March, 1855.
And now, dear Mary, I intend to let you into our household affairs. This
illness has brought me one blessing,--a home. It has plunged me into the
bosom of domestic life, and I find things there exceedingly amusing.
Things commonplace to others are very novel and interesting to me, from
my long residence in hotels, and perfect ignorance of how the pot was
kept boiling from which my dinners came.
But before you enter the house, take a look at the outside, and let me
localize myself in your imagination. Bosky Dell is a compact little
place of ten acres, covered mostly with a dense grove, and cut into two
unequal parts by a brawling, rocky stream. The house--a little cottage,
draped with vines, and porched--sits on a slope, with an orchard on one
side, a tiny lawn bordered with flowers on another, the shade of
the grove darkening the windows of a third, and on the fourth a
kitchen-garden with strawberry-beds and grape-trellises. It is a pretty
little place, and full of cosy corners. My favorite one I must describe.
It is a porch on the south side of the house, between two projections.
Consequently both ends of it are closed; one, by the parlor wall, in
which there is a window,--and the other, by the kitchen window and wall.
It is quite shut in from winds, and the sun beams pleasantly upon it,
these chilly March days. There is just room enough for my couch, Kate's
rocking-chair, and a little table. Here we sit all the morning,--Kate
sewing, I reading, or watching the sailing clouds, the swelling
tree-buds in the grove, and the crocus-sprinkled grass, which is growing
greener every day.
Thus, while busy with me, Kate can still have an eye to her kitchen, and
we both enjoy the queer doings and sayings of our "culled help," Saide.
She became Kate's servant under an inducement which I will give in her
own words.
"Massy! Miss Catline, when _I_ does a pusson a good turn, seems like I
wants to keep on doin' 'em good turns. I didn't do so dreffle much
for you, but I jes got one chance to help you a bit, and seems like I
couldn't be satisfactioned to let you alone no more."--A novel reason to
hear given, but a true one in philosophy.
This "chance" was when my sister was attacked with cholera once, in the
first panic caused by it, of late years. All her friends had fled to the
country, and she was quite alone in a boarding-house. I was at college.
She would have been left to die alone, so great was the fear of the
disease, if Saide, who was cook in the establishment, had not boiled
over with indignation, and addressed her selfish mistress in this
fashion:--
"That ar' young lady's not to have no care, nohow, took of her, a'n't
she? She's to be lef' there a-sufferin' all alone that-a-way, is she? I
guess so too! Hnh! Now I'se gwine to nuss her, and I don't keer if you
don't know nothin' about _culining_, you must get yer own dinnas and
breakwusses and suppas. That's the plain English of it,--leastways till
she's well ag'in."
She devoted herself night and day to Kate for several weeks, and
then accompanied her to this house, as a matter of course. She is a
privileged personage. She often pops her head out of the kitchen window
to favor us with her remarks. As they always make us laugh, she
won't take reproofs upon that subject. Kate says her impertinence is
intolerable, but suffers it rather than resort to severity with her old
benefactress. I enjoy it.
She manages to turn her humor to account in various ways. I heard her
exclaim,--
"Laws-a-me! Dere goes de best French-chayny gold-edged tureen all to
smash! Pieces not big enough to save! Laws now, do let me study how to
tell de folks, so's to set 'em larfin'. Dere's great 'casion to find
suthin' as 'll do it, 'cause dey thinks a heap o' dis yere ole chayny.
Mr. Charley now,--he's easy set off; but Miss Catline,--she takes
suthin' purty 'cute! Laws, I has to fly roun' to git dat studied out!"
Kate overheard this;--how could she scold?
Saide can never think unless she is "flyin' roun'"; and whenever there
is a great tumult in the kitchen, pans kicked about, tongs falling,
dishes rattling, and table shoved over the floor, something pretty good,
in the shape either of a _bonne-bouche_ or a _bon-mot_, is sure to turn
up.
This morning there was a furious hubbub, that threatened to drown my
voice. Saide was evidently "flyin' roun'," and Kate, who could not hear
half that I read, got out of patience.
"What _is_ the matter?" she asked, raising the sash of the window.
"I on'y wants the currender, (colander,) Miss Catline,--dat's all,
Miss."
"Well, does it take a whirlwind to produce it?"
"Oh, laws, Miss Catline! Don't be _dat_ funny now, don't!--yegh!
yegh!--I'se find it presentry. I'se on'y a little frustrated,
(flustered,) Miss, with de 'fusion, and I'se jes a-studyin'. Never
mind me, Miss,--dat's all, indeed it is,--and you'll have a fuss-rate
minch-pie for dinner. I guess so, too!--yegh! yegh!"--And so we had.
Kate's domestics stand in much awe of her, but feel at least equal love.
So that hers is a household kept in good order, with very little of the
vexation, annoyance, and care, I hear so many of her married friends
groaning about.
April.
