My bride hath need of no disguise.—
But, rather, let her come to me
In such a form as bent above
My pillow when, in infancy,
I knew not anything but love.—
O let her come from out the lands
Of Womanhood—not fairy isles,—
And let her come with Woman’s hands
And Woman’s eyes of tears and smiles,—
With Woman’s hopefulness and grace
Of patience lighting up her face:
And let her diadem be wrought
Of kindly deed and prayerful thought,
That ever over all distress
May beam the light of cheerfulness.—
And let her feet be brave to fare
The labyrinths of doubt and care,
That, following, my own may find
The path to Heaven God designed.—
O let her come like this to me—
My bride—my bride that is to be.
“RINGWORM FRANK”
Jest Frank Reed’s his _real_ name—though
Boys all calls him “Ringworm Frank,”
’Cause he allus _runs round_ so.—
No man can’t tell where to bank
_Frank_’ll be,
Next you see
Er _hear_ of him!—Drat his melts!—
That man’s allus _somers else_!
We’re old pards.—But Frank he jest
_Can’t_ stay still!—Wuz _prosper’n’_ here,
But lit out on furder West
Somers on a ranch, last year:
Never heard
Nary a word
_How_ he liked it, tel to-day,
Got this card, reads thisaway:—
“Dad-burn climate out here makes
Me homesick all Winter long,
And when Springtime _comes_, it takes
Two pee-wees to sing one song,—
One sings ‘_pee_,’
And the other one ‘_wee!_’
Stay right where you air, old pard,—
Wisht _I_ wuz this postal card!”
AN EMPTY GLOVE
I
An empty glove—long withering in the grasp
Of Time’s cold palm. I lift it to my lips,—
And lo, once more I thrill beneath its clasp,
In fancy, as with odorous finger-tips
It reaches from the years that used to be
And proffers back love, life and all, to me.
II
Ah! beautiful she was beyond belief:
Her face was fair and lustrous as the moon’s;
Her eyes—too large for small delight or grief,—
The smiles of them were Laughter’s afternoons;
Their tears were April showers, and their love—
All sweetest speech swoons ere it speaks thereof.
III
White-fruited cocoa shown against the shell
Were not so white as was her brow below
The cloven tresses of the hair that fell
Across her neck and shoulders of nude snow;
Her cheeks—chaste pallor, with a crimson stain—
Her mouth was like a red rose rinsed with rain.
IV
And this was she my fancy held as good—
As fair and lovable—in every wise
As peerless in pure worth of womanhood
As was her wondrous beauty in men’s eyes.—
Yet, all alone, I kiss this empty glove—
The poor husk of the hand I loved—and love.
OUR OWN
They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;
We gossip, knee-by-knee;
They tell us all that they have planned—
Of all their joys to be,—
And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,
All desolate we cry
Across wide waves of voiceless graves—
Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
MAKE-BELIEVE AND CHILD-PLAY
_THE FROG_
_Who am I but the Frog—the Frog!_
_My realm is the dark bayou,_
_And my throne is the muddy and moss-grown log_
_That the poison-vine clings to—_
_And the black-snakes slide in the slimy tide_
_Where the ghost of the moon looks blue._
_What am I but a King—a King!—_
_For the royal robes I wear—_
_A sceptre, too, and a signet-ring,_
_As vassals and serfs declare:_
_And a voice, god wot, that is equalled not_
_In the wide world anywhere!_
_I can talk to the Night—the Night!—_
_Under her big black wing_
_She tells me the tale of the world outright,_
_And the secret of everything;_
_For she knows you all, from the time you crawl,_
_To the doom that death will bring._
_The Storm swoops down, and he blows—and blows,—_
_While I drum on his swollen cheek,_
_And croak in his angered eye that glows_
_With the lurid lightning’s streak;_
_While the rushes drown in the watery frown_
_That his bursting passions leak._
_And I can see through the sky—the sky—_
_As clear as a piece of glass;_
_And I can tell you the how and why_
_Of the things that come to pass—_
_And whether the dead are there instead,_
_Or under the graveyard grass._
_To your Sovereign lord all hail—all hail!—_
_To your Prince on his throne so grim!_
_Let the moon swing low, and the high stars trail_
_Their heads in the dust to him;_
_And the wide world sing: Long live the King,_
_And grace to his royal whim!_
“TWIGGS AND TUDENS”
If my old school-chum and room-mate John Skinner is alive to-day—and
no doubt he _is_ alive, and quite so, being, when last heard from, the
very alert and effective Train Dispatcher at Butler, Indiana,—he will
not have forgotten a certain night in early June (the 8th) of 1870,
in “Old Number ’Leven” of the Dunbar House, Greenfield, when he and I
sat the long night through, getting ready a famous issue of our old
school-paper, “The Criterion.” And he will remember, too, the queer
old man who occupied, but that one night, the room just opposite our
own, Number 13. For reasons wholly aside from any superstitious dread
connected with the numerals, 13 was not a desirable room; its locality
was alien to all accommodations, and its comforts, like its furnishings,
were extremely meagre. In fact, it was the room usually assigned to the
tramp-printer, who, in those days, was an institution; or again, it was
the local habitation of the oft-recurring transient customer who was too
incapacitated to select a room himself when he retired—or rather, when he
was personally retired by “the hostler,” as the gentlemanly night-clerk
of that era was habitually designated.
