eye. The old Livingston homestead had been razed to the ground, and
smooth, emerald grass thrived upon its site, while the chief gardener,
Thomas, had been promoted to a new æsthetic cottage of the latest
approved colors and style. Even the famous well was no more; for a small
and inconspicuous pump had been put in its stead, to save unwary
children from instituting a too curious search for the "truth" popularly
supposed to lie within its depths. The graperies were gone, and in their
stead nourished rose-houses,--visiting the interior of which seemed
fairly to transport one into the famous "Vale of Cashmere." Roses of all
colors and all descriptions here found an ideal home, and with their
beauty served the purses of their two young masters, who superintended
their culture. It was in the early summer that I saw the place again
after my long absence, and the rose-houses of course could not be seen
at their best, as they can in winter. There are four large houses,
opening into a long, narrow frame building, at one end of which is the
office where the young gentlemen managers transact their business. Here
all was--and still is, no doubt--immaculately neat, the walls adorned
with colored prints and paintings of flowers, an array of books, papers,
and ledgers carefully arranged in their exact places on the desk, and
everything kept free from dust, swept and garnished. In the long, bare
room from which the office opens are stored gardening-tools,
watering-cans of all shapes and descriptions (some of which to an
untutored eye present a striking resemblance to coffee-pots such as the
Brobdingnag giants might have used), baskets for packing the roses, with
all their paraphernalia, earthen pots for plants great and small, and
many other utensils such as those unlearned in gardening lore would
consider uncouth in the extreme. On one side of the room stands the big
table upon which the baskets are set, and above this are ranged numerous
rows of shelves. Four doors open into the rose-houses, and at the east
end is the one devoted exclusively to the culture of Jacqueminots,--the
"Jack"-house it is irreverently, if not slangily, styled. Here the glass
roof stands open all the summer long, for the breezes to blow and the
soft rains to fall upon the petted plants; and here the sunshine holds
high revel, bronzing the intricate tracery of stem and branch and
turning half the leaves to shining emeralds.
It was in the "Jack"-house that I one morning found Thomas Devoy, the
gardener, at work with his great oddly-shaped shears or scissors, and
detained him long enough to make a little sketch of him among his
flowers; and while I worked with pencils and paper he told me divers
anecdotes of the twenty-eight years he had spent in Professor Morse's
service. "I entered service in the old country when I was very young,"
he said; "and even as a little boy I was fond of gardening. One time,
when I was a child, I was going through some splendid greenhouses with
the head-gardener who took care of them. There was one very rare plant
of which he was exceedingly proud, and I begged him for a tiny slip to
take home with me. But he refused; and so, in passing by, I quietly
broke off one little leaf. Some time afterward I was able to show him a
plant as fine as his own which I had raised from that one leaf, and then
I told him its story."
All the fine, large Jacqueminots in the "Jack"-house were raised from
one parent plant with cuttings made about four years or so before, the
gardener told me, while I, gazing in amazement at their high-reaching
branches, thought, with "Topsy," it was something to boast of that they
had "jest growed."
In the winter the rose-houses become things of beauty and a joy forever,
seeming to have imprisoned the very heart of summer within their walls,
while outside--shut away from the warmth and glowing tints of red and
pink, yellow and lustrous rosy pearl--lie the snow and the ice, and
through the bare branches of the trees the wind whistles drearily.
But in the summer the aspect of the rose-houses is very different. All
then is preparation and making over for the coming autumn and winter.
Some of the houses are planted with tiny cuttings just lifting little
tender sprays above the warm, moist soil. Men are at work here and there
with hammers and nails, repairing any slight damage that may have been
done in previous months. Hose-pipes coil over the floors, and one must
walk by them daintily. In other houses one would exclaim with pleasure
at finding one's self in a wilderness of roses, pink, yellow, and white,
only to be told, rather contemptuously, "_That_ is nothing. There are no
roses here now. You must wait till winter if you want something worth
seeing. We have roses as large as tea-saucers then, and any quantity of
them."
Outside the buildings, and fairly surrounding them, are large square
beds of hybrid roses of many varieties, each sort planted in separate
rows by itself. There are beds of cuttings also, and one long, narrow
bed of red hybrids running the entire length of the greenhouse.
