“Mrs. Bangs, look here,” said the cook, “look at this queer thing in the
turkey’s craw; it looks for all the world like a brickbat.”
“O never mind the brickbat,” said Mrs. Bangs, “let that alone; ‘tis no
concern of ours—only make haste and prepare the turkey for the spit.
Your head is always running after things that don’t concern you.”
Thus spoke Mrs. Bangs, the mother of thirteen children, all girls. She
was a strong, healthy woman of fifty years of age, and in the three
characters of daughter, wife and mother, had been exemplary. She was the
only child of a respectable farmer, and at her parent’s death inherited
the farm which a few years after her marriage rose greatly in value. It
was on the outskirts of a populous city which had increased so rapidly
that at the birth of her second child the farm was laid out in streets,
in every one of which they had sold several lots for buildings.
Her husband was a chemist, and his laboratory was very near this
valuable property, so that he could attend to his business in the
manufactory and look after the workmen who were building his houses.
What Mr. Bangs learned during his apprenticeship, that he knew well, and
on that stock of knowledge he operated all his life. He manufactured the
best aqua ammonia in the country, free from that empyreumatic, old
tobacco-pipe taste and smell, which it has in general when made in
America, and his salt of tartar had not an opaque grain in it. Thus it
was with all the drugs that he made, for he was more intent upon keeping
up his good name than in making money speedily, and his pride was in
having it said that Christopher Bangs’s word was as good as his bond.
Further than this there was but little to be said, excepting that he was
a disappointed man, and had the feeling of being ill used.
This disappointment consisted in not having a son—one, he said, who
could take up the business when he laid it down—one to whom he could
confide the few secrets of his trade.
When the birth of the first girl was announced, it was very well; not
that he did not fret in secret, but he took it as a thing of course, and
as he was daily in the habit of hearing Mrs. Bangs congratulate herself
that the child was a girl, because she could assist her in her household
cares, he was resigned to it, although it was full three months before
his club mates were told of his having an increase of family. But he
really did murmur when the second girl came. “Why, at this rate,” said
he, indignantly, “I cannot have a child named after me at all.
Christopher Bangs will end with me, and who is to be the better of all
the valuable secrets of the laboratory?”
“Oh, la! my dear,” said his wife, “let that alone, it’s no concern of
ours, and as to the child’s name, don’t fret about that, for can’t I
name this dear chubby little thing Christina, the short of which is
Kitty, and that is as good as Kit any day in the year; and only think
what a help this dear, chubby little thing will be to her sister.”
Mr. Bangs sulked out of the room and went to his laboratory, and his
wife went through her nursing and household duties with double alacrity.
The third daughter came, and Mr. Bangs heard it with surprise that
bordered on despair. “Never mind it, Kit,” said the contented,
good-tempered Mrs. Bangs; “we’ll call this dear, chubby, little thing
after your old uncle Joseph; Josephine is a very pretty name.”
“I don’t care what you call it,” said her crusty husband; “I consider
myself as an ill used, injured man; only I hope, since you like girls so
well, that you may have a round dozen of them.”
“Oh la! husband, what makes you so spiteful against girls?” said
she—“but let that alone, it is no concern of ours—a dozen, indeed! how
do you think we can manage to live in this small house with so large a
family? You must build a bigger house, man; so, my dear Kit, set about
it,”—and this was all the concern it gave her.
After that he troubled himself no more with inquiries about the sex of
the child, and in due time, one after the other, the round dozen came.
The only thing that troubled the contented, busy woman was the naming of
the little girls. She certainly, when she could spare her thoughts from
her increased cares, would have liked a boy now and then, to please her
husband; but as this was not to be, she did the next best thing to
it—she gave them all boys’ names. So, after the first, which was called
Robina, came Christina, then Josephine, then Phillippa, Augusta,
Johanna, Gabriella, Georgiana, and Wilhelmina. At the birth of her tenth
child she paused—her father’s name was Jacob, and as she had named
Gabriella after her husband’s father, Gabriel, she thought it but fair
to honour her own likewise—but Jacob! However, she was not a woman to
stop at trifles, even if she had the time; so the _poor_, little, chubby
thing—for now she added _poor_ to the chubby—the poor, chubby, little
thing was called Jacobina. Then in due time came the eleventh, which was
Frederica—the twelfth, Benjamina—“and now,” said the still happy Mrs.
Bangs, “what to call my baker’s dozen is more than I can tell. I have
one more than Christopher wished me to have, but let that alone; ‘tis no
concern of ours; only Robina, dear, step to the parlour and tell your
father what a strait I am in about the name. There is his friend, Floss;
he has a curly headed, chubby little boy by the name of Francis, and it
is a girl’s name too; ask him if he would like to name the poor, dear,
chubby, little thing after his friend’s son.”
“Tell your mother—are you Phillippy?” “No, father, I am Robina.” “You
are all so much alike,” said he, “that I don’t know you apart; girls all
look alike; now if one of you had been a boy, as any reasonable man had
a right to expect, I could have told the difference. It is a hard thing
that a man cannot tell one child from another, a thing that I could have
done if they had been boys.”
“But mother knows us all apart,” said Robina, “and so do Hannah French
and our dear grandfather and grandmother Bangs—they never are in doubt.”
“Don’t tell me this,” said surly Mr. Bangs, “for have I not heard your
mother call you the one half of four or five names before she could hit
on the right one? Does she not call out ‘Phil—Will—Fred—Jo—Ben—Robina,
fetch me the poor, dear, chubby, little thing out of the cradle?’ Tell
her that Fabius Floss won’t think it any compliment to name a girl after
his fine little boy, and tell her that I am not going to stand godfather
to any more of her children, for I am tired of it.”
