CHURCHYARDS
Graveyards seemed a strange place to want to spend the afternoon after
our experience of the morning, but the cheerful Zebedee always made for
them, just as a sunbeam seems to be hunting up the dark and gloomy
corners.
"Saint Michael's first, as that is the nearest," suggested Louis.
We entered the churchyard through massive old iron gates, and, turning
to the right, followed Louis to perhaps the most unique grave stone in
the world: the headboard of an old cedar bed. It is a relic of 1770. The
story goes that the woman buried there insisted that her husband should
go to no trouble or expense to mark her grave. She said that she had
been very comfortable in that same bed and would rest very easy under
it and that it would soon rot away and leave her undisturbed. She little
dreamed that more than a century later that old cedar bed would be
preserved, seemingly in some miraculous way, and be intact while stones,
reverently placed at the same time, were crumbling away.
"It seems like John Keats' epitaph: 'Here lies one whose name was writ
in water.' Keats thought he was dead to the world, and see how he lives;
and this poor woman's grave is the first one that tourists are taken to
see," I mused aloud.
"I have often thought about this woman," said Claire, in her light,
musical voice. "I have an idea that she must have been very hard-worked
and perhaps longed for a few more minutes in bed every morning, and
maybe the husband routed her out, and when she died perhaps he felt
sorry he had not given her more rest."
"You hear that, Page?" asked Dum. "You had better have some mercy on me
now. I may 'shuffle off this mortal coil' at any minute, and you will be
so sorry you didn't let me sleep just a little while longer." (It had
been my job ever since I started to room with the Tucker twins to be
the waker-up. It was a thankless job, too, and no sinecure.) "See that
my little brass bed is kept shiny, Zebedee dear."
"I wonder why it is that no one ever seems to feel very sad or quiet in
old, old graveyards?" I asked, all of us laughing at Dum's brass bed.
"I think it is because all the persons who suffered at the death of the
persons buried there are dead, too. No one feels very sorry for the
dead; it is the living that are left to mourn. Old cemeteries are to me
the most peaceful and cheerful spots one can visit," said Zebedee,
leaning over to decipher some quaint epitaph.
"I think so, too!" exclaimed Claire, who had fitted herself into our
crowd with delightful ease. "New graves are the ones that break my
heart."
Louis turned away to hide his emotion. He had been too near to the Great
Divide that very morning for talk of new-made graves and the sorrow of
loved ones not to move him.
There was much of interest in that old burying ground, and Louis proved
an excellent cicerone. He told us that the church was started in 1752;
that the bells and organ and clock were imported from England, and that
the present organ had parts of the old organ incorporated in it. The
bells were seized during the Revolution and shipped and sold in England,
where they were purchased by a former Charleston merchant and shipped
back again. During the Civil War they were sent to Columbia for
safekeeping, but were so badly injured when Columbia was burned that
they had to be again sent to England and recast in the original mold.
They chimed out the hour while Louis was telling us about them as though
to prove to us their being well worth all the trouble to which they had
put the worthy citizens of Charleston.
"Saint Philip's next, while we are in the churchly spirit," said Louis;
"and then the Huguenot church."
St. Philip's was a little older than St. Michael's. The chimes for that
church were used for making cannon for the Confederacy, and for lack of
funds up to the present time they have not been replaced. On top of the
high steeple is a beacon light by which the ships find their way into
the harbor.
We had noticed at the hotel, both at our very early breakfast and at
luncheon, a very charming couple who had attracted us greatly and who,
in turn, seemed interested in us. The man was a scholarly person with
kind, brown eyes, a very intelligent, comely countenance, and a tendency
to baldness right on top that rather added to his intellectual
appearance. His wife was quite pretty, young, and with a look of race
and breeding that was most striking. Her hair was red gold, and she had
perhaps the sweetest blue eyes I had ever beheld. Her eyes just matched
her blue linen shirtwaist. What had attracted me to the couple was not
only their interesting appearance, but the fact that they seemed to have
such a good time together. They talked not in the perfunctory way that
married persons often do, but with real spirit and interest.