"Catherine Mermet," "La Reine," "Adam," "Paul Neyron," the exquisite "La
France," "John Hopper," the "Duke of Connaught," "Niphetos," and "Perle
des Jardins" are here in profusion, with others of every shade and tint,
too numerous almost to count, and the perfume arising from beds and
hot-houses is intoxicating in its strength and sweetness. Some bushes
are merely set in earthen pots out of doors; and these are supposed to
be in a dormant state, undergoing the process of "drying off," or
"hardening," receiving very little water, and are to be so kept until
September, when they will be repotted and "started" for growing,--thus
illustrating the truth of the saying that there is a blessing for those
who only stand and wait. But one could not help pitying them, when one
thought how their more fortunate companions with their uncramped roots
were exploring underground passages and enjoying all the freedom and
moisture of the rich soil.
"During the fall and winter we are very busy in a different way," said
Thomas Devoy, as he displayed his treasures. And then he told me how
every day in the later months all hands are occupied in tending,
cutting, and packing the roses which are daily expressed to a certain
New York florist. The beautiful half-blown buds are carefully cut, with
long, leafy stems, and laid in the great market-baskets standing on the
table ready to receive them. Row after row and layer after layer are
laid in, sprinkled until leaves and petals sparkle with a diamond dew.
Only buds at a certain stage of unfolding are used, and the most
exquisite roses with their petals opening one pink or pearly crease too
far are discarded as unfit to send away. Tissue-paper covers the flowers
as they lie ready in their baskets, then oiled paper is placed on top,
and finally a thin red oilcloth is fastened over all.
Thus from two to four hundred roses of almost every variety are daily
put upon the New York train and expressed to the florist, at whose
establishment they arrive, after a few hours, as fresh, dewy, and
fragrant as when they left their parent plants.
And yet, with all these that are sent away, the home is not forgotten.
Gorgeous blooms in exquisite foreign vases adorn table, cabinet-shelf,
and mantel in every inhabited room in the house, where, among relics of
the old time, the roses of yesterday and to-day meet in a rivalry so
lovely that one is at a loss in deciding the merits of their separate
claims. The roses of to-day are freshest, and it may even be fairest;
yet there is a little poem which asks,--
What's the rose that I hold to the rose that is dead?
And thus, to one who has known and loved the place in days gone by, when
what has become a mere association and memory now made its very life and
soul, there is something in the suggestion of that verse which at least
lets itself be readily understood.
ALICE KING HAMILTON.
A HOOSIER IDYL.
It was a part of the Great West which in the past fifty or seventy-five
years has been transformed from unbroken forests, the home of the red
Indian and the deer, to a thickly-settled farming-country, dotted with
comfortable homes and traversed by railways and wagon-roads. Here and
there in retired districts the log cabins of the pioneers remained, and
wherever one looked an horizon of woods met his eye; but the numerous
towns and villages gave evidence of a higher and ever-increasing degree
of civilization.
It was a land of rich soil and lush natural growth, without rocks or
hills or swiftly-running streams, a region of corn- and wheat-fields and
orchards, of clover-pastures and melon-patches.
The human _physique_ showed good development and abundant nourishment,
but the dwellers along the sluggish creeks sometimes had a tinge of
yellow beneath the sunburn of their faces. Caste distinctions, pride of
station, were unknown here; all the people, whether their possessions
were great or small, drew their nurture from the soil, and greeted each
other with a friendly "Howdy?" when they met, conscious of perfect
equality. It was much better to be poor in a place like this than in a
great city,--to have at least physical abundance if one could not have
other advantages. Elvira Hill was not conscious of being poor, though
just now she was anxious to get a country school to teach. All her life
had been spent amid these familiar scenes, her condition in life was
neither worse nor better than that of her acquaintances, and it never
occurred to her to be discontented with her lot and rebel against fate.
