_I HAVE_ a very early recollection of my father as a cheerful man, and
of our home as a place full of the heart's warmest sunshine. But the
father of my childhood and the father of my more advanced years wore a
very different exterior. He had grown silent, thoughtful, abstracted,
but not morose. As his children sprang up around him, full of life and
hope, he seemed to lose the buoyant spirits of his earlier manhood. I
did not observe this at the time, for I had not learned to observe and
reflect. Life was a simple state of enjoyment. Trial had not quickened
my perceptions, nor suffering taught me an unselfish regard for others.
The home provided by my father was elegant--some would have called it
luxurious. On our education and accomplishments no expense was spared.
I had the best teachers--and, of course, the most expensive; with none
others would I have been satisfied, for I had come naturally to regard
myself as on a social equality with the fashionable young friends who
were my companions, and who indulged the fashionable vice of
depreciating everything that did not come up to a certain acknowledged
standard. Yearly I went to Saratoga or Newport with my sisters, and at
a cost which I now think of with amazement. Sometimes my mother went
with us, but my father never. He was not able to leave his business.
Business! How I came to dislike the word! It was always "business" when
we asked him to go anywhere with us; "business" hurried him away from
his hastily-eaten meals; "business" absorbed all his thoughts, and
robbed us of our father.
"I wish father would give up business," I said to my mother one day,
"and take some comfort of his life. Mr. Woodward has retired, and is
now living on his income."
My mother looked at me strangely and sighed, but answered nothing.
About this time my father showed some inclination to repress our
growing disposition to spend money extravagantly in dress. Nothing but
hundred-dollar shawl would suit my ideas. Ada White had been presented
by her father with a hundred-dollar cashmere, and I did not mean to be
put off with anything less.
"Father, I want a hundred dollars," said I to him one morning as he was
leaving the house, after eating his light breakfast. He had grown
dyspeptic, and had to be careful and sparing in his diet.
"A hundred dollars!" He looked surprised; in fact, I noticed that my
request made him start. "What do you want with so much money?"
"I have nothing seasonable to wear," said I, very firmly; "and as I
must have a shawl, I might as well get a good one while I am about it.
I saw one at Stewart's yesterday that is just the thing. Ada White's
father gave her a shawl exactly like it, and you must let me have the
money to buy this one. It will last my lifetime."
"A hundred dollars is a large price for a shawl," said my father, in
his sober way.
"Oh, dear, no!" was my emphatic answer; "a hundred dollars is a low
price for a shawl. Jane Wharton's cost five hundred."
"I'll think about it," said my father, turning from me rather abruptly.
When he came home at dinner-time, I was alone in the parlor, practicing
a. new piece of music which my fashionable teacher had left me. He was
paid three dollars for every lesson. My father smiled as he laid a
hundred-dollar bill on the keys of the piano. I started up, and kissing
him, said, with the ardor of a pleased girl--
"What a dear good father you are!"
The return was ample. He always seemed most pleased when he could
gratify some wish or supply some want of his children. Ah! if we had
been less selfish--less exacting!
It was hardly to be expected that my sisters would see me the possessor
of a hundred-dollar shawl, and not desire a like addition to their
wardrobes.
"I want a hundred dollars," said my sister Jane, on the next morning,
as my father was about leaving for his store.
"Can't spare it to-day, my child," I heard him answer, kindly, but
firmly.
"Oh, but I must have it," urged my sister.
"I gave you twenty-five dollars only day before yesterday," my father
replied to this. "What have you done with that?"
"Spent it for gloves and laces," said Jane, in a light way, as if the
sum were of the smallest possible consequence.
"I am not made of money, child." The tone of my father's voice struck
me as unusually sober--almost sad. But Jane replied instantly, and with
something of reproach and complaint in her tones--"I shouldn't think
you were, if you find it so hard to part with a hundred dollars."
"I have a large payment to make to-day"--my father spoke with unusual
decision of manner--"and shall need every dollar that I can raise."
"You gave sister a hundred dollars yesterday," said Jane, almost
petulantly.
Not a word of reply did my father make. I was looking at him, and saw
an expression on his countenance that was new to me--an expression of
pain, mingled with fear. He turned away slowly, and in silence left the
house.
"Jane," said my mother, addressing her from the stairway, on which she
had been standing, "how could you speak so to your father?"
"I have just as good right to a hundred dollar shawl as Anna," replied
my sister, in a very undutiful tone. "And what is more, Im going to
have one."
"What reason did your father give for refusing your request to-day?"
asked my mother.
"Couldn't spare the money! Had a large payment to make! Only an excuse!"
"Stop, my child!" was the quick, firm remark, made with unusual
feeling. "Is that the way to speak of so good a father? Of one who has
ever been so kindly indulgent? Jane! Jane! You know not what you are
saying!"
My sister looked something abashed at this unexpected rebuke, when my
mother took occasion to add, with an earnestness of manner that I could
not help remarking as singular,
"Your father is troubled about something. Business may not be going on
to his satisfaction. Last night I awoke, and found him walking the
floor. To my questions he merely answered that he was wakeful. His
health is not so good as formerly, and his spirits are low. Don't, let
me pray you, do anything to worry him. Say no more about this money,
Jane; you will get it whenever it can be spared."
I did not see my father again until tea-time. Occasionally, business
engagements pressed upon him so closely that he did not come home at
the usual hour for dining. He looked pale--weary--almost haggard.
"Dear father, are you sick?" said I, laying a hand upon him, and gazing
earnestly into his countenance.
"I do not feel very well," he replied, partly averting his face, as if
he did not wish me to read its expression too closely. "I have had a
weary day."
"You must take more recreation," said I. "This excessive devotion to
business is destroying your health. Why will you do it, father?"
He merely sighed as he passed onwards, and ascended to his own room. At
tea-time I observed that his face was unusually sober. His silence was
nothing uncommon, and so that passed without remark from any one.
On the next day Jane received the hundred dollars, which was spent for
a shawl like mine. This brought the sunshine back to her face. Her
moody looks, I saw, disturbed my father.
From this time, the hand which had ever been ready to supply all our
wants real or imaginary, opened less promptly at our demands. My father
talked occasionally of retrenchment and economy when some of our
extravagant bills came in; but we paid little heed to his remarks on
this head. Where could we retrench? In what could we economize? The
very idea was absurd. We had nothing that others moving in our circle
did not have. Our house and furniture would hardly compare favorably
with the houses and furniture of many of our fashionable friends. We
dressed no better--indeed, not so well as dozens of our acquaintances.
Retrenchment and economy! I remember laughing with my sisters at the
words, and wondering with them what could be coming over our father. In
a half-amused way, we enumerated the various items of imaginary reform,
beginning at the annual summer recreations, and ending with our
milliner's bills. In mock seriousness, we proposed to take the places
of cook, chambermaid, and waiter, and thus save these items of expense
in the family. We had quite a merry time over our fancied reforms.
But our father was serious. Steadily he persisted in what seemed to us
a growing penuriousness. Every demand for money seemed to give him a
partial shock, and every dollar that came to us was parted with
reluctantly. All this was something new; but we thought less than we
felt about it. Our father seemed to be getting into a very singular
state of mind.
Summer came round--I shall never forget that summer--and we commenced
making our annual preparations for Saratoga. Money was, of course, an
indispensable prerequisite. I asked for fifty dollars.
"For what purpose?" inquired my father.
"I haven't a single dress fit to appear in away from home," said I.
"Where are you going?" he asked.