much faster Mary's fingers flew the livelong day as she sat sewing by
her mother! and Mrs. Stephens, in the happiness of her child, almost
forgot that she had a headache, and thought, as she sipped her evening
cup of tea, that she felt stronger than she had done for some time.
That rose! its sweet influence died not with the first day. Through all
the long, cold winter, the watching, tending, cherishing that flower
awakened a thousand pleasant trains of thought, that beguiled the
sameness and weariness of their life. Every day the fair, growing thing
put forth some fresh beauty--a leaf, a bud, a new shoot, and constantly
awakened fresh enjoyment in its possessors. As it stood in the window,
the passer by would sometimes stop and gaze, attracted by its beauty,
and then proud and happy was Mary; nor did even the serious and
care-worn widow notice with indifference this tribute to the beauty of
their favorite.
But little did Florence think, when she bestowed the gift, that there
twined about it an invisible thread that reached far and brightly into
the web of her destiny.
One cold afternoon in early spring, a tall and graceful gentleman called
at the lowly room to pay for the making of some linen by the inmates. He
was a stranger and wayfarer, recommended through the charity of some of
Mrs. Stephens's patrons. As he turned to go, his eye rested admiringly
on the rose tree; and he stopped to gaze at it.
"How beautiful!" said he.
"Yes," said little Mary; "and it was given to us by a lady as sweet and
beautiful as that is."
"Ah," said the stranger, turning upon her a pair of bright dark eyes,
pleased and rather struck by the communication; "and how came she to
give it to you, my little girl?"
"O, because we are poor, and mother is sick, and we never can have any
thing pretty. We used to have a garden once; and we loved flowers so
much, and Miss Florence found it out, and so she gave us this."
"Florence!" echoed the stranger.
"Yes, Miss Florence L'Estrange--a beautiful lady. They say she was from
foreign parts; but she speaks English just like other ladies, only
sweeter."
"Is she here now? is she in this city?" said the gentleman, eagerly.
"No; she left some months ago," said the widow, noticing the shade of
disappointment on his face. "But," said she, "you can find out all about
her at her aunt's, Mrs. Carlysle's, No. 10 ---- Street."
A short time after Florence received a letter in a handwriting that made
her tremble. During the many early years of her life spent in France she
had well learned to know that writing--had loved as a woman like her
loves only once; but there had been obstacles of parents and friends,
long separation, long suspense, till, after anxious years, she had
believed the ocean had closed over that hand and heart; and it was this
that had touched with such pensive sorrow the lines in her lovely face.
But this letter told that he was living--that he had traced her, even as
a hidden streamlet may be traced, by the freshness, the verdure of
heart, which her deeds of kindness had left wherever she had passed.
Thus much said, our readers need no help in finishing my story for
themselves.
TRIALS OF A HOUSEKEEPER.
I have a detail of very homely grievances to present; but such as they
are, many a heart will feel them to be heavy--_the trials of a
housekeeper_.
"Poh!" says one of the lords of creation, taking his cigar out of his
mouth, and twirling it between his two first fingers, "what a fuss these
women do make of this simple matter of _managing a family_! I can't see
for my life as there is any thing so extraordinary to be done in this
matter of housekeeping: only three meals a day to be got and cleared
off--and it really seems to take up the whole of their mind from morning
till night. _I_ could keep house without so much of a flurry, I know."
Now, prithee, good brother, listen to my story, and see how much you
know about it. I came to this enlightened West about a year since, and
was duly established in a comfortable country residence within a mile
and a half of the city, and there commenced the enjoyment of domestic
felicity. I had been married about three months, and had been previously
_in love_ in the most approved romantic way, with all the proprieties of
moonlight walks, serenades, sentimental billets doux, and everlasting
attachment.
After having been allowed, as I said, about three months to get over
this sort of thing, and to prepare for realities, I was located for life
as aforesaid. My family consisted of myself and husband, a female friend
as a visitor, and two brothers of my good man, who were engaged with him
in business.
