A Picnic at Croton Dam--The Waterworks--A Game of Twenty
Questions--Gabrielle as a Logician--Evangeline's
Betrothal--Marguerite's Letter--Description of
Chappaqua--Visitors--Edmonia Lewis.
_June 26_.
Gabrielle and I have just returned from spending the day at Croton Dam.
A large party from the prominent families of Chappaqua was organized by
Miss Murray, the pretty daughter of one of our neighbors, and at nine
o'clock a number of carriages, packed to overflowing with young people
and lunch-baskets, and led off by a four-horse wagon, started
caravan-wise from the place of rendezvous, Mr. Murray's elegant grounds.
The drive was a very pretty one, skirting for some distance the
beautiful little lake that supplies the great thirsty city of New York;
and the spot chosen for the picnic--shady, terrace-like heights, with a
gradual slope to meet the water, and a rough bench here and there--was
declared the most suitable place in the world to lay the cloth. One or
two members of the party remained behind to unload the carriages, count
the broken dishes, and estimate the proportion of contributions--many
people fetching salt in abundance but forgetting sugar, whilst others
furnished elaborately frosted cakes, but omitted such necessaries as
knives and forks. Meantime, we climbed the stone steps leading to the
waterworks, and after a glimpse of the seething dark-green water
through the heavy iron grating, we hunted up the overseer and asked him
to unlock the doors for us, that we might have a nearer view. He
assented, and admitted us very obligingly, giving us meantime a graphic
description of the yearly journey of the Inspector in a boat down the
dark passage to New York, and pointing out the low narrow place of
entry from the water-house where they must lie down in the boat.
Dinner hour is generally a most interesting moment in a picnic, and
this was the time when the young gentlemen showed their gallantry by
partaking only of such viands as had come from the baskets of their
favorites among the young ladies.
A cloth was spread upon the ground; seats were extemporized for the
ladies out of carriage cushions, waterproofs and wraps; the knives,
forks and plates were dealt out as impartially as possible, and we
passed a very merry hour.
When the repast was over, the party dispersed--some to play croquet,
others to row upon the lake, or to stroll about under the trees; some
young ladies produced books and bright bits of fancy-work, while
Gabrielle, Arthur and I, with our pretty captain, Miss Murray, and one
of her attendant cavaliers, decided to pass away the time by playing a
game--no trivial game, however; neither "consequences" nor
fortune-telling, but an eminently scientific one entitled "Twenty
Questions." For the benefit of the uninitiated I will remark that the
oracle chooses a subject (silently), and the others are allowed to put
twenty questions to him to enable them to divine it--usually commencing
with "Is the object that you have in your mind to be found in the
animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom?"
Gabrielle is very clever in this somewhat abstruse game, for she
possesses her mother's spirit of inquiry and love of reasoning, and she
passes entire evenings with Arthur, pursuing the most perplexing and
intangible subjects. She and Arthur are admirably matched in this
game; for if she is unparalleled in the quickness with which she will
follow up a clue and triumphantly announce the mysterious object, after
asking eighteen or nineteen questions, Arthur is no less adroit in
selecting unusual subjects, and so artfully parrying her questions as
to give her the least possible assistance. I often hear them call to
each other--
"I have chosen a subject; you will never in the world guess it!"
Then follows an hour of questions and reasoning, with inferences drawn
and rejected, and a display of sophistry that would do credit to a more
fully fledged lawyer than Arthur is at present.
Yesterday, after dinner, they launched into one of their games, and
Gabrielle guessed after eighteen questions what would have required
forty, I am sure, from any one else--the eighty-eighth eye of a fly!
Another was even more puzzling. The object belonged, Arthur assured
her, to the vegetable kingdom, the color was white, and he had often
met it within a dozen yards of the railway station. "A daisy," was the
first and natural solution, but she was, he assured her, very far
adrift. "A telegraph post," she next announced, but she was again
unsuccessful. At this point I left them; but after an hour had passed
Gabrielle ran up to my room to tell me that she had guessed it--a polka
dot upon one of her morning dresses!
The object chosen by Arthur at the picnic was the right horn of the
moon. Gabrielle, this time, sat beside me and enjoyed the perplexity
of the questioners, for not until we were about to step into the
carriage to return home did they guess it.