She had been brought up on a farm, had known what it was to go after the
cows of an evening, to drive them to the barn-lot bars and milk them, to
catch a horse in the pasture and saddle and ride it, to hunt hens' nests
in the hay-mow, to churn, and wash dishes, and get vegetables from the
garden, and pick the raspberries and blackberries that ripened in the
fence corners along the fields and woods. But just now she was living
with her grandmother in a little brown house in the cluster of houses
called Hill's Station. There were two stores, a post-office, a
blacksmith's shop, and a mill; the mail-trains stopped here, and a daily
hack carried passengers northward two miles and a half to a larger
village, Sassafrasville, where there was an excellent academy. The
national pike ran through Hill's Station, and there was a great deal of
travel on this road,--local travel of various kinds, peddlers' wagons
which stopped in every town, and long rows of white-covered movers'
wagons going West to Illinois or Iowa or Kansas. What wonder, then, that
with all these advantages the people of Hill's Station thought
themselves centrally located, and watched with complaisant interest the
passing trains, the daily hack, and the teams going along the pike? That
they were pleasantly located there was no doubt. Tall beech- and
sugar-maple-trees, part of the original forest, stood singly here and
there and cast pleasant islands of shade upon the expanse of sunshine,
and from the fields which bordered the road came the scent of
clover-blooms.
Elvira Hill had gone to the little country schools, sometimes to the one
a mile west of town, sometimes to the one a mile east, and for the past
three years had attended the Sassafrasville Academy: so that now, at
seventeen, she was considered to have a good education, and expected to
follow the example of many of the young people of that section and go to
teaching. She talked it over with her grandmother, and decided that she
had better try a subscription school in the country first; then, if she
succeeded in giving satisfaction, she would apply in the winter for the
position of assistant in the Hill's Station school.
Her grandmother, placid and fair, with a cap of sheer white muslin
resting on her yet brown hair, and a pair of gold-bowed spectacles
pushed up on her forehead above her kindly blue eyes, was considered a
handsome old woman, and showed few traces of the life of toil through
which she had passed. She read a great deal in a New Testament with
large print, and often sat a long time in thought, with it open on her
knees. Another work which she frequently perused was Mrs. Ellet's "Women
of the Revolution," in two volumes, containing steel engravings of
stately dames in laced bodices and powdered hair.
Elvira borrowed a horse of one of the neighbors, put her grandmother's
much-worn red plush side saddle upon it, and started out in search of a
school. She rode east and she rode north; but in the first district they
had a teacher already engaged, and in the second they had concluded they
wouldn't have any school that summer. Did they know of any other school
where a teacher was wanted? she inquired. No, they couldn't say they
did; but she might hear of one by inquiring further, the honest district
trustees said. So she rode homeward again, in no wise discouraged, and
asked the postmaster to inquire of the farmers who came in from other
neighborhoods in regard to this matter.
He promised that he would, and a week later called her in as she was
passing, and said, "There was a man here yesterday from Buck Creek
district who said they wanted a teacher in their school this summer. You
might try there. His name is Sapp, and he lives right by the
school-house. You go two miles and a half south till you come to a mud
road, then two miles and a half east till you come to a pike. You can't
miss the place."
Elvira thanked him, and a little while later, when her accommodating
neighbor was not using his horse, she borrowed it again and rode forth
on her quest. It had been raining, the mud road was muddy, and clouds
still hung in the sky; but the country through which she passed was a
rich, fresh green, and the fruit-orchards were in bloom. From solitary
farm-houses big dogs and little dogs issued forth to bark at the sound
of her horse's feet, and bareheaded children at this signal ran out to
the gate to see who was passing.
The school-house of Buck Creek district, a neat wooden building, painted
white, stood in a grassy acre lot, bordered on two sides by thick woods,
on the other two by the roads which crossed here. In the corner
diagonally across from it stood a snug cabin, with a garden around it, a
well-sweep in the rear, and a log stable not far distant. She alighted
in front of it, and was proceeding to hitch her horse, when the door
opened, and a man stepped out, greeting her with a friendly "Howdy?"
She responded, and asked if Mr. Sapp lived here.
"My name is Sapp," he said, and, tying her horse, invited her in.
There she found the rest of the family,--the mother, a grown daughter,
and two half-grown sons: they seemed friendly, but a little shy, and
stood in the background while she transacted her business.
"Yes," Mr. Sapp said, in answer to her question, "they wanted a
three-months' school, but had no teacher engaged. Had she ever taught
before?"
No, she had had no experience in teaching; but she had attended the
Sassafrasville Academy several terms, and was qualified to teach the
common branches,--arithmetic, grammar, and geography, reading, writing,
and spelling.
