"Why," said the builder, hesitating, "it is called the Old Maid's
House--in the _book_."
"Mr. Timbers," said Corona, with decision, "why should we seek further
than the truth? I will have that house. Pray, draw me the plan at
once."
DISTICHS
BY JOHN HAY
I
Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
II
There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming
are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs.
III
Pleasures too hastily tasted grow sweeter in fond recollection,
As the pomegranate plucked green ripens far over the sea.
IV
As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
V
What is a first love worth, except to prepare for a second?
What does the second love bring? Only regret for the first.
VI
Health was wooed by the Romans in groves of the laurel and myrtle.
Happy and long are the lives brightened by glory and love.
VII
Wine is like rain: when it falls on the mire it but makes it
the fouler,
But when it strikes the good soil wakes it to beauty and bloom.
VIII
Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient:
Resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.
IX
When you break up housekeeping, you learn the extent of your treasures;
Till he begins to reform, no one can number his sins.
X
Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry?
Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.
XI
Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him,
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.
XII
Be not too anxious to gain your next-door neighbor's approval:
Live your own life, and let him strive your approval to gain.
XIII
Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of
his pronouns.
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.
XIV
The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish
Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.
XV
True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table:
Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.
XVI
Pleasant enough it is to hear the world speak of your virtues;
But in your secret heart 'tis of your faults you are proud.
XVII
Try not to beat back the current, yet be not drowned in its waters;
Speak with the speech of the world, think with the thoughts of the few.
XVIII
Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady
sifting,
Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life.
THE QUARREL
BY S.E. KISER
"There are quite as good fish
In the sea
As any one ever has caught,"
Said he.
"But few of the fish--
In the sea
Will bite at such bait as you've got,"
Said she.
To-day he is gray, and his line's put away,
But he often looks back with regret;
She's still "in the sea," and how happy she'd be
If he were a fisherman yet!
A LETTER FROM MR. BIGGS
BY E.W. HOWE
MY DEAR SIR--Occasionally a gem occurs to me which I am unable to favor
you with because of late we are not much together. Appreciating the keen
delight with which you have been kind enough to receive my philosophy, I
take the liberty of sending herewith a number of ideas which may please
and benefit you, and which I have divided into paragraphs with headings.
HAPPINESS
I have observed that happiness and brains seldom go together. The
pin-headed woman who regards her thin-witted husband as the greatest man
in the world, is happy, and much good may it do her. In such cases
ignorance is a positive blessing, for good sense would cause the woman
to realize her distressed condition. A man who can think he is as "good
as anybody" is happy. The fact may be notorious that the man is not so
"good as anybody" until he is as industrious, as educated, and as
refined as anybody, but he has not brains enough to know this, and,
content with conceit, is happy. A man with a brain large enough to
understand mankind is always wretched and ashamed of himself.
REPUTATION
Reputation is not always desirable. The only thing I have ever heard
said in Twin Mounds concerning Smoky Hill is that good hired girls may
be had there.
WOMEN
1. Most women seem to love for no other reason than that it is expected
of them.
2. I know too much about women to honor them more than they deserve; in
fact I know all about them. I visited a place once where doctors are
made, and saw them cut up one.
3. A woman loses her power when she allows a man to find out all there
is to her; I mean by this that familiarity breeds contempt. I knew a
young man once who worked beside a woman in an office, and he never
married.
4. If men would only tell what they actually know about women, instead
of what they believe or hear, they would receive more credit for
chastity than is now the case, for they deserve more.
LACK OF SELF-CONFIDENCE
As a people we lack self-confidence. The country is full of men that
will readily talk you to death privately, who would run away in alarm if
asked to preside at a public meeting. In my Alliance movement I often
have trouble in getting out a crowd, every farmer in the neighborhood
feeling of so much importance as to fear that if he attends he will be
called upon to say something.
IN DISPUTE
In some communities where I have lived the women were mean to their
husbands; in others, the husbands were mean to their wives. It is
usually the case that the friends of a wife believe her husband to be a
brute, and the friends of the husband believe the wife to possess no
other talent than to make him miserable. You can't tell how it is; the
evidence is divided.
MAN
There is only one grade of men; they are all contemptible. The judge may
seem to be a superior creature so long as he keeps at a distance, for I
have never known one who was not constantly trying to look wise and
grave; but when you know him, you find there is nothing remarkable about
him except a plug hat, a respectable coat, and a great deal of vanity,
induced by the servility of those who expect favors.
OPPORTUNITY
You hear a great many persons regretting lack of opportunity. If every
man had opportunity for his desires, this would be a nation of murderers
and disgraced women.
EXPECTATION
Always be ready for that which you do not expect. Nothing that you
expect ever happens. You have perhaps observed that when you are waiting
for a visitor at the front door, he comes in at the back, and surprises
you.
