LETTERS FROM NEW YORK.
About this time we got a very characteristic letter from Jim. Here it
is:
_Dear Hal_:--My head buzzes like a swarm of bees. What haven't I done
since you left? The Van Arsdels are all packing up and getting ready to
move out, and of course I have been up making myself generally useful
there. I have been daily call-boy and page to the adorable Alice.
Mem:--_That girl is a brick!_ Didn't use to think so, but she's sublime!
The way she takes things is so confounded sensible and steady! I respect
her--there's not a bit of nonsense about _her_ now--you'd better
believe. They are all going up to the old paternal farm to spend the
summer with his father, and by Fall there'll be an arrangement to give
him an income (Van Arsdel I mean), so that they'll have something to go
on. They'll take a house somewhere in New York in the Fall and do
fairly; but think what a change to Alice!
Oh, by the by, Hal, the Whang Doodle has made her appearance in our
parts again. Yesterday as I sat scratching for dear life, our friend
'Dacia sailed in, cock's feathers and all, large as life. She was after
money, as usual, but this time it's her _book_ she insisted on my
subscribing for. She informed me that it was destined to regenerate
society, and she wanted five dollars for it. The title is:
THE UNIVERSAL EMPYREAN HARMONIAD,
BEING
_An Exposition of the Dual Triplicate
Conglomeration of the Infinite_.
There, now, is a book for you.
'Dacia was in high spirits, jaunty as ever, and informed me that the
millennium was a-coming straight along, and favored me with her views of
how they intended to manage things in the good time.
The great mischief at present, she informs me, lies in _possessive
pronouns_, which they intend to abolish. There isn't to be any _my_ or
_thy_. Everybody is to have everything just the minute they happen to
want it, and everybody else is to let 'em. Marriage is an old effete
institution, a relic of barbarous ages. There is to be no _my_ of
husband and wife, and no _my_ of children. The State is to raise all the
children as they do turnips in great institutions, and they are to
belong to everybody. Love, she informed me, in those delightful days is
to be free as air; everybody to do exactly as they've a mind to; a
privilege she remarked that she took now as her right. "If I see a man
that pleases me," said she, "I shall not ask Priest or Levitt for leave
to have him." This was declared with so martial an air that I shrank a
little, but she relieved me by saying, "You needn't be frightened. I
don't want _you_. You wouldn't suit me. All I want of you is your
money." Whereat she came down to business again.
The book she informed me was every word of it dictated by spirits while
she was in the trance state, and was composed conjointly by Socrates,
St. Paul, Ching Ling, and Jim Crow, representing different races of the
earth and states of progression. From some specimens of the style which
she read to me, I was led to hope that we might all live as long as
possible, if that sort of thing is what we are coming to after death.
Well, it was all funny and entertaining enough to hear her go on, but
when it came to buying the book and planking the V, I flunked. Told
'Dacia I couldn't encourage her in possessive pronouns, that she had no
more right to the book than I had, that truth was a universal
birthright, and so the truths in that book were mine as much as hers,
and as I needed a V more than she did I proposed she should buy the
book of me. She didn't see it in that light, and we had high words in
consequence, and she poured down on me like a thousand of brick, and so
I coolly walked down stairs, telling her when she had done scolding to
shut the door.
Isn't she a case? The Domini was up in his den, and I believe she got at
him after I left. How he managed her I don't know. He won't talk about
her. The Domini is working like a Trojan, and his family are doing
finely. The kittens are all over his room with as many capers as the
fairies, and I hear him laughing all by himself at the way they go on.
We have looked at a dozen houses advertised in the paper, but not one
yet is the bargain you want; but we trudge on the quest all our
exercise-time daily. It will turn up yet, I'm convinced, the very thing
you want.
Height, Hal, you are a lucky dog. I'm like a lean old nag out on a
common, looking over a fence and seeing you in clover up to your
hat-band. If my kettle only could boil for two I'd risk about the
possessive pronouns. To say the truth I am tired of I and my, and would
like to say we and our if I dared.
Come home any way and kindle your tent fire, and let a poor tramp warm
himself at it.
Your dog and slave, JIM.
Bolton's letter was as follows:
_Dear Hal_:--I promised you a family cat, but I am going to do better by
you. There is a pair of my kittens that would bring laughter to the
cheeks of a dying anchorite. They are just the craziest specimens of
pure jollity that flesh, blood, and fur could be wrought into. Who wants
a comic opera at a dollar a night when a family cat will supply eight
kittens a year? Nobody seems to have found out what kittens are for. I
do believe these two kittens of mine would cure the most obstinate
hypochondria of mortal man, and, think of it, I am going to give them to
you! Their names are Whisky and Frisky, and their ways are past finding
out.
