‘You see,’ said poet Blandmour enthusiastically--as some forty years ago
we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall toward the end of
March--‘you see, my friend, that the blessed almoner, Nature, is in all
things beneficent; and not only so, but considerate in her charities, as
any discreet human philanthropist might be. This snow, now, which seems
so unseasonable, is in fact just what a poor husbandman needs. Rightly
is this soft March snow, falling just before seed-time, rightly is it
called “Poor Man’s Manure.” Distilling from kind heaven upon the soil,
by a gentle penetration it nourishes every clod, ridge, and furrow. To
the poor farmer it is as good as the rich farmer’s farm-yard
enrichments. And the poor man has no trouble to spread it, while the
rich man has to spread his.’
‘Perhaps so,’ said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the
damp flakes from my chest. ‘It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But
tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of “Poor Man’s
Manure” off poor Coulter’s two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder
on rich Squire Teamster’s twenty-acre field?’
‘Ah! to be sure--yes--well; Coulter’s field, I suppose, is sufficiently
moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you
know.’
‘Yes,’ replied I, ‘of this sort of damp fare,’ shaking another shower of
the damp flakes from my person. ‘But tell me, this warm spring snow may
answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of the
long, long winters here?’
‘Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?--“The Lord giveth
snow like wool”; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but warm,
too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is
comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among its
fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field when
covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it several
degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter’s snow _itself_
is beneficent; under the pretence of frost--a sort of gruff
philanthropist--actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be
fertilisingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March.’
‘I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your benevolent
heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this “Poor Man’s
Manure.”’
‘But that is not all,’ said Blandmour eagerly. ‘Did you never hear of
the “Poor Man’s Eye-water”?’
‘Never.’
‘Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as
alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole
demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can
freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind
provision is that!’
‘Then “Poor Man’s Manure” is “Poor Man’s Eye-water” too?’
‘Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing
answering two ends--ends so very distinct.’
‘Very distinct, indeed.’
‘Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have
been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year
round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilising
quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did
you ever hear of a “Poor Man’s Egg”?’
‘Never. What is that, now?’
‘Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where eggs
are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs may be
had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a cup of
cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a “Poor Man’s Egg.”
And many rich men’s housekeepers sometimes use it.’
‘But only when they are out of hen’s eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour.
But your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on.’
‘Then there’s “Poor Man’s Plaster” for wounds and other bodily harms; an
alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and so,
being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest of sufferers. Rich men
often use “Poor Man’s Plaster.”’
‘But not without the judicious advice of a fee’d physician, dear
Blandmour.’
‘Doubtless, they first consult the physician; but that may be an
unnecessary precaution.’
‘Perhaps so. I do not gainsay it. Go on.’
‘Well, then, did you ever eat of a “Poor Man’s Pudding”?’
‘I never so much as heard of it before.’
‘Indeed! Well, now you shall eat of one; and you shall eat it, too, as
made, unprompted, by a poor man’s wife, and you shall eat it at a poor
man’s table, and in a poor man’s house. Come now, and if after this
eating, you do not say that a “Poor Man’s Pudding” is as relishable as a
rich man’s, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is: that,
through kind Nature, the poor, out of their very poverty, extract
comfort.’
Not to narrate any more of our conversations upon this subject (for we
had several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the country,
for the benefit of my health), suffice it that, acting upon Blandmour’s
hint, I introduced myself into Coulter’s house on a wet Monday noon (for
the snow had thawed), under the innocent pretence of craving a
pedestrian’s rest and refreshment for an hour or two.
I was greeted, not without much embarrassment--owing, I suppose, to my
dress--but still with unaffected and honest kindness. Dame Coulter was
just leaving the wash-tub to get ready her one o’clock meal against her
good man’s return from a deep wood about a mile distant among the hills,
where he was chopping by day’s-work--seventy-five cents per day and
found himself. The washing being done outside the main building, under
an infirm-looking old shed, the dame stood upon a half-rotten, soaked
board to protect her feet, as well as might be, from the penetrating
damp of the bare ground; hence she looked pale and chill. But her
paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness of a
mother-to-be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched beneath
the mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But she smiled
upon me, as apologising for the unavoidable disorder of a Monday and a
washing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me down in the
best seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled constitution.
I thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low fire,
and--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the room,
while the good woman, throwing on more sticks, said she was sorry the
room was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly,
however--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire
Teamster’s forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the
living tree for the Squire’s fires. It needed not her remark, whatever
it was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some being
quite mossy and toad-stooled with long lying bedded among the
accumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and
vain spluttering enough.
‘You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least,’ said the dame;
‘what I have you are heartily welcome to.’
I thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the
least, but go on with her usual affairs.
I was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and
constitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness
upon them. The shrivelled sashes shook in their frames, and the green
panes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand
the dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly open.
The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen was. Nothing but
bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best sort. Not a
print on the wall; but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the smoked
chimney-shelf.
‘You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness.’
‘No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say.’
‘Oh, but _I_ am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think,’ and
her soft, sad, blue eye ran over my dress. ‘But I must sweep these
shavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before
sunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to
clear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They’d be
much better, though, were they not so green.’
Now if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those
green shavings ‘Poor Man’s Matches,’ or ‘Poor Man’s Tinder,’ or some
pleasant name of that sort.
‘I do not know,’ said the good woman, turning round to me again, as she
stirred among her pots on the smoky fire--‘I do not know how you will
like our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.’
‘Ah, what they call “Poor Man’s Pudding,” I suppose you mean.’
A quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.
‘_We_ do not call it so, sir,’ she said, and was silent.
Upbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to
myself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and seen
that flush.
At last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door,
and another voice said, ‘Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again in
a jiff--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be
speedy; because the Squire---- Good-day, sir,’ he exclaimed, now first
catching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his wife,
inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from his
patched boots to the floor.
‘This gentleman stops here a while to rest and refresh: he will take
dinner with us, too. All will be ready now in a trice: so sit down on
the bench, husband, and be patient, I pray. You see, sir,’ she
continued, turning to me, ‘William there wants, of mornings, to carry a
cold meal into the woods with him, to save the long one-o’clock walk
across the fields to and fro. But I won’t let him. A warm dinner is more
than pay for the long walk.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said William, shaking his head. ‘I have often
debated in my mind whether it really paid. There’s not much odds, either
way, between a wet walk after hard work, and a wet dinner before it. But
I like to oblige a good wife like Martha. And you know, sir, that women
will have their whimseys.’
‘I wish they all had as kind whimseys as your wife has,’ said I.
‘Well, I’ve heard that some women ain’t all maple-sugar; but, content
with dear Martha, I don’t know much about others.’
‘You find rare wisdom in the woods,’ mused I.
‘Now, husband, if you ain’t too tired, just lend a hand to draw the
table out.’
‘Nay,’ said I; ‘let him rest, and let me help.’
‘No,’ said William, rising.
‘Sit still,’ said his wife to me.
The table set, in due time we all found ourselves with plates before us.
‘You see what we have,’ said Coulter--‘salt pork, rye-bread, and
pudding. Let me help you. I got this pork of the Squire; some of his
last year’s pork, which he let me have on account. It isn’t quite so
sweet as this year’s would be; but I find it hearty enough to work on,
and that’s all I eat for. Only let the rheumatiz and other sicknesses
keep clear of me, and I ask no flavours or favours from any. But you
don’t eat of the pork!’
‘I see,’ said the wife, gently and gravely, ‘that the gentleman knows
the difference between this year’s and last year’s pork. But perhaps he
will like the pudding.’
I summoned up all my self-control, and smilingly assented to the
proposition of the pudding, without by my looks casting any reflections
upon the pork. But, to tell the truth, it was quite impossible for me
(not being ravenous, but only a little hungry at the time) to eat of the
latter. It had a yellowish crust all round it, and was rather rankish, I
thought, to the taste. I observed, too, that the dame did not eat of it,
though she suffered some to be put on her plate, and pretended to be
busy with it when Coulter looked that way. But she ate of the rye-bread,
and so did I.
‘Now, then, for the pudding,’ said Coulter. ‘Quick, wife; the Squire
sits in his sitting-room window, looking far out across the fields. His
timepiece is true.’
‘He don’t play the spy on you, does he?’ said I.
‘Oh, no!--I don’t say that. He’s a good enough man. He gives me work.
But he’s particular. Wife, help the gentleman. You see, sir, if I lose
the Squire’s work, what will become of----’ and, with a look for which I
honoured humanity, with sly significance he glanced toward his wife;
then, a little changing his voice, instantly continued--‘that fine horse
I am going to buy.’