Well, he would bring her application before the other two trustees, and
guessed they would elect her: there was no other applicant. Now, about
the terms: three dollars a scholar for the term of twelve weeks was the
usual rate. If she would draw up a subscription-paper, he would take it
round himself and get as many names as he could; thought he could get
twelve scholars signed, and knew that more would be sent. The children
had to be kept at home in busy times, and the farmers didn't like to
bind themselves to pay the full amount for all that they would send. He
himself would sign one and send two. Charley could go all the time; but
Jack would have to help about mowing and reaping and threshing, and
couldn't attend regularly.
So Elvira drew up the paper according to his dictation, and, leaving it
with him, rode home in the dusk of the evening, feeling happy over her
prospects.
Her grandmother had supper ready in the little kitchen; and it tasted so
good, the salt-rising bread and butter and hash, the little tea-cakes,
and the preserved pears. While the grandmother drank her cup of tea,
Elvira told her the incidents of the afternoon; and the night closed
around them as they sat secure and content in their humble home.
The great world was full of great problems which wearied and perplexed
men's brains and seemed wellnigh unsolvable, but she had solved her own
little problem in her own little way, and was at peace.
In a few days Mr. Sapp called with the subscription-paper. He had got
sixteen scholars signed,--more than he expected. That was a good
prospect for a summer school. They wanted her to begin on the following
Monday; which she promised to do. Then she asked him if she could board
at his house a week or two, until she could make some arrangements to
ride from home. Yes, she could; he guessed a dollar and a half a week
for board would be about the fair thing.
So, early Monday morning she bade her grandmother good-by, and, with her
books under her arm, set forth to walk to Buck Creek district. The
school-house door was locked when she got there, but a few timid
country-children were sitting on the door-steps or on the fence, with
their school-books and dinner-buckets. Mr. Sapp came over and unlocked
the door; then, as it was half-past eight, Elvira rang the little bell
which she found on the teacher's desk, and school began. After taking
down the children's names and ages and assigning desks to them, she
heard them read in their first, second, or third readers, and questioned
them about the progress they had made in other branches. Other children
came in from time to time, until there were twenty-two present. And when
Mr. Sapp went home at "little recess," as the intermission of fifteen
minutes in the middle of the forenoon was called, he told her that her
school opened very well. "Big recess" was the intermission from twelve
o'clock till half-past one. In that time the children ate their dinners
and then scattered to play in the large grassy yard or in the shade of
the adjoining woods. Elvira won their hearts by going out and playing
prisoners' base and two or three other games with them. When she rang
the bell again, the children said, "It's books now," meaning the time
allotted to study and recitation, came in red and panting, and, with the
energy generated by violent exercise, got out their books and turned to
their lessons as if they meant to learn everything there. But as their
blood cooled their efforts relaxed, and they were soon looking idly
around the school-room for some source of entertainment. When Elvira
called up a class to recite, the children at their seats looked and
listened with absorbed interest, till reminded by their teacher that
they had lessons of their own to learn. There was another "little
recess" in the afternoon; then, at half-past four, school closed, or
"broke," as the children called it, and they rushed forth with their
empty dinner-buckets in hand, laughing and shouting and chasing each
other as they started home. Some of the little girls waited to say
good-by to the school-ma'am and to kiss her, and one of them said, in a
shamefaced way, "I like you real well."
When all had gone, Elvira sprinkled and swept the floor and put her own
desk in order. Then, locking the door, she went over to Sapp's cabin,
which was to be her home for a while.
Mrs. Sapp rose up from the quilt she was quilting, and, greeting Elvira
cordially, invited her to lay off her things--meaning her hat and
cloak--and take a chair. Mary was in the kitchen, a small shed-room
attached to the cabin, getting supper. Elvira looked around her. The
hewn logs which formed the walls were well chinked in the cracks, and
neatly whitewashed. A home-made rag carpet covered the floor. Two beds
stood foot to foot in the back part of the room, and a third in the
corner by the fireplace. On the wall, over the beds, hung various
articles of clothing,--a dozen calico dresses, several pairs of
pantaloons, and coats, turned wrong side out. In the corner, between the
window and the fireplace, stood a bureau, covered with a white muslin
cloth, the borders ornamented with open-work made by drawing out the
horizontal threads in narrow strips and knotting the others together in
various patterns. Over the mantel hung an almanac, and two
highly-colored pictures representing a brunette beauty and a blonde,
named Caroline and Matilda. Mrs. Sapp, meantime, was giving a
biographical account of the school-children and their parents,--saying
how Mrs. Brown was bound her two little girls should get some schooling,
if she had to pay for it herself out of money she got by selling eggs
and butter, and how the Sanders children didn't have any clothes in the
world besides those they wore to school, except some old ragged ones,
and how they had to change them at night as soon as they got home.
