MY CHILD-WIFE.
The Bible says it is not good for man to be alone. This is a truth that
has been borne in on my mind, with peculiar force, from the earliest of
my recollection. In fact when I was only seven years old I had selected
my wife, and asked the paternal consent.
You see, I was an unusually lonesome little fellow, because I belonged
to the number of those unlucky waifs who come into this mortal life
under circumstances when nobody wants or expects them. My father was a
poor country minister in the mountains of New Hampshire with a salary of
six hundred dollars, with nine children. I was the tenth. I was not
expected; my immediate predecessor was five years of age, and the
gossips of the neighborhood had already presented congratulations to my
mother on having "done up her work in the forenoon," and being ready to
sit down to afternoon leisure.
Her well-worn baby clothes were all given away, the cradle was peaceably
consigned to the garret, and my mother was now regarded as without
excuse if she did not preside at the weekly prayer-meeting, the monthly
Maternal Association, and the Missionary meeting, and perform besides
regular pastoral visitations among the good wives of her parish.
No one, of course, ever thought of voting her any little extra salary on
account of these public duties which absorbed so much time and attention
from her perplexing domestic cares--rendered still more severe and
onerous by my father's limited salary. My father's six hundred dollars,
however, was considered by the farmers of the vicinity as being a
princely income, which accounted satisfactorily for everything, and had
he not been considered by them as "about the smartest man in the State,"
they could not have gone up to such a figure. My mother was one of
those gentle, soft-spoken, quiet little women who, like oil, permeate
every crack and joint of life with smoothness.
With a noiseless step, an almost shadowy movement, her hand and eye were
every where. Her house was a miracle of neatness and order--her children
of all ages and sizes under her perfect control, and the accumulations
of labor of all descriptions which beset a great family where there are
no servants, all melted away under her hands as if by enchantment.
She had a divine magic too, that mother of mine; if it be magic to
commune daily with the supernatural. She had a little room all her own,
where on a stand always lay open the great family Bible, and when work
pressed hard and children were untoward, when sickness threatened, when
the skeins of life were all crossways and tangled, she went quietly to
that room, and kneeling over that Bible, took hold of a warm, healing,
invisible hand, that made the crooked straight, and the rough places
plain.
"Poor Mrs. Henderson--another boy!" said the gossips on the day that I
was born. "What a shame! poor woman. Well, I wish her joy!"
But she took me to a warm bosom and bade God bless me! All that God sent
to her was treasure. "Who knows," she said cheerily to my father, "this
may be our brightest."
"God bless him," said my father, kissing me and my mother, and then he
returned to an important treatise which was to reconcile the decrees of
God with the free agency of man, and which the event of my entrance into
this world had interrupted for some hours. The sermon was a perfect
success I am told, and nobody that heard it ever had a moment's further
trouble on that subject.
As to me, my outfit for this world was of the scantest-a few yellow
flannel petticoats and a few slips run up from some of my older sisters
cast off white gowns, were deemed sufficient.
The first child in a family is its poem--it is a sort of nativity play,
and we bend before the young stranger, with gifts, "gold, frankincense
and myrrh." But the tenth child in a poor family is _prose_, and gets
simply what is due to comfort. There are no superfluities, no
fripperies, no idealities about the tenth cradle.
As I grew up I found myself rather a solitary little fellow in a great
house, full of the bustle and noise and conflicting claims of older
brothers and sisters, who had got the floor in the stage of life before
me, and who were too busy with their own wants, schemes and plans, to
regard me.
I was all very well so long as I kept within the limits of babyhood.
They said I was the handsomest baby ever pertaining to the family
establishment, and as long as that quality and condition lasted I was
made a pet of. My sisters curled my golden locks and made me wonderful
little frocks, and took me about to show me. But when I grew bigger, and
the golden locks were sheared off and replaced by straight light hair,
and I was inducted into jacket and pantaloons, cut down by Miss Abia
Ferkin from my next brother's last year's suit, outgrown--then I was
turned upon the world to shift for myself. Babyhood was over, and
manhood not begun--I was to run the gauntlet of boyhood.