I pass over the two or three first days, spent in that process of
hammering boxes, breaking crockery, knocking things down and picking
them up again, which is commonly called getting to housekeeping. As
usual, carpets were sewed and stretched, laid down, and taken up to be
sewed over; things were formed, and _re_formed, _trans_formed, and
_con_formed, till at last a settled order began to appear. But now came
up the great point of all. During our confusion we had cooked and eaten
our meals in a very miscellaneous and pastoral manner, eating now from
the top of a barrel and now from a fireboard laid on two chairs, and
drinking, some from teacups, and some from saucers, and some from
tumblers, and some from a pitcher big enough to be drowned in, and
sleeping, some on sofas, and some on straggling beds and mattresses
thrown down here and there wherever there was room. All these pleasant
barbarities were now at an end. The house was in order, the dishes put
up in their places; three regular meals were to be administered in one
day, all in an orderly, civilized form; beds were to be made, rooms
swept and dusted, dishes washed, knives scoured, and all the et cetera
to be attended to. Now for getting "_help_," as Mrs. Trollope says; and
where and how were we to get it? We knew very few persons in the city;
and how were we to accomplish the matter? At length the "house of
employment" was mentioned; and my husband was despatched thither
regularly every day for a week, while I, in the mean time, was very
nearly _despatched_ by the abundance of work at home. At length, one
evening, as I was sitting completely exhausted, thinking of resorting to
the last feminine expedient for supporting life, viz., a good fit of
crying, my husband made his appearance, with a most triumphant air, at
the door. "There, Margaret, I have got you a couple at last--cook and
chambermaid." So saying, he flourished open the door, and gave to my
view the picture of a little, dry, snuffy-looking old woman, and a
great, staring Dutch girl, in a green bonnet with red ribbons, with
mouth wide open, and hands and feet that would have made a Greek
sculptor open _his_ mouth too. I addressed forthwith a few words of
encouragement to each of this cultivated-looking couple, and proceeded
to ask their names; and forthwith the old woman began to snuffle and to
wipe her face with what was left of an old silk pocket handkerchief
preparatory to speaking, while the young lady opened her mouth wider,
and looked around with a frightened air, as if meditating an escape.
After some preliminaries, however, I found out that my old woman was
Mrs. Tibbins, and my Hebe's name was _Kotterin;_ also, that she knew
much more Dutch than English, and not any too much of either. The old
lady was the cook. I ventured a few inquiries. "Had she ever cooked?"
"Yes, ma'am, sartain; she had lived at two or three places in the city."
"I suspect, my dear," said my husband confidently, "that she is an
experienced cook, and so your troubles are over;" and he went to reading
his newspaper. I said no more, but determined to wait till morning. The
breakfast, to be sure, did not do much honor to the talents of my
official; but it was the first time, and the place was new to her. After
breakfast was cleared away I proceeded to give directions for dinner; it
was merely a plain joint of meat, I said, to be roasted in the tin oven.
The _experienced cook_ looked at me with a stare of entire vacuity. "The
tin oven," I repeated, "stands there," pointing to it.
She walked up to it, and touched it with such an appearance of suspicion
as if it had been an electrical battery, and then looked round at me
with a look of such helpless ignorance that my soul was moved. "I never
see one of them things before," said she.
"Never saw a tin oven!" I exclaimed. "I thought you said you had cooked
in two or three families."
"They does not have such things as them, though," rejoined my old lady.
Nothing was to be done, of course, but to instruct her into the
philosophy of the case; and having spitted the joint, and given
numberless directions, I walked off to my room to superintend the
operations of Kotterin, to whom I had committed the making of my bed and
the sweeping of my room, it never having come into my head that there
_could be_ a wrong way of making a bed; and to this day it is a marvel
to me how any one could arrange pillows and quilts to make such a
nondescript appearance as mine now presented. One glance showed me that
Kotterin also was "_just caught_," and that I had as much to do in her
department as in that of my old lady.
Just then the door bell rang. "O, there is the door bell," I exclaimed.
"Run, Kotterin, and show them into the parlor."
Kotterin started to run, as directed, and then stopped, and stood
looking round on all the doors and on me with a wofully puzzled air.