"I saw 'Tildy White at school to-day," she continued, "but I guess she
won't get to come much. Her step-mother keeps her at home and makes her
work, while her _own_ children can go all the time. The three Mays
children were there too, but you needn't care whether they come regular
or not: Mr. Mays is mighty poor pay, and I suppose you won't ever get
your dues from him; but maybe Mr. Sapp can collect it off of him some
way. And Bert Mowrer was there: he's a sassy boy. His folks don't make
him mind at home at all, and 'most every teacher has trouble with him.
Mr. Redding, the teacher we had last winter, licked him with a beech
gad, and he behaved hisself after that. And there's Maggie Loper; her
mother needs her at home real bad, but she'll get to come all summer.
She's the only girl, and there are six grown boys; and the family set a
heap o' store by Maggie."
This stream of talk was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Sapp and the
two boys; and soon after Mary called them all to supper. There was
hardly space to pass between the stove and the table in the kitchen, and
several splint-bottomed chairs had to be brought from the front room;
but at last all were seated, and, after Mr. Sapp said grace,
conversation began in a loud and cheerful tone. The plate of hot
biscuits was first passed to Elvira, then the platter of fried ham, then
the butter, the young radishes and onions, and later the blue bowl
containing stewed dried apples. Mrs. Sapp poured out the hot coffee,
saying, "Our folks want coffee three times a day, and want it pretty
strong." The sugar-bowl, containing brown sugar, was passed around, that
each one might sweeten his coffee according to his taste; then the
cream-pitcher, full of rich cream. Mr. Sapp drank three cups of coffee,
and ate in proportion, and frequently passed the meat and bread to
Elvira, hospitably urging her to eat more.
After supper, Mrs. Sapp invited Elvira to come out and see her little
chickens. She had sixty, all hatched within the last two or three weeks,
and another hen would come off next week with a brood. "I've got some
young turkeys, too," she said, "but they hain't done very well this
spring, because it was so rainy. Two died, and I have to look after the
others to keep 'em out of the wet grass." Then they looked at the
garden, and Mrs. Sapp remarked that the boys must stick the peas right
off, went on to the milk-house,--a log shanty beyond the well,--and
finally came back to the sitting-room, where, as there was yet an hour
of daylight, Mrs. Sapp sat down to the quilting-frame. Elvira borrowed a
thimble and assisted her, having only to ply her needle and listen. The
stream of talk ran on the subject of quilts, the various patterns in
which they were pieced and quilted, the Rising Sun, the Lion's Paw, and
the Star of Bethlehem being Mrs. Sapp's favorites. From the pile resting
on a chair between the two beds at the back of the cabin, quilts
representing these patterns were brought and unfolded for Elvira to
admire; and each one had reminiscences connected with it which she must
hear. One was pieced when Jack was a baby, one was Mary's work and
property, and another was quilted in one day by the neighbor women on
the occasion of a quilting-bee, which Mrs. Sapp proceeded to describe in
all its particulars.
As darkness settled down, the other members of the family came in from
their various chores, and, as the evenings were yet cool, a fire was
made in the fireplace. Then, seating himself by one of the jambs, Mr.
Sapp opened the spelling-book, and, calling Charley into the middle of
the floor, pronounced one row of words after another for him to spell,
until several pages had been gone over and not a single word missed,
greatly to the pride and admiration of the father. But by nine o'clock
the fire got low, and the family began to yawn. It was time to go to
bed, and, without saying good-night, the different members retired to
their allotted quarters,--Mr. and Mrs. Sapp to the bed by the fireplace,
Jack and Charley to one bed in the back part of the room, and Mary and
the school-ma'am to the other.