As both Skinner and myself—between fitful terms of school—had
respectively served as “printer’s devil” in the two rival newspaper
offices of the town, it was natural for us to find a ready interest
in anything pertaining to the newspaper business; and so it was,
perhaps, that we had been selected, by our own approval and that of our
fellow-students of The Graded Schools, to fill the rather exalted office
of editing “The Criterion.” Certain it is that the rather abrupt rise
from the lowly duties of the “roller” to the editorial management of a
paper of our own (even if issued in handwriting) we accepted as a natural
right; and, vested in our new power of office, we were largely “shaping
the whisper of the throne” about our way.
And upon this particular evening it was, as John and I had fairly squared
ourselves for the work of the night, that we heard the clatter and
shuffle of feet on the side-stairs, and, an instant later, the hostler
establishing some poor unfortunate in 13, just across the hall.
“Listen!” said John, as we heard an old man’s voice through the open
transom of our door,—“listen at that!”
It was an utterance peculiarly refined, in language as well as
intonation. A low, mild, rather apologetic voice, gently assuring the
hostler that “everything was very snug and comfortable indeed—so far as
the _compartment_ was concerned—but would not the _attendant_ kindly
supply a better light, together with pen-and-ink—and just a sheet or two
of paper,—if he would be so very good as to find a pardon for so very
troublesome a guest.”
“Hain’t no writin’-paper,” said the hostler, briefly,—“and the big lamps
is all in use. These fellers here in ’Leven might let you have some paper
and—Hain’t _you_ got a lead-pencil?”
“Oh, no matter!” came the impatient yet kindly answer of the old
voice—“no matter at all, my good fellow!—Good night—good night!”
We waited till the sullen, clumpy footsteps down the hall and stair had
died away.
Then Skinner, with a handful of foolscap, opened our door; and, with
an indorsing smile from me, crossed the hall and tapped at 13—was
admitted—entered, and very quietly closed the door behind him, evidently
that I might not be disturbed.
I wrote on in silence for quite a time. It was, in fact, a full half-hour
before John had returned,—and with a face and eye absolutely blazing with
delight.
“An old printer,” whispered John, answering my look,—“and we’re in
luck:—He’s a _genius_, ’y God! and an Englishman, and knows Dickens
_personally_—used to write races with him, and’s got a manuscript of his
in his ‘portmanteau,’ as he calls an old oil-cloth knapsack with one lung
clean gone. Excuse this extra light.—Old man’s lamp’s like a sore eye,
and he’s going to touch up the Dickens sketch for _us_! _Hear?_—_For
us_—for ‘The Criterion.’ Says he can’t sleep—he’s in distress—has
a presentiment—some dear friend is dying—or dead now—and he must
write—_write_!”