"The street door," said I, pointing towards the entry. Kotterin
blundered into the entry, and stood gazing with a look of stupid wonder
at the bell ringing without hands, while I went to the door and let in
the company before she could be fairly made to understand the connection
between the ringing and the phenomenon of admission.
As dinner time approached, I sent word into my kitchen to have it set
on; but, recollecting the state of the heads of department there, I soon
followed my own orders. I found the tin oven standing out in the middle
of the kitchen, and my cook seated _a la Turc_ in front of it,
contemplating the roast meat with full as puzzled an air as in the
morning. I once more explained the mystery of taking it off, and
assisted her to get it on to the platter, though somewhat cooled by
having been so long set out for inspection. I was standing holding the
spit in my hands, when Kotterin, who had heard the door bell ring, and
was determined this time to be in season, ran into the hall, and soon
returning, opened the kitchen door, and politely ushered in three or
four fashionable looking ladies, exclaiming, "Here she is." As these
were strangers from the city, who had come to make their first call,
this introduction was far from proving an eligible one--the look of
thunderstruck astonishment with which I greeted their first appearance,
as I stood brandishing the spit, and the terrified snuffling and staring
of poor Mrs. Tibbins, who again had recourse to her old pocket
handkerchief, almost entirely vanquished their gravity, and it was
evident that they were on the point of a broad laugh; so, recovering my
self-possession, I apologized, and led the way to the parlor.
Let these few incidents be a specimen of the four mortal weeks that I
spent with these "_helps_," during which time I did almost as much work,
with twice as much anxiety, as when there was nobody there; and yet
every thing went wrong besides. The young gentlemen complained of the
patches of starch grimed to their collars, and the streaks of black coal
ironed into their dickies, while one week every pocket handkerchief in
the house was starched so stiff that you might as well have carried an
earthen plate in your pocket; the tumblers looked muddy; the plates were
never washed clean or wiped dry unless I attended to each one; and as to
eating and drinking, we experienced a variety that we had not before
considered possible.
At length the old woman vanished from the stage, and was succeeded by a
knowing, active, capable damsel, with a temper like a steel-trap, who
remained with me just one week, and then went off in a fit of spite. To
her succeeded a rosy, good-natured, merry lass, who broke the crockery,
burned the dinner, tore the clothes in ironing, and knocked down every
thing that stood in her way about the house, without at all discomposing
herself about the matter. One night she took the stopper from a barrel
of molasses, and came singing off up stairs, while the molasses ran
soberly out into the cellar bottom all night, till by morning it was in
a state of universal emancipation. Having done this, and also despatched
an entire set of tea things by letting the waiter fall, she one day made
her disappearance.
Then, for a wonder, there fell to my lot a tidy, efficient-trained
English girl; pretty, and genteel, and neat, and knowing how to do every
thing, and with the sweetest temper in the world. "Now," said I to
myself, "I shall _rest_ from my labors." Every thing about the house
began to go right, and looked as clean and genteel as Mary's own pretty
self. But, alas! this period of repose was interrupted by the vision of
a clever, trim-looking young man, who for some weeks could be heard
scraping his boots at the kitchen door every Sunday night; and at last
Miss Mary, with some smiling and blushing, gave me to understand that
she must leave in two weeks.
"Why, Mary," said I, feeling a little mischievous, "don't you like the
place?"
"O, yes, ma'am."
"Then why do you look for another?"
"I am not going to another place."
"What, Mary, are you going to learn a trade?"
"No, ma'am."
"Why, then, what do you mean to do?"
"I expect to keep house _myself_, ma'am," said she, laughing and
blushing.
"O ho!" said I, "that is it;" and so, in two weeks, I lost the best
little girl in the world: peace to her memory.