My brothers and sisters were affectionate enough in their way, but had
not the least sentiment, and as I said before they had each one their
own concerns to look after. My eldest brother was in college, my next
brother was fitting for college in a neighboring academy, and used to
walk ten miles daily to his lessons and take his dinner with him. One of
my older sisters was married, the two next were handsome lively girls,
with a retinue of beaux, who of course took up a deal of their time and
thoughts. The sister next before me was four years above me on the lists
of life, and of course looked down on me as a little boy unworthy of her
society. When her two or three chattering girl friends came to see her
and they had their dolls and their baby houses to manage, I was always
in the way. They laughed at my awkwardness, criticised my nose, my
hair, and my ears to my face, with that feminine freedom by which the
gentler sex joy to put down the stronger one when they have it at
advantage. I used often to retire from their society swelling with
impotent wrath, at their free comments. "I won't play with you," I would
exclaim. "Nobody wants you," would be the rejoinder. "We've been wanting
to be rid of you this good while."
But as I was a stout little fellow, my elders thought it advisable to
devolve on me any such tasks and errands as interfered with their
comfort. I was sent to the store when the wind howled and the frost bit,
and my brothers and sisters preferred a warm corner. "He's only a boy,
he can go, or he can do or he can wait," was always the award of my
sisters.
My individual pursuits, and my own little stock of interests, were of
course of no account. I was required to be in a perfectly free,
disengaged state of mind, and ready to drop every thing at a moment's
warning from any of my half dozen seniors. "Here Hal, run down cellar
and get me a dozen apples," my brother would say, just as I had half
built a block house. "Harry, run up stairs and get the book I left on
the bed--Harry, run out to the barn and get the rake I left there--Here,
Harry, carry this up garret--Harry, run out to the tool shop and get
that"--were sounds constantly occurring--breaking up my private
cherished little enterprises of building cob-houses, making mill dams
and bridges, or loading carriages, or driving horses. Where is the
mature Christian who could bear with patience the interruptions and
crosses in his daily schemes, that beset a boy?
Then there were for me dire mortifications and bitter disappointments.
If any company came and the family board was filled and the cake and
preserves brought out, and gay conversation made my heart bound with
special longings to be in at the fun, I heard them say, "No need to set
a plate for Harry--he can just as well wait till after." I can recollect
many a serious deprivation of mature life, that did not bring such
bitterness of soul as that sentence of exclusion. Then when my sister's
admirer, Sam Richards, was expected, and the best parlor fire lighted,
and the hearth swept, how I longed to sit up and hear his funny stories,
how I hid in dark corners, and lay off in shadowy places, hoping to
escape notice and so avoid the activity of the domestic police. But no,
"Mamma, mustn't Harry go to bed?" was the busy outcry of my sisters,
desirous to have the deck cleared for action, and superfluous members
finally disposed of.
Take it for all in all--I felt myself, though not wanting in the supply
of any physical necessity, to be somehow, as I said, a very lonesome
little fellow in the world. In all that busy, lively, gay, bustling
household I had no mate.
"I think we must send Harry to school," said my mother, gently, to my
father, when I had vented this complaint in her maternal bosom. "Poor
little fellow, he is an odd one!--there isn't exactly any one in the
house for him to mate with!"
So to school I was sent, with a clean checked apron, drawn up tight in
my neck, and a dinner basket, and a brown towel on which I was to be
instructed in the wholesome practice of sewing. I went, trembling and
blushing, with many an apprehension of the big boys who had promised to
thrash me when I came; but the very first day I was made blessed in the
vision of my little child-wife, Susie Morril.