“But the name, father—shall mother call it Frances?”
“She may call it _Souse_ if she likes; what is the name of a girl to me?
it is all one, so go away, Robina, for I am busy.”
Christopher Bangs was now a rich man, and was cautious and prudent in
all his money matters, but he had no more care of his children and
household than if he were the great-grandfather. He arose early, went to
the workshop, saw that every thing went right there, returned home at
eight, with the certainty of finding the breakfast waiting for him. At
this meal he only saw some of the eldest of the girls, but being a man
of few words, and looking on women and girls as mere workers, and of a
different race, he had no thoughts in common with them. The
conversation, therefore, was all on the part of Mrs. Bangs, who told of
the price of beef and poultry, and what her husband might expect at
dinner. He nodded his head drily, but said nothing, being sure that,
come what would, he should find an excellent meal. He gave her as much
money as she wanted, a privilege which she never abused, and all he had
to do was to build a new house whenever she presented him with another
poor, chubby, little thing; for she had resolved that every child should
have a house.
Exactly at one o’clock his dinner was ready, and at this meal all the
children were assembled—for, as his wife observed, if he did not see
them all together once a day, he might chance to forget some of them;
so, in time, Frances, the baker’s dozen, came to sit on Mrs. Bangs’s
lap. Every day he made the same remark on entering the dining room, the
children all being seated before he entered, that the bustle of placing
them might be over before he came—“What! here you all are, all waiting I
see; well, keep quiet and help one another; don’t expect me to do more
than carve.”
Mrs. Bangs had drilled the children well, for a more orderly, peaceable
set were never seen. Her chief aim was to keep them from troubling their
father. “Poor man,” she would say, “he must not be plagued with noise,
for what with the business of the laboratory and building new houses,
his hands are full—but let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours.”
She never thought of her own full hands; for she was of a nature that
delighted in work, and in doing things regularly and methodically, and
all the girls were like her. Busy, busy, busy, they all were from
morning till night, and most happily busy. It was making, and mending,
and razeeing, and cooking, and preserving, and housekeeping, and
shopping, and keeping accounts. Was not this quite enough to occupy
them?
Mr. Bangs built houses and Mrs. Bangs looked to the tenants and
collected the rents. The only thing she knew, out of the routine of her
family duties, was the various ways of disposing of money, and before
she was the mother of three children she made herself fully acquainted
with the meaning of the terms _dividends_, _stock_, _per centage_,
_mortgages_ and _notes of hand_. She put the money in the bank as fast
as she received it, and Mr. Bangs drew checks to any amount she
chose—well he might.
Mrs. Bangs thought it more suitable and economical to have a governess
for her daughters, so she hired a decent young person, who was an
excellent needle woman, and who could write and cipher admirably.
Reading and spelling, Mrs. Bangs said, seemed to come “by nature” with
the poor, dear, chubby, little things; how else could they learn, for
poor Hannah French was as deaf as a post. So eternally busy were they
all from morning till ten at night, that Robina, a pretty, delicate
girl, with a good understanding, and very excitable, had never found
time to cultivate the acquaintance of any of the young girls of her own
age, although in the abstract there was no unwillingness to it. Neither
her father nor mother would have hindered her, but sisters and
companions came so fast at home, and that home was made so happy by her
active, well-principled mother, that there was no craving for out-door
society.
Mrs. Bangs was a pious and benevolent woman too, and after going through
all her home duties she thought of the poor, and three days she set
apart in every month to sew for them. All the children, down to the
baker’s dozen, felt this as part of their duty, and they no more thought
it possible to break through the rule than not to eat when they were
hungry. It was a _want_ which they sought to attain like any other want
or comfort.
Mrs. Bangs never staid to inquire whether the poor wretches were worthy
of her attentions—“Let that alone,” she would say, “‘tis no concern of
ours.” She reverently left it to a higher power to judge of their
worthiness. All she had to do was to feed the hungry and clothe the
naked, choosing old age and infancy whenever she could, for the objects
of her bounty. The children thus brought up, I should like to know,—as
they did their own clear-starching, knitted stockings for their father,
grandfather, and three aged uncles, made their own linen and worked all
the baby caps, as well as sewed for the poor—I should like to know what
time they had to gossip or make acquaintances, excepting with the poor?
They _had_ no time—even on Sunday their faces were not familiar to the
congregation, for a cottage bonnet and a veil kept them from gazing
about; so the conversation, when they returned, was not about the dress
or spiteful looks of this person or that. If by accident an observation
was made, indiscreetly, the mother would stop them immediately by her
eternal saying—“Let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours.”
She kept her accounts in excellent order, initiating her children early
in the mysteries of bank stock operations; for when it came to be
explained to them in the mother’s simple way, the children understood it
as well as A, B, C. It is the hard words, and the mystification, and
solemn nonsense kept up about it that keeps women so ignorant and
helpless in these matters, and makes them so entirely dependent on men,
who nineteen times out of twenty cheat them when they become widows.
As their wealth increased, so were her benevolent feelings excited, and
Mr. Bangs was no hinderance, for he had no love of hoarding now that
there were no boys to inherit his property. “Never mind that,
Christopher,” she would say, when this sore subject was touched upon,
“let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours; but I am of opinion that every
man should make a will, and here is one that I drew up, which I wish you
to sign.” “I’ll tell you what it is, Molly Bangs,” said he, on reading
the will, “I’ll do none of this. I’ve made my will already, and if you
outlive me then all belongs to you; but if you die first, then I mean to
marry again, because the chance is that I may have sons; for I tell you
that such secrets as I have to disclose about my business ought not to
die with a man.”