The house in which the golden age pastoral is to be enacted has not yet
been found. It is somewhere in fairy land, and will probably suddenly
appear to you as things used to, to good knights in enchanted forests.
Jim and I went down to the steamer yesterday to see Miss Van Arsdel and
your cousin off for Europe. They are part of a very pleasant party that
are going together and seem in high spirits. I find her articles (your
cousin's) take well, and there is an immediate call for more. So far,
good! Stay your month out, my boy, and get all you can out of it before
you come back to the "Dem'd horrid grind" of New York.
Ever yours, BOLTON.
P. S.--While I have been writing, Whisky and Frisky have pitched into a
pile of the proof-sheets of your _Milky Way_ story, and performed a
ballet dance with them so that they are rather the worse for wear. No
fatal harm done however, and I find it reads capitally. I met Hestermann
yesterday quite enthusiastic over one of your articles in the
_Democracy_ that happened to hit his fancy, and plumed myself to him for
having secured you next year for his service. So you see your star is in
the ascendant. The Hestermanns are liberal fellows, and the place you
have is as sure as the Bank of England. So your pastoral will have a
good bit of earthly ground to begin on.
B.
The next was from Alice.
_Dear Sister_:--I am so tired out with packing, and all the thousand and
one things that have to be attended to! You know mamma is not strong,
and now you and Ida are gone, I am the eldest daughter, and take
everything on my shoulders. Aunt Maria comes here daily, looking like a
hearse, and I really think she depresses mamma as much by her lugubrious
ways as she helps. She positively is a most provoking person. She
assumes with such certainty that mamma is a fool, and that all that has
happened out of the way comes by some fault of hers, that when she has
been here a day mamma is sure to have a headache. But I have discovered
faculties and strength I never knew I possessed. I have taken on myself
the whole work of separating the things we are to keep from those which
are to be sold, and those which we are to take into the country with us,
from those which are to be stored in New York for our return. I don't
know what I should have done if Jim Fellows hadn't been the real
considerate friend he is. Papa is overwhelmed with settling up business
matters, and one wants to save him every care, and Jim has really been
like a brother--looking up a place to store the goods, finding just the
nicest kind of a man to cart them, and actually coming in and packing
for me, till I told him I knew he must be giving us time that he wanted
for himself--and all this with so much fun and jollification that we
really have had some merry times over it, and quite shocked Aunt Maria,
who insists on maintaining a general demeanor as if there were a corpse
in the house.
One wicked thing about Jim is that he will take her off; and though I
scold him for it, between you and me, Eva, and in the "buzzom of the
family," as old Mrs. Knabbs used to say, I must admit that it's a little
too funny for anything. He can make himself look and speak exactly like
her, and breaks out in that way every once in a while; and if we reprove
him, says, "What's the matter? Who are you thinking of? I wasn't
thinking of what you were." He is a dreadful rogue, and one can't do
anything with him; but what we should have done without him, I'm sure I
don't know.
Sophie Elmore called the other day, and told me all about things between
her and Sydney. She is sending to Paris for all her things, and
Tullegig's is all in commotion. They are to be married early in October
and go off for a tour in Europe. You ought to see the gloom on Aunt
Maria's visage when the thing is talked about. If it had been anybody
but the Elmores I think Aunt Maria could have survived it, but they
have been her Mordecai in the gate all this time, and now she sees them
triumphant. She speaks familiarly about our being ruined, and finally
the other day I told her that I found ruin altogether a more comfortable
thing than I expected, whereat she looked at me as if I were an
abandoned sinner, sighed deeply, and said nothing. Poor soul! I oughtn't
to laugh, but she does provoke me so I am tempted to revenge myself in a
little quiet fun at her expense.
The other day Jim was telling me about a house he had been looking at.
Aunt Maria listened with a severe gravity and interposed with, "Of
course nobody could live on that street. Eva would be crazy to think of
it. There isn't a good family within squares of that quarter."
I said you didn't care for fashion, and she gave me one of her looks and
said, "I trust I sha'n't see Eva in that street; none but most ordinary
people live there." Only think, Eva, what if you should live on a street
where ordinary people live? How dreadful!
Well, darling, I can't write more; my hands are dusty with packing and
overhauling, and I am writing now on the top of a box waiting for the
man to cart away the next load. We are all well, and the girls behave
charmingly, and are just as handy and helpful as they can be, and mamma
says she never knew the comfort of her children before.
God bless you, dear, and good by,
Your loving ALICE.