WOMAN'S WORK
A woman's work is never done, as the almanacs state, for the reason that
she does not go about it in time to finish it.
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS CHARITY
If you can not resist the low impulse to talk about people, say only
what you actually know, instead of what you have heard. And, while you
are about it, stop and consider whether you are not in need of charity
yourself.
NEIGHBORS
Every man overestimates his neighbors, because he does not know them so
well as he knows himself. A sensible man despises himself because he
knows what a contemptible creature he is. I despise Lytle Biggs, but I
happen to know that his neighbors are just as bad.
VIRTUE
Men are virtuous because the women are; women are virtuous from
necessity.
ASHAMED OF THE TRUTH
I believe I never knew any one who was not ashamed of the truth. Did you
ever notice that a railroad company numbers its cars from 1,000, instead
of from 1?
KNOWING ONLY ONE OF THEM
We are sometimes unable to understand why a pretty little woman marries
a fellow we know to be worthless; but the fellow, who knows the woman
better than we do, considers that he has thrown himself away. We know
the fellow, but we do not know the woman.
AN APOLOGY
I detest an apology. The world is full of people who are always making
trouble and apologizing for it. If a man respects me, he will not give
himself occasion for apology. An offense can not be wiped out in that
way. If it could, we would substitute apologies for hangings. I hope you
will never apologize to me; I should regard it as evidence that you had
wronged me.
OLDEST INHABITANTS
The people of Smoky Hill are only fit for oldest inhabitants. In thirty
or forty years from now there will be a great demand for reminiscences
of the pioneer days. I recommend that they preserve extensive data for
the only period in their lives when they can hope to attract attention.
Be good enough, sir, to regard me, as of old, your friend.
L. BIGGS.
_To_ NED WESTLOCK, _Twin Mounds_.
MRS. JOHNSON
BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
It was on a morning of the lovely New England May that we left the
horse-car, and, spreading our umbrellas, walked down the street to our
new home in Charlesbridge, through a storm of snow and rain so finely
blent by the influences of this fortunate climate, that no flake knew
itself from its sister drop, or could be better identified by the people
against whom they beat in unison. A vernal gale from the east fanned our
cheeks and pierced our marrow and chilled our blood, while the raw, cold
green of the adventurous grass on the borders of the sopping side-walks
gave, as it peered through its veil of melting snow and freezing rain, a
peculiar cheerfulness to the landscape. Here and there in the vacant
lots abandoned hoop-skirts defied decay; and near the half-finished
wooden houses, empty mortar-beds, and bits of lath and slate strewn over
the scarred and mutilated ground, added their interest to the scene....
This heavenly weather, which the Pilgrim Fathers, with the idea of
turning their thoughts effectually from earthly pleasures, came so far
to discover, continued with slight amelioration throughout the month of
May and far into June; and it was a matter of constant amazement with
one who had known less austere climates, to behold how vegetable life
struggled with the hostile skies, and, in an atmosphere as chill and
damp as that of a cellar, shot forth the buds and blossoms upon the
pear-trees, called out the sour Puritan courage of the currant-bushes,
taught a reckless native grape-vine to wander and wanton over the
southern side of the fence, and decked the banks with violets as
fearless and as fragile as New England girls; so that about the end of
June, when the heavens relented and the sun blazed out at last, there
was little for him to do but to redden and darken the daring fruits that
had attained almost their full growth without his countenance.
Then, indeed, Charlesbridge appeared to us a kind of Paradise. The wind
blew all day from the southwest, and all day in the grove across the way
the orioles sang to their nestlings.... The house was almost new and in
perfect repair; and, better than all, the kitchen had as yet given no
signs of unrest in those volcanic agencies which are constantly at work
there, and which, with sudden explosions, make Herculaneums and Pompeiis
of so many smiling households. Breakfast, dinner, and tea came up with
illusive regularity, and were all the most perfect of their kind; and we
laughed and feasted in our vain security. We had out from the city to
banquet with us the friends we loved, and we were inexpressibly proud
before them of the Help, who first wrought miracles of cookery in our
honor, and then appeared in a clean white apron, and the glossiest black
hair, to wait upon the table. She was young, and certainly very pretty;
she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes
would have been a credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly
basement. She joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us till she
married.
In fact, there was much that was extremely pleasant about the little
place when the warm weather came, and it was not wonderful to us that
Jenny was willing to remain. It was very quiet; we called one another
to the window if a large dog went by our door; and whole days passed
without the movement of any wheels but the butcher's upon our street,
which flourished in ragweed and buttercups and daisies, and in the
autumn burned, like the borders of nearly all the streets in
Charlesbridge, with the pallid azure flame of the succory. The
neighborhood was in all things a frontier between city and country. The
horse-cars, the type of such civilization--full of imposture,
discomfort, and sublime possibility--as we yet possess, went by the head
of our street, and might, perhaps, be available to one skilled in
calculating the movements of comets; while two minutes' walk would take
us into a wood so wild and thick that no roof was visible through the
trees. We learned, like innocent pastoral people of the golden age, to
know the several voices of the cows pastured in the vacant lots, and,
like engine-drivers of the iron age, to distinguish the different
whistles of the locomotives passing on the neighboring railroad....