Mrs. Bangs knew her husband’s obstinacy too well to make further words
about the matter, so she set herself to work to remedy the evil. Instead
of wanting to build a hospital or an asylum for the poor and destitute,
she built a row of houses in one of the back streets of her valuable lot
of ground, for poor widows with young children, and she studied their
comfort in every thing. Each division, for the row was uniform and
fire-proof, consisted of four rooms, two below, and two above. The
sitting room and bed-rooms were warmed by means of heated air from a
furnace in the kitchen, which was so constructed that the cooking was
done at the same fire. Even the stove pipe which was carried up to let
off the gas and smoke, threw all the external heat into the room above,
so that all was kept warm by one fire. The cistern of rain water was
close to the kitchen, and the water was drawn within by means of Hale’s
rotary pump. Drinking-water was likewise introduced by a pipe, and a
drain carried off all the slops from the house. She could not bear to
think that poor women should have to put up with so many inconveniences,
when it cost so little to make them comfortable.
When a very rich man has a few lots in an out of the way place, he
builds a row of houses for poor people and gets a good rent for
them—enjoining it on his agent not to let a poor widow have any one of
them; because, if she should be unable to pay her rent, he would be
ashamed to sell her little furniture. His houses are miserably built,
generally one brick thick, and with only one coat of plaster on the
walls; no crane in the kitchen, no cistern, no well, no comfort of any
kind. The poor tenants might think themselves well off with having the
shell to cover them.
Mrs. Bangs knew that the life to come was a long one—to last for ever;
so she thought it was not worth while to hoard up money for the very
short time she had to live here. She had a great love of comfort
herself, and so had all her children; and they could not bear to set a
poor widow in an empty house, without even a closet to put her clothes
in. So she had closets made between the two bed rooms, and likewise
between the parlour and kitchen. And she gave them a chance of helping
themselves still further by having a good deep, dry cellar, where they
could keep their half barrel of fish, and their little joints of meat,
and small pots of butter from the heats of summer, and their vegetables
from the frosts of winter, and why coal and wood should be kept out of
doors in winter was more than she could tell. It was easy to build a
cellar, she thought, and so the cellars were made. “It seems to me,” she
continued to say, “that men have no idea of comfort themselves, or they
would not grudge it to their poor tenants; women understand these
matters better, and as God has endowed them with greater sensibilities
than the other sex, why it is incumbent on them to show their grateful
sense of this partiality in their favour; and how can we show it but by
attending to those little things which make up, by their great number,
all the happiness of life? Men never view the subject in this light, but
let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours.”
The thirty houses, with the plainest furniture that could be bought,
cost exactly thirty thousand dollars—the precise sum she intended to
appropriate to them. Fuel and repairs and taxes cost her twelve hundred
a year; this with the interest on the thirty thousand, came to three
thousand dollars a year. With an income of more than thirty thousand,
and the prospect of a great rise in the value of her lots of ground,
what was the annual loss of three thousand dollars?
As it was solely for poor widows that this charity was built, she did
not allow a woman to live in one of the houses a moment after she
married again; nor would she take a woman who had been twice a widow.
When the children grew up and were no longer a burden to their mother,
then this mother was allowed a dollar a week, and placed comfortably
with one of her children elsewhere, and this sum was continued until the
child was able to maintain her. To see that no one imposed upon her
became one of her tasks; but she was seldom deceived, for she made many
allowances for poor people. She even made more allowances for them, than
for the rich; for poverty, she thought, was such an evil in itself that
we should not expect all the virtues to centre in the poor alone. If she
saw that some little unfair attempt was made to excite her pity, she
would wink at it and say, “let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours; of
one thing I am certain, deceive me in other things as they may, the poor
things are in great want, and must be helped through with it.” Mr. Bangs
did nothing towards all this; but still I wish him to keep some hold of
my readers’ good opinion, for was it not a great merit to let his
excellent wife manage as she liked?
To be sure the farm, and all the income ever to be derived from it, were
made fast, by will to his wife and her heirs; but a man knows that there
are one or two lawyers always at hand to pick flaws in a will; and a
suit can be carried up to the court of errors, and there brought to
issue in his favour, although neither law nor equity is on his side. So
Mr. Bangs, knowing this, would not go to law; for, thought he, whether I
should win or lose, the whole would go to the lawyers; and as the farm
was really intended, by the father, to belong to her and hers, why e’en
let them have it; but I must say it is hard that I can’t have a boy.
In the course of time Francis Floss, the foreman of the shop, had a
regular invitation to sit in their pew at church, partake of their
Sunday dinner, and join in their walk after church. Mr. Bangs begged the
lad of his father when he was of a suitable age, for the laboratory, and
he being of a curious and ingenious turn and very industrious, came not
only to find out all the little secrets of the art, so tenaciously
withheld from all eyes by simple Mr. Bangs, but to add more to the stock
of knowledge. He could not but see that his apprentice had outwitted
him, and that he more than rivalled him in his art; but he would not
allow himself to get angry about it, for two reasons—one was, that if he
quarrelled with him, the young man would leave him and set up for
himself—the other reason was, that he intended Francis Floss for the
husband of his wife’s baker’s dozen.