For a month nearly, Kate has forbidden my writing, and the first part of
this letter was not sent; so I will finish it now. My sister thought the
effort of holding a pen, in my recumbent position, was too wearying to
me; but now I am stronger, and can sit up supported by pillows. I hasten
to tell you of another most important addition to my comfort, which has
been made since I wrote last. I am so eager with the news, that I can
hardly hold a steady pen. Isn't this a fine state for a promising young
lawyer to be reduced to? He is wild with excitement, because some one
has given him a new go-cart!
Ben, the gardener, was that indulgent individual. He made for me, with
his own industrious hands, what he calls a "jaunting-car-r-r-r." It is a
large wheeled couch on springs. I am a house-prisoner no longer!
I think the first ride I took in it was the most exciting event of my
life. I was not exactly conscious of being mortally tired of looking
from the same porch, over the same garden, into the same grove, and up
to the same quarter of the heavens, for so many months; but when the
change came unexpectedly, it was _transporting_ happiness.
I suppose it may be so when we enter a future life. While here, we think
we do not want to go elsewhere,--even to a better land; but when we
reach that shore, we shall probably acknowledge it to be a lucky change.
Ben drew me carefully down the garden-path. I inhaled the breath of the
tulips and hyacinths, as we passed them. I longed to stay there in that
fairy land, for they brought back all the unspeakably rapturous feelings
of my boyhood. Strange that such delight, after we become men, never
visits us except in moments brief as lightning-flashes,--and then
generally only as a memory,--not, as when we were children, in the form
of a hope! When we are boys, and sudden joy stirs our hearts, we say,
"Oh, how grand life will be!" When we are men, and are thus moved, it
is, "Ah, how bright life was!"
Ben did not pause in the hyacinth-bed with me. He was anxious to prove
the excellence of his vehicle; so he dragged me on in it, until we had
nearly reached the boundary of our grounds, where the two tall, ragged
old cedar-trees marked the extreme point of the evergreen shrubbery,
and _the_ view of the neighborhood lies before us. He stopped there and
said,--
"Ye'll mappen like to look abroad a bit, and I'se go on to the
post-office. Miss Kathleen bid me put you here fornenst the landskip,
and then leave ye. She was greatly fashed at the coompany cooming just
then. I must go, Sir."
"All right, Ben. You need not hurry."
The fresh morning wind whisked up to me and kissed my face bewitchingly,
as Ben removed his tall, burly form from the narrow opening between the
two trees, and left me alone there in the shade, with nothing between me
and the view.
That moment revealed to me the joy of all liberated prisoners. My eyes
flew over the wide earth and the broad heavens. After a sweeping view of
both in their vast unity, I began to single out particulars. There lay
the village in the lap of the hills, in summer time "bosomed high in
tufted trees," but now only half veiled by the gauze-like green of the
budding foliage. The apple orchards, still white with blossoms, and
green with wheat or early grass, extended up the hills, and encroached
upon the dense brown forests. There was the little red brick turret
which crowned the village church, and my eye rested lovingly upon it.
Not that it was anything to me; but Kate and all the women I respect
love it, or what it stands for, and through them I hope to experience
that warm love of worship, and of the places dedicated to it, which
seems native to them, and much to be desired for us. I have cared little
for such things hitherto. Their beauty and happiness are just beginning
to dawn upon me.
----"Dear Jesus, can it be?
Wait we till all things go from us or e'er we go to thee?
Ay, sooth! We feel such strength in weal, thy love may seem
withstood:
But what are we in agony? _Dumb,_ if we cry not 'God!'"
Behind the village I can see the blue hazy line of a far-distant
horizon, as the valley opens in that direction. I know the sea lies
there, and sometimes I fancy that _mirage_ lifts its dark waters to my
sight.
In a wooded nook on my right stands the little brown mill, with its huge
wheel, and wide blue pond, and foamy waterfall. On that day I heard its
drone, and saw the geese bathing, and throwing up the bright sparkling
drops with their wings, until they fell like fountains.
On my left lay "a little lane serene," with stone fences half hid by
blackberry-bushes--
----"A little lane serene,
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroken snows.
Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
Than the plump wain at even
Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves."
I thought of those lines there and then, and they enhanced even the joy
of Nature. They tinged her for me with the magic colors of poetry.
When I had thus scrutinized earth, I looked up to heaven. It had been so
long shut from me by the network of the grove, that it was like escaping
from confining toils, to look straight into Heaven's face, with nothing
between, not even a cloud.
I have never seen a sweeter, calmer picture than that I gazed upon all
the morning, and for which the two huge old cedars formed a rugged, but
harmonious frame.
I have lived out of doors since. When it is cold, I am wrapped in a
wadded robe Kate has made for me,--a capital thing, loose, and warm, and
silky-soft. To an invalid with nerves all on edge, that is much. I never
found out, until Kate enveloped me in its luxurious folds, what it was
that rasped my feelings so, every morning, when I was dressed; I then
knew it must have been my flashy woollen dressing-gown. I envy women
their soft raiment, and I rather dread the day when I shall be compelled
to wear coats again. (Let me cheat myself, if I can.)