The last and worst humiliation was yet to come--that which put me for a
long season out of humour with all human and woman nature. Conscious
of an unusual degree of bustle without, I was suddenly startled by
sounds of a voice that had been once pleasingly familiar. It was that
of a female, a clear, soft, transparent sound, which, till this moment,
had never been associated in my thoughts with any thing but the most
perfect of all mortal melodies. It was now jangled harsh, like "sweet
bells out of tune." The voice was that of Emmeline. "Good heavens!" I
exclaimed to myself--"can she be here?" In another instant, I heard
that of Susannah--the meek Susannah,--she too was among the curious to
examine the features of the bedlamite, Archy Dargan. "Dear me," said
Emmeline, "is he in that place?"
"What a horrid place!" said Susannah.
"It's the very place for such a horrid creature," responded Emmeline.
"Can't he get out, papa?" said Susannah. "Isn't a mad person very
strong?"
"Oh! don't frighten a body, Susannah, before we have had a peep," cried
Emmeline; "I declare I'm afraid to look--do, Col. Nelson, peep first
and see if there's no danger." And there was the confounded Col.
Nelson addressing his eyes to my person, and assuring his fair
companions, my Emmeline, my Susannah, that there was no sort of
danger,--that I was evidently in one of my fits of apathy.
"The paroxysm is off for the moment, ladies,--and even if he were
violent, it is impossible that he should break through the pen. He
seems quite harmless--you may look with safety."
"Yes, he's mighty quiet now, Miss,"--said one of my keepers
encouragingly, "but it's all owing to a close sight of my whip. He was
a-guine to be obstropolous more than once, when I shook it over
him--he's usen to it, I reckon. You can always tell when the roaring
fit is coming on--for he breaks out in such a dreadful sort of
laughing."
"Ha! Ha!--he laughs does he--Ha! Ha!" such was the somewhat wild
interruption offered by Col. Nelson himself. If my laugh produced such
an effect upon my keeper, his had a very disquieting effect upon me.
But, the instinctive conviction that Emmeline and Susannah were now
gazing upon me, prompted me with a sort of fascination, to lift my head
and look for them. I saw their eyes quite distinctly. Bright
treacheries! I could distinguish between them--and there were those of
Col. Nelson beside them--the three persons evidently in close
propinquity.
"What a dreadful looking creature!" said Susannah.
"Dreadful!" said Emmeline, "I see nothing so dreadful in him. He seems
tame enough. I'm sure, if that's a madman, I don't see why people
should be afraid of them."
"Poor man, how bloody he is!" said Susannah.
"We had to tap him, Miss, a leetle upon the head, to bring him quiet.
He's tame and innocent now, but you should see him when he's going to
break out. Only just hear him when he laughs."
I could not resist the temptation. The last remark of my keeper fell
on my ears like a suggestion, and suddenly shooting up my head, and
glaring fiercely at the spectators, I gave them a yell of laughter as
terrible as I could possibly make it.
"Ah!" was the shriek of Susannah, as she dashed back from the logs.
Before the sounds had well ceased, they were echoed from without and in
more fearful and natural style from the practised lungs of Col. Nelson.
His yells following mine, were enough to startle even me.
"What!" he cried, thrusting his fingers through the crevice, "you would
come out, would you,--you would try your strength with mine. Let him
out,--let him out! I am ready for him, breast to breast, man against
man, tooth and nail, forever and forever. You can laugh too, but--
Ha! Ha! Ha!--what do you say to that? Shut up, shut up, and be
ashamed of yourself. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
There was a sensation without. I could see that Emmeline recoiled from
the side of her companion. He had thrown himself into an attitude, had
grappled the logs of my dungeon, and exhibited a degree of strange
emotion, which, to say the least, took everybody by surprise. My chief
custodian was the first to speak.
"Don't be scared, Mr.--there's no danger--he can't get out."
"But I say let him out--let him out. Look at him, ladies--look at him.
You shall see what a madman is--you shall see how I can manage him.
Hark ye, fellow,--out with him at once. Give me your whip--I know all
about his treatment. You shall see me work him. I'll manage
him,--I'll fight with him, and laugh with him too--how we shall
laugh--Ha! Ha! Ha!"
His horrible laughter--for it was horrible--was cut short by an
unexpected incident. He was knocked down as suddenly as I had been,
with a blow from behind, to the astonishment of all around. The
assailant was the sheriff of Hamilton jail, who had just arrived and
detected the fugitive, Archy Dargan--the most cunning of all
bedlamites, as he afterwards assured me--in the person of the handsome
Col. Nelson.
"I knew the scamp by his laugh--I heard it half a mile," said the
sheriff, as he planted himself upon the bosom of the prostrate man, and
proceeded to leash him in proper order. Here was a concatenation
accordingly.
"Who hev' I got in the pen?" was the sapient inquiry of my captor--the
fellow whose whip had been so potent over my imagination.
"Who? Have you any body there?" demanded the sheriff.
"I reckon!--We cocht a chap that Jake made affidavy was the madman."
"Let him out then, and beg the man's pardon. I'll answer for Archy
Dargan."
My appearance before the astonished damsels was gratifying to neither
of us. I was covered with mud and blood,--and they with confusion.
"Oh! Mr. ----, how could we think it was you, such a fright as they've
made you."
Such was Miss Emmeline's speech after her recovery. Susannah's was
quite as characteristic.
"I am so very sorry, Mr. ----."
"Spare your regrets, ladies," I muttered ungraciously, as I leapt on my
horse. "I wish you a very pleasant morning."
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" yelled the bedlamite, writhing and bounding in his
leash--"a very pleasant morning."
The damsels took to their heels, and went off in one direction quite as
fast as I did in the other. Since that day, dear reader, I have never
suffered myself to scare a fool, or to fall in love with a pair of
twins; and if ever I marry, take my word for it, the happy woman shall
neither be a Susannah, nor an Emmeline.
THE CHIROPODIST
By BAYARD TAYLOR
R. Henry Bartlett was one of three gentlemen who rode from the railroad
station to Moore's Hotel, at Trenton Falls, on the top of an omnibus;
and who, having clambered down from that lofty perch, under the
inspection of forty pairs of eyes leveled at them from the balcony,
hastened to inscribe their names in the book, and secure the keys of
their several chambers. To no one of the three, however, was this
privacy so welcome as to Mr. Bartlett, who, entering his room with
flushed face, nervously dismissed the servant, locked the door, and
dropped into a chair with a pant of relief. Our business being
entirely with him, we shall at once dismiss his two companions--whom,
indeed, we have only introduced as accessories to the principal
figure--and, taking our invisible seats in the opposite chair, proceed
to a contemplation of his person.
Age--four, perhaps five, and twenty--certainly not more; height, five
feet nine inches, with well-developed breast and shoulders; limbs,
whose firm, ample muscle betrays itself through the straight lines of
his light summer costume, and hands and feet of agreeable shape;
complexion fair, with a skin of feminine fineness and transparency,
whereon the uncontrollable blood writes his emotions so palpably that
he who runs may read; eyes of a clear, honest blue, but so shy of
meeting a steady gaze that few know how beautiful they really are;
mouth full and sensitive, and of so rich and dewy a red that we can not
help wishing he were a woman that we might be pardoned for kissing it;
forehead broad, and rather low; hair--but here we hesitate, for his
enemies would certainly call it red. Indeed, in some lights it is red,
but its prevailing tint is brown, with a bronze lustre on the curls.