This is, in briefest outline, the curious history of the subjoined
sketch, especially curious for the reason that the following morning’s
cablegram announced that the great novelist, Charles Dickens, had been
stricken suddenly and seriously the night previous. On the day of this
announcement—even as “The Criterion” was being read to perfunctorily
interested visitors of The Greenfield Graded Schools—came the further
announcement of Mr. Dickens’s death. The old printer’s manuscript, here
reproduced, is, as originally, captioned—
TWIGGS AND TUDENS
“Now who’d want a more cosier little home than me and Tude’s got here?”
asked Mr. Twiggs, as his twinkling eyes swept caressingly around the
cheery little room in which he, alone, stood one chill December evening
as the great St. Paul’s was drawling six.
“This ain’t no princely hall with all its gorgeous paraphanaly, as the
play-bills says; but it’s what I calls a’ ‘interior,’ which for meller
comfort and cheerful surroundin’s ain’t to be ekalled by no other
‘flat’ on the boundless, never-endin’ stage of this existence!” And
as the exuberant Mr. Twiggs rendered this observation, he felt called
upon to smile and bow most graciously to an invisible audience, whose
wild approval he in turn interpreted by an enthusiastic clapping of his
hands and the cry of “Ongcore!” in a dozen different keys—this strange
acclamation being made the more grotesque by a great green parrot perched
upon the mantel, which, in a voice less musical than penetrating, chimed
in with “Hooray for Twiggs and Tudens!” a very great number of times.
“Tude’s a queer girl,” said Mr. Twiggs, subsiding into a reflective calm,
broken only by the puffing of his pipe, and the occasional articulation
of a thought, as it loitered through his mind. “Tude’s a queer girl!—a
werry queer girl!” repeated Mr. Twiggs, pausing again, with a long whiff
at his pipe, and marking the graceful swoop the smoke made as it dipped
and disappeared up the wide, black-throated chimney; and then, as though
dropping into confidence with the great fat kettle on the coals, that
steamed and bubbled with some inner paroxysm, he added, “And queer and
nothink short, is the lines for Tude, eh?
“Now s’posin’,” he continued, leaning forward and speaking in a tone
whose careful intonation might have suggested a more than ordinary depth
of wisdom and sagacity,—“s’posin’ a pore chap like me, as ain’t no
property only this-’ere ‘little crooked house,’ as Tude calls it, and
some o’ the properties I ’andles at the Drury—as I was a-sayin’,—s’posin’
now a’ old rough chap like me was jest to tell her all about herself, and
who she is and all, and not no kith or kin o’ mine, let alone a daughter,
as _she_ thinks—What do you reckon now ’ud be the upshot, eh?” And as Mr.
Twiggs propounded this mysterious query he jabbed the poker prankishly
in the short-ribs of the grate, at which the pot, as though humoring a
joke it failed to comprehend wholly, set up a chuckling of such asthmatic
violence that its smothered cachinnations tilted its copper lid till Mr.
Twiggs was obliged to dash a cup of water in its face.
“And Tude’s a-comin’ of a’ age, too,” continued Mr. Twiggs, “when a more
tenderer pertecter than a father, so to speak, wouldn’t be out o’ keepin’
with the nat’ral order o’ things, seein’ as how she’s sorto’ startin’
for herself-like now. And it’s a question in my mind, if it ain’t my
bounden duty as her father—or ruther, who has been a father to her all
her life—to kindo’ tell her jest how things is, and all—and how _I_ am,
and everythink,—and how I feel as though I ort’o stand by her, as I allus
have, and allus _have_ had her welfare in view, and kindo’ feel as how I
allus—ort’o kindo’—ort’o kindo’”—and here Mr. Twiggs’s voice fell into
silence so abruptly that the drowsy parrot started from its trance-like
quiet and cried “Ortokindo! Ortokindo!” with such a strength of seeming
mockery that it was brushed violently to the floor by the angry hand of
Mr. Twiggs and went backing awkwardly beneath the table.
“Blow me,” said Mr. Twiggs, “if the knowin’ impidence of that-’ere bird
ain’t astonishin’!” And then, after a serious controversy with the
draught of his pipe, he went on with his deliberations.
