govenors, and that their relations in England are some pumpkins,
too. I was as innocent as a child, Letty.’
“‘Well,’ said she, ‘you are the most difficult man to understand I ever
see—there is no telling whether you are in fun or in earnest. But as I
was a saying, there was some such talk afore General Smith went to
Texas; but that story was raised by the Pawtaxet College folks, to
injure this institution. They did all they could to tear my reputation
to chitlins. Me engaged, I should like to see the man that—’
“‘Well, you seemed plaguey scared at one just now,’ sais I. ‘I am sure
it was a strange way to show you would like to see a man.’
“‘I didn’t say that,’ she replied, ‘but you take one up so quick.’
“‘It’s a way I have,’ said I, ‘and always had, since you and I was to
singing-school together, and larnt sharps, flats, and naturals. It was
a crotchet of mine,’ and I just whipped my arm round her waist, took
her up and kissed her afore she knowed where she was. Oh Lordy! Out
came her comb, and down fell her hair to her waist, like a mill-dam
broke loose; and two false curls and a braid fell on the floor, and her
frill took to dancin’ round, and got wrong side afore, and one of her
shoes slipt off, and she really looked as if she had been in an
indgian-scrimmage and was ready for scalpin’.
“‘Then you ain’t engaged, Liddy,’ sais I; ‘how glad I am to hear that,
it makes my heart jump, and cherries is ripe now, and I will help you
up into the tree, as I used to did when you and I was boy and gall
together. It does seem so nateral, Liddy, to have a game of romps with
you again; it makes me feel as young as a two-year-old. How beautiful
you do look, too! My, what a pity you is shut up here, with these young
galls all day, talking by the yard about the corrallas, calyxes, and
staminas of flowers, while you
“‘Are doom’d to blush unseen,
And waste your sweetness on the desert air.’
“‘Oh,’ said she, ‘Sam, I must cut and run, and ‘blush unseen,’ that’s a
fact, or I’m ruinated,’ and she up curls, comb, braid, and shoe, and
off like a shot into a bed-room that adjoined the parlour, and bolted
the door, and double-locked it, as if she was afraid an attachment was
to be levied on her and her chattels, by the sheriff, and I was a
bum-bailiff.
“Thinks I, old gall, I’ll pay you off for treating me the way you did
just now, as sure as the world. ‘May I ask, Mr Slick, what is the
object of this visit?’ A pretty way to receive a cousin that you
haven’t seen so long, ain’t it? and though I say it that shouldn’t say
it, that cousin, too, Sam Slick, the attaché to our embassy to the
Court of Victoria, Buckingham Palace. You couldn’t a treated me wuss if
I had been one of the liveried, powdered, bedizened, be-bloated footmen
from ‘t’other big house there of Aunt Harriette’s.’ I’ll make you come
down from your stilts, and walk naterel, I know, see if I don’t.
“Presently she returned, all set to rights, and a little righter, too,
for she had put a touch of rouge on to make the blush stick better, and
her hair was slicked up snugger than before, and looked as if it had
growed like anything. She had also slipped a handsome habit-shirt on,
and she looked, take her altogether, as if, though she warn’t engaged,
she ought to have been afore the last five hot summers came, and the
general thaw had commenced in the spring, and she had got thin, and out
of condition. She put her hand on her heart, and said, ‘I am so skared,
Sam, I feel all over of a twitteration. The way you act is horrid.’
“‘So do I,’ sais I, ‘Liddy, it’s so long since you and I used to—’
“‘You ain’t altered a bit, Sam,’ said she, for the starch was coming
out, ‘from what you was, only you are more forrider. Our young men,
when they go abroad, come back and talk so free and easy, and take such
liberties, and say it’s the fashion in Paris, it’s quite scandalous.
Now, if you dare to do the like again, I’ll never speak to you the
longest day I ever live, I’ll go right off and leave, see if I don’t.’
“‘Oh, I see, I have offended you,’ sais I, ‘you are not in a humour to
consent now, so I will call again some other time.’
“‘This lecture on botany must now be postponed,’ she said, ‘for the
hour is out some time ago. If you will be seated, I will set the young
students at embroidery instead, and return for a short time, for it
does seem so nateral to see you, Sam, you saucy boy,’ and she pinched
my ear, ‘it reminds one, don’t it, of bygones?’ and she hung her head a
one side, and looked sentimental.
“‘Of by-gone larks,’ said I.