As he sits thus, unconscious of our observation, he is certainly
handsome, in spite of a haunting air of timidity which weakens the
expression of features not weak in themselves. On further observation,
we are inclined to believe that he has not achieved that easy poise of
self-possession which, in men of becoming modesty, is the result of
more or less social experience. He belongs, evidently, to that class
of awkward, honest, warm-hearted, and sensitive natures whom all men
like, and some women.
Mr. Bartlett's reflections, after his arrival, were--we have good
reason to know--after this fashion: "When will I cease to be a fool?
Why couldn't I stare back at all those people on the balcony as coolly
as the two fellows who sat beside me? Why couldn't I get down without
missing the step and grazing my shin on the wheel? Why should I walk
into the house with my head down, and a million of cold little needles
pricking my back, because men and women, and not sheep, were looking at
me? I have at least an average body, as men go--an average intellect,
too, I think; yet every day I see spindly, brainless squirts [Mr.
Bartlett would not have used this epithet in conversation, but it
certainly passed through his mind] put me to shame by their
self-possession. The women think me a fool because I have not the
courage to be natural and unembarrassed, and I carry the consciousness
of the fact about me whenever I meet them. Come, come: this will never
do. I am a man, and I ought to possess the ordinary resolution of a
man. Now, here's a chance to turn over a new leaf. Nobody knows me;
no one will notice me particularly; and whether I fail or succeed, the
experiment will never be brought forward to my confusion hereafter."
Full of a sudden courage he sprang to his feet, and carefully adjusted
his toilet for the tea-table, whistling cheerfully all the while. At
the sound of the gong he descended the staircase, and approached the
dining-room with head erect, meeting the gaze of the other guests with
a steadiness which resembled defiance. He was surprised to find how
mechanical and transitory were the glances he encountered. As Mr.
Bartlett's friend, I should not like to assert that in his efforts to
appear self-possessed he approached the bounds of effrontery; but I
have my own private suspicions about the matter. At the table a lively
conversation was carried on, and he was able to take many stealthy
observations of the ladies without being noticed. To his shame I must
confess that he had never been seriously in love, though it was a
condition he most earnestly desired. Attracted toward women by the
instinct of his nature, and repelled by his awkward embarrassment,
there seemed little chance that he would ever attain it. On this
particular occasion, however, he cast his eyes around with the air of a
sultan scanning his slaves before throwing the handkerchief to the
chosen one. The female guests--old, young, married, single,
ill-favored or beautiful--were subjected to the review. It is
impossible to describe Mr. Bartlett's satisfaction with himself.
He had passed over twenty-nine of the thirty-five ladies present
without experiencing any special emotion; but at the thirtieth he was
suddenly attacked by a recurrence of his habitual timidity. He fixed
his eyes upon his toast, painfully conscious by the warmth of his ears
that he was blushing violently, and actually drank a third cup of tea
(one more than his usual allowance) before he became sufficiently
composed to look up again. Really there was no cause for confusion.
Her face was turned away, so that even the profile was not wholly
visible; but the exquisite line of the forehead and cheek, bent inward
at the angle of the unseen eye, and melting into the sweep of the neck
and shoulder, were the surest possible prophecies of beauty. Her
chestnut hair, rippled at the temples, was gathered into a heavy,
shining knot at the back of her head, and inwoven with the varnished,
heart-shaped leaves of the smilax. More than this Mr. Bartlett did not
dare to notice.
During the evening he flitted restlessly about the rooms, intent on an
object which he thus explained to himself: "I should like to see
whether her front face corresponds to the outline of her cheek. I am
alone; it is too late to visit the Falls, and a whim of this sort will
help me to pass the time." But the lady belonged, apparently, to a
numerous party, who took possession of one end of the balcony and sat
in the moonlight, in such a position that he could not see her features
with distinctness. The face was a pure oval, in a frame-work of superb
hair, and the glossy leaves of smilax glittered like silver in the
moonlight whenever she chanced to turn her head. There were songs, and
she sang--"Scenes that are brightest," or something of the kind,
suggested by the influences of the night. Her voice was clear and
sweet, without much strength--one of those voices which seem to be made
for singing to one ear alone. "Here, by God's grace, is the one voice
for me," thought Mr. Bartlett. [He had just been reading the "Idyls of
the King."] He slipped off to bed, saying to himself: "A little more
courage, and I may be able to make her acquaintance."
In the morning he set out to make the tour of the Falls. Entering the
glen from below, he slowly crept up the black shelves of rock, under
and around the rush of the amber waters. The naiads of Trenton, waving
their scarfs of rainbow brede, tossed their foam fringes in his face:
above, the dryads of the pine and beech looked down from their seats on
the brink of the overhanging walls. Mr. Bartlett was neither a poet
nor a painter, nor was it necessary; but his temperament (as you may
know from his skin and the color of his hair) was joyous and excitable,
and he felt a degree of delight that made him forget his own self. I
fancy there are no embarrassing conventionalisms at the bottom of the
earth--wherever that may be--and the glen at Trenton is two hundred
feet on the way thither. Our friend enjoyed to the full this partial
release, and was surprised to find that he could assist several married
ladies to climb the slippery steps at the High Pall without consciously
blushing.
How it came to pass he never could rightly tell, but certain it is
that, on lifting his eyes after a long contemplation of the shifting
slides of fretted amber, he found himself alone in the glen--with the
exception of a young lady who sat on the rocks a few paces distant. At
the first glance he thought it was a child, for the slight form was
habited in a Bloomer dress, and a broad hat shaded the graceful head.
The wide trowsers were gathered around her ankles, and a pair of the
prettiest feet he had ever seen dangled in the edge of the swift
stream. She was idly plucking up tufts of grass from the crevices of
the rock, and tossing them in the mouth of the cataract, and her face
was partly turned toward him. It was the fair unknown of the evening
before! There was no mistaking the lovely cheek and the rippled
chestnut hair.
Mr. Bartlett felt--as he afterward expressed himself--a warm, sweet
shudder run through all his veins. Alone with that lovely creature,
below the outside surface of the earth! "Oh, if I could but speak to
her! Her dress shows that she can lay aside the soulless forms of
society in such a place as this: why not I? There's Larkin, and
Kirkland, and lots of fellows I know, wouldn't hesitate a moment. But
what shall I say? 'The scenery's very fine?' Pshaw! But the first
sentence is the only difficulty---the rest will come of itself. What
if I address her boldly as an old acquaintance, and then apologize for
my mistake? Upon my word, a good idea! So natural and possible!"
Having determined upon this plan, he immediately put it into action
before the resolve had time to cool. His step was firm and his bearing
was sufficiently confident as he approached her; but when she lifted
her long lashes, disclosing a pair of large, limpid, hazel eyes, which
regarded him, unabashed, with the transient curiosity one bestows upon
a stranger, his face, I am sure, betrayed the humbug of the thing. The
lady, however, not anticipating what followed, could scarcely have
remarked it.
Raising his hat as he reached the corner of the rock upon which she
sat, he said, in a voice so curiously balanced between his enforced
boldness and his reflected surprise thereat, that he hardly recognized
it as his own:
"How do you do, Miss Lawrence?"
The lady looked at him wonderingly--steady, child-like eyes, that
frankly and innocently perused his face, as if seeking for some trace
of a forgotten acquaintance. Mr. Bartlett could not withdraw his,
although he knew that his face was getting redder and his respiration
more unsteady every moment. He stammered forth:
"Miss Lawrence, of South Carolina, I believe."
