Embodied each lurking shade of care;
'What a thankless life is this we lead!'
He murmur'd, as murmurs the broken reed,
That whispers low at the river's side,
To the wind that is ravaging far and wide.
But bless me! where am I? I ought to compare
A Doctor Despondent to something less fair.
'Tis strange what a walk a man's fancy will take
To find out a figure, for simile's sake.
But he said, in a very sad tone indeed,
'What a thankless life is this we lead;[17]
The good Samaritan's part is mine--
Like him I administer 'oil and wine;'[18]
But those who see me depart to-day,
Will think me an incubus, passing away:
Oh!--speaking of incubi--would not a wife
Make something less bitter this dose of a life?
She would clean out my phials, and make out my bills,
And would do to experiment on with my pills:
{ I'll consider----' he said, as he shut the door,
{ And put on the hat that he always wore,
{ In his haste precipitate, 'hind side before.
He hurried on foot to the car-dépôt;
The engine was puffing, in haste to go.
He seated himself on the hindmost seat,
And he lean'd back his head, and he put out his feet,
And he looked a peculiar look with his eye,
And the man who sat opposite, wondered why;
And he wondered more, when he heard him say
That _steam_ locomotion had had its day;
But what he was thinking, or what he could mean,
That man did not know: it remains to be seen.
END OF PART FIRST.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] For parallel passages, naturally to be expected in distinguished
authors treating of similar subjects, I give a general reference to
_all_ great poets, _passim_.
[15] '_Quam viram aut heroa?_' may the reader ask; wherefore, for
his benefit, we will declare, that the original of our hero was
a Scottish physician, whom we heard at a 'public,' describing a
miraculous visit to a 'weird woman.' After finishing his story, and
a generous glass of whiskey-toddy, he went his way upon a sorry
gray mare, whose acquaintance, I am confident, would have been cut
by Rosinante, or Hudibras's famed Bucephalus, if she had solicited
a passing recognition. The only change in the _circumstantia_, is
his translation to another locality, and making the object of his
pilgrimage one more immediately interesting here.
[16] The motto of the Kirkpatrick family, derived from the answer
of one of their 'forbears' to Robert Bruce, when he 'doubted he had
slain the red Comyn'--'I make sicker'--we commend to the especial
attention of the 'Faculty,' in the event of their application to the
herald's college for a new blazonry of the professional arms.
[17] 'Medicé vivere, est miseré vivere.'
[18] Oleum Ricini, and Vinum Antimonii: Castor oil, and Wine of
Antimony.
OUR VILLAGE POST-OFFICE.[19]
BY MISS SEDGWICK.
'WHY weep ye then, for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last,
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed;
While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set.'
BRYANT.
THE master of our village post-office for many years past was an old
man; but the real dispenser of its joys and sorrows was his son, a
youth who performed its duties with intelligence, exactness, and
delicacy. Some persons may not be aware how much the last quality
is called into requisition in a village post-master. Having the
universal country acquaintance with his neighbors' affairs, he holds
the key to all their correspondences. He knows, long before the news
transpires, when the minister receives a call, when the speculator's
affairs are vibrating; he can estimate the conjugal devotion of the
absent husband; but most enviable is his knowledge of those delicate
and uncertain affairs so provoking to village curiosity. Letters,
directed in well-known characters, and written with beating hearts
within locked apartments, pass through his hands. The blushing
youth steals in at twilight to receive from him his doom; and to
him is first known the results of a village belle's foray through a
neighboring district. Our young deputy post-master rarely betrayed
his involuntary acquaintance with the nature of the missives he
dispersed; but, whenever sympathy was permitted, his bright smile and
radiating or tearful eye would show how earnest a part he took in all
his neighbors suffered or enjoyed. Never was there a kinder heart
than Loyd Barnard's--never a truer mirror than his face.
Every family, however insignificant in the stranger's eye, has a
world of its own. The drama and the epic have their beginning, their
middle, and their end, in the material world. The true story of human
relations never ends, and this seal of immortality it is, that gives
a dignity and interest to the affections of the humble and unknown,
beyond that which fiction and poetry, even when it makes gods and
heroes its actors, can attach to qualities and passions that are
limited to this world's stage. This intrinsic dignity I claim for the
subjects of my humble village tale.