After this came an interregnum, which put me in mind of the chapter in
Chronicles that I used to read with great delight when a child, where
Basha, and Elah, and Tibni, and Zimri, and Omri, one after the other,
came on to the throne of Israel, all in the compass of half a dozen
verses. We had one old woman, who staid a week, and went away with the
misery in her tooth; one _young_ woman, who ran away and got married;
one cook, who came at night and went off before light in the morning;
one very clever girl, who staid a month, and then went away because her
mother was sick; another, who staid six weeks, and was taken with the
fever herself; and during all this time, who can speak the damage and
destruction wrought in the domestic paraphernalia by passing through
these multiplied hands?
What shall we do? Shall we give up houses, have no furniture to take
care of, keep merely a bag of meal, a porridge pot, and a pudding stick,
and sit in our tent door in real patriarchal independence? What shall we
do?
LITTLE EDWARD.
Were any of you born in New England, in the good old catechizing,
church-going, school-going, orderly times? If so, you may have seen my
Uncle Abel; the most perpendicular, rectangular, upright, downright good
man that ever labored six days and rested on the seventh.
You remember his hard, weather-beaten countenance, where every line
seemed drawn with "a pen of iron and the point of a diamond;" his
considerate gray eyes, that moved over objects as if it were not best to
be in a hurry about seeing; the circumspect opening and shutting of the
mouth; his down-sitting and up-rising, all performed with conviction
aforethought--in short, the whole ordering of his life and conversation,
which was, according to the tenor of the military order, "to the right
about face--forward, march!"
Now, if you supposed, from all this triangularism of exterior, that this
good man had nothing kindly within, you were much mistaken. You often
find the greenest grass under a snowdrift; and though my uncle's mind
was not exactly of the flower garden kind, still there was an abundance
of wholesome and kindly vegetation there.
It is true, he seldom laughed, and never joked himself; but no man had a
more serious and weighty conviction of what a good joke was in another;
and when some exceeding witticism was dispensed in his presence, you
might see Uncle Abel's face slowly relax into an expression of solemn
satisfaction, and he would look at the author with a sort of quiet
wonder, as if it was past his comprehension how such a thing could ever
come into a man's head.
Uncle Abel, too, had some relish for the fine arts; in proof of which, I
might adduce the pleasure with which he gazed at the plates in his
family Bible, the likeness whereof is neither in heaven, nor on earth,
nor under the earth. And he was also such an eminent musician, that he
could go through the singing book at one sitting without the least
fatigue, beating time like a windmill all the way.
He had, too, a liberal hand, though his liberality was all by the rule
of three. He did by his neighbor exactly as he would be done by; he
loved some things in this world very sincerely: he loved his God much,
but he honored and feared him more; he was exact with others, he was
more exact with himself, and he expected his God to be more exact still.
Every thing in Uncle Abel's house was in the same time, place, manner,
and form, from year's end to year's end. There was old Master Bose, a
dog after my uncle's own heart, who always walked as if he was studying
the multiplication table. There was the old clock, forever ticking in
the kitchen corner, with a picture on its face of the sun, forever
setting behind a perpendicular row of poplar trees. There was the
never-failing supply of red peppers and onions hanging over the chimney.
There, too, were the yearly hollyhocks and morning-glories blooming
about the windows. There was the "best room," with its sanded floor, the
cupboard in one corner with its glass doors, the ever green asparagus
bushes in the chimney, and there was the stand with the Bible and
almanac on it in another corner. There, too, was Aunt Betsey, who never
looked any older, because she always looked as old as she could; who
always dried her catnip and wormwood the last of September, and began to
clean house the first of May. In short, this was the land of
continuance. Old Time never took it into his head to practise either
addition, or subtraction, or multiplication on its sum total.
This Aunt Betsey aforenamed was the neatest and most efficient piece of
human machinery that ever operated in forty places at once. She was
always every where, predominating over and seeing to every thing; and
though my uncle had been twice married, Aunt Betsey's rule and authority
had never been broken. She reigned over his wives when living, and
reigned after them when dead, and so seemed likely to reign on to the
end of the chapter. But my uncle's latest wife left Aunt Betsey a much
less tractable subject than ever before had fallen to her lot. Little
Edward was the child of my uncle's old age, and a brighter, merrier
little blossom never grew on the verge of an avalanche. He had been
committed to the nursing of his grandmamma till he had arrived at the
age of _in_discretion, and then my old uncle's heart so yearned for him
that he was sent for home.