"You are mistaken, Sir," said the lady, with the least shade of
coldness in her voice, but it fell upon Mr. Bartlett like the wind from
an iceberg--"I am not Miss Lawrence."
"I--I beg your pardon," he answered, somewhat confusedly. "You
resemble her; I expected to meet her here. Will you please tell her I
enquired for her? Here's my card!" Therewith he thrust both hands
into his vest pockets, extracted a card from one of them, and laid it
hastily upon the rock beside her.
"Bertha! Bertha!" rang through the glen, above the roar of the
waterfall. The remainder of the party which the young lady had
preceded now came into view descending toward her.
"Good-day, Miss Lawrence!" said Mr. Bartlett, again lifting his hat,
and retracing his steps. For his life he could not have passed her and
run the gauntlet of the faces of her friends upon the narrow path.
Every soul of them would have instantly seen what a fool he was.
Moreover, he had achieved enough for one day. The soldier who storms a
perilous breach and finds himself alive on the inside of it could not
be more astonished than he. "I blundered awfully," he thought; "but,
after all, it's the one way to learn."--"Who's your friend, Bertha?"
asked her brother, Dick Morris, the avant-guard of the party. "I never
saw the fellow before."
"If you had not frightened him by your sudden appearance," said she,
"you might have discovered. A Southerner, I suppose, though he don't
look like one. He addressed me as Miss Lawrence, of South Carolina,
and afterwards left me his card, to be given to her. What shall I do
with it?"
"Ha! the card will tell us who he is," said Dick, picking it up. He
instantly burst into a roar of laughter. "Ha! ha! This comes of
wearing a Bloomer, Bertha! Though I must say it's by no means
complimentary to your little feet. Who'd suspect _you_ of having
corns?"
"Dick, what _do_ you mean?"
"Ha! ha! no doubt I came at the nick of time to prevent him from
pulling off your shoes."
"DICK!"
Therewith she impatiently jerked the card from her brother's hand. It
was large, thick, handsomely glazed, and contained the following
inscription:
PROFESSOR HURLBUT,
Chiropodist
To her Majesty Queen Victoria, and the
Nobility of Great Britain.
"Incredible!" she exclaimed. "So young, and embarrassed in his
manners; how could he ever have taken hold of the Queen's foot?"
"Embarrassed indeed!" said Dick. "I think he has a very cool way of
procuring patients. But, faith, he's chosen a romantic operating-room.
After climbing down these rocks the corns naturally begin to twinge,
and here's the Professor on hand. Behold the march of civilization!"
Bertha did not fall into her brother's vein of badinage, as usual. She
was vexed that the fresh, manly face and blue eyes into which she had
looked belonged to a charlatan, and vexed at herself for being vexed
thereat. It was not so easy, however, to dismiss Professor Hurlbut
from her mind, for Dick had related the incident to the others of the
party, with his own embellishments, and numberless were the jokes to
which it gave rise throughout the day.
Meantime Mr. Bartlett, in happy ignorance of the worst blunder he had
ever made, returned to the hotel. The day previous, at Utica, he had
been annoyed by an itinerant extractor of corns, suppressor of bunions,
and regulator of irregular nails, whose proffered card he had put into
his pocket in order to get rid of the man. It was this card which he
had presented to Miss Morris as his own. On reaching the hotel he
easily ascertained her real name and place of residence, with the
additional fact that the party were to leave for Saratoga on the
morrow. It occurred to him also that Saratoga, in the height of the
season, would be well worth a visit.
In the evening he again happened to meet the lady on the stairs. He
retreated into a corner of the landing, to make room for her ample
skirts, and, catching a glance of curious interest for her hazel eyes,
ventured to say: "Good-evening, Miss Law-ris!" suddenly correcting her
name in the middle. Bertha, in spite of the womanly dignity which she
could very well summon to her aid, could not suppress a fragment of gay
laughter, in which the supposed Professor joined. A slight inclination
of the lovely head acknowledged his salutation.
The next morning Miss Bertha Morris left, with her party, for Saratoga;
and after allowing a day to intervene, in order to avoid the appearance
of design, Mr. Henry Bartlett followed. He did not admit to himself in
the least that this movement was prompted by love; but he was aware of
an intense desire to make her acquaintance. The earnestness which this
desire infused into his nature gave him courage; the man within him was
beginning to wake and stir; and a boyhood of character, prolonged
beyond the usual date, was dropping rapidly into the irrecoverable
conditions of the past.
It chanced that they both took quarters in the same hotel; and great
was Bertha's astonishment; on her first morning visit to the Congress
Spring, to find Professor Hurlbut quietly quaffing his third glass. He
looked so much like a gentleman; he was really so fresh and rosy, so
genuinely masculine in comparison with the blasé youths she was
accustomed to see, that, forgetting his occupation, she acknowledged
his bow with a cordiality which provoked herself the moment afterward.
Mr. Bartlett was so much encouraged by this recognition that he
ventured to walk beside her on their return to the hotel. She, having
in the impulsive frankness and forgetfulness of her nature returned his
greeting, felt bound to suffer the temporary companionship,
embarrassing though it was. Fortunately none of her friends were in
sight, nor was it probable that they knew the chiropodist in any case.
She would be rid of him at the hotel door, and would take good care to
avoid him in the future.
"How delightful it is here!" said Mr. Bartlett, thinking more of his
present position than of Saratoga in general.
An inclination of the head was her only reply.
"This is my first visit," he added; "and I can not conceive of a summer
society gayer or more inspiring."
"I have no doubt you will find it a very favorable place for your
business," said Bertha, maliciously recalling him to his occupation, as
she thought.
"Oh, I hope so!" exclaimed the innocent Bartlett. For was not his only
business in Saratoga the endeavour to make her acquaintance? And was
he not already in a fair way to be successful?
"Disgusting!" thought Bertha, as she suddenly turned and sprang up the
steps in front of the ladies' drawing-room. "He thinks of nothing but
his horrid corn-plaster, or whatever it is! I really believe he
suspects that I need his services. That such a man should be so brazen
a charlatan--it is monstrous!"
Such thoughts were not an auspicious commencement for the day, and
Bertha's friends remarked that she was not in her sunniest mood. She
was very careful, however, not to speak of her meeting with the
chiropodist; there would have been no end to her brother's banter. She
was also vexed that she could not forget his honest blue eyes, and the
full, splendid curves of his mouth. Indignation, she supposed, was her
predominant emotion; but, in reality, there was a strong under-feeling
of admiration, had she been aware of it.
After dinner Mr. Bartlett, occupying the post of observation at his
window (room No. 1346, seventh story), saw the Morris party--Bertha
among them--enter a carriage and drive away in the direction of the
Lake. Half an hour later, properly attired, he mounted a handsome roan
at the door of a livery-stable, and set off in the same direction. He
was an accomplished rider, his legs being somewhat shorter than was
required by due proportion, owing to which circumstance he appeared
taller on horseback than afoot. Like all horsemen, he was thoroughly
self-possessed when in the saddle; and could he but have ridden into
drawing-rooms and dining-rooms, would have felt no trace of his
customary timidity.