Loyd Barnard's father, Colonel Jesse Barnard, belonged to that
defunct body, the aristocracy of our country. He served in the
revolutionary war, he did good service to the state in the subsequent
Shay's rebellion, and, though he afterward inexplicably fell into the
ranks of the popular or democratic party, he retained the manners
and insignia of his caste--the prescribed courtesies of the old
_régime_, with the neatly tied cue, and the garment that has given
place to the levelling pantaloon. He even persevered in the use of
powder till it ceased to be an article of merchandise; and to the
very last he maintained those strict observances of politeness, that
are becoming, among us, subjects of tradition and history. These,
however, are merely accidents of education and usage. His moral
constitution had nothing aristocratic or exclusive. On the contrary,
his heart was animated with what we would fain believe to be the
spirit of our democratic institutions, a universal good will. The
colonel was remarkably exempt (whether fortunately or unfortunately
each according to his taste must decide) from the virtue or mania
of his age and country; and consequently, at threescore and ten,
instead of being the proprietor of lands in the West, or ships on the
sea, he possessed nothing but his small paternal estate in B----, a
pretty, cottage-looking dwelling, with a garden and an acre of land.
As far back as the administration of Jefferson, he had received
the appointment of post-master; and, as the village grew with the
prosperity of manufactures and agriculture, the income of the office
has of late amounted to some five or six hundred dollars. This,
with the addition of his pension as a revolutionary officer, made
the colonel 'passing rich;' for by this time his sons and daughters
were married, and dispersed from Maine to Georgia, and the youngest
only, our friend Loyd, remained at home. 'Passing rich' we say, and
repeat it, was the colonel. Those who have never seen an income of
a few hundred dollars well administered in rural life, can have no
conception of the comfort and independence, nay, luxury, it will
procure. In the first place, the staples of life, space, pure air,
sweet water, and a continual feast for the eye, are furnished in the
country, in unmeasured quantity, by the bounty of Providence. Then
when, as with the colonel, there are no vices to be pampered, no
vanities to be cherished, no artificial distinctions to be sustained,
no conventional wants to be supplied, the few hundred dollars do
all for happiness that _money_ can do. The king who has to ask his
Commons for supplies, and the Croesuses of our land who still desire
more than they have, might envy our contented colonel, or rather
might have envied him, till, after a life of perfect exemption from
worldly cares, he came, for the first time, to feel a chill from the
shadows of the coming day--a distrustful fear that the morrow might
_not_ take care of itself.
Among other luxuries of a like nature, (the colonel was addicted to
such indulgences,) he had allowed himself to adopt a little destitute
orphan-girl, Paulina Morton. She came to the old people after all
their own girls were married and gone, and proved so dutiful and so
helpful, that she was scarcely less dear to them than their own flesh
and blood. Paulina, or Lina--for by this endearing diminutive they
familiarly called her--was a pretty, very pretty girl, in spite of
red hair, which, since it has lost the favor some beauty, divine or
mortal, of classic days, won for it, is considered, if not a blemish,
certainly not an attribute of beauty. Paulina's friends and lovers
maintained that hers was getting darker every day, and that even were
it fire-red, her soft, blue eyes, spirited, sweet mouth, coral lips,
and exquisitely tinted skin would redeem it. Indeed, good old Mrs.
Barnard insisted it was only red in certain lights, and those certain
Ithuriel lights Loyd Barnard never saw it in; for he often expressed
his surprise that any one could be so blind as to call _auburn_ red!
In these days of reason's supremacy, we have found out there are no
such 'dainty spirits' as Ariel, Puck, and Oberon. Still the lover is
not disenchanted.
'Lina, my child,' said the old lady, one evening, just at twilight,
while the burning brands sent a ruddy glow over the ceiling, and were
reflected by the tea-things, our 'neat-handed lass was arranging,'
'Lina, do you expect Mr. Lovejoy this evening?'
'No, ma'am.'
'To-morrow evening, then?'
'No, ma'am; I never expect him again.'
'You astonish me, Lina. You don't mean you have given him his answer?'
Lina smiled, and Mrs. Barnard continued; 'I fear you have not duly
considered, Lina.'
'What is the use of considering, ma'am, when we know our feelings?'
'We can't afford always, my child, to consult feelings. Nobody can
say a word against Mr. Lovejoy; he made the best of husbands to his
first wife.'
'That was a very good reason why _she_ should love him, ma'am.'
Mrs. Barnard proceeded, without heeding the emphasis on _she_. 'He
has but three children, and two of them are out of the way.'