A young man in love with a beautiful girl, with the prospect of a
handsome independence with her, does not pay particular attention to the
extent of her acquirements. Inquisitive as Mr. Floss might be in
general, he was in utter ignorance of all things that concerned the
education of Mr. Bangs’s family. He fell in love with Fanny, before he
thought of her mind or her qualifications. He knew how far the mind of
Christopher Bangs stretched; but he had great reliance that all was
right at home, for every body allowed that Mrs. Bangs was a sensible,
notable, thrifty, shrewd, energetic, capable woman, and he knew that all
the virtues and talent generally come from the motherly side of the
house. Of the daughters no one knew any thing, excepting the shopkeepers
and poor people; the former thought them sensible and modest, and the
latter loved them entirely. All this, and he saw that she was docile and
affectionate at home, was fortune enough for him, as he was thoroughly
in love. He made proposals and was accepted—by all. Mr. Bangs for once
in his life, would have asked the reason why, if he had been rejected. I
think that all the girls loved Frank Floss nearly as well as Fanny did.
It was on the wedding day, and preparing the wedding dinner, that the
cook called Mrs. Bangs’s attention to the piece of brickbat in the
turkey’s craw. Four of her daughters were assisting likewise, but I
guess that _they_ did not stop to inquire or even look at the stone.
Their work was to attend to the jellies and pastry—pleasant work for
women, rich or poor. If they had found a _whole_ brick in the craw, all
their care would be to see that the cook got it out without breaking the
skin. But let that alone, as Mrs. Bangs says, ‘tis no concern of ours.
The happy Francis Floss took his beautiful bride home to a handsome,
well-furnished house; and never was there a bride that had less to do
with sublunary affairs than Mrs. Bangs’s thirteenth daughter. For in the
first place, there was she—the mother—both able and willing to relieve
her darling of all the cares of marketing. There were Robina, Christina,
Josephine and Philippa, by right of seniority and by having taught her
to read and spell—for good Hannah French being very deaf could not make
much display of erudition in these branches—and by making and mending
for her all her brief life, were they not fairly entitled to do the same
kind offices for her still, particularly as she had now a husband who
would require all her time? There were Augusta, Johanna, Gabriella, and
Georgiana, what suited them as well as to go from the garret to the
cellar, and thence back again, to see that no dust or cobweb found a
place there? Were there not Wilhelmina, Jacobina, Frederica, and
Benjamina to fuss about the pantries and kitchen, and to keep the
larders and store room filled with the choicest and best?
There was deaf Hannah French, too, to see that the fire was carefully
raked up at night; for Hannah, on the evening of the wedding day,
without question, or leave, or license—but to no one’s surprise—quietly
took her night things and her little work basket, and followed the bride
home. She took possession of a snug room in the back building, which
room she kept till her dying day. And there was Mr. Bangs himself; did
he not every night, on his way home from his club, where he had spent
all his evenings, excepting Sunday, for thirty years; did he not open
the street door with his night-key, walk to the back door, bolt that and
then latch the inside parlour window-shutters? He did this at his own
house, from the day of his marriage, for his wife left this part of
housekeeping duty purposely for him, “to keep him in mind,” she said,
“that he had a house and family to protect from thieves.” Fanny Floss
thought it part of her duty to let her father do this for her likewise;
and her husband was so accustomed to all their ways, that he naturally
fell into these agreeable regularities himself.
Well, then, Mr. Floss was a happy man; he went to the laboratory and
came home; went and came; went and came, for seven years; and whenever
his step was heard in the hall Fanny ran to meet him, to give him a
kiss. If it rained, there was a dry coat ready for him; and if the day
were warm, then she stood in the hall with a thin coat and a glass of
lemonade. Every evening he saw her in the rocking-chair, either sewing
or knitting; for now the three days for the poor had grown to three
times three. Her good temper and excellent nature never varied; she was
the gentlest, the tenderest, the purest and the most devoted wife that
man was ever blessed with—what could he desire more? Did he wish her
altered? Would any man wish such a wife to change?
Mr. Floss, as I observed, had an inquiring mind, and he went on from one
point to another until he became a man of consequence; and, as Mr. Bangs
predicted, _when he saw his name up_, he was a candidate for Congress.
Mrs. Bangs had some indistinct notion that a Congressman was a grandee;
but it passed through her head like a dream; for it was only in her
dreams that her fancy was ever excited. Her daughters never so much as
pondered on the word; and as to Fanny, that sweetest and gentlest of
human beings, it would have been cruel to mention the thing to her.
Going to Congress would have sounded to her like going down a deep pit,
among miners; or sailing in an open boat to Botany Bay. “Don’t tell
Fanny of it, my dear Francis; it will only set her to wondering and
crying, for she can’t understand it,” said good Mrs. Bangs; “but let
that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours.”
So Mr. Floss said nothing when he went home; and, in the evening, as
Fanny sat in the rocking chair, singing an evening hymn, in a low, sweet
voice, he looked steadily at her, for five minutes, and watched the
innocent play of her beautiful modest face, and gave the matter up. “It
will never do,” said he, “for as to leaving her behind, that is out of
the question; neither of us could bear the separation; and as to taking
her to Washington—Good Heavens!”
Well might he thus exclaim; for, excepting to knit, and sew, and work
muslin, and do kind little offices for the poor, and love her father and
mother, her twelve sisters—and, oh, best of all, her husband, what else
did Fanny Floss know?—not an earthly thing.
It was some time after his marriage before Mr. Floss found it all out;
but when the first surprise was over, he soon got used to it; and, after
a few vain attempts to enlighten her, he gave it up, and let his mind
flow into other channels. He made friends; had dinner parties—Could not
_he_ give dinner parties, with so many able and willing coadjutors?—and
nothing could show off to better advantage than his beautiful, modest
wife, and four or five of her neat, happy sisters, scattered about the
dinner table.