Bertha noticed his figure afar off, approaching the carriage on a rapid
trot, but made no remark. Dick, who had a quick eye for good points
both in man and beast, exclaimed, "By Jove! there's a fine pair of
them! Look at the action of that roan! See how the fellow rises at
the right moment without leaving his saddle! no jumping or bumping
there!" Mr. Bartlett came on at a staving pace, lifting his hat to the
ladies with perfect grace as he passed. He would have blushed could he
have felt a single ripple of the wave of admiration which flowed after
him. Bertha alone was silent, more than ever provoked and disgusted
that such a gallant outward embodiment of manhood should be connected
with such disagreeable associations! Had he been any thing but a
chiropodist! A singular feeling of shame, for his sake, prevented her
from betraying his personality to her friends; and it came to pass that
they innocently defended the very charlatan whom they had so ridiculed
in the glen at Trenton from her half-disparaging observations.
After all, she thought, the man may be honest in his profession, which
he may look upon as simply that of a physician. A pain in the toe is
probably as troublesome as a pain in the head; and why should not one
be cured as well as the other? A dentist, I am sure, is a very
respectable person; and, for my part, I would as soon operate on a
corny toe as a carious tooth. [I would not have you suppose, ladies,
that Miss Morris made use of such horrid expressions in her
conversation: I am only putting her thoughts into my own words.]
Still, the conclusion to which she invariably arrived was, "I wish he
were any thing else!"
That evening there was a hop at the hotel. The Morrises were
enthusiastic dancers--even the widow, Bertha's mother, not disdaining a
quadrille. Mr. Bartlett, in an elegant evening dress, his eyes
sparkling with new light, was there also. In the course of the day he
had encountered a Boston cousin, Miss Jane Heath, a tall, dashing girl,
some two or three years older than himself. She was one of the few
women with whom he felt entirely at ease. There was an honest,
cousinly affection between them; and he always felt relieved, in
society, when supported by her presence.
"Now, Harry," said Jane, as they entered the room, "remember, the first
schottisch belongs to me. After that, I'll prove my disinterestedness
by finding you partners."
As he led her upon the floor his eyes dropped in encountering those of
Bertha Morris, whose floating tulle was just settling itself to rest as
she whirled out of the ranks. Poor Bertha! had she been alone she
could have cried. He danced as well as he rode--the splendid, mean
fellow! the handsome, horrid--chiropodist! Well, it was all outward
varnish, no doubt. If it was true that he had relieved the nobility of
Great Britain of their corns, he must have acquired something of the
elegances of their society. But such ease and grace in dancing could
not be picked up by mere imitation--it was a born gift. Even her
brother Dick, who was looked upon as the highest result of fashionable
education in such matters, was not surer or lighter of foot.
An hour later Bertha, who had withdrawn from the dancers and was
refreshing herself with the mild night air at an open window, found
herself temporarily separated from her friends. Mr. Bartlett had
evidently been watching for such an opportunity, for he presently
disengaged himself from the crowd and approached her.
"You are fond of dancing, Miss Morris?" said he.
"Ye-es," she answered, hesitatingly, divided between her determination
to repel his effrontery and her inability to do so. She turned partly
away, and gazed steadily into the moonshine.
Mr. Bartlett, however, was not to be discouraged. "Still, even the
most agreeable exercise will fatigue at last," he remarked.
"Oh," said Bertha, rather sharply, suspecting a professional meaning in
his words, "my feet are perfectly sound, I assure you, Sir!"
It is not to be denied that he was a little surprised at the
earnestness of an assertion which, in a playful tone, would not have
seemed out of place. "I think you proved that at Trenton Falls," he
rejoined; "but will you grant me the pleasure of another test during
the next quadrille?"
"No further test is necessary, Sir. I presume you have patients enough
already!" And having uttered these words as coolly as her indignation
allowed, Bertha moved away from the window.
"Patience?" said Mr. Bartlett to himself, wholly misapprehending her
meaning; "yes, I shall have patience while there is a chance to hope.
But why did she speak of patience? Women, I have heard, are natural
diplomatists, and have a thousand indirect ways of saying things which
they do not wish to speak outright. Could she mean to test the
sincerity of my wish to know her. It is not to be expected that a
stranger, so awkwardly introduced, should be received without
hesitation--mistrust, perhaps. No, no, I must persevere; she would
despise me if I did not understand her meaning."
The following days were cold and rainy. There was an end of the gay
out-door life which offered him so many chances of meeting Miss Morris,
and the fleeting glimpses he caught of her in the great dining-hall or
the passage leading to the ladies' parlor were simply tantalizing. I
have no doubt there was a mute appeal in his eyes which must have
troubled the young lady's conscience; for she avoided meeting his gaze.
The knowledge of his presence made her uneasy; there was an atmosphere
about the hotel which she would willingly have escaped. She walked
with the consciousness of an eye every where following her, and, in
spite of herself, furtively sought for it. We, who are aware of her
mystification, may be amused at it; but imagine yourselves in the same
situation, ladies, and you will appreciate its horrors!
No, this was not longer to be endured, and so, after five or six days
at Saratoga, the party suddenly left for Niagara. Bertha, an only
daughter, was a petted child, and might have had her own way much
oftener than was really the case. The principal use she made of her
privilege was to follow the bent of a remarkably free, joyous, and
confiding nature. She was just unconventional enough to preserve an
individuality, and thereby distinguish herself from thousands of girls
who seem to have been cut out by a single pattern. The sphere within
which true womanhood moves is much wider than most women suspect. To
the frank, honest, and pure nature, what are called "the bounds of
propriety" are its natural horizon-ring, moving with it, and inclosing
it every where without restraining its freedom.
We shall not be surprised to find that shortly after Miss Morris's
departure Room No. 1346 in the Catanational Hotel had another tenant.
Mr. Bartlett followed, as a matter of course. He began nevertheless,
to feel very much like a fool, and--as he afterward confessed--spent
most of the time between Utica and the Suspension Bridge in
deliberating whether he should seek or avoid an interview. As if such
discussions with one's self ever amounted to any thing!
Ascertaining the lady's presence, he decided to devote his first day to
Niagara, trusting the rest to chance. In fact, he could not have done
a more sensible thing, for there is a Special Chance appointed for such
cases. The forenoon was not over before he experienced its operations.
Bertha, cloaked and cowled in India-rubber, stood on the hurricane deck
of the "Maid of the Mist," as the venturesome little steamer approached
the corner of the Horse-Shoe Fall. Looking up through blinding spray
at the shimmer of emerald and dazzling silver against the sky, she
crept near a broad-shouldered figure to shelter herself from the stormy
gusts of the Fall. Suddenly the boat wheeled, at the very edge of the
tremendous sheet, and swirled away from the vortex with a heave which
threw her off her feet. She did not fall, however; for strong arms
caught her waist and steadied her until the motion subsided.
Through the rush of the spray and the roar of the Fall she indistinctly
heard a voice apologizing for the unceremonious way in which the arms
had seized her. She did not speak---fearful, in fact, of having her
mouth filled with water--but frankly gave the gentleman her hand. The
monkish figure bowed low over the wet fingers, and respectfully
withdrew. As the mist cleared away she encountered familiar eyes. Was
it possible? The Chiropodist!
This discovery gave Bertha no little uneasiness. A subtle instinct
told her that he had followed on her account, in spite of her cornless
feet. Perhaps he had left a lucrative practice at Saratoga--and why?
There was but one answer to the question, and she blushed painfully as
she admitted its possibility. What was to be done? She would tell her
brother; but no--young men are so rash and violent. Avoid him? That
was difficult and embarrassing. Ignore him? Yes, as much as possible,
and, if necessary, frankly tell him that she could not accept his
acquaintance. On the whole, this course seemed best, though an
involuntary sympathy with her victim made her wish that it were all
over.