'A poor reason, as I have always thought, ma'am, to give either to
father or children for taking the place of mother to them.'
'But there are few that are calculated for the place; you are cut out
for a step-mother, Lina--just the right disposition for step-mother,
or step-daughter.'
Paulina's ideas were confused by the compliment, and she was on the
point of asking whether step-daughter and daughter-in-law expressed
the same relation, but some feeling checked her, and instead of
asking she blushed deeply. The good old lady continued her soundings.
'I did not, Lina, expect you to marry Mr. Lovejoy for love.'
'For what then, ma'am, should I marry him?' asked Lina, suspending
her housewife labors, and standing before the fire while she tied and
untied the string of her little black silk apron.
'Girls often do marry, my child, to get a good home.'
'_Marry_ to get a home, Mrs. Barnard! I would wash, iron, sweep,
scrub, beg to get a home, sooner than marry to get one; and, beside,
have I not the pleasantest home in the world?--thanks to your bounty
and the colonel's.'
Mrs. Barnard sighed, took Lina's fair, chubby hand in hers, stroked
and pressed it. At this moment, the colonel, who had, unperceived by
either party, been taking his twilight nap on his close-curtained
bed in the adjoining bedroom, rose, and drew up to the fire. He had
overheard the conversation, and now, to poor Paulina's embarrassment,
joined in it.
'I am disappointed, Lina,' he said; 'it is strange it is so difficult
to suit you with a husband; you are easily suited with every thing
else.'
'But I don't want a husband, Sir.'
'There's no telling how soon you may, Lina; I feel myself to be
failing daily, and when I am gone, my child, it will be all poor Loyd
can do to take care of his mother.'
'Can I not help him? Am I not stronger than Loyd? Would it not be
happiness enough to work for Loyd, and Loyd's mother?' thought
Paulina; but she hemmed, and coughed, and said nothing.
'It would be a comfort to me,' continued the old man, 'to see you
settled in a home of your own before I die.' He paused, but there
was no reply. 'I did not say a word when William Strong was after
you--I did not like the stock; nor when the young lawyer sent his
fine presents--as Loyd said, 'he had more gab than wit;' nor when
poor Charles Mosely was, as it were, dying for you, for, though his
prospects were fine in Ohio, I felt, and so did Mrs. Barnard, and so
did Loyd, as if we could not have you go so far away from us; but
now, my child, the case is different. Mr. Lovejoy has one of the
best estates in the county; he is none of your flighty, here to-day
and gone to-morrow folks, but a substantial, reliable person, and
I think, and Loyd said--' Here the brands fell apart; and, while
Paulina was breathless to hear what Loyd said, the old colonel rose
to adjust them. He had broken the thread, and did not take it up in
the right place. 'As I was saying, my child,' he resumed, 'my life is
very uncertain, and I think, and Loyd thinks--'
What Loyd thought Paulina did not learn, for at this moment the door
opened, and Loyd entered.
Loyd Barnard was of the Edwin or Wilfred order; one of those humble
and generous spirits that give all, neither asking nor expecting
a return. He seemed born to steal quietly and alone through the
shady paths of life. A cast from a carriage in his infancy had,
without producing any mutilation or visible injury, given a fatal
shock to his constitution. He had no disease within the reach of
art, but a delicacy, a fragility, that rendered him incapable of
continuous exertion or application of any sort. A merciful Providence
provides compensations, or, at least, alleviations, for all the
ills that flesh is heir to; and Loyd Barnard, in abundant leisure
for reading, which he passionately loved, in the tranquillity of a
perfectly resigned temper, and in a universal sympathy with all that
feel, enjoy, and suffer, had little reason to envy the active and
prosperous, who are bustling and struggling through the chances and
changes of this busy life. His wants were few, and easily supplied by
the results of the desultory employments he found in the village, in
the intervals of his attention to the post-office. As much of what we
call virtue is constitutional, so we suppose was Loyd's contentment;
if it was not virtue, it was happiness, for, till of late, he had
felt no more anxiety for the future than nature's commoners--the
birds and flowers.
'Ah, my son,' said the old gentleman, 'you have come just in the
right time--but where is Lina gone?'
'She went out as I came in, Sir, and I thought she looked as if she
had been weeping.'
'Weeping!' echoed the colonel; and 'Weeping!' reëchoed the old lady;
and 'could we have hurt her feelings?' asked both in the same breath.