“What was it,” you ask, “that Fanny did not know?” All that she knew I
have told you already, gentle reader. Do you think that she ever so much
as dreamed that the earth moved around the sun?—that mahogany was once a
tree?—that the carpet came from a sheep’s back?—that her bobbinet lace
came from a cotton pod?—As to her silk dress, could it be supposed that
her imagination ever ran riot so far as to believe that little worms
spun the web? Does any one think for a moment, that she knew that quills
were plucked from the wing of a goose?—that paper came from old
rags?—that a looking-glass was ever any thing but the smooth, polished
thing it now is? She saw loads of hay pass, and knew that horses were
fed with it; but she never speculated on the manner in which it became
hay. It is a chance if she knew that it was once grass. Not that Fanny
had never read all this, when very young, in her little books; but she
read without letting any thing make an impression. Nothing was a mystery
to her; she never made a doubt of any thing; but took things and left
them just as she found them, either in books or in conversation.
Once her husband said, “I wonder whether they pull the feathers from the
tail of the ostrich while he is alive?” “Would it hurt him if they did?”
said Fanny. “Yes, I presume it would,” replied he. “Then they wait till
the poor thing dies,” quoth she—“only look, dear husband, see that merry
little group of children, all boys too; how my father would rejoice if
they were all his sons.”
You will ask whether Fanny ever took a walk. Yes, often; her husband had
great delight in letting her hang on his arm, and walk up the long
street with him. Sometimes, on Sunday, after church, they strayed as far
as the commons; she, pouring out her grateful feelings for being allowed
to enjoy the bright sunshiny day, and accustoming her husband to dwell
on the Divine source whence all our blessings flow. Mr. Floss, himself,
had a hard bringing up; to obey his father and mother; keep himself neat
and clean; to bring home medals from school, and to be honest in his
dealings, were all that he had to observe. Fanny never dipped into _his_
mind, or she would have seen how cold and barren all lay there; while,
outward, all was so fair. She thought that every one’s heart—but
no—Fanny never speculated on any thing; she talked to her husband as if
his heart was of the same mould as hers. He dipped into her mind though;
and the purity and excellence of it more than compensated for her want
of worldly knowledge. So all the way from church he listened to the
outpourings of her spirit; always fresh and animated, and clothed in a
language peculiar to herself; for Fanny knew nothing of the forms and
phrases in which bigots disguise the truth.
Her husband, therefore, listened and loved; and, at length, he loved the
subject; so that her very simplicity was the means of his becoming a
religious man. “To meet you in Heaven, my Fanny,” he said, one day, “I
must strive to think on these subjects as you do. I am afraid I shall
not be found worthy to join you there.”
“But you do think as I do, love,” said she, looking affrighted—“you
do—and you think more than I do; you can argue better. I never think at
all; all my feelings come naturally. You _will_ go to heaven, my
Francis, for the prayers of the humble and penitent are heard; and is
there a night, nay an hour in the day, that my spirit is not lifted up
to ask for forgiveness for you and for us all?”
“You are so merry and cheerful, my dear Fanny, that one would not
suppose you were in prayer so constantly.”
“Well, Francis, and is not that the time to pray?—why must God be
addressed only in darkness, and when we are ill and sad? Then we pray
through fear and selfishness. It is when I am happy and merry that I am
most afraid of committing sin; and it is then, too, that I feel God’s
goodness and mercy most. Dear Francis, what a pleasure it is to feel
this bright, warm sun shine on our face; and see, that little dog barks
in very gladness, too, for I see nothing near it to make it bark. He
feels the warmth and it gives him pleasure; but he forgets it, you see,
and falls to quarrelling with that little black dog, for the bone. God
is ever present to me, my husband, and that keeps me merry and cheerful.
I am sure I have no wish to quarrel for any thing.”
“I believe it, Fanny,” said her husband, as he pressed her arm closely
to his heart; “and I will let this thought sink deep, that I may in time
come to be merry and cheerful in your way.”
And then they would walk on till they reached the commons, where they
were sure to meet some of the family; and there talk over the subjects
of the sermon—when they could understand it, which was not very often
the case. The exposition of a doubtful text never made any thing the
clearer to these simple minded people. They had the Scriptures, and they
believed in the holy book most sincerely; nothing was a mystery to them;
they thought that the words and actions of our blessed Saviour were easy
enough to comprehend; and that they were all-sufficient to our
salvation. They could not imagine why clergymen darkened up a point by
hard words and cramped unintelligible terms and phrases, when the
meaning was so clear to them. As to the doctrine of the Trinity—even
Fanny, the least gifted, as to acuteness of intellect—even she could
believe all and adore; for a tree, the sun, moon and stars, a living,
moving being, and, above all, that perpetual spring of love which she
felt within her towards the Almighty, towards her family, and towards
her husband—all this was quite as incomprehensible to her as what her
religion enjoined on her to believe. So that Fanny never speculated even
on this subject.
Mr. Bangs felt nothing of all this; and his Sunday walk was to the
shipyards or arsenal; and his Sunday talk, scanty enough, was of laying
that that are ship would outsail the other; and that that are cannon
would do for the English. He never would walk with his daughters,
because they were not boys; and he always wound up by saying, “Time
enough to walk out with you when Fanny gives me a grandson; there will
be some sense in my going then.”
But Mr. Bangs was doomed to disappointment; for the little boy did not
come; nor was there any sister to put his nose out of joint; yet Mr.