“Lor! it were jest scrumptious to see Tude in ‘The Iron Chest’ last
night! Now, I ain’t no actur myself,—I’ve been on, of course, a thousand
times as ‘fillin’,’ ‘sogers’ and ‘peasants’ and the like, where I never
had no lines, on’y in the ‘choruses’; but if I don’t know nothin’ but
‘All hail!—All hail!’ I’ve had the experience of bein’ under the baleful
hinfluence of the hoppery-glass, and I’m free to say it air a ticklish
position and no mistake. But _Tude_! w’y, bless you, she warn’t the
first bit flustered, was she? ’Peared-like she jest felt perfectly at
home-like—like her mother afore her! And I’m dashed if I didn’t feel the
cold chills a-creepin’ and a-crawlin’ when she was a-singin’ ‘Down by the
river there grows a green willer and a-weepin’ all night with the bank
for her piller’; and when she come to the part about wantin’ to be buried
there ’while the winds was a-blowin’ close by the stream where her tears
was a-flowin’, and over her corpse to keep the green willers growin’,’
I’m d—d if I didn’t blubber right out!” And as the highly sympathetic Mr.
Twiggs delivered this acknowledgment, he stroked the inner corners of his
eyes, and rubbed his thumb and finger on his trousers.
“It were a tryin’ thing, though,” he went on, his mellow features
settling into a look not at all in keeping with his shiny complexion—“it
were a tryin’ thing, and it _air_ a tryin’ thing to see them lovely arms
o’ hern a-twinin’ so lovin’-like around that-’ere Stanley’s neck and
a-kissin’ of him—as she’s obleeged to do, of course—as the ‘properties’
of the play demands; but I’m blowed if she wouldn’t do it quite so
nat’ral-like I’d feel easier. Blow me!” he broke off savagely, starting
up and flinging his pipe in the ashes, “I’m about a-comin’ to the
conclusion I ain’t got no more courage’n a blasted school-boy! Here I am
old enough to be her father—mighty nigh it—and yet I’m actually afeard to
speak up and tell her jest how things is, and all, and how I feel like
I—like I—ort’o—ort’o—”
“_Ortokindo! Ortokindo!_” shrieked the parrot, clinging in a reversed
position to the under-round of a chair.—“_Ortokindo! Ortokindo! Tude’s
come home!—Tude’s come home!_” And as though in happy proof of this
latter assertion, the gentle Mr. Twiggs found his chubby neck encircled
by a pair of rosy arms, and felt upon his cheek the sudden pressure of
a pair of lips that thrilled his old heart to the core. And then the
noisy bird dropped from its perch and marched pompously from its place of
concealment, trailing its rusty wings and shrieking, “Tude’s come home!”
at the top of its brazen voice.
“Shet up!” screamed Mr. Twiggs, with a pretended gust of rage, kicking
lamely at the feathered oracle; “I’ll ‘Tude’s-come-home’ ye! W’y, a
feller can’t hear his _ears_ for your infernal squawkin’!” And then,
turning toward the serious eyes that peered rebukingly into his own, his
voice fell gentle as a woman’s: “Well, there, Tudens, I beg parding;
I do indeed. Don’t look at me thataway. I know I’m a great, rough,
good-for—”But a warm, swift kiss cut short the utterance; and as the girl
drew back, still holding the bright old face between her tender palms, he
said simply, “You’re a queer girl, Tudens; a queer girl.”
“Ha! am I?” said the girl, in quite evident heroics and quotation,
starting back with a theatrical flourish and falling into a fantastic
attitude.—“‘Troth, I am sorry for it; me poor father’s heart is bursting
with gratichude, and he would fain ease it by pouring out his thanks to
his benefactor.’”
“Werry good! Werry good, indeed!” said Mr. Twiggs, gazing wistfully upon
the graceful figure of the girl. “You’re a-growin’ more wonderful’ clever
in your ‘presence’ every day, Tude. You don’t think o’ nothink else but
your actin’, do ye, now?” And, as Mr. Twiggs concluded his observations,
a something very like a sigh came faltering from his lips.
“Why, listen there! Ah-ha!” laughed Tude, clapping her hands and
dancing gayly around his chair.—“Why, you old melancholy Dane, you!
are you actually _sighing_?” Then, dropping into a tragic air of deep
contrition, she continued: “‘But, believe me, I would not question you,
but to console you, Wilford. I would scorn to pry into any one’s grief,
much more yours, Wilford, to satisfy a busy curiosity.’”