As we entered the cemetery of St. Philip's, across the street from the
church, we met this couple standing by the sarcophagus of the great
John C. Calhoun. The lady bowed to us sweetly, acknowledging, as it
were, having seen us in the hotel. We of course eagerly responded,
delighted at the encounter. We had discussed them at length, and almost
decided they were bride and groom; at least Tweedles had, but I thought
not. They were too much at their ease to be on their first trip
together, I declared, and of course got called a would-be author for my
assertion.
"I hear there is a wonderful portrait of Calhoun by Healy in the City
Hall," said the gentleman to Zebedee, as he courteously moved for us to
read the inscription on the sarcophagus.
"Yes, so I am told, but this young man who belongs to this interesting
city can tell us more about it," and in a little while all of us were
drawn into conversation with our chance acquaintances.
Louis led us through the cemetery, telling us anything of note, and then
we followed him to the Huguenot church, accompanied by our new friends.
A Huguenot church has stood on the site of the present one since 1667.
Many things have happened to the different buildings, but the present
one, an edifice of unusual beauty and dignity, has remained intact since
1845. The preacher, a dear old man of over eighty, who is totally blind,
has been pastor of this scanty flock for almost fifty years. He now
conducts the service from memory, and preaches wonderful, simple sermons
straight from his kind old heart.
"Oh, Edwin, see what wonderful old names are on these tablets," enthused
the young wife--"Mazyck, Ravenel, Porcher, de Sasure, Huger, Cazanove,
L'Hommedieu, Marquand, Gaillard----"
"Yes, dear, they sound like an echo from the Old World."
"This Gaillard is our great, great grandfather, isn't he, Louis?" asked
Claire. "My brother knows so much more about such things than I do."
"Oh, is your name Gaillard?"
And then the introductions followed, Zebedee doing the honors, naming
all of us in turn; and then the gentleman told us that his name was
Edwin Green and introduced his wife.
I fancy Claire and Louis had not been in the habit of picking up
acquaintances in this haphazard style, and the sensation was a new and
delightful one to them. The Tuckers and I always did it. We talked to
the people we met on trains and in parks, and many an item for my
notebook did I get in this way. Zebedee says he thinks it is all right
just so you don't pick out some flashy flatterer. Of course we never did
that, but confined our chance acquaintances to women and children or
nice old men, whose interest was purely fatherly. Making friends as we
had with Louis was different, as there was nothing to do but help him;
and his sex and age were not to be considered at such a time.
"Are you to be in Charleston long?" asked Zebedee of Mr. Green.
"I can't tell. We are fascinated by it, but long to get out of the hotel
and into some home."
"If I knew of some nice quiet place, I would put my girls there for a
few days while I run over to Columbia on business. I can't leave them
alone in the hotel."
"I should love to look after them, if you would trust me," said Mrs.
Green, flushing for fear Zebedee might think her pushing.
"Trust you! Why, you are too kind to make such an offer!" exclaimed
Zebedee.
"We have some friends who have just opened their house
for--for--guests," faltered Claire. "They live only a block from us, and
are very lovely ladies. We heard only this morning that they are
contemplating taking someone into their home." Tweedles and I exchanged
glances; mine was a triumphant one. The would-be author had hit the nail
on the head again. "Their name is Laurens." I knew it would be before
Claire spoke.
"Oh, Miss Gaillard, if you could introduce us to those ladies we would
be so grateful to you!" said Zebedee. "You would like to stay there,
wouldn't you, girls?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"And Mrs. Green perhaps will decide to go there, too, and she will look
after you, will you not, Mrs. Green?"
"I should be so happy to if the girls would like to have me for a
chaperone."
"Oh, we'd love it! We've never had a chaperone in our lives but once,
and she got married," tweedled the twins.