_June 27_.
A letter this morning from our pretty cousin Evangeline, announcing
that she is engaged to a Dr. Ross of Chautauqua county, where she
lives. Evangeline is the only daughter of mamma's youngest sister,
Margaret. She is eighteen years old, of medium height, and well
formed, with a fair complexion, the chestnut hair that is peculiar to
the younger members of the Greeley family, and brown eyes inherited
from her father's family, for the Greeley eye _par excellence_ is blue.
Although Evangeline has been brought up in the quiet little village of
Clymer, she has been well educated, and besides being uncle's favorite
among his nieces, she was much admired in general society during the
winter that she spent with us in New York two years ago. At uncle's
birthday party, which she attended, she was by many pronounced the
handsomest young lady present.
We have never seen Dr. Ross, but mamma remembers his family well, and
says that "he comes of a good stock." He is not wealthy, but he is in
a good profession, is of unexceptionable character, and very devoted to
our dear Evangeline; so they have _my_ blessing. The marriage will not
take place until December, when Evangeline will have laid off her
mourning.
Marguerite's portfolio is open upon her writing-table, and a letter to
Evangeline, not yet sealed, lies between the blotting-sheets. As it
speaks of Evangeline's betrothal, I will insert it here:
"CHAPPAQUA, _June 27_.
"DEAREST EVANGELINE:--You complain in your last letter that I do not
write enough about Chappaqua and 'the farm.' You wish particulars. My
sweet cousin, I thought that you were familiar with descriptions of
this dearest spot on earth, as I remember that dear uncle gave each of
us a copy of his 'Recollections' the last Christmas that you were with
us--the last Christmas indeed that he spent upon this earth. Peruse
that volume, dear, for in it you will find a more vivid picture, a more
poetic description of his dearly loved home and surroundings, than
anything that I can say.
"As to Chappaqua being a large or small village--it is small, very
small, not half so large as Clymer, where you live; but it is far more
picturesque. There are only a dozen or two houses in all, including a
couple of stores, a post-office, a 'wayside inn,' and a church without
a bell. There are, however, many fine residences scattered over the
township; whichever way we drive, we see elegant mansions nestling in a
copse of wood, or crowning some hill-top.
"The valley through which we approach Chappaqua is faced on either side
by a succession of beautiful undulating hills that are thickly covered
with dark-green foliage. This farm, consisting of eighty-four acres
(for you know that there is another lying adjacent of nearly the same
size), presents very beautiful and varied scenery. Near the house in
the woods, where uncle and aunt lived so many years, a pretty brook
winds down by the lower barn, and goes singing away through the meadows
bright
"'With steadfast daisies pure and white.'
But this is not all; this lovely, babbling brook fills a large pond,
high up in the woods, then flows over a stone dam, and comes rushing
down in a succession of waterfalls, stopping for breathing-space in one
of the wildest story-telling glens I ever saw.
"And here, in the gloom of the forest-trees, where the birds love to
congregate, and a thousand perfumes of clover and new-mown hay, and the
aroma of the evergreen grove, come up, Ida and I spend many an hour,
forgetful of city life, and heedless about ever returning to it.
"This year we are occupying the roadside house, which, although not so
beautiful as the new one on the side-hill, nor so retired and romantic
as the one in the woods still is lovely and has a very charming
prospect. It stands on sloping ground that is skirted by forest and
fruit trees. Some of them throw their grateful shade on the piazza and
balcony that run the width of the front of the house. My room opens on
the balcony by three French windows, and here I often walk to catch the
last gleam of departing day, or linger after nightfall to see the
far-away stars come out. The moonrise here is perfectly enchanting,
climbing up as it does over the eastern hills, and throwing its pensive
light over the silent meadows, and distant, dark woods.
"But I have filled my sheet before speaking of your engagement. As I
have not seen your handsome doctor, you will not expect me to be
enthusiastic. I hear that he is intelligent, clever in his profession,
and of excellent character, but not rich. Well Evangeline, you know I
approve of wealth, combined with other good qualifications; but if I
had to choose between a man of mind and a man of money, I don't think I
would hesitate long which to take; so you are sure of my approbation,
and you have my best wishes for your future happiness.