Floss did not grieve, for Fanny was pet enough for him. When he was
tired out with business, and did not want to take up a book, she would
talk over her thoughts and feelings. Heavens! what a gush of tenderness
and pathos it was; and how the young man’s soul melted away in him as
she talked—and yet, what could it be about?
You will ask, perhaps, if Fanny ever read. Not much. When a child, and
learning to read, she had little story-books of good and naughty boys
and girls, which she read over and over again—wept over often—but
sensible Mrs. Bangs saw no use in all this, and she therefore seldom
opened her polished, mahogany book-case. Fanny loved poetry, tender,
pathetic poetry; but as she selected only such, and as it always set her
crying and sobbing, why, poetry was interdicted too. Mrs. Bangs gave her
son several hints on this point; a thing which he soon found out of
himself, as Fanny was made perfectly unhappy for a whole week after he
had read Keats’s Isabella to her. She had the most tender love for a
virtuous and beautiful heroine; the mishaps and death, therefore, which
overtook her, were taken to heart with such earnest grief that Mr.
Floss, after that, wisely, read all such things to himself. In fact, it
soon amounted to this, that he never read aloud at all; for works of wit
and fancy were lost on his gentle wife—a repartee she thought must cost
somebody pain, and that brought no pleasure to her.
While her husband read in the long winter evenings, she sat in her
rocking-chair and knitted or sewed; and had many little pleasant chats
with one or the other of her sisters or her mother—Fanny was never
alone. Let us listen to what she is saying to Robina; raising her voice
to its highest pitch, that poor Hannah French, who now and then made one
of the evening party, might feel that she was considered as one of the
family.
“Oh, Robina, dear, what a delightful walk we had. I just went up to the
laboratory with Gabriella, to say how do you do to my dear husband,
when, there he stood, ready for a walk, (here Mr. Floss laid down his
book to listen too) so up the road we went; and the warm sunshine, and
the brisk winds seemed to be playing with each other, and gambolling, as
it were, before us. We both felt grateful that we did not meet a single
beggar or a discontented face. So we walked around our own division and
inquired of the widows how they were getting on; and their glad looks,
when they saw my husband”—“It was you, Fanny,” said he, interrupting
her, “I am certain it was your sweet face, and not my hard, sunburnt
one, that made them brighten up so.”
“Hannah French, has my husband a hard, sunburnt face?” said Fanny,
raising her voice very loud—for she knew how very handsome poor Hannah
thought he was.
“Sunburnt!” exclaimed Hannah,—“no, indeed—sometimes I have seen it
smutted with the stuff which he is cooking over the great pots in his
furnace; but he is not sunburnt—he is fire-burnt.”
“There,” said Mr. Floss, laughing, “you will not appeal to Hannah French
again about my beauty—but go on, dearest; tell Gabriella all about your
walk. I should really be glad to know, too, for although I was with you,
yet my mind was so occupied with what I had been cooking, as Hannah
calls it, in that great pot, that I just followed where you led; and yet
I was sensible, all the time, of what you were saying. Her voice,
Gabriella, is always so musical that I feel its influence even when the
_sound_ only makes an impression.”
“So mother always said,” answered the modest Gabriella. “Fanny never
hurt her sweet voice by crying or getting in a passion, as some of us
did when we were children.”
Well, Fanny was not elated by all this fond praise; she felt that it was
love which had dictated it, and it came over her gentle nature like a
sunbeam, where all was mild and gracious before; she laid her hand
gently on her husband’s arm and proceeded.
“All this took up half an hour; and, cool as the weather was, I could
not help thinking how much of summer still remained; for almost every
window had rosebushes and geraniums in it, and our widows’ row looked
like one long green-house; for every window, there too, had a rosebush,
full of roses, in it. And that lemon tree belonging to Mrs. Green—did I
tell you, Hannah, that I bought you that fine, large lemon tree? Poor
Mrs. Green hated to part with it; but it was too large for her room. It
has ten large, ripe lemons on it; and ever so many blossoms.”
For fear of a mistake, Hannah feigned a little more of deafness than
belonged to her; but to have her hopes destroyed by misapprehension was
painful; for, of all things, she coveted a lemon tree, she so loved the
smell of its delicate white blossoms.
Fanny repeated it loud enough to bring conviction to poor Hannah; and in
a few moments the ten lemons were appropriated to more uses than one
hundred could satisfy. Custard! oh, how much superior was a boiled
custard, with the gratings of a _fresh_ lemon; and many a glass of jelly
did she fancy herself making with the sprightly _well ripened_ juice; so
much sprightlier, and having so much more of a perfume with it, than the
stale, unripe lemons of the shop—oh, how Hannah French, at that moment,
despised the shop lemons. And then to surprise Mr. Floss with the half
of a fine, well rolled, plump, ripe lemon on Sunday, to eat with his
fish or cutlet—on Sunday, when none could be bought—and Hannah laughed
out in very happiness. The deaf have many pleasant, innocent fancies.
I hope, gentle reader, you do not think that Fanny was an insipid kind
of person. Oh, if you could but know how much of beauty and loveliness
there is in a nature wherein truth dwells constantly, you would covet to
be like my Fanny. Yet, although she never read any thing but the Bible,
or some good little pattern book, now and then,—although she only
visited the poor and comfortless, and knew nothing of a theatre, yet her
conversation was full of life; and, I might say, poetry. Her soul was in
such harmony with all God’s works; and there was such melody in her
accents, and such eloquence in her eye and her smile—such devotion to
those she loved, that no one ever dreamed that she was an ignoramus.