His introduction into the family excited a terrible sensation. Never was
there such a condemner of dignities, such a violator of high places and
sanctities, as this very Master Edward. It was all in vain to try to
teach him decorum. He was the most outrageously merry elf that ever
shook a head of curls; and it was all the same to him whether it was
"_Sabba' day_" or any other day. He laughed and frolicked with every
body and every thing that came in his way, not even excepting his solemn
old father; and when you saw him, with his fair arms around the old
man's neck, and his bright blue eyes and blooming cheek peering out
beside the bleak face of Uncle Abel, you might fancy you saw spring
caressing winter. Uncle Abel's metaphysics were sorely puzzled by this
sparkling, dancing compound of spirit and matter; nor could he devise
any method of bringing it into any reasonable shape, for he did mischief
with an energy and perseverance that was truly astonishing. Once he
scoured the floor with Aunt Betsey's very Scotch snuff; once he washed
up the hearth with Uncle Abel's most immaculate clothes brush; and once
he was found trying to make Bose wear his father's spectacles. In short,
there was no use, except the right one, to which he did not put every
thing that came in his way.
But Uncle Abel was most of all puzzled to know what to do with him on
the Sabbath, for on that day Master Edward seemed to exert himself to be
particularly diligent and entertaining.
"Edward! Edward must not play Sunday!" his father would call out; and
then Edward would hold up his curly head, and look as grave as the
catechism; but in three minutes you would see "pussy" scampering through
the "best room," with Edward at her heels, to the entire discomposure of
all devotion in Aunt Betsey and all others in authority.
At length my uncle came to the conclusion that "it wasn't in natur' to
teach him any better," and that "he could no more keep Sunday than the
brook down in the lot." My poor uncle! he did not know what was the
matter with his heart, but certain it was, he lost all faculty of
scolding when little Edward was in the case, and he would rub his
spectacles a quarter of an hour longer than common when Aunt Betsey was
detailing his witticisms and clever doings.
In process of time our hero had compassed his third year, and arrived at
the dignity of going to school. He went illustriously through the
spelling book, and then attacked the catechism; went from "man's chief
end" to the "requirin's and forbiddin's" in a fortnight, and at last
came home inordinately merry, to tell his father that he had got to
"Amen." After this, he made a regular business of saying over the whole
every Sunday evening, standing with his hands folded in front and his
checked apron folded down, occasionally glancing round to see if pussy
gave proper attention. And, being of a practically benevolent turn of
mind, he made several commendable efforts to teach Bose the catechism,
in which he succeeded as well as might be expected. In short, without
further detail, Master Edward bade fair to become a literary wonder.
But alas for poor little Edward! his merry dance was soon over. A day
came when he sickened. Aunt Betsey tried her whole herbarium, but in
vain: he grew rapidly worse and worse. His father sickened in heart, but
said nothing; he only staid by his bedside day and night, trying all
means to save, with affecting pertinacity.
"Can't you think of any thing more, doctor?" said he to the physician,
when all had been tried in vain.
"Nothing," answered the physician.
A momentary convulsion passed over my uncle's face. "The will of the
Lord be done," said he, almost with a groan of anguish.
Just at that moment a ray of the setting sun pierced the checked
curtains, and gleamed like an angel's smile across the face of the
little sufferer. He woke from troubled sleep.
"O, dear! I am so sick!" he gasped, feebly. His father raised him in his
arms; he breathed easier, and looked up with a grateful smile. Just then
his old playmate, the cat, crossed the room. "There goes pussy," said
he; "O, dear! I shall never play any more."
At that moment a deadly change passed over his face. He looked up in his
father's face with an imploring expression, and put out his hand as if
for help. There was one moment of agony, and then the sweet features all
settled into a smile of peace, and "mortality was swallowed up of life."
My uncle laid him down, and looked one moment at his beautiful face. It
was too much for his principles, too much for his consistency, and "he
lifted up his voice and wept."