'Why, what, in the world have you been saying to her, mother?'
'Nothing, Loyd--nothing--nothing--don't look so scared. We were only
expostulating a little, as it were, and urging her to accept Mr.
Lovejoy's offer.'
Loyd looked ten times paler than usual, and kept his eye rivetted on
his mother, till she added, 'But somehow it seems as if she could not
any way feel to it.'
'Thank God!' murmured Loyd, fetching a long breath. Both parents
heard the unwonted exclamation, and to both it was a revelation.
The Colonel rose, walked to the window, and, though the blinds
were closed, stood as if gazing out, and the old lady jerked her
knitting-needle from the sheath, and rolled up the knitting-work,
though she was not in the seam-needle.
It is difficult in any case for parents to realize how soon their
children pass the bounds of childhood, and how soon, among other
thoughts incident to maturity, love and marriage enter their heads.
But there were good reasons why the Colonel and his wife should have
fancied the governing passions and objects of ordinary lives had
never risen above their son's horizon. They considered him perfectly
incompetent to provide for the wants of the most frugal family, and
they had forgotten that love takes no counsel from prudence. It was
too late now to remember it.
The Colonel, after repeated clearings of his throat, taking off
his spectacles, wiping and putting them on again, said, 'Are you
_attached_ to Lina, my son?' He used the word in its prescriptive
rustic sense.
'Yes, Sir.'
'Strange I never mistrusted it!--How long have you been so, Loyd?'
'Ever since I was old enough to understand my feelings; but I did
not, till very lately, know that I could not bear the thoughts of her
becoming attached to another.'
'Do you know what Lina's feelings are?'
'No, Sir.'
'But surely you can _guess_, Loyd,' interrupted his mother.
'I can _hope_, mother--and I do.'
'The sooner, my son, you both get over it the better, for there is no
kind of a prospect for you.'
'My child,' said the good old man, gently laying his hand on the
shoulder of his companion of fifty years, 'trust in Providence;
our basket and store have been always full, and why should not our
children's be? Loyd now does the business of the post-office; while I
live they can share with us, and, when I am gone, it may so be, that
the heart of the ruler will be so overruled, that the office will be
continued to Loyd.'
Loyd, either anticipating his mother's opposing arguments, or
himself impelled irresistibly to the argument of love, disappeared,
and the old lady, who, it must be confessed, lived less by faith than
her gentle spouse, replied:
'The office continued to Loyd! Who ever heard of old Jackson's heart
being overruled to do what he had not a mind to?'
'My dear child!'
'Well, my dear, do hear me out; don't the loaves and fishes _all_ go
on one side of the table?'
'Why, we have had our plates filled a pretty while, my dear.'
'Well, my dear, old Jackson could not take the bread and butter out
of the mouth of a revolutionary officer.'
'I am sure he has proved that he _would_ not.'
'No, my dear, _could_ not. Why, even his own party--and we all know
what his party are in old Massachusetts--'
'About like the other party, my dear.'
'My dear! how can you say so! Why, his own party are the most
violent, given-over, as it were, and low-lived people; yet they would
be ashamed to see you turned out of office.'
'They would be sorry, I know; for we have many good friends, and
kind neighbors among them; there's Mr. Loomis, Harry Bishop, and Mr.
Barton.'
'Mr. Barton! Lyman Barton! My dear, every body knows, and every body
says, Lyman Barton has been waiting this last dozen years to step
into your shoes. The post-office is just what he wants. To be sure
he is a snug man, and lives within his means; but then he has a
large growing family, and they are obliged to be prudent, and there
would be enough to say he _ought_ to have the office. And, beside,
is he not always working for the party? writing in the paper? and
serving them every way? And who was ever a Jackson man, but for
what he expected to get for it? No, no, my dear, mark my words! you
won't be cold, before Lyman Barton will be sending off a petition to
Washington for the office, and signed by every Jackson man in town.'
'I don't believe it, my dear; I don't feel as if Lyman Barton would
ask for the office.'
'Well, my dear, you'll see, after you are dead and gone, how it will
be--you may laugh--I mean _I_ shall see, if I am spared--you always
have, colonel, just such a blind faith in every body.'
'My faith is founded on reason and experience, my dear. Through life
I have found friends kind to me beyond my deservings, and far beyond
my expectations. I have got pretty near the other shore, and I can't
remember that ever I had an enemy.'