“Oh, don’t, Tude; don’t _rehearse_ like that at me!—I can’t a-bear it.”
And the serious Mr. Twiggs held out his hand as though warding off a
blow. At this appeal the girl’s demeanor changed to one of tenderest
solicitude.
“Why, Pop’m,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “I did not
mean to vex you—forgive me. I was only trying to be happy, as I ought,
although my own heart is this very minute heavy—very heavy—very.—No, no;
I don’t mean that—but, Father, Father, I have not been dutiful.”
“W’y, yes, you have,” broke in Mr. Twiggs, smothering the heavy
exclamation in his handkerchief. “You ain’t been ondutiful, nor nothink
else. You’re jest all and everythink that heart could wish. It’s all
my own fault, Tudens; it’s all my fault. You see, I git to thinkin’
sometimes like I was a-goin’ to _lose_ you; and now that you are a-comin’
on in years, and gittin’ such a fine start, and all, and position and
everythink.—Yes-sir! _position_, ’cause everybody likes you, Tudens. You
know that; and I’m that proud of you and all, and that selfish, that
it’s onpossible I could ever, ever give you up;—never, never, _ever_ give
you up!” And Mr. Twiggs again stifled his voice in his handkerchief and
blew his nose with prolonged violence.
It may have been the melancholy ticking of the clock, as it grated on the
silence following, it may have been the gathering darkness of the room,
or the plaintive sighing of the rising wind without, that caused the girl
to shudder as she stooped to kiss the kind old face bent forward in the
shadows, and turned with feigned gayety to the simple task of arranging
supper. But when, a few minutes later, she announced that Twiggs and
Tudens’s tea was waiting, the two smilingly sat down, Mr. Twiggs
remarking that if he only knew a blessing, he’d ask it upon that occasion
most certainly.
“—For on’y look at these-’ere ’am and eggs,” he said, admiringly: “I’d
like to know if the Queen herself could cook ’em to a nicer turn, or
serve ’em up more tantaliz’in’er to the palate. And this-’ere soup,—or
whatever it is, is rich as gravy; and these boughten rolls ain’t a bad
thing either, split in two and toasted as you do ’em, air they, Tude?”
And as Mr. Twiggs glanced inquiringly at his companion, he found her
staring vacantly at her plate. “I was jest a-sayin’, Tudens—” he went on,
pretending to blow his tea and glancing cautiously across his saucer.
“Yes, Pop’m, I heard you;—we really _ought_ to have a blessing, by all
means.”
Mr. Twiggs put down his tea without tasting it. “Tudens,” he said, after
a long pause, in which he carefully buttered a piece of toast for the
second time,—“Tudens, I’m ’most afeard you didn’t grasp that last remark
of mine: I was a-sayin’—”
“Well—” said Tudens, attentively.
“I was a-sayin’,” said Mr. Twiggs, averting his face and staring
stoically at his toast—“I was a-sayin’ that you was a-gittin’ now to be
quite a young woman.”
“Oh, so you were,” said Tudens, with charming naïveté.
“Well,” said Mr. Twiggs, repentantly, but with a humorous twinkle, “if I
wasn’t a-sayin’ of it, I was _a-thinkin’_ it.”—And then, running along
hurriedly, “And I’ve been a-thinkin’ it for days and days—ever sence
you left the ‘balley’ and went in ‘chambermaids,’ and last in leadin’
rôles. Maybe _you_ ain’t noticed it, but I’ve had my eyes on you from the
‘flies’ and the ‘wings’; and jest betwixt us, Tudens, and not for me as
ort to know better, and does know better, to go a-flatterin’, at my time
o’—or to go a-flatterin’ anybody, as I said, after you’re a-gittin’ to
be a young woman—and what’s more, a werry _’andsome_ young woman!”
“_Why, Pop’m!_” exclaimed Tudens, blushing.