"Your loving cousin,
"MARGUERITE."
_June 29_.
A visit yesterday from our friend Mrs. Sarah L. Hopper, the clever
contributor to several Southern journals. Among them the _Washington
Gazette_, and the _True Woman_--the latter an anti-suffrage journal.
Mrs. Hopper not only writes well; she is also a woman of varied and
excellent reading, and the appreciation of the modern classics is
displayed in one of her poems--an admirable apostrophe to the character
and works of Dante. This poem, which was published some time since,
Mrs. Hopper once recited to us, and both mamma and I were struck with
the true ring of poesy so apparent in it.
_June 30_.
Upon returning from church yesterday, we found the front door standing
open, a couple of arm-chairs upon the piazza, and a newspaper or two in
lieu of the occupants--proof unmistakable of a masculine invasion. Who
it was we could not imagine; that it was not a neighbor we were
convinced by seeing the morning _Herald_ and _Times_, for the Sunday
papers cannot be obtained here, save by being at the depot when the
interminable way-train comes up from New York, and waylaying the
newsboy who accompanies the cars; and for this our neighbors are rarely
sufficiently enterprising. Unmistakably our visitors had come from the
city.
Upon questioning Minna, she gave us a graphic description of the
gentlemen. One was "tall, oh so tall! with dark hair and red
cheeks"--in him we recognized Mr. Walworth Ward--the other was a blonde
gentleman whom she had seen here before.
"Lina has already made wine _padding_," she said, seeing Ida about to
descend and inspect the larder. "Miss no fret--all right."
Ida and I then started to walk to the grove, where we thought we would
probably find our guests awaiting our return. Not there, indeed, but
in the vegetable garden we found them, where they were kindly looking
after the interests of the family by weeding the strawberry-beds,
regardless of the Sabbath, and notwithstanding one of the gentlemen was
a grandson of a D.D. In answer to our regrets that we should have been
absent when they arrived, they mildly intimated some surprise, one
having telegraphed his proposed coming, and the other sent a message
through papa the day previous; dear papa, however, had as usual
forgotten to deliver the message, and whither the telegram went, no one
could imagine.
_July 1_.
A visit yesterday from the little colored sculptress, Edmonia Lewis.
Miss Lewis was accompanied by a box of formidable size, containing, she
told us, a marble bust of Mr. Greeley, which she had brought out here
for the opinion of the family; but as Ida was in the city where she had
gone for a day's shopping, we reserved our judgment until she should
return and see it with us.
I was very glad to learn that Miss Lewis was prospering in both a
pecuniary and an artistic point of view. She had, she told me,
received two orders for busts of uncle--one from the Lincoln Club, and
one from a Chicago gentleman. She intends returning to Rome before
long.
Miss Lewis had already opened a studio while we were in Rome four or
five years ago, and I heard much talk about her from her brother and
sister artists. I intended at one time to visit her studio and see her
work, but several sculptors advised me not to do so; she was, they
declared, "queer," "unsociable," often positively rude to her visitors,
and had been heard to fervently wish that the Americans would not come
to her studio, as they evidently looked upon her only as a curiosity.
When, therefore, I did see her for the first time (last summer), I was
much surprised to find her by no means the morose being that had been
described to me, but possessed of very soft and quite winning manners.
She was amused when I told her what I had heard of her, and remarked,
quite pertinently:
"How could I expect to sell my work if I did not receive visitors
civilly?"
Miss Lewis expressed much gratitude to Miss Hosmer and Miss Stebbins
for their kindness to her in Rome, and of Miss Cushman she said
enthusiastically, "She is an angel!"
She is, I have been told, very well received in society abroad, and
when baptized a Catholic in Rome, two ladies of high position, Countess
Cholmondeley and Princess Wittgenstein, offered to stand godmother for
her. Edmonia chose Lady Cholmondeley, whom I remember well in Rome as
a great belle and a highly accomplished woman. She wrote poetry, I was
told, and modelled in clay with much taste, and her finely trained
voice and dainty playing of the harp I well remember as one of the
attractions of Miss Cushman's receptions.
Edmonia has, beside her somewhat hard English appellation, two pretty
baptismal names--Maria Ignatia.