“‘Hush, Sam,’ she said, ‘don’t talk so loud, that’s a dear soul. Oh, if
anybody had come in just then, and caught us.’
(“_Us_,” thinks I to myself, “I thought you had no objection to it, and
only struggled enough for modesty-like; and I did think you would have
said, caught _you_.”)
“‘I would have been ruinated for ever and ever, and amen, and the
college broke up, and my position in the literary, scientific, and
intellectual world scorched, withered, and blasted for ever. Ain’t my
cheek all burning, Sam? it feels as if it was all a-fire;’ and she put
it near enough for me to see, and feel tempted beyond my strength.
‘Don’t it look horrid inflamed, dear?’ And she danced out of the room,
as if she was skipping a rope.
“Well, well,” sais I, when she took herself off. “What a world this is!
This is evangelical learning; girls are taught in one room to faint or
scream if they see a man, as if he was an incarnation of sin; and yet
they are all educated and trained to think the sole object of life is
to win, not convert, but win one of these sinners. In the next room
propriety, dignity, and decorum, romp with a man in a way to make even
his sallow face blush. Teach a child there is harm in everything,
however innocent, and so soon as it discovers the cheat, it won’t see
no sin in anything. That’s the reason deacons’ sons seldom turn out
well, and preachers’ daughters are married through a window. Innocence
is the sweetest thing in the world, and there is more of it than folks
generally imagine. If you want some to transplant, don’t seek it in the
enclosures of cant, for it has only counterfeit ones, but go to the
gardens of truth and of sense. Coërced innocence is like an imprisoned
lark, open the door and it’s off for ever. The bird that roams through
the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge the hawk and
protect itself, but the caged one, the moment it leaves its bars and
bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the vulture.
“Puritans, whether in or out of the church (for there is a whole squad
of ’em in it, like rats in a house who eat up its bread and undermine
its walls), make more sinners than they save by a long chalk. They
ain’t content with real sin, the pattern ain’t sufficient for a cloak,
so they sew on several breadths of artificial offences, and that makes
one big enough to wrap round them, and cover their own deformity. It
enlarges the margin, and the book, and gives more texts.
“Their eyes are like the great magnifier at the Polytechnic, that shows
you many-headed, many-armed, many-footed, and many-tailed awful
monsters in a drop of water, which were never intended for us to see,
or Providence would have made our eyes like Lord Rosse’s telescope
(which discloses the secrets of the moon), and given us springs that
had none of these canables in ’em. Water is our drink, and it was made
for us to take when we were dry, and be thankful. After I first saw one
of these drops, like an old cheese chock full of livin’ things, I
couldn’t drink nothing but pure gin or brandy for a week. I was scared
to death. I consaited when I went to bed I could audibly feel these
critters fightin’ like Turks and minin’ my inerds, and I got narvous
lest my stomach like a citadel might be blowed up and the works
destroyed. It was frightful.
“At last I sot up and said, Sam, where is all your common sense gone?
You used to have a considerable sized phial of it, I hope you ain’t
lost the cork and let it all run out. So I put myself in the
witness-stand, and asked myself a few questions.
“‘Water was made to drink, warn’t it?’
“‘That’s a fact.’
“‘You can’t see them critters in it with your naked eye?’
“‘I can’t see them at all, neither naked or dressed.’
“‘Then it warn’t intended you should?’
“‘Seems as if it wasn’t,’ sais I.
“‘Then drink, and don’t be skeered.’
“‘I’ll be darned if I don’t, for who knows them wee-monstrosities don’t
help digestion, or feed on human pyson. They warn’t put into Adam’s ale
for nothin’, that’s a fact.’
“It seems as if they warn’t,’ sais I. ‘So now I’ll go to sleep.’
“Well, puritans’ eyes are like them magnifiers; they see the devil in
everything but themselves, where he is plaguy apt to be found by them
that want him; for he feels at home in their company. One time they vow
he is a dancin’ master, and moves his feet so quick folks can’t see
they are cloven, another time a music master, and teaches children to
open their mouths and not their nostrils in singing. Now he is a tailor
or milliner, and makes fashionable garments; and then a manager of a
theatre, which is the most awful place in the world; it is a reflex of
life, and the reflection is always worse than the original, as a man’s
shadow is more dangerous than he is. But worst of all, they solemnly
affirm, for they don’t swear, he comes sometimes in lawn sleeves, and
looks like a bishop, which is popery, or in the garb of high churchmen,
who are all Jesuits. Is it any wonder these cantin’ fellows pervert the
understanding, sap the principles, corrupt the heart, and destroy the
happiness of so many? Poor dear old Minister used to say, ‘Sam, you
must instruct your conscience; for an ignorant or superstitious
conscience is a snare to the unwary. If you think a thing is wrong that
is not, and do it, then you sin, because you are doing what you believe
in your heart to be wicked. It is the intention that constitutes the
crime.’ Those sour crouts therefore, by creating artificial and
imitation sin in such abundance, make real sin of no sort of
consequence, and the world is so chock full of it, a fellow gets
careless at last and won’t get out of its way, it’s so much trouble to
pick his steps.