In the afternoon Mrs. Morris, as usual, took her summer siesta; Dick
had found a friend, and was whirling somewhere behind a pair of fast
horses; and, finally, Bertha, bored by the society in the ladies'
parlor, took her hat and a book and walked over to Goat Island. She
made the circuit of its forests and flashing water views, and finally
selected a shady seat on its western side, whence she could look out on
the foamy stairs of the Rapids. The unnecessary book lay in her lap; a
more wonderful book than any printed volume lay open before her.
Who shall dare to interpret the day-dream of a maiden? Soothed by the
mellow roar of the waters, fascinated by the momentary leaps of spray
from the fluted, shell-shaped hollows of the descending waves, and
freshened by the wind that blew from the cool Canadian shore, she
nursed her wild weeds of fancy till they blossomed into brighter than
garden-flowers. Meanwhile a thunder-cloud rose, dark and swift, in the
west. The menaces of its coming were unheard, and Bertha was first
recalled to consciousness by the sudden blast of cold wind that
precedes the ram.
When she looked up, the gray depth of storm already arched high over
the Canadian woods, and big drops began to rap on the shingly bank
below her. A little further down was a summer-house--open to the west,
it is true, but it offered the only chance of shelter within view. She
had barely reached it before a heavy peal of thunder shattered the
bolts of the rain, and it rushed down in an overwhelming flood.
Mounted on the bench and crouched in the least exposed corner, she was
endeavoring, with but partial success, to shelter herself from the
driving flood, when a man, coming from the opposite end of the island,
rushed up at full speed.
"Here," he panted, "Miss Morris, take this umbrella! I saw you at a
distance, and made haste to reach you. I hope you're not wet." The
spacious umbrella was instantly clapped over her, and the inevitable
Chiropodist placed himself in front to steady it, fully exposed to the
rain.
Bertha was not proof against this gallant self-sacrifice. In the
surprise of the storm--the roar of which, mingled with that of the
Fall, made a continuous awful peal--the companionship of any human
being was a relief, and she felt grateful for Professor Hurlbut's
arrival. Chiropodist though he was, he must not suffer for her sake.
"Here!" said she, lifting the umbrella, "it will shelter us both.
Quick! I insist upon it:" seeing that he hesitated.
There was really no time for parley, for every drop pierced him to the
skin, and the next moment found him planted before her, interposing a
double shield. His tender anxiety for her sake quite softened Bertha.
How ungrateful she had been!
"This is the second time I am obliged to you to-day, Sir," said she.
"I am sorry that I have unintentionally given you trouble."
"Oh, Miss Morris," cried the delighted Bartlett, "don't mention it!
It's nothing; I am quite amphibious, you know."
"You might be now in a place of shelter but for me," she answered,
penitently.
"I'd rather be here than any where else!" he exclaimed, in a burst of
candor which quite overleaped the barrier of self-possession and came
down on the other side. "If you would allow me to be your friend, Miss
Morris--if you would permit me to--to speak with you now and then;
if--if--" Here he paused, not knowing precisely what more to say, yet
feeling that he had already said enough to make his meaning clear.
Bertha was cruelly embarrassed, but only for a moment. Professor
Hurlbut had at least been frank and honest in his avowal--she felt his
sincerity through and through--and he deserved equal honesty at her
hands.
"I am your debtor," said she, in an uncertain voice; "and you have a
right to expect gratitude, at least, from me. I can not, therefore,
refuse your acquaintance, though, as you know, your--your occupation
would be considered objectionable by many persons."
"My occupation!"
"Your profession, then. I must candidly confess that I have a
prejudice--a foolish one, perhaps, against it."
"My profession!" cried the astonished Bartlett; "why, I have none!"
"Well--it _is_ scarcely to be called a 'profession,' but it is always
liable to the charge of charlatanism: pardon me the word. And it may
be ridiculed in so many ways. I wish, for your sake--for I believe you
to be capable of better things--that you would adopt some other
business."
Mr. Bartlett's amazement was now beyond all bounds, "Good Heavens!" he
exclaimed, "Miss Morris, what do you mean?"
Starting up from the bench as he uttered these words he jostled
Bertha's book from her hand. The leaves parted in falling, and a large
card, escaping from between them, fluttered down upon the floor. He
picked it up and restored it to her, with the book.
"There!" she answered, giving the card back again, "there is what I
mean! Must I give you your own card in order to acquaint you with your
own business?"
Mr. Bartlett looked at it for a second in blank amazement; then, like a
flash of lightning, the whole course of the misunderstanding flashed
across his mind. He burst--I am ashamed to say--into a tremendous
paroxysm of mingled tears and laughter: were he not so strong and
masculine a man, I should say, "hysterics." In vain he struggled to
find words. At every attempt a fresh convulsion of laughter seized
him, and tears, mingled with rain, flowed down his cheeks.
Bertha began to be alarmed at this strange and unexpected convulsion.
"Professor Hurlbut!" said she, "what is the matter?"
"Professor Hurlbut!" he repeated, in a faint, scarcely audible scream;
then, striving to suppress his uncontrollable fit of delight and
comical surprise, he sank upon the bench at her feet, shaking from head
to foot with the effort.
"A-a-ah!" he at last panted forth, as if heaving an atlas-load from his
heart, and stood erect before her. With his face still flushed and
eyes sparkling he was as handsome an embodiment of youth and life as
one could wish to see. In two words he explained to her the mistake,
on learning which Bertha blushed deeply, saying: "How could I ever have
supposed it!" And then, reflecting upon the inferences which could be
drawn from such an expression, became suddenly shy and silent.
Of course she accepted Mr. Bartlett's escort to the hotel when the rain
was over, and he was presented to the agonised mother, who hailed him
as a deliverer of her daughter from untold dangers, and privately
remarked, afterward, to the latter: "Upon my word, a very nice young
man, my dear!" Dick's commendation was no less emphatic though
differently expressed: "A good fellow! well made in the shoulders and
flanks: fine action, but wants a little training!"
By this time, ladies, you have probably guessed the conclusion. My
story would neither be agreeable nor true (I am relating facts) if they
were not married, and did not have two children, and live happy ever
after. Married they were, in the course of time, and happy they also
are, for I visit them now and then.
One thing I had nearly forgotten. When Mrs. Bartlett chooses to tease
her husband in that playful way so delightful to married lovers, she
invariably calls him "Professor Hurlbut," while he retorts with "Miss
Lawrence, of South Carolina." Moreover, in Mrs. B.'s confidential
little boudoir, over her work-stand, hangs a neatly-framed card,
whereon you may read:
PROFESSOR HURLBUT,
Chiropodist
To her Majesty Queen Victoria, and the
Nobility of Great Britain.
"MR. DOOLEY ON CORPORAL PUNISHMENT"
By F. P. DUNNE
Copyright 1907 by H. H. McClure & Co.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I see that some school-teachers down
East have been petitioning to be allowed to slug th' young."
"How's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy.