Such a pretty, neat little figure as she was! I saw her first standing
in the school-room door. Her cheeks and neck were like wax; her eyes
clear blue; and when she smiled, two little dimples flitted in and out
on her cheeks, like those in a sunny brook. She was dressed in a pink
gingham frock, with a clean white apron fitted trimly about her little
round neck. She was her mother's only child, and always daintily
dressed.
"Oh, Susie dear," said my mother, who had me by the hand, "I've brought
a little boy here to school, and will be a mate for you."
How affably and graciously she received me--the little Eve--all smiles
and obligingness and encouragement for the lumpish, awkward Adam. How
she made me sit down on a seat by her, and put her little white arm
cosily over my neck, as she laid the spelling-book on her knee,
saying--"_I_ read in Baker. Where do you read?"
Friend, it was Webster's Spelling-book that was their text-book, and
many of you will remember where "Baker" is in that literary career. The
column of words thus headed was a mile-stone on the path of infant
progress. But my mother had been a diligent instructress at home, and I
an apt scholar, and my breast swelled as I told little Susie that I had
gone beyond Baker. I saw "respect mingling with surprise" in her great
violet eyes; my soul was enlarged--my little frame dilated, as turning
over to the picture of the "old man who found a rude boy on one of his
trees stealing apples," I answered her that I had read there!
"Why-_ee!_" said the little maiden; "only think, girls--he reads in
readings!"
I was set up and glorified in my own esteem; two or three girls looked
at me with evident consideration.
"Don't you want to sit on our side?" said Susie, engagingly. "I'll ask
Miss Bessie to let you, 'cause she said the big boys always plague the
little ones." And so, as she was a smooth-tongued little favorite, she
not only introduced me to the teacher, but got me comfortably niched,
beside her dainty self on the hard, backless seat, where I sat swinging
my heels, and looking for all the world like a rough little short-tailed
robin, just pushed out of the nest, and surveying the world with round,
anxious eyes. The big boys quizzed me, made hideous faces at me from
behind their spelling-books, and great hulking Tom Halliday threw a spit
ball that lodged on the wall just over my head, by way of showing his
contempt for me; but I looked at Susie, and took courage. I thought I
never saw anything so pretty as she was. I was never tired with
following the mazes of her golden curls. I thought how dainty and nice
and white her pink dress and white apron were; and she wore a pair of
wonderful little red shoes; her tiny hands were so skillful and so busy!
She turned the hem of my brown towel, and basted it for me so nicely,
and then she took out some delicate ruffling that was her school work,
and I admired her bright, fine needle and fine thread, and the waxen
little finger crowned with a little brass thimble, as she sewed away
with an industrious steadiness. To me the brass was gold, and her hands
were pearl, and she was a little fairy princess!--yet every few moments
she turned her great blue eyes on me, and smiled and nodded her little
head knowingly, as much as to bid me be of good cheer, and I felt a
thrill go right to my heart, that beat delightedly under the checked
apron.
"Please, ma'am," said Susan, glibly, "mayn't Henry go out to play with
the girls? The big boys are so rough."
And Miss Bessie smiled, and said I might; and I was a blessed little boy
from that moment. In the first recess Susie instructed me in playing
"Tag," and "Oats, peas, beans, and barley, O," and in "Threading the
needle," and "Opening the gates as high as high as the sky, to let King
George and his court pass by"--in all which she was a proficient, and
where I needed a great deal of teaching and encouraging.
But when it came to more athletic feats, I could distinguish myself. I
dared jump off from a higher fence than she could, and covered myself
with glory by climbing to the top of a five-railed gate, and jumping
boldly down; and moreover, when a cow appeared on the green before the
school-house door, I marched up to her with a stick and ordered her off,
with a manly stride and a determined voice, and chased her with the
utmost vigor quite out of sight. These proceedings seemed to inspire
Susie with a certain respect and confidence. I could read in "readings,"
jump off from high fences, and wasn't afraid of cows! These were manly
accomplishments!