“Well, I was off in a brown study so deep about artificial sins, I
didn’t hear Liddy come in, she shut the door so softly and trod on
tiptoes so light on the carpet. The first thing I knew was I felt her
hands on my head, as she stood behind me, a dividin’ of my hair with
her fingers.
“‘Why, Sam,’ said she, ‘as I’m a livin’ sinner if you ain’t got some
white hairs in your head, and there is a little bald patch here right
on the crown. How strange it is! It only seems like yesterday you was a
curly-headed boy.’
“‘Yes,’ sais I, and I hove a sigh so loud it made the window jar; ‘but
I have seen a great deal of trouble since then. I lost two wives in
Europe.’
“‘Now do tell,’ said she. ‘Why you don’t!—oh, jimminy criminy! two
wives! How was it, poor Sam?’ and she kissed the bald spot on my pate,
and took a rockin’-chair and sat opposite to me, and began rockin’
backwards and forwards like a fellow sawin’ wood. ‘How was it, Sam,
dear?’
“‘Why,’ sais I, ‘first and foremost, Liddy, I married a fashionable
lady to London. Well, bein’ out night arter night at balls and operas,
and what not, she got kinder used up and beat out, and unbeknownst to
me used to take opium. Well, one night she took too much, and in the
morning she was as dead as a herring.’
“‘Did she make a pretty corpse?’ said Lid, lookin’ very sanctimonious.
‘Did she lay out handsum? They say prussic acid makes lovely corpses;
it keeps the eyes from fallin’ in. Next to dyin’ happy, the greatest
thing is to die pretty. Ugly corpses frighten sinners, but elegant ones
win them.’
“‘The most lovely subject you ever beheld,’ said I. ‘She looked as if
she was only asleep; she didn’t stiffen at all, but was as limber as
ever you see. Her hair fell over her neck and shoulders in beautiful
curls just like yourn; and she had on her fingers the splendid diamond
rings I gave her; she was too fatigued to take ’em off when she retired
the night afore. I felt proud of her even in death, I do assure you.
She was handsome enough to eat. I went to ambassador’s to consult him
about the funeral, whether it should be a state affair, with all the
whole diplomatic corps of the court to attend it, or a private one. But
he advised a private one; he said it best comported with our dignified
simplicity as republicans, and, although cost was no object, still it
was satisfactory to know it was far less expense. When I came back she
was gone.’
“‘Gone!’ said Liddy, ‘gone where?’
“‘Gone to the devil, dear, I suppose.’
“‘Oh my!’ said she. ‘Well, I never in all my born days! Oh, Sam, is
that the way to talk of the dead!’
“‘In the dusk of the evening,’ sais I, ‘a carriage, they said, drove to
the door, and a coffin was carried up-stairs; but the undertaker said
it wouldn’t fit, and it was taken back again for a larger one. Just
afore I went to bed, I went to the room to have another look at her,
and she was gone, and there was a letter on the table for me; it
contained a few words only.—‘Dear Sam, my first husband is come to
life, and so have I. Goodbye, love.”
“‘Well, what did you do?’
“‘Gave it out,’ said I, ‘she died of the cholera, and had to be buried
quick and private, and no one never knew to the contrary.’
“‘Didn’t it almost break your heart, Sammy?’
“‘No,’ sais I. ‘In her hurry, she took my dressing-case instead of her
own, in which was all her own jewels, besides those I gave her, and all
our ready money. So I tried to resign myself to my loss, for it might
have been worse, you know,’ and I looked as good as pie.
“‘Well, if that don’t beat all, I declare!’ said she.
“‘Liddy,’ sais I, with a mock solemcoly air, ‘every bane has its
antidote, and every misfortin its peculiar consolation.’
“‘Oh, Sam, that showed the want of a high moral intellectual education,
didn’t it?’ said she. ‘And yet you had the courage to marry again?’