While this conversation was in progress, there was a _tête-à-tête_,
on which we dare not intrude, in another apartment of the house. The
slight veil that had covered the hearts of our true lovers dropped
at the first touch, and both, finding a mine of the only riches
they coveted, 'dared be poor' in this world's poor sense. Secured
by the good colonel's indulgence, for the present they were too
happy to look beyond the sunshine that played around them for any
dark entanglements to which their path might conduct them. In any
event, they did not risk the miseries of dependence, nor the pains
of starvation. Nature, in our land, spreads an abundant table; and
there is always a cover awaiting the frugal and industrious laborer
(or even gleaner) in her fruitful fields. Any thing short of absolute
want, perhaps even that, it seemed to our young friends happiness to
encounter together.
Oh ye perjured traffickers in marriage vows! ye buyers and sellers of
hearts--hearts! they are not articles of commerce--buyers and sellers
of the bodies that might envelope and contain celestial spirits, eat,
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die! To-morrow your home, that
temple of the affections, which God himself has consecrated, shall be
their tomb, within whose walls shall be endured the torpor of death
with the acute consciousness of life!
Our simple friends wotted not of the miseries of artificial life.
These had never even crossed the threshold of their imaginations.
The colonel gave his hearty consent for the asking, and his prudent
help-mate was too true-hearted a woman to withhold hers. There are
those wise as serpents, if not harmless as doves, in village life;
and such shook their heads, and wondered if the colonel calculated
to live and be post-master for ever! or if Loyd could be such a
fool as to expect to succeed to the office, when every body knew it
was just as good as promised to Mr. Barton! Loyd Barnard, a steady,
_consistent_ (our own side is always consistent) whig, expect the
tender mercies of the Jackson party! No, Loyd Barnard indulged no
such extravagant expectation. He had stood by 'old Massachusetts'
through her obstinate or her _consistent_ opposition to the general
government, and he expected to reap the customary reward of such
firmness or--prejudice. To confess the truth, he thought little about
the future, and not all of the Malthusian theories. His present
happiness was enough, and it was brightened with the soft and equal
light of the past. As to Paulina, it was her nature,
'Ne'er to forgather wi' sorrow and care,
But gie them a skelp as they're creepin alang.'
The preliminaries being adjusted, it was agreed on all hands that the
wedding should not be deferred. Quilts were quilted--the publishment
pasted on the church door--and the wedding-cake made. Never had the
colonel seemed better and brighter; his step was firmer, his person
more erect than usual; and his face reflected the happiness of his
children, as the leafless woods warm and kindle in a spring sunshine.
At this moment came one of those sudden changes that mock at human
calculations. An epidemic influenza, fatal to the feeble and the
old, was passing over the whole country. Colonel Barnard was one of
its first victims. He died after a week's illness; and though he was
some years beyond the authorized period of mortality, his death at
this moment occasioned a general shock, as if he had been cut off in
the prime of life. All--even his enemies, we should have said, but
enemies he had none--spoke of the event in a subdued voice, and with
the sincerest expressions of regret. The grief of his own little
family we have not space to describe, or, if we had, how could we
depict the desolation of a home from which such a fountain of love
and goodness was suddenly removed? Notwithstanding the day of the
funeral was one of the coldest of a severe January, the mercury
being some degrees below cipher, and the gusty, cutting wind driving
the snow into billows, numbers collected from the adjoining towns to
pay the last tribute of respect to the good colonel.
There is a reality in the honor that is rendered at a rustic funeral
to a poor, good man, a touching sincerity in sympathy where every
follower is a mourner.
The custom, growing in some of our cities, of private funerals, of
limiting the attendants to the family and nearest friends of the
deceased, is there in good taste. The parade of ceremony, the pomp
of numbers, the homage of civility, and all the show and tricks of
hollow conventional life, are never more out of place, never more
revolting, than where death has come with its resistless power and
awful truth. But a country funeral has, beside its quality of general
sorrow, somewhat of the nature of the Egyptian court that sat upon
the merits of the dead. The simplicity and frankness of country life
has truly exhibited the character of the departed, and if judged
in gentleness (as all human judgments should be rendered) it is
equitably judged.
The colonel's humble home was filled to overflowing, so that there
were numbers who were obliged to await the moving of the procession
in the intense cold on the outside of the house; and they did wait,
patiently and reverently--no slight testimony of their respect.