And so our compact was made, and Claire promised to see the Misses
Laurens in regard to our becoming her "paying guests."
Mr. Green, who, as we found out afterward, was a professor of English at
the College of Wellington and had all kinds of degrees that entitled him
to be called Doctor, seemed rather amused at his wife's being a
chaperone.
"She seems to me still to be nothing but a girl herself," he confided to
Zebedee, "although we have got a fine big girl of our own over a year
old, whom we have left in the care of my mother-in-law while we have
this much talked-of trip together."
"Oh, have you got a baby? Do you know, Dum and I just stood Page down
that you were bride and groom!"
"Molly, do you hear that? These young ladies thought we were newlyweds."
"I didn't!"
"And why didn't you?" smiled the young wife.
"I noticed you gave separate orders at the table and did not have to
pretend to like the same things. I believe a bride and groom are afraid
to differ on even such a thing as food."
"Oh, Edwin, do you hear that? Do you remember the unmerciful teasing
Kent gave you at Fontainbleu because you pretended to like the mustard
we got on our roast beef in the little English restaurant, just because
I like English mustard?"
"Yes, I remember it very well, and I also remember lots of other things
at Fontainbleu besides the mustard."
Mrs. Green blushed such a lovely pink at her husband's words that we
longed to hear what he did remember.
"Kent is my brother--Kent Brown."
"Oh! Oh!" tweedled the twins. "Are you Molly Brown of Kentucky?"
"Yes, I was Molly Brown of Kentucky."
"And did you go to Wellington?" I asked.
"Yes, and I still go there, as my husband has the chair of English at
Wellington."
"Girls! Girls! To think of our meeting Molly Brown of Kentucky! We have
been hearing of you all winter from our teacher of English at Gresham,
Miss Ball."
"Mattie Ball! I have known her since my freshman year at college. Edwin,
you remember Mattie Ball, do you not?"
"Of course I do. An excellent student! She had as keen an appreciation
of good literature as anyone I know of."
"She used to tell us that she owed everything she knew to her professor
of English at Wellington," said Dee, who knew how to say the right thing
at the right time, and Professor Green's pleased countenance was proof
of her tact.
Then Mrs. Green had to hear all about Miss Ball and the fire at Gresham,
which Tweedles related with great spirit, laying rather too much stress
on my bravery in arousing the school.
"I deserve no more credit than did the geese whose hissing aroused the
Romans in ancient times," I declared. "Why don't you tell them how you
got Miss Plympton out of the window in her pink pajamas?"
The Greens laughed so heartily at our adventures that we were spurred on
to recounting other happenings, telling of the many scrapes we had got
ourselves in. Claire listened in open-eyed astonishment.
"It must be lovely to go to boarding-school," she said wistfully.
"It sounds lovelier than it is. We tell about the scrapes and the fun,
but there are lots of times when it is nothing but one stupid thing
after another. It's lots lovelier just to be at home with your father."
Claire shook her head doubtfully, and, remembering her father, we did
not wonder at her differing with Dum.
"I have always held that home was the place for girls until they were
old enough for college," said Mrs. Green. "That is, if they mean to go
to college."
"But we don't!"
Zebedee and Professor Green had walked on ahead. Louis was sticking
close to Dee, so close that Dum whispered to me that he must think she
had him on a leash. Claire and Dum and I were having the pleasure of
flocking around Mrs. Green.
"You see, we haven't got a piece of mother among us, and we had to go
somewhere, as Zebedee--that's our father, you know--had his hands so
full of us he couldn't ply his trade of getting out newspapers. Dee and
I are some improved since we first were sent off to school, and now that
Gresham is burned, we don't want to break into a new school. I tell you,
it is some job to break into a school. Page Allison lives in the
country, and she had to go to boarding-school or not at all."
"Well, why don't you go to college now? Wellington would just suit you,
I am sure."