“‘Well, I married,’ sais I, ‘next year in France a lady who had refused
one of Louis Philip’s sons. Oh, what a splendid gall she was, Liddy!
she was the star of Paris. Poor thing! I lost her in six weeks.’
“‘Six weeks! Oh, Solomon!’ said she, ‘in six weeks.’
“‘Yes,’ sais I, ‘in six short weeks.’
“‘How was it, Sam? do tell me all about it; it’s quite romantic. I vow,
it’s like the Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. You are so unlucky, I swow
I should be skeered—’
“‘At what?’ sais I.
“‘Why, at—’
“She was caught there; she was a goin’ to say, ‘at marryin’ you,’ but
as she was a leadin’ of me on, that wouldn’t do. Doctor, you may catch
a gall sometimes, but if she has a mind to, she can escape if she
chooses, for they are as slippery as eels. So she pretended to hesitate
on, till I asked her again.
“‘Why,’ sais she, a looking down, ‘at sleeping alone tonight, after
hearing of these dreadful catastrophes.’
“‘Oh,’ sais I, ‘is that all?’
“‘But how did you lose her?’ said she.
“‘Why, she raced off,’ said I, ‘with the Turkish ambassador, and if I
had a got hold of him, I’de a lammed him wuss than the devil beatin’
tan-bark, I know. I’de a had his melt, if there was a bowie-knife out
of Kentucky.’
“‘Did you go after her?’
“‘Yes; but she cotched it afore I cotched her.’
“‘How was that, Sam?’
“‘Why, she wanted to sarve him the same way, with an officer of the
Russian Guards, and Mahomet caught her, sewed her up in a sack, and
throwed her neck and crop into the Bosphorus, to fatten eels for the
Greek ladies to keep Lent with.’
“‘Why, how could you be so unfortunate?’ said she.
“‘That’s a question I have often axed myself, Liddy,’ sais I; ‘but I
have come to this conclusion: London and Paris ain’t no place for galls
to be trained in.’
“‘So I have always said, and always will maintain to my dying day,’ she
said, rising with great animation and pride. ‘What do they teach there
but music, dancing, and drawing? The deuce a thing else; but here is
Spanish, French, German, Italian, botany, geology, mineralogy,
icthiology, conchology, theology—’
“‘Do you teach angeolology and doxyology?’ sais I.
“‘Yes, angeolology and doxyology,’ she said, not knowing what she was a
talking about.
“‘And occult sciences?’ sais I.
“‘Yes, all the sciences. London and Paris, eh! Ask a lady from either
place if she knows the electric battery from the magnetic—’
“‘Or a _needle_ from a _pole_,’ sais I.
“‘Yes,’ sais she, without listening, ‘or any such question, and see if
she can answer it.”
“She resumed her seat.
“‘Forgive my enthusiasm,’ she said, ‘Sam, you know I always had a great
deal of that.’
“‘I know,’ said I, ‘you had the smallest foot and ankle of anybody in
our country. My! what fine-spun glass heels you had! Where in the world
have you stowed them to?’ pretendin’ to look down for them.
“‘Kept them to kick you with,’ she said, ‘if you are sassy.’
“Thinks I to myself, what next? as the woman said to the man who kissed
her in the tunnel, you are coming out, Liddy.
“‘Kick,’ said I, ‘oh, you wouldn’t try that, I am sure, let me do what
I would.’
“‘Why not?’ said she.
“‘Why,’ sais I, ‘if you did you would have to kick so high, you would
expose one of the larger limbs.’
“‘Mr Slick,’ said she, ‘I trust you will not so far forget what is due
to a lady, as to talk of showing her larger limbs, it’s not decent.’
“‘Well, I know it ain’t decent,’ said I, ‘but you said you would do it,
and I just remonstrated a little, that’s all.’
“‘You was saying about London and Paris,’ said she, ‘being no place for
educating young ladies in.’
“‘Yes,’ sais I, ‘that painful story of my two poor dear wives (which is
‘all in my eye,’ as plain as it was then), illustrates my theory of
education in those two capitals. In London, females, who are a great
deal in society in the season, like a man who drinks, can’t stop, they
are at it all the time, and like him, sometimes forget the way home
again. In Paris, galls are kept so much at home before marriage, when
they once get out, they don’t want to enter the cage again. They are
the two extremes. If ever I marry, I’ll tell you how I will lay down
the law. Pleasure shall be the recreation and not the business of life
with her. Home the rule—parties the exception. Duty first, amusement
second. Her head-quarters shall always be in her own house, but the
outposts will never be neglected.’
