And who was Peggy?
She was one of the best and noblest women God ever made. She was a
treasury of heaven's own influences.
And yet she wore the form of a servant, and like her divine Master,
there was "no beauty" in her that one should desire to look upon her.
She had followed my mother through good report and ill report. She had
clung to her in her fallen fortunes as something sacred, almost divine.
As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,--as the Greek to his country's
palladium,--as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,--so
she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped.
I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble,
self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then--at least not
all--not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,--that she
ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an
empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, deprecating her
gratitude, and seeming ashamed of her own goodness and industry. I knew
that her plain sewing, assisted by my mother's elegant needle-work,
furnished us the means of support; but I had always known it so, and it
seemed all natural and right. Peggy was strong and robust. The burden of
toil rested lightly on her sturdy shoulders. It seemed to me that she
was born with us and for us,--that she belonged to us as rightfully as
the air we breathed, and the light that illumined us. It never entered
my mind that we could live without Peggy, or that Peggy could live
without us.
My mother's health was very delicate. She could not sew long without
pressing her hand on her aching side, and then Peggy would draw her work
gently from her with her large, kind hand, make her lie down and rest,
or walk out in the fresh air, till the waxen hue was enlivened on her
pallid cheek. She would urge her to go into the garden and gather
flowers for Gabriella, "because the poor child loved so to see them in
the room." We had a sweet little garden, where Peggy delved at early
sunrise and evening twilight. Without ever seeming hurried or
overtasked, she accomplished every thing. We had the earliest
vegetables, and the latest. We had fruit, we had flowers, all the result
of Peggy's untiring, providing hand. The surplus vegetables and fruit
she carried to the village market, and though they brought but a trifle
in a country town, where every thing was so abundant, yet Peggy said,
"we must not despise the day of small gains." She took the lead in all
business matters in-doors and out-doors. She never asked my mother if
she had better do this and that; she went right ahead, doing what she
thought right and best, in every thing pertaining to the drudgery of
life.
When I was a little child, I used to ask her many a question about the
mystery of my life. I asked her about my father, of my kindred, and the
place of my birth.
"Miss Gabriella," she would answer, "you mustn't ask questions. Your
mother does not wish it. She has forbidden me to say one word of all you
want to know. When you are old enough you shall learn every thing. Be
quiet--be patient. It is best that you should be. But of one thing rest
assured, if ever there was a saint in this world, your mother is one."
I never doubted this. I should have doubted as soon the saintliness of
those who wear the golden girdles of Paradise. I am glad of this. I have
sometimes doubted the love and mercy of my Heavenly Father, but never
the purity and excellence of my mother. Ah, yes! once when sorely
tempted.
We retired very early in our secluded, quiet home. We had no evening
visitors to charm away the sober hours, and time marked by the sands of
the hour-glass always seems to glide more slowly. That solemn-looking
hour-glass! How I used to gaze on each dropping particle, watching the
upward segment gradually becoming more and more transparent, and the
lower as gradually darkening. It was one of Peggy's inherited treasures,
and she reverenced it next to her Bible. The glass had been broken and
mended with putty, which formed a dark, diagonal line across the
venerable crystal. This antique chronometer occupied the central place
on the mantel-piece, its gliding sands, though voiceless, for ever
whispering of ebbing time and everlasting peace. "Passing away, passing
away," seemed continually issuing from each meeting cone. I have no
doubt the contemplation of this ancient, solemn instrument, which old
Father Time is always represented as grasping in one unclenching hand,
while he brandishes in the other the merciless scythe, had a lasting
influence on my character.
That night, it was long before I fell asleep. I lay awake thinking of
the morning's dawn. The starlight abroad, that came in through the upper
part of the windows, glimmered on the dark frame and glassy surface of
the old timepiece, which stood out in bold relief from the whitewashed
wall behind it. Before I knew it, I was composing a poem on that old
hour-glass. It was a hoary pilgrim, travelling on a lone and sea-beat
shore, towards a dim and distant goal, and the print of his footsteps on
the wave-washed sands, guided others in the same lengthening journey.
The scene was before me. I saw the ancient traveller, his white locks
streaming in the ocean blast; I heard the deep murmur of the restless
tide; I saw the footsteps; and they looked like sinking graves; when all
at once, in the midst of my solemn inspiration, a stern mocking face
came between me and the starlight night, the jeering voice of my master
was in my ears, a dishonored fragment was fluttering in my hand. The
vision fled; I turned my head on my pillow and wept.
You may say such thoughts and visions were strangely precocious in a
child of twelve years old. I suppose they were; but I never remember
being a child. My sad, gentle mother, the sober, earnest, practical
Peggy, were the companions of my infancy, instead of children of my own
age. The sunlight of my young life was not reflected from the golden
locks of childhood, its radiant smile and unclouded eye. I was defrauded
of the sweetest boon of that early season, a confidence that this world
is the happiest, fairest, best of worlds, the residence of joy, beauty,
and goodness.
A thoughtful child! I do not like to hear it. What has a little child to
do with thought? That sad, though glorious reversion of our riper and
darker years?
Ah me! I never recollect the time that my spirit was not travelling to
grasp some grown idea, to fathom the mystery of my being, to roll away
the shadows that surrounded me, groping for light, toiling, then
dreaming, not resting. It was no wonder I was weary before my journey
was well begun.
"What a remarkable countenance Gabriella has!" I then often heard it
remarked. "Her features are childish, but her eyes have such a peculiar
depth of expression,--so wild, and yet so wise."
I wish I had a picture of myself taken at this period of my life. I have
no doubt I looked older then than I do now.