We played a little at gardening, of course, and planted tomatoes, which
the chickens seemed to like, for they ate them up as fast as they
ripened; and we watched with pride the growth of our Lawton
blackberries, which, after attaining the most stalwart proportions, were
still as bitter as the scrubbiest of their savage brethren, and which,
when by advice left on the vines for a week after they turned black,
were silently gorged by secret and gluttonous flocks of robins and
orioles. As for our grapes, the frost cut them off in the hour of their
triumph.
So, as I have hinted, we were not surprised that Jenny should be willing
to remain with us, and were as little prepared for her desertion as for
any other change of our mortal state. But one day in September she came
to her nominal mistress with tears in her beautiful eyes and
protestations of unexampled devotion upon her tongue, and said that she
was afraid she must leave us. She liked the place, and she never had
worked for any one that was more of a lady, but she had made up her mind
to go into the city. All this, so far, was quite in the manner of
domestics who, in ghost stories, give warning to the occupants of
haunted houses; and Jenny's mistress listened in suspense for the motive
of her desertion, expecting to hear no less than that it was something
which walked up and down the stairs and dragged iron links after it, or
something that came and groaned at the front door, like populace
dissatisfied with a political candidate. But it was in fact nothing of
this kind; simply, there were no lamps upon our street, and Jenny, after
spending Sunday evening with friends in East Charlesbridge, was always
alarmed, on her return, in walking from the horse-car to our door. The
case was hopeless, and Jenny and our household parted with respect and
regret.
We had not before this thought it a grave disadvantage that our street
was unlighted. Our street was not drained nor graded; no municipal cart
ever came to carry away our ashes; there was not a water-butt within
half a mile to save us from fire, nor more than the one-thousandth part
of a policeman to protect us from theft. Yet, as I paid a heavy tax, I
somehow felt that we enjoyed the benefits of city government, and never
looked upon Charlesbridge as in any way undesirable for residence. But
when it became necessary to find help in Jenny's place, the frosty
welcome given to application at the intelligence offices renewed a
painful doubt awakened by her departure. To be sure, the heads of the
offices were polite enough; but when the young housekeeper had stated
her case at the first to which she applied, and the Intelligencer had
called out to the invisible expectants in the adjoining room, "Anny wan
wants to do giner'l housewark in Charlsbrudge?" there came from the
maids invoked so loud, so fierce, so full a "No!" as shook the lady's
heart with an indescribable shame and dread. The name that, with an
innocent pride in its literary and historical associations, she had
written at the heads of her letters, was suddenly become a matter of
reproach to her; and she was almost tempted to conceal thereafter that
she lived in Charlesbridge, and to pretend that she dwelt upon some
wretched little street in Boston. "You see," said the head of the
office, "the gairls doesn't like to live so far away from the city. Now,
if it was on'y in the Port." ...
This pen is not graphic enough to give the remote reader an idea of the
affront offered to an inhabitant of Old Charlesbridge in these closing
words. Neither am I of sufficiently tragic mood to report here all the
sufferings undergone by an unhappy family in finding servants, or to
tell how the winter was passed with miserable makeshifts. Alas! is it
not the history of a thousand experiences? Any one who looks upon this
page could match it with a tale as full of heartbreak and disaster,
while I conceive that, in hastening to speak of Mrs. Johnson, I approach
a subject of unique interest....