Mr. Floss, as I before observed, after the first surprise was over,
doubted whether a woman more learned would have made him half so happy.
He saw that other men did not care twopence for their wives’ sense or
reading, after a month or so. Very few, he observed, talked out of book
to their family, or seemed particularly pleased to hear that their wives
were reading women.
As to sights—no one ever thought of taking so refined and delicate a
creature as Fanny to see them; particularly such as the Siamese twins,
or fat children, or the wild beasts in their closely confined, stifled
menageries. She certainly knew that there were wild beasts; for well she
remembered how often she had cried over the story, in a little gilt
covered book, of the boy who went too near the lion, and had his head
struck off. But Fanny, as she grew up, was not allowed to suffer her
mind to dwell on such things; her judicious mother said there was too
much of real life business to occupy her without crying over little boys
that had their heads chopped off by wild beasts; and, another thing, she
did not believe a word of the story—“But, let that alone,” said she,
“Fanny dear, ‘tis no concern of ours.”
But, although Fanny’s thoughts and actions were full of piety, yet there
was nothing mawkish, or canting, or tiresome, in her way of talking
about it. She made even the poor themselves feel cheerful by her
pleasant ways. It was not in her nature to exact any thing of them in
return for what she did; nor did she pry into the little unhappy affairs
which had contributed to bring them to poverty. It is only the callous
heart that does this; only those who wish to make themselves conspicuous
who ferret out the little miserable secrets of the poor.
At length, on Christmas day, the little boy was born; his mother’s
birthday likewise; and it seemed as if Mr. Bangs had never lived till
that moment. He was sitting in a very nervous, dogged, defying sort of
way, by himself, in the front parlour, before a large fire, having some
anxiety about his daughter, but a greater sympathy for himself and his
thirteen disappointments, when Mrs. Bangs entered the room. He turned
slowly around and stared at her with his mouth wide open, as she
announced that Fanny was safely through her trouble; and that Mr. Floss
was too happy to do more than cry like a child.
Mr. Bangs was speechless, while his wife expatiated on Fanny’s
fortitude, and her anxiety to prevent her mother from knowing what her
sufferings were. Still Mrs. Bangs did not hear the sound of thanksgiving
from his lips. She little dreamed that the foolish old man’s head was
running on the sex of the child.
“And—and—wife,” said he at last, “it is a girl, I presume; nothing but
girls in this life,” said he, as he jerked himself around and stared at
the fire. “I hope I shall be rewarded in the other world, by having some
of my girls turned to boys.”
“Why, Christopher, did I not tell you that the dear chubby little thing
was a boy?”
“A boy!” exclaimed he, jumping on his feet, his face flushed with
agitation, “a boy—a boy—now, Molly Bangs, are you sure?—take
care—remember, a man can’t bear disappointments for ever—I’ve had
thirteen, remember.”
“Am I sure—certainly I am; and a sweet, dear, blessed, chubby little
thing it is; one roll of fat and good nature; and the very picture of
you; but let that alone, ‘tis no concern of ours, just now; but I hope
that you are suited at last.”
Mr. Bangs could not speak; but he untied his cravat, and wiped the
perspiration from his face, while his wife stood looking at him with
amazement.
“Why, Christopher—Kit, what ails you?” said she, really frightened at
this extraordinary display of animation—“is it possible that a boy sat
so close to your heart? and have you borne your thirteen disappointments
so long, and so well? I really give you credit for not showing a great
deal of ugly temper; and now I trust that this dear, little, chubby
fellow will make amends.”
“It will, Molly, it will: and I heartily forgive you for giving me
thirteen girls. How soon will little Christopher walk? Hang it all; but
he shall have a hobby-horse as soon as he can call me grandpapa. And you
must dress him in his best when I walk out with him. I’ll take him to
our club, some warm evening. I’ll not let a servant touch him, to get
his back broke, but will carry him myself.”
“Heaven help him,” thought his wife, as she slowly walked up stairs, “he
is growing foolish.”
But Mr. Bangs! He went to the glass and said, “Grandpa, grandpa,” as if
a child was calling him—then he whistled and laughed. “Who is that,”
said he, as one of his daughters entered the room. “Is that you,
Fillippi?” “No, father, it is Georgiana; how glad you must be, father,
to hear that dear Fanny is so well.”
“Yes, child, yes. Does the little fellow grow? But don’t call him Kit;
it is too feminine. Call him out, boldly, Christopher;” and the
enraptured, foolish man made an attempt to chassée across the room, to
the no small amazement of his daughter. “I must tell mother,” said she,
“his joy is making him lose his wits.”
Mr. Bangs, in due time, was asked up to Fanny’s room, into which he
walked on tiptoe, giggling. But when he got a glimpse of the baby, his
cheek was flushed, and his lip quivered. It seemed as if all the
feelings of a father had been pent up till that moment; for when the
nurse put the little boy in his arms, he tenderly kissed it, and,
“lifting up his face, he wept aloud.”
Mr. Floss was kneeling by his wife, and blessing her every moment
between his grateful prayers; this sudden burst therefore of the old man
was not surprising, but it was to his wife. As to Hannah French, she
laughed so loud at the oddity of it, that Mrs. Bangs fearing that their
hubbub would be injurious to her daughter, made them both go out of the
room; but Hannah French laughed by snatches for the remainder of the
day.
“Adieu to business and to clubs now. The boy has been so long coming,”
said he to his wife, “and no thanks to you, that I shall make myself
amends for my thirteen disappointments, and having to wait seven years
too, in the bargain.”