"Well," said Mr. Dooley "they say they can't do anything with these
tender little growths onless they use a club. They want the boord iv
iddycation to restore what's called corporal punishment--that is th'
fun iv lickin' some wan that can't fight back. Says wan iv thim: 'Th'
little wans undher our care are far fr'm bein' th' small angels that
they look. As a matther iv fact they are rebellyous monsthers that
must be suppressed be vigorous an',' says he, 'stern measures. Is it
right,' says he, 'that us school masthers shud daily risk our lives at
th' hands iv these feerocious an' tigerish inimies iv human s'ciety
without havin' a chance to pound thim? Yisterdah a goolden haired imp
iv perdition placed a tack in me chair. To-day I found a dead rat in
the desk. At times they write opprobyous epithets about me on th'
blackboard; at other times crood but pinted carrycachures. Nawthin'
will conthrol thim. They hurl the murdherous spitball. They pull th'
braid iv th' little girl. They fire baseballs through th' windows.
Sometimes lumps iv chewin' gum are found undher their desks where they
have stuck thim f'r further use. They shuffle their feet whin I'm
narvous. They look around thim when they think I'm not lookin'. They
pass notes grossly insultin' each other. Moral suasion does no good.
I have thried writin' to their parents askin' thim to cripple their
offspring, an' th' parents have come over an' offered to fight me.
I've thried keepin' thim afther school, makin' thim write compositions
an' shakin' th' milk teeth out iv thim, but to no avail. Me opinyon is
that th' av'rage small boy is a threecherous, dangerous crather like
th' Apachy Indyan' an' that th' on'y thing to do with him is to slam
him with a wagon spoke,' says he.
"An th' boord iv iddycation is discussin' th' petition. It can't quite
make up its mind whether Solomon wasn't right. Solomon said, accordin'
to Hogan, spile th' rod an' save th' child. He must've had a large
famly if he was annywhere near Tiddy Rosenfelt's law iv av'rages. I
don't see how he cud've spared time f'r writin' from correctin' his
fam'ly. He must've set up nights. Annyhow, th' boord iv iddycation is
discussin' whether he was right or not. I don't know mys'lf. All I
know is that if I was a life insurance canvasser or a coal dealer or
something else that made me illegible to be a mimber iv a boord iv
iddycation, an' an able-bodied man six feet tall come to me f'r
permission to whale a boy three feet tall, I'd say: 'I don't know
whether ye are compitint. Punishing people requires special thrainin'.
It ain't iv'rybody that's suited f'r th' job. Ye might bungle it.
Just take off ye'er coat an' vest an' step into th' next room an' be
examined.' An' in th' next room th' ambitious iddycator wud find James
J. Jeffreys or some other akely efficient expert ready f'r him an' if
he come back alive he'd have a certy-ficate entitlin' him to whack anny
little boy he met--except mine.
"Sure there'd be very few people to say they believed in corporal
punishment if corporal punishment was gin'ral. I wudden't give anny
wan th' right to lick a child that wanted to lick a child. No wan shud
be licked till he's too old to take a licking. If it's right to larrup
an infant iv eight, why ain't it right to larrup wan iv eighteen?
Supposin' Prisidint Hadley iv Yale see that th' left tackle or th' half
back iv th' football team wasn't behavin' right. He'd been caught
blowin' a pea shooter at th' pro-fissor iv iliminthry chemisthry, or
pullin' th' dure bell iv th' pro-fissor iv dogmatic theosophy. He
don't know any different. He's not supposed to ralize th' distinction
between right an' wrong yet. Does Prisidint Hadley grab th' child be
th' ear an' conduct him to a corner iv th' schoolroom an wallup him?
Ye bet he does not. Prisidint Hadley may be a bold man in raisin'
money or thranslatin' Homer, but he knows th' diff'rence between
courage and sheer recklessness. If he thried to convince this young
idea how to shoot in this careless way ye'd read in the pa-apers that
th' fire department was thryin' to rescue Prisidint Hadley fr'm th'
roof iv th' buildin' but he declined to come down.
"But what wud ye do with a child that refused to obey ye?" demanded Mr.
Hennessy.
"Not bein' ayther a parent or an iddycator I nivir had such a child,"
said Mr. Dooley. "I don't know what I'd do if I was. Th' on'y thing I
wudden't do wud be to hit him if he cudden't hit back, an' thin I'd
think twice about it. Th' older I grow th' more things there are I
know I don't know annything about. An' wan iv thim is childher. I
can't figure thim out at all.
"What d'ye know about thim little wans that ye have so carefully reared
be lavin' thim in th' mornin' befure they got up an' losin' ye'er
temper with at night whin ye come home fr'm wurruk? They don't know ye
an' ye don't know thim. Ye'll niver know till 'tis too late. I've
often wondhered what a little boy thinks about us that call oursilves
grown up because we can't grow anny more. We wake him up in th'
mornin' whin he wants to sleep. We make him wash his face whin he
knows it don't need washin' thin as much as it will later an' we sind
him back to comb his hair in a way he don't approve iv at all. We fire
him off to school just about th' time iv day whin anny wan ought to be
out iv dures. He trudges off to a brick buildin' an' a tired teacher
tells him a lot iv things he hasn't anny inthrest in at all, like how
manny times sivin goes into a hundhred an' nine an' who was King iv
England in thirteen twinty-two an' where is Kazabazoo on the map. He
has to set there most iv th' pleasant part iv th' day with sixty other
kids an' ivry time be thries to do annything that seems right to him
like jabbin' a frind with a pin or carvin' his name on the desk, th'
sthrange lady or gintleman that acts as his keeper swoops down on him
an' makes him feel like a criminal. To'rds evenin' if he's been good
an' repressed all his nacharal instincts he's allowed to go home an'
chop some wood. Whin he's done that an' has just managed to get a few
iv his frinds together an' they're beginnin' to get up interest in th'
spoort iv throwin' bricks down into a Chinese laundhry his little
sister comes out an' tells him he's wanted at home. He instinctively
pulls her hair an' goes in to study his lessons so that he'll be able
to-morrow to answer some ridiklous questions that are goin' to be asked
him. Afther a while ye come home an' greet him with ye'er usual glare
an' ye have supper together. Ye do most iv th' talkin', which ain't
much. If he thries to cut in with somethin' that intelligent people
ought to talk about ye stop him with a frown. Afther supper he's
allowed to study some more, an' whin he's finished just as th' night
begins to look good he's fired off to bed an' th' light is taken away
fr'm him an' he sees ghosts an' hobgoberlins in th' dark an' th' next
he knows he's hauled out iv bed an' made to wash his face again.
"An' so it goes. If he don't do anny iv these things or if he doesn't
do thim th' way ye think is th' right way some wan hits him or wants
to. Talk about happy childhood. How wud ye like to have twinty or
thirty people issuin' foolish ordhers to ye, makin' ye do things ye
didn't want to do, an' niver undherstandin' at all why it was so? Tis
like livin' on this earth an' bein' ruled by the inhabitants iv Mars.
He has his wurruld, ye can bet on that, an' 'tis a mighty important
wurruld. Who knows why a kid wud rather ate potatoes cooked nice an'
black on a fire made of sthraw an' old boots thin th' delicious oatmeal
so carefully an' so often prepared f'r him be his kind parents? Who
knows why he thinks a dark hole undher a sidewalk is a robbers' cave?
Who knows why he likes to collect in wan pocket a ball iv twine, glass
marbles, chewin' gum, a dead sparrow an' half a lemon? Who knows what
his seasons are? They are not mine, an' they're not ye'ers, but he
goes as reg'lar fr'm top time to marble time an' fr'm marble time to
kite time as we go fr'm summer to autumn an' autumn to winter. To-day
he's thryin' to annihilate another boy's stick top with his; to-morrow
he's thrying to sail a kite out iv a tillygraft wire. Who knows why he
does it?