The school-house was a long distance from my father's, and I used to
bring my dinner. Susie brought hers also, and many a delightful picnic
have we had together. We made ourselves a house under a great
button-ball tree, at whose foot the grass was short and green. Our house
was neither more nor less than a square, marked out on the green turf by
stones taken from the wall. I glorified myself in my own eyes and in
Susie's, by being able to lift stones twice as heavy as she could, and a
big flat one, which nearly broke my back, was deposited in the centre of
the square, as our table. We used a clean pocket-handkerchief for a
table-cloth; and Susie was wont to set out our meals with great order,
making plates and dishes out of the button-ball leaves. Under her
direction also, I fitted up our house with a pantry, and a small room
where we used to play wash dishes, and set away what was left of our
meals. The pantry was a stone cupboard, where we kept chestnuts and
apples, and what remained of our cookies and gingerbread. Susie was fond
of ornamentation, and stuck bouquets of golden rod and aster around in
our best room, and there we received company, and had select society
come to see us. Susie brought her doll to dwell in this establishment,
and I made her a bedroom and a little bed of milkweed-silk to lie on. We
put her to bed and tucked her up when we went into school--not without
apprehension that those savages, the big boys, might visit our Eden with
devastation. But the girls' recess came first, and we could venture to
leave her there taking a nap till our play-time came; and when the girls
went in Susie rolled her nursling in a napkin and took her safely into
school, and laid her away in a corner of her desk, while the dreadful
big boys were having their yelling war-whoop and carnival outside.
"How nice it is to have Harry gone all day to school," I heard one of my
sisters saying to the other. "He used to be so in the way, meddling and
getting into everything"--"And listening to everything one says," said
the other, "Children have such horridly quick ears. Harry always listens
to what we talk about."
"I think he is happier now, poor little fellow," said my mother. "He
has somebody now to play with." This was the truth of the matter.
On Saturday afternoons, I used to beg of my mother to let me go and see
Susie; and my sisters, nothing loth, used to brush my hair and put on me
a stiff, clean, checked apron, and send me trotting off, the happiest of
young lovers.
How bright and fair life seemed to me those Saturday afternoons, when
the sun, through the picket-fences, made golden-green lines on the
turf--and the trees waved and whispered, and I gathered handfuls of
golden-rod and asters to ornament our house, under the button-wood tree!
Then we used to play in the barn together. We hunted for hens' eggs, and
I dived under the barn to dark places where she dared not go; and
climbed up to high places over the hay-mow, where she trembled to behold
me--bringing stores of eggs, which she received in her clean white
apron.
This daintiness of outfit excited my constant admiration. I wore stiff,
heavy jackets and checked aprons, and was constantly, so my sisters
said, wearing holes through my knees and elbows for them to patch; but
little Susie always appeared to me fresh and fine and untumbled; she
never dirtied her hands or soiled her dress. Like a true little woman,
she seemed to have nerves through all her clothes that kept them in
order. This nicety of person inspired me with a secret, wondering
reverence. How could she always be so clean, so trim, and every way so
pretty, I wondered? Her golden curls always seemed fresh from the brush,
and even when she climbed and ran, and went with me into the barn-yard,
or through the swamp and into all sorts of compromising places, she
somehow picked her way out bright and unsoiled.
But though I admired her ceaselessly for this, she was no less in
admiration of my daring strength and prowess. I felt myself a perfect
Paladin in her defense. I remember that the chip-yard which we used to
cross, on our way to the barn, was tyrannized over by a most
loud-mouthed and arrogant old turkey-cock, that used to strut and swell
and gobble and chitter greatly to her terror. She told me of different
times when she had tried to cross the yard alone, how he had jumped upon
her and flapped his wings, and thrown her down, to her great distress
and horror. The first time he tried the game on me, I marched up to him,
and by a dexterous pass, seized his red neck in my hand, and confining
his wings down with my arm, walked him ingloriously out of the yard.