“‘Nothin’ like an American woman for an American man, is there?’ said
she, and she drew nearer, lookin’ up in my face to read the answer, and
didn’t rock so hard.
“‘It depends upon how they are brought up,’ said I, looking wise. ‘But,
Liddy,’ sais I, ‘without joking, what an amazin’ small foot that is of
yours. It always was, and wunst when it slipt through a branch of the
cherry-tree, do you recollect my saying, Well I vow that calf was
suckled by two cows? now don’t you, Liddy?’
“‘No, Sir,’ said she, ‘I don’t, though children may say many things
that when they grow up they are ashamed to repeat; but I recollect now,
wunst when you and I went through the long grass to the cherry-tree,
your mother said, ‘Liddy, beware you are not bit by a garter-snake, and
I never knew her meanin’ till now;’ and she rose up and said, ‘Mr
Slick, I must bid you good morning.’
“‘Liddy,’ sais I, ‘don’t be so pesky starch, I’ll be dod fetched if I
meant any harm, but you beat me all holler. I only spoke of the calf,
and you went a streak higher and talked of the garter.’
“‘Sam,’ said she, ‘you was always the most impedent, forredest, and
pertest boy that ever was, and travellin’ hain’t improved you one mite
or morsel.’
“‘I am sorry I have offended you, Liddy,’ sais I, ‘but really now, how
do you manage to teach all them things with hard names, for we never
even heard of them at Slickville? Have you any masters?’
“‘Masters,’ said she, ‘the first one that entered this college would
ruin it for ever. What, a man in this college! where the juvenile
pupils belong to the first families—I guess not. I hire a young lady to
teach rudiments.’
“‘So I should think,’ sais I, ‘from the specimen I saw at your door,
she was rude enough in all conscience.’
“‘Pooh,’ said she, ‘well, I have a Swiss lady that teaches French,
German, Spanish, and Italian, and an English one that instructs in
music and drawing, and I teach history, geography, botany, and the
sciences, and so on.’
“‘How on earth did you learn them all?’ said I, ‘for it puzzles me.’
“‘Between you and me, Sam,’ said she, ‘for you know my broughtens up,
and it’s no use to pretend—primary books does it all, there is question
and answer. I read the question, and they learn the answer. It’s the
easiest thing in the world to teach now-a-days.’
“‘But suppose you get beyond the rudiments?’
“‘Oh, they never remain long enough to do that. They are brought out
before then. They go to Saratoga first in summer, and then to
Washington in winter, and are married right off after that. The
domestic, seclusive, and exclusive system, is found most conducive to a
high state of refinement and delicacy. I am doing well, Sam,’ said she,
drawing nearer, and looking confidential in my face. ‘I own all this
college, and all the lands about, and have laid up forty thousand
dollars besides;’ and she nodded her head at me, and looked earnest, as
much as to say, ‘That is a fact, ain’t it grand?’
“‘The devil you have,’ said I, as if I had taken the bait. ‘I had a
proposal to make.’
“‘Oh,’ said she, and she coloured up all over, and got up and said,
‘Sam, won’t you have a glass of wine, dear?’ She intended it to give me
courage to speak out, and she went to a closet, and brought out a tray
with a decanter, and two or three glasses on it, and some frosted
plum-cake. ‘Try that cake, dear,’ she said, ‘I made it myself, and your
dear old mother taught me how to do it;’ and then she laid back her
head, and larfed like anything. ‘Sam,’ said she, ‘what a memory you
have; I had forgot all about the cherry-tree, I don’t recollect a word
of it.’
“‘And the calf?’ said I.
“‘Get along,’ said she, ‘do get out;’ and she took up some crumbs of
the cake, and made ’em into a ball as big as a cherry, and fired it at
me, and struck me in the eye with it, and nearly put it out. She jumped
up in a minit: ‘Did she hurt her own poor cossy’s eye?’ she said, ‘and
put it een amost out,’ and she kissed it. ‘It didn’t hurt his little
peeper much, did it?’
“Hullo, sais I to myself, she’s coming it too _pee_owerful strong
altogether. The sooner I dig out the better for my wholesomes. However,
let her went, she is wrathy. ‘I came to propose to you—’
“‘Dear me,’ said she, ‘I feel dreadful, I warn’t prepared for this;
it’s very onexpected. What is it, Sam? I am all over of a twiteration.’