So he staid nearly all the time in the nursery, and waited for the
development of growth and intellect with the most intense and feverish
anxiety. Every day he pulled the little fellow’s mouth open to look for
a tooth, and when it came at last, which it did at the end of six
months, he tore himself from the pleasure of looking at it, to rush out
among his old friends to make them as happy as himself.
The first that he saw was one of his club companions, for he consorted
with no others. This person was just coming up the street from the
river.
“Good morning, neighbour Bangs,” said he, “have you seen the steamboat
Sea Serpent? She has just come in—twenty miles in one hour!”
“My Christopher has a tooth,” roared Mr. Bangs, for his old friend was a
little deaf.
“She is expected to go even faster when her boiler is a little larger,”
said the club man, Peter Broo, by name.
“You never saw a finer tooth. It is a thundering large one. He bit my
little finger—here, just put your thumb in my mouth, and I’ll show you
how the little rogue tried to bite.”
“Yes; but you had better take a look at the boat, for it will be off
again in an hour.”
“‘Tis a thundering big tooth, and I thought I would just stop and tell
you; and the other will be out to-morrow at farthest. Good morning, I
must go and tell the good news to the captain, for every body is glad to
hear that the first tooth comes through without fits.”
His club mate, not a whit more gifted than himself, stared at Mr. Bangs,
as in very boyishness of heart he hopped off first on one foot, and then
on the other, as children do. He wondered how a baby’s tooth should
prevent any one from going to the wharf to see the famous steamboat Sea
Serpent. “If the old goose thought he had a thundering big tooth coming
through his own gums I should not wonder at it—but a baby’s tooth! as if
they did not get teeth every day—there, he has met the captain; _he’ll_
smoke him with his baby tooth. I will go look at the steamboat Sea
Serpent again.”
“Hillo! captain, stop, will you?” said Mr. Bangs; “we have a tooth, and
a thundering large white tooth it is.”
“What! your little grand-daughter has a tooth at last—well, it has been
long a coming; is it up or down?”
For thirty-seven years Mr. Bangs had had evening intercourse with
captain Muff, and till this morning he had never found out that he was a
fool; and what was worse, as he said to himself, an old fool.
Indignation kept him silent—forgot that he had a grandson when he had
talked of it for six months! At length he burst out.
“I presume it would make no difference to you, captain Muff,” said he,
grinning hysterically, “if I had thirteen more daughters?”
“No, why should it?” rejoined the sage captain, “I like girls. If my
wife and your wife had not been girls when they were babies, I wonder
where our wives would have been? You may be glad your little grandchild
is a girl.”
“Why, what a good for nothing old fat fool you are—that I must call you
names in your old age,” said the enraged Christopher. “Your memory is
very short this morning; have I not told you that my Christopher is a
boy?”
“No, I cannot forget what you tell me every day; but what has a boy to
do with what you were telling me about a thundering large tooth. Does
she grow?”
“You are enough to make a man swear, you damned old goose,” said Mr.
Bangs, in a huff—(too mad to pop off this time,) “to call Christopher
_she_: man and boy,” said he to himself, as he turned sulkily away,
“have I known captain Muff for sixty years, and I have but just found
out what a disadvantage he has been to me; why he is but half witted.”
Mr. Bangs turned homewards, fearing to find out more foolish old men
among his club. He was anxious too, to see whether the other tooth had
not got the start of him. The quiet, regular Mr. Bangs had become a
nuisance. No one had ever suspected him of being _soft_, and but for
this unlucky male child he might have “died as he lived, an excellent
chemist, an honest man, and one of the best husbands in the world;” but
if a weak man _will_ talk, people will find him out.
He passed away very easy, not long after this, just in time to save his
credit, so that no one but Peter Broo and captain Muff gave a ha, ha, or
a smile when his death was announced. The baby’s tooth stood for ever
uppermost in their eyes; and when they told the story, which they did
every day for a twelvemonth, they got the thundering big tooth to the
size of an elephant’s.
He was missed at home, particularly when the window shutters were to be
latched, which office Hannah French now undertook, and the first sound
of mirth that was heard in the house was from her. The baby’s teeth all
came out finely; and one day as she put on her spectacles to look at
them, she gave one of her little deaf laughs. Mrs. Bangs asked her what
she laughed at, but Hannah French was too “cute” to tell. It was what
follows that passed through her brain and produced the laugh at the end
of it.
“I am glad,” thought she, “the old man went off as he did, for the
baby’s mouth would have gone from ear to ear, by his grandfather’s
constantly pulling it open to see what thundering big tooth was coming
out next; and the baby was so used to have his mouth stretched open,
that whenever he heard his grandfather’s voice on the stairs, he used,
of his own accord, to throw his head back and open his mouth as wide as
possible.” Then it was, as this passed through her mind, that Hannah
French laughed; but it would not have done to tell Mrs. Bangs of it.
Every one of Mrs. Bangs’s thirteen daughters married, and every one had
sons and daughters. I have something pleasant to say of all of them,
though not so much as I have said of Fanny. She lives still, and is
loved by her husband and family as dearly as ever.
Mrs. Bangs would not have one of her grandsons called Christopher,
through fear of their hating her as they grew up. “I had such a deal of
trouble about naming you all,” said she, to her thirteen daughters,
“that I am resolved my grandchildren shall not be named after kit or kin
of mine.” Whether she meant this as a pun, or only as an old saw, I do
not know; I should rather suspect the latter; but we will let that
alone, ‘tis no concern of ours.