‘I guess,’ said the dame, with a strange, subdued sort of inefficient
pleasantry--‘I guess that fine horse you sometimes so merrily dream of
will long stay in the Squire’s stall. But sometimes his man gives me a
Sunday ride.’
‘A Sunday ride!’ said I.
‘You see,’ resumed Coulter, ‘wife loves to go to church; but the nighest
is four miles off, over yon snowy hills. So she can’t walk it; and I
can’t carry her in my arms, though I have carried her upstairs before
now. But, as she says, the Squire’s man sometimes gives her a lift on
the road; and for this cause it is that I speak of a horse I am going to
have one of these fine sunny days. And already, before having it, I have
christened it “Martha.” But what am I about? Come, come, wife! the
pudding! Help the gentleman, do! The Squire! the Squire!--think of the
Squire! and help round the pudding. There, one--two--three mouthfuls
must do me. Good-bye, wife. Good-bye, sir. I’m off.’
And, snatching his soaked hat, the noble Poor Man hurriedly went out
into the soak and the mire.
I suppose now, thinks I to myself, that Blandmour would poetically say,
He goes to take a Poor Man’s saunter.
‘You have a fine husband,’ said I to the woman, as we were now left
together.
‘William loves me this day as on the wedding-day, sir. Some hasty words,
but never a harsh one. I wish I were better and stronger for his sake.
And, oh! sir, both for his sake and mine’ (and the soft blue beautiful
eyes turned into two well-springs), ‘how I wish little William and
Martha lived--it is so lonely-like now. William named after him, and
Martha for me.’
When a companion’s heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to
do nothing. I sat looking down on my as yet untasted pudding.
‘You should have seen little William, sir. Such a bright, manly boy,
only six years old--cold, cold now!’
Plunging my spoon into the pudding, I forced some into my mouth to stop
it.
‘And little Martha--Oh! sir, she was the beauty! Bitter, bitter! but
needs must be borne.’
The mouthful of pudding now touched my palate, and touched it with a
mouldy, briny taste. The rice, I knew, was of that damaged sort sold
cheap; and the salt from the last year’s pork barrel.
‘Ah, sir, if those little ones yet to enter the world were the same
little ones which so sadly have left it; returning friends, not
strangers, strangers, always strangers! Yet does a mother soon learn to
love them; for certain, sir, they come from where the others have gone.
Don’t you believe that, sir? Yes, I know all good people must. But
still, still--and I fear it is wicked, and very black-hearted,
too--still, strive how I may to cheer me with thinking of little William
and Martha in heaven, and with reading Dr. Doddridge there--still, still
does dark grief leak in, just like the rain through our roof. I am left
so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long, dear William is gone;
and all the damp day long grief drizzles and drizzles down on my soul.
But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and for the rest, manage it as
well as I may.’
Bitter and mouldy is the ‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ groaned I to myself, half
choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go down.
I could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest
sympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to which
there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a
persuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less
to mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could
have dispelled. I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and
honourable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have
been more than declined; charity resented.
The native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence,
though unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper,
they yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the
world. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our own peculiar
political principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a
prosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the
unfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little
random relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with
the keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their ideal
of universal equality and their grindstone experience of the practical
misery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is, ever has
been, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England, and
America.
Under pretence that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the dame
good-bye; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue, resigned
eye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was, and damp, damp,
damp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts of incipiencies--I yet
became conscious, by the suddenness of the contrast, that the house air
I had quitted was laden down with that peculiar deleterious quality, the
height of which--insufferable to some visitants--will be found in a
poor-house ward.
This ill-ventilation in winter of the rooms of the poor--a thing, too,
so stubbornly persisted in--is usually charged upon them as their
disgraceful neglect of the most simple means to health. But the instinct
of the poor is wiser than we think. The air which ventilates, likewise
_cools_. And to any shiverer, ill-ventilated warmth is better than
well-ventilated cold. Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity
over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits
of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
• • • • • •
‘Blandmour,’ said I that evening, as after tea I sat on his comfortable
sofa, before a blazing fire, with one of his two ruddy little children
on my knee, ‘you are not what may rightly be called a rich man; you have
a fair competence; no more. Is it not so? Well, then, I do not include
_you_, when I say, that if ever a Rich Man speaks prosperously to me of
a Poor Man, I shall set it down as----I won’t mention the word.’