I say, our last Irish girl went with the last snow, and on one of those
midsummer-like days that sometimes fall in early April to our yet bleak
and desolate zone, our hearts sang of Africa and golden joys. A Libyan
longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand
of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for
some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive
train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework
forever, through the right of lawful purchase. But we knew that this
was impossible, and that, if we desired colored help, we must seek it at
the intelligence office, which is in one of those streets chiefly
inhabited by the orphaned children and grandchildren of slavery. To tell
the truth these orphans do not seem to grieve much for their
bereavement, but lead a life of joyous, and rather indolent oblivion in
their quarter of the city. They are often to be seen sauntering up and
down the street by which the Charlesbridge cars arrive,--the young with
a harmless swagger, and the old with the generic limp which our Autocrat
has already noted as attending advanced years in their race.... How
gayly are the young ladies of this race attired, as they trip up and
down the side-walks, and in and out through the pendent garments at the
shop-doors! They are the black pansies and marigolds and dark-blooded
dahlias among womankind. They try to assume something of our colder
race's demeanor, but even the passer on the horse-car can see that it is
not native with them, and is better pleased when they forget us, and
ungenteelly laugh in encountering friends, letting their white teeth
glitter through the generous lips that open to their ears. In the
streets branching upward from this avenue, very little colored men and
maids play with broken or enfeebled toys, or sport on the wooden
pavements of the entrances to the inner courts. Now and then a colored
soldier or sailor--looking strange in his uniform, even after the custom
of several years--emerges from those passages; or, more rarely, a black
gentleman, stricken in years, and cased in shining broadcloth, walks
solidly down the brick sidewalk, cane in hand,--a vision of serene
self-complacency, and so plainly the expression of virtuous public
sentiment that the great colored louts, innocent enough till then in
their idleness, are taken with a sudden sense of depravity, and loaf
guiltily up against the house-walls. At the same moment, perhaps, a
young damsel, amorously scuffling with an admirer through one of the low
open windows, suspends the strife, and bids him,--"Go along now, do!"
More rarely yet than the gentleman described, one may see a white girl
among the dark neighbors, whose frowsy head is uncovered, and whose
sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and who, though no doubt quite at
home, looks as strange there as that pale anomaly which may sometimes be
seen among a crew of blackbirds.
An air not so much of decay as of unthrift, and yet hardly of unthrift,
seems to prevail in the neighborhood, which has none of the aggressive
and impudent squalor of an Irish quarter, and none of the surly
wickedness of a low American street. A gayety not born of the things
that bring its serious joy to the true New England heart--a ragged
gayety, which comes of summer in the blood, and not in the pocket or the
conscience, and which affects the countenance and the whole demeanor,
setting the feet to some inward music, and at times bursting into a line
of song or a child-like and irresponsible laugh--gives tone to the
visible life, and wakens a very friendly spirit in the passer, who
somehow thinks there of a milder climate, and is half persuaded that the
orange-peel on the side-walks came from fruit grown in the soft
atmosphere of those back courts.
It was in this quarter, then, that we heard of Mrs. Johnson; and it was
from a colored boarding-house there that she came out to Charlesbridge
to look at us, bringing her daughter of twelve years with her. She was a
matron of mature age and portly figure, with a complexion like coffee
soothed with the richest cream; and her manners were so full of a
certain tranquillity and grace, that she charmed away all our will to
ask for references. It was only her barbaric laughter and lawless eye
that betrayed how slightly her New England birth and breeding covered
her ancestral traits, and bridged the gulf of a thousand years of
civilization that lay between her race and ours. But in fact, she was
doubly estranged by descent; for, as we learned later, a sylvan wildness
mixed with that of the desert in her veins: her grandfather was an
Indian, and her ancestors on this side had probably sold their lands for
the same value in trinkets that bought the original African pair on the
other side.
The first day that Mrs. Johnson descended into our kitchen, she conjured
from the malicious disorder in which it had been left by the flitting
Irish kobold a dinner that revealed the inspirations of genius, and was
quite different from a dinner of mere routine and laborious talent.
Something original and authentic mingled with the accustomed flavors;
and, though vague reminiscences of canal-boat travel and woodland camps
arose from the relish of certain of the dishes, there was yet the
assurance of such power in the preparation of the whole, that we knew
her to be merely running over the chords of our appetite with
preliminary savors, as a musician acquaints his touch with the keys of
an unfamiliar piano before breaking into brilliant and triumphant
execution. Within a week she had mastered her instrument; and thereafter
there was no faltering in her performances, which she varied constantly,
through inspiration or from suggestion.... But, after all, it was in
puddings that Mrs. Johnson chiefly excelled. She was one of those
cooks--rare as men of genius in literature--who love their own dishes;
and she had, in her personally child-like simplicity of taste, and the
inherited appetites of her savage forefathers, a dominant passion for
sweets. So far as we could learn, she subsisted principally upon
puddings and tea. Through the same primitive instincts, no doubt, she
loved praise. She openly exulted in our artless flatteries of her skill;
she waited jealously at the head of the kitchen stairs to hear what was
said of her work, especially if there were guests; and she was never too
weary to attempt emprises of cookery.
While engaged in these, she wore a species of sightly handkerchief like
a turban upon her head, and about her person those mystical swathings in
which old ladies of the African race delight. But she most pleasured our
sense of beauty and moral fitness when, after the last pan was washed
and the last pot was scraped, she lighted a potent pipe, and, taking her
stand at the kitchen door, laded the soft evening air with its pungent
odors. If we surprised her at these supreme moments, she took the pipe
from her lips, and put it behind her, with a low, mellow chuckle, and a
look of half-defiant consciousness; never guessing that none of her
merits took us half so much as the cheerful vice which she only feigned
to conceal.