“Yes, you are, Tudens, and I mean it, every word of it; and as I was
a-goin’ on to say, I’ve been a-watchin’ of you, and a-layin’ off a long
time jest to tell you summat that will make your eyes open wider ’an
that! What I mean,” said Mr. Twiggs, coughing vehemently and pushing his
chair back from the table—“what I mean is, you’ll soon be old enough to
be a-settin’ up for yourself-like, and a-marry’—W’y, Tudens, what _ails_
you?” The girl had risen to her feet, and, with a face dead white and
lips all tremulous, stood clinging to her chair for support. “What ails
you, Tudens?” repeated Mr. Twiggs, rising to his feet and gazing on her
with a curious expression of alarm and tenderness.
“Nothing serious, dear Pop’m,” said Tudens, with a flighty little
laugh,—“only it just flashed on me all at once that I’d clean forgotten
poor ‘Dick’s’ supper.” And as she turned abruptly to the parrot, cooing
and clucking to him playfully,—up, up from some hitherto undreamed-of
depth within the yearning heart of Mr. Twiggs mutely welled the old
utterance, “Tude’s a queer girl!”
“Whatever made you think of such a thing, Father?” called Tudens,
gayly; and then, without waiting for an answer, went on cooing to the
parrot,—“Hey, old dicky-bird! do _you_ think Tudens is a handsome young
woman? and do _you_ think Tudens is old enough to marry, eh?” This query
delivered, she broke into a fit of merriment which so wrought upon the
susceptibilities of the bird that he was heard repeatedly to declare and
affirm, in most positive and unequivocal terms, that Tude had actually
come home.
“Yes—_sir_, Tudens!” broke in Mr. Twiggs at last, lighting a fresh
churchwarden and settling into his old position at the grate; “have your
laugh out over it now, but it’s a werry serious fact, for all that.”
“I know it, Father,” said the girl, recovering her gravity, turning her
large eyes lovingly upon him and speaking very tenderly. “I know it—oh, I
know it; and many, many times when I have thought of it, and then again
of your old kindly faith; all the warm wealth of your love; and our old
home here, and all the happiness it ever held for me and you alike—oh, I
have tried hard—indeed, indeed I have—to put all other thought away and
live for you alone! But, Pop’m! dear old Pop’m—”And even as the great
strong breast made shelter for her own, the woman’s heart within her
flowed away in mists of gracious tears.
“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m, could her?” half cried and laughed
the happy Mr. Twiggs, tangling his clumsy fingers in the long dark hair
that fell across his arm, and bending till his glad face touched her
own.—“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m?”
“Never! never!” sobbed the girl, lifting her brimming eyes and
gazing in the kind old face. “Oh, may I always live with you, Pop’m?
Always?—Forever?—”
“—And a day!” said Mr. Twiggs, emphatically.
“Even after I’m—” and she hid her face again.
“Even after—_what_, Tudens?”
“After I’m—after I’m—married?” murmured Tudens, with a longing pressure.
“Nothink short!” said Mr. Twiggs;—“perwidin’,” he added, releasing one
hand and smoothing back his scanty hair—“perwidin’, of course, that your
man is a’ honest, straitforrerd feller, as ain’t no lordly notions nor
nothink o’ that sort.”
“Nor rich?”
“Well, I ain’t so p’ticklar about his bein’ _pore_, adzackly.—Say a
feller as works for his livin’, and knows how to ’usband his earnin’s
thrifty-like, and allus ’as a hextry crown or two laid up against a rainy
day—and a good perwider, of course,” said Mr. Twiggs, with a comfortable
glance around the room.—“’Ll blow me if I didn’t see a face there
a-peerin’ in the winder!”
“Oh, no, you didn’t,” said the girl, without raising her head. “Go
on—‘and a good provider—’”
“—A good perwider,” continued Mr. Twiggs; “and a feller, of course, as
has a’ eye out for the substantials of this life, and ain’t afeard o’
work—that’s the idear! that’s the idear!” said Mr. Twiggs, by way of
sweeping conclusion.
“And that’s all old Pop’m asks, after all?” queried the girl, with her
radiant face wistful as his own.
“W’y, certainly!” said Mr. Twiggs, with heartiness. “Ain’t that all and
everythink to make home happy?”—catching her face between his great brown
hands and kissing her triumphantly.