"Faith we know nawthin' about him an' he knows nawthin' about us. I
can raymimber whin I was a little boy but I can't raymimber how I was a
little boy. I call back 's though it was yisterdah th' things I did,
but why I did thim I don't know. Faith, if I cud look for'ard to th'
things I've done I cud no more aisily explain why I was goin' to do
thim. Maybe we're both wrong in the way we look at each other--us an'
th' childher. We think we've grown up an' they don't guess that we're
childher. If they knew us betther they'd not be so surprised at our
actions an' wudden't foorce us to hit thim. Whin ye issued some
foolish ordher to ye'er little boy he'd say: 'Pah-pah is fractious
to-day. Don't ye think he ought to have some castor ile?'"
"It's a wise child that knows his own father," said Mr. Hennessy.
"It's a happy child that doesn't," said Mr. Dooley.
OVER A WOOD FIRE
DONALD G. MITCHELL
I have got a quiet farmhouse in the country, a very humble place, to be
sure, tenanted by a worthy enough man of the old New England stamp,
where I sometimes go for a day or two in the winter, to look over the
farm accounts and to see how the stock is thriving on the winter's keep.
One side the door, as you enter from the porch, is a little parlor,
scarce twelve feet by ten, with a cozy-looking fireplace, a heavy oak
floor, a couple of armchairs, and a brown table with carved lions'
feet. Out of this room opens a little cabinet, only big enough for a
broad bachelor bedstead, where I sleep upon feathers, and wake in the
morning with my eye upon a saucy colored lithographic print of some
fancy "Bessy."
It happens to be the only house in the world of which I am _bona fide_
owner, and I take a vast deal of comfort in treating it just as I
choose. I manage to break some article of furniture almost every time
I pay it a visit; and if I cannot open the window readily of a morning,
to breathe the fresh air, I knock out a pane or two of glass with my
boot. I lean against the walls in a very old armchair there is on the
premises, and scarce ever fail to worry such a hole in the plastering
as would set me down for a round charge for damages in town, or make a
prim housewife fret herself into a raging fever. I laugh out loud with
myself, in my big armchair, when I think that I am neither afraid of
one nor the other.
As for the fire, I keep the little hearth so hot as to warm half the
cellar below, and the whole space between the jams roars for two hours
together with white flame. To be sure, the windows are not very tight,
between broken panes and bad joints, so that the fire, large as it is,
is by no means an extravagant comfort.
As night approaches, I have a huge pile of oak and hickory placed
beside the hearth; I put out the tallow candle on the mantel (using the
family snuffers, with one leg broken), then, drawing my chair directly
in front of the blazing wood, and setting one foot on each of the old
iron fire-dogs (until they grow too warm), I dispose myself for an
evening of such sober and thoughtful quietude as I believe, on my soul,
that very few of my fellow men have the good fortune to enjoy.
My tenant, meantime, in the other room, I can hear now and then--though
there is a thick stone chimney, and broad entry between--multiplying
contrivances with his wife to put two babies to sleep. This occupies
them, I should say, usually an hour, though my only measure of time
(for I never carry a watch into the country) is the blaze of my fire.
By ten, or thereabouts, my stock of wood is nearly exhausted; I pile
upon the hot coals what remains, and sit watching how it kindles, and
blazes, and goes out---even like our joys--and then slip by the light
of the embers into my bed, where I luxuriate in such sound and
healthful slumber as only such rattling window-frames and country air
can supply.
But to return: the other evening--it happened to be on my last visit to
my farmhouse--when I had exhausted all the ordinary rural topics of
thought, had formed all sorts of conjectures as to the income of the
year; had planned a new wall around one lot, and the clearing up of
another, now covered with patriarchal wood; and wondered if the little
rickety house would not be after all a snug enough box to live and to
die in--I fell on a sudden into such an unprecedented line of thought,
which took such deep hold of my sympathies--sometimes even starting
tears--that I determined, the next day, to set as much of it as I could
recall on paper.
Something--it may have been the home-looking blaze (I am a bachelor of,
say, six-and-twenty), or possibly a plaintive cry of the baby in my
tenant's room, had suggested to me the thought of--marriage.
I piled upon the heated fire-dogs the last armful of my wood; "and
now," said I, bracing myself courageously between the arms of my chair,
"I'll not flinch; I'll pursue the thought wherever it leads, though it
leads me to the d--(I am apt to be hasty)--at least," continued I,
softening, "until my fire is out."
The wood was green, and at first showed no disposition to blaze. It
smoked furiously. Smoke, thought I, always goes before blaze; and so
does doubt go before decision: and my reverie, from that very
starting-point, slipped into this shape:
I. SMOKE--SIGNIFYING DOUBT
A wife? thought I. Yes, a wife.
And why?
And pray, my dear sir, why not--why? Why not doubt? why not hesitate;
why not tremble?
Does a man buy a ticket in a lottery--a poor man whose whole earnings
go in to secure the ticket--without trembling, hesitating, and doubting?
Can a man stake his bachelor respectability, his independence, and
comfort, upon the die of absorbing, unchanging, relentless marriage,
without trembling at the venture?
Shall a man who has been free to chase his fancies over the wide world,
without let or hindrance, shut himself up to marriage-ship, within four
walls called home, that are to claim him, his time, his trouble, and
his tears, thenceforward forevermore, without doubts thick, and
thick-coming as smoke?
Shall he who has been hitherto a mere observer of other men's cares and
business--moving off where they made him sick of heart, approaching
whenever and wherever they made him gleeful--shall he now undertake
administration of just such cares and business, without qualms? Shall
he, whose whole life has been but a nimble succession of escapes from
trifling difficulties, now broach without doubtings--that matrimony,
where if difficulty beset him there is no escape? Shall this brain of
mine, careless-working, never tired with idleness, feeding on long
vagaries and high, gigantic castles, dreaming out beatitudes hour by
hour--turn itself at length to such dull task-work as thinking out a
livelihood for wife and children?
Where thenceforward will be those sunny dreams, in which I have warmed
my fancies, and my heart, and lighted my eye with crystal? This very
marriage, which a brilliant working imagination has invested time and
again with brightness and delight, can serve no longer as a mine for
teeming fancy. All, alas! will be gone--reduced to the dull standard
of the actual. No more room for intrepid forays of imagination--no
more gorgeous realm-making. All will be over!
Why not, I thought, go on dreaming?
Can any wife be prettier than an after-dinner fancy, idle and yet
vivid, can paint for you? Can any children make less noise than the
little rosy-cheeked ones who have no existence except in the omnium
gatherum of your own brain? Can any housewife be more unexceptionable
than she who goes sweeping daintily the cobwebs that gather in your
dreams? Can any domestic larder be better stocked than the private
larder of your head dozing on a cushioned chair-back at Delmonico's?
Can any family purse be better filled than the exceeding plump one you
dream of, after reading such pleasant books as Munchausen or Typee?
But if, after all, it must be--duty, or what-not, making
provocation--what then? And I clapped my feet hard against the
fire-dogs, and leaned back, and turned my face to the ceiling, as much
as to say, And where on earth, then, shall a poor devil look for a wife?
Somebody says--Lyttleton or Shaftesbury, I think--that "marriages would
be happier if they were all arranged by the Lord Chancellor."
Unfortunately, we have no Lord Chancellor to make this commutation of
our misery.