"Somehow I have never been crazy to go to college. I want to do
something else. You see, I want to model. I feel as though I just had to
get my hands in clay and form things out of it."
"And you?" said the sweet young woman, turning to me.
This Molly Brown of Kentucky certainly had the charm of sympathy. You
found yourself telling her all kinds of things that you just couldn't
help telling her. She seemed so interested, and her eyes were so blue
and so true.
"Oh, I mean to be a writer!" I blurted out. "That's the reason I don't
want to go to college. If I am going to write, I had better just write,
I think, and not wear myself to a frazzle over higher mathematics."
"That's the way I used to feel. The only good I could ever get out of
that hated study was just knowing I had done my best. My best seemed so
feeble by the side of the real mathematicians that it was a constant
mortification to me. I used to call mathematics my hair shirt. No matter
how well I got along in other things, I was always conscious of a kind
of irritation that I was going to fail in that. I just did squeeze
through in the end, and that was by dint of wet towels around my head
and coaching and encouragement from my friends. I think it is quite
natural to dislike a subject that always makes you appear at your worst.
Certainly we are not fond of people who put us in that position!"
I might have known our new friend would hate mathematics. I have never
yet been attracted very much by any woman who did get along very well in
it, except, of course, Miss Cox. I don't mean to say that female
mathematicians cannot be just as lovely and charming as any other
females, but I mean that I have never hit it off with them, somehow.
"What are you going to write?" asked Claire.
"Write short stories and long novels, when I find myself. I'm still
flopping around in a sea of words. Don't you write, Mrs. Green? It seems
to me Miss Ball said you did."
"Yes, I write a little--that is, I write a lot, but I have published
only a little. I send and send to magazine after magazine. Every mail
is an event to me--either it brings back a manuscript or it doesn't
bring one, and sometimes it brings an acceptance slip, and then I carry
on like one demented. Edwin says he is jealous of the postman and wishes
Uncle Sam would have women deliver the mail."
"It must be wonderful to get into a magazine. My only taste of it is
seeing myself in print in our school paper. Don't you write poetry, Mrs.
Green?"
"Well, I have melted into verse, but I think prose is more in my line.
The first money I ever made was a prize for a real estate advertisement
in poetry, and of course after that I thought that I must 'lisp in
numbers' on all occasions; but it was always lisping. And you--do you
write poetry, too?"
"Yes, she does," broke in Dum; "and Zebedee thinks it is bully poetry.
He said he was astonished that she could do it. And he is a newspaper
writer and knows."
"I am sure he does. Some day we will have a tournament of poetry, and
you will show me yours and I will show you mine. And you, Miss Gaillard?
Are you counting upon going to college?"
Mrs. Green turned to Claire, who had been very quiet as we strolled
along Church Street, on our way to Washington Park, which is a small
enclosure by the City Hall.
"Oh, no, I--I will not pursue my studies any more. I keep house for my
father, who does not approve of higher education for women," and the
girl sighed in spite of herself. "I could not go, anyhow," she
continued, "as Louis and papa need me at home."
Not one word of lack of money, which we knew was an insurmountable
obstacle with the Gaillards, but I believe a Charlestonian would as soon
speak of lack of ancestry as lack of money. Money is simply something
they don't mention except in the bosom of the family. They don't mention
ancestry much, either; not nearly as much as Virginians do. They seem to
take for granted that anyone they are on speaking terms with must be
well born or how did they get to be on speaking terms?
The Gaillards left us at Washington Park as Claire thought she must
hurry back to her papa, who no doubt by that time was in a fret and a
fume over her long, unexplained absence. Mr. Gaillard was the type of
man who thought a woman's place was in her home from morning until
night, and any little excursion she might make from her home must be in
pursuit of his, the male's, happiness. Claire promised to see the Misses
Laurens and find out from them if we could get board in their very
exclusive home. Louis asked to be allowed to take us to other points of
interest on the morrow, and with feelings of mutual esteem we parted.