“‘I know you will refuse me,’ sais I, ‘when I look round and see how
comfortable and how happy you are, even if you ain’t engaged.’
“‘Sam, I told you I weren’t engaged,’ she said: ‘that story of General
Smith is all a fabrication, therefore don’t mention that again.’
“‘I feel,’ said I, ‘it’s no use. I know what you will say, you can’t
quit.’
“‘You have a strange way,’ said she, rather tart, ‘for you ask
questions, and then answer them yourself. What _do_ you mean?’
“‘Well,’ sais I, ‘I’ll tell you, Liddy.’
“‘Do, dear,’ said she, and she put her hand over her _eyes,_ as if to
stop her from _hearing_ distinctly. ‘I came to propose to you—’
“‘Oh, Sam,’ said she, ‘to think of that!’
“‘To take a seat in my buggy,’ sais I, ‘and come and spend a month with
sister Sally and me, at the old location.’
“Poor thing, I pitied her; she had one knee over the other, and, as I
said, one hand over her eyes, and there she sot, and the way the upper
foot went bobbin’ up and down was like the palsy, only a little
quicker. She never said another word, nor sighed, nor groaned, nor
anything, only her head hung lower. Well, I felt streaked, Doctor, I
tell _you_. I felt like a man who had stabbed another, and knew he
ought to be hanged for it; and I looked at her as such a critter would,
if he had to look on, and see his enemy bleed to death. I knew I had
done wrong—I had acted spider-like to her—got her into the web—tied her
hand and foot, and tantalized her. I am given to brag, I know, Doctor,
when I am in the saddle, and up in the stirrups, and leavin’ all others
behind; but when a beast is choaked and down in the dirt, no man ever
heard me brag I had rode the critter to death.
“No, I did wrong, she was a woman, and I was a man, and if she did act
a part, why, I ought to have known the game she had to play, and made
allowances for it. I dropt the trump card under the table that time,
and though I got the odd trick, she had the honours. It warn’t manly in
me, that’s a fact; but confound her, why the plague did she call me
‘Mr,’ and act formal, and give me the bag to hold, when she knew me of
old, and minded the cherry-tree, and all that? Still she was a woman,
and a defenceless one too, and I did’nt do the pretty. But if she was a
woman, doctor, she had more clear grit than most men have. After a
while she took her hand off her eyes and rubbed them, and she opened
her mouth and yawned so, you could see down to her garters amost.
“‘Dear me!’ said she, trying to smile; but, oh me! how she looked! Her
eyes had no more expression than a China-aster, and her face was so
deadly pale, it made the rouge she had put on look like the hectic of a
dying consumption. Her ugly was out in full bloom, I tell _you_. ‘Dear
cousin Sam,’ said she, ‘I am so fatigued with my labours as
presidentess of this institution, that I can hardly keep my peepers
open. I think, if I recollect—for I am ashamed to say I was a
noddin’—that you _proposed_ (that word lit her eyes up) that I should
go with you to visit dear Sally. Oh, Sam!’ said she (how she bit in her
temper that hitch, didn’t she?) ‘you see, and you saw it at first, I
can’t leave on so short a notice; but if my sweet Sally would come and
visit me, how delighted I should be! Sam, I must join my class now. How
happy it has made me to see you again after so many years! Kiss me,
dear; good bye—God bless you!’ and she yawned again till she nearly
dislocated her jaw. ‘Go on and write books, Sam, for no man is better
skilled in human natur and _spares it less_ than yourself.’ What a
reproachful look she gave me then! ‘Good bye, dear!’
“Well, when I closed the door, and was opening of the outer one, I
heard a crash. I paused a moment, for I knew what it was. She had
fainted and fell into a conniption fit.
“‘Sam,’ sais I to myself, ‘shall I go back?’
“‘No,’ sais I, ‘if you return there will be a scene; and if you don’t,
if she can’t account naterally for it, the devil can’t, that’s all.’
“Doctor, I felt guilty, I tell you. I had taken a great many rises out
of folks in my time, but that’s the only one I repent of. Tell you
what, Doctor, folks may talk about their southern gentlemen, their New
York prince-merchants, and so on, but the clear grit, bottom and game,
is New England (Yankee-doodle-dum). Male or female, young or old, I’ll
back ’em agin all creation.”
Squire, show this chapter to Lord Tandembery, if you know him; and if
you don’t, Uncle Tom Lavender will give you a letter of introduction to
him; and then ask him if ever he has suffered half so much as Sam Slick
has in the cause of edication.