How triumphant Susie was, and how I swelled and exulted to her, telling
her what I would do to protect her under every supposable variety of
circumstances! Susie had confessed to me of being dreadfully afraid of
"bears," and I took this occasion to tell her what I would do if a bear
should actually attack her. I assured her that I would get father's gun
and shoot him without mercy--and she listened and believed. I also
dilated on what I would do if robbers should get into the house; I
would, I informed her, immediately get up and pour shovelfuls of hot
coal down their backs--and wouldn't they have to run? What comfort and
security this view of matters gave us both! What bears and robbers were,
we had no very precise idea, but it was a comfort to think how strong
and adequate to meet them in any event I was.
Sometimes, of a Saturday afternoon, Susie was permitted to come and play
with me. I always went after her, and solicited the favor humbly at the
hands of her mother, who, after many washings and dressings and cautions
as to her clothes, delivered her up to me, with the condition that she
was to start for home when the sun was half an hour high. Susie was very
conscientious in watching, but for my part I never agreed with her. I
was always sure that the sun was an hour high, when she set her little
face dutifully homeward. My sisters used to pet her greatly during these
visits. They delighted to twine her curls over their fingers, and try
the effects of different articles of costume on her fair complexion.
They would ask her, laughing, would she be my little wife, to which she
always answered with a grave affirmative.
[Illustration: _MATRIMONIAL PROPOSITIONS._
"_Early marriages?" said my mother, stopping her knitting looking at me,
while a smile flashed over her thin cheeks: "what's the child thinking
of?_"]
Yes, she was to be my wife; it was all settled between us. But when? I
didn't see why we must wait till we grew up. She was lonesome when I was
gone, and I was lonesome when she was gone. Why not marry her now, and
take her home to live with me? I asked her and she said she was willing,
but mamma never would spare her. I said I would get my mamma to ask her,
and I knew she couldn't refuse, because my papa was the minister.
I turned the matter over and over in my mind, and thought sometime when
I could find my mother alone, I would introduce the subject. So one
evening, as I sat on my little stool at my mother's knees, I thought I
would open the subject, and began:
"Mamma, why do people object to early marriages?"
"Early marriages?" said my mother, stopping her knitting, looking at me,
while a smile flashed over her thin cheeks: "what's the child thinking
of?"
"I mean, why can't Susie and I be married now? I want her here. I'm
lonesome without her. Nobody wants to play with me in this house, and if
she were here we should be together all the time."
My father woke up from his meditation on his next Sunday's sermon, and
looked at my mother, smiling. A gentle laugh rippled her bosom.
"Why, dear," she said, "don't you know your father is a poor man, and
has hard work to support his children now? He couldn't afford to keep
another little girl."
I thought the matter over, sorrowfully. Here was the pecuniary
difficulty, that puts off so many desiring lovers, meeting me on the
very threshold of life.
"Mother," I said, after a period of mournful consideration, "I wouldn't
eat but just half as much as I do now, and I'd try not to wear out my
clothes, and make 'em last longer." My mother had very bright eyes, and
there was a mingled flash of tears and laughter in them, as when the sun
winks through rain drops. She lifted me gently into her lap and drew my
head down on her bosom.
"Some day, when my little son grows to be a man, I hope God will give
him a wife he loves dearly. 'Houses and lands are from the fathers; but
a good wife is of the Lord,' the Bible says."
"That's true, dear," said my father, looking at her tenderly; "nobody
knows that better than I do."
My mother rocked gently back and forward with me in the evening shadows,
and talked with me and soothed me, and told me stories how one day I
should grow to be a good man--a minister, like my father, she hoped--and
have a dear little house of my own.
"And will Susie be in it?"
"Let's hope so," said my mother. "Who knows?"
"But, mother, ain't you sure? I want you to say it will be certainly."
"My little one, only our dear Father could tell us that," said my mother.
"But now you must try and learn fast, and become a good strong man, so
that you can take care of a little wife."