Shall a man then scour the country on a mule's back, like honest Gil
Blas of Santillane? or shall he make application to some such
intervening providence as Madame St. Marc, who, as I see by the Presse,
manages these matters to one's hand, for some five per cent on the
fortunes of the parties?
I have trouted when the brook was so low and the sky so hot that I
might as well have thrown my fly upon the turnpike; and I have hunted
hare at noon, and woodcock in snowtime--never despairing, scarce
doubting; but for a poor hunter of his kind, without traps or snares,
or any aid of police or constabulary, to traverse the world, where are
swarming, on a moderate computation, some three hundred and odd
millions of unmarried women, for a single capture--irremediable,
unchangeable--and yet a capture which by strange metonymy, not laid
down in the books, is very apt to turn captor into captive and make
game of hunter--all this, surely, surely may make a man shrug with
doubt!
Then, again, there are the plaguy wife's relations. Who knows how many
third, fourth, or fifth cousins will appear at careless complimentary
intervals long after you had settled into the placid belief that all
congratulatory visits were at an end? How many twisted-headed brothers
will be putting in their advice, as a friend to Peggy?
How many maiden aunts will come to spend a month or two with their
"dear Peggy," and want to know every tea-time "if she isn't a dear love
of a wife?" Then, dear father-in-law will beg (taking dear Peggy's
hand in his) to give a little wholesome counsel; and will be very sure
to advise just the contrary of what you had determined to undertake.
And dear mamma-in-law must set her nose into Peggy's cupboard, and
insist upon having the key to your own private locker in the wainscot.
Then, perhaps, there is a little bevy of dirty-nosed nephews who come
to spend the holidays, and eat up your East India sweetmeats; and who
are forever tramping over your head or raising the old Harry below,
while you are busy with your clients. Last, and worse, is some fidgety
old uncle, forever too cold or too hot, who vexes you with his
patronizing airs, and impudently kisses his little Peggy!
That could be borne, however; for perhaps he has promised his fortune
to Peggy. Peggy, then, will be rich (and the thought made me rub my
shins, which were now getting comfortably warm upon the fire-dogs).
Then she will be forever talking of _her_ fortune; and pleasantly
reminding you; on occasion of a favorite purchase, how lucky that _she_
had the means; and dropping hints about economy; and buying very
extravagant Paisleys.
She will annoy you by looking over the stock-list at breakfast-time,
and mention quite carelessly to your clients that she is interested in
_such_ or such a speculation.
She will be provokingly silent when you hint to a tradesman that you
have not the money by you for his small bill--in short, she will tear
the life out of you, making you pay in righteous retribution of
annoyance, grief, vexation, shame, and sickness of heart, for the
superlative folly of "marrying rich."
But if not rich, then poor. Bah! the thought made me stir the coals;
but there was still no blaze. The paltry earnings you are able to
wring out of clients by the sweat of your brow will now be all _our_
income; you will be pestered for pin-money, and pestered with your poor
wife's relations. Ten to one, she will stickle about taste--"Sir
Visto's"--and want to make this so pretty, and that so charming, if she
_only_ had the means; and is sure Paul (a kiss) can't deny his little
Peggy such a trifling sum, and all for the common benefit.
Then she, for one, means that _her_ children sha'n't go a-begging for
clothes--and another pull at the purse. Trust a poor mother to dress
her children in finery!
Perhaps she is ugly--not noticeable at first, but growing on her, and
(what is worse) growing faster on you. You wonder why you didn't see
that vulgar nose long ago; and that lip--it is very strange, you think,
that you ever thought it pretty. And then, to come to breakfast with
her hair looking as it does, and you not so much as daring to say,
"Peggy, _do_ brush your hair!" Her foot, too--not very bad when
decently _chausse_; but now since she's married she does wear such
infernal slippers! And yet for all this, to be prigging up for an
hour, when any of my old chums come to dine with me!
"Bless your kind hearts, my dear fellows," said I, thrusting the tongs
into the coals and speaking out loud, as if my voice could reach from
Virginia to Paris, "not married yet!"
Perhaps Peggy is pretty enough, only shrewish.
No matter for cold coffee; you should have been up before.
What sad, thin, poorly cooked chops, to eat with your rolls!
She thinks they are very good, and wonders how you can set such an
example to your children.
The butter is nauseating.
She has no other, and hopes you'll not raise a storm about butter a
little turned. I think I see myself, ruminated I, sitting meekly at
table, scarce daring to lift up my eyes, utterly fagged out with some
quarrel of yesterday, choking down detestably sour muffins, that my
wife thinks are "delicious"--slipping in dried mouthfuls of burnt ham
off the side of my forktines--slipping off my chair sideways at the
end, and slipping out with my hat between my knees, to business, and
never feeling myself a competent, sound-minded man till the oak door is
between me and Peggy.
"Ha-ha! not yet!" said I, and in so earnest a tone that my dog started
to his feet, cocked his eye to have a good look into my face, met my
smile of triumph with an amiable wag of the tail, and curled up again
in the corner.
Again, Peggy is rich enough, well enough, mild enough, only she doesn't
care a fig for you. She has married you because father or grandfather
thought the match eligible, and because she didn't wish to disoblige
them. Besides, she didn't positively hate you, and thought you were a
respectable enough young person; she has told you so repeatedly at
dinner. She wonders you like to read poetry; she wishes you would buy
her a good cook-book; and insists upon your making your will at the
birth of the first baby.
She thinks Captain So-and-So a splendid-looking fellow, and wishes you
would trim up a little, were it only for appearance' sake.
You need not hurry up from the office so early at night, she, bless her
dear heart! does not feel lonely. You read to her a love tale: she
interrupts the pathetic parts with directions to her seamstress. You
read of marriages: she sighs, and asks if Captain So-and-So has left
town. She hates to be mewed up in a cottage, or between brick walls;
she does so love the Springs!
But, again, Peggy loves you--at least she swears it, with her hand on
"The Sorrows of Werter." She has pin-money which she spends for the
"Literary World" and the "Friends in Council." She is not bad-looking,
save a bit too much of forehead; nor is she sluttish, unless a
_negligé_ till three o'clock, and an ink-stain on the forefinger be
sluttish; but then she is such a sad blue!
You never fancied, when you saw her buried in a three-volume novel,
that it was anything more than a girlish vagary; and when she quoted
Latin, you thought innocently that she had a capital memory for her
samplers.
But to be bored eternally about divine Dante and funny Goldoni is too
bad. Your copy of Tasso, a treasure print of 1680, is all bethumbed
and dog's-eared, and spotted with baby gruel. Even your Seneca--an
Elzevir--is all sweaty with handling. She adores La Fontaine, reads
Balzac with a kind of artist scowl, and will not let Greek alone.
You hint at broken rest and an aching head at breakfast, and she will
fling you a scrap of Anthology--in lien of the camphor-bottle--or chant
the [Greek] _alai alai_ of tragic chorus.
The nurse is getting dinner; you are holding the baby; Peggy is reading
Bruyère.
The fire smoked thick as pitch, and puffed out little clouds over the
chimney-piece. I gave the fore-stick a kick; at the thought of Peggy,
baby, and Bruyère.
Suddenly the flame flickered bluely athwart the smoke--caught at a twig
below--rolled round the mossy oak-stick--twined among the crackling
tree-limbs--mounted--lit up the whole body of smoke, and blazed out
cheerily and bright. Doubt vanished with smoke, and hope began with
flame.